"House of Three Faces (3)" by Frances Monro

Yilla hurried through the darkened rooms, her hood drawn up around her face, eyes down, hoping that she might be unobserved. Gias had been with her again and she had to get to the bathing chamber to wash his sweat from her body, his sweat, him. She only wished that there was some way she could wash her mind clean of the memories, but that was not so simple.

The House of Three Faces was an ancient warren, starting out in a honeycomb of caves and passages on many levels and culminating in the keep on top of the mountain. It had been built long ago and had many architectural anomalies. Most of the time rooms opened onto adjoining rooms, there was no concept of passageways for through traffic, instead the traveller must go through the connecting doors and across all the rooms in between. Most of the rooms in the castle had multiple purposes - The Great Hall served not only as a eating and dancing and social space, but also as a servant's and guest's bedroom. The kitchen hissies slept in the kitchen where they worked, and many servants slept outside their master's room.

So it was hardly surprising that she came across a private scene tucked away in an odd shaped little storage room just as she drew close to her destination. Her maid Fia was being accosted by a burly guard Canine, the little hissie shrinking back against the wall as the Canine leaned over her, invading her space, speaking cajolingly.

Yilla shook her head free of her cloak "Oh give it up man, can't you see she doesn't like it?" she snapped at the guard.

"Huh?" He looked up, then bowed awkwardly. He looked back at Fia, who took the chance to break free and scuttle towards Yilla. The guard reached out to grab her arm. Mine!

Yilla felt a sudden anger flare up inside. "Let her go!" she snapped coldly, stamping her foot. "Let her go, curse you, and stand up straight when I address you. Why must you men force yourself on women who don't want you?"

The Canine male straightened abruptly to attention, releasing the girl.

"This is my maid and you will not touch her without my permission. Do you understand me? Tell your mates to leave my maids alone. Be very clear on this - Do you understand? Answer me."

"Y-Yes M'lady."

"Good. Leave us."

The guard gave Fia one last confused look, cheated of what he thought of as his rightful prey, then turned and lumbered off to find someone else to play with.

Yilla turned to Fia, still angry. "Return to my chambers. I will speak to you later."

The maid bobbed a curtsy and scuttled off.

Yilla ground her teeth and put her head down and resumed her interrupted journey. Enough is enough, she thought. Of course the men were entitled to a bit of fun with the unattached slave women, that was simply how things were, but that didn't mean they had the right to interfere with her women. Fia was a good worker, polite and dutiful and Yilla had her trained the way she liked her. She didn't want her maid being upset or bothered by some oaf of a soldier. Enough is enough, she thought as she hurried onwards. Enough is enough!

~*~

He came to in the hut, it was dark, smelling of smoke and hissies.

Falah put a damp rag to his brow. "Oh my friend. Oh my poor friend," the hissie slave murmured.

David swallowed painfully and turned his head a little. The worst of it was that they all knew, they had all seen - his friends, his family, his workmates, everyone he knew had watched every painful, humiliating second of it. The invisible cameras of Darwin Station watched everything that occurred on the world below, and recorded it all in the archives. What happened to him was watched with universal interest - because he was the Planetside Discovery Mission, the most exciting event of his entire generation. Even if what happened to him was a beating and a rape, perhaps especially if what happened to him was a beating and a rape.

"Once there was a city," Falah whispered, "A heavenly city where no-one was unkind or angry and nobody was ever hurt or grieving. It is the Celestial City where all hissies go when they die and they are re-born, free, with wings to fly high in the sky where no-one can ever catch them or hurt them ever again."

David sighed and rested his forehead against Falah's lap. "They all know," he whispered hoarsely. "But they will do nothing. They never do anything."

"The Gods have their own ways," Falah said softly, stroking his hair. "We believe that those who suffer, those who are slaves and prisoners will be reborn in the Celestial city beyond the borders of the world - Shambala."

"Shambala," he whispered. They would do nothing. They had ships, knowledge, even weapons, but they would do nothing. No amount of suffering or pain would change that. To them it was all part of the Experiment. If the observer changes what is observed, how much more does what is observed change the observer?

"Maybe one day you will join us there, David, in that peaceful land in the mountains beyond the clouds, where we will all live again in happiness after this life is done."

"We believe -" he broke off and coughed painfully. "We belive that life seeks perfection, eternally striving, eternally improving itself through Darwin's plan of Natural Selection."

"We say that life is a cycle of birth and re-birth, where evil is punished and virtuous behaviour is rewarded on the eternal wheel. The Hissie Empire was venal and corrupt, so it fell and now we are punished for our misdeeds in past lives, but one day our punishment will be done and we will be reborn to peace and freedom."

"Shambala, it… it really exists.."

"Yes, it does. Maybe one day you will join us there and we will fly together above the clouds. Sleep now, David. Sleep and recover from your ordeal. Sleep."

He slept.

~*~

It was cold and clear and a freezing wind made Yilla shiver even through the luxurious silver fox fur cape she wore wrapped around her. In keeping with the best traditons of her race and class she considered herself to be something of a spartan at heart, loving what was plain and right and good, but she nurtured a secret love of rich thickly woven fabric and well oiled leather and beautiful soft warm fur. Clothes didn't need to be richly decorated or fancily cut to be luxurious - a rich material made even the simplest gown a thing of worth and beauty, in her opinion. Not to mention, of course, that rich, well made materials lasted longer than cheap ones, so in some ways it was simply a matter of good sense.

She shook her head slightly to clear them of these musings as she accepted a mug of steaming soup from a passing hissie slave. The great stone cleft was thronged with folk of all three races and carting and riding beasts of all description because today was the day of departure for Gias' great expedition. Normally this dry stony canyon was empty except for the wind. A rugged dirt track led up to the dark hole in the cliff face which was the main entrance to the underground road leading to the castle from this face of the world. Further down the valley where there was more water and better soil they owned a village which supplied some of their food. This, and a few other settlements scattered around the castle were the remains of what had once been a great empire. Now their main source of income was the taxes they levied on the trade that flowed along the underground roads that crossed the mountain barrier on which the House sat.

Trumpets blared and with a flash of gold and purple the army began to march out of the door in the mountainside. Gias was at their head, riding a nervous white stallion which danced and skittered as the King of the House of Three Faces fought for control. Yilla smiled coldly. How like Gias to wish to make a show and then choose a pretty but ill-disciplined horse to ruin the effect! The troops began to pass down the valley in parade. There was a ragged cheer from the onlookers. Girde was somewhere in there at the head of her division. Hanse, her bodyguard, was of course standing at her side, slightly behind her, in this potentially hazardous situation. Yilla's smile became more genuine. The troops made a fine sight, a sight to be proud of as they marched out. The last troopers passed with a blare of trumpets and the army began to stomp off down the valley towards the site located for the first night’s camp, many leagues away. The teamsters began to form up the wagons into a train to follow.

Yilla crunched back across the uneven sand and gravel to her own wagon, followed by her crunching bodyguard and crunching maids . Cheerful colors and rich draperies could not disguise the fact that it was, in fact, an ox-cart, with all the sloth and lack of comfort that implied. But that was the choice: walk, be carted, or ride, and she chose to be carted rather than risk terminal saddle soreness. Speed was of the essence – baggage trains were slow, they limited the speed and range of the troops that they served. The soldiers might be able to march faster, but if they out marched their supplies then they would starve, while without guards the caravan would be subject to attack from every petty bandit and enterprising local. A group of the castle’s ladies had assembled to see her off with a flurry of hugs, air-kisses, last minute gifts and well wishings. Then there was Miranda, standing by her nurse with a grim frown on her face.

Yilla knelt to speak to her sister on level terms. "Now Miranda, won’t you wish me well on this expedition? You know that you will regret it later if we part on bad terms. Can’t you smile for me?"

Miranda shook her head. "Smiling is for when you are feeling happy and I am not feeling happy. I want to go on the expedition too."

Yilla sighed. "You cannot come on the expedition Miranda. We settled this matter last night. This is a dangerous undertaking and it is not for children – We agreed on that."

"You may have agreed, but I did not agree because I was not in agreement," Miranda insisted stubbornly. "When two people agree they must both be in agreement before both of them can agree. A matter can only be settled when it is settled for both parties who are discussing the matter, otherwise it is not a settlement."

"Yes I know that!" Yilla snapped, hating herself for the way her tone of voice began to rise. Gods give me patience! She took a deep breath and searched for calmness. "Miranda, you must accept that I am older and that I have more experience than you. I know what is best for you."

"But I am me. I know what is best for me because it happens to me. My experience of being myself is more immediate than your experience of not being me, and therefore it is more relevant. Thus I know what is best for me."

"No you do not! You are only a child and you are not coming on the expedition! We have been over this time and time again. I will not hear more. Either you can chose to smile and wave and see us off with some graciousness and dignity or I will have your guards carry you back up to your room and you may sulk in silence. The decision is yours!" Impossible child! Gritting her teeth Yilla turned to climb into her carriage, assisted by her maids.

The driver made haste to prod his beasts into a reluctant walk and soon they were crunching slowly over the uneven gravel and sand, the rough wooden cart swaying and jolting over every rut in the road. Yilla waved to the ladies and the guards. Miranda was not visible – perhaps she had gone back to her room – well, so be it. The dust stirred up by hundreds of boot-clad marching feet and the hooves and wheels of the ox-drays swirled into her small travelling compartment, already beginning to cover her belongings and her body in a thin gritty film. She drew back the wagon covers to block out the dust and also the view of the outside world. Now she was confined in a close, dim, airless compartment that swayed and jolted around her, surrounded by maids, boxes, drapes, and bric-a-brac. Already she could tell that it was going to be a long, long day.

~*~

The next day he could hardly open his eyes. His limbs were stiff and his hands shook uncontrollably, he couldn't stomach any of the mushy gruel that the hissies prepared for their morning meal. It seemed like he was asleep sitting up when

Falah pulled him to his feet and supported him as they staggered towards the fields. They were digging out a blocked irrigation channel, filling buckets with muck and hauling it up a muddy bank to tip it down the other side. He didn't think that he could make it, but he scrambled up the slope, slipping and sliding in the mud, the yoke digging into his shoulder and finally he made it to the top. Then he emptied his buckets and slid back down the bank, his feet clawing for a grip. Then he did it all over again, and again, and again.

The sunlight beat down on his head, making his skull ache. The semi-liquid goop at the bottom of the ditch was warm against his skin and sweat trickled down his torso, making tracks in the pale, dusty, dried mud that caked his body. His head swam. The sheer variety of environmental conditions on Planetside was staggering, from cold and rain and gusts of moving air one day to baking heat like this the next. Insects swirled and buzzed around his face annoyingly, attracted by the moisture of his eyes. It was completely alien to the experience of anyone on Darwin Station, utterly beyond his expectations, and his ability to explain, even if his throat hadn't been parched and dry and his breath coming in short laboured gasps as he struggled with the heavy buckets.

He could, arriving on Planetside in another place at another time, have been greeted as a visiting prince or holy-man, or perhaps even have been mistaken for one of the numerous dieties worshipped on Planetside. He could have conversed with the most important people, bathed in scented pools, drank cool sweet drinks, drank cool, cool drinks... cool... He paused to cough the dust from his lungs and wipe his filthy, aching brow.

Instead he had been thrown into slavery and every detail of his ordeal was scrutinized and recorded by his friends on Darwin Station. The treatment he received and his interactions with others would become the new focus of scholarship on the station of a generation. This village, it's history, society and economics would form the basis of a thousand reports and studies, fanning out into a thousand estoteric areas of scientific study, regardless of whether he lived or died. Already he had served his purpose, he had fired the scholarly interest of an entire generation into a new passion for the study of Planetside. He could, quite honorably, die now.

Instead he lived on, endlessly dragging his bloody buckets up the bloody hill, coughing, staggering, slipping, endlessly. The world took on a distant, narrow focus, he felt increasingly disconnected from everything. He doubled over in a fit of coughing, wincing at the stabbing pain in his chest. Had he received a broken rib in the beating yesterday?

When he resumed his struggle climbing the bank a rock shifted under his foot. Too slow to react, he fell, then tumbled down the slope to lie half stunned on the mud at the bottom. The world retreated. Distantly he sensed the guard approach and kick him gingerly, shouting "Awake, awake!" in the canine language.

He was weak as a kitten, unable to move his limbs. David felt a curious floating sensation, and he no longer cared what happened to him. There were noises, then motion, they were dragging him, then it was cool, dark and they were gone. He was in the shade under a tree. He slept.

~*~

Yilla was exhaused when at last she stumbled out of the wagon at the end of the first day's travel. The sun had already dissapeared behind the mountains and a chill blue shadow lay over the broad riverside meadow chosen for the encampment.

The men were busy unloading rolls of stakes, errecting the fence to protect the camp, while other soldiers and slaves dug an outer ditch. Such precautions were perhaps unnecessary here, within sight of one of their own outlying villages, but Yilla had planned this aspect of the expedition following the directions of scrolls from the time of empire which had layed down very specific rules for making camp.

The villages had prepared fires and food as directed by the advance scouts and now the camp was quickly taking shape, a secure and comfortable little settlement with it's own streets with pavillions and workshops even though in the morning it would be gone. The layout was pre-ordained - at any stop on the expedition if a soldier needed to find the officer of the watch or the blacksmith's shop they would be in exactly the same place.

Yilla rubbed her stiff behind, hoping that she wasn't observed in such an undignified pose and sighed. Travelling brought such discomforts, but, she supposed, it broadened the mind as well as the posterior. Or at least she hoped so. In any case it was better than sitting at home at the castle moping and doing nothing. She started back towards her tent in the hope that Fia and Klio had set it up into some form of rudimentary comfort for her. She was not one to flaunt her royal status unnecessarily, but out here the little priviledges that rank brought with it made all the difference. She - unlike most of the others - could afford the luxury of the occasional bath, for instance, her slaves carting the water and tending the fire while she bathed. A bath, oh, she would gladly die for a bath after a day of dust and battering travel! She turned her steps more purposfully back towards her tent. She would let her maids use the water once she had finished. She was not unkind or unfairly minded, but she was royalty and that made all the difference.

Suddenly the peaceful scene of twilight industry was broken by shrill screams.

"Let go of me! Let me down! I insist you let me go!"

Yilla turned in astonishment to see Hanse emerging from the gloom in the direction of the parked wagons, a broad grin on his face, a small figure held aloft by the scruff of it's neck by one meaty paw.

"Look what I found!" he growled with mock menace. "Shall we have it for dinner?"

"Miranda! What are you doing here?!"

Miranda straightened herself and mustered whatever dignity it was possible to have in such a position. "I am coming on the expedition," she declared in tones implying that this was obvious. "I wish to learn about the world and how it works. I am not for dinner."

Yilla's face burnt as rage blossomed in her heart. "How dare you! How dare you disobey my instructions." She stamped her foot and strode towards the pair, gritting her teeth as one corner of her mind observed that Hanse could barely control his laughter. "I will have you whipped! I will have you sent back to your room! How could you betray me like this?"

"I am not betraying you. I am learning about the world. Why don’t you ever allow me to do what I want to do for a change? I hate you!"

"Now now, sisters, sisters, please…" Gias melted out of the twilight, flanked by his guards, armor gleaming redly in the light of the distant cookfires. "What is the cause of this commotion? Surely we don't need to scream at each other?"

"She disobeyed my orders!"

"He said he was going to eat me for dinner!"

"I found this stow-away in the wagons, Sir!"

"Very good, Centurion, very good. I think you can let her down now." Gias reached down to toussel Miranda's hair as she ran to hide behind his armoured form. "Hanse wasn't serious about eating you, Miranda."

"Then he shouldn't have said it, Gias. Saying things that you don't mean gets very confusing. Everyone knows that the warriors during the ancient wars used to eat their captives."

"Um, did they?" Gias looked confused by this sally.

Yilla was too familiar with Miranda's tactics to be diverted, however. "I told her to return to her room. She disobeyed me, therefore she must be beaten and sent home. We must have discipline in our camp!"

"No!" Miranda squealed. "I don’t want to be beaten because it hurts!"

"Did the Canines really eat their captives?" Gias asked Hanse, the hulking guard taking the unlikely role of impartial adjudicator in this royal squabble.

"Only when there was no better game available, Sir."

"Ah, well there you go, Miri, he's not going to eat you after all. Um, surely beating is going a little too far, sister?"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Well I suppose I'll have to decide, I am King, after all. Now what are the options? Sent home with a whipping, or…?"

"Or allow me to join the expedition to learn about the world and how it works."

"That is out of the question! It's not safe. A military expedition is no place for children."

"Hmmm, yet you're here, Yilla. Surely if it's not safe enough for Miranda then it's not safe for you either."

"But that's completely different! I planned the expedition, I organized the sages and the study programs. I supervised the loading of the supplies. I have to be here!"

"Well if it's safe enough for you then why can't we allow Miranda to come? She will no doubt learn a lot from the assembled wisdom on display."

"It's out of the question!" Yilla stamped her foot again. "How can you do this to me? It's not safe - the expedition is not for children!"

"But she has a thousand men to protect her.."

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is?"

"I, I.. Oh have it your own way, then! I cannot fight both of you! You undermine me at every turn, making me the laughing stock of the castle! Hanse! With me!" Yilla turned and stomped away to her tent, followed by the looming canine shape of her guard.

"I think you've upset her," Gias observed.

"She is always upset with me. I don't know why."

"Perhaps you should say you're sorry."

"But I'm not sorry. I wanted to come on the expedition, I told her that."

"Still, it would be good if you would say so."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes."

"Oh alright then." Miranda pouted and uttered a long-suffering sigh. "If I have to, then I have to."

~*~

That night seemed to last forever. David tossed and turned in a fevered state, sometimes burning, throwing aside the rags the slaves were provided to sleep in, at other times freezing cold. He could hear voices talking through the night, evaluating his performance. Sometimes he was too weak to respond, at others he tried to protest, that it wasn't his fault, that he would have done better if he hadn't been enslaved, that he hadn't understood what would be required of him.

Sometimes Falah was there to wipe his brow and comfort him, but mostly the night was filled with the misty ghosts and phantoms of the past, and other places. In the darkness Anna Ming-Matthews demanded that he answer questions about the village - How many canines lived there? What was the infant mortality rate? How did their trading figures compare with other villages of comparable size? He rolled over and covered his head, trying to escape from the interminable questioning, the welts on his back and chest stinging, his head burning.

"Ask Q'tok," he moaned. "He'll know..." But Q'tok was far away, he remembered, on the methane side, on Darwin Station. Anna Ming-Mathews wasn't here either, he remembered, so why wouldn't she be quiet?

The morning came and they dragged him outside to lie huddled and blinking in the light. The canines growled and jabbered over him, he was beginning to understand what they were saying, it was a thick back-country dialect and without the computer prompts it was difficult to understand, especially at speed, but he could catch every third or fourth word. They were arguing about what to do with him. Then a smaller canine came and began to scream at the young men who had captured him, calling them names, berating them as every kind of fool. Even with his stuffed head he could appreciate a major tirade, a telling-off of epic proportions. Then he was doubled up with a fit of coughing, it felt like his sides had gaping, painful slits cut in them.

When the coughing passed and he weakly lay moaning and shivvering on the ground once more he listened to the argument raging above him and wished that he was dead. The woman, the short, shrill canine was a woman, screamed at the hunters to take their diseased animal and get rid of it. They were idiots, useless fools of.. there were a few terms he didn't understand, something about their lack of manhood. They had brought this foreign slave in and mistreated it and now it was sick. They must take it away at once before it infected the others and made the whole camp sick. Go! Get out! Take it away and do not come back until you have gotten rid of it! Fools! Imbeciles! Leave the management of livestock to the women who know how working beasts are to be treated! Foolish useless males males who do no work and eat all the food... It went on and on. He could sense sense rather than see juvanile scuffling of feet and glowering and muttering going on high overhead.

Finally he was seized by the scruff and hauled up and the world spun and he was looking at things upside down. He realized that he was slung over one massive canine shoulder. The world rocked and bumped as he was carried roughly down the path that led out of the village. The old woman still screeched and screamed after the departing hunters. The sun beat down on him and he was struck with another agonizing fit of coughing. The hunters were arguing as they walked, something about drinking, alcohol. Then Q'tok joined in the argument, speaking in a strange high-pitched voice, with an analysis of the brews of various villages. He coughed weakly as the voices receded a long way off, perhaps as far as Darwin Station. Some time after that he passed out.

~*~

The day started before dawn when she was woken by her maids and bundled into her clothes. A quick breakfast of porridge by the fire and the men were already dismantling her tent and packing the camp away on the wagons. An army can only march so far in an hour so in order to maximize travelled each day it was necessary to begin marching as early as possible. The theory was familiar to her, yet it seemed unreal to watch the entire watch the entire little township of the camp being packed up and taken away before the sun even peeped up over the western peaks.

Soon she was ensconced in her wagon and subjected to another day of jolting and bouncing inside it's canvas walls. At least the sun came up and the day began to feel more normal to her.

Miranda was travelling back in the wagon with the scholars, of her own choice. Yilla felt that this something of a relief to both of them - let the sages deal with her continual questions and arguments. She had, for a wonder, come and apoligized for her terrible behavior yesterday. Perhaps she was finally beginning to get through to the girl? She could only hope so.

She kept a tiny flap of canvas open so that she could check on their progress without admitting too much dust. All day they traversed rocky paths down the river valley, the caravan not stopping for any purpose, but trudging on at a steady pace. Anyone who stopped lost their place in line or needed to run to catch up. In the afternoon they crossed the river - really just a fast flowing stream - and climbed a short slope to a shallow pass.

Through the pass and then the ground fell away and they were suddenly high, high up atop a cliff, inching their way down a trecherous series of switchbacks, the whole caravan bunched up together as they inched down the steep slope towards the ground far below. She could see the leading wagons inching along the road below them, and beyond them, more wagons on the zig-zag below that.

Every second turn they passed a great river of ice, a glacier, she had read of such things and seen them in the distance from the castle, but now the immensity of it was apparent. It was a great sea of ice, trecherous with cracks and crevasses, chilling the air and sending the road scuttling back across the cliff face in the oposite direction.

Finally they seemed to be nearing the bottom as shadows merged towards twilight. It was time to pitch camp, but there was no level ground until the bottom of the descent was reached. They stopped, and waited, and waited some more. Finally she poked her head through the doorway and asked the driver what was going on.

"Don't know, M'lady. The wagon up ahead stop."

Snorting at this simpleminded and unhelpful response, she picked her way over maids and belongings and climbed through the rear doorway of the wagon, dropping carefully to the ground, followed by blinking attendants. She strode down the steep rutted roadway to the next hairpin, passing wagon after wagon, then made her way gingerly to the edge of the cliff where she could see what was going on.

The wagon train stretched out below her, and below that was the valley floor and a brown foaming torrent that poured off the tongue of the glacier. The army was pinned down in the rocks and boulders at the foot of the cliff - she could just make out the glint of Gias' golden armour from her perch high above. Across the river were the dimly seen figures of an opposing force, firing arrows and preventing the men from crossing. Even now she could hear the swish and thwack of incomming arrows and there was a cry of pain and anger as one of the men fell.