by Maia Tanith
He wanders around them, taking in every detail of the wretched appearance, of the boy’s tears. “I am feeling merciful today,” he says, once he has had his fill of their suffering. “So it will just be a finger. You have ten of those. You won’t miss one all that much. Solis? The knife?”
Solis, his face green, hands him the knife.
He holds it out to me. “Nephew?”
I keep my hands clasped behind my back and keep my gaze steady, looking at nothing. I will not play his vile games.
“I will have you do it before I am done,” he muses, as he looks me straight in the face. “I just need to find your point of pain. Like Solis here. He did not want to cooperate, either. Until I told him the rules of the game. I have his children, you see. If he refuses to cut off this kit’s finger, then his own daughter loses two of hers. And if he refuses to take the boy’s, then his own son pays the forfeit. Ingenious, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, truly ingenious,” I murmur. Poor Solis. My uncle has always been ingenious in his cruelties.
My uncle walks closer. He lowers his voice and speaks to only me, so quietly that I doubt anyone else can hear. “But you? You do not seem to have anything you truly care about. Not even yourself. There is your mother, of course.” He waves a negligent hand. “But she is on death’s door, Anything I do to hasten her passing would be a blessing to you both. And she is my sister, after all.”
I swallow but I do not speak. He steps back and raises his voice again. “No matter. We will ponder further on the matter. But now.” He hands the knife back to Solis, who takes it with clear reluctance. “If Hathik is not here, a finger from each now, Solis. The little finger. On the right hand.”
The guards grab the boy’s hand and clamp it onto a board. Each finger is held immobile. Then, with a flash of the knife, his little finger is severed.
The girl offers her hand bravely. “Stay away from here, Father,” she says clearly to the comcast. “The Emperor will kill you if he can. Stay away, please, Father.”
She continues to look up at the comcast, giving only a wince when her finger, too, lies on the floor. “Stay away, Father,” she pleads, her voice breaking a little.
The Emperor gives a huff of annoyance. “You had best hope he does not heed your words, kit,” he snaps. “For it will be one of your eyes next.”
The girl closes her eyes as if in silent prayer. When she opens them again, her voice is steadier than before. “Stay away from here, Father. Please, I beg you. Stay safe.”
The third day, the boy, weak with hunger, has to be carried in. The girl staggers but holds herself upright. As her body weakens, her spirit glows brighter. The fierce heat of the sun shines out of her eyes as she throws her hatred at the Emperor.
I stare at her. There is more courage in her small body than there is in the rest of the room together. Including me.
She catches my gaze and sneers at me. Her whole body radiates disdain for those who would not hurt her, but will not save her, either.
Her courage shames me, and I turn away.
I would fight my uncle, too, if I just knew how, or what to do.
And if my mother would not pay the price.
This time, when the Emperor calls for Hathik, there is a commotion at the back of the room. A tall, bearded Kargan pushes his way in. His eyes are wild with fury and with desperation.
The girl catches sight of him and her eyes widen with horror. “Father,” she breathes. “No. Noooo.”
Her wail is swallowed by the clomping of feet and the shouts of the guards who rush to the side of the Emperor to protect him from this new threat.
The Kargan comes to a stop in front of the Emperor. “I am Hathik. I have come for my children. Let them go as you have promised, and I will give myself up.”
The Emperor’s smile could have broken glass. He is all bravery now that he is surrounded by armed men. “Hathik. I’m sure your children are pleased to see you. At last.”
“I came here as quickly as I could. I was days away. You gave me no time.” He throws a beseeching look at his children. “I came as soon as I could, my loves. I swear it to you.”
The Emperor preens at the rebel’s distress. “A pity for your children that you were so far away. But no matter. You have come now. That is all that matters.”
His daughter gives him an anguished look. “Run, Father. He means to kill you.”
Hathik shakes his head sorrowfully. “I am sorry, daughter. Believe me, I would have saved you earlier if I could.”
The Emperor sniggers. “I hate to break up this touching family reunion, but affairs of state call me.” He waves to the guards. “Seize him.”
Solis is the first to move towards the rebel. Other guards follow.
Hathik shakes his head and shakes open his coat to reveal the vest of explosives underneath. “Not so fast. I would see my children free first.”
My uncle’s face is pinched with fury. “I have no patience for this nonsense,” he says, as he backs away out of range. “Solis, take the heads of the kits as final payment. And then kill the traitor.”
Solis steps backwards and reluctantly moves his hand to his knife. I can see the thoughts warring in his brain. If he kills these two, then his own kits have a chance to live.
His own bloodline wins, as I knew it must.
He raises his knife to strike.
Quick as a flash, Hathik shrugs back his sleeve and sends a laser blast straight into his chest. Solis gives a slight gasp and then topples over, dead.
The smell of burning flesh fills the air, making me gag.
The rebel fires again, this time at the Emperor.
My uncle gives a high-pitched scream as the laser catches him in the shoulder, setting his ceremonial red robe smoking. “Kill him, you fools,” he screams at the guards. “Kill him.”
But Hathik is on the move and the guards are in confusion.
Somehow the air is filled with smoke. Someone must have set off a smoke bomb. More than one.
People are shouting and coughing. The thick, acrid smoke catches in the back of my throat and makes my eyes water. There is the crack of a nerve detonator and someone screams in pain.
I am the closest to the kits. And my uncle is distracted.
I can barely see through the smoke, but I fumble my way towards them. The metal clasps that hold them to the pillar are tricky to undo. I tend to the boy first. He collapses onto the floor at the bottom of the pillar, too traumatized to make a sound.
I am working to free the girl when Hathik’s face appears out of the smoke, his laser pointed straight at me and ready to fire.
The girl stops him with a look. “He is freeing me, father. Tend to Jaaki. He needs you more than I do.”
A few more fumbles with the clasps and the girl is free.
Hathik has the boy over his shoulder. He grabs the girl’s hand and together they disappear into the smoke. They don’t look back.
I hurry away from the pillar. In the confusion, no one has seen me. My heart beats a million times a minute, pounding so hard that I feel a rush in my ears.
If anyone had seen me—I shudder to think. Mother’s care would be shut off. As much as my uncle was afraid to let her die when he first named himself Emperor, the longer he stays as ruler, the more he solidifies his throne and his reign. The more he terrorizes the court, the less likely it will be that Mother’s death by his hands would threaten his rule.
He knows this, too.
When he first took over, he wouldn’t have dared to hurt a child—at least not where he would be seen. This display of cruelty shows he’s come past that, far past that.
Through the clearing smoke, I can see the Emperor being hurried out of the room by his phalanx of guards. The best healers in the kingdom will be rushed to his side. No expense will be spared to help him recover from his shoulder wound.
The kits though, would they have healers?
I leave the confusion of the courtroom. No guard follows me this time
, but I head right back to my apartments out of sheer habit. I’m left alone with my thoughts as the evening wears on and the castle is in chaos searching for the source of the smoke and for those who helped the escape.
It seems Hathik has sympathizers in the palace. It is as if he and his kits have disappeared into thin air. Blown away on a puff of smoke.
The Emperor’s angry roars fill the palace, threatening vengeance on anyone who helped his enemies.
No one asks me if I know anything.
I should be relieved that I have gotten away with helping the kits, but part of me is disappointed. I’m considered so little of a threat that no one believes me capable of disobeying my uncle in any meaningful way. No one even suspects me of helping them.
They all think I am a coward.
I wish I could prove them wrong.
Faye
“You are to be presented to the Emperor as his personal house slaves.”
I sit cross-legged on the floor, my eyes fixed on the claw man in front of me. I have been bathed and scrubbed until my skin is raw. My hair has been brushed until all the tangles are smoothed over, and it now hangs down my back in intricate braids. I have even been provided with clothing of a sort. A plain shift to wear over loose pants.
No shoes, though.
These slavers know what they are doing.
It is hard to run if you have no shoes.
It feels very much like I have been prepared as a sacrifice.
“It is a very great honor.” He gives a hacking cough that makes my skin crawl, just like a cat coughing up a fur ball. “A very great honor indeed, and one that not all of you may be able to live up to. I would, however, counsel you strongly to try.”
A general murmur of unease passes through the room. We have all been pampered and primped for our presentation to the Emperor, but it only serves to heighten our nerves. What if he finds us lacking? Being a slave sucks, but there is no point dwelling on that. Being the house slave to an Emperor has got to suck slightly less than being a slave in a smaller household where you can’t go unnoticed. In a large royal household, there will be more scope to become invisible, to gradually fade into the background until I can disappear altogether without anyone caring much, or even noticing that I am gone.
Or so I hope, anyway.
“You may be naïve enough to think that any poor behavior may go unnoticed. I am here to tell you that it will not be. Any failure to obey will result in a swift punishment. If you are lucky, you will be sent to the mines to serve him there. Your life from there on in will be short and unpleasant. It takes a certain kind of person to survive the mines.” He looks at us disparagingly. In his eyes, we are clearly not the sort of person who would survive long there. “If you displease the Emperor directly, he will doubtless have you sent to the Games and your life will be worth precisely nothing.”
A shocked intake of breath in the room. Someone starts whimpering quietly in the corner.
That’s the second time these games have been mentioned, and each time they fill people with horror. I am getting to really not like the sound of them.
The claw man finishes his tirade with one last piece of advice. “Keep your heads down and don’t dare to disrespect him by looking him in the eyes or he is likely to be the last thing you will ever see.”
With his threat ringing in our ears, we are marched out of the room, through numerous corridors, and finally into the presence of the Emperor himself. Through a huge doorway that looks as though it has been carved from a single block of marble, across a gleaming, black floor. I can see shadows of figures around my peripheral vision, but with the threat of these Games ringing in my ears, I daren’t look up to take in my surroundings.
We are announced with a modest flourish. “A small token of esteem from our humble planet to our honored Emperor.”
Nothing greets us but silence. A thick silence. I can see my bare, dusty feet and the marks they are leaving on the shiny dark floor.
I raise my eyes slowly, with apprehension, and no small amount of nerves, until I can sneak of peek at the Emperor.
He is perhaps the most fearsome of these alien claw men I have seen yet.
He is seated on a large, black throne, which looks to be made of the same hard, shiny material as the floor. His huge torso ripples with muscle, and he sits with his chest and arms bare. Though he sits on the throne with a lazy grace, there is a sense of raw power in him that makes me feel that, if he needed to, he’d be on his feet ready to fight before I could blink.
Any resemblance to the gorgeous claw men I’ve seen so far ends there. Where the others have deep golden, smooth skin, the Emperor’s chest is a patchwork of scar tissue, raised and red and grisly, as if he was half boiled alive before being sent into battle. He is fearsome, and gruesome. The scars tell me he’s not ashamed of how he looks; he wants us to see his body and be fearful.
No man should have to endure the amount of pain that is written on his body.
I don’t dare to look into his eyes. I don’t want to see the face that goes with that body.
As carefully as I can, I shift my eyes to the left and right. At the Emperor's feet sits an older claw man, dressed in opulent robes with a heavy looking cape flung across his shoulder. He is looking at us with disinterest and picking at his long claws.
He must be a favorite of the Emperor, to sit at his feet. Even though it looks less comfortable than standing.
I glance around, and my suspicions are confirmed as I see other older claw men shoot him glares. Perhaps one of them sat at the Emperor’s feet not long ago.
The Emperor finally speaks. “What a pleasant surprise.” His voice oozes a satisfaction mixed with disdain. “I was expecting so little from you, Gawas. I see you have delivered on that. Slaves that looks as weak as my own nephew’s spine.”
My eyes are turned to the ground now, but even without looking, I can tell he is smiling. It will be a cruel smile. One that takes joy in belittling others and in making them feel his power. I would see that same snake-like smile on the drug lords back in my home village.
The Emperor is just the same as they are.
And now I am his slave.
I bite hard on my tongue to stifle the urge to burst out into wildly inappropriate laughter. Fortune is a bitch. I ran from the bullies in my village only to end up a slave to a far worse bully. A bully who now has absolute power over me.
Gawas’s voice turns oily. Pleading. “Only the strongest and most beautiful slaves for you, my dear Emperor. This is just a small taste. We will bring more, oh mighty one.”
I would feel sorry for my captor if I didn’t already hate him with every fiber of my being. Let this stupid Emperor be kidnapped and chained up and not fed like we have been, and we’d soon see how strong he was then.
I hear a shuffling sound and I look up to see the Emperor getting to his feet and gathering a huge, deep red cloak over his shoulders. I peek at him out of the corner of my eyes as he starts to walk out of the hall.
Gawas, my captor, is standing still with his mouth open. His face is all pinched and screwed up, like he has smelled a bad fart.
The Emperor turns back. “Hurry along now, we have a feast waiting.” He waves idly at the group of us, chained together, as if we are an afterthought. “You may as well bring them along.”
My stomach rumbles despite myself. I’m salivating. A feast. And the slaves are joining. Perhaps he won’t be so bad as I feared after all. Maybe he just really doesn’t like Gawas and wants to make him sweat.
We trudge along obediently into another huge room adjourning the throne room. A claw man in a sort of uniform that looks like a mix between a medieval guard and a Star Wars storm trooper swoops in on us and motions us to follow. My stomach sinks as he leads us to a huge stone pillar. The room is lined with them, with at least twenty of them running lengthways down the room, close to the walls.
“Line up,” he barks. “Against here.” We follow his orders; we have no choice. Our b
acks are to the huge pillar and we face outwards. The guard wraps a length of cord around us and secures us tightly.
It doesn’t look like we’ll be fed after all.
Where I am lashed to the pillar, I face the room clearly. It’s full of tables heaped with food, and small robots pass plates piled high with steaming food and jugs of a dark drink that looks like red wine.
The Emperor is waited on by living females. Not humans, but close. Claw women, I would guess. At a single word or nod, they trip over each other to fulfil his every wish.
All the others are served in a rather haphazard fashion by the robots who bring vast quantities of food to one end of the table and almost none to the other.
No one so much as glances at us. We’re invisible. Lesser than them, because we are slaves.
The smell of the food wafts across my face and my stomach rumbles louder yet. It’s almost too much to bear, to watch the men and women eating and drinking while we are tied up here, and hungry.
The other tied-up slaves don’t have such a good view of the feasting hall. I envy them. I can’t help but stare at the food and wish it was closer to me. I’d give anything to only have to look at the wall.
Khan
The ambassador from Thukatar has brought my uncle a gift.
Slaves. Young female slaves.
Of course he would choose such a gift. What else could bring him so much favor as procuring more creatures for my delightful uncle to torture?
Though my uncle’s treatment of the ambassador is rude and careless, I can tell by the tilt of his head and the greedy glint in his eyes that he is pleased with the gift. Slaves are expensive, and a good slave is worth its weight in ciabaans. They are dexterous and can think for themselves, which is more than even the most advanced AI-enabled robot can.
Not that my uncle cares about that. He values them most of all for their capacity to feel fear and pain.
I swear the Emperor is growing more unbalanced by the day.
Even when I was a kit, he was prone to fits of uncontrollable rage. Once when my grandfather, the late Emperor, showed a small favor to my mother, my uncle cornered her afterwards and hissed at her in a fit of jealous rage, his claws in her face. He might have done more, too, except that my father stepped in between them.