Olivia (73 page)

“All righty!”  Tina gave her thighs a slap and stood up.  “I think it’s showtime.  Ladies, let’s get her to the birthing bench.”

Olivia felt strong hands on either side of her lifting her off her bed and setting her on her feet.  She walked through a thick fog to the bench and was lifted into it.  Her legs came apart and were fit in the supports.  There was a cushion at her back, warm cloths wiping the sweat and tears from her face.  She was aware of all these things in the most detached way; the pain had all of her.

“She is ready,” she heard Horumn say.  “You must be strong, Good Mother.  The pain will increase.”

For a while, Olivia was all right.  The labor was more intense, the contractions longer, but she thought she was coping with it rather well.  Thurga came to rub her shoulders and her soft, leathery hands felt good.  Her deep, soothing voice sang in her ear and gave her something besides pain to dwell on, and that was good, too.

But hours went by and the pain just kept coming, and no matter how hard Olivia pushed, nothing seemed to be happening.  Pain, God, pain swallowing her up like a python swallowing a goat—first crushing and then consuming her.  At one  particularly vicious spasm, Olivia screamed for two full minutes, insensible.  As the pain finally eased and her voice faded in the air, she realized she could hear Vorgullum howling for her, far back in the caverns.

“Control yourself, damn you!” Horumn snapped.  “The more you fight, the longer this will last.  The first child is always difficult.  You must gather your strength, remain calm.” 

And that was almost reassuring.  Almost…if not for the fact that she could also hear Tina and her matter-of-fact mutters:  “This is taking way too long.  Thurga, you better get the knives ready.”

“
Behold me, mortal
.”

She turned her head and saw a faintly glowing figure in the corner of the crowded cave.  “Urga!” she cried.

The light coalesced into Urga’s now familiar form, swollen thick with her own child.  “
It is time
.” she said, and came gliding across the floor.  She paused when she reached the pit, a faint frown touching at her face.  “
What are you doing
?”

Olivia’s answer was another rusty shriek as her entire lower body tried to rip itself inside-out.

Urga’s lips curved in the very smallest of smiles, but her eyes remained cold and dead as distant stars.  “
Foolish woman.  Did I not say you were to have the birthing of my son?  How could you think to bear him without me?
”

“Then help me!  Please!  Help me!” Olivia screamed, only dimly aware of what startled and disturbed effect her cries had upon the others in the room.

“
Help you?  Not for all the pleas in the world would I help you this time, daughter of Bahgree.  I answer only my mate’s command.
”  Urga floated forward, passing right through Horumn as she knelt between Olivia’s bent legs, then turned and fell back into Olivia’s body.

Cold.  Olivia gasped, clawing mindlessly backwards as gullan hands restrained her, unknowingly holding her for their goddess to consume.  Urga was the moon inside her, a terrible tidal force aligning all of Olivia’s human body to her own ruthless will.  She could still hear Horumn speaking to her excitedly, but Horumn had ceased to matter.  Her head turned at Urga’s direction; she studied the frame of the birthing bench around her with alien, incurious eyes. 

Foolishness.  Mortal trimmings for an act she had been first in all the world to perform.  Scorning the padded hand-grips at her sides, Urga cupped Olivia’s stomach, bent forward, and bore down.

Horumn cried out, not with horror, but with happiness.  “Blanket!” she shouted, and a dozen gullan rushed to obey.

Urga worked swiftly and in silence, ignoring the rushing gullan around her, the insignificant cries and coaching.  The human at her back alone distracted her; she felt as thorns each pinch of the human’s hand at her wrist, heard every word as River’s water splashing over bones, but did not allow it to divert her from her purpose.  She kept pushing, feeling the pressure ease with every contraction until it slid suddenly out and she saw the baby in Horumn’s hands.

Covered with mucous and short, slimy fur, the child was coffee-colored, with thick flaps of furry skin surrounding a fat, wrinkled body.  Its undeveloped wings folded over its back, sealed to the body with a thin, whitish membrane.  Two dull nubs of bone marked the base of what would one day be a span of imposing horns.  And between them, running from the crown of its head all the way down its spine to just above its bottom, was a narrow silvery stripe that would someday be a dead-ringer for the one Kodjunn had.

Horumn stuck her finger in its mouth, swabbed out an amazing amount of gummy mucous, then flipped it onto its belly and smacked it once on the back.  The baby drew in a gasping, offended breath, and released it in a hoarse cry.

Somurg.

Urga stood up, her lean body rising easily out of Olivia’s, and looked down at the infant raging in Horumn’s hands.  There was no sign of motherly affection or remorse about her as she turned away.  Her purpose was to deliver new life and her purpose had been completed.  The child, inevitable result of that purpose, was no longer of any consequence.  “
I am done with you, daughter of Bahgree
,” she said, already beginning to fade.  “
Await the will of my mate
.”

Then she was gone, reality snapping back into three dimensions around her.  Horumn wept steadily as she toweled the baby off and she was not alone; every gullan in the room sobbed freely.  There was pain again, and smells and sounds and every caustic sense vying at once for her attention, but there was also Somurg—Somurg, her son.

Olivia put out her arms and soon he filled them.  She brought him in close and he turned his face into her breast, howling over and over in his scratchy, brand-new voice until he heard her saying his name.  Then he stopped crying and just lay there, hitching in baby breaths and beating at her now and then with twitching fists.

“Is he healthy?” Olivia asked shakily.

She meant to ask Tina, but Tina was only frowning at her, so she turned her anxious eyes on Horumn instead.  Horumn nodded, too overcome to speak.

“I want my mate,” she said, and it was not a request.

Crugunn got up and stumbled into the tunnel.  A very short time later Vorgullum raced into the cavern and came to Olivia’s side.  He reached for her, but it was a cursory touch; Vorgullum had lived thinking only of healthy children since before their abduction, and now, at last, he saw one.

“Oh,” he said quietly. 

“Do you want to hold him?” she asked, offering the baby up to him.

But he shook his head and prodded Somurg tentatively with one blunt claw instead.  The baby gave the invader a punch, then grabbed the finger and looked cross.  The tiny hand could not even close around Vorgullum’s finger, and yet he was trapped.

“Our son, Somurg,” Olivia said.  “We are a family, Vorgullum.”

“Family,” he whispered, and just kept staring. 

“Not a mark anywhere,” Horumn exclaimed.  “No mottles, no sign of weakness or deformity.  His wings are solid and firmly bound.  His bones are strong, and see there!  Oh, great
tovorak
, behold his crest!”

Vorgullum moved his uncaught hand to brush lightly at the wet spikes of silver crowning the baby’s head.  “Yes.  His crest.”  He glanced at Horumn and it must have been a meaningful glance because the other gullan quickly gathered themselves up and left them.  Only then did he turn his gaze on her, his eyes strangely subdued.  “The moon is full,” he told her.  “Tonight, Urga brings another son of the Great Spirit to this world to be born.  I think it is our own.”

Olivia felt her arms tightening around her baby and forced them to relax.

“And that should be a good thing,” he went on, looking back into Somurg’s scrunched and unhappy face.  “It has always been a good thing before.  The children of the Full-Moon become
tovorak
, become
sigruum
, become legend.  I should be honored.”

Olivia found herself fussing with the blanket, hating the heavy silence that lay between them.

“I will try to feel blessed,” Vorgullum said at last.  “I will try to believe that it is my son at the center of all these signs and omens.  Not you.”

“Not me,” she agreed, and smiled at him, wishing she believed it, too.

9

Three days later, Vorgullum presented his son before the entire tribe as Olivia stood beside him.  Somurg slept through most of it, waking only when his father lifted him high over the assembly, at which point he let out a lusty bellow and was handed promptly back to Olivia for quieting.

She leaned herself against the wall and tucked Somurg inside her robe, smiling faintly as he attached himself to a breast and fumbled around until he managed to get some milk.  “I thought this was supposed to be instinctive,” she said chidingly, and he thumped her on the chest with one balled fist as though to say, ‘Less talk, more milk.’

“Don’t you want to sit down?” Amy asked from beside her.

“I would love to sit down,” Olivia replied.  “And if I ever manage it, I’m going to have the bench bronzed.”

Sarah J. burst out laughing.  She wiped her eyes, sniggering, and only then noticed that everyone was looking at her.  “Sorry,” she said, grinning.  “But I know exactly what you mean.”

“You’ve had a baby before?” Amy asked, somewhat surprised.

Sarah J. shook her head, peering at what there was to see of Somurg.  “My sister.  She was a just a kid, still in school, vanishing goy boyfriend, the whole song and dance.  My parents…”  She shrugged.  “She had to give it up, and she hated them for it, but honestly, it was the right thing to do.  God, that’s a cute kid.  Like a cross between a baby and a puppy.”

Olivia beamed.  She supposed it wasn’t exactly the sort of compliment that ought to go to a new mother’s head, but she couldn’t help herself.

“I’m in no hurry, though,” Sarah J. added, straightening up.  “As soon as Doru finds out you’ve got a bun in the oven, he takes your spear away.  I’m only just getting good with it.”

One of the female gullan hovering nearby edged a little closer.  “You actually hunt?” she asked, in the tones of one who has heard it before and still can’t believe it.

“Yup.”  Sarah J. put her shoulders back with a great deal of pride.  “Got a rabbit yesterday and helped Doru take down a deer the day before.  With a spear.  Eat your heart out, Ted Nugent.”

Far from looking impressed, the female’s expression was obviously one of mild revulsion.  “But…Sung does not hunt for you?”

Sarah J. seemed nonplussed by this reaction.  “Well, sure he does.  And I hunt for him.”

“A mate should provide for you.”  The female groped for something more to say and finally tossed her hornless head.  “If he cared for you, he would see to it that you never needed to leave the mountain.  That is his duty!”

Sarah J. was beginning to look a little annoyed.  “No, his duty is to knock me up.  In the meantime, we all need to eat, so he hunts and so do I.”

“Hang on,” Amy interrupted, lifting one finger like a referee’s flag.  “Are you saying a female never leaves the mountain?  For any reason?”

“Not after we are mated!” the female said with a derisive flap of her folded wings.  “If I had a strong hunter to bring me meat, why would I choose to spend my days scratching at the earth for roots and berries? And I note that your Kurlun does not allow you to hunt!”

“I would,” Kurlun said, and everyone jumped a little and watched him stride over to join them.  “If I thought she wanted to.  I’d carry her out of the mountain any night she asked me, just to see my Amy in the moonlight.  If she wished to bear my child beneath the stars, I would take her out even then, and if I thought it could be done, I would have Sudjummar make her a pair of wings for her own.  Now go on,” he said quietly, “and tell me I do not care for her.  Tell me, Sorluu, that I do not provide for her.”

The female hunched, lowering her eyes to the floor, and said nothing.

“Hm.”  Kurlun eyed her a moment longer, and then turned his back on her and bent to bump brows with Amy.  “I would couple with you by starlight anytime you asked me,” he stage-whispered.

“When you couple with me,” she whispered back, grinning, “there are always stars.  Stars and moons and suns.”

He nipped lightly at Amy’s lips and moved away.  “And by the way,” he called, “Sarahjay is a
damn
fine hunter.  This tribe is fortunate to have her spear, and Sung is a fool if he is not proud of her!”

“I am,” a gulla called and gave the rock beneath his feet a solid smack with the butt of his spear.

“So there,” Sarah J. said.

Sorluu was still staring at the floor.  “I meant no insult,” she said softly.

Sarah J.’s smile faded and Amy looked slightly uncomfortable.

Sorluu’s breath hitched a little.  “All the old ways are changing.”

She retreated, not only from their little group but all the way out of the commons.  Back to the women’s tunnels, perhaps, were she could be confident of her place in the world.  Sarah J. watched her go, frowning.  “I think I hurt her feelings, but she hit a little too close to home.  Sung doesn’t like that I hunt.”

“He said he was proud of you.”

“Yeah, when Kurlun set him up.  And he’s quiet about it when we’re out doing our thing on the game trails, because Doru’s usually around.  But when we’re alone, it’s different.  Especially when I catch something and he doesn’t.  Oh, he doesn’t go at me like Gullnar does Tina, but still…I hate to see a man emasculated in front of his friends.  I got to see enough of that growing up.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” Olivia began, and Amy said, “Tell him he’s a tiger in the sack.”

A startled silence gave way to a wave of half-smothered giggles lively enough to draw a few curious glances.

“It helps if you can say it sincerely,” Amy added, watching them with a sagacious eye.  “But say it anyway.  Moan, groan, toss yourself around.”