“What you told the new people last night,” Oleer muttered as we shuffled forward. “That you were going to find a way out…”
I could hear the resignation in his voice. He had heard me talk like this before, and over four years I had so far failed in every attempt I had made to escape.
But it was different now, wasn’t it? I told myself. None of the others knew that I was the girl who had stood up to a dragon and walked away. It was a secret that I hadn’t meant to keep, but one that was precious to me anyway. A memory that had nothing to do with the overseers or the mines. Something for me alone.
“I can do it,” I said hotly, thinking, I have to do it. “Inyene’s not going to stop,” I hissed back at Oleer. “She’s not going to stop until all of our people are down here, working as her slaves.”
Oleer gave a heavy cough. This wasn’t like him to be so pessimistic, I thought. What had changed?
“Nari.” He turned around to face me, and I saw that on one side of his face was a shining purple and red bruise of a black eye.
“Oleer!” I gasped. “What happened to you?” I said before he could open his mouth to prove to me just how wrong I was being. No wonder he was in bad spirits today. “Which one was it? Toadie? One-Eye? Rat-catcher?” I rattled off the nicknames of the overseers that I knew.
“Not an overseer, not a guard,” the older youth said.
“Dagan?” I said in alarm.
“Not Dagan. It was them.” He nodded to the other side of the open area, where there was an entirely new collection of prisoners being brought out from Hut Number 3. They were, for the most part, men, and none of them appeared to be as young or as old as the prisoners of the Daza did.
Working-age men, I realized. They were mostly lighter-skinned Middle Kingdomers, but there was also a fair number of the darker and richer skin tones of the wider world as well. “Who are they?” I whispered. They were being treated just the same as us Daza, forced to wait in line for their bowl of gruel, bread, and water before directed to sit down somewhere in the open space.
The only difference was that each and every one of them wore the ankle shackles that I had the misfortune of wearing yesterday.
“They came in yesterday afternoon, while you were up the mountain,” Oleer said miserably. “They’re criminals. Actual criminals. The overseers don’t like working with them.”
I could see why. Several of the criminals were loudly complaining about the state of the food, and it looked as though a fight was about to break out at any moment between another two. They were a noisier bunch than the Daza, and they took to the floor in ones, twos, or threes, and didn’t seem to want to mingle.
“So, we’ll just stay out of their way and we’ll be fine,” I said, although my heart fluttered a little. What would this mean for my plans to escape? It was a factor I couldn’t have guessed. But maybe it was even a good thing. If these people had been in prisons and work camps before – maybe they knew ways to escape from one?
“I just don’t think it’s a wise idea, Nari,” Oleer whispered to me as he turned back. It was clear that he wasn’t talking about the prisoners, but about my plan. “We should keep our heads down for a bit, wait until the overseers relax.”
“Relax?” I burst out, just as there was a sharp rap of a stick on the ground in front of us. It was Overseer Toadie, handing out the clay pots.
“You don’t get paid to chat,” he growled in a tired and grumpy sort of way.
“We don’t get paid at all,” I muttered under my breath, earning a growl from Toadie, but he gave me my gruel, bread, and water all the same.
“Get out of my sight, the pair of you!” Toadie snapped, turning to dish out the next ladleful of gruel to the Daza behind me.
Oleer came with me as I made a beeline for Tamin and some of the others, both of us silent until we had sat down.
“Nari! What is up with you?” Oleer whispered, alarm pitching his voice higher. “Talking back to the overseers? Planning what you’re planning…”
“Young man.” Tamin turned to look at my friend. “Narissea’s mother is the Imanu of the Souda; it is right that she is thinking of her people.” His words made me feel embarrassed and proud at the same time, but Oleer’s look darkened to one of shame and resentment as he lowered his head and started eating. I would have to apologize to him for that later, too, I thought.
So many things to do. I sighed, as I turned to my surrogate uncle, hoping to start making plans. He knew the recent Daza arrivals better than me and could spread the word. We needed to work out numbers of Daza in the entire camp – and how many could manage a long-distance journey over difficult terrain. Probably at night, and with stonedogs and wolves and Inyene’s guards around.
But before I could even get out more than a few words, we were interrupted by the recognizable screech of Dagan Mar as he limped and lurched into the center of the space, flanked by Inyene’s guards.
“Workers!” He greeted us.
I rolled my eyes. “Slaves, I think he means,” I whispered to Tamin.
“There’s going to be a change to your shifts. And a chance for you to cut what you owe Inyene in half!” he called out dramatically.
Really? It was hard to hide my disbelief. When I looked around, my feelings seemed to be shared by a lot of the Daza who had been here the longest.
“First, we’ve had a lot of new intake here, from the recent troop from the Plains”—a slight sneer in his voice as he said that—“to a complement of workers from the Middle Kingdom.”
“Ha! He called us workers!” one of the criminals called out. Dagan shot him a dark look, but the man was still chuckling as he ducked his head. Interesting, I thought. If the new intakes are going to prove a problem for Dagan and the rest of the guards – then that might be something I could take advantage of.
“So, we will be switching your work teams around. Every Daza group will be mixed with some Middle Kingdomers.”
Oh no. I glanced over at Oleer, who was glaring into his empty gruel bowl.
“Hopefully, you will learn from each other. I fully expect there to be no problems. And those of you who have been here the longest will already know what will happen if you fail me.”
I knew precisely what he meant: more ‘debt’ added onto our sentence.
“He probably doesn’t want to have all of those together,” Tamin whispered at my side, casting his gaze up to the larger, noisier, and rougher crowd. I nodded my agreement – it made sense for Dagan to split up the troublemakers. But would his attempt at control be my gain? Maybe if I got to work with a Middle Kingdomer who knew a thing or two about prisons.
“But now, for an opportunity. Inyene needs Earth lights. You must all have seen them,” Dagan said.
I had. But only the once. They were small outcrops of crystal that glowed green or blue when exposed to any kind of light and would hold onto that radiance for long periods of time. I had no idea how they did it, but they were a natural feature in the roots of the world.
“For every Earth light you find, Lady Inyene, in her generosity, has decided to cut an entire week from the debt you owe. The more you get, the more time comes off! And for the person who collects the most – there will be an extra month taken off their debt! For some of you, that means that you might even be out of here and returning home by Midsummer!”