Slave of Sarma

Chapter Twelve

They did not let Blade see his opponent. Blade, under heavy guard, was taken to catacombs beneath a huge square stadium built of the ubiquitous white stone. He was lodged in a narrow cell, unchained. The surrounding stench was overpowering, a mingle of urine and excrement and unwashed flesh. A burble of cries, screams, weeping and laughing and cursing, washed through the subterranean chambers like a miasmic surf. He was alert for a sight of Pelops but saw none. This turned Blade gloomy, for he thought that the little man's chances were not even as good as his own.

He was well fed and before the cell could befoul his new clothes, or his temper more than it was already, they came to see him. Equebus and Kreed. The Captain and the High Priest. Their heads close together and whispering like the conspirators that Blade now judged them to be. Why they conspired, this unlikely pair, he could not guess. He did not care. He had to kill a man and keep himself alive. In total darkness.

Equebus explained with pleasure, staring down his hooked nose at Blade. Kreed, behind the Captain, nodded from time to time and dry-washed his hands.

"Since you are obviously a man and a warrior," said Equebus with a sneer, "and no slave, you will not want to take unfair advantage of a blind man. You will fight this Tarsu in a dark room. You will be as blind as he, then, and it will be a fair fight."

Blade scratched his beard - it itched a little - and glowered at the Captain. "Weapons?"

Equebus leered down at Blade's big hands. He pointed. "Those alone for you. Tarsu will have a sword - he is much the smaller man. You object to this?"

, "He cannot object," Kreed cackled. "The Queen has ordered it. She is smitten with Blade, I think, but she will not weaken in this. He must earn the right to replace Tarsu."

Equebus regarded the big prisoner. The Captain tugged at his beard, now combed and pomaded into a point. There was, Blade sensed, something ambivalent about Equebus today. He was both pleased and displeased. At times he smiled like a wolf, at other times his hatchet face darkened as he looked at Blade.

He said: "You have done better than I expected, Blade. Oh, you have lost Zeena, who is sent to punishment, but it may be that you have gained the mother instead."

Blade taunted him a bit. "You have also lost Zeena, Captain. If she is in a prison galley, she is as far from you as she is from me. At least I have known her. You never will!"

The goad did not work. Equebus glanced at Kreed. Both laughed. Equebus said, "You are right, Blade. Much good it will do you. There is much in Sarma that you do not understand - and never will. Now enough of talk. You go to fight. Allow me to wish you the worst of fortune."

The Captain bowed to Blade with a mocking leer, then snapped an order to the guards. Blade was dragged from the cell and escorted to the center of the vast stadium. Rows of empty whitestone seats towered on every hand. It would, he calculated rapidly, seat a hundred thousand or more.

The floor of the vast square arena was strewn thickly with sand. In the very center was a heavy trap door with an iron ring set into it. Blade watched as slaves, under direction of the guards, tugged the trap door away to disclose a black hole with steps leading down. Equebus, sword in hand now, gestured with it at the stair. "Down you go, Blade. Just as you are. Tarsu is waiting."

Blade hesitated. "My eyes will take time to adjust to the darkness. Tarsu, being blind, has no such problem. You spoke of fairness - "

The Captain made an impatient gesture. "That has been thought of. The Queen is very concerned that it be a fair fight - " his lip curled in a secret smile, "and fair it shall be. Chephron here will see to it. Goodbye, Blade."

Equebus smiled pure venom. Kreed, lingering in the background, chuckled and wrung his hands in glee. Blade spat into the sand at the Captain's feet.

The slave named Chephron was a hideous hunchback clad only in a long leather kirtle. He wore an iron collar and his pocked face was badly malformed. He was bald and his legs were twisted and spindly and covered with open sores. Blade looked at him with distaste. The man had executioner, torturer, written all over him. Most obscene of all was the voice, a high shrill bleat.

He touched Blade's arm. The filthy crooked fingers were cold as death on the big man's smooth warm flesh.

"Come, master," said Chephron. "I will see to everything. I will instruct you, master, never fear. But come. Hurry. Tarsu already awaits you."

Blade followed the grotesque form down the stair. Down and down as the murk grew deeper. Somewhere below them a torch gleamed yellow. Still they kept going down.

The guttering torch revealed a small narrow room. Three walls of stone, the fourth of wood. Chephron, smirking and bowing, muttering all the time, rapped on the wooden wall. "Tarsu? You are ready?"

A voice came back deep and gruff. "I am ready."

"Your hand is on the wall so you will know when it is lifted?"

"It is. Have done with chatter and begin. My sword is thirsty."

The executioner turned to Blade, grimacing horribly. He pointed to the wooden wall, then to the single torch in the ring bolt. "You understand, my master? Simple - quite sun-pie. I will take the only torch with me. When I am out and the trap door is closed you will be in darkness." His bleating laugh was shrill and high. "As dark as Tor's bowels! Not a single ray comes down."

Blade nodded at the wooden wall. "That rises, then?"

"Ah, yes, master. It rises. On the far side there is another room such as this. You will be alone with Tarsu, master. In the dark. As Tarsu has always been in the dark. Heh-heh - I do not envy you, master, and I do not think I will see you again."

There came an impatient rapping from the far side of the wooden wall.

Chephron extended fingers to Blade in a twiddling motion. "It is the custom, master, to give something."

Blade's skin was crawling. This creature was like a slimy thing that had lived in darkness forever.

"I have nothing," Blade said harshly. "But this!" He moved the executioner toward the stairs with a sound kick. "Get out!"

Chephron rubbed his behind and drooled. Slaver ran from the corners of his toothless mouth. "I thank you, master. It will be a great pleasure to drag your body away."

"Out!"

Chephron scuttled up the steep stairs with the torch. He vanished around a bend and Blade was in near total darkness. He waited and listened. He ran to the end of the room and threw himself flat, belly down, on the floor. He rested his fingertips lightly against the wooden wall. From far overhead came a sullen clang of stone on stone as the heavy trap door was dropped into place.

Blade was in darkness. The wall began to rise.