Chapter 1

Hope

As X3761 hoisted his pickaxe to his shoulder, he reflected for the millionth time that he was sick of enslavement. A Chargeman in crystalline white armour rounded the corner calling his name, which did nothing to alleviate this feeling. X let his pickaxe fall to his waist and turned to face the Chargeman while his fellow slaves shifted their positions to block the pair from view. The need for this action was minimal; aside from a faint, blue glow emitted by metal in ore veins and a miniscule square of light at the end of their mine shaft, there was nothing but darkness and rock to see.

The raw, ragged scars coating X’s back twanged as he dropped his eyes to the Chargeman’s boots, doing his best to ignore the nonchalant swishing of the Chargeman’s whip. ‘Sir?’

‘Yield?’ The Overseer asked in a gruff, deadpan voice.

X cleared his throat, then brought on a coughing fit to delay the inevitable. Eventually, he answered weakly, ‘ninety-six per cent, sir Chargeman.’

The Chargeman’s hand twitched towards his whip. ‘What led you to neglect the other four per cent?’

‘The portion of the vein I was working on was corrupted. I-it-it broke away, leaving nothing of value.’ This explanation would change nothing, but to answer with silence would have granted him a punishment of significantly worse severity.

‘Such a section is as valuable as you are, then.’ The Chargeman pulled his whip from his belt, the swishing of its lashes making X’s skin crawl.

‘Yes, sir Chargeman.’

‘Present your back to me.’

X grimaced and rotated his body. He arched his shoulders and biting back resistance that would have resulted in death.

The whip cracked. Again. Again. Again. With each blow, X gave no movement, no shudder, no cry of pain. Instead, he took the beating as passively as he had taken the previous thousand.

The Chargeman lowered his whip and pressed his body up against X’s back. ‘One lash for each percentage of your failure. Tomorrow, you shall achieve a full yield as well as an additional twenty-five per cent. Failure to meet this quota by any percentage will result in twenty-five lashes and a revocation of nutritional privileges. Understood?’

X straightened, showing no indication of the burning sensation that coursed over his back. ‘I understand, sir. I shall perform better, sir.’

The Chargeman stayed in position for a silent, drawn-out minute before skulking away with an unimpressed ‘hmph’. X rolled his shoulders; immediately, he regretted this action. The burning became so severe it was as though he had bathed in lava. Nonetheless, he turned towards his ore vein with agonising lethargy and hoisted his pickaxe once more.

After working fervently in the Chargeman’s presence, X’s fellow slaves had returned to their original – though still somewhat manic – pace. Further up the shaft, the more fortunate slaves were mining in relatively light and cool conditions. X and his group, on the contrary, were crammed in the clammy heat of the mine’s depths under creaking wooden beams which fought back against the weight of the rock above it; a battle the beams threatened to lose at any given moment.

X swung his pickaxe several times to get back into a rhythm. Each swing sent jarring torture through his back. On his twelfth swing, just as he was beginning to get back into a groove, the head of his pickaxe snapped off with a clang upon striking the ore.

With a listless groan, X and the pickaxe handle dropped to the floor. Settling against the cool surface of the rock, he pulled a weightless leather satchel from his belt and drank the last dregs of his water. His nearest companion, Romaina – known as R139 to the Chargemen – approached him with an expression of pity, but only after casting furtive glances up the shaft. Like X and all of the Teelian people, she had been in his position on occasions beyond number.

Romaina knelt beside X and handed him her own water satchel. ‘Here, take this. You need it more than I.’

With a weak, grateful smile, he took her satchel and gulped down the warm water within. His dark, grimy features relaxed and he met Romaina’s chestnut eyes. Her face was sweaty, chiselled and narrow. Dark hair was plaited tightly over her shoulder. Like the rest of the Teelia, her slave number – R137 - was tattooed onto her right cheek, intersected by a scar that wound down from her cheekbone to her navel. Short, black overalls exposed her long, strong limbs whose robustness even a coating of grime could not obscure.

‘Thank you,’ X murmured, handing the satchel back. Romaina nodded, tied the satchel back to her belt, and made to return to her work, but another pair of slaves crept up beside her.

These two, Grisel and Nari (marked as G912 and N782 respectively) carried small packages wrapped in coarse brown leather. Crouching beside X, they unfurled these packages, glancing up the mine in panic with every shift of rock.

Grisel – known as Gris to X and his companions - was the elder of the group and had the tragic distinction of being one of few Teelia who had lived long enough to see their brown hair turn to grey. Though the skin in his face sagged below his eyes (and his neck was beginning to experience the same), his limbs were almost as strong and bulky as Romaina’s. His wise, blue eyes turned away from the square of light and met X’s; there was a stoniness in them, a deep hurt, which betrayed that they had seen more than their fair share of horrors. With narrow, bony fingers, Gris pulled X forward and dabbed into his package, which turned out to be a block of barely solid blue salve.

Nari echoed his action. The same age as X at twenty, her emerald eyes were yet to lose their glimmer driven by hopes and dreams. Sweat beaded her forehead, dampened her baby hairs, and left trails on her mucky face. She was softer in build than the others yet worked just as hard.

‘I would tell you this shall not hurt,’ Gris said in a gravelly voice. Holding his salve-coated fingers in X’s face, he continued, ‘but that would be deceptive of me. In truth, the moment I apply this, you will feel a pain more unbearable than any torture you could imagine. In light of this, I would advise you to put your water satchel in your mouth and clamp down hard – your inevitable screams will draw the Chargemen and get us all killed.’

X followed this instruction, his mouth drying out as the leather drew in what little moisture he had managed to restore. As soon as Gris and Nari’s fingers met his back, X’s body contorted as fire shot through his nerves. Screams grew in his chest and died in his mouth, his eyes flashed with black and white spots, and his thoughts cried out for death to come and end his suffering. It felt as though the pair were digging into his wounds with scalpels heated in a blazing fire.

After moments that seemed neverending, the sensation returned to a sharp but bearable pain as Gris and Nari withdrew their fingers. Gradually, the pain dulled further.

‘There ya are,’ Gris wiped his fingers on his overalls and rewrapped his remaining salve. ‘This substance, among many things, is a numbing agent. It will quiet your pain for a time; long enough for you to rest, at any rate; without which, there will be no healing. Do try not to reopen the wounds – the salve will work to stitch your skin back together, but you will not help if you tear that which it mends.’

X drew in several sharp breaths and could not speak until he had succeeded in slowing his breathing. ‘Not to sound ungrateful – because I am endlessly – but why has it taken you until now to use that concoction? This is my thousandth beating, at least.’

Gris scoffed as though this was the stupidest question X could have asked, yet it was Nari who answered. ‘Salnar,’ she held her package aloft. ‘Is exceedingly hard to come by. Sometimes we can trade for it, but… not only is it rare, but those who possess it don’t part with it easily given its value. Fortunately for you, we acquired some last week. Besides, given the amount of work you must do… salnar is the least you shall need to meet your yield tomorrow.’

‘Keep yourself covered this night, X,’ Gris warned. ‘If the Chargemen discover you have received treatment, we will all be better off slitting our throats.’

X spat. Groaning, he hauled himself to his feet, his back now causing him only a minor, aching pain. ‘I wish it were not so. One day, our situation will improve.’

Romaina rolled her eyes so severely it was almost audible and strode away. Grisel scoffed again and shuffled back to his workstation. Nari remained by X’s side, but the glimmer in her eyes had been consumed by a deadened emptiness. The other slaves within hearing distance gave noises of dissent similar to Gris’s.

Nari handed X a new pickaxe and murmured, ‘hope is going to be the death of you, X. I wish it were not so, but you must come to accept that it will never come to pass. This is our existence. Dream of better, but do not expect it to come.’

X sighed and shuffled back to work rather than arguing. Each swing of his new axe proved weaker and more limited than earlier in a concerted effort to prevent further damage to his back. Once finished with the section of ore vein he was working on, X bundled the metal fragments he had collected, placed it in a nearby cart, and moved to the deepest part of the mine to make a start on tomorrow’s yield. A solid wall of black rock with streams of glowing blue met him. A great deal of work, in other words. The only positive was that this segment of the mine was slightly cooler, and he was far enough away that the work of his fellows was muted. He grimaced, hefted his pickaxe, and set to work.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

No sooner had he hit the rock wall than an archaic whispering, barely audible, emanated from it. X leaped back; despite the numbing agent, he felt his wounds stretch. Murmurings from his fellow slaves reached him.

‘Hush!’ X shouted. The slaves silenced, but the noise of their shuffling feet as they came to investigate was just as loud.

‘What is that?’ Romaina muttered from X’s shoulder. What little of her face X could see was slack and her hands were furled into fists.

‘I-I-I have no idea,’ X gasped, his gaze sweeping the wall repeatedly. ‘All I did was set to work on the wall and… the voice began…’

‘Should we get the Chargemen in here?’ Nari asked, her voice squeaky and panicked.

‘No, youngling.’ A booming voice filled the mineshaft from all corners; it was as though the mine itself was speaking to the Teelia. ‘The Chargemen learning of this would present us with quite the complication.’

A huge, burning orb of white light sprung up behind the gathered Teelia. It looked like a scale version of the sun, with white wisps coming off the apex of the sphere, while the core gleamed with solid light. The orb reached from floor to ceiling, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Within its centre stood a shrouded, featureless figure; Teelian in form, though with foreign protrusions from its shoulder blades.

X gleaned this information rapidly before shielding his eyes to prevent blindness. Romaina lurched away and grabbed a pickaxe. Holding it before her, she took a defensive stance. ‘What are you, apparition?!’

The Orb gave a sharp laugh that sounded like rocks falling in the mine’s entrance. ‘Oh, my dear, please endeavour to be somewhat more polite, for I am your salvation.’

‘Salvation?’ X asked, fear and shock forgotten.

‘Indeed,’ the orb seemed to pulse. ‘I am here to save you from this abhorrent reality you find yourselves in, by aiding you in saving yourselves.’

Romaina yanked X by the scruff of his neck, all consideration for his wounds neglected, but there was nowhere to go. The orb had them hemmed in against the rock wall. ‘Ignore it, X. It is a foul trick! Do not allow this thing to stoke your foolish hopes! This is nothing more than a Chargeman illusion!’

The orb loosed another laugh, though this one was frigid like ice cracking. ‘I am not a trick. I am not an illusion, my dear. I am a god!’

X glanced at Romaina, his brow furrowed. Evidently, this statement was supposed to have an impact. ‘What is a god?’

‘Oh, my innocent beacon,’ the orb pulsed. ‘A god is a being of immense power. With this power, I can bring you everything you desire. I can break your enslavement. Together, we can make this world yours. We can make it a habitat of plenty, of wonder, of peace.’

Romaina released X slowly, and for the briefest of moments he thought the orb was getting through to her where X had been unable to do so. Then Romaina broke this hope and stepped up to the orb while brandishing her pickaxe. ‘Be GONE! We have no use for your deceptions! Leave us NOW!’

‘Oh, my sweet, violent youngling. You lack faith in me? Well, perhaps I can build some faith within you by showing you the truth of what your enslavement pays for. Perhaps, this will anger you enough into belief… All you have to do, once you have truly seen, is take what I show you for yourselves. For us.’

The figure faded and the brightness of the orb dimmed. It was replaced by a glorious image, like a reflection in the surface of a clear lake. There was a luscious, green landscape encircled by forests of towering, healthy black trees with viridescent canopies. Then, the image switched to a monolithic structure of rock and metal backed onto the edge of a cliff surrounded by mountains on both sides. Before it were endless grassy plains. The image zoomed in, and within the structure there were figures not too dissimilar from the Teelia, though these people possessed black wings with wingspans as wide as the figures were tall. They were laughing with their families, roaming the lantern-lit streets with freedom, not one Chargeman in sight.

Gradually, the idyllic vision faded and the figure darkened the circular frame again. X stood with his jaw ajar like the rest of the Teelia, a fire borne of rage and injustice building in his chest. Romaina dropped her pickaxe, Nari looked as though she was about to cry, while Gris had ogled the visions with a clinical curiosity.

This was confirmation of what X had always known in the deepest part of his soul – there was more to life than the enslavement he had known since birth. Flames of fury caused bile to build in his throat.

Within the orb, the figure spread his arms wide. ‘Do I have your faith now, younglings? This is what your labour has bought. Not improvement to your circumstances, no – no metropolises of comfort, no quaint family lives, no absence of punishment, threat, or pain, no – but the profit of another civilisation on the back of your toil. Everything you viewed in the visions was created either by or because of you. And not one of your race will ever know the benefit of such creations… not, unless… we take it.’

Romaina met X’s eyes, but she quickly looked away. Gris appeared nonplussed, but it was when X met Nari’s eyes that he saw he was not the only one enraged. Her eyes were narrowed and she stared at the orb with such ferocity it was a wonder she did not burn a hole into it.

This was what they had spent their whole lives subsidising? Their parents, grandparents, everyone they knew… had all given everything they had to survive, and so many people X was privileged to have known had failed in even that endeavour. All for the subsistence and profit of another society who would never know how good they had it, nor at what cost.

‘What is this place?’ X asked, fighting to keep the rage he felt from shaking his voice. ‘How do we get there?’

For the first time, the orb’s voice was soft, tinged with sadness. ‘It will be a difficult journey, and you may not live to see it. There are many steps yet to take. Is it not preferable to die free than to live in enslavement, without the slightest inclination of a better life existing for yourself and your people? Your family? Your friends?’

Silence reigned. X’s gaze flitted back to Nari; his thoughts were mirrored in her frown. He yearned for freedom, yet was he so reckless as to risk death for it? However… he could not let the matter lie now that he was aware of prosperity beyond the realms of his existence. He opened his mouth to express this, yet Gris beat him to speech.

‘Your words are too barbarous for individuals as young as those you address, orb.’ There was an edge to his tone, and the corner of his lip curled upwards. ‘Yet I have seen revolutions sparked before. They only ever have one outcome – massacre. Stay your words from these impressionable souls. Speak not of death to those whose futures are already fraught with peril.’

The orb gave a gentle pulse. ‘Perhaps you speak the truth. You, too, are young in years to my view, yet… you are weathered. The rest of you before me are not. Nonetheless, the perilous future you speak of need not be the reality these younglings grow up with. Do me this service - spread the word, and those that are ready to hear it will join me. At this moment, that is all I would ask of you.’

‘Bah,’ Romaina spat on the ground. ‘That is all you would ask of us now, but when this is done? When we have the numbers? You would ask us to fall to the whips of the Overseers.’

‘I will not do this,’ Gris snarled. ‘I have seen too many failed attempts at this. There is no freedom.’

The orb pulsed again, stronger this time. ‘On those occasions, you lacked one thing.’

Gris’s snarl froze. ‘What would that be?’

The orb burst into bright, blue light. ‘You lacked me. Do as I say, and reap the rewards. Do not, and I shall find others who will.’

Any last vestige of darkness within the mine was eviscerated as the orb lit up like a star in supernova. X shielded his eyes, and someone behind him fell to the ground in shock. As quickly as it had begun, it was over, and the light outline around X’s arm faded into darkness. He lowered his arm, taking in the sudden sight of blackness while his eyes adjusted.

He was torn. On the one hand, he had been presented with the purpose that he had been looking for since he was a child. On the other, he had never truly considered the impact that it could have. The death it could bring to himself, those he loved, and the Teelia generally. As much as death and suffering had been an ever-present part of his existence thus far, he was unsure that he wanted to make that a reality for far more of his compatriots than it would be if he kept his silence.

Romaina was the first to get over her shock, hoisting her pickaxe over her shoulder and returning to her workspace. ‘That was nothing less than pointless. Nonsensical ravings. I hope you took none of that to heart, X.’

X sighed and, rather than following her example, sank into a seated position and stared at his feet. ‘I… did, and I did not.’

‘Nothing good can come of this, boy,’ Gris shook his head. His expression softened and he gripped X’s shoulder. ‘This is not the way. All that you can do is keep your head down, meet your yields, and do your utmost to make it through each day without dying. That is the life that we have been dealt, and one unnameable orb of light is not going to rectify that.’

X gave a hollow laugh. ‘What about two unnameable orbs?’

‘Come, boy,’ Gris scoffed, helping X to his feet. ‘Make light of it all you will, but I know your mind.’

‘I know that it is foolish,’ X said slowly. ‘But perhaps this thing is right. Surely, it cannot hurt to tell others what we have seen, what we have been told? After that, it is up to others whether they wish to side with this orb or not.’

‘It can hurt to tell others,’ the quiet voice of Nari interjected. ‘Yet I believe that we need to do this. For ourselves and our people, for the hope of a better life, it is worth the risk.’

Gris hawked and spat. He moved towards Nari until they were nose-to-nose. ‘This is preposterous! You are aware of the danger, yet you wish to fly in the face of it regardless! I am not responsible for either of you, but I must counsel you against this!’

‘Gris…’ X said pleadingly.

Gris rounded on him. ‘No, X! If your parents were here… they would support me, especially given what they went through!’

Silence spread through the mine once more, as though the shaft itself was holding its breath. X felt his eyes well up; the faces of his mother and father swam into his mind. They had died for a failed rebellion. Perhaps they would try and sway him away from doing the same... or perhaps their wish would have been for him to see it through.

The silence drew on for a while, but eventually X was able to articulate his feelings. ‘We have no way of knowing which side of this fight they would have stood on. However… I think they would like to see me succeed where they failed.’

Nari moved next to X and took his hand. Their eyes met; hers were shimmering with tears as well. ‘I am with you. I think… I never knew your parents, but even if you make the effort to do this, is that not living up to their memory in the best way you can? Fighting for the same dreams they fought for?’

X felt something shift in his chest. Doubts remained in his mind and death, ever the permeating possibility, lingered in his thoughts. Nonetheless, the path he must tread was clear to him.

‘I will do this,’ he murmured, keeping his eyes on Nari’s and avoiding Gris’s entirely. ‘For myself, for us, for all like us… and for the memory of my parents. For what was taken from them. That… that is as simple a reason as any.’

Gris was purple; he looked like he wanted to scream.

Romaina returned. She ran her tongue over her teeth as she approached X. ‘Do what you will, but know this – I think this is an idea borne of outright naivety and utmost stupidity. If you die for this, know that you brought it on yourself.’

X tried to force a weak smile onto his features, but Romaina’s words stung. ‘Consider that noted. I’m going to proceed regardless.’

Nari released X and began walking towards her ore vein. She muttered, ‘we’re going to get horrifically murdered for this,’ as she did so.