To this date we have no reliable record about the society nor the culture of the secretive, insular sect of the Tailarons.
- BRIEF BY DEFENSE COMMISSIONER HILOM H.
"We lost them," the Tailaron ambassador reproached, maneuvering his fork and knife toward the harmless creature pinned down on his plate. The little critter could move and shake just enough to escape the ambassador's aim, a source of minor annoyance for him.
"You lost them, my dear." The reply came from his right, a voice so innocent it sounded like an angel's, yet with the undertones of a temptress'. A trained voice, certainly, but also a voice tainted by unusual bitterness. "I can be your informant and slave, but not your soldier, my dear." The black evening dress, the pale skin moistened by inebriating body butters, the necklace of white edible pearls imbued of exotic psychoactive ingredients, and the scent of sunshine; a scent that smelled like a symphony of everything that is pure and desirable; the scent in particular marked her as a Lady of the Goddess, and a good one at that.
Seduce the Tailaron ambassador, was the message Eilanna of the Goddess had received from the Goddess herself. Within reason, do not put your life at risk.
Too late! Eilanna smiled, a smile that did not pretend to be a happy one. Seducing him she had tried, there was no doubt about it. If only the Goddess had told her that no one among them had ever succeeded. Eyes back to the table and her companion, Eilanna considered how to play her hand next.
"Better intelligence would have won us the woman we want, that Sheeana, and the tanks we both desire," observed the ambassador, slightly accusing, while he pinned to the plate the little creature with a prong of his fork, and cutting off its tail with the knife. A miserable squeak came out. "It takes some practice, and I don't mind that you are not partaking."
The Lady had only briefly glanced at her own plate, where a slimy critter lay trapped under the glass cloche, ready for its torturer.
"It may look ominous to you, but I assure you it is delectable," he added gently.
She looked away. Harmless enough had been her first invitation to the ambassador's mansion; it had come in a white-lacquered letter, elongated gold calligraphy detailing the logistics of a ball. A curious braid made of a thick yet incredibly thin vine was wrapped around the invitation. She had examined it with her pale fingers, caressed it, admiring the subtle coils braided in impossibly intricate black spirals, filaments of gold and ruby red interspersed in the pattern. The warm rays of the afternoon sun had played with her hair as she had disentangled the braid from the letter, and watched in wonder as it had effortlessly coiled around her wrist in the process, moving of its own accord. It was not a braid, she had realized, but an arm bracelet. It fit her arm so very naturally, clasping the wrist just tightly enough, perfectly adapted to the shape of her arm. And so at last, something of the fabled bio-technology of the secretive Tailarons had landed in her hands.
Still refusing to look at her terrified entree, she touched the coils of the bracelet, which she had found too late could suddenly spring inseverable spikes to pierce her pale skin. "I feel sympathy for the animal," the Lady Eilanna replied, "as it reminds me of my own condition, a thing at the mercy of my master." She was not in the mood. Seducing is hard when the object of your advances performs live animal vivisection as a dinner activity.
The ambassador, whose only name, Hux, was pronounced with a slight exhalation of air, glanced at the Lady coldly, with barely the curiosity he would have regarded to another candidate for vivisection; then he brought back his attention to the meal. Never before Eilanna had been gazed upon like that. She was just the background, the decoration for the ambassador's soliloquies. No one in her presence had ever dared look at a Lady of the Goddess and think "ornament". A Lady was trained, was created to stand in the foreground.
"Good. You are but a disciple on this path, my Lady. The principle of tahi applies to war the same way it applies to food. For every yin there is a yang. We seek ultimate deliciousness which causes euphoria, and in our philosophy everything that is uplifting must come at a great price."
"Somebody else's price, I see." Eilanna forced herself to drink from the goblet in front of her. It contained some sort of rose-smelling red wine. To her relief, it was delicious, fruity but not sweet. She discreetly bit on one of the white pearls of her necklace and chewed down an antidote to alcohol. You are going to have to use all your wits to get out of here, she thought. Her bracelet pulsed lightly on her skin, reminding her that such thoughts were not allowed by her master.
"Somebody else's price? So it looks at first glance. The creature I am eating is hurting a great deal, of course," he underscored the comment by cutting open the animal's belly so that its organs became exposed, "but killing prey to produce food is something we humans have done for eons. Survival may be cruel. What would surprise you, is that our philosophy also prescribes that we develop empathy for what we eat. We feel their pain as we cut into it and kill it and devour it. We thank the animal of its sacrifice, for it gives us nourishment, and sometimes, delight. Developing empathy is a painful process, as it transforms every bite in the harrowing of both the eaten and the eater."
"A lot of justifications for sadistic killing," she observed, feeling feisty. What was the thread to seduce this man? Every dominator wanted deep down to be dominated. If she could only find the right angle...
She brought her hands to her ears. The creature on the ambassador's plate had turned to full-on screaming as he teased his innards with the fork, not with pleasure, but in a careful, systematic way.
"The pain this creature is feeling now releases a particular toxin that greatly improves the flavor," he continued. "It makes the difference between a delicious meal and the culinary experience of a lifetime. Even food can be used to elevate minds to higher levels of awareness, and so my torture is justified." He brought a skewered animal leg to his mouth and closed his eyes, absorbed by the intensity of the flavor. "Oh, incredible." And then toward her: "You must try this."
As before, the solemn invitation rang like an order in her ears, and the subtle clenching of the bracelet around her arm signaled to her it was the time to obey, and fast. Spikes started to protrude from the coiled vine toward the skin wounds that had failed so far to heal.
The sound of a neat cut, and the screaming in his plate stopped. Eilanna leaned in quickly to bite the morsel the ambassador was offering on his fork. For the Goddess' sake, it was the creature's head. She closed her eyes, repressing the impulse to retch, and bit hard.
In the confusion of what happened next she felt a warm light touch her body, visions of a sun on a field of golden flowers appeared against the backdrop of her closed eyelids. Synesthesia? Her mouth watered in response to the puzzle of flavors that sprang from the meat. By the time her brain had caught up with the taste, it had exploded in her mouth, taking over her neural pathways. Her brain was hijacked by something so powerful she felt knocked off of her balance and falling from the chair, while still sitting in place. She nearly lost her sense of self in the tidal wave, in the sense of delightful completeness. Unbidden, a squeal of excitement burst out of her. She was tasting pure ecstasy. Her face flushed, her pulse quickened. Her lungs gasped for air. She felt like screaming her joy to the world.
"Delectable, isn't it?" a distant sound rang in her ears.
The morsel in her mouth melted into a savory liquid she was forced to swallow. The experience was gone! Eilanna convulsively clutched the armrests with her hands. She re-opened her eyes while fighting a vertigo, a complete sense of loss. A sixth sense had awakened in her consciousness, but that fragile new awareness had been annihilated by the real world flooding back in, by the glowglobes lights, by the emptiness on her tongue, by the brute voice of the ambassador who sat so grossly next to her.
"Now you know, too," the ambassador whispered kindly, looking at her face in agony. "Such mind unlocks, such unearthly delights cannot be experienced guilt-free."
Eilanna reeled. How could food be more powerful than any drug she had ever experienced? No wonder her graces could not sway the ambassador. How could you bond a Tailaron used to food that was better than sex? A potent craving overtook her now. Was this addiction, and how could it develop so soon? She NEEDED more. The empathy for the animal was wiped away as she grasped a fork with one hand and proceeded to remove the glass cloche from her own plate with the other.
The ambassador clasped her wrist - the one without the bracelet - and pressed her arm down to lower the cloche back on the plate. "Freeze!" he commanded. "Freeze, and listen to your body." Once again the direct order activated the bracelet, so she quickly committed to immobility. Her body protested, desperate to move, desperate to feel another moment of bliss; her heart was pounding, her leg muscles spasming, her hands shaking...
"Slow, now," the ambassador whispered, clenching Eilanna's wrists. "Observe your body. Slow. How it wants to take control. It's a powerful compulsion, my Lady. Stay still. It's hard. Breathe. Stay still. Notice how limited your body is, how it craves to burst out of its skin at this moment. A slave of body chemistry, a victim of cravings and desires. Breathe. Cravings only bring pain. Now slowly, retake control. Start from your left little finger, then the other fingers, then go up to your palm,..." The bracelet in Eilanna's arm coiled like a living snake. "... To your forearm, then your full arm." Delicately, the wave of compulsion and despair started to subside. "Now shift focus on the other arm... your legs, now your entire body... finally your head. Think of your brain as a muscle, relax it."
As her mind finished to rein in her disobedient body, Eilanna glanced up to the wall, where an antique clock in sequoia redwood was hung. A full hour had passed since he had introduced her to the exercise.
The ambassador's voice was a hush. "Every pleasure comes with pain. Pleasure and pain together remind us that we are alive. That was Dur's lesson. Empathy for our victims strengthens our resolve. But we must train our organisms to overcome our compulsions, lest violence is satisfied by violence itself, and pain by pain. We create pain to create delight, experience both polar ends, and in the wild swings we remember that we are alive." He leaned back, distancing himself from the Lady's sweating body. He made a gesture to a servant, who poured a red liquid into his goblet, and drank.
Eilanna's breath became regular again. "I feel guilty. Torturing creatures is no way to seek enlightenment."
"Naturally. Inflicting pain causes guilt. Hiding guilt is the incorrect path. Weakness builds in you. Repent and make amends to free yourself from guilt."
"What amends are you talking about?"
"We inflict pain when we dominate. To make amends is to be subjugated. Yin and yang." The ambassador pointed at Eilanna's bracelet. "When you accepted my invitation to the bond, when you decided to wear the bracelet, you became my subject. You were making amends in advance."
Eilanna followed his gaze down to her arm. Even in her troubled state she could not but admire the stunning piece of work that trapped her. Disobey, lie, or even think to do harm to her master, and the sharp spikes hidden in its fibrous, vine-like coils would lash at her skin, leaving her paralyzed. The cult of joy and pain indeed.
"Now you understand not just how, but also why we eat our way. It applies to everything we Tailarons do. Overcoming the duality of pleasure and pain is the only recipe to survive a world of suffering," he continued preaching, "Isn't that what our lord Dur came to remind mankind of? It is commonplace that we will all die, but what a marvel is to live in the awareness of our mortality, and embrace life fully every second!"
A path started to become visible in Eilanna's mind. She could easily deliver pain and pleasure to a man who submitted to her. She perked up, adopting a regal stance, while her hand swiftly grabbed another pearl from her necklace. Her first pearl had been an antidote, for defense; this one was a mind-dulling toxin, to strike. Distract him while you spike his drink. "And in doing so, I will deliver the pleasure and pain you need to feel to be alive."
"Do you still want more food?" The ambassador asked.
Eilanna replied: "Yes. I will have more food, without my body... taking over."
The ambassador nodded proudly. "You will develop self-control. I suggest we eat very slowly," he added, as their plates were replaced by the servants with new dishes. It was inert, already-dead food, Eilanna was relieved to notice. She waved at the servant for more wine. "Another goblet of red will help here," she said, reaching out to grab the ambassador's glass as well as hers, and offering both to the nearest servant. "This evening, I would like to entreat you to a challenge, my dear."
Spikes pierced her skin, but she bled gratefully as unbeknownst to him, she had dissolved the pearl in his glass.
"Pray explain."
"Let's first toast to our meeting."
They drank. The ambassador smacked his lips, but otherwise did not notice the toxin. The coils clenched her less tightly. May it be that with the ambassador's intoxicated state came some relief?
"Now my dear ambassador, explain to me this dazzling array of dishes..."
And so he proceeded to explain everything that the servants laid out in front of her: axolotl legs, serially cut and regrown from the same animal; duck embryos marinated in blood drawn daily from an exotic type of oxen; meats from a variety of animals who had been poisoned with slow-acting toxins. Later, he warranted, and only if the Lady felt ready, there were more live animals whose inner organs made for incredible crudo tasting.
"Fascinating," Eilanna replied to every explanation, while continuing to invite his host to wash down wine by the goblet. "So I am your willing slave, but how do you subject yourself to a greater power, my dear?"
"Truth be told, I am a slave to love, my Lady," he replied. Yet the way he said it implied he was not talking about romance. He rolled up his sleeve, showing the Lady another vine bracelet, with thicker coils, the weaving coarse, the colors faded with use. "Your vine bonds you to me, and in turn this bonds me to the greater good. Me and my womb brothers; fifty wombs make a clique, which belongs to maniple, fifty of which make up a swarm. Each one of us tied to the swarm queen."
Womb brothers? Queen?
"What we call a vine is nothing but the umbilical cord with which the controller was born. Even I, the ambassador, are but a slave. By means of the vine you wear, you must be true to me; you must obey; you cannot even think of harming me without the vine rebelling against you. It will kill you if you don't obey. I am similarly bonded, promised."
Eilanna tried to hide her excitement. The ambassador grew talkative as the drug took effect. What did the Goddess say to her? We know nothing of them. Learn what you can. Come back alive. Seduce one but within reason, do not put your life at risk.
"If I am to be your partner in pleasure and pain, I will not tolerate a queen over you, my dear," she ventured. Now that he was adequately inebriated and dulled, it was now time to confuse him with conversation. "Tell me about your zombies then," she said nonchalantly.
"That should not concern you, my Lady. The zombies are our most sacred warriors," the ambassador replied, looking for his servants' attention. They stopped wandering around the table, standing to attention, perfectly still. He made a gesture toward them. Eilanna noticed how their eyes were glazed over.
"These servants are zombies? So do they wear the same bracelet as I?"
"No bracelet needed. Zombie bonds are created through much greater sacrifices."
"Then who are your womb brothers? I beg you to explain, my dear. It pains me not knowing."
For the first time, the ambassador hesitated. Eilanna realized he had become eager to please her, and to boast. He mumbled, almost afraid of speaking out loud.
"We are all born brothers, my Lady. On our original planet we breed naiads, formidable mammals from the jungle. Have you ever seen one? Of course not. Tall as a building, fast as bullets. Naiads' cubs are from birth the strongest carnivores in the known universe."
Eilanna kept quiet, big eyes listening, as the inebriated ambassador continued his story. "We insert dozens of fecundated human embryos in a naiad's womb alongside her offspring, so that our children absorb superior nutrition via her blood. The gestation lasts twenty months instead of the usual nine, during which the feti develop into full humans, not just the helpless and premature babies of human gestation. Ours sport fully developed brains and stronger bones; they can walk and learn their surrogate mother's animal language. A month before delivery, the naiad mother goes through a hormonal transition that causes a ritual fight among the offspring. Children and cubs fight until the strongest prevail and eat their weaker brothers. And so our offspring come to the world not supine and helpless, but standing strong and already bloodied in battle. Warriors! Like wolf-raised heroes of old."
"And so these are the zombies..."
"No, the zombies are for another time," the ambassador cut it short. He subtly avoided her gaze, slightly self-conscious - were roles slowly reverting? - and picked up a transparent jelly ball with chopsticks. The ducklings. Eilanna's body maniacally demanded a bite of it, but she bit hard down on her lip and sipped from the goblet to distract herself. She was once again grateful for the expedients of the Goddess, the little pearls that healed and enhanced her and brought confusion among her targets.
"You have experienced but the beginning of a bond, my Lady. Think things that will hurt me, and the coil will grasp your arm until you faint. Likewise if I ask you to answer sincerely. That's how I learned about the spice, and your desire to own the spice tanks. Consequently, that became our curiosity and the reason why as soon as Sheeana was freed from the Cordians I sent my own agitators to stalk her, and we attacked the structure where she was hiding together with the spice tanks. My superiors will be most curious about them."
"You know how valuable the spice is."
"But appalled at your methods. You stroke a deal to gain a tank for yourself if they evacuated the planet; isn't it? You could lean back and wait for Tailarons and Cordians to be at each other's throats. What better strategy instead, than confessing your desires to us, so that we can now take them in custody for the Queen?"
"But you failed, and now tanks and Sheeana have gone underground."
"We will find them."
"This is not the first time you fail, ambassador."
The ambassador was finally feeling defensive.
"I admit it."
"Think of what the spice can do for the Tailarons, ambassador. Let me drive the plan."
"My Lady." A concession, if ever a Tailaron made one.
"If I am to be your object of pain and pleasure, master, I will need much more room for maneuvering than I have today. I demand that you stay with me tonight, so that we can discuss the next steps of the plan."
Was it the spiked wine that had dulled the ambassador's resolve? Or the prodigious quantity of ecstatic food he had just ingested? She grasped his hand, saw his arm move like an earthquake had shaken him. "I am of the Goddess and can shake your being to feel what this sacred food of yours has barely tried to reach. Do you feel me?" She was so close that her scent enveloped him.
His body trembled. There! Eilanna was starting to feel in charge once again, detaching herself from the background and exploring the intellectual and physical weaknesses that would allow her to stun and then control her target.
"Let me tell you how the fabled spice is essential to the Tailarons, Hux," she whispered invitingly. "These are the excretions of the Rakis sandworm, fed as food to its haploid form. Did you know the most precious kind of spice is the blue liquid the Fremen made from the dying contractions of a juvenile worm they drowned in water? You are right, Hux, everything precious in this universe is made with pain. So are soostones, obtained by killing giant bivalves... think of silk, made by the silk worms which are killed in boiling water... the purple dye made of the murex snail, which was currency when humanity was still confined to a single planet. The cochineal insect that flavors the red wine you served me. The most valuable commodities in the universe come from the torture and submission of lesser creatures."
"The spice... is... valuable..." he moaned, clearly drunk.
Was this the moment when the dominator would crave to be dominated?
"Life-prolonging, and awareness-inducing. Like your food, but better. But nothing better than me." She continued: "We are apex predators, dominating other animals and then turning on each other in the search for a natural born leader. Let me be your muse, and you will win. But to do that..."
"Yes?"
"I will rule you, until you know the true meaning of pleasure and pain," she finished with the softest smile.
His shoulders and chest caved in, like he had been punched. "I accept," he said in a trembling voice.
"Why don't we end this dinner now and get more comfortable in your quarters," she replied. I can do this, I can now bond him and find a way out of my enslavement.
"Agreed," the ambassador raised his head, his face as focused as it was earlier when busy dismembering animals. "And in fact, that is needed if you are to become a disciple. We males absorb our strength from our concubines. It is my turn to make amends, and for you to take control. Take this," he said, offering a small ring that appeared to be made of the same vine that made their bracelets. She wore it, as she was ordered. A tingling sensation made her feel him very close, intimately close. Was that what he felt when he controlled her through the bracelet?
"I can...," she started, but Lady Eilanna's triumphant smile waned as she noticed a new servant with a medic uniform had entered the room and was fast approaching the ambassador, who stood up from the armchair in turn.
"However, our mutual subjugation requires a greater degree of investment from us both, my Lady." And without another breath, the ambassador slammed the knife he grasped with his right to slice his left, neatly, severing the little finger so precisely that for a second the blood refused to spray in droplets on the table. He screamed as his knees gave in, the medic fast catching his maimed hand.
Eilanna stood up to flee. Five servants pinned her body to the table, stepping on her black satin gown, pushing her chest so hard that they knocked the wind out of her; until she was left shaking convulsively under so many hands to regain control. Yet a sixth servant relentlessly dragged her wrist forward toward him and blocked her hand against a clasp.
"Oh, the things we do for love, my Lady!" the ambassador wailed near her. Eilanna screamed of rage as the medic turned to her with the knife ready, carefully marking two of her trapped hand's fingers. Six of them kept her down as the medic did the deed.