“Her short life?” I said, dying inside.
“Life is short, then you die,” Bruk said.
“Do all of your sayings end in some form of: ‘and then you die’?” I asked.
“Most of them. This is Pangea, after all.”
I felt drained, trampled, horrified and emotionally destroyed by what I’d inadvertently done to her. And now she might die, eaten alive by some horrible creature and never know I really loved her. To hurt someone who meant nothing less than the world to me—two worlds to me—was a pain that was difficult to bear.
“How can I fix this?” I asked Bruk.
“You’ll never be able to,” he answered matter-of-factly. “You are doomed to end your life a slave of the Grigori.”
“There’s no way to escape?” I asked.
“If you’re wily,” he said, smiling sinisterly. “Hajah escaped and took the others with him—Nova included. The Angara think he picked the locks, but he actually stole a key when you pulled that Angara into the river. He only pretended to fall in himself. Being wily means waiting for opportunities, and seizing them when they present themselves. If you are presented with an opportunity, perhaps you might escape. But perhaps the sun will go out and the whole world will go dark.”
“Is it possible,” I asked, considering an odd thought, “that Hajah might have forced himself on Nova knowing I would protect her, and also knowing that I wouldn’t know what to do?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” Bruk said. “He is legendarily devious, that one. His name is well earned. Perhaps—like Gudra—he desires kingship of the Nyala.”
“How do I escape,” I asked. “How do I find that son of a bitch and get Nova back?”
“I don’t see how you can.”
“There has to be a way!”
“We all want one, Brandon, the Mack. Believe me. But Hajah may have seized the only opportunity any of us ever gets. If there are no more dark tunnels or passageways between here and Emibi we’ll have no chance, and once in the city of the Grigori it will only be more difficult; the Grigori are very smart. Even if you managed to escape from Emibi they have ways of tracking you, and then there are the Ingonghus—they would find you, and—” the Hairy One shuddered and made a weird motion in front of his face, like the sign of the cross, combined with a slicing motion across his neck. “No, you’ll never escape the Grigori.”
I felt depression drop on me like a stone.
“Have you been hearing any of this, Milton?” I asked, turning toward the older man.
To refill the gaps in line they had moved prisoners around, and he was now just beyond Elia.
“I’ve heard it all,” Milton said. “It’s a genuinely fascinating cultural study. So much of the Pangean customs are borne out of quick needs, and short life expectancy. Given Nova’s history and probable unattractiveness to the locals, her unlikely attraction to you now makes much more sense.”
“Thanks,” I said, sarcastically.
“You’re welcome,” he answered, confused by my answer and not hearing the edge in my voice.
“Do you have any thoughts for how we might be able to escape, or how I can find Nova?”
“Are you asking me if there’s a way for you to find one woman who could be anywhere in this world—including digesting inside a dinosaur—a woman who doesn’t want to be found, on a continent the size of the Atlantic ocean, with only stone age tools and implements to help me search? Is that what you’re asking me?”
The ridiculousness of my request hit me like a brick to the forehead. I lowered my eyes, and inhaled, deeply, trying to fight back the agony I was feeling.
“I’m sorry, Brandon,” Milton said. “I had no idea you felt such genuine affection for this girl. I feel almost ashamed of myself for judging you poorly because you willingly engaged in public acts of sex…”
“You don’t do that where you come from?” Bruk asked.
“Generally speaking, no,” Milton said. “Most higher cultures in our… em, homeland… consider it improper to expose our bodies in any way, but especially during coitus.”
“But… it’s a part of life,” said Elia, again interrupting. “And enjoyable.”
“Perhaps,” Milton said, “But nonetheless…”
“So, you’ve never done it with another, simply for fun?”
Milton blushed bright red, and shook his head, nervously.
“You should!” she said to Milton, happily. “I would be willing.”
He looked as if she’d slapped him with a dead fish.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“You are a handsome, if older man, and I would be willing to have sex with you if you do not tease me for being unattractive. Then maybe you’ll see why it’s enjoyable to make love whenever the desire arises.”
“Yes, Milton,” I said, brightly. “Consider it a scientific and cultural experiment for better understanding the local population. You can’t write about it knowledgably for a journal when we get back if you haven’t actually experienced it firsthand, now, can you?”
“I…” Milton said, then his eyes shifted to the smiling face of the amazingly attractive older woman. If she was considered ugly, then this place really was upside down. “I…”
Elia gently took hold of Milton’s hand and walked him over to a flat spot, where she lay casually on her back, waving her fingertips for him to come down and join her. From where I stood I saw his lil Alvarado pop up and point sunward. He abruptly turned and looked shyly at me before making up his mind.
“Don’t watch,” he said to Bruk and I.
“It really matters to you?” Bruk asked.
Milton could only manage a jerky, stilted nod.
Bruk shrugged, turned away, and I did likewise. We both had to fight to keep from laughing as poor Milton went about his business, all the while making statements and asking questions.
“Ah. Ah, yes, I see. You want me to just—straight to it, eh? Right in there? Fine, fine, I... Oh! Oh, yes. My, that feels quite good, actually. Is it enjoyable for you? No? A little bit? What should I do differently? Just pinch there? Like so?”
There were two more marches broken up by two more rests for Bruk and I, while Milton and his new girlfriend continued to use any and all available time in the mutually satisfying pursuit of public fornication. Milton never stopped talking during the fun, but Elia didn’t seem to mind.
EVENTUALLY WE REACHED the end of our unending journey, the fabled city of Emibi.
The entrance was framed by two massive, carved towers of granite, which housed Angara guards overlooking an immense flight of stone steps that led downward, deeply downward, into the dark, and cavernous city. Milton and I looked at one another as the massive structure came more fully into view. It was like a city of the future gone bad. Beautifully designed spires and structures nearly obscured beneath layers of grasses, vines, weeds, shrubs, trees, and stone. Very few windows contained unbroken glass. Nothing looked recent or well maintained.
“It’s either a society in decline,” Milton mused, “or a squatter civilization inhabiting the remains of some other, long dead culture.”
“Does it matter which?” I asked.
“Ultimately… I suppose not.”
We descended the ruined steps into the worn city. We had arrived at the home of the legendary and mysterious Grigori, our new masters, and if I were to believe my companions, I wouldn’t leave again until I died.
* * *
THE LIFE OF A SLAVE
* * *
AS WE DESCENDED THE BROAD, stone steps into the main avenue of Emibi I finally got my first look at the dominant race of this inner world. We were moving along a surprisingly large main street of broken asphalt dotted with grasses and weeds; there were naked humans everywhere, along with sparsely clothed Angara, all drifting slowly and unenthusiastically from place to place. Buildings had crumbled and collapsed on either side of the lane, and through deglassed windows I could see movement, though not many clear im
ages of anyone, or anything.
Until I noticed a large, rough, leathery, reptile bob past one of the obscured windows, and move through an open door, Angara and human alike stepping aside to avoid blocking its way. It stood over seven feet tall, with a tail at least as long as its body trailing behind to provide balance. Its head was stunted like a lizard, and narrow, with rows of spiky teeth that protruded up and down on either side of its top and bottom jaws. It had large, black, round eyes that reflected the dim, spotty light filtering in through a canopy of overlarge trees that had sprouted up randomly throughout the city. The thing’s weird feet and hands were—like the head—evolved lizard; long, jointed and clawed, with webbing between the toes, just as Nova had said. Membranous, translucent wings sprouted from the ribs alongside, and flowed out behind it, folding carefully against the side and back of its muscled trunk.
As the thing passed I glanced over at Milton to catch his reaction. The old man’s mouth hung open, his eyes goggling with amazement.
“Troodon!” he said, excitedly.
“What?” I asked.
He turned as if only just remembering I was there.
“Brandon, do you know of a man named Dale Russell?”
“No.”
“He was a vertebrate fossil curator in Canada who hypothesized on the idea of a humanoid—called Troodon—evolving from Stenonychosaurus—a theropod from—well, what we was the Cretaceous period a hundred or so million years ago. His idea looked—or so I and others thought—too much like a man in a rubber suit. But this! This looks something more like an honest-to-god evolved Troodon! More muscled and dense, with a good deal of the bird-like posture and movement of the ancestor remaining in evidence. Holy heavens, that thing is INCREDIBLE!”
As we continued on down the main avenue of Emibi we eventually passed dozens of the things coming and going to whatever it was they did here. They traveled both alone, and in groups, but never seemed to speak, or communicate with the ‘lower’ races. In fact, they paid very little attention to any human unless one of us was in their way, and then only to shove them aside.
Having taken in my fill of the Grigori, I turned my attentions upward to the canopy above us, an interwoven tent of branches and leaves, marveling at how dense it was, and how effective at softening the power and perpetual heat of the unmoving sun. It also kept the light fairly even throughout the city, with only occasional pools of brightness here and there where the natural awning broke open a bit. Speckled sunlight filtered in through the leaves at fairly consistent, seemingly manufactured intervals, soft and diffuse. It gave the place a cool, almost comfortable feel. I was trying to see if the overhang was tended and groomed, or simply natural when I slammed into something hard, and leathery.
That something whooshed instantly through the air toward my face. I recoiled, instinctively, and felt more than heard the two massive jaws as they snapped in the empty space my head had just occupied.
The Grigori I’d bumped into had missed, but still drawn blood. I touched the wound on my cheek, realizing with expanding horror that if I hadn’t moved in time, my head would be gone. The thing was surprisingly fast, and surprisingly pissed.
I jumped aside as it came at me again barely in time to avoid a second strike that was faster than the first. More blood flowed from a hot, new rip in my arm. The crowd around us flowed quickly away, forming a ring a safe distance from the action. Only Milton, Bruk, and Elia stayed close, but not by choice, as they clustered behind me in our chain of fools, all eyes locked on the furious spectacle playing out before them. Fellow slaves watched horrified, and one or two Angara smiled in anticipation of my imminent demise.
The Grigori continued to snap at me, recoil, then snap again, circling and striking with terrific speed and accuracy. I danced madly to avoid being struck, and my friends maneuvered clumsily in an equally desperate effort to avoid coming between me and my attacker. I had to move fast enough and far enough to avoid being killed, but not so far that I yanked one of my friends into becomingan alternate meal.It was a delicate balancing act, andfailure meant I or one of my friends would be nothing more than stains and pieces on the concrete floor.
Diving to avoid another gnashing Grigori attack that startled me with how close it had been to my eyes, I stumbled backward, collided with Milton, and the two of us went sprawling on the floor, yanking Bruk over in the process. He tried to avoid falling toward the angry Grigori, dove too far to the right, and the sudden tightening in the chain yanked everyone behind him in exactly the wrong direction. In the resulting game of Slinky, Shalla—the girl just beyond Bruk who had shown red-faced interest in me—stumbled and collided with the evil Grigori.
Sadly, she wasn’t as quick as I had been.
With one, fierce snap, the poor woman's head and one shoulder were gone, her lifeless remains collapsing out of the chains that tied her to us, dropping to the floor like a wet sack.
But the Grigori wasn’t finished. As the humans surrounding us all cried out in horror and fear, the Ugly Master of Pangea leapt on what remained of poor Shalla’s body, ripping it to bits, blood and gore spraying wetly in all directions. Once it had shredded the poor lady thoroughly, it savagely gobbled the remaining bits of flesh and bone like a ravenous beast, tossing pieces into the air and catching them in its open craw.
Human and Angara alike scattered in fear of being next, but for some reason I stood frozen in horror and anger, wanting to kill the fucking Grigori where it stood, knowing that would be impossible, but still unable to stop considering it and move away.
Fortunately for me, Bruk wrapped an arm around my throat andinsisted I move away. We were a hundred yards from the still frenzied Grigori before my friend stopped garroting me. Pulling me around, he gripped me by the shoulders and stared at me the way an impatient parent stares at a child.
“My friend,” Bruk said smiling, though his eyes were warning. “Life in Pangea is short enough without you trying to make it shorter.”
“That thing shredded Shalla like she was nothing! And ATE her!”
“As it would have shredded us all, my friend. Move and Live. Stand and die. It’s a simple philosophy, really, and one I always try to keep foremost in my mind, especially when things are trying to eat me.”
“You’re making jokes after what just happened?”
“You can laugh until you die, or cry until you die. But either way, you die.”
Our Angara guards eventually overcame their fears, tracked us down, and angrily shoved us back in line. We were hurried along the still crowded central avenue and into a large public building, then taken through some darkened corridors and into an immense chamber. The room was huge, and filled with the reptilian Grigori, all scattered about, perching atop darkened, dirty stones, or standing around a central open-area on the floor.
The panther man who had been our most obnoxious guard, the one I’d dunked in the river, led us down an aisle to the central ‘stage’ and began to speak to one of the Grigori about my capture. The method of communication between the two was remarkable in that the Grigori spoke nothing, and it seemed entirely unable to hear.
“Have you noticed how the thing has to be facing the Angara to know what he’s saying?” I asked Milton.
“Yes,” Milton said, studying even more intently than I. “The Angara has to repeat himself when the Grigori looks away. Interesting. No auditory organs? Is it deaf, or does it simply have a vocal range that doesn’t pick up the Angara’s voice?”
“Are you asking me?”
“No. Rhetorical.”
As we stood with nothing to do while the Grigori and our guard ‘discussed’ whatever it was that seemed so important, my mind slowly filled once more with images of Nova. I had to escape. I had to find her. The thought of her out there, alone, possibly being raped repeatedly by Hajah was too much for me to live with. The fear and rage of being trapped and unable to act were nearly crippling.
“You will be taken to one of the libraries,” the Angara said t
o us. “You,” he said pointing to Milton, “will catalogue, while you,” he pointed to Bruk and I, “will dry and move the books to a new location.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for relaying that incredibly heavy and difficult message from your master and superior. It's nice to know they can find someone with your skills, courage and intelligence to relay those few, important words from all the way over there, back to us, over here. You should rest now. You're probably tired.”
The Angara scowled, and didn’t answer—simply annoyed that I’d even spoken—staring for a very long time. Then his fist slammed through my stomach, shoving it and my other internal organs against my spine, doubling me over, as his other fist pounded against the base of my skull. My vision clouded and I fell to my knees.
“You know, having given it some thought,” I heard Bruk say. “I'm coming down on the side of stupid.”
THE BOOKS WERE HEAVY, large, and covered in slime. Designed for larger, stronger hands than mine, they’d apparently been stored for quite a while in damp conditions, and for whatever reason the Grigori hadn’t noticed they needed caring for. Or perhaps they had, but avoided doing it because the damn things were probably toxic.
There was fungus or mold in quite a few of them, enough that my lungs began aching, and my eyes burning from whatever fumes they’d been releasingalmost as soon as I walked into the room. Several were so soaked through that any physical contact made them turn nearly to mush. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do to save them, but everything I tried seemed to upset the Angara if my methods damaged the things in the slightest way. Bruising a book was a crime punishable by beatings with heavy leather clubs.
Bruk and I quickly devised a way to soak out most of the liquid so we could eventually move the damn things without completely destroying them. It didn’t always save the books, but covering them for the ‘drying’ process also concealed any damage we’d inflicted on them while moving them, and spared us additional beatings.
The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1) Page 12