Wild Within

by Mima

  “No, no, just surprised. The skin didn't break.”

  “Oh praise!” said the woman, slumping with relief. Her eyes lifted quickly to pin KarRa. “How dare you strike him?! The Wolves' most respected bodymage! Healers are sacred even in the Seven Cities…”

  “Meera, it's fine, leave be. I'm not a child in need of defense. Although I admit to being surprised at the need for defense just for touching a body in sleep.”

  Meera humphed.

  “How long,” KarRa gasped, astonished that she still could barely gather her legs under her as she tried to rise up against the wall.

  “Unfortunately, four days. We finally realized the change in Rylan’s soulair was causing havoc with your bond and balanced it.”

  Change. His soul had been changed. He was in a real Clan now. He had an Owl form. He was safe. Alone.

  The man stared at her calmly. KarRa took in his lightly lined face, still strong enough to crush her she was sure, without her element of surprise. He dug into one of the many leather pouches and pockets at his belt. He handed her a soft spongy leaf as big as his hand. “Use this on your face. Press it up into your nose as well, then throw it in the magelight.”

  She did, pleased that it stopped her bloody nose, and he handed her a cup of water that tasted odd. She gave him a look when she set it on the table. “I better stay awake long enough…”

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupted, “It's just an energy boost.” The only piece of clothing left in the room was one of her old sweaters and she took it from the woman, her thin blanket-dress fluttering oddly about her calves underneath.

  “I’ll send your mentor to you, but one of the unmated women has been sitting with you when Meera and I couldn’t be here. She’ll be glad to see you’re up. Eat lightly, soup would be best, for a day.”

  He and a still grumbling Meera left, while KarRa sat, shakily and assessed her frighteningly low energy.

  “Hallo? KarRa?” called a lovely voice from beyond the red door curtain.

  “Come.” She surged to her feet, readying.

  There was a cloud princess in the doorway. She stepped forward, put her hands on her hips and laughed. “My goodness! Calm yourself and be at ease. You are safe.” Her speech proclaimed her a City woman. She was small but bold, looking KarRa all over, deeply interested.

  Still her voice was kind when she asked, “How do you feel? Would you like water?”

  She’s beautiful too, KarRa thought inanely. Is no one in these caves a normal person? KarRa looked hard at her and her softness. Her fear drained away. This woman was used to being kept and the source of little danger.

  “Yes. Please.”

  KarRa sat gingerly on the side of the bed as the woman—Silverhair, KarRa thought—sat across from her at the table. She poured water from a clay jug into two cups and pushed one to KarRa.

  “When you first came in, I was very worried. I've never seen so much blood before.”

  KarRa cleared her throat. After an awkward silence where she sensed she was meant to reply she said, “I often got bloody noses as a child. Whenever I tried to use magic. Sometimes I got sick too. When I grew tired of bleeding and puking I gave up on magic.” The woman shrank back a bit at this, her eyes growing round.

  KarRa fiddled with the strange thin dress.

  “Can I get clothes?”

  “Any kind you like.”

  “The ones I had before?”

  “Ruined. You want more fighting clothes like those?” Her voice sounded surprised.

  “Leather pants, a heavy tunic, boots. I have no money.”

  “You don’t need any here.”

  KarRa puzzled over that for a moment, decided to ignore it.

  “Rylan? He is well?”

  Silverhair shrugged. “I am sure. We are unmated and have no Clan, so news filters to us slowly here in the women’s caves. From what I heard he has been introduced to Clan and Council, fully adopted. We won't see him until the next Darkmoon dance in five nights. And he's so new he probably won't even come to that, although most unmated males usually do.”

  She fell silent and they stared at each other. The silence grew until Silverhair said brightly “I'm Freezha. Are you really a wildling? While you were sleeping I counted six scars on your face! How many people have you killed?”

  KarRa stared at the young woman, appalled by her cheerful bloodthirstiness. Her long, gleaming hair was so white it sparkled. Her eyes were violet. She was small, pale, and petite, with an enormous chest, which she showed off in a low-cut blue velvet dress that plumped and displayed. Her features were fine and smooth, with a rosebud mouth. She appeared to have not a single scar. She had spoken the word “wildling” as if it were an exotic honor.

  KarRa looked at the floor. I am going to spend the rest of my life here. This woman will be my companion for at least the near future. She could be a guide. “Yes,” she said calmly to Freezha, looking into her incredible flowery eyes as an equal. “I lived in the Dark around the walls of the Fourth City. I was of Scuffle's Clan.” Her mouth twisted wryly as she was aware of the ridiculousness of her naming Clan as if she were a City dweller.

  “My name is KarRa.” It no longer strangled her to say her name in two beats and stop at the ahh instead of adding —ylan. “I may have killed people in the course of riots but as I never had any intent, I consider myself innocent. The Beasts never came for me.”

  “Is that how you got those scars? In riots? I heard from Guild women that sometimes people inside the City could hear them happening outside the Walls.”

  “I usually didn't die in the fights I was in because I fought back. So did they.”

  Freezha did not look suitably disgusted. She looked fascinated, eager. KarRa was suddenly angry.

  “And I didn't live in a nice tight shak like I bet you had, with a family and guards. I mostly lived on the streets. I stole for my food, which often involved falling, jumping, and smashing. And my body was the thing that got smashed just as much as any box or lock. Any clothes that I had I got by stealing. The shak that I slept in was won by fighting, and the complex traps that I set guarded the sleep that I got. My Clan ran messages and messengers are often not very popular.”

  Her words were now falling like rocks. “My life has been one long fight for survival. Every scar on my body is proof that I was better or luckier than somebody else. I survived. Many didn't.”

  Now Freezha looked suitably fearful. Smaller than KarRa, the girl’s eyes had grown as big as cups, her face as white as the moon.

  KarRa breathed through her nose, lowered her heart rate. “I came here to save my friend Rylan's life when he fell ill. Thank you for your care of me while I was weak.”

  “Ahhhh,” Freezha's enormous eyes went dreamy. Her shoulders relaxed. “That is so beautiful. Your story is the most romantic here. Two wildlings, daring the wilderness, braving the unknown horrors of the Beasts for each other. They say you are soulmates! You came here thinking you were going to die didn't you? I want my mate to love me as much.

  “My father is a Second City pearl merchant, the head of the Guild actually, and some of the women say that for the price of Beast guards on Guild caravans for the next year he sold me.” Her blonde brows drew together delicately as her chin quivered.

  “My father loves me!” Freezha burst hotly, tears welling instantly to cascade in sparkling diamonds over her strawberries and cream skin. “He’s always given me the best of everything. This will be his last year at the Guild before he retires to the Royal City. He knew I would be honored and cared for here! I chose to come here.”

  KarRa cleared her throat. “I'm to understand Rylan will not be my mate.”

  Standing in a rush that made her start, Freezha slammed her dainty hands onto the table. “Hateful!” With a twirling rush of ribbons and velvet she spun herself to land in an artful spray on the pallet. KarRa leapt away and turned in confusion, staring down at her.

  Freezha lay spread on the pallet, her tears still sparkling, her
small fists clenched upon the silken curtain of white blonde tresses. “They should not hinder the path of true love! They above all must recognize its importance and truth. To keep you from fucking…” KarRa's eyebrows rose at that from her rosebud mouth, “your one pure mate is—is—beastly!” Her breasts heaved and threatened to spill out of her dress in her horizontal position.

  KarRa cleared her throat. “Actually, we don't.”

  “What?”

  “Umm, we don't fuck. It just never really was an option for us.”

  The woman stared at her for a moment.

  “Soulmates? Don’t fuck? And I thought I had it bad! Absurd!” Then Freezha began to laugh, her open mirth spreading across the room like mageheat. Finally KarRa joined in. The princess would do. She barked along with the tinkling bells and couldn't remember ever feeling this relaxed with a stranger. She was alive, Rylan was well, and all else would follow.

  In the hour, KarRa had her first meal in days, a small bowl of the most delicious soup she’d ever tasted in her life. Freezha also brought supplies for a much needed sponge bath. Then she returned with leather trews and a long sleeved, well made brown jerkin, the nicest she had ever worn. It was finished at the cuff, waist, and collar, the edges being turned down and stitched across to make a smooth fold in the fabric. When Freezha caught her studying it in wonder, she brushed it down, pretending to nock away crumbs, even though she had eaten only soup in her thin illness gown. She knew better than to ask for her warclub back, though she felt strange without it.

  Then she met the other dozen women in the unmated caves. Looking them over as they all sat in murmuring groups around their common lounge later that night, KarRa thought about how the Beasts seemed intent on treating these women with honor. The women's stories varied widely. Bartered, some pregnant and volunteering for a new life, chosen in payment or punishment, their human families seemed to hold them in considerably lower worth.

  There were four children among them. They each seemed to be a restless surging bundle of energy that made KarRa tense. She was grateful when they tumbled, literally, out of the room to play.

  The room was large, and plain, with no decorations other than the colorful floor pillows and wall hangings over the doors to various corridors. The smooth stone floor and rougher walls radiated warmth instead of the damp coldness she expected of a cave. The tables were carved, and the women were all richly dressed. She and Freezha lounged on large round pillows the color of jewels. She was still surprised at how at ease she was with the City dweller already. There was enough space between the tables to feel like their low conversation had privacy.

  “So, the Beasts are wanting women. Do you know how many of them there are?” KarRa asked, idly twirling her ceramic tea cup.

  Freezha answered promptly, “Much more than a typical City, but a smaller population than the Royal City. Of course, usually they're spread out over a very great area as well. And try to start calling them Truxet.”

  KarRa stared at her in wonder. This knowledgeable tone was not what she’d grown used to from the lush woman.

  “That includes all adopted women and the children, too,” she added. Seeing KarRa’s astonishment, Freezha murmured wryly, “The women snipe that I’m only a pearl, pretty and simple, but I’m smart enough. Yet another reason Father valued me so.” Her voice grew heated. “I trust him to make such an important decision for me and I honor him by accepting it. I could have run away…”

  KarRa thought, And been dead in a day—

  “But I believe this was a good choice for me. I’ll always be safe, and comfortable, with a handsome husband who cares for me. He could have married me off to that fat gem Guild toad that wanted me. So I don't want them to keep saying I've been thrown away by my father!”

  She would have kept going but KarRa dared to physically touch the now flushed girl’s arm, and with a meaningful look motioned with her hands the symbols for {Try again.} “I'm sorry, Little One. I for one would not speak on relationships I've never known.” KarRa cast about for something else to talk about. “Why don't the Beasts seem to have any women of their own?”

  Freezha shook her head. “There are never any daughters. It is the cause of much sadness, frustration, and research. I guess there used to be, eons ago. All these women have to be carefully taught their ways and worked into the Clans. Your training will start tomorrow. A woman who’s already mated will mentor you for a while. It’s a very ineffective system they have to gain mates, which is sad because they are literally driven to be family men.”

  “Only twelve women for what has to be many unmated men,” KarRa said in wonder.

  Freezha sat straighter, sniffing. “Rarely, some of them father children without being mated and sustain their family drive that way. Their fertility is much lower when they’re not mated. But most warriors will never have a mate, never have families. So many desperate men.

  “Very soon they will have to be more open in the gathering of women. This trickle of women is slowing their growth. It is unnecessary and cruel that so many go unmated. If they would just change the communication their Council sends to the Seven Cities, I know women would come to them instead of the other way around. But noooo! They're too worried about their privacy and traditions and…”

  “Hey! Silverhair, take a breath!” KarRa said this with a drawl and gave Freezha an arch look. And after a beat they both cracked up, neither knowing or caring why.

  KarRa learned the room she had awoken in was assigned to her. No other would go there without her permission (she snorted in disbelief at this) and she would not have to share it. Nor was she allowed to lay magetraps in defense of it. Lying under the warm blankets of her roomy pallet that night, she opened her magepath to Rylan. It was blocked. Concerned, she measured her breathing, cleared her mind, and pulled up her mists. The rock door Grif had set was still sitting on the path. Furious, KarRa rolled it open. Trying again, she felt another door on Rylan’s end. She pounded on it, but it would not open to her. Too exhausted to try to force more sharing, KarRa told herself it didn’t mean anything. They were both alive, and well.

  KarRa slept fitfully that night, constantly waking to check the status of her surroundings. How did these people live with no locks or traps? By the Winds—not even a real door! Her body was still weak the next morning. Breakfast was another watery meal in her room with Freezha and the healer for company.

  “The last,” she muttered to herself, as she could hear new women trailing down the hall into the lounge. The chatter ratcheted up and soon groups were drifting off down the halls. Freezha and the healer left her when a young woman stood in the doorway, rocking heel to toe, her arms clasped in front of her chest. KarRa looked at the bouncing girl and waited.

  “Welcome to Vladaya, home of the Truxet! And River Mountain! The ancient cave citadel of Beasts!” The exclamation came with a flurry of hand waves. Then she threw her hands over her mouth to stifle a whinny like a horse.

  She was about KarRa's medium size with the same trim build, but her hair was even shorter—a cap of bright orange curls that danced around her face. Her eyes were the green of hot magic, pale and ghostly, made more so by her dark brown skin. They were set strangely angled in her face, and thickly lashed with orange lashes. She had the most striking coloring KarRa had seen. She finally planted herself flat footed and gasped a breath.

  She announced again in a grand way, hands flowing smoother and slower this time, “I am Cro, mate of Proteus, Alpha of the Mountaincat Clan.”

  KarRa searched desperately for something to say other than, Why are you doing that with your hands?

  Finally the girl, Cro, dropped her hands to her side, and being still, seemed deflated. “I'm your mentor,” she said with a hint of disappointment.

  Ah. The mysterious absent mentor. “Greetings. I'm KarRa. That was quite a, er, very poetic greeting.”

  The girl threw herself up onto her toes, hands flying up above her head to flutter her fingers crazily. She looked lik
e a mage on speed weed. “Was it? I wanted it to be special. You are special. The men are all soooo excited to hear a new woman has come. It's so incredible that you're here!”

  KarRa just looked at her, feeling as if she must look like Freezha with goggle eyes and open mouth. Feeling her mouth was indeed open she closed it with an audible snap of teeth. Cro jumped.

  She whinnied and KarRa thought that the sound made her human, with her magical looks. “Let's get started.” She waved and fluttered her hand down a walkway, one that led further in, away from the outer hallway.

  KarRa tilted her head and led the way, Cro bouncing behind like a child's paper toy on a string. “Ummm, do you have news of Rylan?”

  “Yes! Of course!” Her exuberance actually made KarRa twitch. People in the Dark were mostly very contained unless at a tavern, Clan meeting, or riot. The less attention you drew to yourself the safer. “He is well. He is adopted, and has been tested. He has started his studies over these last few days when you were so ill. His Clan is a small one, but all Clans hold a place in Vladaya. They rejoice in his coming to them.”

  “What is that word? Vladaya?”

  “Oh, this place. All of it—the caves, the rivers, the mountains, the land the Truxet hold, and the magic in the land.” They had come to another of the draped doorways, and Cro flitted past her and flung the curtain back, rising so high onto the points of her toes KarRa felt she might float away to the ceiling.

  “River Mountain's main plaza!” she exclaimed. KarRa moved forward, then seeing that she was on a balcony about three shaks up above a wide-open space, she edged to the shadows at the side, standing against the wall so she would make no silhouette, but edging closer to the railing so she could take it all in. Cro went right up to the middle of the balcony, resting her hips against the railing, her arms angled out to either side. “Isn't it amazing?! The Truxet are extraordinary and I thank the Skyfather and Earthmother that I found my way to Proteus and his Cats.” She fell silent and KarRa let her eyes drink in the scene.

  The hall was the biggest open space she had ever seen and it made her skin crawl. As wide across as the City walls were tall, it went up at least as high. An enormous gaping hole up near the ceiling high on her left let natural light stream in. There were balconies small and large spread all up and down the walls along the great space—sort of circular she judged. There were some balconies higher than they above her head. None were exactly the same, some elaborately carved, some with railings, some with pillars. The hall floor was paved with smooth stones large and small. Around the base were many doorways, and some of the balconies higher up had long twists of stairs down to the floor.