Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 32

Morning. The sun was scarcely risen, and the pen was already stifling. Those of us in the cage could not even look at each other-not from any enchantment, but because by seeing we would acknowledge the reality of what had been done to us. It was an unspeakable violation, an unimaginable horror to be so maimed.

Step back. Observe. Learn everything there is to learn. You are not alone…

Stupid. Of course I was alone. The collar separated me from all of life, from my race, from everyone I knew and everything I had ever been.

You are not alone. There are others. Watch and learn… Thoughts and calculations running rampant in my head, as if I had heart or mind to care. Madness nibbling at my edges. Listen… outside the cage… why are we left so long untended?

“Are they to be fed then?” Someone outside the cage. “It would be a waste to have brought them this far if not. We were up half the night getting them fixed.”

“I’ve no orders.”

“Somebody’s got to know.”

“Bring me orders and I’ll feed ‘em. Not till then.”

I was tempted to call after them that they shouldn’t bother feeding us, but instead I leaned my head against the cage and tried to see between the bars. It was hopeless. The field of vision was so narrow. Hard-packed earth, endless movement, horses-I could smell them. Hundreds of foot soldiers marching, drilling…

“Have you heard about Gernald?”

“Aye. In his bath, they said.”

“And he’d only been here a month.”

“Looks like he ate something off.”

“Someone new’s been sent by…”

The two passed beyond my hearing. Why did their words fill me with such despair?

More bits of meaningless conversation drifted by. Shouted orders. A great deal of activity. Sen Ystar may have been the first to feel the Zhid assault, but it would not be the last. These were not small raiding parties being prepared. Avonar… oh, Avonar, be vigilant…

I must have drifted off to sleep in the heat, for when the gate to the pen opened and the guard yelled, “Up, you lazy pigs,” the angle of the shadow cage had changed significantly. I considered not following, but the Zhid had shown us on the first day of captivity what disobedience would mean-the death of another captive. Quite simply, they would make you a murderer. It didn’t matter that the poor soul would most likely thank me for causing his death. I couldn’t do it. So I put myself in line with the rest.

Four armed guards were waiting at the gate. “This one for the mines… For house slave… For the farms…” They were sorting us.

I was the first to be designated “practice slave,” and was shoved back into the pen. Evidently the collars were marked with our assignment. When the next practice slave was selected, I saw the image of a sword etched into the dark metal of his collar, so I guessed mine had one also. I almost reached up to find out, but I could not make myself touch the thing.

Three of us were designated to be practice slaves. As soon as the assignments were complete and our former companions led away, we were taken inside the building again, this time to stand before a pale man with a narrow, aristocratic face. He sat behind a wide desk in a bare, windowless, stifling room, flanked by two heavily armed Zhid.

“Only three this lot?”

“Yes, Slavemaster,” said the Zhid who had brought us in.

“I understand we’ve used up three practice slaves this week alone. We’ll have to do better.”

“There’s another lot due tomorrow.”

“Well, let’s have a look at these.” The Zhid officer rose from his desk and walked around us slowly, poking at each of us with the handle of a whip. He stopped in front of us. “So, my Dar’Nethi friends. You’ve been chosen to die in order to make your enemies invincible. The time of your death will depend on how diligent you are-and how obedient. You will be required to fight to the best of your ability, even if it means death to one of our warriors.” He tapped his whip in his hand. “Because you must be able to fight effectively, we cannot bind you with the same compulsions we use on other slaves. But we do have methods to prevent your taking advantage of your freedoms. You will be penned when not in use, and- Let me show you what I mean. You”-he pointed the whip handle at me-“kneel.”

I did so. Grudgingly. But I did.

“It is required that a slave spread his arms when kneeling. Ten lashes if you fail to do so again.”

He stood close enough that I could smell his slightly astringent sweat. “Now, take me down.” I looked up stupidly, and he spit in my face. “Are you deaf? Obey, or one of your companions will find himself without a head. Take me down.”

With much misgiving, I swept my arms around to grab his knees, releasing far too much anger in the process. But I had scarcely touched him when he laid his finger on my collar. Spasms of fire rippled through my muscles, my chest, my limbs… everywhere. The collar constricted my throat, so I couldn’t get a breath. When he took his hand away, I collapsed, gasping and shaking, huddled in a mindless knot on the floor.

The Zhid resumed his seat. “Cinnegar here is your keeper and will tell you how it is you will eat, sleep, clean yourself, and train. Speak without permission, and we will remove your tongue. You have no life that is your own, no function save what we require of you, and so it will be until you die.”

For the rest of the day, Cinnegar, a short, burly Zhid with reddish hair and a nasty scar on his left cheek, put the three of us through one exercise after another. We ran, jumped, and demonstrated our skills with bows and staves, and he had us fight each other with a variety of blades and knives, and with bare hands, our only orders not to damage each other. We worked in an unshaded, walled compound, but were allowed to dip into a water barrel as often as we needed and eat graybread until we felt bloated.

One of my companions was a scrawny youth of about twenty. He was a decent fighter, precise and quick with his movements, able to present a variety of attacks and defenses, but he had no training in tactics and no endurance at all. Our second bout left him panting and lead-footed. Eight days of the desert and the horror of the collaring had done nothing for any of us, of course, and my own arms felt heavy early on. My feet were wretched. Raw and stinging, they bled as we worked.

The second man was nearer my own age, a short, blocky fellow with thick brows. He had no skills, only brute strength and such fear that it brought him near frenzy when I wrestled with him.

“Calm yourself,” I growled in his ear as we rolled on the ground. “Live.” I pinned him in moments. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears rolled down his leathery cheeks. As I stood and reached out my hand to help him up, he gripped it ferociously.

By sundown we were too tired to move. Cinnegar made no comments about our efforts. He shoved us into individual cells in a stable-like block of them, giving us each a basket of graybread and a waterskin. “Bang on the bars if you need more. Someone might come or might not.” He showed us how to ask permission to speak. You slapped the back of your hand against your lips, then drew it sharply away.

Even after Cinnegar left us alone, we kept silent. Though no guards were in sight, I wasn’t willing to risk my tongue by saying anything.

I sank down on the straw and picked a chunk of graybread from the basket. Eating was about the last thing I wanted to do at the moment, but I forced myself. The days would get no easier, I guessed, and I wanted to live. As I leaned against the bars, staring at a second unappetizing lump, a motion from one of the other cells caught my eye. The older man had lifted his own bread to me in salute. I returned his gesture, and we matched each other bite for bite through piece after piece of the sour stuff.

With every swallow, I felt the collar. Could one ever become accustomed to such a thing? It was wide enough to prevent a complete range of motion with the head- something to be considered in combat. The Zhid warriors would know. It was as tight as it could possibly fit without choking, tight enough to keep you on the near edge of panic all the time, tight enough you could never forget it. Tentatively I reach my hand up to touch the thing. Oh, gods… I heaved up all the foul stuff I had eaten, and after an hour’s venture into the realm of despair, I fell asleep shivering and empty. At some time in the night, though, I woke and forced myself to eat. I had to live. It was imperative that I live. I just couldn’t imagine why I felt that way.

For a week the three of us trained together every day, all day, under the watchful eye of Cinnegar or one of his deputies. The work was long, hard, and viciously hot, but we managed. Each day I grew a little stronger, my principal worry being my feet. Swollen and festering, they’d become so tender that even to stand still was agony.

At the end of the week, the slavemaster came to watch our practice. “Have you decided on placement?” he asked Cinnegar.

“This one should stay here.” The red-haired Zhid pointed to the older man. “He can join the battle exercise planned for next week. He is mediocre at best and is unlikely to survive more than one or two rounds. The youth has improved his stamina, but will always be unexceptional in his skills. However, he could serve us in a low-level training unit. Niemero’s unit lost a slave last week, and this one can replace him. This one”-his pale eyes fell on me-“is interesting. If he were to get his feet in better condition, he could possibly begin work with the command training unit. Sword training in particular. He might do very well.”

“I hear that your eye is excellent, Keeper Cinnegar. As I’m new to the post, I shall have to rely on it. All shall be done as you recommend.”

Cinnegar bowed to the slavemaster, and then returned us to the pen. The youth was taken that evening. He nodded to each of us as he was tethered and led out of the pen. Not long after that, one of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me, linking my hands and feet and hooking a chain to the collar. The other man saluted me with his graybread one last time and sat alone in the pen as I was taken away.

The slavehandler marched me through the vast encampment to another “stable” of black bars-a long cage attached to one end of a brick building. “Here’s the new one to put away,” he said to a warrior who stood in an open doorway in the brick wall, drinking from a metal cup. “His first placing. Only a sevenday in.”

The guard, a wide-nosed fellow with deep weather creases across his brow, poured out the remaining contents of his cup, splattering damp globs of sand on my legs. After hooking his cup to his belt, he took my tether from the slavehandler and raked an insolent gaze over me from head to sandy toes. “Big fellow.” He coiled the tether chain around his hand until my face was only a handsbreadth from his own, his soulless gray eyes unblinking. His meaty finger traced a line across my shoulder. When his finger encountered my collar, I flinched. He grinned-a grotesque, unnerving expression on a damnable Zhid. But he just tapped on the metal surface without triggering the enchantment. “We’ll see how long he can stay alive.”

“I’ve got to fetch Gorag,” said the handler. “Keeper says we’re to see to his feet.” As my escort hurried into the night, the guard released the tether to its full length and dragged me through the door.

We stood in a small open space, sheltered by the brick wall behind and to the right of us and a brick enclosure to the left. The Zhid jerked his head to two doorways on the left. “Supply room and surgeon’s room. Over here”-he indicated the corner to our right where a rectangular stone sink stood half filled with nasty-looking water-“is where you will wash yourself before a match. Our commanders don’t like fighting with slaves who are filthy.”

Directly in front of us was a wall of the familiar narrowly spaced black bars. Taking the lantern that hung over the sink and unlocking a gate in the center of the wall, the guard led me down an aisle between the cells, some twleve of them in all. The lamp wasn’t bright enough for me to see more than indistinct shapes sitting or lying on the floor in each one. No one moved as we passed.

Halfway down the aisle was an open door, leading into a cell with a thick layer of straw over the dirt floor. The guard unhooked the tether chain and shoved me inside. “Water and graybread will be brought. Down there at the far end of the stable is a pile of clean straw. You’ll be permitted to change the straw once in a month, so you’ll want to have a care with your habits. Remember, slaves don’t speak without permission.” He grinned again as he slammed the door and locked it. “I like removing tongues.”

I sank onto the straw, grateful to get off my wretched feet. The cooling night breeze blew through the bars. As the guard’s footsteps receded, a dreadful quiet enveloped me. Whatever scraps of resilience I had left withered in the silence.

My cell was a cube a few paces on a side. The graybread basket and the waterskin were hung on the bars beside the door and center aisle, where they could be filled from outside the cage. Nothing but the vague dark outlines of buildings was visible past the outer bars, and though the cells on either side of me were occupied, I could neither see nor hear the occupants, only feel their human presence.

An hour later, as I huddled in the corner trying to persuade myself to sleep, the stable gate opened with a clang and the lamp moved down the aisle. The guard stopped outside my cell. “Up with you.”

Holding onto the bars, I dragged myself to my feet, unable even to speculate on what was coming. He led me to one of the rooms in the brick enclosure, shoved me onto a long wooden bench along one wall, and attached both my tether chain and my hands to an iron ring set into the wall above my head. Then he left me alone in the sputtering yellow light of an oil lamp.

The small room had wooden benches around every wall and more iron rings set into the walls and the floors. The room also sported a long table, a backless stool, and a small wheeled table holding a basin and pitcher. Surgeon’s room, the guard had told me.

Before very long, a Zhid hurried in, carrying a large leather case. He was a small, tidy man with a short beard trimmed close around his full lips. Tossing his case on the table, he yelled at someone outside the door to bring him cavet.

He dragged the stool over beside the bench and sat down. “Let me see your feet,” he said, slapping the stained wooden bench. “Here.”

I propped my throbbing feet on the bench, and the Zhid took one in hand and examined it, poking here and there with his thumbs, dusting off the caked sand. His face wrinkled in disgust, he dropped my foot and retrieved his case. After fetching one of the basins and filling it with water from the pitcher, he set to work-none too gently-cutting the dead skin away, and draining and cleaning the nastiest festerings. A boy brought the surgeon a tin cup filled with steaming dark liquid that smelled strongly of anise. He gulped the drink and went back to work, mumbling about the waste of his time and talent on slaves. Several times he made odd gestures with his fingers and I felt a painful burning and stretching deep in my foot. Some devilish enchantment, I guessed, but I could not detect such things any more. I tried to concentrate on anything else, but there wasn’t much to distract me.

As the surgeon covered the open wounds with ointments and bandages, and I was breathing a little easier, another slave was brought in and attached to the wall across the room. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his thigh and had a vicious swelling over one eye. I tried to engage the man’s attention, but he kept his eyes averted.

“This one has to fight again tomorrow, so patch him well,” said the guard. “Are you done with this lot?”

The surgeon tied off my last bandage, cut off the end with his knife, and stood up. “Keep him idle for a day. And send the mule-brained Drudge with more cavet.” As I was detached from the ring and led hobbling away, he was pulling out materials to stitch the other man’s thigh. I didn’t envy the poor bastard.

A Zhid Healer. The very concept made my head hurt.

The next day was long and unsettling. Left idle by the surgeon’s order, I listened and learned. The other slaves were taken out one by one through the morning, assigned to high-ranking warriors who had summoned sparring partners. Evidently some of them had regular assignments, while others were moved from one Zhid to another depending on special needs and requests. One man was assigned to wrestling, one to a match with knives and axes, one to speed work with a commander who had been demoted for his lack of agility.

Over and over, I heard the rules laid down. The slave would wear only such armor and use only such weapons- real or blunted practice weapons-as the Zhid warrior specified. The slave was required to fight to the best of his abilities and to participate in such exercises and drills as the warrior or his instructor devised. The slave was not permitted to yield the match or stop the exercise. Only Zhid could call a halt.

As the slaves were taken out of the pen, led by tethers attached to their collars, none of them looked to one side or the other. Was it forbidden, or was it just too painful to see others witnessing one’s degradation? Perhaps it was only fear of what was to come, for one day’s watching taught me how fleeting was a career as a sparring partner for the Zhid.

A man was found dead in his cell that morning. Two more wounded men were brought back by midday, told they would be looked at when the surgeon had time. One of them was in the cell next to me, and in his shallow struggling breaths I heard an ominous gurgling. I banged on the bars of my cell. When the guard came, I slapped the back of my hand on my lips.

“Speak.”

“The man next to me is dangerously wounded. I can hear it in his breathing. His chest-”

“Is that all? Call me again for such a reason, and I’ll have you flogged.” He spat at the dying man and walked away.

I had to do something. My hand fit between the bars, but only as far as the wrist bands. The steel loops that were used for restraints wouldn’t fit through, and my neighbor lay too far away for my fingers to reach. With no talent for healing and no power for mind-speaking or anything else, words were all I could offer him. Many times in the days I’d fought on the walls of Avonar, I had heard Dar’Nethi Healers pray their invocation and found comfort in the familiar words. Perhaps they might do the same for the dying man and remind him of who he was. So I whispered the verse through the bars of the cell, hoping the guard would not pass by and hear.

“Life, hold. Stay your hand ere it lays another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your wondrous gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill his soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place. Je’den encour, my brother. Heal swiftly.”

A rasping whisper responded. “L’Tiere calls. I go freely.”

“May Vasrin’s light show you the Way beyond the Verges.”

“I had almost forgotten…”

“I, too,” I said, but only to myself, for the struggling breaths had ceased with his last word. It was several hours until the guard noticed the man was dead and dragged him down the aisle. I could not see his face.

The other man survived until the surgeon came. Evidently his leg was maimed beyond easy repair. He was taken away in a cart.

The afternoon stretched long and hot and quiet. My gray-bread basket and waterskin were kept filled by a boy who wore no collar. I supposed he had no power that required such bondage. No way to tell. Snippets of conversation from the guards and those who passed by outside the pen drifted on the air: Someone named Gensei Senat had been posted to Zhev’Na; the previous slavemaster, who had only taken office a month before, had died suddenly; another Dar’Nethi village had been taken. The Lords were pleased with the outcome of the raid.

The Lords… Zhev’Na… No Dar’Nethi child grew up without nightmares of Zhev’Na, and yet I could not say I had ever really believed in the Lords or their fortress. I was beginning to believe.

What I did come to believe in was the Zhid surgeon. He knew his business. By the next morning, though still tender to the touch, my feet were no longer hot with festering. He dressed them again, wrapped them tightly, and cleared me to fight.

One of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me while the air was still cool. After reminding me of the rules, he led me through the camp to a walled yard of hard-baked dirt. In one corner was a water barrel. Piled beside it were a variety of weapons, shields, and armor. Standing in the center of the arena were a brawny Zhid warrior, clad in a hauberk and steel cap, and another slave, who was strapping steel kneecaps over the warrior’s greaves. “The warrior has requested sparring with great-swords,” said the handler, detaching my tether and nodding toward the pile of arms. “You will follow his instructions.”

I poked through the pile and pulled out a decent sword. Strange to feel a weapon in my hand after so many days. Tempting. But the warrior’s personal slave knelt beside the slavehandler. I knew the price of any misbehavior on my part.

The Zhid warrior took his stance, sword raised. “Ready,” he said.

I stepped to the center of the training ground and raised the sword. Unnerving that he was armored, while I was left in my skimpy tunic and sore, bandaged feet. But the day’s rest had done me good, and I liked great-swords. I had the height and weight to carry them well. Besides, I held the echo of a dying man’s voice in my head, and the cursed Zhid had no imagination at all.

Five times during the morning, the warrior called a halt to our sparring, rested, changed weapons or armor, and started again. The sixth time, he complained to the slave-handler that I’d taken a superior weapon, and that I should properly be handicapped in some way for not noting it. A hand cut off, perhaps.

The slavehandler summoned Cinnegar. The red-haired Zhid, who evidently had final say in all matters regarding the stable of practice slaves, said he would not allow me to be damaged. Being new, perhaps I’d not been rated properly. The warrior didn’t like hearing that, but wasn’t of high enough rank to overrule Cinnegar. I was glad for that. He sent me back to the stable.

It was made clear from the first that these matches were strictly physical combat. The Zhid did not use sorcery in their training, believing they must achieve superiority in arms as well as all other aspects of their power. Just as we Dar’Nethi hoarded our power for healing and the defense of our cities, the Zhid hoarded theirs to use in their Seeking, which stole the minds of their enemies.

No sooner had I been penned up again than I was called out for a warrior named Comus. His training ground looked exactly the same as the other, except for the dead slave sprawled on the hard ground with one arm mostly severed and his skull cloven in half. A servant shooed away an army of flies and removed his practice armor so I could put it on. Comus preferred an armored opponent. The padded leather was still warm and wet with the dead man’s sweat and blood.

Comus used a great-sword, too, and was big, strong, and vicious. After slogging through a half-day with my earlier opponent, I wished this one preferred a lighter weapon, but eventually I managed to make him yield.

“This one again tomorrow when I’m fresh,” Comus said to the guard, pointing his sword at me.

Without heed to heat, hunger, thirst, sore feet, or the various scratches I had collected, I collapsed on the straw and fell instantly asleep. I had survived one day.

I trained with Comus every day, sometimes with padded practice weapons, sometimes with real blades. He was good, but I was just enough better to avoid serious injury. We worked on strikes and appropriate counters, defensive strategies appropriate to certain positions, timing and balance. He began to copy a few of my moves, and it made me wonder what in perdition I was doing. It was an argument I could not resolve. To fight the cursed Zhid-what slave could ask for more than a chance to injure or kill his captors? Yet I was teaching him to kill more of my own people.

But I could not refuse to fight or to follow their rules. In my first week with Comus, I was given a clear demonstration of the consequences of disobedience. During one of our rest periods, Comus laid a wager with another Zhid that his personal slave had more impressive private parts than did his friend’s slave. When Comus commanded his slave to strip to prove the bet, the kneeling man, who had not moved during the animated discussion, closed his eyes.

“… And arouse yourself,” said Comus, sniggering. “I do not like losing.”

The slave looked up at Comus in shock, then hardened his jaw and slowly shook his head.

Comus’s bullish face went livid, and he belted his slave across the mouth. “I could have invoked your compulsions,” he said, “but it was inconceivable that my slave would refuse a simple command.” Then, without taking a breath, Comus lopped off the head, not of his own slave, but that of his friend’s slave. “Now. I command you once more. Strip yourself and this dog meat, and we shall see how the cock of a live Dar’Nethi compares to that of a dead one.”

The horror-stricken slave did as he was commanded, and though I averted my eyes so as not to witness his shame, I could not help but be relieved at his compliance. There was no other slave nearby. My head would have been the price of another refusal.

The days may have been filled with enough combat and sweat to block out rational thought, but the nights were long, with plenty of time for guilt and self-loathing. I did as I was told. I had to live… I had things to do in my life… vital things… This conviction rumbled in my belly like war drums. Was this some Zhid compulsion laid on slaves along with our collars to prevent us doing away with ourselves?

After three weeks Comus wanted to move on to some other kind of training, and I was assigned to another warrior. He was a rapier man and very quick. From the beginning, he forbade me to withhold, insisting that I fight with every skill I possessed. He certainly withheld nothing. If his accuracy had been better, I might have taken more than a few punctures and a bloody cheek while I was adjusting to the different style of fighting. I worked with him for over a month, and then I killed him.

It was a lucky thrust at the end of a long day, and I think the sun got in his eyes. He had wanted to practice a new technique with unblunted tips and had not bothered to put on his sparring vest. Caught up in the exhilaration of combat, he had expanded the practice into a full-blown duel. When I realized what I had done, I immediately looked around to see who had witnessed it. My handler had not returned. The only other person present was the officer’s personal slave whose usual bleak expression brightened into a grin. He pressed a finger to his lips and motioned me away. He knew I had no binding compulsion to stay where I was.

Run… I had at most an hour before the handler would come. If I could get through the encampment without anyone noticing the mark of the sword on my collar, then perhaps I could make it as far as the cliffs by nightfall. Barefoot. Unarmed, for I dared not carry a weapon through the camp. One chance in a thousand I would make it to the hills. One in fifty thousand they wouldn’t find me. One in a million that I could make it across the Wastes to the Vales of Eidolon. I wasn’t certain even in what direction they lay. And yet, I would have tried except for the nagging conviction that I was not alone, that I had to listen and be ready… Oh, gods, be ready for what?

I had lived for eight weeks, each day tallied carefully with a length of straw placed in the bottom of my bread basket. Only two men had been in the stable longer. The rest of those who had been there when I arrived were dead, and new slaves had taken their places. I could no longer imagine the taste of any food but the dry, sour graybread, nor any drink but stale, tepid water. The remembrance of savory roast chicken or frostberries soaked in wine filled me with disgust. All such physical cravings had gone dead or turned into revulsion. Food, wine, women… even a touch would be unbearable. The faces of my friends had faded from my memory no matter how hard I worked at reconstructing them, and I cursed bitterly when I discovered I could not bring to my mind the winding lanes of Sen Ystar. Even the memories of the beauteous Vales had blurred. So why could I not run?

I shrugged my shoulders at the eager slave and sat down in the dust by the dead warrior to wait for the slavehandler. I had to live, but I was damned if I knew why.

When a slave killed a Zhid in training, it was not taken lightly. The slavemaster came in to lead an investigation. He interrogated Cinnegar to ensure the keeper hadn’t scheduled a mismatch, and the surgeon to determine the cause of death. Acquaintances of the deceased were questioned, as well as his servants and aides. The slave was placed under compulsions to discover if any person, Zhid, slave, or servant, had aided him in the match. Even when all was found to be proper, one more ritual was involved.

“Lest you forget your place,” said the slavemaster, touching my collar. He sneered in disgust at my retching spasms.

And so it went on. I made it past four months and saw seventeen men-the flower of Dar’Nethi manhood-perish in that wretched stable. For every one I whispered the Healer’s invocation, weeping in impotent fury at the lonely ignominy of their deaths. Only a few of them even heard the words, but I could think of nothing else to do for them. I hounded the guards and the surgeon as much as I dared, to care for their wounds more quickly, to preserve the Lords’ “investment” in experienced practice partners, but soon it was rare for a guard to answer my rattling of the bars or to permit me to speak when I begged it.

I killed another warrior and paid the price again, and then I took a wound in the shoulder that kept me out of action for a week. The surgeon said he had been given orders to make sure I was healed. “The Lords are interested in skill-even of your mundane sort.”

The week of idleness was almost unbearable. The demands in my head to live and to learn became so insistent that every voice made me start. I paced my cell, unable to rest and unable to eat. I forced down the graybread and water and commanded myself to sleep, for I dared not lose my edge. Yet when I dropped off, strange dreams plagued me, of rooms and faces I didn’t know, of horrors that made me wake up screaming, of words that made me weep though I couldn’t capture them on waking. The surgeon examined my wound and said it was healing as expected, but I had best get some sleep or all his work would go for nothing.

I slapped the back of my hand against my mouth. “Speak,” he said.

“Can you give me something to make me sleep? So I won’t dream?” My own voice sounded harsh and alien to me. I had gone weeks without speech.

Gorag, the Zhid surgeon, poked around in his leather case and came up with a blue vial. “Perhaps this will help.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I shouldn’t give it to you, but I have a wager with Cinnegar that you’ll make it past half a year. I don’t like to lose.” He poured the contents down my throat and called the handler. I slept for two days straight and had no dreams at all. When he examined my shoulder and pronounced it fit, I asked permission to speak again. He shook his head. “Better not. Just stay alive two more months.”

I managed it. I fought and trained like a madman, as indeed I began to believe I was. Gorag’s blue vial had only suspended my strange malady temporarily. I considered asking him for more of it, but I couldn’t afford to be drowsy either. The only way to sleep was to work myself to exhaustion. So even after a full day of training with a Zhid warrior, I would run in place or do some other exercise until I dropped to the straw like a dead man.

On the day I had been in the stable six months, I killed my seventh Zhid. Nincas was a murderously cruel villain, who tortured his servants and slaves to death for the pleasure of it. I enjoyed killing him. We battled for half a day in a series of timed bouts. A bull of a man, he was not about to yield to a slave as long as there were any onlookers, and Gorag had gathered at least a hundred of them to witness the winning of his bet. I could think of nothing but death that day, and when at last I pulled my sword from his belly, I stabbed it in again and again and again, until my arms were covered in blood and I could no longer lift my weapon. I fell to my knees on the hot desert floor and began to laugh, but there was no joy in it. I could not remember joy…

“V’Saro!” Hands slapped my cheeks. “V’Saro, wake up!” Straw poked at my cheek. I couldn’t remember being taken to my cell. I was achy and dull and smelled like death. “Here, have a drink.” My waterskin was thrust into my hands. I drained it and then promptly heaved the water up again. “Come, V’Saro. You’ve made me a rich man, and for that I will do you a favor. A risky matter. No one is supposed to talk to you until you’ve been interrogated.”

Gorag. He had helped me sleep. I slapped the back of my hand to my mouth.

“Yes, yes, speak.”

“Go drown yourself in your cursed water.”

“You’re raving. No one has ever seen such a match as you fought today. The slavemaster comes. He’s heard of your feat… and also of how you finished it.” The wiry little surgeon gestured in disgust at the dark blood that covered my arms and crusted my stiff tunic. “If you want to live, then you’d best gather your wits.”

My existence had no relation to life. I could not feel life any more-thanks to the collar. But I had to keep breathing. There was purpose to my existence. I was not alone. “How much could you win if I make it a year?”

“Not enough to make me a Lord of Zhev’Na, but perhaps enough that I could get out of this blasted camp.”

He stuffed a lump of graybread in my hands. “Eat, and clean yourself. They talk of sending you to Zhev’Na, where the elite of our commanders are trained. But they’ll not send you if they think you’re mad. They won’t allow a madman to live with such strength and skill as yours. Do you understand?”

I grunted.

Gorag slipped out of the cell and locked it quietly, then scurried away in the dark. After a while, I banged on the bars, and the smirking guard came.

“Speak,” he said, to my gesture. “Unless you are going to tell me about some whining slave who needs a nursemaid.”

“I want to wash.”

“Do you now?”

“I have an early match tomorrow with the protégé of Gensei Senat. I’ll sleep better if I’m clean, and it will save you trouble in the morning. Perhaps you’ll want to bet on my victory.”

He shrugged his shoulders and let me out. Likely a small share of Gorag’s winnings prompted his generosity. He sat on the half-wall and watched while I stripped and washed in the slimy sink. I rinsed the blood from my tunic, wrung it out, and hung it on the bars of my cell to dry, and then I pulled straw over me to keep out the chill.

That night I dreamed of a house in a great city, a graceful house whose owner clearly valued the refinements of art and music and literature. A silver flute lay on a music stand, awaiting its player, and books and manuscripts touching every aspect of history and nature and philosophy were poised to enlighten an intelligent eye. The library opened onto a small garden, its soft, sweet air touched with the scent of roses. I wandered through the softly lit passageways looking for someone, though I did not know who. No one was there. Only emptiness. Only sorrow.

The slavemaster woke me to the broiling stench of the slave pen and laid me under compulsions for questioning. It took him an hour to conclude that I was not mad; then he touched my collar to teach me my place and sent me to Zhev’Na.