Empire

by Michael R. Hicks

  What would it be like, she thought to herself as she drifted away into the land of dreams, to become Empress, the Ruler of Eternity?

  * * *

  Reza’s eyes snapped open. His heart was tripping like a hammer, and he found himself breathing rapidly, as if he had been running for leagues. He looked around cautiously, but could see only the ethereal glow of the moss that lined the bottom of the grotto, twinkling in the mist from the waterfall. Other than that and the light from the stars, it was completely dark. The night was yet full.

  Had he been dreaming, he wondered? After a brief inspection of his body’s condition, he decided that no, a dream was not the cause of his unease. He had awakened from the combat reflex that was slowly but surely becoming an integral part of him, his senses having warned him through his subconscious that something was wrong. But he did not yet know what.

  Esah-Zhurah continued to sleep peacefully, her body turned away toward the grotto beyond the shelter of the alcove. He found it difficult to believe that whatever had awakened him had failed to do the same to her, but he was even more skeptical that the hairs standing on the back of his neck were a mistake.

  His eyes darted about their limited field of vision as his nose and ears searched for clues as to what was troubling him. He lay perfectly still, searching. He had learned long before that to move before isolating a hidden threat was often a fatal mistake. One did not have to be a veteran of the Challenge to know that.

  There. The cry struck him like a blow. It was the sound of the magtheps outside the entrance to the grotto, screaming in fright.

  “Goliath!” he said, throwing aside his blankets and getting to his feet. He had no idea what was out there, but his instincts – even bred as they were from a different order of evolution – were crying out in alarm. He bolted toward the rocky trail that led to the opening to the side of the mountain where the magtheps had been grazing.

  “Reza!” Esah-Zhurah called, grabbing his arm. “Wait!”

  “But–”

  “Listen.”

  And then he heard it, a basso growl that ripped across every nerve in his body like a twisted, clawed hand. He had never heard such a frightful sound before, but he knew it was close. Too close. Even in the darkness, he could tell that Esah-Zhurah’s skin had paled. Her hand was gripping his arm so hard she had drawn blood. She was terribly frightened.

  “What is it?” he breathed.

  “Genoth,” she whispered hoarsely, her body beginning to tremble.

  Reza looked at her, the word meaning nothing to him. “What does that mean?”

  “It is terribly dangerous, Reza,” she said, drawing herself closer to him, dropping her voice even further. “It is a… a dragon, a great carnivorous beast.”

  Reza looked up toward where the magtheps’ cries had echoed through the portal, but could see nothing. The sounds had faded without any squeals of pain.

  “Goliath and your animal must have fled down the mountain,” he said, relieved that they might be safe.

  The growl came again, louder this time, and Reza realized with sudden dread that the sound had begun to echo. It was in the caldera.

  “It is in here,” he whispered, stepping carefully beyond the alcove’s overhang, scanning the walls around them.

  “Reza, do not–” Esah-Zhurah’s voice caught in her throat as she saw the shadow atop the far side of the grotto, a great dark blob of matter that seemed to consume the stars in the sky. “There,” she whispered, pointing to where the beast sat, perched atop the grotto’s rim.

  Of all the ways to die, this was the one that Esah-Zhurah feared most of all: to be eaten by another creature that was ignorant of all things but hunger and primal instincts.

  The creature remained dormant for a while, and the two young warriors waited through minutes that seemed like ages, waiting to see what it would do. Hoping beyond hope that it would turn and leave them alone, they knew with the certainty of those condemned that it would not; that it would, at long last, begin its fateful descent.

  Reza’s mind was working frantically. Somehow, there had to be something they could do, something better than an offering of token resistance that would not even serve to annoy the beast as it gobbled them up. He had never seen what one of these creatures looked like, but from the silhouette on the grotto’s rim he could tell that it was huge, and Esah-Zhurah’s fear was an indicator of how fierce it must be. He cursed himself silently, tearing his eyes from the beast to search the grotto, thankful that the sound and mist from the waterfall seemed to have protected them from detection thus far.

  They were trapped, he thought desperately, trapped in a tomb of beauty, but a tomb nonetheless. If only–

  The waterfall…

  –there was somewhere–

  The waterfall…

  –they could hide.

  “The waterfall,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on it now. And then he knew. “Of course,” he said. “The cave!”

  “What?” Esah-Zhurah asked, barely able to shift her attention from the mesmerizing form of the beast as it sat, waiting. Watching.

  “We have to get to the water,” he told her.

  “Why?” she asked, pulling on his arm as he tried to creep forward.

  “Do you not see?” he asked, roughly pulling her to him, his face so close to hers that their noses touched. “We will be safe in the cave behind the waterfall!”

  “No,” she said, trying to pull away from him, her fears doubled now at the prospect of having to swim in the dark water. She would rather face the genoth, a fear and enemy her heart and mind could cope with, not like the shadowy darkness of the water, which perhaps was the water of her nightmares. “I cannot. I–” A roar that shook the entire grotto drowned out her words. The black shape that was the beast shifted and became smaller, then disappeared against the darkness of the side of the caldera.

  “It is coming down the wall!” Reza hissed, knowing now that it had spotted them. “Come on!”

  Pulling Esah-Zhurah behind him, he half led, half dragged her toward the edge of the pool, stumbling and tripping over the rocks that were only shadows upon shadows. Guided more by the sound of the falling water than the dim glow of the moss illuminating the pool, he suddenly felt the cool water lapping around his feet, and he surged forward.

  “No!” Esah-Zhurah cried, pulling her arm away, turning to run back toward the shore.

  Reza cursed in frustration. His eyes caught a glimpse of a dark form slithering down the wall as his ears picked up a faint click-click-click as it came for them.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and whirled her around to face him. “Esah-Zhurah,” he said quietly, holding her with all his might against her struggling, hoping that she would not decide to impale him with her claws, “you must trust me. Please.” She broke his grip and raised her hands toward him, ready to strike. “I trusted you this night,” he said hastily. “Now it is time for you to do the same.”

  She paused, his words echoing in her mind, echoing with the sound of truth, of wisdom. Then her eyes caught sight of the genoth as it casually scaled the grotto’s wall toward the bottom. Toward them. Her eyes wide with fear, she nodded assent, and Reza quickly turned and began to splash further out into the water, holding her hand like a child’s.

  “Here,” he told her, turning to hold her with one arm crossing over her breast and up to the opposite shoulder. “Just relax and let me do the swimming,” he said.

  Panic-stricken as he pulled her backward into the water, Esah-Zhurah grabbed at Reza’s arm, cutting him badly, as she tried to get away.

  “Trust me!” he shouted, grimacing in pain as her talons again raked his forearm. “Be still!”

  With a monumental effort, she did as she was told, and let Reza propel them through the water with powerful kicks of his legs, his free arm guiding them toward the sound of the waterfall.

  Reza had lost sight of the genoth, but it did not matter. Either they would make it to safety, or they would not. Of th
e many gray areas life presented, this was not one: they would survive or they would die. The pain in his arm left by Esah-Zhurah’s talons boosted more adrenaline into his circulatory system as he swam. He picked up his pace, surging through the water.

  “Do you see it?” he cried above the waterfall’s roar. “Where is it?”

  “It is nearly to the water!” she shouted back, her talons again pressing into his flesh as she watched the beast – a huge animal, larger than any she knew to be on record since times long past – scale the last few meters of rock and lichens to reach the pool. Without missing a step, it slid its dark form into the water, the phosphorescent wake of its reptilian body arrowing directly toward them. “It is in here!” she screamed, struggling to escape, still with her hand clamped firmly to Reza’s arm.

  “Hold your breath!” Reza shouted, turning her around to face him. “Do you hear me? Hold it!” He caught sight of the animal bearing down on them. It was so close now that he could smell its alien musk through the cloud of dark water that hung about them like a cloak. He heaved in one last breath before plunging beneath the surface, dragging Esah-Zhurah with him into the blackness.

  Esah-Zhurah was beyond fear as she clutched Reza’s arm, her mind pulsing with terror of the thing that must even now surely be right behind them, ready to lash out with its tremendous jaws at their frantically kicking feet. While she was terrified beyond her wildest imagination, she found herself trying to match the urgent rhythm of Reza’s strokes with her own powerful legs, letting him guide them deeper into the maw of the dark cave.

  Her head suddenly crashed against an unseen rock, and she let out a cry, more of surprise than pain. But the effect would have been the same. She involuntarily inhaled some water, and she began to drown.

  Reza felt her sudden panic and the spasms of her body as water began to fill her lungs. With one final, desperate kick of his legs, his hand made contact the smooth surface of the stone floor. In a motion born of terrible need, he launched himself and his choking companion into the life-giving air of the lower cavern.

  Esah-Zhurah began to writhe, still conscious but unable to get the water out of her lungs. Pulling his own shaking body from the water, he hauled her away from the water’s edge and into the crevice that lay above.

  “Hang on,” he panted. “I have you.”

  He had acted none too soon. A huge geyser exploded from the underwater tunnel as the genoth thrust its head through the too-narrow canal in a last ditch effort to retrieve its coveted meal. The water doused the two of them, but there was no sign of the creature, its colossal head too large, its neck too short, for the tunnel. They were safe.

  Turning his attention back to Esah-Zhurah, vainly trying to shake off his own terror, he quickly turned her on her stomach and pressed against her naked back, hoping to expel some of the water that had found its way down her throat. She struggled weakly, then began to gag as water came gushing out her mouth.

  “Reza,” she managed before she vomited into the water, her shaking body steadied only by his bloodied arms.

  “Hush,” he said, holding her tightly to him, his eyes desperately probing the darkness for some sign of their nemesis, wondering if even now its head hung above them in the cavern, poised like a cobra ready to strike. “We must get to the next level,” he told her. “I do not think it can come through the tunnel, but…”

  In the dark, Esah-Zhurah nodded weakly as her hand sought to wipe the foulness from her lips and chin.

  Reza wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her to stand. “Can you make it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she told him, although her body was trembling like a leaf before the wind. She put her arm around his shoulder, careful to keep her talons from his tender skin, and together they made their way up the narrow fissure to the balcony that overlooked the grotto.

  Behind them, the black waters stirred once more, the act of a behemoth denied. Then all was still.

  * * *

  Reza watched the swirling barrier of the waterfall as it gradually grew lighter, more vibrant. The sun was finally rising. He suddenly remembered his father asking him once what he thought might be on the other side of a waterfall. And now, seemingly a lifetime after his father’s death, he knew the answer: sanctuary. Life.

  He closed his eyes, acutely aware of Esah-Zhurah’s warmth as she slept beside him. Her face was buried in the hollow of his neck, one of her hands covering the deep cuts in his arm as if in apology. It had been almost impossible to get any rest, as the cave was terribly cold and the night beyond the waterfall was filled with the genoth’s frenzied grunting and squealing as it cursed their escape in its own language. Neither of them had been wearing any clothes, a habit of sleep long since established, and had taken flight only with what nature had endowed them and the collars about their necks. A fortunate coincidence for swimming, Reza had thought, but a terrible burden as the cold rock leeched the heat from their bodies. He had taken to standing near the lip of the cave’s mouth, listening to the genoth as it rampaged in the water below. A curious chattering sound drew him back into the cave, fearful of some new menace. But it was only the sound of Esah-Zhurah’s teeth clicking together from cold, as she lay inert on the cave’s floor. Her body was spent and her mind numbed from facing so many private fears in so short a time.

  Giving up on the genoth as an immediate threat, he lay down next to her. Gently, so as not to wake her from the exhausted, frightened sleep into which she had fallen, he put his arms around her, cradling her against what warmth his body could provide as he waited for the dawn.

  Now, hours later, the genoth was quiet, having grown tired of its fruitless search. But Reza knew it had not yet departed, for the animals of the grotto had sung not a single note. The lizards that only yesterday had clung to the grotto’s walls and heralded the coming of morning were ominously silent. Only when they sang again would Reza believe it safe to walk beyond the safety of the water that fell beyond the cave’s mouth.

  His body was settling into sleep again, the filtered sunlight warm against his face, when the infant light of morning was beset by a shadow that eclipsed the water cascading past. It did not take much imagination for Reza to know that it was the creature’s head, a triangular killing machine whose maw could easily swallow his body whole. It hung suspended, perched somewhere on one of the rock outcroppings that lined the waterfall’s passage, swaying like a hangman’s noose.

  Without warning the creature vomited a huge pile of reeking debris from its mouth, voiding its stomach into the pure waters of the waterfall with such force that some of it blasted through the perilously thin barrier of falling water to spatter inside the cave. The stench of the creature’s expectoration was almost unbearable as it flooded through the chamber. Esah-Zhurah stirred beside him, and he carefully put a restraining hand over her mouth, lest she suddenly come awake and cry out.

  The genoth retched again, sending out another torrent of indigestible material, some of which clattered about the cave. Some debris that bore more than a passing resemblance to crushed and shattered bone fragments tumbled hollowly about before coming to rest. It was then that Reza knew the animal was not sick. It was simply purging itself of those items that its digestive system could not accommodate.

  Esah-Zhurah lay frozen against him, her eyes wide with horror. She waited for the terrible beast to peer beyond the curtain of water at which its tongue now lapped, a giant pink worm piercing the veil of the waterfall.

  But it did not. With one final heave, the thing’s shadow disappeared as it scaled the walls of the caldera to find a better hunting ground.

  Their attention turned to what the genoth had left behind, and Reza nearly vomited himself at what he saw. Strewn about the cave by the genoth’s explosive heaves were parts of what had once been at least one young Kreelan warrior. Reza could clearly see the metallic glint of the remains of a collar and some of its pendants. There was torn and twisted chest armor. Unidentifiable hunks of partially digested bon
e were scattered among the dreadful refuse, along with the remains of the warrior’s claws and fingertips. He heard Esah-Zhurah suck in her breath as she recognized the remains.

  “Chesh-Tar,” she murmured, having determined the nature of the collar’s design from the pitiful fragments. Unsteadily, she got to her knees and saluted her dead fellow warrior. “Great is my grief,” he heard her whisper. “May you be one with the spirits of the Way, Chesh-Tar.”

  Reza did not know what to say. It seemed so incongruous, that a member of a species that was founded on war, on killing, could show the grief that he beheld on Esah-Zhurah’s face.

  “I am sorry,” he said. It was all he could think of to say.

  Esah-Zhurah nodded, as much at Reza’s sincerity as at the meaning of his words. “No longer may she serve the Empress in this life,” she said quietly. “That is my sorrow, human.” She turned tired eyes upon him. “She was a very skilled hunter,” she said quietly, moving closer to better see the remains that lay before them like a carnal banquet. She wanted to take the collar in her hands, but she knew it would have been unwise – and horribly painful – to walk through the stomach acid the genoth had vented. Luckily, the falling water created a natural draft that pulled the rancid air out of the cave. Otherwise, she would have been overcome with uncontrollable retching even now. “This must be an extraordinarily cunning beast to have outwitted her.”

  “What do we do?” he asked, pointed at the pile of chewed and melted debris.

  “We leave it,” she replied. “There is nothing we can do, now. The priestess will send a party to attend to her last rites.”

  Reza only nodded, then turned away from the oozing mass that had once been a young woman. Kreelan or not, Chesh-Tar had suffered a fate he would not have wished upon anyone. Together, he and Esah-Zhurah huddled together for warmth that was spiritual as much as physical as they waited for the fullness of the new day, fearful that the creature might be lurking further up the caldera’s wall in the growing light.

  Soon, much to their relief, the animals of the grotto began to emerge. At last Reza heard the sound he most wanted to hear: the boisterous warbling of the grotto lizards.