Tooie observed Lizzy’s alcove with far more interest than he usually showed toward another battle sylph having sex. But this battler, broken and limited though he might be, was patterned to that girl, bonded deeply to her soul, and Tooie’s envy of them both was nearly a fury inside him. More enraging, the newcomer also carried a queen’s pattern inside him.
He loved Eapha, Tooie did, had loved her since the moment he’d first taken her in boredom into an alcove and accidentally tickled her, making her giggle. He’d been so enchanted, he’d tickled her again. She’d hit him with a pillow. He’d known he was lost from that instant, and yet they shared no bond; the patterns within him belonged to men, and his worship of Eapha was limited to her body alone. This newcomer loved his lady straight through her soul—and so Tooie, like all of the battlers outside, watched with hunger and rage but also guarded the couple, if only that they might continue to feel the pair’s pleasure and dream.
Elsewhere, Leon stood in the mouth of an alley, his cloak up over his head and soot-colored sweat dripping down into his eyes. He stared at nothing, a smile flickering around his lips.
His battler was still alive.
Rashala turned away from the peephole into the harem, frowning and rubbing her hands together. As she’d expected, the yellow-haired foreign slave had gone straight for the new battler.
Normally she would find that disturbing. Battlers could be dangerous even to their masters if they were too attached to a specific woman, and dozens had been put down during the kingdom’s history for that very reason. But glancing toward Melorta, who was frowning and tapping her truncheon against her leg, Rashala shook her head. This time, she decided, the situation was to their advantage.
With his master still free, that battler was unpredictable. He was weak and unable to change shape, but he’d still managed to kill Eighty-nine and blow a very large hole in a stone wall three feet thick. He might bring this entire place down. Rashala didn’t like that. If it weren’t for the emperor’s whim, she would have had the creature destroyed. Instead, the order had come: they were to bind him and take him to the emperor immediately, though his original master still roamed free.
Nothing like this had ever happened, so not even Rashala knew what it meant for a battler to hear commands from two separate men. Usually they only saw their masters once, after they were bound and before they were sent to the guilds from which they served. This was after they’d been thoroughly instructed to obey only certain people, such as the arena master or the emperor or possibly certain handlers, and given the hierarchy of whom they obeyed. This was very distinct, with only the emperor unlimited in what orders he could give. Handlers could never order a battler to attack, for example. No sylph had ever had two masters who could speak to them at the same time, however, as an entire class of rules had been created to prevent such a situation from happening.
No, no one could predict what would come of this. Rashala hated the uncertainty, but she also knew it was not for her to question the emperor. She intended to keep Seven-oh-three as distracted as possible, though. For that reason, until his original master was dead, he could have the girl if he wanted her. If she kept him happy, that was all to the good. When the man who’d escaped the arena was found and killed, the blonde would probably have to be sold, but that was all right. Rashala had managed to get twelve gold out of her after all.
Lizzy lay on her side on the bed, gently stroking Ril’s hair. It felt even softer than her own, and was somewhat darker and straighter. When the sylph’s eyes opened, regarding her with renewed wonder before he shifted forward to kiss her, she sighed against his mouth.
“Why did we wait so long?” she asked.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I was waiting for you to grow up,” he admitted, “and I couldn’t do anything as a bird, anyway. Then, when I was able to change shape, you were still too young and I…got hurt.” He shrugged, not meeting her eyes.
He was ashamed—even if she hadn’t been able to feel him, Lizzy would know. How long had he been hiding this, from her and her father both? Had her father suspected?
“Would you ever have touched me if I hadn’t made you?” she asked instead. Ril’s expression was answer enough. “Would you have let me live my entire life and never said anything?”
“If you were happy, yes.”
She made a face. Right now, she couldn’t imagine having any kind of life other than one with him, though that was why she’d gone on the aborted trip to Para Dubh in the first place: to decide what to do with her life.
“If it weren’t for all of this, I probably would have married Justin,” she admitted.
Ril’s eyes flickered with something that might have been hatred. “He came with us. He asked Leon for his blessing to marry you.”
Lizzy stared. “What? Justin? He left me on the docks with those men! I don’t want to marry him!” Not after that, and especially not now. To marry a man who’d desert her when there was danger? She felt sick at the thought, even as her mind backed away from the fact that he’d come after her anyway with her father and Ril. “Did Daddy agree?”
“Yes,” Ril said, “but I’ll talk him out of it.”
“How?”
Ril shrugged. “I’ll just point out that if Justin ever tries to touch you, I’ll tear his head off and feed his balls to the pigs.” When she gaped at him and started to giggle, he smiled faintly and stroked her cheek, adding, “I’m yours, Lizzy. Nothing Leon says can change that, not even if he orders me. Battlers are possessive. I’d go mad if someone else touched you now.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Lizzy hugged him, thinking about the battlers here and how they had to pretend indifference just to keep their lovers from being dragged away and maimed. “We have to get out of this place,” she whispered. “All of us. I can’t bear the thought of Eapha and the others having to stay. It’s awful what happens to them.”
“I know,” Ril soothed, though he didn’t. He didn’t even know who Eapha was. But he cared, she knew, and she nestled her head against his chest for a moment, thinking of something her father had said once: Sylphs weren’t independent thinkers. They were born and bred to obey, and they wanted direction.
For all his intelligence, Ril wasn’t much different. He was nearly always at her father’s side, and it was her father who made the decisions. Sylphs could act on their own and sometimes did, but usually only when they were forced. Lizzy would likely have to be the one to figure out how to escape. The thought was fearful, and she wished her father were there.
“We should talk to Eapha,” she announced. They hadn’t exactly been working on escape plans, but now they had Ril, and he didn’t have any stupid orders preventing him from helping them get out like the other battlers did. If he’d been whole, he could have exploded the doors and the roof and everything else and they’d already be free…but she steered away from that thought. Ril could do what he could do, her father always said. They didn’t need anything more.
Ril nodded and rose, dressing himself. As she picked up the gauzy gown she had to wear, his lip twisted and he silently handed her his shirt. Lizzy smiled and pulled it on.
“Come on,” she told him, leading him outside, trying hard not to look too much like she was with him. He’d have to pretend with the others, and she really hoped he’d be willing.
In the main room, many of the women were dancing, performing for a group of battlers. Lizzy saw Ril’s eyebrow rise, but he followed her silently across the room, skirting the show while she sought out her friend. A few of the women turned as he passed, strange as he appeared, but it was the battlers who stared, shifting away from the dancers to gawk.
Ril hissed, pausing. Lizzy took a few more uncertain steps, glancing back over her shoulder. She could feel his hate, and theirs. Battlers back home belonged to the same hive, and here they all knew one another. She’d forgotten how much they normally loathed any foreign battlers.
“Ril?” she called. She’d never seen him so
much as growl at another sylph.
Above, two more battlers came down through the access passages, shifting to their humanoid forms as they landed. Numbers 14 and 683. A few of the women called out to them, but they were ignored. Instead, the newcomers attacked.
Ril roared, his aura flaring and with it his power, but then they were on him, bowling him over. Lizzy screamed while the other women panicked, trying to run even as she pushed forward to go to Ril’s aid. All the other battlers leaped to their feet as well, their auras flaring almost as if they were screaming, and their hate blew through every human mind. It was enough to make many of the women drop to their knees, shrieking and sobbing.
Lizzy felt the auras but tried to push through anyway, her heart beating madly and her stomach tightening until she thought she might vomit. She nearly stumbled into the currents of power surrounding the three battling sylphs, but Tooie grabbed her around her waist, pulling her back to safety.
The two newcomers had Ril in their grip, Fourteen holding one arm and Six-eighty-three the other. They pushed him down, forcing him roughly onto his back with his legs folded under him. Lizzy screamed, struggling against Tooie, but she was helpless in the face of his strength. Ril looked at her, his face hardening. He’d fight for her, she realized, no matter what the cost.
“No!” she screamed, even as his form shimmered in a change. Shape-shifting exhausted him, hurt him, and Fourteen and Six-eighty-three were both fresh and strong. He’d have to become incorporeal to get free of their grip, and he’d never survive that. “Ril, don’t!”
He shuddered and became solid again. “Lizzy!”
The door opened. Through it came Rashala, the woman all the concubines feared. Behind her were three more battlers, two handlers, and Melorta, their leader. Rashala looked at all of them, at the battlers who had been relaxing and at the two that held Ril.
“Bring Seven-oh-three,” she ordered.
Fourteen and Six-eighty-three hauled Ril upright, dragging him between them to the door. Without another glance Rashala stepped outside, her prize right behind her. The other battlers followed, then the guards. Melorta paused at the threshold, glaring speculatively at Lizzy before pulling the door shut.
Tooie let Lizzy go. She stumbled forward a step and turned, hitting him. “Why didn’t you help him?” she screamed, though of course there was no way he could have. A moment later Eapha was there, and Lizzy fell into her friend’s arms, sobbing. There was nothing else to be done.
Ril was frog-marched down the corridor outside the harem, fighting every step of the way, but he’d lost so much of his original strength and there were too many guards. He screamed at them, though, and cursed…and it had no more effect than his attempts to wrench himself free.
Except it got Leon’s attention. After more than twenty years together, the man’s link to him was strong, and Ril felt Leon’s concern in the back of his mind. There wasn’t any more than that, he wasn’t a telepath, but Ril drew fortitude from his master’s concern even as he burned through the new energy with which he’d awoken.
Down the hall and through another room, then through another corridor and other doors, finally he entered a massive chamber larger even than the harem. It was lined floor to ceiling with dozens of levels of cages, catwalks, and stairways, and Ril actually stopped his struggle for a moment to gawk. Men and women filled those cages, empty, miserable people who barely looked up as he was dragged by. There were thousands of them, their emotions oppressive, and even though the floors were scrubbed, the place still reeked of their sweat and despair.
There were sylphs here as well—all of the elemental breeds. They were flickering here and there, stopping outside certain cells to drink the energy of the people within. There were battlers, too. Ril saw them feeding from men who didn’t look up and certainly didn’t speak. No, the only voice was his, screaming in protest.
“What is this place?” he finally whispered.
He got no answer from the bald woman who led the way, and Ril had the sudden understanding that he never would. He wasn’t an intelligent being to her. The only time she’d ever speak to him was if she needed to give an order. He screamed invective at that, trying to free himself even more, so he could fight her and the rest of them, but she was a woman. He couldn’t quite get his mind around the idea of hurting her—and Lizzy’s order had stopped him when he still had the chance. The battlers who held him had walls of power up now. Any energy he lashed out with wouldn’t get past them.
They dragged him down aisles and through entire floors of cages. The human prisoners watched them pass, their bodies grown frail from lack of exercise, their hair long and tangled. They were clean but silent.
Beyond the pens was another door, this one leading into a smaller chamber that was still a hundred or more paces across. Ril saw the blood-stained altar at its center, and he stiffened, remembering another. He’d first seen it when he came through the gate into this world, drawn by the energy of a woman he didn’t know was about to be killed. Leon had been the one to murder her, striking so fast she was dead before she knew it, before Ril even realized she was in danger. He’d forgiven his master for that at last, but they still never talked about it. Ril didn’t want to, and neither, he suspected, did Leon.
To see an altar again, though, like this…He’d enjoyed going to Yed and rescuing Gabralina, enjoyed killing those priests who’d tried to use her to trap a battler. Now though, he screamed until his voice went shrill and inhuman, but still the battlers dragged him toward it.
“Can’t you quiet him?” a man asked. He stood beside the altar, as bald as Rashala and sporting the same nose. He grimaced.
“You know I can’t, brother. Still…” She turned and pulled a filmy scarf out of her pocket. “Gag him,” she told one of Ril’s captors.
The battler moved behind Ril. Ril tried to kick him, but the sylph avoided the blow and slipped the scarf around and into Ril’s mouth like a bit, pulling it and his head back until Ril thought his neck might actually break. He stopped screaming, barely able to breathe.
“Better,” Rashala approved. “Do you have a man for me, Shalatar? The emperor wants to see him within the hour.”
“If His Excellency were willing to wait for two hours, then I would say yes. I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it.”
Staring at the ceiling as he was, Ril couldn’t see Rashala’s expression, but he heard her gasp. “But Shalatar!”
“There’s nothing for it. There’s no one else available.”
“But you won’t be able to master anyone else.”
“That’s hardly a problem in my job. I don’t need a sylph. You know the First actually commands them all anyway. Seven-oh-three won’t even need to see me after I set up his commands. Don’t be sorry for me, Rashala. It’s not important. Come now, hurry. Time is running away from us.”
“All right, brother.”
Forced to kneel on the floor, staring at the ceiling with the scarf pulled painfully across his open mouth, Ril heard the chanting start and gave a muffled scream. He could feel the ritual reaching inside and changing him.
They wove the spell with their strange human magic that so mockingly mimicked the bindings of a queen. They took him and everything he was, and they overlaid a pattern on the ones already there. Ril fought it as hard as he’d fought Leon’s so long ago, but as with Leon, he was helpless. They took him and remade him, and when the battlers finally let him go, he didn’t attack the way he so desperately wanted.
“Seven-oh-three,” Shalatar told him firmly. “I am your master and you will heed my commands.”
“Yes,” Ril whispered. There was no choice but to obey.
Chapter Seventeen
Leon grew terribly thirsty as he studied the dome that he suspected was the entrance to whatever place his daughter had been taken. It had been two days since their arrival and Southern Dancer had long since gone. The heat was growing unbearable again, even in the floating island’s shadow, and finally he had t
o leave and search for water before he collapsed. Finding it took an unnaturally long time. Back home, he could take a dipper to anyone’s rain barrel or borrow the bucket to their well with no more than a by-your-leave. In this dry country, water was a much more precious commodity. The day before he’d managed to drink from a water trough intended for horses, but the stableman had seen him and gone after him with a whip. Leon didn’t dare draw attention to himself again that way and saw no wells or barrels. It didn’t look as though there had been rain anytime in the last five hundred years.
He made his way to a restaurant instead. There was no inn above it—this was a place for locals, and Leon hoped he didn’t stand out too much as he walked off the street and climbed a few steps onto a stone terrace with a roof held up by dozens of pillars engraved with scrollwork. Tables were arranged among these, many of them occupied, and the entrance to the restaurant’s interior was on the other side. Leon certainly didn’t know why anyone would want to sit outside. It was nearly as hot on the terrace as in the street, and he was starting to feel ill from both the clothes he was wearing and dehydration. He hadn’t slept well, either.
Staring at the floor and attempting to assume the image of a weary local, Leon walked inside the building and suddenly saw why the terrace was full. It was even hotter inside, blisteringly so, and the only people there were employees. He smelled food cooking but couldn’t even imagine what the kitchens would be like. His knees went weak and he gagged in the hot air.
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