Lion's Heart, page 31
part #1 of Chevenga Series
Then I thought, one can be made to work, with the stick or the lash; but who will put Chirel in my hand, and try whipping me? No one can force another to fight.
Daisas led me through a door into a tall bare room with a gallery, from which three ancient Arkan men peered at me. On all three noses perched two discs of glass attached by wire, this to magnify the world for their failing eyes. I had never seen spectacles before. Daisas addressed them with a marketplace smile, no doubt boasting my virtues, while his apprentice attached one of my leg-cuffs to the chain—iron, no less—fixed to a ring in the floor, and unslung Chirel from my shoulder. Two men with the manner of horse-grooms unbound my arms, leaping back as from a stallion; then one took up two wooden swords, threw me one and came to me in stance with the other. This was the slave-block for gladiators; the goods must be properly tried, to settle a price. That was why Daisas had loosed the collar; the more awake I was, the better account I'd give of myself, and the more I'd be worth.
My arms were stiff as bones, which the man seemed to expect. I shook them out and flexed them, then threw the wooden sword into the dust, and said to the elders in Enchian, "I will not fight, for a crowd." The tester didn't seem too fazed by this; clearly I wasn't the first who had refused. He mimed a thrust through my heart, which I let him do; then fetched me a few blows on the ribs, hard enough to hurt, in the hope of angering me. I stood still; I'd had worse in training. The old men exchanged owlish glances. They looked noble fools, awarded this sinecure for favor, or incompetence in useful work.
He tossed me the wood again; as he came in poking, I threw it down again. Daisas caught up his hawker's patter, oversmooth; under his pasted-on smile was a scowl. At every refusal, my price dropped. Then suddenly he went silent, as if noticing some luminary had entered the room. I heard a jingling and a giggle, the kind a child makes pulling legs off spiders.
A plump boy of ten or so stood in the gallery. Not that one should slight him, with such a plain word as "boy." One could barely see his clothes for jewelry. Chains, pearls, tiny figurines, gemstones of all hues and gold mail shimmering at every fidget, coated him from head to foot. Astalaz in audience would wear perhaps a quarter as much.
There was a strained silence, as he went from elder to elder, patting their heads, tweaking their shoulders with, to my surprise, bare hands, while they bowed with an obsequiousness that seemed desperate. Everyone else had gone to their knees, hissing something at me. It was a certain pleasure, to find myself standing over all these Arkans, so I pretended not to understand. I'd heard Kurkas had a young son, the heir in fact; it seemed we were now graced with his presence.
He plonked himself down with his little gold-clasped feet dangling over the edge of the gallery, his eyes fixed on me, intrigued, I think, that I didn't kneel; if one goes through life with everyone bowing and scraping, I imagine, someone who doesn't is novel. His features were plain enough, with a spoiled look, no surprise. As I stood trying to think how long my parents would have combed me for behavior a tenth as rude, he said in Enchian, "What is your name, barbarian?"
"My name I shall not tell one who calls me barbarian," I answered. I'd thought of this on the way, and decided to be a little difficult, then give an alias. In the corners of my eyes, the Arkans all seemed to cringe without moving. It struck me I might be acting recklessly; yet if I seemed to have nothing to lose, they'd think I did.
"Well!" he huffed, but without real anger; truly I was nothing more than a novelty for him. I saw he liked me for it. "It doesn't matter if you don't have one. I want to see you fight."
"As I have told these gentlemen," I said, "I will not, for you or anyone else to watch." The handlers were already moving when the boy said, "Make him!"
They tried harder this time, even hitting me between the legs once, just hard enough to bring agony without disabling. I did nothing but keep the blows off my head with my hands. Finally Daisas, fuming, came stamping and thrust the sword at me, shouting, "Fight, you fikken dirt-hair, you're a shennen warrior, anyone can see it, damn well fight!" I'd fought him plenty while he was making me eat dust on the journey. But he seemed to have forgotten I had something against him, unlike these others, and my hands were free. I grabbed him by the collar. He froze like a rabbit, his gaze trapped in mine. I held him just long enough to let it sink into his mind that he was dead, then hand-heeled him, the strike that drives the nasal bone up into the brain.
A pointless act, I suppose; but my heart wanted it, and I saw nothing to lose. The handlers yelled back and forth, wondering what to do, thinking to rescue him; I stood back from his corpse to let them take it. Meanwhile Kurkas's son was cheering, his wrapping of jewels flashing with his motion. "Bravo! Well done! Beautiful! Silence!" It came immediately.
"I hereby decree that this gladiator shall have a name," he announced, in both Arkan and Enchian; like me at that age he must have heard too much formal bureaucratic speech. "And therefore by these presents since he came alone and is so fast his name shall be Karas Raikas; and furthermore I declare my glorious self to be his first fan." With that he threw me something that flashed gold; catching it I saw it was a ring, that might barely fit on the tip of my fourth finger if I pushed hard. Then he skipped out.
So it was, the Mezem got me at a bargain. I found out later that Daisas had an heir, but he was underage and could do nothing, though by that one blow I had shown myself to be worth a small fortune. The testers, now knowing themselves lucky, stood out of my reach, and one said in bad Enchian, "Look, Yeoli, we're going to have to get the blow-darts with the stun stuff in them, and it can leave an awful headache when you wake up, so don't you think it would be less complicated if you just came peacefully?" They wouldn't come close until I lay facedown on the floor and clasped my hands behind my back.
Once they had me chained they took me further along the colonnade to an anteroom. They paused to talk to people nearby, so I got slightly ahead of them; then the air before me was a solid wall, shattering around my knee and head. I had never seen or conceived a door of clear plate glass before.
Someone laughed; someone else said "fikket." I felt a warm trickle on my head and back, then pain. Gloved hands held cloths to me. Then what I saw to my sides seemed to throw me into a dream, being impossible: I was one of a spear-straight rank, fading off into a dark green haze, of Fourth Chevengas, hair hacked, faces stunned and streaked with blood. The anteroom of the Gladiator's Quarters has on its walls what are known as the Legion Mirrors, reflecting each other and whatever is caught between them, infinitely. It is a constant amusement of the guards posted there, to see the mirrors' effect on hapless foreign primitives brought through. I didn't disappoint them. Suddenly the weight of the place fell on me as heavy as stone; the air went half-dark and the room with its smoky gold-leaf moulding and pillars and ranks of my staggering selves began to spin.
Hands steadied me, drew me into a room with a padded table and shelves of healers' things. When I lay down my eyes cleared. The man who came was a middle-aged Arkan with fessas length hair, the blond shot with grey and thin on top, the blue-grey eyes round and careworn. His hands were thick, but so tender, and his apology for taking off his gloves so caring, that I suddenly found myself near tears. I had all but forgotten touch that was not cruel.
He had me unchained, despite the protests of the handlers, and while he stitched the worst of my cuts, had two of his apprentices wash me from head to foot. It was odd to be worked over with such concern by a boy with his hair cropped and waxed to stand up like cat ears. But the style of the Mezem is all extremes. Nor did I care while I felt Daisas's touch cleaned off me.
The healer examined me all over, being as careful not to hurt me as if I were someone of import, and knowing without words where a new slave in Arko is injured. He was even civil enough to tell me his name, speaking in soft Enchian: Iskanzas Muras.
The room he led me to had bars on its windows. "You're counted a troublemaker, lad, because you killed your slaver," he told me. "But you'll be out of here once we've talked, and the bed's good. Lie down and rest, now. What's your name?"
"Karas Raikas," I answered. An alias forced on me, there was no reason not to use. He gave me a look as if he'd bit into a sour apple, and raised his brows in questioning. Denied their hands, Arkans are very expressive with their faces. "When I was tested," I said, "a child who I think must be Kurkas's son gave it to me. "
"Ah, Minis," he said, when I described the boy. "Yes, you're right, he's the son of the Imperator, He Whose Arm is the Strength of the World. That's the proper style, you never call him by name, better learn that right away. With the boy, abase yourself, or don't let him notice you, and you'll generally come out all right." I told him what had passed, showing him the ring, and he looked worried; but clearly there was nothing he could do.
Next he explained the rules. They set one free after fifty victories; that he told me first. When I asked him how many made it, though, he went evasive. Fight days were once every eight days, five fights a day, always to the death, the matches made by lot. As for those who refused to fight, they were dealt with simply: tortured to death. At best, he told me gently, it takes three days.
Nor would it be immediately, but only when the next moral objector, as they called them, came, so my death could be shown him; it seemed some wretch already lay in chains waiting for me to witness his, unless one of us changed our minds. And though gladiators have the run of the city, he said, there was no way out; he explained how well the lefaeti and the Gate were guarded, and how smooth the walls were. Arkans don't call them cliffs, but walls, as if they built them. They have a habit of thinking they made the world; or at least they did then.
I took a risk. "Iska,"—I'd gathered he was called that— "have you heard any talk of war, between Arko and Yeola-e?"
After giving me a look of "why should you ask?" as if it weren't every Yeoli's business, he said, "Well, not until recently. I guess you'd know, your king, Fourth I forget his name, was coming on a state visit, worried about it, I guess. But they were attacked by rebels, and he got killed. Apparently he had a very good name as a warrior and a commander; now that he's out of the way, He Whose Arm is the Strength of the World is looking more closely. So goes the talk, anyway; and there's lots of tales in the Pages of Yeoh barbarities and so forth, always a good sign. Which might make you consider that your country needs one like you alive—Raikas, are you all right? What is it, dizziness, pain?"
I ceased seeing and hearing him, or the world. It was a sensation not unlike being struck almost to unconsciousness, the mind deadened, the senses faded to a sick twilight. I misread the prophecy, I was thinking. It meant war would come if I went.
My heart beating in my chest seemed an abomination, a cancer to be cut out; somewhere my hands could find, there must be a knife. Then I remembered, death had just been offered me, one whose pain might at least begin to touch what I deserved. I remember the sense of freedom in saying it, broken though my voice came. "I won't fight. I refuse."
He brought in someone else, a middle-aged Ungilian made all of whipcord with a wreath of gold chains around his neck, and eyes that looked as if they'd seen every war in the world and enjoyed half of them. Koree, he was, the fighters' Teacher. He had won fifty fights, which was why the chains, one per victory.
We argued. I can hardly remember: only that he held that it was no different than war, since I would be fighting for my own life, hence my kin, and my country; not the thing to say to me then. It all seemed far away and trivial. The motion I remember, as he had me bound and took me downstairs.
It is clever, the Mezem's compulsion, playing first on what is often in an objector's heart, his mercy for others. They bound me to a chair next to where the previous one, a Srian whose name was Sakilro, lay shackled—being a Srian he was almost too long for the table—and while the torturer readied his things, Koree said, "If either of you says he will fight, this will stop."
From his screamed words in bad Enchian, I learned only that Sakilro had recently sworn some high oath against bloodshed, and was certain of a worse fate after death if he broke it, something by my upbringing I should consider outlandish, which one might call fanaticism or atavism, as Koree did. But it was his will. On the first touch of the iron, seeing him flinch in his chains, I cried out, "No, wait!" It was my own death I wanted. Koree ordered a halt, and said, "Will you fight?" I sat trembling, thinking; if I said yes, Sakilro would be kept for the next objector; in the meantime he might change his mind, in which case I'd saved him, as Koree made sure to play on. But who knew how many others before me had watched him suffer this much, and broken, prolonging his end? I saw: only he could choose which way was right. "Sakilro," I cried, hoping at least I'd pronounced his name decently, "what would you have me do?" I thought they might try to stop him from answering, but they did not, thinking perhaps his pain might make him answer what they wished. His dark lips curled back from his teeth, and he cried, "Refuse!"
So I did, to the end. It took three days. In the times he seemed to lose resolve, I would cry "Never!", and lend him mine; I knew he'd only be heartbroken when he came to himself afterwards if he gave in. Let him die, I was thinking, with one person near who understands. I knew nothing of him or Srians, and could not even touch his hand; but he was my only friend in the world for four days, and I his; better to die than fail him. Some believe whatever a person holds the afterlife to be, it will be for him; never have I hoped more that this were true. I only saw his ebon-black face as it should look, smooth and unriven with pain, when he was dead.
The night of the day Sakilro died, I sent Iska's apprentice out of my cell, knelt on the bed and meditated. In calm, I saw I'd chosen too quickly; it was emotion making me think I'd misread Jinai's prophecy, not reason; there was no clear proof. My people might need me yet; I could not know. So I must stay alive. I would look for ways out, I decided, and fight if I found none.
So I told them I would. Iska asked no questions, but brought in a youth of fifteen years or so, with the kind of fine smooth face prized in Arko; I'd seen it on statues and mosaics on the way here. His lips were darkened with paint, his eye-lids shaded faint purple-blue; the edges of the two sweeping wings of his white-blond forelocks were black as my own, dyed. He was dressed better than the healer, all in black satin, the earrings and bracelets gold. On first glance he seemed to hate me, as if I had done him some injury; I wondered if he had known Sakilro, and thought me his murderer. Iska introduced him to me as my boy, meaning valet, companion, guide in the city, paramedic and only friend all at once; my servant even though I was a slave. His name was Skorsas Trinisas.
He took me from the cell into a room in the fighters' corridor proper. I saw them as we passed the lounge: men of all races, in all manner of circus dress, green hair, nose rings, painted eyes, satin robes in every brilliant color. All wore their victory-chains showing; those with the most, I noticed, also had jewelry, mostly metal, of course. It seemed these slaves could own property. They were mostly taller than me, and larger-muscled; clearly the Mezem usually picked for that. I felt myself stripped naked again, as they all measured me; but this was for good reason, so I forgave it.
Suddenly Jinai Oru's voice came to me, from a blank-walled chamber in Tenningao, five years ago. "A death-duel against a man with black skin and blue hair, with a yelling crowd all around you, whose edge goes up to the sky." In the light of foreknowledge, I thought, all considerations, plans, worries, choices, are dust-specks in a sunbeam. This was already my destiny, then.
The room had a plain bed, a night-cabinet, an empty wardrobe and little else. The walls, which were of stone, were scrawled all over with scratch-marks. Looking closer I saw each was a name or a sigil, and a tally; the gladiators' records, of how long they had lasted. Up high was a very long line of marks, framed, some great one's. This must be all they leave, I thought.
All morning I spent learning Arkan from Skorsas. The greenhands, as new fighters are called, exercised in the afternoon, after the midday meal. Once I'd consented, I could eat with the others, and found that gladiators are fed well, and get as much as they want. Of course Lakans fatten cattle, too, before sacrificing them. It would be two weeks training at least before my first fight; that would be against one of the other greenhands, and in the training-ground instead of the Ring; only then does one enter the stable proper, as it is called.
So in the frescoed ground were about twenty of us, all eyeing each other wondering which one we'd have to kill. Koree ran us through exercises to tear out one's heart, then sword-work with wooden swords. Then he had us all get our true steel—since no weapons are allowed in the Gladiators' Quarters, they are held in a room known as the Weapons Trust—and came out brandishing his own. I should have known, he would call me out first.
As Sakilro had been killed, it was Koree I had thrown all my rage at, not caring what could be taken as insult. It had got under his skin, for he'd had me gagged, and railed at me in his bad Enchian that he did not choose this but was required by law, he only did this work in the hope of getting others through alive as he had been lucky enough to do, and did I think he enjoyed it? In my times of sense I had believed him, and understood; as Sakilro held to his truth, so did he.
I'd never told him that, though; he knew only my bile. Now as we faced each other, unsheathing swords, I wondered whether he meant to humiliate or hurt me, valuable a chattel as I might be. He didn't look easy to beat; though he couldn't be less than forty-five, he was spry as a youth, had skill like an old Teacher's, and being here would know tricks I couldn't conceive. There was no ritual to show we were on our honor; he just said, "Right, boy, come on."
