The Physiognomy

A few of the people turned and said, "It's Burke from the Ministry of the Arts."

The Master laughed. "Forget it," he said to the soldier, and the man lowered his weapon. Then Below snapped his fingers and the music began to play. Waiters entered from the kitchen, carrying bottles of absence and trays of chived cremat. "Delicacies from the territory," he called out over the rush to grab them.

Later, I had to sit on a dais at the north side of the dome while ponderous speeches were made about my brilliance, my dedication to the realm, the perplexing elegance of my physiognomy. I smiled and nodded inanely, and the crowd applauded, laughed, and cheered in all the right places. When I was asked to speak, I merely gave the standard salute to Below and said, "Long live the City, the realm, and the Master." I looked down at the crowd, and after their response died away they looked at me, none of us knowing what should come next.

The Master was then beside me, shaking my hand for all the dignitaries to see. I was escorted back to my seat on the dais by one of the attendants as Below addressed the guests.

"Watch this," he said, and grimaced. White flowers popped into existence at the ends of the tendrils that made up his hood. The guests were beside themselves. I preferred to watch the attendants drag the remains of Burke away from the demon with an eight-foot steel hook.

"Get your resumes in for the minister of the arts position," said Below. A wave of laughter welled up from the crowd, but once things had quieted down, the Master struck a more sober pose. "It is only fitting that we honor Physiognomist Cley tonight," he said, "for he embodies the ingenuity and insight of the territory. You all love the idea of those strange, wide-open places, and I have done my best to bring some of that to you tonight. But beyond this, I see the territory as a symbol of my new campaign to revitalize the City. In doing so, I propose two measures. First, I have ordered Cley here to round up physiognomical undesirables for execution. In ten days, in Memorial Park, you will witness the survival of the fittest, or should I say the perishing of the unfit, a phenomenon borrowed directly from the wilderness."

The guests clapped madly for this a

"As a result of this campaign, you may lose a relative, a spouse, a child, but never let it be said that Drachton Below takes without giving back. A new exhibit from the territory will open in ten days. The location of this spectacle will be kept a secret until it is a

He moved the fingers of his left hand as he had that morning and produced a small coin out of thin air. "All of you were given one of these," he said. "Save these special coins, for they will admit you and a loved one to the exhibition for free at the grand opening."

I followed suit as the members of the audience began searching their pockets for the coins. When I pulled mine out and held it up in my palm, I saw that it had an image of a coiled snake on one side. I flipped it over and there was a flower.

The mess that was Burke had been whisked away by the time di

"Shut up," Below said to him.

"Yes, of course," said the minister with a forced smile.

In keeping with the theme of the evening, roasted fire bat and old-fashioned cremat dumplings were the main course. I could barely keep from retching when my plate was set down before me. The Master looked over and saw that I wasn't digging in like the other guests, some of whom were already inquiring about seconds.

"Cley, don't you like the meal?" he asked.

Graves looked across at me and smiled, his mouth full of dumpling, waiting to see what would happen.

"It's the excitement, sir. I am overwhelmed by this outpouring of acceptance," I said.

"Well, I don't blame you," said the Master. "I don't see how they can eat that shit."

He, of course, did not have a serving of the foul repast set before him, but as he finished speaking, a silver tray with a domed top was brought. "Here is real sustenance," he said as he lifted the top to reveal the white fruit of paradise.

"Begging your pardon," said Graves, "but is it wise to eat that? Who knows what effects it might have."

"I've had it tested over the past few months," said the Master. "There is a laboratory rat, now in the Academy of Science, who was fed a morsel of it. The little beggar has been brought back from death's door by it. Though he was dying of rat old age, he is now virile, resilient, and runs mazes, I dare say, with more intelligence than you would, Graves."

"May you taste paradise," I said to Below as he lifted the fruit to his mouth and began eating, its pale juices flowing down his chin. The aroma of it wafted around me, bringing me back to my visions and dreams and obliterating the stench of the cremat. The Master's vegetal suit reminded me of Moissac, the foi&te, M*d fragments of the Fragments of Beaton's journey came back to me. When I looked up from my thoughts, I saw the core of the fruit, a gnawed hour glass, revealing black pits at its center.

"Quite edible," he said, as he wiped his hands on his leaves, "but I hardly feel immortal." He snapped his fingers and his private servant moved up next to him. "Take this away and plant the seeds as I have instructed," he said.

The night wore on as I minced and bowed and nodded. I kept a close watch on the Master to see what kinds of changes the fruit might make in him, but nothing remarkable came to pass. When he got up to dance with the young lady who had revealed to the others my sexual techniques, I pumped Graves for any information he might have about the exhibit the Master had referred to. He told me some of his men had been pulled from their usual assignments in order to guard the thing, but not even he knew where it was being built.

"We can only know what the Master tells us," he said, smiling.

I considered paying him a visit the next day in my new, official capacity and ordering him in for a reading. I wondered how many deaths he had been responsible for over the years. As I pictured his head being filled with inert gas before a crowd in Memorial Park, swelling to match his sense of self-importance, I caught myself. "You are hating again, Cley," I told myself. I remembered the word carved into sulphur in Professor Flock's tomb—"forgive." It was a struggle, but before long, I could see that Graves was simply trying to survive. He had his own disguise, like me, like the rest of them. We were all trying to hide our true selves from Drachton Below, waiting for his "glorious dream" to finally come to a close.

The affair abruptly ended when the Master entangled two young ladies in rapidly growing vines, like spiderwebs, and left through the double doors of the kitchen. The minute he was gone, the music stopped, the lights came up, and the attendants began cleaning up. The demon was then led away. Guests were wrapping up the delicacies of the territory in napkins and pocketing them to take back to their families. I was quite drunk but relieved that I had made it through the evening.

The coach was waiting for me outside on the windy street, but I told the driver to go on without me. I walked the City for an hour or so, trying to sober up. It was down on the