The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (17 page)

Raga took a step closer to him
. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never been inside a harem. Just stay calm and keep your eyes and ears open. I should think the ceremony will be within the week, and I imagine you will spend most of your time with the women until then.”

“I hope you’re right. All this kissing and caressing is turning my stomach.”
Eris smiled warmly at the Sultan, who held out his hamd to Eris and led him up the steps of the dais.

“Hofa,” the Sultan said, turning to one of his eunuchs. “Please, take my lovely bride to Maissa. She will know what to do.”

“Yes, Excellency,” Hofa answered in a high-pitched voice that sounded awkward given the man’s size. From out of the folds of his expansive pantaloons, two golden cuffs with a short length of chain between them appeared in his hands.

Suddenly feeling even more trapped like a wild animal in snare, Eris pulled his hand from the Sultan’s arm. His bright-green eyes narrowed like a cornered tiger.

“What does he mean to do with those?” Eris demanded. Instinctively, he crossed his arms hiding his hands. “Am I to be chained like an animal?”

The Sultan frowned at Eris’ reaction. An eyebrow raised as the line of his mouth became hard and firm. He drew his shoulders up and back and seemed to become even taller and more imposing than he already was. How dare a woman challenge him in front of his assembled court?

Eris realized in that moment he’d committed a terrible mistake. His cheeks colored and he felt the horrified gaze of everyone in the room on him and had no idea what to do next.

Raga rushed forward and fell prostrate on the steps. He spread his arms imploringly, while keeping his face to the ground. Eris cringed as he watched the infinitely powerful, first-level elemental groveling at the feet of a mere man.

“Forgive her, Excellency,” Raga pleaded. “Her people live free as the wind on the vast steppes in the Night Vale. She is not accustomed to the ways of civilized men.”

Civilized, Eris scoffed silently. In his mind, the Sultan was no less a bastard than the slavers milling about on the palace steps.

“Believe me, Excellency. She only needs to be instructed in the ways of your people, and what better master than yourself,” Raga said.

Sultan Umar considered Raga’s words. His eyes narrowed shrewdly as he looked at Eris, then to the other girls fearfully huddled together at the bottom of the steps. The great room was unbearably silent. At length he smiled a tight, controlled smile and lightly caressed Eris’ cheek with the backside of his fingers.

“Perhaps you are right, merchant. It will be most satisfying to teach her these things, and if the gods find favor, she will bear a son with the same quickness and suspicions. The same qualities I have found advantageous in keeping this kingdom under my rule,” Sultan Umar said. He reached out and took hold of Eris’ hands and pulled them toward himself. “Hofa, as I command.”

The large, baby-skinned eunuch stepped forward, and without meeting Eris’ gaze, locked the golden cuffs around Eris’ slender wrists.

When he finished and stepped away, Eris looked down at his bondage and felt more than humiliated and degraded. He heard the collective sigh of relief whisper around the hall and the whispered condemnation of the men around him. He had truly become chattel in a world dominated by men. There was no honest defeat on the battlefield here.

Hofa took Eris gently by the elbow and led him from the dais toward the doors behind the great pillow throne. They paused at the archway to wait for the other girls chosen to join the harem. Like Eris, they were bound, but unlike him, they wore chains of crude, heavy iron, not gold.

“Be very careful, Eris.”
Raga warned, concern and warning in his thoughts. “
This man will support no affront to his person or his authority. He has absolute control over everything. Do whatever he says until you have that gem and can get free. Be careful. I can’t say that to you enough. The punishment for a disobedient wife is not pleasant. And were you to change back into a man during an ordeal, your death will not be an easy thing. You can’t fight the whole palace guard alone.”

“I’ll be careful.”
His tone was somber. “
I just don’t know what to do. Feel free to let me know if you think I’m headed for trouble. After all this, I would hate to lose now.”

“Just keep your wits about you and especially, your mouth closed.”

“And you keep my horse and weapons ready by the garden wall. And don’t forget the rope.
” Eris breathed deeply as Hofa propelled him through the door and into a world of mystery and secrecy.

He heard the soft footsteps of the other girls who followed him and wondered what thoughts were going through their minds as they moved away from the outside world and into the very depths of the palace. Feigning interest in the architecture, the brightly painted walls and the polished marble floors, Eris looked for a way out. He watched for a low window or a bright light at the end of a corridor that signaled a possible entrance to a garden.

“Fare you well, Eris. May whatever gods you pray to bring you out in one piece. I should hate to think of you missing your tongue.”

Raga felt secure that their mind bond was as strong as if they had been standing side by side. He heard a sound like tinkling bells and realized Eris was laughing at him. A slight smile ruffled his beard and he took a deep breath. Perhaps this would turn out well in the end.

The sorcerer turned to leave the palace and wrapped the jeweled coffer tightly in Eris’ discarded cloak. He wasn’t about to risk it getting lost or stolen as he went back through the crowded streets to their lodging. He didn’t need gold and jewels, but Eris would never forgive him for losing it.

The long hall leading back to the front steps was nearly deserted now that the bride was chosen. Servants lit crystal oil lamps that hung on the hooks of silver lamp stands.

Raga walked slowly and let his eyes trace the intricate patterns painted on the walls. He paused for a moment to admire a fish swimming along one of the channels toward another pool. The splashing water droplets in the fountains didn’t sound as festive as they had only a short time ago. In fact, nothing about the palace seemed as grand as it had. Raga sighed and wondered at the difference he felt.

The fish attempted to turn in the channel to rejoin the school it had just left, but it was too large and the channel too narrow. The fish whipped its tail with supposed indignation, sent up a splash of water and glided into a fishless pool.

It was then Raga understood what he was feeling, loneliness. He raised the cloak slowly to his nose. The sweet fragrance of orange blossom lingered in the fabric.

Though he and Eris had been together for less than a full phase of the moon, he found himself feeling strangely alone. During those months he had tracked Eris before finally confronting him in Rennas Baye, he was careful to never come too close. Even then he understood Eris’ questing, suspicious nature and the ease with which he settled problems with the sword's sharp edge. Raga realized he would miss their bantering and a few days or a week without Eris’ incredible antagonism would be a week of sheer boredom.

There’s nothing to be done about it,
Raga thought and a tired sigh escaped him. He glanced at the fish swimming alone in the great pool and a great melancholy settled in him.

“Time to go,” he muttered and quickly departed the long hall. The palace steps were in shadow as the sun rode low on the horizon.

He was sure Eris was going to have a pleasant week without him and would probably not give him a second thought so great was his animosity.

“He probably won’t even be glad to see me either,” Raga muttered and frowned deeply at the merrily chattering people he passed. In an elemental-sized ill humor by the time he returned to the inn, he paused downstairs long enough to buy a half dozen bottles of very expensive wine. Settling into their room, dark and shadowed, lonely and overpowering in its silence, he proceeded to drink himself into a more or less uncaring frame of mind.

It seemed to Eris that he and the group of women he led had walked nearly a league before Hofa, the Sultan’s chief eunuch, stopped in front of a heavy, wooden door carved with delicate flowers and birds with fanciful plumes and flowing tail feathers. He reached up and pulled a red tassel that rang a bell on the other side of the door.

It was pulled open by an older woman, who was as colorfully dressed as all the younger ones gathering behind and peering over her shoulders.

“Mistress Maissa,” Hofa said as he bowed low to her. “I have brought the new bride and several others for your attention.”

“But, of course, I had almost forgotten that today was the last day,” Maissa said. She pulled the door wider and stepped back to allow them entrance. Eris thought she had an exceptionally beautiful voice and smiled at her as she pulled him aside and into her embrace, while the others moved into the room.

“What a beautiful, exquisite child you are. Our Sultan has chosen very well this time,” she said. A tingle of suspicion rippled through Eris and he wondered what she meant by “this time”.

Keeping one arm wrapped protectively around Eris’ waist, Maissa turned to look at the other girls who stood huddled together in a self-conscious circle.

“What precious little birds. How we shall have fun dressing them and putting beautiful flowers and jewels in their hair,” she said with a warm smile. A murmur of chatter and laughter rose up from the harem women as they chose amongst themselves which of the new girls they would dress and make beautiful. “Come, come, enough of this. Let the poor little birds rest and get used to their new home,” Maissa said, shooing most of the women out of the visitor’s room and back into the maze of private rooms and shared spaces.

It was then, as Maissa bustled around the room, that Eris realized what a large woman she really was. He was sure she would burst from her veils and thin-strapped sandals at any moment. Yet she carried herself gracefully and the beauty of her youth still shone on her plump face as a sunset before the dark.

The girls of the harem, who had remained in the room, suddenly swarmed around their new sisters again, but kept a respectful distance from Eris; except for one, who also appeared older than the rest, but not as old as Maissa.

She was a tall woman with auburn hair and green eyes that paled next to Eris’. She spoke with a trace of a lingering accent and Eris guessed her to have come from Kiyarvaard, a place in the Night Vale that lay in the north and east of his homeland.

“I’m Tivar. I will be your handmaid, gracious Lady,” she said and bowed before Eris. “Whatever your wish, I will see to it. And later, Maissa, first chosen of the Sultan, will teach you all you need to know about our life here.”

“Ah, I see the two of you are getting acquainted,” Maissa said, coming toward them. “Now, tell me, child, what is your name?”

“Erisa, my Lady,” Eris answered, with a respectful nod of his head.

Maissa quickly put a soft hand over his mouth.

“No, Erisa, you must not call any of us by any title. That is for you alone. You will simply call us by our names,” she corrected. Her eyes looked him over top to bottom so many times while she spoke that he lost count. Her eyes suddenly locked onto his. Great tears welled up and her lips trembled.

“Such a beautiful girl. What a horrid shame. We must all pray to the gods for her, we must,” she cried, clutching one of the girls to her as if she needed support. In a flurry of color and a swish of fabric, she turned and headed for the inner rooms.

Eris heard the words she sobbed as she fled the room. Some of the others took themselves away from their play and followed after her. Eris felt confused by all the fussing and wondered if he had somehow offended the woman. And what was a ‘horrid shame?’ The warrior within stirred at the sound of threatening words.

Seeing Eris’ confusion, Tivar said, “You mustn’t let her worry you, Lady Erisa. Sometimes she worries about silly things.”

“She said, ‘horrid shame.’ That doesn’t sound silly or trivial to me. What does she mean?” Eris asked.

“I’m not the one who should be telling you about such things.”

“You are now. I want to know,” Eris said too sharply, too demanding as the woman took a step back from him.

Tivar glanced at him uneasily, and then looked over her shoulder. She eased him away from the small group that went back to chattering happily again and led him to a velvet-covered chair. It was the only chair in the room, he noticed, as he saw the walls lined with large, colorful pillows and small tables spaced every few paces.

Tivar removed the golden circlet from Eris’ head and brushed his long, ebony tresses.

“I will tell you this, but you must promise never to tell how you found out,” Tivar said in a low voice that only he could hear. Eris nodded that he understood and she continued. “You see, you are really the seventh ‘official’ wife the Sultan has had in as many years.”

“What?” Eris whispered loudly. This plan of theirs was rapidly spinning out of control.

“Shh, don’t say anything, just listen,” she warned, then didn’t say anything.