The Vorrh

small room. He lovingly flattened it out, caressing its folds into careful submission.
    ‘Thaddeus! Is he in?’ he asked his wife excitedly.
    ‘Yes, my dear, but what…’
    ‘THADDEUS!’
    The young man loped into the room, bending almost double to avoid the low doorways and sloped ceiling.
    ‘Thaddeus, please read this for us.’
    They crowded around the nervous paper, Thaddeus skimming the document to see what he was dealing with, before moving into oratory mode. He stopped short and looked at his father.
    ‘Father, do you know what this is?’
    ‘Yes, yes, read it!’
    Thaddeus read it slowly and carefully, announcing the long legal words carefully.
    ‘Oh Sigi, what is it? I don’t like the sound of it, are we in trouble about the rent again?’ said the frantic wife, who had screwed her thin apron into a ball.
    ‘No, mother,’ said her son. ‘It says that we now own the house. It is ours forever. None of us will ever pay rent again.’
    The other children now joined the table, having been attracted by the unique sounds and vibrations in the room. The wife looked back and forth between the paper, Thaddeus and Mutter, waiting for one of them to speak.
    ‘It’s been given to us by Mistress Tulp and the Lohr woman. It’s a present for my loyalty to them, and for being quiet about the baby.’
    ‘Whose baby?’ said his wife quietly, the hope draining from her face.
    ‘Father, this is overwhelming. Your services must have been remarkable to be given such a generous gift.’
    ‘Whose baby?’ she said again, suspicion furrowing her brow.
    Mutter blushed through his cooling face; praise was an experience previously unknown to him and he looked shyly at his son.
    ‘Your grandfather and I have cared for that house for years, long before these good people arrived. It has been very different working for them in there.’
    ‘WHOSE BABY?’ squawked the infuriated wife.
    Everybody looked at her in surprise and Mutter said, ‘I don’t know whose baby it is. It’s a carnival mite, I think.’
    He saw her confusion crush her accusation and realisation set in.
    ‘You thought it was mine? With one of them?!’
    He started to titter, which very quickly turned into a roar of snorting laughter. They all joined in, the children not knowing why and the wife no longer caring. Under his mirth, Mutter felt a great pride that his wife thought him capable of siring another child, of tupping those genteel ladies, pleasuring them with the girth of his masculinity. He grinned again and opened a bottle. It was much better to think about being paid to bring new life into the world, especially when his real reward had been for dragging life out of it, screaming.
    * * *

    The silver bell rang, and again its glitter rained into the lower part of Sidrus’ dwelling.
    But this time the bird was ignored, as was its message from Nebsuel saying that he had been wrong about these strange ones. He told the cleric to come in peace and talk gently with them to find the answers he wanted. The bird pecked at its food tray, jumping from the perch into the cage. Again the bell chimed, and its sound melted to nothing in the quietness of the empty house.
    * * *

    Singing: somewhere in the beige, vague world outside of his sleep, there was singing. His mouth was full of clay and dry holly leaves; he was aware of a dull throbbing and itching between himself and the melody. He tried to speak, and the itching turned to lines of glittering tinsel: shimmering pain. Ivy? No! Scarabs! Running under his skin! Encrusted and fast. Glass decorations. Christmas; a tree in a house?
    He touched his face, expecting the soft contours of normality, but found only a huge, misshapen ball of rags where his head should have been. It had all gone wrong, but how? Think, remember. ‘Him’s’, she had called them, the endless dirges; him singing. Pine and wax smoking inside the room, where? The singing stopped.
    ‘It is all well, master. You are well, and you are safe.’
    The voice was close and without meaning. Something touched his lips; it was wet and cool, and he sucked hard on it. The knife! His throat cleared and his horror dispersed. The knife; he felt its pressure, and then it was gone. The knife to carve a feast, or him, or hymn. Hymns. Or a place in life and a socket of death.
    ‘Tsungali,’ he said feebly, touching his bandaged head again.
    A larger hand closed over his and he felt its radiance and smelt pine again – the pine of disinfectant,