Walls of Wind I

by J. A. McLachlan

  Igt’ur was waiting for me. At my touch on the door handle he threw the door open, pulling me inside. Seeing my slumped posture, the weary droop of my head, he placed his hands more gently on my slim shoulders. I stood, head bowed, stiffening only slightly at his touch.

  He spoke softly in his gruff tongue, leading me to a chair at the table. To my surprise, he brought a steaming bowl of vegetable stew and set it before me. Ghen hands are short and thickly padded, with straight fingers that bend only where they join the palm. My cooking pots and ladles all required the grasp of double-jointed fingers. I was touched despite myself at the effort that had gone into this bowl of stew.

  I ate it because I needed it, and because I was too polite to refuse his gift. But every spoonful choked me. I did not want his stew, or his presence in my home, or his species in my city. I soothed my conscience by remembering that I would give him a child before evicting him. Even so, I dreaded the approach of stillseason and my first mating festival. But a little less, after that bowl of stew.

  *

  Just before stillseason my breasts began to seep. The thick, sticky secretion disgusted me, but it was inevitable, the result of living in close quarters with a Ghen as stillseason approached. Igt’ur’s heavy mating musk filled the house.

  Suriannis and Barn’ar, our co-joining couple, were a year older, about to have their second mating. Soon they’d be coming to my house so that Suriannis and I could rub the fluid from each other’s breasts over the painful rashes that had appeared on our abdomens. I’d been told about this but nothing could prepare me for the extreme discomfort of that rash. Waiting for Suriannis to arrive, I was tempted to rub my own breast fluid over it.

  The idea shocked me. How could I think of such an unnatural act? I remembered a classmate in my first year of school teasing another child with the words, “Your parent soothed with his own fluid when he was carrying you!” Admittedly, the teased child was stupid, but that only made the taunt more cruel. I didn’t understand it at the time, not being raised in a vulgar home. I chuckled now, despite my misery, to imagine my parent’s distress when I’d asked him to explain the jibe.

  When Suriannis arrived on Barn’ar’s arm, I could barely wait for him to catch his breath after walking through the hot, sluggish streets to my house. I touched my breasts, massaging them into fresh seepage and gently applied the fluid to the angry red rash across Suriannis’s lower belly. At first he winced at my touch then, as the fluid soothed his tender skin, he relaxed. His breathing eased and he began to work his own breasts, releasing the liquid that would bring me relief. We did this several times a day for two days, until our rashes disappeared.

  Igt’ur and Barn’ar led us through the motionless streets to Festival Hall. The stillness of my city seemed a dreadful thing—or was it just an echo of the dread I felt? I closed my eye to combat the nausea, willing myself to be invisible in the empty streets. How appropriate, I thought, that our mating should occur when the wind, which is sight and life to us, has died.

  But mating was not as I feared. I was disoriented as always by stillseason, thrown at the mercy of new sensations by the betrayal of my normal senses, and open to the mesmerizing influence of Igt’ur’s mating scent. I would have been terrified had we not lived a year together. Instead I was excited. No, much more: inflamed by his scent and even by my own helplessness. The music in the hall was frenzied, ecstatic, meant to escalate our delirium. Soon the throbbing beat was inside us, part of us, no longer music, but need.

  It was Ghen music, wild and pounding. I could see at the far end of the hall the sweating drummers; beside them, the vocalist, swaying to the mysterious, passionate words of his song. Igt’ur and I were intoxicated, frantic for each other. The experience was so intense I barely noticed when Barn’ar stepped in for his co-joiner’s mating with me.

  “May you bear a strong hunter,” he intoned afterwards.

  Although I couldn’t understand his words, the ritual had been explained to me, and I responded with the expected gesture, bending my fingers claw-like and pretending to rake them across my belly. Then he was gone and Igt’ur returned to me. Again and again Igt’ur and I submerged ourselves in the sensations of our bodies until we emerged not only mated, but changed.

  I wanted to understand him now. Where I had previously ignored the attempts he’d made to communicate, I now initiated them. It was impossible to reconcile my high Bria warble with Igt’ur’s low, guttural rumblings, which all sounded alike to me. I tried to remember the gestures I’d seen my parent make, but they would be meaningless to Igt’ur. Instead, we pointed to objects about the house, inventing signs to represent them, often forgetting or changing the signs the next day until we dissolved in laughter.

  I found I could soon differentiate the sounds Igt’ur made when he was happy from those that indicated weariness, or sorrow, or hunger, or farewell for his duty on the wall. That was the one word that needed no translation. Pitched at the lowest octave of a Bria’s vocal chords and the highest note of a Ghen’s, “wall” was the single bridge between our tongues. I did not miss the irony. Nevertheless, I looked forward to the time when I could argue that duty with him. How could he consent to waste so much of his time with no evidence of its needfulness?

  The spell of our mating diminished in time. I was still determined that Ghen had no place on Council, though I was more tolerant of them living in our city, if only they could be convinced to find some useful work.

  When Council resumed after stillseason, a young Bria named Rennis was introduced as the first-year Bria and I moved over into the second-year seat. Rennis was shorter than I, with a thick pelt which was a lovely dark charcoal color. At the end of the meeting, he pulled me aside to tell me he’d been in the audience the day I made my motion against having Ghen on Council and he was in complete agreement with me. I liked his openness, although I wondered if he might change his mind after his first mating.

  Rennis was a lively Bria and very sociable. The first thing he did was move his chair so that we sat together with the empty benches for our Ghen mates on either side. Why hadn’t I done that? Perhaps Rennis felt more comfortable with me, knowing we shared an opinion, than I had felt with Perallis, who was now the third-year Bria and was sitting beside his Ghen mate.

  Rennis talked to the older Bria about how lonely it was for us, how intimidating, being young and new to Council and sitting all year beside empty chairs. He claimed that it made him feel alienated from the rest of Council, after he’d looked forward to working with them as a team. Then he proposed the elimination of the first- and second-year Ghen seats, in order to align Council positions more closely with Ghen regulations. Why have a Council seat for a Ghen when he wasn’t allowed to occupy it? Council should support, not undermine, Ghen regulations.

  We had worked it out together and decided it was best for Rennis to present the motion, but it was a victory for us both when it passed.

  *

  Rennis returned from his first mating and I from my second, both a little changed. Suriannis and I had soothed our abdominal rashes with each others’ breast fluid once more, but there was no need for Barn’ar to mate with me again. The ritual of strength having been performed at first mating, I could spend all my time at festival with Igt’ur this stillseason.

  Later, Rennis and I laughed at the temporary madness of the experience. We discussed our increased interest in our own mates, but our sustained scorn for Ghen as a species. Then we began to mention in Council the need for unjoined Bria to be represented, in preparation for a motion to add an unjoined Bria seat.

  Rennis’s Ghen, Saft’ir, was not as easy-going as Igt’ur. He read Chair Ghen’s translations after every Council meeting, and although he could not yet tell Rennis his opinion, he made his displeasure known in cold glances and deliberate stillnesses. It was bound to get worse in another year when he came on Council, but Rennis persevered.

  Rennis had nothing to fear. No Ghen would hurt a Bria. Furthermore, he was carryi
ng Saft’ir’s child. But it was unpleasant in their home and Rennis regretted upsetting Saft’ir, for all that he was Ghen.

  “They only need a little push,” I consoled him. “Once they can no longer live on our endeavors, they’ll have less time to play their battle games. They’ll build their own city nearby and run it as they wish, instead of playing at running ours. We’re helping them advance themselves, not hurting them.”

  We planned our motion well, and single Bria throughout the city filled the public gallery the day we spoke for them.

  “Bria have a right to live unjoined,” I touched my growing belly, “just as you and I, councilors, chose to join. All Bria have a right,” I looked in turn each councilor in the eye, “to fair and unbiased representation on the Council of their city. Can any of us here, joined for life, truly speak to their issues? One seat to represent them, one seat to keep us from forgetting them, one single seat to acknowledge their contribution to our city!”

  Once again I felt the appreciation of my people rise like a fresh wind at my back. Being in a minority, and often criticized, the single Bria were especially grateful to us for speaking on their behalf. When the stamping finally stilled, I made my motion and Rennis supported it.

  There was little debate. Who would deny their people representation? Even those who saw what we were doing, garnering sympathetic Council seats, could hardly argue against a single seat before a gallery full of cheering Bria. Rennis and I walked home through our city victorious, escorted by a throng of Bria chanting our names and thanking us with elaborate praise before each turned aside to his own home.

  That was the last time I saw Rennis smile.

  The next morning, Saft’ir was found against the city wall, dead by his own hand. The single Bria seat went to Rennis.

  We made no more motions together, Rennis and I. He retreated into bitter silence, repulsing all my efforts at solace. I was approaching my third and final mating; what could I say, about to induce the birthing of my babes, to one whose infants now must die within his womb? I only hoped that time would heal his grief.

  That year Igt’ur and I didn’t go to Festival Hall. I was nauseous enough without being led through the hot, dizzy streets in stillseason. Igt’ur took me gently in our house, murmuring reassurances.

  The kicks and movements of the unborn infants increased rapidly after our mating. I began to remember childhood stories of Broghen, the monster within. I knew they were only tales to frighten children, but one has irrational fears just before childbirth.

  I was terrified. But everywhere I turned, I received the same answer: Igt’ur would take care of everything when my time came. He knew what to do.

  Igt’ur, like all joined Ghen, had been trained to deliver young. Trusting a Ghen, even Igt’ur, with whom I had lived for three years, went against all my principles, but I had no choice. It was unthinkable for any but Igt’ur, or in his absence another Ghen, to attend my birthing, and I dared not attempt it alone.

  I was desperate enough to broach the subject to my parent and his sibling. Neither relented but I saw something in their eyes, some dark and fearful memory, before they changed the subject, so that I was almost glad they would not speak. Ocallis and I speculated in whispers, bolstering one another as we waited.

  “It must be painful,” I offered, wishing it were over.

  “Very few infants die at birth these days,” Ocallis said.

  I placed my hand before my mouth, touching my breath to indicate agreement, but I was not consoled.

  I began to regard Igt’ur in a new light. Despite my misgivings, I had to rely on him, and therefore I began to see him as necessary and capable. Certainly he appeared to exhibit no qualms about the approaching event, but how could I be sure?

  I wished I’d worked harder at learning to communicate. I longed to voice my fears to him and understand his reassurances. When the infants gave particularly strong kicks and he saw me stiffen, he patted me gently, as one would soothe a frightened toddler who was only beginning to understand words.

  Once again I dreamed of Rukt’an, wondering why these distant memories troubled me now. More and more I turned to Igt’ur for reassurance as I neared the time when I would give birth. He would not fail me willingly.

  *

  A high-pitched scream filled the darkness. I awoke bathed in sweat. My abdomen was heaving as though a battle were raging inside my womb. I screamed again, my eye fixed in terror upon my writhing middle. Igt’ur hurried across the room but I took no notice. My concentration was riveted on the fiery agony within.

  Igt’ur placed something heavy on the floor beside my sleeping ledge. I glanced sideways briefly. It was a cage, small but solidly built, the top open. A spasm of pain tore through me, forcing my attention back to my abdomen. It rose and shuddered in angry convulsions and I grew hysterical, imagining what might lie beneath my skin, waiting to enter the world.

  “No!” I screamed, closing my eye as though to block the thought, “Nooo!”

  A cup touched my dry lips; Igt’ur’s voice resounded in the distance, loud and insistent, but I took no notice. My concentration was fixed upon my writhing body. He slapped my face lightly, breaking through my glassy terror. I looked at him in shock. He had never done such a thing to me. Again he urged the drink on me and numbly I swallowed.

  Setting the empty cup aside, he clasped my shoulder briefly, reassuringly, and muttered something in Ghen. His voice was gentle but I could hear the urgency behind it: he wanted me to trust him. I closed my eye, but another spasm of pain urged it open. My terror returned with the pain, but both were more distant, dulled by Igt’ur’s drink. I could endure it now, could allow Igt’ur to birth our children.

  Distantly I felt him pulling my legs apart, rough in his haste. I was helpless to aid or resist him, could only pant for breath between contractions and stare at the nightmare movements of the battle inside me. I gasped as he plunged his arm between my legs, felt it withdrawing and turned my face, afraid to look.

  A thin, high squeak. Bria!

  I reached out eagerly. Igt’ur handed my infant to me, frail, elongated skeleton with tiny veins clearly visible through the gauze-thin, nearly furless skin, trailing the cord that had nourished his fragile life. I cradled the scrawny newborn, gently wiping clean his face and nostrils.

  “Youngling,” I whispered, savoring the term of endearment reserved for one’s own infants. It implied so much—a lifelong bond, as visible as my blood in his veins, as eternal as the wind that blew over us both. My flesh yet separate, destined to go places I would not, taking with him whatever passion and strength I might impart before he began his journey.

  I watched, enthralled, as he opened his eye for the first time and blinked groggily at the world he’d emerged into. Gently I blew my life’s breath over him. How little prepared I was for the intensity of my emotions! Joy and terror struggled within me as Igt’ur once again reached into my womb.

  Another diminutive Bria he handed me; another tentative miracle, clinging to life. I carefully placed my firstborn against one of my upper breasts and took this second baby. The potion Igt’ur had given me made it possible for me to nurture life into these precious scraps of being despite the torment of my still-heaving abdomen.

  At least I was birthing Bria and Ghen. I sweated and I groaned, but I was no longer afraid. I had my Bria children, safe and sound; the last was his.

  I heard them before I saw them; the tiny growl, several octaves higher than Igt’ur’s but unmistakably Ghen, and the wild, crazed screech of the other. I opened my mouth to scream at the sight of the writhing body of a monster. The sound froze in my throat. A Broghen! I had borne a Broghen!

  It was neither Bria nor Ghen, but a misshapen horror covered in Igt’ur’s gray scales, with here and there tufts of blond fur. Its half-opened eyes were already searching for prey, oversized jaws snapping, scaly tail lashing with a fury impossible to reconcile with its newborn dimensions. The infant Ghen, bleeding from a dozen tiny scratch
es, instinctively gripped the monster from behind, to avoid its gaping jaws. Also, I realized with a start, to keep it from my fragile Bria younglings.

  Igt’ur’s fingers closed tightly about the Broghen’s jaws. Gently he extricated the struggling little Ghen from the Broghen’s claws and handed the exhausted newborn to me. Without hesitation I took him from Igt’ur, wiping his bleeding wounds and whispering my gratitude for his infant valor. He blinked at me wearily.

  I tried to ignore the shrieks of the Broghen as Igt’ur cut the cord with which my body had traitorously nourished it and dropped the hideous thing into the open cage.

  I stared down at the cage. He knew all along that I would bear four infants!

  In that instant I, who had never known hate, hated Igt’ur. He’d put that hideous monster inside me, along with his infant! In innocence and trust, I’d allowed my body to breed such a thing. I was numb with shock as I finished my administrations to the newborn Ghen and placed him against my third nipple. He suckled greedily, absorbed in his first hunger.

  My womb was still now and Igt’ur was gently applying an ointment to the abrasions I had sustained.

  The desperate howls coming from the cage increased in volume. I peered down at the creature inside. The infant Broghen no longer seemed an object of horror, but piteous, now that it could not harm me or my infants. It opened its gruesome mouth and I heard the unmistakable wail of a hungry newborn. Instinctively, I stretched out my arms to it.

  “Let me feed it.” My fourth nipple wept in response to its cries of hunger.

  “No,” Igt’ur signed. “It wants meat, not milk.”

  I shrank away, repulsed. The caged infant screamed, hideous and pathetic.

  “What will we do with it?” I signed. The thought of anyone knowing I’d borne a Broghen horrified me, even as I despised myself for such a shallow concern. “How could you do this to me?” I wailed, and the little Broghen keened in hideous counterpoint to my sobs.