Day Dark, Night Bright

by Fritz Leiber

  In that moment the big man acted, with incredible swiftness. He grabbed the cat by the tail, weaved his shoulders away from slashing claws, and then… the cat never came down. It started sailing round and round in a great circle, a contorted knot of black panther, as the big man swung.

  A guard ran up with a short stabbing-spear. The big man shook his head impatiently and, in a voice that out-dinned the panther’s, bellowed, “Cage!”

  It was a full minute before gladiators and guards, working together for once, managed to locate a cage and trundle it out on the sand. All that while the big man pivoted and swung. The panther’s scream was a rasping high-pitched tone, unendurably prolonged. With quick headshakes and nods, the big man indicated how the cage should be placed—its open end tangent to the panther’s swing. Step by short jolting step he edged over till the flailing claws just missed the bars at each pass. He held it at that for three more swings, estimating distance and speed. He took one last, perfectly gauged step.

  The bars shook as the panther slammed against the other end, on the inside. The door clanked down. The locking bar grated into place. The panther hit the door and clawed unyielding iron.

  The big man blew out three great breaths, like a diver coming up. Then deep, belly-shaking laughter echoed from the portico.

  The tension broke. The men yelled applause and ran up to him shouting, “Ursus! Ursus!”

  The Greek hurried to inspect the big man’s shoulder for claw marks. The big man’s laughter roared afresh and he pointed at three shallow scratches on the Greek’s side. They threw their arms around each other, both laughing.

  The man in the toga pursed his lips unpleasantly. Then a mask of boredom and contempt settled around his features, but his eyes did not leave the big man. He stepped out of the archway.

  “Ursus!” shouted a gladiator on the outside of the circle, “was that the trick you’d never show us? Was that it, Ursus?”

  The big man’s headshake was emphatic and his voice was serious as he replied:

  “No! That trick is the one I’m saving for a really tight spot.”

  The man in the toga advanced. The Greek saw him coming. The circle opened and the gladiators looked at the man who had bought their blood for the games tomorrow.

  The man with red hair hurried up, bowing, murmuring, “Lucius Sempronius Albus, we are honored.”

  “Hello, Spiculus,” said the man in the toga, “I’m looking for a workout.”

  He nodded toward Ursus—and noted that a worried look flashed into the face of the gladiator-master.

  “Surely, Your Honor,” Spiculus stammered, “but… but why not with one of the others? Ursus is winded.”

  “I’m not winded,” the big man said. “But it’s true, someone else could give you a better workout.”

  The gladiator-master nodded eagerly. “Yes, why not try Serpens here? With that net he’s every bit as good as Ursus.” The Greek stepped forward quickly.

  “No,” said Sempronius. He jerked his thumb at Ursus, and began to remove his toga. A slave in a green silk tunic darted up to assist him.

  “What’s the matter, Spiculus?” he asked lazily.

  “Are you trying to tell me he won’t go easy on me? I assure you that’s just what I want—one who’s not afraid to fight a nobleman.” His look held contempt.

  The gladiator-master said nothing. Sempronius laughed, finished removing his toga and tossed it at Spiculus. One fold enveloped the red head and the gladiator-master staggered comically, trying to keep the white garment from touching the sand. No one smiled, and the slave hurriedly relieved him of the burden.

  “I’ll take a Thracian’s weapon,” said Lucius Sempronius Albus, flexing his white shoulders. “He can fight heavy-armed.”

  The gladiator-master motioned two slaves to get the appropriate stuff from the crib. The slaves raced. The nobleman got crested helmet, small round shield, and a curved sword: Ursus, breastplate as well, larger shield, and a shorter, heavier sword. Both weapons were blunted.

  Spiculus ordered the other gladiators to practice at the far end of the field, but it was obvious their minds were all on one thing.

  Only Ursus was calm. Under guise of helping with the buckles, the Greek whispered to him urgently, “For the sake of the gods, let him win!”

  Ursus did not reply, but into his rugged face came such a look as must have been on the faces of the first legionaires, when Rome was a farmer’s republic. He clapped the Greek’s hand twice, and then stepped forward.

  Sempronius went on guard, saying, “Now we’ll find out about that secret trick.”

  Like a whip, Sempronius came lashing in, feinting low and following with a cut at the neck on the offshield side. It was a blow to maim or kill, even with practice weapons, delivered with professional speed.

  Ursus’ shield crossed over the necessary inches to send the curved sword glancing off the bronze with a skirling complaint. The nobleman danced back.

  A dozen times then in rapid succession the attack was repeated, with variations always ending with a maiming blow at some point armor did not protect. Each time Ursus contented himself with parrying.

  The watchers were worried. Sempronius was good and Ursus handicapped himself with his waiting tactics. The Greek looked worried too, but in his case it seemed to be worry of a more far-seeing sort.

  The nobleman used every trick in the gladiator’s catalog. He feigned weariness, pretended to slip, scooped up sand and threw it to blind, sidestepped, circled about, struck with shield edge instead of sword. Each time Ursus had the answer. Each time Ursus refused to be drawn.

  The nobleman fell back. Desperately then, but still with control, he went in with flailing sword, dealing a frantic hammer-rain of blows. It seemed that Ursus, never counterattacking, must go down before the white whirlwind. But he parried. And then, when the nobleman had ventured a shade too far, his great foot went down on the white instep, his shield met the smaller one, and he pushed.

  Sempronius looked up from where he lay sprawled. The fall had jolted off his helmet and there was sand in his ringleted hair.

  The slave in the green tunic darted up to brush away the sand. Deliberately the nobleman struck him across the eyes.

  He made no move to get up, only glared at Ursus with a sick fury.

  Ursus glanced a moment at the slave squatting a few feet away, hands over eyes, writhing soundlessly.

  Still Sempronius made no move to rise. His lips began to work.

  Ursus cleared his throat and said, in the voice of one who states incontestable facts, “It’s no disgrace to be beaten by me. I am the best swordsman in Italy—slave, freed, free, or noble. I have invented seven original strategems—and one more that I have never revealed.”

  The Greek closed his eyes.

  But into the shame-contorted face of Lucius Sempronius Albus—it was as if a drowning man sees a straw and at the same time sees how the straw can be made into a long needle to pierce and kill.

  “What is that eighth strategem?” Sempronius asked.

  “I will not tell you,” said Ursus.

  Slowly Sempronius got to his feet. “I have bought you for the games tomorrow,” he said, “and you are no better than a slave. I have asked you a question.”

  Ursus shook his head.

  The nobleman’s gaze drifted sideways to the anguished Greek, and he smiled.

  “Ursus is your best fighter, isn’t he, Spiculus?” he inquired.

  The gladiator-master nodded.

  “But with the net, the Greek there—Serpens—is as good.”

  Again the master nodded.

  The nobleman paused. “It seems to me unfair, Spiculus,” he said, “that Ursus should conceal a strategem of interest to the whole profession. There has occurred to me a means of forcing him to reveal that strategem. At the games tomorrow Ursus shall fight Serpens.”

  He savored the shocked, mute hostility in the surrounding faces. Ursus was stony-eyed. From the Greek’s face, oddly, the an
xiety had vanished. There was instead a kind of distant sadness. The nobleman’s gaze drifted back to Spiculus. “Well?”

  Spiculus gulped and his face reddened. “You see, they’re friends,” he blurted out.

  “That won’t make any difference,” Sempronius said. “They’ll fight together tomorrow.”

  The gladiator-master nodded once and hung his head.

  The nobleman motioned curtly. Eyes still watering, the slave hurriedly fetched a blue cloak and draped it over the naked, sand-stained shoulders. Then Sempronius turned on his heel and started for the archway.

  The gladiator-master edged over to Ursus, but something in the look with which the big man was watching his recent adversary out made the gladiator-master pause. So it was to the Greek that he muttered, “Everything will turn out all right. You can make it a good fight without getting too badly hurt and you’re both so popular that the crowd will be sure to spare the loser.”

  The Greek smiled, wistfully.

  From cages under the arena, came the squall of a panther.

  High above the arena, even the crowded tiers of seats, a heavy old shield hung on a pole. An ancient trophy, it was always hung there for gladiatorial games—no one remembered why.

  Its bronze was always brightly burnished—so brightly that a silken noblewoman in one of the boxes blinked at its glare and ordered a crouching slave to interpose a fan.

  From the gladiator’s dugout, Serpens, the Greek, watched. His eyes traveled along the languid patrician ranks and he murmured, “These are our gods.”

  From the upper tiers the crowd booed an unpopular decision. Spiculus stopped his nervous pacing, took his hand out of his red hair, laid it on Serpens’ shoulder.

  “See,” he said apologetically. “Sempronius has spared another man against the crowd’s wishes. I’m sure he has repented of his flurry of anger yesterday.”

  The Greek looked up at the white figure in the central box standing with arm stretched out and thumb turned up. “He spares four men against the crowd’s wishes,” he said. “Of those four, three at least deserved the death-stroke. But Albus is not tender-hearted. I see a possibility…”

  Cheated of their prey, the black-masked guards retired to their position by Dead Man’s Gate in the end wall. Three arena-slaves made a great show of scattering fresh sand over a tiny sprinkle of blood. The vanquished gladiator began to hurry away, as if the crowd’s hostility were a tangible and irresistible pressure.

  Serpens reached for his trident and net. Hearing snarling pandemonium he remarked, “Not the most agreeable audience.”

  Ursus strode up from the other end of the dugout. He put down his big shield and helmet and gripped the Greek’s hand. Suddenly they embraced.

  Then Ursus pushed him away, held him at arm’s length, and looked in his eyes. The Greek’s features strengthened, as if he were absorbing something from the other, and his chin went up. Ursus gave a brief nod, caught up helmet and shield, and clambered out of the dugout.

  The Greek started to follow him, but once again the gladiator-master touched his shoulder.

  The Greek turned around. “You’ve been a pretty good master, Spiculus,” he said. “Not exactly courageous, but then you men in the middle never can be.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he vaulted onto the sand. The sun made the sand a burning white floor, against which the masked guards in black, with their whips for driving on cowards, their hooks for dragging out the dead, and their spears for other contingencies, stood out sharply. The blinding ray from the old shield moved with the sun, and a nobleman in a center box put his hand to his eyes.

  Ursus put on his helmet. Serpens glanced up at Sempronius, where the glorious giver of the games was chatting casually with a companion. The Greek seemed to be looking for a smile that he knew he would not be able to see.

  Ursus lifted his shield. Serpens carefully draped his net over his left forearm, swished it twice to get the feel, gripped his trident, then darted in.

  It was a fight to please the gods. The net whirled and whistled. A dozen times Ursus barely escaped the meshing folds. Twice its leaden-pelleted edge caught on the points of his armor or shield but he managed to fight his way clear. The body of the Greek slipped in and out of range of the ever-dangerous sword like something charmed.

  It was serpent against bear—deadly speed against shaggy ferocity.

  And there was blood enough. It dripped form trident-gouges in Ursus’ shoulder and thigh, and streamed crimson from Serpens’ trident-arm.

  Slowly the cat-calls died. Eager shouts replaced them. The crowd was on its feet, cursing when its sight was blocked for an instant. Even the patricians were tense.

  The end came suddenly. Serpens dared too far, the heavy sword crunched down, his net-arm dangled. Leaping back, his feet tangled in the net, and he fell. Ursus planted his foot on the naked chest, looked up at the crowd and smiled, awaiting their opinion. That generous smile would have turned the trick. The crowd, knowing courage and swordsmanship when they saw it, was friendly.

  But without pretending to wait for the crowd’s opinion, Sempronius rose quickly in the center box, his thumb half-upturned.

  The upper tiers saw it. Their generous impulse forgotten, they remembered only that this was the man who had over-ridden decisions all day. They began to yell and all the tiers took it up.

  Sempronius looked around at if surprised. Wherever he looked there came hostile jeers. Finally, shrugging his shoulders, he turned down his thumb. Nine-tenths of the crowd roared approval.

  Serpens looked up at Ursus. There came into their faces the warmth of unfailing comradeship. Then the Greek’s features stiffened and he drew back his head, baring his throat. The sword came down.

  The shouts slackened abruptly. Ursus threw his shield aside and turned around facing the central box, holding his hands up for silence. One of them still held the sword with the Greek’s blood on it.

  Then in a loud, clear voice, he said, “Yesterday I was asked to demonstrate a certain strategem in swordsmanship, which I have never revealed. I refused. Here and now, freely before you all, gladly I will demonstrate it.”

  The crowd craned forward. There was a stir in the boxes. Sempronius stood up, his hands gripping the barrier rail. In that instant the beam from the rugged, ancient, brightly-polished shield, moving a fraction further with the sun, flashed into his eyes.

  He drew back a little, blinking.

  Ursus spun. The heavy-ended sword, a streak of silver and scarlet, flashed through the sunlight. Sempronius threw up his hands, writhed agonizingly, then flopped across the barrier rail and hung there, skewered meat.

  Ursus dropped his hands to his sides and waited. Spear points gleaming, the black guards closed in.

  BREAD OVERHEAD

  As a blisteringly hot but guaranteed weather controlled future summer day dawned on the Mississippi Valley, the walking mills of Puffy Products (“Spike to Loaf in One Operation!”) began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.

  The walking mills resembled fat metal serpents, rather larger than those Chinese paper dragons animated by files of men in procession. Sensory robot devices in their noses informed them that the waiting wheat had reached ripe perfection.

  As they advanced, their heads swung lazily from side to side, very much like snakes, gobbling the yellow grain. In their throats, it was threshed, the chaff bundled and burped aside for pickup by the crawl trucks of a chemical corporation, the kernels quick-dried and blown along into the mighty chests of the machines. There the tireless mills ground the kernels to flour, which was instantly sifted, the bran being packaged and dropped like the chaff for pickup.

  A cluster of tanks which gave the metal serpents a decidedly humpbacked appearance added water, shortening, salt and other ingredients, some named and some not. The dough was at the same time infused with gas from a tank conspicuously labeled “Carbon Dioxide” (“No Yeast Creatures in Your Bread!”)

  Th
us instantly risen, the dough was clipped into loaves and shot into radionic ovens forming the midsections of the metal serpents. There the bread was baked in a matter of seconds, a fierce heat-front browning the crusts, and the piping-hot loaves sealed in transparent plastic bearing the proud Puffyloaf emblem (two cherubs circling a floating loaf) and ejected onto the delivery platform at each serpent’s rear end, where a cluster of pickup machines, like hungry piglets, snatched at the loaves with hygienic claws.

  A few loaves would be hurried off for the day’s consumption, the majority stored for winter in strategically located mammoth deep freezes.

  But now, behold a wonder! As loaves began to appear on the delivery platform of the first walking mill to get into action, they did not linger on the conveyor belt, but rose gently into the air and slowly traveled off downwind across the hot rippling fields.

  The robot claws of the pickup machines clutched in vain, and, not noticing the difference, proceeded carefully to stack emptiness, tier by tier. One errant loaf, rising more sluggishly than its fellows, was snagged by a thrusting claw. The machine paused, clumsily wiped off the injured loaf, set it aside—where it bobbed on one corner, unable to take off again—and went back to the work of storing nothingness.

  A flock of crows rose from the trees of a nearby shelterbelt as the flight of loaves approached. The crows swooped to investigate and then suddenly scattered, screeching in panic.

  The helicopter of a hangoverish Sunday traveler bound for Wichita shied very similarly from the brown fliers and did not return for a second look.

  A black-haired housewife spied them over her back fence, crossed herself and grabbed her walkie-talkie from the laundry basket. Seconds later, the yawning correspondent of a regional newspaper was jotting down the lead of a humorous news story which, recalling the old flying-saucer scares, stated that now apparently bread was to be included in the mad aerial tea party.

  The congregation of an open-walled country church, standing up to recite the most familiar of Christian prayers, had just reached the petition for daily sustenance, when a sub-flight of the loaves, either forced down by a vagrant wind or lacking the natural buoyancy of the rest, came coasting silently as the sunbeams between the graceful pillars at the altar end of the building.