14. N #2
She suspected her people would be easy meat, as long as the elves here didn’t scare them enough to put aside centuries of arguing and unify.
As long as the elves here kept her people divided and focused on their selfish interests, the elven lords would be easy meat. Just divide and conquer.
Haldeen walked her over water sources, rivers, basic geography …
a hazy subject for her. Haldeen didn’t bother to try to choke her into better answers.
Triana obviously didn’t know. She described the lands around her own estate quite well, the general area encompassing her neighbors, and some generalities beyond that.
But, she was hopeless at any kind of map or drawing.
Haldeen’s focus on maps, roads, and rivers confirmed that these elves, or at least this elf, had conquest in mind.
Conquest of her world. These were, indeed, the ancient elven lords who had breached the void between her world and theirs, and then …
unaccountably … had not made the crossing.
She vaguely recalled tales of a panic, of constructs not working, or rebelling against their makers, of elven lords fleeing into a new world—her world—where their powers made them gods over the humans living there.
Perhaps her ancestors, the ones Haldeen called the dregs … the scrubs had been the first wave. If so, the second wave never broke upon her land.
Triana had traced out his plan from his questions.
Haldeen was determined to open that way again, and finish what her ancestors had started.
In large part, she didn’t really care whether he, they, or whomever succeeded.
Let them come and do as they wished, so long as they extended to her the same courtesy.
She really didn’t give a fat damn who ruled, so long as she kept her rank, prerogatives, and estate.
Why should she care? So long as she got home.
She might have made an exception for the elven lords who had sided with the human slaves and their halfblood leader, but that was before Haldeen.
Before Haldeen stepped into the picture, she would have happily seen those elven lords and their human allies wiped out of existence and memory.
An aberration. Traitors to their own kind.
But now, given what Haldeen wanted and her own hate …
she would have kissed one of the treasonous elven lords full on the mouth, if that were the price of seeing Haldeen dead.
She suspected that of all of her kind, the Elvenbane and her allies and human troops had the best chance of taking Haldeen—because he had no idea what he was going to face in them, and she had nothing she could give him to help him.
Fine sort of people we are. Like parent, like child, I suppose.
He cleared his throat, calling her back to the moment. He shuffled through his papers. “I think we’re done. You’re just repeating yourself now. Nothing new to offer. Frankly, the stench of you is getting to where it’s going to soak into the stone, so maybe it’s time to bring this farce to an end.”
“I’ve given you what you want,” she said wearily. “I’m no more use to you.” She shifted from one hip to the other, trying for a little relief. “Why won’t you let me just go home? I’m no threat.”
He looked at her, his expression no longer amused.
“Trey-ana, I have declared you to be in debt forfeiture. I have given you bread from my table, clothing that could have gone to someone deserving of it, water from my wells. I have given you shelter from the monsters outside our walls.
I have given you a trade where you could have earned your keep and gained honor in our society. And this was how you repaid a simple demand to contribute … just like every other member of my household does. You have assaulted my retainers, done injury to the blameless,
and brought shame and disorder down upon this House. You are no better than a thieving vermin.”
He waved his hand in front of his face, making a show of waving away an odor.
“When you got here, I wasn’t sure what to do with you, but there was a time when you working for me, and helping me, and earning your way back might have been an option.”
He shrugged. “That was before—” He broke off, then looked at her.
She could see the anger in his eyes, and had no doubt that for as much as she hated him, she had no doubt that he hated her, measure for measure.
“Go home, Triana? That’s novel. Release you into the wild … with you knowing what you know?” He stopped. His expression grew calculating. “How long have you been away, do you think?”
His question caught her off-stride. She worked out the math in her head, the different numbering systems still tripped her up. “Seven weeks … umm, seven eight-days, maybe eight.”
He laughed, clearly enjoying the moment. “A bit more than ten eight-days actually. Roughly eighty-odd days here.” He paused, clearly relishing his next words. He delivered each singly, for maximum effect. “Eight hundred days for you, however, when it comes to your home-world.”
She stared at him, confused. His broad, satisfied smile and the obvious joy he took in telling her wiped away any doubt of his truthfulness.
“Time moves differently here than there; by my calculations, you’ve been gone years. So, I very seriously doubt your elven lord friends will let that fat pigeon you call an estate set long before it’s snapped up. Three of your ten-days, maybe four … and after that the questions will start.
Where is the lord? Who is minding the estate in the meantime? Will it require an occupying force, or merely some well-placed bribes to take it?”
He raised an eyebrow …. “And who is going to stand up for you? No husband. No sons. No kin at all that wouldn’t just grab it for themselves. Not even a reliable lover.”
Triana lowered her head, and stared at her hands.
He was right. Damn him. She didn’t think to doubt his words.
His pleasure in telling her had been too obvious to doubt him.
She closed her eyes and felt hot tears under her lashes.
Long before she had started to worry, she’d already lost everything.
If one of her rivals hadn’t already taken all she had once owned, the human ex-slaves and their rebellious elven allies would have fought or subverted their way into possession.
Her estate, and what it represented was gone.
Everything she was, all that it meant for her to be her, all she was …
had been wiped away. Her throat tightened and she fought against sobs.
She would not show him that weakness. It was the only tiny victory she could have against him. “You’ve won. Why not let me go?”
“Good question. As you have already determined,” he answered. “You have learned as much from my questions as I have from your answers. You know what I plan, what I’m going to do. Sending you back would let you warn your friends.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m a lord. I don’t have friends.”
“No, you don’t. And your kind doesn’t. When I … we … come at them, each will look to his own house, and leave the others to bear the brunt. We’ll take them one at a time, with eachelven lord eager to deal, so the firelance strikes someone else.”
He laughed again. “And you aren’t a … lord … anymore. By your rights you need an estate for that … and that is, doubtless … gone.”
He paused. “It’s too bad, really. In a different world we could have reached an accommodation. Been my emissary. Served me in delivering up those you despise. But, you chose to betray my trust and damage my interests. You proved I cannot trust you with even the smallest amount of self-determination.
And so, you are here.”
He stood from the table, gathering up his pacers.
“Now, you are nothing now but a thief, who has stolen from her master, and from whom I may extract labor until I am repaid in full. Your little stunt in the production room has cost me more than you can repay in, well, what remains of your life. And if I cannot have back the wealth you have cost me,
then I shall enjoy watching you wither, unless the Beast squashes you to jelly first.”
“Beast?” she asked.
“Yes, Beast,” he answered. “It’s a feral monster. Mistreated, even before I got it … and my people haven’t been kind. Hates its keepers. Squashes them flat. Last one lasted three-ish eight-days. He’s a bloody smear now.”
The cold anger in his voice caused Triana to raise her head and look him full in the face.
His expression remained hard and unyielding.
He took a deep breath. “A person, a retainer of mine died, Triana, for what you did. Someone who was a thousand percent more useful to me than you are. She fell on the stairs, got trampled, and she died. Because of your little tantrum. I had to pay the geld for that,
on top of a week’s lost production. You are an animal, with no control over yourself, no control over your magic, and no control over your temper. And a good person is dead because of it. Because of you.”
Triana waited, silent, still meeting his eye.
Triana looked up at him. A flare of her old spirit surged. “Nice speech. Did you practice it?”
What followed was very nearly worth the expression on his face. Nearly. He touched the rod, and she went to sleep. For a very, very long time. The nightmares started at once, first merely bad. Then they escalated from there.
When they woke her, she sat in the same chair. She felt thirsty, as though she had not had a drink for days. The Overseer sat across the table from her.
“Touch your throat.” She did as she was bid, and felt a thin metal collar around her neck, and just below the sleeping-collar.
This one was a thinner bronze, and sealed tightly.
She used her fingers to feel around its edge.
The Overseer touched a button on the control and she felt a heat that rose until it felt near to burning before it cooled.
“It’s a prisoner-collar,” he said. “It will cancel magic you try, and will choke you if you try and spellcast. My lord tells me you use these all the time in your world, so you’ll be quite familiar with them. Once it’s cooled, it’s bonded to you.”
Haldeen entered at that point. The Overseer stood and passed him the control rod.