by Amber Stuart
Whether Zarwin's actual words bothered him, I couldn't tell.
Instead, he seemed to be watching the other man minutely, as if trying to determine his motive for talking to me at all. I also got the impression he was still trying to determine if Zarwin was who he claimed to be. Meaning Razmun. Or maybe Nik had already made up his mind about that, too, and now was trying to determine what to do about it.
“...Do you disagree with my assessment, old friend?" Zarwin asked Nik after another pause.
I felt my jaw harden as I looked between them.
Nihkil himself didn't move, not even to shift the focus of his eyes.
Zarwin's frown deepened. "Jamri," he said. "You cannot remain silent forever. I would much rather we speak civilly about these things, before you make up your mind to try and break my neck the instant I free you from those chains."
When Razmun paused that time, I spoke up before he could go on.
"What do you want from him, exactly?" I said. “Nik. What’s your angle with him?”
Zarwin's gaze swiveled to me, then back to assessing the two of us together.
"Always quick to defend our Nik," he murmured. That time, he said it like it annoyed him. "What makes you think I want something only from him? I took both of you, didn't I?"
"You took me to control him," I said.
Zarwin smiled at that, his expression bemused.
"And if I did?" he said.
"Just answer the question," I said. "What do you want from him?"
Zarwin placed his hands on his hips. "I want my friend, Jamri, to remember that it was him who chose not to accompany me," he said, turning to stare at Nihkil's face. “...Not the reverse. I want him also to remember that if it hadn't been for his decision to go with the mammals in those early days, he would never have been lied to by me. All of these so-called dishonesties and the machinations that followed are nothing more than a product of his refusal to trust me. And his refusal to trust my ability to get him and his family out safely in those years...”
When Nik still didn't speak, the taller morph raised his voice.
“...You said it was for your family, Nik," Zarwin said. "To ensure that the human authorities would have no cause to retaliate, following the lotteries?”
Nik still didn't speak.
Even so, I found myself looking at him, thinking about Zarwin’s words.
“...I admit," Zarwin said, his voice angrier. "That excuse has never fully satisfied me, Jamri. I have always wondered what it is you meant by these words... 'for your family.' Was the reason you gave me even true, I have wondered? It is a question that has plagued me. Did the Malek or the Pharei threaten Nihkil's people... describe brutal penalties that would be visited upon them if he refused to join their armies? Did they threaten him, given his test scores, and his unique proficiency on the gates? Was Jamri afraid to act outside the auspices of the law? Did he fear the repercussions that might occur if the mammals felt slighted?"
Zarwin's irises darkened, as did his voice.
“...Or did he merely hide behind his father and his siblings, pretending they were the reason, when really it was something a bit less noble? Did my friend, Jamri, want to prove himself to the mammals? Always the model student... always the one who did as he was told... no matter who did the telling. Did he wish to impress our enslavers, too? Did they promise him riches? Fame? Many females in his bed?"
I frowned, glancing at Nik again.
When Nik still didn't speak, my frown deepened, right before I looked between the two of them, trying to decide what I was seeing. Some of the fire gradually faded from Zarwin's eyes as I watched. He continued to look at Nik, the expression in his eyes a mixture of frustration and what might have been affection, although he seemed almost to be fighting that, too.
The pause stretched past the awkward point.
Then, General Advisor Ledi seemed to sigh.
"Utag huulerandt...” he muttered, running a hand through his dark brown hair. He sat on the bench across from Nik, staring directly into his face. "Even compared to those in the immortal realm, you are stubborn, Nikhkil Jamri." Lifting his eyes, Razmun added shortly, “...I suppose I shouldn't goad you, knowing it will only make you even less likely to speak freely with me. But I find I can't help myself, Jamri, for I am angry at you, too. Angry that you... of all people... would choose this as your life, given everything we spoke of in our youth."
I glanced at Nik again.
His eyes, now a pale blue, only hardened slightly, still mid-transformation.
I looked back at Zarwin when the other resumed speaking, his hands now clasped between his knees.
“...I suppose I am wasting my time trying to reach you at all," Zarwin grunted. "Given how you have spent your life these past decades. But I admit, I cannot bring myself to simply release you back to your enslavers. Not this time. I must understand first, I suppose. I must understand why you would continue working for them. Why you would continue being loyal and subservient to them... given what they did to those you claimed to love the most. With your family history, Nik, I never thought I'd see the day when you were such a groveling dog to our captors...”
Nik's eyes hardened to glass.
I noticed. He still didn't speak, though, so neither did I.
"What will you do now, Nik?" Zarwin asked. "Can I ask you that, at least? Now that you are no longer needed for the gates, will you continue to beg the mammals for your livelihood? Screwing their females to pass the time, when you are not technically on the clock? If you can't be a gate-shifter for them, will they even want you, Jamri? Is your cock worth so much, do you think? Or do you suppose you could entertain them in other ways, as well?"
Nik flinched at different points in Zarwin's speech, but didn't answer.
I definitely got the sense that some of those flinches were because I sat there, listening to Zarwin’s words.
I got the feeling Zarwin knew that, too.
He smiled faintly.
"Yes," Zarwin said. "I know a lot about your life with the mammals, Jamri. More than you ever told your friend, ‘General Advisor Ledi.’ More than you could possibly guess. And yes, I know you’re aware that the gates being gone has already thrown the morph position with the mammals into question. A panic is underway in the markets for exotic artifacts, of course. But, far, far more than that, there are already murmurings of enforcing the conscription of full-blooded morph into full-time breeding stock. Well, those who will not be used like animals in the field, to sniff out a new gate...”
Zarwin’s words grew bitter toward the end, but then he shrugged, and his voice turned flat again. I saw his eyes continued to scan Nik’s face.
“The more fanatical of the First Worlder humans are in an uproar about this,” Zarwin said, matter-of-fact. “...There is already talk about the ending of the human race. Now that there is less hope of obtaining a fertile cross-breed from within their own species, there is talk of hybrids replacing both the morph and human races. It is thought that hybrids could outnumber fulls as early as sometime in the next three generations...”
My mind chewed over the other morph's words.
I tried to imagine how something like that would go over on Earth.
In a lot of parts of Earth, people could barely handle humans marrying across cultures, much less true cross-breeding with a whole other species. I honestly couldn’t imagine what my home world would do, if we faced the potential dilution of our entire bloodline.
And how the heck did supernaturals fit into all of this?
More hybrids would mean more supernaturals, in terms of pure percentages.
Since Nihkil told me that the supernaturals could reproduce among themselves, but not with any of the other hybrids or full-bloods, soon they would have enough in numbers to be a competing species of their own.
I couldn’t tell where their loyalties lay at all... or if they even had any... but no one seemed to disagree that they were d
angerous.
What if the supernaturals decided to wipe out both of their parent species? Since they couldn’t reproduce with either, what did they have to lose?
My attention shifted back to Zarwin, even as he resumed speaking.
"Yes,” he said seriously. “We’ve only begun to see the ripples from those gates being closed, Jamri.” He leaned forward, still clasping his hands, his eyes peering into Nik’s face. "There is much talk about this, Jamri... much talk. There will be bloodshed, too, do not doubt it. The closing of the gates by you, the most obedient and celebrated gate-shifter, is a somewhat stunning concept on its own, Jamri...”
Zarwin’s smile hardened, and that time, I saw a darker anger underneath.
“...All because you developed a crush on a female otherworlder, Jamri, and couldn’t bring yourself to leave her behind. Possibly a female from the very first world of the human race... or so the mammals are saying. But then, they think all of the gates were destroyed when you brought her back. They think the doorways to those other worlds are forever lost...”
Zarwin’s eyes darkened, until they were nearly the same color as Nihkil's.
“...But you and I know better, don't we, Jamri?" he said, softer.
Replaying his words, I found myself staring, first at Zarwin, then at Nik himself.
Nik was looking at Zarwin though, his eyes wider.
“It did not close?” Nik said, as soft as Zarwin.
Zarwin shook his head, once.
“It did not close, Jamri,” Zarwin said.
I saw a frown touch Nihkil’s lips, right before he glanced at me. His eyes held a furtiveness, and it occurred to me suddenly what that meant, too.
“You were going to bring me there,” I said, understanding suddenly. “That’s what you meant, Nik, when you said you might have a way to bring me home. You were going to bring me to the third gate, once we left Palarine.” Thinking about that a few seconds more, I exhaled again, folding my arms. “Vilandt. The third gate is on Vilandt... where the morph live. That’s why you didn’t want me to tell anyone where we were going, isn’t it?”
“It was a long shot, Dakota,” Nihkil blurted. “I didn’t want to speak with you about this... not until I knew if the third gate still existed. The ramifications would be huge, if the information got out. I couldn’t let anyone know what I knew, not before I got us off Palarine. The humans had to believe that all of the gates had been closed. It was the only possible chance I had of dissolving my contract with the Pharei military...” Seeing me frown, Nik added, sharper. “It wasn’t safe for you to know too much, Dakota. They watched us. All the time.”
I nodded, getting it.
I did get it, too.
I felt my mouth tighten, anyway. I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him for having a potentially real means of getting me home... or smack him for not telling me about it. Still, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.
Given the circumstances he’d just outlined, anyway.
“You have commandeered this gate,” Nik said, looking up at Zarwin. “You and your morph army? They own this gate now?”
“Yes,” Zarwin said simply. “We do.”
“And you wish... what? For me to gate-shift for you, now?”
Zarwin smiled. I watched him look at Nik silently for a moment, right before he clasped his hands together once more, resting his arms on his thighs.
"Perhaps it will help you decide what to do," Zarwin said. “...If I were to tell you my story, Jamri. Perhaps, if you understood what I have been doing all of these years since we last stood on Vilandt together, you will feel more inclined to trust me. Perhaps you can at least trust that I am telling you the truth about the rest. Am I right about this, Jamri?"
Nik didn't answer.
Even so, I got the distinct feeling, maybe through some remnant of the closed thread between us, that Nik did want to hear Zarwin’s story.
Sighing, perhaps because he saw the same thing in Nik’s face that I did, Zarwin ran a hand through his now-black hair, visibly relaxing. He glanced back just long enough to wave off his guards, grunting a low command in what had to be Dengue.
I watched as the four of them retreated, filing silently out the open door.
Seconds later, that same door melted closed.
"I will begin at the beginning," Zarwin said, still watching Nik gravely. "Which, of course, is near the end of our time together as youth, Jamri. Perhaps some of this will remain familiar to you, however, despite the intervening years...”
26
RAZMUN’S STORY
“...THE MANDATORY CONSCRIPTION authority approached me first, as you might remember," Zarwin began.
He leaned back slightly on the bench, resting his weight on his palms.
“...Since they do everything by their books,” he added. “And I was listed as several months older than you, my name came up on their roster first. Whatever they said or did not say to you, Jamri, they did not threaten me, not overtly. Nor did they threaten my family." His mouth thinned before he added, "Of course, it is possible that they did not do this to me because they felt they could not. As you probably remember, my mother was a member of their provisional government, which had already been acknowledged by both the Malek and Pharei governments as legitimate, and thus could not be ignored entirely by the conscription authority, either...”
Pausing more meaningfully, he gave Nik a wry smile.
“...Or perhaps they did not feel I was worth it, Jamri,” he said with a shrug. “Given that my test scores in their colonial schools were mediocre, at best.”
His eyes grew more distant again, as he stared past me and Nik, looking at the far wall.
“They made no mystery of the fact that they had read all of my disciplinary reports,” Razmun added. “...but something in my records, or perhaps simply my friendship with you, Jamri, was enough to convince them that I should take the preliminary gate tests, anyway. Perhaps they thought I'd be one of those to die, on my first pass through, which would handily dispatch a negative influence in their star pupil's life...” Shrugging again, he gave Nik a wry smile. “...Or perhaps they simply didn't care what became of me, Jamri. You might recall that they cared about very few of us, back then...”
I glanced at Nik, but saw no change on his narrow face. If the other morph's words were affecting him, or the emotion now audible in Razmun's voice was affecting him, there was little to indicate that in Nik's expression. Yet, I got the sense it was affecting him, if only by finally convincing him that Zarwin was who he claimed to be.
Or maybe the other morph’s words simply brought back memories that Nik would rather have forgotten.
“...I don't know what they thought, though, Jamri," Razmun continued in the same voice. "They did not tell me anything about why I was chosen. They sent only their low-level bureaucrats to question me for the first round. Either those bureaucrats were told not to tell me anything, or they genuinely knew nothing themselves... at least, not in terms of the Authority’s plans for my use.
“...The only thing I do know is this,” Razmun said, giving Nik a direct look. “By the end of that first meeting, I'd already decided there was no way I could let myself be conscripted. I knew if they gate-tested me, I would likely pass, given our connection. I knew that my passing would also indicate to them abilities well beyond anything my test scores demonstrated. Therefore, I knew I needed to crash the test before they got me anywhere near one of the physical gates...”
"The test cannot be sabotaged," Nik said, blunt. "It is impossible. Hundreds have tried. Thousands, likely."
"It can be done, Jamri," Zarwin said patiently. "I am proof of that, for I am here, instead of leashed to a false human lock-mate, like most of those of our kind. At least those of our kind with the ability to pass through the gates unharmed."
He gazed thoughtfully at Nihkil, his irises the color of brilliant blue sapphires.
"Do you want to
know how I sabotaged the test, Jamri?" he said.
"It is not possible," Nihkil said again, his voice vehement. "I took those tests, Razmun... if you are, indeed, him. I remember them well. I was lock-monitored throughout their duration. My emotions were already being tracked and run through the neuro-scanning machines. They monitored every change, every up and down in my mind... all of my vitals. They knew my stats the entire time. They would have picked up on it easily had I been in any way duplicitous. They forced me to transfer control of my lock, prior to––"
"Yes," Zarwin cut in heavily. "Yes, I know all of that, Jamri. They attempted to do all of these sames things to me."
"So how did you––"
"First, I killed the man they lock-bonded me to," Zarwin said.
His words silenced Nihkil as if he'd hit him in the mouth.
“...Well,” Zarwin amended, with a wave of his hand. “I arranged to have him killed... prior to the lock-bond being finalized. I fought to save him, of course, once the lock-bond was complete. I tried to pull in doctors, other morph... my mother. I could not help but do this, as it is our nature to protect our lock-mates with our lives... and I felt such horrible remorse at what I’d done, Jamri. There is no way to describe the pain I underwent... I only hope I never again come close to feeling such a thing. But by then it was already too late. A slow acting poison, you see.”
When the silence stretched, Zarwin went on, his voice sounding tired.
"The day before the live test, I also killed the man monitoring the neuro-scanner. Oslep took his form and pretended to monitor my readings for the test... although, in truth, he monitored a recording we had made of my readings doing a mundane task, the day before." Zarwin hesitated, then added, “...And my sister, Elegrin, took the form of my lock-mate, for the remainder of my time in the exams. Between the two of them, it was enough for me to be able to fail those tests. The death of the man who monitored the neuro-scanner was not discovered until many months later, thanks to Oslep taking his place for that amount of time.”
