I pretended to ignore the overly familiar tone, although it made me grit my teeth a little.
I glanced at Nik, but his expression remained stone, his mouth a firm line as he stared up at the other man. He still appeared to be in pain, but his eyes shielded it more now. I found myself wondering if he really was actively fighting to get free... or if wanting to change, now that his lock was open under the net, was more like a reflex.
When I glanced back, I caught Zarwin looking between the two of us, his expression puzzled.
"You two really are fascinating," he murmured, his eyes on Nik’s face. "I do wonder if you realize, my human friend, how rare it is for a spontaneous lock-ownership transferral to occur, as it did with you and Nik. Unlike the Pharei, I do not doubt its occurrence. I can see it on the two of you, even now... as plain as I see the stars. I wonder if Jamri wished such a thing to make it so, or if it happened outside of his control, too. Perhaps some more subconscious mechanisms were at work? Beyond him being tired of being yoked to his enslavers, that is...”
I bit my lip to keep from rolling my eyes.
"You really held Nik's lock?" I said. "Before, I mean?"
"I did," Zarwin replied easily. "We grew up together, Nik and I. Did he never tell you of his oldest friend, Razmun? Who tragically died after refusing to respond to the recruitment request by the mammal authorities on our home world? Died of his own stubbornness," he added with a faint smile. "Or so I am told."
“You really do like to hear yourself talk,” I muttered, folding my arms.
Razmun gave me a faint smile.
Even so, his eyes grew a shade cooler.
I found myself reminded of the other time I’d crossed a boundary with him, meaning with General Advisor Ledi. I’d wondered if it was ego at the time, or attachment to the hierarchy under the Pharei. Now I wondered if maybe, in that brief flush of anger, he’d shown me the real person that time, too.
But it’s always easier to pull things apart in retrospect.
“I faked my own death, of course,” Razmun added conversationally, glancing at Nik before his eyes returned to mine. "Personally, I found death infinitely preferable to slavery. I wanted Jamri to come with me. I told him I had a way out of the conscription laws, that I could get us both out, but he refused to accept my offer. Jamri, as he is wont to do at positively the worst times... decided to play it safe.”
Frowning a bit more, Razmun mused, seemingly to himself,
“I've long found it quite an odd paradox, that Nik can use his inherent conservatism to mask and accommodate his darker streak of near-masochism. Even as he uses his more reckless tendencies to the same effect...”
Zarwin met my gaze again, his irises now silver.
"Perhaps a firm hand is needed with him, Dakota?” he smiled. “Perhaps you will be the one to help dear, talented Nihkil to sort out these self-destructive tendencies of his... ?"
Biting my lip, I glanced at Nik.
His face had relaxed somewhat, but he still had a tense look around his eyes as he looked between me and the taller morph. While I got the feeling he wasn't in as much actual pain, I also sensed he still didn’t like me and this Zarwin guy talking.
Whether Zarwin's actual words bothered him, I couldn't tell.
Instead, he seemed to be watching the other man minutely, as if trying to determine his motive for talking to me at all. I also got the impression he was still trying to determine if Zarwin was who he claimed to be. Meaning Razmun. Or maybe Nik had already made up his mind about that, too, and now was trying to determine what to do about it.
“...Do you disagree with my assessment, old friend?" Zarwin asked Nik after another pause.
I felt my jaw harden as I looked between them.
Nihkil himself didn't move, not even to shift the focus of his eyes.
Zarwin's frown deepened. "Jamri," he said. "You cannot remain silent forever. I would much rather we speak civilly about these things, before you make up your mind to try and break my neck the instant I free you from those chains."
When Razmun paused that time, I spoke up before he could go on.
"What do you want from him, exactly?" I said. “Nik. What’s your angle with him?”
Zarwin's gaze swiveled to me, then back to assessing the two of us together.
"Always quick to defend our Nik," he murmured. That time, he said it like it annoyed him. "What makes you think I want something only from him? I took both of you, didn't I?"
"You took me to control him," I said.
Zarwin smiled at that, his expression bemused.
"And if I did?" he said.
"Just answer the question," I said. "What do you want from him?"
Zarwin placed his hands on his hips. "I want my friend, Jamri, to remember that it was him who chose not to accompany me," he said, turning to stare at Nihkil's face. “...Not the reverse. I want him also to remember that if it hadn't been for his decision to go with the mammals in those early days, he would never have been lied to by me. All of these so-called dishonesties and the machinations that followed are nothing more than a product of his refusal to trust me. And his refusal to trust my ability to get him and his family out safely in those years...”
When Nik still didn't speak, the taller morph raised his voice.
“...You said it was for your family, Nik," Zarwin said. "To ensure that the human authorities would have no cause to retaliate, following the lotteries?”
Nik still didn't speak.
Even so, I found myself looking at him, thinking about Zarwin’s words.
“...I admit," Zarwin said, his voice angrier. "That excuse has never fully satisfied me, Jamri. I have always wondered what it is you meant by these words... 'for your family.' Was the reason you gave me even true, I have wondered? It is a question that has plagued me. Did the Malek or the Pharei threaten Nihkil's people... describe brutal penalties that would be visited upon them if he refused to join their armies? Did they threaten him, given his test scores, and his unique proficiency on the gates? Was Jamri afraid to act outside the auspices of the law? Did he fear the repercussions that might occur if the mammals felt slighted?"
Zarwin's irises darkened, as did his voice.
“...Or did he merely hide behind his father and his siblings, pretending they were the reason, when really it was something a bit less noble? Did my friend, Jamri, want to prove himself to the mammals? Always the model student... always the one who did as he was told... no matter who did the telling. Did he wish to impress our enslavers, too? Did they promise him riches? Fame? Many females in his bed?"
I frowned, glancing at Nik again.
When Nik still didn't speak, my frown deepened, right before I looked between the two of them, trying to decide what I was seeing. Some of the fire gradually faded from Zarwin's eyes as I watched. He continued to look at Nik, the expression in his eyes a mixture of frustration and what might have been affection, although he seemed almost to be fighting that, too.
The pause stretched past the awkward point.
Then, General Advisor Ledi seemed to sigh.
"Utag huulerandt...” he muttered, running a hand through his dark brown hair. He sat on the bench across from Nik, staring directly into his face. "Even compared to those in the immortal realm, you are stubborn, Nikhkil Jamri." Lifting his eyes, Razmun added shortly, “...I suppose I shouldn't goad you, knowing it will only make you even less likely to speak freely with me. But I find I can't help myself, Jamri, for I am angry at you, too. Angry that you... of all people... would choose this as your life, given everything we spoke of in our youth."
I glanced at Nik again.
His eyes, now a pale blue, only hardened slightly, still mid-transformation.
I looked back at Zarwin when the other resumed speaking, his hands now clasped between his knees.
“...I suppose I am wasting my time trying to reach you at all," Zarwin grunted. "Given how you have spent your life these past decades. But I admit, I cannot bring mysel
f to simply release you back to your enslavers. Not this time. I must understand first, I suppose. I must understand why you would continue working for them. Why you would continue being loyal and subservient to them... given what they did to those you claimed to love the most. With your family history, Nik, I never thought I'd see the day when you were such a groveling dog to our captors...”
Nik's eyes hardened to glass.
I noticed. He still didn't speak, though, so neither did I.
"What will you do now, Nik?" Zarwin asked. "Can I ask you that, at least? Now that you are no longer needed for the gates, will you continue to beg the mammals for your livelihood? Screwing their females to pass the time, when you are not technically on the clock? If you can't be a gate-shifter for them, will they even want you, Jamri? Is your cock worth so much, do you think? Or do you suppose you could entertain them in other ways, as well?"
Nik flinched at different points in Zarwin's speech, but didn't answer.
I definitely got the sense that some of those flinches were because I sat there, listening to Zarwin’s words.
I got the feeling Zarwin knew that, too.
He smiled faintly.
"Yes," Zarwin said. "I know a lot about your life with the mammals, Jamri. More than you ever told your friend, ‘General Advisor Ledi.’ More than you could possibly guess. And yes, I know you’re aware that the gates being gone has already thrown the morph position with the mammals into question. A panic is underway in the markets for exotic artifacts, of course. But, far, far more than that, there are already murmurings of enforcing the conscription of full-blooded morph into full-time breeding stock. Well, those who will not be used like animals in the field, to sniff out a new gate...”
Zarwin’s words grew bitter toward the end, but then he shrugged, and his voice turned flat again. I saw his eyes continued to scan Nik’s face.
“The more fanatical of the First Worlder humans are in an uproar about this,” Zarwin said, matter-of-fact. “...There is already talk about the ending of the human race. Now that there is less hope of obtaining a fertile cross-breed from within their own species, there is talk of hybrids replacing both the morph and human races. It is thought that hybrids could outnumber fulls as early as sometime in the next three generations...”
My mind chewed over the other morph's words.
I tried to imagine how something like that would go over on Earth.
In a lot of parts of Earth, people could barely handle humans marrying across cultures, much less true cross-breeding with a whole other species. I honestly couldn’t imagine what my home world would do, if we faced the potential dilution of our entire bloodline.
And how the heck did supernaturals fit into all of this?
More hybrids would mean more supernaturals, in terms of pure percentages.
Since Nihkil told me that the supernaturals could reproduce among themselves, but not with any of the other hybrids or full-bloods, soon they would have enough in numbers to be a competing species of their own.
I couldn’t tell where their loyalties lay at all... or if they even had any... but no one seemed to disagree that they were dangerous.
What if the supernaturals decided to wipe out both of their parent species? Since they couldn’t reproduce with either, what did they have to lose?
My attention shifted back to Zarwin, even as he resumed speaking.
"Yes,” he said seriously. “We’ve only begun to see the ripples from those gates being closed, Jamri.” He leaned forward, still clasping his hands, his eyes peering into Nik’s face. "There is much talk about this, Jamri... much talk. There will be bloodshed, too, do not doubt it. The closing of the gates by you, the most obedient and celebrated gate-shifter, is a somewhat stunning concept on its own, Jamri...”
Zarwin’s smile hardened, and that time, I saw a darker anger underneath.
“...All because you developed a crush on a female otherworlder, Jamri, and couldn’t bring yourself to leave her behind. Possibly a female from the very first world of the human race... or so the mammals are saying. But then, they think all of the gates were destroyed when you brought her back. They think the doorways to those other worlds are forever lost...”
Zarwin’s eyes darkened, until they were nearly the same color as Nihkil's.
“...But you and I know better, don't we, Jamri?" he said, softer.
Replaying his words, I found myself staring, first at Zarwin, then at Nik himself.
Nik was looking at Zarwin though, his eyes wider.
“It did not close?” Nik said, as soft as Zarwin.
Zarwin shook his head, once.
“It did not close, Jamri,” Zarwin said.
I saw a frown touch Nihkil’s lips, right before he glanced at me. His eyes held a furtiveness, and it occurred to me suddenly what that meant, too.
“You were going to bring me there,” I said, understanding suddenly. “That’s what you meant, Nik, when you said you might have a way to bring me home. You were going to bring me to the third gate, once we left Palarine.” Thinking about that a few seconds more, I exhaled again, folding my arms. “Vilandt. The third gate is on Vilandt... where the morph live. That’s why you didn’t want me to tell anyone where we were going, isn’t it?”
“It was a long shot, Dakota,” Nihkil blurted. “I didn’t want to speak with you about this... not until I knew if the third gate still existed. The ramifications would be huge, if the information got out. I couldn’t let anyone know what I knew, not before I got us off Palarine. The humans had to believe that all of the gates had been closed. It was the only possible chance I had of dissolving my contract with the Pharei military...” Seeing me frown, Nik added, sharper. “It wasn’t safe for you to know too much, Dakota. They watched us. All the time.”
I nodded, getting it.
I did get it, too.
I felt my mouth tighten, anyway. I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him for having a potentially real means of getting me home... or smack him for not telling me about it. Still, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.
Given the circumstances he’d just outlined, anyway.
“You have commandeered this gate,” Nik said, looking up at Zarwin. “You and your morph army? They own this gate now?”
“Yes,” Zarwin said simply. “We do.”
“And you wish... what? For me to gate-shift for you, now?”
Zarwin smiled. I watched him look at Nik silently for a moment, right before he clasped his hands together once more, resting his arms on his thighs.
"Perhaps it will help you decide what to do," Zarwin said. “...If I were to tell you my story, Jamri. Perhaps, if you understood what I have been doing all of these years since we last stood on Vilandt together, you will feel more inclined to trust me. Perhaps you can at least trust that I am telling you the truth about the rest. Am I right about this, Jamri?"
Nik didn't answer.
Even so, I got the distinct feeling, maybe through some remnant of the closed thread between us, that Nik did want to hear Zarwin’s story.
Sighing, perhaps because he saw the same thing in Nik’s face that I did, Zarwin ran a hand through his now-black hair, visibly relaxing. He glanced back just long enough to wave off his guards, grunting a low command in what had to be Dengue.
I watched as the four of them retreated, filing silently out the open door.
Seconds later, that same door melted closed.
"I will begin at the beginning," Zarwin said, still watching Nik gravely. "Which, of course, is near the end of our time together as youth, Jamri. Perhaps some of this will remain familiar to you, however, despite the intervening years...”
26
RAZMUN’S STORY
“...THE MANDATORY CONSCRIPTION authority approached me first, as you might remember," Zarwin began.
He leaned back slightly on the bench, resting his weight on his palms.
“...Since they do everything by their books,” he added. “And I was lis
ted as several months older than you, my name came up on their roster first. Whatever they said or did not say to you, Jamri, they did not threaten me, not overtly. Nor did they threaten my family." His mouth thinned before he added, "Of course, it is possible that they did not do this to me because they felt they could not. As you probably remember, my mother was a member of their provisional government, which had already been acknowledged by both the Malek and Pharei governments as legitimate, and thus could not be ignored entirely by the conscription authority, either...”
Pausing more meaningfully, he gave Nik a wry smile.
“...Or perhaps they did not feel I was worth it, Jamri,” he said with a shrug. “Given that my test scores in their colonial schools were mediocre, at best.”
His eyes grew more distant again, as he stared past me and Nik, looking at the far wall.
“They made no mystery of the fact that they had read all of my disciplinary reports,” Razmun added. “...but something in my records, or perhaps simply my friendship with you, Jamri, was enough to convince them that I should take the preliminary gate tests, anyway. Perhaps they thought I'd be one of those to die, on my first pass through, which would handily dispatch a negative influence in their star pupil's life...” Shrugging again, he gave Nik a wry smile. “...Or perhaps they simply didn't care what became of me, Jamri. You might recall that they cared about very few of us, back then...”
I glanced at Nik, but saw no change on his narrow face. If the other morph's words were affecting him, or the emotion now audible in Razmun's voice was affecting him, there was little to indicate that in Nik's expression. Yet, I got the sense it was affecting him, if only by finally convincing him that Zarwin was who he claimed to be.
Or maybe the other morph’s words simply brought back memories that Nik would rather have forgotten.
“...I don't know what they thought, though, Jamri," Razmun continued in the same voice. "They did not tell me anything about why I was chosen. They sent only their low-level bureaucrats to question me for the first round. Either those bureaucrats were told not to tell me anything, or they genuinely knew nothing themselves... at least, not in terms of the Authority’s plans for my use.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 35