Only the Open

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “Now where, sir?” the guard asked.

  The Worldlord frowned, looking down the hall. “If I send him to the slave annex, someone may intercept him on the way, so... take him to the Sword’s guest chambers. And put yourself at the door. No one is to take the slave from the room; he is the Sword’s for the night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Again, the stairs. This time he was prompted to walk, so he did, even though his knees trembled. At last he was to be given to the new male. For what? To hope that it wouldn’t be worse was ridiculous. Perhaps the reason the Worldlord had been so determined to save him from the depredations of Manufactory-East was because he wanted to reserve the Emperor’s final gasps for this Sword.

  This Sword. Whom Andrea had said was here to rescue him.

  Not possible.

  The guard herded him into the new chamber and left him leashed to the floor in the now customary position, his cheek pressed flush to the tiles and his body sprawled behind him in whatever position he could use to derive even the slightest comfort. What little he could see of chamber told him nothing about his newest tormentor. No personal effects. No signs of vice (I don’t need a new vice, something in him whispered). No open bottles of liquor, no torn sheets, not so much as a broken flower. Nothing the Emperor could use to prepare himself. But the very pristineness of the chamber was itself suggestive. The male had been here at least two days. Perhaps he was so violent his rooms had to be completely remade after he finished with his toys. The Emperor bit back a whimper, fingers spasming against the ground. Surely all he had endured today would be enough. Would Andrea’s God take pity on a worthless piece of trash? What was a sparrow, and why had she told Emlyn that it was fortunate God noticed even it?

  Would he live through the night?

  Could he perhaps, somehow, finally contrive to die?

  The light slowly drained from the suite. He shielded his face from the balcony, not wanting to see what he could no longer have, and tried to ignore the breeze as it cooled the tiles beneath him. He shivered, and lost time, and thought he slept but couldn’t be certain. Maybe he would always be here, waiting for the next rape, the next assault, the next desecration.

  The Emperor squeezed his eyes shut, and his body grew more and more tense, and time more and more diffuse, until the sound of voices in the stairwell snapped his eyes open again. Two males. But more footfalls than that. Words now. “…thank you, that will be all.”

  A murmur.

  “No, I shouldn’t need anyone again until morning.”

  More shuffling of feet. Not many this time. Someone leaving. Only one person, though. Did that mean they had brought another group to disport itself on him? His heart accelerated. Despite his desire not to care, still he could feel fear at the thought.

  “Gone?” the voice said.

  A pause. Another voice, male, unfamiliar. “All clear.”

  “Shut the door, then.” Feet now, striding. The sound made by leather wrinkling around joints as someone crouched beside his head, blocking the wind from the balcony. A tug at the leash. “Disgusting.”

  “They all do it,” a second voice said. Female, unfamiliar... he thought? Something about it reminded him of a dream. She spoke in Universal, sudden and welcome and unexpected. “Even in the palace. Not leashes, but all the rest. You know.”

  “I do, yes.” The tension yoking the Emperor’s throat to the group abruptly loosed. He heard the Chatcaavan draw in a long, measured breath. “All right. Sit up, please.”

  Unmistakably meant for him, that command. Should he defy this stranger or would that make things worse later? The male had asked so politely, but what did that mean anymore? The Worldlord had been courtesy itself while making the Emperor’s impotency ineluctably clear. There was evil in all of them. Some merely hid it better.

  This Sword… how close to the surface was his cruelty? Deep probably, if he’d let it come to the Emperor’s ears that this might constitute a rescue attempt. Something felt wrong about this reasoning, and yet he could no longer think of any other to explain why a Chatcaavan would say such a thing. His head hurt too much. It was easiest to accept the obvious.

  It was useless to rebel. He would pay for it, sooner or later. Later was always better. He pushed himself onto his knees and sat, trying not to shiver.

  Before him crouched the Sword. He was an unusual-looking male. Pale silver, with an extravagant mane, one that hurt to look at because something about it was familiar and lost long ago. Blue eyes, fluorescent and intent. A scar on one of the wings, so large it must have obviated flight. The male wore garb typical to a spacer, and swords like something out of the Alliance—trophies, no doubt, like his matching Pelted slaves who were standing behind his shoulders, one wary, the other aghast. It was the latter who whispered, “Surely not?”

  The Sword said, voice crisp, “Laniis, keep watch on the door, please? Knife, yours is the balcony.”

  The two dispersed, and to him the Sword said, “Come with me.”

  To the bedchamber.

  Always the bedchamber.

  The Emperor cringed but the male didn’t see it, had already turned his back and left for the other room, assuming obedience as they all did. And what choice did he have. The other slaves would not dare save him. And this male… he could not imagine anyone denying this male anything. If he was lucky, it would be over quickly. But he was never lucky.

  He went, shoulders rounded and head lowered. Once he stepped into the room, the Sword said, “Shut the door please.”

  As he did so, the Sword closed the balcony and twitched the curtains over them before turning to him. The male’s hands were loose at his sides, fingers flexing. Was this a prelude to the assault? Did he prefer to crush the breath out of his prey? The Emperor backed against the door, breath quickening.

  “Exalted,” the Sword said, very softly. “It is your Perfection.”

  His body stopped. His mind. His breath. Everything. No.

  The male stepped closer, extending a hand. “I wear a seeming and if it was safe I would tear it asunder so that you might see me true. I would touch your mind, but I need your skin for that… as you remember. All I can give you as proof are words. Laniis says that you came over the estate’s walls and asked Andrea for her pattern, and that is how you have come to be human and in hiding here. I hardly… I hardly credit it. And if they are wrong and you are someone else… then it doesn’t matter because we will rescue you anyway when we leave. But if they are right…” Another step forward, so close now that the Emperor could see the anguish in those eyes, see it… and remember it in a paler, alien face. “If it is you… O my Beloved… only tell me so…!”

  NO.

  He slammed back against the door, desperate. No, this was a trap. Or worse, it was not a trap and somehow this male, the Chatcaavan male advancing on him… was the Ambassador, here to see him reduced to… to this. This broken piece of meat, useless and used, who’d slept in a kennel and pleaded to be spared further cruelties while writhing naked beneath anyone who wanted him. Which was worse? All of it was worse. All of it was the final seal on his abnegation, and as the Sword watched him, horrified, the Emperor slid to the floor and started crying.

  Lisinthir stared at the man sobbing into his knees, the one who presented the perfect picture of the brutalized victim. This was not an act, could not be. Even if the Emperor had been capable of dissembling so perfectly, he would never have chosen an act that manifested weakness so obviously. Lisinthir would have called Laniis and the Knife in and told them in that moment that this was the wrong person, except….

  Except he’d seen the flash of recognition in those eyes before shame and horror had ripped it down. Somehow, this wreck was his Emperor, and the sight made him desperate to make it better, to make the weeping stop. He wanted to pull the other male into his arms so badly and yet he knew better. The Emperor had survived enough casual violation. Lisinthir had to start putting him back together, one piece at a time, starting with his ow
n body autonomy.

  But oh, God… God, how it hurt to bear this witness.

  Kneeling in front of the Emperor, Lisinthir whispered, “Please, Beloved. I’m here now. I regret how late I am. So much. But we have come to bear you free.” No response. He swallowed and leaned closer, lifting a hand but offering it palm up, cupped. “Exalted. May I touch you?” Nothing but that heart-rending weeping. Lisinthir closed his eyes, fighting his own pain, marshaled himself. “Please. Please, Beloved. Let me hold you…!”

  At last the Emperor lifted his face, cheeks and chin wet and gleaming in the low light. He was shivering visibly. “This is a trick.”

  “No trick,” Lisinthir promised, his hand still out-held.

  “A trap, then.”

  “No.” Lisinthir inhaled, shaky. “No. I dreamed of you, Exalted. You said I should not return to the field before time or all would be lost. You told me to wait for a sign.”

  The slave’s eyes grew round.

  “You let me love you in that dream,” Lisinthir said softly. “The way we loved one another in those final days on the throneworld. But we couldn’t name it there. I am naming it now. You are the Exalted Emperor of the Chatcaavan Empire, and my Beloved, and Greatness. And I am the Ambassador who loves you.”

  “Perfection,” the Emperor whispered.

  “Yours. Forever your Perfection,” Lisinthir said, opening both arms now.

  With a strangled cry, the Emperor threw himself into them and Lisinthir gasped out at the touch, at the violence of the emotions that tore the Emperor’s aura like knives, that made the savagery of his embrace seem to draw blood. This lithe body, too small, too frail, trembling with the tension of so many days of torment… Lisinthir moaned and pressed his head into the Emperor’s shoulder. Never, never would he have conceived any future that included an Emperor who could sob the way the Emperor was sobbing now into his shoulder, as if he was the male’s last refuge. All the Eldritch could do was stroke the tangled hair and try not to sink too deeply into his own grief when he was needed so badly.

  And he thought… thought he succeeded. Until the Emperor gasped in and said, heartfelt, “Lisinthir.”

  His name from this mouth—his name—his spirit shattered.

  The Emperor pressed his brow against Lisinthir’s chest, grinding it there slowly. His ribcage was still rising and falling erratically under Lisinthir’s hand, but he was at least no longer sobbing. Softer, then, like a talisman, “Lisinthir. Nase Galare. Ambassador. Lisinthir.”

  “Your Perfection,” Lisinthir whispered.

  “No.” From a tight throat, so tight Lisinthir hurt to hear it. “I deserve nothing so pure.”

  “Exalted—”

  “I’m not that either.” The Emperor dug his fingertips into Lisinthir’s back. “Not anymore. I can’t… I’m not…”

  “Stop,” Lisinthir said, and was appalled when the command worked. Softer, “You are at the end of your strength, Beloved. Take no counsel from your darkest hours.”

  “No,” the Emperor said, sagging against him. “It is the only counsel that ever told me the truth. This Empire, these people, me… it’s all corrupt. It’s debased and corrupt, and we must burn it all down. All of it. All of it must go. There’s nothing worth saving.”

  “You were.”

  The Emperor froze, and Lisinthir willed him to look up. When he did, Lisinthir said, low, “You were worth saving. If you, why not them all?”

  Another shocky breath, and then the Emperor said, “I don’t know why you did it. I was like them. I was evil.”

  Lisinthir stroked back some of the sweat-matted hair from the Emperor’s temple. “I did it to see if it could be done.” He looked into the Emperor’s eyes. “Tell me. Did it work?”

  “I… I don’t know,” the Emperor whispered. “I don’t know if there is any redemption possible.”

  “You’re wrong,” Lisinthir said simply. He cupped the male’s face. “I wish we were wearing our true shapes. I can’t trade for mine right now. But you…”

  “I can’t.” Anguish twisting the words to near intelligibility.

  “…Can’t?” Lisinthir asked carefully.

  “My head… I did something… I haven’t been able to Change back…” Panic now, quickening the Emperor’s breath. “I may never Change back. No one knows what’s wrong.”

  “Sssh.” Lisinthir rested his fingertips on the Emperor’s lips. “Ssh. We will find out what is afflicting you and we will fix it. Believe it.”

  The Emperor let his head drop back down against Lisinthir’s chest, and in that one exhausted movement Lisinthir read days of hyper-alertness, of terror, of tension and poor sleep. “Bed,” he said, soft. “Let me hold you. I’ll guard your back and you’ll rest. In the morning, I will arrange for your sale to me.”

  “They will never let me go,” was the strangled whisper.

  “You’ll see.” Lisinthir tried to help him up, thought better of it and lifted him. The Emperor didn’t fight him, weighed almost nothing, was too listless for Lisinthir’s peace of mind. The male didn’t resist being placed on the bed or Lisinthir sliding into it behind him.

  How often had he dreamed of this reunion? How many times had he fallen asleep, hoping to hold this body flush to his own, feel this heart beating under his palm?

  But not like this.

  The Emperor fell asleep immediately, and Lisinthir accepted that as a final judgment on whether the Emperor believed him. Surely he wouldn’t have felt safe enough to sleep otherwise. But Lisinthir no longer knew if the Exalted Emperor thought that way, or if he’d been broken down to the point of simply collapsing when he ran to the end of his strength. Lisinthir longed to slip into his mind and read it. Didn’t, because that would have been a further violation of someone who had suffered too much already.

  So he held the Emperor. For hours, listening to the male’s breathing, sensing the uncomfortable darkness that flitted through that dreaming mind without examining it. Trying to make sense of the pastiche of despair and hopelessness and pain that clung close to skin. Eventually, he pressed his eyes to the back of the Emperor’s shoulder, and his eyes began to seep until they ran freely, soaking the pillow under them. He wept for the Emperor, and for his own powerlessness, and for the guilt he felt as suddenly as a blow… that he had not come in time to avert this.

  And when he had given all that up to tears, he wiped his eyes and eased out of the bed. A wash in the bathing chamber freshened his face and calmed him. He remembered vividly his own nadir, coming apart in the Slave Queen’s arms in the court of his enemies. And from that low ebb, he had drawn himself back up again. With help. Her help.

  He left the bedchamber and found both his confederates at their watches, the Knife now at the balcony and Laniis at the door to the hall. They looked up, pointed ears pricking in unison.

  “Is it him?” Laniis asked.

  “It is.”

  “Is he acting?” The Knife’s voice was tentative.

  “No.” Lisinthir managed a smile as he looked again at Laniis. “I suppose if ever you hoped for vengeance, arii….”

  “I wouldn’t wish what the Chatcaava do on my worst enemy,” Laniis exclaimed, and paused, eyes losing their focus. When they snapped back, her shoulders had squared. “And I mean that.”

  “And you are glad to have discovered this truth about yourself,” Lisinthir said. “You should be.” He sat on the arm of one of the divans, leaning over his leg with an arm propped on it. “He needs a halo-arch. There is something preventing him from Changing; he believes it to be the injury he sustained.”

  Laniis tilted her head. “Andrea’s an EMA. She mentioned something about that, but without tools she didn’t think she could learn more.”

  “Andrea,” he said, startled. “The other human. Is a medical technician?” At Laniis’s nod, Lisinthir said, “Then you may have given me the tool I need to secure our final advantage. In the morning I’ll ask for her.”

  “How are we going to do it?” th
e Knife said, low. When they looked at him, he said, “How are we going to keep going for however long it takes for the ship to come back? How can we keep doing this?”

  “One moment at a time,” Laniis said.

  “One breath at a time,” Lisinthir murmured. Standing, he said, “I return to bed. Fetch me in the morning when the guard comes back.”

  Laniis followed him to the door of the bedchamber and watched him start stripping for sleep. As he did, he said, “The wings are convincing, I hope.”

  “Very. I like your real body better, though.”

  “Surprisingly, I do as well.” He sat on the edge of the bed and met her eyes, waiting.

  “I didn’t expect it. That I wouldn’t want him to suffer.”

  “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t imagine so. When we are struck, arii, we strike back.”

  “Some of us do, anyway. Some of us… we just take it.” Laniis’s eyes drifted to the Emperor’s back, at the tight curl that raised the chain of the spine against a back gone fleshless from lack of appetite. “For a long time, I wanted them to know what it felt like to be one of their own slaves. I didn’t think of that as vengeance, but as justice.”

  “Have you changed your mind?”

  She looked at him then, ears flicking back. “I think… how you want a thing changes it. When I wanted to do it to hurt them, that was vengeance. And I wanted that… up until tonight.”

  “And what happened?” he asked, quiet.

  “I realized that it didn’t matter whether I wanted them to suffer or not,” Laniis said. “What did matter is that… maybe they had to. Because there was no other way for them to understand.”

  “Then you know now why I stayed in the Empire, and why I felt constrained to teach them compassion.”

  She nodded. “I do know. But I’m not sure you know now that this… this is just another step in the process you started.” She met his eyes. “It’s going to change him. Let it.”

  “And if that change destroys him?” Lisinthir asked, even quieter.

  She glanced at the Emperor again, then at him, evaluating, thoughtful. Her ears swayed forward. “It won’t.” Stepping back, she said, “Good night, Ambassador.”