Then they put a bag over my head.
They march me through town, zigzagging down streets and up treacherous steps. The cloth is rough and hot and moist with condensed exhalation. My breath doesn’t smell good, from the vomit, and it takes every shred of willpower to stop myself from doing that again.
I can hear the muffled yells of natives screaming and phalanxes marching and clashing. I can hear this only through my right ear.
The noise dies down. Now all I hear is my own hyperventilating, amplifying my frantic thoughts. The realization that my entire future has collapsed into this moment grabs me by the throat. My heart beats so fast it feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest.
“Watch the stairs!” a soldier yells, as he pushes me blindly into them. I stumble over myself and nearly crack my face against a stone corner. My unseen captors pull me back up and nearly lift me off my feet as they drag me up the stairs.
I hear the rumbling scrape of a gravitic door sliding up and then slamming down behind me. The air suddenly becomes much cooler.
A few dozen more stumbling paces—then I’m pushed down onto a wooden chair, and someone tears the bag off my head.
In front of me, behind a cluttered desk, is a burly, important-looking man. Absorbed in his paperwork, he pays me no heed. But I hide my face anyway. I had been crying a little when the bag was over my head. I wipe the tears away furtively and glance around the room—a large, elegant office lit by bright lit-lamps under blue-violet paper coverings.
“At ease, hoplites,” he says without looking up. “What is your name, boy?”
I tell him.
“What are you, thirteen? Fourteen?”
“Fourteen, sir.”
He scribbles something too long to be my age.
“Who are your parents?”
“I … don’t know.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m an orphan,” I say.
“Where do you live?”
I look down. They’re going to find out anyway. “I go to boarding school at Nabuk Street Temple.”
He continues scribbling nonstop. “Do you know who I am?”
“Are you … the satrap?”
A hoplite slaps the back of my head. “Address Satrap Nimrod as sir!”
The satrap holds up a hand dismissively, smiles, scribbles a final note. Then he looks me squarely in the eye. He has a scar running down his cheek like a thin teardrop.
“I am the governor of Libri. Do you know why you’re here?”
“I … sir, I think there’s been a mistake—where’s Kiddu?”
“Your compatriot? Is that her name? She will be questioned shortly. Now let me explain. My hoplite says you were on the wall of the Circus at the time of the attack. The chain binding the Circus’ prized lamashu, which attacked my soldiers, is broken. We find this—”
He tosses a flask on the desk. I look down at my lap, grimacing.
“Withering tincture,” Satrap Nimrod says. “No use pretending. We know you had it. You can’t buy that legally. That tells me you’ve been meddling in the black market. Do you know who the primary buyers of withering tincture are?”
The question hangs in the air for a moment. I continue staring at my lap, knowing my reactions are being closely studied.
“Native terrorists who use it to sabotage our armor. They buy it from sympathizers on our side of the Wall. Now—what did you say your name was?”
“Gil.”
“Gil, I can see you’re not a native. I imagine that’s what makes you a valuable asset to them.”
“What!?”
He holds up a hand again and I shut my mouth.
“I am not going to waste time taking chances tonight. My city is burning. You will tell me everything you know about the mystics. And I don’t want to hear some fable about a legendary hidden city in the mountains. I want to know where they’re hiding in the desert. And I want to know which natives in the city are harboring them. If you’re forthcoming, you’ll be imprisoned until a later date when you can stand trial. If you are not forthcoming, you will be interrogated until you are. Is that understood?”
It feels like someone just punched me in the stomach. I know exactly what interrogation means. I lean over on my lap and try to stop myself from throwing up again.
Then I look up and say, as earnestly as I can: “Please, sir, you have to listen. We had no idea the mystics were going to attack. The only reason we set the lamashu free is because … we’re members of Bestial Liberation.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“Bestial Liberation. We—we try to help beasts, like the lamashu. We’re against bestial oppression.”
“Bestial oppression? Get him out of here! I don’t have time for this nonsense.”
The two hoplites lift me up and drag me towards the door. But I try to twist around as much as I can.
“Please! You can’t just assume I’m a terrorist just because you’re too ignorant to know about Bestial Liberation!”
Nimrod looks up from his papers and just barely smirks.
“Do not call me ignorant, boy.”
For a moment I think I’m in even deeper trouble now. But then the door to the room opens to a commotion outside. A hoplite enters, clutching his arm.
“Satrap, sir, the girl is hysterical. She keeps on rambling about beasts—”
“Beasts?” says the satrap. “What, had you two worked out this excuse beforehand?”
One of the other hoplite guards steps forward. I notice his skin is light tan, like the natives.
“Satrap,” he says, “I think the boy may be telling the truth. Bestial Liberation is known to us. The group operates underground, and many of them are certainly criminals, but they do not appear to have any significant relation to the native political resistance, and certainly not to the mystics. And in any case, I have never seen these two in the native district.”
“Is that so,” says the satrap. “Well, I’m not going to interrogate a kid for belonging to some beast-loving cult.”
I breathe a huge sigh of relief. “Satrap, sir, thank you for seeing reason—”
“Reason, boy? I don’t see any damn reason for what you did. You’re lucky that monster you set free didn’t kill someone! You will await trial until martial law is lifted. I expect your judgment will be harsh. Take him to the prison.”
“But Satrap, sir,” says the native hoplite, “the prison is already over capacity. All those natives we brought in from the riot tonight—”
“Hm,” says Satrap Nimrod. He strokes his chin, staring at me placidly. “I should just have your hands cut off. Did you know that’s what the natives did to thieves, before we came here? Perhaps there are some glimmers of enlightenment in their barbarism…”
I gulp. Even in the strangely cool air, I can’t stop sweating. The satrap continues to look at me, right in the eye, with his half-smirk and distracting scar.
Finally, he looks down at his desk and begins scribbling more notes.
“Take both of them to the old prison, then.”
“Satrap, that is where we are holding—”
“You have your orders, hoplite. That is that.”