The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [90]
Don’t try to hide once you’re inside, Anu called out. Remember, I see what you see and I feel what you feel. I can put an end to anything I don’t like. Do not step astray. Understand?
Hornblower nodded.
And don’t get drunk or otherwise become insensate. Now hurry, exemplar. We need to get out of here. There are strange indications afoot.
He had crested the embankment. People passed in both directions. They did not seem to be dead. He stepped among them. Looking forward and back, he was unable to see any true end to this strange branch: one direction vanished into darkness, over which spread clouds in grey turmoil, and the other penetrated the giant settlement that Anu called the city. The people here paid him no attention, despite how ill he must appear. Had Anu lied? Could they not see him?
He began to head toward the city, lifting one heavy foot after the other. Walls of this settlement went up, into the clouds.
Nearer to the giant doors, he glanced back, down the slope from whence he’d come, but saw nothing of the power, though he knew Anu had not moved. Somehow, again, Anu had made his body invisible. Hornblower squinted, thought he discerned a shimmer, a seam of light that might have been indications of the power’s clever disguise.
Then he was stepping up, onto a bridge, with foul water passing beneath him. Formations through the gates were hundreds of huts, maybe thousands, all clustered together, torn from a nightmare and thrown before him. Inside these huts were no doubt more people—none of whom would acknowledge him let alone give hornblower the respect he was due.
Did the citizens of this awful place even know that his world existed, high above the clouds? Did they understand that cool winds blew there, and that the sun shone?
Passing under a massive arch, hornblower was assaulted by a cacophony of voices and shouts. Tangles of faces and smells caused him to recoil. Men gestured, waved meat on sticks under his nose. Two girls ran past. He was jostled, elbowed—
Grimacing, hornblower moved deeper and deeper into the commotion. Here, a group of men tried to move a huge and very heavy-looking object—not metal, not meat of the world, but the same dense material that seemed to be everywhere down here. From under this mass protruded the thin legs of someone who was, without a doubt, dead.
Hornblower watched this activity for a moment, trying to calm himself, but a nudge of discomfort from Anu urged him to take a step, to choose a direction, to keep moving. So dark and hot here. Hard to fill his lungs. Hard to move. The air was like broth. He was unsure, as he selected a route, of which way to go, but he doubted if any choice would make a difference.
Name of the Sun awoke from her brief nap feeling more tired than when she had fallen asleep. She sat up, thinking about Nahid in a sympathetic light. She got out of bed, the floor cold against the soles of her feet. This was a dangerous state of mind to be in, and she needed to get through the next few days without entertaining doubts and these almost kholic-like thoughts that had come around to weaken her resolve.
Now she set her jaw. She was right to have broken off the relationship. Nahid was an addict, and manipulative. He was a coward. She told herself this over and over, like a mantra, as she warmed herself. All she had to do was wait until her subconscious caught up with her rationale.
Lifting the curtain over the tiny window, Name of the Sun looked outside. Lanterns burned. Early evening. She was not late for her shift. Tendrils of fog lay low over the houses. Stay moving: an important strategy.
She checked her limbs for ticks, removed one or two, and got dressed.
Just as she was about to leave, her roommates came spilling in, quite drunk, and wanted to linger with her, telling her stories about a boy they had just met, and about the group