Lakhoni (23 page)

“Thanks.”

“Well,
they don’t have names. You don’t name food,” Regg said.

“Oh.”

“But
I call this ‘un Dara, ‘cause she’s tender-hearted like my cousin.”

“Dara.”
Lakhoni moved back, walking behind Regg and putting a hand on the immense
animal’s flank. A thick, sweet smell rose from the short haired beast.

As
the morning moved toward mid-day, and the caravan started climbing more
foothills, approaching the odd-looking mountain range ahead, a strange odor
filled the air, getting heavier with the passing of time. Lakhoni scanned their
surroundings as they walked, but couldn’t see anything that would cause such a
stench.

“Regg,”
he called, still behind the man. “What’s that stink?”

“You
c’n smell that already?” Regg’s voice wafted over his dark-brown shoulder.
“By’t’sor, ye gots a good sniffer on yer. That’s from t’brick fields.”

“So
it’s not going away any time soon?”

“You’ll
get used to it.”

Lakhoni
doubted that. But his curiosity grew as the smell thickened. He was tempted to
tie his extra shirt around his face, but nobody else in the caravan reacted to
the stench. He didn’t want to stand out.

The
odor strengthened as the sun rose higher in the sky and the caravan climbed
gently curving switchbacks toward a break in the mountains ahead. The mountains
were far different from those he could see from his village. They gave the
impression of being wise old men, hunched and rounded with the weight of life
and years. As they reached the top, cutting between two of the old mountains,
he realized that he could actually
see
the air. It looked like faintly
brown fog; its color and consistency matching the odor that had plagued them
all morning.

“Regg,”
Lakhoni said. “What is that?”

“Brick
fields.”

“No,
the air. Why is that fog brown?”

“Brick
fields.”

“That’s
not brick fields. It’s in the air. The fields are on the ground, right?” The
stench didn’t stop at his nose. He tasted rotten meat and a flavor that
reminded him of the drink Salno gave to people with chills, and something else
that he could not identify.

“Jes’
wait an’ see.”

Lakhoni
bit back a retort and focused on the road ahead. The caravan was entering the
shadow of the first mountain, following the road as it curved between two
large, stone outcroppings that literally looked like the feet of the mountains.
Gnarled and covered in scraggly vegetation, the mountainsides sloped directly
away from the road. There was no place to turn off the road, and if two wagons
had been rolling abreast, they would have probably scraped the scrub-covered
rock walls.

Two
curves and about an hour later, the caravan emerged from the winding pass, but
still found themselves in shadow. Lakhoni glanced up, seeing that the sun was
now just behind the mountains. Looking ahead, he saw where the line of the
mountain’s shadow ended. And just beyond that—

Lakhoni
didn’t know he had stopped until Yed strode up behind him and shoved his
shoulder. “Move, pup.”

Incredible
waves of heat buffeted him. Before him sprawled an endless lake of
yellowish-red mud. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people stood up to their
knees in the thick muck. Backs bent, they filled large buckets with mud, using
flat tools and even their hands in some cases. Noise filled the air above the
lake, joining with the repulsive fog. Groans, shouts, and the crack of whips
reached Lakhoni’s ears. Men who had the build of guards stood at the shores of
the mud lake, shouting at the workers, their long whips snaking out to prod the
slow ones.

As
Lakhoni followed the caravan down the gradual switchbacks toward the valley
floor, he saw that some of the workers had ropes looped around their waist, the
other end of the ropes fastened to the buckets. He watched two workers lean
away from a full bucket and start walking, obviously with some difficulty. The
bucket resisted for a moment, then began moving across the surface of the mud.
Looking closer, he saw two flat and wide boards attached to the bottom of the bucket.
These allowed the bucket to slide across the surface of the muck.

The
caravan continued down the road, finally arriving on flat land. Noise, stench,
and a feeling of desperation filled Lakhoni’s senses. At the ox-tenders’
prodding, the wagons were pulled sharply away from the mud lake toward a series
of broad, low buildings that were obviously made of the bricks formed from the
lake. Tiles formed neat rows on the roofs of the buildings. Between the
buildings and the lake sprouted what looked like hundreds of huge balls buried
halfway in the baked earth.

Peering
at the domes, Lakhoni watched three men pulling on taut ropes, slowly hauling
something out of the wide, short door of one of the structures. It was a huge,
flat piece of stone, rolling out of the dome on a series of round logs placed
next to each other. On the flat stone sat a number of bricks. When the men had
the brick-laden stone out of the door, Lakhoni bent to get a look inside. He
saw the orange glow of coals. This, he decided, wiping sweat from his face, had
to be the source of the heat. The ovens had to help the mud harden quicker.

The
oxen complained as their tenders bade them stop. They probably didn’t like the
heat either. A party of men emerged from the nearest building, their clothes in
much better repair than the rags on many of the workers. Lakhoni moved to stand
next to Regg. He couldn’t imagine spending an hour in the sticky mud, much less
calling such a miserable existence home. How could a man spend more than a day
here without the stench driving him mad? No wonder Mibli had talked about
sending Lakhoni here.

“Why
would somebody ever work here?” Lakhoni asked.

Regg
gave him a surprised look. “Nobody with their head right’d want to work here.
This’s where crim’nals go. Murderers, thieves . . . This here’s
their home.”

Of
course.
“So
it’s a prison,” Lakhoni said. The men with whips should have been enough for
him to figure it out.

Regg
shook his head, his expression serious. “Prison’d be paradise compared to
this.” He waved his hand toward the lake. “This’s the brick fields.”

Lakhoni
tried to avoid the eyes of the many guards that wandered the fields, lashing
out at workers who displeased them in some way. This was not the kind of place
where he wanted to get attention. Instead, he watched the exchange between the
three merchants of the caravan and the men who had come out of the building.

Zello
gestured at one of his ox-tenders, saying something Lakhoni couldn’t make out.
The ox-tender, this was Cor, went to the back of Zello’s wagon and removed the
pins that held the hinged backboard up. He did this with his left hand, his
right hand hanging loose.
That’s what Regg meant about the arm.
Lowering
the board, Cor reached into the wagon and pulled out something that looked like
a cross between a brick and a loaf of bread.

Cor
carried the darkly colored thing carefully, holding it out for the men from the
building to see. One man produced a knife and quickly cut a corner off the
thing, which obviously wasn’t a brick.

“What
is that?” Lakhoni asked Regg, his voice soft.

“Toldja.
It’s dye.”

“That’s
what dye looks like?”

“A
cake of die, yep.”

Now
Zello lead the group of men to the back of his wagon and nodded at Shiz, his
other ox-tender, to pull the heavy-woven cloth off the top of the load. Dye
cakes filled the wagon up to just under the tops of the side boards. Next,
Hezeron strode to the back of his wagon, also signaling his ox-tenders as he
went.

Finally,
Paztar signaled Regg and Jeno to open his wagon for the men to see. Lakhoni
stepped back a few paces, not wanting to get in the way. The men inspected the
dye cakes closely again, ignoring the casks of water and other supplies that
filled half of Paztar’s cart. Then the three merchants and the men from the
brick fields walked together toward the building the men had come from. They
disappeared into the darkness.

Lakhoni
looked questioningly at Regg.

“Now
we wait. They’s gonna have a meal and hash out t’price. Then we unload dye and
load bricks. Then we go.”

Pleased
at the prospect of getting away from the sickening miasma of the fields, as
well as leaving the sight of so many men in total misery behind, Lakhoni
nodded.

To
the fires with it,
he
decided and reached into his bag. He pulled his extra shirt out and doubled it
over itself several times, then knotted it around his mouth and nose. Much
better.

“Won’t
last long,” Regg said. “Can’t keep this smell away for long, no matter whatcha
do.”

Lakhoni
shrugged, not caring. If it provided ten seconds of relief, that would be worth
it. With the stench and cloying taste of the air gone for the moment, Lakhoni
looked closer at the bricks being produced by the prisoners of the brick
fields. They were all the same size, about a half-hand wide and two hands long.
But some were smooth and unbroken, while others were hollowed out somewhat in
the middle. Still others had intricate patterns scratched into them.

Lakhoni
counted the bricks sitting on the cooling slab of stone that had come out of
the oven nearest him. Fifty. They stood in neat rows, with three hollow
cylinders cut out of the middle of each one.

He
estimated the number of ovens to be at least a couple hundred. If each oven
only did one set of bricks a day, that would be . . . he tried
to remember the figuring his father had taught him. Two fives in ten. Two
fifties in a hundred. That meant twenty ovens could make a thousand bricks. Two
hundred ovens—that meant ten thousand bricks!
Fathers, I could never use
half of those bricks in a lifetime.

But
the things on another cooling slab of stone weren’t bricks. He walked closer,
careful to stay out of the guards’ and workers’ way.

“Lakhoni,
you wanna be careful there,” Regg called.

Holding
up a hand and nodding to show he had heard Regg, he bent closer. Those had to
be roof tiles, but they were a deep red color and had a different shape. They
looked like the scales of fish.

Lakhoni
walked back to the caravan, his head spinning. Hundreds of prisoners making thousands
of tiles and bricks. And whoever was in charge of the operation had to be
incredibly rich!
Zyron. It has to be, if this is where criminals go.
Anger
built in him like the fires in the brick ovens.
More misery and pain, all to
make him richer.
More reason for justice.

When
he arrived back at the caravan, Lakhoni pitched in as ox-tenders began to
unload the food casks from Paztar’s wagon. Taking his signal from Yed, who
appeared to be the leader of the unit of guards with the merchant wagons,
Lakhoni dug through the food available, turning up some wrapped, cured meat,
some aging cheese, and a bag of wizened apples. He set things out on the lids
of boxes, and realized that, despite the horrible stench that was now seeping
through his cloth mask, he was hungry.

“Why
does it smell so bad?” Lakhoni asked nobody in particular around a bite of meat
and cheese. The useless shirt-mask was back in its home in his bag.

A
minute passed where the grouped tenders and guards simply focused on their
meal. Sighing loudly, Regg finally responded. “It’s t’bog.”

“Bog?
What’s a bog?” Lakhoni said.

Razo
scoffed loudly. “The pup knows nothing!” The other guards and a few of the
ox-tenders erupted into laughter.

Lakhoni
held back a retort, knowing he shouldn’t antagonize these men. He was so close
now; he had to be careful.

“That’s
a bog,” Yed said, his voice garbled by a mouthful of lunch. He indicated the
mud lake behind Lakhoni.

Fearing
his lack of knowledge would add fuel to the teasing of Razo, but curious to understand
better, Lakhoni hesitated. Maybe it would just be better to wait and ask Regg
for more details when the others weren’t around. Things like how the bog worked
and why it smelled so bad. He glanced around at the constant activity. So many
guards prodding and yelling at so many men created a nearly unbroken tumult of
shouts and cries. It was as if the bog itself were groaning. As Lakhoni watched
a pair of workers haul a bucket of mud, he thought he saw a bubble roll up to
the surface of the bog and release a small cloud of thick, awful-looking air.

Another
team of two men stood at each station where the buckets of fresh mud had been
left. These men hauled out armfuls of the mud and dumped it onto what Lakhoni
first thought were simple wooden frames. Upon closer look, he realized that the
bottom of the wooden frames was made of very tightly woven reeds or something
similar. Dark water seeped out the bottom of what Lakhoni decided to call the
mud filters. The men at each frame/filter squeezed and worked the mud, with
some of the teams intermittently bending down to break pieces off of dye cakes.
Some filter stations had a large stack of dye cakes near it. This was where the
roof tiles got their color!

Finally,
at some point, the men apparently decided that the mud had lost enough water.
And in the cases where dye was used, they made sure it was mixed well into the
mud. Next, Lakhoni watched two men shape a pile of colored mud into a roof tile
shape, using wood forms and packing the mud tightly. They scraped the shape
clean and moved to the next one, leaving their shaped tile to be baked in the
hot domes.

 Several
guards patrolled the bog’s edge, bellowing at the men harvesting mud to move
faster. Other guards walked up and down the long, curving row of mud-shaping
teams with their filters and platforms, making liberal use of their whips to
prod the men along. The same thing happened with the teams of men working on
moving the platforms up the gradual slope, always on paths of rounded logs, and
into the dome ovens.

“Never
seen not’in like it, didja?”

Lakhoni
tore his eyes from the sight of so many men desperately working to avoid the
lash. Regg had moved closer and now sat on a medium-sized rock to Lakhoni’s
right.

“It’s
amazing,” Lakhoni said. The approach to and scale of the work was undeniably
impressive. But the sheer misery of making the bricks and clay roofing tiles
under the obviously cruel lash of the king’s guards infuriated him. Zyron’s
cruelty obviously knew no bounds. Lakhoni suddenly hungered for his moment with
the king.

Pointing
with his chin, Regg indicated the low building where the merchants had gone.
“They’s comin’ out.”

“Boy!
On your feet. Help unload so we can leave this foul place.” Paztar’s voice was
slightly muffled by a thick-looking mask of blue cloth. He gestured at the
wagon, spun quickly, and hurried back into the building.

Lakhoni
followed Regg to the back of the wagon.

“Take
lots an’ we’ll be done quicker,” Regg said. Paztar’s other ox-tender, Jeno, had
already leapt into the wagon and was moving stacks of dye-cakes to the end of
the wagon where Lakhoni and Regg stood. “But leave two rows at the front for
the city.”

By
way of acknowledgement, Lakhoni reached for a stack of at least ten dye-cakes.
Flexing in preparation, he was so surprised when the stack came off the wagon
easily that he stumbled and almost lost his balance.

“More!”
Regg called from behind a stack that reached the top of his head.

Lakhoni
snorted a laugh. “I see.”

When
the wagon was nearly empty, Lakhoni realized that it was just him and the
ox-tenders working. The guards had moved off and joined a group of brick field
guards. They were all hunkered down in a circle. By the shouts, Lakhoni assumed
they were playing some kind of game.

With
the last load of dye off-loaded into neat stacks, Regg moved back to his seat,
brushing his hands against his pants, leaving light swaths of red behind. So
that was why the man’s pants had stains of so many colors.

Red
dye covered Lakhoni’s hands as well. He looked around for something to clean
them off on.
Or maybe I should use my pants.
The stains should serve to
make him look like a legitimate caravan worker once he got to Zyronilxa. He
copied Regg, but found that no amount of scrubbing would remove all of the red.

“Will
it ever come off?” he asked.

Regg
chuckled. “Soon enough. It’ll wear away.”

Lakhoni
found the rock he had been sitting on and his bag. He grabbed the bag and slung
it over his head and across his torso. “Are we leaving soon?”

“Soon
enough.” Regg faced the buildings that held the merchants. “They’s gonna have
some more work fer us.”

Remembering,
Lakhoni sighed and dropped his bag again. The merchants were going to be
picking up some bricks to sell in the city. He wished they would come out soon
so they could get to work. Even after the effort of unloading the dye, he was
beginning to feel jittery; the palpable misery of the brick fields was seeping
into his bones.

The
merchants eventually emerged, the other men leading them. Some final
conversation passed. Then Zello produced a knife from a soft-looking sheath at
his side. Tingles of shock covered his skin when Zello stabbed his own hand,
then proffered the knife to one of the other men. The man accepted the knife,
jabbed his hand, and returned the knife to Zello. Each man made a fist with
their wounded hand. Lakhoni saw several drops of blood drip to the hard-baked
earth. Finally, the two men clasped hands for a few seconds.

The
deal complete, Zello, Hezeron, and Paztar returned to their wagons and gave
orders to follow one of the brick field guards, skirting between the buildings
and the ovens. Lakhoni followed, noticing that Yed and the other caravan guards
were approaching the wagons, their game done. The wagons soon came to huge,
neatly arranged pyramids of bricks and roof tiles. Next to the pyramids stood a
structure that looked like a large tent, but had no walls. In the center of the
structure there were arranged a table and several chairs.

Each
merchant gave orders, then moved under the structure to relax in the shade.
Lakhoni helped Regg and Jeno load Paztar’s wagon. The bricks weighed more than
the dye, making for harder work. But the labor felt good to Lakhoni; the sweat
dripping out of him gave him the feeling that he was being cleansed of the
awful miasma of the brick fields. He, Regg, and Jeno were done first, partly
because Paztar’s wagon was partially filled with the food and water supplies,
as well as the front two rows of dye cakes. Lakhoni followed Regg to the next
wagon and helped there too. The wagons were loaded quickly and then the large,
woven-cloth covers were arranged over them and tied down.

Finally,
the ox-tenders prodded and coaxed the oxen to move forward. Clearly everyone in
the caravan had their fill of the brick fields, because the wagons moved faster
despite the heavier loads.

Lakhoni
glanced to the sky. They were heading south now. The road stretched ahead,
bending somewhat to the right to follow the line of the hills surrounding the
valley containing the brick fields. Lakhoni fought the urge to look behind him
as they left the miserable place behind. He never wanted to see that mud again.

After
less than an hour had passed, a new smell filled the air, something different
and cleaner smelling. “Regg,” Lakhoni said, stepping up to walk next to the
man. “What’s that smell now?”