Sarai, стр. 26
Chapter Eight
IT HADHAPPENED SO QUICKLY in the chaos andconfusion generated by the swirling, noisy crowd he knew no-onecould have seen what had happened. He didn’t know how long he waspulled along, but eventually a door slammed open and he was liftedand carted up a flight of stairs. His struggles earned him a slapor two, but nothing harsher. It was as if his captors didn’t wantto harm him, but weren’t too keen on him fighting them. The twopeople who’d hustled him away loosened the ties on his hood andpushed him forward, shoving him into the room with some force. Hestaggered, but stayed upright. Pulling the sodden gag from hismouth he immediately started yelling and thumping on the lockeddoor.
After tenminutes or so he realised no-one was listening and made himselfcalm down. He looked around. The room was small, but clean andtidy. A bed, a small table on which rested a carafe of water and aglass — he wondered if it was drugged. He was thirsty but wanted tokeep himself as alert as possible. A high narrow window lined witha grill offered no potential for escape. Another door led to asmall bathroom, again tidy and clean but offering littleopportunity to create any sort of useable weapon.
He stared atthe single chair tucked up against the table, wondering if he couldbreak it into pieces and use its legs as a club. Probably notunless…he eyed the door speculatively. If it opened inwards, hecould hide behind it and hit someone coming in. Would his captorsexpect something like that or would they assume that as a sarai hewould be too intimidated to risk escape? One good hit wouldgive him time to get away.
He sighed.Who the hell was he kidding? He’d have to escape through thebuilding and he had no idea of its layout. Two minutes andhe’d be caught. And if he did manage to get outside, he had no ideawhere the hell he was anyway.
No, he’dhave to be really clever about this. If he was going to take achance, he had to make sure all the odds were stacked in hisfavour. That meant learning a bit more about who had taken him andwhy.
He stared atthe bed…it was single-sized, almost a child’s bed. Huh. Hewondered whether his kidnappers knew how big he was or whether he’dsimply been dumped in a small holding pen before he was shiftedelsewhere. That thought was a bit scary.
All he coulddo at this point, he realised, was hope that Eled was okay. Godknew what had been done to him, but he’d gone down as if he’d beenpoleaxed. Probably some sort of drug - Jamie hoped like hell thatwhatever they’d used on Eled hadn’t been toxic and that he was allright.
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A COUPLE OFHOURS dragged past. Jamie stared at thewindow, at the walls, at the bolted shut door. He sat on the edgeof the small bed, its meagre pillows bunched up next to him. Histhoughts spun and twisted with all sorts of scenarios. Why had hebeen taken? Obviously by someone who wanted a human — he rememberedAlekyn saying that some Naferi would want to steal him, but he’ddiscounted that as an exaggeration at the time.
Nowhe wasn’t so sure.
The questionwas, though, now that they, whoever theywere, had him, what was going to happen next?
The sound ofthe door being unlocked had him springing to his feet, fistsclenched. Two hooded figures entered the room.
“Who thehell are you?” he demanded aggressively. “Where am I? You’d betterreturn me to my Sarat.”
One of thetall figures sniggered. “Your Sarat means nothing to us. We serve ahigher purpose, little human - as do you.”
“Oh yeah,and what’s that?” Jamie didn’t expect them to answer him, so theresponse that came momentarily rocked him.
“You are themanifestation of our future,” the Naferi nearest to him removed hishood, revealing long dark hair and smooth golden skin. Narrowsilver eyes studied him dispassionately, like a leopard calmlyevaluating the prey he was about to slaughter. “The Goddess Nemtahas decreed you will be the first.”
“The firstwhat?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, and when itcame he was pretty sure that had been a good instinct on hispart.
The Naferismiled thinly, “The first of the Patriarch’s harem of humansarai.”
Jamiestepped backwards, feeling the color drain from his face. “I don’tunderstand,” he said desperately. “Who is the Patriarch and whydoes he want a harem of human sarai?”
Thefirst Naferi - the one who’d sniggered -cocked his head to one side and smiled in a way that made the hairon the back of Jamie’s neck rise. “Syfern is the Patriarch of theGoddess Nemta. He is first Among-We-Who-Believe and you will be hisfirst human. He will have many offspring with his human sarai, aswill we who also follow Nemta, who is the way and the light. Andyour children will be the first. Is that not a good thing, littlehuman?”
He wasserious, Jamie realised, his heart sinking. He’d thought Alekyn andTiff and the pardmates had been deluded about human males bearingthem children, but it seemed all Naferi believed the same thing.And these godbotherers were deluded enough to hurt, maybe kill,Eled and kidnap him just so they could turn him over to theirreligious leader …
His backconnected with the wall behind him. Nowhere to run, he realisednumbly. The Naferi strode forward, grabbing his arms. A quick twistand the bands at his wrists were connected together. Then he waspulled from the room, and marched down narrow stairs andoutside.
A smallnondescript hovercraft was waiting for them. The Naferi holding himlifted him inside, pushing him down into a seat and strapping aseat belt across his front. The snick of the clip as the beltbuckle connected sounded like the chambering of a bullet to Jamie,and he had to fight to remain calm.
He tried topeer out the windows as the hovercraft sped along. It was lateevening or early morning; there were lights here and there, but hecouldn’t pick out any landmarks, not that he knew that manyanyway.
The flightseemed endless, and he could feel exhaustion replacing his stressedalertness. His head was beginning todroop onto his chest when finally the hovercraft went