T Southwell - Prophecy

"I suppose you're going to kill me."

"No." The woman chuckled, a grating sound. "That would be too easy, wouldn't it? But you are going to die. Tempting though it is, I can't have the pleasure of killing you myself, even though it would be so easy to burn you and eject your body into space. Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before Tallyn finds out who took you, and gives chase. Even if he never proves I killed you, he will find out that I took you. Atlan's sensor grid will have logged my illegal stopover.

"So, if I make you disappear, it counts against me, for then the question of why raises its ugly head. After all, if I didn't know who you were, I wouldn't have killed you. By denying the prophecy and ensuring Atlan's downfall, I will most certainly earn their wrath. Even the suspicion would be enough for severe reprimands against my people. But if I sell you, it's not such a crime at all. I just have to ensure that I sell you to someone who's going to kill you, and there are plenty of them. Don't think your pretty face will save you either, there are many who hate such things, and long to destroy them. A torturous death, which is what you deserve, that's what awaits you."

Rayne failed to repress a shiver, and the woman chuckled again. "I'll even profit from the deal. Isn't that justice for you?"

"Tallyn will find you."

"Oh, I'm sure he will, stupid girl, but I'll be guilty of no more than slave dealing, which, given my status, will be shrugged off. As far as he knows, I simply snatched an unimportant human girl to sell as a slave. Once you're sold, he'll never find you, and your destiny will be lost. You won't live to fulfil it, and the Atlantean Empire will fall, as it has been prophesied. Draycons will take over their worlds and enslave them."

Rayne looked away, unable to meet the woman's hateful, sneering eyes. The door hissed shut, cutting off her grating chuckle.

The Draycon ship emerged from its energy shell in a swirl of golden light, approaching Gergonia. The unpleasant, barely habitable world was technically a large moon orbiting a gas giant with huge ice rings. Not quite large enough to become a sun, the gas giant gave off an eerie red light that the rings reflected in a multi-coloured display, unfortunately not visible from Gergonia's surface due to the cloud cover. The planet's sulphur rich atmosphere was breathable, but unpleasant. Gergonia's distant red giant sun gave off plenty of heat, but little light, which barely reached the surface through the thick yellow fog that enveloped the planet, making it a twilight world. Dwarfish natives inhabited it, adapted to the dimness and acidic atmosphere. They lived on a yellow fungus that thrived in the sulphur-rich soil.

The people of Gergonia rarely ventured outside, living in sealed dwellings with filters to eradicate the stench, the buildings joined by an underground system of travel. Entertainment of the worst kind flourished; gambling, whorehouses, drug dens, pain parlours and the buying and selling of stolen property. The clientele was made up entirely of crooks, petty tyrants and wealthy psychopaths. No one asked questions on Gergonia, and merchandise sold there rarely surfaced on law-abiding worlds. The residents who ran the markets and pleasure houses originated on some of the most obscure planets, had arrived on Gergonia by unpleasant means, and cared nothing for anyone else's misfortune.

The Draycon ship docked amongst the assortment of converted freighters, battered explorers, old fighters bought from defeated dictators and a smattering of modern ships. Two armoured Draycon guards manhandled Rayne from her cell, and a sting on the side of her neck warned her that they had given her a drug. As they hustled her down a passage to a smooth docking bay with a shuttle parked in it, a wave of vertigo washed over her, followed by a strange detachment. She barely registered the trip to the surface, and walked between the guards when they dragged her from the shuttle.

A room, a corridor and a busy chamber followed each other in a blur; voices spoke in strange languages she did not understand. She was led into a dim room filled with the stench of sweat and fear, a strong sensation of misery pervading the air. She tried to rouse herself sufficiently to take in her surroundings, noticing that the Draycons now wore masks.

After a hissed conversation with a blue-skinned man, the guards took her into an empty area, leaving the other two Draycons behind. The blue-skinned man followed, armed with a gavel, and mounted a podium. Rayne shook her head to try to clear the fog and gazed around with dazed, unfocussed eyes. The short, tubby blue man whose bald pate gleamed under the bright lights stood on a podium to one side. He clasped chubby hands and smiled down from his pedestal.

Rayne started when she noticed the crowd seated in tiers of seats before him. A sea of masks stared up at the stage on which she stood. She shivered, aware of how little clothing she wore, and the horror of her situation seeped into her dull brain. Closing her eyes to block out the bright lights and weird masks, she swayed in her guards' grip. They kept her upright when she would have fallen, and the auctioneer's loud, brash voice jabbed her brain, reviving her enough to understand his fluent Atlantean.

"Lords and majesties, crooks and cutthroats! I present to you a special piece of merchandise. A human! One of only two left in the universe; a lovely creature. Obviously reluctant, but then some of you prefer them that way."

A wave of chuckling swept the audience. The auctioneer stepped down beside Rayne and gripped her hair to lift her face to the light. She kept her eyes closed, too numb to fight.

The man's strident voice rang out. "Look at her! What a beauty! Descended from Atlantean intervention; a rare success. Who will start the bidding at twenty thousand? She's worth much more. Look at the hair, the figure, the face! Come along gentlemen, imagine all the fun you can have taming her! And if you can't tame her, have some fun killing her! You have money to burn! Give me thirty thousand, yes! Over there, fifty! Thank you sir, sixty there… yes? Seventy thousand I am bid. Eighty! Thank you sir, ninety over there… good, ninety-five? Yes! Any more? Come along gentlemen. Any more than ninety-five? Look at her! Any more bids?"

The auctioneer paused, evidently waiting for those who had not quite made up their mind yet. Distant mutters mingled with the swish of a door closing and footsteps that approached her, and Rayne opened her eyes. A tall, black-clad figure with a dark grey coat and an intricate mask sauntered to the front of the audience. People stepped from his path, but she sensed it was not because of the two men in black and silver uniforms who followed him. A hawk-like silver emblem glinted on his chest as he stopped before the stage to gaze up at her. The auctioneer stared at him, and the stranger nodded.

"Sold! For one hundred thousand regals!" The auctioneer banged his gavel. "To the Shrike!"

The Shrike raised a gloved hand, and his men climbed onto the stage to relieve the Draycon guards of their captive.

The men pulled Rayne along, supporting her when her legs buckled, their shoes tapping on a hard floor. Strange sensations penetrated her dazed mind. A smell of burning oil, a pungent odour she could not identify, and the passing of a nearby hum. Ephemeral bright lights glowed through her eyelids, but she could not open them. A door hissed open, and she was pushed onto a soft chair, which, she discovered when she slipped sideways, was a couch. Alarms jangled in her numb brain, but she could do nothing about it, for her limbs refused to obey her. Her worries could not keep her awake, nor could she summon the willpower to use her healing to oust the drug that held her in its thrall, and sleep washed her away on a black tide.