The sadness from this one would be worst of all.
Garth bent back to the arm. He had cleaned most of the flesh about the wound now…but what was this? A further abrasion? He cleaned a little higher up the man’s biceps. There was something here…ah! An old scar. Garth peered a little closer.
“A burn,” he muttered. “And old. How did you get that?”
But the man turned aside his head, and Garth rubbed away at the rest of the old burn tissue in silence. It covered most of the man’s upper biceps. Gods, but he was lucky to survive that, Garth thought, for surely it must have become infected. Impelled by curiosity more than anything else, he wrapped his hands about the old scar, ignoring the fresher wound, feeling for the extent of the old injury.
What he felt seep through the scar tissue altered his entire existence.
FIVE
LOT No. 859
Garth knew what it was instantly.
It had only been three days since he had last felt this…difference. The ink used to tattoo the image of the Manteceros into the flesh of the heir to the throne changed the flesh it was bonded to.
So Cavor’s flesh had been changed.
So this flesh had been changed.
His hands shook, and the man’s head turned back to him. “What’s wrong?”
Garth instinctively looked over at the guards. They were still involved in their game of dice and did not notice him. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Something told him it would be death to suddenly shout to the world that this man was…was…
“Maximilian,” he whispered, and made himself meet the man’s eyes.
The man’s teeth bared in a gesture that was half grin, half snarl. “I am Lot No. 859. I have no name.”
Garth’s hands continued to shake; if anything they had got worse. Joseph had told them of this; all prisoners were assigned lot numbers when they arrived at the Veins. Their names and every record of their previous lives were struck from the record books.
“Maximilian,” Garth repeated, more strongly this time, but still only a whisper.
“Treat my wound,” the prisoner snarled, his hostility tangible, “and then leave me alone. The dark has made you demented.”
Garth’s hand tightened about the man’s biceps. “I can feel it! The Manteceros has been tattooed into your arm—and someone has made this cruel attempt to burn it out.”
Something flickered across the man’s face, but whatever it was had gone before Garth could recognise it.
“Is anything wrong?” Jack called, half rising from the circle of the guards. “Is he being insolent?”
“No,” Garth called hurriedly. “No. I am tired, that’s all, and I was resting before stitching the man’s wound.”
“Then hurry,” grumbled Jack, “for we have three other gangs for you to treat.”
Three more gangs? Garth almost collapsed at the thought, then, surprised, leaned back. Something approaching sympathy was shining from the man’s—Maximilian’s—eyes.
“Stitch my wound and then leave me,” he said softly. “There are others who need you, boy.”
“My name is Garth.”
“I do not need to know your name,” the man rasped, his hostility returning in the space of a breath. “I will never see you again. Now stitch me up and leave me.”
“Garth,” Garth said determinedly, “Garth Baxtor. Son of Joseph Baxtor.”
Again something flickered deep in the man’s eyes, but he turned away without answering.
Garth finally let his hands slip from the old scar. Somewhere beneath there the Manteceros yearned for freedom. He reached for his suturing gear and closed the man’s wound. If he had survived that horrific burn then he would survive this.
By the sun above, Garth thought suddenly, his fingers stilling, how long has he been down here?
The man’s arm tensed, and Garth hurriedly finished the job. As he tied the last knot, Garth touched the man’s arm again. “What are you doing here, Maximilian? You belong beyond the hanging wall.”
The man’s head turned back to his, and Garth realised that beneath the grime coating the man’s face were the most compelling blue eyes he had ever seen. “Your Touch has made you dim-witted, boy,” the man whispered fiercely. “There is nothing beyond the hanging wall. Nothing.”
“I—” Garth began, but the man continued, seizing Garth’s hand in his own.
“There is nothing beyond the hanging wall. No hope, no joy, no existence beyond what I currently enjoy.”
Garth winced at the intonation placed on that last word and at the denial he could feel swamping into him from the man’s flesh.
“Above me lies only blackness. Behind me lies only blackness. Before me lies only blackness. My life is gloam and pain, and then yet more gloam tempered by a little more pain.” He paused, and when he resumed, Garth could hear and, more terribly, feel the total despair of this man’s soul. “There is no outside world. Once I believed in it. No more.” He paused, then finished on a whisper. “No more.”
Garth’s face set into stubborn lines. “You are Maximilian, rightful King of Escator.”
The man’s teeth bared once more in a parody of a grin. “I am Lot No. 859. I always have been and I always will be. Now, go!” He pushed Garth away from him. “Go!”
Somehow Garth got through the rest of that terrible night. From that anonymous cavern in the ground where rested Maximilian, King of Escator, Jack dragged Garth to three more sites, all similar, all with chained gangs of nine men. Some men Garth could save, some he could not. But whoever’s face currently swam before his, all he saw was the face of the man with the aquiline nose and the dark blue eyes that stared into his so fiercely…the man with nothing but despair where his soul should have flourished.
How…what was he doing in the Veins?
Whatever had warned Garth to say nothing to Jack continued to prod him. Several times he opened his mouth and turned to the guard, only to turn away when Jack asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
What was he doing in the Veins?
The young boy, lost in the forest. Seized by unknown assailants, the Manteceros scorched from his arm by some unimaginably cruel hand, then thrown down into the Veins. Safe. Hidden. As good as dead. Simply Lot No. 859.
Garth was ready to swear that whoever had thrown him down here probably thought him dead many years previously. Who would think that any man could have the reserves of strength and courage and even heart to survive seventeen years in the Veins! No wonder the man no longer believed in the outside world. He had lived the greater portion of his life in darkness—did he remember anything about the outside world? No wonder the man refused to respond to his name.
Maximilian.
“Maximilian,” Garth whispered softly to himself, almost as a mantra. If Maximilian could survive seventeen years below, then he could get through the night.
And then he would rise to the surface and let the light wash over him and everything below would seem but a nightmare to be easily brushed away…
…except that the fact that Maximilian laboured beneath his feet would never, never go away. And so he toiled through the night.
“Garth,” his father said, and Garth’s head jerked up. Father?
“Come,” Joseph said gently, seeing the darkness and pain hovering in the corners of Garth’s eyes. “We have done what we can for the moment. See? Here is the cage. Lean on me, yes, that’s it. Ah, we rise—feel it? Shush, Garth, shush. It’s over now.”
No, Garth thought as he leaned against his father and wept, it’s only just beginning, but how do I tell him that? How do I tell him?
SIX
LIFE AND WORK IN THE VEINS
Garth did not tell his father about his meeting with Maximilian. He knew what Joseph would do. He would go straight to the appropriate authorities, inform them that Maximilian, rightful King of Escator, lay beneath their feet—and then both he and Garth would themselves be condemned to the Veins for the rest of their lives.
Garth realised that someone in authority knew of Maximilian’s existence. Had to, surely, and until Garth knew who that someone was, knew who was safe to confide in and who not, he was not prepared to tell his father.
It was too risky, too dangerous.
But what to do?
The questions kept Garth awake at nights.
The pipes had remained clear, and within twenty-four hours the mine had been pumped clear of the sea water and the tunnel that had been broached was sealed with explosives. Once the danger had, literally, receded, Garth and his father spent most of their days down the Veins, attending the more routine injuries and the vivid and virile fungi that afflicted prisoners doomed to labour in the damp, sulphurous air of their eternal night.
Each further day he spent down the Veins Garth kept expecting to run into Lot No. 859 again, but they never went back to the section Jack had taken him to the first night, and apparently Lot No. 859 toiled nowhere but.