The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [83]
After a while the leather curtain stirred, and Wall-Eye stepped into the antechamber. Wall-Eye was my favorite Gillikin priest, a man with whom I could almost have a normal conversation, a man who seemed to understand more of the world than what lay before his eyes.
A man who'd once pulled me out of a bad scrape in the far depths below Ooze, for no better reason than curiosity.
He was tall, thin like a razor, his left arm and leg made of metal, as well as the conical plate atop his skull ― all legacies of the Lizard -dressed in a robe sewn from dozens of little diamond-shaped scraps of fabric in imitation of the outer curtain of the temple.
On seeing me, Wall-Eye's smile opened, the leather strips woven into each of his lips crackling as he grinned. One eye glinted dark in the oil lamps, the other was milky-white and rolling wildly. "Shadow Astur, as I still breathe. And you have brought me a guest." Hands of flesh and metal rubbed together while a tongue that seemed as dry and rough as his lip-leather licked about the corners of his mouth.
"Our guest bears a threat against the Lizard," I said. Behind the curtain, Brother Porter stopped his rustling about, but I went on. "I felt that you should hear it from his own lips before I dispose of him."
Wall-Eye leaned back slightly, tilting his head to study the fisheater. "He looks healthy enough."
"For one, he does not belong here. He was practicing his perversions in public to boot."
"Ah," said Wall-Eye. "There you have it. Tell me your story, then, fisheater."
The little dead man glanced at me, took a deep breath, and stammered through his brief tale once more.
"The clown concerns me," said Wall-Eye. He and I stood on the narrow platform just outside the glowing curtain of the Gillikin temple. Inside, Brother Porter kept an eye or two on the fisheater.
"Why?"
"There are stirpes within stirpes, as you well know. The College of Clowns is one of the oldest stirpes, and they may have gone feral."
There were feral individuals, and rarely, feral stirpes, and even a few feral Dark Towns. New Orleans, for one, born in twisted shadow and the eternal power and pain of the Dark Towns, only to come into the light when it revealed itself to the Frenchman Bienville, who was canny enough to claim its founding. A wild city gone tame, its coiled natural violence straightened in service of ordinary men.
But most ferals simply faded. "Then let them be," I said. "I do not see how a few simple threats concern us."
Wall-Eye shook his head, staring out into the gloaming. "The college prospers and grows, feeding on the Dark Towns the way our towns feed on the Cities of the Map. But their painted eyes have never before turned towards Ooze."
"A strange look it is they cast upon us, if they favor us with that little whiner by way of introduction."
"Perhaps it is an accident." He smiled at me, the leather laces of his lips creaking. "Perhaps there is more to our little friend. We will take the little fisheater to see the Lizard. Let it decide. Are you prepared to wager life and limb on this little jaunt?"
We. I drew a deep breath. A Shadow is supposed to fear nothing, least of all the Lizard. But I know my own heart; beneath my shadow suit I am a man. The pit below frightened me, where shadows had teeth and the rocks sometimes walked. Fear twisted in my gut like a snake swallowed whole.
Easier to shiv the little fisheater and have done with him.
But that was my fear speaking.
I looked up from staring at my chest to meet Wall-Eye's gaze. His milky eye seemed to see right through me. The old priest knew what was in my heart.
"I." Quiet, I told myself, then gently stroked my shadow suit. It was my lot in life to be without fear, even though it was a lie. Besides which, I had brought this on myself. I would never have come this deep if a simple death were all our visitor warranted.
"Life is risk," I finally said.
Wall-Eye nodded. He did not condemn me for what was in my heart, and