The inside of the Gathering Hall was like nothing Imalroc had ever seen, and for a moment he and Rerdas just stood in the doorway gawking at the scene before them.
The first thing that hit him was the air. It was wet, warm jungle air, out of place in the midst of a forest gripped by winter. The light was hazy. There were enormous spherical lamps bobbing high overhead, casting a warm glow over the vivid riot of colors splayed below them. By far the oddest decoration, if they could be called decorations, were the trees. They grew straight out of the floor, some of them short and blooming with flowers, others rising on pale trunks to stretch into the eaves of the building.
Most of the people in the room were sitting or lying on pillows, spread out around low tables that were laden with food. Imalroc drifted toward the nearest one, his gaze drawn toward the impossible amount of food. Everything was dripping with color and oversized. There were crimson tomatoes the size of oranges and platters overflowing with grapes and berries, ears of corn steaming atop piles of emerald leaves, tureens of fragrant stew, fresh bread soft as clouds, and squash swimming in brown-sugared butter. He could practically taste the rich flavor of several golden roasted pigs holding court at the center of the nearest table. It was like a scene from a fairy feast, the kind in the books his mother had read to him. The kind of food that cast spells and was meant to test the hungry hero. Imalroc felt an urge to back away. But his traitorous stomach was growling, and he felt a gentle tug when Rerdas started forward.
It was strange to hold the huntmaster's warm hand. Stranger still to sit so close beside him when they found an empty space at one of the tables and sank onto waiting cushions. Their knees kept brushing against each other, and Imalroc's skin felt like it sparked every time they did.
"Hello there! Newcomers, I'd guess?" an eager voice chimed from across the table. Imalroc looked warily at the man leaning toward them. He had a round, cheerful cheeks and feathery blond hair that fell into his eyes. It looked as though his ornate shirt was a size to small. Imalroc glanced at the open buttons halfway down the man's slick chest and thought the size issue might have been rather purposeful.
"Yes," Rerdas answered with an equally friendly smile. "It's our first night here."
"Well then, welcome to Patience! Not that it's really mine to welcome you to, but still. It's just so good to see new faces. Don't you think so, Kend?" He nudged a dour-faced man hunched over his food, who nodded without looking at them. The blonde offered them a pair of empty plates and continued babbling.
"Help yourselves, the food is wonderful here! I'm Finta, by the way. Did I say that already? Ha, I suppose you can't introduce yourself too many times. Here, take some wine first. It's even better than the food." Finta splashed generous helpings of wine into two large glasses and passed them across the table, then waited with his own glass raised. Imalroc joined in the toast half-heartedly. He was already wishing they could pick a different table.
"So," Finta said loudly through a half-mashed mouthful of potatoes, "what brings you to Draal?"
"Well...we're not exactly allowed to, er, be together in Inofar the way we'd like," Rerdas said, shooting an awkward glance at Imalroc. The battleboxer watched the expression of concern spread across Finta's sweat-shiny face.
"That's awful. Why not?"
"He's a handler, and I'm a battleboxer," Imalroc answered. Finta smiled blandly at him, but the man he had called Kend looked up sharply, blinking at Imalroc's face. What little color he had in his face drained away as the light of recognition dawned, and he let out a squeak of fear. Finta didn't hear it.
"Well, it sounds like you've escaped an awful situation. And I've got to say, the two of you are quite a striking pair," Finta said. Imalroc picked up a carrot and snapped in two. Kend blanched, and the battleboxer had to keep a grim smile from slipping onto his face.
"We feel very lucky to be here," Rerdas murmured. Imalroc glanced over at him, his face stony. He looked down at his plate for something else to scare Kend with, and decided on shredding the helpless roast pork on his plate with a savage twist.
"Why are you in Patience?" Rerdas asked politely, drinking some of the wine. Finta launched into some long-winded story, but Imalroc was distracted by an Optologician gliding past their table. She carried her binocular mask over one shoulder, and wore a thick belt across her robes. An assortment of small pouches and clinking vials hung from the belt, swinging as the woman walked. She turned around their table with a slow pace that allowed her time to look carefully into the faces of the chattering people at the tables.
Imalroc stopped moving when she looked at him. The Optologician examined him with a blank face, held his gaze without fear, and shifted to look at Rerdas, and then at Kend. Finta she only skimmed across, but he was an open book. She looked down at the people closest to her, staring at their faces with unnatural attentiveness that was somehow neither friendly nor aggressive. Simply alert.
Imalroc watched as she rummaged into one of her pouches and pulled something out, cupping it into her hand. With a quick motion, she tapped the shoulder of the nearest guest and the man immediately handed her his wine. She tipped whatever was in her hand into his drink and handed it back, watching to see that he drank it before moving to the next person.
"What is she doing?" Imalroc asked sharply, interrupting whatever nonsense Finta and Rerdas were talking about.
"Hm? Oh, you mean the Optologician? Just dosing a few people. She won't do everyone," Finta said calmly. Kend kept shifting on his cushion-seat, his fork knocking unsteadily against his plate.
"Dosing?" Rerdas echoed. Finta smiled.
"I forgot you don't know what that is. It's actually quite nice. The Optologicians observe people, see what they need, and then give them a dose of some herbal remedies."
"What exactly do these herbal remedies do?" Imalroc asked. The Optologician was coming closer, working her way down the table. He saw the huntmaster's hands twist together.
"They just help you," Finta said with a shrug. "If you're feeling tired, they can wake you up, or if you're feeling nervous, they'll calm you down. They give most of the newcomers something to make them a bit more forthcoming usually. It's important to talk in Patience."
"Do you have to drink it?" Rerdas asked. His voice sounded distant, as though he already knew the answer. His green eyes were pinned unwaveringly on the looming form of the Optologician.
"No, of course not," Finta said, making a face as though Rerdas had just said something disgusting. "But...from what I've heard, dosing is a very common practice in Draal. It's considered quite rude to reject it outright. That's what I've heard, anyway." He stopped talking just as the Optologician approached them. She dropped a few flakes of something into Kend's drink, and they dissolved with a hiss. Kend gulped it down immediately, draining the glass as though someone had just offered him water in the desert.
"May I have your wine?" the Optologician asked, her voice lilting and younger than Imalroc expected. She held out her hand for Rerdas' cup, and he passed it to her wordlessly. Her gaze skittered between the huntmaster's face and Imalroc's, and she reached for one of the vials. With a brisk flick of her wrist, she tilted half of the vial's contents into Rerdas' glass and passed it back to him. Then the unreadable gaze was fixed on Imalroc. His heartbeat felt faint and quicker than a bird's.
"Your wine?" she asked. Imalroc handed it to her and watched the rest of the clear liquid in the vial slide into his drink. When she returned it to him, she clasped her hands and stood still. Waiting.
Imalroc considered simply putting the drink on the table and leaving it there, until he felt Rerdas' tentative hand on his knee. He looked back up at the Optologician's solemn face.
"What does it do?" he asked quietly.
"It will make you feel friendly and warm," the Optologician replied. Rerdas let out a weak laugh.
"Good," he said. "This one needs it." He gave Imalroc a gentle poke in the ribs. The battleboxer barely managed to keep himself from glaring back. Rerdas' smile looked like it had been painted on. The huntmaster's own cup sat heavy in his frozen hand, lifted halfway toward his mouth. Imalroc couldn't think of a way out without very obviously ignoring the drink. He picked up the wine, clinked the edge of his glass against Rerdas' and drank a mouthful.
Battleboxing did not give him many opportunities to drink wine, but from his limited experience he could not taste anything out of the ordinary. He took a few more swallows, and set it down as soon as the Optologician turned away. Imalroc felt an involuntary shudder race down his back. Finta chuckled.
"There, that wasn't so bad! Now, Rerdas...you were about to tell me where you lived in Inofar. In the East, was it?"
"No. We lived in Kirinoll," the huntmaster answered. Finta let out a sigh and shook his head sadly.
"So close to Kuraya. She's a nasty piece of work," he said. Kend suddenly spoke up, his head bobbing slowly along with his words.
"Truer words never spoken. I myself came from the East. No help for us there. No help she gave during the war, nor after it," he muttered. His gaze still evaded Imalroc's, but his body slumped out of its rigid posture.
"You were there during the Eastern Border War?" Rerdas asked. He set his elbows on the table and scooted a little closer to Kend. Imalroc watched something strange flicker across Finta's face. It might have been annoyance. He found it more difficult than expected to tell if Finta was flirting with Rerdas or not. Either way, he did not seem to enjoy the fact that he had lost the huntmaster's attention.
"I was," Kend said heavily. "We sent the call out for troops as soon as word spread of approaching armies. But the overland roads stayed empty. Nobody came. Nobody came for days and days. And now, with the feldlords dying left and right, it's as though-"
"Alright," Finta said quickly, "I don't know if this is the sort of talk we want at the table." His large blonde head swiveled around a little, as though he expected an Optologician to pop up beside his ear.
"But-"
"I'm sure you're only bringing this up because you're new, Rerdas," Finta said, with the air of a man poorly disguising his impatience, "but the Eastern Border War isn't exactly a comfortable topic. We're not in Inofar, we don't have to deal with that inept queen anymore, and that's that. Let's all just enjoy our food, shall we?"
"Actually," Imalroc began, "I think I'm done. When are we allowed to leave?"
"Whenever," Kend slurred. Imalroc stared at him. The man was looking at him without any of the fear that had gripped him before. His eyelids seemed to be drooping a little, and the black dots of his pupils looked as though they had shrunk to pinpricks. The battleboxer felt a rush of unease swoop through him. He did not like this.
"I don't like this," somebody said. It took him a heartbeat to realize that it was his own voice that had announced his thought.
"You...didn't like the food?" Rerdas asked slowly, and Imalroc blinked. Finta's head was cocked slightly to one side, and Kend looked like he was about to drop face-first into his soup.
"Yes. I mean no. The food was fine. I have the urge to walk. And then sleep. Do you want to walk?" Imalroc asked. His thoughts were jumbling together, and he wasn't sure which ones were coming out of his mouth. They had to get out of here right fucking now.
"Sounds lovely. It was very interesting to meet you Finta, and you as well Kend. I'm sorry I made the conversation strange if that's what I did. It's not what I intended. I don't really like being that type of...Imalroc, wait!" Rerdas cut off his meandering goodbye, and the battleboxer heard him scrambling to catch up as he veered away from the table.
They went flying out into the dark outside the Gathering Hall. Imalroc danced down the steps and bolted up the path back toward their building, dragging in deep mouthfuls of winter air in an attempt to clear his head. He heard quick footsteps behind him, and then Rerdas' hand was on his shoulder.
"Slow down, you look like you're running away from something. We're not supposed to look like we're running anywhere. It'll tell them we're-" He was cut off by Imalroc's hand, flashing up between them to cover the huntmaster's mouth securely. For a moment they stood still on the dark path, staring at each other. Imalroc picked each word carefully and spoke with a measured pace.
"Be quiet. Until we get back. The drink will make us talk," he whispered. He leaned in toward Rerdas as he spoke and saw the huntmaster's eyes widen slightly. His own heartbeat picked up again, and he was acutely aware that his palm was set over Rerdas' mouth. The heat of breath and the curve of soft lips pressed against his skin. Imalroc dropped his hand and turned away, marching up the path.
They did not speak again until they reached their room and Imalroc had snapped the bolt into place. Rerdas paced the length of the room, drumming his hands against the tops of his thighs. He turned suddenly and looked at Imalroc.
"I think it's going to be harder to get to the Sultana than I thought. This is a strange sort of place isn't it? But we might be able to get the information we need from the other people here. Kend seemed to know something about the war. We're going to have to figure something out, because it's not as if we can stay here for ages. Etiana's going to be out of money after she pays the Queen's Tax, and I've got to get back to Umber before he finds somebody else to suck his cock."
Imalroc's eyebrows shot up. Rerdas' gaze sped across the battleboxer's expression and he gulped.
"I said that last part aloud, didn't I?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Fucking gods, what was in that wine?" the huntmaster groaned.
"I don't know. I can't think about that now. All I'm thinking about is you in a very compromising position with the Duke of Umber," Imalroc said. He pressed his lips together, trying to hold his composure, but then he lost it and laughed. Only he wasn't quite sure where the laughter came from.
"It's not funny," Rerdas groaned. But his eyes crinkled with amusement as he spoke. Imalroc was suddenly unable to stop laughing. His body felt like it was filled with tiny bubbles and they kept rising up his throat with little bursts of hilarity.
"Does he at least return the favor?" he blurted. Rerdas shook his head.
"Not usually. He goes to sleep. Like an old man. An old man with a tiny, little-" Rerdas couldn't get any further before he doubled over laughing. Imalroc felt his eyes watering and he gasped for breath between laughs.
"That's terrible. Somebody should help you with that," he said.
"You offering?"
"Sure," Imalroc said recklessly. He made a chomping sound, his teeth snapping shut. "As long as you're fine with only half of it coming back out."
Rerdas let out something like a screech, and Imalroc howled with mirth at the sound. They both spent an unnaturally long time roaring, gust of laughter stealing all their breath. Imalroc's stomach started to ache, and he saw Rerdas wipe tears from the corners of his eyes.
"Not funny at all!" the huntmaster said, before collapsing into a fresh wave of giggles.
And then, as quickly as it had come, the rush of glee subsided and petered out. Imalroc felt as though he were being returned to his own skin. Rerdas blinked and straightened up. They stared at each other.
"I don't like this," Imalroc said slowly, for the second time. "We're not in our own control."
"I know. But-" Rerdas was interrupted by the sound of a gentle tapping from the hallway. For a moment they both just stared toward it, holding their breath. There was another knock, and the huntmaster drifted toward the door, beckoning for Imalroc to follow. They exchanged a half-panicked glance. Imalroc heard the rasp of the bolt being drawn back, and they gaped at the handle as it turned slowly on its own. The door swung open.