The Underworld Vents, where life begins.
This is a short story in The Underworld Vents series. It stands alone, but don’t let that stop you from reading the other stuff. The main project under The Underworld Vents umbrella, the novel 3 Lives in Jury, can be found here: 3 Lives in Jury
Titus and Andrei
The meadow trembled yellow, white and red, out of sight from the Wagon People’s camp.
Sky spattered cloudy.
The conversation heated.
Titus’s anger was near erupting. It would erupt if Andrei didn’t stop talking about Maria. Consequences be damned. Andrei was the Reader of the Blood, their camp leader, but Titus fought on, undeterred.
As the Reader of the Blood of the Eastern Shore, Andrei’s life purpose was to keep those who looked to him on task and living according to the code.
Titus would bide his time, wait for an opening.
Andrei gazed bored at the greasy, dark youth facing him. He had taken a shit before breakfast that gave him more trouble than this boy could. He shook his head. How many times did he have to repeat himself?
“We’ve decided. It is a done thing. You go home and forget about Maria.”
Andrei had insisted Titus join him on this walk to read him the law and enforce it if necessary. He assumed Titus would resist, like any 17-year-old who imagined himself in love. And when he resisted, Andrei wanted to be out of sight of others, so he could insist without leaving room for doubt.
Titus groaned. He was running out of moves. Andrei, as the Blood Reader, the scout who moulded and twisted the land to guide his people through the harsh territory, was obeyed without question, no exceptions.
Only the Prophet Himself, who lived on the far shore of the Big Lake could question a Reader. And Andrei had made sure they were unfindable to the Prophet.
Titus clenched his jaw at the frustration of being a nobody.
“How can you say it is done?” he said. “God has smiled on Maria and I, and granted us a child. You would overrule God?”
“Look at you, pretending to carry out the work of God.” Andrei smiled, full teeth. Titus wanted to slap him.
Titus persisted. “It goes against nature to reject my marriage to Maria. She is carrying my child. We have consummated our love.”
“Let me make this crystal clear, since it seems you’re not understanding the situation. You will never have Maria. Not ever. Stefan is a man of high standing in the Blood. His marriage to Maria has been approved. The child Maria carries belongs to Stefan, not you. Maria has agreed.”
Titus stomped. “Maria only agrees to it because she is afraid. She loves me, not Stefan.”
Andrei laughed. “You think because a woman lies with you she must love you?”
Titus and Stefan
Titus, humbled, not defeated, was assigned to work alongside Stefan the day after his meeting with Andrei.
Andrei was rubbing his nose in it, but Titus had plans, mechanisms in play.
For now, he’d keep his mouth shut. He worked silently with Stefan while they mended fish traps, cut trees and shaped a trunk into flat boards.
Stefan never talked, except to order Titus around, until the third day. Abruptly, he stopped and stood like a stone man, the wind flapping at his shirt and hat.
Titus pulled up beside him. One minute passed, two, three and Titus held his tongue.
Finally Stefan said, “My son is to be born vigorous and kicking. This has been seen by Andrei and he showed it to me this morning. Maria will give him life. The boy will grow up and be a respected member of the Blood.
“If there is anything you wish to say, say it now because after today, there will be no more talk of you and Maria.”
Titus felt pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to answer. Stefan was looking for a reason to cut him down.
Wait him out, Titus thought, stay silent, slip the net.
“Whatever you and Maria had is over.” Stefan said in a tone of finality. His face was turned away, but Titus heard his sharp, angry breathing.
He spun to stare into Titus’s eyes. “If you insist on telling your stories, let’s settle it now. Leave no doubts, no more rumours.”
Stefan’s eyes shifted left, right, down. Suddenly Titus understood Stefan was uncomfortable with the marriage arrangement, too, and he liked him better for it.
Stefan was trapped, same as Titus.
Titus’s brain squirmed. He could hardly stand the thought of being pinned under Andrei’s thumb, but fighting Stefan offered no solution.
Besides, Stefan was as strong as an ox and could kill Titus with one hand. Titus decided he’d bide his time a little longer.
Titus and Maria
Titus bickered his way out of work detail with Stefan and crept along the bench of land next to the river, where the hot springs gurgled up from beneath the earth and spilled over a rock outcropping.
He spied Maria heading with a pail to pick berries.
Now was his chance to scoop her away. They could run east, through the mountains and onto the Plains of Melancholy where nobody would dare come after them. Maybe they’d join up with a new Blood, or they might make a place of their own.
Maria saw Titus following her. She had counted on it when she noticed him hanging around the camp after Stefan left this morning.
She made a mistake telling him about the pregnancy. She hadn’t meant to. She was excited and it popped out before she realized.
The affair shouldn’t have happened, she had already agreed to marry Stefan. But Stefan was 15 years older. Titus was the young stud around camp all the young girls had their eyes on. It seemed to Maria a smart idea to test the waters before the wedding to Stefan.
She and Titus enjoyed fair-to-middling sex four or five times. It scratched an itch. But Maria never imagined Titus as more than a fling. He was short-legged and hairier than a 17-year-old ought to be.
Stefan, however, now there was a man. Broad-shouldered, thick arms, tall as half a wagon was long. She always wanted Stefan, even through the time she was having her trysts with Titus.
She should have told Stefan sooner about the pregnancy. They could have married sooner, slotted in a spring wedding and set the matter to rest.
But she paused in her uncertainty, and now had to contend with Titus making a power play.
She hurried away, leading him on into the trees and up the slope away from camp. She clambered between two boulders three times her height and squeezed into a wide crack. Titus would come on, pass by her and fall into the trap.
Stefan waited on the other side of the narrow passage.
She eased her way downward through the gap in the rock, pressing back into the steam emanating from below. She poured sweat and tasted salt on her lips, her hair fell stringy and wet across her face.
The walls fell away and a huge cathedral opened. Warmth enveloped her and overtook the cell growing inside. The fetus awoke. It was rock, limestone, flowstone, calcite, carbon, sulphur, oxygen.
Outside, Stefan crouched behind the rocks, heard Titus approach and stepped out, waving his arms, telling Titus to turn and leave. Maria would be disappointed, but Stefan wouldn’t fight for her.
Titus jumped, his face red from the chase, eyes clouded in fear. He turned without hesitation, in time to save his life.
But he wasn’t giving up. He had schemes within schemes. Traps to spring. For now, he’d bide his time.