Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight

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Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight Page 12

by Cat Rambo


  The next day we came to a seaport, which a passerby told us, in answer to our entreaties was Samophar. Here the larger buildings were made of white stone and the streets underfoot were paved with yellow brick. Fat-bellied ships rode at anchor in the harbor and we realized that our owner intended to sell us away from our homeland.

  I had never seen so much water. I stared at it, imagining crocodiles beneath the glittering surface. At the docks, we were passed over to a ship’s master. I witnessed other slaves being loaded onto the ship, and saw the weeping of several families being parted.

  Here a sad incident came to pass. The two Djinni were chained together and contrived to jump into the waves. The woman drowned before they could be drawn up out of the water and the husband was savagely beaten by the sailors, angry at the trouble he had afforded. Try as I might, despite the blows aimed my way, I could not force my way up the gangplank at first, but the Djinn’s blood, his cries, forced me, lest I push them to such lengths, for I knew they would have no mercy.

  Below decks I found myself amidst a throng of other captives, including dog-men from the east, Ghouls, several Griffons, a family of Harpies, Ogres, Unicorns, and a Rakshasa. Above decks, I could hear the roaring of the Dragon as it was chained into place and we set underway.

  Part IV

  The voyage—we are rebuked by the sphinx—I am given a new name—the fate of a cyclops

  Brutality was a common practice of the Human crew towards the cargo. They affected to despise the Beasts they conveyed, and yet they used us venially as they desired, particularly the Ogre women. Few of the crew did not undertake such practices, either with each other or with the miserable captives in their care.

  We were given a measure of gruel and water each day, which our keepers were not careful to hand out. Some bullies among us made it their practice to take the provisions of those who were sick or otherwise unable to defend what was rightfully their own. After a few such incidents, though, the Sphinx spoke to us. Those who could understand her words rendered them into other tongues and others translated them in turn so a constant subdued whisper spread outward from her throughout the cramped hold.

  She discoursed most remarkably in her deep, grave voice. She said as thinking beings we owed each other civil treatment and that it was the duty of the strong to protect the weak from the worst of our common oppression. She looked at each face in turn with her great brown eyes and some faltered under that stare.

  After that, the bullies seemed abashed. From then on we kept better order among ourselves, despite the taunts and jeers of the sailors, who were angered by such behavior. It was as though it were a reproach that their captives might act more civilized than they. But we knew that without such acts, we had nothing.

  Not even our names were our own. During the journey we were given new names, chosen by the Captain from a book which he carried as he walked the levels below decks, trailed by two sailors, pointing and giving each the appellation by which they were to be known from then forward.

  The sound he gave me seemed strange and unrepeatable. Phil-lip. But the sailor behind him paused and said the name aloud to me and made me repeat it back until he was satisfied and moved on to the next Beast. Phil-lip. Resentment blazed in my chest, for it was not my name, not the name by which my parents and beloved siblings had known me. Was that not part of who I was—my very innermost nature? My name. Phil-lip.

  But I did not give voice to my objections, for I had seen the example made of a resistor. A monstrous Cyclops, who was incongruously soft-spoken to the point where one must strain their ears to hear him, proved quite adamant on the subject of his name, refusing the one given him—Jeremy—and was beaten till he “should acknowledge it,” which rather proved to be the point where he fainted and pails of sea water thrown on his face failed to revive him. He died two days later.

  As the days passed, the realization struck me that I was moving away from my home, and that even should I escape my servitude, I would find myself in a strange land, where I knew no one to help me. Despondent at the thought, I refused to eat and gradually sank into a deep melancholy. It was evident that the sailors cared not whether I lived or died, but the Captain, who had a financial investment in his piteous cargo, forced them to shift me up onto deck in the sunshine and wind. I was placed towards the aft of the ship, in a somewhat sheltered spot, with several other invalids also deemed to be in danger of being carried away by their maladies.

  One of these we knew doomed. A tree spirit named Malva faded with each mile stretching between herself and her tree. The Captain swore greatly upon discovering the nature of her malady, for the seller had deliberately not warned him. She was the sweetest of souls and it was painful to watch her skin grow dull where once it had been luminous. The strands of her hair fell prey to the sea winds, which snatched them away day by day and bore them who knows where.

  After a week and a half of this existence, Malva finally breathed her last. The captain lost no time disposing of the corpse overboard and I forbore to watch, lest I see the gray sharks that followed us quarreling and tearing over the body.

  The Ghouls pleaded to be allowed to dispose of the corpse, as they did each time some unfortunate passed away. The Captain said he did not like to encourage their habits, and for the most part they were denied fresh meat except for such occasions as they were able to hide someone’s death below decks.

  In doing so, they did not have to hide their activities so much from the sailors, who paid us as little attention as they could, as from their fellows, most of whom objected to the thought of being disposed of in such a gruesome wise, although those entirely resigned to their fate said they did not mind being eaten by the Ghouls.

  Once again, Providence stepped in. Prompted by a chance fondness for my form and face, another being intervened and saved me from following Malva’s dreadful fate. The cook, Petro, was a fat man who had once worked in a racing stable. He confided in me that his great desire had been to be a jockey, and that when at the age of twelve, he had realized that his frame would outstrip a rider’s dimensions, he had run away to sea in despair.

  Only Petro’s nursing me with what fresh fruit he had stored away kept me alive. He took me as his pet, and delighted in asking for stories about my village and the Beasts I had encountered in the course of my travels. He was fascinated with the equine part of my body and would groom and caress it, while avoiding that part which seemed Human to him.

  I went so far as to offer him my real name, but he shook his head and insisted that I must think of myself as Phillip from now on, else I might expect to gather unnecessary punishment on myself.

  He explained to me that the world was divided into Humans and Beasts, and that the Gods had given Humans dominion over Beasts, which meant that such creatures could not own themselves, and only be the possession of Humans. He would have offered to buy me, he assured me, except that I was far outside his meager savings. He spoke of the highness of my price as a good thing, because it ensured that someone wealthy, who would be able to maintain me well, would be my purchaser.

  The Dragon was kept at the very back of the ship, which was reckoned less imperiled by its flames. Most of the time its jaws were kept prisoned, but at dawn and dusk, they would release its mouth to feed it a goat from the dwindling herd and let it drink its fill of water. The diet did not suit its bowels, and by the end of the trip, the back of the ship was covered with its gelid feces, despite the sailors’ best efforts to keep it scrubbed free of the substance, which burned bare skin exposed to it.

  As we went north, the weather became more and more winter-like. We all found the cold and damp excruciating. Clothing and blankets were at a premium, and many traded favors or begged bits of clothing from the sailors. Petro gave me his second-best jacket, which he said he had grown too paunchy for. It hung loose on me, but I was glad of the overabundance of the fabric.

  We did not sit out on the deck any more, and so I did not witness our approach to the port of Tabat.
Waiting in the darkness, I strained my ears to make out what I could: the cries of gulls, echoed by the shouts of Humans, the creak of the ship’s timbers and the swish of water, the slap of waves.

  When I left the ship, Petro had tears in his eyes as he waved to me, but I did not think much of him. All my worries were engaged by what was to come. Under the watchful eye of the Captain, we made our way down the gangplank that led from the ship to the dock, shivering in the bitter sea wind, uncertain of our fate.

  Part V

  We arrive in Tabat—the fate of the dragon—I am sold—my new mistress—I am taken to Piper Hill

  We were driven to a vast marketplace, a single roof stretched across hundreds of feet, and six raised platforms where the Beasts and each platform’s Human auctioneer stood. Inside the walls, among the press of the crowd, it was much warmer, so warm that I felt in danger of fainting. The crowd pressed on every side, and the smells were oppressive.

  I saw the Sphinx and others of my fellow captives sold. Then came the Dragon, which they hauled up onto the block in chains. The great iron muzzle was clamped around its jaws so it still could not speak, but it rolled its eyes in fury and tried to flap its wings.

  Alas! It had been denuded of those members and only stumps remained, treated with cautery and tar bandages. At the time I wondered at the savagery of such a gesture and later learned it is customary with Beasts that possess the power of flight, lest they come loose, since in such cases they invariably fly away as quickly as they can.

  The bidding for the Dragon came fast and furious. At length it was sold and dragged away. The bidding was shorter in my case, and after a quick interchange, I was shoved in line behind my purchaser.

  She was a lean woman with dark hair worn in an ornate braid wrapped around her head. Her skin was darker than my own and she was significantly shorter. She gestured at me to follow her, flanked by her guard, a shaggy-headed Minotaur who eyed me wordlessly. His arms were as big around as my chest, or so it seemed to me.

  She bought another Beast, a Dog-man. He and I walked in new sets of chains behind a cart heaped with produce and other goods. I did not speak his language, nor he mine, and so we did not communicate much as we progressed along. At noon, we stopped to rest, and the woman and minotaur ate lunch, although only drinks from a water skin were given to the dog-man and me.

  We arrived at our destination by early evening. A series of white-washed buildings sat atop a cliffside overlooking a small river. The houses seemed quite grand to me at the time, but after I had lived there for some time, I came to see that it was older, and had not been well tended. The bushes in the once lavish garden were overgrown, and in places the faster-growing ones had choked back the shyer, less-assuming plants. The garden grew all manner of medicinal herbs—some outright, others hidden between tree roots or in the shadows of the crumbling rock wall. The outer walls were shaggy with peeling paint, and the gutters drooped as though unable to bear the slightest thought of rain. This was Piper Hill, my new home, which it has remained until now.

  Part VI

  Jolietta begins my training—I am broken to harness—Brutus and Caesar—the dwarf dragons—I am sent out to work—I fall ill—I speak my feelings and am punished

  I soon settled into life at Piper Hill. I set about learning the language as quickly as I could, stung by both Jolietta’s scorn and her lash when she did not think I was applying myself as hard as I could. Jolietta showed me how to work in tandem with another Centaur that she had in her stables, named Michael.

  You would think that an intelligent creature would have little trouble with the concept of the harness, but the truth is that it required strength and dexterity that had not been developed in me by all my confined days aboard the slave ship.

  My physical dexterity was also hampered by my injuries. The day after we arrived at the estate, Jolietta had me tied and whipped until the blood flowed. She told me that we should begin as we meant to go on and that to disobey her would be to get whipped again.

  She demanded to know if I understood her. By now I could make out what she said, for it was the same language many of the sailors had spoken. She went on to tell me my name would continue to be Phillip, as that was the name written on my papers of ownership, but that if I dissatisfied her, she was quite capable of changing my name to something much more degrading.

  By way of example, she was in the process of training an oracular pig, and she called that unfortunate being “Thing” and insisted that we all do the same, although the information quickly passed among us that the pig’s birth name was Tirza.

  I watched Tirza’s training in tandem with my own, and found her sullen example a warning sign of my fate should I rebel too overtly. Like most of her kind, Tirza could speak aloud, as though she were Human, a clear soprano which I had the pleasure of hearing sing on several occasions. She was a good enough soul when one spoke to her outside of Jolietta’s training, but few of us dared hold such conversations, for fear of the beatings that we would be given if we were caught offering the miserable creature solace, either spoken or material.

  I respected the two Minotaur guards that Jolietta had with her almost constantly as she went about the estate on her daily business: Brutus and Cassius. It had been Cassius who had gone with her on her buying trip. Neither of them deigned to speak to the other household Beasts, other than to pass along their mistress’s orders or reprimand us if we mis-served them in some way. They had been with Jolietta, I was told, since they were calves.

  Other members of the household were an orangutan, two Dryads belonging to nearby trees, a Satyr, two Dog-men who worked in the stable, an old Troll who served as cook, and Bebe, a fat old Centaur mare who oversaw the household and was greatly trusted by Jolietta. She was a sly creature, and I quickly learned to confide nothing in her, for she was fond of earning treats and favors from Jolietta by paying with small betrayals—or sometimes much larger—of the other servants.

  The Satyr, Hedonus, professed himself content in his role. He said when he had first been captured and sold, he had worked in the Southern Isles in a salt-making establishment. The Isles were not conducive to health. Hedonus said each year one out of every ten slaves died, and that this death rate, which was better than most, was reckoned to be due to a mixture of lime juice and sulfur that the overseer forced his workers to drink each morning. By contrast to the salt pond, Jolietta’s establishment was luxury indeed, he implied in conversation more than once, and Bebe seemed to feel the same.

  There were others who might not have agreed. Workers served on the estate and a larger group was hired out as needed. These groups were somewhat fluid—servants out of favor might find themselves hired out and conversely a hired worker who did well might find themselves purchased as part of the household or estate workers. While the household servants lived within the house itself and ate in its kitchen, the others lived in small cabins erected at the back of the estate.

  Although the household accommodations were severe, they were luxurious by contrast with these cabins, which were caulked ineffectually with mud and cloth against the severities of the wind. I have stood in one during a storm and heard the whole cabin singing, as though it were nothing but a musical instrument for the wind to sound as it would.

  Mistress Jolietta also raised what are called dwarf dragons, though they are not properly Dragons. The wealthy in that area used them for sport hunting. A single one could kill a creature ten times its size, and a pack of them could bring down anything. These she set me to feeding each day, which meant that I must butcher two goats and several dozen chickens every morning. Tender-hearted, I wept whenever I killed the goats until Jolietta caught me at it and beat me for my tears. After that, I steeled my heart and killed each animal as though it were nothing more than wood made animate and bleating.

  The dragons, of which there were a half dozen or so, were kept in a great pen set against the cliff face that also functioned as the rubbish heaps for the estate, for the dragons pref
erred to nest in such, and let the baking heat combined with the sun brood their eggs. The trees had been cut back so the sunlight could fully enter the pen, and it was a malodorous and noisome place where few cared to go. I took advantage of this to seek solitude in which to heal my injured spirit. I would sit thinking and listening to the rasp of the lizards’ lovemaking—a sandpaper rasp that never seemed to cease, even when eggs were being laid in the pits scraped atop each heap of trash and nightsoil.

  The dragons were worth a deal of money, I gathered. There were two clutches ready to hatch, and Jolietta set me to watching over them at night, sitting up with a torch, waiting to see any motion on a mother dragon’s part that would betoken a hatching taking place.

  The second day of the watch, I was so tired that I fell asleep and woke only when I heard the croaking from a female dragon that announced her progeny.

  The tiny animals crawled out under their mother’s watchful eye and headed for the shelter of the bale of straw Jolietta had directed me to put within a few paces of the heap.

  One crawled beneath me, and I raised my foot, thinking to crush it and thus deprive my owner of a fine sum of money. But it was such a pretty little thing, only a foot long, with fine mottled patterns distinct and new along its scaly sides, and so I stayed my hoof and let it crawl into the straw. Dwarf dragons are as unthinking as animals, so I did not speak to it, now or later.

  Those eggs hatched fine, but the other batch did not, and when this became evident due to the length of time that had passed, Jolietta held me accountable and beat me. While she had me beneath the lash, I cried out, saying that she had no right to do such a thing to me, and that I would run away, as soon as I was able. She merely laughed at me. We both knew every hand would be against a runaway Beast.

  It would not be the last time she beat me, or that I saw another servant beaten. A small hut crouched towards the back of the estate, a great hook set dangling from its blackened roof beams. She would suspend the unfortunate victim by the wrists from this hook and the rest of the household would be assembled in order to watch and learn from their unfortunate fellow’s example.

 

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