The Trochiabite Boy Chapter 26: Another Cell

CHAPTER 26  Another cell

 

Likely, it was a day and a half that went by before Jallin felt even close to right again, and even then he wasn’t sure his body remembered itself very well.  All over, he itched, stung, and tingled intermittently.  He was cold in some places, hot in others, and numb in others, and he felt like a ragged patchwork quilt.  His eyes didn’t blink simultaneously like they had before, and for a long while, who knew how long, his right eye always blinked before his left.  His left side seemed louder than the right and, sometimes, he felt like he had to teach himself to breathe every other breath.  He couldn’t really walk at first, not entirely sure how his feet worked, or how his legs supported weight.  He stood up, leaned against the wall, then sat down again. 

What had the bitch done to him?  With one touch she managed to up his body’s memories of itself like a gardener digging out a flower bed with a spade. 

He tried to make sure he remembered everything he wanted, but how does a person make sure of his memories?  He went back and remembered Hurga coming to visit.  One particular visit. 

They sat at their table, the one in the front room.  Eja knelt on the ground and drank from a little bamboo cup.  Jallin knelt beside her, as though they were both praying, and he shared out the bread he managed to steal from a kinto-shah in the Deshin.  This particular vender never seemed to notice it when Jallin took something from him.  Sometimes, he even looked at Jallin just before a snatch, and said nothing.  He didn’t even wave his hand at Jallin like he was some kind of fly like the other venders did when children came around. 

Hurga sat in the chair.  She asked Jallin where he got the bread a couple times, every so often.  She divided some vegetable stew she’d made into their filthy bowls.   

“You know,” she said, “we should be thankful we live in such a place as this.  We should be thankful for the opportunity to be poor and have to struggle for our lives.  Our lives are more precious to us, because we have to work so hard to keep them.” 

Jallin’s mother leaned back on the sofa.  She rubbed and dabbed at her face with a dirty cloth.     

“Then, my life is more valuable than all the gold in Terrilia,” she said with a little chuckle. 

“No, I’m serious.  I have heard of nobles who worry about every little scrap of dirt under their fingernails.  Why else do you think they make people like us wash their clothes?  They’re afraid of dirt.  They think one little bit of dirt can wipe out their whole family.” 

His mother sighed. 

“I figured it was because they didn’t want to smell like us poor folks.”  She laughed again.  How many times did she laugh?  Jallin wanted to remember every time, and he couldn’t.  How long had it been since she died?  He couldn’t remember that either. 

She looked like she did just before she died then.  It was the only way he could remember her now.  Had he lost all those laughs, all the smiles? 

He shook his head. 

A plate of food slid under the door of his cell.  It stared back at him. 

It took him a long time to reach the food, and he could only do it leaning against the wall.  Once he stood over it, he could not imagine how he would bend over and get it.  What had she done to him?  What was the move, the magic, that had so disabled him?  Which part of her abilities had she used on him: the aavemancer or the tah-nith? 

Would he ever see her again? 

The questions were as annoying as all the little ticks. 

He slowly slid down the wall until he could get at the food.  It actually had some kind of meat in it.  What that meat was, who could say, but it looked like some kind of chicken or struk or some bird.  Maybe it was pidgeon.  Then again, maybe it was a hundred different other cheaply acquired things that tasted the same. 

By the time he managed to get it, and then get back up, half of it had spilled out in smelly puddles, both on the floor and the bed, and most of what was left was growing warm instead of hot, if it had ever known real heat to begin with. 

He was forced to eat with his hands or drink out of the fowl tin.  But at least it was somewhat filling.

Aside from the occasional mouse scurrying out of a crevice near the back corner and licking at the splatterings of soup on the floor, Jallin remained alone in his cell.  It was a long time before he felt even close to normal again, and even so, he remained curled up into a ball on the bunk of his cell, listening to the faint noises outside. 

Footsteps passed by his door several times, but none ever stopped.  He listened for voices, hoping and dreading hearing Shyál’s voice.  Maybe she would say something about him.  Maybe she would come visit, or perhaps she wouldn’t, but he would know she wouldn’t.  He didn’t know what comforted him.  He certainly didn’t want to see her again. 

The worst were the screams.  Every so often, they dragged screams from a cell, as though collecting them from cupboards.   

Jallin had never felt this way before.  When they came for someone, or when they walked by, Jallin stayed as still and as quiet as possible.  He didn’t want them to find him. 

But they did.     

 

The cell door opened and in stepped Shyál. 

She wore an extremely short dress, made of some kind of slick-looking black silk.  It looked like she was dressed in tar or oil only.  The dress revealed the rising mounds of her breasts and came to some peculiar point in her thigh which was unbelievably close to her hip, but at the same time revealed nothing of her femininity. 

Even so, Jallin’s eyes were drawn there instinctively. He felt like he should look the woman in the face, both because of some moral instinct and because he felt he should see if she lied to him or if she was doing some strange magic against him.  He had no idea how he might fight it, or control himself when it was used, but he felt it would be better not to be distracted.  Yet, her body was designed and decorated for the purpose of distracting men.  She was some kind of whore. 

Just now, she sat beside him on his cot, and he moved as far from her as possible.  He looked at her breasts, then her legs, all her skin as pale as fish bellies, with peculiar curvy shadows between…things. 

Oddly, she looked as though she were guilty about something.  Jallin was aware she stared at him, but he couldn’t be sure what she would do next.  Would she paralyze him forever now?  Would she tear a chunk of his soul away and eat it? 

When she moved, Jallin flinched.  His body, despite his best efforts to control it, remembered what she’d done earlier, and how long it took to recover from it.  It did not want to know that feeling again. 

“What is it?” he said, finally, as she did not speak for a few minutes at a time. 

“The Glorious Empire of Sarkoshia….” she began.  “Owes you an apology.” 

Jallin glared at her.  He said nothing.  He waited to hear this. 

“It was discovered my methods of interrogation were inappropriate and therefore invalidated my findings.  You, as a prisoner of His Majesty’s Beneficent and Absolute Justice, were entitled to a hearing before several of the aethren counsel, not just one.  I interrogated you without proper authority to do so, and therefore….”  The woman swallowed.  She met his eyes, for the first time since she came. 

“What does that mean?  Invalidated your findings?  What are you talking about?  What do you want now?” 

“When a prisoner is interrogated, they are subjected to many tests.  These tests are designed to get at the truth of the matter as quickly as possible.  But these tests must be administered to the subject in the proper fashion, in such a way as to prevent the possibility of personal bias interfering or inhibiting the complete honesty of the prisoner being interrogated.” 

“What?” 

“Effectively, I am telling you that I made a mistake.  I did not have my superiors with me when I questioned you in the garden.  I had no supervision, no one watching me.  I am eager, you see, to see an end to what’s been going on.” 

“What’s been going on?” 

“The Trochiabites,” she said.  “There have been outbreaks of bloodlung and furfire all over the islands.  People have been dropping dirty and poisoning wells.  There have even been outbreaks of the claggra and a few instances of Wayward’s disease.” 

“Wayward’s disease?” Jallin asked.  He knew the others. 

“A kunjel disease that makes kunjels have a weaker willpower.  Makes it much easier for them to rage.  Under normal circumstances, it is not very contagious, but several kunjels have come down with it and gone into unexpected rages and been arrested or killed.  The damned Trochiabites, for whatever their stupid reasons, are trying to destroy Sarkoshia, to spread plague and madness all over the islands.” 

Jallin shook his head. 

“What about the apology?” 

“Oh, yes.  Well, as I said.  We have rules for when we ask questions.  I broke some of the rules.  So, the Empire of Sarkoshia has sent me to tell you that you are due an apology.  You are to be released today, returned to wherever it is you wish to go, and given a small propitiation.” 

“What’s a propitiation?” 

“A sum of money issued by the government to apologize and hope it will help you be well.” 

“How much money?” 

“The sum of one gold crown and a passkey will be given to Jallin of the Ki-L’yasuna District.” 

“One gold crown?  A passkey?” 

“Yes.  Here.”  She put a gold coin on the bench between them.  Then, she put something else between them next to the coin.  It looked like a necklace, and the pendant was a large, perfect crystal, clear as glass and a deep purple color.  “Take them both.  They are yours.” 

Jallin picked up the coin.  He’d never held so much money in his life before.  He flipped it back and forth.  It was so much heavier than it looked.  On one side, the butterfly-wing design of the Lord Emperor, and then on the other was a strange looking face, a mask with hollow eyes. 

Something shimmered on the coin as he turned it.  It was the prettiest piece of gold he’d ever seen, not that he’d seen many, but this gold shined as though it were the only piece of gold in the world and everything else only thought it was.

“I could buy out my contract, couldn’t I?” he said.  “With this coin, I could buy mine and Eja’s out, couldn’t I?” 

Shyál nodded her head. 

“And with the passkey, you can move from district to district and find a better home for yourselves, perhaps even find some sort of productive work.  When you buy your contract, you might even have enough left over to find a place to live.  You’ve learned much working with Kir-Tuko in the garden, haven’t you?” 

Kir-Tuko in the garden?  What did she know about that?  How did she know his name?  Was it because he mentioned Shi-Féo?  Were the records in Sarkoshia about people really that well-kept?  Or had he said something while she interrogated him? 

He shook his head and looked at her.  She looked back as though she had merely mentioned the colors of flowers. 

“I…I don’t know a Kir-Tuko, Shyál.  I don’t know what you are talking about.” 

“Oh, come now.  Don’t take me for a fool.  Look, your interrogation is over.  I know quite enough about you.  But, you don’t have to hide anything from me anymore.  It was because you were so forthright with me before that I’m letting you go now.  You do believe me, when I say you are free to go, right?”

“Now?  Right now?” 

“Oh, no, not right this very moment.  You must be bathed and equipped, and then you will be set free.  I am going to arrange these things for you.  You do believe me, right?” 

Now her eyes were pleading, as though his confidence in her would make her who she was. 

“I believe you, but when.  How long do I have to wait?  I have to….”  He stopped himself.  He thought about flowers.  The buds of s’luma, little tiny white flowers, hardly big enough to hold a speck of dust on their petals.  Each plant, when in full bloom, looked almost like a green head with dandruff sticking out.  It was an important plant, Kir-Tuko said.  What it did, Jallin had no idea, but Kir-Tuko harvested it, separated it, and gathered the tiny petals together into a little jar. 

“Do you think Master Noshó will hire you on to help him when you go back into the district?” Shyál asked.  “I’m sure, if you wanted, I might could arrange something for you.” 

“Who is Master Noshó?” Jallin asked.  But he knew she already knew everything about him.  He sighed at the futility of lying to this woman.

She smiled. 

“Do not worry.  I am bound by law.  I only seek the truth in things.  Do you believe that?” 

Jallin nodded.  He held now the passkey in his hand.  It wasn’t as interesting to look at as the gold coin, and not as valuable either.  Perhaps, it was made of iron.  It was heavy like an iron door hinge and shaped like a key with two shafts facing away from each other.  In the center of the two shafts was the circular head surrounding what looked like a piece of highly polished bone or maybe shell with the crude painting of a doorway and a few strange letters surrounding it. 

“Is this magical?” he said. 

“No.” she said simply.  “Not at all.  But somewhat pretty, isn’t it?  In a common sort of way.” 

Jallin shrugged. 

“With this, you can go through gateways between districts.  It grants access to almost all of the trade districts on this island, as well as quite a few of the entertainment districts.  Have you ever been to the Song and Dance district?  It can allow you access.  Do you know about the Song and Dance?  It’s absolutely wonderful, but on the western side of the university.  You’d probably have to cross a couple of borders to get there from where you’re from, but with this, it’s no problem.” 

“What about the bracelets, the ones they sell you before you can leave the kinto-shah district?” 

“This is better than the bracelets.  This is more permanent.  The bracelets are a tax.  You show this device to someone, and they give you a bracelet, and without you having to pay.  You just have to show your letters of mark along with this key, and you will be allowed through.”

Jallin stared at it.  Suddenly, it felt a little heavier.  Such a small thing with so much importance.  What could Jallin do with the ability to freely move between districts?  But, didn’t he already have that ability?  Then again, he was growing a little taller, a little bigger.  Could he fit through fences forever? 

Then he thought, how much would something like this be worth to someone?  He could buy away his contracts from Counselor Dursus, couldn’t he?  How much could two human children, two untrained human children, be worth to the kinto-shah anyway?  Maybe, with enough left over, he could get out of the district forever, and into somewhere else where he could get some kind of work.  He knew enough to be an errand boy for an apothecary or alchemist, didn’t he? 

But not how to read and write. 

Shyál reached up and closed his fingers around the key. 

“You must keep this thing safe.  I don’t think I would tell anyone about it but gate guards.  Your letters, either.  Above all, you must not show it to the other Trochiabites.  You must not.  You know as well as I do what will happen if they find out about it.” 

“I’m not a Trochiabite.  I’m not.  Not really.” 

“I know, but you are among them.  If they get this, they’ll use it to drop dirty all over Sarkoshia.  You know they will.  If they even know about it, they’ll kill you for it.  Do you believe that?” 

Jallin hesitated a moment and considered.  It was true.  If he showed this to Counselor Dursus, he’d surely lose it. 

“Do you believe it?  Do you believe me?” Shyál asked him.  She always asked him that, and each time, Jallin wondered why it was so important that he believe her.  Finally, he nodded, just to keep her from pleading with him with her eyes.  He felt as though simply agreeing with her was some kind of personal favor, though after what she'd done to him, he wondered why he still wanted to help her at all.  But he did. 

“Good.  If you’re well enough to walk, then let’s get you out of here.  First, we will go and get you some new clothes.”