The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter (32 page)

Octavia looked up and out over the city. The red area glowed angrily against the clouds. Wind carried renewed gusts of smoke; out there, it seemed—in the market place, perhaps?—burned a large fire, getting larger. “Can I help, fecund? Can I help you?
Please
.”

The fecund stopped swimming. Slowly, she drifted with the current, her great ribs like bellows against Octavia’s thighs. Another contraction wracked her body and, for a second, it seemed as if there were worms streaming from the monster’s skin; these worms moved against Octavia’s own flesh before vanishing from under her palms and down into the sludge.

On the shore appeared several men, whose torches did very little against the gloom. There were shouts, and it seemed there was a scuffle.

Octavia and the fecund watched silently.

Hornblower was tied to a dead man’s raft, plunging over the edge of the branch. Except that he was already under the clouds, lost in this place. Faces loomed from the darkness. The little piece of Anu he had swallowed had taken over his body from the inside, getting rid of everything that had once made him padre hornblower. He thought again and again about his breezy home, but in quick, forbidden images, which he conjured and then swiftly tried to suppress, afraid these memories might be discovered by Anu and taken from him. If he ever found a way to return, would he be able to look at the settlement the same way? Would he be able to look at anything the same way?

Though Anu had not spoken in a while, nor urged him forward, hornblower forced his legs to keep moving, to avoid punishments, to please the power, but he felt so heavy and clumsy on this unforgiving ground. Vistas about him were too dark, too cluttered, too dense. The air continued to press down upon him, filling his lungs as if he were drowning. And the heat was unbearable! Without a horizon, abrupt shapes of the huge huts and the dim branches that ran between them spread out in all directions, endless, everywhere he turned. He craved sky and stars, and to watch the placid face of the moon as it rose above true branches. He had to feel wind against his skin. . . .

So remotely, Anu’s voice whispered in the back of his mind. Had the power forgotten about him? Was Anu preoccupied, talking to someone else?

Hornblower tried to look at everything he could, in all directions, to appease, but the input and effort was overwhelming. He saw animals here like none he had ever imagined; few of these beasts saw him, too, and approached to sniff at his cuffs. Others walked side by side with the grey people and paid him no heed. Several times, lithe blue creatures, running on two legs, tugged at the hem of his robe, laughing shrilly at his frustrated attempts to scare them off before vanishing again. One stuck its tongue out. Another nipped his calf and drew forth his sap.

People scowled all around.

What if the power was bluffing, and he was out of Anu’s range? Hornblower rubbed his fingers against the palms of his hands, nervously considering this idea. Perhaps he would feel agony only for the briefest instant, if he fled, then he would be free—

Yet could he get the piece of Anu out his body, or these experiences out of his mind?

No pain, at these thoughts.

Anu’s voice, hissing, crackling, remained remote, then faded altogether.

Hornblower took another step, tensed. But he could not bring himself to try running. He could not. He knew his only choice was to do what the power wanted: locate Pan Renik, retrieve whatever had been stolen, and deliver it to Anu. But what exactly was he looking for? Would he recognize the object, when and if he ever found the exile? He had to find Pan Renik. There was no other way hornblower could be returned to the fresh air and open vistas of home—

A woman in a doorway called; he turned, expectantly, as if she might offer help, or maybe something to eat, but she just lifted her skirts at him and leered.

He blinked away sweat, lumbering on.

Ahead, several people gathered at a tiny hut where a man handed out some sort of food. There were other huts like this one, arranged in a row. Scents, carried on a stale gust of air, suddenly washed over him; hornblower’s stomach clenched. He was dizzy with a surge of hunger.

Reaching out, over the hot coals—

The man hit him with a utensil.

Hornblower exclaimed, pulling his hand back. He rubbed his seared skin. “I’m
hungry
.”

“You and everybody else.” The man stared at him, eyes reddened by the grill’s fire. He looked hornblower up and down.

Hornblower said, “It’s time for me to
eat
.”

“Show me small coins,” said the man.

“I am a padre,” hornblower whispered, as if to convince himself, and he reached out again to take a piece of meat; this time the man grabbed him by the wrist and held his hand over the flames long enough to make hornblower howl.

“Don’t you learn?”

“But it’s time for me to eat! You need to feed me!” His hand was released. “How can I live down here?” He sucked at his knuckles.

Those gathered around stared.

Hornblower understood he would get no food in this place, no rest, no comfort. This was his punishment. He would die down here, if he was not already dead. Anu was teaching him a lesson. Maybe Pan Renik was not even here.

He moved on.

A group of tall men in long red outfits surrounded a pair of young boys whose faces were marked with black. Above them, a suspended lantern dropped diffused light. Hornblower could tell by the expressions on the faces of these men, and by the way they were dressed, that they were a form of padre. With conflicting feelings, he approached.

“Brothers,” he said, panting, “show me where the exile, Pan Renik, is hiding. And share food with me. For the love of the power. My limbs are seizing and my chest is stuffed with air. My heart labours. Assist me, brothers. You must assist me.”

The men looked at each other but did nothing, as if they could not understand hornblower, so hornblower touched the arm of the nearest one, pulling at the red sleeve—

Then he was on the ground, holding his forehead, which stung and dripped sap. He sat up. The men in red stared at him. The black-faced boys had run off. The man he had grabbed had a switch in his hand, or perhaps this was a sort of metal weapon; as the man took a step toward hornblower, hornblower edged away.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“He’s an addict, a drunk.”

Getting to his feet, hornblower ran at last, as best he could, though it was like running in a terrible dream, each foot an anchor, with no destination in mind, crashing slowly into people as he went, falling, scrambling, utterly confused by this hostility, by this monstrous place, at a loss for how to get food or answers or anything here, let alone find the exile.

“Anu, you must help me,” he screamed, stopping to catch his breath, which proved impossible to do. “You must help me! This is futility.”

And Anu responded:

I guide you humans,
said the power, furiously,
but you flop about like idiots. I resent my reliance upon you with a passion. This weakness in myself I truly hate. Your mind is linked to mine, exemplar, but yours is far from mercurial. Disgusting to think we are cousins. I don’t suppose it would have been different had I selected any other fool from the tree you lived in. You are all the same. I know now that we are not alone here. My sisters are still alive. They’ve
been hiding on the surface all along. And my idiot brother, Mummu. They’re closing in. You are slow and useless, exemplar. You need to find the jumper right way. I see you wandering the streets without aim. You need to inquire, deduce. There is going to be another battle. I can’t defend myself without you, so stop standing around feeling sorry for yourself.

Hornblower said, “Great power of the sky, I am hungry and they won’t feed me. If I grow tired, I know you will not let me sleep. I understand nothing about your sisters, or anything else you’ve said. Kill me, Anu, set me free. Everything we believed was under the clouds is real! Set me free! I see that now, so set me free!”

The power said,
I would very much like to kill you but I can’t afford to do so. I need you. I’m relying on you. Time is running out
—

There was a last, quick burst of pain, then the voice was gone, leaving hornblower tingling, able to stand.

He continued on, miserable.

Here were more black-faced children, looking away as he passed.

Now someone screamed up ahead, and hornblower felt the ground move, though not like a true branch in the winds: this was a sudden lurch, accompanied by a low rumble that trembled up through the structures all around.

He turned the corner to see a group of huts aflame. Greater heat hit him with the force of a blow. Conflagration erupted from high windows as he watched, illuminating adjacent structures. The red had intensified. On the branch before the fire, a group of men cheered. They held lanterns, weapons.

Other men lay prone on the ground.

Flames ripped the clouds.

The fecund needed only to move its tail gently to stay away from the banks.

“Who were those men? Were they officers of the palatinate?”

Most of the fecund’s face was underwater; she could not readily respond, nor did she seem to want to. Octavia patted the creature on the neck, to reassure them both. The monster’s skin peeled, trailing off in the water.

“What do you see, monster? What’s going on? Why won’t you tell me?”

The idea that Octavia’s dream, spat onto the cotton batten, was responsible for what was happening to the fecund, and to the city, was impossible to ignore.
Not always babies are born,
the fecund had said. Was melancholy truly a poison, to achieve this state of uncertainty and decay in Nowy Solum?

Across the water, glimpses of flames leapt above the clay rooftops, painting them orange and hues of claret. As perspective changed with the fecund’s shifting position, Octavia became certain that the source of the growing fire was Hangman’s Alley or somewhere very close
. Kholic haunts
. She felt the pit in her stomach opening wider and wider. Yonder, something awful transpired.

Clouds over the burning area glowed with a light of their own.

She tried to use her knees to guide the fecund inland, rocking gently, and, to her surprise, after several quick convulsions that shook the monster to her core, they did begin to move shoreward. More powerful contractions contrived to squeeze the fecund’s ribs. When the monster was able to touch the rocky bottom of the River Crane, she lifted her head clear from the water and shook it from side to side like a dog, shedding sludge and what looked like more skin, though it was too dark to be certain. Her nostrils worked, sniffing the night air. Shit slid from her neck and sides, and shit slid from Octavia’s legs as they cleared the water.

The fecund, in the shallows, seemed lower to the ground, smaller than when they had entered the river—much smaller than when she’d been in her cell. Her belly was flaccid, emptied; Octavia felt an abysmal sense of dread. She did not want to ask about the pregnancy.

Several boats were tied to the pier at Talbot Lane Bridge. They emerged between two of them. Water, thick with flotsam, sloshed lazily against the hulls. Up the rocks and the embankment, another pair of astonished kholics gaped as Octavia and the fecund passed, heading silently into the streets.