Hours without a single misstep and without warning, I collapse.
Faria is by my side when I wake. I was out for almost three days, he warns me, suffering from severe breakdown of muscle tissue. Without apology or tenderness, he tells me that knowing my limits is more important than pushing them. When I’m healed, we continue.
We explore the Citadel, climbing through the ventilation system that snakes through the black tower. We hover over the cells of other inmates and listen for hours. Faria teaches me to develop true hearing and quizzes me when we return to the confines of my cell.
“Tell me,” he says.
“His heartbeat was slow and weak. An older man. Perhaps seventy,” I reply.
“What else?”
“A Daysider, from one of the isles. The Isle of Shell or Bird.”
“How do you know?”
“His accent when he muttered.”
I can hear Faria nod in the darkness.
“An islander, so dark-skinned and old. He had lost a daughter. An only child perhaps?” I make the deduction from only a single word picked up among the random groans and breaths whispered in darkness—Lysha. It’s hard to make a more concrete conclusion.
“You heard the name, too,” Faria muses. “Are you sure it was a daughter’s name? Why not a boat he prized or maybe a lover from long ago.”
“Lysha is a girl’s name in the isles,” I say, thinking out loud. “Not a name generally used over a generation ago. Islanders of Tao do not name possessions after women like other maritime cultures. The pitch of his voice was a lamentation. He said the name as he would say a child’s. I know that feeling.”
My words hang in the air, and Faria says nothing. Then—
“What else?” he probes.
“He had lost a leg. I could tell from the way he moved. There was also some sort of infection or sores on his skin he kept scratching,” I offer.
“Where?” Faria grows intense.
“Left hand?” A guess.
“Upper forearm. The inner elbow. The vibration tells you,” he says, demonstrating the subtle difference between the scratching noises. “How would you treat such sores?”
“Antibacterial and fungal ointments, mussel glue to seal any open sores, a skin graft cultured from a healthy area of his body to complete the process.”
“That’s how you would treat his sores. How would you treat your sores?” he asks again.
“Divert white corpuscles to the area. Stimulate the division of new red blood cells. Increase mitosis of skin and collagen to seal the wound. Total recovery time . . . two days.”
“Too long for a few bedsores.”
“Open wounds can lead to complications,” I offer. “The extra time might be worth it.”
“You should be able to heal everything in a few hours and be ready to move.”
“If I wanted to be exhausted,” I respond. “I was assuming ideal conditions—”
“Never assume ideal conditions.” He turns to leave for the evening.
“Wait,” I call, “what was the man’s crime? Why was he here in the Citadel?”
Surely that was the most important question to ask me about the prisoner, wasn’t it?
“Think. You already know,” he says calmly.
An islander, with his leg gone, whispering a woman’s name? A fishing accident could account for the missing leg or the girl’s death, but that does not equal a crime punishable by exile in the Citadel. He sounded like he had a strong bone structure, physically imposing. A fighter. The Combat. Champions are made Electors, not prisoners. He was a combatant who lost his leg and survived . . .
“He asked for mercy,” I whisper.
I know I am right. Alberich also asked for mercy and was spared, but was punished with a life of indentured servitude and the loss of his reproductive organs so he could never pass on his name or cowardice to future generations. My father pitied him or thought he’d still be of use to his new house. His fate was unusual. This man’s existence was more likely.
“Combat is kill or be killed,” agrees Faria. “There’s no other choice. Especially for an islander. Anything short of death or victory is shame. So says the Pantheon.” The dark man’s words are bitter on his lips. His tone, personal.
Why is Faria here in the Wendigo?
“Enough.” His deep basso resonates. “It’s time for rest.”
“Yes, Master,” I say as I do before every slumber.
We climb through the cramped vents and tunnels. Today, our journey isn’t to visit cells of the other inmates, but for another purpose. The vent slopes downward and ends in empty space. Faria deftly leaps into the darkness.
“Quickly, Edmon!” he whispers from below.
I take a deep breath and let myself fall through the blackness. My stomach lurches for a beat longer than I would like. Then the hard stone of the floor touches the pads of my feet, and I roll to dissipate the force of the fall. I pop up into a ready position, my senses tuned to pick up any change in the vibration of my new surroundings.
“Sloppy,” Faria admonishes.
“A falling feather wouldn’t have made more sound,” I counter, confident in my newfound skills.
“If you made the sound of a feather, then that is too loud,” he chides.
“As if your jabbering weren’t noisy enough.” I grin and follow him down a hallway. My hands and feet glide along the slick, cold brick of the passageway.
“If you’re satisfied with fulfilling less than the maximum of your potential, life will be very easy for you, Leontes.”
“Where are we, old man?” I growl back.
“A main hallway,” he replies.
I stop in my tracks. “You always told me it was too dangerous for the main routes. What about Goth?”
The rumor, as Faria has told me, is that Goth is a genetic experiment. A mad scientist from decades past created him in order to show the world of Tao the benefits of genetic engineering, a technology they had outlawed. Rather than becoming a god of the Combat, however, the child was born deformed. Both scientist and his creation were exiled to the Citadel.
The true heresy, Faria had related, was that the experiment didn’t work. If Goth had turned out as planned, if he had been physically perfect, stronger, faster, and more handsome, his fate might have been much different. It makes me pity the creature.
Now the creature’s forlorn howls and rattling of his bonds reverberate as he stalks the corridors. His sense of hearing as acute as any who has lived in darkness all his life. He has a taste for flesh, feasting on the corpses of dead inmates and the occasional living, escaped prisoner.
Rumors, I think, trying to shrug off the sense of terror I feel now that I’m exposed.
“Don’t worry,” Faria whispers, snapping my attention back to the present. “I’ve timed our trip so Goth will be too far to catch us even if he does suspect something.”
“You think if he was a hundred flights up he would still know something was out of place here?” I ask skeptically.
“Would you?”
Not even with my newly acquired skills of perception. Goth, however, has lived an entire life in this place. “I’d rather not take the risk,” I respond.