Dante woke to the taste of cold iron, his helmeted head to one side on a mound of pillows. He lay on his stomach, shackles holding his ankles. Dante jerked his feet. His chains attached him to a wall. His arms were loosely bound to his side, more pillows piled under and around him. A thick quilt smelling of weeds and mint covered him. Softness captured him. His eyes adjusted to the half-light. Rough grey rock surrounded him. He heard small scuffles and peeps nearby, the rats and lizards of a dungeon -- his brother’s dungeon.

Dante lifted and turned his heavy head to see the rest of his cell. He rested in a small alcove, no bars in front of him. An uneven stone floor stretched to a limestone wall. The faint light shining in from one side flickered on a row of torture implements; a correction rod, pikes, long-handled pinchers, a trident, nets, chains, wound rope, fine wire, knives in scabbards, long wooden tubes with short sticks poking out; woven bags bulging with unknown horrors. At the far end of the row hung hanks of human hair; curled, straight, black and gold, all tangled together. On the floor below sat various large jars and boxes. A black lizard stared at him from between them, squeaked in anger and disappeared into the jumble. To one side, almost out of his vision, rested an animal hutch where a vulture with a taped broken leather wing hunched, staring at Dante through fiery, beady eyes.

His burnt hand prickled as if he had slept on it. It felt cold despite the warm covers. Dante rolled onto his right side and tried to massage the hand with his good fingers. He grasped nothing. Dante grabbed his wrist. Pain shot up his arm. He loosened his grip and carefully felt the bandages. His left hand had vanished. He patted the bed clothes as if it might have fallen lost among them. The truth hit. They had amputated his hand. He rushed to his genitals, Yevgeny’s threats fresh in his mind. Everything was intact. They hadn’t castrated him. Not yet.

Grief and despair rolled over him. They had intended to turn him into a slave from the moment of his conception. A made thing grown in a bottle. Raised by Nanny until he showed his powers, then shipped away to learn obedience. When the net was returned to his brain, he would become the undermage’s golem, a moving statue, only allowed to speak when casting spells, the pain of the rod forcing him to his brother’s will.

Dante ground at the bit that held his tongue silent. He would destroy them. He would call down the palace around them, like Sampson in the old hermit’s book, dying under the stones with his tormentors.

Flopping footsteps walked down the cavern. The hita appeared, carrying a deep tray. A tantalizing odour of food wafted from it as the creature placed the tray on the floor and knelt beside him.

The hita removed his shackles then pulled the helmet apart and off. Dante tested his forehead for fever. His face felt cool and clammy. He moved his sore jaw back and forth and rubbed it then flopped his head back into the pillows, too worn out to even think of escape. The hita blew small leaves and herbs from its trunks into a bowl of thick, warm soup.

Dante glanced at the hanks of hair and a horrible thought invaded his mind. He sent a vision of hita eating him. A wave of amusement greeted him. The creature pretended to spit out food in disgust. Humans tasted funny, especially shine humans.

It showed pictures of Dante struggling and broadcasting waves of furious magic in his delirium. They had bound him to protect themselves. Dante remembered snatches; hita holding him down as a bitter liquid poured down his throat then a long twilight sleep, pain as the stretcher they carried him on tipped and jostled, terrifying roaring and shouting as they fought off a horrible beast, a camp fire blazing in the middle of hulking shadows. The hita had travelled for many days, deep into the jungle, far away from the crust of human habitation along the edge of the continent.

"You’re my new owner then," murmured Dante. He sighed "I’m owned by aliens."

The hita touched Dante’s mouth with a snout, puzzled. Dante remembered and presented an image of himself kneeling before the hita, head bowed, the creature waving the correction rod. The hita glanced at the instruments of torture hanging on the wall. It jumped up and pulled off the rod. Dante tried to struggle into the transpo position. A wave of dizziness collapsed him back onto the pillows. He watched the hita with sick dread. The creature didn’t notice. It hurried away with the rod, returning empty handed. The hita tucked the quilt back around him, shaking its head that he shouldn’t try to get up. Dante took a turn feeling puzzled.

The hita sucked some soup into its snout and wavered it toward its patient, intending to feed him. Dante pushed the trunk back with his hand and motioned at the bowl. He struggled into a sitting position. The hita stuck its snout in its mouth, slurping with satisfaction. It plumped up the pillows behind Dante. He winched at the sudden pain from his back but waved off the hita’s concern. His nurse handed him the bowl of soup. He lifted it to his lips, his other arm automatically rising to steady the dish. Dante stared at his stump. The bowl shook in his other hand. The hita steadied it and he drank, unable to tear his eyes from his newest loss. The hita took the empty bowl away. Dante couldn’t stop himself. He covered his eyes with his good hand as ragged grief forced its way up from the depths.

He bellowed, pounding the pillows. Thick unreadable words banged against his alcove, sending pebbles and bits showering around him. The phrases shot across the cavern and rattled the hanging instruments. Some clattered to the floor.

Dante remembered the helmet and snapped his mouth shut. He sent the hita a picture of a beer. It shook its head and he remembered that it had stayed away from the alcohol during their travels.

"Beer come," he said. No beer came. His magic worked, why wouldn't it come? He bellowed, the words once again slamming against the walls. "Beer come!"

The hita sent him an image of great distances, suggesting that human things lived far, far away. Dante understood. His magic had limits, like all magic.

"Beer, whiskey, wine, bliss, poppers ...anything. Come," he whispered. A hita bowl full of clear, cool water appeared by the bed.

Dante pulled up his knees, hid his face and wept. The hita drew him into a hug and he sobbed on its shoulder. Liquid trickled down his lower back, stinging a little as it fell from the ends of the hita’s trunks. It cried in sympathy. Dante sniffed and looked up at it with surprise. The creature unwound itself and dabbed his back, then his face with a soft cloth. It motioned to a wide necked bottle and touched his infected welts. Dante understood that it wanted to tend to his injuries. He lay down on his stomach. Dante tried not to think about Martha, lost and wept again. His back shuddered with grief as the potion sprayed over it.

The hita removed the bandages on his stump. Someone had neatly sewn the ends together. Everything from his wrist on down was gone. The hita sent him a vision of a hand rotten with gangrene. Dante cursed Yevgeny as he watched the bandages replaced. His stump started to ache, his back throbbed in sympathy. The hita handed him a vial of medicine for the pain. He downed it. After a small grieve, he fell back asleep.

Flutes, pipes and deep digeradoo booms echoed in the cavern. Dante listened and wondered, his curiosity growing. He decided to find out where the music came from. He had grown bored with bed. His invalid entertainment consisted of trying to figure out the uses of the various implements along the wall. Hita wandered in from time to time and took something away. The wire had come back shortened, a long hollow pole had returned minus its sticks. The bulging bags turned out to contain odd dried vegetables, some of which his hita had softened in a broth before giving to him.

Dante worked hard at not obsessing over the origins of the human hair. The aliens who had entered the cave to retrieve this or that, had stared at him with a mixture of fear and a longing to take his scalp. Much to his relief, one of the creatures had taken the hanks away a few days earlier, while leaving him alone.

At least he thought it was a few days earlier, having lost track of time as he woke and slept in the isolated cavern. He thought his friend came once a day to tend to him, but he wasn’t sure. He had woken to the far away light, slept, then woken to an utter frightening darkness filled with whispering and scuttling. The implements had tinkled. Weak from illness and loss of blood, how could he fend off the unknown? He had curled up under his quilt, guarding his stump, frozen in position so as not to attract the jungle vine that slithered in the black. His hita friend appeared, having felt his fear. Its reward, his scream at the alien reptile face bobbing distorted in a lamp light. The hita had sent waves of comfort before leaving him with an odd phosphoreus stone lantern that created crazy shadows over the walls. It remained better than the dark.

Dante tucked the quilt around him, gathered up his shining rock, pulled himself up into a slightly dizzy stand and, using the wall as a brace, crept toward the music. He stopped and examined the caged vulture and several other exotic creatures, all hobbled with some form of injury. His cave resembled an animal hospital -- or a holding pen. Dante shuddered and drew his quilt closer about him.

The cave opened into a long rock corridor with bright light flickering from an opening further down. Dante placed his phosphoreus down beside his own doorway, then shuffled along the hall and up to the far portal. He peeked around. The alien tune echoed through a huge cavern. At the far end, a pastel stone waterfall cascaded from the stalactite ceiling. Stone columns and stalagmites rose around the edges. The hita sat in the center, around a flickering fire. Phosphoreus rocks in small cages provided extra light. Dante inched along the back and huddled down among the stalagmites to watch.

Trunks curved, straightened and dipped; snouts opened and closed; music vibrated round the cavern. Two of the hita rose from the circle and faced each other. Beads, colored leather strips, small fern fronds, flowers and lengths of the human hair were woven into their manes. Geometric swirls and patterns painted their bodies. They entwined their trunks and swayed to the music. The skin across their lower stomach swelled red. The hita embraced, bodies tight together.

Another couple, and another, rose and danced. Dante recognized his hita friend among them. At an unknown signal, the couples changed partners and the weaving clinging sensuality began again. Erotic feelings flowed through the music. Memories of lying with Martha stirred and Dante understood that the hita mated. He put his head on his knees, closed his eyes and sighed as his own useless arousal awoke. The music stopped and he looked back up. The hita had finished their dance and now all of them, those in heat, those not, the juveniles, all clumped together in a hug. Love and caring filled the cavern.

A small wave of grief wafted from the shadows. A sad lone hita crouched among the stalagmites. The other creatures finished their warm embraces and sat down again in the circle.

The music changed. Visions of round shag bark cabins, moon sprinkled nights, warm sea breeze days wafted through Dante’s mind. Hita sailed out to fish in coracles, hoed alien gourds, celebrated at totems.

The sorrow from the lone hita grew. A vision slammed into Dante of hita scattering in terror, hiding in flaming huts, fleeing through the fields as humans shot at them. The grieving hita crouched in the bush, frozen to its spot, its shaman magic stopped up with fear. Then came the village destroyed, only a charred pole remaining.

Dante huddled in himself, as the farm roared in flames, his magic useless against it. William, Martha, Reba, Madam murdered. He suddenly remembered his hita jacket and boots.

Anger flared from the left. The hita bared its fangs and jumped him. Its teeth snapped into his left shoulder.

Dante screamed, black words buzzed. Thick vines twisted around his chest and flexed, crushing his ribs. They rolled across the floor, Dante kicking and punching, desperately shoving the creature back. The hita struck back with its own magic. Dante’s words swarmed into biting insects and turned on him. The hita pinned him against a stalagmite, unclamped its teeth and leered, its mouth full of Dante’s blood. It slowed its squeeze, preparing him for a prolonged, vengeful death. Dante glanced down from its jaws and noticed dark red from his shoulder flowing into a growing pool beneath him. He vaguely remembered someone calling him the bodhisattva. Is this what was meant? Dying as a sacrifice for the sins of his species? He turned his head back and looked in the hita’s slit alien eyes.

"I’m sorry," he wheezed. The buzzing word insects dissolved in shame and guilt.

The creature sent him surprise. It unwound its trunks and stood for a moment with its limbs hanging limply. The hita turned to a nearby stalagmite and wrapped itself around it. Chunks of grit showered as it strangled the rock. Waves of anger and grief washed through the cavern. Feet pounded up to them.

Dante lay gasping for breath. Someone stuffed his quilt into his shoulder to stop the blood. Panicky images and half emotions from the other hita swirled through his mind. They surrounded the one who had attacked, pried it from its column and enveloped it in a hug. Tears rolled from their snouts and pattered onto the floor.

Dante dragged his blood sodden quilt around him and crawled in pain away among the stalagmites, his life once again reduced to a begging wish to die alone, in peace. His hita friend followed. It knelt down and gathered him into its trunks, the snouts examining the wounds. Another hita appeared with the pain medicine, quilted pads and bandages. His friend sprayed the potion into his mouth. The other hita sent a picture of its own chest, then its insides then Dante’s body. Dante sent back an image of his insides and ribs that he remembered from a computer simulation. The hita absorbed the information then began to bind his shoulder. The grieving storm of Dante’s enemy had calmed to an occasional wave of despair and anger. Dante leaned against his friend, all the emotion drained out of him, nothing left but the end.

" My hair’s yours," said Dante in pictures "I’ve felt the other hita wanting it. It’s all I’ve got to repay you for your kindness. I know you kill humans for their scalps, just as we take your skin."

The hita took a turn feeling guilty then it sent an image of a man with a gun.

"I know. You’re just protecting yourselves. My people think the same thing," said Dante. "I wish I could stop it. Make the killing and hurting stop. For humans and hita."

The hita put together an emotion of strength and confidence and the god image of El. "You must do this. You must make it stop."

"I’ve got no way to do that," said Dante. He winced as the other hita tightened the bandages around his ribs. "I’m the bone the dog growls over, never letting go until it’s chewed up. You understand?"

The hita sent an image of the bone tossed into the air, twirling then flapping as it uncurled into a pterodactyl. The reptile shot up into the air, straight through a disorganized flock to its head. The pterodactyl spread its leather wings and soared across the sky. The other lizards imitated and followed. The flock wheeled in formation and flew to freedom.

"I’m nothing, a freak. No one would listen to me," said Dante.

He shared his memory of standing alone and lonely, watching the other children ignore him as they played. The hita returned bewilderment to him. He sent an image of his hita enemy huddled among the stalagmites while the others enjoyed themselves. The hita indicated that the creature needed time alone to heal, they had not excluded him. Both his friend and the creature that bound his wounds remained puzzled. Dante indicated himself holding a gift then his hands empty. He glanced at his stump with a pang.

"I’ve nothing to give," he said.

"You can give your love and help," said the hita in pictures and emotions. "It’s all El ever asks."