Why did it have to be lizards?

 

Fantastic Mars
7. Lizards of Mars

by Erin Halfelven

Things got lively right at dawn.

Hote and Trike were sitting quietly, letting us sleep in while they discussed what their favorite choices were from the breakfast buffet at the Malagua casino when they heard the rushing sound of clawed feet on stone.

Big honking sword, pistol and spear at the ready, Trike covered the door with Hote backing him up on double barrel, all the while they screamed to wake us up.

When Seejay and I came out of our “bedroom”, both of us naked, Trike was stabbing at a toothy lizard head only half as big as a Cooper Mini. The extra-wide doorway gave the monster plenty of room to maneuver and the fight had to be over soon—or else.

“Hoo-Hah!” shouted Trike just as Hote stuck the shotgun between the big guys’ legs and gave the lizard both charges, right in the throat. Trike finished the oversized luggage off by stabbing through the roof of the still open mouth with the long spear.

Morning light came through the windows in two of our rooms but it was not a pretty sight. Blood, guts and gobs of lizard meat decorated the doorway and my angle of view was past Trike’s big green heinie. “Who knew Mars had alligators?” I asked.

Both Trike and Hote did double takes in my direction and somehow that made me feel good. Hote gaze lingered just long enough that if Seejay had been watching he might have got jealous. How could I giggle with a life and death struggle going on? I don’t know but I did.

There were more lizards in the hallway but now they were squabbling over who owned the rights to the carcass. Trike let them have at it, only poking them if they tried to come in the door.

Seejay took his shotgun to the door and watched the mayhem, too. “Hote, reload,” he said, standing there naked with his big old gun. Despite the danger of the lizard attack, I wanted to giggle, he looked so cute. The smoke in the room made it all a little unreal.

“Yeah, got it,” said our healer. He began the process of putting charges and shot down the barrels of the big muzzleloaders.

“Hey guys!” shouted Trike to the ravening throng, “Save some for us!” He sounded jovial in his deep-voiced drawl.

“You’d eat that?” asked Seejay.

“Sure,” said Trike. “If there’s any left.”

Two smaller mars-igators got dealt with as they came over the top of Uncle Albert and Trike managed to skewer the littler one to drag it inside our rooms. “Yum! Tastes like chicken,” he said.

The thing would have given nightmares to any Floridian: longer than Trike was tall, lean and a dingy grey in color with two rows of sharp, blade-like scales down its back. The claws were longer than my hand, not particularly sharp but the teeth made up for that, being long and keen as razors. And this was the smallest of the ones we had gotten a good look at.

I watched the guys deal with the hall monitors and stayed out of the way. Frankly, they scared me—a lot! The first one could have swallowed me in a single bite and only Trike’s strength, mass and bracing had kept it out of the room long enough for Hote to rip out its throat with the double-barrel.

This was why the guys did not have me on door watch, wasn’t it? I couldn’t handle a weapon big enough to do harm to such monsters and besides that, anytime a fight started, I spent several seconds trying to keep myself from throwing up. Trike and Hote might not know that, I suspect Seejay did, but I certainly knew and it was not good.

“Yonee,” Hote yelled while reloading again. (We were all near deafened from the shotguns going off inside the room with the smoke burning our eyes and choking us.) “Do you think you could figure out how to cook one of these chickens after I cut it up?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “I’m the girl so I get to do the cooking?” My tail was in my hands and it was all I could do not to wring it like a washcloth, I was so frightened.

“We’re all going to be watching the door,” he said simply.

I nodded. It did make sense. Seejay was a good cook, his stuffed peppers were yum, and Hote was fine at stuff like BBQ. My own skills involved microwave ovens and instant ramen. But…needs must. “Have we got anything to start a fire with, or for that matter, anything to burn?” I asked.

Other than the big spear and the handles to an axe or two, we hadn’t seen anything that even looked like wood. The gun stocks were all bone and horn.

Hote rubbed his face, thinking. “Some of the clothes we don’t need, I guess. And that big old flintlock pistol can be used to start a spark. You can spill a little powder to get it burning….”

My expression must have been something because Hote left off talking and looked at Seejay.

“I’ll do it,” said my main man. “I’ll get the fire started for you at least, Puss.” He grinned. “No Better Dungeons and Castles here, huh?” A fictitious magazine often referred to in the gamer press.

I rolled my eyes but I felt pretty useless just then. The idea of touching one of the weapons, even to use it as a firestarter, had caused me genuine fright and distress. Yes, it appeared that I was—designed? created?—as a rich man’s toy, useful only in bed.

And as if to emphasize that, my tail came up between my legs, wrapped itself around both wrists and pulled my hands down to my waist, tying itself in a knot to keep them there. This was not comfortable, have you ever had a knot in your tail?

“Guess not,” said Seejay. He shrugged. “Relax, we won’t make the princess do any work.”

My tail unknotted and I pried my hands out of the loops it had made.

“You were talking to my tail?” I said. I didn’t want to cry and I was doing a pretty good job of it, mostly because Seejay had said to relax.

“Both of you,” he said. “Go stand in the light from the window and be decorative.”

And of course, I did so, posing like a statue where the light splashed against the wall. The guys all glanced at me, frequently, smiling. The doorway where occasional lizardly squabbles could still be heard was to my right but I kept my eyes turned left. I would find it hard to be decorative if I were scared half to death.

Hote disjointed the lizard Trike had killed and Seejay prepared a fire. I watched. But being useless didn’t bother me so much now, I was decorative. In game terms, using Artie’s system, I would be providing a morale bonus to my team which could be worth as much as 5-25% in efficiency. I began to feel better about myself. There are more ways to be useful to your crew than killing or cooking monsters.

The smell of the meat cooking though was not so agreeable to me. At first I thought it was because it was being cooked over a fire made of burning rags. But no, I just didn’t like the smell of cooking meat. Almost by reflex, I did my ritual and removed the smell from my immediate area using magic. It took very little and I knew, somehow, that with a few minutes rest I could easily replace the energy used.

Huh.

Being clean and smelling good mattered to me but how much magic did I have? And what kind? I tried to make a list in my head. I could cancel smells or create them. I could clean myself or others. I could heal wounds. I could cause people to be fascinated looking at me, either suddenly and dramatically as when I had done my striptease or more subtly while being decorative.

These were all small effects. Could I do other things? Probably. How could I find out what they were? An idea occurred to me.

“Yonee? You want some lizard-ka-bob?” Trike offered.

I shook my head, smiling. It looked revolting and smelled worse, like cheap turkey franks burned by incompetent girl scouts.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, in fact, it’s pretty good.” Trike trying to wheedle me was funny, partly because he was so big and fierce-looking.

I giggled but shook my head again. “I don’t seem to be hungry, but I had another thought. Seejay?” I turned toward my man.

“Not hungry?” Seejay looked interested in that idea. “Puss, we’ve been running around and it’s been twelve to sixteen hours since we got here. And if you remember, we were on the way to lunch in the van when… whatever happened, happened.”

“Seriously, I’m not hungry. Uh….” I was in danger of being sidetracked on that topic instead of the one I wanted to talk about. “I think I’ve figured out how to know what magic I can do.”

Seejay eyed me speculatively. “If you’re sure you don’t want anything to eat? We’ll keep some of this for later but we need to get out of this place before those bandits bring reinforcements. So does your idea involve me telling you to tell me what magic you can do?”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty obvious, huh?”

“Well, you’re still the first one to think of it.” He grinned. “This lizard meat has almost no fat in it. It’s almost as dry as the sand outside.” He sipped from one of the canteens we had confiscated. “But I haven’t seen you take a drink yet, either.”

I blinked. “I’m not thirsty.”

Hote looked concerned. “Dehydration can sneak up on you.” He stood, wiping his hands on a rag that had not gone into the fire. “Do you mind?” he asked, stepping close.

“I guess not? Mind what?” I asked.

He took my wrist in one hand and with the other softly pinched the back of my arm, watching closely as the skin went back to normal almost instantly. He shook his head. “You’re not dehydrated, and you’ve got the skin texture of a teenager.” He patted my hand, absently. “How much magic do you have on you, Yonee?”

Seejay interrupted. “The way to phrase that is, ‘Tell us, Yonee, how much magic do you have on you?’”

I felt my eyes get wide. “Lots,” I said. My tail came around in front of my face and seemed to be peering at me.

“What kind of magic?” asked Trike.

“Yes,” said Seejay. “Tell us, Yonee, what kind of magic have you got on you?”

“Uh,” I felt my eyes cross briefly then the double vision effect faded away. I could sort of see into an aura that surrounded me. “Transformation magic. Body control magic. Food, air and water spells. M-m-mind control? P-power enchantments.”

Hote whistled. “I did some introspection last night, trying to figure out what I might be able to do myself. Spells I know exist in my mind, kind of like memory structures? Like how you remember the layout of a building?”

Spells didn’t look at all like that to me, more like toys with buttons on them. And I had a toybox full of them, each with an aura colored by what they were made of and what they could do.

I was looking down at myself. The aura surrounding me seemed to be centered on one part of my body. The part I had been named after. My yoni. I heard what Hote had said and I could see structure now in the aura. Threads that went to parts of my body, like my tail, my belly, my head, my eyes. And one thread that went to each of my friends, a thicker one for Seejay.

And one last thread, fine but strong that arched away from me, high up toward the ceiling before disappearing through the wall. The east wall.

“Oh, crap,” I said.

“What?” Seejay had seen the look on my face.

“The… whoever? The mage or wizard or whatever who… —uh?— enchanted me? They can tell where I am.” I pointed at the invisible thread disappearing into the wall. “Location magic.”

Hote squinted in that direction. “I have a location spell myself…. For finding hidden injuries? Uh? I think she’s right. I can’t see the trace clearly but there is something.”

Seejay took charge quickly, that ability was what made him our leader. “We’re going to have to get moving. Your Enemy can send his henchmen directly toward us. Ten minutes, let’s get this all cleaned up. Trike, take a look in the hallway to make sure the lizards are gone.”

Everyone but me gobbled up the last shreds of the cooked lizard that had not been set aside for later and took long swigs from the canteens. The smaller liquor flasks had not been touched.

“Enemy?” said Trike. “Like an in-game Enemy?” He squinted at the wall but obviously wasn’t seeing anything there.

Seejay and I nodded. “We figured that out last night,” I said. “We think that I’m someone’s Valuable Property and they want me back.”

Trike shook his head. “They can’t have you,” he said. “You belong to us.”

“Thank you, Trike.”

“But you still owe me twelve dollars,” he added, his eyes twinkling.

We all laughed. Twelve dollars had been what Zandro, the leader of the banditos had offered for me.

“Keep talking, Yonee, tell us about your magic while we pack up, tell us what you can do?”

“Uh,” I said. “I can make and unmake smells. I can clean myself and other people and things. Uh, I can… I can make people like me and want to look at me and get confused.”

They all nodded.

“I can find water, I can…. Um, I’m not sure how to say this? I can give myself food and drink without eating or drinking? That’s why I’m not hungry or thirsty? I don’t catch diseases either….”

Hote started to say something but Seejay kept him quiet.

“I can clean wounds and do some healing. I can help other people resist disease and get well if they are sick. I can help people not feel tired? I can, uh, I can make people feel really, really good while, uh, having sex.” I had to stop while they all laughed and Seejay actually blushed.

I grinned at him but my smile faded after a bit. I paused. “I can make a gust of wind, even a pretty hard one. I can keep someone from breathing. I can electrocute anyone who touches me when I don’t want to be touched.” Those two surprised me.

They stared.

“And, uh,” I said, “I can shoot lightning, not too far and not too much but maybe enough to knock someone down?”

“Wow,” said Trike.

“Oh,” I said. “And I can do this….” I caused a small flame to appear on the end of my finger. I made it a bit bigger then made it go out. “It looks like that would hurt but it doesn’t.”