Beasts of Burden
Page 3
Dinner was late making Niahn’si Pohl’s mood unpleasant. It was not like Kan to be tardy, certainly not when taking the evening meal with his father. But the boy had arrived an hour after the food was supposed to be served, scowling and sullen. The niahn’si glowered at him from his titanic chair at the table’s head.
“Where have you been?” he rumbled. “I have had to order the cooks to prepare our meal twice, now!”
Kan cast his eyes downward. “I apologize, father; I have just come from the kitchens and told them I have arrived. I am sorry for my delay.”
“What kept you so late?” The niahn’si drained his goblet and hammered its base against the table to attract a server to re-fill it. “Was there another incident with one of the tahn-chen?”
“No, father; nothing of the sort.”
“You will address me as niahn’si,” he said in a low voice. Clearly, he was still annoyed at having the evening meal delayed. “No son of mine shows such disrespect!”
The servers brought out the food while one filled the niahn’si’s cup. Kan stared at his plate.
Niahn’si Pohl narrowed his eyes. “You have been notably disrespectful of late,” he said. “You realize that should you fail to earn my approval, the temple clerics will withhold the right of ascension from you?”
“And, thus, contradict the word of God?” he whispered.
“What was that?”
Kan looked up. “Nothing, niahn’si; I was merely giving assent.”
His father’s monstrous stature was almost as threatening as his scowl of disapproval. If not all Kan’s words had been detected, his father had heard enough. The man brought his fist down on the table. “I have had enough of your disrespect!” He stood and several servants ran to his side. “Remove my son’s food. He shall dine on nothing but rice and water until he learns respect once more!” With that, he picked up a fresh goblet the size of a human head and downed it, eyes never leaving Kan’s.
Kan met the gaze, unflinching.
The servants gathered up the young lord’s plates and platters and removed them to the kitchens. Eventually his father sat down again and resumed the evening meal. The two were alone again.
Long minutes passed, stretching out between them. “What’s become of you, lately?” the niahn’si rumbled. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Tell me,” Kan asked, ignoring the question, “was Bailas really dangerous?”
His father stopped eating and stared at him. “What did you say?”
Kan just looked his father in the eye.
The giant rose up like thunder. “You dare—!” But he stopped, choking on his words with sudden discomfort.
The niahn’si shuddered and stepped back as a tremor shook his body. For the only time in his life that Kan could remember, his face took on an expression of confusion and uncertainty. Then his body clenched as if knotting into a fist. Bone and flesh began to groan and creak; his muscles bulged and his clothing tightened across his torso. His speckled black hair began to grow shaggy, brown, and long. His face pushed forward into a muzzle as he tried to cry out in pain. His throat, though, was locked tight in spasms. He pitched forward into the table, scattering the food and place settings.
Kan left his place at the table and walked up to his father as the powerful dosage he had arranged to be placed in his food, took hold. He strode forward as his father, crumpled against the ground and splitting his fine clothing, looked up at him with increasingly dull-witted eyes.
“This ends now, niahn’si,” he said. “It will end for all the provinces if it is the last thing I do.”
When he called the guards, the shaggy giant—unsteady and confused—didn’t put up any resistance. The daily dosage his father took made him a small giant; the overdose he’d arranged had increased the speed and potency of the metamorphosis. How a tahn-chen could have gotten in to the household, let alone the palace, was a conundrum for the guards but taken as a pretext to dismiss them for having failed his family and his now-missing father. While it was unknown for a tahn-chen to attack someone, there was just enough fear in the popular mind-set that it was a semi-believable story. New guards were acquired within days.
Coups happened. Sons of story and fable would occasionally unseat a dishonorable father. Thus even without proof, everyone in the court assumed that Kan was responsible. But there was no proof. The young lord would sit in regency until his twenty-first year and then assume the throne.
In the days that followed he payed his respects to the household staff and treated them as members of the family. The cooks and servers from the kitchens never spoke of the argument the former niahn’si had had with his son.
A week later, Kan ordered the guards to bring the tahn-chen in from the fields and up to the walls of the city. He went down and walked among them, peering up into their eyes trying to see if he could identify any characteristics of someone he knew. It was a fruitless task. The beasts bore no resemblance to the people they had once been. They looked at him, blankly; like over-sized pets. He sighed and turned to go.
Gingerly, a giant hand reached out and—very gently—pressed down upon his shoulder. The guards bristled but Kan held them back as he turned around. The shaggy giant cocked its head and made a low, grumbling sound in its throat. Then, with delicate finesse, he presented Kan with a single, yellow flower.
The End