The Black Sky

by Michael Dalton

  “I’ve got the rope tied off up here,” Narilora said. “You should be okay.”

  I had to lean back and keep my toes on the ledge, taking it a couple of feet at a time. In about ten seconds, I got to an easier spot near the top. I took the rope and just pulled myself up the rest of the way. Narilora and Eladra were there and pulled me in.

  I turned around looked down.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t get any worse than this.”

  ◆◆◆

  But the going from there was pretty rugged. We ran into no more cliffs, but the landscape was steeper with lots of exposed rock. The river now tumbled over one cascade after another, sending a thick spray of mist into the forest.

  The trees began to change from the oak–date palm things to narrow, gnarled plants that were as much vines as trees. They grew around each other, forming sorts of colony-composite trees that resembled banyans. In spots, they grew so dense along the river that we had to go well out of our way and then double back.

  The air cooled as we climbed, which I was thankful for because we were really exerting ourselves. I called a halt when we reached a fairly dry, level spot along the river near the end of the afternoon. Through the trees, you could see back the way we had come and Eladra’s village in the distance. I figured we had hiked about ten miles, though it felt closer to twenty.

  Looking ahead, I could see more of the same. We were into low mountains now, and the land kept rising. There was a ridge about five miles away, but it was impossible to tell what was beyond it.

  The girls stripped off their gear as I got the camp set up. I had a two-person tent, but they were small enough that we could fit the three of us inside, though it would be a bit tight. Narilora gathered some wood and started a fire. They had dinner going in about half an hour as the sun began to set.

  I checked in with Ayarala again, wondering briefly if there was a Taitalan version of spotty cell reception, but I had no trouble reaching her. Everything was fine back at the house.

  As we ate, I watched the darkness around us for any sign of the panikang. There was nothing. But Mereceeree told me they were seen only when they wished to be. I figured that if they were out there, they were keeping their distance.

  When we crawled into the tent, the girls wriggled out of their clothes and cuddled up to me under the bedroll. I assumed they would want sleep, but Eladra reached down for me, kissing my neck and nibbling my ear. Narilora, purring against me, seemed to notice and slid her hand down as well.

  “Aren’t you tired?” I asked.

  “Not for my bunny-daddy.”

  Though there had certainly been times I’d been with them in the group of my five wives, and others, this was the first time I’d been with just Narilora and Eladra together. We kissed and fondled each other for a long while. When I rolled over against Eladra to bury my face in her big breasts, Narilora climbed over us to lie on the other side. They came together in a kiss as I suckled my way down Eladra’s body.

  When I took her smooth sex in my mouth, she gasped against Narilora, who moved down to Eladra’s breasts. She joined me between Eladra’s thighs a minute later. I rose up and moved in back of her, and she lifted her tail for me. I entered her from behind as she pleasured Eladra. She was wet, and I moved into her easily. Eladra gripped her breasts and pulled on her nipples. A few minutes later, she gasped again, grabbing Narilora’s head and shaking under us.

  I pushed Narilora forward. She crawled up, straddling Eladra’s hips. I stayed inside her, and I felt Eladra reaching under us. Her fingers were soon stroking and tweaking and rubbing Narilora, who finally let out a low yowl and shuddered in release around me.

  I withdrew, pushing Narilora’s hips down so she was pressed against Eladra. Then I entered Eladra’s wet sex as the two girls began kissing passionately. I alternated between the two of them for several minutes as they rubbed themselves against each other. I felt both of them nearing release again. They came almost at the same moment, and their double orgasm rolled over me with such force that my head swam. With a few more thrusts, I squirted helplessly inside Narilora.

  My cat-girl rolled to the side. I turned Eladra on her stomach, and she lifted her butt at me. I crawled forward, sliding between her buttocks and entering her. She twisted her head around, and I kissed her for a few moments. Then she lay back, resting her face on her arms.

  “Take me again, Will,” she gasped.

  I reached under her, one hand under her hips and the other gripping a firm breast. She moaned up at me as I began thrusting into her.

  Narilora pulled her head over, and they began kissing again. I pounded her lush body for another minute, savoring the feel of her soft, rounded butt against my groin, rubbing her with the hand under her sex. She moaned again into the bedroll. Just as I came deeply inside her with a final thrust, her butt began to shake and she cried out her release.

  Eladra was up against the tent fabric on my left, so I rolled across Narilora and laid on the other side to catch my breath.

  Eladra rolled against Narilora. I would have thought she was drained by this point, but instead she climbed above my cat-girl and began kissing her way down Narilora’s body.

  I lay there and watched as Eladra pleasured her with lips and tongue. As she grew more aroused, Narilora pulled me to her, and we kissed gently before she pressed her head against my chest. I held her, feeling her purring as Eladra pushed her closer to release. Finally, she shook against me, holding Eladra’s head between her thighs.

  The girls disentangled themselves and lay on either side of me. I held them, feeling nothing but an intense love and contentment from both of them, even Narilora – for a little while.

  Chapter 10

  The climb to the ridge proved to be even tougher than I’d expected. About an hour after breaking camp that morning, we came to a fork where a tributary joined the river directly in front of us. And it came down out of a ravine in a cliffside, so there was no easy way around the confluence.

  The tributary was deep and swift enough that I had strip down and cross first with the rope so the girls could come after me – they were too small to make the crossing on their own. I looped the rope around a tree on the downhill side to make a sort of rope bridge to hold onto as they waded across, then pulled the rope after us when they did. That cost us about an hour.

  Then we discovered that the side of the river we were on was closing up against the same cliffside, and within a few hundred yards, we had to cross again, this time over the main river. Fortunately, we were able to find a reasonably safe crossing, and we waded across while tied together.

  From there, we soon found ourselves in a narrowing canyon that the river tumbled down in a series of cascades. Up ahead, it was clear there was no way we could keep climbing alongside the river – it was far too steep and wet – so we hiked up to the edge of the canyon. That led to a small ridge that followed the river until we reached the head of the canyon and the landscape began leveling out again.

  Now, the ridge I’d seen was clearly ahead of us, about a couple of miles off. The river ran alongside it against the base, disappearing several miles ahead around a bend where there appeared to be another waterfall.

  By this point, it was mid-afternoon, and we stopped to eat lunch. The trees were starting to give way to scattered meadows, and the types of tree were shifting again. We’d left the twisted vine trees behind down in the canyon, and this level area was mostly dominated by trees that looked like squat, blue-green pines.

  “I had no idea this would be so difficult,” Eladra said.

  “I suppose it’s a lot easier if you can fly,” I said.

  I hadn’t seen it from the top of the canyon, but we soon came to a bend in the river where the water collected into a lake. The meadow before us looked so open and inviting that I quickened my pace down the gentle slope and didn’t see something hiding in the grass. My foot caught on it, and I fell forward onto my knees.

  The girls stopped and came up to me.


  “I’m fine. I tripped on a root, I think.”

  But it wasn’t a root. It was an oddly shaped white rock sticking out of the dirt. I pulled on it, and it came loose easily. It wasn’t a rock either. It was a long, bleached bone, probably a leg.

  “Looks like some animal died here, maybe.”

  But Narilora was poking at the grass a little way away with her foot.

  “Uh, Will?”

  I stood up to see what she’d found: a skull. And as I looked around us, I realized there were more of them.

  We’d stumbled across an old battleground. There were broken crystal weapons and bits of rotten armor, along with a lot of disintegrating bones scatted across twenty or thirty yards. I didn’t want to excavate it, but from what we could see just walking around, about twenty people had died here a long time ago.

  “What do you think this is?” I asked.

  “I have no idea what the cause of it was,” Narilora said, “but from the weapons and armor, this battle was between sorai and linyang.”

  I saw what she meant. There were a few rotten crossbows lying around, nothing left beyond the bow and firing mechanism, but I recognized the outline.

  “This is old,” I said.

  “Yes. A kumala-talon or two, based on the design of these crossbows.”

  “Why all the way up here?”

  She shrugged.

  “Okay. Let’s keep going.”

  We circled around the lake by late afternoon, at which point I realized we had another big climb ahead of us, up the ridge. So I called it a day, and we made camp.

  This area looked like a canyon that was filled in by a glacial moraine. The ground was very sandy and gravelly, which meant the lake was crystal clear. We decided to strip down to wash ourselves clean of the sweat and trail dirt. After the previous night, I was content to simply watch my beautiful naked wives wash each other off. The water was icy cold but refreshing.

  Then I noticed something swimming behind us in the water, some kind of Taitalan fish that resembled a lake trout. I pointed it out.

  “Oh, a jalank,” Eladra said. “They are delicious. Can we catch one? For dinner?”

  “I didn’t bring a fishing pole.”

  Narilora laughed.

  “There are easier ways.” She went back to our gear and found her crossbow, folding it open and cocking it. “Get out of the water.”

  Eladra and I went to the beach. Narilora loaded a bolt and stood, naked and motionless, watching the water around her.

  “You’re fishing with a crossbow?”

  “Linyang learn to hunt many ways. This is one.”

  For a few minutes, she did nothing but watch. Then she turned slowly at her waist, following something in the water. I couldn’t see, but it was obvious there was a fish nearby. Then she slowly lifted the crossbow, tracking it across in front of her.

  Narilora’s shot came without warning, slicing into the water. Then she let out a laugh of triumph and splashed forward, chasing the wounded fish, before reaching down and lifting out the bolt, which now impaled a fat jalank. Eladra clapped her hands in glee. “Well done, awasa-late!”

  Narilora cleaned the fish, and I set up a spit over the fire.

  “I’m impressed.”

  She smiled. “The hardest part is allowing for the water to bend the arrow. Once your eye has leaned that, shooting something a few feet away is child’s play.”

  The fish was delicious, as Eladra had promised, tasting like an exotic mix of trout and salmon. We ate it with some boiled vegetables and lay back to look up at the stars.

  I called Ayarala and filled her in on our day.

  “I am glad you are all safe, Will. Things here are uncertain. We decided to tell the crowd that you are no longer here, but many of them do not believe us.”

  “They should be okay. I mean, what are they going to do?”

  “I do not know. For now, they are still camped out in front.” She sighed. “But there is another, more serious matter. It concerns Lorelat.”

  I sat up.

  “What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

  Lorelat leaned into view.

  “I’m fine, Bunny-daddy. But the clan leader sent me a message today ordering me to leave along with all the other pregnant cunelo, so she can send over new ones. I refused, and the others don’t want to leave either. She’s really upset with us.”

  “That was not our agreement. She’s supposed to let me and the wives decide.”

  “That’s what I told her. That I was never leaving unless you told me to.”

  “Which I’m never doing, bunny-girl.” She managed a quick smile. “Tell her you spoke to me and that I told her to remember our agreement.”

  “Okay.”

  “What are the other clan leaders doing?” I asked them.

  “Ceriniat sent another messenger wanting to know where you went,” Ayarala said. “What should I tell her?”

  I thought for a moment.

  “How do you think they would react to the truth?”

  “Not well. They are tearing the city apart to find the panikang. So far, there is nothing, but people are very much on edge.”

  “Then tell her I went off on some business of my own.”

  “Okay. She won’t like that, but I will tell her.”

  ◆◆◆

  The first hour the next morning was a long, low climb out of the bowl where the lake had formed. Then it began getting more rugged and rocky as we approached the ridge, where the river followed the base. And I soon realized we had a major challenge ahead. The river came pouring out of a crack in the ridge-line about half a mile away, forming a waterfall that was at least two hundred feet high. There was no way up without a lot of climbing gear that we didn’t have.

  “Any ideas?”

  “My idea of following the river was a bad one, my tsulygoi,” Eladra said. “I am sorry.”

  I rubbed her shoulder.

  “No. It’s gotten us this far.”

  “Could there be another way around?” Narilora asked.

  “Let’s go up to the base and have a look.”

  It was rocky and very wet. The water fell into a small pool at the base, raising a cloud of mist that drifted down the river. This close to the ridge, I could see no way to climb up, even for Narilora. It was too sheer, too wet, and too high. And on the way over, I had seen nothing that looked like a feasible pathway up the ridge.

  “Maybe we keep going,” I said. “There might be something.”

  Crossing the river at the base presented no serious challenge, and we continued along the ridge away from the river. But we’d scarcely gone a hundred yards when Narilora pointed at something.

  “Tsulygoi, look.”

  Under a ledge, surrounded by fallen rock, was what looked like a cave. I was still dubious about caves on this world, but I walked over and checked it out anyway. The opening was oval, about six feet wide and eight feet high. It went in further in than I could see. I pulled out my crystal flashlight and turned it on, stepping into the darkness. There was a negotiable passageway that appeared to go up. But it was also wet, and a small trickle of water ran out between our feet.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “You guys decide. I’m okay with caves,” Eladra said. “Cunelo used to live in burrows.”

  “I think we should check it out,” Narilora said. “I don’t mind the dark.”

  “Okay. No telling how far it goes, but based on that little stream, it has to go up at least a little ways.”

  I let Narilora take the lead but told her to go slow. The passageway twisted up and around for about fifty or sixty feet. In several places, water rained down on our heads. But the passage remained wide enough for us to make it through.

  Then it opened into a larger chamber where the water had collected in a small pool. When I pointed the flashlight into the pool, I could see what looked like cave pearls, little concretions that had formed over time in the muck. I took a couple out and showe
d the girls.

  “Crystals?” Eladra asked.

  “Not quite, but still pretty cool.”

  We had to wade through the pool to get past it, but it was only about two feet in the deepest spots. Beyond, the passage resumed climbing.

  After another twenty feet, it got to a narrow spot. Narilora was able to wriggle through and reported that the other side was clear. Eladra took her pack off and made it through as well. I took my backpack off and passed it up.

  I tried a couple of angles, but I couldn’t negotiate a bend in the middle of the opening without having trouble breathing.

  “Will, take off your armor,” Narilora said.

  I stripped down to my shorts and passed everything up. I had to really push myself, and there was a single terrifying moment when I felt like I’d gotten stuck and was about to suffocate. Then I gave it one last shove and squirted through, falling onto the cave floor, which was rough and rocky and dug into my back. I had to lie there for a few seconds getting my breath back.

  “Whew.”

  I picked up my flashlight and swept it around the cavity we’d entered. And I promptly lost my breath again.

  The girls looked up. Narilora gasped, and Eladra threw her hand over her mouth.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said finally.

  It was like the first cavern on Taitala I’d arrived in, only bigger. And rather than a few pockets of crystals in the walls, the entire cavity was a single pocket. The floor was all muck and broken crystal shards, which was what I had felt against my back. The walls were covered with clusters of multi-colored crystal prisms that grew in every direction, often around and through each other.

  Heart pounding, I dug around for my laser pointer. I turned it on and swept it around the cavern. But this time, nothing significant happened.

  The girls were both startled. I explained what I’d been doing.

  “If it had worked . . .” Narilora said, “would it have taken us to your world?”