EPISODE 3: what his fingers remembered

COASTAL ROAD, EXT, DAY

 

We hear seagulls, and the rushing tide. 

 

And then the sound of an approaching cart - as it passes by, we stay with it. The NAMELESS HISTORIAN is riding onboard, and he enthusiastically closes his book and looks up at the sight of us.

 

NAMELESS HISTORIAN:

(As if he’s just had his memory pleasantly jogged)

The capital! Yes, we really must devote a little time to discussing the Cyshanic capital, whether you know it as Emmensar, Emon Sar, Sari Antequori or indeed, as Catalfac, city of crowned corpses.

 

In the classical era, it was customary in our part of the world to build our cities in the form of a kneeling woman.

 

It was commonly agreed back then that the Big Man must be male, and was wandering lost amongst the stars in search of a breeding partner. And so our ancestors thought it prudent to construct their towering citadels in a shape which he might find attractive.

(Pause)

As an act of encouragement.

 

Since then we’ve come to know that we know less, and the city has broken the banks of her body.

 

Rising nearly a mile over the city streets, Catalfac’s immense Brow grows wild and unruly, a crumbling tower-keep impaled upon hundreds of elegant white turrets and cornices - remnants from the Wain conquest. 

 

Any number of great sculptors and a few very bad ones have been commissioned over the centuries to give our city a single distinctive face; their vying interpretations glare down at us in soft white marble from every angle of the city’s heights, inscrutable beneath their dripping braids of wisteria and ivy. 

 

Far below the Brow and the endless stairs and elevators of the Stiff lies the city’s vast and hollowed-out ribcage.

 

And amongst the citadel’s crumbling, sea-bleached foundations, the Guts of Catalfac spill lovingly across the darkness of Emmen Bay; a distinct floating city of boiling-mills that harvest precious white salt from the treacherous waters of the Weep.

 

It is in the Guts, upon the same morning as Dogged Morel rides out upon her final chance, that a young citizen of the nation by the unfortunate name of Caul Serrikane is preparing to die.

(Pause)

Again.

 

A peal of thunder high above. The NAMELESS HISTORIAN opens his umbrella-

 

CAUL’S LODGINGS, INT, DAY

 

-and we’re in the middle of a rainstorm. Thunder sounds close by overhead.

 

CAUL SERRIKANE closes the window. The exertion alone makes her wince. She runs out of breath easily, as we’ll see later on.

 

CAUL talks flat and emotionless for the most part - when she shows feeling, that’s when we ought to be paying attention.

 

She crosses to her workbench and opens up a cage, scraping some salad leaves inside. The mice within squeak and gnaw at their food.

 

CAUL:

Eat up, lads. Big day ahead.

 

She turns to a second cage and raps gently on the lid.

 

CAUL:

(Softly)

You ready to get going, Sister Bull?

 

From inside the second cage, we hear a hoarse, throaty voice - there’s a sentient severed head in there. The HEAD OF SISTER BULL sounds gentle and kind, despite being obviously rotten.

 

THE HEAD OF SISTER BULL:

(As if quoting scripture)

“The next world’s mother walks primed and ready to push. The next world’s midwife must forever stand ready to aid.”

(With soft worry)

Do be careful today, Caul.

 

CAUL:

Will try. Closing the door again.

 

HEAD OF SISTER BULL:

Good luck.

 

CAUL carefully closes the door of the second cage. She lifts them both onto her shoulder - some kind of harness, from what we can hear - with a grunt of exertion and then gets up and heavily passes through into the central room of the cramped lodgings.

 

She calls out to her FADER, who’s sat by the window next to the pouring rain, rocking back and forth.

 

CAUL:

(Calling out)

I’m leaving for the day, fa. You need anything before I go?

(Not getting a response)

Fader?

 

CAUL’S FADER stirs in his chair. 

 

CAUL’S FADER:

(With an angry, fussy obsessiveness)

Pair of brossies staying at Dreng’s place. Been mincing and laughing all morning, loud as anything, spraying fog about. 

(Still staring)

Haven’t even closed the shutters. Nasty creatures. Do they think people want to listen to that?

 

I didn’t fight for that.

 

CAUL:

(Softly and tiredly)

What did you fight for?

 

CAUL’S FADER;

(Unhearing)

Hm?

 

CAUL:

(Repeating loudly)

Glass of water, maybe?

 

She goes over to the still and finds a glass.

 

CAUL’S FADER:

(Still entirely consumed)

Never used to see ‘em in the Guts, not before the war, now it’s like they’ve come out of the woodwork. Always loud, always laughing, or else screaming at each other in their silly damned voices. 

(With spiteful relish)

Let ‘em laugh. The Dourmarrow, he’s got no time for brossies and flints.

 

It’s not just gossip, not this time. He’s been putting together a…a new Act of Regress against this kind of public display, they’re going to run it through the courts fast as you like, Hollowbrow’s approving it now- 

 

CAUL hands him a glass of water. It’s enough to distract him.

 

CAUL:

Here. Drink it up.

 

She goes to close his window.

 

CAUL’S FADER:

(Sipping the water)

Mm. Thank you.

(As a warning)

Raining hard.

 

CAUL:

Still gotta go, though.

 

She turns back and begins picking up her cages and harness.

 

CAUL’S FADER:

(With genuine nervousness)

You should steer clear of Harmon’s Way. Couple of oilies got to a Cysh girl there the other night, cut her up bad. It’s getting worse every day.

 

Dourmarrow’s doing his best to hold back the tide, but they’re everywhere now, and the lords of the permissive centuries, they just keep on inviting ‘em on in, because it’s-

 

CAUL:

(Tired of this)

Back before dark, all right?

 

CAUL’S FADER:

Keep to the corpse-lamp streets.

(Calling needily out)

Love you, Caul.

 

CAUL slams the door without replying.

 

STAIRCASE, INT, DAY

 

CAUL shoulders her bag, and hurries down the stairs.

 

She pushes open the door and step into the streets of CATALFAC-

 

CATALFAC STREETS (THE GUTS), EXT, DAY

 

And out here, nobody seems to care that it’s raining. Children laugh and play; there’s chatter and drunken amusement. We catch a STREET-PREACHER OF THE PHALLETHEIA delivering a lecture:

 

PREACHER OF THE PHALLETHEIA:

(Rapturous and utterly sincere)

For centuries we cleaved to these divine truths! The Kindly Ancestors upon their thrones never once doubted these divine truths! That the Big Man is a wayman, male-bodied and possessed of a cock! Yea, a great cock, thousands of miles across and just as broad!

 

And if our telescopes cannot see the Big Man’s cock, it is their failing and not his! Yea, the Big Man’s cock is hidden from our sight beneath his vast tufts, and it is hidden only because he desires us to have faith! It is tucked, tucked that it might inspire us to imagine!

 

But one day…one day he shall unfurl it!

 

CAUL moves through it all, effortlessly and invisibly.

 

CAUL:

Scuse me, pardon me…

 

The hubbub dies away as we slip into CAUL's head.

 

CAUL:

(V.O., soft and reflective, with more emotion than she allows to creep into her everyday speech)

This city’s too busy growing to know that she’s dying. 

 

Every limb she loses grows three more. Every injury suffered by one organ feeds another. 

 

Furious industry. Vast stone flesh-facts whose corpse-hymns carry right up through the chimneys, until dead fish start to flop and wriggle on their stalls.

 

I go walking in these streets every day and I look to see what’s lost; shopfronts closed down, vanished tenements. The faces of pleading pity-takers who know there’s no money going around to spare but don’t know what else to do.

 

They keep on repeating the same desperate pleas in a weaker voice, the same stories about horrific war wounds and sick children, until one day there’s someone else kneeling in their spot.

 

I’ll see them again below.

 

Poets have written for centuries about Catalfac. Black Jewel of the Far Stink. Even when the world despised our nation, it still found ways to fall in love with its heart,

 

Mother-City of the Cysh and the Shanic, warm-hearted eater of children. She’ll let you trade for anything, which means she’ll let you get away with anything - which means that anything is possible. 

 

Once upon a time you’d be able to find a quivering orphan on some distant skin-isle who’d had his entire family wiped out by Cyshanic musketfire - and he’d still dream at night about coming to this city to make something of himself.

 

It’s hard to fall out of love with stories, even when they’re devouring you.

 

But from what I can see…the story’s begun to lose its grip. Everything changes, but no-one escapes.

 

I cannot feel anything up here but itching. 

 

A sickness I won’t be rid of until I’m back where I belong.
 

CAUL takes a breath - and then knocks on a heavy metal door. We hear a hatch slide open.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

(Muffled, from behind the door)

What do you want?

 

CAUL:

(Calling back)

Here to see the Nametaker. I’ve got an appointment.

 

A pause.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

(Muffled, from behind a door)

You the dead-diver?

 

CAUL:

That’s me.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

(Muffled, from behind a door)

Sure you weren’t followed?

 

CAUL:

(Shrugging)

No.

(Pause)

Can I come in anyway?

 

An annoyed pause. The hatch slides shut. We can still faintly hear the NAMETAKER’S SECOND behind the door.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

(Quietly, as if to someone else)

She says she wants to come in anyway.

 

A long silence - and then we hear the bolts being drawn across. The door swings open.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

(Sullenly)

Come on. Quickly now.

 

CAUL steps inside. The SECOND slams the door again-

 

​

NAMETAKER’S STUDY, INT, DAY

 

-and then we are suddenly in the NAMETAKER’s study.

 

The NAMETAKER is a medium-level gangster in the city docks. They watch CAUL with a feline amusement - which will turn gradually to irritation as CAUL refuses to play along.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Taking a seat)

You weren’t followed, I hope.

 

CAUL:

(Not answering the question)

Your man at the door asked me just the same thing.

 

The NAMETAKER only smirks.

 

NAMETAKER:

Getting harder and harder to keep a low profile in the city these days, unfortunately. 

 

Heard a rumour the blinders might start sewing eyes and ears onto rats soon, send ‘em out into the Guts. Can you believe that?

(As if shaking their head)

Strange time to be alive, but there’s good as well as bad.

 

They lean forward and then whisk a cloth off the desk.

 

A SINGER’S HEAD, severed and faintly moaning.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Conversationally, to CAUL, pointing to the SINGER’S HEAD)

Case in point. I only got this dimbox head a few days ago. Been looking for opportunities to show him off to guests. Cost me eight-and-ten plus a live cat for the exchange, but it was worth it.

 

Watch this, it’s good.

 

Sing for me, Scrofulous.

 

SINGER’S HEAD:

(Weakly)

I don’t want to die-

 

The NAMETAKER slaps the SINGER’S HEAD.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Like someone annoyed at an unresponsive Alexa)

Sing, I said.

 

The DEAD SINGER’S HEAD groans horribly, stirs - and then begins to sing. The performance is throaty, wavering, and off-key. 

 

SINGER’S HEAD:

I was walking the old road to Emmensar

I hadn’t walked long and I wouldn’t get far

When I saw a girl with eyes like stars

As I was walking the old road to Emmensar.

 

Her belly was opened with a surgeon’s scar

And her lips were slick with wet black tar-

 

The NAMETAKER listens, enthusiastically. CAUL is not interested.

 

CAUL:

(Calmly and tactlessly)

He’s off on the high notes.

 

The NAMETAKER is annoyed - and a little offended.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Snapping)

That’s enough, Scrof, that’s enough.

 

The DEAD SINGER’S HEAD groans, mumbles, and falls silent. The NAMETAKER replaces the cloth.

 

NAMETAKER:

(A little put out)

Thought you’d be more impressed.

(Pretending to be mortified by CAUL’s lack of reaction, like they’ve committed a social faux pas)

Oh, I do hope it doesn’t cause offence, seeing him like this. Using dead flesh for living sport? 

 

CAUL:

I’d be in a strange line of work if it did bother me.

 

The NAMETAKER keeps watching CAUL. They are definitely irritated now.

 

NAMETAKER:

You always talk like that?

 

CAUL:

Like what?

 

NAMETAKER:

Much too careful.

 

Hard to read. I appreciate someone being tight-lipped when they’re handling my business, but you don’t want to work with someone who’s got an attitude, either.

(Shrugging, as if moving on)

Tell me a little something about yourself, dead-diver.

 

CAUL:

(About to say ‘like what?’)

Like-

 

NAMETAKER:

(Snapping in annoyance, spelling it out as if to an idiot)

Don’t say “like what”. If you and I are going to work together, we need to reveal ourselves to one another first. That’s custom. 

 

Your generation, you’ve near-given up on tradition, but it used to be a fog-burner and a meal, a good long talk about the wrongs of the world for five breaths or more, and at the end of it, both thoroughly soused, knowing and owning one another…

 

…we’d bind cord and chain together as friends and colleagues.

 

Now life’s much too fast.

(Inviting a response)

Tell me what you are, first off. 

 

Woman?

(Goading)

Wayman? One of the neithers, maybe?

 

CAUL:

(Calmly and tactlessly)

I see that as entirely irrelevant to our work together.

 

The NAMETAKER snorts in frustration.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Darkly and brightly all at once)

It’s not irrelevant. Far from it. Different parts I’ll be cutting off you if you fuck things up for me.

(Engagingly, as if demonstrating how to hold a conversation)

I’m a neither. 

 

Don’t tell me, you wouldn’t know it to look at me, and probably I’m too old for that sort of nonsense anyway, aren’t I, especially with the dead lords rolling it all back any day now.

(With a little quiet honesty)

Started out as a lark, to be perfectly honest. We’re not fashionable down here, so I wanted to see how the boys reacted. Who scoffed and told me I’d gone mad. Who nodded and smiled and said, sure, boss, you don’t have to be a wayman or a woman, you can be anything you want-

 

-then started making their own plans behind my back.

 

You can’t be afraid to make yourself a little foolish if you want to see who’s loyal to you.

 

But over time, I actually started coming around to it. Maybe I never was a woman or a wayman. Maybe I’m a force.

(Glancing back to CAUL)

Do you feel like you’re a force?

 

CAUL:

(Honestly - and once more, tactlessly) 

I feel like I’m losing patience.

 

NAMETAKER:

(As if agreeing)

Me too. Me too. That’s my point.

 

Some men are forest fires, some are icebergs. I can work with fire, I can direct it. Icebergs make me nervous.

 

So you come here, dead-diver, and you give me a lot of short answers, a lot of stony faces like you think you’re being clever keeping all your thoughts to yourself, I start to get thoughts of my own. “Maybe there’s something wrong with this one. Maybe they’ll get some funny ideas in their head that I won’t see coming.”

(Darkly)

Or maybe they’re hiding something else from me. 

 

Spag vouched for you, and Spag’s word means a lot, but I don’t know you. And if I don’t know you, I can’t like you, and if I don’t like you, we can’t work together, and if we can’t work together, well, then you’re just wasting my fucking time, aren’t you?

 

The NAMETAKER slams their fist on the desk. The SINGER’S HEAD topples to the floor, mumbling to itself.

 

NAMETAKER:

Give me. Something.

 

CAUL considers for a long moment. Then she speaks with soft, slightly unnerving honesty.

 

CAUL:

I can give up a shameful secret, if that’s what it takes to gain your trust. A truth I’ve never shared with anyone else. How does that sound?

 

NAMETAKER:

(Intrigued)

Go on.

 

CAUL holds the NAMETAKER's gaze.

 

CAUL:

(As evenly as ever)

I live on the fourth floor of a building overlooking the Spill with myfader, who hasn’t walked since the war.

 

Every morning at first light I move my fader to the window, where he likes to sit and mock and rage all day long at anyone who makes him uncomfortable. 

 

Queers and foreigners, the diseased and the walking wounded; any abnormality in his sight suffers his raging scorn, and when he cannot see anyone to his liking he sits there poised and unhappy.

 

I lie on my bed in the next room and I think about killing him.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Amused)

Really?

 

CAUL:

(Simply)

He’s nothing but weight and bitterness now. He brings no joy to me and no joy to anyone else.

 

Nobody comes to visit him. It would be very easy.

 

And it occurs to me often that what’s waiting for him below in the Neth - all that’s waiting for him below - may be a small chair before a draughty window, in the rain and the darkness, and brimming life down in the street for him to rage at.

 

His paradise is already his punishment. So why wait?

 

This morning I came close.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Simply)

What’s stopping you?

 

CAUL:

The fear that it would not be as pleasurable to act as to dream.

 

The NAMETAKER takes this in.

 

NAMETAKER:

You spend a lot of time dead, I’m guessing.

 

CAUL:

When I’m working.

 

NAMETAKER:

For you, is it paradise or punishment?

 

CAUL:

Once you’ve been dead once, life starts to look very limiting.

 

The trouble is that we live in mad times, like you said. A time when the dead are returned to us in miraculous art and our labours do not end when our hearts cease to beat. And I’m not willing to die so long as my oblivion can be stolen from me.

(Leaning forward, meeting the NAMETAKER dead in the eye; still not raising her voice)

If my temperament frustrates you, Nametaker, there’s not much I can do about that. I lack the will to perform for you.

 

But there’s nothing in my heart I’m unwilling to share. No secrets I’m hiding. I’m not working for the blinders, or for any one of your rivals.

 

And if you can’t see that, you’re the one who’s wasting my time.

 

The NAMETAKER considers for a long moment.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Sniffing with amusement)

Maybe I like you after all, iceberg.

 

CAUL:

I like me too. Am I hired?

 

The NAMETAKER breathes out.

 

NAMETAKER:

You’re hired, you’re hired. You’re far too fucking expensive, but you’re hired.

(Letting down their guard a little)

You were always hired, in truth. Spag’s never steered me wrong before.

(Getting down to business)

Everything’s set up in the salt-chamber. Got the body waiting for us in one of the vats.

 

Tell me how it’s going to work first, then I’ll go down there and tell the boys something more exciting.

 

CAUL nods. She rapidly becomes all business from this point onwards, taking control of the conversation in a way that takes the NAMETAKER by surprise.

 

CAUL:

You brought everything I asked for?

 

NAMETAKER:

I can take direction. Dead man’s cherished item, right? 

(Tossing the knife across the desk or maybe stabbing it in point-first, depending on what sounds better)

We’ve got his pocket-knife. Whalebone handle. He was always picking at things with it, every spare moment he had. Could have been a sculptor, maybe, in another life.

 

He did the deed with it. Figured that might help, too.

 

CAUL examines the knife.

 

CAUL:

What sort of things did he carve?

 

NAMETAKER:

(Slightly annoyed)

Patterns, like I said. Nothing with meaning.

 

That’s enough, right?

 

CAUL:

(Tossing the knife back down)

Let’s hope so.

 

From your perspective, it’s going to be very simple.

 

I’ll get into the casket alongside the dead man. When the bells begin to sound the draw, I’ll drink the heartstopper. 

 

You’ll take his knife and you’ll snap it in two, then toss it in with me. Do it quickly, before I’m dead. Affix the lid and nail us down.

​

When you hear the bells for the next blow - that’s when you’ll bring me back up.

 

She reaches down and dumps one of her cages onto the desk.

 

CAUL:

There are twelve mice in this cage. Toss them into the fire by the casket. Don’t let a single one escape. 

 

Can you sing?

 

NAMETAKER:

(Now genuinely a little nervous, like a schoolchild who hasn’t revised)

A little.

 

I mean, not like a coldcook or anything-

 

CAUL:

(Interrupting)

As the mice are burning, you’ll sing the yearningchant to bring me back. Nothing fancy, nothing complex; Lament For The Sleeper ought to do it. Stay roughly in tune, keep broadly to the beat, and I’ll hear it.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Impressed)

Twelve mice. That’s all it takes? Griz Pecker - runs the Golden Barrel Boys in Pissholder - she set a whole slaughterhouse aflame and it wasn’t enough to bring back her boy.

 

CAUL:

(Shrugging)

Now you know why I’m too fucking expensive.

(Reaching for the second cage)

If I’m not stirring by the time the bells end, that’s when you open the second cage.

 

NAMETAKER:

What’s in that?

 

CAUL:

I’ve got my own singing dimbox. Head of a priestess.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Genuinely baffled and amused)

What?

 

CAUL unlocks and opens the cage.

 

THE HEAD OF SISTER BULL obediently begins to sing, as if she’s also a fleshy record player. She’s noticeably better than the SINGER’S HEAD.

 

HEAD OF SISTER BULL:

Discard despair and banish woe,

Hear the new world knock below

She grows and stirs each passing year

Our lives and cares to gently bear-

 

CAUL closes the cage again.

 

CAUL:

During the war, I was in the care of the Congregation of the Worldwomb. She used to sing me lullaby-hymns of the Better Body That’s Yet To Come to send me to sleep, night after night, over the sound of cannonfire.

 

After she died, I took her head, brought it to a coldcook, dimboxed her. If I’m lost in the Neth, the sound of her voice is the surest way to lure me back.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Impressed)

How did you afford it?

 

CAUL:

With favours below.

 

NAMETAKER:

Would you consider selling her?

 

CAUL:

(With neutral implication)

Only to someone I like.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Taking that on the chin)

All right. 

 

CAUL:

All being well, you’ll hear me rap on the lid once I’m back up. Four knocks, and then I’ll call you by name. If you hear anything else, something’s claimed my body that shouldn’t have and it’s refusing to let me back in. What you do then is up to you, but consider me a lost cause.

 

What was the dead man’s name again?

 

NAMETAKER:

Vile-and-repugnant Wiles. 

(Hastening to explain)

He pissed all over the lord who came to the birthing ward to name him. 

 

We just called him Pug.

 

CAUL:

(Ignoring all of that)

Do you have a specific message for Pug?

 

NAMETAKER:

(Considering it)

Yeah, I do. Yeah…tell him I need to know where he’s stashed what he stole from me. 

(Licking their lips)

Tell him…that if I don’t get it back, it’s his wife and his daughter I’ll be coming after.

 

If this threat bothers CAUL, we don’t hear it in her voice - instead she tries to very neutrally steer the NAMETAKER in another direction.

 

CAUL:

That won’t work. You can’t threaten the dead with the prospect of seeing their loved ones again.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Calmly shrugging, as in, ‘I can torture them’)

I can make it slow for them in getting to him, though.

 

CAUL:

You don’t understand, Nametaker. Time and pain are both irrelevant to him now. 

 

NAMETAKER:

(Acknowledging the point)

Mm.

 

CAUL:

(Delivering an alternate proposal)

I’ll tell him his wife sent me down. She can’t put food on the table. She needs money fast.

 

The NAMETAKER examines their nails for a moment.

 

NAMETAKER:

(A little evasively)

It’s not money he stole, though, is the thing.

 

The NAMETAKER hesitates - and then gets up and goes to the safe.

 

They take out a jar and lay it on the desk, sliding it across to CAUL.

 

Inside, a SENTIENT ORGAN (we have no way of knowing which one) is tapping and scuttling.

 

NAMETAKER:

We’re calling it ‘mem’. You take a choice cut of a deadman’s organ, you sing a very particular song of yearning over it until it starts to twitch and writhe, then you hold your nose and swallow it whole.

 

Count to ten, and you’ll be lost. Pure condensed memory. Rich man’s tongue might give you sixty years of cassoulet and plum pudding. Their lungs a cellar’s worth of finest fogwine. Sample a beautiful cunny or cock and experience new realms of pleasure.

 

Give it a month, the whole city’ll be warring over this stuff. 

 

CAUL:

(Examining the SENTIENT ORGAN)

Did you invent this?

 

NAMETAKER:

I own the man who did.

 

Pug was one of our tasters. Some of them go erratic, they can’t handle what they’ve seen. You know the old girl who’s been begging outside the Grand Almonde last few weeks? Screaming and cursing?

 

CAUL:

I’ve seen her.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Simply, meaning ‘she used to be one of ours’)

Sad, really.

(Picking up the thread again)

Pug was solid, though. Kept his head down, got on with his work.

 

And then last week he caught a taste of something that must’ve been too good to share, because he swiped the rest of the batch after hours and ran.

 

CAUL:

And he used the knife to complete his escape. 

 

NAMETAKER:

Slit his own wrists in a hostel up in the Ribs.

 

Sensible, knowing what I’d do to him when I found him.

 

CAUL:

I suppose you’ve accounted for the possibility that he ate the whole batch and then slit his wrists because he couldn’t handle the consequences.

 

NAMETAKER:

We cut his belly open, yeah. No sign of any of it. He’s stashed it somewhere. I know he has.

 

CAUL:

(Accepting the task)

I’ll find out what I can from him.

 

NAMETAKER:

What happens if you can’t get Pug to talk?

 

CAUL:

You’ll let me keep half my fee for an honest effort, and you’ll forget about your stolen mem. There’s plenty more gouty aristos in Catalfac waiting to lose their toes.

(Shrugging)

You can’t press the dead, Nametaker. With every passing moment in the Neth, he’s falling further from the man he was.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Grumbling)

Sits badly on my stomach, letting him get away with it. Death shouldn’t be an escape from me.

 

Fuck it.

(Getting up)

Come on, then, let’s go make the introductions. Left at the bottom of the stairs.

 

They get to their feet. NAMETAKER pushes the door and steps out through-

 

BOILING-CHAMBER, INT, DAY

 

-and suddenly we hear the roar of pouring salt.

 

A hubbub of rowdy voices below. Salt is being harvested from seawater. We can hear the hiss of loud industrial steam, the voices of workers. The NAMETAKER, at the top of the stairs, bellows down,

 

NAMETAKER:

Down tools! Everyone, shut up and stand still!

 

Whistles. Machines stop. Silence descends.

 

The NAMETAKER pats CAUL on the shoulder.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Dramatically calling down)

This is Caul Serrikane, a very old friend of mine! A hunter and a tracker in the Kingdom of Worms! And today you’re going to have the privilege of watching them take the plunge into the black depths of the Nether itself.

 

Caul Serrikane is going to find that traitor Pug. They’re going to tear his quaking spirit asunder, limb from limb, memory from memory! He’s going to forget his loved ones’ names, he’s going to forget the face of his fader and matter, he will forget everything-

 

-but the name of his dear employer, who he wronged.

 

So remember, boys, and remember well. Death is no escape from me!

 

Subdued but harsh laughter from the NAMETAKER’s assembled crew.

 

NAMETAKER:

All right, now, haul the coffin out, come on. Let’s get this moving.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

To the chains, lads! Let’s have at it.

 

A crane creaks across the chamber and begins to haul out the coffin. CAUL and the NAMETAKER watch.

 

CAUL:

(Softly)

Only living labour down here.

 

NAMETAKER:

I start hiring dimboxes, boys get jumpy about being replaced. Besides - corpse-workers don’t answer to you, they answer to the one who raised ‘em.

(Glancing at CAUL)

That a problem?

 

The coffin comes crashing down. CAUL does not react.

 

CAUL:

Not at all. It reduces the risk of interference.

 

The NAMETAKER’S SECOND hurries up to them. His earlier gruffness is all gone.

 

WORKER:

(Nervously)

Dead-diver, um - if it please you, my sweetheart died last year of the blue-vein, and we never had the chance to speak. If you should happen to see her, and if you could give her a message-

 

NAMETAKER:

Piss off with that nonsense, Woolley. Your girl’s tramping for fog in the vineyards, she’s not taking callers in the Neth. Back to your place, sharpish.

(to CAUL)

Sorry about that. You get asked to pass love-notes around a lot?

 

CAUL:

It’s only natural for the living to long for connection.

(Calling out to the workers)

Open the casket, please.

 

A creak as the coffin lid is opened and tossed to one side. Inside is the corpse of PUG, and we might imagine, a pretty horrible smell.

 

NAMETAKER:

Phew. Starting to reek already. We can light a fog-burner - keep the smell away, maybe?

 

CAUL:

(Unconcerned)

Don’t bother. 

 

CAUL climbs inside the casket alongside PUG.

 

CAUL:

You bring me back on the hour. No longer.

 

NAMETAKER:

We’ll handle everything, don’t you fret.

 

And you tell Pug-

(Softly, not wanting to be heard softening their tone)

-tell Pug if he gives up the goods, we’re even. I mean that, genuinely.He can have his oblivion. 

 

CAUL:

I’ll tell him. Here’s to your health.

 

CAUL uncorks a small bottle from her pocket - pauses for a second, taking a breath - and then drinks it in a single violent gulp.

 

She drops it with a small clink. A moment passes. Then she begins to choke and cough violently, in horrible pain, as the poison takes effect - and retches.

 

NAMETAKER’S SECOND:

(Shocked)

Man’s milky tits.

 

CAUL:

(Wheezing and spluttering)

Knife…knife…

 

NAMETAKER:

(Remembering)

Oh, cock-of-the-world, I’ve got to kill the damned knife-

 

They quickly bend the blade under their heel with a grunt of exertion and then toss it into the coffin. CAUL violently vomits up blood into the coffin. It’s so awful that it’s comical.

 

NAMETAKER:

(Merrily, to the WORKERS)

Well, what’re you waiting for? 

 

Seal ‘em on up, quick. Get to it.

 

The lid is placed on top of CAUL and hammered home. She’s still choking, coughing, dying-