Accidental Acquisition by Evangeline Anderson
19
The very middle of the Buy-All-Sell-All market was walled off, much like the Dark Market was. There was a single gate and two guards with long, ostrich-like necks peered at them with large, googly eyes as their party approached.
Jillian wasn’t sure if they were normally wide-eyed or if they were surprised to see two Trolloxes—one missing an eye, a human woman, and a Kindred, all heading in their direction. Whatever their state of mind, they came together, crossing their long pikes, which crackled faintly with lethal energy at the tips, and one of them demanded,
“Halt! Why do you approach the Master of the Market?”
“We have a grievance to solve, so we do!” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head declared quickly. “This humanoid female owes a debt that she doesn’t want to pay.”
“Very well, then.” The guard nodded—an odd, bobbing movement with his small head on its long, ostrich neck. “There is no other grievance at this time, so you may go in to see the Master.”
The large wooden gates swung open, revealing an empty courtyard. Well, empty except for a large dead tree with purple bark standing right in the center.
Jillian frowned.
“What’s going on?” she murmured to Kalis. “Where’s the judge—the, uh, Master of the Market?”
“I am here, humanoid female.” The voice that answered her sounded like the creaking of tree branches in the wind. It had a whispery-sighing quality but it was so unexpected that Jillian jumped and gave out a little yelp of surprise.
“Um, who…who said that?” she asked, wishing her voice wouldn’t tremble so much.
“I did.” The purple oak tree in the center of the clearing shook its bare branches and two eyes appeared to open on its rough trunk. They looked like knots you sometimes see on the bole of a tree and its mouth appeared the same way.
“Oh, um…thank you. Nice to meet you, Your Honor,” Jillian said quickly, not sure what else to say. Her mouth was dry as the tree being glided closer. It seemed to move underground, somehow—maybe using its roots?
Like a person wading through water—that’s how it’s moving through the dirt, Jillian thought. God, it’s huge!
For the enormous tree dwarfed even the ten-foot tall Trolloxes. It loomed over them, its knothole eyes and mouth making it look like something out of a nightmare.
“It is never ‘nice’ to be woken from my slumber,” the Master of the Market creaked ominously at her. “Why have you woken me?”
“Oh great Master of the Market, we come with a grave grievance that we ask you to settle,” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head exclaimed quickly. It pointed at Jillian “This humanoid female owes us a debt she refuses to pay!”
Jillian opened her mouth to refute the Trollox’s claims, but Kalis shook his head and frowned at her.
“What? I can’t just stand there and let him lie about me!” she hissed. “Why can’t I say anything to defend myself?”
“The Master of the Market is a Quinlow,” Kalis rumbled, as though that was supposed to mean something to her. “He is an omniscient being who sees into the hearts of all who come before him. Don’t worry, little Mistress—he’ll give you your chance to speak.”
“The Kindred is right,” the Master of the Market said, in his creaky, sighing voice. “Now, Trollox, state your case,” he added, speaking to Ripper.
“Your Eminence, we gave this humanoid female our finest handmade linen handkerchief—made for us by our own dear mother, it was,” Ripper began. “Now, by Market Law, she owes us a gift for a gift, but she refuses to pay her debt to us. She even attacked us in our very own shop when we tried to take payment!” He gestured to the gory socket where his missing eye used to be. “I ask you, Your Eminence, what is a good, honest Trollox to do?”
“What indeed,” the Master of the Market answered obliquely. His knothole eyes turned towards Jillian. “Well, humanoid female? What do you have to say to this charge the Trollox has laid against you?”
Taking a deep breath, Jillian stepped forward.
“Your Honor…I mean, your Eminence,” she began. “First of all, this, uh, Trollox took advantage of me. I was drugged and dumped in the Dark Market and he came along when I was still disoriented, to offer me his handkerchief.”
“None of this is relevant except for the fact that he did, indeed, offer you his handkerchief and you did, indeed, take it,” the Master of the Market said sternly. “Did you also attack him in his own shop?”
“Well, yes, but I was defending myself!” Jillian exclaimed. “He had dragged me forcibly to his shop and he was threatening to chop me into pieces and rape me—in that order!”
The Quinlow judge shifted his knothole gaze to Ripper.
“I see in this humanoid’s heart that she is telling the truth,” he whisper-sighed to the Trollox. “Why would you threaten such a thing? If you are a shop owner, you know it is against Market Law to hurt or abduct another market patron.”
Ripper’s remaining yellow eye got a crafty look in it.
“Why, your Eminence, it’s possible we made some rash threats at the time because we were so upset about the loss of our eye!” He pointed to the gory black empty socket. “Scooped it right out of our head, she did, and all because we caught her trying to run off before paying her debt!”
The Master of the Market looked at Jillian sternly.
“This is also true. Why did you take the Trollox’s eye and attempt to abscond without paying your debt, humanoid female?”
“Because the way he wanted me to repay him was by letting him impregnate me with his child!” Jillian exclaimed. “Which I never agreed to, by the way! And if what I’ve heard about Trolloxes is right, if I’d let him do it, his spawn would have chewed its way out when it was time to be born, killing me in the process! I ask you, Your Eminence, is that a fair trade? My life for a handkerchief?”
The Quinlow judge glared at Ripper and his purple branches suddenly burst into brilliant blue flames, surprising Jillian so much that she gasped and jumped back.
“This is true as well! Trollox, explain yourself!” The Master of the Market’s voice sounded less like branches creaking in the wind and more like heavy boughs snapping and cracking in a hurricane. “Why did you attempt to trick this female into such an uneven exchange of gifts?” he roared at Ripper.
But if the Quinlow’s alarming display of anger bothered the Trollox, he didn’t show it. The yellow-eyed head assumed a mulish expression.
“Your Eminence, the female still owes us! And the bargain isn’t at all uneven! Why, that handkerchief had great value to us, while humanoid life is cheap! We sells her kind for stew meat in our shop all the time!”
“Just because you devalue Jillian’s life, doesn’t mean she is worth no more than a soiled handkerchief,” Kalis growled, speaking up for the first time.
“And who might you be, Kindred?” Master of the Market demanded, turning his knothole eyes on Kalis.
“Your Eminence, I am Kalis, a bodyslave,” he answered. “This female is my Mistress and she is priceless to me. I would not allow this Trollox to harm her in any way—though he seeks to rape and abuse her, I will fight to my last breath to keep her safe.”
The Master of the Market blinked thoughtfully.
“A good answer, Kindred. And I see in your heart that your words are true—you would protect your Mistress, though it cost your very life. Very well, I am ready to make my ruling.”
Jillian leaned forward, her heart pounding as she waited to hear what the Quinlow judge had to say. Somehow her hand found Kalis’s and she gripped it tightly, feeling reassured when he squeezed back gently in response.
The blue fire had died down in the Quinlow’s branches and his voice had gone back to creaky branches in the wind.
“Firstly, though the humanoid female does indeed owe a gift-debt to the Trollox, it must be one of equal value to what he gave her. He may not require the use of her womb or her life in return for a simple handkerchief.” His knothole eyes looked at Jillian. “Humanoid female, you must give a gift of equal value to the Trollox.”
“But I don’t have anyth—” Jillian started to protest.
“Take off your shirt,” Kalis growled softly.
“Uh, what?” Jillian turned to look at him, surprised. She still had on her soiled t-shirt—which she had managed to hang onto while Ripper was dragging her away. She’d put it back on in his shop and she didn’t care to take it off again. Still, the big Kindred was insistent.
“Take off your shirt and hand it to him,” he said, nodding at Ripper, who was eyeing them narrowly.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, seeing what he was saying. “Oh, right—of course.”
Feeling extremely glad that she had a bra on—Suzanne kept trying to get her to switch to float-dots instead but Jillian just felt more comfortable with a bra—she whipped off her t-shirt and handed it to Ripper.
But the massive Trollox refused to take it, crossing his arms over his barrel chest.
“Your Eminence, this in no way recompenses us for the loss of our eye!” the yellow-eyed head whined.
“That is not what we are addressing at the moment, Trollox! Take the gift!”
The Master of the Market’s voice grew sharp again and his purple branches burned with bright blue flames. He looked like a huge, angry tree that had been struck by lightning, Jillian thought.
Sullenly, Ripper held out a hand and she tossed the shirt into it and stepped back to Kalis’s side. Shivering, she crossed her arms over her breasts, hiding her white lace bra as well as she could. She was feeling cautiously optimistic—they seemed to have won the case. But the Quinlow judge’s next words dashed all her hopes of going straight home to the Mother Ship.
“Now we will speak of your other grievance,” the Master of the Market intoned, his knothole eyes glaring first at Ripper and then at Jillian. “It is true that the loss of an eye to a Trollox is serious, since they cannot regrow their body parts, as some beings can.”
“What beings are those?” Jillian muttered. And more to the point, what was she supposed to do about Ripper’s lost eye? After all, when she’d used the ion-scoop on him, she’d been acting in self-defense.
But apparently the Master of the Market didn’t see it like that.
“It is the judgment of this Court that the humanoid female must give a body part of equal or greater value to the Trollox in order to equal their score.”
“What?” Jillian exclaimed.
“We choose her womb!” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head shouted and the red-eyed head giggled with idiotic glee and shouted,
“Her womb! Her womb! We chooses her womb! An eye for a womb!”
The huge Trollox reached greedily for her and Jillian shrank back, her hand going to the ion-scoop in her jeans pocket. Was she right back where she’d started now? If so, she intended to die before she’d let the big Trollox rape her.
I’ll scoop out the rest of his eyes—all three of them! she thought wildly. And I’ll scoop out his balls too, if he tries to get anywhere near me!
“Stop!” Kalis thundered, stepping between her and the big Trollox.
The Master of the Market blinked.
“Yes, Kindred—you have something to say?” he inquired.
“I do,” Kalis said gravely. “I have already named myself my Mistress’s guarantor and have said that any debts she owes shall be paid by me. The Trollox agreed to this when I offered,” he went on.
“I never—” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head began.
“Yes you did though, Ripper,” the three-headed Trollox customer put in, speaking up for the first time. He’d been hanging back, all three mouths agape as he watched the case unfold. “You didsay that the Kindred could be the guarantor for her debts,” he went on. “You did.”
Ripper glared at the other Trollox with his one yellow eye.
“Many thanks, friend Thrasher,” he spat. “Very well then, I suppose it’s true,” he added, looking angrily at Kalis.
“You know it to be true, Trollox,” the Master of the Market said. “Therefore, choose a part of the Kindred’s body that you wish to take in repayment for the loss of your eye. It must be of equal or lesser value though—you may not choose his heart or lungs or any other internal organs he needs to live,” he added, warningly.
“Hmm…” Ripper stared at Kalis thoughtfully, an evil glint in his remaining yellow eye. “What part of you should we take, Kindred? Some folks say ‘an eye for an eye’ but we think maybe we should take something else.” As he spoke, he reached behind his back and pulled out the massive, bloodstained cleaver he’d shoved in the back of his thick, black belt earlier. “What about an eye for a hand, hmm?” the yellow-eyed head inquired.
“As you wish,” Kalis said stolidly and held out his left hand.
“Very well—guards, bring a cutting block,” the Master of the Market commanded.
All this time, Jillian had been standing, frozen to the spot. She was horrified at what seemed to be happening—so horrified she didn’t quite believe it was real. Surely Kalis wasn’t really going to let the huge Trollox cut off his hand—was he?
But when the two ostrich-necked guards shuffled in, bearing a heavy wooden stump covered in ominous brownish-red stains, the reality of the situation was finally brought home to her.
“No!” she gasped, as Kalis knelt to lay his arm on the chopping block. “No, Kalis, you can’t do this for me! I won’t let you!”
“It’s already done, little Mistress,” he rumbled softly. Looking up at her he added, “Please don’t worry—I can deal with the loss of a limb.”
“But you shouldn’t have to!” Jillian burst out! “It’s not fair! I’m the one who took his eye in the first place!”
“If you’d rather offer us the use of your womb to make up for the loss of our eye, girly, we’d be more than happy to take the deal,” Ripper said, leering at her with both heads.
“No!” Kalis glared at the huge Trollox. “Take my hand to pay my Mistress’s debt and let’s hear no more about it!”
“Trollox, you agreed that the Kindred should stand as guarantor and now you must abide by your word,” the Master of the Market creaked warningly. “Guards, bring out a tourniquet,” he added and looked at Kalis. “I know you mortal beings lose your sap rapidly when a branch is lopped off.”
Jillian was in tears as the two guards scuttled forward and tied a tight leather strap around the big Kindred’s forearm, just above his wrist. She couldn’t believe this was happening! Couldn’t believe that Kalis was willing to be maimed for her. They hadn’t even known each other a whole day yet! This was crazy.
“Kalis—” she began, her voice thick with a sob she was trying to hold back. “You shouldn’t do this!”
He looked at her calmly.
“I want to, Jillian. Please, stand back and let me. Don’t try to interfere—I wouldn’t want you to be hurt in this process.”
“Yes, female humanoid, stand back,” the Quinlow judge ordered. “It will be over soon.”
That was what Jillian was afraid of. She took several steps back and though she didn’t want to see, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away as the huge Trollox took aim with his cleaver…and chopped Kalis’s left hand off at the wrist.
