C HAPTER
The man had spent too many years working in the mines of Kidnaban to easily stand straight now. Knowing he had a few moments more of solitude, he did not try. He leaned against the warehouse wall, hearing the muffled discussion going on beyond it. He had been tall even as a boy, a head above almost anyone he had ever stood near since adolescence. But that was when he stood upright at full height. He had few opportunities to do that during the years he worked in the mines. He had either crouched low as he shuffled down subterranean corridors or had strained beneath backbreaking loads he had to balance on his shoulders as he climbed the countless ladders that crept from the depths to the surface. After twenty years of that, his spine crooked in places it had not done in his youth. He was comfortable only in one position, curled on his side in the moments before sleep found him. Other than that, his physical life was measured in degrees of discomfort. He told himself it was better that way; this way he would never forget why his work mattered to him above all other things.
A door nearby swung open abruptly and a thin man appeared, blinking in the daylight and casting around with a hand shading his eyes. "Barad! There you are. Come in, they will hear you now." He motioned for the large man to approach. When Barad neared, the other man grasped him by the elbow and spoke enthusiastically. "It is safe, my friend. Have no fear while in Nesreh. We are friends here!"
Barad the Lesser let himself be led. "I know that," he said. His voice was boulder deep and rumbling. "Yours are good people, Elaz. I wouldn't be here if they were not."
On entering the chamber, Barad could see little. It was lit dimly by high slots in the ceiling and by lamps of smoke-blacked glass. He could tell immediately-by the moist heat, the scent of bodies, and the muffled layer of sound in the air-that the warehouse was filled with people. They were waiting, silent now that he was finally among them.
With a great effort to keep his face placid, Barad drew himself up. He raised his chin, flaring his nostrils as he took the calming breath he needed to stand at his full height. Perhaps because it was such an effort, the effect of his doing so was considerable. He was a tall man, with long legs and arms, big handed with knuckles that any street brawler would have envied. He felt the people's eyes upon him, impressed, perhaps wary. He had always had this effect on people. That was why he did not rush to begin speaking. Let them see him for a moment. Let them note the strained purpose on his rough-cut features, the way his heavy eyes suggested a tranquil, melancholy strength within. He was never sure that he truly felt this in himself, but he knew others saw it there and it suited him that they did.
After a few words of introduction from Elaz, he began. "If you will listen," he said, "I will tell you a story."
A few voices responded, saying they would listen. Some others clapped their hands against their chests, a sign of affirmation. Barad could pick out individual faces now. Tired faces. Overworked faces with the characteristics that marked the relatively isolated coastal people of Talay. In many ways their flushed faces, wide cheekbones, and short noses distinguished them among the Known World's races. But the curiosity, the faint hunger in their eyes was no different from what he had seen in others' eyes across the empire. That was what he was here to speak to.
"I will tell you my story, hoping that in it you will hear your story as well. Hoping you will understand that we many share the same story, and a tragic one it is."
He explained that he had been born in the camps outside the mines of Kidnaban. He had been raised in the knowledge that his life was committed to pulling precious metals from the earth. That was all there was ever to be of it: labor. Whatever living he was to do would be done in the pauses between labor. Loving, raising children, learning of the world: all of these things happened only in stolen moments. He was a water bearer at five years of age, a rubble sifter at seven, a wagon helper at eight. By ten he was tall and strong enough to haul small sacks. At twelve he was a digger, taking out any anger he had on the tunnels in the earth. And he did so for more years than he liked to count. He knew nothing about the outside world but lived day and night under the supervision of guards in great towers; whipped by drivers; scowled at; chained often. He did not know why he worked this way. Did not understand the economics of the world and how the nuggets of metal that he dug up would enrich men a world away.
How was such a life livable? Two things made it so. One, the drug called mist. "You've heard of that, I'm sure. I think you know it well." Each night-or each day, depending on the shift he worked-he could inhale the green smoke into his lungs and dream of a world of real life. The other thing that made his labor livable was that he somehow did find the moments to be a man. He loved a woman and put a child inside her. He saw that child born and live a few precious years, stealing moments to feel himself a father.
"I lost this child, though," Barad said. "Lost him and his mother." He cleared his throat and held to silence for a moment. He always thought beforehand that the next time he spoke he would explain just how he lost them, but-as had happened a hundred times before-his throat clenched tight on the words. It did not open again until he resolved to move on, leaving this one thing unsaid.
In the months leading up to the second war between the Akarans and the Mein he began to hear a voice in his dreams. He would not have known the war was coming, except that word of it came to him like a whisper carried far by a breeze. It drifted into his mist-sodden mind. Right there within his own head, drugged on the floor of the mines, he heard the returning prince's words. He was miles and miles away, yes, but Aliver had found a way to speak to him. What did he say?
"He said the world was set for change. He said he was returning from his long exile and that with the power of the empire's people behind him and with help from the ancients he was going to not only overthrow Hanish Mein but also overturn the entire order of the world. He would blow away mist like the wind disperses morning fog. He would put fire to league ships and drive out the Numrek, and, most important, he would never again sell our children into whatever slavery awaits them across the Gray Slopes. I was not the only one who heard such things. Many came off mist at that time, but"-he smiled, tapping his temple-"this head of mine is bigger than the norm. It is like a bell that rings louder than others, and so I heard clearly things that others only had inklings of."
And he had swallowed it all, he admitted. He was starved for such possibilities. He hungered to believe it. Why shouldn't he? He remembered everything he heard, and he took to shouting it to the workers around him. At feeding times he spoke to gathered groups as they ate, heads down, trying to ignore him. He bellowed inside tunnels and railed from ladders as he climbed. At first nobody paid attention to him. Guards sometimes punished him, but they thought him harmlessly mad. Slowly, though, slowly, more and more found their mist dreams turning into nightmares. Eyes began to follow him. Grimy faces lifted from their food when he spoke. Eventually, the masses came to him, hungry for Aliver's message. He gave it to them, and felt the hope grow in them. Thousands and thousands of them, opening their eyes with new clarity, eager for the future.
"My first mistake was in shouting too loud. The people heard me, yes, but so did the ears of Hanish Mein. The minute we rose in anger, he clapped his hand down on us with a rain of arrows and fire, with steel blades and unbending anger. What were we-who had only hope as a weapon-to do against the might of an empire? That was my first mistake. It would have been my last, as well, if Aliver hadn't launched his war."