Vengeance

CHAPTER 8

Tali kept seeing that frozen moment — the singing blade, Mia’s body on its feet and her eyes begging Tali to save her even as her head flew through the air. She could not take it in, tried to deny it, rationalised that Mia had chosen to use her feeble magery, but Tali knew she had caused the tragedy. After her mother’s death she had vowed not to be a docile slave. Now Mia was dead because she had been so reckless. She would never get it right.

If only she hadn’t lost her temper with Orlyk. If only she hadn’t woken with the blinding headaches that had driven her into that uncontrollable rage. If only she hadn’t ducked the last chuck-lash. But she had, and gentle Mia, whose quick thinking had saved her life, was dead in her place. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Why were the innocent Pale held as slaves, anyway? Why was the wonderful gift of magery such a crime? What gave their masters the right of life and death over Mia, or any of them?

No other Pale posed such questions; they accepted the slaves’ lot. Tali’s aged tutors, Nurse Bet, Waitie and Little Nan, had always shushed Tali when she spoke up, and the other slaves avoided her. Only Mia had stood by her.

The body had been taken away and the other Pale were back at work, as far from Tali’s grotto as possible. She was tainted now and they wanted nothing to do with her. She looked down at the blood spotting her hands. Nothing could bring Mia back — the best Tali could do was offer her own life in recompense.

She laid her right hand over the blood on her left, took a breath, then said, ‘On this precious blood, I swear to make up for what’s been done to the Pale. For you, Mia. And your poor little boy who never had a chance.’

It was done. A binding blood oath. But first she had to escape and she did not know how. In Cython, only docile, obedient Pale survived. Those who displayed boldness or daring earned a one-way trip to the heatstone mines. Yet to find a way out she had to be bolder than any of them.

Work in the grottoes had finished early because of Lyf’s Day, but it was too early for dinner and Tali wasn’t ready to face the accusing stares of the other Pale. She wandered down the outside passage to the entrance of a partly excavated tunnel. A team of Cythonian miners had been working there for weeks, using the chymical technique of splittery to cut a defile down to the next level.

A slave gang was pushing a heavily laden rock cart up the slope, the women gasping and grunting with every heave. Sweat carved runnels down their dusty faces. I’m going to free you, too, Tali thought. Every one of you.

Down at the workface, a Cythonian miner was trowelling the rusty, chymical powder called thermitto into channels chiselled into the rock. He turned away and a red-faced firer wearing smoked-glass goggles packed a length of silvery ribbon into the thermitto, ignited it and stood well back. Tali, who had seen splittery done before, hastily averted her eyes.

The thermitto burnt with a roar and such blinding, blue-white ferocity that molten rock trickled from the ends of the channel. Shortly, the rock split with resounding cracks and a second gang heaved the debris out of the way. The miners began to set up the next shot. Tali continued.

But a hundred yards past the tunnel she stopped, for there was a ward post around the corner and if she approached without a pass the guards would sound the clangours.

Having nowhere to go, she crept into an empty breeze-room where a little waterwheel in a stone flume drove a set of ticking box-fans, pumping air down to the lower levels of Cython. She huddled in its darkest corner, holding her throbbing head, and forced the bloody images of Mia’s death out of her mind. She had to focus. The Cythonians were watching her, her enemy might be after her already, and she had to find a way out where no one ever had.

How could she save herself when she did not know who was hunting her?Ticker-tick-sniffle-tick. The box-fans might have been counting down her remaining moments. Or mocking her increasing panic as she struggled to think of any plan to escape.

There were only two possibilities: to find an unknown way out of Cython, or develop a plan to get through one of the four exits. But after years of searching, she had already exhausted the first possibility. And though a master of disguise might make her way through one of the four guarded exits, Tali had no such skills. Her only hope was magery, the key to everything.

She wiped her sweaty face. Cython was always sweltering and seemed to grow hotter every year. There came a muffled boom, the floor shook and an acrid smell gushed up from the cracked flange around the air duct. Absently, Tali waved it away. Peculiar bangs, shakes and reeks were commonplace here, from the digester chambers, amalgamators, abluters, sublimaters and elixerators on the chymical level below.

‘Alkoyl spill!’ someone roared, distantly. ‘Get help!’ and the healers’ bell began to ring.

Tali did not move — the Pale were not permitted to enter the lower levels. From down the passage she made out the squeaking axles of the rock carts, the crack of stone cloven by splittery and, once, a low rumble that could have been part of the excavation falling in.

She looked around distractedly. The breeze-room diorama offered an enticing glimpse of freedom, a steep mountainside where grey rocks angled up from cropped grass scattered with clumps of yellow sun-daisies. She imagined the doorway as a portal through which she could walk to safety, though even if she’d had command of her gift such magery was as far off as the moon.

Sniffle-sniff.

Tali’s mouth went dry — there was someone in the breeze-room with her. Someone who had been waiting for her, hunting her? She rose to a crouch and began to edge along the wall. How had her hunter known she would come in here, anyway?

No one could have known; Tali hadn’t known herself until she had reached the doorway. She stood up, peered over the box-fans, and started. A pair of huge hazel eyes, the left one black and bruised, stared at her from a grubby, tear-smeared face.

‘What’s yer name?’ said the girl, who looked about ten. A livid hand-print stood out on her left cheek.

‘Tali. Who are you?’

‘I’m Rannilt.’

‘Who’s been hitting you?’

Rannilt shrugged. ‘Why are you hidin’? Are they pickin’ on you too?’

She had a pinched face, a sharp little chin and unusually dark hair for a Pale — almost black. Both knees were scabbed and yellowing bruises covered her thin arms and legs.

‘Not exactly,’ said Tali, wishing the girl would go away. ‘Better get back to work or you’ll be in trouble.’ She returned to her hiding place.

Rannilt scurried around the box-fans and settled beside her. ‘I’m always in trouble.’

‘Well, I’m sure your mother is looking for you.’

‘She’s dead,’ said Rannilt with a tragic sniffle. She wiped her nose in a shiny streak up her forearm, looked up at Tali, fat tears welling in her eyes, then said hopefully, ‘You could be my new mother.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Tali said as kindly as she could. ‘Off you go now, I’m really busy.’

‘You’re not doin’ nothin’.’ Rannilt peered into Tali’s eyes. ‘You look really sad.’

Tali choked, and suddenly it flooded out of her. ‘My best friend got the Living Blade today, and it’s all my fault.’ She sank her head in her hands and wept as she had not done since she was a little girl.

Impulsively, Rannilt threw her arms around Tali and hugged her. ‘There, there. It’ll get better, you’ll see.’

Tali knew it wouldn’t, but could hardly say so to an urchin so much worse off than she was. She wiped her eyes.

‘Got some gummery.’ Rannilt unfolded a toadstool skin wrapper to reveal a grubby orange chunk the size of her fist.

Tali salivated. She hadn’t had the sweet since childhood. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘Nicked it from an enemy dinner trolley,’ Rannilt said proudly. ‘Here.’ She cracked the chunk in half and, after a moment’s hesitation, offered Tali the larger piece.

‘You could be flayed alive for that,’ Tali whispered. All slaves stole food, though only the most reckless took it from the enemy’s table.

‘Got quick fingers.’ Rannilt held up her free hand. Her fingers were crooked, as if the bones had been broken and had set badly.

Tali could not refuse the child’s earnest generosity. ‘Thank you.’ She broke a corner off the chunk, which was oozing wasp-honey, and handed the rest back. ‘I’m not very hungry just now.’

It was a lie. Slaves were always hungry.

She was licking her fingers when a line of male slaves staggered past bearing massive crates on their shoulders, escorted by burly Cythonians with grim expressions. The slaves were gaunt and hollow-eyed, and all wore baggy knee-pants, for the enemy considered exposure of the male thigh to be obscene.

‘Shh!’ said Tali, pulling Rannilt close.

She had never seen male slaves labouring here before. They were held prisoner near the mines and foundries where they worked, and only brought to the women’s quarters for a few days a month, to breed more Pale.

‘What are men doin’ here in daytime?’ said Rannilt.

‘Shh!’

A balding Cythonian guard stopped at the doorway, peering in with eyes so black they looked like holes in his head. The hot blood drained from Tali’s face and her breath thickened in her throat. He seemed agitated. Was he after her? If he came inside he must see them. She squeezed Rannilt’s thin wrist, keep still.

Outside, an emaciated slave stumbled, dropped his crate and it smashed open, spilling dozens of fist-sized, bizarrely shaped metal objects across the passage. Objects with too many legs, and jaws like iron traps, that went clacking and skittering in all directions. With a scutter-click-clack, one shot a foot into the air and its toothed jaws tore into the slave’s calf. He shrieked, knocked it off in a spray of blood and Tali recognised him.

She covered her mouth; she had almost cried out his name. It was Sidon, Nurse Bet’s son. Tali had been friends with him when they were little. Sidon was only two years older than her but his eyes had the death longing in them and his curly red hair had been charred off.

The bald guard turned away, raising a chuck-lash and shouting hoarsely, ‘Get the skritters. Now!’

Tali breathed again. He was just another guard, nothing to do with her.

Sidon drew on an armoured gauntlet and hobbled after the bloody skritter. As he bent to grab it, pieces of crisped skin the size of a hand flaked off his back. He looked like a roasted poulter.

‘Poor man,’ whispered Rannilt, wringing Tali’s forearm between her hands. ‘What have they done to him?’

‘That’s what happens when you work in the heatstone mines.’

What had Sidon done, to be sent to the mines so young? He would be dead in days and it would kill Bet, too.

Tali could not look at him without imagining her father dying the same way, slaving for the vile trade that had caused so many deaths. Her mother and father had loved each other desperately, their passion all the stronger because they saw so little of each other, and his death had shattered her.

Cursed heatstones! They were unnatural, and the Cythonians were afraid to go near them, but they were not afraid to profit from the Pale’s agony, the stinking hypocrites.

Newly cut heatstones were barged down the floatillery to the neutral Merchantery on the southern shore of the lake. There they were bought in private rooms by nationless Vicini traders, and immediately sold, in other private rooms, to Hightspall. Neither Cython nor Hightspall soiled their hands by trading directly with the enemy, and everyone profited. Everyone save the Pale, she thought bitterly, and who cared about them?

‘They got all kinds of lotions at the healery — ’ said Rannilt.

‘The mine is a punishment. Men are sent there to die. They don’t get lotions.’

With a strangled sniff, Rannilt closed her mouth, and kept it closed for a minute before the next question burst out of her.

‘What were those horrible things?’ she said, once the skritters had been collected and the slaves driven on. ‘Were they alive?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tali, swallowing. She had never seen anything like them, but the one that had attacked Sidon had been scarily fast. Did the enemy plan to use them on the Pale? She imagined one creeping towards her while she was asleep and bit down a scream.

‘Can I stay with you?’ said Rannilt. ‘Please.’

Tali was tempted, for the girl was generous, and in great need. It was hard to refuse her, but there were thousands of children like her in Cython. Besides, Tali was a danger to everyone around her.

‘I’m sorry. Run back to work, Rannilt, before they notice you’re missing.’

The girl went, with many a big-eyed backward glance, and Tali returned to her previous thoughts. Her father, Genry, had also been looking for a way out, for himself, her mother, Iusia, and my precious daughter.

She wiped her eyes. He had loved her enough to die for her, yet all she remembered of him was a thin, sad-eyed man covered in bruises. If he had found a way out, Genry had not lived to tell Iusia about it. He had died in the heatstone mine on Tali’s sixth birthday.