“Well,” he said, sighing deeply, running his hands through his short hair, “I’ve played this many times over in my head, but I suppose I never ever actually expected to meet anyone down here in my prison. Not anyone alive and well, that is. Now that the moment has come, I’m not sure where to start.” He brought his drink to his lips and sipped.

“The beginning would be nice,” I said. I took a drink as well. I reasoned that it couldn’t be poisoned, as he had poured both from the same kettle. It was hot, and tasted like dirt, but even hot dirt water was decent when you were thirsty.

A thin smile peeked over the rim of his cup. “Naturally, yes, the beginning. Well, my dear… what was your name again?”

I almost protested, since he still hadn’t given me his name, but what was the point? “Miles,” I said.

“Miles, yes, that’s right,” he said, nodding, despite the fact that I hadn’t told him it before. “My dear Miles, my honored guest. Let us start at the beginning.

“In the beginning there was only… well, the best word in the human tongue is hunger, but it is a much more primal, broader word in the Kalamuzi language - if you can call our squeaks and cries a language.” He shook his head wistfully. “But let us go with hunger. In the beginning there was only hunger, the idea, a great wanting without physical expression.” He spread his arms wide to indicate an empty space.

“Then, the great hunger took form,” he said, bringing his hands together, clasping them into a ball. “And it became the ravenous Olsgolon - our Mother.”

I leaned forward. To know where the Kalamuzi came from, how they were made, maybe that would give me some sort of advantage over them. I figured the core had made them, and maybe it had. Maybe that’s what the Kalamuzi called the core. Olsgolon.

“Olsgolon wanted more,” he said. “She wanted the world, and the world was her right. But she was immobile. So, she took what surrounded her, where she had come into this world - and she took this material into herself, and from it formed the Kalamuzi. She birthed us.

“In order to carry out her will, the Kalamuzi were imbued with the endless desire to take. She sent them off into the world with sacred orders - ha! - to steal from the surface, and bring the best things back to her.”

He shook his head again. “Alas, that is exactly what they did. The Kalamuzi, in their short incarnation, have killed and pillaged, and done very little else. Do I not belong to an illustrious family?” He took another sip of his dirt water.

“You know,” he said. “I doubt any human - any real human, not whatever I am, which I will get to - has ever heard this story before. Do you feel lucky?”

I shrugged. “I’m starting to wonder why you’re telling me this.”

“For you to pity me, of course. Why else? But let us continue.

“The Kalamuzi took, and took, and if that were all, perhaps their existence would not have been so damaging. Perhaps we would already have been wiped out. Heavens help us that it may still yet happen. But, to the great despair of the world, one early Kalamuzi, name lost to time, made a *ahem* discovery.

“In one of their many raids, this Kalamuzi, my famed ancestor, took a woman. This was not unusual, as I understand it - human sacrifice to our Mother was common, and still is. This Kalamuzi then chose to lay with the woman. That is to put it gently, you understand, Miles. This, too, was not unheard of. The Kalamuzi take everything, after all. And despite the fact that all Kalamuzi are male, they do have the requisite parts. Why Olsgolon made us that way, I can only guess.

“His innovation,” he said the word with a snarl. “Was that he didn’t kill or sacrifice the woman immediately afterwards. My forebear so enjoyed himself that he decided to keep her as a slave.”

He drained the last of his drink. “Heavens above, what am I doing? I need something stronger for this.” He rose, walked over to some pile of junk that was navigable only by him, and reached his hand in. Without disturbing the pile, he pulled from it a bottle, the outside glazed over such that you couldn’t see the contents. “There we are,” he said, and poured himself a glass of hazy liquid. He motioned the bottle to me, but I shook my head. Whatever it was, I probably didn’t want it. The smell stung my nostrils. He shrugged, and returned to his seat.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

He took a drink from his newly refreshed cup, and winced. “Ah, that’s better. So, right. The story.

“The Kalamuzi kept the woman as a sex slave, so that he could use her to satisfy his desires whenever he liked. Which, small mercy, was not often. Kalamuzi only produce - forgive my language - sperm once every month or more. And,” he said this next part with mock sadness. “What great tragedy, he never had the chance to use the woman again. She had become pregnant.”

I started. In fact, I almost gasped, but I held it in. The Kalamuzi looked at me, and I nodded for him to continue. I had to know, now.

“About three weeks later, she gave birth. A Motherless birth, the Kalamuzi call it, because the resulting Kalamuzi was not brought about by our Mother, but by a human woman. They do not understand that this human woman is the mother of the offspring, the idiots. In the Kalamuzi language, the word for mother refers only to Olsgolon.

“And yes, what came out of this woman was a litter of Kalamuzi. An unusually small litter, as it came to be found, which saved the woman, for a time. Most of those born were no different from a standard Kalamuzi. But one of them - Kreetartipquiki - came out half-furless, and half-intelligent. Half-human, you could say, though I hesitate to.”

“Like you?” I asked, putting the pieces together. And like Risthindicthi, I thought.

The Kalamuzi smiled, but shook his head. “Not exactly, but we will get there soon. Have patience.” I nodded.

“This new breed of Kalamuzi,” he continued. “Was given a name, with all the creative energies of the Kalamuzi brain behind it - a Talker. The Talkers gave themselves that name, of course, since only they are able to speak in the tongue of both Kalamuzi and Man. More or less.

“And so the world shuddered. Now the Kalamuzi, an all-male race, which depended on Olsgolon for their thankfully-slow reproduction, now had the means to explode in population. And, they had a leader. That leader - Kreetartipquiki, you remember - was smart enough to see the importance of this, and started what is now a Kalamuzi tradition - kidnapping.”

“Do they take women for any other reason?” I asked. I feared for the safety of Naomi and Amaia, naked in some Kalamuzi prison. They could fend them off, maybe, even unarmed - but for how long?

He looked at me for some time, as if reading my mind and not wanting to dash my hopes. “Yes,” he said at last. “There are still human sacrifices, as I said.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Friends of yours have been captured, have they?” he guessed. I nodded.

He offered me a drink again, and I refused again. He took a gulp of his own. “Well, we can hear your miserable life story next, I suppose. Now where was I?

“Right, kidnapping. Well, long story short, these Talkers made the Kalamuzi into a much bigger threat. Before, we were like animals. Afterwards, like dumb, savage men. The Talkers became generals, kings and princes. Those are not exactly the names they use, but that isn’t important. They needed a constant supply of female slaves to create more Talkers, as most of the women would die in childbirth. Human beings aren’t made to give birth to as many as eighteen children at once. And for whatever reason, sometimes the union didn’t create a Talker, only regular Kalamuzi. But over time, the number of Talkers grew.

“My father was one of those Talkers,” he said. “Perhaps you can guess what comes next, but I will say it quickly. My father was the first Talker to lay with a human woman, successfully. Most talkers come out quite infertile, you know. The curse of being a half-breed. But not my old Dad, no sir.” He laughed bitterly. “He had a son, and he named him Lotsqueekinerik.

“And so here I am!” he shouted, arms wide, face towards the ceiling. “The most human of all the Kalamuzi - or perhaps only the most monstrous of all men.”

“So you’re three-fourths human?” I asked. That explained why he was so agreeable, I supposed.

“That is one way to put it,” he responded. “But does that make me anything but a monster?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. You were right, though. It is a tragic story. So how did you get here?” I motioned to the cave around us. “Why aren’t you leading the Kalamuzi in battle? Did they kick you out for being too human?”

He guffawed, bolted upright, and shouted down at me. “Do you think I would fight alongside those vermin?!” I stood as well, thinking he was about to attack me, but he held up his hands in a sign of peace. “I am sorry,” he said. “You didn’t know. Couldn’t know. I let my temper get the better of me.” He motioned for my seat, and we both sat again.

“No,” he said simply. “They did not kick me out. I left.

“My mother survived the birth, and she taught me everything I know. Told me stories about the surface, about the tiered city of Eraztun, flowering Ushante on its cliff, and the oasis of Sama, jewel of the desert. She taught me to speak, taught me to read - only whatever scraps ended up down here, but you’d be surprised. More than anything, she taught me what a human being was like. She treated me like one, even if I am… as you see.

“I was taken on one raid,” he said, hanging his head. “And I despise myself for it. It was before I came to my senses. In the dead of night, such that I couldn’t even see the outside world - only the stars, which I have dreamed of ever since. When the nightmares spare me.”

“What happened?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he said simply. “I will not tell that story. Let it suffice to say that it soured me to the Kalamuzi, to the Omphalos, to Olsgolon herself. So I left. My mother had died by that point - impregnated by another Kalamuzi. My father died when he attacked that Kalamuzi, in a fit of jealous rage. I am orphaned, and I am alone.”

“And so,” I said, nodding, certain of where the story ended. “You hid out here among the trash, biding your time, plotting your revenge.”

“Revenge?” the Kalamuzi started. “How could I possibly have revenge on them? I am only one monster, however human I may look in poor light. And even one human could not defeat them, let alone one tragedy like myself.”

I frowned. “Then what are you doing here? Leave!”

He laughed. “You say it like it is easy, Miles. I cannot simply leave, though I desire to strongly, I assure you. The entrance is guarded, and they would only let me out if I proved to them I was loyal again. If I cannot do that, they would not even let me into the Omphalos. And I cannot. Will not.”

“So what, you’re just going to sit around here and do nothing?” I asked. “Just rot in some hole and wait to die?”

“That is about the whole of my plans for future, yes.”

I spit on his floor. “Coward,” I said.

He rose to his feet again, and so did I, hand on the staff. But he calmed himself again before violence broke out.

“What about you,” he asked. “You’re in this pit now as well as I. What do you plan do to?”

“I’m going to break my friends out of the Omphalos,” I said. “And you’re going to get me inside.”