Cacoethes' Works

 Chapter Sixteen: Dinner with His Excellency NILHIN HAD BEEN A TORTURER, working in the once-closed Zishe cell block, for a full season when he and eight of his fellow torturers were invited to the head table that night to dine with the main family of the Zaw Clan. It was a great honour, of course, but it felt rather like a death sentence to Nilhin, who prepared himself, scrubbing himself clean in the bath that was prepared for such an occasion. He got dressed in the finest clothes he had been given as a payethi, and clipped his necklace around his neck, holding his hair up off his neck. It had started to grow quite long, but he still hadn’t ventured far from Neuma, and certainly not into Kotesh, the city bustling in the uppermost layers of the mountainous dwelling of the Tbai capital.  He walked, last in line since he was the youngest payethi currently employed in such a position, and followed the others to the main dining hall. It was a grand reception room with murals depic...

 Chapter Fifteen: Good Intentions, Bad Promotions NILHIN HAD BEEN A SERVANT FOR TWO SEASONS, a little longer than six months, and he had remained out of the eye of anyone important. He had no friends, and any allies, but he was cordial and friendly with all of the fellow servants. He knew everyone’s name, servant and master, disciple and teacher, that he attended to or occupied the same space as for any length of time. His main duties mainly involved tending to the gardens in one of the lower levels, thus climbing and descending several dozen sets of stairs multiple times a day, and tending to the laundry of the Neuma dormitories, preparing their uniforms so they could attend their lessons in clean clothes.  Nilhin’s boss was an old man, a generational servant of the Zaw clan, and he had discovered Nilhin writing poetry, to add to the pages he had transcribed of his mother’s work. The man nearly dropped the bowl of brown rice he came bearing, his eyes stuck on the brush in Nil...