Page 56 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure
As he sat, a familiar figure entered the dining room, one of the kitchen staff who'd shared his bed a few times. She kept her eyes downcast as she poured water into his crystal goblet.
"Thank you, Mariam," he said quietly.
She glanced up, surprise flickering across her face as if she'd expected him to forget her name just because he'd been moved to the ladies' quarters. She answered with a slight nod and then rushed out of the dining room.
The exchange hadn't gone unnoticed.
"You know the staff well," said a pale, blonde woman across from him. She spoke English with a faint Germanic or Norse accent.
"The staff is not so extensive that it was difficult to learn all of their names over the eighteen months I've been here," Eluheedsaid. "After the doctor died, I've been treating their various ailments to the best of my abilities."
He'd been doing that prior to the doctor's death as well, but he chose not to mention that. Many of the staff had trusted him more than they had trusted the ancient physician.
"This is Liliat," Tamira introduced the blonde. "And beside her is Raviki, then Rolenna—she's the one experimenting with glassmaking. Across from them are Beulah, Sarah, and Tula."
Each woman nodded as she was named, their expressions ranging from friendly curiosity to careful assessment. Eluheed had the uncomfortable sensation of being a specimen under examination.
"And I'm Tony, but you knew that already," the guy added with his characteristic grin. "Welcome to the dinner table discourse society. We solve all the world's problems between the soup and dessert."
"If only the world knew," Raviki said dryly. She had the darkest skin of the group, her features sharp and elegant. "Thousands of years of accumulated wisdom, and we're using it to debate whether the latest fashion trends are an improvement or a travesty."
"Fashion is important," Rolenna protested. "It's one of the few ways humans have to express their inner selves through external means."
It felt surreal to hear them discuss fashion when somewhere on this same island, women who could have been just like them, immortal, were dying as old humans. According to Tony, they had the right genes but were kept from transitioning so they could have many more dormant children for Navuh.
They were treated as breeding stock.
If Tony knew about that, the ladies must know as well, but it wasn't as if any of them could do anything about it.
They were also breeders for Navuh, just with an elevated status.
"Everything is important when you have eternity to fill," Sarah said. She had a bookish air about her, including a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose despite the fact that she surely didn't need vision correction. It was a fashion accessory, and Eluheed found the choice strange.
Another servant appeared to serve the first course. Sonia, whose son he'd helped through a bout of pneumonia just the other day. She shot him a grateful look, even though Mika's miraculous improvement was thanks to the antibiotics that had finally been delivered from the island's main clinic and not Eluheed's herbal remedies.
"You seem uncomfortable." Beulah studied him with dark, intelligent eyes. "Is it us, or is it being served by people you consider friends?"
The directness of the question caught him off guard. "Both and neither, I suppose," he admitted. "I was served by people I knew in the staff quarters as well, so it's not about that. It's about being here and being treated as one of you. It's an adjustment."
"An honest answer," Liliat approved. "How refreshing. You are not pretending that this is perfectly natural for you." She cast Tony a sardonic smile.
"Nothing about this situation is natural," Eluheed said, then wondered if he'd been too blunt.
Tamira laughed, the sound melodic and pleasing to the ear. "On that, we can all agree." She turned to Tony. "You have to tell Elias about your first dinner with us. You spilled wine all over yourself trying to impress Tula."
Tony groaned. "I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I felt like an extra in a historical drama turned into a science fiction movie, and I was afraid of breaking the crystal stemware. My grandmother had a set of six crystal glasses, and I wasn't allowed to even look at them."
"Surely you could have afforded to buy a set," Sarah said. "Don't bioinformaticians get paid well?"
He grimaced. "I was just a post-doc, and I was being paid peanuts. I could barely cover my rent. That's why it was so easy to lure me to this island under the pretense of a fake job offer. I was desperate for money."
"Speaking of bioinformatics," Raviki said, "You started to explain something over breakfast and didn't finish."
As Tony launched into a lengthy explanation that involved a lot of hand gestures and scientific terms Eluheed only half understood, the main course arrived. Lamb prepared with herbs and vegetables he recognized from the kitchen gardens. In addition to smelling amazing, it was also beautifully arranged around his plate, making him reluctant to mess up the presentation.
"You're not eating," Tamira noticed after everyone had dug in.
He picked up his fork. "It's almost too pretty to eat. I'm not used to food presented as art. Food is supposed to be simple fare meant to nourish and delight the palate, but this also delights visually."
