by Guy Estes
The door opened and Ivarr came in. He stopped short, his face darkening with rage at the sight of an intruder in his daughter’s room. He’d been constantly fantasizing that the slavers would return and he’d be able to get his hands on them and exact a father’s vengeance. On seeing that it was his wife, though, he smiled a wan smile. Ilian returned it. He chuckled a little, prompting Ilian to do the same. Laughter became stronger, but then it mutated into weeping. Husband and wife clung to each other as the overpowering essence of their daughter enveloped them, magnifying their sense of loss. They sank to the floor, sobbing.
Ivarr's joints were growing stiffer by the day, and not long after that discovery Ilian sat down at her loom in an attempt to get some work done and found it difficult to focus on the individual threads. They all blurred into a mottled blob. Consequently, both of them were turning out substandard products (what few they made at all), and this brought down their professional reputations, which got them less work and created a vicious cycle. Ivarr had been forced to let his few employees go, for he could no longer pay them.
It also left them with very little in the way of funds. To make money matters worse was their failed attempts to recover their daughter. Ivarr had personally led a mounted search party, despite his profound hatred for horses, but the participants not from Sharleah were doing it solely for the money and demanded daily payment, and while Ivarr and Ilian were quite prosperous, they were not fabulously wealthy, and Ivarr had been forced to cut the search short. His friends had their occupations to see to. They still had their families to support.
Unlike me, Ivarr reproached himself.
The rewards they'd posted eventually had to be retracted, for as their business fell off they hadn't had the money to back them up. Madigan’s divinations had produced nothing.
Ilian sat at her loom, Aleena’s old doll right next to her, desperately wishing to produce the works of art she'd once been famous for. Not only did she lack the physical will, but her eyesight was worsening. Try as she might, the best work she could produce now was erratic and lacked symmetry, not even a fraction of what she was once capable of. She was near the point of tears when the opening of the front door drew her attention. A woman stood there, silhouetted by the outside brilliance.
"Hello, Ilian."
Ilian knew who it was before she could see the speaker. The woman closed the door, and when Ilian's vision returned, she beheld one of her sisters, Riona. Ilian was the youngest of three daughters, Riona being the next in line. Riona's hair was iron grey and kept in a severe bun. Eyes of weathered marble stared, like those of a bitter schoolmarm, from a face that had created the foundation for the network of cracks that would crisscross it in a year or two, but one could picture them so easily that it was as though they were already there.
"Riona. What brings you here?"
"I've come to help you."
"My thanks, but it is not necessary."
"Not necessary?" Riona clucked and tsked as she went to the windows and opened the shutters. "You refuse admittance even to the sun."
"Is the sun going to return my daughter?"
"Of course not, but - "
"Then what use have I for it?"
Riona sighed. "Ilian, Aleena is gone. That cannot change."
"So certain, are you? Well, I am not. There must be a way. I've simply not found it."
"Ilian, you do not know how it pains me to see you so torn over this, but what can possibly be done? You have already tried to get her back and have failed. How do you know she even left against her will?"
Ilian Kurrin, a woman of nearly infinite love, reserved none for the look she gave her sister. She was about to say something, she greatly wanted to say something... but Riona was her sister, insensitive though she may be. She was still family, so Ilian held her tongue. Her husband came in and the awkward silence was replaced by the anger he’d constantly radiated since Aleena’s abduction.
"Ivarr," Riona crooned, rustling across the room to hug him. He did not return the gesture. "It is always a pleasure to see my favorite brother-in-law."
"What business have you here?" he said, getting straight to the point and not bothering to conceal his distaste. "Can you not see that we are in mourning?"
"That is exactly why I've come."
Uninvited, Ivarr silently observed. "Why?"
"To end your mourning."
"You've found Aleena?"
Riona looked at him, momentarily confused. What would she have to do to convince these people that Aleena was gone forever? "No, of course not. I have come to goad you into living your lives."
Ivarr looked at her, blinked twice, and left before he put voice to his sentiments and caused a fight.
CHAPTER 6
“Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.” – Carl von Clausewitz
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” – Adam Smith
With nothing else to occupy it, Aleena’s naturally inquisitive mind strove to unravel the riddle of a slaver’s mentality. She simply could not grasp how someone could have such abominable regard for his fellow man. Her baseline for comparison was her lifelong antagonists, Dirke and Valkira. Although the slavers were a thousand times worse, Aleena saw certain parallels. From the very instant they’d first met, Dirke and Valkira had gone out of their way to make Aleena feel worthless, subhuman, beneath all kindness or consideration. Both of them shared the slaver’s gratification with extinguishing spirits and a total lack of compassion. Dirke and Valkira had been all but impossible for Aleena to understand, and the slavers were several orders of magnitude beyond them.
They had come down out of the mountains that were the buffer between Aleena’s home and the Southern Badlands and had entered the pitiless desert from which the latter got its name. They encountered a few locals, dark men of rawhide who rode huge brown lizards twenty feet long. Aleena felt all that was familiar and dear, her entire world, slipping farther and farther away. She used to wander the forest paths to escape her troubles, the trees gently closing her off from the outside world. Bright butterflies, some big enough to cover her face, flitted about. On summer nights so many fireflies lit her way they almost provided enough light to read by.
But no more could she seek shelter from her tormentors by fleeing to the woods. Now her tormentors owned her, had her chained and helpless, and she was forced to be in this vast, open space where there was nowhere to hide and all was dead. A feeling in her heart grew in proportion to the distance from her home. Right now the feeling was only a dead coal that had been uncovered from a carpet of ash, but it could easily become more.
* * *
In the space of three weeks Riona had made the Kurrin home more like her possession than that of Ivarr and Ilian. Though it pained Ivarr to admit it, she had made some improvements. It was clean now, everything dusted and polished, and sunlight once again warmed the rooms, but to the once-more childless couple it all ultimately seemed like such empty and futile accomplishments. No cleanliness or illumination could replace the love and vitality that had once resided there in the form of their one and only child. Neither had Riona's activities restored Ilian's eyesight or eased the growing ache in Ivarr's joints. They did, however, add to the throbbing of the Kurrins' skulls.
Ilian had taken to keeping Aleena’s old doll with her at all times. She sat with it in the chair she’d once rocked Aleena in, gazing out of the window. Without even realizing she was doing it, she drew the doll to her breast as she began to rock. Tears streamed from her wide, unblinking eyes as she stared out of the window.
Ivarr clenched his teeth against his screaming bones as he beat the glowing steel of his latest project with a vengeance
. He tried to ignore the pain, blot it out by concentrating on his hammering, trying to get a rhythm going, but it was not to be. The growing arthritis refused to be ignored, seeming to take offense at the attempt, and stabbed Ivarr's nerves with doubled intensity. With a bellow of rage the bear-like blacksmith hurled his hammer across his shop to crack a wall plank. He rubbed his wrists and hands, cursing himself.
Ilian was in the house, but she clearly heard her husband's frustrations. It roused her from her daze and she got up to go to him.
"Sit down, dear," Riona said as she guided Ilian back to her seat. "You're in no condition to go roaming about outside. And what are you doing with that doll?"
“It was Aleena’s,” she said as she sat back down. Her vision had gotten much worse but she was not completely blind, and even if she was, she knew her way around her own place as well as she knew herself. She had given up trying to weave anything. In addition to no longer having the eyesight for it, she much preferred to hold Aleena’s doll and rock in her chair.
Riona cooked, cleaned, went to market and saw to their every need. Everyone said how marvelous it was to have a personal servant, but to Ilian it seemed the servant was, in fact, the master. She and Ivarr's lives had been reduced to mere existence. All they had to do was eat, sleep and breathe. Ivarr still had his craft, though that would not last much longer. Although he was still in magnificent shape, his body was weakening just the same. The physicians of the Artisan League were the best in the world, but not one of them could detect a physical cause for their respective maladies, and yet Ivarr was losing his strength, and Ilian was going blind. The physicians could only shrug apologetically and bill them.
They both finally gave up trying to make a living. As members of high standing in their respective guilds, both were entitled to pensions. It was nothing extravagant, but it was enough. Their guilds had not forgotten the superlative goods they had produced, nor the fair prices they had charged for them. The Kurrins had been models of their respective crafts and examples for all of the Artisan League to look to. The guilds looked after their own. Still, those pensions weren’t enough to cover what Riona was buying. Riona handled their finances and paid their bills and kept food on the table, but she was also always buying some new item, such as a dress or a brooch, things the Kurrins’ pensions probably wouldn’t cover. Ilian shrugged it off. She had enough woe to deal with without adding money to the list.
* * *
They were well within the scorching Badlands and were nearing their destination. The captives were forced to walk the entire way, their boots having been worn to nothing. Sometimes, in a burst of sadistic energy, the slavers would force the men and children to crawl or march on their knees. The penalty for faltering was beating. The women were, to Aleena's eyes, broken beyond all hope of salvation, save two notable exceptions. The two would-be brides were still resisting, but as time ground on Aleena saw their resolve weaken. Each day their fighting was just a bit less energetic, their struggles ending sooner than they had the day before.
All the while there Aleena sat in her cart, feeling like a spoiled princess in her ivory tower who did nothing but watch while her hapless subjects were ground into the dust. Residents of the Artisan League considered the loss of dignity to be worse than the loss of life, and Aleena was perhaps the one in whom this idea had its deepest roots. She knew not which was worse, watching people being stripped of all dignity, or not being able to do anything about it.
For Tamura's sake, she raged to herself, that part of her persona she labeled the Instructress, because it reminded her of the warrior teachers she'd read about, you can do something about it! You possess the gift of the Chosen! You have the power to make these jackals pay for their depredations and give these people their lives back!
Then that part of her she called the Little Girl would answer the Instructress, No. I can't. I am sorry but I just cannot. To feel my arms hacking people apart, to see them reduced to quivering lumps of meat and know that I did it to them is more than I can bear.
How long can you bear those chains you are in, the Instructress countered. How long can you bear the chains that those people are shackled with, the ones that you can remove?
I cannot bear any of it.
And with that Aleena would cease arguing with herself, not wanting to cope with such strife. No matter how she looked at it, she seemed to be responsible for everything. When she resisted her oppressors, she was guilty of murder. When she did not resist them, she enabled them to victimize the entire population. Aleena tried to retreat from the questions her eternally inquisitive mind refused to drop.
As each day oozed agonizingly into the next, Aleena continued her dull vigil, which had degenerated into a death watch. The two firebrands had finally given up their revolt, though whenever the slavers had one carrying out his humiliating request hate still gleamed in the former brides' eyes. The closer they got to Akhbeer, the more jovial and frivolous their captors became. They still hadn't ravaged Aleena or the other blonde, but they brushed up against them often enough. Feeling the grubby hands paw over her and seeing the stained teeth leer at her had fanned that tiny chunk of coal that had been uncovered in Aleena's heart. It was now emitting the faintest hint of a glow.
"We are perhaps a week out of Akhbeer," Lorn estimated. To celebrate, one of the slavers called to the redhead. She shuffled over, stripped, lay down on the sand and allowed the slaver to do with her as he pleased. No longer did she or her brunette friend resist. Their eyes bore not the slightest hint of emotion or comprehension, or even life. They were as dull and glassy as a cow's.
Aleena shook her lowered head as she beheld what was the single worst sight she'd seen so far, even worse than the rapes: the destruction of souls, exemplified by the defeat of these two valiant firebrands. Aleena had been silently cheering for them ever since they'd been captured. Even in the face of insurmountable odds they had both fought like wildcats, but as a little of their dignity was torn off, day after day, the wind left their sails until they were dead in the water. Even after that, though, they still gave signs of resistance, but it did not take long for those tattered remains of their spirit to vanish. It demonstrated to Aleena and all the others that the slavers always won, no matter the circumstances. They would crush and swallow any spirit they chose. Even such vibrant souls as the two brides-to-be had their breaking points. Now they were nothing more than dried-out emotionless husks.
You could have prevented it, a voice chimed in Aleena's head. If you’d fought the slavers when they came for you, it is likely that these victims never would have been victims.
Aleena continued to study the two women, forcing herself to view the best examples of the consequences of her reluctance to use her power. Their bodies lived, but in all ways that mattered they were dead.
How long before I share their condition? How long before I am reduced to some pitiful, whimpering thing, bowing to a master's every demand?
That was a thought to terrify her more than death itself. It tore her apart to witness these once-proud ladies shamed and humbled before these savages, stripped of all spirit and spine.
Then do something about it, the Instructress cried.
I cannot! Gods forgive me, but I cannot!
The sad thing was that there had been a time, not so long ago, when she would have unhesitatingly intervened.
But it seems that inclination has fled, she thought.
It’s just as well, another part of her countered. That kind of thinking got us into this mess in the first place.
The proximity of their destination sparked a new torment. It was time, Lorn decided, for Aleena to learn more of what would be expected of her in her new life. When they stopped at an oasis, the begrimed slavers bathed - with Aleena as their towel girl. Aleena was forced to wash the remotest regions of the slavers' bodies, and they insisted that she be most thorough. They "accidentally" brushed against her with nauseating frequency. The last slaver couldn't help
himself. He had to have her.
"You'll not touch her," Lorn ordered. "She's far too valuable too damage. Take one of the others if you are so ready to burst."
“You,” he growled at another woman. “Get over here.”
She slowly got up, dull eyes cast to the ground. As Aleena was being taken to her cage to be chained, she looked at Aleena straight in the eyes, piercing her. Aleena found she couldn’t catch her breath. She was placed back in her cage. She could hear the man grunting and rutting as he took the woman, but the woman herself was silent. Aleena looked and saw that the woman, jerking and bouncing under the man’s efforts, looked the same before the process began save for one thing. Her eyes were no longer dull and vacant. Now they glittered with hate as they looked right into Aleena’s. An impulse to provoke the slavers into raping her briefly flashed through Aleena’s soul.
“Why leave me alone?” she demanded. “What makes me so special?”
"Blonde hair and blue eyes are rare in the desert," Lorn had answered. "Even if you were a beaten, mauled thing I would still get a handsome payment, but why stop at handsome when I can have kingly?"
"My eyes are grey," Aleena reminded him.
"Rarer still than blue, and worth that much more. Don’t worry, girl. Your buyer will give you yours soon enough."
Aleena lowered her head and wept, her knees drawn up to her chest. She turned her back to the sight, but she could feel the woman’s gaze boring into her back like a branding iron.
One you would have defended is now one you refuse to help, that godsdamned Instructress in her head needled. You would have been an object of her gratitude. Now she, like your tormentors, hates you. Now they all hate you.
She wanted to explain to the woman that she wanted to help, truly she did, but it wasn’t that simple. She’d have more deaths on her conscience, you see, and she just couldn’t face that. She wanted to assure the woman this wasn’t really Aleena’s fault because, well, because…