The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter Page 12

  The stall of artifacts was no longer at the roadside; either the business had relocated or, he thought, had never existed.

  As they moved again, scents such as path had not before encountered, and residues of the vision, made him cough, feverish in the damp sling. His imagination flared with virulent but elusive images. As far as he could see, in both directions—even upward—extended the massive perimeter wall of Nowy Solum. The road they were on led over a stone bridge to huge, opened gates, through which he could now see the forms of structures. Above the top of the wall, several towers were visible, high enough to penetrate the clouds, where a stone room perched in the haze.

  His stubs twitched. What would he find here?

  Who he was becoming?

  Path’s father also seemed to be experiencing distress now; path felt tortured heat from the scrawny body pressed against him. Together they were a furnace.

  He hissed encouragements from low in his sling as his father stumbled up the incline, toward the bridge. Here, vendors manned small grills, selling food, or blankets of products were spread out. Clearly, even to path—who had only ever been to that one wretched market before, where a handful of desert merchants had set up—the items available here were substandard: rotten things, half-eaten or broken.

  He and his father had no money to purchase anything, no matter what the quality, and no things with which to trade. The only food they had was bread and a skin of water—which kept path’s belly satisfied for now, as they walked the bridge—but then what? He would not beg in this place and he did not think people would donate food, no matter what stories he might eventually tell them.

  During his life in the desert—certainly before enlightenment—he had never thought much about money, nor, he knew, had his parents ever possessed any; people where he came from bartered or traded, yet as path and his father passed through this aisle of desperate commerce, not having money, or a way to get money, was clearly an oversight in the hasty plan they had made to leave home. Path sensed how people with money could live inside the city, and he sensed the hunger for it in these people at the gates, who had none. Want of money was one of the scents this close to Nowy Solum, another stench in the air.

  Along the stone wall of the bridge, families lived in primitive tents or slept directly on tarps right on the wooden slats. Beggars, kneeling, averted eyes. Path saw dirty children running with their siblings. Filthy, but intact. Children with the ability to be independent. He had never seen anything like this before. These were gangly, awkward creatures: loud, their motions swift and constant. He blinked, for his eyes had grown bleary. He had to turn away when he could no longer bear the sight.

  Onward his father tottered, walking a gauntlet toward the gates.

  Passing below was a wide, brown river. The smell of the slow water as his father looked over the edge made path gag; it seemed to be a current of waste, bleeding sludge from the city.

  From shadows inside the gates, the definition of individual structures rose over heaps of tumbled masses; he saw chimneys, roofs, sagging walls.

  And people in there, throngs of people.

  Cresting the bridge, path and his father passed under the stone arch, between the great doors, and into Nowy Solum.

  Red-robed guards eyed them as, buffeted, his father lurched to a stop in the broad terrace.

  Path saw a creature he never could have imagined: two hands high, bluish, with eyes like a woman and a laugh, when it saw him gawking, that could have broken glass. Children, faces marked in black ink, dressed in rags, scrubbed at a gutter. Beyond them, a small group of hairy beasts lingered, shifting by the mouth of an alley—

  “Go on,” path said, trembling.

  “But where?”

  His father’s heart pounded so hard that path moved rhythmically in his sling.

  Streets led away crookedly between buildings, like arthritic fingers from the palm of an old man’s hand. Behind them, the massive arch of dark stone, ornately carved with icons and gargoyles, loomed. Down each of these streets, crowded and noisy and terrifying, worlds of unknowable options.

  As path’s father hunched over, the fabric of the sling rode up and obscured path’s view, so path shouted, “I can’t see! What are you doing?”

  His father lurched, one step, two, and then they were falling. Immediately, path spilled painfully from the sling, tumbling across the cobblestones like an offering to Nowy Solum. He banged his shoulders and head, tasted blood in his mouth. He was kicked twice before he came to a stop. Looking wildly around for his father, all he saw was a patch of clouds, a leaning wall, legs.

  A child with a black mark on his face peered down at him quickly, did not meet his gaze, and moved away once more.

  “Help me,” he said. “Please . . .”

  But the boy had gone.

  Sure that he was bleeding, and that his bones were broken, path tried not to panic. What if this entire situation—the light, the visions, the knowledge that had changed him—had been a ruse to get him to this point, so he could lie, humiliated, injured on the streets of a foreign and hostile landscape?

  People stepped past without so much as a glance. He might have been garbage, discarded there. He recalled what the salesman had said: one could die in the streets of the city and no one would take notice.

  What had happened to his father?

  A deep voice said, “Well, well, well, what we got here?”

  Without a chance to react, path was roughly hoisted by a set of huge hands and stuffed into a rough and stinky sack.

  Nahid fought, which—as he’d said to Name of the Sun—was number one on his list, and so seemed inevitable. The fight was brief but left him leaking melancholy from his nose, and somewhat sobered, for the fight had been with a hemo. Nahid was pushing his luck. Being with Name of the Sun for a fortnight had changed him. Or maybe watching his sister being led away by the chatelaine had changed him. Either way, he took too many chances, pretending to lead the life of someone whose fluids were not black and thick as treacle. He looked hemos in the eye. Now he had grappled with one.

  Surging through the crowds, to get away from something he suspected he could never get away from, he wondered almost hysterically when the last time was that he had skimmed the Crane or cleaned gutters. He missed his old life like a throbbing, constant pain. He had been severed in two and was afraid he might never be whole again. He wanted to gather washed-up weeds and decaying garbage from rocks of the river. He wanted to pile offal at Hot Gate, and return to the crowded ostracon.

  Neither kholic nor hemo, but a creature between; he no longer belonged in Nowy Solum.

  To fight on a crowded street—with a red-blooded boy—was incredibly stupid. Fortunately, the grapple had ended quickly. During it, Nahid had kept his head down, so he would not draw too much attention (but thus had sustained three stiff uppercuts). At least the pudgy boy—who had been sitting by the curbside with his pudgy girlfriend—had seemed unlike the type to file any sort of complaint with officers of the palatinate.

  A comment about Nahid’s mark had made him look up, directly at the boy, who was taken aback by the transgression of this kholic returning his gaze. Then Nahid looked straight at the girlfriend’s fat face.

  The boy, unable to ignore this violation, of course, yet somewhat unsure and clearly shocked, rose.

  Nahid grabbed him. The boy was shorter but broader, with blond hair and an upturned nose. Nahid threw the first punch. For the hemo, this was unthinkable—attacked by a kholic! But Nahid’s punch glanced off the side of the boy’s head as he turned away, and the boy threw several wild roundhouses of his own, hitting Nahid in the chest and, finally, in the face. Only when Nahid’s nose began to slowly drip black fluids did the boy back off. Hemos were afraid of melancholy. Nahid flung congealing shapes of fluid from his throbbing hand and lurched away—

  Fortunately, no palatinate had been in the area, and none of the other hemos in the vicinity tried to stop him from leaving. But surely there would
be questions at the ostracon this evening, a visit by the palatinate to interrogate the senior kholic on duty.

  He held his shirt up to his face, heart still pounding. At least the melancholy had stopped dripping; it clotted almost as soon as it touched the air.

  With ghosts of Name of the Sun and Octavia following him, haunting him, he could only eat more buds. The alcohol had receded, but before the next wave of his high ramped up, he rested briefly on a patch of loose gravel, sitting under a downspout. Reaching out, he made a few lame attempts to remove a rotten and festering thing from the nearby curbside but ended up flinging it away when he saw the maggots beneath. He sniffed at his fingers, licked them, and rocked forward and back, hurting from head to toe.

  When he glanced up, he saw the dungeon’s towers high over the rooftops. Shapes shuddered toward him, broke apart in the air. The castellan was locked up there. And, in the rooms beneath—rooms he had recently seen, but had not stepped into—dwelt his daughter, the chatelaine of Nowy Solum—

  He was not a coward!

  Nahid felt his mouth hanging open, dry, and he vomited suddenly, twice, into the gutter, leaving it there for one of his brothers or sisters to mop up.

  He drifted past Kirk Gate and the teeming livestock markets, past the slaughter and the bleating and the flies, toward the river. He would find his way inside Jesthe again and return once he’d found his sister. The time of pranks was over. He would bring back Octavia where she belonged.

  Grinding his teeth together, Nahid toyed with the buds remaining in his pocket. They were soft and damp. He passed under the overhanging homes of the Merchant Quarters, onto Red Cross Street, and from there into the city centrum.

  Anu, the almighty power, trailed by ambassadors, hovered in all his fearsomeness over Pan Renik’s abandoned nest. Beyond the glow from his skin, even the firmament seemed pale by comparison. Ambassadors dove, momentarily lost in his light, then flickered away.

  Anu was the size of five huts pushed together.

  His roar shifted, lowered.

  Hornblower watched fires burst from the mighty loins; along the great back, several sets of wings blurred with heat of their own. Staring up, the padre trembled. His heart thundered. He was close to expiring right there, on the main branch. He wanted to run but was afraid running might attract attention. Even if he tried to run, he doubted his legs would obey.

  All other padres on this lip of the world—ironuser, leafjoiner, ropemaker, plus three or four junior leaders whose roles were not fully assigned yet—stood likewise trembling, no doubt in the same awed state.

  They had expected the exile to be executed.

  That had not happened.

  Because Pan Renik jumped.

  Now Anu, mighty and fearsome, had arrived.

  Were all dreaded things about to come true? Anu—whom hornblower had spoken about so cavalierly his entire life, and whose name he had used so many times to achieve what he wanted, to get what he desired—was real, right here, and no doubt angry.

  So easy had it been to interpret and shape words passed down from generation to generation, to visit girls, claiming the visits were on Anu’s behalf, to instruct people, to lead people, but in the power’s glow, hornblower now felt transparent and as mortal and flawed as anyone else in the settlement. Should he stammer an explanation? Beg for forgiveness?

  What explanation could there possibly be?

  Crazy Pan Renik had jumped into the clouds.

  Anu’s hands brushed against the upper branches as he turned. Ranking him, ambassadors zipped frantically, whirrs audible over the thrumming roar of the power. Once clear of the branches, Anu descended, blowing hot air and stirring up leaves, making the padres robes tug and crack like whips.

  Of course, Anu knew they were there; he had known all along, despite his blindness. Ambassadors had told him.

  The power glowed with a light that was impossible to either look at or look away from, just like the stories had said, just like hornblower’s father had told him in sermons. The light illuminated hornblower’s inner self, his secrets, inside and out—illuminated secrets of all the padres. None could ever look away again.

  His eyes watered. The roar was like a throbbing heart. On the power’s long face, the large eyes were cracked and dim. Anu’s fingers, the size of branches, flexed and trembled. Close enough now that hornblower could have hit his flank with a stick, had he been so foolish, Anu slowed.

  Ambassadors touched Anu’s skin, lingering there for a second, then darting off. Hornblower saw seams on the body of the great power and a series of darker marks, splayed in streaks toward Anu’s outstretched legs where his smooth skin seemed scarred and dented.

  The hum rattled hornblower’s teeth.

  Next to him, a padre began a sermon: “Decayed friends and awful neighbours . . .”

  But his voice trailed off.

  Damn Pan Renik! The exile should have been thrown off the edge of the world at birth!

  “Anu,” cried leafjoiner, unable to withstand the pressure of the situation any longer, “tell us your intents!”

  Renewed gusts of hot air came from under the entity as it shifted, turning away from hornblower. Ambassadors circled in another flurry of activity.

  Hornblower muttered a prayer. What else was there to do? Was there the slightest chance that Anu had come down from his skies on a visit of commendation and reward for the devotion of his padres? This did not seem very probable. He thought again about getting to his knees to praise the almighty, and he tried not to think about his indiscretions, or how much pain he might feel if the power finally decided to punish him.

  Anu slid through the air until he was only a few metres away, filling the sky. Hornblower reviewed what his own padres had taught him, looking for a maxim to cling to, to save him, or at least give him small comfort in these last moments.

  Words seemed so futile now.

  Then, suddenly, to his left, padre firelighter dropped to his knees. From the corner of hornblower’s eye, he saw the man pitch forward, face down onto the bark of the great branch. Hornblower could not stop himself from turning, just for a second, to get a better look: red sap leaked from both of firelighter’s ears.

  The padre twitched and went still.

  Dead.

  “Please,” hornblower whispered, unable to keep his silence, “please spare me. Great Anu, power of heaven and the sky and all that is overhead. Please, spare me. Firelighter was weak, it’s true. But I was always speaking for you, in all that I did. Always. I obeyed . . .”

  An ambassador appeared instantly, close to hornblower’s face, and froze there.

  Anu, it said, buzzing, chooses you.

  “Me? For what?”

  To retrieve.

  Hornblower was stunned. Surely the ambassador was not talking about retrieving Pan Renik? But what else could it mean? The phrase was like cold metal in hornblower’s head. He did not look to see if other padres could hear this, or even if they remained alive. Now he knew the madness of what the power wanted: he had to go beneath the clouds, never come back. He would follow Pan Renik into the afterlife. “Ask Anu not to make me go down there,” he said quietly. “Ask him . . .”

  Anu has not taken a human exemplar in a hundred years. But now he chooses you. He can’t go alone. We can’t go. So you will guide him.

  Below the ambassador, behind a hundred of them, Anu hovered, stoic, arms out. He did not seem like anything that was ever alive.

  The one that jumped took with him a device that belongs to Anu. Anu wishes to get it back.

  “But not into the clouds . . .”

  You will be Anu’s eyes. Your hands will be his hands. We cannot follow him. Do you understand? You will guide the power down there.

  “I can’t go. I can’t.”

  Tastes of agony put an abrupt end to further protests. Hornblower closed his eyes and hoped he would never open them again. The pain was worse than any pain he had ever before felt. When it lingered, he put his hands up to
his face, expecting to feel sap gushing from all exits, but there was none springing forth from his ears, or nose, or mouth. And, in his chest—at least so far—his heart still pounded.

  Taking a chance, he glanced at the other padres.

  Dead, all of them, leaking their lives out onto the branch.

  He could not resist Anu. He could not do anything. Just like old times, the great power of the sky had come down from the firmament to deliver his wrath, and to assign to an unfortunate padre a divine and impossible quest.

  Rubbing both palms over her eyes, and holding them there for a moment, as if she hoped reality might alter when she finally lowered them, Name of the Sun said, “I did something stupid last night.”

  They sat on damp and filthy rocks on the shores of the River Crane, by New Market quay. For Name of the Sun, the ambient stench was anathema, but because her friend was a kholic, the smell of the river was a form of comfort. Name of the Sun tried her best not to show her distaste, but she had never been able to get accustomed to certain of the kholic predilections, no matter how often she associated with them.

  Nowy Solum rose like ragged cliffs. A few boats struggled on the Crane, beyond where several people stood in the shallows, with nets or poles, looking for anything they could eat or sell or clean—not all out there were kholics, though several tattooed children clustered about nearby outhouses, lean bodies spattered.

  “I went with Nahid.” Name of the Sun watched the children. “We did something crazy.”

  Her friend, Serena, looked down at her own knees.

  Around the girls squatted several cognosci. Two of the beasts gnawed bread crusts. A third, as Name of the Sun turned, lowered its paws from its muzzle, then showed teeth to her, massive and yellow.

  A moment passed before Name of the Sun understood that the creature thought they were playing a game, peek-a-boo, initiated because she had been holding her hands up to her face. She tried to return the distorted smile. Cognosci were ugly by any standards, their doggish faces compressed, their skin sagging and grey. The beasts made horrible growling noises when they breathed, as if with each breath they were about to expire from a painful ailment. Yet she knew the creatures were oblivious in their ignorance, unrelenting in loyalty. “Last night,” she said, “Nahid and I did something I regret.”