The Scarlet Cavern

by Michael Dalton

  “I studied history at the university there. But after talons of nagging, my mother finally convinced me I had a chance to mate, and that I needed to take the opportunity. I offered myself to aJia’jara, but he has many wives already and would not see me. So I came here.”

  “As you should be,” iXa’aliq said. “Those stories are silliness for foolish females.”

  “But he is here.”

  “And he will leave.”

  iXa’aliq leaned back in his chair, smiling.

  “But first, a glass of your alag. I am not a useless host. We have shared information and my table. We must share a drink.”

  Kisarat’s concern flared again, but she poured a glass for me and her tsulygoi. It looked like wine, which was the more or less the connotation I got from iXa’aliq.

  “You made this?” I asked her.

  “From the parbanga I grow in the garden.”

  Had I not already noticed her concern, I would have missed the slight quiver in her hand as she set my glass in front of me. And as she leaned toward me, I caught a closer look at the narrow fangs in her mouth. They weren’t just long canine teeth – the tips were open like a viper’s.

  Age and guile.

  I looked down at my glass.

  “Sharing alag is a tradition in this world?” I asked iXa’aliq.

  “Yes. Drink up.”

  “There are similar traditions in my world. There is a related tradition, in situations like this. The guest and host will exchange glasses, to demonstrate mutual trust.”

  I held out my glass and set it front of iXa’aliq, taking his before he could stop me.

  The look on his face turned to stone.

  “Drink up,” I said. I lifted my glass and took a sip. It was good, sweet, with an under-taste close to watermelon, and something like an alcoholic feel to it.

  “Excellent,” I said to Kisarat. Her concern had gone near-nova, but she was staring at iXa’aliq, who hadn’t moved.

  He glared murderously at me, then dashed his glass to the floor.

  I stood.

  “I think I am taking your wife after all. I need what she knows.”

  I saw Kisarat’s eyes going wide, but I focused on iXa’aliq. He pushed himself out of his chair and scurried over to one of the pieces of furniture I hadn’t been able to identify. It was a cabinet near the desk. He threw it open as I came around the table toward him.

  Inside the cabinet was a collection of crystal blades of various lengths. iXa’aliq grabbed several short blades from the cabinet and turned toward me as I approached.

  He flung one of the blades at me with more force than I expected. I dodged to the left, and it whistled past my face. Had I not moved, it would have buried itself in my eye.

  I drew my katana and charged forward, but his small size allowed him to dart away from me. Another blade flew toward me, lower, and this time I couldn’t dodge it. But it struck my armor and bounced off the crude carbon-fiber composite of my breastplate.

  I was close enough now and aimed a blow at his head. He darted away again, and my katana buried itself in the back of a chair. There was too much furniture and other crap in his house for any kind of straight-up fight, and he clearly knew that.

  I heard the girls yelling at me, but I couldn’t focus on them. iXa’aliq circled around and back to the cabinet. He flung another blade at me, and this one buried itself under my arm in a gap between my armor plates.

  Cursing my overconfidence in trying to take on this wily old male, I dropped behind a couch and pulled out the blade. Blood immediately flowed down my side.

  “Tsulygoi, look out!” Ayarala cried.

  I looked around again. iXa’aliq had pulled a larger blade from the cabinet and was leaping over the couch toward me. I kicked myself backward as quickly as I could, but I lost my katana doing it. I was on the floor, wounded, as the little Taitalan male closed in to finish me off.

  iXa’aliq struck with his sword in both hands, and all I could do was lift my arm to block him and hope the armor on my forearm held up.

  It did, stopping the blade, though I could feel it biting into the composite. iXa’aliq wasn’t strong enough to push my arm down, and he’d left himself exposed.

  I stabbed forward with the throwing knife he’d hit me with, burying it in the center of his chest. He groaned, dropping his sword, and fell to the floor.

  Ayarala rushed over, kneeling beside me. Kisarat was right behind her, though she focused first on iXa’aliq.

  Ayarala grabbed my arm, examining the wound. She was a mass of fear and anguish.

  “Tsulygoi, lay back. We must get your armor off.”

  I let her pull the armor over my head. She rolled me on my side, looking at the bloody mess under my arm. She dug through her bag for her first aid kit and began trying to patch me up.

  “You are a healer?” Kisarat asked.

  “Yes. I think he will be all right if we can stop the bleeding. It does not look too deep.”

  Kisarat moved iXa’aliq’s head back and forth, then turned to me, kneeling opposite Ayarala.

  “He is dead.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go like this.”

  She put her hand on my arm.

  “Was he going to poison me?” I asked. “With your venom?”

  “Yes. Though I have no idea if it would have done anything to you. The histories say the makalang is strong and virile, but nothing about poison. I am sorry for what I did, but I must obey my tsulygoi.”

  “I didn’t want to take the chance. We have poison in my world.”

  “The tradition you spoke of. Is that true? Our clan leaders do something similar when they meet.”

  “More or less. It’s a very old one, though. People generally don’t poison each other anymore.”

  Ayarala leaned back.

  “Tsulygoi, I have to stitch this up or the bleeding will not stop. The cut is not deep, but it is longer than I thought. ”

  “How can I help?” Kisarat asked.

  “Your garden. Do you have dubigar?”

  A fruit of some sort.

  “Yes.”

  “Get one. Extract the juice. I have some, but not enough for the infection with a wound like this.”

  Kisarat got up and rapidly went into the kitchen.

  “Is it that bad?” I asked.

  “Not if you let me work.” Her voice lowered. “You killed her tsulygoi, Will. You must claim her, or she may leave.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re okay with this?”

  “What? Of course. What do you mean?”

  “My, uh, having another girl around.”

  “A strong tsulygoi must take many wives. And you need her, as you said.”

  I winced at wives, but again, this whole arrangement was temporary. Another divorce wasn’t going to be an issue here.

  “Okay.” I squeezed her hand. “You were the first, remember.”

  She smiled briefly. “Your people are very strange.”

  Kisarat returned with the dubigar juice, and Ayarala went to work cleaning the wound and stitching it together.

  I looked up at Kisarat, trying not to wince at Ayarala’s needle going in and out of my side.

  “I killed your tsulygoi, and I claim you.”

  Unlike the moment of hesitation and confusion that had come with my claim on Ayarala, Kisarat answered me instantly, taking my hand.

  “I am yours. I am eager to serve you, my tsulygoi.” And as I looked up at her beautiful – if vaguely serpentine – face, framed by long emerald hair, I could sense that she definitely was.

  “Okay, then.”

  A snake-girl wife. What else awaited me in this world?

  Chapter 7

  IXa’aliq’s blade had sliced open a six-inch laceration in my side, but Ayarala stitched me up in about fifteen minutes. She rubbed more of the dubigar juice over the wound, then covered it with a bandage.

  “You’re pretty good at thi
s.”

  “It is what I studied in school, before I was claimed as a wife. The dubigar juice is antiseptic and promotes healing. As long as we keep this clean and dry, you should be fine in a sampar or so.”

  Kisarat had been siting quietly beside us watching, but when I sat up to start pulling myself back together, she noticed my katana and gasped.

  “Your sword. I thought it was – may I see?”

  I drew it back out of its scabbard and held it out. She gaped at it.

  “Langoy crystal! So much of it! How did you make this?”

  Sky crystal. Metal that fell from the sky.

  Ayarala gasped as well, looking down at the blade. She hadn’t paid much attention to it up to now, since I’d done nothing with it after killing the busang.

  “It’s metal,” I said. “Steel. Do you not have metal in this world? At all?”

  Kisarat looked up at me.

  “It is very rare. Very, very rare. It falls from the sky.”

  The answer came to me after a moment.

  “Meteorites.”

  “Yes. You have them in your world?”

  “We do. But metal can also be found in the ground. Like crystals. It is not rare. Crystals are, though, some kinds.”

  Kisarat ran her finger along the katana.

  “Small pieces of langoy are worth a great deal. There are different kinds. Some are used for jewelry. But something of this size and quality . . . you could buy half of Phan-garad with this.”

  Ayarala felt the edge.

  “It is not as sharp as a normal blade.”

  “No, I guess not. But it is very strong.”

  “And heavy,” Kisarat said.

  “He killed a busang with it,” Ayarala said to her. “One blow nearly severed its head.”

  Kisarat gasped, regarding me with awe.

  “You fought a busang? Alone?”

  “Yes,” Ayarala said. “It chased me up a cliff. But Will killed it.”

  If it were possible, Kisarat got even more turned on.

  “It is just as the legends say. A warrior like no other.”

  I took the katana back and sheathed it.

  “We should get going, I guess.”

  But Ayarala put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Tsulygoi, you need to rest. For a day or two at least. Too much exertion now will open the wound again.”

  I felt the bandage. The cut was starting to hurt. She was probably right.

  “Can we stay here?”

  “What was iXa’aliq’s is now yours, my tsulygoi,” Kisarat said, and it was obvious she meant to include herself in that.

  “All right. Then let’s stay the night.”

  ◆◆◆

  Kisarat unceremoniously dragged iXa’aliq’s body out of the house and tossed it into the woods. I was a bit taken aback with her callousness about it, but she shrugged.

  “He is not my tsulygoi now. We never mated. I owe him nothing. He is meat for the busangs. I belong to you, Will of Hawthorne.”

  I nodded.

  “Fair enough.”

  But as she went back inside, I couldn’t help staring down at iXa’aliq. I hadn’t come here to kill him, and what I’d done had been in self-defense. Still, he was dead by my hand.

  This wasn’t new to me. I’d killed before, more times than I liked to remember. But that was in Iraq. I heard people say sometimes that the first one was the hardest, and it got easier, but I hadn’t found it that way. Absolutely when the adrenalin was pounding and the fog of battle was around you, you were just thinking kill or be killed. But when it was over, it was hard not to look down and wonder at what you’d done. A person was alive, then not.

  At Cassie’s birth, I had something of an epiphany. It was the same process, only in reverse. You were in a room with a certain number of people, then there was magically one more. Her life and everything before it came into being.

  Killing was like that. There were people, then you removed one of them from existence. Their life and all it had been was gone. Because of you.

  This wasn’t Iraq, but I’d been here less than twenty-four hours, and two different things had tried to kill me. I didn’t like slipping back into the mindset I’d used to survive Iraq, but it was coming back anyway. And maybe I need to let it.

  ◆◆◆

  With Ayarala and me following her, Kisarat showed us around the house. The kitchen was an odd mix of frontier and high-tech. The stove-oven was made from decorated ceramic blocks, and despite its resemblance to a wood-burning pizza oven, was heated by glowing crystal plates inside of it. There was hot-and-cold running water and a sink-like reservoir in a little closet that apparently also served as the washroom. Kisarat explained that the drain went into a space under the house that sounded like a glorified compost heap. There was a tall crystal cabinet that proved to be a sort of refrigerator-freezer, also powered by crystal plates, though these were clear and frosty.

  I once had a cooler that worked by thermoelectric conversion, which this seemed analogous to. But it was far less powerful than this thing, and frankly it had barely worked at all.

  “How is all this powered?” I asked.

  “The sun-crystals on the roof.”

  I nodded. This was beginning to make some sense.

  “Show me.”

  She took us upstairs. The second level was divided into a wheel of eight rooms. Kisarat led us inside one of them, where there was a large glowing crystal block about the size of a twin bed. I squatted down to look at it. It seemed to be composed of dozens of layers of crystal sheets, with other things I couldn’t identify between them. Translucent tubes like fiber-optic cables ran from the block up into the ceiling. There was a hatch next to the cables and steps built into the wall to climb up to it.

  “This stores the energy from the sun,” she said.

  “Tsulygoi, you asked about the lasers in our world,” Ayarala said. “They are powered by crystals like this.”

  “There are factories and clans in Phan-garad that use them,” Kisarat said. “The ones used in construction are usually integrated with the battery as a vehicle. There would be no other way to move them.”

  Lasers powerful enough to make buildings. But otherwise they still fought with knives and swords.

  “They’re not used in combat?”

  They looked at each other.

  “Who would do such a thing?” Ayarala asked. “The lasers would blast anyone they struck to bits.”

  “Even if you wanted to, these lasers are too slow, too heavy,” Kisarat said. “What would be the point?”

  I reminded myself that I was in a world that was 99% female. Things likely worked a bit differently here.

  I climbed up through the hatch and looked out. The roof was covered in glittering crystal plates that looked not unlike solar panels back on Earth. But I had a feeling they were a lot more efficient. I closed the hatch and climbed back down.

  “What happens when it’s cloudy? Or if it rains for a few days?”

  “I am not a crystal engineer,” Kisarat said, “but I know they still absorb power during the day, even through the clouds, though perhaps not as much. The storage crystal has never come close to being drained.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It grows dimmer when the charge drops. It has happened a few times during the winter, when the sun is behind the clouds and we need heat.”

  ◆◆◆

  The rest of the second level comprised six bedrooms, all but two unoccupied, and a bathroom with a large tub and a ceramic cylinder that was probably the toilet. Strangely – or not, given his stature – iXa’aliq’s room was one of the smaller ones. Kisarat’s was next to his. Of the others, three were neat and clean and clearly unoccupied for quite some time; the fourth appeared to be recently vacated.

  “Narilora’s,” Kisarat said. “iXa’aliq told me to leave it alone, in case she changed her mind and returned.”

  “Do you think she will?”

  “No. She is linya
ng.”

  “They can be fickle,” Ayarala said. “If she chose to leave, she will likely not be back. She will be searching for a new tsulygoi.”

  “Linyang, like that hunting party we saw?”

  “Yes.”

  Ayarala and I explained to Kisarat what had happened on the way down the mountain. Her face wrinkled in confusion.

  “That is very odd. I wonder what they were doing. I have never seen a group like that here.”

  “Who are the linyang?” I asked.

  “Another people, like the dwenda and talalong,” Ayarala said. “They are a bit like the busang, with furred tails and ears. And like the busang, they are dangerous warriors. Most tsulygoi who take linyang wives do so for protection.”

  “And if she’d been here when I fought iXa’aliq?”

  “She would have defended him. And between the two of them, it might not have gone well for you.”

  There was a large room with a large bed overlooking Kisarat’s garden. I liked the view, and the bed looked comfortable enough.

  “I think this should do,” I said.

  “Ayarala, I suppose you may choose any of the others,” Kisarat said. But Ayarala looked at me.

  “I prefer her in here,” I said. “And you as well, if you like.”

  Kisarat smiled, and I could feel the anticipation swelling in her.

  “Of course, my tsulygoi, I am yours. I will gather my things. Should I clean out iXa’aliq’s room? I think there could be little in there of interest to you.”

  The thought of rooting through iXa’aliq’s linens, and whatever other potentially revolting things might be in his bedroom, did not appeal to me at all.

  “Go ahead. I’m going to look through his stuff downstairs.”

  ◆◆◆

  I started with the weapons. There were six throwing knives with a bandolier made from some kind of woven material that resembled nylon. There were two more blades similar to Ayarala’s. The sword was about two feet long, with an edge as sharp as broken glass. A core of something fibrous ran through the entire length. In the cabinet was the scabbard, carved from some hardwood and set with tiny sparkling crystals.

  Ayarala looked them over with me.

  “These are of a much finer make than mine. Some of the finest I have ever seen.”