“Good. Done.”
Looking up, Glaen blinked through his tears and looked at Rezji, but the woman wouldn’t meet his eye. Again, that only made it worse. His chest felt tight, and he bit the inside of his lip. Rezji motioned to the pot.
“See? Full. Done. Time for breakfast.”
A laugh bubbled out of Glaen’s chest, pushing past the bile and the grief. “Breakfast?”
“Yes. Breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Rezji shrugged. “We go anyway. Here. Wash your hands.”
She handed Glaen a rag she’d pulled from some pocket, a scrap of cloth, mottled and stained. Glaen tried to scrub away the blood but it was half dried already, caking into the creases of his knuckles, under his nails.
“I find you after breakfast. We pluck feathers next.”
Glaen nodded dumbly, turning away. He wasn’t hungry, not at all, just tired and deflated and nauseated. As he climbed the stairs to brighter floors, he saw his own clothes were splattered with blood and dotted with stray feathers, but they had only given him one outfit.
He stopped at one of the privies, using the water from the pump to wash his hands, but he couldn’t seem to get the blood from beneath his nails or the last of the splinters from his skin. He tried to summon the scarce comfort of Gianna’s ghost from the corners of his mind, but she had been replaced now by the terrible nightmare face, pale and covered in her own blood.
Rezji came up behind him and gave Glaen such a start that it sent his heart galloping again. He stepped aside, wiping his wet hands on his shirt. Rezji patted Glaen on the arm as they passed each other, forcing a lopsided smile. The scars on the right side of her face pulled her mouth tighter on that side.
“Who is Gianna? You say her name. Your lover?”
“Yes.” Glaen’s voice was hoarse when he answered, but at least the woman met his gaze now.
“She dead?”
“Yes.”
Rezji nodded. “The dead are many here. As many as the living, I think. We all have our dead who we carry with us.”
Glaen saw the young man in the mess hall. He sat hunched over his bowl, foot propped up on the bench beside him. Glaen ambled over with his bowl of breakfast gruel. He wasn’t sure what was in it exactly. All he could smell was chicken blood and his stomach clenched miserably.
Glaen settled across from the youth, trying to imagine what to say. An apology didn’t seem sufficient. He shifted his serving of gruel around the bowl with his spoon as he tried to untangle his thoughts. When he tried to force a small bite into his mouth, the scab split open and sent fresh blood oozing. The smell of it turned his stomach and he feared he might start vomiting.
“Thank you.” When the young man spoke, it took Glaen by surprise. Even the words seemed baffling, and Glaen stared at the youth for a while.
When the meaning finally dawned on him—the young man was thanking him for helping in the conflict with the guards—he shrugged. He touched his lip at the memory, dabbing the blood away. “Seemed the least I could do.”
“The least anyone can do is nothing at all. Especially here. So, thank you for not doing nothing.”
“I had to do something. It was probably my fault . . .”
“Your fault?”
“You’re kind to pretend it isn’t.” Glaen pushed the porridge around again, spooning a small bite into his mouth. He dabbed his lip, grimacing.
The youth ate a few bites of his own gruel. The grim look on his face suggested it was a struggle for him, too. But then, it was probably a challenge to find things that weren’t a struggle here. Everything seemed designed to extend their misery as much as possible.
“I’m sorry, I can’t recall your name.” The youth looked up again. “I don’t think we’ve met before this morning.”
“Glaen. Glaen Forsooth.”
“You should eat it, even if you don’t want to. If they see you refuse food, they start giving you less.”
“I haven’t an appetite these days.”
“Eat anyway. You need your strength.”
Glaen dragged the bowl closer, forcing down another small spoonful. “And you? What’s your name?”
“Jason Blackwood.”
Glaen flinched at the name, like a thumb pressing into the wound rent across his soul. “I knew a Blackwood. Don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again now that I’m here, curse his foul head. Tashué Blackwood.”
“My father.”
Glaen scoffed at the absurdity of it. Tashué Blackwood’s son, here, in this place?
“I know, I don’t look much like him. I take after my mother. I’m told I inherited his stubbornness, though.”
“Did he send you here?”
“Just about everyone asks that.” Jason pushed the last of his porridge around his bowl a few times in spite of his own advice. “The father is a regulation officer and the son is tainted. Surely the father must have sent the son away for the shame of having such a foul offspring! He wouldn’t do that. He begged me to register so that I could avoid this place, but I couldn’t bear it. Everyone else asks why he didn’t save me. He wouldn’t do that either. He was always a firm believer in letting me face the costs of my choices.”
Again, the silence stretched between them as Glaen sat rooted in place. It seemed all too terrible to conceive. How could anyone allow their own child, their flesh and blood, to come to a place like this? Glaen looked at Jason again, trying to fathom how old he was. Surely not yet twenty? How long had he been here? Had he always been so slim, so waifish? Or had this place sucked all the vitality out of him?
“Sorry. I’m babbling.” Jason shifted, gritting his teeth. “He sent you here, I suppose?”
“He did.”
“I’m sorry.”
Glaen shook his head. It would take a man far pettier than he was to hold Jason accountable for the actions of his father and yet some deep part of him was burning, twisting, raging.
Someone passed, knocking against Jason’s leg. He gritted his teeth, swinging his leg back down and off the bench, tucking it away to relative safety beneath the table.
“What do you do when you go downstairs?”
“What?” Jason seemed off-balance at the question. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what Glaen was talking about, Glaen thought, but rather was surprised that Glaen brought it up at all.
“I haven’t told anyone. I won’t. I’ve done enough damage already. It’s just that I don’t sleep well. I worked as a brightman, you see, so I’ve become accustomed to being awake at night.”
“It was you?”
Glaen nodded once, leaning over his porridge to get closer. “You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t realize . . . That’s why you were at the top of the stairs? Waiting?”
Another nod. “When you didn’t come back, I was worried. I never meant for you to get hurt, I just wondered . . .” Wondered what? Glaen asked himself. Would Jason admit to Glaen if he was trying to escape?
“It’s just that I like the quiet. There are so few chances to be alone.”
“Oh.” Glaen settled back, looking down at his bowl. The disappointment was profound, echoing in the emptiness at the centre of him. He tried to tell himself not to be surprised. Even if Jason was trying to escape, he wouldn’t admit it to a man he barely knew. “Of course. It was very peaceful down there.”
In spite of the pain in his lip, in spite of the blood scent on his hands, he spooned the gruel into his mouth. He was certain Jason was lying. Jason had found a way out of this place. Tashué Blackwood’s son would not sit idly in a place like this. And Glaen meant to be there when Jason Blackwood made his escape.
The pot of blood had been taken away and replaced with a pot of water above hot coals. The water inside simmered just below a full boil. Sweat trickled down Glaen’s body. The coals and the steam made the room oppressively hot. Under Rezji’s direction, Glaen held the stiff, cold chickens by their feet, and dipped their bodies into the water. This, Glaen ca
me to understand, loosened the feathers for plucking. They sat side by side, pinching the feathers and ripping them away. There was a bag to put the feathers in, but they stuck to Glaen’s fingers and drifted through the air, tickling his face. If he breathed too deeply, he ended up with them pressed against his nostrils. Wiping them away only smeared more across his face. The trick was to inhale shallowly and exhale sharply, blowing the feathers away.
Talking only invited feathers into their mouths. In the silence, Glaen thought of the Blackwoods. How could Tashué do such a job with his son tainted? Was Tashué tainted, then? Or had Jason received his talent from his mother? It seemed unlikely, but then Glaen hadn’t had the opportunity to study the heredity of talent. If Tashué wasn’t tainted, that meant he himself had taken up with one. He didn’t hate them, clearly, in fact he lay with them, and then sent his flesh and blood away into the Rift. How? How could a man abide by such things? How did he make these things acceptable to his own mind?
Things that Glaen had swallowed began to unfold in him: the anger and the frustration, the despair and the pain he hadn’t dared examine too closely lest it drive him mad. It throbbed in his chest, hot, bitter, ugly, feeding on his grief, filling the empty places Gianna had left behind.
III
Glaen listened for Jason to go downstairs for weeks—or perhaps it only felt that long. The nights stretched immeasurably. The smell of blood was ingrained into Glaen’s fingers and his nightmares were consumed with Gianna. But he listened, and when Jason slipped out of his bunk, Glaen followed again. He moved faster now that he knew the hallways better. He climbed down with bare feet, his boots tied together and strung over one shoulder to help him pad along as silently as Jason did. Down, down, down they both went. Into the darkness again.
Glaen heard Jason shifting amongst the bags of grain. Glaen waited, listening. He almost felt Jason’s talent, tickling the corners of his mind. How did he manage to use his talent in this place?
His heart beat so hard he felt it roaring in his ears. Holding his breath, he took the first step into the cellar. The edge of his foot brushed against a large crate, the wood rough, threatening splinters and broken toes if he wasn’t careful. Another step, shorter this time, searching for a clear path. A third step—and then he felt it. A void, out there in the cellar, a gap in the suppression layer the tainted laid across the building. It was a tiny gap, scarcely big enough for a single person to stand in, but he felt it like a cool draft in a stuffy room. And Jason was using his talent! What was he doing? Healing his foot, perhaps. But what was that sound, like shuffling of paper?
Jason stopped suddenly. Glaen couldn’t see him, but he heard him shifting. “Why are you still following me?”
“I wanted to know what you’re doing.” Glaen spread his hands. “I won’t speak a word. I only want to know.”
Jason moved past him, making his way slowly up the stairs. “I’m not doing anything. Just looking for peace and quiet.”
Glaen followed, moving slowly, aware of the sharp edges and heavy boxes. “I felt what you were doing. Using your talent. Weren’t you?”
Jason hissed between clenched teeth. He stopped walking and Glaen collided with him. Jason shoved Glaen back, sending him staggering against a crates.
“You don’t know anything! Do you hear me? Do you want us both killed?”
“Killed?”
“Do you think they would let us live if they knew? Tainted in the Rift, using their talents? They’d kill us if they even suspected it was possible. And don’t fool yourself into thinking they would spare you if you told them what I was doing. They’d kill you, too, to keep the secret.”
“But what are you doing?” Glaen pressed. “Are you going to escape?”
“Shut up. Just shut your damned mouth!”
“I won’t tell.”
“I don’t care! Just keep quiet. And wait.”
Wait.
Glaen’s breath caught in his throat, excitement roaring to life.
Wait.
For what, he wanted to ask. But Jason stalked away, stomping up the stairs. It was the best word Glaen had heard since he came to this place, a word full of promise and hope.
What will you do? Gianna’s ghost hovered at his shoulder again and he could smell her, the decaying blood that clung to her.
I don’t know.
He tried again to picture her face as she lived, but it was no use. Would he be able to see her face again if he got out of this place? He would find out soon.
Wait.
“What do you and the Blackwood boy talk about?”
The question burned for days in Glaen’s chest. He had seen Rezji and Jason talking together, speaking in hushed tones so no one else could hear, bodies turned toward walls or tucked down into their bowls.
Rezji turned her head to look at Glaen with her good eye, staring for a long time before she spoke. “You know Blackwood?”
“Father and son, apparently.” Glaen bent into the chicken’s cage, his arm swiping out. He wasn’t able to grab a bunch of birds at once like Rezji did, only one at a time.
“You know Tashué?”
“He was my regulation officer.”
Glaen grabbed another chicken and turned to Rezji. The woman cut while Glaen held the birds over the pot. It was almost as bad to hold them, feeling their legs twitch and turn cold as their blood drained away. He wondered sometimes what purpose blood served in the garden, but Rezji only shrugged when he asked. He wanted to ask Jason since he worked in the gardens, but Jason didn’t talk to him anymore.
“He was mine, too. For a time.” Rezji paused long enough to cut the second chicken. “I moved many times. I had many officers. Never got to know the man.”
The knot of hatred twisted in Glaen’s gut so tight that for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Rezji watched him. Glaen fought his anger down, but his hands shook at the very thought of Tashué Blackwood. He set the dead chickens aside and went to fetch more.
“The son seems different than the father.”
“Not so different.”
“I thought you said you didn’t come to know the father so well?”
Rezji shrugged. Glaen bit back the rising tide of frustration. Anger came so quickly now, or perhaps it never left him anymore. Rezji’s shrug concealed so much. At first, Glaen had taken it to mean that her limited language skills precluded her from saying what she wanted, but now Glaen wondered if those language skills were something she hid behind in order to avoid a conversation she didn’t want.
“What was your talent?” Better to switch tactics than to push Rezji, Glaen had learnt. If he asked a question too many times, Rezji would stop talking completely and Glaen was left with only the sound of chickens dying. “What did you do?”
“Stone. I shape it. Make floors.”
“You were a craftsman?” Surely Glaen wasn’t understanding correctly—craftsmen were exempt from the Registration Authority, considered the property of the businesses that employed them. “How did you end up here? I didn’t think the Authority could arrest craftsmen.”
Rezji shrugged again and Glaen bit back a curse. He turned away, catching another bird. When Glaen turned back, Rezji waited for him, back straight and chin jutting forward as if for a fight.
“Your Gianna, she died?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She was shot.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why, you don’t know?”
“I didn’t see it. All I know is she died when Tashué Blackwood went to process her.”
“It makes you feel how, this death? You loved her?”
Glaen’s gut twisted with pain and anger rose in him as a shield. Rezji stepped forward, slicing the chicken’s throat with tight, abrupt movement that perfectly illustrated her anger.
“Of course I loved her.”
“How do you let her die? You loved her. How did you not protect her?”
Glaen opene
d his mouth, but no words came. Anger and grief were at war in him, each vicious and powerful. He backed away from Rezji, and the chicken bled all over the floor, onto his feet.
“It is a hard thing to face many questions.” Rezji stared at him, mouth a hard line, voice hissing through clenched teeth. “Questions that cut into the centre of you. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“No more of your questions.”
“Alright. I’m sorry.”
Rezji shrugged again, gesturing to the cage of chickens. Glaen turned away, laying the dead bird aside before catching more. The rest of their work was done in aching silence. Gianna stood between them, shaking her head at him. The movement dislodged a few clots of blood from her hair. He saw her lips moving, blue and lifeless as they seemed. What was she saying? He watched her mouth closely as each word formed.
We all have our dead that we carry with us.
Not Gianna’s words, but Rezji’s on that first day they met. He cursed himself for his insensitivity, for his callousness. He had been so absorbed in his own pain that it hadn’t occurred to him his taciturn companion drowned in her own agony.
He tried to find the right words to apologize. I’m sorry didn’t seem sufficient. But once their work was done, Rezji looked at him finally, rage washed from her face.
“You hate Tashué Blackwood?”
“Yes.”
“Jason Blackwood?”
“No. I like him.”
“Keep watch at night. Jason Blackwood will free us.”
Glaen’s heart skipped a beat, his hands beginning to shake. “How?”
Rezji held up a hand, giving a hard shake of her head. “No more questions.”
It happened at night. A burst of voices jerked Glaen awake with a clutch of fear. Why was there so much chatter in the darkness?
And then he felt it. The awful force of will that tried to crush his skull was gone and his talent was available again. Little good it did. But there were men and women in this place with considerably more talent than he had and they made use of it swiftly. Glaen felt all the strength raging in the air. Rezji was first to act, perhaps one of the few not taken by surprise. There came a grinding sound from the stone, but also a liquid sound, as if it was being ground up and poured into a new form.
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