The Black Sky

by Michael Dalton

  “Even though you’re one of the makalang’s wives?”

  “Especially then. You have to understand that, from their perspective, that wasn’t my decision to make. That should have been between you and the clan leader. I had no business offering myself, or accepting when you asked. And my remaining with you, mating with you, conceiving a child, and now insisting on staying with you, is a huge, ongoing affront to what they think is right.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “You’re putting yourself out there a lot more than you told us you were.”

  “Narilora needs me.”

  Narilora said nothing, just reaching out to squeeze Eladra’s hand.

  “Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you were so rebellious,” I said.

  Eladra smiled in that painfully cute way she had.

  “It’s worth everything. I love you, Will. I think . . . pretty much from the moment you found me in that closet.”

  I pulled her over and hugged her.

  “You’re mine now. And anyone who has a problem with that is going through me.”

  ◆◆◆

  I once intended to keep as low a profile as possible when we got to the village, but after that conversation, I decided to just take care of business and let the chips fall where they would.

  I walked straight off the train onto the platform with the girls a step behind me. Unlike that morning in Phan-garad, there were quite a few people, almost all cunelo, wandering around. They stopped and gasped as they saw us, pointing and talking. Largely because of the way she was dressed and the stern, humorless look she’d put on her face, no one seemed to immediately recognize Eladra.

  “Where to?” I asked her.

  “There’s a general store up the street where we should be able to buy whatever we need. I hope,” she added.

  Doing my best to ignore the stares, I followed her through the village. The architecture seemed newer than the village near iXa’aliq’s house, though with considerably less character and polish. Most of the buildings were basically unadorned boxes roughly the size and shape of a barn back on Earth. About a hundred yards up the road, Eladra stopped us in front of a store offering a variety of dry goods and equipment.

  Inside the store, I saw a middle-aged cunelo sitting behind the counter in back, reading. She looked up as we walked in. Then she gasped and shot to her feet.

  “What –”

  “Hello, Girasa,” Eladra said.

  The cunelo gasped again.

  “Eladra?”

  She just smiled thinly back at her.

  “We’re just here for some supplies,” I said. “This won’t take long.”

  As Girasa regained her composure after a few seconds, she glared at my wife.

  “I won’t sell to her. Get out.”

  Clearly, Eladra hadn’t been exaggerating. The woman barely came up to my chest, but she stood there as if she was ready to die to defend her right to refuse service to anyone.

  “I only need you to sell to me.”

  “Not while this traitorous child is in my store.”

  “She’s with me.”

  “Then I won’t sell to you either. I don’t care what you are. I don’t care how many cunelo children you bring into the world.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Is there anywhere else we can go?” I asked Eladra.

  She pursed her lips.

  “Not really.”

  I reached into my backpack and extracted a 1,000 pikala plate from one of the side pockets. Then I set it on the counter in front of me. Girasa gasped, and her eyes bulged in their sockets.

  “I’m going to leave this here. We’re going to collect a few things. Are we good?”

  The cunelo stared down at the glittering crystal plate in front of her. I knew that in this little village, in a dying economy, it was huge amount of money. But it wasn’t as if I couldn’t afford it.

  Finally, she reached out and slipped the plate into her dress.

  “Make it quick. And don’t speak to me. You get no help.”

  It took us about ten minutes to gather all the dried food we needed for a week in the woods. Remembering my fall into the cave, I also grabbed two coils of rope braided from some kind of silk-like material. I looked for any other climbing equipment Girasa might have had, but there was nothing. The rope would have to be enough.

  Shopping took long enough for some other cunelo to start gathering outside the store to watch us. Girasa ignored us and said nothing when we left.

  “It’s only mid-day,” I said. “Seems like we should hit the trail.”

  “Yeah, for sure –”

  Narilora grabbed my arm.

  “Will. Look.”

  I turned and looked up the street. A group of about ten angry-looking cunelo were coming in our direction.

  “Oh, no,” Eladra said.

  “Let me deal with this.”

  “No, Will, that –”

  “What?”

  She took a deep breath and sighed.

  “That’s my mom.”

  ◆◆◆

  I saw the resemblance immediately, because she was easily the best-looking woman in the group. She was somewhat heavyset compared to her daughter, who was still fit and trim, but it was clear where Eladra got her curves from.

  “You would dare show your face here after the shame you have brought upon me and this village?” she shouted.

  “We’re about to leave, so it should be fine,” I replied.

  Her mother glanced at me, then back at her daughter. The rest of the group circled around us, and others were coming up to watch.

  “You must think a great deal of yourself now, accepting a match you had no right to, when you were assigned to another.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I choose who I mate with. I don’t care what happened here, but she’s my wife now.”

  Again, her mother ignored me.

  “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” she asked.

  Finally Eladra straightened her back, her ears going up to points.

  “I did what I did. Now I am what I am, which is the makalang’s wife.”

  “The clan leader came to speak with us about this!” her mother shrieked. “Loreloo herself! I had to apologize for your actions since you clearly do not care for anyone but yourself!”

  “I will bear a child!” Eladra screamed back at her. “I carry her now! What does it matter which male I mated with?”

  “Yet you have remained with this creature instead of returning home as you should!”

  “I obey my tsulygoi! He wishes me to remain with him, and I wish to remain as well!”

  At last, her mother turned to me.

  “This, this is your doing?”

  “In my world, males don’t abandon their children.”

  She scoffed.

  “What do males know of children? What do males care!”

  The other cunelo around us murmured in agreement.

  “I’m not a Taitalan male. I would have thought that was pretty obvious.”

  Her eyes flared. Then she seemed to notice Narilora for the first time, noticed her weapons, then took in Eladra’s armor and sword, and mine, and all our gear.

  “What in the name of the six clans are you three doing?”

  “We’re going to meet with the panikang, Mother.”

  Gasps of horror exploded around us. Her mother’s face went pale.

  “Why?” she said softly.

  “It is business of mine,” I replied.

  “What business could the makalang possibly have with them?” one of the other cunelo asked.

  “They are, as she just invoked, one of the six clans, are they not? I have been invited.”

  “Do you even know where you’re going?” her mother asked.

  “We’re going to follow the river,” Eladra said.

  More murmuring came from around us.

  “What of your
child?” another asked.

  “That is my concern,” I said. “But I assure you I am mindful of her welfare.”

  A lot of the anger and distress seemed to drain out of Eladra’s mother.

  “Eladra. My child. Why would you do this thing?”

  “Because I owe it to my tsulygoi.” She looked at Narilora. “And my awasa-late. That is all I will say. Judge me all you want. I will walk out of here with no shame.”

  Her mother’s face softened.

  “You have just arrived. Must you leave so soon? Did you mean to come here and leave without even seeing your mother?”

  Eladra’s mood seemed to soften as well. She looked at me.

  “Will?”

  I exhaled slowly.

  “If you want to stay a bit, we can. I suppose we could start out in the morning, if you really want to.”

  There were a few moments of silence. Then her mother looked at the crowd around us.

  “This is between me and my daughter! Go! I would speak with her alone.”

  The crowd slowly began to disperse. Then we followed Eladra and her mother back to their house.

  Chapter 9

  As Eladra explained to me at one point, cunelo tended to live in communal groups, and children in particular were raised together. So she grew up in a house with anywhere from five to ten other bunny-girls of various ages, and her mother lived in the same house with their mothers as well as other females who assisted with the child-rearing. That made for a household of around ten to twenty people, but again, it was just how the cunelo did things. Within these arrangements, the young bunny-girls referred to each other as “cousins" even though there was usually no blood relationship. With Eladra having left to mate, her mother – whose name was Hiran – had moved out of that house and in with a much smaller group.

  Once the initial shock of the makalang and the prodigal daughter showing up at their house wore off, Hiran introduced us to her three housemates, though I got the distinct impression they were more than that. They spent a little while reviewing Eladra’s misdeeds before Hiran shushed them all and asked to hear about me. So I gave them the same story about Earth and my appearance here that I’d worked out over multiple similar discussions back in Phan-garad. That took about two hours before they ran out of questions.

  By then, it was too late to start out on our trek, so I agreed with Eladra that we could spend the night. We ate dinner – the usual cunelo roots and vegetables – with all of them as the conversation ranged over the state of the village, the situation in Phan-garad, and the tensions between the clans. Afterward, Narilora and I helped clean up. Eladra and Hiran then went off for an extended mother-daughter discussion that we didn’t need to be involved in.

  ◆◆◆

  I checked in with Ayarala, telling her what had happened in the village.

  “The house is fine,” she said. “We all miss you. The new girls we picked from out front were a little disappointed that you left right after they joined us, but they understand. The crowd is getting a little agitated, but it is nothing worth worrying about.”

  “Okay. Good. Anything else?”

  “Only one thing. A messenger from the Long Claw came this morning asking you to meet with Ceriniat. She was upset and angry that you were not here.”

  “Do you know what she wanted?”

  “Merindra talked to her. She thinks it had something to do with the hunt for the panikang. That was it.”

  “Okay. That can wait. I think we’re going to leave first thing in the morning. From what I can see here, it’s going to be a long, tough hike.”

  “Please be careful, Will.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, my makalang.”

  ◆◆◆

  Narilora and I sat together on a couch in the sitting room on the first floor. The cunelo had all gone upstairs. I just held her as she purred against me and I scratched her ears gently.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we find the panikang,” I said. “It’s possible that –”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You don’t need to say anything about it. I know what we’re doing. I know it may be nothing. I know it probably will be.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s enough that you and Eladra are doing this for me. If all I can ever do is help raise your other children, Ayarala’s and Kisarat’s and Merindra’s and Eladra’s and Lorelat’s, and all the rest of them, that’s okay. If that’s all I can do, then I’ll do it.”

  I rubbed her head.

  “Okay.”

  She deserved more. But there was no need to say it.

  I saw Eladra coming down the stairs. She looked a lot more settled and composed than she had that morning. She came over and sat next to me opposite Narilora. I put my arm around her. She leaned over and kissed me slowly, then laid her head on my shoulder.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s all good, bunny-girl.”

  “My mom said we could sleep down here. This couch unrolls into a mattress.”

  Part of me wanted them. But not with her mother in the house, upstairs. Wife or not, it felt like it could wait. Instead, the three of us cuddled up together and fell asleep.

  ◆◆◆

  After a brief but tearful good-bye, we set out the next morning along the river. We left behind any sign of civilization pretty quickly. Eladra had been right that no one from the village appeared to have gone far into the forest. We saw some signs of children having played in spots along the river, but those were gone within a mile.

  The landscape was dense and lush, but cool, reminding me of the Pacific Northwest even though the trees and vegetation were very different. The dominant trees looked like a combination of oak and date palms. They were broad and tall with clusters of long fronds, around which grew small purplish fruit that looked like plums. After Eladra assured me they were safe, I tried one. It was very sweet, tasting a bit like licorice-flavored strawberries.

  “I feel like you could make some good liquor out of these,” I said.

  “We do,” she responded. “When we get back, I’ll show you. It’s like malvina, but stronger. Late in the summer, they ferment on the trees, and the matsaks get drunk on them. So drunk they can fall to the ground. It’s so funny.”

  Matsaks were creatures that looked like six-legged black koalas. We’d already seen several. They generally kept to the treetops because the busangs preyed on them.

  For a couple of hours, we hiked along the river, moving in and out of the trees. The terrain sloped gently upwards, but not enough to be challenging. Here and there, the river splashed over small rocky cascades that we had to climb around. Narilora had little trouble with it, easily hopping from rock to rock, but Eladra went a bit more slowly, and I in particular had to take it slow. The rocks were slick and covered in places with something akin to algae, and I was carrying most of the gear.

  We stopped to eat when the sun was high in the sky, though it was mostly out of sight unless we were right along the water.

  “How far do you think we’re going to need to go?” Narilora asked.

  “The panikang are either aware of us already or will be soon. I assume they’ll contact us when they’re ready to. My guess is they may be assessing how determined we are here. So we keep going as far as we need to.”

  “And if they don’t contact us?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really know.

  Later that afternoon, we began to hear the sound of falling water. From glimpses through the trees ahead of us, I could tell the land was starting to rise. In about ten minutes, we found ourselves at the bottom of a fifty-foot waterfall. It tumbled over a sheer, rocky ledge that extended out of sight into the forest in both directions.

  “That’s going to be a climb,” I said.

  “Should I scout for a way up?” Narilora asked.

  “Yeah, just don’t go too far.”

  She loped off into the trees,
returning about five minutes later.

  “If you go a little way back, the cliff isn’t as steep. There’s a spot you guys should be able to climb.”

  We followed her to the spot in question. The cliff was just as high, but she’d found a section of it where the rock wall had partially collapsed and there were boulders we could climb to the top. But it still looked a bit hairy, in part because of the dampness of the forest. I’d completed the Marine Assault Climbers Course at 29 Palms, but that was more than fifteen years ago. I had none of the gear I’d been trained in using, and I hadn’t really kept my skills up. Rock climbing was one of the multiple hobbies of mine that Jacqueline hated. So I would have to take this carefully.

  Narilora went first with a rope around her waist, finding the easiest route. I watched with some envy as she sprang up the cliff, using her claws when necessary to hang from the cracks in the rock. When she got to the top, she tied the rope around a tree and threw it back down. Eladra strapped her sword onto her back and the rope around her waist. Narilora knew what she was doing, and she took the rope up carefully as Eladra climbed. With Narilora’s assistance, she was at the top in a couple of minutes.

  They threw the rope back down. I spent a moment assessing the situation. The route went back and forth over a couple narrow spots that I didn’t want to negotiate with 40 pounds of gear on my back. So I tied my backpack to the rope and had them hoist it up.

  Then it was my turn. The route went over a large boulder that I had little trouble getting past, but from there it went about twenty feet up and along a narrow ledge with few handholds for someone my size. Narilora, with her catlike agility, had no difficulty with it. Eladra was short enough that she’d been able to hold onto several cracks in the cliff face, but those cracks were about at my waist and left me feeling dangerously unsupported.

  I slithered slowly along the ledge, just trying to keep my weight against the rock. Eventually I got to a spot where I had to climb up and over a protruding boulder. That was easy enough, and I got to another, broader ledge that was little trouble. Finally, I reached the spot that had most concerned me. It was a ledge that was maybe two inches wide that went about fifteen feet across a sheer rock face. There were no handholds, and Eladra had managed it with Narilora supporting her with the rope. But I weighed about twice what she did.