They put a bag back on my head and march me down a few flights of stairs. My heart is still racing in my chest—the sound of old prison isn’t pleasant, but at the same time it’s a relief compared to interrogation. I feel a rush of hot air as they march me outside, and then into an even hotter and stuffier building.
I half stumble down a flight of curving stairs. Wood creaks and groans. Then I’m thrown to the ground. Someone cuts my cords and tears the bag off my head.
I hear a young woman’s voice.
“A boy? I will not sleep in the same room with a male!”
“Quiet,” says the hoplite.
“This is an offense against Asham.”
I’m in a tiny cell consisting of three stone walls and a heavy wooden gate. The gate faces out towards a dank, cramped, torchlit hallway. The guard stands in the hallway, facing someone in a cell next to mine.
“Just following orders,” he says. “Besides, we can’t throw him in with the natives. He’d be killed.”
“And why should I care if he is killed?”
“Gods! You people truly are heartless.” The hoplite chuckles. “Enjoy your company, sweetheart.”
“May Asham sear the living flesh off your bones.”
The guard chuckles again and then walks away past my cell. His footsteps clank up the winding stone staircase and a hinged door slams shut.
Then there is only the crackling of the torches lining the hallway.
A thick layer of gray dust covers the floor and walls of my cell, which seems to be very gradually crumbling in front of my eyes. A ratty, dust-covered mattress takes up a full half of the space. A chamber pot, thankfully an empty one, lays beside the foot of the bed.
I kneel on the mattress and disturb a cloud of dust. Probably swimming with dust mites. I shake my head and recline against the wall.
The wall, I soon realize, has a small hole in it. I kneel down on the bed and look through.
Surely enough, I see the young woman pacing back and forth in the neighboring cell.
She looks up from her book. With her veil, only her eyes are visible, and they’re dark and fiery. Somehow, she notices me looking at her and stares right back.
“Do not look at me,” she says.
I sit up from my peephole and turn around.
“Sorry.”
Silence again. I get up and pace across my cell. It only takes three steps.
“So,” I say. “Um. Are you a native?”
“Do not talk to me, either.”
I close my mouth. On the ground, a cockroach scurries into my cell from under the wooden gate and I freak out. I step back onto my bed, holding my breath—insects terrify me. When the cockroach disappears from view, I get even more scared because it could be anywhere now.
The torch on the wall crackles softly, monotonously. I hear her crinkle the book’s paper as she turns the pages.
“I’m not like them, you know,” I say.
The woman says nothing.
Footsteps and screaming from the staircase!
One of the voices sounds familiar.
“Gil! GIL!?” It’s Kiddu.
“Shut your damn mouth!”
I hear a loud smack!
“Ow!”
“Gyaaaaaaah!!!”
A few seconds later, I see a gigantic armored guard carrying a flailing, squirming, kicking, punching Kiddu in his arms. Two more hoplites follow him with shields and spears. The three of them manage to open the gate to the native woman’s cell and throw Kiddu bodily onto its stone floor.
The gate slams shut and the fat guard cradles his forearm. It’s oozing blood from bite marks. The guard grimaces at Kiddu through his helmet.
From the other cell, I hear Kiddu spit.
“P’tah! Now I remember what bacon tastes like.”
“Stupid little bitch,” says the guard. “I’m going to smash your God-damned face…”
The two smaller hoplites struggle to restrain the huge one. Eventually they succeed in pushing their comrade back up the stairwell. His curses echo through the stone corridor.
“Kiddu!” I say. “Are you okay?”
I hear a commotion on the other side of the wall. I forget about the native woman’s request and look through the peephole. Kiddu’s big brown eye stares back at me.
“Gil! Are you alright? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“No, I’m fine. Except for my ear, it’s killing me … hey, you’re bleeding!”
Her nose. It’s dripping blood. She sniffs.
“Oh well. Wait a minute—”
Her eye disappears from the peephole. I notice now that the veiled woman is still sitting on her bed reading her book, as if nothing at all had just happened. Kiddu turns to her with her hands on her hips.
“Who are you?”
The native woman says nothing.
“Alright, whatever. So what did you do?”
“Please do not talk to me. I am trying to read.”
“What are you reading?”
The woman does not answer or even acknowledge the question.
“You’re a native, right?”
“Kiddu,” I say. “She said she doesn’t want to talk to us.”
Through the peephole, I watch Kiddu pace around the room, tracing the grooves along the old stone walls.
“It’s so damn hot in here,” she says. She takes off her dark cloak. Underneath she wears a short dress. In the process of pulling off her cloak, the dress hem got hiked up and now I can see most of her thighs.
The native woman gets up. “Excuse me,” she says.
Suddenly, my vision through the peephole goes blank.
The veiled woman must have pushed a piece of cloth into the peephole.
“Hey!” says Kiddu. “Take that out! I need to talk to him.”
“What is preventing you from talking to him?”
“I want to see him too!”
“He must not be allowed to see us. For this leads to sin, and Asham will not forgive it.”
“Oh,” says Kiddu. “Wonderful. I should have guessed from your costume. You’re as crazy as the other natives. Maybe you haven’t figured this out yet, but me and Gil don’t believe in your stupid religion.”
“Kiddu,” I plead. “Come on…” I wonder who would win in the increasingly likely scenario of a fight breaking out in the other cell.
“It is your religion as well,” the woman says. “We worship the same Gods and revere the same Law. The only difference is that I choose to obey that Law while you do not.”
I lay down on my mattress and sigh. For some reason, I think Kiddu would have fared much better in a physical fight than in a theological discussion.
“Hey!” I say. I try to interrupt them now before it gets too ugly. “Can we stop arguing, please? We just got here.”
“You know I like arguing,” says Kiddu.
“Well,” I say. “Look, don’t we actually agree on a lot of important stuff?”
“Nothing is more important than obedience to Asham,” says the woman.
“Fine. So, we disagree about that. But—okay, for example, what do you think about the way beasts are treated? You don’t eat meat, right?”
“No.”
“We don’t either. Me and Kiddu are members of Bestial Liberation. Have you heard of it? That’s actually why we’re here. We were fighting to stop the oppression of beasts.”
“Oppression of beasts?” The woman sounds just as incredulous as Satrap Nimrod had. “What about the oppression of our tribes? The defilement of our sacred shrines? The rape of our women? You Akkadians claim to be spreading freedom and enlightenment, but all you do is spread your black magic and your sin-contagion across our lands. And you expect us to do nothing while your people’s blasphemy calls down the wrath of Asham? There can be no peace between us until all of the sinners go back to their own lands!”
I sigh. “Unfortunately, these two sinners aren’t going anywhere. So … can we at least make a truce or something?”
“If this is what you two desire then perhaps it is best if we stopped talking to each other entirely.”
I can hardly believe how unpleasant this woman is. I’d always thought of myself as sympathetic to the natives. But she’s straining my limits.
“Whatever,” I say.
We sit in silence for a while. I can hear Kiddu’s echoing footsteps pacing back and forth on the opposite side of the wall. I wish I could see her but I don’t want to start another fight by clearing the peephole.
“So what do you want to talk about?” Kiddu says.
“I don’t know.” My mind is a blank. The pain in my left ear has transformed into a dull, buzzing throb. The carnage and explosions from before are still reeling through my brain. It feels like days ago now, even though it was only hours.
“Hm,” says Kiddu. “Want to play Eighteen Inquiries?”
“No…”
“Come on!”
“No!”
Ten minutes later:
“Is it in this room?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What color is it?”
“Yes or no only, and that counts as an inquiry.”
“Is it alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is it an insect?”
“Nope.”
“A bat?”
“No.”
“Human?”
“Um,” says Kiddu. “Kind of.”
“Is it a God?”
“Gods aren’t human, idiot.”
“Is it part of someone’s body?”
“Yes.”
“Kiddu!” I say. “Why do you always have to be so gross?”
“You don’t even know what it is!” she says. “And that counts as an inquiry. That’s thirteen!”
I feel something crawling on my scalp. I violently scratch my entire head for a full minute.
“Okay. Is this a body part that everyone in the room has?”
“As a matter of fact—I believe it is!”
“A body part that everyone in the room has … is it usually covered?”
“Usually.”
“Is the answer going to offend someone in this room?”
She hesitates for a moment with her response.
“Possibly.”
“That’s it. I’m going to bed.”
After working so hard to keep the two of them from fighting, I refuse to let Kiddu provoke the native woman again.
“Sore loser! Come on, let’s keep playing.”
“No,” I say. “I hate you.”
“Fine. I hate you too, Gilly Boy.”
I fall over on my side. The mattress feels like it’s crawling with mites on the inside, but at least it’s dry. I have no pillow, so I just tuck my head into the crook of my arm, good ear down, and close my eyes.
“I’m just kidding Gil,” Kiddu says. “I love you!”
In spite of myself, I smile.
“By the way, the correct answer was vagina.”
“Wait a minute—”
Kiddu’s stifled laughter sounds something like a mouse squeaking. It goes on for so long that I wonder if there really is a mouse over there.
As I lay there I suddenly feel more exhausted than I’ve ever felt before. I have no idea how long I’ve been awake, but it’s probably the longest I’ve ever been. Even though my mind is still racing, my body decides of its own accord that it’s time for sleep.
That night, I dream.