“Teach me?” I implore.
“Rest,” he replies. “The Warden will be here in the morning, and you would best be healed.”
He diligently begins work on Carrick. I’ll receive no more answers from him tonight. I close my eyes, but my mind turns over this revelation.
I awaken by dying embers. Faria attends Carrick, who rests under the cover of furs.
“How is he?” I ask. I stand, testing my leg. There’s a slight twinge of pain, but nothing I can’t take. I kneel beside the dark man.
“He’ll live,” Faria says. “Whether or not he’ll walk remains to be seen. Your bones are quite remarkable. If the graft took, the cells should last to repair Carrick’s injuries and eventually work their way out of his system. Whatever transformation you were put through was keyed to your specific genetics.” His milky eyes stare at me. “Who knows what other traits that man’s tampering may have given you.”
My hand unconsciously moves to my scalp. The morning alarm sounds.
“Faria the Red!” a voice calls from outside. The Warden. “Faria!” comes the raspy bellow again.
I follow the shaman out of the hut. The Warden stands before us, thick and paunchy. He smooths his blond mustache with a gloved hand. He’s flanked by several armored guards as well as my foreman, Jinam Shank. Shank glares with his ugly, scarred face.
“I’ve been told that you’re harboring two Pickers,” The Warden says.
“One Picker was injured, and his colleague brought him for healing,” Faria says deferentially.
“I was told by the foreman”—The Warden looks disdainfully over his shoulder—“that the man was damaged beyond function.”
“I believed that with Leontes’s assistance I’d be able to save the man,” says Faria.
The Warden’s jowly face grows red. I can tell that he didn’t expect a conversation. The fact that Faria is even responding throws him off balance. “This man”—The Warden points at me—“had no business countermanding his foreman.”
“He believed he could save the life of a worker,” replies Faria quietly. “Workers help make quotas. Leontes was only thinking of your needs, my lord.”
The Warden folds his arms across his chest. He can smell the whale feces in Faria’s words. “So where’s the man? Is he ready for work this day?”
“He needs time—”
“Do not mince words! If he’s not here, he’s not capable.” The Warden flicks his hand, and the guards step forward. They grab me forcibly by the arms.
“What are you doing?” Faria asks.
“I can’t afford to punish you, healer, but this one”—The Warden indicates me—“he’s another matter.”
They drag me away.
“Stop!” Faria commands with a voice so penetrating that The Warden halts in his tracks. I wonder if what he said about the Dim Mak being used with sound is actually true.
The Warden puffs out his chest. “You don’t govern here, healer. Quiet yourself before you lose the little grace you’ve earned.”
One guard trots away to summon the gangs while the others drag me through the shantytown. Faria follows. We reach the auction blocks, and I’m thrown up on the platform. The guard strips me to the waist. I hold my sides and shiver from the freezing cold.
I must not let them see me bend. If I do, they win. My father will win.
A crowd gathers. I see Smelters, Pickers, Haulers, Welders . . .
The guards erect two poles and bind my wrists to them so my arms are spread wide.
The crowd’s whispers grow. “Whip ’im! Yeah, whip the little prince!”
I pick out Vaarkson, smiling, rotten-toothed. Toshi cowers next to him.
“This man left his post in the middle of the workday!” The Warden shouts through a bullhorn. “Negligence on the job. Disobedience against the chain of command. The punishment—”
“Whip him! Whip him! Whip him!” the crowd chants.
The Warden signals the guard, Greelo. Greelo winds up and cracks the whip in the air for effect. The crowd hollers. He winds up again, and this time he lets loose.
The lash scathes my back. The second strike comes, and I suck in my breath. The crowd cheers. A third, I feel the skin break. The fourth, I smile as blood runs down my back in a hot river. The crowd grows quieter. A fifth and I laugh.
They can’t hurt you anymore, Edmon. They think this is pain? You’ve endured real pain, says the voice inside.
A sixth lash. Is that all you got?
The crowd watches silently as the whip lands again and I don’t cry out. The Warden screams, “You’re not doing it hard enough!”
“I’m hitting him with all I have,” Greelo argues back.
“Then what’s the problem?” The Warden’s piggy face is red and furious.
The lashes hurt. In fact, they’re excruciating. It’s just that I’ve flipped a switch in my brain. It’s like Faria’s trick with his hands. I just don’t care anymore.
Do these fools know what I’ve been through?
A song plays through my mind. “A Tale of Ancient Earth”―a young artist named Rudolfo professes his love for a girl, Mimi. I remember my own love. Her voice sings the words to me now—
Che parlano d’amor, di primavere, di sogni e di chimere, quelle cose che han nome poesia. Lei m’intende?
“They speak to me of love, speak they of springtime; they speak of dreams, and noble thoughts that fire me, and the charms of poetry that inspire me. Understand you?
“I do,” I whisper even as another strike cracks.
Ma quando vien lo sgelo, il primo sole è mio. Col novo Aprile una rosa germoglia sul davanzal ne aspire a foglia, a foglia . . . Altro di me non le saprei narrare. Sono la sua vicina che la vien fuori d’ora a importunare.
In my room live I only, high in my white-walled chamber lonely. O’er sky and housetops high glancing. When winter is advancing first sun of morn, I greet it! First kiss of April’s balmy breath I meet it! . . . No more I have of my going to confess you. I am a neighbor from without, that comes with my worry to distress you.
That last line always gets me. She was only my neighbor, there to bother me. Oh, but she was so much more. Silent tears stream down my face. It’s only my body they hurt. I take courage from her words. They cannot touch my spirit.
“Hang in there, Baldy Patch!” someone from the crowd calls out.
The lash comes again.
“You can do it, Leontes!”
The Warden grabs the whip from Greelo in frustration and swings. His pudgy arms can’t generate even half the force that Greelo could. The crowd erupts in laughter. The Warden’s face grows pink under his waxed mustache. He swings the whip, but slips on a patch of ice and falls on his ample ass. The crowd hollers with delight.
“Execute him!” The Warden screams. Greelo hesitates. “Do it now!” The Warden squeals.
Greelo draws a knife from his belt. The crowd is stunned. He raises the knife above his head. I won’t give him the satisfaction of cowering, even with my last breath.
“Stop!”