Synnove: Chapter One

Chapter One

Dain tore at the bars until his hands were raw and bleeding but his father, leaning against the ridged bark of a Kalu tree, refused to watch the cart roll through the thorny gate and into the desert. He could hear his mother's fists against the heavy door, but Dain had built it earlier that summer, and knew it wouldn't give.

"Father?"

His father's tanned, unshaven face twitched.

"No use," the trader leered as he whipped the emaciated donkey. It brayed, but continued plodding forward, step after swaying step. "You're a killer. Seen this a hundred times. Maybe even a thousand."

He couldn't tear his gaze away from the shrinking clay buildings, brilliantly white in the warm morning sun. If he squinted hard, he almost thought he could almost see the fresh white marker guarding his brother's grave, but a moment later the village was swallowed up by the blue sky.

"At least your ma didn't want you to go," he continued, taking a swig from an ancient waterskin. Beads of water mixed with sweat trickled through his wiry beard and onto his trousers, temporarily staining the faded material. "Most of the time, the parents don't even watch the kid leave. Can't wait to get rid of 'em."

Dain remained silent. He wrapped his brown arms around his legs and tried not to shake, but despite the burning sun, his body convulsed miserably.

Every movement of the slave cart jarred him against the uneven wooden planks that made up the floor. The Kaluni desert was more jagged white rocks than sand, but somehow spiky green plants laced with red veins and shiny black insects managed to tear through the hard earth, where they arched towards the sky. There was water in them, if you had a knife sharp enough to get to it. Dain salivated at the thought. His father had locked him in the rug shed with only half a jar of muddy water and a stale loaf of bread, and he'd finished those meager rations the first night. Two more had passed, achingly slow, and Dain had been left with a persistent, gnawing hunger that was scraping away at his mind. The fight he'd put up when his father had forced him into the slave cart had left him unable to do anything but lay gasping and hoping that death wouldn't pass him by for too long.

A breeze passed through the cart, but it was hot, dry, and carried more sand than relief. Dain tried to curl up and sleep, but with only a threadbare loincloth that smelled strongly of animals and urine to cover himself, the blessed nothingness refused to come to him. All he could see was his father's strong profile, the brown eyes that had once been warm now mad with grief.

His mother had forgiven him. She'd known what Aret was like. She'd seen the mottled green bruises on Dain's slight body, and the half-healed cuts and punctures, but she hadn't dared to discipline her eldest son. Aret was beloved by their father, and Dain had always born the brunt of their displeasure.

"Mother," he croaked, wishing he could summon her from the village. He thought for a moment that he felt the cool touch of her hand against his blistered forhead, but it vanished and he was alone.

The donkey brayed again, staggering under the weight of the cart and the pain of the whip. The trader had a heavy hand, and it wasn't long before blood was streaming down the animal's sore-riddled back.

"Usless thing," the trader muttered. He picked something out of his greasy brown hair and tossed it to the ground. "Should have known better than to buy from a bloody Jeiss."

"Maybe if you didn't beat it into the ground, it might be able to walk." He tried to swallow, but all he could taste was blood. He needed water.

"Shut up!" The whip cracked against the bars of the cage, catching the side of Dain's arm. An angry red welt rose up almost immediately. "And don't try anything, neither. I don't cart you freaks around without carrying some sort of protection."

Dain closed his eyes, too thirsty to cry, too exhausted to sleep. He wished he had the energy to escape. He would even have attempted to use the strange force that he'd used on his brother, but he wasn't even sure what exactly had happened.

He drifted in and out for what felt like days, though the sun had only moved partway through the sky when sense returned to him. They'd reached the city and were moving down a narrow cobblestone pathway, lined with vendors and animal dung. A dozen different smells fought for dominance, creating a strange hybrid of spice and earth and sweat.

Elaborate stone booths decorated with murals of gods and animals gave way to rickety wooden frames draped with torn, scorched fabric as they moved deeper into the city. Dain had only visited Haven twice in his seventeen years, and never had his family ventured past the first section, where reputable vendors sold their wares to the desert clans.

"Our people don't belong there," his father had told him, nodding towards the dark innards of the deep city. "We have no need of anything they sell."

Dain had, of course, questioned his father further, his young mind morbidly fascinated with the horrors that lurked in the older section of Haven. He'd eventually reached the conclusion that his father simply didn't know what lay down the dark, curved alleys.

And now Dain was about to find out.

The stench thickened. Dain felt suffocated. Harsh voices called out to him from both sides, and though he couldn't make out any of the words, he had a good enough idea what they were saying. The streets narrowed so much that he could see into the ventilation slits. Most of the buildings were dark, but in a few he saw hunched forms staring out at him.

Prisoners, he realized. Slaves.

"Welcome to the market!" the trader bellowed, whipping the donkey once more for sport. "Where all your dreams will die, your nightmares will come true, and if you're lucky, you'll get sold before you drown in your own feces." He guffawed at his own joke and pulled the wagon to a stop next to a decrepit green tent. The clay walls of the building behind it were starting to crumble at the corners, and one of the air slits on the second floor had collapsed inwards, leaving a gaping black hole.

The donkey collapsed once the cart had stopped. Its sides heaves as it tried to pull air into its dying body.

"Shit," the trader said as he manuevered his fat body onto the ground. "Well, with the silver I get from you, I suppose I can buy another one." He walked around to the back of the cart, unlocked the door, and threw it open. "Out."

Dain's mind understood the command, but his body refused to comply. He lifted his arm several inches off the floor, but even that small effort left him winded.

With a sigh and a grunt, the trader hauled him out and over his right shoulder. Bruising Dain's ribs against the coiled whip.

The transition from light to darkness was so abrupt that he could see purple phantom lights drifting across his eyes. They danced and twisted, and Dain watched them with the fascination of a child until they faded. A moment later he could hear the trader's boots striking the floor, a faint rustling and a scrape from somewhere on the other side of the room, but he couldn't see anything.

"I got another one," the trader growled, filling the air with the sour stink of his breath. He dropped Dain to the floor and clomped away.

"How old?" A woman's voice this time, harsh and aged.

"Seventeen, they said. Another one. Killed his brother a few days ago. The dad said there wasn't more than a bucketful of ashes for them to bury."

The woman sucked in a sharp breath. "Damn. I need to go have my tattoo redrawn. Can you stay with him until I'm back?"

"S'pose."

"I'll throw in an extra piece of silver." Soft footsteps moved across the room and a heavy door slammed shut.

"Bitch," the trader muttered as he stomped towards Dain. "Short me again and I'll take all your silver and leave you to your slaves." He grabbed Dain's arm and dragged him across the floor. "C'mon. I'll show you to your new home."

A door opened, and they were both assaulted by a towering wall of stench and death. Feces, urine, decay, sweat, and a thousand other miseries contaminated the air.

"Here you are." Dain was unceremoniously dumped in a puddle of something he didn't really want to identify, and then the trader was gone and everything was silent.

For some time, all he could do was lay in the dirt and muck and breathe, drinking in the darkness and cool air. The blisters on his sunburned back burst, and he could feel the hot fluid oozing over his skin.

"Are you alive?" The soft feminine voice was so close to him that he could feel her breath on his neck.

He tried to speak, but his parched throat was almost closed. Blood dripped down his lip.

"Roll onto your back." Small hands helped him move, and a moment later they were propping up his head and pouring a trickle of warm water into his mouth. She gave him only a little, but the muddy water tasted better than anything he'd ever had. He tried to reach out for more, but she held him back.

"Not too much at once," she whispered. "Rest now. I'll give you more once your stomach takes what it's got."

Dain leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and was asleep.