The Scarlet Cavern

by Michael Dalton

  She wore a short slip-like dress that barely covered her full, upturned breasts. I paused for a moment to admire her lithe form, then tried to explain what I was looking for. She thought for a moment, tail twitching behind her.

  “There might be something. It is not usually a drink with breakfast, but I will make it for you.”

  She went into a cabinet and came out with a ceramic canister. Inside was a dark blue powder that smelled like bitter walnuts. She heated some water to boiling and then mixed in the blue powder. When it was dissolved, she poured it into a cup and handed it to me.

  It wasn’t coffee, to be sure. But it had a similar thickness and bitterness to it that I liked, along with an odd but faint aftertaste of cherries.

  “It is called massit.”

  “I like it.” I took another sip. “How much do we have?”

  Kisarat held out the canister. Not much.

  “I will get more if you like it, tsulygoi.”

  I leaned over and kissed her. “You’re a good wife.”

  She smiled.

  “I am Kisarat, of the talalong and Will of the Hawthorne, who is my tsulygoi, and the makalang. I have mated.”

  ◆◆◆

  When Ayarala woke up, she came down and insisted on inspecting my wound. When she pulled off the bandage, she gasped in surprise.

  “Something bad?”

  “No. Will, you – you are nearly healed.”

  I looked under my arm. She was right.

  “That stuff you put on it works pretty well.”

  But Ayarala shook her head.

  “Not this fast. Dubigar juice only guards the wound, to prevent infection. It thereby aids healing, but not like this. Do you normally heal so quickly?”

  “No.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to get a sense of my body. To be perfectly honest, I felt better than I had in a long time. A lot better. I felt nothing from the fall into the cave, even though I had smacked my head hard enough to lose consciousness. There wasn’t even a bump anymore.

  I felt the wound in my side. I could still feel iXa’aliq’s blade slicing into me. It had not been a mere scratch to heal overnight like this. Ayarala had stitched me up for a reason.

  I sat there as Ayarala cut and extracted the stitches, then rubbed it with more dubigar juice.

  “There. I guess you are fine now.”

  “Does this mean we can head on to Phan-garad?”

  She looked at Kisarat.

  “Where you go, we go, tsulygoi,” Kisarat said.

  Chapter 9

  Ayarala and Kisarat tried to explain how trains worked in Taitala. Her mention of it had come so casually during the first discussion, and the word matched up so evenly with my understanding, that I hadn’t thought to ask about it. But now that we were planning the next step of the trip, I was very curious.

  “We have trains in my world,” I said. “But I am guessing they may be very different from yours.”

  “Are your trains a long group of vehicles, linked together, for carrying people and goods?” Kisarat asked.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Pulled by one vehicle in the lead?”

  “Yes. Though sometimes also in the rear.”

  “And they must follow a single path, which guides where they go?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is how our trains work.”

  I was still unsure about this, but the idea seemed close enough.

  “Do we need to pay to ride it to Phan-garad?”

  “Yes,” Kisarat said, “but with iXa’aliq’s savings, we have enough money to ride for a kumala-talon.”

  “Do you think this is safe?” Ayarala asked. “How is Will to ride the train with us? Think of the attention he will draw.”

  That was a good point, and I had meant to address it once I understood what we were doing. I needed to get to Phan-garad, but I didn’t want to create a panic, or get arrested, if that was even a thing here.

  “Would it work if I disguised myself?”

  The girls looked at each other.

  “You are very large, Will,” Ayarala asked. “How would we do this?”

  “If I was wrapped in a long cloak? And I crouched down? Something like that?”

  “It seems unlikely you would avoid notice,” Kisarat said.

  “Okay. What’s the alternative?”

  “Walking. Which might take a sampar.”

  “Could we buy a wagon, and a pair of kabayang?” Ayarala asked.

  “Possibly. It is hard to say what may be for sale.”

  “How about we go check things out carefully?” I said. “If it looks like too risky to take the train, then we’ll go with the wagon.”

  I didn’t like the idea of riding in a wagon for a week, but the train seemed like a risk. To be honest, though I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if I was discovered. The first three people I’d been able to talk to weren’t overly upset by my presence, but that group of linyang seemed determined to do something I doubted I would have enjoyed.

  “I think that is a good idea,” Kisarat said.

  “Okay. let’s do it.”

  ◆◆◆

  The girls pulled together an outfit that seemed like it might work. It was basically one of the bed sheets that Kisarat worked together into something resembling a cloak. I debated whether or not to wear my armor under it, but it was too big and bulky for the girls to carry so I left it on.

  I went through my gear to decide what to take. After considering all the options, I decided to just pack up everything, since we might end up traveling overland. The girls packed their own things, with Kisarat loaning Ayarala a few outfits.

  I wasn’t sure how much money to take. Part of me wanted to take it all, but that meant potentially losing it all if anything happened. But I wasn’t sure about leaving it here either.

  Kisarat then explained that the house actually had a security system powered by the solar panels. We just needed to change the settings to let me use it, which we did with iXa’aliq’s severed hand (I had put it in the freezer precisely for such an eventuality) and his little crystal tablet. In a few minutes, we added me as the primary user and deleted iXa’aliq. I tried it out, and my hand now opened his safe, and I could activate and deactivate the security.

  “What happens if someone actually tries to break in?” I asked.

  Kisarat took me outside, and we turned it on. She found a rock and threw it at one of the windows. Just as it hit, all the window frames lit up like a flash of lightning, and the rock was pulverized into dust.

  “And if someone tries to break open the front door, the same thing.”

  “Nice.”

  So I took 5,000 pikala from the safe and left the rest behind. I looked for iXa’aliq’s body when we left, but it had been dragged off during the night.

  ◆◆◆

  There was a narrow path leading from the house further down the hill. About 50 yards down, it joined a gravel road through the forest. Kisarat explained that the road led to the village a few miles away.

  As we stepped onto the road, I caught a flash of something in the woods behind us. For a moment, I thought I’d seen something lithe and black moving through the trees.

  “Did you see that?”

  The girls turned around, but it was gone.

  “What was it?” Kisarat asked.

  “Thought I saw something, maybe a busang.”

  “I doubt it. They only come down the mountain this far at night.”

  That made sense. One had likely dragged off iXa’aliq’s body last night. I watched for a few moments longer, but saw nothing.

  The walk to the village took about 20 minutes. Two miles down the road, I saw a wagon coming the other direction. I hunched down as far as I could manage and kept the cloak around me. Coming toward us were two dwenda driving a long wooden wagon pulled by a team of animals that looked like six-legged orange llamas. The women waved to Kisarat, who waved back, and kept going. They glanced at me, but
nothing more.

  “Were those kabayang?” I asked Ayarala.

  “Yes.”

  In a few minutes, the town came into view. In some ways, it resembled a rural village in France or Germany. Most of the buildings were made from stone, as was the road, and most of them looked very old. The architecture was mostly functional and not terribly different from a small village back on Earth.

  Still, there were modern elements everywhere, mainly in the solar panels on the roofs and blinking crystal signs over the stores. People were on foot or riding kabayangs – I saw no vehicles beyond wagons. I also began noticing that a lot the buildings seemed unoccupied – closed up with no sign of use, some of them apparently for years.

  The females of the village – and they were all female – were the most interesting elements, though. I had expected dwenda, and most of the villagers were Ayarala’s people. There were a few linyang, which gave me a brief start, but they were clearly merchants, not the hunters I’d seen. They had furry, cat-like ears in addition to their tails. There were also a handful of talalong like Kisarat.

  But I was surprised to see two other races as well. A group of three females passed us who I had initially believed to be linyang. But their ears were taller and furrier, and their tails were bushier and foxlike – not at all like a cat’s tail.

  “Sorai,” Ayarala said quietly.

  I was still absorbing this when I saw another female who almost stopped me in my tracks. Despite looking only a little older than Ayarala or Kisarat, she had snow-white hair. She was full-bodied, with big breasts and a shapely behind. But the most striking element were her long pink ears – they stood straight up out of her head by nearly a foot. She looked like a goddamned rabbit.

  Ayarala grabbed my hand. “She is cunelo, and you are staring. Try not to attract attention.”

  I pulled the cloak back around me. The rabbit-girl didn’t seem to have noticed me, but I was getting the occasional stare as we passed.

  We reached the train station in a few minutes. The building itself was unremarkable, but the “tracks,” if you wanted to call them that, were completely different from train tracks on Earth.

  Rather than parallel strips of steel sitting on wooden ties, there was a concave trough in the ground. It looked like something akin to concrete, but it was lined with six parallel rows of glittering crystal panels. It stretched out of sight in both directions.

  The train was not there. Kisarat went inside the station and came back out a few minutes later.

  “The train to Phan-garad arrives at mid-day. We need to wait a bit. Should I buy the tickets?”

  There were others waiting, and the longer we stood there, the more people were looking in our direction. If more of them arrived, this felt like it could get tricky in a hurry. I didn’t like it.

  “If we need to wait, I don’t think we should wait here,” I said. “We’re too exposed.”

  “I agree,” Ayarala said.

  I noticed a pair of women staring at us and talking back and forth. Kisarat led us back out of the station and down a side street between several buildings.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Once we’re on the train, we’re stuck there, right?” I asked.

  “There are several stops before Phan-garad. But yes, until it stops, we cannot escape if you are exposed.”

  “What do you think would happen?”

  “I cannot say. But I cannot imagine that it would be good.”

  I began to wonder if going to Phan-garad at all was a good idea. If we were having this much trouble in a small village, what would the city be like?

  But the answers I needed seemed to be there. I had to try.

  “What if, I don’t know, you packed me into a box, and I just hid inside until we got there? You said it’s only half a day.”

  But Kisarat shook her head. “All the baggage is inspected before it goes on the train, for safety. Not everything is allowed. There have been accidents with people trying to ship dangerous materials, or animals. So they have instruments that can see inside such a box. You would be found.”

  X-rays, or something like it, I imagined. They had airport security here too.

  “So maybe we just get the wagon.”

  Kisarat sighed and nodded.

  “We have more than enough to purchase a comfortable one, along with the supplies we would need. I will go and see what is available.”

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  Kisarat looked around us. Half a block back was an alley between two large buildings. She led us over to it. When I looked down the alley, I saw an alcove in the wall on one side about twenty feet away.

  “Are you comfortable hiding here? I regret that the dwenda villagers are not altogether friendly to talalong customers. Some have tried to cheat me, or refused to sell to me. If Ayarala was with me, I think it would go much more quickly and smoothly.”

  Ayarala sighed.

  “I do not like leaving you here alone, tsulygoi. But I regret that she is right. Some of my people are not fond of outsiders, especially talalong.”

  “I think I can hide out here for a while.”

  I handed Kisarat our money. They both hugged me and left. I scrunched down into the alcove, trying to get out of sight. I put my backpack under me to sit on, then I covered myself with the cloak as best I could. I wasn’t too comfortable, but I figured I could survive here for a while.

  ◆◆◆

  The alley was a good choice for a hiding place, in the sense that no one was using it. But after an hour sitting in the alcove, I started to get stiff, and a little concerned. Buying a wagon wouldn’t take this long, would it? I allowed myself a moment to stretch out my legs.

  I looked in both directions. I saw no one, at least at first. But then a figure in black stepped across the alley at the far end, too fast for me to get a good look at it. My senses went on alert, but I didn’t see anything else.

  For a minute or so, I remained frozen, watching the alley. I saw nothing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was happening. It was the same emotional link I’d been getting, only this was much darker than anything I’d sensed from Ayarala or Kisarat.

  Too late, I thought to look up.

  Climbing across the rooftops on either side were a pair of linyang, and I immediately recognized the clothes they wore – it was the hunting party I’d seen up on the mountain.

  As soon as I saw them, they sprang down to the alley floor. Despite the ten- or fifteen-foot drop, they landed squarely and easily. One of them was carrying a crossbow, and the other one held a long staff. I stood up and started toward them.

  That was when I felt something smack solidly into my back. The smell of bitter roses surrounded me like a cloud. My head swam, and I had to drop to one knee.

  For a moment, I felt on the verge of passing out. Then something weird happened.

  From the first night with Ayarala, after mating with her, I’d had this strange feeling of building up positive energy inside me. It was what had sustained me in bed with two rather deprived females, and it was what had been making me feel like I was ten years younger.

  And I felt it now, because some of it flowed back out of me, throwing off the effect of the kiralabar they shot me with.

  I stood up and spun around. The leader of the group was there with the other archer, and another female with a net. I was surrounded, and my katana was in the alcove behind them, out of reach.

  But whatever the hell was going on here, I was not going down without a fight. I threw off my cloak just as the linyang with the net cast it in my direction. My movement had thrown off her aim, and it only caught on my head and shoulder. I swept it off and looked back the other direction, just as the other archer fired at me.

  By pure luck, I was just in the right position to catch the bolt in the balled-up net, and fortunately the bulb didn’t break.

  Fighting your way out of a group of attackers was one of those exercises the instructo
rs back in my martial arts days loved to run. So I knew the first order of business was breaking out of it.

  I threw the net and my cloak straight at the linyang with the crossbow. She wasn’t expecting it, and the net got tangled up with her bow. As I charged at them, the one with the staff brought it up and tried to block me.

  But I was a lot bigger than she was, so instead of trying anything fancy, I just caught the staff, tore it out of her hands, and ran her over, ramming my knee hard into her gut. She let out a half-cough, half-screech, and fell to the street gagging. I brought the staff down on the back of her head, and she collapsed face down.

  The leader and the other two were now coming in my direction as the crossbowmen struggled to reload. The one nearest me was still trying get the net off her crossbow. I leaned back and gave her a roundhouse kick to the head. She went straight into the wall in front of her and collapsed, just as the other linyang with a staff came darting in at me.

  I barely blocked a blow from her staff that might have taken my head off, but she succeeded in getting past me, so that I was once again surrounded. I charged at her, but she backed up so I couldn’t get past. She knew what she was doing.

  I spun around, charging back the other direction at the leader and the remaining archer. I tried to grab the leader’s arm, and then threw a punch at her face, but she deftly blocked both attacks and countered my punch with a wicked swipe at my face. As her strike came in, I saw razor-sharp claws at end of her fingers. I reared back and prevented her from clawing my eyes out by maybe half an inch.

  But the strike had left her exposed, and I kicked out at her. I didn’t connect squarely, but it was enough to drive her backwards.

  I realized the last archer had reloaded and was lifting her crossbow in my direction. She was too far away to do anything else, so I flung the staff at her like a spear. I aimed at her head, but my aim was a little off. Instead, the staff hit her crossbow right in the crystal sight. That was enough to throw off her shot, and the bolt went flying over my shoulder.

  The leader charged at me again. This time I caught her wrist and threw a punch at her face. She avoided it again and somersaulted forward, spinning her wrist free from my grasp. I kicked out at her, but she dodged it easily, springing off the wall and cartwheeling backwards. I charged forward, but she was ready and blocked my kick.