by David Estes
She shook her head. “No. We have to go somewhere, but not so far that we’ll be left in the open.”
“You want us to hide?” Jai said. It was a good idea, but where could they hide thousands of slaves?
“Yes. In the Black Rocks. There are safe places there. We’ve used them before to regroup. Many times.”
Jai had heard stories about men searching for treasure amongst the shadowy rocklands to the northeast of Garadia. Some said the rocks were stained black by hot tar that bubbled up from narrow chutes between the boulders. Others said the dark hue was the dried blood of all those who had died amongst the rocks. Occasionally the word ghosts was used to describe the perils one would face in the area. But the stories did have one thing in common: they all ended with the treasure hunters never being seen again. Jai pictured all five thousand of his people vanishing from the face of the earth, falling down a hole so deep they’d never reach the bottom. “It’s too dangerous,” he said.
“Shanti’s right,” Sonika said. “It’s less dangerous than the alternative. And anyway, we’ve mapped the Black Rocks. We know where to hide. You’re just going to have to trust us.”
Jai hadn’t trusted anyone but the miners of Garadia for a long time, but then again the Black Tears were trusting him, too. “Fine. But we’ll have to brush away our tracks. Even the Black Rocks won’t be able to hide five thousand sets of footprints in the sand.”
The Black Rocks had surrounded them hours earlier, and now seemed to crowd in closer, the paths narrowing, until they were forced to traverse the rocky canyons in single file, an endless train of marching travel-weary refugees.
At the head of the train rode the members of the Black Tears, occasionally consulting a scrap of parchment with scrawled words and lines on it—a map, supposedly, though to Jai it looked more like a child’s drawing. How they knew to take the third path from the left or the descending trail over the ascending one would likely always be a mystery to him.
Before they’d departed from the mine, Jai had had the children collect stalks of brittle scrubgrass, which they tied into broom-like bundles, secured with bits of twine and string. The overeager children brought up the rear of the procession, walking backwards and sweeping away the thousands of tracks in the sand. To them it had become a game, and they counted the number of footprints they swept, until they were able to declare a winner. Jig had come in twelfth, which he claimed he was satisfied with, though Jai could see he’d wanted to be first. The wind had done the rest, the ever-changing desert landscape moving and shifting on whisper-soft feet.
Once they were firmly within the maze of the Black Rocks, they ceased the game and moved the kids back into line with their parents or other keepers.
As they walked, Jai prayed to any of the gods who would listen that he wasn’t leading them all to their dooms.
Fortunately, the people were no strangers to hard work and harsh conditions, and they uttered no complaint, even as the sweltering sun pressed against their backs and slung daggers of heat upon their cheeks. The men tied their hair into piles atop their heads to stay cool, while the women used sheaves of the broad-leafed caragal plant to fan themselves. They didn’t complain even when their inadequate shoes tore and fell away and their feet cracked and bled. Nor when several of the elders collapsed and couldn’t get up. They took turns carrying those who still had life in them, while they were forced to bury others in shallow graves in the dust.
Vulzures circled overhead as they walked, and Jai hoped the carnivorous raptors wouldn’t become a beacon to the emperor’s searchers, who had likely reached Garadia by now. He also hoped the predatory beasts wouldn’t attempt an attack on any of the smaller children, which they were known to do. Their talons were as long as fingers and their powerful wings could easily lift the weight of a human, carrying them for long distances, high into their nests built on the sides of the cliffs, where no escape or rescue would be possible.
Jai carried Axa for a long time, until his shoulders ached and his back was bent from the load. Sometimes he wondered why he was doing it. I could leave him amongst the rocks for the vulzures and none would care.
I would care, he reminded himself, staggering onwards. I will leave no living slave under my care behind—even one who used to be a master.
Thankfully, Axa began stirring just as they rounded a curve in the path. Ahead of Jai, the Black Tears had stopped. A brackish river burbled up from a crack in the rocks, slid smoothly past, and then dove back underground. The horses lapped at the dark water greedily.
Jai gently eased the man to the ground, propping him up against a boulder. He cupped Axa’s chin, tilted his head back, and dribbled what was left of his water down the man’s throat. He choked once, but then swallowed the rest.
“Can you walk?” Jai asked.
The man blinked rapidly and seemed to have trouble focusing. Jai wondered how much of his old life he remembered. Did he know he was a monster? Did he care? Or was he a completely different person now that he wore the slave mark around his neck?
“I can walk,” Axa said. “What is your command?”
“I make no command,” Jai said.
“Then I shall sit here.”
“Why?”
“Because I am aimless.”
Jai knew the man wasn’t being intentionally difficult. Vin Hoza had given him one command: To obey me. That’s all he knew, that’s all he was, the entirety of his wicked life boiled down to a single goal. Without that goal, he was, as he said, aimless.
Jai knew he couldn’t give Axa free will like the others, at least not yet. It was too dangerous, for all of them. He didn’t know if Axa would revert back to the man he’d been. That monster. Still, he had to give him a chance.
“You will stay with the group. You will feed and water yourself. You will survive.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You will not call me master.”
“Yes.”
He remembered the mirror he’d found on the man. “Why do you have a mirror?” Jai asked.
“To remember myself,” Axa said. “I knew what Emperor Hoza would do to me. I wanted to remember who I was.”
“How did you get the mirror?”
“I asked for it, in prison. The guards thought it was funny, so they gave it to me. They laughed at me when I stared into it for hours.”
Jai hadn’t really known Master Axa when he worked for him at Garadia. He hadn’t wanted to know his masters, especially not this one, who’d always been particularly vicious toward the slaves. And yet, the man had surprised him with his answers. But he had one more question:
“Did it work? Do you remember the man you used to be?”
“No,” Axa said. There was no emotion in his voice.
Jai felt for the mirror, pulling it out and angling it toward Axa, so he could see his own face. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. I see nothing.”
Frowning, Jai handed him back the mirror. He walked away, filling his water skin from the gritty stream before following the Black Tears deeper into the Black Rocks.
The sun had long disappeared behind the dark cliffs. Gusts of wind charged through the narrow paths, and Jai felt as if each one swallowed him and spit him out, only to swallow him again with the next blast. He was sweaty, his lips coated with fine grains of sand, his skin filmed with black rock dust.
“Here!” Sonika called from up ahead.
Rock walls rose up on all sides, leaving only a river-like strip of darkling sky above them. The trail was so narrow that the rough walls scraped their skin away, layer by layer. The horses barely fit through several sections, and required a push from behind to squeeze between the rocks.
Jai strode ahead, anxious to see where, exactly, they were.
Sonika and the other Tears were peering into a hole in the rock wall. Jai looked over their shoulders, but all he could see was nothingness, a darkness so complete it was the absence of light. “We cannot send the people in there.”
Jai peered down the rocky trail, which seemed to go on forever. “How do you know?”
Shanti bumped him from the side. “Because we blocked it.” She grinned, her teeth appearing whiter next to the absolute darkness. “Fireroot. My specialty.”
Jai knew they couldn’t go back, and even if he wanted to, it was a maze. In the dark, it would be impossible to navigate. Once again, he had to trust Sonika and her Tears to lead them to safety. “We should prepare torches,” he said.
“We don’t need them,” Sonika said. She grabbed his hand roughly and pulled it into the inky darkness. She closed his fingers on a rope. “It’s not far, and the rope will lead the way. There will be enough light there.”
“There will be room for everyone?”
Sonika offered a half-smirk. “You’re very protective of your people, aren’t you?”
Memories of those he’d lost cycled through his mind. Old Hober with the gimpy leg, killed by a cave-in. Simona with the positive attitude, lost while exploring a new area of the mine. Wives. Husbands. Children. Friends. Countless souls.
My mother. Taken away when I was only a boy.
My father. Killed because of my mother.
When would it end?
He realized Sonika was still staring at him, awaiting an answer. “Yes. My people are all I have left.”
“Well, now you have us, too.”
Voices were starting to rise up behind them, murmurs of confusion along the procession, wondering why they’d stopped. Jai turned to face the curious faces immediately to his rear. “We must walk into the darkness in order to find the light,” he said. “There is a rope on the side. Hold onto it. Don’t let go until you’re through. We’ll be safe inside. Pass this message along.”
As soon as he’d finished, he heard the others begin to recite his words back through the throng. Each time it was repeated, his words grew a little fainter, until they vanished completely.
“Your words carry the command of a master,” Sonika said. The other Tears had already disappeared into the tunnel, leading their horses. “They obey you without question.”
He didn’t like what she was implying. “They obey because they choose to.”
Sonika raised her hands in the air. “I meant no offense. You are no master, not like the others.”
Then what am I? Jai wanted to ask. Instead he said, “I will stay here to help my people until they are all through.
“I expected nothing less,” Sonika said, and then plunged into the dark.
Fourteen
The Western Kingdom, The Crimean Sea, Somewhere west of the Dead Isles
Grey Arris
The men on the ship treated Grey like a wart on one of their toes, sneering at him, purposely trying to trip him, laughing as he retched over the side of the rocking vessel.
It didn’t help that he was useless as a deckhand. His right hand was a traitor, fumbling the ropes, weak, clumsy. Why did I favor my left hand for so many years? he often wondered, staring at the infected stump that ended just above where his wrist should’ve been. The Furies had taken much more than his hand—they’d taken his spirit and self-confidence.
For the most part, he managed to keep his head down and go about his work. He couldn’t wait to be off the junker, even if it meant coming face to face with the Fury who’d cut off his hand.
He knew it would all be worth it if he found his sister.
Most of the time, the only job he could do was scrubbing the deck. He had a love-hate relationship with his scrub brush. In a way, the only hours he enjoyed while on the boat were when he could lose himself in his thoughts, scrubbing the rough wood over and over again, the sun filtering through the clouds and warming his skin. It was the time he could think of his sister, Shae, picture her face in his mind’s eye, make her real. Make her alive. And yet he hated the scrubbing, because afterwards his muscles would scream at him, his back aching, his knees bruised, his arm as limp as a string of boiled cabbage leaves. And that’s when Shae would be taken all over again, by the furia.
For days and days at sea, he’d wracked his brain for answers, trying to figure out why the holy warriors would kidnap his sister. She bore a sinmark, after all, and should’ve been killed immediately. That was the way of the west. Of course, Grey was glad the fierce red-haired women had chosen to be merciful, but that didn’t change the fact that they could be doing worse things to her, torturing or tormenting or—
He jammed his eyes shut, biting his lip, trying to erase the awful thoughts from his head.
He opened his eyes. The spot he’d just finished polishing was so clean he could see a faint reflection of himself in it, which, of course, only made the rest of the wooden planks look all the dirtier. His dark hair was long and messy, his eyes tired blue orbs, his cheeks and chin rough with a fortnight’s worth of unshaven stubble. “What do they want with you, Shae?” he whispered to his reflection.
“Who’s Shae?” a voice said, startling him away from thoughts of his sister.
A set of warm brown eyes peered at him from behind an old fish barrel. The girl’s skin was naturally dark, her hair a series of salt-crusted ringlets. She was young, like Grey, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Grey thought he’d seen everyone on the small ship, but he had most definitely not seen this girl. In fact, she was the first member of the fairer sex he’d seen since they’d sailed from the walled city of Talis.
Grey said nothing, looking away from her and back down at the decks. Whoever this girl was, she was not part of his plan to find his sister.
“Shae’s a pretty name. Was she your lover?”
Grey cringed. A bold question. Does this girl have no filter? “She is no one. I was just speaking nonsense.”
She took the denial in stride, pointing at his left arm. “That doesn’t look good. It’s infected.”
“I know.”
“I could help you. I’ve tended some of the men’s wounds before.”
Grey stared at the stump, which was once again leaking grayish-green liquid through the bandages. He knew he needed help, or he would lose the rest of his arm. He thought maybe it was already too late. “Thank you.”
“Your name is Grey, right?”
Grey honestly didn’t know anymore. When he’d been confident to a fault, bordering on arrogant, a smug thief who’d seduced a princess, the name Grease Jolly had felt right. When he lost his hand and his sister and Princess Rhea all in one foul swoop, he knew he would never be that slick city boy again. Did that make him Grey Arris again? Somehow he didn’t feel worthy of that name either.
“I guess,” he said, biting his tongue. Why was he answering her questions?
“That’s a strange answer to a simple question.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
She closed one eye, as if contemplating him under a magnifying glass, and then nodded to herself. “Aye, you’re Grey all right. Did you know the other men mock you mercilessly, even when you’re not around?”
Her question was so direct that he almost laughed. As if he wouldn’t know. He nodded. “It seems I am the butt of many an ill joke on this voyage.”
The girl smiled. “I suppose I should thank you then. You’ve given me a reprieve.”
“How do you figure?”
“They’ve been so focused on mocking you they’ve forgotten to mock me!”
Now Grey really did laugh. “I am glad I’ve served a purpose of sorts. Well, other than cleaning the same decks again and again.”
Her smile broadened. “I’m Kyla. Daughter of the captain.”
Grey’s mouth gaped open as he considered her more closely. By his estimation, this girl looked nothing like the gray-whiskered Captain Smithers, though their skin was a similar shade. “I wouldn’t think the sailors would mock the daughter of their captain. Not if they wanted to keep their employment.”
Her smile faded. “My father is the worst of all. The
last eight months have been…hard.”
Grey cocked his head to the side. What was different about the last eight months? She shifted slightly, grimacing, and more of her body was exposed from behind the barrel. Oh. Oh. Though she was a small girl with a small frame, her belly was so round and protruding she might’ve had a small barrel tucked under her gray frock. She was so big with child she looked ready to pop at any moment.
“But who is the father?” Grey asked. As soon as the question left his lips, he knew it was rude.
“’Tis a very good question,” a booming voice answered. “But mayhaps ye shuldn’t ask the lyin’ whore-child.”
Grey whipped around. Captain Smithers stood over him, holding a long wooden staff he never seemed to be without. Grey flinched back when the captain feigned a blow and then laughed.
The captain turned his attention to his daughter. “Girl, why are ye above decks? I thought I made meself clear ye were not to parade yerself around like a festival sideshow.”
The girl’s—Kyla’s—statement came back to Grey: My father is the worst of all. “She was only making conversation,” Grey said. “No trouble at all. I’ll just be on my way. Got more decks to clean before the day is done.” Awkwardly, he tried to push himself to his feet with one hand; he still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. The captain stuck his staff between Grey’s legs and he toppled over, banging his knee and shoulder, crying out in pain.
Suddenly, Smithers’ face was right next to Grey’s, so close he could see the tobacco stains between the captain’s teeth. “Don’ speak to me daughter agin, ye hear?”
“Father,” Kyla said, but he shoved her away.
Grey didn’t want to speak to her again, especially not if it made trouble for both of them. “Yes, Captain.”
“Aye, Captain!” Smithers roared.
“Aye, Captain,” Grey repeated.
“And ye stay below decks or I’ll chain ye to the brig!” he hollered at Kyla, stomping over to her and grabbing her by the hair. She cried out as he pulled her away.