Seers in the West were just more pissed off...and really, with good reason.
All in all, my life moved forward. I worked off the debt to the Lao Hu, and managed to keep my mind almost totally off how I was doing it. I saved money. Every now and then, I tried to think about what I might do when I got out, where I might go. I was friendly to the other seers, and rode my horse when I had free time, or talked to Surli on the network.
Then, on a day finally warm enough to make me think wistfully about the approach of spring, Voi Pai called me into her receiving room, and I got a good look at my third seer client.
22
REFUSAL
I DIDN’T EVEN know I was going in to see a seer.
I assumed it was a human...some head of state, or someone the Chinese were particularly nervous about for some reason.
They never brought me to the reception room to meet clients. All of that business stuff was normally handled behind the scenes; they never included me in any of it. My clients were all screened, questioned and scanned long before they got anywhere near me. It actually annoyed me at times, how little they involved me in my own “list.”
So when the wardrobe team made a big fuss and told me I had to be in the reception hall at four p.m. sharp, dressed to kill and using every single one of the correct forms of the formal manners I’d been taught..I was a little nonplussed. The one guy, their boss, I guess, kept slapping my fingers away from my face and hair as he worked, until finally I just stood there, hands at my sides, feeling again like some kind of dog being groomed instead of a person.
Trying to get anything specific from them proved impossible, so I resigned myself to the fact that I was meeting some head honcho bigwig...someone Voi Pai didn’t trust me to meet on my own. Apparently he or she was important enough that Voi Pai wanted to grease the wheels and make sure I didn’t inadvertently insult anyone, or embarrass the Lao Hu. So when I finally entered the reception area, I was more than a little stunned at who waited for me.
A group of Wvercians stood there, in their full, semi-Viking regalia.
I counted five of them before cycling around to look at each individual in more detail. The one in front was probably the largest seer I’d ever seen in real life. The ones standing behind him appeared to be closer to Baguen’s size, which I would have termed “huge” before seeing the seer in the center. He clearly held the place of honor, as he stood right before Voi Pai’s chair, where most in the Lao Hu normally bowed, or even knelt.
Turning towards her, I tried to keep the incredulousness off my face.
She raised an eyebrow at me, but I saw the warning in her eyes.
I found myself looking back at the leader.
I wore a backless, flowing white dress with no sleeves and only a single, thin neck strap on top...presumably to emphasize the collar around my neck. The dress was nearly transparent, showing parts of my body depending on the angle of the light, especially in the sunlight-filled reception hall. It was one I hated, actually, in that it made me feel naked, and on display. It struck me as cruder than the majority of the wardrobe team's creations...and one that invariably put me in a bad mood when I was forced to parade it in front of a crowd.
Staring up at those broad, windburned faces, and the dark eyes trained on my body through the thin material, I had even less of a sense of humor about it than usual. This was starting to look like some kind of gang rape scenario, which was definitely not cool with me.
As I made a second pass through the room, I paused again on the leader.
That time, I looked at his face.
I found myself staring at him then, lost in his countenance...the black eyes above sunburned and blotchy cheeks, skin like some of the plains humans got from eating too much meat. His eyes were dead-looking, empty. A murderer’s eyes. More than that, I couldn’t help but see the familiarity in them...a familiarity I realized, horribly, that I shared.
My gaze dropped to his throat, where a jagged white scar stood out on his darker skin, visible above the collar of a coarse-spun cotton shirt, open at the neck.
Moving from the scar, my eyes shifted upwards once more, without my willing it. I stared at his face, still unable to believe what my mind told me, what I already knew, despite the activated collar around my neck. He was smiling now, but that dead look never left his eyes. I saw the hunger there. I saw it, and I feared it...but I couldn’t tear my gaze off his.
I couldn’t believe he was alive.
Staring at his face again, I found myself looking sharply at Voi Pai.
“No,” I said, blunt. “I refuse.”
I didn’t wait for her reaction.
I turned on my heel, walking out of the room.
After the barest pause, where I’m sure Ulai exchanged some kind of communication with Voi Pai, he hurriedly followed me, half-jogging to catch me in the corridor outside the cavernous reception hall. Gripping my arm in his large hand, he ignored my attempt to jerk it angrily from his fingers, steering me firmly into a side chamber. He closed the door behind us, probably so we wouldn’t be overheard.
“What?” I said, finally managing to free my arm. I glared up at him. “I’ve never once exercised my right of refusal. Not once.”
“I am aware of that, Esteemed Bridge – ”
“Well I am now! It’s non-negotiable...and I don’t have to say why.”
His blue eyes held a glint of frustration, but it was more than that. I found myself staring up at that gaze, half in disbelief when I found I recognized the look there.
He was afraid. But more than that...
“I don’t have any choice,” I said, blunt.
“Normally, you would, Esteemed Bridge. Normally, the right to refuse is inviolate – ”
“Except when it really matters."
"This is not a usual situation, Esteemed Bridge – "
"And what makes this not usual, Ulai?"
"There are..." He hesitated, meeting my eyes. "...Political considerations, Esteemed Bridge."
I gave him a disbelieving look. "Are you telling me that the Lao Hu is so desperate for favors from the Wvercians that they would sell the Bridge against her will?”
He winced, but his eyes held mine, and the expression in them didn’t change.
“It is not all of them, Esteemed Bridge...” Ulai’s voice held a thread of fear, along with a cajoling plead that made me stare up at him again, trying to read behind his words. “You are not being asked to service all of them. It is only their leader. I know he is not attractive, but – ”
“His looks aren’t the issue, Ulai.”
“Then what?”
“I said no. I also said it's non-negotiable...I meant it."
“But why?” he said, frustrated. “He is one man. You have been with others, less of physical specimens than he – ”
“He is the exact one I’m refusing,” I snapped. “I won’t sleep with him, Ulai. I won’t.”
“But you cannot refuse!” Ulai said, his voice rising somewhat. “This is one client you cannot refuse, Esteemed Sister...you cannot!”
“Why?” I said. I stepped back, still fighting to free myself of his hands...but most of all his light, which was both attempting to pull on me and calm me at the same time. “Cut it out!” I snapped. “Just talk. Stop treating me like animal. Why can’t I refuse?”
“He is an emissary of important allies of the Lao Hu...”
“What allies would those be?”
“I cannot tell you who they work for,” Ulai said, pleading again. “But it is most important, Esteemed Bridge. They wish to know you are being cared for...and that you are docile. They want to know you are safe with us...”
“Cared for?” I said. “Docile? You make it sound like I belong to them.”
“All of us belong to them, Esteemed Bridge...even you.”
“Really? And who are they, that I owe them so much? Who are they to me, Ulai?”
“Please, Esteemed Bridge! Please! Voi Pai will not accept a refus
al for this...”
Seeing the look on his face, I felt my jaw harden. “Why don’t you lay it out for me, Ulai? Brother? For we are all in the same family of Lao Hu, are we not?”
He didn’t answer at first, but I felt a pulse of pain in his light.
For a moment we only stood there. I watched him stare into the darkness of the hallway. Even with the collar, I could feel how much my words bothered him. I felt pain on him again, distant through the collar’s shield, but tangible.
“You know what she will do,” he repeated, looking at me with that pained look still in his eyes. “Please, Allie. Please. Do not make me do it! I do not want to.”
I felt my light lash out in a furious pulse. It activated the collar’s shock, forcing me to stop, to pull it back before it hurt for real. Wincing, giving a near gasp, I clasped my neck, fighting for self-control. I couldn't control the anger, but I managed to dim my light.
He noticed, and his face reflected that pain once more.“We have made no demands on you of this kind before now. Voi Pai has treated you as an equal...as a sister...”
“Even though I outrank her...”
“We have made no demands! You owe the Lao Hu, and we have gone out of our way to ensure your dignity! To treat you fairly...”
“And I have refused no one before now. No one, Ulai. I haven’t raised a protest to a single person you’ve brought through my door...”
“Allie...it is done! He is under orders, and so are we.”
I bit my lip. After a longer pause, where I turned this over in my mind, I faced him once again. At his stone-faced look, I gestured angrily at the closed door.
“Who has bought me, Ulai?" I said. "Who would send him to me, to assess my well-being? Who would trust that piece of shit with a job like that?”
But Ulai was staring at me now, understanding in his eyes.
“You know him? You know this Wvercian, Esteemed Bridge?”
I felt my jaw harden more. Folding my arms tighter, so that they cinched my ribs, I stared back at the door leading to the hallway to the reception room.
Ulai hesitated, and I felt a pulse of grief off him. Nothing else in his light wavered.
“Allie. I cannot disobey her,” he said. “I cannot.”
I didn't answer, but I felt my light grow dense, vibrating the collar.
“Alyson!” He caught hold of my arms, forcing me to look at him. “Please! Do this thing. Just do it...and then it will be over! He will not hurt you! We have received the utmost in assurances that he will not harm you in any way...”
I stared up at him, but my mind remained blank...back in that flatline place.
I knew he was telling the truth. I studied his eyes, trying to think past what I knew, but nothing came. I saw the regret on his face. He knew what this would do to how I felt about him, even as a friend. None of these things mattered. None were enough to sway him.
Even with all of my cynicism, I'd been deluding myself. Whatever I told myself I had in the way of safety, of friends, of dignity here, was nothing less than a complete illusion.
I looked at Ulai, unable to feel...anything.
I knew full well, who I was dealing with in Voi Pai. I thought about the reality of that, how things might go if I called her bluff, if I let them drag me in there, tie me up or drug me like one of those females I’d seen in the work camps. I also thought about what I would have to do, if I went into that room willingly. I wondered if I could even pull it off. Honestly, it might be worth the bruises and the humiliation, just to avoid that.
Then something else occurred to me.
It took another few seconds for that thought to fully penetrate my mind.
Once it had, I nodded, once.
“Fine,” I said. My voice came out abrupt. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
I looked at Ulai. He stared back at me in surprise. The bewilderment was so intense in his expression that I worried he might have read my thoughts. My jaw hardened.
“She’ll drug me if I refuse?” I said. “Tie me up, whatever?”
Ulai hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.
“Then I’ll do it,” I said, my jaw hardening once more. I folded my arms. “But I want four times the credit for it. Towards my debt.”
There was a silence.
I waited, knowing Ulai was checking my terms with Voi Pai. His irises clicked back into focus a few seconds later.
“She agrees.”
I nodded, once. “Then bring me back to my room. I’ll wait for him there.”
Relief expanded off Ulai’s light. He caressed my face with his fingers, but I jerked away from his touch, feeling my mouth harden. He barely seemed to notice.
“Thank you.” He touched my hair, murmuring, his light still exuding relief. “...Thank you, beautiful Bridge. The Lao Hu owes you a debt, Esteemed sister. The venerable Voi Pai thanks you, too. She is most grateful...she will ensure that you are rewarded beyond your asking price, in such a way that you deem fair, that is worthy of your concession...”
I bit my lip at that, but didn’t meet his gaze.
“Whatever,” I muttered.
Still smiling, still exuding relief, he only nodded, as if he hadn’t heard me at all.
I followed him back to my client chamber sandwiched between the two rooms they’d given me for myself, and we didn’t talk. I don’t remember thinking much, either. My mind remained partly focused on the fact that I would soon be alone with the Wvercian leader, but I kept those thoughts vague as well...other than my overall opinion about the situation, which was hardly a secret. Mostly, I just let my mind go blank.
I didn’t have to wait long. Ulai barely had time to resume his usual place by the door, following his routine security scan and the removal of my collar for the client.
I didn’t sit. With the collar gone, I could already feel him.
I tried to see pieces of the missing story I’d glimpsed through Ulai and Voi Pai...and even in the worried and frantic light of my wardrobe seers. But Wvercian light had always been strange to me, difficult to read. I could rarely get real thoughts from it, even from Baguen, who never shielded overtly in my presence. Instead I got a kind of thick flowing feeling, sometimes with emotions, but more often with a feeling of separation...as if I studied their aleimic bodies through a deep pool of water.
This one’s presence did not hide from mine, either. I felt his anticipation under that heavier fog, that feeling of disconnection inherent to Wvercian light. He looked forward to this, and my clear unwillingness didn’t put a dent in that anticipation at all; for all I could tell, it may have heightened it. I felt a broader knowing in his light as well...kind of an ‘on mission’ feeling I recognized from the Adhipan and even from Revik. With that, I also felt a flavor of reverence. This duty had a religious component to it, for him anyway. That didn’t mean it did for whoever hired him. Yet, it made a perverse kind of sense, too.
I stood by the largest of the couches, next to a waiting pot of steeping tea and two cups. I didn’t move from that spot as the giant, near-albino seer entered through the main door. He was greeted with a deep bow from Ulai, but barely seemed to notice.
In the same instant, Ulai gave me a faintly encouraging look, before he darted out through the cloth-covered door, standing on the other side of its round, wooden entrance.
That was new, too. No guard. I guess that was part of the agreement.
I turned my head, fighting all expression out of my light as I faced the Wvercian.
He walked into the room and glanced around at the furnishings, but not like Surli had. He did it more like a caretaker looking over his owner’s property. His black eyes, when they met mine, looked at me the same way.
Almost. The difference shone behind those black irises, barely discernible in the flat density of that gaze. He walked towards me without speaking, not seeming to care that I hadn’t spoken. I studied his thick face, trying not to let my eyes drift down to the scar on his throat.
He stepped right up to me
, so there would be no mistaking the height discrepancy between us. I couldn’t help myself calculating roughly what that was. I’d never measured Revik or anything, but I guessed him at somewhere just over six and a half feet. The Wvercian in front of me had to be over seven feet, easy.
He seemed to enjoy watching me estimate his size. A bare smile touched his thick lips, right before his eyes flickered down my body. For the first time, I felt arousal off him. It pulsed off his aleimi, thick and dense, like the rest of his light.
“They treating you all right, girl?” he said.
His voice came out surprisingly soft.
I didn’t let my expression move. While he waited for my answer, he looked down at me again, focusing on my bare feet with the twin circlets of bronze anklets.
Meeting his gaze, I unfolded my arms.
“What difference does it make?” I said. “...Boy?”
His heavy gaze flickered up.
For an instant, I saw surprise there, a faint thread of something darker. He smiled then, looking from one of my eyes to the other.
“You don’t want my cock in you?” he said. “Why, sister?”
The question sounded oddly genuine. Fighting back my surprise, and his attempt to engage me in eye contact again, I shrugged, not returning his gaze.
“I’d prefer not to rut with barn animals,” I said.
A silence fell over the room. I didn’t look at him through it.
Then he surprised me, laughing aloud.
“What made you change your mind?” he said.
“What makes you think I did?” I retorted.
His smile widened. I felt warmth on him then, a pulse of feeling that made me flinch.
“I am glad they have not broken you, Esteemed Bridge,” he said, softer once more.
That reverence touched his voice, just audible enough that I glanced over at him, in spite of myself. His gaze was heavy again, looking at me through the thin fabric.
“I’m going to enjoy fucking you,” he said then, his voice thicker. “More than I can tell you...I hope I can help you to enjoy it, as well, sister...”
Allie's War Season Two Page 110
