by Coral Walker
With an effort, he lifted his eyes to look over the brown, hissing arena to the sturdy body of the red-skinned youth, looking distinctive with his purple belt and purple collar. Teilo — the name came to him — was wearing the same stony face as when he had first seen him.
He was facing towards Jack and met his gaze without hesitation. There seemed to be a hint of knowledge in his glance, and his eyes rolled curiously upwards a couple of times as if imparting something important. His shackled hands, as Jack could see, were deliberately bent inwards with his fingers curled into a cup.
Jack was puzzled, but nonetheless, he imitated Teilo and curved his hands in a similar way. The instant his fingertips felt the cold, sharp edge of the rails, the clamps holding him in place were unclasped. Hastily he clutched at the cold edge of the rails.
Every muscle in his arms was trembling from the sudden tension and weight. He was dangling, and the rails were too smooth for his fingers to hold. Soon he was slipping down.
He felt something by his feet — the foot clamps! Instinctively he sprang up from them and reached for the hand clamps dangling above. He caught the one on the right but missed the other. At once his body pitched to one side, swaying dangerously before he clutched the clamp with both hands.
He clung on to it, breathing harshly. A despairing scream chilled his blood. He turned and caught sight of a wriggling figure on the ground beset by swarms of bokwas. It was the youngest contestant, and the boy, small though he was, fought frenziedly with his arms and legs and scrambled to his feet. He started stumbling in Jack’s direction. The bokwas, agitated by his escape, chased after him. One after another, they set upon him, slashing him with their sharp claws and serrated teeth, and trussed him up with their long, pliable bodies. He struggled on for another few steps and halted as if it were too burdensome to move. A despairing expression contorted his young face as he stretched out a hand towards Jack. His eyes, bulging with horror, were beseeching.
Jack faltered. His heart ached at the sight of the outstretched hand. But it was more than an arm’s length away, and he was unstable already, clinging to the hard metal.
The next instant, the boy disappeared from view.
Bokwas slithered towards him in droves, and the boy, already gripped by many bokwas, squirmed hopelessly on the ground. Before long he was swallowed up by heaps of brown, hissing bodies and vanished from sight.
The only sign of him was the screams, continuous and ear-splitting screams, but they were soon drowned out by the thick drone of laughter from the excited spectators.
All of a sudden, from the brown, wiggling heap, a thin arm surfaced, bleeding with ghastly wounds, followed by the head, the shoulder ...
Forgetting his slumbering tongue, Jack uttered a soundless yell. Unclenching one hand, he stretched it out.
For a brief moment, the boy stared at him, his eyes gleaming faintly in their bleeding sockets. This gave Jack a spark of hope. He could get him if he could stretch his arm a few inches further, and the boy could take it …
Before his eyes, the boy slumped back like a log. There was a sharp smell of blood. Bokwas from every direction, fuelled by the smell, swarmed over him until a hill was formed.
Jack shivered uncontrollably. His stomach churned with nausea.
“Jump! Jump!” someone was calling.
Somehow Teilo had slid down to the ground and got to the centre of the arena. He was shouting not just to him but also to the tall, angular-faced boy, who, like Jack, was hanging onto a clamp.
The body of the small boy had attracted battalions of the bokwas and left the enclosure with patches momentarily free.
The tall boy, of similar age to Jack, looked with dread at the few bokwas patrolling under his feet and shook his head.
Jack hesitated. He remembered clearly the words Teilo had whispered into his ear in the bathing hall. Something about getting to the centre, and something about the holes. Four holes — he remembered the number clearly. But why was it four? There were holes almost all around the wall. There were certainly more than four!
With his mind groping for an answer, his eyes flickered along the high wall looking for a clue. As they fell on the empty rails that had held the young boy, he was startled to see a large, black hole between the pair of upright rails. A wreath of smoke drifted out of the dark hole, and a similar wreath of smoke curled out from behind him.
There were the four holes, he gasped, one between each pair of rails, and there was one right behind him. Bokwas, driven by the smoke, would slither out of those holes and set upon whoever was still hanging to the rails. Judging by the size of the holes, the bokwas would not be small.
A patch of the ground a little further away was blissfully bare, but the heap of bokwas near him was daunting and impassable. He saw how a bokwa wiggled vigorously before springing into the air like an arrow. If they decided to go for him, he simply had no chance.
But he must get down. He must do it NOW!
“Move as slowly as you can. They can’t see you well if you move slowly,” Teilo called across the bokwa-filled arena.
Under his feet, a small clearing appeared with just a couple of bokwas wandering past. Slowly, he unfolded his body and dropped down to his feet.
The trip to the centre was tortuous, and he had to pause between each move, suppressing the urge to run. At last, the heap of bokwas was behind him and a sigh of relief escaped his lips, but then he found himself confronting more. Two especially vigilant bokwas, alarmed by his approach, rose and stared at him with their round, lidless eyes. At his every small movement, they reacted with menacing head-thrusts. He had no choice but to prolong his pause before proceeding.
Finally, he reached the centre. Teilo greeted him with a tight grin, and right away they stood back to back.
Behind him, Teilo was talking to the tall boy. “Come down, or it will be too late.” It sounded like he was pleading.
But the boy shook his head with a stubborn expression.
As if by agreement, several bokwas lifted their heads at the same time and turned towards the tall boy. Something strange was happening.
“Jump! You must jump!” The urgency in Teilo’s cry was heightened.
Some of the bokwas, disturbed by the cry, turned towards them and hissed. The tall boy was visibly shaking. His large round eyes, drained of light, gave him a hollowed and desperate look.
A shrill whistle came from above, and a wave of noise — a mixture of screaming and shouting — swept across the arena.
As quick as a wink, a large red shadow shot out from the hole behind the tall boy, tossed him into the air and caught him as he fell.
Rapidly it coiled around his long-limbed body, squeezing the life out of him, as he kicked helplessly.
It was a red bokwa of enormous size.
Jack was screaming. It was soundless, painful and primeval. He wanted to run, shout and scream. Anything, if only he could get out of the place.
A cold hand caught him by his arm. “Still. You must keep still.” Teilo’s voice sounded too calm to be real.
Seemingly disturbed by the fearful sight of the giant bokwa, the small brown ones, which had until now dominated the arena, slithered meekly towards the edges and vanished into the small holes in the wall. Soon only a handful of them were left, wiggling silently along the wall.
The whole arena became eerily deserted.
The gruesome body of the young boy was now lying alone. Already small in size, it was now curled tightly up, like a baby in a mother’s womb. A stone’s throw away, the large red bokwa thumped the tall boy onto the ground. The feeble gurgling sound from his throat and the spontaneous twitching of his hands were the only signs he was still alive.
Slowly, the giant bokwa opened its large blood-dripping mouth and started reaching towards the boy’s head.
Next to him, Teilo stood still like a statue. Still? Was that how he had survived? Keeping still in the middle of the bloody carnage?
Without knowing what he was doing, Jack lurche
d into a frenzied run, stomping his feet and stirring up a thick layer of dust. A few steps away from the stricken boy he halted.
“Hmmm, Hmmm ...” Straining his throat to utter a sound, he stomped his feet more.
The bokwa’s head froze in mid-air. Its scaly body gleamed splendidly, and its cold, orange eyes gawked at him, sizing him up.
“Hi, here!” Teilo shouted, having somehow taken up a position opposite Jack.
Perhaps because Teilo was nearer, or the fact that he was half a head shorter than Jack, the bokwa only faltered for a second before weaving its giant body towards Teilo, disregarding the incoherent sounds from Jack’s strained throat.
“Zizi ...” A threatening hiss escaped from Teilo’s compressed lips, and he adopted an attacking pose.
Flashing in the corner of his eye, Jack caught sight of something shining among the audience. Above the lofty wall, a small boy, the one who had chanted “Teilo” in the washing hall, was bending over the low barrier with a dagger in his hand. As he waved it, the sharp edge of the dagger glimmered brightly.
The dagger, if only he could get that dagger!
In front of Lady Cici, the men had talked about the spectacular leap he had made to the crag before his capture. He had only listened vaguely, but bits and pieces of the exchange still loitered in his mind.
Could he jump that high? He wondered. The wall looked excessively tall, and it would take more than an Olympic medallist to leap that height.
There was a heavy swishing sound. The bokwa lunged at Teilo. Teilo ducked agilely, and the head of the bokwa shot past him. Quick as a flash, Teilo sprung with a side-flip and landed on top of the giant serpent, wrapping his arms and legs around its rotund body like wires. The bokwa was agitated. In an effort to wrench itself free of Teilo’s grip, it wriggled and squirmed, thrashing with its claws. A blanket of dust rose up and engulfed them. Through the thick dust, Jack could see that Teilo, although still managing to keep his hold, was apparently in trouble. Instead of twisting its body, the bokwa started thrashing its assailant with its mighty tail, once, twice …
Teilo was losing his grip.
Jack burst into a run, gathering speed as he sprinted. A few yards away from the wall he leaped. Up he jumped, soaring through the air. He could see the dumbfounded face of the mother and the gasping child, who opened his mouth so wide that a lump of something, a sweet of some kind, fell out. The instant Jack’s feet touched the surface of the stone barrier, he ducked and seized the dagger by its blade. With a pull, the dagger slipped from the child’s hand. Blood seeped out from between Jack’s fingers.
The child bawled.
Murmuring apologies, Jack flipped the dagger the right way round, scuttled a few steps along the wall, took aim and plunged. Dagger in hand, he was plummeting toward the thick cloud of dust.
Teilo must have seen him coming and strengthened his grip.
The triangular head of the bokwa, raised in the open air, was just within his reach.
He sped towards it, clutching the dagger with all his might. There were a dull thump and a splash of yellowish, slimy liquid. The tip of the dagger sank deep into the head of the bokwa, right between its eyes.
The bokwa writhed in agony. Its contorted body unexpectedly struck Jack and sent him careening over the dust-covered ground before he slammed into the wall.
The dust was settling, and an uncanny stillness enshrouded the arena. A short distance away from him, lay the lifeless body of the bokwa, and next to it sprawled Teilo.
+++
Cici unclenched her fists and took a deep breath. The applause and cheers from the crowd sounded sparse. A podium was wheeled in, on top of which stood a solid wooden frame with dangling chains.
The crowd turned quiet, and the whole arena was full of expectation.
The podium was parked at the centre of the arena, where the boys and their vigilant keepers stood. Jack was shoved and started moving his legs up the steps leading to the podium. He was a little unsteady on his feet but managed to walk unaided. The next moment, he was chained to the frame.
The podium started rotating, and a heavyset keeper pulled out his stick.
Cici abandoned the binoculars, although she yearned to see the intensity of his face, the rising and falling of his chest, and to feel the anguish he endured. She fidgeted, feeling the same sensation rising within her and overpowering her.
He looks like HIM!
The realisation was ripping her apart, making her heart hot and cold at the same time. She wanted to subdue it, dismiss it. She must do what she came here for. There was no room for feeling —
But the moment when Jack had made that enormous leap with the dagger in his hand and stabbed the bokwa with it, she had heard herself shriek with laughter and joy.
Nearly all eyes on the royal platform had turned to her, with looks full of shock, spite and pity. It was utterly improper for a lady of high birth to behave so boisterously.
The image of Jack’s gigantic leap flashed once more in her mind. She almost laughed again. For a long time, she hadn’t laughed like that.
Prince Mapolos, despite his physical impairment, was a tempestuous and powerful man, and heedless of any social norm. If he happened to give you a hard look, there was always something more to it. Cici had seen the piercing stare from his darkened eyes when the giant bokwa was killed. The anger in them sent chills down her spine. He had always been a serious player, and he had come here to see his asset Teilo win. Rumour had it that, if his slave lost, to quench his irrepressible anger, he would purchase two more for the sole purpose of watching them be devoured by bokwas bit by bit.
But there was something else worrying her.
The Prince had started to look tired. Beads of sweat trickled down his face, and his hands twitched intermittently, a familiar sign that he needed his treatment. She had rushed here, and the thought of the prince’s treatment hadn’t crossed her mind.
The stocky-armed man lifted the stick.
One, two, three ... the children, accustomed to taking pride in their indifference to the suffering of any non-Baran, were counting out the strokes rhythmically.
For snatching the dagger from the child there were going to be twenty strokes, and she had paid ten golden coins for each of them. There would be another round of combat, man to man until there was just one survivor. Bagi had hinted if she didn’t want her slave to be too beaten up he could arrange a stick to be used instead of a whip.
She had agreed to it almost straight away. Something she didn’t quite understand. Hadn’t she promised the Queen that she would take care of him, to get him to lose the game and be killed?
She didn’t know, but she felt she might laugh more, wild and hearty, and perhaps forget who she was.
15
Treatment
The room was in an enclosed area, quiet and well-appointed, away from the rowdy and goggle-eyed crowd and the miserable red-skinned slaves. The colourful floral tapestries that hung on the walls brought a peculiar feeling of welcome and normality. Jack couldn’t help but wonder at how pleasant and comfortable the room looked.
Perhaps they had realised their treatment of him was a mistake. He hoped so and tried hard to remember what Professor Nandalff had said, though it had sounded so far-fetched at the time.
Dad is a prince here.
Then, of course, since he was a prince here, he would come to save him and Brianna, if he only knew they were being kept captive.
A rough hand on his back cut all his conjectures short. The keepers, tired of his sluggish pace, yelled at him to get a move on. A few steps down into the room he was faced by an uncomfortable-looking chair of heavy, dark metal. The keepers spun him around and shoved him. Down he fell, onto the solid chair with a terrible thud. He winced at the shooting pain from his back — he had just been flogged with twenty heavy strokes.
The keeper’s thumb was fumbling with the control box.
Jack waited for the clicks of the bands that would bind him to the
chair. He would be trapped again like a piece of meat.
“No need for that,” a woman’s voice, small, yet not timid. “Just the legs will do.”
A short, plump woman with a young face stepped out from the shadows. She looked tiny next to the tall, husky keepers.
The keepers stopped, gawking down at her.
“He will need to drink and eat, won’t he? I’m not going to feed him myself,” The woman reasoned, resting her hands behind her back.
One of the keepers grinned, “Don’t give yourself airs, lass. You’re not her Ladyship.”
“Bah, Lady Cici views me as her eyes and ears, so if you want to think I’m unimportant, that’s up to you.” The woman drew herself up, squaring her round shoulders. “Lady Cici doesn’t like her orders being disregarded, and neither do I.”
The keeper rubbed the black box with his thick thumb, looking defeated. “Do as you please, Miss,” he muttered and crouched down, talking as he fiddled with Jack’s legs.
“We had a slave boy, smaller than this one. Timid he looked, but he took the chance when his master was lenient with him and left him unbound. He grabbed a knife and slashed his master’s neck open. We threw the boy to the bokwas afterwards, and it took three days for them to finish him off.”
By now he had finished securing Jack’s legs to the chair. Standing up, he looked at Jack and frowned. “Remember how he stole that knife and killed the big bokwa. I wouldn’t play soft with him if I were you, or he might take advantage of you.”
“Ah, take advantage of me,” the tone of the maid sharpened more. “Won’t you big guys be waiting outside the room?” She shot a glance at the door where another keeper was standing guard. “I can always shout if he makes any trouble.”
The keeper’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but he said nothing more. He bent down to check the security of Jack’s legs and beckoned his fellow. Together they walked out to join the other guard in the corridor.
The maid loosely closed the door behind them.
“Water?” A jug of clear water was held under his nose.
Jack stared at it but did not move.
