Eve Fiction

There was once a wealthy Holder from Rasile. His estates were vast and he owned many slaves. The slaves on Rasile had a hard life, labouring for long hours under the merciless sun. The Holder grew richer and the slaves died in his service.

One of the slaves, a Vherokior, was an old man who had been toiling for the Holder for many years. His body was almost broken by the years of suffering, and his breath came in ragged gasps, but still the overseer relentlessly drove him on. At the end of the long day, however, as he lay down on his bed of sackcloth, he dreamed he was free and rich, with huge estates of his own. All through the night, he was waited upon by servants, dining on the best dishes in the known galaxy, and entertained by beautiful, dusky women who played the haunting songs of his homeland and danced the ancient dances he remembered from his youth. He spent the entire dream in idle pursuit, but he took the most joy of all from playing and laughing with his young children in the lush gardens.

Of course, upon waking, the old man was the slave again, spending his day in endless toil. When the midday break came, he’d sink heavily to the floor to eat his meagre rations, and the weariness would be etched on his features for all to see. His younger friends among the field slaves, seeing him suffer, would try to console him.

“No need to fuss,” he would say, “By day, I may be a wretched slave, but at night, I am the rich man. I spend half
the day working his fields, but the other half I spend in ease and comfort. Do not pity me, brothers!”

The Holder spent his days in useless frivolity and idleness. When he laid his head on his silken pillow at night, he tossed and turned and groaned all through the night. He dreamed that he had fallen from grace and that he was a slave, working his own fields. All through the dream, he worked, bent almost double and the sweat poured down his face and stung his eyes. The overseers beat him cruelly, determined to make him pay. At night, he collapsed on his rough bed of old sacking and he slept alone, shunned by the other slaves. His wife had been sold to a distant Holder, his children separated and sold to other masters. His life meant unending labour with no respite, and his master was cruel. This life was truly miserable.

When he awoke in the morning, his muscles ached as if he really had been working in the fields. His bed would be soaked in sweat, and he felt too ashamed to even look at the chamber slaves that changed his sheets every day.

He would complain to his friends about his suffering, but they would say, “Don’t worry. You might suffer at night, but by day, you are a rich man, a respected Holder, and blessed by God. You have more than you will ever need. This will soon pass.”

The Holder thought about this as every day he awakened more weary than the day before. He started walking over his estates to try and calm his agitated mind. He watched the field slaves working under the pitiless Rasile sun all day. He noticed in particular one old man who never stopped working. He was shrivelled and bent by years of hard labour, yet he never complained, never shirked, and always had a small smile on his face. “I envy that slave,” the Holder thought, “He has nothing, yet he seems so much happier than me.”

The old slave noticed the Holder watching him. He saw how the Amarrian looked tired and pale even in the Rasile sun. He noted how the carefully tended hands shook with palsy, and how the well-fed body looked weak and fragile.

After a while, the Holder decided he would change his ways, since he was so unhappy with the way things were going. He started treating his slaves more kindly and stopped working them so hard, even allowing them time off. He took up various physical pursuits instead of idling the days in his cool halls, and eventually the nightmares stopped. He slept more soundly than he had in years.

The old Vherokior slave began to enjoy his waking life more and did not need to escape into his dreams each night.  Instead, he slept soundly. As Keitan says: “The Ancient Ones forgot themselves when awake and did not dream when they slept.”