Even the Wingless

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "I am not about to move him," the Surgeon said. "Once I seal his wounds and apply the suppository, he will need no more care. Only food, sleep and sex, like any other male. Once he is ambulatory he can go wherever he likes, but I will not waste effort now."

  "What if something happens? He's an alien," the Slave Queen said, fighting the need to protest and failing. "He may not respond to treatment the way a Chatcaavan would."

  "Then you will call me and I will come." The Surgeon shrugged, a flicker of his hand before returning to the task of applying the flesh-sealer. "If he dies, he dies. And dies well."

  "He requires clothing," the Slave Queen said.

  "I am not a servant," the Surgeon replied. He cast aside the flesh-sealer and inserted the suppository with hands so deft she saw nothing more than a flicker of the instrument's tail. "If he needs clothing, find someone else to fetch it." The Surgeon pulled the Ambassador onto his back and examined the front of his body for injury. Finding none, he packed his bags and said, "If he requires more aid, call me."

  Before the Slave Queen could speak, the Surgeon had vaulted through the window, catching the night wind with snapped wings.

  Disturbed, she turned back to the Ambassador's splayed limbs and slack body. He needed bathing and clothing and a soft bed... but she was disturbingly aware that he was larger than she and all his bones were solid besides. Without him to help her, she didn't think she'd be capable of dragging him bodily into the bathing pools and keeping him positioned in them. Resigned, she pulled some pillows over. She found her translucent shawl and covered as much of his lower body as she could. The only male clothing in her suite belonged to the Emperor, folded in a chest for his sole use; she certainly couldn't dress him in her own, and while she could summon a female from the harem to find him robes, she could not imagine the Ambassador appreciating being seen in such a state by another Chatcaavan. He had come here for a reason.

  Here.

  How strange, that he chose this place of all places. That he had come here... seeking her?

  Discomforted by the revelation, the Slave Queen stopped gathering pillows and instead held one to her chest, looking down at the male. First he had brought her the unwanted responsibility of making choices for others. Now he offered the unexpected burden of being someone's refuge. Did he think so much of her, to ask her to be a person so completely?

  Could she deny him?

  She resumed stacking the pillows. It seemed ridiculous to not touch him after the Surgeon had manipulated him so callously, so she arranged the pillows to support his sides and cushioned his head on a thinner pillow on her lap. Once he was there, she found herself unsure what to do with her arms. Placing them on her knees was awkward; his chest was so broad it obscured both of them. She finally let them rest very lightly on his shoulders. The skin beneath her hands was soft and taut, and the juxtaposition confused her. She bowed her head and gave in to the inexplicable situation. Surely she was the first Slave Queen since history had imprisoned a Slave Queen to be caught in so bizarre a tableau, with her back to the night wind and her shadow cast on white flesh and alien skin... standing vigil over a wingless freak whose wounds meant more to a Chatcaavan male than her life.

  Lisinthir woke to thoughts of unease and discomfort that mingled with his own but gave them an alien savor. To the conviction that he was honored—but also disgraced... that he had been both chosen and violated. He had no power to fight away the emotions that were not his and allowed them to flow unimpeded. Opening his eyes, he found his head cradled in the arms of the Slave Queen.

  "I live," Lisinthir said.

  "You succeeded," the Slave Queen said. "You asked to be tested and you have been accepted. You should rejoice."

  A bitter laugh fought with his throat, which proved too raw to release it. He closed his eyes instead and said nothing. Shutting out the world allowed him to assess the damage done to his body; surprisingly, he felt hale and that gave rise to questions he felt he could bear the answers to. "How long have I been here?"

  "Nearly four hours," the Slave Queen said. "It will be dawn soon."

  "And I am uninjured. Did you tend to me?"

  "With the aid of the Surgeon," the Slave Queen said. Through her arms and the heat of her skin, he felt a knot of puzzlement. "He intimated that the Emperor had warned him of this possibility. You were predicted."

  "I was a thing hoped for," Lisinthir said and laughed raspily. "How peculiar."

  "It is well," she said. "You have been placed in an auspicious position."

  "How is that?" Lisinthir asked.

  Her calm infected him. He would have had little choice, though he could have fought it. He preferred not to. "A male who wanted the Emperor's place, an ambitious male he detested, he would strip the wings from. An ambitious male he detested but found useful, he would humiliate with permanence."

  After a moment, he followed her imagery. "Horns. Breaking off the horns."

  "Yes," she agreed and continued, "A male who wanted his place, an ambitious male he actually respected, he would kill. But I have watched him many revolutions, and rape is a thing he indulges only with those who hover between useful and respected. He does not humiliate them publicly, but instead in private. I am not certain if he has resorted to this because you have no horns to break... but I cannot suspect so. There are other ways to humiliate a male in public."

  "And so, to be used as a female is a form of admiration."

  "You were not used as a female," the Slave Queen said, with a touch of spice that died away nearly as quickly as he sensed it. "You were given a choice... and when you fought, your fighting meant something. It was assessed. It was counted in your favor."

  "My apologies," Lisinthir said, turning his face into her arm and closing his eyes. "I am not myself."

  "Should I... do I discomfort you, holding you thus?" A flutter of fear.

  "No," Lisinthir said. "But I am us, for the nonce, and perhaps that is well. Were I but Lisinthir Nase Galare, I would be more than unsettled. I would be horrified. I would think seriously about ceasing my efforts on behalf of the Alliance and going home."

  "You could do as your predecessors have done," she said. "No other in your role has cared to attempt what you attempt now."

  "I cannot conduct my business in this Empire as a wingless freak," Lisinthir said quietly. He kept his eyes closed; it seemed preferable to facing the reality on the other side. "The Alliance cannot conduct its business in the Empire without someone willing to do as I shall do now."

  "Does it have to be you?" the Slave Queen asked, and through the supple skin on the inside of her arm, he felt an emotion as soft as rain, and as melancholy.

  "If not me, than who?" Lisinthir asked.

  She moved some strands of hair away from his temple, tucked it behind an ear. Having claw-tips so close to his face should have worried him; instead, he remained attentive to the feel of that thin, hard tip as it traced the skin behind his ear and felt only curiosity.

  "If you cease to challenge him, he will cease to play you," the Slave Queen said.

  "Then I suppose I shall have to continue to challenge him," Lisinthir said... and for the moment, it had the weight of inevitability, unworthy of fear.

  The Queen shivered around him. "You are braver than even I thought."

  "It cannot be worse than the first time," Lisinthir said, though already he had numbed the memory and hidden it.

  "But it can," the Slave Queen said softly. "For if he cannot break you easily, then he will resort to other methods. No matter how much the Emperor enjoys your private tests, eventually you must rise to the level of a respect-worthy rival—and be killed—or you must fall to a level more fitting of public humiliation. And how courtiers love to bear witness to the twin tests of power and suffering!"

  "I must find the course between those things, then," Lisinthir said.

  "You cannot."

  "I have no choice," Lisinthir said. He found the separation between them then, the line b
etween her resignation and his, her depression and his... her reaction and his. "I must survive. I must flourish. If I don't, then all I have done—all that I have already borne—will be for nothing."

  She took a long, trembling breath and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Think as you wish, Ambassador. Do what you must. But believe me when I say this, for I have lived here all my life. This road you choose must lead to your destruction. There is no other ending. It cannot be sustained."

  Lisinthir sat up, leaving only his hair in her lap. "I am not Chatcaavan, lady. Your endings cannot hold me. I belong to a different story."

  Her voice behind him sounded torn between fear and sorrow, something he could discern with aching clarity after having touched her for so long. "We are larger than you, Ambassador."

  "We shall see," Lisinthir said. He took a deep breath, touched his throat, looked at his body. The amulet was still on, shockingly enough, though how much it had done to protect him was debatable. He also still wore his House ring. The rest of his clothing had vanished. "I probably shouldn't walk down the hall in your shawl."

  "It would elicit attention," she said after a moment. "If you do not mind their knowing, I will ask one of the harem to fetch you a robe."

  "If they don't know how I ended up here yet, I'm sure they will soon enough," Lisinthir said. "I wasn't exactly covert about my staggering up here earlier." He rubbed the back of his neck, which still ached from the whip-sharp move the Emperor had used to toss him to the couch. "My body feels better than it should. But if I go through that again—"

  "—when," the Slave Queen said.

  "When... " He took a deep breath and forced himself on. "Does it get better?"

  She paused. Then, "Yes. Or at least, Laniis had fewer problems. It may be different for you, but your body will grow at least more accustomed to it." Her voice held a shrug. "There are some who enjoy it."

  "I can't imagine," Lisinthir said, and with that came visceral memory—pain so white it blanked his vision, sweat so bitter it stung his lips, helplessness so complete he couldn't scream.

  "Perhaps not now," the Slave Queen said.

  "Never," Lisinthir said. "And now the clothing? I should like a bath... and about six hours of sleep."

  She rose with grace though he knew intimately how stiff she was from cushioning him for so long. Folding her perforated wings tightly against her back, she descended the stairs and left him alone. Surprisingly, his thoughts did not use the opportunity to assault him, and he took that for a positive sign.

  When the Slave Queen returned, she said, "What will you do now?"

  "Now, I will fight harder," Lisinthir said. "And maybe this time I'll win."

  "You would do to the Emperor without regret what you find heinous in others," the Slave Queen said, "and what you felt horror to experience."

  Lisinthir did not allow his imagination rein with that. "I will do what I must to stay safe." He stood. "And you, lady?"

  She canted her head in that way he finally could interpret correctly as an attempt to see him better, rather than as the coyness it looked like to the uninitiated. "Ambassador?"

  "I made a promise to you," Lisinthir said. "To teach you to speak and to be your company. May I visit you in the mornings after breakfast?"

  She looked startled, all wide eyes and slightly spread wings. "If it is your wish."

  "It is," he said.

  "Then we shall do this thing. Though..." She glanced at the window. "It is now time for breakfast today. Perhaps we should begin tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow, then," Lisinthir said, glad of it. His body had been healed, but it remembered the efforts that had dragged it here. He wanted sleep more desperately than even a bath.

  The rest could wait. His thoughts, his worries, his plans... his fear that he'd have another invitation before he'd even recovered from this one. They could all wait.

  After the Ambassador left attired in a robe brought by silent but curious females, the Slave Queen took herself to her own bath with relief. She opened the windows and then folded herself onto the bench in the first pool. Beneath its surface, her body felt embraced and lifted by heat... above, the cool breeze blew the steam from the top of the pool, making her aware, somehow, of all her edges, of her separation from the air.

  She wondered how it could be that she felt both the inevitability of the Ambassador's failure and the certainty of his eternal presence, and ducked her head beneath the water to wash.

  The Queen had only just dried herself and returned to the suite proper when Second breasted the staircase. She turned immediately to find his jar of scented oil and the cloth she used to lubricate his wings.

  "No."

  Was he talking to her? No, probably a subordinate she hadn't noticed on his heels, shielded from sight by the banister wall. She picked up the tray.

  "I do not require that service today."

  The Slave Queen froze. Then forced herself to set the tray down and turn. Second was at least kind... she did not mind giving him ease the way she did Third, whose cruelty always found ways to leak into his movements, his words, his attitude. With head bowed, she walked to Second and kneeled at his feet, waiting for him to disrobe.

  "He was here, last night."

  She stared at the floor between his feet, wondering whether he was actually speaking to her.

  "I address you, female." A gentler word than he could have chosen. "The Ambassador was here last night."

  "Yes, my-better," the Slave Queen said, not daring to look up. He had come... to talk?

  "Is it true? Did he have honor wounds?"

  "Yes, my-better," the Slave Queen said.

  Second hissed and began to pace, and in astonishment the Slave Queen sneaked a look at him. His brow ridges had creased over his eyes and his wings twitched and refolded in agitation, each motion accompanied by the stiff creak and whistle of his drying vanes. He had not come for an oiling, but he needed one.

  "How severe?" Second asked, coming to an abrupt halt. His gaze was so intense she was taken aback.

  "He-the-alien had many rents on his back and shoulders," the Slave Queen stammered. "And he had been raped. There was blood in his hair."

  "Is he going back to his home?" Second asked.

  "My-better?" the Slave Queen replied, leaning away from him. "Why would he?"

  "He has been abused, as aliens count it. It should drive him away. Is he leaving? Did he say?"

  "He-the-alien feels honored, my-better," the Slave Queen said. "He knows he is chosen. He will not go home."

  The word Second used was probably some form of expletive, but not one the Slave Queen was familiar with; perhaps something only males knew. But his anger, that she could read easily enough. And beneath it, the worry that kept him moving. Worry that had driven him here to solidify rumor, for the Surgeon as one Outside would not have discussed an honor wound with one Inside. His refusal to answer questions about his treatment of an alien would have been clue enough that something unusual had transpired. Something that had moved Second to actually talk to her, as another person, as someone with information worth learning.

  The Ambassador's power extended even outside his presence. The Slave Queen fought awe. It was easy enough, once she remembered that a worried Second boded trouble. He did not have Third's cruelty, but he had something far more precious, more dangerous: the trust of the Emperor.

  "This cannot continue," Second said, and whirled around, heading back down the stairs. Left on her knees with her hands folded on her thighs, the Slave Queen trembled, with wonder or anxiety she could not say.

  Lisinthir woke too late to attend supper... but not late enough to avoid the card propped on his dresser, left there by a servant who'd entered his bedchamber without waking him—something that concerned him, or would have had he not been more dismayed by the card. He slid out of bed, clutching the covers around his waist, and reached for it.

  Rough rag beneath his fingers, smooth ink. No surprises.

  I look forward to
our drink tonight.

  Lisinthir cast the card aside and sat on the edge of his bed, palms to forehead. The pressure did not relieve the impending headache.

  What would his distant Alliance contact have advised him to do, he wondered? And what use was advice given several million miles away and transmitted as cold, untouchable words on a data tablet in enemy territory? Lisinthir was almost glad the Chatcaava had cut his real-time connection. He could not imagine explaining to the Diplomatic Corps and Fleet Central that he was now courting violence with the Emperor of the Chatcaava... and explaining that he had been raped by a dragon to an Eldritch bankrupted his imagination. He couldn't see himself doing it. He couldn't see his contact still speaking to him afterward. The Alliance was at least broad enough to encompass races of surpassing strangeness, each with behaviors that might allow them to understand, with some effort, what he did. The Eldritch, on the other hand, would merely condemn him.

  But this is what he had come for. Forget Second and Third and whatever other numbers the Chatcaava could come up with. If he could force his way into the Emperor's confidences—if he could charm, sleep or fight his way—then he need not negotiate at all. He could speak with the Emperor as a peer, directly, and accomplish all that the Alliance desired.

  Talking with Second and Third almost seemed easier.

  His hand, which had dropped to the blankets, curled into a fist. At home he had answered lesser insults than he'd been dealt here with violence. He'd been one of the few willing to fight not out of some sense of drama, but to prove that when he said he would answer with a sword, he could, and he would, and he did. At Ontine, this had made him more of a man than almost every courtier there.

  Here... here he would have to see if it was enough to keep him alive and in play.

  Lisinthir shrugged off the blankets and took the bath he'd skipped on the way to bed. He donned a white blouse first, before looking at his cuffs and realizing that not only would white stain, probably permanently, but it would prove too little contrast with his amulet... which he didn't want the Emperor to see, but didn't want to remove either. He wasn't particularly superstitious, and even if he had been he doubted an amulet could protect him from danger he invited on himself. But it was the last gift sent to him from less barbaric realms. It reminded him of home.