“They come and go. It depends. Are you from outside?”
“Outside of this place? I’m from Earth. These guys kidnapped my friends.”
“Don’t let greedy slavers keep you down. Whenever you fall, remember to bounce!”
“Listen, Happy. Can you help me get out of here?”
“I’d surely help if I could. I’m just a face on some wood.”
Cole glanced around to make sure nobody was noticing his conversation. No guards were near, and the other kids still ignored him. “You’ve been here a long time. Maybe you know something that could help me.”
“You bet I do,” Happy chirped. “Here’s a good one: If at first you don’t succeed, another chance is all you need!”
“I mean info about the slavers,” Cole said. “Or about this wagon. Secrets that might be useful to help me get away.”
Happy giggled nervously. “Don’t try to get away. It makes them very grumpy. You’ll get to leave when they sell you.”
“Where will they sell me?”
“The slave market at Five Roads.”
“What kind of people might buy me?”
“The kind with money, silly. The kind who need slaves.”
“What sort of work will I do?”
“You never know, but you can always hope for the best. You might get to do something really amazing!”
Happy didn’t seem like a fountain of useful information. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying I should never stop chasing that rainbow?”
The smile widened. “That’s the spirit! Follow a star! Keep your chin up and you’ll go far.”
“Do the slavers know about you?”
“The Shaper does, Secha. She told Ansel. They spoke with me one night. I’m tricky to remove, so they let me be.”
“Secha is a Shaper?” Cole asked.
Happy giggled. “She marked you, didn’t she?”
Cole remembered her tracing on his wrist with her fingernail. He looked at the maroon mark. “Does it talk?”
Happy laughed hard. “Your bondmark? That isn’t even a semblance!”
“Why would it be tricky for them to remove you?”
“Liam wanted me to stick. If I get destroyed or removed, I take shape elsewhere on the wagon. They’d have to scrap the whole wagon to get rid of me.”
“Can you move on your own?” Cole wondered.
One of the eyes flattened in a wink. “Just a little.”
Cole traced the circle of the happy face with his fingertip. Happy laughed as if it tickled. How could such a thing have been created? “What else can shapers do?”
“It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On what they want to make, silly! And whether they can.”
Cole sighed. Happy was cheerful, and it was unbelievable he existed, but prying anything useful from him was exasperating.
“Do you know any secrets that will help me survive here?” Cole asked.
“They’re not secrets,” Happy said. “Enjoy the beauty of the sky and keep a twinkle in your eye.”
The wagons came to a stop.
Cole sat up, looking around. He couldn’t see the front of the procession. “What’s going on?”
“We stopped,” Happy said. “Seems early for lunch.”
When they had stopped to eat in the past, the wagons had formed a circle. This time they remained in a line. Was there an obstacle up at the front? Cole couldn’t tell.
After some time Ansel walked away with a man Cole hadn’t seen before into a field off to one side. The man was shorter than Ansel, with graying hair and bushy sideburns. He used a cane and walked with a limp. They headed out far enough to be visible from all wagons at once, then turned to face the caravan.
“We’ve met a customer by chance on the road,” Ansel announced, his parched voice even more gravelly when he raised it. “This gentleman works north of here with the Sky Raiders at the Brink. Those names won’t mean much to you newcomers, but the Raiders have a heavy need for slave labor, in part because the life expectancy for a new slave among them is around two weeks.”
This caused a stir among the caged trick-or-treaters. Ansel waited for the murmuring to die down.
“Our customer was returning from a supply run,” Ansel said, “but figured he should take advantage of our encounter by gaining an extra pair of hands. The wagons headed for the royal palace are naturally off limits. Otherwise he can have his pick. Since the slave who goes with him will probably perish shortly, I mentioned the new boy who caused a ruckus the other night. Due to my soft spot for obedience, I denied him Tracy, who pointed out the clumsy thief.”
Ansel then led the man directly to Cole’s wagon. As they approached, the other kids in the cage crowded away from Cole.
If this stranger bought him, how would he ever find Dalton, Jenna, and the others from his neighborhood? Then again, they would probably all get sold to different places anyhow. At least this guy seemed kind of old and not too quick on his feet. There might come a chance to escape.
The potential buyer stepped forward and looked up at Cole through the bars. “You’re the boy who caused the commotion?” His clearly enunciated words made him seem professorial. Or maybe it was the slightly battered top hat in his hand.
“Yeah,” Cole replied.
“Any physical handicaps? Chronic illnesses?”
“I’m healthy. A little hungry.”
“We feed them twice what most slaves get,” Ansel inserted. “They’re in prime condition, fresh from a prosperous world.”
The man nodded, eyes still on Cole. “How well do you handle heights?”
Cole wondered whether he should lie. Maybe a fear of heights would disqualify him from the dangerous work Ansel had mentioned. But the buyer looked and acted nice, which was more than Cole could say for the slavers. He decided to see where honesty would lead him. “I’m not scared of heights.”
The man shifted his stance. “How do you feel when standing near a high brink?”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Cole said. “Never has.”
The man turned to Ansel. “Easy as that. I’ll take him.”
Chapter 6
THE BRINK
The quick decision surprised Cole. The buyer turned away, and a tall, muscled stranger came into view, glaring at Cole distrustfully. So much for making an easy escape from the old limping guy. He should have guessed the buyer would have help.