The Book of Apex: Volume 2 of Apex Magazine

by Jason Sizemore

  Through a narrow gap between the tall white buildings, peeked the deep purple of the mountain range to the south of the city. Duurir placed a hand on her back, guiding her to stand before him. “There. See the tall peak?” He was tall for a man and slid an arm over her shoulder so he could point. Her gaze traveled down the muscled length of his arm, past his pointing finger to a blue peak which pushed above the other mountains.

  “Yes.” Her voice was a whisper.

  “I study astronomy at the observatory there.”

  “I’ve never met an astronomer before.” Pimi winced inside. Such a stupid thing to say. Now he would think her uneducated as well.

  “Funny. Most of the fellows I know are astronomers.” The warmth of his body radiated through her tunic.

  Duurir jumped when Matriarch Imji clapped her hands together four times. “My dear friends, we have prepared a meal to welcome you. Please. Join us.”

  Pimi followed Duurir and the others into a large, sunny room where more of House Imaji joined them. Instead of small tables with bowls of food around the perimeter of the room, one long empty table spanned the center. Couches circled the table, as if they were expected to dine seated like a replete. Windows let cool breezes waft through like additional guests.

  Matriarch Imji moved to one end of the long table. Duurir led Pimi to a pair of couches and, once he was certain of her comfort, seated himself on the couch to her left so that his head faced hers. When everyone was settled, the double doors at the far end of the room opened.

  A replete stood in the doorway, his crop so full that it did not seem possible for him to support his own weight. He held two padded mallets in his hands.

  Pimi inhaled with recognition; he was a water drummer. She had never seen one outside of a temple before.

  Leaning backward so that his back arced like a bow, he took two agonizing steps forward. There he stood until a servant slid a tall stool beneath him. The replete rested on this, raised the mallets and began drumming on his belly. The muted tones seemed to both fill the room and come from elsewhere, evoking the sound of a flock of varamid galloping across the steppe. He began to sing, weaving the sounds of wind and rain into the syncopated rhythm. His breath reflected each mallet strike outward in song.

  Pimi leaned forward on her couch, breathless with delight. Around her, Matriarch Imji’s family continued their conversations, not recognizing the extraordinariness of the occasion. She glanced at Duurir, anxious to know if she were the only one for whom this was an exceptional event.

  He was watching her, eyes half-lidded with pleasure. “May I guess that water-drummers are a rarity in Aaropp-Yraarja?”

  The blood left her face in embarrassment; she must look so provincial. “I’ve never seen one outside the temple.”

  “I did not mean to embarrass you. It is nice to see someone else enjoy the music.” Duurir gestured languidly at the rest of the room, at his family chatting, but did not say another word. They listened to the rest of the water-drummer’s song in silence.

  The doors behind the water-drummer opened again and a stream of servants flooded past him, each bearing a plate of food. Their tunics belled out from their bodies around the smooth arc of full crops. These were not ostentatiously full, but the gentle swell representative of a day’s meal.

  Pimi shifted on her couch as she understood: only the servants carried food in their crops here. Her vision lurched, and the beautiful orb of her mother’s crop became a grotesque bloating.

  In crisp synchronization, the servants set identical plates between each couple. The white porcelain gleamed under the gaslights; skyberries on flatbread. Pimi did not want to eat anything. She was already larger than the servants.

  Duurir reached forward, broke off a piece of flatbread and folded it around a cluster of sky berries. He turned to her, holding it out. Around them, the other couples were feeding each other, so she tilted her head back and accepted the food from him.

  When she fed Duurir, his lips brushed lightly against her fingertips, kissing the crumbs away. It took her some time to recover her wits enough to carry her end of the conversation. Duurir filled the gaps with talk of the observatory and of all manner of strange phenomena: distant satellites, spots on the sun, strange bodies that traveled through the space around them.

  “Now, you have been very patient to listen to my discussion of astronomy. Most of the girls my mother introduces me to find me exceedingly dull.”

  “But you’re not!”

  “You are sweet to say so.” He accepted a handful of skyberries from her.

  “Truth. I am quite possessed of a desire to see a telescope.”

  Duurir lifted his head from the skyberries and blinked at her once. “I almost think you mean that.”

  “I do. Quite.”

  “Well—” he took a berry from her “—that may be arranged. I am returning to the observatory at the end of Small Harvest, but it will surprise me if your Matriarch lets you come up.”

  “Why?”

  His nostrils flared in surprise. “The mountains are our border with Abar. I’m sorry. Of course, things changed during your voyage. You wouldn’t know.” He waved his hand, gesturing for a servant to clear their plates. “The Abarine High Council had a schism, splitting around Councilor Hadan; he’s begun leading border raids into Repp-Virja and our Observatory is close to the pass.”

  “Oh.”

  “So you see, while I would love to have you come, I doubt that I will see you there.”

  “I will petition my mother.”

  Duurir gave his attention to the next dish, a slice of melon precisely centered on a creamy wedge of cheese.

  Fruit and dairy? But they never mixed, not without provoking sour crop. Shocked, Pimi looked across the table to her mother. In the set of her neck, Pimi could see a tension, but her mother seemed to be following the lead of the people around them.

  Pimi watched Duurir out of the corner of her eye.

  “It must be very different here.” He held out a piece of melon topped with a slice of cheese.

  “It is.” The tang of the cheese burst out of the sweet melon, tingling her palate. Perhaps they did not have to worry about sour crop with such small meals.

  “Tell me.” His dark eyes were warm with regard. “I want to know everything.”

  Beyond the windows, someone screamed. The conversation in the room stopped, shocked into sudden silence.

  Pimi’s toes curled to grip the edge of her couch in the beginning of fear as shouting and the sound of wood splintering became audible. She kept the urge to scream trapped in her throat.

  The door slammed open. A flood of men and women dressed in leather armor ran through the doorway. The room overturned in chaos as the guests leaped from their couches, running for the doors on the other side of the room. Her mother stood, staggered and fell to her knees, dragged down by the weight in her crop.

  “Mama!” Pimi ran toward her, but Duurir caught her arm and pulled her away, dragging Pimi out the nearest window. On the grounds, she staggered after him, desperate to vomit in her fear, but with no time to stop and disgorge.

  Duurir pulled her into a storeroom and closed the door, shutting out the terror for the moment.

  “What—”

  “Raiders.” Duurir’s face was grim. “They have not ventured this far across the border before.” He held up his hand and leaned his head against the door, listening. With the first flush of fear lighting his face, Duurir turned to her and opened his mouth.

  The door slammed open, knocking Duurir back against the wall. A man filled the opening, twin swords held in his hands. The boney scales of his leather armor had inlaid spirals of metal.

  Pimi loosed the scream in her throat.

  Duurir pushed the door back hard against the raider. The raider stepped aside easily. He raised his sword and swung it at Duurir.

  Pimi screamed again, covering her eyes before the sword connected, but she heard the meaty slap of the metal as it struck Du
urir.

  He grunted. A heavy thud followed.

  Pimi jerked her hands away from her eyes. Two strides had the man at her side. He grabbed her by the throat, forcing her to look at him.

  Nodding once, he lifted his sword again and brought the pommel down on her head.

  The Abarine raiders lived in a series of adobe houses built on the side of a cliff. The land on this side of the mountains was dry and barren compared to the tropical coastline of Repp-Virja.

  Pimi waited in a small sandstone alcove off a large hallway, deep under the mountain. A hard muzzle bound her jaws shut and something hard and round filled her mouth. Her headscarf had been lost on the mad ride over the mountains to Abar and her naked scalp almost did more to cow her than the manacle that shackled her to the replete’s bench. She could forget the manacles if she stayed still, but the constant play of air across her bare skin touched on her vulnerability with every caress.

  She had no idea what had happened to the other people at House Imarja. Though the opening of the unadorned alcove was unobstructed, Pimi could see only the wall opposite her. She could not call to see if others were in earshot, because of the muzzle that bound her mouth.

  Wheels squeaked down the hall for longer than winter’s Deep Night before a vast replete was wheeled past the opening to her alcove. He sagged against his belly, drooling. His fingerless hands drummed a random tattoo against the tight skin of his crop. Pimi could not stop staring at the empty sockets where his eyes had been. The cart stopped in front of her alcove.

  If not for the muzzle Pimi would have emptied herself in terror.

  The men and woman accompanying the replete all wore the leather garments that the raiders had worn, though without the spiraling metal inlays of her captor. Underneath the leather, they belled outward in a modest crop, but the weight was worn high, trussed up by their criss-crossing sword belts.

  The men went to the side of the cart and unrolled a long hose while the woman approached Pimi. “Now then, I am Maja, Keeper of the repletes. You’re frightened, poor chickling, I know. But once we know you are trustworthy you won’t have to wear this nasty thing.” She stroked Pimi’s cheek above the hard line of the muzzle.

  Gently, as if Pimi were a varamid chick, Maja unhooked the front of the muzzle. A flow of cool air flowed through the hard thing in Pimi’s mouth and she realized that it was a tube. Maja took the long hose from one of the men. On the end, it had a notched collar a hand’s span from the tip. She threaded it into Pimi’s mouth and twisted, locking the collar to the front of Pimi’s muzzle.

  “Now then, chickling. Disgorge for me, hmm?”

  Pimi’s muscles, so ready to vomit before, tightened in fear and locked her closed.

  Maja stepped to the side so that Pimi had a clear view of the blind replete. “Do not make me ask you twice or you’ll wind up like Blind Irvapp. You’ll find me more patient than others, because don’t I know how scared you are, hmm? But Councilor Hadan won’t brook disobedience. You understand me, chickling, hmm?”

  Looking at the mindless fluttering of the vast replete’s hands, Pimi opened herself and disgorged in a rush. The hose leaped and throbbed in time with the surges from her crop, flowing down the hose and into the replete, until she was empty.

  “There’s my sweet chickling.” Maja unhooked the hose and opened a jar. She poured three capsules into her hand. Gently, she placed them in Pimi’s mouth and connected a different hose. “Make certain these go into your crop, or it will go worse for you. These’ll help you stretch, but only if they’re in the right place and we’ve not much time to ready you for Deep Harvest. You’ll feel some discomfort, but that is a sign of growth, understand me? Growth is good.”

  She put the tube deep in Pimi’s mouth. “I begin now.” Maja twisted the spigot.

  Cold vinegar flooded down Pimi’s throat. Before she could get the sphincter to her crop open, her cheeks bulged from the influx. No gentle flow here, only the frantic rushing of sour liquid as it pushed into her crop. The cold weight dragged her crop down before it began pushing it out. Unlike the warm thick nectar a replete would have given her, this chilled her as it eddied inside her belly.

  When she had been young, she had once swallowed glass after glass of water so that she could play bride with her best friend. Then it had taken only eight glasses to fill her. How many now passed her lips?

  Something deep inside shifted and her belly violently expanded. Like three tiny explosions, waves of pressure suddenly pushed against the walls of her skin forcing her to five-day belly.

  Maja turned off the spigot, but the pressure did not cease. Pimi’s skin tingled and burned as it strained to accommodate the fluid. She arched her back, trying to create more space within her body. As she moved, the vinegar sloshed inside as if she were still half empty.

  “That’s gas from the capsules keeping you tight, chickling. If you show me that you’re a sweet girl, then maybe you won’t need to wear this and wouldn’t that be nice, hmm?”

  Nice? Pimi would do anything to get the hard tube out of her mouth and to stop the pain in her belly.

  Maja unhooked the hose and put the front back on the mask, sealing Pimi’s mouth closed. She stepped back and studied Pimi. “I can see why Councilor Hadan plucked you for his seraglio… He likes those he can feed from and are pretty enough to fuck.”

  Pimi clenched her jaw under the muzzle. He’d killed Duurir. She would do whatever it took to get to him and if that meant the seraglio, well, that would not be so different from a social season in Arrop-Yraaja.

  Filtering through the screened chambers of the seraglio, giggles and murmured conversations played around Pimi as she lay on her side and let Maja rub salve on her distended crop. The cool gel eased the pricking of the constant stretching, though she really only noticed it in the span after a fresh dosing of soda capsules. The initial rush of gas always hurt, but not so much as that first time. And if she contained it, she grew. Growth meant she was one step closer to Hadan.

  “Excited that harvest is coming in, chickling?” Maja peaked over the curve of Pimi’s belly, only the top of her head visible from where she knelt.

  “I’m sorry I am not bigger.” The three months since the raid had only given Pimi time to gain a fourteen-day belly and most of the other girls still dwarfed her. Only the three new girls carried stretching fluid instead of nectar, and Pimi counted her blessings that she was, at least, the largest of them. Keria, a servant girl captured in the same raid as Pimi, was always belching to relieve pressure. These Repp-Virja girls had never aspired to a bride belly like Pimi had. Hadn’t they noticed that the larger girls weren’t required to wear manacles? “Do you think Councilor Hadan will ever call for me?”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty head. We’ll make sure you’ve got a right tasty mix in your crop so as no one notices your size.”

  Pimi nodded, feeling embarrassment steal the color from her scalp.

  “Speaking of mix, we had to drain blind Irvapp because one of you lot had dairy mixed into your crop.”

  Pimi paled further, but Maja was capping the jar of salve and did not notice. “Did he get sour crop?”

  “Worst case we’ve had in years. My fault of course. I should have checked to see what the new repletes were carrying. But who would have mixed like that in the first place?”

  Pushing against the replete couch, Pimi levered herself into a sitting position. “I hardly know.”

  With Maja’s help, Pimi stood and leaned way back to balance her belly. With slow, mincing steps, she felt her way across the floor into the main room of the seraglio. Amid the pillowed recesses of the main room, the other girls reclined on their couches. Deep under the mountain, the cool rounded chambers reminded her of home. Rich reds and pollen yellows enhanced every hanging cloth. Her own tunic had a hem densely embroidered with fine gold thread. Should Ero see her, she would think Pimi very fine indeed.

  Maja helped Pimi settle on her couch and slid the shackle around her wrist.
It was all but unnoticeable among the bangles that graced her arm.

  Leaving Pimi, Maja went to one of larger repletes and pressed her hand deep into the soft bell of Dama’s crop. “I’m glad to see you’ve got space.”

  “Oh, you know Hadan-min. He was hungry both ways when he called for me.” She preened, moistening the skin around her mouth. “Said he had to empty me to make space for his manhood.”

  Laughter filled the seraglio.

  Dama lifted her arm over her head and a new bangle rolled back on her forearm, flashing sparks of red light against her fine green skin. No shackle competed with it. “I should say I pleased him on both counts.”

  When the laughter faded, Maja said, “Well and good, but you’ve pleased me as well. Harvest is supposed to be a large one this year. We’ll need that space.”

  Not until they reached the Deep Yard, did Maja have the new girls empty themselves. “No point in wasting a moment of stretch, hmm?”

  Pimi flushed with water three times before Maja was satisfied that no soda remained in her crop. When she’d finished her last disgorgement, Pimi looked down to her feet. How long had it been since she had seen them? The long grasping toes seemed as if they belonged to someone else. Pimi wiggled each in turn, delighted when they responded. She bent at the waist to touch her feet. The muscles in her back protested before she came near them, but she was able to feel her calves and shins. Across her thighs lay the flaccid skin of her crop, waiting for the harvest.

  At the deep end of the yard, near the stables, a small band of pipe and string players tuned their instruments. Snatches of unfamiliar folk tunes skirted around the edges of conversation.

  The room filled with other people. Some replete, some Abarine workers, but all ready for the harvesters to bring in the baskets of dayfruit. Sweet, nutritious and delicate, it would rot if not consumed within a day of picking.

  The other new repletes were easy to spot, because they too had folds of empty skin hanging across their laps. The ones from the replete caves wore heavy chains. She owed Maja a great debt for picking her for the seraglio. One more day in the replete caves and her face would have been like theirs, slack and dull from isolation in the sandstone alcoves. One man held his face, rocking, as if the sunlight frightened him. Another woman still wore a muzzle—