Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (28 page)

The door led to a corridor that led out into
the Arena seating. Power thrummed heavily through the center of the
Arena in thick bands running through the ground straight up to the
sky, spiraling out in interesting patterns. That power alone
explained most of the excitement of the crowds in and around the
Arena, why the fights at the crossroads were happening. They were
acting as valves on a pressure cooker, releasing steam when it got
too hot. Still didn’t like being in the middle of one. I’d killed a
man in one.

The elf turned again just before the exit out
to the Arena, opening another wooden door leading to a stairwell.
Letting Peter in front of me, I glared at the stairs and started
estimating the distance we’d traveled in this stone maze to take my
mind off the climb. A pretty rough estimate with this set put us at
about seventy to eighty feet up. So depending on how you defined
it, somewhere between five and seven stories. This is an impressive
structure. We use steel beams and rebar-reinforced concrete for
buildings like this. Solid stone tempered from deep within the
earth formed these floors. It helped to ground errant energies,
too, recycling it into the fountain at its center. The stairs led
to a long hall that the elf trudged us along for quite a while. The
elf opened the first door on the left he came to, stepping past and
glancing down the hall. We could hear voices of people talking in
polite conversation, a change from the street revelries. The elf
turned and smiled graciously, sweeping his arm invitingly through
the door he just opened.

Kieran led the way into the foyer of a nice
apartment. We spread through the room, still staying somewhat
close. There were four doors in the room visible from the entrance.
Peter veered off to the left and peered through the first on the
left, glancing back to us before moving on to the other door. Ethan
disappeared through the door on the right as the elf followed
Kieran into the room. Kieran took the center of the room and faced
the elf.

“You may have use of this apartment for as
long as you like, Master McClure,” said the elf in his pleasant
tenor. “Someone will be along shortly to see to any food and
clothing needs you and your apprentices may have. Your private box
is available through those doors and the Great Room is just down
the hall. Opening ceremonies are in twelve minutes. Is there any
other way I may assist you?”

“None at all, Warden,” said Kieran. “Your
assistance has been much appreciated.” Kieran bowed his head some
and shifted minutely in his shoulders—high praise, indeed, for the
elf. The warden bowed his head in return and left the room, closing
the door behind him.

Shrank shot out of the room Peter was in,
with Peter a second behind.

“I thought he’d never leave,” squealed the
pixie, flitting around the room randomly.

“I wondered what happened to you,” I
muttered, watching him with amusement.

“I’m the only one he can hide with,” said
Peter as he walked past us to the brightly lit doorways on the far
end of the room. Ethan was matching him on the other side. The wall
between the doorways had three large pictures hung on them. At
first glance, they were abstract oil paintings, but looking more
closely you could see they were small slices of the energy flow
from the center of the arena from different perspectives. They drew
me in hypnotically as Peter and Ethan disappeared through the next
set of doorways and held me until Ethan came back, grinning but
alone.

“Peter seems to be having issues,” he said,
calmly, then turned back.

Kieran and I hurried after him. Stepping out
the first door, a wave of noise hit us like a wall. It led out to a
small balcony, barely large enough for the four of us, with a gate.
Peter was leaning against the stone railing looking out. I couldn’t
quite read his reaction. He looked… awed? Sorta shocked, I guess. I
went to stand beside him and looked out, too.

And my jaw dropped, too. Oh, my, freakin’,
God, this is weird. This place was impossibly close to everything.
It looked like I could reach out over the railing and touch the
other side of the Arena. Literally, it was just right there. And
the ground. The feeling wasn’t vertigo, exactly, because you didn’t
feel like you could fall. The ground was right there. The field was
square and about the same size as two or three football fields. In
the center was a wooden, tiered structure that topped out at midway
of the Arena, about even with us. It looked like it was used for
multiple purposes and at the moment was a simple dais.

And the people, there were so many people
packed in there. I couldn’t guess at the number of people we could
see. With the way the place made everything seem so close,
everybody seemed to close in on you. It was very
claustrophobic.

“That’s a passel o’people,” I said
softly.

After a second, Peter turned to me and asked,
“Did you just say ‘passel’?”

I nodded slowly, still looking out over the
crowd, watching how different groups were interacting. Peter broke
out laughing and threw an arm around me, pulling me away from the
rail and back into the apartment. I looked at him smiling, sharing
in the joke, with Kieran and Ethan following.

“Please tell me there’s a shower,” I said,
throwing myself into the first chair I came to. “I feel dirty all
over.”

“Yep,” answered Peter, falling onto the couch
opposite me. “That bedroom has every modern convenience, including
a sunken tub with jets and everything. There’s a kitchenette with a
fridge too.” He waved vaguely back behind him to the rooms he’d
investigated.

Sobering instantly, I had to ask, “Kieran,
what happened out there? To that man?” I really didn’t want to talk
about this.

He sat down beside Peter, leaning forward and
resting his elbows on his knees. “You didn’t do that?”

“How safe is it to talk in here?” I
asked.

“Very, for the moment,” answered Ethan.

“No,” I answered Kieran. “Night started
vibrating and it sent odd energy oscillations out through me. Day
was moving me through the defensive forms you showed us yesterday.
When I touched him, he screamed and that was it… I don’t know what
happened.”

“What I saw, and more importantly,” he said,
“what the warden saw, was that he lost control of his own power and
it tore through him like fire through paper. Whatever energy Night
may have issued was masked completely by the ambient energy field.
This is good. Cheer up, Seth. I know it’s hard, but that man’s
death was his fault, not yours. You only defended yourself and
quite admirably.” He gave me a grim smile, but he knew I’d need
time.

“Someone’s coming,” said Ethan, moving to the
door, seconds before a timid knock.

“Go take a shower and we’ll arrange for
clothes and food and watch some of the pageantry,” Kieran said,
standing. “See if we can’t get settled some.”

I hauled myself out of the chair and headed
into the right hand room. The whole place was a luxury hotel suite
and the bedroom was no different. The room wasn’t regular in shape
and had six walls. The two beds were larger than king-sized and
looked deliciously soft with elegant comforters and pillows placed
on top. Above each bed stretching fully across was another oil
painting showing a slice of the energy flows in the Arena, matching
the colors in the bedding. Each bed used a different color scheme.
It was actually nicer than any hotel my parents and I had ever
stayed. The bathroom did indeed have a sunken tub and I longed to
fill it and sink into a pool of warm water to forget the last week.
Soak for a week. Instead, I went for the shower stall. I stripped
outside the glass door, dropping my dirty, dusty clothing in a pile
on the floor. Turning the water on, I was pleasantly surprised when
two showerheads shot jets of water to the middle of the stall. I
stepped into the combined flow and starting scrubbing away at what
felt like years of grime. This was luxury.

After seeing the golden glow of Shrank
through the fogged glass door twice, I figured it was time get out.
The towel off the rack was almost as lush as the shower. My pile on
the floor had disappeared and a stack of clean clothes sat on the
vanity with my shoes, cleaned, on the floor below. The clothes fit
perfectly, consisting of a green tunic and black pants. The shirt
was the color of Kieran’s eyes, I realized, and there was an emblem
in reddish-brown that matched his hair color monogrammed over the
left breast. It was elegant tracery, but once again, I didn’t
recognize the symbol. Somebody needed to give me a dictionary or
something really soon.

As I left the bathroom, Shrank had to loop
back sharply to avoid hitting me in the chest. He chittered a bit
in what I assumed was a chuckle as I grinned at him.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Shrank,” I said, pulling
up quickly, adjusting around him. “Have I missed much?” Looking
around the empty room, I asked, “Where is everybody?”

“Not much, Master Seth,” Shrank answered,
cheerfully, bouncing in the air in front of me, obviously eager to
get back. “Lord Kieran is on the balcony watching the Opening
Ceremonies. Thus far, there have been announcements of a new dragon
Duchy in the Wastelands and the collapse of two others and the
introductions for the human consortiums have started. Master Peter
and Lord Kieran are watching these most carefully, though, as they
include many of the people you seek. And there is food there as
well.” He buzzed off to the balcony, leaving a perfect sine wave of
rosy light in his wake.

I sat on the nearest couch to put my shoes on
first. Stuffed down into one was a pair of black, silk ankle-length
socks, another nice surprise. I hated wearing shoes without socks.
On the balcony, I found Kieran and Peter watching a parade of
people flowing through the top of the tiered dais as a thin
golden-robed elf announced them in a rolling, thunderous voice.
They were sitting in tall chairs like barstools that weren’t there
the first time we were out there. Ethan was lazing on the rail next
to the gate, completely at ease. Everybody was freshly showered and
wearing the same clothes I was. I must have been in the shower for
quite some time. They also had empty plates in front of them.

“Master Seth?” Shrank squeaked from the
corner, pulling my attention to a small table with plates of
sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, and cheeses. My stomach growled at
me, telling me where it wanted to go regardless of how queasy the
rest of me found the idea. I felt a slight push of energy from both
Peter and Kieran, so I headed for the table.

“Feeling better?” asked Peter when I pulled a
chair up beside him and bit into a sub sandwich that was more meat
than bread. Okay, I was never leaving this apartment. This was a
damn good sandwich. I nodded briskly up and down while I chewed and
tasted a hint of Nirvana.

“What are we watching?” I managed to get out
between bites. I’d only picked up a small piece of this and now I
wanted to whole thing: it was over two feet long. Was this the
danger of Faery food? Over indulgence? I believed it.

“Introductions to minor dignitaries, mostly,”
said Peter. “Powerful in their own right, but here they’re lower on
the play list.”

“The people we are interested in are coming
soon,” said Kieran. “Then the Fae and possibly some of the other
beings of power who are watching.”

I eyed the sandwich on the table while I
forced myself to finish the food I’d put on my plate first. I
didn’t want to be a glutton in front of our host. And speaking of
our host…

“Why are we here exactly? I mean, who do we
have to thank for this apartment and everything?” I asked.
MacNamara had left us at the front gate, after all. Someone had to
be responsible for this.

“You, actually,” said Kieran, turning to me
with a lop-sided grin, his green eyes shining brightly with the
green in the tunic he wore. “You were assaulted under MacNamara’s
peace bond and committed absolutely no offensive moves. You
handled yourself perfectly with the warden. As a result, you were
given Hospitality from MacNamara as the offended party. And we
scooted in under the noses of everybody on our list. To put it
bluntly, MacNamara is probably laughing his ass off right now, just
like he did in the warehouse.”

“Doesn’t that mean he’s playing at something,
though?” I asked suspiciously.

“Always,” said Kieran, as a small clamor from
the right corner of the Arena went up. A small, Thai man on the
dais was waving at the crowd in that direction. Another contingent
of Chinese, robed in what looked to me like Buddhist red and gold,
rapidly displaced him. They bowed as a group in our direction and
the crowd to the right shouted loudly, cheering for what I assumed
was their favorite team. They appeared to be mostly Asian in that
area of the Arena. In fact, the entire Arena was quite
geographically segregated. If I made assumptions about the
non human races based on their dress, it made some amount of
sense. The area we were in was the most blended, though it was hard
to see above and below us. The angles were very steep.

“Is this something I should thank someone
for?” I asked. “I don’t know the etiquette for anything here.”

“Yeah,” said Peter, slowly, chuckling. “Emily
Post doesn’t cover elven royalty, does she?”

“No, luckily for you, I’ve dumped that one on
me by naming you as apprentices,” Kieran said, turning back to the
parade in the Arena. “But it is a courtesy to MacNamara, not an
obligation, to be paid at his leisure. There are only three African
groups?”

“No, there are more, according to Dad,” said
Peter. “But they’ve been dwindling over the years. Too many raving
lunatics with big guns and no consciences. These guys don’t look
particularly strong.”

“Don’t let looks fool you. Yaku is an evil
and devious man,” Kieran said, obviously referring to one of the
three on the stage now.