Opening random doorways is a dangerous way to explore: slaves don't barge into rooms. So I'm forced to rely on observation, sticking to the less travelled routes, not straying too far. The difference in corridor styles – narrow and winding compared to wide and straight – leads me to believe that much of this fort has been built around an older structure. The older corridors form the shell of the prison, and they're dark and tight and will suit me well. The newer sections surrounding them are the domain of the scholars, and not too heavily trafficked. There's little need for guards here, and scholars spend a lot of time engrossed in their work.
Not too far from the Overseer's office, I find a door. Its very innocuousness attracts me. It's tucked into an alcove, small and hidden. I barely notice it as I pass. Behind it I find a tight spiral staircase leading down into darkness. Taking a lantern from its bracket in the corridor outside, I risk investigation, wondering what unlikely excuses I might give if anybody should catch me.
At the bottom is another door. Old and heavy and locked. I listen at it, and hear nothing. There's the faintest trace of light beneath it. I put the lantern aside and press my face to the floor to try and see under. Dusty. Nobody has been here for a long time.
Just for an instant, there is a breeze, soft and warm, like breath. Then it's gone.
I can't see anything through the crack. But that tiniest stirring of air against my face excites me. That's air from outside.
I hold the lantern up to the lock and examine it. It's basic and crude, made for a large and simple key. Give me two long hairpins and a little time and I can have it open.
Hairpins, then. I want to know what's behind that door. Not long afterward, I find all the fresh air I want.
At the top of a staircase there's a doorway to a balcony. I hesitate for an instant before going through, weighing the dangers: a slave shouldn't be seen loitering. But there's no real choice in the end. Out there is the world that I have been shut away from, and shut myself away from. Gentle wind teases my face. I walk to the parapet and look out.
After so long hemmed in by the walls of the prison, the moment is magnificent. The cavern isn't anything special by normal standards – in fact, it's fairly barren – but I drink the view in all the same.
The balcony is on the flank of a tower, looking out over the battlements of the fort. Farakza stands on an uneven island of bare stone, scarred and rucked with age, in the midst of a slow river of spume rock. The ground around the fort has been flattened by the power of an Elder, stripping away the cover for two hundred spans. Anyone trying to cross that would be seen and killed. That presents a problem.
Manta-like shapes float on the thermals above the river, membranous wings stretched between rayed fingers of chitin, poisonous tails trailing. Beyond the river, scrub fungi and boilstone stalagmites have begun to reclaim the land. Hardened lichens grind through their mammoth task of breaking up solid stone into mineral-laden dust, and thorny plants rise on the river bank, leaching sustenance from the sluggish flow. I can't see to the far side of the cave: Farakza's lights are too bright. They drown out the faint glow of phosphorescent algae, the sparkle of tiny insects, the shine of plankton in pools.
The sense of space is exhilarating. I know Feyn would laugh at that, as one who lives fearlessly beneath the sky, but to me existence has limits: the roof of a cavern, the wall of a chamber, the length of a rockworm-bored tunnel. Existence is full of holes and passageways, drilled uncountable ages ago by vast beasts who have left nothing but their fossilised skeletons. This moon was hollowed by their industry. Long after they were gone, we descended, hiding from life above.
I'm assaulted by a strange feeling of claustrophobia. I feel trapped. I've always been trapped. Not by my surroundings but by circumstance. Enslaved at five, Bondswoman by ten, Cadre by seventeen and mother by twenty. I've prowled to the limits of my leash – I know every inch of Veya and I've been all over Eskara – but I'm always constrained. Loyalty, affiliation, duty: I hold them as virtues but they bind me like tomb wrappings.
Something like panic threatens. It comes fast, springing on me from nowhere. I want to get away. To scream and run in terror, in any direction, I don't care which. Not just from here, but from everything. My needs, my ties, my lack of choices. And even as I think that, I know that there's nothing I can do but continue on my course.
As fast as it came, it's gone. I'm left dizzied. Must be the excitement of being outside for the first time in I don't know how long. And yet I sense it's only lurking, not departed. My emotions have been unreliable since Rynn's death: they come in jags and spikes, shocking me.
I look along the battlements at the towers of Farakza. A few guards patrol the walls, but nobody's watching me. The fort is old enough that it's crumbling at the edges. It's brutal and functional and simple. It's seen wars. Right now we're far behind enemy lines, on the Gurta side of the Borderlands; but once this was a bastion against ancient invaders. Probably us.
I walk to the other end of the balcony as it follows the curve of the tower. Now I can see the shinehouse that rises above the fort. A narrow tower of stone, topped with a segmented bulb of magnifying lenses. Within lies a huge shinestone, pale light diffusing across the cavern, flattening the shadows to a cower. It's a small and basic affair, not like the five enormous, ornate shinehouses that illuminate Veya, but it does its job. It's a little dim now. The Elder will recharge it during the ceremony of his departure.
The yard below is more interesting. From where I am I can see a wide, flagged space directly inside the main gates of the fort. Buildings and stables crowd around the edges. A pair of chila are pulling a cart through the gate as I watch; they chirrup and toss their heads as they come. They've got pug faces with small, vicious teeth, brown sinewy bodies, long front legs that used to be wings when they were young. But they're strong, fast at a run and they stand shoulder-high to a man. I've never liked chila. They smell horrible and they remind me too much of enormous, land-bound bats.
The cart is met by guards, a few casual questions are asked, and then the yard-workers move in to unload the cargo. Suddenly, the yard is aswarm. Doors to storage silos are hauled open. Dainty menservants appear and begin to direct operations. The guards stand back and watch.
The preparations for the Elder's arrival are controlled chaos. I overheard two scholars talking about the other dignitaries who have arrived for the event: generals whose troops are drilling nearby, local Lawkeepers and so on. It must be an Elder of some importance, to generate this kind of interest. I'm almost sorry I won't be around. I'd have a go at killing him if I thought I could get away with it.
It would be so easy to leave here now. On my own, with this disguise, an escape would be child's play. I could bluff my way onto a carriage. Once beyond the river, disappearing would be simplicity itself.
But I daren't stay on the balcony any longer. An idle slave rouses suspicion. Reluctantly I turn my back and return to the closed-in world that, just for a few moments, I dreamed I was free of. Finding something to pick the lock on my mystery door turns out to be harder than I thought. Hairpins are in short supply in a fort, and I've always found they're the only decent substitute for the specialised lockpicks I'd otherwise have with me. Slaves don't wear ornaments or make-up of any kind: they're supposed to be neat and plain. That leaves the Gurta women, and the only Gurta women here are the Entwined of the dignitaries.
I hear the tolling of the bell, louder here than below. By now my shift in the forge is long over, and no alarms have been raised. It seems I've not been missed. The tension inside me ratchets down a notch.