Sunset of Lantonne

by Jim Galford

  Eighty mud-brick homes stood out on the otherwise snowy plateau, with dozens of black-clothed humans moving among them, going about their daily business. Somewhere out on the plains, similar temporary villages existed for the other clans. Beyond the homes, the large flock of long-furred oxen had been penned in and was being watched by dogs that had been trained for that purpose. High up the next rise, he could just barely make out the silhouette of the grand temple of Turessi, surrounded as always by the mists that lingered around the higher peaks.

  It was at that temple—a poor name, Therec reminded himself, given the lack of religion among the Turessians—that Turess himself had relinquished power to the council in his later days, entrusting them to keep the peace among the clans. The council had continued to rule from the temple for centuries, one member from each clan plus one direct descendant of Turess at any given time. The descendants had no real power, but they were allowed to speak to the council, whereas most Turessians were not.

  The council had recently allowed his peoples’ clan to return to the region after proving themselves in contests of wisdom and martial might against the others. Of the ten major and fourteen minor clans, only three were allowed to set up camp within sight of the temple. That honor gave them influence, but also made them a target for the other clans. His clan had recently won rights to the area where they currently stayed, securing a small fortune in the old mines that continued to produce silver nearby. Many such mines dotted Turessi and were often the reason for contests of wisdom between the clans for control of them. Holding one ensured profit for the clan and a higher status with the council of clans, though it drew unwanted attention from those clans that wished to see them diminished.

  Down at the mines, barely visible at the bottom of the slope from where the houses were built, a small army of uneducated slaves and ancestors worked endlessly near a separate village of mud huts. Such toil was beneath the educated, but Therec was one of several responsible for their care. Once he left, he was unsure who would take care of the slaves or the clan’s ancestors. He feared that harm might come to either, though he had kept quiet about such fears. Salda already had enough to worry about.

  Therec looked over at one of his own ancestors, his great grandfather, who stood nearby. The withered old man stared at him with no expression whatsoever, waiting for the command to carry something back to their home.

  “Salda will care for you, old father,” Therec told the man, smoothing the man’s tattered robes. The man stared straight ahead, unmoving. “You will be remembered until I return.”

  “Therec, there are only two other preservers in the clan,” said Salda angrily. “I am hardly trained to maintain the ancestors. I already have my hands full keeping the slaves alive. My training never dealt with the ancestors.”

  “I know,” he replied once he was sure that his great grandfather’s clothing was not looking disrespectful.

  In dismay, Therec spotted a crease near the old man’s jaw where the bones had separated and the jaw had begun to fall away. The bloodless wound was to be expected at the ancestor’s age, but it was ultimately Therec’s responsibility to keep him intact, despite the man having been dead for nearly twenty years. The frigid climate of Turessi made that far easier than it could have been, but decay was inevitable. How one treated one’s ancestors’ remains told much about the clan, and Therec worried that improper care of the dead in his absence might diminish the clan’s standing even more than a war with another clan.

  Using a small amount of magic that drained his strength in much the same was as a long hike or lack of sleep, Therec mended the damage decay had caused on his ancestor. Slowly, the jaw was tugged back into proper alignment by the healed tendons, though the man seemed unaware of the difference.

  “Do what you can to keep them intact,” Therec asked his wife, examining his great grandfather for any other signs of decay. Finding none, he added, “I need to see to the slaves before I go.”

  Hearing no objection from Salda, Therec began walking down the steep slope of ankle-deep snow toward the mud huts that the slaves occupied during the darkest hours when they were not working. Beyond those, a series of pitch-black entrances to the mines were visible even at a distance, where his clan’s slaves would be toiling, earning the shelter and food they were given.

  It took Therec nearly an hour to reach the nearest of the slaves’ homes, though he knew he likely had until the next morning before the gypsies reached the clan and he would have to leave. Until then, there were far too many things to worry about and too many people that had to be readied for his departure. Still, he wanted to be back at his own home…and back in Salda’s company…before the nightfall. He would not see her again for much more than a year, and despite the rules against public affection, she was the one person aside from his son that he adored beyond any other. He could not imagine spending so long away from her and had no intention of sacrificing any more of their time together than necessary. Duty came first, but there were limits.

  The slaves’ homes were modeled after the ones that the Turessian clans built, but were constructed almost entirely of cast-off materials and hard-packed mud that had been dried for use as simple bricks. Unlike the slats used to roof the Turessian homes, these used primarily leftover lumber arranged in an attempt to minimize snow or rain getting through to the interior. When the slaves asked, most members of the clan would aid them in trying to make the places more habitable, but most building materials were sparse in the northlands.

  Among the various clans’ slaves, Therec’s people prided themselves on treating their slaves better than most, but even so, the place always depressed Therec. No matter how much that they did for the slaves, nothing would ever bring them up to the same status as any Turessian, and he always felt sorry for them. These were the uneducated, the simple, or the foreigners who had been taken in by the clan rather than destroyed when their own ancestors had attacked the clan’s holdings. It might have been a mercy to help them, but that did not make them as grateful as they could have been.

  In a way, the slaves were a reminder of all the places that his clan had roamed in the last few generations. These people had been collected from all corners of Turessi or claimed from clans that had yielded to his own. They were as varied as the places the clan had gone and their temperaments were even more diverse.

  Those slaves that were resting after a day of labor in the mines looked up at Therec’s approach and immediately took a knee before him in proper respect. It was customary behavior between the slave caste and the true Turessians, though Therec had never appreciated the bows when considering the equality between all Turessians of his caste. Whenever he was faced with groveling, he felt guilty for the benefits he had been born to. Most of his life, he had sought to stop the bowing to those in his order, but others were less willing to let slaves regain some degree of dignity.

  Uneducated humans were the most plentiful in the slave camp, representing the Turessians who had been unable to prove themselves worthy of the honor markings that were branded into the flesh of the educated. These were the people that Therec felt the most affinity for, as his own parents were once among them. His aptitude for learning the lessons taught by the elders of the clan had ensured that he rose above that life and made him the equal of any other educated member of the clan. These people were slow-witted or lacked any gift for magic, ensuring their placement in the slave caste.

  Less numerous, but still common enough that they did not catch the eye as unusual, were the foreign humans, who were still not acclimated to the Turessian weather, and several dwarves and halflings, who had all been taken during a battle months earlier against invaders from the east. These were people that Therec felt little sympathy for, given their initial intentions. Within a generation or two, the humans might have an opportunity to become members of the clan. The others…they should have known better than to invade Turessi.

  Then there were those that were considered beneath the clan and wou
ld never be treated as anything but slaves. They were the misfits, the monstrous, those who Turess himself would never have accepted as anything but slaves. These people were better than animals, but not by much. Wildlings, orcs, and most ogres fell into this category, their twisted appearance branding them forever as beneath the clan’s attention. Wisely, these outcasts remained behind their fellows, keeping a respectable distance from any marked member of the clan. Therec had never even seen the faces of some of these people, as they had kept their heads down every time he had encountered them.

  All of the slaves, whether they were ignorant or born to be outcasts of society, bore a set of burned-on scars on their arm. The sigils were crude, but they marked the person as the property of a specific Turessian clan for life. If another clan acquired them, a new set of brandings would be added, allowing clansmen to trace the origin of any slave through sales and defeat of clans. Runaways found outside the range of the clan that owned them were executed without question by whatever Turessian found them, creating an understanding between owner and slave that minimized the need to watch one’s slaves. Between rules such as that and the deadly climate, Therec could not remember a slave running away in years.

  “How many are still below?” he asked the assembled slaves.

  “Fifty, maybe a few more,” called out one woman quickly, with several others confirming her number. “We can fetch them if you like, Preserver Therec.”

  “No, you will relate my message to them,” Therec told the group. “Tell them that if you are all loyal in my absence, I swear to approach the clan to give every potential citizen another chance to prove they can be educated. If a single slave causes trouble for Salda or any other preserver in the clan, I will not only forego my offer, but will request that the Preservers treat all of you in the manner of other clans.”

  A look of relief and thanks passed over all of the humans and even many of the elves, halflings, and dwarves. They seemed to recognize that the offer applied most directly to them. Then those looks grew uneasy and quickly turned to the wildlings and orcs among them, who appeared on the verge of attacking Therec on the spot. Every slave knew that no amount of service would give those people a chance at citizenship and it was, therefore, them that would be most likely to ruin the chances of the others.

  Therec let his attention drift over the slaves, finding that one particular wildling—a middle-aged white-furred man with the muddled features of some kind of cat breed that had mixed with some other sort of wildling—was the focus of every human’s attention. The wildling never looked up at Therec, but his hands were clenched angrily. This was a prideful man who thought that somehow he was mistreated. There was always one among those whose ancestry made them ineligible for citizenship, and Therec could always find them.

  “You,” he said, pointing at the wildling. “How long have you been a slave?”

  The wildling raised his eyes slowly, baring his animalistic fangs angrily before answering, “Five years.”

  “Long enough to remember freedom, but short enough that you believe you should get more out of life. Five years is a long time to your kind, is it not?”

  “Twenty years or more to a human.” The wildling practically spat the last word, clenching his hands again. “A good part of a lifetime.”

  Therec drew the sword at his hip that the clan’s warriors had insisted he carry when approaching the slaves. He had always considered the weapon more of a decoration than a tool, given the training he and other Preservers received. For once, he had found a use for it.

  Turning the weapon around to offer the hilt, Therec gave the weapon a light toss. The sword hit the snow hard enough to sink slightly, easily within reach of the wildling.

  “Strike me down and it will be nearly an hour before anyone searches for me,” said Therec, folding his hands together behind his back, presenting himself as an easy target. “More than enough time for you to run. I doubt any of the other Preservers would even consider making such an offer. This will be the only chance you are given to kill one of our people. Prove yourself, even if it costs your fellow slaves their chance at redeeming themselves.”

  The wildling snarled at an inner debate and snatched up the weapon. He stood slowly, clearly expecting Therec to attack him, but Therec remained as still as he could. The two men stared at one another, gauging one another’s resolve. Therec already knew what the wildling would do, it was only a matter of waiting for him to reason his way through it.

  With a growl that the winds swallowed, the wildling man rushed at Therec, raising the sword. He made it no more than three steps before the nearest human and elven slaves leapt to their feet and tackled him, dragging him down.

  The wildling swung frantically at the others, trying to free himself to get closer to Therec. The other slaves overpowered him, a woman and two men grabbing for the sword. Within seconds, they had him face down in the snow, six slaves pinning him while another yanked the sword from his grip. Turning, the woman that held the sword offered it back to Therec.

  “The seven of you will be given a chance to prove your wisdom and possibly join the clan, taking the same status as our children. Even if you fail, your families will be cared for,” Therec told the slaves that had hurried to his aid. “Thank you. You may deal with him as you see fit, given that if he had struck me down, the clan would have killed every one of you to be sure that the murderer was found.”

  Therec left the slaves quickly, not really wanting to be witness to what they did to the wildling. Such a simple test of loyalty and yet he knew it had bought the dedication of many of the slaves who had been present, even if they never had a chance of joining the clan. Hope had a way of fostering a kinship between slave and clan that a whip never could.

  Like any Turessian, Therec felt a distant sense of sorrow for those who could not elevate themselves past that rank in the clan. Among them were always people that he knew, who he had grown up with, but who could not meet the stringent requirements of the clan and so had nowhere else to go but the slave camp. As an only child, he was luckier than many of the Preservers, not having to face his own kin among the slaves, though like any parent, he always feared that his own child might end up there someday.

  Heading back toward the clan’s houses, Therec hoped to spend some time with his wife and son before he had to leave Turessi. If he could not be with them through his son’s trials to join the clan, the least he could do was spend much of his remaining time with them.

  The journey would be long and pit him against the barbarians that filled other lands. He needed to cherish what time he had left, so as to remember it for however long it took him to come home. There was nothing more important than family; anything else that mattered to the clan lay behind him and the slaves could deal with their own.

  Chapter Three

  “Beginning and Ending”

  The wagon bounced hard again, jarring Ilarra awake and tossing her long brown hair in her face, confusing her as she woke. Her stomach churned in time with the rocking of the hated caravan vehicles, though she knew that she was long past throwing up any more. Instead, a general pall of disorientation and nausea clung to her so long as she sat or lay in the wagon. All she had managed to do for the last day was find a corner to curl up in and try to sleep away the hours, to the apparent disgust of the other four passengers.

  For nearly a week, they had lumbered from the far northeastern parts of the region, the line of five gypsy wagons stopping only to once a day to rest and water the animals that pulled them ever southward. Those stops had been glorious for Ilarra, giving her the brief chance to stretch her legs and feel more like herself. Unfortunately, as soon as she would begin to feel more at ease, it would be time to leave and the illness would resume immediately.

  Had she the strength to do so, Ilarra would have greatly preferred walking—and had for parts of the journey to soothe her stomach—but given the distance they were traveling, she would have soon fallen behind the caravan. Even on good terrain,
she could not keep up for very long before Raeln would hustle her back onto the wagon, his cool blue eyes always watching for her to stumble. Ilarra was still convinced her father had ordered him to treat her like a baby on the journey—not that she minded having Raeln watch out for her, but it made her feel like a child at times to have him watching at all times. He had even taken to intimidating any of the male gypsies when they tried to check on her, as though he considered every one of the brightly-dressed merchant folks to be a threat.

  Dragging herself into a sitting position, Ilarra stared off into the distance ahead of them, hoping desperately to catch sight of anything more than trees and scrub bushes. To her dismay, the horizon was still barren of anything that resembled civilization, with only the four other wagons leading the way. As an afterthought, she leaned farther out the side of the wagon and looked back the way they had come, wondering if the last village they had stopped at would still be visible. Behind them, the plains stretched out just as far as they did ahead, giving her no hope for anything to break the visual monotony.

  With a sigh, Ilarra leaned back against the wall of the wagon’s cooler interior, clenching her jaw to suppress the urge to throw up yet again. She never could have imagined she was so susceptible to the rocking of the wagon when the journey started. It made her feel weak and useless, something she had hoped to move beyond when she had left her home.

  “Long journey?” asked one of the others in the wagon, leaning forward in his seat. The thin man was draped from crown to heel in dark robes, black gloves, and high boots that would have smothered Ilarra in the summer’s heat. When she looked his way, he bowed his head politely in a manner that spoke of ritual habit. She had seen him quietly watching all the other travelers, saying little more than the occasional “thank you” to the gypsies when they served meals. “I think you may be the only one still getting used to the ride.”