by Phil Tucker
There. That was where he was headed.
Asho hesitated and looked down at his blade. Wearing it was only going to invite further trouble. His very soul twisted with anger and grief. Guilt arose within him, guilt over how easily he'd forgotten the realities of life here beneath the surface. He carefully undid his sword belt and wrapped it around the scabbard, then cast around for a safe place to stow it. There – a deep crack. Asho knelt and pushed the blade in deep. The demon within the sword remained silent.
He was close to the Great Cavern's eastern wall. Not far away from where he was crouched was the formal entrance to the Abythian Labyrinth, a massive series of broad steps descending beside a ramp beneath a huge and intimidating ceremonial gate. There wasn't much traffic moving through it, but close by, a mine entrance was disgorging hundreds of Bythians, a cohort from the Third Shift, done with their day's toil and heading home.
Asho examined them as they walked. There would be about three hundred of them, he remembered. They emerged from the ramp that led down to the mine complex without energy, without enthusiasm; they trudged, dragging their feet, exhaustion eating at their marrows, eyes hollow, faces caked with dust, white hair bound back or shorn to the scalp.
Massive urgolthas hauled the wagons, their handlers riding on flimsy howdahs lashed across their shoulders. Asho counted them. There were ten of the huge hexapods, their pebbled hides grown pale from their stint in Bythos. Pale enough that soon they'd soon be cycled back into Zoe to grow strong once more. Their tusks were filed down; their eyes were rheumy, their maws ropey with thick spit.
The sound of bells tolling echoed across the Badlands. The First Shift would be waking up. Asho bit his lower lip. He'd have to risk it now, or wait nine more hours till the First Shift headed home. The odds of Andirke and Andris being freed before then and following his footprints in the dust were too high. He had to go, and now.
The Bythians of the Third Shift were moving toward the main road that cut across the Badlands, a pale scar in the black, broken, rocky plain. Asho waited, trying to time his flight just right, then broke away from the boulders and ran across the hundred yards of broken rock that separated him from the Bythian workers. It was hard going. The Badlands were almost designed to twist your ankle, break your shins. Sharp, fractured rocks with blade-like edges; moving across them was a skill you could acquire if you spent your life navigating the plain.
Asho hadn't. He hissed and cursed and gave up running to hunker down low. The black rocks sliced at his boots. If he'd run any farther, he'd have cut his soles to ribbons. As it was, he slunk forward as quickly as he could, picking his way with care, until he reached the back of the column, head hunched, and merged with the last of the trailing Third Shift.
The dust was thick back here, the last urgoltha wagon spewing up a plume that choked the lungs and blinded the eyes. Only the most exhausted and weak of the Third Shift would trail at the far back, those near death, those who might collapse before they reached the cubes.
A few of them eyed Asho, but weariness had robbed them of any real curiosity. Asho pulled his cloak around the lower half of his face, ducked his chin, and walked in silence.
They had almost reached the cubes when they passed the first cohort of the First Shift, some three hundred men and women moving with a mixture of resignation and resolve. Asho watched them with avid curiosity. They were his father's Shift. They passed a second cohort, then a third. Lowering his head, not wanting to draw attention, Asho marched on, and finally the road splintered into five tributaries that spread out to sink into the jumbled mass of cubes.
Asho took a deep breath and then broke away from the Third Shift, moving left down the road toward his father's old home. More First Shift cohorts were moving his way, so he sank into a dark corner and waited, watching, as thousands of his countrymen and women began their next day in the mines.
Asho held himself still. Each and every day that he'd been up in Ennoia under the sun, his people had been making this march. Each day that he'd trained, or rested, or ridden or studied, they'd been working. Slaving away in the mines. When had that awareness left him? Not the first year. Maybe the second. There had finally come a day when he'd simply stopped thinking about them, had become caught up in his new life. Now, watching them pass him by in their thousands, grim and bleak, he felt a crippling wave of guilt and self-loathing pass through him again. Had he thought his life was hard?
When the tenth and final cohort was gone, Asho stepped back out into the street, the cube homes rising up on both sides. The cubes littered the steep slopes that ringed the base of the Blade Towers; they were assembled haphazardly atop each other so that they looked like they might tumble down at any moment. The street could only be called such for being a relatively clear passage between them; in truth, the cubes were a mass of alleyways and crooked passages. When he'd lived here, Asho had never questioned the origin of their homes – had never asked who had built them, or why. Now he eyed their chaotic layout and for the first time wondered about their architects and their mad logic. That, in and of itself, he realized, marked how much he had changed.
The streets had no names, but Asho's memory served him well. He'd grown up in the area inhabited by the First Shift. He ignored the curious looks of the few other Bythians on the street, the old or infirm, ducked aside at the sight of approaching Ennoian patrols, and finally found himself on the street on which he'd lived as a child. It was silent, devoid of adults, all of whom, Asho realized, must be at the mines.
Suddenly he was in front of his own home. He stopped short, unable to simply step in through the open door. Instead, he drew back into the shadows across the street and stared at the cube. He didn't even know if his father and mother were still alive. If Shaya had returned here after leaving Kyferin Castle, all those years ago. He stared at the old cube and old memories resurfaced. A flood of images, the earliest blurred and mostly impressions, the last his departure with Shaya, their neighbors and friends turning out to watch them leave for the sunlit lands of Ennoia.
Asho felt tears threatening to spill and rubbed his sleeve angrily across his face. What a naive fool he'd been, so young, so filled with hope. Determined to impress his new lord, to prove to be his most valiant and loyal servant, to become a knight, a hero, to change the world's impression of Bythians forevermore.
When he could stand the memories no longer, Asho crossed the street and stepped into the doorway. His home looked completely unchanged; smaller, perhaps. Two simple pallets lay on one side, his mother's tiny corner kitchen at the back and his father's rope-lashed chair close to the door.
The chair was occupied by an old man, his head lolling back, the light falling on his scrawny throat and sunken cheeks. A stranger? Then he saw that the old man's legs were missing from above the knees, and his throat constricted.
"Father?"
The old man stirred, blinked, and then focused on him. He had a moment of confusion and incomprehension, and then his eyes opened wide. He struggled to sit upright. "Asho?"
A knot of pain blossomed in Asho's chest, a terrible vulnerability and love. He took three steps forward and then fell to his knees by the rope chair, reaching out to bury his face in his father's chest and hold him tight.
"Asho?" Zekko's voice had lost its depth and power, but retained an iron edge. For all that his body had wasted away, it was clear that his mind was as sharp as ever. "By the Ascendant, what – how?"
"Father." Asho's eyes stung with tears, and he squeezed them tight, overwhelmed by the emotions that roiled within him. How many nights had he fallen asleep, alone in Kyferin Castle, wishing that he could hold his father so, take but a moment to draw comfort from his presence?
He coughed and drew back. They studied each other, each with a sense of burgeoning wonder.
"You look unwell, my son." Zekko's brow lowered. "Have you been ill?"
Asho smiled brokenly. "Yes. You could say so."
"Are you getting better?"
Ash
o hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't think so."
Zekko pushed at the arm rests of his chair, sitting up straighter. "For how long are you visiting? Are you visiting with Lord Kyferin? Your mother – you just missed her. She just left with our cohort. Oh, she'll be delighted!"
"Not long, Father. Lord Kyferin is three months dead. I'm here in secret. There is so much to tell you. So much has taken place."
Zekko sagged. "Dead? Enderl?" He leaned his head back as he absorbed that news. "I could have sworn that man would last forever. How did he die?"
Asho told him of the war with the Agerastians, the death of his lord and his own knighting at the hands of the Ascendant's Grace. His return to Kyferin Castle, Lord Laur's treachery, their banishment to Mythgraefen Hold. The first attack, the visit to the Black Gate, the advent of the Black Shriving. Kethe. Iskra. The Agerastian alliance. All of it.
Zekko listened as if he were carved from stone, his brow furrowed, his manner intent. He didn't ask a single question, and when Asho finally sat back, he passed both hands over his face and shook his head. "There is much... much that I don't understand."
"Father, what happened to Shaya?" Asho reached out to touch the old man's arm. "Did she return? I see only two pallets. Is she married? Does she have her own home?"
"Shaya? Oh, my son. Tragedy stalks our family like a cavekiller. She did return, and for a while she did very well in the service of an important Sigean lord." The light that had begun to burn in Zekko's eyes went out as he explored the memory. "But she discovered dangerous secrets, was imprudent, and was caught."
Everything seemed to slow, to come to an agonizing stop. "Caught? Is she...?"
"Banished to the land of the kragh," said Zekko quietly. "Six months ago. She was badly whipped and then given to slavers. I have not heard from her since."
Asho rose, only to stumble back and sit on the edge of one of the pallets. Six months gone. His thoughts spun, and a wild determination filled him. "I'll find her," he said. "I can travel through the Lunar Portals now. I'll find one that takes me to Abythos, I'll search her out –"
"My son." There was in Zekko a terrible quietness, a gentleness born from a lifetime of abuse and crushed hope. "Perhaps you shall. But that isn't what has brought you here to me today."
"No." Asho had to fight down his emotions, to bottle them up and drag his thoughts back to his mission. His loyalties to Iskra, to the Agerastians. It all seemed so distant, so less immediate than what was happening here, in his true home. "I came to seek help." He swallowed, gathered himself, rose back into a crouch. "Father, Lady Iskra has allied with the Agerastians. She is going to join them in their attack on the Empire. She means to tear the old structures apart, to bring equality and freedom to everyone. I know it sounds grand, perhaps even foolish, but I believe her. And I will do what I can to help her."
Zekko pursed his lips but made no comment.
"But to do that, to truly meet the Ennoians and the Empire on the field of battle, they need Gate Stone, what you call shaman stone –"
"I know what Gate Stone is, my son. It's what got your sister banished."
"It was? How?"
Zekko settled back in his chair, the ropes creaking as he did so. "Her Sigean lord was in charge of trade and the distribution of the goods mined from Bythos. Shaya discovered that the shaman stone wasn't all being sent to Abythos to bribe the kragh. She learned that a large portion was also being sent directly to Aletheia."
"Aletheia?" Asho narrowed his eyes, trying to understand. "But why?"
"I don't know. But had that information been made public, had our people learned that the Perfecti of Aletheia were buying shaman stones for who knows what unholy purposes, it would have shattered the last of our faith in Ascendancy. It would have been the spark that set the Bythians aflame."
"Are we that close to revolution?"
Zekko shrugged uneasily. "It was perhaps more dangerous in my time. I had old friends who were trying to stir up a general revolt. They wanted to tear down the Solar Gates like the Agerastians had done, slaughter our Ennoian and Sigean overseers, and then escape though the Portal to Abythos. Freedom forevermore, with no way for the Empire to reach us."
Zekko frowned and looked down at his hands. "My... adventure with Lord Kyferin temporarily halted their momentum. My decision to stay true, my sacrifice. It resonated with our people. But of late... of late, they are gaining traction once more. Should Mikho learn of this Gate Stone trade, should he use it as proof that all is not as it should be with Aletheia – well, he wouldn't hesitate to try to stir up a revolt once more. "
"And would that be so bad, Farther?" Asho forced down his excitement. "To rise up? To demand equality?"
Zekko's expression softened with compassion. "It is against Ascension, my son. It would damn us all."
"I don't believe in Ascendancy anymore."
"No? Fair enough. I've gone through long periods of time where I haven't, either. But in the end I find myself returning to it, time and again. It gives me comfort. It helps me find peace in this awful world of ours."
Asho wanted to protest, to rail against the injustices of the system, but there was something in his father's gaze, an infinitely suffering expression of sorrow and understanding, that stayed his tongue. "Father, we need to mine the Gate Stone around the second Black Gate. I've come to offer freedom to as many of our people as are willing to follow me back to Mythgraefen Hold to help extract the ore."
"Freedom?" asked Zekko.
"Yes. Mythgraefen Hold lies outside the Empire. I don't really know where it is, but it is a wild area, high in the mountains. Think of it, Farther! You and mother could come with me, live with me at the Hold, or wherever I end up..." He trailed off. His father's sad smile had returned. "You won't come."
"I cannot escape Ascension by leaving Bythos, my son." The old man reached out and took Asho's hand. "Don't be angry. Had you made this offer to me ten years ago, I might have accepted. But... it's hard to explain. I have placed my faith in my religion. I shall not abandon it at the last."
Asho fought the urge to pull his hand back. His father's gentle expression goaded his anger, made him want to shake him, make him see reason. Instead, he took a deep breath and nodded. "I'll ask Mother."
"Of course, though I think I know what her answer will be." His father's smile was wry.
"But the others? Will you let me make my offer to them?"
"I've no claim over them. If others wish to follow you to this distant land, then that is their decision."
"Good." Asho sat back on his heels. "Can I speak with your old cohort?"
Their neighborhood was populated by the two hundred or so families who worked together in Zekko's cohort. The elderly who now remained behind had once toiled with them, and their children would one day march across the Badlands in their ranks.
"Tonight, if you wish. I'll get word out to Shaykho. In fact, I'll send word to the other cohort leaders as well. If you convince them, they will in turn convince their cohorts. Will that do?"
Asho nodded, and then a wave of exhaustion washed over him. Nausea bubbled up in his gut, and he almost retched. The Sin Casting sickness was not nearly as intense as it had first been, but it still caught him unawares and made his vision go green at the edges. "Yes, of course," he managed to say. "Thank you."
"Oh, my son." There was a deep well of pain and love in his father's voice, and a kindness in his eyes that Asho couldn't stand to meet. "You look worse off than I am. Can you sleep?"
Suddenly Asho wanted nothing more. The excitement and determination that had fueled him thus far had worn off completely, leaving him pained and weak. "Yes," he said. "It won't be dangerous for me to stay?"
"Of course not. Use my pallet. Sleep. I'll wake you when your mother returns."
"Yes, Father," said Asho, and he kicked off his boots and crawled onto the hard pallet. He wanted to pull the covers over his shoulders, but the moment his head touched the thin pillow, he felt oblivion pullin
g him down. It was delicious to sink into sleep, a delight made all the more poignant and comforting by having his father watch him do so for the first time since he was a child.
A cry of amazement awoke him, and he sat up, blinking blearily, to see his mother descending upon him. Laughing, he hugged her back, struggled to rise to his feet as she smothered him in kisses, and then yelped and laughed again when she whacked his rear and started chiding him angrily for never having visited, never having sent a message or word of his being well.
More hugs ensued, more kisses, and then he was forced onto a stool in the tiny kitchen as his mother busied herself asking him questions and filling a bowl with a soup made of Zoeian roots and Bythian mushrooms and coral spider legs. It was thin and watery, but Asho ate it with relish, listening politely as his mother lamented how little food the Third Shift was bringing back from Abythian mines these days.
His father sat smiling by the front door as his mother interrogated him, asking first if he had a wife, then why not, then if he had prospects, and when Asho hesitated, pressing him till he admitted having complex feelings for Kethe.
"The daughter of Lord Kyferin himself!" His mother turned to regard her husband. "What do you think of that, Zekko?"
"Bad idea," said Zekko quietly. "Nothing good will come from Kyferin's line." He stuck out his lower lip and looked away.
Asho went to protest, then bit down on his words. Instead, he changed the conversation, asking about old neighbors, old friends. Many had died, he learned. The black ague, or a cave-in, or whipped to death, or the shiver-shakes. Asho watched out of the corner of his eye as a number of Bythians stepped inside their cube to exchange a quick word with his father and then slip back out: first one, then a second, then a third and fourth.
"Father has grown quite popular," said Asho quietly, shooting his mother a questioning glance.
