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by Jaymin Eve
It was such a short speech, but Emmy had been the one to deliver it, so it was enough to force a few cheers from the people. The rest were all still staring at me. Leader Graham seemed to give up on us, pointing to the side of the stage to dismiss us while he rambled on for a little bit longer about a few of the most legendary sols to ever ascend to Topia.
Emmy was laughing by the time the people cleared out. I mean really laughing. She was sitting on the stage, her knees brought up to cradle her face as she hung her head and veritably lost it. When she looked up, there were tears streaming down her face.
“I can’t believe our luck,” she told me. “I just can’t believe it. This was something I didn’t even dare to dream about. We’re going to Blesswood, Willa. Both of us. Together!” She started laughing again, and I started worrying about her sanity.
“Are you okay?” I asked, kneeling beside her, my hand on her back.
Immediately, she started sobbing. What the hell?
“I’ve been losing it inside my head,” she admitted between hiccupping sobs. “Ever since you got kicked out of school. You were so smart, you could have made it, but then … then it all came crashing down. I thought … I thought I’d have to say no, if I got chosen.”
I felt my own tears welling, then. I had to bite them back as I cuddled her into my arms. I stroked her silvery hair, muttering things that weren’t really things, like you’re fine, we’re fine, it’ll be fine. What I really wanted to say was that I was probably going to die. Literally. I was the least appropriate person to throw into a school of elite sols. If I pissed one of them off enough, they would send me to one of the temples to be sacrificed to the gods. No joke. I was probably going to die.
“We’re fine,” I repeated. “This is going to be amazing. A whole new life. Just you wait, Emmy.”
Within one sun-cycle, Emmy and I were standing on the edge of our village, single bag in hand, preparing for our big moment. Preparing to walk from the only home we’d ever known. I was leaving behind a mother who probably wasn’t even aware that I’d been chosen; she’d barely been present or conscious since our selection. I wasn’t sure she understood what had happened. Maybe she didn’t even know that Emmy and I were leaving. That we would never return. Blesswood dwellers didn’t come back to the outlying villages, despite what Emmy had promised—nope, they were destined for bigger and better things. Like being hogtied and sacrificed to the Gods for accidently tripping and punching the sacred balls of one of the sacred sols. Don’t think it couldn’t happen, because I was up to five cases this life-cycle alone. Torture. That was what my future had in store for me. I was going to be tortured.
The previous afternoon, after the ceremony, I had told Emmy that I couldn’t wait. That it was going to be fantastic. The best ever. Sign me up for two lifetimes, and then for an encore. But when the sky grew dark and there was nobody around to see my false enthusiasm, the terrors grew particularly dark and vivid. Each nightmarish scene depicted one of the millions of ways that I might inflict disaster onto the sols. Onto Blesswood.
I tried to tell myself that it would be fine. That the academy had been coasting along with a perfect reputation for too long anyway, and that a little tarnish would do it some good. Spice things up. As long as they didn’t use my blood to try and buff the stain …
Crowds swelled around us as we waited by the oldest piere tree for our transport cart to arrive. This huge, gnarled, ancient thing represented the most northern point of our village, where the two dirt roads intersected. One leading to Blesswood in the north, and the other leading to the last vestiges of civilisation in Minatsol. Beyond that … nobody really knew. Not a single person had ever travelled any further south than the last village and actually returned; and none of us were any wiser as to what lay in that most mysterious part of Minatsol. More death, I was sure. Or maybe it was paradise, and that was why nobody ever came back. The thing was … that was a pretty big gamble: death or paradise? Only two villages lay further from Blesswood than ours, and both struggled to grow from the land. Water was scarce, but their leaders had expressed on more than one occasion how grateful they were not to have me, so that was something.
Minatsol was set out in a ring-like pattern. The very centre was Blesswood. It was there that the most fertile of life was. Each circle that extended out grew worse and worse. We were in the seventh ring, and there were nine in total, that we knew of. Beyond that was the south road, and the gamble of death or paradise.
Glancing up, I let the sway of red and green-tinged leaves soothe me. We were in the middle of the hot season, but despite a scarcity of water, this old tree continued to provide shade and shelter. As the folk stories told it, this tree was from the time before. No one liked to talk much of the time before. I’m not sure any of the stories really truly remembered the true beauty of our world. Apparently, all of Minatsol—not just Blesswood—had once resembled Topia; which was said to be the most beautiful of all worlds. Not that any of us knew about the other worlds. We just assumed that they were out there. Somewhere. Like Topia.
“You ready for this, Will?” Emmy gripped her bag loosely, her other hand wound tightly through mine.
“How long do you think it’ll take mum to realise we’re gone?” I continued to scan the crowd. It was common for the village as a whole to send the Blesswood recruits off, but there was no sign of my dirty-blond, tired-faced, red-eyed matron.
Emmy’s silver hair slid across her cheek as the slightest of breezes lifted the strands. She looked extra pretty, having taken time and care with her appearance. I had worn my good shirt, and it was even mostly clean, except for a little sooty patch on the back from where I had accidently sat in the fireplace.
“Probably around the time she realises that her medical kits are full, and that my dinners have run out,” Emmy replied.
Yeah, my mother used those medical kits almost as much as I did, because believe it or not, there was another person out there capable of causing as much chaos as I did. She wasn’t born that way, though—not like me. She got there with the help of alcohol and low morals.
Noises swelled in the crowds, and I could see the transport cart slowly moving toward us. Yellow, ochre-coloured dirt kicked up beneath the four spoked wheels. It was believed that within the sacred walls of Blesswood, they had transport systems able to move without the help of bullsen—the huge, black, pointy-headed beasts that now pulled the approaching cart. It wasn’t called Blesswood for no reason, you see. The gods gifted them with magic and technology of the calibre that dwellers could only dream of. That must have been where the book on tar had come from: from a place where the reality was far beyond even our brightest sun-cycles.
Emmy started dragging me to the now-waiting transport, her grip on my hand tight with nervous energy. People reached out and touched us as we left. Dwellers were superstitious by nature and believed that these were the actions which would garner favour with the gods. This was why we served the sols the way we did—I mean, other than the fact that the sols would probably burn our villages to the ground if we didn’t. We wanted the gods to reward us, to see our use, to recognise our people. So when any of the dwellers were chosen to serve the sols, the others always made a show of their support. They hoped that eventually the dwellers would find themselves recognised as more than just the bottom rung of sentient life in our world.
I had never reached out to touch any of the previous dwellers, because I assumed differently. I was the bottom feeder of the bottom feeders, and if my eighteen life-cycles had taught me anything, it was that nothing ever changed. Dwellers would always be worthless to the world, and I would always be worthless to the worthless.
As if I’d summoned the accident by thought alone, my feet tangled in a rough section of brush by the side of the dirt road, and before Emmy could right my balance—no doubt the reason she’d chosen to utilise her crazy, muscle-man strength and manhandle me in the first place—the bag shot from my hand and hit the side of the cart. A cart wh
ich bore the very regal crest of Blesswood; the mark of the creator, the original God. His mark was a staff, with a spear-head made of silver. Always silver, because silver was the colour of the Creator. I’d heard, once, that all the gods were defined by certain colours, but the only part of that particular lesson that had actually stuck with me had been the fact that Death’s colour was black. It just seemed so … predictable. Where’s the creativity, gods? I didn’t see why Death couldn’t have pink. Or purple. What if he liked sparkles?
I was distracted from my thoughts as my bag dropped heavily into the dirt beside the cart, billowing up a plume of dust. An actual gasp was let out en-mass as the shock of what I’d just done wore off. Come on, people. They couldn’t be surprised, right? Did they think that by just being chosen, I’d suddenly emulate the grace of a sol? Well, that would have been nice, but I was a pragmatic sort of dweller. The clumsy curse was going nowhere, although I did take a moment to be grateful that I’d neither killed anyone, nor disabled the vehicle in a way that would render it completely useless.
“Willa,” Emmy hissed. “What the hell is in your bag?”
I took a closer look at the crest. There was now a dent in it, right in the centre. Knocking the pin-straight staff a little off-kilter. Whoops. Striding a few feet forward, dragging Emmy with me, I snatched my bag up again.
“I think it was the saucepan,” I whispered.
“Why is there a saucepan in your bag?” she asked, glaring at the bag in question.
“Won’t we need it to cook with?”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. I’d caught the start of her laugh. I brandished my bag at her, fully prepared to whack her with it—and the gathered people gasped, again.
Emmy only shook her head at me.
“How many strikes do you get before they bleed you?” I was half joking as we were forced to turn to the gathered villagers and wave.
She blinked a few times, her mouth opening and closing, before she was finally able to say, “It’s your own fault, Will. What did I tell you about walking?”
“That I should leave it to the experts,” I mumbled, trying to sound chastised.
The stark white of her skin was a little too pronounced, and I knew she feared for me, even though she was teasing me in the same way that she always had. I wasn’t the only one who had been kept up last night by visions of the many ways in which I would almost definitely be tortured. Dwellers might live simple, menial, task-driven lives—but it was reasonably safe in the villages. My curse was barely tolerated here, but there was nothing that could be done to actually get rid of me. Most dwellers figured that one sun-cycle soon, I would simply take care of the problem myself, by tripping into one of the spiked pits that bordered the village to protect us from wild animals, or accidentally stumbling into untamed bullsen territory. Pfft. Been there, done that, wasn’t even that close to dying.
“Come on.” Emmy dragged me the last few feet.
My bag was now being stored in the back by the guide … though not before he searched it suspiciously. He didn’t even open Emmy’s. Hardly surprising. One look at Emmy and it was pretty clear that the most illegal thing she would be capable of smuggling into Blesswood would be a pair of underpants with an accidental rip in them. Not even a deliberate rip—an accidental one.
The guide was probably employed by the Blesswood academy. He would take us across the seven rings, a journey which would take many sun-cycles, and then he would deliver me to my doom. I examined the cart, worried that it wouldn’t be sturdy enough to withstand my bad luck. It was one with a covered, round-top cargo hold. It would be there that we would sleep when night fell. Two bullsen were secured with a multitude of belts, which had been woven from the strongest of vines. Vines which I knew only grew in the two rings out from Blesswood. Not much else was able to contain the huge black beasts. I paused to admire them for a moment—because they could do no harm to me all trussed up in leather harnesses. They were relatively hairless, or at least they had really short, shiny coats. Their eyes were usually full of darkness, but I had heard you could occasionally make out the faintest ring of colour around the iris. I never had, but that was because I refused to get that close. They had four sets of legs, with knobby knees and hooved feet, and while they looked somewhat gangly, they were impressively strong and fast.
They were also wild and dangerous, but most people chose to ignore that fact by pretending that they had successfully ‘domesticated’ them.
“Greetings, dwellers.” The guide was younger than I’d expected, probably around thirty life-cycles old, with a full head of orange hair, a spattering of birth spots across his nose, and light blue eyes. “My name is Jerath. I will be escorting you safely to Blesswood, where you will begin your blessed service to the sols.”
A cheer went up from my village. It wasn’t the first one.
“Crying would be much more appropriate,” I side-whispered to Emmy. “They could at least fake sadness until we left.”
With a shake of her head, she nudged me forward and both of us climbed up onto the back bench seat. The guide had the front, and he would use the belts to control the cart. From this high vantage, I could see the crowds and the edges of our village. The spot near the water well where I’d hidden during the most punishing sun-cycles of the heat season, so that the droplets of cool water would splash me as people pulled from the well. The stone buildings where I’d spent my formative life-cycles learning, and the healer’s hut, where I’d sent at least five of the teachers who had laboured over my formative learning. The tar incident had been the final straw, but there had been so many straws before that. Probably too many straws. Teacher Garat had actually been more patient than most.
The bullsen twitched as more noise erupted from the drunken crowd. They had to be drunk. There was literally no other excuse for grown-ass dwellers to act so freaking happy about us leaving. None. They had definitely moved past their shock over me having been chosen, and were now taking it as a gift from the gods.
The bastards.
Jerath was now speaking with Leader Graham; I saw the exchange of goods, and probably tokens. Villages earned tokens for their hard work, something like one million tokens got you the grand prize of more dwellers to do more work. Hardly worth the effort, if you asked me, but tokens were life around here. I was pretty sure that our leader slept in a bed of the round, shiny discs.
Jerath climbed back onto the cart, signalling the fact that it was now time to go. Leader Graham stepped to our side. “The seventh ring wishes you a long life of servitude. You have been blessed. You must now do everything in your power to bring pride to your people. Anything you do reflects on us; your village is rewarded for your hard work”.
Right. Give me a moment to wipe my tears.
Emmy gave him a genial nod. “We will make our village proud. You can expect many tokens for our service.”
So many. Except for all those subtracted away when I accidentally glued one sacred sol’s head to another sacred sol’s backside.
Jerath lifted the belts, and with one last wave, we were moving. I sent a single glance back, silently bidding farewell to my mother. She was a bit of a drunk floozy, but she had always been in my life. I had very few things which were mine—she’d been one of those things. Emmy squeezed my hand, and it was enough for me to turn in my seat and face toward the new future.
Everything was about to change now. Whether it was for better or worse, no one but the gods knew.
Two
In the first four sun-cycles of the journey, we’d suffered two cracked cart wheels, an escaped bullsen, and three wild animal attacks. Considering my propensity for disaster, I was considering it a roaring success. We were now in the third ring and it was the first time I could see the difference in the land. The sixth, fifth, and fourth rings had been much like ours: with yellow dirt roads, hard, unforgiving land, stone buildings, and bullsen pens. Sure, their villages might have had a few more trees, extra water we
lls and maybe even a pond which could be used for bathing … but for the most part, it was familiar.
The third ring, however, was when the world started to change.
The roads were paved; the houses had proper glass windows set into decorative, mason-worked sills; and the people barely even blinked at the passing transport cart, even though it had the symbol of the Creator on it. It was something they apparently saw often.
“This is Tridel,” Emmy whispered to me—even though nobody could hear us over the noisy turning of the wheels against the paved road. “The first sol city. Or the last, actually, depending on which way you’re coming from. The next is Dvadel, Soldel, and then we’ll be in Blesswood.”
I didn’t bother to ask how she knew that. She knew everything, because she clearly stole all the good genes from the rest of us pathetic villagers. I sat up higher in my seat, peering at the faces that were so completely oblivious to us. The sols didn’t look any different to us dwellers, not really. I was staring at a group of them now, as they gathered around a shop-front, waiting in line for something with hempen sacks of produce loaded up into their arms.
“They don’t look that sacred,” I muttered to Emmy.
She followed the direction of my gaze, and then snorted on a laugh. “Those are dwellers, Will. The sols keep slaves even in Tridel.”
I flushed, a tiny bit embarrassed, and turned the other way, staring out along the other side of the cart. There was a couple walking along the side of the road, close enough for me to examine. The woman was a few inches shorter than the man, her arm hooked through his. Either there were subtle differences in how sols appeared compared to dwellers, or else they were just a particularly attractive couple. Whatever the reason, the sun was shining right on them, highlighting them like a flattering spotlight. I felt my mouth dropping open, just a little bit. Her hair was shiny, her eyes were shiny, his teeth were shiny, their clothes were shiny. Maybe it was just the light, but it put me into a bit of a trance anyway.