The Tower of Il Serrohe

The Tower of Il Serrohe

RJ Mirabal

Copyright RJ Mirabal 2012

Published by Black Rose Writing, Publishing at Smashwords

Black Rose Writing

www.blackrosewriting.com

* * * * *

© 2012 by RJ Mirabal

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

Second digital version

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-097-5

PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

www.blackrosewriting.com

Print edition produced in the United States of America

* * * * *

For

My parents, Ralph and Alleen Mirabal, who were quintessential loving, nurturing, and supportive parents

And for Cheryl, my loving wife and best friend.

* * * * *

prologue

Out on a lonely expanse of Seared Meadow that stretched across the mesa above Valle Abajo, Don stood in twilight, transfixed by the approach of an odd figure: a tall, lanky man leaning so far forward his head seemed to glide just above the ground, a wide toothless smile at once singular and voracious, with arms apparently clasped so tightly behind he appeared to be armless.

A voice behind Don exploded in a harsh whisper.

“
Hey! Hey! What are you doing? Don’t just stand there staring at the Crotalmin, come on!” Sprouting hands in the semi-darkness, the voice grabbed Don, pulling him toward a hole in the ground.

“
No!” Don cried, wrestling himself away. “I’m not going into some Nohmin hole again! I’m staying here. What’s the big deal anyway; this guy looks OK. Sort of.”

“
That ‘guy’ is Sliktooth of the Crotalmin clan and he needs to feed,” Nersite hissed. “It’s into the hole or into his stomach—which would you prefer?”

Don peered at the hole. After the last time, he’d promised himself he would not willingly go again into the claustrophobic home of his new friend, Nersite. He raised his head and looked around. Sliktooth was approaching with surprising haste and the forest was too far away to make a run for it.

“
Trust me you don’t want to engage Sliktooth in conversation,” Nersite whispered. “It will be short and it will be your last!”

Don stared into Nersite’s eyes. He seemed different since the last time Don had seen him. As best as he could see in the fading light, those beady little eyes held fear, anger, and total sincerity. He knew the essential battle within himself would not be resolved this evening so, for now, he would follow his instinct, trust the little guy, and go down into the hole.

Steeling his mind against rising panic, Don felt his shoulders brushing the sides of the tunnel. He wound his way, awkwardly following the sound of Nersite’s movement.

He could hear other Nohmin scurrying through the tunnels toward hiding places.

The downward slant leveled out forcing Don to bend almost double to avoid the lowered ceiling. They continued on, twisting left and right through countless junctions. At last he felt Nersite’s hand on the top of his downcast head.

“
Stop,” Nersite whispered. “Reach out to your right. You will find a small hole in the wall, shoulder high.”

Don gingerly reached out to the wall, trying not to gain too much information in this cramped, humid tomb. He found the hole as its edges crumbled under his touch.

“
Climb up in there,” Nersite said. “It’s too small for Sliktooth.”

“
It’s too dammed small for me!” Don cried, suppressing a sob.
Not again!
How quickly can I get out of here? Can I even find my way out? I’m in too deep!

“
Sliktooth will eat you! There is no option,” Nersite added.

“
I’d rather be eaten and die than be alive down here,” Don mumbled. “At least it will all be over with quickly.”

“
Not with a Crotalmin,” Nersite said. “It’s a slow death in his stomach. This place is like the wide open plains compared to his stifling poison.”

“
Wouldn’t he kill me first?”

“
No,” came the reply. Don could swear he heard Nersite’s brain whirring as he thought about what to say next. “You don’t want to know, it’s too horrible for me to say. This hole is far better; this part was originally a
Loopohmin home, so it’s roomier
. I will stay with you. Now be quiet.”

Nersite sounded so confident that Don began climbing into the hole, Nersite boosting his butt with a push. Don
really
didn’t want to be touched.

Nersite slipped in behind him.

Inside, by Don’s reckoning, the hole was about two feet high, maybe four feet wide, and eight feet deep. In spite of the soft earth of the passageway, the ground here was hard with fist-sized rocks that pushed painfully against his ribs.

“
Move all the way back, away from the passageway,” Nersite said.

Don did his bidding, sobbing softly with each shallow breath.

Laying about three-quarters over on his face and stomach, he didn’t want to feel the wall or the ceiling. He could, of course, feel the constant rain of atoms and water vapor molecules as they piled upon him.

Nersite groped around, finding Don. Placing his hands gently on Don’s shoulders near his neck, he spoke calmly. “We’ll just relax here. Slow our breathing. You will hear him shuffling about as he passes in the tunnel. He will not be able to reach us.”

“
OK, fine, asshole,” Don whispered back. “Just don’t touch me.”

There was a long pause. Don tried to quiet his sobs and deepen his breathing.

Nersite added one more thing. “We must not talk or make any sound with voice or body.”

Don knew that was purposely misleading—as if Sliktooth would not
know
they were there even if they were quiet. Nersite was trying to give him hope.

Calming himself, Don brought back fond memories of playing as a boy in his big sunny backyard in Peralta: the towering sunflowers, bushes big enough to double for jungles in his childish playacting, with the over arching cottonwood spreading ancient branches almost as thick as its trunk as its cool shade fell in a dappled pattern of light and shadow across the spacious yard.

This calming reverie was rudely interrupted by a sound like dry cornhusks dragging across gravel. Sliktooth was coming down the tunnel!

He could hear the sound of slow breathing, not his or Nersite’s as both held their breath so deep inside, it would take a conscious effort to resume breathing, if the chance ever came.

Now the cornhusks were across from him, behind Nersite. Sliktooth must be testing the sides of the passageway. Don’s heart thundered in his chest, trying to pound its way out. Surely, Sliktooth could hear that.

Nersite patted his shoulders softly in reassurance.

I told you to NOT touch me! 
Don raged silently.

Just as Don’s lungs were about to burst, the sound of cornhusks began dragging away along the tunnel, loud without stealth. Sliktooth may have found the tight entrance to their hiding place too hard-packed to crumble.

Don let himself breathe, but with short little puffs almost silent in their exhale and inhale.

“
He’s moving on,” Nersite whispered. “We must stay here for a while. A specially trained team of Nohmin will vacate him soon enough. They cannot kill him for Sliktooth is too big, but he will be appropriately discouraged. We will hear other Nohmin moving about once it’s safe.”

Don thought that through as they waited. OK, fine. But once I’m out of here…

one

Don lived in the Rio Grande Valley, in the city of Albuquerque, where nearly half the population of New Mexico resided.

His wife, Bess, made a great deal of money in real estate. She also couldn’t stand him. Don was an English instructor at the St. Jude University, a small private college downtown which meant Bess made over two-thirds of their income.

This was fine with Don because it took pressure off what he did. Or so he thought. But he developed a few problems: his fondness for the taste of beer, the dark security of little downtown bars, and losing track of time.

One night, after celebrating the beginning of spring break, he came home around midnight, twelve draft beers trying to burst his bladder, and found only darkness greeting him.

“
Bess, are you still up?” he asked the entire upscale northeast heights neighborhood as he poured onto the ceramic tiled entryway and into the tomb-like living room hushed by acres of thickly padded carpet.

No answer.

“
Good. Then I can piss in the fireplace and have a little nightcap before I sleep in the hide-a-bed in my study knowing that Bess-Darling will have locked our bedroom door.”

He pissed, had a nightcap, and discussed the comparative merits of Whitman and Dickinson as the seminal poets of modern American Literature with the cat who had no opinion. Climbing the stairs he tried the bedroom door on the chance she hadn’t locked it.

No such luck. Oh well. She probably wouldn’t feel as romantic as he did, so he allowed the beer to pull its spongy blanket over his brain and stretched out on the couch, not bothering to pull out the hide-a-bed.

It wasn’t long until, through the pudding of his consciousness, he heard an unfamiliar step on the imported oriental hall runner. Somehow, with inbred male aggression guiding him, he got up—  prepared to do battle with an intruder—when he heard a smacking, licking sound.

Opening the study door a crack, he peered toward dim candlelight coming from their bedroom at the other end of the hall. There was a man—no, it wasn’t just a man, it was that sleaze-ball office manager at Bess’s real estate office—trying to eat Bess. Don couldn’t recall Bess ever kissing
him
like that. The sleaze-ball must have been doing pretty good because he had already ingested all her clothing.

Sleaze-ball cast a furtive glance down the hall right at the study door. “Do you think he’ll hear me when I leave?”

Bess pressed her rather broad belly and large breasts against the sleaze-ball’s half-dressed body. “Are you kidding? We could do it again right on the floor next to him and he wouldn’t budge.”

Don flung open the door, emboldened by a rush of adrenaline mixed with gallons of beer. “Hear you? You sonuvabitch, I can
smell
your stinking ass from here!”