The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [82]
Tina released his arm. She searched what she could see of the kholic’s face, of his tattoo. The boy was so remote from her, closed. When she embraced him, crushed his rancid body to her, he did not respond, standing stiffly, so she let him go. “We almost met, earlier today. . . . I want to help you. I need to . . .” There was a stone in her chest.
Melancholy, she realized, had dried on the sides of the boy’s face, as if his mark was spreading. More flaked off his hands and arms. She was suddenly frightened, waking up to what she had already done and what she might have the capacity to do.
There was blood on his tattered, crusty clothes.
Red blood.
From the rear of the tiny, dead-end alley, an amorphous shape—a pile of refuse—emitted a low, throaty moan and began to move toward her.
“My name,” said path, hesitating as his identity vanished for an instant, or became confused with another, “is path.” He tried to roll on the cold, metal table, craning his head, twisting his body to see this naked man. “You’d better find my father or there’s gonna be a lot of trouble. You’d better take me back to him.”
“I am the castellan of Nowy Solum,” said the man. “Welcome to Jesthe. But please refrain from exhaling in my direction until I get you cleaned up.”
A second man, the one who had abducted path, leaned against a wall, by a window through which clouds could be seen. He was grinning.
The castellan said, “Was this boy alone when he came into the city?”
Tully laughed again. “Alone? How could he be alone? He got no legs to walk, no arms. He’s a worm. There was a man, a skinny, sick-looking man, but he fell over. I saw him.”
“That was my father,” said path. “Where is he now?”
Tully shrugged.
The castellan said, “Leave us now, Tully. Go take three small coins.”
“Three?”
“Get them before I change my mind.”
Incredulous, path said, “You’re buying me?”
Walking toward a short cabinet, behind the table that path and the strange blue creature lay on, Tully chuckled and said, “Everything is for sale. Everything. You’ll see.”
Path looked into the eyes of the man who called himself the castellan; they appeared warm, even sad.
The beast next to path hissed and its claws scrabbled futilely on the smooth tin as the castellan stepped forward.
“I can tell you weren’t born here,” he said. “You wouldn’t have lived out your first year. Streets of this city are harsh for those like you.”
Path was watching the blue creature, lying in its own blood, panting. The thin limbs had been jabbed with rods, punctured by jagged pieces of metal. “What have you done to it?”
“Have you ever seen a cobali before? They cannot be trusted. Nor do they feel pain. Not the way you or I do. They are happy to surrender to research, though my daughter thinks me a butcher.”
Over by the window, the large man let out a bark of laughter.
Now the castellan’s fingers lightly touched path, rubbing the area where most boys would have a left arm; path squirmed but could not prevent the cold hand from remaining there.
“Leave me alone . . .”
The castellan did lift his hand, but only long enough to stoop and rattle around under the table. When he stood again, he held a large, stoppered bottle, inside which writhed gases, like trapped spirits.
Three of the flattened ambassadors dropped from overhead to gather now, hovering, before hornblower’s face.
Anu, they said, requires you to eat the host now. This is a great honour.
Between his knees, a flying metal beetle shot up, whistling from an aperture. Hornblower held out his hand and the beetle landed. From its shell, numerous threadlike tendrils wavered. Hornblower took this beetle, this host, in two of his fingers: the size of a nut, glistening with many colours, warm to the touch—
Eat it, said the ambassadors.
So he ate it.
There was an oily taste, somewhat bitter. A hard, spiky lump in his mouth. The host scurried to the back of his tongue—
Where it exploded.
Hornblower clutched at himself, feeling sharp stabs of pain in his