“They recognize me,” he murmured to Wentha.
She nodded. “Of course.”
“They know I was in the Hammer,” he went on. “For all I know, I drove some of them down here myself.” And they could kill me easily, he added silently, wishing again that he had brought Ebonbane.
“They also know you quit the Hammer, and why,” said Tancred, behind them. “Many of them admire you for it.”
“And all of them respect you, whether they like you or not,” added Rath.
“Be still,” Idar hissed, glancing back at them. “We’re here.” They stopped at the foot of a ladder, no different from any of the others they had passed. Above, the shaft ascended into darkness. They were hundreds of feet down, far beneath the sewers and tombs that made up the undercity. The faintest of breezes drifted down to them, making the lamps’ flames dance.
Gabbro headed up the ladder, his stumpy legs moving with surprising agility. He needed no light: most dwarves, Cathan recalled from the lore he’d studied, could see perfectly well in their caves without it. Idar watched as the dwarf clambered out of sight. Up above, Gabbro’s boots ticked against solid stone, then for a moment there was nothing.
“He has a wealth of tesserae up there with him,” said Idar. “From old mosaics the church tore down for being idolatrous. Mosaics of Zivilyn, and Shinare, and the other gray gods. If he drops a black tile down here, it means there’s trouble and we shouldn’t come up. White, and it’s all clear.”
Cathan nodded, following. “What does a colored one mean?”
“Then he took the wrong bloody tiles,” Rath replied, and Tancred snorted with laughter. Idar was fighting back a grin when something fell down the shaft, spinning and glinting as it came down. Everyone stepped back, letting it clink onto the floor among them. It cracked in half, and Idar bent down to examine the pieces.
“White,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He led the way, Cathan and Wentha behind him. One of his men brought up the rear, leaving the rest below with Tancred and Rath. The climb seemed to go on forever, and Cathan was at once humbled by how much it made his arms and legs burn, and amazed at how easily his sister managed. By the time they reached the top, where a short passage led to a wall where tiny cracks of light defined the shape of a door, he had to bend down, hands-on-knees, and wheeze for breath.
“Where are we?” He whispered, thoroughly disoriented. His voice sounded horribly loud in the stillness, however, and Idar whipped a blazing look at him.
Wentha put a finger to his lips and leaned in close. “You’ll see,” she breathed, and pushed him forward.
They were all watching him as he stepped toward the door, where Gabbro waited. The dwarf stepped aside, and touched his arm when he reached out to find the portal’s handle. Cathan stiffened at the touch-he’d been brought up on stories of evil, bearded men who crept out of caves and stole babies from their cradles. Gabbro reached up and slid back a panel hidden in the stone. Two small holes appeared, at eye level. Twin shafts of silver-red moon-glow shot through the dusty dark of the tunnel. Gabbro nodded his ugly, hairy head toward them.
Swallowing, Cathan looked.
At first, he couldn’t make anything out for the light. Solinari and Lunitari were both full tonight, and he had to squint, slowly making out details. He was looking through a white stone wall, which curved around to his left and right to frame a wide, oval courtyard. There were relief carvings engraved into the stone, depicting the revolt of humankind against the mighty ogre empire, long ago. He wondered, briefly, if it was a man’s eyes he was looking through, or an ogre’s.
Then he saw what lay within the courtyard, and such thoughts left his mind in a heartbeat.
The yard was filled with cages, with bars of iron and bamboo. Most were bolted to the cobblestone ground, while others rested on great wheeled carts with yokes for horses or oxen. Wooden posts stood here and there, with manacles dangling from them. A large, wooden platform rose at the far end, like a stage; there was a wide, empty area before it, room enough for a hundred people or more. Here and there, Scatas-the blue-cloaked soldiers who comprised the bulk of Istar’s armies-stood watch or walked patrol, spears and bows at ready.
Some of the cages had occupants. Men and women stood or sat or leaned against the bars, clad in plain gray tunics or loincloths. They came from all over the empire, as much a mix as Tithian’s knights were, but with some nonhumans too: a huge man with yellow skin and black eyes who looked to be a half-ogre; three or four minotaurs, their wicked horns cut short; even one of the tiny tricksy folk, a kender with a truly sorrowful look on her expressive face. The others shared her gloom: There was no hope in this place of cages.
Cathan stared, not believing what he was seeing. He had heard tales of such places, in evil and primitive realms. The minotaurs and ogres had had them, and some of the old city-states and kingdoms, in the empire’s early days. But such things had been unknown in Istar for a long time.
With a sinking heart he knew what he was looking at.
A slave market.
There had been much uproar when the Lightbringer brought back slavery. Nearly a century and a half had passed since one man had owned another within the empire, and though the Great Temple and most of Istar’s other glories had been built on the backs of others, folk had come to regard it as a dark trade, one practiced only by evil folk.
Though the first Kingpriests had frowned upon slavery, it remained legal until Giusecchio, called by historians Biso Povi-the Doomed Fool-banned it with an imperial bull in the year 823. It had not been a popular decision, particularly among the wealthy. Angry slave-lords, robbed of their trade by Giusecchio’s writ, had conspired to have him assassinated. After several attempts, they finally succeeded, poisoning the water with which Giusecchio mixed his wine. Following his murder, Istar had nearly fallen into civil war; it was only the intercession of Quenndorus the Conciliator, who had the most powerful of the rebellious slavers burned at the stake, that kept the empire from collapse. A pious man and a disciple of Giusecchio’s teachings, Quenndorus let his predecessor’s bull stand, and when he died six years later, the wickedness of the old days, when lives could be traded for a bag of gold falcons, was over.
So it had remained … until fifteen summers ago, when Beldinas appeared within the Hall of Audience one Godsday to announce that by the end of the year, slavery would again be legal.
The stir the declaration caused, both within the court and about the empire, had been loud and vocal. Many opposed the idea, calling it repugnant. Goblins kept slaves. It was a fell thing, and not fit for those who worshipped the gods of light.
“That is so,” the Kingpriest had replied, smiling within his aura. “But goblins eat olives, as well. Does that mean we should not, simply because we share the habit with those who walk in darkness?”
The analogy was lost on many, and more than a few clerics gave up eating olives in the days to follow, but as Beldinas explained his aims, sympathy began to grow within the hierarchy. The war against the god’s enemies, he reasoned, had changed in recent years. Those whose souls were truly lost had been all but vanquished, their bodies given to purging flame; those the Divine Hammer and the church’s inquisitors captured these days were not true creatures of darkness but could be redeemed, brought back to Paladine’s glory through labor and toil.
“Should we burn them, then, for their heresies?” he’d argued. “Is that not a waste? Let us be merciful in our punishment, and let them live, in the hope that they may find true penitence in the empire’s service.”
Some, including Emissary Quarath, debated this notion long and loud. The very idea of slavery was alien, something to be feared. Faced with Beldinas’s logic, however, even Quarath began to doubt his own beliefs. Finally, the majority of the hierarchs accepted the new bull, placing their signets upon the waxen tablet affixed to the document. Thus, Giusecchio’s age of universal freedom came to an end, and a new era of clemency toward heathens began.