Chapter 28:

After taking Vek’s hand, Mayah let him guide her through the trapdoor down to the serf staircase below the balcony. And when he dropped down next to her after pulling the trapdoor shut, and offered his hand to her again, Mayah took it, and let herself revel in the cloth-blocked touch. It was the first physical contact she’d had with anyone in nearly two years. Then, suddenly, Mayah found herself gripping Vek’s arm. She didn’t want to go flying off the edge of the staircase! The doctor-priest’s robe was too big for her!

He led her gently down the serf staircase, not once pushing her off of him or making it seem like she was a bother. Then he pointed her towards another door. “Okay, in here now.”

“Already?” Mayah asked. She’d expected a longer hike. They were probably barely past the library! But Vek was ushering her on, through the door and back into the castle. Her hood had slipped over her eyes so she couldn’t even really see where they were. She thought about asking Vek, but when she began pulling her hood back to do so, Vek yanked it forward again.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

Mayah contented herself with watching the legs of doctor-priests go by. She could tell they were doctor-priests from their robes; it seemed like they were in a clinic. Sure enough, after passing through a few doors, Mayah felt Vek urging her up and onto a clinic bed. “Lie still,” he whispered. “Don’t say anything.” He was pulling a sheet over her torso, over her face, over her glasses. Very quickly Mayah could see nothing but white cotton sheet. She frowned. Then she felt Vek tug at her doctor-priest’s robe. “Take this off.”

It was awkward trying to get out of the robe while lying on top of it. With Vek’s help she managed to pull one arm out, then the other; he then directed her to roll towards him, then back the other way so he could tug the rest of the robe loose. Finally Mayah was back in her white pantaloons and pink and blue patterned Rajas frock. Lying on a clinic bed. Underneath a sheet.

“You’re going to be here for a while,” she heard Vek say. “Try and get some sleep.”

“I –”

“Shhh. I’ll be right here the entire time.”

That made Mayah feel a little bit better, but it didn’t dissipate her confusion. What did Vek mean that she should try and get some sleep? Weren’t they leaving the castle? What were they doing here, in what smelled like some old clinic’s storage room?

He’s taking me to Sukren, Mayah reminded herself. Besides, this is easier than walking down the entire serf staircase, isn’t it?

And Mayah was feeling at least a little sleepy. Second nightsleep was probably about to start if it hadn’t yet already. She closed her eyes and tried to yawn quietly. It was not the easiest thing in the bio-dome to get comfortable on a clinic bed with a sheet pulled up over her face, and she didn’t like sleeping with her glasses on, but somehow Mayah managed to drift off. A few minutes later – or was it longer? – she woke up when someone jostled her clinic bed.

“Don’t say anything, just be still, be calm,” she heard Vek say in Chenmay.

Then Mayah heard laughter – someone else’s laughter. “You know she can’t hear you, right?”

Mayah went rigid. There was someone else in the room?

“I just don’t want her to wake up,” Vek said from somewhere by her head.

“She’s not going to,” a third voice said. He sounded grumpy, even angry.

“I’m just talking,” Vek said. “It’s not like she’d understand what I’m saying anyway.”

Slowly Mayah was able to piece together what was happening. Vek was talking in code. He knew perfectly well that she understood Chenmay, he’d been speaking it to her ever since he’d met her. So by saying she wouldn’t understand, Vek was really telling her that the other serfs in the room didn’t know Mayah spoke Chenmay. He was telling her to keep that a secret. And not only that, he was also letting her know that she needed to be calm, be silent, and pretend to still be asleep.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Her clinic bed began rolling forward. Mayah couldn’t tell where they were going at first, but then she heard the ding of an elevator. Now they were going down, and down, and down… Mayah had to stop herself from yawning again. Were they going all the way down to the castle’s root levels? Because the ride sure was taking forever.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Mayah felt her clinic bed moving forward again. But it wasn’t the smooth glide it had been inside the clinic. It felt like Vek was having to shove and jerk and yank to get the bed to move even a few lengths. Had someone forgotten to sand down the living-wood floor or something? Mayah had to grip the bed rails with both hands at one point to keep from sliding out. And why was it so cold all of a sudden? The wind –

The wind.

Mayah’s mouth fell open. They were outside. Vek was rolling her bed over the ground. Over dirt.

Her bed jerked to a stop. “Okay,” she heard another voice call out. “This is as far as they’ll go. Transfer them to the boats.”

Boats? What was going on? Well, Vek had said they were going to the holy lake. Although he hadn’t said why. Come to think of it, why the holy lake? Hadn’t Vek said he was taking her to Sukren?

“I hope your eyes are closed,” she heard Vek mutter behind her. She heard someone laugh again. Mayah sure didn’t feel like laughing though. Close your eyes, close your eyes, she told herself. Her palms felt slick. Then, suddenly, she felt someone’s arms around her. Was Vek – was he hugging her? Oh, Sarana, he was, he was picking her up, he was hoisting her upside down over his shoulder, the purity laws – the purity laws –

It was too much. Instinctively Mayah reared her head. She struggled to get free of the sheet now wrapped shroud-like around her limbs. Then she heard Vek’s harsh whisper. “No!” The fear in his voice made her go still, although she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding. She heard someone ask Vek if everything was okay. “Yeah, some reaction to the drugs, I guess,” Vek replied. Eyes shut tight, Mayah took in a shuddering breath. The blood was rushing down to her head, and she couldn’t move. Vek was carrying her like a sack. What was going on? Why was he doing this? Holy Sarana, had Mayah made a mistake? Was this a mistake? Oh Sarana –

She had to see what was going on. Scrunching up her face, Mayah squinted through barely open lids. From her angle against Vek’s back, she couldn’t see much, especially since the only light around seemed to be coming from a capacitor lamp hanging off a post near the edge of the water. When Vek swung around, though, she was able to make out the outline of a two-seater boat on the shore.

“There she is,” Vek whispered. He shifted to the side; now all Mayah could see were the black waters of the holy lake. A moment later, she felt Vek’s gloved hand against the back of her head, supporting her neck as he slid her down and off him and into the boat.

Chest heaving, Mayah tried to take in her surroundings. She was lying on her back. The boat’s bow seat had been removed, it seemed, leaving an open space along the base of the vessel for her to lie down in. She was startled when Vek’s face suddenly appeared over the edge of the boat. He cupped his mouth with both hands. “You’re doing great,” he whispered.

I’m doing great? Mayah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. That was the kind of thing you said to a princess about her pot spinning on its wheel, or after she’d finished her turn at the oratory table. It certainly wasn’t what you said to a princess lying on a rumpled sheet in the bottom of a cold boat with no idea what was going on!

“I thought you were taking me to Sukren!” Mayah whispered back as loudly as she dared.

“I am. We’re using this boat to pretend to be one of the Rajas-serf pairs that go into the Temple. It’s the only way Rajas can leave the castle without being seen. Don’t worry, it’s a stop on the way to Sukren, nothing more. I don’t want to overstay my welcome at the ‘house of the divine’ any more than you do.”

Mayah took a deep breath. Okay, well, that made sense, although Mayah wished Vek had explained all this to her beforehand. She hadn’t even known the Temple was more than just a monument to symbolically honor Matter and Intelligence. Apparently it was, though, if Rajas-serf pairs were physically going there to worship.

Vek had disappeared from sight. All Mayah could see was the bio-dome overhead. Or at least she thought it was the bio-dome. From this distance the crisscrossing branches were one big colorful smear, orange and yellow and green and blue cutting up the black sky. For Mayah the smear was boat-shaped, framed by the walls sloping up on either side of her head. She could feel beneath her the vessel scraping against a cluster of long-stemmed Earth grasses as Vek jerked it forward, one tug at a time. Several minutes passed. Mayah opened her mouth to ask what kind of worship the Rajas-serf pairs did at the Temple, when Chenmay speech, quite nearby, reached her ears. She shut her mouth. Suddenly there was a splash, and the boat began rocking back and forth. Mayah was rolled to the side, then back again to the other side, her ear and cheek smushed up against the boat’s bioplastic lining, her left glasses’ earpiece pushed upward against the side of her head.

Vek appeared overhead once more. Now he was wearing a village suit; Mayah could tell from the brown fringe around his shoulders. She watched as he dropped his gloves – thud thud – behind his seat. He winked at her again, then whispered, “I’ll be right back.”