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 g
lowed 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.
When the chatelaine grew tired of peering out the window, seeing nothing of the unrest her servants told her about—though she could smell fire—she prepared to take her dinner, as if it were a regular night. Yet again there came a knocking at the door of her bedchambers. Thinking it might be Octavia, the chatelaine eagerly pulled open the double doors, one handle loop in each hand, but it was the chamberlain, old man Erricus, standing there, looking grave and sour and eternally unfathomable.
“Already, chamberlain? I thought you might be busy sneaking around, conspiring, setting up your camp. You haven’t rapped on these doors for many years! What do you want?”
For the longest time, the chamberlain said nothing. His left eye twitched. Finally he cleared his throat, coughed into his fist.
“The fecund,” he said, “has escaped.”
Blood drained from the chatelaine’s face. She felt this happen, the blood falling. Both doors, and the Great Hall beyond them, even Erricus himself, all seemed to recede until the chatelaine was standing at the far end of an impossibly long warren. There was a ringing in her ears.
“With a rider atop,” continued the chamberlain. “A young girl, it would seem. They have gone to the river.”
Octavia. The chatelaine knew with certainty that the girl on the monster’s back had been the kholic. Even before this news, awareness of the doomed relationship had been circling her, but the chatelaine had done her best to suppress it, to fight it off: now the truth struck her, mocking the vain hopes she had recently tried to nurture. By letting the kholic into her life, and into Jesthe, she had brought about humiliation, catastrophe.
On shaky legs, she made her way to the alcove. She saw the empty cage and greeted her anxious pets with her own choked cry of dismay: sure enough, the keyhooks now clawed nothing but air. She remembered telling the kholic that the missing key had been the key to her heart! She remembered her giddy state of mind, the wonderful love she had felt. But the affair, the chats, the sex, these had been a ruse. Octavia had stared at her, with no discernable expression, most likely planning her deceit the entire time.
When the chatelaine turned back, Erricus had entered the room, his robe sweeping the floor, his fingers pressed tight together. He drifted over the straw carpeting.
“I didn’t say you could come in.” Blood pounded in the chatelaine’s head, threatening to make her black out.
“We are searching the River Crane, where the creature was last seen, but there is no sign of them. This event, chatelaine, falling on the day that you granted us lost powers is, well, prophetic. Gods have made themselves known again. Your fecund is no longer in her pen. Do you have any idea who might have done such a thing? Released the fecund?”
“I do not appreciate your questions, nor the tone in which you ask them.”
“There is more trouble. Factions, chatelaine, are marching. There are great disturbances. Trouble at the ostracon, I believe, and elsewhere, at spots throughout the city. Beatings. Change has been accompanied by upheaval and civic unrest. Even my own men . . .” He shook his head. “You are aware of the sightings?”
“Of course,” she snapped. “I know all about that. But gods and goddesses are your problem, chamberlain. Not for the likes of me, who disbelieve.”
“There is violence in our streets.”
“Can’t you control the city? That’s your job.”
Erricus said, “Anu, god of the skies, has been seen in the vicinity of South Gate. The benevolent sisters, Kingu and Aspu, have flown over. They are the underworld, and the goddess of anger. There can be no more disbelief. Disbelief has brought us to this point.”
She stood very straight. “You must be happy. You and your palatinate. I extend my congratulations. Now leave, please. Leave me alone.”
Yet he did not go.
“Chatelaine,” he said, “to be honest, the palatinate and I had been prepared for a much less—”
From the window came the low rumbling whoomp of an explosion; concussive waves shook the walls of Jesthe.
Path awoke. He stared up at a dim ceiling. Several small flames burned nearby, but he could not see them. He felt a depth of connectivity that extended beyond flesh and bone and thought. He understood who he was, and what he had become since the light had touched his forehead. All that remained of the unfortunate desert boy was a name, a shell. In fact, there had been nothing left of path since the day the long spacer had completed the circuit and reached out to him. Maybe, thought the boy, there had never been such a child, just a vessel, waiting to be filled.
With ease, he sat up.
Two old humans were here with him—the tiny, naked man, who called himself the castellan, and another—taller, skinny—completely swaddled in rags, face hidden by a mask. They both watched him.
Path examined his forearm—a metal rod, delicate chains, fingers of wire and cloth and linked knuckles. His legs were spindles, set into a leathern hip.
“Stand,” said the castellan, eyes moist. “You can stand.”
Miraculously, path did manage to get to these feet. He tottered. Moving the fingers of each hand, slowly, testing the commands, he felt the digits flex. He rotated each wooden foot. Putting the wire fingers against his chest, he felt the strong beat of his heart.
“A lifetime ago,” said the castellan. “I wanted a daughter, but she . . .”
Path glanced at the man. The spirit of the mother ship had downloaded as much as it would. He felt the spacer acknowledge him, far above, as he moved. “I have no parents,” he said, as gently as possible. “That was part of the deal. I am an orphan and will remain an orphan.”
Bodies were scattered about down here. Children had died since leaving the fold. They had fought each other. Many had died. This understanding brought sadness. Only four of her brood remained alive—
He took a step, his first ever, toward the edge of the table.
Black wings draped the ground. With his back arched, Pan Renik’s wobbly legs just managed to keep his weight. He lifted both hands, with huge effort, fists clenched into claws, skin rough and split, burned by the wind.
Though it was hot here, and he could hardly breathe, his mind was clear, like the sky on a blue day.
There were others in this underworld. He heard them. “I escaped the power,” he said. “I escaped the padres. I have sucked in clouds.” Echoes of his words rasped back at him. Stepping forward, sap leaking down over his face, he realized he was blind. Vision exchanged for clarity. He tried to touch the sides of his head but did not have the dexterity.
He stumbled over a body at his feet, took another step forward. A peaceful wind, of sorts, blew through his mind. Soon, Pan Renik would soar again.
“Listen,” panted the fecund, “think you could get off? My back’s killing me.” Her drool writhed in the glow of a lantern, alive with parasite
s.
There were not many people around. Octavia climbed down. Neither mentioned the miscarriage, if that was what had happened in the river. Filth dripped onto the muddy street from both her and the monster and it seemed that a myriad of tiny snakes and worms continued to drip from the fecund’s skin. She was bony, sunken. They had stopped at the entrance to Hangman’s Alley, smoke thick in the air. Shouts from somewhere very close.
“I should never have left my cell. I feel like I’ve lost my mind.”
“Can you walk?”
“I think so. Octavia, I don’t know what you expected from me. You tore me from my house.”
“You were a prisoner.”
“Not really.”
Sticking close to the market stalls, the fecund walked toward the vendor’s area; beyond, Octavia saw the ostracon. Burning.
She stopped, breath catching in her throat. Kholics clustered, some sitting, dazed on the road, others lying on the mud, perhaps even dead. Smoke rolled from windows and down into the street. Clouds were red as embers.
A wall crashed down with a roar and a shower of sparks, sucking flames from the interior of the ostracon that rose, triumphant.
Men catcalled from the perimeter of the glow. Within, trapped kholics screamed.
Mummu had survived the war. He did not know this achievement was remarkable; his awareness was dim at the best of times. He had no knowledge there had even been a war, let alone that eight of his siblings had died during the skirmishes. In fact, Mummu was unaware of mortality, even his own.
When the siblings had made planetfall, Mummu was an infant, wanting only to rumble away from the others, who squabbled and preened and occupied themselves with vain pursuits. Single-minded, Mummu was unlike them. He had trundled across the barren landscape, toward the distant range of low mountains.
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