No Solace (The Flames of Retribution - Book 1)

Chapter Eight -The Beltritian Port and the Doctor

After giving Febby the proverbial finger with my actions, enraged, he'd grabbed me by the hair and hosed me off with magic-enhanced, freezing water on the deck, and left me to drip there in my sodden clothes. Beltrit was cooler in its climate than Sanfelton, with a higher tendency to rain. I shivered in my sodden prison shift and looked out towards the port. Men and women with skin tones that ranged from a latte shade to a deep teak hurried about, their white or blue hair glimmering brightly in the sun.

I wiped my running nose as I took listless interest in their activities for a while, having studied our enemies, the Beltritians, extensively while I was a Librarian. The Sanfeltonians are an insular people, with a command from Faluel to keep our race pure from mixing, but the Beltritians were a beautiful mosaic of different shades of brown, and hair colors of the purest white to the darkest of indigo. The legends said that the Beltritians were at ground zero of the Cataclysm, thus their hair gained those unnatural shades, and their features, including their eyes and ears became as sharp as knives. 

 Janesport was the closest I had been to Beltrit, and it was 1700 miles from the Beltritian shore, so it was not common for me to see such a kaleidoscope of browns all at once. There were some from the Andeperuvials, a nation we owned to the south that had such toasted skin tones, but they preferred to stay in their lands to worship their goddess, Lista, freely.  They scorned the cities of Sanfelton, generally, as we outlawed such worship, but some did reside in Sanfelton city, mostly merchants. 

I had not seen such obvious mixing of races, despite our neighbors to the south, so I wondered if Faluel would send all of these Beltritians to the abyss when they had their last days.

I wondered much about Faluel these days, and why I was in this place when I had been devout and chaste.

Fortunately, my chastity and youth kept the pirates from taking liberties with me. It increased my value by one more level.

"Beltrit burns their enemies in a furnace..." I whimpered as I convulsed with a shiver, imagining my frail, sickly self immediately tossed in one once we landed.

Then I closed my eyes as the laughter of someone offshore carried across the water. I had a dark thought that I would throw away my innocence for just one day where I laughed in freedom like that.

A short time later, Febby dragged me back down into the engine room that had been cleaned up, and roughly dried my hair, and patted down my thin body with a scratchy blanket. When he was done, my skin felt raw and chapped, but I didn't protest.

He shoved me back into my cage, leaving the door open, and I flopped onto the cot. My skin burned from the contact of the sheets, and some of the bedsores I had grown were opened and weeping blood and puss. I closed my eyes and pictured the port with the exotic men and women. I imagined myself growing wings and flying away into that mesmerizing crowd. Another shiver convulsed my body and threw me into a coughing spell.

At some point, I heard angry cursing and shuffling upstairs. A man was brought downstairs. I stared dead-eyed at the doctor they had kidnapped. His robes were all in red and black, his cloak and hat matching. A gold chain hung from his neck with a silver medallion that was inscribed with a Beltritian oath. My Seeker ability to synthesize language translated it to: "Tav sees." He not only was a doctor, but he was a devout follower of the Beltritian god, Tav, who was their god of truth, their last, and the only god they recognized. There were no saints they acknowledge, as giving any credence to any but Tav was sacrilege.

"The Trine wear red and black to hide the blood," I opined in a faint whisper in the doctor's native tongue.

The doctor gave me a sharp look, having heard me.