The Bound Ones Final Draft: Rage and Retribution
#5 of The Bound Ones Final Draft
Rage and Retribution
"It can't have been anyone else, the bites . . . He opened the old scars, all of them. I don't know why! Why would he . . . Why would anybody do that, Rhys?"
"Oraz," Rhys repeated. His hands were curling into fists and he forced them apart. There wasn't anybody here to hit. "Sidro, drink your drink."
The silver-blue complied, meekly, and his verbal wandering ceased for a moment as he sipped.
"What do we do?" Rhys demanded, leaving no time for him to get started again. "I understand what's wrong, now what do we do?"
"I can't . . . I can't do it, Rhys, I can't do it!" The cup jittered out of Sidro's hands and spent its contents on the floor.
Rhys kicked it out of the way and set his hands on the Pythian's shoulders. They'd been through that already and it was no help. "Focus, damn it! Why can't you?"
"He needs me with him. He can't take care of himself. But I can't stay there, I can't stay there, I have to work. I don't belong there, they wouldn't let me . . . You're hurting me," Sidro observed numbly.
The gray-green let go and sheathed his claws. "So you work," he said. "I'll go."
Sidro merely stared at him. He understood each word individually, but there was no way to connect them up.
"Put me back in the cells and I'll take care of him," Rhys said. "Tell me what to do, and put me in next to him so I can reach. I'll stay with him, I belong there."
"The records." The Pythian's words came exceedingly slow. He still didn't understand. "You're in 15-A, across the hall. It's all in the records, you couldn't--"
"Oh, screw the records!" Rhys cried. "You can get to the records. You read mine, didn't you?" He wouldn't wait for Sidro to formulate an answer. "What do you need to do? Blot out a number? Tear a page? Set fire to something?"
"I couldn't--"
"Yes you can, and you will. That's not even an issue. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to take with me. Don't sit there with your mouth open! Damn it, you said there wasn't time!" No time for Sidro to dither, and no time for Sidro to think. If Rhys let him, he would reject the whole idea. The gray-green glanced at the tablets littering the floor and began to fish them out of the mess. "How many of these?" he demanded.
"Glass," Sidro said distantly.
Rhys regarded the spilt cup of cider. How much of that had he poured down the Pythian's throat before he started making sense? How strong was this batch?
A silver-blue fist banged him on top of the head, shattering this brief reverie. "I said red-collars can't have glass!" Standing now, Sidro regarded his room and its contents. "Fuck!"
"Is there a box or something?" Rhys offered weakly.
"I'll give you a pillow," Sidro said.
The gray-green was beginning to feel a little drunk himself. "What?"
The silver-blue snatched one from the bed and turned on it with sudden violence, skinning it and laying open its feathered guts. "In here. You can put everything in here. Hide it--I thought you were helping me!"
"Yes!" Rhys insisted, rather lost. "How?"
Sidro cast about for an empty jar, retrieved one and tossed it to Rhys. "Get 'em in here, the tablets. Many as you can find. Four with every meal . . . You listening?"
"Yes!" A handful of pills rattled into the jar.
"Okay. Four with every meal, four in the middle of the night, close as you can figure. Crushed if he can't swallow." He held the pillow, cuffed and open, in one hand as he selected more remedies from the shelves around them. "Green salve--Look a minute! You see this? Green salve, helps healing, slick the bandages down. Bandages!" He presented a wound ball of linen and secreted it among the down. "White liquid, you know this stuff, it'll make him sleep. Not more than once a day . . . Twice, I guess. See this? Yellow powder. A pinch in each wound when you change the bandages . . . And that's once a day, when you can, not yet. I'll show you how when we get there. And you have to make him drink!"
Rhys nodded and spun the lid back on the jar. It was a little more than halfway full. He hoped it wouldn't show too much through the pillow, which was already sagging with unorthodox filling. He added it to the pile and peeked at the other contents, rapidly parroting back his instructions.
A few days with Oraz could do wonders for your memory, really. Especially in abject panic.
Sidro nodded brief approval. He gazed at his stores of medicine as if they were paining him.
Damn it. Rhys thought. He's realized. He won't let me. . .
"No," Sidro snarled to himself. "He won't."
"Oraz?" Rhys asked him, confused.
"Nace!" the silver-blue replied. He glared at the gray-green as if he had lost his mind. "Nace won't! Why should I care about Oraz?"
"Well--" Rhys began, and he shut his mouth with a click. Best to avoid the subject altogether. Sidro hadn't tumbled to the problem yet, maybe he wouldn't until it was too late.
The Pythian sighed and shook his head. "Just in case . . ." He settled on a bottle of red liquid. "For fever. About . . . Like, this much," he said, holding his fingers against the bottle, half an inch apart. "I think you can measure in the cap. Every two hours. I don't have a stupid clock to give you, I'm sorry. You'll have to guess, it's okay. It won't hurt him. But he won't need it. I cleaned everything out. If he can just heal, if you're there, he'll be fine."
Sidro shoved the pillow back into its case, hiding the ripped seam at the bottom. He handed it to Rhys and began to strip his bed.
"Huh?" said the gray-green, as a blanket was thrown at him.
"Keep him covered," Sidro said. He found another blanket and sent it after the first. "And get this between him and the floor, if you can." After a moment's consideration he balled up the two sheets and handed them to Rhys as well. "If you run out of bandages, you can rip those up. They shouldn't take 'em from you."
"Wait a minute . . . " Rhys coiled the bedding around until he could see over it. "How will you sleep?"
"Haven't got a minute. We used to sleep on the floor, anyway, when we were kids," the Pythian muttered, searching his mind for anything they might have missed. Undoubtedly, they were missing a lot, but there was nothing he could think of at the moment. "It doesn't matter."
Rhys lingered, not quite sure how this had happened so fast. Not quite sure Sidro wasn't going to run back into the room and call the whole thing off. Was he willing to risk his life for Nace, if Sidro didn't realize . . .
But, the dragon was leaving without him. There was no time.
The one thing he had not anticipated was the smell. Rhys had steeled himself against the cold iron, the dismal light, but he had never known the smell. He had never come upon it in this way, consciously, in ever-increasing waves. Ammonia from the open sewer comprised the most of it, but there were other things on top of that, older things, dirtier things. Sweat and spilled semen, hopelessness and fear.
Desperation.
A dragon with a blue collar was sitting at the front of his cell and crying. Not hiding, making no effort to stem the slow cascade of tears and snot, just sitting there crying as if that were the natural state of things. He neither looked up at them nor turned away as they passed. The sound of him echoed.
When they reached Nace's cell, Rhys wanted to add his own voice to the desolate sobs, but someone had taken all his strength somehow. A wavering sigh escaped him. He knelt at the cell door, reaching through it. Too late, they'd come too late, he . . .
Under the gray-green's touch, the hollow rib cage shuddered and drew a long, rattling breath.
Rhys jerked back with a yelp.
A wound at Nace's throat bubbled alarmingly, and the air rushed out of him again. Still now, deathly still, gathering strength.
The gray-green forgot his own breath until Nace gasped another.
"Oh, gods, he's alive," Rhys whispered, more horrified than relieved. It would have been easier to find him dead. To live like this would be misery, nothing but a faceless mass of scales and raw tissue, unrecognizable beneath red-soaked bandages and . . .
Rhys had to clamp down on his dinner. "Sidro . . . You sewed him back together."
A line of even black stitches joined him at the base of his tail, dotted his throat at the place where his air wanted to bubble out. And there were another couple laid into his cheek, here and there, everywhere.
Sidro was trying to force the key into the door of the adjoining cell. He paused to steady the gray-green's shoulder, more gray than green. "It's for deep wounds. They won't hurt him. Deep breaths, Rhys."
But drawing more air would only mean taking in more of the blood smell, and the urine and despair smell of the cells. Rhys shut his eyes and swallowed hard. Sidro was shaking so badly he couldn't fit a key in a hole, but he had put those careful stitches in, and bound the wounds. The least Rhys could do was not faint. And what help was that? He stood, "Here, let me have it," and popped the door open.
The silver-blue rushed inside and knelt at the shared wall of bars. "Good! We can reach him from here. Get the bandages."
Rhys dumped the bedding in one corner and felt around at the bottom of the pillow case until he seized on the springy ball of fabric. He tore off a couple of good lengths and brought everything to Sidro.
"We might be into the sheets sooner that I thought," Sidro smiled grimly. "Help me. Have to stop the bleeding, or nothing else matters. Pack another dressing on, tighter." Sidro guided his hands. "Don't take any off until he stops bleeding through. If you take off the top layer and see fresh blood, stop. Hold that." The silver-blue tied a double knot. He instructed Rhys in binding another couple of wounds before he was satisfied with the state of things. By that point they were both bloodied up to the elbows.
"Soap," said the Pythian. "Shit. I knew I'd forget . . . "
"When you come back," Rhys told him. He moved to nuzzle Sidro's cheek, but the dragon pulled back from him.
"I forgot," Sidro repeated. He shook his muzzle, eyes wide. "I forgot, I forgot, oh, God, I forgot . . ."
And here it is, the gray-green thought. He dug in his nails and readied himself for the fight. He was not about to back down now, not now that he was already down here, and he knew the situation. Nace would die without care, and he intended to give it.
"I can't leave you here!" the Pythian cried. "He'll take you. You'll die. What was I thinking?"
"You were thinking there wasn't any other way," Rhys said. "And you were right."
"No. No. Somebody else . . . "
"Who?"
"I don't know. Someone else. The girl, or . . . I don't know!"
"Sidro, it has to be this way."
"No! Oraz will kill you and you'll both die! What was I thinking?"
"We have a chance," Rhys told him. He held the Pythian's hands. "It's a good chance and it's the only chance. And I want to do this."
"Let me stay!" Sidro pleaded. "I'll sleep here, on the floor. They can only hurt me, they can't make me, they won't kill me . . . "
"But I need you," Rhys said. "I need you to be all right. And I need you to get to the records--" Sidro ducked his head away with a snarl and Rhys shook him. "That's important! Get the records and fix it so I can stay where I am. They'll kick both of us out if you stay. Or they'll kick you out and put me back across the hall where I can only watch him dying. I don't want that and neither do you."
"No," said the silver-blue, nearly a moan, but a defeated one.
"Yes," said Rhys. And then, because it seemed he needed to be told, "Go on, now."
The Pythian left him miserably. He shut the cell door and gave it a few yanks to be certain. Not that it would do any good.
Rhys caught his hand before he could let go of the bar. "Stay safe."
Sidro turned away. "You too."
"Sure," Rhys nodded. "Sure." He looked after the departing Pythian until he rounded the corner and was lost from sight.
"Heartbreaking," a voice disdained.
The gray-green blinked and stared towards the sound. He couldn't focus, and when he could focus, he couldn't believe . . .
"Achar," he managed, slowly. ". . . is that a quilt?"
That wasn't what he wanted to say, but it was what Achar was holding, and the first thing that came to mind. Achar also had a rug and a small mattress, a stack of leather-bound books, and a dark, velvet drape that hid the bars to either side. He had some little trinkets and things, too, but Rhys was hard pressed to tell what a trinket was when he was holding one in his hand, let alone when they were across the hall and behind a frowning dragon.
"Achar," he tried again. "Are you all right?"
"No," Achar replied, as if that much were obvious.
"No," Rhys agreed, though it wasn't obvious. Achar looked well-fed and well-cared-for, not a scratch on him, and his few possessions seemed a comparative luxury. But, of course, Oraz was the cause of it all. "I'm sorry," he said. "But, the quilt . . . I only brought blankets, he's so cold, and I'm here now, I could . . . Do you think you can get it over?"
Achar quirked a brow. "Why should I do that?"
The gray-green blinked at him. "Why . . . ? You don't understand, Achar, he's hurt. He's badly hurt, he's on the floor. The blankets are thin, and the quilt would be so much better. He . . . "
The young dragon twisted his mouth into an ugly, cynical smile. "And what's he done to deserve it, if I may ask?"
Rhys stumbled over the question. "He . . . What?"
"I earned this quilt," Achar continued, running a hand over it. "I bled for this quilt, and all my things." He motioned around him. "My blood. My tears. And what's he done?"
"He's bleeding now!" Rhys cried, half-strangled.
"He's dying," Achar replied. "He can do it without my quilt."
"Achar . . ." The gray-green forced his teeth to unclench, his claws to uncurl. He swallowed and spoke carefully, shakily, "I know you're angry with me. I know . . . I know I got you into this mess, and I left you. I should have come back sooner, right away. I should have done more to protect you. You have every right to hate me. But don't take it out on Nace. He's been nothing but kind to you, to both of us. He needs help now . . . Your help, too. Please, don't do this."
"Please?" said Achar. He snorted. "Is that the best you can do?"
"What . . . ?"
"You want the quilt, you earn it. Convince me. Beg."
Rhys shook his muzzle, anger rising, "What, do you think this is some kind of game? This is his life, not some toy you can throw under the bed because you're pissed at it! He's real! He's hurting! What the hell's the matter with you?"
The yellow-gold narrowed his eyes. "Oh, I know you can do better than that."
"What do you want from me," Rhys shot back, "blood?"
The dragon grinned, a slow, cold, remorseless grin. "For a start."
"No," the gray-green said, drawing back. Too familiar, that grin, much too familiar in a way he didn't want to admit.
"Then I guess you don't want it very badly," Achar said. He tossed the quilt to the back of his cell, and stood to draw the drapes around. "He'll die anyway," the gold said, as he eclipsed himself. "I hope you die, too."
"You can't do this!" Rhys slammed his bloody fist against the wall, leaving a dark rosette. He shouted at the blank, red drapes. "You can't . . . You little monster! You little shit! You CAN'T!"
When Rhys had exhausted his vocabulary of invective, he rinsed his hands under the tap and began the machinations necessary to get Nace rolled on to the thicker blanket. He went easily enough, despite the awkwardness of their positions. The weight of the yellow-green suggested he was nearly desiccated.
A soft sigh.
Rhys jerked his head up and looked around them.
Another soft sound, this time more of a chirr.
Thhirr . . .
"Nace?" He brought his ear down to the still muzzle. "Say it again, okay?"
The yellow-green was trying to force sound through a swollen and uncooperative instrument. Pieces of one tooth were still lodged inside his upper lip. Rhys felt the whisper of air more than heard it:
Thhhirr . . . seee . . . Thir . . . see . . .
"Thirsty!" the gray-green yelped. He lunged for the tap and cupped his hands under the flow. "Coming! Just a minute . . . " If Nace wasn't able to drink this way, he didn't know what to do. Rhys tipped his hands through the bars, held them against the yellow-green's muzzle, held them steady, and hoped.
He felt the flicker of a thin tongue against his palm. Gradually, the water he held was sipped away. Overjoyed, he made another run to the tap and back and continued to do so until Nace was either sated or too tired to drink anymore. He flicked the rejected portion of water from his hands and rubbed the yellow-green's muzzle dry with a corner of the blanket. The dragon groaned softly in response.
"More? Something else?" Rhys leaned closer; Nace was making words again.
Ssssm . . . Sim . . . Sim . . .
"I-I don't understand. Are you hurting? Cold?" Rhys tucked the other blanket around him.
The yellow-green smiled vaguely, smiled at nothing, and passed into unconsciousness again.
"Oh, what the hell is this?" she said.
Rhys lifted his head, hollow-eyed. Sleep was possible for the yellow-green, the only thing possible, but Rhys couldn't quite manage it himself. Not with the weight of this responsibility on his chest, not with Nace's breath rattling in his ear.
The girl stood before him, bearing breakfast, wreathed in steam. "I don't have a meal for this cell," she told him. The words were petulant, but her gaze was calculating, narrowed.
Rhys tried to compose himself and look innocent at her, but there was a fire drill going on in his head. There were records in the kitchen? More records? Or were those the only records? Did Sidro forget? Gods, it had only been a few hours, maybe he didn't have a chance . . . Were they fucked already? Well and truly fucked?
"Somebody sure screwed up," she said, glaring at him.
"Heh," he said, and shrugged weakly. It was the least-incriminating thing he could think of. Screwed up? Really? Well, I sure wouldn't know anything about THAT, ha, ha, ha, ha . . . Shit, oh, shit, oh, shit!
She bent and slid a dish under his door, and one under Nace's door. This one, she pushed carefully to one side, towards the gray-green as well.
"I'll have to fix that," she complained. "Cook can barely read. Kinda thing happens all the time." And then, still crouching low, she seized Rhys by the ear and hissed at him, "I don't know what else you're up to, I don't want to know, but you better make him eat. It's my ass now, too, and you damn well better make him eat!"
Slack-jawed, Rhys only watched as she dished Achar out his silver tray (it was accepted with a silent parting of the dark curtain) and left them. She made no further remark.
"I guess . . . Guess you've got a friend here," he told the yellow-green beside him. "Sort of." He reached through the bars and snagged Nace's dish with a clawtip. He didn't know how he was going to get congealed porridge into an unconscious dragon, not without a small miracle or at least a blunt stick, but she'd given him the chance. He'd try.
She was only the first. Over the next few days as rumor spread and patrols reported home, they crawled out of the stonework. It was like turning over a rock and finding black beetles squirming there, more than you'd even think possible.
The first few were skittery. Rhys was not exactly welcoming. It was obvious they were there for the yellow-green, and Nace was in no shape to entertain anyone, not even as an exhibit. Not if Rhys had any say. It wasn't until one of them came back with a useless vase of flowers that the gray-green realized there was something more than morbid curiosity involved here.
It was guilt.
Any one of these penitents, any one of them could have claimed Nace as his own, couldn't they? Could have prevented this from happening! But they hadn't and it had and so they brought things. Little things that they could afford to lose, offered with shoulders slumped and eyes downcast. An extra blanket, a pitcher of cold water, throw pillows, flowers. A few things useful, but mostly crap. Sometimes they would hang around afterwards, shuffling, waiting for some sign of acceptance, or even of life from the yellow-green. Usually, Nace would sleep through, and Rhys thought that was just as well; the dragon seemed more aware of his pain every time he woke.
The gray-green supposed he might have done something to make their captors more at ease, but it was neither his job nor his inclination to dole out forgiveness. Nace might do that when and if he was able. For now, Rhys concerned himself merely with keeping the yellow-green alive.
Still, he would spare a moment or two for thanks, for the girl who brought the food, and, silently, one other. It couldn't be Sidro, but some other dragon, with high enough rank to give him access, was sending Nace chipped ice. It came every morning before breakfast, a bucketful, large enough to keep a few pieces frozen until well after dinner. Nace had increasing difficulty drinking, and there was little he could eat, but he would almost always take a few pieces of ice. Wrapped in a ragged scrap of cloth, the cold helped bring down the swelling in his muzzle, and beneath his tail. In a few days, the yellow-green grew recognizable again.
Sidro came back as soon as he was able, which was not very soon, half-drunk and trembling. He had not weathered the interim well, and there was a snatch of new red clawmarks on the side of his face.
Rhys, intent on getting Nace to accept a piece of celery from the stew, was in no position to notice that or anything else. "Come on. It's soft. You only have to swallow. Come on now, it's soft . . . "
" . . . hurts," came the dry whisper. He closed his eyes and inched his muzzle away. "Tired."
"I know, but I want you to get this down. You can have some ice after, okay?"
Nace gave admittance to the celery and swallowed convulsively.
"Good! Okay . . . " Rhys grit his teeth as the ice bucket was lifted and set closer with a crunch. "Not yet, damn it. He can still--" He broke off as his gaze was met not by some helpful stranger, but the unsteady silver-blue.
The Pythian was redolent of alcohol.
"Oh, gods, where've you been?" Rhys could not choke down his irritation. Sidro had left them too long. He was running out of medicine and he was really feeling that lack of soap, having to clean blood and food and worse things with his bare hands and water. And now, here at last, the Pythian was offering ice when the food was still there for Nace to work at. He was drunk and stupid and not helping. Nace could have all the ice he wanted when the girl took the food away, but not now! Couldn't he see that?
Sidro hunched his shoulders and offered a sloppy smile. "Well, I'uz . . . I guess I was home, is where I was."
"Did you at least bring some soap?"
"Huh?" He dipped his head. "Oh. F'rgot."
"You've been drinking," the gray-green observed acidly. He struck at the floor, making the metal dish rattle. "Gods be damned . . . I've been down here . . . I've been knee deep in blood and shit, trying to keep him alive--because you couldn't--and . . . You've . . . Been . . . Drinking! Have you done anything else? You should've been here days ago! The girl's done more than you since then! Did you even bother with the records before you started in on the cider? You stupid fuck!"
There was an amused, soprano giggle from behind the velvet drape.
"You shut up!" Rhys snarled. "You're useless!"
Sidro staggered back from the cry and sat down on his tail.
The gray-green narrowed his eyes. Good. They were both useless, the pair of them. He pointedly turned from the corridor and applied his attention where it might do some good.
Nace shrank from his touch. "Don't . . . don't . . . "
"No . . . " Rhys shook his head. The anger slowly drained from his expression. "It's all right. Not your fault. Shhh." Nace was crying softly and calling him by a name that wasn't his own. Rhys gave him a couple pieces of ice and stroked his muzzle until he subsided. There was no point trying to make him eat now, he was too tired, and too afraid.
Damn Sidro. Better never to have come at all.
"Rhys . . . ?"
"You still here?" the gray-green replied, not looking up.
There was the whisper and clink of glass. "You h-hafta . . . Put these with the others. I'm sorry. I'll go."
Rhys turned and found a disorganized pile of bottles pushed beneath his cell door. Wary of Achar, who was apt to be an active hindrance if given half a chance, he swept them quickly into the pillowcase. More medicine, all of it familiar, and especially important was the full decanter of white liquid. Thank the gods. Nace had been resting poorly, even with . . .
"Sidro!" He caught the Pythian's attention just after he had rounded the corner. The silver-blue paused and peeked back around, his expression hopeless.
Rhys met his gaze, but barely. There was a sting in his eyes, and an aching at the back of his throat. "Come back here. Come back."
Sidro drew closer, a few steps, uncertain.
The gray-green swallowed hard. He could understand how the others were driven to visit, to leave their little apology-fetishes. As if a token of flowers would do any good when he knew he deserved to be slapped. "I'm not going to yell; I didn't think. I didn't know. . . "
Sidro choked, smiling a watery smile. "Was nothing. Really nothing. Nothing better, or new. All I've been good for. Nothing . . . "
"Sidro, please." Rhys reached out to him, and the Pythian closed the gap between them, reluctant, self conscious. Rhys brushed his cheek. "Sidro . . . What?"
The silver-blue slipped the light touch and angled his head away. "No, no. Nothing. That's nothing."
Rhys had seen enough, and felt it. The scratches were still red and damp. A tinge of blood had come away on his fingers. "Who did that? Why?"
"That's not important!" the Pythian snapped. He pressed his palm against the wound. "It doesn't matter who it was, they had every right. You too."
"No," Rhys told him. "Not me or anyone else. What did you do?"
"That!" He flung a gesture at the bulging pillow case. "Those . . . Things! I did that, okay? Okay?"
"Why would they . . . ?"
"Because I did that instead of what I'm supposed to do!" Sidro savagely wiped his eyes. "Because I'm u-useless! It doesn't matter what else I do, if I keep up in my work, but I can't . . . I can't!" he insisted to the gray-green. "I sit, and I worry, and I worry and I drink, and then I don't worry, but I can't do anything!"
"The records . . . ?" Rhys murmured.
"Piss," said Sidro. "A night's work. The other things took longer but . . . What else am I supposed to do?" He seized the dragon through the bars and shook him, demanding, "How'm I supposed to function?"
Rhys reached back, held him, tightly. "You have to," he said.
Sidro tried to look away.
"No," said Rhys. "I know you don't want to, but you have to. You listen. I need you, Sidro. Nace needs the medicine and gods know what else besides, and you can't do anything if they hurt you. You do your work and stop them hurting you, and you function, because we need you to function."
"It's useless!" cried the Pythian.
"It's not useless if it keeps you alive," Rhys replied. "You do whatever it takes to keep you alive. You do what you have to."
"I forgot your fucking soap," the silver blue chided. He dipped his muzzle and began to sob.
Rhys kept hold of him, guided him slowly to the floor. After a few moments, he cried out in frustration, "For love of the gods, you can't sit here and cry about soap!"
Sidro giggled miserably and rubbed his eyes. "No. No . . . Right."
"Just want some ice," Nace murmured.
"Huh?" They both turned to look at him.
"No more soup," the yellow-green whispered, exhausted. "Just want some ice."
Sidro giggled again and clamped his muzzle shut.
Rhys smiled at him and drew the blanket over his shoulder. "Sure. No more soup. You did good. Here. " The gray-green fed him a piece, and Nace closed his eyes, contented.
"Wish," he breathed, steaming slightly around the coldness. "I remember . . . "
"Yeah," the gray-green allowed. Nace's coherency was nebulous. Whatever he remembered, he'd be sleeping soon.
"'Member . . . Remember when we all had the ice cream?"
Sidro sat forward and took the yellow-green's hand. "I remember that," he said. He snickered. "But we got sick on it, remember, Nace?"
"It was nice," the dragon protested. He swallowed the last cool trickle of the melting ice. "Cold."
"Cold," Sidro nodded. He wiped his eyes with a free hand. "But that was a long time ago."
"Nice," sighed the yellow-green. He sank into the nest of blankets and slept, at peace.
The Pythian gently slipped his hand away. He touched a finger to his muzzle and crept back to his feet.
"You'll be all right?" Rhys asked him, softly.
Sidro nodded. One corner of his mouth twitched. "I'll do what I have to," he said.
She had a tagged key, which she always had, and a silver dish, which was Achar's daily fare. But she turned to Rhys instead and popped the lock on his door. He sat up and stared at her.
"Well, you must have been a Very Good Boy!" she said. She was laughing, not out loud. The corners of her eyes crinkled. "Red-collars aren't even allowed special orders! Isn't that funny?"
Achar, hearing this, snatched open his drapes. "What are you doing? That's mine!"
She flicked up two fingers, between them a folded scrap of parchment. It was like a magic trick. She must have practiced. "Not today! I don't think tomorrow, either."
"What are you talking about? That's mine! You know it's mine! It's always been mine! It's a mistake!"
Rhys backed off from the cell door, shaking his head. He wouldn't take it. That tray was Oraz's business. If the girl was young and stupid enough to mess with him, Rhys had to be responsible for her. She would be punished, maybe hurt badly, despite her sex. Or because of it. It was a kind thought, but too much, really.
"So it's a mistake," she sniffed, ignoring him. "Not my mistake. Not my ass. Cook has his orders, I have mine." She set the covered dish at the gray-green's feet, shut the door and turned to the gold. "This is yours." She shunted a brown slop of stew beneath Achar's door.
Achar stepped sideways, unwilling to even touch it. He glared at the dish and then at her. "I won't eat it. You can't make me. This is garbage!"
"So you starve." She shrugged. "Not my responsibility. I have orders." She slid a perfunctory dish beneath Nace's door. "You better not feed him that," she admonished the gray-green. "It's garbage." Sniggering to herself, she turned the cart around and pushed it out of the cells.
"You numb cunt!" Achar shrieked after her. He made as if to throw his dish but thought better of it, letting it slip back to the floor with a clunk.
"Such language," Rhys scolded. "Oraz would be shocked at you." He approached the tray. Well, she'd left it with him, and she'd as much as told him it wasn't her doing, at least not entirely her doing. He couldn't just let it sit there, there might be something Nace could eat. He lifted the lid.
Wow.
Mashed potato, gravy, bread roll (Bread!), green vegetable (Mushy, unidentifiable, that would go right to Nace), and meat! Shredded, in a vaguely spherical pile. He had a taste of it. Oh, mercy. But it was heavily spiced and pretty tough, none of that for the yellow-green with his broken teeth. Thus convinced, he took a bigger bite. What else for Nace? Maybe not the bread, unless he could soak it and soften it. He examined a silver side-dish which held a melting, whitish lump. There was a wineglass, too.
"I'll scream," Achar declared, strangely calm and resolute. He glared at Rhys across the hallway, one hand clenched against the cell door. "I'll cry and scream. I'll wake him. He won't get a moment's rest if you keep that from me."
Rhys slammed the lid back down, cutting a crescent from the meat and potatoes. He rumbled softly, possessively. There was food here for Nace and he meant for the yellow-green to have it. "Bullshit," he said. "You have to have a heart, to cry. You have to have feelings."
The yellow-gold narrowed his eyes, They glinted. He sobbed. Once.
"Fuck you," Rhys replied. He carried the tray back with him to Nace's side.
Achar sobbed again, and then he howled.
Nace answered the cry and tried to sit up, pained, half-asleep, unseeing.
"No-no . . . " Rhys petted him. "Everything's okay. It's nothing. Go back to sleep, you can go back to sleep . . . "
Achar cried as if his vile soul was rent to pieces.
Nace was trying to crawl away, and gaining ground, despite the gray-green's arms around him. There was no good way to hold him through the bars, and no words would reassure him over Achar's shrieks. Nace was going to tear every stitch in his body if he kept on.
"Gods, help me," the gray-green cried, "if you hurt him I'll kill you!" In that moment he would have, if he could have. But he couldn't do anything, and Achar knew it.
"Give me the tray," the gold repeated.
Except that. And he wouldn't do that. The gold was horrible. What would he want next if Rhys gave in on this? Blood? Tears? He could hurt Nace any time he wanted, and there was nothing . . .
Achar took a deep breath, "Oh, why are you so awful to me? All you want to do is hurt me! You're worse than ORAZ!" This last was well-calculated, delivered with cupped hands to carry the sound.
Nace shrieked and convulsed, tearing his nails on the floor. Rhys was losing his hold. If the yellow-green got away from him, he'd run right into the wall and break into a million bloody pieces.
"Shut up!" Rhys demanded. "Shut up or I'll get Sidro to take something else away from you!"
Oh, shit. Rhys nearly dropped Nace to strangle himself, but that wouldn't call the words back. Nothing would.
Was it Sidro? It had to be Sidro! And now he'd told Achar . . .
Oh, shit!
But the gold had gone quiet.
Scared you, didn't I? Rhys realized, looking over. Achar's expression was close-mouthed consternation, and it almost brought a smile to the gray-green face. Maybe I can do something. Maybe I can hurt you after all.
"He can't do that," Achar said at last.
"Yes he can!" the gray-green insisted. Now that he had a stick long enough to bludgeon the gold, he wasn't going to stop until Nace's safety was assured. "You keep that shit up and you'll see!"
The yellow-gold narrowed his eyes and was about to speak, but Rhys overrode him, "Maybe I'll get your quilt anyway, huh? Wouldn't that sting? Does it always come back after washdays? It must be written down somewhere. Or the mattress? Or the rug? I could do with a lot of your little comforts over here!"
Achar bundled in his wings. "I'll tell," he said softly. "I'll tell my Master and then you'll see."
"When?" Rhys shot back. "He hasn't been down in days. Maybe he's tired of you, Achar. Maybe he doesn't care anymore. Maybe he sees how ugly you've gotten and he can't stand you anymore. What will you do if he doesn't come, send a note? Who'd take a note for you? But I know Sidro will be back, and Nace has visitors all the time, I'm sure one of them would take a message for him." Really, he'd only trust a note to the girl, if even her, but no reason to tell Achar that. He'd already gotten Sidro in worse trouble and that was enough. "I don't even have to wait. But you will. Without a quilt."
The young dragon snarled quietly to himself, uncertain.
Rhys, not yet assured, drove the last point home, "It could be a long time! It could be forever, you don't know. If you want to be safe, you'll be quiet." He smiled. "Now."
Achar snatched his curtains shut.
Rhys listened to the silence and sighed relief. He released Nace, covered him, and began to dab his new injuries in salve. They weren't much, thankfully. Rhys didn't think he'd need Sidro's help again . . . If Sidro could come again. If Achar didn't get word to someone important (Forget Oraz, what about the GUARD?) and get him punished. Or killed.
Sudden shame enveloped him. He hung his head and piled both arms over it. It was only a matter of time before Sidro was found out, now Rhys had made sure of that. And for what? Nace might still die, only now with the luxury of peace and quiet. There was the tray, but could Nace eat from it without being sick? Rhys couldn't, not after this.
He had another look at the food. The melting white lump, melted now, was ice cream. Vanilla. Nace got it down without complaint, and then he went to sleep.
Dinner came with more ice cream and a puzzling scrap of parchment tucked under the potato.
"The big military. To be. No," it read, in wobbly Siwan characters. They looked for all the world as if they have been traced out of a book, by someone with no grasp of grammar or diction at all. "A lot. to sunset. Able. The hidden. To give. You. The sick one. Eatable. To traverse stairs. Able. No. A lot. to sunset. To cause. To go. A dragon. Poison. to sunrise." It was signed, inexplicably, with an archaic gardening term which Rhys had only seen written down a couple of times before, "A completed row of beans," which meant fifteen to one-hundred seed-plants, depending on context.
'Fifteen Beans,' Rhys thought, balling up the missive preparatory to throwing it down the trench. What's the cook been drinking?
Except . . . Since when did a Pythian cook get bombed out of his skull and start writing Siwan characters?
A row of seed-plants . . . ?
A Seed-row?
"Oh, shit!" The gray-green smoothed the parchment out on the floor and crouched over it. Thankfully, it was but little smudged, and that gravy stain had probably been there in the first place. Peering at it closely brought him no closer to making sense of this unintentional code, but after an hour's sweat the nonsense began to link up in his brain.
"The big soldier," he muttered. Achar had been silent since lunchtime and no one else was around to stop him from talking to himself. "Oraz. Has to be. Oraz is . . . Isn't. Isn't what? Isn't a lot? No. Isn't. Doesn't exist. Isn't here. Oraz isn't here, or won't be here, a lot . . . A lot of days. Because he's hiding. No. New thought here: hidden. Or, hiding place. Cachebox. Safe! Oraz isn't here so we're safe for a while. I'm to give the . . . That's Nace. I'm to give him edible things. Er, what's edible to him. Okay. New thought, um . . . A lot of days again . . . It's not possible to use stairs for many days. It's not possible to make a dragon come downstairs with poison for many days . . . Makes no sense at all."
He scratched at the operant word, the mention of poison, hoping to dislodge a speck of dirt or trace the faint line of an inkless pen. Could it be anything else? The only thing close was another archaic term, probably best expressed as 'tinctures', but that was no better.
Eventually he divided the garbled phrase in two, mainly because half of it made sense and the other was indigestible as written. Sidro himself would be unable to come down for a few days, the gray-green decided, but he was going to send another dragon in his place.
At sunrise, evidently. With poison.
It was either some bizarre suicide pact or a stupid mistake. Rhys suspected the latter, and he tucked the message into the pillowcase for later consideration. Someone might show up in the morning and straighten it all out, or if not, he could take another look at it then. For now, his eyes and brain were melting.
In the mean time, Nace ought to have another dose of the white liquid in hopes of a good night's rest, at least until midnight when he'd need to take more pills. Rhys measured in a beaten cup that one of the visitors had left them and pulled at the yellow-green to shift him.
Nace groaned and came to a milky awareness.
"Sorry," the gray-green told him. "I just need your head back. You can go right back to sleep . . . "
"Rh-Rhys?" Nace asked weakly.
"Hey. Yeah." The dragon nodded, smiling. "That's me."
The yellow-green flinched at him, focusing. He tried to sit up, but Rhys prevented it. "Am . . . Am-am I . . . ?"
"Lie back," Rhys insisted. "You're hurt. You'll make it worse."
"Am I dead too?" the yellow-green breathed.
"What? No! You're not dead!" Rhys cried. Dead? After all this? He wouldn't stand for it.
Nace stared at him, shaking his head. "You . . . You were . . . You were . . . "
"I wasn't dead!" Rhys interrupted, horrified. "No one's dead!" Nace reached out, caught his arm and squeezed. Rhys reciprocated. "You see? You're not gonna die and I'm not dead, okay?"
"Okay," Nace replied. Softly, like a dry wind, he began to sob. "You were . . . You were gone and he said . . . He said . . He said you were . . . "
"Who did?" Rhys demanded. "Oraz? You can't have believed him!"
Nace began to tremble. He shook his head. His claws scraped the floor.
Gods, he'll bleed again! Rhys thought. He reached through the bars with an arm and then a wing to still him. It wasn't Nace's fault. Of course the dragon had believed Oraz. Pain had a way of melting reality, making it pliable. Rhys remembered believing quite a few things that Oraz had said. Fervently. "There, it's all right," he soothed. "It's all right now, and it wasn't true. I'm fine. Everything'll be fine now."
"Told me . . . He said . . . "
"It doesn't matter what he said. Doesn't matter now." He found he could hook a leg through the bars, too, and added one to the general confusion of limbs holding Nace steady. "Stop now. Calm down. You're hurt."
"Not Oraz!" Nace choked out. He tried to curl in on himself, but Rhys had him immobilized. "He told me, he . . . Told Oraz . . . I wanna go home, people die here!"
"Shush." Rhys held him safe and tried to snag the wooden cup with his free hand. Nace was losing coherency on him, and strength. Best to have him asleep before things got any worse. "Drink."
The injured dragon made little protest, his nose forced into the cup. He sucked the chalky liquid with only a muted whimper.
"That's good. You can rest now."
" . . . home now?" Nace pleaded, drifting.
"Sure," Rhys affirmed. "Right now."
The yellow-green grew limp in sleep.
Rhys shut his eyes and let the tip of his muzzle slip sideways through the bars. It came to rest against Nace's cheek and he left it there for a time, drifting himself. He couldn't sleep like this, but he was too tired to move for a little while. It was cold against the bars, but they would soon keep his heat, and Nace was warm . . .
Rhys gasped awake and pressed his hand to the thin flesh of the yellow-green's throat. Too warm, and his pulse was thready.
The gray-green delved inside the pillow case. It would be all right, Sidro had him ready for everything, Sidro had . . .
Well, actually, Sidro had been more than a little anxious about Nace running a fever, and hesitant about the medicine, but he did have some so Rhys had some and now Nace could have some if only he could find the stupid red liquid at the bottom of the bag!
He found it, but he had to take everything else out first. As he measured into the cap, his hands were steady and assured. Just a little bit, about a capful, every . . . That would be, every . . .
Rhys felt a rising tremble and stilled it. He wouldn't spill. He wouldn't waste it. Especially not now when he couldn't remember how often Sidro had said Nace could have some.
Well . . . Well, it was entirely possible one dose would set him right, and then no need to worry. If not . . . He'd have to figure something out if not. But no need to worry now!
He tipped the syrup down the yellow-green's throat and dug Sidro's note out of the pillow. Maybe a reminder, a postscript, or on the back . . . ?
Rhys held his muzzle, eyes wide between the cracks of his fingers. Nothing. Of course nothing. Why would there be anything? He'd remembered everything when Sidro had told him, there hadn't been any problems since then . . .
It was just that Nace was running a fever now, and Sidro wouldn't be back down for a long time.
And Rhys no longer had the slightest idea what he was supposed to do.
"Is Sidro . . . Is Sidro gonna come back soon?"
The red liquid didn't work.
"I don't know, Nace. Maybe. I don't think so."
Not given with every meal and once at midnight along with the white tablets; not every four hours, as near as Rhys could tell; and not, in increasing desperation, every hour on the hour and all through the night.
"I need to tell him . . . Need to explain to him about Oraz, okay? He has to promise. We have to do something and I can't go. I h-hurt him . . . "
The yellow powder didn't work either, not any more. Most of the wounds had healed cleanly, but the deep one at the base of his tail had sprouted a corona of spidery red lines, and was trying to pull away from the stitches. Nothing Rhys could do to it was of any aid, and the infection was spreading.
"Yes, okay, all right. I'm sure he'll promise. You don't have to worry about it."
There was a smell to him now, and it was not pleasant.
"You have to make him, you have to . . . " The yellow-green tipped his head back and howled, "Oh, God, Master, I'm so sorry!"
"Shut him up!" Achar snarled, whisking the curtains aside. "Can't you shut that miserable faggot up so the rest of us can sleep?"
"I'm trying!" was all Rhys could manage, sleep-deprived and near-hysterical. "Gods help me, I'm trying!" Slowly, ever so slowly, he got the dragon settled again. Nace still burned and shivered, but he was still, and his words were low and unintelligible. It was the best Rhys could hope for. Gods knew how long it had been since the yellow-green had really slept.
Rhys rubbed the dragon's muzzle with a sliver of ice wrapped in cloth, weeping tears of abject exhaustion.
"You should kill him," Achar's voice, the Devil's voice, slithered out. "Do him a favor. Do all of us a favor."
Rhys didn't have to look up to know he was grinning. It was an audible grin, just like Oraz's.
"He's going to die anyway," the gold continued, smooth as silk. "You can smell it on him."
"Shut up!" Rhys snapped. "You shut up! He is not! He will not!"
"Oh, but it's what he wanted," Achar replied. "And he asked so nicely, Oraz just had to oblige him. It was the only thing he wanted, he was in such pain."
"Shut up!" The gray-green drew a fist over his eyes and glared at the yellow-gold. "Liar! How would you know?"
"Oh, I know," said the gold. He giggled a little, high and hysterical. "It's not all I know. Coward! Toy! He said I'd want to tell you some day, and he was right about that, too!"
Rhys felt his throat narrowing. Achar was not the first to call him that, but the memory of who had brought sudden fear. What was Achar talking about? How could he know? What did he mean? He wanted to speak and couldn't. His mouth moved mutely, lacking air.
"Worthless!" Achar spat. "I wouldn't believe him until he showed me. Pathetic. Even he," the gold cut a quick gesture at Nace, "was brave enough to ask for death. He knew what he was and what he deserved. You didn't even beg, in the end. You whined, like a baby. Like a dog." He clutched hands to his throat and spoke in a weak, feathery voice, "'Oh, no, Master, oh, I can't . . . I'm so thirsty! Oh, gods, I caaaan't!' But you did. And you thanked him!"
Rhys remembered. Not what he had said, not word for word, but what he had done.
And he had licked it up.
"There," he forced the word, and he almost was crying but he wouldn't give Achar the satisfaction. "There . . . You were there . . . You were there . . . I remember!"
"I said," Achar told him, breathless, giggling. "What I said was that he needed to teach you a . . . a lesson. I said he really wanted you and he should leave me alone, and he didn't say anything . . . But he came and got me, and he showed me, he showed me what'd he'd done!" His giggles surged into a shriek, and Rhys caught something beneath the icy cynicism in his eyes. Madness?
Achar's gleaming grin had vanished. He stared at the gray-green with hatred laid bare. "He made you nothing." Coldly proud, he added, "I spat on you!"
Rhys could not meet his gaze. Madness there, maybe, but beneath that a terrible, calculating sanity. "And when Nace was down, you hurt him, too. You hurt him the worst you could. You told him I was dead."
The young gold snorted. "That was a favor to him. He wanted to die and be with all his dead friends."
"I don't think I ever knew you, Achar," the gray-green pronounced. He turned his head away. "I don't want to know you now."
"You should kill him," the gold reiterated with a shrug. "Do us all a favor."
Three lines were traced on the back of the parchment. Rhys dipped his claw in the bottle cap and joined them with a twisting red branch.
Blood had been the first idea that occurred, but the fever medicine made a bolder mark, and even if Sidro couldn't read the words, maybe he would understand the substance. There was no point in using the rest on Nace anyway. It did him no better than water, and he did not want to drink.
Rhys left a good space behind the character and began another with exaggerated care.
Fever . . . Come
The dragon added a few lines, transmuting the verb to an infinitive. Sidro seemed to have a beginner's dictionary, or a phrasebook. Simplest was best.
He blew gingerly on his work, drying the stains before they had the chance to run and become unintelligible.
This was the best way, really the only way. Nace's visitors had petered out as his condition deteriorated. Rhys wasn't sure he could blame them for not wanting to see it, but he did hate them for it. The girl was the only one, and she was too easy with breaking the rules. If he told her anything regarding medicine and glass bottles and altered records, someone else might get wind of it. After Achar, he had to be careful with what he knew. Siwan writing would be nonsense if she looked at it or if someone took it from her. It was as good as a cipher.
He only hoped it wouldn't be too good.
He folded the letter gently, Sidro's scrawl outside, so he would know who it came from, and his own additions tucked beneath. He gave it to the girl at breakfast.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait. Sidro would come, or send help, he was certain of it.
Three days later, with no visit and no word, he was much less sure.
Rhys found himself contemplating the pillow again. He tore his gaze from it, sickened.
He had stirred the ice cream until it melted. Nace had taken a couple of sips, unconscious, and then sicked them back up again. If Rhys hadn't been there to push him on to his side, he would've choked himself into pneumonia. The rest of the meal was taken away untouched.
The gray-green was crying, though he had ceased to recognize the fact. He was too tired, and the seep of tears had gone on too long.
Another night of this . . . Oh, gods, another night . . .
The pillow had a smiling sun face embroidered on it, with pothooks of illegible writing above. Maybe "Get Well Soon" or "God Bless The Meek". Maybe "God Bless The Strong And Fuck The Meek", considering the words were Pythian. It was large enough, soft enough . . .
Rhys curled his hands into fists, digging in his claws.
No, damn it! No!
But another night? The days were tolerable, just barely. The girl brought meals. Trying to feed Nace, doing something productive, it gave him hope. There was breakfast, and if he couldn't manage anything at breakfast, there was lunch, and after lunch . . .
And after dinner, now, there was nothing but a long, empty expanse. Twelve hours. Twelve hours alone with Nace and his pain, and the pillow.
Death could be a mercy, hadn't he thought that once? Not a goal but . . . but a mercy.
"No!" he hissed to himself. "I won't! He doesn't deserve to die!" He flicked his ear towards Achar's cell, daring a comment, even the tiniest snigger, but there was none.
He unclenched his hands and examined the gouges he'd made. His focus drifted to the pillow again and he let it, he let it.
Did he shrink from it merely because Achar had suggested he do this very thing?
Rhys snarled under his breath. That was reason enough! Achar had gone bad somehow . . . Evil! He could be cruel, Rhys could not. Nace didn't deserve to die.
The gray-green crept closer, forced himself to watch the weakening dragon, forced himself to read the lines of suffering etched in his face. He stroked the yellow-green's cheek, but there was no response. Nace had gone beyond the tiny comforts he could provide.
Rhys drew back and wiped a runner of snot from his muzzle.
Achar didn't have anything to do with this.
Sidro wasn't coming, couldn't come, and there was only one thing Rhys could do for the yellow-green on his own.
He took the pillow in both hands, held it firmly.
"God bless the meek," he whispered.
"Rhys!"
The cry was high and sharp, almost feminine. It froze him. He turned his head slowly, looking back over his shoulder, knowing who was there, knowing it deeply, yet half-expecting Sola in spite of it all . . .
Sidro was likewise immobile, open mouthed, his satchel slung over his shoulder and a wooden crate of dark bottles clutched to his chest.
Rhys saw himself in the Pythian's shocked expression, streaming eyes and snarling mouth, hunched over a sleeping innocent like the devil himself, and clearly intending . . .
Clearly bent on murder.
"Oh," the gray-green said stupidly.
Sidro shuddered. He closed his mouth, opened it again. Two words fell out: "It's bad."
"Yes," Rhys sighed.
"Infection?"
"Yes!" He was beginning to tremble, rather badly. He flung the pillow away from him because he didn't want to drop it. It would touch Nace if he dropped it. Couldn't do that. Couldn't, couldn't be allowed to do that. No. No!
Sidro closed his eyes, tightly, took a breath and looked at Rhys again. "We'll stop him from hurting," the silver-blue said. "Somehow." He squeezed the crate, small comfort, and tried to smile. "But we'll try it this way first, okay?"
"Okay," Rhys breathed. No, he didn't want to try the other way anymore. The other way was very bad. He shrank back from the yellow-green, shivering, hands clutched helpless to his chest. "Okay. Okay."
Sidro frowned at him. He juggled the box, held it steady with a bent knee, took a key in his free hand and popped the lock on Nace's door.
The gray-green watched this performance numbly, not processing it, not processing anything, until Sidro reached through the bars and snagged him by the arm. Rhys gave an airy shriek and felt himself fainting. At the worst time possible, honestly fainting . . .
Sidro snatched his shoulder, turned him and shook him, then smacked him hard across the muzzle, claws out. "I need you," the silver-blue snapped. "You can break down later, but I need you now. You understand?"
The pain brought him back wonderfully, more so than the words. He clutched the side of his face and felt a thin trickle of blood there. "Yes, I . . . Yes. What do you need me to do?"
"Hold him." Sidro reached into the worn bag and drew out a short blade. "He's going to scream."
Rhys was stretched out on his side, reaching through the bars. Nace's muzzle, bound and stuffed with a rag to keep him from breaking his teeth, curled over his shoulder like a lover's. Legs, bodies and wings, they were entwined. It was too close, uncomfortably intimate, and the smell of the infection was eye-watering. Rhys did not love Nace, but he held him this way, as he had done before. Not because he loved Nace, but because Sidro did.
"Tightly," the silver-blue warned. "I don't want to cut him. Ready?"
Rhys nodded. "Go."
The Pythian swept his blade across the row of stitches, opening the wound like a cancerous mouth. Nace's body jerked against the gray-green, and Rhys felt the deep vibration of a cry trying to escape the yellow-green's throat. Stopped at his muzzle, it became a high, thin whine.
"Shh," Rhys told him. "Still. Still."
With claw and tweezers, Sidro plucked the remnants of each broken stitch away. Rhys shut his eyes and angled his head away, but he felt each and every stitch as a convulsion from Nace. There were eleven, in all, and when Sidro was finished, tears were cascading down the yellow-green's face.
"I have to clean it," Sidro told him. "Don't let up. This is a bitch."
Rhys redoubled his efforts. An antiseptic smell assailed his senses, and he knew Sidro had cracked one of the dark bottles from the box.
Iodine. Oh, gods.
Nace became electricity against him, just as strong and as difficult to hold. Even the gag could not mute the howls of his pain, only muffle them. Rhys clenched his teeth. It sounded as if Sidro were actually scrubbing the open wound, but Rhys didn't check to see because he really didn't want to know. When the sounds ceased, there was another drenching smell of disinfectant.
"Rhys, you can let go now."
The gray-green took some minutes to unfold himself, and peeked cautiously. The red gash had been wrapped with clean gauze, delicately enough to bleed. It did so weakly, darkly. Sidro nodded his approval.
"What do we do now?" Rhys asked.
The Pythian sat back on his haunches and giggled sickly. "Now? We wait three hours and clean the bastard out again!"
"You haven't been working," said Rhys.
"Unh?" replied Sidro, looking up. It was the longest exchange they'd had in some hours. They had cleaned the wound again, and again after that, and were preparing for a third time when the girl came in with morning meal.
"You haven't been working," the gray-green repeated. If the juggling act with the crate of bottles had gone unnoticed before, the fact that Sidro was eating Nace's porridge had not. The silver-blue was doing too well to be sick. "What have you been doing?"
Sidro's expression darkened. He shook his head. "I'm doing what I have to."
"Doing what you have to," Rhys echoed. There was no anger in his voice, to be angry would have taken energy he'd used hours ago. He could only register incomprehension. "Why did you take so long to come back?"
The Pythian sighed. "Had to rent the dictionary out again, to translate, and the iodine . . . This is all I could get. I had to go over the whole fortress, I had to . . ." He dropped his gaze. "But it shouldn't have taken so long. I wasn't there when she came for me, I was . . . I was trying to get some help."
"Did you?"
He shook his head. "I don't know yet."
The gray-green sighed. It was all right, he couldn't be mad. Too tired, too scared, too weirdly relieved just to have Sidro there, sharing the responsibility. If he had to consider the pillow again, he would not do it alone.
"I'm glad I got your note," Sidro murmured. "Glad it was in time."
"Was it?"
Sidro nodded cautiously, regarding the angry wound. "I think so."
Rhys managed a smile. "Hey," he recalled, "what did you mean about a dragon with poison? I worked out everything else, I think, but what was that?"
"Huh?" blinked the silver-blue.
"Your note, the one I wrote on. The last bit, it sounded like you were going to send someone with poison in the morning."
"Unh?" Sidro blinked some more. "I was . . . No, I was gonna send medicine. I was working on that, in between . . . Did I say poison?"
"Medicine?" Rhys snickered. "Oh, that makes sense. That's totally different."
"I don't make poison," Sidro muttered, examining his claws. "Well . . . Not on my own time."
"Look, I'll show you." Rhys etched the floor with a clawtip. "This is medicine, all right? And this is poison. It's totally . . . "
"They're looking for you," said the girl, above them.
"Gods!" Rhys skidded, claws out, and made the word 'Chocolate'. "You should wear a bell!"
She had come alone, no dishes or clattering cart, and quickly. "Sidro," she said, "You were supposed to be there an hour ago. Lost your key?"
"What?" Sidro lay his hand on the tag and looked up at her. "No, but . . . "
"They're beginning to think you don't want to go through with it."
The silver-blue flinched. "Did you tell them . . . ?"
"Not yet," she cut him off.
"Ah, God." Sidro looked at Nace. He looked at the girl. He rose to his feet and began to pace. "I have to go through with it. You have to tell them where I am, tell them I want to come . . ."
"So you're going?" she asked him, cold judgment in her eyes.
"No!" he cried. "I can't! Not yet. He's still so sick." He shook his head, seeming to plead with her. "They'll understand that, won't they? I have to care for him. It's all about him!"
She smiled, half-smiled, "Hmph," and shrugged. "They don't have to do anything," she called back over her shoulder, "but I'll tell them."
"What have you been doing?" Rhys wondered at the silver-blue.
Sidro shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Not yet." He sighed. "It may not matter at all, now."
"Are you in trouble?"
The silver-blue echoed the girl, "Not yet," and spun the lid off a fresh bottle of iodine. "Hold him, Rhys. We have to do this."
Nace awoke sometime in the creeping hours between evening meal and dawn.
"Thirsty," he said. And then, a little more clearly, looking around, "Is there water?" He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth; it felt alien and dry, gummed with saliva at the corners. He licked his lips and they tasted of blood and gauze.
Sidro was sprawled against the cell door, sleeping and drooling.
For a moment, the yellow-green wondered where he was. After that, even more disconcerting, he had to wonder when he was. (Did it happen? Is it going to happen again?) But Sidro was on the wrong side of the door, inside, with him. The cell to his right was empty of the friend he had known there, and to his left, the gray-green, sleeping. Rhys.
That was wrong too, and it threw him for a while, but the terrible thirst refocused him. The act of swallowing made his throat ache for moisture. Slowly, delicately, he picked his way out of the nest of blankets (brief disorientation at that, but the important thing was the water, the tap) and crawled to the back of the cell. Slithered might have been more accurate, but when he got there he was able to push to his knees and knock the faucet on. He lay beneath it and rusty mud spattered his head. It was cool, nice. He turned his muzzle up to it and drank greedily.
He might have grayed out for a little while. Eventually the spatter of water annoyed him and he was able to reach up and make it stop. Then he pushed back to his knees and took a long and thoroughly-satisfying leak over the edge of the trench.
Somehow he ended up curled on his side on the floor. The stone was smooth and cold against his cheek, soothing. He decided to sleep.
Rhys shed his dreams slowly, and then all at once. Something about the kitchen, home . . . They evaporated.
He saw Nace. Nace had been moved in the night and stretched out on the bare floor along the latrine. They had both fallen asleep and Nace had moved himself in the night, out of the blankets and on to the floor, and all Rhys could think was that a dragon couldn't die peacefully in bed, that was the tradition, you had to take them out and lay them on the floor so they could . . .
He groped blindly through the bars and twisted the Pythian's ear, bringing him out of sleep with a wounded yowl.
"Oww! Quit it!"
"You were supposed to watch him!" Rhys cried. His eyes never left the motionless yellow-green and he was dimly aware that more than anything he wanted this not to be his fault. "You were supposed to watch him! It was your turn!"
Sidro reacted somewhat more sensibly. Freeing his ear with a jerk, he knelt at the dragon's side and lay a careful hand against his throat. The hand was trembling, but when it rested on the yellow-green's scales, it grew still.
The Pythian's words were not as carefully chosen as his actions: "He's cold."
And while Rhys tried to work out how to breathe again, the silver-blue rolled Nace on to his stomach and examined the base of his tail.
The trembling hand pulled into a fist. Sidro emitted a thin shriek of triumph and struck his own palm. "Oh, fuck, oh, fuck YES!"
The red streaks of the infection were still there, no thicker than a pencil, no longer than a fingertip. But those had been the longest, the largest, and the least of them were gone. Going, and gone!
"It was your turn," Rhys said weakly, bewildered. He knew they were on a different subject now and the fact of it being Sidro's turn, Sidro's responsibility, was somehow irrelevant, but he hadn't understood anything that had happened since and his tongue seemed stuck in a groove. "You were supposed to . . . " The words drifted away. "He's cold?"
Sidro looked back over his shoulder and blinked. He opened his mouth, closed it, bit his lip, but a thin little giggle slipped past. "Oh, God, I'm so stupid." He clasped his muzzle in both hands and shook it, negatory. His eyes were dancing. "No. No. He's cool. Not cold. He's not cold, he's sleeping," the silver-blue whispered, each word painstakingly tiny. "He's sleeping."
Rhys drew in a gasp. He clamped his own mouth shut and forced the air out of his nostrils.
"Needs his sleep," Sidro squeaked, not shouting, not laughing, oh so very careful and very quiet. "Okay? He'll get better faster if he can rest."
"Get better--" Rhys echoed. He bit off the words, because he wanted to say them very loudly, and then maybe jump up and down, or hit something. He ground the knuckles of one fist into the meat of his thigh and clenched his teeth until the need subsided, but it swelled again in his chest and he had to keep fighting it back.
He reached through the bars and drew Sidro near to him. He had blamed Sidro, and now he would bless him. He drew the dragon near, to whisper apology and gratitude, but he could not bring himself to speak without shouting. The silver-blue shook his head, likewise silent, and embraced him. The bars between them vibrated with the unexpressed desire to celebrate, to scream
"You did it," Rhys managed at last.
"E," replied the Pythian, a single syllable of hysterical joy.
Nace murmured something in his sleep and turned back on his side, rolling away from the latrine.
For a while they clung to each other, suppressing a new outburst, hard enough to indent the length of the bars in their scales.
Eventually, Sidro got up and pulled a blanket over the sleeping dragon, then tucked another under his head. After a moment's thought he drew the sun-faced pillow out from the disorderly pile of bedding and chucked it down the trench.
A high whine escaped the gray-green. It might have been a strangled giggle, or a sob.
Sidro crept back to his side and held him. They held each other. Until the hysteria passed, and Nace was waking.
He called the silver-blue as he was waking, and the Pythian was beside him when he opened his eyes.
"Hey," said Sidro.
"Hey," said Rhys.
Nace carefully regarded one, then the other. "I'm not gonna die," he hazarded.
"No!" said Sidro.
"No, no," said Rhys. "I told you before."
Nace smiled weakly, painfully, and then he began to cry.
"No . . . " said Sidro.
Rhys reached forward, but Nace cried out, "It happened again!" and the gray-green withdrew, startled and confused.
Sidro shut his eyes, and clenched his teeth. "I know," he said. He let out a sigh and relaxed with visible effort. "But it's all right, Nace. It's all right now. It's over."
"No," said the yellow-green, with a shiver. "It's been over. It's been over a long time."
Sidro considered this. "Yes," he said cautiously.
Nace clutched at his muzzle. "He huh . . . He huh . . . He hates me!" His claws were digging in. Rhys pulled them down and Sidro enveloped him. "He hates me!" the dragon insisted, muffled now.
Oraz? Rhys wondered. But Sidro was busy with Nace. The yellow-green might have hurt himself, if Sidro didn't have him. He seemed to want to. He was crying still, more protest, more words, but Rhys couldn't hear and the Pythian did not reply. He held Nace, rocked him, and soothed him like a child.
Still weak, if no longer ill, Nace soon exhausted himself. The sorrow remained, behind his eyes, but the need for rest was welling over it. Nace murmured softly to the silver-blue, half-sleeping, "I want to go home. I'm so tired. I want to stop now."
"I know," said Sidro. "I wish to God we could."
Rhys knew he had been made a tertiary part of something he didn't understand, and Sidro didn't want to explain it to him. He fussed over sleeping dragon, not sparing the gray-green so much as a nervous glance. Rhys didn't press him; he didn't want to know. The gray-green had heard much out of Nace in his sickness, some fevered nightmare, but doubtless some true. He had suspicions. There had obviously been something between Nace and Oraz, some past encounter that left those scars and precipitated this act. He didn't want to know what it was.
He had done what he had to. Sidro could not care for Nace, and so he had. He was not ashamed of having done so. But now, excluded, and at long last with a moment to himself, he was self-conscious. He did not know the yellow-green, not all that well, not like Sidro did. Nace would not have chosen him to do what he had done. And, if there had been any other option, Rhys would not have chosen himself. He was not ashamed, but he had done things for Nace that the dragon's parents probably hadn't done, and heard things he didn't want to hear. He was embarrassed.
And he was tired. There had been a time, before the cells, before Nace and Sidro, when the tribe had acquired a sizable crop of lemons. So Sola made lemon cake, every day. When before it had been a rare and appreciated treat, it became a trial, a chore. He had been able to approach it again only cautiously, after quite some time.
He and Nace would be friends again, he was sure. But not for a while. Not without awkwardness. Not without pain.
He wondered, now that Sidro was here, if he might not go back to his own cell, across the hall, and leave the dragons to care for each other. He might have asked the silver-blue, given a moment more, to get his key . . . But then the guard came in. Not at a run, though he had been running. His crest was flushed and he panted through his nostrils, but he had adopted his usual saunter as he came around the corner.
"Sidro--" said the Pythian.
"Shhh!" The silver-blue shielded Nace with a wing and looked up over his shoulder. "Okay," he said. "For all you know, I've been in here having wild sex for a week, okay? And it isn't your business and it isn't your fault. You can just leave . . ."
"Sure," said the guard. "Sure, you just sit there and pretend I'm gonna play good and dumb like everybody else. Maybe it's not about your sex party, skinny. Y'ever think of that?" Sidro was silent, and waited for more information.
The guard lingered for a few moments, grudging it, but in the end he was afraid to hold it back any longer: "He's here. Got back this afternoon. Sent for the gold, but you were sleeping. Well, rise and shine! He wants your head on a plate--"
"Oh," said Sidro.
"--He's in chambers, screaming the place down. They said they're gonna settle this now, and that means you get your ass down there now, or you can forget the whole thing!"
The silver-blue dithered. He even lifted Nace slightly, as if having his arms full of wounded dragon at the moment would make any difference when it obviously didn't.
"I have to get his stitches," he protested. "And he . . . It's been so hard for him, he needs me. . ."
"Oh, don't be stupid!" the guard cried, throwing up his hands.
Rhys began to growl softly. He didn't know what this was about, but he could guess who would've sent for the gold and he didn't like the idea of Sidro going to see him, not one bit.
Sidro crawled out from under Nace and let him down in the nest of blankets. The yellow-green shuddered awake at once and began to whimper.
"No, no." Sidro patted him nervously. "Don't cry. Don't cry. I have to go right now whether you cry or not, so please don't cry."
"Wh-what's," Nace managed, not crying. "What's . . . "
"Now," the guard interjected.
"Nothing bad!" the silver-blue blurted out. "Something good. But I can't explain, no time . . . "
He glanced up at Rhys once, pleading, and Rhys gave him no delays, "Go on. We'll be fine."
Sidro made a grab for his satchel, missed, decided to leave it, and lurched to the door.
The guard had a tagged key in his hand, and he used it, but demanded of the dragon, "Where's the one you had?"
Sidro stammered and made incoherent gestures to the effect that he had absolutely no idea.
The guard sighed and yanked the door open for him. "Just go. Go. I'll find it."
Sidro started down the hallway.
"Run, asshole!" the guard called after him, in high spirits.
He ran.
"What's going on?" Rhys implored of the guard.
The Pythian quirked a brow ridge. "Not your business, slave." He flicked his eyes briefly at Nace, but the yellow-green was too busy not-crying to make any response. He was not-crying as hard as he could.
The guard cast about for the other key and finally fished it out of the blanket pile. He collected the gray bag as well. "Oh, he'll be missing this," he informed the slaves. "Be needing it for himself by the end of the day, you wait and see."
Rhys stared at the yellow-green, intent on transferring the psychic message that Nace should pull himself together and claw the hell out of the insolent male, right now, because Rhys couldn't reach.
Nace stared back at him. "What's happening?" he whispered. "Why's he gone?"
The guard swung out of the cage and closed the door behind him.
The gray-green sighed. Nuts. "Sidro said something before, about trying to get help," he posited. "I don't know what he's doing, I don't know if it's anything to do with that . . . I hope it is."
He hoped the silver-blue wasn't running towards his demise at the hands of Oraz, too, but Nace didn't need to hear that now.
The guard snorted at the gray-green's delicacy, but he rejected the opportunity to make Nace's life more miserable. With Sidro's property swinging carelessly in one hand, he left them.
Nace swallowed hard. "He'll be okay . . . ?" He couldn't quite make it a statement. The yellow-green was still not-crying, maybe not as hard as before, but still.
"It's okay if . . ." Rhys muttered. He gestured vaguely. "You can."
"No." The dragon rubbed his muzzle. "I . . . " He flinched. "It's enough."
Rhys flushed to his horns. Nace was embarrassed, of course he was. If he remembered even half of what Rhys had done . . . The gray-green remembered himself, and retreated to the opposite side of his cell.
"Who," Nace offered, because it was too quiet, "who left all these nice things?" The flowers were dead, and the bedding was matted and dank from fever, but it had probably all been nice at some point.
"Pythians," Rhys shrugged. "I didn't take names or anything."
"Oh," replied the yellow-green.
The quiet was easier. They made no more overtures of conversation that day.
They missed three things in the morning, the girl, the tray, and the ice. A sullen-looking male, unknown to them, delivered two slops of porridge. The girl returned to collect the empty plates, somewhat beaten and much subdued. Nace tried to speak to her, but she only shook her head. Nothing came for Achar, but he was undoubtedly still with Oraz, and taking his meals there. Rhys wondered if Sidro had yet received his comeuppance, for what he had arranged.
No one came to punish him, for his own part in it. Not even to put him back in the proper cell. They were wary, perhaps, of what other rules Sidro had broken, what weapons the red-collar might have. There was no need, really. In his new desire to distance himself from Nace, Rhys would have gone willingly. As for the glass bottles, since Nace's recovery was assured, Rhys had chucked them down the trench with great force, to be certain they shattered on the grate. Sidro was in enough trouble.
Shortly before dinner, another male, red-gold and with the confidence of high rank, came to collect the empty ice bucket, and the yellow-green along with it. Nace recognized him and wobbled upright to meet him, too eagerly. He looked like a puppy or something.
"I have food," said the Pythian. "Are you all right to eat?"
Are you all right to do other things? Rhys rephrased in his mind. He flinched at the thought.
"Oh, yes!" the yellow-green replied.
Rhys made no comment, other than to avert his eyes until the male had helped Nace out of the cells. He felt a distinct embarrassment, and even a little disgust. It happened all the time, of course, especially to Nace. Nothing special. He didn't have to think about it, not on top of everything else.
Dear gods, the gray-green realized, all those males . . . The ones that brought blankets and everything--did he have sex with them? ALL of them?
Rhys pulled his blanket over his head. He didn't want to think about it. Nace would have a good meal, and a warm bed, for at least a little while. Every slave should be so lucky.
Sidro should be so lucky, too.
Rhys didn't want his dinner. Fortunately, no one woke him for it.
Smell of blood, and sound of labored breath . . .
Rhys felt for the lumpy pillowcase, eyes flinched against the unwanted light of the cells. "It's all right, Nace, you can have something . . ."
The gray-green peered into the empty cell, seemingly forever, until reality clicked back into place.
"Dreaming," he muttered, irritated.
But, consciousness insisted, he wasn't dreaming the smell . . .
There was a low snigger and a clumsy hand pawed the blanket away from his face. "Rhys . . . Rhys . . . "
"Nrf." He looked out of his self-made cave. "What--Sidro!" All of his senses checked in at once, at full, conscious clarity. It was too much, and it was all bad. "Oh, gods! Sidro!"
The silver-blue sniggered again. It wasn't his normal laugh, but Rhys could see the reason why. "Gotta . . . 'M sorry, woke you . . . Couldn't wait."
"Sidro, what did they do to you?"
"Huh?" He looked at himself, giggled. "What, this?" His words were mushy, mwha, tissh? "This is nothing!"
The dragon had been beaten, not just black and blue but red as well, the trapped blood glistening beneath scales obliterated by blunt force. His muzzle seemed a mass of broken teeth, both eyes blacked and one swelling shut under a split brow. He looked boneless, sprawled in front of the cell door on bruised ribs, in a dark stain of his own making. Tiny droplets marked his passage like a helpful trail of breadcrumbs.
"--Only a drubbing," he was saying. "Child's punishment! The council--"
"You do this to your children?" cried the gray-green.
"What?" The Pythian shrugged. "I don't. It's just a token . . . It doesn't even matter! Hey, listen a minute . . . Get away from me with that! Shut up, would you?"
"Stop talking!" Rhys pleaded. "You're red all down your front! Hold still!" He pawed at Sidro with a ragged scrap of sheet, trying to pinch his nostrils shut to staunch the flow.
Sidro laughed, blood still choking the usual sound. "Fuck if I care!"
"You're drunk," Rhys decided.
"Drunk?" The silver blue sniggered, which was bad, and grinned at him, which was worse. "No! I'm happy! Rhys, this is me being happy! Oraz . . ." He grabbed for Rhys and the gray-green froze, afraid further struggle would kill him. "Listen! He's to be punished, Oraz is. It'll be public . . . Public, Rhys! Not like this. They're going to stop him. The council agreed. He won't get away with what he did to Nace, not any more. They're finally going to make him stop!"