Thorns Of Destiny - Chapter Two

Second chapter of ToD. Enjoy~

Chapter Two - Call Me Master

Trying to open eyelids that felt like they were made of heavy clay seemed impossible, but somehow, Dismas managed it. Although, the near-blinding brightness of the desert did not help his throbbing head. Dismas squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember where he was--and what had happened. There was vague fragments jostling around inside him--his father's face. The ceiling of his father's study, firelight flicking across it. A small, wicked-looking club. And a strangers face, half-covered in blood, mouth moving but no words echoing in his ears.

"Where am I?" he whispered, voice hoarse. Dismas realised that his throat was sore. Helps, a lot of him was sore. He tried to roll onto his side and prop himself up but his shoulder have out before he could even put too much weight on it. "What happened?"

Silence. Dismas opens his eyes just enough to see but not enough to blind himself and tried to focus past the blurring as of his vision. He found a shape sitting across from him in a small open wagon. At least, he thought it was a wagon. 

"I beat you," said a familiar voice and he froze. Dismas opened his eyes a little wider, vision focusing on the shape opposite him. The stranger--Arjana--sat on the far side of the little wagon. There were four evenly spaced gouges across one cheek, rather close to his eye, and a bruise forming along his jaw. "You resisted. So I beat you harder."

"You," Dismas choked out, scrambling up onto his butt. He tried to move faster but the world span and he fell into the side of the wagon. Dismas clutched it tightly, swaying despite the fact that they weren't moving. "Why?" He glanced past the older man and found nothing but endless desert. "Where are we?"

Arjana raised an eyebrow at him, but did nothing else. Dismas didn't like the implications behind that. "We are in the desert, boy," the older man said, giving him a stern look. "Far from your father's house or any hope of rescue." He paused, seemingly to let that sink in, though Dismas wasn't sure. "It's pointless, regardless. Your home is gone. Burnt to the ground and your family with it."

"What." Dismas stared at him hard, trying to find any trace of deceit. He found none. The older man was entirely sincere. It was hard to believe, but Arjana was telling the truth--or the truth as Arjana knew it. "What do you mean, burnt to the ground?"

"Exactly as it sounds," Arjana replied, raising a hand to touch his cheek gingerly. He winced, reopening one of the gouges. Dismas watching the blood seeping from the crack in the scab, somewhat transfixed. "I watched the manor burn myself." Here, he slanted Dismas a sly look. The boy scowled and jerked his gaze away, not wanting to meet the older man's sharp gaze. "From a distance, of course. I didn't want to get caught carting off the crown prince now, did I?"

"If the manor was burned," Dismas muttered sullenly, "then am I heir to nothing."

"Very well, then," Arjana announced, rather cheerfully for a man who beat little boys. "We shall begin with you first lesson."

Dismas frowned, chancing a glance towards him. "Oh, and what lesson might that be?"

"You shall call me 'master' from now on."

  Arjana's eyes burned him, and Dismas didn't like it. He recoiled at the idea of calling this man anything, let alone 'master'. He refused to grovel, refused to be as low as that. "Like hells!" he spat, trying to ignore the pain in his ribs and the pounding in his head. Arjana just watched him, eyes narrowed. Dismas didn't like that look. "I told you I would never bow!"

"Oh, yes," Arjana said, quite calmly, although he could tell there was a threat underlying it. "How did that go again? Ah, 'I am a son of Anshar', right?"

Dismas paled. He had said that, hadn't he? Arjana's eyes narrowed and Dismas mentally retreated. He would have to figure out some other way to deal with the older man. Words weren't working. Dismas clung to the side of the wagon, head hanging. He was far from home and didn't know where that was, plus they were in the middle of a freaking desert. Even if he did manage to slip through Arjana's fingers, where would he go?

"Shut up," Dismas whispered, sullen and completely worn. He was faced with a tough decision; run and die or stay and probably die anyway. "You've won. I'm not running."

"You've given up?" Arjana's voice betrayed his surprise, making Dismas glance up from beneath his eyelashes. The man was studying him closely, eyes still narrowed. Something dawned on the older man's face and his eyes widened slightly. "No, you haven't."

Dismas refused to reply, instead letting himself sink down to lay against the wooden slats of the wagon's base, his back to the older man. He would let Arjana think what he wanted. He was still dealing with everything that had happened. A sudden flash of his father's face, tired and worn, had him tensing. His father had sold him to this man, had hurt him through this man. Why did he still feel loyal to the man who had fathered him?

“Family begets family, only to spawn disaster.”

The words were familiar, though Dismas couldn't remember hearing them before. Without moving, he asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Arjana didn't reply, leaving Dismas to stew in curiousity and despair. Eventually, the boy rolled over to see what the man was up to. Arjana smirked at him, making Dismas scowl. Moving too much was making his feel sick. Dismas had to settle himself and his stomach. The look on the older man's face was unsettling.

"It has many meanings," the man replied, "and you would do well without knowing them... Yet."

"Yet?" Dismas found himself questioning the man more despite trying his hardest not to. "What--"

“--I told you to call me 'master', little one.”

"Don't call me that!" He glowered at the older man, eyes narrowed in anger and a tinge of hatred. "No one should call me that! I am a prince!"

Arjana sneered at him. "Correction," he spat, "you were a prince!"

Dismas sat up, anger and hatred blurring out everything else. "You stole me!"

The older man swiftly back-handed him, knuckles connecting with a cheekbone and breaking skin. The blow nearly broke his neck. Dismas flinched, head still turned away. He felt his cheek and winced, bringing away fingertips stained with blood.

"Do not raise your voice to me!" Arjana hissed, leaning over him. "The next time you do so, I won't hold back." Dismas spat blood out onto the wooden slats. The blow had cut inside his mouth as well as outside. "For the next time will be another beating. Do you understand me, slave boy?"

Dismas swallowed his pride along with the blood still in his mouth. "Yes," he said quietly, "I understand."

"Yes, sir," Arjana corrected gently.

"Yes, sir," Dismas repeated. He glanced up in time to see Arjana nod to him. Then man turned away. He wiped at the blood on his face while he stared at the older man. 

After a few minutes, Arjana climbed down out of the wagon and disappeared from view. Dismas hesitated. Should he risk it now? Or later? Before he could answer his own question, Arjana had come back. He threw something at Dismas. It looked like clothing, though Dismas couldn't be sure.

"Get changed," Arjana ordered, voice stern. "I don't want anyone thinking you're a spoiled little rich boy."

Without a word, Dismas reached for the clothes. Arjana stayed a moment longer before he stalked off again, leaving Dismas alone in the wagon to change. He couldn't risk it. Dismas knew he wouldn't survive in the desert. He'd read about it in his books and scriptures. He had no water, very little clothing and, he realized quite belatedly, no shoes. He would never make it.

When Arjana returned some time later, Dismas had changed into the rags he'd been given. His old clothes sat neatly folded at the far end of the wagon. It didn't mean that he'd given up. It just meant that Dismas was paying attention. Being stupid and trying to run away would get him no where, so staying put was his answer. It probably wouldn't be wise, but it would be worth it in the end. Or so he hoped.

"Sir?" he asked quietly, catching Arjana off-guard as he went to turn away again. The man paused, hand resting on the wooden slats that made up the side of the wagon. Dismas could see the man's fingernails, all painted in a deep red. There was a ring on the man's finger that he'd never noticed before. Blood was smeared across the smooth, golden metal.

"What is it?" Arjana asked, his tone low. Dismas chanced a peek up at the man's face. It showed only an open kindness and perhaps a tinge of wariness.

"May I ask where we are headed, sir?" He had to swallow his pride to speak again, to include the 'sir' but it was worth it. Arjana looked like he might be considering answering that question.

Dismas bit his lip, waiting for a reply. Finally, Arjana exhaled. "A city in the sands," he told the boy, scooping up the clothes Dismas had neatly folded and set aside. Those were tucked under one arm while the free hand disappeared into one of the man's pockets. It withdrew and Dismas went very still. He'd never seen the nasty-looking needle in Arjana's hands before, but it still made him nervous. What was he planning to do now? "That's all you need to know."

He opened his mouth and then promptly shut it when he saw the way Arjana had raised an eyebrow at him. Dismas watched the man call out in that foreign language he'd heard from outside his father's study. Another man appeared beside him, younger than Arjana and just as exotic-looking, though far less enthusiastic. The clothes were handed off to this man with what sounded like the tone of an order.

"Now, little one," Arjana said, dragging Dismas's attention back to the needle in the older man's hand. "I don't want to hurt you, and I can't promise this won't hurt, but it needs to be done."

"S-sir?"

"Kaheer!" Arjana shouted, and a different man appeared beside him. Dismas's gaze flickered between the two of them and Arjana's hand, clearly showing his unease over the needle. Kaheer was a large man, and clearly very strong. Much stronger than Dismas was. "Hold him down."

"What are you doing?" Dismas cried, scrambling backwards in the wagon as Kaheer reached for him. Panic had set in, and Dismas wanted none of what Arjana was offering, needle or no needle. "What's the needle for?"

There was a moment of struggle where Dismas had hold of the side of the wagon and Kaheer had hold of his ankle. And then the man yanked hard and Dismas lost his grip, slipping towards Arjana and the other man. Finally, Kaheer had him half out of the wagon, head pressed to the wooden slats and one arm twisted up behind his back. It hurt, but the boy's focus was on the needle Arjana held.

"I told you to call me sir, little boy," Arjana said, calmly examining the needle. He lowered the gleaming slip of metal only once he appeared to be satisfied with it. Dismas's head was pounding by now, and his stomach was protesting. If it weren't for Kaheer's hands holding him down, he probably would have thrown up by now. As it was, he very nearly was. It was a struggle not to let the bile rise up. Dismas knew he would if he were subjected to any more rough treatment. "You're my slave now, and you need to be marked as such."

Dread pooled in his stomach at the older man's words. Before that moment in the study, Dismas had never experienced violence. Oh, he'd seen it, but he'd never been struck like Arjana had struck him. Once or twice, his father had hit him, but it was a gentle tap compared to this man's strikes. "What do you mean by that?"

Arjana smiled at him over the needle. "I'm going to pierce your ears."

Dismas blinked up at him, still scared but with confusion growing. All that over getting his ears pierced? "If you had told me that earlier, sir," he said, trying to sound calm, "I wouldn't have resisted it."

"Would you really?" the man asked, eyeing the way Dismas was pressed into the wooden wagon. "A pity, considering that watching you struggle was infinitely more amusing."

Dismas stared up at him, blinking swiftly to try and keep his vision focused. It didn't help that Kaheer's hold on him was tightening with every tiny movement he made. Dismas considered him for a long moment, taking in the way Arjana smiled at him and the needle in the man's hand. It didn't look like any of the sewing needles he'd seen his mother using. Taking a gamble, Dismas asked, "Would you like me to struggle more, Sir?"

For a moment, Arjana appeared taken back, but then his face smoothed out and his dark gaze sharpened. "You would offer to struggle more?" he asked, a tiny spark of what looked like concern lighting up his eyes. It made them look warmer for a split second, but then they went cold and hard. "What a foolish boy."

"Foolish or not, Sir," Dismas said, "I would like to please you."

"Please me?" Arjana laughed. "It would please me if you'd shut up now and let me do what I planned to do." He stepped forward and leaned over Dismas. "Stay still. This is going to sting."

Dismas held very still as the man leaned over him, fingers of one hand on his ear while the other hovered nearby. He couldn't quite see what the man was doing, not even from the corner of his eye. All he could make out was Arjana's ear and chin, Kaheer's face hovering above him, and the sunlight glinting off the needle as it hovered just out of sight.

The older man muttered something to Kaheer that had the burly man shifting his grip, and then the lobe of Dismas's ear was pinched between a thumb and forefinger. A moment later, the needle was shoved through his ear with warning. Dismas inhaled sharply, biting the inside of his already sore cheek to keep from crying out. Tears welled up but he willed them not to fall. Dismas wasn't sure if he succeeded or not. The needle withdrew and was replaced with smaller, cooler piece of metal.

Arjana stepped back. At some small sign from the man, Kaheer released him. It was so abrupt that Dismas fell off the wagon and tumbled into the sand, knees-first. He knelt there for a moment, blinking rapidly as the entire world span. The throbbing in his head as now joined by the throbbing in his left ear.

"There," Arjana said, rather cheerfully. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Dazed and confused, Dismas muttered a vague response. He wasn't sure what he said, but it was something along the lines of 'no, sir'. He reached up to touch his ear only to have it tapped away from the now-pierced ear lobe. Dismas froze, breathing hard.

"Don't touch that." This voice was different, deeper than Arjana's and less smooth. It was the gruff voice of a man who didn't speak often. "You'll get it infected."

"Now," Arjana announced, making Dismas look at him. He was wiping the needle clean on his sleeve. "The other ear."