After a long pause, Shorty resumed their work with a bit more caution. In contrast, the Alvi had folded her arms across her chest and cocked her head to one side with a smirk that said "I told you so" on her face.
"As I said before we entered, they will likely be confused given their previous accommodations and may lash out unexpectedly."
"I’m aware," Shorty said while moving closer to examine the scars on my face. While I endured their ministrations, they continued, “Healing magic is good, but coaxing anima to speed your natural healing is a poor substitute for proper medicine. If we make it through this, I can petition aid from a physicker to remove those scars if you wish. Now let me check this…”
Well, that’s nice. Maybe I won’t have to get used to looking like I just lost a fight with a meat grinder. But how long will that ta—wait, ‘make it through this?’
Shorty was holding my right wrist and had turned it over, so we were both looking at the glass bead affixed to it. I missed the first part of his statement, but he continued regardless, “…take care of your sustenance temporarily through this until we can determine what is safe for you to ingest from our stores. It will convert anima to nutrition, but can’t do much for the hunger, I’m afraid.”
I raised an eyebrow and said, “What do you mean, ‘make it through this?’” The Alvi looked at Shorty. “Is there anything else the patient will need to know before I relieve you, [neurotoxin-foolish-excitable-healer-oversharer]?”
A slight chill crept into the room, and Shorty’s environmental suit made a strangled “hff“ sound. "I was just—very well," they said, “This one is as healthy as they can be, and I have others who need my attention."
They climbed down from the cot and beat a path to the door without so much as a backward glance. Looks like Shorty took the hint and wasn’t too happy about it. It would have concerned me more if it wasn't cute to watch him waddle out of the room.
The Alvi turned back to me, adjusting herself on the stool she was sitting on. “Now then. To answer your question, there is… a situation happening presently. Before I explain further, might I ask your name and ask a few questions?”
I raised my hand palm out to indicate a pause—the gesture seemed to translate seamlessly between our two cultures—and let my spells fade. I pressed my hand to my chest and said, “Amelin. Am-uh-lin. Amelin.” It was nice to hear my voice after using theirs for a while.
“Amelin.”
There was a richness to how she said my name that felt like late-summer sunshine, and I wondered what meaning she had imbued into it. I still do. She pressed the tips of her fingers to her forehead and said, “Heshae. Hesh-uh. Heshae.”
A thought tickled the back of my head. Why wasn't my name the first thing they asked? Yet another question to contemplate later—if there was a later.
Throughout the next hour, more aliens wandered into the hallway beyond my door, looking for medical attention. More than once, I would notice an individual wander by and hear Shorty grumble before patching them up and sending them back out. Then they’d show up again a little bit later for more attention. The speed and frequency of the repeat business was strange, but as a result of it my respect for Shorty grew by leaps and bounds; they just had no quit in them.
With the low clamor of a hospital wing in our periphery, Heshae and I did a little dance: I would cast my spells, ask a question about a word, dispel them, and she would answer. I would get the phonetics as close as possible, she would confirm, and then we’d repeat. In short: it sucked. It wasn’t the first time I had been annoyed at a spell’s limitations, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last.
Once we got into a rhythm, I got some of my immediate answers met. It turns out Shorty’s name was Duguf. He was an Onalir—more on them later—and a chirurgeon, which explained his medical skill. I pressed for more info, but Heshae mentioned that it wasn’t her story to tell, and we left it at that.
Heshae was an Alvi in her Autumn cycle (which put her age somewhere between 3,200 and 3,900 years old, by my reckoning). She spent most of her early centuries traveling across the Embrace, learning the languages and customs of various species to become a diplomat. Eventually, she was persuaded into the private sector, becoming a for-hire negotiator and mediator. Her voice faded out as she started the next part of her story, and I’m smart enough to notice a sensitive subject when I see one.
The quiet extended into silence, and we both seemed lost in our thoughts for a time. I was busy thinking about the reasons for having a professional mediator come and speak with me when a cup of water slid into my field of vision held in long, graceful orange-brown hands. When I looked up at her, she was smiling again. I liked her smile.
“Are all your people as headstrong as you?” she asked.
I barked out a laugh, shaking my head and then taking the offered cup, “No, that one’s all me. My people come in all flavors: timid, headstrong, and anything in between. If you’re talking about humans specifically, I think ‘determined’ is closer to the mark.”
“Are not all your people humans? Do you have genetic castes, like the [group-hierarchal-polyarmorous-fierce-wise-reflection]?” She asked, settling herself. I took a sip from the cup and tried to decide how much I wanted to tell her.
Due to my familiarity with her species, I was more willing to explain my situation to Heshae than to Duguf, even though I had clear orders not to divulge information unless I had to. This didn't constitute a "had to" just yet, so I erred on the side of caution.
“All humans are people, but ‘people’ means more than just humans. The Pact had a handful of species in it—the Alvi being one of them—before everything went sideways,” I said before changing the subject, “It sounds to me like you’ve got plenty of different people, though. How many species do you have here?”
“Seven, according to our manifest. With you as an addition and the loss of [coveborn-plumage-authority-oppression-danger-sorrow] in the hold, we maintain our previous variety. Though you are far more pleasant company.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
My eyebrows shot up halfway through her last statement, and my face felt very cold suddenly. Did I kill that thing?
In my expeditions beyond the safety of the Warren, I always knew that I would get into trouble. That’s part of why I went out in the first place. Even with standing orders to preserve all life I came across, some of my encounters ended with people staying down rather than limping back to whatever bolt-hole they had cobbled together. There were other times when an individual would attack me like a feral animal, and my training told me I’d have to put them down. In times like that, I didn't hesitate. You can’t make a difference if you’re dead.
The more I thought about it, I saw no glaring reasons to beat myself up over the bird-crab: they had taken me hostage, after all. That sort of thing tends to sour your opinion of someone. Still, if I had the option, I would have chosen negotiation over ending a life. I wasn't looking to become the "kill first, ask questions later" type.
She must have noticed my expression change, because her eyebrows knit together in confusion. A moment later, she leaned over and whispered, "It wasn't you who finished him, Amelin. [bonfire-wisdom-quiet-peace-warrior-honorable] wanted reven—it wasn't you."
"Which one was that?" I asked, setting the cup down. I had all but worked through my feelings on the subject, so a sardonic smirk cut through my melancholy as I continued, "In all of the commotion, I didn't get anyone's name."
"Taga. Ta-gah. Taga." She paused, I magicked, and she continued, "The large one with red scales. Taga Night-Breaking-Clear, an [armored-fireborn-contemplative-direct-quiet-honorable]."
Hand sign, drop the spell, nod.
"Embrial. Em-bree-uhl. Embrial."
I picked my spells back up while thinking to myself, Reminds me of my training.
"Taga the Embrial. Got it. So... why was that one in the hold?"
Hands, spells, continue.
"Veligrusk. Vell-lee-grussk.
Again.
"Right. Why was Veligrusk in the hold?"
She paused for a moment and bit her lip, which was such a human expression that my heart ached in response. I closed my eyes and let it pass, and when I opened them, she was looking directly into my eyes.
"Can I ask a question first?"
"If I let you, will I get my questions answered?" I said while sitting up and turning myself towards her.
"You will. Are you a Wizard? Taga and the others in the hold saw your spell, and Duguf and I saw your spellcraft here. It's important that we know."
Zero hesitation.
"I am a Conduit. I connect things and, in doing so, change them and myself," I said as I reached out to my cup with my left hand. I clenched my hand and twisted it, like opening an invisible door, willing the Facet of viscosity within the mug and the water to swap places.
The anima flowed out of me like wind through my hair, the Gossamer made the swap, and then the wooden cup started falling off the table like spilled water. A cup-shaped block of water tipped onto its side and followed it, making odd clatter-slap noises as it hit the ground. I released my clenched hand to drop the spell and got out of my cot with a little hop. As I bent down to pick up the flat disk of wood that the spell had created, my oath continued to ring out in my mind.
I am a Conduit. I take no sides, I belong to no nation.
I am a Conduit. I am the voice of the voiceless, I am the keeper of dreams.
I am a Conduit. Through me do my people remember. Through me, our stories survive.
I don't think she listened to anything I said after “connect things,” with how transfixed she was on what I had done. I listened, though.
I heard my teacher reciting the oath to me when I was just an eleven-year-old kid looking to pull their weight in the Warren. I heard the dozen of us speak it at seventeen before going for our Dreaming, hoping that we’d all make it through the night. I heard the seven of us who survived reciting it again as we got our vestments, cobbled together from whatever anyone in the Warren could spare.
The Oath was like solid ground steadying me in a storm.
I passed the wafer of wood to her, with its strange grain and odd angles, and said, “I suppose I am a Wizard, in a way. I can do things others can’t. I know things others don’t. The things I don’t know, I want to learn. And the things I can’t do? I’ll find out how to do them."
She looked at the plate of wood, then at my chest, then back to the plate. She stood, and for the first time I noticed the height difference between us. I’m not the shortest thing in the world—somewhere between five and six feet tall—but she was easily a head taller than I was. Tall, graceful, poised. And scared. Scared as hell.
I could see it in the set of her shoulders, in the pale yellow of her knuckles as she gripped the plate. Heshae turned and walked over to the desk, slipped the plate next to the books with an odd reverence, and then sat back down. I wanted to give her time to woolgather, to chew her words before she spit them out in neat little rows. But the Oath had lit a fire in me, so I seized the initiative.
“Heshae, what is happening here? I heard sounds of battle when I awoke; I was taken hostage, nearly died, and saved, and people have been running in and out of this makeshift infirmary for a while now. Is it a battle?”
Heshae looked at the door over her shoulder for a second and started slowly wringing her hands—I don’t even think that she knew she was doing it. We both knew she was angling for this conversation from the start, and I could feel the dim echo of her emotions through my spell, charging the room with trepidation.
Finally, she nodded to herself and looked back up at me, “You could say that. A riot.”
“A protest?” I said. She shook her head, and I could feel the room grow warmer with the heat in her voice, “An uprising. We will not be sold again.”
I put my arms in front of me and mimed my wrists bound in chains, then broke them by flinging my arms apart. She nodded, and my blood ran cold. They’re slaves—were slaves. I’m in the middle of a slave revolt on a fucking spaceship.
That’s what I was missing.
“When Taga was carrying me after the incident in the hold, there was a conflict in the hall,” I growled out, and her jaw dropped. Later, Heshae. I didn’t have time for her confusion; I needed some answers. “Another one of Duguf’s kind wanted to access the restricted place in the front of the ship—“
“How do you kno—the helm, yes.”
“—and the taller one wanted to reach the back of the ship. Why?”
Heshae’s stare stretched on forever. I think she was trying to figure out how I knew what I knew, but we were both in the frustrating position of not having all the answers. I didn’t even have time to enjoy her expression this time.
She gave up with a sigh and said, “The helm controls most of the functions on the ship. The ship’s rear contains engineering. If we control the helm, we can flee and escape, but we are concerned that those in engineering will find a way to cut off life support to our side. If we control engineering, any escape we make is forced to continue on our present course, but we will be free to act.”
“Escape from what?” I said, even though I knew what was coming. Retaliation. I didn’t know what slavery felt like, but I knew what being hunted felt like in my bones, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The cynical part of me started shouting, Are you really ready to jump back into the shit Am, immediately after your brush with death?
“Recapture. Veligrusk locked out the helm and tried to flee to engineering before being cornered. We’re working to breach the helm now, but it will take time.
"Many people are here who cannot fight; several families. If we escape, we can help them get home. No matter what, we must go soon. I came to ask…”
I stopped listening. It wasn’t everything I wanted answered, but it was enough.
I will never be a slave. Step one-point-five: take the ship.