Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (26 page)

“You want to get killed messing around with Imperial relics, that’s your business,” Foster grumbled. “You can leave me out of it.” He didn’t actually leave, though. He wore his shooting glasses on the tip of his nose, his reading glasses hanging down against his broad beard. He carried guns everywhere that he could fit one, as though he felt the Capital was more dangerous than the depths of the Aion.

“I don’t have a reason in particular,” Calder said, finally answering Andel’s question. “I have to go inspect the Optasia, so I might as well feel like myself while I do it. None of the Emperor’s clothes, no one following me, no official escort.”

While he was still speaking, his official escort arrived.

She was the blond Guard captain with orange eyes, the one he’d seen before. She saluted as he passed, falling into step behind him. “Sir. With the number of recent attacks on the Imperial Palace, General Teach thought it would be wiser for you to have an attendant.”

“So long as you feel like yourself, sir,” Andel said.

The building that housed the Emperor’s chambers was looking somewhat worn, after the battle with the fleshy Elderspawn that had occurred in its courtyard. Several shutters had been ripped off, the walls were scarred, spots of dead flesh still lingered everywhere, and the stench of half-burned flesh hung in the air like smoke.

Calder pushed open the great bronze doors that led inside, following the red carpet. It had been torn almost to shreds. The paintings hung askew, and inside the Emperor’s chambers themselves, the destruction was worse. Here was where Teach and Jerri had clashed directly, with Bliss’ Spear of Tharlos thrown in for good measure. The floorboards were peeled up, the walls cracked, and palace workmen hadn’t had long to repair the damage. Tarps and bare plaster covered the worst of it.

The Optasia stood exposed, a cage of steel bars like the skeleton of a great chair.

Foster moved forward, and Calder grabbed his arm. “Don’t Read it,” he warned.

“How else are you going to check it for anything?”

Calder didn’t really have an answer for that. “If you Read it, you activate it. And if there
is
still a problem, it would pass to you.”

Foster grumbled something into his beard, but didn’t keep moving forward.

If he was honest with himself, Calder was here for a break more than anything else. There was nothing he could do with the Optasia unless he was willing to use it fully, which still frightened him. Anything the Great Elders wanted him to do deserved serious consideration first.

All in all, they stood staring at the throne for a full ten minutes before Andel politely suggested they stop wasting their time and leave.

On their way out, they passed a goat-legged Imperial Guard shuffling a sheaf of papers in his hands. He didn’t even know to bow when Calder passed, muttering to himself and scribbling on the topmost page.

“What’s the worst that could happen to you?” Foster asked Calder.

“I could go insane and die.”

“
Besides
that.”

“It works perfectly, but I don’t know how to use it, so I end up cursing an Erinin orphanage and everyone inside it dies.”

Andel held the great bronze door of the building open so everyone could pass. While they did, he asked a question of his own. “How likely is that, do you think? The Guild Heads all verified that the Optasia should be in working condition.”

Calder relaxed, letting his Intent drift back through the building to the Emperor’s chambers. He wouldn’t be able to Read anything properly at this distance, but he was surprised by a flicker of something strange.

He paused as the door slid shut, trying to figure out the wisp of unusual Intent he’d just picked up. He couldn’t quite place it, but it felt like something…hidden.

After a minute or two of quiet Reading, he finally placed the feeling.

“Someone’s in there,” he said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Seven years ago

Eventually, the arena killed everyone.

The contests of duelists and gladiators were governed by centuries of tradition, and here in northern Izyria, tradition weighed heavier than Imperial law. The Emperor himself, as the story went, gave in to the tradition of the ancient Izyrian tribes by dueling one by one for their support. Here, that story was told to reinforce one simple point: even the Emperor bowed to the rules of the ring.

So when Urzaia was condemned to the arena to die, they couldn’t just lop of his head and be done with it. There were procedures to follow, spectators to satisfy. Fathers who couldn’t feed their children bought tickets to the fights, and roared more loudly than the rest. As long as they were happy, the arena’s administrators made money. The more money the administrators made, the more trickled down to the Patrons whose fighters cut and bled on the sand. It was in everyone’s best interest to keep the drunken, unruly mob in the stands happy.

And Urzaia did.

The rough iron gate rattled as it rose, and he marched up the stairs of yellow stone like the Emperor on his way to a coronation. He wore his trademark mismatched armor: leather straps over his chest and one arm, a patch of chain mesh over his heart, and thick gauntlets on both hands. The haphazard mix of protection made the gold-scaled hide wrapped around his left arm seem almost commonplace. If anyone was looking for a Vessel, their eyes would first turn to his hatchets, his gauntlets, or perhaps his ornate belt-buckle carved in the image of a snake eating its own tail. His captors had delivered his Vessel to him only after ensuring he was wrapped in invested chains.

That was another rule of the arena: the fighter had to walk onto the sands at his best.

When his feet left stone and crunched on sunlit sand, the crowd roared. He beamed at them, basking in their cheers and in the sun on his flesh, and lifted his black hatchets to the sky. The sound swelled. Not a seat was empty on this fine summer’s day; it was a healthy crowd even for a blood match. Two sides would enter the arena, and only one would walk away. At most.

Urzaia fought once every three days, which was all his Patron would allow. Every three days, excluding emergencies and Imperial holidays, he fought. His life was the wager, without exception—the Emperor’s command insisted that he die on the sands.

He had defied that command for three years.

Urzaia walked with a hatchet in either hand, the power of his Vessel flowing from the upper half of his arm to the rest of his body, the song of the crowd surrounding him. His blood thrummed with life, until he felt drawn tight like a new bowstring. An opponent had cut his little toe off in the last match, but he’d taken an even trade out of the man’s skull. His wounds had healed by now, and he was back in fighting shape, though he’d have to watch his balance.

Thoughts like those flew through the back of his mind so that he was hardly aware of them. He was enjoying the moment too much to dwell on the future.

He may have been sentenced to die here, but the arena gave him a reason to live.

His opponent met him on the sand, a man whose scars twisted his face into an eternal snarl. He wore a wolf pelt with the beast’s head over his own like a hood, and he carried a sickle in each hand. He must have been trying to make a signature for himself, like Urzaia’s hatchets. It would help the audience to remember him.

The man might already be famous; Urzaia only remembered those who stood in the ring against him, and those were all dead men. He
did
know that the audience applause was significantly cooler than it had been for Urzaia, and there were a few jeers thrown in for good measure. This stretched Urzaia’s smile even wider.

“Only one of you?” Urzaia gestured to his opponent with one hatchet. “It is good to see a man in the arena at last!”

The crier’s voice boomed throughout the arena, enhanced by invested acoustics. “Once again, Imperial citizens, we have a blood match to slake your endless thirst!” He waited for the cheers to die down before continuing. “Clearly, you all know the man who splits his foes like logs for winter, the undefeated WOODSMAN!”

Wild cheers accompanied this announcement, as they always did the introduction of fighters. Urzaia simply couldn’t believe they were putting him up against a lone opponent. Every match thus far had been tilted against him in some way, designed to end in his death. He didn’t blame the administrators; that was how the arena should be. But for this man to pose a threat to him alone...was he some sort of legendary Soulbound? Perhaps a Guild Head had come in disguise.

“And against him, the tamer of beasts, the victor of a hundred contests under Patron Gametti, the man who is a full team unto himself...HOUNDMASTER!”

And Urzaia felt the heavy weight of disappointment once again. Of course they would send more teams against him, and he was foolish to expect otherwise. For his three hundredth match, they had surprised him by matching him against
two
teams. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to hope for one man who could threaten him.

He looked at the other iron grates behind the Houndmaster. Based on the man’s name, he was assuming there were some dogs or Kameira back there, but none of the gates moved. Were there invisible Kameira wolves surrounding him even now?

The thought cheered him a bit, and he swept a hatchet to one side experimentally. No sudden squeals suggested he’d bitten into invisible dog flesh.

When the crier finished his lines—a few more sentences about the glory of the Empire and the history of this arena in particular—and the bell at the top of the tower rang, Urzaia was still waiting for the hounds to show up.

Before the ringing faded away, the Houndmaster dropped one sickle and pulled up a yellowed horn that had hung against his chest. It looked like a ram’s horn, and Urzaia had assumed it was another decoration to go along with the man’s wolf cloak.

Why draw the sickle at all, if he meant to drop it?
Urzaia wondered.
Did he want me to believe he’d close with me?
Urzaia was forced to conclude the man was merely foolish.

He did stand back and let the Houndmaster blow his horn. The man was an experienced fighter, so he would certainly have a way to counter a straightforward strike. Besides, Urzaia wanted to see what the horn would do.

The sand shimmered with heat, and seconds after the cry of the Houndmaster’s horn echoed through the arena, the sand began to swirl. It gathered into four densely packed shapes, each the detailed outline of a hound. Urzaia spotted individual teeth and snarls of unruly fur, all sculpted on bodies of packed sand. The sand-hounds bared their teeth at Urzaia and snapped their jaws open in a bark, but they made no sound. Still, they looked so realistic that Urzaia practically heard their growls and cries in his head.

He whistled, impressed. This Houndmaster was a Soulbound, obviously, and his Vessel must be the horn from some Kameira that controlled sand. Sloppy of him, to reveal his Vessel so clearly, but at least the man had a flair for the dramatic.

The Houndmaster snapped a command, and all four dogs sprinted toward Urzaia. He leveled his axes, still smiling.

If this was to be his last fight, he wanted to give the crowd a good show. Just because this was a death sentence didn’t mean he couldn’t milk a little joy out of it while he lasted.

Eventually, the arena killed everyone.

~~~

Calder and Jerri sat in the highest, cheapest seats of the arena where they wouldn’t be recognized. Not that they had many acquaintances in Axciss, nor enemies for that matter, there was still one man whose notice he’d rather avoid. Until he could fulfill his promise.

He wouldn’t raise Urzaia’s hopes before he could break the man free.

Pushing the three-cornered hat lower on his head, where it would conceal the bright flame of his hair, Calder turned his attention from the fight to the stack of papers in front of him. “Six exits from the arena floor.”

“Covered in iron bars while any match is in progress,” Jerri said. “And leading straight into the dungeons.” She leaned forward, gripping her braid in both hands, dark eyes gleaming.

Calder looked at the outer edge of the arena. The whole building was constructed like a yellow stone bowl, with seats up the edges of the bowl and a flat plane on top. Guards sat in the shade of stubby towers, muskets in hand. “Gunners on the walls,” he said, scribbling the information down. “They’re here for the crowd’s protection, but they’ll be in the way if anything happens during a match.”

Urzaia smashed one dog into a spray of sand, which splashed into the Houndmaster’s eyes. Jerri and the rest of the crowd erupted in cheers.

“The Patrons, arena administrators, and Imperial guests stay in the private box,” Calder said, looking to one end of the arena. Two fat men, one woman with tall hair, and a robed Magister were sitting within, along with a handful of standing attendants. “Do they have their own exit, do you think?”

Jerri screamed for Urzaia once more and then turned to him. “They’d have to. I can’t imagine a little Heartlander lady squeezing her silk skirts through the common crowds. Can we get him up there?”

“We might be able to get
ourselves
up there,” Calder said. The crest of a Guild member opened doors, very often in a literal sense. “I doubt we could take a gladiator straight from the arena, up through the common seats, into the box, and past the arena’s guards.”

Still, he wrote it down as a possibility.

Jerri turned to the side of the arena opposite the box, where perhaps fifty seats had been removed and the slope of the walls leveled. It was a flat square of stone like a miniature arena. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know. Executions?”

“I think they like to save executions for the main floor,” Jerri said, wincing as Urzaia took a slice to the face from the Houndmaster’s sickle. The crowd groaned along with her.

Could it be for announcements?
No, most announcements were made from the arena floor or the Imperial box seats. Why, then, were they keeping that clear platform in the middle of the seats?

He needed a closer look.

The crowd of an arena was a totally different species from the audience in an opera house or theater. Pushing down a row was more like forcing his way through a mob; no one was seated, most people were shouting and waving their arms around as though to imitate the fighters. One woman smacked Calder so hard with her elbow that his head rang, and she followed it up by screaming in his ear and shoving him farther down the row.