Chapter Eight: Slakh
The travelers are going to be sold to the autarch, but first Felanar gets to know his captor.
Guards came for Pross and Jela the next morning, and as they were being led off Jela looked behind her toward Felanar with loss and sorrow, for she had heard Slakh say he was going to sell them to the autarch and this meant in her mind she would never see him again. Felanar returned the gaze and tried to smile in encouragement, but he felt very uncertain about his own situation.
A few hours later a band of saarks came to their cell, bound them for travel, and marched the four of them up the cavern path. They marched without leg irons, for their journey was long, but their arms were bound tight and they were loosely tied to each other to prevent one from running off. This meant they had to coordinate their movement to an extent, and there were times when they had to concentrate on the rocky footing. They were marching upward.
They came to a large open cavern, well lit and populated, and there stood Slakh talking to a young saark. The prisoners looked on curiously for they had never seen a child saark before. Her skin color was lighter than the others, and the red-rimmed eyes less pronounced. She had fangs, but less prominent ones. Her hair was not scraggly in the least, and she was well dressed.
“But I must go, my darling, but I will return soon” said Slakh in his usual voice, though he looked at the girl with an expression that was the closest Felanar has seen to tenderness among a saark.
“I don’t want you to go,” said the girl, tears forming in her eyes. “I’ll miss you, father!”
“I will miss you too, but this journey is important to our people and to me. Now go home and be with your mother, for I have to go.”
He reached down with his scaly arms and hugged his daughter tightly, and she sniffled as she hung on. Then she broke away and ran out of the cavern and down a path. Slakh stood erect again and turned to a guard near him and began giving instructions.
They were marched further upward for quite a ways, with Slakh now in the lead, until they reached the outside. The prisoners blinked in the sunlight of a bright afternoon. It was cold in the mountains under the clear blue sky and they felt exhilarated by the coolness of the fresh air.
The saarks marched them down a path that gradually led them to the base of the mountain and from there to a road heading south. They were near the northernmost peak of the Red Mountains; Slakh told the prisoners they had a journey of six days ahead of them – but saarks could march it in four and thus long stretches of forced marches lay ahead. There were six other saark guards who marched ahead, to the sides of, and behind the prisoners. There was to be no escape, even if they did not have their upper bodies bound. All they could do was march and face what awaited them when they got to the Tri-Cities.
When they stopped for the night, the sun had set many hours before, so it was cold, and they were very tired. A meal was set before them, and they all ate except for Alessa. She stared at the meat set in front of her and then turned to the chief saark.
“Slakh, may I please be allowed my own food to eat instead?”
She got a quizzical look in reply.
“Elves eat of the ground,” she continued. “There are several plants around here that I could find nourishment from if you allow me to pick them.”
“You wish to be free of your bonds,” he said coldly. “I will not allow it.”
Alessa paused for a moment.
“Then would you pick them for me? I will tell you what to pick.”
Slakh’s eyes widened at this bold request, but he gestured to one of the guards and told him to comply. The next few minutes were spent with the reluctant guard following the elf’s detailed instructions as they walked from bush to bush. Several times he pulled the wrong plant and she told him to try again, but eventually she got the meal she desired.
She ate them and said afterward to Kara that she had been very hungry but now felt full of strength. Kara told her she had no idea how such small amounts of food could sustain the elf, to which Alessa shrugged as best she could while bound. She thanked Slakh, who sat opposite the prisoners enjoying his own meal, and he merely nodded at Alessa.
The next couple of days were straight marches through increasingly drier countryside. They marched from early morning to late at night, covering league after league. The saarks were silent as they marched, but the prisoners talked to each other all through the day whenever the guards did not object. Slakh said nothing about it nor did he display any cruelty or even unkindness. Other than directing their steps, which was for the most part straight south, he marched in silence. On the third day of their march, with the air noticeably warmer in this more southern and increasingly desert land, Felanar decided to approach Slakh.
“Are we making good time?” he ventured.
“We will be there late tomorrow,” said the saark. He glanced at Felanar who was now parallel to the saark as they walked, a guard marching to Felanar’s side just beyond.
“So we have not caused you to fall behind.”
“You have marched well,” said Slakh, “you are in good shape.”
“The life of a fisherman is one of work,” replied Felanar.
Slakh marched on, saying nothing.
“I hope you begin to realize we are who we say we are,” continued Felanar.
Slakh stared at Felanar while not ceasing to march. “I have said what I have said. Nothing I have seen since has changed my mind. You are spies, or in some other way not telling me all there is to know about you. The autarch will know.”
“You are interesting to me, Slakh.” Felanar, having his initial attempt rebutted, tried something else. ‘You are unlike other saarks. I have seen none of the cruelty that I came to associate with your people.”
Slakh marched onward without replying.
“You let Alessa eat what she wanted. You have never yelled at us, even though you distrust us. I saw kindness in the way you treated your daughter—“
“Do not discuss my family!” Slakh’s eyes widened, emphasizing the red rims. “You are prisoners, not my friends, and you should not pretend otherwise. I could have ordered you tortured in order to find out your true nature, and could have had you killed. My taking you to the autarch is not a sign of weakness. I see strategic gain in doing this, and he can find out your truth for me. It means nothing to me whether you live or die.”
“Even so,” continued Felanar in a soothing voice, “even when you are mad at us you do not lash out physically.”
“Would you like a taste of my whip?”
“No, but that’s my point. The other saarks I have seen wouldn’t ask that question. They would just use the whip first and talk later. You are different.”
“Do not try my patience, prisoner. I can use the whip with great skill when I want.”
Felanar paused to allow the saark to calm down. They marched in silence for several minutes.
“May I ask you a question, Slakh?”
“What is your question?” The saark seemed neither angry nor inviting.
“Our fellow prisoners said that you trade with the people of the river lands. Is this true?”
“Of course, it is the way of my people. We are traders.”
“Yet you also kidnap those people and enslave them. Why do you do that when you could just trade with them?”
There was silence for many minutes, until Felanar decided he had asked an awkward question that would get no response. Then Slakh began to speak, but in a very quiet voice.
“What do you think of my appearance?” he asked.
Taken aback by this response, Felanar was not sure how to proceed. He had always been repulsed by the saark appearance, physically sickened at times on the ship. Should he answer honestly that this was his opinion? Did Slakh want honesty? Or should he tell him that Slakh was not as offensive in form as the others had been to him? Would the saark chief be insulted by yet again being told he is not as threatening? Felanar knew for a certainty that the one thing he should not say is that he found Slakh’s daughter’s appearance to be not unpleasant at all.
“I do not care for the appearance of saarks,” he finally said, gambling that the honest response was the wise response.
Slakh grunted in a way that indicated Felanar had been right.
“You do not insult me with lies,” Slakh said. “Now tell me, what do I think of your appearance?”
“I’m sure I don’t know!” said Felanar.
“What do you think I must feel when I see a face, a body, an outward appearance so different from that of a saark? How do you think I must feel when I see a creature who does not act as I do, does not dress as I do, does not speak as I do, does not live as I do, and whose look is so different from everything I hold dear? How do you think I must feel?”
In a flash of insight it all became clear to Felanar.
“You find us disgusting,” he quietly answered.
“How could I not?” said Slakh. “How could I not?”
“The villagers who live around your mountains are scared of you,” continued Felanar, “even as I was.”
“They have always feared us, even when they had no reason to. You see a creature who is scaled, with bloodied eyes and fangs and straggly hair that indicates a creature who does not share your sensibilities. For generations our peoples lived apart from each other and in fear of each other. We disgusted each other and wanted nothing to do with the other.
“We are traders by nature. We seek to mine the ground and sail the sea, and then to take our hard-won treasures and sell them to whoever would value those treasures. In return, we want foodstuff, delicacies we cannot, or choose not to, grow in our mountains or on our ships. Your people value the gems and minerals we mine from the ground, and we value the harvest of your farmlands. We are natural trading partners.”
“Why didn’t you just trade then,” asked Felanar, “instead of enslaving people?”
“Your people betrayed us!” Slakh’s voice was rising as his gestures grew more expansive. “We find your kind repulsive, with your pink skins that have no texture, your dried-out hair, your sickly pale eyes. You disgust us! Yet we traded in good faith. We chose to look beyond your physical limitations and deformities. We traded in good faith anyway, and your people treated us with contempt and dishonor! They were scared of us, and when the chance presented itself they attacked us. Their fear of us led to hatred of us and then to violence. It led to war between our peoples.
“We warred for many a year. There were many casualties. This was generations ago, far in our past. Eventually both sides grew weary of war and a truce was made. Trading could begin again if both sides agreed to put aside their mutual loathing and trust. Saarks proved honorable but your people did not. We can control our loathing. Your people see monsters and it overrides their sensibilities and agreements. Time and again your people failed to keep their bargains. War was threatened. Then a great leader of our people decided to take prisoners, make them mine the mountains and see the hard work saarks were performing. Make them appreciate what we were doing. War talk ceased. Negotiations began. Much talking followed, nothing was decided ultimately that could please both sides. So saarks made the decision for both: we would keep prisoners, a few, always. The rest of your people would be left alone, and your people would leave us alone. We would keep a few of your people as workers and as go-betweens. They would not revolt against the arrangement because they could not revolt. We enforced this. Ever since that day we have taken a few workers, trading continues in peace, there has been no further trouble.”
Felanar absorbed this information.
“It is hard to believe that fear and hatred can get in the way of so many things,” he said sadly.
Slakh looked at him for a moment.
“Now what do you think of my appearance?” he asked quietly.
“I am used to you,” said Felanar, “and I see the person within now. We are not so far apart as I would have thought.”
Slakh grunted. “Get back in line!”
Felanar fell back to the others.
“What were you talking about?” asked Kara. “You made him mad a few times.”
“I was trying to find a way to come to an understanding,” Felanar whispered, “but I think I failed.”
“Understanding, with these creatures?” Alessa showed disgust.
“Yes, Alessa, understanding. Appearances aside, they are beings with cares such as we have, and minds such as our own. I was talking to him about their practice of slavery, and while I do not agree with their actions, I at least now understand where it came from and why they do it.” He paused. “And why Pross and Jela accept it, come to think of it.”
Felanar had continued to speak in low tones so as to escape Slakh’s hearing, but the guards around them soon objected.
“March, don’t talk so much!” one growled as he shoved Felanar. The four of them separated and continued marching in silence. Felanar was deep in thought for a long time.
Their journey followed the line of the Red Mountains as they wound their way south. The last of the mounds from the final mountain had receded in the distance earlier that day. They were entering a much drier land, one that was almost a desert. A few plants and bushes dotted the land, but there were no trees for many leagues now and the air was quite warm. When they stopped for the night the prisoners were tired and red from the sun. They slept that night knowing the next day they would enter the city of Polandolar, the northernmost of the Tri-cities of Shakaart, the home of Namonikkar the autarch. The man to whom they were being sold.
Namonikkar ruled over Polandolar, Granth and Jakkar, the Tri-cities by name. That much Felanar and Alessa knew from their respective studies. Felanar had been king for a short time and had little knowledge of the autarch and his ways. A court historian had explained this land to him one day and Felanar tried to recall all he could. Alessa could recall her father telling her of the autarch but little detail had ever been given to her. Her brother Dalonír would know more for he had discussed this land in detail with his knights. Alessa knew very little, but what she did know did not fill her with hope. The autarch was a mysterious person in her mind, someone with great power in his region, someone spoken of as a threat. Dolen knew even less. The dwarves had their home so far to the east that the autarch was of little concern to them.
The prisoners quietly compared these notes as they marched the next day. As afternoon wore on, the landscape became less desolate. Farms were seen on either side of the road they traveled. The fact that there was a road was significant enough for until now they had made their own paths along the mountain floor. But shortly after reaching open ground the path widened into a road and now homes were seen from time to time. Wherever the people of Shakaart wanted to travel, Felanar thought, it wasn’t north of where they were marching. These people kept to themselves. He supposed that if you had three cities close to each other, and nothing else of note for many leagues all around, your world soon became tied up within those cities and nowhere else.
Slakh slowed his march to allow the prisoners to catch up to his position.
“We will march to the city of Polandolar. It is not far now. We march to the palace of the autarch where I will present you as gifts. Then perhaps I will learn your true stories.”
Slakh marched forward again and the prisoners were made to follow, more closely together now as the guards hemmed them into a tighter formation. They were passing people on the road occasionally and needed to make room. The prisoners continued to talk as quietly as they could so as to not draw the attention of the guards marching not far away.
“Do you have a plan?” whispered Kara to Felanar.
Felanar shook his head and whispered back, “We are bound, we are guarded, what can we do?”
“We can still run!” hissed Kara.
“So can the guards,” returned Felanar.
“We just give up then?” she asked.
“No, we wait for our opportunity.”
“Agreed,” said Dolen. “We do not know what to expect in the city. We might get our chance.”
The city, having been something seen in the distance for some time, now enveloped them as they marched. First the houses grew in number so that they were appearing regularly alongside the road, and then there were no longer any gaps between the dwellings and huts and building. They were within the farthest outskirts of Polandolar, but they were definitely within the city. Felanar noticed the lack of walls. Was there an inner center protected by walls, he wondered, or was the entire city as open as it appeared? Did the autarch fear no enemy in this region?
As they walked through the city, Felanar also noticed how well planned the street layouts were. They walked along well-trodden streets regularly intersected in either direction. Each area of the city seemed devoted to a particular task. Early on they passed sections dedicated to fencing off cattle and sheep brought into the city for slaughter. Beyond that they walked past buildings that evidently held the slaughterhouses, so surmised by the sounds and smells as they walked nearby. Further on were the shops of tanners and leather-makers, and then those of the shield guild and the blacksmiths. Each trade had its place within Polandolar and seemed situated within its borders in such a way as to maximize the efficiency of its chores. A cow delivered to one end of town would be gradually rendered by each guild, stage by stage, until the food and leather had been fully processed at the other end. It was a very organized grid.
Felanar wondered if Granth and Jakkar, the other cities that made up the Tri-cities of Shakaart, were laid out in a similar way or if it was for Polandolar alone. Perhaps being the chief city, the city where the autarch presided, made Polandolar the central repository of industry.
Through the city they continued, and their presence seemed not to cause the slightest stir. Neither the fact that people were marching in chains nor that saarks were their captors seemed to strike anyone in Polandolar as anything unusual. Was this a sight they saw often, wondered Kara. Do they deal with the saarks? She watched the people as they passed. Most were peasant types wearing simple cloth tunics. The tunics were of various shades of color, most drab browns and greys, occasionally more brightly colored and in some cases almost a uniform as if belonging to a group. Guild members, Kara thought, coloring their cloths with vegetable dyes.
The guild members seemed to be well off. Their tunics were clean and their bodies sound. Kara also saw others not as well off. Many of the peasants walked bowed with age or infirmity. They were often dirty, in some cases filthy. As she watched longer, she realized that most of those most destitute in appearance were women. Kara saw many of them doing menial jobs while the men had more substantial tasks. If a man ran a shop, his wife would be sweeping the ground in front. Some women ground what looked to be dried-out peas into a basic mash that could be used, Kara supposed, as a type of flour, but she didn’t think much of the kind of bread that would result from that meager ingredient.
The light of day was fading as they marched further into the city. Torches were being lit here and there against the encroaching darkness. A palace could be seen up ahead ringed with torches that shone brightly in the twilight. Then on the side of the road Kara saw something. A woman was begging. She wore rags, almost nothing left of her coarse tunic. Her face was covered with dirt and wear, her face lined with wrinkles and pocked with sores. At her feet was a wooden bowl into which people had thrown coins, but it seemed rather empty. As the prisoners were marched along, Kara caught sight of this woman and felt sad. Then she saw something else: on her lap lay the head of a small, blonde girl, similarly dressed in rags, but unlike her mother she was clean and untouched by time. This struck Kara, for it meant that the woman was able to care for her child and keep her clean without bothering about herself. Sadness took hold of her as she thought of the contrast: hopelessness of the woman’s life and the love she felt for her small child. Kara was now parallel to the beggar and her child, and as she stared, the child stared back. Their eyes met. The girl smiled sweetly at Kara, which caused Kara’s eyes to tear and her heart to break. The saarks marched on and barked at her to turn around when Kara tried to keep eye contact with the child. Soon they were lost in the twilight, but that memory was to remain with her for a long time.
The palace drew near and finally Felanar saw walls. They marched to an entranceway where Slakh spoke with one of the guards. Slakh was known here, it seemed to Felanar, and they were soon waved into the inner courtyard of the palace. The gates closed behind them, and up ahead lay the home of the autarch, and their fate.