THE REFRACTION OF LIGHT IN A PRISON

(Being an Account of the Truffidian Monks Held in the

Dungeons of the Kalif, for They Have Not Given Up

Sanity, or Hope)

BY:

Brother Peek

Brother Prowcosh

Brother Witamoor

Brother Sirin

Brother Grae

(and, held unfortunately in separate quarters,

communicating to us purely by the force of her

will, Sister Stalker)

And, on the next page:

BEING CHAPTER ONE:

THE MYSTICAL PASSIONS

The most mystical of all passions are those practiced by the water people of the Lower Moth, for though they remain celibate and spend most of their lives in the water, they attain a oneness with their mates that bedevils those lesser of us who equate love with intercourse. Surely, their women would never become the objects of their desire, for then these women would lose an intrinsic eroticism.

Dradin read on impatiently, his hands sweaty, his throat dry, but, no, no, he would not rise to drink water from the sink, nor release his tension, but must burn, as his love must burn, reading the self-same words. For now he was in truth a missionary, converting himself to the cause of love, and he could not stop.

Outside, along the lip of the valley, lights began to blink and waver in phosphorescent reds, greens, blues, and yellows, and Dradin realized that preparations for the Festival of the Freshwater Squid must be under way. On the morrow night, Albumuth Boulevard would be cleared for a parade that would overflow onto the adjacent streets and then the entire city. Along the avenues, candles wrapped in boxes of crepe paper would appear, so that the light would be like the dancing of the squid, great and small, upon the midnight salt water where it met the mouth of the Moth. A celebration of the spawning season, when males battled mightily for females of the species and the fisherfolk of the docks would set out for a month’s trawling of the lusting grounds, hoping to bring back enough meat to last until winter.

If only he could be with her on the morrow night. Among the sights the hansom driver had pointed out on the way into Ambergris was a tavern, the Drunken Boat, decked out with the finest in cutlery and clientele, and featuring, for the Festival only, the caterwauling of a band called the Ravens. To dance with her, her hands interwoven with his, the scent of her body on his, would make up for all that had happened in the jungle and the humiliations since: the hunt for ever more miserable jobs, accompanied by a general lightening of coin in his pockets.

The clocks struck the insomniac hours after midnight and, below the window, Dradin heard the moist scuttle of mushroom dwellers as they gathered offal and refuse. Rain followed the striking of the clocks, falling softly, as light in touch as Dradin’s hand upon The Refraction of Light in a Prison. The smell of rain, fresh and sharp, came from the window.