by R. Cooper
But Taji listed to the side until he bumped against his crutch, who turned to look down at him so openly that it could not mean anything good about Taji’s current appearance. Taji hardly noticed when they stepped into the shadow of the tall building.
Stiff Imperial Guards waited at the entrance, which was an open arch. The interior was almost austere. Smooth columns of deep blue and high walls painted in subtle patterns of green and emerald, combined with vast windows to let in diffused violet light made the entire entrance cool and mysterious. No murals of Olea deeds, no gold calligraphy from the past. It looked almost like a temple, one of the kinds older, established faiths built in wealthy colonies.
Taji was led away from that hushed, echoing space, where a whisper could probably be heard even by Taji’s ears, to a hidden lift. Older Shavian tech, not offworld, but it ran smoothly. It went down, as far as he could tell, and when it opened he realized where he was. He almost laughed because the dungeons were real. Not just real—there was a direct line from the heart of the Olea estate to them.
But the urge died the moment his escort stepped off the lift and reflexively flattened his ears because of the low ceiling. Even the Imperial Guard were uncomfortable here. They stayed with Taji despite that.
Taji opened his mouth to ask pointless questions about the other noble estates, if they had dungeons. Of course, in the end, he closed his mouth again and stepped on his own into what he assumed was his cell. It turned out he had a tiny bit of dignity, after all.
The hall was unpainted, the nearly seamlessly bricked walls brown and dark. Taji saw no windows, and a few opened doorways. No doors, but the tech on the walls near the doors explained that. Triggers of some kind, possibly more than simple alarms.
He didn’t move away from his doorway while they set whatever alarm was there, but he did turn his head so he wouldn’t have to watch. He turned back when the Imperial Guards didn’t leave immediately.
They looked at him, all of them, staring directly at a shehzha. Taji had no reason to blush, likely had a fever anyway, but he became aware of a sting in his cheeks. He looked down, surprised to see his boots and not bare feet. When he raised his head again, the Guards were almost out of sight. Not one made a single sound as they left.
Taji nodded jerkily. This was more of what he’d pictured. Slightly less terrifying, actually, although he suspected he was currently in shock and also in too much pain to think clearly. But it wasn’t a torture chamber from a vid. It wasn’t an abattoir. It was, at least this part of it, just a prison.
He’d been in jail and imprisoned in a literal dungeon on the same day. His dad had always worried about Taji getting into trouble, and now look at him. Another laugh tickled his throat.
Taji slowly turned around to consider his low-ceilinged room with its one artificial light. A long, single cushion lay on the floor. It was surprisingly clean. It was also the only item in the room, except for a small pit in the corner that he assumed was the toilet. Archaic, but it would fulfill its intended purpose.
Someone from the original IPTC team might have occupied this exact cell. Taji put his fingertips against smooth brick and walked along the wall until he reached the bed. His legs gave out as he reached it, and he landed on his knees before falling onto the stiff cushioning. If he was still sweating, he couldn’t feel it.
He pulled his hands up to his mouth to let his breath warm them before rolling onto his side away from the door. It seemed like the ideal moment to curse or weep, but his eyes were dry and his voice had been taken from him. He breathed until some of the ice had left his fingers.
Then he kept on breathing, Trenne’s way, to give himself something to do.
THE SHAKING intensified while he lay there. He had calmed as much as someone could in his position, so he assumed this was more withdrawal. Taji’s brain chemistry was a mess of fear and pain signals and had been for days. He shouldn’t be surprised it had latched onto every single positive emotion Trenne could give him and that it desperately wanted them back. The longing didn’t know that was impossible.
Thoughts of Trenne were getting harder to suppress. The longing was cruel in more ways than Taji had anticipated. He was trying to focus on what pleasure Trenne would take in IPTC razing the Olea estate to the ground when a sound drifted down the hallway from one of the other rooms. Like motion. Movement against dirt or brick.
Taji sat up, shoving with his legs to get his back against the wall. He had forgotten there must be others from Laviias here, although they might be silenced too. Anyone not killed outright would be here, humiliated, isolated, and left in the dark with their thoughts. Made to feel vulnerable—as though Taji was not already vulnerable every single day. Doing this to someone like him was pathetic. It wouldn’t make him any less dead, in the end, but he wanted that acknowledged.
A truly strong leader would have no reason to torment someone like Taji. Taji was insignificant at best. Larin was weak to do this.
A groan stopped his rising anger in its tracks. Taji cocked his head to the side, straining to hear.
“Are you awake, saya?” A Shavian voice, pitched louder than Taji was used to, perhaps to be heard at a distance. Taji identified the speaker in disbelief. “Oh, yes,” Koel Talfa went on, “you told me not to call you a name you had not earned. I believe that is what you meant. Your honor is great but your knowledge of ‘Asha is not.”
Taji shuffled against the cushion, though he doubted it made any noticeable noise that would carry, and Talfa was distracted.
“You have been quiet for a long time now. I am not sure how long, but I heard no voices from the other rooms today, and that made the time pass slowly.” Talfa had the same carefully blank tone as most Shavians, but their words were anything but. “Will you answer me? Please?”
“For you?” a husky voice whispered in careful, accented ‘Asha. “Anything.”
Taji was frozen, motionless except for the blood in his ears. Then he jerked into motion, crawling to the floor and clumsily pushing himself up to reach the door.
“I cannot tell if you are serious. I am never sure about human humor.” Talfa could have been wistful, or confused. “The tales of honor do not help much in that regard.”
Taji leaned as close to the doorway as he dared, but he didn’t hear Nadir’s voice again.
“They did not take you today. I was much relieved.” Talfa spoke as though they hadn’t expected an answer. Talfa was probably used to being ignored but this felt different. This was a Koel of the Sha being gentle. “Apologies. You may rest. My words offer nothing.”
“Takes me a bit to translate, my sweet. Don’t fret.” Nadir lapsed into Anglisky toward the end of that. Even that more familiar language sounded dragged out of him. Taji imagined him breathing slowly and harshly between each croaked word and yet he had still taken the time to add the endearment. Nadir always did love to flirt.
Taji smiled helplessly even though listening to Nadir was painful.
“They left me here?” Nadir’s breathing was gasping and wet when he said more than a few words at a time. “Not good. Though I do not mind a break. Some people I never need to see again.”
“Is this your ‘Asha again, saya?” Talfa asked. “Do I hear wrong? Not good?”
“If—” Nadir coughed and Taji winced at the agonizing pause afterward and the sounds of anxious movement that were probably from Talfa. “If,” Nadir finally began again, barely audible, “I am no longer the toy, and,” he stopped again, rasping, “they do not need to ask me anything, it means they got what they want from somewhere else. Or think they do. Or they realize I have not been lying; IPTC was not after the prick’s life.”
The only sound in response was more movement from Talfa. Taji imagined them pacing worriedly, an alarming lack of control in any other situation. “Not then, anyway,” Nadir added, briefly using Anglisky again. “But not good for me. To not be useful.”
“I understand,” Talfa said softly and all sounds of movement ceased. “
I thought…I thought perhaps they were cruel but not… I hoped, like the fool I am. Talfa, the unwise. You belong in one of your tales of honor, although I wish you did not. That they should question you is expected. That is the Guard. But for the others to know… I had imagined that more bearable but I find it is not. You deserve none of it. I will try to follow your example when they come for me—if they come for me. I am only Talfa, though. Eriat is no more, and I know nothing of the others. Koel Talfa will have no answers, but Larin might wish to insult me as he did you before I am killed. You know, saya, I have very pretty feet. They will look nice on display in the city.”
Taji looked down at his boots and realized his hands were clenched into fists. Talfa was right. Nadir and the others on the team might expect to be questioned at some point in their lives, but not to be mocked or held up to scorn.
Nadir took a long time to answer. “Insults can be lived through, sweet.”
“Honor—”
“How can you live to get revenge if you do not live first?” Nadir demanded, then fell into a fit of coughing that ended in a rattling, muffled groan.
“Saya, you must be calm. We will speak only of calm things now. Humans would seem to have no honor and yet you do. I find I am confused but not…but not disgusted.”
Taji snorted, which startled him, though the other two didn’t seem to hear it.
Nadir might have agreed but didn’t have the energy to tease. “Your tales of honor?”
“You are right to mock me,” Talfa agreed.
“Never.” Nadir paused and Taji realized he was holding his breath whenever Nadir was silent for too long. “Tell me of them again.”
“If it pleases you,” Talfa agreed, tone almost tender, and Taji stopped at the familiar words. From the corner of his eye, he could see the light on one side of the door from some part of the equipment that maintained the barrier, probably an alarm trigger if the threshold was crossed. He was no longer going to forget that just because the Sha embraced their past didn’t mean they didn’t have tech of their own. Some they had before IPTC arrived; Taji was wearing some of it.
“…as if a cycle were brought to life, except the stories are not of the Sha,” Talfa was explaining, although apparently Nadir had heard it before. “There is a lot of noise, very loud, which I have been told is your music. There is much talking and often there are battles, and humans who act strangely and wildly toward each other. The couplings in the tales are… I do not understand what acts humans enjoy from them, except for kisses, which occur frequently. From what I have seen demonstrated, this aspect seems to be true. Humans display so many emotions all the time. It fills the tales with a certain excitement, although I have to watch more than once to figure out which part of the tale is supposed to be the most important.”
Talfa was describing vids. Taji shook his head. Most vids were nonsense, pure entertainment, not that Talfa or the others would know the difference between something attempting to be historically accurate or meaningful and an adventure story or a comedy aimed at children.
“They speak often of love between their kisses,” Talfa continued. “Though the examples of ‘love’ vary so much I am not sure that even humans understand it.”
“Clever Talfa.” Nadir sighed.
“You alone think so, saya.” Talfa was still gentle. “That is good to think of when—in one tale of honor, the human—who seemed to be a thief—would show his teeth and close one eye and say strange things to the other human, who must have been sehn. At the end, they kissed and were naked together. It seemed a common activity in the other tale—vids, you call them. But so much talk of love. Humans can be wild all the time, although not always in the same way. You are not. Perhaps you can be. But you are not now, and have not been. You are as you are, and yet I believe…” Talfa stopped again.
“Tell me.” Nadir was firm, if only for a moment. “Koel Talfa.”
“Koel Talfa is unable to control their own mouth. This means I must be shehzha, though I do not long for it. If I were to form a bond, I take no pleasure in the idea. It is a truth that I have little honor, and that I would like to keep. If possible, I would want to earn more. But who would choose that? For that, I…I pretend. Like the humans in your tales do. You do not understand.” Talfa shifted, and Taji wondered if Talfa was also sitting as close to their door as possible. “I pretend that I could help you. I pretend that this is something that will go beyond this place in the home of the Olea.”
“Another story?” Nadir seemed confused. Taji was not. He’d heard those words before, or something close enough.
“This is not the right way to honor you, and in a better time, you would have no reason to consider it. Yet, I pretend that I can give you what you ask for, and the fact that you conceal your pain from me is the gift you give, along with your pretty words. I will say it is my honor to describe tales you have already seen, and in the future that does not exist, I would have a chance to help you. Perhaps protect you, if that still is honored by the Olea.” Talfa’s voice was fierce, then small. “If you will not laugh, I will tell you…I have often thought I would make a fair eshe. You should know no others have ever thought this. Perhaps they are right.”
Taji was not meant to witness this and turned his head, although that would not stop sound.
The quiet was broken by Nadir’s strained breathing. “Like Mouth?” Without the gentling filter of Anglisky, Taji’s nickname was kahne, plain and simple. But Nadir didn’t say it scornfully. “You want to make me…like Mouth?”
“I thought I should say, in case they take you again. Or me.” With their honor on display, Talfa was calm again, voice level. “I am pleased to offer myself to you, even in secret. There is only risk to you, spoken to in this way by Talfa, the fool. I will not have long to be embarrassed, I think.” Talfa was the most Sha they had ever been, finding the strength to be composed for the sake of Nadir’s honor. “There is jha. I cannot translate that, but there is jha for you. Perhaps we would have been lovers and I would have done this properly. Or perhaps you would have tired of me and I would not have done it. But I would have liked to ‘kiss it and make it better’, and know how that works. I could not before. My family had plans for me. But perhaps I am the last Koel in the capital and that no longer matters. Hmm. It is strange to hand myself to you. But not difficult. That might also be the thought of my close death.”
“Koel Talfa,” Nadir interjected, maybe to end more talk of death, “I am hardly in a position to, uh, please you.”
“Saya,” Talfa chided, “I would please you. You would give me happiness with your presence.”
“What a fucked up thing to say.” Nadir was a muddle of Anglisky and Deshtani and then ‘Asha again. “What a terrible thing to tell me now, when I do not even know where you are.” Talfa moved quickly. Nadir gave them no chance to speak. “This is the moment for a kiss. And we cannot.”
“Would that make it better?” Talfa asked after a shocked silence.
“No.” Nadir drew in another pained breath. “But I would love it anyway.”
“I would give you all I have,” Talfa promised rashly.
“Stop.” The word was almost lost in more coughing, the sound wet and wretched, then muffled, as if Nadir was trying to control it.
“I am sorry. Apologies, saya. Please be calm. I am sorry. You must rest. Please,” Talfa said quietly, over and over, until the sounds finally gentled. Taji wiped tears from his cheeks and inhaled shakily when Nadir spoke again.
“Don’t stop,” Nadir asked in a whisper, and Taji shuffled away from the doorway to give them their privacy and to leave Nadir’s honor intact.
He curled back up on his cushions and closed his eyes and let Talfa’s voice stay an indistinct murmur.
EVENTUALLY, Nadir seemed to fall asleep and Talfa went silent. Taji drifted in and out of sleep, only growing more tired as he did. He used the toilet, paced on shaky legs, kicked the wall to get attention, but perhaps Talfa was asleep too because no one r
esponded.
Taji was leaning against the wall, trying to think of anything else but Trenne or his own fate, when the Imperial Guard returned to his door—a different set. They gestured for him to come out and he briefly considered what might happen if he curled up on the floor instead. Odds were, they would leave him alone, which didn’t sound terrible.
After several long, pregnant moments, he realized they might not touch him but they certainly would keep watching him, and he finally shuffled toward them. His steps were a bit more awkward than usual, since he was partially aroused and had been for a while. His body was unhappy with him. Taji wasn’t happy either.
The Guard observed him from a respectful distance, which was bullshit. If any of them truly believed shehzha should be honored, Taji wouldn’t be in this position. Taji was silenced, his hands locked together in front of him. He was dirty, tired, and sweating. He didn’t feel especially honored.
“It will not be long now,” one of them shocked him by speaking as he crossed the threshold. Taji looked up. Their ears were in motion but their expressions were blank.
