The Only Way Out

They say the only way out of Ka Torl is in a coffin.

They are right.

The city is ringed in towering battlements of grey stone, as thick as five arm lengths. Once a source of defence, now a prison, the walls are tall enough to strangle the sunlight before it reaches the ground, as unscalable as they are impregnable. With a single corridor of interlocked doors, the city could withstand even the Emperor’s army.

Unbreakable. That’s what they call Ka Torl. Not with awe but with bitter resignation. Words spoken quietly so as not to attract the Overseer’s attention. We shuffle and complain and watch the next generation’s attempts at escape fail.

It’s a rite of passage now to try your hand at a breakout. How deep can you dig? How high can you climb? The most legendary attempts are told around feast-day fire pits. My favourite is the Raven.

The day a young boy was told of the tradition, he began to devise his plan, so the story goes. He knew he would have to try something spectacular if he wanted to be remembered. He laboured in the smithy; he worked hard, learning the ways of the forge. Over the years, he mastered the precise angle required to strengthen a sword, the exact shape of a nail. And one day he disappeared. When he was next seen, it was in the basket of a flying contraption, the likes of which have never been seen again. It was a monstrous collection of metal and cloth, a glowing fire in the centre of it all.

No longer a boy, he flew his beast over the city for all to see, rising high into the clouds. He might have made it if not for the Overseers. Oh, how they laugh and laugh at us. Our desperation is sport for them to enjoy. The Raven ascended not to laughter but to a barrage of arrows.

His flying monster left a crater in the dirt in the centre of the Butcher’s Row. It’s still there. A reminder. Whether it is for them or for us, I’ve never been sure.

The city isn’t large, though it teems with life. Ka Torl circles a small mountain, a singular gem among the soot and grime, the only reason the city exists. Concentric circles of infrastructure ripple away from the mountain’s heart, slowly degrading the further they get, as though only those close to the heart may feel its warmth.

We console ourselves with stories of the outside. Outlandish tales passed down through the generations of a time when the walls hadn’t existed. We speak of loyal fur-clad four-legged creatures, of the night sky as a blanket of darkness broken by a thousand glittering lights, of water that tastes cool and fresh instead of bitter and metallic, and most unbelievable of all, fields of emerald green that stretch as far as the eye can see. A beautiful fantasy.

The fantasy evaporated like mist when I was old enough to work the family business. I’m a fourth-generation miner, the last in the line of many to breathe in the dank rot of mouldy earth, to taste soil and sulphur on my tongue, to forget the feel of sunlight after days in the mountains’ depths. Only my sister escaped the curse, her deft fingers earning her a coveted spot in the construction factories. She always knew she was destined for something better.

Not me.

I didn’t have grand notions of escape. I didn’t hope for a long life. I only wished for one more day in the sun every time I went down into the heart of Ka Torl. Until that last fated cave-in, I knew I would die down there - hands in mud, lungs spasming for air that isn’t there, desperately listening for the canary song that has gone quiet. That’s what it means to be one of us. Factory, textile or mine, it’s only a question of when the city will eat you, not if.

When it was my turn, I wasn’t even surprised. People like me aren’t meant to survive.

I know what I looked like when they pulled my body out of the dirt; my skin waxy, my lips stained with grave dirt, my eyes clotted with mud. I can’t blame them for assuming the worst.

Ka Torl doesn’t have space to spare for the dead. No graveyard with intricate markers for the family to mourn. The city can’t even burn the dead; it’s a waste of precious fuel. Instead, we get The Passage.

It’s a reverent name for something so desecrating. Our bodies are sealed inside a thin wooden coffin, made from scraps with a single nail hammering it shut before we’re sent through the river grates and out of Ka Torl, set upon a course of slow destruction. A letter is sent to the families afterwards.

As I woke up, shaking off the ice claws of death, choking on mud, the Overseers carelessly threw my coffin into The Passage. I slammed into the water, my coffin clamouring for space against the other wooden boxes. The river is fast, full of rapids and vicious underwater rocks that rend like teeth upon fresh meat.

My coffin made for weak armour as the river dragged me hungrily through its turns. I was battered on all sides as water began to creep in. I coughed up the earth inside my lungs and waited to drown. At least I get to die outside, I thought.

It’s been ten years since I took The Passage. When my coffin splintered apart and I dragged myself bloody and bruised up the banks of the river, I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t understand that I was the first person in generations to make it out of Ka Torl alive.

When the local villages found me, I was delirious with infection, half-starved and utterly lost. They didn’t expect me to survive; a miracle they called it. Lucky, they call me. It makes me smile. They cared for me until I was better and then welcomed me in. I told them of the mine, of the violent smog and food rations. They know of Ka Torl as a spectre, a ghost story told to frighten children. They didn’t know we were real, just like we didn’t know they were here. They work the fields happily, or they leave for school, travel, and apprenticeships. This world of theirs is wide open.

I never left the river, though. The shadow of Ka Torl squats on the horizon, anchoring me. On the only day I considered leaving, to see what else was out there, a bottle washed up on shore. The same sloping shallow where I dragged myself into this new life.

A corked bottle with a message inside. A goodbye for a lost husband. When there is no grave to visit, this is the next best thing. It took months before I sent my own message into Ka Torl at the mouth of the river. Another handful more before I got a reply.

I read the latest one, once more. It is a simple date and time. So, I wait, taking a long steadying drag of smoke. The acrid taste chases away the memory of dirt and salt. The moon is full and bulbous, gilding the night in silver.

“What’s taking so long?” Galen whines.

“You wanted to come.”

He breathes air into his palms, shuffling against the cold, unable to sit still. “I thought it would be more exciting,” he complains half-heartedly. The distraction works. When I look at him, I still see the gangly teenager who designated himself as my guide when I arrived. When I needed help, Galen didn’t hesitate.

The expanse of coffins approaches like a swarm. Grimacing at the ripped and cracked boxes, I hastily search through the horde. I strain to hear, but there’s nothing past the susurration of leaves and the lap of water. Was the river too high tonight? Have I lost—no. I hear it.

“Here! I’m in—here,” a muffled voice, choking on black river water.

“Which one is it?” Galen asks urgently, attention now consumed with the task.

“Call out!” I wade into the river up to my knees, the water lazy this far down. The voice comes from my left. I hurry over, the pounding of hands against wood leading me onwards.

I select the coffin and wedge my steel bar under the lid, wiggling until the hastily applied nail pings off. I wrench the lid off in one go and reach for the body inside.

The girl shoots upwards and gasps for breath. I glance down and find the water line an inch from the top. The wood starts to sink, and I half drag the girl out of the river, her fingers circling vise-like around my arms. I sit her on dry ground as Galen rummages through our supplies. When he finds it, he drops the blanket over her trembling shoulders.

She doesn’t notice, looking up at me with wide steely eyes.

“You’re the smuggler?”

“I am.” It’s not who I thought I would be, but I don’t want to be the only one to make it out. If they’re willing to take the risk – The Passage is a cruel gamble – I’m ready to help. The village stands with me, giving what they can to anyone who escapes.

The girl rakes her eyes over me in disbelief. My hair is the uninspiring brown of bird feathers braided down my back. I’m short, lean and clothed in humble homespun cloth.

“You’re young,” she says doubtfully.

I smile slightly. “I’m twenty-four.” The mines swallowed me at fourteen. The village has been home for a long time now.

“I have a letter for you.” She hands me a dark brown stoppered bottle with a note inside. I uncork it and tease out the paper, ignoring the smell of whiskey. Scanning it, I find another request. Someone inside needs a smuggler. I look out towards the city, the dark obstructing my view of the walls, but I know it’s there. I tuck the letter carefully inside my jacket, patting the pocket for luck.

I help the girl to her feet; her body wrung out from the ordeal. She looks up and almost falls. The night sky is full of stars. She starts to shake, staring at those pinpricks of silver light. “It’s real?” she whispers.

“It’s all true,” I say softly. Just wait until she sees the fields. I cried when I first saw them. An entire world, uncaged.

The girl slackens, her confidence, the need that drove her to seek me out has been replaced with uncertainty. She peers into the dark, suddenly aware that she has forsaken the known for a blank slate. “What happens now?”

“Now, you get to live.”