Alchymist (10 page)

'Father,'
Nish whispered. 'You can't take my Histories from me.'

'I
can and I will, before this day is over.' 'But — what am I to do?'

'You
should suffer the ultimate penalty, as all traitors must. But,' Jal-Nish said
inexorably, 'we are in sore need of labour to haul our clankers to the nearest
node. Therefore, Slave Nish, you will be harnessed into a team of criminals and
slaves. You will be teamed with the treacherous Slave Flydd, and every time he
incurs a whipping, so will you. You will haul clankers without respite until
your heart bursts, and then you will be buried in the road, face upwards, that
the meanest citizens in the world will tread you down. They will walk over you,
Slave Nish, until there's not a fragment of flesh or bone or sinew left. And
ever after, an obelisk at that point shall name your crimes and their
punishment. Such is the penalty for high treason.'

Even
the chief scrutator looked shocked, though not, Nish thought, displeased.

Jal-Nish
turned away, struggling to contain himself, but after a few steps he doubled
over and vomited into the grass. Shortly he returned, pulling the mask back
into place. A single tear glistened in the corner of his eye, then the iron control
was back.

'It
is done,' Jal-Nish said to the Council. Take Slave Nish to his doom!'

'You
have proven your worth over the past year Scrutator Jal-Nish,' Ghorr said
softly. 'Should you save our clankers, and defeat the lyrinx in battle, a place
on the Council will be yours. We have need of men such as you.' Taking
Jal-Nish's arm, Ghorr led him up the hill.

A
pair of white-faced soldiers stepped in beside Nish. 'I won't resist,' he said
numbly, but they seized him anyway. One went through his pockets and removed
everything of value. The other patted him down for weapons. Finding none, they
lifted him between them and carried him away.

As
Nish looked back, the crowd dispersed, except for two people. Tirior, who had
been watching the proceedings from behind, walked slowly back to the Aachim
lines. The other person was the one-handed man, Merryl, who had helped Tiaan.
He stared after Nish, then began to trudge around the curve of the hill, away
from the command post.

After
a sleepless night in a solitary slave pen, Nish was hurled into the bloody
slush of the battlefield. A clanker stood just a few steps away, its thick
metal legs half-buried in mud. Wooden skids had been fitted underneath. To his
left a group of people, slaves like him, were being harnessed together. They
looked as despairing as he felt. Behind them were other slave teams, as well as
teams of horses, oxen, donkeys and buffalo, soldiers and camp followers, women
and even children. Every kind of beast had been harnessed to the impossible, heart-bursting
task.

Nish
was numb with horror. His own father had cursed him, had sentenced him to a
bestial death. Even in this war, which had produced mountains of corpses, in
which the whole fabric of human society had been torn apart, that was
impossible to comprehend.

Crack'
Pain flowered in Nish's ear. He put a filthy hand up and brought it back
covered in blood. It felt as if something had bitten a piece out of his
earlobe.

Crack!
The other ear exploded with agony. Scrambling to his feet, Nish saw a grinning
overseer coiling his whip, a good ten paces away.

'What
the hell do you -?' Nish roared, driven careless by despair.

The
whip lashed out again, catching him on the chest through the gape of his shirt.
Muffling a cry, Nish looked around frantically. What was the brute trying to
tell him?

He
scrambled towards the head of the team, slipping and sliding in the muck, and
every time he went to his knees the lash fell on his back or buttocks, or
coiled around his waist to nip at his belly. The overseer was a monster, a
sadist, and he, Slave Nish, the lowest worm in all of Santhenar, could do
nothing about it.

Fumbling
with the straps of the harness, Nish took several more lashes before he was
fixed in place like a beast of burden. Go away! he prayed. Go and flog someone
else.

Eventually
the overseer did, the cries and wails of the whipped echoing down the line.
Nish could feel no pity for them, though some of their groans were
soul-wrenching. All that mattered was that the lash fall on another.

The
man beside him at the head of the team, on his knees in the muck, was a scrawny
old fellow whose back and meagre legs were crisscrossed with scars. He must
have been a slave for a long time. It did not look as though he had much life
in him.

'Just
what I need,' Nish said to himself. 'Useless old coot will never pull his
weight. He'll die in the muck and I'll be whipped for that too.'

The
slave turned his emaciated, mud-coated head. Nish did not recognise him, nor
even recall Jal-Nish's words, until the man spoke.

'How
quickly they forget,' said Xervish Flydd, looking him in the eye.

'Scrutator!
Surr!' Nish gasped. 'I'm sorry. I did not recognise —’

'You're
just doing what you must, to survive,' said Flydd. 'Don't call me scrutator.
Nish. That honour has been taken from me and, gossip tells me, given to your
lather I'm Slave Flydd now. What brings you here?'

Nish
told Flydd of his latest failing, in the smallest number of words he could. It
hurt nearly as much as the lash. All his dreams were dead. He must face up to
what he was, a worthless human being.

'We
all make mistakes,' Flydd said out of the corner of his mouth. 'Get ready to
pull.'

Nish
looked around to see the overseer advancing, whip at the ready. The fellow
caught Nish's eye, grinned and flicked the lash at him. It caught him on the
nipple so painfully that Nish screamed. It felt as if his breast had been torn
open.

'No
talking!' rapped the overseer, lashing him again. 'Pull! Pull until your hearts
shudder and your bowels groan or, by the powers, I'll make you suffer'.'

Nish
threw his weight against the harness. Flydd did the same. The leather creaked;
the rows of slaves behind them groaned. The whip cracked again and again, but
the clanker did not budge.

'Pull!'
roared the overseer.

Nish
strained until his boots skidded in the mud, to no more effect than before. The
overseer stormed back and forth, lashing and cursing them. Nish strained again
until his heart felt about to explode in his chest. It made no difference. The
clanker was irretrievably bogged.

If
Nish had hoped for a respite, he was disappointed. While a bullock team was
being brought up, they had to pull as hard as ever, and once it was harnessed
in place the slave team was put beside the beasts. For every lash that fell on
the haunches of the animals, the slaves felt three or four. All across the
battlefield the scene was repeated: with soldiers, with other teams of slaves,
with all the peasants and camp followers Jal-Nish had been able to round up,
and with beasts of every description.

After
hours of the most brutal labour Nish had ever experienced, the clanker began to
creak and groan out of the mud wallow, though before it had gone a hundred
paces it ended up in another, and many more lay ahead before it could be
dragged to solid ground.

By
that time it was well after dark. Each of the slaves was given a gourd full of
sour water, a slab of black bread as hard as a brick and a mug of something
which, with the most charitable will in the world, could only be described as
slops. It had a sweet, off taste, as if it had begun to rot in the summer heat.

Nish
took one sip and spat it into the grass. It was far worse than the food he had
eaten in the refugee camp in Almadin in the spring. He was about to heave the
mug of slops after it when Flydd said quietly, 'I'd advise you to eat every
mouthful, and lick out the mug afterwards.' 'It's disgusting!'

'Aye,
but you can't work without food. If you can't pull, the overseer will whip you
into jelly and drag the clanker over you.'

'If
this is my life, then the sooner it's over the better,' Nish muttered.

Flydd
shrugged and sat down, jerking at the harness in a futile attempt to find a
comfortable position. He ignored Nish, eating his slops slowly, as if savouring
every morsel, and carefully wiping the mug out with lumps of bread. 'If you're
not going to eat that, pass it over here.' Wordlessly Nish handed him the mug.
Had it been the finest food in the land, he could not have eaten a mouthful.
His stomach was throbbing with despair.

'Better
get some rest,' said Flydd. 'They'll be calling us out again in a few hours.'
'But it's dark.' 'It'll be light enough when they start to burn the bodies.'

A few
hours later it started again, but this time it was worse. The battlefield was
dotted with pyres, blazing piles of human and lyrinx dead. They provided enough
light for the overseer to pick his targets, though not enough for him to be
accurate. A blow aimed tor Xervish Flydd's back came coiling around Nish's bent
head, the hard tip of the lash catching him on the eyebrow with such force that
he screamed.

'You
stinking mongrel —’ he raged, once the pain became bearable.

A
dirty hand smacked him in the mouth, cutting off the abuse.

'Don't!'
grated Flydd in his ear. 'Whatever thev do, don't react in any way. Just pull,
as hard as you can.'

Nish
strained against the harness. 'The swine nearly took my eye out.'

'If
you attack him, he'll take pleasure in removing the other eye, in a way you
will never forget.'

'I
want to die!'

'You
won't be so lucky. We're put here to suffer, and while we can stagger, that's
what we're going to do.'

'It
doesn't seem to bother you.'

Flydd
forced himself against the straps, grunting with the effort. 'I feel pain the
same as any man, Nish. I've just learned not to show it.'

Nish
supposed that must be true. The former scrutator was brutally scarred and he
moved as though every bone in his body had been broken. There were rumours of
his torment at the hands of the Council when he was a young man, for some
unspecified crime.

'I
can't take much more of this,' Nish groaned. 'It feels as if my leg bones are
splintering with each step.'

'You'd
be surprised how much the human body can endure,' said Flydd. 'You've got
months of slavery ahead of you yet.'

'Then
I'll kill myself.'

 Flydd's
fist came out of the dark, crashing into Nish's chin and knocking him backwards
into the slush. The next pair of slaves went over him, tripped and fell down,
pulling down the pair after that. The team ground to a halt.

The
overseer came up the line, flogging indiscriminately. The slaves fell over
themselves to get away. It took a good ten minutes before the tangle was sorted
out and they were pulling in unison again. Nish took more lashes, though no
more than his share.

'What
did you do that for?' he muttered, feeling a split lip. Two teeth felt loose
and one had a chip out of it.

'Do
your duty like a man and don't whine about it!' snapped Flydd. '1 expected more
of you, Nish.'

'But
we're slaves,' cried Nish.

'Aye.
Even so, we're doing vital work. The fate of humanity may rest on us getting
these clankers to the field, and never forget it.'

Nish
fell silent. Trust the scrutator (he could not stop thinking of Flydd that way)
to keep his eye on the greater goal. Nish could not, and he felt bad about it.
The survival of humanity hung by a thread and any little thing could make the
difference, but it meant nothing to him. His own troubles were too
overwhelming.

He
tried to talk himself into it, telling himself what a selfish, contemptible
worm he was. Make something of your life, Nish! Do your very best, even if only
as a slave.

It
was impossible. He had fallen too far. Once he'd been part of a wealthy,
powerful family. Now he'd lost everything, even his part in their Histories.
Once he'd had an honourable trade; now he was beneath contempt. Once he'd had a
father; now he had nothing. He was nothing.

They
stopped just before dawn. Nish was so exhausted that he fell onto the mud and
slept where he lay — blessed oblivion, though it did not last long.

He
dreamed that he was sitting at a banquet table, dressed in robes woven with
golden thread. A lovely young woman was at his left elbow, an even lovelier one
at his right. He was speaking and the whole table hung on his words. Nish
finished his speech to a roar of acclamation. As he bowed, he smelt the most
delicious aromas as waiters hurried in, bearing huge platters of roast meats.

Nish
woke salivating and the glorious smell was still there. He opened his eyes,
realised where he was, and wept. He was covered in stinking, rotting mud. There
was no dinner table; no audience. Worst of all, so horrible that he could not
bear to think about it, the mouth-watering aroma came from the piles of burning
dead. He was salivating over his own kind. He was a monster of depravity, no
better than a cannibal.