Justin Allen

With a last look at the red light play­ing off the cav­ern walls, Kadim stepped past the torches and into the tun­nel. Ander was right behind him.

Kadim’s eyes were open, but they may as well have been closed. The rest of the mine was dark, often with no more than a dis­tant pin­point of fire to off­set an oth­er­wise con­tin­u­ous sheet of black, but this was another world.

He blinked rapidly. Pure dark, like pure light, was shock­ing to the eyes. It seemed almost to itch, as though the dark­ness were pinch­ing him some­how. The feel­ing quickly passed, but for those few moments, Kadim couldn’t hear or taste or smell. He just missed light. All light.

The tun­nel itself was nar­row, barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast. In years past, Kadim had repeat­edly run into the walls. No longer. He knew there were a total of twenty-two paces between the main cham­ber, behind him, and the first turn. And when he reached that turn, he knew to step on his left foot. Count­ing steps and putting the same foot on the same spot every time — that’s how he did it. That’s how they all did it. He couldn’t remem­ber the last time he’d hit a wall.

They came around the last bend in the pas­sage and Kadim saw a half-circle of open sky. Usu­ally he was blinded by it. Not this time. The sun was down and it was a dark night. There were even a few stars.

He was near­ing the end of the pas­sage when a guard stepped out of the shad­ows, motion­ing him for­ward. Kadim lifted his bas­ket off his shoul­der. The guard at the mouth always looked in the bas­kets. Kadim didn’t know why. He didn’t even know if there was a reason.

Kadim set his bas­ket at the guard’s feet and stepped aside. As he did, Ander strode forward.

The guard was sur­prised. His hand jerked to the han­dle of his whip. “Why were you fol­low­ing him so close?” he asked.

Ander looked con­fused. “Close?”

The guard glared at him sus­pi­ciously, then began his exam­i­na­tion of Kadim’s bas­ket. “What have you got?” he asked. Nor­mally, these checks were minor. The guard looked to see that the bas­ket was full and sent them on. Not this time. He dug both hands into Kadim’s bas­ket. Rocks spilled out and skit­tered across the floor. Kadim sighed. He knew he’d have to pick up every pebble.

Both of the guard’s hands were buried to the wrist when sud­denly, Ander dropped his bas­ket. The guard turned just in time to see a tiny ham­mer whistling toward him, land­ing against the side of his head with a loud thump. Ander struck again and again. The sound was sick­en­ingly dull. In a mat­ter of sec­onds, both Ander’s hand and the guard’s face were bloody. Finally, the guard collapsed.

Not yet sat­is­fied, Ander reared back and struck him one last time. It must have been quite a blow, because his ham­mer shat­tered, the han­dle splin­ter­ing and the head spin­ning away. The guard was dead.

Ander mum­bled some­thing, but Kadim didn’t rec­og­nize the words. He thought it was because Ander was out of breath. But no. The real rea­son was that Ander was speak­ing in the com­mon tongue of the Shi­nar, a lan­guage Kadim hadn’t heard, at least not in full voice, in years.

“It’s over,” Ander said again. “We’re free.”

“Escape is death,” Kadim replied with­out thinking.

“You can go home.”

“To Akshur?”

Ander nod­ded.

“Home,” Kadim croaked. It was the first word of his native tongue that he’d openly spo­ken since… He wasn’t sure how long it had been. He licked his lips, notic­ing for the first time in hours how dry his mouth was. “Let’s go.”

They stum­bled out of the mine. At the bot­tom of the ramp, beyond the field, Dagonor hud­dled in its nar­row val­ley. A few twists of smoke rose from the cor­ner of the tem­ple. Noth­ing else moved. The slaves were already locked in their bar­racks — a sin­gle guard sit­ting in front of the door. Even the Niphilim were bed­ded down for the night.

Ander grabbed Kadim's arm, drag­ging him over the edge of the ramp and into for­bid­den ground. They hid behind a boul­der, not five strides from the mouth of the mine. It was all so easy.

“Run east ‘til you reach the Tiger River,” Ander said. “Fol­low it south… Sooner or later you’ll rec­og­nize where you are.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go due south. Once I reach the plains I’ll turn east.” Ander clasped Kadim's hand in his. “Maybe we’ll meet again at the river. Or in Akshur.” And then, with­out another word, he was up and lop­ing down the side of the mountain.

Kadim watched as Ander bounded over rocks and brush, fast as his feet could carry him. He should get going too, he knew. So, turn­ing his back to the camp, bar­racks, tem­ple and forge, Kadim ran. A full moon, unusu­ally bright, was just ris­ing over the east­ern hills. The night wouldn’t be dark for much longer.

From Slaves of the Shinar

The Over­look Press 2007

© Justin Allen