Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Zandhor & Tallie ~ Starting Over?

Tallie heard him sigh when she asked, "How old were you when you were captured?"

For a long moment, she didn't think he would answer. Then she heard a gust of breath.

"I don't remember. I wasn't a child and yet not an adult. Just barely old enough to be allowed to travel a few streets over, to go see my cousin. It is hard to remember now. My name? I wasn't called Zandhor before I was stolen away. That is my gladiator name. I don't remember my parents. Or my cousin's name, or the name of the planet I came from. When the slavers showed up, I was plucked off the street along with several others. From then on, I fought everything they wanted me to do and, in the process, lost everything I was."

Tallie clamped her lips together. Did he not realize that there were ways to get some of that back? Maybe? Sometimes. "There are other men with you who are the same species. Do they know what planet they were taken from?" she asked tentatively.

"No. We were all too young. We don't remember anything," he mumbled.

She could hear the unhappiness. "We might be able to figure some of this out."

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

Tallie sighed. "Well. Falcon, one of the men I spoke with today—" She just assumed he heard her earlier conversation and let it go. "is a Guardian. If he doesn't know what your species is by looking at you—he has the resources to find out. A Guardian is a protector of all species in the universe. Just trust me when I say that he will be able to find your species and may be able to determine the planet and approximate year of your abduction.

"Sometimes when children are taken away, the parents file a report… saying the child is gone and they need help to find them." It was a simplistic explanation for something pretty complicated. But she didn't think he needed to understand anything else right now, other than the concept of trying to discover where he came from.

"I'm not a child anymore," Zandhor whispered.

Tallie smiled. Sometimes hope could rip away the years. "No. But I don't think that matters. We can look and see what we come up with. Not right now, but after we get to Megoth. Let's just keep talking about how you became a gladiator. Were you taken right to the Dorvan Zoo?" she wanted to know.

It took Zandhor a few minutes to answer. He was probably thinking about her promise. "No. We've only been there for a couple of years. When I was first taken, I was locked in a gladiator camp. I was taught to fight. Run through exercises to build muscle. Those at the camp fed us well. Probably because you can't train someone who doesn't have the energy to move. Yet the slaves were beaten for any perceived infraction. Beaten to make us forget where we'd come from. They didn't waste time showing us how to hold a sword, or how to grapple with someone bigger.

"They never explained what they believed to be the right or wrong way to pummel each other. The trainees were just punished when we did it wrong. Fack, I think sometimes we got beat when we did it right. I was there for years. Until the innocence of childhood was far behind. I was used and abused and worked until someone decided I might live through my first few fights. Then I was taken to the man who eventually built the zoo on Dorvan."

"You lived somewhere else?" Tallie asked. She heard the used and abused comment. And chose not to ask questions about that. She'd been used and abused and had no intention of reliving that time enough to explain it to anyone.

"I was taken to a different planet. A colder planet. I never knew the name of it. Those years were a blur of fighting and hunger. My owner didn't believe in feeding us as they did at the camp. The cages were smaller, and we spent less time exercising. The owner didn't have an arena of his own, which meant he had to transport his fighters every weekend. I won my fights. Andra was there before me. He won his fights too. The others... some could have been on the cold planet, and I just didn't see them. But I believe most were acquired after we were moved to Dorvan," he paused, as if thinking about those times. Or deciding what else to say.

"Which one is Andra?"

"The big one," he said.

Andra had been with him the longest then. The one he called Andra was who she called the giant. This dark blue humanoid alien had scales over most of his body. He was also the one with the huge tongue. His size was intimidating, yet he had always turned away from her. She just didn't understand... so much. Maybe now was the time to start figuring things out. Before she lost her nerve, Tallie asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

Zandhor quickly answered, "Anything."

She gulped in air and forced the words out, "Why is it that whenever I left my room and went into the hall, the men would surround me and touch my hair? Some of them would clap their hands—over and over again. And then laugh. Were they just trying to scare me?"

She heard him gasp and moan.

"No. No, Tallie. That is a sign of the highest respect. We weren't allowed to yell encouragement to the other gladiators. Or even talk to them in between their fights. The only way we could support one another is by a quick touch, or by clapping. Clapping could be heard from the arena where the fights were held. We were treating you as if you were one of us.

"It wasn't meant to be a threat, but a sign of great respect. It was our way of telling you that you were doing a fabulous job. That you could be strong and successful. That we were there for you. In the cages, we couldn't talk. Clapping could be heard. So, we clapped to tell each other that we were okay. The stronger the clap, the better we were. The weaker the clap, the more the others knew to be concerned."

Tallie sighed. "Touching like that, especially when you all surrounded me and reached out at the same time, without permission or letting me know what you were doing and why... is threatening. Scary. So was the clapping, although not as bad as the touching. You can't do that to anyone. Especially to any woman. You scared me so much, all I could think about was getting somewhere safe and getting help."

Zandhor groaned. "So, this is why you locked yourself away from us. Because we didn't wear clothing and scared you with our clapping?"

Tallie shook her head and realized he couldn't see her. "Those aren't the only reasons. But let's get back to you. Why did your owner move from the cold planet to Dorvan? And when?"