Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

  “Vorgullum…you have to understand how frightened and angry she was, how we all were. I can’t blame her for fighting back.”

  He shifted uncomfortably, then got up. “I’m not blaming her, Olivia. I know what we did to you.” She heard him at the hearth, and then sparks struck and soon he was lighting candles. “But Kodjunn is a good man.”

  “He hits her.”

  “She hits him.” He snapped his folded wings in a tight, gullan shrug. “The wind blows both ways.”

  And this was exactly the way she’d always believed this conversation would go, but her heart still sank. She sat up in the pit, pulling her sleeping bag up over her breasts like a shield, wondering how much to tell him, how hard to try and make him understand, when all it could possibly bring her was that steely glint in his eyes and the ghost of those terrible words: Think of healthy young.

  “He hurts her when they mate,” she said softly.

  He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “She says…” His expression was so dark and serious that Olivia’s throat tightened. It actually hurt to speak, but she swallowed past the constriction and said, “She says he hits her. He hits her and that’s what makes him…ready. He hits her where it can’t show, and then he…he mates with her so that it hurts as much as it can.”

  Vorgullum stood there as the candle in his hand slowly tipped, spilling wax in unnoticed rivulets over his fingers and onto the floor. “I do not believe this,” he said at last, as calmly and conversationally as if he were telling her the color of her eyes, or the condition of the weather.

  “She told me she’s afraid he’ll kill her.”

  He continued to stare at her for a long time, and then he looked away, towards the fire. “Olivia,” he said, “don’t be angry with me, but I cannot believe that. Not of Kodjunn.” He looked back at her hopefully. “Could she have meant that he coupled with her against her will? None of you were very willing, in the beginning, but that’s not the same as violence. And…And I have hurt you.” It was not an easy admission for him, and he could not meet her eyes afterwards. “Without wishing to, I have hurt you terribly. Perhaps it was her season. It’s not always possible for a male to be…careful.”

  Olivia took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “She hasn’t been in season every night, Vorgullum. But she tells me that every night he comes to her, he beats her. If that isn’t enough to make him ready, he uses other things inside her.”

  He flinched back as though slapped and gaped at her. “I…I will order someone to listen outside his lair. If I can confirm this, I will remove her from him and…and see him punished.” He stood there, stunned and a little ill-looking, then turned away and put on his loincloth. “Kodjunn. Kodjunn!”

  “Thank you,” Olivia said softly.

  “I am glad you told me,” he answered, distracted. “This never should have gone on so long. Kodjunn. Wait here.” His claws tapped away and she heard the faint scuffling sounds as he climbed down the chimney and was away.

  Olivia drowsed until he returned, and listened to him ready himself for bed again. He slipped into the pit with her and lay his hand on her hip.

  “All right?” she asked.

  “Doru will keep an ear on him tonight. However…” He trailed off, then inched a little closer. “Mudmar and Ellen have chambers just beside them. I spoke to them both, in confidence. Mudmar says he has heard her angry voice often, but no sounds of violence. Ellen says she hasn’t seen marks or bruises on the woman’s body and they’ve bathed together several times. Neither one came out and said, ‘She is lying’ but I think both believed so.”

  Olivia considered this, her own head spinning, then rolled over and looked at him, troubled. “Why would she lie about something like that?”

  He shook his head, frustrated. “She wants to see him punished, I suppose, but if that’s so, why go to you instead of me?”

  “Well, if it is true, she’d be afraid to go to you, because you’re a male and she might think you’d only laugh at her.”

  His expression darkened. “If not throw her down and rut with her. But why not go to Murgull?” He considered his own words more closely. “Murgull would have been able to provide potions to dull Kodjunn’s passion, or make him sleep all day. If not kill him. There is no surer means of killing a rutting man than with old Murgull’s wrath.”

  “Again, if it is true, she may not see any gulla as her friend. And Murgull is pretty scary.” Her own words sounded feeble, though. She tried to run her conversations with Cheyenne through her mind, but kept arriving at the same question: Had Cheyenne come up with this story of violence just to convince Olivia to aid her in her escape?

  She ran the episodes with Kodjunn back through her mind, but aside from that business on the chasm wall, there wasn’t much to go on. Oh, he was sensitive enough about his love life, but as for this business with Bolga…well, had that been Bolga she saw that day? She had been so certain of it once she’d seen Bolga standing in full light in the commons, but might it not have been Chugg? It had been pretty dim, and hunchback and balding hair are easy to hide when one is flat on one’s back on a bench.

  But barking isn’t, and if Doru could be believed, Chugg barked. Bolga had been moaning pretty loudly, at least until her mouth had been covered, but not barking. Anyway, Chugg was ‘safe’, wasn’t she? Why would Kodjunn need to meet with a safe female in the middle of the night when he could walk down to the women’s tunnels in broad daylight (so to speak) and ask for her?

  “I am so confused,” she said aloud.

  He hugged her close, looked equally uncertain. “I hope you’ve been misled, Olivia,” he said. “I hope that with all my heart and soul. But be assured that if you are correct in your suspicions, justice will be done.”

  “That’s comforting,” she replied, but it wasn’t. One way or another, it was all about to become a moot point because Cheyenne intended to escape.

  With Olivia’s help.

  Just what I need. More angst-ridden indecision. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, counted one hundred breaths, and tried to let it all go. Even so, it was a long time before she found her way into a thin, troubled sleep and the last thing she heard before it happened was Cheyenne’s voice saying, ‘One way or the other, that’ll be the end of it.’

  18

  She spent the day with Murgull, but her efforts at potion-making were disastrous. No matter how she tried to concentrate, thoughts of Cheyenne kept stealing in. After dark, she’d said, and every minute took her that much closer to the escape which Olivia had promised to be part of. She burned herbs, spilled tinctures, dropped jars, and finally was thrown bodily out through Murgull’s hidden door with both ears ringing to find her way back to her lair alone.

  Vorgullum was there when she arrived, but he was only dropping off her dinner.

  “Won’t you stay?” she asked, knowing already that he wouldn’t.

  “I have a tribe of nearly two hundred to provide for,” he replied, yawning. “Two elk are not enough, and it is already getting hard to find apples. Our stores should be half-filled with nut-mash and instead, they are all but empty. There will be hunts every night until the snows come, I think.”

  “Is it night already?” she asked, apprehensive.

  He nodded, rubbing at his eyes. “I’ll try not to wake you when I come home.” He came to kiss her, then took up his spear again. “I brought you a book to read while I’m away,” he said in parting, pulling open his belt pouch and tossing a newspaper into the pit beside her.

  She thanked him, reaching for it, and by the time the shock of the headline had fully sunk in, he was gone.

  CULT BLAMED FOR MYSTERIOUS MASS DISAPPEARANCES

  Two men were held for questioning Friday afternoon in relation to the mass disappearance of seventeen women from High Hill Apartments in Canby. Larry Kruegun, 41, and William Sanderson, 18, claim to be disciples of an unnamed cult leader whom they refer to as “the Messiah”. The two men turned themse
lves in to police after receiving instructions to do so “in code, over an antennae implanted in our molars.” In an earlier interview with this paper, the suspects have claimed that the women are alive and being held on Jupiter’s fourth moon as the Messiah’s wives.

  The Canby Sheriff’s Department has released a statement pertaining to the arrests, stating that while all leads are being investigated, there is no evidence connecting the men to the missing women. “At this point, neither of (the suspects) were able to pick out any of the ladies from a photo line-up, and they were trying. There are a number of discrepancies in their story, and there is the issue of credibility,” said Deputy Thomas Hatcher.

  The women vanished from High Hill Apartment on July 13, between the hours of midnight…

  The article continued on another page, but Olivia was laughing too hard to bother looking for it. She folded the paper and set it down on the bench before going into the washroom to clean herself up for the evening. After spending most of the day worrying about Cheyenne, Kodjunn, and where Olivia fit between them, the ridiculous news item was just what she needed to get herself geared up to face the night.

  She dressed, ran a comb through her hair, and found herself a working flashlight in the candle-bin. She wasn’t certain how long this thing with Cheyenne and Kodjunn was supposed to last, but she made sure the fire would still be burning for at least four hours.

  This completed, she took a final look around the pit, steeling herself for what was certain to be unpleasant one way or another, and left for the hot springs. It was late, and the mainway was as busy as it could get with such a small tribe inhabiting it. The gullan she passed raised their hands to her, either on their way to their lairs for sleep or on their way out to join the night-hunt, but as soon as she turned off the wide tunnel into the winding passage that led to the depths, she was alone.

  Just as well, really. She would have welcomed a ride down to the bottom of the Deep Drop, but didn’t want company once she was there. She only wanted to get this meeting with Cheyenne over and done with.

  She could feel her arms aching by the time she’d climbed only halfway down, however, and it worried her. How was she going to get back up with the whole mountain asleep or off chasing deer through the forest? She supposed she could make that part of the distraction, but she really did not want to be trapped in his arms again. Sure, she’d been in season the last time and maybe he couldn’t help himself…but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen again.

  Never mind. She’d have a few hours at least between now and the climb back up. Plenty of time to rest her arms. And who knew? One of the hunters might come down for a bath. In either case, she didn’t want to think about it now. Tucking her climbing spikes back in her pouch, Olivia walked down the silent passage and into the hot springs.

  Cheyenne was pacing back and forth against the left wall. She threw Olivia a murderous expression and came quickly over. “It’s about time,” she snarled. “I’ve been waiting over an hour. Come on, I’ll tell you how to get—”

  “Just a second,” Olivia interrupted. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say until she said it: “Show me a bruise.”

  “What?” Cheyenne stopped pacing and stared at her, incredulous. “I don’t have time for this, God damn it! He could be back any min—”

  “Show me a bruise,” she repeated. “Any bruise. Show me where he hits you. Show me—” Olivia heard herself laugh a little, high and unhappy and angry, and she guessed she knew what she was saying after all. “Show me where he chokes you. Show me the burns on your feet. Heck, show me just one claw mark on your ass, just one, and I’ll do this.”

  There was no explosion, no outrage, no tears. Neither did Cheyenne wrench up her shirt to display proof. She only leaned back a little, her expression quieting into one which was merely thoughtful.

  “Why the bullshit, Cheyenne?” Olivia demanded.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  The knowledge that she had been manipulated from the start, fooled by a string of lies and a few tears into risking Vorgullum’s trust and the life that she had made for herself, struck up against Cheyenne’s calm and congealed all at once into cold fury. “Bullshit!” she spat, her face inches from Cheyenne’s. “All that crap you fed me about rape and beatings! All the tears you turned on and off for me so I’d jump when you snapped your fucking fingers! That bullshit!”

  “Oh,” she said when Olivia was done. “That.” She shrugged. “I had to say something to get you on board.”

  And then her hand flashed out and caught Olivia by the throat, her foot knocked Olivia’s legs out from under her, and Cheyenne expertly bent and slammed her into the rocky floor.

  Olivia scrabbled at the hand that locked the air out of her lungs, croaking like the frog Murgull always accused her of being.

  “If it makes it any easier for you, I didn’t lie about everything,” Cheyenne continued conversationally. “He really does have a limp dick. Of course, that may have more to do with me knocking the snot out of him whenever I get the chance than anything else. According to you, he’s perfectly capable of getting it on with the other furballs here.”

  Olivia scratched wildly at Cheyenne’s face, but the other woman merely batted her hands away. Her struggles were weakening; all of her blood vessels were throbbing in chorus, making her feel thick and cold at once. Her tongue protruded slightly. She made a final plea, which emerged as a rattled gasp.

  Cheyenne’s eyes were cold as she straddled Olivia’s stomach and leaned on her hand. “And he likes you,” she said in that same even tone. “If he knew what I’m about to do for him, why, he’d probably thank me.”

  Light was exploding behind Olivia’s eyes, obscuring the image of her assailant. She was distantly aware that her heels were drumming on stone and her hips were bucking wildly, but it didn’t seem to inconvenience Cheyenne, and Olivia was beyond being bothered by anything as she fell backwards through stone and into silence.

  19

  Olivia was dimly conscious of being carried, but could not say where or how long. She could only feel herself swinging, her chin smacking steadily into the hard curve of Cheyenne’s back, until the moment when she was dumped unceremoniously on the ground. She uttered a raspy groan, and Cheyenne chuckled softly somewhere above her. The darkness was complete here. Even when Cheyenne touched her, Olivia saw nothing. She had to check her eyes to be certain they were open.

  Olivia tried to speak, but emitted nothing more than a cracked whistle.

  Cheyenne whistled back, mockingly. “Gol-lee, I bet that smarts,” she whispered, and the sound hissed and flowed in the empty tunnel. Cheyenne hooked her foot under Olivia’s ribs and flipped her onto her back. “I said you were going to be a help to me, and one way or another, honey, you are!”

  “…heh.” Olivia sucked in breath like razors and tried again. “…hep…!”

  “Hey, shout as loud as you can. We’re deep in the wasted tunnels and the only one who would possibly hear you is the one I want to find you.” Cheyenne dropped to one knee beside Olivia, reached into her pouch and pulled out the climbing spikes. When Olivia mewled miserably, Cheyenne hushed her and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get them right back.”

  She stepped away and Olivia felt one of her bare feet lifted into the air. A heartbeat after she realized what was going to happen, Cheyenne jabbed the spike into Olivia’s sole, just below her big toe, and yanked the serrated edge down to her heel, deep enough that Olivia could feel the rough iron scrape against her bones.

  Olivia felt her skin rip open, and tried to scream. All that came out of her ruined throat was a whooping, raspy, “Haah!”

  Cheyenne dropped the foot, and picked up the other.

  Olivia kicked at her, and Cheyenne reared up and slammed her fist into Olivia’s stomach. Olivia gave a groggy belch and tried to curl up, but Cheyenne yanked her leg out straight and carved another jagged line into her instep.

  Gagging, weeping, Olivia tried again to
roll over. This time, Cheyenne let her.

  She tossed the spikes onto the ground next to her. They clattered loudly, disguising the pathetic sounds of Olivia’s distress.

  “He’s going to trip right over you,” Cheyenne said. “But just in case he’s tempted to run and get help right away…”

  Olivia heard a muted popping noise, and then she was being doused with something wet. She thrashed, trying to get out from under the trickling liquid, but it landed everywhere—her skin, her hair, her clothes. There wasn’t much of a smell, but what there was seemed familiar. Musky. Like boiled down she-goat piss.

  “I sure appreciate you giving me this stuff,” Cheyenne remarked. “I hope it works.” She started to crunch away down the tunnel.

  “Don’ lee me!” Olivia whispered scratchily.

  Laughter was her only answer and soon, even that was gone.

  Olivia rolled over and felt blindly for her climbing spikes. The tunnel swam and buckled around her, unseen. Finally, her fingers brushed against cold iron and she pounced on it, fitting the haft into her palm and clenching around it.

  A weapon.

  She found the other within seconds and then tried to stand.

  Her mutilated feet shrieked out in agony and she shrieked with them—horrible, empty rushes of air that the tunnel tossed back in her face as though laughing at the futility of it all.

  Olivia started crawling, dragging her heavy, throbbing feet behind her, but the uneven stone surface soon weakened her knees until they wouldn’t support her either. She lay on her side in the tunnel, sobbing with fear and pain.

  A sound. A stealthy rustle. She turned her blind eyes towards it, and tried to speak. “Help,” she rasped. “Help me!”

  Pain shocked up her right leg as unexpectedly as a bolt of lightning in clear skies. She kicked without thinking, struck something small and hot, and heard a squeak.

  All the considerable horror in her very young life congealed into a single, cold clump.