The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter Read online

  Path said, “We were thirsty.”

  “Show yer gratitude, boy.” A knife appeared in the man’s hand. “You’re done here.”

  Path’s father swiftly hoisted path. “We’ll be going,” he said. “Thanks for the water.”

  Later, at another house, a large and ugly woman told them her husband was out back, and that he would eviscerate the pair of them if they did not get off the property. From the wedge of gloom behind the woman’s huge body, a child watched with saucer eyes.

  The door was slammed in their faces.

  All these people regarded path and his father with overt hostility. A few asked gruffly where they were from; most shoved weapons at them. They should get lost, never darken these doorways again.

  “There’s something wrong,” path said, after yet another rebuke. “There’s something wrong out here . . .”

  The dirty road they followed was fully defined now, and packed, the surface marked by the passage of both wheels and feet. They had passed several groups of people, heading the other way, into the badlands, and other groups had passed them, heading at a quicker pace, toward the city, which was still hidden from their view but palpable, a presence in the vicinity. None of these people had wanted to speak either, and path received no more of his visions.

  Clouds overhead were the full amber of day. Path squinted. Heat grew but was not yet unbearable. Craning, as he had all morning, to look into the distance, where the road dwindled into haze and shimmering illusions looked like water, he finally became convinced that he could discern shadows and hints of spires, the minarets and fabulous structures that the salesman had once described. Fading in and out, the details did not become clear.

  Yet more groups of pedestrians approached, driving animals ahead of them: sheep; a bird, flying at the end of a thin chain; a dog, erect on two legs, squinting with suspicion at path before curling one black lip. There were dirty families and wary men, travelling alone. Most, if they saw path, head bobbing above the fabric ridge of the sling, looked away. His father stumbled and bumped path hard against his sternum. Here, vendors had set up haphazard stalls, either side of them, selling sundry and sparse items. A whiff riding the breeze was suddenly rank and exciting.

  And then Nowy Solum appeared from the mists, undeniable, unavoidable.

  They stopped, awed.

  The sheer size of the apparition had helped obscure it. Stretching across the horizon—defined by the sheer cliffs of its surrounding wall—the city dwarfed them, dwarfed the road, these homes. Ahead, a sluggish river merged with the road to enter the enormous main gates, bridged by a stone arch. Path heard his father gasp for breath, felt his father’s heart pound.

  There was a singing in path’s mind, and far away voices. Before a nearby stall, in which a bearded man presided, small crowds had gathered. “There,” path said, mouth gone dry. He saw flashes of white from the counter of the stall, and these flashes seemed to be trying to relay information to him. “Go over there.”

  Path’s father stood, swaying.

  “To that vendor.”

  As they neared, path saw that smooth, pale forms had been arrayed, like alien patterns, symbols on this parched road made from another time or from materials so rare that no pedestrians or itinerants should ever be allowed to stand there, gawking at them.

  “Push through,” he choked. “Closer . . .”

  His throat was closing. He gasped and quivered. At that moment, how path wished he had arms, fingers. He needed to touch these items, to rub against them. He would have licked the pristine objects, placed them in his mouth, received sensations from them, for there was a connection here: they were messages, chunks of a puzzle, keys to his new identity.

  “Put them near me,” he told his father. “Rub them on me.”

  But as the scrawny hand of his father touched one of the pale forms, the seller, who had been discussing price with a strikingly beautiful woman accompanied by two fat, well-armed eunuchs, spun and grabbed path’s father firmly by his elbow.

  “Watch out, mano. They’re seventeen small coins each.” The voice was grated, rough, his face hard. Bearded, glassy-eyed, the seller glared. His long, tangled hair hung in clumps. “And they’re genuine. So don’t touch them.”

  “Genuine what?” path asked. “What are they?”

  Now the man looked down. He had obviously not known path was in the sling. He stared for a long moment. Path stared back. Others in the crowd were also watching. Someone whispered. The beautiful lady made a sign with her fingers, holding them at her chest, and backed away. Her eunuchs blocked.

  “Let me touch them,” path demanded.

  “Why would I do that?” The seller wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. He spread his other hand on the counter and glared. There was something wrong with his eyes. After a long while, he looked up at path’s father. “What you got there, anyhow? What is this thing you lug into the city?”

  “My boy.”

  “Boy? Is he for sale?”

  “I’m not,” said path.

  The man grinned. “Know what these are? I’ll tell you. What you have in your palsied hands are parts of a celestial body.” He raised his voice, addressing anyone who would listen. “That’s right, folks. Genuine parts, from above the clouds. Come and see! Step up, step up!”

  Despite his loud barking, no new customers approached. The seller scowled and presently turned back to path’s father. “Know what I’m saying, old man? These fell from the sky, a few days ago. I’m not one who says gods are coming back, like some do, but something is happening up there. You heard about the sighting over the River Crane? There was a fight. Pieces rained down. What you hold is a tooth or part of a polymer bone. You got any small coin?”

  “No. I don’t even know . . .”

  “Let me touch it,” pleaded path.

  “There was great thunder,” said the man. “They clashed, and a streak come in from the west. But they’re all mine. I have a license to sell them, signed by the chatelaine herself, so unless you got the money to buy them . . .”

  “My boy wants to touch them. That’s all.”

  “Shit,” said the man. “That’ll cost you. Where you two from?”

  “Please,” said path, “let me touch one . . .”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “We’ll leave and not scare away any more customers.”

  The man laughed at this. He nodded. “All right, then,” he said, and he quickly grabbed one of the artifacts, pushing it against path’s neck, though he did step back and drop it when path began to thrash violently in the sling.

  Path’s father shouted. But the shout was faint, far away, much too late to accomplish any purpose:

  Taken by train to the lottery headquarters, she saw the ocean for the first time, grey out the window. Sheets of rain streaked the glass. At the horizon, it appeared as if the water ended abruptly, falling over an impossible cliff.

  When she arrived at the building, and was admitted, she discovered that a total of four girls had won. Like her, they were eight years old, and from hospices. They waited without speaking, in large plastic chairs, sitting as far apart from each other as possible in the large room.

  An intern came, spoke to each briefly, and led them away, one by one. She was last. She never saw the other girls again.

  Later still, sitting with an administrator, she signed reams of contracts and releases, marking them with her thumbprint after they had been read and briefly explained to her. The doctor, sitting with them, smiled and nodded, indicating the plate each time: she should touch it and move to the next document.

  There were tests. She was prodded and scraped and attached to all manners of machine.

  Did she understand the program?

  Yes.

  Was she aware that her current housing would cease to exist?

  She blinked and looked up to meet the gaze of the administrator. The administrator had blue eyes and seemed tired. She wore a pink lab coat.

&
nbsp; You mean my body?

  Yes. Your body.

  I understand then. It’s okay with me.

  The administrator leaned back and glanced at the doctor.

  You are a brave girl. You will be assigned to a long spacer. A crew of fourteen hundred symbiotes. It’s an important job.

  A long spacer was one of the biggest ships. She felt her eyebrows go up, impressed, flattered.

  There will be twelve associate crafts, grown in twelve gestating tanks. Do you know what this means?

  I will be a mother.

  That’s right. You will be a mother. You will have a brood.

  Finally, in a white, steam-filled chamber, she was instructed to undress. A tub of milky liquid gently roiled, inviting. Music played a soothing tune.

  She took off her clothes. On the ceiling was a large mirror. She did not like to see her own gangly body or even her own blotched face. She was not a brave girl. The administrator and the doctor were wrong. She was not brave at all.

  The liquid in the tub was room temperature. She was able to float. Her skin tingled. Presently, though, she fell asleep, and was pulled under.

  “Three things elevate our life from the shit we clean up. One is the struggle, and not just with fists and teeth, like an animal—though that has its place—but against things you can’t hit. Like what we just did. Against this.” A movement of his hand, rotating on his wrist to indicate, perhaps, the city and everyone who lived in it. “Number two is getting high. Ale and bud.” Nahid raised his glass and nearly peered directly at Name of the Sun through the cloudy beer within. “Number three is fucking. Coming. Because there is truth in fucking.”

  “That’s very enlightening. Reassures me a great deal about our future.” Name of the Sun had folded her arms long ago. “But I don’t see all kholics fighting. Only you.”

  Nahid took a long, slow mouthful. The reaction from the hemo was not what he had wanted. Even his own words, to his own ears, had not come out as he’d planned. He had meant his list to have an ironic edge but knew there was vitriol in his voice. He certainly did not believe that the entire sources of potential fulfillment—even for those such as himself, with the blackest of melancholy in his heart, and tattoos over his face—were limited to the three acts he had mentioned.

  He put the glass down. He was tired.

  Did he want to provoke Name of the Sun? He considered this possibility and decided that he did. But what was the point? She was already angry and could only get angrier . . .

  Well, the point was that Name of the Sun—maybe even since the second she first touched the cherub, back in the chatelaine’s bedchamber—no longer wanted to be with him.

  Her glare radiated, like heat. He did not react well in such situations. She claimed to know what his problems were? She claimed to know what the problems of all kholics were. It seemed to Nahid sometimes that Name of the Sun claimed to know what everyone’s problems were, kholic or not. How could she possibly understand what his life was like?

  He drank deeply. Beer ran down his stubbled chin.

  Fuck her for these doubts. Fuck all of them.

  His own solution, for now, was to get messed up.

  Holding warm, cloudy ale in his mouth, Nahid looked away from the table, at other people in Hangman’s Alley, where they had stopped for a drink. During the night, by crawling into Jesthe and successfully liberating the chatelaine’s cherub, he and Name of the Sun had contributed to the first of his three criteria. And, by draining four pints and swallowing a bud (when Name of the Sun had gotten up, to walk down to the nearest outhouses, at the end of Sandripper Row), he was well on his way to achieving his second. Unfortunately, Nahid knew for certain that he was moving swiftly away from the last item on his list. Which was too bad: in his buzzed and tired state, Name of the Sun looked incredible. He had imagined—if they pulled off the cherub plan—that they would go back to her room for a victory fuck, a celebratory tryst, but she was so remote to him now, so cold. He could virtually see the wall that had descended, altering her face, hardening it like crystal. At times, over the past fortnight, he had learned to feel sorry for people exposed to this disdain: he knew the withering they must have felt inside. Now, for the first time, he felt the sensation himself. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth, to get up and walk away, to lie with her and sleep for ages, pressed up against her. He wanted to throw his beer down and smash his glass.

  Hard to imagine (he remembered to swallow the beer) the acts they had done together, even as recently as yesterday, or follow in his mind the trail of mundane events that could lead to such explosive and decadent abandon. He tried to avoid memories of specific details but a barrage of raunchy images made him grimace.

  (He recalled, for a moment, the chatelaine’s drunken romp, the procession of positions, the shouted commands. Did his own couplings look as absurd?)

  He tried to regulate his breathing.

  What was Octavia doing in the palace anyhow? Sleeping with the chatelaine? Living the high life? She had not been among those deviants in the bedchambers last night—

  In the flow of Nahid’s veins, mixed with traces of adrenaline, still waxing and waning, and the thick pitch of his humours, the bud raged full force. He had almost reached the point of no return. Images stuttered in the periphery of his mind. His hands left traces of motion. He heard the tide of melancholy in his veins. He ground his teeth together and tried to stay in control. The drug was trying to convince him that he didn’t need anyone, ever, not even his damned sister.

  When he attempted to speak, his tongue did not cooperate. He tingled all over. He shook his hands loosely. Movements left shadows that continued to dart about when he looked away.

  Name of the Sun was a glaring statue with a face of uniform tones. “All right, Nahid,” she said. “What the fuck. You’re just going to sit there in a trance” —with perfect fingers she pushed to one side the greasy leaf that had wrapped her food—“I’m going home.”

  Remnants of meat crawled with tiny insects. Nahid tried very hard not to be afraid but this took considerable effort. Name of the Sun’s half-pint glass (with which they had initially used to toast) stood full. His own empty glass, along with several other empties, were stoic monuments. But to what? The future? For Nahid, it was impossible to conjure his future self, waking up in alleys, alone, going by himself to the ostracon, averting his eyes from every hemo he saw, cleaning up their shit.

  He curled his lip. Why did he get involved with this girl? Smart, unmarked. Sanctimonious. He should have remained celibate or found a nice kholic. With his teeth exposed in a grimace and his heart skipping beats, he wondered if he would continue to get even higher or if this bud would start to level off soon. Terrified, he leaned back in his chair.

  Hangman’s Alley thronged. The activity seemed to suddenly snap into place, vibrant and vital and loud. Vendors stood at booths, either side, trying to draw the attention of potential customers. No one paid much notice to the couple—the kholic and the hemo—sitting there, tiny among the looming structures, wreathed in grey fog. Mostly a forgiving place, backing onto the ostracon, Hangman’s Alley was a refuge not only for melancholics but for outcasts and criminals and deviants of all sorts. Local barkers had interest in getting passers-by to stop, purchase their cakes or cheeses or useless trinkets, and passers-by wanted to continue on, anonymous.

  Beyond a nearby wall, someone began to kill a goat; the scream of the animal rose above the din of the city and Nahid smelled fresh blood spilling. He also smelled shit that the animal released upon death. He breathed his lungs full. “I’m thinking about last night. I’m thinking about the chatelaine’s face when she woke up.” Bands of steel winched tight in his lungs. “No one cares any more. The chatelaine is a disaster. The whole city is. You saw her, flailing away? How could we just walk in like that? To the chatelaine’s chambers. With no one stopping us.”

  “What are you talking about? Would you rather go back to a time when I would get lashed for sitting here
with you? Anywhere in Nowy Solum, let alone a place like this. And if they knew we had slept together? I’d be kicked out of the city. Or maybe drowned in the Crane. You would be dismembered.”

  His fists clenched under the table. “You know, I’ve fucked other hemos before. You’re not the first.”

  There was a moment of terrible silence.

  “You’re such an ass,” she said. “I don’t care about any of that shit. For fuck’s sake, Nahid, tell me what we did, exactly? What did we accomplish? I’m tired. I’m going home.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Why are you being like this? What’s your problem?”

  “Me? It was you all excited about the idea of going into Jesthe. You approached me in the first place! Don’t tell me you weren’t excited to go into the palace.”

  “It was juvenile. I don’t know how you convinced me to go along with that. And anyhow, we went in there? Me and you? That’s not how I remember it.”

  Then he understood. She thought he was a coward. He bridled. “I couldn’t go into that room. You know that.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are limits.”

  “Can’t you even look me in the eye?’

  He did, for a full second, but her request made him furious. “You don’t know anything about me. About any kholic. We’re not just tattooed versions of you. We can’t do the same things and we don’t fucking want to! We’re not the same.”

  Name of the Sun sneered and managed to look both gorgeous and utterly out of reach at the same time. Her hair, messy and heavy with oils, hung before her face.

  “You know,” he continued, “there’s always girls hanging around the ostracon, with lame pretenses, looking for a forbidden kholic to fuck. To make their dads mad. And red-blooded men raised to not even notice kholic girls, lurking outside to offer them money. Or just take what they want for free. You know it happens all the time.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Like your idiotic roommates.” He could not stop now, though he knew he should; words spilled out. “They’re titillated by me, not because they like me, but because of what I am.” He touched his own cheeks, the inked skin. “You too. You march me around like a prize.”