Lies of Descent

by Troy Carrol Bucher

  “Nothing you’d be interested in. Picked up a barrel of ash, worth a few dregs to the soap makers, couple of unbroken bottles, and there’s a left boot in good shape.”

  The robed man waved a hand in the air, uninterested, and walked away.

  “Who’s that?” Riam asked.

  “Sadal. He owns the yard and gets first trade rights to anything we bring in. Arillian bastard.” Pekol spat on the ground.

  Pekol bartered the left boot for a cup of tea and the ash and bottles for three copper dregs as he made his way around to the other carts. At each, there was at least one boy or girl like Riam. Some of the rakers had two or three children working for them. Many had lengths of chain that led from the carts to either a collar or a clamp around an ankle, and more than one showed the results of being whipped or beaten. All had a glyph on their left arm. Pekol waved Riam back to the cart before collecting his tea with a group of rakers squatting around one of the fires.

  Riam sat and rubbed at his feet while he waited. He’d gone barefoot for most of his childhood, but he’d never spent a day on the hard stones of the streets. Around him, carts and men came and went, each a repeat of what Pekol had done—a brief question or two from Sadal and then a walk around to the other carts to sell or trade. He contemplated slipping away until another boy approached.

  “Stick,” the boy said and leaned on the cart as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He was older than Riam by three or four years, was dressed in rags more threadbare than Riam’s own clothes, and his long, brown hair was ratty and greasy. His nose was flatter than it should have been, with an unnatural turn near the bridge. Around his neck lay a leather thong with a charm dangling from it—a small, flat rock with an eye painted inside a blue circle. The center of the pupil held a sliver of yellow, making the eye look feline.

  There was something familiar about it. He’d seen it before but couldn’t remember where. Riam watched the other boy warily. He didn’t want a repeat of the events in the cage. “What do you mean, stick?”

  “Stick. As in, that’s what they call me ’cause it took a stick to get me to work when I first got here.”

  “Oh.” Riam relaxed. The boy didn’t appear to be a threat.

  “Guess Peke finally had enough of Doby. Too bad.” Stick reached into the cart and dug through the refuse. “Anything good today?” He found a half-rotten apple and smeared away the soft, brown side against a wooden slat before biting into the firmer portion that remained.

  It was disgusting. Without thinking, Riam tried to knock the apple away.

  “Oomph,” Stick said through a mouthful, mistaking the gesture for a grab at the food. “Sorry. Didn’t know you were saving it. Most of us carry a sack for the things we want to keep.” He shook a small cloth bag tied to his waist.

  Riam ignored the apple. “No, I don’t want it. I was . . . won’t it make you sick?”

  Stick shrugged. “Better than starving or giving it to the pigs.” He took another bite. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Riam looked back at Pekol. The man squatted beyond the fire, drinking his tea. “I’ve heard those words more than once today.”

  Stick pointed at Riam’s glyph. “So, what’d you do to end up as a churp?”

  Riam scratched at his forearm. “Pekol told me two years for stealing.”

  Stick held up his arm so that the sleeve of his shirt fell down around his elbow, revealing a different mark, more intricate with tighter spirals. “Five years for me, but it wasn’t for stealing.” He took another bite. “Burned down my master’s shop.” His eyes glazed over, and his chewing slowed down until it stopped. He stared off at nothing. “I had no idea he was inside when I did it. Nearly roasted the bastard.” He smiled, as if recalling a fond memory. “Lost all his hair, he did. Worth every day of my sentence.”

  “But I didn’t steal anything,” Riam said. “I was pushed off a barge, almost drowned and woke up in a cell with the glyph on my arm.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say.” Stick took another bite. “You’re new, so people will understand you not wanting to admit your crimes, but if I were you, I’d keep the whole ‘I’m innocent’ thing to myself, especially since you’re churping for Peke. He was a churp once himself. He’s been a raker since he finished his time, and he doesn’t like seeing anyone else go free, especially if he feels they haven’t learned their lesson.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That mark don’t come off by itself, despite whatever he told you. You have to go before the district warden and at least two rakers have to vouch for you. The sooner you show ’em you’ve learned your lesson, the more likely the rakers are to vouch for you, but I wouldn’t count on Peke. He never vouches for anyone. That’s why Doby gave up. He was a good kid, even after Peke told the warden he wasn’t ready to be released after his first sentence was up. It was the second time that broke him. Peke had as good as told Doby he’d go free, even trusted him with bringing the cart back from the pit by himself, so Doby only found one other raker to go with them to see the warden. Then Peke stood right in front of him and did the opposite.”

  “Why’d he do that?”

  “Like I said, he was a hard worker.” Stick finished off the apple and tossed the core into the cart. “Be careful. Pekol is as dangerous as they come.”

  Riam didn’t need the warning. He already feared the man enough to know not to cross him.

  “If I were you, I’d figure out a way to get him to trade you for another churp.” Stick held up the charm he wore. “Pekol doesn’t like the Church of Man, so I prattled on day after day about it. Took a few beatings, but eventually he gave up and traded me for Doby. Don’t think that’ll work for you, but you need to find something he doesn’t like. Not bad enough that he hurts you, but annoying enough that he doesn’t want you around.”

  “I won’t be here long enough to worry about it. First chance I get, I’m gone,” Riam said.

  “You can try running if you want, but there’s nowhere to go. No one will speak to you or help you with that glyph on your arm. You can’t hide it, and they won’t let you out of the gate without your raker. Worse, anyone figures out you’re running, and they’ll drag you right back to the square for a reward. Warden will make an example out of you by adding more time to your sentence in front of everyone.”

  No wonder Pekol was so lax. There’s nowhere to run. He certainly wasn’t going to be a churp for the next two years. He was going to the island to become a Draegoran. He needed to find this district warden and explain what had happened. Soon, before Pekol could hurt him.

  “Stick, don’t you have something better to do than pester my new churp?” Pekol’s voice said from behind Riam.

  “Just killing time and giving . . .” He looked questioningly at Riam.

  “Riam.”

  “Giving Riam some advice.”

  “Be sure and ignore any advice Stick gives you. He’ll never make it through his time.”

  “Too late for that, Peke. Another tenday, and I’ll be free. You’ll never see me again.”

  “You don’t deserve it.” Pekol’s voice was sharp. “You were a criminal the day they put that glyph on you, and you’re as much a criminal today as you were then, but you’re right on one good count. Once your sentence is up, I’ll never have to look at you again.”

  There was something eerie about the way Pekol said the last words. It made the hair on Riam’s arms stand up.

  Stick didn’t notice. “Well, there are at least two other rakers who disagree. I’m getting out of here and there’s not a Fallen thing you can do about it.”

  “I should have broken more than your nose before I traded you for Doby, but who would have thought there were two rakers dumb enough to believe you are worth anything more than a churp. You won’t last two days if they release you ’fore you’re back here . . . or worse.”

  “We�
��ll see about that.”

  “Mark my words, two days.”

  “Told you,” Stick mouthed to Riam before strolling away.

  Pekol stared at the back of Stick’s head, his fingers rubbing at the hilt of his knife, until the young man had returned to his cart. “No one gets away,” he mumbled. He moved to the cart and lifted the handles with an already too familiar grunt. “Come on, boy. We’ve a long walk ahead of us, but at least the ash is gone.”

  Chapter 24

  The pit was more than a simple hole in the ground. It was a canyon bordered by pig farms far outside the city walls. Riam and Pekol made their way down from the city proper, past tall, well-kept buildings that gave way to short, squat brick-and-rock homes, then to log homes and finally to rapidly thrown-together buildings that were little more than hovels interspersed among large shops and storehouses. In the lower city, the harsh clank of hammers pounding on iron rang out from every direction, men yelled, and wagons rolled noisily down streets more dirt than stone and littered with waste. Exotic smokes and smells drifted on the wind, some acrid and some sweet. Some made Riam’s eyes sting, and still others were so putrid they made him choke. Such a mass of people and activity was beyond Riam’s comprehension before today. Parthusal was an immense city, the biggest under the Draegoran Covenant, and he hadn’t even seen the market or riverside sections. It reminded Riam of a giant beehive after striking it with a rock or, worse, the flood of wasps in the timber yard.

  He still had trouble comprehending the true magnitude of it all when they suddenly passed beyond the second wall and moved outside the city proper. But even here there were “outbuildings,” as Pekol called them—holding pens, farmhouses, and barns that dotted the landscape. He’d never seen so many animals, but he imagined they were needed to feed all the people crammed inside the city. For every animal he recognized, two more he didn’t grazed in the fields or paced back and forth in pens or cages. There were mastons and glints, the small wild, black-horned goats from the plains, cattle and oxen, and even a cage full of something resembling marcats, only larger with spots. There were birds, bigger than a man, with legs a rod long and razor-sharp spurs, though steel caps covered most of the spurs to protect the handlers. Something like a bear, but smaller and striped, with long toenails, climbed trees to get at the leaves. In one cage a massive beast with long tusks and a body like a man but covered in thick hair thumped its chest and roared behind the thick iron bars. The sound sent every animal in the area scurrying for the far corners of their pens.

  Along a parallel road, wagons lined up, waiting for entrance to a gate farther down the wall. How do they sort it all out? He wanted to keep moving down the road until it was all behind him and never return.

  After another stead of pushing, Riam could see why Pekol didn’t like making more than one trip a day down the long, dirt road. It helped that the ashes had been sold off and the barrel was empty, making the cart lighter, but it’d still taken nearly a full glass to get this far. Luckily, they traveled downhill for most of the journey.

  He smelled the pit before they arrived. The stench of a thousand pigs, of refuse, and of rot and decay assailed Riam—so heavy and strong he felt it in his nostrils and tasted it on his tongue like the film of dust deposited by windstorm. It made his saliva thick, and no matter how much he spat, he tasted the smell. Whenever he thought it could get no worse, the warm breeze would hit them, raising the repulsive odor to a new level.

  “I’m not going to lie, you never get used to the pit or the piggeries in high summer,” Pekol told him when at last they came to a spot near the canyon’s edge and stopped. He handed Riam a thin scarf and wrapped another around his face, covering his nose and mouth.

  Riam took the scarf thankfully. It didn’t help with the smell, but it took some of the thickness out of the air.

  Filth-stained children carrying woven reed baskets set upon the cart like locusts and pulled out anything that could be fed to the pigs. They were younger than Riam. He tried speaking to one, but the child growled like an animal and bared his teeth. When the children were done, Pekol backed the cart close to the edge of the canyon. Ropes with hooks on one end lay scattered near large wooden stakes. Riam wondered what they were used for. He didn’t have to wonder long.

  “Grab a rope, crawl under, and hook the axle. Sometimes the edge gets soft. Don’t want to lose the cart when we dump it.”

  Riam grabbed a metal hook. It was hot from sitting in the sun, so he tossed it from hand to hand to keep it from burning his palms while he scurried underneath and fastened it to the axle.

  “Come here and watch me.” Pekol lifted the rope, gauging the slack for the right length. “Make a loop this way, then another that way, about a hand apart. Cross them over to make a hitch and drop them over the stake. Last, tug the slack out. Got it?” He demonstrated the hitch.

  Riam nodded.

  Pekol untied the rope and handed it to him. “You do it. There should be enough rope so that the wheels stop at the edge. You’ll do it from now on, and if the cart goes over, you’ll follow before it hits the bottom.”

  Riam eyed Pekol’s face for traces of humor, but Pekol wasn’t joking. He tied the simple hitch with ease but gave it several yanks to make doubly sure it would hold before they dumped the cart.

  They made the trek back to the city. Riam thought about running out here in the open where no one watched. He was pretty sure he could outrun Pekol. But outrun him to where—back to the gates of the city, to men who will return me for a reward? What can I tell them when I don’t even know how I arrived here myself? No, going to the city guards wasn’t going to help, nor would fleeing into the countryside dressed in rags. The only safe bet lay in proving he wasn’t supposed to be here.

  When they returned to the outer wall, Riam expected them to have to wait in line like the rest of the wagons on the road to gain entrance, but instead they returned by the same gate they’d come out.

  “Need to see your chit,” said the guard at the gate around the wad of torgana leaves in his mouth, “and to check the cart.” The guard’s beard was stained black at the edges of his lips from the leaves, and his leather vest was wet with sweat.

  “You let the other rakers go through without all the fuss.”

  “Most of them have never been caught smuggling, have they?”

  “That was years ago.”

  “Three years to be exact, and it still bothers me that you didn’t go to the mines or the ships. The Draegorans don’t give second chances, but for some reason, you’re still here.”

  “I haven’t smuggled a Fallen thing since, and you’ve seen the chit enough times to know I don’t need a new stamp until winter.”

  The guard spat out juice from the torgana leaves in a brown stream that splattered on the ground near Pekol’s feet. “Have to check the cart every time and make sure your stamp’s current. Otherwise, you go to the trade gate and pay the entry tax.”

  Pekol pulled out a stiff square of parchment and shoved it toward the guard. “There!” He put his hands on his hips. “Half the time you don’t even look at it, and I’m fairly certain you’re not smart enough to read it. Can we go now?”

  The guard stared at the chit for a time. “Jans, can you come read this?” he called to a female guard examining another cart. She arched an eyebrow. “’Cause you know, I’m not smart enough to read the thing.”

  “Come on. You saw it yesterday. I’ve another street to clean.” Pekol held his hand out for the chit.

  The guard ignored Pekol, making them wait until Jans finished the other cart. Both guards looked at it quizzically, turning it this way and that.

  Pekol’s face reddened. He opened his mouth several times to say something, but each time thought better of it and clamped it shut. Riam coughed into his shirt to keep from smiling. He didn’t want Pekol’s anger directed toward him.

  Finally, the guard handed it
back. “Mind your tongue next time, or you’ll pay at the trade gate, stamp or no stamp.”

  Pekol stuffed the parchment back into his shirt. “Come on, boy.” He grabbed the handles of the cart with a jerk. They moved through the gate while the guards chuckled behind them.

  “Oh, and Pekol,” the guard called. “I was smart enough to catch you.”

  “About time somebody did something about that bastard,” Pekol grumbled, his voice barely loud enough to hear over the rattle of the wheels.

  Riam figured he’d better watch what he did until Pekol’s mood changed. He knew how to be invisible when a man’s temper was foul. He’d had lots of practice with his grandfather.

  * * *

  —

  “You stay with the cart at night,” Pekol told Riam, “and you don’t stray farther than the nearest hole to piss in except for Bortha ’s place.”

  They’d returned from a second run to the pit, and the cart was tucked away in an alley. Riam thought they were somewhere near where they’d first started that morning, but he couldn’t be sure, too many of the buildings looked the same.

  “Bortha’s inn is a few buildings down from here on the left. Get a few armloads of straw from his stables and line the bottom of the cart ’fore you go to sleep.”

  Riam was so tired he didn’t care if there was straw to sleep on. He could climb in and sleep right now.

  “It’s not for you,” Pekol said, reading his expression. “It keeps the cart from smelling so bad. Tell Bortha you’re my new churp, and he’ll let you get the straw and give you some scraps to eat if he has them. Don’t ever take anything else, even if he offers. He’ll charge me for anything you get from him ’sides the straw and scraps. You’ll have a worse nickname than Stick if that happens.”