Arena (magic the gathering)

by William R. Forstchen

  “You know the answer to that,” she snapped. “Unless we have permission of the Master, it can only be a testing.”

  “Well, do you have the Master’s permission?”

  She smiled softly.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then a testing.”

  Garth stepped into the neutral box at the far end of the arena while his opponent stepped into hers.

  Garth waited until another fighter stepped forward as circle master and held his hands up.

  The two bowed to him, then to eat other, and then back to the circle master. He clapped his hands three times and on the third clap jumped back. Like a panther the woman leaped into the arena and, as she did so, Garth reeled from the impact of a psionic blast that flayed the strength out of his body. He staggered forward, knowing that the spell was so powerful that it would in fact harm her as well, though the damage he would receive was far worse.

  An approving crying of awed respect rose up from the spectators at the audacity of her move.

  Garth finally waved his hands, erecting a barrier of protection to block the attack, thus conceding the offensive to her. Within seconds she drew upon yet more mana and wolves appeared to either side of her and a small host of goblins materialized in the middle of the arena. All rushed toward him.

  An icy shadow filled the middle of the arena and there was a great rushing of air and a loud trumpeting.

  A great mammoth stood in the middle of the fray, its feet trampling down the goblins. The wolves paused in their headlong rush toward Garth, recoiling and cringing against the side walls of the arena as the mammoth thundered, its heavy trunk flaying about to snatch up the last of the goblins.

  There was another swirling cloud and out of it hundreds of rats emerged. Their hot red eyes gleaming with hunger, they swarmed toward the mammoth, leaping upon its legs, sinking their yellow razor teeth into it. More and yet more clawed their way up its sides, clinging to its heavy coat and burrowing in.

  The great beast shrieked in pain, and Garth, mercifully, raised his hand and the creature disappeared. The rats that were clinging to it tumbled to the ground, dazed. And then they started to look around for something else. As if driven by a single hand they charged toward Garth and then as suddenly stopped. They turned and started back toward the woman and then paused, slowly turning back toward Garth.

  The two wrestled, laying spell upon spell to control the rats, who weaved back and forth, while the wolves cowered and stayed out of the fight. First one way, and then the other, the rats were driven back and forth. Some of them started to collapse, twisting and kicking from the stress of the powers swirling around them.

  The struggle continued for long minutes so that the arena pulsed and glowed from the power, neither fighter pulling in other spells, both attempting to control the rats as a singular demonstration of their ultimate power over the other. A hazy glow started to build up around the two, flickering with flashes of light, becoming so bright that those who sat nearest to them had to turn their heads away.

  Suddenly there was an audible pop, not quite an explosion but rather a caving in. The rats turned and swarmed straight at Garth.

  He lowered his head and stepped back into the neutral square. Still the rats came toward him and he stood with arms at his side. Even as the first of the rats started to leap toward his throat, the woman raised her hand and they disappeared. A loud cheer went up from the assembly.

  Garth stepped back into the arena and bowed low at the waist. The circle master stepped back into the fighting area.

  “Win to Varena of Fentesk.”

  Again there was loud cheering and Garth straightened as she approached him.

  “Good fight,” she said quietly.

  “Good fight.”

  Garth started toward the exit, ignoring the crowd of Fentesk fighters that pushed around him, laughing, going up to Varena. Hammen stood to one side.

  “So how much did we lose?”

  Hammen smiled.

  “Nothing?”

  “If you beat her, I really don’t think you would have gotten out of here alive and that would have included me. She was obviously a favorite and if she had not intervened, you would have had to fight them all over that man you killed the other night.”

  Garth looked over at Hammen and said nothing as they left the arena.

  A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he turned back to look.

  “Good fight, One-eye.”

  “You’re an excellent challenge.”

  “We need to soak; come with me,” she invited, pointing toward a narrow flight of stairs. He followed her down, the air becoming damp and hot. They stepped into a small, dimly lit room filled with steam. The room was lined with alcoves; inside of each of them was a hot bubbling pool. Varena looked over at Hammen and stared at him pointedly.

  “Hammen, either it’s in the pool or take a walk,” Garth announced.

  “I’ll walk,” Hammen said, a bit of a leer lighting his features and he disappeared back up the stairs.

  “He really does stink, you know.”

  “It’s his way.”

  “And you don’t smell so good yourself.”

  “I had a little adventure last night and haven’t had a chance to completely wash off.”

  Varena casually untied the cincher around her waist and pulled her tunic off over her shoulders. Garth found it difficult to ignore what he was seeing. He had assumed her to be almost boyish in figure, but realized now that the tunic had been deceiving. Next she stepped out of her trousers and loincloth as if he wasn’t even present and, folding her clothes up, she placed them on a stone bench, though she made a point of taking her satchel with her as she walked into one of the alcoves. Stepping down into the circular pool, she stretched out and floated, sighing with contentment, resting her satchel on the edge of the pool.

  Garth hesitated for a moment, then undressed and, like her, took his satchel with him. He then walked through the swirling steam and into her alcove.

  “Am I invited?”

  She sat up and nodded.

  “Just pull the curtain shut.”

  Doing as ordered, he stepped down into the pool and stretched out beside her. Hot bubbles swirled up around him, smelling slightly of sulfur, and he let them massage the tension out of his muscles.

  “That fight was a sham,” she finally said.

  He looked over at her for the first time. She was sitting up on a bench in the water so that her body was fully exposed from the waist up.

  He sat across from her.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Every counter you placed upon the rats was just barely stronger than mine. You did no diversions. I could sense your mana out there in that first moment when I struck you with a psionic blast. You were as strong as me, that was evident.”

  Garth said nothing.

  “We should still be fighting up there and I suspect I should be losing.”

  “You won.”

  “That’s not good enough. Why did you throw it?”

  “I didn’t.”

  She smiled, the first time he had seen her do so, and he found himself smiling in return. Her light blue eyes seemed filled with amusement and curiosity.

  “You won,” he said softly, “and everyone now knows it.”

  “Did you think I was testing you for Varnel?”

  “Of course you were! That’s your job, to test new fighters. You also were supposed to kill me but only in a manner that was not obvious, say after a long fight and we were both exhausted and it could be claimed that it was an accident. I daresay having rats tear my throat out while I was in the neutral box would be too obvious.”

  She stared at him coldly.

  “Your honor is intact, the others will accept me, the issue is laid to rest for the moment. You’ll have your chance at me later.”

  “I think you could beat me,” she said quietly.

  Garth smiled again.

  “We’re inside a circle he
re, we have our satchels. Shall we try again or postpone such things for now?”

  She looked at him, saying nothing.

  Finally she stirred, slipping across the pool to where he was sitting, putting her arms around his shoulders and pulling herself in tight against him.

  ____________________

  CHAPTER 7

  DUCKING INTO A SIDE ALLEY, GARTH REMAINED silent, wary as a company of the city Watch marched past, their torches casting wavery shadows down the thoroughfare.

  “So what is it this time?” Hammen whispered.

  “Got a little too stuffy back in there, that’s all.”

  “How was she?”

  “How was who?”

  “You know who.”

  “Rather not say.”

  “Rather not say,” Hammen mumbled. “I’m too old for it, he won’t let me watch, and now he’d rather not say.”

  Garth stepped back out into the street, pulling the cowl of his cape up close around his face. He slipped back into the flow of the crowd, which was wandering aimlessly up and down one of the five main thoroughfares of the city. It was only two nights till Festival and the air was electric with excitement as the city filled up to the bursting point with visitors pouring in from the countryside and town from as far as Yulin and Equitar five hundred leagues away.

  Besides being the final match of skill for all fighters of the Western Lands, it was also a time of market. Merchants came laden down with their wares and their order books. These were not just the peddlers with a horse or mule load of goods to sell but were the owners of the great trading consortiums which controlled vast caravans, warehouses, caravels, and galleys. They were here not only to place and fill orders, but also to pick the fighters they would need to protect their enterprises and harass those of their rivals.

  Entertainers came so that the streets were filled with jugglers, singers, musicians, and actors. Hanin by the score slipped in as well, in spite of the Grand Master’s injunction, hoping to be noticed and gain the precious right of color before they got themselves killed. And most important of all came the princes, barons, dukes, and lords to watch fights and make bids upon the contracts for next year. The Peace of the Land had started as well upon the first day of the moon and would hold until the last day of the month so that they could prepare themselves for the season of wars that would follow in the time between Festival and the beginning of winter.

  Garth drifted down the street, stopping to watch a troupe of jugglers, one of whom must have been a hanin who could control a single spell, for the balls they were juggling turned suddenly into snakes as they rose into the air, hissing and rattling, and then turned into balls again as they came back down. The crowd watched appreciatively and at a safe distance. Several of them kept taunting the juggler they suspected was the hanin, hoping it would break his concentration so that he’d wind up catching a poisonous serpent and thereby provide a good show.

  Garth continued on and all around him the conversations were on the Festival. Gambling sheets were being printed by the tens of thousands and made available for a few coppers. Each scroll listed the lineup from each House and in an arcane code told of the fighter, his pedigree, trainer, spells believed to be carried, and most importantly, the win and loss record in previous Festivals. There were even sheets for the illiterate, which far outsold the ones with writing, marked with coded symbols and slash marks along with betting guides that detailed the odds for the probable matches fought by the higher-rank fighters.

  The street echoed with arguments, some of them heating up to the point of fists and drawn daggers as the milling mob argued their favorites.

  “It never ceases to amaze me,” Hammen said, as the two stepped around two old women who were rolling in the street and trading punches, “how the mob follows Festival. Here they barely have enough to eat. Taxes from the Grand Master, and for that matter the princes of the surrounding lands, are ruinous in order to pay for fighters. Yet do they see that?”

  Garth looked down at Hammen.

  “You seemed to be enjoying yourself when I first met you.”

  “I was surviving and don’t interrupt me. As I was saying, any thought much beyond where their next meal comes from and which hand to wipe themselves with is beyond them. They don’t care about anything beyond that. And yet when it comes to the arena they can tell you the pedigree, the training master, the rank, wins, and spells of damn near every fighter of the four colors. It amazes me. Since you fighters live longer than us anyhow, we’re talking about records that sometimes go back several hundred years. Those two old crones fighting back there in the gutter most likely already had their favorites while still in swaddling and have been following them their entire lives.

  “Yet you fighters, do you care?”

  “Are we supposed to?”

  “Like I said, son, shut up and listen, I’m in the mood to lecture. Most of the fighters I’ve known would squash a peasant like a bug. Especially those who carry black or red mana in their satchels. Using those bundles of mana to focus their psychic links gives them dark and near-godlike powers when compared to a stinking peasant who can only fight with his hands.”

  “I have a few of those.”

  “I know, and that’s disturbed me. But as I was saying, most fighters are nothing but leeches. They live like royalty in their Houses, they hire out to lords of quality or to merchants who can pay. And there they live like royalty as well. They fight and if it’s against those without the power, they usually kill them out of hand. If it is against another fighter, usually you just surrender a spell and be done with it, then go back and tell your employer that your mana was not strong that day. You stage these elaborate fights and in an entire year not more than half a dozen of you get killed. It’s only during Festival that things get a little bloody and even then most of it’s a sham. Most of you don’t give a good damn for anything other than yourselves, you’re all so damn haughty just because, as an accident of birth, you came into this plane with the ability to control the magics. As for the rest of us, we live our lives out in filth and misery to support you.”

  “Am I being lumped into this?”

  “I honestly don’t know at times, Master.

  “And the fighters of the Grand Master,” Hammen continued, “they’re even worse. They get recruited into his service and stay in his direct employ for the rest of their lives. They’re there for one reason only, to offset the mob, the rival princes, and the other Houses. They’re even worse than the leeches of the Houses. They’re parasites that eat us alive from the inside out. At least the House fighters have only recently been corrupted; there was a time when they did do service to the people. But those serving the Grand Master, they’re lower than snake crap in a wagon rut.”

  Garth, chuckling softly over Hammen’s rage, stopped for a moment at a fruit merchant’s stall and came back with two pomegranates, tossing one to Hammen, and he continued on. As he ate the delicacy with relish he made sure that his cowl still concealed his face so that he looked almost like a holy dervish of the Muronian order. The Muronians made their livelihood by passing out tracts promising that the entire universe was doomed and generally annoying the rest of the world so that some people wished it would end just to get rid of them.

  Several city warriors slowed as they approached Garth, as if they recognized him. He reached into his pocket as if to pull out a tract and they quickly hurried on.

  “I like this disguise,” Garth said.

  “I still think you’re crazy to be out and about like this. Better to stay in the House. I’m willing to bet everything we’ve won so far that Varena would be happy to join you in bed tonight.”

  “I want to see some things,” Garth said absently as he tossed aside the ends of the pomegranate.

  Up the street a trumpet sounded and the crowd gave way as a line of horsemen came down the thoroughfare, swinging to either side with their riding crops to clear a path. Behind them came some petty princeling, who looked out from
his carriage window with haughty disdain. As he drew past Hammen let fly with the remains of his pomegranate, catching the prince on the nose.

  There was a howl of protest and the horsemen circled back. Hammen, laughing, pushed his way back to the side of the street. The princeling stuck his head out of the carriage, roaring obscenities in a high, cracking voice. Within seconds the carriage was pelted with offal and whatever else was handy and the guards lashed the horses of the carriage forward so that it continued up the street.

  The incident left the crowd in a good mood as they soundly cursed all nobility.

  ***

  “Talk about trying not to draw attention,” Garth hissed.

  “See, it’s right there,” Hammen laughed. “They hate the bastards but they don’t even realize that by worshiping the fighters they in fact prop them up.”

  “I understand there was a time when the Houses weren’t that bad,” Garth said quietly.

  “Ah, the legendary golden age, silver age, or whatever it is people want to call it. Memories of history are usually bunk-it was never better before, and it won’t be better tomorrow.”

  “An optimist.”

  “All right. Yes, it might have been better. Before the last Grand Master. When there was still the fifth House, Oor-tael, which used more of the mana of the islands and the forest. Fighters of that House were obligated to give part of their time in service to those not of the merchant and noble classes. They had to go on pilgrimage, to wander as part of their journeyman and master’s training, and help the poor with their skills. Even after obtaining the highest rank, every third year they were expected to do this. And the other Houses finally came to hate them for it.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “I don’t know, I was only a…” Hammen paused. “You know the old injunction still stands.”

  “And that is?”

  “A death sentence on any who wore Turquoise, be they fighter, warrior, mistress, and”-he paused-“even the lowest of servants. It also applies to any who even talk of it or suspect another of being of the order and do not report it.”