33 - After the Germ of the Head

I couldn’t go down to the Mahid quarters while Shefenkas was still there. I had every servant it seemed having to serve me. I had to wait and wait and wait… then I had to finish the work I’d told my tutor I would because I found myself suddenly concerned that my word be good… even just because Shefenkas… my Raikas… Shefenkas would want me to hold my word good.

It was a full day after they’d been torturing him in the White Corridor, where all the darkest things happened, before I could get away and go down to the Mezem to see him. Late at night, far past when any child should be asleep I headed down and thought I saw a flicker of motion through the glass doors when I came into the Main Gate.

I stopped at Iska’s desk, somehow surprised to see he wasn’t there, looked around and headed straight upstairs.

I knocked on Raikas… um… Shefenkas’s door. “It is I, Minis Aan. Might I come in?”

A hoarse voice came from inside. “You may.” When the door opened I found myself face to face with Iskanzas. He stepped to the left just as I did. Then to the right. Then to the left again. “Oh. Pardon. This humble one --- oops – sorry.” I took in a deep breath and stood still, biting on my lip so I said nothing, and let the fessas slide around me. I could hear his apologies fading down the corridor. “I cower in shame… a thousand pardons from this clumsy one, Spark of the Sun’s Ray…”

I stood until his cringing apologies had faded down the stairs before I looked in at Shefenkas and… oh. Manas the Wolf sat on the one chair, with one of Shefenkas’s arms stretched across his lap. He had his hand on Shefenkas’s head, the palm over one eye. I nodded at him and looked at Shefenkas. “Now may I come in?”

“Yes,” Shefenkas said quietly.

They must have truth-drug scraped Manas too. But he wasn’t the Yeoli Durakis -- or Semanakraseye – He didn’t look as though they – we -- had kept him as long. And I was certain we hadn’t given him the germ of the head; but the red haired Yeoli still had the hollow eye’d look that a scraping gives and he bit his lip as he looked down at Shefenkas. He sat, wanting to be near him… A close friend, at the very least. The way he looked at Shefenkas, now that there were no more secrets, was like they were family, brothers. But they didn’t look at all like each other.

“Thank you.” I shut the door behind myself. I wanted to sit near… so I sat down on the floor, legs crossed. That would put my face closer to his. “They did it, didn’t they.”

Manas looked grim and said “Yes.” At the same time as Shefenkas said, “Germed me, yes. I make fifty fights, they give me the antidote.”

I looked down at the edge of my over-robe that had pendant sapphires alternating with gold sequins and diamonds all along the edge. I picked up the fringe and began twirling one of the sapphires back and forth in my fingers. Shefenkas went on. “And it’s only the Marble Palace that knows what the antidote is, they told me.”

“I don’t know what the antidote is. I didn’t even know about the Germ of the Head until father explained it to me. The Pharmacist would know.”

“Your father, too.” The sapphire came off in my hand. I dropped it and went on to the next one, skipping over the sequin.

Manas said, “You’re ripping up your clothes, lad.” I glanced up at him and then down at the dangle again.

“Yes.” The second one came off and I began on the third. “I have to rip up something. Better it can’t feel anything.”

“There’s that,” he said, flipping the hand that he had on Shefenkas’s chest up and then down again.

“My father… he… he likes… um…he likes… this.” I rolled my chin to take in the whole room, not sure how to explain.

“Your father likes what, lad?”

I looked down and started on the larger diamond dangle next. “This knowing…having you and getting to make you fight… He wants me to…”

“Minis,” Manas interrupted. “We’re not thinking that.”

“No,” I answered him, thinking he was talking about sex or rape. “I’m not talking about that.”

“Not talking about what?” Shefenkas asked.

Manas stroked his friend’s hair back off his face. “Not talking about something we’re not talking about.”

“Father wants me to wave you around the city on MY leash.” Shefenkas looked over at me as I spoke.

He waved his hand. “Oh. Is that all? I guess it would only be fair.” I looked up at him, distressed. That wasn’t what I meant. Manas said something to Shefenkas in rapid, liquid Yeoli that started with something that sounded like ‘Sheng but the first sound much harder and more clipped. “I don’t want to, Shefenkas.”

“He told you who I am,” Shefenkas said. I nodded. “Will you forgive me for not telling you? I thought it was safest. For the both of us.” I blinked at him. What?

“I should forgive you?” Manas said something else in Yeoli. I thought it sounded disbelieving and Shefenkas ignored him as he had before. “There is nothing to forgive. If you need it yeah, sure, but you shouldn’t ask me that.” I ripped at the diamond I was worrying and hurled it across the room where it clattered into the corner with a bright, shimmering sound. “It’s not going to be pretty… father is going to make it ugly… uglier.”

He sighed and put a hand up to cover Manas’s hand on his head as if drawing strength from it

“Minis,” Shefenkas said. “You’re going to do what you have to. So am I and we have to live with it. That’s all.” I looked down away from his brown eyes and started ripping the next dangle off my robe. “And I’ll get the antidote sooner if I’m ransomed.” He rolled over, up on one elbow, letting Manas go as he did. “Unless you have some way of getting the antidote for me?”

I stared at him and let the sapphire in my fingers go with a clink. I thought of how I could look for it in 1st Amitzas’s locked cabinet, knowing he carried the key buttoned into his glove pocket. But if I could somehow get the key I wouldn’t know which of the carefully labelled bottles was the right one. Not only did Amitzas use his own private code on his malices, toxins and anti-malices but he kept none of his notes with them. Even if I could get the key and figure out which was the right bottle I wouldn’t know how to administer it… or tell Shefenkas how to take it, ingest it, inject it. For all I knew he’d have to snuff it up his nose to get it into his head.

Shefenkas must have seen my confusion. I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“If you can’t, you can’t.” He lay back down. “We’ll go on. How are things with you? How are your studies going?” I stopped twisting my fringe. He wanted to talk about me and my studies?

“Um. I’ve been kind of not studying as much...” I trailed off. How did I explain? “My tutor is kind of annoyed…”

He tucked an arm up behind his head. “You shouldn’t let anything distract you.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, listen to him. Think of how much work he puts into teaching you.” I nodded and looked down at my fringe and started working on the second row.

“I should go.”

“You don’t have to. Sorry if I sound too scolding.”

“No, not you.”

“Not me? No one but me has the nerve to scold you, except on Jitzmitthra. I should have tried harder.” He lifted his lips in a slight grin, a little lopsided. I smiled back at him.

“This is crazy. This is so totally crazy… I’m sitting here with you two and you’re scolding me for not studying, just like a dad.”

“It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.” I looked up at Manas where he sat, with his one hand on Shefenkas’s shoulder now.

“Have you ever told this man he’s nuts?”

He and Shefenkas both snorted a little but Manas said, “Are you kidding? Thousands of times. He never listens.”

I nodded. “If I were writing a song about this… I couldn’t. I bet it’ll take another few thousand times.”

Manas said “Ehh… I don’t think even that would do it.” Shefenkas chuckled a little.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so, either. Look, if the germ works the way Haian remedies do… It’ll drive me sane.”

“Kahara forfend,” Manas answered him. “How would I know you if you were sane?” I sat with my hands on my chin now, watching them. I wished I had a friend, one of my companions, someone who would tease me like that. Someone who liked me like that.

“You wouldn’t,” I dared add. Shefenka smiled a little wider.

“Where’s my leash?” He turned his head to look at me as he said it.

I grinned at him. “Woof,” I said. “It would be Jitz every day.”

“I wonder if the Haians have a remedy like Jitzmitthra?” Shefenkas asked.

“Jitzmitthra in a bottle,” Manas answered him. Shefenkas reached toward the glass on the bedside table and his hand shook slightly. Manas reached and gave it to him.

“Thank you, Mana,” he said. “I believe the Benai Saekrberk does have that.”

“That is something I could get,” I said.

Mana looked thoughtful and teasing both. “I wonder if having a brain permanently pickled in Saekrberk would slow down the germ?”

Shefenkas snorted. “It would certainly slow down my Mezem career, that’s for sure. But I’d die happy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

-- this scene, posts 35 and 36, from Chevenga's point of view