The Warrior Returns - Anteros 04

by Allan Cole

  The smithy clamped the hand in tongs and thrust it into the fire, heaving at the bellows until the fire roared white-hot. When the metal hand got good and red, he withdrew it, laid it against the anvil, and used a small hammer to tap here and there—making adjustments, he told the apprentice.

  When he was satisfied, he plunged the hand into a tempering bucket Steam and oil fumes hissed up in a greasy cloud. He withdrew the hand; it was glistening and dark.

  Once again the apprentice held my stump while the blacksmith twisted the metal into place. It was still hot from the forge, and through the pain I was dimly aware of the smell of my burning flesh. I heard the Healer say something about there being little chance for infection now.

  The threaded bolts in my stump jutted through openings in the metal hand. A drilled band was placed over the bolts and heavy nuts were cinched into place with a wrench, then welded so they couldn't be removed.

  I fainted while they were doing the welding.

  I suppose I eventually came to. But I'd returned to that hazy world of misery, drifting about as if heavily drugged.

  The next time I became even vaguely aware of the world about me, I was working beside a short, heavyset woman. I was helping her pull a solid gold rod from an extrusion machine. It was smoking hot, still soft and nearly ten feet long. We were using our metal hands to hold the rod, and I was amazed when I realized that I was clutching the object as if the hand were real instead of artificial. It felt like someone else's hand, acting out my wishes from a great distance.

  The woman and I lugged the rod across a wide room that seemed to have been carved out of rock. The walls and floors and jagged ceiling were grimed with grease and oil and soot. The room was hot, hotter than anyplace I'd ever been. And there was a constant thunder of heavy machinery at work. I saw other slaves, both men and women, shuffling about the room, going from one strange machine to another, barely moving out of the way when a furnace unexpectedly belched steam or fire.

  AH of them had metal hands like mine.

  The heavyset woman and I dropped the rod on a large pile. We stopped, panting for breath.

  I looked at my iron hand. I moved the fingers in and out, bent the thumb across my palm. It performed all these tasks slowly but very smoothly on greased bearings in the knuckles and joints. I could feel a small ball of warmth in the palm and knew it was magic.

  Soon as I caught the scent of the spell, my senses widened—although only slightly—and I could smell the ozone stench of powerful magic at work. The machines reeked of it; the stone in the walls and floors were slippery with it The very scorched air I sucked into my heaving lungs had the foul tang of demon's breath.

  Somewhere a heavy gong echoed and the machines went silent. My fellow slaves began lumbering into long lines that stretched across the immense chamber to massive barred doors. I became confused. I didn't know what to do.

  "We have to go, Rali," the woman said, taking my arm.

  Suddenly she seemed familiar to me. Her name popped into my head without effort. I nodded and went with her, saying, "Where to, Zalia?"

  "Where we go every night, dear," she said, her voice gentle, as if she were speaking to a child. "To our cells."

  "That's right," I said, vaguely remembering.

  I got into line with her. Orders were barked. We all shuffled forward—hundreds of us—and whips cracked and slaves cried out.

  "Where are we?" I asked.

  "I've told you before, dear," Zalia said. "But I'll tell you again. We're in the mines of Koronos."

  Emotion boiled through the haze that enveloped me. I felt tears well up and I thought, The gods help me, I'll never get out of here.

  I must have sobbed, because Zalia patted my shoulder to comfort me. Then all manner of what seemed like new sights and sounds and sensation pummeled me as I was led at a dogtrot through the mines.

  It was a bewildering warren of horrors. Hammers cracked at rocks, molten gold spurted from pipes into big vats, machines ground and clanked and spewed fire, and everywhere I looked laborers moaned in pain. Sometimes we had to wait as other columns of slaves passed. Other times big ore cars blocked our way, with slaves hitched up like oxen to drag them along wooden rails.

  At last we came to a corridor with barred cells on either side. Zalia guided me into a cell, and I slumped on a stone bench.

  She went to a bucket of water and wet a rag. She returned to sit beside me and gently lifted the bandage that covered my empty socket. She sponged around the wound.

  Although I remembered nothing, not even meeting her, the tender routine had a familiar feel to it. I felt I could trust her.

  Somehow she had become my companion and possibly a friend.

  When she was done she tucked the bandage back into place, saying, 'There you are, dear." She went to the bucket to clean herself up.

  I studied her as she lifted her ragged tunic to scrub soot from her legs. Awareness was trickling slowly back and I examined her closely. I knew this woman. But until that moment, it seemed to me, she'd only been a tender voice emanating from the shadows.

  Zalia was squat, with calves the size of my waist. Her hair was a butchered auburn mop and her face was large and round, but with a small nose and bowed lips that looked out of place. There was also an odd aura about her that aroused me further from the dullness.

  I tried to slip out a probe to test the edges of her aura. I was alarmed when nothing happened.

  I tried again. I felt resistance, then whatever was holding my magic back began to give.

  I pressed harder, felt something like fabric rip, and I tasted just a whiff of sorcery—and then pain suddenly gripped me. It shot up from my metal hand, wracked my elbow like it was struck by a sledge, and then my shoulder and neck and back were seized with such agony that my stomach heaved.

  I vomited on the floor.

  Zalia was suddenly beside me, holding my head and rubbing my back as I spewed my guts on the cell floor.

  "Poor thing," she said, "poor thing."

  Then the pain and sick feeling were gone. She pushed me back on the stone bed. She cleaned me up, put a cold wet rag on my forehead, and then mopped up the mess I'd made.

  I lay there silently, and the only pain remaining was the throbbing of my eye socket. I closed my good eye.

  Sparks and glowing shapes drifted through blackness.

  1 slept.

  There was a clack of wood against metal. I awoke to see

  Zalia carrying a pail of food through the cell door. A large wooden spoon with a hooked handle bumped against the side.

  I was suddenly very hungry. I sat up, licking my lips as she scooped up a thick yellowish gruel and dumped it into a wooden bowl. Odd bits, colored the greenish gray of spoiled meat, floated up as she stirred the bowl's contents with a tin spoon.

  The gruel smelled delicious. My mouth watered, and I got up to find my own bowl.

  "You can't eat this, dear," she said. "I've told you that before." She was dipping up some for herself as she said this.

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "It's not good for you, Rali dear," she answered.

  "You're eating it," I accused, trembling like a child being unfairly denied something everyone else was enjoying.

  "It'll make you fat and ugly," she said. "Like me."

  "I don't care," I said. "I'm hungry."

  "Just be patient, Rali," she said. "I'll feed you tonight. Just like I always do."

  I struggled for some memory of this but no images came. I went back to my bench and sat.

  I felt petulant, pouty, and full of resentment. As I became aware of these feelings I became unhappy with myself. And I thought, What's wrong? This isn't like me.

  The haze lifted further and I became more certain of my surroundings. The door to the cell I was in was open. From where I sat I could see down the corridor outside. The other cell doors were also open and I could see lumps of humanity going about their slave's business. They were eating or quarreling or playing game
s with bits of rock and bone. I saw a man and woman coupling in full view of others, rutting and grunting like dogs.

  I turned away, shaken—the hunger in my belly frothing into sickness.

  I heard the slap of bare feet on stone and turned back as several men led by a shambling brute pushed into our cell. Zalia looked up at them but continued eating. Her thick body seemed relaxed, easy. But I could feel tension suddenly thicken the air.

  I'm here for your answer," the shambler growled.

  Zalia raised an eyebrow in pretended surprise. "And what," she said, "was the question?"

  "You know," the shambler rumbled. He jabbed a thick, crooked digit at me. "Whatcha want for her?"

  "Oh, that question!" Zalia widened her eyes as if in sudden recollection. Then she shrugged. "I thought we settled that before," she said. "Rali's not for sale. I didn't refuse you the first time to get a better price. There is no price, my friend. Understand that and you'll sleep easier."

  She indicated the cell door. "Good-bye. It was nice to chat with you." She smiled blandly and resumed eating.

  Shambler came forward, flexing his muscles and extending his metal hand.

  Before he could reach her, Zalia exploded up from her bench, flung the bowl into his face, then grabbed him by the neck with her metal hand. She pulled his head down and a thick knee snapped upward, colliding with his chin. She let go and he crashed to the floor.

  The others were coming for her, and she spun to face them.

  Anger swept away the last of the haze and I leaped from my bench and grabbed one of the men. My iron hand seemed like it had the strength of a giant and I gripped him by the throat, squeezing until he gurgled and slamming my other fist into his gut.

  I heard Zalia dispose of the other man, and my opponent suddenly went limp. Overcome by my anger, I kept squeezing, and then enormously strong arms were pulling me away and I let him drop.

  I swung around, tears of hatred streaming down my face, and I tried to grapple with Zalia. She embraced me, pulling me so tight I could do nothing but pound on her strong back.

  "Easy, Rali," she said. "Easy, dear."

  The anger drained away and I went limp. She lifted me up and placed me back on the bench.

  "Wait here, Rali dear," she said. "I'll be back."

  She dragged the men into the hallway one by one and returned. As she sat beside me, I saw the men recover and then slink off.

  Zalia stroked me, saying, "That was a surprise, dear. I've never seen you so aggressive."

  "Aggressive?" I said. "Those sons of poxed whores don't know what aggressive is!"

  Zalia sighed. "I wish it were a sign that you were getting better," she said.

  Then she got up and went to her own side of the room, squatting down on fat haunches to clean up the spilled gruel. When she was done, she settled on her own bench and closed her eyes. She wasn't asleep, but I didn't disturb her.

  An hour or so passed. I tried to think, but the process that had once been automatic seemed clumsy—like rusty gears trying to jerk into life. I kept at it, and the more I tried, the easier it got. I couldn't make sense of my predicament, but I had a vague feeling that large, unwieldy puzzle shapes were beginning to fit into place. I became tired, so I stopped. For the first time I noticed that the light had dimmed and only a few firebeads glowed along the corridor. All was silent except for the snores of the other slaves.

  Hunger burned in my belly, and I looked over at Zalia just as she roused herself. She scraped the food pail until she had a good-sized lump and stuck the lump next to a hole in the cell wall. She squatted there for a long time, as motionless as if she were stone herself.

  Finally, whiskers wriggled in the hole. Then a sharp nose poked out. The nose twitched, sensed no danger, and a moment later a large fat rat emerged and nibbled at the bait

  Zalia's metal hand blurred forward, snatched up the rat and snapped its neck.

  I remembered doing something similar long ago. It was someplace cold: a storm raged outside, and I was catching rats so my friends and I could eat.

  The memory faded.

  Zalia, meanwhile, had pulled a loose rock from the wall, revealing a fairly large hiding place. There were several small bundles inside. She took them out, unwrapped them one by one, arid set them up. Soon a little fire was burning beneath a pot, and she'd skinned and cut up the rat.

  When it was done cooking, she served it to me in a bowl, and I was so ravenous I devoured every drop, scraped the bowl, and sucked the marrow from the bones. As soon as I was done I felt remarkably full and strength flooded through my veins.

  "What happened to my hand?" I said. "Does Novari have that, too?"

  Zalia grimaced, weary. "I've answered that question before, dear," she said. 'Tell me again," I insisted. "I don't remember." "You never do," she said. "Just tell me."

  "They cut off everyone's hand," she said. I nodded. "I saw the others."

  "And they give us these instead," she said, raising her own iron hand. "Yes. Go on."

  "The flesh and bone they take from us are given to Novari's wizards. They use them to cast spells to power the metal ones. The slave hands."

  I thought about that. And came to a clumsy conclusion. "So Novari doesn't have my hand," I said.

  "No, she doesn't, Rali," Zalia answered. "Otherwise your hand wouldn't work. And you'd be no use at all in the mines."

  Something else occurred to me. "Why did it hurt," I asked, "when I tried to make magic?"

  Zalia shook her head. As if she'd been through this many times. But her voice was patient.

  "The hand controls all of us," she said. "If you try to escape, the hand will sense it. It will hurt you in order to make you stop. And it will kill you if you don't. The same with magic,

  Rali. If you try to cast a spell, that hand will become your worst enemy."

  "All right," I said. "I understand now."

  "I wish you really did," she said. "I tell you the same thing every night. You say you understand. But by the next day you've forgotten. And the next thing I know you're hurting yourself trying to cast a spell."

  "Don't worry, Zalia," I said. "I'll remember this time."

  I suddenly felt sleepy. I yawned, stretching out on my bench.

  "Sure you will, dear," Zalia soothed. But I could tell she believed otherwise.

  "Honestly," I insisted. "I'll remember."

  "Oh, Rali," Zalia said, "I wish it were true. I wish you'd rise up tomorrow and tell me that you remembered all you witnessed today. But I know that won't happen. Not for a long time, if at all."

  Through my dimness it struck me that her voice was cultured and musical. It seemed odd and out of place coming from such a hulking body.

  Then the thought vanished and I mumbled, "You'll see..." and closed my eyes.

  I slept. I didn't dream, although I woke up once to relieve myself in the slop pail. I heard Zalia breathing heavily, but I didn't disturb her. I went back to sleep.

  Much later a gong rang and I sat up. I swiveled, turning my single eye on Zalia, who was yawning awake. I spoke, my voice hard, "I think you'd better tell me who you are."

  Zalia blinked, jolted from half sleep. "I'm Zalia" she said. "Don't you even remember that?"

  I said, "I remember yesterday, at least. You acted like a friend then. But I don't know that for a fact, do I? Because everything is a blank from the moment I was condemned to this place to yesterday in the shops."

  Zalia lit up—delighted. At least she was acting delighted. But at that moment I trusted no one.

  'Thank the gods!" she said. "You're returning to normal."

  She started to get up, but I raised my metal hand to stop her. "Sit back down," I said.

  She did as I commanded, but her eyes seemed to be sparkling with interest instead of resentment.

  "Listen," I said. "You're strong. I can see that. But there isn't much I don't know about killing, so your strength won't do you any good. Do as I say, and if it turns out I'm being rude, I'll apologi
ze profusely."

  "Fine, Rali," she said. "I'll do as you say. And gladly."

  "Good," I said. "You can begin by accounting for yourself."

  "I don't think we have time for a full accounting," she said. "They'll come to make up the work parties in an hour."

  'Tell me how I came to be in your company," I said. "That's a good enough start. If you're still alive in an hour, you'll know I believe just enough to let you live until tonight. And then you can tell me the rest."

  Zalia shrugged. "Maybe I just felt sorry for you," she said. "You were wandering around bumping into walls like you were drugged. Trie guards shoved you from one task to the next. You nearly fell into a furnace once. Then some of the other slaves got some ideas about you. Perhaps I took pity on you and took you under my wing."

  She glared at me. "If that's the case," she said. "I'm now being poorly paid for my sympathy."

  "Is it the case?" I demanded.

  Zalia trembled with anger. "Maybe it wasn't," she snarled. "Maybe I had designs on you myself. Maybe I wanted to make you my own slave, make you labor for me in the day and pleasure me at night. And the fight you took part in yesterday was because I was protecting a possession."

  "That's not the worst possibility for your motives," I said.

  Zalia's eyes widened in surprise. The surprise turned into a cynical sneer. "Oh, I suppose you think I might be a spy?" she said. "That I might be working for Novari and plotting to win your trust so I can betray you?"

  "That's one possibility," I said. "You could also be Novari herself, for all I know."

  "That's stupid," she said. She swept a beefy arm about, indicating our surroundings. "Can you imagine Novari submitting herself to these conditions?"

  "I've seen harm come to people," I said, "for ignoring stupid possibilities."

  "Well, that can't be proven one way or the other," she said. "You'd need sorcery to do it. And that hand will kill you if you attempt it."

  "We'll have to rely on your powers of persuasion, then," I said. "And I'll only ask you one more time: What did you intend with me?"

  'To get you well, if I could," she said. "So we could both escape." She gave me a long fixed stare, as if daring me to brand her a liar.