by Sharon Green
A table against the side wall held half-a-dozen dishes of food, and a prettily carved panel slid aside to show a wide selection of women's clothing. I had an idea that Clero and his closest cronies made a habit of sitting in the comfortable chairs in that room and nibbling at the food while they played dress-up with their living toys.
I could only guess at how stimulating it was for those men, to have what looked to be high-born women in front of them and be able to do anything they pleased with those women. To order their toys to strip naked, and then watch as they put on what they were told to put on.
Or to have one put on nothing at all while the others dressed to the teeth. I shook my head as I helped myself to a side of cold roast fowl, then carried the food to the closet. I usually try not to make value judgments on what other people consider fun, but the men of that planet were just too much.
It didn't take long to make my choice among the clothing, and the choice was perfect for my needs. The outfit looked like a regular dress but it was a riding dress, the two legs of the pants-equivalent flowing together to disguise its nature. It would give me as much moving room as I needed without being obvious about it, and there was even a cape and a pair of boots that fit reasonably well. I pulled out the items I needed, took another bite of the roast whatever, then began to get dressed.
By the time the dress and boots were on and closed, there wasn't much left of the roast. I chewed the last of the meat off the bones, tossed away the half skeleton and wiped my hands on a delicately embroidered cloth, then wasted another couple of seconds looking for something to drink. There was nothing on the table but a thick, heavy wine, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Water would have been perfect, but water was much too common for the people who used this room. I made a small sound of disgust, turned away from the table - then stood very still.
"I do hope you are not thinking of leaving us, my dear," Prince Clero said smoothly, that beautiful smile aimed directly at me as he looked me over. "You would surely wound my self-conception as a host - in addition to disappointing my other guests."
"Allow me to suggest that you entertain your other guests personally," I said, cursing the fact that he'd felt the urge to take a walk, but relieved to see that he was alone. If he'd had a bunch of guards with him, it might have gotten sticky. "Your guests would surely enjoy the opportunity of doing to you what you so often do to others."
"I do not allow impertinence to my slaves!" he snapped, taking one angry step toward me. "Nor do I allow certain of them clothing! You may now remove those things and put yourself at my feet for the beating you have earned! You have my word that you will be well punished before you are again allowed to serve!"
I gasped and doubled over as he hit me with the keying word, finding it impossible to touch myself despite the screaming flames racing through me. I'd been conditioned against touching myself at a time like that, and I went to my knees with the effort of trying to fight back. And then I felt myself pushed flat to the carpeting, and a hand moved deliberately under one leg of the riding dress and all the way up to its target.
"You are helpless to do other than obey me, slave," Clero gloated as I cried out against the way his hand began to control me. "You may struggle and cry and dream of disobedience, and yet you will not disobey. Your master will not allow you to disobey. He will allow you no more than a taste of the whip."
I lay face down on the carpeting, leaning on the top of my forehead, my hands clawing at the nap for the double grip I needed so badly, my body twisting and writhing to Clero's merciless urgings. I'd been conditioned as a slave and I was reacting like one, but I wasn't a slave. I was free, damn it, and no one could touch me like that or whip me and get away with it! No one!
I tried to break loose from what Clero was doing, moaned when I couldn't, and then felt the fear. If I didn't get loose he would have me to whip forever, and the rage and terror of that thought rose up so strongly that I was able to feel nothing else. The strength of panic let me push myself into a sideways roll, and as I rolled I brought my feet up and hit Clero right in the face.
There was no skill or damaging strength in that double desperation kick, but it was enough to knock the man away from me. I rolled two more times, threw myself to my feet with the last roll, then grabbed the sword I'd taken from the first guard and turned to face Clero.
The prince was rising slowly to his feet, one hand to the bleeding cut on his lip, his insane eyes seeing nothing of the way I struggled to calm my breathing. He lowered his hand and saw the blood on it, raised those eyes to me again, and a blood-chilling growl escaped his throat.
"You would dare!" he hissed, all rationality gone as he held his hand out toward me, his very round eyes blazing. "I will one day be king, and yet you dared to strike at me! At me! For that I will mark you so that no one will ever again look upon you without the need to shudder! You will live on and on, suffering the most horrible tortures I am able to devise! You will regret many times over the sin you have committed, yet there will be no surcease! None! You have the word of a king!"
He drew his sword slowly and began to advance on me, and I wondered if he realized that I stood there with my own sword. He was so far out of it that all he wanted to do was carve me up, but his ranting had given me the time I needed to steady down. My nerves still felt raw and bloody, but at least my hand was steady as I stepped out a short way to meet him.
Clero closed the distance between us and swung at my face with his point, his intention obvious and easy to parry. I ducked his backswing and parried four more wild tries at my face, and then a few more threads in his mind snapped. He voiced a terrible scream and attacked without any attempt at defending himself, a sudden all-out rush that usually demoralizes an opponent enough to let your point reach his middle. Clero seemed to have given up on his previous ideas and was now trying to put an end to me, and my arm felt the jarring shock every time our blades met.
I backed a couple of steps against the onslaught, knowing I couldn't stand long against his hysterical strength, but I couldn't disengage and I was running out of backing room. I could feel the sweat on my forehead - and the way my whole body ached - and then all of that was gone from my awareness. For a split second there was an opening through Clero's wild swings, and instinct took over.
I beat his blade aside and lunged for him with every ounce of speed I possessed - and only just made it. My blade sunk deep into the middle of his chest, but his gouged along my ribs, no more than an inch away from doing some real damage. Pain flared wildly in my side as I yanked my blade free, but at least I was still in a condition to notice pain.
Prince Clero was beyond that, his mad eyes glazing over even as he crumpled to the carpeting at my feet. I watched him all the way down before grabbing my cape and putting it on, then, with sword held somewhat firmly ahead of me, got the hell out of there.
There was a guard at the bottom of the spiraling stone staircase, but unfortunately for him he was taking a stretch with his back to the stairs when I reached bottom. I don't think I killed him, but if the hilt of my sword didn't give him a skull fracture, the Lord of Luck was guarding him. I stepped over his body and eased my way outside, then dived into the deepening shadows around the tower's base.
The tower stood a good distance from Clero's keep, but it still took some skill and effort to cross the open space without being seen, even with twilight and a dark cape both doing their bit to help. I was prepared to walk away from that place if I had to, but one of Clero's mounted guards spotted me once I made the woods. He came galloping up with the clear intention of making a fight of it, but then he saw I was female.
There was just enough light to make out his grin, and then he resheathed his sword and started to dismount. I felt absolutely no hesitation about putting my point in his back, and then stepping on his body to reach his vair's saddle; playing fair when your life is at stake is a pastime for professional suicides. I turned the vair in the direction that should have been south, and du
g my heels in.
I was able to put a decent number of miles behind me before I absolutely had to stop. The pain in my side was sharp enough to let me know it was there, but that wasn't the main problem. I knew the wound was still bleeding, because the entire left side of my riding dress was warm and soggy and slowly getting soggier. The night was dark now, but a single moon shone brightly almost directly over my head, and I wondered if Dameron was looking down at me while I was looking up at him.
The air smelled woodsy-fresh and damp with a light breeze blowing enough to feather my hair, but I could still smell vair sweat from the way I'd pushed my mount. The leather smell of the saddle added itself to the rest until I began to feel queasy. I drew rein beside a small stand of thin trees, dismounted and tied the vair, then walked a few steps away before beginning to tear up my cape lining. The makeshift bandages should take care of the bleeding, but I needed a few lungsful of clean air to settle my stomach. I had no idea how much farther I would have to go before I was picked up, and nausea has never been my favorite riding companion.
I gave myself no more than ten minutes before moving on again. The chirping, creaking quiet of the woods was reassuring, and I rode quietly enough so as not to disturb the denizens around and about me. My vair moved at the slow pace without fighting it, his head nodding up and down in the rhythm of his gait, his breath coming out softly explosive when the scent of something he didn't like came to him. I patted his soft neck and spoke quietly but reassuringly, and he let the scent of whatever it had been pass by with nothing more than a slight shiver.
Another couple of hours went by, and I was trying to decide whether or not to give myself a short break when the vair found a stream. I didn't know if he was thirsty, but my mouth felt like a sandstorm in a desert and the calm gurgling in the quiet of the night was pure magnet to the iron in my blood - or what there was left of it.
I rode close to the stream and dismounted stiffly, holding the vair's rein as I knelt down and bent forward. My lips appreciated the ice-cold water more than my palm did, and there was a satisfied stirring in my mind as I drank, reminding me for the first time in hours that Bellna was still around. There seemed to be a faint hint of fear left around her thoughts, and she was steadfastly refusing to think about what had happened in Clero's tower.
All she knew was that she had gotten herself out of the mess without help from anyone, and if I'd had the strength I would have been furious. She was nothing but a parasite, and if I could have gotten rid of her in any way short of half killing myself, I would have done it on the spot.
The vair next to me was standing with his head up, sniffing the air, making no attempt to drink from the stream. He seemed to be nervous about something, but he'd shown himself to be a sensible beast, alert but not skittish, and I knew he would drink when he felt it safe to do so. I leaned forward again, to scoop up more of that sparkling water, and the scream came so loud and close that my blood temperature dropped ten degrees below that of the stream water.
The vair went flying off in three directions at once, sounding a fear-filled echo to the original scream, but I was still holding onto his rein. When he found he couldn't take off horizontally, he opted for vertical hysteria and reared straight up, pawing the air. I had a fast, confused picture of hooves rising above me, and then I was flying into the stream, no longer holding onto a rein.
The ice cold water closed over my head, but I clawed my way back up to the surface, fighting the faint stream current and my suddenly steel-heavy clothes. The pain in my side seemed frozen in shock, so I took advantage of the fact to pull myself back to the bank and up onto it, where I lay still long enough to let my heart start beating again.
When I finally sat up, achingly aware of Bellna's blubbering inside my head, the first sight that met my eyes was that of the vair, standing no more than ten feet away, calmly chewing at the grass in the moonlight. Whatever that original scream had meant, whatever had scared the living hell out of the beast, it was obviously long gone and no longer worth worrying about.
My side stabbed harder than it had originally, I was sure the wound was bleeding again - if the bleeding had ever stopped - my head ached, my lungs ached, and I was soaked head-to-toe all the way down to my skin, but there was nothing to worry about. I climbed to my feet muttering a few comments about how good vair steaks would probably be, then went to reclaim my transportation. At least with all the water I'd swallowed I wasn't thirsty anymore.
I continued on through the dark woods, but the simple presence of water added a large messy complication to the trip. The night had been cool but bearable before my stop at the stream, but the presence of sopping wet clothes and hair changed cool and bearable to cold and shiver-making. The riding dress clung to me all over, the cape weighed an ice-cold ton, and my feet squished in the boots that had once protected them from the damp.
Just to make things even better, the breeze had stiffened enough to be noticeable, pulling at the wet strands of my hair with cold, invisible fingers. It took almost no time before I was shuddering violently, having trouble with even so simple a thing as holding onto the reins.
The vair snorted and danced, wondering what was going on, and I tried to talk myself into taking off the wet clothes, knowing I'd dry out quicker without them, but I couldn't do it. I was already so cold that I couldn't stand the thought of being bare in that wind, having nothing to keep its full breath from me. I shivered and shook, and wished to hell that I had even a thin green shawl that was dry and warm.
After a long time the shivering subsided, but I almost didn't notice that it had stopped. My entire body had begun to ache, I was having trouble sitting straight in the saddle, and my face felt as though it were burning up. I saw the moon again and remembered all the inoculations I'd been given up there, wondered why the hell they had bothered, then gave up on wondering. I had a bad fever, probably an infection to go along with it, and I didn't even know where the problems had come from.
Not long after that, the moonlight took to rippling. It danced all around me, making the dark ripple with it, and my head pounded with thunder that had come out of nowhere. I was riding something, going somewhere, but I couldn't remember what or where. There seemed to be trees all around, waving tall and dark through the night, getting in my way, stopping me, making me turn back.
A faint, faraway voice screamed through the thunder, but I couldn't make out what it was saying, and didn't really care. A heavy weight hung at my waist and I almost took it off and threw it away, but my left arm wasn't moving well and I couldn't fumble the buckle open.
Then I was riding through a cleared area between the trees, an area the trees had left clear, a broad, dirt and stone emptiness that I could ride on. It went on for a long while, the moonlight rippling, the thunder pounding, and then the moonlight fell from the sky and stuck to the dark in front of me, lighting up part of it in funny-looking squares.
I peered at the squares as whatever I rode moved closer, and finally decided that the odd-looking squares were the windows of a house, a three-story house. I leaned heavily on my mount's neck and stared at the house, and after a while realized that it wasn't getting any closer. My mount had stopped almost directly in front of the house, and maybe the house was where I had been going.
I slid off my mount's back, nearly going all the way down to the ground, but my feet stayed under me and my knees firmed up a little, so I left whatever I'd been riding and made for a lopsided door. The door swayed back and forth, shimmering the way the dark had shimmered, but I grabbed for the doorknob to hold the door still and it finally settled down enough so I could open it.
Inside was nothing I knew, nothing that had been expecting me. My eyes slitted against the bright lamplight as I moved forward, looking at strangers seated at long tables whose conversation didn't quite penetrate the thunder in my head. I suddenly realized how warm it was in the room with heat pouring out of the fireplace, and fought with the catch that held my cape closed until it clicked ope
n and let the cape fall to the floor behind me. Some of the strangers in the wavering room had been staring at me, but once the cape was gone one of them suddenly appeared in front of me. He wasn't very tall, but he was very fat, and his fat face frowned as his piggy eyes looked me up and down.
"Who are you, wench?" he demanded, his words and accent strange and harsh against the pounding in my ears. "How dare you enter my house so covered with wet and filth, and how dare you wear a man's weapon?"
It took a minute before I understood what he was saying, and then I started to get mad. Nobody talks to a Special Agent like that unless they're tired of living. Ringer would be mad as hell if I killed the jerk and caused an Incident, but Ringer wasn't here right now and I couldn't even remember what my assignment was.
Getting mad had made my head hurt worse, and that stupid fat man was to blame. If I killed him, maybe Ringer would never know. I moved my hand to the back of my neck, looking for the knife that was usually sheathed there, but it was gone. I didn't remember taking the knife off, and the fat man was shouting at me again, and my left hand brushed up against the weight hanging at my left side.
I reached for the weight right-handed and found a sword in my grip, noticing the dry, red-brown stains with disapproval. You never leave blood on a weapon you've used, not unless you expect to use it again very soon. I looked up from the blood to the shouting fat man, and felt the disapproval vanish. I'd used the weapon and bloodied it, and now was about to use it again. I'd clean it right as soon as I was through using it.
Walking was hard on the tilted wooden floor of the house, but I had to walk on it to reach the fat man. He saw me coming and his face paled as his hands rose protectively in front of him, but that wouldn't do him any good. He'd find out what it meant to challenge a Special Agent, but the knowledge wouldn't do him much good either. Cold-blooded killers, some people called us, and saviors of the Federation, said others, and the hell of it was they were all right - and all wrong.