by Sam Ryder
“She’s coming around.” Holy gods, if Eve would’ve joined us…
“Is she?”
“In her own way.”
“Good to hear. She’s not as big of a bitch as I used to think,” Eve said.
“I think she might say the same thing about you.”
“Look at us, bonding too,” Eve said.
“I really am sorry you had to hear us,” I said. “And it really wasn’t like what you think. Vrill’s mom—”
“Delaqua.”
“Yes, Delaqua…she said that the antidote to the Viss poison was sex. I guess something about the chemicals secreted during the act neutralize the poison.” She clearly hadn’t been lying. Vrill wouldn’t have stood for it, for one. And secondly, I was feeling a lot better now. I wondered if treating the poison was a one-time thing or if it required multiple sessions.
“You’re grinning like a dog with a bone. That’s a thing back on Earth, right?”
“Right.” I wiped the sloppy smirk off my face. For a second, I felt awkward as silence settled in. But then I remembered all Eve and I had been through together. Hell, she’d almost died. Being awkward was a waste of time and energy. I walked over and plopped down next to her on the soft padding.
“Let me guess: You want to sleep with me now. As in, actually sleep.”
“Unless you have other ideas…” I waggled my eyebrows.
“Goddesses! What’s with Demigods and their libido?”
“I was actually kidding,” I said. “As for the libido thing, I don’t know. It’s kind of crazy.”
“When this is all over you’re going to require about six women on standby to take care of you.”
“As long as you’re one of them…”
“Don’t push your luck.” To emphasize her point, she pushed me. I grabbed her wrists and pulled her toward me.
She pretended to fight it, but then reversed course and tackled me flat onto my back, holding my wrists down with a strength that belied her slender form. It was fun. Light. Normal. She kissed me on the lips. That was nice too. “Goddesses, you taste like her. Or is that her mother?”
“How would you know what either of them tastes like?” I asked.
“Because while you were sleeping we had a threesome, of course,” she said. She delivered the statement with such perfect timing, not missing a beat, that I believed her for a second. She cracked up. “Joking. Vrill has to work hard just to stay in the same room with me. You taste like they look. It’s hard to explain.”
I thought I understood what she meant. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s not a bad taste,” she said. She kissed me again and I leaned into it, kissing her back. Her full weight was on me now, and yes, I felt myself being aroused once more. This body really was a racehorse.
A cleared throat washed away any potential for this turning into an endless night of sex that would’ve made us fit right in amongst the Lri Ay. We stopped kissing and looked over to find Vrill watching us.
“For fuck’s sake,” Eve said. “Ever heard of knocking?” I was tempted to point out there were no doors in this city but thought better of it. “I didn’t interrupt you, did I?”
“You were awake?”
“Even if I wasn’t, your mother’s shrieks could’ve woken the dead, the undead and the redead.”
“She is rather loud, isn’t she?” Vrill crinkled her nose, as if she’d previously blocked all memories of her mother’s love-making sounds since leaving her home planet.
“Like a banshee,” Eve said, laughing. The two women kind of, sort of, seemed to be sharing a laugh between them. It was kind of, sort of, weird…ish.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have interrupted if it wasn’t important.”
“What is it?” I asked, thoughts of invading Viss immediately springing into my overly imaginative mind.
“Mother called a meeting.”
Eve and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing: So what? “Okayyyy?”
“A meeting to tell my people who you are and why you’re here.”
Ohhhh. Oh. “Why did she do that?” I asked, a bad feeling settling into my gut.
“Because I asked her to.”
“You did what?” This time, the question came from Eve, laced with sharp edges and scathing.
“I already told you, Finding is not going to be handled the way it used to be. Not while I’m a part of it.”
“No one is asking you to handle it the same way as before,” I said. “We’ve all agreed to try something new. But you should’ve consulted with us first. Talked about it.”
“And you would’ve agreed to setting up a meeting?” Vrill’s hands were firmly on her hips now, which meant she wasn’t going to budge from her position, not even if a horde of angry Viss hunters were bearing down on her.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said at the same moment as Eve said, “Hell no we wouldn’t have.”
“See?” Vrill said, as if Eve’s response had just confirmed the correctness of her decision.
“No, I don’t,” I said. “If we’re going to be a team, we should start acting like one. You said you would try.”
“I did. That’s what I’m doing, Sam. Don’t you see? I’m here on my own planet trying to convince my own people to travel across space to a monster-infested planet to fight a war they have no stake in. Does that tell you I’m not trying?”
It was a very fair point. “Eve?” I said. “Are you on board with a meeting with the Lri Ay?”
“Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
“Yes,” I said. “To me, it would. We need to be united on big decisions.”
“It will definitely expedite things,” Eve said, which was probably as good as I was going to get.
“Okay,” I said. “How long will it take to gather everyone?”
“Not long. Those in the midst of rejuvenation will take longer to assemble than others, but the majority of my people should be gathered in the atrium within the hour.”
“Then I guess this is it,” I said with a grim smile. “Success or failure depends on how effective our powers of persuasion are.”
“We’re doomed,” Eve muttered under her breath.
Thankfully, Vrill didn’t seem to hear her.
I was trying to be optimistic, but I had a very bad feeling about all this.
~~~
True to Vrill’s promise, the Lri Ay people were gathered in one place at one time. The ‘atrium’ as she had called it, was a section of the cavern without burrows or walls, the ceiling rising a full two hundred feet overhead. Massive stone columns supported the roof while the walls were painted with artists’ renderings of the Lri Ay people in various sexual positions. Several of the paintings looked good enough to sell for thousands back on Earth.
The entire population was much smaller than I expected. Perhaps ten thousand in total. Obviously, that was a lot of people to be crowded in one cavern, even one as large as the atrium, but in the scheme of things her people were on the verge of extinction, something she’d never told me. Hell, there were colleges in the Big Ten that had average attendance at their football games that were ten times greater than the entire population of Lri Ay. It was a sobering thought. And now we were going to ask them to give up more of their people to fight in an alien war against monsters?
It really did seem like a lesson in futility.
Delaqua was the first to speak, climbing a series of curving steps to a raised platform created by a naturally occurring rock formation—a stalagmite of sorts. Her voice carried well, echoing off the walls and ceiling. “Fellow Lri Ay…at long last, my daughter, Vrill, has returned!” With that, she gestured at Vrill and all heads turned in her direction. Vrill looked uncomfortable under the attention, even more so when the people started beating their chests and chanting “La la la la la!” which I took for some kind of a native cheer.
When the crowd quieted, Delaqua continued. “Yes, and she has returned with a fant
astical story of other planets, other worlds beyond our own. I cannot even comprehend how she traveled to these worlds, and yet I believe her because of the company she keeps.”
Even before she mentioned us, many of the Lri Ay eyes were staring in Eve and my direction, the people whispering to each other about us. We were aliens here, after all, the equivalent of little green men on Earth.
“Who are these…creatures?” someone demanded from the crowd.
I almost laughed at being called a creature. Then again, I was pretty damn huge, so maybe the term wasn’t that far off the mark these days. Delaqua offered a glorious smile. “I’ll let our guests speak for themselves. Vrill, Sam, Eve!”
She climbed back down the steps and waved us up. The space at the top wasn’t huge, but we should be able to stand shoulder to shoulder without anyone falling off. So long as no one sneezed. Ha.
Vrill went first, Eve second, and I brought up the rear. The steps were narrow and steep, and though all three women made climbing them look easy, for my large feet it was a challenge. I turned them sideways and put my hands down for balance where necessary. Eventually I reached the top, where the other two women were already waiting. I filled in the remaining space, trying not to flex my muscles for fear of knocking one of them off.
I was hoping Vrill would speak first and she didn’t disappoint. “Old friends,” she said. “I am sorry to have been away for so long. I wasn’t dismembered by the Viss. I didn’t fall into a chasm in the caves. I know your imaginations have probably made up all sorts of stories for my disappearance.” That got her a few chuckles. Seeing this side of her was new and exciting. Here amongst her people, she was a natural public speaker. “I was, however, abducted by aliens.”
That earned her less laughter and brought an uncomfortable hush over the audience. “This woman, Eve, came here a few years ago to recruit soldiers for a cause on her planet, Tor. Except ‘recruit’ is being generous…”
Oh no, I thought. Surely she wasn’t going to…
She was.
Point by point, in methodical fashion, she told them the whole and entire ugly truth, leaving nothing out. Eve seemed to shrink within herself as her dirty laundry was aired for this entire race of people to witness. Hell, Vrill even recounted some of the details of our initial meeting in the Circle and what happened afterwards—namely, the rejuvenation. That gained her some nodding heads and smiles.
Finally, she brought everything full circle to the present. “So now I am here to recruit for a cause I believe in. Not for these Three goddesses I’ve described, but for a world oppressed by evil, not unlike our own.” For some reason, it took me all the way until this point to make the connection between Tor and Lri Ayem. The Lri Ayem were an oppressed people too, forced to hide in their cavern cities for fear of the Viss, monsters that would’ve fit in well amongst the monsters on Tor. I understood. That was one of the reasons the Lri Ay who were taken to Tor tended to flourish there. They were trained from a young age to endure such hardships. What they were not accustomed to was having their rights and free will taken away by Three goddesses who expected subservience.
I understood.
I could tell Eve did, too. She’d never bothered to truly understand the culture of the very people she relied on to maintain our numbers. I could see the pinkening of her cheeks. She was ashamed. I felt bad for her but knew I shouldn’t. She needed to own her mistakes if she was ever going to move forward.
Vrill finished speaking, concluding her monologue with her decision to return to her people as a Finder. She turned toward us now, finally meeting both our gazes, not shying away from it despite all the things she’d said. It was her typical bravery, considering Eve might very well decide to throw her off the platform.
She didn’t. Instead, she spoke. “All that Vrill tells you is true. I have come here and taken your people against their will to fight in our war. Many have died.”
She was getting a lot of glares. Several of the Lri Ay touched their shoulders and then extended their palms in her direction, which I took for the equivalent of flipping the bird. Despite the negative reaction, I was proud of Eve for owning her truth.
“I am sorry for what I have done. I am at your mercy.”
Even Vrill looked shocked at the conclusion to her speech. In fact, her eyes took on a wild appearance as she cast her gaze back over the crowd. Something wasn’t right. I knew it even before the first voice rose up, condemning Eve. “She has relinquished her guest rights. You all heard it. I say we try her according to our laws.”
Vrill tried to speak, but her voice was washed away by hundreds, maybe even thousands, of other voices, which latched onto the suggestion. “Try her! Try the murderer! Try the abductor! Justice for our stolen souls!”
Not.
Good.
Eve realized she’d screwed up because of her ignorance of Lri Ay law, but she didn’t backtrack. Instead, she puffed out her chest and shouted so loud her voice carried over the crowds’ commotion. “Try me! Try me under your law! I will accept my punishment.”
Vrill looked at Eve in a way I’d never seen her look at the woman before:
With respect.
That expression swiftly gave way to fear as the multitude stormed the platform.
~~~
They took Eve from us, binding her and carrying her away. I managed to grab her hand a give a quick squeeze that I hope told her, We’ll get you out of this, before she was swept away. I turned to Vrill. “Did you know this would happen?”
She shook her head. “She—both of you—were protected by our guest law. I didn’t think Eve would relinquish her rights to protection.”
“She didn’t know about your guest law. Neither of us did. Because you didn’t tell us.”
Any suspicions I might’ve had that Vrill had purposely hidden this pertinent information from us were vanquished by her horrified expression. No, the mistake was an honest one. Vrill never believed it would be an issue at all. How could she have known Eve would say what she said? “This is my fault,” Vrill said. “I gave them the roadmap to Eve’s crimes. I wanted them to know the whole truth so they could make up their own minds about whether to join our cause.”
“And you thought that would work to recruit them?” I asked. I hated to be so harsh with her, but seeing Eve roughly taken had unnerved me.
“I don’t want to recruit new soldiers by making them blind,” Vrill fired back.
I took a deep breath. “I know. You’re right. We’re here to do this the right way, but why would anyone join our cause if they know the full truth?”
“Because Lri Ayem isn’t such a great place either. Because it’s an opportunity to get the hell off this rock of a planet that’s been sucking my people dry for centuries. Because we have the chance to build something better, from scratch, become the architects for our own destiny.”
I’d never heard her talk like that, but the light in her eyes told me she’d been thinking these things for a while now. These were the beliefs that made her overlook her rocky past with Eve and the Three and rejoin with our cause now that it was under new management, so to speak.
“Maybe you should’ve led with that?” I said, half-joking.
This time, she didn’t catch the joke. “I know that now. I was getting there. I was ready to say all that. But then Eve…”
“Opened her big mouth?”
“I was going to say ‘proved that she really has changed her ways,’ but yes. She opened her big mouth.”
“What do we do now? What is the crime for what she’s done? A hundred lashes? Solitary confinement for five years? No rejuvenation for the rest of time?”
Vrill’s eyes told me all my guesses would’ve been better than the truth. “Death,” she said.
~~~
Here on Lri Ayem, the justice system moved at lightspeed compared to the United States’, which moved at a snail’s crawl. We were gathered for the hearing already. In the Lri Ay version of a courthouse—a stone structure wit
h stone benches set before a wide platform—there was only room for about a hundred spectators. Given we were ‘witnesses’, Vrill, Delaqua and I were all allowed to attend. There’d been almost no time for prep, except for Vrill to instruct me to tell the truth. “Lies are not tolerated on my planet,” she’d added.
Which was information that would’ve been useful earlier and certainly explained why she’d handled her speech the way she did.
Eve, still bound, was seated in a large stone chair that might’ve been called a throne on Earth. We—Vrill, Delaqua and I—were seated on the first bench, directly across. I met Eve’s eyes. There was no fear there, just a hint of sadness. She nodded at me, which I took for resignation to her fate. I wondered whether she’d been told she was likely to be sentenced to death. If so, I would fight for her. I’d already decided it. I would use my massive body to protect her. They would have to kill me too.
I hadn’t told Vrill my plan. I wouldn’t.
Eve looked away and Vrill touched my arm. “Those are the deciders,” she explained, motioning to three Lri Ay who had just entered through a side opening. “Majority rules.”
Which meant we would need to convince two of three that Eve, an alien abductor, was not guilty of the charges that Vrill had just recounted from firsthand experience, charges that, oh yeah, Eve hadn’t even denied.
In short: she was fucked.
There were jeers and hisses, the sort of behavior I’d never experienced from the few Lri Ay people I’d met on Tor. They were out for blood.
Again, Eve was stoic, not avoiding the stares or the insults, meeting their eyes with an expression of sadness, of guilt.
Rather than taking a seat, the three deciders stood in a semicircle behind Eve, one on each side and one directly behind her. A bad feeling crept into my gut. “If she is found guilty and sentenced to death, when is the punishment carried out?” I asked.
Vrill refused to meet my eyes. “Immediately,” she said at the same moment the decider standing behind Eve drew a wickedly long blade from where it was hidden beneath the heavy folds of her cloak. Eve glanced back, her eyes catching the glint of orange lanternlight flickering like fire on the blade’s long edge. Her teeth ground together, her jaw locking. It wasn’t fear but determination to see this through to the very end. Perhaps this was her plan the entire time—to seek an opportunity to make amends for her heinous acts.