by Vance Moore
"You can scratch your itch later," she said. "Follow me now." Her voice contained the warning signs that Haddad learned from Latulla, and he stood up at once. He stepped quickly to follow her as she proceeded onto a staircase, and he closed the door after him, noting the sigil on the door. It was a stylized rodent, and Haddad wondered if the carving reflected his status in the house.
"May I ask questions, my lady?" Haddad knew flattery never hurt. "Where are we?"
"You stand on Keld, first among nations," she replied as they walked down the stairs and through a series of rooms. Haddad peered uncertainly as his eyes adapted to the interior lighting. They arrived at a great hall. He looked up and could see the shafts of light from light wells falling to the floors. Metal reflectors threw a spray of light into the corners. Haddad could see a raised dais, but the hall was mainly empty.
Haddad and Iola walked along a series of balconies and smaller rooms.
"These chambers are for meetings and guests of Latulla. Stay out of them except when on errands," commanded the house steward.
"Is Latulla important here?" Haddad asked.
"Important?" Iola scoffed. "She holds the house. When she was barely out of the cradle house she expelled the former master and took it for her own." She spoke with obvious pride at what Haddad considered little more than a great theft. "But her travels and work meant the house suffered, so she took me as a second and placed it in my hands."
"Is she here now?" Haddad asked, wondering if they were going to report to her. He could see more clearly now, and carvings seemed to jump out of the walls. Every panel, every railing, had a design. Haddad thought the wall he passed showed a story rather than just an ornamental pattern.
"She had business among the great lords and is not expected for quite some time," Iola answered. Then she turned a corner and walked away from the interior hall. The light grew dimmer, and the carvings were less ornate. Iola pointed out the firewood room and other storage areas and then went down to the next floor. The narrow staircase was black, and Haddad felt his way down the steps as Iola waited impatiently at the bottom. He could feel carving on the railing and the walls as his hands guided him down. He turned a corner, and there was more light. Haddad and Iola were in a kitchen, and he looked at the men and a few women preparing food. The air was hot, and Haddad perspired as he passed the cooking fires. Panting dogs ran in work-wheels, turning spits of meat. The cook and the principal workers in the kitchen were women and showed the gray skin of Keldons, while the men were all subject races. Humans, dwarves, elves, and a few races that Haddad could only guess at were stirring pots and making bread.
"You have access at all hours and may freely take what you need as long as you do not interfere with the others' duties," Iola continued as she headed toward the pantries.
Iola and Haddad passed many slaves, but none were introduced, and all ducked their eyes at their passage. Iola opened the door to the yard and stepped outside. She was walking toward a network of outbuildings almost exactly like the workshops Latulla had constructed back on Haddad's home continent. Iola waved for him to stay where he was and yelled for a slave to stop. The man fell to his knees as Iola approached.
Haddad turned and looked at the exterior of the house. It was the size of a palace! Haddad would have thought a king or great family lived there, and he wondered how even Latulla, strong as she was, had been able to evict the previous tenants.
Haddad heard the sound of a blow being landed but only saw Iola walking toward him as the slave staggered away. Iola continued as if nothing had happened.
"You will be working in the farthest workshop, the one next to the cradle house." She waved toward the wall behind which Haddad had watched the children battle.
"Is the cradle house a school then?" Haddad queried. If Latulla came from that particular institution, Haddad had no wish to meet the rest of the graduating class.
"Of course the cradle house is a school. It is also a hospital and nursery. All Keldons are born and raised in a cradle house." Iola shook her head at his ignorance. "You foreign slaves ask the most bizarre questions."
They stopped before the workshop where Haddad would be working. It was a high-peaked structure of at least two stories.
A staircase ran along the exterior of the building, and Iola started up the steps. Haddad followed, looking into the windows of the first story. He could see little beyond shadows and covered tables. A large lock closed the door at the top of the stairs, and Iola took a ring of keys from her wallet and sorted through them. She extracted one and opened the door.
Haddad entered the room first. It was still dim even with the door open, and Iola proceeded to open the shutters, letting in more light. Haddad noticed that these windows were barred. On the floor lay a collection of crates with Latulla's mark, and a series of League technical manuals sat on a nearby table. Iola gestured toward the piled supplies.
"Latulla commands you to reconstruct one of your war machines from the materials provided. She will expect it completed at her return. You will work on it except when you are resting at the main house." Iola handed him the key to the door. "You will be responsible for securing your work. Let no other slave enter, and say nothing about your work. Meals are your own responsibility." And with that, she left.
Haddad was alone and free from observation. He locked the door from the inside and stretched with unaccustomed freedom. If he had been given some liberty, he wanted to put it to good use. He began inspecting his work area. There were a plethora of tools that he could use as weapons- chisels, hammers, bar stock, metal shears, and more. He put aside an awl and some wire for construction of weapons. Then, thinking that he might be questioned by Iola, he opened the crates. They did indeed contain parts for a steel ant, several in fact. The problem was that every casing had been pried open and examined. Gears and cabling were missing. Many of the parts showed what must be combat damage. Worse, there were no powerstones to move and control the device once it was constructed. Haddad was trained in quick field repairs using modular parts to replace damaged subsystems. Building an ant would be much more difficult than it had first appeared. Haddad rubbed the metal band on his arm as he considered what would be necessary to fulfill his commission from his Keldon masters. His arm itched, and he wondered what it signified. He wondered how long it would itch and turned back to work with a promise that he would ask about the armband. He emptied the crates and considered how to proceed.
It was growing late when Haddad finally prepared to leave. The workshop lacked lamps or candles, and twilight was ruining Haddad's vision. He was starving, and he promised himself that in the future he would bring food and drink with him. He sat at a table, looking at his hands and thinking about the next day. His hands were colored with oil and grease from the parts he inspected. As he cleaned them on a cloth, he noticed how the stains had set in quickly and already looked several days old.
He was in front of a window facing the cradle house. The rise of the workshop and a dip under the enclosure wall allowed him to look within the compound. Children were being called inside, and Keldon boys raced each other. Pregnant women rose from chairs and walked into the buildings within the compound. None of the women appeared gray skinned, and Haddad wondered where the Keldon mothers sat.
It wasn't until he was outside that he realized almost the entire day had passed without thoughts of escape. Access to all those tools, and he made no weapon nor had he appropriated a tool for his private use. All he was carrying was a League manual and some writing supplies.
He promised himself that at the very least he would write down his observations and any information he thought the League might want. His current freedom was an illusion that might end at any time. He must start planning for an escape.
Only a few seconds after starting toward Latulla's house he heard the creak of a gate behind him. He turned to see a hidden door opening in the cradle house's enclosure wall. Several figures stepped through before it closed. Even after seeing
it open, Haddad was unsure of the gate's position on the unmarked wall. Remembering the respect toward cradle women and midwives demonstrated by the Keldon warriors back in the military colony, Haddad stopped and lowered his head in respect as the party passed. The leader of the party was cloaked, but her companions were not Keldon-the first women of other races that he had seen close up for longer than he cared to remember. He forgot to duck his head and stared as they passed him, but no answering glance was sent his way. He waited a few seconds and followed them, wondering where they would lead.
Iola greeted the party at the door. "Erissa, what a pleasure to see you. Latulla will be so upset that she has missed you." The steward fairly fawned over the unexpected guest.
Erissa uncloaked and threw her outerwear to one of the women accompanying her. She was shorter than anyone else in the party and heavy. Time seemed to have compressed her to a stump compared to her taller companions.
"I doubt that very much. Plans are not going well, and Latulla and her supporters are a source of constant disappointment," Erissa said. She and Iola walked toward one of the rooms that Haddad had been forbidden from entering. He followed the rest of the group, holding the manual up as if in explanation to anyone who might question him.
"Latulla knows that the invasion is necessary, Erissa," Iola said. "It's just forcing the members of the ruling council to acknowledge that fact. There are other clans and houses fighting to bring down the League after all."
"But the bulk of them stay here or waste their time sailing and raiding for mere booty," Erissa spat. "Pursuing folly while our heritage and eventual victory is stolen by the Kipamu League. Even the women you have captured from that country have not reversed the birthing trends."
The human women accompanying the two Keldons stopped and seated themselves on the furniture and chairs while their principal withdrew into a farther room. Haddad cursed the luck and took a seat as well. In response to their questioning looks, he brandished the manual and bared his arm with its metal band. The women only shrugged and began dividing up the foods on the table. At the sight of the bread and dried fruit, Haddad's stomach loudly announced its currently empty state. One of the women smiled and offered the plate to Haddad. He took it as an invitation for conversation even as he grabbed several slices of dried apple.
There were four women regarding Haddad. Two of them were blonde. One was very muscular, her neck and forearms sharply defined. Her eyes were dark blue but hard as she stared at him. Her blonde companion was slender and her features almost ethereal. Her ears appeared somewhat pointed under her hair, and Haddad wondered if she had elf blood.
"So what is life like in the cradle house?" he asked. The women looked at each other while considering their answers. The other two shifted their seats to face Haddad more fully. One woman was dark haired, and her eyes were green. Her face was odd to Haddad. The skin was tight against her skull as if blown back by a wind. Her mouth seemed small, but her teeth were sharp and perhaps filed. The final woman was dark, perhaps from the southern kingdoms in Jamuraa. Her hair was tightly braided against her skull, and intricate networks of scars framed her face, drawing Haddad's gaze to her brown eyes.
"It's good enough for some," the brunette replied through sharp teeth. "Once they adapt to certain realities."
All the women nodded in agreement. Haddad looked at them. All were in good health and on the backside of thirty, and all of them exuded confidence and power. Any of them should have appealed to his senses, but he felt numbed by their presence.
"What realities are we speaking of?" he asked. The response was stunning.
"The hardest for some is giving up their children. Even though they know the babies will receive good care, some can't overcome their feelings. No matter how firmly one tries, some breeders won't adjust," the muscular blonde explained. Haddad wondered what sort of people considered loss of a child something to ignore.
"One woman from down south, who shares your coloring," the brunette interjected, "wouldn't stop crying after her first child went into the nursery. Even though there was a good chance that it might become a war leader."
"And at least hers didn't die like so many others have done of late," the slender blonde added. Something about this comment set the others staring at her. Haddad now saw the women as they saw themselves, hard and indifferent. They had closed off their empathy and been rewarded with positions of authority inside the cradle house. Haddad heard the Keldon women returning, and he withdrew as the others stood. He went to his room to consider what he had learned.
That night he wrote notes regarding all his experiences and what he had observed. He dared not keep it in his room and decided that he would hide it somewhere in Latulla's workshop where it was unlikely to be discovered. He blew out the candle and went to sleep.
*****
Haddad dreamed. He was inside the walls of the cradle house, and instead of buildings, there was only a small basket in the middle of the yard. The women he had met stood at either side, and a long line of new mothers stretched out into the distance. As the line moved forward, each baby was ripped away and thrown down into the wicker container. As each child disappeared, the basket swelled and grew until the women were throwing children high into the air. Each was gulped down, and then something broke out of the cradle house and fell upon every living thing.
Dawn woke Haddad, and he rose from bed with a will. He stuffed the papers that he worked on the night before into his wallet. Best to get to the workshop as early as possible and let Iola find him toiling away like a good little slave. This time he thought to stop by the kitchen after freshening up.
The baker and her assistants were just putting out the bread from the pre-dawn baking, and Haddad snared a loaf. He ignored the baker's indignant utterance and snatched a sack of ale that he spotted lying unattended. He stepped outside into the crisp air. Despite a touch of frost, Haddad found he was warm in the clothes he had selected from his gear. If the workshop was too cold, he would check the small stove to see if he could start a fire. He remembered that a load of wood was stacked to the side. The door opened easily to the workshop, and he locked it behind him.
Hours passed as he worked on the parts for the steel ant. Perhaps by cannibalizing several machines he would be able to create a fighter for himself. He certainly would trust the loyalty of a mechanical construct over the other house slaves. Haddad remembered the advice two nameless men had provided him. Seek to escape and trust no one.
He lost himself in sorting through a box of gears, looking for a replacement he could use in a leg assembly. The day passed quickly with no interruptions. Haddad considered the assembly project against the parts he had available. He could finish it if only he had enough time. The most difficult part would be closing and filling the modular sections that were picked apart. The League machine was near perfect in its performance, but it depended on the high quality control of the sealed modules. A steel ant might go months without maintenance, barring battle damage. If he could contrive some plan of escape, the ant might be the key. In addition, just completing the repair would boost his confidence in a time when he needed some small victory. He wasn't even sure where Keld was, much less how he would get home. Finding the information he needed would take time.
He grew increasingly drowsy as he tried to plan his escape. Who could he talk to? How to keep from raising suspicions? Who to bribe and how? All questions that needed to be answered and soon.
He rested his head against his arm, the metal armband cool and soothing against his skin. When he awoke it was growing dark. He didn't know how he could have dozed off. Perhaps the ale he had drunk was far stronger than he realized. He thought no one had checked up on him the night before, but he couldn't be sure. It was possible that he had already missed the bed check or closing of the house doors. He needed to get back to his room. He reached into his wallet for the shop key and found the notes he had written still inside. Carrying them back to the house seemed incredibly foolhardy to him
now. He needed a place to hide them, but while he had identified which cabinets and tool chests saw frequent use, there was no guarantee if he hid the papers in one seldom used they might not be discovered.
He needed a hiding place where no one would look. Haddad fell to the floor looking for a loose board, a crack under a table, anyplace to hide the incriminating words. He was back among strange tools and books he could not read when he found what he was looking for. His hand brushed a board, and it rocked. He gripped it, and to his surprise, it lifted completely free. The gap it left was approximately six inches by eighteen inches. Haddad wondered what purpose the cutout had served. The pattern of rust and signs of brackets told Haddad that a tank had been removed in the past. The cutout must have allowed hoses to carry liquid up and down from the floor below.
On his knees, he peered through the hole. There was a small ledge along the wall, but it was almost impossible to see anything in the floor below. Haddad thought a moment then walked to his tool kit. Yes, there were several metallic mirrors for examining inside war machines. He selected the largest and maneuvered it, scanning the space below. The second floor was reinforced with extra large beams. There was a gap between a beam and the floor plank right by the cutout. The removal of the tank had allowed the flooring to rise. Haddad could just shove the papers into the gap. Let someone try to find them now, he thought.
It was the creak of an opening door that made him freeze. He could not conceive of a more suspicious situation to be caught in. He breathed a sigh of relief as he realized the noise was coming from the first story. He heard the sound of rustling fabric.
