Bertan`s quest by Michelle Tarynne (ereader android .txt) 📕

"Why do you sleep alone?"

"Because no woman would want me, and I can't stomach bedding slaves." There was a barely noticeable tone of regret in his voice. The Unnamed wouldn’t understand why it was there as his ability to control his body and vice was the only one thing he trusted.

"But, if you met a lady with your mask off, how would she know what your… umm… profession is?"

"Because I don't have a name, and all I have is my position. I'm the Unnamed."

"Is it that hard to think of something only for the ladies?" The boy chuckled exasperated.

"What would be the purpose of such lie? My position is the source of my pride and usefulness. Why would I demean myself like that?" The Unnamed said after a while.

"To get her to your bed," Genes scoffed, "And she told me that my lot was uptight," he muttered to himself.

"Any Sword Lady would find out the truth eventually, and rattle me up to my ruler. That would not end well for me, or my bed."

"Ah. Women," Genes sighed with understanding, "At least one thing we do seem share, Seekinglanders, and Swords, weird female behavior at all times. So, who is your Ruler anyway? The King?"

"No, not directly. As of recently, it's Bertan, she is my Ruler."

Genes looked at his companion as if he were a lunatic

"I'm sure Bertan would never really punish you for such infraction as faking your name."

"You are right." The Unnamed smiled knowingly and took his mask off once again. "That is actually a good point here. She does have issues with punishing others. At the same time, she is exceptionally full of hate towards me so that gamble would be a very uncertain one."

"You seem to know her well." Genes looked curiously at the mean and scarred the face of a man that was still kind enough to answer all of his questions.

"Sometimes I get a feeling I know her too well, and sometimes it's like we never met," the big male admitted.

"So, um, how did you guys meet?" Genes did not drink Tharo Juice in a dignified manner. He gulped it straight from the carafe he nicked from the nearby tray.

The Unnamed tensed quietly for a moment, trying to recall that exact setting of his first row with Bertan.

"When I met her for the first time, she was about half your size and half your age, furious, crying, bleeding and calling the Mother names no one ever dared to utter in her presence ever before, or ever since that moment,” he paused for a moment to close his eyes and relive the past, “Bertan had the courage for all the wrong reasons. To punish a slave? An abhorrence worthy to shed her own blood for, but there was a fire of hatred burning deep in her eyes even back then. It was the first thing I noticed about her. I'm not really surprised that she took the Mother's head. If anyone of our House were to do it, it was her. I'm amazed, though, for she let her hatred burn deep all this time, and she used it at the first opportunity the Fates granted her. Ironically, she cut my Mother's head from its body, when back then she had refused to take the slave's head." The Unnamed looked up to the ceiling and its painting of never-stopping rivers of fire. The squinting of his eyes and the way he fisted his hands showed that he was a man fighting fury rather than admiration. He was, after all, the real son of The Mother.

"You hate her so much." Genes wasn't blind to the raw rage the Unnamed unintentionally shared with him.

"Sometimes," the huge Sword admitted, "I'm sure she hates me even more."

"Does she has any reason for it?"

"Who knows what boils in any female's minds and hearts. I had been sent for to teach her how to punish slaves, when that failed, I was to punish her. The mother should have just let her die then." The unnamed frowned again without realizing that he was actually expressing his emotions through his face.

"Aw… still pining after that old bitch?" Bertan appeared out of nowhere right behind, taking them both by surprise.

"I am her son, Bertan, never forget that," he said, dosing his own hatred evenly.

"I know," she said suddenly saddened, "Blood will always win out. And I do need to get to her rooms as soon as possible," she glanced at him expectantly, "Please," Bertan added in a soft whisper.

They stared into each-other way too long for it to end comfortably. Finally, he took a deep breath and sighed.

"Find her slaves," he said and walked away from her.

"Wait! Where are you going?" She followed him nervously, visibly unhappy with his departure.

"Out,” he clipped out his answer, “To fulfill my duties. To hold our House Line together." The fury boiling just beneath his skin was easily noticeable, even to someone as inattentive as Bertan.

"Why? What did I do wrong now?" she wailed.

He walked up to her like the predator he was and whispered softly into her ear.

"Nothing… Yet. But you are leaving, I see that fire burning in your eyes again, the Runaway fever eats at you again. You won't try to stay here for our people and clean up this mess you have caused. All we need is more time. Please buy it for us, for me. Buy it with your life."

"You cannot expect this from me. You cannot demand it!" Bertan failed to make her voice sound strong and powerful.

"I cannot, and yet I do, in a way," he admitted quietly.

"You ask me to do this, knowing it would be the end of me."

"No, Bertan, you are so wrong again It's going to be the end of us otherwise."

"There have never been any ‘us’!" She screamed right into his face.

The deepest of sighs left his lungs. He looked at her long enough to let their breaths mingle.

"You have never noticed anything beyond yourself Bertan. The only things you did notice were the ones you chose to hate. Then, you ran away, just like you are going to do now. It's so sad.” He closed his eyes for a long moment, leaving her breathless. “You've never noticed what was there, nor what could have been. You've always been about yourself only."

"There was nothing," she protested feebly, shocked to her bones with his veiled confession.

"If you say so," he said, rigidly, detaching from her.

"There was nothing," her voice carried even less power.

"If you say so," he repeated, slowly retreating, "Mother," he paused, "I don't want to take any part in any of your actions from now on."

"You don't have to. I'm not asking you for anything," she pleaded quietly, almost out of breath.

"You never ask for anything. You never want a thing. You never want the things you already have," he continued bitterly, "And now, I'm going to ask you for one thing only. Relieve me of my duty, Mother of the Third Line."

Silence wept through the course it took in her red chambers.

"I, Mother of the Third Line, am relieving you from your duty as the Unnamed." Her voice was not hers anymore, for the tears threatened to well in her eyes as she watched his mask fall to her feet. "Head to the King and ask him to name you properly." She managed to say, just before, he took a bow and stormed out of her rooms.

"May the Fates greet you with the happiness, you have been refused so far." She whispered to the closing doors. All that she was able to do afterward was to weep again. She took her time to compose herself, and she took that mask off the floor to cradle it in her arms.

Bertan walked up to the wall and pressed a button, which she had sworn to never touch as long as she lives.

"I'm going to be cursed forever from now on," she muttered to herself.

"Why?" Genes was as quick as always to start another endless conversation.

"I've just called up a slave. I had to. It's safer in here than to go to their quarters." Bertan started to explain when a soft knock brought her up to her task at hand, "I've forgotten how quick they can get here."

A young, unhooded female slave stood at the door, eyes respectfully cast down

"You called, Mother?" She uttered too quickly, looking up and around nervously.

"What is your name?" Bertan asked, careful in her politeness.

"E, Mother. My name is E." The slave stood a bit taller once given the possibility of uttering her own name, not mentioning thats the person asking her was the most important figure of the Line House she served.

"Bring me, please, my Mother's oldest slave E. And E? Do not hurry." E was already curtsying and running away to fill the request, even before Bertan managed to close the doors.

"I thought the time is of the essence now," Genes noted. He was surprised by the relaxed state Bertan seemed to be enjoying.

"It surely is, but let's not put too much pressure on them. Life is hard enough with the awareness that you are a slave, and that it's the only thing you are ever going to be, as well as your children and grandchildren and so on. Let's not add crazy owners to that," she explained.

"Why don't you just free them then?" Genes still didn’t understand the full scope of her struggles within the slave-based Sword society.

"That would mean their immediate death. By all laws of the Sword territories, only Sword people can be present here. Other nations are allowed in, but only as slaves, who are not permitted to cross any of the borders. Non-Sword and non-slave individuals are to be destroyed upon their discovery."

"Pretty strict laws you have here," he muttered.

"It's your law now too," she reminded him, "You are a Sword now too."

"What exactly does that mean? I don't feel any differently than I had before." Genes frowned trying to pinpoint any change to himself that could have taken place, physical, or mental or even emotional.

"For starters, you will not get poisoned by the Tharo Juice." She laughed, relieved she could finally tell him the truth, for he did live long enough to learn.

"What? How do you mean poisoned? You… you said it's a nutritious potion that keeps life flowing or something like that!" He exclaimed in horror.

"In a way, it is like that… When one survives the transition into the Sword that you luckily already have, before that, you would be poisoned, after some time." She decided that issue of periods of temporary Madness could be discussed later.

"How much?" he whispered, almost too quietly for her to hear.

"How much what?"

"How much more time was left for me? Did you even care when you gave me that first drink?" he bellowed unexpectedly.

"I don't know. It's different for everyone, maybe a few cycles, or maybe a whole Great Cycle?" she did not meet his eyes.

"Have you given any thought to it when you kidnapped me from The Block?" he roared, angry with her disregard of his life and wellbeing.

"Hey, I did not kidnap you. I saved your life then… I think." Bertan explained, trying to defend her choices.

"Are you sure?" he asked, too loud.

"Not really, no. Maybe you would have been perfectly fine back there," she admitted lightly.

"Then why did you take me at all? You just took me away from everything and everyone I ever knew," he asked quietly, sharing his darkness with her.

"I heard your Call," she whispered almost inaudibly.

"What call?" he asked, surprised, thinking, he might have misheard her.

"The Call." She looked right into his eyes, placing her palm on her chest.

He knew then. He understood everything, in that single moment. At the same time, he understood nothing at all.

"I did not think everything through, I admit, I never do. It's always the way of improvisation to the unforeseen when any mission takes place,” Bertan explained slowly, “I did not think. I