Before Varin knew it, he was just outside the stable wormhole the old Tempath had told him about.
Just as he was about to enter it, he had a sudden vision…
Brynn, walking down into a hole in the earth. Thinking it looks like a grave…or a mouth waiting to eat her. Two huge sentries on either side…they let her in…she walks into the blackness.
“Brynn, no! Come back, little one—don’t go down there!” The words burst from his lips, though he knew she couldn’t hear him. In fact, he had a feeling this might already have happened—that he was seeing her past rather than her present. Even now, she was deep in the bowels of the earth, Varin just knew it.
He felt his heart thundering against his ribs. Danger—she was in danger and he was still light years away!
Setting his course, he plunged the little craft into the worm hole, praying to the Goddess that he wouldn’t be too late.
* * * * *
“Where is this place? What are you doing here?” Brynn whispered, bending down to get a better look at her former lady-in-waiting’s face. The way Amalthia was bundled into the rectangular stone hole in the wall it was difficult to see her. Her face was visible in the flickering light but her body was hidden in shadows.
Amalthia’s previously plump and pretty face was bone thin, the arches of her cheeks standing out starkly under her pale skin. Her green eyes were glazed with a kind of madness and she smiled as she spoke, showing teeth that were stained red.
“They brought me here to serve the Master.”
“They? Who is they?”
“The servants of the Master, of course. Silly, Princess…” She gave a jagged little laugh, her eyes rolling in their sockets.
“But who is the Master?” Brynn asked. “Please, Amalthia—talk to me. You’re not making any sense.”
“Of course I am. And if you haven’t met the Master yet, you will. He comes to visit regularly—just to check.”
“Check what?” Brynn felt like they were talking in circles.
“To check on me of course—to see how his children are getting along.”
“His…his children?” Brynn felt a growing unease inside her. She couldn’t stop thinking about her nightmare—the one she’d had where Amalthia was a skull. “Kill me,” she’d said. “We are all dead anyway…”
“Yes—the children he gave me. Look…” Amalthia began to struggle, trying weakly to crawl out of the ledge she was wedged into.
“Here—let me help you…Oh!” Brynn gasped when she touched the other girl’s skin. Amalthia’s pale body was fever-hot, as though she was burning up from the inside out.
She’s sick, Brynn thought. That’s why she seems out of her head. Maybe I shouldn’t ask her to sit up.
But Amalthia was already levering herself out of the narrow crevice with great effort. Brynn soon saw why—her former lady in waiting’s belly was swollen and immensely round. It looked like she was pregnant but with what? Brynn had never seen an expecting woman so huge before. She didn’t even know how Amalthia had fit into the narrow rectangular space—it seemed impossible.
“There now. Thank you, Princess dear.” Amalthia gave her that mad smile as she leaned back against the ledge she’d been lying in to give her enormous belly room. She was still wearing the lovely light green afternoon dress she’d had on the day she was abducted, Brynn saw. But it was ripped and dirty—stained with brown splotches that looked horribly like dried blood.
“Amalthia…” she whispered and then didn’t know what else to say.
“Do you want to see them?” Amalthia leaned forward, a mad, conspiratorial gleam in her green eyes. “Do you want to see the Master’s children?”
“I…I don’t know.” Brynn eyed the skirts of the stained green dress, stretched tight over Amalthia’s enormous belly. “I don’t think—”
“Here!” The former lady in waiting pulled up her dress, revealing her huge, sagging, rounded belly, swollen tight as a drum. It rose up to just under her breasts and bulged down between her thighs, almost to her knees, Brynn saw with horror. And there were marks on it—half-healed gashes that looked like stab wounds, as though someone had plunged something sharp into Amalthia’s abdomen again and again.
But worse than the size and shape of the enormous belly, worse even than the stab wounds, were the movements going on just under Amalthia’s pale, stretched skin.
Brynn had seen one very short vid segment about pregnancy and childbirth at the convent—the Sisters’ idea of sex education. Of course, they hadn’t mentioned how the baby had gotten into the woman in the vid in the first place or how it would come out. The narrator had simply said, “After a time spent with the husband her parents picked for her, this young lady has something lovely to look forward to.”
Then the vid showed the results—a young woman who was glowing and happy after being obedient to both parents and husband. Brynn remembered watching the pregnant woman’s belly in fascination as it bulged once or twice when the baby she was carrying kicked from inside.
But how could one baby make all the movements Brynn could see going on in Amalthia’s belly? It was bulging and rippling everywhere. It was as though she had a dozen restless babies inside her, all of them kicking at once. But how could that be?
“Oh, Amalthia,” she whispered, covering her mouth in horror to keep back the terrified cries that wanted to leak out. “What…how…?”
“His children—the Master’s children,” Amalthia crooned, rubbing her swollen, pulsing belly.
“Are…” Brynn swallowed hard. “Are you in pain?” Because the hugely swollen belly looked like it must be painful—Amalthia should be in agony. Yet she continued to smile on and on, that same, mad, vacant smile that made Brynn feel like a cold finger was sliding down the groove of her spine.
“It only hurts a little—just at first when he stabs you,” Amalthia assured her. “But that’s necessary, you see—to implant the children. And the honey helps with the pain, of course. The sweet, sweet Blood Honey.”
She parted her lips in a grin, showing her red stained teeth.
Blood Honey, Brynn thought. Dear Goddess above, what is she talking about? This is awful!
“Amalthia,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “This…this isn’t right. It’s not safe here. You and I have to get out of here—do you know the way out?”
“I can’t go now, silly Princess!” Amalthia rubbed her rippling belly. Was it Brynn’s imagination or were the things inside it writhing faster now, in time to the pulsing light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere? “The children are nearly grown—soon they will be born.”
“Born?” Brynn repeated with growing horror. “How—?”
Her question was answered before she could finish asking it for suddenly a red flower bloomed on the side of Amalthia’s distended abdomen. A red flower that was a bubble of blood, Brynn saw with dismay.
The bubble popped and a trickle of blood dripped down the former lady in waiting’s belly to land on the floor. From the place where the blood-flower had bloomed, emerged a set of tiny, needle-sharp teeth. The teeth were followed by a long, sleek head with greenish-black skin, coated in bloody slime.
The thing—for Brynn had no name for it—writhed from the hole in the side of Amalthia’s abdomen, gnashing its sharp, bloody teeth, tearing her flesh in its haste to get out. It fell to the floor at Brynn’s feet, a worm-like creature as long and thick as her forearm, whipping its pointed, snake-like tail and screeching a high, piercing note that made her want to clap her hands over her ears.
Then Brynn realized that it wasn’t just the awful thing that had come out of Amalthia that was shrieking—her former lady in waiting was screaming too—a high, terrible wail of agony that ripped from her bulging throat and seemed to go on and on.
More blood-flowers were blooming on her belly now, more sharp teeth were chewing their way out, more greenish-black, slime-covered slugs were landing on the floor, gnashing their teeth. Clearly th
ey were still hungry.
Brynn didn’t know what to do. She wanted to help Amalthia but she didn’t know how. It was such a horrible sight—like something out of a nightmare.
That’s it, she thought blindly. It’s a nightmare—all just a bad dream. Varin will wake me up in a minute and put his arm around me and everything will be all right again. Everything will be all right…
No! The cold voice of self-preservation in her head pushed aside her hopeful fantasy. No, this is real, Brynn—thinking otherwise will get you killed! You have to find a way out of here—get out now!
But how? The sphincter door was closed tight and some of the hungry grub-slug things were writhing closer and closer, possibly sensing her as a food source. Others had turned back to their “mother” and were biting chunks out of Amalthia’s pale, blood-splattered flesh as her scream went on and on and on…
Brynn clapped her hands over her ears and backed away. Her heart was pounding and she felt like she was going to either go mad or pass out.
But if I faint they’ll get me, she thought. They’ll eat me alive!
At that moment, the door irised open and several canis-sized insects came scurrying in. Seeing them so close in the pulsing light made Brynn cram a fist in her mouth to stifle a shriek. Goddess above, they were huge!
But as horrible as they looked with their segmented bodies and long, chitinous legs, they largely ignored her—at first.
Three of the insects had rounded, scoop-like mandibles. These they used to scoop up the writhing green slugs Amalthia had “given birth” to and placed them in flaps on their sides—almost like natural saddle bags made of their own skin, Brynn saw numbly.
The fourth giant insect scurried up to the still-shrieking Amalthia. Its mandibles parted and closed around her neck. At first Brynn was certain it was going to bite off her head, as the sentry outside had done to the silent crewman. But soon she saw that it was simply holding Amalthia in place. Her head whipped back and forth but the insect tightened its grip, forcing her to hold still.
Then something long and thin and black emerged from between its jaws. Brynn thought it was a straw at first—but what animal keeps a straw in its mouth? Soon she had to acknowledge that the thin black tube was, in fact, the creature’s tongue.
The insect held Amalthia’s head still and shoved its tongue into her mouth. Brynn couldn’t bear to see what happened next—but she found she couldn’t look away either. Amalthia’s mouth filled with a froth of dark red bubbles that overflowed her cheeks and dripped down the bulging sides of her throat. Then, abruptly her screaming stopped and she started sucking instead.
Brynn watched numbly as the giant insect fed her former lady in waiting and Amalthia suckled eagerly at its tongue. The last of the writhing grub-things had eaten its way out of her belly now, the deflated skin hanging in rags and tatters like a bloody, popped balloon. Brynn didn’t even understand how she was still alive.
“Amalthia?” she whispered. “Goddess, Amalthia—are you…are you all right?”
The insect thing removed its tongue from Amalthia’s mouth and its mandibles from around her neck. The former lady in waiting’s head turned toward Brynn, as fragile as a too-heavy blossom on a too-thin stalk.
“I’m just fine, dear Princess,” she crooned as bloody spume dribbled down her cheeks and chin. “The sweet Blood Honey makes everything all better. All better. All be—”
Her eyes glazed over and she fell to the floor with a final thump Brynn knew she would hear in her nightmares for years to come.
Dead, she thought and didn’t need Amalthia’s lifeless eyes, staring sightlessly at the pulsing, glowing ceiling to tell her she was right. The insect who had fed her the honey scooped her body up and shoved it carelessly back into the alcove Amalthia had been resting in when Brynn had first seen her. Suddenly, the other alcoves made sense. Some were filled with the bodies of girls who had met the same fate…and others remained empty, waiting for new victims.
“Goddess above,” Brynn said, the words coming out in a choked gasp. “Poor Amalthia!”
The insect that had been feeding Amalthia the Blood Honey jerked its head up and stared at Brynn with its black, soulless eyes.
“No,” she whispered, taking a step back. “Oh, no—not me. Please, not me!”
It advanced on her, its many legs tapping on the uneven floor. Brynn feigned to the right and then tried to dodge left—anything to get away from it. Anything to keep its long, slimy black tongue from going down her throat.
“No!” she gasped when it rushed at her, its mandibles clicking. Reaching out, she grabbed something from one of the many alcoves. It was a shoe—some poor dead girl’s shoe, left here by its hapless victim when she died.
Brynn grabbed it and threw it, hitting the insect creature right between its compound eyes. It shook its head and backed away, staring at her mistrustfully.
“That’s right!” Brynn’s voice was shaking as she grabbed for the other shoe and menaced the huge insect. “That’s right, you’ll get more of the same if you don’t leave me alone! Get away from me now—get away!”
“Don’t harm the workers, my dear Princesss—they are only trying to do their job and get you prepared for me.”
The hissing, buzzing voice was horribly familiar. Looking up, Brynn saw that the door had irised open again, revealing a tall, thin figure standing just outside. As he stepped into the room, she recognized his mop of brownish-green hair and his strangely rolling purple eyes.
“Sovereign X'izith?” she gasped, going to him. “What is this place? Why did you bring me here? Please, I just want…I just want to go home.”
“Ah yes—they all say that at first.” He nodded. “But that is before the Blood Honey has time to work on them. Tell me—have you had your dose yet?”
“My…my dose?” Brynn backed away a step.
“I see that you have not.” His face turned down into an exaggerated frown. “I had given specific instructions that you were to be dosed before I saw you. The sooner you are brought to Heat, the sooner I can commence the implantation of the grubs.”
“You…you mean you want to…to fill me up with…with those things?” Brynn couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice as she glanced at the alcove where Amalthia’s body had been thrown, crammed into the narrow crevasse like a lifeless doll now that her purpose was served.
“Ah, yes—your little friend must have come to ripeness as you watched. I can understand why that would be upsetting.” X'izith nodded his head. “But fear not, my Princess—you are of a different and better pedigree than she was. I vow to you that I will never implant you with anything but royal grubs.”
“Royal…” Brynn shook her head. “I don’t…don’t understand. Are they different from the ones…the ones that were inside Amalthia?”
“Oh yes—very different,” the Sovereign exclaimed, his purple eyes rolling wildly. “The common grubs that your friend incubated turn into plain, non-sentient low-level workers and guards and scouts. Creatures that serve a useful purpose—of course they do—the Hive could not function without them. But the royal grubs—ah! They turn into the true crème de la crème of our little society—they grow into beings that can think and reason and talk. Like myself.” He preened turning his head this way and that as though Brynn might want to admire him.
“But…they’re still grubs,” Brynn whispered. “I don’t want grubs inside me!”
“Not now you don’t. But you will sing a different tune after your first dose of Blood Honey.” The Sovereign gestured at the huge insect that had forced its tongue down Amalthia’s throat and said something in a hissing-chittering language. It looked at him for a moment, then rushed at Brynn again.
This time she couldn’t get away and before she knew it, the thing’s awful mandibles were clamped around her throat, holding her head still no matter how desperately she tried to move it.
“Wait,” she begged, pushing against the hard shell of its body. “Don’t do this to me
! Or at least tell me these…these royal grubs won’t…won’t do what they did to Amalthia. Won’t eat me alive inside!”
“Oh but my dear Princess, I am very much afraid that they will.” X'izith made what he must have imagined was a sorrowful face though actually it just looked like a grimace. “But as I said before—they will be royal. Think of the immense honor I am bestowing on you! And I promise to keep you well drugged with the honey—you won’t even care when their sharp little teeth begin to gnaw their way out.”
He motioned at the insect holding her and said something else in his buzzing language. Suddenly the long, slimy black tube of its tongue flickered out and began probing at Brynn’s mouth.
She tried to push it away but four of the insect’s long arms encircled her, clamping her own arms to her sides. Brynn couldn’t help it then—she opened her mouth to scream.
Before she knew it, the long, thin tube was sliding between her lips and a horrible, meaty, salty-sweetness like blood mixed with zanthum-flower syrup was filling her mouth and throat.
Brynn tried to scream, choked, and the first swallow of the awful stuff went down her throat. A red haze fell over her vision and she slumped in the insect’s embrace as it continued to pump the Blood Honey down her unresisting throat.
This is how I die, she thought. It doesn’t matter. We are all dead anyway.
And then she knew no more.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Everything in the Hive has to do with scent,” Jorath had said to him, during the hours before Varin’s escape. “There are different castes within the structure they live in—workers, warriors, sentries…and plenty more. You have to fool them into thinking you’re one of them and the way you do that is to smell like one of them.”
“How in the Seven Hells do I manage that?” Varin had growled. “Kill one and wear its skin or shell or whatever?”
“No—the best way is to find a marker—one of the workers whose job it is to scent-mark those whom the sentries have allowed inside the Hive. But to do that, you have to get past the sentries in the first place…”