The Shattered Sylph (10 page)

“Welcome to the battler sex pit,” one of the female guards laughed, undoing her chains. Putting a hand on Lizzy’s back, she pushed. Lizzy went sprawling into the room. The door shut behind her.

Immediately, the battler in the middle of the room looked up at her, even as he continued to—Lizzy couldn’t even think of a term crude enough for what he was doing. He was big and bulky, his skin an olive shade and his legs bending backward at the knee, his feet and hands long and clawed. His eyes and nose were normal, but his chin was absurdly long and he had no mouth. Bare skin stretched over where it should have been. On his chest, the number 408 had been tattooed.

Four-oh-eight looked at her speculatively, then down at the woman he was with. Then back at her, as if trying to make up his mind whether to finish with his current lover or switch immediately.

Lizzy scrambled to her feet and bolted for the closest wall, right through one of the doorways and into an alcove…where she found a different battler with a woman underneath him. He snatched at Lizzy halfheartedly, not really interested, and she backed out, retreating and instead moving up the length of the main room.

The chamber was nearly three times the size of the market back home, large enough that the hundred or more women she guessed were here had room to stretch out, or to retreat into a corner with whichever battler expressed an interest. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to retreat
from
the battlers to, though, other than several bathrooms. These were placed after every tenth alcove, and Lizzy quickly locked herself into one.

A knock came at the door. “Are you going to come out?” a female voice asked.

“No,” Lizzy gasped. She knew how battlers felt about sex. There was no way she was going out there.

The female voice sighed. “Look, if you stay in there, the guards will take you away, and it’s much worse to be a feeder. Besides, that’s the only bathroom where the shower gets really hot. The rest of them are lukewarm.”

“I don’t want to come out,” Lizzy said.

“They’ll make you a feeder instead.”

“What’s a feeder?”

“Tongueless slaves who spend their lives getting their energy sucked out by sylphs. At least here you can talk.”

Lizzy shuddered and slowly reached to open the door. Outside, a woman older than herself with long black hair and tan skin looked at her curiously. She was dressed in a
translucent silk gown even sheerer than Lizzy’s. “What bizarre hair,” she said.

“Is it safe?” Lizzy whispered, looking around. A group of women were playing cards nearby, acknowledging her quizzically, but the curtains around an alcove close by were shaking and she could hear a woman screaming hysterically from the other side. “Is—is she okay?”

The black-haired woman glanced over her shoulder. “Who, Ap? Sure. She always screams like that. They love it. She’s been here nearly longer than anyone.” She regarded Lizzy again. “My name is Eapha. What’s yours?”

“Lizzy. Is there any way out of here?”

“No. There’s only the one door out, and the battlers come in through passages in the ceiling. A human can’t fit through. I know a couple of girls who tried.” Eapha ran a hand through her hair. “Look, you may as well make the best of it. Battlers are fantastic lovers.”

So Lizzy had been hearing for the last six years of her life. She didn’t care. “I don’t want to!” she wailed, and the other women clucked sympathetically, though a few laughed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eapha told her. “Even if you want to say no, they pour so much lust into you, you lose control. Trust me. It sinks into your bones. After the first time, you’ll wonder what you were ever frightened of.”

Lizzy shook her head, backing away. This was insane. She did
not
want to spend the rest of her life as some sort of sex toy to keep a bunch of battlers happy.

Behind Eapha, Ap’s screams finally died out in a sated moan. The curtains moved and another battler exited. He was shaped exactly like the first two, with the olive skin and backward legs. Strangest of all was his mouthless face. He padded out, his erection bobbing in front of him. The number 391 was tattooed on his chest. He looked in their direction briefly, then went wandering up the length
of the room until a plump woman beckoned lovingly and wandered into an alcove. Three-ninety-one followed.

“He’s usually good for two or three gos,” Eapha told Lizzy. “You wouldn’t know it from Ap, but he’s very gentle.
Most
of them are.”

Lizzy noticed the way she’d stressed the word
most.
“Is this all they do?” she asked miserably.

“Sure. This is where they come to relax. Our job’s to keep them happy.” Eapha sighed and took Lizzy’s hand. “Come on.” When Lizzy balked again, afraid of where she’d take her, the woman smiled. “I’m not going to throw you at one of them.”

Reluctantly, Lizzy let her lead. Eapha took her past the alcove Three-ninety-one had gone into and down to the far end of the room, passing more distracted battlers watching a trio of women dance. To her horror, Lizzy counted fifteen of the creatures.

“How many are there?”

“Battlers? Hundreds. You saw the numbers on their chests. I think the highest number I ever saw was seven hundred and two.”

“And how many women?”

“Lots. We have about a hundred in here, and there are two or three other harems I’ve never been in. The battlers are only allowed in one specific harem so that there are enough to go around. They share us, but they don’t much like it.”

“So I might not have to sleep with any of them, if there are a hundred of us to pick from.” Lizzy sagged in relief.

Eapha looked at her sympathetically. “Don’t get your hopes up. The average is five women a visit. I’ve even seen a few who’ll cycle through twenty or more.” Lizzy felt ill again.

“Here we are.” Eapha opened a normal-looking door at
the back of the chamber and led Lizzy into a spartan room lined with bunk beds stacked three high. There were at least fifty. “The guards check that no one is hiding in here, but the battlers usually stay out. This is where we sleep, though if someone isn’t outside all the time, the battlers come looking for us. There aren’t enough bunks for all of us at one time anyway. Why don’t you try and get some sleep?”

Lizzy headed for one of the unoccupied beds, shaking with nervous exhaustion. She didn’t even manage to say thank you before she crawled in, pulling the scratchy blanket up around her and putting her head on the pillow. She was asleep in seconds.

Eapha shook her head and headed back out. She knew how Lizzy felt. It wasn’t so long since she’d been the terrified newcomer. She’d got over it soon enough, though. Surely the new girl would be the same.

Sylph Valley had observed the Harvest Festival since the town was established. The first few celebrations were sparse, the harvests small. The Community wasn’t starving then, not quite, but everyone’s belt was tight. Then the harvests became good, and the dancing and celebrating went on long into the night. Lizzy loved each and every festival as much as she was able. As the oldest, she had to take care of her sisters, staying home to care for them in the evening while other girls went to the late-night dance.

At sixteen, she was horrified to discover her parents’ expectations hadn’t changed. “That’s not fair!” she wailed at the breakfast table, trying to show in her eyes the torment through which they were putting her. It didn’t help. Her father sipped his cofi, looking unimpressed, while her mother regarded her with annoyance.

“Life isn’t fair,” was Betha’s response. “It’s your job to take care of the little ones.”

“Yeah,” Cara added. Her father tapped her on the head and she went back to drinking her milk.

Lizzy ignored her sister. “What about after they go to bed? That’s when the dance starts. I want to go to the dance.”

“I’m not letting you go on your own to a dance where there are boys.”

Lizzy stared in desperation at her mother. It was the best dance of the year, and everyone her age went. To not go would be horrific.

“Maybe I can chaperon her,” Leon suggested. When his wife shot him a look, he shrugged.

Such a solution was worse than horrific. No one would pay any attention to her with her father there! Lizzy looked at the chair next to her, where Ril sat, the one-year-old Mia in his lap. He was patiently feeding her some mashed turnips, ignoring the family conversation.

Impulsively, Lizzy threw her arms around his neck and he flinched, nearly dropping both the spoon and the baby. “Ril can take me!” she begged. “He’ll protect me.” She pressed her cheek against his, her arms tightening around his neck. He smelled like the wind in tall grass. “Please, Ril,” she whispered, and he shivered. The feel of it made her heart start to pound. He was very warm, she realized. He also seemed to have stopped breathing.

“What do you say, Ril?” Leon asked.

The battler hesitated.

“Please,” Lizzy begged again, pressing herself against him as she tightened the hug. “Please!”

“Okay,” he mumbled.

“Get off the poor man,” her mother snapped. “You’ll smother him.”

Lizzy let go of the sylph, beaming at him, a flush on her face. Ril in turn gazed back, seemingly uncertain, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was because of her that his eyes were so wide.

Ril had been her father’s battler for longer than Lizzy was alive. For most of that time he’d been a bird, communicating with her by spelling out words on a set of blocks. She’d lost those blocks when they left Eferem’s capital, along with all of her toys, but she hadn’t noticed in the wonder of seeing Ril as a man. She’d loved him as a bird. She’d loved him even more as a human, with all the passion of her twelve-year-old heart. He hadn’t returned that
love, though. He did cherish her, she knew, but he cherished Cara, Nali, Ralad, and Mia, too. When she was thirteen, he’d broken her heart completely. By sixteen, she was over him.

Yet when she went with him to the dance, she in her best dress and Ril in his blue and gold uniform, she wondered if some of that passion was coming back. At sixteen she knew she was too old for silly crushes, but it felt good to pretend she’d come with him. So she hung on his arm, giggling and waving at her friends and dragging the battler wherever she went. Ril let her, saying nothing as they headed around the tables set up in the harvested field, Lizzy laughing, tasting the food, and smiling tauntingly at the boys. She had no idea how he felt about any of it, and didn’t ask.

The battler on her arm, she discovered, brought her more attention from the boys than she ever would have received on her own. Pumped up on sugared punch and youthful hormones, they challenged the battler by talking to Lizzy, pretending he didn’t frighten them at all. That excited her even more.

“Don’t you scare them off,” Lizzy warned Ril, watching as a group of boys sauntered toward her, Trel Mils and Justin Porter among them. They were both a year older. The attention made her heart pound.

Ril sighed. “Leon doesn’t want you to do anything.”

“Did he order you to stop me?” she snapped. “He didn’t, did he?” Her father never gave Ril orders. “Just because you don’t like girls doesn’t mean no one else does.”

“Lizzy…”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” she assured him. “I just want to have some fun. And don’t you dare tell Father!”

Ril didn’t answer.

The boys came up then, and she forgot him along with
her long-ago crush. Giggling, she let Trel and Justin bring her a glass of punch and some snacks, reveling in the envy of the other girls as much as in the direct attention. She was a pretty girl, she knew that, and for once she wasn’t saddled with three little sisters who liked to cause her trouble. When the band started to play—enthusiastically if not well—she let herself be led again and again out onto the patch of earth they were using as their dance floor. It seemed all of the boys wanted to take turns.

Ril stood on the sidelines, watching without expression…which bothered her, oddly, even while she had what was surely the best time of her life. He was a battler—an asexual, broken one as well. He’d rejected her! No, he’d done less than that. He’d ignored her until she gave up hope. Why did she feel guilty?

Almost, Lizzy heard his voice in her mind. He seemed to be telling her that the boys only wanted to dance with her to show bravado. They wanted to tell their friends that they’d danced with her despite her guardian—but she rejected this furiously. The boys liked her. She glared at Ril and turned her back on him, turning her attention on the boy with whom she was currently dancing.

Justin Porter seemed almost afraid of his hand on her hip as he led her stumblingly through the steps of the dance. He was tall and skinny, his Adam’s apple jiggling up and down. He had acne on his face, and his hair needed to be cut. His shirtsleeves were also too short. Lizzy regarded him seriously, appraising. He was someone she knew only a little bit, but he’d always been nice, and he was older. For her, older was better. He wasn’t as bloody old as Ril, though, who had no idea how many centuries he’d been alive.

The battler was still watching her, she knew, disapproving. On impulse, Lizzy lifted onto her toes and pressed her lips to Justin’s.

It was her first kiss. Justin’s mouth was wet, his lips thin, and he started in shock at the touch. Physically, it felt a little like kissing a slab of warm meat, but the moment she acted, she heard shouts and clapping. Everyone had seen and was cheering. Lizzy flushed red.

An instant later, Ril had her by the arm. He snarled at Justin, who barely even realized the battler was there. The boy just stared at Lizzy with a look of sudden love on his face. Then her father’s battler yanked Lizzy off the dance floor, dragging her despite her protests through the crowd and away.

“Stop it!” Lizzy shouted as he hauled her through a dark and barren cornfield back toward town. “Let me go!”

Ril did so, turning to eye her in the darkness. She could barely see his face, but she could feel his anger.

“What’s wrong with you?” she yelled.

“What’s wrong with you?” he retorted. “I could feel those boys. All they wanted was to show how brave they were, dancing with the battler’s girl.” He pointed at her. “They didn’t love you!”

Her cheeks burned, and she was glad he couldn’t see them in the darkness. “Maybe I don’t care! Did you think of that?”

“You kissed him!”

“So?” she shrieked. She advanced on Ril, forcing him back a step. “It’s none of your business!”

“What did you think I came out here for? Your father—”

“Leave my father out of this!” She slapped a hand against his hard chest. “I don’t care what my father thinks! If I want to kiss someone, I will!”

“I won’t let you!”

He sounded so outraged, his gaze burning behind those long blond bangs. She’d always wanted to brush that hair out of his eyes, ever since the first time she saw him. They
made him look like one of the characters in her favorite childhood storybook, which her father had read to her at bedtime while Ril nested on the pillow next to her head, more often than not preening her hair while she fell asleep.

She laughed. This was ludicrous. What was she expecting out of him, a human reaction? “What are you going to do about it?” she asked. “Guard me the rest of my life?”

“If I have to!”

The thought of Ril following her around and chasing boys away for the rest of her life made her laugh harder, and her anger was gone just like that. “Well, don’t bother. It was a horrible kiss anyway.” It had been. She rubbed her mouth, wishing she hadn’t done it, that she hadn’t tried to make Ril angry or ended up in a fight with him. “That was my first kiss, too. Are they all that bad?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Let’s find out.” He leaned down and kissed her.

Lizzy’s breath caught, her heart nearly stopping. Where kissing Justin had been like kissing a slab of warm meat, Ril’s lips were dry and full, and so warm they sent a shock through her that made her body tingle from her lips all the way down to her toes, which she actually felt curl up in her shoes. Her eyes fluttered shut and she just stood there, her mouth pressed to his and not knowing what to do other than feel. It felt good—so good—and in an instant she fell in love with him all over again.

Then Ril was pulling back, his breathing heavy as he backed away into the darkness. Lizzy stumbled, caught herself, and stared at him.

“Ril?” she said.

But he’d left, telling her it never happened, that they hadn’t happened, and he’d never brought it up again, or touched or even looked at her. That’s what had happened.
Lizzy remembered, even as she realized that she was dreaming about something that had occurred two years earlier. But this time, Ril didn’t desert her. He stepped forward instead. His uniform was gone, replaced by plain brown traveling clothes, and his face was exhausted and lined by strain.

“Lizzy!” he shouted, though his voice was barely audible. He reached for her, and his form wavered. This reminded her of the other dream she’d had, where he’d kissed her and suddenly blew away into nothingness.

“Ril!” she shouted back, “I’m here!” She ran toward him, but she couldn’t get closer. No matter how fast she ran, he was still a half dozen feet away, reaching helplessly for her. “Ril!”

“Lizzy! We’re coming for you. Don’t give up. We’ll find you!”

Lizzy’s eyes widened and tears poured down her cheeks. “W-we…?”

“Your father and I. Leon…” Abruptly, Ril put his hands to his forehead, wincing, and the scene changed from the nighttime fields of that long ago dance to the kitchen of her parents’ house. Ril shuddered and looked past her. “Leon.”

Lizzy turned. Standing in the doorway, dressed in the soft cotton pants and shirt he always slept in, her father stared at her, his hair disheveled and his eyes wide.

“Lizzy?” he gasped. “Baby?”

“Daddy!” Lizzy threw herself forward, sobbing. “Save me, Daddy!”

“Wait—,” Ril started.

Lizzy fell into her father’s arms, but instead of feeling his embrace, she tumbled into nothingness, shrieking in terror as the dream dissolved. Ril screamed and vanished with it. A moment later she started awake, blinking. Her
heart raced. She was back in the bunk where she’d fallen asleep, in the room off the main harem.

She buried her face in the pillow and groaned.

Leon awoke, gasping. He’d dreamed he was back in his house getting ready to go upstairs to—for whatever reason—take a potted plant to his wife. Something had changed, though, and the dream, if that’s what it was, morphed. Suddenly, both Ril and Lizzy were present, the battler’s image wavering but his daughter seemingly solid and real. The dream
had
been real, only when she touched him, he’d woken up. He stared up at the ceiling of the room for a moment, breathing heavily. That dream had been real, but how…?

A soft cry sounded in his ear, right near his head, and something hit the wall. Leon rolled over and reached for the oil lamp, turning the light to full. In the bed across from him, Justin groaned. Ril lay shuddering in a bed closer by, and he convulsed, slamming against the wall. He shimmered, trying to change into smoke and lightning. If the battler succeeded in changing without Luck there to hold him together, he’d die.

“Ril!” Leon shouted, scrambling out of bed, while Justin sat up, looking scared. Leon grabbed the battler, his fingers sinking deep into the sylph’s arms—
through
his arms—and shook him. “Ril, wake up!”

For a second he thought the battler was going to disobey, that Ril would keep dissolving until there was nothing left. The sylph gasped in air, though, choking, and his eyes opened, frightened and pale.

“What’s going on?” Justin whimpered.

Leon ignored him, staring straight into Ril’s eyes while he drew a finger back and forth between their noses, forming a sightline on which Ril could focus. “Ril, don’t change
shape. Go back to being a human. That’s a direct order: go back to human.”

Ril shuddered, unable to think but incapable of disobeying. His shape solidified, his skin becoming solid again under Leon’s hands. He drew in a deep breath and started coughing, his eyes squeezed closed. Someone in the adjacent cabin banged on the wall, shouting for them to shut up.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” Justin asked.

“Not now.” Leon sat down on his bed, wiping his mouth with a shaking hand. All of his attention was on his battler as Ril shuddered again and slowly sat up. Trembling, the sylph shifted over onto his knees, looking at him, then lunged forward, his arms encircling his master’s neck. As Ril’s weight came down on him, Leon felt the battler start to draw energy, desperately replenishing himself.

“What’s he doing?”

“Be quiet, Justin,” Leon snapped. Ril’s draw was so strong he didn’t need to relax to feel it. The last time that happened was when the sylph carried his entire family from Eferem to the Community, outrunning an air sylph a thousand years older than himself. He’d exhausted himself so thoroughly that he’d been afraid he’d kill both Leon and Solie, drawing from them. Mace had made sure that didn’t happen.