The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [182]
Dseveh was performing at the Factors' Dance. Dseveh of the great dark doe's eyes and the wicked fox's smile. Dseveh with his voice like sunlight through raw honey. Dseveh who made all Nashira's charades and stratagems at once petty and worthwhile, worthwhile insofar as they could be used to keep Dseveh safe.
Dseveh who laughed at him for his romantic ideas ― laughed, and then kissed him because no one in Dseveh's life had ever wanted to keep him safe before.
And for Dseveh, Nashira wrapped himself tightly in Azog and went down to the garbage dumps in the triangle between the Torpid Canal, the railroad, and Bangma Bay, where the salp-infested dogs denned and rutted and fought each other in the sweltering heat of midday. As informants went, the dogs were refreshingly, blessedly direct. If they knew something, they would say so. If they didn't, they would say so. And then probably try to eat him, but that was all right. He could handle it.
It was actually marginally safer to approach them on their own territory than to try to accost one in an alley. The latter tactic would get you eaten first; the former made you intriguing.
Azog had come to the dumps ― the Fester, they were called by those unfortunate enough to live nearby ― often enough that the dogs recognized his scent. Jin was waiting for him when he crawled out of the culvert.
I'm on a first name basis with a salp and its host, Azog thought, shivered, and said, "Hello, Jin."
"Hello, two-legs," Jin said, tilting her head to watch him with her one working eye. "What do you want?"
Azog told her about the peculiar pilgrim, about the rumors and fears. About halfway through, Jin sat down, and Azog felt a sense of relief that told him how anxious he had been. When he had finished, and was looking at her with a head-cocked curiosity that mirrored her own, she told him first about an encounter between a dog-pack and a woman made of cornflowers ― "Lini still isn't back in his right mind," she said with a snort ― and then turned her head and yelled, "Pimyut!"
Another dog emerged like a magic trick from the nearest pile of garbage and limped over.
"Tell this two-legs about the other two-legs," said Jin. "Tell him about the smells."
"And about the bitch who shot me," Pimyut said, half growling.
"Shot you?" Azog said, sounding as appalled as he could, and Pimyut, gratified, showed him a long shallow graze along her left shoulder and told him about a man in an alley off Poonma Way near the garial factory, easy pickings, and then the bitch with the gun, and all the things the man had smelled of, at least half of them foreign.
"Give him the sandal," Jin said.
Pimyut whined.
"Can't eat it," Jin said.
"Goj says ― "
Jin stood up, her lips drawing back from her teeth. "Give him the fucking sandal."
Pimyut rolled to display her belly; courteously, Azog looked away, and didn't look back until Pimyut had returned with a broken-strapped sandal which was incontrovertibly made in Dardarbji. It said so on the sole.
"Thank you," Azog said, bowing first to Jin, then to Pimyut. "I will make the usual arrangement with Ravay the butcher ― "
Jin made a noise, a noise he'd never imagined a dog could make. He lurched back, and Pimyut lurched with him, both of them staring as Jin crumpled and the sac on her neck writhed and bulged and finally tore, and a glistening black shape launched itself, fierce as a poisoned arrow, at the sky.
They stared for a long time at the heap of fur and bones that had been Jin. Then Pimyut shook herself as if she'd just emerged from the water and said, "So, two-legs. Ravay the butcher?"
She screams it to the sky, to the gods who may or may not be listening.
She is still Jin.
VIEW 4
Locust-Mind | DANIEL ABRAHAM
ONCE, IN THE DAYS before he had dedicated his inner self to Chuzdt, Majin Panaranja had had many alternatives. He might marry, or again he might not. He might take the man living in the small rooms across the alley as a lover, or he might not. He might