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.If I’m stopped, awkward questions could be asked.Safer to avoid the slaves altogether.I’ll not stay in the dormitory, and I’ll keep out of their communal areas.They’ll assume I’m the personal slave of a visiting dignitary and that I sleep in their quarters, or even as their bed-partner.In a society where men’s urges towards their own women are strictly repressed, Eskaran slaves are a valuable commodity.No laws of propriety apply.They can do what they like.My first order of business is to explore the area around the Overseer’s office.Getting the others out unseen is going to be the hardest part of this whole affair.Whatever route takes us away, it has to be quick and close.There’s no disguise they can use.Opening random doorways is a dangerous way to explore: slaves don’t barge into rooms.So I’m forced to rely on observation, sticking to the less travelled routes, not straying too far.The difference in corridor styles - narrow and winding compared to wide and straight - leads me to believe that much of this fort has been built around an older structure.The older corridors form the shell of the prison, and they’re dark and tight and will suit me well.The newer sections surrounding them are the domain of the scholars, and not too heavily trafficked.There’s little need for guards here, and scholars spend a lot of time engrossed in their work.Not too far from the Overseer’s office, I find a door.Its very innocuousness attracts me.It’s tucked into an alcove, small and hidden.I barely notice it as I pass.Behind it I find a tight spiral staircase leading down into darkness.Taking a lantern from its bracket in the corridor outside, I risk investigation, wondering what unlikely excuses I might give if anybody should catch me.At the bottom is another door.Old and heavy and locked.I listen at it, and hear nothing.There’s the faintest trace of light beneath it.I put the lantern aside and press my face to the floor to try and see under.Dusty.Nobody has been here for a long time.Just for an instant, there is a breeze, soft and warm, like breath.Then it’s gone.I can’t see anything through the crack.But that tiniest stirring of air against my face excites me.That’s air from outside.I hold the lantern up to the lock and examine it.It’s basic and crude, made for a large and simple key.Give me two long hairpins and a little time and I can have it open.Hairpins, then.I want to know what’s behind that door.Not long afterward, I find all the fresh air I want.At the top of a staircase there’s a doorway to a balcony.I hesitate for an instant before going through, weighing the dangers: a slave shouldn’t be seen loitering.But there’s no real choice in the end.Out there is the world that I have been shut away from, and shut myself away from.Gentle wind teases my face.I walk to the parapet and look out.After so long hemmed in by the walls of the prison, the moment is magnificent.The cavern isn’t anything special by normal standards - in fact, it’s fairly barren - but I drink the view in all the same.The balcony is on the flank of a tower, looking out over the battlements of the fort.Farakza stands on an uneven island of bare stone, scarred and rucked with age, in the midst of a slow river of spume rock.The ground around the fort has been flattened by the power of an Elder, stripping away the cover for two hundred spans.Anyone trying to cross that would be seen and killed.That presents a problem.Manta-like shapes float on the thermals above the river, membranous wings stretched between rayed fingers of chitin, poisonous tails trailing.Beyond the river, scrub fungi and boilstone stalagmites have begun to reclaim the land.Hardened lichens grind through their mammoth task of breaking up solid stone into mineral-laden dust, and thorny plants rise on the river bank, leaching sustenance from the sluggish flow.I can’t see to the far side of the cave: Farakza’s lights are too bright.They drown out the faint glow of phosphorescent algae, the sparkle of tiny insects, the shine of plankton in pools.The sense of space is exhilarating.I know Feyn would laugh at that, as one who lives fearlessly beneath the sky, but to me existence has limits: the roof of a cavern, the wall of a chamber, the length of a rockworm-bored tunnel.Existence is full of holes and passageways, drilled uncountable ages ago by vast beasts who have left nothing but their fossilised skeletons.This moon was hollowed by their industry.Long after they were gone, we descended, hiding from life above.I’m assaulted by a strange feeling of claustrophobia.I feel trapped.I’ve always been trapped.Not by my surroundings but by circumstance [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.If I’m stopped, awkward questions could be asked.Safer to avoid the slaves altogether.I’ll not stay in the dormitory, and I’ll keep out of their communal areas.They’ll assume I’m the personal slave of a visiting dignitary and that I sleep in their quarters, or even as their bed-partner.In a society where men’s urges towards their own women are strictly repressed, Eskaran slaves are a valuable commodity.No laws of propriety apply.They can do what they like.My first order of business is to explore the area around the Overseer’s office.Getting the others out unseen is going to be the hardest part of this whole affair.Whatever route takes us away, it has to be quick and close.There’s no disguise they can use.Opening random doorways is a dangerous way to explore: slaves don’t barge into rooms.So I’m forced to rely on observation, sticking to the less travelled routes, not straying too far.The difference in corridor styles - narrow and winding compared to wide and straight - leads me to believe that much of this fort has been built around an older structure.The older corridors form the shell of the prison, and they’re dark and tight and will suit me well.The newer sections surrounding them are the domain of the scholars, and not too heavily trafficked.There’s little need for guards here, and scholars spend a lot of time engrossed in their work.Not too far from the Overseer’s office, I find a door.Its very innocuousness attracts me.It’s tucked into an alcove, small and hidden.I barely notice it as I pass.Behind it I find a tight spiral staircase leading down into darkness.Taking a lantern from its bracket in the corridor outside, I risk investigation, wondering what unlikely excuses I might give if anybody should catch me.At the bottom is another door.Old and heavy and locked.I listen at it, and hear nothing.There’s the faintest trace of light beneath it.I put the lantern aside and press my face to the floor to try and see under.Dusty.Nobody has been here for a long time.Just for an instant, there is a breeze, soft and warm, like breath.Then it’s gone.I can’t see anything through the crack.But that tiniest stirring of air against my face excites me.That’s air from outside.I hold the lantern up to the lock and examine it.It’s basic and crude, made for a large and simple key.Give me two long hairpins and a little time and I can have it open.Hairpins, then.I want to know what’s behind that door.Not long afterward, I find all the fresh air I want.At the top of a staircase there’s a doorway to a balcony.I hesitate for an instant before going through, weighing the dangers: a slave shouldn’t be seen loitering.But there’s no real choice in the end.Out there is the world that I have been shut away from, and shut myself away from.Gentle wind teases my face.I walk to the parapet and look out.After so long hemmed in by the walls of the prison, the moment is magnificent.The cavern isn’t anything special by normal standards - in fact, it’s fairly barren - but I drink the view in all the same.The balcony is on the flank of a tower, looking out over the battlements of the fort.Farakza stands on an uneven island of bare stone, scarred and rucked with age, in the midst of a slow river of spume rock.The ground around the fort has been flattened by the power of an Elder, stripping away the cover for two hundred spans.Anyone trying to cross that would be seen and killed.That presents a problem.Manta-like shapes float on the thermals above the river, membranous wings stretched between rayed fingers of chitin, poisonous tails trailing.Beyond the river, scrub fungi and boilstone stalagmites have begun to reclaim the land.Hardened lichens grind through their mammoth task of breaking up solid stone into mineral-laden dust, and thorny plants rise on the river bank, leaching sustenance from the sluggish flow.I can’t see to the far side of the cave: Farakza’s lights are too bright.They drown out the faint glow of phosphorescent algae, the sparkle of tiny insects, the shine of plankton in pools.The sense of space is exhilarating.I know Feyn would laugh at that, as one who lives fearlessly beneath the sky, but to me existence has limits: the roof of a cavern, the wall of a chamber, the length of a rockworm-bored tunnel.Existence is full of holes and passageways, drilled uncountable ages ago by vast beasts who have left nothing but their fossilised skeletons.This moon was hollowed by their industry.Long after they were gone, we descended, hiding from life above.I’m assaulted by a strange feeling of claustrophobia.I feel trapped.I’ve always been trapped.Not by my surroundings but by circumstance [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]