Vengeance

‘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.

CHAPTER 22

Tali felt like screaming hysterically, head-butting the guard in the belly then running wild and pushing over all the sunstones.

The guard was staring at her as though he knew she was an impostor and was waiting for her to crack. She kept her eyes lowered like a docile slave, bit her tongue until it hurt, and waited. And waited. In her mind’s eye she could see Banj’s runners sprinting down the tunnels, surely only minutes away. He would also have informed the matriarchs that a slave was trying to escape, and that there had been no reply from the maze guards. They would know she was the one and their executioners would also be on the way.

After an agonising minute the guard grunted, flipped the hood over Tali’s golden hair and gestured her to the loading station. The Pale eunuchs were built like wrestlers, yet they grunted as they lifted each sunstone from the stack and rotated it to the vertical. As the first eunuch raised Tali’s stone, it slipped.

‘Don’t drop it!’ cried the second eunuch, steadying the sunstone with both hands. He cast an anxious glance at the guards.

‘Ready?’ the first eunuch said to Tali. Sweat was running down his round face and dripping from his chin.

‘Yes,’ she said in Lifka’s empty voice, then realised that she had forgotten to push out her lower lip.

The first eunuch did not move. He was holding the weight of the stone, his gaze travelling up and down her small form as if he did not believe she could carry it. Now he was looking at her feet. His eyes flicked to the second eunuch, then he smiled, ever so faintly. He knew!

She met the eunuch’s eyes, praying that he would not give her away, yet knowing that most slaves would. Betraying another slave meant favour with the guards, and extra rations. And for many, the pleasure of seeing a troublesome rebel brought down.

Please, she said through her eyes.

The eunuch’s eyes misted, as if looking upon a daughter he would never have, and his lips moved. Good luck.

There was one good man left in Cython, at least, and it gave her heart. She tilted her head to him.

‘Move it,’ the second eunuch said curtly.

As Tali braced herself for the weight, heat flickered around the loops and whorls of the scar on her shoulder and she felt a momentary dizziness. She put her hand across her shoulder and the dizziness passed, though the scar still felt hot.

Holding the sunstone vertically, the first eunuch slipped it into the long leather pouch at the back of her harness and stepped away. Tali’s knees almost collapsed and a groan was squeezed out of her. It was impossible; her backbone was compressing, her arches flattening until her feet looked like twin tortoises. She could barely