by R. Lee Smith
“I see. May I join you?”
The women stopped what they were doing long enough to expand the circle to accommodate her, and Olivia sat down.
“Everyone knows you,” Thurga announced, gesturing at the rest of them in turn. “But this is Rumm and Crugunn, and these are Ellen, Karen, Carla, Tina, Tobi, Anita, and Victoria.” She stumbled only a little over the human names and grinned hugely when she finished.
“We’ve all met,” Victoria said in an icy tone. She gave her young basket a particularly vicious twist.
“Not all of us. So you’re Tobi!” Olivia exclaimed.
Tobi, a lean little thing with spiky tufts of platinum hair streaked with nightclub colors and growing in as dark as Olivia’s own, looked up from her own clumsy basket. “Um, yeah?”
“I’ve met your Doru. Sort of.”
“Yeah?” Tobi looked tickled. “Nice guy, ain’t he?”
“I liked him,” Olivia agreed, thinking of the disembodied voice’s soothing growl that night in the tunnels when she’d lost Vorgullum, and of the gentle strength in his massive hand.
“Lemme tell you, fucking him’s a real hoot.” Her voice deepened into a slow exaggeration of a male gulla’s rich baritone, funnier to hear in English, “‘Lie down with me, my Tobi. Tonight, I am for you.’ Which sounds really sweet until he pulls out that fucking cannon and aims it you!” She gave Tina beside her a friendly nudge to the ribs, giggling. “Not that I’m what you call shy about heavy artillery, but damn!”
The gullan were studying her curiously, plainly wondering what on earth she was saying to make the other humans laugh.
“He’s like, extremely glad to have me around. And Jesus, well, you met him, he’s big as a fucking house. I can’t even touch my hands around his chest, he’s that fucking big.” Tobi came to the end of one strip of bark and started weaving in another. “He thinks he’s crushing me. I swear to God, he’ll be humpin’ away and suddenly he’ll stop and go—” Her voice deepened again. “‘Are you still breathing?’” She shook her head, grinning. “Other than that, he’s really cool. I’d never fucked a guy before. He can be pretty intense.”
The gullan apparently decided the humans were never going to revert to gullanese without a subtle reminder. “Did your mate meet with the other hunters?” Thurga asked slyly.
“Eventually,” Olivia replied straight-faced. “They had to beat me back with a stick, but they did manage to pull him away, the six of them.”
“Such a handsome, handsome male,” Rumm sighed. “When I see him in the baths, I could just cry, thinking of that fine body wasted on a human.”
“Believe me, sisters, no part of him is ever wasted.”
“His loincloth,” murmured Thurga, and giggled.
“Evil little frog,” Crugunn said, shaking her head. “How I wish things were not as they are.”
“You’re not the only one,” Karen muttered.
“So!” Crugunn began brightly. “You are Murgull’s apprentice.”
Thurga offered Olivia one of her shy smiles, but Rumm looked alarmed.
“That’s true,” Olivia said. “I can’t begin to say how surprised I was.”
“She does tend to trap one into doing things,” Crugunn agreed. “But if you ask me, she should have taken an apprentice years ago. And all respect to you, Olivia, but I don’t know how I feel about having a human for a healer.”
“You know,” Tina began slowly, in English. “I’ve got a bachelor’s degree and four years medical school, the last two with a residency in the ER. I think I’m a bit more qualified to hang a shingle down here than a…?”
“Receptionist,” Olivia supplied, unoffended. “And I think you’re right. After lunch, we’ll go see Murgull together, and you can tell her yourself.”
Tina worked at her basket in silence for a while, then shook her head. “No,” she said, and huffed out a dry laugh. “I honestly believe I’d rather let a glorified phone jockey work me over than go tell old Murgull anything at all.”
“What was that?” Thurga asked when she was certain the conversation was concluded. The humans stumbled over a rough translation, which left them all more confused than when they started, and Thurga nodded wisely.
“Bolga,” Rumm said bluntly, and they all looked at her. Rumm looked around crossly. “Well, I want to talk about it. No one says anything except how horrible it is that the poor idiot should be bred. Of course, we all think that’s terrible,” she added, including the other gullan in her statement. “But it was no unforgivable crime until the male that rutted with her refused to name himself.”
“Why should he?” Karen asked. “Bolga isn’t going to say anything, so why should he hang himself?”
“It’s nice to know that being a dickhead is a universal attitude,” Tina added in English.
“Don’t you speak batty?” Anita asked her.
Tina shook her head. “I’m working on it. I understand it okay, but I just can’t make my damn mouth obey me.”
Tobi snickered and gave Tina a friendly sock to the arm. “I had the same trouble,” she said. “So Doru came up with this great plan where every day I spoke nothing but bat, he’d go into town and get me some real food. Supermarket food, right? The very first time I got a Ho-Ho and a beer, I started getting my growl down, you’re fucking-A.”
“Now that,” Tina said, grinning, “is a real good idea. But Gullnar would never go for it. His idea of encouraging words are, ‘What the hell’s wrong with you now?’”
“I think I’d crawl naked to hell on a road of jagged glass for a cup of coffee,” Karen remarked.
“Chocolate,” Ellen said dreamily.
“Pizza. Sausage and mushroom, extra cheese, thick crust, piping hot, with a side order of buffalo wings,” Anita sighed.
“Anything from McDonalds,” Carla put in. “I personally hate McDonalds, and I’ve only eaten there ten times in my entire life, but I’ve been fantasizing about them lately. You know, the fantasy where you go in and the place is empty except for a giant burger, and you roll around naked on the sesame seed bun and paint your body with special sauce?”
“What do you mean, ‘fantasy’?” Tobi asked, and they all laughed.
“Me?” Olivia said, sitting down. “I’d like to eat my way through a Chinese restaurant. Start with the egg roll and work up to Moo Goo Gai Pan. Just suck it down.”
“Why Chinese?” Anita asked, screwing up her face in revulsion.
“Because an hour later, you’re hungry, and you can do it all again.”
“Is that all you miss?” Thurga asked curiously. “Food?”
“Hell, no!” Karen gave her basket a particularly vicious twist. “I miss my fucking bed! A real mattress, with sheets and blankets instead of sheepskins and old tents. Waking up every night with zipper tracks all over my face…” She trailed off, muttering.
The gullan couldn’t understand all of this, but they understood enough to nod and murmur wisely. “Miss your bed,” Crugunn mused. “Miss the mate that warmed it with you, yes?”
Karen rolled her eyes. “Believe me, the last thing I miss is sex.”
“Sometimes I do,” said Ellen after a moment. “At least, I miss hairless chests and foreplay. But after the string of mistakes I have made up there, I have to admit, my guy down here really doesn’t seem so bad, you know, once you get to know him. He is kind of a dickhead sometimes, but only sometimes, which is actually something of an improvement for me.”
“Dick…head,” Rumm repeated in awkward English.
“A derogatory term,” Olivia supplied helpfully. “It means, someone with his brains in his loincloth.”
The gullan “aaah”d in unison, each with the same expression of pensive enlightenment. Olivia got the feeling that by the end of the day, a new word would be penciled in to the gullan dictionary, if there was one.
“Remind me to thank you for adding vulgarity to our splendid new lives, dear Olivia,” Victoria muttered.
“Oh dry up, darl
ing,” Ellen returned.
“Already has,” Carla murmured and smirked at Victoria’s glare.
Thurga cleared her throat casually. “Ellen, may I ask you a question, from one woman to another?”
“Yes, of course.” Ellen put down the basket she was mutilating and gave the other her full attention. “What is it?”
“What is it like to couple with Mudmar?”
All three gullan looked at Ellen expectantly.
Ellen leaned back and considered the question. “Well,” she said after a moment. “It’s different.”
“From what?”
“From humans, for one. Gullan are heavier, and, um, bigger. At least, mine is.” Ellen was beginning to blush. “It feels different, too. I…I don’t know how to answer, Thurga. I’ve never been with another gulla, I don’t have any way to compare him. Why?”
Thurga fussed with her basket for a while, then put it down and looked up seriously. “I tried, once, to seduce him.”
The other two gullan looked quickly at her and away.
Thurga shrugged and returned her attention to her hands. “Yes, I couple, although I’m always careful about it. But I have wanted Mudmar for many years and he would not have me. Would not have anyone. I just wondered…” She trailed off with a wistful sigh and picked up her basket again.
Crugunn showed a slip of fang in a sly gullan smile. “I wouldn’t say he would not have anyone,” she remarked.
The other two gullan stared at her. “No,” Thurga said, plainly meaning, ‘Tell me more.’
But Crugunn only shrugged. “I don’t spread rumors. I say only that Mudmar and a certain woman have been known to find work in the same abandoned lairs and passageways on several interesting occasions. But it is not for me to say that they are meeting to couple.”
“So long as they are careful,” Rumm said mildly, and reached out to give Thurga a sympathetic pat on the knee.
“If ya’ll ask me,” Anita began, “it’s stupid to expect a whole tribe to abstain from sex.”
Carla snorted, whether in agreement or scorn, it was difficult to say.
“What is this, abstain?” Crugunn asked, laughing. “It just takes more effort.”
“That, or one of Murgull’s awful potions,” Rumm agreed. “Unless you want a thrashing with Augurr.”
Karen obviously had trouble with that translation. “Want a what? With who?”
“Augurr,” the three gullan women said together, then looked at each other and giggled.
Rumm continued alone, smiling toothily. “Augurr could not keep himself from rutting with the women, even after the old leader forbade it. Child after child he fathered and punishment after punishment he suffered for it, but if a woman offered, he couldn’t help but rut with her. In tunnels, in the growing place, through the doors, even in the baths! Finally, the old leader took him up to a high place and gave him some human drink. When Augurr’s head was heavy, the old leader took out his hunting knife and whacked off his stones.”
“His…” Ellen’s eyes grew huge. “Oh gross!”
“Harsh,” Tobi agreed lightly. “But what can you do, right?”
“Oh, it was a terrible secret at the time! Augurr was not the only male to breed without consent, you see, and I suppose he was afraid that he would not stand tall if enough of the tribesmen disagreed with his decision. Besides, Augurr was a full-moon’s child, and to kill one is a terrible offense to the Great Spirit. But as it happened, after Augurr recovered, the old leader was shocked to see that Augurr’s appetites had not diminished. In fact, he was tumbling females twice as often as before, because now there was no threat of sparking.”
“No way,” Karen said, not wonderingly but in a tone of flat disbelief. “You can’t get it up without balls.”
“Sure you can,” Tina replied, by all appearances more interested in basket-weaving than her argument, which was delivered with her customary lack of delicacy. “Although it’s unusual for a man to retain his libido after castration, it’s perfectly possible for him to have sex. Historically, eunuchs were employed not to guard harems, but to keep the girls satisfied while ensuring that no one but the king fathered any children.”
“No way!” Karen said again, but now she was only astonished.
“Totally true.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Ellen asked in a marveling tone.
Tobi laughed. “She knows everything. Accept it now. It’s easier.”
“So where is Augurr now?” Karen asked, glancing toward the hunters at the far end of the cavern.
“Oh, you won’t find him there,” Thurga said, laughing scornfully. “His many eager women keep his belly full for him, so he has not hunted for many years, but he can always be found if one looks hard enough.”
“Particularly if the one looking is female, eh?” Crugunn flapped her wings suggestively. “And human.”
“What difference does that make?” Karen asked.
The gullan exchanged giggling glances, but it was Carla who answered, saying, in English, “Huge difference, apparently. They’ve all got this mystical bullshit idea that us humans are all descended from some sort of succubus or something. Plus, you know how they’ve all got such huge dicks, so think about it in reverse: All us humans are the tightest fucks they’ve ever had.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Victoria snapped, and bent over her basket.
“How do you know they’ve ‘all’ got huge dicks?” Karen asked, smirking.
Carla glanced at her coolly and kept weaving.
“If you’re curious,” Crugunn said, once the English had stopped, “I think Vorgullum has ordered Augurr to work in the new tunnel.”
Victoria’s lips had been growing progressively thinner with every word. Now she put down her ring of precisely-woven bark strips and stood up. “This conversation,” she said frostily, “has degenerated to adolescent perversity. You may continue without me.” She turned and stalked off.
The three gullan bristled, teeth bared, watching her go.
“Excuse me,” Rumm said darkly, “but did she just call me a pervert?”
“Called us all perverts,” Thurga growled. The short, spiky hairs on the back of her neck was standing straight up in outrage. “That slimy, naked maggot called me a pervert!”
“Move in,” Crugunn commanded. “Let’s not leave a space for her.”
They all shuffled in slightly and took up their baskets again.
“This may sound silly,” Olivia announced without warning, “but I’m really enjoying this. I haven’t been able pass more than a few words with another woman since I got here. Well, Murgull, but she’s not a female as much as a force of nature.”
“Agreed.” Rumm nodded at Olivia, then at the door. “Speak of the storm, and the winds will rise.”
“Huh?”
“Here you are!” Murgull’s gruff, cantankerous voice split the air like thunder. “Old Murgull calls outside your chambers until her poor throat bleeds, and you are here! Like she-goats chewing cud together. Fine sight for Murgull! Murgull who works, Murgull who slaves, Murgull who has no rest and no food! Put down that foolishness, and come with me!”
“I was on my way to see you,” Olivia began, scrambling up.
“On your way, is it? On your way! On your way on your round, hairless bottom with your hands full of basket! If you had a wing, I would twist it,” Murgull fumed, and gave Olivia a sharp swat to the backside. “Hop, frog!”
Olivia jumped ahead of her and set off down the passage, with Murgull at her heels and laughter ringing in her ears.
“First, you will show me how much you remember of the plants that grow, and then I will teach you how to turn plants into medicine. If I use words you do not know—” Murgull began and stopped. “Look there,” she said quietly, staring off down a side passage.
Olivia turned back and looked where Murgull was facing. At first, she didn’t see anything, but then she saw a huddled figure against the wall. “Who is that?” she asked, alm
ost as if she expected Murgull to know.
Murgull shook her head. “It is one of your kind. Not well. How pale she is, how still. You, human!” she called.
No response.
Olivia raised her voice, called out in English. “Who’s that? What’s wrong?”
A shockingly pale face lifted out of folded arms. Eyes like burnt holes in a blanket stared vacuously back at them. “Olivia?”
“Liz?”
“Olivia, I done a bad thing.” Liz did something supremely disturbing then. She reached up with one shaky hand and put her thumb in her mouth.
“Liz, honey, come on out of there.” Olivia reached out in what she hoped was a coaxing manner. She felt ridiculous talking to a grown woman as though she was a child, but doubted Liz would notice. “What’s wrong?”
Liz looked up into the narrow chute leading to someone’s private chambers. “I killed her.”
9
They proved unable to move Liz by themselves, and neither Olivia nor Murgull wanted to bring anyone else into this until they knew exactly what was going on. Olivia climbed up the chute first and into a small entry room with three chambers leading off it.
“Holy God,” she said, reverting to English without thinking. She looked around, recognizing this place.
Murgull heaved herself up into the room beside Olivia and looked around. “Brown human lives here, yes?”
Olivia swallowed and heard a dry click. There was a lump of pure horror in the back of her throat that would not go away. She felt her legs moving her into the pit room.
Judith was lying in the pit, arranged as though she were sleeping. In the dim light cast by the dying coals, she almost seemed to be breathing.
Almost.
Judith’s eyes were closed, but not even the flickering firelight could disguise the too-pale cast on her lifeless flesh. Her lips had turned blue.
Olivia crawled into the pit and knelt slowly beside her. She felt for a pulse, expecting, and finding, none.
“What happened here?” Murgull uttered a low, groaning cry and slumped down onto a bench. “Ah, Lorchumn! Great Spirit, how he will grieve!”