Here, in the Dim Lands, sunrise always feels like a punishment. The silt-filled air changes from dark and gray to dimly lit and gray, and the heat builds quickly. We rise to do the same things we did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. Ten weeks at a time we rotate in and out of a name-less tin mine, until Eldaarich is satiated with our ore or our sacrifices.

First whistle before dawn: I head to the tool shack. I’m one of the four “chief-of-tens,” which means I have a rag tied around my arm and get to hand out tools. It also means if something goes missing, I will go missing.

The bamboo tool shack has its own smell: old sweat, dust, and misery. I count in the dark by touching: nine copper-tipped picks, thirteen stone picks, six bone shovels, and the jewel of our collection: an iron-headed pick bound at the head with chewed leather, kept in place by a nail and knot, and marked with the Eldaarish star. Property of the city-state of Eldaarich, just like the rest of us.

I take a chalk stub and on the gourds provided, mark our water rations. Sarek, the old Eloy slave, watches me as if each line is a sip he could steal for himself. He is older than the dust in here - all ribs and skin stretched on his skull. We nod. We do not say good morning. We don’t call it a morning.

The Neshtap arrive on their crodlu for their weekly inspection. They all wear the usual blood-dyed red armor and tall pointed hoods, hard spiked boots, and thick gauntlets with the knotted sigil of their order - the Neshtap or Red Guards - stitched on them. They don’t dismount, and never talk. The village’s headman comes forward to meet with them, motioning for workers to unload the scant supplies they have brought and load the wagon back up with the ore we’ve mined. The lead Red Guard, face hidden beneath a red hood, sits astride his mount with the silt-dimmed sun behind him, making him hard to look at, and has that way of not moving that makes you swallow twice.

He gestures in Neshtap hand-signs to the headman, silently demanding the tally. The headman gives it. They continue their seemingly one-sided exchange, with the headman pointing to a handdrawn list of pictures on old parchment: more tools, more workers, more food, more baskets.

The lead Neshtap nods and then shrugs in response. He gestures at the new supplies and signs again: “Don’t break.” I can’t tell if he’s talking about the new tools or the new workers. The headman just nods.

The Red Guards finally leave and the line into the mine forms again. Miners take their tools and baskets. I hold the iron pick back until last. The boy with the large sun-scar on his cheek reaches for it.

“Not you,” I tell him. “You like it too much.”

He steps back. My ten are a child’s rhythm in my head: Zera clicking-kreen, Kadda with the bloody cough, the two nameless brothers who lost their tongues, Old Balla who will die if the pit so much as sneezes, Ronkiuk whose face is a map of lashes received, Turo with the broken nose, the boy with the sun-scar, and the man whose name changes daily to confuse destiny; today the chosen name is Mab, but it might as well have been Mad.

“Who gets iron?” Mab asks. He always asks. I think he likes the word.

“The one who isn’t dreaming of it.” I say. “Old Balla.”

They make the sound of disappointment; Balla simply nods. The old dwarf looks even smaller with the weight of the thing. She knows what it costs and won’t try anything funny.

We drop into the hole as the wet, cool air crawls out. Tin veins thread the wall like pale black worms. The wall is also shot with quartz, it feels like being in the belly of a monster. I imagine it would look the same. Feel the same too.

The work is the work: lift, swing, chip, pass, scoop. We have a rhythm because a rhythm is easier than thinking. Zera sings in clicks only she hears. Dust films the eyes. Someone farts, we laugh. A small collapse throws a spray of pebbles and curses. I remind my team-of-ten to turn away when a wall creaks; of course none of us believe that’d be enough to save us if a wall gave up. Still, I repeat it like a prayer.

Horror happens on schedule. Someone uncovers the hand of a recently buried worker from another shift and just keeps going. A basket tears and ten minutes of work return to the ground in a split second. I note it for the noon ledger: one basket to patch. Later, we bring the body we recovered up on the rope like a package. One of the headman’s favorite sons, who acts as much a guard as a worker, uses his heel to steer it toward a cart. I watch his heel. There’s a hole in his boot.

Between strikes my mind goes where minds go when they are trying not to be here: a bowl of water once so cold it hurts the brain; a cat with a missing eye that stole lizard meat from a hungry soldier; a wind that brings rain. I let the boredom help me. Boredom is a blanket you can hide under when you’re in the hole. I can hear some rocks falling, and a commotion in a tunnel down from where I am.

Midday whistle. We file out in silence, exhausted. In the glare, I take the chalk and the stones and begin the counting back in. One iron, I think before I’ve counted it. Nine copper, thirteen stone, six shovels. I hold my hand for a moment, a small trick to ease the shake.

Copper: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Stone: one to thirteen, and the last is badly chipped. Shovels: five, then I find the sixth under a cart. Iron: I run my fingers along the pick. Something’s wrong. There is an empty spot like a missing tooth. The nail holding the iron pick to the shaft is missing. I touch the iron pick again, like an old lover - the pick has been visibly ground down along one side. I stare for a moment as if staring could fix anything.

“Where’s Old Balla?” I ask.

The boy with the sun-scar points with his chin. Balla is not in the line. The brothers look at each other to see if the other is there. Kadda coughs until her face goes purple and points at the ground as if pointing makes breathing easier.

“They found her during the whistle. A boulder to the face. That’s why she isn’t here.” Sarek says as he smacks his lips.

“Who brought it up then?” I ask, to the line, to the iron pick, to the chalk, to myself.

No one answers. No one wants to be the one who touched it last.

I swallow. My saliva goes down like grit. Sarek watches my throat.

“Balla,” I say again.

The cart with Old Balla’s body is brought bumping. I walk to the cart. You don’t run unless something above you commands it. Her hair is clotted dark red with dust and blood, one temple flattened like a stomped fruit. Even now her hands are still the hands of someone holding a handle. I look - the missing nail is not with her.

There is a moment when the mine becomes a mouth and I am a worm inside it. The mouth is about to close; I can feel the lips; I can feel the teeth’s edge. I stand up and the world tilts a small, mean amount.

“Tools down,” I say. “Baskets open. Strip to the waist. Show your rags.”

They do it the way you do things when the alternative is to die. No one asks why. The village headman’s son walks toward me.

“What happened?” he asks without any emotion in his face.

“A small iron nail fell out.” I say, not sure if it’s a lie.

A hush. Everyone listens when you say iron.

No lunch until the nail is found, and my last meal has already been eaten if it isn’t found. I send Zera and the brothers to comb the shaft where Balla was. I send the boy to the latrine trench with a stake. I make him stir it. He looks at me as if I have asked him to swim in fire, but he goes. I pull apart the lunches with my own hands, the stale bread that crunches like plaster, the handfuls of grit-salted dates, the guilty onion someone stole. I squeeze the skins, I tear the cloth. I pretend I am doing this for order and not because my heart has learned a new word for panic.

“Someone’s stealing nails?” Sarek whispers.

“They might be building a tool or something,” I say.

It’s an idea I do not like. It means someone planned while we were being bored. It means I have already failed. It might not be made into anything more than a tiny blade, but a tiny blade, like tiny lies, can kill faster than one might expect in this part of the world.

I check the racks again because sometimes the world is kind and you can find the thing you’ve misplaced by touching the place you think it should be. It isn’t there. The headman, informed by his favorite son, observes for a long time and then calls me out: “Dolwyn! Who touched the iron?”

My mouth forms: “Balla,” but that’s a useless answer, as luck has it we have one of the only village headmen that can open our mind like a tool chest and psionically whip us if we try to keep it closed. My mind tries to be a stone. I keep my face blank. I think of the feeling of chalk, the smell of leather. I don’t think of the boy. I don’t think of Sarek. I think of the cat with a missing eye because I am afraid.

He leaves me alone. He looks at Mab and he voids himself. He looks at the brothers and one of them looks like he even forgot he has a brother. He looks at the boy and the sun-scar shines.

“Find it,” he says finally, and like that, he is bored.

He means: find it or I will take something from you you cannot name.

Afternoon dries us. We go back into the cut with stone picks while I, Zera, and Sarek hunt. We even check the latrine again, but it yields nothing but the shame of smelling it.

We strip the bedding in the shed; we turn out the sleeping mats. We find a comb made from the heel of a sandal, a needle made from a rat bone, a curl of hair braided with thread, a sliver of tin someone had shaped into a lucky charm amulet and prayed to until the edges bent. I toss the lucky charm into the dust. I make it look like disrespect. Might as well be.

We go back in the shack, this time at the far end of the tool wall, under the shelf where the broken tools go. There is an empty space I have not seen because I haven’t needed to see it before. Hidden, wrapped in a strip of dirty, oily cloth, there’s the treasure we sought: the iron nail with small slivers of iron.

I sit with it in my lap until my breath stops trying to run away. I could go to the headman and say: it fell, see, accidents happen. I could say: I found it quickly, because I am loyal. I could put it back and say nothing. I could take it and hide it again and we can all pretend that tomorrow there will be no inventory.

I can see Mab walking outside with a basket of ore to be dropped for transport. His face is already the face of the man who might get picked for the punishment. He has one of those expressions meant to be a blank and ends up a confession. I go out, he sees the lump in my hand and his eyes flick to the right the way chicken eyes do. Chickens are a legend here. I have never seen one.

“Your name today?” I ask knowing the answer, easily recalling it might as well have been Mad.

He swallows. “Mab.”

“It wasn’t you,” I say, not sure if I’m lying.

He looks relieved in the way a man looks when you say the lash will be dipped in cool water first. He walks on. I think: do I care if it was him? I think: I care that I will keep breathing.

I wrap the nail again in the cloth and carry it to the headman like a gift. He takes it with two fingers, for it is precious, more precious than a man’s life. He says nothing. He knows. He looks at my face as if testing how much of me I am willing to sell to keep standing.

“It snapped,” I say, and keep my eyes on his shoulder. “I’ll bind it again. The pick will be like new.”

He lets some of his favorite villagers do what guards would usually do: pick someone to be guilty. They pick the boy because this boy is easy to prove guilty. The sun-scar seems to shine. They pull off his foot rag and a small brightness falls out, a metal flake, still shinny with sweat. We all stare as if the sun has fallen to the ground. I’m dumbfounded. He looks at me. I do not look back. The thugs are satisfied because they have found a piece of iron and something to hit.

They don’t kill him outright, they don’t even beat him up that much. They tie him to a wooden beam facing the sun. They do cut him, deeply, but nothing lethal. He will die slightly later than now, which passes for mercy.

I retrieve a new shaft for the iron pick. I wipe it down with my rag and thread a new leather thong through the head and pull it until it bites. With the help of Zera, we line the tools up again. I count the tools: iron one, copper nine, stone thirteen, shovels six.

We carry Balla to the silty pit by the dried out cactus, laying her alongside the other villager we recovered today. I put her hand on her chest. It wants to curl; I straighten it. I tell Kadda to say a word for her, anything. She blinks and says “Balla.” before having a violent coughing fit. It is as good a word as any. Sarek looks into her face a little too long, as if trying to remember something.

We’ll turn the bodies, soon to be more, over to the Red Guards the next time they return. Fresh bodies are only delivered when used-up bodies are turned over to the Neshtap. No one living ever leaves this place, it will be our death.

We go back to the sheds. People cough and scratch and move their bodies around the pain they’ve owned for years. The night comes down like all other nights. I tie the iron to the rack with the new thong twice, then a third time, because knots are the only magic we are allowed to work.

In the dark I think about Balla’s hands staying curled for a long time in the dirt.

I dream poorly. I wake at nothing. I sit up and count the tools in my head, visualize each shaft with its own scar, the iron pick safe in the shed.

First whistle again: the same dim sun, the same ledger, the same tool shack. I rub chalk dust into my fingertips. I write the numbers. The board agrees we exist. The day begins as if yesterday had been a practice. In a way, it was. The chalk flakes a little as if it is tired of all this. So are we.