Vengeance

CHAPTER 6

Tali pressed her back against the oozing wall. She always felt vulnerable with an open space behind her. Could Mia know magery? Tali had seen no evidence of any, though those few who had the gift hid it.

‘We’ve got to escape,’ said Tali.

Another spasm shook Mia’s small frame and she bit back a cry. ‘Leave me out of it. I’ll soon have a baby to look after.’

‘All right, I’ve got to escape, and there’s only one way. Mia, I don’t suppose — ’

‘I hope you’re not asking what I think you’re asking.’ There was no warmth in Mia’s voice now.

‘Mia, please.’

Mia checked over her shoulder. ‘I could be flogged for saying the word. And anyone who does say it is watched thereafter.’

Sweat trickled down Tali’s bare chest to soak her threadbare loincloth. ‘If I don’t get away, I’m going to be killed.’

Mia avoided her eyes. Maybe she did know magery.

‘Mia, I’m desperate.’

‘I don’t have the … the gift,’ she muttered. ‘And I don’t know anyone who does.’

Tali felt sure she was lying. ‘If you were my friend, you’d help me.’

‘If you were my friend, you wouldn’t ask,’ said Mia, deeply hurt. ‘Haven’t you done enough to me today?’

‘Sorry.’ Tali put her arms around Mia. ‘I am a terrible friend, I know.’

‘You’re a wonderful friend,’ said Mia, pulling free. ‘You just — you push too hard.’

She staggered, catching at the bench as a spasm twisted her soft face. Everything about her was soft and sweet. Save for the matter of her belly she would have been the perfect slave.

‘It’s not your time yet, is it?’ said Tali, holding her up.

The spasm passed and Mia resumed her work. ‘It’s not due for two months.’

‘How did you get pregnant, anyway?’

She smiled. ‘The usual way.’

But Pale boys were taken away at the age of ten to slave in Cython’s mines, comminuteries, segregators, calciners and foundries, where most were worked to death before the age of thirty. The adult women only saw their partners on monthly mating nights, though, Tali had been told, some men were so weak that they weren’t up to it. Besides, she had never seen Mia with a man. There weren’t enough to go around.

Tali’s stomach rumbled. Food production in the grotto farms, eeleries and poultyards was higher than ever, yet rations had been reduced again last week. Did slaves no longer matter? Why not?

They continued down the outside, steadily filling their buckets with girr-grubs. Mia kept well ahead, avoiding her, and Tali did not raise the topic again. She worked absently, making plan after plan, but all foundered on the same obstacle. No slave had ever escaped Cython, so how could she hope to? Many times she had sought the tunnels Tinyhead had led them along that terrible day, but she had never found them.

As they reached the end of the grotto, Mia gasped and doubled over.

‘What is it?’ Tali cried, holding her up.

Pink fluid was flooding down her friend’s legs and puddling on the stone floor. Her waters had broken.

‘Tali,’ wailed Mia, ‘it’s too early!’

It must be coming because of the chuck-lash. Curse Orlyk! But Tali knew it was her own stupid fault. Mia had warned her, and yet again she had allowed her anger to control her. What a lousy friend she was.

Tali helped Mia to the floor, lifted the loincloth and her hands clenched involuntarily.

‘What’s the matter?’ Mia grabbed Tali’s wrist.

Tali shivered. Let it be stillborn. If it’s born dead, we can hide the body and she might get away with it.

‘Tali?’ whispered Mia. ‘My baby is all right, isn’t it?’

What to say? Tali looked again, but there was no doubt at all.

‘It’s small,’ she said, standing up to check on the guard in the next grotto. For bearing a Cythonian’s baby Mia would be scourged, and Tali too, for witnessing the crime. ‘It’ll come quickly.’

‘Babies can live at seven months, can’t they?’ Mia’s tone was pleading.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it good and pink?’

Of course it’s not pink, Tali wanted to scream, but then the slate-grey baby slipped out. Surely it couldn’t live at seven months. What was she supposed to do? Scourging meant a life of agony that no healing charm could repair. There had to be a solution. But what, what, what? She could not think. Her mind had gone numb. ‘It’s a boy, but …’

‘My beautiful boy!’ sighed Mia.

‘I don’t think he’s breathing.’

‘Doesn’t have to ’til the cord is cut. Give him here.’

Tali cut the cord with her harvesting knife and knotted the end, carefully, respectfully. She picked the tiny baby up, feeling his lungs struggling as she embraced him with her hands and gave him to Mia. If he died, they might escape punishment — no, what sort of a monster was she, wishing that on a helpless infant?

He took a faint breath. ‘You’ve got to hide him, Mia. Hurry! I’ll say you’ve gone to the squattery to pee.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Mia said dreamily. ‘I’ve just had a baby.’

Tali wanted to slap her. ‘A Cythonian baby! And you know the penalty.’

‘They wouldn’t hurt my baby.’ Mia cradled the infant in her arms.

It was like standing beneath a toppling wall. ‘Come on!’ Tali tried to lift her. ‘If you’re quick, you can still get away with it.’

‘Leave me alone,’ wailed Mia. ‘You’re spoiling everything.’ She looked down and her face cracked. ‘Tali, he’s not breathing. Do something.’

The baby’s lips were turning blue. Tali put her hands around his tiny body. Heal, heal! But saving a life was far beyond her skill. He gave a little shudder and lay still. Tears welled in Tali’s eyes. The poor little thing hadn’t had a chance.

As she stood there, not knowing what to do, a rumbling voice echoed through the archway from the next grotto. Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. What was Overseer Banj doing here today? Investigating what had happened to Orlyk, of course.

Guilt rose up in her throat like vomit. She crouched in front of Mia, pressing the baby into her arms. ‘It’s Banj, checking up. Hide it, quick!’

‘Banj won’t hurt me,’ said Mia. ‘Not when I show him my beautiful baby.’

‘Your son is gone,’ Tali said gently.

‘No, he’s not!’

‘Mia, he’s dead. Please — ’

Mia’s face crumpled. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Banj was kindly, as slave masters went, but he could not overlook a grey baby. ‘He’ll have both of us scourged.’

‘Run away, then,’ said Mia, kicking Tali in the knee. ‘It’s your fault my little boy is dead.’

That hurt all the more because it was true. It was her fault Banj was here, too, and if ever there was a time for risking her mother’s subtle magery it was now. Tali closed her eyes, whispered the words and made the gestures exactly as she had been taught, then focused her will to cast a concealing glamour over the baby. Mist churned in her inner eye and her scar tingled, but when she opened her eyes the baby was still visible.

It was too late to try again. ‘Put it in my bucket,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll cover it up and carry it out to the composter.’

The compost buckets were often checked in case the slaves were stealing food, and if she were caught the consequences would be dire, but Tali had to make up for the disaster she had caused.

‘Lost everything,’ choked Mia. ‘Want to die.’

‘You’ll get over it. Soon — ’

Mia slapped Tali across the face. ‘Don’t want to get over my baby. Go away! I hate you!’

The overseer was approaching the archway and the best option for both of them was for Tali to disappear. If no other slave had seen the grey baby, Banj might not punish Mia too severely. Tali kissed her damp cheek then ducked below the benches as he came down the central path. It was the only thing to do, so why did she feel like a faithless friend?

She reached the archway, rinsed her bloody hands under a spring and slipped into the next grotto. Suba had gone and the half dozen slaves were moving away, heads down.

Tali scuttled to the exit and out into the broad passageway, which was sculpted and painted to resemble a resin-pine forest under snow. Water gurgled by in one of the siphons, its stone sides carved to resemble a rivulet with reed beds cut in relief. Where to go? Idle slaves attracted attention; she could not wait here.

She headed for the squattery, then stopped. Further on, the passage was blocked by a Cythonian teacher, a buxom brunette with single, bright blue spot-tattoos on each cheekbone, who was instructing a dozen chattering children in the art of wall sculpting.

‘First we take a measure of solu,’ the teacher said, pouring a cupful of palest green liquid from an orange-ringed carboy into a bucket. ‘Be careful with it. The waste alk-’ She broke off, colouring. ‘Forget I said that.’

‘Yes, teacher,’ chorused the children.

‘Solu is a thrice-diluted waste from the segregators, made for us by the master chymister, but it can still burn.’ She held out her forearm, where a long red scar cut across her smooth grey skin.

The children stared at the scar, big-eyed. Tali did, too. She had often wondered what solu was made from, that even thrice-diluted waste could do such damage. She stopped to watch, for she had never seen stone carving done up close before.

Every wall in Cython was carved into dioramas of forest or meadow, glade or stream, mountain or pool or wild seashore. Inlaid pieces of glow-stone fostered the illusion of distance, as if the cramped caverns extended out into their lost homeland, while water gurgling in the siphons, and air sighing through wind-pipes brought each scene back to human scale.

No people, buildings or roads featured in these dioramas, which depicted a natural paradise empty of humanity. Could they not bear to think of Hightspallers occupying the land that had once been theirs, or was there a darker reason?

‘We paint the solu on a small patch of wall, thus.’ The teacher dipped a broad Pale-hair brush in the bucket and swept it back and forth across a square yard of stone until the surface began to swell. ‘We wait one minute.’ She consulted the greenstone chrono around her neck, tapping her right sandal as she waited for the toothed wheels to mesh. ‘Then,’ she took up a small mallet and a chisel with a curved edge, ‘we carve away the unwanted stone like curd.’

Within another minute she had cut a hollow elbow-deep into the softened stone and, at its centre, shaped a noble tree with spreading branches. A lump on one branch became a predatory wildcat, its long tail hanging down. It was staring out of the forest and, as the teacher shaped its eyes with a stone pick, it seemed to wake and the children gave a massed sigh.

‘That’s boring,’ said a round-faced boy. ‘Can I carve a crocodile eating a slave-girl?’

The teacher smacked his face. ‘No, you impertinent lout.’

‘Why not?’ said the boy.

‘Only those scenes set down in the fourth book of the Solaces are permitted.’

She turned back to the wall. ‘Now, children, we roughen the fur with four-times-diluted etchu.’ She painted liquid from a yellow-ringed carboy onto the cat, then washed it off at once. ‘And finally, to make smooth areas we use sheenu — ’

‘Why do we have to live in this horrible place?’ said the troublesome boy.

‘Because the enemy stole Cythe from us.’

‘Who were we before we came here?’

‘We don’t ask that question.’

‘We’re not allowed to ask any questions,’ the boy muttered.

‘You don’t need to. The matriarchs follow the Solaces, and the Solaces know best.’

‘I don’t think we ever lived in Cythe,’ said the boy. ‘I think the matriarchs made it all up.’

The teacher’s face went purple, then she pulled a black wafer from her bag and said furiously, ‘Take this to your father.’

The boy’s grey skin went as pale as Tali’s. ‘Sorry, teacher.’

The teacher thrust the black wafer in his face. ‘Go! You have no place here.’

The boy took the wafer and stumbled away, wailing. No one else in the class said a word and, after a minute or two, the teacher resumed her carving, though now her hand was shaking. It was rare for the enemy to reveal any dissension.

Tali headed back past the air wafters, praying that Mia had hidden the baby and she was all right. Here the only sound was the whisper of the wafter blades and the soft panting of the slaves who drove them, walking their treadmills hour after hour, year after year, life after life.

The gentle air current cooled her sweat-drenched skin. One of the treadmill runners made a faint squeal-squeak. It needed greasing but the best grease in Cython came from the fat of dead slaves and there was never enough — ‘Slave!’ roared Banj, from inside.

Tali jumped. Cythonians never called the Pale by their names but she knew he meant her. The treadmill walkers did not look up — if she was in trouble, they wanted to know nothing about it.

What was she to say? Tali was better than most slaves at putting on an act and telling convincing lies. A heap of spilled compost lay against the wall, so she dirtied her feet in it and headed into the grottoes, holding her belly.

Banj, a compact, handsome man built like a bag of boulders, held up the dead baby. ‘Slave, what do you know about this?’

His tattooed face softened as he looked at Tali and he tugged on his lower lip. Banj didn’t like scourging slaves. Could they get away with it? Then she glanced at the baby and it took all her self-control to stifle a gasp, to compose her face.

‘N-nothing, Overseer.’ Tali clutched her belly, grimaced and looked down at her muck-covered feet. ‘Got a flux of the bowels.’ She heaved, as if she were going to throw up. ‘Been at the squattery.’

Her stomach muscles tightened. She really did feel ill. Mia must have been out of her mind with grief — in trying to save herself a scourging, she had earned the Living Blade for them both.

Mia had lied. She did have the gift, but far better she’d not used it at all than in such a feeble way. She had turned the baby’s grey skin pink, like a Pale child, but the night-black eyes and the sturdy little Cythonian frame proved otherwise. The faint aura surrounding the baby was an amateur’s mistake, proof that she’d done it with forbidden magery.

Mia caught Tali’s eye and a stricken look crossed her face at being caught out in the lie. Sorry, she mouthed. With Banj watching, Tali wasn’t game to reply.

He studied Tali’s hot face and her dirty feet, staring into her eyes as if trying to read her thoughts. It was hard to breathe; the sodden air stuck in her throat like glue.

Finally Banj grunted. ‘You’re lucky today is Lyf’s Day, slave.’

The most sacred day in the Cythonian calendar. Tali choked. They were safe! It was unbelievable, but it had happened. She bowed to the floor. ‘Thank you, Overseer. Thank — ’

‘You’re on a warning. Offend again and it’s the acidulatory for you.’

Then Banj drew Mia to her feet and, still holding her hand, bowed until his broad forehead touched the backs of her fingers.

Shivers scalloped tracks all the way up Tali’s spine, because only one circumstance ever led the Cythonians to bow to their slaves. She sought for her gift, sought it recklessly, suicidally, but it failed her again.

‘Alas,’ said Banj, and Tali knew his regret was genuine, ‘not even today can I forgive a Pale cursed with the abomination of magery. That art is forbidden to all except our long-lost kings, and you know the penalty.’

From the broad sheath on his back he drew a long hilt which terminated in a plate-sized annulus of transparent metal, wickedly bladed all around. It sang as it moved through the air and the colours of the spectrum flickered across it before settling to red.

Mia’s eyes widened, as if she finally understood what was happening. Her lips moved, Tali, help!

There was nothing Tali could do. One second Mia was warm, alive and real. The next, after a precise and poetic sweep of the overseer’s Living Blade, she became a human fountain, painting the low ceiling crimson.

And for an hour afterwards the drunken blade kept singing.