Chapter 25
Banged Up
The cell block wasn’t too bad. Darren had never been in the building before now, and it was clean, functional, and cool, in the temperature sense. His cell contained a low bunk with a thin mattress and a blanket on it, a toilet and small washbasin and that was it. The other three cells were empty.
What was bad that he wasn’t allowed visitors and Ohirin warriors, the same two that had forced marched him to the cells had worked him over, the jailer turning a blind eye.
He wasn’t allowed medical treatment either.
He thanked his gods that the thugs hadn’t broken bones.
He didn’t know how long he’d be locked up for; the jailer refused to answer his questions.
The food was edible but meals consisted of mostly thin vegetable soup and breadcrumbs. There were no meat or fish, an absence of the protein Dheltans needed; the Ohirins were herbivore.
After a few days, perhaps a week (he wasn’t sure; they’d stripped him of devices, and he was isolated), one morning, he was visited by a Dheltan.
He didn’t know him. The warrior had the same blue skin tone as Pilot Joel, but he was too small to be the pilot, and he couldn’t possibly be a Dheltan warrior.
Yet, here he was, in full uniform, white hair neatly done in a braid down his back, cap pulled over his eyes.
The small anonymous warrior seemed to know him, so Darren decided to go with it. He needed all the help he could get.
The jailer showed the visitor to Darren’s cell, but he didn’t open the door. The warrior stood on the flagstones, holding on to the bars.
Darren approached the small figure, looking down at him.
“Forgive me, have we met? I can’t seem to place you,” he said.
They both turned their heads at a commotion at the entrance, and the jailer exited fast to sort it out.
The stranger looked up at Darren and their eyes met; his light blue ones with hers the color of the summer sky. “Aelanna,” he gasped.
Her eyes widened with alarm at his black eye and split lip, and she pressed a finger to her lips.
“We don’t have long. Joel helped me and he’s caused a distraction outside,” she whispered. “He and your brothers are trying to get you out of here. What do you need?”
“A doctor and a lawyer.”
She frowned and studied him more closely. “They hurt you.” A range of emotions crossed her face: worry, frustration and anger, then she pulled herself together. She reached into a pocket and folded something in his hand through the bars. Her hands were small enough to reach through them.
“I must go.” She looked up into his eyes, hers softening. “Don’t forget, I love you, Darren. If they force me to go with the lizard to save you, then I’ll go, but I will always love you.”
She reached up and touched his cheek, then she fled before he could respond. Tears in his eyes, he opened his fist to see what she had given him. They were two wrapped nutrition bars from the canteen. He hid them behind the toilet before the jailer returned.
Darren was sitting on the bunk when the man did come back. He patted Darren down and ordered him to shake out the blanket and lift his mattress off. It lay on a wire frame, and the floor was visible through it.
Satisfied the visitor hadn’t slipped the prisoner anything, the jailer left the cell.
Neither had spoken a word.
The next day, an Ohirin medical officer visited. Before the jailer admitted him into Darren’s cell, he told the medic a bunch of lies: how Darren had resisted arrest and three of them had had to subdue him to get him into the cell.
Darren sat on the bed while the man opened his bag of instruments.
He didn’t bother to protest. What was the point?
It was his word against the jailer’s and the other too.
Anyway, the man was here to check him over for damage to his person.
He’d tell the lawyer — if he ever got one.
Still, at least he had friends who were trying to get him out, and Aelanna must have risked a lot coming to the jail disguised as a warrior and tell him he was not forgotten.
The medic’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He had a hand scanner to scan Darren's heart and lungs. “Take off your shirt.”
The officer was a lizard, but he was courteous and professional, and Darren cautiously trusted him, and the doctor didn’t do anything to break that fragile trust. Darren did so, and the doctor let the scanner fall on the bed.
“What are those marks on your skin? Do you feel you’ve gotten a fever or other symptoms? Does the rash itch? Headache? Vomiting?”
Darren shook his head and looked down at his torso. Darker marks than his skin tone, they were like crimson tattooed shapes in a fine line that appeared on his shoulders and pecs. They looked good and he was proud of them.
“They’re mating marks, doctor. Dheltans get them when they bond to their life partner and she responds. It seems I have met my fated mate.”
He’d forgotten the most important thing; that Aelanna had told him she loved him. She told him before when they were on the ship, but now he had sunk to the lowest point in his life. He had nothing to offer her. Despite that, she loved him! Could he believe it?
That afternoon, a guard of four Ohirins turned up and took him out of the cell. The jailer tried to stop them and refused to unlock it, saying he didn’t have orders and knew nothing about it, but the leader showed him a tablet with the order on it and the jailer had to comply.
One of the party held a Dheltan jacket and singlet, which he thrust against Darren’s chest.
“Put these on.”
They frog-marched Darren out, bundled him into a transporter, and it set off, the guards with it.
“Where are we going?” he asked. He was afraid he was going to his execution. They’d kick his lifeless body into an unmarked grave and nobody would ever know. He wasn’t afraid of death, but he would have liked to prepare himself. When they didn’t answer, he insisted.
“I have a right to know what’s going to happen to me. If you’re going to kill me, my brothers have a right to know.” He knew that Ohirins valued family and he hoped to exploit that sentiment. “I need a lawyer,” he grumbled.
The leader was Ohirin as they all were. He was also a captain. He spoke from the front passenger seat, and he didn’t turn around to face Darren sandwiched between two guards in the back seat, his hands cuffed behind his back. The fourth guard drove.
“Silence, prisoner. You don’t have rights,” he replied in a flat tone.
They drove for minutes and arrived at the palace.
This can’t be right. The palace? Maybe the emperor’s in on the persecution of Dheltans.
The transport drove to the back of the palace. The leader and a guard hauled Darren, feet hobbled for good measure, through the kitchens, along servants’ corridors and into a state apartment.
For brief moments he thought he could attract attention, get somebody to listen to him, ask to see a lawyer, but servants scuttled by minding their own business and knowing better than to interfere. It showed on their faces.
Then he relaxed, reminding himself they hadn’t laid a finger on him and they weren’t likely to murder him in a state room. For one thing, there were witnesses; two footmen stood to attention by the double doors.
The palace was old and ornate, but the state room was modern and functional. He’d never been inside the palace before, and the first thing he noticed was the foliage in the room.
It was like a hothouse. The furniture — the few pieces there were — was all from bare, polished wood and stone, all natural varieties and colors, smoothed until they shone. There was wooden sectional seating in one corner with a few Ohirin silk pillows on it, a small concession to soft furnishings.
Plants were arranged in height, low to high, around an intricately carved throne in golden wood on a stone dais positioned in a space in the middle of the stone floor. Near it was a smooth, lizard-sized slab of sandstone. What its purpose was, Darren couldn't guess.
Darren waited patiently with his guard. He sweated it out. Literally. The room was too hot and humid.
What happened now?
The footmen opened the doors and an Ohirin swept in, followed by a retinue of servants wearing the palace leaf-green livery. The higher status they had, the more intricate the decoration on them.
The lead man had iridescent scales and wore a robe of Ohirin silk in a darker green, richly embroidered in a rainbow of bright colors. His tail swept behind him. He climbed up the three steps to the throne and sat down, legs covered by the robe, tail exposed at his side. He radiated authority.
Emperor Uchantik. Darren was sure to receive his official death sentence, but at least Aelanna and his brothers would know what his fate was.
He stood tall and proud, his chin raised, refusing to show a hint of fear. He would die a warrior’s death, noble and without fear.
“All hail the emperor,” an Ohirin shouted.
The man was also richly dressed, though not quite as decoratively as the emperor.
Darren guessed he must be the grand vizier.
The Ohirins in the room inclined their heads.
Some of them bowed. The captain nudged his ribs and Darren bowed also, prompting the emperor to gaze at him while his advisor whispered in his ear.
“You’ve brought me the insubordinate Dheltan,” the emperor boomed. Darren’s escort clicked their heels and snapped to attention.
Darren also stood to attention. He prepared to hear his fate. He would die with dignity; he would not be remembered as a coward.
The emperor held his hand, palm out, to the grand vizier. The advisor put a paper in it, no doubt Darren’s death sentence and how he was to die. He steeled himself for the bad news.
“I got your letter,” the emperor announced in a genial tone, waving the paper aloft. Darren could have been knocked over with an Oorooria feather. That was the last thing he expected to hear.
“Fine sentiments you express. I wish all my subjects looked on me with such loyalty and affection,” the emperor continued.
Darren bowed again but didn’t speak. He didn’t know where this was leading; he didn’t know what to say, to ask.
“Unfortunately, I’m not inclined to let you leave service as a warrior.
” The emperor leaned forward. “Show me your fated mate marks.” Again, the grand vizier whispered in the emperor’s ear.
The room couldn’t hear what he said, but from the advisor’s body language it couldn’t be anything but objection.
Uchantik shook his head and waved his hand, a signal to the captain to free Darren's hands. Darren couldn’t comply fast enough, he sweltered in the close, warm air. He stripped off his uniform jacket and singlet. Everyone in the room turned and regarded him. And the marks on his skin.
“Tell me how they appear,” ordered Uchantik.
With more detail, Darren repeated what he’d told the doctor as the emperor rested his elbow on his knee, chin on his hand and nodded sagely. “Interesting,” he murmured. Suddenly he snapped upright and dropped his hand.
“Release the prisoner. He will be transferred to my personal guard.” He met Darren’s eye. “Report to Commander Gorkorlox for your orders.”
The grand vizier voiced his objection aloud that time. “Your Imperial Highness, is that wise? Dheltans are not of this planet, they are strays which we’ve been good enough to take in—” He took a breath and opened his mouth to carry on, but Uchantik cut him off.
“You seem to forget, I have a Drek empress and I believe in fated mates. It’s my decision. I will brook no argument against it.”
The grand vizier retreated with a bow, but his lips were tight.
Darren bowed also. “My eternal thanks, your imperial highness.”
“Captain, approach.”
The Ohirin captain did it.
The emperor tutted loudly. “Not you, the Dheltan,” he said irritably.
The Ohirin looked daggers at Darren and jerked his snout toward the throne.
All eyes in the room on him, Darren stepped forward.
“Tell me about this fated mate of yours,” said the emperor, and Darren told him the story from the beginning when Crukugs had given him his orders.