Shadow And Light

by K. R. R. Bridgstreet

  Terrified and completely aroused, he closed his eyes tightly now and allowed his body to experience the ecstatic charge of the drug and the ritual. When the women’s enticements stopped, he opened his eyes and looked up at the moon. He saw his own cock shadowing the moon’s face. The moon opened her mouth and took that cock inside of it. He blinked hard and looked again, and there was pale moon, again alone in the sky. He looked down and saw his cock was standing straight up.

  The feeling was that of someone holding his manhood up for inspection. The sight of it impressed him, and for a moment he felt proud. When he reached his hand to touch it, he realized he could no longer move his arms. They were buried under mounds of earth. The dancers moved back inside his field of vision, and he shut his eyes against them. He could hear and feel them dancing and jumping over and around him. He could not look at them, but he needed them. His fury escaped in whimpers.

  The dancers tugged at his eyes. As a group of them called out, openly fondling their own breasts and slits, one dancer stepped out from among them and walked toward him. He saw her familiar, lovely shadow approaching, and he quickly closed his eyes. With eyes clenched tightly against her, he still saw her shadow standing over him, with one leg on each side of his strong body. His eyes flew open as he realized what she was about to do.

  The dancer above him undulated, a pure expression of ecstatic energy. She swallowed his shaft inside of her and shouted up at moon as she thrust her cunt hard against him. A scream exploded from his lips and he arched his back to match her motions. Their flesh, hot and smeared in red mud, smacked and slid together as she fucked him, this nervous young virgin, lying trapped beneath the earth, and yet freed from his body in the ecstasy of Kara’s energy.

  His ass tightened as he tried to slam his hips into hers, knowing that large bruises were forming on the edge of his pelvis, under the sharp slope of his rippled abdomen. His arms were steel beneath the earth, his full strength pushing against the mounded dirt above them. Yet they seemed to have been getting driven farther down. His hips were getting harder to lift as Kara pressed his body fully to the earth. Her pussy writhed over him and her song erupted from the well of sex within her.

  He could not stop himself: he came in an explosion of seed and mud. It ran from between her legs in gushes, flowing out around them, merging with the blood of her maidenhood. He could feel her cunt squeezing and relaxing around his spasming dick, and he knew the power of her orgasm would destroy him. Staring up at the no longer virginal woman writhing on top of him, he felt the pulsing of his manhood beginning to slow. The cries of the dancers were far away now, and his vision darkened. The last image he saw was that of the moon, staring silently back at him.

  ***

  Clan Sakaki woke under the full moon, many hours later. Deranged by the sight of what they had done, the clan shattered. Fires, now down to smoking coals, sent rivulets of smoke into the perpetual night. The clan members’ miserable wails became quieter as they moved off in all directions, wandering aimlessly in the long night they had mistakenly created. Kara’s body lay motionless on top of the mound of earth that marked Jurad’s passage.

  Suspended in a perpetual field of blackness, Jurad remembered. Before he became lost to the turns of time, he remembered.

  The ground below Kara’s body began to rumble.

  Chapter Four

  “Kali. Kali. Ka-bloodless bastard! Kali! Kal—”

  Kali’s shoulder hurt, and gods, what was that noise? Loud cracks, punctuated by what sounded like smashing glass, overlaid a low groaning that seemed to emanate from within her own head. She lurched to the side as if someone had thrown her. Her head felt heavier than her logbook, and something was crushing her shoulder.

  “Wha?” Kali tried to lift her head, but someone was on top of her, pressing her head back down into her pillow. She heard a loud creak followed by an enormous crash close to her left, and something sharp spattered the side of her face. Then, she remembered. She groaned and tried to sit up again, only to be shoved forcefully back down.

  “Lie down, Kali, Gods damn it!” It was Ganshi. His knees dug into her thighs, but somehow, she was moving. They both were moving. She felt as if they were lying in the back of one of the old utility trucks speeding over a dirt road pecked with potholes. She finally brought her face free of Ganshi’s chest and was able to look around. Shelves crashed down all around them. Broken lamps and figurines rolled back and forth across the floor.

  “It’s the end of the world,” she whispered, fascinated. She watched the oscillations of the rolling objects.

  “Just an earthquake,” Ganshi countered, and he brought a blanket over both their heads to protect them from shattering glass.

  Under the blankets, with the world rolling and buckling around them, Kaliana felt Ganshi’s manhood stiffen. Kali laughed a bit madly, opened her legs, and thrust him inside of her. He gasped in surprise, and then he battled the earth itself to see who could pound Kali harder. Kali wrapped her legs around Ganshi’s waist, and fought to hold on as the bed shook and turned with the machinations of the world’s belly.

  “Oh, Gods!” she screamed, “oh Gods, oh Gods, yes! Fuck me Ganshi! Fuck me, you hot fuck! Oh, Gods, deeper, yes, yes—” She felt something hard slam into her head. Ganshi laughed and she saw it was a textbook she had written herself. As the world bucked against her, Ganshi bucked back.

  Her orgasm was immense, and Ganshi cried out like a crazed animal when he came. In the moments after their lunatic fuck, they realized the ground no longer shook. They heard voices nearby, some cries for help, running feet, and crunching glass. Their eyes met for a moment before they scrambled to their feet.

  Ganshi used two pillows under his feet to slide around the room through the smashed objects in search of his robe. After a few moments he went to the closet and fished out two of Kaliana’s robes, donning one of them himself. He returned to the bed, and after Kali dressed, he picked her up and scooted her out of her rooms on the pillows. Their shoes remained near where they had placed them by the door, blessedly, and they slipped them on before kissing one last time in the doorway. Without a word, they were out the doors and into pandemonium.

  Broken glass blanketed the floor. Blue-green shards embedded with complex translucent panels, now useless, sparkled in the moonlight streaming through the now opened roof of the Conservatory. Where there had once been a sea of solar harnessing glass surrounding them, the wind now blew. A smell of sulfur arrived with it. Kali walked as close as she dared to the edge of the now railing-less balcony that looked over the common floors of the Conservatory.

  As she scanned each of the floors, she counted at least seven lifeless bodies, four stretchers, several groups of crying students with instructors tending them, and a few instructors being tended to by students. Kali also noticed that amid the death and injury, several people had found what they thought were hidden corners and were ravaging each other. Her face reddened.

  What had gotten into them? Her eyes remained on a student one floor down who had spread the legs of Sardra, her former roommate and one of her best math instructors. He had buried his face in her cunt. The young man had pushed her green Master’s robe up past her breasts, and she was touching her own body with roving hands as he worked. Her feet flexed and curled with each movement of the student’s head. Every couple moments, the Master’s hand grabbed hold of the student’s short black hair, clenching and unclenching it as his tongue darted in and out of her.

  Kali felt her own sex beginning to pulse again. Ganshi cleared his throat when he noticed Kali staring, and Kali hastily gathered herself and began issuing orders to those standing near her. She was obeyed without question, so her authority remained intact. She saw her chief engineer approaching from below and said a silent prayer of thanks.

  “Chancellor,” Daniel rushed up the stairs with his logbook in hand. “Although the walls have sustained serious damage, the foundation remains strong. We have had no alarms in the sublevels. The lateral
slide beams are operating as directed.”

  “Thank you, Daniel. And the utilities?”

  “Power is out. Water mains are for all purposes non-operational. And I’ve heard a lot of people complaining about the smell.” Kali couldn’t decide if the broken sewer main was the smell he referred to, or if it was the sulfurous smell she had noticed earlier.

  “Damn this fascination with the old Roman toilet system,” Ganshi broke in.

  Kali smiled. Even in this disaster, Ganshi couldn’t let an opportunity pass to once again criticize the archaic sewer system the Conservatory insisted on keeping. “I advised the board to change to the composting plan. I told them polluting gallons of water with feces was a recipe for—”

  “Not that, Master, and my apologies. It’s the rotten egg stink. You catch wafts of it every now and again, and it seems to be getting stronger.” Daniel’s eyes moved quickly between the two of them, waiting for some kind of answer. “And there’s smoke coming from the mountains.”

  Kali started. “Smoke?”

  “Yes, it’s building in plumes over Two Mountains Standing. I can’t tell from which peak. Chancellor, there hasn’t been an eruption of those mountains in any history book I’ve read.”

  “Me neither.” Kali spun and strode up the stairs leading to her observatory. She tried the door at the top. The handle turned, but when she pushed it wouldn’t give.

  “Ganshi!” she called. In a few seconds he stood at her shoulder, shaking the door handle and pushing. His feet slid out as he pushed, but the door barely moved. She heard a loud crash and felt a jolt against the door from the other side. Her observatory was lost. “Let’s go,” she said.

  They returned to Daniel, Ganshi in the lead. “We need a vehicle to get to Two Mountains Standing. Daniel, did anything survive this?” Ganshi and Daniel hurried off, leaving Kaliana alone on the upper level deck.

  An eruption at Two Mountains Standing? Those mountains had marked the passage west for all of living memory. They were fixtures: immobile, ancient, and sacred. The valley between them was a migratory path and pilgrimage for nearly all the clans. She herself had only been there once with her parents, but the mountain valley stood out clearly in her memory throughout her years.

  Never had she seen so much peace within so much life. Quilts of wildflowers lined the valley bottom and sides, and she remembered running through them, arms thrown out wide, mouth even wider, laughing and running. The mountains held freedom itself. And if the old stories were to be believed, the mountains held magic.

  “Huh!” she snorted, and she went back to her room to scrounge for supplies. Flabbergasted, she again exited and searched about for someone to assist her. Sardra now stood, straightening her robe, and sweaty, the young man leaned in to kiss her. He obviously worshipped the short brunette. His mouth was moving constantly between kisses, and she kept shaking her head. His eyes turned pleading, and she again shook her head.

  This seemed like a good time to step in. “Sardra,” Kaliana called. “Mistress Sardra. You are needed.” Kaliana turned away to give them a chance to gather their composure. She heard Sardra’s robe shuffling as she hurried up the stairs. At least those hadn’t collapsed yet.

  “Chancellor, how can I help you?” Sardra’s breath was coming in short, shallow bursts, and her face was a comical shade of crimson.

  “Take a breath, Mistress Sardra,” Kali said calmly. Sardra inhaled deeply through her nose and let it out again slowly. “Ganshi and I need to get to Two Mountains Standing. We will need supplies for at least a week, maybe more. I don’t know if the roads have withstood this quake yet. We will need food, blankets, water, outdoor clothing, and anything else you can think of for wilderness survival. Sardra, are you listening?”

  “Yes, Chancellor. Of course. Yes, you know I love to camp in the mountains.”

  “How many people can your supplies support?”

  “Probably five or six, Chancellor. I have two tents and stoves, and I’m sure we can find enough sleeping sacks and blankets for as many people that need them.”

  “Sardra, I need you to gather enough supplies to accommodate four people for at least several days. This includes food and water. Bring these supplies to Ganshi and Daniel. They will be in the truck bay, most likely on the first sublevel. Don’t worry—Daniel has confirmed that the structure is holding. And you will be coming with us, as well. Please find an assistant to help you. Make sure Daniel and Ganshi pack adequate fuel.”

  “Yes, Chancellor. May I bring an acolyte to assist?” Her hand flew to cover her mouth, as if she wished to take back her request.

  Kali grinned despite herself. “Might this young acolyte be the man who just attended a buffet at your vagina?”

  Sardra gaped.

  “Yes, Sardra, you may bring him. Gods know how many more days we will have in our sweet home. You may as well spend them with those you love.”

  Sardra stood motionless for another moment, then turned to rush to her business.

  Kali gathered her own breath. She looked around once more at the devastation surrounding her, the frightened faces, and she thought of Ganshi. Then, she opened her mouth and began a song she had heard in the mountains all those years ago.

  “Almost heaven, western mountains,

  Blue-green ridges, streams sing in their praises.

  Life is older here, older than the skies.

  Stones beckon the moonbeams,

  Like raindrops to us fly.

  Western roads, take me home.

  To the land, I belong.

  Western mountains, standing mountains,

  Western roads, take me home.”

  She stopped after the only verse she knew. The chaotic Conservatory had quieted at the sound of her voice.

  “That’s an old song,” she heard an acolyte say. “I never heard her sing the old songs before.” She thought she heard him choke back a sob.

  Chapter Five

  The road to Two Mountains Standing was passable outside the confines of the campus. Maneuvering the van turned out to be an expertise of Sardra’s new friend. The boy—he could not have been older than eighteen—came to the Conservatory from the borders, where he asserted the ground was one big, jagged rock, and he was used to this sort of thing.

  He laughed nervously as he slid his lissome, tan body behind the wheel of their utility van. The thing was a relic. The newer flight crafts had been stored in the topmost port, but the quake had thrown the frequently tested, so unanchored, planes together into a heap of metal. This van from the lower levels was a joke. Rust lined its edges and the back bumper was missing. It had four good, fat tires, though, and plenty of room for the team of four and their gear, so they piled in.

  Ganshi and Sardra were in back with the equipment. They sat on scuffed black vinyl seats with yellowish brown stuffing poking through large slashes in the sides. Kaliana sat in front with Roghur, Sardra’s ecstatic and innocent-eyed sidekick. She noticed he had put a plain white shirt back on over his lithe and smooth torso, and a twinge of disappointment surprised her when she realized she could no longer study the movement of muscle under his skin.

  The contrast of white shirt against his golden flesh, and the promise of the muscle underneath, made Kali’s slit pulse. She felt blood rising in her cheeks as she once again looked over her young student, his short brown hair a cowlicked mess that he kept trying unsuccessfully to comb back with his fingers. Roghur noticed Kali watching his attempts and mistook her appreciation for annoyance. When his green eyes briefly met hers, he pulled his hand from his hair and sat up straight in his seat. Kaliana smiled sweetly to disarm him. She did not wish to get caught up in the politics of student-teacher relationships.

  Ganshi and Sardra were talking animatedly as they settled into the unfamiliarity of the old vehicle. At once they grew quiet, and then humming deep in his belly, Ganshi began a harmony that Sardra echoed an octave higher.

  The car rumbled slightly. Kaliana, startled, turned her gaze from Roghur an
d felt Ganshi and Sardra’s voices lifting the rusted van off the loading dock’s cracked surface. Their voices became louder and they held the harmony. Roghur, jaw dropped, held his hands in the air just above the steering wheel, and looked around at the ground a foot below them, his face a mask of fright and astonishment. Kali knew her own face must have been a mirror of his.

  Just as quickly as the car had risen, it dropped back down with a crash. Sardra and Ganshi laughed and threw their arms around each other. Sardra sat back and wiped tears from her eyes, and Ganshi clapped his hands and bellowed. Kali waited, not patiently, for Ganshi to catch his breath.

  He caught her eyes and immediately calmed himself with a moderated breath. His explanation began with a laugh that turned into a sigh. “Sardra has been studying weather patterns, Chancellor.”

  Sardra nodded agreeably.

  Ganshi continued. “She identified a Fibonacci pattern in the spiral of a tornado and played notes to match the amplitudes of the wavelengths. What she found lifted this shitty old van into the air!” Ganshi trailed off in a hail of laughter. He let his head roll back as he gasped for breath.

  Kali felt—giddy. The power of flight? From the song of a tornado? The implications awed her. The backseat duet began the song again. The van shook, then rose slowly. As soon as it rose, it began to turn counter-clockwise. Ganshi swore, and the van came crashing down. He hopped out and stalked off toward the garage.

  “How?” Kali asked.

  Sardra, with a huge smile spreading over her face, said, “The little desert tornadoes! The dirt devils, in the western borderlands. The way they moved...it seemed like a pattern, so I watched them. I had manipulated the devils to blow around papers before, but never...” She trailed off, shaking her head back and forth, still grinning.

  Kali felt a twinge of annoyance, simply because she hadn’t discovered this herself. To duplicate or enhance is one thing. But to create with song, my Gods—why hadn’t she seen this? She buried her annoyance at herself in praise for Sardra and her brilliant mathematical mind. Roghur simply beamed.