<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

Chapter 4 - Learning

Father always said that people like us that tried for education were lazy, and thought too highly of themselves. There were some mothers and older men in our community that knew how to read, and some families would send their children to them for an hour in the mornings to study. But that was an hour lost to idleness, as far as my father was concerned. Honestly, I think in some cases he was right. Most of the children I knew who started their learning originally did so precisely for the reason my father said . . . because they were lazy. It was an hour they didn't need to work.

Apparently reading could be just as difficult as real work though, because most of the children I knew never finished their learning. They all inevitably ended up back at the kilns, except for one girl who learned enough to read signs in the city. She died from bad water before she ever got a chance to make use of her 'education', though.

I never thought it would be necessary for my life. But then, that was back when I thought I'd make bricks my entire life. Marry another worker. Have a family, and raise children who'd also make bricks. Just as my family had for generations.

Honestly. Was that too much to ask for?

When I'd first seen my contract, I'd let my pride overwhelm my common sense. I hadn't been willing to admit to the man who, at the time I'd thought was hiring on workers for a caravan, that I couldn't read. I'd thought that because I'd trusted the man who referred the work to me that I could trust the man hiring me.

No, that's wrong. He was a hyena. And even if I didn't loathe them as much then as I do now, I still didn't trust him. The truth was, I even knew about those sorts of deceptions. I'd heard about people foolish enough, stupid enough, to get tricked into a contract. People who thought they were signing an agreement to rent land, or to work a job, or send their children to school, but instead signed their lives away without even realizing it. But the fact is, I'd always thought myself more clever than that.

Stupidity, I realized too late, wasn't always being too desperate or dim-minded that you didn't question what you were signing your name to. Stupidity could be pride, and the stubborn refusal to admit you were incapable of something. I'd lost my life to a collar because I hadn't been willing to accept a failing.

And partially out of desperation, as well. I was no better than any of the people I'd once snuffed at. All it had taken was the right set of circumstances, and I'd given my life up.


My limbs are stiff when I wake, and there's an odd pressure atop my left arm, my fingers gone partially numb. My eyelids feel tacky as they do most mornings in the dusty, dirty, moist warmth of the labor lodge. When I finally manage to open them and my surroundings come slowly into focus, I find my field of vision is mostly taken up by the hyena tucked against my side. He's fallen asleep on my arm and somehow managed to snake his own arm around me in the midst of the night, and he's wedged too far up in my personal space for my liking.

Just as he has been every morning for the past several weeks. Ever since I'd given him permission to sleep on the mat beside me, I've not been able to go a single night without inevitably dealing with a hyena blanket. The boy seems incapable of respecting my boundaries while we're asleep, even if he's completely polite when we're awake. At first I'd wake in the midst of the night when he'd shift his way slowly into me, and shove him back. But he sleeps like the dead, he always inevitably creeps his way back over towards me by the time the morning comes, and at this point I've honestly just taken to allowing it. Keeping close company with Ahsan has made me anathema to most of the other men here anyway, other than Chandan and a few brave souls who are willing to look past the hyena's origins, so I don't honestly care what any of the rest of them think.

The fact is, I've given up on hating the hyena. I've mostly let go of the idea of disliking him. And I'm trying hard not to pity him, not because I don't feel he's deserving of pity, but because I earnestly believe it's the last thing he needs. Ahsan's grown enough in my estimation, (primarily I'll admit because he's still bringing me food) that I want to do more than pretend to help him. He doesn't need protection from the men here. He doesn't need a bodyguard. What he needs is confidence, and to rise up from beneath the distant heel of the Matron. Even now after he chose to leave the estate, he still speaks of her and the manor on a daily basis, wistfully. Perhaps he does so now more that I've seen it, been there, learned more than I wanted to know about the place he grew up in and the people he was beholden to there. He's always sparse on details, and I don't pry for them regardless.

But whenever he speaks on his previous life while we're in the fields, or lying on our mat at night, or just whenever I catch him staring off towards the west where the manor lies, I talk to him about something else. Anything else. I tell him something new about myself, because that always catches his attention, enraptures him. I can't say why, my life has hardly been extraordinary. But whatever distracts him. He'll often follow by telling me something about himself. The conversations at least have been enlightening.

I've learned much of what I already knew, and some things I suspected. He has no memory of life before the Sura Estate, or this plantation. He seems to believe he was as important to Matron Sura as a son, and in fact calls her his mother more often than not. He loves her still, even if it seems to me that if she ever loved him in return, that is no longer true. Something clearly happened between him and the Matron. I hope he raised hell, made trouble for her. But I'm certain that's not it.

I think he must have lost his value to her somehow, in the way a laborer does when he hurts himself. Perhaps because he didn't wish to entertain men like the hyena I attacked in the garden. If that's what he'd been raised for, to be an entertainer and whore for her nearest relations, and he refused to do that sort of work, that would explain why he's here in the fields now.

He insists he was treated well there, raised as part of her clan, but the hairline scars I can see etched into the shorter fur on his muzzle, ears and wrists suggest otherwise. He probably has more his coarser, longer fur is covering.

And he wears the same collar I do. I don't care what they made him believe over the years, your 'family' isn't supposed to own you.

I wake him the same as I do every morning, and we file in line for the flat bread we'll be taking out to the fields with us, our only meal until the midday cart comes. As usual, Ahsan tries to give me his, and I inform him forcefully that he'll be eating his own food whether he wants to or not. He's learned by now not to argue with me.

He seems overly concerned with his weight. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen, especially for a man. He seems to hate his bulk, his height, and he's terrified of growing bigger in any way. The boy's as narrow as a shadow, and it only inhibits him as a laborer, so I've done my best to talk some sense into him, but I fear the Sura clan's got a leg up on me. The hyena has some odd opinions about how he should act and look that were firmly nailed into him far before I got here.

Today ends up being a quiet day in the fields, mostly weeding, although we're near one of the fields being scored, and I'm oddly happy about that because Chandan is working there and I'm looking forward to having my midday meal with someone other than Ahsan for once. It isn't often we work near enough to one another in the fields that we're able to spend any time together during the day.

The painted dog and I really have very little in common other than the fact that we're here, and both canine. We've spoken enough by now that I've learned he came from a different caste entirely before he became indentured, and unlike myself and most of the others here, he is here because by his own admission, he got himself into legitimate debt with the clan. Chandan, as well as Tandi, (the big, older male lion I'd seen earlier who turned out to be one of Chandan's closest friends) are both addicted to the Divine. As are at least a dozen other workers here on this plantation, I've been told. It's common practice for men who build a substantial debt with the clans who grow and produce the Divine to eventually fall into the work of producing the very drug that's trapped them. The beautiful flowers we're surrounded by each and every day in these fields have an insidious hold on those foolish enough to have fallen prey to their lure.

It's an unfortunate story, but not an uncommon one. Before I'd been through my first plantation, I'd met addicts of the Divine. Even home, closer to the Hyronses where the flowers don't grow as well, the Divine is everywhere. I'd thought for a long time it was merely a distraction for the rich, but time spent in indentured servitude had taught me otherwise. Even the poorest man can procure it, often for very little. . . at first. The hyena clans use it like a net to drag in fish, and once you're caught you're caught forever. Chandan says he's tried to leave the drug behind many times, and his body barely survived the attempts. The Divine, much like a steel animal trap, will tear you apart before it lets you go.

"The collar," he says as he sits beside Tandi on a large flat boulder many of the workers here have taken to using as a sitting area during our breaks, "was just the final, physical manifestation of my enslavement." He says it with dry amusement, like he's reciting dark poetry. He's probably said these exact words to many others, many times. "I'd been a servant to the Divine far before I had a contract."

He rolls his mixture of herbs and drug while we all sit to eat, he and the lion speaking lowly as they carefully prepare the cigarette. The men here who buy tobacco are rare enough, and it's far less expensive than the meager amount of the Divine Chandan is able to buy on a weekly basis. They mix it with tobacco both to make it easier to smoke, and to save themselves some expense. But he's admitted to me he almost never finishes a week out without owing more to the clan than he's earned.

Which is why he's still here, six years after he became indentured. It's why he may never leave. He seems fairly resigned to the fact, and that only makes me sadder. Angrier. But it's complicated. I don't really know how much anger I should reserve for the clan, and how much I should direct at him, for allowing this to happen. I always used to judge people who let themselves become indentured, but now that I've seen how easily it can happen, even to those who think they know better. . . .

"Have you ever even seen your contract?" I ask randomly, tearing off a piece of my stone-cooked bread and dipping it in the small clay bowl of soup they brought us for our midday meal today. Chicken broth, at least. Cooked with bones, if not any actual meat.

Three heads turn to stare at me. I blink back at them, and eat my bread. "What?" I demand.

"Haven't you?" Tandi asks, his voice stereotypically lion, deep and masculine. I've learned by now not to be intimidated by the man, though. He's uncommonly mellow for one of the big cats. But then, when you're his size, you don't really need to prove yourself as much as the leaner, smaller men, who pick a fight with just about anything that moves to show everyone what a big man they are. Like Raja.

"I saw it when I signed it," I snort. "But it hardly matters. I only know what they tell me it says. And considering they told me it was a labor contract when I first signed it, I'm not inclined to believe much of anything else they say."

"A labor contract?" Ahsan speaks up.

I nod. This is a shameful subject for me, but I'm in the company of a whore and two drug addicts, so I don't feel particularly terrible about telling them the truth. "I was referred to this caravan," I recount. "Or at least, that's what I was told it was. An acquaintance of mine who'd worked for the Rochshan Clan, one of the larger clans near the Hyronses, referred me. Now that I think back on it, I remember he had a gambling problem. He was probably working for them to pay it off. Anyway, he said these people had work for me, guarding a caravan that was heading for the sea-"

"I thought you used to make bricks," Ahsan interrupts, then when I shoot him an angry glare, his dark ears tip back and he instantly looks nervous. "I-I'm sorry," he stammers, "I just- you'd said-"

"Yes, I used to be a kiln worker," I say. "You're not wrong. I came from a family of kiln workers, as far back as we can trace. It was good work."

"Hard work," Tandi says, taking a drag on his cigarette and passing it to Chandan, who continues to listen thoughtfully. As much as we've spoken over the last month, we haven't really talked much about our lives before this place. All I really know is that he was a herder, which puts him slightly over me in caste, because it means his family owned animals.

"So why did you leave it behind to be a caravan guard?" Ahsan asks carefully, quietly. "If you liked it?"

"Because I had to get somewhere," I state matter-of-factly. "I had to go very far, all the way to the coast, and I had no money, and not enough food to make the trip. Not to mention the dunes are death to anyone who doesn't go by caravan or camel. I thought by signing on to work a caravan, I'd get where I needed to go without having to pay for the travel."

"You must have suspected," Chandan says.

I nod. "I did. But it was the only way. And I was willing to risk it, and trust in my friend. It was a mistake."

I was desperate, I think to myself. But I don't say it out loud, because it will invite too many questions.

"Why did you want to go to the coast?" Tandi asks curiously, tossing his tail at a horsefly nibbling on his exposed thigh.

This is where I need to slow the conversation down. "I needed to get somewhere, to see a family member," I say, making it clear by the edge in my voice that this is getting into personal territory. "Honestly, it's been years, and it doesn't really matter anymore. It feels like another life. For a while, after I realized I'd signed my life away, I was desperate to get out, to get back to what I had before. But it's been too long." I stare down at my bowl, and watch the meager contents of my soup float through the thin broth. "I'm not sure what I'd even find if I went looking for my family, for my old life, now."

A palpable silence falls over us, and I know I've caused the other three to think on their own lost lives, their own doubts. But they pulled it from me, so they can just suffer with it same as I am.

"What they did was illegal," Chandan says at length. "Lying to you about a contract. It's forbidden. Even if you can't read, they're supposed to read it to you before you sign."

"What does it matter what's legal, when the Clans exist?" I ask, bitterly. "Who besides them is going to enforce the laws? Nothing matters except what they want, what they say is legal."

"The Northerners made those laws," Chandan says, blowing smoke out through his nose and gesturing to the horizon. "After the last war. Made a whole bunch of dictates about how they're supposed to treat people like us. You'd think they'd enforce them."

"How?" Tandi counters. "Another war? You don't get one without the other, you can't demand their protection if they're not here, and when they were here all they did was displace the Clans and make colonies out of us. The war was necessary, or we'd just be a part of them now."

"Who's to say that would be any worse?" Chandan replies, and I can sense he and Tandi are about to get into another of their philosophical debates. They get like this whenever they smoke. "I'd swap an overbearing canine for an overbearing hyena any day. They might tell you how to live, but at least they don't believe in owning people."

"You're just saying that because you're canine," the lion points a thick finger into the painted dog's chest ruff. "We shouldn't have to bow to anyone, every type of people were meant to live free."

I tip my ears away from them and focus back on my soup, drowning out their conversation with my overwhelming disinterest. I've never been one to think too hard on the state of the world. I don't really feel I should have much to say about how anyone lives their lives, and I wish other people would do the same. But apparently one of the effects the Divine has on Chandan and Tandi is to make them feel that the whole world is entitled to, and indeed should hear, their opinion.

I both hear and feel Ahsan settle down beside me, at my feet, a habit of his I find disconcerting. But he seems comfortable as he settles on to the sandy ground, so I don't dislodge him. I feel his eyes on me as I finish up my soup, and when I set my bowl down he's looking squarely at me, inquisitively.

"What?" I ask with a sigh.

"Just. . . " he pauses for long enough that it's beginning to annoy me. "I mean, have you never read your contract?"

"How could I?" I reply, irritated.

"Have you never had someone read it to you?" he asks, instead.

"What would it matter if I did?" I snap. "I'd have no way of knowing I could believe them."

"I. . . I could read it to you," he murmurs.

I stare at him like he grew three more heads, and he begins to shrink back from me. Before he can skitter away like a sand crab, I grab him by the shoulder and lean down. "You can read?" I demand.

He nods.


We skip dinner that night, which is testament to how determined I am to make use of my newfound companion's ability. I'd spent the remaining half of the day in the fields making biting remarks at him for not telling me sooner, even though that admittedly hadn't at all been his fault, since I'd never thought to ask. But impatience makes bastards of us all, and as usual, he took it all with no complaint and still smiled at me the whole way back to the lodging house. He seems incredibly pleased that one of his domestic skills can finally be of use to me.

Not that I don't enjoy having my fur brushed, or my clothing washed. I don't think I've been this clean or this well-groomed . . . well, ever. But that's a mere pleasantry. This, this is important. It could even be life-changing.

I don't understand numbers well, or really at all, if I'm being honest with myself, but I can memorize one if it's this important, and it'll finally give me a frame of reference as to how impossibly far away, or, (I dare hope) close my freedom is. It's an answer I've wanted for many years, but never believed I could trust, coming from the people who owned me.

Ahsan will tell me the truth, though. It isn't just the fact that he's a sniveling, cowering creature who bends to my and nearly everyone else's will at the slightest provocation that makes me believe that. He's earnestly fond of me, for some reason. And I can't help but trust him. I can't imagine him lying to me or deceiving me in any way.

We head up the hill as the sun sets, the distant stone building an easy marker to find in the otherwise colorful expanse of the fields. Usually by this point we'd have been stopped by a guard for being out so late, but the perimeter guards generally don't linger by the guardhouse, since it's the last place a runaway would be likely to head. And an unusual sound makes my ears turn as we draw nearer, explaining away where any of the other guards might be.

You don't hear it often when you've lived a life like mine, but I've seen one or two swordfights in the streets near the Hyronses. The distinctive ringing of metal moving through the air, or making punctuated strikes, sticks with you so that you remember it forever.

I can't say I'm concerned, but I'm definitely curious. By the time the yard comes in sight, it's clear it's a less life-threatening scenario than I'd imagined. Shame.

Lochan is in the yard with one of the lioness guards I've seen around, a big lady who looks like she could put me down with her sheer bulk. She's wearing old, tarnished metal armor made up of banded strips of some kind, holding a large round shield and jeering something at him in Halvashir, one of the dunes dialects I don't know. Some lions speak it and only it, which makes them confusing to communicate with. I've never heard her speak common Huudari, so I'm guessing she's not great at it.

They don't seem to be locked in mortal combat, especially considering she's not even using a weapon unless you count the shield, and he's chuckling. I'm not really certain what they're doing - sparring, maybe? I've never seen anyone spar with a real weapon before, but he's using the scimitar I've seen at his side since I got here, and I'm very certain it's a real blade. And by the look of it, a well-maintained one.

He catches her in the shield, and she shouts something again at him that almost sounded mocking, and he comes at her harder with a less-than-threatening growl, pulling back his sword at the last moment and bulling into her with his bulk. She puts up the shield again to block, but he gut-checks her with enough force that she goes toppling (no mean feat considering her size). Startlingly fast, more so than I'd ever expected of the man, he leaps over her and jabs the scimitar into her collarbone, between two strips of the banded metal. The accuracy is baffling. I'd have had trouble doing that with time and a flaying knife, let alone a weapon that large swung that fast.

She lays there for a time gasping, catching her breath. Then at length she mutters something in Halvashir, and he chuckles again, offering her a palm. She takes it and slowly gets to her feet, dusting herself off with a long sigh.

It's at that point that we're finally noticed. Lochan's ears perk and turn towards us, and he sheathes his scimitar. He says something to the lioness I don't catch, then begins to make his way towards us. The sun's gone low in the sky at this point, and I'm certain the first thing he's going to tell us is that we can't be out after dark.

"It's getting dark," he barks at us as he approaches. I can smell that his paws are sweating, the musk that's thick in his fur and trapped beneath his leather armor, and the constant tinge of aggression I always pick up from him, amplified likely by his sparring match. "You shouldn't be this far from the lodging house this time of day."

I wait for him to make his way entirely to us, making it clear I'm not coming any farther without his say-so. I don't play around with Lochan. I've tested and prodded some of the other guards by this point, but there's an air about the Aardwolf that makes me dislike my chances. I've long suspected he's more competent even than he lets on, and today confirms at least some part of that. Besides which, the one beating aside, he's always been fairly decent to the people here, from what I've seen. Decent, but firm.

It's rare I've ever wanted to be on the good side of a guard. But in this case, it's probably in my best interest. At least for now.

His dark eyes move to Ahsan, softening some, and before I can speak, he does. "Are you here for your dinner?" He asks the striped hyena. "I didn't think you were coming, but I saved a bit of lamb." His gaze falls on me, and shifts to a glare. "Only enough for one, though."

"No, sir," Ahsan says with an ease I can't imagine having around the Aardwolf. "Actually, we were hoping to see Kadar's contract."

Lochan's expression turns surprised, at that. "His contract," he repeats.

"Yes, sir," Ahsan nods, then pauses. "They are kept in the guard building, are they not?"

"We keep a copy, yes," Lochan replies, his eyes moving between the two of us. "For keeping track of expenses and daily pay. The original is kept up at the Manor. We update the totals at the end of each month on the master."

"I'd like to read Kadar's," Ahsan says with a smile, and a flick of his tail. "Please."

A look of understanding passes over Lochan's features, and he inclines his head towards me, snuffing out his nose. He's silent just a moment, then nods. "As you wish," he says, turning and gesturing for Ahsan to lead. "You're welcome to read your contracts at any time."

Ahsan bobs his head and begins to head up the hill, Lochan staying right where he is until I start moving ahead of him, as well. He falls in behind me, uncomfortably close, and for a few moments I think he's just doing it to unnerve me. But then he speaks, in a low voice.

"Found another use for him, have you?"

I don't look back at him, only reply, "He's more than happy to help me, I didn't force him to come up here. He enjoys helping me."

"Just like he enjoys bringing you all the food I give him?" The Aardwolf mutters back, in an acrid tone. I feel my tail bristle, but he doesn't give me a chance to respond, only continues. "You think I don't know? You must think you've got a good thing going, don't you, jackal? Another servant at your every beck and call, giving you everything he has-"

"I didn't ask for it," I snap, trying to keep my voice low even though I know Ahsan can likely hear us. He hasn't turned, though, isn't acting as though he can. He probably won't, no matter what we say. But it feels rude, talking like this about him when we both know he can hear us, like he's not even here.

Lochan seems to pick up on that, too. "Later," he growls, and shoves me unnecessarily. I feel that aggression in him spike. Like a father with his family, or something. It's hard to pin down.

We head up to the building, and he makes us stand aside while he unlocks the thick, metal-barred door. It swings open with a grinding noise and he gestures for us to head inside. The dust particles swirl through the stale air, and I'm immediately hit with a sickening sort of nostalgia, not because the place smells any worse than the lodging house, but because the scent of the air here reminds me of the weeks I spent in the cell, suffering with my injuries.

Mostly, it smells like the guards who frequent it. A lot of lion, since two of the guards here are lioness and one is the big, dark-maned male lion who's made me uncomfortable and wary during every small interaction we've had thus far, and Lochan, whose scent permeates this place the most. It's thick enough in the air that I'm certain he must live here, a jailer atop being the head guardsman. The building isn't large enough that it would be much of a home to any of the other guards. I'm guessing they have barracks somewhere else on the property.

There really is just the one hallway he'd lead me down on my way out, and a few rooms off of it. One large door at the very end must lead to Lochan's quarters, since it's where his scent is the strongest, but tonight he leads us towards one of the other two rooms. It has no door, only an archway, and a large enough window that it's dimly orange-lit when we step inside. The room has a worn wooden table in the center, clawed and chipped at on the corners over the years, showing its use and age. I catch the vaguest hint of old curry and alcohol, and what must have been dinner for the guards an hour or so ago, judging by how fresh the scent is. Lamb, just like Lochan said.

There's also a shelf built into the wall, with a few dozen small, square boxes. Many of them are occupied by a round leather scroll cases. As Ahsan and I wait, Lochan drags a claw down the line of boxes, before stopping at one and tugging out the leather case there. After he pulls it free, he tugs at the leather cord binding it closed and places it down on the table, unrolling it carefully.

I stare down at the document, fighting back a rush of nausea. I'm suddenly glad I hadn't eaten, because I was not prepared for this wash of memories. I'm staring at the document I signed years ago. Or at least, a copy of it. My signature, which had been little more than the pawpad on my right pointer finger dipped in ink, is the only thing missing. Even without being able to read it, I remember the look of the script, the line breaks where the man who drew this damned thing up indicated were the provisions for my 'labor agreement'. He sat me down and explained what each of these lines meant, and I believed him. Or I just didn't care enough to question it. It's been so long, I can hardly remember my motivations.

But I remember the document. And I haven't seen it since that day. It's disturbing to think I've gone this long without ever understanding what it was that had enslaved me.

There's other writing on the contract, in ink that dried differently. A long list of scribblings, with figures following each that I know to be numbers. I can't make sense of any of it, but a moment later, Ahsan steps forward and leans down over the contract, looking it over.

" 'Contractual obligation of labor, providing for a debt owed to the Rochshan Clan. . . for services to be rendered at termination of contract. . ." he pauses, his muzzle twitching. "Wow. They actually admitted the services you were indebted for hadn't even been rendered yet."

"They can do that," Lochan states, crossing his arms over his chest. "Especially for smaller, seasonal labor contracts with ships, for housing, caravans." He shrugs. "You can't receive the promised service until after you've paid your way. That's the mindset, at least."

"The rest of the disclosure is fairly standard," Ahsan says, his eyes moving down the page, until he gets to the area with the fresher scrawlings, the ones I didn't recognize. "And here," he points to the list, "is where they've kept track of your earnings, and expenses." He pauses, then looks to me, "You've worked on a lot of different plantations, Kadar."

Lochan leans down over Ahsan, resting a paw on the boy's slim shoulder and narrowing his eyes at the contract. "I'm not good with much other than numbers," he says, "but I recognize 'termination of labor'." He turns towards me, giving a dry chuckle. "They told me you were a trouble-maker. Have you ever worked an entire season at even one of these plantations?"

"They were trapping me," I snarl back. "I know how the game works. They were charging me more for board than I could possibly make in a day."

Lochan waves a paw. "Not saying that doesn't happen," he snorts, “but not every plantation gets away with that, jackal. Did you ever bother to find someone to do your numbers for you, and find out?"

I'm silent, because I don't like to speak when I have nothing worthwhile to say. I'm starting to feel like the Aardwolf is looking down on me, in a different way than he normally does. When he pushes me around physically it's one thing, I'm weakened since my injury and he's armed, but now he's acting like he understands my life better than I do. Even watching Ahsan's eyes sweep down over my contract is making my fur bristle, all of a sudden. It's not my fault he can read, and I can't. It's not my fault I don't understand numbers.

I'm beginning to feel stupid. And I know I'm not. I may not have the kind of learning the hyenas do, or the knowledge of numbers Lochan says he has, but-

"This second plantation here charged you for the use of your tools," Ahsan speaks up, suddenly. "And with that plus your board, you were coming up short each day."

"You see!" I snap. "Exactly as I said."

"Aye, you're every bit the victim you thought you were," the Aardwolf says derisively. "Happy now?"

I'm not, of course, and his snide tone just makes me angrier. It's not like I wanted validation that I was oppressed and abused, I have the scars to prove that. It's just that I've struggled against my 'owners' all this time for good reason, fought and refused to work because what was being demanded of me was built on lies! It's not as though it's been unreasonable to expect I should have freedom. I never even had a debt.

"The last two plantations you were on were paying you enough to exceed a ruval a day," Ahsan says, as his claw traces towards the bottom of the contract. "Not much, but it seems like you didn't amass many other additional expenses. You're actually paid partway into your debt, despite all the charges you were docked for property damage and disorderly behavior at your previous places of employment." He looks up to me, his eyes flicking briefly to Lochan as a tentative smile crosses his muzzle. "And you're earning two ruval a day here, same as I am."

"I told him when he arrived," Lochan states, "that if he walked the line, he'd pay off his contract here. I'm very careful with the board costs."

"Why the hell would you care?" I snarl. "I've never met a foreman who didn't squeeze every last drop of blood out of his workers."

"Then they're fools," Lochan states. "Workers who know they're making progress work harder. That hopeless, angry attitude of yours is what drives Servant uprisings, and it's why I'm able to get contracts like yours for a steal. Almost every worker here was a lost case like yours, at one point. Unwilling to work, violent, without value. Your last plantation practically gave you away, they were so desperate to be rid of you. And now look at you. You're pulling your weight in the fields, and I've yet to have to lob something off of you to keep you docile. We both made out well."

I snort, disbelievingly. "If it's all that simple, I fail to see why every other plantation hasn't adopted your brilliant strategy."

"I came to an understanding with the Steward of the Sura Estate when I was first hired," he says. "About how to adjust pay and manage our board costs. It was a rare chance, and a hard sell, but she trusted my experience on the subject."

"I'll bet she did," I say, pressing a finger up beneath the edge of my collar and adjusting it, pointedly.

He doesn't miss it. He also doesn't seem phased. "Yes," he states. "I was indentured. And if you think your lot here, picking and carrying weeds all day is a hard life, I have news for you. You don't know shit."

"That isn't the point!" I growl. "I used to work the kilns, making bricks. I know what a brutal day's work really is."

"I'm weeping for you," he replies, monotonously.

"The point," I say around a snarl, "is that I was lied to. I had this . . . thing," I indicate the collar, "soldered on to me, against my will, and then some woman I'd never met told me she owned me. That isn't right, it isn't just, and it shouldn't happen! To anyone! To you, to me, to Ahsan," I look to the hyena, whose ears have tipped back likely due to the fact that I'm raising my voice.

The Aardwolf gives me an even, unflinching stare. "Jackal," he says, "I think you were lied to far before you were contracted. Because whoever told you that the world was supposed to be 'just' was selling you a bill of goods."

"That doesn't mean-" I begin.

"No," he cuts me off. "You need to figure this out, before you get too old, too tired or too dead to live your life in any meaningful way. The world is neither cruel nor caring. It just is. And it’s a different world for all of us. There's no balance, no fairness to it. A hyena, or a dog from the north can be born with their life laid out for them, gilded in gold and royal. Everything will come to them easier and they'll receive all the more accolades for their triumphs, even when they worked half as hard as the rest of the world to achieve them. Because that’s their world. And they can lose it all just as easily as they got it."

"I never wanted all of that!" I insist. "I had a humble life, and I was happy for it. I worked hard every day, and I never expected more than I was given. I didn't earn this debt because I did something foolish, it just. . . " I struggle with my words, my throat heavy, ". . . happened," I choke out, finally, "to me. Like a storm. I had no control over any of it."

It's only partially a lie.

"First off, a humble man never has to say he's humble," the Aardwolf says, his voice cold. "And secondly, no matter how much you enjoy basking in your outrage at your current situation now, you need to keep one thing in mind." I see his eyes fall briefly on Ahsan, then they turn towards the dying light streaming in through the window, and stay there. "No matter how low you think you are, there's always a bottom far beneath you. And it’s endless. Somewhere, someone is enduring suffering you've never endured. Pain you can't even imagine. And someone somewhere has it worse than them."

I can hear the tightening in the Aardwolf's usually thick, deep voice, but nothing about what he's saying feels self-serving. The sadness there is in the present, like an open wound, so it can't be for himself. Ahsan, then?

"No one's saying you're blessed," Lochan continues. "But life can be whatever you're able to take from it. And sometimes the best way to take the biggest bite is to accept that shit like this can happen, and deal with it . . . not fight against the indignity of it until the fight itself kills you."

"I don't believe that," I say firmly. "That sounds like giving up. Bowing to them, because everyone bows to them. If more people fought them, if more people were willing to stand up and say what they're doing to us isn't fucking acceptable, we'd overpower them. The only reason they're in power now, able to do this," I look to Ahsan, whose gaze shrinks away from mine, "to all of us," I continue, "is because not enough people told them they can't. It's never going to stop. Letting them herd us with their self-serving laws is like accepting we're livestock. ‘Servants’. Slaves. People shouldn't own people. I don't care what they call it."

Ahsan and Lochan are both silent, and the room feels oppressively still in the wake of my words. I can see some of the sense in Lochan's argument, but he isn't the first man I've met who's felt that way. A lot of servants fall into that mindset over time. Acceptance. They stop caring why they're indentured, they just live with it, and either give up on ever being free, or work their asses off towards paying off whatever nebulous number was attached to their contract. Hell, some of them do, eventually. It's not like no servant has ever been set free, or they wouldn't need Liberators at all. They'd just bury us all in our collars.

That being said, even if I've never doubted how I've felt over the years, it's hard to find the strength to back my beliefs, sometimes. I have stretches of time when I'm just so . . . tired. Living with your teeth out every second of every day is exhausting, and bucking control when you're so outmatched almost always inevitably ends in pain, if not death. I've seen others dragged to the gallows, or simply run through by the guards right on the fields. I've stepped over month-old bloodstains that sunk into caked sand, and wondered if that's all my life would amount to, some day. All my pride, all my anger, all my resolve to fight against the chains that bind me. A stain on the ground, a warning to others. If anything, wouldn't all my struggles have served the opposite goal, in that case?

If this life kills me, I'd like to at least leave it as an inspiration to others. Not an example as to why people shouldn't fight.

So I understand Lochan's words, and I can tell in this moment, as he stares at me with sunken eyes and a scarred muzzle, that he's probably suffered enough to have earned the right to give up. To bow. But I haven't hit that threshold yet, and I'll be damned if I'm giving in while I still have some resolve left in me.

He seems to know, and his response is simply to frown, and look away. "You're going to live as you choose," he says, in a subdued tone. "Just try not to take others down with you." He looks to Ahsan at that, and steps closer to the striped hyena, who much to my surprise, never seems to shrink back from the Aardwolf even when he's well inside his personal space. It's baffling. Even I don't feel comfortable around the large man, and Ahsan is literally terrified of loud insects. Why he seems to tolerate Lochan so well, I can't understand.

Lochan's hand returns to his shoulder, his thick fingers pressing into his fur. He drops his muzzle down to the striped hyena's dark ear, murmuring something quietly, but I catch most of it.

"-dinner is in my room. Go retrieve it and return to the lodge."

Ahsan turns his dark eyes on me for just a moment before he shakes his head at Lochan. "I haven't finished reading-"

"I'll tell him his numbers," the Aardwolf placates, squeezing his shoulder. "Go. Before you lose your sleeping mat."

"No one's going to take Kadar's mat," the hyena insists, his ears tipping back.

I don't miss the low growl the Aardwolf barely suppresses at that. He lets his paw slide off Ahsan's shoulder, and he gives him a gentle tap on the back instead, in the direction of the door. "Go," he says more firmly.

Ahsan again looks to me, uncertainly. I give him a nod. "Do as he says, Ahsan."

The hyena seems worried, but ultimately, he listens to me. He glances back at least five times on his way out the door, and I wait long enough to hear his footsteps fade down the hallway before turning my attention back to the Aardwolf.

To say he looks angry would be an understatement. When we both hear the distant creak of his bedroom door, he lunges for me. I saw the look in his eyes, but to be honest I'm caught off-guard by the attack. I only barely manage to put an arm up, but he gets one of his large, powerful hands beneath it with ease, and soon I'm pinned to the wall by my collarbone, his thick fingers inches from getting a strangle-hold around me. What's more, he's worked his thumb up beneath my collar, which tells me he might actually have experience strangling people wearing collars.

I almost laugh, my breath coming out in a wheeze. "What the hell kind of Servant were you?"

"Shut your muzzle, you piece of trash," he snarls, baring at least three good fangs out of four. Strangely, I do as he says. But only because something is just now clicking into place in my mind, and I'm not certain how I feel about it. I feel his the claw of his thumb against the hollow of my throat, and I don't lean back when he leans in.

"Are you fucking him?" He demands of me, in a low growl.

"Are you?" I counter. I'm not certain of the answer until the telling silence that follows. And then, I begin to know how I feel about it. Angry.

"Answer me," he says, the threat evident in his tone.

"I wouldn't do that to him," I say defiantly. "I wouldn't use him the way they obviously intended for him to be used."

"No, you only steal his food," he bites back, "and command him about like a slave, and force him to sleep on the cold earth-"

"He sleeps next to me on the mat now," I interrupt. "He has for the last few weeks."

He only snorts. "The guilt got to you, did it?"

"Yes," I reply, matter-of-factly. "Like a serpent, coiling in my gut, taking little bites out of me until I relented. He didn't deserve the way I treated him when we first met, but I hate his kind, and I convinced myself I had to focus on survival. It wasn't an excuse for how I treated him, and I eventually felt awful enough about it to stop." I pause at that, and lean in to his claws, to let him know I'm not afraid of him. "Can you feel the serpent inside you? How much must it bite at you, I wonder?"

He releases me at that, and stalks away from me, circling the table with no obvious destination in mind. I try not to show how relieved I am to be free of his iron grip, and suck in a few breaths quietly, trying to maintain my composure. I'm not honestly as fearless as I pretend to be. Nor is anyone. Like all brave men, I'm just very good at faking it.

Other than a low, frustrated growl, he hasn't responded to my words, so I press forward. "Is that why you give him food? To pay him off, to sleep with you?" My nose wrinkles in disgust, because this is worse now that I'm involved. It's enough that it's happening, continuing to happen to him now, even in the fields, but the thing that really hurts is. . . I've been benefiting from it. Unknowingly. I feel like he's involved me in it, made me a part of it.

"I started giving him food far before," he waves a paw in the air, then puts two fingers to his brow, his tone losing some of its anger. "Because he was half-starved when he first came into my care. I was worried he'd drop dead in the fields. They have his head all turned around about food, about his weight."

My fur settles a little as I listen to him, the fury gone from the air. Now the Aardwolf simply sounds upset, and the hunch in his shoulders is achingly familiar to me. There's guilt there. This isn't turning into what I’d expected it would.

"It's not just his weight, it's his height, his stature," I say, hesitantly. "I don't understand it, either. It doesn't make any sense to me, even from the perspective of an owner. Why would they want him weak?"

"Because it makes him easier to control," the Aardwolf replies, with a grim certainty. "They didn't raise him for labor."

I narrow my eyes. "You know they twisted him. You must know he chose to come out here to get away from what they were doing to him. How the hell can you keep doing it to him?"

"He came out here to get away from Matron Sura, and what she was doing to him," Lochan states, an ounce of that conviction returning to his voice. But a moment later, he's sighing, his ears flattening back. "And it wasn't. . . I didn't intend for it to happen, he and I. It just did."

"You don't unintentionally abuse someone," I snort.

"I wanted to protect him!" He growls. "The only worker in the lodging house who'd even acknowledge him was Raja, and the cheetah didn't treat him with any kindness, he was just watching over him like a valuable. I was honestly worried he'd die out here, that's why I started bringing him here."

"For some reason, I doubt your 'concern' for your workers would extend to those you didn't want to bed," I reply, unimpressed.

"So, I'm not Paropakara," he snuffs, and I vaguely understand the reference, if only because the name is unusual. The Dhole God, a god of charity. "He's beautiful, pitiable . . . desperate for someone to treat him decently." He shakes his head. "I'm a battered-up old man, do you know how long it's been since someone needed me like that? My resolve gave out.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that you’re doing exactly what they were,” I say. “You hate them as much as I do. I can tell. How can you act like them?”

“Would you have kept him close if you weren't getting something out of it?" He counters. "You think I don't have eyes and ears in that lodging house? You bullied him into submission right from the start. I never demanded anything of him. Never forced him into anything. He just. . . ."

He lowers his head, and I blow out a breath. "Relented," I fill in for him.

"He was so eager to please," he murmurs, his deep voice losing some of its strength.

"That's how he is," I say, averting my gaze from the man. "They made him that way. Eroded away whatever spine he had, shaped him into what he is now. Not hard to do when you start with a child.”

“You sound like you have experience,” he says, his eyes cast down on the contract on the table.

I blink a few times, and stare into the glare from the window, so I have an excuse to close my eyes. “I never had much of a chance to raise my son,” I say, not knowing why I’m saying it as I do. Let alone to a guardsman. I haven’t spoken to anyone about my child in years. “But,” I say after a short moment of silence, “I was a son myself, once.”

He nods. Something is happening between us, and I’m not sure what. But when he speaks again, I can sense that he’s doing as I did, letting words slip out that he might not normally part with.

“The man who sired me sold his children to pay off tax debts,” he says it, cold as a desert night. “He had his first and second son. My sister and I were just assets he was better off rid of.”

My mouth feels dry. I’m not certain I want to talk about my father. Instead, I just say “I’m sorry,” because I am.

He leans on the table, his thick, calloused hands tensing over the table edge, the muscles in his arms gone rigid, and all at once they relax. “It’s in the past.” His eyes, seemingly either grey or blue depending on what light I see them in, come up to rest on mine, finally. “For me. But my sister is still indentured. The brothel they sold her to force-fed her the poison we grow here. To make her compliant. But she’s like me, or . . . how I used to be,” he snuffs. “She’s a fighter. She never . . . stopped . . . fighting.” He lifts his muzzle entirely. “Like you.”

“Then you should be proud of her,” I say.

“She’s dying,” he replies, a hint of weakness creeping in to his voice. “I’ve been sending my coin to her for years, trying to help her, but it all went to the drug. A year ago, she stopped taking my money.”

“The Divine is killing her?” I ask, thinking of Chandan, fearfully.

“One of the men who paid for her,” he clears his throat, “gave her a disease. Something foreign. She’s lingered for the last year, but they cleared her contract recently, which means they no longer have any value for her. She’s at a temple in the Piravh region, a few days north of here. She won’t last much longer.”

I’m not certain what to say to that, but it turns out he doesn’t require a response from me, because he circles the table then, pushing the contract down towards me. He stabs a claw into one of the upper lines, next to one of the numbers.

“Do you see that?” He asks.

“Of course,” I sigh. “It doesn’t mean I can make sense of it.”

“That number there is your initial contract amount,” he says. “Four hundred ruval.”

I balk. “Four hundred? I’ve never even seen-“

“Shut up,” he says in a tone that doesn’t invite argument. “And listen. How long have you been indentured now?”

I’m honestly not certain, so that’s what I say. “Several years,” I say. “Perhaps four?” It can be hard to follow the changing of seasons near the Hyronses, especially when you’re nowhere near the river.

“Even at your first plantation, you could have earned that amount in a little over a year,” he says. “If you’d just cowed and done your fucking work.”

“They had no right to-“

“That doesn’t matter!” He finally raises his voice to where it shakes the air, and I flinch back despite myself. “You’ve lost four years of your life to your pride! It doesn’t matter what’s right and what’s wrong, what matters is that these are the people who have the power, and they will kill you if you fight them. Fast or slow, with a noose or a filthy, rotting disease. In the end you’ll have your pride, and a grave, and no one will remember the former!”

“Why do you care?” I demand.

“Because now you’re going to drag that boy down with you!” He roars back, his mane raising where it isn’t braided back. “And he actually has a chance! He doesn’t take the drug, he’s young, his health was on the mend . . . he . . . .”

I let some of my breath past my teeth, averting my eyes from the man and staring down at the old, scarred table. “He isn’t your sister,” I say at length.

“No,” he agrees. “He isn’t. I might have actually saved him. And I thought . . .” he shakes his head, closing his eyes. “I thought he really cared about me.”

I open my muzzle, then shut it slowly. The aging Aardwolf’s eyes are tense, his posture stiff, and the more I’ve heard him talk about Ahsan, the more I’m starting to think I may have made a mistake. “I don’t know what’s between the two of you,” I begin to say, but he cuts me off.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he says. “He hasn’t come to me in weeks. If I had to guess,” he says dryly, “I’d say it probably coincides with whenever it was you started letting him sleep with you.”

“I don’t want him like that,” I insist. “I still consider myself married. I’m not looking for a lover.”

“I never wanted to use him,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to barter food for,” he sighs, “whatever it was we had. I’m just a fool. And I’m not going to continue it, if that’s all it was.” He sweeps his tired gaze back towards the wall, and heads over towards it, running a clawed finger down along the line and searching for another scroll case.

I’m not certain what he’s doing, but a moment later he asks, “Is he eating any of the food I’m giving him?”

“He tried to give it all to me,” I admit. “But I make sure we split it half and half.”

“Good. I’ll keep saving a bowl for him, then,” the Aardwolf says, and apparently finds what he was looking for, tugging it free. Another scroll case, this one far more weathered. He strides forward and carefully places it on the table, unfurling it slowly.

I peer down at it. This contract is more complex than mine. More fine print, and there are multiple pages bound into the roll.

“This is Ahsan’s contract,” he says, and I find myself caught off-guard. Why is he showing me this? “His contracted amount,” he continues, looking up at me, “is over ten times what yours is. Does that make sense to you?”

I don’t know numbers well, but I know roughly what ten is, and ten times means it would be ten times as difficult to pay as mine is, so that puts it in some context for me. “How is that possible?” I ask, confused. “Wasn’t he a child when he was indentured? What kind of debt could he possibly have had?”

“Oh, children who are sold almost always have astronomic debt amounts,” Lochan replies. “Think about it. For one, children are valuable. You get more time out of a child, you get to ‘shape’ them, like you said before. And almost without fail, a caregiver has to be in desperate straits to sell one of their own children. That usually means a large debt. That, or they’re a cold-hearted piece of shit,” he says the last bit with an edge of dark humor.

“Which was it, in his case?” I ask.

“Ahsan was sold to pay off an entire clan’s debt,” he says. “The Sura clan loans money and resources to smaller clans all the time, and when the debts come due, it’s pay up or face their mercenaries. At some point, Matron Sura was in the market for a child, and she found someone willing to pay up what she demanded to save their skin. The number attached to the contract hardly matters, she intended to have him for life.”

I curl my lip at his phrasing. “ ‘In the market for a child?’ ”

“The Matron can’t have her own children,” he says, with a meaningful look. “I’m sure by now you’ve noticed he refers to her in a rather . . . motherly way.”

“You don’t buy a child,” I say venomously. “And you certainly don’t make them wear a collar their whole damned life, or sell them for sex. If she wanted to raise a child, she did a piss-poor job of it. He can’t even stand to live in the manor any more, and he won’t tell me why – I can’t make any sense of this at all,” I say, running a palm over my face. “This is sick.”

Lochan only nods, dropping his voice. “Sometimes it’s best if we don’t understand. Different worlds, remember?”

“It’s sick in any world,” I insist.

“Well, it’s the world he comes from,” he says, as he begins to roll up the hyena’s scroll, carefully. His eyes flick up to mine, reflecting the last fading hints of red sunlight in the room. “And if you give a damn about him at all, you’ll see to it that he never returns to it. He’s halfway through his debt.”

My brows raise. “Half?”

He nods. “He didn’t ‘earn’ much as a child either, so most of that is recent. He’ll earn less as a field worker, but I’ve been putting a few ruval a week towards his contract out of my own pay, so he’s making about what he was before. In a few years, he could be free of this place forever. He just needs to keep working.”

“Lochan. . . .” I stammer, which I hate doing, but I’m beginning to almost feel for the man, and that’s even worse. “If you care about him-“

“It doesn’t matter what I feel,” he says, and he finishes rolling up the second contract. Mine. He holds it out across the table to me. “He made his choice.”

“I was never trying to take him away from you,” I say quietly, as I take the scroll.

“You didn’t,” he says, firmly. “Whatever was there to begin with, I imagined it. Maybe I was using him, without realizing it. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re right,” he holds his muzzle high, and stares at me evenly. “He is not my sister. And even if I really could have helped him, it’s not my job here to save just one of my workers. I’ve been too focused on him, when I should be keeping a closer eye on imminent disasters, like you.”

I look down at my contract, and for the first time since I had the collar placed around my neck, I feel the full weight of it on me. I think of Ahsan in that moment, not myself, and imagine the collar ten times heavier. And then I imagine the impossible . . . spending my entire life wearing it. Never knowing what it means to be free of it. I can remember a time when life wasn’t like this. He’s never known anything but.

I think of the Aardwolf’s sister, even though I’ve never met her, rotting to death of a disease given to her by one man – not the man, but just one of many – who raped her. I imagine her as fierce as Lochan, fighting the men violating her. Every day. For years, and years, and years.

And then I think of the future I could have had, if I’d accepted the misfortune life had given me, so many years ago. One year of service. One year, and I’d have been free. One year, and I could have renewed the search for my wife. My son. And then, after only one year, I might have stood a real chance. I might have really found them. I might have reclaimed the life I’d lost.

I think of the future I could have, if I continue living my life the way I have been. But more than that, I think of what will happen to Ahsan, led so easily by anyone willing to show him an ounce of kindness. It seems impossible now, but I imagine him stronger, more defiant, following me down the road I’ve so proudly walked. Where can it possibly end?

I’ve been willing to throw my life away, because I felt it was increasingly becoming my only option. Or at least, the only option left to me in which I kept my dignity. But I would have sacrificed every bit of dignity I had for my family. Or at least, that’s what I’d always told myself. I suppose if I’d really felt that way, I’d have worked. I wouldn’t have fought the tide. I would have thought only of my wife, my son, of reuniting with them. Somewhere, amidst the storm of outrage, I lost sight of that goal.

It was anger. It’s always the anger. Anger runs through my veins, a legacy from my father, as surely as my green eyes are his. It’s the same anger that caused him to make so many mistakes, and now it’s ruined my family as thoroughly as it once ruined his.

Ahsan doesn’t deserve to be dragged down by it, as well.

I grip my contract, and look up to the Aardwolf, who has gracefully allowed me the few moments of silence I needed to let this resolve settle in. It sinks into me and simmers, like a hot stone in a pot, but I know it must be so.

“Don’t worry about me,” I say, my voice rough. “And don’t worry about him.” I hold the scroll case back out to him, and he takes it from me. Without another word, I turn and begin to head for the door.

“Going back to the lodge?” he asks me as I reach the arched doorway.

“Yes, sir,” I reply without looking back. “We have to cut tomorrow, I need to get to sleep or I’ll be too worn to pull my weight.”

“Go straight back to the lodging house, don’t linger on the grounds,” he commands. “It’s gotten dark out.”

“Yes, sir,” I reply.