The Nethers

by M. E. Parker

  Once they all came out on top, the loom over the manhole lowered, and Rounder bartered with the weaver for Gapi clothes. He had nothing to offer except promises of future items, which the weaver took for granted. With the sun rising, the markets of Megan’s Point opened their stalls and set out merchandise, while the midnight rabble shuffled off to find a place to sleep. Rounder slipped on a duster. He burrowed his head into the hood, shadowing his face. Beside the stall, the weaver removed bolts of cloth from his rickshaw and motioned for Sindra, Nico, and Myron to load up. Rounder draped them in cloth in such a way that their limbs resembled bolts of cloth.

  “Keep quiet in there.” Rounder tapped Sindra on the back. “And try not to move.”

  The past few days, Sindra had acclimated to twisting and turning her body in unnatural ways to accommodate Nico’s coordinated movements. At times she thought her ribs would punch through her stomach or her wrists would snap off from being bent the wrong way too far. Her neck ached of cricks on both sides that screamed when she turned her head. Her feet had grown numb, and, where the cuffs hadn’t rubbed her skin into sores, calluses had formed. Not moving, as Rounder ordered, would have been a welcome change for her if the rickshaw bed had been larger or if they hadn’t been arranged in such a way as not to have her head between her legs, the chains twisted, pinching her skin, and Nico’s hand on her mouth.

  “How long is this going to take?” Sindra whispered.

  “I don’t know. Be quiet.”

  Sindra could hear Rounder’s labored breathing as he navigated the rickshaw through the maze of the Megan’s Point market. He stopped, restarted, and stopped again. Sindra had only a minced view of their surroundings through the fabric.

  “Listen up.” Rounder poked his head under the cloth. “Myron, you first. There is a secret passageway to avoid Megan’s guards. It’s very narrow—”

  “Oh,” Sindra moaned.

  “Do you want that thing off or not?” Rounder helped Myron out and pointed him to a crawlspace at the bottom of an Old Age wall. “This is tricky.”

  The sun stung Sindra’s eyes when Rounder pulled back the cloth. She and Nico stepped out to a narrow alley not much wider than the rickshaw. They worked down to their knees, timing each movement until they lay flat on the ground, Nico on top of Sindra. Myron pushed them through the hole in the wall while Rounder pulled from the other side.

  They squeezed through broken walls, climbed over debris, and snaked through holes, leading upward, until they hit a dead end at a wooden wall.

  “Ren,” Rounder whispered through a slit in the wall. “Ren? You there?” He waited with his ear up to the wall.

  “Jasper?”

  “We need your help.”

  “You can’t be here.”

  “Please.”

  “What is it?” Ren opened a small square in the wall just big enough for her to see Rounder.

  “This.” Rounder shoved Sindra and Nico forward so that Ren could see the unity binding.

  “Oh, wow. Where did you find that?”

  “Forget that. How do we get them out of it?” Rounder held a finger to his lips. “And please—without waking Megan.”

  Ren, Megan’s highest-ranking enforcer and concubine, laughed. “It’ll cost you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want that.” Ren jammed her hand through the rectangular opening and jutted her finger toward the unity binding.

  “It’s yours.”

  “And Jasper, you know that nothing happens around here without Megan’s consent. Megan’s price will be…steeper than mine.”

  “Here we go.” Rounder turned to Myron. “I figured.”

  Sindra wondered what Ren would want with such a terrible device. “How long will this take?”

  Ren spat at Myron. “Tell your slave to keep quiet, or I will change my mind.”

  Sindra had not allowed herself to think about the reality of her situation, that Myron now owned her in the eyes of Nethers law, bought and paid for.

  A series of clicks sounded from the other side of the wall before a heavy door eased open. Ren, wearing only a sheet, walked back over to Megan, who slept naked on a pair of giant pillows in the middle of a room. Alcoves and crannies edged the narrow chamber that concealed the Old Age decay of the structure with throws and rugs covering the floor, tapestries hanging from the walls, scarves draped from sconces and waves of purple satin festooned from the ceiling. Electric bulbs splashed yellow light across the room, exploding the colors into blotches of bright and shadow.

  Megan’s eyes opened. She stood without regard to having a crowd stand before her while she strode across the room naked. She slipped on a black shawl. When she pulled it taut, cinching it around her waist, a pair of pointed red wings spread behind her back. “I knew you’d be slithering back to my bed sooner or later, Jasper.”

  “I—” Megan placed her finger on Rounder’s lips before he could speak and walked right past him.

  “Before we get started…” she pressed up against Myron. “I did let my adoring public play piñata, but I allowed one of those cockrels, as you suggested, crawl back to Jonesbridge with injuries that will tell his tale.” She ran her fingers over Sindra’s arm, up her neck, stopping to caress her face. She pulled Sindra’s chin toward her. “Aren’t you a plucky sight.” A smile spread across her face as her hands found the chains of the unity binding, her fingers walking along the links like the Orkinites on rope bridges. “And this—is outrageous.”

  Ren grabbed an iron ring holding a single key. She held out her hand to swipe the fabric on the walls as she meandered through Megan’s sleep chamber to a metal door with a small window made of thick glass. She twisted the key in the door’s lock. The door swung open.

  The wings on Megan’s robe fluttered as she walked, swinging her hips. “Before Ren takes care of your problem, there’s a little matter of payment.”

  “I already offered the binding as payment.” Rounder took a deep breath.

  Sindra’s salvage instincts kicked in; she imagined how valuable the Old Age metal in the binding was and how the salvage factory in Jonesbridge would have congratulated her if she’d brought such a find to their attention.

  “And I’m thrilled to see what Ren can do with it. Or, who she can do with it.” Megan placed her arm across the open metal door. “Maybe I’ll bind you and me in this thing together.” Megan ran her fingernail down Myron’s chest, leaving a scratch that threatened to bleed.

  Megan’s long fingernails sharpened to a point and reminded Sindra of an imp tongue. “But Ren is my property,” Megan said. “She works on what I want her to work on.”

  “Of course.” Rounder shut his eyes.

  “Ren will free these two for…” Megan pointed her finger at Myron, then Rounder, and Sindra.

  “You.” Megan pointed to Nico. “You’re a bit fragile, but you’ll do. A nice clean slate to work with. If I can’t train you to be a champion drudger, you can be my personal attendant.”

  “No.” Sindra wedged in front of Nico. “He can’t stay with you. He’s a kid.”

  “Please, no.” Nico’s eyes welled with tears. “I have to go home.”

  “Are you volunteering to take his place?” Megan twirled a lock of Sindra’s hair as she inspected her curves.

  “Sindra, what are you doing?” Myron grabbed her arm and pulled her close, yanking Nico as well.

  “He’s an innocent kid, Myron. Think—what’ll happen to him if he stays with her.”

  “Oh, I’m not that bad.” Megan cocked her hip. “Once he gets a little older, believe me, he’ll have the time of his life.”

  “Nope.” Rounder shook his head and stepped in front of Nico. “Sindra’s right, Myron.”

  “Oh, you’re just jealous of this young blood.” Megan slapped Rounder on the chest.

  Myron doubted that Nico’s virtue would last another day in the Nethers whether he stayed with Megan or not. Weighed against the price already paid for Myron to reunite with
Sindra, what was the value of Nico’s innocence? Lalana had given her life for Myron to find Sindra, the twins had sold themselves into slavery, Rounder had lost everything, all for Myron and Sindra to be together again, and now, protecting some kid who’d enjoyed the splendor of growing up near the sea threatened to derail Myron’s plans even more. That kid had already stolen the love of Myron’s life by marrying her in the eyes of the Great Above. There was no way back from that. According to the law of Megan’s Point, Myron owned both Nico and Sindra. He could veto Sindra’s decision.

  “So what’ll it be? The kid?” Megan held out her left hand in front of Nico. “Or the carpie?” She opened her other hand in front of Sindra.

  “Sindra isn’t a carpie.” Myron gritted his teeth.

  “Tell yourself that if you like. I don’t care.” Megan ran her finger down Sindra’s cheek.

  “Take Nico,” Myron said.

  “No. Take me.” Sindra closed her eyes.

  “Oh, I will. You can bet on it.” Megan winked. “Now, get them out of this delicious device.”

  “Myron, it’s okay. We have to get out of this thing.” Sindra’s voice sounded weak. She strained to lift her head.

  Megan patted Sindra’s lips with her hand. “Don’t speak, girl. I will let you know when you can speak.” Megan stepped aside and extended a hand of welcome through the metal door.

  “No. This is where I stop.” Rounder backed up. “I’m never going in there again.”

  “Jasper, you wound me. After all the fun we’ve had together?”

  Sindra and Nico passed through the doorway with Myron leading the way into a circular chamber with a high ceiling. The wall was black, the floor red. Hundreds of shards of broken mirrors on the ceiling twinkled as Ren lit the torches on the walls. What the torchlight revealed left Sindra with a lump in her throat.

  Chains hung from the ceiling in different lengths, some with barbed hooks, some with cuffs, some crisscrossing to pulleys weighted with stones. Under the chains sat slabs equipped with restraints and stretching mechanisms, hooks and feathers, blades in the shapes of crescent moons and harnesses that looked as though they would contort the body in impossible ways. Splatters of blood stained the black walls, and while the red floor had absorbed most of the color, the brown outline of blood persisted in dried pools. When the door shut behind them, Sindra lost hope, and felt she would rather die with Nico in the binding than become Megan’s gory pleasure toy.

  Ren motioned for Nico and Sindra to follow her to a workbench surrounded on three sides by tool bins and welding equipment. She flipped a switch that turned on a set of lights, brightening the table. She placed the nearest locking mechanism on the table, causing Sindra and Nico to twist and bend to accommodate her positioning. She muttered under her breath, moving the cylinder on the lock back and forth. “This is a cipher lock. Each one is different. Better bring a cask of scog.” She put on her jeweler’s lenses and placed a stethoscope earpiece into her ears. She positioned the diaphragm onto the lock.

  Sindra guessed that Ren had twisted, probed, picked, turned, and cursed at the mechanism for at least a half an hour before anyone heard a click. The cuff and chain tethering their necks fell away to dangle on Nico’s chest. She made quicker work of the lock on the cuff around Nico’s neck. When it unhinged, Ren set aside the first of fourteen chains and took a swig of scog.

  Megan went back to her sleeping chamber to rest. Myron wandered the black room, studying the devices. After each lock, Ren downed more scog, slowing her progress. Unable to see the sun or sky in the black room, Sindra couldn’t tell whether it took all day or all night, until the last chain gave way just when Megan returned, refreshed and ready for her nightly show on the city stage. Sindra rubbed her forearm and scratched the red, swollen bands of skin where the cuffs had worn sores into her flesh. Ren finished off the scog and passed out on the floor.

  As soon as Ren completed the separation of Nico and Sindra, Myron embraced Sindra. They kissed, and Myron, recalling the way Megan had kissed him on the stage, opened his mouth in the same way, a real kiss that he and Sindra now shared.

  “Oh no.” Megan wrenched them apart and stepped between them. “She’s my property now. Fair warning: next time you do that it’ll be theft of services. And everyone knows what happens to thieves in Megan’s Point.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Megan’s preparation for her nightly performance mesmerized Myron. She sat before a mirror brushing colors and powders onto her eyes and cheeks, and fiddled with her hair, twisting it into a thick braid that she tied with a black ribbon. She paraded around her chamber naked, until she selected a tunic from a heap of clothing and slipped it on. From a scattering of shoes, she carefully plucked a pair that had knife blades for heels.

  Nico’s eyes were as wide open as his mouth as Megan sashayed around the room. Ren, too, attended Megan with her bleary gaze. Rounder faced Megan’s direction, but his eyes were closed.

  Sindra’s hands were cuffed to a leash, attached to a pole in the center of the room. She was able to move about, but only a few feet from the pole.

  “Don’t look at him.” Megan snapped her fingers at Sindra. “You look at me.” Sindra lowered her head. She was relieved to be free from the binding, but she had no more energy for a fight.

  “Please, ma’am, can I go home now?” Nico said. “I don’t belong here.”

  “’Fraid not, kid.” Megan pointed to Myron. “You’re his, now.”

  “Myron, please.”

  “You can’t make it out there on your own, Nico. You better stay with us for now.” Myron gave him a pat on the back.

  “I can get you as far as Mesa Gap,” Rounder said.

  “This little merry pack of men is too funny,” Megan said to Ren. “They act like they’re going to get to leave Megan’s Point.”

  Ren managed a nervous laugh.

  Bora Bora. It had to be with Sindra, and it had to be with her baby. He had to make it, and they had to come with him, not stay in Megan’s Point or be raised in the dungeon of some fanatic on the coast, or exist as some toy for a maniacal warlord. Myron had more luck formulating a plan when he allowed the idea to find him. All day his mind had raced over how to get out of this mess, how to free Sindra, escape Megan, and rescue Sindra’s baby. His conclusion: impossible, more impossible, unknown level of impossibility, but impossible nonetheless. His grandfather would have told him that impossible meant just that, qualifying it made no sense. And he would have reminded Myron that nothing was impossible, but Myron’s despair and disappointment with life on the other side of the Great Gorge had addled his thinking.

  When the idea materialized, a surge of energy struck. “Sindra’s your property now, right?”

  “We made a deal. No backing out now.”

  “Right. So if someone stole from Sindra, they’d be stealing from you, right?”

  Megan’s face reddened. “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s what’s happened. Someone stole her baby.” If this worked, he could rescue the baby and get Nico home, and he and Sindra could make a run for Bora Bora.

  “A baby?” Megan’s lip curled. “This cute band of travelers just gets more interesting by the hour.”

  “They stole from Sindra—so they stole from you. Will you avenge your property?”

  “Oh, you are an operator.” Megan gathered her hair into a bundle that she slung over her shoulder. “You look like a yummy biscuit, but you’re dangerous. So full of ideas, aren’t you?” Wearing her shoes heeled with knife blades made her as tall as Myron. He felt his entire body tingle as she approached, hoping she would touch him and hating himself for it. “First of all, who are our alleged thieves?”

  “Orkin,” Sindra said.

  Ren stood and backed into a corner away from Megan.

  Rage built in Megan’s eyes, as though someone had loaded her firebox with too much coal. “Orkin. The Orkin?” She removed one of her shoes, closed one eye, and hurled the shoe at the wall where it stuck in the w
ood by the heel, inches away from Ren’s head. “I knew I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

  “Kill Orkin?” Nico shook his head. “He’s the voice of the Great Above on earth.”

  “He’s a taint-sniffing dog in bed with an imp from the Chasm, as sure as he worships the Great Above.”

  Nico winced as though calamity or lightning might strike at any moment. “He’s our father.” Nico’s eyes welled with tears.

  “And he bound you to a witch and got rid of you.” Sindra pulled at the chain that tethered her to the pole.

  “You’re a witch?” Megan paused, revealing a moment of concern.

  Sindra waited to answer, until all eyes landed on her. “Maybe.”

  Megan placed her hand on Nico’s head. “Oh, I know. I, too, grew up in Orkin’s Landing with the father. If they could only see me now.” She twirled with her hand over her head. “But, technically, the theft took place before she was my property—and out of my domain.”

  “Can’t you ever just do something…nice? Just once? Always, ‘what’s in it for me? What do I get out of it? Who do I get to watch scream and cry for mercy?’” Rounder said.

  “I do, Jasper. You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

  “Great. Thanks for that. Now, as long as you’re being so generous, I go by Rounder now. Jasper is dead. I’m never killing for your sport again.”

  Hearing Rounder’s voice booming, a drudger opened the door, and, without looking inside the room, said, “Everything okay in there?”

  “I don’t know. Is everything okay?” Megan said to Rounder as she yanked her shoe from the wall. The knives in her heels stabbed holes in the pillows on the floor as she stomped toward the door. Gray fluffs floated from the ruptured pillows and drifted through the lamplight.

  “Well?” Myron asked.

  “What would I want with a baby? And what’s my property to you? Baby or no baby, she’s mine until the buzzards peck out her eyes.” Megan pointed to Sindra. “And so is her baby if I go after Orkin for it.”