The Shattered Sylph (17 page)

The girl reached the outskirts of the city, where worn and battered walls held back the desert. Sand blew over the top, stinging one’s eyes and getting easily into clothing. She made her way to and over the wall, heading outside the city itself. Silently Leon followed, seeing as he did that she wasn’t alone. Other people headed out into the desert as well, wrapping scarves around their faces for protection.

While the city gleamed with light and life behind him, here he found a collection of hovels so vile that Leon didn’t know how they survived. He also cringed at the thought of the likely resident diseases. Stretching as far as he could see in the darkness, there were dozens of dwellings made of stacked rocks and tattered fabric, many built
against the lee of a massive boulder so that they at least were out of the main thrust of the wind. Fires were rising from open pits, and people gathered around these to cook and talk. There weren’t many children, but Leon did see some, scurrying about and playing despite the late hour.

He hesitated at the edge of the light, watching as the woman he’d followed went up to others who, from the look of them, were family. Many people were living out here indeed, coming and going from the city proper. Leon watched the woman pool her tips with her family, then produce a flask of water that was passed around excitedly. Seeing Leon, one of the men waved for him to join them.

With a shrug, Leon did.

Ril lay as Shalatar did, prostrate, down on his knees, bent forward, forehead to floor and arms stretched out before him. The floor was made of glossy marble, polished well enough that he could see his own hateful expression as he glared at himself, not allowed to raise his head to glare at anyone else. He felt the emperor walk around him, and the skin between his shoulder blades itched.

The fact that Shalatar was in the same position gave little consolation. The man was content to be on his face like this, even honored. Ril thought he’d go mad if he stayed this way too long, and he took a deep breath, holding it and letting it go slowly. He wasn’t prone to acts of rage, never had been. He deliberated slowly, planned things out, acted when he was sure. He’d find a way out of this, think of a way out. He had to.

“He’s not terribly impressive to look at, is he?” the emperor said—to no one, since no one would ever dare answer. He was middle-aged, lean to the point of scrawniness, and as bald as Shalatar, though he had a fringe of hair above his ears. The robes he wore were much richer. It
wasn’t as though he needed to dress for the heat. The air in the palace to which Ril had been brought was as mild as a spring afternoon back home. At least a half dozen air sylphs would be needed to keep it cool. Ril had seen the place as he was brought in. It was huge, the ceilings a hundred feet overhead and everything constructed from marble and gold. The palace was ostentatious and ugly and a massive waste of space. He preferred Sylph Valley and its battler chamber, where he could sleep in his natural form, surrounded by his hive mates.

Don’t think of that, he told himself. Don’t think of them, don’t think of Lizzy. Don’t think of tearing this man’s head off, because Shalatar would feel it and the emperor had been given control over him. The man could order any sylph in Meridal to do anything, a parallel to a sylph queen that made Ril want to laugh bitterly. The emperor’s control was a joke—but it still kept Ril prostrate on the floor, pressed to the cold marble like the dog they thought he was.

“Still…,” the emperor went on, continuing his circuit around Ril. He stopped, and Ril actually felt the man’s slipper on his back, pushing against him as if to see whether he’d fall apart. “He was beautiful to watch in the arena. I want to see him again. Not against the battlers, though. Put him up against gladiators and see how he does. Yes.” He removed the slipper and circled Ril again before moving silkily back to his throne.

The edge of his robe brushed Ril’s face, and Ril hissed under his breath. Not allowed to speak ever again, he could still make some sound, and he saw the emperor start in surprise. As victories went, this was paltry, but Ril still lapped it up vindictively, since he already knew it wouldn’t last.

It didn’t. The emperor made a gesture and a whip came
down across Ril’s back. If it had been a normal whip, he never would have felt it, but this was formed of a battler and cut him deep, startling him into crying out. The lash descended again. He cried out again.

He was struck a dozen times before he realized the lesson they wanted to instill. Actually, he learned after the fourth hit, but he refused to acquiesce until the twelfth, when he felt his energy bleeding down his sides and started to fear he would die there, beaten to death for no reason at all. When the whip came down the twelfth time, Ril made no sound, nothing at all. There was a pause then, and still he made no sound, staring down at his own blank reflection.

“Good,” said the emperor, and he returned to his throne. “You may leave.”

Ril had to be dragged out.

The people Leon met after following Zalia from the restaurant were among the poorest he’d ever seen. Living in their makeshift hovels, they existed in constant fear of sandstorms, as well as poisonous snakes and spiders. The heat baked them during the day, and the cold at night caused illness. They were filthy, sweaty, and stinking…and apparently the backbone of Meridal’s human labor force. They were the forgotten servers and laborers, whom no one else saw.

Many were refugees from the floating city. A third of the men Leon met that first night had no tongues. At least a tenth of the women had been raped in the harems and then put up for sale as slaves, and when they weren’t bought had been tossed into the desert to survive on their own. Like the other exiles, unwelcome in a city that was nearly a slum itself, they joined this collection camped on the outskirts that walked back inside each day to work or beg. However, by being outside the city walls, they avoided the notice of city magistrates and battlers. They probably had more freedom than the city’s actual denizens.

The group reminded Leon of the men and women who’d founded Sylph Valley. Those originally had been the poor of Para Dubh, banding together and heading out into the Shale Plains to make a life of their own. They’d had the advantage of sylphs, however. Even leaderless and broken, driven deep into the lifeless Shale Plains at the start of a winter that promised to be utterly brutal, they’d
had more than these people. Here Leon saw such sickness that noses were falling off, great sores spreading across people’s skin to devour their features. Children looked like walking skeletons, and he saw very few elderly.

They welcomed him, though. Everyone who approached the hovels was welcome, so long as they didn’t bring trouble, and Leon stood over one of the fires, warming his hands and glad now of his heavier clothing.

He eyed the woman he’d followed here. She was one of the few to have an actual job. “So, you work in the city to bring back money for everyone?”

She ducked her head, blushing, but the older man beside her answered. “She brings enough for water and a bit of food. She’s a good girl.” He beamed at her.

Leon wondered distantly how she stayed clean enough to be allowed in the restaurant each morning. “The battlers don’t pay attention to you?”

“No, sir. They’re not allowed outside the walls. No sylph comes here.”

That was interesting. If he could get the others out this way, they could circle the city and head back to the ocean. Leon surveyed his surroundings, already making plans, then sighed. Plans would do no good if he couldn’t get to his friends.

“Where are you from, sir?” Zalia asked. She was a pretty girl, which was probably why she found work, but not so pretty as to be taken for the harems.

“Far away,” he told her. “From a place much to the north, where it snows in winter.” He saw their expressions, but after he explained himself, he still wasn’t sure if they were more baffled by the idea of snow or the concept of rain. They all used the same basic language, but not all words were universal. Leon was ruefully sure that they likely had a lot more words for sand than he’d ever heard
before. “My daughter was kidnapped and brought here,” he continued. “They put her in one of their harems.”

Zalia’s father grimaced in sorrow. “I’m so sorry to hear that. May you live to see her again.” He made a complicated gesture that seemed intended to bestow luck.

Leon’s face hardened. “I’ll see her again, because I’m going to get her out.” The people around him all stared in amazement. In their world, no one defied the emperor. Leon had no choice, though, not if he wanted to see his family again.

Perhaps these people could help. Not in infiltrating the harem for Ril and Lizzy—he wouldn’t risk anyone else, even if he had thought they could make a difference—but they did know the city and could show him around. Also, they could explain to him some of how this place worked. Then perhaps he could beat the system.

Zalia and her father looked dubious when he began to ask questions, but that didn’t matter. Just so long as they could provide information and be his guides. That was all he really needed for now. That, and a place to sleep. The dwellings here were awful, but he’d occasionally been in worse. And when he reminded himself of where his daughter was sleeping, his own fate didn’t matter at all.

Lizzy lifted her head from the pillow as she heard the main door open and close far on the other side of the harem. Immediately she was out of the bed and running, though she forced herself to slow into an uninterested stroll as she exited the sleeping chamber to the harem proper. No matter what was out here, she had to act as though she didn’t care.

It wasn’t Ril. Lizzy saw the evening’s meal being laid out, and she sighed, walking toward it with several other concubines. There were a lot of battlers visiting tonight,
however, and many of the alcoves were occupied, the curtains shaking for real. One even was taking his conquest in the middle of the harem, uncaring of who watched—or perhaps preferring it.

Lizzy skirted the copulating couple, pretending as everyone else did that nothing was happening. Had it been her there, and she had no doubt it would have been, if not for Ril’s strange protection, she wouldn’t have wanted anyone looking, either.

She still didn’t understand what he’d done to keep the other battlers away from her, though it had taken place before she ever reached this place. He’d called her his master when he made love to her, but how could that be? Her father was his master and always had been, and Ril had kept things that way even after being freed.

Though he couldn’t exactly get rid of Leon. Masters were masters for life, no matter how many a battler had, and Leon would always be primary—though of course Solie trumped him as queen. But none of that made Lizzy a master, nor had his making love to her. It took spells to bind a sylph. She’d seen them, and they couldn’t be cast by a sylph, save in the presence of a queen, and even then not upon themselves. Priests had to do it, otherwise, with all their elaborate circles and chanting. Lizzy had watched more than once, sometimes with Ril present, but he hadn’t said or done anything distinctive. Yet somehow he’d made her his master. He’d made her safe here. Moreover, he made her
feel
safe. In fact, he made her feel wonderful.

Eapha appeared, smiling warmly. There was sweat on her lip and a faint odor on her skin that made Lizzy blush. Tooie had been with her for real, and she glowed.

“Do you know when Ril will be back?” Lizzy asked in an undertone.

Eapha walked to the table and helped herself to a bun
and several fruits. “No. He’ll be back eventually, though. What else are they going to do with him?”

Lizzy took a bowl of porridge but didn’t say anything more until they were safely away. None of the other women at the table were in the circle of enlightened battlers and their lovers, and it was foolish to risk having their secret discovered. No one had betrayed the circle yet, but Eapha had warned Lizzy of other women being betrayed for various freedoms. Melorta, the lead handler, was said to have been promoted that way.

They reached a corner of the back wall. Ap was screaming somewhere nearby, with whatever battler was making love to her. The woman honestly enjoyed sex. Lizzy was amazed that her voice never gave out.

“I was talking to Tooie,” Eapha remarked. “He says that you’re Ril’s master. He was curious about it, but he can’t talk to you, since your vocabulary is still so small.” She smiled, dimples appearing high on her cheeks.

Lizzy laughed, blushing. “You mean you two find time to talk?”

Eapha lightly smacked her. “Be nice. I’m serious. He was really interested. I didn’t think women could be masters of battlers.”

“Oh, sure,” Lizzy said, suddenly realizing that she’d never talked to Eapha about Sylph Valley. The woman hadn’t asked, though. In this place, no one asked others about their pasts. Tooie must have been very excited indeed for Eapha to bring it up.

“Battlers prefer female masters,” Lizzy explained. “Back home, that’s all they have. Ril’s the exception. He’s my father’s battler. He never says it, but we all know he loves Father.” And me, she didn’t add. “But everyone else has women. Well, the nonbattlers don’t seem to care what they get, genderwise.”

“How very strange,” Eapha said.

“There aren’t any harems, either. Battlers only sleep with their masters. Except Ril,” she added as an after-thought.

Eapha laughed. “That would be very strange indeed. So, you’re not Ril’s master?”

“Not that I know of. But I can feel what Ril is feeling now, and you saw everyone. They don’t want me. Ril does.”

“Then what is Tooie going on about? He keeps complaining he doesn’t have the words.” Eapha huffed out a breath. “Silly boy. He spent half our time together asking about it. I could have yanked his ears off.” Both she and Lizzy laughed. It felt good.

“I’m kind of curious about it myself,” Lizzy admitted. About that, about the dreams…She had so many questions she hadn’t let herself think about, given how worried she was for Ril’s safety.

“Will you ask Ril about it when he gets back?”

Lizzy agreed eagerly enough, not realizing she wouldn’t be able to after all.

Ril was taken to the healer after his audience with the emperor. They didn’t scold him for his defiance. What, they were surely wondering, was the point of yelling at a dog? The healer laid her hands on his back, and he sighed as the pain went away.

Shalatar left sometime during that healing session, and with the distance he put between them, Ril’s awareness of the man faded to a faint buzz that was easily ignored. Lizzy was easier to feel, given his love for her, and Leon was easy as well after twenty years of familiarity. Lizzy was amused and Leon determined, but while he could feel them, Ril couldn’t speak to either. Not over such a great distance.

That was fine, actually. He didn’t want them to know what he was doing as he got off the table he’d lain on. Wordless, he dropped to his knees and bent over, kowtowing to the battle-sylph First, the man put in charge of all the battlers.

The First snorted, amused by Ril’s rage. “Bit slow at that,” he said.

“The new ones often are,” a second voice answered.

“Well, he’s hardly new, is he? Anyone found his master yet?”

“No, my lord.”

“Double the search teams. I want that man found and killed.”

As the First walked around him, Ril screamed in silent protest of that order, shrieking in anger to his original master, trying to reach him with the sheer force of his rage.
Danger, hunters, run.

“So, this one is for the arena, is he? Doesn’t look like much.”

I know,
Leon’s voice almost seemed to come back to him. His very calmness was soothing—which broke Ril’s contact with him.

“Take this one to feed,” the First continued. “Then put him in the harem. We’ll try him in tomorrow’s afternoon fights, after the other battlers are done with the latest convicts. Maybe before the battler-versus-battler choreographed rounds. Yes, that would make for a good opening for that new routine Eighteen and Fifty-two have been practicing. Make sure some of his feeders are ready for him immediately afterward, too. Damn. This one is going to be a logistical nightmare. I don’t have the men to ferry him around if he can’t fly.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The First left, and Ril looked up at the woman standing before him. She gazed back at him evenly, dressed in brown with an ornate pendant around her neck. According to Ril’s orders, it gave her the authority to command him in a few very specific ways. The First had more control, but she had enough to do what was needed.

Ril focused on that necklace and stood. Sullen, he glared at the handler, who just studied him and shook her head, muttering something about colorless skin.

“Come,” she ordered at last, and Ril followed.

They went to the feeder pens, Ril walking an inflexible three paces behind. His handler didn’t speak, but she looked back periodically as she led the way to a specific set of cages arranged in a hexagon near the chamber entrance. Each held a man and Ril stared at all of them in surprise. He could feel them almost as clearly as Leon and Lizzy. They were masters to him that he hadn’t even known about, and he shot a look at his handler in confusion.

“Feed,” she ordered, sounding bored.

Ril hadn’t considered this. He’d assumed he would feed off Shalatar, though he could feed from Lizzy if necessary. These six men, though…he could feel the various flavors of their energy rising off them, the vibrations echoing through his empty insides.

The wounding and subsequent healing had taken a lot out of him, so he stepped forward, hunkering down outside the first cage and reaching through to lay a hand against the feeder’s cheek. He didn’t know the man at all, so it was easier to draw with physical contact. He drank. The feeder looked at him with deadened eyes. His energy felt dead as well, and finally Ril pulled away, not full but not wanting to touch the man anymore. The feeder felt like nothing, as though every bit of life had been sucked out and only his
body was left behind. It was like draining the dead, and Ril made a spitting motion before moving on.

The next was younger but no better. Ril sampled and gagged, wondering if this was his fate for the rest of his life—to drink lackluster energy from lackluster men in a place that treated them like dogs and cattle. He sipped from the third and kept going, nearly full but pretty sure he wouldn’t be allowed to stop until he’d taken from them all.

The fourth was the oldest, his energy more flavorless than any of the others, and Ril wanted to retch at the thought of living off it. Leon had always tasted so creamy and warm, and Lizzy so fresh. He’d live off her instead, and damn these men. They made his skin crawl.

He moved around the cages, coming to the fifth, and there he stopped. From the other side of the bars, brown eyes stared back with equal recognition—and with loathing. Justin sat inside the cage, glaring out.

Ril was so surprised he just gaped, and both men were silent. Then Justin moved, rolling forward and shooting a fist out through the bars into Ril’s nose. Shocked, Ril fell backward on his behind, and his handler swore, lunging forward. The woman was just fast enough as Ril rose back up, enraged, energy flaring painfully around him and about to blow Justin, his cage, and every other cage within reach to ashes.