'He is afraid from you,' the boy says. 'He speaks of you as Cadre. I have heard it. Fear is heard when he speaks.'
I look him over. There's something appalling about the sight, battered as he is. He's handsome, in a feminine kind of way: he looks like an obsidian sculpture. The bruises disfigure him, blasphemies against the clean lines of his face.
'Feyn is the name I have,' he says, when I don't reply.
I'm silent for a time. Then I hear myself speaking, as if from a distance: 'I can't help you, boy. Go away.' But what I mean is: I won't help you; stop intruding on my perfect misery.
His face is unreadable. Then he nods, as if he understands. I want to tell him that he can't understand, he's not old enough to know love as I have, the pain I feel; but there's no point. He walks away from me, holding himself.
I glance over at Charn and Nereith, and their gazes flick away from me. Our exchange has been noted. Next shift in the forge I ask to swap with one of the coke-shovellers. Partly it's because I've become stronger, and the constant push and pull of the screens isn't gruelling enough. I want the extra punishment. But mostly it's because I can't bear looking at that SunChild boy.
The prisoner is happy to oblige. My job is pretty cushy compared to his.
There are six of us at the furnace, scooping coke into its roaring, smoky maw. One of them is Nereith, the Khaadu man. I ignore them all, putting my back into the work. The heat from the furnace draws sweat and dries it quickly. The faces of the men around me are grimy with black dust. They talk to each other as they shovel fuel from the pile into the hungry flames. They laugh and make crude jokes about their captors, they bitch about other prisoners, they reminisce about what things were like back home. They mock Nereith in a comradely way, calling him a cannibal. He shows his teeth and suggests how he might eat their mothers.
I'm getting stuck into the pile and am about to sling another shovelful into the furnace when the Khaadu grabs my arm.
'Not like that.'
I stare at him blankly.
He points at my shovel. 'Scoop from the middle of the pile, not the bottom. Your shovel is full of dust.'
I still don't understand.
'If you throw that into the furnace it'll ignite and blow back,' he says. 'You'll burn someone.'
Slowly, I turn away, shake off the shovel, take another scoop. This time my shovel is full of coke rocks. Nereith grunts in satisfaction and gets back to work.
I keep my eye on the Khaadu man. There's something about him. It's an instinct born of dealing with the dangerous, from aristocratic killers who murder by signing a contract, to fireclaw dealers with a blade and nothing to lose.
He's stripped to the waist; well-defined muscles; no fat on him. Entirely hairless, like all Khaadu, and his head is skinmarked with long red strips that follow the curve of his skull. Larger red strips run down his back. They're something to do with his social caste, but I've not met enough Khaadu to recognise his status. Their cities are far away from ours, through labyrinthine cave networks, Umbra-haunted fungal forests and sulphurous rock plains where poison gases leak from the ground. They don't visit Eskara very often.
But it's his teeth that draw the attention: long, sharp, fanged like a predator. Khaadu are a race of consummate carnivores. They prefer to eat their food still wriggling. The exception is when they eat their dead, or the bodies of their enemies. It's a ceremonial thing.
The Overseer makes his tour of the forge at the same time every shift. It's the only regular event we have. He emerges from his rooms, high in the smoky darkness, and descends to the floor, where he makes his way among us with an air of casual authority. He's a neat man, tall for a Gurta and straight-backed, his white hair swept back from his temples. It's impossible to stop his uniform from wilting in the heat but he does his best. The guards call him Overseer Arachi. He speaks good Eskaran when he tries, but he rarely talks to the prisoners. In fact, his inspection visits seem to be a matter of routine rather than anything else; I've never seen him actually do anything apart from tap bits of machinery and mutter about good, solid iron. The guards tolerate him and then call him names behind his back; they find his strutting comical.
The guards themselves idle about, bitching about this and that. We're not watched closely. Only the blacksmiths are well attended. In a forge where weapons are made, it makes sense to ensure no finished blades get into the hands of the prisoners.
This shift the Overseer has company. Four guards, and a man in heavy black gloves and a sooty smock, his lower face covered by a mask. I remember him, vaguely, from my drug-hazed induction to the prison.
They stop near me. The masked man indicates one of the coke-shovellers: a young man with lank brown hair. Two guards grab him; the others draw blades and push the rest of us back. The young man goes pale, then begins to scream. One of the other prisoners, holding a shovel, lunges to intervene; his companion bars his way with an arm. His jaw is tight with anger, but he knows it's suicide to get involved. There are a dozen more guards nearby, and they all have swords.
One of the guards clubs the struggling man with the pommel of his sword, stunning him into submission. He is quickly dragged away. The man in the smock sweeps us with his eyes and then departs after them.
I look at the Khaadu. He sees the question in my eyes.
'That was one of their chirurgeons,' he says. 'They're going to dissect him.' Back in the cave, Charn beats the boy again. Nobody says a word. He's a big man, probably the strongest here, and in a prison men flock to strength.
I'm lying with my eyes closed, but despite the weight of exhaustion on my bones I can't find the darkness I need. The boy keeps me awake. First with his cries of pain as Charn punches and abuses him, and later with his muffled whimpers as he tries to stifle his weeping so as not to attract attention. Curled on the hot, damp rock, I try to stop myself thinking but it won't happen.
This was a bad turn. I gave up my solitude by speaking, and it was the boy who made me do it. What's worse, he was asking something of me. Asking me to help him. Why won't they leave me alone? I've got nothing and I don't want anything, because I know that to have and to lose is worse than not having at all.
The boy is crying. He's no child, almost a man in fact; can't he control himself? Can't he shut up?
Then I notice that I'm crying too. I only realise by the cool touch of saltwater on my cheek. I don't make a noise, but huddled in the dark of that prison pit, I'm crying. I wait for my tears to run dry before I get up and walk across the floor towards Charn. One of his companions sees me coming and gets to his feet. Charn and another man follow. The others in the cave stir, shadowy rustlings in the corners: they're not used to seeing me move with purpose. In lieu of a name, I've heard some of them refer to me as 'the fade', after the dark apparitions that drift listlessly through Banchu corpseyards. If I had the heart, I'd laugh: the term is one I'm very familiar with, though it has a different meaning among those of my profession. But I'm not drifting any more.
The two men with Charn are shorter than he is, but both are stocky, and one of them looks quick. They're geared up for trouble. Charn has his arms crossed, a smirk on his face. He's not showing fear, but he's nervous. I can tell. Torchlight from above casts heavy shadows down their faces.
They're expecting a negotiation. A power show. Charn is the big man, he thinks I'm coming to him to talk terms. It's all about respect and power and face. But I'm not a man; I don't play man's games. So I beat the fuck out of them instead.
I take the quick one first. Rabbit punch just under his nose, stamp hard on his upper leg, dislocate his hip joint. The other man genuinely wasn't prepared for violence, so he's still barely moving when I backhand him across the face and put a knee in his solar plexus. He falls to the ground gulping air. I stamp on his lower back hard enough to snap a rib.