Chapter 5
When I wake up, I see Mangali and Hathura keeping watch next to my bed.
My shoulder still hurts with every move, as I discover much to my chagrin, when I sit up. The rustling of the bedclothes, and my suppressed moan wake both of the women. Quickly, before I can even say anything, Mangali checks my bandage. Hathura puts her cool hand on my forehead, and smiles, satisfied. “No fever,” she explains. “That means that you will be back on your feet in a few hours.”
With a pang, I remember what happened yesterday, including my embarrassing confessions. I can feel the heat rise in my cheeks. “I … am sorry for yesterday …,” I attempt an explanation, but both women lay their fingers on my lips at the same time.
“Forgiven and forgotten – isn’t that how you say it?” Mangali asks. She looks at me with her violet eyes, and I have the feeling that she can see deep into my soul. Strangely, I don’t feel like I’ve been weighed and found wanting. Sadness wells up in her eyes. I see loss there, and it makes me feel close to her. Hathura is finally the one who speaks. She says we need to speak with each other.
First, I go to the bathroom and get dressed. After I have washed up without getting the dressing wet, I feel a little better. I wonder what they want from me, and sigh. Surely Zeyliv will find out that I am back on my feet and demand further proof of my abilities. I hope Hathura, Mangali and I will have enough time to have a good conversation among the three of us. Somehow, I can’t get rid of the feeling that my life is going to get much more complicated in the next few days.
And, of course, both women have disappeared when I come out of the bathroom, and it is Zeyliv who is waiting for me. “Are you better?” His voice and facial expression tell me nothing about what he is thinking. Today, he came without his cats, and I am almost disappointed. Somehow, I have already gotten used to their imposing presence.
“Your women took very good care of me, thank you,” I reply politely.
A hint of suspicion flies over his face and then disappears again. “Then do you feel ready to continue working?”
“Alright,” I say. “But you are forgetting something. Yesterday, I gave you proof of my abilities. If I am to continue to in your service, we need to talk about my conditions.” I cross my arms and try to radiate as much confidence as I can muster.
“And you are forgetting that you failed miserably on one part of your assignment,” he reminds me of the disaster with the bird. “First explain to me what happened. Then we’ll see.”
I sit down on my bed. I will need all of my strength in the coming days, so why shouldn’t I go a little easy on myself? “The raptor could sense that I was there,” I say. “As long as I was just reading Keythari’s thoughts, everything was fine. But then his soul animal must have noticed that something was wrong.” I shrug my shoulders, baffled. “I can’t explain it any better.”
Zeyliv furrows his brow. He doesn’t look satisfied at all. “Fine. Then we’ll try again, and this time with a different man.”
Oh no. “That is out of the question,” I respond loudly. “Which animal will it be this time? A snake? Or maybe a buffalo? I have no intention of being attacked again by an angry animal.”
“I command you to do it,” he responds with a dangerously gentle voice. “Otherwise …” He lets the rest of his sentence hang in the air as a threat. The space between us is crackling with suppressed anger.
“There is no way I am going to do that again.” We stare at each other. It doesn’t help that I have to tilt my head back once again, since he is towering over me. I stand up. Zeyliv is standing so close to my bed that our bodies are almost touching. I refuse to back off, and he is a rock that I could never, on my life, push to the side. So I close the remaining space between us, until my breasts are brushing up against his body. I realize that it must be equally uncomfortable for him, too, since he always has to lower his head to be able to look at me. Just like yesterday, his canines push out from his jaw a little. This must be a sign of his overloaded emotions. I get a little uneasy, but if I don’t put my foot down now, he will always have the upper hand with me. I need to proceed with tactical caution, so I give him one condition that he will definitely not meet, and one that he definitely can. “I will only do it if I can try it on you.” I give him time to register my words, and wait a minute. “I trust that you will have better control of your companions than your people do.” This should definitely be one that he will not meet, even though I just complimented him.
“What is your second condition? I ask only out of curiosity. Don’t think for a minute that I somehow feel obligated to agree to your demands,” he warns me. His teeth have pulled back, but his eyes flash threateningly.
Now I need to think carefully about what I am going to ask for. He definitely can’t know how important this part of my demand is, otherwise all will be lost. “I want to know who else survived and what you are planning to do with them.” Hopefully he doesn’t notice that all I really care about is just one survivor. “I was not the only woman from Earth on that ship.”
“How did the women come to be on the ship of the Sethari, anyway?”
“Does it matter?” I have no idea why he wants to know this. I almost feel like I am in the famous story of Scheherazade, who captivated her King with stories long enough until he finally decided to not execute her like he had his other wives. Maybe I should follow her example and come up with the wildest and most exciting stories to keep Zeyliv’s interest. One look at his face tells me that it would not be a good idea to just start fabricating tall tales. I decide to stick to the truth as much as possible, especially since I don’t know how much Shazuul told him. That miserable little rat must have an astounding will to survive, especially if you consider that he is way at the bottom of the Sethari food chain. The vengeful part of me hopes that the whole lot of them are dead.
I tell Zeyliv about the president’s deal, and how the servants were able to stage a coup with the help of Varsul, but in the end, were betrayed by Varsul. At the mention of Varsul, his gaze narrows. “This Varsul, is he a man with black hair and yellow eyes? Pretty strong and a stubborn character?”
My heart beats so hard, I think it’s going to burst. The man he is describing is Khazaar. He is alive! Zeyliv definitely isn’t talking about Varsul with his golden hair and milky-white skin. I decide to steer a middle course. Therefore, I say, “It’s possible, but I don’t know for sure. I would need to see him, to be sure.” Hopefully I haven’t bet too much on this. This is the best chance I have had yet to see the survivors of the crash.
Zeyliv rejects my request categorically, as if he knew how important it is to me. Of course, he also denies me the opportunity to use him as a guinea pig for my mind reading skills. But, as I had hoped, he agrees to see to it that I get a list of the survivors. This concession is now worthless. If he and his men are mistaking Khazaar with Varsul, then how reliable will this list be? I haggle with him a little longer, so he doesn’t get suspicious, and in the end, he agrees to give me the list with names and the plans for each of them, in return. By tonight, I will know who will be sold as a slave, who is already digging in the Allathium mines, and who might already be scrubbing floors in some house. I allow myself a small grin of triumph, as Zeyliv strides regally out of the room in front of me. You could say a lot about him, but not that he doesn’t wear his power with dignity.
This time, my experimental subjects await me already in the room. A man and a woman look over at me, almost in fear, when I sneak into the same room as yesterday behind Zeyliv. With an effort that seems very strange, he arranges where I will sit and even is thoughtful enough to slide a pillow behind my back. It’s as if he wants to show the two of them just how valuable I am to him, so that neither of them will dare to utter a word of dissent.
“Have you actually told them what I am doing?” I enquire. “Maybe it will be easier if they allowed me …,” I search for the right words, “to access their thoughts?”
“What are you talking about? You won’t be able to ask my business partners for permission when you walk around in their heads. The whole reason for doing this is so they won’t know,” he states the obvious. I relent, but for the first time, I wonder why he is speaking so openly in front of them. All of the inhabitants of Betania I have met thus far, even the servants, have been able to speak my language. Why should these two, who don’t even belong to the servant class, not be able to understand our conversation? What’s more, I realize with a start and with a wave of satisfaction, there doesn’t seem to be a language barrier in thoughts. Or maybe, it’s that I translate the feelings and pictures I receive into my language. There are so many things I don’t know, and I wish I hadn’t always suppressed this ability as useless and scary. On Earth, it was definitely more of a curse to be able to read the thoughts of other humans. They called it telepathy, but I always knew that it was much more than that. Out of fear of being sent to an internment camp, I had always kept my telepathic abilities a secret.
With one look, he lets me know that I should not waste any more time. I need to complete my assignment. Give and take, I think. Only it’s dumb that I have to always give way more than I ever get back.
I look at both of them deliberately. Zeyliv has allowed them to sit down. The way the man sits with a straight back, barely touching the back of the chair, and the way the woman fidgets around nervously, tells me a lot already. Contrary to the people from yesterday, these two have something to hide, of that I am sure. At the man’s feet lies an animal that has similarities with a fox. The red fur is the same color as the man’s hair, which he wears in a long braid. The animal is watching me intently with its bright eyes, as if it guessed that I was up to no good concerning its master. Its ears flick back and forth, nervously, and its bushy tail thumps against the floor in an irregular rhythm. I look at Zeyliv who is standing behind me, and is bombarding the couple with questions.
I start with the woman first. I lean back and close my eyes. This time, I deliberately attempt to proceed slowly and stealthily. I have never tried it this way, and I have to use all of my self-control. I bring a typical image of a peaceful summer meadow to mind – not that I have ever seen one myself. I only know about the beauty of earthly nature from pictures. The image stays strangely pale and dead. Then I use the next best thing I can think of. It’s the moment when Zeyliv opened the window and showed me the magnificent view. I fill the image with calming animal sounds, the rustling of the wind and the lush fragrance of flowers. My breath slows. At that moment, I approach the woman’s thoughts and slip into her consciousness.
She hasn’t noticed. I can look around, taking all the time I need, and look for the things Zeyliv wants to know about. Since he didn’t tell me, it will be difficult. But already after a few seconds, during which I send out calming images, I bump into the secret she is trying to hide. She is trying so hard not to think about it, that it glows like a signal fire in her head. I look at it very closely, her secret, and then leave, as unnoticed as I had arrived.
This one is going to be more difficult, I know. The foxlike animal has stopped fidgeting and is sitting stiffly. I pause shortly and bring the image of the lush garden to mind again. Even more carefully than before, I circle around to my prey. Zeyliv steps in front of me for a moment, and I am hidden from their view. The animal shifts his attention to Zeyliv briefly, and I take advantage of the distraction and slip into the man’s head.
There I find a chaos of darkness and desperation. It doesn’t take me very long, because I know now what I am looking for. I see his secret, his feelings and his fear. And before his animal notices me, I slip back out and am back in my body.
I am so tired that I would prefer to not open my eyes at all. I am dreading having to give Zeyliv the information he wants, because, in their thoughts, I also saw what was going to happen to them. When the man, who now commands my every move, steps behind me again, I give him a sign, and he dismisses the two unfortunate creatures, along with the soul animal. Both avoid looking at each other, but it is too late. They know it, as I can see from their attitude. The woman is holding her head low, and the man’s shoulders are slumping, discouraged. Before they leave the room, the woman, whose name I didn’t even make the effort to try to learn, gives me a hate-filled look. She knows that I know, and that I am going to tell Zeyliv everything.
There is only one thing I can do for them. I will buy them a little time, so they can flee to the jungle, just like they have planned. No woman deserves death, just because she has feelings for a man other than her husband. Especially not if the husband is a despicable pig who beats his wife and forces her to have sex while his soul animal does … I just want to throw up.
I ask Zeyliv for something to eat and drink with a raspy voice. Impatiently, he shouts a command into the hallway, but then he starts marching back and forth in front of me. In the meantime, his cats have also joined us. I understand what he is trying to tell me.
After a few bites of fruit and a few sips of ice cold water, I sit up straight. Zeyliv sits down in front of me, Indian style. Our faces are at the same level. He will see my every tiny move.
“And what did you find out?”
“Promise me that you won’t kill them.” The second I say this I know I have made a mistake. Not only because Zeyliv will surely believe his suspicions have been confirmed, but also because I have doubted his authority as a just ruler. He growls softly, a sound that is taken up at the same time by his feline predators. He puts his hands on my shoulders and lets me feel his claws. Obviously, he has more in common with his cats than one would have thought. I also think that this resemblance doesn’t just appear in times of excitement. It looks like he can call up the resemblance any time he thinks a threatening gesture is called for.
I tell him first about the woman’s thoughts, and about the mistreatments at the hands of her husband. “I saw it,” I say softly. I can barely get the words, in which I describe what he has done to her, across my lips. Then I tell him how she found comfort in the goodwill of the man with the fox, and how much they love each other. “Does that mean nothing,” I ask and feel tears come to my eyes. “Does the injured pride of a brutal, heartless man weigh that much more than a woman’s fear and the love they have for each other?”
Zeyliv gives me a look I can’t interpret. Then he stands up in one fluid movement, and checks to see that nobody is hanging out in the hallway. “I need to punish both of them,” he says dully. “The people depend on me to uphold and enforce the law, come what may.”
“But,” I want to object, but he interrupts me.
“There is no but,” he barks at me. Both of his Machairos sit up and perk their ears. “If I grant them an exception, then I have to do that for every person who breaks his or her vows.” He seems almost desperate in the way he looks at me. Then his gaze focuses suddenly, and he is back to being the powerful ruler. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
I shake my head defiantly. “I can tell that you don’t want to punish the two of them,” I press on. The man can expect 50 lashes of the whip, and the husband is the one who will deliver them. By contrast, the woman will be put in the pillory, where she will have to stay for three days. Anybody who feels like it, will be able to throw garbage or worse at her. If she is still alive after three days, she will be sold at the slave market. The chances of her lover surviving the blows of the whip are virtually zero.
I get up and throw myself on my knees in front of him. This is a move that is surprisingly easy for me, given what is at stake. “Give the two of them a little head start,” I plead. “Nobody will ever know.”
He snorts. “How do you think that would work? As soon as they are reported missing, I have to send my two spies after them with explicit orders to bring them back. I cannot put mercy before justice if I am to maintain order on this planet. It has already cost me too much! I will not gamble with it, just because the two of them couldn’t keep their passion under control.”
“Then at least see that justice is done,” I beg him. “The husband is at least as guilty as the other two. A monster like him should be punished, too.” I can tell that he is thinking about it and double my efforts. “Please, Zeyliv, don’t let that man get away with it unharmed. Then you will show your people that you are a just ruler, and not the kind who only sticks to every letter of the law. Please!”
“Fine,” he concedes. I can feel the relief almost physically. It uses up the rest of my strength and leaves me as limp as wilted vegetables.
“What will you give me in return?”
I look at him, astounded. “Isn’t it enough that the more just your decisions are, the more your people will love and revere you?”
“I am risking a lot here,” he replies. “And for that, I want something in return.”
“Whatever you want,” I say indifferently. I can’t even begin to imagine what else he is expecting from me. How could my situation get any worse?
“We will talk about it tomorrow,” Zeyliv decides. “You look tired. I want you to keep your strength up.”
I wonder what is going on behind that smooth forehead. A dull fear creeps over me. Suddenly, I realize that I have made another mistake.
Not only does my life depend on him, I now owe him a favor, too.