I should have gone after him. Maybe... I like to blame Ssserakis some days for putting the fear in me, for telling me chasing after Josef wouldn't have helped. Another lie I tell myself. I just didn't know what to say. I had no way to fix what was broken between us. What I had broken.
Josef never returned to our cavern and I never looked for him. I left him there. I left my best friend, someone closer to me than my own blood had ever been, the other half of me, to live and die in a miserable existence deep underground. Even worse, I knew Prig and Deko would torture him to find where I had gone.
Chapter 22
It's easy to look back at my years at the academy and remember only the most harrowing bits, but that's not the whole truth. There were plenty of good times as well. Josef and I grew up thick as thieves living privileged lives. We were fed and clothed and treated to the finest education the Orran Empire could throw at us. Josef took to the lessons with a passion, but I took to books like no other.
We were in our second year of classes when the tutors started teaching us letters and words. As with most people my age I can barely remember the time I spent learning to read, and I'm sure I've forgotten half the books I've read, but I do remember the joy of being able to read. The academy library was quite extensive, and I had almost full access, barring some of the texts the tutors considered to be too dangerous for young students. Unlike some of the others in my class I did not restrict myself to factual texts regarding magic and history, but spent almost as much time reading bards' tales and depictions of folklore.
I remember one story about a warrior of great renown who travelled the world fighting monsters. Most of the creatures he encountered were crude depictions, giant beasts with multiple heads or fire breathers. In truth, they were rather tame, given that I was already learning the basics of Impomancy. What really fascinated me about those stories were the hero's travels through exotic lands where few terrans ever set foot. I think that was when I realised how small my world was.
History books tell us that the Orran and Terrelan empires were all that was left of a hundred smaller kingdoms. Terrans fighting terrans for control over the lands they deemed theirs. After the fall of Orran only the Terrelan Empire remained. Still, I considered myself Orran for a long time even after the empire was nothing but memory and unmarked graves.
Most folk from Orran or Terrelan never even considered that the world contained other peoples. We all knew of the Rand and the Djinn, it was hard not to with the great cities, Ro'shan and Do'shan floating around the skies. But most terrans on Isha went their entire lives without seeing a pahht or tahren, let alone those who lived even further away. It wasn't until later in my life I discovered why, that the other races shunned Terrelan. I changed that. For the better or worse.
The stories I read made me want to see the world outside the empire, but they also made me realise, and appreciate, how old the world was. It was through those stories I first realised that there are things, secrets buried deep in the earth and rock beneath us. Some of those things are precious and valuable, things of wonder. Others are better left buried and forgotten. I was fool enough to dig them all up.
Isen ignored me the next day. And I was fucking furious. I saved his life and he sulked about it. It was a slight to his pride that, once again, I stood between him and death. As though it were far manlier to roll over and die than to let a woman save him. But Isen was quick to forgive and forget. Not that anything I'd done for him really required forgiving.
I didn't tell the others about my deal with Yorin. It was a distraction they didn't need. I just pressed upon them how little time we had left to escape. The rest of the digging was done by Hardt and Tamura. I was too short and not strong enough for the work, and Isen could barely stand, let alone swing a pick. That didn't stop Prig from lashing him for slacking.
The whispered rumours about me grew and grew. The other scabs started bowing their heads to me as I passed by, and some even came to me with gifts, currying my favour. My fame had grown due to confrontations with the most powerful people in the Pit. I knew it couldn't last. I wasn't just living on borrowed time from Yorin. Soon, the rumours would be too much for Deko to ignore and he would have to make an example of me. It's the way arseholes like him work. As useful as I was to him alive, I would serve just as great a use as a broken corpse strung up near the Trough. Reputation is a blade with no hilt, it cuts both ways.
By the fourth day we had opened the crack enough that even Hardt could start to climb up into the dark crevice above. We were so close I liked to think I could smell freedom as well as hear it. Tamura agreed with me, I think. He said, "Fresh rain on the ground." and I took it to mean it was a pleasant smell. What a load of shit that was. Nothing down in the Pit smelled pleasant.
Nobody wanted to say it, but we had no idea if it would lead to the surface. For all we knew the crevice would close just a dozen meters above leaving us trapped with no way, but back down. We could keep digging, of course, but I believed Yorin's threat was real. I had just one day left to give the man freedom or both Isen and myself would pay the price.
"I'm going up," I said, staring into the darkness.
Trapped with the rock closing in. Crushing in the darkness. I shook the thought away and buried it.
Tamura nodded. "First to flee, first to fall," he said.
Hardt just stared at the crazy old man for a moment before turning to me. "You sure? Maybe I should go."
"Chivalry now of all times, Hardt?" I said. "The last thing I'm afraid of, is the dark." It was true enough. I had faced down the darkness and accepted it inside of me, even if I wasn't yet sure of what that meant.
"I was thinking there might still be some digging to be done." Hardt was ever the practical one. "It might require a bit more strength than you have."
I thought Hardt might be surprised by my strength, but he meant strength of arm and he wasn't entirely wrong there, but I hated being called weak in any sense of the word. "It might require a bit more space than you'll have." I replied and patted my belly to insinuate he was fat. It was a harsh insult and unjust, but I really was a bitch. I plucked the little hammer from the ground. "Can't swing it if you're wedged in tight."
Hardt made a sour face and nodded, and the discussion was over. I just wanted to be the first up into the crack and the first to taste the freedom above. I wonder if I would have gone back down to fetch the others if I had found my way out.
Hardt gave me a boost up, shoving me towards the crack and I reached for a handhold, pulling myself up into the waiting darkness. I could see the crack opening up and the crevice beyond seemed to stretch out forever. I wedged my feet against the wall and pushed my back against the other. Tamura handed me the little hammer and a small lantern to hang from the rope tied around my waist, acting as a belt.
What if the lantern breaks? A blazing corpse wedged between rock.
I'd be lying if the thought didn't cause me fear. But fear was what Ssserakis wanted. I eventually learned that feeding the horror was a good way to shut it up for a time.
Now I was up in the crack I could hear the wind whistling above, feel the cool breeze on my skin. It would probably have put a chill in me if not for the permanent cold I felt inside. Besides, spelunking is not an easy sport and the effort will soon warm a body up.