I throw my hands in the air, feigning a desperate attempt to protect myself. Greelo laughs at the display. I crawl past him and begin the climb down the slippery rungs of the ladder.
One foot in front of the other. We follow the string of fireglobes, down and down. We go deep into the very crust of the planet. The temperature rises to just above freezing. The pain in my hands and the hurt of each breath is lessened by the sheer terror I have of falling. Toshi shakes above me, flinching every time he puts pressure on his wounded leg.
“Easy, Tosh,” I say, more to comfort myself than him. If he slips and falls, I will be right behind him.
Then the tattooed man at the lead of our line does slip. Each man who follows comes off the ladder, pulled by the weight of the man before. I quickly snake my leg between a rung as the human chain goes taut. I yowl as the weight of at least a dozen prisoners ahead of me is suspended over the chasm by the tensile strength of my femur.
“Help!” The man’s screams echo off the cavern walls.
“Cut that prisoner loose now!” Sookah commands from above.
“No!” I shout. I feel the bone in my thigh bending. My skeleton is strong, but even this strain is too much. “No one falls!” I scream out in defiance.
“Prisoner, unhook your manacles from that prisoner now, or I will come down and unhook both of you!”
“No!” I shout back. My eyes connect with the man second in line. He immediately stops trying to unhook.
“Ancestors, help me!” the tattooed man cries hysterically.
I feel my bone splintering. The guard rappels along the wall next to me. His crampons dig in, and chunks of ice wall splash as he boots off the surface. His auto-belay slows beside the tattooed prisoner. The man flails, trying to grab hold of the ladder. The guard reaches out with a pair of electrified clippers. He snips the chain connecting the man’s belt to the manacles of the prisoner behind him.
“No!” I shout. Too late. The tattooed man falls. Another death I’m unable to prevent.
We hear screams for a long moment grow faint until they’re suddenly cut off. The only sound then is the guard’s auto-belay reeling him back above us. I steady myself on the slick rungs. My ribs throb. Blood rushes through my leg.
“Start moving, maggots!”
The chain of prisoners resumes its descent. Sookah doesn’t take his goggled eyes off me the rest of the journey.
We climb for hours. I lose track of time in the darkness and cold. Finally, the tunnel widens, and a light at the bottom brightens. The fireglobes give off no heat, but even dim light in this winter land gives the sense of warmth. I feel that I’ve climbed into an abyss from which I’ll never return, and I shiver.
One by one, we shuffle off the ladder, our fingers and toes numb and aching. I rub my leg. I can already feel the microfractures beginning to heal. Sookah and Greelo lead us through a dark tunnel that opens into a huge cavernous space lit by fireglobes, torches, and campfires. A shantytown of ramshackle buildings spreads out inside this massive underground cave. Prisoners, all men, are decked out in bundled rags and furs, and mill about or huddle around bonfires. They look like barbarians, faces covered thick with filth and beards.
Greelo slams a mallet into a large gong. It reverberates through the cavern, and the wooly heads of the prisoners turn to us. Suddenly, they’re on their feet, and the giant crowd of strangers surrounds us. They claw at us and push us forward.
Several more guards appear. They hold the crowd back with humbatons. “Make way!” they shout occasionally, firing a sonic pulse from their humbatons into the crowd.
The stink of bodies and refuse is oppressive even in the freezing cold. A human corridor is formed. We’re pressed through it like mashed waste through an intestine. Toshi holds my shoulders to keep from collapsing.
“Edmon, I’m going to be sick,” he says, groaning.
“Just hang in there.”
It’s no use. He doubles over and pukes all over my feet.
“Keep moving, worms!” a guard shouts at us. We arrive at the center of the cavern, and the prisoner at the front of the line is shoved up onto an auction block.
“Ragnar Erlichson!” A fat man wearing a uniform with the insignia of House Wusong-Leontes names the prisoner.
“Who’s that?” I whisper, pointing to the fat official.
“Quiet!” Sookah slams his humbaton into my ribs, pumping me with sonic volts. I fall to the ground, writhing. “The Warden’s speaking.” Sookah pulls off his mask, revealing a rotted brown smile.
The Warden is short and squat. His greased blond hair hugs his skull, and his long mustache is waxed and curled at the ends. He reminds me more of a Combat ringmaster than a corrections officer. “Convicted of four accounts of assault with a deadly weapon against a Meridian security officer. Strong and powerfully built, perfect for the copper or iron mines in twelfth dungeon. Who starts the bidding?”
Men wave their hands and yell out bids. I don’t know what measure of currency they’re trading in, but it seems the ones bidding are leaders because they look the largest and most brutal.
It seems all levels of Tao society revere physical might, I muse.
“Sold at five hundred iron kilos to the Smelters!”
The prisoner is kicked off the pedestal, and the next man is brought forward. This time the charge is theft of government weapons. Sold. Next is espionage, selling royal documents of House Flanders to their enemies. He’s bought by the Diggers who apparently “dig” for burnable coal and precious metals. The next man? Speech violation. He led an antigovernment rally in his arcology near western Meridian.
The Wendigo is the harshest environment on Tao. These prisoners should be the harshest, too—murderers and maniacs too unstable to even let loose in the games. Yet the men being auctioned are political dissidents, traitors, and speech violators. This is not right.
I’m shoved onto the pedestal at the butt of a humbaton. “Edmon Leontes!” The Warden’s voice rings out. The crowd hushes, not with reverence, but with predatory hunger. “You know his pedigree, young and strong. He could surely last for years in the salt, copper, or magnesium dungeons. Who wouldn’t want the son of a Pantheon nobleman under his lash? Do we have an opening bid?”
The cavern erupts. Hands and fists wave. The Warden struts in front of the block like a trick dolphin. Objects start flying. Chunks of rocks and ice. A stone strikes me. The crowd erupts in laughter. I wince in pain but refuse to fall.
“That’s the spirit, pretty boy!” a large bear of a man with a bent nose and wiry beard catcalls. “Stand that pretty ass up. Yes, stand that pretty ass up for my crew!” He waves to make a bid.
“Three hundred from Bruul Vaarkson and the Haulers!” The Warden shouts. “Do I hear three fifty?”
“Three fifty!” a scarred man with a shaved head and topknot cries out.
“Jinam Shank and the Pickers for three fifty! Do I hear four?”
“I want those smooth cheeks for the Haulers!” Vaarkson cries again. “Three seventy-five!”
“Four hundred!” Shank raises a hand.