Arena (magic the gathering)

by William R. Forstchen

  “Then try and stop me,” Garth said quietly, fixing the gambler with his gaze. The man stood silent, hesitating, and then drew back.

  “I’ll tell them, One-eye. They’ll be looking for you,” the gambler cried.

  “Before running off, perhaps you owe these people some money and you owe me some as well.”

  The crowd, which had been watching the confrontation in silence, suddenly sprang to life and swarmed around the gambler. As they rushed across the circle some of them fell into the fissure, their wails of anguish cut short as they hit the bottom. Garth reached down and pulled the satchel free. Turning, he looked around and saw the boy still holding his cloak.

  Garth leaped back across the fissure, took the cloak, and then reached into his own satchel to find a coin. There was nothing.

  From out of the press around the gambler the raggedy man appeared and he slipped up to Garth’s side.

  “I got your money for you,” he said and extended a grimy hand, opening it to reveal nine silvers.

  “Minus your commission as circle master, of course,” Garth said, taking the coins and then tossing one of them to the boy, who bowed excitedly and ran off.

  “But of course. You were stuck with the bill. Gray disappeared and as for the Orange”-the raggedy man looked over at the corpse-“Unless his commission is in your prize.”

  Garth reached into Okmark’s satchel and felt around, surprised by the touch of some of the amulets contained within. The man was indeed powerful, more powerful than Garth had assumed. Okmark, however, had been a fool, not to anticipate that an opponent might hold a reversal of spells for something as dangerous as the fire that does not die. The man most likely thought he was dealing with nothing more than a first- or second-rank fighter out to make a reputation and thus did not want to reveal the spells he would use later in the Festival.

  Garth touched a coin and pulled it out. It was gold, and the raggedy man’s eyes glistened with greed.

  Garth flipped the coin to the raggedy man.

  “Your commission from Orange. Now see that he is disposed of with respect.”

  “Not my responsibility now,” the raggedy man chortled, and he grabbed hold of Garth’s arm. “His friends are coming even now; perhaps it’s time we moved on to safer parts.”

  Garth looked up the street to where the raggedy man was pointing. A phalanx of men was coming down the street, obviously not in a friendly mood. They were all dressed as fighters, with heavily embroidered shirts, loose-fitting trousers of silk that billowed out over the tops of their polished, calf-high boots, their leather capes trimmed with orange fluttering as they advanced with a purposeful stride, their golden satchels, which contained their spells, bouncing on their hips. Behind them came the warriors of the Watch, the men of the city guard who could not use spells but were nevertheless quite efficient at killing.

  Garth stepped back into an alleyway, careful not to stride on the injured from the fight, and followed the raggedy man. In the background he could hear what sounded like a riot brewing and then the clattering of a bell as the fire watch finally started to arrive.

  The raggedy man looked back over his shoulder just before they ducked down a side alleyway.

  “Ah, how I love the Festival,” he announced, while down at the end of the street the front of the burning building collapsed into the watching crowd. A shower of sparks soared into the evening sky, and as the crowd swayed back from the collapsing building, yet more fell into the fissure and disappeared.

  They weaved their way down a slime-choked lane, Garth fighting back a retch from the stench of moldering garbage, human refuse, now-unidentifiable dead animals, and, in one case, what looked like part of a person sticking out of a refuse heap. The raggedy man stopped at the sight of the corpse and pondered it for a moment.

  “I was wondering what happened to her,” he whispered, and then, with a shrug of his shoulder, he continued to lead the way, finally ducking into the back of a broken-down building of sagging logs, gray with age, and apparently soon ready to go to dust.

  As the raggedy man opened the door, Garth looked in cautiously and the old man smiled a toothless grin.

  “Don’t trust me, after I fetched you your money and led you out of that mess?”

  “I don’t trust anyone,” Garth said quietly, narrowing his eye to look into the gloom.

  “Ah, brothers, we have company,” the raggedy man announced, and he stepped through the door. In the darkness Garth saw movement and his nose wrinkled at the smell of unwashed bodies. He heard hoarse laughter inside. An old man and then another started to laugh.

  “I suggest, One-eyed Garth with no House, that you either come in or move along,” the raggedy man announced. “The Orange are undoubtedly looking for you and are in a less than friendly mood. Besides, the Grand Master’s watch is on the prowl as well.”

  As he stepped up to the door his eye started to adjust to the gloom. A small fire burned in an open fireplace to one side, a hunched-over form stirring a pot hanging in the flame. Garth cocked his head slightly, listening intently. With no vision to his left side he had learned to rely on other things. He finally stepped through the doorway and then, just as quickly, leaped back and to one side.

  The blow missed him, the wooden staff striking down through empty air. With a catlike move, Garth snatched the man by the wrist and yanked him out from behind the open door, while with the other hand he pulled out his dagger and brought it up under the man’s chin, barely nicking his throat.

  “You breathe too loudly,” Garth whispered, “and besides, you stink bad enough to gag a maggot.”

  The raggedy man watched the exchange with open amusement, nodding his head with approval.

  “You’ll do, you’ll do just fine,” the old man laughed. “Now please let my brother go.”

  Garth looked into his assailant’s eyes, seeing the fear, smelling his fetid breath. He flicked his dagger, making a small cut under the man’s chin, then released him, the old man howling with pain, while the others in the room roared with delight.

  “You’ll do just fine,” the raggedy man said, motioning for Garth to come over and sit by the fire.

  “No more tricks now, I swear it by the honor of my brotherhood.”

  The other old men in the room laughed and Garth looked around at them. Most of them looked like scarecrows, several were missing fingers, a few their right hands; one of them sitting by the fire was missing both.

  “Pickpockets and cutpurses?” Garth asked. “I’m to take the word of the brotherhood of pickpockets?”

  The raggedy man laughed.

  “Believe me, No House, it’s as good as the word of any of the fighting Houses.”

  There was a murmured chorus of agreement, as if Garth had just offered the most grievous of insults for doubting his host.

  The old man motioned Garth to sit down and a moment later a fine goblet was placed before him, the raggedy man lifting a heavy jug from under the table and filling his guest’s goblet with wine and then filling his own. Garth took the drink and tasted it.

  “Borleian,” Garth said, obviously surprised.

  “Ah, you know your grapes.”

  “How did you get such a good vintage?”

  “How does a No House, a hanin, know such a vintage?”

  “I’ve been around a bit.”

  The raggedy man put his own goblet down and looked appraisingly at Garth.

  “How old are you?”

  Garth smiled and said nothing.

  “Hard to tell with one who can control the mana; you could be twenty-five as you look, or you could be near to a hundred. I’m willing to bet twenty-five.”

  “Am I supposed to answer you?”

  The raggedy man shook his head.

  “As a hanin you know it’s suicide to be in this city during Festival. You have no colors and the Grand Master forbids any mana user without colors to be in his city on pain of death.”

  “The Grand Master,” Garth said softl
y and the raggedy man could sense a sudden hardness. “First the bastard will have to find me.”

  “He has his ways,” the raggedy man replied, and he looked around at this friends, who nodded their agreement, the one without hands holding his arms up and cackling, his voice twisted with insanity.

  As Garth sipped the wine, the raggedy man regaled his comrades with a description of the fight and Garth’s victory. At the end of his tale he reached into his tunic and pulled out half a dozen purses and tossed them on the table.

  “You seem to have made a profit from the spectators as well while you played the circle master,” Garth observed quietly.

  “Merely a business proposition.”

  “Festival must be a good time for business propositions.”

  The room was filled with laughter.

  “We’re too well known to most folk of this city,” the raggedy man said. “Now for all those fools coming into the city, we’re more than happy to relieve them of some excess baggage. Call it a poor tax if you will. There’s enough to be made in the next seven days to feed us through the winter.”

  The raggedy man refilled his cup and then Garth’s.

  “So are you here for Festival?”

  Garth said nothing, his attention focused on the cup, as if studying the intricate gold inlay.

  The raggedy man leaned down low and looked up into Garth’s face.

  “How’d you lose the eye?”

  “A childhood prank that got serious,” Garth said quietly.

  The raggedy man nodded slowly, peering up into his face.

  “Looks like it got cut out, from the scar on your cheek.”

  “Something like that.”

  The raggedy man sat down, silently looking at Garth.

  Garth leaned back, drained the rest of his cup, and set it back down. The raggedy man quickly refilled it.

  “You know, we could put a patch on the other eye, a loose weave you could see through, and take the patch off the bad one. You’d make a hell of a pickpocket.”

  The raggedy man chuckled at his joke and watched Garth closely.

  Garth snorted disdainfully and took another sip of his drink.

  “But you’re a fighter, not a pickpocket. The way you killed Okmark of Fentesk, a masterful reversal, a rare spell, only a true adept controls such power. He had fourteen wins in the arena and was at least a third-rank. How did a No House like you obtain such a spell?” And as he spoke the raggedy man looked down at Garth’s spell satchel with open curiosity as if he was struggling with the temptation to tear it away and look inside.

  Garth looked up from his drink and fixed the raggedy man with his gaze.

  The raggedy man extended his hands in mock horror and recoiled backward.

  “Never ask a fighter where his victories and powers are won,” the raggedy man said. “I know, I know the customs.”

  One of the old men came over to the table and dropped a silver plate down in front of Garth while another brought over a roasted duck from the fire. Garth cut away a leg and munched on it meditatively.

  “You’re hungry, that’s obvious,” the raggedy man chortled, watching as Garth sliced meat away from the bird and hurriedly popped the hot slices into his mouth, washing them down with another goblet of wine.

  “Are you master of this brotherhood?” Garth asked between bites.

  The raggedy man laughed and extended his arms wide as if beckoning Garth to view his domain.

  “My brothers here and others hiding in other hovels. The loyal order of pickpockets, with a lineage as august as any of the fighting Houses and just as ancient. And, might I add, with far more honesty.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The fighting Houses, Fentesk, Kestha, Bolk, and Ingkara, they claim to be the upholders of honor. They are nothing but harlots.” The others in the room grunted their agreement. “Since the night Zarel became Grand Master of all the colors they think of but one thing, the profits to be won by their powers, the mana to be drawn from the lands to support their spells, and the common people pay the price. At least we are honest about it all; we steal and we admit we steal; thus we are honorable men in comparison. At least we do not hide behind the mouthing of platitudes that have lost all meaning.”

  The others in the room fell into a solid round of cursing, the insane man without hands cackling out an obscene song about the Grand Master while hugging a goblet that had been fashioned so that he could pick it up with the stumps of his arms.

  Garth ate the rest of his meal in silence, listening to the old men pour out their hatred and anger. Finishing the duck, he meditatively picked his teeth with a bit of bone, slid his stool back, and stood up.

  “Thank you the for the meal, old man. I think it’s time I moved along.”

  “You have a place here for the night.”

  “Why?”

  “I find you amusing and a bit of a mystery.”

  “How so?”

  “Amusing that you so easily set up Okmark for the kill and fleeced his gambling manager. At first I thought you were the yokel from the countryside, some boy puffed up with a couple of spells in his satchel thinking to prove something and usually losing his life before Festival has ended.”

  “It’s been a long time since I was called a boy,” Garth said coldly.

  “Son, to me you’re still a boy. Killing Okmark might have given you his powers, but you now have nearly a hundred sworn enemies of his House looking for you. Beyond that, the Grand Master must have word by now that a one-eyed hanin did the killing. Every warrior and fighter in his command will be looking for you.”

  “I’ll get by.”

  “Ah, and that’s the mystery. Just what is it that you want here? If you want my advice, I think that you should point yourself south before dawn and put some distance between you, this damned city, and the Festival.”

  The raggedy man smiled and held up his hand before Garth could reply.

  “I know. You don’t want my advice and you plan to stay and you’ll be damned if you’ll tell me why you’re here.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Then stay the night. It’s free and I’ve given you the promise of the brotherhood. You won’t be bothered.”

  “The Watch!”

  Garth turned and saw a legless beggar come in through the door, hopping on the stumps of his legs. The excuse for a guard that Garth had cut under the chin bounded to the door and slipped a beam across it and the room fell silent. In the alleyway all could hear heavy footsteps approaching. After a moment’s pause they moved on.

  “We pay the bastards enough to leave us alone,” the raggedy man chuckled, “but you never know who might have paid them more.”

  He looked back at Garth.

  “I daresay that you are the object of their concern. You’re a criminal, No House. Orange might even have kicked in some money to have your throat cut without any fanfare and the spells they lost returned. If you’re some village idiot who came here thinking about honor and rules, forget about it.”

  Garth shook his head disdainfully.

  “Typical.”

  He looked back around the room.

  “Which corner has the fewest fleas and lice?”

  ***

  Varnel Buckara, Master of the House of Fentesk, set down his inlaid cup of gold and looked over coldly at his host.

  “I really don’t like the implication of what you’ve just said.”

  “It was your man who started the incident by dueling illegally, first with Webin of Kestha. Distasteful, my good man, distasteful for two fighters to brawl in the gutter for the amusement of the mob.”

  “My fighters have high spirits; otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighters. You know that doesn’t bother you in and of itself. It’s the fact that they did it as a public display and your agents could not control the betting that bothers you.”

  Grand Master Zarel Ewine laughed, his bulging stomach shaking like jelly. He set his own goblet back down, motioning for th
e servant to refill it and that of his guest and then to leave.

  “As if I need to be concerned about a bit of silver,” Zarel finally replied, leaning forward and fixing Varnel with his gaze. “I got past such concerns a long time ago.”

  Varnel said nothing, looking around at the room, the imported tapestries from Kish, the fine wood carvings of the legendary La, the gems that were ringed to Zarel’s beefy hands.

  “I serve the Walker in administering the Western Lands, and with it the games,” Zarel continued. “That is honor enough.”

  Varnel wanted to burst out laughing with the hypocrisy of that line. But fear stayed him, not of Zarel but of what might be standing behind him now, invisible in the shadows, lurking, waiting.

  He looked around anxiously and then realized that Zarel had undoubtedly sensed the moment of fear.

  “No, he is not here. Not until the last day of Festival will he come for the winner and for the yearly report.”

  “And will this incident be part of the report?” Varnel asked, finally getting to the heart of the matter.

  “Ah, old friend, you’ve been generous in the past. There is no need tonight for the distasteful ritual of a bribe to have this forgotten. Consider it a gift. If I tried to stop every fight outside the arena, I would have gone mad long ago. During the rest of the year, what you and the other House Masters do in your own territories is your concern, not mine. During the rest of the year you can kill each other in your own lands as you please, and hire out to whomever you wish. But now you and the other three Houses are gathered in my city for the testing of skills and that is indeed my concern. I can expect an occasional wager fight, but to the death in front of the mobs is for the arena only. Otherwise, there’d be chaos, and that I will not tolerate. I fully expect you and the other Houses to go around brawling, but please do it inside your own compounds. It’s tradition. But public displays are out-that is for the Arena-and if the peasants and finer folk want to watch, they can pay. That’s tradition too.”

  And besides, the mob pays to see the fights in the arena but they won’t pay if they can see all they want on the streets for free, Varnel wanted to reply.