It was nearly as hot inside the Widow’s modest parlor as it was outside in the promenade of Southtree in the towering city of Saska Torn. Sweat beaded and crawled over every part of my body except my mechanical arm, which showed little hesitation in the dim heat of the parlor as I willed it to prepare the holy Sacrament.
The Widow stood in the corner, still adorned in her mourning robes and peered bloodshot through her veil at my preparations. Covered though she was, I could tell she had not washed her hair in some time and her hopeful gaze was only slightly encumbered by the weight of the purple skin under her eyes. She had invited me to her parlor to announce the death of a childhood friend of mine named Ploom.
Had I known that Ploom lived here, with a wife, I surely would have come to see him, I lied to myself. Surely I would have made an effort at least, I continued lying. But the Widow insisted on meeting in the parlor, insisted that there was something I needed to know. I arrived to her townhome to much fussing and salutations but once we retired to the parlor, her whole demeanor had grown sullen and withdrawn and it was a struggle to get any word from her at all. After a bloated silence, I spoke at last.
“Shall I begin the Communion now,” I offered, hoping to lift her spirits, “or shall we have a moment of prayer?” I told her on arrival that I had only a short while, that I was expected to make an important delivery, and I remember wishing I could take back those words as soon I spoke them. I rubbed the engraving on the top of the delivery urn.
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Her body found spirit presently and none of the long shadows which danced with rapture eternal across that cluttered parlor could hide the glint of tears tinged violet by the dusty effluvium lamps. She dabbed her face with an embroidered lace kerchief of real filament – or a quality fake – and gave a wounded look.
“Sorry, Chaplain.”
I rose and crossed softly to her side of the room. “You haven’t done anything wrong.” Her eyes looked through the pilling veil up into mine, tide pools filled with a yearning for life yet confounded by the lack of it. I bade her rest at a soft wing-back chair, and she did collapse there deflated. A skittering in the rafters caused my neck to tense before the Widow make a clicking sound with her teeth and from the darkened space above came a streak of white and there leapt down a snow white doska.
“My darling.” The Widow cooed at the creature which chittered and wound its long body in circles as it made a comfortable nest in her robes. The doska became a coil of brilliant white fur and leered at me with suspicious golden eyes which flickered in the dark as it devoured some morsel the Widow had passed it. “I do so love doska. Did you ever have one as a child?”
“No, none of us from the Silchurch were permitted pets, and it’s just as well – I’m rather allergic to doska.” The widow looked up at me with concern and her doska mimicked her gaze.
“If you’d rather I,-”
“No, I’m quite alright.” I could not afford any more distractions, late as I was already. “If you could simply tell me when last you saw him, I can transcribe the Bill of Soul and,” I began to assemble my portable autoquill on the table next to the Sacrament preparations, “and we can enjoy a little Sacrament together after a short prayer.” I had assumed that the Widow invited me specifically for my role as a Chaplain in administering the procedural paperwork for the deceased.
“No, Chaplain, you must not take this down.” I froze and found her sheltered face now twisted into a kind of manic dread. “You must never speak this to anyone.” I stowed the autoquill and resumed my preparation of now two measures of Sacrament instead of one.
“Very well.” My interest swelled. “Elucidate me.”
“His name was Ploom, this you know. He liked to host little parties, to tell jokes and laugh.” Her gaze was fastened to some faraway place and she spoke as if she was kilofathoms away. “He enjoyed reading, too. He loved to read your accounts.” She turned her eyes to meet my own. “That’s why I asked you here. He told me you could be trusted.” I turned the dosing vial of Sacrament in my mechanical hand and the speckled fluid swirled. Another chill ran along my back and a modest buzzing in my teeth, and I instinctively glanced around for any more eyes in the darkness. “That you would understand because you know how the church,” her voice quivered and fell into an exasperated whisper, “how they keep their secrets.”
The Widow rose from the chair to the chagrin of her doska which fluffed and scampered back up the wall and into the rafters as the Widow herself viciously sifted through a ream of documents on the mantle. “He followed your career, always telling me you had seen or discovered something new.” She made a choking sound like a scoff. “He never cared about your failure or that folly of a race.” She extracted a page from the stack, clutched it to her chest, and turned to face me. “He was so full of love and the Church destroyed him.” She sprung toward me, renewed of life. “He said you went to the same Silchurch as pups.” I nodded affirmative.
“Silchurch of Niska, 1822.” Her spirit seemed renewed at the confirmation.
“We were attending a function, Chaplain. A dedication of some artifact to the Museum. He saw a Tisk he knew as Harmony.” I bobbed my head again.
“Harmony was our Desast at the Silchurch. We grew up in the same litter, and Harmony was the one who raised us.” I regretted ever falling of touch with Ploom. Had I known he was in Saska Torn, had I known he was alive…
“He greeted Harmony at the function, and she had him Judged. Judged, Chaplain!” She cried and her voice shook. The turbulent vapors in the vial swirled and danced. “She said she didn’t know him, and he pressed her on it. The fool.” She pushed the paper into my free hand, and collapsed into the wing-back chair. “Judged last week.” She spoke to no one.
I set the glowing vial upon the end table, and held the paper in my mechanical hand as not to ruin it with sweat. It was a rendering of our litter, 1822. It showed the litter as mere pups. I spotted Ploom, grinning from some prank, and I spied myself a couple rows below, and cringed at the way I used to look. In the top row, in the center, towered the hooded figure of Desast Harmony.
“I went to the Silchurch here in Saska Torn, but the Nakata servants there told me all the records of Niska 1822 had been sealed.” Silent tears flowed down her face, which sparkled behind the veil. “She’s Bewildered, Chaplain.”
I forced a smile. “That is impossible. A Tisk can only contract Bewilderment from,-”
“Meat.” She coughed. “Human meat. Tainted” Her mourning robes rustled as she turned to me. “She shows all the signs. Her limbs shake, her reflex is failing. She didn’t recognize Ploom.” Her voice trailed into the distance again.
A realization struck me. “This happened last week? Then Desast Harmony is here, in Saska Torn? I will simply go to meet with her,-”
“You must never do such a thing.” She stared at me as a hissing sound began to creep into the hot little parlor from the swirling vial on the table. “They won’t spare you Chaplain, no matter how rational you are, or how willing to serve.” She glimpsed through my righteousness and without leaving my gaze said “That hunger is inside them all. The yearning for our death is everywhere, at every level. We disgust them, offend them, or entertain them as willing servants. They will let none of us stand among them. None of us, Chaplain.”
The little dosing vial of Sacrament cracked itself open, and an ethereal howl radiated from the puff of glowing mist, before it disappeared upward into the air. Through the miasma our thoughts became as one, growing placid and bathed in piety and if not peace then something like it. And yet. And yet. And yet.