by Jason Letts
Within the filthy scrum, those little puffs of smoke popped up at the will of Kevin Ipswich, who wrestled alongside his wife, Jeana, for their sustenance. As Jeana reached down for a stalk of celery, a man grabbed it by the other end. She reached for his hand, grabbing his index finger. In another moment, he let go completely, closed his eyes, and fell unconscious to the ground.
Kevin defended her from more intense assaults as best he could. Another slave charged at him with a chunk of broccoli in one hand. Putting out his hands, Kevin impeded his progress with balls of mist that formed from the water in the air. They assembled right in front of his shins or shoulders. Even though the air was dry and the mist could only withstand pressure for a moment, it forced the charger to stumble, allowing Kevin to push him off his feet.
Once Jeana had a few items in hand, a slab of pork, onions, and the celery, they endeavored to make their escape. Leaving behind a handful of sleeping bodies, their flight proved far from easy. Someone ripped the onions right out of her arms before they cleared the surging mob.
On the hillside, Roselyn and Mary watched them make their getaway. People scattered in all directions to their little nooks and hideaways in the woods within the camp. In addition to the smashed vegetables and meat ground into the earth’s needles and dirt, evidence of their powers remained. Someone had forced a small geyser through the middle of the clearing, and now water bubbled and gushed around the sleeping bodies before it dribbled down the hill.
A few Sunfighters canvassed the area, making sure nothing interfered with the operation of the camp and dragging those who might drown away from the spring. Wearing a black uniform depicting the sun and the clouds, one of the Sunfighter guards had short, light brown hair and a face that was still boyish despite all he had been through. Casting a quick glance around at his peers, he then glanced at the two girls standing on the hillside and gave them a barely perceptible nod.
Any sign of reply was both unnecessary and dangerous. They’d gotten the message, and they walked as discreetly as possible to the corner of the cabin where the cloaked woman lived. She had since gone inside, leaving the suspended barrel hanging upside down and the guide rope flat on the ground.
Positioning themselves near the porch, Mary kept an eye on the guards and whispered to Roselyn when the coast was clear. Dropping down in front of a small hole between two of the boards, Roselyn stuck her hand in, groped around, and then removed her arm. In her hand, she had a fat, juicy tomato. Wiping away a little bit of dirt with the inside of her arm, she took a big bite. Along with the tomato, she offered Mary a weak smile that was nonetheless stronger than most she’d been able to muster lately.
“Will!” called a voice, and the brown-haired boy in the clearing jerked his head away from the two girls on the hill. A short, red-haired girl in the same uniform approached him from the right, displaying a big smile too indulgent for its own good. Her fingers dripped green toxins, but she gave no attention to where those drops landed.
“Yeah, is there something going on?” Will asked her.
He stood up straight and took a step to the side, hoping to block her view of Roselyn and Mary.
“We had another accident in the mine. A support collapsed and it’s blocking us from getting down to the ore. We’re going to need the crusher from your landscaping team to break up the boulders enough for us to move them,” she said.
“That won’t be a problem,” Will droned through a blank, uninterested look.
He put his hand on his hip and scratched his head. Gloria, missing her cue to leave, let her eyes rest on his features for a moment.
“You know, we’re getting pretty deep down there, and the air’s awful thin. We might need to have you around soon to help freshen it up.”
Will gave little in the way of a reaction to her proposition, instead looking past her at a small cooking fire further down the hill. Her smile and spirit faded a little more every moment.
“We’ll have to wait and see what the witch orders,” he finally said.
“The witch? That’s what the slaves call her. Don’t you think it’s a little disrespectful of the woman who gives us so much?” Gloria asked.
“I might agree with you if she didn’t enjoy the bad reputation,” Will countered, sighing and looking away. “And besides, she’s left her mark on all of us just the same.”
Gloria reached up and touched a small stud piercing the top of her ear. Will had one too, just like every single person at the camp.
“I for one will never want to leave her, so I won’t have to worry about this thing with her skin in it exploding if I’m too far away. It sure beats having to watch the non-believers all the time.”
Will nodded his head in unenthusiastic agreement.
“Don’t you have to get back to your station?” he asked pointedly.
Gloria swallowed, musing to herself before returning a sly smile to Will.
“Look at you, all business now. I don’t think any one of us takes our work as seriously as you do. It reminds me of our savior. But I had a feeling you would. Did I ever tell you what I thought about you back in that field after the fall of Shade Base Camp?”
She stopped for a moment, waiting for Will to give her a reply. He offered none, forcing her to just go on.
“I knew you weren’t like them, Mira Ipswich and her hopeless band of upstart fools. Even if you couldn’t follow me then, there wasn’t any doubt in me that you would break away from them soon after. I could see it in your eyes. You’re different. It must make you feel so good to laugh at the two brainless skanks who ignored and humiliated you.”
Will caught eyes with another guard who walked by at that moment.
“It sure does,” he said slowly.
“And now look at where we are! We’re part of something that’ll make the world a better place. No more being ashamed of ourselves. No more hiding who we really are,” Gloria grew excited, shaking her sopping fists. Will had to take a step back or risk getting hit by some of the hazardous goop she expelled.
“That’s right,” Will spoke up, becoming bolder. “We’re going to set things exactly the way they should be. There’ll be no mercy for anyone who gets in our way, and those people who’ve been causing all these problems all this time will finally get what’s coming to them!”
“Yes!” Gloria exclaimed, becoming ecstatic. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Wearing a dazzled, overjoyed look on her face, Gloria finally departed. Will immediately turned to look back behind him, but Roselyn and Mary were gone. Watching Gloria start to intimidate a pair of slaves, Will sucked up all the saliva in his mouth and spit it onto the ground. It sizzled when it hit a small green pool.
Holding a broom that was really no better than a rake, Roselyn methodically went about sweeping the bunkhouse where she lived. Long sacks filled with leaves and other fluff sat on boards that were chained to the walls. About twenty of them in an upper and lower row lined every inch of the wall space, leaving an area in the middle for a fire pit and a few logs to sit on.
She swept the area in front of her own bunk. Mary’s was right above her, but sometimes they would squeeze onto one if Roselyn couldn’t keep herself together. She had nothing of her own but cut up pieces of her old Shade uniform, a useless brush that Mary had made for her, and the stoneless string from the topaz necklace.
In Mary’s bunk, she had her shoes hanging from the corners, a piece of glass set against the wall like a mirror, and a few stones that she used to carve things into the wall. Roselyn had etched their names, a trio of hearts, and a small representation of Corey Outpost that always filled them with longing.
Roselyn’s usual bullies sat in the doorway, jabbering on about nonsense or using her to relieve their boredom. The larger, older one held a paper cup in her hands. It had something in it, but she never drank out of it. Her friend held an unlit candle. They were supposed to be helping her but never lifted a finger as long as Roselyn was around. It was just as well because
keeping busy was the only way to help push through the minutes.
“Now where is that gangly boy? He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago,” the older one said.
“Is that what you’ve been waiting on?” the younger one with the silver hair replied. “I coulda’ told you earlier there was an accident loading a caravan and he died. Crushed by a ton of ore, he was.”
“And what explanation might you have for not telling me about that sooner?” the older one asked, giving her companion a solid knock on the head and then holding up the cup. “Now what are we supposed to do about this?”
“I guess you won’t be mourning his loss much then, will you?”
“On the contrary,” the matron went on. “I’m very sorry he’s gone. Sorry because we needed him to feed the animal. I sure won’t be the one to do it.”
A squint came into her eyes then, which made her friend raise her brow and then shrewdly wrinkle up her face.
“Well it won’t be me either. That’s all I know! What about her? At least we know she’ll never tell,” the young woman said, smirking.
The sound of a broom scraping across the bare wood floor behind them caught their attention. Twisting their necks in unison, they turned to look at Roselyn, who collected bits of paper and loose leaves into a small pile.
“Garbage Girl, come over here!” the matron barked.
Roselyn looked up, startled. She tried her best never to listen to them and so didn’t know what they had talked about. Leaning the broom against one of the bunks, she passed the smoldering fire pit to appease their latest demand.
The two women got to their feet, and seconds later the cup was shoved into Roselyn’s hand. After the younger woman lit the candle from the fire pit and handed it over, Roselyn opened her mouth out of apprehension and bewilderment. They waited for her to say something and then acted surprised when she didn’t.
“We’ve got an important job for you, but you can’t say a word to anybody about it, OK?”
Roselyn objected by shaking her head.
“Oh, there’s really nothing to worry about. You’ve just got to feed the animal,” the matron went on. The two women pulled Roselyn out of the bunkhouse and marched her a little ways up the hillside. Pointing her to a small shack off by itself tucked alongside the rock face, they continued their instructions.
“The witch brews this special medicine. You’ve got to make sure it goes down to the very last drop.”
They gave Roselyn a push and she turned back to them in horror and confusion. She wanted to ask them what kind of animal it was, if it was dangerous, and how she was supposed to make it eat the strange concoction in her hand. Above all, she wanted to tell them no, but she couldn’t. Even though she made only a few gestures, they understood that she was trying to refuse. The matron took a step closer so she could whisper.
“You don’t want to find out how nice we’ve been. Go on then.”
Afraid to find out what they could do to her, Roselyn swallowed hard and gave a long, fearful look to the barren looking shed. She had never even noticed it before, set in at the top of the camp above the mines, the temple, and the living quarters. Now she trudged through the thick brush to it, trying to mind her footing and the tiny flame at the same time.
It didn’t make sense why she would need a candle, just like she couldn’t put together what animal they kept in such a small shack, why they had it, and why they needed to feed it this strange substance. Inching closer to the tiny door, she listened for any kind of sign of something scurrying about inside.
Looking back, the two women waited for her to go inside. They had already inched a little further down the hill, and Roselyn knew they wouldn’t be satisfied until she was inside. Even just steps away, she couldn’t hear a peep coming from the shed. Positioning herself in front of the door, she wrapped her index finger around the small metal handle with the hand holding the cup. Standing to the side so it would be easy to turn and run, she yanked open the door.
The shack concealed a thin crevasse in the rock face and nothing more. It had just been haphazardly planted there in this little nook with nothing holding it to the rock or the ground. Understanding that whatever was waiting for her waited further in, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Carrying the burning candle in front of her, she tried to listen above her heavy breathing. Inching forward, she slipped into the thin passage in the rock. It became a little wider once she got inside, wide enough for someone well larger than herself to walk through. This secret cave, shaped like a snake, wound deeper into the mountain.
She carefully dropped down a few steep steps, constantly thinking about how no one would know to rescue her if something went wrong. It was even possible that she was some kind of sacrifice. Just when the gruesome possibilities fully revealed themselves to her, the sound of running water caught her ears.
As much as it scared her, she wanted to know what it was. Her eyes were pinned to the candlelight’s farthest reaches, expecting at each moment for it to catch the hairy animal she sought. The steady sound of flowing water told her that she was getting closer to its source. The walls on her sides opened to a larger cavern deep within the rock.
The faintest clink made her stop cold. It reached her at just the same time as an awful stench, doubtlessly the habitat of some creature. Her hands shook and her mouth had long ago gone dry. Would it really be so bad if this were the end, she wondered. It didn’t seem to make much difference anymore. Any step would have her wading in water. Pressing on, Roselyn came to an odd shape illuminated by the candle. This was it, but what was it?
It looked like an odd rock formation, brown and gray, but as she came closer she saw that chains running back to the rock held it in place. The brown was the color of hair and the gray covered a pale skin tone. Her jaw dropped open. This was a person.
As she approached, the light wrapped around the figure in the middle of the pitch-black enclosure. Shackled by the forearms, it appeared to be resting its head against its hands and sleeping. Another look at the body told Roselyn the figure was female, and she wore a stitched tunic of a kind she had never seen before.
Neither sound nor stirring came from this wretched soul, making Roselyn fear she had been sent in after a corpse. There was only one way to find out for sure, and Roselyn bent down so she could look at the face moored against the manacles. Putting her knees to the hard rock below, she gazed at a sight that shocked her to the core.
From her cheekbones to her nose to her pink lips, she knew the face she saw was Mira’s, but it was bloated along with the rest of her body. Roselyn’s mouth hung open in awe and disbelief. She racked her mind to figure out what was going on, trying to put together how she ended up here after the last time she’d seen her friend on the day Darmen fell.
Roselyn yelped when the candle wax dribbled down and burned her finger. The sting forced her to drop it, and she at once tried to shake away the hot wax and retrieve her only source of light. Getting her hand on it just before it rolled into the water flowing along the back wall, she breathed a sigh of relief, which was met with a low, nasal moan.
Roselyn recoiled at this first sign of life, unsure what it would lead to. The whine sounded painful and tired. Looking into the purple mixture she held in her cup, it seemed likely she had been sent to administer some kind of drug to keep their prisoner pacified. Quickly, she emptied the cup into the tiny underground stream.
Returning to the chained figure, her lungs and throat felt heavy with the pressure of all of the things she wanted to say. Slowly extending her fingers, Roselyn pressed them into her shoulder. Even though the chains creaked, the girl didn’t move. Glancing at the face, she saw both her eyes and mouth were closed. For some reason, she felt she couldn’t leave without doing more to get a response, so Roselyn shook her by the shoulder.
“Leeb me ’lone!” came a groggy, stupefied voice, but that voice had not come from her mouth. Seeing lips shut just as tight as hers, Roselyn hel
d the candle to the darkness, waving it around and searching for the source of those words. The body didn’t stir, not even for a second.
“Who goes there?” the voice asked again, sounding much like a heavy-tongued toddler.
But now Roselyn trembled with the realization she had not found Mira at all. The voice that spoke to her from the darkness was one she had heard before, and for the first time she finally saw where it originated from.
“Answer me’s!” demanded an irritated and dazed apparition, barely more than a streak in the darkness.
No matter where she directed the light, Roselyn couldn’t see more than faint traces sweeping over the dark rock. The girl she had found would never get anywhere with her question, and Roselyn could do nothing but bathe in the candlelight on the verge of tears.
“I seen you afore and I ain’t forgotten. You were with my sister, wasn’tcha? Who’s you? Where is she? Where’s Mira?”
Roselyn took a step back, shaking her head with her mouth open. The voice rung so hollow but found its first sense of control as it called for Mira. There was nothing she could say or do, and so Roselyn left. She couldn’t have told her where Mira was even if she could speak. The voice faded away behind her as she climbed through the cave. Soon the air seemed fresher and light started to filter in through the porous shed. She exited out into the blindingly bright sunlight, looking like she had seen a ghost.
Roselyn carried her secret for the rest of the workday. She remained agitated, transfixed, entranced by what she saw and what she knew. When Mary returned to their bunkhouse, Roselyn leapt out at her and pulled her inside. After Mary’s initial shock subsided, the astonishment at Roselyn’s behavior set in.
“What is it?” Mary asked, imitating he friend’s wide eyes.
Roselyn pulled her onto her bunk. Scratching her head, she tried to come up with a way to make Mary understand what she saw. They were alone for now, but the others could come back any minute. This was too important to mess up and too sensitive to let anybody else know about. Mary, bewildered, kept shaking her head.
