Chapter 20

A man in the same black uniform as the rest, but with a gold ribbon on his breast, walked out and nudged each one of them with his toe. He grimaced in disgust when he saw that he had Paul's blood on his boot.

"Lord Galway always did have a temper," the man said. "Yet he has done you a favour. Soon you will be unable to conceive of anything that would displease God." Paul wanted to say something, though he wasn't sure of the shape of the words, but he couldn't force the words out past the blood in his mouth. "Don't you think it's marvelous?"

"This pleases God?" Daniel said.

"The Book requires me to keep order in my domain. What better way to keep order than to remove the desire for disorder?" The man walked to the railing and looked out over the Cauldron. "Can you believe that when God gave this to my ancestor it could be held in one hand? Each person who goes into the cauldron makes it slightly bigger. My counselors believe it is the will of the people that they leave in the cauldron that feeds it." He looked lovingly over the vast cauldron. "It is that will that we tap to make the ribbons and the badges so that everyone knows their place." He came and crouched down over Daniel, "Or at least most people. There are always those who must be given to the Cauldron because they refuse their place in the world."

"This is still wrong," Daniel said.

"How can it be wrong? It is written in the Book of my Kingdom. I would show it to you, but then I would have to kill you. The cauldron spawn are so much more useful when they go in alive. "

Paul felt a flutter inside his shirt. The Page was trying to tell him something. He pawed at his shirt, but he couldn't get his hands to work properly. The man with the gold ribbon pulled out the Page from Paul's shirt.

"How quaint," he said,"a page from a Book. He held up the page so Paul and Daniel could see it. "What am I?" he said to them,

King

Paul stared in despair at the page. This madness was in the Book. Then the words shifted.

Drink the Cauldron

Neither the King nor Daniel seemed to notice the new words. The King went on speaking as if the Page were showing exactly what he expected it too. He started trying to drag himself to the edge of the platform.

"Let me show you," he said, "Get up Maid, and jump into the Cauldron."

The woman climbed to her feet. With a look of absolute terror she walked to the edge of the platform and leaped. She let out a terrible shriek as she fell into the liquid, but as soon as her head went under the liquid it stopped. A moment later a grey hand clasped the edge of the Cauldron and a cauldron spawn pulled itself out. It fell to the floor and twitched a few times before a man in a black uniform stepped out of the shadows and guided the spawn away.

Paul reached the edge and looked down. He was dead anyway so he pushed himself over the edge and fell toward the seething liquid. Only he landed on the rim, half in, half out of the Cauldron. The agony from the knife made him scream. Liquid from the cauldron filled his mouth and he swallowed. Greasy and vile, it tasted like the smell of the cauldron spawn. If he'd been able, Paul would have vomited it up.

Drinking the fluid was like being stabbed by the knife again and again. Each moment grew more painful. Paul wanted to scream, or cry, but he couldn't. His body was no longer under his control. Paul's mouth stretched wide open and he swallowed the liquid without stopping.

Impossibly, the Cauldron started shrinking. Paul heard the King shouting for him to stop, but he could no more stop than he could have stopped falling if he fell from a tree. The pain continued unabated and Paul's vision changed. It was as if he had always seen the world as a painting flat on a wall and suddenly it gained depth and movement. He was taking in more than pain. He drank in despair and defeat. He swallowed cruelty and lies. Paul wondered how the Book could allow such darkness in the world, but then he saw something that turned him red with rage. the Books were a lie. Some Books were filled with honesty and hope, others with sick desires that were sated in pain and blood. The King was right. This Cauldron was in his Book. Paul could see it as if it were his own Book open on the counter in his kitchen.

The Books didn't come from God, or at least not the God that came to him in his home. He didn't know where they came from, but he knew they weren't from God. The idea that all his life had been given to a lie overwhelmed the rage with grief. It wasn't just him. It was Daniel and Diana too who were living the lie.

Paul was standing on the floor now and he put his arms around the huge pot and lifted. He drank in grief over all the people who were deceived. He loved them and wanted to free them. The greatest pain of all struck him then. He couldn't free them. It wasn't in his power to. Even God could not, or would not strike the blindness from their eyes. All his people were trapped by their desire to not fail God. By not failing God, they were failing themselves.