Not too sure where this came from. I think I wanted to write something as dark and gothic as I could. There’s a definite Severian the Torturer feel to most of it, but it’s much crasser than anything by Gene Wolfe.

Hypocrisy and Necrophilia in the City of the Dead

Extracts from High Inhumer Sixth's Secret and Unorthodox Journal:

-oOo-

Hearseday, 9th Twestering, '07. Vespers:

My candour must be forgiven. In the setting down of such matters as follows, I consider periphrasis an insult to the truth.

So:

Every man has his failings. In some they are merely foibles, cravings for sweet confections, tobaccos, or physical improvement. In others they are more bizarre kinks and fetishes — lustful intentions towards those attired in just so a manner or afflicted by certain physical defects; desires to don the garments of the other gender or for coitus in publicly frequented locations. And in the unfortunate, damned few, they are perversions — sickening, yet undeniable. Incest and coprophilia, bestiality and paedophilia, sadism and masochism. Do mental twists and tares force such atrocities? Make what are often otherwise sociable men and women want, nay, need, the body of a dog? The taste of another's excrement? Or is it —sinister thought!— an inherent part of human nature, greatest of all contradictions in terms, that compels these men into perversity — a part suppressed by the masses but somehow liberated in unfortunate minorities?

I cannot answer these questions, and doubt any man so capable. I pose them only because of the receipt of a nones missive, which, if authenticated by what is to come, must be considered as first warning that Perversity rears high amongst my master bishops; and, what is more, rears above the head of a long-time friend.

Again, so:

Only the Fourth's failure to energise with the rest of the cars marred today's sext Opening of the Omnipresent Hearse: when the Mannequin Afore the Dead was passed through the Fourth's doors, it unexpectedly landed in a tangle of pseudo-burial garments and metal limbs within the car's natural compartment. Happily, however, no visiting dignitaries were present to observe the embarrassment, and a few adjustments by the honoured tinkerers in the Energies Room properly bridged the dimensions to Charnel House and allowed the mannequin to complete its journey to the belts within the hour. The hearses were therefore able to depart for the Assemblage of the Dead on time at nones (unlike the Opening three weeks gone —thankfully occurring during my sabbatical— when some dimensional integration fault delivered the mannequin to Charnel House's ancient and beltless upper tiers, launching it to obliteration on the floor hundreds of meters below. Then —the fault more complex— the cars did not depart till well after vespers, and, worse, Queen Alexandria of the Brittle Isles was here to witness the farce).

After the Opening, I had retired to my chambers for a short nap, only to discover on my office console a message secured with the High Inhumer's confidence seal. Such messages can be written by any, but once sealed are accessible only to an High Inhumer and, as wasting our precious time with plebeian banalities results in severe penalties, they are rarely trivial (indeed, are rarely sent). Immediately I had removed my robes, I broke the seal and freed the message.

I had expected text; what I saw was an observer recording of a shadowy chamber at night, illuminated only by dim moonlight entering through a horizontal strip of glass running high along one wall. At the room's centre was a table, supporting a dimly discernible human form. At its head was another, smaller, table, upon which tiny objects softly glinted. A tell-tale in the console's lower left-hand corner read, "EMB. VI sub. IX: 1.31 mat., 7th Twest."

I was immediately apprehensive. The Sixth embalmers were part of the bishopric of Luke Japhord — one of the few of my pre-high inhumership acquaintances I still considered a friend (as opposed to sycophant, favour-seeker, or would-be usurper).

I watched as a circle of bright light swept the chamber, originating at some unseen point below the observer. Slowly, it raked the far wall, revealing grubby porcelain tiles, a huge porcelain sink, and stained wooden shelving stacked with flasks and jars, coils of rubber tubing, draining and injecting mechanisms, hypodermic racks — tools of the embalming art.

The circle elongated downwards into a warped ellipse, focusing on the table and what rested upon it — the naked body of a woman, no more than twenty-five, and quite beautiful even in death. Her long blonde hair had been washed and combed to a glorious lustre, and cosmetics, selected from the small table, had been expertly applied — her closed eyes were shadowed ultramarine, high cheekbones lightly rouged, full lips glossed crimson.

But, even aside from her nudity, the corpse was not yet ready for the catafalque. Evidence of cause of death was still visible — a purple-black rope-burn bisected the white throat.

The ellipse of light suddenly narrowed, intensified, and began to lingeringly run down the corpse's length, pausing for some moments on a brown sponge nonchalantly left upon the trim stomach, and the fluid slowly leaking from it to pool alongside the alabaster thighs.

It appeared obvious what was about to happen. A ghoul, or possibly a gang of them, had broken into the citadel from the cemetery, and was about to commit a blasphemy upon the corpse. What was more difficult to understand was why the event's recording had been delivered to me. It was a matter for the Constables of the Dead, not a High Inhumer. Perhaps punishment for misuse of the confidence seal was politic. Or was there more to the incident?

The ellipse of light began to shake, and then narrowed further, announcing the approach of its operator. A hooded head presently appeared, paused, then slowly approached the table, growing downwards into a person of some height and heavy build, attired in winter habit and carrying a small torch now constantly directed at the corpse. Reaching the table, the person reverently slid the brown sponge aside, lightly dipped a finger into the fluid collected in the body's navel, then lifted it into the dark confines

of the hood — whether to sniff or to taste I could not tell. For almost a minute the person remained that way, hand raised to face, torch aimed at the corpse's head, before suddenly pulling the hood back slightly with both hands and bending forwards.

Though the torch now played madly over ceiling and wall, I was nevertheless able to witness the person passionately kiss the body's unresponsive mouth, and watch the —lightly bristled and obviously male— cheeks greedily suck miasmata from its lifeless lungs.

The man straightened, adjusted the torch to emit a wider beam, and stood it beside the corpse's left ear. Next, hands visibly shaking, he selected lipstick from the small table and applied it to the corpse's bloodless nipples in thick, clumsy strokes. This done, the man produced a tiny bottle from the folds of his habit, unstoppered it, and poured its viscous contents between the body's thighs — an area he then slowly massaged. Everything completed to satisfaction, he mounted the table and spread the corpse's oh-so yielding legs. The habit was lifted, the corpse violated, and the necrophilia begun.

The act lasted almost until lauds (watched, in the main, at swift speed), broken only by rough kisses to the corpse's slack mouth, or fingering of its smeared nipples. Culmination came in an orgasm so powerful that it almost propelled the body from the table, and left the man slumped in quivering exhaustion. Thus he remained for some minutes, before laboriously rising to set about removing all evidence of his atrocity, even to the point of replacing the sponge on the corpse's midriff.

Damming indications erased, the man extinguished the torch and approached the door beneath the observer. Just as his head was about to disappear beneath the bottom of my screen, he paused and made to turn back to the darkened table, his face cutting into a ray of dim moonlight. I glimpsed features horrifyingly familiar afore the necrophiliac departed the chamber without further indecision. I reversed the recording, played it, paused it as the man again turned into the moonlight. I could not be certain, it was simply too dark; but that sharp chin, those thin lips... Luke?

I allowed the recording to play through. It terminated as the man left the room. A text message followed:

Base greetings, Holy Sixth,

I apologise with utmost sincerity for the shock the proceeding must have inflicted, but, as you will surely divine, it is unavoidable. Greatly do I wish not to have been chosen to witness the horror. Yet I was so selected, and though I baulk at the notion, the Book of the Dead itself states that, ‘Atrocities do not confine themselves to the Atrocious: Ghouls may walk in skins other than the Pallid and do not always carry the Levering-Bar in hand.’ So I must reveal the truth.

The observer in EMB. VI has always been a problem device, being situated directly above the Lesser Energies Chamber —and therefore subject to considerable electromagnetic fluctuation— its transmissions are often fouled by static fogs and intricate geometric patterns. This in mind, I was initially unconcerned with the jagged sawtooth design that, last month, began to irregularly obscure EMB. VI’s signal matins till lauds, assuming it another by-product of the activities below. Only on complaining to the honoured tinkerers after five consecutive nights of sawteeth and receiving their assurance that nothing they did during those hours would so adversely affect my observer, did I finally suspect sinister activity.

In compliance with our code, and with the permission of Master Bishop Gaxon, I installed another, though clandestine, observer on the opposite side of the room, and awaited revelation with eager anticipation.

It came in the form you have seen, Holy Sixth.

An inner voice —loyal conscience?— tells me that such damming information as this could not possibly be delivered directly into the hands of the Constables. Indeed, I fear even to apprise Master Gaxon of it. I believe only you, Holy Sixth, have the necessary authority to properly and correctly handle the matter.

Ever your humble servant,

Habinn Vast,

(Penultimate overlooker of the Sixth, compline-lauds watch).

This Habinn Vast was well aware of the strength and possibilities of his position. Using a fully shielded, exclusive line, I contacted the Overlooker's Lodge and was patched through to Vast's cell.

He was some few moments responding, and, when he finally appeared (a young man lacking any striking feature), his dishevelment and surly "What is it?" suggested I had woken him from slumber. I waited until he realised his caller's identity and completed his rather ineffectual attempts to improve his appearance.

"Holy Sixth! This is an unexpected honour! I —"

"Quiet, Overlooker. I doubt very much that you find this 'honour' unexpected. Candour. Who else knows about the... incident?"

"Holy Sixth, I have told none but you. Only Japhor himself —"

"He is a bishop, boy. My bishop. I will have him spoken of with according respect."

"But, Holy Sixth, after what he —"

"What did he do, Overlooker? Do you suggest that was him on your recording?"

Vast became confused. "But did you not see his face? As he —"

"I saw a face, boy."

"But it was clearly Japhor —"

"Bishop Japhor! Nothing was clear. The room was enshadowed. How can a bishop practice hated necrophilia?"

"But the Book —"

"Boy, you over-indulge your imagination. This is disturbing in any member of my flock, more so in an overlooker. Something must be done. When next your ‘sawteeth’ fill EMB. VI's screen, you will inform me, employing this code," I gave him a priority signal, "I myself will then accompany you to the chamber and there both apprehend the guilty ghoul and prove to you my bishop's innocence. Goodbye."

"But —"

I switched his disturbed face from my console.

The lad probably prays that he is not mistaken in his accusation. He should be praying the reverse. His punishment for slander would be relatively minor. Were he vindicated, I would have him incarcerated.

And if he is vindicated? What then, for Luke Japhor?

No, I will not think on that. Nothing is proven. (Yet, of course, my human nature asks on, "But what if...?")

-oOo-

Shroudsday, 11^th Twestering, ‘07. Matins:

Vast has called.

-oOo-

Welkinsday, 12^th Twestering, ‘07. Vespers:

The Blessing of the Ashes, usually the most tedious and abhorred of all the High Inhumer’s duties, passed by for me almost unnoticed. As I and my peers scattered black rose petals in the Hall of the Honoured Burnt, chanted the Return to Carbon behind huribles-waving neophytic cremators at the Grand Cinerarium’s gates, or perambulated slowly up and down the jetties of the Ash Sea (supposedly meditating on the trillions of common souls contributing to the “waters” below), my thoughts centred on the events and

imminent consequences of the preceding night.

Indeed, so preoccupied was I my duties suffered (and here an apology —that can never be properly offered— to those I wronged today). In the Hall, an absent-minded cast almost toppled the urn of the First Opener of the Inside Spaces. At the Grand Cinerarium, I droned a line of the Return too early, one supposed to direct the entranced neophyte before me into stepping forward. However, we had not yet taken the required backwards steps in genuflection, and so the poor lad passed through the gates and now roams the infinite stacks (the honoured tinkerers have never been able to stabilise the gates on the stacks’ side, and, as their vagaries can cover hundreds of kilometres, the lad —being without the instruments and transportation of deliberate visitors— was instantly lost. As yet, he remains undiscovered; however, Bishop Knuffler reassures me that neophytes disappear amongst the stacks all the time, and invariably turn up sooner or later). At the Ash Sea I almost forgot to don my nasal filters, and managed to tarry so long on one of the jetties that Third Sunjatti, whose perambulations followed mine, actually drew level and was moved to comment, “Come now, old love, you’ve been fouling things up all day. Too much wine or too much wick-dipping?” I gave him a rather rude and hypocritical reply about certain High Inhumers lacking necessary respect for their deceased, and moved on.

You will guess, of course, at the reason for my thoughtless actions — everything Vast said was true. Luke Japhor is a ghoul of the highest order.

Immediately upon the overlooker’s call, I donned my old habit and, thus disguised, departed my chambers via a secret route avoiding the Sixth Praetorianus on guard outside my usual egress.

Feeling my way along unlit passages, stumbling over the broken tiling of a forgotten bath-house echoing to the sound of leaky plumbing, and finally emerging at the Sublevel One thoroughfare from behind a featureless sandstone angel, I tried to keep “what ifs” and “what thens” from my mind. For a while I succeeded, but during the long descent to Sublevel Nine (the stairwell crowded even at that hour with the nocturnal processors of the Dead), the worries won their way, and I realised that if Japhor were a necrophiliac then I was at a loss as to how to proceed.

How could this man, father in everything but blood, insult me and his position by committing the greatest blasphemy? It simply could not be Japhor. He had been master and I apprentice, and I had looked up to him as much as any doting neophyte his teacher. In Truck 39, we had spent years roaming the cemetery together (“See the depth of that suspension, boy! The Dead will not be jolted from Their slumber on Japhor’s truck!”), inhuming (“Come on boy — six by three by six!”), erecting headstones (“Are you certain that stone should mark that grave, my lad? Wouldn’t want Hyacinth McFuffle, flower arranger, forever remembered as Flesh-Grater Jack now, would we?”), and injecting deadworm bane into infested plots (“Once found one five foot long, boy —five foot!— when I was digging over Rested Bones Hill way. Chopped it ten times and every segment just kept on writhing!”). And the stories he told! Of Joseph, Black Magician of the London Seethe, who was cut into twenty pieces before burial in twenty separate graves. Yet still the bits managed to scrabble back together, allowing Joseph to return to the Seethe and continue immortal where mortality had forced pause. Of wives who trafficked with ghouls, obtaining Death’s Shadow with which to temporarily and blamelessly “kill” adulterous husbands, have their coffins and headstones outfitted with alarums, and then wait at their graves for their revival, smiling as they watched the bell, clapper removed, jerk to the crazed tugs of the inhumed six feet below. Of The Nine Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Sealed Alternity (the existence of which was laughingly denied by the honoured tinkerers), where Time was supposedly as elastic as Space, and where, therefore, bereavement need not exist.

No, it could not be Luke. But if it were — if it were! Should I ignore the crime and allow him to continue to his sickening satiation? Thus becoming a fouler miscreant than the perpetrator himself? (Ah, yet who but invisible Conscience would know of my blasphemous disregard? And also, with this option, Luke’s honour and consequently my own would be assured. Still, though Conscience itself may be invisible, when ignored its effects never are...). Should I inform him of my knowledge? Threaten that, were his activities to continue, I would give him over to the constables for proper, public, and extreme punishment? But this is a weak option. In the first instance, the desire for necrophilia must be powerful indeed to actually perform it against all axioms of culture and morality — would one who had tasted the heinous pleasure be able to then go without, no matter the possible consequences of relapse? I think not. Or perhaps I should forego all threats and simply punish outright, as the more fanatical and simple-minded members of my flock would expect, and as the Book dictates… And so suffer the besmirchment of the Sixth, low peer esteem, and all the more personal feelings involved in the deliberate inducement of a beloved friend’s downfall.

So: if Luke Japhor were a necrophiliac, no procedural option was a happy one.

Arriving at sublevel nine’s landing, I passed through its entrance and walked on along its dim thoroughfare. Here there was somewhat less bustle — only an occasional carpenter’s apprentice, honoured tinkerer (ubiquitous test instruments slung over shoulder), or Dead drone (some laden, others riding high). An inconstant vibration filled the air, alternately manifesting itself in my bowels and testicles — effect of the incomprehensible activities in the Lesser Energies Room below.

I reached an arranged intersection. Habinn Vast awaited me.

His cowl was up and his sleeves together in classic monkish pose; nevertheless, he was detectably nervous. His hands, betrayed by shaking cuffs, writhed together almost convulsively, and his pale, hairless chin —all I could clearly see beneath the cowl— glistened with sweat in the soft sodium glow of the lights. He watched me approach, dismissing me, I think, as simply another curate until I stopped directly before him. The cuffs’ vibrations intensified. I took pleasure from this.

“Holy Sixth, I —“

“Direct me to the embalmer’s chamber, Overlooker Vast, and then await me here.”

“But, High Inhumer, am I not to come with you? Won’t the constab—“

“Direct me, then await me, Overlooker Vast. Do not question, do not quibble — do as you are told. Or, as penance for disobedience, you will work the Ash Sea for the rest of your life... Without filters.”

In a tremulous voice, Vast informed me of the route, finishing, “But the door to the chamber’s vestibule is locked, High Inhumer.”

In a suitably grand tone, I replied, “No door in Necropolis is locked to the Seven, overlooker,” and passed him.

I soon reached my destination. As Vast said, the door was locked, but the High Inhumer’s universal override nullified this. I slipped into the dark vestibule beyond.

Fearing discovery, I tried to be as silent as possible, but realised almost immediately that there was no need — the necrophiliac was in a high passion, his grunts and groans drowning out any noise I created. I crossed the vestibule to the chamber’s inner arch.

Again, light played madly about the room, flicking over the tubes and racks, but this time it originated from a different quarter — the perversion did not take place upon the table, but over the huge sink. The corpse a middle-aged woman, again blonde, and with features strikingly similar to those of the previous... wronged, was bent over the utility, its porcelain lip pressing her pale stomach in a fashion that would have caused considerable pain had she lived. The pervert’s habit lay beside his feet as he bucked and jerked, completely nude, grunting with each insertion, moaning with each withdrawal.

And —surely untrue!— was I not aroused by the sight? Though sickened, was I not yet almost mesmerised by the breasts as they swung within the sink? The head as it loosely jerked to and fro between the carefully cushioned taps? The arms as they flapped against the sink’s walls? The feet as they skidded across the tiles with each of the blasphemer’s fevered thrusts? She —it! It!— was so... compliant. Did not my manhood stir beneath my habit?

He was leaning forwards, resting his cheek against the corpse’s nape. Thus, his face was readily identifiable (contorted as it was into a panting, and quite frightening, snarl). But even had his features been obscured, the heavily muscled and still-tanned back, the long silver pony-tail, and the ragged scar on his left calf from a ghoul’s levering bar, would yet denote, to me, Master Bishop Luke Japhor, committing hated necrophilia within ten feet of his High Inhumer and friend.

There was no shock. A part of me I refused to listen to had known the truth since I first viewed the observer recording.

And the name of the part of me I would not hear, as it whispered that even those you love are capable of atrocity, that every human is capable of it?

Bastard human nature.

I left, re-locking the door. At the intersection, Vast again awaited me. His cowl was off now, and a small smile played upon his lips. He was vindicated. He had the upper hand now.

I hit him. And, as he lay sprawled on the floor, I squatted and hit him twice more. Then I stood and activated my personal alarm.

The constables quickly arrived (mine was, of course, a priority signal). Vast still unconscious, I told them he had attacked me without provocation and I had defended myself. They nodded, reverently admonished me for being abroad unaccompanied by praetorianus, and took him away. The chief constable would be in touch, they said.

Now I must think.

-oOo-

Felosdesday, 13^th Twestering, ‘07. Nones:

I have not slept. I spent the night deliberating, and arose without having made a decision. Nevertheless, I was possessed of a certain feeling of inevitability — events of import would occur today. I cancelled my morning duties, and, at the first hour of terce, summoned Japhor to my offices. I would at least confront him with my knowledge. Perhaps his reaction would engender a course of action.

He arrived, bleary-eyed and tired (as I myself must have looked). Nevertheless, he affected his usual air of joviality.

“And how are you on this glorious morning, boy?” He often addressed me as “boy” when we were alone — his way, I think, of reminding me of days when our vocational situation was reversed. “They’ll be sweating into the silk today!”

He noticed my expressionless face. His smile faltered. “What is it?” More affected joviality, but this time tinted with nervousness, “Missing the open cemetery, boy? You appear peaky — not much sun to be had in the citadel. Six by three by six, eh?”

At my continued silence, his smile completely disappeared. “What, Sojadinhol? What is wrong? Speak!”

But, at first, I could not. At that moment, all I needed to do was laugh, say only that I felt melancholy for old times, that I summoned Japhor simply to reminisce. I did not have to ruin his life and further ruin my own by telling what I knew. Just laugh and...

“I received this observer recording three days ago, sent by my overlookers. It concerns your bishopric.”

My mouth spoke of its own volition, my hands, activating the recording and then swivelling the screen to enable him to watch, moved in the same way.

A shaky grin. “What’s this, the nunnery shower st—“

The image of EMB. VI sliced knife-like through his words. His hands came up to grip the edge of my desk console. I watched the blood beneath his fingernails disperse as his grip tightened.

Activities on the screen progressed. Emotions swept over Japhor’s face like dust storms on the Ash Sea — fear, anger, supreme embarrassment, and swiftly back to fear on sight of his moonlit features. I froze the image at that point. Slowly, Japhor lifted his eyes from the screen and to me. His face was as bloodless as the corpses he’d fucked. His eyes as wide as the lifeless legs he’d spread.

And then, by the Book, then he began to cry. This man who I had witnessed battle a half-dozen ghouls at once, who hefted coffins single-handed, who had married five times and been widowed twice, whose parents had died when he was six, and who, throughout all, had never shed a tear, actually wept. More than that, sobs wracked him — tears splashed onto the console in such volume that I feared for its circuitry, mucus filled his nasal passages to such an extent that he was forced to take great, convulsive snorts, and his whole body shook as if he had been dropped naked into snow.

To see this man, this man, bawling like a child, was frightening — and almost as sickening as his damnable necrophilia.

Anger swelled within me.

“This hasn’t happened, has it? These images are a fabrication, aren’t they? Do you realise what this has done to me? What it can yet do? A High Inhumer choosing an adept of the ultimate blasphemy as a master bishop. And, what is more, counting him amongst his friends! You should dance with the ghouls, Luke Japhor! You are a ghoul.”

There was a catch in his sobbing. “Do not call me that.”

“Ghoul? But that is —“

“Do not associate me with that rabble!”

Did he have the audacity to remonstrate with me?

“Now cowardice on top of everything else? You fuck the dead, and yet fear your proper name? What else could you possibly be known as but ghoul? Certainly you must have dealt with them to obtain the unction.”

“I employed a simple oil!”

“I do not CARE what you employed!” I shouted, “Why, how could you do this?! Are women with breath in their lungs so obnoxious? Must their heart be still before you will so much as consider them as a possible lay?”

“Cease your sarcasm, boy!”

It was almost a relief to hear that flash of anger, so familiar from my apprenticeship. It was a Luke Japhor I recognised — not a snivelling wreck. But I was beyond relief now.

I continued in a hissing whisper. “Do not dare try that with me. I swear I will have you randomly relocated amongst the Third Infinities if you do not tell me why!”

For a moment I thought his anger would continue, but the nauseating sobbing suddenly resumed and he actually buried his face in his hands. This lasted almost a minute before he began to speak. “I know you think me pathetic, but how can I deny the compulsion? And I am no so sick that I wait until they rot before I… I…”

“Comendable.”

He ignored me.

“A corpse does not, cannot complain, nag or insult, argue or demand money. They never deny sexual rights, whether by will or blood of the month. And they always, always, do your will. And there is the crux of it – their yielding, their compliance. I have complete authority.” He was silent for a moment, before raising his head and looking at me. “As I once had over you, Sojadinhol.”

For a few moments as he spoke, I almost understood him. If I were unreservedly candid with myself, must I not but admit to my arousal as I watched him two nights gone? Was not the idea of a woman free of distracting consciousness, and therefore nothing more than an object on which to relieve one’s libido (or any other emotional drive), appealing? But that last sentence chilled.

I spoke quietly. “Do you suggest that your perversion is some kind of substitute for our old... relationship? Does not the bishopric give you enough sense of authority?”

“The bishopric is a distant command, boy. Nothing like the personal friendship we had together.” He paused, then, “You adored me so much, didn’t you? You would do anything I said... Back then.”

Surely he did not suggest that the almost sacrosanct master/apprentice association had, for him, been a sexual thing? That I, as a boy, had been an object of his desire?

“You were a pederast.”

“Never! I denied the craving!”

And so succumbed to another.

Cold water washed through my mind. I was High Inhumer Sixth. The situation must not be allowed to better me.

“Return to your duties, Master Bishop.”

The hope, commingled now with —by the First Buried, could it have been?!— lust, that had begun to gleam in his eyes, vanished. Yet again, though this time without eliciting any kind of emotive response from me, they became moist.

“What will you do?”

“I said return to your duties.”

He rose, and with head bent and legs visibly shaking, departed my offices.

What, indeed, will I do? I am no nearer to a solution, and now find myself involved even beyond the intricacies of friendship.

When the very foundation of your life, thought to be stone, is found instead to be mud, what then?

-oOo-

Saproday, 14^th Twestering, ‘07. Nones:

Regarding Japhor I am still undecided. Or rather my decisions are indecisive: one hour I resolve to pardon, the next my hand hovers over the stud that, pressed, would summon the chief constable to my offices.

Of course, Japhor himself has not been idle since our confrontation. He probably suspects

—and correctly— that pleading would further degrade his situation, and, as escape from Necropolis would be futile before the grills of the Omnipresent Hearse (were I to send them in pursuit; and, indeed, were he to desire escape when it would take him from such readily available satisfaction), he has therefore chosen to endeavour my better graces with gifts:

This morning I awoke to a breakfast of fruited deadworm, serenaded by three of the Sixth’s sweetest-voiced choirboys — I dismissed the singers and had the food returned to the kitchens, ensuring Japhor was informed of both actions. An hour later, I received scentless roses of a beautiful purple, which now rot in the citadel’s cesspools. At the Saproday Sext, as I and my fellows hummed the Return to the Fundamentals, an apprentice delivered to me a small crate, within which nestled a bottle of finest Scantlebury. My peers, still of course humming, indicated with awe the crate’s label — the sherry was direct from the vaults of Ouranos IV! An accompanying note, which I kept from the others’ eyes, read, “I doubt your taste for good sherry has altered since the old days. LJ.” The hum completed, I told that the bottle was a gift from a particularly thankful, particularly rich, but rather obnoxious, widow, whose husband’s interment I had recently presided over. I have since poured the Scantlebury into a trough at the swine battery.

Tombs, but he courts me like a lover (and I dare not think further along such lines).

You will never gain forgiveness with presents, old... Ha! I was about to say friend.

-oOo-

Moribunday, 16^th Twestering, ‘07. Compline:

Japhor has changed his style of gift – he no longer sends roses and sweetmeats, now it is young girls. And more, his fate has been decided.

As we Seven ate the Moribunday Breakfast with the Base in the main refectory, atop our tall daises listening to the subdued roar of conversation, I let my eyes roam idly about the huge chamber. I often find this a most absorbing pastime, the multifarious castes of the citadel spread out before me over the square half kilometre of cracked stone paving: the lowly grouped around the far entrance (the cobble-sweepers, the privy cleaners, the pigeon-scarers); the skilled workers in the middle distance, ranged below the third row of elephantine brass candelabra (the carpenters, the masons, the electricians, the mechanics, the secretaries and clerks); the secretive honoured tinkerers clustered together beneath the left pomme and saltire (notebooks and test instruments littered haphazardly amongst breakfast bowls); the overlookers beneath the right (Vast’s name crossed my mind, and I thought to see an empty place here — but there was none. This would, of course, be the case anyway — he worked the late watch). Next came those who served the order, as opposed to servicing it: the postulants and neophytes (within themselves, as I well remember, a complex group, and possibly the most amusing of all the castes to watch as they strove to quell the drives of childhood and youth with the admonishments of scripture); the journeymen and women (each dreaming of clergies, or perhaps even bishoprics); the Ash Sea sifters (spasmodically coughing into their oats, eyes red and rheumy); the weathered inhumers (hand-colours denoting work-sector — ingrained black the rich soil of the Screened Gaps, bright orange the clay of the Second Reach, a dozen other shades for a dozen other sectors); the cremators; the monks and nuns; vicars, priests, and bishops.

But today my eyes would not keep to the refectory’s reaches, instead they continually flicked to the six master bishops at the immediate foot of my dais, and more particularly to he at their table’s head, not eating, whose own eyes never averted from my face.

Never averted, that is, until a postulant nun, nervously pouring tea for my master bishops, accidentally spilled the scalding fluid into Gaxon’s lap. Leaping up in pain and fury, he gave an incomprehensible shout and back-handedly slapped the girl across the face. She sprawled over the paving into the chair of one of the Fifth’s master bishops, who, at such a startling interruption to his meal, made to apply his own castigation — but was prevented by the look on his target’s red face.

She was absolutely terrified.

Never have I seen such an expression of abject fear — it was as if a god had slapped her. Under our amazed stares, she began to shake and gibber, one hand to her purpling cheek, the other clawing at the floor (as if to lift a slab to crawl beneath). Worse, I watched her habit slowly darken where it draped between her splayed legs. Even Gaxon’s wrath abated, and for long moments all in the vicinity could do nothing but observe the postulant’s suffering, actionless. But I saw blood at her fingernails where

they scraped the floor, and woke from my astonishment. I descended my dais to her.

And when I bent to lift the girl to her feet and she realised her saviour’s identity? She actually swooned.

I gazed down at the pretty features before her apologetic mistresses came to retrieve her. Such fervour — I had forgotten it existed. So much time spent amongst cynical peers and master bishops, to whom the Matters of the Dead were nothing but a system of control and the Book the manual to this control, and so little amongst my flock. Looking at her face, I remembered that, to the simple masses, the Matters were a religion, and we, heads of that religion, must therefore be worshipped. A god had slapped her.

This girl would never better priesthood — she actually believed. Nevertheless, as I watched the nuns bustle her away, her unthinking awe and sheer naiveté caused me to smile — an expression my face had not hosted for some days.

And one that did not go unnoticed by Luke Japhor — he himself grinned into his bowl, eyes locked on mine.

After the Breakfast I retired to my chambers for a contemplative nap, instructing my butler to rouse me an hour into nones. Instead I was woken, just after sext, by the sound of shattering glass from my study, speedily followed by angry shouts.

At the source of the ruckus I discovered my butler standing over both the remains of my Wrakley’s Dream of the Penultimate, and the morning’s wretched postulant, frantically attempting to piece the ellipsoid back together. Upon sight of me, my butler began an indignant explanation, and the girl began again to gibber.

It seemed she was to replace the usual cleaner. Having received no notification of this, my butler had of course queried the directive, but had been reassured on learning its authoriser. However, the girl’s abilities had proven less than useful (as Wrakley’s Dream exemplified), and close questioning had revealed she possessed little or no experience in the cleaning fields. Obviously, my butler felt obliged to point out, matters pertaining to the servants, especially dismissal/admittance, should be his responsibility. This had always been the way of it, he said, and had such embarrassments as this ever occurred before? Ever?

I ignored his pique, and asked from whom the authorisation had come. I was unsurprised to hear “Master Bishop Japhor, High Inhumer.”

I ordered him return the girl to her dormitory, and, without ceremony, he dragged her from my presence (still gibbering with the knowledge that she had failed her gods again). I summoned Japhor to my offices; minutes later, he arrived.

I told him of the girl. His face, previously hopeful, became sulky (by the Book! Does another mind inhabit his body? I have seen so many hitherto absent emotions recently affect those once-loved features that I begin to think the possibility deserves serious contemplation!).

“You refuse another of my gifts?”

“I will refuse all, Japhor.”

His voice became peevish. “But she is so pretty, so... pious. I thought she would amuse you.”

“You are mistaken. I do not suffer your perversions, Japhor.”

“This has nothing to do with —“

“Enough! You will cease trying to influence me with gifts. Besides, they have an effect opposite than you intend.”

Without warning and to my horror, Japhor’s eyes began to quickly dart from tear- to nasolacrimal duct. “But what am I to do? You decide my fate!”

“Yours is the perversion, Japhor. You have committed blasphemy. More, you have betrayed me and Necropolis. This —“

“Come! You care no more for Necropolis’ honour than I!”

He struck a node there. Guilty rage cut through me. “Do not dare inform me of my cares! Disgusting… corpse fucker!”

I had half risen as I shouted, and, aghast, Japhor stared up at me. I myself was shocked at the outburst — a High Inhumer should never exude anything other than calm. And such profanity from one of the Seven? Unheard of. Yet this was not the first time he had driven me to excess.

“Leave me, Japhor. I do not wish to speak to you again. If I do, you can surely expect the worst.”

He began to plead. Tombs, but I so wanted to hit him. “Please, have the girl. I must make amends and —“

“You actually believe that is possible? Go, Japhor. Leave me.”

But still he remained. Quietly, he said, “I will take my own life.”

I am sorry to say I laughed. Take his own life? “What have you become, Luke? Pathetic. Almost pitiable. Please do so — matters would be so much simpler.”

But his eyes bespoke his seriousness. Here, at least, was the old Japhor — his spoken word was his word. I sighed. “Luke, never again consider yourself my friend. I will take the girl, I will ignore your crime, but you are no longer my friend. In future, do not speak to me outside your duties. Go.”

“But, Sojadinhol, please —“

“Go!” I shouted this, and he jumped at its ferocity. Eyes streaming, he at last arose and departed my offices.

How is it such secrets can be kept from those so close? Luke Japhor, you have revealed my childhood and youth to be as much a lie as my adulthood.

And I will forever hate you for it.

-oOo-

Shroudsday, 17^th Twestering, ‘07. Compline:

My mind is clearer now that Japhor’s fate has been decided. Admittedly, his fate’s nature hardly induces joy, but it no longer monopolises my mind.

My main interest now is the girl. Her incredible ardour —she continues unable to speak to me, she trembles at my voice, and fixates upon her toes when I so much as glance in her direction. But at least she remains conscious— reminds me that our order, and all it and Necropolis represents, are no less than the meaning of life to some, and no matter how simple we think such believers, this is nevertheless a powerful fact to be respected, not ridiculed.

Her name is Joanna Baloradon, she is fifteen, and studying the Book at its fifth layer of meaning (the third being more common for her age). This rather scant information I obtained from her nunnery, not the dumb-struck creature herself. Her hair is black and short, her skin pale, her features attractive.

I find myself wishing to educate her. Your abject belief in the Seven is unfounded and your worship infinitely undeserved, Joanna. They are conditioned things that enable our rule to continue

— and death, the most certain fact of anyone’s existence, is the fundamental element employed in your conditioning.

By the First Buried, do I try to atone for Necropolis’s aeons of mendacity?

-oOo-

Thanatosday, 19^th Twestering, ‘07. Vespers:

I have resolved to teach Joanna of Necropolis’ true foundations. It will be a slow and gentle lesson

— her profound belief hints that her sanity could be at risk were I curt. For the first time today, she spoke to me directly. More, when I replied, she did not tremble.

I am taken with the wild notion to rear this girl for high inhumership.

-oOo-

Shroudsday, 31st Twestering, '07. Terce:

Tombs, but she is stubborn!

She will not see the truth! She of course knows of Peter's Uncountable Genocides, the First Opening of the Inside Spaces, and the consequent Birth of Necropolis that made use of the second and halted —not to mention cleared up after— the first. But she refuses to listen when I tell her Peter, for all his evil, was not a demon but a power-hungry and lunatic man, that the First Opening was not a gift from Heaven but a scientific breakthrough, that Michael the Fundamental HI was not an angel sent to build Necropolis, but yet another man who saw the City of the Dead, and wrote Their Book, as means to stop the Genocides and prevent their recurrence. Even when I accompanied Joanna to the seventh catacomb and Michael's Casket, wherein were secured his unorthodox journals (containing manifest proof of all I told her), I was unsuccessful in swaying her convictions. She simply responded as she responds to all of my revelations — with a slight smile and the words, "I will pass your test, Holy Master. My belief is unshakeable."

"But the religion you believe in is a device! First used to undermine the loyalty of Peter's armies, and now to keep the Seven in power. It is simply a bloodless, more morally appealing version of Peter's ruling methods. As the Seven are a more moral alternative to Peter himself."

"No. Holy Master. The armies knew the validity of Michael's words in the Book, were awed by the wonder of the Inside Spaces, and so turned from the demon. ‘Our Dead are our Life. Do unto Them your Utmost, and They shall surely make space for you in Heaven.’ My space is assured, Holy Master. I know you will speak well of me to the Fundamental HI."

"I do not converse with the...!" Her naiveté was truly amazing. "But what of Michael's unorthodox journal? ‘Peter cannot be fought directly. No, my war against him must be subtle — I will slip the farce of religion into his soldier's brains.’ The farce of religion, Joanna! That from your angel's own pen!"

She only shakes her head, still smiling.

I try another tactic. "Feel me — am I not flesh? Human flesh?"

"Flesh, certainly, but more than human. You are holy product of the Necroconeption."

That shook me, especially in the light of recent events. I was reminded that, according to the Book, each High Inhumer's father was none other than angel Michael, manifested as a long-dead corpse. In her eyes, I was the result of necrophilia made sublime in divinity. "Another myth! My father's heart beat as well as your own. He was alive!"

"No, Holy Master, he was the Fundamental HI. I will pass your test."

Perhaps the assumption I made the morning she spilled tea into Gaxon's lap was correct — she would never surpass priesthood.

-oOo-

Hearseday, 5^th Astophile, ‘07. Vespers:

I have given up all hope of Joanna seeing the real light, as I have of grooming her for high inhumership. Surprisingly, however, neither loss greatly saddens me. I now desire her company, not her apostasy. Our theosophical arguments continue now through enjoyment, and because they keep fresh my respect for my flocks’ misplaced beliefs.

In fact, our friendship is such that my peers, in predictably lewd fashion, begin to comment on it. “Hear you’ve closeted yourself a little nun, Sojadinhol to relieve the Sixth’s divine libido, eh? Eh?” from the Third Sunjatti, “Imagine the religious ecstasy your sweaty nights must instil in the little temptress,” from the First Ojinn.

Of course I reprimand them, hotly inform that our relationship is platonic, and then demand apology. But, hypocrisy upon hypocrisy, they touch on half-truths. I admit to the hot desire to remove the girl’s habit and sample the pale, warm treasure beneath. And I know she would give herself freely to me — as Ojinn said, it would be a “religious ecstasy” to her, the glory of her life.

Why cannot this remain a joy of the mind? Must human nature force it into mind-less lust of the flesh?

I sicken myself.

-oOo-

Welkinsday, 8^th Astophile, ‘07. Compline:

He seeks my blessing for it now, and, by the Book, he has it.

Luke Japhor came to my offices today, purportedly to deliver his monthly report on his bishopric, but in actuality to tell me news I received in unsurprised weariness — his lusts rise again. He cannot control or deny them, he says, they are a burning which must be extinguished or he may as well stand in the crematorium’s Furnace Prime. But he fears the overlookers too much now, and “... you, well, have the power to deny their... Observation. Just order their devices removed from EMB VI, and I can...”

“Indulge your perversion freely and to the full,” I finished for him, “Assuming it can be satiated.”

I had thought this business done — how unconditionally foolish.

Japhor left my offices grinning like a baby waist-deep in chocolate. He will have his way. I am beyond caring about it now. I just want his disgusting, pathetic presence gone from me. At the very least, he should be thrown in with Vast. But I have come so far. It is simpler to continue than back-track to the moral to option.

So, my hypocrisy is complete – I now assist in necrophilia. The EMB VI observer has been decommissioned, and tonight Japhor will spread the loose legs of another corpse. At my pleasure.

-oOo-

Thanatosday, 9^th Astophile, ‘07. Terce:

Joanna has gone.

This morning she did not arrive for our usual breakfast together, and conversation with the votary responsible for her revealed, to our mutual alarm, that her bed had been unruffled by sleep. I immediately notified the constables, and, at my command, an extensive search has been initiated, covering all Necropolis and connected dimensions.

But now I fear they will find nothing unless it is her lifeless body. Japhor has informed me that he suffered coitus interruptus last night — a startling noise from EMB VI’s vestibule caused a hasty withdrawal “just at the door of climax.” He dashed into the vestibule and, finding it empty, moved on into the corridor. There he was in time to see a speedily retreating figure, attired in nun’s habit and gasping quite peculiarly.

Undoubtedly this was Joanna. She must of overheard myself and Japhor yesterday (I thought she was in my private chambers), and, perhaps thinking it part of her “test”, gone down to Sublevel Nine and, with the aid of my Universal Override (which is missing), gained EMB VI. There she would have witnessed Japhor’s depravities, Master Bishop Japhor’s depravities, and, force-fed the truth of all I said, been overcome and most likely fled the citadel. Her belief as powerful as it was, and the revelation as shocking, her mind would be in utter turmoil — suicide is surely possible (if it has not already occurred).

Luke Japhor, you have so much to answer for now, and some day there will be a reckoning.

Ah, but his is a mindless crime — my own, hypocritical condonation, is a calculated thing. Who then, most deserves punishment?

-oOo-

Thanatosday, 16^th Astophile, ‘07. Compline:

The chief constable has called off the search. She is missing presumed dead.

If you are dead, Joanna, then I killed you. If your mind is gone, I took it.

-oOo-

Shroudsday, 9^th Niffenovol, ‘09. Vespers:

Japhor’s lusts have completely overcome him now. His duties suffer, and so does his health. Fucking the dead is all he does. And, in a general fashion, it is all I do, too — coupled with fucking the living.

-oOo-

Felosdesday, 27th Bribudane, '11. Compline:

It is over. Tombs and by the Book.

The antidote has been successfully administered. My chambers have been fumigated. My report to the chief constable is complete. Now my journal must be updated.

I was woken at matins by an intense vibration of the air in my chambers, setting my teeth on edge and invoking nausea. Rousing fully, I found that vibration was not the only untoward manifestation — a chartreuse lambency, sourceless and ghastly to behold, clung to all my accoutrements, and, as I watched, jerkily began to collect —as if dragged against its will into a tall floating ellipse bobbing gently above my Charon kilim.

And from that ellipse there stepped the most frightening and strangest sight of my life — three figures, two known to me, one dead. The first, born in the flaking arms of the second, was Luke Japhor, still in night garments, mouth tightly gagged with his own torn maniple, eyes bulging and fixed upon the sagging face of his captor — an animated corpse. I estimated it two weeks dead. Its eyes, partially shadowed by dim light and wrinkled eyelids, were infirm jelly; its dried lips were shrunken back in a perpetual, open-jawed grin revealing a desiccated tongue; its sagging body, male and sickeningly naked, was irregularly pierced with splinters of coffin wood. A metal frame, servos abuzz, gave it mobility. For those unfamiliar with the Dead, this zombie would doubtless be highly disturbing, but, to me, that was its controller's effect — Joanna Baloradon, the neophytic nun I took in hand four years ago. She wore a ghoul's gravedirt-stained smock (levering bar swinging at hip); her hair hung in a long greasy tangle; her eyes were ringed with black. I remember the girl's skin was pale, but, even in that low light, I saw it had become a virtually bloodless white.

I made to rise, but Joanna was quicker. She produced, aimed, then skilfully fired, a dart gun.

I was hit in the neck. My major muscles spasmed, then locked. Frozen half in, half out of bed, hand raised spastically before my face, I could do nothing but watch and listen as my one-time apprentice spoke.

"Movement is impossible until delivery of the antidote, High Inhumer. Meantime, you will witness this."

Pocketing the gun, she now brought out a portable control panel. She depressed a stud and manipulated a tiny joystick. The corpse dropped Japhor to the floor — a snivelling mess of night-shirt and scrawny limbs (even in my shock, I recalled the mesomorphic body of his past).

"I think you remember me, High Inhumer. And the reason I departed your company."

Another adjustment. The corpse bent and clasped Japhor tightly about his waist. Joanna's whisper began to crack, "My mind and life both were shattered by watching this... shit that night; and by the fact that you, a high inhumer, my god, was giving free licence to commit what I once considered the blasphemy of all blasphemies."

Frame whining in strain, the corpse stood erect, heaving Japhor's posterior up before it. My master bishop screamed ineffectually into his gag, eyes now fixed imploringly on my own.

Her affected whisper returned. "Mindless, I ran into the cemetery and was taken by the ghouls. At first their culture horrified me — it spat in the face of everything I once thought true. But you and your master bishop had left me wide open... I gradually awoke to their ideas and passions."

There was a hiss of compressed air, and tombs! The sight of this! The corpse's penis swelled and stiffened, shedding foreskin- and glans-flakes in the process. Joanna reached over and lifted Japhor's night-shirt, bearing his bony buttocks to the chartreuse glow.

"For all their depravities, you see, they are honest — there is no religious pretence, no deception. They desire the dead in all ways, and are very inventive and dedicated in their desires — as you see... Forgive me, I knew I would find this somewhat tricky."

The corpse's targeting was a little awry. Joanna made delicate adjustments to her controls and at last succeeded in spearing Japhor on the peeling penis. Japhor, crazed by pain and shame, struggled frantically in the vice-grip, but, accompanied by expert twitchings of the joystick, the buggery nevertheless proceeded. Joanna continued to talk, her gleeful eyes on the necrophilic rape.

"You live a lie, High Inhumer Sojadinhol. More, you know this and do nothing. Millions regard you as gods; poor, blasted idiots that they are. Well, liars must be punished, and you are not an exception. When Japhor is satisfied, Simon here —I think that was the name on the stone— can turn his loving attentions to your —"

But at that moment, Japhor, in a paroxysm of rage reminiscent of his younger self, snapped through the maniple. His consequent bellow quickly summoned my praetorianus. At their appearance, Joanna jumped into the ellipse — and both she and it vanished.

The corpse, suddenly cut from its control, arched backwards with such force its penis was torn from its loins and left grotesquely sticking from Japhor's ass.

Here I must comment on my captain's reaction and handling of the scene meeting him at Japhor's summons (a frozen High Inhumer, an unmentionably indisposed Master Bishop, a corpse) — it was exemplary, and he will be commended for his professionalism, understanding, and loyalty (though his reward will, of course and sadly, be given secretly).

Joanna, I have long known your words' validity. I live a lie, which the Seven broadcast. Thus it will continue for eternity — the hypocrisy is beyond change.

Human nature makes it so.

-oOo-

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