The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [45]
"The oracle?"
"The one," the stranger replied. "Someone threw a pot out a window as she stepped into her alley. Brained her dead."
Culpole shook his head. "I'd have thought it would take more than crockery to dash the brains of Mother Lamprey. She was a wise one."
"Life was hot within her," affirmed the stranger. "When she walked past Blood Park they say flowers bloomed in dead men's groins."
"And Mother Runnell?" Ashura enquired.
"She's in mourning, naturally," Culpole replied. "Last I heard she was silent at the funeral and left the feasts early. She's taken it bad."
Ashura glanced up at the sun. Just enough time left to investigate. "Look, Culpole, I'll catch you later. I must run."
He walked off, somewhat guiltily; he shouldn't have left Culpole like that, so hurriedly. Culpole had been close to Mother Lamprey, and it was ill-luck that his duties as cessbeater had kept him from the hanging and the wake. Ashura well remembered how Culpole used to pass on stories she told him about the Old Time, when the tide of things was still turned to dying and Science held sway.
Ashura thought of the scientists he had seen wandering the city -pathetic creatures full of half-remembered schemata and faked ritual, their ludicrous labcoats torn and crammed with totemic pens, their heads filled with some gibberish called mathematics.
Respect them, Mother Lamprey had said to him and Culpole once, when their post-feral laughter rose too high and cruel at her description of them. "They walk the paths of the dying at a time of bloom; their systems are misplaced. But come the next millennium and their time will have come again. Then our broomsticks and elixirs will be as risible to the good folk of the world as their mechanics are now." Wise old woman. Strong old woman. Dead? Strange.
Foxtongue was leaning against the entrance to the Walking Eye tavern. Her shirt was open; her tender breasts and her child-swollen stomach glowed in the sun as if they would melt the cotton around them.
Ashura caught his breath and strode over to her.
"I came as soon as I heard," he announced, hoping she'd take his blushes for signs of exhaustion and effort. By the wry look in her eyes there wasn't much hope of that.
"It's been a long time, Father-to-be." Her voice was like honey in climax.
He forgave her the sardonic remark instantly. "I.I'd like to see Mother Runnell."
She smiled and led him through the tavern. It was nearly empty, Ashura noticed; the regulars must all be at the funeral feast. Round the back of the inn, in a brick yard thick with dust and weeds, sat the shawled bulk of Mother Runnell. She turned rheumed eyes to meet him. She did not smile and, even given the present circumstances, he found that disconcerting.
"Foxtongue, leave us. Go mend your Jape Day dress or something," she commanded, and there was an edge to her voice Ashura hadn't heard before. Foxtongue flounced back into the inn, causing Ashura a final pang.
"And so," the oracle said, observing him through clouded green eyes. The silence stretched. In spite of himself, Ashura found himself surveying her huge bulk.
Mother Runnell had been pregnant with the same child for some twenty-eight years. It was nowhere near adult size ― more the size of a feral. Nonetheless, it made an impressive addition to the woman's natural bulk.
Mother Runnell was that rare phenomenon, an oracle; a permanently pregnant seer. The townsfolk came and told her stories, rumours, gossip, opinions ― and Mother Runnell passed the messages on in her blood to her ever-underdeveloped child. The child in turn would mull over the flavours of the world outside, and dance in Mother Runnell the likely outcome. Mother Runnell and her fleshly charge could not predict major events, but they could predict people's fortunes with shivering accuracy.
"I don't want your condolence, Mite," she said at last.
Mite ― his nickname as a post-feral, dropped in early adolescence and not heard since then. Ashura lowered his head. He'd stumbled upon some hurt, some worry. Quick of temper and of wit he might be. But