We passed fields of red and white; flowers, I now know, but at the time they were just blankets of colour in an otherwise green world. I saw a lake so large I took it for the ocean. I had no idea at the time what lay at the bottom of that lake, no idea of the horrors that haunted those waters when darkness fell. A city ruined and sunk beneath the waters, and thousands of lives lost as casualties of a war between gods who should have fucking known better, all hidden from me at the time. It seemed endless and magical. We stopped at a farm that bred giant trei birds, flightless and vicious as an angry snake. My wonder only increased when I saw men and women riding those birds, wearing full armour and trading blows with blunted swords.
We passed through towns that made Keshin seem tiny. Hundreds of buildings clustered together. I was both shocked and awed. My memories of those towns are a blur of people and noise. I remember Larrisa kept me close, always a hand on my shoulder as she shopped for fresh supplies. We never stopped for long at any of those towns. Larrisa preferred to keep us on the road. I don't think I ever saw her sleep. Each night I drifted off with her staring blankly into the flames of our little fires. Each morning I woke to find breakfast waiting and the camp being struck. Even the most mundane of things, like breakfast, can seem magical to the eyes of a child.
I think it might have been pure chance that a day out from Picarr, where the Orran Academy of Magic stood, we ran into another recruiter, this one escorting a young boy. Larrisa seemed to know the man by name and the two dismounted, leading their horses side by side as that mammoth city grew on the horizon. Picarr was unlike anything I had seen before, a buzzing hive of activity and noise and smells.
For a while we rode in silence, stealing glances at each other. He was a young boy, though a little older than myself, with a muddy face and a black eye. I doubt I looked much better. Larrisa had not given me time to pack any clothing, and I was wearing the same faded tunic and trousers I had been when we left Keshin. Children rarely care about being clean. These days I enjoy bathing every day and have ten wardrobes full of clothes, though I tend to mostly wear my robes. There is a certain freedom in a robe I find quite liberating; I won't begin to list the things and people I have hidden beneath my robes from time to time. Some things are not for impressionable ears.
Josef was the first to introduce himself. Always the more diplomatic and sociable of the two of us, he thrust his hand toward me and all but shouted his name as though it was some great act of defiance. The more I have travelled, the more amazed I have become at the ways people introduce themselves. I have seen people kiss just to say hello, and I have been kissed many times for just that reason, often by complete strangers. The clasping of hands is perhaps one of the most common, at least amongst terrans. It's about forming a physical connection from one person to another. I can get the measure of a man by the firmness of his grip, the moistness of his palms. It's also about trust. To have someone that close, to tie up one hand gripping theirs. Handshakes are a dangerous business in some parts of the world.
I held out my own hand just as Josef did and I said my name. I was a little startled when he lunged closer and grabbed hold of my wrist. It was by pure instinct that I returned the grip rather than fall backwards off the horse. That might have been a rather ignoble end to my life before it even got started. It probably would have saved the world a lot of pain.
There is an innocence in children that is only matched by their cruelty. There is also the rarest form of acceptance and compassion. Only children can go from complete strangers to closest of friends in a moment. Trust and love can take a lifetime to build in adults, but in children it can take just a second. Josef and I were that way. Maybe we were kindred souls, even from the beginning, or maybe we were just two scared children looking for comfort in one another. We were still holding hands as the recruiters marched us up to the academy and presented us to Prince Loran Tow Orran, the man the Terrelans called The Iron Legion.
Five months into my time in the Pit and I was starting to feel a change in my arms, as though they were stronger than they had ever been. Prig no longer selected a new scab to hold the marker each day. Ever since my first time it had been my job and mine alone. At first, I think it was punishment for staring at him, an open act of defiance against the fear the fat fucker cultivated within us all. After a while, it simply became part of my workday. We no longer waited for Prig to select me out of the team. Each day when we arrived in our tunnel, I picked up the marker, held it to the wall, and stared at Prig as he lined up the hammer. There was a change in the foreman too, Prig no longer met my stare as he took his swings. The cowardly fuck rarely met my eyes at all, always finding something else to look at.
I still wore the bandages Hardt had given me. I washed them regularly and then bound my hands again soon after. After a while I learned to wrap them around my arms by myself. I think Josef felt shunned by it. Maybe he thought it was me claiming I no longer needed him. He couldn't know it was so I could wrap the shard of mirror tight, hidden, and close to my skin. I kept it with me at all times and told no one about it, let no one see it. It was mine. My secret weapon against the dangers of the Pit. I felt stronger just knowing that I had some sort of defence.
My routine changed as the weeks rolled on. I still woke up and took a few minutes to hate the world, my situation, and everyone I knew, including myself. I still hated Prig most of all for his daily torture, and I dreamed of shoving my little shard of mirror into his fat neck. In those dreams he always died quickly with eyes full of terror, staring into my face, pleading, my name the final thing that ever passed his shit-stained lips. I know now that men like Prig do not die easily, and my little shard was quite small. It would have hurt, but I would have been lucky to kill him with such a weapon. More likely it would just piss him off and earn me a savage beating for the trouble.
I still worked each day away to Prig's schedule. Always digging. Hammers and picks striking stone and the squeal of those bloody rusted wheels as the cart took the rubble away. There are some noises that tear away every nerve you have; we all have those weaknesses. Sometimes, even now, those noises drive me either to cower as though terrified, or lash out in violence. It was no different back then, only I didn't have the power to lash out. Each day I heard those squealing wheels long after they had fallen silent.
Prig grew more violent, both with myself and with Isen. I didn't know why at the time. I didn't know then that Isen regularly fought in the arena, nor how his performance affected Prig's standing with the other foremen. Nor did I understand that his increasing violence against me wasn't just punishment for the daily defiance I showed him. It was also an order from the overseer. Rarely a day went by where I didn't earn a lash across my back, or a bruise if he was brave enough to get close and use his fists. It was fucking torture. The physical kind of torture designed to slowly wear away at a person's sense of safety and defiance, and Prig knew his trade well.
Some people learn to fear the threat of violence. It trains them into obedience just as some people train a dog with a stick rather than table scraps. I am not one of those people. I came to expect the violence. On some level, I thought I deserved it. Instead of fearing it, or trying to please Prig to stop the pain, I taunted him to see how far he would go. Some people flee from danger while others court it. Me? I stare danger right in the face and tell it to take its best fucking shot.