Memoirs of a Fallen God

Chapter 1

My memory is hazy and broken until that day, like the lingering, half-remembered impressions from a night of troubled dreams.

I can only surmise on the likely sequence of events which led me to that slave line, to that ditch. A family with too many mouths to feed, a wayward child snatched up from some darkened alley. That or a hundred like scenarios seem equally possible. Slavery was commonplace in Caldor at that time, and the slavers were ever greedy for bodies for the block.

In any case, it is largely irrelevant. I am not one given to musings of fate, or to weigh my own self-worth based upon the short comings of my forebears. My mother may have been a queen, or she may have been a whore. I confess to not caring one way or the other.

Whatever my provenance, my first clear memory is of almost dying.

I was lying in a ditch. I remember the feel of moist grass cushioning my head and the vivid blue of the sky above me. I remember the scent of summer flowers mixed with sweat and fear, and I remember the sharp taste of my own blood as it pooled in my mouth. I remember the sound of birds singing, happy and free, interspersed now and then with the sickly wet slap of padded wood meeting bloodied flesh. Mostly, though, I remember waiting to die.

Just above where I lay bleeding in the grass squatted an ugly slave driver named Niroko. He was short and fat, with dirty yellow hair, and the tip of his tongue hung out of the corner of his mouth as he worked.

He was beating me to death with a club. Methodically. Like a farmer tilling a field.

I was beyond feeling the individual blows, beyond the point of pain. I simply stared up at the sky and waited. I don’t even recall what I had done to incur his wrath, only that it had been a small thing.

The club was a cubclub, a padded length of wood meant for beating lessons into more delicate slaves. Despite the padding, the harsh blows the man was dealing were teaching a savage lesson indeed.

If it hadn’t been for the intervention of another slave driver, whose name I do not recall, screaming at Niroko—something about damaging the goods, I think—my story would have ended there, in a grassy ditch along a dirt road, halfway between the village where I was purchased and the farm where I was set to work, at the hands of a slave driver with a short temper. I was six years old.

I do not recall how I managed the remainder of that journey. Certainly I did not walk. Perhaps another slave was ordered to carry me, or perhaps one did so out of pity.

But I remember well the scene upon our arrival to the farm where we slaves were to make our new home. As we rounded the final corner to our new home, my eyes were drawn to the mansion; a great monolith of a structure, set like a jewel amid the paltry, squat slave buildings surrounding it. I confess I was a touch awed. Never before had I been so close to such finery. Nevermind that this was a minor mansion owned by a minor Count. To me, it seemed a castle.

But of course we slaves were not brought to the mansion. Instead, we were brought into a long, low building with a stone floor. The walls were plain wood and unadorned. The other slaves and I, some ten or so in all, were instructed to form a line for examination.

Soon, our new master appeared. From the first, there was never any doubt that this man was the master; he stood out amidst the slave drivers and farmhands in the room like a wolf among a mangy pack of dogs. I later learned he was the Count Delokay, a noble of some standing. At that time, though, he was simply a figure more imposing than the rest.

He was large, both tall and wide, with close cropped black hair, and a fine, black set of clothes. I was still bleeding, the rags I wore were torn, and I was barely able to stay upright. I did my best to stand straight and look like more than what I was. My efforts to remain inconspicuous were futile, of course, with my face and side still covered in blood, cuts, and bruises, but there was little else I could do.

For the most part, my new owner examined his latest acquisitions with an air of indifference, but he paused as he passed me. He looked me up and down, his disgust evident. Scrawny, bloody and torn up as I was, I suppose I was somewhat unimpressive.

"Will someone explain to me why this slave is bleeding to death on my floor?" the man asked.

Silence met his question.

Finally, Niroko stepped forward. "Not sure why your man bothered with that one, sir. Wasn't never much to him, even fresh off the block. Must'a gotten himself on the wrong side of one of the other slaves.” He sneered. “Probably had it coming."

The owner glanced at Niroko, nodded, then went back to examining me. He made a slow circuit, taking pains to keep his boots clear of the blood on the stone floor; several of my wounds were still dripping.

He glanced up. "What is your name, driver?"

"Niroko, sir."

"Well, Niroko, I am curious. Do you take me for a fool?" He pointed to a grisly, purpling bruise on the side of my head. "This is clearly the mark of a padded implement. Else his brains would be splattered on a dirt road somewhere, I don't doubt. Unless slavers have gotten into the habit of handing out cubclubs, I am forced to conclude that you are lying to me, and that this damage was inflicted by one of you drivers. And since you were so keen to speak up, Mr. Niroko, I believe that makes you the prime suspect. Unless any of you others would like to step forward?" He turned to regard the motley collection of slave drivers.

To a man, their eyes remained on the floor.

"I thought not." He leveled a finger at Niroko. "The time this slave spends recuperating will be deducted from your pay. If he proves crippled, you will repay me his full cost. And I will have five lashings from you, or I will have you out of my employ."

"But m'lord, the mangy cur had it com-"

He brought a hand, interrupting. "Yes, yes, I'm sure his punishment was well deserved. He looks to be quite the terror. He must be all of what, five?" He waved his hand dismissively. "Spare me your excuses. It wouldn't matter to me if the boy charged you with an ax, slaver, the fact is you damaged my property and cost me coin, and this I will not abide. Now your choice. The lash or the road."

Niroko threw a hot, angry glance at me, before turning back to meet the gaze of his employer. "The lash."

With a nod from the owner, the other slavers stepped forward and stripped Niroko of his shirt, right then and there. They roughly dragged him to his knees before the owner. As Niroko braced himself to take the blows, his eyes once more sought me out from among the other slaves. Our stares locked. The intensity of his gaze was startling; never before had I seen such malice.

One of the slavers handed the owner a slave whip, and after a few test swings, he seemed satisfied. He stepped over the cowering man and, without any sort of preamble, swung the whip downwards across his back. A thin line appeared across the man's flesh, red and weeping.

Niroko screamed, long and loud, but his eyes never left me, and I did not avert my gaze, as was proper for a slave.

I should have. I should have stared at the floor, or covered my eyes, or fallen to the ground in a heap. There is a small chance that, had I not witnessed his pain, had I not met the angry hatred in his eyes with a hatred all my own, I would have merely been able to avoid the man in the future. Perhaps he would have forgotten me, given time.

But I was young and far from wise. I stared right back at him. I felt no fear, only satisfaction. I even allowed a bloody smile to come to my lips as I watched the lash flay into the naked skin of his back.

Even through the pain, I could see the hatred on the man's face grow with every lick of the whip.

Here was justice, I thought.

I was a stupid, stupid child.

Afterwards, the line of slaves were hauled from the building, myself included. When we were again outside, a man came and unshackled my legs from the irons, and while the rest of the newly arrived slaves went on towards the sorry collection of huts and shacks assembled near the fields, I was urged in a different direction. The man walked behind, making no effort to hurry me, seemingly content with the slow pace my exhausted, beaten body could manage.

I believe I made it twenty paces before I collapsed.