So it's possible to live a decade here, Koren thought, not sure if that thought comforted or terrified him.
Once the cracks in the marble were deep enough, Koren and his fellow slaves—all collared—shoved wedges of wood into the grooves, then poured water over the slats. The wood soaked up the water and expanded. Cracks sounded deep in the stone.
Whenever Koren heard those cracks, he couldn't help but wince. He kept hearing it—the catapults hurling boulders onto Gefen. Bones snapping on the streets. Houses collapsing, burying friends beneath. Whenever miners swung their hammers, Koren kept seeing Seneca swing his hammer, driving nails into Father's hands and feet.
As he labored, Koren thought about his family a lot. Thinking about them made his eyes water, made sadness swell inside him like the expanding wet wood. But he couldn't stop. He kept thinking of Atalia—lost at sea. Of Ofeer—lost somewhere in Aelar, the city that lay on the horizon, its walls only several parsa'ot away. Of Epher, Maya, and mother—back in Zohar, perhaps dead.
Finally the great marble slab—larger than a coffin—detached from the mountain. Slaves bustled around it on scaffolds, securing ropes onto the stone, then heaving it down, tugging a complex system of levers and pulleys. Perhaps the marble would form bricks at the capital, perhaps the segment of a column, perhaps a statue depicting a god or emperor. Koren would never know. He could see Aelar on the horizon, but he would never set foot in that city again. His life was here now, the life of a slave. His work continued, chiseling at another stone.
That evening, the overseers herded the slaves down to the bottom of the quarry. There the miners ate a paltry meal: some grainy bread, old cheese, and a bowl of gruel. The overseers slapped the slaves in chains, and Koren lay down to sleep on the hard ground, hundreds of other slaves around him.
He couldn't have been here for more than a few days. Yet it seemed longer, years since the tall man in the toga had bought him in the market, since guards had shoved him into a cart, since he'd been wheeled here to the quarry. Only days ago, Koren had been with Ofeer. Now it seemed another lifetime. He had been a different man then—still a man of Zohar. Now he was nothing. Only a shell. Only the last flickers of life in a dying body.
He awoke to shouts. Dawn was rising beyond the mountains, sickly gray and yellow. The overseers were moving through the camp, lashing and kicking slaves.
"Up, maggots! Up! We've got important company today. Praetor Tirus Valerius and his daughter are coming to inspect your worthless hides. Up!"
Koren blinked, still clinging to slumber. An overseer trundled toward him and drove a kick into Koren's ribs.
"Up, worm."
Koren groaned. "You keep confusing me with the slave beside me. I'm the maggot. He's the worm. Ow!" Another kick drove into Koren's belly. "All right. I'm up. Thank you for the lovely wakeup. Next time, instead of a kick, wake me up by sucking my cock."
He muttered those last words under his breath, not wishing to chance a kick to the aforementioned area. He rose and lined up for breakfast, receiving a moldy chunk of bread, a cup of brackish water, and a slab of pork so old and oily rainbows glistened on its surface.
"I don't suppose you're serving any fresh cream and strawberries, maybe some boiled eggs and cheesecake, some nice tea with cream and honey?" When the cook—if you could call him that—just returned a blank stare, Koren sighed. "Never mind. Atrophied bread and magical rainbow ham it is."
As he climbed the path up the quarry, eating as he went, Koren frowned. He kept tossing that name back and forth through his mind—Praetor Tirus Valerius. Damn it, he knew that name. It conjured images of a squat, bald man—a man from Gefen, despite the Aelarian name. But after days of hunger, labor, and the whip, fog filled Koren's mind. He could not remember more. It seemed a memory from another life.
Koren was standing on a block of marble, chiseling away at it, when the trumpets blared, and the horses rode into the quarry.
Several of the riders wore armor. At first Koren thought them legionaries; they wore silvery cuirasses, and their helmets were crested. But then he noticed the sigils on their shields—laureled eagles. These were not legionaries. Here were men of the Magisterian Guard, elite warriors who guarded Aelar and its dignitaries.
Two civilians rode here too. One was a beefy, middle aged man in a toga, wide of shoulders and bald of head, his nose bulbous, his face broad. The other rider was a woman in her twenties, her brown hair pinned above her head, releasing ringlets that hung across her brow.
Watching from the cliff above, Koren nearly dropped his pickaxe.
"Of course," he whispered.
"Dominus!" cried one of the overseers, kneeling in the dust. A few of the slaves glanced at one another, and some knelt too.
The burly man in the toga frowned from his horse. "Do not kneel, men. Rise and work!" His voice was deep and booming. "You're here to break stones and break your backs, not to bend them."
At his side, his daughter smirked. "If you keep breaking slaves' backs, Father, we'll need to find more lands to invade and more slaves to capture." She looked across the quarry. "I see a few Zoharites here. I've always liked Zoharites. Such wild creatures."
Her bald father glowered. "I've seen how well you like the savages, daughter. Those here are for me to break, not for you to toy with."
Koren found himself trembling with rage. Of course. Praetor Tirus Valerius—once Aelar's ambassador to Zohar. The bald, beefy man had spent more than one evening in the Sela villa. And the young woman was his only daughter, Claudia Valerius—the girl Epher had been enamored with.
That girl he visited the night we rode out of Gefen, Koren remembered. He had spent an hour waiting outside the city as Epher had parted from her—a girl Epher had been secretly courting for a year.
As slaves swung their hammers and pickaxes, Koren stared down from the cliff. Claudia stared up from her horse and met his gaze. A line appeared on her brow.
"Get back to work, rat!" an overseer cried, swinging his lash. The thong slammed into Koren. "Stop gawking and work." The whip swung again, biting into Koren's shoulder.
Claudia kept staring at him, frowning.
Koren inhaled sharply
Oh to hell with it, he thought.
"Claudia!" he shouted. "Claudia, it's me! Koren! Koren Sela! Epher's brother."
He cried out as the whip lashed him again. He fell and clung to the cliff as the overseer kicked him.
"Claudia!" Koren shouted again.
The overseer snarled, grabbed Koren, yanked him up, and shoved him toward the edge of the cliff. Koren dangled, head spinning.
"Shall I send him down to you, dominus?" the overseer called.
"Wait!" Claudia said. "Let him walk down. Let him live. Bring him to me."
The overseer grunted, disappointment in his eyes. He pulled Koren back onto the path, then dragged him down the scaffolding. Soon Koren was standing before Claudia and her father, both still on their horses. On the cliffs all around, the slaves toiled away, pickaxes ringing and hammers thudding.
"Claudia," Koren said, blood on his back, sweat on his brow. "There must have been some mistake. When they brought me to Aelar, they told me I could be the new emperor, but now they say Porcia might get the job. You don't suppose you could speak to the right people and still get me the gig?"
Claudia stared down from her horse, face pale, as if not sure what to make of him. Her father snorted.
"Who is this rat?" said Tirus.
Claudia spoke to her father, but she kept her eyes on Koren. "You remember him, Father. One of Jerael Sela's children."
"Is this the one you were fucking in my own house?" Tirus said.
Claudia groaned and finally looked away from Koren. "The same house where you fucked half the serving girls in Gefen? Don't patronize me, Father." She looked back at Koren. "The boy's wasted here. He's related to King Shefael. The Zoharite rats rebel; this one is a bargaining chip."
Tirus's horse nickered and spun in a circle. The beefy lo
rd grunted and yanked the reins. "Last I heard, Jerael Sela was rotting on a cross. Let his son rot here."
Claudia glared at her father. "And your brain has already rotted, I see."
Tirus raised a fist. "Do you want me to beat you in front of the slaves?"
"I want you to listen to me," said Claudia. "You were always stubborn. Mother always said so. Think, Father. There's already violence on the streets of Beth Eloh; the Zoharites aren't yet fully cowed. The lumers say that Epheriah Sela himself killed a few legionaries only yesterday. They say that Zohar's Blade, a group of desert scum, roam the province, arming themselves, preparing for an uprising. If the rats do rebel, the province will burn. The Sela family is as close to royalty as Zoharites get. Now, if we had a Sela brother in our hands . . ."
Koren's mind reeled. His brother—still alive! Still fighting! Damn it, the war wasn't over yet, and Koren was stuck here in a quarry, missing all the fun.
"I know what'll work," Koren said, looking up at Claudia. "You send me back to Zohar, and I'll talk to Epher. A moment with me, he'll forget about rebelling and switch to knitting bonnets for a living. All we demand is our villa back, maybe a few servants, a dancer or two would be nice . . . oh, and Prince Seneca's head on a pike. It would look perfect mounted on our wall."
Lord Tirus rode his horse closer, and Koren cringed, expected a blow. The lord of the quarry stared down at him.
"Yes, I remember this one. The lesser of the two brothers." He turned toward Claudia. "We'll take him. He can serve wine at our table while we figure out what to do with him."
Koren wasn't enthused about serving wine, but it sure sounded nicer than mining marble.
"Perfect," Koren said. "To the wine! Which horse is mine?"
Within moments, he found himself dragging behind Tirus's horse, a chain running from the saddle to his collar. Claudia and the Magisterian Guard rode with them. Koren stumbled as the chain yanked him, coughing, dragging when he fell. Soon his knees were bleeding as he raced behind the horses. The city of Aelar rose in the distance. It would be a long journey.
But Epher is alive, Koren thought, eyes damp. Ofeer is alive. Even bound in chains, dragging behind his captors, beaten and bloody, Koren vowed: I will live. I will survive this. I will see my family again.
MAYA
She rode her camel across the desert, leading her caravan, and beheld the great city before her.
"Sekur." The wind ruffled her veil, and Maya inhaled deeply. "Capital of the Sekadian Empire. The mythical City of Gods. Heart of the desert."
Leven leaned forward on his camel, squinting at the distant city. "More like the ass of the desert. It's big, it stinks, and it's overflowing with shit."
Maya rolled her eyes. "I think it's beautiful."
Leven nodded. "Asses often are." He kneed his camel. "Hasha! Hasha!"
His camel burst into a run.
"Hasha!" Maya cried, and her own camel followed at a gallop. The rest of their caravan—a dozen camels taken from the bone-raiders—followed, raising clouds of sand. Saddlebags bounced across their flanks, full of perfumes, coins, jewels, and decorative vessels forged of gold, silver, and platinum. With this treasure, Maya would stock up on supplies, buy new maps, and head out again, at dawn tomorrow—out east, toward the distant ocean, toward the school of Luminosity she sought.
Two rivers framed the city, larger than any Maya had ever seen. Back in Zohar, far in the west, there were no more than humble streams, and even those dried up in the summer. But here the rivers gushed with fury, so wide that twenty mighty ships could sail them abreast. Irrigation canals spread out from them, feeding farmlands, orchards, and palm groves. Here was the great fertile basin of the east, a vast oasis in the desert, the cradle of civilization. It was from this arable land, the legends said, that men had first heard the word of Eloh, had traveled west and founded the land of Zohar.
My most ancient blood is from this land, Maya thought. For we are all children of the east.
The city of Sekur rose between the rivers and palm groves, its walls towering—perhaps even taller than the walls of Beth Eloh back in the west. They were carved of sandstone, the same color as the desert, and topped with many battlements and turrets.
Maya had seen nobody other than Leven for days now, but as she traveled the dirt road toward the city, she finally saw others. Peddlers rode donkeys, pulling carts full of amphorae, scrolls, silverware, pets in cages, and stone idols. Farmers led cattle, sheep, and wagons of grain. Soldiers walked here too, clad in ring mail, armed with bows and curved khopesh swords, the blades semicircular.
Most Sekadian men wore long, luxurious beards, deep black and curled into countless ringlets. Some men were beardless, and they wore iron collars and loincloths—eunuch slaves, Maya surmised. The women wore white dresses, cut to reveal the left breast, the hems tasseled. Some women rode in palanquins, their faces painted, their arms jingling with bracelets. Others walked afoot in the dust, leading cattle and children toward the city.
Maya even saw a few people wrapped in white robes, pale, coughing, their eyes sunken. Plaques hung around their necks, displaying words like "leprosy" and "consumption" and "possession." Here walked the ill, the dying, seeking healing in the city or an ablution of sins.
A massive gatehouse shone upon the western wall of Sekur, blue and gold. Back in Beth Eloh, Maya remembered entering ancient, crumbling gates rife with lume and antiquity—cracked, weedy structures, not much larger than a house. Yet this gatehouse could put palaces to shame. Several towers framed it, their glazed bricks the color of sapphires, embossed with golden reliefs of aurochs, falcons, and dragons. Gemstones and precious metals formed thousands of sunbursts that climbed the towers, framing their walls, leading toward golden battlements. A platinum archway rose between the towers, and a great dragon mosaic coiled above it, formed from thousands of lapis lazuli stones. The doors themselves were cedar, banded with silver and shining with jewels. When the sun hit the gates, they shone across the land, a beacon to travelers for parsa'ot around.
"Beautiful ass indeed," Maya said. "We'll find supplies here, and—Leven? Leven!"
The young thief had ridden toward a peddler's cart. Piles of wooden statuettes, copper bracelets, decorative fish with brass scales and gemstone eyes, wicker baskets full of colorful stones, and many other treasures rose here. Leven was leaning from his camel, reaching toward a silver pipe atop the pile.
"Leven!" Maya thundered.
He cringed, pulled his hand away, and rode back toward her. His eyes were wide and feverish. "I can't help it, Maya," he whispered and licked his lips. "Look around you. By God! These people . . . so many peddlers, merchants, ladies with fine jewels . . . this place is ripe for the taking."
"No thieving!" Maya glowered at him. "We're leading a convoy of camels laden with treasures far worthier than that junk."
"I know, I know." Leven shuddered. "It's just . . . I can't help it. When a man sees treasures like this just exposed, just out there . . . how can he resist reaching out to grab them?"
"Well, look at all the naked breasts around you, if you must," said Maya. "But don't you be grabbing them either. I won't be using this treasure to bail you out of prison."
The city gates were open, and many guards stood here, coated with iron rings. Beyond them spread a boulevard, a road so wide armies could march down it. Maya was used to the coiling alleyways like in Zohar, roads so narrow two donkeys could not ride abreast. This road seemed wide enough that a city could have risen atop it. Hundreds of towers rose in two palisades on the roadsides, each coated with shimmering blue tiles, golden sunbursts, and reliefs of dragons. Blue merlons topped each tower like a crown, and more guards stood between them, armed with bows and spears. Should any enemy break through the gate, they would face a long gauntlet toward the city center.
A city of wonders, Maya thought, riding down the boulevard. A dream world. A city of beauty.
Yet when she gazed between the blue towers that lined the avenue, she ca
ught glimpses of another world. As opulent as the city gate and boulevard were, the streets beyond were poor. Houses stood crowded together, assembled haphazardly from old stones, no two alike. A smashed statue formed the cornerstone of one house. Another home was built from weathered tombstones, the names of the dead still engraved upon them. The city's poor huddled here, watching from rooftops and alleyways. An old man stood in but a loincloth, his ribs pushing against his skin, his arms white with leprosy. A naked child pissed in a yard among cadaverous goats. Several nursing mothers waded atop a trash heap—the hill rose taller than the houses—picking out rotten fruit and old chicken bones, collecting the meals into pouches. Flies bustled around these commoners, and the stench of nightsoil, disease, and rot filled Maya's nostrils.
Two city guards—burly men in ring mail, their beards flowing down to their belts—saw her staring at the poor. The men moved closer together between two towers, their shields held before them, blocking Maya's view. Their eyes glared from under bushy black eyebrows, urging her onward. Maya looked away.
So it is, Maya thought. So it always is. Splendor hiding shadow. Gold hiding rust. The wonders and wealth of kings, built atop breaking backs and starving children.
She looked back ahead along the boulevard. A full parasa away loomed the fabled Ziggurat of Sekur. Even from the distance, the building seemed massive, dwarfing the palm trees and towers before it. It was vaguely triangular, a great complex of staircases and towers, rising higher and higher, tapering into a platinum peak.
"So . . . many . . . treasures . . ." Leven eyed a group of travelers, clad in silk and silver, holding purses. The young man was practically salivating.
"No thieving!" Maya leaned across her saddle and slapped him.
"But—"
"No!"
Leven pouted, bouncing on his camel. "Fine, but don't you forget what the scorpion did. Can't change a man's nature."
Maya glared at him. "You'll change your nature or I'll change your face with my fist."
Crowns of Rust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 2) Page 22