The Physiognomy

by Jeffrey Ford

  “Perhaps you should not drink this shudder you have brought,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. He did look rather pitiful and weak sitting there, but I could only gloat at the news he had brought.

  “No,” he said, “I’ve brought it to drink in front of you so that I can show you the effect these headaches have on me. I need your help, Cley. I don’t trust anyone.”

  “I’ll do everything within my abilities to serve you,” I said.

  He gave a weak smile and then reached out and took one of the cups in his hands and removed the lid. Bringing it to his lips, he dashed it off in a few seconds.

  “It’s the white fruit. I need something to reverse its change in me,” he said as he put the cup down on my desk.

  “What is this change?” I asked.

  “Just wait,” he told me, “you can’t miss it.”

  “You said there was a runaway gladiator?” I asked.

  “One of those wretches I use in the battle matches,” he said. “I can’t imagine that he will present much of a problem, but when you put it all together, there’s just too much random possibility out there now.”

  “It must be difficult for you,” I said.

  “It’s a lonely thing, being the Master,” he said, looking over to stare out the window. “At the same time, I cannot give up. I don’t care if I have to kill every last citizen—they will not take my City from me. My life has been the Well-Built City. I am this City beyond mere rhetoric. Every inch of coral, every pane of crystal is a memory, a theory, an idea. My mentor, Scarfinati, taught me how to turn ghosts of abstraction into specific imagery, but I did him one better, turning imagery into concrete actuality. These streets, these buildings are the history of my heart and mind.”

  I nodded.

  He winced but the unseen pain did not prevent him from continuing. “My trouble began when I tried to turn the people into a magnificent equation whose sum would be perfection. Instead, they have become a virus that beclouds my vision. Their ignorant simplicity corrodes my complexity. Order is needed to return viability to the mechanism of my genius in the same way I employed the Physiognomy to neutralize the chaos of abstract religion, the illness of faith.” When he finished, he looked at me as if it should now all be perfectly clear.

  “I will help you,” was all I could say, my head swimming in the attempt to follow his meaning.

  “I know,” he told me. “It is the reason I brought you back. I realized when you were gone that you were really the only person here who could grasp the immensity of my vision.”

  “Your genius is beyond me,” I told him.

  “Somewhere along the line, someone has gotten the foolish notion that a city is its people instead of its magnificent structures,” he said.

  “Inane,” I conceded.

  He leaned over in the chair and grasped his head with both hands. His face became a closed fist of anguish. “Watch,” he said as he rocked. Then, as if an invisible assailant had struck him in the face, he flew back in the chair. There was a moment in which the air in the room became heavy and a low crackling sound could be heard. The next thing I knew, the window glass shattered outward with a terrific explosion.

  I leaped out of my seat and backed against the wall. The Master took his hands from his head and peered up at me, his pallid face forming a smile.

  “It’s over, Cley. You can sit down,” he said.

  I did as he told me.

  “I had such a severe episode in my office the other day, the power, or whatever it is, blew apart one of the heads of those blue statues from the territory out in the hallway. It’s growing in intensity,” he said.

  “Rest, Master. You’ve got to rest. Get off your feet. Let the ministers run the city for a few days,” I said.

  “Cley, I appreciate your concern, but those asses couldn’t run a cart into a brick wall. That would be like turning my life over to a retarded child,” he said. “I’d be better off putting the demon in charge.”

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Find out which one of your illustrious colleagues uses a scalpel like that and be available for me to confer with you,” he said. “What I need is your confidence. I can bring things under control if I just have someone to rebound my ideas off.”

  I had to help him to his feet when he was ready to leave. As I moved him in the direction of the door, he placed his hand over mine, which supported his elbow. “Thank you,” he said. The words almost had the same effect on me as did his headache upon the window.

  “I’ll send someone by to repair your glass, there,” he said with a laugh. Once outside in the hallway, he straightened to his full height. “Let’s go, you laggards,” he said to the soldiers. They surrounded him as he took the stairs to the street.

  I rushed through my appointments late that afternoon in order to get back to my apartment and go to sleep. I felt the way the Master had looked. As I walked along the night streets of the city, I thought about Below and actually felt bad for him. All around me were the incredible designs of his creation—the lights, the spires, the incessant commerce. He had built a kind of crystal sphere around himself and was now vaguely realizing it was a trap. For me, my exalted position of Physiognomist, First Class had been the sphere. It had protected me for quite some time, but it had also blinded me to the rest of life. I could sense that things were going to change, and this was remarkable; but in an odd way, there was a certain sadness to it. Still, I knew that if I had to, I would take Below’s life in order to save Arla and Ea and the child. Like Moissac, the foliate, I would leave behind a seed, and it would be this family.

  Part of the next two mornings, I spent wading through official documents in the basement of the Ministry of Information. I was intent on finding some design of a crystal sphere in the literature of the Master’s early writings. Although all of his inventions had been committed to his strange memory system, he had written quite a few of them out as shorthand blueprints for his engineers to follow. I could not believe that such an ingenious creation as the false paradise could have been the work of a moment’s free thought. There was nothing there in the collection that resembled what I had seen that night beneath the sewage treatment plant, but there were notes for all manner of exotic inventions, some of which had come to pass and some that were probably still in the works over in the manufacturing district. Seeing written evidence of all the Master’s brilliant theories and musings was daunting, but it gave me the sense that it was, in a way, somewhat less than human. It was as if he could not help himself tinkering with nature.

  I don’t think anyone had bothered with these papers for the longest time. They were yellowed and poorly filed, and the dust did not shower from them but rolled in tumbleweeds onto the floor. I also noticed, while down in the musty chamber, that some sort of winged insect had taken up residence amid the moldering dreams of the great Drachton Below. After the early morning rush out on the street had abated and there were no longer the sounds of footsteps and coach wheels, these six-legged interlopers sent up a chorus of chirping that often drove me to distraction. In all, my time there had been wasted.

  I was loath to think that I had basically sat through two whole days. Of course, I kept up with my official duties and went on coach rides through the entire city every night searching for any signs of Calloo. I wanted more than anything to return to Arla and Ea with news of their deliverance, but it was too risky to go for a visit without some definite plan for escape. I had made a vow that when next I returned to them, I would take them away with me. I wished I had more time, a commodity I was quickly running short of. It was now less than a week until the executions were to take place.

  My next brainstorm was a gift from the beauty. I was riding through the city the evening after I had given up on the Ministry of Information, looking out the coach window into all the shadowy doorways and as far down the alleys as I could. The driver had been instructed to drive slowly and to keep a lookout himself for a big hulking man, moving slowly. />
  I had not had time that day to catch a fix of the beauty and the symptoms of withdrawal were plaguing me worse than usual. Right there in the coach, I took a vial full and sat back for a few minutes to think. I saw the crystal bubble of the false paradise in my eye’s-mind as if at a distance. Then I began to wonder how it had been put together. Arla had said that they had built it around the two of them.

  If it was not blown, like a glass bowl, than it must have been constructed in pieces and fitted together, which meant that there had to be a seam somewhere. I kept drawing a blank when it came to envisioning the plans for it, but I did see in my daydream, from a great distance, men at work on it, like a colony of ants swarming over an egg.

  I banged on the ceiling of the coach and the driver answered me. “Your honor?” he said.

  “Drive me around to the south side of the park, to Engineer Deemer’s residence,” I said. “Do you know the location?”

  “Very good, sir,” he said.

  Pierce Deemer had been the Master’s head engineer throughout the years of the construction of the Well-Built City. Some said he was every bit as brilliant as Below. He was an old man now, but still very active in working on municipal projects for the city. I knew he had children and that his children had children, and I was counting on the fact that he cared for them.

  Engineer Deemer was a wiry, severe-looking man with short white hair. He allowed me into his house but was not pleased by my presence. We went into his study, a small comfortable room with a drawing board and books lining the walls. He was a powerful figure in the city, but even his influence, I knew, could not supersede my authority to detain and read him or any member of his family. I did not play coy but went straight to the heart of the matter.

  “I need some information,” I told him as I sat down in one of the plush chairs attending his desk.

  “Everyone needs information,” he said snidely.

  I took out a handful of appointment cards and threw them on the desk. “Give one of these to each of your grandchildren,” I told him. “I hope for their sakes they are all excellent physiognomical specimens. Have you heard about what the Master has planned for the park in a few days?” I asked.

  He stared at the cards and then eventually nodded. “Are you threatening me, Cley?” he asked.

  “Their heads will pop like grapes,” I said. “All of those tow-headed little minchs of yours, exploding for the glory of the realm. It will certainly be a spectacle,” I said.

  “The Master will hear of this,” he said.

  “Very well,” I said, and got up to leave.

  “Wait,” he called just as I was going out the door.

  I turned and walked back to the desk. “The crystal sphere that houses the false paradise, how was it constructed?” I asked.

  “You know of it?” he asked. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  I pulled out another appointment card and threw it on his desk. “Have your wife come by my office also,” I said.

  “It was not constructed,” he told me. “Crystal grows. The Master grew it in an elliptical mold that was made of a substance of his invention that eventually, over time, turns to pure oxygen. The solution was poured into the mold, the crystal grew, and the mold then disintegrated. A very rapid process,” he said.

  “Are there entrances or exits?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Can it be cracked?” I asked.

  “We tested it with flamethrowers, bullets, hand grenades. They didn’t make a scratch. But why do you need to know?” he asked.

  “It’s a secret,” I said.

  “Has this been sanctioned by the Master?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “If he hears of my visit to you, you can plan on your family line being snipped short.”

  “You’re one of us, aren’t you?” he said, and then held up his hand and made the sign of the O.

  I nodded and gave him an O in return.

  He smiled and showed me to the door. “If I can think of anything, I’ll let you know,” he said.

  As I rode away from the park, I felt uneasy about having exposed my position to Deemer. I could only hope that he really was part of what appeared to be a city-wide conspiracy. “These unknown allies might be my last and only salvation at the end,” I thought. But things were rarely what they seemed in the realm. On my way back to my apartment, I continued to search the streets for the only person I could definitively trust—a gear-work giant with a pinprick of paradise in his head.

  “An egg waiting to hatch,” was how the Traveler had described the sphere. In my mind, I hit that egg with a hammer, kicked it with my boot, rode over it with a coach wheel, and sat on it like a hen, but nothing could crack it.

  Finally, I gave in to the comfort of the beauty for the second time that evening. Corporal Matters of the day watch appeared in my bedroom, flailing away at a crystal egg with the monkey-headed cane. When he reached a state of near exhaustion, he rolled the dice on the end of my bed and announced, “Zero.”

  28

  “The conspiracy is real,” I told myself as I stepped out onto the street the next morning and, scanning the horizon, saw that there was no longer a top to the Top of the City. The long column that was the enclosed elevator that led to the domed restaurant had now a jagged end. The dome was absolutely gone and there was smoke issuing from the open shaft. I stopped the first person who passed me and asked what had happened.

  “Explosion last night,” the man said. “There and over at the Ministry of Security—a whole wing was taken out.”

  “Who is responsible?” I asked.

  “They are saying that there are evil forces at work in the Well-Built City,” he said.

  I thanked him for the information and hurried on to the café where I again bought a Gazette. EXPLOSIONS ROCK CITY was the headline. The story gave information on the loss of life, which was considerable in both instances, and made note that the Master was offering a hundred-thousand-below reward for information leading to the capture of the terrorists.

  Things were heating up. The people of the O apparently were not waiting for me to move. I supposed that they knew about the upcoming executions in Memorial Park in a few days and were reacting violently to the idea of them, or perhaps this was in retaliation for the attack on the patrons of the bar the other night.

  I had barely gotten into my first cup of shudder when a coach pulled up at the curb in front of the café. The driver got down and came walking over to me.

  “There is an emergency meeting of the ministers this morning, your honor, and the Master requests your presence,” he said.

  “Very well then,” I said. I paid for the shudder and took my cup and napkin and accompanied him to the coach.

  The meeting was to be held in the Master’s office at the Ministry of Benevolent Power. As we rode across town, we had to pass the Ministry of Security. I witnessed the aftermath of the destructive blast. The entire west wing of the building was now no more than a pile of rubble. The pink coral had crumbled like stale bread. Arms and legs and pipes and shards of windowpane poked out of the mess. Soldiers in riot armor patrolled the cordoned-off area. “These people aren’t fooling around,” I thought to myself.

  We turned past what was left of the building and headed uptown toward the Master’s office. As we went along, I finished my drink and brought the napkin up to wipe my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what I thought appeared to be writing on it. I brought it directly into my line of vision and discovered that there was a note penned on one side. Cley, it said, it is easier to break an egg from inside out than from outside in. If you want to find out more, come this evening at eight to the Earth Worm at the western side of town. P. D.

  I crumpled the napkin up and remembered to throw it in the trash can outside the ministry before entering. As I rode up in the elevator, I wondered if the message had really been from Pierce Deemer or if it was a ruse to flush me out. To make the appointment would be very chancy,
especially in light of the recent explosions, but it was an opportunity I couldn’t let pass.

  As I strode down the hallway to the office, I was disappointed to see that it had been the head of Arden that had succumbed to the Master’s strange affliction. He stood there with his mirror, posing the same as ever, only now his body ended at the shoulders. The sight of it brought back to me a memory of Mantakis and his wife, and the last thing I thought before entering the Master’s office was the sight of them clutching each other in a pool of blood in the lobby of the Hotel de Skree.

  The ministers stood before the Master’s desk in a semicircle. Seeing me enter, Winsome Graves, Minister of Security, said, “I thought this meeting was only for ministers.”

  “Shut up,” Below said to him.

  “Excuse my tardiness,” I said to the Master, and he merely nodded to me and told me to take a position with the others.

  He looked more worn and ragged than ever as he sat there in his chair. “We have a crisis on our hands, gentlemen. No doubt you know all about the explosions that ripped my City apart last night.”

  They all nodded.

  “We have a conspiracy on our hands,” said Below. “I want action on this. I want to see the culprits’ heads brought before me by this time tomorrow morning, or you are all going to be out of a position in the worst way. Do you understand?”

  They all nodded.

  “Minister Graves,” he said, “step forward.”

  Graves straightened up in military style and came forward, saluting the Master.

  Below opened his desk drawer and pulled out a pistol. He hardly aimed before squeezing off a shot. Graves fell like a cut tree, straight onto the carpet, his face obliterated by the shot. Blood covered the jackets of the ministers standing next to him.

  “One of you a day,” said the Master, “until this thing is settled.”