Page 11

6

TRACT OF CHAINS

S truggling against one's fate is the essential tragedy of humanity. Only through endless innovation and adaptation can we ever hope to survive.

~ The Initial Premise, Professor Hladen Kamen

* * *

The chains bit into Esterra’s wrists with sharp insistence. Her hands were numb from loss of blood. The skin below them bulged grotesquely. Her right arm felt nothing but the pull of her weight on the joints, desiccated from the elbow down to the hand. They had placed a rough stone under her feet so that her hands would not develop gangrene from cut circulation. Their thoughtfulness did little to appease her rage.

She had not seen the tract. Somewhere near the end of the last hollow, some arsehole had clubbed her in the head with a rock. When she woke, chains of black metal held her suspended against the grimy wall of a dimly lit room. Dark wooden beams as thick as her torso held up the ceiling, and grey pillars with faded carvings were placed randomly throughout. Piles of similar chains lay scattered about the stained wooden floor.

A deep, steady sound thrummed through the entire structure. With each beat, dust sifted down between the planks of the ceiling. Little piles of the stuff formed across the floor. The chains around her wrists vibrated along with the throbbing sound.

Her first attempt to use the licht had brought an intense burning pain through her entire right arm and shoulder. It had almost knocked her senseless, the sudden intensity of it numbing her mind till all she knew was that pain. As her mind returned, she came to the conclusion that the metal used somehow negated the licht. Memories of a dark god flickered through her mind, vanishing as quickly. She used her shoulders to pull at the chains, but they merely rattled in mockery.

She had initially thought the chains to be steel and was utterly shocked at the abundantly wasteful use of the precious metal. On closer observation, she noted the black colour was not painted on, but a quality of the actual metal itself. She had never seen such characteristics in all her travels. Nor could she recall a substance which prevented her from using the licht. Her magic cut through beast and stone alike, yet this mysterious substance completely voided it. Despite hating the licht, she felt the first trembling tremors of real terror building in her heart at the realisation that her last resort had been taken from her. She was completely defenceless.

Deformed men clad in threadbare loincloths brought her water throughout the day. It was brackish and dirty, but any moisture was welcome in the dry heat that plagued that tract. Clouds of dust blew into the building through the open doorway, covering everything in a red-hued film. The bare feet of her captors left prints in it. Some had six toes. Others had none.

As the first night fell, they placed a guard in the doorway. He had clearly eaten food contaminated by licht. His skull had warped, placing one bulbous eye in the side of each temple, like a human frog. His ears had shrivelled into a barely distinguishable mess at the base of his neck. A curved club with metal knobs screwed into the bulk of it hung by a cord from his waist, dark brown blood dried in the grooves and crevices. The wooden grip was well-worn.

“Why am I imprisoned?” Esterra asked the figure. The odd white glow from outside the doorway cast the deformities in harsh clarity, like half-molded clay hacked at by a child with a dull blade. The figure didn’t respond to her query, and she realised he was likely deaf. She jolted the chain around her good arm. He blinked in response. Not deaf, but well-trained. Or stupid. Either way, she was not going to get anything worthwhile out of the man.

She could smell the sweet-bitter tang of isyapi in the air, a hallucinogenic root which grew in even the most desolate tracts, if tended carefully. A few moments later, the man drew a small piece of the root from one pocket and chewed on it, smiling in mindless satisfaction. She grimaced as he spat a glob of phlegm into one corner. She had never met an isyapi user who held any concern for the rest of humanity. They were a selfish bunch, only helping those who offered them their next stash of the damned root. It would dissolve their mind but not their muscles, making them perfectly dependent slaves for manual labour.

Esterra’s arms weighed heavier with each passing hour. With her feet planted on the stone, she pulled first at one chain, then at another. Most things in Verpace were ancient and worn. Metalwork was pitted with rust, wood was decayed or filled with termite holes, tools were repaired almost beyond any practical use. Almost everything had been scarred in some way, by fire, or battle, or water. Every relic of the old world carried a history, tales that few would hear and fewer understand. But these chains were solid, almost new. The bolts that held them to the wall were of the same strength. They barely budged with each new struggle. The pain tore through her arms with each attempt. Her muscles were weakened by the lack of food and loss of blood from her wounded head. Exhaustion racked her bones to the very marrow. Sleep took her as she stood.

When she woke, the eerie glow of the night had been replaced by the blazing scarlet of the dying sun. The deep thrum had not changed in the least. Another twisted human had replaced her guard. This one carried a spear with a cruel, multi-pointed blade of black metal, vicious and malformed as its bearer. The guard appeared to be female, by the shape of the hips and chest, though the high number of mutations in the denizens of this stars-forsaken tract made it difficult to be certain. Most women in Esterra’s place would have sought compassion in a female guard. Esterra knew better. An enemy was an enemy. Sex did not enter into it. And for the women of Verpace, such pleadings from a subordinate invariably led to only greater pain.

For a while, as she hung suspended from the chains, her hand growing numb until she moved it and returned the circulation, her mind wandered without leash and grew numb as well. She pondered whatever random thing slipped into her mind. Did this tract provide metal to the rest of Verpace? But she had never seen the black element in any of her travels till now. They must craft it solely for their own purposes, however nefarious or bland those might be, or they served a select clientele. There were yet such bastions of civilisation and order, usually built around industry. The weavers of Alamathéa, who produced and traded in cotton, wool, and flax cloth. The bankers in the fortress of Koll, smelting the talens which most of Verpace used, just beside the Circle. The herders in the distant Parthenian Tract had grown in power of late, but their rise had led to invading bands that threatened to ravage and destroy their progress. The last Esterra had heard from there was less than comforting.

At one point, the mutated guard pulled back the shutters to the large window. Esterra’s curiosity was not quite dead yet, and she looked out. The all-too-familiar white glow of the licht emanated from somewhere within a wide, circular stone hole. A platform of heavy wood covered most of it. Hundreds of people, all twisted into various shapes, worked in the wooden structures and on the platform. Tall, spindly buildings hung precariously on the tract’s high walls, lit with braziers and the same white light. Chains hung everywhere, pulling crates and boxes to various levels of the structure. Smoke poured from crude chimneys of black metal, and Esterra understood the deep thrum that reverberated through the tract. Machinery. The people here had found an old forge, where metal had once been turned into tools and weapons. The black chains came from the walls of the tract. The dull grey of the tawil was splattered with wide veins of the metal, glistening darkly in the firelight.

As she watched, a giant cauldron made of the same black, pitted metal was brought to the edge of the great stone circle. It took four men to tip it, and Esterra winced as pure licht splashed out. The maniacs were collecting the stuff, holding it in a basin somewhere far below. Most of the world shirked the magic, and understandably so. The slightest touch brought severe damage to whatever part of the body with which it came into contact. There were very few who managed to tame it as Esterra had, so few that they were mostly myth or fabrication. Most who were deformed by the magic gave in to the ever-present need to unleash it within moments, and were consumed instantly, succumbing to the licht’s sheer force of will. Others died to more natural causes, such as an arrow sent from a non-lichtridden who didn’t want the cursed one to come near.

But the mutated maniacs of this tract collected the licht. Esterra could not even begin to comprehend that level of insanity. Or was it desperation? A final, last effort to reach out to some higher power, even one as cruel and lethal as the licht? Insanity and faith were indistinguishable inside some sickened minds. Esterra had met people of both types. Some reasoned their way to a logical end, embracing a religion only when they convinced themselves that any and all flaws in reasoning had been eradicated. Others madly dashed into a false faith, grasping so-called miracles and apparent saints in an orgiastic glee of fervour. Esterra chose to avoid both, when possible, but any beliefs taken to an extreme

Alone with her thoughts, she hung from the chains till noon. She tugged occasionally on the chains, the shackles biting into the skin of her wrists. The various guards did not notice, or if they did, they felt secure in their handiwork. Esterra acknowledged they had good reason.

By noon, the stifling heat of the sun flooded even the shadows of the prison. A very tall man entered the room, gangly and absolutely hairless. Dressed in dark robes covered in dust, numerous trinkets suspended on thick chains about his neck, he was clearly some leader or priest. The man nodded at the female guard in passing, and approached Esterra. She saw he had deep scars on his throat, made by a blade, giving his entire being a look of crookedness, beyond mere licht mutation or deformity. A third eye peered blindly out at the world from the side of his deformed head, pale and useless. His natural ones were a frigid blue, the whites turned an ugly yellow by the dust of the tract or some ague. He leered at her, crooked teeth displayed in an even more crooked line. She refused to show any sign of repugnance or displeasure. Emotion was weakness. Weakness was death.

Then she spotted her bronze knife slung on his belt beneath his filthy robes and ground her teeth. She would take that back and wash the curved blade with his blood if the opportunity presented itself.

“You’re one of the more beautiful visitors to our tract,” he said, voice thick and sweaty, a weird counterpart to his skeleton figure. “Not here to work, and not here for the blessings. You’re blessed already.” His eyes glided down her body. She knew little was hidden by the single layer of clothing they had left on her. “So why would you be here, unless called by the blessing to carry more blessings. Mmm.”

Esterra looked him in his jaundiced eyes, face dead of emotion. Her tongue stuck to the waterless roof of her mouth. The man continued.

“Have you ever seen a pregnant blessed one?”

Esterra clenched her jaw, the only sign of the deep horror that suddenly flooded her mind.

“Aye, me neither. The light carries the blessed off too quickly, in its eagerness to grant them peace. Thankfully we have found the black metal, what our predecessors called pesium , which grants us the power to worship it properly, to lessen its haste. And I had a dream, a prophecy when you came into our home.

“In the dream, you carried a truly blessed one,” he said, eyes wide with passion. “Truly blessed, one conceived of the light and carried to term. What blessings such a one would bring to the world. I have read in the old books of such a one. Saviour, they call him. Redeemer. The light of the world. Do you think the ancients left us those books by chance? No. The light protected them, brought them to us, granted us the sweet joy to read them. A child of light, to bring true blessings to our sorrowful world.”

The priest walked to the open doorway, addressing the crowds outside. Esterra watched the twisted man ramble, incoherent sentences merging into the one very coherent fact, which he was careful to enunciate with great fervour.

“Tonight, we shall administer blessings on all of our guests. We shall have them arranged before you, a fitting feast as the child of light is conceived. The prophecy has told us she shall be with child, and that child shall be the saviour! The blessings in her arm will run through to the womb, and our saviour will be born. Praise the light for guiding her to us!”

The crowd outside roared in adulation. Esterra refused to react to the vile speech.

“The pesium-forged chains will hold you till then,” the man turned back to her. “This dark metal has a way of gripping the licht like a beast’s talons on prey caught for its young, firmly yet without harm. We want you healthy and fertile.”

The priest ran one hand across her thigh. Esterra pulled back, bile rising in her throat along with an all-too-familiar fury. A man from long ago had touched her in just such a way when she was barely more than a child. He had lost his hand for the foul act, but this time she was defenceless. Thankfully the man did not linger. He withdrew his hand, seemingly confident that he would have his way in good time. She choked the fury down, but it only settled as a sick despair in the pit of her stomach, eating away at her insides like acid.

Smiling, the madman left. Two guards entered, with cooked meat and water for her. They complained as they fed her, rough hands shoving bits of unidentifiable fleshed into her mouth. She wanted none of it. When one of their fingers came too close, she bit down, hard. All that got her was a fist in the gut. The shackles bit into her arms as she tried to curl into a ball around the pain. When it passed, they resumed shoving the food into her mouth. She did not try biting again.

“Wants her strong, he says,” said the first guard.

“Says she needs to survive,” the second grumbled. “Why her, of all those who come through here?”

“It’s goatshit. She’s eating better than us, and just to be his toy.”

“But do you think it’s true? What he said about the saviour?”

“Damned if I know. All I see is a waste of good meat.”

“We’ll have blessed meat tonight, though. Not the mangy four-legged creatures from outside. Real blessed meat.”

After they had half choked her with the food, and splashed water in her face in an approximation of a drink, they left. She hung limp, trying to lick the last drops of liquid off her lips. Stars above, please tell me the meat was cooked. And not human. I can’t afford to be sick now. Her gut twisted, but the forced-meal stayed down, and she felt energy and something she dared not recognise as hope spreading through her muscles. The cuffs chewed at her wrists, a sharp reminder. The impending night screamed bloody terror to the fore of her mind, relentless in its vision. She had never let a man touch her in such a way.

“And tonight will be no different,” she whispered. As the hours passed, she pulled on the two chains, numb fingers wrapped around the cool iron links. She had to pull from the shoulder on her right, as her forearm and fingers were lichtridden there. She imagined the links stretching, opening, snapping. She envisaged the bolts in the walls coming loose. With all her hope, she dreamed of breaking free, removing the cursed black pesium and escaping this twisted hell of mutants.

But as the afternoon stretched toward evening, her hope shrivelled. The bloody sun dipped behind the tawil, and the little patch of red light on the wall vanished, to be replaced with the cool white of the moon. The last vestiges of her hope died and buried itself in deep despair. As the frenzied cries of gathering mutants rose outside, her soul began to whimper in terror. She pulled harder on the chain. Her chafed skin vented shrill shrieks of agony, blood trickling down from her wrists to her elbows. The screams outside rose in pitched fervour as the demented priest gave another sickening sermon. The night was filled with the evil prayers to whatever god was being worshipped in this godforsaken tract. Perhaps prayers to the licht itself.

The priest said something, and the crowd fell silent as a tomb.

Four guards entered the room. They hooked the chains from the wall with specially made rods. They held them up high, so her arms remained extended. One guard removed the stone on which Esterra stood, leaving her hanging by the chains, suspended by the rods. Her wrist moaned in deep anguish. The pain threatened to consume her, to drag her down into blissful oblivion. Part of her begged permission to surrender, to let the following events blur into darkness. But a deeper, stronger part refused to submit. She would not go without a fight. She must stay conscious.

As she was carried out, she noticed that one of the panels the chains had been attached to had almost come free of the wall. The bolt had bent, and a few more pulls… A few more pulls and I would have been free. Her heart sunk, and fresh layers of despair overwhelmed her. I am dead.

She was carried outside, suspended by the poles. They chained her to two columns, with her feet firmly on cold stone. At least the pressure was off her wrist, and the shackles no longer dug into her flesh. She looked around from beneath heavy eyelids.

A vast crowd covered a large wooden platform which overhung a great pit. She was hung quite close to the edge. The tract stretched upwards around them, a circular crater circling the seemingly bottomless pit, with a white glow climbing up the sides. Esterra could not see over the edge, but she recognised the slow, sensual glow of the licht. There had to be enough to fill a small lake, to create such a powerful glow. No wonder everyone here was mutated in so horrifically.

Six other captives were placed in a line before her, facing the crowd. Hushed whispers sifted through the masses. The rope tying the prisoners was held at each end by two burly mutants, whose muscles appeared larger by the shrunken size of their heads. The prisoners were crying and begging for mercy, but went quiet as the priest approached. The crowd went deathly silent.

“This night will be remembered through the tales our grandchildren’s grandchildren tell.” The man left a dramatic pause, let the effect of his nonsense sink into the dulled brains of his following, and continued. “Before you stands a blessed woman. The six guests will be blessed through and through soon enough, and you shall feast! But that woman has united with the light. She is true-blessed. And tonight she will carry a child of light. A true fusion of the two natures. A saviour to us, the suffering of Verpace!”

The crowd on the wooden platform erupted with exultation that would suffer no logic. As the screams and shouts grew in volume, Esterra yanked on the chains. Her left arm and wrist hurt with the strain, but her lichtridden right arm was completely dead, and she felt the effort only through the bicep and shoulder. The rattle of the metal links vanished beneath the raucous roar of the worshippers, but the chain seemed as strong as always. In her heart she was sure that it was useless. Her soul offered the self-pity of despair. But her mind had noted the weakness of the metal in the cell. She refused to succumb to the terrible act that the madman threatened to visit upon her.

A short mutant near the pit drew a thin chain attached to a pulley. The squeaking and trundling racket brought the crowd to a respectful, almost religious quiet. The only sounds echoing through the tract were the unoiled pulley wheels, the rattle of Esterra’s chains, and the whimpering of the six captives. Their prayers, offered in at least three different dialects, were brushed aside by the insistent squeal of the pulley. Each turn brought about more silence in the hundreds of mutants, who all faced the squeaking contraption.

A weathered wooden elevator reached the platform, pulled up from below by the pulleys. The latticed door opened and two tall and lanky mutants disembarked. They carried a covered black pot between them. Esterra knew that, but for the chains, her right arm would be screaming in wild exuberance. Licht . The priest approached the two, and removed the lid. The white glow from within brought a unified sigh from the crowd.

“Now watch as we bless this bounty, and prepare for the breaking of our fast,” the priest intoned.

The pot was carried to the first captive. A hand pulled back the young man’s head, forced the mouth open. Esterra squirmed as the licht was poured. The choked screaming only last one painful moment. Death came quickly, and the desiccated body dropped.

The other prisoners screamed.

Their terror was drowned, each voice dying in a gurgling shriek. Six corrupted bodies lay under the cold moon, and the ravenous mob salivated like wild animals at the kill. Esterra watched as the bodies were cut loose and thrown into the crowd. As the psychos tore the corpses limb from limb and threw pieces to those behind, she struggled against the chains. The chains clinked. Her muscles strained harder, rippling beneath her dark skin. Her eyes remained locked on the back of the priest’s head, who faced the crowd with hands raised in a mockery of blessing. His dark robes were only one pace away. Over the crack of bones and the shouts of combat as the frenzied cannibals fought, Esterra’s chains rattled louder. Veins throbbed across her neck and forehead as she pulled with all her might. She gripped the chain with her good hand, the slick of her sweat and the gristle of dirt on the chains turning to paste beneath her fingers. The twisted evil of the tract’s inhabitants filled her with desperate rage. She let the rage descend into true hatred.

A link of the right chain snapped free. Esterra gasped, caught herself, and spun her arm out using the muscles in her back and shoulder. The blood-streaked chain hurtled out in a circular motion, around the priest. Before the man could turn, Esterra caught the chain with her left hand and pulled the priest tight against her chest. The dark links of the chain bit into his throat. He tried to choke words out. Esterra was not interested in words. She pulled harder, till her shoulder hurt and the shackle dug deep into her lichtridden arm. The metal crushed the cartilage of the priest’s larynx, and blood seeped through the broken skin. She smelled his bowels release. Her fingers gripped the chain more tightly, pulling till her shoulders threatened to pop from their joints, till her very bones ached with the strain, and even then she pulled harder. Everyone in this tract would die this night.

Everyone.

The feeding mob went silent. Their priest was in the hands of their blessed priestess. A theological conundrum. Yet who were they to argue matters of religion? She was blessed, he was not. Indeed, he had proclaimed her powers himself. So as Esterra pulled the links of the chain deeper into the flesh of his throat, as the links dug into the muscle and cartilage and the priest flailed his limbs and cried in panic, not one of his rabid followers stepped forward. The dying man slapped weakly at her face. For answer she bit into his ear, ripped it off with a bloody smile, red streaks running down her chin. She spat it to the side as his body finally went limp. With a final wrench of the chain, she broke his neck. As the corpse slid down, she grabbed his belt, pulled it loose. That’s my knife, you bastard. The dead priest dropped to the stone lip of the pit, then slipped over the edge and fell into the very licht he had used as the weapon of his ambition.

Esterra slumped, lungs heaving in great gasps of air, left arm still chained to the pillar, the belt dropped by her feet. A ravenous mob of hundreds stood on the platform before her, separated only by a small gap. The air between them was electric with expectation. Their priest was dead, so now what? Esterra Stake, tractwalker, exile, lichtridden goddess, rose to her feet. She steadied herself and locked eyes with the two burly mutants.

“Unchain me.”

The two did not move. They stared at her, uncertainty plastered across their deformed features. She remained silent, face stern as ancient stone, unquestioning in her authority, her glare firm. The command needed no second utterance. A few moments later both chains fell at her feet, and the shackles with them. She stood as a free woman once again. The two giants took up position at her sides, very cleverly assuming their rightful place in the new hierarchy.

Esterra breathed in deep, filling her lungs, quelling her panicked heart. As the adrenaline vanished, she gripped the hatred in her heart. The overwhelming rage had served its purpose, and she let it cool. But the hatred would remain. She held it close, refusing the calls from her good graces to let it go. To walk away. She shook her head slowly. The crowd simmered before her, covered in blood and steaming lichtridden intestines, faces expectant, hungry for the next great spectacle. She was their priestess now, blessed by the licht. If she did not take up the mantle, another would, and this fetishistic madness would only grow stronger from the rebirth, like a mutant hatchling feeding on its stillborn predecessor. They would simply elect another leader, or one would emerge from the pack to take the reins in hand. There was no redemption for these creatures.

They were no longer human.

The licht struck out in a vicious flash. Her two bodyguards fell, heads rolling, blood leaving a hissing trail in the air. Esterra laughed as every member of the crowd dropped to its knees, smiles on their bloody lips. They worshipped the licht, even when it took their own. They bowed down till their heads touched the bloodstained wood, hundreds offering prostrate worship to their new queen.

“Be damned, one and all,” she whispered.

Her lichtridden arm transformed into a mockery of the chain that had held it, links of white intertwined into a weapon of infinite wrath. Its song roared within her soul. Whipping about in unadulterated glee, the light flicked through the supports of the platform without resistance. The wood hissed, splintered, cracked. Esterra pulled the light back into her arm with a growl. Thankfully, it obeyed. Maybe it realised when it had an ally in its host, appreciated how rarely Esterra actually desired its power. She tried to close her mind to the licht, but she had no idea if it had any impact. As the platform creaked and shifted under the feet of hundreds of mutants, she bared her teeth. Her canines, still coated in the priest’s blood, glistened in the pale light of the moon above and the lake of licht below. When the horrific sounds of the cracking and breaking wood finally reached their sickened minds, it was too late for the mob. The great platform shifted on its compromised supports, slid for a moment with a terrible grind of wood against splintering wood, and then plummeted into the abyss. Esterra listened to the screams, holding the ice-cold hatred in a vicelike grip.

She looked down.

A thousand limbs flailed in the lake of licht down below, hundreds of paces below. The licht was glaringly bright as it consumed them all. The screams echoed up, and she fell to one knee, puking up her last meal. Wiping off her lips, she stumbled back from the edge, the screams still echoing.

“They are happy,” she said to no one, eyes wide. “They praise me even now. Stars above, what madness has taken this place?”

The licht in her arm throbbed, begging to be released. She gripped her right bicep with her hand, squeezing it hard.

“Stay down. What are you? You think we’re just food, your playthings? You created this evil, this madness.” But even as her hoarse dying echoes rose from the gaping pit, her words rang false. Humans held a great capacity for cruelty. They needed nothing to force them, no encouragement. As Esterra watched the roiling licht consume the last survivors far below, blissful screams shattering into final agony, her guts lurched. She threw up the last remnants of her meal, and then dry-retched. I needed no encouragement. I answered the evil without mercy. But she shook her head. That was not quite right either. She felt dizzy, exhausted, depressed. They had certainly needed punishment for their crimes, and someone needed to end their barbaric sacrifices to the licht. It was only just. But she feared herself, her own need for vengeance, and the deep hatred that burned in her veins. She feared her capacity for violence against the people of Verpace.

The lonely tracts near the Shoreless Sea, where only mad beasts and madder hermits dwelt, beckoned often to her. At times she considered vanishing into those barren wastes and wild, oozing ruins, to go beyond them into even more desolation and solitude, where no one would want to break her, and she would have no need to break them. Out there where no one lived nor could live, perhaps she would find her meaning, an answer to all the suffering of her life thus far, a place where those she had once loved still breathed and spoke of old memories over mugs of steaming tea beside a warm hearth. A place that reflected the eternal longing of the soul and met all its wishes. And she knew in that same moment as she wished for it that it was all a fantasy, a trite daydream, yet it did not vanquish the want, and the desire for that peace burned even more fiercely in defiance of the world withholding it from her, pure, raging spite against that bitter denial.

Esterra leaned back against a wall, recovering her composure. She found her calabash water gourd, and had her curved bronze knife, but everything else was lost, likely squirrelled away in the various nooks and crannies these maniacs had called homes. It would take some time to search through them all. She swore under her breath, but it was more in relief than anything. She was still alive.

She sucked at her gourd, then splashed water across her skin. It cleaned the dust and sweat and blood from her mouth and face, but the slick foul taste of self-loathing remained. The screams in the pit had died away, faded away like the souls themselves. Only the quiet susurrations of the licht filled the night air. Its haunted sounds became too much for Esterra, and she set off to search the vast factories and hovels of the empty tract for her belongings.