by Dave Morris
The dandy looked at him in disdain. ‘Villain, you say? I am Caelestis, the champion of Magus... of Magus...’
He turned to Altor who, although bewildered by the turn of events, found himself saying, ‘Magus Balhazar.’
‘Champion?’ The sergeant tucked his thumbs in his belt and rocked with breathless laughter. ‘You’re no champion, lad. You’re just a pickpocket and I’m taking you in.’
Caelestis stared back at him defiantly. The other guards hefted their cudgels and stood glowering. For a moment there was a tense silence, then the steward cleared his throat. ‘The youngster’s right,’ he said. ‘You can’t arrest him now he’s taken Magus Balhazar’s banner.’
Altor suddenly realized what was happening. Tugging the banner away from Caelestis, he said, ‘I was here first. Rightfully it is I who should be Magus Balhazar’s champion.’
‘Aha!’ cried the sergeant in triumph. ‘As I thought. Arrest this miscreant.’
Two of the guardsmen stepped closer. Caelestis wove away from them and snatched back the banner. ‘Not so fast. The banner is mine. How can this oaf be the magus’ champion? He doesn’t even have a weapon.’
It was true. Altor had left his sword buried in Magus Byl’s black heart. Rather than go into that now, he simply planted himself in a solid stance with his big arms folded across his chest. ‘I need no weapons,’ he protested. ‘The monks of my order are trained to fight with empty hands if need be.’
‘Indeed?’ Caelestis cocked an eyebrow. ‘I doubt whether Magus Balhazar would be impressed, however.’
Altor snorted in derision. ‘Do you think he’ll be impressed by having a pickpocket as his champion?’
The sergeant flung up his arms in exasperation. ‘Enough!’ He turned to the steward. ‘What is the law? Are both these youths now employed by Magus Balhazar? Frankly I’d be happy to arrest the pair of them.’
‘I have committed no crime!’ pointed out Altor.
‘And I myself am merely a suspect,’ said Caelestis, ‘until my case comes to trial.’
The steward leaned on the rail in front of his booth and stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Both took the banner at the same time,’ he announced at last, ‘so both are eligible to serve the magus. Consequently they are immune from prosecution.’
At this the guards gave sighs of disappointment and started to wander off. The sergeant spat on the ground to show his opinion of the steward’s judgement. Fixing Caelestis with a beady stare, he said, ‘Just you wait, lad. I’ll be waiting outside the Battlepits for you, and if you fail then you won’t be able to count on the magus’ protection.’
‘If he fails,’ said the steward laconically, ‘then he’ll be past caring about the laws of mortal men.’
Altor and Caelestis arrived at Magus Balhazar’s mansion just as the gongs of the citadel were sounding the hour of midnight. A long avenue flanked by trees strung with paper lanterns ran from the gate to the white marble portico of the main entrance. The two youths stood outside in the street and watched a stream of elegantly costumed guests arriving in carriages. From inside the house wafted the strains of pipe music.
‘It seems the magus is having a party,’ remarked Caelestis. ‘One of us is dressed for the occasion, at least.’
Altor had been struggling to keep his temper in check ever since the incident in front of the recruiting booth. Now he rounded on Caelestis and, grabbing him by the brocaded lapels of his jerkin, lifted him up onto his toes. ‘Let’s get something straight,’ he growled. ‘I’ve got no intention of teaming up with you for this contest. I need to win because I need a magical favour, and my best chance of winning will be on my own. When we meet Balhazar, I’m going to tell him that you only took the banner in order to avoid arrest for petty crime—‘
Caelestis extricated himself from Altor’s grip and smoothed down his lapels like a cat grooming itself after a scuffle. ‘Surely I am innocent until proven guilty?’ he objected. ‘Unfortunately that sergeant was the sort of man to jump to conclusions, so if I’m to avoid jail it looks as if I must serve as Balhazar’s champion. Believe me, if there was any alternative I’d take it. Unlike you, I’m hardly eager to risk life and limb in the Battlepits.’
‘Fine,’ said Altor. ‘So leave now.’
‘I’d be under arrest before dawn. No, my friend, I’m afraid we’re in this together.’
Altor scowled. ‘Come on, then. Just don’t call me your friend.’
Sentries with drawn swords patrolled the avenue, icy-eyed men with grim faces of granite. They took no notice of the other party guests, but stared long and hard at Altor and Caelestis. As the two youths stepped through the gate, four of the sentries raised their swords and approached with a determined stride.
‘Here’s trouble,’ Caelestis remarked out of the corner of his mouth.
But just as the sentries were about to challenge them, Altor raised the magus’ banner. Its pattern of gold-&-scarlet eyes flared like fire in the light of the lanterns. The sentries saw it, and although their expressions remained as unchanging as if hewn from rock, the eager bellicosity in their eyes dulled to a look of disappointment. Grudgingly they waved Altor and Caelestis by.
At the door they were met by Balhazar’s usher, a thin man with a bald pate and ginger sideburns that sprung in alarming tufts from the side of his face. ‘Greetings!’ he cried. ‘Your names are not on the guest list, but the banner you bear is as good as any invitation.’
Caelestis looked past the usher into a spacious domed hall where the party was in full swing. All the revellers wore masks to conceal their identities. Pipers on a minstrel gallery overlooking the room played tunes to set the feet tapping, while on a dais behind the tables which almost overflowed with food and wine a group of lithe acrobats were performing a complex and spectacular dance.
A fetching girl in a costume of gauze and blue feathers caught Caelestis’s eye. ‘I think I’ll mingle,’ he said.
Altor planted the banner in front of him. ‘We’re not here for merriment,’ he said to the usher. ‘Will you take us to Magus Balhazar, please.’
Instead of answering at once, the usher summoned a footman with a brisk snap of his fingers. Pointing to the drinks and sweetmeats on the footman’s tray, he said, ‘My master will perhaps speak to you presently. In the meantime: eat and drink, enjoy yourselves.’
‘I would enjoy myself more if I could see the magus right away,’ insisted Altor. ‘Since we are supposed to enter the Battlepits on his behalf tomorrow, partying is the last thing on my mind at the moment.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Caelestis, tasting a jellied fruit from the tray. ‘All work and no play, as they say...’
‘There is nothing to prevent you from speaking to Magus Balhazar,’ said the usher, ‘if only you can identify him.’
Altor and Caelestis looked at him, but their puzzlement only provoked a broad grin which caused the ginger sideburns to rise like porcupine quills. With a theatrical flourish, the usher gestured behind him at the dozens of masked revellers.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Altor.
But Caelestis understood. ‘It’s a test. If we want to be Balhazar’s champions we have to prove our worthiness.’
Altor stared around at the sea of masked faces. ‘What sort of test is this?’ he demanded. ‘The Battlepits contest is a life-or death struggle, not a footling parlour game. Let me fight one of the magus’s sentries if he wants proof of my skill.’
The usher only shook his head. ‘My master wants a champion who is capable of more than just brute force. This test will show whether you have your wits about you.’
Altor and Caelestis exchanged a look, then slowly surveyed the room. It was a daunting prospect. How to identify the magus among all these revellers?
On the basis of costume, perhaps? There was a man in a sequined mask and jester’s motley capering for the amusement of his friends... Too undignified. On a chaise-longue sat a well groomed gentleman in a domino cape romancing a girl in black
velvet. But surely such familiarity would be unbecoming in a magus. Perhaps the man in the bear costume who stood at the back of the room swinging a bell without a clapper? No, too obscure—frivolous, even.
Caelestis glanced out into the garden. There two men stood beside a fountain, deep in conversation. One was dressed like a torturer, the other like a perfumed dandy.
Caelestis signalled to Altor. ‘Possibly one of those is our magus,’ he said, pointing the men out.
Altor grunted sceptically. ‘Why not the fellow there in the green wig?’
Caelestis glanced across the room. ‘He is talking to a servant. A magus would never do that.’
‘How about the gaunt individual standing by the table? The one with the grey robe and blue face-paint.’
‘Magus Uru’s colours!’ scoffed Caelestis. ‘It’s well known that Balhazar detests him.’
‘That one there, then,’ said Altor less certainly.
‘I overheard him speak as we passed. He told a indelicate joke to two ladies, which is not the sort of conduct I’d expect of Magus Balhazar.’
‘How would you know? Are you in the habit of attending his parties?’
‘Well...’ Caelestis appraised the man in question more carefully. ‘Ah, see—he drinks pink claret from a long-stemmed glass! Do you suppose Magus Balhazar was raised in a pig sty, that he would behave with so little etiquette?’
Altor shook his head. ‘Absurd. I think you’re making all this up. What possible reason do you have for thinking that Balhazar is one of those two by the fountain rather than any one of fifty others?’
Caelestis held up a finger. ‘Well, let us see...’ Cupping his hand to his mouth, he leaned over the balustrade of the patio.
‘Balhazar!’ came a plaintive voice from the fountain. ‘Balhazar, hear me. I am a water sprite and I hereby serve notice that I have taken residence in your fountain. Please be so good as to have these fishes removed, as I find their company offensive.’
The man in the torturer’s costume rounded on the fountain. ‘What?’ he cried, incensed. ‘I will not be spoken to with such audacity! Get you gone at once from my fountain, sprite, or I’ll shrivel you with spells of drought, desiccation and pollution!’
Caelestis vaulted over the balustrade, landed lightly on the grass beside the man, and bowed with a flourish of his feathered hat. ‘My lord Balhazar, I presume.’
Balhazar stared at him, cheeks puffed with outrage. ‘Who are you? How did you get in here? Is this your water sprite?’
‘There is no water sprite,’ said Caelestis with a wink. Cupping his hand, he threw his voice again, so that now it seemed as if Balhazar’s wine-cup emitted a mirthful chuckle.
Altor, seeing that Balhazar was not finding these tricks as amusing as Caelestis did, quickly stepped in. ‘Lord Balhazar, we’ve come to champion you in the Battlepits,’ he announced, holding out the banner.
Balhazar glared from one to the other, eyes wide and white in a face purple with indignation. His mouth twisted to and fro. He seemed on the point of unleashing a curse that would fry them in their boots, then suddenly he threw back his head and gave a bellow of delighted laughter. ‘Ah, what a jape! I thought my little test would root out a resourceful wizard to serve me. Instead, it seems, I’ve got myself a cunning knave and a crop headed monk!’
He waved his hand and instantly the party fell silent. Turning to face him, the hundreds of revellers bowed like marionettes and then dissolved into empty air.
‘Illusions...’ gasped Altor.
Without deigning to answer, Balhazar led the way in from the garden. They stood in an empty ballroom. The guests, the food the sentries and the dancing maidens—all were gone. Only the usher with the ginger sideburns remained.
‘These are my champions,’ announced Balhazar simply.
He had not paused to speak, but walked on past the usher and swept from the room. The usher turned to Altor and Caelestis with a smirk. ‘Come, I’ll show you to your rooms. Make yourselves comfortable by all means. The odds are that this is the last night of your lives.’
Four:
The Underworld
The usher came to fetch them when it was still an hour before dawn. ‘The magus wishes to make an early start to avoid the crowds,’ he said.
Altor had already been up for over an hour. The discipline of the monastery was in his bones, and after morning prayers and meditation had come the exercises that honed his battle skills and kept his body strong and supple.
Caelestis adhered to a very different regimen. Clutching the bedsheets, he snarled in protest as the usher tipped him out onto the floor.
‘Getting cold feet?’ said Altor. ‘There’s still a jail cell with your name on it.’
Caelestis grumbled and rubbed sleep out of his eyes. ‘Cold feet, pah! We’re only Balhazar’s champions because I had the wit to pass his test. Where would you be if not for me? Still wandering around Magus Balhazar’s ballroom gawping at illusory guests, that’s where!’
The usher returned a few minutes later to escort them downstairs.
‘For breakfast,’ said Caelestis as they descended the stairs, ‘I shall have three boiled plover’s eggs, devilled kidneys, fried wild mushrooms, spiced sausage and some of those herb and turnip rissoles for which Krarthian cuisine is so justly renowned. No, on second thoughts make that two eggs—I don’t want to be running around the Battlepits on an overfull stomach.’
A servant came over and held out a couple of pieces of toast on a plate. Altor grabbed his and gnawed on it while he went to look out of the door. Caelestis scowled and was about to wave the man away when hunger got the better of pride. He took the toast with a sigh.
Balhazar waited outside in the frosty courtyard with a retinue of foppish courtiers and rouged madams. Without a word to his champions, he climbed into a sedan chair and was borne aloft by four footmen in long blue leather coats. The retinue slowly filed out of the courtyard, following Balhazar’s sedan chair along the grey pre-dawn streets.
‘Quite a crowd,’ remarked Altor, nodding to the townsfolk standing in sullen silence at the roadside.
Soldiers in the livery of the city militia came marching with raised pikes from a side street. The townsfolk made a show of cheering Balhazar’s procession, only to lapse back into silence when the soldiers had gone.
‘Apparently they’re not enthusiastic about the magi’s rule,’ said Caelestis to one of the courtiers walking beside him.
The courtier shrugged. ‘A ruler can either be loved or feared, never both.’
As they approached the city gate the crowds grew thicker. The retinues of other magi were also here. Altor saw a curtained carriage. The crest on its side, depicting a group of sinuous violet dragons on a black field, was familiar—as were the sable uniforms of the three champions walking beside it.
Caelestis noticed the look Altor gave the carriage as it went by. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘Magus Byl,’ said Altor. ‘I sought employment with him last night, but he already had his champions and was only interested in my blood. I thought I had killed him, but apparently I lost my old sword for nothing.’
‘He wanted your blood? You mean he’s a vampire?’
‘I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Let’s just say he’s not the type to go sunbathing.’
Caelestis whistled between his teeth. ‘And let’s hope he’s not the type to bear a grudge, otherwise we can expect his three champions to come looking for us.’
‘What difference does it make?’ said Altor, shrugging. ‘In this contest we’re up against everyone else anyway.’
The procession left the city and headed out across the cold tundra. Groups of peasants already at work in the frost-hardened fields looked up glumly as the procession went past.
Along the horizon stretched a line of stone mounds, each an entrance to the underground catacombs where the contest would take place. The retinues of each of the magi made their way to one of the mounds. Not far off were three
bronze-armoured barbarians, brothers from the Gnawing Wastes, who were championing Magus Tor. Altor watched them limbering up. They swung their huge battleaxes lustily and bellowed out huge gusts of steam into the chill air. Altor soon had their measure—they relied on energy rather than skill. An opponent who remained unintimidated by their shouts could soon beat them.
Satisfied, he turned his attention to the other champions he could see. Magus Kalugen, overlord of the city, had chosen an albino swordsman who had apparently won the contest for him last year, but had squandered his reward in a matter of months and now was forced to stake his life a second time. Altor saw the telltale signs of a year wasted on merrymaking: bleary eyes, swollen red nose, a slight paunch. The former champion already looked a beaten man.
Altor felt cold eyes on him. At one of the further mounds stood a solitary warlock whose name had been mentioned by one of the sentries: Icon the Ungodly, from Yamato in the distant east. He bore the pennant of Magus Uru. His twin swords were unscabbarded, the naked steel stamped with subtle runes.
Altor and Caelestis followed the carriage of Magus Balhazar to a heap of ancient stones where the magus’ glyph was just visible on the heavy lintel, worn smooth by wind and snow and stained with brown lichen. Beneath it yawned an open pit that seemed to descend into the cold heart of the world.
The magi waited until all their champions were ready. There was silence apart from the wind howling across the plain. Each man looked around. For many it would be the last time they tasted fresh air or saw the daylight.
Altor stared down the dark tunnel. ‘Curious to think that Death waits below for most of these men,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, very cheerful,’ said Caelestis. ‘That’s the sort of pep talk your abbot would give you, eh? How about concentrating instead on the fabulous wealth that could be ours?’
Magus Kalugen raised his arms. All eyes turned to him. A portly man in white robes decorated with cursive slashes of black, he was transformed by the grandeur of the moment into an awesome figure. His voice, magnified by magic, boomed across the plain.
