The Stars Askew

by Rjurik Davidson

  “You’re right.” Ejan scratched his face; perhaps the beard was itching. “The stronger we are, the better placed we are to instill order.”

  Kata could never read the Northerner. Everything he said seemed so emotionally detached. Once, she had found it disquieting, but she had grown used to it. She chose a direct approach. “This is the path to dictatorship. Is that how you see things ending up, with yourself up there on the mountain, looking down at the rest of us scurrying in the streets? With you deciding who lives and dies?”

  Ejan’s head bobbed backward in surprise. His eyes focused and he was with her then, in the moment. “What? No, I just want us to stick together. Before I left Njagar ice-hall, I watched a Consul from Varenis sail into our harbor. It was summer and there was barely a scattering of ice on the ground. The Consul ventured into the hall and wondered at our sleeping pillars, at the silhouettes that moved inside the ice-walls. But what he desired most was to recruit giants for Varenis’s legions. In return, he offered technology from Varenis. Like all the kings of the ice-halls, my father agreed. We hunted giants for the Consul, he provided mechanical tools and luxuries. One day, another king’s son came to our home. His companion was a giant. The man had one black eye, filled with blood like that of an Augurer—impossible, I know, for all Augurers are women, but true nonetheless. He warned us that Varenis would soon march north and enslave us all. My father sneered at the man and his giant friend, warned them that on another day he would have driven the man into the mountains and sold the giant to Varenis. Such is the way of the Northerners. Centuries of war between them have made for a belligerent and independent culture. Not much longer after that, we heard that Varenis had enslaved the barbarians of the plains and foothills to the west. Still, the Consul said Varenis would respect our boundaries. I knew that as long as the Northerners were separated from each other, they would never be able to defend themselves against the Empire. Unity is strength. You see, we can’t be divided, not when Varenis might send troops south at any moment.”

  “I’ve also got stories to tell,” said Kata. “Those men who died by the Bolt, the ones caught at House Marin: they weren’t guilty. You’re part of a cover up because it suits you. Dumas is at the center of it. You think you’re using him, but he is using you. You’re working for our enemies, even if you don’t know it, and by doing so, you’re digging our grave, Ejan.”

  Ejan’s eyes seemed to intensify into a surprising pale blue. “You’re clever, Kata. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently. But you can’t sow your moderate doubts in my mind. A good try, though.”

  The lines of guards marched on, packing themselves into Cable Car Tower, peering through the swinging carriages’ windows as they swung up to the cliffs. Some laughed, but others looked grim and unhappy.

  “So how many are you sending to the villas?” asked Kata.

  “A thousand,” said Ejan.

  So many, thought Kata. “Is that all you have?”

  Ejan smiled a little at her insult. “I worry that one day you will oppose seditionism as a whole. That would be terrible, not just for the city, but for me personally. Now that you’re organizing your own guards, so much rides on you.”

  “It does?” said Kata. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Each night, Armand helped dig the escape tunnel. Each day, he directed his crew in the mines. His body and mind were weary. Shafts of pain drove down his legs to the ever-growing numbness in his feet. His lower back seized up, and he often found himself moaning. At other times he stared mindlessly at the bloodstone seam until with a jolt he perceived the resentful stares of his crew. Soon they might depose him as leader, he realized, or a sudden blow to his head would fell him and he would be no more. The stories of those who failed to fill their carts were whispered in the nights: experiments off camp somewhere, where a liquid form of the stone was injected into your arms, legs, eyes, or funneled into your orifices under varying conditions. Experiments that led nowhere, but—so the whispers went—to horrid mutations and deformities, corpses with bloody bulging eyes and strange crimson liquids that still ran beneath the skin, even after death.

  Each evening, as Armand approached the barbarians’ workshop, he felt the eyes of other prisoners on him. It was only a matter of time before the escape plan was uncovered. Someone would talk, or the guards would notice the empty cots in the night. That would mean death—if they were lucky—or perhaps those terrible experiments.

  The Westerners had measured out the length of the tunnel until they could be sure they had passed the ground beneath the camp’s perimeter fence. Three more days, they decided. The first would take them to the perimeter fence. The second would take them beyond that hateful boundary, where they would stop digging, just before they reached the surface. On the third they would break through to the icy air of freedom and make their escape.

  Armand’s plan was to drag Irik behind him at the appointed time and present the barbarians with a fait accompli. It would be risky, perhaps fatal, but the alternative was to leave the oppositionist to waste away in the camp, or to be killed by cold or bloodstone disease.

  With two nights to go, Armand staggered back from the carpentry shop. A yellow light marked the cold dawn sky. High above, thin streaks of cloud stretched across the sky. The air was frigid, clasping him to its frozen bosom.

  Prisoner 7624 eyed Armand malevolently from his place by the barracks, the light catching the indentation on his forehead. “I see you … you barbarian lover. What do you think you’re up to, huh?”

  Armand ignored him, but 7624 stepped across and clutched Armand’s arm, twisted him back. “What do you do there? Touch one another?”

  Armand stared blankly, trying to think. This was it—the game was up. “What of it if we do?”

  Prisoner 7624 sneered at him, pushed him away. “You disgust me, 2591. You’re not men. You’re not real men.”

  Armand stumbled on, turned back, and spat out, “My name’s Armand!”

  Irik’s barracks were the same as his own: an impossibly cramped long hall with bunks lining the walls. Armand slipped sideways between the bunks. Prisoners snored. Another man raved, the bloodstone fever taking him. “Oh gods. Oh gods. The red river is running in me. You should feel it. Oh gods.”

  Armand squatted by Irik’s cot, brought his face close to the oppositionist’s, and whispered, “You must prepare to depart. In two days we head west with the barbarians.”

  “West? There is another, better way, if we do indeed escape. But alas, in two days I’m on an all-night shift, loading the train.”

  Armand hesitated. “We have to get you off that shift, then. Best that you become ill.”

  “Ill? How can I make myself ill?” Irik’s breath rose hot and stale near Armand’s ear.

  “Fake it, if you must. Or make yourself sick in some way. We must have you in the infirmary by tomorrow.”

  The following evening Armand staggered into the yard after a long day in the mine. Hearing a commotion behind him, he turned to see Irik shuffling forward, supported by two prisoners. When they reached Armand, they let Irik collapse to the ground.

  “He’s your friend,” said one of the prisoners. “Only has himself to blame. Drank stagnant water by the train lines, the damned fool. Right before the all-night shift. The damned train arrives tomorrow.”

  Irik vomited black bile onto the ground. Armand picked the oppositionist up, threw Irik’s arm over his own shoulders, and helped him toward the infirmary. Lying on his bed, surrounded by the dying, Irik smiled, his face wan and strained. “Mission accomplished.”

  Armand shook his head. “You’d better recover quickly.”

  Irik shrugged, rolled over, and retched, but nothing came out. He had emptied himself. As he settled back, he smiled weakly. “Of course.”

  * * *

  Armand slipped from his bed in the cold and dark. He passed through the narrow path between the bunks and out into the night. The sky was clear, the star
s brilliant and icy like the air around him. The clearest nights were the coldest, as if the indifference of the stars were shining down on them all.

  As Armand reached the carpentry shop’s door, he caught a glimpse of 7624 leering suspiciously from the mess hall. In his gleaming red hand, the man held a spear horizontally by his side, like a soldier in the Lyrian phalanxes. As he opened the door, Armand heard three knocks from inside the shop. Westerners began to move the table, while Ohan and the chieftain Ijahan greeted Armand with brisk waves.

  “Wait,” said Armand, sensing that 7624 intended more than surveillance. But the table was already away from the trapdoor, and an arm was holding up bags of dirt.

  Armand closed the door quickly and peered through the window frame in time to see 7624 running toward the carpentry shop, spear in hand.

  “7624 is coming,” Armand said.

  The Westerner emerging from the tunnel scrambled up and out. The other two, assuming he would duck back into the tunnel, had pushed the table over the manhole. For a moment they stumbled around one another. Ohan tried to stand on his injured legs, but he fell back onto his chair instead. The manhole remained uncovered.

  The door burst open beside Armand, who backed away. Prisoner 7624 strode into the room and narrowed his eyes at the manhole. Turning his back to Armand, the collaborator lowered his spear toward the Westerners, who stared at him stock-still, their guilt heavy on their faces.

  Without thinking, Armand leaped ineptly onto 7624 and wrapped his arms and legs around the collaborator, who staggered under the weight of them both.

  Already, Ijahan had a hammer in hand. With a deft flick of his wrist, he turned 7624’s spear away from his body and stepped close. There was a soft crack as the hammer came down, right into the depression that ran along 7624’s forehead. Prisoner 7624 cried out, loud enough for the prison guards to hear. Again the chieftain raised the hammer. It hovered momentarily above 7624’s head, and Armand—still clasping the collaborator from behind—noticed blood and a tuft of hair stuck to its dark metal. Then the hammer came down again. Blood spattered over Armand’s face as the chieftain yanked the hammer out and brought it down again and again. The collaborator’s legs gave way, and Armand found himself inadvertently holding the man up. Finally Ijahan stepped back, and Armand let 7624 crumple to the floor.

  Armand wiped his face. His hand came away covered with blood and hard little bits of something. He retched.

  Two barbarians quickly dragged 7624 toward the tunnel. “We’ll put him in the tunnel after Armand descends.”

  Armand looked again through the window, expecting to see guards rushing toward the workshop. Anxiety rose like a white fog over his eyes, but to his disbelief, the space was empty. He breathed out. The fog passed.

  Quickly, Armand grabbed a lamp and dropped through the opening in the floor. As he crawled on his hands and knees into the blackness, he heard the corpse forced into the tunnel behind him.

  He set to work, another long brutal shift that seared his body with pain. He moaned softly as he worked, tried to tell himself it wasn’t so bad. But that was folly. It was an infernal hell, and he started to cry as he dug. He cried from the pain, from the indignity of his position, from the betrayals of Valentin, from the harshness of the world. He cried for Irik and he cried for himself. He cried and dug, dug and cried, until there were no more tears.

  When he was finished, he twisted himself around and crawled back carefully. As he held the little lamp before him, he kept expecting the corpse to loom toward him, as if it were still alive. Finally he made out the broken and crumpled form and realized he couldn’t reach the trapdoor without crawling over it. Placing the lamp behind him, he pushed himself over the now cold body, the roof of the tunnel pressing him down onto the cadaver. His hand touched something wet, and he pulled it away quickly. Already there was a smell, which would only intensify. He started to breathe shallowly, as if the air might somehow infect him. Reaching out, he knocked on the trapdoor. To his relief, it swung open quickly, freeing him from his grisly situation.

  “We should be able to dig up now. The last, final shift!” Ohan hobbled toward the trapdoor. Despite his cracked leg, Ohan took his turn like the others. Everyone needed to pull their weight. Armand had come to respect these people. They lived by simple, sometimes hard principles. Soft-spoken and plain thinking, they possessed a nobility that far surpassed the corruptions of a Valentin or Tiedmann. Ohan in particular had become a sort of silent friend; he and Armand could communicate with tiny gestures. They understood each other.

  Armand left the chieftain sitting by a table, looking out the window into blackness. The other two Westerners slept on the floor. One raised his head wearily as Armand opened the door, then lowered it back to a pillow of rags and wooden remnants.

  Armand could not sleep for the few hours remaining that night. How long would it be before the disappearance of 7624 was noticed? The next day they might escape. But if they were discovered, that would be the end. By the time the eerie morning light filtered into his barracks, his eyes burned with exhaustion. He dragged himself up, and when he stepped outside, the ground was again covered with a light dusting of snow. This time, it did not melt as it touched the ground.

  * * *

  The following day was a brutal, horrid affair for Armand. His back went into seizures, and he continuously found himself lying down as the other miners glared. He was thankful to make it to the day’s end, and for the quota to be reached. He had been lucky, he knew. He would not last much longer if he had to stay in the camp.

  The evening light was slowly fading as Armand staggered back from the mine. Light patches of snow still clung to the ground. As he rounded the factory, Armand stopped dead. A train had rolled in during the day, its great black engine sitting on the tracks, magnificent and silent. Behind a row of carriages were empty trays, ready to be loaded with bloodstone. New prisoners emerged from the sheds next to the clearing, dressed in their gray uniforms. To Armand they seemed chubby and filled with life. Looking at his gaunt and exhausted crew, he thought, Is this what I’ve become so quickly?

  Commander Raken, wearing a pince-nez, and a group of accompanying guards, strode beside the train. Among them marched Tiedmann himself. But it was the sight of the creatures lumbering behind them that shocked Armand. Their trunklike legs rippled beneath their greaves. They were ten feet tall, massive bronze corsets covering their bodies. But it was the coldness that shone from the single glassy eyes fixed in the center of their heads that sent a churning into Armand’s stomach. The Cyclopses carried tridents that jutted ominously into the sky. Armand remembered seeing the squad at the Palian wall. How long ago that seemed.

  Cyclopses were used as auxiliaries in the Varenis legions, complementing forces in border camps or in other difficult duties, such as guarding slave mines. Armand knew these massive and powerful cousins of the stone and ice giants to the north would easily be able to hunt down any escapees.

  He hurried to the carpentry shop, where the smell of death drifted up from below. Even before he spoke a word, Ohan said, “We must continue anyway. Everyone must go to eat now. We have no time to lose. As soon as the last light drifts from the sky, we begin the escape.”

  The Cyclops squad set up their army tents in the square and built a fire. The succulent smells of their roasting meat and spiced vegetables drifted toward Armand, tormenting him as he raced to his barracks and stuffed his pouch of bloodstone into the side of his boot.

  As he was returning to the mess hall, Armand stopped and watched the Cyclopses as they pressed closer to the fire. The creatures usually lived on rocky islands out in the ocean. Like the island of Aya, which spawned the minotaurs, or the Taritian archipelago where the Sirens lived, the Cyclopean islands were craggy and warm.

  One of them grunted. In a strange clipped accent, he said, “Always the mountains. Always in winter.”

  Another pulled a spit of roasting meat from the fire. “At least we’re not up in the northern i
ce-halls. That was cold and dangerous. When that ice giant hit Akius with that rock and his entire chest caved in … I still dream of it. The way his eye kept moving, even though his body was flattened like a pancake.”

  “The way we nearly froze on that glacier,” said another. “I still can’t feel the tips of my fingers.”

  The Cyclops closest to Armand fixed him with his single large cold eye. He rubbed his hands together close to the flames as he stared ominously.

  Armand hurried on, thinking of the paste waiting for him in the hall. When he arrived, Tiedmann was sending his lieutenants from table to table, asking for 7624. Where was he? He hadn’t been seen for the entire day. He wasn’t in his cot or in the infirmary. Someone had to know.

  As Armand shook his head to indicate ignorance, he noticed Tiedmann’s eyes lingering on him. It was hard to imagine him without the intensity of those stony eyes, set in the wide planes of his face. The man had barely changed since Armand’s arrival. The same air of hostility hung around him and Armand could sense the man’s urge to dominate. Everything about him screamed that he would survive, no matter what. Armand thought of his grandfather’s ring, which he had traded to Tiedmann. What else might the former Director take from him? Armand lowered his eyes to the rough table in front of him and hoped Tiedmann would look away.

  * * *

  As he left the mess hall, Armand looked up at the sky. In the west, the sun was long gone. To the east, the sky was a dark purple, shading into black. As he walked toward the carpentry shop, Armand looked back to see Tiedmann standing in the doorway of the mess hall, his vast head dark against the light room. There was nothing for Armand to do but to continue on as if everything were normal.

  When he stepped into the carpentry shop, the smell of death hit Armand again. In other times, he would have gagged, for it was foul and impossible to ignore. Now, however, things had become too desperate. The barbarians moved around, busy with preparations: packing equipment and the little food that had been scavenged.