Mantivore Prey

by S. J. Higbee

  What’s she talking about?

  And then she pressed her forehead against his brow ridge and he churred at her.

  “She’ll be shady, won’t she, Your Ladyship? I’d no idea vores were so big.” Damita was clearly anxious as she gazed at the spectacle of Felina being engulfed in a mantivore greeting ritual.

  I glared at Vrox, now sprawled across the floor like a scaly, vari-coloured rug. “Does he look like he’s all set to start snacking on her? More likely to croon Felina to sleep or drown her in ComfortDrool, I reckon.”

  When she threw back her head and howled with laughter at something Vrox had MindTalked to her, I’d had it. Having the mantivore in my head had kept me sane and comforted while I’d been slave-slogged to a standstill, but there’d also been a price to pay. Like the constant pain in my eyes and the probability I’d be blind in another ten years. And standing here like some wilting Nelly-No-Friend, watching the roaching beast MindLinking with one of the few people I cared about, was too much.

  “Let me know when they’ve finished their greetfest. I got other places to be.” Cleaning my nails is further up my ‘to do’ list than standing here, waiting for them to get over each other. I’d come all this way, brought Vrox against valued advice, only to be thoroughly snubbed. And in front of Damita, too!

  Whose gaze showed far too much understanding and pity.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I swept out of the Custody Suite, almost cannoning into Cupert. Swishing past him and ignoring his spluttering apologies, my guards closed around me as my slate began chiming.

  “Shady day to you, sweeting. Stimming to see you arrived safely. Can you holo me?”

  Hearing Seth’s voice was sweeter than a drink in the desert.

  “Course I can. Give me a nanosec.”

  There were a handful of places in Cnicus with mini-pads. But the only full-sized holomat was in the Meeting House. Spinning around, I headed there, almost running. Because there was an upside to Vrox shutting me out of his head while honeytalking Felina.

  I waited impatiently as two of my guards prowled through the building, checking for would-be assassins. As soon as they reappeared and confirmed it was safe, I rushed inside and activated the holomat, though it took a bit longer as I had to redirect the transmission through the Custody Suite, rather than the Node. “Seth?” I stretched out a hand in a pointless attempt to touch him, wishing he was here.

  “Cnicus surely suits you,” he said, smiling.

  Conscious that I hadn’t removed my sunscreen, my sweat-damp hair had coiled into ringlets around my forehead, ruining my Uppie hairstyle and my face was probably the colour of Cupert’s nose, I wiped my hands down my robe. Is he angry, still?

  He didn’t look it. That roaching coldness that he’d wrapped around himself seemed to have melted since our departure. His expression was open, his voice pleading, “I’ve been a sunblasted fool and I’m mightily sorry for it. Unlike me, you never wanted to leave Cnicus – a detail I keep forgetting. And since you got here, you’ve been swamped by Vrox and all of his needs…” Seth’s gaze sharpened as he looked past me. “Where is he?”

  “Busy MindLinking with Felina.” The words didn’t sound any better outside my head.

  Seth’s eyes widened. “That’s possible?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Where does that leave you?”

  “Surplus to requirements.” I’d meant it as a joke, but it didn’t come out sounding remotely funny.

  Seth’s gaze locked on mine and I gritted my teeth, waiting for his pity. Or contempt. “He still in your head?”

  “Nah. He’s locked me out.” I swallowed the brick lodged in my throat, determined I wasn’t going to shed a tear for the scaly sack of trouble. Not in front of Seth.

  “Has he now? And isn’t it just our shoddy luck I’m not there alongside when you’re looking lovely enough to stop the sunrise,” he whispered, his expression yearning and tender.

  The heat in his eyes ignited my own need for him. For his wiry frame, his muscled arms and thighs. To feel his body pressed against mine… There’d been many nights when Vrox had been safely asleep, I’d recalled all the intimate details I knew about Seth’s body from the time I’d nursed him.

  The sound of my guards challenging some villager who wanted to wander into the building pulled me from my sudden longing.

  “Didn’t think I’d have a chance to run this past you so soon,” Seth said. “I’ve been looking into the histories of MindLinking and related matters. There are ways of blocking him. Just for a bit.”

  “How?” There’re times I’d give my right foot for some privacy from Vrox.

  His grin knocked the breath from my lungs, before he leaned forward. “Visualise something he’s afraid or repelled by.”

  “Being frightened makes him angry, so that won’t work. He’ll want to bust through it to prove he can fight it. What does he really hate?” As I pondered, I realised I was thinking without any grumbling backchat or sudden loud enthusiasm. It was amazing to have such freedom to think clearly… “Cold. He hates being cold even more than I do.”

  “And being caught in the Gloriosan rain,” added Seth, rolling his eyes.

  “Isn’t that a stone-solid fact?” I recalled Vrox’s trumpeting fury after he’d decided to accompany us on one of our walks in the rain around the garden. “I always fancied having cold showers during the noonblast, but Vrox put a stop to it.”

  Suddenly I was engulfed in Vroxness. All looming, disgruntled surprise that when he and Felina had surfaced from whatever they were doing, I wasn’t there.

  “I gotta go. He’s back,” I said, again reaching for Seth.

  Who reached right back. “God speed,” he said.

  I swear I actually held his fingers for a nanosec. Till my outstretched hand grazed rough scales as Vrox loped up the aisle and stomped across the holomat, effectively blocking Seth’s transmission just before he blinked out.

  Vrox wrinkles his muzzle jeeringly. Cub needs a stronger mate, not that piece of nemmet-gristle.

  Cub needs a kinder Vrox. One who doesn’t crash into her head as if it’s his den. The mantivore always enjoyed these tussles between us, whereas they used to leave me diminished and upset. Now I was merely weary of them as I turned away from the mantivore and set off once more for the Custody Suite, wondering if I’d made a mistake in bringing Vrox with me, after all. And not bothering to hide my doubts.

  Vrox huffs dismissively. Cub needs him.

  And that, I decided, marching between rows of wilting flowers across The Square, was the problem. We weren’t MindLinked because we’d agreed we were a good match – it was force of circumstances. And during the harsh years when I’d been looking after Osmar, he was the one I turned to when there was no one else. My comforter and ideal companion. In return, I was a shaft of brightness and life in his otherwise dark, solitary existence.

  Except it wasn’t quite like that, was it? Not for him. Because he had the Codes and was MindLinked to the Node for years before I was even a grin on my mother’s face. And the Node isn’t a place of loneliness and darkness – it’s all sparkling activity and bubbles. So why would Vrox spend hours watching me wipe Osmar’s arse and scrub floors? Why make a point of comforting me when I wept? Because he hates tears – thinks they’re weak and pathetic…

  I’d run out of time to further think through this question, as the old mantivore was trying to break my concentration. Besides, we’d arrived back at the Custody Suite and now I needed to focus on Felina and her needs. After all, I’d come all this way to see her.

  The Custody Suite was just as stuffy and smelly as when I’d swept out just under an hour earlier, but none of that now mattered. Because Felina jumped up to greet me with a smile wide enough to swallow the sun.

  “Felina?”

  “Oh, Raindrop, I’m not sure if you should have come, but I’m mightily glad you have. And that beast of yours is something else, isn’t he just?” She opened her arms to hug
me, knocking the breath from my lungs as I dived into her embrace, starving for her comfort.

  Putting her hands on my shoulders, she finally stepped back, inspecting me. “Well, don’t you look the part? Glittering like a treasure chest in those fancy robes and beautiful enough to outshine the stars themselves.” She gently stroked a wisp of hair that had escaped Madam Stylist’s stasis hold. “This looks a whole lot better now it’s been allowed to grow out and those curls aren’t squashed flat under those ragged headscarves Mai made you wear.”

  Vrox whimpers, yearning for some comfort, too. Isn’t he also beautiful? Doesn’t he deserve some attention from his Queen?

  “Hsst, now! That’s no way for a lord to behave, is it? What would your mama think of you whining like some soft-scaled baby?”

  Heart pounding, I sucked in a breath. She shouldn’t have mentioned his mother!

  But Vrox merely let loose a snarling curse, before subsiding onto his haunches and sulkily gnawing on a talon.

  Relieved, I turned back to Felina.

  Who snatched off her heavy sandal, marched across to the grumpy mantivore and smacked him on his snout! “Don’t you dare disrespect your Queen in such a shoddy way!” she bellowed glaring up at the mantivore hulking over her.

  Vrox yelps. His shock and hurt bounces around the inside of my skull, as he whimpers for forgiveness.

  Blinking back tears, I began, “Please, Felina, you gotta cut him some air—”

  “No! I don’t. A lord doesn’t get to disrespect a queen, not from his own horde. Not one he’s willingly MindLinked with.” She turned back to him, hands on hips, still holding onto her sandal. “Do you, eh? It’s plain wrong. Don’t you tell me your mama didn’t teach you better, cos I happen to know she did!”

  How does she know this stuff? While it was shady seeing her once again, I’d forgotten what a forceful personality she was.

  “Er… Felina,” Damita said, “maybe riling the old vore isn’t the shiniest way to go, given I gotta either take away your sandal, or you need to put it back on your foot. Not s’posed to have access to a weapon, you see.”

  Felina skewered Damita with a sparkling gaze. “Trust me, if this…” She brandished the sandal. “…was any kinda weapon, I’d have drilled old Cupert deader than last night’s supper at least a dozen times since being penned up in here.”

  Though from the way Vrox flinched as she waved it around, he clearly wasn’t any more convinced than Damita that the sandal was just a piece of harmless footwear.

  “Telling me you’ve been thinking about shooting the Prime Peaceman isn’t filling me with reassurance, right now,” said Damita, casting nervous glances in Vrox’s direction.

  Felina grunted, bending down to put her sandal back on. “Don’t tell me you haven’t dreamt of shooting the roacher.”

  “Yeah, but I’m allowed. He’s my shoddy stepfather, who’s hardly ever given me a straightline break in my sad-slogged life. Whereas he’s the appointed Peaceman to you, a mere lawbreaking prisoner,” announced Damita.

  I sniggered, glad that Felina had Damita to mouthmatch with while stuck in this dump.

  A mistake.

  Felina turned on me, folding her arms. “As for you – you can’t go on letting Vrox get away with such shoddy behaviour. There’re far too many powerful folks wafting around in Gloriosa hungering for vore scales to wear around their pale, skinny necks, for starters. And he’s a vore lord. No way this side of Hell should he be snarling at you, his queenling Cub. And he roaching well knows it.”

  “Your Ladyship,” said Damita, putting her feet up on the console.

  Vrox rumbles, the mildest threat, to remind the uniformed queenling to show respect…

  Felina stamped her foot and glared at him. “Did I ask you to get involved? No! Am I in any kinda of direct danger right now? No! So you keep your big old vore mouth sealed shut till I say different!”

  Whimpering, he cringes.

  She doesn’t mean it. She just wants what’s best for you, that’s all.

  Felina rounded on me, once again. “Your Ladyship. That’s just the kinda soft-hearted slurry that’ll end up getting him killed and you mentally crippled if someone takes it into their upswept Gloriosan heads to off him for being dangerously obnoxious.”

  My glance flicked across to Damita, busy cleaning her nails with the catch on her belt. “Probably this isn’t the place to be yabbering about this stuff.”

  Felina waved away my concern. “Damita’s shady, aren’t you, Raindrop?”

  “So long as you don’t break outta here without my yay-so,” the deputy-Peaceman said, still engrossed in teasing something from under her thumbnail.

  “Consider me convinced that I got to get a grip on Vrox’s behaviour. Now can we talk about how to get you outta here?” I didn’t actually whine, but it was close.

  “Hell yes, Your Ladyship. Let’s by all means talk about that,” said Damita straightening up in her chair and putting the belt down.

  “So you don’t reckon she killed Mai?”

  “Well there’s that consideration, of course, Your Ladyship. But more importantly, she’s a roaching nuisance. Wanting her cell cleaned. Demanding food and water three times a day. Even got the nerve to want a shower every single day, can you believe it?” Damita sighed, shaking her head.

  Vrox raised his head and glared at Damita.

  “You drop that neck crest right now! Jer hear me?” snapped Felina at the poor old mantivore, before swinging round to me and pointing a grubby finger. “And you – don’t you so much as look at him! He’s trying to lever you into speaking up for him.”

  “Your Ladyship,” added Damita, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Your Ladyship,” said Felina.

  I gritted my teeth, on the edge of weeping. I’d imaged my reunion with Felina so many times while stranded in Gloriosa and this tilted exchange was nothing like those yearned-for conversations… “Now you’ve mouthwhacked me and Vrox to there and back again, d’you want to get out of here or not?” Bracing myself for an onslaught of mantivore disapproval, I waited for Vrox’s emotions to flow through my head. But there was nothing, except a sickening void where he should be. No doubt he was locked into Felina’s thoughts.

  She stretched out a work-roughened hand. “Don’t get stenched. I just want to see you safe and shady, Raindr— I mean, Your Ladyship.”

  “Raindrop,” I said, reassured at her evident worry that she’d angered me. “While we’re between these four walls.”

  “Just while we’re talking about things we shouldn’t – you and me – we’re kin, right?” said Damita, adding, “Your Ladyship.”

  I stared at her, glad the goggles hid most of my face.

  “If the playground jeers had it right, cripped-up old Osmar went through the village girls like a dose of salts. So he’s your pa, and mine, Your Ladyship.”

  I was still coming to terms with the ‘dose of salts’ thing, which didn’t remotely line up with the twisted, paralysed version of Osmar I’d nursed throughout my childhood.

  “That’s right. There’s others, too,” added Felina.

  There are?

  “Skyla Slurry, Larold Carrier and Rigel Player, I looked them up in the records.” Damita leaned back, looking sickeningly smug.

  I wanted to slap those freckles off her face.

  Felina still sitting on the edge of the desk, nodded.

  I swallowed queasily. I’ve got a bunch of half sisters and brothers whom I’ve hardly even passed the time of day with. Do they know? Am I the only one out of the loop? “Skyla and Larold – their hair… S’pose I should’ve guessed. Don’t know Rigel.”

  Damita shrugged. “You wouldn’t. He left Cnicus a while ago. So…” She glanced between me and Felina, before taking a breath. “You end up slaving over the old man – was that the deal? You look after him and in return they make you Overlord, Your Ladyship?”

  Is that what village gossip says? I shook my head, wishing she’d ease up on the �
�Your Ladyship’ business. “It’s partly to do with Vrox and the Codes.”

  “Yeah, I keep hearing about these Codes. That they control all the automation. But, there’s a whole lot not automated. If someone – say, some roacher from Gloriosa decides that he fancies swishing around in a fine variweave and being called Your Lordship – what’s to stop him forcing the mantivore to do what he’s told and taking over? Your Ladyship?”

  “Gloriosa is different. They can’t live without their bots. So the Overlord must be able to walk in the Nodery and prove he can control the Codes. And if he can’t…” I cleared my throat. “…he’ll die.”

  “And since Her Ladyship, here, started swishing around in her variweave, fourteen other contenders have tried their luck and all been fried to a cinder,” added Felina. “Cos she’s left out the important bit. Her Ladyship’s a genius with the Node. You ever seen her in action?” asked Felina, fixing Damita with that silver-flecked stare of hers.

  Damita shook her head.

  “You should. I used to invent tasks just to watch her at work.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah I did, as it happens.” Felina’s grin stroked me, leaving me warm and happy.

  Vrox huffs, sad that his Queen is forgetting his part in the Cub’s skill.

  The mantivore’s Sending had me rubbing my forehead and hoping my onboard snack wouldn’t be ending up as a pool on the floor.

  “Manners! Your mama would be ashamed!” snapped Felina, without even looking at the mantivore.

  “So we need to figure who offed your ma so you can get back there and do your overlording, Your Ladyship,” commented Damita, clearly as keen to see the back of me as I was to escape that cool gaze of hers.

  “And the first thing we need to do is get you outta here,” I said to Felina. I hate this stinky little room…

  “Agreed, Your Ladyship,” said Damita, bowing her head.

  CHAPTER SEVEN