Shalia's Diary Omnibus

by Tracy St. John

  “That’s good information, huh?” I asked, hoping I’d helped our situation somehow.

  “Any intelligence is worth having. It’s not like the collar systems the Bi’isils have. That explains why Finiuld didn’t collar you on the space station.”

  I leaned back to look Oses in the face. “How is it different?”

  “Bi’isils use a system in which the collar controller is on their person. It has to be recharged from time to time, but it’s portable. I thought perhaps Finiuld’s controller might be similar, but it would seem not.”

  I considered. “It would be easier if he did carry it. We could have hoped to take it from him.”

  “It’s more defensible to not be collared in the first place. Once he puts them on our necks, they’re a damned sight harder to break free of. Just touching him makes us senseless from pain. I must fight past that somehow if I’m to overpower him.” Oses fell silent again. His brow furrowed as he pondered our situation.

  I sighed. “We can’t grab the phase thingy off him either. Not that it matters. Even if we could, with a single command he’s got us writhing on the floor, screaming our heads off.”

  I went cold as emotion drained from Oses’s eyes.

  He told me, “I can’t figure out how to save you from the situation. I can’t protect you against this monster. I’m of no use to you, Shalia.”

  Terror filled me. Perhaps Oses was thinking of killing himself. The dead quality of his voice said he was giving up.

  I clutched at him. “I need you, Oses. Having you here to hold me is restoring my sanity after that awful party. If anything happens to you, I won’t survive it.”

  I’m not certain he heard me. His gaze went distant. “This feeling of helplessness...I can’t bear it. One failure, one loss was enough. I can’t do this again.”

  I stared at him. “When have you ever failed?”

  Oses blinked and seemed surprised I was there. He’d gone away for a few moments, somewhere awful. I didn’t really want to know where that place was. If it left my big, bad Nobek in despair, it had to be the worst imaginable situation.

  There was such agony in his expression. Nobeks aren’t great at venting grief, but they feel it. As reluctant as I was to hear the source of Oses’s pain, I had to. Not just for myself, though I admit to that selfish impulse. My Nobek needed me for his survival as much as I needed him for mine. He didn’t have to say it for me to figure it out. Sometimes I’m not so dense.

  “Tell me,” I insisted. “What did you do that makes you feel you’ve failed somehow?”

  He took a long time to answer. I thought he wouldn’t. Finally, he relented.

  “It’s what I didn’t do,” Oses said. “I let my brother die. I stood there and watched him drown and did nothing to stop it.”

  The story is as sad as it can be. Oses had had an older brother who’d been classified as an Imdiko. He’d been a gentler boy than Oses, but that didn’t keep him from acting like an older brother: occasionally bossy, teasing, and playing tricks. Oses alternated between idolizing and despising this sibling named Roweld, depending on what stage the rivalry was at.

  “It was during one summer when it happened. I was all of eight years old, and Roweld was ten. I lived at the training camp as most Nobek boys do, and I’d come home for a scheduled visit with my family. Our parent clan surprised us with a trip to the beach. We’d been to the local lake for water sports before, but having never visited the coastal shoreline, we were ecstatic.”

  They’d spent the next two weeks as boys would, building sand fortresses, playing games, learning to body surf. Brotherly rivalry often meant competition between the pair.

  “Roweld was older, bigger, and therefore usually better at most things.” Oses got that far-off gaze once more. “However, I was going through rigorous physical training in camp. I was confident I’d finally be able to beat him in a few of our games. I challenged him to see who could swim the farthest.”

  There had been a sandbar a short distance from the shore. The idea was to see who could swim back and forth the most laps before giving up. Roweld had accepted the challenge, delighted to put his upstart brother in his place.

  “He’d always been the faster swimmer,” Oses remembered. “He could beat me over a short distance, but I felt I could outlast him. Speed was his strength, but endurance was mine.”

  The boys commenced the challenge. Their parents had been nearby, sitting and talking with another clan taking in the sun-soaked beach that day.

  “I have no doubt they checked on us from time to time,” Oses said. “But it takes only a minute of distraction for tragedy to hit.”

  As Oses had expected, Roweld pulled ahead quickly. The young Nobek refused to let that bother him. He kept swimming, plowing through the water to reach the sandbar, turning back to shore, and doing it again. The current was strong, fighting him. Around the third lap, he caught up to Roweld. By the fifth, he was well ahead of his older brother.

  “I reached the shore and checked to see where he was. Roweld was out near the sandbar. He wasn’t swimming anymore, just bobbing up and going under the water, over and over. He showed up farther and farther to my right each time. I thought he was trying to trick me into thinking he was being pulled under by some animal and dragged off. I laughed and waved to show him I wasn’t falling for his games. But he kept doing it, coming up to the surface more slowly.”

  There was a sudden yell from behind Oses. His Nobek father raced past him, diving into the surf and swimming with strong, quick strokes towards where Roweld had been. The water there was now unbroken but for the waves.

  “My other fathers followed him in, along with the men of the clan they’d been talking to. It was only then that I realized Roweld had not been trying to trick me. I had no idea how quiet drowning was. I didn’t know he spent all his strength fighting to the surface to draw a breath of air. There were no cries for help. There was no flailing wildly to gain our attention. He came up and went down again until he couldn’t come up anymore.”

  They found Roweld fifteen minutes later. By then it was too late. The current had grabbed him and pulled him from the last place he’d been seen, making his safe recovery impossible.

  “You were a child,” I told Oses while sobbing over the loss of a boy I’d never met. “You said yourself you didn’t realize he was drowning. How could you? It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Perhaps not.” His gaze still focused on that awful place where older brothers die. “But I stood there and watched him. I laughed as he drowned. I failed to keep him safe, as a Nobek should protect an Imdiko.”

  “Surely your parents didn’t blame you?”

  “No, they blamed themselves. We were in counseling several years to come to grips with what had happened to Roweld. It was a terrible tragedy, and we suffered horribly from it.”

  Oses’s face twisted, as if the sight of me was the equivalent of shoving a knife in his guts. “I swore after Roweld died that I would never again fail to protect those weaker than me. Yet here we are. You are being harmed, and I cannot stop it. Just as I could have saved Roweld, I should be able to save you.”

  I grabbed his face between my hands. “You are saving me, Oses. Maybe not the way you feel you should, but you are my sanity. You and the hope of finding an escape out of this mess are what hold me together.”

  His gaze dropped. He refused to look me in the face. “I’m doing nothing. Just as before. I am standing aside and watching you drown.”

  “The only way you can fail me is by not being here. Without you, I’ll give up. You are keeping me above water, Oses. Not having you will be the reason I drown.”

  “You can’t mean that. You have to despise me for not saving you.”

  “Listen to me.” I dug my fingertips in his jaw. His eyes snapped up to meet mine, giving me hope that I might reach him after all. “I have endured worse than being treated like an animal. In the past, I have been raped. I have been attacked. People have done their best
to kill me. I survived all that, and I’ll survive this as long as you’re here to remind me I have a reason to. Don’t you fucking turn coward and leave me alone to do this by myself. I’ll never forgive you.”

  Oses blinked. His mouth dropped open, and I saw a flash of anger. Inside, I cheered. Calling him a coward had done what begging and reason could not. Pissed-off Oses was a damned sight better than hopeless Oses, even if his anger was directed at me.

  I watched as he dealt with his emotions, willing him to find his strength and not use it to pound me into jelly. I could have screamed with joy when I saw the dangerous light that was Oses return to his gaze.

  “I’m here,” he declared with a growl. “I accept the challenge of being your strength. I’ll be here for as long as you require me. Don’t let my momentary weakness ever make you suspect otherwise.”

  Relief nearly made me faint. I had my Nobek back.

  February 20

  As near as I can figure, we were given two days of peace before Finiuld showed up again. Better food than we’d had before was sent to us. I assumed it was because I’d been such an obedient pet that we were rewarded. The notion cost me my appetite, but Oses encouraged me to eat.

  “You and another need the strength,” he whispered to me when I picked at my food. The one occasion I balked, he warned, “If I must carry on, then so do you. Eat or I’ll be angry.”

  It was wonderful to know the old, dominating Oses again. I was relieved to have him big and bad, even in a cage.

  The longer Finiuld stayed away, the more on edge I became. By the end of the first day, I was convinced he’d show up at any moment. Every little sound made me jump. It wore on Oses’s nerves.

  “By the ancestors, if I could knock you out without worrying it would harm you, I’d do it,” he said. “Let’s work on your meditation skills. Practice with me.”

  “You meditate?” I laughed at the vision of Oses in a lotus posture, humming himself to serenity.

  The glare he gave me shut me up quick. “All Nobeks are taught to. It calms us in stressful situations. Sit down and do as I say.”

  It wasn’t as if I had a ton of other activities to fill my hours. Sex was our only other recreation, but we felt bad we could do it and the other prisoners couldn’t. Plus there was that weirdness of being on public display.

  I sat with my legs crossed. Oses spent a few minutes instructing me on keeping my posture just so. It turns out I slump a lot, and he insisted I sit up straight. That Nobek was a pain with his perfectionism.

  Then there was advice on how to breathe. For heaven’s sake, it’s breathing. We do it without thinking. Yet I had to do it so that my stomach ballooned out and then sucked in towards my spine. “Fill your diaphragm,” Oses told me.

  “I don’t even know where that is,” I retorted. “Listen, I haven’t dropped over dead yet, so apparently I’ve got this breathing thing down. Stop being so picky.”

  That got me rolled over and popped on my fanny a couple of times. Then I had to adjust my sitting posture all over again.

  Finally, I sat and breathed to Oses’s liking. Next came closing my eyes.

  “Concentrate on your breath,” the Nobek said. “Feel each individual inhalation entering you. Notice the moment of quiet before you exhale. Then feel that breath leave you.”

  I tried. I breathed in and I breathed out. I’d pay attention to it for a few seconds, then my mind would take off. I’d think about what Finiuld might have in store for us next. I wondered what I would do if he figured out I was pregnant. I envisioned Betra, Candy, and Katrina and wondered if they’d given up on us yet. I thought about my dads and Clan Dusa. Had anyone informed them that I’d gone missing? Damn, Nayun would be frantic. I’d already caused him to cry more than I cared to remember.

  “Shalia, come back to the breath.”

  “How do you always know?”

  Oses chuckled. “Because we all do it. Thoughts constantly come. You have to learn to let them pass by, to not get caught up in them. Try again.”

  And so it would go. I tried to think only about breathing, then an idea or memory would sneak in, and I would fret and worry until Oses reminded me I wasn’t supposed to.

  Meditation should be relaxing. Instead, it’s among the most frustrating endeavors I’ve ever attempted.

  Two days after my horrid experience at Finiuld’s party, I was making another attempt under Oses’s urging. We sat on the ground, facing each other with about a foot of space between us. I struggled to keep my mind on my breathing when I heard a heavy thud.

  My eyes flew open. Oses lay unconscious and Finiuld stood over him, his expression amused as he stared at me. I damned near pissed myself as terror gripped me.

  “Take off your clothes and let’s go.” The Little Creep held out his hand.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to run and hide, though there was nowhere to go. I did neither. I stood, shrugged out of my shift, and took Finiuld’s hand. He led me out of the containment.

  We walked through walls, passing through rooms. I saw what I guessed were sleeping quarters, with small, Little Creep-sized beds and furniture. I saw a room full of swirling mist and nothing else. Then we entered a room that had actual doors all along the walls. Each door was a different, bold color. Finiuld pointed to a green one.

  “That is yours. Open it, take out what you find, and put it on.”

  I frowned at him, not trusting the bastard for a second. What could I do, though? Finiuld was untouchable unless he willed otherwise, and I was screwed. I went to the green door.

  It didn’t open automatically, as most doors would. Nor was there a handle or any mechanism I could see.

  “Touch it, silly.” Finiuld snorted at my stupidity.

  Since my back was turned to him, I took the opportunity to scowl and silently mouth nasty words. I reached and touched my fingertips to the green surface in front of me.

  The door swung outward rather than disappearing into the wall. I jerked to avoid being hit. A metal bar and a few items suspended from it slid out of the space within.

  My brows rose at the articles I was apparently supposed to wear. The clothing was constructed of shiny pink plastic-y stuff. There wasn’t much of it, except for the boots. The boots were platform and once on, would make me at least six inches taller. The backs would end just below my knees, but the fronts would cover up to mid-thigh.

  The rest of the outfit was some psycho’s version of underclothes. The psycho was probably Finiuld. The underpants were little more than a waistband, side strips of pink material, and straps meant to wrap around my upper legs. The bra had no cups.

  “Are you serious?” I asked the Little Creep. “I might as well just put the boots on and nothing else for all it would cover.”

  “Wear it.” His tombstone grin was nastier than usual. “Hurry. You can’t be late for your performance.”

  I thought he planned to subject me to another awful party. It made me sick inside, but I’d survived the first one. I’d live through it again.

  I put the stupid garbage on. It all fit, so Finiuld had been sure to learn my proper measurements. What a guy.

  As soon as I wore the ridiculous getup, he grabbed my hand again. “Let’s go. Mind you give us a good show.”

  I had no clue what he meant by that. Was I supposed to be a little pony or dog or table again? I hated it, but I could handle it if it was no worse than last time. I understood it as a warning from Finiuld to mind, or else. More of the usual, in other words.

  We went through two more rooms, again decked out in the manner of what I surmised to be bedrooms. Without using halls and corridors, it was hard to figure out how the ship was laid out, but I did my best. If Oses and I somehow managed to get our hands on the Little Creep’s phase device, we were going to need to understand how to move around.

  Finiuld stopped me in front of a wall and grinned up at me. He resembled a really gross kid anticipating Christmas morning. “Enjoy yourself,” he chuckled.

  W
ith that, he pushed me forward through the wall, releasing me as soon as I was through. I blinked at my surroundings.

  I was in a rounded room that took me several seconds to recognize as the place I’d nicknamed the Arena. The ledge was well over my head, and the seating up there was filled to capacity. There must have been well over a hundred Ofetuchans relaxing up there, eating, drinking, smoking their incense sticks and wearing their loud and ugly clothes.

  The blue marbled flooring beneath my feet and the battle frescos on the wall around me were the other clue that clinched my location for me.

  What caused my initial confusion was the sight of a raised platform in the middle of the floor. The rectangular surface was covered in linens, hued in a headache-inciting rainbow of the hectic colors Finiuld and his kind preferred. Fat, fluffy pillows scattered across it. There were pillars at the corners of the platform. My mouth went dry to spot chains and shackles attached to those pillars.