Requiem for the Conqueror

Chapter 13

Private Kyros shivered, feet starting to cramp in the cold Kaspan night. He moved, shifting slightly in the chilling damp. The dark streets of Kaspa, marvelous though they might be to see, made him nervous. Corporal Xicks might slap him on the back and wink, but Kaspa threatened him with a danger Kyros didn't understand — a danger of people.

Kaspa — the largest city Kyros Epos had ever laid eyes on — dazled and frightened the lowly private. From the moment the Second Division had landed, he'd been awed by the sights and sounds. The draft, far from the horror he'd first considered it, had taken him into a universe of wonder.

True, his Group mates considered him a stupid hick. So what if he couldn't read? Nither could a lot of privates. So what if he'd never been anywhere but the swamps of Riparious? Corporal Xicks hadn't cared. He'd taken Kyros under his wing and showed him the way both the military and the worlds of humans worked.

When the draft notice arrived, Pap had gone white, a stricken expression crossing his craggy face. He'd slumped at the table — an action that had frightened Kyros half to death. His father, scared? And just because Kyros got drafted by the Regan military?

"You be good, son. You keep the ways of the Blessed Gods, you hear?" His father's gravelly voice still echoed in Kyros' mind and left him feeling terribly uneasy. Pap wouldn't approve of what he now did for Corporal Xicks.

Sure, keep the ways! Fat chance! Why just on his puny ten-day share of the profits Xicks gave him, he'd made more money in Kaspa than Pap made in a year trapping shimmer skins in the swamp. Why he'd send enough money home in the next post to buy Pap and Mam a new house!

Like Xicks told him — slaving could be considered just another form of trapping.

A haunting shiver of doubt ran its feather touch across Kyros' conscience. Pap would have been horrified. But rotted corruption, this paid good!

Behind him in the dark, water dripped off the sooty brick of the alley, plopping loudly in a fetid black pool. Kyros shuddered. Why had Xicks picked this ratty part of town to hunt in? Lone Regan soldiers still died in the outskirts of the city.

Kyros slid along the rough gritty brick to look out into the shadowed street. Wouldn't be more than a couple decants until morning now.

The street stretched empty before him. Dark windows— some smashed — gaped threateningly above. Kyros could feel strange eyes on him, watching, eating at his ebbing confidence. The brick street glistened in the fog-dulled light of widely spaced floors. Here and there, pools reflected " from black water in potholes. The signs had a dreary effect where they hung above closed and boarded businesses. What kind of place had Kaspa been before the war? Now it appeared blue-black in the night, dank, wet, and laden i with secrets and sorrow.

\ He saw the figure coming, walking head down, posture] somehow pathetic, preoccupied. Kyros licked his lips. From the sway of the hips and the narrow shoulders, he definitely spied on a woman. To his learning eye, she stepped youth-

fully, her body slim. A good one! They'd take Xicks back a good one!

He suffered a momentary hesitation and wondered why she was out so late. Pale Eyes' quick signal from behind an

overturned crate brought his mind back to the job at hand. The girl's feet tapped softly on the irregular cobbles as she passed, head still down. Moving silently — like he did when sneaking up on a sleeping shimmer skin along Money River — Kyros saw Pale Eyes and Shil step out ahead of the woman.

Her reaction startled him. Instead of turning and running into his arms, she crouched in a threatening manner. By instinct, Kyros jabbed the stun rod into her back. He caught her as she stiffened and fell into his arms.

"Good job!" Praise hung in Shil's voice. "Xicks picked

this neighborhood good, eh?" He ran quick hands over the limp form in Kyros' arms. "Pus rot me, a woman!" A thin light appeared in his hand as he studied the captive. "Young and…" the voice turned oily, "pretty!"

Pale Eyes slipped the binding fibers around her wrists and ankles with practiced hands. Shil gagged her with sure movements. Among the three of them, they picked the limp woman up and started down the mist-enshrouded street at a trot.

Within several blocks the stun wore off and she began to squirm violently. Muscular, Kyros thought before he touched the stun to her again.

"You can hear me," he whispered. "So long as you don't struggle, we don't stun, huh?" No more struggles.

In the middle of a commercial block, they took a dark stairway down to the basement. Pale Eyes knocked the code. The door swung open and they hauled her into a poorly lit room. The place smelled of dust and mold sweetened by the bacca Xicks constantly smoked. The lamp cast patterned shadows over the grimy brick walls. Cobwebs strung gossamer fabric between the low beams that hung down from the roof. The flooring grated underfoot.

Corporal Xicks and another soldier looked up from a table burdened by a bottle of liquor and several stacks of Imperial credits piled high around a tapa game.

"Good hunting," Shil called, eyes bright.

"Let's see what we got," Pale Eyes added, triumph and expectation in his voice. They dropped the girl on a stained sleeping pallet. Kyros felt his pulse quickening. Would Xicks let him be first this time? He was the one who'd made the tag.

Kyros looked down into the most striking amber eyes he'd ever seen. She struggled unsuccessfully to sit up. Fear had glazed her expression — but then, he'd become used to that in the slave business.

"My, my Corporal, we got us a beauty this time!" Pale Eyes announced, a quaver in his voice.

Kyros watched the woman try to swallow. Hell, she wasn't much older than he. Shining auburn hair spilled loose from under the cowl, a glistening wealth in the light.

Xicks, in his corporal's armor, stood up from the table and walked over. "Rotted Gods, you did at that! She'll

bring a shining credit in the market! I'll wager she's worth at least five hundred ICs." The corporal leaned down and tilted her resisting chin up, eyes appraising. "Maybe six."

Kyros felt himself quicken as he looked at her. "Never seen such a pretty woman." His heart started to race.

The others nodded, eyes glinting in the dim light. Kyros shot a quick look to see smiles widening as they studied her. A shiver of fear ran down her arms and her jaw trembled.

"Who's first?" Pale Eyes asked. "I caught her. It's only fair that I—"

Kyros started. "But I—"

The corporal waved them both down and grinned. "Rank hath its privileges — and I'm the one with the connections." He slapped Pale Eyes on the shoulder. "Later, pa. You boys know the drill."

Kyros bit off his protest and bent down to grab an ankle while the corporal stripped out of his battle armor. Damn Xicks anyway.

She screamed into her gag as the corporal's rough hands pulled her robe aside, exposing her. the others pinned and bound her to the pallet while Xicks stripped her, cloth ripping amidst her gasps and Xicks' heavy breathing.

"Strong one, this," Shil remarked, panting from the effort as he struggled with the woman's wrist and got a binding strap around her pale flesh. Kyros fought her leg down and bound it to the mat.

"By the puss-dripping Rotted Gods," Xicks gasped as he studied her naked body, "she's worth eight hundred if a credit!"

Kyros licked his lips and agreed, eyes caressing her firm breasts before following down her gleaming stomach to the dark red tangle of pubic hair — and what it promised. The body of a goddess!

The woman stared at Xicks, fear making a gurgling in her throat. Her expression grew panicked as the corporal peeled out of his undersuit to expose his hardened penis. The wadded rag kept her shrieks to an eerie whimper as Xicks lowered himself. Her muscular body bucked and jumped at his touch. She arched, rigid as a board while Xicks wiped spit on his penis and reached down to open her to his manhood.

Fascinated by the contorted expression on her face, Kyros

barely heard Xicks whoop, "Tight as a virgin! Boys, she's split now!"

Kyros couldn't understand the difference, but her amber eyes changed as Xicks

thrust and grunted in satisfaction. Her white flesh rocked with the corporal's motion as he took her. Xicks moaned and shuddered before he went limp.

Why did the woman look so different now? Where terror had possessed her, something dangerous glowed in her eyes. Her expression had hardened — as if a new person had been triggered by Xick's convulsive climax.

Kyros started to strip, but Pale Eyes dropped on her before he had a chance.

"I'm next," Shil told him bluntly.

As if in a dream, Kyros finally got his turn — last. He trembled at the feel of her flesh against his. He reveled in the sensation of her breasts pressing against his chest. He came as he entered. Xicks laughed and pulled him off to take her again. Kyros rolled back, barely hearing the jeers about his premature eaculation.

He glanced over to find her blazing eyes still on his. Amber pools of passion, they reminded him of something feral.

"Maybe we'll keep her for a couple weeks before we sell her to the slavers," Shil suggested.

Kyros waited, shivering in the cool air as one by one, Xicks and the others satiated themselves and sought their pallets. Kyros crawled onto her again, his soul falling into the depths of her glowing amber eyes.

He sighed loudly in her ear, body rocked with instant release. Loose-limbed, he lay on. her, hearing the others snoring on their pallets around the room.

"What's your name, sweet meat?" he asked shyly. God! Those eyes!

"Mmmupphhia," she mumbled and raised her shoulders in a shrug. Her gaze pierced him, taking possession of his soul.

"You won't scream if I take the gag out? You promise? I don't get to talk to none of the women we get. They always go crazy and want to scream and I have to gag them again."

She shook her head.

is fingers ripped the tape loose, leaving her gasping as she moved her tongue. He held the soggy cloth ready, eyes wary in case he had to stick it back.

She swallowed and took a deep breath as he admired her beauty. Could he make her love him? What would it be like to own a woman like this? A warm rush climbed his spine. Nobody would smirk at a man who owned a woman like her!

He started when she whispered conspiratorially, "By the Blessed Gods, is this how you treat an Etarian Priestess?" A secret smile formed on her lips, promising more.

"E-Etarian P-P-Priestess?" he stuttered, mouth going agape as his eyes widened. Could this wondrous. That's why she was so beautiful!

"Trained in the temple to give pleasure — only you have to know how to take it… uh, you are?" She raised an eyebrow and wiggled suggestively under him.

"K-Kyros."

"Have you ever experienced what we call Blessed Eternity?" Her expression challenged him with a hint of something deeper, something passionate and burning.

"I–I gotta wake the corporal. This is too…"

"Shhh!" she whispered. "You cannot go through life giving the finest fruits to others. They will have their chance. As the first to listen to a Priestess, you should have the rewards."

He drank in the hope and promise she offered. "Well, I… I…" He swallowed again, breathing starting to race. "I'm sort of… you know. soft right now. I…"

"Do you think an Etarian Priestess can't cure that? We know secrets to keep a man at his peak for hours. It's simple; let me teach you. You will never have need to disappoint another woman again. Your honors and prowess will be sung forever."

He'd be a real man! Shivering slightly, his clammy body moved in the mingled sweat that had built on her belly.

"You can teach me?" His heart thudded against his ribs so loud she had to hear.

"It will take both my hands, Kyros. There are certain places which need to be touched ever so lightly. Certain points on a man's body which can bring him to a commu-

nion with the Blessed Gods. Leave him in inteal bliss. Would you like to feel the secrets of my strong hands?"

He glanced furtively at the sleeping hulk of the corporal, and worked his lips. "I can't."

"I'm sorry. I suppose my art and secret knowledge will go to whoever they sell me to." She sighed. "I'll miss the experience, Kyros. We are taught to value the feelings of a man when he quivers by the hour from pure Blessed pleasure."

He waged a silent battle — and lost as he remembered the hooting insults of the others. "If I did, well, you wouldn't tell?"

"That would break the vow of a Priestess."

His fingers fumbled at the bonds around her wrists. She sighed contentedly. He straightened as her other arm came loose.

"Now what?" he asked, trembling with eageess, licking his lips.

"Lie here and I'll. Wait, I can't with my legs tied." She let her hands play over him invitingly. His body pounded in a rushing response to her teasing fingers.

Frantic with anticipation, he untied her ankles. "There." He hated it, but he'd started to tremble.

"Lie down, Kyros."

She knelt over him, hands cassing a tingling fire along his flesh. He gaped at her full body and clenched his teeth. She smiled down at him as she slid atop him. Kyros whimpered.

She kissed his eyes closed and massaged his head with her fingertips, then down as if to stroke his throat. He felt something there, smooth and cool.

Her sultry voice commanded: "Push all the breath out of your lungs, Kyros. That's it. Exhale all the way. Now hold it for as long as you can. I want you to keep the air out;

that's right. Show me your strength, Kyros. See how long you can hold it. I'll wait."

He felt his chest start to heave as he fought to keep his lungs empty. Quivering, he gave a quick nod.

His eyes jerked open as she yanked the binding strap tight around his throat. At the same time she smashed her knee up with all the muscular might in her steel-tempered body. He flopped in wretched agony as his eyes started from

their sockets. Mouth agape, his lungs burned and heaved. He tried to thrash as she viciously kneed him again and again. Pain after lancing white pain blasted his brain while his fingers sipped off the plastic cutting so deeply into his puffing flesh. Grayness swirled and sucked him ever downward into fear and agony. staring forever into those burning amber eyes.

Arta Pera watched Kyros' life seep away and it thrilled her. She knew now where the hatred came from. She could see how the loathing had been planted — subliminal clues laced in teachings orchestrated by Magister Bnien.

She eased herself from the limp body, aware the boy's sphincters had loosened. Repulsive death. you are mine to dispense where I will. Arta thrilled with an ecstasy of power.

Massaging her muscles, she slipped a vibraknife from the corporal's weapons belt. In the dim light, she studied the tool — perfect for the needs at hand. The razor-sharp blade — when energized — would vibrate at such a high frequency even bone cut like so much putty.

Eyes oddly glazed, she turned to the sleeping men.

Staffa's tongue felt like a roll of dry velvet in his mouth. The desiccating air scorched his lungs with each panting breath. When he tried to swallow, he ended by gagging.

Around him, the Etarian desert shimmered with the intense white of sintered steel and beat mercilessly at his blistered body. Eyes squinted, Staffa studied the surrounding sands. They danced in weaving mirages. Dune sculpted onto dune and rippled away in an endless glare of fire to be lost against the wavering horizon of sun-seared sky. Sand, a world of burning sand — endless as the pain in his body — stretched to all sides. Nothing lived in that shifting vortex of crystal-white.

He hoisted the yoke over his bleeding shoulders and nodded to the sun-bronzed man across from him. He threw his strength against the weight of the pipe.

"Ho," Kaylla shouted hoarsely as her muscular body took up the slack in the tow rope. The pe ate into her ragged shift and her brown hair swayed with each step as she pulled. The men grunted, and heaved their way forward on stumbling feet.

Gaining momentum, they pounded across the scorching white grains while the heavy length of pipe swayed on the yokes. Slipping and cursing in the loose

footing, they passed the last length, hearing the "Whoa!" of the tail man as they made the end and slowing until he yelled, "Yup!" Then they staggered sideways while Kaylla watched the lineup. At her signal, they dropped the pipe flush so the fitting crew could weld it in place.

The sun had been murderous at first. Staffa had reeled in the grip of a thirst desperate enough to make him consider quick death by the collar.

Length after length they toiled, and with each he watched Kaylla's tanned muscular body wavering in his vision as she threw her back into the tow rope. How did she stand it? What kept her going? He recalled the first day when she'd taken that position and placed him in front so she could tell him how to work and keep him out of trouble. In the demonic heat he'd watched her — and time after time, her form had shimmered into Skyla's.

Skyla's? Why Skyla's? Why aidn't Chrysla fill his dreams? Because I killed her… He pitched himself forcefully into the work.

On the second night, muscles cramped and aching, he collapsed exhausted, fevered with sunburn. Kaylla settled beside him, bringing a bowl of food and a large carafe of tepid water.

Half delirious, he said: "Skyla, Blessed Gods, thank you."

She propped elbows on muscular brown legs. "Skyla, Tuff? You've been in the sun too long. Name's Kaylla."

He blinked to clear filmy vision. Skyla's cerulean eyes became hardened tan, Skyla's classic face squaring into Kaylla's. "Yeah, sorry. I meant my. Another lady."

"Your lover?" Kaylla asked as she stuffed her mouth with thick chunks of meat and chewed lustily.

"No."

Kaylla swallowed in a gulp. She filled her mouth again and nodded. "Sounded awful soft and sweet to me, Tuff."

"I loved a woman once." His voice went flat. "A long time ago. Forget it. Once in a lifetime is enough, isn't it?"

Kaylla laughed bitterly, bringing him back to another dimension of misery. "For the likes of us, maybe one love is enough." Her voice softened. "My husband and I, we had thirty good years together. What a wondrous solid love we shared." She looked up at the stars. "When you're in love, you always think it will last forever. To hold the person you care so much for makes the world seem unreal— but you're only fooling yourself."

He said nothing, remembering the man who'd died so bravely that day on Maika.

"Oh, Pus-Rotted Gods, I was happy then." Kaylla whispered. "Bore him five incredibly beautiful children. We. we lived in our own little paradise."

He looked away so she couldn't see his expression. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, so am I."

His fists knotted in the hot sand. "If I could change it, I would. If it's ever within my power, I'll get you out of here. I swear that on my honor."

"You're a good man, Tuff."

"Am I?" Staffa blinked at the burning behind his eyes.

"This is hell Tuff. and here comes my tormentor." At the disgust in her voice he lifted his gaze to see Anglo pacing toward them.

The officer raised his hand in an obscene gesture.

Kaylla stood, defeat bowing her shoulders, and trudged off after Anglo with leaden steps.

Staffa rolled over and covered his head, Kaylla's look of revulsion trapped behind his tightly clamped eyes.

"I put her here. But it was for a good cause… a good cause."

As the days passed, he toughened. His skin blackened in the actinic light of the Etarian sun. Each sight of Kaylla goaded him, a constant reminder of the conqueror he had once been.

How many times did he awaken in the night? Cold sweat sticking sand to him in a gritty patina. Kaylla — when she could avoid Anglo — would hold his hand. Her touch com-

forted, and burned, a damning lifeline to human warmth and reassurance. On nights when she had to service Anglo's insatiable lust, he lay shivering

and miserable. Images kept forming in his mind — scenes of planets he'd crushed. Each battle replayed, each victory repeated. In the macabre haze of his dreams, he could hear his laughter as he condemned people by the hundreds to slave labor such as he now suffered. He relived the rapes and the killings, staring haughtily into his victims' tortured faces.

Who are you, Staffa? What have you done? I am damned! Accursed!

Yet, every man's mind has a certain resilience. Staffa kar Therma held onto that fragile thread that kept him going. But he had another reason, one more pressing: Kaylla.

In the depths of the night, when the nightmares descended and the ghouls of the innocents he'd murdered stared hollowly at him, he would awaken with the cold shakes. Then, when death would have been the easiest way, he had only to look over to where Kaylla slept, or imagine her under Anglo's sweating body as the warden raped her. Kaylla — his salvation and damnation — hadn't broken. How could Staffa kar Therma be less than the woman he'd condemned?

Hounded, he forced himself to live, to suffer with the rest, and to endure.

When guilt waned, fantasy would spring to life in his fevered brain. Through the shimmering waves of heat and pain, Kaylla's figure transformed into Skyla's as she tugged on the lead rope. Wraithlike and half-stripped, hair mysteriously brown and short, she danced just a tantalizing step ahead of him. But when he looked more closely, Skyla's phantom shaded into Kaylla — and the guilt came flooding back.

In the respiteful hours of twilight, he hungered to see Skyla's sapphire-blue eyes again — to reach out and feel her warm touch as he'd done that day when she'd lain in the hospital. She would rescue him in the end. With a touch she would free him from this blistering existence.

Yes, Staffa. Dream of Skyla descending from the skies at the head of your bloody Companions — except what power will ever save you from the hell of who you are?

"Water break!" The call came as they dug sand-stiff yoke

ropes from under the pipe. Bent down, blinking through dehydrated eyes, he pulled the thick strap loose and started slogging back through the ovenlike trench.

"Tuff?" He heard the faint rasp.

He stopped and looked back to see Peebal, gasping, head resting on the skin-frying pipe. Weak spindly little Peebal, who should have been lacing shoes in Etarus, had no business here. He shot a glance at the water tent. Let Peebal make his own way. He took a step forward. Hollow-eyed ghosts wailed their victory in the air around him.

He stopped, cursed, and extended a hand. "Come on, Peebal."

"Can't," the thirst-wizened man muttered dumbly. His swollen tongue stuck half out of his mouth. "From my pocket. Take the little necklace." Peebal gasped, face convulsing as he wheezed.

Staffa's thorny fingers ransacked the pocket to find a shiny gold locket of exquisite workmanship.

"What's this?"

"Mine. My best work. Had to. " Peebal broke into a spasm of coughing. "Give it… give it to Kaylla. She was. was good to me." He sagged against the pipe. "I made that. Good. good jeweler. once." He coughed again. "Ought to leave something behind that's beautiful in such a… a horrid place." He twisted and vomited blood on the sand.

"Come on," Staffa put a hand on Peeba]'s arm.

"No," Peebal whispered, wincing, his sun-cracked skin like leather. "Dying. Dying now Tuff."

Staffa bent and gripped Peebal by the arm and swung him up. The slightness of Peebal's weight over his scarred shoulders shocked him. Simmering rage blended with sorrow. The locket burned where it touched his skin, a damning brand against a traitor's flesh.

By the time he reached the water tent, Peebal had vomited blood again, red cascading down Staffa's arm, cooling him for the moment.

The others looked on with lackluster eyes. Only KayUa walked out, tan eyes pinched. "What's wrong?"

"Hemorrhaging ulcer, I think," Staffa grunted, staggering into the shade. Kaylla helped ease the fragile man onto the sand.

Anglo walked over to stare with bland heavily-Iidded eyes. "Looks like he's

gone. Drink up, Tuff. You've wasted most of your break on him." Anglo tarried long enough to run his fingers down Kaylla's back in a caress before stepping away.

"Ought to break his neck," Staffa growled.

"It's not worth your life. His pollution washes off or drains out. It's a temporary humiliation of the body." Then, as if to reassure herself: "He can't get at my mind."

"Why?" Peebal whispered weakly as Staffa stooped to put a grimy cup to his lips. "Why waste your time on a… a dead man?"

His smile stung his cracked lips. "Because you brought beauty to the world — if only for a while."

Peebal nodded and vomited again.

"Tuff, drink!" Kaylla hissed. "Get some water in you or you'll be next!"

"Go," Peebal gasped.

Staffa stood and made his way to the water. He got three long swallows before Anglo called, "Back to work! Tuff, you an Kaylla stay a second."

Staffa took the time to chug water into his desiccated tissues while Anglo walked over. The officer looked down at Peebal and frowned deeply, pig-eyes gleaming with anticipation..

Staffa choked at the sight of Peebal's body going limp, his eyes blinking in the sand, filling with stinging grit as the collar did its work. It didn't take long, no more than a minute; Peebal's frightened face stilled and the sandencrusted pupils stared sightlessly.

"There," Anglo added reasonably. "No sense in making him suffer." He turned to Kaylla, heedless of Staffa, and thrust his hands under her loose garment to grope her. Then he kissed her long and hard before adding a cloying, "Until tonight, sweet meat."

Unable to stand the shame in her face, Staffa lowered his gaze to the corpse. Peebal's gnomelike features had twisted into an eternal agony of final terror. The bladder and recturn relaxed in death.

Anglo took a laser from his belt. With practiced ease, he cut Peebal's head from his body and picked up the collar. To Staffa, Anglo added, "You brought him here — you can

carry him back. Stick him in that wide spot in the trench. The machines will bury him deep enough. If not, the siff ackals wil eat well." Anglo turned and walked back to his air-conditioned hut.

"I'll kill him," Staffa promised, as he threw Peebal over his shoulder and wound his fingers into the thin hair to carry the head. "I'll gouge his eyes from his living body and rip his manhood from his fat crotch and feed it to him. Choke him with it."

"No, you won't." Her tan stare bored into him as they stumbled out into the blasting sun. "He dies — and we all go. Not just you."

He forced whistling air through gritted teeth, calming himself. "Skyla, By the Blessed Gods, I wish I knew how you do it?"

"Another one of those days Tuff? You seeing your Skyla again?"

He laughed sourly as Peebal's limp body swung. "Yeah, she keeps me going. Gives me a reason to survive." As do you.

She nodded, hair blowing in the slight breeze. "That why you've never made advances?"

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "What?"

"I've seen the want in your eyes. Is it for me… or your Skyla? Doesn't matter which, I keep expecting you to take me."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "This is an age of abomination. Because of the violence, men die. But women? Women become property — possessions without souls or feelings. Objects to be raped, beaten, and degraded. Didn't used to be that way. or females, it's always worse."

She shook her head. "I'm the only woman tough enough to make it out here. The others collapse and let the collars kill them rather than suffer the sand or the heat — let alone the constant rape." She worked her mouth as if from some foul taste. "So the men want me. Even you. But you don't act. Why?"

He barked an angry laugh. "Maybe it's my honor."

"Yeah, well, don't change your mind. I'm not big on men right now."

Staffa filled his lungs against the resurgent anger. His

throat had already gone dry. "Why keep fighting? Why not give in and die?"

"Revenge, Tuff." She waved a hand at the blinding white around them. "God allowed us, humanity, to make all this a living perdition. Suffering? We create that. I never. Ah, hell, it doesn't matter if you know, I guess.

I never made it as far as I wanted in my studies. I don't know whether we send our souls to God straight after death or what, but I want that bastard to get a good dose of what suffering and humiliation and pain are all about when I die."

"What are you talking about? Revenge on who?"

"God," she whispered, head down, attention on where her callused feet sank in to the baking sand with each step.

"You were Etarian? A Priestess?"

"Seddi," she said evenly. "That's between you and me."

He gave her a slow nod of agreement. Who am I to revile her for accursed practices of superstition? Who am I to despise her after all I've done? Perhaps we each pay for our crimes in our own ways.

They settled the last remains of Peebal at the bottom of the trench. Staffa stood and hesitated for a second before he bent down and settled the tiny jeweler on his back, crossing his arms peacefully over his chest. Then he placed his head in its place, brushed th'e sand from the staring eyes, and pulled the lids shut. Together they collapsed sand over Peebal's body.

Kaylla studied him intently. "Why do that for him?"

"Dignity. Respect."

"You're not just any slave, Tuff." She turned to walk down the trench. "Who are you?"

"No one." To forestall further questions he handed her the locket. "Here, Peebal wanted you to have this."

She glanced down and knotted the bright gold in her fist. A single tear etched the dusty corner of her face. He watched her throat move as she lowered her head.

"Come on, we're late," he urged. "I'll miss him, too. He taught me. Rotted Gods, nothing." He took her arm and pushed her on, seeing the crew placing the yokes under a long section of pipe,

She looked at him, mouth hard. "You're not cut from a

normal mold. You're someone different, powerful, haunted by more than this pus-sucking desert."

He glared at her.

She caught him by surprise when she handed him the locket. "Tuff," her voice broke, "keep it for me."

He started to shake his head.

"Just do it! Anglo will find it otherwise. I don't have anywhere. Peebal, he smuggled it out of Maika in his anus. Anglo will. well, you understand."

"I'll guard it with my life. And give it back someday. when we're free."

"Thanks, Tuff… my friend."

Staffa stepped over to the yoke and put his bruised shoulder under it. "Ho!" Kaylla called, grabbing up the tug strap. Staffa grunted under the weight, feeling the burden strain his muscles.

The day wore on. He blinked against the sun that seared his back and tried to fry his brain. Sweat ran down from under his armpits, evaporating before it could even trickle to his elbows — the memory no more than white lines of salt.

Kaylla? Skyla? They mixed in his imagination, each with that same knowing expression of suffering and endurance.

"I never understood, Skyla," he croaked through his dry throat.

"My poor Staffa." Skyla's voice twined out of the gusting wind. "You wanted to know what it is to be human? You'll know my scars next time."

"I'll know everyone's."

His thoughts centered on the time he'd removed his glove to hold her hand. At the time, the fluttering anxiety of his heart had unnerved him. She'd been perilously close to death, and it had frightened him. Why had he never reached for her again?

"Because I couldn't see past a ghost. and everything came to me so easily." What have I made that's beautiful? Who's a better man, Peebal? You who leave such a precious piece of gold? Or Staffa, who was never defeated in war— and destroyed everything he ever loved?

Memories of Peebal's wasted body lurked in his mind. He thought of how Anglo's fingers caressed Kaylla, and the disgust reflected in her expression. He remembered her husband, standing tall, his head exploding in a red haze

from the pulse pistol while those beautiful children Kaylla had loved cried

in terror at his feet. The demons in his imagination pictured Chrysla, the woman he'd cherished, charred by plasma, that precious body exploded in decompression.

Loss swept at the corners of his soul as he fought the long section of pipe forward. All those years, he'd kept his distance from Skyla and what would come of it? Another dead body?

"They'll kill me here, Skyla," he whispered. "I'll never look into your eyes again, never tell you what I've learned. You were the only one who ever understood me. The only one who ever cared. Why did I never see that? Blessed Gods, I should never have let you go!"

It might have been the wind, but he swore he heard the Praetor's cackling laughter.