Worthy—he wanted to be worthy of her love. He had failed her once—he wasn’t going to fail her again. With a low curse he braced himself and pointed the blaster at his own arm, directly below the titano-silver manacle.
For you, Princess, he thought.
Clenching his jaw, he pulled the trigger.
* * * * *
The ship landed on a bare field covered with sparse gray vegetation and no other landmarks that Brynn could see except for a huge hole in the ground. She got out, taking the steps from the ship down to the gray, dry ground at the captain’s behest, and went closer to the hole—although she really didn’t want to.
Standing on either side of the black mouth opening into the earth were two strange sentries. They were tall and thin but the light of the planet was so dim, Brynn had a hard time making out anything else about them other than their size—huge—and their coloring—dark.
Brynn stopped in front of the hole with her escort of the silent captain and three of his equally silent crew. The captain came out in front of their party and the two sentries lowered their bulbous heads to him. For a moment it seemed to Brynn they were sniffing the captain before allowing him entry but that was ridiculous—wasn’t it?
What oddly shaped helmets they wear, she thought, watching them. How can they possibly see out of them?
The two sentries appeared to converse with each other in a high, buzzing language and then finally they withdrew and allowed the captain and his men and Brynn to enter.
The dusty gray trail led steeply downwards and Brynn couldn’t avoid the feeling that she was somehow walking into a grave. Or worse, an open mouth.
Nonsense, she told herself sternly. Stop thinking like that. It’s just a strange planet, that’s all. You’re just nervous. But oh, Varin—I wish you were here with me right now! I don’t want to go in here alone. I wouldn’t feel nearly so nervous and worried if you were with me!
A little sob rose in her throat but she pushed it back down. She had to leave the past behind. There was nothing to do but go on.
Once inside, the ground underfoot grew first damp, then positively wet. It squished and squelched unpleasantly under Brynn’s slippers and she wished she had on thicker shoes—thicker shoes but a lighter dress.
She was wearing a ridiculously elaborate pale pink ball gown her Lady-mother the Queen had forced her into after a quick shower following her deflowering. She’d said something about Brynn looking decent for her future husband but Brynn had been too upset to think about it at the time. Now the full skirts felt heavy and cumbersome and it occurred to her that they would trip her up and weight her down if she tried to run.
She tried to push the thought away as ridiculous. Why would she run from her new home?
“Where is this place? Is it the entry hall?” She looked around herself uneasily. The long, dark hallway reminded her of somewhere she’d been before, but she couldn’t think where that would be. Maybe the dungeons under the castle?
But no, even though they were dark and fusty, the dungeons were still fairly dry. And they didn’t have that sickeningly sweet scent of rotten meat mixed with something else—what was it? Some kind of syrup or honey?
Brynn couldn’t quite place the smell but she didn’t like it. It reminded her of how Sovereign X'izith had smelled. Also, his house didn’t look anything like a royal palace—at least not any she’d ever seen. What kind of man made his home in the earth like this? Was it just the custom of his people?
She could barely even see where she was going. There was only a little light—a dim, phosphorescent glow that came from gray patches of what looked like mold on the walls and ceiling. But who ever heard of lighting their home with mold?
Suddenly, something rushed up to her. Brynn couldn’t see it clearly in the dim light but it seemed to be about the size of a large canis—coming just to mid-thigh on her.
She gasped and jumped back, trying to avoid the thing but it came closer, nosing at her skirts despite her attempts to kick it away. It made a hissing-clicking sound and skittered to one side when her foot connected with its oddly hard body. But then it came right back as though the blow hadn’t hurt it at all.
“What is this thing?” Brynn gasped, turning to the captain for an explanation. “Please—can’t you make it leave me alone?”
“Negative,” the captain replied in his slow, halting tone. “You must…be marked…to enter.”
“Marked? Marked how? By what?” Brynn demanded.
Her question was soon answered in the strangest way imaginable. The large animal—whatever it was—turned its back to her and sprayed her with a thick, sticky mist.
“Ugh! What is this? Get it off of me!” Brynn gasped, wiping at the sticky droplets that adhered to her skin and hair and immediately sank into her cloth of her dress, making it stick to her. They smelled like the rest of this place—sweet and meaty and rotten. Having that stench on her skin turned her stomach but there seemed to be no way to get rid of it now.
“It is…necessary,” was all the captain said. The thing that had sprayed her sprayed him as well and then two of the other crewmembers accompanying them. But when it came to the third, it suddenly seemed to lose interest and scuttled away instead of releasing its fine mist yet again.
Brynn looked back at the unsprayed crewmember with envy. Why was he so lucky as to escape the rain of sticky, disgusting smelling droplets? Before she could ask, the captain took her by the elbow and started leading her further down the long, damp hallway.
But Brynn had had enough.
“I don’t like this,” she said, balking at last and pulling back against his hand on her arm. “I don’t want to go any farther. I need to go outside—I need fresh air.”
The captain’s grip on her arm became cruelly tight.
“We must…go,” he droned implacably.
“Yes, but go where? Where are we going?” Brynn demanded. “This is no proper house—it’s just a long, wet, sticky tunnel and there are things down here. I don’t like it!”
“The Breeding Chamber…is just…ahead,” the captain promised.
Breeding Chamber? Is that what they call the bridal suite here?
Brynn didn’t like the sound of it but there was no getting away. The captain’s grip on her arm was like iron and even if she got loose from him, there were the three other crewmates at her back. Reluctantly, she allowed him to drag her along until at last, the dark, stagnant hallway opened up into a much larger chamber.
“Oh,” Brynn whispered in a breathless voice because this vast, open space was teaming with…something. What exactly, she couldn’t be sure but she didn’t think the inhabitants were humanoid. Some of them looked like the animal that had sprayed her. They scurried along, clearly intent on their tasks and errands. Others appeared to have wings—they flew through the damp, fetid air making a buzzing/humming sound, causing swirling currents of stench to assault her nostrils.
Brynn was beginning to get a bad feeling about this—very bad. Though she couldn’t make out the things all around her very clearly, the flying ones seemed horribly familiar.
Amalthia, she thought, her heart coming into her throat. The thing that carried her away. It was about as big as these…and it could fly…
No, surely not! She tried to push the horrid thought away but it wouldn’t quite go. Sovereign X'izith had come weeks after Amalthia’s abduction. He couldn’t have had anything to do with it—could he?
But Varin’s theory came back to her—the idea that the flying insect thing that took Amalthia had been some kind of a scout. A strange and horrible visitor from another planet, checking to see if Galen was ripe for the plucking…
Could it be that her husband-to-be had sent the creature? Was he some kind of mastermind who could control beasts? Maybe he had learned to control these and now he lived here in harmony with them, bending them to his will…forcing them to do his bidding.
The idea that Sovereign X'izith himself might be one of these awful crea
tures didn’t enter her thoughts. Despite his strange appearance and smell, Brynn’s mind simply couldn’t go there—not and allow her to remain sane. So it didn’t and she found herself being dragged up to a high, narrow bridge that was made of a tougher material than the squishy, sticky ground of the tunnel.
The bridge spanned what seemed to be a deep pit where most of the awful rotten stench was coming from. The fumes rose up, reeking of death and corruption and Brynn held a hand over her nose to keep from gagging. Goddess above, what was down there? Some kind of open mass grave?
The moment the thought entered her head, she wanted to push it out again but somehow she couldn’t. She couldn’t see down into the pit but her mind kept wanting to show her pictures of butchered bodies and twisted limbs…lifeless eyes staring up at her from the blackness.
Stop it! she told herself fiercely. If you don’t stop it you’ll lose control and fall in yourself. Be calm, Brynn—you have to stay calm!
The risk of falling off the high bridge and into the pit below was real. There were no handholds or guardrails of any kind and Brynn grasped the captain’s arm desperately with the hand that wasn’t covering her nose.
At last they made it over the bridge and found themselves standing in front of an enclosed room lit from within. At least, Brynn thought it was a room but it seemed more like it had grown rather than been built. It bulged out from the side of the wall like a tumor. Inside it, pulsed a pale yellow luminescence that seemed to glow with a kind of rhythm.
Standing outside the entrance to this tumor-room were two more sentries. This time, Brynn’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light and she saw the sentries for what they were.
Their dark uniforms weren’t uniforms at all—they were shells. And the strange, bulbous helmets were their heads. The long feathers they wore at their crowns were antennae and their cloaks were wings.
Her mind couldn’t protect her any more. The protective shell of ignorance was stripped away and the horrible realization broke over her like a cold wave.
Bugs—they’re giant bugs!
And they were staring right at her—twisting their heads from side to side to regard her with their round, shiny, soulless black eyes.
“No!” Brynn tried to shriek but it came out as more of a breathless moan. She felt frozen to the spot—unable to move as the true horror of where she was finally hit her.
No wonder her new husband’s house looked nothing like a traditional palace or castle, for it wasn’t one. It was some huge underground lair—the home to a colony of giant insects. And she was stuck here—trapped in this nightmare.
My nightmare, she suddenly realized. That’s where I’ve seen this place before!
It was an awful realization—especially when she remembered the rest of the dream and the wall made of skulls…the one with Amalthia’s voice…
Brynn shivered and tried to push the memory away. She had never liked bugs. Rats, she could handle. And mice the convent had had a-plenty, especially in the granary. But not bugs—she hated bugs—especially big ones.
And to think, I used to think a “big” bug was one of those brown beetles as large as my thumb that lived on the shinbab trees, she thought faintly. She’d never in her wildest nightmares imagined a bug as big as the ones before her—no, all around her. She was surrounded—in the heart of their home—and there didn’t seem to be any way out again.
One of the two sentries leaned forward and brushed its long, feathery antennae over Brynn’s shivering body. She must have passed some kind of test because it then moved on to the captain, who stood there woodenly as it did the same to him.
It moved on, stalking around Brynn with jerky, insectile movements to run its feelers over the three men behind them as well. The first two passed inspection with no difficulty. But the third seemed to be giving the immense insect problems. It ran its antennae over him again and again, growing more and more agitated with each pass.
He’s the one that didn’t get sprayed, Brynn remembered, watching as the silent crewmember stood there, showing no reaction to the huge insect’s attentions. She’d been jealous of him at the time. Now…she wasn’t so sure.
Suddenly, with no warning, the giant bug that had been examining the crewman seized his arms in a pair of enormous pincers, opened its jaws wide, and bit his head off.
Brynn shrieked—she couldn’t help it! Blood fountained out of the dead man’s neck, spraying her yet again, this time with hot red droplets instead of the clear, sticky stuff she’d been baptized with before.
The crewman’s body twitched as the giant bug continued to take swift, jerky bites of his flesh. At last, as though satiated, it threw the still-spasming body over the edge. Brynn saw the headless form slide over the lip of the nearby pit and slither out of sight into the darkness below.
Panic filled her in a raw rush.
“Did you see that? We have to go! Come on—we have to get away!” Brynn tugged urgently at her captain’s arm but he just stood there. In fact, neither he or the other crewmembers gave any indication that they’d seen anything unusual at all.
“Please!” Brynn begged him. “That was your man—your crewmember! Don’t you even care? Do you want to be next? Please, let’s just go.”
At last he spoke.
“You must…enter…the Breeding Chamber.” The words were lifeless—monotone as always. They chilled Brynn to the bone. Either he didn’t care what had happened to the man under his command…or he couldn’t care. Looking into his face, she thought that his eyes were every bit as blank and soulless as those of the giant insects guarding the door.
He can’t help me, she realized. Nobody can. I’m on my own!
She started backing away but the other sentry insect, which had simply stood silently on its side of the doorway, suddenly rushed forward and seized her.
Brynn shrieked again and ducked her head down miserably, expecting its horribly sharp, curving mandibles to sheer through her neck and cut off her head at any moment.
Instead, the sentry carried her in its hard, sharp claws to the doorway of the tumor room. Only it wasn’t really a doorway because there was no door, Brynn saw through wide, terrified eyes. There was a kind of sphincter there instead. As the Sentry thrust her at it, the sphincter irised open, revealing a confusing glimpse of a room lit with pale, pulsing light inside.
Before she knew it, Brynn was through the opening and then the disturbingly fleshy sphincter irised shut behind her.
Though it had seemed so bright from outside, the pale yellow light within the room was indistinct. Brynn looked around, blinking, trying to see. The walls seemed to be made up of a number of long, low alcoves. Some of them were filled, though she couldn’t see with what. But some were empty and housed only shadows. They looked like long, narrow coffins cut in half lengthwise so you could see inside—at least that was what they seemed like to Brynn.
She took a step and peered into one of the filled alcoves. What was in there? It looked a little like a pile of old, bloody clothes. And there was a mop of hair at one end that appeared to be a discarded wig. A blond wig made up of fashionable little ringlets—or it had been sometime in the past. Now it was matted and snarled and dirty.
Suddenly the wig moved—it shifted and revealed a face. A pale, pretty face with bright, poison green eyes. The mouth opened and it spoke.
“Hello, Princess,” croaked the Lady Amalthia.
Chapter Twenty-one
Varin sat in front of the unfamiliar controls of his new ship and plotted in the course the old Tempath had told him would take him directly to Zhymur, the home world of the Hive.
Stealing the ship had been surprisingly easy—it had been left unattended and unlocked, as though the owner had only meant to step out for a moment and intended to come right back. Piloting it one-handed, however, was something else again.
Varin spared a glance at his throbbing left wrist and the stump that was left of his hand. The bleeding had mostly stopped, thanks to the make-shift tou
rniquet he’d bound it with, but there was still no sign of regrowth.
He sighed. He’d been regrowing missing fingers and toes—once even an eye—all of his life as he trained in the Arena. But regrowing anything bigger than that, well—he’d known it was an iffy proposition when he’d decided there was no other way to get free of the titano-silver band around his arm. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make—one that had shocked both the slavers and the old Tempath who had helped him.
Their shock and distraction had worked to Varin’s benefit—unfortunately, though, only enough to get him off the slave ship and away into the crowd. He hadn’t been able to secure the replacement slave chip he was soon going to need desperately.
Can’t think about that now, he told himself. Brynn comes first. If I can save her and get her someplace safe that will be enough.
But would he have time to do it? And would he be able to do it? The information he’d gotten from Jorath would be immensely helpful but he was still one male alone about to enter the Hive filled with millions of sentient and semi-sentient killing machines.
It doesn’t matter—better to make it a smaller operation. One male alone can go places a battalion or an army can’t.
He hoped, anyway.
The ship he’d picked turned out to be a good one—the plaything of a rich minor noble’s son from a distant system according to the licenses Varin found. The previous owner would pout when he found it gone but he was probably already calling his father to pay for a new one.
The inside was luxurious—a mini pleasure palace with all the latest amenities. But Varin was more interested in the engine than the bubble pool and indeed, that was where the ship really shone.
The previous owner must have prized speed nearly as much as luxury. The navigation system was extraordinarily sensitive to his touch and the hyperdrive went super-light speed with a smooth purring sound that was almost like music.
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