Guardians (24 page)

But the slaves had not been brought here to ogle. Already, they were being untied and herded across the lobby to an inconspicuous metal door in a far corner. Carrying her bottles of gasoline by the neck, Esther found herself pushed into a dark and nearly airless stairwell. With Ava struggling beside her, she joined the others who began trudging up the steep staircase.

Guards were posted every few levels, holding up torches to light the way. As she passed Jud, Esther saw him take note of her. “Watch her!” he yelled to the others who followed. “Do like her!”

Esther felt chilled. Jud again sought to isolate and praise her, in order to infuriate the others. It was working: Those above her glanced down with looks of hatred.

“Not fast enough! Do like
her
!”

Then she heard the lash of the belt.

The stairs seemed endless; Esther counted twenty-eight flights of fifteen steps each and there was no end in sight. At every landing, more and more of the slaves began to falter or drop what they held. The guards reassigned what each one was to carry: The younger, weaker ones were given the fuel and smaller tools, while the stronger were ordered to take the heavier lumber and glass. Esther struggled to lift a set of
glass panes; although she was supposed to share the load with Ava, she knew the young girl was not strong enough. As they labored upward, she noticed that more and more slaves were being ordered to leave what they carried and return downstairs.

Finally, only Esther, Ava, and four others remained. The slave handlers who accompanied them no longer barked orders at them or even hit them with the belts they carried; they, too, seemed exhausted and out of breath. A final set of stairs led to a narrow door with the word
EXIT
written on a sign above it. The six were directed through the door, as the two remaining guards followed.

Gasping, Esther stepped out into the blinding sunlight of the roof. Already, the others were undoing their head coverings as they dropped their planks and building materials. With a sigh of relief, she too set down the glass panes before pushing back her hood and flexing her aching fingers, her arms trembling with exhaustion. After the stifling heat of the staircase, it was a pleasure to be back in the open. It took her a moment to register her surroundings: an immense roof that seemed four times as large as that of the District.

Then what she saw stunned her.

In a near corner, a garden was in progress. True, the glass structure was minute compared to the one at home; it held no more than a dozen long tables, unlike the hundreds that she was used to. Yet although crude, it was a perfect replica of the other greenhouse, with transparent panels set in soldered iron and a concave ceiling meant for catching rainwater ending in a
large pipe that led to a tank below. The small building was still incomplete; Esther noticed that one wall consisted of nothing but heavy plastic, probably to allow for expansion. Still, her unbelieving eyes saw the tables were covered with long, dark green tubs. She imagined they were already filled with water and held the beginnings of a first crop.

It was her idea—the one Aras had first shared and that she later suggested to Gideon. The Insurgent leader had obviously stolen her plan. Yet instead of helping others, he had distorted her vision to benefit one person alone: himself.

Trembling with bitterness, Esther forced herself to look away; the sight of the thing was too painful to behold. She noticed that at the far end of the roof, a group of workers gathered around Joseph, who stood with his back to her. Stumpy weaved in and out of his feet. They were all dwarfed by immense piles of building materials: stacked glass panes, iron rods, wooden planks and beams, and tools scattered everywhere.

Before Esther could move, her heart pounding, her old friend looked up.

And stared right at her.

Joseph's eyes grew huge; his mouth dropped open in shock. Stumpy noticed Esther, as well. Lifting her tail in greeting, she began to saunter toward her.

Esther did not dare bring a finger to her lips. She could only give a quick shake of her head and mouth a desperate word:
No
.

The slave master was behind her, close enough that she could feel his breath upon her neck.

“What wrong?”

Jud yanked her around so she faced him. Esther knew that her face was pale and feared what he would read in her expression. Sure enough, the boy looked up to see where she had been staring.

All he saw was the back of a boy, walking away. A cat's tail swished from beneath his arm.

The guard turned to Esther again.

“Move, you.” He had already raised a hand to Ava, who cowered in fear.

But Esther did not need to be warned twice. She picked up the heavy glass panes and carried them to the far wall.

Late that afternoon, Esther rested with the others in the shade of the building. She was still thankful that Joseph had managed to keep her secret; she didn't care to think what would have happened if he had not. A few feet away, the guards sat together and talked among themselves. Only Jud kept an eye on her.

Even though she was surrounded, she felt more alone than she ever had in her life. Esther closed her eyes, thinking once more of her loved ones. After so many days, she knew that the chances of their survival were slim. She conjured up Aras and the others who had been made to disappear and realized that it was all too likely that everyone else she loved had met the same fate.

The idea that she might never see any of them again hit her like a wave of physical exhaustion, and for the first time, she
felt engulfed by a crushing sense of despair.

Then she opened her eyes.

Far in the distance, a wisp of dark smoke was curling up into the afternoon sky.
Were her eyes deceiving her?
It disappeared and her heart sank. Then another faint cloud appeared, unmistakable. It too disappeared. Then another tendril of black.

Back in Prin, this was the way she and Skar had always signaled each other.

Esther sat up, her heart pounding. The last smudge rose in the sky and was already fading; it was impossible to tell who had sent it or if it was a deliberate sign.

Esther forced herself to avert her gaze so that no one would notice what she was staring at. When she looked back a moment later, the sky was once again clear. Still, Esther felt buoyed by an irrational surge of hope.

Maybe her people were alive, after all
.

And if they could stay alive, then so would she
.

A
S WORD SPREAD, MORE
O
UTSIDERS BEGAN ARRIVING AT THE
D
ISTRICT
.
They traveled from miles around, all seeking the same thing:

They came for the potion that would guarantee them life
.

Each morning before the rotating glass doors were even unlocked, they congregated outside. Once they were allowed in, those who had known in advance to wear white or black robes took their patient place among the worshippers. Others had to wait to purchase them from Saith's assistants, using items they had Gleaned or glass to pay for them. Only then were they allowed to join the line of chanting, bowing petitioners that by the first light of day was already snaking
its way through the main hall.

The faithful waited to visit Saith in her altar, the structure on the ground floor that had once been a fountain. Sitting in a chair made of black mesh with metal legs that spread like a giant silver claw atop black wheels, she alone was uncloaked. With her shaved head and oversize black T-shirt that fit her like a dress, the girl priestess looked even younger than usual, surrounded by towering guards and a hooded assistant.

By her feet was a bucket, half-filled with bright blue liquid.

Once in her presence, a worshipper would bow low, chanting. Saith dipped what looked like an immense spoon in the vessel and scooped out some of the fluid. She would present it to the one who knelt before her; he or she would drink from it as Saith murmured the same words over and over:

“Live to get old.”

The follower swallowed deeply. He or she would then turn from the altar, chin wet and eyes gleaming with desperate hope. Then each would stumble away, chanting loudly and bowing before joining the others:

“Forgive us, Saith. Clean us, Saith. Heal us, Saith. Save us, Saith.”

The sound of prayer,
Gideon thought with irritation,
was as insistent as the droning of bees
.

Though he was a full level away and his door was shut and locked, he could still hear the faraway murmur, rhythmic and pulsating. Even when he managed to block out the sound for a few moments, Gideon remained all too aware of the worshippers, hundreds of them.

Gideon had thought from the beginning that Saith's religion was a clever way to fool and manipulate the gullible; yet it had secretly made him uneasy. He sensed that her cult, like the money system, hung on unquestioned belief and as a result was fundamentally unsound. He had been horrified to find out exactly what Saith was now promising: not merely her blessings, but long life, if they drank her concoction.

With more and more people flocking to the little priestess each day, begging for sips of her supposedly magical liquid, it was only a matter of time before they decided to test its power. That moment would come with the next rainstorm, and after that, Saith's fervent believers would start to sicken and die. Gideon didn't like to imagine what would then happen to her, the District, or the entire life they had set up for themselves.

More and more it occurred to Gideon that Saith had begun to believe her own words: that the blue concoction she mixed from paint and clean water would actually protect people from the disease. That she was universally beloved. That she was immortal. He rarely spoke to her anymore, so he wasn't certain. For although they were still business partners, the boy now realized that Saith was becoming too unstable to trust.

And so Gideon had begun to form a change in plans.

According to reports, construction of the new building was going well; Gideon was due to visit the following day. He would have his boys drive the slaves to finish at least a section of the garden as soon as possible.

What Gideon now planned for the new space was a secret
he shared with no one: that along with a few trusted guards, he would inhabit it alone.

Saith was driving the District toward disaster: that much was clear.

Gideon planned to be long gone by the time it happened.

By the light of a single torch, Nur wadded up the cloth once more and scrubbed at the floor. The last of the worshippers had left, and now the arduous part of her day began: polishing the central hall of the District so that it would look pristine again by morning.

The girl had to work extra hard to get the marble surface spotless, leaning in with all of her weight. The harsh cleaning paste dried out her hands and made them crack and bleed. Within minutes, her back and arms were aching, and her knees bit into the hard ground as she leaned forward.

To rest, Nur sat back for a moment on her heels. From habit, she reached up to push the heavy tumble of dark locks away from her sweating face. Her hand touched nothing but air, for of course, her head had been shaved weeks before. Even though she rarely indulged any feelings of self-pity, thinking about her lost hair gave her a slight pang. Lowering her hood, the girl gazed at herself in the surface of one of the polished silver legs that supported Saith's chair.

Her reflection ballooned back at her, and Nur had to tilt her head to and fro until she could get a fair picture of how she looked.

What she saw made her cry out.

Without the lush and glossy cascade of dark brown that had once softened her features, her ears now stuck out in a ludicrous way. Her eyes looked too big and her chin too pronounced. When Nur touched her ashy cheek in despair, she saw how ugly her hand was: withered and dry, like a claw.

She did not even bother examining her figure, which all males used to stare at with desire, even Gideon. How they used to fight for her attention! Ever since she was young, her beauty had given her a feeling of power, and as a result, Nur had always felt in charge of her dealings downstairs, no matter how much the other girls looked down on what she did.
They were only jealous,
she thought with momentary spite. Yet now, she knew that no boy would ever look at her again. Thanks to Saith, she had become flat and bony, and old beyond her years.

Nur was not aware that tears were running down her face, tears of grief and anger. She was so busy peering at this nightmarish self in the silvery metal, she didn't hear the person approaching from behind. Then a sound made her turn.

A cloaked figure stood still, its head cocked.

“Oh,” it said. “I didn't know it was you.”

It was Eli.

Embarrassed, Nur wiped her face with her sleeve and started to lift her hood to once more cover her face.

“Leave it,” he said. “It's nice to see you again.”

Nur gave a damp smile. Because of the separation of the sexes, she was no longer permitted to speak to any boy. If Nur and Eli were caught right now, they would be subject to harsh punishment.

Yet Nur had not seen Eli in many weeks and had considered him a friend—one of the few she had—when they both worked downstairs. It had saddened and bewildered her that he drank so much proof; it turned him into a pathetic relic of a person, and she wondered why he had allowed that to happen. Many nights, she had had to physically roust him from his chair and help him stagger outside and back to his room.

Yet now something had changed.

He looks different,
she thought.
Sober, clear-eyed, and kind
. “It's nice to see you, too.”

She made room on the ledge of the fountain and the two sat side by side. Without asking, Nur extinguished the torch, and both of them kept their voices low; that way, perhaps they would be able to detect anyone before they themselves were spotted.

Even so, the two friends talked at first about trivial things, relatively safe topics: new people who had come to the District, the quality of the food for sale, the shortage of sheets to sell the worshippers.

Then Eli mentioned his new job.

Nur kept her head down as Eli told her about his responsibilities and how he alone determined the fate of dozens of criminals every day. He spoke slowly at first, as if fearing her judgment. He described the people who came before him: thieves, blasphemers, the unclean.

Then Eli fell silent, as if gathering courage. In one breath, he described how he had had to sentence Esther to death and then kill her himself.

Noticing that the boy was trembling, Nur gave a sympathetic murmur and placed a hand on his arm. The news was no surprise; she had been in the room when the message had been delivered to Saith. Still, Eli clearly felt the need to confess. “Don't blame yourself,” Nur said. “You had to do it.”

Eli nodded. He seemed to want to say something more about the execution, but when Nur turned a questioning look to him, he shook it off.

Eli explained that often he was left alone now, in the court. Without guards supervising his actions and reporting them back to Saith and Gideon, he had been free to make more and more decisions on his own. That afternoon, for example, he had sentenced a boy who had been accused of stealing a rotten squash that had been left unattended.

The child was no more than five.

Nur shot Eli an incredulous look. “But that not stealing. Besides, he too little to know any better.”

“I know.”

“So what you do?”

Eli hesitated. Glancing around, he lowered his voice even more. “I was supposed to send him to a work detail.”

Nur frowned. “Make him a slave?”

Eli shook his head. “I couldn't. So I told him not to do it again. Then, when no one was looking, I set him free.” He sighed. “If she finds out, though . . .”

There was silence. In the darkness, Nur heard herself speak. “I seen her mix the water.”

Eli shot her a questioning look.

“Saith,” Nur explained. “I seen her mix the water. She use a can of something blue. Ain't nothing magic about what she does.”

Nur knew she was saying things she shouldn't, accusations that would get her executed if anyone were to find out. Before now, she couldn't trust anyone with her suspicions. Yet this boy who held such power had confided in her. She couldn't help herself; it had been so long since she had unburdened herself to anyone, and the relief she felt was almost physical.

Then Eli spoke again. He didn't sound scandalized or angry; he lowered his voice to a whisper and said something even more dangerous. “So what should we do about it?”

Nur gave a start and grabbed Eli's hand to silence him; she thought she heard something. Her heart pounding in terror, she kept still. The noise came again, and this time it was for real.

One of Saith's guards was walking across the lobby, a lit torch held high. “Who there?” he shouted.

But Nur and Eli had both sprung to their feet. By the time the guard reached the fountain, there was no sign that anyone had been there.

“Girl!”

Nur appeared at the doorway. She saw that Saith was alone, lying facedown on her bed. She was leafing through a thin book filled with colorful images:
a magazine
.

Since she had begun working for her, Nur spent most of her waking time with the girl priestess. She slept in an adjoining
room, prepared her food, and attended to her throughout the day. Saith was not so much cruel as utterly unaware of the older girl's presence. Nur was nothing more to her than a piece of furniture or a utensil: something to be used and otherwise ignored. As a result, Saith was utterly unselfconscious in her presence—which meant that Nur got to see her as she really was, not as she pretended to be.

Now Saith looked at pictures in the magazine, shifting to get comfortable. With fresh clarity, Nur saw that the priestess was nothing more than a child, willful and spoiled. She threw tantrums when she didn't get her way; she was vindictive and vengeful, remembering the smallest slights long after anyone else would have moved on.

Yet Nur had to admit that the child was clever, too. She understood how frightened everyone was: afraid of water, of earthquakes, of the disease. Of dying young. So she had created a religion based on fear.

Without bothering to look up, the little girl now indicated a table across the room,covered with small bottles.

“Try something new tonight,” she said.

Every few days, Nur was responsible for grooming Saith. She was ordered to use the creams and lotions that had once filled the shelves of one of the stores downstairs, supplies that were now kept locked up and reserved for Saith alone.

Nur examined the bottles, uncapping each and sniffing the contents. There were dozens of them, smelling of flowers and fruit. She chose a new one and approached Saith, who was already stretched out on the bed.

Nur stood over her. Although she knew guards kept watch outside the door, she and Saith were alone. As she opened the jar, she gazed down at the younger girl, the person who had not only taken away her youth and beauty, but also kept her as a virtual slave.

As she poured some lotion into her hands and rubbed her palms together to warm it up, the fragrant aroma of blossoms rose in the air. Saith looked oddly defenseless, waiting for her anointing to begin. Her pale and fragile limbs were like twigs, and her neck was like the stalk of a plant.

Without being aware of it, Nur flexed her fingers. Working so hard, she had grown strong; her body, once so soft and curved, was now as lean and taut as a boy's. Her arms and hands were especially muscled now; they could crush and twist.

It would be so easy,
Nur suddenly thought.

Trembling, she pulled back. Instead, she placed her hands on the soles of Saith's feet. Then she began to rub the lotion in, gently and methodically.

“That good,” said Saith.

Nur let out her breath; only now did she realize she had been holding it in. She continued to work in her methodical way, massaging cream over the girl before finally wiping it off with a soft cloth.

Lastly, she helped the little girl back into her T-shirt. She did not need to be told what to do next.

Nur went to the door and without speaking or making eye contact, signaled to a guard, who nodded and disappeared around a corner. Within minutes, he returned, carrying
something in a wooden crate. He handed it to the girl, who brought it into the room and set it on the floor where Saith was already waiting.