A Fine Black Sky
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Kid shifted uneasily upon the three pronged stool, adjusting himself to relieve the pressure upon his damaged hip. He held the Apprentice’s Toolkit, the rolled bundle of worn leather, used and unfurled time and time again by numerous Engineers, Crafters and Inventors over the many decades of the Program, which lay open upon a tough and scarred apron, tarnished and discoloured by the rubbing of the foul smelling cleaning product Kid was even now applying to one of the many instruments all Apprentices were given upon entering the Program. In many cases, Noble parents entrusted their own bundle to their children, to continue a tradition levied for many decades in extreme. For those others, or for the Noble children whose parents refused to part with the sentimental and precious object that the child could simply crack, break or lose somewhere over the years, the South Tower provided them, for an outlay - an insurance - for their tenure.
It was these Kid was cleaning, having been volunteered by a spiteful Tutor tired of the tirade of Noble parents with idle threats and insufficient Apprentices who spread sedition. Kid was currently rubbing a Number Six Sykele Pick, one of sixteen individual sizes, used for the clearing and cleaning of the teeth upon the cogs and gears. He had already pushed the remnants of several years of use from the Austere Hammer and the Lucus Mechanical Flitch Knife, with only the Wrencan Contrivance and the Fretter Narrowblade to go. That was of course what remained for this bundle. He had already finished eight such bundles and had at least another twenty seven to go. Of course it was mundanity exemplified, which allowed Kid time to reflect on the years, trials and tribulations of the South Tower experience.
It was upon the stresses and dangers of the Program. What astounded Kid the most was how he managed to, relatively unscathed, come out the other side. It certainly had been touch and go more often than he cared to admit, and there had been a compulsion to run away, to escape the torment, the bullying - which remained - and the trouncing of his supposed privilege. If that had been privilege, then Kid would have preferred the wheel, to work the bellows, and to have lived without attention. Instead, Kid reflected on a future that would surpass the Apprenticeship and transform into work experience. But that was for the next Tower. He was not quite there yet.
He remembered then the victims of the Program, even if he remained the only one doing so. There was an expectation placed upon most, if not all Apprentices. Duty, honour, faith - all were forced in or upon the young children, now become young men and women, until, in many cases, they began to break under the pressure that had been drummed into them, thick and smothering like a thrice warm blanket.
Some found the sudden cessation of further ambition a collapse and the function of an unsuccessful break to, and omission of, primary care. That was something that the Apprentices like Kid had not experienced, lacking the possession of the wherewithal to succumb to an invisible pressure, tethered to their ambitious parents and the dreams thereupon.
Kid thought in particular of Belifan. She had pushed hard at the inception of the Program, and performed to stellar heights. She, however, overworked herself at the beginning, causing a kind of burn-out, where she fell into a slumber, finding it difficult to leave her room. Many Tutors tried to entice her out back then, but it was a parasite within the function of the order, much like the Sopor Parasite the Unveiled used within their Ceremonies, that ate away at her, until she was a mere husk of herself.
And one day, she had simply vanished. Rumour spread that she had run into the City, having scaled the outside of the Tower, where she found a troupe of performers, something she had apparently found an aptitude for, yet had been forced by her parents to instead join the Apprenticeship. Some reports said she was much happier and much healthier now. Others, however, told of the girl who turned inside herself and fell into disrepute, eventually perishing in a garret somewhere within the Old City, where condemned structures held close the disparate and downtrodden.
Some others had fulfilled a deception, contrary to the rules of Apprenticeship, and their journey was abruptly brought to a sudden and very certain end. Some would say it had been an insufficient and poor choice on their behalf, but sometimes there was no remedy in sight when all that crossed one’s horizon was the disappointment to come - a lifelong disappointment, consisting of the looks, the words unsaid and the tears at night Mother would make, while the hooded eyes of Father would wonder where it had all gone wrong, and perhaps it had been their disparity of parenting that had caused such a woeful child.
The young man Kid recalled over this tragedy was Daupus. His Father had pushed him, and his Mother withheld affection. This had become evident in the way he had treated Kid also. But that was a reflection he would approach later, when he could see Daupus’s parents at the young man’s Memoriam. Suffice to say, it was the guilt, perhaps, and how he chose to take that, which led him to his ultimate decision.
But most were and always had been too weak to survive the Program, indicative of the tremendous strain, tight like a restrictive belt upon them, demonstrating where a mistake had been perpetrated long before this time, with a lack of care and attention to those who were essentially children. And that, inevitably, led to neglect, leaving victims just like poor Nimen.
She was a slight girl, an inherent weakness no doubt of the combination of relatives keeping the blood pure, while making the offspring less able to attend their health. She had been prone to outbursts sometimes, with no prior indication. Something of her inheritance also, Kid surmised. At least Kid’s Mother had been a Queen from the West Tower, which was a high office for a woman in the Tower’s political system. If there was any relation to his Father, it would be purely from marriage and nothing more.
Nimen was taken out of the Program a short two years into the gruelling torment of Apprenticeship. Her Family name had been disgraced in standing amongst the other Noble Families of the South Tower, but at least they had their Daughter, back and alive. It was remarkable how resilient even the most contemptible seeming Families could rally when appropriate. For that, Nimen’s parents were to be commended - because to the Families of the South Tower, Noble standing was all there was.
It was ineffably truthful to say that the Apprenticeship Program was inherently flawed right to its basest level, and few survived the South Tower without a handful of abrasions to the heart and mind - sometimes the body too - for the remainder of their unnatural lives. Kid had arrived that way, and the wounds he acquired were difficult to discern behind the face he wore. Yet he was altered by the Program, having been nothing but an emotionless tabula rasa at the outset. He had been forced to grow, when his task was simply to live, and nothing more.
He did not resent it. He did not resent his Father for forcing it upon him. His Father’s hand too was forced by convention and duty, and the certainty of knowledge that a Lord required an Advisor, and that the only Advisor to a Lord was a relative, even if he be a relative stranger.
Returning to his task, Kid rubbed with renewed vigour at the Austere Hammer, hoping unconsciously to rub away the pain and torment at the loss of innocence and youth, replaced by duty and honour. If he weren't damaged already, Kid would be irreparably vandalised by the last five years. Perhaps he was, but alas, he had nothing to compare it against.
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