The Physiognomy

I put the shovel and axe over my shoulder and took the string of the gourd and the brown-wrapped package of food with my opposite hand to show the corporal that I understood.

"There are a few things that my prisoners need to know," he said, pacing back and forth in front of me.

I wondered if the Corporals Matters were really twins or just the same twisted fellow switching wigs. The similarities were u

"My first dictum," he shouted. "Every miner must dig his own hole. This means that you must find a barren piece of rock and create your own tu

I nodded.

"My second dictum is: the mine is the mind," he said, then suddenly reached out with the stick and whacked me in the shoulder. "Say it," he yelled. "Say it."

"The mine is the mind," I said in a near whisper.

"Say it again," he yelled and I did.

Then he stepped up to within an inch of my face, breathing his alcoholic breath on me. "The mine is my mind," he said. "While you work, you are in my mind, tu

I nodded again and waited for my next order. He came at me, brandishing the stick and reaching for his saber. * To work, you idiot," he bellowed. "Seven pounds or I'll feed you to the kraken in the lagoon."

I turned and ran ahead of him, but not so far that he didn't catch me with the stick here and there. Into the sick yellow I went, toting my shovel and pickax, my gourd of putrid water, and cremat disks. I thought the odor of the sulphur would fell me, but after I realized that the corporal would not follow me in, I stood, bent over in the yellow mist, until my head and vision cleared.

"Seven pounds of sulphur," I thought. "What is seven pounds of sulphur?"

The walls of the chamber I entered had an ambient glow, some kind of phosphorous material mixed with the sulphur. I peered through the hazy light and saw, ten feet in front of me, a wooden bridge that passed over a small chasm and led to the opening of a tu

I paused for a moment to shiver and gag through the stench. The evil odor was always present, but sometimes it was as if I was not paying enough attention to it, and then it would consciously swamp me like a wave. To imagine this aroma, think of all things scatological roasting with a viral fever and bury your face in them. In the tu

The underground chamber I stepped into must have been as large as the entire structure of the Academy of Physiognomy back in the Weil-Built City. Before me was an enormous hole in the ground. I stepped carefully up to the edge and peered down and down. Its circumference was so wide, I could barely see across to the other side. All of it glowed a dull yellow through the mist, and I could make out a path that spiraled along the i

With each step I took down the treacherous spiral, the heat increased another degree as did the foul bouquet. I wondered, as I crept lightly along, how many had tripped and fallen into the mine and how many beyond that had simply flung themselves down. The narrowness of the path would make it very advantageous to hurry the construction of a personal tu

I descended steadily for about an hour, trying to locate an unused portion of the i

After another sip, I cocked my head back and saw the name that had been chiseled over the opening to the tu

As my head reeled, I remembered Notious Fenton. It was my physiognomical skills that had sent him here. I believe the charge was that he had harbored ill thoughts against the Well-Built City. He had been part of the roundup in the Grulig case. Most of the conspirators had had their heads exploded, and I could now see they were the lucky ones.

I got up and entered Fenton's tu

I stepped slowly forward as if the poor man's remains were potentially dangerous. Then I leaned over and said, "I am sorry. I am sorry." My hand came up of its own volition and rested on the collarbone of my victim. In a moment, it shattered beneath my touch, turning to salt and drifting to the dusty floor. I stepped back and watched as the process I had started in motion slowly spread like a plague through the rib cage and down the spine, disintegrating the entirety of Fenton until his skull crashed to the floor and disappeared in a shower of atoms.

Although there was some respite from the smell in there, I could not stay in his tu

I worked with an insane energy for about twenty minutes, after which, I collapsed against the craggy rock face I had torn away at. In a panic, I suddenly realized I wasn't breathing. The pick fell out of my hand onto the path. My eyes felt as if they had burned out completely. I could now no longer see. There was an intense pain in my head, and I could feel myself sliding down the wall, my hands and face being lacerated by the jagged stone.

Unfortunately, I woke a little while later. Breathing somewhat easier, I crawled over to where my food and water were. A big chunk of sulphur I had chipped from the wall had landed on my moist cremat disks, squashing the package to a disturbing thi