by G. Howell
Hands laid on my shoulder and I yelped aloud as claws were used and something struck the back of my legs. Hard. They buckled and with a clattering of irons and a gasp I went to my knees on the rug before the desk, kneeling naked before the watching aliens. Clawed hands pressing on my shoulders made sure I didn’t get up.
The Mediator Lord there cocked his head then waved a hand toward the guards behind me, “Thank you, First. Leave us, please. Wait outside.”
They released me and stepped away, then equipment rattled quietly as the guards shifted and filed out. Suddenly the room was a lot emptier and it was quiet while the one behind the desk studied me. No guards, but they were all Mediators. They outnumbered me and I didn’t doubt that they were all quite capable of taking care of themselves. I could feel my heart drubbing like an engine; my mouth was dry, palms slick; I was sweating. If they were going to kill me, would they do it on an expensive rug?
Finally there was a flick of that ragged ear and he glanced toward Shyia. “This is what’s responsible for all this trouble. You’re familiar with it?”
“We have met before. A while ago. I was familiar with him then.”
“It’s changed since then?”
“There seem to be a number of scars that weren’t present the last time we met, sir.”
“Are there, huhn,” he rumbled and narrowed his eyes as he looked me up and down. “And you would do this thing just for this... hairless ape?”
Shyia inclined his head slightly. “Sir, no. Not for him. For us.”
“You’re quite determined to follow that trail, a? After everything you’ve seen.”
“A, sir.”
The other huffed air, clicked claws on the ochre and gold parquet-inlaid desktop in a staccato ticking, and then addressed me directly. “You have a name. Micah?”
I looked down at the black iron manacles on my wrist and nodded. “Yes.”
“Ahhh,” ah Richtkah tipped his head slightly and asked, “Why did you come here?”
Was that a trick question? Here? Because they’d brought me? Because Hirht sent me? I guess my confusion must’ve manifested in some way obvious enough to someone who knew me.
“Why did you come here, to our lands,” Shyia elaborated with a quiet growl. “From your own.”
“That?” I turned, looking from one of the impassive Rris to the other. “I’ve told you. I don’t know. I was home, and then I was here. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand how it happened.”
“A,” the Mediator Lord acknowledged. “I was told strange things about you. Extraordinary things about you; that you claim to be from another world. That it is a world where... beings such as yourself – hairless apes – live in the place of Rris. This is true?”
He’d been told this, but he was asking me. I was too tired for these games. “Yes.”
“Huhn? A simpler explanation might be that you are from somewhere closer, from a land we haven’t discovered yet.”
I almost laughed. “I would like that to be true.”
“A? Why is that?”
“Because then I might have a hope of getting home.”
“You would if possible?”
I hesitated, not sure where these questions were leading. “Do you really think I want to be here? I don’t have much choice.”
“Or you’re here for a reason?”
“A reason?”
“That you’re here to watch us, to scout the way for others.”
It took a second before that made sense to me. “You think I’m a spy?” I said duly. “Is that what this is about?”
“I do find that the simplest explanations are usually the correct ones,” he said. Then lowered his muzzle as he added, “However, I have been informed that in your case this does seem unlikely. And there is this.”
My laptop. He produced it from a drawer, placed it on the desk and fumbled with the latch that would’ve been quite unfamiliar to him. “Both Commissioner ah Charis and Mediator ah Ehrasai said this was what helped persuade them. They say it showed views of your world. It does not seem to do that anymore,” he said as he opened the screen and turned it toward me. The password prompt was blinking quietly.
“It’s... locked.”
“Locked?” his ears pricked up. “You did this for a reason?”
I looked around to find the other Rris in the room were all staring at me. All of them watching intently. And Shyia tipped his head in a very slightly nod.
“Rris were ... taking information. Knowledge. About dangerous things that could hurt others.”
“You’re referring to weapons,” the Mediator Lord said.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly,” he repeated, then clicked claws on the table and pushed the laptop over. “Unlock this.”
It wasn’t a request, but I looked at the keyboard and then back at his face and drew myself up as best I could. “Why should I?”
The room was abruptly silent. Even more so, if that was possible. A soundless, tense, expectation. And he tipped his head slightly and slowly bared teeth in something which was far from a smile. “Because the Guild demands it,” he said quietly.
I swallowed and met those slitted eyes as steadily as I could. “The Mediator Guild?”
“Of course.”
“The last Mediator I met, she said she wanted that information for the Guild,” said a voice that was too level to be mine. “She said she was going to use it to bring peace by starting a war. That was... insane. It was something I wanted no part of. I should believe you’re different?”
Hisses of breath sounded from points around the room. Richtkah’s ears went down. “You should. What happened with aesh Raeshon was unpleasant and unfortunate. However, the unexpected resolution to that issue has changed many things.”
“I did notice that you’ve been trying to kill me and now you’ve got a perfect opportunity, you don’t use it. Perhaps it’s because of something I’ve got?”
“Presumptuous,” the Mediator Lord growled. “Because of what you’ve got, it would be better for all if you were dead. Sparks set another house afire and that’s why you’re still alive.”
I flinched back in shock. “Hey, I didn’t start any fires...”
“Figure of speech,” Shyia interrupted quietly.
“Oh.”
Richtkah gave Shyia a cool glance, then swung back to me. “We brought you here alive for a reason. Judgment has been questioned. Tribunal has been called. Guild Masters have gathered. There will be a decision, arm and hand and the claw. And the balance is in the evidence; for yourself as much as for us.”
“I don’t understand. Tribunal? I know the word but... what do you mean? Am I on trial?”
“No. I am.”
I stared, then screwed my eyes shut and shook my head, trying to clear it. When I looked around again at the other Rris in the room, the Mediators were watching me without showing any outward emotion. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what they wanted. If I keyed my password, would they just kill me once they thought they’d gotten access? What did he mean he was on trial? He was the Guild Lord. Shyia had said something...
He was sitting calmly, patiently at ease. And he tipped his head again, ever so slightly.
When I tried typing my password my hands were so unsteady I could hardly hit the keys. My fingers just didn’t want to go where I wanted them to. Chains rattled as I laboriously entered my passphrase and got it right on the second go...
My voice is my passport. Verify me.
The laptop chimed and flicked to desktop and a shot of earth, of the blue and green of the east coast of the US from space. Deskstat also said the batteries were at sixty percent and there’d been seventy two failed attempted logins. I leaned back, steadying myself.
Richtkah
beckoned Shyia forward and he knelt by the desk to take the laptop. His expression was almost comical: ears tipped, brow creased, tongue peeking from his muzzle as he hunted and pecked over the keyboard and screen. Then he turned the screen toward the Mediator Lord and I heard the music start, the screen sub swelling it to something that filled the room. It was the same clip I’d first shown him all that time ago: that montage of video clips of scenes from another world.
“Hai,” the Mediator Lord exclaimed, then leaned forward to peer intently at the screen. I could see his pupils dilate, then contract, his head moving in rapid little twitched as he scanned the display in front of him. The strains of Vanessa Mae pulsed from the laptop screen speaker, anachronistic in those surrounds. He pulled his head back and reach forward to poke at the screen, then reached behind it and touched the plastic there as though it was a trick magic box. His ears flicked back and the other Mediators in the room looked uncertain or curious or a mixture of both.
When the clip was done and the music had faded, Richtkah sat back on his cushion and cocked his head at the screen. “This is all?”
“No, sir, there is a lot more,” Shyia said. “Moving pictures like that, pictures and writing. Several libraries worth of books.”
“In this little box?” Richtkah’s ears laid back. “That’s not possible.”
“I assure you, sir, it is.”
“Huh,” he coughed and tapped at the laptop’s casing with a claw. “Do you know how it’s done?”
“Mikah has attempted to explain it. I’m not sure I understand. There are principles involved that I’m not sure anyone is familiar with. A variant of a Johis gear, perhaps.”
“And this has persuaded you his story is true?”
“Sir, there are pictures on there that show places that seem familiar, yet are completely different. There are maps that show his world in intricate detail. That very image there, he says it is a picture of his world from so high that the land lies like a map. Certainly, you can see the shoreline there.”
“That... the eastern shore? Bluebetter? What are those white patterns?”
“He says clouds, sir.”
“Clouds? From above?”
“Yes, sir. What you saw, those are moving pictures of his world. There are hundreds like that, and they all show a society that is aggressive and meddling and expansionist and more powerful than any country I know of. I think if they could have been here by now, they would have. Even if it is a fabrication, it’s one we couldn’t duplicate. It is probably more desirable that they are on another world than simply on another continent.”
The Mediator Lord turned to the other side, to the other three Rris who’d been sitting quietly, patiently. “Ah Charis, you support the Mediator’s assessment?”
“Yes, sir,” said one of those, a grizzled individual with fur that had been dark once and now was shot through with white swathes. Was he familiar? I wasn’t sure.
“And you’re willing to second him on this action.”
“Yes sir, I am. He’s always proven to be accurate and precise in his judgments. This time... it’s exceptional and I believe his actions are in accordance with the [something] of the situation.”
The Lord looked at the laptop again and flicked his ears. “Very well. And the images on this device show more of this creature’s home?”
“Yes, sir?”
“And you don’t believe they’re biased?”
“No.”
“I will want to see these.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I want that examined.” A hand flicked toward me. “Life-studiers, physiologers, doctors... the best available to tell us what it is. If there are any previous records or accounts of deformed apes.”
“Sir.”
“Excuse me,” I ventured.
Amber eyes locked on me. I saw nostrils flaring in hissing intakes of breath, but Richtkah growled, “Speak.”
“Can someone tell me what is going on? I don’t understand.”
Now he looked a little puzzled and gestured toward Shyia. “Mediator.”
“Sir, there’s a surprising amount about which he’s completely ignorant. Mikah, do you know tribunal?”
I tried to think back through all the lessons that’d been bounced off me over the past couple of years but it was a foggy molasses. I just couldn’t think. “I know word... the word, but I don’t know what means here.”
“Constable,” Richtkah said, “I suggest you find time at some point to further its... his education.”
“Yes, sir.”
“For now, remove him to holding,” he said, flicking a hand in dismissal. “Show me what else is on this device,” he said to Shyia, as if I were already gone.
Guards returned and furry hands with leathery palms caught my arms. I quickly tried to get up, to prevent those hands using claws to goad me along and adding to my collection of scratches, and the room seemed to float away to the side and then spun. I staggered, chains clattered, and I was down on hands and knees again, my eyes closed as waves of giddiness and prickling heat washed over me and I tried desperately not to throw up. Lines on my arms burned and someone was saying my name.
“Mikah!”
That was Shyia. I gasped air and tried to pull myself together, shaking. “I’m... all right,” I managed to say as I worked on standing up again, taking it one stage at a time.
“Is he ill?” Richtkah inquired.
Guards grabbed my arms and held tight this time as they half-hauled me to my feet. I must’ve been a weight for them, but they managed it. My legs... held, but my muscles were telling me they’d reached their limits. “Just tired.”
“Mikah,” Shyia’s eyes narrowed. “When was the last time you slept? Ate?”
I started to answer and then realized I had no idea. “I think... three days? I don’t know.”
“Huhn,” Shyia growled and looked to Richtkah, “Sir, with your permission?”
The Guild Lord gave a brisk flip of his hand and Shyia flowed to his feet, snapped another gesture to the guards. Moving my feet helped get the blood flowing again, which was a mixed blessing, but I was still staggering as they half-carried me out the door. In the hallway outside, Shyia spoke in low tones with one of the guards. What he was saying I really didn’t hear or care about. The guards let go of me and I saw their hands were smeared in blood. So were my arms. When I’d collapsed they’d grabbed at me with claws out, adding to my collection of scratches. Now I bore more matching red sets of slashes on both arms, stinging and seeping blood. A drop in the ocean of my problems.
Shyia and the other Mediator finished their quiet conversation. The guard ducked his head in acknowledgement and Shyia didn’t give me a second look as he returned to the office. The arabesque mosaic of a door swung closed behind him and the guards led me away.
That hole. I was dreading returning to that pit, but I didn’t have much of a choice. The guards weren’t dragging me. In fact, their hands helped steady me as I took the stairs one stone step at a time, a guard in front and behind and to either side. As we crossed through the foyer a trio of younger-looking Mediators stood aside and watched, staring at me as I passed by. Outside in the atrium, sunlight cut across the upper floors, lighting and warming the tiled roofs but leaving the lower garden in cool shade. There were more Mediators there: sitting on a stone bench eating something from a basket; reading quietly; playing a board game of some kind. More heads tracked us as we passed on through. Not, however, the way they’d brought me in.
Off to the left this time, to another wing. The corridor in that part of the building was whitewashed, with a ceiling of grey wood and a floor of clay-red glazed tiles with lighter grouting. Heavy black doors lined the right wall, each one spaced a few meters apart. My guards stopped at an open one and it was obvious where I was suppo
sed to go. Hesitantly, I limped to the threshold and stopped there. I’d seen a room like this before; I’d been in a room like this before: A compact cell with neatly tiled floor, white walls, a pallet of straw ticking, a small desk and chair, a narrow window high up in the wall admitting a slant of warm sunlight. There was a scent of soap, of lemons. It was a cell, but it was a far cry from that black pit under the ground.
I stepped in, then stopped and nervously looked back. A guard was standing in the door behind me. “The commander said that there would be food brought to you,” the Mediator said. I just nodded and was rewarded with a puzzled look, then the guard stepped back and the heavy black door swung closed with a very final sound. Bolts rattled and clanked on the far side.
For a few seconds I stared at the solid planks, and then turned back to the mattress. Slowly, carefully, I sat myself down on the thin ticking and leaned back against the wall. I should think about what happened, I remember telling myself. I just didn’t have time to rest. Nevertheless, I don’t remember my head hitting the mattress, just oblivion coming down like a theatre curtain.
------v------
Dreaming of a huge, shadowy expanse of a room, dining table scattered like islands of white linen and gleaming silverware in an ocean of dark. I looked around at the other diners at my table. They were bright figures, dressed in brilliant colors and masks laughing and joking as they tore into the plentiful foodstuffs that stacked their plates high.
My own plate was empty.
Then, when their own meals were reduced to racks of gnawed bones and empty platters, their eyes turned to me. Amber and ivory flared in the darkness and I recoiled away from the knives, scrambling across the floor...
“Hai! Mikah!” I heard. The half-lit Rris figure crouching over me drew back a bit. Light from a small lamp threw shadows across the anonymous individual and set a thread of orange glinting on the edge of the knife. I flailed away violently, back into the corner between the mattress and the wall.