The sky was clear when Zana threw open the shutters of her window; clear and calm after weeks of fog and low-hanging clouds, the Mothers' Veil a brilliant curtain thrown across its indigo depths. She kept her gaze riveted on the myriad glittering sparks above instead of trying to pierce the soft darkness below her window; she would hear the wagon long before she'd be able to see it.
She should sleep.
She should sleep, and trust Peet to keep Galen safe, keep them both safe, but she knew that if the Kobavasa found them... when they would find them... they would outnumber her fiancé and his bodyguard, outnumber and outgun them; and the thought that the sound of hoofbeats wouldn't signal their return, but the arrival of the guard bringing her the news (and the bodies, oh Mothers, she couldn't bear thinking about this!) made sleep impossible.
Besides, it wasn't as if she had any appointments to keep, or to turn up at work. Now that their frantic flight from Urko's wrath had finally come to an end, Zana found herself unexpectedly adrift in those quiet waters. She wasn't used to quiet anymore. Maybe she clung to her worry, she mused, because she knew it so well by now, like her old, often-mended shoes. You didn't really walk well in them anymore, with their soles worn thin, but they knew your feet, and your feet knew them...
She shook her head. I'm rambling. I really should go back to bed.
She'd go to bed, she promised herself, after she had a last cup of tea. It would help her to warm up again after her chilly vigil at the open window, and help her to fall asleep faster. It wasn't procrastination when it served a purpose, right?
The kettle was softly humming on the stove when the clapping of hoofbeats and the low rumble of cart wheels drifted through the window. Wheels of a wagon, so it was them, and not the guard. Zana rubbed her suddenly wet eyes, exasperated at her reaction. She should make more tea; the men would be frozen after the long ride in the cold.
They did look dead tired when they finally came up the stairs, too tired to react with more than dull surprise at her presence. The chill of the night air clung to their clothes, and the scent of woodsmoke.
Or gunsmoke?
"I made tea." For some reason, Zana felt she had to explain why she was still up at this time. "I got chilly. Something hot before bed will do you good, too."
Peet just shook his head at the offered tea, as always, and went to the stove to warm his hands there instead. It was when Galen declined as well that Zana caught on to the tense atmosphere between them.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Kobavasa," Galen muttered, and went to take off his robe.
Zana looked from him to Peet, and back to Galen. Neither of them looked injured, or particularly shaken. The tension between them felt... different. "And something else?"
"Galen wanted to tell you somethin'," Peet muttered from his place at the stove.
Etissa. It had been on both her and Peet's mind for the last few days, and of course he would've cornered Galen about it sooner or later. Zana cast a worried glance at him as he shuffled towards the table and slumped down on the chair, but he seemed unharmed... not that she'd have thought Peet would harm Galen...
She wandered over to her fiancé, who sat hunched over at the table, a look of utter defeat on his face, and sat down beside him. "What did you want to tell me, Galen?"
Galen didn't look up. "The ape in whose hands I gave Alan in Etissa was a breeder." he said monotonously. "I honestly didn't know, but of course that doesn't mitigate the damage that was done to Alan." He reached for the tea pot, but his hand fell on the table as if he didn't have the strength to lift the pot. "I am... deeply sorry."
I should be shocked, Zana thought numbly, horrified, enraged... why don't I feel anything, least of all surprise?
The specter of a breeder getting his dirty paws on Alan had hung over her since the day she had broken him out of the institute. It had been the main reason she had insisted on dyeing his hair with walnut husks and woad, but the color never really took, and Alan had developed an itching scalp, and the further north they had traveled, the more sparse the wanted posters had become, and so she had stopped with it eventually.
"I never should've slacked off with coloring his hair," she said faintly.
Both men gaped at her. "Nope, Zana," Peet protested. "Don't you dare take the blame for that. This wasn't your fault-"
"I was too desperate after we had been robbed of all our money-" Galen began, but Zana waved him off. She jumped up from her chair, filled with a sudden energy that she couldn't identify - panic, or rage, or grief, or everything mixed together, making her want to run from the room and not stop for miles and miles. It was prickling in her palms and her face, making her nauseous.
"Can you imagine what he must've gone through?" she asked. Her voice was shrill in her ears. "The helplessness, the... the degradation?" She stalked the length of the room, her heart hammering in her chest as if she was already running into the night. "How could you... how could you allow this to happen?"
"I only saw how destitute we were and I... I panicked," Galen murmured. "It made me hasty and, and irresponsible. The blame falls fully on me, but I swear to the Mothers, I really didn't know what he was until I went up to his estate to get Alan back!" He sounded close to tears. "I would never have agreed to this knowingly, no matter how destitute we'd be. You have to believe me!"
"I do believe you!" Zana realized that she was yelling, but she had no control over her voice anymore. She grasped for the nearest chair's backrest to steady herself. "I believe you, but can you imagine the damage this has done to Alan... to Alan's soul..." She could feel the tears threatening at the corners of her eyes, and forced them back with a titanic effort. It wouldn't help Alan at all if she bawled her eyes out now.
"Good thing humans don't have souls, eh?" Peet spat.
"You know that neither Galen nor I think that humans don't have souls, Peet," Zana said and dabbed at her eyes. The frantic energy had left her all of a sudden, and now there was only a humming silence in her head, a droning she could feel in her bones, swinging from numb to panic and back again. It really didn't matter if Galen had given Alan to the breeder knowingly or... or just irresponsibly. Some things were so devastating that the presence or absence of intent was completely irrelevant.
"I see now how this memory is too monstrous for Alan to deal with," she said finally, and eased herself into the chair. She felt like moving underwater, as if she had to move with utmost care or she'd tumble and fall and never get up again. "No wonder he doesn't want to recognize us. I... I don't deserve his friendship anymore."
She reached for the tea pot, but like Galen a moment before, she couldn't lift it. It had become too heavy, and her arm was shaking too much. Galen moved to help her, but his hands were shaking even worse than hers. His own mug was still empty.
Peet left his place at the oven and came over to the table, grabbed the tea pot, and poured her her tea; then, to her dull surprise, he did the same for Galen. He set the pot down with a thump.
"How could they even do it?" he muttered. "You can't force a man to sleep with a woman, that's just not possible."
"Isn't it?" Zana murmured, staring into her mug. "Maybe they drugged him with Blaze , or maybe they just applied the right... the right encouragement... you know, touching him..."
"Okay, okay," Peet said hastily. "Don't really wanna go there." He cleared his throat, and for a long moment, nobody said anything.
"But damn, three days..." he suddenly broke the silence again, apparently unable to stop his musing. "You mean they forced him to... I mean, nonstop? Now that's not possible, I know that for a fact, an' even if it was, he wouldn't be able to produce, uh... offspring after a few... I mean, after a short while anymore."
"Blaze," Galen muttered darkly, and Zana felt new tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Three days... while she and Galen had been sitting in that tavern, talking about their future. While Peet had been abducted and abused by other upstanding citizens of Etissa. While she had slept in her warm, soft bed in that inn, completely oblivious to the horrors her friends were enduring in that very moment...
Peet stared at Galen, his knuckles getting white around his own, empty mug. "You mean Al did make a bunch of kids for that asshole? Al, the family man?" He jumped to his feet, scraping the chair over the floor planks, and began pacing the room, just like Zana had done - probably filled with the same mixture of horror and rage. "Goddamn... that'd really haunt him. Rape or not, he'll feel that those are his kids. His, and now that monkey is gonna sell them like donuts... These mountains really need a herbicide run."
Zana buried her face in her hands. Alan's children... they were growing in their mothers' wombs right now, and would be born at the height of summer, little fair-haired cubs who'd make their owner obscenely rich...
She clenched her fists. I won't allow that!
Aloud, she just said, "That is a problem for another day. Right now, it's Alan we need to help."
"Is forcing him to remember his ordeal really helping him?" Galen murmured into his mug.
Zana stared at him. Peet stopped pacing
"Of course you'd prefer him to forget how you fucked up his life," he growled.
Galen looked up. "How would that profit me, now that both you and Zana know what happened?" he protested. "And even when you didn't know, I took Doctor Ropal's position so you could see him, so that we could help him to remember. I could've stayed clear, and neither of you would've been any wiser!"
Peet continued to glare at him, but kept silent. Galen had a point, Zana admitted to herself.
"But you have to ask yourselves if you don't just want him back because you miss him - because you feel bad now, and would feel better when he returned to his old self," Galen continued. "From where he is standing, Alan is feeling good now, and would feel bad as soon as his memory returned. So whose need does this 'healing' really serve?"
Zana saw Peet's adam's apple jump as he swallowed hard. "It's not about who's feeling good," he muttered, "it's about what's true, and what's real, even if it's ugly. Al has a wife and kids..."
"You said it yourself often enough - there is no chance that he'll ever return to them," Galen pointed out. "Another pain he's currently sparing himself. I've been told he's very fond of Laisa - he would have a chance to have a family here, with her..."
"As a monkey's pet!" Peet exploded, and Zana winced at the slur, but Galen was completely unruffled, a relentless persecutor nailing the human in a cross-examination that Peet couldn't win.
That she herself was losing along with him. Am I selfish if I want to get our Alan back? she wondered. She didn't want to fool herself... didn't want her help be secretly serving only her own needs without considering what was truly best for her friend.
Even if the best for him was not to be her friend anymore.
"This is your quarrel with us," Galen snapped. "Seeing him in Ennis' care is hurting your pride, not his!"
"That's because he's out of his fucking mind!" Peet yelled. "My commander lost his mind an' went native, but I'm not gonna stand for it, do you hear me, Galen? I'm not gonna stand for it, and if I have to carry his amnesiac ass from here to, to... "
"There'd be only one way left," Galen said, and now his voice had softened again. "To the west, into the Forbidden Zone. But this Zone isn't like the other ones we traversed, Peet - there's only desert out there, so hot that nothing survives in it. No water, no shade... it's a death trap."
Peet returned to the table and dropped into his chair. "Says who? I've heard that humans go in there to escape their monkey masters."
"Escape doesn't mean survival," Galen murmured tiredly. "Maybe for some, death is preferable to a life in servitude."
Peet blinked. "Yeah, maybe," he admitted.
"But would it be for Alan?" Galen wanted to know. "And do you think you can make that decision for him?"
"I... agree with Galen," Zana heard herself say, and winced at the look of betrayal on Peet's face. "Sometimes, people choose to start a new life, and to take on a new identity. If Alan does that, I'll accept it - but to make that decision, Alan needs to regain his wits."
She reached across the table to grasp Peet's fist. "That means I also agree with you. However painful Alan's past may be, it's his past, and he has a right to know it, and to claim it, and to find a way beyond his shame and grief. Falling apart isn't healing, and right now, he's incapable of truly deciding if he wants to be Alan or Taris."
She squeezed his hand. "Helping him means restoring his mind so that he can make that decision, no more and no less."
Peet just shook his head.
"And how do you plan to do that?" Galen wondered. "He vigorously denies knowing Peet, and he's known him the longest."
"I don't have a plan, other than to continue what we're already doing," Zana admitted. "Alan did remember the name of his son during Zatis' bird-watching expedition, and Zatis thinks that more memories will surface, now that we managed to 'open the gates', as he put it."
Peet looked up at that, and Zana immediately regretted her words. Now she had stirred new hope in him, and if Alan's memories didn't surface, that hope would be shattered. She wasn't sure how many ups and downs of that kind Peet would be able to endure.
"When he remembers who he is, he's not gonna stay with that kid," Peet said, and Zana's heart ached at the confidence in his voice. "No way he's gonna be a monkey's pet. Or slave. Or whatever. We're free humans, Al an' I, can't take that out of us."
All your ancestors were free humans once, Zana thought. But somehow, my ancestors managed to do exactly that.
I pray to the Mothers that we didn't succeed this time.
For a world that had supposedly undergone some serious climate warming, the air was damn cold, Burke thought as he made his way through the human ghetto. Not that he cared - he had spent colder winters with crappier clothing in his youth. It just was a bit puzzling, because on the one hand, Florida was pretty much under the waterline - and good riddance, too - and he'd probably never see snow again in his life, but on the other hand, the weather still managed to be shitty as always.
And no idea why he was thinking about the weather so much. Probably because it was better than thinking about other things.
He knocked at the door to the hospital - or apothecary, he still wasn't sure what it actually was, maybe both - and turned his head to watch the street behind him. Nobody would try to ambush him here - not at this time of day, and not in a purely human quarter - but it gave him something to do while he waited for the healer to wake up. It was a bit early in the morning, but Galen wanted to drive to that other prefecture later, and that meant they had to get going pretty early in the day, too.
And since they had all been a bit distracted last night, Galen had only discovered that they were all out of cough syrup right before breakfast.
The door opened behind him, and Burke turned around, faintly surprised that Laisa was already awake. By the looks of her, though, she hadn't slept at all.
"Crazy night?" Burke asked by way of greeting.
She gaped at him for a moment, then cinched her robe tighter. "Very. Come in."
She wasn't wearing anything under that robe. Not that he was interested, he just... he tended to notice these things, was all. Burke cleared his throat and wrenched his thoughts back to business. "Sorry to bother you at this time of day, but the doc needs some, uh, ague weed, y'know, that stuff against the coughing..."
"Yes, I know what you mean," Laisa said, and led him to her herb room. "I even have the syrup ready-made, I assume that's what he wanted?"
"He didn't say, but so far, he's always given out the syrup, yeah," Burke said to her back.
"I'll give you the syrup, then." She began to pack small glass bottles into a basket. "I'll need the basket back - and the bottles, too."
Burke leaned against the door frame and watched her. "Can't make promises about the bottles. No idea what those peasants are gonna do with them, once they're empty."
"Well, at least tell them to give them back to you on your next round," Laisa said absently. She sounded tired. She looked tired - pale and worn out.
"So, what kept you up all night?" Burke couldn't resist asking. She probably wouldn't tell him - healer's confidences, and all that. But he was all out of small talk about herbs.
To his surprise, a bright crimson crept into Laisa's pale cheeks. "Your friend came by with a bad headache," she murmured. "I, uh, I gave him some tea, and a neck massage..."
Burke raised a brow. What was it with Al and the healers? Sally hadn't been one, as far as he could recall. "An' then?"
Her blush deepened. "He kissed me."
"Huh." Burke fought hard not to grin. "Was it good?"
She turned abruptly away and busied herself at the counter. "Yes."
"He's good with his hands, too," Burke teased her. "Made some wicked tool belts while he was still with us."
He heard her cough; her hands flew to her mouth to choke a giggle. It made him snort - that girlish reaction, and then they were both laughing, and Laisa stole a glance towards him, red-faced under tousled hair, that told him everything. "You really did it? All the way?"
She moistened her lips, avoiding his gaze. "No, we... that's none of your business!"
He laughed and held up his hands. "Sorry."
Laisa scoffed. "You're not sorry. And Taris-"
"Name's Alan." They had decided to call Al by his real name, not 'Nate', to help him remember, and by now, Burke didn't really care about aliases anymore.
She hesitated. "It's not the name he chose for himself."
"No," Burke said, fighting to keep the smile on his face. "It's the name his mom chose for him, an' she's got more right to choose his name than that monkey boy."
Laisa looked scandalized. "Don't call them that!"
"Why the hell not? They call us frogs!" His good mood was gone, as always when the conversation had shifted to the goddamn apes. And it always did, at some point, always.
"Well..." Laisa faltered. "That's not nice, either," she murmured.
Burke huffed a laugh. "No, it's not nice."
She nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Still... if an ape hears you call them that, you'll be in trouble."
"Girl," Burke drawled, "I've been in trouble with the damn monkeys ever since I... since I was born." Well, not exactly, but he couldn't let slip that he was not originally from this time.
"Is it worth it?" She wandered to the other side of the room, suddenly agitated, and leaned against a second door, mirroring his position.
Burke narrowed his eyes. "You think it's better to crawl in the dust and kiss their damn paws?"
She hid her hands behind her back. "No, I... they don't want you to kiss their feet."
Right. That made everything better. "But if they'd want you to, you'd do it."
Laisa tugged at her hair, visibly disturbed by this turn of their conversation. "I just don't see the point of provoking them like you do. It won't change anything."
Burke pushed away from the doorframe. "You... you're okay with the way things are? Monk... Apes on top, humans at the bottom?"
She shrugged, but with her next words, her voice rose until she was almost shouting. "That's how the world is. Fantasies about how it could or should be are just... dreams. They don't do anything, except make us unhappy. We need to accept the facts, even if we don't like them! We can't wish ourselves a different life into existence!"
"Every change in the world started as a vision, a dream!" Burke shouted back. "How can you know what to change, and what to make come true, if you don't even allow yourself to have that vision?"
"But some dreams are destructive," Laisa retorted, still in that too-loud, agitated voice. Had hit a sore spot, had he? "They destroy the good things we already have, all for an empty promise that we can get rid of the painful things in our life, too! Are you really sure that you're not paying too high a price, for some foolish hope of a better life?"
"No, you know what too high a price is?" Burke snapped. "Being under the boot of a fucking ape, being treated like some piece of meat, hired out, sold, worked to the bone, being beaten to a pulp for their goddamn entertainment, never having a say in anything, except master this an' master that, I'm done with this shit, you got me, done!"
He sucked in a deep breath, and suddenly realized that he was, in fact, done.
If Al really chose the damn monkey over him, chose to be Taris, a slave, a pet, there was nothing here to hold him anymore. Last night, he'd been sure that could never happen. But Galen had said that Al had taken a shine to this healer, and by the looks of it, he hadn't lost any time to get better acquainted with her.
Got a new wife, and a monkey son. What the hell am I still doing here?
He froze, focusing on the familiar, half-forgotten feeling of being on his own again, free to go where he wanted, do what he wanted, not having to take anyone's feelings or opinions into account anymore.
Not mattering to anyone.
He felt... dizzy. Exhilarated. Exactly like on the day he had left his home for good, left his dad boozed out on the couch, inhaled the frosty winter air...
Laisa was watching him from across the room, still leaning against the opposite door. "What are you going to do then?"
And all of a sudden, Burke thought of Katlin. He hadn't been thinking of her in a long while, even though he still had her pendant - a reminder that there were humans who thought like him, who defied the apes like he did, even if they were as rare as goddamn unicorns in this world. His hand caught the wooden horse head, its mane smoothed down from rubbing his fingers over it countless times.
"There's someone I know, down South," he muttered. "Someone who doesn't like to lick ape boots. She's got a nice little resistance going, and they can use someone like me. An'..." He shrugged. "There's nobody here who'd..."
Well. Zana would miss him. But right now, he didn't want to acknowledge any apes. He couldn't.
"Nobody here who'd miss me when I'm gone," he continued, a bit hoarsely. "They'd probably miss their monkey master more than me. So I've got no reason to stay."
"I don't think that's true," Laisa said quietly. "As soon as Taris... Alan... remembers who he is... or was, he'll also remember his friends... and realize what a precious thing that friendship is."
Burke snorted. "Y'know what I think?" He didn't wait for her answer. "I think he remembered jus' fine when I reminded him of that prayer he used to say every day. An' the way Za... Mila told me about her encounter with him out in the woods, he even remembered his son's name. He does remember, Laisa, he jus' doesn't want to. He wants nothing to do with us anymore. With me. So much for that precious friendship."
She finally pushed away from the door and came over to him. "I understand that it hurts you, but Dehni..." she laid her hand on his arm, and he could smell her skin, a faint floral scent, really nice... "Can't you understand that some things are just too bad to... to even think of them? And I don't mean that you are the bad thing, but it's all... maybe... tangled up in his mind, and as soon as he'd remember you, he'd remember that other thing, too."
Burke stared at her. He could feel a headache coming, the blood throbbing in his temples, maybe it was contagious. He knew perfectly well, thanks to Galen, what Virdon desperately wanted to forget, but damn...
"Tell you what," he said finally. "There were some crazy-ass apes, got their hands on me. They... they had me for weeks. An' they did all kinds of bad things to me. I can't have a single night without nightmares, thanks to them. I'm forced to think of the damn bad thing every fucking day."
He swallowed, hard, but he couldn't stop now. "In the end... in the end, I was okay with dying. I wanted it. But he dragged me back - got me out, hauled me into some goddamn monastery, and had me stitched back together. And made me carry on, day after day, after fucking. Day.
"An' then he goes and drowns himself in a river 'cause some 'bad thing' happened to him? He got fucked over, okay, but that was just three days. I was in that cage for weeks!"
He shook off her hand. "He was my..." He faltered for a moment, casting for a term that could replace Virdon's rank without tipping her off that he wasn't a native of her world.
"He was a man I'd have followed into the white wastes and back," he said finally. "Because I thought he'd do the same for me. Guess I was wrong. But jus' like you said, we gotta face the facts. Even if we don't like them."
"You're hurt, and bitter," Laisa said. Her eyes were dark and sad and... understanding, and for a moment, Burke hated her for it. Understanding came dangerously close to pity.
"Give him a little more time, Dehni...," she continued. "He'll come around, I'm sure of it. And when he does... forgive him. We all hurt differently."
He grabbed the basket. "You'll get it back. The bottles, too. You'll get it all back."
She didn't say anything; he didn't bother saying goodbye, either.
