#47 - Always Groomed

Pelahir found James in deep conversation with Limyé outside the tub room.  The rush of water effectively masked their voices and he cast a quick glance down the hall to the cell.  “He’s asleep,” James said in his deep voice.  Limyé nodded.

“The intense exercise is helping break down the memory of torture in his body and mind both,” the healer said.

Pel grinned.  “And I didn’t even need to get beat on to tire him out, thank you Monsieur James.”

Teel grinned back.  “Just Teel, please.  It’s odd but I find I like him.  The other Ahrimaz often seemed… cool toward me.  Not that it was a problem but…”

“He was nervous of you,” Pel said.  “He said you could see to the heart of things and then draw it out bleeding on the page.”

Teel blinked.  “Really?”

Pel’s grin went away.  He set his teeth and turned away from the other two men, set one hand against the smooth polished stone and his forehead against his hand.  “I miss him,” he said through clenched teeth.  “I miss him every day as though someone ripped a hole in my heart and Yolend and I…  thank the Twin Gods we have each other.”

“I’m sorry.” James said quietly.  Limyé put his hand on his shoulder.

“You need to come speak to me soon,” the healer said.  “This is such a strange happening, and such a…” he shrugged, hands spreading expansively.  “… such an unusual thing.  I am here to hear you.  And I am starting to wonder how many things are being healed by this… exchange.  I have no information about the other world except what I get from this Ahrimaz and he does not think his Inné is crumbling.”

James leaned on the wall next to Pelahir, took the offered shoulder, silently.  “So you think this might be a way of ‘fixing’ this Empire, you think?  I’d like to hear your theories.”

Limyé smiled.  “So you may write them up?  Of course.  The basic thought I had is that our Ahrimaz’s reflect the country.  As Hand of the People he has no choice in a sense and if the civilization is healthy, if the people are healthy and the Gods then he, at one point, I would have said was the healthiest man in the Coalition.”

“And the Empire?”  Pel straightened to turn and put his back against the wall, rejoining the conversation.

“Was sick.  The court is corrupt.  The nobles are suffering the illnesses of overindulgence.  The Emperor is forced to channel all of the Divine through Aeono alone, though it makes him ill.  People who worship the Goddess are murdered publicly.” He paused, and gulped.  “All of Imarya was slaughtered and Ahrimaz tells me that physicians are now people’s only recourse when they are ill, and are often charged more than their lives for their services.”

“And just as our Ahrimaz reflects the health of the nation… or nations, so does—“

Pelahir cut James off.  “---The Emperor.”

The three men were silent for a time before Pelahir said quietly.  “I am no priest, but this might be the salvation of that Empire, if our Ahrimaz can resist becoming sick with it.”

“And you have to be strong and healthy for when it all unravels, if it ever does,” Limyé said quietly.  “The Empire might kill our Ahrimaz.  It might take his sacrifice to… to…”

“Pull the peace out of the war,” Pel said quietly.  “It’s what he swore to do.”  He straightened.  “And we may never get him back.  I’ll come down to talk to you day after tomorrow, Limyé.  Tomorrow I have all day with Rutaçyen and Ahrimaz.”

The healer nodded.

“May I talk to you a bit longer?” James asked, pulling out his notebook.  “If you have time, of course?”

“Certainly.”

**

Their voices faded off down the hall and Ahrimaz clung to the bars.  He hadn’t been asleep, though he had been drowsy. Clinging to the bars, through some trick of acoustics, he'd been able to hear every word.

Of course. How gently they rip out my guts and trample them into the muck.  This isn’t about me at all.  He is being driven like a donkey, probably by a God—dess, to save MY country.  MY people.  Ahrimaz, my brother I begin to feel sorry for you.  I begin to feel that this is hardly fair.  You did everything right and were the hero, the Beloved.

He rubbed his forehead slowly back and forth against the bars.  I want to whine like a child and cry ‘What about ME?’ I grit my teeth and straighten like the warrior I am.  I’ve never been groomed to be the hero. 

I’ve always been groomed to be the monster of the piece.