The Loyal Ones

Chapter 2: Return

Yaral was serious about clean. Back in the store-room a ward cut Dally a grey wedge of soap. Then he made him stand there holding it while he squinted at the slowly leaking wounds. By then it was pitch dark in most of the compound. One blue wyrlight lit the room, and it made Seth's blood look black where it coated Dally's arms and chest. Dally never noticed that before; blood was black in the dark.

Finally the ward declared the gashes would close on their own, and gave Dally more disinfectant powder to throw in them when he was clean. That was good - stitches would mean staying awake longer.

The baths were still lukewarm when Dally got there, but he couldn't make himself get in. No one wanted a red bath. Instead he scooped up buckets of water to tip over his head, and scraped his hair and skin with his fingernails. The soap stung a little, catching in scrapes he didn't know he had. When the water ran mostly clear Dally asked the night ward if this was good enough.

"You look like hell," the man said.

Dally just stared back at him, blank.

"Fine." The ward sighed. "Come on, then."

The dorm was singing when they came up outside, but fell awkwardly silent at the rattle of the door. Inside it was pitch black, rows of bunks with limbs spilling lazily out. The night ward steered him through the room by wyrlight, cupping a few glowing worms naked in his palm. Anise glanced up at him with large eyes flashing in the dark. Dally found himself passing their bunk, though, and the ward didn't stop. Dally opened his mouth to say something, then rubbed his face instead.

It made sense a second later, as he was nudged into the lock-stall off to the side of the main room. No one could damage him in here, in case this was one of those nights where thralls acted like thralls. Greenlees had really been something, a hero, and by now every everyone here knew he was dead.

Dally almost snarled at the clang of the gate, but that was just instinct. He was too tired to hate the lock-box right now. He was listless as he crawled under the blanket and pressed his back into the corner. Since the box was meant as a kind of punishment there was no bunk, but right now the floor felt oka.

Pip started the song again in her high clear voice, quiet but fast. It had one of those soft, lovey choruses where your heart swelled up, but Pip made it harsh somehow, like a whipcrack. Dally didn't try to join. The music floated in the dark around him, not quite drowning out the hushed gossip. A voice whispered, loudly, that that bitch Dally Harper must be proud of himself. It must be nice to fight like a little bitch and kill Seth Greenlees. Whoever it was said it a couple more times, but amazingly none of the others joined in. Dally had nothing smart to say back, and after a while the voice rasped to bored silence. In the lull he could hear his own breath, too fast. Eventually he squeezed his eyes shut.

He lurched out of sleep at the sound of familiar voices, then blinked at his own blindness - it was still the middle of the night. Anise and Rose asked through the dark how he was doing. Their soft voices were right by his head where it rest against the bars. They got out of bed for this?

Dally considered the question, taking slow inventory of his body. Then he said he was good, which was true. The smaller scrapes were closing up already, and the holes in his side and thigh had a paper-thin crust of blood and powder. They still hurt like hell, but they'd be small scars.

"Are you coming back tomorrow?" Rose asked him. "The boss gave you a lot of soap. Maybe he likes the deal."

"I don't know," Dally said. With his eyes shut he slid an arm through the bars, reaching in the dark until his fingertips brushed a warm cheek. Rose took his hand, and held it for a long time.

—--

The bath had been pointless - Dally woke up drenched in sweat, tangled in the blanket. The wounds must have broken open while he rolled around on the floor, because thin lines of blood were dried up across his skin. Yaral took one look at him and ordered him back to the baths. And yelled at the wards, too. This time they 'helped', scrubbing Dally with the horse-hair brush he hadn't wanted to use last night. It worked, that was for sure.

His hair was still damp and the fresh shirt stuck to his back when a ward came to pick him up. They led him out of the loading docks into the basement, then up the service stairs. Many, many stairs, all lit by caged blue worms. Dally's bare feet crossed from concrete to tile to carpet, and hackles started to rise on the back of his neck. Like when he was a kid sneaking around places he didn't belong. The feeling peaked when the ward unlocked a door and led him into the offices.

Warmth and light washed over them. Lots of light, so he squinted for a few seconds. There was a glow from real gas lights, a warm orange drenching everything. But, mostly it was the windows. Floor to ceiling, with the gentle blur of crystal. It was mid morning, and he could see across most of the city. Stained brick buildings stretched against a grey sky, shiny with rainwater. A heavy smoke bank hovered over the Heirodrome, where Dally had killed Seth last night. It veiled the arched iron dome in blue, and as he watched a flash of silent lightning lit up the underside.

No one was looking at that view. The half dozen humans he could see wore wool suits or sash dresses, poised over wood desks. A secretary crossed their path with an armful of files. She barely glanced up, then froze as she met Dally's eyes.

"He's alright, miss," the ward said.

"Oh. Oh I'm sure-" The secretary took a hesitant step to go around them, skirting as far away as the corridor would let her. It took Dally backing up against the wall before she would actually pass, though. She clipped around him on high heels, hugging the files to her chest.

Yaral met them a second later, waved them over in distraction. He was talking to another man in a suit, something about a meeting with Alter Technical, a merger. Normally Dally would listen, but he couldn't concentrate. He was still too busy staring around himself like a startled cat.

As they walked Yaral put a hand on his shoulder, yanking his attention. "The man coming to see you is Tannis Lyle, he's Governor of Wesend. You know what a governor is?"

It was a kind of elected lordship, Dally figured, because the company staff voted for Governor of Ulster every four years, and it was always members of the mage houses that got in. Probably this governor had power over a large slice of the west counties. That was where Wesend was.

"Not really," Dally said.

Yaral's mouth twitched in annoyance. "It just means he's important."

The meeting room took up a good portion of the floor, shiny with mirrors and polished cherry wood. Yaral stood Dally in the center of it, on a silk rug that probably cost more than he did. There were little thralls embroidered on it; running around picking fruits off of trees, hunting rabbits and deers. He thought they were deers, anyway - Dally only knew what those looked like from songs. His gut hurt.

"Take your shirt off." Yaral was saying. "You just let him look, hear me? Let him look and don't say anything. I will not be happy if I have to take you back downstairs. Okay?"

Dally peeled the shirt off, crossed and uncrossed his arms. The cold was in his head, but he still shivered once. Even standing there, he wasn't sure how he was going to act. Being sold was... a dice-roll. He'd lose his friends, and have to learn a new set of rules - that could be painful. Maybe this would be good, though? Right? Some governor mage with a cage hobby would probably be more hands-off than a production boss like Yaral. There'd be less thralls, too, and more money to keep them. Maybe this was okay?

"Of course he's late," Yaral said, to no one. He thumped down in one of the chairs, idly fishing a cigarette from his pocket. Silence stretched while he sucked it down, slowly filling the air with smoke.

He had just crushed out the third cigarette when the door opened.

A tall man straightened his suit jacket as he entered, ran a hand back over trim hair. Silver spectacles flashed as he looked around, as bored as a lizard with the shiny room. Dally thought this was the governor, but the next man wore twice as much jewellery. Heavy gold chain gleamed at his throat, and gold edge on the rim of an enamel house earring. His body was heavy, too. Under thinning brown hair his face was soft and pink from the cold outside. Next to the two of them, Yarral looked modest in his suit and cuff links.

Dally looked like a thrall. Without a shirt the hair on his arms rose in goosebumps, and the scrapes from last night stood out on pale skin.

"Well." Governor Lyle clapped his hands together, grinning. "This is exciting. He had a very good showing last night. Didn't he?" the question was for his man. Maybe he was an aide.

The aide agreed that Dally fought as well as possible against Greenlees, who was a real monster.

"Almost a shame he killed him, but that's the game. Isn't that right, Dally?"

Dally blinked. "Sure, boss. That was a real shame. "

Shit - he was meant to agree with the 'it's a game' part, wasn't he?

But Lyle was still just smiling at him, indulgent. "Well," he said, "that's very sporting of you. Thralls can be honourable kinds of creatures when they're raised right."

The governor strolled toward him, looking him up and down. A pace away he leaned in close, slowly examining the lines of his face. When he breathed out, Dally felt it faint on his cheek.

"This is some breeding," Lyle said. "He really does look almost human."

That was the cue for Yaral to hard-sell. Something about Dally's champion grandfather and the many perfect babies fanning out from that, four centuries of totally pure bloodlines.

Lyle was barely listening, just continuing the long, long look at Dally's face.

"Open your mouth," he said.

Dally must have hesitated too long, because Yaral's stare turned hard. So Dallly opened his mouth. Not wide enough - Lyle clasped Dally's chin with one soft hand, dragging his jaw lower. The mild expression twisted in faint disgust, fascination.

"All his teeth are sharp."

"That's not uncommon," Yaral said, "but your guests won't see his teeth."

"And this." The hand fell from Dally's jaw, to slide down his chest. Dally tensed as the fingertips ran over the lump of scar, rest there. He couldn't feel it - the scar was numb - but something about the quirk of Lyle's mouth made him want to twitch away.

Lyle's thumb ran slow over the ridges. "What is this? A tumour?"

Dally decided, suddenly, that he didn't want to be sold.

"That's where the extra arm was," he blurted.

"Extra arm," Lyle echoed.

"Sure, boss. It was a bad one too, all scaly with a bunch of fingers. No one would want me if they hadn't took that off-"

"Dally." Yaral was smiling, but there was ice under his voice. "He can be a little... talkative," he explained to the governor, "but he can keep his mouth shut when he's told. Right?"

Dally breathed in, but froze as Yaral's smile widened.

Yaral turned back to the governor. "These minor defects are easy to deal with, if you use professionals. Do it young and the thrall grows up totally normal."

Lyle was barely listening, his palm still sliding over the thick sheet of scar. Dally's jaw tensed, but he didn't move.

"Do you miss it?" Lyle asked.

The direct question lingered in the air. Finally Dally had to answer, glancing at Yaral. "Can't miss what you can't remember," he tried.

"Huh." Lyle's hand fell away. Silence stretched, as he stood back, rubbing at his mouth. Finally he made a faint noise in the back of his throat, like this was all painful. "I'll take him."

Before he finished the sentence the aide had stepped forward, letting the ledger fall on the table with a thump. He leafed through it, talking in dry tones. There should be a three month return clause, for the full price of four thousand, eight hundred eid. They wanted all Dally's records back to his birth.

Yaral was trying to say something chummy about the start of their business relationship, but Lyle had already turned, waving him away. As he wandered towards the door he stopped, turning to Dally.

"Well? Come along."