“Faria?” I call out. “Faria the Red?” No answer. Toshi groans. He’s burning up. I lower him gently onto the ground. “Faria!” I call again. Damn this. I get down on my knees and crawl through the tunnel. I don’t care if I’m invading his privacy. My friend is dying.
I find myself in a room with a small cabinet and a sleeping pallet against the wall. A fire crackles in the center of the chamber. The dark man kneels on a rug before the flames, his eyes closed. His skin is the color of pitch, making the tattoos of limestone-white etched into his face jump out in contrast. I’ve never seen such markings before. The hair on his head is so tightly curled one couldn’t run a finger through it. It’s a remarkable shade of red. Not quite like Phaestion’s, but certainly startling. His appearance is otherworldly and frightening.
“Faria?”
He raises a hand, silencing me. I pause, pulled in by the power of his simple, wordless command. Then I remember Toshi dying outside. “Faria, listen—”
His eyes snap open, milk-white with cataract. He stares directly at me. The effect is terrifying. “You come uninvited and violate my home with a demand,” he says in a rich basso. “I don’t end lives on whims, but if I did, you’ve certainly given me cause.”
“I’m sorry.” I bow my head abjectly. Everyone here forces you to abase yourself or face death it seems. “My friend is dying. I was told you could heal him?”
“You must be mistaken. You have no friends, and I will not heal him,” the dark man says. He closes his eyes and returns to his meditation.
I’m stunned. I’ve never known a healer who refuses to heal and would let the suffering of an injured man continue. Then again, he didn’t say that he couldn’t heal Toshi, only that he wouldn’t.
What does he want in return? That’s the key to everyone, isn’t it? Find what they want.
“Faria, please—”
“Why do you wish to save this man?” he interrupts.
“He’s my friend,” I insist again. The dark man sits and stares blankly. My answer does not satisfy him. “Because he’s an islander like me, like you.”
Faria looks like no islander I’ve ever seen, but where else could he come from with his dark skin and strange appearance? Even if I’m wrong, perhaps my assumption will illuminate the truth.
“You think to save this man because he’s like you. You think to appeal to me because I may be like you?”
“Yes.”
“You think geographical proximity of birth or the color of a man’s skin makes him worth saving?”
“No,” I answer firmly.
“Then answer better,” he commands.
“Because he’s a human being with a life. He’s suffering. I want to save him because it’s the right thing to do,” I say honestly.
“Be careful what you deem right and wrong. Life is suffering,” he says simply. “You may do him no favors by prolonging it.”
I didn’t come here to debate philosophy with an old tusk walrus. I will not back down.
“I don’t work for kindness,” he says. “I keep prisoners healthy. I get privacy. I mend broken bones, stitch lacerations, and receive immunity from the gangs and their feuds. I soothe pestilence; I’m rewarded with food and equipment. I keep miners strong to mine the ore for the noble houses of Tao. My commission is autonomy. What do you offer, son of Leontes? Your name’s not gold here.”
“I have nothing, but the rags of a man I didn’t mean to kill. You can have those or any debt you see fit.”
“That is all? Interesting. You will give up so much more before it’s done.” He smiles crookedly.
A pact has been made.
“So a killer would save a man he hardly knows because life is precious?” he asks.
“I’m no killer.”
“Grinner died on his own, I suppose?”
“I’ve not killed before today,” I protest.
“All men are killers, today or tomorrow. What does it matter?” he asks.
“It was an accident.”
“Yet still, he’s dead.” Faria rises to his feet.
His hands are outstretched like a blind man’s. I reach out to guide him to the portal of his igloo. No sooner does my hand contact his arm then he grabs my wrist and twists it with incredible strength. He snaps the bones of my finger effortlessly. I’m too shocked to cry out, but I pull my hand away in flashing pain.
“Don’t touch me,” he says softly.
“I was trying to guide you,” I say, breathing through clenched teeth.
“Guidance is not required.” With that, he crawls out of the igloo.
Faria’s already examining Toshi with dark and wrinkled fingers when I crawl from the porthole. It’s nearly twenty degrees colder outside.
“He was shot by the tower guard in his upper right thigh,” I offer.
“Greelo has excellent aim,” Faria replies. “Your friend wasn’t meant to survive. He was to have been left, a lesson for the rest of you.”
“Why?” I ask.
Faria shrugs. “They marked him as someone who wouldn’t contribute much of his weight in ore.”
“That’s a reason?” My cheeks flush with anger.
“They need a reason? He’s a Hauler now. You’re a Picker.”
“So?”
“You’ll learn. Let’s get him inside.” Together, we drag Toshi into the igloo. It hurts my ribs, and my broken finger screams with pain, but we manage to lay him by the fire.
“Leave me to work,” Faria says. I look around the room. There’s no antiseptic, no instruments, and no medical tools of any kind. “If you want him alive, you’ll leave,” the old man says again forcefully.
I grimace. I don’t like this and don’t want to return to the cold outside the hut, but I’m playing by his rules. I reluctantly crawl back out and stand in the freezing cold, fuming. My breath turns to puffy white clouds in front of my face. The charlatan first refuses to help, breaks my finger, and then forces me to stand outside in the bitter freeze and wait!
And I wait and wait . . . I huddle up to the igloo exterior. I look at my bent finger. It has to be snapped back into place soon, or it won’t heal correctly.
Faria the Red? What a stupid name.
I hear chanting emanating from inside the igloo. Some sort of strange guttural language I’ve never heard before, if it is indeed a language at all.
What’s he doing?
I clamp my jaw shut as I grab my finger. One, two, three. I snap it back straight. Nerves shoot electric fire down my arm. I pound my head against the wall of the igloo. I feel better after the initial flare passes. I already feel the bones beginning to reset of their own accord. The finger might even be better within a few hours thanks to the spypsy’s bone grafts. I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, not knowing if my friend will live or die.
CHAPTER 17
SOLO
I’m awoken by the scraping of knees on ice. I stand in time to see the dark-skinned healer crawl from the igloo. “The worst is past,” he says. “Return here at the end of the workday and you can take your friend back to his camp.”
“The workday?”
An alarm reverberates throughout the cavern. Guards enter from a tunnel that leads to the lower levels. They fan out through the village as the prisoners awaken.
“Give me your finger,” Faria commands. “You’ll be needing it in the mines.”