by R. Lee Smith
Meoraq curled around her as close as his separate clay could press and closed his eyes. “O my Father, I cry out to You. You gave her to me and if I have not been as grateful as a son should be, I am sorry. But You gave her to me. Now…please…give her back.”
BOOK VI
GANN
Thunder, falling like a hammer into her brain, knocking her out of her nice, safe sleep and into reality. She heard screaming, her own, and then felt hands, not her own. She fought them, but the hands were thunder, inescapable, pressing her down and holding her fast in this world of cold and fear and hunger.
It hurt. Amber tried to scream, but she couldn’t find her voice and didn’t have much breath anyway. She managed a hoarse groaning sound, utterly swallowed by the pound and roll of the thunder, and after that had to just lie there under the hands and feel her heart racing in terror because she didn’t know where she was or why or even who.
Flapping. The world was made of leather walls close around her and those walls were flapping. The wind had its jaws around the world and was shaking them, shaking them. The thunder was its voice and its fists. At each new crash and roar, she screamed and struggled, but the hands owned her. They pushed her down, they held her, and the thunder opened its throat and breathed her back inside it.
* * *
The second time Amber opened her eyes, it was calmer, both inside the tent, where the wind still steadily shook the walls, and in her mind, where the storm had mostly ended. She rolled and kicked her way onto her side, then lay weakly panting, wondering where in the hell she was.
She could see. The air in the tent was an unhealthy, mottled yellow—the color of daylight filtered first by clouds and then by skins—but she could see, and by an exhausting process of elimination, she eventually realized that the only reason she could possibly see Meoraq’s leather tent on every side of her was if she was in it. Why was she in the lizard’s tent again? Why did everything hurt? And why was she so dry?
The dryness was worse than the hurt, actually. Her tongue felt swollen and sandpapery and stung when she tried to lick moisture out of her mouth. Her lips were unfeeling things, cracked and scaled—Meoraq’s mouth. Even her eyes felt dry. All of that, and yet she was soaked in wetness. The leather mat she lay on squished at her every feeble movement; she could feel beads of moisture tickling over her belly, her breasts, the hollow of her throat, her thighs. Her hair was plastered against her cheeks and neck, ugly to feel and probably pretty damn rank. Rain? Sweat? Did it matter?
Amber found a gripping place on the itchy blanket lying like lead over her body and fought it off. It was not a fight of just one battle. This was ridiculous. She had not been that damn sick. No one could be that damn sick!
She sat up. Her head swam and then hit something. The mat. She’d fallen over? Yes, she had. She sat up again.
Light. She warded it off with one raised hand, then promptly hit her head on the ground again because she apparently needed both hands to hold herself up. Two sudden dives to the mat in as many minutes was too much for her; she dragged her fists up under her chin and lay shivering, wishing the light would go away.
It did, but suddenly Meoraq’s huge black body was coming at her, and even though she knew it was him, knew it, panic still rolled its own thunder over her and she wheezed out a little scream. That was stupid. She frowned, gasping in the aftershocks of that pointless terror, as Meoraq’s scaly hands dipped impersonally beneath her armpits and hauled her up.
She couldn’t remember ever being carried before. Ever. Not even as a little girl. It was an odd feeling. Her legs dragged bonelessly across the mat until he got an arm under her and she flopped against the plates of his chest and then she was up. Carried.
“Too heavy,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “Don’t.”
He grunted in the space above her head and shouldered the tent-flap open. Out they went into the unbelievably cold air, air so fresh and clear it seemed to cut her brain when she breathed it in. The light was blinding. She slapped some of it off and then just rested with her hands over her face, rocking limply back and forth as Meoraq walked, wishing he’d put her down. She didn’t want anyone to see her being carried like this. She especially didn’t want anyone to see it when Meoraq dropped her fat ass on the ground.
But no one was saying anything. It was pretty windy, but she still ought to be able to hear them murmuring and snickering at each other. If nothing else, Crandall should be making a few comments. Especially since…oh for Christ’s sake, she was completely naked.
“Put me back!” Amber wailed, pressing her hands even harder against her face because now it made perfect sense that no one was talking and if she had to see them struck speechless by the sight of her naked body, she was going to die right on the spot. “Damn it, lizardman, put me down!”
He did. She felt herself swoop downwards, bump up against his bent knee, and then finish out the slow fall in a heap over the hard, frozen ground. She curled miserably around herself, knowing she couldn’t cover everything, and finally made herself face the horror head-on.
Only no one was there.
She kept stupidly staring, right on over nothing, nothing, and more nothing all the way to the horizon. She could see the blackened rings where the campfires had been. She could certainly see the wide path where all their tromping feet had flattened the prairie grass. But the places where the bivies and tents should be poking up out of the ground were empty.
Meoraq’s leather teepee was the only one left.
Anywhere.
Something nudged her arm. She blinked around at the mouth of a small, shiny flask, then followed it up Meoraq’s arm to his face.
“What happened?” she croaked. “Where is everyone?”
He took her wrist, put the flask in her hand, and made her take it to her mouth. She needed his help to hold it while she drank. The warm water cut her mouth all to hell. She choked and he let her choke, but after she was done, he made her drink again. She had maybe half a dozen swallows before her stomach cramped, and then had just enough instinct to shove the flask back and bend forward before puking it up.
It came out as smooth and tasteless as it had gone in. That made her want to throw up again, but a froggy belch was all she could manage. She groaned and started to cup protectively at her stomach, but Meoraq took her wrist and put the flask back in her hand.
“I can’t,” she said, trying to push it away.
His spines flattened.
So she drank and even though he made her take twice as much, it stayed miraculously down. Her mouth, wet, throbbed with hurt, but she could feel the rest of her sucking the moisture in, and at the end of his third silent urging, the flask was dry.
He took it back with a grunt of satisfaction, then got up and left her there. She looked after him as he went back inside his tent, and kept right on looking because it was still the only one around.
Meoraq came back with his blanket and draped it around her shoulders, tying the corners together so the wind couldn’t blow it off. It was warm, but so heavy. So ridiculously heavy.
“I’m not supposed to get sick,” she told him. “I got the Vaccine. We all got it. I can’t get sick anymore, they said so. They promised. What happened to me?”
“What do you remember?”
“Everything!”
“Tell me.” He hesitated, then gestured toward her stomach. “Had you…been having pains? Were you hurting…all that time?”
“Huh? No, I was fine. We were talking. We…” She thought about it, reaching up to rub at her thick head as if she could comb out a clearer memory with her fingers. It seemed to help, actually. “You told that horrible story about your father.”
He drew back a little. “Horrible?”
“And then…and then I was banking the fires and packing the food. I don’t…I don’t remember going to bed. I don’t…” Something tugged at her, just a flutter of sound, an impression more than a real thought: Snakebite. “I think something bit me.”
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He seemed to relax, just a little. “There was a mark,” he said, and looked away.
He watched the clouds roll by. She watched the empty camp. There was no time.
“Where’s my stuff?” she asked.
“In my tent. Do not trouble yourself for any of it now.”
Amber nodded and pulled the blanket closer around her body. “Where are my clothes?”
“Washed and in your pack. For now, you do not require them.”
Which was a nice way of saying he wanted to wait until he was sure she wouldn’t piss in them. As was only sensible.
She nodded again, rubbed at her mouth, sat there.
A few seconds passed.
“Where is my sister?”
Meoraq did not answer. He didn’t even look at her, just turned his eyes up in his restless way and watched the clouds churn by.
“How long have they been gone?”
“Five days.”
“Five days?” She brought her hand up, but didn’t touch her eyes. After a while, she just dropped it again. “Where…I mean, did they go someplace…to wait for us?”
He did not answer.
“They wouldn’t just leave us,” she argued, trying to stare him down, but he kept watching the sky. “They wouldn’t do that.”
No reply.
“Oh come on! My sister? Nicci? She wouldn’t…”
He watched the clouds.
She wanted to keep talking. God knew, there were arguments she could be making. It was absurd to think that they’d actually packed up and left her and no, she wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with and sure, Everly Scott hated her guts, but no sane person would ever go along with leaving someone behind like that. Just because they didn’t like her didn’t mean they didn’t need her. And if they needed her for nothing else, she was still one of Scott’s precious wombs, wasn’t she? He wouldn’t walk away from that. And no one would walk away from Meoraq, that was just insane! He was the only one who knew where to find this temple they all wanted so desperately to find, so obviously, they were waiting for them.
Just up ahead.
They’d left her.
Amber touched her fingertips to her lips, but they weren’t trembling. She felt at the thin skin beneath her eyes, but it was dry. Her heart felt cold, but it kept right on beating. She realized, impossible as it seemed, that this wasn’t going to kill her.
Meoraq hadn’t moved. He looked perfectly comfortable as he hunkered there against the wind and seemed content to read whatever epic novels were being printed for his viewing pleasure across the sky, and if he cared at all that he had been abandoned by Commander Scott and his brave pioneers, he showed no sign of it.
“Five days isn’t very long,” said Amber, and looked at the sky. “We could catch up.”
Meoraq grunted.
“When are we leaving?”
He rubbed at the ridges over his eyes. Then he looked at her, only this time, she was the one who didn’t look back. He hissed under his breath and looked back at the sky.
The way the clouds moved really was pretty hypnotic. She could understand why he did this so often.
“We will go when you can walk,” he said at last.
“Then we’re leaving tomorrow. I don’t care if we only make it to the top of that ridge,” she said, pointing. “But we’re going. They need to be able to look back and…and see us trying to catch up.”
He turned his head and spat, letting the wind take that little comment and carry it off. “So be it.”
“And we’re going to catch up.”
“If it is God’s will.”
“God has nothing to do with it. Nicci is waiting for me.”
That, he didn’t answer. Instead, he picked her up again and started walking. She put her arm around his neck in the hopes of better distributing her weight but thought she felt him stiffen, so she took her arm back and just hugged unhappily at herself until she was back inside the tent (which reeked humiliatingly of sweat and bile and oh what’s that gentle fragrance boys and girls that’s piss is what that is) and out of the wind. He set her on the mat (she turned her head so she wouldn’t have to see how badly she’d stained it), covered her over with the blanket and the leaden fur besides, and stood up again.
Just stood there. After a moment, he backed up. After a few moments more, he opened the tent-flap and put one foot outside, but he didn’t leave, he just looked at her. Or maybe he was only pretending to look at her while he aired the tent out. It needed it. How many times had she pissed the bed, his bed? How many times had she shit in it? And how could she even care about that when she knew that all the rest of them were out there right now, that some of them might even die because she’d made Meoraq choose her over the others? And would Nicci be one of them?
Her eyes stung; she was too dry to make tears, but her vision blurred anyway. She watched through this tearless haze as Meoraq let the hide-flap fall with him still on the inside. She scratched her eyes shut and turned her face away, but soon felt his scaly fingers on her chin. His strong hand stroked once across her matted hair and down to cup the back of her neck. He pulled her close and pressed his cool, unfeeling brow to hers. She could feel his bony ridges digging at her skull, feel each hot puff of breath against her throat. “Rest in His sight. He sees you well, Soft-Skin. He sees us both.”
“Tell him to watch out for Nicci. Because I’m not there, Meoraq. And neither are you.” She wiped at her eyes—still dry, still hurting—and pushed him away. “And until she’s back, don’t you dare tell me this is God’s will. If your god sent my baby sister out there to die, then I hate your fucking god. I hate him and I’ll tell him so to his face. I’ll tell him…”
She lost her breath and then the train of her thoughts and finally had to let him lay her gently down and cover her up again beneath the crushing weight of the blanket. “Tell her she can have the mat,” Amber whispered. She no longer knew precisely who she was talking to or why, but the words seemed very important. “Tell her I’m sorry and she can have it now. I’m so…” Her thoughts slipped again and she forgot how to end. Sorry? Thirsty? “Tired,” she finished.
She slept.
2
Meoraq sat up all night, watching Amber sleep by lamplight (and often resting his hand between her teats to feel the breaths he could plainly hear and see). Through every long hour, Gann rode his back and whispered in his ear that this was the last rally of a dying soul and that dawn would find her cold beneath his hand, but Sheul’s mercy prevailed. She lived. She drank—water at first, then tea, and finally broth made of boiled cuuvash. She mumbled in her restless dreams at times, but when her eyes opened, she always knew him. She had come out of the very shadow of death and she would be well.
And she did make it to the top of the ridge the next day, but only because Meoraq carried her. Six steps. That was all she could manage on her own. Six steps, and they left her so drained that she fell asleep soon after he set her down. Meoraq built her a fire and started the stones heating for tea, then ran on ahead along the wide trampled path left by the humans’ passage.
He didn’t go far, just up to the next rise. He could see perhaps a quarter-span from this vantage, and Scott’s trail cut through all of it, keeping steadily eastward until it vanished over the hills. He waited for some glimmer of the disappointment a righteous man would feel and felt none. If he’d found them, he would be honor-bound to go and fetch them back and he hated even the thought of that. He would do it if Sheul asked it of him, and for Amber’s sake he would even do it in good humor, but if he never saw them again, he would lose no sleep over it.
The next day, Amber managed a little better distance, but still needed Meoraq’s arm to lean on to get over the next rise, where she took one exhausted look at Scott’s trail winding away into nothing and began to cry. Meoraq kept his eyes fixed on the trail and pretended not to notice. This was ludicrous enough when she was only weeping, but when she reached the end of her tears, she j
ust as suddenly fell to shouting.
She said things. Meoraq tried not to listen. Grief had made her half-sick and weariness took her the rest of the way. Once she’d rested, she might not even remember this…remarkably creative string of profanities…so it behooved him to just let her vomit it all out.
He stood while Amber cupped her flat face and screamed Nicci’s name until her voice roughened. He studied the rippling lines of shine in the wind-blown grass as Amber cursed Scott for a madman and a murderer. He watched the clouds when she turned on him, slapping and punching at his chest—the blows as weak as a child’s—and ordered him to go after them, find them, bring them back.
At last, the tears returned. Meoraq helped her collapse without hurting herself. He left her moaning into her hands and went out into the plains for water. There was ice along the bank of the creek where he drew it. The first ice of the season, thin and white as paper…but it would grow.
She refused to speak to him that night. When he tried to put her mat in his tent, she pulled it out and sat rebelliously with the fire between them and her spear over her lap, just like she thought she could hold a watch.
Meoraq went to his tent and meditated. When he emerged, she was soundly sleeping, still sitting up. He put her to bed; the Amber he had always been able to wake just by walking past her did not stir even when he carried her into his tent and took her boots off.
She slept through the night, past dawn, and deep into the day. When she finally emerged, Meoraq had just finished the last of the hot tea. He grunted a greeting and began to brew more.
Amber sat down there in the mouth of his tent and watched him change stones and meditate. Neither spoke as the water heated. Meoraq could only hope that was a good sign, because she wasn’t showing him any expression to gauge her mood by.
“When will you be ready to walk?” he asked finally.
She stared at him dully for a long time and then said, in a voice still rough from yesterday’s screaming, “Two or three days, I guess.”