I felt a nervous flutter in my stomach. I had never been to the bottom of the Pit before. Back then, I didn't even really know how many levels there were. The furthest I had been was the twenty-sixth level where the arena was located, but that was only halfway to the bottom of the Pit.
Just four days before Deko first put me to work, I went to see Isen fight. I had thought it would be a bare-knuckle bout of pugilism with the combatants taking turns to thump at each other. I was quite wrong on that. I watched on with Hardt as Isen, bare chested with wiry muscles straining, clashed with his opponent. There was a brief exchange of blows and then Isen threw the other man to the floor and leapt on him, wrapping his legs around the midsection and pushing the man's arms away from his head as he rained down blow after blow, his knuckles painted red. Isen never killed his opponents, and he left the man bleeding on the ground.
Hardt had said it was a clean win. It looked messy to me. Both men scrabbling on the floor, wrestling for dominance over the other. Since then, I have been in a few fights of my own and I have never won any as cleanly as Isen did that match.
I noticed Poppy was watching me as the lift ground its way down. Her eyes were bright despite the gloom and she had a slight smile on her face. She did not look away when I noticed. It was the same way Prig's friend looked at me. I have never been one to shy away from a staring contest, and went to it with a passion, meeting her hungry stare with a cold one all of my own. Most people couldn't weather too long under the scrutiny of my pale eyes, but Poppy managed it. Her smile deepened. I will admit that was one of the few contests I have ever lost. I looked away, strangely embarrassed and unsure why. Some people might have laughed, gloated at the little victory. But Poppy said nothing. Even when the lift bumped to a halt at the very bottom of the Pit, she said nothing.
I sometimes wonder if Poppy saw something in me even then that I didn't. Perhaps I wasn't ready to see it.
Even down at the bottom of the Pit I could hear digging. That constant bloody echoing tap of metal on stone floated along the stale air, reassuring and maddening both at the same time. I didn't know it then, but down at the bottom was where the real digging took place. Further up was where us scabs worked our life away and that was the face Deko showed to his Terrelan masters. But down in the belly of the beast, his best workers, craftsmen and artisans, worked at turning the Pit into a palace sunk deep underground. The scabs that worked on Deko's palace were treated far better than those of us that toiled above, but they weren't allowed to mingle with us. Deko wasn't willing to risk word of his endeavour leaking out. Part of me is still amazed he let me return above, knowing what I did. But then I wasn't just any other worker. I was useful.
We found Deko along with Horralain waiting at the mouth of a cavern that opened out into an inky darkness. Deko watched me approach with a smile that made my skin crawl and I felt my hatred of him stoked hot. He might have been my protection, but I hated that he owned me.
"It's about time my little Sourcerer arrived," he said with a sneer. "I finally have something for you to do. A way to earn your fucking keep." Deko liked to do that, remind me that my protection was entirely dependent upon him. Bastard! He liked to remind everyone just what they owed him. I have always hated him for that. I hated myself almost as much, when the time came for me to copy his tactics.
"What happened to your last Impomancy expert?" I asked, acutely aware that I was surrounded by Deko and six of his captains. I was the only scab nearby, and quite a bit smaller than all of them. I was vulnerable and afraid, and determined to survive whatever they were about to throw at me. After hatching my plan to escape, I found I no longer harboured any suicidal thoughts. I wanted to live again. I wanted to live, and I wanted to escape, and I wanted to rub those victories in the faces of every fucker who had tried to keep me from them.
"He mistook a ghoul for a ghast." Deko grinned at me. "But you know the difference, right?"
I let out a dramatic sigh and rolled my eyes before answering. "One is a mostly harmless incorporeal horror that feeds off fear and can do little more than scare us. The other is a monster of sharp teeth, razor claws, and a lust for dead flesh. Not easily mistaken. Your last expert was a fucking idiot."
Deko shrugged and laughed. Most of the others joined in but both Poppy and Horralain remained silent. "He's a dead idiot now," Deko said. "Let's hope you don't repeat his mistakes. I like you, girl. Poppy does too. I hope you don't die in there."
A hooded lantern was pushed into one hand and then Horralain gave me a hefty shove that sent me stumbling into the dark cavern. My heart raced, trying to beat its way out of my chest and I turned to find Horralain's giant body almost blocking the entrance.
"Don't even think of coming back until you've figured out what the fuck it is." Deko's voice drifted around his captain and was followed by a nasty laugh.
I turned back to the dark cavern and tried to calm myself. That was when I realised the laugh wasn't coming from Deko or his captains. It was coming from the cavern.
Chapter 17
I was twelve when the academy started training me in the school of Impomancy. Even so I think I was too damned young for the horrors I faced. I'm not sure there's ever a good time to learn those arts. The Other World is a dark place without sun, moons, or stars. There's nothing above but fathomless black. It's no wonder so many of the creatures summoned by Impomancers ended up down in the Pit. Horrors and monsters looking for familiar ground.
I had seen pictures of many of the creatures found in the Other World; the Orran Academy kept detailed records on each and every one of the monsters they found over there. But some of those things should never be brought over to our world. Some should remain forever trapped in their dark home.
Tutor Windlass was the foremost expert on Impomancy at the time, though in truth she was a bloody fool whose knowledge was rudimentary at best. She worked with each student privately, however, I was the only one of my age group to have an attunement to the school. I think this made it worse somehow. I could talk to Josef, or even Barrow or Tammy, but none of them could understand the feeling of being connected to the Other World, the constant draw into the darkness within. There is something oddly addictive about that place. None of them could understand the nightmares that plagued me every time I closed my eyes. The dreams of creatures too horrifying for most to even believe exist. And none could understand the strange compulsion I had to visit those nightmares again and again like picking at scab and refusing to let the wound heal.
It's a strange sensation bringing something over. Tutor Windlass ordered me to start small, and I thought I did. It's not like opening a portal. There's no shimmering disc of light showing the other place. An Impomancer uses themselves as the conduit, to drag the monster from the Other World. Their own body becomes the portal. And the creatures of the Other World don't always come willingly.
One thing I will say for the Other World: it's a beautiful place full of grand cities that shine in the darkness. Wonders that boggle the mind. I have seen a waterfall that flows upwards, vast mountain ranges far too ordered to be natural, a forest with trees of clutching skeletal hands. I understand now why the Other World is that way. I know how the things there came to be as they are, but to a child's inexperienced eye, I was awed by the beauty and scope of that world just as I was repulsed by the things that inhabit it. I remember wondering how such monsters could build those things. But of course, they didn't. They merely claimed what was already there. We are all living in a world built by ancients. And just as we do, they often struggle to comprehend the meaning of their world.