The Design: When the gods came to Archlea the people did not know what to do. They resisted, but the gods were too powerful.

The Design: Sci/Fi Romance

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BLURB: The Design

“Are the gods truly gods or just powerful humans?” The question still echoes through the city of Peshar even six hundred years after the coming of the gods. Garith Balal, a successful scribe and fair witness in the city, is pulled into the resistance to the gods through influence of a slave bought to satisfy his wife’s social climbing desires. Alvis, the slave, a human from another world of the Cadeki empire, has roots in the planet Archlea where he is now a slave. He is a believer in “The Design”; the belief that all things in the universe are controlled to an unknown end by the Great Designer who created the universe.

EXCERPT: The Design

The air was hot and sticky and there was no breath of wind in the auction yard. The bidder’s floor was jammed tight with duster-clad people. They were the bidders who would stand directly below the auction block. The dusters were all of a uniform gray hiding the clothes, and therefore the social standing of people bidding on the slaves who would soon cross the block. Social standing meant nothing here. Each bidder possessed a temple license allowing them to buy slaves and nothing save the money to pay for the slave mattered.

Most of the bidders were agents for the nobles who did not wish to be elbowed by the common herd. The nobles hired the agents and then sat themselves in the high galleries which ran around three sides of the yard. There, safe from the stench of the crowd, they could be served cool wines and watch the parade of flesh as it crossed the block.

In the midst of the crowd of bidders stood a short stout fellow with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a flat round cap of blue with a blue tassel hanging from it. Other than that, he looked like all the other duster-clad bidders, but he was not. He was Garith Balal, Scribe and Fair Witness to the business community of Peshar, and he hated being on the auction floor. He felt the sweat running from his armpits down his sides beneath the long gray duster and wished he could get a cup of wine, or even water. Garith knew the duster was to protect his clothes from any mischance of spilled blood or urine, and that knowledge made him more uncomfortable than the weather. He regretted wearing the fine blue robe that matched his cap to the auction. It made him look like the prosperous Scribe and Fair Witness he was, but no one could see it beneath the duster, and it only made him that much more miserable. He swore softly and silently called upon the gods to have mercy upon him—to deliver him from the sharp tongue of his wife who had sent him here. Merta, his wife of ten years, wanted a slave and that was that. She would have one. She said she needed the help around the house. A slave to scamper about and fetch and carry at her command. “Perhaps he could even help you in your shop, Garith,” she had wheedled.

Garith had resisted as long as possible. He knew she did not need a slave, but Alsai Kruth, the next-door neighbor and fashion setter for the neighborhood had one, therefore Merta had to have one, and she was a skillful nag. She gave him no peace day or night for weeks until he finally lifted his hands to the gods in surrender. The price of some broken down house slave was worth it if it would restore peace in his home and let him get on with business.

The roar of the crowd increased as time for the auction drew near. More bidders jammed onto the floor and added their stench to the already gut-twisting miasma of the slave yard. Sweat, feces, vomit, and disinfectant mingled to make a brew that was almost visible.

I will never get this stink off me, Garith thought as the skinny auctioneer stepped to the desk upon the raised platform.

The man rapped his gavel and shouted “Hear yea, hear yea! All bidders approach. All sales must be consummated in money. No paper of promise is acceptable. A purchase license, duly stamped with temple authorization must be presented to the cashier or there can be no sale.”

The crowd quieted as the charge was presented and when it was finished the auctioneer turned toward the pens behind the platform and called, “First Lot.”

A young girl of perhaps twelve years with long stringy blond hair and an ankle chain was shoved onto the platform. Naked and frightened she tried to cover her loins and her young breasts with her hands, but the auctioneer lifted a long club which hung by a thong at the side of his desk and pushed her hands down.

Poor thing,Garith thought, looking at the way her ribs showed. What could she have done to offend the gods enough to end up on the auction block?

“Lot 4833.” the auctioneer read from the list on his desk. “Female, pubescent, no physical defect. Guaranteed disease free. Do I hear a bid of one hundred Zari?”

“Is she a virgin?” the man beside Garith called out.

Garith turned to him, expecting to see some glint of lechery in his eyes, but there was none. He had asked purely for information.

The auctioneer glanced at the papers on his desk and said, “Not specified, therefore not guaranteed.”

“One hundred Zari,” came a bid, followed closely by “One fifty.”

Bid followed bid and the price shot up to seven hundred Zari before slowing. Garith watched, in pity for the girl, and in awe of the price. The final bid was Seven hundred eighty. The gavel rapped down and the girl was taken away.

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LINKS

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085DM91K5

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/design-g-lloyd-helm/1018941743?ean=2940162800842

Apple: https://linkmaker.itunes.apple.com/en-us/details/1501604497?country=us&mediaType=books&term=The+Design+by+G.+Lloyd+Helm&type=book

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-design-2

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/G_Lloyd_Helm_The_Design?id=qMPTDwAAQBAJ

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