Daysider (Nightsiders) (16 page)

But no one interfered with the humans at all, and after a short time another Opir joined them, speaking casually to the human nearest him. There was nothing in the posture of either one to suggest mastery or servitude. The human neither bowed his head nor flinched away.

Despite his earlier resolution, Damon glanced again at Alexia. She, too, was staring at the crowd, a faint frown on her face. She looked at Damon and cast him a puzzled glance.

Neither one of them had much time to consider the implications of the Opiri’s strange behavior, for the female Opir whom Sergius had sent away was returning, without her helmet and suit. Her pale hair was loose around her shoulders, and her honey-colored skin glowed with health and well-being.

She was not Opir, but human. She walked past Damon without a glance and stopped before Alexia.

“My name is Emma,” she said, offering her hand. “You’re welcome here.”

Alexia stared at Emma’s hand and then looked toward Damon in confusion.

“Don’t look at him,” Emma told her. “You are no longer his property.” She took Alexia’s arm in a firm but gentle hold. “What is your name?”

“Alexia.” She hesitated. “Alexia Fox.”

“You are safe here, Alexia Fox.” Emma tugged on Alexia’s arm. “Come, now. Everything will be all right.”

“Let her go,” Damon said, starting toward them. Sergius grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back.

“Don’t even think of trying to keep her,” the Opir warned. “She doesn’t belong to you.”

Damon wrenched free of Sergius’s hold and spun to face him. “I claimed her fairly, in challenge. You have no right.”

“No right? Where is your sigil of ownership?” He spoke again before Damon could find an answer. “You do not have one, because you are Darketan, and your claim would never be sanctioned.”

Damon knew there had always been a chance that his and Alexia’s plan would involve separation, but he hadn’t expected the challenge to come so soon. He backed out of Sergius’s reach, swept his gaze over the other Opir guards and then met Alexia’s eyes. Her expression was strained as she tried to determine what her next move should be.

Damon had no intention of leaving her alone with Opiri who would be eager to claim such a prize, even if they would be breaking the Treaty by doing so.

Since they had already broken the Treaty merely by existing, that would seem a very small infraction.

“I said I had information to give you,” Damon said, “information that may save your settlement. But my price is the girl.”

“You cannot have her,” Emma said, stepping between him and Alexia. “You may have forced her to submit to you, but that’s over now.”

The confidence of her words left Damon at a loss. She spoke as if she had power in the colony, and she had gone out with the other Opir guards, disguised as one of them, to confront him and Alexia. But while it was clear human serfs were much more leniently treated here than most in Erebus, Emma’s assertiveness went far beyond the privilege permitted a well-favored servant.

“I will Challenge anyone who attempts to take her,” Damon said in his coldest voice.

“Even if you did,” Sergius said behind him, “no one here would accept. And you will not get the chance to make such a Challenge.”

Damon worked his hands into fists, carefully noting the positions of the Opiri around him. The humans would be no trouble, but the Opiri would likely shoot him before he got anywhere near Alexia. They wouldn’t even bother to pit their superior strength against his.

He had made a terrible mistake in bringing Alexia here, a miscalculation for which he could not forgive himself.

“If you move against any of us,” Sergius said, “you will die. But the dhampir will live no matter what happens to you. Make your choice.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Alexia cried, breaking away from Emma. “Please.”

As much as she tried to sound frightened and uncertain, Alexia was incapable of behaving like a serf or a beaten prisoner. Her voice was too strong, her manner too bold. Everyone looked at her, some with surprise, others with calculation. Emma regarded her face with extreme interest.

“He said he found you with an Opir. Is that true?” she asked Alexia. “Did he challenge for you and win?” She leaned close, her voice soft with concern. “What did he do to you?”

“He saved my life,” Alexia said, meeting Damon’s eyes.

They gazed at each other, and Damon felt as if they stood alone again in their hilltop camp, speaking as equals, bickering and threatening and making love.

Making love.
A human phrase that had no equivalent in the ancient Opir tongue.

“You owe him nothing,” Emma said. “Whatever you need you will find here.” She tried to take Alexia’s arm again, but Alexia backed away.

“Why should I trust you?” she asked. “You’re from Erebus. I was taken...” Her lower lip trembled. “All of you are alike!”

“You’re wrong.” Emma held out her hands, palms up. “We want to help you.”

“Then let me go!”

“That would be too dangerous for you, Ms. Fox,” Emma said. “But you will not be treated as a prisoner here.”

“Do you speak for the rest of them?” Alexia demanded, gesturing toward the Opiri who had gathered around them. “For
them?
”

“I swear you will be left alone.”

“I’ll go with you,” Alexia said, “if you
swear
you won’t harm Damon.”

Frowning, Emma looked at Sergius, who inclined his head.

“He won’t be harmed,” Emma said. “Come, now.”

With a last, hooded glance at Damon, Alexia went with the other woman, her feet dragging with reluctance. Damon knew she was afraid for him. She understood that both their positions were precarious, and the colonists were making no secret of their hostility toward him. But she knew that she would better be able to gain intelligence if she pretended to cooperate.

Damon couldn’t blame her. But their separation was doing something to his heart, threatening to pull it through his ribs and out of his chest.

“Where are you taking her?” he asked Sergius.

“That is no longer your concern,” the Opir snapped, abruptly switching to the ancient Opir tongue. “Emma may have promised that you would not be harmed, but ‘harm’ is a matter of interpretation.”

“I don’t expect you to abide by the word of a serf,” Damon said with unfeigned scorn.

“I see you will have to be taught to speak with respect.”

“To you?” Damon asked with a curl of his lip. “An Opir who will not accept the challenge of a Darketan?”

Sergius seized Damon’s arm in a punishing grip, jarring Damon’s nearly healed wrist. “You aren’t worth it,” he said. He removed a short, dark rod from his belt: a prod, used on uncooperative or rebellious serfs. “Move ahead of me.”

Damon knew that resisting would be worse than foolish, yet a familiar anger was festering inside him, the anger he had felt when they had taken Eirene away, when he had believed Alexia might die, and again when he had found her with Lysander. It made his fists clench and his muscles harden, his vision grow sharper and his sense of smell become so acute every scent was like an assault.

“Get going,” Sergius said, poking at Damon’s spine with the prod.

Damon moved, looking for Alexia. The women had crossed the perimeter and were walking toward one of the dormitories. Sergius steered Damon toward a small wooden building that stood apart from the rest.

“Where are you taking me?” Damon asked.

“To a holding cell.”

Digging his boot heels into the dirt, Damon came to a halt. “Tell Theron I am here. He will see me.”

Sergius pushed his visored face close to Damon’s. “You have a choice, Darketan. You’re less than nothing in Eleutheria, and my authority overrides Emma’s. Do as you are told.”

Damon hardly heard him. Eleutheria, he called this place. It meant “freedom.”

Freedom from Erebus. But not for him, or Alexia.

“You have one more chance,” Sergius said. “If you—”

Before he had finished speaking, Damon was spinning, striking out at the least protected part of Sergius’s body. The side of his hand slashed into Sergius’s neck in a disabling blow. The Opir staggered back, choking and coughing as he reached up to protect himself. Damon ripped the prod out of Sergius’s hand.

He had no chance to use it. There was a flash of movement behind him, and he felt a stunning blow to the back of the head.

After that there was nothing but darkness.

Chapter 15

D
amon woke up with a head as heavy as the great statues of the Sires in the Grand Concourse and a clot of intense pain at the base of his skull.

“Get up,” a masculine voice ordered.

Faint light seeped through Damon’s half-closed lids. The floor on which he lay was hard, and the room was dark, but that dim glow gave him a sense of the details before his eyes came into focus.

The holding cell was perhaps two by two meters, bare except for a wooden chair in one corner and a heavy door, currently blocked by the Opir—Sergius—standing over Damon. The sliver of light came from outside, where the door must open onto the commons. The smells were those of night, and Sergius wore not the protective daygear of before but a long, loosely belted tunic and close-fitting pants tucked into high boots.

Damon struggled to his knees, gasped as a white lance of pain plunged into his skull, and planted his hand on the wall for support as he stood. His formerly broken wrist protested the incautious movement with a deep throb of discomfort.

“I see you have survived,” Sergius said in a dry voice. His eyes reflected red in the darkness, and though Damon’s vision was slow in returning, he knew that the Opir was smiling. More or less.

“How long?” Damon asked, resisting the urge to rub the back of his skull.

“Six hours,” Sergius said.

Blinking several times, Damon struggled to make out the Opir’s face. Though the details remained blurred, Damon recognized the long elliptical shape and finely sculpted features typical of high-rank Opiri. Sergius wore his hair cut level with his shoulders and swept back from his forehead, held in place with a small silver circlet that might have represented a dragon. Everything about him exuded elegant disdain.

It was difficult to believe he was the same man who had behaved so roughly before. Sergius’s stare suggested that his opinion of his prisoner had not improved over the intervening hours. Damon was keenly aware of the fact that his vision had not yet recovered, but he had no intention of letting Sergius know he was vulnerable.

“Where is Alexia?” he asked.

Sergius sighed. “We’re back to that again? Nothing has changed.”

“Are you taking me to Theron?”

“Not like
that.
” Sergius moved away from the door. “You will clean yourself first. You stank even before you came through the gates.”

Damon bowed mockingly. “I will endeavor to correct my condition.”

Without comment, Sergius indicated that Damon should precede him out the door. If he was armed, he made no attempt to advertise it, and he offered no threats. He followed Damon out onto the commons, lit with lanterns hung on sturdy poles spaced just closely enough for night-blind humans to find their way from one area of the settlement to the other. The windows of the several dormitories were mostly dark, and only a few Opiri were abroad. Vague shapes—sentries—moved along the battlements.

At the end of one of the dormitories was a lavatory, where Damon and Sergius met a human coming out. The human, a young male, raised his hand to Sergius, glanced at Damon and continued on his way without any further sign of respect, let alone the wariness or outright fear most serfs displayed in the presence of strange Opiri.

Sergius waved Damon through the door and pointed out the clean towels hanging on racks along the wall. Damon did the best he could to scrape off the dirt and blood he hadn’t been able to wash off after the fight with Lysander. As he worked, he listened for voices within the building.

There were none, nor could he identify any trace of Alexia’s scent. He assumed she was in another building and reminded himself that he would learn nothing unless he controlled his emotions.

When he was finished, Sergius nodded grudgingly and took Damon back across the commons, this time toward a small wooden house which, like the holding cell, was set apart from the others. Damon lengthened his stride.

“Stay behind me,” Sergius said. “Theron—”

Damon ignored him and went on to the door. He hesitated only a moment and walked in, Sergius at his heels.

Theron sat behind a neatly made but very plain desk, a stack of papers on one side and a statue of a graceful woman on the other. There was no sign of a computer or any other technology more advanced than the humming generator that stood against the wall and the portable intercom on a table beside it. The generator provided the only light, which outlined the shape of a narrow cot against the back wall.

As soon as Damon had crossed the threshold Theron was on his feet, his mouth stretched in the grin that had always set him apart from any Opir Damon had ever met.

“Theron,” Sergius said, anger in his voice, “this Darketan—”

“Damon!” Theron exclaimed, coming around from behind the desk with arms outstretched. “My dear boy.” He embraced Damon briefly, nodded to Sergius and stepped back.

“Forgive me,” Theron said, his smile fading. “This is quite unexpected. When Sergius said a Darketan by your name had come to Eleutheria claiming to know me—and with a dhampir prisoner, no less—I didn’t believe it at first.”

Damon examined the Bloodmaster’s face. Though his vision was beginning to clear, he found it difficult to accept that Theron could have aged so much in the two years since they had last spoken. Yet the fresh lines were there, lines that would ordinarily indicate extreme old age in an Opir.

Theron was old, but he was not one of the Elders, who were rare and usually lived alone in their towers. His face was still handsome, more rugged than that of most Opiri, his hair still thick and his gaze direct. He was only worn down, bent under the care of bringing together Opiri who would normally resist living in such close quarters.

“You didn’t see us before we entered the valley?” Damon asked. “You didn’t shoot at us?”

“We don’t have the resources to send our people out to shoot at passers-by,” Theron said. “This is all quite a shock to me. Only when the young lady—” He broke off, looking Damon up and down. “You have not been treated well, and for that I apologize.” He indicated the chair facing the desk. “Sit. Sergius, would you find us some refreshment?”

Damon could hear the Opir’s sharp intake of breath, as if he were about to argue. But after a moment Sergius opened the door and walked out, leaving Damon alone with his old mentor. Theron went back to his seat, but Damon remained standing.

“I am at a loss,” Theron said, the words steeped with weariness. “I have been told that you have come to bring some warning to us, but I have difficulty understanding under what circumstances you would arrive without orders from Erebus. You have been observing us on their behalf, have you not?”

“It is true,” Damon said, holding Theron’s gaze. “I was sent to observe your settlement, but I am not here under orders from Erebus. The instructions under which I was operating no longer apply, and I have had no direct contact with other Council agents for days.” He leaned over the desk. “There is war going on outside your walls, Theron, and it is about to sweep you up.”

“Do you think I am not aware of this?” the Bloodmaster asked. He leaned back in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling. “I am not totally cut off from Erebus, Damon. I know how fortunate we are to have been left alone as long as we have.”

“Left alone?” Damon asked. “Or is it that you have deceived those who supported you, and they are no longer accepting your claims of cooperation?”

“They,” Theron said. He looked at Damon again. “You mean the Expansionists, of course. Naturally the Council believes we are in league with them.”

“I was not told what they believe. But the origins of this settlement are an open question, and since by its very existence it is attempting to expand Opir territory, it seems logical to assume a connection with the Expansionists.”

Theron’s gaze hardened. “Look at me, Damon. You know what
I
believe. When have I ever agreed with the Expansionists or supported their positions? You have seen how we have created our little town as a place where Opiri live in peace as equals, without challenge or vassalage. Can you tell me to my face that I have conspired with the enemy?”

“I can tell you that they plan to attack you, wipe you out if possible, no matter the consequences to the Armistice or the political balance in Erebus.”

“Is it possible you haven’t noticed our defenses?”

“The wall? Do you think that will keep out Opiri bent on killing?”

Theron waved his hand in dismissal. “What of you, Damon? Have you come out of your personal loyalty to me?”

Damon took his seat. “I won’t lie to you, Theron. Once I learned you were here, my primary purpose was to discover why the Expansionists are so eager to destroy you, and why an Opir working as a double agent for the Council would say that the colony was not what they believed.”

“Out of curiosity? Or to gain status in Erebus by dealing in useful information?”

Damon countered with a question of his own. “Did you intend your idea of a free society to include Darketans?”

Theron sighed. “When I began this experiment,” he said, “I knew it was little more than a dream. I knew it would provoke strong, even dangerous reactions from all factions in Erebus and from the Enclave, as well. I understood the risks. But I had hoped Eleutheria might somehow set an example....” He shook his head. “Yes, that was my intention, Damon. I had many of what humans call ‘good intentions.’”

“You no longer stand by them?”

Theron’s hand twitched to the stack of papers. “Where do we begin, my boy? You have questions, and so do I. It seems—”

“I have only one question now. The dhampir I brought with me, Alexia Fox—”

“Ah, yes.” Theron smiled again, but sadly, and spread his palm flat over the papers as if he feared they might blow away. “The young agent. You said you had taken her by challenge from another Opir, and that you claimed her as your property.”

The words sounded almost obscene as Theron spoke them, and they felt that way to Damon. “Yes,” he said. “But your people took her, and I want—”

“You
want,
” Theron repeated, his eyes gone cold. “I would not have believed that you, of all Darketans, would be so foolish and greedy as to claim an Enclave agent as a serf.” His chair scraped back, and he rose to walk to the single window. “Is it because you have freed yourself of the Council that you make so bold a move?”

Damon rose, as well. “I have determined to make my own choices, Theron.”

“You will find your choices here are limited.” The Bloodmaster turned to face him, no trace of warmth left in his face. “Whatever you had intended for the young lady, you will find you have no power over her in Eleutheria. You see—”

The door burst open behind Damon, and Alexia’s fresh scent filled the room. She was almost on top of Damon when he turned around. He had a few seconds to note that she was wearing a tunic and pants in place of her badly torn uniform, and that she was smiling.

Sergius strode in after her with a lantern in his hand, a barely concealed scowl on his face. “I found her on her way here as I was returning,” he said. “Shall I—”

“It’s all right, Sergius,” Theron said just as Damon put himself between Alexia and the younger Opir. Theron nodded gravely to Alexia, who took Damon’s arm and turned him around to face her again.

“Didn’t he tell you?” she asked, her eyes very bright in the lantern light.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Have they hurt you?”

She laughed with an ease Damon had never seen before. He tried to make sense of the joy in her eyes and failed.

“What is this?” he asked Theron, who returned his stare without softening.

“She is not yours,” he said. “She is not anyone’s now. There is a reason we call this place Eleutheria, and it is not only because here we regard all Opiri as equals.”

And then Damon understood. The humans he had seen gathering when he and Alexia had arrived hadn’t been afraid of chastisement from their owners, because they were not possessions to be berated and punished for the smallest disobedience. The young man outside the lavatory had seen no need to genuflect because he had nothing to fear from Sergius or any other Opiri in the settlement.

Eleutheria. Freedom.

Damon’s head and wrist began to throb again. “It seems we didn’t have to be quite so cautious,” he said to Alexia.

“I can hardly believe it myself,” she said. “Emma told me what had happened to you. I asked her to get you out of the holding cell, but she wanted to give the colony leaders time to discuss it.” She grinned wickedly. “Serves you right for playing your part a little too well.”

Theron cleared his throat. “Apparently I was mistaken in my suspicions, Damon,” he said. “I had to be sure that Ms. Fox was not under duress when she told us of your purpose here.”

“I did not enjoy the deception,” Damon said stiffly, “but we couldn’t be sure of the reception we would receive, and we had no reason to believe Agent Fox would be treated as a free woman. She is an extraordinary person, and I had no pleasure in treating her—” He broke off before his emotions could become too apparent. “We had no way of knowing you had taken your philosophy to such extremes.”

“Now you see why the Expansionists want to see us destroyed,” Sergius said.

Damon glanced at Sergius and then did a double take. Now that his vision had returned to normal, he saw the Opir’s features clearly for the first time.

“Nikanor!” he said.

“I no longer go by that name,” Sergius said, meeting Damon’s gaze with a little more friendliness than he’d shown earlier.

“Many of us have changed our names since we took up our new life here,” Theron said. “We wish to forget the way of life we once took for granted. No one has been more devoted to our goals than Sergius.”

Nikanor inclined his head in acknowledgment of Theron’s praise. “I was not the first to see the wisdom in Theron’s philosophy, but when I did I knew it must be put into practice as thoroughly as possible.”

“He has been invaluable to the colony,” Theron said, fondness in his voice. “He has risked much.”

Damon wasn’t surprised that Nikanor was involved with Theron’s experiment. He had been one of the Bloodmaster’s most devoted disciples. Once Theron had freed him from vassalage, he could have struck out on his own and worked to move up the ranks, but instead he had chosen to remain with Theron and reap the benefits of the Bloodmaster’s considerable wisdom. For a time, he and Damon had shared Theron’s tutelage, and Nikanor had treated Damon as a fellow student rather than an inferior.