he said. “Just now I collided with a giant lunk of a corpse who seemed to believe such a mistake could reasonably be answered with fisticuffs. ‘You’d best proceed posthaste to the Plains of War,’ I told him before he had the chance to swing. ‘The advantages will be threefold: first, the dry desert air will preserve your bulk before it turns to blood pudding; second, you’ll cease to bother those of us who prefer to spend eternity enjoying our immortal good looks; and third, you’ll find yourself in company you can comprehend, surrounded by other brutes who find the prospect of pounding one another to mulch for centuries on end appealing.’ He thanked me for the insult, if you can believe it. Why, to such a brute, I daresay the Plains would be like Heaven!
“In any case, here are the drinks, which haven’t lost a drop. Now, what shall we toast to?”
“We drink,” said Jacob, “to the Living Man.”
“To the Living Man!” said Leopold. “To Saint Nick and his rotting reindeer! To Twice-Dead Lazarus and the lotus-scented carcass of Buddha!”
“To the Living Man,” said Jacob, “and the path we’ll walk when we find him.”
“Cheers!” said Remington, and they drank.
“Hold on a mo,” said Leopold, “you weren’t serious, were you?”
“Of course I was,” said Jacob. “Finding the Living Man is the whole of our purpose in the Tunnels.”
“You’ve hired me to help you find a character from a fairy-tale? Why, Jacob, what a delightful little delusion! A pity for you, since a man can only follow a fantasy to its dissolution, but at least it will make a decent barroom tale of your otherwise flavorless existence.”
“Why’s Leopold poking fun at you?” said Remington.
“For the same reason a sheep bleats. You must understand that the average citizen treats the tale of the Living Man as an urban legend. I first heard the popular version soon after I’d opened the shop, when a client said to me, ‘Freshen me up, Jacob: make me feel like the Living Man for a day.’ To put her at ease (since your average corpse is nervous as a virgin when under the knife, and will talk about anything for the sake of distraction), I asked her what this figure of speech referred to.
“‘He’s just what he sounds like,’ she said: ‘a man from the Lands Above who found his way down without dying.’ His story, as most citizens know it, is a corruption of the Orpheus myth. The Living Man was a newlywed whose bride died on their honeymoon; driven insane by grief, he glimpsed the veil between worlds, which he crossed with the aid of the devil.”
“Nonsense!” said Leopold. “He sang a song so heart-rending that the veil between life and death parted right there in their honeymoon suite. He bounded from a heart-shaped bed onto the peak of Bald Mountain.”
“In another version he’s a scientist who builds a machine to open an inter-dimensional portal,” said Jacob. “But regardless of his method, our mourner made the passage and found himself in an inhospitable underworld with no idea how to find his beloved. Lost and despondent, he began to search Dead City, armed only with her name.
“The trials that follow make up the bulk of the story, and only exist to show off the features of our decrepit metropolis in ways that mock the limitations of the living.”
“Why, those are the good parts!” said Leopold. “The best is the bit at the end where he’s lost in the Tunnels and maddened by thirst. After he runs out of piss, he downs a cup of swill, which sends him around the bend; he ends up mistaking a barmaid whose brains are leaking out of her nose for his sweetheart, and drinks himself to death trying to catch her eye.”
“Thus ends this ignoble tale, full of anachronisms and Dead City in-jokes, and thus the greatest explorer the worlds of life and death have ever known becomes a laughing-stock.”
“And why not?” said Leopold. “What about this quaint little tragedy makes you
“In any case, here are the drinks, which haven’t lost a drop. Now, what shall we toast to?”
“We drink,” said Jacob, “to the Living Man.”
“To the Living Man!” said Leopold. “To Saint Nick and his rotting reindeer! To Twice-Dead Lazarus and the lotus-scented carcass of Buddha!”
“To the Living Man,” said Jacob, “and the path we’ll walk when we find him.”
“Cheers!” said Remington, and they drank.
“Hold on a mo,” said Leopold, “you weren’t serious, were you?”
“Of course I was,” said Jacob. “Finding the Living Man is the whole of our purpose in the Tunnels.”
“You’ve hired me to help you find a character from a fairy-tale? Why, Jacob, what a delightful little delusion! A pity for you, since a man can only follow a fantasy to its dissolution, but at least it will make a decent barroom tale of your otherwise flavorless existence.”
“Why’s Leopold poking fun at you?” said Remington.
“For the same reason a sheep bleats. You must understand that the average citizen treats the tale of the Living Man as an urban legend. I first heard the popular version soon after I’d opened the shop, when a client said to me, ‘Freshen me up, Jacob: make me feel like the Living Man for a day.’ To put her at ease (since your average corpse is nervous as a virgin when under the knife, and will talk about anything for the sake of distraction), I asked her what this figure of speech referred to.
“‘He’s just what he sounds like,’ she said: ‘a man from the Lands Above who found his way down without dying.’ His story, as most citizens know it, is a corruption of the Orpheus myth. The Living Man was a newlywed whose bride died on their honeymoon; driven insane by grief, he glimpsed the veil between worlds, which he crossed with the aid of the devil.”
“Nonsense!” said Leopold. “He sang a song so heart-rending that the veil between life and death parted right there in their honeymoon suite. He bounded from a heart-shaped bed onto the peak of Bald Mountain.”
“In another version he’s a scientist who builds a machine to open an inter-dimensional portal,” said Jacob. “But regardless of his method, our mourner made the passage and found himself in an inhospitable underworld with no idea how to find his beloved. Lost and despondent, he began to search Dead City, armed only with her name.
“The trials that follow make up the bulk of the story, and only exist to show off the features of our decrepit metropolis in ways that mock the limitations of the living.”
“Why, those are the good parts!” said Leopold. “The best is the bit at the end where he’s lost in the Tunnels and maddened by thirst. After he runs out of piss, he downs a cup of swill, which sends him around the bend; he ends up mistaking a barmaid whose brains are leaking out of her nose for his sweetheart, and drinks himself to death trying to catch her eye.”
“Thus ends this ignoble tale, full of anachronisms and Dead City in-jokes, and thus the greatest explorer the worlds of life and death have ever known becomes a laughing-stock.”
“And why not?” said Leopold. “What about this quaint little tragedy makes you
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