“Willa,” Emmy hissed. “What the hell is in your bag?”
I took a closer look at the crest. There was now a dent in it, right in the centre. Knocking the pin-straight staff a little off-kilter.Whoops.Striding a few feet forward, dragging Emmy with me, I snatched my bag up again.
“I think it was the saucepan,” I whispered.
“Why is there a saucepan in your bag?” she asked, glaring at the bag in question.
“Won’t we need it to cook with?”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. I’d caught the start of her laugh. I brandished my bag at her, fully prepared to whack her with it—and the gathered people gasped,again.
Emmy only shook her head at me.
“How many strikes do you get before they bleed you?” I was half joking as we were forced to turn to the gathered villagers and wave.
She blinked a few times, her mouth opening and closing, before she was finally able to say, “It’s your own fault, Will. What did I tell you about walking?”
“That I should leave it to the experts,” I mumbled, trying to sound chastised.
The stark white of her skin was a little too pronounced, and I knew she feared for me, even though she was teasing me in the same way that she always had. I wasn’t the only one who had been kept up last night by visions of the many ways in which I would almost definitely be tortured. Dwellers might live simple, menial, task-driven lives—but it was reasonably safe in the villages. My curse was barely tolerated here, but there was nothing that could be done to actually get rid of me. Most dwellers figured that one sun-cycle soon, I would simply take care of the problem myself, by tripping into one of the spiked pits that bordered the village to protect us from wild animals, or accidentally stumbling into untamed bullsen territory.Pfft.Been there, done that, wasn’t eventhatclose to dying.
“Come on.” Emmy dragged me the last few feet.
My bag was now being stored in the back by the guide … though not before he searched it suspiciously. He didn’t even open Emmy’s.Hardly surprising. One look at Emmy and it was pretty clear that the most illegal thing she would be capable of smuggling into Blesswood would be a pair of underpants with an accidental rip in them. Not even a deliberate rip—anaccidentalone.
The guide was probably employed by the Blesswood academy. He would take us across the seven rings, a journey which would take many sun-cycles, and then he would deliver me to my doom. I examined the cart, worried that it wouldn’t be sturdy enough to withstand my bad luck. It was one with a covered, round-top cargo hold. It would be there that we would sleep when night fell. Two bullsen were secured with a multitude of belts, which had been woven from the strongest of vines. Vines which I knew only grew in the two rings out from Blesswood. Not much else was able to contain the huge black beasts. I paused to admire them for a moment—because they could do no harm to me all trussed up in leather harnesses. They were relatively hairless, or at least they had really short, shiny coats. Their eyes were usually full of darkness, but I had heard you could occasionally make out the faintest ring of colour around the iris. I never had, but that was because I refused to get that close. They had four sets of legs, with knobby knees and hooved feet, and while they looked somewhat gangly, they were impressively strong and fast.
They were also wild and dangerous, but most people chose to ignore that fact by pretending that they had successfully ‘domesticated’ them.
“Greetings, dwellers.” The guide was younger than I’d expected, probably around thirty life-cycles old, with a full head of orange hair, a spattering of birth spots across his nose, and light blue eyes. “My name is Jerath. I will be escorting you safely to Blesswood, where you will begin your blessed service to the sols.”
A cheer went up from my village. It wasn’t the first one.
“Crying would be much more appropriate,” I side-whispered to Emmy. “They could at leastfakesadness until we left.”
With a shake of her head, she nudged me forward and both of us climbed up onto the back bench seat. The guide had the front, and he would use the belts to control the cart. From this high vantage, I could see the crowds and the edges of our village. The spot near the water well where I’d hidden during the most punishing sun-cycles of the heat season, so that the droplets of cool water would splash me as people pulled from the well. The stone buildings where I’d spent my formative life-cycles learning, and the healer’s hut, where I’d sent at least five of the teachers who had laboured over my formative learning. The tar incident had been the final straw, but there had been so many straws before that. Probably too many straws. Teacher Garat had actually been more patient than most.
The bullsen twitched as more noise erupted from the drunken crowd. They had to be drunk. There was literally no other excuse for grown-ass dwellers to act so freaking happy about us leaving.None.They had definitely moved past their shock over me having been chosen, and were now taking it as a gift from the gods.
The bastards.
Jerath was now speaking with Leader Graham; I saw the exchange of goods, and probably tokens. Villages earned tokens for their hard work, something like one million tokens got you the grand prize of more dwellers to do more work. Hardly worth the effort, if you asked me, but tokens were life around here. I was pretty sure that our leader slept in a bed of the round, shiny discs.
Jerath climbed back onto the cart, signalling the fact that it was now time to go. Leader Graham stepped to our side. “The seventh ring wishes you a long life of servitude. You have been blessed. You must now do everything in your power to bring pride to your people. Anything you do reflects on us; your village is rewarded for your hard work”.
Right. Give me a moment to wipe my tears.
Emmy gave him a genial nod. “We will make our village proud. You can expect many tokens for our service.”
So many. Except for all those subtracted away when I accidentally glued one sacred sol’s head to another sacred sol’s backside.
Jerath lifted the belts, and with one last wave, we were moving. I sent a single glance back, silently bidding farewell to my mother. She was a bit of a drunk floozy, but she had always been in my life. I had very few things which were mine—she’d been one of those things. Emmy squeezed my hand, and it was enough for me to turn in my seat and face toward the new future.
Everything was about to change now. Whether it was for better or worse, no one but the gods knew.
Two
In the firstfour sun-cycles of the journey, we’d suffered two cracked cart wheels, an escaped bullsen, and three wild animal attacks. Considering my propensity for disaster, I was considering it a roaring success. We were now in the third ring and it was the first time I could see the difference in the land. The sixth, fifth, and fourth rings had been much like ours: with yellow dirt roads, hard, unforgiving land, stone buildings, and bullsen pens. Sure, their villages might have had a few more trees, extra water wells and maybe even a pond which could be used for bathing … but for the most part, it was familiar.
