by G. Howell
She ducked her head, making a small, choking sound that may have been a smothered chitter. “It works in the same way? It just looks... strange.”
“I really can’t help that,” I said quietly. “But it works the same.”
“Huhn… You’re... larger,” I saw her ears go back again. “Considerably.”
“I’ve been told there can be... discomfort if I’m not careful,” I said and touched her hand and traced a finger. “But I could mention your claws and teeth. There has to be some care taken on both sides.”
For a second she drew back a bit, the alien profile of her head tipping as she regarded me.
Diaphanous curtains stirred in an errant draught, ghostly in pale moonlight. I’d half expected her to retreat then, to change her mind as the reality of what she’d be laying with sunk it. But after a few heartbeats there was a touch on my sternum and leathery fingertips stroked over my skin. I let her explore some more, flinching a little at touches and stroking, allowing inquisitiveness that infiltrated the defenses I usually kept up around Rris. And when she finally took my flesh in her grip she hissed softly and regarded her handful in some emotion that in the dimness could have been surprise or amusement or apprehension. I tensed and my own hands clenched in her fur as she explored. I knew where this was leading, of course. I understood that. And even through the fog of arousal I thought I could see what she was doing, and why. And her assumptions were almost funny. But at that moment it didn’t really matter to me.
I’d told her. And she’d heard, but perhaps she’d never truly grasped the implications when I’d said it was different. But I think she started to when I took her over onto her back and looked down on her looking up at me with uncertainty and less definable expressions flickering across her half-lit visage. She was pressed against me, pelt against bare skin prickling like a living bearskin rug. Through it her heartbeat was racing with a tempo I could feel through her ribs and flesh and fur, her breath fast and short and her muzzle was like velvet under my fingertips as I stroked. I think she realized when I pinioned her arms and hands and claws back against the mattress, as I had to, and she bucked against my grip; just once.
“Is that no, Milady?” I whispered.
For two, three heartbeats she hesitated before she hissed a barely audible, “No.”
And I know she did when I adjusted myself and moved gently forward and her glittering eyes went wide.
------v------
I was gone with the first morning light.
Meadow grass made slick and slippery with dew was cool against my feet and legs as I loped away across the open fields. To the eastward horizon a glimmer of sun painted the morning sky in golds and reds. Higher, the arching vault of the sky was crisp and clear. A flight of ducks or geese... some kind of bird flew high enough to catch the sunlight, flaring into a V of brilliant white specks against the blue. Poplars and oak stood still in the cool air, moisture beading and sparkling on leaves.
There were no sentries. Her Ladyship had called an early inspection of the outlying guards. Unusual, but her prerogative. Bells had pealed out across the pre-dawn fields and the guards had trooped back up the hillside. I’d watched, from the balcony windows of her bedroom as the figures congregated toward the front of the manor. And when there were no more to be seen, I’d gone out the way I’d come in.
My pack was weighted with fresh food, with fresh water. There was Open Fields coinage, a goodly amount of it. I had a map of the local area. It was crude handiwork – a print from a woodcut, but it was better than dead reckoning. I had information that gave me a goal. And Lady H’risnth had given me something else as well.
Before she’d left me to go and keep the staff busy, she’d taken my wrist in one hand and with the other pressed something into my palm. It was a key. An old, iron key: bulky and weighty, with an intricately wrought curlicue at the end. By the rust oxidizing along the length it hadn’t been used for some time. A place to stay, she’d told me. Perhaps somewhere the Mediators wouldn’t think to go.
The morning seemed brighter than the previous day had been. I had a destination. I had the beginnings of a plan. And Chaeitch was alive – or rather I’d been told he was alive and the evidence seemed to support that claim. And I’d managed to survive the last night mostly intact. Perhaps that had something to do with it as well.
Short shadows on the ground signaled midday. Insects rasped in the undergrowth and heat shimmered in the air, hazing the blue horizon. I stopped under trees atop a hill and watched farmers in the valley below laboring away with ploughs and barrows. It looked like they were building a stone wall. Replacing the zig-zag rails of an old wooden fence with something a little more robust. Huh, must be the time of year for that sort of thing. I settled myself further back in the shade of a sycamore, amongst the roots and tumbled seed pods, and dipped into the provisions I’d been given. There was bread with a crust the consistency of granite; the Rris versions of spring rolls with their suspicious meat fillings; and plain slivers of smoked turkey. While I ate I took the opportunity to pull my right sleeve up and inspect my upper arm and the crescent of bruises and small punctures there.
She’d bitten me last night. Quite hard.
I suppose that in a way it’d been my fault. I’d been careless, forgetting – somehow – that this was new to her. We’d been face to face, which isn’t at all normal for Rris in that sort of situation. It’d been dark and we’d both been somewhat... preoccupied and she’d been growling and tensing like someone was cranking her spine tighter and tighter and in the heat of the moment - so to speak - that tension had snapped like an overstressed hawser and she’d just whipped her head up and sunk her teeth in. It’d been at a moment when other sensations were in the driver’s seat, so it hadn’t hurt at the time. Not... badly; I’d been more startled than hurt, but I’d seen reactions like that before. Was it something hardwired into Rris females? A reflex to extend claws, to bite and claw? Or was it just a reaction to something they hadn’t experienced before. Chihirae still had a tendency to do it, so it seemed to be something as reflexive as a sneeze.
Oh, her Ladyship had been apologetic about it afterwards - almost mortified – but reflexes like that were one of the reasons that casual sex here was so risky. Protection? You’d be talking about a suit of chainmail.
In the warmth and dappled sunlight sifting through the leaves above I rubbed the bruise and grimaced, then looked at the water bottle I’d been holding for the past few minutes. Enough woolgathering. Down the hillside the farmhands were breaking for their own lunch, tawny bodies lost as they sprawled out in the golden grasses.
And why was I dwelling on the last night? Feeling guilty?
I was. Dammit, I was. Chihirae. Did I tell her?
I was pretty sure that for Chihirae it wouldn’t matter. Their interpretation of monogamy was as an aberration; something that society eyed askance for reasons I still wasn’t sure of. Chihirae’d had trouble understanding why I’d been upset after finding her and Chaeitch together, but the fact remained that I had been upset about that. It’d felt like a betrayal.
And now I’d been the one to take another partner. I think the word that was nagging at me was hypocrite.
I’d thought I could try and reason my way through it; tell myself that I was reciprocating her hospitality. And, if I hadn’t done it her Ladyship might have made things more difficult for me. All she’d have had to do would be to call out, to bring guards in there. She hadn’t done that, but there’d been that mention of calling for guards – that mention that hadn’t quite been a threat that we’d sidestepped away from. And when I played those arguments back in my minds, they just sounded more like excuses. Of course, would Rris care about that dalliance? Chihirae would probably just tease and ask for details, but I still felt twinges of remorse from that part of me that was human.
Did I tell her? Assuming I got the
opportunity. Damn it.
And why had her Ladyship done it? Curiosity she’d said. Hmmm, yeah. Perhaps. Or perhaps there was another logic working there. From their point of view I formed unusually strong attachments with individuals. And it seemed to be getting around that I was inordinately – by their standards – attached to the women I’d slept with. Perhaps she’d concluded that that was usual for me, that I bonded with whomever I slept with. So therefore she was thinking that if she seduced me I would become attached to her. Why? I didn’t know. Perhaps...
Perhaps I was being too paranoid and thinking myself into a corner. I ground my teeth, grabbed my gear, rewrapping the food and throwing it back into my bag. What’d happened was in the past now and the future was still coming on, looming ahead like a storm cloud. There wasn’t a lot to do but whatever I could.
I looked down at the meadow below, at the line of the unfinished wall, the part under construction reminding me vaguely of a snapped piece of twine: the thread of the existing wall and the multitude of stone and rocks scattered at the working end waiting to be slotted into place. Like a jigsaw: Take the small parts, work to fit them into the final picture.
Which was what I was going to have to do. I had the small parts, thanks to her Ladyship. Only I didn’t know if I had them all, or even what that final big picture looked like.
I’d have to find out.
So, I returned to Open Fields.
------v------
As dusk crept over the city of Open Fields a thick fog drifted in from the lake. That sort of weather wasn’t uncommon for a lakeside city, and for me it was a welcome stroke of fortune. Under the grey cover of the evening mist I left my position where I’d been waiting on the overlooking hill and headed down into town.
On a misty night back home that fog would be aglow. Reflected light from the city would diffuse through the mist, tinting it with a sodium glow visible from miles away. Here, it was dark. The only light came from the half moon riding across a clear sky.
Intangible pale clouds seeped through the city, insinuated themselves through the twilit streets. Up close it was just minute droplets of moisture in the air, but beyond fifty meters buildings vanished into drifting veils of white mist. Through the mist and darkness diffuse smears of orange light became visible as city servants went about their jobs of lighting streetlamps. Cut stone and black wrought metal glistened as moisture condensed on cool surfaces. A line of droplets beaded along the crosspieces of a cast-iron lamp post, quivering and shimmering like jewels as gaslight caught them.
She’d given me the key and directions, but the fog was making things a bit difficult. I didn’t know my way around that well. What landmarks I could recognize were obscured by fog. Street signs were almost non-existent, a luxury I remembered from home that weren’t that prevalent in this world. At least the directions I’d been given were clear enough.
I waited in the shadows of the alley as the wagon rattled by. Quietly I waited until it’d been swallowed by the fog, the echoes of its passing clattering from buildings. By the sign over the wrought iron gates the yard opposite was the Fehiserath Hold goods warehouse. That was good. That was in the directions she’d given me. From there it was to the northwest, on the outskirts of the central district.
Take the southern road in. From the foundry head north to Ithri Cross. West to the warehouse. West of that is the Long Walk plaza. North from there to High road and the HighLand district. So west was... that way. I was pretty sure it was that way.
But meantime I had business elsewhere in town. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. I’d been wanting an excuse to be able to put it off, but the fog and darkness offered an opportunity I couldn’t ignore: the chance to be able to move through the town relatively incognito. I pulled the moisture-beaded hood of my rain cloak down a bit further to cover my face and set off into the mist.
------v------
Despite the near pitch-black streets and the clammy night fog reducing visibility to a few meters, moving unobtrusively through the center of town was amazingly difficult. Even in that murk there were Rris out and about. I stuck to the shadows, kept away from lamps, but even so I drew curious stares and a few starts from the few who caught glimpses of me in the mist. The storm cloak may have covered a lot, but not everything. I hoped those who saw me might just think me a cripple or otherwise deformed.
Toward the center of town various shops and businesses were still open. I turned my cowled face to a wall as a nearby door opened and light, noise and Rris spilled out. A good half dozen of them, but they either ignored or most probably didn’t notice me and set off down the street, yowling like a sack of cats, reeling and staggering on those weird Rris ankle joints. One tripped over his own legs and landed face first on the cobblestones of the street. His friends managed to haul him up and they tottered off into the fog, the yowls of their carousing audible even after they’d been lost to sight in the whiteout.
At best they’d probably attract guards. At worst... I hurried off down another alleyway.
Finding the place was taking longer than I liked. The town was still mostly unfamiliar. All I’d seen of it was what I’d been show on the tours. Of course, at those times I’d never thought my life might be depending on the fact that I memorize the town’s layout. I had an idea of the general location of the place I was looking for, but not the exact address. The square with the four fountains and the store with the orange and green striped awning. It was central, on one of the boulevards leading to the palace in the northwest. I remembered that, but exactly where it was eluded me.
Cursing quietly to myself I stalked the dark alleyways, looking for a recognizable landmark. Those narrow, convoluted lanes were almost pitch black, and the fog didn’t help any. A diffuse glow from the midnight moon overhead filtered though the mist. It was just enough to see by, also enough to throw shadows into sharp relief. And in one fetid, rotting crate-and-barrel-littered junction of several alleys a Rris voice piped out, “Spare some coin?”
I stopped, hesitated, and then looked toward the alleyway from where the voice had originated. There was a Rris figure there, indistinct in the gloom but I could see it was considerably smaller than adult, all gangly limbs and glistening fog-sodden fur. I had my hood up, my high collar covering my lower face, but even so as I turned in its direction alien eyes flashed wide in the gloom and there was a mewling sound and the youngster scrambled away from me. An empty crate clattered as it was overturned and the teenager scrambled off down the alley, half-falling and skidding around a corner, grabbing at the crumbling plaster wall to steady itself as it pelted around the corner. But a couple of seconds later I was a little surprised when the tattered and suspicious head poked back around the corner. The urchin was poised and ready for flight but still watching me.
For a second I stared back, then turned and started off on my way before halting again as an idea popped up. It wasn’t a bad idea. At least, while I stood there and turned it over in my mind it didn’t seem to be a bad idea. The cub was still there, watching. It flinched when I reached into a pocket and produced a single gold coin, tipping it back and forth. I saw the Rris teen’s eyes glittering as the coin did the same in the moonlight. “I’ve got coin,” I said quietly.
There was a visible flinch at that. The head came up, the ears back, but the Rris didn’t run.
“In exchange for a service,” I finished.
You could practically see the conflicting choices churning away behind the eyes. But in a couple of seconds, the greed - or perhaps necessity - won out. A pink tongue flashed and licked white teeth and the teen asked, “What you want?”
There was a strange lilt to the voice. A speech impediment? I wasn’t in any position to criticize.
“Directions,” I said. “Just directions.”
“You’re lost?”
Never admit to weakness or a need when negotiating
, it was one of Hirht’s lessons that’d stuck with me. “I just want a location.”
“Coin first.”
I snorted and the urchin flinched. “I don’t think so,” I said and clicked the gold piece down on a rotting wooden case. It was a lot of money, that one bit of gold. A helluva lot of money for that scraggly little shadow. “Tell me and this is yours.”
“Where?”
“Five-Corner Square,” I said and watched round two of greed vs. caution ensue. Greed took out caution with a chair to the back of the head and the urchin pointed to my two o’clock.
“That way. Two streets over. Off Stone Throw alley.”
I stared for a second. There were white teeth glittering in those features. I picked up the coin again and set off.
“Hai, coin!”
“When I get there, it’s yours,” I said.
“Red tie you!” stormed from behind me along with a flood of Rris swearing that contributed to my limited vocabulary, then a resigned, “Hai, no! That way.”
‘That way’ wasn’t in the direction that’d originally been indicated. No great surprise. But it was closer to the direction I’d originally been headed, and that felt right. I just nodded and continued, aware of the swearing little shadow I’d picked up.
Five-Corner Square was just a bit off my original estimates, but not by much. From the concealment of an alleyway I surveyed the plaza. There were the shapes of the nearer of the fountains, like stone trees off in the mist. I could hear the water running. Over there were building fronts that looked familiar, which was saying something: sometimes the insular quality of Rris architecture doesn’t lend itself to distinctive facades on most buildings, but businesses tended to want to be noticed. So there were carvings and painted hoardings and a manner of other basic types of advertising. All up, it told me that it was the place.