The Uncrucified [ALPHA] - Ch.1 - No More Daydreams

RATING: PG-13
- Slavery

The gods took no more notice than usual on the day that a slave named Kalara was born in the dusty slums of a basement in the city of Gem.  The cycle of a soul began anew, as it always did, the web of destiny continued as usual without tangles, the spiders pleased with their work.  The sun moved overhead, Sol Invictus forever journeying on his sure path across the skies of Creation.  If he noticed her then, he made no motions to show it.  Her fate seemed settled the day she was born to a pair of slaves, doomed to be yet another slave with a hard and short life.

            If she had a last name when she was born, she would never learn it.  The most the child would learn from her real parents was the melody of a lullaby sang softly in Firetongue.

  Shiyan, shiyan, teyah.  Sleep, sleep, my child, for the moon will always set and the sun will always rise.

              The Lady Moon will spread thy dreams across the sky.

              Shiyan, shiyan, teyah.  Sleep, sleep, my child.  For thy days require rest.

              The Lord Sun rises on those truly blessed.

            Only the melody would remain in her mind after her parents died in a plague that ravaged the cities and villages of the Southern deserts.  Rich and old alike fell to the Blue Death, their swollen faces raised to the heavens looking to the gods that they were sure were watching them.  The rivers of the underworld fattened with souls and their cycles began anew.  All the threads were as they should be.

            The surname-less child became the child of random handlers, slaves who took precious moments out of their full schedules to teach her how to be obedient.  She would learn from them the best ways to remain invisible, to offer only what was needed, to do what was asked without question.  She became a child of labor, the girl quickly learning to work long hours sweeping, cleaning, and crawling into dangerous spaces only a child could fit for machine repairs in the mines.

            Her lullabies became the stories whispered to her at night by her many surrogate parents.  “Shh, be good!” They would say. “Before the Fey eat your dreams!”  She had seen the living embodiment of their warnings, slaves in the mines hammering in a monotonous rhythm, their limbs only seeming to move with the barest efforts, their faces placid and fixed only on one task.  She’d seen them being fed by other slaves, their lazy smiles dribbling food from their lips as they gazed up in uncaring stupors. 

They called them Dream-Eaten, slaves who returned from the Fey lands no more than a shell of their former selves.  These were usually the most outspoken, the upstart weeds plucked from their number before their disobedient attitudes could spread.  They found themselves a feast for the Fair Folk, no more than discarded shells and a gruesome lullaby for the children. 

“Be a good little slave…” They would tell her, “…for that is how you will survive.”

As Kalara grew older, she would learn there were any number of horrible fates for slaves in Creation.  She’d seen it in the dead eyes of the ‘dolls’ in the pleasure quarters or the wretched soot-covered chain gangs in the mines.  She continued to clean, sweep, and crawl, motivated by the unknown possibility of how worse things could be if she dared to expand her imagination in that direction.

On one such unremarkable run to the marketplace on her usual errands, her imagination would grow in unexpected ways.  She had only been trying to reach the grocer’s booth when she found herself engulfed by a large crowd that filled the marketplace.  Their excited cheers echoed above the bazaar, the whole place coming alive with color as people threw flowers and confetti from the balconies above.  Unable to deny her youthful curiosity, Kalara squeezed her way to the front of the crowd that lined the main street to catch the first glimpse of them – The Ashen Guard.

They marched in formation down the street, their gray cloaks flowing in the warm wind, the hot sun glinting off their bayonets and pale, colorless armor.  They had just returned from their latest victory against a raider’s camp.  They held their magnificent guns high above their heads, whooping victory to the crowd.  No one in the desert was their equal with these guns, these firewands hand-crafted by the hands of the secretive Arbani family.

It is said the founding members of the Ashen Guard defended the city of Gem from a terrible siege undertaken in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption.  Their elite regiment was tasked to ambush the raiders while the town rallied a defense.  Inspired by the tactics of desert outlaws, they buried themselves in the ash, using breathing tubes and periscopes to stay hidden until their enemies were just within arm’s reach.  Then, they sprang, decimating their surprised enemies!

The tale had been told a thousand times in Gem, probably more.  Even a slave like Kalara knew it, but seeing them was entirely different than hearing about their adventures secondhand.  Her young impressionable mind was inspired by the chance at greater adventures at the magnificent sight of their colorless cloaks and gleaming guns.  She imagined herself riding atop a white horse clad in pale armor, ashen cloak flowing behind her, her firewand letting loose a single impossible shot through the eye of a needle that would fell all who would oppose her.  She was a ghost in the sands, a hero of the city!

 

Even those that weave destiny could not know the irony of this moment for the girl with no surname.

Daydreams were a double-edged sword, however.  Kalara’s mind began to wander too much to make her a diligent slave and gambling problems in Gem meant that her ownership was bartered away in a game of cards or sold off to cover debts nearly every other year.  She was no more useful than a well-loved dog or a pack horse to most of them, the girl not beautiful enough to be anything else, except to those with particular tastes.  For the most part, she learned how to be invisible well enough to avoid particular people with particular tastes.

One such master in this string of masters acquired her contract at a game of cards when she was barely a young woman.  She was bought and sold one Mercuryday without any fanfare, Kalara notified of her contract’s exchange by a well-dressed representative when she returned from the marketplace that day.  Her master, Fasam, was there also, the unkempt man drunk again as he grumbled about his loss.  They told her to pack her things and report immediately to a wagon bound for the city of Chiaroscuro in the north. 

Just like that, her life in Gem was over.  She had tried not to nurture attachments in a life where anyone could be sold at any time, but those attachments had formed of their own accord.  Word of her departure spread quietly through the network of slaves and servants who knew her.  She said her final goodbyes through the bars of the slow-moving wagon to those who managed to escape their duties to line the streets for the caravan’s exodus.  Her mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, she reached through the bars and held each and every one of their hands as long as she could before they were shooed away for hindering the caravan. 

At the end of the line of people who had gathered last minute to say farewell to her, she found Djali.  She might have loved him in another life where they could be so frivolous.  He had always made her smile with his pranks in the marketplace, Kalara secretly delighting in the antics she was never brave enough to partake in.  They comforted each other when they could, sneaking away into the alleys at noontime when none were the wiser and climbing into storehouses they weren't supposed to be in.  They always knew life could change at any minute with the drop of a coin on someone’s contract. 

Kalara gripped Djali’s hand the longest, the both of them ignoring the warning of the guards.  They had promised no tears, knowing for years now that they would have to say goodbye at any moment.  To their credit, there were none.

“Find me in the next life, Kallie.  Let’s be rich then, eh?”  He was the only one who ever called her that and she hated it.  Kalara would never forget his final words to her and the pained smile that came with them.

Then, the wagon continued on its slow, inexorable path out of the city.  Kalara watched their shabby figures standing along the street as long as she could till they were lost in the blur of buildings and pedestrians.  She never felt so alone in the world as she did then, even crammed in the barely shaded transport with so many other slaves.  No more dreams came on that long and mournful journey ever out of the city.



The journey along the Deep Desert Road was an uneventful one.  Kalara beheld the distant dunes of the Glittering Desert with wonder, at first.  She’d heard stories of the creatures that roamed the vast expanse, from sand swimmers that moved beneath the dunes as easily as fish in the sea to bestial cannibals covered with tattoos.  So many stories swirled in her head, but the excitement soon paled after seemingly endless days of nothing but dunes to peer at from between the bars of the window.  

Only the monastery of Kether Rock, the crossroads of the Deep Desert Road, broke up the monotony of dunes and watering holes.  The slaves and low servants were allowed to meander nearby the caravan while the merchants and foreman retrieved supplies from the secretive monks.  Allowed a brief respite from their uncomfortable traveling accommodations, Kalara and the others made their own fire, roasting lizards and gambling away bits of clothing and food using dice someone had produced.  

While the stars wheeled overhead, Kalara stared at the silhouette of ruins cut out by moonlight.  Great statues taller than the tallest buildings she had ever seen lay halfway covered by the eternally shifting sands.  Such giants of men had walked here, their stories only forgotten tales.  They danced in her imagination, shaking mountains like ant hills, even if they were probably only exaggerations of smaller, less impressive men.  What waited for her across the Glittering Desert in Chiaroscuro was just as much of a guess as the true meaning of the statues lost to the sands.  

She hummed the song that had always comforted her, the half-remembered lullaby she had never known the words to.  It comforted her now with the uncertain path ahead, as well as the ever-constant cycle of sun and moon that moved around her no matter where she was on her journey.