Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

  So she waited for the end of Bodual’s rambling story (it had begun when she’d tried to find out the word for salmon, but that simple language lesson had mutated somehow into the tale of his first salmon hunt and how he had been beaten up by a fish), laughed politely, and excused herself. He let her go at once, no doubt eager to get home to poor neglected Karen, and she left as the remaining guards began to switch off the lanterns.

  Soon, Olivia was back in Vorgullum’s lair, yawning her way to the sleeping room, and surprised to find the fireplace dark and the pit empty. For a moment, all her weary mind could think was that she’d managed to climb into the wrong lair. But no, there was her cooler full of games and there was her photo album. Where was Vorgullum?

  Puzzled, Olivia went through each of the four rooms looking for him, but confirmed only that she was alone. Now fully awake and rapidly approaching good, old-fashioned panic (her World History teacher, silent all this while, piped up faintly: ‘Without her protector, Olivia’s place in the tribe has been reduced to that of food source! It’s hard to watch, but it’s nature’s way.’), Olivia climbed back out of her chambers and tried to think of where she would go if she were a bat-man in a bad mood.

  The common cave was empty now, all its many nooks and crannies unoccupied. She shone her flashlight down each of the narrow tunnels leading out of it and found a storeroom for the fuel-logs, the canal that passed for the common bathroom (quite a large one, really, much bigger than the one in Vorgullum’s lair), and a few private chambers like the one where she’d seen Bolga and Cheyenne’s captor canoodling, but no gullan.

  After a moment’s troubled concentration, she padded off resolutely to check the mines. Empty.

  Feeling a certain uncomfortable dread, Olivia backtracked to the main passageway and went to the women’s tunnels. She met no one but old Horumn guarding the hide-flap entrance, who waspishly informed her that there were no males at all in the women’s tunnels, which is why they were called the women’s tunnels, and that none of the safe females (whatever that meant) were available, and in any event, Olivia’s mate was the least likely of any gullan to want the company of a ‘real’ female, so would Olivia kindly scuttle off into a corner somewhere and die?

  Olivia retreated to the commons and stood there with her candle, now approaching a state of real worry. She didn’t know where else to look. There were the baths, but she knew she couldn’t manage the climb down the Deep Drop. And God knew there had to be hundreds of tunnels and chambers and lairs unexplored by her, but it was all too easy to imagine getting lost down one of them…all too easy to imagine this stupid flashlight going out and getting lost right here in the commons.

  “Who is that?”

  She jumped, screamed, and dropped her flashlight, which promptly went out.

  Great, she thought, her heart pounding. Now I’m alone in the dark with a stranger. “M-Me,” she stammered, trying to keep from shivering.

  “Well, that tells me exactly nothing.” Whoever it was trailed off into grumbling, his claws clicking closer, and stopped again. She could hear him sniffing. “Is it Olivia?”

  “Yes.”

  A long, puzzled silence. Then, “Are you lost?” Here? the unvoiced thought continued.

  “No, I’m not lost, I’m in the damn commons,” she snapped. She took a couple of breaths and added, “Vorgullum isn’t back yet.”

  “Ah.” And that was all he said.

  She didn’t know his voice; it was a distinctively deep voice, even vaguely familiar, but she didn’t know any of them by voice, excepting Vorgullum and that was only because she spent so much time with him. Who was he? She was suddenly gripped by the illogical fear that he might be Cheyenne’s captor, although if he was, he had to be hurting himself to make his voice go that low.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice quavering. She didn’t really expect to be answered. She was astonished when he did so.

  “My name is Doru. You might know my Tobi. Short head-fur, with colored stripes?”

  “Oh, yes. Tobi,” she said weakly. “Tina’s friend.”

  They stood in the dark and were silent.

  Slowly, as if trying very hard not to frighten her, he said, “Olivia, I am going to touch your arm now and take you back to your cave.”

  “Vorgullum isn’t there,” she protested.

  “Perhaps not, but when he does come back, that is where he’ll go.” A huge hand closed over her arm. “There now, that’s not so bad, is it?”

  “Look, instead of treating me like a baby with a broken toy, help me find Vorgullum!”

  He uttered a low bark of laughter. “Olivia, this is a big mountain and an even bigger forest.”

  “Fine. Go home. I’ll look for him myself.”

  He seemed to consider that as he ignored her heartfelt and extremely futile efforts to pull out of his very effective grip. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll take you as far as the entry shaft. Then you are going to stand there very still and I am going up to have a look. If he isn’t there, I’m taking you to your lair and you are going to stay there.”

  “I make no promises. You go look first.”

  He made that barking laugh again, but he didn’t argue as he led her away. He walked slowly, letting her feel her way along with one hand on the wall. Presently, she came to feel a cool breeze against her face, although she still couldn’t see anything.

  “Stay here, Olivia. Your mate will have my horns if you wander off and lose yourself,” he added in an undertone, and she heard his claws striking off stone as he climbed.

  Olivia huddled in the blackness, breathing in the cooler air that blew down the entry, and tried not to picture herself alone and abandoned in this mountain. There was no other sound expect her heavy breathing. There was nothing to see but the dumb swirl of color the human brain will conjure up in dark places when it is bored. Her watch was broken; she was all alone for several years.

  “—of all people would keep a better grip on yours,” she heard, and bolted to her feet. “She’s frightened half out of her mind.”

  “I am not!” she called, and bit her lip.

  “See?” Patiently, as if she’d made his point for him.

  She could hear them now, coming hand over hand down the wall. The faint rustle of their wings added a strange depth to the rough grind of claws in rock. Presently, she could smell the faint mineral-water musk of them, as if her panic had heightened her human senses to rival theirs. And then a hand was on her arm and it was Vorgullum’s hand. Olivia pressed into his chest, crushing herself with the reality of him, and tried very hard not to babble at him.

  He stroked his hand down her hair, rubbed her back, said nothing.

  “Well, as my Tobi says, my work here is done. Sleep, Vorgullum. Sleep is always good.” The sound of heavy footsteps receded from them.

  “Say something,” she said, muffled against his soft fur.

  “I frightened you. I apologize.” Heartfelt, perhaps, but mechanically spoken.

  “Where were you?”

  His chest rose and fell. “Brooding. Pointless brooding. It has done nothing for me and it has frightened my Olivia. I am not doing well at all.”

  “Come to bed,” she urged.

  He only sighed.

  “Then come and watch me while I sleep.” She felt him consider that, and then his hand brushed her jaw in the darkness and he led her away to the caves they shared.

  He lit a candle for her to undress by, then turned and crouched by the hearth, stirring at the ashes listlessly. She sat in the pit with her sleeping bag pooled around her hips and watched him worriedly. At last he clasped his hands and bent his head and said, “You aren’t sleeping.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  There was a long, long silence. When he looked at her again, she could not see his eyes. “Terrible things have happened…and they are still happening.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Bundel’s human is mad. I realize now she will never com
e back to her own mind. Sarabee and Karen are not much better; they sit, they cry, they do not eat if they are not fed, and they still fight their mates sometimes. No season has come to Victoria. There has been trouble over several of the humans that has nearly come to violence. And there is this…Mojo Woman.” He bared his teeth at the name. “And no one has caught a spark.” A long pause. “Except Bolga.”

  Olivia pulled her sleeping bag away and crawled over to join him at the hearth. He let her put an arm around him, but remained rigid as stone.

  “I’m not a fool,” he said. “There are ways in which a female can avoid getting herself with child. I’m sure Murgull does her best to see such things are available to those with sense enough to take them, but what can be done with Bolga? It is the responsibility of the Eldest to safeguard the women’s tunnels, but that law was made when it was expected that women could think for themselves…and that no man would want to prey upon those who could not.” Vorgullum growled, low and hurt and angry. “What am I to do with the man who bred Bolga?” He lashed out with one hand, tore three long gashes in the stone floor and glared at them. “The leader that came before me forbade coupling.” He snorted. “Forbade. Some thirty gullan came in defiance of him. Six survived. Bolga is the last of them, and look at her.”

  She held him, said nothing.

  “Now I have brought a handful of humans to a tribe of eighty males. As unpleasant as it can be to couple with them—forgive me, Olivia, but some of those with human mates do think so—at least those who possess a human have some release. Day and night, they are free to rut…at my command, no less. And all the rest must stand off, stealing half-satisfaction where they can or bartering time with one of the barren. They see my hunters with their human mates and what is there for them to feel but resentment? That is my doing also and there is nothing I can do to mend it.”

  He lapsed into silence, letting her rub his arms and shoulders, but not looking at her. He stared into the fire instead, and watched bleakly as it died.

  “Well,” Olivia began guardedly. “Feeling sorry for yourself is a pretty good short-term solution, but eventually you are going to have to accept the fact that you’re already doing everything you can, short of clapping the whole tribe in chains so you can let them out one at a time under your direct control. Sooner or later, Vorgullum, you have to let people do their own thing.”

  “Do I?” he muttered.

  “Yes,” she said firmly, so firmly that he looked at her. “You do. And sometimes, it’s going to be the wrong thing. The really miserable thing about a tribe is that it’s made up of all these individuals!”

  “Heh.” He flinched back at the sound of his own dry laugh and considered her with a strange light in his eyes. “When you lived among the humans, did you advise their leader?”

  She snorted. “No.”

  “You should have. You’re good at it.”

  “You’re just saying that because I sleep with you.”

  “Also sound advice.” He stood and stretched impressively. “I think it must be nearing morning again, but I will sleep a little while beside you. And tomorrow I will brave the wilds of the human camps and find more bedding, since you have thrown most of ours away.”

  “My fearless mate,” she teased.

  He gave her a weary smile. “Oh, my fine Olivia,” he murmured. “I am filled with fear.”

  5

  She was alone when she woke up, but this was hardly surprising. She didn’t have a working timepiece, hadn’t for some while, but he had lit a fire before he left and the log was now burnt wholly to ash, which meant Vorgullum had been gone at least four hours.

  Olivia staggered out of the pit and lit a fresh fire. The warmth and light combined to give her the necessary courage to brave the freezing water of the washroom, so she stumbled off to put herself in order.

  It didn’t help much. As she fingered a few lank strands of hair in one hand and weighed the lumpy mass of soap in the other, Olivia thought she’d probably come to the end of what grooming could do for her without another good soak in a hot bath. That meant waiting for Vorgullum to come home and agree to carry her down the Deep Drop, and considering his mood lately, that was a big if. She wasn’t even sure he’d come home at mid-day to bring her lunch. He never had yesterday.

  Thinking of lunch made her realize she was hungry. Olivia put the soap down, dressed in her old clothes (not without a wince), and strapped on her claws. Minutes later, she was stepping out into the main passageway in search of food. The common cave was a good starting point, she thought; there was usually a guard posted there who would undoubtedly feed her if she asked him.

  But when she got there, the only human she saw was the crazy lady with the saucepan, and the only gulla, her mate. He glanced up with a weary eye when she entered the cavern, then returned his attention to the madwoman. He was trying to feed her from a cup, a task made infinitely more difficult by her slow, steady rocking.

  “Am I the first one here?” she asked, and immediately wished she’d asked a different way. The crazy lady was obviously here before her and she still counted, even if she was crazy.

  “Yawa came to take them to the women’s tunnels,” he replied, dabbing at a bit of brothy drool. “To learn how to work. I will take this one once she’s been fed. Horumn doesn’t want her underfoot until the others are settled.”

  The madwoman stopped rocking and stared down into the shiny side of her saucepan. It made it marginally easier for her mate to pour a little more broth into her. He had to stroke her throat to make her swallow, just like a dog being forced to take a pill.

  “I know you,” Olivia said finally. “Your name is Bundel.”

  “Yes.” He raised a listless hand without looking at her and kept feeding his mate. If he was worrying about having his soul trapped in a candle, he hid it well. There was nothing on his face at all, not even sorrow.

  She watched, too uncomfortable to leave.

  “You’re trying to think of how to tell me that you’re sorry, aren’t you?”

  “It seems like the wrong thing to say,” Olivia said.

  “It is,” he said without emotion. “It would even be a little obscene, I think. I did this to her.”

  There was no right way to reply to that, but she knew there were wrong ways, and surely the worst would be to slink out and leave him alone with his guilt, so Olivia stood and bore him her unhappy witness. After a while, he put the cup down. The woman began to rock again, still gazing into her saucepan. Her eyes were wide, wondering.

  “This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” Bundel said unexpectedly, watching the madwoman without expression. “I approved of the plan, but I didn’t want a human for my own. I didn’t want to have to steal one away, hold one prisoner. When Vorgullum told me I had to take one, I was sick with it. All I could think was what would I do if she hated me? It was the worst thing I could imagine, then. And I made her mad. In one night, I made her mad.”

  “No,” Olivia said firmly. “This was not your fault.”

  “So they tell me. They say it was old Murgull’s potion. But you all breathed the tharo.” He shook his head and dabbed at the madwoman’s slack mouth again. “So it had to be me.”

  Olivia said nothing. Her feet stayed stubbornly sealed to the floor.

  “I don’t think she had enough of it,” he said suddenly. “Maybe that was the problem. She was so much more awake than the rest of you. She fought the whole flight. I had to hurt her to hold her still. I had to hurt her—”

  “I am sure she would have preferred that to falling.”

  “I’m not,” he said flatly. He looked down at the cup, sighed, and started feeding her again. “She was quiet when I got her home, but she was crying. The tears were just…pouring out of her, but she made no sound at all. She wasn’t even breathing hard. I thought maybe she was calming down. Do you want to hear this?” he asked, all in that same dull, emotionless tone.

  “Do you want to tell me?”

 
“It’s eating me,” he said, without heat, without hope. He poured more broth into the madwoman’s mouth and stroked her throat gently, gently. “I don’t want to tell you, I don’t want to tell anyone, but this is eating my living guts. Her eyes were open and she was looking right at me, making those tears, those silent tears. But she was quiet, so I thought she was all right, that she was calm. So I put her in my pit and I took away her clothes and I mated with her.”

  The madwoman stopped eating. Just stopped, letting whatever was left in her mouth pour out over her slack lips and down her stained front. Her fingers curled loosely around her saucepan. She closed her eyes and let her head slowly droop. Perhaps she slept.

  “She made a sound once,” said Bundel, washing her face. “And I felt her struggle. Not much of a struggle, like…like the beating of a moth’s wing. I looked at her, but she was awake and she was quiet, so I finished. I finished and I remember thinking that it was even almost nice, and then I realized that she was broken. That I broke her.” He dropped the bit of cloth indifferently into the cup with the dregs of the broth and shifted to look around at the empty commons. His eyes were awful; Olivia had heard of the Thousand Yard Stare, but this was worse. These were eyes a thousand yards deep. “Do you want to know what this is like, living with her now? It’s like living with a corpse that never rots.”

  She reached out. He leaned back without looking at her, pulling himself just out of range of whatever pitiful comfort her hand could offer. His expression did not change.

  “She went into season,” he went on. “I knew she would. Vorgullum told me to mate with her anyway—”

  Of course he did. Think of healthy young. Oh God, would she ever stop hearing those words? Would she ever be able to stop looking for that star-cold glint in his eyes?

  “—but I couldn’t do that. When she started, I went to the women’s tunnels. It was the first time I had left her alone and I know I should never have done it, but it was that or go mad alongside her. Go mad or be damned.” His voice cracked on the last word. He was quiet a long time afterwards, just breathing, gazing dully into nothing while his woman slept beside him. At last, he said, “Horumn tried to send me away, but Yawa came out. People say she’s all ice and claws, Yawa, but she’s good. She’s hard, but she’s good. She came in spite of all Horumn’s shouting and took care of her until it was over. I took my spear and went out, but…it wasn’t hunting. I just flew. As hard and fast and far as I could. Until my wings hurt. Until my breath hurt. I could see myself flying and flying until I just…fell out of the sky…”