by Love, Aimee
“You pick,” he told me.
I chose something at random from a list of comedies and started it playing while I drank my cold soup as slowly as I could. It was pitch black when I finished and I took the wand over to the spare bed and curled up there, hoping they would both just pretend I wasn’t there and go to sleep.
A week passed that way, with me coming down for dinner, staying until dawn, and then sneaking back upstairs to finally get some sleep. Sebastian was gracious enough to ignore my behavior and if Quince thought about it at all, he kept his own council.
I was just starting to feel a little foolish about the whole thing when I came down for dinner and found Quince curled up in a ball on his bed. I didn’t bother to ask why. They would only tell me the same lies they already had.
“When?” I asked Sebastian quietly.
“Jules will be by in a little while,” he told me.
I nodded and went back up stairs to get ready. I riffled through my clothes until I found something appropriate, shimmied into it, grabbed a few other necessities and then hopped up to my perch and tried to look bored.
When Julian appeared I leaned over the edge and looked down at him, very aware of the view I was affording him in my tight, black v-neck onesie.
“I thought you were never coming back,” I teased, giving him a hundred watt smile.
“Did you bring me a drink?” I asked innocently. “Sebastian and Quince never have anything but water.”
He pulled out his flask and sloshed it around, “Only this I’m afraid.”
I grimaced but reached down for it.
“I’ll do better next time,” he promised.
“That’s okay,” I said brightly, “I might as well get used to it sometime.”
“No time like the present,” he said, passing it up to me.
I sat up and pulled the cap off, dropping three of the pills from my emergency med-kit into it surreptitiously and then pretending to take a long swallow. Even with my tongue held firmly over the spout, the taste was vile.
I passed it back and then lowered myself down, carefully missing the chair and bumping against him with a giggle.
“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble about the light,” I told him. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”
He shrugged it off. “Sebastian’s bark is worse than his bite,” he said, a little too loudly. I glanced over and saw the hatch still open and heard movement below us. They hadn’t left yet. Perfect.
“Do you know how to play oranges?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he told me. “What are the rules?”
“Well,” I said, leading over to the bed and sitting down beside him on it, “there are certain words you can’t say, and every time you do you have to…” I pointed to the flask.
“What? Drink?” He asked quizzically.
I giggled.
“That’s one of the words you can’t say,” I told him gleefully.
He took a long drink.
“So what are the other words?”
“I can’t tell you,” I said playfully, leaning forward. “Figuring out the words is part of the fun.”
“This sounds dangerous,” he said happily.
“That’s one of the words!” I crowed.
He narrowed his eyes but took another swallow.
“But how do I know you aren’t cheat…” His eyes slid closed and he fell back onto the bed.
“If you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying,” I told him, prying the flask out of his hand and hurrying into the bathroom. I poured the rest of the contents out, then went back and slipped it into his pocket.
He would have a hell of a hangover when he finally woke up, but that wouldn’t be anytime soon.
I heard the door close downstairs and ran over to my clothes. I pulled off my onesie and threw Quince’s hand-me-downs on. Tying my hair into a tight knot, I jammed a knitting needle through it to hold it in place and then wrapped a pillowcase around it like a bandana. I had no idea what the women here dressed like, but at least from a distance I might pass for a boy.
I looked at the cases, wanting desperately to bring something to use as a weapon, but knowing that getting caught would be bad enough without one.
I turned on my optical implant, dialed up the starlight until the room was a dull gray, and headed out. I tried the handle on the downstairs door. If Sebastian had it barred from the outside, I was sunk. It opened easily and I released the breath I’d been holding with a sigh of relief.
The stairs down were pitch black, which suited me fine. Quince and Sebastian must have taken a lantern. I dialed my implant down until it was just light enough for me to see, but not so bright that I wouldn’t notice an approaching light source. Last time they’d gone down, they hadn’t come back until very late, but I wasn’t taking the chance of running into them on the stairs.
I started down, careful not to make the slightest noise. Sebastian had told me that we didn’t come in this way because it passed through the city, and although their reason for avoiding the locals had been a lie, the need must have been real enough for them to risk the cliffs.
The stairs were hewn from the mountain’s rock and went in a tight spiral down and down and down. The ceiling was rough, but the walls were polished from long use. Even if this hadn’t been part of the original colony and had only been built when they abandoned their attempt at an inland city and moved back, it could still be hundreds of years old. I imagined the hands that must have run along the wall for balance as they descended and how many it would take to make them so smooth.
When I finally reached a landing and found a doorway leading off in a new direction, I ducked into it gratefully. I switched my implant to heat and put it on maximum. The ghosts of footprints were still visible on the stairs leading further down, but there was nothing in the hall I was crouched in. I had no way of verifying that Quince and Sebastian were the last to go this way, but it was the best guess I could make. I switched my vision back and followed them.
Every time there was a branch in the path I went through the same routine. When the footsteps seemed to grow fainter, I hurried and then, suddenly, at the next landing they looked so bright I thought I might run into Sebastian and Quince from behind. They would be going slow, I reminded myself, because Quince was in no hurry to get where he was going.
I paused to dial my hearing up a notch, feeling very exposed standing in the middle of the stairs. Just in time too, because before I got to the next hiding hole, I heard footsteps getting close and the easy chatter of two strange voices.
I turned and ran as quietly as I could all the way back to the last landing, then paused indecisively. The voices got louder as I waffled. I knew they weren’t going all the way to the top. I’d watched the path that led from our own door to the rest of the colony often enough to know that no one ever took that route, but how many landings had I passed? I hadn’t counted because I knew I was going all the way up. I hadn’t seen any signs of habitation higher up. There were no lights to mark a certain tunnel as used more than any other and the only footsteps I had seen were my own and those I assumed belonged to Sebastian and Quince. When the voices were too close for me to put it off longer, I made up my mind and darted through the doorway instead of further up, basing my decision on hope rather than logic. If I fled too far up, I would loose my quarry completely.
I loped down the hall until it curved, then plastered myself against the wall and waited, trying to slow my breathing and quiet the pounding of my heart.
They stopped on the landing I’d just vacated. I could hear their words only as indistinct murmurs, but from the tone of the voices and the practiced call and response of the cadence, I thought that one was telling a joke. I heard a bark of laughter and then they separated, one going up and one coming straight for me, call
ing good night to each other as they did.
I swore under my breath. It had never occurred to me that they would split up. At least I was comforted by the knowledge that either choice I made would have been equally wrong. I hurried further down the tunnel, not trusting my disguise well enough to just hang my head and walk past him. Someone told me I would be instantly recognized as an outsider, but had it been Julian or Sebastian? Even if I knew, it wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t trust either of them.
There were no side passages to duck into, no convenient doorways to find shelter behind so I kept going, never more than a few dozen paces in front of my pursuer. I could see the corridor lighten from the lamp he had to be carrying and sped up, feeling my stomach knot.
Could I silence him before he called an alarm? There certainly weren’t any witnesses around. I would have to kill him, I realized, since any report would surely reach Sebastian and I had no doubt that no matter how carefully I covered my tracks, he would know it had been me. Could I kill an innocent man? I shrugged the question off. Was there even such a thing?
Up ahead I saw a side tunnel. I thought it must be either half-completed or meant for only ventilation, because it was only a few feet tall and the entrance was waist-high on the wall. I didn’t care. It was wide enough for my shoulders and that meant the rest of me would fit too.
I dove into it, wiggling as far as I could until I heard him approaching and then stopping and holding my breath. Had I gotten far enough? It was even narrower here than it had been at the entrance and I couldn’t turn my head back to see. I suddenly wished I’d worn something dark instead of Quince’s old clothes, but there was nothing to be done now.
I needn’t have worried. He walked past at a good clip, actually seeming to speed up as he passed me, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. My hole smelled wretched and there was a coating of viscous slime that made my flesh crawl where it touched the bare stone.
I backed myself out as soon as I was sure he was gone and sprinted down the corridor. If anyone else was coming they were going to just have to die because there was no way I was climbing back in that hole.
I got back to the stairs and raced down them recklessly, sure that I had completely lost Sebastian and Quince until I nearly collided with them.
I fell back against the wall, heaving.
“...the last ones,” Sebastian was saying. I couldn’t make out the rest of his words, they were lost in a low moan from Quince. I heard two sets of footsteps go off and risked a look around the corner.
I was at the end of the stairway, finally, and a long, straight corridor led away in only one direction. At the far end of it, I saw the faint glow of light and realized that the city must be that way. I could see Quince and Sebastian, their own lantern dark in Sebastian’s hand, retreating down it.
I ducked back.
There was no way I would make it through the heart of the city, but I was unwilling to have risked so much for nothing.
I peaked again and saw Quince, alone, standing at a doorway not a dozen feet away. He reached forward in the darkness and grabbed the wall for support. Then, forcing one foot in front of the other, went through it.
I wanted to go back upstairs and climb into my safe, warm bed. I wanted to know where Sebastian had gone off to. But more than either, I wanted to know what was going on in the room Quince had been so reluctant to enter.
I went forward at a crouch, inch by slow inch, checking behind me every step to make sure no one was coming, though there was little I could do if they did.
There were three open, gaping doorways between me and the one Quince had entered and I took my time passing each one.
I moved up to the first one and listened, then I risked a quick glance. It was little more than a cell, only a dozen feet on a side and unadorned. There was no exit that I could see, except another of the ventilation shafts high up on the far wall, and the only furniture was a stone bench in the center of the room.
I went to the next one, a few feet further down the corridor and on the other side and did the same thing. Again there was nothing, just an almost exact copy of the first room.
A few more feet and across again to another door. There was something different here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I sensed it. I listened harder, dialing up my implant but there was only my own breathing and far, far away, yelling. I thought I heard Julian’s name but it was impossible to focus on the voices, and as soon as I moved my head, they were gone. I turned the implant down and risked a glance. Nothing. I ducked inside, unsure of what I was looking for but knowing it was there.
In the gray light of my starlight vision, the bench looked darker. I crept over to it. It was larger than I had thought, more a low table than a bench, and as smooth as the stairs had been. There was a stain in the center and a smell I couldn’t place. Something dank and earthy. I switched my vision to heat and saw a splash of red where residual heat clung to the surface. The stain looked bright red against the cool stone and I shuddered. In the false color of the the infrared, it looked like an alter soaked in blood.
I heard a low moan behind me and whipped around, checking the door. It was cold, but the sight of Quince’s recent footprints outlined on the floor of the corridor outside recalled me to my purpose. I turned my implant back to starlight and went back out, checking both directions carefully, and crouched beside the door he had entered.
I didn’t need to adjust my hearing to know he was just inside. I could hear him breathing, loud and fast, just a few feet away.
It was hard for me to remember how dark it was. I could see fine, and felt painfully exposed out in the open. I knew that the room beyond was dark, pitch black, but it was an act of willpower to make myself peek past the protection of the wall and look in.
Quince was there.
I ducked back and took a deep breath, then looked again.
His clothed were in a heap just inside the door and he was sitting on the edge of the wide bench, naked. He looked pale and terribly frail, his rib cage heaved with every breath and as I watched he scooted back and swung his legs up, laying down.
What had I thought not five minutes before? An alter.
I could see the rise and fall of his chest and felt my own heart hammering away. I thought of daffodils poking through the snow, puppies and Christmas and sugar cookies still warm from the oven but nothing worked. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my palms itched. I wanted to dash into the room and drag him away with me to someplace safe, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that no where was safe on this world.
I had thought that the women were trapped down here, held prisoners. I’d suspected that Quince was too sensitive to participate in brutalizing them, that that was the source of the nightmares and everyones secrecy.
Lies.
There had been too many layers of them to unravel, but now everything seemed obvious. Sex had always been the strongest weapon in a woman’s arsenal, but I had never seen it wielded with such force or brutality.
I heard the sharp staccato tap of hard shoes on stone and reached my hand up to my hair, pulling out the knitting needle that held it in place.
Someone was coming for Quince, and when she did, I told myself, she was mine.
The tap, tap, tap got louder and I realized it couldn’t be only one. There were a dozen footsteps or more. I checked both ways down the hall but it was clear. I looked back into the room. The sound had to be coming from the vent in the wall.
My fear vanished, replaced with a puzzled frown. No woman in her right mind would use one of the nasty little holes when there was a perfectly good hallway only a few feet away.
The tapping became a scuttling twitter and Quince drew in a sharply audible breath. I saw a foot emerge from the hole in the wall, then a leg. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
It was obviously from the same lineage as the pollies, round and many legged, but its ancestors must have branched off eons ago. It had no eyes that I could see, or mouths or any other feature that could be called a face. It had a round body, covered in downy scales and legs. How many had I been told the pollies had? Thirty? Thirty looked right.
The pollies legs had reminded me of tentacles or proboscis, but this creature looked more like a spider. Several of its legs looked fixed, as if they couldn’t move at all, and the others were many jointed and lashing, like a wheel with spokes poking out in all directions, some of them straight and hard and the others longer, pushing off and propelling it along which ever way it cared to go.
Where it cared to go now was toward Quince.
He lay there, frozen, as it spun toward him then veered off on a rapid whirl around the table as if out for a joy ride. It stopped near his feet and one of its legs reached out and touched his ankle. This one was covered in small hairs, sensory organs I guessed, and it delved up his leg as far as it would go, then seemed to gather itself and lurched still further.
Apparently satisfied with what it found, the rest of the legs pushed and pulled and steadied the creature, and it rolled smoothly up onto the table. It was larger than I’d first thought, easily as bulky as Quince even without its many appendages.
It rolled over him, up his legs to his knees and then stopped. Another or its legs stretched forward, probing, and was quickly followed by more of its fellows. They caressed his thighs, swarmed over his belly. He let out a low, throaty moan and I could see that it wasn’t pain or fear any more. Hot bile rose in my throat.
One of the legs shot forward, and I saw the gaping orifice at its tip open wide and take him in, eliciting another groan of pleasure. It stayed there, the corded muscles along its length pulsing with a rhythmic certainty.
His head tossed from side to side, whether fighting or relishing the pleasure of it I couldn’t know. Then suddenly, he was looking directly at me and I saw tears of hate and shame streaming down his face. I didn’t doubt he could tell I was there, though I had no idea how. Our eyes locked and I saw him mouth one simple word.