Olivia (76 page)

The gathered gullan exchanged a few glances and small shrugs, then unleashed a stone-shaking roar of celebration while the humans looked, by and large, utterly dumbfounded.  Gullnar stood there, plainly furious, and when it became clear that no one was coming over to commiserate with him, he stalked off without a word.  By comparison, Doru waited patiently for Tobi to release her new mate, then enfolded her in his arms and wrapped his wings close around them both. 

“Be happy, be well,” Olivia heard him say.  “But let me be…at least a little sorry.”

“Thanks, Doru!  You’re the best!”  Tobi clapped him hard on the back and ran back to hug Tina again.

Doru took a deep breath, looked down at his empty hands, took another, then threw back his horns and shouted, “Bring on the thumperjuice!  I have bedding and warm furs to feather that nest in your new lair!”

“Jesus Christ,” Olivia heard someone whisper at her shoulder.  She glanced around and saw Amy’s dark eyes fixed on Doru with stunned pity.

“Did you know?” Olivia whispered back.

“About Tina and Tobi?  Heck, yeah.  I knew that back at High Hill.  Did I know they were going to do this?  No.  Look at him.  My God, how can he stand there laughing?”

Tina saw them watching and came over, clearly embarrassed to some small degree but still grinning.  “I can’t believe it. I just got married!”

“Congratulations,” Olivia said, and smiled.  “I think you could use Tobi to drill through the wall.”

Tina turned to watch Tobi bouncing on her toes while gesticulating wildly to a group of gullan.  She laughed.  “I know, she’s been doing that ever since I agreed to go through with it. We’ve been talking about it for a while, since before the move, even.  Neither of us has gotten pregnant, and that was the really thorny bit.”

“What, you mean it would have been easier to split up if you were?”  Amy cocked her head.  “Just when logic would dictate you needed a mate the most.  What kind of sense does that make?”

“Tobi hunts,” Tina said with a shrug.  “And I heal.  We’re both entitled to a full hunter’s share of the game anyway.  Being provided for wasn’t the issue.  Babies were.  See, the same-sex thing is actually no big deal down here—call it the inevitable coping mechanism of making procreation punishable by death—but whether we’re gay or not, we still have to make babies for Vorgullum.  But it’s been all this time and neither of us has sparked, you know?”  She gave the room behind her another glance, this time in Doru’s direction as he passed cans of Bud Lite around to Tobi’s well-wishers.  Her smile was gone.  “Then one day, I was over visiting and Tobi looks up and asks him outright how hard it would be to get a divorce.  Poor guy, it had to rock him.  He sat there and he said, ‘Have I hurt you, my Tobi?’  No.  He said, ‘Where will you go?’  She thumbs back at me and says, ‘Meet my lover.’  He looked at me, he looked at her, he looked at me, and then, I swear to God, he makes this
ghastly
smile and he shakes my hand.” 

Tina was silent for a little while, watching Doru and Tobi together.  She said, “So he got up and started gathering Tobi’s stuff and he took it down to this cave we’ve been using to, you know, meet in.  And he cleaned up the wall and got paint from Kodjunn and taught Tobi how to make the mate-welcome markings for good luck.  And then he went with me to Gullnar and told him the good news, told him like it
was
good news, and the whole time Gullnar is looking like he wanted to haul off and punch me in the face.  But there’s Doru, who is simply enormous, and he’s got that massive paw on my shoulder and he’s doing this hearty impression of someone who’s very happy for me so Gullnar let me get my stuff and go.”

Amy whistled, low and sorrowful.  “I didn’t realize,” she said.

“Nobody realized.  Well, he may have told Bodual, but he might not have because poor Bud’s been having troubles of his own.”  Tina shrugged, beginning to smile again as she watched Tobi start up the disc player and lead Thurga out into the center of the room.  “The two of them are probably going to get pounding drunk tonight.  Still…”  She trailed off, her expression at once rueful and wistful.  “I have always wanted something like this, to get up in front of everyone and get married and have a big party.  Ironically, I never could have done it if I hadn’t been hauled off in the night by a bunch of bat-men.  So I guess I ought to pay my dues and join the don’t-wanna-go-back club.”

“Membership is pretty informal,” Olivia said.  “Meetings every second Tuesday.”

“Bring a dessert,” added Amy.

11

Olivia left the party when the thumperjuice started flowing freely enough to start a wave of gullan voices raised in tribute to Ricky Martin, and departed for the lower fathoms of the mountain, still in search of Kodjunn.  Since he hadn’t been either at home or in the commons, she knew she’d find him in the archives, and sure enough, she could see the yellow glow of candlelight spilling out of the spiral at a hundred paces.  When she drew even nearer, she could hear Kodjunn humming to himself.

“
Sigruum
,” she called, stopping a polite distance away.  “Are you busy?”

He appeared in the tunnel mouth almost before she finished speaking, and beckoned her in, looking distracted, but pleased to see her.  “What brings you here?” he asked, lighting a few more candles for her benefit.

“Which do you want first?  Tribe news or Cheyenne news?”

His face shadowed briefly at her name, then climbed resolutely back into good humor.  “Tribe news,” he said.

“Tobi and Tina just got mated.”

“They’re already mated, I thought.”  He started and looked at her.  “Oh, you mean to each other.  Poor Doru.  How’s he taking it?”

“When I left, he was passing out presents and drinking heavily.  Why is it that no one ever says ‘Poor Gullnar?’  He lost his mate, too.”

“Gullnar…”  Kodjunn waved one hand through the air and headed back into the spiral.  “Understand, Olivia, this was Gullnar’s chance to have a mate the way it was supposed to be done.  He’s old enough to remember that, a little.  When Vorgullum selected him as one of those who would take a human, he was eager to have one.  He’s not really a bad man and he wanted to be a good mate, but he wanted to be a good gullan mate and I think there must be a difference.”

“There must be.”

“He wanted Tina to stay in his lair when he hunted and she insisted on going out and letting herself be seen by other males.  He wanted her to dress his kills when he brought them to her and she sent them off to be butchered by other women.  He wanted her to take food from his hands when the feasts were held and she went off to be a healer and got her own share.  He wanted her to praise him in the pit…I think we both know how vain a hope that was.”

“You know that no one told us any of these rules,” Olivia said.  She meant for it to be an explanatory tone, maybe even one of apology, but it came out frustrated and a little resentful.  “This is the first I’ve even heard of them.”

“Vorgullum didn’t want to chain you up with expectations.  He knew you would be having a difficult enough time.”  Kodjunn glanced at her, smiling.  “And then there was you.  And Vorgullum thought if everyone followed his example, all the humans might turn out like you.”

“Oh for God’s sake.”

“Anyway, instead of being proud of a clever, strong-willed mate who can heal her tribemates and bring new life safely into the world, Gullnar has been very loud about how her behavior embarrasses him.  Hearing that puts out a lot of the light of sympathy, especially when the others have no one at all to share their pit.  Gullnar found himself frustrated by a lack of sympathy and a mate he considered unfeminine and wild.  And then…”  Kodjunn glanced at Olivia and away again.  “Shortly after we arrived here, Gullnar found his mate in the commons dressing some of Wurlgunn’s latest hunting wounds with several other males close by.  He ordered her back to his lair.  She refused to go.  He lost his temper and he hit her.”

“I never heard about this!” Olivia said, shocked by that fact much more than the story itself.  After all, she’d been living in the women’s tunnels quite a bit, home of Crugunn, of whom it had often been said that she must have four ears and two tongues to keep up with all the gossiping she did.

Kodjunn shrugged his wings, the casual gesture belied by the pinched look of disgust that drifted across his face.  “It’s not forbidden for a man to hit his mate.  Even if she is a human half his size, apparently.  Tobi wasn’t there, thank the spirits, or things would have been much worse, but in any case, Gullnar earned himself no pity by striking down a healer as she went about her work.  But I do feel for Doru.  He’s been trying so hard to make a friend of his Tobi.”

He tipped his head to one side, staring at the wall as if seeing Doru, or perhaps Gullnar, standing before him.  “It’s good news for the humans, at least.  One should always be free to choose a mate from love.  These are terrible times, Olivia, but there should be some happiness.”  He shook his horns out and forced a smile, lighting more candles. “And now to bite the bee with the honey,” he said.  “Tell me of Cheyenne.”

“There is no change in her condition.  I just thought you might want to know that she’s carrying two babies.”

“In what?” he inquired, fixing a candle onto a jut of stone.

“In her belly,” she said, beginning to laugh.

He looked just as surprised as Bodual had.  “Is she?  Are you sure?”

“Hey, do I come down here and ask if you’re sure about what these little smudges look like?”

He started to smile, paused, and said cautiously, “Do you think she’ll allow me to keep one of them?”

Olivia’s smile wavered.  He saw it, and his excitement melted back into resignation.  He shrugged his wings.

“So be it.  My hopes were not high.  Is she happy?”

“She seemed pretty pleased with herself when I left.”  Unsettlingly, she heard an echo of Bodual’s words:
Think of the sorts of things it must take to make that beast happy
.  When she looked up, Kodjunn was studying her face as if he could read her mind.  “But,” she said slowly, “Vorgullum is right to have someone watching her.” 

“Yes.  It isn’t like her to be pleased, is it?  I’m glad you came, Olivia,” Kodjunn said, changing the subject.  “I’ve been working on your story, and I wanted you to see it.”  He put out his hand.

Another ghost-voice, Cheyenne’s this time, but Olivia crushed it before she could listen to what it said.  She took Kodjunn’s hand and let him lead her deeper into the archives.

He had put in a lot of work already, painstakingly restoring the old images with fresh paint, and she paused several times to look at scenes she had missed during her initial tour of the
sigru
.  If he was impatient with these constant interruptions, he gave no sign.  On the contrary, he seemed quite proud each time she pulled at his hand and peered closer at the wall.

“This is new,” Olivia remarked, standing in front of the three broad black lines that separated one tribe’s history from the other.  Kodjunn had put in a brief introduction to Hollow Mountain’s tribe, then introduced Vorgullum, who was depicted as a red gulla much taller than the rest of his tribe.  His image alone poured a white liquid over a small building, while a small group of gullan clustered around it, waiting. 

“Behold,” Kodjunn said dramatically, ushering Olivia down to the next sequence of images.  “Here is your history!”

And there it was, all right.  In the group of abductees, Olivia stood out.  She was drawn much taller, for one thing, and her hair was streaked with vibrant red.  Also, while the others were cringing and weeping, she was drawn standing erect and proud.  Hers was the only image looking directly at the gullan.

In the next panel, Olivia and Vorgullum walked side by side to the overpass while the other unremarkable gullan carried their unremarkable women, all of whom had their faces turned away.  Olivia put her arms around her captor, and they flew away, staring into each other’s eyes.

“That’s nice,” Olivia said, smiling.  “But it’s not the way it happened.”

“Close enough,” Kodjunn said, shrugging his wings.

Still smiling, Olivia moved to the next wall to continue the story.  And clapped a hand over her gasping mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

“That,” Olivia stammered.  “That’s a little…graphic.”

Kodjunn studied the images, bewildered.  On the wall, the captured Olivia and the gullan leader were having enthusiastic sex.  A tiny yellow light was being kindled between them.

“Olivia,” he said, exasperated.  “That’s where babies come from!”

“I know that, but you could still be a bit more discreet!”

“This is important,” he insisted. 

Unconvinced, she moved on.  Here was Olivia gathering in the other humans and trying to teach them gullan ways.  Here was Olivia pouring liquid into bottles while surrounded by images of herbs.  And here…

“For pity’s sake, Kodjunn, you did it again!” she exclaimed.

“Somurg of Three Fathers,” he reminded her.  “It has to be shown.”

Another image of Olivia and a dark gulla, within whom was the red, wingless figure of the Great Spirit, lying together while the spark of life inside her grew and turned red.  A trick of the flickering candlelight made the two figures seem to shudder and writhe.

“Besides,” Kodjunn said uncomfortably.  “No one reading this will know who that was meant to be.  They’ll assume it was the
tovorak
.”

Now here was the Great Spirit speaking through a gulla and showing favor in the form of gold light on Olivia’s body.  Here was Olivia pulling a grey-painted demon out through a kneeling human’s mouth.  And here was the dream that warned Olivia of danger.  The tribe moved, and there were three thin lines reminding the reader to check the first tribe’s history before continuing with the birth of Somurg.  The last image stopped, simply stopped, hanging in the center of the wall like an unfinished sentence.

“Is there more?” she asked, brushing one hand against the rock.

“Not yet, but there will be.  I’ve dreamed some of it already.”

“Dreamed?”  She tried to laugh, which was difficult to do when he simply looked at her.  “It’s hard enough to live up to my reputation.  I’d hate to have to live up to dreams as well.”