And with that, she had spoken her wisdom. I could tell. I mulled over the words, trying to feel out if they carried the epiphany I was searching for.
Letta did not ask who it was I wished to change. She either knew without asking, or felt no need to know. She simply finished with her sheets, and then the others were filing in, and I moved to my own pallet.
As I lay awake that night, lashes drawn but mind mulling, Ombri whispered my name in the dark. I opened my eyes to acknowledge her, where she gazed at me with her big, beautiful amber-brown eyes, tucked into her covers on the pallet next to mine.
It was the kind of whisper that drew you out of a state of hibernation, but left you wondering if you had imagined it. Her gaze and the words that responded to my opening eyes proved she had roused me, however, when she said:
“None of the rest of us labor to loathe him like you do.”
And something in me faltered, impacted with just as much conviction as what I had only just striven to stir in Tanen himself.
*
I stayed to my brooding quarters, that night, but the next night the echo of Ombri's words saw me slip out of my covers and pad quietly from the room. The floor boards in the front room were creaky, but I skirted the worst of it from memory, was careful not to disturb Modo all afluff in his sleeping feathers, and stole onward through the kitchen. I almost paused, there, but something propelled me onward, spurring me to see this through. Only in the doorway to Tanen's little adjoining room did I pause, searching out his form in the dark to see if he was awake.
“Tanen?” I whispered, and he stirred.
“Vant? What is it?”
I took the liberty of wandering in, not sure how to answer. Seating myself on the chair that was poised to keep an eye on the sick, I rubbed my palms across my knees and glanced about the confined room before speaking. “Do you think of me as a slave?” I asked, my eyes wandering back to him.
He pushed himself up onto his elbow on the bed, and his sheets fell from his shoulders to reveal a bare chest. My gaze caught, and my fingers twitched where they rested on my knee. I clenched them into my skirt.
I could not say if my tone was challenging or geared for a let-down, but either way he seemed to catch onto the seriousness in it. Enough, at least, that he thought about his answer before giving it.
“I think you're a saint, in this age, Vant. You sing flowers into light and slay Albinos twice your size, and disappear into the maw of that godforsaken city only to reemerge, unscathed.”
“But in another age? Would you think of me as a slave then?”
“If you carried yourself as one. Perhaps.”
That was satisfactory, somehow, and I let it go in decent conscience.
“You were born to sing,” Tanen elaborated, even though I had gotten what I'd come for – whatever it was. “Not to work. That's how I see it.”
“Are you saying I'm a pansy?”
A small flash of his teeth in the dark. “I wouldn't dream of it. I don't fancy getting whacked like that other guy. I'm just saying you're a siren. A beautiful siren.”
Since he was being so complimentary, I decided I may as well let him in on a kind secret of my own, for a change. “I wouldn't whack you, Tanen,” I said. At this point, given what I had taken up on his behalf, I figured it would probably be decent of me to let him know that. It was the least I could do, really, for a man I knew was on Death Row – give him the privilege of knowing I would never kill him myself.
“Do you suppose there's a better chance of slaves outliving thirty, these days?” Tanen asked, and the personal tinge of hope that came with the question carried a flattering meaning.
“I don't know,” I admitted. We weren't being whipped to death, anymore, but there was no telling where the current destruction would leave us all. I knew some, but there was still a lot I didn't know. “I just know that, either way, we've all lost a good many summers by now. It's all blurred into one big age of survival. But like you said... If we're surviving just to survive... What's the point in that?”
“So I was right about something,” he teased.
Instead of responding, I found myself wondering if he was getting uncomfortable propping himself up on his elbow yet, and my eyes took in the muscles holding him there. And the lingering slashes and scars that were the healing blows from his encounter with the wardog. And the response that came to me: let his philosophy be an inspiration, in this moment; show him there was a part of me that responded to the idea of wanting to live, rather than just survive. To experience things.
I moved from my seat, crossed the small space between us, and alighted on the edge of his cot. A small hint of surprise lit his eyes, but he seemed to accept the idea fairly quickly that this was in fact why I had come. The lines of his body were just waiting to be traced, packed with the residue of secrets that I needed to aid my intimate project surrounding him. One thing that would do nothing to help me change a person, I was sure, was my limited perspective pertaining to his inner workings. I needed to know the intimate intricacies of what made him tick.
I touched my lips to his, this time, and he drew himself up to receive me. A part of me could not believe I would do such a thing, but it was a distant part, little more than a betrayed echo from my past. I squashed it, not open to dissuasion. I was on a mission, and if anything, I had always been one who was able to buckle down and own a mission.
If Tanen died, it was not going to be on me. I would do everything in my power to see that fate deflected, now that I had been bequeathed with a sense of accountability. And if I failed... Well, at least I would have made up for my prior hostility toward him in the meantime.
My fingers took the liberty of going straight to his chest, eager to make contact. Sparks coursed through them immediately upon resting against his skin, and I drank it up, preparing myself for the visions.
Tanen's own touch went to my neck, a light grasp that served as an anchor to harmonize our kisses. And the part of me that would have been disgusted to partake in such with him before found that contrary to my preconceived, prejudiced notions, it was pleasant, kissing him.
My fingers swept around to his back, over his scars, running slowly down his spine, and a horde of visions was stirred up – some of them indeed the kind that I was seeking, snippets of his past, his experiences. One of them: what it felt like to be pinned beneath a feeding wardog in the city. But it was not these that I found most arresting. It was the insight of current thought, rather, that I found myself snatched up by. For I could see into his mind in its current state, all awash with desire, and I could feel one experience more keenly than all the other bits that flitted through him – the one he was experiencing now. And, sharing these things as my sixth sense allowed, I very quickly began to lose myself in the empathy, until I was mirroring the sentiment. Matching feeling for feeling. What I felt was his own desire, but since I indeed felt it, it was as good as my own.
People had spoken of the magic of intimacy before, explaining what a special experience it was, but while they may have been wise in the ways of such, not a one of them knew anything compared to what it was like to be so thoroughly immersed in the experience. Tanen and I were only kissing, and yet I was inside of him, immersed in his mind, his heart, his soul. Twined into his very being.
Our spirits touched that night, and it was a more intimate binding than any conventional means. Who could have known that all it would take was the mere aspiration of touching someone to fulfill a bond that I would not soon be able to break.
Our lost summers twined together through the ages, and I became more invested in this man's spirit than ever before.
T H I r t y - S I x –
The Baltane Mansion
It was in the paper again, next time – the same manor that had swallowed its masters a week ago. The Capers of South Hempton had commissioned their newsboy to follow the last article up with another – one that pleaded with anyone who might be able to shed insight on what had happened t
o their neighbors the Baltanes, before such mischief demanded further price in the neighborhood.
Please, it read. Anyone who can shed
even a morsel of light on this tragedy;
anyone who can so much as presume to
tell us what It wants.
We fear for our lives. For our children's
lives. It is in our neighborhood, with a
keen appetite, and there is nowhere else
to go – save the open city, which was
always so much worse than the haven
of home. Until now. Gods, please tell us
that is not the hope that we are reduced to.
Please come.
Anyone.
Before our luck that feels increasingly
like cheating fate runs out.
I had managed to ignore the pull of the place the first time, but now it was more than intrigue aspiring to stake a summons. The notion of going to this place still felt like a distraction from the priority that was Tanen, but I wanted to touch the place with the same desire that had compelled me to touch him, and as recent happenings had proved, it was an end game that I was hard-pressed to deny.
It would likely be in my best interests – and Tanen's as well – for me to get the deed over with so the itch would rest, so I could concentrate on saving Tanen's soul without further distraction.
So I responded to the call. I simply marched back inside following my retrieval of the paper and announced:
“I'm going on a trip. I'll be gone for a time. Ombri can continue to tend the weedflowers in the case that it's more than a day. She's been doing it anyway.”
And I went to fill my pack.
None of us had ever 'gone on a trip' before. I was the only one that strayed from Manor Dorn at all, and even my lengthy absence out chasing Bailin hadn't been a conventional 'trip'. It had been an estranged errand that kept me out there, improvising until I could work my way out of it. I had certainly never packed to go on a trip. Planned it and executed it like a simple operation. One could not typically presume to pack a bag that would account for what they might encounter while hankering to go from one point to another.
But, well – given the opportunity to pack first, I wasn't going to not. Extra food and clothing (and a weapon thrown in here and there) were always prudent supplies to have on hand.
“Where is it you're going, minda?” Letta inquired a little wryly, following me into the next room. She saw the paper on my pallet, however, and moved to read for herself whatever had prompted this impromptu little excursion.
“The Baltane manor?” she asked. “Truly, minda, what has you so invested in things beyond your own lot, these days?”
“I can't explain it, Letta. Maybe, gods willing, in due time I will be able to.”
“Manor Dorn misses your faithful presence,” she noted. “Evidence of your absence creeps through the place. That corner of yours where the floor rots away is not as well tended, these days.”
I hadn't had the presence of mind to keep up with that, lately, had I? I needed more tiles.
But I would see about that when I got back. Right now, I had to go see the Baltane Manor. It was calling my name like a breathy demon in a nightmare, a nagging echo on the breeze. I had to make it stop.
“Take someone with you,” Letta urged, not one to sit by and watch me slip like I seemed to be doing.
“Who would I take, Letta? Everyone is needed here.”
“Take Tanen. We survived just fine without him before he came to us, and he's a good one to have as an escort across the rubble. He came all the way from Cathwade.”
“You don't have to remind me. And we survived just fine without him because I was here to do many of the tasks he has taken up in my absences. We need him.”
“Words I never thought I'd hear glide from your mouth.”
Well, things had changed, hadn't they?
“We have Victoria and Ombri, now,” Letta reminded me. “We can manage. Take him with you, Vant.”
I caved. “As you wish. We shouldn't be gone too long.” I didn't mind Tanen's presence as much, anymore, it would just be harder to concentrate on the Baltane issue with a greater issue tagging along after all. But I had no desire to stand around arguing. Time was rather of the essence in my life, nowadays, and I was on a schedule with this.
“Godspeed, minda. I hope you have some misplaced sense of what you're doing.”
*
Manor Baltane was a mansion. Manor Dorn was well enough, but it did not compare to the bulk and grandeur of the place that I stood before later that day, my sullied skirt hem billowing over the rubble-gravel street. Valchester Lane was the name of the street, respectively, but it was hardly respectable anymore. It was not nearly as bad as some, but it had certainly crumbled from its glory days as the smooth, sweeping avenue it had surely been.
I clutched the strap of my pack at my shoulder, gazing up at the great diseased entity that had been calling me to its side. Tanen stood at my flank, gazing up likewise. It had taken us a good number of hours to reach the place, trudging over the rubble, and we were both sweaty and powder-streaked and ready to be at journey's end. We had rested once, to eat and drink, and then we'd been on our way again. My feet were sore. I was sure his were too.
“Shall we knock?” Tanen proposed.
I surveyed the top balcony of the place, then decided we might as well. I moved forward, hearing Tanen scuff to life behind me, and we went to the door and knocked on its vast, bold, ornate black pane. I had not knocked on a door for almost as long as I could remember. Only once or twice had I had the chance, running some errand or other as a young child for the circle I was born into. Before the mischief had completely stopped people from being neighborly. Before I had been sold to the Dorns, and thrust out into the isolated, rural countryside.
We waited a good few moments before someone came to the door, but then the great latch was thrown back, and the slab creaked inward. The dark face of a lovely young slave woman peered out, taking in the two unfamiliar whiteskins come calling.
“May I help you?” she asked. She had a more sober face than Letta.
“I come on behalf of the Capers,” I said. “In the paper, they asked...” I didn't rightly know how to put it, but it seemed she had read the paper.
“You've come to investigate. You?”
Perhaps I did not fit the bill of an investigator. “Yes.”
She glanced at Tanen, then back at me. “Be warned, whiteskins do not fare well within these walls.”
I couldn't very well explain to her that I was a slave and why I therefore did not fear the same fate as Master whiteskins, or that Tanen was a ward of mine who had nothing to fear in all the world until the protection I had secured wore off, so I simply gave a curt not, acknowledging the warning. “We bear right of passage,” I assured her.
And so she stood back, and let the door fall farther inward. The cool darkness of the interior washed over us, breathing us in, and I let it draw me in like a subtle vortex, stepping over that threshold followed closely by Tanen.
They kept the drapes drawn, much as we did in Manor Dorn, but the drapes here were heavier, smothering the light almost as well as the walls themselves. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim pall, but then I was looking around at the vast, ornately done front room, with all of its beautiful, decaying décor, done in sullied burgundy and rotting mahogany. A spiraling staircase swept up to the second floor, its ebony balustrade looking rickety, the carpet of the stairs mangy and tattered. The landing fanned out, creating a railed balcony that encircled all four walls. Above that – far above it, it seemed, nearly in the rafters of the place, I could see a third floor, cloaked in high shadow.
“Don't linger near the drapes,” the slave woman advised as she closed the front door and drifted dismissively back through our midst. Was she to leave us by ourselves, then, to do as we pleased? Her gray attire sifted over the dislodging pulp of the rug underfoot as she retrea
ted into the interior of the place.
“What happens near the drapes?” Tanen asked, and she stopped at the end of the rug to spare him an answer.
“They swallow people like you,” she said to him, and further questions refrained from pressing elaboration. Then the slave woman retreated into another room, leaving us to the business we had come for. Tanen stood by my side looking about, not knowing precisely what it was we were to do. I looked around a bit more deliberately, taking in the essence of the place, deciding on my first area of interest.
A grandfather clock ticked in the corner, but the hands both pointed directly down, hanging loosely from their mooring. With every tick, one of them took the first step to making its erstwhile rounds, but fell back with the other one after only that first margin. A great crystal chandelier was suspended in the vast emptiness overhead, covered in cobweb and...moss. Fancy furniture and decorations stood about, everything sullied or cracked. One lovely little statuette of a lady had lost its face; only a chipped void remained, the face itself lying intact on the table at the statue's feet.
She gazed up at the world from her feet... I thought poetically, then shook the disturbing image from my head and moved on, stepping away from the center of the room to wander toward the edges. Those heavy, dark velvet curtains looked like a lush cache of mischief, ripe for disturbing where they hung in leaden dormancy over the windows. How long had they shut out the light? Smothering it, banishing it, repressing it like the plague itself? Half of me wanted to rebelliously throw those drapes open. The other half, of course, while not afraid, was wary still of what touching them might stir up.
On closer inspection, I saw that the rich velvet of the curtains was pock-marked with holes, as if eaten by moths. Some of these holes were singed around the edges. But they were more like sores, weren't they, I thought – because they had indeed not been eaten by moths, or singed by flame. They were symptoms of the disease.
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