by Ann Maxwell
Tangled in her cold hair, Fssa made a sound halfway between a whimper and her name. “Rheba . . . Rheba, wake up. It’s been so long since you were awake. Fire dancer, wake up,” he said, using Kirtn’s voice, desperately trying to each her. “It’s cold here. Wake up and make us a fire!”
The snake’s voice was like water rippling over stone at the far edge of her awareness, an endless susurration that infringed little on her emotions. The words continued, first in Senyas and then in Universal, and finally, as Fssa lost energy, in Bre’n. His whistle retained its purity, even though the snake was compacted densely in upon himself, thinner than Rheba’s smallest finger and shorter than her lower arm. It was the Fssireeme way to conserve body heat.
After a very long time, she moaned. A convulsion shook her body, a deep shuddering that went on and on as she tried to throw off the debilitating effects of drugs and cold. Chains scraped over the floor spasmodically. The grating sounds woke Fssa, who had succumbed to a state that was not far from sleep. But for the Fssireeme, to sleep was to die.
“Fire dancer . . .”
Fssa’s whistle was ragged, despairing. It reached through the fog climbing in Rheba’s mind as no sweet notes could have. She shivered convulsively, bringing her knees even closer to her body and wrapping her arms around her legs. She was all but numb with cold, yet moving brought such agony as to make her sweat and moan aloud.
“Fire dancer . . .” The whistle sounded very distant, very weak.
“Kirtn. . . ? Is that you? Where are you? Are you hurt?”
As he heard her speak, Fssa permitted himself to draw off just a bit of her body heat, believing that since she had awakened she would be able to start a fire to warm them both. With the heat he took from her came renewed energy, and fluency. His whistle became sure again.
“Not Kirtn. Fssa.”
Rheba did not hear. She had opened her eyes—and seen nothing. “I’m blind,” she said. “Oh my bright gods, Jal has blinded me!”
It took Fssa a moment to realize what had happened. He tried to tell her that the dungeon was lacking the form of energy she called light, but she was calling Kirtn’s name again and again and could not hear anything but her own screams. Fssa drew off a bit more of her heat/energy, just enough to permit him to make an unbelievably shrill whistle.
The sound was like a slap in the face. Rheba’s screams subsided into dry sobs.
“Rheba, it’s Fssa. Can you hear me?”
The rhythmic shuddering of her body paused. “Fssa?”
“Yes. I’m—”
“What happened?” she interrupted. “Where’s Kirtn? How did we get here? Is Kirtn all right?”
Questions came out of her like sparks leaping up from a fire. Another whistle split the dungeon’s stony silences. She subsided.
“Do you remember Lord Jal coming into the Act’s room?” whistled Fssa, the tone low and soothing now that he had her attention.
“I—” Her body shook continuously, but it was with cold now rather than fear. “Y-yes.”
“After he knocked you out, he told the rest of us what a clever fellow his Whip was.”
“W-whip?”
“Dapsl.” Fssa swore with the poetic violence of a Bre’n. “When Lord Jal gave that purple wart a nerve wrangler, I should have guessed that Dapsl was truly a lord’s Whip!”
“W-what’s t-that?”
“A master slave, one who controls the others so that the lord won’t have to bother.” Fssa’s whistle took on the tones of despair. While Rheba was unconscious he had had a lot of time to consider what had happened. None of his conclusions were comforting. “Even worse, the slanted cherf speaks J/taal. Not well,” he continued disdainfully. “He understands much better than he speaks, like most amateurs.”
“D-did he understand about the reb-b-bellion?”
The snake’s sigh was answer enough, but he enlarged on it “He overheard and understood too much. But the rebellion will go on without us. In order for Lord Jal to avoid killing us, he had to avoid telling the other Loo lords about our plans. The other slaves, at least, will get their chance.”
“B-but the Act. I have to p-perform. They can’t d-do it without you and m-me.”
“Jal thought of that,” whistled Fssa in the minor keys of despair. “A Yhelle illusionist is doing your part. She duplicated you down to the last eyelash. As for the Bre’n song,” again the sigh, “it will be a solo, not a duet.”
“B-but the fire.”
“The fire will be illusory, but the audience won’t know the difference.”
“At l-least the Act w-will have a chance at freedom.”
Fssa’s whistle slid down minor octaves in the Bre’n negative. “Lord Jal will kill you if the Act rebels.”
“Unless Jal t-takes me out of this icy b-box,” she said, trying and failing to control the convulsive shivering of her body, “I’ll be d-dead before the new year. The L-Loo must be able to tolerate much lower temperatures than I can. N-nor-mally it wouldn’t matter, I’d j-just make fire, b-but now I’ll just shiver until I c-can’t move anymore.”
“Make a fire!”
Her laugh sounded more like a sob. “Out of what, snake?”
Silence answered her question. For the first time since his birth, the Fssireeme was speechless. Then, very softly, “You can’t use stone to make heat?”
“Not all b-by itself. I n-need something, some energy source outside the stone and myself. If I had that, I c-could eventually fire the stone. But I don’t. And I c-can’t.” The shivers were less now, but that did not mean that she was warmer; rather the opposite. Cold was stealing from her muscles even the ability to contract violently and send sugars to the bloodstream to be converted into heat.
“Fssa?” Her voice was suddenly thick, her words slow. “Am I blind?”
“No, fire dancer,” whistled the snake gently. “The form of energy you call light just isn’t to be found down here.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say. It would have been b-better if I were blind.”
She could make light, but it would cost energy she could not spare. Nor did she particularly want to see the dimensions of her tomb. Chains clinked and chimed faintly as she shifted position, trying to ease a muscle that had not yet gone numb. After she moved, another round of convulsive shivering claimed her. When she was finally still again, it was very quiet. She listened, but there was nothing to be heard except her own breathing and the occasional small clatter of her chains rubbing over stone.
“Fssa?”
There was no answer.
“Fssa? Are you c-cold too?”
Silence. Then chains scraped and clinked as she ran numb fingers through her hair, trying to find the Fssireeme. He had sounded so strong that she had not thought that he might he in as much danger from the cold as she. More, with his smaller body mass. She did not know enough about his physiology to be certain, but thought that he took on the temperature of his environment—until it became too hot or too cold and he died.
“Fssa! Answer me! Where are you?”
There was only the sound of her cries echoing off stone walls. Despite the cost to her own reservoir of energy, she made a tiny ball of cold light. It was something even the smallest fire dancer child could do, a minor trick. But her strength was so depleted by cold that she felt every erg of energy it took to keep the light alive.
The cell was not large, no more than two body lengths in any direction. Even so, it was a moment before she spotted Fssa. The snake was curled in upon himself in a neat spiral that left the minimum of body heat escape into the clammy cell. His skin was very dark, darker than she had ever seen it
“Fssa,” she called.
The snake did not answer.
Worried, she called more loudly. The fourth time she called it was a scream that echoed off the black stone walls. Desperately, she sent the light to hover over him. When it was in place, she gradually changed the light’s structure until it gave off heat as well as illuminatio
n. The drain to her was greater that way, but she was afraid that Fssa was dying. She would not permit herself to believe that he was already dead.
She watched the bright orange flame jealously, letting none of its heat slide off onto stone. Orange fire licked just above Fssa’s closed spiral. At first she was afraid that she would burn him; then she remembered that he had taken much worse heat when Kirtn had released her chaotic energy in a single pulse.
It was a long time before the snake changed. A random quiver of color passed down his dense ebony length. Gradually the color brightened, blue to orange, then yellow, and finally brilliant streaks of silver.
“Fssa?” she called.
The snake’s head lifted out of the spiral. His opalescent sensors reflected the light she had made. He expanded into the warmth hovering around him. His delighted whistle soared above the flickering hot light. “You found a way to burn stone!”
“No,” she sighed.
“Then where did this fire come from?”
“Me.”
“You’re using your energy to keep me warm?” The whistle was shrill, utterly horrified. He threw himself away from the light, but it followed him, shedding precious life over him. Her life. “Nooo.”
The snake’s anguished whistle was like a whip across her nerves. “Be still, you silly snake! The more you move, the harder it is for me to keep you warm!”
There was a long silence. Fssa did not move. His head was tucked underneath a coil, as though he would hide even from himself. A plaintive whistle issued from beneath the hovering flame. “Don’t use up yourself, fire dancer. I’m not worth it.”
She was too speechless to reply. She let the continued fire speak for her.
“You don’t understand,” continued Fssa desperately. “I’m not what you think I am.”
“I think you’re beautiful.”
Fssa’s answer was a complex Bre’n whistle that resonated with pleasure and despair. “No, fire dancer. I’m not beautiful. I—I’m a parasite.”
The last was a whistle so rushed that it took her a moment to realize what the Fssireeme had said. “A parasite? You don’t take blood or bone or flesh from a living host. You don’t take anything that isn’t freely given. The cold has curdled your mind.”
“Not blood or bone. Heat.”
Only the Bre’n language could have conveyed the levels of shame and self-disgust that the Fssireeme felt. Only the Bre’n language could answer him. Rheba forced her chill lips to shape Bre’n speech. “You don’t take anything that isn’t freely given,” she repeated, but the whistle was rich with overtones of sharing and mutual pleasure that mere words lacked.
“But you didn’t know about me before. I was stealing from you.” The whistle slid down and down.
“Fssa—”
“No,” interrupted the snake. “Listen to me. After I tell you you’ll stop wasting yourself on a useless, ugly parasite.” The snake’s whistle overrode her objections. “On my home planet, before men came and changed the Fssireeme, we lived in two seasons. There was Fire, and there was Night. During Fire, there was enough energy for everyone to eat. Then Night came, as much Night as there had been Fire. Months without Fire. But we needed Fire or we died. So we . . . stole . . . from other animals.
“We would project an aural illusion. Our prey would think it was another of its kind. We would come in close, very close, tangling ourselves in the prey, stealing its warmth. There we stayed, draining it until it died or until the time of Fire came again. Then we slid away, swimming again through the molten sky-seas of Ssimmi.” The whistle changed into a poignant fall of pure sound. “It was long, long ago, but my guardian told me. He didn’t lie. I’m a parasite . . . and your hair was like an endless time of Fire.”
Rheba tried to answer, but had no words. She did not think less of Fssa because his body lacked the means to warm itself. Yet obviously the Fssireeme’s early evolution was a source of much shame to him and his kind. She did not think he would listen to her. She yanked suddenly at her chains, trying to reach the snake. She could not. She forced herself to be still and tried to think logically. It was futile. Between the chill and having to maintain a separate fire over Fssa, she lacked the energy for coherent thought.
“You’re beautiful, Fssa,” she whistled.
The snake keened softly, a sound that made her weep.
“Take back your fire. Let me die.”
“No.”
There was a long time when there was no sound but her breathing. At last she sighed and shifted position. She reached for Fssa but the chains defeated her again. The snake’s sensors glittered, then turned away as he moved farther across the cell. The fire followed.
“It’s easier for me to warm us with my body,” she said. “No matter what you tell me. I’m not going to call back my fire. You might as well be sensible and come back here.”
Fssa slithered farther away.
Rheba wanted to cry with frustration and growing fear. She hated the dark; and the fire she had created only made the dungeon seem darker. “I’m lonely, Fssa. Come braid yourself into my hair and we’ll sing Bre’n duets. Please, beautiful snake. I need you.”
“Do you mean that?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“That’s four times today. You only have to say it twice.”
Rheba laughed helplessly. The flame over Fssa guttered and blinked out, but it did not matter. He was coiling around her arm on his way up to his accustomed place in her hair. He rubbed his head over her cheek in silent thanks, then began whistling sweetly. She tried to whistle harmony to his song, but her lips were trembling too much. She tried to tell him in words how much his company meant to her. He tickled her ear and whistled, gently turning away her thanks. He made another mouth to carry her part of the duet.
After a time, she was able to hold up her half of the harmony. The sounds of a Bre’n love song echoed down the black corridors of the Loo dungeon.
XXIII
Lord Jal came, just as Kirtn knew he must. The Bre’n stood on the far side of the room watching the doorway. Dapsl, the Loo lord’s Whip, preceded Jal into the Act’s room. A long nerve wrangler writhed in the small man’s grasp. Violet fire ran like water over the final third of the whip. The wrangler licked out toward Kirtn, but stopped short of actually touching him.
“See?” said Dapsl, turning toward Lord Jal. “It’s just as I told you. He won’t perform, and that damned snake has disappeared. The Act is a shambles. We’re ruined!”
At a curt gesture from Lord Jal, the complaints ended. He approached the Act warily, his long robe hissing in quiet counterpart to his walk. The robe was silk, very sheer, with subtle, brilliant designs woven into its surface. Despite the room’s chill, Jal wore neither cloak nor underclothing.
“So you’ve decided to die, furry?” asked Jal, his voice indifferent.
“I’ve decided that my fire dancer is already dead.”
“Ridiculous!”
“No enzymes have been transferred.”
Jal hesitated, uncertainty flickering to his dark eyes. “It’s been less than two days. Surely the bitch can survive that long.”
Kirtn turned his back, refusing further acknowledgment of the slave lord’s presence.
“Listen to me, slave,” snarled Jal, reaching out to grab Kirtn’s arm.
The natural heat of Lord Jal’s hand was like a Senyas dancer’s; yet unlike Rheba, the Loo did not seem susceptible to the cold. Kirtn froze, held by a devastating thought. Then he turned on Jal with a speed that made the Loo leap back out of reach.
“Is she warm enough?” Kirtn asked urgently. “Is the place where you’re keeping her heated?”
Jal looked first puzzled, then irritated. “That won’t work, furry. From what Dapsl told me—and what I saw on Onan—I knew better than to put her within reach of any kind of energy. There’s nothing where she is but stone. Not even clothes. Nothing at all that can burn. But she’ll survive. Loo slaves have survived the dungeon in
a lot colder weather than this.”
“They weren’t Senyasi,” said Kirtn flatly. He closed his eyes, trying to control the sweet hot rage uncurling in his gut, trying not to think how good Jal’s neck would feel between Bre’n thumbs, trying not to smile at the thought of Jal’s blood washing over Bre’n hands—trying not to succumb to rez. “Senyasi can’t tolerate cold,” he said, eyes still closed. Each word was very distinct, as though by forming each word carefully he could guarantee that the arrogant lord would comprehend the truth in the words. “Temperatures that are merely cold for you would be fatal for her.” He opened his eyes, ovals of hammered gold. “Do you hear me?”
Jal’s eyes were narrowed, black, suspicious. “You’re trying to trick me into moving some kind of heat into her cell. Only the Twin Gods know what would happen then.”
Kirtn whistled a curt command. Lheket left Ilfn’s side and came to stand by the big Bre’n. “His clothes,” snapped Kirtn to Jal. “Compare them to your own.”
After a moment of hesitation, Lord Jal’s blue hand closed around the boy’s outer robe. Jal’s frown deepened. He fingered the thick cloth, realizing that the boy was actually wearing two thick robes as well as several layers underneath. Such an outfit would have had Jal sweating before the last layer was in place, but the boy’s skin was actually puckered with cold.
Abruptly, Jal released the boy’s hand. He turned on Dapsl and began berating him in the lowest form of the Loo language. Kirtn watched, wishing that Fssa were there to translate.
Jal’s head snapped around to stare at Kirtn. In the silence, the writhings of Dapsl’s restless violet whip sounded unnaturally loud.
“I’ll see that she is warm enough,” spat Jal.
Kirtn’s gold eyes watched the Loo for a long moment. Then the Bre’n turned away again, deliberately ignoring the slave master. Jal swore and yanked the nerve wrangler out of Dapsl’s hand. Purple fire coursed from Kirtn’s fingertips to his shoulder. He did not respond. Fire bloomed again, then again. Smiling, Kirtn stood motionless. He had taken much worse pain from his fire dancer; he could take much more.