The Scarlet Cavern

by Michael Dalton

  The girls talked quietly with Eladra as I tried to get some rest. I wasn’t sure what we were going to encounter in the city, but I sensed that it ranged from okay to very bad. The mercenaries and whoever had sent them were never far from my mind. I wondered if we were somehow walking into a trap, if we would step off the train into a crowd of angry linyang pointing crossbows at me. I didn’t know how they could know I was there, but I didn’t know how they knew about me at all. So I needed to be very cautious.

  It was dusk and getting darker by the time we finally rolled into Phan-garad. On the way in, I could see the outskirts of the city. It reminded me a lot of Paris, which Jacqueline and I had visited once on vacation – very old mixed with very new. But an awful lot of it seemed empty, with little or no sign of habitation. We passed through large sections that seemed totally abandoned and decrepit.

  Kisarat explained to me that Phan-garad had public transportation, a sort of trolley system using technology similar to the maglev, just on a smaller scale. But I didn’t dare use it, so we were going to have to walk.

  As we approached the end of the line in the city center, the newer elements began to take over. Here were areas that were clean, modern, and well-lit, though there were also patches that were dark and empty. In many ways, it reminded me of the downtown areas of cities back on Earth where renewal efforts had only been partially successful.

  We gathered up all our gear as the train pulled into the station. Eladra’s eyes swelled a bit at the sight of all our weapons, but she said nothing. I wrapped the cloak around me.

  “We should wait until the others have left the train,” Kisarat said. I nodded. That made sense.

  We waited as the other passengers filed off. Narilora checked the passageway outside and waved us out. I hunched down, trying to channel my inner rabbit. We followed her onto the platform, and I moved quickly to the closest area of shadow. No one seemed to notice or care about us. In a minute or so we’d left the station behind.

  “Things are quieter than I remember,” Kisarat said after a few minutes.

  “When were you here?” Eladra asked.

  “Two-and-a-half talons ago. I grew up in Phan-garad. I left as you did, when I was of age to mate.”

  Kisarat led us along the smaller streets, avoiding the few major roads. Most of the buildings were around three or four stories tall and looked like apartment blocks of some kind. The few stores and commercial buildings were all closed and dark.

  Every now and then, someone would pass in the other direction, whether on foot or a wagon, but as she’d said, it seemed awfully quiet for a city this size. The streets were lit by octahedral crystals on the ends of tall poles, but we kept to the areas of shadow as best we could.

  Eventually we entered an area of what appeared to be detached homes, though the layout was nothing like a tract development back on Earth. Instead of neat rows of houses in an orderly grid, they were spread randomly across an open field. No roads led through the area, only paths winding in and around the various homes.

  “aJia’jara’s compound is not far from here. There may be empty houses here we can use.”

  “Is it safe?” I asked. “To just take one?”

  Kisarat stopped and sighed.

  “Even when I left, it felt as if this city was twice the size of its people. It’s worse now. I think no one will even notice if we do.”

  I thought about what Narilora said about this world slowly dying. It suddenly seemed a lot more real.

  Chapter 14

  We found a decent house that appeared large enough for us. It was squat, six-sided, with a roof that peaked in the center, and it reminded me of a quartz crystal. But it was dark as a tomb, and behind the low wooden fence that surrounded it, whatever landscaping had been here had long since died or gone wild.

  The house had what appeared to be a security system similar to iXa’aliq’s house, but it was shut off. We found a way in through the back, and nothing happened when we opened the door. The explanation came shortly. When we tried the lights, nothing came on.

  The interior smelled stale and somewhat musty, but it appeared to be in decent condition. We explored until Kisarat and Narilora found the power room in back. Unlike the rest of the house, the room was lit up by the house battery, which appeared to still have a charge. Kisarat examined it for a few moments, pressed a large stud on one end, and the house lights came on.

  “What was wrong?” I asked.

  “Sometimes when these batteries are left untouched for long periods, they will shut down and then restart. But the house will be without power until the system is restarted, as I just did. It happened from time to time at iXa’aliq’s house. It would explain why the security system was off.”

  The layout of the place was much like iXa’aliq’s. The first floor was mostly open, with just the power room and a largely empty storeroom in back. The second floor was divided into three rooms, a large bedroom with a circular mattress about ten feet across, a smaller one with similar bed, and a bathroom with an oval tub about eight feet long. It was all a bit dusty but still usable.

  “This was a talalong house,” Kisarat said.

  “Is it the bed?” I asked. Having slept with her for several days now, I could see why a circular mattress would make sense for them.

  “Yes. The adults slept in the large room. There must have been at least one child here at some point, in the smaller room.”

  It was late by now. I didn’t want any of us going out again, so we pulled together a meal from what we’d brought. Then we headed upstairs to rest.

  “I think we should get a good night’s sleep, then maybe you guys can have a look around tomorrow. See if aJia’jara is even still here and what his situation is.”

  As we undressed for bed, I noticed Eladra hesitating in the doorway to the bedroom. I had expected her to take the other bed, but she was still standing nervously in the hallway, ears twitching.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m scared.”

  Rabbits, I thought.

  “Of what?”

  “Sleeping alone. In this weird house. I’ve never slept by myself. Can I sleep in here with you guys?”

  “Tsulygoi . . .” Ayarala said. I remembered what they’d told me about how cunelo did things.

  “I guess there’s enough room for everyone.”

  Eladra smiled quickly and came over to the bed. I tried not to watch as she stripped naked and got in next to me. Kisarat was already curled up near my feet. Ayarala and Narilora were on the other side, cuddling against me together. But there was indeed plenty of room.

  I turned out the lights, and we fell asleep quickly.

  ◆◆◆

  I drifted awake in the middle of the night. I was up against one of them, spooning. I felt furry ears and a tail against me, and there was a plump breast in my hand. Narilora. I pulled myself closer to her.

  But something felt wrong. The tail was too short, and the breast too large. As I came fully awake, I realized it was Eladra. Somehow I’d rolled against her in my sleep.

  I tried to extricate myself. She stirred, reaching up to feel my hand.

  “Shit,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to do this. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” she asked quietly. This close, I could feel her mood. She wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable with the situation. In fact, she felt safe and content. But I felt nothing sexual about it either.

  I still tried to withdraw, but she held my hand, not letting go.

  “Please.”

  “Is this how you slept at home? All together in one bed?”

  “With my cousins. Yes.”

  I relaxed, moving back against her, trying to get back to sleep. But I was very cognizant of the fact that I was still holding her breast. She had large nipples, and I could feel one of them pressing against my palm. She felt good, firm despite her size, and I couldn’t help idly stroking her, brushing my thumb against the nipple.

  When I stopped after a
minute or so – knowing I needed to stop and shouldn’t have started in the first place – Eladra’s hand came up and pressed against my fingers. She moved them gently.

  Getting the message, I went back to stroking her.

  The emotions I was feeling from her were odd. Not only was she completely comfortable with this, it also seemed like nothing new to her. Not just that – it felt like a normal part of sleeping. And it occurred to me that if indeed she slept in one bed with all her cousins, there were certainly things that young bunny-girls might get up to at night.

  After a little while, her hand pulled at my wrist. Not away from her – down. She rolled back against me just a bit, opening her legs. I let her put my hand in place.

  Like Narilora, she was smooth and hairless in front despite the fur around her tail. I lay there brushing my fingers back and forth over her, listening to her breathing growing deeper and feeling her arousal grow inside her. After a few minutes, her hand squeezed my wrist tightly, her ears twitched against my face, and she shivered silently in release. As with the other girls, I could feel the orgasm with her, I could feel the energy of it.

  When she caught her breath, I felt her reaching for me uncertainly, as if she felt she needed to reciprocate but didn’t know what to do. But I didn’t want this going any further.

  I rolled over against her, pulling her back and butt against me. I reached up and stroked her ears gently.

  “Go back to sleep, bunny-girl,” I whispered. “It’s all good.”

  “What does bun-nee mean?” she asked softly.

  I tried to explain, and that I’d meant it affectionately. She made a little contented noise and nestled herself back against me.

  In a few more breaths, she was asleep. I lay there for a while wondering where this might lead.

  ◆◆◆

  In fact, it led nowhere.

  In the morning, Eladra was back to her nervous rabbit-girl self, giving no sign that what had happened meant anything to her, or had even happened at all. Since I was fine with that myself, I left it alone.

  After a short breakfast, Kisarat, Narilora, and Eladra went to scout out aJia’jara’s house and the state of the city. I watched them leave from an upstairs window.

  “You should claim her, Will,” Ayarala said.

  “Who, Eladra?”

  “Yes. Is she not pretty enough for you? She seems very pretty to me. The males of this world often favor cunelo for wives because they are thought to be the most good-natured and obedient.”

  I leaned back from the window and looked at her.

  “No, she’s fine. She’s beautiful. She just seems a little young, and we’ve got a lot going on here.”

  “What do you mean young? She is of age to mate.”

  “On my world, a girl her age with a guy my age would raise a few eyebrows.”

  Ayarala gave me a look I was getting familiar with.

  “Your world is very strange. She has ten talons, you have only eighteen. That seems like nothing to me. Compared to most Taitalan males, you are barely more than a child. I have eleven talons. Is one talon such a difference?”

  “I guess not. Still, she said she didn’t want to mate. I don’t want to push her into anything.”

  “She meant with a Taitalan male.”

  I pulled her into a hug.

  “Let’s take it one thing at a time.”

  “Of course, tsulygoi. Lead me. I only wish to please you.”

  “So what are dwenda known for?”

  She snuggled against my chest.

  “Our obsession with keeping our tsulygois happy.”

  ◆◆◆

  Ayarala and I cleaned the place up while we waited for the others. The house and the furnishings were in generally good shape, but there was a lot of dust downstairs and some things that hadn’t handled their abandonment well. Assuming aJia’jara was willing to see me and help me, I had a feeling we might be here a while.

  The girls returned a few hours later, having stopped to buy food to stock up the kitchen. The house had a refrigerator like iXa’aliq’s, and Ayarala and I had gotten it cleaned up and working again. But it had been completely empty.

  “aJia’jara is here,” Kisarat said. “Nothing seems to have changed to me. He has many wives and servants. We did not try to speak to him, but we asked for Eladra’s cousin.”

  “She works in the kitchen,” Eladra said. “She was obviously very surprised to see me, but we spoke for a little while.”

  “She could not tell us much,” Kisarat said. “Only that she rarely sees aJia’jara, who is apparently preoccupied with something. His wives complain about him when they think no one can hear them.”

  “Others forget we can hear things,” Eladra said, “from much further away than they do. So they believe they are in private. It is not a question of eavesdropping. We just hear.”

  “What do they complain about?”

  Eladra shrugged.

  “Mostly what all wives complain of. He rarely mates, and has not even mated with many of them. The youngest ones are all unmated. He pays them no attention at all. But they whisper about his obsession with something he does not share even with his closest wives. It has gotten worse recently. Whatever it is.”

  “What’s your take on the city?” I asked Kisarat.

  She sighed.

  “Phan-garad has always seemed to be fading away slowly. But it is worse than I thought last night. Much worse. The city is a shell of what it once was. Measurably worse than when I left only a few talons ago.”

  “Fewer people?”

  “Yes, but it is more than that. Even as things seemed to fade, there was still an energy to the city that is nearly gone. As if its people have finally given up.”

  Kisarat rubbed her forehead, then ran her fingers through her emerald hair.

  “I see little need for further subterfuge, Will. You could walk the streets unclothed, and I am not sure much would happen. With a cloak, you will draw no attention at all.”

  ◆◆◆

  Kisarat had been exaggerating, but only a little. After I geared up, Narilora and I went back out with her to see aJia’jara’s compound. With the cloak over me, despite my size, I got only a few curious glances. The feel of the city was like a business district on a Sunday morning, though Kisarat assured me it was a normal workday. There was only a fraction of the people I would have expected to see walking around. It wasn’t a ghost town, and you could still see activity, people in the buildings and stores and restaurants, but even I could tell it was far less than it should have been.

  And I could see what she meant about the energy. Residents of a big city normally move with purpose. They have things to do and people to see. Even the homeless have a destination or goal in mind.

  But Phan-garad was different. It wasn’t just the dead buildings, as plentiful as they were. I kept passing females sitting on benches or against walls just staring at the ground, or up into the sky. But no one seemed to notice us at all. The people I saw in the windows were often as not doing little or nothing, sitting there, eyes dead.

  And I wondered: In a world where so few of them now would ever have a chance to bring a child into the world, to leave a mark behind them in any way, what was the point? What were you working toward if there was no generation coming after you? Did it really matter what you did with your life? Did it matter if you did anything at all?

  We reached the area near aJia’jara’s compound in about twenty minutes. He lived in another residential district much like the one where we were squatting, only this was clearly where the city’s wealthiest residents lived. The homes were considerably larger, not that they looked anything like McMansions back on Earth, and they were spread across a large open field of neatly manicured green grass and shrubbery.

  aJia’jara’s house resembled a ziggurat or Mayan temple. It was about five stories tall, with stepped sides leading to a narrow tower at the top. The outside glittered with solar crystals. The steps were all open to the i
nterior, and I could see his wives and servants moving around on the different levels. Some lounged in the sun together, others tended to various ornamental plants. I realized as we got closer that many of them were naked and appeared to be playing and relaxing together in shallow pools on the upper levels.

  The whole thing was enclosed behind a tall stone wall. A large gate appeared to be the only way in.

  Whatever his ancestry was, aJia’jara had a lot more resources than iXa’aliq did.

  “What do you think, Will?” Narilora asked.

  “I have to approach him somehow. I’m still deciding the best way. But this was useful to see who we’re dealing with. He doesn’t seem like someone to mess with.”

  “He is the most important tsulygoi in the city,” Kisarat said. “For what that’s worth.”

  “Who else lives here?”

  “The leaders of the clans, and the large merchants and owners of the businesses you’ve seen here.”

  “Where is the leader of the linyang?” Narilora asked.

  Kisarat pointed out a structure that resembled a pile of soap bubbles several houses beyond aJia’jara’s compound. I hadn’t noticed before, but I could see black-clad linyang soldiers patrolling the wall around it.

  “Are those Long Claw?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Narilora said. “The clan leader, Ceriniat, controls the group. So we should not get any closer.”

  A loud boom tore apart the air behind us and slammed into my back. The sound – and shock wave – was so much like the mortars and IEDs we’d dealt with in Iraq that I threw myself against the girls and pulled them to the ground without even thinking of it. For a moment, I was 22 again, huddled against a wall in Fallujah praying that a mortar round wouldn’t land on my head.

  Then I remembered where I actually was. Kisarat rolled over next me, clearly alarmed.

  “Tsulygoi, are you injured? Will?”

  “No.” I pushed myself up to my knees as she looked me over. “I’m fine. Sorry, it was just a reaction.”

  Narilora stared behind us, jaw agape. A loud rumbling noise rolled over us. I shook off the sudden bout of PTSD and turned to where she was looking.