"He's nothing but a boy," I said, sourly.
My head hurt from the night before; there'd been heavily spiced food at the Council festival and excessive wine, rich as bull's blood. I'd felt lethargic all day, though that was to be expected after the overnight attentions of an enthusiastic bedmate – or three. The sun had passed the mid-day point hours ago, and I had a grain-trade meeting set for early evening, but at the moment I doubted I'd bother to turn up. It wouldn't be the first time I'd skipped my pompous Council duties as Chancellor.
And now my servants had burst into the ante-room of my private quarters and flung a jumble of bone and flesh at my feet, all of it accompanied by their excited jabbering. The noise jarred on my sensitive ears. I was in poor humour for visitors, and they should have known it. I would personally break the limbs of at least one of them; but perhaps not until I felt more physically robust.
Hul saw my look - he knew me perhaps the best. He had been with me for over a full Earth season-set; and that was quite an impressive reference for a servant of my household. "See him for yourself, Chancellor Chariz," he insisted. The others fell silent around him, as they were used to following his lead. "The Lady's housemaids were taking him to her quarters, but we told them he was to be interrogated first." His boot nudged at his captive on the floor. "Kneel up before the Chancellor, stupid boy. Like I told you."
I ran an aimless hand through my long dark-red hair, and glanced at the heap of cloth and limbs beneath me. Despite my youth, I was used to seeing grovelling; I was used to debasement before me. It bored me, of course. There wasn't much in life that didn't, and Hul knew that. "He's still nothing but a boy," I said. I stepped around a chair that was scattered with official papers, and I saw one of the other servants cringe back before me. I am very tall for my race and well built, and I knew my look was angry. I wore my rich velvet cloak, with the heavy neck chain of my Council position, and I knew how impressive I appeared to the lower castes; I often played upon it. "I have plenty of boys, Hul. Boys who groom my horses, boys who serve my food, boys who spread their gangly, immature limbs for me at night, so that I can relax for a good moon's sleep. I'm sure the Lady has plenty, too, for I know her appetite is as mature as my own."
One of my other servants flushed, and so then I knew who the Lady's favourite was this moon phase. I appraised him quickly – decided he was barely worth the effort. Maybe he would be the one whose limbs I snapped, in punishment for disturbing me today. He was a slender, nut-brown-eyed boy, who seemed unable to do anything but wring his hands nervously all the time he was in my presence. But then the Lady of the household – who, to my chagrin, was also my mother – was known for choosing her bedmates by quantity rather then quality.
Hul sulked a little. "I assure you, Chancellor, I wouldn't have brought you just another lackey. The barracks have been talking about him ever since they brought him in; the kitchens are a broiling pot of curiosity. Even the Magicians are disturbed…"
"Disturbed?"
His sly eyes looked quickly up at me. I know he saw the tease of a smile at the corners of my mouth. It was a favourite pastime of mine, the baiting of the caste of Magic. "Yes, Chancellor. Very disturbed."
I sighed theatrically. "So what is it about him?" I nudged the body myself with my buckled boot. The tangled legs sprawled apart, and the boy rolled on to his back on the wooden floor. His eyes darted up to catch mine, and for a second, the breath caught in my throat. "His skin is pale," I said, hearing my voice catch on its own hoarseness. "Like a city dweller. But he has – those unusual eyes. A most unattractive combination. I see no evidence of useful strength; no hint of amusing perversion. If he's just another tedious empath –"I turned sharply on Hul. "The Council has a flock of them already, supplicant children clinging to the coattails and sucking at the cocks of the Magicians! I have no interest in breeding my own such sacrificial lambs."
"No, sir," insisted Hul, though he winced at my crudeness. He was, of course, well used to it; my anger, also. I had a reputation as a hard and often vicious master, which – perversely – pleased me. I'd never seen any benefit in wasting my diplomatic talents on the lesser castes. "He doesn't ask to join the apprentices, Chancellor. He seems something different."
Hul was not a fanciful man. He had come to me as a boy from the farms, bartered by his family for the promise of a few coins; he had no empathetic skills himself to offer the Magicians. For a while, he'd been an agile, if unimaginative bedmate; and then when I swiftly tired of that, he begged to remain on my staff and serve me. He had brought me many interesting things in the past – both people and objects, all to assuage my boredom, if only for a dragonfly's snatch of time.
I looked again at the boy, now kneeling up before me, his head dipped to his thighs, his hands crossed behind his back. It was a traditional pose of submission. His head was bare, and his dark hair ill-trimmed and carelessly combed. His shoulders were no broader than a girl's, and I could see his skin stretched thinly over the awkward knobs of his young spine. He had been stripped to the waist in the manner of my own household servants, and his trousers were far too large, held tightly round his waist with additional cords. I saw a couple of fresh red welts on his lean torso.
"So did you taste him, Hul?" I asked, softly. "How was he?" One of the other servants whimpered, but Hul flushed and shook his head.
"He's been well used at the barracks, Chancellor," he said. "He showed little resistance to it, so it seems he's been fair game. But we haven't used him at all. Just found him the trousers and cleaned him up a bit. Any bruises he has are from the soldiers, I assure you."
I raised an eyebrow. A boy already used to surrender – not even the promise of a forced seduction to tantalise me. In my opinion, the day was deteriorating rapidly.
"He is an empath, though," I said. I had felt the thread between us as he caught my eye: I knew that I was susceptible to them, being partly empathetic myself – a dubious inheritance from my father. "I have no time for those who try to read my mind and blend my emotions on to their own blank canvas. I don't have my mother's tolerance for such nonsense."
"I wouldn't dare suggest such a thing, Chancellor," Hul said, hurriedly. "That's business for the Magicians, no-one else. But word says that they're already aware of him; word says that the tales from the barracks have made them nervous…"
"Word drops from your mouth like drool after clumsy self-pleasure," I drawled.
Hul bit his lip. "There's a captain of the garrison who says the boy used his powers on him – "
"What?" I smiled. "A pathetic crumb of child like this? Those tales are just lewd jokes over ale in the barrack room. A strong soldier moaning like a violated kitchen maid? I think not." It just illustrated the lack of imagination in our military ranks, I thought. So many tales abounded of magic and memorycall, but when faced with it in reality, the commoners crumpled in blubbering fear.
My yawn was a sign of boredom, not tiredness. Empathy was an innate gift, but its application nowadays was nothing but a trick; a skill both learned and worked like that of weaving, or weaponry or making bedmates whimper aloud as they were peeled open like rich, moist fruit. I had spoken often – and passionately – to the Lady about the Magicians. I considered that she should never have allowed them sanctuary in the city, as they were subversive and attracted all manner of detritus to our land, trails of men seeking an easy answer to the pathetic dissatisfactions of their lives.
However, her response to these complaints rarely altered – I must admire my mother's consistency, even in matters of hypocrisy. She thought I should confine my sceptical opinions to my ‘bedchildren', as she called them; I should be mindful of the rich sinecure I earned as a Chancellor, which allowed my current lifestyle of ‘indolence and sexual depravity'. The usual result of our confrontations was that I would back down on the argument, with my frustration unappeased. Amusingly enough, the job of Chancellor to the Treasury was one that I did well, albeit with sporadic commitment – but it had been awarded under her personal patronage in the first place, and could presumably be as imperiously taken away.
As I stretched a languid hand to my mouth, I felt the boy's body quiver beneath my gaze.
"Your assessment is wise, Chancellor Chariz," said Hul, smoothly. "But he's caused a large amount of disruption, and is now being hastily passed from garrison to Council Offices. The captain's currently under suspension, he left his post while on duty to follow the boy and seek a further meeting with him." I raised a curious eyebrow. Hul's gaze flickered to the boy on the floor then was snatched back again, as if the mere glance scalded him. "His skills seem very strong."
"So I assume that he sees things," I sighed. It was nothing new. Any well-trained empath could mimic the fortune teller; I'd even done it myself sometimes, to amuse gullible bedmates. "He sees a man's thoughts, his dreams, and his desires –"
"No," said Hul, very sharply now. "He makes them happen."
The boy lay face down with rightful submission at the foot of my writing table, a blanket round his upper body. Hul had herded the servants away like the goats they so closely resembled, hurrying to escape both my annoyance and the taste of my whip. Left alone, I intended to perform the interrogation that they had suggested.
I had shed my official robes and jewellery, and was dressed in my silken clothes of comfort. I opened the neck of my shirt down to the lower line of my ribs, and loosened the ties of my trousers. Thus relaxed, I sat comfortably back on my couch. There was only a gull's wingspan between me and my captive, but I felt no threat from such a fragile child. I ran a fingertip along the carved handle of the aforementioned whip, and from the sudden tension in the boy's shoulders I guessed that he could see my movement from the corners of his eyes.
I'd never seen a creature like him. Hul's ‘word' had informed him that the child had travelled the harsh heathland for several moons to reach the city, and he was thin and obviously ill-nourished from his journey. Even with my servants' cursory attempts at dressing and cleaning him, he still looked travel-worn. The colour of his hair was less attractive than a sparrow's plumage, its condition like the leaves underfoot in the pre-snow season. We city-born are all pale skinned, a mark of our superiority, no bronzed skin or freckled face or darkened tone to our flesh. He was similarly skinned – but there was no sign of our typical red hair on his head. I wondered absentmindedly whether he dyed it for some reason of cult, and I would discover his natural colours between his skinny legs. I could believe that he was some half-caste – an aberration of birth from one of my even more liberally-sexual cousins, roaming the outside castes for rough entertainment – for it happened frequently and excited little disgust nowadays. But then there were his eyes; they had startled me, for they were green. No-one had green eyes in the city. The outside castes had brown or grey; my peers had the piercing blue of a mountain lake that set us apart from the rabble.
No-one had ever displayed green eyes.
"Name?" I snapped.
He lifted his gaze to me, and I was struck by the lack of fear in his expression. He must have known that I could have had him whipped or even hanged at the drop of my elegant palm. "My name is Oriel, sir," he said. His voice was low but masculine enough to be a surprise. Maybe he was older than I imagined.
"Oriel?" I laughed aloud, knowing he would see my bright teeth and the curve of my rich lips. It was distracting for many, I knew. "The name of a creature of the Air – when you appear to be nothing more than one who crawls in the ditches of the Earth. Did you steal the name, boy?"
"No, sir," he said, quietly. "You can call me something else if you choose."
I frowned. Ridiculous child! "Where have you come from, Oriel? You don't have the look of anyone I've ever seen in the city. Where's your homeland?"
He shrugged, very slightly. The blanket slipped from his shoulder, exposing pale skin that shone in the lamplight of my chambers. I found my eyes drawn towards the young flesh, but blamed such a malaise on my overindulgence the previous night. I couldn't see that this chick of a boy would satisfy any adult appetite of mine. I may have been only a few Earth turns older than he, but my maturity could be measured beyond his in the leaps of a spring-season hare.
"I don't remember any," he said, without a trace of pathos. "I live where I'm given shelter. People have often been kind to me."
"Why do you think they should give you shelter, Oriel?" I asked, curious despite myself.
"I don't expect it," he said quickly, and his eyes flared with some angry spirit. "They offer it to me. I accept it, and serve them as they wish."
"Serve them?" The boy's looks intrigued me – but his attitude annoyed me. "Are you an escaped slave? A professional bedmate?" I reached forward and snatched the rest of the blanket from his upper body. He made no move to cover his naked torso. I searched the pale skin for a brand, but found nothing except the clumsy bruises I'd seen before and scratches from the journey over the heathland. "I see no mark of ownership on you – no punishment scar from the prison camps."
He bit at his lower lip, the plump skin easing out from beneath small white teeth. "I don't belong to anyone, sir. I serve people because they protect me, because they connect with me."
"Why?" His eyes narrowed at my question. "Why should anyone protect a scrawny twig like you, Oriel? What is it you offer them, that you tempt them with? I can see you're an empath, and maybe one with unusual skill. Perhaps you twist those skills to fool the idiots you meet – to pretend that you can understand their deepest desires, and can help them attain them, for the reward of coins and food and a warm bed –"
"There's no pretence!" His face was flushed now, and his voice rose in volume. "I take nothing but shelter, and I move on as soon as they've finished with me!" He struggled upright, though still on his knees. "I don't think people are idiots, sir. I've been sheltered by kindness and tolerance. I thought to find it here, but I'll move on if not."
I shook my head impatiently. I needed no childish angst here; I had barely-ripe bedchildren for that. I stood swiftly and grasped the whip. With a single flick of my wrist it curled around his arm and tugged his protests to a startled halt. "Be silent! I'm the one who'll tell you whether you move on or not. What did you do to the garrison captain who captured you?"
"Nothing," he gasped. "Is he hurt?"
"I believe not. But why should he be stood down from his duty? Just from the meeting of a boy like you?"
"He protected me when he found me," the boy said, quite simply. "He sent all the others away and took me into his own quarters. He connected with me; so I had to serve him. He had a lot of pain – it hurt me very deeply, too. He asked for my help."
"Asked?" What was the child going on about? "Was this a physical pain? Are you a herbalist healer of some kind?"
He frowned, as if frustrated by my inability to understand. I should have whipped him there and then for his insolence, but my curiosity got the better of my anger. "No sir, he didn't ask in words, of course not. No-one talks to me in that way. Both the pain and the desire were in his mind, and when we connected, so did his needs. His mother's very ill – she's far from the city, though I don't know where, and he'd been told there were only ten moons before her death. He couldn't go to her – there was no-one to help him."
"So you helped him," I said, the contempt and disbelief barely hidden in my sharp tone. "You accepted his protection, and in return you had to serve this grieving son, is that right? And then I assume another message came that the old woman was completely healed and will go on to live many more Earth turns, praising her miracle deliverance at the hands of her devoted son and a charlatan child."
The boy looked back up at me and suddenly I felt an unpleasant shiver throughout my whole body. "There's no such message yet," he said, through tightened lips. "But there will be. Why do you doubt it? What possible motive could I have to trick a devastated man like him? Or you?"
I moved suddenly, and the whip hummed across the room.
I grasped his throat with my strong hand and dragged him to his feet, up on to his bare toes. He groaned into my face, but didn't struggle to pull himself free. The whip had barely licked at him, but I could see a thin scrape of livid red flesh across his upper torso, newly forged.
"Aren't you scared of me?" I hissed. "I can see through your games; I've no patience for fools!"
"I know," he gasped. "You've connected to me too, sir."
What? I was startled, I'll admit it, and my hand loosened its grip. His feet sank back down to the floor, the excess length of his borrowed trousers sagging round his thin ankles. I twisted his head round brutally to face me. "Tell me what else you've done, boy. How many others of these services have you provided?"
He gazed back at me. "At what Earth turn do you want me to start?"
He didn't seem to see the insolent arrogance of his reply. "You're a boy," I said, most harshly. "I meant since you started this chicanery of ‘helping' people."
"I've been under other people's shelter since I was five full season-sets," he said, softly. "I don't remember anything before that. It's always been my way."
I stared into his face and watched the soft, full lips answer me with calm words. He was shorter than I by a broad hand-span, but unusually tall for a servant. His shoulder felt reasonably muscled – his breath moved gently and steadily in his bare chest. The whip mark was fading quickly. The green eyes were sharp and deep with raw instinct, like an animal's – but none that I had ever seen in real life. He didn't beg for my forgiveness; he didn't weep like a frightened housemaid. He was something, I suddenly realised, rather alien to me.
I released him, snatching my hand away none too gently. I didn't force him to drop back to his submissive pose. "So answer me directly. What else have you done?"
He dropped his eyes for a second, but maybe he thought I'd see that as an expression of guilt, so he looked back up. If he caught any flicker of uncertainty in my own gaze, I made sure it didn't linger. "I've helped a man find his lost family; a woman's been reconciled with her daughter. Crops thrived where the weather had destroyed the seed; farm animals had bones re-knitted and sicknesses purged."
"Tricks," I said, disdainfully. "Or at the very least, you've applied a perceptive mind to a broad knowledge of herbs and natural remedies."
"A family has found a jewel that thieves took two Earth turns ago; a barren woman's borne children to comfort her. Men achieved new positions of work, and children gained friends where before they were bullied." He didn't seem to care that I scorned him, nor did he recite the events with pride – he listed them as a journal, nothing more. His voice was slow and calm, lapping gently at my hearing. I couldn't remember ever hearing a voice like it – it was young yet old; gentle yet insistent like warm, fierce fingers on my pampered flesh. He had an eerie kind of charisma, surely. For the first time I felt a throb of carnal interest in my groin, although I'd decided early on that he had no potential as a bedmate. I had every intention of leaving him for my mother – or the servants. They ranked the same as regards my cast-off playthings.
I shrugged, regaining my concentration, still contemptuous of him. "Nothing of that impresses me. Is that the best you have to amuse me and bargain for your freedom?"
This time when he stared back, there was a shift in his expression that reached more deeply than the moonless dark of his pupils. I had been ‘read' by empaths before; I knew to expect the strange alienating tug at my nerve endings. But this was much more than that – this was a wash of chill and then warmth across my whole body; a disordering of my emotions, as if a slim hand had reached inside my head and run my inner self through its intrusive fingers. I think I may have gasped with sudden shock – he certainly saw some reaction in me, for his eyes widened briefly and his damp lips opened slightly. The connection between us faded almost at once.
"I won't say any more, if you dislike it," he said, quietly. He stood patiently, and his gaze dropped again to the floor. "You disbelieve me, and it's not for me to argue. Everyone should be honest about it."
I snorted an expression of disgust. I reached for his hair and wrenched his head back up to face me. "What did you mean – about me?" My voice sounded rather sharp, and I realised that I had drawn him very close to my body. "You said ‘you've connected with me, too'." I laughed aloud. "I definitely don't have any need of help from a runt like you."
"I know what you think, sir," he said. I wasn't sure I liked the tone of his voice. "Your thoughts and desires entered me the moment you touched me. I can't prevent or control it – the initiative comes from you. You determine how you use me – that's the way it is."
"Then I demand you stop the games and stay away from my mind."
For the first time I saw fear in his eyes; the green became flecked with the dark shadows of horror. "You're strong in mind, sir, it's painful to receive you." The words were drawn out of him raggedly, like a thin blade might pick out threads of torn tissue from a glistening wound. "But I don't do anything to accept or reject – the person just connects with me, and things happen. All of it happens."
"So you're saying you're some kind of catalyst." It was a possibility, I supposed, though there was still no sensible support for his outrageous tales; for what he claimed he had made happen. I tugged his head to one side, then the other. His neck was slim and white and bent under my hands like a reed. The pulse in his throat was fascinating; I felt an unusual warmth against his skin. I'd wasted enough of my valuable time on him already – yet I was determined to find out his lies; the trickery! Then I'd use him and dispose of him. My free hand brushed along the pale skin of his chin, tugging down at his lower lip with my thumb. His young frame shivered a little under my hands; my body told me he might yet be an interesting toy. "So what did you see of my thoughts, boy?"
"There's no point in speaking of it –"he protested, but I pinched at his throat in warning, and he winced. He began again, his voice clear and low.
"I see your impatience with idiots, with delay, with frustration. I see your need for control."
"True enough," I said. "And I think you could have learned that from your time anywhere in the city, and especially from any of my embarrassingly inadequate servants." There was a strange nagging in my head that I blamed again on last night's wine, laying heavily on me. "You imply that the connection happens along with protection, and kindness shown to you." I smiled, a little cruelly. "I'm not aware of showing you any such thing so far, apart from allowing you to live a little longer than might have been expected…"
"The connection happens when and how it chooses. I must still serve," the boy interrupted, and suddenly I felt a chill in the room. When he looked up into my eyes again, his pupils were dilated, the blackness seeping into the green halo around them. He didn't appear to focus on me, but he spoke to me nonetheless. "It's purely at your demand. Your desires still enter me, even if they're of anger and revenge." His eyes rolled, gently – his body stiffened under my hand. "Your solitude was disturbed and you were angry about it. One of your servants has fallen and broken a leg; he'll be in pain for weeks and it's likely he'll always carry a limp. You needed reprisal – now you have it."
He drew in a huge gasping breath, the sound wheezing in the quiet room. I was temporarily speechless. I had wanted to break limbs and cause pain when my useless tribe burst in on me this after-noon – but I had made that protest half in jest, and only in my own thoughts. Now I had a boy in my room who claimed to be the unwilling catalyst of people's wishes and by the gods of Earth and Sky, he was disturbing me.
"Oriel –"
But I doubt he heard me. His eyes closed; his hands clenched at his sides – and then he sank to the floor in a dead faint.
Hul had come to my door to inform me of the shock accident in the kitchens. Apparently the brown-eyed servant had fallen down the rough stone steps and landed awkwardly. He had a broken leg – his screams had been heard throughout the lower corridors until someone came to his aid. I remembered clearly that I'd scorned him earlier because my mother had a lascivious interest in him, and for his complicity in disturbing my morning.
I did now, indeed, have my reprisal. It was unsettling.
I moved thoughtfully back into to my quarters, closing and locking the door carefully behind me. I peeled off my shirt and boots and walked bare-chested and bare-footed into my bedroom. This was my haven – my favourite and most personal sanctuary from the tedium and disappointments of public life. As I stepped across the thick rugs on the floor, I subconsciously breathed more calmly; felt my muscles relax. I had a generously sized bed with dark sheets and covers of the richest, most tactile fabrics I could find; wines and cordials available, and fresh fruit and nuts brought in daily. There was a bathroom through a side door, always well stocked with oils and soaps from around the city. No-one came here except by invitation, though I would confess that my invitations were often careless.
I had postponed my meeting; I had informed Hul I was retiring for the night. He knew what that meant. There would be no disturbance of me now.
When the boy had fainted, I'd lifted his senseless body from the floor and brought it to this room. He'd been a featherweight in my arms; his skin, warm and pliant; his limbs as lanky as a new colt's. I'd dropped him on to my bed with little ceremony.
Now I stood here again, watching his body as it lay unconscious, his limbs sinking gently into the soft covers, his hair tangled under an outstretched arm.
What was I to do with such a creature? I knew that my mother and her superstitious housemaids would take him in the beat of a heron's wing. They would love the drama of such a child; pet him for his strange looks; beg him with their piteous, fluttering eyes to grant their dearest wishes. He would be their own personal fortune-teller –
Your desires still enter me…you needed reprisal.
I had been shaken by his foretelling of the accident. But the servant could have fallen at any time; there were often mishaps in a busy household. "A coincidence," I said, though my voice sounded less sure.
The boy stirred on the bed, hearing me, and his eyes slid half open. The flash of green was almost luminous in the darkening evening light. "Get up," I said sharply. He struggled up to a sitting position, glancing round to see where I had brought him. He rubbed the back of a hand across his face in a sleepy gesture, and I felt that strange frisson again.
"Are you recovered?" I asked, abruptly.
His eyes hooded briefly, and he nodded. He swung his legs slowly over the side of the deep mattress. "Thank you for allowing me to rest," he said, softly. "They only see your arrogance and aggression – you hide the compassion well."
"You sound like a memorycaller at the fairground stalls," I snapped. "Trite, cheap talk. Or do you expect some payment for it? You can have the lick of my whip around your child's balls, if you like…"
He didn't flinch, a slim, half-bare figure swamped by the plump comfort of my fleeced sheets. "You use crudeness to intimidate them all. To keep people away from you." His voice was a little sluggish, but still absorbing. "You're respected in your work, but they're all scared of you. They obey you without question. They accept your lies as truth."
"Lies?" My heart beat a little faster. "I prefer to call it diplomacy, boy, and you'll watch that tongue or I'll slash it off for sport and let the servants sauce it for the supper broth – "
He was shaking his head now, eyes wide. "No, not the lies of politics, of your work. I meant the lies to yourself, the lies about your love for your mother; about your loneliness, about the loss of your younger brother…"
I struck him then – the cracking sound of the blow reverberated around the room. He cried out and slid off the bed on to the floor, scrambling with hands and knees to keep his balance.
"How dare you talk about me with such familiarity!" I hissed. "Who gave you that right?"
"You did," he gasped. "You spoke to me, sir! Your sadness – your anger. I can't deny it; the connection's rarely been so strong. I didn't know not to say it –"
I bent down to him, wrenching his head back again. There was a red, shining weal on his face made by my hand. His pupils were dilated again and he was panting slightly. "Is this how people connect with you, Oriel? They strike you?"
"Sometimes…" he whispered. His gaze met mine, a braver resistance than any of my servants had ever shown after such a blow from me. "They do what they want. Sometimes they use me instead."
I grimaced. "Is that what the captain did? Saved you from the common soldiers only to use you himself? What kind of protection is that?"
"It's how I serve," he said. His voice was teasing at my nerves again, yet the tone was steady and almost unemotional.
"You're a ridiculous mystery, Oriel! You describe yourself as a helpless, passive victim, used by your masters, sexually and otherwise, and still following like a household dog, begging for more abuse. Yet your eyes show a strength you shouldn't have …" I looked back down on them, which was perhaps my greatest mistake. But I couldn't help myself; I felt drawn into his weird, disorientated gaze. Even as I felt an unfamiliar shame at losing my temper with him, I wanted the touch again. From finding him insipid and disinteresting, I now felt the strongest flame of desire that I'd ever known, flaring suddenly to life inside me.
He drew in a deep gasp, as if he'd felt it too; I let go of his hair and forced myself upright again. For a moment I was frozen there above his kneeling form, trying to regain control over my feelings. My trousers tightened across my groin; my fingertips brushed lightly across the flat muscles of my belly, tormenting the goose bumps that sprang in response.
"Is this your magic working on me?" I groaned.
"It comes from you," he whispered. His face was level with my groin, his hands fisted gently at his sides. He dropped his eyes from mine and gazed instead at my arousal, straining against the silk cloth. "I can only respond. Let me serve you." His hands were gentle but confident as he teased down the fabric, letting my cock spring out to blessed freedom. I tried to remember when I'd last been so hotly swollen, so swiftly…
His mouth was damp and warm and it sucked me in with a youngster's greed. I stumbled back against the bed, supporting the backs of my thighs against the mattress, keeping myself upright. I gripped at his hair and wound it round my fingers, guiding his head back and forth along me. His tongue licked gently at me as he sucked, circling round the head. It was a caress that I was especially fond of – and one that my inexperienced ‘bedchildren' took some time and instruction to master. Oriel had an instinctive skill – or the true understanding of my needs as he'd already claimed.
I wanted to despise him and his tricks – I wanted to abuse him as I had so many before. Perversely, I didn't want to enjoy this! But I felt the serpent of climax stretch and yawn in the pit of my groin as if he'd been neglected for tens of moons, not for mere hours as was the truth. Oriel's palm cupped at my tightening balls, rolling them gently between his fingers, his mouth sinking right down on me until I nudged at the back of his throat and his lips nestled into the curls at the base of my shaft. I groaned, barely recognising the harshness of my voice.
I often used this as foreplay, and I had excellent control of my body. I could watch a boy suck me for a long time before I was ready for release. It stimulated me before the harsher reality of entering a body and thrusting to completion.
Tonight, I didn't need foreplay. My control deserted me – the stimulation consumed me. I must have pulled hairs from his head, for the ferocity of my reaction startled me. My hips began to thrust back at him, and I cried aloud as the climax rushed through me, spewing my seed into his young mouth. My senses whirled, and I experienced a sharp vividness of colour and sound that I'd never known before. My body shuddered against the kneeling boy and my legs buckled underneath me. It's just gratification, my head told me. Last night you had three boys to do this very thing to you, to amuse you in just this way –
I wasn't amused in any way now. I was stunned; I was speechless.
I may even have been scared.
Oriel pulled away slightly, my softening cock sliding from his lips and a thread of my seed dribbling from the corner of his mouth. "You want it to be real," he whispered, his words a little slurred. "You want to be satisfied. For the first time."
I sank back down on to my bed, my trousers creased and snagging at my hips, the muscles of my thighs shaking with tension, my eyes stretched open with shock. My cock fell half-limply against my thigh, the damp flesh still warm and raw with sensation. I wanted more – much more.
"Take off your trousers," I said, hoarsely. "Wash yourself and then get into my bed." He stumbled to his feet and stared at me, his hand already at the waist ties of the trousers.
"Prepare yourself for me," I hissed. My mouth ghosted other words, other desires. I ached to press my lips against his pale skin. I could barely focus on his face, my eyes were so misted with my astonishing need.
"Now!"
After Oriel fell asleep, I lay awake for hours, until the sun of the next day crept above the waning moon. There were three or four early morning calls to my door, but I ignored them, and in the end the callers gave up and left me alone. They presumably thought the dissolute young Chancellor was still drunk at a tavern somewhere, or buried deep in his sheets with a couple of bedmates, tasting their immature sweetness, a regular entertainment for him.
The previous night's experience had been far from regular. Far better – and far, far more disturbing.
When the dawn light slithered through my drapes, I peeled myself out of the crumpled sheets and went to wash. I wandered back into the bedroom still combing through my clean, damp hair, the warm water drying on my body with a fresh scent that should have invigorated me. I was naked, as I usually was in the mornings. Oriel was now awake, his pale fingers loosely gripping the sheet around him and his green eyes watching my progress across to the bed. I paused a few steps away and tossed my comb over on to a nearby chair.
"You're beautiful," he said, softly. It was an unusual greeting, though a sentiment I was used to.
"Yes, I am." I shrugged slightly, knowing the movement was especially graceful. "Thank my mother for my features, and my wayward father for my elegant affectation."
"I will," said the boy, in all seriousness.
I laughed. "It was sarcasm, boy. Do you take everything at face value?"
"Do you take nothing?" he countered, and then he flushed. "You dislike my boldness, sir, I forget –"
"The whip is elsewhere," I murmured. "I'm in no mood for punishment." My heart was beating too quickly again, just at the sight of those eyes; at the steady, admiring gaze; at the pale shoulders above the dark sheets; at the hair curling at his neck, now silken from washing in fresh water and with proper oils…
That hair had slipped through my fingers last night as his body arched up against mine. I had smelled my own perfumes on him but also an inimitable smell of the boy himself. His skin had been taut across his ribs and salty to the taste; his knees had gripped willingly around my torso and although he'd been tight to enter, he'd relaxed when I commanded, and moved when I asked. Then his cries had been soft, pleading whimpers, and even when I burst my seed inside of him, he still clung to me, his body seeming to crave the contact.
I hadn't let go of him all night.
Now I sat down on the side of the bed and reached for him. He lifted his pale face obediently – eagerly – and I kissed the soft lips, sticky with the remains of sleep and silvery trails of my seed.
"But you are beautiful," he said, again. "That's what they all see when they look at you."
"Just looks," I said. "Accident of my birth." I traced the pale blue veins under the thin skin of his jaw. "You won't serve me with flattery, Oriel."
"This cynicism – why do you act like this?" He frowned a little, unconsciously nestling his head against my hand. "It's not clear to me."
I ran my other hand down the smooth planes of his chest, watching the muscles of his belly tighten and his nipples harden in response. He had indeed proved to be an astonishingly rewarding plaything. I had a strong desire to roll him over on to his belly and part his buttocks, to lick hungrily at his crack until the saliva bubbled and his skin puckered with need, and he was lubricated enough for my cock to breach him yet again… "Maybe the connection doesn't work so well with me after all."
He sighed, then bit it back. "This is different. I've never felt the flow like this, as if in two directions. I don't understand."
"You're young…" I murmured, the lustful vision still vivid in my mind.
"I'm no younger than you!" he suddenly snapped. "Have you seen what I've seen, in a hundred different minds and hearts? Have you felt emotions that battled with your own, that made you cry when you weren't sad, made you open your legs when you wanted them closed? Have you allowed future events as intruders inside your mind, then watched them happen in reality? This is the only way I can live with it – to surrender, to absorb, to serve. But you – you draw it out of me; you're touching me in the same way. It's not happened before."
I stared at him, a little amazed at his outburst.
"You use a lot of people, Chariz," he said. His voice was as calm as ever, but I was concerned to see moisture in his eyes, the green orbs looking as clouded as the depths of a forest puddle. He was disturbed by me – his passive obedience was shaken.
"You may call me that in my bed," I warned. "You may use my name. But not outside of here…"
"You distract me!" he said. He pushed the sheet away from his body and knelt up to face me, his face flushed. "You're scared of so much that it swamps me, and yet your thoughts tug at me in return, and I can't make out what you want –"
I raised my hand to strike him again – my anger was so close to my desire! But I didn't see any answering spark of fear in his expression. "Don't treat me as a fool, Oriel! I'm the same as everyone, of course I am. Your tricks will offer me riches or political power or just more hot, eager little bodies in my bed to make the days and nights pass, to get me through another moon phase without boring me to an early grave. That's what this is all about, of course – "
"No," he whispered. "You want none of it, that's why I struggle so much to serve you."
I laughed without humour, but I lowered my hand.
"You want none of it." His words tumbled out of his young mouth like pebbles rolling under the fast flowing stream. "But you want so much more instead! You want to belong; to be satisfied. To be at peace with yourself. To have another – to understand you."
I looked at him and I felt a deep, wearied fright in my bones.
I had never heard my soul crystallised into words before.
The meeting with the silver merchants had been long and tedious; the city needed raw metal for the restoration of the Magician's chapel, and the Lady had offered to sponsor it. The merchants saw our city in need and their asking price had spiralled accordingly. Whilst I disagreed with the Lady's economic decision – in this, as in many other areas – it was my duty to obtain the best result for her.
It wasn't until the leader of the merchants was actually signing the agreement – whilst still bemoaning the loss of a few coins per ounce of metal – that I realised that Hul was the only servant left with me in the Great Hall. I don't know what it was that alerted me first, but the sudden chill of alarm coursed through my body like the snow-season wind.
I caught Hul's eye and saw something there that confused me; something that wasn't mine to command.
"I must leave you, gentlemen," I said abruptly. I saw Hul's surprised look, then I strode past him, leaving him to make his weak apologies on my behalf. I walked along the corridors, brushing past surprised servants, knocking into more than one obstruction or another, human or otherwise. And then I broke into a run.
The Lady herself stood at the entrance to my quarters. The door was open when I knew I had locked it; two of my servants were on their knees before her. Several of her housemaids clustered round her rich satin skirts – a couple of her stronger grooms stood in the doorway to my ante-room.
They all turned with surprise as I approached.
"Mother," I said, my voice as sharp as a blade. "I don't believe I invited your visit."
Her eyes flashed at my hostility, but she was more than equal to my temper. She stood only a hand's span shorter than I, her body slim and her features exquisite, accentuated by sharp cheek bones and pale, luminous blue eyes. Her red hair was supplemented with false pieces, and piled high on her head, decorated with combs and jewels. She was as beautiful as any woman in the city – but her power made her particularly stunning.
"You have something of mine," she said. She was used to speaking to a hall filled with acolytes and politicians – her voice admitted no argument. One of my servants dipped his head even further towards the ground, anticipating the conflict to come. "I am the Lady of this household and I can go wherever I wish."
"Where you're not wanted," I sneered.
"Where I scorn to be!" she snapped back. "I will wash well after I've left, Chariz. I have no desire to wallow in the sexual sewage that amuses you so easily."
"Whereas yours, I know, is blended especially for you," I growled. "By your tame trolls, masquerading as Magicians."
She realised that I wasn't planning on being as dutiful as I should be, and she saw my eyes dart towards my rooms, seeking movement there. I heard the sudden cry of a boy, startled.
"Halt!" she called. "Hold the child there." She waved my traitorous servants aside, and ordered her housemaids to stay away from her. Then she stepped to the side of the corridor with me.
"No ugly scenes now, Chariz," she warned, smoothly. "I've allowed you the proper respect by coming for him myself, rather than allowing the Magicians into the private quarters. Son, do you know that one of my housemaids is now a childbearer? The woman was seasons past her fertility, and moaned so tediously about it – but she touched at that strange boy while he was first brought here, and now her womb is miraculously full of fruit. It's just been confirmed by the nurses." She saw the scepticism on my face and sighed with impatience. "He must be put to better use than as your toy. Come now, Chariz, you can – and do – play with any boy in the city. This one is mine."
My finger touched at her cheek, just to see if her skin was as chill as her words. I thought I saw her struggle not to pull away. "So he grants wishes, like some magical sprite it seems. What will be your demands of him, mother?"
"You act the selfish child so well, Chariz!" she snapped. "It's not for me, it's for the city, for all the needs that our people have –"
I dismissed her lies, leaning in against her, so that no-one else heard the bitter words I hissed into her ear. "More sinuous bodies in your bed? More gold in your Treasury? More power to your Council position? A better son?"
There was a brief commotion at the door of my quarters and the grooms reappeared, each clutching one of Oriel's arms. He was bare-chested, dressed in only the owl-grey trousers that I'd gifted him with. I'd gone to my meeting that morning, leaving him naked and sleeping deeply in my bed. He'd been there for almost seven moons now, and I'd never once felt the need for any other bedmate. He had become as much a part of my life as daily meals.
I hadn't realised how essential he was to me until now.
He looked straight at me, and the green eyes weren't frightened at all – they were sad. "No," I said, clearly, and I strode over to the grooms. "Release him!" Despite there being two of them, they cowered back from me; one of them dropped his hand from Oriel's arm. A reputation for gratuitous viciousness had its advantages. "This child is my Companion, he is under my protection."
There was a collective murmur; the grooms glanced nervously at the Lady. She moved quickly to my side and her eyes were hot with anger. "Companion? You can't choose him for that, Chariz! You can only choose a woman, a childbearer, or at the least, a trained bedmate –"
"I have enough of them forced on me," I said, cruelly. "He's the one I really want. Are there Council rules that say I cannot choose a boy? Rules that limit me to a specific number of official Companions? If so, you may take all the others back, and I'll keep only him."
One of her housemaids sobbed quietly with shock. My mother stared into my eyes and saw her own determination reflected there. "You must have childbearers," she hissed. "For the sake of the family, to ensure the continuance of the line. I know you dislike it – so I allow you to meet your minimum duty with the ones I choose, then spend your private time with the youths you prefer. But this offends the very household! You go too far, Chariz."
"I go wherever I wish," I said softly, echoing her own arrogance. "Out of the city if needs be." I met her gaze with my challenge, and was startled to see a tear at the corner of her eye. Maybe the light was too bright for her – or the confrontation with her recalcitrant son too wearing.
"You have everything here," she protested. "You wouldn't survive outside of the city – away from your comforts and riches, and my bounty."
"I'd be willing to try," I said. We stared at each other for long moments; her breast heaved with shortening breaths.
"I don't know what the Council will say about this," she said at last. The words seemed awkward to her and her look was confused. "I've never known you show particular care for any of them."
I stared back at her with a rare moment of honesty. "Neither have I," I murmured. "Neither have I."
I lay in bed with Oriel, his head resting in the crook of my arm, our breath calming slowly and the sweat drying on our skin. The last hour had been both exhausting and thrilling. He'd been lithe and energetic beneath me, crying for me to take him, then groaning when I did, for I was too excited to be careful enough with him. I'd gripped him tightly, raising bruises on his pale, thin skin. I'd thrust into him harshly, allowing the climax to race through me too quickly, allowing my mind to fill with the crude, raw passion of it, clouding my other thoughts, blocking out even the boy whose body I was deep within. But he'd responded in kind, his fingers clinging to me, his hand reaching for his own cock when his desire had been too much to resist. He'd cried aloud with me as we came – his lips had sucked at my shoulder as I sank down on to him – his teeth had grazed at my flesh in a parody of possession.
It had been one of the best times I'd ever had.
"How does it happen, Oriel?" I murmured into his ear. I wondered if he'd understand me. Then I knew that of course he would.
"I don't know," he sighed, his lips moving against my skin with damp breath. "I don't control it – I don't know where it comes from, or where it'll go."
"It's a strange, fearful power…"
"It's not power," he interrupted, and I felt his slim body tense against mine. "I don't wish for power over anyone. I want to help."
"You're used," I protested, gently. The boy's naivety still irritated me sometimes. It was ten moons after my confrontation with the Lady, and I allowed Oriel to move around the household now, as everyone knew that he was under my protection – but I constantly worried about his vulnerability to others. I turned my head to brush my lips against his hair. I didn't know how I could ever have thought it dull! After proper care it now shone like the russet of pre-snow season leaves. It smelled of sun and fruit and the constant touch of my fingers. "I don't want you to be used any more."
I felt his smile against my chest. "You don't need to protect me, Chariz. This is the best time ever for me – but I can only serve. One day you'll pass me on, and I'll leave the city again for a new home –"
"No!" I alarmed even myself with the strength of my cry. I rolled him away from me on to his back, leaning over him. My long red hair fell loosely over my shoulders, brushing down on to his face, one stray thread sticking at the corner of a wide green eye. I remembered his eagerness in bed with me; how demanding he'd been. Things were changing for him – he was no longer the passive slave who'd been delivered to me.
"Did you feel it then, with the men who laid hands on you, when the Lady tried to take you away? Do you feel it now, with the servants who jostle you daily?"
He frowned. "No. It was weak then – and now, still." He looked at me, trying to understand what I was suggesting. I'm not sure I knew myself. "You can't stop it happening to me, Chariz."
"I can try. How might this power ever leave you, Oriel? How can we release you from it?"
"I don't know," he said, and his eyes flickered with sorrow or fear – I don't know which. He only ever looked distressed when we spoke of his strange servitude. "By death, obviously – or maybe I'll just wear out like old clothing; fade like one of the bright household cloths in the high sun. Each time someone connects with me, it saps my energy."
"Do I wear you out?" I asked, only half in jest.
"No," he smiled, and his legs parted eagerly underneath my pressing body. "You're very different – this is all very different. I feel stronger with you, not weaker." My lips reached to kiss at his flesh, to lick gently at the pulse in his throat.
"I won't let death be your only escape," I whispered, spreading his thighs, tracing the straining muscle with my thumbs. His head went back on the pillow as my cock plunged into him; his mouth opened in a soundless sigh of pleasure.
Not for the first time, I wondered who might be serving whom.
It was very late at night, and in the darkness my breath was nervous. Oriel was a drowsing silhouette at my side.
"My brother died, Oriel. His name was Adram. He wasn't even a full season-set old. One night he stopped breathing and he died."
Oriel stirred beside me, his breath somewhere between a sigh and a yawn. I felt his hand settle on my chest. "Many babies aren't strong enough to live."
"He should have been," I said. "He looked perfect. More beautiful than I will ever be. I loved him more than anything I'd ever seen."
Oriel's lips touched gently at my cheek.
"She should have looked after him more carefully." My voice was quiet but bitter. He knew I referred to my mother – the Lady. "If she was dissatisfied with what she produced in me, she should have tried all the harder with him."
His voice was a whisper in the moonlit room. "She grieves too, Chariz."
"My father left shortly after Adram's death," I continued, determined to speak of it at last – all of it. "We rarely see him now. He chooses not to spend much time with his family in the city. With his Companion and firstborn."
"You are too like her, Chariz," Oriel murmured. "She's intimidated by you, like so many others are. But she still cares for you."
I scarcely heard him. "No-one knows of Adram, Oriel – it all happened before she was appointed as the Lady. It's only our tale, our family shame." Yet again, I wondered how this boy had known of it; how I could have told him, when I'd never told anyone before. There was a budding comfort in realising I shared it already with him.
His kisses trailed softly down my neck, like the touch of cool spring-season ferns. "It feels as if they abandoned you – as if you weren't enough to compensate them for the loss of a baby. They didn't know how to behave, Chariz; how to manage the pain."
"And you do, you homeless, kin-less child?" My words weren't meant to be cruel.
"Better than you," he sighed. His tongue was rough as a kitten's on my flesh. "Take me, Chariz. Bury it in me – the pain, the misery. Lose it in me. That's what you want, isn't it?"
He laughed softly with his willingness as I rolled him over on to his face. I rubbed myself between his buttocks, my shaft sliding trails of wet, eager moisture along his smooth skin. His arms reached across the bed at either side as if he flew with birds' wings – his fingers gripped the sheets like claws. When I released myself inside him it felt as if I had released so much more than thick, sticky seed.
It felt like ice breaking; like pain thawing.
The sun's rays filtered across the bed sheets from underneath a half-drawn drape. They daubed a golden sheen on Oriel's pale, folded limbs.
I shifted lazily on the bed, resting on my belly beside him and staring across into his face. I nipped gently at his chin to get his attention. "What do you want in life, Oriel?"
He frowned. Maybe no-one had ever asked him this. "I want this to stop, Chariz. This servitude, as you call it – absorbing other people's disgusts and desires. I'd like to be someone without this gift, without this curse."
"And then?"
He smiled at my persistence. "But I'd want the same as you!"
I never ceased to be amazed at the way this boy could startle me. "The same as me?"
"To belong," he said simply. "That's what we both want, isn't it? To have a true home – to have a true companion."
"Not riches? Palaces? Retribution against those who've sapped your energies – who've robbed you of a home and childhood?"
He shook his head. "Your bitterness has been calmer recently, Chariz. I don't want it to eat away at you any more. You want something as different from that as the sun-season is from the snow."
"And that's what I have," I said, softly, watching his green eyes flicker with bemusement. "I have you."
"Yes," he sighed. "You have everything you want, now." There was a strange tone to his voice – a tinge of regret.
I stared at him for a long moment, my fingers tracing aIong the tiny bump of his belly, feeling the muscle ripple in his groin. "I can't keep you here forever, can I, Oriel?"
His breathing stilled, and he didn't look directly at me. "No, Chariz. Do you want me to go?"
I grinned – a most unusual expression of mischief for me. "Never. I'm teasing you. I meant that you need to move about more freely, throughout the city at all times of day and night; as a growing man, not as a pet, passed from barracks to bedroom. But I'm also telling you what I really want, Oriel – your sole companionship."
"I don't understand." He looked puzzled; he looked young and vulnerable. "You mean I can stay with you?"
"You must," I said. "I will always want you – you must always serve me."
"The others – "He looked confused. "How will I stop them from connecting with me?"
I twisted my fingers into his hair and pulled myself more closely against him. "I don't entirely know. But I think we'll find out together. Things have changed, don't you feel it? You said it yourself – you draw from me as well as me from you. I think together we're stronger. Now that we know that's what we want." I tugged on his head, forcing him to look back into my eyes. "But you said once we should all be honest, and so must you. Be honest – and show some of my selfishness. Do you have what you want, Oriel?"
There was sudden, shocking doubt in my mind – that his own desire was to slide back into slavery to others –
"I do," he whispered. I leant over him and his mouth opened to take my tongue, to let it lick greedily around the taste of him. "I have everything. It's difficult for me to say it –"
I laughed aloud. The day ahead seemed so much more pleasant, so much more promising! "So maybe that's what your release will be – when you accept my service in return. I want to do that for you, Oriel. Maybe you'll no longer have to mould yourself to the shadows of other people's desires. You'll control your empathy – you'll find a way to be free of it."
"But not from you!" The words fell from his lips like startled, scattered birds.
"No," I soothed. "Never from me."
He smiled then, a boyish smile, a very human smile. "You've never been so enthusiastic, Chariz."
I flushed. The boy had known me for a matter of moons, no more, yet he knew me better than any who'd known me for all the long, tiresome season-sets before. "See how you've changed me," I laughed, awkwardly. "Why shouldn't it be mutual?"
The green eyes fastened on me, soaking down into my soul, suffusing it, caressing it with another creature's devotion. I felt as if great things might be achieved; as if I were being resurrected as a less confident man, but a far more contented one. "Will you trust me, Oriel? My protection will always be true to you."
He was already stretching with anticipation underneath me. His smile was my answer.
It was enough of hope to build on.
The End
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