The Shattered Sylph

by L. J. McDonald

  She told him about the harems most of all, the place where battlers went to slake themselves on women who had no choice but to be there. He knew from stories of Mace before he was freed that a battler could make a woman enjoy loving them, amplifying their lust much as they did hatred on men, but to him it still sounded like rape. He’d wanted to cry when he heard that was where Lizzy had been taken, tossed to battlers like some kind of toy. The women in the Valley were incredibly liberal, and he’d come to understand and accept that, but this was his little girl.

  “They never touched her,” Eapha assured him, to his relief. “Tooie said that she wasn’t interesting to them, but they pretended just to keep her from being taken as a feeder.”

  Eapha had relayed that part as well, that the women who didn’t perform were taken and maimed like poor Justin, as were the ones with whom the battlers dared fall in love. He’d had trouble believing that, even of these people. It was too impossibly cruel.

  “Thank you for taking care of my daughter,” he told Eapha. “All of you. It must have been a great risk for you to bring her into this circle of yours, seeing as you didn’t know her.”

  Eapha shrugged, trying to work tangles out of her hair. She smiled faintly. “She’s a good girl and with that yellow hair, she would have been gone immediately if we hadn’t. But she played the game well enough for someone who didn’t know what they were doing. I think it actually got easier for her once Seven-oh-three became her lover.”

  Leon felt his heart freeze inside him. “What?” he managed. Over in the corner, Justin stared, his eyes huge.

  Eapha blinked, regarding him in puzzlement. “Seven-oh-three. You call him Ril, don’t you?”

  But Ril didn’t even like women. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely!” She laughed. “We brought him into the circle as well.” The laughter faded. “Tooie said there’s something more about them. He had a horrible time coming up with the words. When you sent that letter with him, he spent most of the night trying to get us to put down the right question.”

  “What is it?” Leon asked. He felt faint. Ril? With Lizzy? His battler? His daughter? Leon thought of Ril standing before him, taking in his orders, and had a sudden urge to wring his neck. Justin looked ill.

  “Tooie said that none of the battlers wanted Lizzy in their beds because she was already bound to a battler. To Ril, actually. Even the craziest of them wouldn’t touch her.”

  “She came in like this?”

  “Yes.”

  Leon closed his eyes and shuddered.

  Eapha eyed him uncertainly. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Continue.”

  The woman settled back, still looking unsure, but at last she continued. “None of the battlers here have female masters. They’re not even allowed female feeders—just us in the harem and the handlers. When Tooie saw Lizzy, though…” She shook her head. “He wants to know how Ril made her his master. That’s his question. He wants to make me his master. Master of the harem, I suppose.” She smiled faintly.

  No, Leon thought. Not just master but queen of every sylph in this corrupt city. From female master to queen was only a single step after all, one that a woman from a harem wouldn’t have any trouble taking. He paled, the implications hitting him all at once. Solie, becoming queen, had subsumed the fifty of so sylphs of the Community and those from her battler’s original hive line, like Mace. Eapha would take in thousands. From the look on her face, Eapha had no idea. Lizzy must not have known, either, since she hadn’t said anything.

  Somehow, Ril had made Lizzy his master! He couldn’t make her a queen, not with Solie’s pattern already locked inside him. But he’d made her like what Leon was, and Leon had no idea how he’d managed it. It required the help of a trained priest, or a battler who knew how, such as Mace, who had to feed the pattern through the queen. Solie would have needed to be there when it was done, and she would have said something if Ril had come to her looking to bind himself to Lizzy. No, somehow his battler figured out how to do the impossible and had never told him.

  And how would you have reacted if he had? he asked himself. His battler had been keeping secrets from him. So had Lizzy. That hurt, but he put it aside. There was no time.

  “I don’t know the answer to your battler’s question,” he admitted, and saw the girl’s face fall. She’d liked the idea of being master to Tooie, he realized, but only because she loved him. In many ways, binding a sylph was like marriage, and love was the best reason to do it. He hoped that love sustained her when Tooie turned her into a queen.

  “I’ll find out, though,” he assured her.

  She looked puzzled. “How?”

  “Simple,” he said. “I’m going to ask Ril.”

  The time for secrets had passed.

  Tooie took the letter to Lizzy’s father only because she begged him. It didn’t matter to him anymore, not without Eapha. Without her, he thought in time that he would become as crazy as Eighty-nine—providing he could bring himself to even touch a woman again. It seemed easier to him not to. This kind of pain wasn’t worth it, not when his love would only get another woman destroyed.

  He went out after darkness fell, shimmered out and away, moving above the city as cautious as ever not to be seen. He didn’t care for himself, but the letter inside him would result in Lizzy’s death if it were found. Seven-oh-three’s as well, though Tooie couldn’t make himself care about a foreign battler, especially not now.

  Tooie flowed through the darkness and down to the place where he’d picked the flowers for Eapha. Close by, he sensed Lizzy’s father. Settling down at the edge of the city, right at the limit of his boundary, he gaped his mouth wide, letting the lightning that formed his teeth glow in the dark and show where he was. There weren’t many campfires tonight, and all was quiet. The people there felt afraid.

  All but one. Immediately, a shape disengaged from others around a campfire and made its way toward him. Tooie recognized him from his emotions: determination and calm. The man walked to the other side of the old broken wall and said the last thing the battler would ever have expected.

  “Hello, Tooie.”

  Tooie started, his lightning ceasing for a moment in surprise. How did this man know his name?

  “I have someone here who’s been waiting for you,” Leon explained, stepping aside.

  A second black shape walked toward him—one he knew very well. For a moment he could only gape, and then she was running toward him and he screamed, a dozen tendrils lashing out to wrap around Eapha’s sobbing form. He was forbidden to change out of his natural shape here, but he pulled her to him and wrapped his mantle around her, shaking. Eapha was safe! She was safe. How had she ever got here?

  “Leon rescued me,” she whispered. “And he’s willing to help me become your master if we’ll help him save Lizzy and Ril.”

  For giving him this, Tooie would do anything. The battler kept Eapha cradled by his heart and watched Leon, waiting for him to say whatever needed to be done. If he could do it despite all the rules laid on him, Tooie would.

  As he learned in the next few minutes, it was something he could do very easily.

  Freshly fed by the two feeders who still remained to him, Ril lay in one of the alcoves of the harem, his arms wrapped around Lizzy. She had her head resting against his chest, her breath still slowing from earlier. Eapha was gone, she’d told him, only to find out her friend had already been saved by her father. She’d wept in Ril’s arms and then made love to him with near violence. In her relief, she hadn’t felt his odd emotional distance.

  Ril kissed her forehead, and she lifted her head to smile at him. “I guess I didn’t need to write that letter. Eapha will tell him everything Tooie wants.” Her eyes clouded for a moment. “Ril…am I your master?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “You were until Leon took me.”

  She stared at him and lifted herself up. He’d told her what her father had done and she didn’t know what to f
eel about it. Did Ril still love her? He had to. He’d just made love to her. Any other thought was something she cringed away from in terror. When he tightened his grip, she settled back against him. “How is that possible for you to be mine?” she whispered. “You’re father’s battler.”

  “I was yours, too,” he said. “I told you that. I was yours since the day you were born.”

  She made a face. “I can’t have been too impressive as a baby.”

  “You were slimy and squalling and beautiful,” he assured her. “I fell in love with you from the first moment I saw you.” He saw and felt her puzzled look. “I made it official when you were seven.”

  “How?”

  He stretched a hand up toward the ceiling, both of them watching as he turned it idly in the dim light—his perfect, human, inhuman hand.

  “Do you remember when I was sick?” he asked. “I was sick from trying to take your pattern into myself. I needed it, but it wasn’t until you reached for me that I was able to grasp it.”

  “I reached for you?” she said in amazement.

  He nodded and brought his hand down to brush a stray hair from her face. “You wanted me to live so badly, you surrendered to me. That let me in. So, you became my master.”

  “I…” She swallowed and licked her lips. “Is that why I can feel you? But why couldn’t I feel you before, if you did this when I was seven?”

  He stroked her cheek and cupped it, moving her face around to where he could kiss her mouth. “I suppressed it,” he explained. “You can only feel what I project to you, so I projected nothing.”

  Lizzy looked up into his pale gray eyes. She could feel his calm certainty and serenity. He was at peace with himself for what she suspected was the first time in his life, and no matter what her father had done, underneath it all, she could feel his love for her. “And now?” she whispered.

  He regarded her for a moment, considering her, and then that love flowed out, turning to lust that soaked through her. She gasped softly and he rolled atop her, his arm under her head as he bent to plunder her mouth, his kisses as burning hot as a blacksmith’s forge. She felt a little like steel being tempered or an instrument being strummed, and he filled her with his desire, blowing thought away as he pushed her legs apart and slipped inside.

  Lizzy cried out, unable to hear herself as he filled her, body and soul. She could feel him, though, the ultimate depths of him, the inscrutable age and total loneliness that was now filled by her. He’d been taken by her father, but the heart of him that he himself likely couldn’t feel right now loved her. He pretended, as Leon had ordered him to pretend with all his masters, but it was there, untouchable by him but understood by her. She was his life, his hope, his everything.

  She wrapped her arms around Ril’s neck and hung on, not able in her humanness to do more. She knew it was enough for him, though. It was more than enough, for he touched the essence of her and knew that he was loved.

  Afterward, he slept. Lizzy left him there and went outside, to give him privacy and also so that the handlers wouldn’t get suspicious. After the episode with Melorta, she should have avoided Ril entirely, but she hadn’t been able to. For both their sakes though, she couldn’t stay with him for long.

  Besides, she didn’t want to get pulled into his dream with her father. It was a little odd, but the next time she saw him, she wanted it to be real.

  Lizzy was gone. It had been strange to make love to her, but she’d wanted it, and deep down underneath Leon’s control, something in him had wanted it as well. He almost wanted to shy away from that feeling of want. All he needed was Leon, all he was was Leon. Yet still he’d held her and loved her, and deep inside he knew she loved him as well. It was hard to hold on to when she left his side, though, and Ril didn’t try. Instead, he curled up in the alcove and tried to sleep. He’d slept a lot that day already, but he’d been through a great deal as well, between Leon and Shalatar, and it wasn’t hard to relax and drop off.

  He didn’t really understand how he dreamwalked. He knew it was to his masters only, but he hardly did it every time he slept, and he definitely hadn’t walked to Justin or any of the other feeders. It seemed to happen most when he was focused on his target as he fell asleep, so he thought in detail of Leon as he dozed off. Then he followed the pattern line of energy that linked the two of them, edging his way through the ether until he came to the sleeping mind of the man he sought.

  Sliding up, he embraced it and slipped within.

  The world brightened. Ril blinked several times and lifted his head, looking around. He was standing in the courtyard of the manor the Petrule family had lived in back in Eferem. The stark stone manor rose ahead, the moon shining high beyond. Leon stood on the steps that led to the front door, staring down at him.

  “Leon,” Ril started, walking forward.

  Leon’s forehead creased. “You slept with my daughter.”

  Ril froze, the tiny bit of him that was still himself suddenly so cold that he could almost believe this wasn’t a dream. His mouth moved without sound, for he couldn’t think what to say, not against this. Not against the anger he suddenly felt. Coming from the man currently saturating his soul, it was agony.

  Leon sucked his lips into his mouth and wiped his palms on his pantlegs. He descended the stairs and stopped again, only a few feet away. “You slept with my daughter.”

  Ril hadn’t been expecting this…but he had, hadn’t he? He’d known Leon wouldn’t approve. Leon wouldn’t share. He wouldn’t want his sweet Lizzy tainted. Ril felt his master’s disappointment and anger, and the bond between them hurt. It hurt so much that he wailed aloud and dropped to his knees, shaking as he reached out to grasp his master’s ankles. A single word, just one, and he’d never be able to touch Lizzy again. He’d go mad if that happened. He could feel it already, and he wanted it. Wanted the control to be absolute, wanted to be nothing more than this man’s creature, with no will of his own, not even the will that screamed that he loved Lizzy. Would always love Lizzy with his heart, no matter who owned his soul.

  “P-pleeaasee…,” he begged, sobbing, and he didn’t even know what he was begging for.

  Leon was furious when he saw Ril walking toward him across the stone as though he hadn’t been doing anything wrong. To sleep with his daughter, to take advantage of her in this horrible place…? Leon had never been so angry. Ril had given his trust over to Leon, but Leon had trusted his battler as well.

  Even knowing they had no time for accusations, Leon made them, and saw the battler’s eyes change, reflecting confusion and horror. This was never supposed to happen. Something greedy and hateful in the back of Leon’s mind screamed that Ril was supposed to be his. He didn’t want to share him with anyone else, and certainly not with someone that Ril could end up loving more.

  Ril dropped to his knees, his entire soul bared to his master as he grabbed Leon’s ankles, sobbing the word please, and he was more open than ever before, even just after a feeding. Everything he was he’d given to Leon, willingly, and yet under it all Lizzy remained. Ril loved her with everything that was still him. Yet, with a single word, Leon would be able to banish her from him forever. He’d have his battler all to himself, just as he’d always wanted.

  Leon gasped and immediately dropped to his knees, drawing Ril up into his arms. The anger in him had whiplashed into horror, an instant of realization, and they both hugged the other hard. “No, don’t beg,” Leon told him. “Don’t beg! It’s all right, I won’t take her from you. I promise I won’t.” He paused, and Ril felt the emotions in his master diminish, the man forcing them down and away, no matter what he might really feel. The pain eased. “It’s all right. I’m sorry. It’s all right, I’m sorry I scared you.”

  Ril leaned against him, shuddering. He couldn’t even raise his head as Leon stroked his back, whispering reassurances in his ear. He would have groveled, he would have done anything, and he was shocked at himself even as he closed his eyes in shame, wanting Leon’s con
trol back in full just so he wouldn’t feel this tearing contradiction. He wasn’t surprised. He was a battle sylph. He’d spent centuries begging already, for good or for ill.

  “You had orders for me?” he whispered at last, still not looking up. Right now, he couldn’t.

  Leon sighed, sitting on the ground with Ril half in his lap, staring over his head at the nighttime skyline of a city neither of them expected to visit again in reality. “The woman I took from the arena—she says Lizzy’s your master. Is that true?”

  Ril tightened his grip. “Yes,” he choked out, burying his face against Leon’s shoulder.

  Leon’s emotions flickered for a moment, just a moment, and Ril felt the jealousy and then shame. He hurried to say, “You’re still my master, too. I can’t change that.” He hesitated. “Even if you gave me myself back, I wouldn’t.” He couldn’t imagine it. Now that the pain was fading, memory of Lizzy was, too, buried back under the strength of this man’s presence in his soul. It was still there, though, deep down, which it hurt to know.

  “Thank you,” Leon said, and there was a lot of emotion in those words. “Ril, how did she become your master? We need to know.”

  Ril finally pulled back and sat up, surprised. Leon seemed tired and unhappy, but he managed a smile, whatever else he was thinking. His thoughts aside, the smile was real. “Ril?” he asked.

  Ril swallowed. “I reached for her with the pattern inside myself. It wasn’t enough, though, not until she reached for me. Until she surrendered to me.” He looked down. “That’s basically it. It’s not that easy, though. It took me months, and it nearly killed me.”

  “But Lizzy didn’t know what you were doing, did she?”