Heaven Fall

by Leonard Petracci

  Chapter 15: Draysky

  “I’m going to throw them into the Grinder,” Draysky’s father growled, the lit vaporweed in his mouth keeping him from marching over to the tavern where the Keepers’ shouting could be heard, Draysky’s grandmother tolerating the smoke as she watched his mother fix the bandages on Draysky’s hands.

  “Madness. Absolute madness throwing you down there on day one. Didn’t teach you the commands, the technique, nothing. It’s like they were trying to get you killed.”

  He paced, glaring as he saw the raw palms underneath the bandages, and Aila finished grinding an herb poultice in a mortar and pestle.

  “Fetch his clothes,” Draysky’s grandmother commanded, and Aila departed to his room, returning with the outerwear Draysky had considered tattered before he had climbed the mountain. “The dust on the sleeves, sprinkle that into the poultice. A little bit of rock for strength, give your palms some proper calluses for tomorrow.”

  Aila did so then handed it to his mother, who kneaded the mixture into the open sores, Draysky wincing as his father continued his rant.

  “Tomorrow? No way in all the hells is he going back tomorrow.”

  “You telling the Keepers that?” asked Draysky’s grandmother, fixating him in her stare. “What do you think will happen then, that they’ll send him back as a chiseler? No, they will sink deeper in their convictions. The more we struggle, the more they notice. The more they’ll press him. He’s already taken the eye of one of them, and that’s unlikely to change. Not good to have the eye of a Keeper. Terrible, terrible luck.”

  “I won’t have him dying in the Grinder–”

  “Peh. Soft. You’re soft. Our ancestors experienced far worse than you. I would think he comes from stronger stock.” His grandmother was standing now, and poked Draysky’s father in the chest, a full two heads shorter than him but still managing to dwarf him. “Before tomorrow, you’ll train him. You’ll teach him not to get killed. Then you’ll leave the rest to me. I’ll make the right herb mixtures to heal him at nights. And perhaps, just perhaps, that ludicrous grand plan of yours might come to fruition then, eh?”

  “Grand plan?” said his father, his voice shocked.

  “I can count just as well as the rest of them, don’t think my vision has gotten that bad. You don’t want to tell me about it? Fine. But it doesn’t take too much to guess. Now, teach him what you can. He’ll need some sleep if these herbs are going to work.”

  Over the next hour, Draysky’s father instructed him on the hand signals, calls, and techniques of the ridgers. He taught him when to take shelter, how to tell if the Grinder was close to belching by its tone, and how to properly thread the rope through his belt to prevent tangling. He focused more upon the safety and procedural aspects, skirting around the ways to find crystal more efficiently, or how to properly use the pickaxe.

  “What matters most to me is you live through this. We’ll worry about making you a productive ridger later,” he said as Draysky’s mother fed him a second helping of soup, holding the spoon that Draysky could no longer grip as the poultice set in. “After your next shift, there is something I need to show you. But right now, I don’t want you getting distracted.”

  When Draysky awoke the next day, his shoulder blades and back knotted together, and it seemed as if someone had cut the muscles in his neck so one side was shorter than the other. His eyes fluttered as he heard his name being called, but his sleeping pallet called louder, the wood supporting his back and mass of blankets refusing to release their precious trapping of heat. Then his nose seared with a sharp sensation, as if someone had punched it, and his eyes flew open as he bolted upright.

  “Wake up!” his grandmother said again, corking a small tube she held in her hand whose content’s smell had been strong enough to yank him from slumber. “Can’t have you being late, and you keep your mouth shut today, you hear me? No getting the attention of the Keepers. You are as invisible as salt on snow. Now, your hands?”

  Draysky held his hands out, palms up, staring at the substance that now coated them. A mixture of gray and green, layered over the blisters, but thick enough to protect them. His grandmother studied them, licking her finger and experimentally trying to rub some away, the coating resisting.

  “Good. You keep your gloves on, you understand? This will last you today. And don’t you let dust get onto this.”

  “What happens if I do?”

  She fixed him with a weary eye that silenced him. “Problems.”

  Already, Draysky’s mother had prepared him and his father breakfast. Their schedules varied due to the Keepers’ preference, but generally they would be on the Grinder at the same time, but at opposite ends. The crews always left slightly offset to reduce the risk of a shale slide, and with four different teams yet only three harvesting, every fourth day was for resting. That morning, his father left earlier than he did, and his mother stooped over him, holding his face in her hands.

  “Draysky, listen to me,” she said softly, her winter blue eyes peering into his, so close he could smell the mint in her dark hair. “You mustn’t let anything happen to you up there. Cuts and scrapes I can fix, but what happened to the ridger you replaced, I cannot. I can’t even think about it happening to you. With you working the mountain, when you return the fire will be warm. Make sure you come home to it.”

  Then she released him, and soon Draysky was trudging back up the mountain, grunting as he carried his pack, the exhaustion from the day before threatening to crumple him. But the bitterness from the thoughts of Oliver kept him walking as he recalled what he had said just before leaving, when handing out the chits from the last shift. It was standard practice to pay before a shift, for anyone late received no pay for their last day of work.

  “Ah, my favorite little ridger. Here is your pay, boy.” He counted three stones with iron inlaid in them and handed it to Draysky, the same that Erki had received in line before him.

  “If I’m pickaxing, shouldn’t I get a ridger’s pay?”

  “You’re an apprentice, still!” said Oliver. “Besides, you only brought up half the load as the others.

  “He brought up the largest piece of crystal I’ve ever seen,” countered Burnsby. “We both know that’s worth a fortune. And you plan on paying him as a chiseler? How is he supposed to buy supplies?”

  “He already inherited a free pickaxe from the look of it. Seems fair. But yes, you are right, he does deserve extra compensation. One more iron for the find. And a tin each day for the double pack of water you’ll be carrying, as a sign of my personal thanks.”

  Draysky’s grandmother’s words echoed in his head as he accepted the coins. Don’t you open your mouth. He could hear the blood pumping in his ears, and he squeezed the tin chit so hard the thought the metal would jump out. A tin was the lowest denomination. At best, it might pay for a slice of bread, and a thin slice at that. Oliver smiled, his eyes knowing as Draysky donned the packs, flipping another tin chit in his hand as they ascended. Challenging him to speak up.

  But Draysky stayed silent. And now, on the trudge up the mountain, he struggled to keep pace with the others, even after passing off his pickaxe to Burnsby. Then it was down into the Grinder, this time his backward fall more controlled, utilizing the grip methods his father taught him the night before. He watched the other ridgers as they swept their pickaxes, taking note of how deep they dredged before kicking back off to investigate a new position, dancing around the slopes like spiders on the end of long strands. He learned to emulate their stance for balance and the swinging motion of their shoulders to conserve energy, and when it was time to return with crystal he had nearly three quarters of the amount as those experienced. Then he stood at the top as Burnsby rappelled down, grunting each time his heels struck stone. Draysky watched for signs of the mountain belching, then hauled up the crystal when full. This day stretched longer than the one before. He was no longer filled with adrenaline and fear, but rather sore muscles and grunting work. The G
rinder didn’t bother to belch once. Even the wind seemed too complacent to stir.

  Trudging back, he’d carried his load of unchiseled rocks—Oliver claimed that since he was a chiseler and a pickaxer, he could perform both duties, and he conveniently ignored the extra time requirement. When he returned home and collapsed on his bed, his grandmother stripped him of his gloves, inspecting his palms where the hardened poultice still remained, tapping at it with a finger and washing it away with salt water, though the underlying layer still clung to his skin like a callus.

  “You do not bite at your nails, correct?” she asked, flaking away a small piece of it and holding it up to the light, and Draysky shook his head.

  “Good. Not good for you if you ingest this. Be careful when you eat, you understand? Don’t let that get into your food.”

  “How am I supposed to eat without my hands?” asked Draysky, throwing her a tired look. “Did you put poison on them or something?”

  “You can use a fork like the rest of civilization,” retorted his grandmother. “Just don’t start licking your palms. Now, go back to your sister once a week until your skin is thick enough to handle the axe. No more than that, you understand?”

  “Easy enough,” said Draysky, lowering himself back into bed and staying there until dinner was prepared. The wafting smell of fresh stew lured him downstairs where the rest of the family was already at the table. As his mother had promised, the heater was burning hot. After they had all eaten, his father took his shoulder, pulling him outside into the frosty air. They walked around to the front of the house, the sun long descended from the sky, facing the Kriskian Mountains. Then they stood silent for a moment until his father spoke, his breath fogging the air between them.

  “My whole life, I spent here, Draysky. It wasn’t a bad life, not necessarily. We made it through the worst winters, we’ve never had it as rough as some of the others, and I’ve been fortunate to have met your mother. The Keepers typically pass us by. But what I do know is that there is so much more out there. For your mother and me, for you and your sister. When I met your mother, I became determined to see it. Do you remember why we have to stay here, Draysky? Do you remember what our chains are?”

  “Debt,” Draysky said, recalling the paltry amount he had earned for a day in the Grinder.

  “Debt,” his father agreed. “But that is not the real reason. That is just an excuse. The pickaxes cost too much, the food is exorbitant, the housing fee calculated. The Keepers know what we make, Draysky, and they watch what we spend. They don’t intend for any of us to escape that debt. But we will. Especially with your help, now sooner than ever.”

  He stopped before the well, pulling up the bucket from the bottom and setting it to the side. Then he ran his fingers around the stone edge, one that he had to raise each year to account for the shale, stopping at a stone that jutted out just a hair's breadth more than the others. He tapped it, then wiggled it out of position, the rock coming free in a shower of dust. Then he repeated the action for the column of rocks just like it running up the base, pulling each out in turn and placing it around the rim, before fishing into the shaft like hole and retrieving a thin rope.

  “This has been here ever since the day I married your mother,” his father said, turning the rope in his hands. “Whenever we have had excess, we have contributed. But even in the coldest winters, on the hungriest days, we did not dare to withdraw.”

  He heaved on the rope, pulling hand over hand upward, the long unused rope straining and twisting as it rose. Then a thin mesh rose above the well’s surface, a basket, and Draysky’s mouth fell open as the moon illuminated the contents.

  Chits, hundreds of chits, each with their piece of metal glittering as the basket slowly turned from the single point of suspension. More money than Draysky could earn in a year on his own. No, years on his own.

  “Some of this you helped with, when I told you to throw chits in for luck,” his father said, keeping his voice low. “Whether from your lighters, or from making it through nights with a little less firewood. This is our freedom, Draysky. Your grandmother remembers stories from her own grandmother of when we were not here. Of when we were rounded up and forced here, and bound by the Keepers. When she was a girl, she lived outside the outpost, and now I will make sure we can too. That your sister can become a true doctor, and that you won’t have to die in the Grinder.”

  Carefully, his father let the basket fall, then wrapped an arm around Draysky’s shoulders.

  “This is our secret, Draysky. No one can know. And soon, two years from now when I take this before the Silver Keeper and demand that we repay our debt, they’ll have to say yes. That’s the day we become free. We’ll need your help, Draysky, to get there. But by then, we’ll have so many chits that they dare not refuse in front of the entire assembly.”

  Draysky’s throat tightened, and he straightened his back. Remembering how his father had always mended the roof himself, never employing someone else to take care of it. Or how his mother sewed their clothes until they fell apart, and his grandmother used her herbs to make the meals stretch. Then his sister, learning to heal others from a young age, and like him dropping a spare coin into the well as thanks whenever she had a fortunate day.

  The sneering face of Oliver rose to the forefront of his mind, as he tossed him the tin chit for carrying water up the mountain. A chit he had thrown away in frustration due to its near worthlessness.

  “I understand,” Draysky said, looking down as he remembered the sight of the chits disappearing into the shale, chits he had not cared for moments before. “And Father... Thank you. I had no idea. I would have worked harder.”

  “I know. But now you do, and you have worked plenty hard already, Draysky. You’re growing quicker than I could have imagined. It won’t be long before you’re the top ridger in the house!”

  “I’ll make you proud,” Draysky promised. “I’ll save as much as I can for when the Silver Keeper comes back.”

  Then they returned inside, and Draysky snuck out later that night to dig for his tin chit he had thrown into the shale and drop it into the well.

  Chapter 16: Oliver

  “Well lookie here, we’ve got three new chiselers. Look who is on water duty now?”

  Oliver stared down at the three fresh boys on their first day on the mountain, their forearms untainted by dust, their eyes still swollen from sleep in the morning air. Over the last six months, the other chiselers had slowly transformed into ridgers, all while Draysky worked the Grinder. Erki’s chest heaved up and down the mountain each day as he carried his pickaxe, while Draysky’s muscles were long accustomed to the extra load from carrying the water. Now he maintained a position in the middle of the pack, despite the baggage, the muscles in his upper legs firming to accommodate. While the other prior chiselers struggled to fill their buckets with crystal, Draysky always finished among the top half of the ridgers, and his partner always strained to pull up the haul.

  “You’ve proven yourself, Mr. Strongman. Got no issues with the double water. Well now, it’s time to pass on the torch. Give some of the freshies a chance, eh?”

  Oliver gestured as the fresh chiselers, but Draysky only walked over to the water packs, shouldering his usual two of them in addition to his pickaxe.

  “Don’t need to,” said Draysky, starting up the trail with a grunt, as the footsteps of the Keeper kept up behind him.”

  “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here with that!”

  Draysky turned around, walking backward and making eye contact with Oliver. Only a few months back, when he’d started as a chiseler, there had been a slight incline to his gaze. But now, their eyes met on level ground—the Keeper’s fingers instinctually twitched within his velvet glove.

  “I want my tin chits.”

  The Keeper stopped, bewildered, before breaking out into a sharp laugh.

  “That desperate? Damn ridgers will do anything for a speck of metal! Well go on, you can get your chit
s then! Sure you don’t want to go for three waters?”

  “Are you offering?” Draysky asked, already leaning over to pick up another pack. At this rate, he’d be harder pressed to balance the stack than actually to bear their weights.

  “No, no. Get on, you greedy bastard.”

  Draysky was already walking away, the first to start trudging up the mountain. Tin chits were tiny, worthless; but one every day into the well added up into several days’ worth of work over the course of the year. Several days closer to departure.

  When he was on the mountain, Draysky daydreamed of the far off lands—ones that his grandmother had told him about from her own grandmother. Of lakes, which were like the snow plains but water, and as warm as her tea. Of the forests supposedly so verdant you could survive by simply picking berries off the vegetation, and so plentiful with game that fat rabbits hopped right into the steaming pot. Perhaps most captivating were the apprenticeships—of the metalworkers, or the horsemen, or even the Keepers themselves.

  Each time he tossed crystal into his pail, he wondered how much more it could buy him after they left. Just how valuable was it, exactly, outside their outpost? But the Keepers searched for crystal carefully after returning to the bottom of the mountain, carrying a forked metal instrument with crystal inlaid into the metal that chimed when closed to another crystal source. Once Draysky had been forced to strip down to his bare chest in the cold, only to find a sliver of crystal that had pierced through the back of his coat, the Keepers only moments away from ripping into the fabric before the material tumbled free into the snow.

  When Draysky returned home from ridging, he now took up carving lighters once more, humming as he worked, his fingers guided by dedication. Some nights his sister watched him as she prepared herbs for their grandmother; some that required drying, others with special wrappings to protect against moisture, and some that she powdered and mixed.