by J. S. Morin
“Rynn, when I give you the signal, you will begin heating the water in this vessel. You will have five minutes to get it as hot as you’re able. The better you do, the more valuable you will be, and the more leeway you are likely to be given in your new ... circumstance.”
“Hey now! I never—”
Professor Hurmbeck held up a hand and Delliah stopped herself.
“If you do poorly, the deal will be canceled, and the enforcement officers waiting outside will be happy to dispose of you. Do you understand?” Professor Hurmbeck hung over her, his eyes boring into hers. She could sense the desperation in him. Some part of him must have hated himself for what he did, but simple kuduk greed had gotten the better of him.
“No,” Rynn protested. “How am I supposed to heat the water? I can’t even reach it, unless you’re going to let me up.”
“By agency of whatever agency lets you empower runes,” Delliah answered. “I don’t know how your filthy magic works. I just profit from it.”
“But I don’t know how I do it!”
“Naul, get over here,” Delliah hollered.
“Yes, mistress,” a human voice replied. Rynn hadn’t even heard a fourth person in the room.
“Tell Rynn how to do whatever it is you do.”
She heard no footsteps, but a moment later a boy’s face appeared above her own. It was angular and thin, but without the hollowed cheeks of malnutrition. He had a mop of shaggy blond hair, streaked with brown, and a fuzz on his jaw line of the same color but wispy and thin. She couldn’t make out the color of his eyes with the light behind him, but they were light colored and heavy lidded. He paused a moment to look her over, a sly smile on his face. He looked last into her eyes.
“It’s easy. Instead of putting it into runes, you put it into the water instead,” Naul told her.
“But how?” Rynn asked. “I can’t touch the water.”
“Touching is for runes. Heat goes in the water. That burning feeling: take it and make it go.” Naul’s words drawled out as if he had awakened just moments ago.
“I don’t know how! I don’t get a burning feeling lighting runes.”
Naul patted her on the shoulder. “It’s all right. Everyone here wants you to do well.” As he walked out of view, Rynn couldn’t help but hear an ominous note in his reassurance.
“Begin,” Professor Hurmbeck said. She heard a click and the ticking of a stopwatch.
She looked into the water and tried to empower it like she did with the runes. The water didn’t boil or churn; she couldn’t tell whether she was having an effect on it at all. As time passed, her focus wandered away from her assigned task to what they would do if she failed. There were knockers outside the lab waiting to take her to be hanged. She tried to redouble her efforts, clenching her teeth and tightening every muscle in her body until she shook with tension.
“Stop.” The stopwatch clicked again and the ticking stopped.
“Reading, professor?” Delliah asked. “Did she manage?”
“A bit. A bit. Zero point one degrees.”
“That could have come from the agitation. It’s within the error margin of the machine.”
“Not so,” Professor Hurmbeck replied. “The agitation is accounted for in the calibration. The instruments are accurate to two decimals. She did heat the water.”
“Disappointing.”
“Oh, we’re not through yet!” Professor Hurmbeck ascended the stairs faster than Rynn had ever heard him move. “Just let me reset the instruments, and...” He clambered back down the stairway and circled around behind Rynn. “We apply motivation.”
Rynn’s eyes widened. She wanted to ask, but knew that would only make matters worse.
There were sounds behind her; Rynn tried to identify them. There was some sort of equipment that Professor Hurmbeck was fiddling with, she heard a few snaps of switches flipping, some scraping noises of metal on metal. Something sounded like it was being untangled.
“Ordy, give him a hand,” Delliah ordered.
The strap around her forehead was loosened, and Rynn squirmed around, trying first to pull free, then when that failed, to at least work loose the kink in her muscles. Something cold slipped under the strap, a thin piece of metal, just forward of her right temple, then another on the left. She tried to shake free of them but just then the strap was pulled back tight once more, the edges of the metal digging into her skin.
“Now Rynn, before your next attempt, allow me to demonstrate. Oh, I almost forgot. Here.”
Ordy stepped into view and held up something that looked like a flattened wooden horseshoe. “Open up.”
Rynn instinctively clenched instead. Ordy grabbed her jaw, his fingers digging into the muscle as she fought to keep her mouth closed. “It’s for your own good.” When Rynn refused to relent, he gave up trying. “Fine. Go ahead without it professor.”
“Very well.” A moment later, Rynn heard the flip of a switch and the world buzzed. Her vision swam with colors and flashing lights and her muscles convulsed. As quick as the effect came, it was gone once more. She tasted blood in her mouth and a cool sweat broke out all over her. She began to pant for breath.
“Will that damage her?” Delliah asked.
“Probably, if I keep it up long enough. But if she can’t pass this test, what good is having her wits intact? Let me lower the intensity and see what happens.”
The switch flipped again, and Rynn felt her muscles all twitch. Her eyes couldn’t focus, and she stopped breathing. Unlike the first time, it was no brief passing. Rynn lost her sense of time as her body writhed without any control over it; as much as she tried to retake any degree of control, it disobeyed her.
The effect stopped for a moment, allowing Rynn to gasp for breath as if she’d been running for hours. Between gasps, she spat blood.
“I think she’ll take the bit now,” Professor Hurmbeck said. Rynn watched with odd detachment as Ordy reached the wooden piece for her and forced it between her teeth. As soon as it was in place, the switch flipped, and the twitching began anew.
“Not that the little rodent doesn’t deserve it, but what is this accomplishing?” Delliah asked.
“Aren’t you the least bit suspicious that she’d choose hanging over being sold?” the professor asked. “It’s been known to happen in freeborn humans.” Rynn could still hear them. She wanted to say that she’d been born a slave, that her father had given up his freedom to buy hers, and that she’d never waste his sacrifice. It was all she could manage to keep the wooden bit in her mouth and not cut her own cheeks and tongue on her teeth.
“Fine. We’ll keep her at it until she passes or that machine scrambles her wits,” Delliah said. “Now shut it off and let her try again.”
Ordy pulled the wooden piece from her mouth, dripping blood-tinged spit.
“Please,” was all Rynn could manage.
“Water, bath, out of the chair,” Delliah said. “Just show me what you’re worth.”
“Begin.” A click and the stopwatch resumed.
Rynn looked at the water like she had never seen the substance before. It perplexed her—clear as air, but unbreathable. She didn’t want to heat it, she wanted to drink it, dunk herself in it, luxuriate in it.
“Stop trying to think how to do it,” Naul said. “Stop thinking altogether. Just relax.”
Rynn lacked the strength to laugh, but the thought was ludicrous. There was no relaxation to be had while strapped into a chair with sadistic kuduks using her as a spark wire. She had to try something though. They weren’t going to give up and go away. They were never going to leave her alone so long as there was something left to torment into obedience, even if she didn’t know how to do what they said. She was past caring about disobeying out of spite or obstinacy; she just wanted them to stop.
She tried willing herself into the water. Be hot, water. Just please be hot. She pushed the thought into the vat, but saw nothing happening.
“Aha! Up half a degree already,”
Professor Hurmbeck shouted.
“That’s more like it,” Delliah agreed. “Keep that up, girl, and this will all be over soon.”
Rynn couldn’t explain what she was doing or how. She doubted she was in any condition to be doing simple math, let alone solving such mysteries. She just kept the thought in her head of coaxing the water to obey her and grow hotter.
“Two degrees ... five ... eleven... ” With a click, the stopwatch stopped. “Eleven point eight five. Excellent.”
Rynn felt a rough kuduk hand pat her on the cheek. “That’s more like it. Naul, bring over the bag.”
“Water?” Rynn asked. This time, instead of being struck, Ordy held a cup to her lips and tipped it back. The water was tepid, but delicious. It soothed all the way down her throat, but the cup was taken away too soon. Rynn stretched her lips out, trying to reach it as it was pulled away.
“You’ll get more. Don’t worry.”
“Rynn, you need to pay careful attention now,” Delliah said. There was a metallic rummaging, and the kuduk woman held something in front of Rynn for her to inspect. It was a series of linked pieces of iron, each as wide and thick as her hand, but only a thumb’s width long, with nail-like spikes jutting from one side. The pieces were joined like the treads of an earthmover, or a tank, flopping about but firmly connected to one another. “You see this? This is your collar. Naul, activate the first runes.”
The boy came over, and with the collar held just before her face, Naul touched his fingers to it. The spikes retracted until the iron surface was smooth. Delliah held the cold metal against the side of her neck. “Small neck on this one, shorten it a bit.” Naul took the collar and pressed his hands to either side. The metal shortened and thickened. “That’s good.”
As Delliah reached around to wrap the collar around Rynn’s neck, she tried to tuck her chin. Realizing she couldn’t move her head, she opened her mouth wide as she could. Delliah slapped her. “Stop that. Give me one more bit of trouble and I’ll have this on you so tight you won’t be able to swallow.”
Rynn couldn’t tell how serious she was about that, but knew that there was no winning the battle. She closed both her mouth and eyes, just waiting for it to be done. She felt the cold iron circle around her neck. “The second runes.” With a clattering sound, the links all pulled together and clung. Delliah stepped away, and Rynn felt the weight of the collar press down on her collarbone. She opened her mouth to feel at it with her chin and found it shockingly close beneath.
“Finally,” Delliah said, heaving a long sigh. “Ordy, take care of her. Professor, where is the nearest bath?”
“Faculty washroom, just down the hall.”
Rynn heard chains clatter, and not the delicate sort that women wore as jewelry. Ordy was doing something with her collar that she couldn’t see, but could easily guess. Her suspicion was confirmed when the click of a lock closing and a tug at her collar told her she had just been leashed. After that indignity, there came the welcome release of the straps that had held her to the chair since the previous day. She first tried to work loose her neck as Ordy released the rest of her restraints, but the collar only let her move a little, and chafed even as it allowed that.
When at last she was free of the chair, she tried to stand, but found her numbed legs tingling instead of holding her up. She collapsed to the floor. The chain from her neck ran upward, she saw, to a bracelet that Ordy wore. She was going nowhere without him.
“Get up. You smell, and you’re getting a bath.”
“Give me a minute. Legs ... still,” Rynn said. There was a tug on the chain and it pulled against her throat. She coughed. “Can’t stand yet.”
With no further warning, Rynn felt an arm wrap around her midsection. With a grunt, Ordy picked her up. “Fine. Can’t stand, you get carried this once. Next time, I drag you by that collar. You’ll figure out how to stand then. But I’m a good sport, and you’ve had a rough morning, so I’ll let you off easy.”
“Put me—”
A slug to the jaw stopped Rynn’s objection. “That don’t mean I’m letting you tell me what to do, you hear?”
“Yes.”
The faculty washroom had hot and cold water lines, and Ordy didn’t seem to care that she made liberal use of the hot. He stood guard over her, back pressed against the room’s only door, with the chain and padlock waiting in hand. Her soiled clothing had been tossed down the laundry chute, which was too narrow for her to fit through, leaving her naked with only the water to protect her modesty. She kept her back to Ordy as she washed the filth from herself.
Ordy chuckled. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, you and me. You’ll be chained to either me or something solid except times like this. Maybe you don’t believe me now, but you’ll figure out I wouldn’t give a wooden rivet to see a human girl naked.”
Rynn said nothing and continued washing. She had already filled and drained the tub once, to get rid of the nastiness left in the water from her initial dunking.
“What, you gone all quiet, smart human?” Ordy taunted. “When Delliah ain’t around, you can talk. Just mind your place and don’t be telling me my business.”
“What am I going to do about clothes?” Rynn asked.
“Delliah’s got some for you. She’ll be along once she’s done signing papers and paying for you. There’s more forms for a slave that can work runes. Central Enforcement likes to know where your sort are.”
“Should I be worrying about this thing getting rusty? I’m already scraped raw, and I don’t want to get tetanus.”
Ordy chuckled. “Aww, been on your neck less than an hour and you’re already protective of your collar. See, your kind’s cut out for slave life.”
“Seriously. Iron oxidizes quickly in wet conditions. I’ve never even heard of anyone using it for a slave collar before.”
“Burst me if I know why, but them runed collars don’t rust. Just knock off worrying about it. Go check the mirror if you don’t believe me. You been in there long enough it woulda started rusting already.”
With a glare over her shoulder, Rynn climbed out of the bath and walked over to the wall mirror, dripping the whole way. The mirror was fogged over, but she wiped away the condensation with one hand, leaving a smeared but reflective surface. She had felt for it earlier, but now she could see the iron loop that protruded from the collar, which Ordy had used to attach her leash. Using that as a reference, she turned the collar fully around, using both hands to keep it off her skin. Even for just a moment, it was nice to be free of the weight; the collar weighed as much as a water jug. Her inspection found no sign of rust.
Rynn shivered. Even though the washroom was warm enough, being wet left her chilly.
“Go on. Enjoy the bath until Delliah gets back. It’ll keep you out of trouble.”
Rynn needed no coaxing. She fled to the water and turned on the hot tap.
“What is it you do, anyway? Are you her partner?”
“I work for her. Same as you, except I get coin and I can quit if I want to. I get all the shit jobs she doesn’t want to do herself and that Naul—and now you—are too lazy, weak, or stupid to manage.”
“You won’t have to worry about me for the stupid part,” Rynn bragged before she thought better of it.
“Oh really?” Ordy chuckled. “Well, I guess if you really made that gun and were able to keep your reading ability a secret for years, maybe you are smart—for a human. End of the day though, that just makes you a talking animal.”
“You don’t think I’m smarter than most kuduks?” Shut up, Rynn. It was Chipmunk’s voice in her head, warning her that she was still talking to a kuduk who had her captive.
Ordy shrugged. “What’s it matter? Worlds made of two kinda people: kuduk and human. You just got unlucky being born soft and weak.”
“What about the daruu?”
“What do they matter? Not enough of them left to field a crashball side.”
Rynn’s rejoinder about wh
ether Ordy ever played crashball himself was preempted by a knock at the door.
“She safe at the moment?” Delliah asked through the door.
“Gimme a minute,” Ordy called back. He beckoned to Rynn. “Get over here.” Rynn ducked low in the water. “Now!” She flinched.
Rynn stood and walked toward Ordy, water pouring off her like tiny waterfalls. She covered herself as best she could manage and shuffled over to Ordy, unwilling to look him in the eye. Instead, she inspected the contraption attached to his belt. A key hung from a short length of fine chain that disappeared up into a metal housing. It looked to be some sort of spring-loaded auto-retract mechanism. The key, she suspected, belonged to the lock for her leash. She watched as he pulled the chain up to meet her collar, waiting to see how the mechanism worked.
Click.
With a start, Rynn realized that the lock snapped into place without needing a key; only expensive locks used a key just to unlock. Ordy grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her hand up toward her collar.
Click.
Her left wrist was shackled to a short length of chain. She could reach her fingers to her jaw and no farther, no matter how far she pulled. She stepped back from Ordy, her right arm still in place to maintain her last shred of modesty.
“Oh, stop it,” Ordy grumbled. He shortened up on Rynn’s leash and hauled her back in front of him. “Worst is over, quit fighting it.” She put up a token struggle, but gave in before Ordy hurt her.
Click.
“Come on in, she’s safe.”
The door opened and Delliah stepped inside. Rynn looked at the floor. Chilly as she was when the draft came in, her face was warm.
“Much better,” Delliah said, a sing-song cheer in her voice. “She cleaned up better than I expected. If we can just do something about that attitude of hers, we might have something here.”
“She vented some steam. I think the bath did her good.”
Delliah looked around the room. “Have you been wasting the university’s hot water all this time?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rynn replied quietly.