Vengeance

CHAPTER 21

The work gong sounded three times. The sunstone carriers, who started early to catch the dawn light, would be here any minute, while, back at the Empound, Tali’s absence would soon be noted.

Lifka would be questioned and would reveal Tali’s plan. The overseer’s fastest runners would be sent racing to the loading station, and it would take them less than half an hour to get here. That was all the time she had to get away …

Her heart stuttered. Fool! Banj won’t send runners, he’ll sound the clangours, and the alarm will echo through the bell-pipes all the way to here. The guards on the other side of the grille will hear it a minute after Banj signals, and they’ll seal the exit, unless …

She ran into the storeroom, carried out one of the heavy boxes of spearheads, then stacked another onto it, and another, until she could reach the hall ceiling. Tali wrenched one of the boards off the box, making rather a lot of noise. Had anyone heard? She checked the grille. The guards were out of sight.

Reaching up, she inserted the board between a join of the bell-pipe and the ceiling, and heaved. The pipe did not budge. She heaved again, with the same result. The work gangs must be close; she had to break the join now. Hanging onto the board, she sprang up, put her feet against the ceiling and forced with all the strength in her legs, and the pipe came apart at the soldered join.

The alarm might still carry. She jammed the foreman’s coat into the end of the bell-pipe and pushed it in until it could not be seen. It would have to do.

Was that the tramp of guards? She heaved the boxes back, crouched in the dark storeroom and forced herself to concentrate. Everyone at the sunstone station had worked with Lifka for years and knew everything about her. One tiny mistake, one word or gesture out of character and Tali would be discovered. Only magery could guarantee the deception but she did not think Mimoy was coming.

Outside, an alarm clangour sounded, faint and muddy, from the blocked pipe. That would be Banj, signalling the maze guards to be on alert. She did not think they would hear it, but when they failed to acknowledge the alarm he would send his fastest runners.

Mimoy did not appear, Tali’s frantic efforts to reach down to her gift failed as they always had and directly the slaves began to pass by. Her heartbeat was so fast that it was painful and she felt an overwhelming urge to throw up but she had to keep going. The fate of her country now depended on her escaping.

Sticking out her bottom lip, she imitated Lifka’s listless, stoop-shouldered stance, mentally rehearsed her flat speech one more time and joined the end of the line.

The maze guards opened the grille; the slaves began to file through the passages of the maze. Tali surreptitiously weighed the defences as she went. The walls were slotted high up so hidden archers could fire down on the enemy. Stains etched into the stone below each slot suggested that the Cythonians also used chymical weapons.

She passed over a series of clanking grids, each covering a deep pit. The first pit had iron spikes embedded in the base. From an oily liquid in the second pit, breath-tearing fumes wisped up. If intruders passed the pits, stone doors ahead and behind could trap attackers in a series of killing rooms. She shivered and hurried through.

Her upper arms were encircled by lines of bruises where Mimoy’s wire-like fingers had clamped around her, though bruises on a slave would not arouse suspicion. Ahead, two lines of Pale were donning brown robes under the eyes of a pair of guards. Tali pressed her fingers to her shoulder scar, for luck. I’m Lifka. Don’t notice me; there’s nothing to see.

Eyes lowered like a cowed slave, she took a set of thigh-length robes from a peg and pulled them over her head. They fastened around her neck but opened at the front so as not to hinder the climb. A guard scanned Tali’s face, scowled at her grubby, crumpled loincloth, then waved her on. One obstacle down.

Half a dozen young slave girls appeared, each carrying two pails of water. The first two girls filled jugs for the guards. The next three carried the pails along the line of slaves so they could wash their faces, hands and feet. Tali was familiar with the morning ritual, for the enemy bathed twice a day and tolerated no filth on their slaves.

The last girl went to the head of the line with her buckets. Her eyes were shining; she was bursting with pride for the important job she had been entrusted with. Tali’s mouth went dry, for the girl was Rannilt and if she called Tali by name, she was lost.

Tali dropped her lower jaw, pushed her lip out further and tried to look like a congenital idiot. Rannilt held up her buckets so two slaves at a time could scoop water with cupped hands and drink. The girls with the empty buckets waited to one side. Along the line Rannilt came, then, just ahead of Tali, a tall slave girl thrust her foot between Rannilt’s ankles and she crashed to the floor, spilling her water.

‘Stupid Rannilt can’t do anything right,’ said the tall girl, and the other four sniggered. The guards took no notice.

‘Sorry, sorry.’ Rannilt was rubbing a gashed knee and blushing. Tali had never seen anyone go so red. ‘Always doin’ that. Really clumsy, I am.’

Tali could hardly ignore the girl; that was bound to arouse suspicion. She helped Rannilt up. ‘Blood’s runnin’ down yer leg,’ she said, trying to imitate Lifka’s stolid indifference and knowing her voice did not sound right.

‘It’s nothin’. I’m always fallin’ over.’

Or being pushed. Bullying was common among the slaves. The terrorised herd picked on the weakest.

Rannilt looked up at Tali, stared and her eyes widened. She smiled, she was going to say hello. Tali put on a ferocious scowl, gave a stiff jerk of the head and waved her away. Rannilt looked hurt, sniffled and wiped her nose on an arm covered in shiny streaks.

‘More water,’ snapped the nearest guard.

Rannilt gathered her buckets and limped off. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said to every Pale she went by.

Tali let out her breath. The line of slaves moved around the corner, then stopped. Up ahead, the leading slave put her left foot on a square stone. A black-haired Pale locked a bracelet around her ankle while a guard looked on. The bracelet had an odd bulge at the front, the size of a child’s fist. Tali began to sweat. Lifka hadn’t mentioned this.

Didn’t tell ya everythin’, she had gloated. What was the bracelet for?

Panic swelled until it was choking Tali. This was her punishment for using Lifka so cruelly, for being such a hypocrite. She should have worked harder to find out everything Lifka knew. Instead of attacking the girl, she should have befriended her.

Too late now. If she left the line, the guards would know something was wrong. Besides, Banj’s most fleet-footed guards would be racing this way. How long before they got here? Ten minutes? Fifteen at the most. She had to put on an act such as she had never done before.

As she lifted her small, pale foot onto the stone, ice formed along her backbone. Who looked at a slave’s feet? The guard supervising the ankle bracelets, that’s who.

Instinctively, Tali pressed her fingers to her slave’s mark. Don’t notice any difference, she prayed. I’m Lifka. I am. She licked dry lips, allowed her jaw to sag and put on a listless stare.

The black-haired slave’s eyes were on Tali’s ankle as her fingers locked the silver bracelet in place. It was heavy and uncomfortably warm, and the ominous bulge at the front was made from a reddish metal engraved with Cythonian glyphs which Tali could not read.

The guard came forwards, bearing a graduated brass squirter, and squeezed a single drop of an orange, chymical fluid into a small hole on the top of the bulge. The bulge gave forth a faint ticking sound and Tali felt it vibrating against her shinbone, reminding her uncomfortably of a skritter.

Then the slave frowned, looked up sharply, and she was the last Pale Tali wanted to see — the beautiful savage who had led the hissing in the subsistery, Tali’s childhood enemy, Radl.

Don’t betray me. Please, please don’t betray me.

Radl smiled, displaying her pointed teeth.

Tali rubbed her scar. Time stopped, then jerked forward a second; another.

Radl said something to the guard, too softly for Tali to hear. Now the guard was studying Tali’s ankle, frowning. He knew! It was all over.

She pressed harder on her scar. You can’t see anything different. I’m Lifka and I’ve got broad, tanned feet.

The guard’s black eyes crossed, then he waved her on, irritably. Tali met Radl’s blue eyes. Her lips moved and Tali read, Leaving you to your enemy, bitch.

Tali forced herself to not react, but as she went on her legs felt de-boned. The twin lines moved towards the loading station, where a pair of burly Pale eunuchs, their smooth, indecent thighs well covered, lifted the rectangular, faintly shimmering sunstones from a stack and lowered one into the leather pouch on the back of each slave’s harness. A Cythonian foreman studied the faces and checked each woman off on his list.

Sunstones were the size of tombstones and each slave shrank an inch or two under the enormous weight. Tali braced herself and moved forwards, trying to look as docile and vacant-eyed as Lifka. The bulge on the ankle bracelet seemed to be ticking more loudly than before and the vibration felt as though teeth were meshing inside it.

The foreman inspected Tali, checked her off but then, instead of waving her past, thrust back her hood and turned her head from side to side. Tali’s mouth went dry. If he made her remove the harness, her lack of calluses would reveal the deception at once.

‘Name?’

‘Lifka, Master,’ she said in Lifka’s colourless voice.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

Was the voice wrong? Her skin too pale? Not knowing what had alerted his suspicions, Tali had no idea how to remedy things. ‘Master?’

‘Why are you sweating?’

‘Gripe, Master.’ Tali touched her belly and winced. ‘Gut gripe.’

Her belly looked like Lifka’s, at least. She pushed it out and swayed forwards, praying he would not notice her pale feet.