Why were they talking like that? Why were they hurting Mama? Tali’s breath came in painful gasps and her stomach was full of fishhooks. She had to help Mama. But Mama had told her not to move. Only magery could save Mama now, but she had told Tali not to use it here. Yet if she didn’t, Mama was going to die. But Tali had promised …
No! She had to break that promise, and if she got into trouble she would take her punishment. Tali had used magery once before, when she was little. She had been really angry about something and her gift had burst forth out of nowhere. She tried to summon it now but it shrank from her mother’s warnings, Always hide your gift! Never use it or they’ll find out and kill you.
She tried and tried, but it would not come. Tali was desperate now. She had to save Mama. The glamour would hide her, wouldn’t it? She crept out, picked up a piece of stone, took aim at the woman’s head and hurled it with all the fury her small body could muster. And missed her.
‘Ow!’ cried the man, clapping a hand to the back of his head. ‘What was that?’
Tali eased backwards to the crates, praying the glamour would hold. She felt with her foot for a bigger stone.
The woman gave a last twist of her length of metal, withdrew it and flicked a white disc, trailing a clump of bloody hair, to the floor. Was that a piece of Mama’s head? Tali was reaching for a fist-sized chunk of rock when the woman opened a pair of golden tongs behind Mama’s head, pushed in and yanked. Tali heard an awful, squelchy pop. Mama’s arms and legs jerked, then hung limp.
‘You’ve ended her,’ the man said hoarsely, shying away.
‘Who cares about a filthy Pale?’ said the woman, holding up the steaming tongs. ‘I got it in time.’
Tali’s head spun and her eyes flooded. But for the crates she would have fallen down. Though she was only eight, she had seen all too many dead slaves. Why was this happening? Was it her fault? She should have run and led them away; she should have done something, anything. Had the evil woman killed Mama? No, she couldn’t be dead.
‘Mama, Mama!’ she whimpered, hurting all over.
The man gasped, ‘Did you hear a cry?’
You stupid fool, thought Tali. Now they’ll kill you too.
‘Are you useless?’ sneered the woman.
The man drew a long knife and waved it at her.
She laughed in his face. ‘Find the brat and finish it.’
CHAPTER 3
The man took a lantern in his free hand and crept towards the stacked crates.
The woman put on a long glove that shone like woven green-metal — Tali sensed the whisper of magery coming from it — and removed something round from the tongs. It looked like a black marble. She stripped off the glove so it turned inside out, trapping the black object inside.
Now — horrible, horrible! — she opened a vein in Mama’s neck and filled the glove with dribbling blood, then tied a knot in the long wrist and thrust the glove down her front. Tali made out a crimson glow there, shining through the glove, but it went out. She checked on the man, who was at the other end of the stacks, slowly moving her way.
On the far wall of the cellar, the carved face of Lyf shifted. Yellow moved in its stone eyes and a foggy hand reached towards the woman, stretching and stretching as if to pluck out the glove. It was more magery, but whose?
There came a purple flash from behind a pile of barrels, a zzzt like a spell going off and the hand recoiled, then faded out. The woman froze, staring at the stone face, then laughed and picked up the gory tongs.
‘Oh!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, yes!’ and licked them clean.
Tali saw her muddy eyes roll up until the whites were showing through the holes in the mask. Tali wanted to punch her nose flat. After checking that the man wasn’t looking, the woman filled a square, green-metal tin with Mama’s blood, twisted on a brass cap and licked her bony fingers.
Tali’s eyes burnt and her nose was running. She wiped it on the back of her hand, fighting the urge to scream. If she made a sound, the man would cut her open like Mama. But she was much more scared of the evil woman with the crab-leg fingers and those awful eyes. She pressed a finger to the slave mark on her left shoulder, for luck. Touching it always made her feel better.
The man was tall, with a round, jiggling belly like a pudding basin. He was outside her hiding place now and she caught a glimpse of the gleaming knife blade, as long as her arm. Tali recoiled and felt a shocking pain as a nail in one of the crates pierced her hip to the bone. Tears stung her eyes yet she dared not move. If she made a sound he would stab that knife right through her.
The man was panting and the spirits on his breath made her head spin. His hand shook as he raised the lantern, then lowered it. Silence fell, apart from a sickening drip-drip from the black bench.
After Papa’s terrible death, Mama had taught Tali how to hide. ‘A slave must be invisible,’ she had said. ‘Never be noticed and you’ll be safe.’
No slave was ever safe, but Tali was the best of the slave kids at hiding. She traced the loops and whorls of her slave mark with a fingertip, trying to find comfort there, but nothing could comfort her now. Mama couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible, yet she was gone.
He waited, as if he knew she was there. What if he pulled the crates away? She had to do something. She felt among the broken wood on the floor for the sharpest length, a piece as long as her forearm. If he came at her, she would shove it into his fat belly and run.
Her arm was trembling so much she could hardly hold the weapon. Then, to her shame, Tali realised that wee was running down her legs. She clamped her thighs together and, to distract herself, began to count her heartbeats, which were so loud that surely he could hear them. After another twenty beats, the man grunted and moved on. She kept still.
He sprang back, hacking at the crates with his knife and roaring, ‘Haaaaaa! Got you.’
Tali’s heart leapt up her throat and the nail ground into her hipbone. She was almost screaming from the pain but she did not move. She was going to win this contest, for Mama.
With savage hacks of the knife, the man began to tear down the crates to her left, smash, crash. He was going to find her. How could she stop him? She eased off the nail, took hold of the lowest crate and heaved. It did not budge; the weight of all the crates above it was too great.
More crates crashed down. It would not be long now. She could not go further backwards; the gap was too narrow. And she dared not wait. Once he saw her, he would jam the knife through her guts.
Tali crouched, took hold of the lowest crate and heaved, using her legs this time. Even little girl slaves were strong, and she forced upwards, slowly straightening her legs, until her back ached and her knees trembled. But she wasn’t going to give in, ever.
The moving crates scraped and squealed. He swung around, trying to work out where the sound had come from. She gave an almighty heave, the ten-high stack swayed, then with a roar the lot fell down on him.
Tali scurried sideways into a new gap and hid in the darkness. The man groaned. The woman appeared, taking her time, and heaved the crates aside. The man’s face was covered in blood. Ha! thought Tali. Take that! But it could never make up for what they had done to Mama.
‘What happened?’ he moaned.
‘Stop whining,’ said the woman disgustedly. ‘You pulled them down on yourself. Did you find anything?’
Fifty heartbeats passed, then the man lurched away. ‘Must have been rats. Come on. I need another drink.’
‘I’ll pour it down your throat until you choke.’