The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [86]
Another strong image she had entertained was the fecund, successfully tamed and cooperative, bursting from the front gates of Jesthe, with Octavia riding her, scattering palatinate and hemo citizens alike as she reared up, to rage through the centrum and into the streets of Nowy Solum, belching fire as they went in search of her brother.
This, too, would never happen.
“Octavia,” said the fecund as they walked the corridor of the cells, moving slowly, “my limbs are swollen. I haven’t walked in a long while. Can you slow down?” The monster squinted. “And it’s cold out here, don’t you find? I don’t like the cold.”
Octavia stepped aside to let the monster pass but the fecund just stood there, sniffing the air, and did not take the lead.
“Are you smaller than you were before?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Though the fecund spoke with no degree of certainty. “If anything, I’m bigger! Look!”
This display was almost embarrassing. “Come on, let’s go,” Octavia said.
“Wait . . .”
But she had already started to walk briskly up the stone slope.
“Please, don’t go so fast. I need to get used to this. No chatelaine ever let me out, that’s for sure. No castellan. All they wanted to do was listen to my stories and be entertained and have me pump out creations. I appreciate what you’re doing but— Where do you want to go, anyhow?”
Holding the torch high, Octavia scanned ahead to see if anyone was coming. “Will you be able to do anything, if we get caught? I thought you could fight.” She turned. “I thought you knew everything. I thought you wanted to get out of there.”
“Fight? Fight who?” The fecund, hustling to catch up, had begun to whine. “But, well, of course I can fight.” She held her head up and stepped lively. “That is, if asked to. I can fight like the wind. But I won’t kill anyone. Ever. So don’t ask me to do that. And yes, of course I’ve thought about getting out of there. It’s just that, well, I was inside for a long time, so let me catch my breath. . . . I take it, Octavia, the chatelaine knows nothing about this?”
“Her and I had a falling out.”
“My goodness, you’re stealing me. The chatelaine thinks she has my allegiance, doesn’t she? Falling out is an understatement. I don’t know if I can go through with this. A lot’s going to happen tonight. A lot is happening now. I’ll need to rest.”
“You’ve been resting for a hundred years. Is it the pregnancy?” Octavia had stopped on a crest to wait.
“Certainly doesn’t help. You’ll see one day. Being knocked-up wreaks havoc on every part of your body, from your scales down to your bowels. No matter how many times I get pregnant, it doesn’t get any better. Each time is different, yet I always feel like shit. This one is particularly bad. Whatever you gave me is not agreeing with my system.”
Even to Octavia, these stone corridors seemed colder. She could see her breath. She shivered. The fecund’s body must run a different temperature inside than her own because the monster’s breath was invisible. At least, Octavia thought, reaching out impulsively to put a hand on the creature’s flank (and finding the deep green skin surprisingly cold, too), the fecund could move silently—so silently that even standing a few metres away Octavia heard nothing, except maybe the monster’s swaying sides brushing against the walls of the passageway when the passageway became too narrow for her.
So they stood for a moment, breathing together in the gloom.
“Are you sure there’s an exit this way?” Blinking in the weak light, the fecund peered in both directions. They were at an intersection. “This has all been built up since I was here last.”
“I don’t think anything has changed here ever,” said Octavia. “So let’s just keep moving. Besides, I came this way before. We can get out this way. We don’t want to get trapped, if they come looking for us.”
“Are they looking for us? You keep talking about fights and people looking for us. Do they know you’re here? For goodness sake, who are they, anyhow?