Page 16 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure
There had been joy there that was lacking inside the various compounds Navuh had built for his people over the millennia.
Why had the Fates cursed her with beauty?
If she hadn't been so strikingly beautiful, she wouldn't have been offered like a sacrifice to the god, and she could have mated an immortal of equal station and built a home and a family with him.
Then again, if what Navuh had told them was true, the world she'd left behind was gone and the gods were dead and with them all the immortals and humans who had lived in Sumer.
Before entering the dining room, the three of them stopped at the jade-inlaid basins to wash their hands, a ritual unchanged over the millennia.
The scents of fresh bread and coffee greeted them, along with the quiet murmur of voices.
Areana sat at the head of the table, her ethereal beauty undiminished by age or captivity. Beside her, Tula was gesturing animatedly about something, her latest man-toy seated at her side like a trained pet. Beulah and Sarah occupied the chairs across from them.
"Good morning, ladies," Areana greeted them, her voice soft and melodic. "I apologize for missing the walk. Since Lord Navuh informed me last night that he expected a busy day and wasleaving at sundown, I thought I would be able to join you today, but something urgent came up that I needed to attend to."
When Areana had first arrived, Tamira had been sure that her gentleness was feigned. No female got to be the head of a harem without being a ruthless cutthroat. But it was impossible to fake a character for thousands of years, and in the end, she had to concede that Areana was indeed a gentle soul.
That didn't make her weak, though. Or timid. She managed the harem efficiently, maintaining the elaborate fiction that this was a functional household rather than an expensive prison and mostly succeeding. Thanks to her, the human staff enjoyed an almost normal life in the harem.
"You missed nothing of note," Liliat said, taking her usual seat, third chair on the left. "Unless you count our fascinating discussion of Rolenna's latest artistic disaster."
Rolenna cast Liliat a glare that should have killed her on the spot. "My artistic disaster, as you called it, was part of my training. No one gets to be a master artisan on their first try." She smiled cruelly. "I still remember your astronomy phase."
"That was different," Liliat protested. "I successfully mapped the visible constellations from this latitude."
"After two hundred years of trying," Raviki pointed out.
Tamira settled into her chair and reached for the coffee pot. The familiarity of routine was a balm for some, an ever-present thorn for her. How many thousands of mornings had played out exactly like this? The same faces, the same seats, the same elegant place settings?
"Actually, there was something different today," she said. "I saw a new gardener in the herb garden."
Sarah looked up from her book, while Beulah set down her teacup. Even Tula paused in whatever she'd been talking about with Tony.
"A new gardener?" Areana's perfectly shaped eyebrows rose slightly. "We haven't gotten anyone new in months."
"New to me, then. I haven't noticed him before. He was tending the medicinal herbs, and when we approached, he prostrated himself, trying to follow protocol."
"Smart man," Raviki said. "You remember what happened to the last one who dared look at us without Lord Navuh's permission."
"That was seventy-five years ago," Beulah said, her voice tinged with its usual bitter edge. "And he also dared to speak."
"Hardly a capital offense," Sarah added dryly.
Five thousand years had worn away most of their capacity for outrage, leaving only a weary acceptance of the rules that governed their cage.
Tony shifted uncomfortably beside Tula, and Tamira felt the familiar pang of sympathy for the newest addition to their prison. He was still new enough to be horrified by casual mentions of callous executions.
Unlike the simple laborers Navuh provided to the harem, Tony had been someone before his kidnapping. He was on his way to becoming a professor of bioinformatics or something like that. He'd explained once that it was about working with computers and genetics. But in addition to his technical expertise that noneof them could properly grasp, he could actually string together complete sentences and discuss a variety of topics.
He was like a breath of fresh air, but it was almost cruel to give them someone intelligent to talk to who wasn't going to last. It reminded them of what was out there in the world that they would never have access to. Companionship with an equal, intellectual discourse, and perhaps the possibility of connection beyond the hollow relationships they maintained with their rotating cast of human lovers.
In a few decades, though, Tony would be dead, and they'd still be here, having the same breakfast, the same conversations, the same empty eternity stretching before them.
"You must have seen Elias," Tony said. "And he's not a gardener. He just grows medicinal herbs to provide cures to the human staff."
"Oh, Elias." Areana nodded. "I've seen his name on the roster, but his occupation wasn't specified, so I assumed he was part of the general staff."
"Well, he is," Tony said. "But some say that he's a shaman or used to be before being captured and brought here."
