the frescoes could have been commissioned by a druid… by Akashia herself.
“It was like this,” Zvain repeated when curiosity drove Pavek to touch a painted orange flower. “That was the worst—”
The boy’s words stopped abruptly. Pavek turned around. They’d been joined by the oldest, most frail half-elf he’d ever seen, a woman whose crinkled skin hung loose from every bone and whose back was so crippled by age that she gazed most naturally at her own feet. She raised her head with evident discomfort and difficulty. Her cheeks were scarred with black lines in a pattern Pavek promised himself would, never be cut into flesh again.
“Who has come?” she asked with a trembling voice.
Pavek caught Zvain and Mahtra exchanging anxious glances before they shied away from the old woman’s shadow. Ruari was transfixed by the sight of what he, himself, might become. Pavek swallowed hard and jangled the key ring he held in his weapon hand.
“I’ve come,” he said. “Pavek. Just-Plain Pavek. I am—I am the master here, now.” He couldn’t help but notice the way she stared at the key ring.
Her name, she said, was Initri. She had chosen to remain inside the house with her husband after all the other slaves were dispersed and the administrators had come to lock the doors for the last time. Her husband tended the house gardens.
Lulled by the bucolic frescoes, Pavek had let down his guard. He wanted to meet another Urik gardener, the man who made flowers bloom in House Escrissar. Initri led them all to the center of the residence where lush vines turned the yellow walls green and a carpet of wax-flower creepers covered the ground. Kneeling beside a clear-water fountain, another ancient half-elf in faded, threadbare clothes, went about his weeding, oblivious to their arrival.
“He doesn’t hear anymore,” Initri explained and made her way with small, halting steps along the cobbled garden path.
Initri got her husband’s attention with a gentle touch. He read silent words from her lips, then set aside his tools with the slow precision of the venerably aged before he took her hand. While Pavek and his companions watched from the atrium arch, the old man took his wife’s arm, for balance, as he stood. They both tottered as he rose from his knees. Pavek strode toward them, but they leaned against each other and were steady again without his help. Pavek expected scars and saw them before he saw the metal collar around the gardener’s neck and the stone-link chain descending from it. Each link was as thick as the half-elf’s thigh. The chain had to weigh as much as the old man did himself.
They stood side-by-side in the twilight, the loyal gardener and his loyal wife, she with one hand on his flank, the other clutching the chain. No wonder Initri had stared so intently at the keys he held in his hand-keys that the administrators had kept secure under magical wards in King Hamanu’s palace. Overcome by shame and awe, Pavek looked away, looked at the flowers in their profuse blooming.
If ever a man had the right to destroy the life of Athas, this old man had had that right, but he’d nurtured life instead.
“How?” Pavek stammered, forcing himself to face the couple again. “How have you survived? The house was locked.”
Initri met his gaze and held it. “The larders were full,” she said without a trace of emotion. “Some nights the watch threw us their crusts and scraps. It depended on who had the duty.” She indicated the crenelated platform visible above the garden’s rear wall.
Pavek whispered, “Hamanu’s infinitesimal mercy.”
He heard long-striding footfalls behind him: Ruari disappearing. Ruari making certain Pavek knew he was angry about something; the half-elf didn’t have to make noise when he ran. Zvain and Mahtra showed no more emotion than Initri did. Compassion was a wasted virtue in Urik; Pavek knew they were better off without it, but he sympathized more with Ruari. The elderly couple said nothing. They stared at him, the new high templar master of House Escrissar—their new master—without reproach or expectation on their faces.
The keys.
One of the keys must belong to the lock that bound the chain and collar together. Pavek fumbled with the ring, dropping it twice. He tried the first two keys he touched; neither fit the lock, much less opened it. Locks were nothing a man without property had ever needed to understand. Pavek resolved to work his way around the ring, a key at a time, and had