Her relief was so overwhelming as she let go that she sighed loud enough for Jotaha to call her name, maybe in concern.
“I’m fine, Jotaha” she said, her voice echoing slightly. She tried to put as much calm in her tone as she could.
A strange chittering sound beneath her had the hair on the back of her neck lifting. Quickly making use of a couple of the petals, she shifted to one side of the hole, glancing down into the darkness.
Only it wasn’t completely dark down in that fetid hole. Instead, a mass of glowing beetles clambered all over the feces pile.
Sarah shrieked and jerked backwards, toppling off the rock ledge. Her dress tore further as she jerked her limbs wildly, the sound of scale-shaped shells raining down on the stone floor barely heard over her scream.
Jotaha appeared in the entrance of the cave, glowing so brightly that she was nearly blinded by it.
“Oh my god, they could have crawled up my butt!” She barely felt the pain of an already bruised body impacting with stone. She was too freaked out by the thought of carnivorous beetles worming their way up her anus to eat her alive from the inside.
She shot to her feet as Jotaha repeated her name in a demanding tone, clearly upset, since he was glowing and his head spines stood fully erect. He noted her frantically swiping her naked buttocks to brush away phantom beetles.
“Did they get me?” She craned to look over her shoulder, turning around like a cat chasing its tail as if—after a lifetime of not being able to—she could suddenly see her own ass without a mirror. “I feel like one is on me!” Her voice rose in panic, even though her desperate swipes didn’t brush anything but her own naked skin.
Her agitated tone was only making Jotaha more agitated. His grip was hard as he drew her out of the cave and into the tunnel, glowing like a beacon.
Sarah didn’t resist him. In fact, she was pushing against his chest, struggling to make him move faster away from the poop beetles. Despite having to stand hunched over, he still moved rapidly, drawing her back into the main tunnel as she struggled to calm herself, reminding herself that the brush against her naked buttocks was only a draft in the cave and not some beetle ready to make its home in her intestines.
By the time he settled her down in front of the river stone ring, she had regained some coherence, sucking in deep breaths and then slowly releasing them to slow her pounding heart.
Jotaha had said many things to her in his language, but he had spoken so rapid-fire in his own agitation that she hadn’t even been able to detect any patterns in the sounds. It was only when she was seated and holding her knees close to her chest that his glow faded and his spines settled flat against his head again.
Now that she had calmed, he was calmer. No doubt recognizing the futility of asking what had happened, he simply said her name, his tone rising in question at the end of it.
She released a huge sigh and lifted a hand to smooth the tangled rat’s nest that her hair had become since falling into this hell. “I’m okay.” She held out both hands in front of her in a stopping motion, more for herself and her panic than as a visual signal to him. “I’m okay.”
“O-kay?” His gaze never left her face as he slowly sank into a crouch on his side of the ring.
Sarah nodded. “I’m,” she pointed to herself, “o-kay.”
Jotaha grunted, his teeth bared for the briefest of moments before he rose to his feet again and began pacing on the other side of the cave, as far from her as possible.
Sarah watched him for a moment, then turned her gaze back to the glowing river stones. It looked like her foolish panic had once again frustrated him. She didn’t know how many times that could happen before he just gave up on trying to communicate with her at all.
10
Jotaha needed to think, to plan his next move. If his drahi had turned out to be Farona, she would have understood the urvaka—cave maze—that protected their city from the denizens behind the veil. She would have greeted the urvak zayul with respect if she ever encountered them, rather than being frightened of them. She would have understood their nature, and honored their role in the survival of the yan-kanat.
His drahi was nixir, a species that was no friend of the urvak zayul. Though she was his, and they must understand that by now, he wasn’t entirely certain they would guide her if she grew lost, and was less certain she would follow such guides. The nixirs found the pheromones and projected ghostly forms cast by the bioluminescence of the urvak zayul both alluring and terrifying, based on the state of their minds when they saw them. That was how the urvak zayul lured them or chased them into the dead ends of the urvaka so they could not escape Jotaha’s relentless hunt.
He had intended to earn his drahi’s trust before leading her through the tunnels. Given how skittish she was, and how afraid of him she was, he worried that she would try to escape by breaking away from him. Near this cave, there were no dead falls, but the urvaka had many of them, as well as other dangers one unfamiliar with the cave system would not spot in time to avoid them. He needed her to follow him obediently, and he still wasn’t certain she would, though she had calmed enough in his presence that she had turned to him in her fear, as if looking for him to protect her.
That was as it should be for a drahi. If she had faced a true threat, he would not have hesitated to destroy it. Unfortunately, once he realized what had frightened her, he understood that the urvaka itself was only contributing to her fear, and possibly even slowing down any progress he could make in gaining her trust.
He prayed at least one of the elders spoke her language. Elder Arokiv had learned to communicate with the nixirs in several different languages, for the nixirs had many. He, along with elders from other regions, and an unknown number of infiltrators, maintained contact with their enemy to renegotiate the treaty every time it expired. The elder should know Sarah’s language, but it wasn’t a guarantee, since the fractious species could not even get along with each other long enough to standardize their language, even when living in the same regions of their world.
Of course, when Jotaha needed to communicate with her the most, when her life might actually be in danger if she didn’t follow him obediently, he had to rely on gestures and repeating words he wasn’t even certain had the meaning he thought they did. His language seemed to be a struggle for her. She could not hiss as the yan-kanat did for some of the words, but at least he could guess what she was trying to say. He hoped she understood when he tried to repeat her words.
Even if she did, their progress was slow, and they seemed to keep encountering setbacks. If Sarah could not even relieve herself without fear after eating, then she would only grow more uncomfortable and miserable in the urvaka.
He’d had a home built for his drahi, knowing that this generation of the chanu zayul within him would mature soon and leave him. Then he could fully retire, allowing a new Jotaha to step into his role. He was more than ready to end his many lonely passings spent in darkness so he could finally start his family. He’d had so much hope when Seta Zul’s seal was painted upon his body.
He hoped Sarah would like his home on an out-terrace of the skilev, though he had no idea what dwellings the nixirs occupied. He did know that they didn’t live underground, and they were not made for darkness. He just needed to lead his drahi back home and show her what he had to offer, since she seemed not to understand the significance of the harzek—treasure—he had given her and, even now, wore it with clear discomfort.