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Forty-Nine

When he saw the person who was standing before him, Tso wondered despairingly why he'd ever considered himself to be a person of consequence. A pair of reversed feet was nothing compared to such splendor, such elevation. Admittedly, the eminent person did appear to be in an advanced state of decay, but that did nothing to lessen the aura of the Imperial Presence that hung about him in a palpable miasma. The thought if you could bottle that crossed Tso's mind, and was instantly quelled by the more conservative part of his personality as being irredeemably irreverent. The personage's clothes were impressive enough: a thick mantle of human hair, as soft and blond as corn silk, hung over a cloak of pink and living flesh. Tso could have counted every tiny capillary and vein that meandered across the cloak, like rivers across the surface of a map.

"Do you know who I am?" the personage asked, in a voice that made the air ring. Tso's own voice, in comparison, was barely audible even to his own ears. "Eminence, I—please don't hold this unworthy person's ignorance against him, but—"

"So the answer's no, then?"

Tso could only nod, once, and feebly. The personage spat at his feet, a gesture somewhat at odds with the magnificence of his garments and bearing. The globule of spittle frothed and writhed, boiling away to produce something that resembled a sticky black seedpod. Tso stared. The seedpod cracked in two, and a long thing like a two-tailed scorpion scuttled out and ran up Tso's leg. Tso yelled and struggled, but it was no use. The guards held his arms in a firm grip, and he was forced to stand helpless as the scorpion-thing snaked inside his collar and coiled itself tightly around his throat. He could feel the delicate prick of its double stings, just below his jugular.

"You really don't have any idea why you've been brought here to the Ministry of Epidemics, do you?" the personage asked with contempt. Painfully aware of the sting at his throat, Tso burst into a voluble and impassioned plea.

"With the utmost respect, Lord, I do not. Have I not provided vital aid and succor to the Ministry of Epidemics? Has it not been my company who has supplied your august institution with the required amount of fresh, top-quality human blood, the very fluid of life of several hundred young girls—at very short notice, I should point out, and at maximum expense and difficulty, given that they were alive at the time? Have I not placed into your hands my own accursed brother-in-law, the protégé of Kuan Yin herself, thus thwarting an attempt by the human authorities to bring ruin upon the Ministry's most worthy and intricate plans? Haven't I—"

"All this," said the personage in a voice like a plangent bell, "has been for nothing more than your perceived personal advantage, and is regarded as nothing more than barely sufficient recompense, after the grave affront your family has delivered to the Imperial Court. Did not your own sister, doubtless with your connivance, seek to deceive a good and worthy public servant, who wished only to make her his bride and cherish her for eternity?"

"I had nothing to do with it!" Tso cried. "She—"

But the personage intoned relentlessly on. "And did not that sister, also with your complicit approval, run off to marry a human when your sad scheme was discovered—that self-same protégé of the goddess? Are you aware of the policies of the Imperial Court regarding miscegenation and consorting with Immortals of the heavenly persuasion? If you had kept better guard over your womenfolk, Master Tso, you would not find yourself in the sorry position that you do now. Did you seriously expect to find yourself rewarded for turning your brother-in-law, the contemptible Chen Wei, over to us—a task in which, I might add, you significantly failed to do, given that he's still at large."

But Tso had nothing to say. The personage grinned a dreadful, vulpine grin, and added, "However, it may be that even such a worthless person as yourself is not wholly useless. After all, you share some defiling degree of human blood with your shameful sister, and that makes you a possible candidate for certain of the Ministry's experimental purposes. We shall see if you might be of use after all." He picked up a small, delicate bell from the desktop and rang it. At the far end of the room, a door was flung open, as though someone had been waiting eagerly for their summons. And when Tso saw what stepped through that door, it was as though the blood in his veins, both human and demon, was nothing more than icy water.

 

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Framed