Arena

CHAPTER 3

“THANK THE ETERNAL WE’RE OUT OF THERE.”

Garth looked down at Hammen and suppressed an urge to laugh. The pickpocket no longer looked like the same man. His rags were gone, replaced by a clean tunic of white with a gray circle over his left breast. The filthy unkempt hair was gone as well, close-cropped as befitting the servant of a fighter. Hammen looked back angrily at the House.

“You can keep this, Garth One-eye. I have no desire to play this game any longer. Go find another servant. I’m for home,” he announced, and tore his tight-fitting collar open.

“Then you’ll miss the fun.”

“Fun. You call this fun? Groveling as a damned servant-yes Master, no Master, let me wipe your backside with my right hand for you, Master.” His voice took on a sarcastic, singsong whine. “You can shove that up where it belongs. I’m my own man.”

“Fine then, leave.”

Hammen slowed and looked up at Garth, barely visible now in the darkness.

“All right, I’m going.”

Garth reached into his satchel and pulled out a coin, handing it to Hammen.

“Your pay for the week.”

Hammen took the coin without comment and shoved it into a small purse dangling from his belt.

“So long then.”

Garth turned and started to walk slowly on.

“One-eye.”

Garth turned and looked back.

“Just how did you lose that eye?”

“You won’t find out by leaving.”

Hammen remained silent for a moment.

“Nor anything else.”

Hammen stared at him closely, wondering, trying to sense, to reach back somehow into a thought long since deliberately buried. He felt for an instant that something in Garth was flickering around him, a magical flashing of light, reaching far into memories best left undisturbed. For an instant he felt a tightening in his throat as if a long-forgotten pain had come back. And then it was gone and there were only the sounds of the night, the mob walking about the Great Plaza, the drinkers singing, and the lovers whispering. All of it held for Hammen a deep mystery, a lingering memory of laughter, of another world and another time, and it seemed to come from this stranger who stood before him in the shadows.

“Who are you?” Hammen whispered.

“Stay with me and out, Hammen of Jor, if that is really your name.”

Hammen stiffened slightly, a chill of fear coursing through him, and then the chill was gone, replaced by a distant warmth that held for but a second and then was also gone.

Hammen finally moved, ever so slowly, and came up to Garth’s side.

“Buy me a drink then, damn it.”

Hammen walked in silence, watching the way Garth moved. He walked like most fighters, with a deliberate catlike ease, his head always turning, watching. There was the sense of the mana about him, what others might simply call charisma but was in fact raw power which to the trained eye was almost visible, like flashes of lightning on the distant horizon that are but half-seen and half-heard. It could be hidden when need be, but it was there in abundance and Hammen knew it.

Leaving the Plaza, Garth wandered up a side street, drawn by boisterous laughter and a crowd standing before the open door of a swill dive, several of them holding torches aloft. Edging up to the crowd, Hammen could see that a couple of fighters were brawling in the street, one Brown, the other a woman who he suspected was not even a fighter, merely a warrior proficient in weapons. The Brown fighter was not using his powers but was struggling with mere physical strength. A circle was drawn around them in the mud, the two fighting oquorak, the ritual fight of tying their right hands to each other by a length of short rope, while holding daggers in their left hands.

The Brown fighter was bleeding from a long cut which had slashed his tunic across his chest and another across his forehead, the blood trickling into his eyes. Yet Brown was obviously the far more powerful of the two. He yanked his right arm down, pulling the woman in toward him. She spun around, ducking underneath his slashing blow, and came up, a cool smile of amusement on her face.

“Benalish woman,” Garth whispered, noticing the seven-pointed star tattoo on her left forearm, which was the mark of her particular clan within the Benalish caste system.

Garth moved closer into the crowd to watch the fight.

The Benalish woman waited, poised on the balls of her feet, her short-cropped black hair matching the color of her leather jerkin and tight-fitting trousers. The Brown fighter tried the same maneuver again, nearly knocking her off-balance. This time she plunged forward, diving to the ground and then somersaulting head over heels. As she did so she pulled with her right arm, using her momentum to add weight to the pull. The Brown fighter was spun around and knocked down. The crowd roared its approval of the maneuver.

Brown slashed out, trying to kick her feet out as she started to stand back up. She easily leaped over the strike. Brown scrambled back up and came in low, going for a stab, a movement against the rules of oquorak, which allowed only slashing with the dagger.

The crowd sent silent. This was no longer just a little sporting event, it was a blood match. Within seconds the bets started to fly and Hammen slipped into the confused mass. Garth, ignoring the betting frenzy, moved in closer to the circle. He watched Brown closely as the two circled each other warily. The man was still holding his dagger for a stab, the Benalish woman looking at him disdainfully, but still holding her blade backhanded for slashing.

Her left hand flashed out and Brown’s right shoulder was laid open.

“Again blood,” she announced. “Three times now. It’s finished.”

Her blade flashed again and she cut the one-fathom length of oquorak rope that bound their right hands together.

Brown stood before her, panting, features contorted with rage. She watched him disdainfully, her slim boyish figure silhouetted by the torchlight.

“The wager was three gold. Your payment,” she said quietly.

“You cheated.”

She laughed coldly.

“How the hell can I cheat in an oquorak? Your payment.”

With a bellowing roar Brown came in low, his blade glinting in the torchlight. The Benalish woman leaped to one side, blade flashing. The Brown fighter howled with pain, staggering away. His left ear lay on the muddy ground.

Screaming, with one hand clasped to the side of his head, he turned and Garth saw the Brown fighter look aside for an instant to a heavily cloaked man standing to Garth’s right.

Brown broke off from a close-in attack, circling back around so that the Benalish woman’s back was now turned to Garth and the man standing beside him. Brown moved forward slowly, blade poised, and the Benalish woman shifted her knife to her left hand, changing her grip to a stab.

“There, you cheated,” Brown roared. “You fought oquorak but you’re left-handed to start with.”

“You never asked. By ritual you could have, but you were too drunk with arrogance,” the Benalish woman said quietly. “Now, your payment before someone gets hurt.”

“I’ll cut your liver out and jam it down your throat,” Brown snarled, and he moved a step closer.

The Benalish woman backed up slightly, changing her stance, ready to receive his charge.

The cloaked man next to Garth stepped across the line into the circle and there was a flash of steel in his hand.

Garth caught the man across the neck with an open-handed blow just behind the ear, knocking him senseless. The Benalish woman spared a quick glance backward and, as she did so, Brown charged.

Garth started to shout a warning but there was no need to. She deftly sidestepped the strike, kicking Brown’s feet out from under him. With a serpentlike strike she was on him, knocking the dagger from his hand, and in an instant was on his chest, dagger point up under his throat.

“Your payment,” she said quietly.

Brown looked at her with a murderous rage in his eyes. She pushed the dagger ever so slightly, nicking the skin over his pulsing jugular.

“I can get it with you alive or with you dead.”

“Kill me and my House will avenge me.”

“Is that supposed to frighten me?”

Garth moved up to her side and, without waiting for her approval, he tore open Brown’s satchel. Ignoring the paltry amulets in a side pouch within the satchel, he felt around for money.

“He’s only got a couple of silvers,” Garth announced, and pulled them out.

The crowd, which had been watching silently, roared their taunting disapproval of a fighter who would accept a simple wager without the ability to pay.

The Benalish woman pressed the blade in a bit more, a trickle of blood creasing down Brown’s neck.

“I’ll come by your House tomorrow morning at second bell for payment. Be there.”

She flipped her dagger around and slammed the hilt against the side of Brown’s head, knocking him senseless.

She stood up, the crowd cheering its approval.

Smiling, Garth handed the coins over.

“Thanks, One-eye,” she said, and tilted her head in acknowledgment.

“Garth.”

Garth turned as Hammen came up to his side. Hammen hesitated for a second.

“I mean master.”

“Damn it, Hammen, just Garth, but skip the One-eye.” And as he spoke he looked back at the Benalish woman.

“My apologies, Garth, and thank you.”

“We didn’t win that much. The money was in favor of this woman, one silver for four.”

Hammen looked back at the prostrate fighters.

“Ah, the old days of honor are gone,” he said, with a sad shake of his head. “The world is nothing but corruption now.”

Garth looked over at Hammen with surprise and the old man shrugged his hunched-over shoulders as if embarrassed to have been caught saying such a thing.

The Benalish woman turned as if to leave.

“A drink on what we won on you?” Garth asked.

She turned, looked at him, and then smiled.

“On me. I appreciate your help, even thought I really didn’t need it. I knew he was moving behind me.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe someplace else,” Hammen interjected, looking down at the downed fighter and his companion, both of whom were starting to stir.

The three set off, Hammen hawking and then placing a well-aimed shot on the Brown fighter. The mob now fell upon the two who, when they finally woke up, if they were lucky, would simply find themselves stripped naked, their precious spells for sale on the black market.

Hammen led the way down a narrow street, the shops lining the way shuttered up tight for the night. From overhead windows could be heard laughing, arguing, lovemaking, and all the other sounds that filled the city, while from underfoot wafted up the smells, most of which were less than pleasant. Hammen trudged through the muck and chuckled when the woman fought to suppress a gag.

“Some place for Festival,” the Benalish woman sniffed.

“All cities are sewers which trap the worst,” Hammen replied as if disgusted as well.

Garth looked down at him and said nothing. The old man looked up at him as if lost in depressing and disturbing thoughts.

“What is it?” Garth asked.

“Nothing, One-eye, nothing at all,” Hammen said quietly.

Garth looked over at the Benalian and found that, in spite of himself, he rather liked the woman. She was a tough fighter, to be sure, yet there seemed, as well, a touch of near-childlike innocence to her in regard to the ways of the world. He sensed that she had fought the oquorak out of a true need for money and had actually expected the Brown fighter to behave honorably. Though she tried to conceal it ‘neath her leather armor, she moved with a soft feminine grace that somehow seemed out of place.

Hammen led the way through the warren of streets, finally stopping at a small tavern, and, leading the way, he ducked in through the low door. The tavern master looked at the three suspiciously.

“I’m closing.”

You mean you don’t serve strangers here,” Hammen replied, looking around the crowded room, which had fallen silent.

A number of the patrons were gathered around a table, watching as two of their compatriots played a card game which represented the fighting of magic users, the onlookers ignoring the new arrivals, so intent were they on the duel being fought out with the cards.

The tavern master pushed his way past the crowd watching the game and walked up to Hammen. He looked at him closely and then threw his head back, laughing.

“Hammen, have you gone mad? I’d sooner expect to see you dressed as a whore than as a fighter’s servant, and damn me if, come to think of it, the two aren’t the same.”

“Then your mother would make an excellent servant, and so would your wife and daughters,” Hammen snapped back, and the tavern master laughed even louder, pointing to an empty table in the corner of the room.

Hammen led the way to the table and the three sat down, the master coming up with a heavy earthenware pitcher and three mugs clasped in one hand and a red-hot poker in the other. He slammed the mugs down and then plunged the poker into the pitcher, the scent of boiling rum wafting up.

“Hot buttered rum, the best in the city,” Hammen announced with a sigh as the woman reached into her satchel and pulled out three coppers and placed them on the table. The tavern master looked down at them, disappointed, and then back at the woman.

“Three coppers for a pitcher is the going rate where I come from,” she said quietly.

“Well, not here.”

“Yes it is,” Hammen replied, waving the master away.

“I hate cities,” she said quietly, pouring a full mug for herself and draining off half of it.

“Then why are you here?” Garth asked.

She looked over at him.

“I can see you’re part of a House.”

“For the moment.”

She sniffed disdainfully.

“Hanin are not welcome in the Grand Master’s city,” Hammen replied, “and especially during Festival. The four Houses make sure of that as well.”

“Well, you won’t see a Benalian serving a color; we’re our own.”

“So why are you here then?” Garth asked, and then he paused, looking at her.

“Norreen, that’s good enough for here.”

“Norreen, then, so why are you here?”

“I was a shield carrier to my lord,”-she paused-“but he’s dead.”

“So you failed to protect your lord and now you’re unemployed,” Hammen interjected.

“Something like that,” she said quietly.

“So go home then,” Garth said.

“She can’t,” Hammen said. “It’s a question of honor. The Benalia caste system is strange beyond imagining. At the start of every new lunar year the highest caste of the year before becomes the lowest and the next highest moves up and so on down. The only one who can break the caste cycle is a hero, a rank awarded to warriors who are shield carriers to a lord or win great honors and renown. I’m willing to bet her caste ranking is going to be the lowest and she wants nothing to do with it. Since she is not a hero, she would be a servant, which isn’t to her liking.”

Hammen looked over at her and she said nothing.

“Let me finish my conjecturing. There’s a man in here someplace, there always is, most likely a loathsome fat toad. Women of the lowest caste cannot refuse the demands to mate from one of the highest class; this toad wants you, and I half suspect that you’re a virgin and want to save your honor, plus you don’t like warts.”

She looked at him coldly but her face reddened slightly and Hammen snickered.

“Madness,” Hammen said. “I never could understand you Benalians.”

The Benalish woman stiffened.

“No worse than this damned Festival.”

“Ah, there’s at least logic there. The Houses get to test each other to see which has the best and thus gain prestige and contracts for the forthcoming year. Merchants and princes can evaluate fighters they might wish to hire, the mob is entertained, and the winner gets to go with the Walker, bringing prestige to his House. It’s all so amusing.” And he shook his head.

“And the Grand Master makes all the money,” she replied coldly.

“So why do you care?” Garth asked.

“I don’t.”

“But you are looking for employment here since all the great princes will be arriving for Festival.”

“Would you tell your servant to shut up,” she snapped angrily.

“Hammen, shut up.”

“Oh, please don’t beat me, Master,” Hammen whined sarcastically, before emitting a long belch. He looked over at the woman and grinned lasciviously.

“I think my master here is rather taken with you. If you’re in agreement, we can take care of this virginity problem. I have a cousin who owns a rather nice place to lodge the night. I’ve heard Benalish women are rather exciting. All I ask is that I get to watch through a peephole. My cousin rents them out to old men like me.”

She pulled her dagger out and slammed it into the table, a clear signal of challenge.

Hammen held his hands up with mock terror.

“I am not a fighter of magic or a warrior, so don’t soil your blade, good lady.” And he laughed again.

Garth looked over at Hammen and flicked his own blade out of its sheath as well.

Norreen finished the rest of her drink and slammed the mug down with such force that it shattered.

“I wouldn’t sleep anyhow with a One-eye, especially one with a servant who makes me want to vomit from the stink of his breath.”

She stood up and stormed out of the tavern. Garth looked over coldly at Hammen.

“Thanks for your help.”

“Oh, no bother, Master. Just saving you a lot of trouble. Benalish women who are warriors are notorious for crushing men’s hearts. They make it a sport, especially if he’s a different caste. It’s one of their ways of gaining prestige. Besides, she’s a virgin and they are an eternal bother, always falling in love with the man who relieves them of that concern, following him around and whining about love. I figured it best to protect you from it.”

“I don’t need your damn protection.”

“Around here, Garth, you need my protection,” Hammen said quietly. “Benalians are usually more trouble than they’re worth, always picking fights, always trying to break out of their caste cycle, especially when they’re women and thrown to the bottom of the heap. Ones like her are half-crazy from it, and the half-crazy are the sane ones compared to the rest.

“Now if you’re interested, my cousin keeps a nice supply of exotic women in his lodging and for a small fee I can arrange some entertainment. With your money I bet we could even get two at once,” and, as he spoke, Hammen leered hopefully. “Certainly you won’t mind my renting a peephole while we’re there.”

“Let’s go back to the House,” Garth said coldly, and Hammen looked at him, crestfallen.

As he stepped out into the street Garth looked around, as if expecting to see someone, and then looked back at Hammen.

“Thanks a lot,” he snapped angrily.

“My pleasure to serve you, Master,” Hammen replied with a cackle, steering Garth away from the shadow of a woman who lingered on the other side of the street.

“I want a full check on him,” Zarel Ewine, Grand Master of the Arena, snarled.

Uriah Aswark, captain of the fighters of the Grand Master, bowed low in fear, for the Grand Master was known to lash out at whoever was nearby in moments of rage, and this was clearly a moment of rage since the august presence had been publicly humiliated.

“As you wish, sire,” Uriah whispered.

“Go to our usual contacts in the city and the Houses, pay the usual sums, but I want a full accounting of every silver spent”-he paused-“and you know what happened to your predecessor on that score.”

“I would never think of cheating you, sire.”

Zarel looked down at his captain with contempt.

“No, of course you wouldn’t. Because if you did, especially now, I think I’d throw you in with the others for the entertainment of the Walker. Now get out of here.”

Uriah started to back out of the room, his head still kept down in the proper show of obeisance, eyes averted from the Grand Master’s visage.

“Uriah.”

He froze in place.

“Yes, sire.”

“I am holding you personally responsible for this. I want him. I want to know who he is and what his game is. There is something there to him. I don’t know what; I tried to probe but he had enough power to block me. I couldn’t take him because he was a member of a House and is protected as long as he wears colors.”

Uriah looked up cautiously at the Grand Master, surprised at the admission that a mere hanin had sufficient power to block his power. His features looked somehow distant, as if lost in a memory that was somehow clouded and unable to be clearly pierced.

“Who is he?”

Uriah was startled to see the Grand Master looking directly at him, his features filled with doubt.

“I will find out, Master.”

“Do it. Arrange an expulsion so that he no longer has House protection and is mine. I don’t care how it’s done; I just want it done. And do it right, Uriah, for I really don’t think you would enjoy providing entertainment for the Walker when he arrives. I have to provide the usual fare for him and there’s always room for one more at the party. It’s either this one-eye or it’s you.”

Uriah withdrew from the room, not ashamed of the fact that the guards outside the door could see the trembling of his knees. The Walker was always hungry for the power that could be drained from souls and those who were the enemies of the Grand Master usually provided the feast… along with those who had simply failed.

Zarel watched the dwarf who was his commander of fighters withdraw from the room.

Why should this fighter trouble me? he wondered. Something was alerted by his mere presence and Zarel knew that such a sensing almost always had a truth behind it.

Had he met him before?

Zarel cast through his memory. Since the man was a fighter who controlled mana, his mere physical appearance was not an accurate gauge of his age. He could be around twenty-five as he looked, or he could be a hundred, maybe even older.

To remember all who might be enemies across a hundred years was nearly impossible. Was it from before, when Kuthuman was still the Grand Master? There were many enemies, to be sure, from that time, when the climb for power as assistant to the Grand Master had resulted in more than one body being found floating in the harbor.

He tried to focus his thoughts, searching. A one-eye. But for how long? He might have lost it last year or scores of years ago. A one-eye. He had helped to gouge out the eyes of many men and women, for as assistant to the Grand Master it was his task to be the administrant of justice. Eyes, hands, feet, and heads, that was his trade.

Or was it afterward? After the downfall of Oor-tael, Kuthuman had ascended to the power of a demigod, becoming a Walker, and left Zarel in charge of this realm as a reward for helping it to be possible. Thousands had died in the first days, the settling of old scores that were impossible to settle while Kuthuman still walked the world. Deaths as well to insure power and to wipe out disloyalty. Could the one-eye be from that time?

Zarel sat in silence, disturbed that the answer could not be found.

It would have to be found, he realized; it would have to be found before Festival.

“There’s been inquiries about you.”

Garth nodded.

“The Grand Master of the Arena, I assume.”

Tulan, Master of the House of Kestha, looked at him in surprise.

“My lord, isn’t it obvious? I humiliated him in public and you had the courage to back me up. I know there is no love lost between the Grand Master and the House Masters and he is looking for a means of retrieving his honor. I must assume you were offered a bribe to discharge me.”

Tulan stiffened slightly.

“House Masters do not accept bribes.”

“Of course not, sire,” Garth said calmly.

“To even imply such a motivation is a dishonor to me and to my House.”

“No dishonor was ever intended,” Garth replied smoothly. “I know that of course you would refuse since no House Master would ever want to be thought of as being in the pocket of Zarel.”

Tulan paused for a moment to drain his goblet of mead and then to wipe his greasy fingers on his tunic. The clutter of half a dozen plates before him was filled with the remnants of his breakfast.

“Though the questions posed by the captain of his fighters were, in fact, most curious.”

“Such as who am I?”

“Precisely,” Tulan rumbled, pausing for a moment to emit a long rumbling belch that gurgled and rattled.

“You came to me unknown, a hanin. I took you in because you displayed remarkable skills, not only before the doorstep of my very House but in regaining the prestige of my House in defeating that Orange brawler who bested my man. Then to top it off you all but tell the Grand Master to go to the demons. I would have lost honor and prestige in turn if I had not taken you in while you stood upon the gray flagstones before my House.”

Tulan paused and looked at him closely.

“On the one side I could call it innocent, the fact that you fought Fentesk the way you did, all over a minor point of honor, innocent as well that as a hanin you came to my House seeking employment and that the confrontation that ensued happened as it did.”

“But then again you could call it something else,” Garth replied calmly.

“Yes, damn you,” Tulan snapped. “I won everything out there yesterday. I bearded the Grand Master and Fentesk; I won an edge in the games. But I’ve also won the increased enmity of the Grand Master for harboring you. So was this innocent?”

“But of course, my lord.”

Tulan poured himself another drink and looked up coldly at Garth, while draining it off in a single gulp.

“Who are you?”

“I was a hanin, my lord, from the back country of Gish near the Endless Sea and the Green Lands.”

“Who was your yolin, your master trainer? What was his House, the origin of his mana, the contracts he held?”

“I had none, my lord. I learned on my own that I had the power to draw on the mana. I practiced my skills alone; I acquired my spells and amulets in the challenging of other hanin. When I found myself ready I came here to join a House. The fight I picked with Orange was simply convenient to demonstrate my skills and also a touch of revenge for that past humiliation regarding the Orange Master’s wife and daughters.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Tulan roared.

Garth bowed low.

“The penalty of lying to my Master is expulsion,” Garth replied smoothly. “And, given the current state of affairs, I would be a fool to lie since I suspect the agents of the Grand Master are even now waiting for me. And I daresay that if I walked out of this House without colors, they would be upon me and you would win a handsome sum in payment.”

“How dare you even imply that I would accept such money?” Tulan snarled.

“Come, my lord. You can present such a front to initiates of the first-rank, who are all agoggle at such trivial idealisms. Anyone who is an idealist in this world is either a madman or an idiot. You have your needs and I have mine. They happen to coincide and you are the winner as a result. You have managed to humiliate someone you hate, your House gained prestige yesterday, and I think I shall earn you a win in the Festival.”

Tulan paused, looked at Garth, and there was a momentary flickering of power-a probing.

“What do you have in your satchel?” Tulan asked quietly. “What artifacts, amulets, and spells do you control?”

Garth laughed softly.

“According to the law not even a House Master, not even a Grand Master, may ask that of a fighter.”

He paused.

“There is only one way to find that out,” Garth finally said, “but might I add that a House Master or, for that matter, any member of a House challenging another of the same color to a fight goes against all custom and tradition.”

Tulan refilled his cup and looked into it sulkily.

“And if you should do so and kill me,” Garth continued, “the other House Masters will think that you caved in to the demands of the Grand Master.”

“So you have me,” Tulan snarled.

“Rather the other way around,” Garth replied smoothly. “Remember, I am now of your House. I am an unknown factor for the Festival. You should win handsomely on the betting and on my commissions from the purse. I think, my lord, that the potential winnings far exceed whatever bribes that tightfisted bastard of a Grand Master is willing to pay for my betrayal.”

Tulan downed his cup and belched again, this time more softly.

“You give me a headache, One-eye. Either you are a master conniver or an innocent fool.”

“Whatever you wish it to be, sire, but you will profit as you deserve.”

Tulan finally nodded.

“Get out.”

Garth bowed low and started for the door.

“If you should decide to go outside, I’d suggest you watch your back.”

“I always do, sire.”