Erb passed along the word, and Jack met him at his apartment that night after work. The two went out to a bar, and while a yarn-spinner’s tournament carried on loudly in the background Jack laid out the particulars of his enslavement.
“Never would have thought it could happen to me,” said Jack. “All of the guys from the gambling game that I owed money to, they just sold me and my debt to some dipshit farmer. The guy owns a lot of land. I have to do everything. Tend his fruit trees, feed his retarded animals, clean up their shit, go around and find “hot deals” on tools he needs. It’s hell. It really is, man. Don’t listen to any of the talk about people living free in the Valley. If you hear anyone talking about that shit, just point them in my direction. I'll set them straight.”
Shocked to the point of numbness, Perseval thought about the old stories of the Ugly in Pontius, how they raided the countryside enslaving primitives, turning humans into objects that they could beat, torture, rape, murder, and sell for profit. Perseval could not look directly at Jack; if he saw a single bruise, he knew he would pass out. He worked his jaw lamely, then kept his mouth in his beer.
“Every day I think about escaping. I only get a few decas a day, and I have to work all day and even part of the night. And the more I give my owner to pay off the debt, the less I get to save for myself.”
“Drinks are on me,” Perseval blurted, then blanched at his own insensitivity.
“Fortunately, the idiot can’t chain me up or lock me up. The law’s full of loopholes, I guess. I mean, I could get on a boat and go home anytime. I’ve got enough for a ticket, at least. Hell, I could even slip away and go to another town in the Valley. But if I get caught, man... it would just make my debt worse...”
Perseval gave some thought to buying up Jack’s contract himself, but he knew that he had nowhere near enough, and knew that he was only a cog in a system designed to keep their kind down at the bottom. He wondered what the King of such a land must be like… a gangster in a militant gold-trimmed suit, perhaps riding around in a rare automobile with gasoline shipped all the way from Pontius, sidearm jangling on each hip, surrounded by a squad of death commandos armed with sunglasses and automatics.
“It’s just so completely stupid,” said Jack, swallowing hard. “I know there’s freaking slaves in Pontius, but shit, man, at least it’s illegal there! At least the Law gives a shit, or tries to! But here? Here, they’re too stupid to even build prisons. Now I’m not saying I deserve to be in prison, all I did was roll on the Fate Wheel, but come on man. Here they talk about freedom this and freedom that, but if you step out of line they’ll turn you into a slave without a second thought.”
Perseval swallowed hard, took a drink, then forced out, “How… how long… will you…?”
“Til the end of the year, looks like. And then I can… well…”
“You could… you know, come work where I…”
“Naw, man, one of the managers likes me, so I might stay on there. If I could move up a little it wouldn’t be so bad. You know, get a place of my own. They have some decent houses on the land – not for the slaves, of course, but for the people who manage the farm. Hell, one guy even said he’d show me how to build my own place. Can you imagine that? Me, in a house I built?”
Perseval sighed, then said, “So it’s… well, so it’s… not so bad?”
“Maybe.” Jack drank down the rest of his beer. “As long as I don’t blow my fuckin’ brains out.”
***
After another week, Perseval wrote a letter and got together some money to send back to his family in Pontius. He stood in a postal office, uncomfortable with the suspiciously straightforward answers of the merchant shipper who ran the place; the amount he gave for the shipment of the package was too low, the terms too simple, and so Perseval assumed that the man was in a bad mood and was playing a game concerning the manner of the necessary bribe. Perseval killed time in the postal office, then took the opportunity to tear up his letter, which contained the real reason why he'd left in the first place, and wrote another which said that everything was fine and that he would return home soon.
A young man with long black hair biked up to the office, dropped off a package, then turned to leave. Perseval stopped him at his bike. "Hey man," he whispered. "How can I get a package sent? This guy’s giving me a hard time.”
“Then you should tell him to go screw himself,” said the youth, eyeing Perseval up and down. “There’s other shippers, if that guy’s a prick.”
“But if I do that... I mean, this package, it’s for my family...”
“You’re new in the Valley?”
“Yeah.”
The youth nodded slowly, then lit up a cigarette. “You still got Pontius in you. Listen, you don’t have to bribe these guys to keep them from going through your stuff. They know if they get a bad rep, they’re gonna go outta business. Probably nobody told you that, right?”
Perseval nodded.
“That’s Lucy’s Forge for you. Why d’you hang around this place, anyway? You look like a decent guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t hang around Lucy’s Forge any longer than I have to. I only stop by this dump to drop off packages. This place is for roughnecks, man. Idiots who got nothin’ better to do than gawk at the fresh meat that comes outta Pontius. There’s a lotta expats here, but also a lot of anti-Pontius sentiment. You’d think the War was still on, the way people act.”
Perseval drew in a sharp breath. “You mean it’s different elsewhere in the Valley?”
The youth laughed openly. “They call it Lucy’s Forge ’cause this is where people go to get broken down, to have all the Pontius beaten out of them. But once you get broken, you gotta go elsewhere to get built back up. I mean, shit man, is there any art scene here? Any schools, any wandering tutors? Any machine factories? Have you seen any whorehouses around here that don’t look like public outhouses? Have you heard one single argument around here that didn’t have to do with sports or gambling?”
Perseval felt sick and weak. “I think I need to sit down,” he mumbled.
“Hell no,” said the youth. “It’s time to run. You need to see the real Black Valley, what the people here fought and died to make. Let’s go for a ride.”
Perseval hesitated. “But how can… I mean, I can’t just… it’s not like I can…”
The youth stood with one foot on the pedal of his bike, ready to ride at a moment’s notice. “This is one of those moments. I know it seems important to get into a routine, establish something familiar, do something that you think is important. I know it seems like if you step outside of that routine then your survival will be at stake. But life’s callin’ out to you, man. Life’s about more than just survival. I can prove it.”
The sounds of the busy avenue grew distant. “You can?” said Perseval.
“I can show you,” said the youth. “Let’s go and see the Black Valley.”
Chapter Four
Lashes and Whacks
During a night of drinking under the stars at a small bar on the outskirts of Lucy’s Forge, Perseval’s new friend Simeon convinced him to quit his job and bike around the Valley with him.
“You know enough about Pontius that you don’t want to live there,” said Simeon, “but you haven’t seen enough of the Valley to convince yourself to stay. Don’t worry about your job. You don’t even particularly like it, and there’s a thousand more where that one came from.” Perseval was charmed by his friend, and intimidated in a sort of familial way. He never would have taken such a risk in Pontius, but ever since he had slept with the homeless under the open sky, he feared far less than ever before.
It was a bright spring day when they biked down the forest road with some food and coin and books in their backpacks. Perseval was filled with white light; they rode by a field of waving grass, and when Perseval saw the sun shining on the backs of several enormous cows he felt pure joy radiating through the world. Simeon made a silly
joke about trading in their bikes for cows and Perseval was overcome with loud, immodest laughter. He knew that he had gone for too long without any friends. They came to a hill and Simeon raced him all the way down, and when they nearly died at the bottom they both shared a cigarette, shaking and laughing. They rode past other bikers, walkers, men too busy to talk and young people traveling around with no clear goal. They shared some “porcelain dots” with a black-haired girl about their age in a farmer’s field, and when Perseval went into the woods to take a piss he became convinced that the eternal darkness at the bottom of a ravine was going to call out his true identity and eat his soul. Simeon and the girl laughed as he tearfully explained the danger to them all.
Later that day a car came up from behind them. They edged their bikes to the side and the clunky machine lurched past them. Perseval caught sight of a dour man in a suit in the back seat, his face in a paper.
“That must be some rich guy!” Perseval said as they edged back onto the road.
“Yeah,” said Simeon. “He probably owns a mine or a factory. Those autos, man - they cost a lot. It’s not like in Pontius.”
“Why’s that?”
“As far as I know, there’s not a single oil well in the entire Valley, or around it. At least no one’s ever found any oil. It’s all imported from Pontius. It’s heavy and it has to be airlifted, it’s not like chuckin’ a bunch of logs in the river. Only the richest people can handle the cost.”
“And the government,” said Perseval. “Right?”
Simeon shook his head. “The Valliers fought the War on foot. You know that?”
Amazed, Perseval said, “But how can you fight tanks and airships on foot?”
Simeon gestured at the woods on either side. “I guess the forest helped. And did you see the mountains when you came in? Can you imagine finding a sniper hiding in that kind of terrain?”
Perseval thought for a while, then said, “This might sound strange, but I really don’t know much about the War. People in Pontius don’t like to talk about it. I remember seeing posters about how the people in the Valley wanted to kill us all, everything got really expensive, and for a while everyone was saying it was the end of the world, then all of a sudden it was over. But, uh… I was never really clear on what happened, and nobody I talked to was much help.”
Simeon smiled. “Here, they call it the Smith War. You can find books about it all over the place. And any vet loves to talk about it. Hell, any Vallier who lived through the Smith War is proud of it.”
Perseval did not push the matter. He could not help but think that Simeon sounded boyish and immature when speaking about the real horrors of war. He remembered seeing murals in Pontius that showed men with their legs blown off, screaming in agony and crawling away from shadowy, fanged Valliers lurking in the dark forest. You think they’ll stop at one massacre?! one poster had read, and he remembered another that carried the vague warning Your babys in their clutches!!!
At sunset they rode past the mines in the eastern foothills near the settlement of Godseye. Simeon showed him the complicated operation of the Pandora Mining Corporation, men clambering about the hills like ants in the distance, torches and electric lights casting hard shadows against drifting blue mist, the metal tracks and bridges and chutes shaking, rattling, as glittering dirt moved about on carts.
Entranced by the sight, and still a little high from the porcelain, Perseval said, “I could get a job here.”
“Oh! Don’t do that, man. This is the shit you do if you got kids to feed, or an extended family, or some kind of hardcore debt situation. It’s hard work, and you end up breathing coal dust and shit like that. Stay free as long as you can.”
A black-faced miner with thick arms marched toward them. His eyes were hard and stood out from his darkened skin. “What’s up?” he said, looking directly at the pair.
Mindful that they were trespassing, Perseval put a foot back on the pedal in preparation for a quick escape.
Simeon did not move. “Sup, man,” he said. The miner strolled past without another word.
Perseval edged the bike up to his friend. “I’m a little confused,” he said quietly. “Something like that happened to me before. Actually, several times. Didn’t you think that guy looked like he wanted to beat us up?”
“Uh… did he?”
“He was looking right at us, Simeon!”
“Ah.” Simeon nodded, then said, “I remember feeling like that. It seems so long ago. The thing is, Pontius shapes the way people interact. Everyone’s so afraid all the time that their body language changes. You’re on the defense all the time. You’ll see it once you’ve been here a while. In Pontius, you keep your head down. When someone looks you directly in the eyes, it’s a challenge. It means they’re a gangster, or they’re crazy, or they’re just fed up with being angry and they’re ready to do something stupid. Now that I think about it, when we first met I noticed that when we talked, you either looked at my cheek or my mouth, not my eyes.”
Perseval looked away, embarrassed.
“Hey, it’s no big deal,” Simeon continued. “It takes some getting used to. People might seem aggressive here, but they’re just straightforward. Valliers are friendly as can be, as long as you don’t cross ’em.”
“As long as you don’t cross them? But I’ve seen fights, Simeon, gross insensitivity, rudeness…”
“Sometimes people have bad days! Believe me, it’s better than holding it all in. If you wake up one day and feel like shit, you can mouth off to someone, if you want. There’s no law against it. The other person might mouth off too, though, so be prepared.”
“I would never do that,” said Perseval. “I guess I just don’t get it. I don’t get the allure of walking around with a gun and being rude. You say the rest of the Valley’s different from Lucy’s Forge, but if there’s no place in the Valley with some sort of decency laws, then I don’t see how it could be any different.”
“Decency laws?!” Simeon did not want to laugh at his new friend, but the very concept had become alien to him. He swung onto his bike, ready to move on. “That’s Pontius baggage, Persey. Pontius can’t even keep people from killing each other, or keep businesses from buying politicians, or even keep drugs out of their own prisons… but they think they can pass laws to maintain polite behavior!”
***
Days passed as they rode across the Valley. Many nights Perseval laid under the stars, wrapped in a blanket and watching the embers of their fire while talking to Simeon. Simeon feared no one. He felt no shame in approaching farmers who lived far from any town and getting them to feed and bed the pair in their warm homes, which would have been inconceivable to Perseval before this trip. The first night they stayed in a stranger’s house, he could not sleep because he was convinced that he would wake up to find their host standing over them in the dark, panting as a knife slowly neared his exposed jugular. When they left after a big breakfast, Simeon could not stop laughing when Perseval revealed his fears to him.
Since Simeon refused to spend his meager funds on anything other than recreational drugs that he wanted Perseval to try, Perseval ended up being in charge of buying anything else that they needed whenever they passed through a town. They often squabbled about money, especially as Perseval’s funds grew slim. But they argued less and less as Perseval came to learn that they could sleep nearly anywhere, food could be begged off others or even stolen from large fields, and Simeon knew how to find other pilgrims on similar journeys who often traded or handed out useful equipment. Perseval did not see one single ghoul. He was surprised to see gangs of Enforcers walking around with heavy sticks and guns, and yet they were not taking advantage of anyone. They even seemed to understand that Simeon was not interested in holding down any kind of long-term job. They did not care.
They reached Plumwater, a fishing village built on a green plain near a stretch of the river so wide it seemed to be a lake. Plumwater was home to the Tutoria, a large, makeshift library and t
ree-shaded grounds where wandering tutors, healers, farming scholars, natural philosophers, Entertainers, and even shaman from the hills gathered to debate and learn from one another and even occasionally get into the most outrageous, heated arguments over matters that onlookers agreed were completely incomprehensible.
Simeon did not take Perseval to the Tutoria, but they did pass by the Black Valley’s version of a school, a thatched roof suspended between several thick tree trunks. A mixture of children and adults recited a simple spelling lesson under the guidance of a young lady in rough-spun clothes. Perseval saw a student leave his seat, lean against a tree, and light a cigarette. Perseval watched the teacher, but she was not enraged by the student’s behavior, or even seem to take any notice at all. Perseval felt equally confused, envious, and condescending toward the informal education process. He could never forget the years of suffering he endured in the Pontius schooling system, the cruelty of the teachers who were constantly at their breaking point, the bullies who were completely uninterested in any of the actual schoolwork, the endless hours of toil and the secret fantasy of finding a way to simply go home without facing terrible repercussions.
“Persey?” Simeon stood by his bike, watching Perseval from a turn far ahead. “You okay? You look like somebody spit on you.”
Perseval came to and realized he had been standing transfixed by the sight of the makeshift school. As if to make the affair seem even more slapdash, two young girls strolled past him and took seats in the school, in the middle of the lesson, without a word from the teacher. Perseval shook his head and pushed his bike along the dusty path.
[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants Page 4
