Toshi shrugs. “Truth is, I don’t know. I was unconscious. The moments I came to . . . it’s like the whole thing was a bad dream. Distant.” He looks off. “Something with his hands, though. I remember that much: his hands.”
He looks at me again and laughs. “Important thing is I’m better, and you need to eat more.”
I can’t argue. We walk back to the Ration Bar and grab trays from a stack, hoping they won’t notice that I already stole an extra pack earlier. A round man with a shaved head behind the counter grins. “Enjoy, Leontes. I picked your bags especial.”
“Thanks,” I reply coldly as he slaps a mud-caked pack onto my tray. Aside from the grime, I wonder if the food’s been pissed in, too.
Toshi and I find a table. “I have a feeling this won’t taste too good,” I mutter.
“Ya think?” he replies. “Does it really matter?”
“No,” I admit. I’m hungry enough to eat narwhal dung. For all I know, I’m about to. I tear open the packs and dig in. Compressed, tasteless foodstuffs. They are dehydrated rations that time-release in the gut and are supposed to provide a full day’s worth of nutrients. “Modern efficiency!” I exclaim.
The alarm rings, and the guards gather at their tunnel to return to their barracks. They’re gone and “night” comes to the village of the Wendigo. Toshi leans across the table conspiratorially and whispers, “Edmon, I got to show you something.” He stands and gestures for me to follow.
“What is it?” I whisper back.
“Today, after Faria fixed me up, I was able to explore a bit.” I find it hard to believe that he was walking about for too long, but his recovery is pretty stunning. “I think it’ll be useful,” he says.
He heads toward a tunnel. I follow. “Isn’t this where guards go?” I ask, becoming nervous. I worry my absence will be noticed by my foreman soon.
“Exactly.” He pulls a small fireglobe from his pocket, shakes it, and lights up the tunnel walls with eerie incandescence. “I found a tributary from the main passage. Looks like it goes down to the planet core.”
“And?” I ask, looking around warily.
“If there’s a passage that leads to somewhere they don’t know about, maybe we can get out of here,” he says.
“You don’t think they’ve thought of that before?” I ask.
“Don’t know,” he admits. “But maybe we could strike out on our own. We can sneak into the upper caverns for food.”
“Survive in the freezing cold, living off scraps?” I say disdainfully.
“They put us here forever,” he argues. “We’re never leaving. At least maybe we can find some freedom. We’ve got to find out. Even if this one’s a dead end, we’ve got to start looking.”
“You’re right,” I say warily. “If there’s opportunity, we have to take it, but the right way. We don’t know enough about this place yet to escape it. We’d be better to bide our time and learn as much as we can first.”
The tunnel gets darker, colder. We round the corner down the tributary he indicates. The lights off the main track fade and so does the heat. We walk for what seems like several kilometers in increasing darkness until ahead I make out a faint light as the tributary opens into a small cave. Far from being abandoned, it’s full with people. They stand against the walls on all sides. Bruul Vaarkson, the big bear of a man, is in the center, waiting.
I turn quickly to make an escape, but the passage is blocked by half a dozen Haulers with ready fists. “Stay behind me, Toshi,” I warn, trying to position myself between him and our attackers. He’s in no condition to fight. Neither am I, for that matter.
“He’s not the one you should be worrying about protecting,” Vaarkson sneers.
I turn and look him dead in the eye.
“Oh, you have spirit. I like them with spirit,” Vaarkson goads. “You finished off that tillyfish the other day, and I’d pit your skills man to man against almost anyone in this joint in a fair fight. But this isn’t a fair fight, is it?”
I ball my fists. “Do what you’re going to do to us, but quit the sweet talk.”
“Us, is it? Still haven’t figured it out?” The rest of the Haulers shriek like a pack of hyena eels.
Toshi is also nervously laughing. He places his hands up and slowly backs away from me. I feel the cold knife of betrayal slip in my gut. He knew. This must have been planned before I even took him to Faria’s. Did Faria know? Did they all?
“I’m sorry, Edmon. They were going to kill me.” He shakes his head.
“I saved you. Twice.” My voice registers bewilderment more than anger.
“Now I have to save myself.” He fades into the crowd. I hear him say faintly, “You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”
“I say a lot of things.” Vaarkson shrugs. “Besides, this isn’t going to be pain, but pleasure.”
They rush forward. I fight. Punch, kick, and claw. It’s a sea of people. There’s no space to move and nowhere to go. I’m tackled to the floor of the cave and held down. My bodysuit is torn from my back. I feel the bite of the arctic cold against my bare skin. Then he’s on me. Vaarkson. Large, hairy, his breath foul. I say nothing as it happens, clamp my jaw shut and bear the pain. My mind goes somewhere else.
I see my mother the day of the christening. She defied my father with every breath as he beat her. You will forget what you saw here today, she said.
I remember Nadia when she pulled me up from falling that day so long ago. They tried to make me forget her, too. I am with you, Little Lord, she whispers in my memory.
Then another voice whispers. Remember. It’s not my mother’s or Nadia’s. Strangely, it’s the voice of my father. Remember. His anger and his power, like a single intense candle flame of hatred, grow inside me. Remember, and when the time comes, no mercy.
I curl into a ball and bleed onto the floor.
The Night Queen sings. Gli angui d’inferno, mi sento in petto, Megera, Alletto, ho intorno a me . . . Paventa il mio furore, se non osi esser crudel. Ciel! L’orendo mio voto ascolto o Ciel! Of hell the vengeance boils within my heart, death and despair are flaming all around me . . . To pieces all the ties of nature torn, Hear Gods of vengeance, hear a mother’s vow! The song plays in my head. The Magic Flute. A tune as old as Ancient Earth. I drag myself hand by bloody hand through the dark tunnels.
I sing words of my own to the music The Maestro taught me. I will not die. I must not die. If I die, Nadia’s death means nothing. My mother’s death means nothing. My child’s death means nothing. My father will win. He cannot win.
When I’m strong enough to stand, I hobble. I wrap myself in the torn rags of my bodysuit. Blood mixes with feces and trickles down my legs. My bowels are perforated. I’m going to die without medical help.
The passage widens. Darkness slowly becomes dim firelight. I enter the shantytown and collapse to the ground. My body wants to give in. The voice of my father does not let me.
Get up, coward.