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by Shannon M. Richmeyer |
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A way out. The only problem was the forty foot or more drop into a swamp of filth under it. She had no idea of the layout of the ground down there and no matter what angle she tried, she couldn't see the landing spot from the walls. Which, as she had thought about it, was an advantage. In dire extremes, it might be do-able. As long as there weren't sharp spikes or rocks or something equally as nasty waiting at the bottom. Though in a dire extreme, like right now, it was only one death over another. She explained that fact to Dust as she worked the dagger out of the Master's neck and then wiped the worst of the blood off the Master's face. She wadded up the sheet and stuffed it into a drawer as the Spiders rolled the Master onto his side, facing away from the door and covered him with a blanket. It wouldn't pass a close inspection, but it would hopefully buy them some time. "Leave. I don't want you to get in trouble," she told the Spiders as she sheathed the dagger. She kept her eyes down as she worked on wrapping the belt around her waist enough times so she could get it to buckle as the quiet rustle of their limbs headed for the window. She gave one glance at the empty rectangle of light, then helped Dust to his feet. He followed her and waited, silent, as she cracked the door to the room open enough to peek out into the hallway. Luck was with them. It was almost time for the main meal, so most of the inhabitants of the Fortress would be gathering in the main hall. They both slipped through the door and hurried down the corridor, her arm going around Dust's waist after a few yards to support his unsteady steps. She was surprised to find the Spiders hanging from the ceiling over the midden grate. She left Dust to lean against the wall and gather his strength while she worked the latch open and started to struggle with the heavy, metal grill. One reached down and pulled it open for her. Blood looked down into the slimy and foul smelling hole that yawned below it, then up at the Spiders. "Are you going to come with us?" she asked with a small spark of hope. The Spiders shook their heads 'no' in perfect unison. "We close. Lock. Help." Blood stood for a moment, not knowing what to say. The Spiders seemed to understand the tangled knot of feelings she had inside and had no words for, though. Four hands closed on her, pulled her up, gathered her close. Two's fingers brushed the hair away from her face and the Spiders rubbed their cheeks against hers as she touched each of their faces gently in return. "Live. Be strong," they wished softly. "Be strong," she whispered back around the tightness in her throat, then gave a little, startled squawk as the Spiders dropped her into the hole. She threw her hands and feet out against the slick walls in a vain attempt to slow her drop. It was much steeper than she had expected, then she was outside and free-falling through the air. She twisted as the ground rushed up at her, getting her feet down instead of over her head, then she hit the squishy mound of the midden. Tannis' whole body jerked as Blood hit the ground and her eyes were wild as they snapped open. Remy cracked his eyelids and made a sleepy, inquiring mumble. She managed to get out, "Nothing, just a dream." Remy's forehead wrinkled as he tried to get his eyes open. "Good dream or Bad dream?" "Good dream," Tannis reassured him now that she was certain of who and where she was. "Go back to sleep. I'll tell you about it in the morning." "'kay." She snuggled in closer to him and tried to relax and follow him back into sleep. That escape eluded her now, though, and her mind kept coming back to dwell on Blood. Who she was. No, it was more of 'what she was'. She eased out from under Remy's embrace and wandered into the main room of the hotel suite. She got her sketch book and dug a pencil out of her satchel and settled onto the sofa. She made a few fast strokes, outlining the beginnings of an eyeless face. Blood scared her. Even in this first kill there had been no remorse, no joy, no relief...nothing. Just a cold awareness of how she could do it better next time. As always, she used the art to get away from herself. Awareness of Blood...of the room...of the passage of time...left her as she focused on coaxing the picture out of the skill of her hands and a piece of lead and wood.
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Two things were nagging at him and they both had to do with Blood and Dust. Again he had the thought that the names of the original incarnations of his new friends (and again he told himself firmly that he would not think of them as anything other than that!) were very odd. A part of his mind continued to try to ferret out the possible meanings behind those names as he ran through his problems with the slave situation once more. It just didn't make any sense. The Go would not make slaves of their own...would they? He had pondered that long and hard and tried to reconcile himself to the fact that they might. That he, as a ruling member of the Dragon Clan, would condone such a thing.
It didn't work. The whole idea was repugnant to him. Servants, yes. He could understand servants. Loyal servants in every time and every place were trusted and valued and well compensated for their service. But slaves...slaves were less than people. They were chattel, creatures that could be bought, sold, or destroyed at a master's whim. He could not make himself believe that the Go would do such a thing to their own and so he found himself trapped in an unending loop of a logic problem.
In his dreamed memory both Blood and Dust had been his lovers, which meant they had to have the blood of the Go running through their veins. Just as Remy and Tannis did now. So why were they slaves? And if they were slaves, why hadn't he freed them? At least he had the comfort that his disgust of the whole idea now had been echoed by his past self.
That also led to the question of, did Remy or Tannis remember anything of their past lives? Every time his thoughts lit on that question he winced inwardly and hoped that they did not. Though surely if they had, they would have mentioned something about it, wouldn't they? He tried to reassure himself by telling himself that the journal he had finished reading during his dinner break had made no mention of any past life memories. And what he had seen of Tannis' work had been of the 'here and now'. What kept throwing a kink into that idea was the name of their band. The Dragon's Lovers. Why would they call themselves that if they didn't know?
He tipped his head back and tried to find the stars through the dull glow of the city lights as his mind continued to stress the plural of the band's title. Heat flared across his cheeks as those two words brought back snippets of his dreams. Both of them had been his lovers and both at the same time. He had a strange certainty of that fact and found the thought very embarrassing and yet at the same time, incredibly appealing.
But had they had any choice in the matter? They were slaves. His slaves. In his dream he had known that their slavery was the only way he could keep them near him. He flinched both physically and mentally as he thought about that. What if they had shared his bed because they had no choice but to do so? Could he be so enthralled with a person, two people, that he would resort to such extreme measures to keep them close? It bothered him that he discovered he couldn't say, 'no, I would not', with any certainty.
He closed his eyes as the image of Blood formed in his mind and began to dance through his memory. He felt the beginnings of fire-edged desire thrum along his nerves as her sensuous movements created a very vivid variety of images of just exactly how a three-some might work. He cast about frantically in his mind, trying to find something to distract his thoughts as the cloak spiraled in to embraced Blood, outlining her shape with an ember like glow as she continued to twirl in his mind. His inner eye caught the black flicker of the feathers in her hair and he managed to halt the vision in place now that he had something else to focus on.
An uneasy and unpleasant feeling flicked through him as he studied the long quills. Now that he looked at them, he realized that they were really a very deep red, not black. He knew they were Ophishu's flight feathers, but he had no idea of who Ophishu was. An enemy. Of that he was certain. But why did he have nothing more than a name? He frowned with frustration as he tried to coax anything more out of his memory as he studied the lowest of the feathers on the ornament. It was flung out by Blood's turn and he suddenly knew that the soft, fragile look of it was deceiving. There was a glitter along the edges of it now. A thin, fine coating of gold. Gold that wasn't normally there. Gold that dulled the supernaturally sharp edges. Edges that could slice through a dragon's skin, Changed or unChanged, with ease.
A prickling started at the back of his skull, a feeling of tension that made him want to shake his head. He found he couldn't move though, found himself frozen in place as the feather grew in his mind's vision until he stood in a black/red void. A feeling of dread began to creep over him and he felt the temperature plummet in the air around him as he became aware of a sound. It took him a moment to place it. It was the whispering rustle of feathers. A pair of eyes snapped into existence and open mere inches from his face and locked with his own. It was like looking into a star field rimmed by a thin edging of white. The dread that had been slinking through him flashed into outright revulsion and panic, then something soft and hot touched his hand.
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