Taji From Beyond the Rings

by R. Cooper

  Taji kept his head down, huddling into Trenne’s coat as though that would make him stop shivering. The ringing in his ears had finally died, although all he heard now was the pounding of his heart.

  If Taji had been arrested—if, because they hadn’t restrained him until he had lashed out—the Civil Guard didn’t seem interested in telling him why or what his fate was. He didn’t know their legal system. He wasn’t sure they had one other than precedent and honor and the decisions of the nearest noble family. Though the capital, of course, belonged to the current emperor.

  Larin, the cruel, Taji silently named him. Larin, if he even knew Taji was here, would not save him.

  No one would save him. The others might not even be on the planet anymore.

  Taji had done this to himself, and it might have been all for nothing. He was the fool Lin had called him. He hadn’t been thinking.

  Barely audible footsteps stopped not far away. Taji raised his head to observe the two Civil Guard members in the open doorway. Taji hadn’t tried to escape through the open door, fully aware that he was a small, unarmed, bound human who could not run. There was nowhere for him to go.

  He would have wondered if they had expected him to try to escape, or if he was supposed to fight back and say something about his honor. But he was human and tired, so he stared at them and waited.

  One of them was nearly as pale as Lin. The other had more of Rinnah or Larin’s skin tone. Neither had the markings of Trenne’s people, but Taji suspected hurat were not allowed to serve in either of the Guards, at least not at any rank.

  They looked at him, then at each other. Unlike the Imperial Guard, they wore no differentiating tabs at their collars and they didn’t bother to conceal the agitation in their fluttery ears.

  “They are not wearing a translator. I see no point in asking,” one said to the other. Taji was vaguely startled to realize he was the ‘they’ under discussion, and glanced down to Mos’s bracelets—the only reason he could think of for a Shavian to assign him that gender, unless these two had never seen a human up close and were giving it their best guess.

  “If they are lost and helpless, then this does not make sense,” the other one countered. “I was curious.”

  “Curious, or reckless?” The other Guard snorted, then came forward. Taji brought his head up quickly in alarm, which made the Guard pause but only for a second. “They are very fragile. I will hold them.”

  Taji would have been surprised to hear a Shavian grumbling, which the other Guard did as they stepped forward, but his attention had narrowed to the fingers in his hair to keep his head up, and the dark, thin, unfamiliar circle in the approaching Guard’s hands.

  He tensed as the circle was opened, then closed around his neck. The Guard holding him pushed him back down. For a few moments, the circle was loose, a strange weight that was moved up and down before the Guard snapped it shut tighter and a dozen pinpricks were sharp in Taji’s skin along the side of his throat to the back of his neck. It was like being bitten, like fire, but the pain was almost instantly replaced with numb warmth. The Guard snapped half of the circle off. The rest stayed on Taji’s neck, hooked in his skin.

  Taji’s heart flailed against his ribs and he jerked away again, only to once more be easily held down.

  “What is this?” he demanded—tried to demand.

  He opened his mouth, sucked in a breath, and tried to wet his dry lips. “What did you do to me?” he asked, thinking the words hard, shaping them as clearly as he could.

  But no sounds emerged except a faint wheeze.

  Taji twisted away from their hands and hit the wall when he shoved himself back. “Fuck,” he said, but it was just air, just his racing pulse and his no doubt terrified face.

  “Surprised that it fit. I had to search on the smaller scale,” one of the Guards remarked.

  Taji shot him a glare and a three-fingered gesture and got his head knocked against the wall for it. He gasped, then choked on spit when his throat didn’t want to work properly anymore.

  The Guards were back out the door by the time he finished coughing. Taji stared at them until they were gone, then reached for the thing that had taken his voice. He couldn’t get his fingers between the device and his skin without pain. He couldn’t stop his fast, loud breathing, either.

  The material was mostly smooth to the touch, as fine as jewelry, except for its purpose. He swallowed, and it seemed to tighten around him, though it might have been his panic. He dropped his hands and bent his head. He focused on his breathing, in and out, like Trenne did, over and over, until his breathing slowed. But they were still loud, deep, uneven breaths, with too much swallowing. His throat had been numbed. He could only feel the outside, the press of whatever it was made of.

  He’d been silenced. And with a public marker to let people know he had been. A gag would have sufficed but not been nearly as pointed or painful. From a culture that cut off the feet of failures, and literally tagged Mos as a traitor, it suddenly didn’t seem that unexpected.

  Taji pulled his knees to his chest and put his arms around them so he could hide his face. Trenne’s coat brushed against his neck. He focused on that, and on breathing, carefully and calmly, and not the sting in his eyes, and the shaking he could not control, and the knowledge that he was alone again.

  His loneliness had never felt like this. Terror and exhaustion and a visceral ache. Rising longing and no hope.

  He couldn’t have watched anyone else die. He should never have had to see one death. But he closed his eyes and wished he had stayed with Lin, imagined Trenne finding them and pulling him close. The thought was warm and Taji clung to it. Nothing in his future was going to be better than that.

  TAJI STOPPED blaming his shivering on the cold in the room when he woke from a dazed dream of Trenne pressing into him to find himself still on the floor of his strange little cell. The world was darker, artificial lights somewhere outside leaving him in dim, yellowed gloom.

  His throat was parched from sleeping with his mouth open. He was trembling but his dick was half-hard. He put his fingers on his dry tongue only to yank them away a moment later, flushed all over.

  He didn’t know which parts were the adrenaline crash, which parts were missing Trenne and the others, and which parts were the longing. He supposed the difference was pointless to debate now. He was starting to enter withdrawal and the longing was his brain trying to get him to seek out the source of another fix. Silly brain didn’t know they were doomed.

  Taji smiled darkly to himself but reached down to rub his cock through his pants. An orgasm would probably delay the effects. He was no doctor or biologist, but a high was still a high. He wasn’t sure there was any point to a delay, though. There didn’t seem to be much point to anything. Mild delirium might save him from more fear as he waited for whatever was going to happen to him. More imprisonment. Pain. Humiliation. Abandonment. They were all equally likely. But he didn’t want to think of Trenne’s gentleness in this place and he wasn’t sure anything else would get him off.

  Trenne was Taji’s best memory of this planet. He didn’t belong anywhere near the Civil Guard or anyone else.

  Taji took his hands away from himself and leaned his head against the wall. He focused on his breathing again, in and out, though the air rasped through his dry mouth. He could taste his fingers on his tongue and nothing else.

  He closed his eyes.

  “ARE YOU sure they are well?”

  Taji didn’t recognize the voice but did not startle to find the Guards had returned to his door. They could have been the same two Guards, or different; he didn’t know or care. He stared at them while they studied him, neither quite meeting his eye.

  “What do I know of humans? Only tales of honor, and those are nonsense.”

  Taji idly noted their twitchy ears and restless hands. The lower classes truly were not as invested in control of their bodies as the noble class, or they had no need to be. After all, the Guard might come af
ter them for indiscreet behavior, but they were not the ones whose head and feet were at risk of going on display.

  “The offworlder trembles,” one of the Guards insisted to the other, careless enough to actually sound worried. Taji did not think the worry was for him. “They do not move.”

  “It might be illness. Or cold. They might require more heat.” The other Guard was trying to be sensible. “It is not our concern for much longer. You should not have called me here.”

  “But we were told—”

  “I do not care. It is not our matter.” Maybe the irritated Guard held the higher rank. The other one was silent for a moment or two. Taji regarded them both blearily.

  “The human stares,” the possibly higher-ranking one observed. They seemed discomfited by this.

  “The human trembles,” the first Guard noted again, pointedly. “And lies still without moving, except—” The Guard stopped abruptly and turned to the other, ears high and stiff. “Does it not almost…Bala,” the Guard lowered their voice so much Taji could barely hear the spooked whisper, “Bala, this almost has the appearance of the long—”

  Taji exhaled slowly, leaving them in silence—not that he could have said anything out loud.

  They had not known he was shehzha, yet they had known him somehow. He didn’t follow and couldn’t ask questions in anything other than signs they would not understand.

  They wouldn’t answer him, anyway. Now that they suspected what Taji was, their eyes were already averted, their hands up in front of them as they quickly and fervently offered apologies before backing away.

  They’d touched him, Taji realized, hurt him. Their lives were forfeit.

  It was too bad they didn’t know the one who could claim them was, one way or another, not on their planet anymore.

  Taji smiled again for the petty, vicious thought, the one small victory he’d been given in this place. Trenne would like that, using the rules of the Sha against them. Taji had been wrong not to keep Trenne in this place with him. He wouldn’t make that mistake again, and closed his eyes to imagine the wall was Trenne’s shoulder.

  HE WAS NOT at all surprised when his next set of visitors was the Imperial Guard.

  He didn’t recognize the three standing in an arrow formation in front of his doorway, but they were still, stone-faced, gray statues, like the ones in Laviias. The ones who had killed Nadir and possibly saved Taji’s life.

  “Are you able to stand?” The point of their arrow asked.

  An odd question, unless Taji looked as bad as he felt. And it was asked in ‘Asha. They knew he could understand them and they weren’t going to touch him. This group knew exactly who he was.

  Taji had once thought he’d never be known outside of academic circles. He would have been fine with that.

  He considered trying to stand. His hands were still bound, his hip was going to object to any movement, and he was shaky and weak. He also wasn’t going to fight them, but he didn’t see any reason why he should make it easy for them either.

  He shook his head, then gestured to the device at his throat in case they expected a better answer. They might not even know what his head shake meant. In any event, they seemed to view his continued presence on the floor for the answer it was, as well as a distinct problem.

  Mos hadn’t hesitated, despite similar feelings.

  Taji stared as the leader came forward then bent down to offer an arm. Perhaps the sleeve of the gray tunic served as a barrier and didn’t count as proper touching. Or maybe it was allowed if it was Taji’s choice.

  Taji missed Trenne so much, so abruptly, it was a knife in his chest. It had nothing to do with the flavor Taji wanted on his tongue and everything to do with how Trenne would have done this for him long before Taji had ever heard the word shehzha.

  Taji carefully lifted his bound wrists, placing his hands over the forearm of the Guard so studiously avoiding looking into his face. He curled his fingers into the fabric and the Guard stood, pulling Taji up with him.

  On his feet, Taji exhaled at the rush of blood to his leg, the pain in his hip. His vision swam, so he didn’t let go.

  That made the Guard glance at him, meeting Taji’s eyes briefly before seeming to realize Taji could not stay upright on his own. The Guard’s ears moved, communicating something to the others. Then the Guard took a step, and waited, indicating Taji could follow.

  Whatever Taji’s future held, the walk toward it was unexpectedly courteous. Perhaps it was like those societies that executed criminals but insisted the condemned be treated well before being put to death.

  Outside the door to his cell, the Guards surrounded him, though only one remained in contact, and none of them looked at him again.

  The building was empty of others, the members of the Civil Guard nowhere to be seen. Taji didn’t know if that was their choice to avoid potential punishment or if the rule to not look at a shehzha in public was being strictly enforced. But, again, he supposed it didn’t matter. He couldn’t even make notes for the IPTC employees who would come after him.

  Outside were deserted streets and a flier. The streets, at least, had probably lost all people the moment the Imperial Guard had come into sight. Taji sighed for the walk, for another flier, and tripped—to the silent alarm of his guard dogs.

  Mos would have made the journey—perhaps her last—with dignity.

  Taji said, “Fuck the Sha,” but could not be heard. He entered the flier under his own power, saw two more Guards, and then that the flier was an adapted IPTC model, which meant seats.

  The Guards with him did not sit, but seemed to expect him to. Taji accepted that honor and fell without grace into the nearest seat, and clung to it as the flier almost immediately lifted into the air.

  One of the Guards already there when he’d arrived held out a clay cup with a lid.

  “Water, with ice, and rithmi,” Taji’s escort explained. Taji didn’t think anyone, not even Larin, would go through this much trouble just to poison him, and was too tired and thirsty to care if rithmi was a sedative or a hallucinogen or merely a flavorful spice. But he did frown at the unfamiliar word, and the Guard added, “It is popular with shehzha,” with only the slightest hesitation over saying shehzha aloud.

  That could have meant it was rare and the sort of luxury shared with imperial shehzha in the past. Not common shehzha, or Trenne would have known. An odd thing to give a prisoner. Taji had a sip anyway to wet his lips and tongue, then another, though swallowing still took effort with his throat numbed.

  It was crisp and cool, like a cold shower during a fever. Taji touched the back of his hand to his forehead, which was hot and dotted with sweat. He swallowed more of his special shehzha water and forced himself to look at the faces of his Guards.

  They did not look back, which he had expected, but he was certain they were all aware of his every move.

  He wanted to ask where they were going, what was in store for him, why had he been silenced. But he knew his destination already. When the flier landed, jolting Taji’s hollow, sloshing stomach, and the door opened and two Imperial Guards stood ready to awkwardly help him down, Taji stopped to look at the last place he might ever visit.

  The home of the Olea.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE CAPITAL estates of the Olea were not in the style of the few other noble estates Taji had seen. Taji saw trees, massive, probably ancient creatures reaching up toward the rings, the bark almost refracting the light, making the entire estate seem to glow. But they were not the focus.

  Only one tall building stood on the Olea estate, at the center of what looked to be dozens of low, smaller buildings, each connected to the largest by paths of white stone. Taji held onto his escort and walked slowly out of need and a desire to delay finding out what lay at the end of the path.

  The Olea gardens were miniature by Sha noble standards, and sunken, constructed below the surface, but open to the air and the light. Each one was attached to its own house, each one largely p
rivate, though Taji could look down to see bowers and sculpted trees and fountains. The houses must be partly underground too, as if the Olea had never forgotten their origins at Laviias.

  The Olea also had never learned to accommodate anyone who didn’t want to walk all the way from the flat patch of ground where fliers landed—or they had, but weren’t going to bother for Taji. It was a journey designed to impress and intimidate. Larin was expertly taking advantage of the style and sense of a past Olea.