There wasn’t a single smell, but several. Oil, sweat, fire. It was an assault on my nostrils, and it took a little getting used to. I had spent so long in the wilds that it was strange to get all these sensations at once.
As we walked by one gnome guy, who was hammering a loose container wall into a curved shape, I spotted something on the ground.
Here we go. A glimmer of an opening.
I glanced at my guards and saw that most of them were looking at anything but us, no doubt happy to be home and dreaming of some rest and reward.
I pretended to stumble and fell on my knee. In one movement I grabbed the thing off the floor and put it in my pocket.
Item received: Sharpened piece of metal
A gnome guard eyed me suspiciously, and I put on my best acting performance of a tentative nonchalance. It was a carefully considered expression; I didn’t want to appear too calm, since I was a prisoner in a foreign city, but I didn’t want to look like a guy with something to hide.
I think he bought it.
As we walked on, I could see Tosvig was uncomfortable here. He reached for his sword from time to time out of instinct, only to pat his hand against an empty sheath.
“Okay, Tosvig?”
He looked around him, like a puppy raised in the country and suddenly taken to Times Square.
With a screeching sound, a barrel whizzed by on an overhead cable, starling him. I felt sorry for Tosvig then. The wilds were his place. He was used to quiet, to stealth, to being alone.
I didn’t feel uncomfortable, either. I wasn’t happy being brought here unwillingly, and I couldn’t share the gnomes’ belief that this place was beautiful, but the busyness didn’t bother me. I felt like I was used to it, that I had spent time in much busier places before now. Not here, but somewhere, sometime.
No, what bothered me was what would happen to us, and the feeling that right now, I couldn’t change that.
So, to calm myself, I looked around and let the sights of the container city fill my mind with questions. Up they popped, like bubbles forming on the surface of a pond.
I wondered where the gnomes had gotten all the shipping containers from. Was there a dock nearby? Even so, it would have taken a hell of a lot of determination to bring the containers here. It was a feat rivaling the pyramids, if not in beauty then in sheer hard work.
Or, shipping containers had to be taken to a dock somehow, right? On a truck, maybe. Perhaps whatever had happened to this world, had happened while a fleet of trucks was driving containers across the country?
I didn't know. If being here highlighted one thing, it was my shameful lack of shipping container transport knowledge.
It was the first reminder I’d had in a while that there was an old civilization here. One I might once have been a part of. Just how long gone it was, I had no clue.
Maybe the gnomes would have an idea. I’d have to ask, but I also didn’t want to give too much of my past – or lack of it – away to people I didn’t know.
I’d have to wait until I found a gnome I could trust, if that was even possible.
“This way,” said Vicq, ahead of us.
He led us through the streets of Agnartis, and the city was much more sprawling now we were inside it. Some of the very old and very young gnomes who weren’t working watched us pass, but most of the others were too busy to care.
Every few feet, someone would approach Vicq and speak to him in gnomish, and he got rid of them in the kind of incredibly polite yet firm way some people have. I had to watch Vicq, I decided. The guy knew how to manipulate people.
We pushed on, passing shipping containers where blacksmiths were working over red-hot coals, with ventilation cut into the top of the container.
We walked by gnomish men and women standing over burn barrels, inside which various multi-colored goo was bubbling.
Hmm. So whatever their weird alchemical goo was, they made it themselves. They had the knowledge to do that, and I needed to get a piece of it.
The rush of sights, sounds, and smells had knocked me a little off a balance, but I forced myself to focus now. I had to keep looking for ways to escape, for little advantages. I had a piece of sharp metal. That was a start, I guessed.
It had been a rare moment on our march when I hadn’t been plotting some kind of escape. Even after days of thinking, I’d never thought up anything that met my risk threshold.
“They leave only three gnomes on guard at nights,” Harrien whispered to me one evening.
“Forget it. The others are nearby, and they’re light sleepers. We’re unarmed. Running doesn’t pass the risk threshold.”
“What is risk threshold?”
“Simple. The risk threshold is: If a plan has a risk of death, don’t do it unless the other choice is certain death.”
“Risk threshold. I will remember.”
Vicq and his fellow gnomes led us deeper into the city. Nearby was a swelling of land that began as a gentle incline, but soon rose enough that it became a hill. Sitting on top of it was the shipping container equivalent of a palace.
It had six levels, each level comprised of shipping containers pushed together, most probably with the walls removed on the inside. Must have been where Duke Wadstone lived.
There were no palatial visits on the agenda for us today. Instead, we headed north through the city, to where the groupings of containers became much sparser and we left all the working gnomes behind us.
This was an altogether different part of the city. There were no blacksmiths here. No burning barrels of goo.
Instead, there were two structures. On the left was the biggest structure in the whole of Agnartis, even bigger than the palace.
It was a bunch of shipping containers arranged into a vaguely oval shape. On each side, more containers had been cut and rearranged to almost look like seats overlooking something in the middle.
A stadium, maybe? Had the gnomes gotten so comfortable in their survival that they had taken a step up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
Maslow’s hierarchy was a framework for survival, especially in a world like this. The first, most basic step was physical survival; taking care of your need for food, water, sleep.
Next, was security. That meant somewhere to feel safe, somewhere you could shelter. The gnomes had taken care of those two things, living here in this complex maze of metal.
So what was next on Maslow’s hierarchy? There were social, ego, and self-actualization steps.
Basically, these gnome guys were so comfortable here that they could forget about just surviving, and actually start living. If this was a stadium, it meant they had a sport. Entertainment. They thought about things other than whether they’d live from one day to the next.
The second structure, way beyond the shipping container stadium, was a great tower rising into the sky. It looked like the beginnings of the Eiffel tower except made from, surprisingly, shipping containers and barrels.
It was already 200 feet tall, and it looked like they had no plans on stopping construction. It was too far away to see any of the workers in detail, but I spotted figures walking back and forth from the tower, carrying things to and fro. Others were working at various heights on the great structure.
Holy hells, this was amazing.
The gnomes had carved themselves a foothold of survival that was so strong, that they had turned to matters of ego. Of building monuments for their civilization. Whether it was to worship some kind of dockland god, or just to brag how clever they were, I didn’t know, but the tower was impressive.
I could see that the rest of the group were similarly amazed. Even cool Adi-Boto, who stared at the tower with his mouth open. I wondered if any of them had ever seen anything like it.
They must have been here before, surely? We had marched four or five days from the canyon, which in turn was, what, five days from the Tallsteep camp? We weren’t a million miles away. They must have been here before.
Then again, I was beginning t
o see just how big this world was. Without completed maps of the whole area, it was impossible to see everything. If we had gone, say, west from the canyon and walked for days, we could easily have missed Agnartis entirely.
A small part of me was glad to be here. To see that there were places and people in this world that didn’t live in tents and hedge their survival bets on the next day’s hunting.
If only I wasn’t here as a prisoner.
But the thing that stuck out most to me was that, with their stadium and temple, the gnomes tried to tackle a question I had asked myself time and time again.
What’s the use of surviving, if you don’t live?
Maybe they had an answer for me.
At the head of the group, Vicq stopped now. His fellow gnomes stood beside him, and I and the rest of the group slowed and waited for him to speak.
“You have the honor of setting foot in Agnartis,” said Vicq. “An honor given to few. But even more honors await you. Some of you will help construct the Tower of Treah. Others, to be decided soon, will go to the pit.”
With this, he swept his hand to draw our attention to the shipping container stadium.
After that, he left us under the care of another gnome now, a morose guy named Glum Rabert who’d marched with us from the canyon. Rabert never sang, joked, or even talked much like the rest of the gnomes, and had always seemed happier when we were walking and he could get lost in his thoughts.
“This way,” said Glum Rabert, sighing.
He led us to an open courtyard near the shipping container stadium. There were markings painted on the ground instructing prisoners where to stand. Gnomes armed with swords were sitting on laddered highchairs around the courtyard, wearing the bored expressions of teenagers working as pool lifeguards. I got the impression that rather than to save lives, it was the guards’ job to beat us to death if we ran.
There wasn’t much we could do yet but follow Rabert’s lead. I had the sharpened piece of metal in my pocket, but I was still missing an angle on how to use it. Well, a way to use it that didn’t result in death, anyway. So far none of my ideas passed the risk threshold.
We weren’t the only prisoners, I soon discovered. We were marched to a queue, and ahead of us were a mix of non-gnomes. After spending so long in this place and already meeting the circle children, emerald children, ogres, and gnomes, I wasn’t overly surprised to see the range of races ahead of me.
There were a few elves. I assumed they were elves, anyway, because they had that look about them. Near them was a guy who looked human if you were judging him on skin color and body shape only, but he was built like a tank and had two big fangs that stuck out from his bottom lip, so he could never quite close his mouth.
As well as him, there was a guy with a wolfish face who was covered in ginger fur, and also someone who appeared to be an orc and whose face was covered in blood-red tattoos.
But the biggest surprise was the last person I noticed. A woman. A real, human woman.
Weird, huh, that the biggest shock would come from seeing my race. I guessed it was because she was the first person I had seen who wasn’t fixed to the end of an ogres’ chain. Well, since the guys who had been murdered by the Runenmer’s demons.
I couldn’t stop looking at her, and not for the reasons a guy might normally ogle a girl. I needed to talk to her. She might speak English. Then again, she might speak French, German, Dutch, Pig Latin. Who the hell knew in this place? Even so, I had to find out.
The problem was, she was way ahead of me in the line, and the gnomes made us stand in single file. I knew they were courteous, but it might push their courtesy too far if I left the line.
At the head of the queue, facing us, was a gnome who was on the taller side for a member of his species. He had long hair and wore a kind of poncho that made him look like he had wings. He had an authoritative air about him, and he seemed to be studying us all.
I watched him now. I saw that he was evaluating each person who came before him. He peered into their eyes, and he looked them up and down, taking in their physique.
After a few seconds of this, he said one of two things.
“Pit.”
“Temple.”
Depending on what he said, a prisoner was then taken off to the left or the right of the courtyard, and they were made to wait behind a painted line.
Okay, so this guy was deciding our fate. I wasn’t going to leave it up to him, though. If I had to go to one of these things, the pit or the temple, I’d at least pick the best of a bad choice. The choice that would be easiest, safest, and would allow me some thinking time to get out of this.
I already knew that the temple was an ongoing construction project. After all, it was hard to miss the thing, and it was clearly unfinished. As well as cutting pieces of shipping containers to build its shape, the gnomes had started forming a base of rocks around it. I wondered if the containers were meant to be a skeleton, and the tower would eventually be made of rock.
Hmm. That meant getting assigned to the temple involved physical labor. A life of menial work. Slavery, basically.
The one thing this had going for it was that I already knew that the gnomes treated prisoners fairly. If they worked us until we died of exhaustion, thirst, or starvation, they’d have to find more prisoners. It wouldn’t make sense to them, and they seemed to be pretty economical.
The pits, however, were a mystery. At least, at first. All I knew was that they were connected to the shipping container stadium, which meant people assigned to the pits were involved in a sport of some kind.
I watched the queue now. I studied the gnome as he evaluated prisoners and gave his judgment.
The orc guy stepped forward. The gnome prodded his chest and pinched his bicep. In any other circumstances, I guessed the orc would have flattened him to a pulp for his touching him like that, but he had enough self-control to stay still.
“Hmm. Interesting,” said the gnome. He checked the orc’s hands, maybe for calluses or something.
“Pit,” he declared.
Next up was a rather strange creature. Humanoid in form, tall and slender with long limbs and especially long fingers.
And made from bark. That seems like an important detail to point out. This was a humanoid tree guy.
“Temple,” said the gnome immediately.
Next was the human lady. I wondered what the gnome would decide about her.
“Temple,” he said, after barely any thought.
Now came the guy who looked human, but had fangs and couldn’t close his mouth properly because of them.
“Pit.”
Okay, I had the sense of it now. Anyone who looked tough was being taken to the pits. Anyone less so, the temple.
So, we had a classic gladiator – slave situation going on here. It must have been something like that.
Did I want to die in a pit, fighting god knows what?
Or did I want to perish in some kind of temple building accident, maybe having a rock dropped on my head, or working up at the top and falling from it?
To me, the temple gave me the best survival options. As well as that, the woman had been assigned to the temple, and I really wanted to talk to her.
I needed to get myself assigned to the temple, and I had to think of a way to influence the gnome’s decision.
I thought on this as the queue moved on and prisoners got assigned to their fates. Finally, my group was at the head of the line, and I watched the gnome evaluate them.
Cleavon: “Temple.”
Harrien: “Pit.”
Judah: “Pit.”
Adi-Boto: “Pit.”
Kayla: “Temple.”
Tosvig: “Temple.”
They had assigned Kayla to the temple? Stupid. She was a scout for a clan who survived in the wilds; she was worth more than heaving rocks. I guessed that as much as the gnomes treated prisoners fairly, they lived in a patriarchal society, having judged Kayla purely on being female.
It wa
s especially stupid when I saw that Harrien was going to the pits. Harrien? Really? The kid knew magic, sure. But the gnomes didn’t know that, or they’d have confiscated his medallion. Why would they send Harrien to the pits, and put Kayla on temple duty?
The biggest surprise was Tosvig. When they assigned him to the temple, I couldn’t believe it. There was only one reason I could guess; his hand.
Vicq had mentioned that plenty of gnomes lose appendages in their work and that they had prosthetics of some kind. I guessed they’d be extremely basic kinds of prosthetics.
Yeah, they had taken one look at Tosvig, ignored his muscles, ignored his ‘I’m going to tear off your nutsack and make a necklace’ stare, and focused only on his hand.
This complicated things for me somewhat.
If I tried to get assigned to the temple, I’d be leaving Harrien with only Adi-Boto and Judah as his only familiar faces in the pits. If their pit involved any kind of cooperation, he couldn’t expect much from them. Sure, they had traveled together for a while, but their clan grudges were always bubbling under the surface.
“You,” said the gnome, pointing at me.
Damn it. I needed to hurry and decide what to do.
The rest of the guys had been marched to their respective areas of the courtyard, with the pit guys on one side, temple guys on the other. They were staring at me, and I could see the eagerness in all the pit guys’ eyes that I get assigned there. I guess misery loves company.
If I got assigned to the temple, not only would I have a better chance of living, but I could talk to a real, human woman who didn’t have a chain around her neck.
Survive?
Or help Harrien?
As much as I hated it, I knew what choice to make.
I affected a limp now, stumbling toward the gnome and making sure every step looked awkward as hell. Seeing this, he had to assign me to the temple.
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 32
