Chapter Fourteen

‘Warden Purity guarded those who had done neither bad nor good in their lives. Those who had been neutral in living. There they were able to continue their mundane existence for all eternity.’ 

Prior to finding Caid in that back alleyway, Alis had been alone for a very long time with only her trinkets. Of course, she had her daily chores too, but that was nowhere near the same as having a companion, a family, or a true home. Being with Caid provided her a feeling of togetherness.  

Even though they weren’t family, Alis and Caid looked out for each other, and that meant a lot to her. She may not have needed the protection, but it was nice to think someone cared for her. That was what she missed most since her parents had disappeared into the mines.  

Some few days after her parents went missing, Alis escaped the confines of the slave city, and slipped down into the tunnels below. She continued the work her family had started, although she doubted it would ever amount to anything more than a silly dream. She dug out old tunnel walls, filling them with bricks she traded her trinkets for, and continued digging new pathways through districts that had gone untouched by her parents. She had the hope of someday tunneling out of the city, leaving it all behind. If the slaves found no freedom in the city, then they could leave it together.  

That never came true, however, as the slaves refused to band together and leave. Instead, she sat down, under the city, and continued to build her weapons. She tried to convince the old slave women to rally together, but without a leader none of them would budge, preferring to remain set in their ways rather than go into the unknown.  

Some slaves said they were too old for the nonsense of a revolution; others were certain it would fail, anyway. It was hard to motivate those who had been purposely demotivated and held down their entire lives.  

Alis let her hair grow out¾at first it was just because she was too scared to visit the surface for a haircut. Afterward, she continued to let it grow when she found it would cover the horrible mark of slavery. Although longer hair would never eradicate the memories, it made everyone look at her differently¾like a real person and not just an object.  

Alis found the longer she grew her hair, the more she felt her confidence return. Soon enough, she stole ribbons from much higher stations.  

The ribbon colors represented a woman’s station in Maralay.  

When Alis started wearing ribbons of various colors, she started to understand how life could be different for her, just like it could be different for all the slaves. 

 Her first ribbon had been a lowly yellow, which allowed her passage through the city streets. She soon realized while yellow ribbons were better than the red marks of slavery, they were the lowest of the colors in terms of prestige. Yellow ribbons allowed women to walk in their own district, but they were forbidden to leave it without the companionship of a husband or father. The law also forbade them to carry more than a small purse of coins. She quickly noticed the envoys used this as an excuse to touch women walking by, claiming they were checking the weight of bags.  

After a week, the thrill of the yellow ribbon faded away. She tried many more ribbons, finding the small nuances of each.  

The red ribbon was the one ribbon Alis could not touch. Even though she had chanced upon one in the Parian market, she could never wear it. The red ribbon signified powerful women. Most citizens knew each of the red women by name and face, meaning she would be noticed instantly. The allure of influence akin to the seers was always tempting but being found was too much of a risk.  

This morning, Alis opted for the green ribbon. It was only the second highest tier of ribbon, after yellow, but the green allowed her to trade. She could not only buy items, but she could carry them around, trading them for others. This ribbon was how she’d survived the past year in the tunnels. Without it, she would have never been able to eat, but more importantly, she would have never gotten the items she needed for her trinkets.  

Alis pushed the cover off the tunnels, stepping out into the district of Purian, or as she had nicknamed it, Fat City. Everyone in the city was either overweight from overindulgence of food or wine, or their pockets were fat with the money of those who could not help buying their food and wine.  

Either way, this was the best city district to trade in. After goods came off the ships in Helios, everything found its way to Purian. If Purian’s markets failed to produce the item, then the item wasn’t in the city. Alis shoved the cover back over the tunnel. 

She looked around the small alley. In Parian, alleys were used for emergency travel. The Envoy, the Fire Envoy, and other emergency responders were the only ones permitted into the alleyways. That, however, failed to stop the homeless from making their bed right in the middle of the dark pathways.  

A side effect of being the district with the most food, wine, and other items meant it attracted those who wanted those items for free. While Purian lacked the amount of homeless Anella had, it still had its fair share. Alis considered these homeless people to be of a better class than those of Anella¾many of Purian’s homeless people had once been merchants or merchants’ families who had fallen on hard times and never recovered. Many of them had become dependent on the wine they used to sell or the summer seeds the pirates of Helios brought back with them.  

Alis moved toward the entry of the alleyway.  

“Don’t happen to have a drink, do you, honey?” called a voice from beside her.  

Alis smiled and bent down. “Good morning, Yim.”  

Rummaging around in her bag, she pulled out a small bottle of honeyed water. “This isn’t wine, but it is better for you.”  

The man took the bottle and pressed it to his lips, spilling a small amount on his shirt before finishing. “I thank you, dear.”  

Alis smiled back at him. “Can’t talk today, Yim, have important things to do.”  

Yim nodded and Alis stood back up, walking out into the district of Purian.  

Purian was a large and heavily populated district, accounting for a good thirty percent of the city. Its spacious streets were wide enough for three carts to easily travel side by side. Purian was all about luxury¾everything a person could dream of was at a fingertip’s reach.  

Alis reached into her bag and pulled out a small piece of parchment, where she had jotted down a list of things she would need and places she could get them. Next to each item, she wrote the color of ribbon she would need to get it. The first item was the most important: more food. She checked on her green ribbon, tying it tighter to keep her hair in a ponytail.  

No one batted an eye at her. She wasn’t wearing yellow, so she was just above the envoy’s scrutiny. Alis looked around for the chaos Caid had described, but Purian’s streets still seemed as safe as always. She would walk unmolested by strangers, if she kept her head down.   

Alis went down the streets, hearing only hawkers yelling for her attention. She kept her coin purse close to her side, knowing the tricks of the sticky-fingered youth around the streets. The urchins would find the coin purse of even the most aware individual if they lapsed even for a moment. They did not care for the punishment of death, because if they did not have coin they would die anyhow. 

Alis moved with ease through the streets, knowing exactly where she needed to go. She kept her head down and her eyes forward, not stopping to window shop like others. She had no need for a fancy new dress or hat.  

At the first intersection, Alis turned right, avoiding an oncoming carriage.  

The man hung his head out of the door, pointing a finger at her. If she had been wearing a yellow ribbon, she may have been flogged, but the green meant she was just high enough a trial would be recommended for any crime the man made up. The man looked frustrated, but he also looked hurried and kept his cart going.  

Alis scooted off to the side, under the hanging canopies of the bigger shops. She could smell the warm baked goods before she rounded her third corner. This was where she needed to be to procure the first item on her list.  

“Good morning, Alis,” she heard the old man say before she could even see him.  

“How did you know it was me, Simmi?” she asked as she moved closer to see his bright blue eyes.  

Simmi laughed. “You’re not as sneaky as you figure to be. Plus, you smell like metal and rust.”  

Alis sniffed at her dull green shirt. She smelled nothing odd or off-putting about it.  

“Ah, no worries, little one. Do come in and let us see what you have.”  

Simmi led Alis through a small entrance filled with wide barrels of grain. Through the inner door, the building opened to rows of foods. On one side were fruits and vegetables picked fresh from the fields and gardens. On the other side were exotic foods from the stores of Helios. In the back, Alis could see the hanging corpses of livestock freshly butchered for the day.  

Simmi led her around it all, stopping at a back counter.  

“Just empty what you have onto the counter and we will have a look.” 

He reached under the counter, pulling out a small box. Alis dropped her bag onto the countertop and began rummaging through its contents. Simmi opened his box, pulling out a small pair of spectacles and put them on. Alis had made these spectacles for Simmi, but they were more than just regular lenses. They were magnified lenses that adjusted with a button on the side of the earpieces. With a press of the button, Simmi could either see things far away or zoom in on things close-up.  

After a few minutes of searching, Alis grabbed several rolled pieces of parchment. She unrolled the first parchment, holding down its edges with two small flat stones.  

“What do we have here?” asked Simmi, leaning over to get a better look. His finger clicked the button on the side of the glasses twice, and he looked over what Alis had drawn.  

“This is a cooling system,” Alis replied. Her finger traced over lines. “This is a device that will take the air inside your store, run it through a simple system of liquid and pressure, which will allow it to cool the air inside the room and trap it inside this box. Ultimately, it will keep your meat from spoiling.”  

Simmi nodded as he followed Alis’s fingers across the plans. “And, you could make this?”  

Alis nodded. “I have made it on a smaller scale, but nothing this big. However, it should work the same way.”  

Simmi took out a small leaf of paper. “How much will you be wanting for it?”  

“I need enough food for the month. That, and a little time to construct the device.”  

“Sure, sure,” he replied. “I will have your goods packaged, and where do I deliver them?”  

“I will take them a week at a time, and you can just leave the package out back every seventh day where I can retrieve it. Then, in one month, you will have your system.” 

Simmi nodded again. “I assume the other parchments will be waiting until next month, then?”  

Alis scooped up the loose parchments, shoving them back into the bag. “I can’t spend all my ideas at once,” she laughed.  

Simmi pulled out a small bag, placing it on the countertop. “This is enough for today. Tomorrow, I will have your first payment sitting out back as agreed.” 

Alis grabbed the bag. She still had food left over from the inn, but it was always nice to have extra. “Thank you, Simmi.”  

After exchanging goodbyes, Alis walked back out into the streets. She pulled out her small list, marking the item off.  

Alis made stops at several more shops along the streets of Purian. She visited iron welders, tailors, glass blowers, and woodworkers, and to each she gave trades for supplies. She gathered the supplies for new weapons, new inventions, clothes, and food for herself and the other slaves.  

After the day’s list was checked off and then rechecked to make sure she missed nothing important, she made her way back toward the tunnels. Whenever entering the tunnels, she always took a different entrance than the one from which she’d come out. She trusted the homeless men and women like Yim, but she was smart enough not to ever let them see her enter or exit the tunnels.  

Alis gathered the things she didn’t immediately need, storing them in one of her many storage rooms. She would sort through it all later and decide how she would use the items. For now, she would pop up into the slave quarters of Oranaos to distribute some food to a few hungry children and elderly inside the district, as well as those who couldn’t work anymore or had not been fed in the mines. She could not feed them all, but she tried to do her part. 

Alis threw her sack over her shoulder, walking the tunnels until she was below the exit where she could move more freely. She came out in the middle of the slave quarters, looking around to make sure no outsiders were in the area. As she expected, there was no one there besides those marked with the red X’s over their temples. She carefully placed the cover back over the entrance.  

Her first stop was the elderly women who owned the clothing exchange she and Caid had visited. They had stopped working in the mine long before she had been born. She doubted any people out of the slave quarters even realized they were still alive. Slaves tended to die in the quarters and unless they were the best workers in the mines, they would just wither into the distant memories of the slave drivers. Those who were well known had to be brought to the slave quarter gates and shown to be truly dead, and then it was up to the rest of the slaves what they did with the bodies.  

“Good morning, grandmothers,” Alis said, handing each a small wrapped parcel from her bag.  

“Thank you kindly, dear,” one woman said, the other smiling in agreement. 

Alis kept moving. This was the longest part of most of her days. Whatever food was left at the end of the day would go toward Caid, Creaton, and her own meal. 

“Fancy ribbon,” said a girl pulling at Alis’s dress.  

Alis reached up, feeling the ribbon she had forgotten in her hair. She twirled it around her fingers before pulling it free. The girl reached out for it, but Alis stuffed it into a stitched in pocket.  

“Why don’t you try this instead?” Alis said, handing the little girl a small piece of fruit.  

The girl seemed to approve of the offer as she grabbed the fruit, shoving it greedily into her mouth.  

Alis watched the girl dance off down the dirt paths of the slave’s quarters and thought of how innocent she, too, once was.  

She thought about how they would soon rip that innocence from the young girl. She no longer would be the girl with the bouncing hair and the smile. She would be broken and thrown into the mines to rot for the rest of her living days.  

Alis hated the thought. She wished it away for not only this girl, but all the children so they could live freely and have the same benefits as everyone else in the city. Even if they were only elevated to a yellow ribbon status, they would enjoy the benefits of not being a slave.  

Getting anyone rallied behind her was the hard part; her father and mother had struggled with the same thing for so many years. Even as they continued to build the tunnels and hold meetings, still only a few would show up and join those who wanted to change the status quo. The others feared change or what would happen, more importantly, if that change never happened.  

Getting the hopes of a slave to peak was as difficult as rebelling against those who had held them down for so long. Like her father before her, Alis would stay motivated. She refused to just duck down into her tunnels, pretending the surface of the world was nonexistent.  

Alis handed out another small package of food to a small group of elderly living at one of the far edges of the district. She made her way back into the middle of the district where her father had only made one entrance and exit from the tunnels. He said every slave deserved the chance to break free if they so wished it. But not a single slave would enter without much chagrin and a lot of coaxing.  

“Feeding time already?”  

Alis stopped turning to see Hav’Un standing behind her. She hadn’t seen him since he questioned Caid in the tunnels. He, as always, wore a stern glare as if the sun was too bright for his eyes.  

“Those who cannot work the mines have to eat.”  

He nodded. “That they do, and they get their share of what we can bring from the mine food lines. We appreciate your hard work and thoughtfulness, but does it really do the children and elderly good to see one such as you bringing them food? Do you try to butter them up? Or make them believe there is a way for a change? Because, as your friend, the former warden said during our meeting there is no hope for change.” 

Alis shook her head. “That is not what he said. Plus, he is willing to help us now. We need help from someone who can show us how to fight back. We need to learn to stand up against those who would continue to hold us down.”  

Alis could feel the heat rising in her, not at Hav’Un, but at those who had suppressed her and others before her, long before she was even born.  

Hav’Un chuckled. “Do you believe it would matter who came walking through these gates and tried to lead us? We know absolutely nothing beyond these walls, aside from what those who hold us here tell us. We know nothing of combat, or politics, or even where things in the world lie in comparison to our own small huts.” 

“Caid knows how to fight, and he knows far more about politics than he realizes. Plus, I know the city and how to get anywhere. We can do this together.”  

She tried to alleviate any concerns Hav’Un had, but she knew it would take more than words. Sooner or later, it would take action to show him and all the rest of the slaves there was a point to all of this. There had to be a way to show them all their efforts would matter for the good of everyone.  

“Together,” Hav’Un said, and then paused. “To make a revolution, everyone must be together, and the last time I saw your Caid, he was in no mood to lead anyone.”  

Hav’Un was right. The last time the slaves pleaded with Caid, he had pushed them away, but something after the fire had changed his thoughts.  

“He will come.”  

Hav’Un nodded. “Your parents were good people, Alis. They were among the best of people, but as much as you try to be, you are not them.”  

His words were like sharp knives to her heart. Her face must have shown the hurt.  

“It doesn’t mean you can’t succeed, little one, it just means you have to think of a different way. You won’t be able to convince the older slaves or the younger ones, for that matter, without showing them why it is important. Come up with that and you can still make this happen. Maybe your Caid friend can help you. Or maybe he can’t, and this will all be a fairy tale.” Hav’Un shrugged and turned away. As he walked away from her, he yelled back over his shoulder, “For all of us, I hope you are right.” 

Alis stood alone in the middle of the slave quarters on a makeshift dirt pathway. She watched Hav’Un as he disappeared back into his small hut. After a moment, she, too, turned away, making her way back toward the tunnel entrance.  

She would find Caid and figure out a way to make the slaves listen to them. She would figure out what had happened in those mines that caused people never to return. She would find her mother and father. She refused to leave them down in those mines forever.  

They would have fought with everything they had for her until their last days, and she planned to do the same for them.  

Alis slipped the cover from the tunnel. Down inside was dark, but it reminded her of all the work she had already put in. With a deep breath, she started her climb, feet first into the abyss. Then, carefully, she closed the entrance to the outside world.