7.
 "What was in it?"
He shook his head. "A glassy sphere. The City was digging new tombs and found it. The sphere was in a temple left by star farers long ago. Maybe they stayed for an afternoon. Or maybe it was a thousand years. Ten thousand. Enough for a civilization to grow, to flower, to die. The sphere remained. It must be a key to the deepweave of time and space. A man in the Office of Archeology sold it secretly to the man in the High 88 Prism Pyramid, and he was quick to sell it (for a much higher price) to another man who was just as corrupt, named Vodak. Just as I was meeting Vodak, we were both attacked by an assassin dressed in black, wearing a mask. Before I knew it, he had shot Vodak and stabbed me. I was armed, and I killed the assassin. Then the Authority send poliz, and I was imprisoned. Vodak blamed me for the whole thing to save himself."
"How terrible!" Rin said, frowning while lights and shadows danced on her forehead.
"I got ten years."
"And Vodak?"
"I think he got off scot free and is still a big magistrate of the city. I escaped after a year."
"Come here," she murmured, rising. She led him to a broad pallet on which lay several rolled up quilts. She spread the quilts out and had him sit on them. The fire was dying down and she put one last log in to last the night. Then she climbed into bed and pulled the remaining quilts over both of them.
They lay for a while, enjoying each other's warmth. Her breathing quickened and she kissed him. "Do me so we go sleep," she whispered, stroking his cheek. She kissed him a few times, but she lay on her back and looked down and away. Occasionally, one hand or the other would stroke his flank. She's been hurt, he thought as he eased himself in and out of her softness, her wetness. She's been used or something. Or let too many men do this. There was some deep hurt at the core of this slight, wiry woman. Maybe one day she would talk about it. Maybe one day he'd see the answer to his questions. He collapsed on her, and she sighed with relief and hugged him. She held him as he rolled by her side and they fell asleep, embracing, in the warmth under the quilts. He, for his part, slipped his knife under the bedding where he could reach it instantly during the night—just in case.
Last thing before falling into exhausted sleep, he heard distant howling and screaming. Rin laughed warmly and said: "Unmen hunting. We are safe here."
He dreamed that unmen stole into the room during the night, coming right through the walls by using hidden passages. They stole Rin away and left him locked up to use later for food.
He awoke, choking and gurgling in the midst of a horrific dream. Rin was gone. He sat up with a start. Brandishing the knife, he jumped to his feet from the bed and stood ready to take on any comer. Other than her absence, nothing had changed except the light. A gray, wan daylight filtered into this dark place from various sources—cracks in the walls, a glowering relief of some dark god that turned out to be a stone window cover, air shafts.
He rattled the door ring—locked in. Just like in the dream. He was locked in like a living slab of bacon being stored for food. He threw himself against the door and tore at its stout wooden bracings and steel plates like a snarling, cornered animal.
"Kanon, stop that."
He froze. It was Rin's distant voice. The door rattled and she stepped inside. Over her shoulder was a shiny membrane, like that in a female animal's belly when it gives birth to young, and she licks this off her newborn. Such a membrane Rin had, with wet purple meat in it, and she dumped its contents on the stone by her cooking place.
"Food," she said as he stared at the blood organs of something she had killed. "We eat. And then we talk about your plan. You stay with me, I help you gain your power sphere."
He reached out to touch her, but she pushed him away. She seemed changed, somehow, the same person, but a different persona. "Not now," she whispered harshly. "Don't touch me." She held the dripping liver and kidneys up to him. "Eat?"
He nodded, backing away nervously. "Yes, eat. Cook." He pointed to the pot. She stared at the pot a moment. Then her eyes did some sort of calculation. "Yes. Very quick to cook."
He was puzzled by the change in her personality. He remembered her coldness about the sex act last night. She must have been through hell, he thought, to make her so changeable. He noticed that she licked her fingers a lot, and moaned faintly as if she enjoyed the blood on them.
They stayed apart at opposite ends of the bishop's tomb. She brought him the pot of steaming food and held it out. "Aren't you going to eat?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Already ate." She sat watching him while he slowly ate, chewed, ate, chewed, while he watched her in puzzlement.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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