Win

by Vera Nazarian

Ugh. . . .

  Finally, Zaap and Kokayi make their way toward our group, chatting and quietly laughing about something. Zaap’s usual, slightly sullen resting face is animated. Just for a moment I glance at them and feel that pleasant, mildly relaxing sense that you get from seeing your friends. . . .

  No . . . I must never forget this is life-and-death, and all our alliances are temporary.

  And yet. . . .

  “Anyone seen Tuar?” Brie asks.

  “I checked the Contender Active Names List and didn’t see him on it. I believe he is out of the Games,” Kateb says. “His wounds were very serious. Even if he had the means to receive the best high-tech medical treatment—which I’m certain he does not—it would still be doubtful if he could recover sufficiently overnight.”

  “Is he even alive?” Lolu mutters.

  Kateb pauses before speaking. “I don’t know. But I hope he is.”

  “Speaking of the Active Names List—do we know how many Contenders are still left in the Games?” I ask.

  “Two hundred seventy-four, as of this morning when I last checked,” Kateb says.

  In that moment the audience suddenly gets very, very loud directly above our heads. All the transparent seating tier boxes fixed in the air above the cove are giving forth a wild roar.

  But I don’t look up because it’s enough to hear they are chanting “Tha-las-sa!”

  Instead, I look around the beach to watch the arrival of my enemy.

  Tiamat Irtiu, known as Thalassa, gracefully emerges from a hovering transport not too far away from us. She is beautiful and lithe as always, exuding a sensual primal energy as she waves and blows kisses to the audience. Her stunning blue hair cascades down her back, full of silvery-aqua highlights of the sea. Her green uniform with the Entertainer logo is spotless.

  And yet, as she turns her face in my direction, I can see traces of several fresh scars along her forehead, chin, and cheeks. Even her flawless makeup cannot hide the deep, evenly spaced gashes caused by the impressions from my razor net. She obviously had excellent medical treatments overnight to heal the worst of it, but it looks like she doesn’t have access to the same ultra-high-tech medical care as did Brie at Correctional, thanks to Aeson’s Imperial patronage.

  No wonder she gives me a killing glare with her lovely kohl-lined eyes—she’s an expensive courtesan by profession and I’ve just ruined her looks. . . .

  I stare at Thalassa, meeting her gaze. And I force myself not to blink.

  We lock gazes for several long seconds. And then Thalassa smiles and nods at me with an exaggeration of protocol—an insult in the shape of a courtesy—before she turns away.

  And in the next moment, it’s the seventh hour of Ra.

  The first ethereal sounds of the Invocation Hymn are heard, amplified to echo through the cove and the expanse of blazing white morning sky. And immediately the Games audience in their transparent platform tiers picks up a wild cheer that turns into a general roar.

  “Welcome to Stage Four of the Atlantis Grail! The Games are Forever!” the amplified voice of the announcing official rises over the audience, coming from an unknown source.

  My teammates and I and the rest of the Contenders all look up, involuntarily searching for the source. At once my heart starts racing painfully, drumming in my chest as I listen.

  But in the next moment everyone around me returns their attention to the island, turning in all directions, staring worriedly at our surroundings . . . because a low deep rumble comes from below our feet. It seems to originate everywhere from the ground itself, a vibration that’s a precursor to an approaching earthquake.

  Zaap curses in Atlanteo while Brie curses in English, almost in tandem.

  And then we see it. In the distance at the narrow mouth of the cove where the open ocean meets the cove waters, a transparent wall starts rising from the water. At the same time, a similar semi-circular wall rises from behind the hillside all along the horseshoe shape of Benben Island. The land wall meets the water wall at the mouth of the cove, enclosing us completely. . . .

  “Contenders! You are inside the Game Zone inspired by the values of the Yellow Cornerstone—Creativity, Originality, Curiosity, Inspiration! Use these qualities to your advantage! This is your Taboo Rule for the first three days of competition—all weapons of all the Four Quadrants are forbidden! Until instructed otherwise, you may not use any weapon during combat!”

  Next to me, Chihar sighs with dejection. Chihar is not that great at hand-to-hand combat, so I can see why he might be unhappy.

  The Games official continues: “You will remain in this portion of the Game Zone for the first three days, and on the fourth day your Game Zone will expand to include the ocean, the air, and a stretch of the Great Nacarat Plateau. . . .”

  “Interesting,” Kokayi says. “How are we are going to cover all those locations?”

  And the answer follows.

  “Your Challenge for Stage Four consists of two parts and relies on your abilities in the Animal Handler Category. Part one of your Challenge will take up the first three days at this location, Benben Island,” the official voice of the announcer says. “Each one of you will receive one fully grown creature known as the pegasus. The pegasus is a shape-shifting quantum chimera, an ancient Gebi native that is capable of changing into any living form. You will have three days to tame your pegasus, to learn to communicate with it, train it to change its shape three times into three different animal species shapes, and control it sufficiently so that you can ride it.”

  A swell of low exclamations comes from numerous Contenders around me.

  “Oh my God . . .” Brie whispers.

  My own lips part in shock.

  “Part two of your Challenge will commence on the fourth and last day of Stage Four. The Taboo Rule prohibiting weapons will be lifted and you will be allowed to use any and all weapons in the final portion of the competition,” the Games official continues.

  “Each one of you will ride your pegasus in a long distance final Triathlon Race that will involve three zones. The first zone is the ocean between Benben Island and the shore of the continent at a designated location in the Golden Bay—to arrive there your pegasus must take an aquatic animal shape which you can ride as it swims through the water. The second zone is the expanse from the shore up to the Great Nacarat Plateau, during which your pegasus must take an aerial animal shape in order to fly up the mountain. The third and final zone is on top of the plateau itself, during which your pegasus must become a land creature that can run.”

  The Games official pauses while we listen, stunned at the complexity of what we must do.

  “It is up to you which animal shape your pegasus takes for each of these three stages. However—at least one of the three shapes is required to be the original Gebi pegasus shape—that of the winged horse, a creature that can swim, fly, and run—”

  “What is Gebi?” I whisper to my teammates.

  “Gebi in classic Atlanteo means it comes from Earth,” Chihar replies quietly. “You are Gebi.”

  “Oh. . . .”

  “The end location of the Race along the plateau is marked by the Yellow Grail. The first Contender to cross the Finish Line and take possession of the Yellow Grail will win the Race and will be declared the Winner of Stage Four!

  “You have three and a half days to accomplish this. Meal and water rations will be served on Benben Island during the first three days. Stage Four ends early at noon on the fourth day, by the end of the thirteenth hour of Ra. During Noon Ghost Time a transport shuttle will be waiting at the Finish Line to scan each one of you and take the top scoring Contenders in each of the ten Categories back to the Atlantis Grail Stadium in Poseidon for the Final Ceremonies and the official Announcement of the Champions of the Games of the Atlantis Grail. In case of ties or other scoring conflicts, multiple Contenders in each Category will be allowed to board the shuttle—more instructions will be given at the time.”

  There is a brief pau
se.

  “Contenders! You are about to receive your pegasei! Being trans-dimensional, each creature is restrained and held inside an active quantum containment field sphere that can be opened only once by means of a keying voice command. Your pegasus is your responsibility. If you allow your pegasus to escape, or otherwise lose it during the training stage, you will be disqualified. If your pegasus is injured or dies during training, you will be disqualified. This does not apply to the Triathlon Race during which losses and injuries may happen and the Contender will still be permitted to reach the Finish Line. And now—”

  A sudden rising swell comes from the previously calm water of the cove.

  We stare with wonder as the water surface churns, and suddenly hundreds of translucent orbs—each one approximately a foot in diameter—rise from the water like bubbles, and float on the gentle waves. Their surfaces are iridescent mother-of-pearl, frosted a delicate white with a tint of rainbow, gleaming in the sunlight. . . .

  And inside each one are captive suns.

  The pegasei are radiant pulsing life forms of energy . . . who feed on sunshine.

  I recall suddenly the first time I saw a pegasus—in the gardens of the Imperial Palace, a tiny baby blob of colorful energy stuck inside a stifling gilded cage the size of an orange, belonging to Lady Irana Nokut who treated it as her expensive pet.

  These are different—larger, a hundred times more brilliant, as they pulse wildly inside the great orbs like fiery hearts beating against the walls of their confinement.

  And yes, somehow these are very dangerous.

  “Contenders!” the Games official exclaims. “You will retrieve your pegasei and begin their training! Your time starts now!”

  Chapter 84

  The audience noise rises overhead as everyone on the sandy beach below runs toward the water, splashing loudly. Contenders enter the water and attempt to grab the closest orb while trying to avoid each other.

  I run with the others, my temples pounding from a burst of nervous energy, and step into the shallow lapping water. The cold current swirls around my feet as I try to move toward the nearest orb. Meanwhile I see Brie and Kokayi splashing ahead of me into the waves made by other Contenders around us.

  “Slippery bastards!” Brie exclaims as soon as she barely touches one orb and it slips from her grasp.

  Kokayi reaches for another orb and it also slips away, bobbing on the water. He goes in after it, again and again, finally capturing it with both hands and a triumphant snort. Kokayi’s pegasus gleams rosy-orange, pulsing inside its translucent prison.

  Nearby, Zaap and Chihar are wading in deeper as they reach for random orbs. Just behind me I hear Lolu cussing as she wraps her arms around an orb and finally gets a solid grip on it.

  Kateb is on the other side of me, setting his sights on the same orb as two other Contenders, a Green and a Red.

  I don’t bother to watch them because I have my own orb to grab and fish out of the water.

  Easier said than done. . . .

  For one thing, there are more than two hundred people in the water at the same time, bobbing for apples—I mean orbs—and the water is very crowded. The more of us wade in, the more the motion of the waves rises, and the spherical orbs splash about on the surface, floating further out into the cove.

  And as Contenders ahead claim the nearest orbs, it becomes necessary to move farther out and deeper into the water to find an unclaimed one.

  In seconds I’m swimming up to my neck, reaching for one stubborn orb that keeps floating away from me as I splash toward it. And then just as I reach it, a quick-moving Yellow passes before me and takes the orb away from me in a move worthy of a pro water polo player.

  I yell my frustration at the Yellow, then look around for the next closest orb.

  Finally, I come upon one, with no one else within reach, and I jump on it, full body, wrapping my arms around it. Then I swim back to shore, kicking with my feet, using the orb as a flotation device.

  Looks like I’m one of the last Contenders to get my pegasus because when I get out of the water, the rest of my team is already there, holding on to their orbs like basketballs. Dozens of other Contenders are scattered elsewhere around the beach, examining their own pegasus prizes with mystified uncertainty while casting wary glances at potential hostiles nearby.

  “What now?” Lolu asks, holding her orb gingerly with both hands. Inside, her pegasus pulses blue and salmon-pink.

  “We should get off this beach and find a safe location,” Kateb says wisely, keeping his orb in the crook of his arm.

  I glance around. “Yes, but where to? There aren’t many other places we can go. A little up those dunes, maybe, near the rocky hills?”

  “Yes, anywhere but here.” Chihar nods. His own pegasus orb is held protectively at his chest, next to the equipment bag.

  While we dawdle, still deciding where to go, over the next few moments we begin to hear sudden loud yells and Atlanteo curses coming from various places along the beach.

  At the same time the Games audience overhead erupts with excited noise.

  We turn around and it’s unexpected, mindboggling chaos. . . .

  Apparently quite a number of Contenders rushed to voice-key their pegasus orbs, opening them without thinking it through. And now. . . .

  Bright plasma clusters of colorful light streak like giant fireflies around the beach above Contenders’ heads, having escaped their orb confinement. Pulsing wildly, they modulate in size from tiny pinpoints of fierce blinding light to nebulous light-clouds spanning many feet in shapeless, roughly spherical masses of translucent energy. It’s as though they’re breathing in and out, unfurling themselves then shrinking again, turning this way and that in the bright, delicious morning sunlight.

  The rest of us stare in tense fascination. The pegasei find themselves free and after a few moments simply lift away high into the air and then literally dissipate into nothing before our eyes.

  They are trans-dimensional.

  And now I remember Princess Manala telling me that a pegasus needs to move between dimensions to be properly healthy.

  “Holy crap, they’re gone—just like that,” Brie mutters, holding her own orb in a fixed death-grip.

  And then we watch as in the next few seconds at least fifty Contender uniforms turn black as they are disqualified.

  Meanwhile the Games audience roars as a hovering official transport descends with guards to remove the very angry disqualified people from the Game Zone.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Stupid chazuf idiots. . . . A lesson in what not to do.” Zaap dismisses the disqualified Contenders with one disdainful look, while holding his own pegasus orb in a sure and calm grip.

  Those of us who remain in the Games have definitely learned our lesson. No one else is trying to voice-key their orbs. Instead, teams of Contenders start moving away from each other, spreading out sparsely along the beach or heading deeper inland.

  Furthermore, no one’s fighting—no one wants to risk damage to the pegasus orbs in their hands.

  I notice Team Gratu is climbing the sand dunes toward the green hills on one side of the cove, while Team Irtiu is doing the same thing on the opposite end of the horseshoe.

  “Let’s go find a campsite,” Brie says. “And then we can think.”

  Minutes later we trek up a crumbling sand dune and find a grassy spot before the rocky elevation begins, with our backs to the hillside. A solitary gnarled tree grows on a ledge a few feet above us, and at some point later in the day it should provide a little sparse shade from Hel’s merciless glare.

  For now, this is good enough. At least for once we don’t have to run or swim or fly or fight. We can simply settle down and take stock of our situation. . . .

  Now that I have a moment to stop and examine my own pegasus, I see that it’s pulsing in complex, swirling shades of purple, gold, orange, and blue. The containment field orb in my hands is made of some kind of glassy translucent material with
a pearly rainbow sheen. It’s slightly warm to the touch, and I can almost feel a faint rhythmic vibration coming from the interior—which doesn’t surprise me, since it’s basically a quantum force field in solid form.

  Inside it is a living being.

  In awe I run my fingers slowly and gently over the smooth surface of the orb, afraid to cause damage.

  “This is going to be impossible,” Brie says, sitting nearby, as she turns her own orb over then raises it up to peek underneath and through it, directly at Hel.

  “Be careful not to drop it,” Zaap tells her with authority.

  “What will happen if I do?” Brie cranes her neck at him while still keeping her orb raised over her head.

  “Do you really want to find out?” Lolu frowns at her. “Go ahead, drop it. We’ll be grateful for that information while you disqualify yourself for the sake of our curiosity.”

  “What we need is a plan,” I say. “We have only three days to communicate with, tame, and train our pegasus. It’s kind of insane. But it has to be doable, or they wouldn’t have given us this task.”

  And so we sit and brainstorm. The morning ticks away and it gets hotter and hotter, even with the cool breeze coming in from the ocean.

  We also pay attention to other teams spread out far around us. It’s still necessary to keep a lookout for potential attacks (even though at this stage it’s unlikely) and it makes sense to watch what the others are doing with their pegasei.

  It’s a good thing that we do. Every now and then another reckless Contender makes yet another mistake of judgment, opening the orb and letting their pegasus escape. We simply watch to see what they did wrong, taking note of what not to do.

  “Hey, if we do nothing and just keep watching these fools for the next three days, one of them is bound to get it right,” Brie says.

  “Agreed,” Chihar says. He’s been quietly running tests on his orb, placing gadgets near it to check physical readings.

  “Or we can ask Zaap,” I say. “He’s the Animal Handler.”