"I expect you're quite pretty underneath the dirt," he said, still turning the key around and around. My hands could just about reach the lip of the table and no further. Unless he unchained me, I had no way of reaching the bowl, or the food, or the clothes.
I've never thought of myself as pretty or beautiful, though some have some called me such, often in an attempt at flattery. The truth was, my coating of dirt was probably doing quite a bit to keep me safe from the other inmates. No, I didn't care for the washing water, or the clothes. My mouth was watering at the smell of meaty stew, but all of us were fed and I have never been a particularly hale eater despite the hunger that gnaws away inside of me. I would have killed for the boots, though.
"Perhaps you don't realise just what a mess you look," the overseer continued in a voice like the most virulent of patronising arseholes. He reached forwards and lifted a mirror from the table, standing it to face me. At first, I thought to defiantly refuse to look at it, to refuse the sight that would stare back at me. Then I realised refusing to look would be a victory for the overseer as surely as bursting into tears at the sight. It would be all the confirmation he needed that I cared. I really fucking hate no-win situations. So, I glanced at the mirror. And I did not recognise the face staring back at me.
I had never been fleshy but now I was gaunt, skin tight over bones, and pale as snow. Pale as sun bleached bones. A carcass left to rot away to nothing. That's what I found staring back at me, not the girl I knew flushed with health and power, but the ruin I had beaten into. The visage of a corpse unwilling to admit it was dead. My blue eyes were still bright. They were the only bit of the horror staring back at me I recognised.
I couldn't let him win. Couldn't let him see how close I was to breaking, how much it hurt to see the wasted, pitiful, hateful thing I had become. I tested out a smile in the mirror, and swallowed a sob at the corpse smiling back at me. Then I turned it on the overseer. "You don't think I'm pretty?" I said, trying my best to appear manic.
We had been seeing each other for weeks now. In the beginning I counted the number of interrogation sessions, but eventually I stopped. I wondered how, after so many meetings, he still didn't understand me in the slightest. I was such a bloody fool. It was I who didn't understand him. The overseer was playing the long game and I couldn't see the foundation he was laying.
"Food, maybe?" he asked with a wave towards the bowl of stew. He left the mirror where it was. I would like to say I was strong enough not to steal the occasional glance, but there is a streak of vanity running through me I can't quite ignore. I think we all have one to some degree. I will not deny that every time I looked in that mirror I longed for better days. For cleaner days. It was torture every time I saw myself, like picking at scab, lifting it to see the oozing flesh beneath. I couldn't stop myself.
My traitorous stomach gave a rumble at the thought of food. The overseer took it as a victory and leaned back in his chair, still watching me. I glanced down at the bowl to see it steaming. Chunks of brown meat and orange vegetables floated in a watery stock. I licked my lips and tore my eyes away, meeting the overseer's stare.
"All this can be yours, Eskara," the overseer said, sweeping his hand to encompass the table. "You could be clean again. Well-fed. Clothed. I'm not asking you to swear loyalty to Terrelan. I'm certainly not asking you to fight for Terrelan. I'm not asking you to kill for Terrelan." I almost laughed. The Orran empire didn't ask me either; they took me as a child and never gave me a choice. Not that I minded. They might not have given me a choice, but they did give me power.
"All I want from you, Eskara," he continued, "is an answer to a question. Where were you trained?"
I didn't understand. It seemed such an innocuous question. The overseer already knew where I was trained. He had all that and much more in the notes and documentation recovered from the fall of Vernan. I answered almost without hesitation.
"The Orran Academy of Magic," I said slowly, waiting to see the arsehole's trick.
The overseer nodded and stood from his chair. He crossed to the door and pulled it open. A soldier stood on the other side, waiting.
"Unchain her and leave her alone for ten minutes," the overseer said. "After that, she is free to join the rest of the inmates." He turned to look at me, a sly smile on his face. "Thank you for your co-operation, Eskara. I shall see you next week."
I sat stunned as the soldier walked into the room, took the key from the table and unlocked the manacles from my wrists. He took the chain away and closed the door behind him. I found myself alone in the room with the water and mirror, the stew and wine, the clothes and the boots. I found myself alone with my utter confusion.
What a bloody idiot I was. Maybe it was my age, but I didn't understand. I sat there and mulled over what had just happened, replaying it in my mind. I wasted most of my ten minutes trying to figure out the overseer's game and came up with no answer. Eventually I looked down at the table.
The wash water was a trap. I was going straight back down into the Pit. The last thing I wanted was to look clean. The clothes would mark me out amongst the rest of the population. I stared at the boots for a while, wishing I could take them, but good footwear was more valuable than food down in the Pit. The other inmates would happily kill me for a chance at a sturdy pair of boots.
That left only the stew and the wine. I can't impress how much I wanted to gulp down the stew. It smelled delicious even over my own stench, and I had eaten nothing but gruel and stale bread for months. I wanted it so much I had the bowl in my hands and most of the way to my lips before my defiant streak kicked in. I didn't know what the overseer was up to, asking me a question he already knew the answer to, nor rewarding me so handsomely for that answer. But I knew it was what he wanted. And I would be fucked before I gave that bastard anything.
With a scream, I dashed the bowl of stew against the far wall. Then I dumped the wash water over the clothes and added the wine in with the mix. Finally, I looked down and saw myself in the mirror. The creature staring back at me was red faced, even underneath the muck, and snarling like a wild animal. I picked up the mirror and launched it at the door, grinning as it smashed. I think I would have turned the table over then, but it was secured to the floor, so I contented myself with kicking over the chairs and screaming again. I was quite surprised when the soldiers didn't open the door and drag me away. From outside that door I heard nothing.
The thing about mirrors is that they are made of glass and glass has a habit of forming sharp edges when smashed. As I waited amidst the mess I had created, I looked down to find a number of those shards shining in the lamplight. I knelt and snatched a smallish shard into my hand, quickly tucking it into the bandages wrapped around my left arm.
When the soldiers finally opened the door to throw me back into the general population, I was sitting on the table, tearing the wine-stained clothing apart at the seams and throwing bits of it onto the floor. They were not gentle as they escorted me from the garrison.
Chapter 5
I have said my life started in earnest down in the Pit, but that is not strictly true. Actually, it's a blatant lie and I'm bloody good at telling it. I lived fifteen years of my life before I was incarcerated there, and I would never claim a single year of it was quiet. No, there is far more to my tale. More you need to know. Or maybe I'm just indulging my ego. Chronomancers like to tell us that past and future affect each other in equal measure. The past shapes how we react to things in the future, and the future shapes how we view events of the past. As the past only exists in memories, it is entirely shaped by the lens through which we view it. So, as this is my story, I have decided to digress.