Ship of Magic

The first time he explained it, Wintrow had begged him to carry word of his plight to the priests in Sa's temple. Surely they would come to claim him. But the keeper had declined to waste his time. The priests, he had explained, did not meddle in civil affairs anymore. The Satrap's prisoners were a civil affair, nothing at all to do with Sa or his worship. The Satrap's prisoners, if not redeemed, became the Satrap's slaves, to be sold off to benefit the royal treasury. That would be a sad end to such a short life. Had not the boy some family the keeper might contact? The keeper's wheedling tone clearly conveyed that he would be happy to convey any message, so long as there was a good chance of a bribe or reward. Surely his mother must be worried about him by now? Had he no brothers who would pay his fine and get him released?

Each time Wintrow had bitten his tongue. He had time, he told himself, to work out his own solution to this problem. Having the man send word to his father would only land him back in his original captivity. That was no solution at all. Surely something else would occur to him if he simply thought hard enough.

And his situation was certainly conducive to thought. There was little else to do. He could sit, stand, lie or squat in the straw. Sleep held no rest. The noises of the stalls invaded his dreams, populating them with dragons and serpents that argued and pleaded with human tongues. Awake, there was no one to talk to. One side of his enclosure was the outer wall of the shed. In the stalls to either side of him, a succession of prisoners had come and gone: a disorderly drunk rescued by his weeping wife, a prostitute who had stabbed her customer and been branded in retribution, a horse-thief who had been taken away to hang. Justice, or at least punishment, was swift in the Satrap's cells.

A straw-littered aisle fronted his cage. Another row of similar stalls were on the opposite side of it. Slaves were held in those ones. Unruly and undesirable slaves, map-faces with scarred backs and legs came and went from the leg-irons. They were sold cheaply and used hard, from what Wintrow could see. They did not talk much, even to each other. Wintrow judged they had little left to talk about. Take all self-determination from a man's life, and all that is left for him to do is complain. This they did do, but in a dispirited way that indicated they expected no changes. They reminded Wintrow of chained and barking dogs. The sullen map-faces across the way would be good for heavy labor and crude work in fields and orchards, but little more than that. This he had surmised from listening in on their talk. Most of the men and women stabled across from him had been slaves for years, and fully expected to end their lives as slaves. Despite Wintrow's disgust with the concept of slavery, it was hard to feel sorry for some of them. Some had obviously become little more than beasts of labor, decrying their hard lot but no longer having the will to struggle against it. After watching them for a few days, he could understand why some worshippers of Sa could look at such slaves and believe they were so by Sa's will. It was truly hard to imagine them as free men and women with mates and children and homes and livelihoods. He did not think they had been born without souls, predestined to be slaves. But never before had he seen people so bereft of humanity's spiritual spark. Whenever he watched them, a cold slug of fear crawled slowly through his guts. How long would it take for him to become just like them?

He had one day left in which to think of something. Tomorrow, in the morning, they would come and take him to the tattooing block. They'd chain his wrists and ankles to the heavy staples there, and force his head down into the leather-wrapped vise. There they would put the small mark that designated him as the Satrap's slave. If the Satrap chose to keep him that would be the only tattoo he ever wore. But the Satrap would not choose to keep him. He had no special skills worthy of the Satrap holding onto him as a slave. He would be put up for immediate sale. And when he was sold, a new mark, the sigil of some new owner, would be needled into his face.

He had teetered back and forth for several hours. If he called for the keeper, and the man sent a runner down to the harbor, his father would come and get him. Or send someone to fetch him. Then he would go back to the ship, and become once more a prisoner there. But at least his face would be unscarred. If he did not call for his father's aid, he would be tattooed, and sold, and tattooed again. Unless he either escaped or worked free of slavery, he would forever remain someone else's property, at least legally. In either case, he would never become a priest of Sa. As he was determined to fulfill his vocation to be a priest, determined to return home to his monastery, the whole question came down to which situation offered him the better chance of escape.