Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

  He straightened, opening his wings and lowering his horns in a deepening posture of aggression. “Go,” he ordered. “Now. Go and have some chat with her. When you return…” He narrowed his eyes to slits and showed the very tips of his sharp teeth. “When you return, I will hear your words again.”

  Olivia turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

  She found her way down to the women’s tunnels in total blackness, her hands clenched tight around her climbing spikes, although she had no need of them. They made her feel bitterly better. She met no one, and soon stood before the iron door that locked the tunnels away from the mountain.

  She called for Horumn and when the gulla’s misshapen and snarling face appeared, Olivia said, “I want to see Victoria.”

  Horumn let her in and led her to a small chamber, little more than an alcove at the end of a long and twisted tunnel. There was a single candle burning here, a single bench. It smelled of smoky tallow and sex. It had no other furnishings, no other purpose.

  “Oh.”

  Olivia turned at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, and at first, even when she saw Victoria, she didn’t recognize her. The older woman’s rich black hair had gone gray in broad streaks and hung listlessly to her shoulders; clean and well-brushed, but dull and lifeless all the same. Victoria’s face looked haggard; her eyes were huge and dark but only vaguely unhappy.

  “Horumn didn’t say it was you,” Victoria said after a moment. “She just said…someone…” She lifted and dropped her hand, then stood there and waited.

  “Vorgullum wanted me to see you.”

  “Oh.” A long silence followed, not awkward or bitter, only empty. “How long have I been here? Do you know?”

  “About a month.”

  “Are you…still…” Victoria trailed off, looked around questioningly, then looked up again. “Still pregnant?”

  “Yes. Are you…getting enough to eat?”

  “They feed me. The ones that come here. It was just…easier.”

  “How…How often—” She could think of no way to end the question.

  “I don’t know. It was every day at first, but not…not so much anymore. But they feed me a little, just in case. And they give me things. I have some furs now and…some…things.”

  Olivia’s stomach knotted. “Are they drugging you?” she asked.

  Victoria blinked slowly, owlishly. “It helps.”

  “Do you want me to get you out of here?” She could not believe she was asking this, but was stunned when Victoria shook her head.

  “No. This is…best. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to…talk to them or…sit with them. I don’t have to look at them if I don’t want to. I just…It’s not so bad. Horumn gives me something for the pain, you know, the…the pain. I just lie there and they feed me.”

  Victoria lowered herself onto a bench and studied her hands for a long time. “I was…at High Hill apartments,” she said suddenly, with difficulty. She reached up to wipe at her staring eyes, but they were dry. “Do you remember? I had a house in the Palisades, but I was…at High Hill that night.”

  “I’m sorry,” Olivia whispered, but Victoria shook her head.

  “It was my…revenge. My husband has an apartment in Bridgeport where he goes when he wants to…take a secretary home. I rented the apartment at High Hill to go…slumming in. I wanted him to find out. And when he did, he didn’t care. I got mad and I spent the whole day there, trying to find someone…to come and sleep with me. No one came. No one came. But they came. That’s who came.”

  “I could get you out of here,” Olivia said again, feeling her eyes well up with tears. “I’d feed you. I’d find a way.”

  Victoria shook her head, very slowly, very deliberately. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I don’t want to have to look at them. I can just stay in my room all day if I want to. Vorung brings me magazines, but I don’t have to look at him. Murgull gives me the drink and I just…think of other things. I don’t have to really be here. I don’t have to be anywhere. I’m okay, Olivia. I’m okay.”

  Horumn’s ugly face poked around the corner. “Rummanal is here,” she grunted. “Do you want to see him?”

  “I can always say no, you know,” Victoria explained, still in that disconnected, toneless voice. “They told me that. I can always say no. It’s all right. This is so much better. I’m fine.” Without taking her eyes off Olivia, she added, “I can see Rummanal. Olivia is leaving.”

  Olivia’s feet carried her forward past Victoria, who continued to stand in the mouth of the tunnel, facing the empty room. Past Horumn, who watched her go with strangely soft and knowing eyes. Past the gulla who stood in the waiting place beyond the door with a bundle of something meaty in one hand.

  Back to Vorgullum, who stood before the fire and did not look up when she came into the room and dropped onto a bench.

  “As you would have me do, Olivia,” he said. He sounded depressed.

  “She says she doesn’t want to go.” Olivia let her climbing spikes fall to the floor in a clatter of iron. “You broke her!” she cried out.

  “I know.” He watched the fire lap lazily over the logs. “Do you despise me for it?”

  She opened her mouth without any idea of what she was going to say, and heard, “No.”

  He exhaled a knot of tension; still he did not look at her. “Are we still friends?” he asked, and his voice cracked slightly on the last word.

  Olivia hunted inside herself in anguish, realized with both dismay and relief that they were, and said so in a strengthless whisper.

  She sat and he stood, and neither one looked at the other or spoke another word until dawn.

  5

  Olivia rolled over in the pit and rubbed up against a hard rock. “Muh?” she said muzzily, fumbling around in the bedding. She couldn’t find anything, rolled back, and promptly landed on the rock again. “The hell?”

  Vorgullum growled.

  “What have you got in the pit?” she mumbled, probing down through the layers of bedding.

  “A squeaking mouse,” he growled. “Who should know better than to wake a sleeping gulla.”

  “There’s a rock in the bed.”

  “Where?” He lifted his head and tracked her hand, glaring with sleep. “Olivia,” he said, watching her rake through the jumble of sleeping bags. “Olivia, my wise Olivia, you are hunting your own belly.”

  “What?” She peered at him, then rolled onto her back and peered down at her stomach, still flat, to her own eyes at least. “No I’m not!”

  “Is the rock still there when you lie on your back?”

  Olivia wriggled experimentally. “No.”

  He grunted, dropped his head back onto his arm.

  Olivia rolled over cautiously, felt the hard lump immediately press back into her belly. “Vorgullum,” she said, a note of alarm sounding in her voice.

  He growled again.

  “Vorgullum, I’m having a baby.”

  “Imagine that.”

  She lay there, eyes wide, one hand pressed to the lump, which in turn pressed into her stomach. Then she flung back the covers and started to get up.

  Vorgullum ground out a heart-felt groan. “What are you doing now?”

  “Nothing. I have to walk around or something. I just realized I’m pregnant.”

  He absorbed that while she dressed, then sat up and really looked at her. “You’re frightened,” he said, frowning. “Olivia, come here.”

  She started to pace away, came back, and let her draw him down against his broad, hot chest. She combed her fingers lightly through his pelt. Soft as otter, she thought. My baby will have fur like that. What if he doesn’t?

  “Doesn’t what?” Vorgullum murmured against her hair.

  She jerked hard in his arms, which tightened firmly around her. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud, was reluctant to repeat her fears.

  “What if he does not what?” Vorgullum said again, patiently.

  “What if he d
oesn’t have fur?” she whispered. “What if…he doesn’t have horns or…wings…or whatever.”

  He stroked her hair and hummed. “You have no fur and no wings and you are tribe. You are my Olivia and you are beautiful in my eyes. My son will be fine, whether he has my horns or your white frog-skin.” He laughed. “Truth, Olivia, I no longer care what the child looks like as long as his body is fit and his mind is strong. If he has no wings, what matter? He can hunt on the ground.”

  “It matters,” she insisted. “And what if…what if he’s even worse than…” She shuddered against him.

  “What if he’s perfect? Think how foolish you’ll feel.” He rubbed her back and released her, smiling crookedly into her eyes. “Kurlun says his Amy is having these same fears. She insists she will not give birth at all if it intends to come with horns. She will carry it until it is grown.” He shook his head at the absurdity of humans. “Someone should warn Burgelbun.”

  Because Sarah B. was now pregnant as well, according to Murgull. The third to conceive, and not even two whole months after Amy. It was as if Olivia had opened some sort of metaphysical door. Who knew? Maybe by the time little Somurg was born, all the humans would be pregnant.

  And if the birth went horribly wrong, they would all know what was coming when their own time came due.

  God, why was she thinking like that?

  Olivia chewed her lip as he settled back in the pit, then stood up and started to dress.

  He muffled an exasperated bellow against a fold of her sleeping bag. “Great Spirit, woman! It’s the middle of the night! Come back to my pit!”

  “I have to do something,” she insisted. “I’m not just going to lie there and worry about this.”

  “No,” he grumbled, already sprawling out over her side of the bed. “You’re going to pace yourself into exhaustion worrying about it, and then sleep all day. Again.” He started muttering, but degenerated gradually into snores.

  Olivia climbed down the chute and started down the mainway towards the women’s tunnels. If Murgull was awake, as she often was even at these early hours, she would occupy her mind with a few lessons in gullan medicine. If not, well, the walk there and back would still do her good.

  But as she passed the commons, she was puzzled to see faint glimmers of light, and hear muted human voices. When curiosity drew her in, she saw a loose knot of perhaps ten humans, apparently led by Amy and Tina, engaged in very heated, very serious debate.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered, joining them.

  The three women nearest her jumped up with startled little screeches and Tobi actually leaped back and drew a knife before she saw who it was.

  “Fucking Christ!” Tobi gasped. “Don’t you ever sneak up on—what are you doing here?” she demanded. “This is a secret meeting, and you weren’t invited!”

  Stung, Olivia backed up a pace, only to have Tina reach out and smack Tobi on the side of the head.

  “What’s the matter with you? Come on in, Olivia.”

  Olivia did, still hurt, unable to keep from noticing the distinct aura of distrust with which the others were viewing her. “What’s going on?” she asked again, hesitantly.

  “No hard feelings,” Tobi said, looking flustered. “I like you and all. It’s just…Vorgullum…and…well, look, we don’t need a fucking narc or anything.”

  “I’m not a narc,” Olivia protested.

  Glances passed from woman to woman, and when they had all run their course, Amy finally nodded.

  “Bad idea,” said Tobi, sheathing her knife. “She’ll rat us out.”

  “Oh, she will not,” Tina said crossly. “Sit down.”

  “Is something wrong?” Olivia asked, finding a place to sit among the women, some of whom were still obviously mistrustful of her presence.

  “Very,” said Amy. She held up her wrist and tapped the surface of her sports watch with a grim expression. “Outside, it’s the middle of December. Dead winter. No campers, not a whole lot of game, Christmas season in the city, so it’s not safe to be stealing into town anymore. We’re running out of food.”

  “I’ve noticed short rations,” Olivia said tentatively, still wondering why she hadn’t been invited to Tobi’s big secret meeting. “But I’m sure there’ve been hard winters before. We just have to trust that they know how to get through them.”

  “Oh they do,” Amy agreed, nodding politely. “They do it by laying aside barrels of their godawful bread mix all year long, except that this year, they ate it all because their hunters were too busy taming humans to hunt. The storerooms are almost empty, and they may have to last us until April. At this point, they aren’t going to last us until February.”

  “And believe it or not, we humans are eating best of all,” Anita put in. “Especially the pregnant ones.”

  “No, especially fucking Mojo Woman!” Tobi hissed. “Stuffing her fat face!”

  Mojo Woman. At the mention of the name, all heads turned as one to Olivia.

  Olivia sighed, running her hands over her belly. “I get it. I complain about Mojo Woman and Vorgullum will probably have her put…somewhere.”

  “She’s not pregnant and she’s got Grunn scared silly,” Tina said. “He’ll probably chuck her off a cliff. Vorgullum is entirely out of patience with all her stupid nonsense already, and if he had any idea just how bad this is, he’d put a spear through her first.”

  “Like that’s such a bad idea,” Tobi grumbled. “But okay, fine. No one wants to kill anyone,” she said in an overly placating tone which she addressed to a scowling Tina. “We just want her to start sharing.”

  “Sharing?”

  “Hunters don’t have to share the kills they make on their own,” Tina explained. “And since we went to short rations, Grunn hasn’t. Everything he gets goes to Mojo Woman. Mojo Woman in turn parcels out what she feels like sharing to that little cult she’s got going.”

  “Cult?”

  “Oh you better believe it,” Tina said, nodding. “Welcome to the Church of Mojo, membership growing daily.”

  “Are you serious?” Olivia looked from one solemn face to another, stunned. “How many gullan are we talking about?”

  “Three hunters, about ten other males, and maybe six females. But that’s three hunters too damn many,” Amy added darkly. “That leaves twenty-eight gullan and three humans to hunt for the whole tribe.”

  “She took over two other lairs already and she’s got them filled! And guarded!” Tobi pointed furiously down the hall as if Mojo Woman would materialize at her command. “I say she’s building an army!”

  “For what?” Olivia asked, baffled. “Even if she managed to overthrow Vorgullum, who does she think is going to be the new leader? Grunn?”

  Amy snorted. “Oh, I’m sure she’s got someone building her a little crown or something. I can see it now: Mojo Woman, Queen of the Bat-People.”

  “The point is,” Tina cut in severely, “that if Mojo Woman actually makes a move in that direction, all hell is going to break out in this mountain. There’s no way—”

  “No fucking way!” Tobi amplified.

  “—that Vorgullum is going to go down easy. The man is a mountain. But even if Mojo got her loyal hunters to tackle him in a dark corridor and kill him, the rest of the warriors of this tribe would rip their stupid heads off before the body got cold!”

  “Doru will kick her ass!” Tobi added, nodding.

  “Doru will kill her ass,” Tina corrected. “Doru will also kill anyone else who was involved, and unfortunately, one of those three hunters Mojo’s got serving her is Burgelbun. And Burgelbun has a human mate, and Sarah B. is pregnant. Now I’m not a hundred percent sure he’d kill her—”

  “But I’m not entirely convinced he won’t, either,” Sarah B. countered. There was no obvious concern on her face or in her voice when she said it.

  “And that’s just what would happen if Vorgullum actually was killed,” Amy finished. “God help them all if they try and fail. This is not
a fun, forgiving culture we got sucked into. That man of yours will not hesitate to slaughter every male, female, or human even remotely associated with a revolt.”

  Olivia was uncomfortably aware that this was probably true. “What are you thinking you’re going to do?” she asked at last.

  “Kick her ass!” Tobi cried.

  “We have no idea,” Tina translated. “But the longer we let it go, the worse it’s going to get when the shit finally hits the fan. The thing is, if we confront Mojo, she’s not going to go down quietly. We’re afraid to provoke her as much as anything. I mean, three gullan saw Mojo spit through her stupid fist at Judith and tell her she was going to die, and guess what?”

  “Oh Jesus,” Olivia said, startled. “Do people actually think she killed her? With magic?”

  “You bet they do,” Amy said. “‘Okie-dokie artichokie, now you die.’ And then she did. That’s tough to argue with. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Miss Good Mother, but they are real big on magic around here.”

  “And we can’t…tell the truth,” Liz said in a small voice, and Tina patted her on the knee distractedly.

  “And for God’s sake, we can’t let Vorgullum know about this,” Amy insisted. “We don’t dare tell any of our fellas, but least of all him. Look, I’ll be honest here, I really don’t give a rat’s ass if he gives Mojo a flying leap off a high ledge—I’m sorry, Tina, but I don’t—but I also don’t think he’d stop at just Mojo. He doesn’t believe Mojo’s got magic, so telling him that her loyal followers were scared of losing their souls if they didn’t obey her is going to cut zero ice with him, you know?”

  Olivia took a deep breath, released it with a sigh, and nodded. “I know. I won’t tell him.”

  “Good.” Amy frowned. “Because the salt of the matter is, her loyal followers are that scared. Seeing Mojo Woman on the end of a spear wouldn’t cross my eyes any, but I think of Burgelbun getting blamed and I get sick.”

  Olivia looked at Sarah B, but the other woman merely picked at a loose thread on her robe and gave nothing away. Olivia turned back to Amy and Tina. “So what are we doing about it?”

  Now it was their turn to take deep breaths and drop their eyes.