Iris's Guardian

by Lisa Daniels

  Lungdust. It probably had a fancier name than that amongst surgeon circles, but all the miners here called it as such, simply because the mines kicked up dust, and choked their lungs.

  Pity the poor soul that ended up in the mines, though. Pity those who lived and died in this place.

  Elise was born and bred for this darkness, kept out of the place until she reached ten years of age. The wyrms wanted to give enough time for the children to grow, and enough of a lifespan to make sure they carried on their legacy. After all, if you run out of slaves for mining, then you can’t hit your targets.

  Brutal and cruel but efficient, Elise supposed. But it did make a simple breath an ordeal, however. Elise didn't think it normal to feel like breath was precious. Then again, she didn't exactly think anything about this life was supposed to be normal. The wyrms might say it was the human's lot to live like this, and maybe even humans themselves endured it, but Elise didn't believe what the rest believed.

  She thought it all lies from their mouths. Lies to keep them quiet. Lies to keep them broken.

  Elise’s only friend had long since vanished from the area. The friend used to be a servant of the manor, living a marginally better life working on the upkeep of the estates rather than breaking her bones under the earth. A woman called Isera. A woman who once used to sneak Elise spare food during the evenings, or join in the beerhall for a drink and quiet talk. The wyrms allowed the humans this one reprieve. Probably because they understood that a fully crushed individual couldn’t work at all unless they had something to look forward to.

  The beer itself got made by volunteers, usually the oldest of the group, whose lungs were close to collapsing altogether. They certainly couldn't step in the mines anymore without devolving into coughing fits, which would get them beaten and weak enough to die without any kind of medicine or proper care in their little village.

  At night, Elise slept in a tiny mud hut alone, curled around a stuffed toy rat shaped out of a grain sack and filled with chicken feathers. Two little black buttons stood in as eyes, and the tail was made from twine. She had kept Ratty with her for as long as she could remember.

  She didn't know who gave her Ratty, but someone must have cared enough once upon a time for her to have such a possession. Maybe it came from her mother. Sometimes she liked to dream that her mom was still alive, just waiting in a nice city somewhere for her to return. Maybe Elise had been snatched out of her arms by slavers or something and sent to work here. It provided some of the best feelings of her younger life, thinking that someone waited just around the corner for her.

  Even now, though she knew better, a part of her still dreamed that dream, because it lit up a beautiful fire in her mind, and made a part of her soul light. Food for the soul. Food to keep her going, since no parents ever claimed her. The only ones who did look after the children were the old who also allowed the children to run through the beer hall during the day. The biggest “safe spot” for humans in the vicinity.

  So many of the old ones were dead now. With each bite taken of her past, the world grew colder.

  Sometimes she sang quietly to herself, just for comfort, or to strengthen her soul. She did that a lot. Staring sometimes into a crack of mirror with her blue eyes, and running her throat through the sounds which came naturally to her. She instinctively understood pitch and control.

  Singing, along with Ratty, was one of the few things that kept her sane, even as her lungs rotted out. Isera, the other thing, had long since vanished. That woman's kind smile had disappeared into the dark, and Elise never found out if and how her friend had died.

  At least the music helped, too. More food for the soul beyond her dreams of one day meeting her mother again.

  She frowned at the rock in front of her, feeling the ache of muscle, and focused on a song that helped brighten the mood and energize her. She had a clear, high voice, as delicate as a butterfly.

  Isera once described it as a youthful and ancient voice at the same time, hiding the power under a layer of innocence. Even though Elise felt far from innocent, and knew what a man would do between her thighs.

  She didn't think her voice to be that particularly good, though. Sure, she kept in pitch, but she sang like a child, unable to have that strong gravel that she heard older people sing with – unable to force the power through her throat without her voice cracking. She easily became breathless if she did that. Probably due to that accursed lungdust messing around her insides, robbing her of air.

  Usually, she kept her singing to herself, in her mud hut, or in the spot where she and Isera once liked to go. Sometimes she hummed or went for tunes to calm herself in the mines, though she usually timed it to the strikes, so people wouldn’t hear her. She didn't like people overhearing her, though at the same time, sometimes she wanted them to, just to hear their opinions on her voice. A strange conflict, craving attention and wanting to avoid it at the same time.

  After a brief, upbeat song, another one started clawing at her consciousness, demanding to be heard. A bubble of an idea, a suggestion that had been boiling in her head long enough to be complete. Sometimes she thought of lyric fragments and strung them together in the way that felt just right. Songs either came to her gradually, or in a fiendish fit of inspiration, as if some powerful spirit from beyond dumped the lyrics in her brain.

  She pursed her cracked lips to start it, after making sure there was no one nearby to hear.

  I don’t know what love is

  Yet it’s a strength in me

  My bones ache, my lungs hiss

  My soul’s lost to me

  And I know that a heart full of longing’s not enough

  And I know I breathe the dust and slowly die

  And although my body lives too deep inside the world

  There’s a dream where I believe that I can fly

  Who knows where we all came from?

  If there's a place better than this one

  I’m lonely and empty

  Nothing's here for me

  Diamonds make my hands bleed

  Shining misery

  Oh...

  And I know when the yellow bird dies the flames will burn a hole

  And I know in the darkness we all cry

  And although my body lives too deep inside the world

  There’s a dream where I believe that I can fly

  Up high with the angels

  Wings spread and stable

  Breathe…

  Just breathe…

  She knew as soon as she’d started that it wasn’t a tune for power, to help her cope in the mines. It was too sad, too heavy, and when she murmured the last words, they came out like a prayer, a desperate, quiet pleading. A longing for change. It was a song that meant something to her.

  That was what the music did for her. She found the right words, she sang. And sometimes she didn’t even know what her brain wanted before her mouth slipped out the words. She might fumble around the words at times, sometimes needing to repeat them until she found something that clicked, but this one didn’t need any corrections. It was all facts for her, recorded in music.

  The man next to her, Evon, ten years her senior, dabbed at his dark eyes. He had drifted closer during her singing. She hadn't noticed until he practically breathed down her neck, and a slight stab of panic went through her.

  “Oh, don’t do that, sweetheart,” he said. His eyes became fountains. “You’re breaking me heart.” He actually had to stop for a moment, now using both wrists to dry his face. Elise gave him an apologetic, pink-tinged smile.

  “Sorry.” She didn’t know why it affected him so much. Then again, she never fully understood why the music came so simply to her, as if there were instructions buried in her head from long ago. A blueprint that let everything make sense.

  Singing was the best way to hide the ugliness, to eradicate the thoughts she sometimes had where she believed it was better if everyone here just died. Either that, or the humans found a way to see past t
he lies conjured by the wyrms. After all, the wyrms wouldn’t have nearly so much power unless the humans encouraged misery as well.

  Elise coughed, making a sucking, wet sound with her throat. That accursed lungdust, still sucking away at her voice. Once the sensation vanished and Evon had drifted away, she tried humming a jaunty tune instead, keeping her mouth shut to avoid the impulsive lyrics. The tune revitalized her, and she returned to her work with increased vigor, slamming the pickaxe into the stone, finally revealing a diamond pocket. Well, at least she would hit her quota today. Quotas tended to be relatively low, but there was always a certain amount of stress involved until a gem pocket was revealed. The kind of feeling of being on a timer where the bomb exploded at the end.

  She tore out the diamond and dumped it into a wheelbarrow, briefly examining the meager pile there from others' pickings. Canaries fluttered in their iron cages in the dark, lit only by glass-protected candles. Still a risk if they encountered any flammable gases.

  Everyone knew well what it meant if a canary died. And only the “favored” workers got gas lamps, concealed inside their glass containers so they didn't mix with the noxious air.

  Elise hit the rock with another grunt. She couldn’t rely on singing to stave away the pain for much longer. Her limbs could only take so much. Her arms shook now with each blow, and her wrists and fingers tingled unpleasantly, making each limb feel detached from her body.

  When their shift came to an end, Elise trudged past the impassive wyrm guards. Sometimes they goaded their charges, mostly they didn't. The wyrms were too busy most of the time holding their breaths, afraid of the fumes within.

  Luckily, the dangerous gases tended only to leak in deep pockets of the mines, usually where the rock was tinged with a sickly green. You did need good eyes to notice the green, since under the pathetic candle lights and long swathes of darkness, some colors became hard to see.

  Sometimes, a slave snapped and decided he or she couldn’t handle it anymore. That was when the chaos began, and the wyrms unleashed the full force of their punishment. It wasn’t exactly uncommon to see death in this place. Elise had seen enough bodies trapped in the rock, expired in their beds, or slashed by wyrms to not hold any illusions about the deep well of cruelty that existed around her. Enough cruelty to let her hold her tongue to avoid the hammer falling on her.

  One guard squinted at Elise as she passed. Elise didn’t like that suspicious glare, but focused instead upon heading towards the beerhall with many of the others to eat and drink. The stare followed her out, making the back of her neck buzz.

  She heard they got better food in Gemstock compared to other mines and plantations. The wyrm masters here allowed the older population, the ones with their lungs too fucked to work strenuously without collapsing, to serve a use in feeding their own and raising up children. That is, if they survived the initial, frustrated beating when the wyrms realized they had lost another worker in the mines.

  All in all, the older ones had a fifty-fifty chance of making it to the beerhall stage of their life.

  Now that all the humans were gathered in the hall, handed soups with leftover chicken scraps and bread along with mugs of foul-tasting beer – the entertainment began. The wyrms merely guarded the entrance, not interfering with human recreation. Usually.

  Elise had to commend the wyrm lord of these mines. Even if she hated what the wyrms did, she also understood the slyness behind it as well. Whoever he was, he had enough smarts to offer breadcrumbs to his slaves to keep them going. Enough to know he got more value out of a slave if he gave them some free time, some cuttings of joy.

  She remembered the things Isera told her about that. Compared to other lords, he is less cruel, though that is obviously no relief to you at all. Just be glad your older ones still serve a use…

  She missed Isera. That woman had been a breath of fresh air in this place. A breath of freedom, in a way, since she knew about things beyond the mines. Things Elise could only dream of. Stories about mountains and cities and long stretches of grass. Stories she said travelers through the estate brought, so that all the house servants learned.

  Would have been nice if I was a house servant instead. Then at least my lungs wouldn't feel like lead. Except, being a house servant also meant intense scrutiny by the wyrms they served. More opportunity to be punished. As for the servants themselves, well, many wouldn't mind selling you out. Some even framed you if they didn't like you. Isera talked about all these things, help Elise to paint the world beyond hers.

  She sat down with her slops and beer, though she sipped at it to not look too much out of place. The humans went through a series of acts. Some people sang, some told jokes, others acted out dumb things. Elise ate her food in silence, nursing the heat in her belly.

  This wasn't so bad, she supposed. Even if some of the smiles were forced, even if people screamed on the inside, at least here they made a rowdy, happy picture. They could almost pretend that their lives meant something.

  The comedy act where two people took it in turns to insult one another ended. Evon, the man who had overheard her mournful song in the mines, pointed at her with a wooden spoon, wet from the slops. “Get that one to sing! She got a voice of an angel. Made me cry.”

  “Cry?” one of his friends laughed. “Yeh fucking wuss. Cry over a bit of singing?”

  “Oh, shut up, Jared, you toad,” another man said, his bony hand slapping the one he named as Jared. “Go on, girl, you sing! Do it!” Another voice joined the fray, and more people began calling for Elise to sing, some of them thumping the table and floor. Her cheeks reddened, and her heart sped up in pace. Her mouth suddenly became dry. She didn’t want to go up there. No way. But she also knew that if she refused, she’d likely lose the chance to be invited again. And part of her did want to sing in front of people. Even if the thought terrified her.

  Trembling slightly, with her legs getting that horrible weakness as if the bone had decided to become brittle, Elise stood up. A few people clapped, others cheered. Her brain shut down, unable to think of something to sing, and she panicked for a second. She swallowed the feeling and with a few paced out breaths, decided to go with the song she did earlier in the mines. The melody still lingered in her heart. It made sense to her, it whispered to be sung. It squeezed around her with that same submerged weight on her body, suffocating her for release.

  She didn’t move from her table, not wanting to go to the front of the hall, in case her legs gave out from under her with the first few steps. She used her hands to brace against the table at the start of the song.

  Her first notes were wavering, but once she got into the flow, the hall rapidly fell into silence. Eyes stared at her, wide, some disbelieving. Her audience leaned into her, eyes like suspended stars, wanting to merge into the song. She held them there with every note, sensing the way she kept her listeners captive, and grew in confidence. She took her hands off the table, as there was less shake to her limbs now. They lingered on her every word as if wrought in a waking dream.

  Breathe…

  Just breathe…

  Her last, haunting note died out. The hall remained in electrified silence. A few people sniffled. Others displayed teary eyes. Then, scattered applause, and murmuring conversation began again.

  Evon bawled his eyes out, much the same as before. His friends glared at him, embarrassed by his display of emotion. “My word!” Evon flapped his hands. “Ain’t it beautiful? Ain’t it?”

  “Yeh still a wuss. Ain’t nothing special.”

  “That girl has magic in her voice!” A woman snapped the words, and Elise tore her attention away from the argument, sitting down to finish her food. She suspected she’d dragged down the mood of everyone else there. No one wanted to be reminded of their suffering. Even though they faced it every day, they did a good job of holding everything inside. And then you had someone like Elise, who could tease it out just with a few well-placed words and a melody.

  Music was powerful like th
at. Sometimes Elise thought she really did wield magic, though it was just the power of a good tune.

  The way the words came to her, though. No one else seemed to have that ability. Elise knew better words as well because of Isera's knowledge, though she didn't know how to read, which would increase her vocabulary further.

  Finishing her food, she decided to make a fast exit from the hall, to avoid the attention she'd created for herself. Outside, a wyrm guard seized her by the arm and snarled, “You’re coming with me.”

  Fear pulsed. Elise's bowels became liquid, almost spitting everything out at once. Words choked up in her throat, unable to find any purchase from her tongue. She slipped and stumbled behind the wyrm as he dragged her to the main house.

  Chapter Two

  Elise should have expected this, really. The world would finally end, and all before she got to do anything. No finding out about Isera’s fate. No having children and getting old enough to think that maybe she’d feel fulfilled enough to die, although surviving to her thirties wouldn’t exactly be an amazing achievement. Being stuck in a mine for decades more whilst it drained the life from you, with the best highlight of your day being the beerhall, didn't feel worthwhile either.

  No. She needed more than a life of digging into rock. More than candlelit tombs and poisoned lungs.

  Honestly, the saddest thing about her impending doom was that she’d no longer be able to generate lyrics. No more song, no music escaping her throat.

  No more magic.

  Everyone knew that once you made it to the manor house, you never made it back.

  “Why are you taking me?” Elise demanded at last, though she didn’t expect the yellow-eyed wyrm to answer. The demand came out in a quavering voice, siphoning the power of her words. He turned to face her in seething, undisguised fury. As if he was one step from taking off her head for such insolence.

  “You don’t get to ask questions, filth. You get to obey, and nothing else.” His hand squeezed painfully. Elise wondered if somehow tearing free and escaping would be her best option. Or antagonizing enough so that the wyrm’s infamous temper would tear out and kill, making it quick.