The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter (29 page)

Path considered a while, watching gases rise from the rag and wreathe the castellan’s liver-spotted hand. “You mean my father? Forget about my father?”

“Yes. That’s right. Just earlier today I was wishing for a son. Today is a day of miracles here in Nowy Solum. Even I know that, up here. A day of miracles.”

Pinning path firmly with one hand—though the boy struggled as best he could—the castellan clamped down the rag.

A gentle thump at his feet as Anu settled. In the chair, hornblower tried to catch his breath. He felt heavy and clumsy. To guide Anu, he had to remain staring out the slot; the expanse—what Anu called the ground—was a foreboding place.

Without a word, the front of the power’s body hummed open, just like it had when hornblower had been pulled inside. Breezes from the foul underworld now entered, making hornblower gag, stirring his robes, thick and warm and hard for him to suck in.

Out you go
, said Anu.

Knowing he could not protest, hornblower stood with great difficulty and staggered forward, holding Anu’s frame as he went. His legs buckled; he might have weighed ten times his normal weight. Dragging in lungfuls of the dense air, he glanced around at the nightmare landscape beyond. Not being able to see clouds below made him sick. Instead, when he lifted his head, clouds formed the deep grey horizon, yawning above as far as he could see.

At least there were no dead out there waiting for him.

As he tried to step over the rim of the power’s jaw, hornblower fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. The ground was hard, hot. His head spun. He was drenched in sweat.

He managed to stand, arms out, swaying for balance.

Hornblower thought about running off, but where would he go? The underworld to which Anu had brought him was endless and hot and dim. To run here would be impossible. Heavy weights pushed down on him. Darkness intimidated.

Look the other way.

Obeying, hornblower turned, saw that the ground rose gently in that direction; from the ridge above Anu’s body came the sound of voices, passing, then silence once more.

“Who’s up there? Men that we threw down from the run? Bodies, emptied of their souls?”

Don’t be a fool, exemplar. That’s just a road.

“Can they see us here? Could they see me with you?” Speaking hurt the bellows in his chest.

I’m masked
, answered Anu
, so they would have to look pretty hard. You’d be clear enough, though, if they weren’t so caught up in themselves to take the time. They could certainly see you better than you can see them. Their eyes are accustomed to this awful miasma of mists and fog.

“But what is this place?” asked hornblower in a tiny voice. “What am I expected to do?”

Go up there, walk along the road a spell. You’ll see the city of Nowy Solum. Very close to here. Your friend, the jumper, has gone inside the walls
.

Thick winds pulled at hornblower’s robes. He was exceedingly hot. There were more noises, out in the dark. Rustles. “You mean Pan Renik? But please . . .”

Still don’t get it? You’re not exactly shining in your new role, exemplar. What I want you to do, little cupcake, is go up that hill, walk into the city, and find your friend.

“Then what?”

Are you a total idiot? Do I have to tell you everything? You’re going to find this Pan Renik, retrieve what he stole from me, and bring it back here. Now go!

After the initial rush, when she knew she was going to follow through on her decision, Octavia envisioned endless scenarios, branching off wildly, in all directions. She considered—given the nature of life and content of irony therein—that her escapade might culminate abruptly with the fecund pouncing on her and tearing out her throat the instant she raised the portcullis.

This did not occur.

Turning the key was moderately difficult, and for a second Octavia thought maybe she had been wrong about the key’s purpose, though it did fit easily into the mechanism. With persistence, desperation, and a series of good nudges from her shoulder against the grate, the portcullis at last started moving.

From inside the cell, watching the partition grind up into the slot in the ceiling, making debris, bats, spiders, and small chunks of stone rain down, the monster, silent for once, grimaced. And, when the portcullis had stopped—vanishing completely into the rock—the fecund looked at Octavia as if she were about to vomit and said, “You expect me to come out? I don’t think that’s wise.”

Pretty much from that point on, every scenario Octavia had imagined while running down here—or even ones she could ever imagine, given all the time in the world—fell apart. All she knew was she could not predict anything from here on in with the remotest degree of certainty.

Another strong image she had entertained was the fecund, successfully tamed and cooperative, bursting from the front gates of Jesthe, with Octavia riding her, scattering palatinate and hemo citizens alike as she reared up, to rage through the centrum and into the streets of Nowy Solum, belching fire as they went in search of her brother.

This, too, would never happen.

“Octavia,” said the fecund as they walked the corridor of the cells, moving slowly, “my limbs are swollen. I haven’t walked in a long while. Can you slow down?” The monster squinted. “And it’s cold out here, don’t you find? I don’t like the cold.”

Octavia stepped aside to let the monster pass but the fecund just stood there, sniffing the air, and did not take the lead.

“Are you smaller than you were before?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Though the fecund spoke with no degree of certainty. “If anything, I’m bigger! Look!”

This display was almost embarrassing. “Come on, let’s go,” Octavia said.

“Wait . . .”

But she had already started to walk briskly up the stone slope.

“Please, don’t go so fast. I need to get used to this. No chatelaine ever let me out, that’s for sure. No castellan. All they wanted to do was listen to my stories and be entertained and have me pump out creations. I appreciate what you’re doing but— Where do you want to go, anyhow?”

Holding the torch high, Octavia scanned ahead to see if anyone was coming. “Will you be able to do anything, if we get caught? I thought you could fight.” She turned. “I thought you knew everything. I thought you wanted to get out of there.”

“Fight? Fight who?” The fecund, hustling to catch up, had begun to whine. “But, well, of course I can fight.” She held her head up and stepped lively. “That is, if asked to. I can fight like the wind. But I won’t kill anyone. Ever. So don’t ask me to do that. And yes, of course I’ve thought about getting out of there. It’s just that, well, I was inside for a long time, so let me catch my breath. . . . I take it, Octavia, the chatelaine knows nothing about this?”

“Her and I had a falling out.”

“My goodness, you’re
stealing
me. The chatelaine thinks she has my allegiance, doesn’t she? Falling out is an understatement. I don’t know if I can go through with this. A lot’s going to happen tonight. A lot is happening now. I’ll need to rest.”

“You’ve been resting for a hundred years. Is it the pregnancy?” Octavia had stopped on a crest to wait.

“Certainly doesn’t help. You’ll see one day. Being knocked-up wreaks havoc on every part of your body, from your scales down to your bowels. No matter how many times I get pregnant, it doesn’t get any better. Each time is different, yet I always feel like shit. This one is particularly bad. Whatever you gave me is not agreeing with my system.”

Even to Octavia, these stone corridors seemed colder. She could see her breath. She shivered. The fecund’s body must run a different temperature inside than her own because the monster’s breath was invisible. At least, Octavia thought, reaching out impulsively to put a hand on the creature’s flank (and finding the deep green skin surprisingly cold, too), the fecund could move silently—so silently that even standing a few metres away Octavia heard nothing, except maybe the monster’s swaying sides brushing against the walls of the passageway when the passageway became too narrow for her.

So they stood for a moment, breathing together in the gloom.

“Are you sure there’s an exit this way?” Blinking in the weak light, the fecund peered in both directions. They were at an intersection. “This has all been built up since I was here last.”

“I don’t think anything has changed here ever,” said Octavia. “So let’s just keep moving. Besides, I came this way before. We can get out this way. We don’t want to get trapped, if they come looking for us.”

“Are they looking for us? You keep talking about fights and people looking for us. Do they know you’re here? For goodness sake, who are they, anyhow? Octavia, if you’d like to go back to the cell one last time, I could tell you another story, or maybe try finishing the other ones? I’m sure the chatelaine told you I like to talk? Soon it will be night out there.”

“I know. Better to escape the palace at night, don’t you think?”

“I feel quite ill. But I should also tell you I don’t like the dark. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

Octavia said, “What else should I know?”

“Well, for one, my labour just started.”

She never woke up again. At least, not as the girl she had once been. Aware, an unspecified increment of time later, that she was conscious once more, her sensations nowhere near like those she had felt each morning of her previous life, when she had woken from sleep to find herself in the dorm. No. This existence was
clean.
No heartbeat but the throb of hydraulic pumps, no blood but the flow of coolants. Doubts, regrets, dread of the upcoming day: all gone. Her flesh, just as they had promised, was gone, replaced by a vast and pristine ship. Her thoughts, such as they were, came linearly, precisely, and followed predictable parameters.

There was an image of a long spacer tethered to a gantry, in what was clearly an orbital shipyard. She sensed her corridors, her drives, her vents and conduits.

She sensed her empty wombs.

She was proud to leave humanity behind.

She sailed.

Plugged into consoles, symbiotes cleaned and maintained her, kept her thriving. These small creatures lived and died while she spanned the stars.

Eventually, management told her that her wombs would be activated. She examined them. There were twelve in all. Reproducing was a
major task
; management had this at the top of her roadmap objectives.

Born from her eggs, which had been harvested way back, when she had ovaries, and a human body, the gestating brood crafts were not like her: small, quick, with an ability to grow and learn. They would never know what it was like to have been a person, yet they each carried a kernel of dna at their core. Management christened them. They were named after Sumerian gods and goddesses, but this information did not mean anything to her. She did not like what they were called, but
since management was their father, the long spacer did not complain. There was Anshar, Anu, Aspu. Damkina, Ea, and Enlil. Inanna, Kingu. Mummu. Nintu, Sin, and Tiamat.