The pickaxe digs into the crevice. I try to twist it but it is so heavy. My breathing comes in wheezes as the dusty air fills my lungs breath after breath. It takes eight more strikes for a small chunk of ore to tumble to the ground at my feet. I absently push it to one side with my foot but have to take a moment to try to catch my breath before locking my eyes on the next spot. Just as I start the downswing, the horn blares. I drop the pickaxe and bend to gather my ore.

 

It is a small stack - master will not be pleased. He moves along the line now, stopping at each worker, counting their ore, complimenting or punishing, marking their tally on their chest with a piece of charcoal. There haven’t been new workers in an uncounted while and each day there are fewer. There are only a handful of us left.

 

Master comes to me, frowns, tallies my ore on my breast and applies the switch to my legs but I am too tired and my throat is too raw to cry out. He moves on to the next. My ore does not fill even one bucket. I carry it to the smelter, dump the ore onto the pile, then resume my place.

 

The horn sounds again, and we shuffle in a straggling line to the dining area. I take my place, kneeling in front of a trough. An assortment of wilted lettuce and turnips is dumped in and I force myself to eat, though I have no appetite. Each swallow goes down like raw fire.

 

Once the meal is finished, we shuffle to the bathing room. We take turns on the chamber pots, then are chained standing along the wall. Masters douse us with buckets of water, rinsing away a layer of black dirt.

 

On, then, to the sleeping cell. I kneel on my pallet of straw and wait for master to lock my collar to the ring on the wall with a length of chain, then try to sleep but my rasping breath makes it difficult. Just as I an finally near sleep, I am re-awakened by a touch on my back. I shift my weight back, raising my rear into the air and spreading my legs.

 

"What...what is she doing?"

 

Whispered words. I pay them no heed, just wait for master. Sleep tugs at my eyes, but I do not move.

 

"What's is look like?" A second master's voice. This master kneels beside me, taps my shoulder. "Sian?"

 

 A variation to the routine. It has happened before. I adjust my body toward the voice, giving second master full access to whatever he wishes.

 

First master's voice, behind again. I adjust back toward him as he says, "Divines take these slavers! Sian! Sit up!"

 

I understand now. It has been some time since master wanted my mouth, but I remember. I lower my rear, raise my torso until I am kneeling, turn toward the second voice, lift my head, and open my mouth.

 

"That's better. Come on, let's go!"

 

This is a slightly different version than usual - master has not removed his pants. Normally he would already be inside me. I waver for a moment, but obedience to the now is greater than obedience to the then. I reach for his pants, tug on the drawstring. The pants pool around his ankles. I run my hand down his lifting cock, open my mouth...

 

"Divines!" Master jumps back, trips over his pants, falls to the ground in an ungainly heap. I lower my head in shame. I should not have touched him. I knew better. My punishment will be deserved.

 

Second master lifts a key, unhooks the chain from my collar. I stand and wait, head down. First master has his pants back up and tied.

 

 "Finally! Let's go."

 

"Right behind you."

 

First master turns and starts walking. I follow with shambling steps. A distant memory stirs, something akin to an emotion. You should feel afraid, it says. This will be painful. But the memory is too far away, a dusty mirage, and is quickly subsumed.

 

I follow masters through the bathing room, through the dining area, down the long tunnel toward the mine. We turn before we reach the mine, along a narrow corridor, then into a large room with many doors on either side. The guards' barracks, poorly lit. Many of the lamps are unlit. My punishment would be to service the guards. The revelation means nothing. To be used or not used is the masters' will. We pass though the room to a door on the far side. Several guards lay slumped to the ground, sprawled in the shadows. I think nothing of it. Through the door and up an ascending tunnel.

 

Not servicing the guards, then. Nor is this the way to the whipping post. The thought comes and goes like dust over ore. I follow masters with head down. Where they go, I go. There is nothing else. Time is meaningless. There is the dark, there is the routine, and the two run into each other, intertwine like sweat in the dirt, becoming one living entity.

 

I follow masters. The dark is eternal, interrupted only at intervals by weary lamps. And then the dark lifts. Imperceptibly, step after step, a pale light, far different than the yellow burn of the lanterns, invades the darkness. Bit by bit the light overcomes the inky blackness. The slope steepens, takes a turn, and the light increases exponentially, so that I can barely see. A door is set in the wall. Light sharp as daggers leaks around its edges. Master reaches for the handle, and I understand at last. My punishment is at hand, my crime so egregious that the ultimate recompense is necessary. I shall be burned alive, charred to cinders.

 

For the first time in lost ages, my heart opens to a feeling - raw, naked fear. The door opens and the light bursts in, surrounding me, burning my eyes away to nothing. I am lost in a sea of white. I can hear screaming in the vast distance, and it is only as I surrender to my fate and cool darkness, like a mother's loving arms, descends upon me once again, that I recognize the screaming voice as my own.

 

**************

 

A horn blasted in the distance. It sounded strange, but no matter. I lifted myself to my knees and waited. Master was taking longer than usual.

 

I blinked. Something felt...different. Something in the way the light struck the wood of the wall, brighter than usual. The way the furs under my knees seemed to caress them with a soft warmth. Something about the linen clothes wrapped around my body like a hug. I dared not look around to find the cause of the odd differences. There was only darkness and the routine.

 

Master still did not come. I listened but could hear no signs; no clink of chains being released, no rough curses and occasional slaps as workers moved too slowly. I did hear an odd murmuring coming from behind me, but I dared not turn to look.

 

Master still did not come. The chain that linked me to the wall was incongruously absent.

 

A knocking sound. It was not part of the routine. I ignored it. The sound again. I knelt in silence, waiting. I heard a door squeak open, but it meant nothing. Then a voice. Master had arrived.

 

"Oh, you're awake! Good! How do you feel?" Master was talking, but I let the words drip past. They were not for me. A pause followed. "Sian?" Another pause, then a sigh. "This is going to be harder than I thought."

 

Footsteps on wood, then a tap on my shoulder. I leaned forward, buried my face and arms in the furs on the mattress, raised my rear, spread my legs. "No, not that!" Another tap. "Sian, get up!" Again, I had made a mistake. I leveraged myself to my knees, stood, turned. And promptly lost my balance on the uneven surface of the bed, falling and smashing my head against the bookshelf to my right.

 

"Sian!" Master jumped forward as I struggled to my feet. She gripped my arm, helped me stand. I kept my head lowered, ignoring the tickle of blood I felt dribbling down my head. "Divines! Will you wake up already?" Master dabbed at my head with a cloth. I stood still, the proper response to any new wrinkle in the routine. They meant nothing, mere drips in the ocean of darkness.

 

"How is she?" The other master again, poking his gray head through the doorway.

 

"The same. I wish Dengeir was still alive so I could kill him for this."

 

"Speaking of the ex-Jarl of Falkreath, did you hear they downed a dragon recently?"

 

“Drop in the bucket at this point.”

 

“True, but at least maybe it will reach her?”

 

Silence, then, “Well, if the world is going to end, might as well make sure she’s awake for it.”

 

 The words were hollow, void of meaning. They came at me and then passed by like current around a stone. I kept my head down and waited to be chained, to go to the mine, or mayhap to be punished. It would all equal the same thing, in the end.

 

Master shook me. I dropped to my knees, turned, offered up my rear.

 

"I don't know, I kind of...it was a joke! A joke! Don't look at me like that!"

 

"Come on. If we're going to get to what remains of Falkreath in forty-eight hours, we have a lot of planning to do."

 

For some reason, the word Falkreath sent a shiver of fear down my spine, but it was soon swallowed into the dark.

 

****************

 

I dreamed about light. I don't know where the dream came from. There had been only the darkness and the routine for so long that I had forgotten how to dream. Or so I thought. Regardless of its source, the dream came upon me. There were open blue skies, white clouds. I had forgotten such things existed.

 

And perhaps they didn't. Perhaps the memories that suddenly ringed the edges of my mind were hallucinations, dreams themselves. Perhaps some part of me had surrendered to madness. Whatever the case, I knew it meant nothing. The dream or hallucination would inevitably fade away, leaving the only truth in the world - there is only darkness.

 

I knew the darkness lay behind the mask of light. It seeped into the dream, ran like a dripping stain, tore a ragged hole in the fabric. Blackened trees, burned husks that once were buildings, charred bodies. The vivid false sky spread dream light on a nightmare landscape.

 

I clung to truth, refused the temptation of the hallucination. I kept my head down, shuffled where master led, stood in silence when master stopped, spread myself whenever master seemed to require it. Master did not enter me, but it didn't matter. It all meant the same in the end - it all pointed to the endless darkness.

 

The dream persisted even through sleep, although the logic of the sleep itself, being part of the dream, was intrinsically flawed, a form of circular reasoning. The darkness filled the false sleep; the return to its cold embrace, a relief.

 

Then the false light returned. But the darkness still bled through. The dreamscape was littered with horrors, with death and blood and fire. A charred forest, the smoldering remains of a lumber mill, the remains of a small city filled with death. In the center, a large scaly corpse lay like a sacrifice.

 

The master approached, so I followed. We stopped within an arm's reach of the monstrous body. Master looked at me with an expectant expression, but this was not part of the routine, so I stood still and waited.

 

A breeze stirred, though no dust lifted. The breeze became a gust, then a gale force wind that buffeted me, knocked me to my knees. It tore at the darkness with claws sharp as knives, shredded the routine with teeth like swords, purged my soul with a cleansing fire that filled me with an agony, pure and sharp. I shuddered as the agony gathered deep within me, began to pulse, radiating outward, filling me with a longing I could not name. The tattered remains of the darkness were swept away, borne on the wings of flame and desire; I found myself panting as the pressure built, seeking egress. The world blurred, expanded, and then shattered into a million agonizing piercing shards. My body convulsed and the pressure burst from me in a world-tearing orgasm. I opened my mouth and a shout rang forth as if of its own volition. The bones of the dragon scattered like roaches from light, flying over the remains of the buildings, into the desiccated forest beyond. I shouted again, then again, my body wracked with uncontrollable spasms until, with one last gasp, one last whispered shout, the pressure left me, leaving me spent and hollow. I collapsed as the world faded around me.

 

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