by Anders, Lou
“Numbers don’t matter,” said Tanthal. “Only the will to win and the ability to fight.”
“I hope for your sake you play this better than you played Charioteers in Nelenia,” Karn replied.
Tanthal scowled and busied himself adjusting his armor.
Karn turned his attention to the master of the games. Lymos had taken a position in a raised box and was addressing the crowd.
“By special order of the imperator, His Highness Adrius the Fourth, Ruler of the Sacred Gordion Supremacy, Monarch of the City of Gordasha, First Among Equals, we dedicate this race to Mensis and the rest of the Gordion gods. Let the procession begin.”
The manticores all started forward. They were to make one circuit around the course for the crowd to see and evaluate them. Karn gathered that this was to allow for last-minute bets.
The gold team stood unsmiling and haughty beneath the cheers of the spectators. Judging by the number of green banners, Karn thought that the dactyls too had quite a few supporters in the stands. Tanthal glared a challenge to everyone who made eye contact as he passed, but Desstra seemed as overwhelmed by the size of the crowd as Karn was.
As they approached the halfway mark, Karn considered the way the features of the track were duplicated in Charioteers. Despite the tension of that evening in the Windy Willows, he had enjoyed a good game. He had believed Desstra to be an ally then, when she had pretended to be Nesstra Sunbottom. Karn caught the dark elf glancing his way and scowled. Then he noticed two statues set at the far end of the spina.
“Look at that,” he said, nudging Thianna. The frost giantess was flexing her arms for the crowd and waving. Her enormous size seemed to have impressed quite a few of them, who were waving back and even throwing flowers.
“I could get used to this,” she said. “Look at what?”
“Those two statues,” said Karn.
One depicted a dactyl dwarf wearing the armor of a Gordion auxiliary. The dwarf was crowned with a laurel leaf. The other statue was of an enormous dragon. Long and sinuous, it stretched down the spina without taking up too much room on either side.
“Like the pageant wagon,” said Thianna.
“A statue of the Marble King and his dragon,” said Karn. As they came around the curve, they could see that the dwarf was holding up a horn. They recognized it immediately. There was no doubt that it was a depiction of a Horn of Osius. “That’s him, all right. Or at least what he looked like.”
“Why place it here?” she asked.
“Because the empire conquered him,” said Karn. “He must have commissioned the statues during his rule, for his palace or a market square or someplace. When he was overthrown, the empire transferred the statues here like any other spoils of war.”
“That’s a pretty realistic statue,” said Thianna, looking at the dragon. “It’s almost a smaller version of Old Grumpy Worm.”
Karn studied the carving. Thianna was right. There was a certain resemblance to Orm Hinn Langi, although this dragon was considerably smaller than the greatest of linnorms. Of course, there wasn’t a big-enough chunk of marble in the world to render Orm full-scale, but the similarities were there. With certain differences. It was hard to tell with dragons, but Karn thought this one looked female. Its head wasn’t as broad as Orm’s, and the dragon had a sleekness to it that the Doom of Sardeth didn’t possess.
The chariots completed their circuit around the track. The imperator announced the names of the racers—he called Tanthal and Desstra “Tantrum and Dessie” to the dark elves’ great annoyance and Thianna’s amusement.
Flags were raised.
“On your marks, get set…,” said the imperator. “GO!”
The flags came down.
The race began.
—
Karn felt the reins jerk in his hands, then the rush as the chariot surged forward. The wooden wheels rumbled over the ground. The jolts were bad enough that even Thianna seemed unsteady on her feet.
Karn wore the heavy Norrønir shield on his back to keep his hands free. Also, for protection if they were in the lead. He didn’t want a spear or dart taking him from behind. As Karn watched the imperator’s team pulling ahead of the rest of the chariots, he thought that might have been optimistic. Driving the chariot wasn’t easy.
“Faster,” he yelled to the manticore pulling them.
“Faster means hungrier,” the creature said, but Karn felt their speed increase.
The track narrowed quickly after the starting gate, forcing the four vehicles closer together. Thianna was faced with a javelin being jabbed at her by a dwarf. She chopped at the short spear with her sword.
Tanthal flung a dagger at the giantess’s unprotected flank. Karn pivoted, placing the heavy shield between them. The dagger sank into the thick wood, sticking with a loud thwack.
Tanthal glared and drew his mace. Karn steered away to the right. The scythe on the wheel tore at the side of the dactyls’ chariot, rending a gash in the painted wood. Angry, the dwarf jabbed again at Thianna with the javelin. The giantess knocked the spear aside, then grabbed the shaft and hauled it free of the dwarf’s grasp. Without missing a beat, she swung it left, crashing into Tanthal’s mace and batting it down just as the elf attempted another blow.
Then the chariots approached the curve—the most dangerous part of the course. Tanthal flung a projectile at the gold team as they slowed to take the bend. The imperator’s favored charioteers choked from the noxious gas. Then their speed carried them out of the cloud.
The dactyls saw their opportunity and clashed with the weakened gold team. Thianna, her reach made even longer with a javelin, kept the dark elves at bay. Karn heard jeers from the audience. Rocks pelted Tanthal in the back, encouraging him to be more daring. He got the point. Ripping one of Desstra’s darts from her leg pouch, Tanthal hurled it not at Thianna but at their manticore. The animal yelped as the dart sunk into his haunch, but the poison didn’t work on the man-eater. The angry manticore shouldered the dark elf’s own animal. It stumbled on its legs and veered sideways as the two elves fought to stay aboard. Karn and Thianna pulled ahead.
As the chariots completed their first lap, a golden marker on a pole was tipped over to count off their progress. The gleaming metal was cast in the image of the same half bird, half reptile Karn had seen on public buildings all over the city. A cockatrice. Snake and cockerel, he thought. But he didn’t have time to consider it.
The dactyls had taken the lead in their second lap but took the curve too fast. Their chariot swung too far left, crashing into the wall below the stands. A dactyl was thrown from the chariot.
The reins jerked in Karn’s hands. His own manticore veered off course, twisting into a path that brought him directly in line with the frightened dwarf. Karn tugged on the reins, but the creature fought him.
“Thianna,” he called. She understood instantly. Holding both weapons with one hand, Thianna grabbed the reins with her other and gave a savage jerk. The manticore was pulled back on course. It roared in anger.
Karn glanced behind him. The black chariot’s manticore opened its jaws wide. Without pausing in its stride, it scooped the unfortunate dwarf up and swallowed him whole. The audience broke into enthusiastic cheers.
“That dwarf was mine!” roared their own manticore.
Thianna whacked it hard on the head with her javelin.
“Ouch,” it hollered.
“You shouldn’t eat things that talk,” she yelled back.
The gold team pulled ahead as a second golden cockatrice was tipped over to mark the passage of another lap. Karn saw Desstra remove several small spider egg sacs from her satchel.
“Watch out,” he said, expecting incoming projectiles. Instead, Desstra turned and tossed the egg sacs behind her into the sands of the race course.
The terrified dactyl took the curve too fast again. His beast tripped on its own paws. The chariot tipped, crashed, and burst apart. The dwarf was on his feet instantly, racing for the stands as
his own manticore shook free of its broken yoke and set off after him.
Karn’s manticore leapt right over the broken wood, dragging the chariot straight through it. Both wheels came off the ground for an instant. Karn tugged hard on the reins to brace himself. Thianna, too tall for the low waistguard, tumbled over the front of the chariot. She landed on the startled manticore’s back.
“Get off!” it screamed at her. “Heavy, heavy, heavy!”
“Quit complaining,” Thianna replied. “This isn’t the way I prefer things either.”
“Two more laps to go,” Karn yelled to Thianna. The giantess still clung to the manticore. She had no easy way to get back into the chariot, and they both knew the terrible fate of anyone who stood unprotected on the race course in front of the fearsome creatures.
Ahead of them, a wheel of the gold chariot crushed one of the egg sacs Desstra had tossed onto the track. It exploded in sticky goo. The substance foamed and swelled, engulfing the wheel, then the chariot car itself. Wheel and car tore themselves apart. The driver was pulled free, dragged behind the manticore, while the other team member went down in a mass of splintered wood.
“No you don’t,” said Thianna. Guessing their own manticore’s intentions, she jerked savagely on its mane.
“I swear I will eat you, girl,” it growled at her. She rapped it hard on the head for this. “Stop that! I’m a man-eater. It’s what I do!” It yelped again as she clocked it a second time.
Karn turned his eyes away from the black team as they reached the wreckage. He tried to block out the enthusiastic shouts from the crowd.
Now there were only two teams.
They had a clear lead on the dark elves. And their opponents had to be running short of darts, egg bombs, and daggers.
Clinging tightly to the creature, Thianna studied the marble statues of the dwarf and dragon. She saw the shattered wheel of the dactyl chariot.
“ ‘Upon the arc where shatters wheel, alter course and come to heel,’ ” she said. Suddenly she understood. The curve of the Hippodrome was the arc where chariots were most likely to crash.
“Stop!” she ordered.
“What?” Karn and the manticore both said at once.
“Stop!” she called again.
“But if we stop—” Karn began.
“I will so totally eat you both,” the manticore finished.
“I said, stop!”
The frost giant wrapped her arm around the manticore’s neck and hauled back on its head with all her might. It twisted back and forth, roaring, forepaws clawing at the air.
It stopped.
Karn saw the dark elves racing past them. Tanthal was embracing his certain victory, but Desstra had a look of confusion. Karn knew how she felt.
“What did we stop for?”
“Karn,” Thianna explained, “this is the arc that shatters wheel.”
“Gonna eat you both,” the manticore said, its jaws stretching impossibly wide. Three rows of gleaming teeth made it clear that the beast wasn’t joking.
“I said no eating things that talk,” said Thianna. She punched it hard right on the end of its nose. The manticore squealed and clamped its paws to its face. Karn saw tears welling in its eyes. And fear.
“Now be a good kitty and stay quiet,” the giantess commanded.
“I’ve said it before,” said Karn. “There’s strong, and there’s Thianna strong.”
But the frost giantess wasn’t listening to him. She had approached the statue of the Marble King and was looking at its base. Then she began to stomp the ground.
In the stands, the audience was divided between booing and cheering. Half of them were upset that the red team had forfeited the race, but the other half were impressed to see a manticore punched.
“What are you doing?” Karn asked. The giantess was picking her leg up high and bringing it down heavy right behind the statue.
“Whoever wrote the riddle likes to play on words. It said ‘straight’ when it meant ‘strait.’ I am thinking it’s done the same thing again with ‘heel.’ ”
“I get it,” said Karn with dawning comprehension. “It’s another play on words. ‘Come to heel’ means stop, but it also means to come to the King’s heel. But why all the stomping?”
For an answer, Thianna brought her foot down hard one more time. With a great, cracking sound, a huge slab of rock collapsed. It fell into a hole revealed in the ground. Karn heard a splash.
A sound alerted him to the approach of guardsmen. Looking toward the finish line, he saw Desstra struggling to get Tanthal’s attention. The vain elf appeared to be enjoying his victory, but his companion realized something more important was going on.
“I don’t think we can stick around here any longer,” he said.
“My thoughts exactly,” his friend replied. Then she jumped into the hole, disappearing into the darkness below.
Karn dropped into darkness. He didn’t fall for long. He landed with a splash in cold water. Sputtering, he broke the surface, spitting out a mouthful as his eyes adjusted. The only illumination came through the hole in the ceiling above. Sunlight spilled down in a tight circle.
“Glad you could drop in,” said Thianna next to him.
“Can you touch the bottom?” Karn asked, treading water. She didn’t seem to be paddling and kicking, though she was lifting her chin to keep her mouth in the air.
“Barely,” she said. “Tippy-toes.”
Karn nodded. He pulled the phosphorescent stone on its cord out of his shirt and shook it awake. Shouts were echoing from the race course above. Thianna noticed too.
“We shouldn’t linger,” she said. She waded into the darkness. He swam after her. They were in a long tunnel. Not a natural cavern, Karn saw, as the walls were built of brick. He guessed that it was leading them north. But after a stretch, they came to a low stone pier. Thianna hauled herself out of the water, then held a hand back for him.
They followed the tunnel to an archway and into another chamber beyond, where the pier stopped. The walls of the room disappeared in the darkness of a cavernous space. Elaborate stone columns were set in ordered rows throughout the chamber. They could only see the first few, but they could guess there were more.
“No two of these columns are alike,” said Karn.
“They’re all pretty fancy,” said Thianna, studying the architecture. It was almost like a cathedral, or…“Welcome to the Sunken Palace,” she pronounced.
Karn saw movement disturbing their reflections in the water. “Fish,” he said, pointing.
“Blind, I think,” said Thianna, unsurprised. “From living in the dark.”
“You guessed this was down here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I kept thinking about the street fishers. All that water coming in the aqueduct had to be going to more places than just a few public baths and fountains.”
“This is some sort of cistern,” Karn said.
“Whose sister?” asked Thianna.
“Cistern,” he said. “Underground chamber for holding water. Idas said he learned how to street fish from his father. His grandfather taught him, on and on going back generations. This place was probably constructed by the empire a thousand years ago, then built on top of and forgotten. The locals know there’s fish down here, but they don’t remember why.”
“Makes sense,” said the giantess. “Shall we?” She hopped into the water again. Her head went right under. She came up sputtering.
“Okay, this one’s deeper. You might want to be careful going in.”
“Or you could hold your breath, and I could stand on your shoulders.”
“Ha, ha, very funny,” she said. Then she grabbed Karn’s ankle and yanked him in. He fell, splashing into the water. He came up sputtering and grinning. It was good to laugh again. To laugh with her. A small splash fight ensued. But only for a moment. They had work to do.
Together they explored the Sunken Palace.
“Look at that,” said Thi
anna. Some of the columns weren’t as tall as the rest. The shorter ones stood upon the broken-off heads of old statues. Some of the heads were upside down or on their sides. Karn didn’t know if it was deliberately disrespectful, or if the ancient Gordions were just using what worked best, fitting the pieces in any way they’d go.
“I bet the Gordions looted these columns from all over Katernia,” he said. “That’s why none of them match.”
“They sure like to nab things,” said Thianna. She remembered the statuary on the spina.
“Do you hear something?” Karn asked.
“Water, lots of it.”
The sound grew louder as they approached. By the time they reached its source, it was a roar. A column of water fell from out of the darkness above, splashing down on a raised stone block, like a dais for a throne.
“ ‘In Sunken Palace waters reign,’ ” they said together.
“Another play on words,” Karn pointed out. “Reign and rain.”
They dog-paddled over and set about examining the dais, but it was plain and unadorned. Whatever decorations it might once have had, the stone had been worn smooth by centuries of erosion.
“There’s got to be something more here,” said Thianna.
“ ‘King and Dragon find their bane,’ ” Karn quoted. “We’re looking for a king and a dragon.”
“Over there,” said Thianna.
Two columns were placed in line with the waterfall. They were in a row by themselves. Each was short, and their plinths stood upon broken statuary to make up for their lack of height. One twisted column rested upon what was clearly meant to be an unflattering depiction of a dactyl dwarf. The other stood upon a dragon, compressed awkwardly into a square shape. Karn and Thianna each studied a column.
“Nothing that I can see,” said the giantess.
“Me neither,” admitted Karn. He gazed upward to where the columns’ shafts disappeared into darkness. “Nothing we can see,” he reflected, thinking about Thianna’s choice of words. “These columns are shorter than the others. How do we know they’re tall enough to reach the ceiling?”
Thianna’s expression said she thought Karn was on the right track. She swam to the twisted column on the dwarf base. It was the farthest from the waterfall. The spiral curve could make for hand and footholds, if one was daring.
