...nothing is more trustworthy than the sleeping soldier

", he said.

I looked at him blankly, then ate another olive.

"I can't imagine foregoing food for any amount of time. Food, drink, coitus and sleep are the four pillars of life, my Lord of Eidolon."

"And music," I replied, thoroughly bored and disgusted.

Pothos raised his goblet. "So you are listening. Yes, music is the fifth. Aziz, are you sleeping? Music!"

The scrawny boy, slumped on the floor against the wall, jolted to his feet and went to work on his harp, his hands plucking its strings before his bottom could find his stool. The hebetic choir too came rushing through the velvet curtains at the far end of the room and resumed their singing, each girl tripping over the words of the other until they found the appropriate verse.

"I admire your patience," Pothos said, seconds before sucking an olive the size of an egg into his mouth.

"I admire your fortitude," I replied, looking at the spread of food that still remained.

Pothos laughed often, and he laughed then before feigning a look of woe. "It's a hard life I live, Aeon. Very hard. My followers give what devotion they can, but it's a rare man who can rise to the summit of any mountain."

"Yet for women it would seem easy, judging by the status of the Valkyr."

And he nodded, his mammoth face rippling like water disturbed. "But the Valkyr are a ruse, or so our grand progenitor would have us believe. They are women who have learned to think like men, according to the narrative."

When I was a boy, I encountered the Vandals of Icarus Ark, a brave nomadic tribe who had not abandoned their hereditary purpose. And I've mentioned Deloris, who died to save me from Patches, or died by his manic hands because she no longer wished to live. She once told me of Thirty-Third Day, and how its King surrounded himself with women, and one man named Ahz whose fierceness defied all tradition.

"I doubt that is true," I said. "I've seen quite a few of them now, and their eyes show the fierceness of an animal mother, not a human man."

"Oh! I agree! You've seen through Lord V's thinnest of veils."

"Why raise it to begin with?"

Another rippling of fat, and the grotesque sucking of large fingers made to seem small by pudge. He spoke as he... groomed. "Pay attention to the populace here," suck, suck, smack, "and those whom you've been ordained to serve," suck, suck, smack, "you will find them all an unruly bunch," suck, smack, suck, suck, smack, "so ask yourself how you would keep them in line, were that burden laid upon you."

"Laid upon me?"

"Ohhh," he wiped his hands and tossed the cloth onto a half eaten mound of gelatin, "you don't yet know. Ahhh." He folded his fingers and leaned forward, heedless of the platters knocked over by his corpulent bulk. "You've been busy, I take it. Yes. I've heard speculation only, and made my own. The consensus is that you were recently made and sent topside for scouting. Our Lord is the victim of cruel rumor up there. Rumors are dangerous, you see. Tell me what it was like, up there."

"Boring," was all I wanted to say.

"Oh, I doubt that. The fomorians alone will keep things fun. And of course there's Our Lady and her many wiles. Did you wander into any of her 'pockets of protection'? She has strange ways of interacting with us mortals, and even stranger notions of what's good for us. Tell me, does she appear to you as a bird, or a snake? Not that it makes much difference. Both lay eggs, after all."

I smirked, honestly amused by his words. He seemed more a mummer than an official. "Have you ever performed on a stage?".

He opened his hands into a pedestal for his monstrous head. His cheeks spilled over his fingers in the same way the pudding was spilling over its bowl. "Every day, Aeon. Every day. And aren't you performing right now?".

I scowled.

"No?"

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I kept my mouth still, but convinced my eyes to look sad, then gleeful.

"There you go! See? You're as gifted a player as I. I have friends above ground, Aeon. Resourceful friends, and they've told me a great deal about you. Two of them have recently come to harm, sadly. I miss them awfully. I hope you have some stories to tell me of them, to remind me of when they still lived? No? Oh well then, we'll speak of other things."

"I'm very tired."

"Liar. Oh, wait, you are tired. Very tired. Haven't you... I must be careful. The consensus isn't holding up at all. Alright, Aeon, to the chase." He picked up a knife and cut into a thick cake. "Who are you?".

"Victor 39," I said, rubbing my sore temples.

"Thirty-nine? Hmmm. Interesting. Oh lies upon lies within deceptions wrapped in fallacy. Do the ruses ever end?"

"I wish they would."

We had our first session then, somewhat like the ones we've had since, and in a way as we are having now, though now she is barely conscious, and in terrible pain. My Lady, I love you. Please give yourself rest. This place is sustaining me now. Never mind my nausea. Every time it has wracked me it has passed.

She has reminded me of a great many details, and prompted me to recall moments I found painful, but soothing to me afterwards. The Stylus is a wondrous gift. As wondrous as she who gave it. I looked at Pothos and saw a leviathan drawn from the sea, all ponderous blubber with its strength and grace stolen. But then she showed me Patches; the mad look of absolute agony in his clouded eyes when he darted through Matoya's cave, the casual way he leaned against the doorway when we first spoke, the hospitality he showed to all of Turk's soldiers, even sharing his liquor, and how bravely he battled against his own kind. I murdered a powerful ally to those who'd see the world renewed, and all because I couldn't think my way through a pain so old it had grown stale.

So I looked at the heaving barge that groaned amid waves of clammy flesh and felt pity.

You trust him, I said with thought.

Yes.

White wings descend upon me. White wings beat the air above me. White wings lift me from the mire. White wings save me from my hollowing heart. I'd give anything to see a pregnant woman, or an ennui birthing circle, or an unhatched tyfloch egg. Show me something pure that has yet to rot or turn wicked out of desperation. My conscious mind tried to see the child of Doctor Danders where Pothos sat, but the Painted Lady refused to let me see anything other than a man worn down by the need to survive. So I ate another olive, then a bite of cake, and leaned forward with my elbows on the table.

When Pothos brought the Neo Hedonists together into a unified front, I had rewarded him handsomely. When first I entered his dining hall, I commended him on money well spent. Golden walls, purple floors, ivory ceiling, fluted columns of blue veined marble and emerald crowned chandeliers. I could not have decked the room more finely myself. And that table of ancient tree flesh, that cost a small fortune. My favorite touches were the gold elephants holding rose bouquets in their trunks placed in every corner, and the porcelain trestles carved to look like so many emaciated slaves holding the mahogany table on their skeletal backs. He was sure to make a fine proxy. But, look at him now.

"Yes, look at me."

I shook my head as if I'd been sleeping, remembering my first encounter with Belial.

"Oh, don't let me stop you from admiring me. I am a monument to mortal desire, am I not? And you, I can see what you are. You're no Eidolon. You're a legitimate Batch Boy, aren't you?"

I trusted you Lady. Oh how I trusted you. To show her I loved her, I unfastened the silk tunic I'd allowed myself to be coaxed into wearing, and saw a red glow on Pothos's face. When I looked down I almost jumped. My wraithkin brand was burning like the heathen sun.

Pothos spoke in a hoarse whisper, and as he spoke I saw him when he was young. He was a big man, thick with sinew and only a little softness around his belly. He walked about in a lilac toga with his chest half bared. The fat just forming around his cheeks gave a gleefulness to his smile that melted women, and some of the older men who'd abandoned females took notice, vying with expensive gifts for his affections. But Pothos knew they truly sought to use him as a weapon, and he had found no end to the charms of women, so he instead wooed the stabled wives left untouched by these men, and with their wives' secrets he ousted them from their seats.

He was like a living Sun made of lust and joy. His soirees brought happy tears to young girls who before had thought themselves too cursed by desirable breeding to ever know the satisfaction of their own souls. I knew a great power had emerged within my grasp when I saw them spinning hand in hand in hand in hand. Tears flew from their eyes like the sea spray I saw in the lying hallucinations of Turk's precious necropolis. Their faces, flung backward as they spun, wore looks of peace so soft yet ironclad that I could have drawn my blade and begun gutting them right there and they would not have fought to save themselves, so complete was the joy of their revelries. Pothos threw flower petals over their heads which fell with the slowness of a corpse rotting in my quantum sight.

"You can see through his eyes," Pothos whispered. "But be careful. You can only do so when he is near, and he can also see through yours."

I saw only the fat man with bruised knuckles within dimpled hands. His fingers were huge, but lost in their fat they seemed childlike, and while no wrinkles had yet stretched across his cheeks, his eyes ended in deep creases. I wondered if he ever truly wanted to give people joy when he was younger, so I asked him.

"Ha! No. I just wanted to eat and shag. I started out a fighter, you know. A soldier at first, then a gladiator. I was very good, but I never liked killing. Give me a soft young girl and a bath full of salts, however..."

I could tell his salacious grin and laughter was fake, so I stared at him blankly until he stopped.

I saw Patches for the first time in a holding cell. His armor, which gave the Devils protection for their skinless hide, had been peeled off by Matoya, wiliest of creatures, and he was in constant misery. I trusted My Lady, remembering the despair in Patches's clouded eyes. I... I shouldn't have killed... Turk, you were right. I knew it then, so I trusted My Lady, even though I feared being misled by anyone in V's court. I cut myself a slice of cake and ate it, then poured myself a glass of sparkling wine, having tactfully refused the help of his servants. Then I rose, but I did not leave without a bow, or giving Pothos a sincere embrace and kissing his cheek.

As for V... Filthy bastard.