Obsidian by Lindsey Scholl Page A

slippers whenever Sirin asked, the other two spent their time recalling the “freedom” they had enjoyed under Gorvy. The city and life in general, it seemed, was passing them by as they batted carpets, cooked their own meals, and polished those beautiful front doors.
    More than two weeks had passed when Lucio, as usual, was thrashing one of Sirin’s rugs, the one with the macaw bird and the gigantic purple snail.
    “By the Chasm, that old monkey sheds more than three voyoté combined!”
    Teehma, who was holding the great rug for him, looked nervously at the door. The “dupes,” as they called the two other servants, were away with Sirin on an errand, but she still feared their ingratitude would be reported. “He’s a munkke-trophe, Lucio, not a monkey. And aren’t you happy to have a hot meal and a soft bed?”
    “You mean a lumpy bed and the same meal every other day? We work like slaves.” He gave the rug another thwack and watched the dust particles fly off the snail and into the cold air. “We are slaves.”
    They switched positions. Now it was Teehma’s turn to beat the snail. “No, we’re not. Sirin didn’t buy us. He’s looking for a home for us.”
    Lucio snorted. “If this is what a home is like, I think I’d rather be on my own.”
    Teehma agreed. She had been only seven cycles when her parents, weak from hard living, had both succumbed to illness a few months apart. All she remembered of the life up to that time was her mother’s exhaustion and her father’s dangerous flashes of anger. Sirin’s house was a great improvement on that life, and on the wretchedness of working for Gorvy, but she was still a drudge—fetching for others, cleaning up after others, and cooking for others, with little benefit to herself. Who was to say that this new “home” she was supposed to find would be any different?
    “Besides,” Lucio continued, “who would want us? Someone might take Trint—an’ they’d have to take Ester, too, if they took him—but we’re too old. We’re not cute like Trint,” he rolled up the rug and threw it in the corner, “an’ we’re sure not as nice as Ester.”
    Again, Teehma had to agree. But she wasn’t about to let Lucio have the joy of being right. “We’re old enough to be apprenticed. We could learn a trade, like the dupes are doing.”
    “And go on doing more drudgery.” He leaned over the balcony and squinted at the distant peaks of the Duvarian Range. “What would it be like to get out on our own? To get up when we wanted? Eat when we wanted? Sleep when we wanted?”
    Teehma followed his gaze. “If you’re thinking of escaping to the Range, you’re a silly narfat . The mountains would kill you and if they didn’t, some wild fennel would.”
    “Shows how much you know. Fennels don’t live in the Range. They like the woodlands.”
    “Oh yeah? How do you know?”
    He shrugged and scratched his head. His now-clean blond hair had been neatly trimmed for the first time in his life and he was still getting used to it. “One of the old monkey’s lessons. He says if I ever learn to read, I can find those things out for myself—I guess ‘till then I have to listen to him go on about ‘em.”
    Teehma gave an unlady-like grunt and followed him into the house. Sirin was teaching them both how to read, but only Lucio was getting the geography lessons. The munkke-trophe, who believed that all girls should know how to keep house properly, had put her under the charge of the female dupe, Lidia. Every morning, she was forced to learn the domestic arts, while Lucio learned about more exciting things like military history and where fennels lived. Lidia was a gentle and effective teacher, but her efforts were wasted on a girl like Teehma, who equated being female with being cooped up inside or being sold as the worst sort of slave. Though she would never admit it to him, she was jealous of the privileges Lucio enjoyed just for being a boy.
    Crossing by the top of