The Vorrh

wanted. It said, simply:

Tsung here with a cyclops. I think they killed Bowman and took his soul
.
    Sidrus dropped the note, feeling the consequence hollow him and make room inside for the wrath, which began to boil and brim. The lardish balm melted and dripped from his distorting face without the slightest trace of a flush. As the heat of it settled, he selected his canes and drugs, picking weapons with the detachment of a deadly perfectionist. It would take him three days to reach Nebsuel’s pox-ridden island, maybe another four to extract the right amount of pain from the wicked scum for performing such an act of blasphemy.
    * * *

    ‘I cannot make you a perfect, natural face,’ Nebsuel explained. ‘It would seem that your skull has only one socket, so I will have to make a place for the other one. The living eye will be stitched into folds of constructed muscle and skin, but it will have no real nest to work in. It will not rotate; it will remain blind but, I hope, living. Yet, I cannot promise this. Whatever keeps it vital is beyond my understanding, and nothing to do with the rules of regular anatomy.
    ‘I am anxious about its stability. If it were to die, it would infect the newly grafted tissue around it. But for now it is still animated, and as bright as your other. I pray it will always look like that, alert and active, not like false eyes made of glass or ivory, which always have a dead and lonely appearance. The good news for you is that because your working eye and socket are not quite central, the space between the eyes will seem more natural, if a little close together.’ The shaman paused for breath, adding, ‘Which some find most attractive – many of the European royal families have interbred to create this very effect. They might even recognise you as one of their own!’
    Sensing he had pirouetted out onto very thin ice, he decided it was best to retreat to the more solid ground of surgical details.
    ‘I will build you a nose of normal proportion, to place between the eyes, using the little bulb you have now as a starting point. This will be the easiest part of the procedure. Did you know that surgeons are now treating injured warriors from the great European war with the same methods I have used for years? I am told that they use scrapings taken from diseases and tinctures from rotting moulds to help the healing. My charms and plants are much cleaner, but they take longer. You might look a bit like one of those scarred warriors, a man who has been in a battle and bears the wounds of his heroism with pride. Your face will look like a damaged version of all other humans. Are you sure that you want this, and that I cannot help you find another alternative?’
    Ishmael looked from the bundle, which now stayed very close to him, to the doctor, who followed his gaze and his meaning. The conversation ended there.
    Nebsuel attended to Tsungali first. Building a new, living hand was out of the question, but a wooden one, with a hinged elbow that strapped on to the remains of his upper arm, was feasible.
    The old mercenary seemed disappointed; he had allowed himself to imagine a fully working hand, made of flesh and bone and imbued with magic. Nebsuel explained that if he had kept the fragments and brought them with him, then maybe he could have improvised a kind of weak, articulate hook or claw. But the hardwood version would be better, he assured him. The hunter could have different models, with ivory fingernails and powerful engravings; charms and weapons could be hidden inside. He could have versions of other creatures: puma paws and boar tusks could sprout from his sleeve, eagle talons and shark’s teeth might surprise an attacker or a victim.
    The old warrior came around to the idea, but explained that the days of his mercenary skills were over. His purpose now was to serve Ishmael, and use violence only to protect his master. He made this point very clearly, explaining that, while they were both healing, any attempts of outrage on their persons would send him and the bow into a frenzy of revenge, especially if he was dead. Nebsuel reassured him that they were both safe, not realising that his message to Sidrus had made his promise impossible to keep.
    The patient slept in a drugged sea of his mother’s milk, his limb wrapped in layers of leaves and ointments, looking more like a papoose than a sling. The new arm was a crude affair, but had a certain rustic brutality that Tsungali