The Dew of Flesh Page 7

  Chapter 7

  He was falling. A bump, and the creak of worn wooden wheels. The cart. Abass opened his eyes, and for a moment he saw nothing. Blindness seemed a possibility, but the thought felt so distant that it carried no fear, only detached observation. Sparks and ruddy light washed over him, then, and Isola’s face hovered over him.

  “Abass, can you hear me?” she whispered. The torchlight shifted, moving further away, and the movement sent dark shadows looming across her face.

  He tried to speak, but he couldn’t. Everything was too jumbled, too fragmentary. A moan escaped his lips, and Abass shifted as the pain burst back to life in his side.

  “Oh tair bless us,” Isola said. Her hand, cold as ice even through the cloth, touched his side. “They nearly killed you, Abass.” A sob. “You might be dying. What do I do?”

  Abass had waited so long to hear her voice. He didn’t want her to stop speaking.

  The cart hit another rut, and Abass’s head thumped against the wood. Darkness crawled up before him.

  Dimly, he heard his sister call his name again.

 

  Abass woke in darkness. Consciousness and pain slowly gathered themselves inside him. He forced himself to think past the mass of fire that seemed concentrated in his ribs and head. Slow breaths through gritted teeth.

  The ground under him was dirt. Not the Perch, then, he thought. Or another Sleeping Palace. The air smelled damp and close, thick in his mouth and lungs. The tang of human excrement. A prison, perhaps, but one shut up for years. Over the pounding in his head, Abass heard a dry, papery cough. Then another. Two more people, at least. Men, if it were possible to tell from a cough. Think, Abass told himself. Think!

  He realized he could make out parts of his surroundings. Abass reached out with one hand and felt a wall. Dirt, loose and crumbly under his fingers. He propped himself against it and rested his hot cheek against the soil. Light, so faint he had not noticed, shone above them, outlining the top of the wall against which Abass leaned.

  “The pits,” he said.

  Silence as the other, invisible people held their breath for a heartbeat.

  “Aye,” said a gruff voice. “You’re awake, then?”

  “If not,” Abass said, running his hands along the dirt, feeling for any change—for stone or metal—that would give a handhold. “If not, I’m having the worst tair-blessed dream of my life.”

  No answer.

  “I’m awake,” Abass said, trying not to sigh. Scribe would have appreciated the comment. Abass did not let himself dwell on that; he kept running his hands along the wall. Scribe was gone, Father take him. And Abass wouldn’t be responsible for anyone. He refused to be responsible for them.

  “Didn’t think you’d make it to the High Harvest,” the gruff-voiced man said. “You’re in a bad state, son.”

  “I’m not your son,” Abass said. “At least tell me your name, if I can’t see you.”

  “Lat,” the man said after a moment. “The others are Hash and Ramat.”

  “Keep your mouth shut,” a voice said. “You’ve got no right.”

  “We’re all going to the harvest, Hash,” Lat said. “No difference if the boy knows your name.”

  “I’ll need to know your names if we’re going to escape,” Abass said. “I can’t just say ‘you’ every time I need something.”

  Lat’s low chuckle broke the quiet. “Your head must be worse than I thought, boy.”

  “I’m not a boy,” Abass said.

  “You’re in the pits,” Lat said, his voice slow and careful. “Under the temple. One way in, one way out. No ladder. Guards. Tair bless me, they won’t even put enough of us in here so that we can stand on each other’s shoulders and get out. Not to mention that the High Harvest is, after all, an honor.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Hash said.

  “It is an honor,” a new voice said, almost dreamily. Ramat. “To be one with the gods-made-flesh, forever. Eternal life.”

  Someone spat. Abass would have put money on Hash.

  “Eternity or not,” Abass said, “I’ve got better things to do than become one with a god. Especially when that means dying.” Another swell of pain that left sweat along the back of his hands. “What can you tell me about this place?”

  “That you’re better off quitting now,” Lat said. “You’re just going to make yourself worse worrying at the walls, and when you do give up, it’ll be twice as bad. Look at Ramat here. Heart-of-stone, he clawed his fingers to ribbons trying to get up the wall. When he finally gave up, he turned into what you just heard. Plus, you make too much noise and the guards start tossing their own waste down here.”

  “Father take us,” Abass said. “How long have you been down here?”

  “Hard to say,” Lat said. “No light, you see.”

  “A week,” Hash said suddenly.

  “Maybe,” Lat said. “You’ve said that for a while now, though.”

  “No more than a week,” Hash said. “My . . . my patrons will be working out the last arrangements to have a slave take my place. It can’t be more than a week.”

  “See?” Lat asked.

  “And you?” Abass said. “What’s your madness? Cannibalism?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lat said. “Until you got here, I thought I was the sane one. Maybe I still am. You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Abass shook his head at the man, grateful for the darkness. He regretted the motion almost immediately. Purple-black spots flashed in front of his eyes. When his vision settled, Abass stood, his legs protesting the movement. He gasped as the movement jarred his injures ribs.

  “What are you doing?” Lat asked.

  Pain gripped Abass tight. He wanted to sink back down to the ground, to pass out, but he forced himself to remain standing—and he made himself stand upright, in spite of the fire that spread along his side. He paced the pit, ignoring Hash’s yelp of pain as he stepped on the other man’s hand. Abass realized, then, that he was barefoot. A quick check let him know he wore nothing more than his linens. He did not feel the cold. If anything, Abass felt hot. A fever, most likely. He moved along the perimeter of the cell, taking his time, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

  “Careful in the far corner,” Lat said. “That’s for a specific type of business.”

  Abass stumbled into the excrement even with the warning. He ground his teeth, humiliated and in pain, and reached out, trying to test the walls in the disgusting corner. Nothing there either. His frustration was building.

  Father take me, Abass thought. I’ve taken care of myself for years. I saved Scribe. Got Naja and Segi good and settled, and I keep them safe. I can get out of a pit.

  His head throbbed so that he could barely stand, but Abass found the far corner of the pit and straightened himself out. He took a deep breath, gauged the distance in his mind as best he could, and ran.

  Three paces. He thought. Three paces in every direction. That means two and jump.

  One. Two. He leapt.

  His face struck the dirt hard. Spots swam in front of his vision. He scrabbled at the dirt for purchase, but he couldn’t find the edge. Abass hit the ground, and a ripple of pain shot through his side. Everything was swimming around him, and it didn’t slow down. A part of him feared he had damaged his head permanently.

  “All right, boy?” Lat asked.

  Tears gathered in Abass’s eyes, partly from the loose dirt that had found its way in, partly from frustration.

  He crawled, rather than walked, back to the far corner. The scent from the nearby midden-heap seemed infinitely stronger this time. It washed over him.

  Taking shallow breaths, for his wounded side would not allow anything else, Abass regained his feet. He hunched over, though. His back hurt, and the scrapes on his face and nose burned. Three paces. He ran.

  Two and a half paces. He jumped.

  He hit the wall so hard that stars exploded in front of him. He felt his nose crack, and warm blood struck hi
s bare chest. His fingers found only dirt.

  Abass fell to the ground. His legs crumpled beneath him. His eyes burned, and his body shook with ragged jerks. Scribe had abandoned him. Isola was going to die. He had failed her again. And, perhaps the only piece of justice that the world afforded, Abass was going to die as well.

  “There, there,” Lat said. A calloused hand patted Abass’s shoulder. “It’s alright, boy. There can only be one sane man in each pit, I’ve heard. Don’t be hard on yourself.”