Chapter 16

Vanlo passed through dappled morning sunlight as he strolled down the narrow path that wound through tall trees and dense foliage. The soft sounds of his footfalls on sandy ground was the only noise other than the twitter of birds from the high canopies of the trees.

The pace of his walk was leisurely, but it belied what he was thinking at that moment.

Concern darkened his eyes as he neared the end of the path, where a small clearing housed a stone and metal building with a high, dome-like roof. Torches burned pale blue atop high poles set in a wide circle around it. Even in the light of day, it cast a ghostly look to the area.

Vanlo saw that the great double-doors of the building were already open. This made him pause for a moment. Somehow this made it more difficult for him, and already foretold what he would find when he stepped inside.

Vanlo entered the building, stopping just past the threshold as he took a moment to let his eyes adapt to the change in brightness.

In the center of the largely hollow chamber rose a golden column of glowing energy, held between two highly polished reflectors of very pure crystal. Suspended in the center of the energy flow was a sphere made of the same clear crystal, slowly rotating in place. From the sphere, waves of brighter gold spread outward along the column to the reflectors, and was sent right back into the sphere in an endless cycle.

At the center of the sphere was a red gemstone, its facets flashing brightly. Vanlo stared at it, knowing it to be the heart of the Portal device. It was what created the discontinuity in space and time to allow the Portal to be opened. Everything else around it was designed to refine and focus the energy.

Vanlo's eyes drifted along the column of energy, and he sighed.

Roquan, who had been standing off to the side, only now realized that someone was in the room with him. He was not startled, however, as he knew there would be only one person in the Manor that would dare to walk in unannounced. Instead, his eyes held a combination of concern and hope.

"Well?" he asked, a bit of an impatient edge to his voice.

Vanlo observed the pulsing energies and listened to the deep thrumming sound that emanated from the device for a few moments before responding. "I trust you have begun the activation cycle," he asked softly.

Roquan frowned. "If you must ask me that, Vanlo, then you have answered my question already. And it is not the answer I wanted to hear."

"Nor was it mine, your Lordship," said Vanlo in a somber voice as he stepped over to the Overlord. "But to deny the fact is folly. I cannot sense the energies from the Portal, save for perhaps a very vague buzzing in my head. And even that did not start until I was nearly inside the building."

Roquan's eyes hardened. "Vanlo, we must find out who is responsible for this. If I discover that the Emperor had anything to do with this..."

"We unfortunately do not have that answer for you as yet, your Lordship."

"Have you discovered anything at all from that hair that Lanno found?"

Vanlo could sense the desperation in the Overlord's voice. Roquan wanted so much to blame someone for this. The Healer realized that Roquan likely had already tied this back to the Emperor, and this disturbed him. While Vanlo was indeed familiar with the treachery that Z'haas had committed, he thought it foolish to automatically blame the man for all the ills that befell the Manor.

Vanlo gave it some thought before he responded. "We have. I have confirmed that the hair did not belong to Yanna. While the chemical analysis will not be done for at least a few more days, it is far enough along that I can tell you this. So this is not a hair left over from her handling of the herb. This is good because it increases the chance that the hair does belong to the perpetrator."

Roquan nodded. "Have you discovered anything else?"

"With Lanno's help, we have determined who else the hair does not belong to. It does not belong to an Overlord, as it came from a much younger person. It does not come from a slave. The only slaves with that coloration of hair have been easily exonerated."

"And you are sure of that?"

"Very. Only four slaves have hair that dark in color. One is Amanda, and she is obviously not a suspect. The other three have been confirmed are not native Narlassi, and the analysis already indicates the hair belongs to someone of Narlassi heritage."

There was a pause, and it was clear from the look on Roquan's face that he was putting two and two together as Vanlo and Lanno had. "The merchants."

"We are seeing that as a strong possibility, yes."

"Not Herdon..."

Vanlo shook his head at the mention of the name of the Emperor's spy that had tried to assassinate Roquan during the Conclave. "The hair color is wrong."

"I do not recall a lot of the merchants that I had dealt with during that time. I may have to contact Uridon."

Vanlo stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment. "I seem to recall that there were scant few merchants that had arrived with this coloration of hair. Jollis was among them..."

Roquan paused and furrowed his brow as he looked at the Healer. "Surely you are not suggesting that he is a suspect?"

"I am simply going where the evidence is taking me, your Lordship."

"Jollis is my trusted Tradesman. He has been nothing but a help since the Conclave."

Vanlo nodded. "I do not deny this. And I make no accusations, either. I simply state my observations."

"I believe we can safely state that he is not a suspect, much in the same way that we assumed Amanda was not."

Vanlo realized now that Roquan had misinterpreted what he had said earlier. "We do not appear to be thinking along the same lines, your Lordship. I exonerated Amanda because she does not have the skill to perform the proper mixing of a potion nor does she have a clear motive, and not because of my subjective view of her character."

Roquan frowned at this. "Can we not exonerate Jollis in the same manner?"

"I do not know his background, your Lordship. Nor do I have any idea if he has any agenda other than his service to you. It is simply the fact that I do not know the man well that I cannot rule him out. At the same time, I do not see anything that clearly states he did do it. I am dealing in only possibilities at the moment."

Roquan nodded, but it was clear from his curt manner that he was not happy with this. If it had been anyone other than Vanlo stating this, he would have simply dismissed it immediately. Naturally, he did not believe that Jollis was at all guilty of any impropriety, but he had to let his Healer do his job. "Very well. If you find you need something from Jollis to help eliminate him from a potential list of suspects, please inform me immediately."

"I will indeed, your Lordship. I wish to finish the analysis first, as the findings there may remove the need to pursue it any further."

Vanlo doubted this, however. Even if it did, he felt he might still insist on a sample of the merchant's hair for a comparison. Again, it was not that he was suspicious of the young man, but simply that the young man was a large unknown to him, and it behooved him to eliminate the unknown values from the equation.

Vanlo shifted his eyes towards the Portal again. There had been a subtle change in it since he had been there. The rings of energy sped along faster. The thrumming sound had become more urgent. It would take at least half a day to energize for a local trip across Narlass. A trip to another world would take a full day to charge.

He felt a sense of melancholy come over him. When the idea that his Portal sensitivity had been stilled was just a concept, it had been easier to deal with. Now faced with the cold reality, he felt like something had been ripped away from him. He felt less a person than he was before.

"Is there anything you need of Amanda before she is sent abroad, Vanlo?" Roquan said.

Vanlo turned his gaze back to the Overlord, grateful for the change in subject. "No, your Lordship. Having only just examined her recently, I can state she is in perfect health."

Roquan nodded once and paused. "And there is nothing you need to say to her before she leaves?"

Vanlo realized that he should no longer be surprised at things like this. His Overlord had been undergoing a great deal of change over the past season. This was part of the reason why he was disappointed in seeing Amanda go. While he cared for the girl in his own way, he also saw how she had brought out more of the humanity in Roquan. While Vanlo never thought of the Overlord as unfeeling (indeed, Roquan cared for the well-being of his slaves more than any of his peers), Roquan had trouble actually showing his compassion openly.

"I am deeply grateful for the offer, your Lordship," Vanlo said softly. "I will speak with her briefly before she leaves, but I can do that any time. I trust she will be sent before the evening meal?"

"Yes. I thought it best that she should have a full evening with her new Master. And I am sure Tanyee will be happy to see her. I know that they had become friends while Tanyee was at the Manor."

"Having Tanyee there is a boon," said Vanlo. "It will give Amanda an anchor, something familiar to help her acclimate."

Roquan nodded in agreement, and that assured Vanlo that the Overlord had indeed changed. Had this been six moons ago, he would have simply stated that the slave should feel happy and content with her Master regardless of whether the surroundings were familiar or not.

The Overlord did not want to admit it, but Vanlo could see that he had a soft spot for Amanda as well. And now he felt it safe enough to state as such. "You will miss her."

There was a long pause before Roquan responded. "I will miss her," he said in a low voice. "She is quite unlike any slave I have ever encountered, Vanlo."

"I trust that is not simply because she had not had the Draught."

The Overlord observed Vanlo for a moment. He sometimes wondered how much the Healer knew about what really went into the Draught. That was the one potion that Healers did not mix. All Overlords learned to do that themselves. It was why it was important to exonerate the Overlords as suspects earlier, as some of them could have developed additional potion-mixing skills.

Roquan shook his head. "No, it goes beyond that. I would be hard-pressed to explain exactly how."

Vanlo offered a small smile. "Then let us hope that she brings Lord K'garon as much joy as she has brought you."

Roquan had to laugh at this statement. Yes, Amanda did bring him joy, in a way. She had also been by far the most difficult slave with which he had ever had to deal. If all she had been was disobedient, there would have been nothing special about her, and he would have simply punished her until she learned her place.

Vanlo understood the context of his Overlord's mirth and smiled more genuinely. "If there is nothing else you require of me, your Lordship, I would like to return to my office. There are a number of slaves requiring examinations, and they will be an excitable lot today as they always are when one of their number is being sent abroad."

"Of course, Vanlo."

Vanlo bowed his head respectfully and left the chamber.

As he started up the path, the Healer let his thoughts turn to a matter that he had not allowed himself to think about in many years. He had considered it a forbidden subject, something that had stemmed from an action he should never have taken, an action which had given him knowledge he had wished he had never attained.

Vanlo was indeed a wizard at chemical analysis. While he downplayed his abilities, the truth of the matter was that there simply was no one in all of Narlass that was his peer in this regard. The Healer Guild Master never got over Vanlo's refusal to return to the Guild Hall and become an instructor in the subject. It was one of the reasons that Vanlo remained as far from the Guild Hall as possible, as there was too much friction between him and the Guild Master even after all this time.

One day, Vanlo had done the forbidden. He had let his insatiable curiosity get the better of him. He had taken a small sample of the Draught of Forgetfulness and analyzed it. And he learned far more than he had expected, and perhaps more than the Overlords themselves knew.

He had found the ingredient that increased sexual responsiveness and desire. That had been a surprise, but not a complete shock. And he already knew that the Draught suppressed memories of the past, so the ingredients that did that were no surprise.

What had been a shock was what subsequent analysis had shown him: that the two components, the one that increased sex drive and the one that suppressed memories, could occasionally interact with each other to degrade intelligence.

He knew that the sex-related ingredient was likely the Overlords' "dirty little secret." But had he uncovered an additional and truly heinous secret? Had the Overlords purposely intended to lower the intelligence of their captives? He had never quite been at peace with the idea of removing a person's memories, but he had been content in the fact that it had at least left their minds intact.

Yet his own observations of Roquan told him that at least that Overlord appeared oblivious to this side-effect. If anything, he seemed to value intelligence and instructed his Trainers specifically look for it in potential captives. Had he ever been disappointed that a slave he had thought would be intelligent turned out not to be as much as he had hoped? Had he ever made a connection with the Draught?

Vanlo had wrestled with his conscience at the time, and never came to any conclusion. He had never brought this issue to the attention of Roquan, but in reality he had yet to make a firm decision on whether he would ever mention it. He had managed to forget about it until Amanda came along. His old dilemma was brought increasingly to the fore the longer he had associated with her, and now he could not stop thinking about it again.

And he was no closer to making a final decision than he had been before.

Sirinna stepped out from behind her charge as they both walked out from Amanda's bed chamber into Sirinna's. Amanda still wore the collar but not the chain. It was some relief to her that she would no longer be needing it.

Sirinna had just awoken Amanda a short while ago. Or rather, it had appeared that Amanda had been asleep. In reality, she had been awake since shortly before dawn. The reason was obscured in one hand that was partially curled into a fist, the pearl rolling around loosely within.

"Now, Amanda," began Sirinna in a serious tone of voice. Amanda lifted her eyes to Sirinna's and held them. She knew that if she kept eye contact, Sirinna would do the same and would be less likely to notice her hand. "There will be no more training for you. As of this moment, you will be treated as if you have graduated, as you will be going to a client by the end of the day."

There was a bit of a catch in Sirinna's voice at these last words, and her eyes shimmered slightly. Even as subtle as the expression of this emotion was, it tugged at Amanda's heart. She wanted very badly now to give Sirinna a measure of hope that they could still be together in some way.

If she did not become furious with Amanda for doing this in the first place, that is.

"Yes, Mistress, I understand," Amanda said, her words having more than one meaning.

Sirinna smiled in acknowledgment, cupping Amanda's cheek gently with her hand. "Amanda, despite what this means for us... I really am proud of you. I really do think you will do wonderfully with Master Duric."

Amanda tried to get herself used to the name. Until that point she knew him only as Lord K'garon. She had to switch to the given name when addressing him as his slave. She had to admit that she thought the rules about which name and title to use were a little convoluted. She wished she had learned a little more about it before she was sent off.

At that thought, she asked, "Mistress, do you think Master Duric will allow me to keep reading my scrolls?"

"I do not know, Amanda. I know that Master Roquan will be making a request on your behalf for that very thing, but it will be entirely at Master Duric's discretion."

Amanda nodded solemnly. She was worried about this, even more so than her concerns over measuring up to whatever standard Duric would compare her.

Sirinna smiled slightly. "If Master Duric refuses, I will make sure your scrolls remain safe for when you have a chance to read them again."

"Thank you, Mistress," Amanda said tonelessly. She appreciated the thought, but she had a feeling that if Duric said no, it was going to be a very long time before she ever had a chance to read them again. A "no" would mean that Duric was interested only in his own pleasure and cared nothing for her own personal development.

She doubted anyone really cared about that. Despite the claims that Overlords and clients cared for their slaves, it was largely superficial. At least in her view, which she knew was not from the perspective of Narlassi culture.

Sirinna caressed Amanda's cheek before letting her hand drop and returning to the business at hand. "Anyway, Amanda, what this means is that we will do no more training with you today, as you know as much as you can know. Instead, I'll just review some of the finer points of protocol, and we'll do a trial run of the Presenting to Master Duric later."

Amanda nodded. "Mistress, will we be having the morning meal first?"

Sirinna smiled. "Of course. Is that subtle hint that you're hungry?"

Amanda managed a smile in return. Her hand tightened a bit around the pearl. "Yes, Mistress, I am, actually."

"That's a good sign."

"Is it?"

"Yes. You're not as anxious about this as I thought you might be. You tend to lose your appetite when you're anxious."

Amanda felt her heart lurch. Sirinna could read her like a book. She was not sure that would translate over the Farview. She hoped it would. She hoped that Farviewing was going to be better than simply calling on the phone as on Earth.

"Do you wish to accompany me, Amanda?" Sirinna asked.

Amanda had not expected that question. "Um... accompany you?"

"I said you were no longer to be treated as a Trainee, so naturally you could come with me. We can eat with the other slaves as well if you wish."

"Um... I think I'd like us to eat here, Mistress." She paused and continued in a lower voice heavy with emotion, "I want to spend as much time with you as I can before I have to go."

Sirinna drew in a deep breath and let it go, her own emotions showing now as she stepped up to Amanda. "I understand," she said softly, stroking Amanda's hair. "I am going to miss you terribly."

Amanda saw Sirinna's eyes shimmer. She felt her own tears trying to form, her vision blurring a bit until she blinked them away.

Nothing was said between them as there were no more words that could express what they felt at that moment. They simply looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, and that said more than words could ever do. Sirinna slowly stepped back and turned for the door.

Amanda nearly forgot. She hastily wiped at her eyes with her free hand and suddenly looked down towards the foot of the bed. "Um, Mistress, w-wait. Did you drop something?"

Sirinna was just about at the door when she turned and gave Amanda an odd look. "Drop something? I don't understand."

Amanda's heart started pounding when she heard the doubt in Sirinna's voice. She dropped to her knees and crawled over to the side of the bed. "Yes, there's something odd on the floor here just under the bed."

Sirinna made a face and came around the foot of the bed just as Amanda appeared to reach under the bed and grab something. "There shouldn't be anything under there except the cuffs and some spare chains and collars," she said.

Amanda closed her fist around the pearl and looked up. "Yes, I know, which is why this was odd. Here, I've got it..."

She brought up her fist and stood up. Sirinna looked at Amanda, and then Amanda's hand, but made no move to try and take anything from her.

Amanda forced the issue. She simply reached out with her free hand, grabbed one of Sirinna's hands, and plopped her fist into the palm. Sirinna blinked in surprise, but did not pull her hand away, letting Amanda open her fist and drop the pearl into Sirinna's hand.

Sirinna felt something start to roll against her palm and automatically closed her hand around it to prevent it from dropping. "This feels like a small stone or... oh!"

Sirinna flinched. Her eyes widened in surprise at first, and then alarm as she gazed down at what was in her hand. Her lips parted as she plucked the blue pearl with two fingers of her other hand, holding it delicately as if she expected it to burn her.

"Amanda, what's this?" Sirinna asked. She cast a hardened gaze at Amanda. "Amanda, you didn't!"

"I didn't, Mistress," Amanda said firmly.

"I told you specifically not to ask Master Roquan for a pearl!"

"I did not ask Master Roquan for a pearl, Mistress. He was unlikely to give me one anyway."

"Then where did you..."

"I got this from Master Jollis, Mistress."

Sirinna was momentarily speechless. She looked from Amanda to the pearl and back again. "This is not... it can't be..."

Sirinna blinked as Amanda suddenly snatched the pearl back.

Amanda smiled despite the situation. "A Farviewing pearl? Yes, it is. And now that you touched it, it's bound to you. I can Farview you whenever I want while I'm away."

Sirinna gave Amanda an indignant look. "You tricked me, Amanda. You knew I would not go for something like this willingly."

"I know."

"Amanda, give me back that pearl. Now."

"No."

"Amanda, do not do this, not today of all days!" Sirinna declared. "Do not make me punish you just before you have to be sent to a client!"

"Then punish me if you need to, Mistress," said Amanda without flinching, her hand closing tightly around the pearl. "But I am not giving up the pearl."

"Amanda, you cannot..."

"Sirinna, I did this for the both of us!" Amanda pleaded. "Please, Sirinna. This will let us keep in contact while I'm away. I can't stand not seeing or hearing from you again. You can't possibly want that either."

Sirinna swallowed hard and tried to control her voice. Nevertheless, there was a distinct quaver to it. "Amanda... i-it's not what I want... there are rules. Slaves cannot have pearls or magic of any kind. If Master Roquan found out you had done this..."

"He doesn't have to know. Please, don't tell him. Please, just... just accept this, okay? That way we don't have to be so lonely for each other while I'm gone. That way we can see each other and at least reassure each other that the other is still there and still cares."

Sirinna's eyes glistened. "H-hellfire, Amanda, you're not making this any easier..."

That was the first time Amanda had ever heard Sirinna swear. But she would not back down. Not this time. "Punish me. Paddle me until I can barely sit down. Or keep me in cuffs and chains all day. Or don't let me cum and have every slave in the Manor lick me silly, or..."

"Stop it, Amanda!" Sirinna cried as she burst into tears.

Amanda stared in astonishment. She had not expected this sort of reaction. She wanted to reach out and comfort Sirinna, but she did not want to give up the pearl. She looked down at it and sighed. She would have to trust Sirinna.

Amanda put the pearl down on the bed. She returned to Sirinna and threw her arms around her lover, holding on tightly. "Sirinna, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to make you upset..."