A/N: So, yes, this fanfic is about Tumulus. It occurred to me that there has been so much written about pre- and post-Tumulus, but nothing much about the actual time that Cal spent there. Maybe one day Rob will enlighten us in detail as to what exactly happened over those two years, but until then, here is my inferior version. And if you manage to finish the whole story, I think I deserve a review ;)
Rating: This is Tumulus, guys. Torture, cannibalism, murder… it's rated M for a reason.
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Cal Leandros novels; they belong entirely to Rob Thurman.
Into the gray light…
That's where they dragged me, their blood-stained, razor-sharp claws scoring my flesh, their serpentine shrieks of "Welcome home" splitting the air, as my world disappeared… and their world swallowed me whole.
I was spat out onto red glass. At least, that's what it looked like, and felt like… tiny red granules of the stuff, stretching out as far as the eye could see. A blood-soaked ground under a piss-soaked sky. And it crawled – the sky did. I didn't know what was in it, but it wasn't clouds. I stared up into it for the one precious moment they let me lay there, my lungs aching with the lack of air…why was there so little air?…and wondering where in hell they'd taken me.
But that was the answer right there, wasn't it? Hell. They'd taken me to hell.
And then that precious moment of lying still ended, my very last precious moment, and the Grendels ripped me back to my feet. They were everywhere. Horrific, skeletal faces split into half-moon grins of malice as they circled me, glances flashing from me to each other, the searing red of their eyes reflecting off of each other's teeth so that it looked like fire, or blood. They were congratulating themselves. The faces of my childhood nightmares, joyful and triumphant, and all… around… me.
I couldn't breathe. It was partially the air, so unbearably thin in places it wreaked havoc on my lungs, but mostly it was terror. Either way, black spots danced in front of my eyes, and suddenly I was back on the ground, on my side. Then they were dragging me back up, all but screaming with laughter. My feet hurt. I'd cut them on the ground, I think. And I was crying. You heard me, tough half-monster boy was crying, and now with the tears next to the black spots I couldn't see jack shit. I didn't know where their hands and claws were coming from, but I could feel them, all over every inch of me, ripping away my clothes.
"Cast off your human skin," one of them, clinging to my back, whispered in my ear. I heard the click of its teeth near my neck. "You're one of the family now, baby boy." Then it dove off me, taking the entire back of my shirt with it. The rest of my shirt was fluttering to the ground around me, floating and falling alternatively in the patches of air. My pants were in pieces too, crunched into the bloody glass of the earth. I was naked, and the Grendels were hysterical laughing.
I heard their laughter as I turned to run through the hole in the air that was no longer there. I heard it as I decided to make a break for it anyway, a desperate bolt away from them that lasted less than a second, before I was prostrate on the ground. And this time they didn't let me get up. "Niko…" I gasped, his name forcing itself through clenched teeth. Grendels were crawling all over me, and the ground under me was somehow crawling too. This time I screamed his name: "NIKO!" Because where was he? Where was he? I needed him to save me I needed him Ineededhim…
"I need my brother,"I moaned, hot bile rising in my throat as I writhed, struggled, and tried uselessly to get away from the nightmares that held me down. "God, where's my brother?"
The Grendels heard it, and sucked in this weakness of mine as if it were air. Hell, maybe it was air to them, and that was why I couldn't breathe well here, and they could.
"'Where's my brother?'" they started to chant, mimicking my voice as best they could, some circling me in a demonic ring, some continuing to press me helpless into the earth. "'Where's my brother?' Where's Niko?" Hearing his name in their mouths was torture, worse than anything they could have done to me at that moment, and they saw it in my eyes. "Niko, Niko, Niko, Niko, Nik, Nik, Nik!" Again and again they spat out his name, mocking me, grinning predatorily at my tears.
Then one of them broke the ring and approached me. I recognized it…him…immediately. He was the one who had first found me, the one at my window, the one that had stolen me out of my bed. My father. "Blood of my blood. Caliban," his ice-cold needle fingers grabbed my chin, forcing me to stare into his eyes even though everything in me rebelled against the sight and feel of him. "'Niko' is dead."
My teeth chattered, but he stopped them with a jaw-groaning squeeze. Completely in control. "Big brother is dead." I remembered the trailer fire, the flames, the smoke, and no Niko, and I knew that he was right. Had to be right. He forcibly tilted my head so that I was staring at his kin, the rest of the Grendels, all of which were now watching me with eager anticipation. Then he hissed, "These are your brothers now."
"Nik…" I was still saying his name, even though I knew he wasn't, couldn't be there. My body wouldn't accept it, and kept shoving his name up with the bile in my throat, begging for him with a primal, groaning desperation.
"No," father Grendel cocked its head in a reprimanding gesture, its grin still as wide as ever.
"N-ii-iik…"
Claws buried themselves punishingly in the flesh of my shoulders. I screamed with the pain and then vomited all over the ground, as Grendels swarmed over my body and told me over and over again that my big brother, the only person I had ever had in the world, was dead.
They dragged me into the caves. You wouldn't be able to see the tunnels if you didn't look hard – if you didn't have a Grendel to lead you – but they were there, buried in the red earth and leading down, down, down. I was covered in blood and vomit when the Grendels dragged me through one of the gaping stone mouths, their claws inescapably embedded in my skin. The mouth was gaping, but after we went through and the piss sky disappeared, the tunnel became tight and claustrophobic, so much so that I longed to be back above ground. Stone walls invaded me, pressing me against ice-cold Grendel flesh so that shudders racked my body. The Grendels overlooked this… they seemed too excited.
Down, down, into the earth, and when the tunnel became so tight I thought I was going to scream, the walls flew away from me and opened up into a huge stone cavern. I was dumped onto the ground, my head hitting the floor with a sickening thud. They surrounded me again, uninterested in anything but me, but this time they were no longer laughing. A silence filled the cavern, and for the first time I could hear myself whimpering, and my teeth chattering.
I dared to get up on my hands and knees, and none of the Grendels stopped me. But their eyes were on me, malicious but concentrated. Probing. Then, in one communal voice, they hissed: "Stand!"
I tried, but I wasn't fast enough; I could see the mockery in their eyes. My knees buckled under me once, and so it took two desperate, wobbly attempts to right myself, and just when I had reached my feet they knocked me down again. My bruising body was impacting the stone when, again, they hissed: "Stand! Give us our pleasure!"
First I got to my knees, but my feet were trickier, and betrayed me once again to a face full of stone. I laid still, expecting punishment, but the Grendels were still waiting, calculating. Releasing a groan I was unable to suppress, I staggered up once again and made it, one hand supported against the cold wall of the cavern. And then I was down again, and the Grendels were grinning, vastly entertained. All except for one… my father. He was still concentrated as ever, his death-red eyes all but melting my skin.
I was herded into the corner of the cavern where the shadows were darkest, and shoved down. The stone was rough and cold against my bare skin. "Sleep," they told me, their voices pregnant with the promise of more, later. And then one of them said, flashing a huge grin of malice: "When you wake, we will bring you food."
Some of them left. Some of them stayed and watched me. At times they fought, at times they spoke – with strange words like broken glass knotting the air and piercing my ears and skull – but all the time their eyes were on me, gleeful and triumphant. I felt like their prize. Maybe I was.
I curled in a ball, knowing I would never sleep, but trying despite that to get as comfortable as possible. It didn't work. Nothing would work. The last hour, decade, however long it had been since that oh-so-friendly tap on my bedroom window, it was all catching up with me, and a sound halfway between a sob and a groan erupted from my throat. I tried to hold it in, hold every noise in, terrified of attracting unwanted attention. But when none of the Grendels seemed interested in coming near me, I released the hold on my body and let myself sob, and occasionally dry-heave, because there was nothing left to eject from my stomach.
My tears were ignored by the Grendels, which was good, because trying to hold them in would've proven useless. I wept until the stone underneath me was slick with moisture, and while part of it was for me, most of my tears were for Niko. Killed in a trailer fire when I'd thought he was invincible, thought he'd always be there to protect me. I'd never see him again. I'd never hear his voice again.
More Grendel words knotted the air and I pressed my hands against my ears to block them out. It didn't work, so then I tried to think of Niko.
It wasn't the last time I'd seen him, or the last words he'd said to me… it was just a random memory that shivered hesitantly through my brain, afraid that somehow the Grendels might see it. They didn't, so I thought it, as hard as I could.
I remembered… sitting on the floor near the door of our trailer, back pressed up against a wall, book in hand. It was dark outside, well after midnight, but I had no qualms about staying up, because Sophia was gone for the night, doing whatever dirty business she had to do. Besides, I was waiting for somebody.
Niko's Spring Break started tomorrow, but I knew he wouldn't wait. He'd leave college and come home tonight, even though it was late. I knew he would.
And sure enough, at 1:27 exactly there were footsteps outside and then the door swung quietly open. Book forgotten, I tackled Niko so hard he almost staggered back out the door. "Cal!" he cried, surprise and pleasure in his voice as he returned the hug with one arm and knocked the trailer door closed with the other. "What are you doing awake?"
"Reading," I let go of him and stepped back, impulsiveness abandoned and manly dignity pulled back into place. The grin on my face, though, that I couldn't wipe off. I was so damn happy to see him.
"You? Reading? That seems peculiar," he tried to look suspicious, but he was also smiling too hard to pull it off. "And what happened to bedtime rules? Just because I'm at college doesn't mean I'm not checking my watch each night for when you should be asleep."
I blew it off. "Bedtime is for kids."
"And you are…?"
Smart-ass. "I'm fourteen, in case you haven't noticed." I folded my arms adamantly. "Perfectly able to wait up for my big brother coming home from college."
"I suppose you're right," he said, giving in only because he was tired, and reaching absently over to tousle my hair. I ducked out of his reach, but he had me in a headlock in half a second and was mercilessly mussing the black mop on my head. Not quite so tired after all. "But now it's time for bed." He released me. "You need your sleep."
It was good that he was at college; he loved to learn. I could see the gleam of happiness in his eyes, that he was doing what he loved. But mostly he was happy because he was home. Not home to the crappy trailer park or home to Sophia… home because he and I were together.
"You need your sleep…"
My closed eyes burned.
Because he and I were together…
And then Niko was gone, and I was dragged out of my dreaming by the same sharp, ice-cold Grendel hands that had first shoved me into the corner. Now they shoved me out into the open, where everyone could look at me. I was the freak here. Surrounded by these monsters I was clumsy, weak, pathetic, and just entertainment. I would've been long dead if they hadn't wanted me around. And they did want me; they looked at me like they coveted me, like I belonged to them.
I hated it. I hated them.
But I was hungry. I didn't know how long I was lying in the corner, lost in a daydream or half-dream or maybe a whole-dream – who knew what dreams were like here? – but the vomit was old and sour in my mouth and my stomach was cramped with want of food.
They dumped the meat in front of me, and I made a frantic grab for it before they could move it out of reach. They didn't. Maybe they weren't in the mood to toy with me. In any case, I didn't want to wait for them to get the idea, so I started eating, reaching for hunks of meat and tearing it with my teeth, barely tasting it, shoveling it down my throat. After a while, much sooner than I'd expected, I stopped feeling hungry. Being watched by the eyes of countless nightmares ruined my appetite fast, and the half-finished pile of meat lay in front of me, discarded.
One of the Grendels came forward and poked at the pile. Then it flashed a smile up at me, and I could see from its teeth that it had been eating too. "Do you know what meat this is?" it asked, delighting in the question.
My stomach gave a strange lurch.
The Grendel didn't wait for my response. "Human meat."
Holy shit, holy... My nails dug into the stone as my stomach lurched again, recoiling at what it had just wantonly accepted. And now I could taste the meat – between my teeth, on my tongue, the bitter, horrible taste of human.
"It was a child." The Grendel grinned.
I threw up then, a hot flow of half-digested human meat splashing onto the ground, gagging harder each time I realized what was passing through me. When I was finished, and shuddering sickly at the mess before me, the same Grendel lifted my face to its own with a rough hand and commanded: "Eat it."
My body shook. No. No, damn it.
I took a bruising kick to the side and fell over, into the mess. The whole family of Grendels were chanting it now: "Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it." And when I wouldn't do it, they grabbed my head still, claws scoring the sides of my face, and fed me. Death-cold hands pressed against my mouth, giving the food back, even as I was gagging. When half of it was down, I vomited it up again. They weren't deterred; they just kept scooping it up and giving it back.
Now I wasn't calling for Niko. I wasn't thinking anything at all other than keep it down, please, please, just keep it down because I knew that they would never stop unless I swallowed it and kept it in my stomach.
Finally, finally, I managed to bring the gagging to a halt. My face was bloody, my throat and stomach hurt like hell, but the mess on the floor was all but gone, and they finally released me. I fell backwards onto the stone with a snarl so inhuman that it frightened me. And then my fear was stolen by my father, mate to Sophia, daddy-Grendel, whatever he was called, who was suddenly right beside me. I realized he must've been helping them feed me.
"Good," he crooned, running a nail down the length of my face, mimicking a parental caress. "Good boy." It blinked speculatively and then a huge smile split its face wide open. "How would you like to unmake the world, Mine?" The pride in his voice was evident to anyone who listened. "Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh – Unmaker of the World."
His words made no sense to me, and I didn't try to understand them. I wanted…
I didn't know what I wanted. I was cold, so I guess I wanted clothes… but the Grendels would've ripped them right off me. I was hungry, so I wanted food… but I could never eat it, because I'd know what it was. I wanted sleep but they would disturb it, heat but they would freeze it, blue sky but they would hide it, sun but they would darken it. I wanted…
I wanted Niko.
There was no way of knowing how much time passed; the caves were always filled with the same dim amount of sickly light, and the shadowy patches that filled the cave never moved, never shifted. I could only guess that when they shoved me into the corner and told me to sleep, it was nighttime, and when they dragged, kicked, or clawed me awake again, morning had come.
This "morning", a heavy blow to the side of my head plunged me out of a gritty, dreamless sleep, and my eyes shot open. I couldn't see myself…I hadn't once had the chance to look at myself…but I knew my eyes were rimmed with dark, and shot with red, because they were heavy and always burning.
"Brother. Look," one of the Grendels grabbed a handful of my hair and pointed my head in the direction of… it. A pulsing hole of gray light, suspended in the middle of the cavern. Exactly the same as the one that had brought me here. I stared at it for a moment, feeling the weighted gaze of all the Grendels in the cave on my face. I didn't dare think the thought that played in the back of my mind, the one that said: freedom. Because if that was the door that had brought me here, then it had to lead me back to the trailer, back to my world, right?
Did they want me to go through?
They were playing with me, they had to just be playing with me.
I heaved myself to my hands and knees, bones groaning, stomach still full from the meal I'd had hours before – this time I'd only heaved it up once – and stared at the hole in the air. It was strange, completely alien, and yet the more I looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.
I started to crawl toward it.
The Grendels watched me with intensity as I crept slowly toward the door, body cringing with every step in expectation of an attack. But they didn't move. And when I leapt through the door, fully expecting it to slam in my face, I actually went through.
It felt weird and right all at the same time, nauseating and yet thirst-quenching. I was a whole jumble of indistinguishable emotions, but that was just a haze, because all I was really thinking was freedom, freedom, and even Niko, Niko, even though I knew he wouldn't be alive when I came out the other side. Inane. Stupid.
Stupider than I thought, in fact. Because when I came out the other side of the door, I wasn't home. I wasn't free. My mocking mind spat that word out like it was poison, and I beheld with disgust that I was only on the other side of the cavern, yards away from where the door had been moments ago. It had transported me here… it was just a damn trick. I wanted to cry, and I wanted to kill something.
The Grendels followed me over, loping over on long, skeletal arms and legs, their half-moon grins shimmering with deprave and gleeful emotions. I curled in on myself, tucking my head protectively between my arms… but they didn't hit me. When I dared to look back up, peering through the slimy strands of my black hair, I saw another gate hanging in front of me, closer this time, and as enticing as ever. Still I hesitated, not wanting to be baited.
The Grendel that had first woken me pointed at the gray hole with one long, black-clawed finger. "These are your doors. The doors of your Auphe brothers. Go through."
It was a strange word… 'Auphe'. I heard it often now and even said it sometimes, under my breath, to try the flavor of it in my mouth. It always tasted as I thought it would… just like here.
I went through. I tumbled into the light, and came out in yet another part of the cavern. This time the Grendels used their own doors to follow me, appearing around me in a rain of wicked glee. They were all laughing, and that's how I knew my father wasn't among them, because he would have been watching me seriously, calculatingly, possessively. He never laughed when I did tricks. And that's what this was, right? Just a bunch of damn tricks to keep the Grendels occupied. And how could I refuse them their fun? They could make me do whatever they wanted anyway, but by playing along, maybe I could keep them from coming too near, keep them away from me for as long as possible. I would go through a thousand holes in the air if it meant they'd just watch me, and wouldn't touch me.
My fantasy was short-lived. After five doorways, the Grendels seemed to lose interest in the game. They surrounded me for a moment, before at last springing upon me and pinning me against the stone floor, whispering, "Beloved relative. Unmaker. Brother." These words were no longer unfamiliar… I heard them every damn day now. And still, every time they called me "brother", it went into my ears like knives. I didn't want to be their brother.
They could care less. My arms were stretched out onto the stone and held there as they shallowly and thoughtfully clawed my stomach and chest, finger-painting in my blood with their claws. They ignored my grunts and whimpers of pain and continued to talk, damn it, they never stopped – "Dear family, Unmaker. These are our doors, our creations, our gateways, and yours too. You will make your own. You will create your own."
I almost never talked to them – my mouth was always either fused shut or open in a scream or cry of pain – but this time I did. "I… don't understand," I gasped, my voice hitching pathetically in the middle, so that I sounded more twelve than fourteen. They laughed at this, releasing my arms and pushing me into sitting position as blood dribbled sluggishly down my abdomen. "Create your own," they ordered in unison.
I stared at the cavern, void of gray lights or strange doors. There was nothing but bones, and blood, and vomit, and Grendels, and me. And I didn't know how to change that.
Growls rattled in the Grendels throats as they pressed closer to me and repeated: "Create your own. Make your door, brother."
"I…" don't know how. I can't. I can't.
I felt the prick of nails all over me, resting lightly on my skin and threatening to sink deeper, as they watched, and waited. Waited worse than any rattlesnake in the grass. "Create your own."
I tried, God knows I did. I clenched my fists, squeezed my eyes shut, and imagined one of those cold gray doors so damn hard that a headache sparked in my temples. But nothing happened. I couldn't do it.
With low hisses of displeasure, the Grendelssank their nails into me. And I screamed until I was hoarse, barely able to hear their serpentine whispers of "You will keep trying. Soon, you will create your own."
Niko and I were outside, lying on a raggedy blanket in 90 degree heat, and watching the stars. I could smell the old barbeque, the stale popcorn, and the ancient sweat that was characteristic of carnivals like this one. When the lights went down, all that was left was the smells, the shadows, and the heat. At least the stars stayed behind too, just about the only things worth looking at in this place tonight.
"Sophia's asleep," I whispered, sitting up after hearing a loud snore leave one of the open windows of the trailer.
Niko, twelve years old, was lying on his back, staring at the constellations. His mouth curled softly in a small smile at my words, and he nodded.
"Don't know how she can sleep in that oven," I added caustically. It wasn't much better out here, but at least it was tolerable, and there was a slight breeze.
"She's had a long day," said Niko with a light flavor of bitterness in his voice. Yep, Mom sure did have a long day – conning herself silly. So many morons, so little time. And now she was fast asleep, resting up for the next day of the usual deception. "Do you see the Big Dipper?"
I lay back down on the blanket and sighed. "Yes."
"Do you see Pisces? The fishes?"
I sighed again. "No."
Niko pointed. I didn't see anything that looked even slightly like fishes, but I shrugged anyway and said, "I guess."
Then I did see something. And it wasn't in the sky. It was over by the merry-go-round, peering out from underneath a frozen, painted horse. Two red eyes, watching me.
My mouth became dry in an instant, and I reached over and squeezed Niko's wrist. "Nik…" I whispered. "Look."
Somehow he knew immediately where to look. Four of them now; another pair had sprung up from the shadows underneath the ride. We watched each other for a moment, four red eyes against four gray eyes, before suddenly ours became outnumbered. Six.
Eight, ten.
Niko's hand found mine and he squeezed. "Do you want to go inside?"
Heat or no heat, there was no way I was staying out here. I nodded silently, and we both rolled to our feet, and made our way quietly inside the trailer, cautious not to wake Sophia. But we did, of course, and she screamed in fury and threw three empty alcohol bottles at our bedroom door after we'd closed it.
I eyed my bed for a moment, and then climbed into Niko's instead, and even in the sweltering summer heat, he didn't complain.
I must've slept well that night –I couldn't remember for sure. It was getting harder to remember…
"THE HUNT! THE HUNT! Wake, brother!" Grendel screams woke me, ripping me out of Niko's warm bed and into a familiar livid cold that made me long for the humidity of summer. I had no time to dwell on it, though, for the Grendels were forcing me to my feet, and leading me to one of the tunnels leading out of the cave.
I was going up? They hadn't let me leave the cavern once since I'd first gotten here. I might have felt some form of a positive emotion at being allowed to leave the dark lurk of the cave… but I didn't. There was only a chunk of heavy dread in my gut. The Grendels were excited, and that could mean nothing good.
Getting up through the tunnel was hell. The Grendels were pointy, slick, and with those long, disjointed legs they could climb anything. I was soft and awkward and clumsy, and fear gave vivid edges to these traits, so that it was impossible to make it up the tunnels by myself. I was encouraged. There were hisses of disdainful laughter from the front, and slashes across my back and buttocks from behind me. We went that way for a while, with my arms straining against the sides of the tunnels to hold me up, and each time I fell, echoes of their laughter and my screams of pain swallowed me whole.
We finally, finally got to the top. The first thing I did was flinch at the light, my eyes long grown accustomed to darkness. Still it wasn't sunlight – not here; it was just a piss-colored glow that enveloped the world, stretching for countless miles over the gritty red earth. When I finally took my hand away from my eyes, I saw something else too. Something in the distance, silhouetted against the sky.
"The hunt!" the Grendels screamed, and I realized that the thing on the horizon was their prey.
I didn't know exactly what it was, but it was huge – maybe five times my size – and it had too many legs than your average mammal. Whether it lived in this world or had been pushed here through a door of its own, there was no way of knowing. I only knew we were running for it, together, as one… and I realized with a sickening pang that I was on my hands and knees with the rest of them. Like an animal.
Like a…
The creature died in less than a minute. It could've been shorter, but the Grendels drew it out as long as they could, holding the thing down as they ripped chunks of it away with their teeth and claws. Its pained and terrified shrieks split the air, and a shudder ran through me, because I could hear myself in its voice.
"Eat your prey," the Grendels snarled at me, and then beat me to my knees, where my head was shoved deep into a bloody heap of torn flesh.
I still couldn't make my own door, my own gate, and now I was being punished for it. It was one of many punishments, because by now I'd been here long, long, too long… more than a month, I was sure. I knew because my hair was growing out, and I was growing with it. I felt slightly broader, and slightly taller… a few more months and I'd have gained another inch of height.
I curled in on myself to protect my bruising ribs from the Grendels' blows, and retreated into the recesses of my brain where it didn't hurt so much, and where Niko was.
Niko. Long gone, and yet I still needed him more than ever.
"I grew another inch, Niko."
We were in the kitchen, huddled over our cereal bowls on Thanksgiving morning, and Niko was back from college. Those were the days I remembered most from this past year, because those were the days I was happiest.
"Come on, Cal, what are you trying to do, pass me by?" Niko feigned exasperation and then ordered me to stand up, and he stood up with me. Hand in the air, I swear, I had grown another inch, but it certainly didn't feel like it standing next to my big brother. I was beginning to think Niko might've been growing with me, just for spite.
"You're getting there," he nodded with a smile, then said in a conspiratorially low voice – "But here's a secret for you, little brother – you ain't never passing me by."
Hearing him use bad grammar always made me laugh. I straddled my kitchen chair once again and said, "Oh, I don't know, Nik. My feet are awful big."
"Then I'm assuming you'll grow up to be my short little brother with an attitude and disproportionate feet."
I glared at him, but it was half-hearted. "The better to kick you with, my dear."
"Like this?" And I went flying out of my seat. Thus followed a brawl, and I ended up covered with cereal and milk, to which Niko responded indifferently that I'd needed a shower anyway. Asshole.
But I showered, and we went out, because spending the day away from Sophia would be more fun for both of us. What we did, though… I can't remember. It was harder and harder to remember these days.
Shit. An unwelcome wave of pain.
I tried going back, back to the memory I already had… at the table, eating cereal, talking… about what? I said, "I grew another inch", I think, and then Niko said… what did he say?
"What do you think about, Mine?" My eyes opened and met my father's red ones, as he crouched a few yards away, watching. "Where is your gate, Cal-i-ban?"
The beating stopped, for the most part. It always stopped before things got too rough. Never any broken bones or cracked ribs, just bruises all over and cuts to match. Still hurt, though. Hurt bad. I lay there silently, fingers and toes curled into the stone, and watched my father think. He asked me the same questions again, and then once again, in Grendel sounds. The words hurt and twisted the air, but I understood them better than I used to. They always asked me that question, and I was used to it: "Where is your gate?"
But I couldn't make a gate. I didn't know how they managed to do it, and I couldn't do it myself. All I could do was suck it up and endure the punishment.
After another moment of watching, my father said, his words reverting back to a hissing English: "We have more meat for you today."
I pushed myself up into a crouch and braced my stomach for the meal, for the pile of human meat that would be brought to me.
But holy hell, it was so much worse.
Instead of bringing a pile of meat out of the tunnels, five Grendels appeared in the middle of the cavern through their gates, bringing the meat with them. And it was alive.
She was alive. A little girl, six or seven, maybe. She must've been snatched right out of her bed, because she was dressed in only a nightgown and sweat socks. She lay unconscious, a scarlet cut marring her forehead. Marred, but beautiful. My eyes almost burned at the sight of her… the first human face I'd seen in God knows how long… delicate eyelashes, soft, still hands, and a wave of dark blond hair. I was reminded of Niko inexplicably and felt a lump of tears rise in my throat. I wondered if they'd chosen her on purpose, for that reason.
The pulse in the girl's own throat was moving rhythmically, and every so often her eyelids twitched or her hands jerked in the air. She may have been unconscious, but she would wake up soon. She'd wake up and watch herself be eaten.
Well, fuck the Grendels, I wasn't damn it doing it.
I snarled for all I was worth and then screamed, "NO!" It was an outburst of rebellion I should've been proud of, except the voice that echoed back at me from the cave walls was far from my own. It was twisted with an animal rage, and hidden deep, deep inside that rage was the barest hint of desire. Desire for meat, because I was hungry.
After all, what was the difference between alive and dead? Meat is meat. Prey is prey.
No. No, no, no. I scarcely had time to destroy these thoughts when the Grendels circled me, their grins still in place, but darker, as they whispered, "Filthy brother. Filthy human cousin. Eat your meat."
My father wasn't grinning. He sat and watched me, possessing me with his eyes.
I was shoved forward, toward the girl. When I resisted or tried to crawl away, a slap of claws or a ringing blow to the face set me back on course. And suddenly I was bending over her, and the whole of the Grendel population, or so it felt like, was holding me rooted in place.
"Filthy human cousin. Eat your meat."
Their voices molested me and I hated them, hated them…
Cal.
That voice was different. That voice…
The world spun; the Grendels' shrieks of laughing were in both my ears; their hands held me still. And Niko said Cal, Cal, don't give in, but I couldn't help it anymore. I tried, how I tried. I reached with the desperation of a drowning man for anything, any memory, but all I got was the word "Niko"… and then after a moment that word disappeared too.
I felt something in my brain explode, and it damn it hurt so bad. The Grendels, no, the Auphe were laughing now, their hands locking onto my jaw and all but prying my mouth open. Ready to eat…
The prey.
The meat.
There was one split second as two light blue eyes flew open, framed with blond lashes.
One split second… before I ate my meat.
Lightless, darkless days passed. There was no way of knowing exactly how much I'd grown, or how much broader I was around the shoulders and chest, but I could tell I was bigger. I was fourteen when I'd come here… I thought. Was I still fourteen? No one had celebrated my damn birthday here, so trying to figure it out was a lost cause.
The Auphe were getting impatient. The beatings had been heavier lately, and they'd stopped rewarding me with hideous parodies of laughter whenever I happened to spew a word in the Auphe tongue. They were restless, and angry, and my father was twice those things – a nightmare time bomb just waiting to go off. And I knew why.
I couldn't make a gate, and they hated me for it.
But one day I did.
I was lying in the corner against the rough rock of the cave, in one of the rare moments I was allowed sleep. Except today, I didn't care to sleep. I was too busy trying to remember.
It shamed me that I couldn't, shamed me and wrenched my chest in a suffocating sorrow, but my memories of my brother – Niko, that was his name, Niko – were fading. When I reached for them, all I felt was darkness, or the sharp slice of a claw, or the cold, rough rock of home. Every so often there would be flashes – the image of a dirty trailer park, a distant voice, the ghost of an arm around my shoulders or a compact braid squeezed in my hand… but they were just phantoms of memories. Nothing to hold onto. Nothing at all.
Today I was trying harder. I was squeezing myself dry, burrowing deep into the recesses of my brain, grasping around like a blind man.
What I got was much different than what I was looking for.
There was a flash of screaming pain that split my head, and then… a light.
It was small, but it was there. A gray circle of light just a few inches beyond my outstretched hand, playing above my fingers. A door. A gate. Mine.
I felt every emotion at once. Fear, horror, disgust – because it was a crawling thing, an Auphe thing, something horrible that I DIDN'T WANT – and yet, at the same time, ownership and pride – because it was mine, mine, all mine.
There was a rush of voices around me, but I didn't flinch. There would be no beatings today, I knew. Today, I'd earned the title of cousin and brother that they shrieked at me, shrieked in a communal deluge of malice and pleasure.
Brother…
Huh.
I'd had a brother once.
It was a fleeting thought, unattached to any emotion, and I absently let go of it as I gazed at the cold gray light that hovered, almost skimming my cut fingertips, and eventually lost myself in its glow.
Time was like prey. You endlessly chased it, but there was always more, so why waste time counting? It was as fucking meaningless as trying to count the different grains in the stone. Not nearly worth it.
I'd been chasing a lot of prey lately.
And my gates were getting bigger. For that I was awarded shrieks of pleasure, and every so often, a hunt, and a trip out of the caves – the journey was quick these days, I could scuttle up those tunnels with the best of them – but my progress was still slow, and that they didn't like. For that I would get beaten. Always bloody, cut, and bruised, and lying helplessly against a sheet of stone, I knew in my heart with a roaring contempt that the beatings would never really stop, no matter how well I performed, or how many gray gates to somewhere that I made.
My father enjoyed beating me more than the rest. He would grin silver needle teeth and whisper "Mine" and then rip a shallow part of me open, just for sport. Shallow, but painful. It wasn't the Auphe's way of showing affection, because Auphe weren't capable of that kind of emotion. "Mine" didn't mean family – it meant ownership, and ripping me open was the perfect damn way to express ownership.
No, we weren't family. We were the salty, metallic taste of my own blood as I licked my wounds.
I had no family.
Today there was someone new. Someone other than the Auphe and myself, and for that I growled rabidly at it, saliva and blood spraying in the thin air between us as it scuttled around the stone caves, unmolested by the Auphe. They regarded it with a begrudging acceptance, but I didn't. I ducked away when it came near, and had to be held down by five Auphe as the alien thing examined my face, licked my bruised chin, and said words.
Words that were hard to understand, because they were not in Auphe. But I did understand "good" and "acceptable", and then, as I stared hatefully into the mocking silver eyes, I heard the word "Darkling".
Thankfully it left, and didn't come back.
My life was a series of claw-sharp, blood-stained flashes. They whirled quickly by me, unnaturally quickly, because I had no desire to keep them around, and because I knew that they would only happen again, and again, and again.
And then one day, something changed. I could feel the shift in Auphe's eyes as they watched me. As we ran across the bloody ground, caught up in the thrill of the chase, and brought another piece of helpless meat to its demise, the Auphe's eyes watched me. Different. There was… pride, malice, resignation, excitement. Closure.
I didn't think about it. I didn't think much at all – just buried my face in a hunk of blood-soaked meat and ate quickly before it was fought away from me.
Later, back in the caves, I lay in my corner with the warmth of meat in my chronically starving belly. It was enough to be content, before the Auphe formed a ring around me. I hid my face in expectation of a beating, but there were only words, not claws, that came. "Human cousin. Caliban," they said it in Auphe tongue, so that I could understand, "You have grown."
I peered out from under one arm and watched the pale, skeletal faces press closer, deformed with covetous smiles.
"You have made your own gates. But you will make another."This time there was a claw, and I flinched. "And another." Shit.
"You will continue to grow, brother. You will run like prey, giving us the thrill of the chase as we watch you, always watch you."A cold hand grasped my face and twisted it up from the ground, so that I faced them all, and could see countless reflections of myself in those shimmering teeth. "And one day we will come back for you, Caliban."Eyes like fire swallowed me whole. "And you will unmake the world."
I didn't understand, but it didn't matter. The beating came then, hard and cruel, and the last thing I heard was the slice of the word "Unmaker" before a hand slammed my head against the stone and everything went black.
Much later…
When I pried open hot, sticky eyes…
They were all gone. The cave was empty.
The cave was never empty. I was never alone, always accompanied by Auphe, always watched. If they weren't eating, fighting, or killing each other a scant few feet away, then they were crouching silently, abusing me with their eyes, or not so silently, abusing me with their hands, claws, and teeth. But no matter what they were doing, they were always there.
Not now. When I lifted my aching head from the rock, no one struck it down again. When I wobbled to my hands and knees, no one watched the movement with calculating gazes.
It was a trap, it had to be. Another game for them to laugh at, and for me to despise. I knew it was true, and so I refused to perform. I curled back into a ball and I waited, waited, for them to return.
In the end, I fell asleep again. There were no dreams and no nightmares, just a screaming dark emptiness. When I opened my eyes again, some time later… there was still more emptiness. This time I growled, low in my throat, because it was becoming too real. Twice I'd woken up alone, and I didn't like it.
I pushed myself to my hands and knees and crossed the length of the cave, silent and creeping, and then crossed back again. When still there was nothing but the patter of my own steps, I let out a keening scream of rage, certain that they would hear it and come. But there was no response; my own voice kept coming back to me in a series of strange and solitary echoes as I went completely and utterly still.
There was nothing left to do.
Oh, but there wasssss. A grin, so full of Auphe malice and hatred that I could vividly imagine my own elongated, blood-stained teeth, split my face in two. And, with that smile still in place, I darted for the tunnels. I scuttled up the empty passages, my hands and feet overlapping each other in desperate, excited lurches as I went up, up, up, until at last I reached the surface. I extricated myself slowly from the darkness of the tunnels, crouching on all fours on the solid gritty earth of above.
The Auphe weren't here either. There was no one to watch me run.
I looked around, at piss-soaked horizons empty of prey, of anything, and I realized with a slow and sickening pang that there was nowhere I could run. I'd been blind, and foolish. I'd fled the cave like there might actually be a freedom above it. But there could be no freedom for me. The earth was owned by the Auphe, every inch of it, and whenever they felt like finding me again, and dragging me back to my hell under the ground, then I would be right here, within their reach.
Except…
I'd dropped my head in helplessness, and was now staring studiously at the granules of earth beneath my hands. Earth that seemed… familiar? Of course it would… I saw the red earth whenever I climbed the tunnels, every time there was a hunt.
Not familiar. New. Almost as if I could remember the first time I had ever seen it.
Well, that was wrong too – I didn't "remember". I felt. I felt the strangeness of it like my eyes had never touched it before; I felt the shock of the thin air catching in my chest; I felt lost and alone as nightmares surrounded me, covered me. I heard them scream at me… Welcome home. I heard myself scream… a word. Something… someone.
My head hurt, throbbed with pain.
Welcome home.
But if I was being welcomed, then I must have just come… from…
A door. A gray door. Into the gray light…
With slow, trembling movements, I hunched my shoulders and lifted my head back into the air. It was right in front of me. I'd created it… and I hadn't even known it. My own gate, except different from the others. I didn't consciously know where it went, or how powerful it really was, but I felt the freedom pulsing behind it like a drum in my chest, and I knew instinctively that when I plunged myself into it, it would carry me far.
It was right there, beckoning, calling me, and my heart pounded with the rush.
But then –
"Mine."
A shudder rippled over my body of its own volition, and I twisted my head around to see Auphe. Not all of them, not even some. Just one. My Auphe.
"Flesh of my flesh, breath of my breath," he hissed, smiling slow and wicked and breathing so that I could smell the stench of stale flesh. His claws shimmered, reflecting the gray light of my door, as he held them up and said, "Just one more thrill."
I knew all too well how those claws would feel against my skin. I was used to it. I could have gotten down on my belly and curled up in expectation of the blows... I'd done it before. But this time was different. No, I was fucking done.
The growl began in my chest and worked its way up the tunnel of my throat, a smooth purr of fury. When it broke free, it filled the air with a ferocious roar. I leapt, and my body hit his. My body hit his.
His claws bit into my skin, but I didn't flinch. Pain was a natural thing, and I didn't let it deter me. I rolled with him in the ground, over and over, both of us screaming at the other. Then the sharp earth stuck into my back as he pushed himself on top of me, grinning in my face. "Filthy offspring. You will go if you wish. Go, yes, but never escape." He released my arms to lay cold claws on my face. "Just one… more… thrill…"
My hands were free, and I used them. With all the uncontrolled rage and contempt that I had in me, I reached up and clenched scarred fingers around my Auphe sperm-donor's throat. And I snapped it, snapped it so hard that his head went rocketing sideways at a grotesque angle. It hung there, and he blinked at me in shock. Still alive.
But he wasn't after I ate him.
It didn't take long, half because I was ravenous with hunger, and half because I had other things on my mind.
My door was still there. Waiting. And when I'd finished with my meat, my prey, and had licked the blood from my lips, I ran to it. The hard earth scoured my hands and feet, the air caught and stopped in my throat, as, without a hesitation or a thought, I plunged myself into the gray light.
It carried me far, just as I thought it would. And it hurt me.
I was screaming, screaming like I'd never screamed before…time to go home, Caliban, welcome home…there was pain all over, hell, my whole body was screaming…you will run like prey...I saw Auphe…as we watch you…and then I saw Grendels…ALWAYS WATCH YOU…and then I saw nothing…
And then the gate spat me out.
My senses exploded with so many things, but first… there was grass. Cool, soft grass that lightly caressed me, strange and foreign against my skin. I cracked my eyes open to look at it, but the color was shadowed in darkness. It was night, the air was thick and syrupy in my throat, and I felt myself shaking, shaking, as a stuttering brain struggled through thick shrouds of confusion to form any somewhat coherent thought.
Then grass rustled, and something appeared at my side.
Something? Still not a coherent thought, just a feeling – one of terror and horror and hate – and my body reacted to it instantly. I growled with rabid enthusiasm, flexing my fingers to work as claws, and peered up through unkempt, greasy, blood-streaked hair to see…
To see…
Niko.
It was my first coherent thought, and so strong of one that it might've become a spoken word, if my lips had been capable of speaking it. Niko. It broke through the shadows and the thorns and the terrifying void that twisted in my brain. Niko.
I recognized his touch as he gripped my chin in one strong, cool hand, and brushed my hair away from my eyes with his other. I recognized his face – olive skin, set features, dark-blond hair, and tear-filled gray eyes, as he gazed at me. And when at last he said my name, softly, gutturally, and filled with uncertainty – "Cal?" – then I recognized his voice.
I didn't know where he'd been, or how long he'd been there, but seeing him again seemed to break something deep down… or maybe fix it. I'd have cried if I could only remember how.
Instead I buried my head in his lap, frightened and confused and snarling like an animal, and his arms closed around me, tight. Safe.
When he finally released me, and helped me wobble to my feet, I realized I was naked, and inexplicably cold – the air was warm against my skin, and I was still cold. I also had a funny taste in my mouth, burning the back of my throat – or not so funny – and my stomach flipped sickeningly in response. I held it in check, though, and tried to keep it together as I followed Niko to his car and waited, shivering, as he dug around for clothes. He ended up handing me his own sweats, and I stared at them blankly for a moment, unsure what to do with them. When my mind finally caught up with me, I dressed, trembling and clumsy – my hands were too big, my body was too big – and with occasional help from Niko, who was never more than a few inches away from me.
When I was dressed, I let him examine me – don't move, he can touch you, it's just Niko –, running a gentle finger down the jagged scars on my neck, and then on my pale arms underneath the sweatshirt sleeves. He stared at them for a long moment. "I saw blood," his voice was quiet, but filled with the tears that had long gone from his eyes. "When they took you." They. They. My mind squirmed away. "I saw blood on your arms, your neck." His eyes met mine and held them. "Jesus, Cal, it really is you." And before I could react or instinctively pull away, he enveloped me in a hug, so that my head was crushed against his shoulder – taller, I was taller now. I'd thought I couldn't speak, but it seemed I could. Before my mind even processed the thought, I corrected Niko with the single word, "Caliban."
His arms tightened around me, and he repeated, with an undying rebellion, "Cal."
That time I didn't correct him, just closed my eyes against a world of strangeness and confusion and let him hold me.
We didn't stay long. In a matter of minutes, he'd bundled me into the passenger's seat of the car – we had to leave, we had to run – and was pulling away from the burnt remains of the trailer, and the clearing of grass where I'd… where…
I let my head drop against the cold pane of the window. Except for the car motor and the rush of the heat on my face, the darkness was utterly silent… and yet somehow I heard a voice. It wasn't loud, was barely understandable, and I couldn't tell where it was coming from. But I knew it was talking to me. "You will run like prey, giving us the thrill of the chase as we watch you, always watch you." I felt Niko's eyes flick toward me as I pulled my knees to my chest, curling into the fetal position on the passenger's seat, and shivered. "And one day we will come back for you, Caliban." My eyes wandered out the window into the dark of the woods, where I thought I saw something.
"And you will unmake the world."
Then Niko turned the car around, and I lost sight of the woods. And with it, disappeared the voice. And with the voice, disappeared my memory of it.