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labels in precambrian ink, dark jumbles.
    The Divinity Student then sees Magellan. He sits almost invisible in a haze of window-refracted light, fragrant smoke curls about his head, wafting up from two braziers burning on his desk. He’s of no certain age, in his shirtsleeves and suspenders, and his face is painted white, white with black marks around his eyes, and his upper lip is also black. His eyelids have been painted with two green irises and black pupils, making it impossible to tell whether his eyes are open or closed.
    The client’s voice breaks the silence. He’s looking down into his lap, a little embarrassed.
    “Uh show me what it’s like to be uh—” he looks up at the high priest, “—a cat.”
    The familiar runs up from the wings with a large jar. Inside, the Divinity Student can see a marmalade-colored cat preserved in formaldehyde. With a slight bow, the familiar sets the jar on the desk and retreats again.
    Magellan, moving for the first time, slowly twists the lid off the jar and sets it down on the desk. A thin, sour smell rises from the open jar and trickles in the Divinity Student’s nostrils, pushing him a little back in his chair as if a little had seeped just into his skull. Magellan gets ponderously to his feet and dips his fingers into the jar. He slaps the air twice with the back of his hand, spattering the supplicant’s face with formaldehyde. Magellan scoops a little in the palm of his hand, brings his painted face down, and blows it in the man’s face like an atomizer.
    The client remains perfectly still, breathing deeply as the spray settles on his face. After a moment he begins to sway in the chair, his breathing alters, and for a time he sits there entranced. Magellan lowers himself back into his chair. The jar is resealed and spirited away, the cat inside jostling, fur pressed flat against the glass, face shrunken and vacated. The incense floats up to the ceiling, the window burns with light, the client’s head falling back in slow motion . . . Magellan’s fixed gaze. Watching, again the Divinity Student is overcome with the feeling that he is watching something vital to his unknown cause. He feels himself being drawn toward Magellan.
    Eventually, the man’s trance lifts. He rises unsteadily, struggling to speak, but Magellan isn’t looking at him. So he turns, almost bending forward as if to bound off on all fours, but no, he catches himself—he weaves his way to the door and is gone.
    The familiar appears again, and beckons the Divinity Student up to the desk, again without speaking, until he is within only a few feet of the high priest.
    After a few moments, the familiar looks at the Divinity Student with impatience, gesturing at the satchel. The Divinity Student rustles around in the bag—empty, except for a velvet pouch, incongruously rich in the raggedy bag. He hands it queryingly to the familiar, who raises a cautionary finger to his lips and rolls his eyes at Magellan, who sits still and blank as a statue. The familiar opens the pouch, and pours out a dozen thin ivory wafers, each with a single word written on it. They are instantly sorted by the man’s long, gray fingers, lining them up on the desk: verbs first, then nouns, then qualifiers, every one set in place with a single, precise tap. Then out comes a long wooden box from under his skirts and flips open to reveal an index of ivory wafers to which the new twelve are added in exact order, in exactly the right places. And throughout, he has not lifted his gaze from the Divinity Student.
    “No one speaks freely to the high priest,” he says, “not even myself.” His voice is level and even, eyes animal bright.
    “Those who petition may only use words from this index,” pausing a moment to point at the box, “so as not to profane his ears.”
    He snaps the box shut.
    “I know all the words, I have practiced, now I use no others. It is second nature to me.”
    The Divinity Student looks beyond him to