There was a silence, broken by Malik’s cutting laughter. “Look. The boy is nearly unmanned with fear at the thought that death might wait for him.”
“The morrow will bring what it brings,” Rushton said softly. He turned his eyes back to Bram. “If it is permitted, I would like to know something more of the Battlegames.”
Bram’s smile died, and for a moment, he looked like a weary old man. “Are you in such a hurry for war, lad? You were more handsome when you spoke of talking and learning.” He sighed weightily. “Malik asked the same question, and I told him what I now tell you. The Battlegames designed by my people are many, but the earth goddess will decide which of these may be played.” He drew himself up and summoned a formal and ceremonious air. “Once, among the tribes who were much sundered during the time that followed what you Landfolk call the holocaust, there were wars occasioning great bloodshed among our people, and harm was done to the earth. Then came one among us who heard the voice of the earth goddess. She commanded us to build the Earthtemple, that others might come there and learn to hear the voice of the land as well. And so it came to pass. Through her disciples, the earth goddess forbade war forever. But still there were disputes, great and small, which needed mediation. Hence were the Battlegames devised, both to decide issues and to expiate the violent urges that are the plague of humanity.
“Each of the games is designed to test some specific quality in a competitor—courage or wit or charm or honesty or fitness. In your case, the games will test fitness for battle. But the earth goddess alone knows which of the many games will be selected, for they will be chosen at random using a tool we call dice. Some games are short and others long, so there is no way of telling how many will take place at a single contest. The games commence at sunrise and end at sunset, for these are moments of power.”
“Are all ten of a team to play each game?” Rushton asked. I guessed he was thinking of Dameon.
Bram shook his head. “Not necessarily. The number of participants for each game will again be randomly selected by a further throw of the dice, but it is up to the two leaders to choose who will fill the places. For each Battlegame completed, there will be a spoken assessment, and then when the day ends, the winner shall be named.”
Bram reached for a piece of bread. This appeared to mark the end of the discussion. All along the trestles, men and women reached for goblets or turned to whisper to one another.
“There is just one thing more,” Rushton said.
“And that is?” Bram inquired through a mouthful of bread.
“I want you to understand that we intend to use all of our powers in these Battlegames, but outside this contest, we would never use those abilities on allies.”
Bram chewed and swallowed. “You should return to your camp now. Eat well and rest. You will be brought to the field of battle before dawn.”
Jakoby escorted us outside. “If you can, forget about the Battlegames tonight. Worrying and wondering about what will come will not avail you. Rest well.”
She turned and went back into the tent, leaving Rushton and me alone in the dark.
39
“WE’D BETTER GET back,” Rushton said. “The others will be waiting to hear what happened.”
I shivered, though it was not cold, and followed him back across the spit.
“I am … sorry,” I said at last, with stiff formality. “I did not know there would be danger. Jakoby didn’t tell me that when she offered the Battlegames.”
“You think she meant to deceive you?” He did not look at me when he spoke.
I shook my head. “I do not think it would have occurred to her that it would matter there was danger.”
“Then there is no blame to be laid.”
Rushton’s voice was remote, and I knew he was still angry with me. I had never felt further from him. I had the urge to say something that would restore even the old uneasy comradeship between us, but his silence daunted me.
We walked without speaking the rest of the way back to the camp.
Angina saw us approach as he stirred the cooking fire, and he alerted the others with a cry. In moments, they were clustered around us. In swift, unemotive words, Rushton told them what had happened.
“The Battlegames are more than a contest, then,” Miryum said dourly, but without fear. “Is it possible that one or more of us may die?”
“Possible,” Rushton said calmly. “But certainly not inevitable. We will know more when we know which games are to be played.”
“I do not like the sound of this Malik,” Hannay said.
“He is a hard, strong man,” Rushton said. “A bitter man and a tough fighter by all accounts. I do not relish the thought of being his opponent, but if we fare well tomorrow, that strength will be at our side when we fight the Council. Wars make for strange bedfellows. We need the rebels, and it seems this is the only way to win them.”
“I wonder if such a victory as this will truly win us anything worth having,” Dameon said as Kella handed him a mug of mulled fement.
“It will win us the aid we need against the Council,” Rushton snapped. “We cannot afford the indulgence of philosophizing about what constitutes victory. Save that for when the fighting is over.”
He took a long deep breath, then shook his head. “I am sorry. I did not mean to snap, my friend. I am … tired.” He sat down on the ground, facing the fire, and invited us all to do the same. “Let us not talk about the morrow anymore. It will come all too soon. We will nourish our bodies with food and rest, and our souls with a song.”
Miky’s face lit up and she went to get her gita. Freya brought us plates of stew, then settled herself beside Rushton. Watching the smile that she gave him, I found I had no appetite.
I longed to comfort Rushton, but what could I truly offer him? Even if he had loved me still, I could not say that I would never leave him, because I would. I could not speak of undying love, because I was not certain this bitter, painful emotion his embrace with Freya had roused in me was love.
A great sadness filled me as I stared into the red heart of the flames and listened to the lovely, haunting song the Empath guilden had made from the Oldtime story of the sleeping princess wakened by a kiss. As it rippled out into the night, I could not help but think again of Dragon, locked in her secret, internal battle with her past, trapped in a fortress of her own mind’s making.
Powyrs had agreed that the comatose empath might remain aboard the ship, for he was to bring us back to the Land when the Battlegames were over. He thought we were to perform at a bonding of one of the tribal chiefs. Little as we had liked leaving Dragon, she was safer on The Cutter than with us.
“In this long sleep, in this fortress of dreams, I live a shadow life and in it dream of one who will come …,” Miky sang softly, and Angina took up the harmony in his deeper voice, at the same time elaborating the melody with tiny bells and empathising it delicately with his Talent.
I rose quietly and slipped away from the fire to crawl into one of the tents. Removing only my sandals, I stretched out fully clothed.
“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” Maruman sent, and I looked up to see him enter the tent. I made a place for him beside me. The red glow of the fire through the tent opening made his fur appear bloody and discolored. He slept at once, but my mind was too active to let me sleep. On impulse, I shaped a probe and let it soar away from the spit and over the dunes like a nightbird.
I did not try to direct its flight but let the music take me where it would.
Here and there, I encountered the silvery shimmer of other minds—small nocturnal creatures foraging. Once, I was drawn to a brighter shimmer and held for a moment by a deep mind that was clearly intelligent and just as clearly nonhuman.
I flew until my mind was calm.
At long last I returned to my body. The fire outside had died, and the music had stopped. I fell asleep.
It seemed only a moment later when someone shook my shoulder.
“Elspe
th, wake up,” Miky said. “The Sadorians have come to take us to the Battlegames.”
I opened my eyes, unable to believe it was morning already. Maruman had vanished, but a warmth by my head said he had not been gone long.
“They said to hurry,” Miky urged. “We have to be there before the sun comes up, or the whole thing will be called off.”
I sat up, pulled on boots instead of sandals, and crawled out of the tent. It was still dark, and the air was cool and pleasant. The moon had set, but a few stars still pricked the darkness. Wordlessly, Kella pressed some of the bread and cheese I had purchased the previous day into my hands as Rushton announced to the two Sadorians that we were ready.
We were conducted quietly through the sleeping camp to the road where a host of shaggy kamuli and several other long-legged Sadorians waited. As we mounted the seated beasts and settled ourselves in the wooden contraptions that served as saddles, I farsought Maruman with an attuned probe. He was prowling about the cliffs in search of eggs.
“If there is any trouble, go aboard The Cutter with Dragon and Powyrs,” I sent. He did not deign to respond, but I knew he had heard me.
When we were all mounted, one Sadorian perched precariously behind each of us, they made a clicking noise with their tongues and the kamuli rose with a great drunken lurching. They walked with a slow, rolling lope that reminded me horribly of the pitching movement of The Cutter. No wonder they were called ships of the desert.
“Oh no,” Fian moaned as the kamuli made their ponderous way up the spit slope toward the cliffs. “We’re headed out into th’ desert.”
“It was the obvious place,” Hannay said mildly. “We’d better start praying to Lud for a cloudy day, or the sun will fry us.”
“The rebels will find it just as hard as us,” Angina pointed out cheerfully.
We had traveled for about an hour into the trackless desert, and the sky was empty of stars when the Sadorians pulled their beasts to a halt. I looked around, but there was nothing on all sides but featureless dunes. Were these Battlegames to take place here in the middle of nowhere where there was no shelter and no water? If so, where were the rebels and the Sadorians? I looked up at the sky again. In the east, there was a lightness that heralded the dawn.
One of the Sadorians rode up to Rushton and said something I couldn’t hear. Then he pointed.
I could see nothing but sand dunes.
“He said the place where the games will be held is there,” Ruston said loudly, sounding puzzled.
The Sadorians clicked their tongues and the kamuli continued.
“I can smell flowers,” Kella said, and a moment later, we found ourselves riding along a long, narrow crack in the ground. Past its edges, we could see that it opened up into a great cave under the earth. It was too dim to see much, but I could smell greenery and flowers, and at the very bottom of the hidden chasm, I could see the glimmer of water.
“This mun be one of their isis pools,” Fian said in sudden excitement.
“So this is where their goddess weeps her tears,” Kella said dreamily. “No wonder they can spend so much time out here.”
“You’d never find it if you didn’t know exactly how to get to it,” Daffyd murmured.
Miky described the valley to Dameon as the Sadorians turned the kamuli onto a narrow track that wended its way downward. Powyrs had said there were a number of isis pools in the desert, and I had imagined wells. I wondered if they were all like this. Clearly, the wave of earth and rock almost covering the chasm protected it from the sun but let in enough light to allow growth. The combination of heat and water produced humidity that generated a luxuriant growth of plant life. The air became increasingly moist as we descended.
By the time we reached the bottom, sunrise was only moments away. From a distance, Jakoby emerged from what I had taken as a mass of greenery but now saw were row upon row of Sadorian men and women.
We dismounted, and she brought us to Bram, who sat cross-legged on a raised dais under a gigantic drooping tree with coiling, pale green leaves and long, creamy pods. The overguardian of the Temple sat at his feet. The rebels stood in a cluster to one side, and the ranks of Sadorians were arrayed behind them.
Malik and his chosen nine stood ramrod straight in two disciplined lines facing Bram. Jakoby indicated that we were to take our place alongside them. The rebel I stood beside was almost twice my height, his muscular arms scarred. I knew those looking at us must see the contest between us as absurdly unequal.
Jakoby took her place at Bram’s side and looked expectantly at the sky. She stood that way until we saw the sun rise through the crack where the sky was visible, casting pink and orange rays that stained the few straggles of cloud. I realized they had been literally waiting for sunrise to begin the Battlegames.
“Are you prepared?” Jakoby asked, and I jumped at the loudness of her voice in the still dawn.
“I am,” Malik intoned.
“We are,” Rushton said.
Jakoby looked to Bram, who inclined his head, then clapped her hands. The little hooded overguardian rose and offered the dice—two small cubes with a different number of markings on each face. Bram leaned forward with a grunt to take them up and mumbled a few inaudible words before flinging them high.
All eyes turned up to watch the two gleaming cubes whirl in the air, and then down to see what number of marks they offered to the sky.
“Six,” Bram said. “The Pit, then.”
Wordlessly, the overguardian gathered the dice and passed them back to Bram. He threw them again, and this time they fell showing four marks between them.
“Each leader will choose four from among his number to contend in the first Battlegame,” Jakoby announced in a ringing voice.
“Choose,” Bram said.
There was a momentary hiatus; then Rushton took a half step forward. “Is it permitted for me to speak?”
The old Sadorian lifted straggling white brows at him. “I told you last night this is not a battle that can be won with words.”
“I only wanted to ask how you expect us to choose well without knowing more about this Pit.”
“I will answer your question with another. How do warriors face lack of knowledge in a battle?”
Rushton bowed and returned to face us, beckoning us to gather close.
“You must choose for diversity,” Miryum advised him.
“Maybe we can take some sort of clue from the name,” Dameon suggested.
“The Pit,” Angina murmured.
“I suppose it will be in the ground. Another of these rifts. Therefore, climbing may be needed, or lifting.” Rushton swept his eyes over us. “Hannay is strongest physically.”
“Powyrs told me th’ Sadorians sometimes use pits to catch fangcats,” Fian said. “There may be beasts, therefore.”
Rushton nodded. “Freya,” he said at last. He did not look at me and, hurt, I did not suggest myself.
“Maybe th’ pit is worked by some mechanics,” Fian continued.
Rushton frowned for a long moment. “Yes. You, then, Fian. And Miryum, because she is a powerful coercer as well as strong physically.”
Neither he nor Miryum looked at me, although they both knew I also possessed coercive abilities. But neither of them knew how strong I was, because I had always tried to downplay my powers.
Sweat beaded Rushton’s lip as the four Misfits were led away with Malik’s rebels. I guessed it had been hard for him not to name himself. I felt a surge of admiration for the strength of his will. Malik had not named himself either, but it seemed to cost him nothing.
“They are permitted to choose a single implement each from the armament,” Jakoby explained. She pointed as she spoke, and we watched as the eight contestants vanished into a small gray tent billowing in the freshening dawn breeze that swirled through the gap in the earth and stirred the heavy air.
“How can they choose without knowing what they need?” Angina asked Rushton indignantly. “This is madness.??
?
“Perhaps not,” Miky disagreed with her twin. “After all, Malik is in the same position, as you said.”
It was growing steadily hotter, and I shuddered to think of what the surface temperature must be. Looking up, I saw that the roof of the cavern was moss covered and wondered how often there were rockfalls.
The eight returned. The rebels had chosen between them a double-edged sword, a huge axe, a long knife with a frill of jagged spikes about its tip, and a net. The Misfits had taken a coil of rope, a wide flat shield, a tapered stave of wood, and a knife.
Bram clapped his hands again, and we were led toward another pit—almost a miniature copy of the rift we were standing in and, like the larger chasm, invisible until you were almost upon it.
When we were standing on the edge, I saw that a cage had been set into the rift, neatly dividing it. Inside the cage were two bears. The larger was lumbering slowly back and forth, while the smaller sat in a corner of the cage, its paws clasped around the bars.
“Let the first Battlegame commence,” Jakoby’s voice rang out.
The Sadorian servitors immediately lowered the Misfits into one end of the pit by rope and the rebels into the other.
“I do not like the look of this,” Miky murmured uneasily.
“Shh,” Angina hissed. “Watch.”
The servitors shifted to other ropes, and the cage was hoisted up, removing all dividers. The bears seemed more bewildered than angry at this turn of events. They appeared not to have noticed the people at either end of the chasm.
For a long moment, no one moved; then the smaller bear noticed the Misfits. It stood up and lumbered toward them, growling slightly.
Without hesitation, Freya stepped forward in front of the others, her face serene.
“She is empathising it,” Miky murmured, her face absorbed.
Without warning, two of the servitors at the sides of the pit lifted long, thin pipes to their lips and blew.