Gingerly, she made her way into the water, venturing in up to her waist, then up to her breasts, the muscles in her belly clenched tightly with fear as she made her way deeper into this unfamiliar, and potentially deadly, environment. “Reza,” she whispered hoarsely, “where are you?”
***
Spots were dancing before Reza’s eyes, bright stars in the blackness of the tunnel he had ventured into. His lungs burning for want of oxygen, he groped in the darkness with his hands, seeking a way out of the trap he had gotten himself into. He cursed himself for following the tunnel until the light was gone. I’ve got to find a way out, he thought frantically. He waved his hands across the water-worn rock ever faster in hopes of finding his way back.
Suddenly, his left hand found an empty place, and he quickly followed it to find smooth rock leading upward through the darkness. He kicked hard, driving himself through the water in a desperate race for air, his muscles tingling with the pricks of invisible needles and his lungs threatening to explode with pain.
He suddenly burst from the water into blessed air. He stayed where he was for a moment, treading water while sucking in deep breaths of the cool damp air that caressed his face. He thought he might have gone temporarily blind, for when the dazzles cleared from his eyes, he could see nothing at all. But after a moment he did see something in his peripheral vision, a dim reddish glow that had no particular shape and did not move, but hung suspended in space above the water to his right. Swimming slowly toward it, his foot struck a submerged ledge and he let out a startled cry of pain.
More carefully, he moved closer to the glowing thing. The bottom of what he now took to be some kind of cavern rose higher until it finally broached the water’s surface like a boat landing, and Reza found himself standing on dry rock in a low chamber.
Putting his hand out, he touched the red glowing thing that was brighter now as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. His hand touched something soft and spongy, yet resilient enough that nothing stuck to his fingers when he pulled them away. The thing pulsed more brightly for a moment, then returned to its earlier state. It must be some kind of plant, Reza thought, unconsciously rubbing his hand on his naked thigh, vaguely repelled by the way the thing had felt to his touch.
Putting his hands to the walls, he moved about the chamber until he came to a large fissure that led upward, toward where he heard the waterfall’s roar more clearly. Carefully placing his hands and feet, he climbed into the fissure, plenty wide for his lean body, and began working his way upward.
He had only gone a few meters when light began to trickle down the shaft, growing steadily stronger as did the sound of rushing water. Suddenly he found himself standing in another cavern, much larger than the first tiny vestibule: it was like an open balcony that lay directly behind the waterfall, a vertical crack in the caldera’s face forming a window from which Reza could see the water cascade past as it fell to the pool below.
“Incredible,” he whispered, awed by the miraculous luck that had brought him here. The cavern itself was completely dry except for some spray that coated the edge near the waterfall. He walked over and put his hand out to intercept the falling water, bringing a handful to his mouth and drinking.
“Reza!” he heard a voice call, barely audible over the crashing of the waterfall. “Where are you?”
“Esah-Zhurah!” he shouted, peering through the waterfall to try and catch a glimpse of her, but he could see nothing past the shimmering blue and green wall of water. “Up here!”
“Reza!” he heard again. The concern in her voice was unmistakable, and he quickly decided to return to her, eager to tell her of his discovery.
“I am coming!” he shouted, hoping that she would be able to hear him.
***
Daring to go no further into the water, Esah-Zhurah stood breast-deep, calling repeatedly to Reza. Once, she thought she heard his voice, but after that there had been only silence.
Finally, overcome by a sense of anguish that she would never dare admit to any but the priestess or the Empress herself, she turned and began to trudge back to the shore, convinced Reza was dead.
Such then, was her surprise when he burst from the surface near the waterfall.
“Esah-Zhurah!” he cried excitedly after he drew in a single deep breath to replenish his lungs. The return trip had been much easier than had been the way in, and he had reached the grotto pool long before his lungs had begun to burn. “I found a way behind the waterfall! You will not believe it!”
Her heart hammering with relief, she waded back into the water and took him by the arms as he swam toward her.
“Never do that again,” she scolded him, trying to conceal her relief with an angry façade. “Never! I forbid it.”
“But,” Reza stammered, totally confused and ignorant of the thought that she might actually have been concerned for his welfare, “it is incredible. You must see it.” He pointed to the waterfall. “Up there, there is a cave that–”
“It matters not,” she said sharply, cutting him off. “The priestess would be angry with me if I let you perish during the free time before your first Challenge. You will not disobey me again.” Her eyes carried the look that Reza had come to understand well: punishment was close at hand. And both of them knew she was his physical superior.
For now, Reza thought coldly. His spirits wilted like flowers put to the torch, and he lowered his gaze. He swiped angrily at the water with one hand, sending a flurry of droplets out into the pool.
“Yes, Esah-Zhurah,” he murmured, trying to contain his anger and disappointment.
“If you would like,” she went on, satisfied that he understood that she was serious, “you may try and capture some of the swimming things; I think I can prepare them in a way you would find acceptable. The ones with red stripes and yellow tails are good to eat, as are the violet sponge plants. The others are poisonous to us, and probably to you, also.” She looked at the fading light in the caldera as the afternoon drifted toward evening. “You must hurry, for they hide in the rocks at night.”
Nodding, but saying nothing, Reza swirled past her on his way out of the pool, stomping onto the beach to retrieve his knife. He returned to the water, but did not look at her. His knife held tightly in his hand, he swam through the water, hunting alone.
***
Esah-Zhurah lay against the side of the rock enclave that served as their camp within the caldera. She silently observed Reza as he stared off toward the waterfall, which now was backlit by thousands of tiny iridescent flora that made the water glow topaz in the absolute darkness within the grotto.
After their dinner, of which Reza had eaten surprisingly little, he had quietly excused himself and taken up a seat on the far side of the enclave from her, and said nothing since. It was a stark contrast to most of the nights they spent together, when Reza would ask one of his ever more complex questions about Her people and the Way. They were questions that were becoming increasingly difficult to answer and challenged Esah-Zhurah’s own understanding of her culture. Sometimes they would spend hours this way after their training day had ended, stopping only when Reza’s seemingly insatiable curiosity at last was put to rest, or Esah-Zhurah forced him to go to sleep, postponing the session’s completion until the following evening. It was a ritual she had come to secretly enjoy, so different was it from the normally quiet and contemplative lives of the initiate tresh. And since Reza had begun to speak the Empress’s tongue well, he constantly asked questions, wanting to know more, to learn.
But tonight he had been silent as the stone around them, and it concerned her for a reason she could not quite identify.
As if anticipating her question, he suddenly turned to her, the low fire dancing in his green eyes.
“Would you tell me just one thing?” he asked softly above the murmur of the waterfall.
“If I am able,” she said carefully, kneeling closer to the fire, and to him.
“When I step into the arena, to face my first Chal
lenge,” he said evenly, “do you hope I will die?”
The question caught her completely by surprise. She opened her mouth, but no words came forth, for she truly did not know at that moment how she might answer him truthfully. She snapped her mouth shut, her face twisting into a mask of concentration.
Is that what I wish? she asked herself. Do I honestly hope that he will die, this creature with whom I have spent so long, this animal with whom I have lived and suffered, to whom I have betrothed myself as a tresh? Despite all the things she had ever imagined or been taught, she had come to feel a sense of pride in Reza, a pride that was more than one should feel for teaching an animal tricks, as the handlers were sometimes wont to do. She knew that he must hate her, must despise her entire race, and she often sought to use that as a weapon against him, to break him down, to make him fail.
But he had only become more determined, rising unfailingly to every test she put before him. His success or failure was, at that stage, immaterial; he consistently made the attempt, and that is what counted, all that mattered. Gradually, his perseverance had paid off. Many of the peers were discreetly jealous of her tresh, if that was possible. She herself had become possessed of a strange fondness for him, despite the revulsion she felt toward his species, despite the continued irrepressible urge to force him to her will, to show her own superiority, a superiority that she knew was fading as he grew stronger, quicker. If only his blood would sing, she often cried to herself. If only his spirit – if he possessed one – would show itself, all could be… different, in a way she was afraid to fully imagine.
If only his blood would sing…
Turning back to meet his glowing eyes, she knew in her heart that he must someday die, that he would – no, that he must – never leave the Homeworld alive. But she could not find it in herself to wish it upon him.
“Reza…” she said, trying to find a way of saying what she felt without exposing the weakness she had developed toward him. “The oath you took when you were brought into the kazha, the oath by which you bound yourself as a tresh, I also have taken, though long before you came to me. It is an oath taken only once in life, but it lasts for as long as the heart beats, as long as two work together as one, as tresh. The one to whom I was bound, cycles ago, died in a… training accident, you might call it. But my obligations to her honor were passed on to you when I was called upon to become your tresh. Your teacher. And in that capacity, I can be nothing but pleased, for you have learned well, animal – human – or no.” She looked away toward the water, struggling to admit what she had to say. “There will come a day, my tresh, when your blood will soak the sands of the arena,” she told him, her claws digging silently into the rock as she willed the words forward, as if her throat was suddenly too small to contain them. “But I shall not rejoice in it.”
She could see relief wash over Reza’s face. She was surprised how well she could interpret his body language, not because she could understand that of the humans, but because the language of his body had become Kreelan.
“Esah-Zhurah…” he said. Then he stopped, not sure how to continue.
She watched as he struggled with himself for a moment, until the strange strength that dwelt within him surfaced, washing away the creases of doubt on his face.
“There is much for which I feel compelled to hate you, to hate your kind,” he explained, his eyes drawn to the fire as if in search of the meaning of his fate. “For the deaths of my parents, at the hands of the priestess herself. For the destruction of the world of my birth, and the many lives that perished there. For the destruction of the planet from which I was taken, a world I often hated, but which I had come to call home. And for all of the death that has been wrought upon my people, on a scale I will never be able to understand, and will never truly be able to feel in my heart.” He looked up at her, his face betraying an open vulnerability that shocked her as strongly as if she had been doused with freezing water. “For all this, I cannot find it in me to truly hate you, my tresh, my teacher. There are many among my kind who would condemn me to death as a traitor for those words, but they are nonetheless true, and to deny them, or leave them unspoken, would be to lie to myself.” He looked back to the fire, helplessly. “There was a time, not so long ago,” he whispered, “when I wanted to beat you, to destroy you, to make you feel pain a thousand times what I felt every time you beat me. But…” he shrugged. “But I found, after a while, that I wanted your respect, your trust, more than anything else.” He fell silent for a moment. “The greatest fear I have,” he went on, “is that I will fail you, will bring shame upon you. And that… you will shun me.”
Esah-Zhurah did not know what to say. Never had she thought such a time as this would come, when this human, so full of fight and anger, would reveal such a thing to her, something that could be exploited as a terrible weakness.
But that was the point, she told herself. He had laid himself open to her, in hopes that she would not turn his words against him, that he could trust her. And, in a decision that shocked the part of her mind that carried the xenophobic character of her race, a race that had exterminated over a dozen sentient species in past millennia, she committed herself to guarding his trust.
“I will not abandon you,” she said simply, openly. “Whatever the Way brings us, we shall share in it together.”
***
Later, after they had banked the fire and lay down for the night, Reza remained awake. His mind was consumed by thoughts that swirled and circled like wolves around a stricken deer, darting just to the edge of focus before they faded into the shadowy darkness once more. The more he watched them, the more they seemed to carry the faces of people he had once known, some of them of a kind his people called “friends,” a relationship that did not exist among the society that had kidnapped him.
One of the wolf faces, an old man with the eyes of a young warrior, especially troubled him. The eyes did not accuse, but Reza could not help but feel that he had somehow betrayed the being that lay behind the mask that lunged and retreated within his mind.
Wiley, he suddenly thought, wincing at the foreign sound of the name even as he breathed it in his mind, am I a traitor?
“Do whatever you can to stay alive, son,” the old colonel had said that day so long ago, “If anybody can make it, you can…”
Wiley, Reza cried to himself, must I become one of them to make it? Do I have any choice? For just a moment, he bitterly resented the old man’s leaving him, going off to die himself as Reza was taken by the cruel fate that had pursued him since the fall of New Constantinople.
But the moment blinked away into nothingness, just as the wolfish thought-face blurred into oblivion. Wiley had been wise enough to know when it was time to die, and had done so with the dignity of soldiers throughout history who had made one last, hopeless stand against the invaders of their homeland. And, aside from the admission letter he had given Reza for the academy, the old man had left Reza with the only other gift he could give: a chance at life. And Reza knew then that if he chose to trust this alien girl, to allow himself that vital weakness before her, Wiley would understand.
Slowly, the beasts in his brain retreated into the darkness, only their glittering eyes remaining, flickering in the glow of the fire.
He blinked, but the glowing eyes remained. Suddenly, he realized that he was seeing the silvery glint of Esah-Zhurah’s talons. Her hands lay on the skins near her face, the ebbing firelight making them twinkle like stars against the satiny glow of her deep blue skin as she slept. Reza felt another sudden twinge of guilt at the thought of how much he had come to need her, to rely on her. Worse, he found that he was beginning to like her.
What might things be like, he thought, should she someday come to lead her people? Would her association with him have any effect, make any difference in how they viewed humanity? It was difficult for a boy, struggling simply to remain human, let alone to become a man, to comprehend the fact that he was an ambassador, of sorts, to these pe
ople. While this particular course of his life had not been chosen willingly, he was nonetheless determined to make the best impression he could, to do whatever he could to help the people of his own blood. Who could tell, he asked himself, if the girl who lay asleep an arm’s length away might not someday sit on the throne that commanded the Empire? The thought settled onto his brain like an insistent ache, an itch that insisted it be scratched.
“Esah-Zhurah,” he said quietly, hating to disturb her, but unable to put off the question until morning.
Her eyes flickered open and she looked around, confused. “What is wrong?” she asked, one hand instinctively reaching for the knife that lay nearby.
“Nothing is wrong,” he told her, ashamed now for awaking her. But the question in his brain pounded against his skull. “Nothing. It is just that… I have to ask you something. I am sorry, but I did not think it could wait until morning.”
Ah, she thought, he is back to his normal inquisitive self. Good. Even after the revelations earlier in the evening, he had still remained uncharacteristically quiet, and this urgent need for information reassured her that all was yet well. She knew that he would have to discipline himself against the urgency of his curiosity, but this was not yet something she thought fitting to punish or dissuade; in fact, it was a vice she found enjoyable. “What is it,” she asked, “that cannot wait for the light of the sun?”
For a moment, Reza was almost afraid to answer, suddenly realizing that she had taught him virtually nothing about the succession rites, that his question might put him on perilously thin ice culturally: matters regarding the Empress were not to be addressed lightly. It was something they’d never talked about before.
“I was wondering,” he began, swallowing as he forged ahead, “how… the Empress is chosen. I mean, could you someday become Empress?”
Esah-Zhurah’s expression clouded, became unreadable. Reza feared that he had made a major blunder.
“No, Reza,” she told him after a moment. She spoke not with anger, but with sadness. “Of all the things I may accomplish in my life, I may never become Empress.” She paused. “Never.”
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