"Oh my lord!" she exclaimed in hurried Universal. "I beg for your protection!"
He stared at her, astounded; histrionics were completely out of character for her. "From what, pray tell?"
"From this terrible place!" she cried. "From its cruel and evil people! I went today to look at the cell in which I was held when I came. Even empty it's full of menace! They could put me back there at any time if they wanted... and even though they don't, they do worse to me. My lord, can you not do something to shield me from the abuse of these people?"
He understood then. "You are distraught. Calm down. Sit."
She crawled over to him and hugged his leg, and if he hadn't guessed at her subterfuge he knew it with the cool rush of calculation that swept in with the press of her breast against his shin. "I'll do anything for you," she said.
"Don't disgust me," he said. "I didn't want a Chatcaavan whore—what makes you think I'll take a Seersan one?"
"But my lord!"
"Enough," Lisinthir said, wishing he could communicate his subterfuge to her as effectively as she could to him. "Get out of here. I have enough complications without adding you to my life."
Her drooping ears, her slumping shoulders... all the picture of perfect dejection, so perfect he almost called her back. Instead he watched her slink to the door and almost let her leave before he remembered the message he was supposed to pass to her.
"Girl," he said.
She stopped, glanced at him.
"Your parachute's broken," he said. "You might as well get used to living here."
He couldn't touch her to tell, but the way she took in a trembling breath and stopped herself from gasping told him enough. The act had been an act, but her distress now was real. She tossed her hair and said, "You have the heart of a stone, Lord Ambassador... but even stone can be worn away." Then she let herself out. He watched the handle reset with a click as his mind sorted out what she'd imparted: that she could reach the cell without problems; that she could reach him with the useful excuse of trying to wear down his resistance to her advances, and thus bring him messages from the Slave Queen if they were necessary...
And that she believed he was under surveillance. So far he'd done nothing to make that worry him—even if the Chatcaava could read over his shoulder, they would have to spend a very long time gathering data to begin deciphering his native tongue. But still... in the future, who knew what conversations would take place here? Better none at all.
"These four," the Mother said to her.
The Slave Queen nodded. "Thank you," she said, and studied the females kneeling across from her. She knew them only peripherally, by their tastes, their planets of origin and their hatred of her, but that was enough with the Mother's confirmation to approach them with her request. Her request, which to others in the harem constituted a command. It was the one arena in which she had some authority, and it surprised her that until now she hadn't thought of it as power.
"I need someone... possibly two someones... to volunteer for a very special assignation," the Slave Queen said.
One of them cocked her head, but that was the extent of their reaction.
"I understand it has been long and long again since any of you were given the kind of rapture you seek," the Slave Queen said. "Firemint... it has been a month for you. And two for you, Sun's Kindness. Nearly five have passed since you have been touched as you most deeply desire, Black Rose. And Moon, nearly an entire revolution for you." Now they were shifting, uncomfortable. "I know you were all present to witness the glory that was Flower's lot before death. It is a pity her experience was wasted on someone without the ability to appreciate it."
Now Black Rose snarled, and Firemint stretched her fingers. The Slave Queen hid a grim smile. The harem's members were required to fulfill the Emperor's every desire... but there were still so many of them and his visits here so few that a female might linger for months between uses. And while the Slave Queen did not hold with the common perception of females as beasts without any discipline or ability to contain their desires, the four in her harem who enjoyed pain hadn't had their special needs slaked in so long that she could only imagine their impatience.
The Emperor came to her, to see her pain, and pain in a winged female pleased him more than any more eloquent display in a four-armed female. She had stolen their pleasures from these four, and she did not even have the wherewithal to enjoy it as they did.
"Third needs entertainment. No, distraction," the Slave Queen said. "He is beginning to become dangerously imbalanced, so much so that he may soon destroy the Emperor's property without permission... and then the Emperor would have to kill him. Such a waste of a good male, yes?"
They did not reply, but there was an intensity in their stares that boded well.
"But Third is a male of great devotion to duty," the Slave Queen said, "and I am not confident he will be easy to distract into pleasure. He needs it greatly. Flower's use only touched the very tip of that need, but because it was all that was offered, it was all he took.
"What I propose is irregular," the Slave Queen said. "I need someone to pull Third from his focus on his duties, to fulfill his needs until he is so languid he once again becomes a proper tool for the Emperor's hand. This someone—or someones—should be so enticing, so beautiful under claw and palm, that he could not resist her. I have asked the Mother and she tells me you four are the most likely. The most attractive. Which of you will be able to hold Third in this place of ease for longest?"
Phrased that way, all four of them had to volunteer, if only for pride's sake. She left them far happier with her than she had when approaching them, and on her short trip back to her rooms she reflected on the nature of power. She had never tried to change anyone's behavior before; never assumed she had the ability to influence anyone at all. Even her softening of the Emperor's moods seemed less attributable to her own doing and more a byproduct of his activities in her presence. She had considered herself a tool.
But what if she was more than that?
The Slave Queen stood at the landing into her room and shivered before hurrying inside to settle among the pillows, in a nest this time where she could hide from sight. To be a person was asking for fate to destroy her. She was the Emperor's property and anything more was fantasy. Power implied freedom... and freedom belonged to people, people who could be destroyed.
In contrast, the prospect of freedom had moved Laniis to an animation she'd never displayed in the harem before. In addition to her frequent trips throughout the tower to investigate possible routes to the base, the Seersa had moved her basket out of the deepest chamber of the tower to the foot of the landing so she could keep vigil. The Queen had noted her ears flicking toward the stairs even in deepest sleep and wondered if the female had time for dreams, or if she was too busy keeping watch on the stairs.
That vigilance served them now. "The Emperor comes, Mistress!"
The Slave Queen leaped to the divan and under the blankets, coiling herself into a ball for the Change. She lamented even as the pain overtook her that there was no sight, no senses that could keep her apprised of her environment in the midst of Changing, but fortunately she was done before Laniis greeted the arrivals.
"Where is the Queen, slave?"
"She is indisposed, Master," Laniis replied, voice shaking.
"And the Eldritch slave?"
"In repose, Master, if you-my-better care to see her," Laniis said, and ventured, "She is much better."
Quickly, the Slave Queen shut her imposter's eyes and allowed her strange flat face to slacken into something she hoped looked like sleep. She heard the Emperor's light footsteps, felt the chill that her more sensitive body gathered from his shadow as he leaned over her. She imagined the heat of his scrutiny and tasked herself to absolute calm.
"She looks much better," the Emperor said with pleasure.
"My mistress has been very diligent in her care, Master," Laniis replied.
"What is wrong with h
er face?"
The Slave Queen almost lost a breath.
"My lord Emperor?"
"There, her chin. It seems deformed. Do I remember it wrongly? Second, do you remember?"
She felt another shadow thrown over her body, and then a cool hand stroked her face, startling her with an ambuscade of emotions: resignation! Fatigue! Affection! Concern! All intertwined into such a braid that she almost opened her eyes. This was not the Emperor, not with the age of the weave lending it such gravity that it seemed to sink into her soul. Was this Second's mind, this thing of noble patience and quiet fears?
"I am afraid I do not recall," Second said, sounding puzzled.
"If this one may speak, Master?" Laniis asked breathily.
A pause. The Slave Queen imagined the narrow-eyed glare passing over Laniis's body. Then, "Speak, slave."
"Noble Third struck her several times, Master. Her body is delicate. It may have reformed in response."
"Is that so?" the Emperor asked, thoughtful. "What malleable creatures. Still, she looks plumper than I remember."
"Master, the Slave Queen's ministrations have improved the health of your newest possession. The girl has regained the weight she lost while pining outside the Slave Queen's care."
"Ah! Excellent. When will she be healthy enough to use?"
Laniis's hesitation barely registered. "Any time now, Exalted."
"Good. I will send someone for her soon." The Emperor's hiss of a chuckle lacked the sinister air the Slave Queen thought appropriate as he continued, "And then we shall break the back of our steadfast Ambassador, shall we not, Second?"
"One hopes," Second said, and she heard the ambivalence in it, the uncertainty.
Lisinthir found the following day maddeningly innocuous. He spent the morning in the suite's entry room, sitting across from one of Second's minions discussing a viable method of appointment-setting. The Chatcaava could always fly by to see if his scarf had been tied; he, on the other hand, had not been given access to the palace's computer systems and no god had deigned to give him wings to visit the Chatcaava himself. In the end, they decided on a combination of a mailed request from Lisinthir for normal visits and a map for his ground-bound feet so he could locate the offices of Second and Third on his own for urgent matters.
They would have to be delayed urgent matters, of course... navigating the palace to either of the two offices would take fifteen minutes, if he was feeling brisk. They were meant to be accessed "normally," which meant that the Emperor could drop from his suite to the next highest tower, and then to the next highest in order to visit them. They made sense no other way.
By the time the Chatcaavan leapt from his balcony, Lisinthir was ready to follow him out of frustration. He supposed it made sense not to trust the Alliance's ambassador with a computer connection—the Alliance wouldn't have trusted the Chatcaavan ambassador either—but the polite solution would have been to give him extremely limited access. It would have been politic. Not having any computer access at all was an arrogant slap, not at all concealed. And no doubt they were monitoring the outgoing traffic from his data tablet which fortunately didn't require any assistance from the Palace networks to reach the nearest Alliance repeater.
He ate a thin lunch, brought by a staring servant. Checked his mail and found a reassuring note that the shuttle would arrive the following night. Between then and supper's preparations, he practiced with the sword. His suite wasn't large enough, but it was best to presume he'd have to operate in close quarters from now on anyway. If he ended up needing a sword in the Emperor's suite he didn't want to trip over a table... if in fact he'd ever have the sword with him when he needed it. Taking the sword with him all the time might set a violent precedent; leaving it behind might give the Chatcaava ideas about him being a weakling. There seemed to be no happy medium.
He would suffer through another boring court meal and then stop by the harem to try to elicit more details from the Slave Queen about how to gain the Emperor's confidences. Freeing the existing slaves wasn't his only problem, after all. He would assume success, and on achieving it he wanted to be able to continue directly to the next objective.
"Will they make war on us, and when?" the admiral had said, eyes intense. "That's what we need to know. We have our best analysts on it, but—"
"They're missing the human factor," Lisinthir had replied, smiling wryly.
"The squish factor, yes," the admiral had said. "War with the Empire is probably inevitable, but if it can be prevented, we want to know how... and if it can't, we want to know how long we have to prepare."
Dodging his furniture, sword whistling in the air, Lisinthir thought of war and what it would take to make the Emperor divulge, somehow, whether he wanted to make the Alliance another of his harem treasures.
That evening, the Slave Queen felt a strange desire to tidy her entire suite. Some part of her wondered if she was anticipating never returning to it. If so, her nervous activity made no sense; death had never frightened her, just as life had never really enticed. She lived because she happened to be breathing, but the inevitability of her own existence ceasing had never distressed her. Fortunately she did not believe in an afterlife, such as the ones invoked by the first few Alliance slaves she'd noted. It seemed cruel to believe in a heaven, and hell seemed no worse than life.
And yet here she was, plumping pillows and folding blankets and putting them away in the tiny closet. When she noticed the others fidgeting, she enlisted their aid. Better calm aliens than agitated ones, particularly since there were duties she had to do that they could not. The Slave Queen left Laniis to tidy up the blankets on the divan with the help of the Malarai and Tam-illee. The latter two had been lucky; the Emperor's focus on the Eldritch female had saved them from his attentions. He would have been particularly fascinated by the Malarai's feathered wings, and the Queen could only imagine what scene he would have devised to play with them. The bondage racks that accommodated wings could not be construed as anything but mortal insult to a male and winged females were rare, so the Emperor had little call for them. She knew from experience how unpleasant they were, and felt a moment's gratitude that in saving the foreigners from slavery, she was also accidentally saving them from the Emperor's attentions.
Out of habit, the Slave Queen checked on the Eldritch hidden beneath the blankets, only to meet bloodshot green eyes. Startled, she called for Laniis.
"Mistress? Oh!" The Seersa's voice fell, hushed, and then she summoned forth a few words in the Eldritch tongue. Now that the Queen had heard the Ambassador speak it as well as the female, she could hear Laniis's accent, how her hesitation made the language sound as if it dripped from her lips instead of flowing from them.
"She is better?" the Slave Queen asked.
Laniis's ears drooped. "She says she is not sure she can live through any more of this."
Again, the Queen wondered how the same race could produce this female's wilting frailty along with the Ambassador's strength. Perhaps their females were as poorly equipped for life as the Chatcaava's. "Tell her that she need only hold on until tomorrow. That the Ambassador and I will see her free."
As Laniis spoke, the Slave Queen watched the female's eyes begin to glow.
"She says if you succeed in freeing her she will offer you any reward you would have. That she has great power, riches, much influence in the Alliance."
"I do not want anything from her," the Slave Queen said, then added, "Save that she not come back."
Laniis's ears canted, one toward the ceiling, the other toward the wall, in a lopsided rue that amused the Slave Queen even as she wondered at how easily she could now read the Seersa.
"I do not think," Laniis said somberly, "that will be a problem for the Crown Princess."
"Good," the Slave Queen said. "Tell her to concentrate on saving her strength for the upcoming escape... since it appears she will be good for little else."
"I will," Laniis said, then tilted her ears sideways. "Are you goin
g somewhere, Mistress?"
"There are preparations to be made," the Slave Queen said. "I will be in the use closet."
"The—oh."
The Chatcaavan smiled without humor and plucked up a lamp before heading into the stairwell. Laniis had been to the closet herself; on occasion the Emperor sent his choice to bring back the item he wanted to apply to her just, she supposed, for the anticipation it built. Or apprehension, depending on the person.
She opened a door off the stairwell a level beneath the harem proper and lifted the lantern to cast a light on the rows of sinister items hanging on the walls and set upon the tables. The closets never had lights of their own, though whether this was by design or flaw the Slave Queen did not know. She supposed the cast shadows, so stark against the undecorated walls and plain floor, held some menace. She had become inured to the sight, though...
...or so she'd thought. Standing in the door and realizing it was now her duty to select the items that would be used on others, the Queen felt a frisson of unexpected dread, of unwanted responsibility. Even knowing that the four females of the harem would enjoy their sessions with Third and his Hand didn't ease her. All she could think of as she passed her hands over the whips and plugs, the straps and racks, was the pain and humiliation she'd suffered beneath each.
And yet there were those who were made for such things, who found pleasure in them. And their aid today would allow her to help the Ambassador. She wanted to help him. Not just the slaves, though she felt a desperate pity for the Eldritch female. But the Ambassador in particular, with his intense eyes, his grave face and his extraordinary control. She wanted him to stay.
She wanted to please him.
No doubt Laniis would call this a sign of her slave's upbringing, but she could not help it, nor find it wrong. For him, she could face this new and unwanted challenge. With renewed determination, the Slave Queen chose the most provocative of elements from the room and put them in the basket near the door. If she was to succeed, she needed to attract Third's eye beyond any hope of escape. She filled the basket until it could hold no more and pulled it into her arms, wishing only that she could find some way to take the large metal and leather frames with her.
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