The Empty (7 page)

“We could be married, you and I,” she said one night as she found Tresset returning from a romp in the woods.

“You know well, reyaqc do not marry,” he said, turning away from her.

“But, you care for me. I can see it. You may not know it yourself, but you do.”

Tresset remained silent. There was no use arguing this nonsensical point.

“You are alone, your one companion gone from you. I am now tainted in the eyes of my people. But we have each other.”

Tresset turned toward her, anger rising in his veins. “We do not have each other. You at least have a family and I have…myself.”

“Family?” the girl suddenly became furious. “Family? My father was too drunk to prevent the rape, and now he scorns me as if it was I who committed the act. My mother won’t even meet my gaze. Everywhere I go, whispers, smirks. But, you…” She grabbed his arm, cradling it, hugging him even as he fought the urge to rip her face from her head. “You cared enough to come for me. No one else cared, but you. And now that I am unclean, it seems you are the only one to care.”

“I…do not care.”

She gazed at him at length, a peculiar twist to her lips. “Of course you do,” she said finally. “I think it’s time I prove it to you.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll be in my tent—alone—soon after sunset. Come to me.”

A firm hug, a wane smile, and she moved back toward the camp.

The smell of her sex lingered on the subtle breeze.

* * * *

Tresset did not go to Lyuba’s tent that evening, but as had become his habit, bedded down amidst the trees at the outskirt of the camp. He did not feel comfortable indoors. Even the thin canvas tents incited some small claustrophobia in the often endless nights. And sleep was now deep, near deathlike, since he’d foolishly allowed himself to become so depleted. No more was he so attuned to his surroundings as he’d once been. No longer did the wisp of a scent invade his dreams and wake him to impending danger. True, these traits would return—with time, with multiple infusions—but at this point, on this clear star-filled night, he slept as the dead.

At first it seemed a dream. Lyuba’s scent. Her arousal. But then, still dreamlike, it became something more. There was a tension in his loins, a tingling. Pleasant. Stirring. An unfamiliar warmth. Moist. Enticing. There was a subtle friction, rhythmic, pure. A building of glorious pressure.

Then he was awake.

And she was there, atop him, naked, straddling his pelvis, her hips in constant motion.

She giggled. “We are now mated, you and I. You the husband, I the wife. We’ll have a ceremony. There will be no shame. No…”

The realization that she was defiling him came as a rush of anger and revulsion. Hissing deep within his throat, he released his claws, swiping right to left with such ferocity that he nearly detached the girl’s head from her form. Enraged, he allowed the corpse to fall to the grassy ground as he leaped to his feet, screeching, scraping at invisible sores, his entire form itching and burning anew. Diseased. Diseased! The human contact had ruined him, damned him.

Hearing the commotion, someone moved forward from the camp proper, Jisch, the elderly reyaqc. Tresset’s claws found his belly, twisted, pressed deeper. Jisch fell with a bewildered gaze in his salt-colored eyes. Another form in the shadows—human. Tresset did not hesitate, but bounded forward, slashing, growling, hissing. In all, seven members of the clan would fall before finally Tresset loped off into the forest where he would spend two weeks lying in a narrow river, scraping at sores that could not be seen. Only one thought held him to within a hair’s width of sanity—Dolnaraq. Out there somewhere, Dolnaraq.

CHAPTER SIX

When Dolnaraq awoke, Oskar was gone but the cat remained. The reyaqc’s muscles were of knots and twists and his stomach protested in waves of nausea. But Dolnaraq’s mind was clear. He remembered the incident, the taking of essence, the shocked and fearful expression on the little man’s face, an expression aghast at the betrayal of a friend. Dolnaraq felt glum, but couldn’t fathom quite why this mood had overtaken him. The man meant nothing to him. If he truly respected Dolnaraq at all, he would have freed him weeks ago. There was no bond, no friendship, regardless of how the simple man chose to address him.

The skinny young man who had accompanied Wilhelm on the day of Dolnaraq’s capture brought his food dish for the next several days. The young lad, his dark brown hair perpetually flopping before his eyes, would rush forward in a hunched trot, slip the metal tray into the slot with a quick push, and then race away before Dolnaraq could move to within reach. More than once the young man became tangled in his own lengthy limbs and stumbled to the ground during the process, once spilling Dolnaraq’s dish. The reyaqc went hungry that day.

The cat remained. He would nestle with Dolnaraq and then stroll away to a corner of the cage he’d claimed for his own. Dolnaraq allowed it this freedom and twice actually petted the thing. Its fur was soft, silky, much like the thinning fox hair that Dolnaraq bore in tufts about his own form. Dolnaraq considered infusing from the cat, but knew the danger of introducing yet another species into his mix. Human and one animal breed—that was the limit. Others had attempted drawing from an additional species. Most had perished for their efforts. The few who survived had become as imbeciles and lunatics, babbling and pawing, losing all power of reason and purpose.

* * * *

Oskar returned the day Dolnaraq slew the cat. The creature had been irritable that day. Dolnaraq understood very little of feline behavior and only knew that the thing had become a pest. It raced back and forth across the cage, sometimes lunging at the flies that populated the space. It screeched for no apparent reason and would not leave Dolnaraq to peace or solitude. Finally, the slim creature leaped into Dolnaraq’s lap, and, seeming to settle, curled up as if to sleep. The bemused reyaqc gazed down at the huddled ball of fur, the hint of a smile on his narrow lips. Just as he stroked the silky fur for the first time, the cat hissed and scratched Dolnaraq’s forearm with its extended claws. Dolnaraq was quick, snatching the cat up and biting deeply into its neck. Blood splattered into Dolnaraq’s left eye and oozed down his chest. Dolnaraq had not planned on slaying the little nuisance, but had acted on instinct alone. Now the thing was dead and there was nothing else to do but to consume the carcass. It had been long weeks since Dolnaraq had had truly fresh meat and he wondered why he hadn’t thought to devour the cat sooner.

It was during this meal that Oskar returned. “Oh, no, no, no, my young friend. This is not right. We must talk, you and I.”

Dolnaraq tore another piece of hindquarter free and chewed.

“What are you, my friend? I know you are not a werewolf as Wilhelm proclaims. But what are you, really?”

Dolnaraq cocked his head. The man was addressing him as one human would address another.

“You do understand me?” ventured Oskar as Dolnaraq spit fur from his mouth then swallowed a tough length of flesh.

Dolnaraq stared at the man. His grasp of the German language had increased with his time at the carnival and he comprehended most of what Oskar said. “You say it is wrong that I eat the cat. Why?” Dolnaraq’s words were slow, some of his pronunciations poor, but his sentence was coherent.

Despite the bloody scene before him, Oskar managed a wry smile at the first true sentence uttered by Dolnaraq in his presence. “The cat was…not for eating,” he replied, obviously a bit dumbfounded by the question.

“You bring me meat every day. You consume meat yourself. Why was this meat forbidden?”

“The cat was your friend, your companion.”

“I did not ask for a companion.”

“True, but often we do not have the luxury to choose our companions. We must make due with those we are given. Often we find camaraderie where none was expected.”

Dolnaraq tore free another length of flesh. He had no reply to this.

Despite the grizzly scene, despite the recent attack on him by Dolnaraq, Oskar stepped closer, his eyes narrowing, his lips pursing into a peculiar frown. “Your face has changed. It looks…” he stammered, apparently formulating the thought even as he spoke. “It looks familiar, rather like… My young friend, what did you do to me? I thought that I would die.”

“You might have,” offered Dolnaraq between bites.

“But your face, in some small way… No. I am delusional. Forgive me.”

With that, the little man shook his head as if in confusion, then turned and ambled silently away. This was fine with Dolnaraq. He was still eating.

* * * *

Oskar returned two days later, in his arms he held three tattered and worn books. He set these on the dusty ground, held up one finger indicating that Dolnaraq should wait, disappeared around a corner, and then returned with a short gray metal stool. Seating himself on the stool beside the books, he said, “It is time you made some progress.”

Dolnaraq was leaning against one of the two wooden walls of his cage thinking of his carefree times with Tresset and wondering if the two would ever reunite. He cared little for what the man was saying.

“I suppose,” said Oskar. “That we should begin with names. Mine, as I’m sure you know, is Oskar. What is yours?”

Dolnaraq stared at the opposite wall.

“What do you call yourself?”

Silence.

Oskar sighed. “All right, then I suppose it best that I myself give you a name. In youth I had a dear friend named Otto. I believe I will call you Otto.”

Dolnaraq picked a piece of rotting flesh from between two teeth and flicked it across the cage.

“Now…Otto. If you are ever to live beyond the confines of a cage, you must be civilized. We cannot have you behaving like an animal.”

Dolnaraq lulled his head in Oskar’s direction. “I am not an animal.”

“No, I don’t believe you are. The very fact that we can converse attests to that fact.”

“Still I am caged like an animal.”

Oskar sighed. “Wilhelm thinks you a beast. He also seeks to become rich by owning you.”

“And you? You could free me and yet you do not.”

“You…” Oskar hesitated, apparently searching for words. “You are a threat,” he said finally. “I sense a fine intellect, but you behave as a beast. You have attacked me twice since your arrival. On the morning of your capture, you had apparently slain several people in the nearby village. The attacks were savage—animalistic. Wilhelm lied to the villagers, convincing them that he had slain the werewolf. Otherwise, they surely would have tracked you down and slain you. I cannot, in good conscience, release you while I still believe you would behave as such.”

Dolnaraq stared forward at the chipped paint of the wall before him, not meeting Oskar’s gaze, not responding to the statements. Apparently the villagers believed there had been only one “werewolf.” Good, perhaps Tresset had escaped.

After several moments, Oskar reached down and selected a pale blue book, dusted it off with a few swipes of his palm. “Language, Otto. I believe it best that we begin with language.”

These sessions became a routine. Each day Oskar arrived with his armload of books, settled on his creaky little stool, opened a book, and began his lesson. At the onset, Dolnaraq responded to very little the man had to say. He simply leaned against the wall of his cage, picked at fleas, and listened as the man droned on. For all appearances, it was a wasted effort on the part of the man. But Dolnaraq was listening; he was allowing the words to penetrate his sharp and curious mind. Eventually, his resolve softened and he began repeating words given to him by Oskar and even conjugating sentences aloud. The spoken word held little difficulty for Dolnaraq. He already spoke the native tongue of the reyaqc, a fair smattering of Russian, and now German. But the written word was a peculiar and mysterious thing. The first time that Oskar passed a book through the bars and asked Dolnaraq to read, the reyaqc stared dumbly at the thing, then to Oskar’s horror, ripped the pages free, allowing them to litter the floor beside him.

“No, no, no!” cried the man. “A book is a sacred thing. It is by this means that one generation may pass knowledge to another, that men who will never meet in this world can communicate deep and wondrous thoughts. A book is to be respected above all else.”

Dolnaraq released the book, allowing it to tumble noisily to the floor, but said nothing.

Eventually, though, Dolnaraq did gain a grasp of written language, and in fact, learned he had quite an aptitude in this area. Soon Oskar moved on to other languages, first English, then French, then Italian. Oskar taught from great works of literature from various languages. Dolnaraq read Dostoyevsky’s
The
Brothers
Karamazov
in the original Russian. He devoured a German translation of Homer’s
Iliad
. He pored over Dickens and Shakespeare in English. Oskar began teaching him world history and discussing with him the politics of the time. Dolnaraq was a quick and able student, absorbing everything, questioning the reasoning of the authors he read, and debating the logic. Through all of this, Oskar would smile, nodding eagerly as the wordplay between them grew to the type that two university academics might enjoy over tea in some austere campus library.

One day, as Dolnaraq sat mulling over Dante, he peered quizzically at his tutor. “You’re a carnie,” he said.

Oskar nodded.

“You obviously have an amazing mind. You speak multiple languages; you dabble in philosophy, politics, the social sciences. You have a rich love for and grasp of literature. How then is it that you tend to the beasts in a run down carnival managed by an inept tyrant?”

Oskar frowned, leaning forward on his bony elbows. “It is as you say. In truth, I am an academic, having spent the better part of my adult life on staff at the University of Heidelberg.”

“What brought you to this place?”

“My younger sister, Frieda. She is married to the buffoon.”

“Wilhelm? Your sibling is his mate?” Dolnaraq had seen the woman only in passing, a slight creature with thinning hair and sunken eyes. At some point she might have been attractive, but now only seemed listless and dull.