He said, "Big! Big teeth! Big claws! Once were friends, now hate us!"
She thought he was going to cry then, but he grasped the neck of the wine skin and upended it over his mouth, taking a mighty swallow, followed by another. When he was finished, he grasped the back of her neck, tilting her face to the sky and squeezed a long stream of the burning stuff into her mouth, forcing her to drink. After she had gagged and swallowed, he stood again, pulling her up with him. Abruptly turning her toward the stone they had been sitting on, he bent her over it despite her struggles, saying, "We fut!"
Her head dizzy from the effects of the drink, she wasn’t prepared for a rape episode with him just then, but was far weaker than he. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she tried to relax, but before he could set about her, a roar brought him back onto his feet, releasing his grip on her.
Shouting, he ran for the camp, readjusting his trousers as he ran. A black and white striped figure, at least three times the size of the man, appeared from out of the mist, followed by others, and decapitated Rocheg-mont with one swipe of a paw. As she looked, a dozen others ran through the camp, disemboweling some, decapitating others, but everywhere she looked, captors and captives alike were shredded by the great claws. One of the great ape-cats ran at her, then stopped, staring at her head. She wasn’t sure what had stopped it, but supposed it was the color of her hair. It turned, leaping on the tall man’s mate as she ran across the camp, and bit her head off neatly. The woman’s body ran two steps, spouting blood as it fell and Petra wasted no time in making her way to the body, stripping the clothes from it, knife and all. Before she had time to don the clothing, bloody as it was, the entire attack was over and everywhere she looked, a body lay, leaking blood and other bodily fluids onto the cold, wet stone. She was thankful for the mist then; she had seen enough and didn’t want to see anymore.
As the great beasts wandered through the camp, pushing at one body or another, picking up some to tear strips of meat from them, she walked slowly into the camp. Stooping near one beast, hand extended to pick up a bedroll, she stopped and moved a few steps further on to pick up a different one. She saw her hat lying next to a bodiless head; one of the women had snatched her hat a few days earlier and had been wearing it ever since. Slowly moving to it, she picked it up and tucked it under her arm with her other booty.
She heard piteous cries coming from just out of sight in the mist and, moving that way, she saw that an ape-cat had pounced on the back of a man while he was assaulting one of the Little People. The man’s dead body still pinned the small woman face down on the stone while the ape-cat crouched on him, tearing hunks of flesh from the man’s back and sides. Petra didn’t know what she could do to help the woman that wouldn’t get them both killed, and regretfully turned away, telling herself that the woman deserved no better for having betrayed the Good Lord. Then taking one last look back at the woman, she noticed that she was the same one that had braided her hair and wished that she hadn’t noticed it; that fact made her feel that she was acquainted with the woman and couldn’t leave her. The woman’s eyes spoke a silent entreaty and Petra cursed quietly.
Setting her teeth, she began to walk carefully toward where the beast crouched atop the two, and despite the beast’s warning growl, reached out to take the woman’s hand, intending on pulling her slowly from beneath man and beast alike. As soon as the beast felt the two bodies move, he snapped at the woman’s arm and Petra fell back, the woman’s hand still gripped in her own, without the accompanying arm. The woman stared at the stump just above her elbow and fainted. Maybe she went into shock; Petra didn’t know. But there was nothing more she could accomplish. The beast’s act had informed her that while she may be safe from them, the others weren’t.
Gathering up her scant equipment, she made her way to the fire and wrapped a haunch of some large animal, half-cooked as always, in the bedroll and grasped the end of one of the burning bones. She waved it to make the flame flare up, and started walking slowly through the charnel-house scene around her. One of the ape-cats snarled as she passed by with the torch and after a few seconds, turned back to eating the woman he crouched over. She was sure she heard one of the beasts growl, "Rocheg-oc-ule, Bor-bon-meeg!" before she was out of the camp.
Chapter Eight
Through all their long journeying, Brian had been talking to the woman as though she could understand what he said, and sometimes, he caught an expression on her face as though she could, or was beginning to. She had become a good companion through the long marches; helpful and eager to please, but each night was the same story; he had to push her off of him, sometimes with light slaps. It was getting easier to lose patience with her and he was sure she was using just that in an attempt to push him just far enough to give her what she wanted. It seemed that she liked rough treatment and he was as determined as ever not to let her goad him into a sexual episode.
This ‘day’ as they stopped among a group of tumbled stones, he used the Staff to create the globe of light and heat and gratefully walked into it, followed by the woman. He sat down on a stone and kicked off his almost useless shoes; they had holes in the soles and the uppers were giving up the ghost. The woman had used a thin bit of cord taken from the pocket in her now-shapeless top to secure the uppers to the soles, but the result was less than satisfying. He looked with regret on Petra’s athletic shoes; if they had been big enough, he would have tried to wear them. He had once tried to get the woman to put them on but she had refused, treating them as though they were some kind of danger, so he had given up. The pack itself was beginning to show the wear and tear of coming in contact with the ever-present stone after being soaked by the ceaseless mist. He was sure that one day, he would find the contents wet and moldy.
Passing the woman a fruit, he bit into one himself and as he chewed, he was surprised to hear her say, "Why…you no…fut?"
Astounded that she knew English, he asked, "How did you learn to speak with me?"
Pushing her hands toward the ground, a gesture he had seen her make many times and deduced to be a shrug, she said, "You…talk. I listen."
Slowly, he said, "Alright. What was that you asked before?"
Tilting her head to one side to look sideways at him, like a born coquette, she asked again, "Why you no fut?"
He shook his head. "What do you mean?"
For answer, she pantomimed a gesture with her fingers that he had seen used at home that meant ‘sex’. He felt himself blush and breathed deeply for a few seconds as she waited patiently for his answer.
"I’m in love with someone else. I will only…fut with her."
She shook her head, which sent her braids darting all around her head, and said, "Means nothing! What…love? Man, woman, fut when feel good. Fut when feel angry. Fut when feel anything! Good Lord curse Bor-bon-meeg! Fut anytime. Anyone. Anywhere."
Realizing that her persistence about making love was a mystically induced state, Brian felt that he was caught in a trap that he couldn’t get out of. It meant that she wasn’t going to cease her importunate conduct and he would have to be ever-watchful when he was around her.
In an attempt to draw the conversation away from sex, he asked, "Who are you?"
She brightened then, rising from where she sat to stand before him, preening as she drew her shapeless garment off over her head. With a wriggle, she loosened the cord that held her trousers and stepped out of them, pointing the toes of her little foot as she kicked them away.
"I am Bor-bon-meeg!"
He realized that the phrase she used had referred to her people earlier, he shook his head.
"No. I mean, what is your name?"
Frowning a moment, she suddenly brightened again and held her hands above her head a moment and lowering them to shoulder height in a stylized flapping motion before drawing them caressingly down her body, finally tucking them between her legs.
"Bon-tow-fut!"
Confused because he now knew that ‘fut’ meant sex, he asked, "B
ut, what does it mean?"
She knelt before him, her hands on his knees as she looked deeply into his eyes.
"Feels like flying when she futs."
Blushing again, he gently removed her hands from his legs where they had slowly been creeping upward and rose from the stone. Everything he talked to her about led back to sex; it was like she had a one-track mind. He stepped away from her before she could make another advance and distracted her with another fruit from the pack. As she bit into it, he moved to another stone and sat down, eliciting a frown from her.
She squinted her eyes at him as though angry and asked, "Who this…love you?"
Thinking that he might finally be able to get it through her head that he was already taken, he said, "Her name is Petra. A big bird took her from me. I’m worried about her because she has no clothes and it’s cold and wet here."
"What look?"
Assuming she wanted to know what Petra looked like, he said, "She is taller than you, but not as tall as me," His hands made cupping motions at his chest. "Larger than you and she has hair the color of the sun."
He assumed she had never seen the sun but was surprised when she started to her feet, exclaiming, "See her! She take food…take fire when I busy with fut! She have clothes."
Now it was his turn to start up. In two steps, he reached her and grasped her by the arms without remembering that she liked rough treatment.
"Where did you see her?"
Trying to push herself closer to him and reaching out with one leg to hook it around his leg, she said, "In camp. No worry about her now. Rocheg-oc-ule have her. They hunt her when catch us. I run fast. No catch."
Appalled, he knew that it meant that while he had inspected the ruined camp, Petra had been running for her life from the killers. Frustrated that he had been so close and lost his chance to find Petra, he asked, "What will they do to her? Will they kill her?"
Laughing as though it was the funniest thing in the world, her dark eyes sparkled as she said, "She not die! Not die from fut!"
Suddenly angry at having missed Petra by such a close margin, he realized that this woman, this Bon-tow-fut, had distracted him when Petra needed him most. His anger grew till he was almost blind with rage and he threw the girl onto the stone and fell atop her, wrenching open his slacks to get at her. Laughing as he slapped her, she was still laughing as he caused her more pain while having sex than she had ever experienced. When he was finished, he felt shame and couldn’t look her in the eye, preferring only to grunt when she tried to talk to him, her hands both coaxing and soothing on his skin. Later, he slept and awoke to feel her hands straying along his body, teasing him into action again, which only made him angrier. From then on, he didn’t feel shame anymore, only rage when he took her, over and over again.
* * *
Among the tumbled stones, a tiger-ape, Urh-mor-hrh, prowled, sniffing at the wet stone. Its sense of smell was so acute that an age-old scent, drenched by rain, trod upon by myriad feet and blown by the wind, was as fresh as if its owner had just passed. At the moment, he was refreshing his eon-long memory to make certain that he had not made a mistake. Sniffing lightly of the bones he found among the stones, he extended one giant, mailed paw to flick softly at the skull and experienced a tingling sensation that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. A bright, golden light bathed the scene, allowing him to see the face of the Good Lord superimposed on the bare bone. The lips moved, whispering to him of visitors and imparting the ability to understand their speech.
As the light faded, muted to nothing by the mist that closed in, invading the holy precinct, the whispering stopped and the great Uu-mor lifted its head, uttering a sound halfway between a grunt and a purr. Turning quickly, he moved into a hopping lope, his arms and legs scissoring it along on the wet stone. His eyes, as finely tuned and able to see through the mist as those of the People of the Fire, sought the three dozen forms of its brothers. Once, he had commanded thousands more, but the war with the Soos-tow had decimated them to such an extent that even with their concentrated breeding program, these were all the mature Uu-mor males available to him.
He gloated at thought of the Soos-tow; they were in even worse case to prosecute the war anew than his people were. There were few females and the wiry, little Bor-bon-meeg climbed into the high places to raid their nests, consuming many of their eggs. And the Rocheg-oc-ule hunted them for food though such a hunt usually resulted in several dead Rocheg-oc-ule to one or two Soos-tow. The People of the Fire bred quickly and replenished their numbers in a dozen years, as did the Little People. But he, Urh-mor-hrh warred against them all. It was unusual for any of them to kill his kind and he had decided to take advantage of the situation.
But there was one who accompanied this last group he exterminated who smelled of the Good Lord and he had to make sure he had done the right thing in allowing her to escape death. Coupled with the knowledge that someone had found the Staff and was using it; this meant that the Good Lord had finally acted on their behalf. He had moved the Staff from the alternate dimension in which he had thrown it and allowed someone to pick it up, leading them directly to this place; the place of his Death.
Now that Urh-mor-hrh had communed with the Good Lord’s spirit, he knew what plan had been initiated and was prepared to see it through to its conclusion even if he died in the doing of it. There was no other way that the mists would be blown away and the Veils of Creation would be returned to their former glory. If it was the last thing he did, the Evening Sun would shine on them again.
* * *
Stumbling to a halt, Brian shifted Bon as he called her, from his shoulder to the crook of his arm and pointed the Staff at the group of fallen stones. These still contained a portion of a stone roof and would afford a little more shelter than they were accustomed to. As the globe of heat and light formed among the stones, drying the ever-present dampness and driving the mist away, he walked forward, letting Bon slide from his arm to sit at his feet. Her hand almost unconsciously went to his thigh and slid into the tear in the leg of his slacks. He frowned. Their last love-making session had been strenuous and wearing on both of them, requiring a prolonged rest before they could continue on their journey. He was always amazed at her ability to perform so regularly but fully expected that despite her curse, she would beg off this time. Not that he would allow her that luxury; he had come to blame her so much for his failure to find Petra that he enjoyed punishing her now.
He had reverted to making her wear the leash and when he wanted rest, secured it to a stone that was out of reach of him, visiting her lonely bedroll only when it pleased him. Now, it was more usual for her to beg for peace instead of urging him on to another performance, though her curse drove her to return in a short while each time. He hoped that this time, she would refuse him so that he could punish her even more, and that disturbed him; he was afraid that when he found Petra and they left his place, he would force such actions on her, and he didn’t want that.
Moving away from Bon, Brian sat on a large stone and put his head in his hands as he thought over the situation. What did he want? What had he always wanted? Annelisa. Marriage to Lisa. But, Lisa was Petra. Wasn’t she? Yes, she was. Did he want a marriage with Petra? Was that the same thing? He scoffed at himself; of course it was! Though Petra had assumed a different name during her escape from…him, she was exactly the same as Lisa. She had acted differently than his Lisa when he met her, but there at the last, just before the bird snatched her away from him, she had reverted to being Lisa.
Approaching the problem of who and what he had become was a different prospect; was he the same as he had been? Brian had to admit that he wasn’t. Exposure to the depths he could sink to during his sojourn with Bon had proven that to him. Did that mean that he was becoming like the ‘Brian’ that had driven Lisa to become Petra? So what if it did? He loved Lisa, whatever name she chose for herself; and she loved him.
Chuckling to himself, he raised his head to stare at Bon where
she lay on the stone, sleeping, absorbing the heat of the globe. With irony, he thought, "Love will conquer all."
He rose and picked up the Staff, turning it over and over in his hands. What could he accomplish with this? The man had said that he could open a doorway back to his world. What good was that if he didn’t have Petra? His jaw muscles jumped as he ground his teeth. This was intolerable. How could he be expected to accomplish the one without having the other? Was there a way to have the Staff lead him to Petra? Why hadn’t he thought of that before? There were plenty of other groupings of colored spots carved into the wood; maybe if he experimented with them he could stumble on the combination that would help him find her.
His fingers went to an unfamiliar series of carved circles on the wood and he positioned his fingertips on them, willing something to happen. A thin blue line of light leapt from the end of the Staff and bored through a standing stone forty feet away, nearly invisible in the mist. In surprise, he jerked his hand and the beam sliced through the stone, causing the upper half to crash to the ground and shatter as a flash effect burned away the mist in the immediate area.
As Bon leapt up, startled, her eyes large, dark circles in her face that matched the round of her lips, he removed his fingers from the spots and pushed himself up from where he sat. Walking to the stone, he inspected its edges where the beam had cut through it and found them to be perfectly straight and clean, as though the stone had been cut with a tool.
The woman ran to him, grasping his hand and burying her head against his side in supplication.
"You no do! Good Lord use Staff for all kind thing! You no do!"
He shook her off as his mind began to imagine the things he could do with the Staff. He could kill all the birds, being uncertain which one had stolen Petra. He could track down and kill all the People of the Fire that Bon had told him of; they had attacked Bon’s camp, after all, on their way to track Petra. They had probably captured Petra by now and he had no way of knowing what treatment she was receiving from them. Then the thought came to him that he could rule this place. He could replace their Good Lord after he killed the brother. The brother had probably killed whatever sense of self the doppelganger Lisa had possessed; he deserved death.
It Happens Every Day Page 13
