The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [94]
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