Olivia (40 page)

“What is it like to couple with Mudmar?”

All three gullan looked at Ellen expectantly.

Ellen leaned back and considered the question.  “Well,” she said after a moment.  “It’s different.”

“From what?”

“From humans, for one.  Gullan are heavier, and, um, bigger.  At least, mine is.”  Ellen was beginning to blush.  “It feels different, too.  I…I don’t know how to answer, Thurga.  I’ve never been with another gulla, I don’t have any way to compare him.  Why?”

Thurga fussed with her basket for a while, then put it down and looked up seriously.  “I tried, once, to seduce him.”

The other two gullan looked quickly at her and away.

Thurga shrugged and returned her attention to her hands.  “Yes, I couple, although I’m always careful about it.  But I have wanted Mudmar for many years and he would not have me.  Would not have anyone.  I just wondered…”  She trailed off with a wistful sigh and picked up her basket again.

Crugunn showed a slip of fang in a sly gullan smile.  “I wouldn’t say he would not have
anyone
,” she remarked.

The other two gullan stared at her.  “No,” Thurga said, plainly meaning, ‘Tell me more.’

But Crugunn only shrugged.  “I don’t spread rumors.  I say only that Mudmar and a certain woman have been known to find work in the same abandoned lairs and passageways on several interesting occasions.  But it is not for me to say that they are meeting to couple.”

“So long as they are careful,” Rumm said mildly, and reached out to give Thurga a sympathetic pat on the knee.

“If ya’ll ask me,” Anita began, “it’s stupid to expect a whole tribe to abstain from sex.”

Carla snorted, whether in agreement or scorn, it was difficult to say.

“What is this, abstain?” Crugunn asked, laughing.  “It just takes more effort.”
              “That, or one of Murgull’s awful potions,” Rumm agreed.  “Unless you want a thrashing with Augurr.”

Karen obviously had trouble with that translation.  “Want a what?  With who?”

“Augurr,” the three gullan women said together, then looked at each other and giggled.

Rumm continued alone, smiling toothily.  “Augurr could not keep himself from rutting with the women, even after the old leader forbade it.  Child after child he fathered and punishment after punishment he suffered for it, but if a woman offered, he couldn’t help but rut with her.  In tunnels, in the growing place, through the doors, even in the baths!  Finally, the old leader took him up to a high place and gave him some human drink.  When Augurr’s head was heavy, the old leader took out his hunting knife and whacked off his stones.”

“His…” Ellen’s eyes grew huge.  “Oh gross!”

“Harsh,” Tobi agreed lightly.  “But what can you do, right?”

“Oh, it was a terrible secret at the time!  Augurr was not the only male to breed without consent, you see, and I suppose he was afraid that he would not stand tall if enough of the tribesmen disagreed with his decision. Besides, Augurr was a full-moon’s child, and to kill one is a terrible offense to the Great Spirit.  But as it happened, after Augurr recovered, the old leader was shocked to see that Augurr’s appetites had not diminished.  In fact, he was tumbling females twice as often as before, because now there was no threat of sparking.”

“No way,” Karen said, not wonderingly but in a tone of flat disbelief.  “You can’t get it up without balls.”

“Sure you can,” Tina replied, by all appearances more interested in basket-weaving than her argument, which was delivered with her customary lack of delicacy.  “Although it’s unusual for a man to retain his libido after castration, it’s perfectly possible for him to have sex.  Historically, eunuchs were employed not to guard harems, but to keep the girls satisfied while ensuring that no one but the king fathered any children.”

“No way!” Karen said again, but now she was only astonished.

“Totally true.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Ellen asked in a marveling tone.

Tobi laughed.  “She knows everything.  Accept it now.  It’s easier.”

“So where is Augurr now?” Karen asked, glancing toward the hunters at the far end of the cavern.

“Oh, you won’t find him there,” Thurga said, laughing scornfully.  “His many eager women keep his belly full for him, so he has not hunted for many years, but he can always be found if one looks hard enough.”

“Particularly if the one looking is female, eh?”  Crugunn flapped her wings suggestively.  “And human.”

“What difference does that make?” Karen asked. 

The gullan exchanged giggling glances, but it was Carla who answered, saying, in English, “Huge difference, apparently.  They’ve all got this mystical bullshit idea that us humans are all descended from some sort of succubus or something.  Plus, you know how they’ve all got such huge dicks, so think about it in reverse:  All us humans are the tightest fucks they’ve ever had.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Victoria snapped, and bent over her basket.

“How do you know they’ve ‘all’ got huge dicks?”  Karen asked, smirking.

Carla glanced at her coolly and kept weaving.

“If you’re curious,” Crugunn said, once the English had stopped, “I think Vorgullum has ordered Augurr to work in the new tunnel.”

Victoria’s lips had been growing progressively thinner with every word.  Now she put down her ring of precisely-woven bark strips and stood up.  “This conversation,” she said frostily, “has degenerated to adolescent perversity.  You may continue without me.”  She turned and stalked off.

The three gullan bristled, teeth bared, watching her go. 

“Excuse me,” Rumm said darkly, “but did she just call me a pervert?”

“Called us all perverts,” Thurga growled.  The short, spiky hairs on the back of her neck was standing straight up in outrage.  “That slimy, naked
maggot
called
me
a pervert!”

“Move in,” Crugunn commanded.  “Let’s not leave a space for her.”

They all shuffled in slightly and took up their baskets again.

“This may sound silly,” Olivia announced without warning, “but I’m really enjoying this.  I haven’t been able pass more than a few words with another woman since I got here.  Well, Murgull, but she’s not a female as much as a force of nature.”

“Agreed.”  Rumm nodded at Olivia, then at the door.  “Speak of the storm, and the winds will rise.”

“Huh?”

“Here you are!”  Murgull’s gruff, cantankerous voice split the air like thunder.  “Old Murgull calls outside your chambers until her poor throat bleeds, and you are here!  Like she-goats chewing cud together.  Fine sight for Murgull!  Murgull who works, Murgull who slaves, Murgull who has no rest and no food! Put down that foolishness, and come with me!”

“I was on my way to see you,” Olivia began, scrambling up.

“On your way, is it?  On your way!  On your way on your round, hairless bottom with your hands full of basket!  If you had a wing, I would twist it,” Murgull fumed, and gave Olivia a sharp swat to the backside.  “Hop, frog!”

Olivia jumped ahead of her and set off down the passage, with Murgull at her heels and laughter ringing in her ears.

“First, you will show me how much you remember of the plants that grow, and then I will teach you how to turn plants into medicine.  If I use words you do not know—” Murgull began and stopped.  “Look there,” she said quietly, staring off down a side passage.

Olivia turned back and looked where Murgull was facing.  At first, she didn’t see anything, but then she saw a huddled figure against the wall.  “Who is that?” she asked, almost as if she expected Murgull to know.

Murgull shook her head.  “It is one of your kind.  Not well.  How pale she is, how still.  You, human!” she called.

No response.

Olivia raised her voice, called out in English.  “Who’s that?  What’s wrong?”

A shockingly pale face lifted out of folded arms.  Eyes like burnt holes in a blanket stared vacuously back at them.  “Olivia?”

“Liz?”

“Olivia, I done a bad thing.”  Liz did something supremely disturbing then.  She reached up with one shaky hand and put her thumb in her mouth.

“Liz, honey, come on out of there.”  Olivia reached out in what she hoped was a coaxing manner.  She felt ridiculous talking to a grown woman as though she was a child, but doubted Liz would notice. “What’s wrong?”

Liz looked up into the narrow chute leading to someone’s private chambers.  “I killed her.”

9

They proved unable to move Liz by themselves, and neither Olivia nor Murgull wanted to bring anyone else into this until they knew exactly what was going on.  Olivia climbed up the chute first and into a small entry room with three chambers leading off it.

“Holy God,” she said, reverting to English without thinking.  She looked around, recognizing this place.

Murgull heaved herself up into the room beside Olivia and looked around.  “Brown human lives here, yes?”

Olivia swallowed and heard a dry click.  There was a lump of pure horror in the back of her throat that would not go away.  She felt her legs moving her into the pit room.

Judith was lying in the pit, arranged as though she were sleeping.  In the dim light cast by the dying coals, she almost seemed to be breathing.

Almost.

Judith’s eyes were closed, but not even the flickering firelight could disguise the too-pale cast on her lifeless flesh.  Her lips had turned blue.

Olivia crawled into the pit and knelt slowly beside her.  She felt for a pulse, expecting, and finding, none.

“What happened here?” Murgull uttered a low, groaning cry and slumped down onto a bench.  “Ah, Lorchumn!  Great Spirit, how he will grieve!”

Olivia looked back at Murgull with huge, panicked eyes.  “What happened to her?”

“Poison,” the old gulla said bluntly, and pushed away further questions with impatient flaps of her hand.  “Do not ask me which, it was not one of mine.  Only look at her.  This is no sleep, no sickness.  No, there is a bottle of death in this room and we must find it, quickly, before Lorchumn returns.”  She sat forward suddenly, her good eye narrowing.  “That child below, she knows something, I think.”

“Liz,” Olivia said numbly.

“Go and see to her.  Make her understand.”  Murgull stood and shuffled over to have a closer look at the body.  “To do this to the mate who hunts for you,” she murmured.  “Little human, was your fear so much?”

Olivia climbed back down the chute to kneel beside Liz.  “What happened?”

“I want my Mommy.” 

“Stop that!”  She’d used the same words with Cheyenne once, in the same tone, and now she got the same result: a flinch, a wince, and finally a fading of that tight shine of panic, and she knew that she was being heard.  “I can’t do anything until I know what happened, so if you know something, you need to tell me.”

Liz gazed up at Olivia, her eyes shining with tears.  “I didn’t mean for it to happen.  She told me she was having trouble sleeping, and I…oh God, I have some pills.” 

“You have what?”

“He s-said I could bring s-something with m-me and so I grabbed my p-purse and—”

—
like, half the contents of my bathroom cabinet
.  She remembered now.  And apparently that meant a little more than change for the phone and dental floss after all.

“What were you giving her?” Olivia asked.  She couldn’t believe how steady her voice was.

“H-Hycodan.  It’s…It’s the purer form of hydrocodone, f-from Canada.”

“Jesus, Liz!”

“She said she was h-having trouble sleeping, so I just gave her a few.  Just a few, whenever she asked, you know, b-because we don’t see each other every day.”  Her voice broke and she began to cry in great, gulping sobs.  “I didn’t know!  I didn’t know!  I’m sorry! 
Oh, I want to go home
!”

A gulla put his head around the corner and cleared his throat awkwardly.  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Yes,” Olivia said.  “Something is terribly wrong.”

Two more gullan appeared behind the first.  “What’s happened?” one of them wanted to know.

“Someone is dead,” Olivia replied.  “And this one found her.”

They stared at her, gape-mouthed and horrified.  “Oh
no
!” one of them breathed.  “Where’s Lorchumn?”

“He’s gone with the hunters.  They just left,” another said, and turned to the third.  “Go find Vorgullum or Doru.  Let them tell Lorchumn.  Go, run.”

“Is anyone up there now?” asked the first as the other bolted away down the tunnel.  “You shouldn’t leave the dead alone.  Just in case.”

“Murgull is with her,” Olivia answered, and held up her hand to forestall more questions, switching back to English and dropping her voice to a whisper just in case one of them understood that even a little.  “Have you given pills to anyone else?”

“No!  Just…Just some Midol for Beth and Sarah, and a couple sleeping pills once for the other Sarah.  Just regular ones, not scripts.  And…And some peppers for Carla once in a while.  They’re mostly caffeine, I swear!” she burst out.  “They’re totally legal!  I get them at the gas station!”

Olivia turned and beckoned to one of the nervously-watching gullan.  He came forward with his hand out, ready to take Liz and her hysterics away, but she said, “Go get Tina, right now, please.  She should still be in the commons.”

He was away at once.

“I’m okay,” Liz said in a quavery voice.  “I am, re—”

“Tina is going to walk you back to your lair,” Olivia told her.  “And you’re going to hand over your purse, your pills, and your whole little pharmacy, you get me?”

Liz hesitated, wiped at her eyes, and haltingly nodded.  “I didn’t know,” she said, without strength.  “I didn’t, I swear.”

“I believe you.  But Tina’s a doctor.  It only makes sense for her to have any medications, right?”

Liz’s second pause was even longer than the first; her nod, noticeably more reluctant.

“At this point, the only one I’m going to tell is Tina,” Olivia said in her hard new voice.  “But if you make me, by God, I will tell Vorgullum.”

Liz burst into fresh tears, bringing the hovering gullan a few steps closer.

“What happened?” one of them asked.  “How did she die?”