The Memory Remains

"Come here, Gani," a woman said, and Ganikin knew that he was both dreaming and seeing a memory. He saw a Dokkalfar smile as he walked up to her bed and put his hand in hers.

"What is it, grandmamma?"

Zha'linth smiled at her grandson and ruffled the rebellious tufts of hair on his head. She had not aged a day since the Moon's Age, but her face seemed more shadowed as of late, and it seemed that the deep blue of her hair had lost some of its luster.

"I just wanted to see you better. These old eyes of mine aren't as good as they used to be." Though she laughed as she said this, Ganikin felt his stomach twist into a knot. He clutched her hand tighter and stayed there until his mother called him from somewhere outside. He left his grandmother with a quick peck on the cheek.

The house was a tired shack, but Ganikin seemed to remember it being nicer, though it was probably just nostalgia talking. It barely stood upright and had only just enough room for the five people who lived there, and even then they often found themselves bumping into each other. Out in what could charitably be called the front yard his brother and sister were breaking rocks looking for any metal that could be sold, but as usual they were finding up nothing.

Dalnin and Ninlil looked up at him as he came out. There was nothing but disdain in their expressions. Ninlil was older by a decade while Dalnin was a few years younger, but they got along and merely took out the frustrations on Ganikin for reasons he had never understood.

"Where's mom?" he asked.

"Out back," Ninlil said curtly, bringing her hammer down on another rock. Dalnin said nothing and ignored him, so Ganikin left them alone and circled around to the back door. She was sitting on an upturned bucket and turning a coin over in her hand.

"What is it, mother?" he asked.

Naur'ka turned her green eyes on him and sat up straighter. The color of her eyes and hair were only slightly lighter versions of her mother's, but she had none of Zha'linth's warmth.

"We're short on money again," she said. "I'm sending you and your brother to the mine for a few days."

His heart sank. The last time he had worked in the mine he and Dalnin had nearly suffocated in a cave-in before help arrived, and he'd sworn at the time that he'd never do that again. He took a deep breath and looked his mother straight in the eye.

"No."

She frowned.

"What do you mean by that, young man?"

"I mean, no," he continued, clenching his fists at his side. "I won't do it again. I nearly died the last time we did that, and if Dalnin has to go alone so be it. I won't –"

His mother rode to her feet and struck him across the face. He had to catch himself on the side of the house and stared at her, stunned.

"Do you think I don't know that?!" she screamed. "It's this or sell you off to the mine permanently, we're in that much trouble! If you weren't the only person my mother talked to I'd have done it long ago! If that's what you really want I'll go myself and risk getting killed, just stay here with my mother and keep wasting space like you always do!"

With that Naur'ka stormed off to the front of the house, taking Dalnin and Ninlil with her. Ganikin lay against the side of the house for a while longer. Things must really be bad, he thought, for she had never struck him before.

Once he'd calmed down he made his way back inside and to Zha'linth's bedside. She was sleeping soundly.

A short time later Zha'linth opened one eye and looked at him.

"That bad, huh?" she said.

He sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Don't worry love," she said, pushing up on her elbows so she was at his eye level. "My daughter has always had a temper, I'm just sad she directed it at you," she lay her palm against the cheek that had been struck, and her warmth soothed the pain.

"I'll tell you a secret," she said after a short while. "I know I don't have much time left. I've been away from the sun too long, and my poor heart can't take it anymore. But after I go I want you to flee, for the moment I'm gone your mother's eyes will turn to the slave market, and I don't want that to happen to you."

He blinked.

"Do you really think she'd do that?" he said. "Maybe she's just mad right now."

Zha'linth looked down and sighed.

"Oh, Gani," she said. "I'm afraid I do indeed know she'd do it."

Ganikin frowned.

"What do you mean, grandmamma?"

She looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes.

"Goddesses forgive me," she said. "But the child must understand."

She turned to look at him.

"Gani, you, your brother and your sister are not your mother's first children."

His breath caught in his throat.

"What?"

She shook her head.

"Gani, your mother must never know that I told you this, but you have to know. You are not her first children, she has had others."

He stared at her.

"But… where are they?"

She closed her eyes again.

"Sold into slavery. She thought I didn't know. She hid all of her pregnancies from me, but I know of at least five that she conceived, carried and birthed. She sold them as soon as they were born."

His heart was hammering in his ears.

"But… that's illegal!" he said. "You can't just sell a baby into slavery, they have to be born to a slave!"

Zha'linth smiled bitterly.

"You're right, those are the rules, but there are also those willing to break them. Who's to say that a slave didn't have twins, or that you can't find people who'd look the other way? My daughter is determined, when she wants something, she finds a way."

"But what about us? Me, Dalnin and Ninlil? Why weren't we sold?"


"Because I begged, Gani. While she was carrying Ninlil I confronted her, told her that I knew that she had sold my grandchildren before I could see them, and I made her promise to keep at least one so I could have a grandchild. She agreed, reluctantly, and now she has the three of you, but only because I asked. As soon as I'm gone I have no doubt that she will sell you."

She leaned up and kissed him on the forehead. "I know a grandmother shouldn't pick favorites, but you're the only one who listens to me. Do this for your grandmamma, if not for yourself."

He blinked back tears and held her hand for a few moments.

A moon-turn later her words came true, and once the initial weeping over her death had passed Ganikin saw his mother's grim gaze turn on him. Taking his grandmother's words to heart he packed and left that night without a second glance.

----

Ganikin awoke to the sound of merchants announcing their wares. He was in Aya'la's shop, and lay on a thin mattress on the floor of the back room.

Aya'la was watching him from her own bed, a simple roll on the top of one of the worktables.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"You were talking in your sleep," she said, brushing a strand of her bright orange hair away from her face.

He sighed and put his hands behind his head.

"Did you ever know a Dokkalfar?"

"My great-grandmother was one," she said, turning over onto her back so she was looking at him upside down. "I never met her though. Did you know one?"

He closed his eyes as he remembered Zha'linth's face.

"My grandmother was born on the surface. She lived for just about 1000 years down here before her heart couldn't take it. After she died…"

He trailed off, wondering if he should tell the whole story. After a moment he realized that he at the very least owed Aya'la the truth, even if it betrayed a part of him and his family's history he wasn't proud of. "Well, she was the only thing keeping me at home, really. She'd tell me stories of the lands she lived in, and I'd tell her of goings on in the city once she became too ill to go out."

He felt himself fighting back tears as he continued to speak.

"Her last request was that I leave, since she thought my mother would sell me off to slavers once she was gone. She told me that my mother had done it before, at least five children that she sold into slavery as soon as they were born. I left the night she died and haven't seen my family since."

"Was she right about your mother?" Aya'la asked.

"I think so," he said. "It's tough to be poor in the city, people do desperate things."

Aya'la nodded and swung her legs down from her bed. She stepped over him and went to the mirror on the back wall, where she began to comb out her long hair.

"That can happen to even the best people, not that it excuses her. I've been relatively lucky since I have this to support me, but since my father died it's been hard to keep this place afloat on my own."

She turned to look at him.

"That is, it was until my wonderful new worker showed up and saved the day."

Ganikin felt himself blushing. "Oh come now, I'm not that good."

She walked over to him, gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and moved out into the main room of the shop.

"Says you," she said. "And if my profit margins are any indication, if I had two of you I'd be competition for the Ill'haress by now. That said, even the one has been more than I ever asked for."

She blew him a kiss and disappeared behind the curtain again.

Ganikin smiled.

"Thank you, grandmamma."