“Make the bird be quiet,” one of the gamblers said. “She’ll wake the lads.”
Preet was screeching from inside the tent. Arram stepped in and pointed at the flap he still held open. “Preet, bad girl!” he scolded. “Out!”
A pair of hands seized him and yanked him aside. A rough, callused hand clapped over his mouth; a muscled arm gripped him by the throat. Preet fled through the smoke hole in the canvas roof. Ozorne, shocked out of his grip on his spell, flickered into view. He was grabbed by a man who had been positioned behind the tent flap.
Arram clawed at the hand that blocked his mouth and nostrils. Suddenly remembering something Varice had told him, he stamped down hard on his captor’s foot. The man behind him grunted; the hand over his mouth loosened. Arram grabbed the arm around his throat and pulled it back enough that he could catch his breath. Without air, he couldn’t remember any spells. He shifted his hand and drove his thumbnail as deeply into the tender flesh next to the big wrist tendon as he could.
A dart of pain shot through his temple. A trickle of warmth rolled down his cheek—he knew it was blood.
“Next time I’ll use more of my blade,” his captor said. “And I recognize your friend. I can hurt him awful bad without killing him. You ease off or I’ll tell my friend where to start.”
Arram looked at Ozorne. His captor had gotten him by the hair and yanked his head back. With his free hand he had a dagger point at Ozorne’s ear. One movement and Ozorne would lose his hearing on that side, if he was lucky. Ozorne’s eyes were wild with rage, but he dared not move.
Arram’s captor said to Ozorne, “I’ve no such qualms about this piece of dog mutton. I’ll start with one of his eyes if you so much as say ‘ouch.’ ”
Arram knew that voice. He’d heard it before the games, talking with Chioké. Arram glanced to his side. Kottrun, that was his name, held a short sword to his temple.
“Unless you want your face sliced away a bit at a time, put your hands behind your back,” Kottrun ordered. “The slightest wrong move from either of you, and my friends will start killing the sick.”
Arram looked around. Three more gladiators stood inside the tent, the forbidden short swords in their hands. Each was within striking distance of one of the recovering gladiators on the cots, all five of whom had been gagged, then bound hand and foot with rope. Someone had put a sleep spell on them—they were taking no chances. Was it Daleric’s attendant? There was no sign of him.
Kottrun swiftly bound Arram’s hands behind him. “Turn around, boy,” he ordered, slapping the back of Arram’s head.
Arram did as he was told, eyeing the patients. “I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said mildly, still trying to think of a spell that might work. “We don’t keep medicines here.” It was a lie, and a weak one. If this man had been after drugs before, he’d search for them now. And he could always use Ozorne to get some brought to him, though he’d never escape afterward.
“Dolt, I was never after medicines,” Kottrun said, to Arram’s disappointment. “And now I can get anything I want. I don’t even need you, not with the princess’s only boy in my fist.” He pointed to the man who had finished binding and gagging Ozorne. “Yemro, fetch the university mage. Tell him his student had an accident. Leave your sword.”
The man ran to do as he was bidden.
“And as for you,” Kottrun told Arram, jabbing him in the chest with his sword, “one word, one bit of pretty light, and I start trimming bits off each of you, understand?”
“You won’t get Ramasu’s cooperation if I’m dead,” Arram said.
Arram didn’t see Kottrun strike. He only felt the blow against the side of his head that knocked him down. His ears rang. He lay still for a moment, battling a rush of fury as well as pain. Ozorne was bellowing behind his cloth gag.
“Quiet, prince,” Kottrun told Ozorne, “or I’ll give him something like this.” Kottrun kicked Arram in the belly. “I don’t need him now.” He pointed his weapon at Ozorne. “Keep trying my patience and he’ll get everything I’ve taken in the arena!”
Arram tried to curl up, yanking the ropes around his wrists. The pain in his stomach overshadowed the raw fiber digging into his skin. His Gift surged like wildfire, fighting the control he kept on it, threatening to flare and incinerate Kottrun. If he’d believed the gladiator would be the only victim, Arram wouldn’t have struggled. He just couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t burn the entire tent and everyone in it. Slowly he breathed in through his nose and released the breath, fighting tears of pain and rage. Could he deal with this brute without speaking? Without allowing his Gift to show to non-mage eyes?
Kottrun walked over to Ozorne. The prince was trembling with fury, though no sounds came from behind the gag on his mouth.
“You’d be a splendid shield, but…no,” Kottrun murmured. “Too gaudy. Too visible. They’d never stop hunting if I took you. But Ramasu will move the gods and the dead to save you, oh, yes.” He nodded and grinned.
He beckoned to one of the others. The man came over and helped Kottrun to haul Arram to his feet. He returned to his hostage when he was certain Arram would stay upright.
“Now we understand one another,” Kottrun said. The smile he gave Arram was tight and mean. “Your master will get us a ship out of Carthak….”
Arram had stopped listening. There was a time when he worked magic without words but with gestures, standing in front of a class and a bowl of water. But he had thought about it, pulled on it, and had his concentration broken to flood his classroom. He was older and stronger now. If he tried to work the spells he could do silently and lost concentration, his classroom flood would be nothing in comparison.
“You are mistaken.” Ramasu walked into the tent with Preet on his shoulder and Daleric’s assistant at his side. Apparently they had fetched the mage before Kottrun’s messenger could reach him. “I would never do something so criminal. The university forbids us from helping slaves in any fashion.”
“Cat turds,” snapped Kottrun. “We have His Splendidness Prince Ozorne right here. You’ll help us.”
Arram felt his ears tingling. He felt magic seep into the room—magic other than the stuff he was drawing on. He glanced at Ozorne, who nodded—he felt it, too. Mages outside were working sleep spells. He began to tremble. If Kottrun suspected, he would give the order to start killing the patients.
In fact, Kottrun was telling Ramasu his plans. “The slightest itch of magic, and I will start cutting.” To Arram’s horror, he pointed to Ozorne. “I can do plenty of damage and still leave enough to be heir. I learned from experts.”
Ramasu shook his head. “It will be as much as your lives are worth.”
“And the lives of you and your precious assistant and everyone here. I’ll see to that, Master Mage. You don’t come from here. The emperor sweeps wide when he thinks folk should have saved one of his darlings and didn’t.” He looked at one of his yawning men. “What’s the matter with—” he demanded, and yawned. His eyes went wide with fury. He whirled and ran at Ozorne, his sword aimed at the prince’s belly.
Arram could only see the blade aimed at his best friend. He opened his entire mind to the water summons that had changed his life. His Gift plummeted, far stronger than it had been in the Lower Academy, to plunge into the water table that lay for miles under and around university and arena. It rose, thundering up in the wake of his power, letting him guide it straight to Kottrun.
The hard ground quivered. The gladiator lurched.
The cold fountain smashed through the earth, knocking Arram, Ozorne, Ramasu, and the standing gladiators down. It drove Kottrun into the air until he struck the tent’s ceiling. His sword dropped from his grip; he hit the ground with a thud. Preet immediately attacked his face with her claws, screeching. He lay there, unresisting.
Ramasu made a sign of undoing. Arram’s and Ozorne’s bonds fell away from their hands and mouths. Struggling to his feet, Arram dashed the water from his eyes and drew three fier
y signs in the air with his Gift. The column of water halted as abruptly as it had risen and returned to the ground. Dizzy and trembling, Arram drew two more signs to knit the earth back together as Ozorne scrambled for Kottrun’s sword. Rising to his knees, the prince leveled the blade at Kottrun’s throat.
As the man’s followers, glassy-eyed with sleep, blinked at their leader, Ramasu called out the most powerful sleep spell Arram had ever heard him use. The slowly rising spell cast by the mages outside leaped higher as Arram wrote the sigil on his palm that would keep him from falling victim to it. The attackers’ eyes rolled up in their heads, and the swords fell from their hands. Their bodies followed. Ozorne, too, was caught by the spell. He collapsed onto the ground.
Soldiers rushed in and began to put manacles on the rebels. Ramasu glanced at the prince, then sighed. Reaching out, he sketched a sign of invisibility over Arram’s friend. “Make sure he doesn’t get stepped on,” he told Arram quietly. “It’s better if we limit those who know he’s here.” Arram nodded and shifted position to sit directly in front of his invisible friend.
Ramasu and Daleric’s assistant checked the healing gladiators. The danger of the spell that had dropped their captors was that it was risky for men already in a healing sleep. When they were certain that all of their patients were unharmed, Ramasu turned to Arram to heal his still-bleeding cuts.
The captain of the camp’s guard arrived as two of his men dragged the manacled Kottrun to his feet. “Hag’s dice, what happened here?” he demanded. “Master Ramasu, Arram, are you hurt?”
“We are fine,” Ramasu said, helping Arram to stand. Arram swayed. Ramasu propped him up and told the captain, “More important, our patients are fine.”
“But what happened?” the captain demanded.
“Arram thought the sleep was happening too slowly to put the rebels down,” Ramasu explained. “So he opened a fountain in the ground and knocked the leader against the top of the tent.” He touched the ground with his foot. “It’s still a bit damp—we might want to put rugs down to keep the sick from getting chilled, and ask Daleric to put them in dry gowns.”
“Sorry, Master,” Arram mumbled.
“You were rushed,” Ramasu said kindly. “Though you might trust the arts of your elders more next time.” He flicked his fingers at Kottrun, who woke. A guard dragged him to his feet. “The captain—and I—would like to know what you were thinking,” Ramasu said mildly.
Kottrun replied with obscenities.
“They were going to force you to help them to escape, Master,” Arram said.
“Cackleheads,” the captain said with contempt. “Everyone knows we search the healers’ wagons when they go, in case someone tries to sneak out. A week of bread and water for this lot, and they get to play the Sirajit army in the next games.”
“Wait!” Kottrun yelled. “I—”
The guard who had seized him cuffed him into silence. Arram glanced at Ramasu. For a moment he thought he’d felt a spell leave the master and attach itself to Kottrun and his men, but he hadn’t seen it. He staggered in Ramasu’s hold, dizzy again and barely able to stand.
Daleric rushed in and braced Arram’s free side. “Arram, what’s this?” he asked with concern. “You were fine when we left.”
“Apparently Kottrun and his pack took Arram and the wounded as hostages,” the captain explained. “They must have run mad to think Master Ramasu could walk them out of here. Our mages put sleep on them, but before it took, the boy made a fountain that smacked Kottrun silly and then dropped him.”
“Kottrun hit me in the head, too,” Arram said cheerfully. His knees turned to water, and he sagged in the mages’ grips. “But I’m fine.”
Daleric raised his eyebrows. “No wonder you’re wrung out, then,” he told Arram. “Three days of serious healing, a clout on the head, and whatever you just did on top of it. Don’t tell me you’re fine.”
“I am,” Arram protested.
“Mm-hmm,” Daleric said dubiously. He motioned for a soldier to take charge of Arram. “Take him to the healers’ quarters and let him lie down for a bit, will you?”
—
When Arram woke, it was full dark outside the window. He was on his cot, tucked snugly under a light blanket. The touch of soft feathers against his ear told him that Preet was sleeping there.
Movement in the room made him flinch. Preet grumbled and went back to sleep as Ramasu pushed a folding shade aside. He had been reading behind it, using a globe of magic for light. He set his book down and produced a bowl and spoon from a small table.
“Ozorne?” Arram asked, worried.
“Smuggled out while he was still unconscious,” Ramasu told him. “You will have to convince him that he missed nothing spectacular.”
Arram sighed in relief. “Good.”
“Now, I must ask, did you have any part in his surprise visit to this camp?”
Arram sat bolt upright. “No, Master! I didn’t know anything until he crept up on me in the coliseum!”
Ramasu smiled. “Do you know, I believe you. It’s that startled fawn aspect you wear when you have been taken by surprise….I think I shall have to speak to Chioké about giving Ozorne more challenging work, to keep him out of trouble in the future.”
“He didn’t mean to get in trouble,” Arram protested.
“No, and it is the fault of his family for trying to restrict so high-spirited and clever a youth. It will be well, Arram. He is very lucky to have a friend like you.” Ramasu picked up a napkin and unfurled it. “Are you hungry?”
Arram’s stomach lurched, three-quarters with excitement and one-quarter with nausea. “A little,” he admitted.
Ramasu passed the bowl and spoon to him, saying, “Before you try that…” He shaped a glowing sign in the air. Arram’s stomach settled immediately. “Better?” Arram nodded. “Eat, before it gets any colder.”
He said nothing as Arram wolfed the mild soup, but continued to read from his book. When Arram put the bowl aside, Ramasu asked, “Have you any questions about this afternoon?”
Arram scratched his head. “How did they get the weapons? I thought they were counted and locked up after the games.”
“Apparently they bribed an animal seller to bring them in last year. They buried them under their barracks until yesterday,” the master replied. “And they arranged for an accident to happen to the seller the next time he came, with no one the wiser for why it happened.”
Arram yawned. “I’ll be glad to be home,” he admitted.
Ramasu gathered his bowl and spoon. “As will I. It is useful work here, but it is hard on the body and the spirit. You have done very well. I am proud of you.”
Arram smiled. He was asleep as soon as he put his head down.
—
They loaded their things into the wagon first thing the next morning. Only Musenda and Gueda came to see them off. Arram’s heart broke at the dark circles that surrounded Gueda’s eyes, and the slump to her shoulders. He reached out a hand to touch her, then stopped. She might not care for that. “How are you?” he asked instead, walking a little way aside with her.
She shrugged. “They want to give me another cat, but I won’t do it. I almost punched the captain of the arena when he asked me.”
Arram nodded. He’d feel the same if something happened to Preet and anyone offered him another bird the next day.
“But I mean to live,” Gueda said. Her eyes sparkled dangerously. “You’ll see. I’ll have vengeance for Tacuma.”
“But…you killed the gladiators who killed him,” Arram said faintly. She looked deadly.
“Oh, aye, that, but there’s those that scheduled us against them, and I mean to see if his feed was drugged. It’s been done before,” she said in response to Arram’s look of shock. “When an animal’s so good no one can beat ’im, no one bets against ’im. Gamblers don’t like to lose money at the games, so they make their arrangements. If that’s what happened, I’ll sniff it out, you’ll see. In the
meantime…” She bumped her fist gently against Arram’s cheekbone. “Hekaja bless you for putting me back together—twice! I wish I could do better than thank you—”
“Your thanks is more than enough for me,” Arram said. He smiled at her. “Gods go with you, Gueda.” He watched her as she trudged off.
Musenda turned away from Ramasu, who was already on the wagon’s seat. They’d been talking quietly. Now the gladiator took Arram’s hand. “I told Master Ramasu it’s fine with us if you return. Not once did you treat us like animals. That’s rare. Take care of yourself, Arram.”
“If you will do the same, Sarge,” Arram replied.
The gladiator grinned. “That’s what I’m best at.” He followed Gueda back into the heart of the gladiators’ compound.
“Arram,” Ramasu called.
Arram mounted the seat beside the master and nodded to the gate guards as they drove through. He turned to look back at the camp as the iron gates clanged shut. He shuddered. He had learned a great deal while he was there, it was true. In particular, he had found that he wasn’t certain he could stay in a country where slavery was practiced. He had always thought he would manage to avoid it somehow when he left the university, or that he would become used to it. Now he understood he could not avoid it. The university managed to live slave-free, but it was a lie. The shadow of slavery lay over it. The arena was only the very worst of this way of life. Lesser forms of brutality to men and women were everywhere. When people were bought and sold, it was just too easy for free people to treat them as things. He couldn’t face that. Sooner or later he would have to leave his friends and his teachers. He could not stay here.
—
Lindhall greeted him with a warm hug. Preet announced her happiness over their return with a cheerful set of whistles as she fluttered all over Arram’s stale room. The master opened the shutters to air the place out and went into the sitting room next door. He returned with wonderfully cold tea—Arram had struggled to learn the spell for a year without success—and a small bowl of cherries. “With Hulak’s compliments,” he said, placing the bowl on Arram’s table.