A woman approached, bowing. She was young and wore the light fabric wrap of most Meridal women, her arms bare and her hair bound atop her head to keep it off her neck. Hairstyles seemed to indicate rank in this place. Braids meant someone was a slave. A shaved head showed a bound serf, which seemed to be a few steps up the hierarchy. Hair worn loose was reserved for whores. Hair up, as well as being practical, meant freedom.
The woman sweated, but she looked better than Leon felt. “May I help you, sir?” she asked.
He shouldn’t have come inside, Leon realized; a local wouldn’t in this heat. He’d just drawn attention to himself, and he saw her observing the heavier robe he wore over his cotton pants, and worse, his boots. The serving woman wore sandals like everyone else, and her toenails were painted bright blue.
“Sir?”
“Water,” Leon croaked. He needed it too badly to try and leave, which would also seem strange. Battlers could be attracted by the curious as much as the violent. Back in the Valley, they thronged around anything new, and every child’s game drew at least one. “Some water,” he repeated. “I’ll be outside.”
“Yes, sir.”
She bowed, and Leon left, briefly shocked by how cool the air felt compared to inside. In the last two days, all the moisture seemed to have been sucked out of him. Even the slave pens before that disaster in the arena hadn’t been so hot as this. Nor had the arena itself. There had been air sylphs keeping things cooler, though he suspected that wasn’t for the fighters’ comfort.
He settled down in a chair, pulling his robes around himself even though he longed to throw them off and just breathe. All of this was his fault. He couldn’t have foreseen they’d be taken so quickly, but he was the one in charge. He hadn’t planned well enough. Now both Ril and Justin were prisoners along with Lizzy, and those two were here because he’d brought them. Ril he’d had no choice about, and the battler was courage personified, but Justin…? He never should have let the boy’s guilt change his mind. To see him flee that battler in the arena…and now Leon couldn’t even be sure if the youth was still alive.
The serving woman came out, turning her head into a slight breeze as she produced a clay carafe and a glass. Tired and parched, Leon stared up at her while asking the price, and saw her start. Damn. She’d probably never seen blue eyes before. Her own were dark as pitch.
“Five coppers,” she said to him.
“Fine.” He had to give her a piece of silver instead, having no copper, but she didn’t say anything about it or about the strange denomination on the coin, nor did he. He just waited for her to go, trying not to gulp his water as he drank and trying even harder to calm his thoughts. She wasn’t going to go running to the battlers. They weren’t going to descend on him through the three open sides of the terrace. Nothing was going to happen, other than that he was going to get rid of this terrible thirst and find a new place to sleep. Then, when his mind was clear, he would figure out a way to rescue everyone he cared about.
The serving woman came back. Leon stared in surprise at the coppers she placed in his palm. He hadn’t expected change. “Would the sir care for some food?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, hoping that it wasn’t a trap to keep him around so she could call the battlers, but knowing he didn’t really have any other choice. He needed the water, and now that he’d had some, he could feel how badly he needed food. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” she said, and vanished back into the sweltering kitchen.
Less than ten blocks away, knowing that Leon was alive and free but not where he was, Ril followed his new master out of the small domed building in the center of the square. Inside was really nothing more than a staircase, much like the one bored into the top of the cliff where the Community had toughed out its first winter—the place where he’d first met Solie and been granted his freedom.
Now he walked behind Shalatar, still in the same dusty pants and boots he’d been wearing when he was taken. Lizzy had his shirt, but he tried not to think of her. Not that he didn’t want to, but he’d get lost in memories of her if he did and couldn’t afford that now. Not if he was going to figure a way to get out of this.
He honestly didn’t know how. Shalatar had him bound more deeply than he’d ever imagined possible. Ril followed behind the man, always three steps behind—as ordered. He didn’t speak and couldn’t. As ordered. A thousand commands saturated his mind, all given him in a rush by the brother and sister but without any mistakes. Leon had given him ten orders when he bound him and he’d felt trapped. These people had given him hundreds, and not a one contradicted the others. They’d had centuries to perfect their litany, and he would comply absolutely.
Though Shalatar was his master, Ril had an entire list of people he now had to obey: the emperor; the First, who controlled the sylphs; the Battle-Sylph First, who specifically commanded the battle sylphs; the matron of the harem, who was Rashala; all of the handlers and guards who watched over them; the Second of the feeder pens, where the battlers went to feed; and others with other needs. The timing of his meals, the timing of his matings, the rules of the harem, the rules of the pen, they all echoed through him. The rules of when he might obey a specific person and in which order he would obey, as well as at what times. He felt as if there was no way he could remember it all, but he knew the commands were there, indelibly a part of him.
Shalatar finished repeating the rules on the way up from the summoning room. Masters here weren’t like back in Eferem. Ril would probably never see the man again. Instead, he’d bow to other people and obey them on Shalatar’s earlier commands. He could feel the man’s emotions, though, clearer than anyone else they passed, just as he could any of his masters. Right now, Shalatar felt…inconvenienced.
Ril would have screamed, but of course that wasn’t permitted. Instead, he waited. The last time he’d been bound he’d gone mad, driven insane until he saw Lizzy’s birth and found his way back through loving her. He couldn’t afford that this time. He had Leon to worry about, and Lizzy—and whatever other orders his captors had given him, they’d given him permission to use the harem and the women in it as well. He would see her again and lose himself in her, and until then, all he had to do was survive.
Shalatar led him out into the square that circled the stairwell. Ril didn’t feel the heat the way Leon did, but he blinked in the bright light and looked up at what descended toward them. It seemed like an ornate sled, only without runners. An invisible air sylph kept it aloft, her energies swirling around the thing as she dropped it lightly to the ground before them. The driver, a man as bald as Shalatar, bowed deeply and opened its door.
Shalatar stepped inside and sat. Ril followed, but he hunkered down on the floor by the man’s feet. Not for the likes of him was the seat. Normally, he’d have followed in his natural form, but of course he couldn’t do that anymore, and they’d had to make allowances. It was just lucky they thought he couldn’t change shape at all. Ril had hopes of being able to use that against them, if only he could find a loophole in his litany of servitude.
For now he hunkered like an obedient if hateful dog at his master’s feet, and the sled rose up into the air, floating smoothly and swiftly across the city. There were more sleds in the air, darting all around like multicolored honeybees, and Ril looked at their well-dressed occupants with contempt. They all saw him as less than nothing, just a commodity, the same as they saw Lizzy as someone who could be kidnapped and sold, then used like a whore against her will.
Thought of Lizzy brought back the memory of her soft skin and the smell of her, and he had to shove it away. He couldn’t afford to get lost in thoughts of her, not if he ever wanted a reunion. The sound of her breathless gasp in his ear echoed through his mind, however, and he bit his lip, gripping the edge of the sled until the wood began to splinter.
“Calm yourself,” Shalatar said, regarding him mildly. There was no fear in the man. Ril wanted to hit him with his aura of hate, but the
rules were strict. He couldn’t use his aura at all, unless he was in the arena. Ril closed his eyes and tried to relax. Without the hate aura to mask his emotions, Shalatar could feel them.
When he tried to calm the anger and the fear he felt, the man reached out to ruffle his hair, tousling it like a dog’s. “Good boy,” he said.
Lizzy was in one of the alcoves, hopping up and down on the bed and trying not to worry. Much as she’d loathed the idea, she’d forced herself to toss aside the shirt Ril gave her and return to her gauzy, useless dress. Her breasts bounced painfully in it, and she held them with her hands as she hopped.
Tooie bounced beside her, swinging his arms back and forth and watching. Lizzy had grown so used to his regard, and that of the other battlers, that she wasn’t embarrassed. Besides, she could hardly call herself an innocent anymore. Not after having Ril’s mouth on her breasts, his hands on her thighs, and the glorious silky length of him deep within…She shivered and caught Tooie eyeing her. He could feel what she did, she remembered, and blushed.
“Sorry.”
One eyebrow rose, and his eyes twinkled with laughter. No longer bouncing, he made a few slow gestures with his hands and arms. Lizzy stopped as well, focusing. She’d been learning their gesture language as fast as she could, but there was a lot she still didn’t understand.
Tooie kept it simple. “No. Good,” she read. He repeated one of the gestures and added a second. “No. Sorry…Oh, ‘Don’t be sorry, it’s good’?”
He nodded.
Lizzy laughed, still a little self-conscious after all. She bit her lip. “What do you think they’re doing with him?” she asked.
He shrugged and gestured. “Don’t. Know. Money.”
She turned away. That was true. Ril was worth too much money for them to hurt him. She bit her lip, hating that as much as she hated being a slave herself. It was no wonder the Community split away and founded Sylph Valley. People could feel the emotions of their sylphs. How could anyone not understand that they were thinking, living beings with rights? Of course, she was from the same species, and they’d done this to her.
“People are horrible.”
Tooie tilted his head to one side and lifted his arms, moving them around in a pattern she had to squint to understand. “Not. All. She. Good.”
Lizzy smiled. “You really love Eapha, don’t you?”
Tooie nodded. “Want. Her. Like. Him. You.”
Lizzy wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Eapha and Tooie had been together for years, and she and Ril had just found each other. Perhaps it was something lost in translation. “Well,” she said with a forced smile. “Let’s make sure that they don’t have a reason to separate you.” With that, she started to hop up and down again on the mattress, and after a moment he joined in.
Leon followed the young woman from the tavern, not because he felt any threat from her, and certainly not because he intended to harm her himself. Nor did she remind him of his wife or any of his plethora of daughters. He followed her on a hunch and because he needed more information on how this society worked.
She finished her shift well after dark and headed away from the restaurant down the dry stone streets, turning almost immediately into a long, narrow alleyway between buildings. The absence of the sun, which had been so blisteringly hot during the day, brought an icy chill to the air, and very few people were still outside. The young woman pulled a shawl around herself as she walked, moving as quickly as she could without running.
The route she took was one Leon would have hesitated suggesting to anyone who was unarmed, and he hurried after her partly now to lend a protective eye. But as she hurried deeper into the warren that stretched to the edge of the city, he soon followed her instead as his only way out. Darkened doorways loomed every few feet, each deep enough to hide a man, but no one sprang out at her, not in this place. It had to be because of the battlers, Leon decided. He could feel them floating overhead, watching and sensing, and knew they would descend in seconds if needed—probably to find new combatants for their arena, he thought uncharitably. But he had reason to be harsh. In the little time he’d spent in the pens, he’d spoken to four other victims. One had stolen some bread. One had escaped the feeder pens before his tongue could be cut out. The third had thrown sand at a nobleman, and the fourth didn’t know why he was there.
The girl reached the outskirts of the city, where worn and battered walls held back the desert. Sand blew over the top, stinging one’s eyes and getting easily into clothing. She made her way to and over the wall, heading outside the city itself. Silently Leon followed, seeing as he did that she wasn’t alone. Other people headed out into the desert as well, wrapping scarves around their faces for protection.
While the city gleamed with light and life behind him, here he found a collection of hovels so vile that Leon didn’t know how they survived. He also cringed at the thought of the likely resident diseases. Stretching as far as he could see in the darkness, there were dozens of dwellings made of stacked rocks and tattered fabric, many built against the lee of a massive boulder so that they at least were out of the main thrust of the wind. Fires were rising from open pits, and people gathered around these to cook and talk. There weren’t many children, but Leon did see some, scurrying about and playing despite the late hour.
He hesitated at the edge of the light, watching as the woman he’d followed went up to others who, from the look of them, were family. Many people were living out here indeed, coming and going from the city proper. Leon watched the woman pool her tips with her family, then produce a flask of water that was passed around excitedly. Seeing Leon, one of the men waved for him to join them.
With a shrug, Leon did.
Ril lay as Shalatar did, prostrate, down on his knees, bent forward, forehead to floor and arms stretched out before him. The floor was made of glossy marble, polished well enough that he could see his own hateful expression as he glared at himself, not allowed to raise his head to glare at anyone else. He felt the emperor walk around him, and the skin between his shoulder blades itched.
The fact that Shalatar was in the same position gave little consolation. The man was content to be on his face like this, even honored. Ril thought he’d go mad if he stayed this way too long, and he took a deep breath, holding it and letting it go slowly. He wasn’t prone to acts of rage, never had been. He deliberated slowly, planned things out, acted when he was sure. He’d find a way out of this, think of a way out. He had to.
“He’s not terribly impressive to look at, is he?” the emperor said—to no one, since no one would ever dare answer. He was middle-aged, lean to the point of scrawniness, and as bald as Shalatar, though he had a fringe of hair above his ears. The robes he wore were much richer. It wasn’t as though he needed to dress for the heat. The air in the palace to which Ril had been brought was as mild as a spring afternoon back home. At least a half dozen air sylphs would be needed to keep it cool. Ril had seen the place as he was brought in. It was huge, the ceilings a hundred feet overhead and everything constructed from marble and gold. The palace was ostentatious and ugly and a massive waste of space. He preferred Sylph Valley and its battler chamber, where he could sleep in his natural form, surrounded by his hive mates.
Don’t think of that, he told himself. Don’t think of them, don’t think of Lizzy. Don’t think of tearing this man’s head off, because Shalatar would feel it and the emperor had been given control over him. The man could order any sylph in Meridal to do anything, a parallel to a sylph queen that made Ril want to laugh bitterly. The emperor’s control was a joke—but it still kept Ril prostrate on the floor, pressed to the cold marble like the dog they thought he was.
“Still…,” the emperor went on, continuing his circuit around Ril. He stopped, and Ril actually felt the man’s slipper on his back, pushing against him as if to see whether he’d fall apart. “He was beautiful to watch in the arena. I want to see him again. Not against the battlers, though. Put him up against gladiators and see
how he does. Yes.” He removed the slipper and circled Ril again before moving silkily back to his throne.
The edge of his robe brushed Ril’s face, and Ril hissed under his breath. Not allowed to speak ever again, he could still make some sound, and he saw the emperor start in surprise. As victories went, this was paltry, but Ril still lapped it up vindictively, since he already knew it wouldn’t last.
It didn’t. The emperor made a gesture and a whip came down across Ril’s back. If it had been a normal whip, he never would have felt it, but this was formed of a battler and cut him deep, startling him into crying out. The lash descended again. He cried out again.
He was struck a dozen times before he realized the lesson they wanted to instill. Actually, he learned after the fourth hit, but he refused to acquiesce until the twelfth, when he felt his energy bleeding down his sides and started to fear he would die there, beaten to death for no reason at all. When the whip came down the twelfth time, Ril made no sound, nothing at all. There was a pause then, and still he made no sound, staring down at his own blank reflection.
“Good,” said the emperor, and he returned to his throne. “You may leave.”
Ril had to be dragged out.
Chapter Eighteen
The people Leon met after following Zalia from the restaurant were among the poorest he’d ever seen. Living in their makeshift hovels, they existed in constant fear of sandstorms, as well as poisonous snakes and spiders. The heat baked them during the day, and the cold at night caused illness. They were filthy, sweaty, and stinking…and apparently the backbone of Meridal’s human labor force. They were the forgotten servers and laborers, whom no one else saw.
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