“Have you ever heard of anemore?”
Of course, he had. But Maathen didn't want an answer. He continued.
“It’s a more painless death than even arthig. But very, very hard to produce, hence most use arthig even if it is said to sting a bit on the way down. They say that with anemore, the moment of death is orgasmic and the moments that precede it, euphoric. Even with so much whiskal in your blood, Dr. Sherith says you are still in quite a bit of pain. I’m sorry, brother, that I cannot take away your pain. Pain is the penance the body enacts upon itself. But I’d like to offer you some anemore. A painless route…”
It was as if he wanted it to seem that he had something else to say, though it was clear he didn’t.
"Why?"
Dunne asked. He sat on the edge of a bed that was not his and to which his arms were shackled while the King graced his presence.
“Because I love you and I cannot bare to see you reduced to this, but I can’t save you, either.”
Maathen shook his head and pursed his lips beneath his new beard.
“It’s too late for that...”
“I’d rather hang in Tosokov Square—
“In Violl, we've established Volkov Square. I suggested Volkov-Chevre, but Michael wouldn't hear of it, of course...”
"Even Better."
Dunne smiled, almost genuinely. It hurt to smile. His skin burned when it flexed and the raw new teeth that were so very short and jagged at that time cut the inside of his cheeks when the skin grazed them.
"Not an option."
Maathen was quietier. As if he were trying to be kind. He was incapable of kindness.
“Then what? Will you pour the anemore down my throat? It shouldn’t be hard.”
He smiled again, wide and open this time to show the remnants of his gums and the shards of tooth that had begun to emerge from them in the places where his own had once been.
"No."
Maathen shook his head.
“I haven’t decided what I’ll do. Prison, exile, disfigurement, I’m unsure.”
"But not death?"
Dunne asked forcing his lips back over his gums. Maathen said nothing. That was enough of an answer.
"Then I'll take whatever you come up with."
Maathen sighed. He couldn’t look him in the eyes. It might have been the only thing to bring Dunne true joy in over four years. Finally, Maathen flexed his fingers on one another, cracked his knuckles weakly, and spoke,
"Are you so afraid of death, brother?"
"No. I am dead. But I won't die again unless it's by your hand."
Dunne leaned forward and the chains rattled with him and pressed against the gauze that covered his arms from wrist to shoulder and most of his fingers.
“I want you to fucking look at me when you kill me. I think I’ve earned it. But you can’t, can you? You’re fucking paralyzed."
Finally, Maathen’s demeanor turned.
“And you’re an illiterate peasant who thinks he’s the Unified General.”
“I don’t think I’m the Unified General. I know what I am, now.”
“Good.”
Maathen smiled, in earnest that time.
“And I know who you are, now, too. Decatur.”
Dunne almost whispered the word. He hadn’t meant to, but it held power over him as well and it meant more than it did between them. He wasn’t even ever sure if Maathen had heard it. It was so hard to tell. His face was already so frozen from the Ice.
That was the last time Maathen came to his cell and the second last time he saw him. The last time would be in Volkov Square. After the visit, they halved his whiskal, stopped sending books and newspapers, and certainly no more maids stopped in for a chat. Only Sherith came and when he did, he saw no hope for the regrowth of his optic nerve and ceased production of the artificial eye. But in the end, even after they burned the new flesh on his arm back to raw, all they ever did was send him to Misk.