The Scarlet Cavern

by Michael Dalton

  “So where are we going, exactly?” she asked a few minutes later.

  I explained about my quest to talk to aJia’jara. Narilora seemed to think for a moment or two.

  “And you go by wagon to avoid being discovered on the train?”

  “Yep.”

  “We thought of hiding Will inside a crate,” Kisarat said. “But we feared the inspections would discover him.”

  “Awasa-late, even had that worked, did it occur to you that weapons are forbidden on the train?” Narilora waved at our collection of blades, mine, hers, and the knives on Ayarala’s hip. “How did you intend to get all of this on board?”

  “Oh.”

  “Then it is fortunate that I found you, because I may have a solution. Though it raises some troubling questions.”

  Narilora sat up and reached into her bag. She came up with a bright red crystal plate about the size of the pikala plates but engraved with several bright blue symbols. Most of them were nothing to me, but I noticed a hand with long claws extending from the tips of its fingers.

  “Where did you get that?” Kisarat asked.

  “I took it from the mercenaries who were pursuing you, right after you defeated them. They are members of the Long Claw, a mercenary group in Phan-garad. Did you not wonder how they got here so heavily armed? They had a permit. With this permit we can board the train and avoid the inspections.”

  I handed it back to her. “This is fortunate indeed.”

  “Perhaps. But here are the questions I referred to. This permit was issued in Phan-garad. They are not easy to come by. Someone important in the city got it for them, most likely the person who sent them here.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Yet it raises a very intriguing question, my tsulygoi. They were clearly after you, specifically. But how is anyone in Phan-garad even aware of your existence? You said you arrived here but four days ago.”

  “I did.” Then something occurred to me. “They were there, in the mountains, the morning after I arrived.”

  Ayarala’s face went very grave.

  “It would have taken them that first day just to get to the village on the train and climb up to the canyon where you saw them. They would almost have had to leave the moment you arrived in our world. But how?”

  “Yes,” Narilora said. “How? It would seem to me that you have more business in Phan-garad than you realize, Will. And more dangers.”

  ◆◆◆

  After that conversation, I lay back in the wagon considering what to do. Narilora went up front, and Ayarala lay down beside me to take a nap.

  The main question, of course, was who wanted to capture me and why. How they even knew I was here was an issue, but clearly they did and that was what mattered. One thing had been sticking in my mind for a while, and it was the idea that iXa’aliq had been selling his mating services to females who would not have mated otherwise.

  If there were females with the resources and motivation to do that, surely there were females with the resources and motivation to track down the makalang when he appeared. Track him down, capture him, and maybe keep him locked up in their basement for mating on demand.

  Kisarat could hardly have been the only female that obsessed with the legend. Add in enough money, and maybe the Taitalan version of the biological clock, and I could easily imagine some female in Phan-garad sending bounty hunters after my ass. And if they caught me, my chances of ever getting back home could be close to nil.

  So how did she know about me? Given that I knew nothing about how I got to Taitala in the first place, I could hardly rule out the possibility that someone here had figured out a way to summon the makalang, or open the portal, or predict when it was going to appear.

  And if the males here truly were as completely out of fucks to give about the whole situation as Narilora said, the one person who might be able and willing to tell me what was going on would be a male like aJia’jara with a possible link to the makalang.

  It didn’t feel like an ideal solution, but it was the only one I had for now.

  The next train station was about ten miles further on. I had the rapidly growing feeling that I needed to get to Phan-garad a lot sooner than the six or eight days it would take by wagon. That meant getting a little bolder, if we could do it without getting caught.

  No one had come after us on the road, and Kisarat told me the train had only one route, back and forth between the two cities. That meant it continued on to Phan-garad after we left, and was heading back to Yama-Kana today. So even if what was left of the mercenaries tried to get ahead of us, they wouldn’t have a chance to do it until tomorrow, and they would have to do it without the pass Narilora had taken from them. That gave us a narrow window of opportunity to get ahead of whoever was trying to catch me.

  ◆◆◆

  “Okay, here’s what I want to do,” I told them as we approached the town near dusk. “How do the tickets work? Do you get a seat? A bench? A spot on the floor? Or what?”

  “It depends on the type of ticket,” Kisarat said.

  “So there are different classes of travel. Can we get a private cabin for just us?”

  I was kicking myself for not having thought of this earlier, but I was feeling more confident about our chances with Narilora around.

  “They exist,” she said. “They are expensive, but we have far more than enough money. The question is whether one is available.”

  “So they could all be full?”

  “Yes, but that is not the real challenge. They are often restricted. You must have justification to purchase one, unless the train is unusually empty.”

  “That permit. Would that do it?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “The permit is in the name of the Long Claw,” Narilora said. “The agents will be expecting a linyang to present it.”

  “Fortunately, we have one. Do you think you could pull that off?”

  “Easily. I know them well enough, and I have their weapons now.” She smiled. “They are known for these crossbows.”

  The reason Narilora’s bag was so lumpy was that, in addition to the permit, she scooped up the two crossbows the mercenaries had been using. She showed one to me earlier. They were lightweight and collapsible; the bow could be folded up for more compact carry. The limbs weren’t metal but some kind of laminated composite. The body was black plastic, and there was a long crystal tube along the top that served as the sight. I took a look through it and found that it had some kind of auto-zoom, range-finding function that kept it aligned no matter where you were aiming it. I wouldn’t have minded having a sight like that when I was in Iraq.

  She also grabbed the bolts they hadn’t used. There was only one of the kiralabar bolts left but two boxes of ten tipped with wickedly sharp crystal blades. She and I split them up. It wasn’t an M16, but I figured it might come in handy.

  “So we try to get a cabin. If we can, we use the permit to bypass security and get me and the gear inside. Do you think we even need to put me in a box? Or can we try the cloak idea again?”

  Ayarala spoke up.

  “I have a better idea. I have been thinking about this. You could not have passed for dwenda back in the first village, but this one coming up is mostly cunelo.”

  Kisarat and Narilora both let out an “Oh” at about the same time.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Cunelo tend to be larger than other females. I think if we disguise you a bit, this should work.”

  Disguise me? Then I remembered the bunny-girl I’d seen.

  “Oh, boy.”

  Chapter 12

  We parked the wagon outside of town, and Narilora and Kisarat scouted ahead to find us a place to stay. I stayed flat in the wagon while Ayarala sat beside me, leaning against my chest.

  “I know you wish to return home, Will,” she said. “And that is your decision to make. But is there any chance you can take us with you?”

  “If I find a way home, maybe. But my world would be a
s alien to you as yours is to me. There is nothing like the three of you there, and it would be much more difficult to hide you than it is to hide me here.”

  She sighed.

  “I had nearly made my peace with being alone. To be nalasin is to exist, until one exists no longer. It is not a life. I was prepared to wait out my time in the forest by myself. Then you came along. You, and Kisarat, and now Narilora. You have given me my life back, in ways I could never have expected. I like our family. I do not wish to be alone again.”

  “Neither do I. I was alone back home, and it sucks.”

  She looked up.

  “It what?”

  That expression didn’t seem to translate clearly. Which, given how mating worked here, maybe wasn’t surprising.

  “I mean, it’s no fun. Unhappy.”

  “Oh. Yes. Must you return home?”

  “My children are there.” Or Richard’s. Whatever.

  “With their mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have explained this, so I will not question it further.” She lay down next to me. “But my heart aches at the thought of losing you. There is much sadness in our world, and you bring me joy.”

  I ran my fingers through her silver-gold hair.

  “I can only promise that I’ll do my best for you.”

  She snuggled against me.

  “You should mate with Narilora tonight.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s expecting it.”

  We lay there quietly for a while. I could feel her need for me. I thought about what she said, and I realized how much it was going to hurt if I had to leave her behind. Whatever this weird connection was, I didn’t want it to end.

  “When you were about to claim Kisarat,” she said, “why did you tell me to remember I was the first?”

  “I . . . I didn’t want you to feel slighted.”

  “Why would I? To be the wife of a tsulygoi with many wives is an honor.”

  “You don’t feel my attention is divided?”

  She laughed softly against my chest.

  “There is more than enough of you to go around, Will of Hawthorne. I still don’t think you appreciate this. Remember what I said about Taitalan males needing sampars between matings? I have been with you four days, and you have mated with me five times. I am blessed beyond measure, and I am more than happy to share this.”

  She rose up and kissed me.

  “It is clear to me that you need many more wives, Will. If it pleases you to honor me as your first, I will take that and be happy.”

  ◆◆◆

  Narilora and Kisarat returned about an hour later, reporting that they’d found a house at the edge of town.

  “It is empty,” Kisarat said. “There is no one around. There is only one hotel, and it would be difficult to get you in.”

  I covered myself up in the back, and the girls drove the wagon into town. In a few minutes, Kisarat nudged me.

  “We are here, tsulygoi.”

  Like the previous village, many of the buildings were unoccupied. We were in what looked like a neighborhood of houses, but only about half showed any lights or any signs that anyone was within.

  Narilora got into one of them. After fiddling with things for a few minutes, Kisarat got the lights on – the solar panels and battery still worked. The home had clearly been abandoned for a few years. There was little sign anyone had come inside during that time, and though some of the previous owner’s possessions had been removed, many had been left behind. They apparently just closed up and left.

  “Just like the last village,” I said. “All these empty buildings. Why?”

  “It is as Narilora said, Will,” Ayarala replied. “All the males are old and do not mate, so fewer children are being born. There are more houses now than people.”

  “Will anyone care about our being here?”

  “In a linyang or talalong village, it could be a problem.” Narilora said. “The cunelo, they will do nothing.”

  We’d brought food with us, but I wanted something fresh and hot, so Ayarala and Kisarat went back out to find some dinner. I went upstairs to check out the sleeping arrangements. There were three bedrooms, one large room at one end of the house, and two smaller ones at the opposite end. The bedding had all been left behind. I dragged the fabric mattresses from the two smaller rooms into the largest and pushed them all together.

  I turned around to see Narilora watching me. She had pulled her obsidian hair out of its braid, and it was now loose all over her shoulders.

  “What are you doing, my tsulygoi?”

  “We’ve been sleeping together. I want that to continue.”

  “Two talons I was with iXa’aliq, and I never shared a bed with him or Kisarat.”

  But she helped me get everything arranged. Wedged together, the three mattresses just barely fit wall-to-wall.

  Narilora lay down on her side on the merged bed, putting her head on her hand.

  “Tell me about these linyang in your world, Will.”

  “They’re not linyang. They’re small animals who resemble linyang in some ways. And behave like you.”

  “How do they resemble us?”

  “The ears and tails. But with fur all over their bodies. And they go on all fours. And they don’t talk.”

  “And you pleasure them as you did to me today?”

  “More or less.”

  She rolled forward onto her stomach, putting her hands together and resting her chin on them, smiling at me.

  “Will you scratch my ears again, my tsulygoi?”

  I crawled onto the bed with her, lying back against the wall. She wriggled into my lap as she’d been before, laying her head down on my stomach. I put my hand on her head, scratching her ears and running my fingers through her hair. In a few moments, she was purring softly.

  She spoke up after a few minutes.

  “Kisarat and Ayarala told me of mating with you. I must confess I find some of it hard to believe.”

  “Things are different in my world.”

  “I am eager to see. But I am also afraid.”

  “We’ll go slow. It wasn’t as difficult as we expected.”

  She rolled over onto her back, looking at me but saying nothing. I reached down and unbuttoned her jumpsuit all the way, pulling it open to expose her breasts. They were bigger and softer than Kisarat’s or Ayarala’s, just enough to fill up my hand. She lay there and let me play with her.

  “This is very odd. That you find all these parts of my body so intriguing. Not just the one that receives your penis.”

  “I understand how the males of your world approach things.”

  Her purring intensified as I played with her nipples, gently twisting and pulling on them. Then she sat up and wriggled completely out of her jumpsuit, leaving herself naked. Underwear didn’t seem to be a thing in this world; neither Ayarala nor Kisarat wore anything extra under their clothes either.

  I expected black fur between Narilora’s legs, but she was as smooth in front as the other girls. There was just a narrow line of fur down her lower back to her tail, and immediately under it between her tight buttocks.

  I scratched the base of her tail the way my cat used to enjoy, and the purring turned into a moan as her tail stood up. Her claws dug into the mattress as her butt rose up against my hand.

  “Tsulygoi . . .” she gasped.

  I briefly stood up to disrobe. Narilora’s eyes went to my erection, going wide.

  “It is even larger than it was.”

  “It’ll be fine. Roll on your back.”

  She did. I lowered myself between her legs and took her in my mouth.

  “Oh, Will . . . what are you . . .” But the purring took over again.

  God, her purring was so fucking sexy. I slid my arms under her thighs and pulled her narrow hips at my face. Her tail twitched against my chest as I licked at her.

  I worked on her for a few minutes, feeling her arousal growing. She kept digging her claws into the m
attress and letting out these soft feline moans. Then almost all at once, her back arched sharply, she let out a loud yowl, and her thighs shook against my face as she came. I felt the energy flowing between us.

  I stood up and flipped her on her stomach. Still shaking in release, she struggled to rise onto all fours. I pushed her head down to the mattress to stretch her open. Her tail went straight up in the air as I probed forward at her.

  As with Ayarala, the first attempt went nowhere. I tried to ease myself in, but it wasn’t happening.

  “You need to relax. Just let every muscle in your body go.”

  She went limp before me, leaving me to control her hips. The way into her began to open. Just as with Kisarat, I felt her membrane breaking as the head slipped slowly in. Bit by bit, I worked myself into her.

  As I got the first inch inside, Narilora came back to life, pushing back at me. She let out another low yowl, muffled by the bed. When I hit bottom against her butt, she threw her head back.

  “Take me, my tsuylgoi. Make me yours.”

  I began thrusting into her tight little body with increasing force. She met each thrust with her hips, moaning and yowling below me. Her tail thrashed against my abdomen. I could feel her incessant purring around my dick, and as tight as she was, I knew this wouldn’t last. So I drove her hard toward her release, watching it grow inside her.

  Right before I exploded into her, she yowled loudly and thrashed in my grip. Then I thrust deeply into her as the mutual energy of our orgasms swirled around me.

  I pushed her forward onto the bed, then rolled off her back. Legs still shaking, she flopped herself over on top of me. I put my arms around her and held her for a few minutes.

  Finally she turned to look at me with her big feline eyes.

  “If this is mating with you, Will, and the frequency is what Ayarala promised, I will die for you. I love you, and I will die for you.”

  I just held her quietly, feeling her purring on my chest.