The Fade

18

I'd already made arrangements for myself, Feyn and Nereith to work the salvage dump for this shift. A few favours, a few promises. Easy enough. Juth, the publisher with the deformed leg, helped me out again. I tried to swap with him and he was curiously resistant to the idea, but he helped me get three others to swap instead.

He works alongside us at the dump as we wait for our moment, sifting through the debris with gloved hands, pretending to know what we're looking for. Feyn seems absolutely calm, and Nereith is doing a good job of hiding his feelings, but I'm wound up so tight it's hard to breathe. This time I'm risking more than myself.

I calm myself with silent chants and try not to notice that Juth is giving me plaintive glances. He suspects something's up. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get three of us onto the salvage dumps without raising some eyebrows, especially after our display last time we were here.

I keep a lookout for Arachi descending from his office. This will be the last time, I tell myself. The last hour of my life I spend in this sweltering, dirty air, pounded by the percussion of the hammers, the clashing of chains and the hiss of burning metal plunged into cold water. I'll get out of this place and I'll get Feyn out too, or I'll die trying.

I see the door at the top of the stairs open, and a thrill like a physical jolt runs through me. We're on.

The next few minutes are an agony of suppression. Only Feyn seems not to care. I suspect his philosophy runs along the lines of if anything goes wrong, it goes wrong; why worry about it? But nothing is going to go wrong. I tell myself that, and I've almost started to believe it when the Overseer and his guard come striding along the walkway behind me. Then:

'Take me with you,' Juth whispers.

I swear inwardly. I knew it. I pretend not to have heard, hoping his courage will fail and he won't ask again. He's a timid sort; it might happen.

'Take me with you,' he says, loud enough that Nereith looks up.

I stop work and stare at him, cold.

'You're getting out, aren't you?' he persists.

There's no point in lying. Very shortly, the three of us are going to disappear, and everyone at the salvage dump is going to know what's going on. There were already rumours that I'd escaped before, but Nereith spread a story that I was being kept for observation by one of the scientists, and my reappearance seemed to corroborate that. After all, what kind of lunatic would break out of a prison only to break back into it again?

When we make our move, nobody here will say anything. It's us against them, and anyone who overtly takes the guards' side will find their continued survival a very unlikely prospect. I've no doubt that Charn might put a word in the right ear, secretly, when he realises that we've left him here to die; but I plan to be away from Farakza before this shift is over. By the time Charn realises we've cheated him, we'll be gone. He'll only know when the alarm goes up at the end of the shift. One person can go missing without raising suspicion. Three? The only woman in the forge, the only SunChild and the only Khaadu? No chance. We're all too distinctive to go unmissed by the guards for long.

'I can't,' I say to Juth.

His narrow face firms in determination. 'You can!'

'You're lame,' I reply. 'You'll be a burden. You'll get us killed.'

Nereith is following the conversation closely. Our voices have dropped, but he's lip-reading. Feyn is glancing towards the Overseer and the guard, who is coming down the steps from the walkway to carry out his usual inspection.

'I could tell him,' Juth says, indicating the Overseer. 'I could tell him right now.'

'I could kill you in such a way that it'd look like a heart attack. No one would notice.'

'A dead slave? You don't need that kind of attention.'

Normally I could spot a bluff from a man like him, but I'm too wound up and he's too nervous and agitated. Threatening him was stupid; it's only firmed his resolve. The next decision has to be made fast and I just don't know.

'Don't do this,' I whisper. 'I take you or you tell, either way you kill us all. Don't get involved.'

The Overseer is surveying the workers now, making approving noises. Then he notices us. It's impossible not to. We're making no noise, but the tension of the stand-off is visible and palpable.

There's a desperate pleading in Juth's gaze. He knows this is his only chance to avoid a horrible death. A man with a lame leg won't last long in here. The weak and the unusually strong are first on the list for experimentation. He's not a bully by nature but fear has forced him to adopt the role.

Then he sags, and the fevered light in his eyes goes out. I turn back to the salvage dump, and so does he. The Overseer watches us for a few moments more before deciding not to dirty his hands with prisoner squabbles. He moves on, the guard trailing behind him.

There's nothing I can say. No thanks would be enough. Juth is letting us go, and his last faint hope goes with us. That's not an easy thing to give up. I've seen people go mad clinging to that final glimmer of self-preservation. I've seen people die and take everyone down with them. It takes courage to accept the inevitable.

Nereith and Feyn are both watching me. We're ready to go. I'm about to give the signal when Juth grabs my arm. He pulls out a tattered, sweat-crinkled envelope from inside his shirt and pushes it into my hand.

'Please,' he says.

I glance at it and slip it inside my top. The address is in Veya. I don't ask how he obtained the paper. By the looks of it, he's been carrying it around for some while, hoping to find a way to get it to the outside. He must have always known he had no chance of making it himself.

'I will,' I tell him.

'Deliver it by hand. Promise me.'

I feel I owe him that, and Veya is where I'm headed eventually anyway. So I promise. Then he lets me go, his fingers trembling. I wish I could save him, but I can't.

I pull off my gloves, scan for guards, and motion to the other two. They down gloves and we walk calmly out of there, across the walkway, into the red shadows of the forge machinery. The other workers watch us go, and I know in their hearts each of them is either cursing us or wishing us good fortune.

Getting to the foot of the stairs is easier than it was before. I know where I'm going, and both Feyn and Nereith can handle themselves. Feyn has natural camouflage and he's utterly silent; Nereith isn't trained in stealth but he's certainly not clumsy. There's a certain grace about the way he moves.

There aren't any guards in sight as we make the short dash between the machinery and the stairs. I feel a slackening of tension in my gut as we slip into the cover of the waist-high metal barrier obscuring the steps from the forge. We hurry up the stairs, crouched low, and when I reach the top I pull out the key that Charn made and it turns first time. Little things like that give me a good feeling. We can do this.

Once inside the Overseer's office, I shut and lock the door to the forge. Nereith and Feyn take in the dingy room with the same faint puzzlement as I did the first time I was here. The key to the other door is on the hook again but I don't have time to mess about with threads and candles like before. I'll have to leave the door unlocked and the key in it. He's left it there before, so maybe he's absentminded enough to think he forgot to turn it. Hopefully he won't notice until he leaves at the end of the shift anyway. The plan's not as neat as I'd like, but that's the way it has to be.