Chapter 8

He awoke not in the cage, but on something soft, with the smell of grass around him. He was laying on his side, and something was over him, something that smelled of cotton. There was warmth, a strange, eerie warmth around him, a warmth that felt… good. Good enough for him to ignore the voices and just bask in it silently, let it flow around and through him, because the warmth took away his dreadful hunger.

"Depends, ma'am, you want an honest opinion?" came an unknown voice, drifting to his ears as something grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shifted his head by force.

"That would be best," came a woman's response.

"He should be dead," came the first in answer. "Given the amount of muscular damage, he must have gone at least two weeks without food. Usually that's not quite severe for an Arcan, but he was also severely dehydrated. Put those together," the voice said, then there was a loud sound like the clapping of hands. "And it's a recipe for death. I'd say that storm last night was the only reason he lived to see the sunrise. He's a strong little bugger, he must have managed to drink enough to rehydrate himself, but the look of his urine tells me how bad off he was." There was a pause, and a hand stroked the fur on his neck… gently. "How on earth did he get in this condition?"

"He's wild, and my husband was doing his process for taming him," she said scornfully. "It's worked on the other wild ones, I'll admit that, but he was entirely wrong about trying it on this one. From the sound on it, he was starved before we bought him, then my husband starves him on top of it."

"Well, he's a mutated Arcan, sometimes it's hard to use standard practices on them," the first voice said simply. "Odds are, Master Ledwell couldn't tell how bad off he was because of his unique appearance. That and this little guy is the strongest Arcan I've ever seen," the voice said respectfully. "He's not much bigger than the average female, but he's every bit as strong as the bigger males. His musculature is almost like a rock, even in this state. I bet he could have torn the door off the cage if he wasn't collared. That strength made him look much healthier than he really was."

"I suppose. What do you suggest?"

"I'd usually suggest putting them down when they're this bad off, but given how much you paid for him, I recommend rest. Lots of it. He's going to be weak as a kitten for a few days, he will definitely need to be nursed. He won't be able to feed himself for a couple of days, at least not without making a Father-awful mess. Start him on a diet of raw red meat mostly, but it's alright to feed him just about anything you would eat, too. Oh, and feed him oranges and garlic if you can get them. They're a little expensive, but you've already put in an investment here, so may as well pull out all the stops."

"Oranges and garlic?" she asked in surprise.

"Yeah, strangely enough. It's an old trick among vets, oranges and garlic have something in them that really helps Arcans recover quickly. If you do that, though, be careful to make sure he eats them both, not just one or the other. It will do him no good unless you feed him both oranges and garlic. And remember, do not feed him raw poultry, pork, fish, raw eggs, or Arcan meat, you'll give him a case of Shaking Sickness." There was a pause. "And for the love of the Trinity, do not punish him. That kind of a shock to his system might kill him in this condition. The collars may do no physical damage, but the pain still puts stress on their cardiovascular system, and he just can't take that right now. I'm amazed he survived the one that made him pass out. This is the toughest Arcan I've ever seen," the voice said as the hand patted his neck. "You'll make a bloody damn fortune selling him, Misses Ledwell."

"Provided my husband doesn't kill him trying to tame him," the woman said darkly.

"Well, I suggest you keep him away from the Arcan until he recovers his strength. Just put one of your house Arcans with him to nurse him for a couple of days. He'll recover quickly. Just feed him as much as he'll eat, as often as you can make him eat. The more he eats, the faster he'll recover. Just remember, no poultry, pork, raw eggs, fish, or Arcan meat until he's fully recovered. He'll get Shaking Sickness."

"How long will it take for him to recover?"

"I'll be able to give you a more solid answer when I come back in three days."

"Alright. Thank you very much."

"No problem, ma'am," the voice said, as a hand patted him on the neck and shoulder.

Kyven felt safer than he'd felt since the fox had betrayed him in that moment, when he was warm, and people were giving him positive attention and were talking about helping him recover. He felt that he was going to be alright. He relaxed completely and went back to sleep, as content as one could be in the circumstances.


It was a radical shift from what he'd experienced since coming to this little slice of hell.

He awoke laying on a straw pallet, and from the looks of the walls, he was in the main house itself. He was in a storeroom, from the looks of it, a dark storeroom, probably a cellar, filled with large wooden casks and barrels stacked by the walls. There was an alchemy lamp over his pallet, with six more hanging from the rafters down the narrow cellar room, in a line with casks on one side and barrels on the other, all leading to a narrow staircase on the far side of the small room. It was cool in the cellar and smelled of earth, oak, brandy, and potatoes.

He was famished, but he didn't feel like he was about to die any moment of starvation. He was weak, his arms still shaking just from the effort of lifting them, but he felt better than he did before he passed out. Had they force fed him? Or was that strange warmth he'd felt in the brief moment he'd been awake some kind of alchemical device? They thought he'd sell for a lot of money, would they actually pay money to have a healing bell used on him?

No, if they did that, he'd be fully recovered. It had to be some kind of lesser device, something that just lessened his bad condition, didn't heal him from it.

The sound of steps on the other end both made him hopeful and also made him afraid. Who was coming down the stairs? Was it the matron, who was on his side, or the master, who was his enemy? He watched the stairs even as he debated if he should run, hide, but he just sighed in relief when he saw that it was an Arcan, a raccoon Arcan wearing a maid's dress and carrying a large platter of food.

Food!

She ambled down the hallway formed by the casks and barrels, then seated herself sedately by his pallet. She gave him a calm, reassuring smile as she set the tray down, but put a hand on his shoulder when he tried to sit up. She shook her head with that same smile, then picked up a small bowl filled with small strips of raw red meat. He reached out for it with his shaking hands, but the female just swatted his hands away, fished out a sliver of meat, then held it out before her.

She was going to feed him?

She was! Her hand and the meat disappeared under his muzzle, and she pressed the meat against his chops. He had to resist biting off her entire hand as he took the meat, and didn't even bother chewing it before swallowing. She seemed to notice that, giving him a stern shake of her head, then putting up a cautioning hand before reaching for another small piece of meat.

Chew. Go slow. That must be what she wanted, and it probably made sense. He'd gone without food for–hell, he lost track of how long it had been, but after so long, odds were his stomach wasn't going to know what to do with having food inside it.

It was almost torture, but it was a sweet one. The raccoon fed him the contents of the entire tray at a slow, careful pace, not giving him the next bite until he chewed and swallowed the last one. She give him drinks of milk from time to time, fresh, warm milk, hand-feeding him until he was dreamily, wonderfully full.

It was the most exquisitely beautiful of feelings.

He sighed his contentment when she gave him the last little bit of cheese left on the tray and helped him finish the last of the milk. He just laid on the pallet when the raccoon took the empty dishes and stacked them on the plate, then took them back down the cellar and upstairs. Another house servant came down almost immediately, the coyote that had come with him, carrying a stool and some other large things. She sat them down, then knelt down and gave him a fierce hug, which startled him. She was telling him how glad she was he'd survived, he was sure. She rose up and nuzzled his muzzle with her own, the licked him on the nose playfully. Then she reared back and showed him a bucket filled with water. Water, and lots of it, all for him. She showed him the stool, setting it aside, then showed him a chamber pot. She gave him a direct, inquisitive look, and he could only give her a slight smile and nod.

Yes, he knew what it was and what it was for.

She sat with him for a few minutes, holding his hand, and they both looked back when steps echoed on the far end. The coyote quickly stood up when he saw three people there, the old man, the woman, and the oldest of their four daughters. Kyven shrank back against the wall against which his pallet was placed at the sight of that hated man, for all he could remember was the pain he felt every time the man was around him. The coyote folded her hands before her and put her head down when the three of them came up to the pallet. "Go back upstairs, girl," the matron told the coyote. The coyote gave a quick nod and scurried back towards the stairs, looking back to him fearfully as she turned to go up them.

She was a good girl.

Kyven stared fearfully at the man, as far against the wall as he could go, but the man showed no indication at all that he cared. "Well, I'd say he's looking much better," the man said.

"It seems so," the woman said as the oldest daughter, a pretty young lady with long, wavy brown hair and pretty blue eyes, sat down on the stool and reached out bravely.

"Cynthia!" the matron warned, but the daughter was unmoved, putting her hand on the top of his muzzle. Kyven wasn't quite sure what to do as she stroked the fur on his muzzle, then reached under his chin and scratched him in a very pleasing manner.

"Oh, relax, Mother," the young lady said. "He's far too weak to be any danger, and maybe if we show him a little kindness, he won't be so afraid of us. The poor thing's terrified."

"Well, then it seems that he's well on his way to being tame, then," the man said calmly. "If they don't fear us, Cynthia, then they won't obey us."

"Hmph," the girl snorted, running her fingers through the white fur on his neck, and down his chest in a way that seemed far too personal if he was a human.

The girl's mother seemed to take a similar opinion. "Cynthia, do not pet the Arcans like that," she admonished.

"His fur is incredible," she said to them, as she ran her fingers down his sides, along his jutting ribs. "It's as soft as down. I've never felt anything like it."

"Then perhaps you'd like me to make him into a stole and jacket for winter, hmm?" the man asked.

"Don't be ridiculous, Father," the girl said calmly. "He's worth far more in Alamar than his pelt would be hanging in my closet."

"Now that's my girl," the man chuckled as the girl stood up. "Now come along, it's time for your numbers lesson."

The matron looked down at him with curious eyes as the man led the daughter away, then she knelt by him and she too ran her fingers through the fur on his shoulders. "My, Cynthia was right, you do have incredible fur," she noted, sliding her fingers around his neck. "It's a good thing we got you first, or your pelt would be hanging in some lady's closet, waiting for the winter season."

Kyven looked at the woman cautiously. She seemed to be on his side, but that was only because she saw him as an investment.

She gave him a steady look, then patted him on the neck and got up. "Mind that your collar is set so you cannot leave this cellar. I'd stay away from the stairs if I were you," she warned, then she turned around. She left him alone, and as she walked away, he slid back down onto the middle of the pallet, laying on his side with his eyes towards the stairs. But as soon as she was out of sight, he opened his eyes to the spirits and looked around.

He was indeed in an underground room, underneath a corner of the house. There were about ten people in the house above him, the six humans and four Arcan maids, who were busy about the task of cleaning the house. A look beyond the house showed him two humans on horses riding up to the house from the fields, and four Arcans beyond them, where he knew the cooking cauldron was at, no doubt preparing a meal for the field Arcans. He made special point to find and keep track of the master of the plantation. He and his daughter were up on the second floor, the man standing over the girl as she sat on something, and the orientation of her body hinted that she was leaning against a desk. The man was pointing at something in front of her, probably on the desk, then his hand made a motion that was hard to make out from so far away and with two floors of interference between them.

Teaching her numbers, the man said. Well, she was in for an unfriendly afternoon, accounting was boring and complicated. He remembered his numbers lessons with Holm.

Trinity, that seemed a world away. He laid back down, closing his eyes to the spirits, and for a moment he had to wonder just how the hell he ended up in this mess.


For three days, he followed the same routine. The raccoon or the coyote would come down and feed him four or five times a day. They'd feed him as much as he wanted, hand feeding him the first day, but giving him the food to feed himself after that, when he was strong enough to sit up, and his hands didn't shake like had the palsy when he raised them off the pallet. They kept his water bucket constantly filled, and they'd always sit with him a few minutes after feeding him to give him a little attention and company, the coyote going so far as to sit on the pallet with him, huddled with him with her muzzle on his neck, giving him physical touch, tactile comfort that the raccoon didn't seem inclined to offer.

Touching was very important to Arcans, he'd come to realize. Watching with spirit sight in the evenings, after his feeding, let him watch the field Arcans, and he saw how they huddled together in their huts as some played music, laying together, touching each other, using what looked like a unique sign-language they invented to communicate with each other. They were forbidden from speaking here, but that didn't mean that they couldn't find other ways to communicate.

Other ways to communicate.

That was something that Kyven considered in the days as he rested and steadily regained his strength, went from barely able to sit up to able to walk around his small cellar on steady legs, practicing walking on two legs and getting the hang of those Arcan feet. He actually felt more comfortable on all fours, was totally comfortable walking about on his hands and feet, which was very easy because of the shape of his legs. Despite the fact that his legs were longer than his arms were, the way his lower legs were shaped allowed him to absorb that extra length in angles. He could walk on all fours without his butt sticking way up in the air, and that was what really mattered. He had to maintain his dignity, after all. Walking on his legs was a bit trickier than walking on all fours, but the cellar gave him enough room to practice, and by the third day he felt quite recovered enough to walk about the cellar, though it did tire him quickly when he did.

Mercifully, the man left him alone. He didn't visit him again in those three days, but the matron did, at least twice a day, watching as the maids fed him, or coming down and urging him to get up, to exercise as the vet had told her to do. He responded to her warily, for she kept the collar control in her hand at all times and her thumb on the button, just waiting for any excuse to use it on him, it seemed. He was very, very fearful of that device, for that was the instrument of pain, and the only thing he could do when she was down there was watch that hand like a hawk, terrified that she was no better than her husband and would punish him just to punish him, establish her dominance.

Thankfully, she never did.

On the third day of his time in the cellar, after the coyote brought him food and sat on the stool with him and allowed him to eat, several people came into the cellar. It was the husband and wife, as well as two of the children and two other men. One was in his fifties, thin and tanned from sun and wind, with a nasty scar on his cheek. The younger of them was about twenty, with black hair cut short under a small trifold hat and small brown eyes set close together. Both of them wore the signature leather aprons of vets, and black trousers beneath the aprons. Kyven backed up defensively on sight of the master of the plantation, his eyes fixed on him fearfully, backing into the corner by his pallet and staying down on all fours.

"Well, now, he looks much better!" the older vet said, and Kyven identified that voice as the voice that had been there before. "Has he been exercising?"

"I've been giving him walks about the cellar," the woman replied.

"Alright, just wait back there please, he seems a bit skittish," the older vet said. "Slow and careful, Jim, slow and careful. This one is very strong and he's got some nasty claws, don't give him a reason."

Kyven realized the man's scar was from an Arcan. Clearly, he hadn't heeded his own advice when he was a younger man.

What happened next made Kyven almost ashamed. The older man began to talk. He didn't know what he said, really, it was his tone, the way he moved, and his strangely non-threatening smell. It was almost hypnotic, the way the man talked and moved, which brought his hackles down and caused him to sit placidly in the corner, looking up at the old man with curious, non-threatening eyes.

By the time Kyven realized what the man was doing, he was already kneeling by him, scratching him lightly behind the ears as his other hand gently reached under his neck and raised his chin. "See, Jim, they can tell when you mean no harm," the older man said as he guided Kyven with gentle yet firm hands back to the pallet, and had him lie down. "That's right, that's right, just lay right down and let me make sure you're doing alright," he said to Kyven, stroking the back of his neck.

Kyven submitted to the vet and allowed himself to be examined. The older vet explained to the younger one, obviously his apprentice, as he did his work. He explained the basics of an examination of a fox, showing the young man the relevant parts of Kyven's anatomy that marked his species, with some clear differences. "Now normal grays have an entirely different coloration," he said as he held up Kyven's hand and flexed his fingers for him, checking their tone. "But these are what shows him as a gray. Other fox species don't have claws like this, they're much more canine. Grays are the only ones with these claws, which are more feline. It's just one of the markers that separates vulpines from canines. Now, what do these claws tell you, Jim?"

"He's a climber."

"Correct, he's a climber," the old man said. "He's also got more cat-like tendencies, such as using his claws as weapons. But, don't let his claws lull you, son, these are his primary weapon," he said as he raised Kyven's head and urged him to open his mouth, baring a mouth full of deadly teeth, including canines nearly as long as a child's finger. "He could kill you with these with one bite. Foxes have just as much jaw strength as most canines, and the tendency of every fox species is to bite, including the grays. Grays are just better armed, and much more aggressive than other foxes."

"Why is that?"

"They just are," the older vet said simply. "Just a peculiarity of the breed, the same way wolves are much more aggressive than dogs, despite both being canines. Well, looks like these teeth are just fine, no weakening or gum loss from your ordeal," the vet said after testing his teeth boldly with a hand. "No cavities anywhere either. Good, you've been chewing your bones and keeping these teeth nice and clean." He let go of Kyven's jaws and probed his chest with his fingers. "Feels like everything's just fine. Now come on and stand up for me," he urged as he got up, pulling on Kyven's hand. A little intimidated by the man's gentleness yet firm command, he complied, first standing up on all fours, then rising up on his legs, which made him a little taller than the vet attending him. The man knelt down and put his hands on Kyven's thigh, checking his muscles, it seemed, but he was a startled when the man boldly grabbed him by the testicles and inspected them. "He looks like he's gonna make a full recovery," the vet said, letting go of him and running his hands down his calf, ankle, and foot. "His muscles feel quite normal. Has he had any trouble walking, ma'am?"

"None at all."

"I didn't think so. Alright, sit back down," he urged Kyven, helping back to a sitting position, down on all fours as he sat on his haunches. The vet ruffled his shaggy black hair, then knelt down and stroked his shoulders and back in a calming manner.

By the Trinity, no wonder they thought Arcans were animals if they were so easily swayed by a gentle voice and friendly fingers. Kyven was almost paralyzed by the vet's gentle demeanor; the man truly had a way with Arcans. And he wasn't even a real Arcan! "You need to move him outside," the vet told him. "Put him in one of the huts outside and give him room to run around. He'll need some real exercise to completely recover, and he won't get it in this cellar. Keep feeding him as much as he'll eat until Friday, then transition him back to a normal diet over the next couple of days. Don't just pull back all at once, he'll mistake that as another attempt to starve him. Just cut down his portions over the course of two days until he's on a normal diet."

"Alright," the matron said.

"How much room do you think he'll need?" the man asked, and just his voice made Kyven tense up and back up on his pallet, against the wall.

"Ah, we'll talk about this upstairs," the vet said quickly, putting a calming hand on the back of Kyven's neck and massaging tense muscles, which had a mysteriously calming effect on him. "Lay down now, you did very well. Just get some rest. That's it," he cooed, which caused Kyven to obey him. He laid down on his pallet, but he kept his eyes locked on the plantation owner. The vet took the family upstairs, and Kyven didn't relax until the man was out of his sight.

Well, that was… embarrassing. He'd never been charmed like that before. The vet was almost magical in his ability to handle him, put him at ease and keep him at ease even while he was probing him, inspecting him, even grabbing him in about the most sensitive area he had. It was like the vet was completely non-threatening, and kept Kyven completely at ease and calm. He laid his head down and closed his eyes, wondering how they were going to take the changes the vet recommended, if they'd do it, and what the man would do to him now that he was at least partially recovered. He had no doubt the man would continue his taming, which would involve being humiliated and tortured.

He had to figure out a way out of here. He needed to come up with a way to get his collar off and run. But the simple truth was, his fear of the collar was greater than his desire to be free of it. If he tried to take it off, he had no doubt it would trigger some kind of punishment, so he had damn well better know that he could take it off on the first try… and once he was free of the collar, he'd–

His mind violently shied away from even thinking of finishing that thought. He did not want to be punished. He was more terrified of punishment than he was of death.

And that showed just how tamed he was. He was enslaved to the collar, and would do anything to avoid being punished, no matter how demoralizing or humiliating. He would bite off his own foot before he allowed himself to be punished. Nothing was more painful than punishment, nothing.

He heard someone coming down the steps, but he wasn't going to open his eyes quite yet. If it was the man, he'd become afraid, and he would rather just pretend that he wasn't there than back into the corner like a scared rabbit. He was a little startled, though, when a hand came down on his head, causing him to open his eyes. It was the six year old, the youngest of the four daughters, all by herself. She was a darling little thing, cute as a button with her dark hair and piercing brown eyes, and the cutest little upturned nose and dimpled cheeks. "You're so cute!" she said exuberantly as she pulled on his ears, a little painfully, then she literally climbed onto his back in the pallet, running her fingers through the fur on his back. He endured the child's attentions stoically, both not wanting to hurt a child so young, who clearly had no malicious intent towards him, and dreading the retaliation he would receive from the father should he come down and find his baby girl laying in multiple pieces all over his cellar. "Soft!" she said, then she giggled when she buried her face in the fur on his back, nuzzling it like he was a kitten. She laid down on his back, her feet kicking him painfully in the rump while her hands grabbed him around the ribs, grabbing two little handfuls of his fur and humming. "You're so pretty," she cooed, rubbing her face in the fur on the back of his neck.

Kyven just laid there and endured it, but a little part of him rather liked the attention. It was going quite satisfactorily to him, at least until he heard footsteps on the stairs. He didn't comprehend the situation until he heard a startled, terrified scream, which surprised him so badly that he bolted out of the pallet, dislodging the little girl as he backed into the corner, his entire body quivering as he braced for punishment. The little girl began to cry loudly, laying half on the pallet, half off from where he dislodged her.

"By the Father, Liza!" the mother cried, running up and scooping up the crying child. "Are you alright? Did it hurt you, baby? Did it hurt you?"

The girl just continued to cry, clutching to her mother. Kyven gave a terrified look as the father came charging down the stairs, rushing up to the pair, as two of the daughters and the two vets came down behind them. Kyven gasped and rose up on his legs, putting his back in the corner when the woman pulled the gold disc out of her pocket with the hand not holding the baby, and pointed it at Kyven threateningly. His eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees and put his paws out in supplication, pleading, begging her not to–

And the world exploded in pain.

He howled in agony, hands going to the collar as he hunched over, then slammed his head almost sickeningly into the corner behind him. His head struck the corner again, and again, then again, as wave after wave un unendurable, total agony burned into him like acid, like lava, scouring away all rational thought. It kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming, endless waves of agony crashing against him, grabbing him, pulling him back into the sea from whence they came and drowning him. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he could only scream, scream like a banshee, until the pain overwhelmed him and sent him spiraling into blackness. He collapsed to the floor like a boned fish, his tail twitching spasmodically, out cold.


"What on earth happened?" the vet asked in concern, running past the woman and child and kneeling by the Arcan, who had clearly passed out.

"He attacked my baby!" she said vindictively, keeping the button pressed and pointing it at him, trying to hurt him more.

The little girl sniffled, then tugged at her mother's dress. "He didn't, mommy! He was giving me horsie rides!"

"What?" she asked.

"He was giving me horsie rides, but then he ran into the corner and I fell off," she said, quite seriously.

"Ma'am, if he'd have attacked her, she'd be dead," the vet said simply. "He could have killed her with one bite."

The woman gave her a startled look, realized she was still holding down the button, then dropped the control like it was a live snake. "Oh my gods!" she gasped. "Trinity, I thought it attacked you, sweetie! What have I done? Oh gods, did I kill it? Please tell me it's okay!"

"I dare say he probably has a concussion after that, at the very least," the vet said, giving the woman a rather cold look. "I've told you before, I don't like this collar you use, Master Ledwell. A normal collar is more than sufficient to discipline Arcans, but reproducing the effect of a pain stick is almost beyond the pail."

"It teaches them respect."

"It teaches them fear, and nothing else," the vet accused, rolling the Arcan over on his back and peeling back an eyelid.

"Fear is respect."

"I seem to have no problem handling Arcans without scaring them out of their minds," the vet said, a bit acidly as he put a hand to the Arcan's fluttering chest.

"They're just animals, Twindle."

"You'd be an animal too if I put that collar on you and used it on you," the vet snapped as he very delicately probed the Arcan's head, and his hand came back out bloodied. "I don't think you understand just how much a pain stick hurts, Ledwell. Why don't you let a hunter hit you with one some time so you can fully appreciate what this collar does? Go get the healing bell, Jim. His skull's fractured."

"What? I'll not pay that much, investment or no!" Ledwell protested as the young man hurried out of he cellar.

"Yes we will," the woman said, her voice quivering. "I tortured that poor thing for no reason. I did the same thing I accused you of doing, Arthur," she said, her voice emotional. "And I did it for no reason."

"Annette, it's an Arcan. What reason would you need?"

The woman gave him a cold glare. "I will not allow that poor thing to suffer when it did nothing wrong!" she hissed vituperously at him, which made him flinch back visibly. "If it takes a healing bell to help it, then we will pay for the healing bell."

"Dear, it'll cost more for the bell than we paid for him," he protested.

"Then we spend the money!" she said hotly.

"Dear, I just don't understand. We'll lose a significant amount of money. It can heal without the bell."

"The bell isn't for the Arcan," she said, looking at the unconscious Arcan. "It's for me."

"You? Really, dear, don't feel guilty about an Arcan."

"It's not about the Arcan!" she said to him, then she sniffled. "Come on, sweetie, let's take you upstairs so the vets can help the Arcan," she told the girl.

"Really, pity for an Arcan, what's got into her?" the man asked as the vet picked up the Arcan and carried him over to the pallet, then laid him down in it gently on his side, holding his fractured skull in his hand with delicate care.

The other vet hurried back down the stairs, carrying a large iron device. A healing bell. The man gave an angry look when the two vets set up the bell over the Arcan's head, very carefully, then an iron probe descended from the center of the bell and touched the Arcan's head, over the wound. The younger vet activated the bell, and it began to glow with a soft emerald radiance as it used the power of a mana crystal to knit bone and flesh back together with amazing speed. "Needless to say, you can forget the recovery regimen after this," the vet said as the device did its work. "The healing bell will regenerate him back to perfect health. Just make sure to wean him off the increased food slowly, so he doesn't mistake it for being starved again."

In seconds, it was done. The Arcan's skull was whole, and he passed into normal, regenerative sleep. The two vets tucked him into his pallet and covered him with a blanket, then carried the bell back out. The husband followed them, and when upstairs, engaged in a heated argument with his wife after they paid for the crystal used by the bell. He argued about spending so much money on an Arcan, even that one, while she kept telling him over and over again that it wasn't about the Arcan.

"I saw his eyes," the wife finally told him, shuddering at the memory. "He was afraid, pleading with me not to press that button with his eyes, and yet I did it anyway. I thought he hurt our baby, and I wanted to hurt him in return."

"A perfectly understandable reaction, dear," the husband said patiently. "And perfectly justified. No doubt had he not had a collar on him, he would have hurt Liza."

"I berated you for tormenting that poor thing, and then I do the very same thing at the first available opportunity, without even giving it a second thought."

"Again, dear, perfectly understandable. You were protecting our daughter from an Arcan."

"Was I?" she asked, looking away from him. "He begged me not to hurt him, and I proved I'm every bit the monster he thinks I am."

"It's an Arcan, dear. What it thinks doesn't matter in the slightest."

"But it's what I think that matters, Arthur. I thought I was better than that."

"Dear, it's an Arcan," he said, with a little exasperation. "An animal!"

"I was never one to enjoy tormenting animals for fun, Arthur," she said simply. "It has nothing to do with the Arcan, stop obsessing over it. It has to do with the fact that I tortured a defenseless animal for no reason. I could have easily let go of the button after just a second, but I held that button down until it passed out," she said with a shudder.

"Dear, it was only an Arcan."

She looked at him. "Arthur, until you can think of something else to say, I think I'm done talking to you."

She walked off, leaving him surprised silence.


When he woke up, he felt… good.

Better than good. He felt completely whole, not weak at all.

His breathing was strong and stable. His arms and legs felt healthy, strong, his lungs felt stable and powerful. He opened his eyes and found himself still in the cellar, and after using spirit sight, he saw that he was comfortably alone. The daughters were outside, the husband and wife were up on the second floor, and the Arcans were busy with their daily tasks. He rose up off the pallet and felt… wonderful. He rose up on his legs, felt rock solid. He put his hand on his arm and felt strong muscle, put it against his side and felt smooth flesh instead of bare ribs. He felt so good that he was able to jump up into the beams of the ceiling and hold himself there using his claws and main strength, then dropped back down to the floor on all fours. He felt… whole. Just as he did before he was changed, strong, healthy, not hungry at all, not weak. What had they done to him? Had they used alchemy on him?

He shivered when he recalled what happened before he passed out. The look in the wife's eyes, it was… scary. She thought he attacked her daughter, and it made her react. He guessed he couldn't blame her too much for protecting her daughter, but still, all she had to do was ask her daughter before punishing him. He wasn't doing anything but laying there while she nuzzled his fur. He didn't lay a finger on her, and yet he gets punished when the mother comes down and sees them. He'd thought that maybe the woman was on his side, taking pity on him because of what her husband did to him, but he saw that that was a false idea. She was no different than him. She punished him when he did nothing wrong, all because she thought he did something wrong without getting the whole story.

It was entirely unfair. But then again, he was an Arcan. There was no justice for him. There was only the whims of his masters.

He wanted out of the cellar. He felt strong, healthy, he wanted outside, he wanted to run. But he was trapped in there, trapped by his collar, and he had to settle for pacing back and forth in the cellar, both on his legs and on all fours.

He was inspecting the casks when footsteps on the stairs reminded him he wasn't alone in the house. They were the steps of people wearing shoes, which meant it was no Arcan, and that sent him bounding back into the far corner out of reflex. After tasting punishment from both the master and matron, and seeing any child as just the first step on the road to punishment, he wanted nothing to do with any of them. It was the master and matron both, his two primary tormentors, and the sight of both of them sent him into something of a near panic. His breathing became fast and shallow when they came down the cellar, and he crunched himself into the corner at their approach, kneeling in it and turned away from them, literally shivering with fear.

"Come here," the woman said, pointing to the ground before her.

He was in turmoil. He was sure that he'd be punished if he came to them, yet he would be punished if he did not. Terror played across his features, but then he realized that he'd be punished less if he obeyed than he would if he disobeyed, and that sparked him. He uncoiled from the corner and warily approached them on trembling limbs, staying down on all fours to look less threatening, allowing them to look down at him. He sat down before them, keeping his head down, afraid to look at them.

"Well, Arthur, I think he's tame enough," the woman said.

"Not by a country minar," the man answered. "If you took that collar off him, he'd be wild. He won't be tame until he obeys without a collar."

"Well, that's as tame as he's going to stay," she declared. She knelt down beside him, and he kept his head down as she grabbed hold of his collar. "You will come with us now," she told him. He felt her do something to it, and then she rose back up. He felt a tugging at his neck, and realized that she'd put a leash on him. He wanted to be outraged, but he was too afraid to be outraged. She pulled gently on the leash, which caused him to follow her. She led him up through a kitchen and out onto the back porch he knew from his time in the cage, and he saw that cage sitting in the yard.

She was putting him back in the cage!

He shied away reflexively. That cage–he felt a nameless dread just looking at it. The woman was tugged to a stop, and she looked back at him. But he yelped when he was kicked from behind, kicked by the man, and quickly scrambled forward, more terrified of that man than he was of the cage. He slinked down the stairs of the porch and started moving towards the cage, but the woman pulled on his leash, turning him away from it. She led him over to the huts, over to that sandy-haired man that Kyven remembered seeing when he and the coyote were brought to the plantation. "Here he is, Bobby," the woman said, reaching down and taking hold of the collar around his neck. "He'll have full run of the plantation, the same borders as the field Arcans," she told him. "Just let him run loose. Toby will be here in five days for him, to take him to Alamar."

"I can do that, ma'am," the young man said. "Why the change?"

"Because we went far beyond just trying to tame him," she said simply. "There will be no more taming."

"Annette–"

"I'm serious, Arthur!" she snapped at him. "We leave this poor thing alone! What we–what I did to him went far beyond just trying to tame him. I want him off of our plantation as soon as Toby arrives, if only to save him from us!"

Was she regretting punishing him? It seemed so! She felt remorse! He looked up at her with surprised eyes, but then put his eyes back to the ground quickly.

"We'll get our money back for him when we sell him in Alamar, and I'd like him to live to get there," she continued. "So he's all yours, Bobby. Just take care of him until Toby arrives." She knelt down and grabbed his collar. "Stay here," she said.

"Yes ma'am," the man Bobby said. He felt the leash removed, and he sat there with his head down as he heard the owners walk away, already engaged in a heated argument. "Well now, seems I'm responsible for you now, Blackie," he said, reaching down and grabbing him by the collar. "You're free to move about the plantation, as long as you stay in the boundary of the fence," he told him. "Just return here to the living area and stay here in the compound from sunset to sunrise so we know you're alright. Mind that, Blackie. If you don't return by sunset, the collar will punish you once every five minutes until you return. You have to come find me whenever you hear me call, so I can check on you and make sure you're doing okay, and no fighting with the other Arcans, Blackie, you'll be punished if you do." He let go of him and stood up. "Outside of that, Blackie, just behave, and you'll be on your way to Alamar before you know it. Be nice to me, and I'll be nice to you. 'Kay?"

Kyven looked up at him curiously.

"And for the sake of the Trinity, stand up," he said simply. "It creeps me out when Arcans do that."

Kyven obeyed, rising up on his legs, which put his eyes almost on a level with the sandy-haired man's. "Now, you get two meals a day, sunrise and sunset. You'll be allowed to roam free, so if you can catch any wild critters if you're hungry, be my guest. Just do me a favor and try to take out a few rabbits, they love to chew on the cotton stalks," he grunted. "I have others doing the same thing, hunters that chase off the critters. Do what they do. If you kill something you don't want to eat, bring it to the compound so we can use it for the field hands at dinner, so it doesn't go to waste. We got rabbits and deer that wander over the plantation fields, you're welcome to them. We got fields in every direction from the main house, and there's a stream that crosses our land to the south where you can get water if you're thirsty and don't want to come back to the house. Our borders are marked by the fence, Blackie, I wouldn't try to cross any fences if I were you or you're in for a lot of pain. If you're in a cotton field, do try to avoid breaking the plants. Outside of that, have at it," he said simply.

Kyven gave him a long, steady look, then turned and dropped to all fours and bounded away, racing towards the trees he could see just past the cotton field to the north, a forest that seemed to be within the boundaries of the plantation. He saw when he got closer that it was inside the fence, and vanished immediately into the trees. He went straight up a large oak tree a few paces back from the treeline, climbing almost as easily as he could walk, then padded out onto a heavy branch on all fours and looked back to the compound through the branches. The compound seemed to take no notice of him, leaving him blissfully alone.

It was more than he dared hope for. The woman seemed to be feeling guilt over punishing him, and as a blissful act of contrition, she had released him onto the plantation. Saving him from them, she'd said. Protecting their investment, he suspected, keeping him away from her husband, but still, she could have done that by putting him back in the cage. But instead, she had showed mercy, allowed him to be put in the care of another, removing him from the taming. He was still wearing the special taming collar, but at least it seemed that there would be no more taming.


He laid on the branch for a long time, watching, and relaxing. Now that he was in a much calmer environment, out of the cage, out of the cellar, away from the stressful plantation, it gave him a chance to think about things, to ponder.

The first thing he pondered was escape. He thought about it for quite a while, and came to the conclusion that it was impossible to escape so long as he had the collar on. So, he turned his attention again to the collar. He examined it thoroughly with his fingers, again seeking some way to make it come apart, but again could find nothing that would allow that. So, since there was no mechanical way to remove the collar, that meant that one of its functions allowed it to be removed magically. That meant that it had to have some kind of control or trigger that would cause it to come off. If he could figure out how that worked, he would know how to get it off him and come up with a way to pull it off.

His first thought was the controller. He'd never seen anything but the back of it, and thought that perhaps the means to remove the collar was on the controller. That controller had to be how they changed the commands, moved his boundaries from the cage to the cellar, then the cellar to–

No. Wait. It was Bobby that set his boundaries, not the owners. Bobby–

No, that was wrong. The woman told him his boundaries when she handed him over to Bobby, and Bobby had just described them.

Wait again. Bobby had placed additional restrictions on him, telling him to return to the compound by sunset. What did he say exactly? If he didn't return by sunset, he'd be punished once every five minutes until he did? Well, he didn't see a controller in Bobby's hand! They just grabbed his collar and issued commands, and that caused the collar to respond.

That was it! The collars were voice controlled! And since the collars did not allow any Arcan to speak without being punished, then the Arcans could not change their commands themselves!

He had to try it. If he could manage to get out a full command before he lost himself, he could possibly take off the collar himself. He dropped to the forest floor, and took hold of his collar with a trembling hand. He knew what was coming. Pain. Agony. Mindless agony. But he had to maintain focus just long enough to get out two words. He was terrified of what was coming, but he just had to try.

He took a steeling breath. "Co–"

The world exploded in pain.

His voice was cut off instantly by that agony, causing him to drop to his knees, the flop weakly to the leaves of the forest floor. He struggled up onto his hands and knees, panting from the after-effects, feeling his whole body throb. No fucking way was that going to happen. The pain just shut him down instantly when it hit, and there was no way he could finish the command. Even knowing how the collar worked, he was still stuck with it. Only someone who could speak could take it off, and since he couldn't tell them what to do, there was no way to have it happen. Besides, the only people who could take it off were the humans, and they wouldn't do that. The only ones that might do it for him were the children, who wouldn't know what they were doing, but there was no way for him to explain what he wanted them to do.

Alternate methods of communication.

Of course!

They thought he was an animal. The master of the house thought that animals should not talk.

Well, he'd be in for a shock when he discovered that this animal could read and write.

It was a plan elegant in its simplicity. He just had to get one of the children alone and write out what he wanted her to do, and if she did it, he'd be free.

Not today, though. It would look very suspicious to the owners if he hung around the plantation immediately after being released, when the fear of them was still so fresh and raw. He'd wait a couple of days, and then start coming back to the compound during the day, when he saw the daughters on the porch. He had five days, after all, plenty of time, and he had all the room he wanted now to get fully adapted to his new legs, learn how to walk and run on them. Then, when he was ready, he'd try to trick one of the daughters into releasing him.

Guile and deceit.


It was a gilded cage, but Trinity, what gilding.

He felt wonderful. He tore all over the plantation on that first day, learning the boundaries, exploring the huge plantation from one end to the other and learning just how impressively big it was. He found an old, decayed plantation house on the far end of the plantation, looking to be hundreds of years old, the roof gone and trees growing out of it. It was fun to crawl around the place and explore, then bound away on all fours, running as fast as a horse as he came to get used to his new legs.

That, of course, wasn't entirely smooth. He got running down, but turning, well, that was another story. He wiped out more than once trying to turn, even slamming into a few trees, as he tried to puzzle out the nuances involved with his arms and legs, and even his tail, when it came to turning while running. It was actually quite intricate, a very delicate shifting of legs and tail that would allow him to turn gently, while more forceful shifts allowed for a sharper turn, all the while keeping his forward momentum in consideration. His tail was like a rudder when he was running, allowing him to drift in his forward motion, and the tail in combination with shifts of his legs and arms allowed him to turn. He practiced all morning, both learning how to run and also exercising, charging headlong back and forth across the plantation, and looking to be source of curiosity and amusement to the other Arcans and the six human overseers that the plantation employed to watch over them and direct them in their labors.

It all came to the test, though, when he smelled deer near the stream. He found his nose was quite sensitive and effective, scenting out the deer and allowing him to track them, until he saw them in the woods near the cotton fields. Seeing them awakened his hunting instincts, and he dropped to the ground and slinked towards them using the bushes, trees, and shadows for cover.

He got close to them. He got amazingly close to them, so close he realized he could ambush them. He did so, erupting from the shadowed bushes, which made the deer turn and bolt towards the small grassy field between the forest and the cotton field. Kyven exploded from the trees behind them, and as they turned, he turned as well, putting his turning skills to the test… and failing. He overshot one of them, then turned on another, bounding off the ground in a near roll. This one did not turn, tried to run, and that was a fatal mistake. He overtook it in ten strides and swiped its back legs out from under it with a hand, then jumped on it as it tumbled across the grass. Powerful jaws clamped down on its neck as Kyven delivered the killing blow, crushing its windpipe and holding it closed as the deer twitched and kicked under him. He drove his claws into it and savaged the deer's neck, tasted hot blood in his mouth, which made the deer jerk and spasm, and then sag limply to the grass.

He'd done it. He'd caught and killed a deer using nothing but himself. No Shaman magic, no daggers, just a flat ambush, chase-down, and kill, just like the wolf had done.

The Arcans in the fields looked at him for a moment before getting back to work looking for pests that would eat the cotton plants or pulling weeds that would rob the cotton of soil nutrients. He gave them a steady look, down on all fours with the deer's neck still in his mouth, and saw that they looked… hungry. And envious.

He stood up on his legs, holding the deer by the head, then dragged it deliberately towards the plantation, which made them give him grateful looks. They were hungry… well, he would feed them. He needed to practice anyway. They'd come back tonight to a feast, if he had anything to say about it. And though he could do nothing about it if they felt jealous that he was allowed to run free where they were not, well, he could work for them, feed them as long as he was there, make sure they had more food than they could eat every night.

The deer, though, didn't quite like his idea. There were plenty of them in the woods and untilled fields south of the stream, and they were rather used to the hunters that already prowled the area. Those hunters were good enough to be respected, but this new hunter put an entirely new dimension into the game. He was stealthy, almost unnaturally stealthy, able to get within striking distance of them every time he tried, which left only their own foot speed and evasion to save them from him. They were not as fast as the Arcan on foot, but they could turn sharper than he could. That was where they had the advantage. The ones that survived his ambush attempts saw that he couldn't turn quickly or easily, that the ones that tried to run away from him were ran down and killed, and that became their defense against him. He would stalk up to them, then attack, and they would scatter, zigzagging away.

What they didn't realize, though, was that they were giving Kyven the perfect chance to practice. His turning ability improved with every failed ambush, getting a tiny bit better every time, and by the end of the first day, after he'd piled ten deer by the cauldron for the field Arcans, he was much harder to escape from than he'd been that morning.

The field Arcans that handled the cooking were quite happy with him. Adding what he brought in with the catches of the other hunters, and the field hands would have quite a feast that night. They happily took the deer and rabbits the seven hunters kept bringing in over the course of the day, skinned them, and added them to the stewpot, even started drying venison for field lunches for the hands for tomorrow. Kyven's addition to the ranks of the hunters significantly increased the day's catches, because the while the other hunters focused mainly on the rabbits that damaged the cotton plants and only went after the deer when the opportunity presented itself, Kyven concentrated on the deer to use to help him train himself in the use of his new legs.

The family was all sitting at their little table on the porch when Kyven came in for the last time that day, dragging a very large buck along with him. He gave them fearful looks as he handed the carcass over to a small female rat Arcan, an old female that served the plantation as a cook. Once he delivered his kill, he dropped down onto all fours and padded away, out of their sight, then laid down in the grass on the far side of a baling barn which held a huge machine that took raw cotton and processed it into bundled bales. All in all, he was content with this change. It showed him that the woman was the one that really controlled this place, and he had little doubt that the man's cruelty was some kind of response to that lack of control. He was not master of his own home, so he took it out on the wild Arcans he loved to tame, and probably was not very kind to the other Arcans either. He slinked out to where he could see around the corner and watched. The two Arcans that served the family tea, the coyote and raccoon, didn't seem overly tense. The man offered his cup and had them fill it, and he made no aggressive moves towards them.

Ah, that was it. He was all about control. He was perfectly content so long as he felt he had absolute control, a control he lacked against his wife. Kyven represented a lack of control, and so the man was quite cruel to him. The coyote was completely compliant, had not run even when she had been uncollared, so the man saw her as perfectly acceptable, maybe even treated her fondly. She bowed to his authority, and was rewarded with good treatment. Kyven was a defiance of that authority, and so he was treated harshly.

So, the man was a little more complex than Kyven expected.

"Blackie!" a voice boomed across the compound. It was the man Bobby, and Kyven felt his collar twitch as a condition of its activation had been met. Kyven had to find the man, or the collar would punish him. He bounded towards the voice, and saw him and two other humans with a large group of Arcans, coming up the grassy field. He slowed down and rose up onto his legs as he reached the man's horse, nodding up to him. "Just making sure you'd come in, that's all," he said as Kyven fell in beside the horse. "Go on and get some dinner, now. And remember, stay in the compound until sunrise."

He was already full, having eaten his fill of deer during the day, so he lay lazily in the sun out of sight of the house, feeling the warmth on his fur, and feeling… good. Better than he felt as a human in some ways, laying there and feeling the sun on him but not feeling its heat because of his thick fur, fur that kept him at a comfortable temperature. He'd learned over the day that too much time out in the sun did warm him, but that was nothing a move into the shade didn't fix. His feeling was the feeling of a powerful body that had been well exercised, feeling strong and healthy, maybe some kind of after-effect of whatever they'd done to heal him.

It was a strange feeling, but not a bad one. He hated what he was, but in that moment, he found… contentment in it.

He watched the Arcans eat, eat a great deal of the food he'd killed for them, then watched them sit around on the grass in silence in the dwindling light. They looked content as well. A few of them got up and walked around, allowed to roam freely as they pleased after work from the looks of it, and more than a couple came up to him and nodded, or even knelt down and touched him, put their muzzles against him and nuzzled him, which he accepted. One burly wolf female with dark gray fur, almost black, pulled him out of his hiding place and among the other Arcans, which made Kyven a touch uncomfortable. He kept looking to the house, where the family was sitting on the porch, and they seemed to understand his trepidation. The dark-furred wolf female pulled him towards one of the huts, to get him out of sight of them, and he followed her willingly. But once she got him into the hut, her demeanor changed, and she got… well, amorous.

They weren't even the same species! And what was more, she was an Arcan where he was not, so he wasn't entirely enthusiastic about her attentions. But, as she licked at his face and put her hand quite boldly on his inner thigh, it made him think back to that cat Shaman and her willingness to have sex with a human, and also to the Arcan practice of touching and huddling for mutual comfort.

That was all it was. Comfort. She was offering him comfort, a very special kind of comfort, a very special "welcome to the plantation" gift for surviving the cage. The cat hadn't taken advantage of him just because she thought it was what he wanted, it was also for her comfort. She wanted to be wanted, wanted to experience a little pleasure in a world so often filled with pain. That was what it was for the wolf, he saw. A chance to forget about real life, if only for a short time, in the arms of a lover.

It explained a great deal.

But still, he found himself in a situation. She was quite enthusiastic about the idea of mating him, and he found himself trapped between angering her and seeming aloof and stuck up and bowing to her, which wouldn't be very easy given he wasn't really interested.

But, he had a few more days here yet, and it was best not to rile the residents. He submitted to her attention, which seemed to amuse her with his initial reluctance.

He wondered how different it would be, and she started educating him quickly. Where humans would kiss, she licked his face and bit at him lightly, but the need to touch and explore was the same. She seemed fascinated by his thick, soft fur, running his fingers through it ceaselessly, then bent to the task of arousing him with nuzzling, licks, gentle bites, and a hand very gently and sensually fondling him. He reciprocated, running his hands and fingers through her rough, thick fur, fondling her smallish breasts, stroking his hands through her fur on her stomach and sides, until she seemed ready and had gotten him ready.

It proved that Arcans weren't just animals. Kyven would think that a canine would prefer a canine sexual position, on her hands and knees with him behind her, but she instead put him on his back and straddled him, then lowered herself onto him with a throaty growl. Kyven had never had conscious sex with an Arcan female before, and he found it… not very different at all. Outside of the whole grabbing handfuls of fur issue, and not looking up to see a naked woman, and the fact that she seemed to like to bite at his neck while she rocked on top of him, it felt much the same. Sex with an Arcan was, sensation wise, identical to sex with a human.

But the culture around it was not. Other Arcans came into the hut while he and the female wolf had intercourse, two male wolves, which the female did not seem to mind at all. She even looked at them as she panted on top of him, reached out to one of them and patted him on the leg as he went by them to reach for a flute hanging on the wall. As he lay there, he realized that sex couldn't really be private in the Arcan world, since Arcans really didn't have privacy for much of anything. He felt very self-conscious laying there with a female bouncing up and down on him while two other Arcan males were crouched in the hut, one of them playing a flute while the other lay on the far side, not looking at them.

It wasn't easy to perform for an audience, but he managed to put the fact that they weren't alone out of his mind by closing his eyes, putting his hands on her furry hips, and just concentrating on the sensation. She leaned down over him and put her hands on his chest, her claws digging painfully into his skin as she panted, then gave a low growl as he felt her achieve orgasm, which in turn triggered his own when he felt an identical indescribable sensation similar to what the cat did to him when she had sex with him.

Yes, all Arcan females seemed capable of that… trick. Perhaps that was how Arcan females triggered orgasms in males, because he doubted many males would last long after feeling that after having already been engaged in intercourse for a while and being not far from orgasm in the first place.

He lay on the floor, getting his breath back as the female laid down on top of him and licked him on the face, her hands digging into his fur. Then she rose up and looked down at him with a toothy smile, climbed off of him, and immediately went over to the male wolf who was on the other side. She slinked over him, biting and nibbling at his ear, clearly trying to incite him. She didn't have to try very hard, either. The male accepted her attentions quite willingly, and then it was Kyven's turn to close his eyes and not pay attention as the two wolves had sex, laying there as he recovered from the encounter. Kyven heard something loud yet distant over the panting and low growls of the two wolves, and from the look of the flute player, he did as well. They both peeked out of their hut, looking towards the main house, where they heard voices raised in argument. It was the master and matron, standing on the porch, having an argument. They were too far away to make out the thrust of it, since the two of them seemed to not want to scream because of the children, but Kyven was curious, and Bobby's orders only said that he had to stay in the compound. He wasn't restricted to the huts. He dropped down onto all fours and crept out into the night, wanting to stay hidden. When he passed by the hut, he felt a curious shivering through his fur, like he passed into cold air, and then heard an audible gasp behind him. He turned his head to look back at the other wolf, who was looking at where he was, not at the two masters.

He wasn't sure what he was gasping about, so he continued towards the house. He stayed to the shadows by the large buildings, then crept across the yard and up under the hated cage. From there, he could hear them arguing clearly, and they were arguing about him. The master wanted to continue taming him, but the woman would hear nothing of it, telling him that she couldn't bear the thought of seeing him or any other Arcan punished by that collar.

"But dear, we'll lose money if he's not tamed!"

"I think he wasn't wild!" she answered. "Did you see how the vet handled him? Did you see him act in any way hostile to Bobby? Did he hurt Liza or Varra when they approached him? By the Trinity, Arthur, Liza was alone with him for minutes and he didn't lay a finger on her! I think though he may have been caught in the wild, he's not wild. I think the hunters might have poached him off another plantation somewhere far from here and brought him here to sell."

"He certainly has not acted in a tame manner," the man said hotly.

"Only after he was punished," she shot back. "I think the vet was right. That collar made him act like an animal!"

"That collar had great success with Bruno and the other wild Arcans!"

"I'm starting to wonder just how successful it was, Arthur. Or if it's really necessary. Other tamers seem to have little trouble taming Arcans without using a collar like that. Most just use a standard collar."

"And who told you that?"

"The vet. I asked him before he left. And by the way, he mentioned that he wouldn't answer a call from us again."

"What? Why not?"

"He said that he would not come to call so long as we use the taming collar. And that's word for word."

"Why that arrogant bastard," the husband said, standing up in aggravation. "He has no right to tell us how to treat our Arcans!"

"I… he has a point, Arthur. I would like the collar sold."

"What? Annette, don't tell me you're developing pity for Arcans!"

"It has nothing to do with Arcans, Arthur. It has everything to do with us." She stood up. "That collar is evil, Arthur. I saw it when I used it on that Arcan, and I'll not have it in my house. When the fox is sent to Alamar, we will sell the collar. I'd take it off of him right now if we had a spare collar to put on him, but we can't risk losing our investment, not after putting over a thousand chits into him."

"That is my collar, Annette, you cannot sell it!"

"You can either have that collar or you can have me, Arthur," she told him with complete calm. "And since this is my house, if you choose that collar, you will find it to be rather poor company when you're looking for a new place to live." She turned and walked to the door. "Arthur, you are a good man and I love you. You have been a delight and a joy these twenty years, and I wish to grow old and die with you. But I am serious about this. I will not tolerate that collar in this house a single moment after the fox is gone. If you want to continue taming Arcans, you can do it the way other tamers do it, but you will never use that collar again. Every time I see it, I'll be reminded of seeing a side of myself I wish I'd never seen. The Book of the Trinity says that an instrument of evil will beget nothing but evil. I see now that the book did not lie."

"That's a crock, Annette!"

"Is it? Is it anything but evil to torture anything like that, even an Arcan? To put it through so much pain that it fractures its own skull in convulsions?" she asked with a shudder. "How would you feel if you came out and found Varra sticking needles into one of the barn cats, Arthur? Cutting it open while it was still alive and pulling out its organs? Would that be alright to you?"

He was silent a long moment. "You never objected to it before. You've seen me use it."

"And that changed when I used it," she said simply. "I'd never used it before, and Father help me, I never will again. Nor will I tolerate it ever being used in my house. The collar goes, Arthur. And there will be no debate. I will not live with that thing in my house."

She swept into the house, leaving the husband. He had a look of fury on his face, and then he glared up at the house in a manner than made Kyven's blood run cold.

Kyven had the idea that this man was going to choose the collar over his wife.

And he'd be a poor man for not warning her, not after she'd given him at least a modicum of freedom and dignity. That look on his face was dreadful, the same way that the man had looked at him when he was torturing him.

He ghosted past the back porch, then opened his eyes to the spirits and looked into the house. His eyes made notice of everyone, and saw the woman going up stairs he could not see, while her four daughters were down in a room on the first floor, looking to be sitting around a table, he would guess. The coyote was upstairs, and that was it.

Kyven was a climber. It was a very simple affair to climb up the posts of the front porch roof and clamber up onto the balcony that was over it, then enter the house through a large window. He slinked through the second floor on all fours, stalking out into a hallway lit only by a faint lamp on the far end, where there was a mirror.

Mirror.

Kyven was looking right at the mirror, showing a reflection of the hallway, and he could not see himself. He could not even see his own eyes, and he was using spirit sight! The glow should have given him away, but there was nothing there at all!

Shadow fox. Of course! The fox said he was a shadow fox Arcan, and she said that shadow foxes could hide in the shadows to such extent that they were invisible to the eye! That had to be the cool sensation he felt around himself, him melding into the shadows to become invisible!

A few paces out proved his theory. When he came out into the direct light, his body shimmered back into visibility, including his glowing green eyes. But when he backed up a single pace, out of the direct light and into the shadow created by a small table in the hallway that held a small clock, he felt that cool sensation and watched his own body dissolve away before his very eyes, through the mirror. Testing showed that so long as he kept his entire body within the shadow, he was all but invisible.

This had to be the gift the fox said she gave him. She gave him the power of the shadow foxes she created, the power to meld into the shadows and become invisible out of direct light.

Amazing! And useful! Kyven could hide his tell-tale eyes from giving him away, so long as he was merged to the shadows.

The coyote came down the hall, and she padded right by him. She never even saw him, and she could have kicked him if she'd been a half a rod to the left!

He stalked into the woman's bedroom, and saw her sitting at a writing desk. He wondered how to go about this, but then heard footsteps behind him. He slinked into the room and retreated into a corner, out of the direct light of the lamp on the writing stand. It was the husband, Arthur. He was standing in the doorway, and he had a strange look on his face, that same cold look in his eyes that he'd seen before, the eyes of a man capable of doing harm. He couldn't attack the man, or even think of harming him, but the knife in his hand stressed that desire to the utmost. If he was punished, then he'd be defenseless against that knife, and both of them would die.

Well, he could protect without doing harm. All he had to do was keep the woman alive, for the man did not have the control to manually punish him.

He had to wait for the right moment. If he charged the man now, the woman would not believe him capable of it. If he waited too long, he would stab her. He closed his eyes to the spirits and crept out as far as he could, coming back into visibility, using his dark fur as camouflage in the direct light to not attract the man's eye. The man stepped into the room as the woman continued to write in her little book, and then raised the knife.

Kyven barked. That was not speaking.

It distracted the man for that critical moment for the woman to look at him and see the knife. She gasped and jumped out of her chair. "Arthur! What are you doing!"

"You will not tell me what to do, Annette," he said in a cold voice, stalking up on her. "This is my house, I am the master of this house. You cannot tell me what to do!"

Kyven jumped up onto the bed, down on all fours, then growled threateningly, startling both of them. They both stared at him in shock, but that shock turned to amazement when he darted at them, then turned and reared up on his legs, between the man and the woman, glaring at the man with his teeth bared, being exceedingly careful not to think in a hostile manner. He would not hurt the man, he would not hurt the man, he would only protect the woman.

"A brave front, Arcan," the man laughed. "You can't hurt me or your collar will punish you! Now stand aside!"

"Oh yes he can!" the woman said, reaching out and grabbing the collar from behind. "You may hurt Arthur to protect me!"

Kyven's eyes went flat. Now he would hurt the man.

Arthur gasped, then screamed and turned to flee, but he didn't make it a single step. Kyven crashed into him from behind, slamming him to the floor, and all it took was one bite. He savaged the back of the man's neck, his jaws tearing through flesh and hitting bone, then a wrench of his head snapped the man's neck. The body jerked, and then fell limp.

His tormentor was dead.

Trinity, that felt good, but he found the taste of human blood to be… sickening. He spat it out, made a disgusted face, even scraped his tongue against the floor. He rose up over the body, then turned to regard the woman with calm eyes.

She was trembling, up against the back wall, her hand to her chest. "You saved me!" she gasped.

Kyven turned to the writing desk, picked up her pen, and the scrawled in her book. He held it up to her and showed it to her.

You saved me from him. Fair is fair.

She gasped, then laughed ruefully. "You can read!"

He nodded simply.

There was a gasp at the door. The coyote was standing there, her hands to her muzzle as she gawked down at the body of Arthur Ledwell.

"Missy, go to an overseer and bring them here quickly," the woman said in a quavering voice. The coyote turned and ran from the room to carry out her instructions. "Well, don't expect me to free you out of gratitude, Arcan," she told him. "I'm doing you a favor by keeping you, even if you don't think so. I'll send you to Alamar, and you'll spend the rest of your life in comfort and safety. You'll never fear another collar like that one again."

He wrote in the book and held it out to her. I'm not a gray. I'm not breeding stock.

"Well, what are you then?"

He was at a loss. How could he tell her without opening a floodgate? He wrote his reply. I'm a fox, but I'm not a gray.

"Well, if dogs can crossbreed, and cats can crossbreed, then I'd venture to say that you can be crossbred as well. So you go to Alamar, where you'll be safe and comfortable, and you'll never end up being someone's fur coat."

He wrote jaggedly on the book. And you earn your profit.

"Yes. But don't even think I'm not grateful, Arcan. You saved my life. Know that I'm doing what I'm doing only because it's for your own good. You'll be safe in Alamar. If I let you go, you'd be the target of every hunter in the entire region!"

He scratched in the book, then threw it at her and stalked out of the room. She picked it up and read it.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.


No good deed went unpunished, it seemed.

The murder of Arthur Ledwell seemed to rock the area. Long processions of carriages came and went the next day, and Kyven was even summoned back to the plantation house twice, once for the local sheriff, and once for a detachment of Loreguard. Annette Ledwell explained what happened, then the officials asked Kyven if he killed Arthur Ledwell to protect Annette Ledwell. When he nodded in assent, the matter was closed. Arthur Ledwell died to an Arcan set on him as an act of self defense by the would-be victim.

It infuriated Kyven. He just had to stop doing things like that! He saved Annette Ledwell out of gratitude for her getting her husband off his back, and how does she repay him? She was selling him, that's how! Selling him in the famous blue ring of Alamar! She thought she was doing good by him, sending him down to Alamar to be a breeder, a life that was supposedly soft and easy for an Arcan, but still, of all the nerve!

She was quite adamant, though. She barred him from the house after the officials were done talking to him, which left him outside, trying to see, convince her to let him go, but she would not budge. Kyven was still bound by the collar and the restrictions it kept on him, so he prowled the plantation by day, and was forced to return at night.

The other Arcans looked at him as some kind of hero. They celebrated in careful silence the night after the murder, because the four girls were quite traumatized by the death of their father, so much so that he heard the oldest girl arguing with her mother the next night about killing Kyven for murdering her father. The woman was disturbed by the daughter, to the point where she summoned Kyven to the plantation that very night and, much to his dismay, removed the ability of anyone to use or command the collar except herself.

Bitch! She'd inadvertently ruined his plan to escape!

That was a bitter lesson. He thought he'd done the right thing, defended the woman from her husband, but it came back and kicked him in the ass. It had indirectly ruined his best chance to escape.

He was so mad he gouged most of the bark off quite a few trees with his claws the next morning, and was so unsociable that the other Arcans left him alone. They could tell he was angry, so they just gave him space.

What was he supposed to do? He thought he did the right thing! He'd repaid a kindness with a kindness, and it got him screwed!

But, it wasn't a total loss, at least in the grand scheme of things. After the funeral, when they buried the body of Arthur Ledwell on the plantation, things started to change a little bit. The first change he saw was that the woman changed the collars so the Arcans could speak, all of them but his own, almost as if she was ensuring his silence until the day he left. It was a little thing, but it had a fundamental, almost revelatory shift behind it. The woman was allowing the Arcans to talk, she was allowing them to act like more than animals. Maybe Kyven had something to do with that by revealing that he knew how to read and write, he wasn't sure. The ability to read and write was certainly something that one wouldn't attribute to an Arcan, that was for sure.

They were almost afraid to speak, and many couldn't, having not spoken for so long that they'd forgotten how. But some of them could, and those few were always careful to remain silent around the overseers and family, but talked among themselves.

Kyven spent the rest of the time waiting for this man Toby to try to find some other way to slip his collar. First he tried to get the controls, but that was a failure. He'd been barred from the house on pain of punishment, and the controls were in the house. He couldn't get into the house to find them, he still couldn't talk so he couldn't send an Arcan in after them for him, none of the Arcans could read any instructions he could write for them, and the only ones who could, the family, wouldn't do it. The daughters were afraid of him now because he killed their father, so he couldn't count on their help even if he could get close enough to them to try. When he couldn't get the controls, he tried again to get the collar off him, but he stumbled across one of the other little hidden features of the collar when he found a saw and tried to saw it off.

He got punished the instant the sawblade touched the collar.

It took him a while to recover from that. The woman hated the collar, but she certainly didn't seem inclined to take it off of him until he was gone!

He found himself stuck. He couldn't get it off, he couldn't cut it off, he couldn't trick anyone to take it off for him. He spent five days trying to find a way to get the collar off of him, getting more and more desperate to find a way to get free of the damned collar and escape, but he had no luck.

Five days was up. In the morning of the sixth day, the woman, now wearing mourning black, called him back to house before he could vanish into the plantation grounds. Standing with her was a very tall, lean, rugged-looking man with bronze skin, blond hair done in a ponytail, handsome figures, and carrying a musket, pistol, and surprisingly, a mana whip. "This him, ma'am?" the man said in an Alamar drawl.

"It is, Toby."

"You wasn't lyin', Ah see."

"Not a bit."

"Ah'll do it fo' one quarter of his sale price."

"I'm in no mood to barter, Toby. Take twenty percent and be happy with it."

"Twenty," he said with a nod. He held out an uncut green crystal the size of a man's fist, an astounding crystal worth at least three thousand chits, and gave it to her. "The deposit," he said simply.

"They said you were a man of your word, Toby," she said, looking at the crystal with an appraising eye.

"Ain't never broke my word before, and ain't never will," he said simply. "Ah'll be takin' that collar off him, though."

"Gladly."

Kyven was not compliant for that. The man Toby had to chain him to a post of the porch and put a pistol against his muzzle. "This won't kill ya, Arcan, but Ah'll guarantee it'll sting like all hell when Ah blow your snout off," he said simply. "Now hold still."

"Release," he heard the woman say, and he felt the collar come free of his neck. Kyven's eyes were locked on that pistol, though, and the cold eyes of the man holding it. The woman put a different collar on him, and then the man holstered his pistol calmly.

"That collar only has one function, Arcan," he said. "If ya get separated from me by more than a quarter minar, it'll paralyze ya and tell me where you are. Got it?"

Kyven nodded, then glared at the woman. "I hope someday someone shows you the same kindness yrou showed mme," he slurred.

"You'll see when you get there, Arcan, I did what was best for you," she said simply. "You'll have an easy life in Alamar."

"He sho' will," Toby nodded. "This be a breeder or Ah ain't an Alamar son. He'll go for fo' thousand easy. Ah'll return with yo' money, Misses Ledwell, soon as he done gets sold."

"Good luck, Toby, and good luck to you, Arcan," she said, then she turned and went back into the house, leaving him with the lean man.

"Ah got only one rule, Arcan. It's the Golden Rule. Ah'll do untah you as you do untah me. Undahstand?"

"I understand," he slurred.

"Good. Ah'm Toby, by the way. Toby Fisher, and Ah'm an Arcan consigner by trade. You got a name?"

"Kyb–Kyb–Kyven."

"Nice tah meet ya, Kyven," he said. "Now let's get along. We'll be takin' a ship from Cheston tah Alamar. Mah job is tah see you get there alive and well and sell yah for the most Ah can get. In return, Ah get one fifth yo' sale price plus expenses, which Ah think'll net me an easy thou."

Kyven was a little curious about this strange man, who seemed personable him, yet clearly saw him as a commodity to be bought and sold. The man took him around to the front of the house, where a horse was being held by the coyote Arcan. He took the reins from her and mounted, but she took his hands and licked his cheek. "Good luck," she told him simply. "May the spirits watch over you."

He almost felt like laughing in her face, but he could tell she was sincerely worried for him. He patted her on the shoulder. "Thank you," he told her, then she nodded and hurried back into the house.

"Ah'm a simple man, Kyven," Toby said as he turned his horse. "Ah do mah job and do it well, and Ah'll treat ya with the same respect ya show me. Yo' free tah do whatever you want, so long as you don't break no laws, stay within a quarter minar o' me, and obey when Ah give you a direct order. Yo' free to defend yo'self if someone comes aftah ya, but you don't be startin' no fights. Them's my only rules, and Ah find they make the trip a pleasant one fo' both o' us."


Toby Fisher was a very chatty fellow.

And he was strangely personable. He let Kyven run alongside his horse fearlessly, confident in the collar around Kyven's neck, and Kyven was a little surprised at his trust. Kyven could turn on Toby and attack him, but he was almost cold-bloodedly confident. This man was a fighter, a seasoned fighter, and he wouldn't be taken unawares. He was perfectly comfortable giving Kyven free reign to run around.

He was just glad to be free of that plantation. It had been a terrible place, but at least Kyven had removed the dark stain that was Arthur Ledwell from the face of the earth, and hopefully left something a little better in its place.

It was nice to at least feel free. He had no fences around him, no borders, just a road and a man that was allowing him to run freely, not in a cage, not sitting in a wagon, not riding on the back of a horse. He was allowing Kyven to run on his own feet, easily keeping up with the horse thanks to his highly trained strength and endurance, was probably capable of running the horse to death in this Arcan form. He still had a damned collar around his neck, but at least this one didn't promise that dreadful punishment that made his blood freeze just thinking about it. This one was humane by comparison, simply paralyzing him if he went too far from Toby… or so he was told.

But still, it was nice to at least pretend he was free, running down the Avannar Road back to Atan, back to his home.

Toby was very chatty. He told stories during the two hour trip to Cheston, all kinds of stories about old heroes and places he'd been and people he'd met during the course of his travels as a consigner. He even talked about a couple of the Arcans he'd herded to and fro as they came over that small rise and saw Cheston by the bay around noon. "Was the most stuck up bitch yo'd ever think tah see," he laughed as he described a female silver fox. "She knew she'd go fo' thousands in the blue ring, and lawd, did she make sho' everyone knew it!"

"What happened to her?" he asked curiously.

"Just what she thought," he answered as he kicked his horse up to a canter, and Kyven stretched out his strides to match. "Made mah life hell takin' her tah Alamar. She demanded her own room and human food and a maid to comb her fur ever night. Ah put up with her, though, cause Ah knew she knew what she was worth. Got her tah Alamar and sold her in the blue ring fo' seven thousand. Was the highest price evah fo' an Arcan at the time."

"What made her so valuable?"

"Pedigree and appearance," he replied. "From a champion line, and she was a mutated silver with blue eyes, and her fur was almost as nice as yo's. She was the dame o' the new Vicar Silvah breed, they crossed her with another silvah and got a really go'geous fur that bred true through the babies."

"I don't think I'd like knowing I was the sire of Arcans kirr–kirl–killed for their fur," Kyven grunted.

"Yo' better be getting' used tah that idea, friend," he said simply. "Furriers'd kill for that pelt o' yo's. Ah'll guarantee ya they'll be tryin' tah breed that black o' yo's intah a new line o' foxes."

"They won't try long," Kyven grunted.

"Ah, yo' a scrapper eh?" Toby chuckled. "Ain't none o' mah business if ya are, friend. Once Ah sell ya, yo' can be tearin' all of Alamar to shreds, ain't mah business. Yo' be their problem by then. Ah just ask yah don't cause me those problems, cause yo'll find Ah'm a hell o' a lot harder tah get away from than they will be. When ya get there, yo' be just one of hundreds they watchin'. With me, yo' the only one Ah gotta watch."

"Fair enough. But you know I'll try if I see a chance."

"And Ah don't blame ya one bit if'n ya do," he said simply. "Ah'll have tah track ya down and catch ya again, but Ah won't hold it against ya. Ain't nothin' but business, friend, ain't nothin' but business. Yo' just doin' what ya can tah be happy, and Ah'm just doin' mah job. But Ah done gave mah word yo'd reach the blue ring, and Ah don't never break mah word. Ah'll hunt ya 'til the day Ah die, Kyven, ain't no lie and don't never think it Ah won't. So think about that if'n ya try."

"Fair enough," Kyven repeated.

Despite the unusual situation, Kyven had a weird kind of respect for Toby Fisher. He was an honest, forthright man with a rather refreshingly direct outlook on life. He took things as they were, and treated Arcans with the same respect he showed people, and showed not a whit of concern about it. But on the same tack, the man was a professional Arcan slaver, whose specialty was taking valuable Arcans to sell in specialty markets as a proxy for their owners. That a man could be so friendly with Arcans that he was going to sell away seemed very strange to Kyven, but it was just one facet of the man's unusual, yet strangely magnetic personality. He was warm and personable, kind and respectful, to human and Arcan both. Kyven was surprised to be treated with such respect by the man, who acted almost as much like his butler as he did his overseer, constantly asking if he wanted food or water, asking him what food he liked, if he liked to sleep in beds or on floors, and so on. When they reached the docks and waited on the quay, after Toby sold off his horse, Toby actually made him a sandwich out of food in his saddlebags as they waited for the innkeeper to return with the money, literally waiting on him like a servant.

He was every bit as formidable as he looked, Kyven discovered as they made their way to the docks. Kyven padded along beside him, looking for a possible way to escape, two men rushed out of an alley wielding a pistol and cutlass and a strange black metal stick. Toby reacted with amazing speed, pulling his pistol and shooting the nearest man without even giving warning, sending him crashing to the ground, then he pulled a wicked-looking long knife from his belt and squared off against the other man, interposing himself directly between Kyven and his assailant.

And that was when Kyven realized that Toby was not stupid. His first impulse was to attack the man himself, to hit him and find the key that would release him from his collar, but the instant he moved to do so, he found that his entire body locked up, freezing him into position. Clearly, the collar would not allow him to attack Toby. He remained frozen until he gave over on the idea, and then the collar released him, but in that time Toby had slithered aside as the second man swung that black stick at him, turned, and buried that long, wide-bladed knife in the man's side to the hilt, sending him to the ground to move no more.

Kyven dropped down onto all fours as he marveled at how deadly the man was, yanking his knife free calmly and wiping it on the shirt of one of the dead men. "Ay, do a man a favah and go fetch the watch, would ya?" he called to a young man of about thirteen who was standing nearby.

This man could fight.

Kyven sat on his haunches near Toby as they waited for the watch, and then Toby explained what happened. The watch interviewed several witnesses, and when they corroborated Toby's version of events, they let him and Toby go about their business. "Always someone gotta go an' be stupid," he sighed. "What a waste. Come on, friend, our ship'll be pullin' out soon."

Kyven had a hell of a lot more respect for the man now. Not only was he not stupid, he was one hell of a nasty fighter.

Toby wasn't lying when he said there was a ship waiting for them. It was a steamer, a paddlewheel ship, using crystals to boil water that created steam that turned the wheel. Toby had already seemed to secure passage aboard what was clearly an upscale passenger ship, filled with men and women in fine clothes, and Arcan servants attending them. Kyven was the only naked Arcan on the ship, and it made him just a tad self-conscious. But he followed the lean man as he carried his bags into ship, going up a flight of stairs and coming to a stateroom door. "This be yo's, Kyven. Yo' own stateroom. Mine is right beside ya, so if ya need anything, just come next do' and knock."

"My own room?" he asked in surprise.

"Ayah," he nodded. "All yo's. We got ten days tah Alamar, friend, we only gonna stop once at Parai in Flaur. Outside o' that, it's a straight shot tah Alamar. Yo' speak Flauren?"

He shook his head.

"Ayah, then yo' best stayin' on the boat. They be a little device in there on the table by the bed, it rings the galley. If yo' hungry, just press the little button, and they ask what ya want, then send it up."

"That's it? You're leaving me?"

"Ayah, unless you like playin' cards o' some such," he said simply. "Just stay on the boat so ya don't go outside yo' roaming range, and yo' don't need tah see me again 'til we reach Alamar. Ah'll be about, makin' sure nobody bothers ya, but Ah won't be getting' in yo business. That ain't mah job."

"Uh, think I can get some clothes?"

"Sho. Ah'll dig up something fo' ya."

The stateroom he was given was luxurious. It had a bed, couch, sofa, writing desk, trunk, bureau, and a mirror, with an alchemical lamp set up as a chandelier in the middle of the ceiling that was controlled with a switch both by the door and by the bed. The bed was covered with satin sheets and a red coverlet, the furniture was a maroon crushed veleur, the walls paneled with a dark, rich wood. It was the stateroom for the rich, and it was all his.

This man Toby was certainly going out of his way to… spoil him. A private stateroom? Room service?

He had to try it. He found the little device on the night table by the bed. It had a big red button on it, which he pressed. "Can I help you?" came an immediate response from the little box, a box that tingled of alchemy. There was a crystal in it somewhere. "Just press and hold the button and speak, and I'll hear."

He held down the button. "Uh, could I get a gr–grl–glass of milk?"

"It will be sent up immediately, sir."

He let go of the button, curious as to how they knew which room to send it to.

He sat down on the bed. Trinity, what a gilded cage. He was being sent to an auction block in a luxury stateroom.

There was a knock at the door as he was testing the bed, and he padded over and opened it just enough to look out. "Milk," a steward wearing a black uniform said, holding out a tray. "Can I leave it with you for your master?"

So, they thought he was a servant. Well, that worked well enough for him. He nodded and took it through the door, then closed it.

Wow, the glass was… cold. He took a tentative sip, and found the milk cold too, which made it taste wonderful. Chilled milk, what luxury!

After drinking the milk, he laid down on the bed and spread his arms out. He would surely need to find a way to slip his collar and get free of the formidable and curiously interesting Toby Fisher, but he sure as hell wouldn't mind being stuck here while he figured it out.

The door opened, and Toby entered carrying a pack. "Ah'm back," he said. "Like yo' room?"

"Why? Isn' this rrearr–rearr–rearr–" he growled. "Very expensive?"

"Ain't costin' me no chits, friend," he said simply. "Ah charge the customah fo' this. Ah learned long ago that when Ah move valuable Arcans like yo'self, it's always best tah do it on high-class ships. The riffraff that might be sent tah poach ya has a way hard time gettin' tickets, then fittin' in on the ship tah get intah position tah try. Ah'll spot em a minar away an' deal with 'em."

"But my own rrroom?"

"What, yo'd rather be stuck with me?" he asked with a smile and a wink. "Ah think it'd make it way harder for ya tah try tah slip yo' collar and try tah get away with me watchin' ya all the time, don't ya think?"

Kyven actually laughed.

"Now, Ah got leathers and Ah got some wool, and Ah got some cotton," he said, digging the clothes out of the pack. "Ah'd think those claws on yo' feet makes leather the best choice, yo' claws won't tear that up so fast."

Kyven nodded as the man pulled a pair of black leather trousers out of his pack, which would only reach his knees. But that would be just fine, since it would feel strange to have clothes around his ankle, and it would cover his genitals. "Try 'em on, Ah think Ah got the right size."

He pulled them on, and found that they'd do. They were a touch loose in the waist and hips, and they had no hole for his tail, but that was fixed with Toby's wicked knife. Toby cut a slit in the back for him, then gave him a leather belt to wear with it to keep the pants up. "That'll do," Toby nodded, then gave him a variety of shirts. "Ah'll sent ahead to Parai an' have some better clothes waitin' fo' ya," he promised. "Ah think these'll do 'til we get there."

"Thrank you," he said with a nod, feeling… flattered that someone was giving him positive attention.

"Ain't no sweat, friend," he said simply. "Ah'll get ya tah Alamar safe an' sound, and Ah'll make sure ya don't mind the trip. Provided ya don't escape on me first," he grinned.

Kyven laughed.


Wearing clothes almost made him feel human.

The ship was every bit the gilded cage. Toby was every bit of his word. He stayed away from Kyven, gave him all the space he wanted, and he had absolutely no restrictions. He was allowed to go anywhere any other passenger was allowed to go, at least within certain boundaries. He was an Arcan, so he was very much not welcome in the brandy room or dining room or among the card tables, and everyone thought he was the property of some rich person who kept him as a valet and status symbol because of his exotic fur. But in his stateroom, he was the master of his own domain, slave to no one, and he felt very good about himself.

The collar, well, that didn't make him feel quite so brilliant. The damn thing was devilishly effective in keeping itself firmly around his neck, and after two collars, he started understanding why runaway Arcans were so rare as long as the owners weren't stupid and left the key out where they could get at it. Unless the crystal in his collar ran out of energy, he really saw no way of getting his collar off. He tried almost everything he could think of to slip his collar, from sneaking into others' rooms and finding their collar keys and trying them on his collar, to invading Toby's room itself. But after a thorough and careful search, even using spirit sight, he found no key to remove his collar. That told him that it had to be something like the Ledwell collar, some kind of unique collar with a special condition to take it off, something he'd have to figure out.

And Trinity, did he try. He tried simple ideas from cutting off the collar to exotic ideas like pulling the crystal out of his stateroom lamp and trying to disrupt his collar long enough to get it off of his neck, but nothing worked. Toby didn't interfere at all, almost as if he was so sure Kyven couldn't slip his collar that he was more than willing to let him try anything he pleased.

When he wasn't trying to escape, he spent a lot of time talking with the other Arcans on the ship. These were the "elite" Arcans, the servants of the rich, and in some ways they were just as stuck up as the rich were. They knew they had cushy, prestigious jobs, and they reminded each other of their superiority over other Arcans about every ten seconds. Kyven found their attitudes to be quite tiring after a couple of days, and lost interest in talking to them… but they certainly didn't lose interest in him. Kyven's unique coloration was one thing, but when word got out on the ship that he wasn't owned by a rich person, that he was instead on the way to the blue ring, that got attention. The other passengers started giving him appraising looks when he appeared on deck, and the Arcans all gushed over him.

The stopover in Parai, four days after leaving Cheston, lasted about four hours. They stopped only long enough to take on supplies, but true to his promise, Toby brought him new clothes. He received three pairs of leather trousers like the ones he had, knee-length leather trousers, but these had a dedicated slot for his tail complete with a strap and button in the back to hold his pants up without a belt. He also received some nice shirts to wear with them, cotton and linen shirts so the southern summer didn't boil him.

Kyven thought to try to jump ship at Parai, but he couldn't get the collar off. Parai was a flat city built on the sea, white buildings with red tiled roofs, and the docks were filled with swarthy-skinned, dark-haired Flaurens, chattering at each other in their native language, and the combination of him still having the collar on and the idea of trying to jump ship into a foreign city where nobody spoke his language made him decide against trying.

Once they were asea again, going around the southern tip of Flaur and heading into the Waveless Sea, Kyven had to admit defeat. He had failed to slip his collar, and their next stop was Alamar, where Toby would keep a very careful eye on him. Toby's habit of using luxury ships for transporting valuable Arcans not only protect his cargo from poaching, it also minimized his cargo's chances to get away, he realized. The ship had only made one stop, where a more common ship would have made several stops. And once they were at sea, the only option an Arcan had was going overboard and hoping he picked the right direction to go to at least see land on the horizon before he drowned. There would be no hugging the coast now, the ship would go out into open ocean to get from Flaur to Alamar, and that sealed his fate, in a matter of speaking.

Toby was very gracious about it, though. He still treated Kyven with respect when he checked in on him the day after they left the southern tip of Flaur, and would not see land again for five days, when they would reach Alamar. "Ayah, doing alright, Kyven?" he asked from the door. "Found a way out of mah collar yet?"

Kyven gave a rueful chuckle. "You outfoxed the fox, Toby," he answered. In the days on the ship, his diction when speaking had improved, but he still had trouble with L and M sounds. "Your corl–collar is beyond mre."

"Well, Ah'd tell ya not tah beat yo'self up ovah it, ain't nobody ever slipped mah collar," he chuckled, "but Ah know that ain't no consolation."

It was a little consolation. At least he didn't feel like an idiot, if nobody else had ever slipped his collar, and Kyven knew that Toby was telling the truth. He was surprisingly candid, part of his quirky charm that made Kyven like him despite the fact that he was Kvyen's overseer.

There wasn't much he could do in his gilded cage but wait, but at least wait in luxury. The only human that would really talk to him was Toby, and he struck up an odd friendship with the man after he admitted defeat with the collar and played cards with him most of the day. Toby loved cards, carried a deck around with him, and taught Kyven several games, from gin to solitaire. He even let Kyven keep his deck of cards every night, letting him play solitaire in his room, which really helped while away the time. The kitchens kept him well fed, even waited on him since he couldn't eat in the dining room with the other passengers. It seemed that the ship was loyal to the money it was paid, and would serve Kyven like he was a human because he was a paying passenger. They wouldn't do it in public, of course not, but he was served quite well in private.

It was quiet time to reflect for him. The fox had not appeared since that night in the rain, and he was glad of it. His anger and hatred of her had not dimmed in the slightest, but his indignation had cooled significantly since leaving the plantation, if only because he wasn't being tortured for the amusement of a megalomaniac, and he'd had the chance to avenge himself against him. Killing Arthur Ledwell had been eminently satisfying, like he had removed a blight from the land. But he had to wonder a little bit, in spite of himself, if that pleased the fox a little. She did say she'd change him back if he pleased her–

No. He couldn't even think about that. He was still furious with her. If she came to him and got within reach of him, he very well might attack her, and that wouldn't do his chances to have her change him back much good. He had to cool off first.

But, he wasn't all that worried, really. He'd go to Alamar, get sold and become just one of many, then use his ability to vanish into the shadows to escape. Toby was right that he'd stand almost no chance to get away from him, but he would have a much better chance to get away in Alamar.

He would get his chance, for after five days of surprisingly calm seas and no rain, the ship arrived in Alamar on a bright, sunny, hot morning, hot and incredibly muggy. Toby came to get him as the ship docked, as he sat in his stateroom and prepared himself for what was coming. He would be put in another cage with Arcans, and then would stand on a block and get auctioned off to the highest bidder. He would have to suffer that indignity long enough to find a chance to escape, and when he did, they'd never find him.

"Ayah, are ya ready?" he called.

He sighed and nodded, standing up and reaching for the tail of his shirt to take it off.

"Kyven, why ya doin' that?"

"Don't I have to take off mry crlothes?"

"Only when yo' sold," he grinned. "So they can see ya got yo' workin' parts. Come on, Ah got a taxi carriage waitin' for us."

"taxi carriage?"

"Yo' a blue ring Arcan, friend, yo' not walkin', that's fo' sho'. Now come on, an' don't forget yo' pack. Yo' keepin' all yo' clothes. They're yo's."

That made him feel… almost human.

He walked with Toby down the gangplank, and past a long line of carriages for the passengers, until they reached a solidly built little open backed carriage. It was manned by an old man and being pulled by a single horse. "A'right, where to, suh?"

"Blue ring," Toby answered.

"A'right, heah we go."

The city of Alamar was filled with wooden buildings, and there were Arcans everywhere. It was a huge breeding city where Arcans were a major export, so nearly half the city was taken up by Arcan pens, and they were all over the place. There were more Arcans in Alamar than there were humans… but every Arcan was either wearing a collar or chained in groups and watched over by alert humans. It was actually a little depressing to see, to see so many Arcans, and wonder how many would be alive by this time next year.

This was a city that was built on pain and misery, he realized. It had turned slavery into an enterprise, and turned the subjugation and pain of the Arcans into a business.

Sometimes it was being generous to call people human.

And he was just one of the masses now, another Arcan up for sale. But the difference between him and most others was that he was distinct, unusual, and that made him valuable, like a rare crystal.

The famous blue ring of Alamar. It was a compound of buildings that were behind the blue ring, which was a circular auction platform painted with a blue border on its edge, thus giving it the name blue ring. But this platform was under a large tented roof, almost like a veranda, and the area before it was lined with cushioned chairs. It may be just another place to buy Arcans, but these buyers were rich. The carriage stopped by the closest of those large buildings, where two men carrying pike-like weapons that looked like Loreguard pikes flanked a door. A small middle-aged man with a bald pate and wearing a loose brown robe scurried out as Toby got down out of the carriage, then literally helped Kyven down and took his pack. "Toby Fisher!" the little man said with a laugh. "Ah'm glad tah see ya! So, this is the black-furred fox!" the man said, looking at Kyven appraisingly. "Ah sweah, what a coat! Ah think yo' gonna make a pretty chit, Toby!"

"Ah do hope so, Devin," Toby said calmly. "When's the next auction?"

"Tomorrah," he answered. "Ah'll get him on the schedule."

"Well, Kyven, this be it fo' me," he said, handing Devin his pack. "Ah got some stuff to do fo' Mistress Ledwell, so Ah'll be busy. Tomorrow mo'nin, they'll bring ya out fo' potential buyers tah look ovah," he explained. "They might want tah see ya climb or carry stuff tah see how healthy ya are, and so on. Tomorrow evenin', yo' go up on the blue ring, where they'll bid ya up."

"Five thousand, at least," the little man said simply. "Maybe as high as eight."

"When they done sell ya, Ah'll be takin' the payment back tah Misses Ledwell, and odds are, yo' be going tah a soft life as a breeder or trophy Arcan, so some rich folk can show ya off."

"He'll be a breeder, fo' sho'," the little man said.

Toby reached over and grabbed the collar, then removed it. Kyven felt his unburdened neck, then immediately looked around, seeking the best way to escape. "Ah wouldn't do that if Ah were you," the little man said. "This compound is bordered by an alchemical device, that won't let no Arcan cross it that ain't got a collar specially allowed through, like one o' Toby's. It keeps yo' safely inside and prevents people from stealin' ya. Now yo' could surely run, but yo' won't be getting' too fah, and then you'd be right pissin' some folk off. Save the escapes fo' after yo' sold, Arcan. Cause yo' ain't surely nevah escapin' the blue ring. Long as you behave, yo' be treated like a little king. But if ya get pissy with us, we get pissy with you."

Kyven considered it, and had to consider the validity of the little man's words. This was a place that sold the most valuable Arcans, there had to be little doubt that it was monstrously defended, and had extravagant safeguards in place to keep the valuable Arcans inside, both to prevent escapes and prevent theft. He sighed when he realized that he was again trapped, going from the plantation to Toby to the blue ring, still trapped, always trapped. The little man took his sigh as an admission of defeat, and put his hand on the small of Kyven's back, just over his tail. "Come along now, let's get ya to yo' room, so yo' can rest and get a bath. We'll take good care of ya, don't ya worry a tiny bit. Yo' gonna be treated right heah."

Yes, he was going to be treated right here… just like an expensive slave. But still a slave.

Where had his fighting spirit gone? Had the Ledwell collar beaten it out of him that quickly, that easily? He didn't dread the idea of escape, but did he really, really try? And he gave up! He gave up after they rounded Flaur, thinking he'd have a better chance to escape in Alamar… and look where that got him. Got him in the blue ring, where he was certain he'd never escape. Now he'd have to wait again, wait until after he was sold, see where he went, and do what he had to do there to get out.

Because he would get out. He was not going to be a slave, no matter how soft and easy his life was. He'd just have to suck it up and forget about the Ledwell plantation, do his best to remember just who he was and remember that he was not and Arcan, and he was not a slave.

He would escape. It was going to take him a little longer than he expected, but he would.

Now that he knew he could become virtually invisible in the night, it meant all he had to do was find a way to slip his collar, and he was as good as free.

Chapter 9