Gorgoroth

by Michael Karr

  Skylar struck at the iron bars with his fists, ripping the skin from his knuckles.

  “Leave her alone!” he shouted.

  But the din of the crowd swallowed his pathetic plea.

  Again, he struck at the bars.

  “Let her go!”

  He felt out of control. His inside raged with a beast that overpowered him. Jumping to the door, he shook at it like a maniac, trying in vain to break off the rusty lock.

  “Stop that!”

  A nearby warden came running up to the cart.

  The beast inside Skylar ignored the man. He continued to assail the door.

  Taking his metal-pronged staff, the warden jabbed Skylar in the side. Instant pain surged through Skylar’s body. It felt like a thousand scorpion stings over every square centimeter of him, under his skin and deep into his muscles. It set off a fit of spasms. Falling onto the floor, his body shuddered and jerked uncontrollably. He waited for the spasms to fade, but they held their grip on him. Not a single muscle in his body responded to his will. Even his eyelids fluttered open and shut.

  In that wretched state, he watched that horde of mongrels bid on Kendyl. Despite his condition, when the last bid came, and the auctioneer ended the bidding, he saw well who had won. His worst fear realized before his eyes. The eunuch had bought her.

  Nineteen

  Skylar watched the slave compound through the rusted iron bars of his cage as the cart sluggishly bumped along the road. He watched as it grew smaller, until there was nothing left of it but a dark speck along the ruddy horizon. He might have gone on watching had the crest of a hill not shrouded it from view. It was pointless to keep watching. He knew that. What else could he do but hope to see his friends one final time, perhaps see which direction their new captors would take them? To the north, to the south…east, west? In what direction was he himself being taken?

  Gradually, control over his muscles returned to him. Yet the numbness remained. Whether from the muscle paralysis, or heartache, he didn’t know. Nor did he care. The pain he felt over the loss of his companions was worse than any physical pain man could endure. For surely they were lost, just as he now was lost.

  The barren terrain rolled by with little variation. Rocks, sand, scraggly shrubs, sickly trees, nearly as barren of branches as of leaves, and red sky. The color accentuated his thoughts, his pain. And as time waxed on, both his gloom and the hue of the sky darkened until blackness reigned.

  How long they traveled, Skylar did not know.

  Despite the darkness, a faint ambient light permeated the landscape. Its light source a mystery, for he saw no moon. Eventually, dense clusters of huts and shacks sprang up on either side of the road. After some time, these gave way to more permanent structures—large buildings, shops, taverns, warehouses. People dotted the dark scene as well, illuminated by the sallow glow of street torches. None of these paid them any attention, but all continued about their business, pushing carts, lugging sacks, or carrying heavy thoughts, as though a caged cart full of slaves rolling through the streets was the most natural thing in the world. Many other carts plied the pothole-riddled streets too.

  The city went on forever. There seemed no end to the buildings and dwelling houses. Suddenly the sides of the road fell away down into a deep chasm. For the darkness, Skylar could not see the bottom of it. The road itself narrowed into a bridge, just wider than the cart. The cart’s wheels clattered prominently as they crossed. Far below, faint as a soft breeze through tree boughs, the sound of rushing water rose into the night air, mingling with the creak and clatter of the cart.

  The cart moaned to a halt. A few muffled voices came from ahead.

  Skylar turned to see why they had stopped. A gated wall stood before them, four meters high. A torch-wielding sentry was speaking with the driver. The driver presented a wrinkled parchment to the sentry, who glanced at it quickly, nodded, then motioned for them to pass. The great iron gates screeched open, the driver whipped the beasts, and on they rumbled.

  They entered into a stone-paved court. Towering in front of them, sharp and angular, was a black stronghold. It loomed before them like a shadow against the night sky. Lacking turrets or battlements, the structure was little more than single keep rising from the stone pavement, pierced here and there with the pallid glow a casement window. A castle? Not as mighty and proud as Castle Ahlderon, but menacing nonetheless.

  The driver directed the cart around the front of the black castle, toward one side of it, passing several sentries on foot as they went. Passing through another gate, they entered a stableyard, where the driver brought the cart to a halt., The clambered down from the cart, tied the reins to a post, then strode off in the direction of the castle.

  Skylar glanced around but saw nothing of interest in the torch lit stableyard. A few carts, a pile of hay in one corner, a hairless beast with a rope around his neck, chomping away at the hay. There was no sign of other life, not sentry nor stableboy. If he had some means of escaping from his confinement, now was the time. Alas, all he possessed were iron shackles, short pants, and raw, blistered wrists.

  Within a few minutes, the driver returned, accompanied by two thickset men, both armed with the same metal-pronged staffs the wardens carried at Rajar Koon’s slave compound; the same staff used to turn Skylar’s muscles into a spasmodic mass of flesh. The driver himself carried a whip, coiled in his hand. All three carried daggers on their belts and blasters slung about their backs.

  “A’right, out with the lot of ‘ya,” growled the driver, unlocking their cage, and swinging the door open. “And don’t even think about trying anything. Boris ‘ere will snap your neck faster than you can blink. An’ he will, too. We know where to get more slaves. Now, line up.”

  Without so much as a moan of protest, Skylar and the other slaves filed out of the cart. Despite the soreness of his wrists from the shackles, Skylar’s back and limbs felt relieved to stand and walk after sitting so long. The three armed men led the small band of slaves across the stable yard and into a side portal of the castle.

  Skylar noted a dankness as they entered. It reminded him of the sewer beneath Castle Ahlderon he’d slogged through not so long ago; only without the nauseating stench. He shivered with cold, his upper torso still exposed and bare.

  Picking a torch from a sconce on the wall, the driver led them to a wooden door, scarred and beaten with age. From the neck of his tunic, he drew out a key on a chain, and inserted it into the door’s ancient lock. With rasping click and squeal, the door unlocked and swung open. On the other side, a ragged light revealed the first steps of a stone staircase leading downward, before twisting out of sight.

  “Down ‘ya go,” ordered the driver.

  Slowly, they picked their way down the stairs, the coldness and dampness growing with each step. Torches places in sconces provided light every few turns. After a dizzying number of turns and stairs, the group stepped into an open chamber with a low ceiling and no visible end to its expanse. The chamber was a sprawling web of passages separated by floor to ceiling barred cages, large enough to hold ten men. Torches, spread thinly about the chamber, revealed that most of these cages, these wall-less dungeons, held no prisoners within their grated bellies. Only a stray soul here and there, curled onto the stone floor, a sparse layer of hay for his bed.

  The driver restored himself to the front of the line and led them through the tangled mess of dungeons. There were hundreds of them. Midway through the mass of dungeons, they came to a guard post. A single guard stood on duty.

  “We have some new ones, ‘ere,” said the driver. “Be needing some new clothes.”

  The guard at the post sneered at the group, then lazily reached under his narrow desk, pulled out a cumbersome sack, and dropped it onto the top of the desk. Riffling through the bag, he haphazardly drew out what appeared to be articles of clothing and threw them at each of the slaves. One of the articles struck Skylar in the face. It reeked of urine. Coughing, Sk
ylar yanked it away and cast it to the floor.

  “Put ‘em on,” said the guard. “I don’t care if they don’t fit ‘ya. So, don’t come complaining to me.”

  Skylar picked up the putrid rag from the floor and held it up. It looked like it might have been a tunic once. He pulled it over his head, holding his breath, as he wrestled with getting his arms through the right holes. When finally he got it on, he gasped and violently shook his head in reaction to the stench. Despite the smell, the holes, and the coarseness of the garment, it offered some relief from the chill air. The guard threw him a pair of pants, equally ragged and filthy as his tunic, but longer than the short pants he wore. These he secured about his waist with a length of rope the guard gave him. His feet remained bare.

  “I hope you like your new clothes,” jeered the guard. “Our finest selection.”

  The other armed men laughed at the joke.

  “A’right,” said the guard, roughly, “follow me.”

  Taking hold of a torch, the guard led them deeper into the chamber, down another stone stairwell, and into a cavernous, multi-level room.

  Skylar’s senses struggled to take in everything all at once from the new place. The hiss and grinding, the shouting and clanking, the pounding and ringing, the bursts of sparks and flowing rivers of red, the flick and waiver of a thousand torches, the lifting and toiling of an army of slaves goaded by the whips of a hundred taskmasters.

  What was this place? A factory? Of what he could see, these whip-mangled slaves were definitely building something. But what? Before he could observe anything further, he was forced to descend a flight of stairs, which brought him down from the higher vantage point.

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they stood on the floor-level of the whole operation. Men scurried about in all directions, paying the newcomers no heed. The temperature had suddenly grown from icy to fiery hot. Almost as hot as the midday sun on his home planet of Haladras. Only this heat did not originate from nature, from a life-sustaining sun. He understood more clearly now the river of red, the bursts of sparks. Liquid fire. Or so it appeared. Likely some molten metal. It flowed down narrow channels, running through waist-high stone dividers. These streams ran all through the chamber, many of them eventually flowing into what looked like molds.

  The guard who had led them down into this inferno consulted with a man who wielded a whip and an authoritative bearing. Above the din, Skylar could not hear what passed between the two men. But he saw the authoritative man gesture towards Skylar and his fellow captives, then point toward various spots in the chamber. Someone from behind shoved Skylar, prodding him toward a small set of steps to his left. He ascended the steps, and found himself on a narrow walkway with ten stone barriers running next to it, all flowing with slivers of molten metal. At the end of the walkway, the barriers came to an end. There, numerous haggard-looking men poured crucibles of the red liquid into reservoirs, which fed into the channels of the barriers. Two taskmasters, whips in hand ensured that these men kept pouring at a steady pace.

  Skylar didn’t have to think about what lay in store for him. Indeed, as soon as they reached the end of the line, one of the taskmasters seized him by the neck and dragged him over to an empty crucible resting below a spout. The taskmaster left, returning a moment later, dragging one of the other poor victims who had been sold by Rajar Koon. Without deigning to open his mouth, the taskmaster pointed at a cord hanging just to the right of the spout. It connected to a short lever, affixed to a wall from which the spout protruded. The taskmaster took the cord in his hand and pulled it. Slowly, a small metal trap slid open and red-hot liquid oozed out into the crucible. Once the crucible was full, the taskmaster released the cord and the flow of the molten metal stopped. Then the taskmaster pointed from the crucible to an unoccupied reservoir, handed Skylar and the other slave a strange pair of iron forceps, then strode off to go whip one of the slave who had stopped to rest.

  Skylar and the other slave briefly glanced at each other. Their instructions, though wordless, were clear. There was no need to discuss what to do. Within a few seconds, Skylar made sense of the device in his hand. It latched onto one side of the crucible. That way they could carry the crucible without burning the flesh off their palms. The other slave followed Skylar’s example, attaching his tongs to his side of the crucible. Together they lifted the crucible from its stone platform. Skylar was unprepared for how much it weighed. Its size was deceiving. It felt like he was lifting Grüny and Endrick, smashed into a sphere the size of a head.

  With awkward steps, the pair lumbered over to the reservoir, straining to keep from dropping the burdensome load and yet stay on their feet.

  When it came time to pour the contents of their crucible, Skylar found it required all his strength to hoist the vessel above his waist in order to tip it into the reservoir. Perhaps the crucible weighed less than he imagined. He suddenly realized just how fatigued his body was. He’d neither eaten nor drunk anything for…he could remember. Months, it felt like, since he departed the smuggler’s accursed ship.

  The fiery substance poured from the crucible. Its immense heat singed his arm hair and felt as though it would consume all the skin on the exposed side of his body. The crucible emptied, Skylar and his companion set it on the floor and took in a quick moment to rest their arms and wipe away the sweat streaming from their foreheads.

  Without warning, Skylar felt a sharp, tearing pain rip across his shoulder. A deafening crack rang in his ears. For a moment the pain made his vision go black. He staggered to one knee.

  “Get up and work, you mutt,” shouted the taskmaster.

  I am a prince. Albeit, a pathetic one…

  Slowly, he stood with all the dignity he could manage, his nerves still searing with pain. Not even looking at the taskmaster, he took up his forceps, affixed it to the side of the crucible, and lifted.

  For the next several hours, Skylar and his companion slave drudged on, without a rest for their weary muscles or water for their parched tongues. Their only respite was the blessed few seconds it took to refill the crucible. Skylar carried the crucible until his arms felt like ropes dangling from his shoulders; his fingers ceased to respond to his command; his feet could scarcely move one step in front of the other. He contemplated letting himself collapse to the floor in a heap. Let the taskmaster’s whip rain down on him. What did he care, all was lost, anyway. Only by some unseen force did he manage to keep moving, to carry that crucible again and again and again.

  Finally, a call rang out through the great chamber, and their taskmaster called for them to halt. All the slaves filed into a lifeless row. Skylar drifted into it, his exhaustion so extreme he couldn’t tell if he were inside his body or floating somewhere above it, a mere spectator to his misery.

  The line of slaves crept forward, flowing mindlessly, line merging into line. At one point along their way out of the Inferno, a row of men distributed a piece of bread and a ladle of water to each of the slaves as they passed. Skylar grabbed the bread and brought it up to his lips, prepared to devourer it in one bite. He stopped short though, and turned away his nose in disgust. The bread was covered in a thick layer of mold. He cast it aside. He was not that hungry—not yet. The single ladle-full of water, though rancid, he forced himself to swallow. It burned as it went down his throat. Still, the liquid brought some measure of relief to his swollen tongue, cracked lips, and dry throat.

  Back in the sprawling dungeon chamber, Skylar was directed into one of the many iron dungeons, along with nine other slaves. Instantly, he collapsed into a corner and fell into a troubled sleep.

  Twenty

  “You have a gift,” said Jonobar softly, as he observed Rolander’s work.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Indeed. Keep this up and you’ll be head of the Department of Machinery and Automata at the University of Strybrn one day.”

  Rolander beamed inside. He couldn’t imagine attaining such a high honor.
But Professor Jonobar did not strike him as a man who used much flattery or who lavished undeserved compliments. Still, Rolander felt he could never fully master the art and science of automata.

  He and Professor Jonobar had been working on Rolander’s new mechanical hand for nearly two weeks. Their progress was gratifying. Already, they had built the skeletal structure for the forearm, wrist, and palm. The wrist boasted a full three-hundred and sixty degree range of motion, with the pair pronation and supination joint movements—nearly identical to an actual human wrist. This was made possible by an intricate array of motors and complex artificial joints. They were currently building their first articulating finger, the index finger. It would have three joints, capable of the orchestrated motion of an ordinary finger. The difficulty in building the fingers was the minuteness of the joints, and the fineness of the motion. But they were doing it. He, Rolander Finch, was actually building a finger. His finger. And if he could build one finger, he could build five.

  The real magic behind the hand would not be in the joints or its motors and actuators, but in its ability to interface with Rolander’s muscles and nervous system. Tiny electrodes and electrode arrays would be implanted into his muscles and nerves. These electrodes would pick up the electric pulses sent from his brain. In turn, the electrodes would amplify these pulses, sending them to a controller, a micro-transistor array. This micro-transistor array would then translate and route the pulses into electronic instructions, which would dispatch to the myriad of motors and actuators. Thousands of biosensors lining the fingers and palm would send signals back up through the nervous system to the brain. The result will be a hand capable of functioning nearly identically to a real hand. If Rolander and Jonobar did their job well, the brain will scarcely notice the difference.