escape?
Number 8281 knew the truth. Dray Prescot was an empty boaster, a bladder of wind. Eight-two-eight-one knew the truth.
It took me a day to think of the subject again. We were opening up a new seam far down into the guts of the mountain. The rock we wanted held a gray metallic sheen which differentiated it from the yellower rock all around. Yet it held no mineral I could tell. We simply took all the gray rock, irrespective of minor differences. This seam was narrow, and an overseer, a little Och holding with his four limbs a lamp, a wax notepad, a stylus, and a prodding stick, waddled up on his two lower legs to supervise. We were all crouched down, for the roof pressed close, and the oil lamp — it was not samphron-oil — smoked a little. I smelled the lamp; but, also, I smelled another nostril-tickling odor. In that confined space in the grotesque shadows of the lamp, the little Och prodding and writing, a Rapa guard with a spear bending almost double ready to spit the first one of us who did anything against the law — for the law would hold a guard within his rights if he killed protecting a Hamalian — I picked up the unmistakable scent of squishes.
Memories of Inch flashed into my mind, of his insatiable hunger for squish pie, and of the taboos he held in so great honor, and of that limb of Satan, Pando, taunting poor Inch with rich, ripe juicy squish pie.
The Och squeaked and backed away.
“All out!” He shouted so loudly some of the slaves jumped and a trickle of rock slid from the overhang. “All out at once! Guard, prod ’em along, you onker!”
We scuttled out.
We did not go back to that seam again.
Although I can recall that scene in all its clarity now, at the time with the same depressing grayness of days it passed from my mind; the little flicker of the idea of escape guttered like a candle in the opened stern-lantern of a swifter of the Eye of the World.
Number 2789 harked back to the idea of escape himself, and so forced me to contemplate reality. Was not 8281 also Dray Prescot? Was I not Pur Dray, Krozair of Zy? The Lord of Strombor? Prince Majister of Vallia? Kov of this and that, and Strom of Valka? Zorcander? Was I not? No title would help me now, but a Krozair brother is never beaten until he is ceremoniously slipped into the sea over the side of his swifter — if he can be buried decently by his brothers of the Order of Krozairs of Zy instead of dying in some stinking prison or under the longswords of those Grodnim cramphs of Magdag.
Despite all the horrendous difficulties, there had to be a way of escape.
The sheer efficiency of the Hamalese would make any attempt enormously difficult.
Probably escape was impossible. I wondered about it then, and I freely admit it, if it was possible for one man, even a Krozair of Zy, to escape from the Heavenly Mines of Hamal.
But, from somewhere, I found the determination to make that attempt. I did not care how foolhardy it might be. I knew, and I believe I understood at last, that merely staying alive was not enough. My Delia, my Delia of Delphond — who so far had not been called Delia of Strombor, as she had once wished — could not pine for me longer if I was dead than if I remained in these Opaz-forsaken mines.
So the decision was taken.
I would try to escape.
Number and order and law had worn me down. If you have listened to these tapes of my life upon Kregen you will know with what a hearty zest I detest and despise petty authority exercised in heartless and evil ways, without thought for those who are weak and unable to defend themselves.
Discipline is necessary in life — sometimes it is a necessary evil — but excessive discipline is a perversion.
Law dominated the men of Hamal.
I would turn their law against them.
Number 2789 would help. There were others, almost always newly arrived slaves who retained some shred of their old spirit. The Heavenly Mines in their soul-destroying regularity broke spirits as boys break
Number 8281 knew the truth. Dray Prescot was an empty boaster, a bladder of wind. Eight-two-eight-one knew the truth.
It took me a day to think of the subject again. We were opening up a new seam far down into the guts of the mountain. The rock we wanted held a gray metallic sheen which differentiated it from the yellower rock all around. Yet it held no mineral I could tell. We simply took all the gray rock, irrespective of minor differences. This seam was narrow, and an overseer, a little Och holding with his four limbs a lamp, a wax notepad, a stylus, and a prodding stick, waddled up on his two lower legs to supervise. We were all crouched down, for the roof pressed close, and the oil lamp — it was not samphron-oil — smoked a little. I smelled the lamp; but, also, I smelled another nostril-tickling odor. In that confined space in the grotesque shadows of the lamp, the little Och prodding and writing, a Rapa guard with a spear bending almost double ready to spit the first one of us who did anything against the law — for the law would hold a guard within his rights if he killed protecting a Hamalian — I picked up the unmistakable scent of squishes.
Memories of Inch flashed into my mind, of his insatiable hunger for squish pie, and of the taboos he held in so great honor, and of that limb of Satan, Pando, taunting poor Inch with rich, ripe juicy squish pie.
The Och squeaked and backed away.
“All out!” He shouted so loudly some of the slaves jumped and a trickle of rock slid from the overhang. “All out at once! Guard, prod ’em along, you onker!”
We scuttled out.
We did not go back to that seam again.
Although I can recall that scene in all its clarity now, at the time with the same depressing grayness of days it passed from my mind; the little flicker of the idea of escape guttered like a candle in the opened stern-lantern of a swifter of the Eye of the World.
Number 2789 harked back to the idea of escape himself, and so forced me to contemplate reality. Was not 8281 also Dray Prescot? Was I not Pur Dray, Krozair of Zy? The Lord of Strombor? Prince Majister of Vallia? Kov of this and that, and Strom of Valka? Zorcander? Was I not? No title would help me now, but a Krozair brother is never beaten until he is ceremoniously slipped into the sea over the side of his swifter — if he can be buried decently by his brothers of the Order of Krozairs of Zy instead of dying in some stinking prison or under the longswords of those Grodnim cramphs of Magdag.
Despite all the horrendous difficulties, there had to be a way of escape.
The sheer efficiency of the Hamalese would make any attempt enormously difficult.
Probably escape was impossible. I wondered about it then, and I freely admit it, if it was possible for one man, even a Krozair of Zy, to escape from the Heavenly Mines of Hamal.
But, from somewhere, I found the determination to make that attempt. I did not care how foolhardy it might be. I knew, and I believe I understood at last, that merely staying alive was not enough. My Delia, my Delia of Delphond — who so far had not been called Delia of Strombor, as she had once wished — could not pine for me longer if I was dead than if I remained in these Opaz-forsaken mines.
So the decision was taken.
I would try to escape.
Number and order and law had worn me down. If you have listened to these tapes of my life upon Kregen you will know with what a hearty zest I detest and despise petty authority exercised in heartless and evil ways, without thought for those who are weak and unable to defend themselves.
Discipline is necessary in life — sometimes it is a necessary evil — but excessive discipline is a perversion.
Law dominated the men of Hamal.
I would turn their law against them.
Number 2789 would help. There were others, almost always newly arrived slaves who retained some shred of their old spirit. The Heavenly Mines in their soul-destroying regularity broke spirits as boys break
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