Cosmocopia by Paul di Filippo Read Free Book Online Page B

knowledge, and possess the skillful words to convey high truths.”
    Lazorg’s eyes brightened at the prospect of illumination. “You’d take me to such a person?”
    “Yes. But let’s wait until darkness. Your malformed face will attract enough attention even then. People will stare and point. Are you ready for that?”
    “Nothing could be worse than being the bare-assed monster of the marshes!”
    Crutchsump laughed at this description, and Lazorg chuckled too.
    They passed another hour or so until full night in silence, Lazorg investigating with minute scrutiny all the common and shabby appurtenances of Crutchsump’s apartment, as if they were the fixtures of a palace in the Bullacre district. Crutchsump partook of some livewater and a faufaw, and devoted some attention to a neglected Pirkle.
    When darkness reigned, they set out, Pirkle too.
    “The local noetic is named Palisander. He’s just a hedge noetic, not a sophisticate like the ones who officiate at all the ceremonies in Liviabelle, for instance. But for simple questions like yours, he’ll do just fine.”
    “I wish I had your faith that my questions were so simple and easy of resolution.”
    “Once you understand about the Conceptus, everything will be clear.”
    The nighted streets harbored many citizens going about their errands, legal or otherwise. Here, a slumming voluptuary, regal in striped robe and jeweled caul; there, a beggar in dhoti and dirt. True to Crutchsump’s prediction, people did point and stare at the drooping, impotent introciptor pouch depending from Lazorg’s caul. But the ex-monster was too intent on his destination—or too blind to propriety—to be properly ashamed of even the jeers of children.
    Palisander lived in the back of a small Cosmocopian shrine on Overspan Way. The entrance from the street to the front public room of the shrine was garlanded with a curtain of beads. The clacked as Crutchsump and Lazorg stepped inside. (Pirkle, uninterested in metaphysics, had followed his vibrissae toward some tasty bit of offal.)
    The windowless anteroom was lit by a bevy of candles tall as people, with heavy metal bases spiked into their bottoms to keep them upright. No one else was present to hear the droplets of melted wax as they plopped faintly to the floor. Against one wall stood a cubical altar of polished stone, nothing rare. Atop the altar resided a model of the Cosmocopia, surrounded by coils of fizzing incense. The pungent smoke from the incense subdued the light, rendering the whole room dusky.
    Lazorg approached the model of the Cosmocopia and ran a hand tentatively along its length, from tip to flaring mouth.
    “It’s—it’s a horn of plenty.”
    “I have never heard the Cosmocopia referred to as such. But that’s a poetical description that might fit the facts.”
    Lazorg bent closer, to peer at the material of the model, with an artist’s eye. “How was this made? I don’t see any chisel marks. Was it cast? If so, what material is this? It’s not a resin, or plastic. It’s almost like a ceramic. …”
    “Again, you use words I don’t recognize. That model is an ideation.”
    “An ideation?”
    Crutchsump began to grow a tad impatient with Lazorg. Were all ex-monsters so dense? “You’ll understand later. Right now, you wanted to learn about the Conceptus. It’s growing late and I’m tired. I hardly slept last night, wondering and worrying about you. Let’s see Palisander and then go home.”
    “Fine, yes, all right. I’m sorry to be a burden.”
    Crutchsump regretted her shortness of temper immediately, but felt too awkward to apologize. Instead, she turned toward a second portal.
    This doorway likewise sported a bead curtain. The visitors pushed through it.
    The inner apartment, lit by a single oil lamp, was as spartan as Crutchsump’s. A small larder, a sleeping platform, a stool. On this last piece of furniture sat Palisander the noetic. He wore the traditional robe of Cosmocopian warp and