Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lila
“Iwould do the whole tour guide thing, but I think you are probably in a hurry. Just promise you will return one day and take in all that is Galliethain and the outer colonies.” He looks at me through the rearview mirror, his heavy accent imploring.
“I would love to,” I assure him as we ease into traffic, the streets relatively quiet compared to major cities on Earth. “I’m sure a holiday here with my family would be wonderful.”
“Yeah, maybe not all your family,” Xavier reminds me, and I grimace. Shit, that will be a problem.
“Oh, why is that?” The chief sounds curious but not angry.
“Some of my mates are not compatible with your climate, I’m afraid,” I answer, and he nods his understanding.
“Yes, Rilu is not for everyone. Luckily for us, we have thicker skin and a higher tolerance for daylight and heat, as do the larnuks.”
“Do you grow crops here? It doesn’t really seem conducive to it.” I watch the city go by, fascinated by all the little patches of greenery between the large buildings.
“Rilu is actually extremely fertile, but it is all below ground. The caverns that we harvest our gems from also make perfect growing grounds for many of our crops,” the chief explains.
“Our water is rich in nutrients and things grow quickly, making it easy for us to plant five or six crops each year.”
“But what about light? If everything is underground, how do they get light to grow?” Rilu has two suns close together, which is what makes daylight almost never-ending and creates extreme heat.
Even now in the climate-controlled car, I can feel sweat on my brow and upper lip. I use my head scarf to wipe it away.
“We use a technique called solar tunnels. A tunnel is made to the surface, and a clear plastic dome is used to cover it, allowing sunlight to shine down the tunnel. We then use mirrors to bounce that light around the caverns.”
“Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Ancient Egyptians on Earth used that technique as well.” Once again, my movie knowledge comes in handy. Who would have thought?
“Apart from this city and two more large ones, the majority of our population either lives underground or are nomadic with their larnuk herds.”
“What about the sandworms? Aren’t they a problem for the larnuk herds?” I ask. The guys have been quiet, letting me quiz the chief on everything Rilu, and I appreciate it.
“The larnuks are poisonous to the sandworms, and they avoid them whenever possible. Their main food sources are desert rodents and one or two hardier species that live amongst the rocky outcrops. They like to hunt around oases because that’s where these animals go for water, but if a nomadic village moves into the oasis for a while, the sandworm will avoid that particular one until they move on.
The larnuks actually protect our people.
Occasionally, a worm will get desperate and attack, but it usually has a bad outcome for the worm. ”
“Wow, I can’t wait to get out there and see it all. It’s amazing and so very different from where I am from.”
The chief’s car slows and pulls into a parking space in front of a large warehouse. It’s one right in front, and I’m assuming it’s reserved for him, because the rest of the parking bays seem to be full. “Come now, your escort is going to meet you by the larnuk sale yards.”
I scramble out of the car behind Xavier, hurrying after the chief who is moving toward the entrance at quite a pace. “Sale yards? You sell the larnuks to other races? I thought they needed to bond with their handler.”
“We do, and they do. You’ll see,” he says with a mysterious little smirk. Okay, well now I’m even more excited, but I come to a halt as we enter the warehouse.
It must be soundproof, because there was no sign of this outside except for all the cars.
The place is teeming with beings. A good majority of them have the same swarthy coloring and streaked hair as the chief, but there are also other races here.
The sights and sounds and smells are mesmerizing, but I don’t have time to stand and gawk, because the chief is on a mission, and there’s no stopping him.
I follow behind Silac and Xavier, with Tirrian bringing up the rear.
He keeps having to nudge me to keep me moving because I keep getting sidetracked.
I guess he learned from X69 that I’m easily distracted, and he’s making it his mission to keep us on track.
Cloth, earthenware, wood carvings and exotic jewelry are in every store, sparkling and shining and drawing the buyer in.
Here and there, people shout, hawking their wares, trying to attract buyers to their little piece of the market.
A produce store has me stopping and picking up an interesting…
fruit maybe. It has a sweet smell. “What’s this?
” I ask Tirrian who has stopped with me, the others getting lost in the crowd ahead of us.
It’s leather-like in appearance and shaped like a straight banana, and despite the sweet smell, it is rock-hard. I’d break my teeth if I bit into it.
Tirrian fishes into his pocket and pulls out a couple of coins and hands it to the woman who is watching us with an easy smile. “We will take this. She has never been to Rilu before,” he explains with a smile, and the woman bows her head and takes his coins with both hands.
“Blessing to you both, Prince Tirrian.”
A claw pops out of his pointer finger on his right hand, and he draws a line down the fruit. It splits in half, exposing bright red flesh, but I can feel heat wafting off it as I bend to get a better look.
“This is lollecado. Rilu has two types of cavern systems. One is thermal and hot, and the other one is cooler and damp. They grow different produce in each system. This fruit forms in the lava pools of the thermal system. It stays hot even once it’s left the lava.
It takes special gloves to harvest this, and people have to be careful not to fall in when they do harvest it, because they will die instantly.
Rilunese are hardy, but not quite that hardy.
They allow dragons to come and work during harvest season because they can withstand the heat in half form.
It’s a delicacy on Fluxx and prized by dragons.
” He scoops some out and blows on it before offering his finger to me.
“Will it burn me?” I ask, and he shrugs.
“It shouldn’t. Once the fruit is split open, it tends to cool quickly. That’s why you should eat it as soon as possible.”
I lean in and suck the offered fruit off of his finger, my eyes locked on his as I do.
The texture is a little bit gritty, like a dragon fruit with hundreds of tiny seeds, but the taste is incredible.
It’s like a slightly spicy pineapple with a creamy finish to soften the bite.
“Oh my god, that is so good.” I moan as I take the fruit from his hand and scoop out more with my own finger.
“Yes, good for dragon loving. Make tasty,” the lady watching us says, nodding enthusiastically.
“Huh?” I ask, and Tirrian breaks out of his daze and glares at the woman before grabbing my arm and dragging me in the direction the others went.
“Hey, what was she saying?” I ask, allowing him to guide me through the crowd despite the slightly harsh grip he has on me—it’s allowing me to finish my delicious fruit.
“Can the replicator replicate these?” I ask absently.
“No,” he grunts. “And she was saying nothing. Just the ramblings of an old woman.”
I offer him the other half of the fruit, but he shakes his head. “You finish it. I’ve had them before.” His dragon flicks into his eyes and startles me. The elongated pupil seems to wink before Tirrian gets control again. That was weird.
I finish up the fruit just as we arrive at a large open area, and from the smell of it, it must be the sale yards.
Tirrian takes the now empty skin from me and tosses it in a nearby bin before we reach the other three who are standing next to a tall, dark-haired woman with purple streaks in her hair.
“Ah, there you are. I wondered where you had gotten to, but I knew you were in good hands with Tirrian,” Chief Zana exclaims as we join them.
“This is my eldest daughter, Zilla. She will escort you out to the settlement at the right mine. She insisted when she heard that Prince Tirrian was with the group.”
“It is nice to meet you,” she says rather woodenly to me, but when she turns to Tirrian, that melts away and she smiles.
“T, I didn’t know you were coming. Why didn’t you send me a message?
I would have met you at the landing pad.
” She throws her arms around him, hugging him hard, but it seems to me like he stiffened ever so slightly before returning the embrace. Hmm, I wonder what that was about.
“It was a last-minute thing, but Dad wanted to make sure Lila was safe.” He steps out of her embrace and puts his arm around me, dragging me to his side, and then he looks down at me with actual affection.
My brain screeches to a halt. What the actual fuck?
My mouth drops open in shock, but Silac steps into the conversation before I can ask if Tirrian hit his head somewhere between the fruit stall and here.
“Lila is a favorite of the dragon king, and he sent his son along to make sure she was safe in the mines. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.
” Now hold up, what the fuck has Silac been smoking?
One of the stalls was a coffee shop style setup with hookahs with multiple pipes.
There was purple smoke drifting off one of them, and I’m pretty sure it was the same stuff that Xavier used with me to relax my mind.
Did they make a pit stop while we were distracted?
Zilla’s eyes narrow as she takes a step back. “Of course not.” There is some underlying tension that the chief is oblivious to.