The bone-cutter knife glistened on a public display shelf, as if begging for a hero to steal it. Its blade had an opalescent sheen. Its edge threw off multicolored refractions, hinting at precision. Even the hilt was lovely; a carving of ummin hands clasped over an oblong egg.

Aeyong thought the hilt looked like an ummin fertility symbol, although she could not guess why uncaring Torth would collect such things. Yet they did. The knife gleamed amidst an array of beautiful knickknacks.

Aeyong trudged past the public display shelf every work shift. She pretended not to notice the knife. Other slaves likewise pretended not to see it.

Perhaps they really didn’t notice?

Few slaves fantasized as much as Aeyong. She had posed careful questions to her bunk-mates and neighbors, and most of them refused to discuss the idea of running away, even if it was purely hypothetical.

Aeyong supposed that they were all full-time liars. They told themselves that they were content with servitude and indoor living.

She hated their insincerity.

She hated Torth even more.

Her owner was a fat Green Rank who hoarded lacy, frilly things, as well as gemstone-encrusted things. She entered his suite with her usual sigh of resignation.

Her job, every shift, consisted of gently wiping filigree and lightly dusting lacework. She used a handheld vacuum to clean delicate carpets. She scrubbed lattice stonework with a tiny squeegee, in order to get the dust out of each little hole. Every fifth and sixth day, she had to clean the undersides of decorative sills. Every tenth and eleventh day, she soaped and wiped the big windows.

It was her responsibility to keep track of the cleaning schedule. If she messed up, her owner would punish her. He would even tell her why.

Thanks to her fastidious owner, Aeyong was dogmatic about tracking the passage of days. She swapped duties with her coworkers sometimes, but she never forgot the schedule. A third mistake might send her back to the slave auction block. She might end up with a more sadistic owner. Or worse. If no owner claimed her, she would join the hordes of sad, expendable unowned slaves.

She wrung out a washcloth and soaped it up again.

Beyond the window, it was an overcast day in this nameless city. Aeyong wished it would rain. She yearned for a break from the sunlit view and all of the things her owner seemed to enjoy. She loathed the way he ate morsels that made her tongue water from their enticing fresh-baked aromas. She had to pretend that Torth foods were poisonous for ummins. Otherwise drool might escape her beak.

Aeyong retreated into her imagination.

In her mind, she wielded that glistening blade.

That blade could kill Torth with one stab. It could even slice holes in walls or windows. It could slice off slave collars. It was magical. And in Aeyong’s imagination, she knew how to use it.

Her best friend refused to believe that freedom was possible. Aeyong didn’t care. She cut away his slave collar and shouted for him to follow her. She was a runaway!

She led a group of freed slaves outside.

She ran through fields of golden flowers and gossamer ferns. She and her friends existed without Torth, without suffering, without fear. The only problems they—

Someone gasped.

It wasn’t Aeyong. Nor was it any of her coworkers, since it wasn’t their turn to endure their owner. They worked in other rooms.

She turned around, half-wondering if her imagination was still in control. Surely her owner would not gasp? That made no sense. Nothing could startle a Torth. The gods never made sounds of shock or surprise.

The Green Rank dropped his half-bitten pastry. It rolled on the floor.

Aeyong suppressed a sigh. She would have to clean away the crumbs. But, well, maybe she would be able to surreptitiously eat the remains of the morsel? Her owner looked flabbergasted. He seemed too preoccupied to notice a minor transgression right now.

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She cautiously picked up the morsel.

Her best friend feared that she would die young, condemned for having such an active imagination, and for taking too many risks with her thoughts. Time was proving him wrong. Aeyong had earned fine wrinkles around her eyes. She wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing.

“I am sorry,” a whispery, raspy voice said.

Aeyong looked up in disbelief at the Green Rank. Had he actually spoken words that were not a command?

His green eyes met her gaze.

This must be a cruel prank. Torth never saw their slaves. Aeyong knew that she ought to cower in submission, or return to her duties. She should not allow a Torth to bait her into a painful punishment.

Instead, she glared at her owner. Was he so sated and bored that he wanted to toy with her emotions?

She refused to respect that sort of behavior. The Torth could call themselves gods, but really, what made them any different from predators that toyed with prey?

Oh no. Aeyong was supposed to be meek and submissive. If she couldn’t handle that basic law…

She tried to remind herself that life was worth living.

The Green Rank reached into his robes and pulled out his blaster glove.

Aeyong clutched the morsel. If these were her final moments of existence, then she would throw it at her owner, maybe try to humiliate him. Could Torth even feel shame? Probably not.

Her owner did not don the glove.

Instead, he offered it to Aeyong.

Aeyong stared in disbelief. This was a mind game. Slaves were not allowed to touch weapons. Everyone knew that. Even ignorant children on slave farms knew that.

Or had she lost her grip on reality? Was she poisoned by hope, as everyone warned her might happen?

A blaster glove was a superior weapon to a bone-cutter knife. It was the weapon of the gods. And here was a god, apparently choosing her to wield it.

Her owner slid off his cushioned seat and fell onto his knees. He bowed to Aeyong, as if she was the god and he was the slave.

“I am not a Torth anymore,” he said in his raspy, underused voice. “I will obey you, as a penitent.”

He looked serious.

Aeyong took a step backwards, unsure whether she should grab the blaster glove and flee, or simply flee. This must be a trap.

A crashing sound came from another room. Someone screamed in terror. Could that be her coworker?

A wet blast followed, and the scream choked off.

Her Green Rank owner hurriedly donned his blaster glove, apparently forgetting that he had just offered to give it away. Aeyong jumped backwards.

But her owner did not aim at her. Instead, he stood and faced the doorway. His face looked more expressive than usual. There was fear there. And determination.

Two wild-eyed Torth barged into the relaxation room.

Soothing lights played on their skin and shimmering robes. Yet these were not the calm, stately gods that Aeyong was familiar with. Their robes were spattered with blood. Each wore a blaster glove. They aimed at the Green Rank.

He aimed back.

Silent blasts tore through the room.

Before Aeyong even had time to prepare for what was happening, the shots hit their targets in wet explosions.

There was no time to run or hide. Aeyong stood next to her owner as he fell, his torso a bloody mess.

Another blast tore him apart.

One of the yellow-eyed intruders fell, bleeding from a gaping wound. The other one approached, glaring at Aeyong or her owner, or maybe both of them.

Footsteps. Running. Someone light and fleet-footed was coming.

The attacker half-turned towards the doorway. He was blown backwards, blasted into blood-soaked pulp.

Aeyong stared in utter disbelief. A slave—an ummin like herself—had actually run up and killed that surviving Torth! And he had used a forbidden weapon; a blaster glove!

“The Torth have gone mad,” the other ummin yelled.

Everyone had gone mad, as far as Aeyong was concerned.

The other ummin gestured towards her owner, who lay gasping and dying in a pool of his own blood. “Take his glove. It’s your weapon, now.”

Aeyong knelt next to her owner, disbelieving.

“Take it,” her owner rasped. “The future is in your hands.” His gloved hand twitched. “Aeyong.”

All life left his green eyes.

So gods could die as easily as slaves. The myths were right.

Aeyong had not guessed that her owner even knew her name. It seemed unbelievable that a Torth would care to learn the name of a slave.

Or that he would be shot to death by fellow gods.

Or that he would kneel before Aeyong, and apologize, and offer her a god’s weapon.

She heard distant shouts and distant blasts.

“Take your glove and follow me!” The other ummin took off running, apparently eager to face more mayhem.

Aeyong pulled the glove off her dead owner’s hand. She could have disdained his corpse, maybe spat on it, but she wondered if he had been possessed by some decent god just before his death. If there was a better god who cared about slaves, she would revere that one.

The glove fit her hand poorly. There was an extra finger-hole, since it was designed for Torth.

She studied the geometric symbols on the back of the glove. She had seen Torth touch those to make the gloves work.

She aimed at a piece of furniture and tapped symbols.

After a bit of practice, she learned how the weapon worked.

Other slaves would refuse this blessing. They were invested in the pretense that servitude was healthy, and that freedom was a toxic fantasy. That was how they stayed sane.

Aeyong thought they might need to adjust their way of thinking.

Maybe the crazed ummin with the blaster glove was actually sane.

Maybe normal slaves were the crazy ones.

The blaster glove was big and loose on Aeyong’s hand. She plucked an adjustable bracelet from among her owner’s many treasures, and used it to seal the glove in place. Now it would not fall off by accident. No one could rip it away with casual ease.

She stepped out of the gemstone-encrusted suite and towards a future that used to exist only in her wildest fantasies.