The Prefect

Eil and Nala were at the tail end of the Kasaian caravan with their uncle. They could already see the prefect's plantation at the end of the half-hearted road.

“You will go on ahead and accompany the caravan, I’ll wait for you here.”

They’d become accustomed to the order. Kilo said that should he enter the plantation, the skilled Buffoneese animists there would detect his own skills and they would attempt to kill him and everyone in his family. Eil had questioned how Nala and he would avoid detection but never received any answer other than Kilo’s assurance he would not leave them in a situation where their lives would be in danger. Kilo had told each of his children before their first battle that they needn’t worry, none would die while under his protection. This often-followed complaints by the other men in the village that Kilo’s care were far too young to join them in battle. Even so, all of the Kasaian fighters knew that Kilo’s care would take more lives than any of them could. Their apprehension of the children’s participation came from a place of fear and basic human morality.

Eil still doubted Kilo’s capacity to ensure the integrity of that promise of protection, but so far none had died. His doubt was baseless.

As such, they only sternly nodded when the caravan continued on its journey and Kilo stayed back, mango bucket at his side. Truthfully, Eil and Nala could never decide whether they were more comfortable with or without their guardian.

“If Kilo is so strong, why does it matter if the prefect detects him. You think he’s scared?” Nala asked.

“Kilo is only scared of the gods.”

“The prefect looks like a god.”

“How would you know? You’ve never seen a god.”

“He doesn’t look like anyone else I’ve ever seen.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“How do you know he’s not a god?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You’re starting to bother me.”

“You only say that when you don’t have the answers. Actually, you say it a lot.”

“I’m going to ignore you now.”

“You’re not nice.” Nala sulked.

After a minute, Eil grinned. “Why are you mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“You look mad.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m mad.”

“If you make that face at the prefect, he might think you’re mad at him. Then I’ll have to stand up for you, and he’ll probably kill me. The only upside to that is that Kilo will be wrong for once in his life, but I won’t get to see his reaction, so I’m not sure how much of an upside it really is. Try not to look mad at the prefect when we see him.”

“If the prefect thinks I’m mad, he should consider what he did for me to be maybe mad and fix that instead.”

“Powerful people don’t need to think about that sort of stuff, they threaten you till you’re happy, or they kill you.”

“You’re not powerful.”

“I thought we were talking about the prefect.”

“I’m going to throw something at you when you’re not paying attention. A hard rock.” The thought gave rise to a rare and eerie smile.

“Oh look, you’re happy again. The prefect will wonder why you’re so happy, you shouldn’t smile so much.”

When they arrived at the plantation, the workers and the Kasaians exchanged instinctive glares, each distasteful of the other. Those of the plantation begrudged the Kasaians for the lengths they went to for survival; the Kasaians begrudged the workers for direct subservience to the Buffoneese. Neither of them dared glare at the commonality in their issues. Spittle flew, eye daggers soared, teeths were kissed.

Kilo had long taught Eil and Nala that there really wasn’t much of a difference between the Kasaians and the plantation workers, the Kasaians simply behaved the way they did to feel better about themselves. “They’re all equally pathetic,” he said. It was one of the rare occasions where Eil might lend credence to Kilo’s cynicism. In the end, they were all Leonaisians serving the greater Buffoneese cause.

The caravan stopped at the prefecture center where two more crates of pebbles could be found. They waited in near silence for the prefect to arrive.

When the prefect Damos Claeys arrived shortly after, his presence was felt long before it was seen. The Kasaians began to double down from the pressure, hand to chest in a desperate plea for air. Eil and Nala felt it less than the other Kasaians but even so, they could barely stand it. There was a genuine sense of weight on their shoulders when the prefect wandered into the plantation center. Kilo had explained that this was deliberate on the prefect’s part, he took a perverse joy from the pain of his subservient. The more Eil and Nala harvested, the less the pressure would bother them. As much as he had learned in the last couple of years, it felt like he'd made little progress against the prefect. Either that or he knew and adjusted. After all, the other Kasaians seemed to suffer more with each visit. But he dismissed the possibility that Damos knew, and he never brought it up to anyone but Nala. If he really did know, they'd all be dead.

Once, Eil had questioned why they never felt such pressure around Kilo. Eil did not take him at his word when he claimed he kept the pressure subdued, and Kilo offered to show him out in a stretch of the forest so as to not indispose the rest of the villagers. That was the moment he’d most learned to fear his uncle. Of such events, he preferred to bury them deep in his memories.

The prefect did not look quite human. Horns jutted from his head, a forked tongue pushed most to look away, and a tail sharp enough to stab effortlessly through meat always hovered over his shoulder. The prefect was equal part mythical beast and ordinary human, and thanks to the former, he towered over the entirety of the Kasaians. The Buffoneese did not tend to tower over the Leonaisians, but the prefect was an exception. A lazy grin was plastered on his face while a smaller woman, half his size with paper in hand, whispered in the Buffoneese second language, the one they hadn’t forced on the Leonaisians. He spun on the ball of his feet to gaze at the Kasaians.

“You people, you never disappoint, do you?”

“We’re always ready to serve, prefect,” Tacus said, humble to the point that his treatment of Kilo must only be taken as disrespect.

“As always. Whose efforts did you squander this time?”

The petite lady by his side whispered more rushed words in their second language while the Kasaians looked down nervously.

“Oh, great. You’ve saved us the trouble of having to expect the last village to deliver tomorrow. I suppose we can skip right to the chase and pay them a visit today, perhaps such a visit will inspire them to measure up to your efforts - though one might hypothesize that if your own visit has not spurned them to ambition, that none will.” The Kasaians said nothing back. The less they said, the sooner he got bored, the sooner they could depart to start the cycle once again. “Before you leave, I do have some great news: the time for the exam has come once again. Your children will have a chance to do what you’ve all failed to do, become something worthwhile for your land.”

He walked along the Kasaian line and stopped in front of Eil and Nala, the only two youths young enough to participate in the exam among them. The pair were the same height, and it wouldn’t have been out of order to think them twins. He looked Nala up and down. Nala kept her eyes down, but Eil couldn’t resist gazing at the prefect’s tail. It wasn’t out of curiosity, but the prefects had a predilection for murder. Eil wondered what would happen if such a predilection took over. He knew he’d jump to her defense, but how meaningless of an effort would that be. Would the prefect spare her after the second it would take to do away with Eil? The rest of the Kasaians certainly wouldn’t come to their defense, as they hadn’t on the other two occasions the prefect deemed himself disrespected and their numbers were diminished. Would she be fast enough to escape? Eil doubted it. Would Kilo somehow come to their rescue?

“How old are you?” he finally asked.

“Eleven,” she replied.

He raised an eyebrow but said no more to her. “And you?” he asked Eil.

“Just turned thir-”

The prefect’s tail shot for Nala’s head. Eil only had the time to stop short of finishing his word and to look aghast. Nala took an instinctive step back, the point of the tail a hundredth of an inch into where her forehead once was. A second later, the rest of the Kasaians reacted with shock. In their eyes, it was as if the tail had teleported from one point to another, such was the speed of the prefect’s strike.

“The Military Institute of King Paulus is an opportunity to escape your shackles. Don’t squander it.” Damos had a beaming smile on his face, strange satisfaction unhidden. His tail retracted, and swapped purposes from threatening to minute comfort: scratching the prefect’s chin. His grin deepened. His eyes lingered on Nala. Eil felt dismissed. He begrudged it. He’d wondered if jumping to her defense would be meaningless, but hadn’t realized how optimistic he was to think he’d even have the opportunity to jump to her defense. “That’ll be all,” Damos Claeys said.