Onio

by Jeppsen, Linell

  Mel listened to her husband, and his friend, Blue Sky, talk about the king’s plans. It seemed that they would be going down into the underworld again. Mel’s heart quivered with dread. She had only recently stopped having nightmares about her first journey there…and now they were being forced to go back. She shuddered and listened to the two males’ conversation.

  Onio asked Rain if there were enough antidotes to go around and Mel’s skin crawled with anxiety. Antidote for what? She wondered, and heard Rain reply, “Yes, Grandson, there should be.” Mel turned and looked at her new grandmother, who simply shook her head and glanced down at Sunshine’s two children, who were obviously listening to every word the adults said.

  “We need to go north!” Onio insisted, as if he was continuing an unresolved argument.

  Blue Sky sighed and shrugged. “As always, I agree with you, my brother, but our words carry no weight! New Moon has made his decision and we must abide by it.”

  Onio threw his head back and glared straight ahead. His eyes smoldered and his cheeks were flushed with worry. Mel could barely hear his words as he whispered, “The king is wise and just…but he does not fully comprehend the army we now face. There is rage and revenge within the small soldiers ranks, perpetrated by their commander. I think that they will stop at nothing to find us and kill us all! What’s worse is that New Moon leads such a large group into the underworld tunnels!”

  “Onio, speak softly now, lest you be accused of treason!” Bouldar’s voice cut through Mel’s senses. Both Onio and Blue Sky jumped slightly, and glanced around at the guards and the sasquatch people surrounding them. Satisfied, they resumed their whispered discussion.

  “I mean no disrespect, Grandfather. I think that New Moon is a fine king and an even better sasq. It’s just that there are too many of us to guard properly in the tunnels below, and once we get to Montana, what is to stop the small human army from attacking us again?”

  Onio’s fists clenched in frustration. He had spoken to Mel about his theory that the United States armed forces had fewer jurisdictions in Canada than they did in the States. Mel agreed, but pointed out that there were American bases scattered all over the world. She did think though, that the bitter cold of the far north would be a better deterrent than anything else, and assured her husband that if her bundling up in warm furs would keep the sasq people safe, she would do it, and gladly.

  Wolf spoke softly, adding, “I have been to the place New Moon seeks. It is a good cave, and very large. It is also remote…far from the small humans and their armies. You must learn to have faith in the sasq who are older and wiser than you, First Son.”

  Mel saw her husband’s cheeks flush at the rebuke, but she also saw his shoulders sag in defeat. There was no sense now in arguing the high king’s logic, and further discussion would only cause anger and anxiety. Onio turned around and gave his wife a quick, searching glance. She smiled at him warmly, offering what little support she could, and he turned forward again, calm once more.

  The sasquatches walked for another twelve miles and then the column stopped. They had come to one of the large stone portals used in going down into the underworld. Mel felt like running, screaming, in the opposite direction, but when it came her turn, she followed her new family down into the underworld lands of dark demons and shadowy monsters.

  The sasquatches crept down the dry and crumbling stairs. As before, the gloom encroached upon them and torches were lit to keep the ever-increasing shadows at bay. Some of the sasq children wept fitfully, as if they knew that their kind was not meant to walk these halls. Unlike before though, these tunnels were not cold but uncomfortably warm. Within minutes, Mel and the sasq people were peeling off excess clothing and wiping sweat from their bodies.

  They were somewhere below the vast New Mexico desert, she knew, and so what was below reflected, like a dark mirror, its counterpart on the Earth’s surface. It reminded Mel of what hell must be like, if there was such a place. Maybe this is it, she thought ruefully and grinned. Her smile froze though, when she heard a tortured scream from the front of the column. The sasquatches stopped to face what threatened, and Mel gasped with fear at what was skittering down the tunnel.

  Three giant spiders scuttled towards the sasq guards and they raised their spears with shouts of fearful fury. The spiders were like the rats they had encountered in their first journey through the underworld tunnels, deformed and mutated to enormous proportion by elements within the strange and toxic environment. Their long, spindly legs were twice as tall as the tallest sasq warrior, and their many, multi-faceted eyes gleamed and searched hungrily for the quickest and easiest target.

  Mel’s heart wrenched with sorrow when she saw one of her friends, the old white-haired sasq named Falling Waters, skewered on the end of one of the spider’s legs like a marshmallow on a roasting stick. The spider stopped its forward progress long enough to shake the offending particle off its leg. The dead sasquatch flew through the air and hit the tunnel wall with a crash before sliding into a boneless heap on the floor. Before Onio had a chance to seize her arm and pull her behind his sheltering body, she saw that Falling Waters’s face was as white as a sheet of paper and his eye sockets overflowed with blood.

  As the giant spiders drew nearer to the torchlight Mel’s blood ran cold. They were black widow spiders grown huge and ghastly with glossy black hairs and gleaming eyes. Their fangs dripped a steady stream of poison saliva and pale strands of silky webbing oozed from their nether regions, covering the ground and a number of fallen sasquatches in a deadly, silver shroud.

  Although they moved with uncanny grace and frightful speed, two out of the three spiders were already dead, or dying. “Get back…back!” the shouts echoed through the tunnel walls. “Do not let the venom get on your clothes or bodies! Get back!”

  Onio grabbed Mel’s arm with one hand and his mother’s with the other, and they took off running toward the back of the column. Mel felt the small hairs on the back of her neck stir and quiver as the dying screams of another sasquatch filled the air. Onio made sure the females were safe and then ran back to help vanquish the last spider. It was already down though, and he hung his head, trembling with nerves. Then, to his horror, panicked shouts rose up behind him.

  Turning back around, he looked past his wife and the hundreds of sasquatches huddled against the tunnel walls and saw a sight so horrific, it made his knees go weak with fear. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of spiders were running toward them from the way they had come. Somehow, the sasq had managed to climb down into a spider’s nest! Onio gasped and thought, We are overrun…doomed!

  Then, he winced as the rock that hung from a thong around his neck grew hot. The stone the ancient alien had given him had seemed ordinary and rather ugly. He had actually considered tossing it away. Onio could not shake the feeling, however, that the gift was filled with power…a tarnished talisman not to be taken lightly. Therefore, he had fashioned a strip of soft leather and hung the talisman and a ring of soft golden metal from his wife around his neck for safekeeping.

  Now, the stone blazed against his chest. Shouting in alarm, Onio drew the thong up and over his head with his right fist. Immediately, the stone turned red and bright rays of light shot from it toward the advancing army of arachnids. The first flank of spiders squealed and shrieked as the light hit them. Some burst into flames, while others simply fell over dead, smoking in piles of ash on the floor.

  “First Son, what is this mighty weapon?” Blue Sky shouted. The other sasq warriors that stood close by gazed at Onio and his rock, with their eyes open wide in awe, except for Wolf, who studied the stone with a small smile of sudden understanding. They did not have long to marvel however, as more and more spiders approached, cautiously now, as if they sensed their prey was not as easy as first thought.

  Onio held the rock high again and another burst of light beams covered the spiders. More fell but still more advanced. Meanwhile, the guards that surrounded the high king were working on anoth
er tunnel opening. It was so old and unused the rocks had melded into one another seamlessly, but slowly the rocks rolled apart. The sasquatches ducked and ran through the opening into the dark tunnel. Onio saw Mel look back once with her eyes open wide in fright, and then she and the rest of his family were gone.

  “Onio, we must go…hurry!” Blue Sky urged.

  Onio willed the stone to work one last time. Running fast toward the spiders and the new tunnel entrance, Onio lifted the Herculean stone again. The distance between the spiders and the fleeing guards was less than ten feet, and Onio was the last warrior to dive toward the safety of the tunnel entrance. Five mighty sasq guards stood by to collapse the tunnel entrance before the spiders could follow.

  Their eyes grew wide as they saw how close the advancing spiders were to First Son. One of the guards, the mighty sasq named Willow, threw his spear with deadly accuracy, hitting the closest arachnid right between its many eyes. The spider collapsed in a heap on the tunnel floor, causing a bottleneck that kept its fellows from following in the sasquatches footsteps.

  The other guards cheered and stepped forward to pile rocks over the tunnel entrance, but then they looked down and saw that Onio lay on the floor at their feet. His body was stretched out flat, with one long, spindly spider leg pinning him down to the ground. They could see long lines of blood dripping from either side of the creature’s leg, as though its very exoskeleton consisted of poisonous fire.

  Onio’s beautiful green eyes were filling up with blood and his chest heaved with effort, as if the spider’s deadly venom was causing his blood to race. Two of the guards used their spears to lift the creature’s leg off their companion, while the others pulled Onio away.

  Onio’s eyes stared into eternity and he whispered, “Melody…Melody, my beloved.” Then he saw no more.

  Chapter 33

  Onio felt as though he was swimming through a sea of lava that surged and bubbled viciously, scorching his skin and burning his eyeballs. He moaned and let himself fall back into the depths where the lava turned into cooling waters, silent and still. Later, the fiery tempest seemed to lift and subside —the storm had passed, leaving him cold and wet, shivering but safe on the shoreline.

  He opened his eyes, wincing at the bright flames of the fire by which he lay. Melody crouched by his side, weeping softly, and his family surrounded him. Their eyes studied him and more than one smiled as he glared. “Where am I…what happened?” he muttered.

  He was lying on his belly and his grandmother, who crouched over him with antidote-saturated moss, said, “Hush, First Son. You have only just awoken from the deep sleep brought on by the spider’s venom.”

  Onio’s eyes grew wide as he recalled the excruciating fire of the spider’s caress. His dreams of lava-tossed seas made sense now, and he groaned. “How many…how many sasq did we lose?”

  Bouldar answered, “Three of our warriors were killed outright, Grandson, and four more besides you were injured. All of you will recover. You slept through a fine burial, though.”

  Mel tucked a bothersome hank of Onio’s hair behind his ear and glanced up at the healers who sat together close to a small fire next to the wall. There were four females and two males. All wore the green robes that signified their order in the healer’s sect. They were very shy and kept mostly to themselves, but when the need arose for their assistance, they set to with furious dedication.

  When she first saw the body of her husband being hauled in facedown by four large guards, she knew she had lost him. His complexion was as white and mottled as marble and his eyes were scarlet with blood. She fell to her knees, wailing, but was pushed aside by a male sasquatch in a green-cowled robe.

  “Stand aside, girl. He can be saved if you let us do our work.” His words were only a whisper in her mind but she stepped back, watching, as they applied moss to the wound on Onio’s back, and forced his mouth open so he could swallow some foul-smelling liquid. Mel watched as, one by one, the injured warriors were tended to and their fitful moans were silenced by healing slumber.

  That was two days ago, and now her beloved husband had come back to her. Tears fell from Mel’s eyes in relief and she felt Onio take her hand. “Wife, don’t cry, I’ll be fine. I just need to rest a little while longer,” he murmured.

  Mel knew the healers had given Rain seeds of the poppy plant, and understood that Onio would certainly get the rest he needed when he drank the drugged tea his grandmother offered.

  “My wound feels better now. Grandmother, may I lie with my wife for a while?” Onio whispered and Rain nodded. Onio lay carefully on his side, gathering his wife in his arms. Wolf laid a fur over the both of them and they slept for many long hours. Later, they awoke to the smell of stew simmering in a pot close-by. Petal knelt down and whispered, “Wake up, son and daughter. The king holds a council meeting.”

  Mel sat up, yawning, and saw that many small fires flickered here and there within the wide tunnel, and that most of the sasq were eating dinner. She also saw that the king was sitting on a sort of portable wicker chair, drinking something out of a wooden goblet. He looked very old and worn.

  Onio’s mother handed her son and his wife a bowl of stew, and water so cold it made Mel’s teeth ache. Looking over at Onio while he ate his stew she realized that, again, the healers had performed a medical miracle. Onio’s face was rich with color and only a few broken blood vessels marred the perfection of his moss green eyes. He grinned at her, and tipping his chin at her bowl said, “Eat, wife…the stew is very fine.”

  She smiled in return and ate her dinner with gusto. Then, a few minutes later, the males stood up and walked toward their king. Mel noticed that only the male population attended the king’s council. To her surprise, she realized she didn’t mind. The males were, after all, the ones who hunted for food and fought when the need arose. They made the decisions within the tribe and ultimately paid the price for those decisions.

  Onio winced slightly when he first stood up, but Mel saw that his legs were strong and his posture was straight. Mel gazed at the lines of his back as he walked toward the king and felt a flush of desire course through her body. Although scars marred Onio’s flesh, and the puncture hole from the spider’s leg was ringed in bands of red and purple bruises, he was so beautiful it took her breath away and made her loins flush with heat.

  She remembered the first time they made love. She was almost delirious with passion and eager to feel the length of him inside her, but he was careful. Slowly, surely, he brought her to the heights of desire, so that by the time he entered her she was slick with sweat and pliable to his steady advance. He was almost more than she could take, but take she did, again, and again.

  Staring after him now, Mel blushed and started gathering the bowls and cups together for washing. Her belly fluttered briefly, like a butterfly, and then she bent over, heaving into one of the bowls. Everything she had just eaten came back out, and she groaned.

  She felt a large, warm hand on her back and felt her hair pulled back by gentle fingers. Tears filled her eyes and Mel whispered, “I’m sorry, I…I must have the flu.” She heaved again, but there was nothing left in her belly. “Gak,” she gasped, trembling with nausea.

  She sat still for a moment, waiting for the sickness to subside. When she looked up, Mel saw that Rain, Petal and Tanah, who had left her family’s fire to visit, stood around her. All of them were grinning, and Petal’s eyes overflowed with tears.

  Mel wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, “Why are you all laughing at me? I’m sick!” She was angry at these insensitive females! Just because THEY never seemed to get sick, she seethed, didn’t mean that…that….

  Her mouth fell open in shock. Before she had a chance to put her suspicion to words, however, Rain said, “The stars in the sky rejoice, Granddaughter! Perhaps you will give Onio a fine son, although I would be just as happy with a stout girl.”

  Mel burst into tears. It was the hormones she supposed, but it was also a joy so kee
n she thought she might die of it. As she wept, the females surrounded her with love and support, as only females know how to do.

  Sensing a commotion by his family’s fire, Onio glanced back to see what, if anything, was wrong, and caught his grandmother’s eye. She smiled, nodding that all was well, and he turned back to hear the high king’s words. Strangely, tiny sips of the Fire Root tea were being distributed throughout the audience and Onio’s mouth watered. Although he was feeling much better now and knew he would heal with time, his back still burned like fire and his muscles felt loose and achy from the spider’s venom.

  The tea would speed his recovery and mask the pain, but he frowned thoughtfully. Fire-root tea was mostly ceremonial. Why was the king doing this strange thing? He took the tiny saucer and lifted the drink to his lips, relishing the soothing warmth that coated his throat and belly. Instantly, the wound on his back settled into a soft throb, hardly recognizable as pain.

  New Moon took a tiny sip of tea as well, and began to speak. “I am grievously sorry for what happened to our good warriors.” Tears ran down the old sasq’s cheeks. “In all my long years, I have never seen a tunnel so overrun by pests. I…I just don’t understand what has brought about this change. Does anyone know, or has there been word of this new development?”

  Onio cleared his throat, and the king and his audience turned to hear the young warrior’s words. “I don’t know for sure if my idea is correct, but my companions and I witnessed a strange and wonderful thing while making our way to the conclave. There was a creature in an underground cave who told us that he was a watcher and a caretaker. He also said that he was leaving, and it is true! We saw his starship come out of the big waters and fly away, up into the stars.

  “I wonder,” he continued softly, “if through all these long years that little creature kept the underground passages safe, but now that it is gone the tunnels are grown wild again?”