by Carol Berg
“Come now, slave, you want to be nice and clean for the slavemaster, don’t you?”
They used a brush or a mop or some such contrivance to swab me down, then sluiced me off with another pail of water. Naked and shivering, I almost jumped a handspan off the ground when someone began to poke and prod my back and limbs. A helpless, horrid feeling. He moved around in front of me, a short, tidy Zhid whose eyes made my skin shrivel when he looked at my face. Pulling a length of cord from several that hung from a ring on his belt, the tidy man wrapped it snugly about my neck. I jerked backward, trying to calm myself with the thought that it had been awfully stupid to go to the trouble of washing me if I were going to be throttled. Indeed he removed it right away, paying no heed to my jumpiness.
“Give this to Dujene,” he said, scoring the cord with a small knife and handing it to one of my guards. “You seem to be a fine specimen.”
I presumed the last was to me, but I wasn’t used to making pleasant conversation with a hostile stranger who had free access to all of my vital parts.
“What is your name? And don’t be stupid. We’ll know if you lie.”
“V’Saro of Sen Ystar.”
“Age?”
“Forty-three.”
“Profession?”
“Swordmaster.”
“Indeed? And your true talent?”
“Minor Horsemaster. No time for anything else.” Stupid to think I had to apologize for my lack of talent to a cursed Zhid.
His pale eyes and his thick hands continued to inspect and examine me. “Too bad your true talents are insufficient to make you a warrior. Your physical construction demands it. But a practice slave will be about the best you can do. Some live quite a long time, months, on occasion. You’ll have to rely on your physical prowess alone, but—”
“Dujene is ready,” said one of the guards.
“Tell him this one’s for the practice pens. If he’s a decent fighter, he might be useful.”
I was led into a dim, smoky room that greeted me with a blast of heat. My stomach knotted as they half pushed, half pulled me onto my knees on the dirt floor. The stench of fear permeated the place. That scream had originated here.
“Spread him.” My hands were detached from each other and pulled forward and apart, forcing my upper body onto a slanted, and very cold, stone slab. Once my hands were fixed in place, someone removed the loose iron ring to which my neck-chain had been attached. Good riddance, I thought.
I couldn’t lift my head far enough to see much beyond the cold granite in front of my nose. A blurry dark-clothed figure hovered about my head. I didn’t like the blaze that roared behind him. Not one bit.
Someone spread a cold ointment on my neck while whispering words of enchantment. I inhaled deeply, trying to ease the dread that constricted every aching muscle. I smelled hot metal. They had talked of collars.
“This should do him,” said a dry voice. “We’ll see what sort of stomach such a sturdy fellow has.” Hands lifted my head and slipped a strip of hot metal between me and the stone. And, of course, in the position I was, I couldn’t pull back, not far enough to do any good when they wrapped it about my neck and it scalded the ointment away.
I didn’t scream. It was bearable; surely it was bearable. Go deep . . . do not feel . . . let it pass. . . .
As the Zhid spoke enchantments that curdled my blood, the hot metal shifted and flowed and settled into position, smooth and close-fitting. Then they threw cold water over me. Sick and trembling, I thought I had come through the worst.
“Anyone important about who wants the pleasure of the seal?”
“You’ll have to set them yourself. Master hasn’t been seen all day, and he has no guests. I’ve got to get the next one ready. We’ve a hundred more.”
“Ah, I can do them faster anyway.” The guard went away, leaving only the man in black.
“Well, slave, one more thing to do. The joining. Back here . . .” He ran his finger along the narrow slot where the ends of the collar lay along my spine. “As Slavemaster Gernald would tell you if he were considerate enough to make himself available, we’ve discovered a substance far more effective than dolemar in controlling Dar’Nethi power. Mordemar it’s called. Not only prevents any use of true talent, you won’t be able to acquire power for it neither. No more of it. Ever again. Your collar will be with you until you die, and so you will spend the rest of your days half a man. Enjoy it.”
Liquid dripped on the strip of skin exposed between the ends of the collar. Hot, though nothing compared to the searing collar itself. But as the liquid seal filled the gap, completing the ring about my neck, it gnawed its way into my being as surely as acid devours flesh. And then I screamed.
Suffocation . . . paralysis . . . blindness . . . What words can convey the loss? A soul excised, the mind uprooted and ripped apart, the world reduced to two dimensions instead of three. What would be the universe without a color like red or blue or green? What would life be if there were, all of an instant, only men, or only women, or if there were to be no children ever again?
As the seal cooled and hardened, my screams faded to weeping. I had lost the Way. I could not savor the moment because I could not see the colors of the fire, only the blaze of it. I could not see the marvelous intricacies of the granite on which my tears fell, only a cold slab. No longer could I feel the air on my bare skin and sense all the places that air had been, the faces it had touched. I could feel only the cold and the heat and the pain. Death and cruelty could no longer be fit into any larger meaning, for the ability to take them into myself and see beyond had been stripped from me. No more. Ever again. Better . . . far better if they had taken my mind, if I had been made nameless and cruel, so long as I did not understand what I had lost.
I could not have said when they removed the common shackles from my wrists, replaced them with wide, close-fitting bands of the same dark metal, and sealed them as well. When one is in uttermost despair, no pain or indignity can make it worse. After removing the hobbles, they gave me a gray tunic to cover myself, hooked a tether chain to my collar, and led me back to the slave pen. They had removed the dead and the crippled, and put down clean straw. Everyone remaining had close-cropped hair, gray tunics, and collars, and like each one of them, I huddled into myself against the bitter night.
CHAPTER 32
Morning. The sun was scarcely risen, and the pen was already stifling. Those of us in the cage could not even look at each other—not from any enchantment, but because by seeing we would acknowledge the reality of what had been done to us. It was an unspeakable violation, an unimaginable horror to be so maimed.
Step back. Observe. Learn everything there is to learn. You are not alone. . . .
Stupid. Of course I was alone. The collar separated me from all of life, from my race, from everyone I knew and everything I had ever been.
You are not alone. There are others. Watch and learn. . . .
Thoughts and calculations running rampant in my head, as if I had heart or mind to care. Madness nibbling at my edges. Listen . . . outside the cage . . . why are we left so long untended?
“Are they to be fed then?” Someone outside the cage. “It would be a waste to have brought them this far if not. We were up half the night getting them fixed.”
“I’ve no orders.”
“Somebody’s got to know.”
“Bring me orders and I’ll feed ’em. Not till then.”
I was tempted to call after them that they shouldn’t bother feeding us, but instead I leaned my head against the cage and tried to see between the bars. It was hopeless. The field of vision was so narrow. Hard-packed earth, endless movement, horses—I could smell them. Hundreds of foot soldiers marching, drilling . . .
“Have you heard about Gernald?”
“Aye. In his bath, they said.”
“And he’d only been here a month.”
“Looks like he ate something off.”
“Someone new’s been sent by. . .
.”
The two passed beyond my hearing. Why did their words fill me with such despair?
More bits of meaningless conversation drifted by. Shouted orders. A great deal of activity. Sen Ystar may have been the first to feel the Zhid assault, but it would not be the last. These were not small raiding parties being prepared. Avonar . . . oh, Avonar, be vigilant. . . .
I must have drifted off to sleep in the heat, for when the gate to the pen opened and the guard yelled, “Up, you lazy pigs,” the angle of the shadow cage had changed significantly. I considered not following, but the Zhid had shown us on the first day of captivity what disobedience would mean—the death of another captive. Quite simply, they would make you a murderer. It didn’t matter that the poor soul would most likely thank me for causing his death. I couldn’t do it. So I put myself in line with the rest.
Four armed guards were waiting at the gate. “This one for the mines. . . . For house slave . . . For the farms . . .” They were sorting us.
I was the first to be designated “practice slave,” and was pushed back into the pen. Evidently the collars were marked with our assignment. When the next practice slave was selected, I saw the image of a sword etched into the dark metal of his collar, so I guessed mine had one also. I almost reached up to find out, but I could not make myself touch the thing.
Three of us were designated to be practice slaves. As soon as the assignments were complete and our former companions led away, we were taken inside the building again, this time to stand before a pale man with a narrow, aristocratic face. He sat behind a wide desk in a bare, windowless, stifling room, flanked by two heavily armed Zhid.
“Only three this lot?”
“Yes, Slavemaster,” said the Zhid who had brought us in.
“I understand we’ve used up three practice slaves this week alone. We’ll have to do better.”
“There’s another lot due tomorrow.”
“Well, let’s have a look at these.” The Zhid officer rose from his desk and walked around us slowly, poking at each of us with the handle of a whip. He stopped in front of us. “So, my Dar’Nethi friends. You’ve been chosen to die in order to make your enemies invincible. The time of your death will depend on how diligent you are—and how obedient. You will be required to fight to the best of your ability, even if it means death to one of our warriors.” He tapped his whip in his hand. “Because you must be able to fight effectively, we cannot bind you with the same compulsions we use on other slaves. But we do have methods to prevent your taking advantage of your freedoms. You will be penned when not in use, and—Let me show you what I mean. You”—he pointed the whip handle at me—“kneel.”
I did so. Grudgingly. But I did.
“It is required that a slave spread his arms when kneeling. Ten lashes if you fail to do so again.”
He stood close enough that I could smell his slightly astringent sweat. “Now, take me down.” I looked up stupidly, and he spit in my face. “Are you deaf? Obey, or one of your companions will find himself without a head. Take me down.”
With much misgiving, I swept my arms around to grab his knees, releasing far too much anger in the process. But I had scarcely touched him when he laid his finger on my collar. Spasms of fire rippled through my muscles, my chest, my limbs . . . everywhere. The collar constricted my throat, so I couldn’t get a breath. When he took his hand away, I collapsed, gasping and shaking, huddled in a mindless knot on the floor.
The Zhid resumed his seat. “Cinnegar here is your keeper and will tell you how it is you will eat, sleep, clean yourself, and train. Speak without permission, and we will remove your tongue. You have no life that is your own, no function save what we require of you, and so it will be until you die.”
For the rest of the day, Cinnegar, a short, burly Zhid with reddish hair and a nasty scar on his left cheek, put the three of us through one exercise after another. We ran, jumped, and demonstrated our skills with bows and staves, and he had us fight each other with a variety of blades and knives, and with bare hands, our only orders not to damage each other. We worked in an unshaded, walled compound, but were allowed to dip into a water barrel as often as we needed and eat graybread until we felt bloated.
One of my companions was a scrawny youth of about twenty. He was a decent fighter, precise and quick with his movements, able to present a variety of attacks and defenses, but he had no training in tactics and no endurance at all. Our second left him panting and lead-footed. Eight days of the desert and the horror of the collaring had done nothing for any of us, of course, and my own arms felt heavy early on. My feet were wretched. Raw and stinging, they bled as we worked.
The second man was nearer my own age, a short, blocky fellow with thick brows. He had no skills, only brute strength and such fear that it brought him near frenzy when I wrestled with him.
“Calm yourself,” I growled in his ear as we rolled on the ground. “Live.” I pinned him in moments. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears rolled down his leathery cheeks. As I stood and reached out my hand to help him up, he gripped it ferociously.
By sundown we were too tired to move. Cinnegar made no comments about our efforts. He shoved us into individual cells in a stable-like block of them, giving us each a basket of graybread and a waterskin. “Bang on the bars if you need more. Someone might come or might not.” He showed us how to ask permission to speak. You put the back of your hand against your lips, then drew it sharply away.
Even after Cinnegar left us alone, we kept silent. Though no guards were in sight, I wasn’t willing to risk my tongue by saying anything.
I sank down on the straw and picked a chunk of graybread from the basket. Eating was about the last thing I wanted to do at the moment, but I forced myself. The days would get no easier, I guessed, and I wanted to live. As I leaned against the bars, staring at a second unappetizing lump, a motion from one of the other cells caught my eye. The older man had lifted his own bread to me in salute. I returned his gesture, and we matched each other bite for bite through piece after piece of the sour stuff.
With every swallow, I felt the collar. Could one ever become accustomed to such a thing? It was wide enough to prevent a complete range of motion with the head—something to be considered in combat. The Zhid warriors would know. It was as tight as it could possibly fit without choking, tight enough to keep you on the near-edge of panic all the time, tight enough you could never forget it. Tentatively I reach my hand up to touch the thing. Oh, gods . . . I heaved up all the foul stuff I had eaten, and after an hour’s venture into the realm of despair, I fell asleep shivering and empty. At some time in the night, though, I woke and forced myself to eat. I had to live. It was imperative that I live. I just couldn’t imagine why I felt that way.
For a week the three of us trained together every day, all day, under the watchful eye of Cinnegar or one of his deputies. The work was long, hard, and viciously hot, but we managed. Each day I grew a little stronger, my principal worry being my feet. Swollen and festering, they’d become so tender that even to stand still was agony.
At the end of the week, the slavemaster came to watch our practice. “Have you decided on placement?” he asked Cinnegar.
“This one should stay here.” The red-haired Zhid pointed to the older man. “He can join the battle exercise planned for next week. He is mediocre at best and is unlikely to survive more than one or two rounds. The youth has improved his stamina, but will always be unexceptional in his skills. However, he could serve us in a low-level training unit. Niemero’s unit lost a slave last week, and this one can replace him. This one”—his pale eyes fell on me—“is interesting. If he were to get his feet in better condition, he could possibly begin work with the command training unit. Sword training in particular. He might do very well.”
“I hear that your eye is excellent, Keeper Cinnegar. As I’m new to the post, I shall have to rely on it. All shall be done as you recommend.”
Cinnegar bowed to the slavemaster, and then return
ed us to the pen. The youth was taken that evening. He nodded to each of us as he was tethered and led out of the pen. Not long after that, one of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me, linking my hands and feet and hooking a chain to the collar. The other man saluted me with his graybread one last time and sat alone in the pen as I was taken away.
The slavehandler marched me through the vast encampment to another “stable” of black bars—a long cage attached to one end of a brick building. “Here’s the new one to put away,” he said to a warrior who stood in an open doorway in the brick wall, drinking from a metal cup. “His first placing. Only a sevenday in.”
The guard, a wide-nosed fellow with deep weather creases across his brow, poured out the remaining contents of his cup, splattering damp globs of sand on my legs. After hooking his cup to his belt, he took my tether from the slavehandler and raked an insolent gaze over me from head to sandy toes. “Big fellow.” He coiled the tether chain around his hand until my face was only a hand’s breadth from his own, his soulless gray eyes unblinking. His meaty finger traced a line across my shoulder. When his finger encountered my collar, I flinched. He grinned—a grotesque, unnerving expression on a damnable Zhid. But he just tapped on the metal surface without triggering the enchantment. “We’ll see how long he can stay alive.”
“I’ve got to fetch Gorag,” said the handler. “Keeper says we’re to see to his feet.” As my escort hurried into the night, the guard released the tether to its full length and dragged me through the door.
We stood in a small open space, sheltered by the brick wall behind and to the right of us and a brick enclosure to the left. The Zhid jerked his head to two doorways on the left. “Supply room and surgeon’s room. Over here”—he indicated the corner to our right where a rectangular stone sink stood half filled with nasty-looking water—“is where you will wash yourself before a match. Our commanders don’t like fighting with slaves who are filthy.”