[Suzerain of Sheol]

"Oh, Master, I fear you have erred in your judgment of me." The Fisher-King turns his depthless stare back to the night sky, reaching up to brush a tear of blood from his cheek where it weeps from his wounded eye. "The tragedy of the King of Carbonec comes not from the injustices that were wrought upon this body, no, maimed and castrated, I was not unique in such straits. The sorrow that shackles me is of a different order entire."

A dribble of brown-red spittle rolls from the abscess at the corner of his mouth. "These wounds you see before you, Lucienne, are effigies. I am suffering incarnate, stigmatized by the sins of every human soul. The pestilence that seeps from me is not born of any humor of this ravaged body. You have as much claim to it as I myself do. More, even. I am but the manifest metaphor of what your kind has done to this world, given you by the grace of God."

The emaciated King's neck cranes down over his shoulder at a nearly inhuman angle to look at her. "Do not think that I absolve you of the slightest guilt, my Master. Merely, I do not blame you more than any other. All are equal in the eyes of God. Equally attainted, and equally damned."

His murky pupil comes into sudden, sharp focus. "Now tell me of the pit your soul has gouged into this world."