by R. Lee Smith
He remembered that, and he remembered feeling that hot, dry flesh like a dead coal on his belly, and the agony of indecision that had gripped him every time before he had to leave her, to race down to the pool that had given him his name and suck up a mouthful of water to take back and dribble between her slack, chapped lips, expecting every time to come back and find her gone and Flicker at the mouth of the Pit. He never had, and Glow had recovered, but with this thing, this useful thing, he might have stayed with her the whole time, and fed the thirst that ravaged her wasted frame without ever leaving her side. Of course, Glow was much bigger now, not so reliant upon her mother, and perhaps in no great danger should the fever ever return, but there would be other fevers. This was a useful thing.
Pool, still deep in thought, brought the flask close to his face to watch the water well right up to the dark hole and out of it. The smell of Big Bill’s homebrew, diluted these past days, blew back at him, and he recoiled with a snort. His air blew across the mouth of the flask.
It made a sound.
Pool briefly succumbed to his ancestral instincts, dropping the flask at once and bashing at it with his fist. He darted back to the tunnel and looked back, poised atop his toes for flight, head low to the ground, hissing.
The flask lay open in the rain, somewhat dented, still shining.
After several long, motionless moments, Pool crept back, hand over hand. He stared the thing down, hissed twice, bashed it again, and finally, suspiciously, drew himself up to hunkers again and picked it up.
It was cool in his hands, unresisting. Not a person. Not even an animal. Just a thing.
Pool thought for a very long time.
Slowly, he brought it to his face again and deliberately snorted.
Nothing.
He shook it. Water sloshed and splashed inside. He snorted again, louder, then tried a chuff, a rattle, a whole series of snaps and grunts, and finally, a hoot.
The flask remained silent.
Edges was not the only one who could be overcome by temper. Pool yanked back his arm to throw it.
It made the sound again.
Pool stopped his arm at the apex of its swing and craned his neck around to look at it. He sat up a little straighter and swung his arm again.
The flask made its low groaning song at him.
Rain fell.
Pool thought.
He brought the stinking thing right to his lips and did not snort or hoot or chuff. He softly, silently, blew. Not into it. Across it.
The flask moaned.
All at once, the potential of the strange thing changed. Gone were thoughts of fevers and thirst and memories of little Glow’s body burning beneath his. He thought instead of Echo. Because this was very, very interesting.
It was difficult to find her, but Echo seemed to spend much of her time around the light places and there weren’t many of those. Pool found her while it was still light, and he stayed well back in the tunnels for a time, admiring her. She was beautiful, lean and young and strong. The light from Upworld made her skin gleam, as white in these tunnels as the fish that swam through the dark water that had given him his name. He watched her cup her hands for falling water and felt his groin tighten.
He made no sound, but she must have caught his scent because she stiffened suddenly and looked his way, sending out three clicks and one long rattle when those clicks sent back his shape. She dropped, slapping loudly at the wet ground and showing all her teeth, which were youth-sharp and as white as her flawless skin.
Pool realized all at once that he’d actually trapped her. The walls of the shaft that opened to Upworld were too steep and smooth to climb and there was no way out except to go past him—a tight, dangerous squeeze. He had her now. She was fast, but one lunge would have her.
Very slowly, very carefully, Pool eased a few steps closer to her and let the light from above fall on him. She hissed, spat, leapt scrabbling at the high walls, fell back onto the wet ground and spat again.
Pool ducked his head and softly purred as Echo paced before him, her hands and feet light and quick as they moved in the close opening. He watched, but from the corner of his eye. He did not stare, made no gestures, said no words, and gradually, gradually, her step slowed. She didn’t stop, but slowing was an encouragement.
Pool brought out the flask and placed it before him. Echo spat at it and at him and began to pace again, slapping her hands in frustration at the enclosing walls. Pool watched, purred, waited, and when she again began to slow, he brought the flask to his mouth and blew.
Echo did stop walking then, her eyes locked wide upon the strange, shiny object as it made its moaning song. Pool chuffed contentedly, soothingly, and blew again, then set the flask down and pushed it toward her.
Echo looked at it and at him. Her smooth brow crinkled.
“Pool,” said Pool.
She rattled again, but it seemed uncertain to his ears. Heartened, he hunkered low. She sprang up. He rolled onto his side to look a little less predatory and able to leap, and she began to pace again, her eyes coming back to the flask again and again.
“See Pool,” said Pool. His root was very hard.
She spat.
“Pool sees Echo.”
She grunted, started to pace, then just as suddenly sat and scowled at him and at the flask.
“White Echo,” said Pool. He nudged the flask. “Light Echo. Echo shining.”
Her eyes rolled a little. She paced. “Go,” she said, in a tight, angry voice. “White Echo bites. Light Echo kills. Echo shining…” She didn’t seem to know how to finish that one. “Go now!”
Words were extremely encouraging. Pool thought. Then he rolled all the way over, arching his back so fully that most of his weight was painfully balanced atop his head in a gesture of female submission so exaggerated it was almost unrecognizable. “Echo!” he said, really groaning it, slapping for good measure at his exposed belly.
It was a joke, from a species of man that had no real concept of humor, but Echo was just as strange in her own way as Pool was, and Echo got it.
They couldn’t laugh, but she hooted once, and then relaxed back onto her haunches and hooted again, capping her teeth with her lips for a few clicks, a belated and much resigned greeting.
“White Echo,” said Pool, rolling back onto his side.
“Light Echo,” she agreed, in what might have been a wry tone if they had any understanding of sarcasm. She looked at the flask and then at his hard root. She snorted and crouched low, hiding her belly from sight and ready to jump at the first opportunity. “Echo sees shining thing.”
Not, ‘Echo sees Pool,’ but definitely progress. Lying in the tunnel mouth as if the rough, wet stone were his own cozy sleeping place, Pool picked up the flask and blew across it, pursing his lips to make the sound especially strong. He put it down, gave it a careless shove toward her, and lay that way, his arm outstretched, his hand open and fingers lightly curled, watching her.
She didn’t touch it right away. She could still see the insistent jut of his root and knew what it meant to her, but the lure of the flask was irresistible. She came for it eventually, rattling at herself in a soft, disgusted manner even as she crept up and reached for it.
Pool could have jumped then. He didn’t need a good jump either. A hard lunge and a quick snatch would have been enough. He lay quiet and did not move, purring at every slow breath.
In the moment before her fingers touched the flask’s silver sides, she looked at him again. Her gaze was calm and dark with understanding. Then she crinkled her nose at him and picked up the flask.
She was clever, and it took her far less time than it had taken him to figure out how to make it sing. She retreated to the shaft and sat in full light to play with it, and perhaps she was unaware of how beautiful she looked there, how clean and perfect, but then again, perhaps she wasn’t. Her eyes had a way of coming back to him as he lay and watched her and her eyes were filled with thoughts.
He cou
ld have leapt for her at any time. When she found that the flask could catch the Upworld light and splash it bodilessly around the walls, her fascination was such that he could have stood boldly upon two legs and thrown himself at her, but he did not. He lay, feeling neither the damp rainwater puddling up around him nor the rough stone beneath him; all his power to perceive sensation had focused for the moment in his swelled and throbbing man-root. Pool purred and was patient.
“Hot meat,” said Echo at last, which was the greatest expression of satisfaction any of them knew. She looked at him and crinkled her nose. “Echo sees Pool.”
He rolled onto his back and balanced on his head again, softly yowling. His man-root pointed straight up, quivering. He rolled back onto his side and looked at her.
She put the flask down and came toward him, brushing her knuckles once across his outstretched palm before she settled practically at his side and within easy, immediate reach. Her scent was like light in his mind. The sound of her scratchy, awkward purrs (she didn’t seem to know quite how to make them) seemed to catch in his ears and linger. Like echoes.
How long that moment lasted could not be measured, but when the light from Upworld began to fade at last, she bent down and touched her face to his hand. Pool’s fingers twitched, not unmindful of those sharp, white teeth, but she did not bite. She turned, letting his limp hand stroke at the smooth side of her head, back and forth and back again. She lay down, belly to the ground at first and then, as she pressed her smooth cheek into his hand, she rolled onto her back.
“Pool and Echo,” he said.
“Good hunt,” she replied, with that same, dry tone of unnatural humor.
He would have laughed if he knew how. He purred instead, somewhat raggedly, and mounted. She arched her back; he slipped his hands beneath her shoulderblades, supporting her. His knees prodded at the backs of her thighs as he pierced her, and she wrapped his hips with only a little hesitation. He nuzzled at her open mouth as he began to move. She shifted once, grumbling, then sighed and put her arms around him.
The light went away, and Pool was alone in the dark with Echo. Upworld’s air was cool and sweet and wet with rain, and Pool knew who he was and where and with who, and life was very, very good.
Pool by R. Lee Smith
Coming mid to late 2014!
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