by Erik A Otto
“I know people like these, and they may at times be reasonable, but not honorable. They will offer you a plump Yensun strawberry and then cut off the hand that takes it so that they can sell a simple bone ring. And no, it’s not because they are naustic. I’ve met naustics that still have some honor. Those are lost people, but good people. These Fringe aren’t like that. They are heathens of the worst kind. I can sense it.”
Hella didn’t refrain from showing her skepticism. “Let me guess. Your keen sense of who is just and who is not was learned in your years as a Jailor in Kalianca? Well, let’s turn that around, Zahir. I hear from these people about a man who tortures prisoners, keeps children and parents enslaved for generations. Are you this person, and if so, who am I to trust you over these practical people—people who are just trying to survive? And Zahir, I must say that when I look back on our journey, we have come far, yes, but to what end? How do I know you weren’t going to take me as far away from Jawhar as possible and then kill me?”
Zahir thought for a long time about what the princess was saying. She was using her crafty words to make her fancy arguments, and Zahir could do little to contend. Usually he wouldn’t care about winning this debate, but he was losing her confidence, which could jeopardize his assignment. The Jailor talk had no doubt frightened her, and understandably.
He leaned on the rail and looked into the moonlight.
“Hello? Don’t tell me you’re going mute on me again,” Hella said.
Zahir pushed his hand toward the moon, an expression of calming in Jawhar. “Please wait, Princess. I will respond. My Belidoran isn’t that good, and yours is very good.”
He resigned himself that he must tell her, even though she might not believe him. Without some comfort, without some explanation of who he was, untainted by the mouths of these Fringe, she might flee. For that reason, and for any hope he would have of convincing her to be careful with them, he would tell her.
He turned back to her and sighed. “My story is a long one, Hella. I will tell you what I can, but only if you do not retell it, ever. Even though you might be crafty, even though you might be Pomerian, and even though I suspect you are a heathen, I believe that you are honorable and fair. I’ve seen that in you. So I will entrust this to you—as long as you give me your word you won’t repeat it.”
“Let me guess, if I tell anyone you’ll have to kill me?” she asked.
Zahir didn’t respond.
Hella rolled her eyes. “Fine, go ahead.”
“I come from a town called Kalianca. It is far in the northeast, near the impassable mountains. Kalianca is not written on most maps. Even many Jawhari don’t know where it is, although they may have heard of it.”
He watched Hella’s eyes, but they revealed nothing.
He continued on. “Kalianca is beautiful. The mountain above Kalianca is shaped like a U, half embracing the city. The fog rolls off the mountain in the fall and hovers above the town, making it look like…pillows hanging in the air. But this fog is always shifting, and the view is never the same. The water flows in clear streams, and the farm animals roam on rounded hills of green. The prison, however, it isn’t like this. The prison isn’t beautiful.
“The prison was founded a long time ago, maybe three hundred years. First it was for secret criminals of the state, to be kept hidden away and interrogated, often brutally.
“It was after the second great war with Belidor that it expanded. This was a time when Jawhar’s hatred of Belidorans was at its peak—when Belidorans made it all the way through the Long Gate only to be stopped at Rabat, after a million Jawhari died. When the Belidorans retreated, the Jawhari forces picked and pillaged at the retreating force, collecting many prisoners. Most of these they killed, but some, perhaps a few thousand, they moved to Kalianca.
“At first they were simply treated poorly and fed little in case they were to be used in a negotiation with Belidor. But the war ended, years went by, and many forgot about the prison. The prisoners were kept alive and were often abused by their captors. The jailors would often be criminals themselves or war veterans with a grudge against Belidorans. There were quite a number of women left; and they weren’t killed as much as the men. The criminals were allowed to fornicate and have children, and a community of Belidoran descendants was formed in the prison. They should have never allowed this, of course.
“Ten years ago no one wanted to manage the prison. It was expensive to maintain, and who could care about a bunch of depraved eighth- or ninth-generation Belidorans? So it was like hot khubz bread, passed from adviser to adviser. When it landed in Caleb’s lap—the predecessor to Mahmood—he took a greedy bite. He took it as his pet project and did things to the prisoners that even a heathen Belidoran shouldn’t be subjected to.”
“So what does that have to do with you?” she asked.
He nodded back to her. “Yes, I’m getting to that. When I was a soldier, I worked for Wahab’s elite guard. On assignment, Caleb accused me of butchering a noblewoman, and so they took me and my family to Kalianca and ordered me to be jailor. They ordered me to…do things to the people there. Caleb would derive much pleasure from telling people of the Jailor of Kalianca and what he did to the Belidoran descendants.”
He looked into Hella’s eyes. “It’s not important what I had to do, Princess, but they were bad things. Things I wouldn’t have done if Caleb didn’t have my wife and daughter’s lives in his hands.”
Zahir gritted his teeth. “When Caleb was eventually deposed, Wahab stepped in and pulled me away from the prison to make me his aide. Mahmood challenged this, saying I was a criminal who’d gone mad. Wahab insisted, and they came to an agreement; my family would be put in the prison with the crazed Belidorans should I ever prove myself a true criminal or kaifhur.
“This is why I am loyal to Wahab. He can be a harsh ruler, but he is just, and he took me away from the prison. For this I will honor his will until I die. He was also the one to put a stop to the abuse and brutality in Kalianca after I was gone.
“And now, even though the abuse and…games have ceased, the prisoners still live there, separated from the other prisoners of Jawhar. These prisoners no longer think of this world as we do. The bleeding has stopped, but they remain a grievous wound; uneducated, mad, disgusting people, kept alive like zoo animals. I have done what I can to make their lives have meaning, but I think death would be a compassionate end for them.”
He nodded his head to amplify his concluding statement. “Yes, death is better, because these people cannot be released. If the Belidorans knew about Kalianca, they would look to find it. If they did find it, they would kill, enslave, or torture all the Jawhari in the city, including my family, I’m sure. It may also make war between Belidor and Jawhar more likely. Even if there is no war, if Sal Habib or Mahmood find out that it is I who snuck you out, they will go to Kalianca and slaughter my family, or worse, put them in with the depraved prisoners. I would rather my family die than be put in the prison.”
Zahir looked away from the princess, into the moonlight. “This is why I’m secretive with you, Princess. This is why I tell no one about who I am. No one can know it is the Jailor of Kalianca who harbored you, or my family will be persecuted, and Wahab may be implicated, affecting his influence on the council.”
He looked back to Hella. “Can I trust you with this? Can you give me your word that you will tell no one if you are returned to Belidor in one piece and reinstated?” Yes, he had already asked her, but that was before she knew what she was agreeing to.
Zahir didn’t know what astonishment looked like in Hella’s eyes. Her countenance was always masked by her royal veneer. Her eyes were at least wide enough to tell him she understood the gravity of what he was saying. Eventually, she composed herself and said, “This is a lot to digest, Zahir. But even if I believed you about your past, I don’t know why I would believe you about the Fringe men aboard this ship.”
“Because I know men such as these, Princess. I know
a crazed man from a criminal, and a criminal from an innocent man. I know from tending the prisoners and working with underhanded men that Wahab asks me to take care of. These men do not have…what’s the right word…ethics?”
She didn’t answer. She looked skeptical, and more than a little bit fearful of him.
Zahir didn’t think he would convince her of the Fringe men right away, so he let it go. It was more important that she gave her word about keeping the information about Kalianca secret. He asked the question again slowly. “Can you give me your word you will not tell anyone about my past?”
It could have been faked, but Hella’s head nodded with purpose. “If what you said is true, Zahir, I will keep it secret.”
Zahir sighed. He was relieved she acquiesced, and felt it likely she would oblige. He had to admit, he was beginning to find the princess more tolerable, despite all her Pomerian tendencies.
He still couldn’t trust her completely, though. The question of whether it was her or Battia who poisoned the wine still lingered, and if he found an answer that didn’t meet his liking, he would have to include her in his plan.
Chapter 11
The Naustic
One day the Purveyor took her with him into the mound. She was anxious to get away from the monotony of bone cleaning but at the same time repulsed by the prospect of going inside to explore the root cause of her daily discontent.
The Purveyor had a leaf of paper and quill with him as he walked up a gangway that drilled into the side of the gelatinous wall. Anyone they encountered melted away as the Purveyor passed.
The surface of the mound looked rubbery and glossy, with patches of red, pink and white. At times bone or other solid tissue jutted out. She wondered if the coating protected the flesh, or made it cohere together. Maybe it was the way the wind was blowing on the gangway, but the smell wasn’t as bad as she imagined it would be.
There was a flap on the outside of the entrance, and when the Purveyor opened it, the stench she anticipated finally reached her, inducing a brief fit of gagging. Inside this flap there was a wooden scaffold put up to form a corridor through the mound.
The Purveyor showed no sign of discomfort.
They proceeded along corridors lined with wyg lamps, and up and down ladders, for about a quarter of an hour. Nala felt so disoriented by the nausea and twists and turns that she lost any sense of where she was. Eventually they came to an area where the scaffolding was sparser. Here Fringe men worked along the walls to extract materials or build more scaffolding.
“Purveyor, thank you for coming,” a young, sickly-looking Fringe man said as they approached. He bowed, then escorted the Purveyor over to a section of the wall that was well-lit by an expansive array of wyg lamps.
“Your guidance would be greatly appreciated,” the young Fringe man said, bowing again.
Everyone backed away as the Purveyor walked up to the wall. He took off his gloves and felt the wall with his fingers, up and down, along contours and ridges of flesh. He spent a moment on his knees examining a rugged discoloration, and then he used a small knife to extract a portion of it.
No one said a word.
After some time spent in contemplation, the Purveyor stepped back and spoke to the young Fringe man. “This is not new flesh. What you question are fish scales. There are coloring agents and paints that can be extracted and sold if they pass the appropriate tests. Take that vein out, but be careful because above it is a deposit of fat. These are not burning fats, though. They are of weaker integrity and will be useless for harvest. Be sure to drill in wood beams above the fish scale vein so that the weak fat area doesn’t collapse. There is nothing else of use here, I’m afraid.”
The man looked disappointed, but nodded. “Thank you, Purveyor. We will do as you say.”
Nala and the Purveyor turned and started walking back. The Purveyor remarked to Nala, “I’m sorry, Nala. I thought there may have been a new flesh discovery, in which case I would have needed you to take back samples.”
The journey to the mine wasn’t as bad as she’d thought, so she didn’t mind the interruption from the bone cleaning drudgery. “It’s okay,” she said weakly.
After navigating a few more corridors, she asked, “Where do the bone mounds come from?”
The Purveyor looked back and smiled. “Ahhh. That’s the kind of question that led me to be a Purveyor. What we know is that they push up from deep within the earth over many years. One year you may have nothing, and then a few years later you have Round Top. They tend to last for a few decades and then fall back into the earth.”
“But why do they push up through the earth?”
“It’s a question I have spent quite a bit of time pondering. I don’t have the answer, but I do know some things about our world that leads me to believe it is…unnatural.”
“What do you mean, unnatural? Do you mean Matteo has a hand in creating these things?” Nala was beginning to think some of the Fringe were pious after all. Maybe the blasphemous front was just a cover to let them engage in selective sinful activities.
It took him a while to respond. Then finally he said, “No, Nala. This has nothing to do with Matteo.”
After navigating a few more corridors, she decided to try another question. “Why don’t you just do what they do in Belidor? Why don’t you let the bone chuckers eat out all the flesh so all that you have is the bone and sinew left to take away?”
“Good question, Nala. It’s because this way there’s much more to be harvested. Besides bone, tissue and sinew, we can harvest eyeglass and other rarities like the fish scales you saw. If we let the bone chuckers in, all of these valuables would be eaten, even though it might be easier to get at the bone and sinew by letting them do so.”
“What else can you get from the mound?”
“There are a great many things that can be harvested. There are large fleshy vessels that can be used to cook or ferment foods. For the plumbing of rich nobles in Tardiff and Rio Castellan, there is high-strength piping that can be extracted from certain animal neck anatomies, and some fatty tissues can be used as fuel for heating. You may be surprised to learn that the original source materials of many soaps and perfumes are from the mounds. After collection the material has to be fermented and combined with plants to create a final product. There is a list of hundreds of items, of course, but these are some of the ones in higher demand.”
He climbed up a ladder and then pulled her up after him. He continued orating as she followed behind. “I should say that while the bone mounds offer an impressive array of goods to mine, the truth is silverstone mines are much more lucrative for the Fringe, by an order of magnitude.”
“Why is that?”
“Because there are bone mounds in every nation’s borders, and other nations can exploit their own mines if they prefer not to deal with us Fringe, so we have limited negotiating power. Silverstone deposits, on the other hand, are much rarer, and many have been so reused that the material loses its vitality. Also, for theological reasons, our customers are more reluctant to mine it. Despite this aversion, there has been a significant surge in demand from our customers recently.”
He paused, then turned to stare at her directly, the weak lighting of the fleshy chamber casting a haunting glow on his face. “Perhaps if we knew of the location of a new silverstone deposit, I might be redeployed, and I would be able to relieve you of the tedium of bone cleaning.”
He turned and kept walking through the corridors. Finally they reached the flap and then daylight. They walked back to their tents in silence, and he left her back at her workstation, where her quota of flesh-laden bones had piled up in her absence.
She had vivid dreams that night, full of apparitions of shadowy flesh. When she woke up from her reveries, she cried again.
It took some time to consider the possibility, and she debated internally about the consequences, but several hours into the next day’s bone cleaning she resolved herself to tell the Purveyor about the Fore
father ruin in Albondo.
Chapter 12
The Good Son
As the squad headed east the land became pocked with shallow ponds and riveted with minor hillocks. The soil took on a blackish color, which Father said was a sign it was rich in nutrients, but here the trees were often yellowish and the branches snapped easily, not unlike the summer willows on their estate. Even the shrubs were sparse, as if the simple act of growing leaves required a concerted effort. The few small farms they came across in the area were long abandoned.
They hadn’t seen or heard of any Sambayans in days, and the road was little used, so Henly had the squad split up to cover the area more quickly.
Baldric has been assigned to lead a sub-squad of ten privates that included his brothers. Henly even bolstered Baldric’s rank to Private First Class for the task, his first real promotion. It may have been to help him keep his brothers in line, but it was still a nice show of confidence in his abilities, and it could lead to more advancement if he performed for the leftenant.
The morning revealed little of import. They circumnavigated a number of ponds that all looked similar. They were due to regroup only a mile away, and since they were making good progress, he allowed them a long break for the midday meal.
As Baldric chewed on his rabbit jerky he looked over the peaceful waters of the pond next to them. Clyve decided to try to skip rocks along the edge of it, breaking its tranquility, and landing them close to two privates. It didn’t bother them, but it frustrated Baldric. He knew Clyve was only doing it to get a rise in him. The rocks were landing just close enough for Baldric to worry that they would end up hitting someone.
As he was sloshing canteen water around in his mouth, private Jaffee pranced up to him through the forest, his eyes wide with alarm. He whispered vehemently in his ear. “I think I found one—a Sambayan.” He pointed emphatically back the way he came.
