He longed to hold onto the peace he felt and linger in its embrace for a few moments more.
“So this is where you are kept a slave, then?” the dwarf said quietly, his voice sounding harsh in the morning stillness.
“No, dwarf,” Drakis sighed with contentment. “This is my home.”
He looked back at his companions. As chimera, Ethis and Thuri had no real faces for him to read, but Belag held his head high, the furrows of his broad brow now relaxed. The manticore, too, was glad to be home.
So few, Drakis thought, would return to share that joy. Less than half of his own Octian had survived, and the rest of their Centurai had fared little better. Part of him longed to return to the camps at the foot of the Aerian Mountains, to see to the Impress Warriors of his Centurai and bring what remained of them back to these same fields. But his orders from the Tribune were unequivocal—and in the morning air he was satisfied that it was so.
Drakis glanced back through the fold. The liquid image of the previous marshaling field—a small plaza surrounding the crystal pillar of an Imperial Aether Well—still had several Centurai trying to sort themselves out through the various folds around the open courtyard.
Drakis turned his back on the war and smiled again. It was easy to discern the sets of parallel House totems—planted by the House mages and much smaller than the Imperial versions—marking the paths from the temple to the various dispersed Houses of the settlement. Drakis did not hesitate, choosing one of the paths and starting between the fields of knee-deep green blades of the young wheat toward the top of one of the low, undulating hills surrounding them.
The dwarf frowned, struggling to keep up as well as peer over the sea of stalks that suddenly surrounded him. “Are you sure this is the right path?”
“Yes, dwarf, I’m sure. I could walk these hills blind, totem or no,” Drakis said, pointing off to his right. “Over there is where I received my first field training when I was young . . . and there,” he pointed off to the left, “those are the fields where I labored with my father and mother for the glory of the House until I was of age to train for war.”
A low-lying morning mist stretched across the shallow tide pools of an inlet to the south, draping the shoreline in subdued hues of blue and gray. Tall reeds slept in the shadows that ran up the undulating slope from the shoreline, quickly giving way to the curving lengths of field that filled the gentle rising of the hills with ordered patterns. Here the colors were awakening under a salmon-colored sky of low-lying clouds set ablaze by the sun that was only now breaking over the eastern hills.
Drakis reveled in it all. “Belag, do you remember our first encampment?”
“The Chronasis campaigns?” the manticore asked.
“No . . . I mean during our first training.” Drakis shook his head. “Down in the hollow below the orchard.”
Jugar jumped nervously at the deafening trumpet-sound coming from the amused Belag. He glanced up at the human next to him. “I take it our manticore friend was amused by something?”
“Drakis and Belag made the mistake of making their camp on the wrong side of the lake,” said Thuri, shrugging all four of his shoulders. “An easy enough mistake in the darkness, but when they awoke the next morning, they found themselves surrounded by their opposing warriors.”
“By Thorgrin’s beard!” the dwarf swore in awe. “However did you survive?”
Drakis laughed. “It wasn’t a real battle, dwarf! We were just in training. Half the Centurai were to engage the other half in one of the fallow fields. Mostly it was about teaching us Centurai discipline, how to form Octia into a force of Centurai, that sort of thing.”
“So what did you do?” Jugar urged.
“He and Belag stood up and demanded the opposing warriors surrender,” Ethis answered for the chuckling human. “Fortunately Se’Djinka pulled them out before any real damage was done.”
“To either side,” Belag grunted.
Drakis smiled again. They were nearly to the crest of the one hill he had looked forward to above all others. “Here, dwarf,” he said with quiet ease. “We are home.”
Rising on the next hilltop, the glorious edifice of House Timuran pierced the sky, blocking the rays of the newly risen sun. The magnificent structure was cast in stark contrast, its purple-shadowed face outlined in a blaze of new day.
The avatria of House Timuran—the towering central structure of all elven homes—was enormous. Rising almost fifty feet above the ground, its form resembled the graceful shape of an unopened rosebud floating freely above the subatria buildings on the ground beneath it. The avatria’s curving petals swept upward from its rounded base to rise to a slight flare at its pinnacle. Ornate latticework between the petals framed the panes of crystal from which the elven family could look out upon their domain and know it was their own. Causing the avatria of an elven House to float in the air in such a manner was a common architectural feat among the elves, an ostentatious display meant to show that the House was of such wealth and prominence that it could use the mystical power of its Aether on extravagance. Of course, as all elves coveted ostentatious behavior, every elven House regardless of its size had long ago adopted the form.
Beneath the avatria and seeming to support but never touch it with its sweeping curves and surrounding minarets was the subatria, the ground buildings of the servants and slaves. In ancient times, the subatria was a warrior’s fortification, a curtain wall of defense against enemies while the elven lords sat secure and separate in their avatria stronghold. There still remained many of the features of the warrior’s battlements, though distance from the wars of conquest had long ago softened the lines.
Drakis raised his eyes to the top of the fifteen-foot-tall subatria walls.
A lone human figure stood there, silhouetted against the dawn-lit enormity of the avatria and looked longingly to the west . . .
. . . Looking for him.
“Mala,” he murmured.
“Drakis!” she called as he came through the Warrior’s Gate.
The high, curving interior of the curtain wall cast shadows onto the packed dirt of the narrow passage within the subatria even during the midpoint of the day. It was known in all elven structures as the chakrilya—the Warrior’s Way—and its path curving around the center of the building led to the cells, mess halls, kitchens, and practice arenas where the Impress Warriors were kept. Drakis had marched out through this canyonlike passage five days before, its breadth filled shoulder to shoulder with his fellow warriors. Now he felt small with so few of them standing in its cavernous expanse.
But the sound of her voice cast all the loss, the pain, and the loneliness from his thoughts.
She was reaching for him through the crossed iron bands of the closed portcullis separating the Centurai wing from the other areas of the subatria. Drakis swung his field pack off his shoulders and tossed it quickly toward the base of the wall where Belag and the others were already setting theirs down. He ran over to her, casting a quick, worried glance down the length of the chakrilya as he took her hand.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.
“And you’ve grown hair.” Mala Shei-Timuran gazed up at him through her large, emerald eyes as Drakis pressed her palm to his cheek. She leaned forward against the bars, the sinque mark of the household easily read on the crown of her shaved head. She was half a foot shorter than he, her waist narrow but her hips full and desirable, achingly beyond his reach.
“Yes,” he laughed. “But no doubt I’ll be properly shaved and cleaned up before long.”
“So you did return to me after all,” she said, turning her face up to look into his eyes again. “I prayed to all the gods each day that they would bring you back to me.”
“All of the gods?” Drakis smiled at her through the squared openings of the portcullis.
“Well,” she admitted, her small mouth twisting mischievously, “perhaps not all of them—but certainly each of the House gods. You pray to all
the gods and you’re bound to offend one of them. So . . . are we to be paired?”
Drakis choked slightly. “What? I just came through the gate and . . .”
“You said before you left that if the campaign was successful, Lord Timuran would look favorably on mating the two of us,” Mala said matter-of-factly, her eyes taking on a look that Drakis always considered dangerous. “The plunder was brought by the caravan porters yesterday, and you’re here before any of the rest of the Cohort so—you must have honored the House, am I right?”
“Mala,” Drakis said, pulling back a little as he spoke. “I don’t think that’s why we’re here.”
“Oh, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were?” she said with a gentle smile. “You, honored by Lord Timuran and the two of us paired? Maybe even ascending to the Sixth Estate. We’d no longer be slaves and could contribute to the Imperium on our own!”
“Yes, it would be wonderful, but I don’t think . . .”
“I’m not saying that it will happen, you know that, don’t you, Drakis?”
“Of course, beloved, but . . .”
“It’s just that it’s such a wonderful dream.”
Drakis held her hand tightly for a few moments, uncertain what to say as he looked into her eyes. She had a lovely heart-shaped face with a small chin. Her cheekbones gave her face a sharp beauty. Everything about her he found desirable, but it was her eyes in which he always lost his thoughts and his heart to her. How could he tell her that things had gone terribly wrong in the campaign . . . that he was not even certain whether he had won the prized crown or not.
“Yes, they are wonderful dreams, Mala—and I’m very pleased to hear that the plunder arrived,” Drakis reluctantly let her go. “The Tribune has sent us back here to present the treasures to . . .”
“What is that?” Mala interrupted, pointing toward the somewhat worse-for-wear pile of flamboyant clothing shuffling toward her.
“Oh,” Drakis said. “This is a dwarven fool—in more ways than one, I suspect. He’s part of our spoils. We’ll present him tonight for House Devotions.”
“Greetings, good woman,” Jugar said, bowing as deeply as his restraints would allow. “My new companion, Drakis, has given me only the most glowing reports of your beauty and your sagacious and erudite conversational skills, and I see now that he has portrayed them to me with crystalline accuracy! I am charmed and gratified to make your acquaintance.”
Mala stared at the dwarf.
The dwarf answered her with a broad-toothed smile.
“Does he always talk like this?” Mala said to Drakis from the corner of her mouth.
“Only when he’s quiet,” Drakis sighed.
In the distance above them, a chime sounded twice.
“I must go,” Mala said at once, pulling her hands back through the bars and quickly moving down the sweeping curve of the corridor that led from the chakrilya toward the central garden of the subatria. “Will they pair us tonight? After Devotions?”
Drakis smiled and called after her. “If it is the Emperor’s Will.”
“And why should it not be?” Mala said brightly before dashing down the polished stones on her bare feet. “What should the Emperor have against me?”
Drakis smiled and turned, to find the dwarf gazing up at him thoughtfully.
“You have a problem, dwarf?” Drakis was feeling suddenly annoyed with his diminutive trophy.
“Oh, not at all, not at all,” Jugar replied thoughtfully. “She seems like the absolutely perfect woman.”
“She is perfect,” Drakis said with pride.
“Then I’m very sorry for you,” Jugar said.
“What did you say?”
“Ah, well,” the dwarf continued, “you can’t make a country without cracking a few heads, eh? Perhaps you should tell me something about this ceremony tonight. I wouldn’t want to make a mistake and embarrass you. That reminds me, how are you feeling now, Drakis?
“Fine,” the human shrugged and then stopped.
He did feel fine.
The song was completely gone from his head.
CHAPTER 10
Cleansing
“SO HOW LONG did they say it would take?” Jugar asked nervously through chattering teeth. The naked dwarf squatted with his back wedged into the corner of the dim room, holding a large, brass ladle firmly in front of his manhood and appearing resolved never to move it. An iron grating overhead allowed square columns of light to fall into the room, casting the dwarf and the human in shadows of stark relief.
Drakis stood naked on the stone platform surrounding the circular trough in the center of the room. Clear water constantly overflowed its edges, splashing down over the stones before falling through a metal grating in the floor. He held his own ladle in one hand, scooping water from the trough and, pouring it over his head, cascading it down his powerful body. He then set the ladle down and picked up a pumice stone from the floor, lightly scraping at the dirt on his broad chest and forearms.
“How long for what?” Drakis asked casually.
“You know for what!” the dwarf’s voice almost broke in his nervous exasperation. “How long before that woman brings our clothes back!”
“Oh, that?” Drakis smiled to himself. He did not know much about dwarves beyond the easiest way to kill them and how they reacted in battle. He had imagined a great many things about them, but being prudish was not one of them. He was finding this fool of a dwarf to be most entertaining. “Essenia said that she would have them cleaned at once and bring them when they were fit to wear—although she appeared to have her doubts about getting your costume presentable. But, then, she had her doubts about you getting presentable either.”
Jugar glowered back at the human in silence for a time, then his features softened slightly. “Wait! Hold still for a moment.”
Drakis turned toward the dwarf. “What is it?”
“Turn back around . . . a little more,” the dwarf murmured, his eyes fixed intently on Drakis. “Now lean forward just a little . . . there.”
“What are you up to, dwarf?”
“Hold still, please.”
The sound of the water murmured across the silence.
“May I finish now?” Drakis ask impatiently.
“Yes,” the dwarf responded thoughtfully. Several heartbeats passed before he spoke again. “Those scars on your back . . . how did you get those?”
Drakis poured another ladle of water over his head, brushing the remaining grains of pumice from his skin as he spoke. “Which scars?”
“Those rather nasty looking scars on your back,” Jugar replied. “Who gave those to you?”
“I’m an Impress Warrior, dwarf,” Drakis scoffed. “We all have scars.”
“So I have observed,” Jugar continued. “But these are particularly nasty looking. I would venture to say that such scars would be most memorable indeed. So, when did you get them?”
Drakis absently reached his right hand around his side, running his fingers along the ridges of his skin. “Why, I . . . isn’t that something? I don’t remember.”
“Have you ever seen them?” Jugar said through his still chattering teeth.
“Seen them? Now how would I see them? They’re on my back.”
“You don’t know your own past, Drakis, my friend.” Jugar’s eyes squinted as he considered them. “So perhaps you’ll believe me if I tell you something about your future. Your beloved Lord Timuran has not called you back to gratefully accept your bountiful conquest but to take out his rage on you.”
Drakis set the ladle down slowly, the features of his face hidden in shadows. “That is no prophecy, dwarf. I could have told you that. I will be shamed before him.”
“You will be more than shamed, Drakis,” the dwarf continued, his gruff voice firm and sure. “He will strike you, lay open your flesh to agonizing pain and all your tears, and protest, and pleadings of your love for him will be soundless in his ears. He will not stop.”
Drakis stalke
d over toward Jugar, the silhouette of his muscular frame looming over where the dwarf crouched. “The foolish curse of a dwarven fool! My master has never so much as touched me in anger!”
The dwarf looked up, the softened look of his eyes framed in the square of light from above.
“He would kill you if he could, Drakis, this very afternoon. But someone will intervene on your behalf—and will save your life, though in doing so you will wish that you had died.”
“Only gods can know the future,” Drakis said flatly.
The dwarf shrugged. “That which has happened before will happen again. You’ve only forgotten. Remember my words, Drakis, and maybe then, my friend, you will come to me and know the truth.”
Drakis thought for a moment and then shook his head violently, sending particles flying from his shaved head. “So you’re back to that again. Now I’m supposed to have forgotten nearly dying. Well, one thing you should not forget: that Essenia and I will throw you into this trough personally if you don’t get over here and scrape off some of that dwarven stench.”
“Dwarves do not bathe!” Jugar grumbled emphatically.
“That I most certainly believe,” Drakis replied easily, “but in this case you may want to make an exception. We’re being summoned before Lord Timuran himself, and he takes no more delight in the smell of dwarven slaves than any other conquered race.”
Drakis and Jugar stepped into the Warrior’s Courtyard. The Impress Warrior felt renewed after the bath despite the dwarf’s bizarre and gloomy predictions; bathing was a ritual that was so basic among the elves that it made him feel a part of the Empire that he so fervently wished to join. The tunic that he wore was that of a slave, but it was clean, and in that he felt a sort of purity, elevated somehow above the commonplace.
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