"I will return later with a tray of food for you, Father," she said. "Sleep well."
"Thank you, my dear," Wigg murmured without opening his eyes.
Entering the hallway, the group closed the door behind them, leaving the lead wizard alone. It was only then that his aquamarine eyes opened. He was lost in thought.
Had Krassus harmed Abbey? Wigg could count on one hand the number of days she had not entered his mind over the last three centuries. If Abbey lived, and was somehow a part of all this, how could he ever hope to explain her to the others? What in the name of the Afterlife was going on?
Out of sheer fatigue, Wigg closed his eyes again. Blessedly, sleep began to separate him from his thoughts.
CHAPTER
Six
"R aise oars!"
The grotesque pacemaster finally stopped beating out the incessant rhythm and placed his twin mallets on the floor. Number Twenty-Nine thanked the Afterlife that he had survived the horrific pace, and, along with the other slaves in his row, pushed down on the heavy oars, lifting the paddles from the Sea of Whispers. Blood was dripping from his palms; every muscle in his body felt as if it might literally crack in two.
"Ship oars!" the pacemaster shouted.
Using whatever remaining energy they could muster, the slaves who could still move drew their long oars into the frigate and laid them in neat rows down the length of the aisle. Many of the oarsmen had collapsed during the final, brutal day. Some had simply died of heat and exhaustion where they sat. Those had been unchained and thrown overboard, to be replaced by another Talis from the decks below. The deck was bathed in vomit, urine, and blood.
As usual, the Harlequin and the pacemaster seemed to take it all in stride. For much of the day the Harlequin had sat in his upholstered chair, watching the slaves labor as he sipped what seemed to be a bottomless glass of red wine.
Oars finally secured in the gangway, Twenty-Nine collapsed on the filthy, bloody deck. After what seemed only moments, the bleeders came around again, using their tridents to prod the helpless slaves upright. Coughing, Twenty-Nine managed to regain his seat and used the opportunity to peer out the oar slit in the side of the hull. His gaze fell upon a sheer face of gray, slick rock, and he realized they had struck land.
Smiling, the Harlequin stood up, arms akimbo. "Unchain them," he ordered.
The white-skinned bleeders in the strange skullcaps immediately began to unchain the slaves from one another, but left wrist manacles and foot shackles in place, drastically limiting movement.
"Where are they taking us?" the slave next to Twenty-Nine whispered, trembling with fear.
Twenty-Nine glared at him angrily.
"Do not talk, you fool!" he muttered furiously. "This is no time to invite attention! And as you go by the Harlequin, lower your face!"
The bleeders then began prodding them to their feet. It took many painful attempts to get cramped and atrophied legs to stand, but eventually, after a smiling, almost kindly gesture from the Harlequin, they all began shuffling toward the bow, their manacles clanking as they went.
Twenty-Nine reached the stairway and followed his comrades up onto the deck above. The first thing he saw were hundreds of slaves of both sexes standing before him, waiting to disembark. They had been divided by gender. The women, dressed in simple, one-piece frocks, had apparently fared little better than the men. Most looked ill; many were coughing.
Trying to adjust his vision to the relative darkness, Twenty-Nine rubbed his stinging, bloodshot eyes. Blinking, he finally saw where he was.
Their ship seemed to be docked in some kind of subterranean stone harbor. The flat, rough-hewn wharf had apparently been carved directly from the walls. A great deal of activity was taking place. The noise of the clanking manacles and the shouting of frightened slaves echoed hauntingly back and forth between the cavern walls and ceiling. Wide enough to easily anchor several ships like the Defiant, the saltwater bay was open to the ocean at only one end. The tunnel-shaped portal was easily wide enough and high enough to allow the passage of the great ships in and out.
Looking more closely, Twenty-Nine saw the sunlight beyond the cavern's outer edges come streaming down from the sky. Dappling the surface of the sea beyond, it tantalizingly reminded him of the freedom from which he had been so unbelievably, inexplicably taken. In the distance, his eyes could just make out the white, graceful sails of two more ships.
The stone pier before them was huge, easily large enough to allow several hundred persons to stand upon it. Numerous gangplanks had been lowered from the Defiant to the pier, and slaves were already filing down them. Dozens of bleeders stood there waiting.
As he looked closer, he could see beyond the crowd of disembarked slaves several dozen men sitting at long tables. They wore dark blue robes. As the slaves approached them, the men wrote with quills and ink in large, leather-bound journals.
Turning around, Twenty-Nine could see that the seawater here looked murky and cold as it gently lapped up against the rock walls and the sides of the ships. Numerous stalactites snaked down from the ceiling, covered with and surrounded by moss and mildew. The chamber smelled of a strange combination of mustiness and sea salt.
The only light, aside from the sunshine streaming in at the curved entrance to the harbor, came from various wall sconces and larger, standing lanterns dotting the edge of the stone pier. Their combined glow cast spectral shadows across the slickness of the walls. The air was full of the sounds of snapping bullwhips, crying, and still greater confusion.
Twenty-Nine looked down the pier and saw that two other ships were also docked quietly along its length. They floated there gently, their graceful lines and somehow comfortingly creaking hulls belying their horrific, inhuman purpose. Their waterlines rode high in the sea, revealing that their human cargoes had already been ordered ashore.
Twenty-Nine lowered his head in shame. Averting his eyes from his soiled loincloth, he regarded his tortured, shackled hands. Once beautiful, they had easily commanded the highest of compensation for his chosen trade of weapon making. Now they were bloodied and broken, and he doubted they could ever demand such sums again, even if somehow given the chance. Painfully, he tried to straighten out his fingers, but they stubbornly refused to obey, as if they had become appendages belonging to someone else. As they defiantly clung to the shape of the oar handle, he suddenly realized that even though he no longer held the oar, its mastery of him might remain a part of his being forever. Raising his face back up to the strange subterranean harbor and the wailing of his fellow innocents, he felt tears come to his eyes.
It was while standing there, waiting his turn to walk down the gangplank, that Twenty-Nine first noticed the slave directly to his right.
The man was very tall, and unlike most of the other slaves, he somehow stood defiantly erect. Broad-shouldered and stocky, the man was heavily muscled, making it clear that he was quite used to manual labor. The level, intelligent-looking eyes were hazel. Smooth, sandy-colored hair was tied behind his neck with a short strip of leather and fell long down his back. A dark mole lay at the left-hand corner of the man's mouth. Although not what many would call classically handsome, the slave carried with him a great sense of strength and personal fortitude. He looked to be approximately thirty-five Seasons of New Life.
On the man's shoulder Twenty-Nine could easily see the still angry, partially healed brand R'talis.
All the captives grouped with this man had been branded with the same word, Twenty-Nine noticed. He also quickly realized that this particular group of men and women was noticeably smaller than the others, almost as if they had been singled out for some reason.