A dead Och lay at my side, his four little arms shriveled and wrapped around his wasted body. The flier remained firm and solid in the sky with that peculiar way of a certain kind of voller which travels independently of the wind, and there was no pitching and rolling to add to our discomfort. The flier was of that kind I was to come to know well later, but which until then I had not encountered. She was long and wide in the beam, but shallow, being open and without a deck. A tiny cabin had been perched amidships to house the controls and crew. The slaves lay jammed like logs. They call these barge-like vollers weyvers in Havilfar, and sometimes they refer to them as Quoffas of the Sky. They are designed simply to cram as much cargo as possible into a flat space, without niceties of careful loading in tiers. The slaves were mere lumber.
Fanal lay miserably at my other side.
He would not meet my eye when I stirred.
He understood what I had asked of him, back there in the fishing village, and he had failed. I could not blame him. All men are not built in the same way, and Kregen, let alone the Earth of my birth, would be a strange place if all men were alike. And as for all women. .!
Presently he said in a whisper, “I am glad you are not dead, Horter Prescot.”
“What happened to the flier?”
“The Kataki Notor convinced them he was a harmless old fishing man, who needed no assistance with the plague. They flew away.”
They flew away.
Well. It was a disappointment, but also it was a relief. I had, in the instant of awakening, been horrified that I would turn and see my people, my Delia, wrapped in chains and thongs and wedged in among the mass of slaves.
“The flier flew well?”
“I have not seen many vollers. She flew low away to the west, as though she were searching for this Hyr-notor — this man with the yrium — of which the lady apim spoke.”
He looked at me then, a real Lamnia look, shrewd, sizing me up anew.
“You are the man they sought, Horter Prescot?”
“Yes, Horter Fanal. I am the man.”
“I think perhaps if the aragorn realize this they will sell you for ransom.”
“It would be paid,” I said. I did not boast. I knew what I knew. To my shame, I knew that the coffers of Valka and Can-thirda, of Zamra and Delphond and the Blue Mountains, would pour forth gold and jewels and treasures if by those means my Delia could once more clasp me in her arms. And if they were not enough, then Seg’s Falinur and Inch’s Black Mountains would bring more gold and jewels. And, if necessary, Delia would go to Strombor, my enclave in Zenicce, aye! and to the Clansmen of Felschraung and Longuelm to take of their treasures for my release. These thoughts brought me no elation. I knew that the treasure of a country is not bought without sweat and blood and the labors of the working people who are the real originators of wealth. The comfort was that I could perhaps give of myself in after days so that my people, and my friends’ people, could quickly recoup their losses and once more live comfortable lives, as I wished. No mention of ransom was made then or thereafter, and maybe the aragorn of Sorah had no real belief in it, not recking of lands so far away across the equator as Vallia and Valka, of which they had barely heard.
Sorah itself was a large and prosperous island of the Shrouded Sea. Canopdrin lay not too far to the north. The weyver touched down inside the cleared central area of a vast barracoon, and we were herded out and given more revolting fish gruel. Then after washing in water lightly sprinkled with vinegar, our hair was cropped, and, stark naked, we were prodded into lenk-wood cages. There was much shouting and cursing and belaboring with balass sticks. The Kataki also used their tails upon us most vilely, but in all this brutality they were careful not to mark or cut too severely the merchandise by which they made their evil living.
Rumors swept the barracoon as was to be expected.
A Rapa said positively that he would slit his throat with a sharpened flint before he would go to the Jikhorkdun of Hamal or Hyrklana. He refused to discuss the possibility of being sold into the Heavenly Mines or the pearl fisheries of Tancrophor.
The women were segregated; they would be sorted out into classes so that they might be sold to the best advantage. The men were also sorted, and here I parted with Fanal of Podia. He kept himself cheered by the thought that he might end up as a stylor or perhaps a steward upon an important estate. The art of reading and writing had once before brought me an easier task among slaves;[1]but here in Havilfar the art was much more common. If I was sent to the Jikhorkdun of Hamal life might be interesting. There are many arenas in the Empire of Hamal, and there is more than one in the realm of Hyrklana. If I was sold as a coy to the Jikhorkdun of Huringa I scarcely relished what Queen Fahia would do. Had I not contemptuously tossed the bloody tail of the silver-collared leem in her face? Had I not shamed her in the arena before all her people, and, at the end, had I not slain the boloth and escaped? Queen Fahia and her neemus would be overjoyed to see me back in the Jikhorkdun. So it was that as the rumors swept the packed barracoon I determined that I would not be sold back to the amphitheater in Huringa, the capital city of Hyrklana, to be fresh sport for that foolish, fat, and yet nasty little Queen Fahia.
Bunches of slaves were taken out from time to time to be oiled and cleaned up and paraded for prospective buyers.
Sorah is a large island and her slave pens are notorious. The aragorn do a good trade. They charge high prices for their merchandise and traders come from all over Havilfar. A group of Shaslins was herded out one morning after fish gruel. They were just about the only people there who relished the foul stuff, for the Shaslins are a sea-people; they look not unlike what some wild mating of a human with a seal might produce, with their sleek streamlined heads, their sloping shoulders, and their arms and hands, legs and feet, beautifully adapted for swimming and diving. Their pelts gleamed in the sunlight, for the food was good for them. But they set up a tremendous racket, screaming and shrieking, and had to be dragged out to the waiting fliers of their buyers.
“They have been sold to Tancrophor and will dive until they die in the pearl fisheries.”
The man who spoke to me, a Brokelsh, looked as annoyed as any slave has a right to be. His dark body bristles stiffened.
“But they are a fishing folk,” I said, somewhat unwisely.
“Aye! The Shaslins can swim well. But the devils of Tancrophor drive them to their limits, and they cough blood and their heads split with the ringing of the bells of Beng-Kishi. I am glad I do not go to the pearl fisheries of Tancrophor.”
This Brokelsh was sold with others to a Notor who owned many kools of land in Methydria. Other slaves were sold, and then it was my turn. I spent less than a day in the Sorah barracoon and I took no pride from the price I brought. I had taken one simple precaution during the ritual questioning of my abilities. I lied. I said I knew nothing of swords and battles and fighting, and whether or not the record-keeping Kataki believed me, I do not know. But he sold me to an agent from Hamal buying workers for the Heavenly Mines.
You have probably heard it said more than once that if you can keep your head when others all around you are losing theirs, then maybe you do not fully understand the situation. There were two brothers, two apims, fine young men with strong shoulders and sinewy backs. When the understanding hit them that they were sold to the Heavenly Mines, they looked into each other’s eyes and, with a previous arrangement clearly agreed between them, placed their hands on each other’s throats. The two brothers stood there, facing each other, gazing one at the other in brotherly love, and choked each other to death. Guards bustled through with their balass sticks lashing and dragged the two apart. The finger-marks glared lividly upon their throats. One of the brothers was dead. The other was revived, and when he realized what had happened he sat in a ball, his hands over his head, crooning. He had become insane, and if I thought that would disqualify him from laboring in the mines of Hamal I was mistaken. This young man, Agilis, was taken out with the rest of us to the waiting fliers. Many of us fought. The guards brought their balass sticks down viciously now, now that we were sold. I kept a wary lookout for Reterhan, but I did not see him — luckily for him.