Ch 15

When I awoke the next morning to the loud bang to which I had grown accustomed I had barely reached my feet before Silvan had entered the room and heading straight for me grabbed me by the throat and lifted me until my toes barely touched the floor. Looking down at the enraged look in my master’s eyes I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to set him off and what would be coming as he used me to vent his frustrations. He began to punch my stomach with the fist he had made of his left hand while holding me up with his right.

The pain that radiated from my solar plexus as his aimed punches knocked the wind out of me was intense and I would have been screaming if not for the fact that there was no air left in my lungs with which to scream and with his hand tightened around my throat there was no way for me to get any more in. Dangling there and being used as Silvan’s punching bag as he vented his frustrations, I couldn’t help but hope that he would go overboard and finally kill me, of course I lacked the courage to taunt him and enrage him further. It was altogether possible that he would decide to maim me instead like he had with Teka when he removed his tongue. Instead I swallowed my fantasies and prepared myself to take the beating of my life.

By the time he had finished he was breathing hard. After about a minute he had dropped me to the ground, just as my vision was going black. As the oxygen rushed back into me it was driven out again by the impact of his booted foot striking my side. After a little while longer he had decided to stop and then simply said “Next time wake up faster, you should know enough to bow when I enter.” After that he turned to Beetle and slapped him once across the face hard, “Do I need to tell you what that was for?” Silvan’s voice was cold as he addressed me and then Beetle. “No master,” Beetle replied meekly without moving from the bowing position he had held this entire time. “Good, at least you are still good for that much” he said curtly and then stalked up the stairs again. After a moment he came back with the normal bucket of gruel, it seemed that he had started the day with the intention to beat me first and feed us after. Nice.

After ‘breakfast’ we headed out to do the laundry. My body which was finally growing used to the exercise of running around with magickally weighted items attached to it was complaining anew from the beating it had taken as I pulled the water out of the well. As we scrubbed the linens and clothing that our master had used before, I found a new present from our master was deposited in the sheets I was washing. I had grown accustomed to the smell of urine when we washed the linens and the patio on the side of the house where they were left but this was the first time that his hands had sunk into something soft and squishy. As a pungent odor wafted up to my nose I looked down in despair and saw the brown mass that had been hidden in the sheets I was washing. I let out a sigh “Beetle,” I began softly, “Can you think of anything that I have done to anger our master?” Beetle turned his head to look at me for a moment, taking in what was on the sheets without ever pausing from his own washing. “No, not as I can say Dung, but it could simply be that he is abusing you because you have the least value among his remaining slaves, and he doesn’t have another woman to abuse sexually.”

My thoughts grew rather dark at this and I considered what my options would be going forward. “If this continues it is likely to get worse until he kills me like he did Minge, isn’t he?” I asked my mentor. “I’m afraid so” he said quietly at barely above a whisper. Let’s wait and see for now. We will see how long he goes before he attacks you like this again. Maybe with that we can figure out a timetable on how much time we have to work with.” As I looked at Beetle, I couldn’t help feeling curious at his choice of words. “What do you mean time to work with? You sound as if there is something that we can do about the eventuality of my death.” Beetle looked at me somberly for a few moments and then simply said “There is.” Following this he would not say anything more on the matter but when it came time to go hunting for the day, he told me to wait before setting out.

He once again went over to the cabinet on the far side of the house containing tools that Silvan had prepared for our use. Going through it he began pulling out items at random and dropping them on the ground as if discarding rubbish while searching for something in particular. Finally, at the bottom of the back-right corner, underneath some crates that let up a cloud of dust when moved was a funny looking garment that seemed to be a cross between a harness and a vest. Looking at I wondered what it might be for but I began to get a bad feeling that I knew exactly what it was for when Beetle pulled out a bag of metal ingots that was stored with it and I heard the unsettling way they struck the ground as if weighing more than they should.

“Our master created this some time back for training weak slaves before reselling them as gladiators before he finally realized he could make more betting on his own slave to win. After that he used it a couple times as a method of torture by making slaves wear it while going about their daily tasks until their will broke by continuing to add more weight so that they could barely move.” I looked at the harness with disdain thinking that if such a thing existed why was it only being pulled out now. “Let me get this straight,” I said to Beetle as he stood gloating over the harness, “You could have used this weighted harness to train me before but instead you tied hammers to my feet and had me run around looking like a damned fool is that right?” Beetle stopped smiling when he noticed the cutting nature to my voice. “Easy Dung you couldn’t have worn this before building up your body strength enough.” I looked at him doubtfully. “Even if each of those metal ingots that go into the pouches weighs as much as a hammer you could have put two and gone from there.” Beetle looked at me hard for a moment as if weighing my words, then he shook his head and said “I see the only way for you to understand is to show you, you don’t listen to words”

With that Beetle threw the empty harness at me and I reached out my hand to catch it. At least I thought that I was going to catch it. What actually happened was that my arm which was outstretched to catch what I thought was a normal leather harness was suddenly bent back at the elbow painfully and I was pulled down awkwardly onto my ass trying hard not to let the ridiculous weight of the item break my arm. “Just like master Silvan to add enchanted weights to a harness that is already enchanted to weigh half as much as a full-grown man. I might as well be carrying around an anvil as wear the harness while it is empty.” I could hardly fathom being able to walk in it let alone move around once it was fully loaded. Realizing that I was done holding enmity over his hiding the harness from me he picked it up and said that it was time to head for the grasslands.

Once we got there I had to start lumbering around slowly again. This was worse than the sledgehammers because the weight was in a different place, changing my center of gravity and it seemed to weigh more as well so it felt not unlike starting all over on my strength training under Beetle. I let out a mournful sigh and trudge on. I cannot trust that reincarnation will happen again as last time it was granted as compensation for God’s incompetence. Also, that same incompetence meant that it was equally likely that any new worlds or lives would be equally fucked up. Beetle had seen the right answer even if he didn’t know all of the details. The only way to make a better life for myself was to push forward and become strong enough that I could stop those in power from abusing me. I remember thinking at that time that if I ever managed to move well in the harness with all twenty weights that would go a long way towards that goal. In the meantime, MY BODY ACHES!