Free The Elementals by Morgan Llywelyn

in that way before, and he found he enjoyed it. It gave him a sense of power. It also was a form of revenge, and revenge was power too.
    Ladra speculated as to whether Kesair might have told Fintan about the attack. Probably not, or Fintan would have done something. Or perhaps he was just waiting for Ladra to try it again, and catch him in the act. Then there would be a fight between them.
    I am bigger, Ladra told himself. I would win.

    He imagined bludgeoning the other man to the earth. The idea gave him an almost sensual pleasure. He strolled along with a tiny smile playing around the corners of his mouth, dreaming with his eyes open.
    But Kesair had not told Fintan. After the scene with Salmé, she spoke to him no more than she must. His use of the other woman’s body did not upset her, that was inevitable. But she could not forget how meekly he had submitted to Salmé and rejected Kesair when she needed him.
    Crossing the central plain, they came to a valley of abundance at the confluence of three rivers. When they pitched camp for the night Kesair spoke to Ladra again. “This would be a fine place for you and your women.”
    â€œThere is something I have to settle before we separate from the rest of you, Kesair,” he replied. “I think we’ll just stay with you a while longer. Until.”
    That night, wrapped in her blankets, Kesair fingered the knife she had taken to bed with her and wondered what it would be like to kill a man. Could she make herself do it? And what would the others do to her if she diminished the adult male population by a third?
    I should discuss this with someone, she thought. But ever since she first joined the crafts colony, she had kept a certain distance between herself and the other women. Their talk seemed superficial to her, their interests were rarely her interests. And men had represented an area of life she had chosen to ignore.
    Old Byth, fond as she was of him, would be little help to her in the present situation. And Fintan had rejected her.
    Lying alone on the yielding earth, Kesair fingered the knife and thought of past and future. She was suspended between them.
    We thought we were so highly developed, she mused. We believed humankind masters of the universe.
    Now we are fifty-three people on an island. And I am contemplating murder.
    Why can you not give in to Ladra? her rational mind demanded to know. Any one of the three would do as well as any other for the purpose of procreation. Surely it is not worth destroying what little civilization we have left, just to deny yourself to him.
    But she could not submit to Ladra. Rationality had no power over
elemental emotion. She had once been terribly hurt by a man, and she had been hurt again by Fintan’s recent rejection. Some quality in him had begun the slow process of thawing her frozen passions, but that was now reversed. All she had left was the integrity of her inmost self, and she would rather die than surrender it to any man on demand.
    Dying, killing, repeated her rational mind. After all that has happened, still you think these thoughts. Are you not revolted by the unquenchable darkness of the human soul?
    I am, she answered. Yet she ran her finger down the knife blade again, testing its sharpness. She felt balanced on a knife blade between the old world and the new.
    The blade was killing-sharp.
    Close to her head, something crackled.
    Kesair stiffened. Someone was creeping toward her in the darkness.
    Her fingers closed on the hilt of the knife, easing it out from under the blankets. Suddenly she felt more alive than she could remember feeling. Every cell in her body tingled.
    Whoever it was came closer.
    The night was very still. The air was damp and heavy, and brought her an ominous, sour scent.
    Ladra was stealthily approaching her bed.
    Kesair felt a shock of surprise that he would risk such a move in the open, where one cry would alert the others. She was ten paces from the nearest