by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 10
Light stabbed at Abass’s eyes. It was just one more pain among many. Nose, head, ribs. The scratches on his face. They all pounded in time with his beating heart. He could not bring himself to look up at the light. Light meant food. Food meant another day of life. Abass felt something hard and cold as the dirt beneath him rise in his throat at the thought.
They had come three times with the food. Distantly, he realized that most likely meant three days. Moldy bread, once a meatless broth, and water, all lowered on a small tray that was quickly drawn back up. Abass did not bother to take his share, and the others eagerly divided it among themselves.
The thud of wood on stone, and the sound of something scraping along the rim of the pit. Lat’s sudden intake of breath roused Abass from his torpor.
“Sweet tair,” the gruff-voiced man said. “Please, no.”
Abass rolled over and saw a ladder illuminated in the ruddy light of a torch—light bright enough to make him squint. The High Harvest, he thought in relief. Tair bless me, not a day soon enough. I’m sorry, Isola. The last thought was more repetition than anything else, but it felt appropriate.
“Send up Abass,” an unfamiliar voice called down into the pit. “Be quick about it, or you’ll get the bucket.”
Abass lay on the ground, squinting up at the light. Scribe? It made no sense, but who else could it be? His parents would save Isola if they could, but not him. Naja and Segi didn’t have the money between them to buy him out of the pits.
“Well?” Lat said. “What are you waiting for? Get going.”
For the first time, Abass caught sight of his companions. Lat was a stout man, but with the look of one who had lost too much weight too quickly. His flesh was pale and hung in loose folds, but his face was still a brilliant crimson somehow. The other two men were as different as possible. One—he thought it must be Ramat—looked like a figure from the High Harvest murals at the temple. Long blond hair that, even in its disarray, looked artful. Wide blue eyes. Handsome in the way that sent women swooning. The other was dark-haired, laying on the ground with hands behind his head, and with the scars on his arms he looked like a thug that worked the back alleys of Old Truth.
Abass crawled to the ladder and pulled himself up as best he could. Every movement sent new agony through him, in part from his wounds, in part from muscles protesting his sudden return to activity. The thought of seeing Scribe again kept him moving, although his breath came in short, winded gasps. He could not seem to breathe right after his second time hitting the wall.
He reached the rim of the pit. Hands grabbed him and pulled him from the ladder. Abass found himself on a narrow ledge that ran between row after row of pits identical to the one he was kept in. The ceiling was lost in darkness, and only the torch held by an esis, his green robe open to show the chain armor underneath, gave light to see.
The two guards who held his arms forced him to kneel. Abass’s head spun; he realized suddenly how weak he was. His heart hammered, and he couldn’t seem to get enough air. Something felt wrong, but his mind was packed with wool. Where was Scribe? Why were they keeping him here? Would they just kill him now? Could it really be that easy? Free, free from worry, from responsibility, from guilt.
His eyes caught the hem of a green silk robe over polished leather shoes. Abass looked up. For a long moment, he could do nothing but stare at his brother-in-law’s face. White-blond hair fell in a careful part around his handsome face. The blue eyes, cold and hard as stone, looked back at him without expression.
“Bastard,” Abass growled. He launched himself forward, but the guards caught his arms and held him back. “You murdering bastard! She’s my sister, tair take you.” He twisted and pulled, trying to free his arms, but the guards’ grip was firm, and hunger had taken its toll. “Father’s glory, she’s your own wife. How could you do this?”
“Let him go,” Qatal said. “I’ll speak to my brother alone.”
“I’m not your brother,” Abass shouted. The guards released his arms. One gave him a swift kick in the side—the unwounded side, thank the tair, but the blow still drove the breath from his lungs. Through tears, Abass saw Qatal grin and nod at the guard. As they left, the guards mounted their torches on tall poles along the edge of the pits.
Murder. That was the only thought that remained to Abass. Kill this bastard and then let them kill me too. Throw him in the pit and pray the fall breaks his neck. Is the tair merciful enough to grant that? The thought left him with a bitter smile on his lips. The tair had never seen fit to listen to him before.
Qatal pushed back the green robe slightly. A dagger, its hilt wrapped in leather, hung at his waist. “You’ll keep very still, understand?” Qatal said. “Those men won’t care if I kill you fast or slow, and there’s not a stone in sight to drink up your blood, so I’ll be happy to take my time.”
The dagger. He was so close. Abass could take it now, perhaps. If he were fast enough. If Qatal were not taller and stronger and, more importantly, well-fed and well-rested. Abass scraped forward, gritting his teeth against the pain in his side, face pressed to the ground.
“Please,” he said, tasting dust. “Please, let her go. She’s your wife, Qatal. She’s never hurt anyone, never done anything wrong. Tair around us, she’s your wife. Please, please.” He crawled closer, close enough to touch the leather shoes.
“Tair bless me,” Qatal said after a moment. “You’re as pathetic as I always said you were. Stop right there, Abass. You might be pathetic, but you’ve been living in gutters for a long time, and I don’t want to catch anything before I die.”
Abass stopped. He could grab the silk robe now, pull the bastard down to the ground and rip the knife free. If only—, Abass thought. If only I weren’t a useless wretch.
Qatal bent down and grabbed Abass by the throat and lifted him so that Abass’s bare toes scraped the ground. Abass choked, the wound in his side flaring. He sputtered for breath. Tair take me, how can he be so strong? Qatal was taller than Abass, bigger too, but he was not massively muscled like some of the temple guards, or like the men at the competitions at High Harvest. Abass kicked at Qatal, legs flailing, but the blows had no power, and the handsome blond man just smiled back at him.
“Tair, it would be so easy to choke the life out of your right now,” Qatal said. “I’d enjoy it, too. I’ve never repaid you for our wedding present, you know. I think now is the time.”
“You don’t repay a gift, imbecile,” Abass choked the words out. Scribe would have liked that.
Red mounted Qatal’s cheeks. The man’s grip tightened. “You can still speak, then? Good. Remind me, Abass. What did you say at my wedding?” He gave Abass a slight shake.
Black and red dots swarmed in front of Abass’s eyes. “Air,” he said.
Qatal loosened his grip slightly and pulled Abass closer. “What did you say?”
“Let her go,” Abass whispered. The dagger was so close. The ruddy light of the torches brushed the dull metal.
“What did you say?”
“That you didn’t love her.” Tair bless me, that you couldn’t love her. You didn’t even know her.
“And what else?”
“That you were a . . . eunuch. That you married her for our money.” Abass’s hand crept out, a hair’s breadth from the dagger. “Looks like I was right.” He slid the dagger out slowly as he spoke the words.
Qatal gave him a sharp, twisted grin. His grip tightened. Abass brought his arm back to drive the knife home. Not a killing blow, but it would be a start.
With a low laugh, Qatal tossed Abass to the ground. Abass hit hard and rolled. His wounds flared up at the force of his landing, but he felt the blade bite deep into his forearm. He had it.
“Guards,” Qatal said, turning to look for the men.
Abass hesitated half a heartbeat. Qatal hadn’t noticed the knife was gone. It was either attack now, and be killed as the guards returned, or . . . With one quick toss Abass sent the knife in
to the far corner of his pit and prayed that none of his companions felt the call of nature before he returned. Abass got to his knees and cupped his hand, trying to hide the blood running down his arm.
Qatal turned back to Abass. “You were right about one thing,” he said. “I married her for the money. Do you know, by the way, the tair’s reward if a priest offers someone from his own family? The closer the relation, the greater the reward. It is, after all, an honor to be part of the High Harvest.”
He walked off without looking back. As the guards met him along the path, he stopped them and said, his voice barely carrying to Abass, “Do something about the Father-taken tunnels down there.” He pointed past Abass. “The guards found another family of squatters in there.”
“Of course, Lap-esis,” one of the esis said. “The ones from Old Truth are like rats—can’t keep them out.”
“Well do something about it,” Qatal said. “The tun-esis won’t be pleased if I report this to him.”
“Tair fend,” the esis said. “Is he back? No need for that, Lap-esis. We’ll take care of it, by the tair we will.”
Qatal left without another word. Abass hurried down the ladder before the guards could reach him, cursing himself as the blood stained the wood. The guards and eses paid him no attention though. The ladder disappeared with the same long scrape, and the torches followed.
When his eyes had adjusted, and Abass heard only the sound of the other men in the pit, he moved toward their improvised midden-pile. The scents that assailed him as he probed the mess made him gag, but he found it—the knife, still sharp as a razor.
Abass made his way back to his corner, grateful the other men had not investigated his behavior. They think me mad, he realized. Tair bless me, they’re probably right.
He grinned to himself in the darkness. There he was, in one of the sacrificial pits—no light, no friends, badly wounded, and smelling like an open sewer. But now he had a tool. He had a weapon. And best of all, he had a way out.
Things had never been better.