by Levi Jacobs
He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. In the sea of people behind them, the squalid rows of tents and cookfires inside the walls, his children were hidden. Were imprisoned. Were having the light shut out of them, because someone thought the Achuri needed fixing.
The first wafter reached him, a heavyset lighthair swinging a blade on the end of a long pike. Tai dodged over it, shot down at the man’s back with a heel. Something cracked, and he fell from the sky.
Arrows came then, flying at him from the slower wafters, ten or twelve forming a ring around him. Tai dropped under, power roaring in him like it would never die, only to find more arrows from the walls, more men dropping at him from above. He cursed, flying sideways, closer to the walls, but the wafters followed him, faster than he’d seen other wafters move, and more rose from the walls, dropped from above.
There were too many. Cursing, he shoved backward in air, circled right, trying to find a way around them. A way into the camp. A way to the three kids that were in there somewhere, that needed his help.
They blocked him at every turn. Tai tried again, rushing straight forward, arrows whirring around him. More fighters rose up, a wall of steel and flesh. There was no way. It would take an army to get through this.
You won’t do them any good dead. Them, or me.
Tai shouted in frustration, forced to retreat again, shoving down the rage that wanted to push on anyway, to get in and get his kids or die trying.
Because he knew he’d die. He could see that now. Not without help.
Wafters followed him, brawlers pacing him on the ground, waiting for him to fall. And with a sick feeling, rushing back over the open plain, he realized he would fall, sooner than later. You could only hold so much power, pulled from the foods you ate, and he felt his going, felt a burning hunger in his spine.
When he fell, he would die. The brawlers would catch him, or the wafters drop on him, and he’d die. He didn’t have the power to get far enough ahead that he might escape. And with Aelya in the infirmary, maybe dead herself, there would be no one to save his kids.
How could he have been joking with Aelya just yesterday? How could things have changed so much?
“No,” Tai gritted, pushing against the hunger, willing more power into his bones, into the force that drove him on, coming out above the fields that surrounded Ayugen to the south. He wouldn’t let it end here. Where could he go?
Tulric’s group was below too, apparently waiting for him, and they joined the soldiers coming from the trees. The city? No—they knew him now, would find him there. The river, the fields beyond? He’d never make it—and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to run through the bends. The ship, the Seinjial captain? It was all too far. Below him the fields rippled, breaking into low foothills, dotted with square compounds guarding mine entrances.
The mines. It was as good as a death sentence, and they were guarded just as heavily by mercenary fighters, but they were outside Councilate law, the special province of the Houses. They would give him asylum, if he agreed to go down.
It was better than death.
Maybe.
If he could even make it. Hunger burned up his backbone. The nearest compound was five hundred paces off, but he was dropping in air, slowing, his power ebbing fast now. He could feel the bends, the nausea and vertigo that followed using your resonance, rising up in him, threatening to pull him down. The brawlers had thinned out below him, many of the wafters outpaced, but there were still more than enough to kill him, if he ran out of power now. Tulric was one of them, running with a limp. Tai was close enough to catch the glint in the man’s eye, the cast of his jaw.
Payback. It was always about payback—and they both wanted it now.
With a final hum his resonance stopped, and Tai fell to earth.
7
To those who argue forced labor programs for the darkhairs are unfair, I answer this: have we not also labored our share? How did our Yersh fathers lift themselves from the mud? Look also how the Seinjials have improved their nature after only forty years under Councilate rule. Our first priority must be to bring them civilization. And if it profits the Houses, so much the better.
--House Galya senator, address to the Council, Yiel 86
Tai lurched into the earth. His joints screamed on impact, body no longer strong with resonance, and the world spun as the bends set in. For a few seconds or a few minutes after wafting, depending on how much resonance you’d used, the bends made you almost totally useless, nausea and vertigo hitting like you were still in air, wildly ill and spinning out of control.
But he didn’t have time to be spinning. He had pack of Councilate brawlers screaming for his blood, Tulric at their head.
Ahead of him swam the gates to a mine complex, just twenty yards off, or fifty—hard to see through the bends. But it was freedom. Safety. A second chance to save his kids.
Tai ran. His feet stumbled, his head spun, his stomach tried to come out his throat, but he ran. He could hear the brawlers behind him now, running twice as fast as normal people could, swore he could hear Tulric’s voice bellowing among them.
It didn’t matter. The pain in his joints didn’t matter. The nausea didn’t matter. He either made it to those gates, through those gates and into the protection of its mercenaries, or he died. It was that simple.
So he ran, doing his best to keep the compound gates ahead, to not fall headlong over the raised rows of beets, trying to find the rhythm of breath and movement. Men screamed—others were cheering?—his legs didn’t work and he was falling—
Arms caught him. Thick arms, blurring in the vomit-inducing spin of the bends. “Got yer, lad,” a rough voice said. “And none too soon it seems.”
Footsteps pounded behind him. Tai leaned over double, coughing, doing his best to keep his breakfast. “Release that man!” a voice called behind him, indignant, out of breath. Tulric.
“Who, this one here?” rough voice called. “He ran a long way just to get away from yers! I think he’s a mind to try the mines. Don’t ye?”
He prodded Tai with a foot as he asked, and Tai’s stomach lurched. But he knew what he needed to say, what game he needed to play to survive here. When labor got short in the mines, the Houses had negotiated an amnesty for anyone who worked in the mines. For awhile, Ayugen had been thick with fugitives, criminals, and prisoners come to try working the mines, to get out of their sentences. Like most miners, they never came back. “I do,” he coughed.
“See there! A regular miner and upstanding citizen,” rough voice barked. Yati. It was a Yati accent. Tai risked a glance up to see red-bearded man resting his free hand on a huge double-bladed axe, a cadre of mercenaries around him. Then the world bent in half again and he closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. Safe. He was safe.
“He attacked the prison camp, and wounded one of our men. Killed him, maybe.” This wasn’t Tulric, the soldier’s voice deeper.
“Did he?” Rough voice sounded even more amused. “Our little milkweed here killed a Titan? What are they training you in these days, table manners?” A scattering of laughter from the mercenary side. “Don’t matter friend, and ye know it don’t matter. He’s ours now. Arnchya?”
This last was followed with another nudge, but Tai’s stomach bore it slightly better. He tried standing, opened his eyes to see Tulric and half a dozen other men in dark Councilate uniforms outside the complex’s wooden gates. He met eyes with Tulric. “I am. For now.”
Tulric sneered back, though his face was drawn with pain. That was the brawler version of the bends—the knives, they called it. “Soon as you’re not come and find me, milkweed.”
Tai cocked his head, nausea mixing with a little bit of giddy. He was alive. “I did find you, remember? Or are you limping for fun?”
Tulric growled, but the rough-voiced Yati clapped Tai on the shoulder, world lurching again. “Did that too, didya? I think I like this milkweed. Now scram, lawkeepers, less ye want to break your own laws. We’ll see how
ye do against twenty o’my own fighters.”
At this the group around him bristled, swords flashing and arrows nocking and two or three women rising into the air with a buzz of power. The lead soldier glanced at Tulric, then waved his men off. Tulric clenched his fists, for all the world like a toddler who didn’t get their honeybread. Tai gave him a pouty lip, and he spun away with the rest.
The Yati man guffawed, and Tai grinned, bends passing. This would only mean more payback in Tulric’s eyes, but that didn’t matter. He was safe for now.
If you called trapped in a courtyard with twenty mean-looking mercenaries safe.
“Well now, milkweed,” the Yati man said, turning to Tai. “You got us all up from our comfortable seats and made us threaten a buncha Titans. Ye’d better be serious about working in a Coldferth mine, or might be we take out our trouble out on ye.”
There was general clink of weapon and mail as the others turned to regard Tai, grinning at this new entertainment. “I’m serious,” Tai said, straightening up to the man. Tai was taller, but the Yatiman had to be twice as thick. “How do I start?”
The hill tribesman laughed. “Ye get yer meckring down the hole.” He swung his axe toward the pavilion in the center, where a wooden stairway lead down into the earth. “Fifty balls to get out.”
“Fifty balls?” That was a small fortune in yura.
“Aye. No balls, and we keep ye down. S’what we’re here for really. Don’t get too many people trying to come in.” The other mercenaries laughed, settling into their places, but the Yati man seemed to soften a touch. “Watch yerself down there, lad. Ain’t all of em as nice as we are.”
Tai just nodded, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. The mines were where the Councilate sent criminals to die.
Where they sent the resistance fighters to die, when we were kids.
The thought was disquieting, and worry rolled off Hake, but Tai squared his shoulders. It was this or get killed by Tulric and the lawkeepers—if he could even get past the mercenaries and out the gate.
A thought occurred to him. “Got any mavenstym or wintermelon? I seem to have burned all my resonance fighting those Titans.”
The Yati man grinned, revealing broken front teeth. “Don’t normally give out my leaf, but for you milkweed?” He dug out a handful of dark purple mavenstym blossoms, dried and crushed. “You’re gonna need em down there.”
Tai thanked him. This way at least he’d have his resonance, if he needed to use it.
You don’t need to use it, ever again.
A Coldferth man at the gate noted his name and the time of day, handing him a lantern and two strips of jerky. I think I used it pretty well, thank you, he thought back.
If by well you mean trying to commit suicide against a fortress full of the Councilate’s best soldiers.
Tai shrugged his shoulders. “I survived.”
The man at the gate gave him an odd look—no wonder they were all so strange, if they ignored their spirit guides. “Fifty balls to get out, no exit after sundown.”
Tai said nothing, taking the lamp and gumming the mercenary’s mavenstym. It wouldn’t last forever—like regular food and energy, it would eventually burn away, but he would feel better going down with a second option.
More like a last resort.
The whole thing felt like a last resort. The lighthair lit his lamp with a candle burning on the table, and Tai took the stairs down. He should be dead already, considering what he’d just done. But since he wasn’t, there was still a chance to help his kids. Right? The stairway went down a long way, sunlight gradually fading to the flickering shadows his lamp cast against the cut stone walls. The problem was how to help them.
Leaving aside the fifty balls we need to even get out of this place.
Tai rolled his shoulders. The air was humid, and warmer than he’d expected, a gentle breeze rising from the cave like the mouth of some underground beast. “We could get out of it easy, once this mavenstym digests.” He could already feel the ache in his spine ebbing. “Mercs or not, I don’t think they could catch me in the air. But where would we go? Tulric would find us anywhere in the city.”
So you leave the city. Marrem still has your money. The captain’s likely waiting on you. Buy some yura, take the ship to Worldsmouth, and we come back with money and a plan.
Tai shook his head. “By the time we got back our kids would be changed, or—“ His voice caught. Not many more people came out of the camp than came out of the mines. “We don’t need a plan. We need an army.”
So sell the yura and use the money to hire an army.
“That’s two months downstream, however long it takes to sell out, then three months back up. I’m not leaving the kids in there half a year.”
What good are you going to do them in here?
There was a light ahead, what looked like an open chamber at the bottom of the stairs. Tai put Hake out of his mind. He needed to focus.
The air smelled of moss and wet rock and—curried meat? He lowered his lantern, letting his eyes adjust. He was in a natural chamber, not as large as a market but near to it. Lamps spread pools of light at regular intervals, a few hanging from massive icicles of rock. In the flickering light, the walls appeared to be many colors—oranges and greys and browns, here and there a vein of red. There was no yura on them, but he guessed areas this close to the surface would be picked clean. Marrem said before the Councilate started harvesting, the walls had been entirely covered in yura—that people had come down here to commune with their ancestors, and the ancestors left yura when they were pleased, medicine to help the next who came down.
Medicine to make the Councilate rich, more like it.
“Ho friend!” came a voice to his left, echoing off the walls. “First time in the caves?”
Tai could make out a heavy figure approaching, sword strapped to his middle. “Yeah. Can you… point me to the best spots?”
The man guffawed, clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll need more lamp tallow than that. And maybe a bowl of curry? Hungry work down there.” The curry scent was stronger now—his stomach rumbled, smelling barley and spices and perhaps some elk.
He could also smell a scam. “For free?”
The man laughed again. “Nothing’s free down here. But you can take it on credit.”
Tai could make out a few figures around the room, some sprawled on the floor, all pale as ghosts. “I’ve got enough debt for now. Just show me where to go?”
The heavy man shrugged. “Have it your way. You’ll want that passage to your right. And watch your lamp. It gets awfully dark down there.”
Tai found the passage, lined with lamps, sloping steadily down. It was chiseled into the rock, like the stairway down had been—likely resistance fighters’ work, put to work expanding the natural caves after the war. Ghosts, they’d called the few who came back, for their pale skin and thin frames. They were gone now, hopefully returned as real ghosts guiding their kin.
If they had any left.
The passage forked at the far end, one cave leading up in a scree of small rocks, the other dropping sharply down. Tai instinctively wanted to take the upper passage, to be closer to the surface, so he chose the lower, thinking it might be less explored. He clambered down the steep slope, finding a series of handholds where it got too steep, grateful the lamps had a small glass shield to keep them from blowing out. Now that he was out of the lit hall, the dark seemed to press in around his small flame, and he couldn’t imagine being down here without one.
I’ll remember the way.
“Oh great. Last I remember you’re meck at directions.”
Well I wouldn’t have to be if you’d had the sense to waft out of here.
“So now it’s okay for me to use my resonance? Admitting that maybe I did manage to keep it under control back there?”
Barely. But it’s better than being trapped down here.
Tai shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I’m safe from the lawkeepers, I’v
e got resonance if I need it, and maybe we’ll find a cache of yura big enough that we can hire that mercenary army—“
Something knocked him in the head, and Tai stumbled sideways, his lamp spinning away.
If it goes out—
Feet scrabbled in the dark, a dark outline grabbing his lamp. “Hey!” Tai scrambled up. “What are you doing!”
It ran. With no other options Tai followed, pelting around a curve in the rock, up a small slope, chasing the glow until it faded, until he was running in the dark, bumping into walls. Fear stopped him, fear of running into something, or falling down something. Of being lost down here. “HEY!” he called, voice echoing off the walls. “That’s my lamp! What the HELL?” Skittering footsteps echoed from further down the passage, but without light there was no way to follow.
Hake gave off a wave of disappointment.
“Shatter you, Hake,” Tai snapped. He blew out air, trying to collect his thoughts. He was alone, in the darkness, not sure of the path out. “Guess it’s time for that new sense of direction of yours.”
Hake stayed quiet.
“Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you, alright? Can we just get out of here?”
Still quiet. Tai sighed, began feeling for a wall. The darkness was absolute, like a thick cloth over his eyes. There hadn’t been any side passages, so if he turned himself around…
Slowly, painstakingly, Tai made his way back up the passage in the dark. Almost as eerie as the darkness was the silence; save for the far-off drip of water, and the occasional scrabble of a small creature, the only sound was his footfalls on the uneven floor. The handholds leading up were even more difficult, but reassuring because it meant he was going the right direction. He was to the lamp-lit hall a moment later.
The light was wonderful—why had he never appreciated it before? The only problem was taking it with him. The man at the front would probably be happy to loan him one—for an outrageous price.
“Mecking thieves.” Tai grinned. “Too bad I’m one too.”
Tai reached up and pulled at one of the lamps on the wall, lifting it from its black iron stud. “Hey!” Somebody yelled from up the passageway.
