Chapter Three
"Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I loved."
~Shakespeare, Hamlet
That night, long after midnight, I had a terrible nightmare.
In the dream, I was standing by a stream or creek that was fast running, but still muddy, like there was a flood farther upstream.
I was surrounded by dense trees. I heard men coming and ran to hide behind a tree to see who it was and saw some human men dragging a dead body.
When I peeked around the side of the tree to look further, I saw to my horror that it was the late king.
His bloody body had been hacked to pieces and some of his limbs were literally lying stacked up across his torso.
They stopped near me and began pouring some liquid over him that smelled like fuel.
Then one man set the body on fire and the others stepped back to watch as the flames leapt up several feet high.
The smell was horrible. I recoiled in horror and then I heard another group coming, dragging another body.
I knew that if I saw Davos’s body, my mind would shatter, so I tried to force myself to wake up, but I couldn’t.
It got to the point where I was thinking—in my dream—that I needed to wake up.
That dream morphed into one of those horrible nightmares where I was running away from something that was getting closer and closer.
I could almost hear the footsteps behind me, and they were gaining on me.
Then suddenly up ahead of me on the trail, I saw Werros.
He was big and muscular and running to help me.
I’d never been so happy to see anyone. He held out his arms for me to come to him.
As I reached him, he enfolded me in his embrace and I woke up, gasping for breath.
I was so shaken by the experience that I sat on the side of the bed with the light on for a long time.
And even though I was tired and needed to sleep, it was an hour or more before I dared close my eyes again.
I knew that nightmares could be caused by stress, depression, and anxiety disorders.
Even by post-traumatic stress. And God knows I had all of the above.
So, it wasn’t exactly unusual that I’d have a nightmare, except for the fact that I’d never really had them before.
Maybe when I was a kid, I’d had the usual ones about falling or being chased by somebody.
But even when I’d first been captured, I just never had that many bad dreams.
It occurred to me that it might be a result of Evoq and whatever he’d done to probe my mind.
Had he somehow opened a direct channel and was he now sending me this horrible vision?
That sounded crazy, even to me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.
If he was, then why? And he’d said, in front of the king, that nothing had really worked, and he’d been unsuccessful in getting inside my mind.
I had to admit the idea of brain washing and mind control seemed far-fetched and like something out of a bad spy novel.
I totally dismissed it, as nothing I wanted any part of.
Until the next night when I had the dream again.
And the night after that, and the night after that.
Had the priest simply been lying to me? Had the pill he’d given me or something he’d done while I was asleep made me start having these dreams?
But what was the purpose of sending me such nasty nightmares?
I had no idea, and no one to ask. No where to turn.
All I could do was add it to the long list of my worries.
And then, after a few more days had passed, the king sent me an invitation to have dinner with him.
I didn’t really want to go, but then I rarely wanted to do anything anymore.
I was exhausted and depressed all the time, but I knew it would cause remarks to be made if I didn’t go, so I made a bit of an effort, and dressed myself in a robe suitable for court.
It was one of the ones lined with the soft white fur that Davos had made especially for me, since he knew how much I suffered from the cold.
Tears streamed down my face as I put it on.
Once I’d washed my face again and brushed my hair until it shone, I pulled my hair behind my head, tying it with a green cord to match Davos’s colors.
Just as I was about to leave for the king’s hall, there was a knock on the door.
One of the king’s guards was there when I opened the door.
He looked me up and down and then gave me the briefest of bows.
“The king has asked me to escort you to the main hall. Are you ready to go?”
His tone was just barely civil, but I simply nodded and stepped out into the wide corridor.
Inside my head, I was thinking, Hey, I don’t like this any more than you do, buddy.
Needless to say, we didn’t converse on the way through the halls, up a short flight of stairs and into the big room where the king had his state dinners.
He took me to the door and opened it before nodding curtly again and leaving me there.
I saw at once that the room was nearly full.
Perhaps I was late and that’s why the king had sent for me.
I slipped inside and began looking around for a place to sit.
The room began to get quieter as one after another of Werros’s guests began to notice me standing by the doors.
The reactions ranged from looks of polite sympathy from Davos’s friends to outright glares of hostility from those who hated humans.
And there were plenty of those in the room.
I saw Werros at the head table, and he beckoned me to him.
I made my way across the room, keeping my head down and trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
I could sense their curiosity and hostility.
Werros rose from his seat as I got closer and held out his hand to me.
Surprised, I gave it to him but then bowed low in front of him.
He took me by the shoulders to raise me up and looked down at me with an intense expression on his face that I couldn’t quite read, but he offered me a seat next to him on his right side.
I sat down quickly, blushing a little as a murmur swept across the room.
“Welcome, Blake. Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for the invitation, Your Majesty,” I said, sliding into the chair beside him.
He poured me a glass of wine himself and as I blushed at his attention, he leaned over and spoke softly in my ear. “You look tired. Are you still not sleeping well?”
“No, sir, I’m not. Bad dreams.”
“Ah, that won’t do at all. It could harm the baby you’re carrying for you not to get enough rest. I’ll send Evoq to you again.”
“I-I don’t think that will be necessary, Your Majesty.”
“I think it is. Now sip some wine and relax. It’s not strong and won’t hurt you at all. Enjoy your meal, and there will be dancing later.”
I groaned inwardly, because I knew the “dancers” would be captured Alliance soldiers.
This wasn’t my first time at a state dinner.
The king was being rather conspicuous in his regard for me, and I was a little embarrassed by his attentions.
He even served me himself off some of the trays the servants brought around, always asking me solicitously, if I liked the dish first. Usually, the answer was a resounding no.
Most of their food was too spicy for me, and I refused outright to eat their mystery meat.
I had pretty much become began since I’d been here on Tygeria.
Soon, the loud voices, the unfamiliar smells of Tygerian perfumes, all mixed in with the smell of the strange foods was beginning to get to me.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on us. The king leaned over and picked up my wine goblet to hold it to my lips.
“Try the wine,” he said. “The dancing will start soon.”
I knew this wine—it was popular with the soldiers and younger men, though I thought it was kind of sickly sweet and tasted too strongly of what I called skunk grapes, because it had the odor of a skunk.
But even the children on Tygeria drank it.
I was right about the dancers though. The lights went down low, and the guards led a group of men out to dance for the assembled guests.
They were about eight of them, mostly humans, with a couple of Nilaniums and a Jayronian thrown in for good measure.
All of them were naked, young and good looking, and all of them had dull, lifeless eyes.
I was pretty sure they’d been drugged, and maybe that was a blessing.
I tried not to look at them but at the same time, not make it too obvious.
They proceeded to dance and do things to each other that you’d never see outside of a pornographic stage show, if such a thing existed.
They didn’t exist on Earth, or at least not at the time I’d left there.
I reached for a goblet of water, fearing that the wine was still too strong for me to take more than just a sip.
The king noticed after a while, and leaned over to ask me, “Are you getting tired? Would you like to leave now?”
Relieved, I turned and smiled up at him. “Would you mind? I slept badly last night.”
“Not at all,” he replied and then stood up beside me, extending his hand to me. I thought, how nice of him to help me stand, and I smiled again at him.
But instead of saying good night to me, he addressed his guests. “I’m retiring for the evening. Please enjoy yourselves and stay for as long as you like.”
Then he walked out with me on his arm.
There was literally shock on every face. No one dared say a word, but a collective gasp went up that was pretty damn audible, because his hand had slipped down to my ass. When we got just outside the door, I tried to gently shrug him off, though his guards had fallen in behind him.