by R. Lee Smith
“I hadn’t realized you were in the habit of dropping by private chambers,” Olivia prompted.
“Ha, and you know so much of old Murgull?” The crone winked her withered eye in a knowing manner. “But old Murgull, she has news for Olivia, concerning other maggots.” She looked left, then right down the narrow, empty tunnels, listening with ears that were no doubt as keen now as they were in her vanished youth. She dropped her voice still further, and said, “The little brown maggot awaits a new life.”
Olivia stopped and stared at her. “I don’t believe it,” she gasped in English.
Murgull blinked, then glared. “You croak at me, you little frog?!”
“I’m relieved, is all,” Olivia hastened to say.
“Are you?” Murgull grunted and continued walking. “It is soon for that, little sister. No season ever came to brown maggot. Whose child is in her belly, thinks Murgull. When brown maggot’s mate asks if his spark is caught, old Murgull is crafty. Old Murgull says, too soon to tell, too soon. But Murgull thinks Olivia can speak to this maggot. Ask her if a human has been between those bald legs.” Murgull cut Olivia a glance, then frowned. “Old Murgull sees little thoughts like bats flying around in your head. Tell Murgull.”
“What happens,” Olivia said slowly, “if the baby is human? What happens if she was pregnant before she got here?”
Murgull pulled a face, astonishing to see in one so initially ugly. “What do you think happens, eh? Think old Murgull chops her up and eats her? Eh? Do you think no one here has thought this may all be futile? Ha! Futility is all we ever think of,” she grumbled. “Put your hand on Murgull’s arm. The ground is dropping away.”
Sure enough, there was a sudden slope to the floor as Murgull headed down a dark tunnel. Olivia groped for Murgull’s arm and found her crippled wing instead. “Sorry,” she mumbled, fumbling for Murgull’s arm.
Murgull cackled. “Go ahead! No good to Murgull, that withered wing. Dried up like Horumn’s teats. Can’t flap. Can’t glide. Can’t fan it to keep cool. Tears like brown leaves in winter-time. Olivia can use it for guiding her down dark places. Can use it to make little tents from, for all the good it does poor Murgull. Ah, here!” She stopped suddenly, so that Olivia bumped into her.
“Where is here?” she asked, puzzled.
“My home. Old Murgull’s home. Hush, little frog, and Murgull will show you a wonder!”
Olivia couldn’t see what she did, but there was a muted click and then a rumble of heavy weights sliding along metal rails as Murgull pushed the block of wall before them into the wall. Light streamed from all around the hidden door a fraction of a second before Murgull slid it to one side, allowing them entry.
Olivia stepped into a whole new world. Lanterns hung every few feet from the ceiling, some rusted and ancient, others gleaming with newness. Iron pegs quilled the walls, and from each one hung a sprig of dried herbs or a bundle of roots or a wreath of bulbs. The narrow tables crowding this room were cluttered with tools of the witch’s trade, with knives and candles, stone bowls, mortars and pestles, even flasks and burners, and every inch of shelf space was taken up by bottles, both plastic and glass, filled with murky and pungent potions. In the furthest corner, an honest-to-God iron cauldron hung suspended over the dead coals of a fire, and just in case it all needed something even creepier to bind it together, a stone throne of sorts had been carved out of the wall and trimmed with dozens upon dozens of animal bones, from the tiny rat skulls that edged the arms all the way up to the spreading antlers over the crowning arch.
Murgull slid the heavy door shut with a groan, then limped over and sat. She looked around, rubbing at the scarred wattles of her neck, and showed what remained of her teeth in a grin. “A pretty lair, eh? The sigruum has his archives, and the metal-maker his forge, but here does old Murgull do her terrible work and it is a place of such tremendous power that it does not even have a name. Ha. Your mate does not even know it exists, although he would happy enough, I think, just to know I do not work my magic where any hungry eyes can see and learn from me. Imagine, eh? A mountain filled with Murgulls!” She threw back her head and cackled so wickedly that Olivia simply had to join her, but as their laughter ebbed, a cloud passed over the old gulla’s face. “But there must always be one, eh? One like me, to frighten the young and curse the sleep of brave hunters…and I think it must be you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you do not fear me.” Murgull’s good eye gleamed, and not with humor. “And that is a thing which gnaws at Murgull. And so she sits and sits, and broods and broods, and finally decides that either she must kill this fearless naked frog who plagues her or she must embrace it.”
“You decided to embrace it, I hope,” Olivia said, half-smiling.
“I decided to kill it.” Murgull flapped one hand to dismiss Olivia’s blanching stare, then heaved herself up and rummaged among the potions on the nearest table. “And here it is, my wingless sister. Your death in a bottle.”
It was placed in her hands, an old brown beer bottle with the top waxed shut, its contents as pale and thick as honey.
“But I dreamed,” Murgull continued, sinking back into her throne. She watched the bottle as Olivia turned it around, her bad eye glowing gold with candlelight. “And they were dreadful dreams. The Great Spirit has ten thousand hands when he wants them, they say, and he put one around my heart that night, and gave it a terrible squeeze. So. You live, eh? And you are here in the lair that will be your own when these old bones finally go to the ground. And I will teach you to be a plague and a shadow and your mate will never thank me for it, but you may. Ha. You may.”
“I thought you liked me,” Olivia said, as ridiculous and little-girl-lost as that sounded.
“I do.” Murgull took her bottle back and set it among the others with a careless shrug. “I will like you even better now that I do not have to trouble myself with how best to kill you. I will like you better still if the Great Spirit takes his hand from my heart and puts it on your foolish head so that you might learn some of what I have to teach you.”
“The Great Spirit has ten thousand hands,” Olivia grumbled. “He can do both.”
“Ha! Fearless little frog!” Murgull paused and gave her a thoughtful look over one hunched shoulder. “And do you know of the Great Spirit, eh? More than Murgull’s fancies and Murgull’s bad dreams?”
“Some. My mate told me a story last night.”
Murgull snorted. “Did he? Told you of Great Spirit and Urga, yes? Thrashing together at the dawn of the world, oh yes, that is all the story most of these stag-heads want to tell. ‘And they coupled for years and years!’” she chanted, screwing her voice down into a deep, manly pitch while contorting her face into an expression of such grotesque longing that Olivia burst out laughing again, bottle of poison or no. “Years and years…Bah! Murgull has yet to meet the man who could manage, ha, minutes and minutes! But at least he tells you something. The Great Spirit and Urga, yes. Not Bahgree, I think. Not of the River Woman, first mother of all humans.”
Olivia felt her smile slip. “Who?”
“Who, indeed?” Murgull grinned ferociously. “Come, little sister. We will go together to see the little brown maggot, and Olivia can chirp at her and learn what man’s tool has been rutting between her pasty legs. Then, perhaps, Murgull will tell a story.”
8
To Olivia’s surprise, a familiar face appeared in response to Murgull’s bellows as they stood squeezed together in the ‘brown maggot’s chimney. It was the dark-eyed, brown-haired woman from the first human-meet, the one who was married. She peered nervously down at them, bit her lip, and in thickly-accented bat-ese, said, “He no go here. He is to go yesterday about apples bucket. He go here many somedays.”
Olivia and Murgull exchanged a glance. “Difficult enough to do,” Murgull grunted, “when idiot maggot knows our words. You go. Find out the truth from her.”
Olivia handed her candle to the ancient creature, then pu
lled out her climbing spikes and started up the chimney. In English, she said, “It’s all right. Murgull just wants me to talk to you. I’m Olivia.”
“I remember you. I’m…Judith.” She backed away anxiously as Olivia gained the landing of the entry room. “I’m not supposed to be in here when he’s away,” she explained with a nervous laugh.
“He won’t care, not with Murgull out there, and I won’t be long.” Olivia hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Judith, were you pregnant when you were captured?”
Judith flinched, but only slightly. Her face folded in on itself, and she twisted away. “Come into the bedroom,” she whispered. “I’m not supposed to be in here.”
Olivia followed her out of the small entry room into a slightly larger sleeping room. There was no fireplace, only a few strategically-placed lanterns, a few furs and leathers in the pit, and a bucket for a chamberpot. Judith sat on the only bench and ran her hands restlessly over her knees.
“So,” she said after a moment. “That witch out there is pretty sure?”
“That witch out there is positive,” Olivia agreed, sitting opposite her. “But since you never got your period after you came here, she can’t be sure that you weren’t already pregnant when you arrived.”
Judith gazed into the fire. Her hands rubbed at her knees, almost separate from the rest of her body. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t feel sick. My mom never got morning sick. I don’t feel pregnant at all. I don’t know. I guess…if we’ve been here as long as I think we have…I know I should have gotten my period by now. I guess I’m pregnant. It could be David’s.”
Olivia felt lost. How was this supposed to continue? “Have you…have you had sex with…with…”
“With my abductor, yes.”
Now Olivia took a deep breath, having an inkling of how to determine whether or not Judith had conceived by her husband or her captor. “What has it been like?”
Judith turned slowly towards her. “Excuse me?”
“Sex. With your, um, abductor. I mean, is it always slow and kind of drawn out, or has there been a time when it was quick and…and kind of violent, maybe, and several times a night?”
Judith took a deep breath and let it out. “It has always been,” she said, enunciating clearly, “very slow, very nervous, and very thorough.”
In other words, either Judith’s captor was the only gullan in the world with self-control, or she’d never been in season.
“That actually means something, doesn’t it?” Judith asked, frowning.
Olivia tried to shrug, but it came off looking wooden and forced. “It might. Probably. I don’t know enough about them to say for sure.” And this was true, she didn’t know enough about them. Were the gullan males so sensitive to female fertility because they could only conceive during their seasons? Or were they like humans, who were certainly more fertile at that time of the month, but who could catch at any time?
Her distraction and silence clearly made Judith uneasy. She rubbed her palms over her knees, looking at Olivia, at the lantern, at the paints on the wall, at the pit. Suddenly, she said, “The first time he tried was the day after I woke up here, but I started crying so hard that he gave up. He couldn’t do it again for a while, but after that…it’s been almost every night, unless I cry. I don’t…I don’t like crying in front of him. I’m afraid he’ll make me tell him why and I don’t want him to know about David. I don’t…I don’t want to share that.” She rubbed at her knees again. “But…I suppose I have to, if I’m having David’s baby. Do you really think I am?”
Olivia hesitated, then said, “See, the thing is, when women are at their most fertile, whether it’s us or them, we apparently all give off a particular scent, which the gullan can, um…”
Judith was nodding. “I know,” she said quietly. “Tina says they’re more pheromone-receptive, whatever that means.”
“Well, in this particular case, it means they can tell when we’re, um, ovulating. And it has an extremely powerful effect on them. If you had ovulated after you got here, your…abductor would have been, um, very aggressive in bed. So, I’m not a doctor, but I think you must have already been pregnant.”
“I understand.” Judith looked at the pit, and her expression was still serene. “You know…I think he loves me. I look at him and I can’t…I can’t see anyone but the monster…who took me away from my home…who made my husband a widower…who is killing me. But he loves me. He thinks he’s making love to me. He thinks…I’m making love with him.”
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, Olivia could think of to say to this.
“But, believe it or not, this actually settles my mind. I mean, if I’m definitely pregnant, then I definitely have to deal with it, you know?”
“Yes,” Olivia said.
“So that’s what I’m going to do.” Judith stood up, and started walking back into the entry room. “But do me a favor, please. I want to tell him myself. Tell Murgull that I’ve been with another human, but that it was a while ago. That’s not exactly a lie. When I’m ready, I’ll let the truth be known.”
“I can do that.”
“Okay.” Judith watched as Olivia lowered herself through the chimney, then vanished from sight as she left the entry room.
No sooner had Olivia’s feet touched the stone floor than Murgull was prodding her in the side with one blunt claw. “Well?”
“She’s not sure.” Olivia looked Murgull in the eye calmly. “She wasn’t even certain she was pregnant. She has been with another human, but it was some time ago.”
Murgull leaned back a little, rubbing her scars in a brooding fashion. “Some time ago…Did she say when? What was the moon on that time ago, hm? Was it fat like a mother-swollen belly or thin like a sleeping eye?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Some time ago,” Murgull muttered, moving away down the main passageway. “What shall Murgull say to the mate of that human?”
“Say nothing, for now. She says she’ll tell him herself when she’s ready.”
Murgull grunted, nodding. “Easy to make a silence, little sister, but never easier to break it with words of truth, or even words of lies.”
“This is her decision and I think we have to respect it.”
“Why?”
Olivia blinked. “It’s her mate, isn’t it? And her baby.”
“Bah.” Murgull flapped her hand at her. “You go back to your lair now, little sister. Your mate will be coming to fill your belly soon, hm?” She cackled. “Fill it and fill it again, eh?”
“But you said you would tell me about Bahgree.”
Murgull nodded, waving her hands in cranky dismissal. “Not so young as you, is Murgull. Needs to rest herself. But come to my secret place after your mate goes happy back to his hunting. You know where it is. Come, and we will have some chat together. Long and long into the day.” Another witchy cackle. “And then you will go home to another thrash in your pit. Long and very long.” Still chortling, Murgull stumped off down the tunnel.
Olivia knew better than to try and argue. Instead, she found her way back to her lair, and there, to her great surprise, was Vorgullum. “I thought you were going hunting,” she said.
“I tried,” he murmured. “You have been haunting me, my Olivia. I heard your laughter in the running water and your sighs in every slip of wind. I felt your teasing hands and the touch of your body in the air as it lifted me. I am half-mad with wanting you.”
“Prove it,” she said, smiling.
9
For Olivia, there was only a shadow of the previous night’s pleasure, only a dull heat made bright with friction and the familiar shuddering of her purely physical responses. He did not appear to notice the difference, but made the effort at times to look at her before burrowing against her neck and groaning his desire into her ears. At last, finished, he forced himself from the bench with obvious reluctance, wrapping himself up in clothing with muttered curses, then fumbled out some food from hi
s belt-pouch and tossed it to her.
“Great Mountain, give me strength,” he moaned, leaving. “I will never hear the end of this.”
Humming, Olivia cleaned up and got dressed again. She snacked on her lunch as she walked down the tunnels, stopping by the common cave to see if anyone she knew was there.
Ms. Africa was there with Anita and Ellen, along with two others she didn’t immediately recognize. Anita saw her in the doorway and waved her over, grinning.
Much as she hated to make Murgull wait, Olivia went.
“They said there would only be five today,” Anita said. “Okay, ya’ll, quick recap: this is Carla, Karen and Ellen.”
Olivia waved at Ellen and gave Karen a smile, saying, “I saw Liz yesterday.”
“Yeah?” Karen, who was indeed very tan, particularly for their corner of the Pacific Northwest, rather disinterestedly finger-combed a section of her limp blonde hair and started braiding it. “She ask about me?”
She hadn’t, now that Olivia thought about it. “She seemed worried, you know,” she hedged. “Wondering if you’d been taken.”
Karen snorted. “She probably just wants my half of the rent. Bitch.”
“You have this great excuse for not having it this month,” Carla remarked, and Anita laughed.
“Believe me,” said Karen, shaking out her half-made braid. “Being kidnapped out of your bed by a horny bat-monster means nothing to Elizabeth ‘Checkbook’ Chase. I ate one of her precious power bars once and she charged me two bucks and thirty-seven cents. She’s a bitch.”
Ms. Africa cleared her throat in a tight, angry way.
“Oh, I forgot, and this is Her Royal Highness, Mrs. Victoria Viktabitch.” There were some snickers and an especially scathing glare from Ms. Africa which Anita cheerfully ignored. “Excuse me, I meant Viktavich. Come on in and set yaself, as my daddy says.”
“I really can’t,” Olivia said. “I’m actually on my way to see a friend.”
“They let you run around by yourself?” Carla asked, stunned.