Vengeance

Tinyhead’s hand rose to his left ear, touched it with a fingertip, and he winced. ‘Hate? ’ he said in bemusement. He was staring at her mouth, avoiding her eyes.

‘Me, then? Why do you hate me?’

‘Did this to me.’ Tinyhead indicated his ruined face.

‘I’ve never touched you. The last time I saw you I was only eight.’

He stooped and, before she realised what was happening, caught her ankles and tipped her onto her back on her bench. What was he doing? Cythonians never touched Pale if they could help it. Tali tried to pull free but he raised her legs until only her head and shoulders were touching the bench, holding her slight weight easily.

Dimly, Tali realised that every slave in the subsistery was on her feet. Drool threaded Lifka’s lower lip and the excited gleam in her eyes was mirrored in all their eyes — another slave’s suffering was the best entertainment available in Cython.

He extruded his white tongue, which was so enormous she could not imagine how it fitted inside his mouth, and licked the sole of her left foot, heel to toes.

Ugggh! Tali heaved, tasted baked yam in the back of her throat, then the fury fountained up and she thrust her hands out at Tinyhead. And, yes, this time her gift was rising with it. It was coming. It was nearly here, and she was going to make him pay for betraying her mother.

Tinyhead’s face swelled, wrinkles popping, ears expanding like little pink balloons. His cheeks went scarlet and his red eyes rolled up. ‘Master?’ he gasped.

Someone dropped a stone platter, which shattered, bringing her to her senses, and the gift drained away. Blood was dripping from Tinyhead’s nose and Tali, trembling, knew how close she’d come. If he reported the attack she would be sent to the acidulatory, where the corrosive fumes of vitriol, aqua fortis and spirits of salts, made there for unknown chymical purposes, etched even stone away. There she would die within weeks, blind, toothless and blistered inside and out, of blood-lung.

She began to shudder uncontrollably. Fool! Remember your quest. He’s not your real enemy. He’s nothing.

‘You — abomination!’ he said thickly, as though it hurt to speak.

He licked the sole of her other foot, then dropped her legs as though she was poisonous. The soles of her feet were slimy-sticky, the skin crawling as if something was burrowing under it.

‘Late tonight, when no one is watching,’ he said so softly that not even Lifka would have heard. ‘Wherever you run, wherever you hide, I’ll find you.’ Tinyhead walked out.

The slaves sat down, scowling and muttering. Tali’s head was pounding and the hall seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship. She groped for the edge of the bench and clung to it, scrubbing the soles of her feet against the stone floor until they stung, but she could not get rid of the slimy feeling.

Late tonight, when no one is watching. Only hours to save herself, and nearly finding her gift meant nothing — next time she looked, it would not be there. She needed help, but who to ask, when having the gift was a death sentence. No Pale would dare admit to it.

Lifka wiped her lower lip, irritably. She had hoped to see Tali’s blood. ‘Work in the grottoes, don’t ya?’

Tali pressed her hands against her hot cheeks. Acid seared the back of her throat and the pit of her stomach was throbbing. It was a struggle to think, but if she was to turn the glimmer of hope she’d had earlier into a plan, she had to know more about Lifka. ‘Yes. What about you?’

‘Carry sunstones up for rechargin’,’ said Lifka.

Only the most biddable and trustworthy slaves were allowed to do that vital job. Tali studied her double more closely. The heavy work explained Lifka’s muscular thighs and flat feet, while the calluses on her shoulders would be from the sunstone harness.

Most of the light in Cython came from caged fireflies or pottery plates encrusted with luminous fungus, or from glowstones from the mine. But in the underground vegetable farms, and everywhere else that bright light was required, only sunstones would do.

They were cut from the halo of morphosed rock surrounding the heatstone mine, but their light only lasted for a week or two, after which they had to be lugged up the shaft to the one place in Hightspall where Cythonians were permitted to go, a little green valley in the middle of the Seethings. Once the stones had been recharged in sunlight they were carried down again.

‘It must be hard work.’ Tali’s faint hope retreated. She did not think she could even lift a sunstone.

‘Like doin’ it,’ said Lifka. ‘Workin’ is better than thinkin’.’ She frowned at Tali, as if suspecting her of cogitation, then said, ‘Grow Purple Pixies in yer grotto?’

Tali shook her head. The little toadstools caused terrible visions, and sometimes madness. ‘We weed them out and chuck them in the composter.’

Lifka’s blue eyes revolved in a dizzying spiral. She glanced around, then licked her drooping lower lip. ‘Love ’em. Can you get me some?’

‘Stealing from the grottoes earns us a chuck-lashing. Besides, they’re locked at night.’

‘Take some from the composter.’

‘I’m already on a warning,’ said Tali.

Lifka leaned across the table. ‘I’ve seen Hightspall,’ she said slyly. ‘It’s forbidden to talk about it, but for three Purple Pixies I’ll tell ya what it’s like.’

Tali’s heart gave a little jump. Apart from the trusted few who carried up the sunstones, in a thousand years no slave had felt wind or rain, had walked barefoot on grass or smelled a flower, had heard the call of a bird or the buzz of a bee. No other slaves had seen the sun in fifty generations; thus they were called the Pale.

‘Aren’t Purple Pixies dangerous?’

‘Yeah,’ leered Lifka. ‘After one taste, I’ll tell ya anythin’. But they numb the pain; numb it good.’

Tali gnawed a fibrous curl of horse-parsnip. Taking a few Purple Pixies from the grotto’s composter wasn’t that risky, and it would be worth it to hear Lifka’s story. That way out would be heavily guarded, protected in all kinds of ways, but still …

‘Tell me about your work,’ she said in a low voice, ‘then I’ll get the Pixies.’

After checking that no one could overhear, Lifka described the enveloping robes the carriers wore for protection against sunburn, the eel skin sunstone harness and pouch, the loading station, the shaft of a thousand steps to the surface, and the watchful guards below, above and outside in the bowl-shaped valley.

‘Ever thought about escaping?’ said Tali, trying to sound casual.

‘A girl tried it once,’ said Lifka, staring vacantly at Tali’s nose. ‘Was even prettier than me — ’til they cut everythin’ off.’ She rubbed her shapely nose and full lips, cupped her piquant breasts and shuddered. ‘They let her live, as an example. Ya’d hafta be desperate.’

Was Tali desperate enough to risk a fate worse than being killed? She had no choice; Tinyhead was coming tonight. Then, as she listened to Lifka’s flat, colourless voice, an escape plan sprang into Tali’s mind. A reckless plan, and if it failed, the guards would cut everything off her, too.

It wasn’t a nice plan. Tali’s mother would have been appalled; she would have forbidden it. But gentle Iusia was dead, and Mia, and so many others, and Tali was going to survive, whatever it took.

The plan had many obstacles, and even if she could overcome them all, she would have to use a concealment or confusion spell to get past the watch post, and again at the top of the shaft. Her gift had been close a few minutes ago, but it had retreated again. Who could help her to find it?

Trust no one.

Nurse Bet had taught Tali healing charms, but did she know real, darker spell work? Waitie had tutored Tali in the history of Hightspall and the Two Hundred and Fifty Year War, though she blanched every time Tali had even hinted at magery. Then there was Little Nan, who had read Tali the classics, however Nan’s mind was going and she was prone to blurting out confidences.

Bet was Tali’s only hope, though she had been acting strangely lately, laughing hysterically one minute, weeping the next. She must have discovered how the heatstone mine was killing her only child, and without Sidon she would have nothing to live for. Did that mean Bet could be trusted? There was no choice.

‘Guard my dinner,’ she said, trying not to think about the acidulatory. ‘I’ll get you the Pixies.’

Tali looked down at the glorious piece of baked poulter, a perfectly cooked, crisp-skinned thigh. She craved