BillGarrett/EndanNaming
Pit-Boy is his name. It has always been his name.
He had another name, long ago, in a dark and formless dream that sometimes brings him screaming awake in the early hours. Such dreams and their aftermath bring him the cuffs and curses of his fellow slaves, most of whom are busy sleeping, drinking, or screwing. Pit-Boy is too young for such pursuits. All he's good for is training, fighting, wrapping wounds, and collapsing.
Today he is happy. Because it's almost Calibration, and therefore almost Birthday, he's excited. He shares a birthday with every other foundling in the arena. It's not his birthday, nor their birthday, but simply Birthday. He's never stopped to really think about this; he's just glad he has something to share with them. And today is his tenth.
For some reason there is a window in the Cell. He feels a vague sense of wrongness, that it shouldn't be here. Outside the window, the sun is rising from every direction at once. On the windowsill, a bird is singing. It's white with gold-flecked feathers, and it alights the moment he reaches for it. With a disappointed frown on his face, he turns away. The window ceases to be.
He's outside. He's not entirely confident how he got here, but it somehow doesn't matter.
Today is Naming Day. This is Important. This is the day all the other lads called "Pit-Boy" stopped being that, and started being Whoever they were. He might get a name today. He wonders how they are given out. The Masters must do it.
Everyone is around him. They were silent and motionless before, like they were waiting for his thoughts to include them. The Masters. The other Pit-Boys. The boys with Names. The Grown-ups. There are even a few Clients hovering around, their arms and fingers laden with gold and dragging almost to their knees with the weight, as though they were gorillas in fine Maritan cloth. They all have make-up. Privately he thinks they've always looked silly, but he has been taught that they are Important too.
A Master with four arms, who he doesn't remember, looks down at him sternly. "Today you are being Named," he announces, and the boy recognizes the voice of his father. He wonders how he knows that.
"The Tattoo," this man says sternly, and Pit-Boy is taken to a chair and rolled onto his stomach. He's given a lot of something really foul-tasting to drink. The smell he knows goes with barrels marked WHISKEY. Someone begins burning something onto his back, only it hurts on his forehead. His back feels fine. He feels the pressure there, it's just that the pain is coming from the wrong part of his body. He doesn't cry. He uses the Neat Tricks he's been taught, putting pressure on his own body and biting his tongue and squinting his eyes just so.
"When we got you, you were Endan Calonnu. When we trained you, you were Pit-Boy. But you've proven yourself, lad." The four-armed man is stern, but smiling. "You're going to be something very special. And your name will be...."
