It Happens Every Day

by Derek A. Murphy

  Before their next ‘sleep’, the tiger ape returned with another of its kind, both covered with fresh wounds. Conversing with Urh-mor-hrh, he related to them that the Soos-tow had been harassing the tiger-apes but had withheld a full-scale attack.

  A number of bones, both large and small were dumped in the middle of the building and a folded skin rendered up a quantity of the coarse, white powder Petra had seen the Little People use to start their fires. A flat, stone bowl, hollowed to a depth of three inches or so, was laid carefully beside the bones and her hat, nearly full of water, was partly emptied into it. As Urh-mor-hrh and Brian laid the fire and urinated on the stones to start the chemical reaction that would ignite the bones, Petra returned to the job she had begun a short time earlier; grinding the roots with two flat stones. By the time she was finished, a pile of coarse powder lay in the middle of one stone and she pushed it off into the bowl of water, placing it next to the fire to warm.

  Once the fire was burning steadily, Brian positioned two stones at its edge, straddling several smaller, burning bones. Lifting the bowl to place it on the stones, Petra waited till it was boiling merrily and began incanting over it. She wasn’t sure the incantation was necessary, had never been sure, but felt that it couldn’t hurt; she had always done this as part of the ritual production of the potion. Most of the other ingredients were missing and she omitted the sections of the incantation that dealt with them, ending much sooner than normal. The fumes rose and she felt the steam condense on her face, felt its tingle and knew that it was much stronger than usual. Adding the remainder of the water, she pulled the bowl from the fire to cool and sniffed of it, dipping one fingertip into the stuff and touching it to her tongue.

  "It’s strong. Not enough to poison me maybe, but I’ll have to adjust the dosage."

  Having watched her with concern, Brian asked, "Will you be okay? It won’t kill you or anything, will it?"

  Shaking her head, she was far from sure that this potion was safe, but there was no other way to test it than by a live trial. Urh-mor-hrh produced a small, soap-stone cup and taking it from him; she recognized the work of the Little People and wondered where he had gotten it. The Little People were jealous of their craft-work and would never trade anything so precious; it had to have been taken in a raid. She wondered idly how many of the Little People were still alive.

  As though reading her mind, Urh-mor-hrh said, "The Bor-bon-meeg have heard that the Curse will be lifted soon; they flock to us, forsaking their relationship with the Soos-tow. The Rocheg-oc-ule also rally around us. But the Soos-tow still have a few of the Bor-bon-meeg to act as their hands."

  Woodenly, she asked, "Do you kill them when you catch them? I can’t imagine any of them being of use to anybody." She shot a dark look at Brian, making him squirm as she said, "Unless they want a few hours of unbridled sex."

  He rose from where he sat and stalked off to one of the corners of the room that was outside the globe of heat and light that she worked in. Wishing that she had kept her mouth shut, she started to call after him but saw the set of his shoulders and knew that another argument would ensue if she did.

  Seemingly oblivious of the taut nerves and unspoken words between the two humans, Urh-mor-hrh said, "No, we don’t kill them. The Good Lord has decreed that they are to be let alone. He has some use for them that he would not tell me of."

  Drily, she said, "I can imagine what use he has in mind. Is it possible that he has been twisted by his own curse?"

  The tiger-ape acknowledged, "The Curse is a part of Him, it’s true. But I don’t believe that he has that in mind. I think he intends them to play some important part in His return to power."

  Surprised, she said, "He’s dead. How can he return?"

  Flicking a fragment of bone into the fire that had fallen from it, he said, "A great deal of His energy was tied up in trapping his brother in the limbo he inhabits. When you escape, that energy will be freed and it’s possible that the Good Lord will try to use it to reanimate his bones."

  "Why can’t we just use the Staff to bring him to life again? We did it before. If someone is present to activate it when the globes of light begin to fail, he can go one indefinitely."

  Urh-mor-hrh shook his head. "That would entail depending on others for his continued existence. If he was betrayed again, it would be too easy a thing for someone to simply neglect to use the Staff. I think he has something more permanent in mind, but I can’t see how it will be accomplished. His bones lie far from the Temple. All have been forbidden to seek them. All but me."

  She dipped a finger into the bowl and reckoned that it had cooled enough. She poured some into the cup, measuring as closely as she could and drank it down. The acrid taste almost made her gag, but she kept it down, reflecting that there was a damned good reason why tea and lemon juice were used in the potion in her world.

  As she sat, waiting to see if there were any ill effects, the tiger-ape stared at her. After some minutes, he asked, "Do you feel any different?"

  For a test, she turned her eyes toward Brian to see if she felt differently about him when he was in full view and stared impassively at him. She still wanted sex with him, and she still craved the rough sex that bordered on rape that passed for sex in this place, but she found that there were no fond feelings for him. He was a potential sexual partner and no more. Petra wasn’t sure if there was still a part of her that clung to the feelings of love she had once felt for him, but there was a definite sense of loss. If pressed, she would have to say that she had reverted to her old self. The girl who loved Brian but couldn’t stand being penned in by a man was back. She wasn’t sure that she was the same girl that had rejected the milder versions of Brian because they weren’t exciting enough for her but; there it was. She felt that she was as protected by the new formulation of the potion as she had been by the old.

  She turned back to gaze at Urh-mor-hrh and said, "I’m as ready as I’m going to get."

  Rising from the stone, he said, "Then we will leave. It is time. The Good Lord will wait no longer."

  Hearing them, Brian scrambled up and came to watch as she stuffed things back into her pack. Her fingers brushed the Khyber knife she had placed there so long ago, and an impulse drove her to slide it into the cord that held up her trousers along with the stone knife. She had lost the sheath to the knife before she ever tried to make this latest crossing and hoped that the blade didn’t sever the cord, she would look foolish going to save this place and having her trousers fall around her ankles. Incongruously, she blushed, her panties had been ruined in the last attack by the giant owl and she wore nothing under the trousers now. The thought was incongruous because for untold months or years; who knew in this place, she had been forced to go about in just her skin by the People of the Fire. Thinking of the cord, she transferred the knife to the interior pocket of her smock, forcing the point through the material so that the hilt kept the knife from falling all the way through.

  Following the tiger-ape from the building, she could hear Brian’s steps behind her and wished that she could reach out to him. He deserved so much better than what this place had done to him. So did she.

  As she stepped from the building, she made out numerous giant, striped forms that could only be more of the Uu-mor, ghosting through the mist. Smaller forms as they moved further from the building proved to be members of the Rocheg-oc-ule. Even smaller forms that skipped closer to stroke her arms and leap to touch the yellow braids on her head were the Bor-bon-meeg. She recoiled from their touch, remembering only that one of them had usurped her place with Brian. The humans, large and small alike, called to her, giving her their encouragement as the three of them moved into the mass that suddenly seemed to boil around them. Then a susurration was heard in the mist and the Rocheg-oc-ule began to point into the sky. As a great number of giant owls descended on them, she saw many of the Uu-mor leap into the air, bringing down owls with each leap and she was buffeted by a wing, falling headlong atop a small group of
Bor-bon-meeg. Hearing the sizzling sound of Brian’s Staff, she knew he was cutting the owls from the sky and hoped he would be alright. If they perceived him as a danger, they would attack him. It was then that she felt the familiar weight of an owl pressing her down into the mass of Bor-bon-meeg and felt again the rasp of talons against her skin before she was jerked into the air and the ground receded quickly, disappearing in the mist.

  Chapter Ten

  A flurry of the giant wings hid Petra from Brian’s sight and he feared to burn a way through them with the Staff; he might hit her and he was through with hurting her. Instead, he concentrated on burning the owls around the edge of the group that had descended on her; there seemed to be a dozen, and came too close to them in his hurry to help. One of them buffeted him with a wing and he fell, was stepped on by an owl, kicked by the flailing foot of a tiger-ape and felt several Bor-bon-meeg crawling over him, the little men trying to protect their women from the owls and the women trying to crawl under him. Their little hands seemed to be everywhere and he knew that they couldn’t help it; they were just too preoccupied with sex to give more than a passing thought to their safety.

  Using the Staff to batter his way out of the mass, he stood just as he heard Petra’s scream recede into the air above. The mist prevented him from making out just where she was or he would have tried a shot with the Staff. With the theft of the woman, the greater number of owls began to break away from the conflict, leaving only those that had been dragged down by the Uu-mor and the Rocheg-oc-ule. Just within sight in the mist, he made out the forms of a dozen Bor-bon-meeg stabbing again and again at an owl that tried to rise. Its beak snapped on the body of a Bor-bon-meeg woman that looked nearly identical to Bon and the woman’s last act was to drive a long knife into the beast’s throat as the two halves of the beak met in her body.

  In minutes, the battle was over and he searched for Urh-mor-hrh until he found him near the building having several wounds looked to by one of his people. A bad slash had nearly found his throat and the blood welled out freely without spurting. At least the owl that had done that hadn’t hit an artery. Brian hurried to him.

  "We’ve got to get her back. Without me there when the Good Lord’s brother tries to absorb her energies, she’ll die."

  In obvious pain, the tiger-ape snapped, "We can be there in two sleeps!"

  Needlessly, Brian cried, "But the owl has wings! It’ll be there sooner!"

  "Less than one! But what can I do? I thought there were enough of us to be safe!"

  "We’ve got to start now! We can’t wait!"

  Rising from where he sat, Urh-mor-hrh addressed all and sundry as he barked a series of grunts at the top of his voice. When he was done, he gestured toward his back, saying, "Climb up. The way is long and you will be left behind if you try to run with us."

  As he grasped the fur of the monstrous back, climbing to a position near the top of the tiger-ape’s shoulders, he saw that many of the Rocheg-oc-ule and Bor-bon-meeg were doing the same with the rest of the Uu-mor. It amazed him that the enmities of such a long history as these people had could be put aside so quickly. Only a short time ago as these people reckoned it, none of them would have thought to be so close to a Uu-mor without being rent limb from limb.

  Brian was nearly torn from his perch when the great beast broke into its ground-covering lope and as he looked about him in the mist, he saw that the entire mass of Uu-mor were joining them. Left behind were the rest of the others unlucky enough to miss finding a ride. But he saw that they too were trotting forward, heading in the same direction and assumed that they all knew where the final confrontation would take place.

  * * *

  Her weight pulling on her clothes, clutched in the talons of the owl, threatened to cut off her circulation and she knew that if this went on much longer, her arms and legs would be leaden and wouldn’t answer her need. Writhing around under the owl, she tried to pinpoint her location and failed because of the mist they flew through. The talons in her top had pulled it up till it bunched under her chin and arms, baring her stomach and chest to the wind of their passage, chilling her, while the talons hooked in her trousers had jerked them into a monstrous wedgie.

  She forced an arm low enough to grasp the Khyber knife in its pocket and pulled it out. Stretching and twisting as far as she could, she drove the blade as deep into one of the owl’s legs as she could, and was rewarded with its screech of pain. The talon holding her top released her spasmodically and she turned nearly upside down in the air, held only by the talon hooked in her trousers. Stretching as she dropped, she used her free hand to grasp one talon of the injured leg to prevent herself from sliding free of her trousers to plummet to the mist-shrouded stone beneath.

  Feeling her sliding free from its grasp, the owl began to descend; she felt her ears pop from the air pressure and in minutes, made out an outcropping of stone beneath them as the giant bird circled it. When the ground was a dozen feet below her, the owl began beating its wings to stay its descent and she reached backward, slicing partway through the leg that held her trousers. The slash forced the owl to release her and she let her grasp slide from the other talon, dropping the rest of the way to the ground.

  Rolling as she landed, Petra came up in a crouch, knife up as her other hand went to the hilt of the stone knife in her belt. Not finding it, she realized that it had probably slid free when she was upside down in the creature’s grip. She cursed and prepared herself for battle with the owl.

  As it landed, great gouts of blood spurted from its legs and it reeled on its feet, favoring one of the injured legs more than the other. Stalking toward her, its beak clicked open and shut several times and she knew it was intent on rending her apart as vengeance for its wounds. As it drew closer, she realized that it couldn’t really see her clearly and remembered that owls are notoriously blind at close quarters. She darted in, slashing at its belly and was bathed in its blood as the wound in its leg continued to spurt. Petra knew she had given the bird its death-wound while suspended in the air. She rolled through its legs, showered again with its blood and danced to one side as it spun, flapping, to intercept her. Scurrying backward, she nearly stepped off an edge and glancing back, saw that they stood on the edge of a precipice. Throwing herself to one side as the owl’s beak darted in; she rolled again, coming up against an upright stone that jarred the breath from her.

  Sweating and gasping, she reeled in the other direction, skirting the edge of the cliff and dove under the bird’s legs again, rolling to a stop behind it. The bird’s movements were slowing and becoming clumsy as the loss of blood began to tell on it. Backing away, she pushed herself back till she was brought up short by another upright stone and knew she was cornered then. The owl leaned forward one last time, its beak snapping shut spasmodically just short of her throat and the thing collapsed nearly on top of her, pinning her legs to the stone.

  Bruised and battered, she pushed and pulled on the beast’s mass until she was free and reeled away from the body, falling near another standing stone. As she wiped the sweat and blood from her face, glad for once for the chill mist, she heard the susurration of an owl’s wings passing through the air and threw herself backward as another owl landed talons first where she had half-knelt on the stone. Pushing backwards with her legs, she knew despair as her back came into contact with another stone and she moved to the side, feeling yet another stone there. Cornered, she lifted her knife again, prepared to die before she would let the owls take her to the Temple.

  The owl backed away as another bird landed near and as the two came at her with open beaks, she realized that after killing one owl with a lucky stroke, two were just too much for her. She threw herself between the two stones, thinking that at least they would prevent the owls from attacking from either side. Instead of coming into contact with the stones on either side, she began to fall through an aperture she hadn’t known was there. She threw her arms out, one hand still clenched on the knife’s hilt, only to miss a grip
with either hand and fall backward and down several feet.

  The landing drove the breath from her, bringing spinning stars to her vision and she gasped, waiting for the owls to grab her again and not caring one way or the other whether she escaped or not. She was just too tired and breathless to fight anymore. When the owls didn’t drag her forth in a minute, she gained enough breath to sit up and look around her, finding that she was in a sort of cave and the owls strutted back and forth outside the entrance, screeching their frustration at not being able to get at her. A luminescence glowed at the back of the cave, lighting part of the ceiling and one wall.

  With so little light inside the cave, she felt around, trying to ascertain the extent of the cave’s dimensions and felt her fingers come into contact with several fairly large bones. A sudden idea hit her and she grasped one of the longer bones, crawling to the back of the cave. There, in a depression lay some kind of luminescent, viscous substance.

  She used her knife to start a tear in the bottom of her smock and ripped a strip from it, winding it and tucking its end around the end of the bone before dipping it into the stuff. When she drew it forth, it glowed with a brighter light than the pool itself; maybe exposure to the air brightened the stuff. She pushed herself up to stand, looking about her.

  The walls on either side were carved and she stepped toward one, finding a fair likeness of the Good Lord on it. The figure stood with a woman of the Bor-bon-meeg on either side of him and there was no doubt as to what activity they had in mind. The three figures were nude and the Good Lord was plainly aroused. She wasn’t sure if the monstrous proportions of his member were a matter of artistic license or if he was unfairly endowed. Disgusted with the portrayal, she moved to the other side and found a likeness of another man who resembled the Good Lord, but seemed somehow more human. It could have been the friendly smile on his face or it could have been the relaxed posture of the carving, but she felt that the man it portrayed was more like a normal man. The second figure held the Staff and a crowd of the Rocheg-oc-ule and Bor-bon-meeg knelt around him. All were looking at him with expressions of reverence on their faces and a pair of the Soos-tow flanked the entire group, giving the impression that they were simply more worshippers than any kind of guard. This aspect, so contradictory to everything she had heard, puzzled her; maybe this carving was made in happier days.