The Scarlet Cavern

by Michael Dalton

  “Never mind.”

  She turned, and the linyang in the room motioned with their crossbows. I steeled myself and followed her.

  “What did you mean by ‘joining their sisters’?”

  “I speak of the ones you defeated in the cunelo village.”

  “I didn’t kill them.”

  She laughed softly.

  “I suppose you would have no way of knowing this. To be defeated by a male yet go unclaimed is the greatest shame a linyang can bear, because it means she has no worth as either a warrior or a wife. They all took their own lives after you left them there.”

  My stomach tightened. I did know that, because Ayarala told me, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it would apply to that fight. Shit. I hadn’t intended anything like that.

  Outside the room was a long hallway. The two linyang in front of us continued backing up, keeping their crossbows on me. Yisaraq led me to an open stairwell.

  As we climbed, I saw that the stairwell was at the center of the building. We climbed up three floors, and on each of them the stairs rose through an intersection going off in four directions, dividing the floor into four quadrants. Each hallway appeared to end in a glass wall opening to the outside, and there were other females walking around.

  On the third floor up from the basement, we turned onto a landing where two more linyang guards were standing.

  I followed Yisaraq out of the stairwell. She led me to a double door down the hallway where two more guards stood on either side. They opened the doors as we approached.

  Inside was a large, plush sitting room with a sunken area in the middle. It took up an entire quadrant of this floor. There were more linyang inside, and they took up a cordon around me, keeping me on the platform around the center. Yisaraq continued forward and sat down.

  The two outside walls were all glass, and I could see we were in the wealthy residential area in the city center. The linyang compound was nearby.

  I started to look for aJia’jara’s building when I noticed a blue-skinned Taitalan male lounging near the center of the room. He was considerably taller and more muscular than iXa’aliq, though he was still perhaps five feet tall. Like iXa’aliq – and me, this time – he was completely naked. And that was the moment I realized where I was.

  “Welcome,” aJia’jara said. “Do I speak a language you understand?”

  The linyang stopped me far enough away from him that I had no emotional link to understand his speech.

  Except that he was speaking English. Stilted, oddly accented English, but English just the same.

  It took me a moment or two to regain my bearings.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I will use your language so that none of these females will understand our conversation. What is your name?”

  “Will Hawthorne.”

  “Where are you from, Will Hawthorne? Do you know of Boston, in the land of Massachusetts?”

  “I’m from San Diego. And yes, I do. My family is from Boston, actually.”

  “San Diego is near Boston?”

  “It’s part of the same land.”

  I was answering more questions than the Marines would have liked, but I needed information from him too.

  “Do you know the name Silas Jeroboam Johnson?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Silas Johnson was the last makalang. He was also my grandfather. He came to this world in your year 1781.”

  “You are aJia’jara?”

  “I am. And I have known for my entire life that another makalang would come one day. My father watched for it before me. It has taken considerably longer than either of us expected. Silas Johnson appeared on the same mountain that you did. I do not know if it was the same cave, as there are several. He could not find the original cave, so we have watched the entire area. Only recently has it been possible to monitor the caves themselves, which is how I knew you had appeared.”

  He motioned to the table in front of him, where there was a stack of the crystal tablets. Then I understood.

  “You had one of those things in that cave.”

  “Which you broke, yes. I sent my agents after you immediately.” He laughed. “It did not occur to me that you would come here of your own accord, but here you are. But that is actually quite fortunate, for both of us.”

  “So what do you want with me?”

  “The appearance of the last makalang sparked a war between the clans, once it became clear what Silas Johnson was. Each clan wished to control his mating for themselves. He fled into the wilderness, but the clan forces pursued him, fighting each other as well. The losses from that war were not made up for by his presence and his ability to mate.”

  He sat back in his seat and folded his hands under his chin.

  “The scarcity of breeding males in this world is far worse now than it was in my grandfather’s day. Should your presence here become widely known, the effects are unlikely to be good. They are in fact likely to be very, very unpleasant. I wish to avoid that. Our world will not survive another war. It may well die anyway, despite your presence, but our only hope is to manage your contributions without conflict.”

  I slowly realized what he meant by contributions.

  “We’re really inter-fertile with your race?”

  “Is that really so hard to believe? Look around you. Do we not appear mostly human?”

  “That had occurred to me.”

  “The mechanics behind it are unknown to me. Silas considered the issue at length without arriving at a conclusion. There is surely an explanation that has eluded us. But does it matter? We need you.”

  “So there were other makalangs before Silas?”

  “How many, no one can say. But yes. It is my belief that everyone in this world is ultimately descended from one.”

  That would explain the inter-fertility. At least, until you got back to the first one.

  “I’m guessing you have a proposal of some sort for me,” I said finally.

  “What I need you to do, what everyone in this world needs you to do, should not be objectionable. We merely need you to mate with as many females as possible.”

  So I was going to be a stud horse, essentially.

  I looked around the room. The four linyang still had their crossbows pointed at me.

  “Why the weaponry, if this is so unobjectionable? Am I free to come and go or not?”

  “I am afraid not. Did you listen to what I said? I am not the only one who would covet your presence.”

  Since entering the room, I’d been listening carefully for any mention of the girls. So far he’d said nothing. And surely if he was aware of them, had taken them, he would now be trying to use them as leverage, or offering to bring them here to keep me happy. Or something.

  They’d tracked me to the house, and it had either been our trip to the city center or Eladra’s visit to her cousin that tipped them off. So they had to know about the girls somehow.

  That there had been no mention of them by anyone suggested to me that, whatever aJia’jara knew about them, he considered them beneath his notice. Given how many wives he had and his apparent lack of concern for them, it seemed logical he would assume I felt the same way.

  So they were probably safe for now. That gave me enough fortitude to deal with this situation.

  “How would this work?”

  He took a deep breath and sat forward.

  “You will remain here, as my guest, with your needs attended to. I will arrange the matings with the leaders of the clans. They will send their chosen females here. You will mate with them as frequently as you are able to. I anticipate three to four per sampar, based on Silas’ experience. Is that possible? I know you are far more capable than a Taitalan male.”

  The last thing he said piqued my interest, but I did my best not to let it show.

  “Is that it?”

  “Does there need to be more?”

  “I suppose not. May I have some time to consider this?”

 
He stared at me for a few moments.

  “I have not given you the option to decline. This is the only way I can see to prevent another war, and even this may not succeed.” Then he sat back again. “However, if you need a day or two to come around to this idea, so be it.”

  He motioned dismissively to Yisaraq, saying something in Taitalan that I didn’t understand. She turned to me.

  “Come. Back to your room.”

  I followed her back downstairs, saying nothing. When we reached the cell, the linyang spread out to let me in.

  “Do you require food?” Yisaraq asked.

  I realized I was hungry.

  “Bring what you like. Do you have massit?”

  She looked at me curiously.

  “We do. An odd thing for you to have developed a taste for, so soon after arriving in our world.”

  I looked her up and down.

  “I’ve developed a taste for feisty dwenda as well.”

  She laughed, but I could see interest growing in her lavender eyes.

  “We shall see about that.”

  Then she left.

  Chapter 16

  Not long afterward, a plump cunelo maid arrived with a tray of food and a steaming glass of massit. She regarded me with thinly disguised awe. The linyang guards held me off with their crossbows until she was done setting up my lunch on the table.

  As I ate, I tried to process what I’d just heard. There was a time in my life when the prospect of doing nothing but bone random women all day long would have been attractive. Certainly back in my Marine and college days, this would have seemed like a dream come true. The plot of a porn movie, even.

  But I had other things to concern myself with now.

  My kids. The prospect of never seeing home again.

  Ayarala, Kisarat, and Narilora. Eladra too, now that I thought about it. As much as I’d tried to resist emotional entanglements since I got here, I cared about them. And whatever I wanted to call them, I’d let them commit themselves to me. They considered themselves my wives.

  It would be a gilded cage, to be sure, but still a cage. The question was what I could do about it.

  I saw little prospect of fighting my way out of this. The linyang had learned their lesson, as far as I could tell. They were clearly ready to drown me in kiralabar the moment I looked at them sideways.

  But there was still a lot I didn’t know about my situation and what aJia’jara intended here. There was more to this compound and the people in it. In time, they might start to let their guard down.

  I thought about what aJia’jara said about my “workload.” Three to four per sampar? It had almost been three to four a day since I got here. Which told me he didn’t know as much about the makalang as he thought. He didn’t appear to know about what mating with Taitalans did to me – the healing and the rest of it.

  So there was something there. What it meant, I didn’t know for now.

  ◆◆◆

  Yisaraq returned several hours later.

  “aJia’jara requests to know what mind you are of.”

  I was getting used to being naked around them, and ceasing to care.

  “I am of a mind to learn what noises you make while mating.”

  Her eyes swelled.

  “Why would I make noises?”

  “So far, the Taitalan females I’ve mated with have made quite a lot of noise. Dwenda and linyang in particular.”

  “I made no noises while mating.”

  “That was with aJia’jara,” I said. “Bit of a difference there, as you can see.”

  Her gaze flitted down, then up again. I was deliberately trying to provoke her, because she was getting rather free with the information when I did it.

  “If you’ve mated, why are you still here?” I asked. “You don’t look young.”

  “I did not bear a child. So I stayed to assist the other wives.” She straightened her back. “I take it from your banter that you are not ready to assist us.”

  “Tell aJia’jara I’ll assist him if I can start with you.”

  Her eyes swelled again.

  “How would that assist us? I told you, I did not bear a child.”

  “You might, if you gave it another shot. Don’t tell me you’re not thinking about it.”

  She glared at me, then spun around and left.

  ◆◆◆

  The same cunelo maid arrived with my dinner not long afterward. This time the linyang stayed in the hallway. From having been around Eladra, I could tell from the twitching of her ears how frightened she was.

  “You don’t need to be scared of me,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you. There’s a cute cunelo girl I know. We get along fine.”

  She glanced over at me quickly.

  “I know,” she said softly. “Eladra.”

  I glanced at the door. The linyang were far enough away not to understand me.

  “How do you –” Then it hit me. “You’re her cousin.”

  “Yes. Say nothing more. But they know you are here.”

  I sat back on the bed. The linyang seemed to have missed the conversation. The maid quickly gathered up the dishes from my lunch and left.

  I had to pretend as if nothing had just happened, so I sat down to eat. But this changed things considerably. If the girls knew I was here and had made contact with Eladra’s cousin about it, I had a possible pathway to an escape. I didn’t know how I was going to use this, but it was something.

  ◆◆◆

  No one entered the room the rest of the night. I lay there thinking about the larger situation. I was not unsympathetic to the problems aJia’jara explained. I didn’t need to be convinced on that point; I’d seen what was going on here firsthand. But I would be damned if I was going to spend the rest of my life confined in here repopulating the planet.

  Yet I could see risks as well. If their plight was truly as dire as aJia’jara said, I was a thing of enormous value. If I escaped his clutches, there were certainly others who would have the same idea. Hell, I’d been thinking along those lines already. I’d just failed to consider that aJia’jara would be one of the ones after me.

  Silas Johnson arrived here almost 250 years ago, yet his grandson was still alive and not looking terribly old. Obviously Silas and his son had passed down fluency in English as some family legacy, no doubt to connect with the next makalang. I wondered how long Silas lived. If he benefitted from the same effects I was seeing, it might have been quite a while. After a week here, I was already feeling ten years younger, if not twenty. So there was that.

  I needed to know what Silas knew, what he left behind. I had a feeling he must have left some records, a diary, or something like that. aJia’jara’s familiarity with English and Earth strongly suggested that, and something in there could be the key to getting home. I didn’t know if Silas tried. It sounded as if he settled in here pretty solidly. He might not have wanted to go back.

  But I wanted it on my terms. I was simply not going to remain locked up here doing aJia’jara’s bidding.

  ◆◆◆

  Eladra’s cousin arrived with my breakfast and a big cup of massit but left quickly without saying anything. The reason for that was apparent quickly, because Yisaraq arrived while I was eating.

  “I spoke with aJia’jara about your request to mate with me. He insists that your attentions must be focused on more fertile females.”

  In truth, I was mainly stalling with this. Yisaraq was very hot in a MILF kind of way, but she wasn’t my real goal here.

  “Disappointed?”

  “I do not understand why this matters to you.”

  “The first female I mated with here was dwenda. I’ve developed a taste for your kind, like the massit.”

  “You will have many dwenda to mate with. Young and eager females.”

  The germ of an idea grew in my head.

  “aJia’jara said he would choose who I mated with. If this is open to discussion, I may be amenable.”

  “You would agre
e to help us?”

  “Let me speak with him.”

  Yisaraq returned a few minutes later with the linyang.

  “Come.”

  I followed her back upstairs. This time we went further up, to a single open room at the top. It was enclosed with glass on all sides, though the ceiling was partially darkened to shade against the sun. A variety of plants large and small were arranged around the room in ceramic pots.

  We had a view of the entire area around us. I could see the building the Black Sky had destroyed in the distance. I was a bit surprised to see that nothing had been done to clear the rubble. It was as we had left it that afternoon.

  aJia’jara was in the middle of the room, tending to a low flowered bush.

  “You have something to discuss?” he asked.

  “I will agree to your plan, on one condition. I wish to be involved in your agreements with the clan leaders on who is to mate.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have certain tastes and preferences. I promise I will not be difficult.”

  “Yisaraq tells me you prefer dwenda. This I understand. They are the most human-like to you, I suppose. But you must mate with all the clans. I cannot afford to play favorites. That will precipitate the very conflict I seek to avoid.”

  “I will mate with all clans. But I refuse to be a mindless stud.”

  He nodded.

  “Very well. I will summon the leaders. You may join this meeting.”

  ◆◆◆

  When Eladra’s cousin arrived with my lunch, I watched out in the hallway. The linyang were not watching closely.

  “Can you talk?” I whispered. She nodded.

  “How many linyang are here?”

  “A dozen. It varies.”

  “They come and go? He does not have a single group?”

  “They come from the clan leader’s compound.”

  “Did you meet Narilora?”

  “Yes.”

  “If she was wearing their uniforms, could she get inside here?”

  “Perhaps. I do not know their ways.”

  “She does. Suggest it to them when you see them next, but tell her to wait for my instructions.”