by R. Lee Smith
Although Lorchumn’s lair was quite small in comparison to Vorgullum’s, he had still made an effort to give his human her own space. Judith had only a corner for her own, but that corner had been softened with a woven mat, its walls painted with the mate-markings of welcome, and all her things arranged there—two well-worn magazines, a number of flowers in various stages of death, a flashlight with dead batteries, and a woman’s purse. Inside the purse were several cosmetics, a set of keys, an unopened package of nylon stockings, an address book, a checkbook, two ballpoint pens, an old shopping list, an empty box of Tic Tacs, an empty package of cigarettes, an empty bag of cough drops, and a wallet. The wallet held forty-two dollars and seventeen cents, a library card, two video cards, three credit cards, a health club membership card, a driver’s license, a voter’s registration card, a small assortment of business cards and two photographs of a sandy-haired smiling man. David, she supposed. Judith’s husband.
Judith’s life.
Olivia sat and stared in fascination at these things. The empty package of cigarettes had not been pressed flat, but had been blocked and preserved. She lifted it to her nose and breathed in deeply, getting only a faint whiff of tobacco, which nevertheless filled her heart with nostalgia and filled her eyes with tears. The empty box of Tic Tacs still smelled faintly of mint, and now she was crying hard. The empty bag of cough drops still had that tart mediciny smell, and when she licked the inside of the bag experimentally, she could taste it as well.
At last, Olivia put all of these things away again and arranged them neatly back in the purse. She wiped her eyes and returned to the stone bench to sit and collect herself.
She had no idea how much time had passed by now, but suspected at least two hours, and maybe three. She didn’t know when Lorchumn would be back, but doubted it would be for some time. Digging a grave was difficult work, especially in the hard, rocky ground this far up the mountain.
Still, he was probably expecting Olivia to have accomplished something, so she wracked her brain to think of what. After a minute’s unease, she went to Judith’s purse and brought back the cosmetics. She didn’t intend to apply any make-up, since she knew she wouldn’t do a very good job and she’d end up making the body look creepy. Instead, she began to paint Judith’s body, using sweeping lines of lipstick and powdery eyeshadow in designs she hoped looked sufficiently mystical. It worked for Mojo Woman; she thought it would work for Judith, too.
The result was actually quite striking, she thought, leaning back to admire her work. Judith still looked very dead, but her serene sleeping expression coupled with the ritualistic markings applied all over her body gave her a funereal air. Olivia pulled the braid around her neck and draped it back between Judith’s breasts, then arranged her hands on her belly. She put Judith’s legs together, toes turned inward, and decided she was ready for burial.
As if on cue, she heard Lorchumn call her name tentatively from the entry chute.
When she answered, he climbed up into his lair and came to stand over her, looking down at Judith with a mixture of grief and resignation. She realized that in his eyes, the ritual markings over Judith’s body made it easier to accept that she was dead, and she was proud of herself for thinking of it.
“I brought something to wrap her in,” he offered hesitantly, after he’d gazed on the body for some time. “Is that…permitted?”
She had been expecting more camping equipment, or perhaps a tarp, but what he gave her was a set of king-size bed sheets, still wrapped in plastic with a price tag in the upper corner. They were a crisp white in color, with a black trim and border. As sheets went, they were very nice, and very expensive, too. She couldn’t help but imagine Lorchumn smashing the display window at Mattress Town and picking his way casually through the sheets until he found a set appropriate to bury Judith in.
Noticing her stunned expression, Lorchumn shifted uneasily. “I stole them,” he said. “Of course. There is a place where things like this are gathered. There are big, soft benches, wrapped in blankets and other fabrics like this. I know she didn’t like what I had here. I thought…she should have something better for…this. I wish…” He sent the sleeping pit and its sorry heap of tents and fleeces a miserable glance. “I wish I had done something sooner. I knew she didn’t like the bedding I had. I knew—”
“Stop, Lorchumn.” She touched his arm, then his cheek. “Please.”
He turned his head slightly into the cup of her hand and that was all for a long time. Finally, he took her wrist and moved her gently aside. “I need to get some rope,” he said dully, and withdrew to let Olivia wrap the body.
Olivia used the knife to open the plastic wrapping, and pulled out the set of sheets. One top, one fitted, two pillowcases. She wrapped the pillowcases up with Judith, first in the fitted sheet, then in the top sheet. By the time she was finished, Lorchumn was back. She bound the body at the shoulders, the waist, the knees and the ankles, and that was all there was to do.
“Thank you.” Lorchumn bent and gathered the body up easily in his arms. He stood, looking down at Olivia with naked agony. “I know you didn’t want to come here, and I know it was hard for you to stay and do what had to be done to release my beloved mate’s soul. The meat of my kills are yours.”
The last thing in the world she wanted was to take food out of his mouth on his first night of mourning, but she realized that he was close to tears, and to avoid having to see them, she gave in. “Because it means so much to you, I accept.”
He nodded once, then turned and carried Judith away.
Olivia stayed behind, gathering up the bedding which had been fouled by Judith’s last hours. She didn’t take it all—just two tents and one sorry scrap of fur—because she wasn’t at all sure if there were a clean stack somewhere in the mountain to replace what she took, but Lorchumn shouldn’t have to come home to the stains and smells of death. So she took the worst of it, dropped it down the chute, then climbed down herself and started to gather them up again.
“You did a good thing, Olivia,” she heard someone say.
She thought it was Vorgullum’s voice at first, but it was just a little off. Turning, she saw a gulla just a little too short, a little too broad, and a little too…off to be her mate. In other words, a gulla who was probably nothing like Vorgullum at all, and that was just how badly she wanted to see him. “I had no choice,” she said, bending again to gather the bedding.
“Of course you did. You could have refused to come here, like all the other humans. Instead, you came and performed the final service for that poor woman. No one here will forget that.”
“Do I know you?” she asked irritably, holding the wet, smelly fabric in her arms.
“Let me take that,” he said, and did without waiting for agreement. “My name is Sudjummar. I’m the tribe’s metal-maker. You’re wearing my claws.”
“Oh,” she said in a little voice.
He smiled at her. “I don’t expect you to know that. I don’t expect you to know me at all, except that I have seen you once in the mines, and twice in the tunnels. Vorgullum talks about you, but he hasn’t mentioned your bravery.”
She gave a very unladylike snort and tried to look around him. “Where is he?”
“Waiting for you, I should think. The others are at home with their mates, trying to comfort them and explain.”
“Then you should be with yours,” she said.
He smiled at her. “I have no mate,” he told her, and turned away down the tunnel.
She saw why immediately. Even in the dim light, she could see the knobs of his malformed spine pushing against his thin skin through balding patching of hair. His wings were askew, atrophied, and blotchy. When he walked, it was with a light, strangely graceful limp.
“I have no mate,” he said again, lightly now, “so I have more time to think. And I have thought about you quite often. For many days, all we knew of you humans was that you were here. We heard some names, and a very few stories, none of t
hem pleasant…then, you all came out together, and suddenly all we hear are tales of Olivia. Olivia, Murgull’s apprentice. Olivia, who gentles the angry hearts of her kind. Olivia, who praises and pleases her mate. What is it about you that makes us want to tell you our true names? What is it that makes us listen to your words?”
“And what have you decided?” she asked, following him down the mainway towards the women’s tunnels.
“Nothing, yet. But I’m glad I met you. I see a sadness inside you and yearning for things you will never have again. But I also see a strength and a sense of purpose, and that is something none of the others have. Even Mojo Woman, who seems to think she has some power over us, has no real sense of purpose. And Cheyenne, who is very strong, has nothing inside her but rage. You’re different, Olivia. You are truly a leader.”
“No, I’m truly not,” she told him. “And I never wanted to be.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I never wanted to be a metal-maker.” He reached Horumn’s ‘waiting place’ and set the ruined bedding down on the bench inside the alcove. He went on ahead to the iron door, struck at it with a small hammer he had hung on his belt, and said, “I just wanted to be special enough for someone to want to keep me fed. Discovering that I actually had talent at it came as something of a pleasant surprise. Hold a moment.”
Sudjummar paused to exchange a few low words with whoever had answered his knock. When he came away from the door, gesturing comfortably for Olivia to follow him, she did. “They will see it all properly burnt,” he told her. “And have fresh things brought before Lorchumn’s return. You were the only one who thought of that, you know.”
“I was the only one who had to see it,” she reminded him. And smell it.
“Have it your way,” he said mildly, and went on. “I began my work as the clumsy fool who hauled rock for the old metal-maker, and by the first snows of the following year, I had surpassed him. Good for Sudjummar, eh? Are you wondering yet why I’m telling you all this?”
“Yes,” said Olivia. “Very much.”
“It’s to tell you that fate is seldom found in the first place you look for it.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” she sighed.
“You don’t like that one? All right, try this: Once you turn rock into metal, you can never make it back into rock,” he said. “By tomorrow, all the tribe will know what you did for Lorchumn tonight. By tomorrow, we’ll know that you don’t simply stand tall beside your mate, you stand tall all on your own.” He gave her a sly, sideways smile. “That should lead to some interesting moments.”
“Thank you,” Olivia said, not at all certain if she’d just been paid a compliment or a warning. “And thank you for walking with me, but I see my mate’s lair just ahead and I need to go back to him.”
“I had my own selfish reasons for keeping your company,” Sudjummar said. “But if ever you wish to speak with me again, I can always make myself available. I do very few things well outside of my forge, but I can listen.” He raised his hand in a gullan salute, then walked back the way they’d come, leaving Olivia to climb up into Vorgullum’s lair.
Vorgullum was in the sleeping room, hunkered down before the fire, stirring it with a poker. She made a deliberate soft sound and he looked around.
“Are you well?” he asked quietly.
“I hurt,” she answered. “It was very hard for me.”
He nodded, rising and stood aside as she undressed and climbed into bed. “Do you,” he began awkwardly, “want to be alone?”
“Never, Vorgullum.”
He crawled into the pit beside her and stretched out, warm and solid next to her skin.
She rolled up close against him, put her arms around him and felt his arms close around her. The weight of the last twenty-four hours eased away from them, and she slept.
11
Olivia was jostled awake only a few hours later when Vorgullum rose. He moved slowly and quietly, unaware that she was not asleep, and left as quickly as he could. Olivia considered going back to sleep, but remembered that she had agreed to meet with Cheyenne. It was the last thing in the world she wanted to do this morning, with Judith’s death still fresh in her mind, but she had promised and even if she hadn’t, she felt compelled to go to the women’s tunnels and help where she could. As a hunter’s mate—the leader’s mate, even—she wasn’t obligated to do so, which only made the urge that much stronger.
So she got up, heavy heart and all, to use Vorgullum’s private washroom, don the climbing claws that no one else had, go freely down from the leader’s lair, and do her part to fit in with the other humans of Hollow Mountain. To lead them, no less.
The hunters were gathering in the commons when she passed it. Vorgullum himself was not in evidence, but several others saw her as she peeked in and raised their hands in salute. She waved back, somewhat uncertainly, and moved on.
Although early morning (if the grey light shining down from the mirrors in the commons could be trusted), the mainway was not entirely deserted. She walked close to the wall where she couldn’t trip up the few hunters running to meet up with the others, and found herself forming a slow-traffic lane with the older, less-able gullan on their way to clear Vorgullum’s shift-work tunnel. Now and then, a female would hurry past—filling and lighting lanterns, hauling bundles of fuel or water jugs, delivering supplies, or simply rushing about their own mysterious business—and Olivia could not help but notice that these laborers were invariably aged and unattractive specimens of gullan femininity. More than one cast a curious glance Olivia’s way, surprising her not a little with their seemingly sincere lack of resentment.
When she reached the women’s tunnels, she found Horumn standing just on the other side of the locked door, gripping onto the bars for balance as she bent and rubbed the misshapen mass of her left leg. She straightened up fast when she caught the splash of Olivia’s flashlight, then saw her and made a predictable face. “What do you want?”
“I’ve come to help.”
“Help? All the help we need from you can be got in your own lair with your naked legs open! Go away!”
Olivia felt herself blushing and that embarrassment, more than the crudity of Horumn’s sneer, made her usually mild temper flare. “Am I forbidden here?” she demanded. “Because if I am, then I’ll leave you in peace, but I will know the reason why from my mate! And if I’m not,” she went on as Horumn stepped back with a narrow frown, “then open this door and stop giving me trouble!”
Horumn shifted her eyes away, aiming her scowl behind her into the riot of the women’s commons, and back again. “So. You would use him as a spear against me.”
“And you! You would force me to use a spear just to open a damned door! You don’t have to like me. You don’t even have to be civil to me, but don’t make problems for me and expect me to slink away!”
Horumn grunted, made as though to spit, then thought better of it and simply unlocked the door. “Do what you will then,” she muttered, standing aside. “But do not expect me to hold your hand.”
Olivia bit back the first retort to spring to mind (and the second), and went on. Inside the commons, the chaos she remembered had been dramatically reduced, mostly because there were only three other humans working here alongside the gullan, but she supposed that would change once they’d all awakened. It was still awfully early. All the same, she headed over to where Amy was hard at work peeling and chopping roots, tapped her on the shoulder, and asked if Cheyenne had been by yet.
“Yeah, she got dropped off about ten minutes after I did.” Amy sent a swift glance upwards, careful of the sharp blade at work in her hand, and politely said, “Why, out of curiosity, in the blue blazes would you want to waste your time with that rabid bitch?”
“She wants to talk to me.”
“I’ll bet. You realize she wants your help escaping?”
“I figured,” Olivia said glumly. “But what am I supposed to tell her? ‘I’m sorry you’re not enjoying your capt
ivity as much as I am, now get bent?’”
“I did.” Amy gave her chin a toss towards one of the far passages. “She went off down there with Shugruth and Borra, so unless the tunnel loops around and comes out somewhere else, which is always possible, she’s still there. I’m not going to tell you what to do with her,” she went on evenly. “But I am going to ask you to remember that with every word she says, her ultimate goal hasn’t changed. I have a lot of sympathy for people like Karen and Carla, who are probably never going to be happy here no matter what, but I also have a lot of sympathy for an entire species tottering on the brink of extinction. Cheyenne doesn’t care about either one. She’d slit a gullan throat if she had the chance and go right over the top of the twitching corpse if it meant she got out of here, and I’m not a hundred percent sure she wouldn’t do the same to one of us.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not—”
“Are you?” Amy cut in sharply. She stabbed another glance up at her, her knife hand steadily working. “Are you sure?”
And Olivia found she could not answer.
“Go on then,” Amy said. “Get it out of the way early so you have the rest of the day to get the taste out of your mouth. Yawa’s going to take a bunch of us topside to have a look at what they’re doing for a garden here. I personally have ten brown thumbs, but Sarah B. and Anita both sound pretty excited about it, and I gotta say, just being outside has a certain appeal.”
It was true, and it hadn’t been very long ago at all that Olivia had been frantic to feel natural sunlight on her bare hands herself, but not now. Cheyenne was waiting for her, and until she got that unpleasantness behind her, the only anticipation she could seem to feel was of the low and dreadful kind. Olivia gave her friend a small wave, received a distracted nod in return, and went on her way down the indicated passageway.
It was not a long walk, and she didn’t have to go far at all before she didn’t even need her flashlight. She could just follow the smell.