Szoriel slid of his bed and went to his window that over looked the city. He leaned against the window sill and stared outside at the tall spires twisting their way into the air, some dark, some still alive with the night life. Yet tall though they were, all still fell below his window.  He smiled grimly. He liked it that way. The way it should be. But his moment of mild euphoria passed as he stared off once more at the buildings in the early morning twilight and the mountains behind them and remembered why he was awake. The uncomfortable feeling was still worming its way around in his gut. He frowned and narrowed his dark eyes. Whenever he had this feeling something important was going to happen. Whether good or bad he didn’t know but in his experience the bad far outweighed the good.

He shifted and gently rested his forearms on the sill as he surveyed the area wondering from where this threat to his comfort would come from. Just then the wind blew, gently caressing his hair and kissing his bare upper body. He sighed and spread out his wings to allow the wind to tease its way along them while he pushed all distracting thoughts out of his mind. Whatever happened, happened and if he wasn’t strong enough to face it then he might as well never be born; for he was a winner, a conqueror and he would conquer all obstacles that stood before him and break them apart in such a way that they would never stand before him again.  His mind made up he slipped back into bed and fell asleep.

 

Szoriel sat in his throne and tilted his head at the sound of trumpets; the Kikardit clan, by the order of the rippling notes. Seconds later a messenger entered.

“My lord Khalis,” he said going down on one knee, “The Kikardit clan are here to pay their respects and offer you their report of their conquest to the lands to the south-east, at the foot of the Great Range.”

Szoriel gave a curt nod, “Let them enter.” He said shortly.

“But my Lord!” the ambassador, who was currently in audience with Szoriel tried to protest, “Our business is not yet complete!”

Szoriel who hadn’t been paying attention to the man in the least said coldly with finality “Leave. My business with you has long been finished. Get out of my sight if you value your life.”

The man went pale and hastily went down on one knee and bowed his head and almost fell over trying to get back up in his haste to leave the presence of the Great Khalis, leader of all the khalis people.

The great doors had scarcely been closed after his hasty departure when they began to swing open again.  Szoriel slid gracefully from his seat and stood awaiting the khalis Lord and general.  The entire Kikardit entourage swept into the room and then as one went down on one knee to pay respects to their leader.

“Greetings my Lord Khalis!” said Lord Izan.

“Greetings my khalis lord.” replied Szoriel traditionally. “Rise to your feet all you and yours.” He continued. The entourage rose to their feet smoothly.

“You are gracious Khalis,” said Lord Izan with a slight incline of his head. Szoriel gave a tight nod.

“What have you to say my lord general?”

“That all your orders were carried out as you wished. The outer villages who hoped to escape your instructive rule have now been inducted into the kingdom. The foot of the mountains was swept for any rebels and those found were crushed.”

Szoriel considered the report and then nodded. “I am pleased.”

“The Kikardit live to please the Khalis my lord. We are ever in your service.”

“And your service will not go unrewarded.”

“Oh no lord Khalis we ask for no reward. Your pleasure and friendship is enough!”

“You already have both,” Szoriel said, a corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “The Nishcazat and the Kikardit have always had friendship between them. And I am grateful for such.”

“And so are we my lord Khalis,” replied Lord Izan smiling.

Szoriel indicated for them to leave but Izan lifted his hand, “If I can suffer your pleasure a little longer,”

At the Khalis’ nod he continued, “I have a gift for you.”

Both of Szoriel’s eyebrows went up for a brief moment.

“A slave.”

An eyebrow arched again.

“A rare specimen of the Ishla people.” At a gesture of his hand, two of Lord Izan’s people started to drag forward a person covered in chains.

“We found him, quite asleep, at the foot of the mountains.” Continued Izan amused.

“Then why the chains?” asked Szoriel, in mild contempt.

“Ha actually tried to fight us. I assure you his journey here was much more unpleasant with the added weight.”

Szoriel tipped his head in acquiescence and approval. By this time the slave had been dragged from the back of the room to directly in front of the Khalis.  Szoriel fixed his attention to the slave and met his dark eyes for a split second before the slave’s head was thwacked from behind by one of the Kikardit for daring to look into the eyes of the Khalis without permission. The slave was then viciously kicked behind both knees and pushed down so that he fell on both knees onto the floor, head bent. Only slaves must kneel on both knees.

 

Szoriel however hardly paid attention to that. The quick look into the eyes of the slave had sent that same uncomfortable feeling back to worming itself into gut. His eyes narrowed and he glared at the slave.

“I thank you for your gift my khalis Lord,” he said smoothly fixing his attention back to Lord Izan. “He will be well used among the lords of this Stronghold.” That was customary of course, to put the gift of a slave from a great lord in a high position among the slaves for the lord to know it was appreciated. To put the slave in less would mean great insult and Szoriel did not wish to displease the Kikardit, it would be far too unwise.

“I am glad you are pleased my Lord Khalis.” He indicated to one of the other men to bring forward a case. Szoriel already knew what it held; the creature called the saka, a creature of the Jaka, one of the closes allies of the Khalis. The races had been allied for hundreds of years. The saka would be placed into the slave’s mouth where it would clamp around the victims toungue and send out tendrils which attach themselves to various places inside the mouth to anchor itself. The main body, which consisted only of a mouth would be just inside the victim’s mouth and would do all their chewing for them. Quite an effective of gagging a slave who might hear too much and impossible to remove unless taken off by one who placed it there or authorized to do so. 

The case was presented open to Szoriel who reached out to the creature and called forth its power. A thin stream of what appeared to be black smoke came from it and curled around his fingers. Szoriel grasped it tightly and suddenly it disappeared. It was complete; the saka was now under his control.

He watched impassively as the saka was taken to the slave and forced into its mouth. The slave thrashed wildly as the creature took hold and finally fell onto the ground gagging unused to the extra company in his mouth.

“Take it away,” he ordered to his servants of the court. Several hurried forward and dragged the slave out of the room. He gestured for the Kikardit to leave, which they did gracefully, and then he collapsed, also gracefully, and pondered the significance of the dark eyed Ishla slave, who aroused his gut instinct.

2: Chapter 2

 

The chains were shucked off him and then he was pushed rudely onto one of the pallets in the huge slave barracks, somewhere in the complex of the stronghold. He lays there for a few moments still gagging and trying to get used to the slimy black creature which held his toungue captured and entangled his mouth with its black tentacles. If he pushed his toungue out a little he would hit the circle of teeth belonging to the creature. He shuddered.

“Get up!” said a rough voice, “Or do you want lashes already?” Mereke quickly pushed up from the pallet ignoring the pain that came from the raw places on his body where the chains had rubbed off pieces of his skin. He came face to face with someone that he instantly recognized as the slave master. The man was about his height but twice his width and very heavyset. He had rough stubble of a beard, keen eyes and nose that looked like it had been broken. He also surprisingly had a worn look of patience that bordered on kindness despite his rough voice. His wings, black like all those of the khalis, was tucked carefully behind his back.

Before he could react further the slave master thwacked him behind his head. “Head down slave, or the lords will have that errant head of yours.” Still recovering from the dizzying force of the blow Mereke left his head down. “That is the first thing you must learn. Do you hear me?” Mereke nodded slightly. The slave master humphed and then called another slave. “Teach him what to do; he is to serve the Lords.”

The slave nodded and gestured for Mereke to follow him out of the barracks. “Wait slave!” Mereke turned, “Name!” He paused trying to figure out how he was supposed to tell the slave master.

“You can write?” the master asked. He nodded. “Spell it out,” he ordered. Mereke paused for a moment trying to recall the khalis alphabet. “Are you deaf slave!” the master roared. That helped his recollection. He hurriedly started to spell out his name in the air using his finger. “Mereke?” He nodded to confirm it. The slave master tipped his chin up to indicate him to follow the slave, which he did hurriedly.

 

Mereke fell on his thin pallet, mildly exhausted. As one of the higher ranking slaves, he realized this after about half a day, he had the glorious luxury of a pallet, a separate section from the regular slaves, and only one foot chained to the common chain. He rolled over onto his back and tried to remember everything he’d been taught, for it had been clear from the first moment that one mistake usually meant punishment in the form of a ridiculous number of lashes depending on the degree of the mistake and the mood and nature of the Lord one served.

The slave who had been assigned to teach him, also as mum as himself, did so in a series of quick practical gestures, easy to understand, and movements of his eyes. He had been given a crash course in how to serve a lord to his pleasure, how to prepare a room, what not to do, like accidentally touch a lord, (only special slaves were allowed to do so, they were higher up in the hierarchy), and how to respectfully walk among the stronghold people as in who to give way for ect. As well as the art of appearing invisible unless needed. The rest he had to pick up by using his eyes and ears; most of which he already had. Like the fact that the slaves, besides the practical gestures used to teach him and communicate with their masters, had their own secret set of gestures; very slight movements usually gone unnoticed by most, if not all. Some of it he had already figured out, the rest he would over time. He also noticed that most of the Lords had their own personal servants or personal slaves if they preferred such, which accompanied them everywhere and saw to all their needs and personally overlooked the preparation of their rooms ect. These slaves (if they were slaves, servants were way higher than slaves when it came to stronghold structure) were a little higher in the slave hierarchy. If this slave was to be replaced for any reason, a new one would be taken from the current set of slaves who served the lord.

Mereke had also heard a little of the cruelty of the Lord Khalis. Not that he needed to hear it to know. Anyone who had occupied land before the khalis came and took over would know of the cruelty of the khalis and the legendary cruelty and evil of the current Lord Khalis, Szoriel Nishcazat, was well known throughout the land and all those crushed by the khalis hated him. Mereke cheerfully hated him as well, his brief meeting with him had only solidified his hatred of the man and now he had a face to pin the hatred to.

In relation to slaves, the Khalis had a personal slave. It appeared that he usually killed them in fits of temper if they did anything wrong or if he threw a temper tantrum at something else and the slave happened to be there, which was what he was supposed to do of course, be there. Beyond that, he knew nothing else of him.

Mereke turned on his side, tried to ignore the stench of the slave barracks and went to sleep, knowing he’d need it.   

He was awakened by a rough boot in his side and the chain being pulled out of the iron shackle which had been added to his ankle yesterday. He sighed and crawled off his pallet and staggered upright. He then followed the stream of slaves out of the barracks to begin his proper existence as a slave in the major Khalis stronghold. 

3: Chapter 3

Weeks passed. Long dreary weeks. Life as a slave was not good. It wasn’t as if the stronghold was nice and sunny too. No the stronghold was cold, dark and dreary, made up of darkened grey stone. The masters were harsh and Mereke earned his fair share of lashes across his back for his inexperienced   mistakes. He had learned quickly but not quickly enough. But the worst of all, especially for him was the lack of the land’s comforting presence, the warm glow that had always been with him, had always been with their people, the Ishla. He had felt it draining out of him as he had been carried here away from the mountains and the only place where it still resided, but to have it completely gone, for weeks and weeks was almost more than he could bear.

It was the main reason their people hated the khalis nation, for their killing of the land’s spirit. The death and destruction had been too much for it to bear, and where it had held up it had been killed off by the dark power of the khalis and jaka, and so it the end it had fled and the Ishla desperate to save it had fled as well instead of fighting. But many of their people had still died before they had reached the mountains where at last the khalis had stopped.

Mereke tried to ignore the empty gaping space inside of him, but the more he tried, the more he became aware of it. Eventually he stopped trying and delved into his duties as a way to keep his mind of it.

However he soon became aware of the fact that a lot of the slaves in his part of the barracks had been disappearing, as well as the fact that there were a lot of envoys from other clans of the khalis. He couldn’t figure out how the two was related as the slaves there only served a specific number of lords. In fact he didn’t put the pieces together until the slave who had taught him that first day was promoted to being the personal slave of the Khalis, and realized that although most of them served other Lords, a lot of them, like him, were personally owned by the Khalis. As such when he needed a personal slave, it was taken out of his own set of slaves. Which explained the missing slaves; most of them had been killed in fits of temper caused by whatever news was brought by the envoys. Mereke didn’t like the position that put him in. Hated it in fact.

He hated it worse when a week later, he passed two other slaves carrying out the body of the Khalis’ late slave and almost simultaneously he got an order to report to the slave master. He walked back to the barracks dreading what he knew was coming. What came.

“You slave! Mereke!” came the Slave Master’s rough voice, “You are promoted to being the personal slave of the Lord Khalis. You begin your duties tomorrow. The Lord Khalis has had enough of slaves today.” Mereke nodded and took a chance and looked up into the eyes of the Master. The look there was one of pity. He dropped back his head expecting the rebuke but none came. “Return to your current duties!” the Slave Master ordered. Mereke may have imagined it but his voice had seemed a shade softer.

 

Mereke sat up in his pallet even before the morning call, a cold knot in his stomach. Today, today he had to begin serving the cruelest of them all, the Lord Khalis himself. He was not looking forward to it.  He waved to one of the guards who stood watch over the slaves and indicated that he would like to be unchained. The guard grunted and ignored him. He waved again and made the sign for Lord Khalis. The guard grunted again, this time with more irritation but he came and slid the chain from the slaves until Mereke was free and then began the unpleasant job of chaining them back. Several of the other slaves groaned at the interruption but most of them fell right back asleep, trying to gain all the rest they could.  He hurried out of the barracks, washed up as best he could and then taking a steadying breath, headed into the stronghold toward the rooms of the Lord Khalis.

 

Szoriel leaned against his window sill, apprising the morning out of cool eyes. He noted the weather and the subtle changing of the winds that marked the beginning of the autumn months. Just then a timid knock came on the door to his chambers. He flicked his eyes toward it and mentally analyzed the knock. The new slave, he thought with contempt. He pushed away from the window smoothly and walked over to the doors and pulled them open and stepped back, settling himself into his most intimidating position, arms folded across his chest.

The slave walked in and gave one glace at him and Szoriel found himself staring at the dark eyed Ishla slave.  He had short spiky hair of a dark brown colour, dark brown eyes and a long lithe body, typical of the Ishla people. He appeared to be around the same age as Szoriel himself. Szoriel narrowed his eyes at the slave, now kneeing as was proper, remembering the uneasy feeling in his gut he had gotten the first time he had seen this particular slave. However at the moment, the feeling did not resurface and Szoriel decided that there must have been another cause although he didn’t quite believe himself. He had had too many lessons that had been sharply administered for ignoring the self-same feeling. He would watch this slave. Watch him carefully.

 

Mereke reached the door of the Lord Khalis’ chambers after being lost several times (he had never been to this part of the stronghold before) and after being detained by three sets of guards, each time having to go through vigorous signing to explain that he was now the new personal slave of the Lord Khalis. The guards had finally gotten the message and let him through, albeit suspiciously.

He gave the door a timid knock, not sure if the Khalis would be still asleep and if he was, what kind of mood he would be in. No need to get yourself killed on the first day. He heard heavy, distinctive footsteps, which he quickly memorized, coming toward the doors. Then the dark, massive, wooden doors were pulled open easily and he was admitted inside.

He walked in quickly and gave a quick but dangerous glance at the person waiting inside. To his chagrin his eyes locked for the briefest of seconds with the Khalis. He quickly dropped his eyes and bent his head. Two or three seconds passed before he remembered and belatedly dropped to his knees. But he had seen enough in that first glance. The Lord Khalis was about as tall as he was, perhaps taller. He was broad shouldered and very well muscled, however as muscular as he was, his muscles were still in proportion to his body; a fact that can be very misleading when one has to judge another’s strength. It all meant the Khalis was probably ridiculously strong. He had black eyes, a straight nose and hair of charcoal colour and texture, which fell almost to his shoulders. His face was angular and cruel. At the moment his arms were crossed and his wings were slightly lifted to give a larger, more intimidating posture.

He cringed inside waiting for the rebuke, or punishment for daring to look into the eyes of the great Lord Khalis, but none came. There were a few moments of silent scrutiny, under which Mereke was determined not to squirm and give him any satisfaction and waited for him to speak. At last he heard a disgusted snort.

“Fool of a slave to come to his master’s room without breakfast.” The deep voice was calm and very threatening. “Food, then clear up these rooms.”

Mereke nodded.

“And slave,” came his voice, when Mereke had scrambled up from his knees and was about to leave the rooms, “Don’t ever make that mistake again.”  Mereke nodded, wondering if he was talking about the food or looking him in the eyes. His next words confirmed it. “Or the third time, I’ll have you scalped and then I’ll have your head.” The deep voice was ever so calm and mild. Mereke wisely got of his sight as soon as possible.

4: Chapter 4

It was only when he was bringing back up the laundry that Mereke realized that there wasn’t the usual group of slaves that attended a khalis lord, which led him to the unhappy realization that he would have to do everything himself. The thought was made even more unpleasant by the further realization that he would have to follow the Khalis into the court and stay there with him, while he attended the business of running a kingdom and expanding his borders. He sighed mentally and doubled his pace, knowing he would have to get everything ready before they left for the court.

When he arrived however the Khalis had disappeared. He wasn’t worried however knowing he must have gone for his bath. Mereke wasn’t expected to do anything because only special body slaves or servants were allowed to touch any khalis.

He quickly fixed the rest of the room and at the same time tried to devour the roll he had luckily managed to snatch from the slave baskets. He would have eaten it already but the saka just chewed so slowly.

He had just managed to push the last piece of the roll into his mouth when the Khalis swept into the room. He went to one of the chest of drawers beside the fire and removed two leather wristbands, usually worn by warriors, which he fastened on himself, as well as a necklace made from a thin strip of leather with one pendent which he couldn’t make out before the Khalis slipped it on and hid it beneath his tunic.

He then swept back out the room with an impatient gesture, for Mereke to follow him.

Mereke trailed after him to the court room, keeping his eyes on the floor and watching with interest the speed at which feet moved out of the Lord Khalis’ way. He himself of course followed quickly in the Lords Khalis’ wake, not wanting to be left behind.

Soon they flowed into the court room which had been set up by the court slaves who were now standing respectfully against the walls of the room. Court slaves were the only ones who were allowed to stand because well, court was a long business and having slaves who had to kneel all the time, resulted in slaves whose legs fell asleep which just made it harder for them to fetch anything and they took too long and the khalis were an impatient people; impatient but also practical at times. So court slaves had to stand. Mereke when at court had to act as a court slave and thus he had to stand. Szoriel swept up to the throne and sat. Mereke took his place behind him and to the right (the khalis placed no importance on positions of left and right). As one all the guards and slaves went down on their knees in the customary salute of deference to the Lord Khalis and then rose again. Szoriel acknowledged it with a tight nod, then waved for his courtiers or chamberlains, (Mereke couldn’t remember which was which and probably had them both wrong anyway), to come forward. They came quickly and presented to him the list of petitions of visitors who wished to speak with the Lord Khalis. Szoriel silently assessed them and then rapidly gave the list of those he would see and when. In the meantime Mereke stayed as stiff as a poker in a glacier and tried hard not to move.

Court was boring. After standing still for half a day listening to the woes of Khalis Lords, their reports or whatever they thought fit to bring to their Lord, Mereke soon came to the conclusion, that he rather be back  working as a typical stronghold slave, lashes and all.  The funny thing was though, he was pretty sure the Lord Khalis hated it too.

 

Szoriel glared at the doors of the court. “Allow the Lord Vescat and his people in,” he commanded calmly, resisting his eyebrows’ urge to twitch. A warrior-king finds it hard to sit in a throne, after years of fighting with his soldiers. He knew as the Lord Khalis it was his duty to his people and the only way to keep his expanding kingdom in order but he longed for the freedom of the battle field which now came only to his ears by reports of his khalis lords. But while listening to your khalis lords bring reports about their war missions, which were quite satisfactory, was a sensible use of court, listening to your khalis lords whine was both dreary and infuriating and quite made him want to make a battlefield of his court with every one of their heads decorating it.

The doors of the court opened and the Vescat entourage swept in and went down on one knee. Szoriel carefully put away his hatred for court where it was building up, to explode at some more opportune time, and inclined his head in greeting, “Greetings my khalis lord,” Szoriel replied to Lord Vescat’s traditional greeting, “Rise, all you and yours,” he continued smoothly.