by Scott Baron
The man wound up to throw a looping punch.
He’s actually trying to throw a haymaker? Charlie found himself wondering in astonishment. My God, could he telegraph it any more? He almost laughed as the scene unfolded in comical slowness.
Charlie casually ducked, letting the punch fly over his head, the force behind it sending the man spinning.
“Shit,” he said as the crewman lunged at him again.
Well, I can always get more, he figured. And this will be so damn satisfying. He didn’t hesitate, slamming his metal tray right into the attacking man’s face.
The impact took him right off his feet, and before he could get any ideas about making yet another go of it, Charlie put his hand-to-hand training to good use, wrenching one of the attackers’ arms into a painful wrist lock.
“Now, are you quite done?” he yelled at the man. “Because I just want to eat my fucking food without assholes like you getting all up in my shit. You hear me?” He twisted the man’s wrist for emphasis.
“Yes, I hear you, I hear you!”
Charlie eased up on the pressure, still controlling the man’s wrist. “I could break this, you know. Right now. It wouldn’t take much. But I choose not to. But if you mess with me or my friends again, you’ll be wiping your ass with your other hand for a long time. Is that understood?”
“It is. I’m sorry.”
“Good. Now get the hell out of here,” Charlie said, releasing the man’s aching wrist.
“Charlee, that was amazing,” Tuktuk said, watching the vanquished attacker slink away cradling his wrist. “Unwise, but amazing, yes.”
“Thanks, Tuk,” he replied, picking up his spilled tray. “Aw, sonofabitch,” he said, looking at the line.
Charlie headed toward the rear to wait all over again. Unlike Spartacus movies and feel-good tales, he may have beaten the bad guy, but the others weren’t about to let that slow them in their pursuit of food. Or so it seemed, until a very large and very muscular man with a jeweled slaap on his hip and long, greasy hair elbowed his way through the crowd, straight to Charlie.
Oh, great. Here we go again.
“You. Slave. Come here.”
Reluctantly, Charlie walked to the man.
“Come,” he said, clamping a meaty hand on his shoulder and pushing him to the front of the line. “Get food,” he instructed. Not a single person in the line said a word, Charlie noted as he piled his tray again. “Now, come with me.”
He steered Charlie to a table––which rapidly vacated at his arrival. “Sit. Eat.”
Charlie did as he was told. “Thank you,” he said between mouthfuls.
“You deserve it,” the man said. “You fight well. Sloppy, yes, but there is some skill. Good instincts. You have trained, yes?”
“Yeah, a bit,” Charlie replied between bites. “Some Krav Maga, a bit of Jiu Jitsu, a little Silat.” He realized the words meant nothing to the man. “Yes, I had instructors in my training program on my homeworld, but long ago,” he said, then quietly shoveled more food into his mouth.
“You have spirit,” the man said, sizing him up like he was a horse at the market. “I think you have gladiator potential. With proper training, you could perhaps win me some coin. I wish to inquire your price. Who is your master?” he asked, then roughly grabbed the collar around Charlie’s neck. “Ah, Tür. He is a savvy haggler, but I think he’ll see reason.”
“I appreciate the kind words, but I don’t want to be a gladiator,” Charlie said. “I’ve never had any desire to fight. What just happened here? That was weeks of stress finally piling up, that’s all.”
Without warning, the man slapped him across the face.
“Do not speak to me of wants and denials. You are a slave. Open your mouth for more than eating again and I will feed you to a Zomoki and be paying restitution for burial costs instead of a purchase price.”
Charlie wisely did not utter another word.
“Good. Now, go about your business, slave. I shall go speak with your master.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Tslavar ship stayed on the planet an additional day, the captain allowing his men some rare R&R shore leave to relax and unwind. For most, that meant either gambling or women, but a few of the crew––those with the most years spent aboard the ship––opted for the open fields surrounding the city, where they set up a small campsite and relaxed in nature, sleeping beneath the stars.
For the slaves, however, it was a continuous burden of work, though it felt as if Captain Tür was more showing them off to potential buyers than conducting trades of any significant value. Sure enough, early in the afternoon, a sturdily built woman in ornate robes handed the captain a stack of coins, at which the captain nodded to one of his men, who pulled a particularly muscular greenish-hued man named Oglar from beneath his load.
“You are to go with Denna Purna. She is your new owner,” Tür said, intoning the words, “Ngthiri oolama tangopeh.” Oglar’s collar snapped open, and the captain quickly locked Denna Purna’s in its place.
“Come, Oglar,” the woman said with an enigmatic grin.
Oglar followed along, content enough, but Tuktuk and several of the others seemed particularly distressed by the occurrence.
“What’s up, Tuk? It looks like Oglar just scored an easy gig working for that woman.”
“Is easy, yes,” his blue friend said. “But no worth the price.”
“What are you saying? Captain Tür was ripped off?”
“No that price. The one Oglar pay.”
Charlie watched the burly man follow his new master into the crowds. But Oglar hadn’t paid anything. The slaves had no possessions, and he said as much.
“You no understand, Charlee. Him go to work in woman house.”
“Yes, I saw her.”
“No, him no going work in Purna’s house. Him go be guard and servant for the women in her house.”
“Um, okay. But I don’t see what’s so bad about––”
Tuktuk cupped his crotch. “They no allow whole man to work this job.”
Suddenly the situation became crystal clear.
“Eunuchs?” Charlies blurted. “They’re going to cut off his junk?”
“Do not know what is oonoch, but yes, they make him less than man. Safer for women that way.”
Charlie decided at that moment that there were far worse things than carrying large bundles to and from the Tslavar ship.
That evening they were sitting at one of the long tables, enjoying an early meal after a long day’s work. After the prior day’s incident, Charlie was given a wide berth by the other men. At least, most of them.
One particularly greasy-looking laborer with a thick band around his neck kept giving him some pretty intense stink-eye.
“What’s with that dude?” Charlie muttered between bites. “He’s been mad-dogging me since we got here.”
“Most likely is him wanting to make show of how tough he is. After yesterday, beating you become the best way to prove himself.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I just want to eat in peace.”
“Seeming you not getting the chance, Charlee.”
He looked up from his plate. Sure enough, the greasy man was making his way toward him, clearly looking to start something.
“Hey, man. Look, I just want to eat in peace, okay? You’re the toughest guy in the yard, I concede. Everyone hear that? This guy is the toughest man here.”
The hard-eyed man didn’t sway his course, but instead walked right up to him. Charlie, not about to be taken out while sitting on his ass, rose to his feet to meet him head-on.
“I don’t want a problem,” he said.
The man merely smiled a rotten grin, then reached out a filthy hand and grabbed a fistful of Charlie’s food from his plate.
No slaap on his hands, he noted. And he’s not that big.
“Okay, enough of this,” he said, hoping to intimidate the smaller man. “Take a hike back to your table and let’s call
this a draw.”
Yellowing teeth shone like a tainted sun from the man’s mouth as he let out a menacing laugh. Charlie thought that was the end of it, but the man then threw the handful of food in Charlie’s face. He felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through his veins.
Fine. You want a piece? You got one.
Charlie wiped the food from his cheek and threw a quick jab followed by a cross. The greasy man was quick, but he didn’t completely dodge the blows.
“Yeah, not so tough now, are you?” Charlie said as he struck again.
This time, however, the man did something Charlie wasn’t expecting.
“Kika rahm,” he blurted, throwing his hand up, open palm toward Charlie. For a moment, he glimpsed a fine band around the man’s wrist, but that was brief, as he was immediately thrown off his feet, as if hit by an invisible punch.
“What the hell?” Charlie wondered aloud as he scrambled back to his feet. But he isn’t wearing a slaap.
The man moved on him again and this time Charlie moved aside, on the defensive.
“Uzri ha!”
Charlie felt himself abruptly lifted from his feet and thrown to the ground, as if by some giant, invisible wrestler. A quick series of additional attacks left him dazed and bruised, sprawled out on the ground and wondering what the hell manner of fighting this was.
“No fair, you have magic,” he grumbled.
The man looked up into the crowd then back at Charlie. He flashed his yellow smile once more, then turned and walked away.
Charlie’s gaze went to where the man had looked. There, in the observing crowd, stood Captain Tür. At his side was the enormous man Charlie had encountered the prior day. The man looked disappointed. Captain Tür, however, looked disappointed and angry.
Chapter Fifty-Four
“Failure,” the elfin captain said, the disappointment clear in his voice.
Charlie had, upon his humiliating beat-down in the eating hall, been summoned before the slaver boss, and Tür was not pleased.
“I didn’t want to get in a fight.” Charlie rubbed the sore spot on his shoulder where the ground had done its best to remove his arm from his torso. “He attacked me. What else was I supposed to do?”
Captain Tür fixed him with a long, unblinking stare.
“You were supposed to fight better,” he finally said. “You were supposed to win.”
“Better? The guy was cheating. That wasn’t a fair fight. He had magic. It wasn’t a slaap, but he had something.”
“He did not have magic. He used magic. There is a huge difference between the two.” The green-skinned man pushed up his sleeve, revealing a slim bracelet, similar to what his attacker had worn. At first glance, it was nothing of note, but then Charlie saw the fine symbols etched in the metal.
“This is a konus. It is what defeated you today.”
Charlie squinted his eyes, but the writing refused to make itself any clearer for his human mind.
“So it’s like a slaap?”
“Not unlike one, but while it can be charged with magical energy, much as a slaap is, the konus is a focusing device. For gladiator trainees with a potential of power in their bodies, it can help them tap into that magic. The man you fought, he possessed the tiniest amount of magic in his body, yet it was the konus that held his edge. A slight bit of power stored in the item. It was that, not his own middling powers, that he wielded against you, a much larger opponent, to devastating effect.”
“Okay, it wasn’t his magic, but it was still an outside advantage.”
“And if you were a gladiator you would have known the counter-spells to negate that advantage.”
Charlie suddenly realized what was happening.
“That wasn’t a random attack, was it? I saw you with that man. The one I spoke to yesterday. He said he wanted me to be a gladiator.”
Captain Tür did something he rarely did. He smiled.
“Very observant. It is your sharp wits that led me to believe you would perform better when faced with an asymmetric attack. I was mistaken, and it cost me a great deal of money.”
A flash of anger flooded Charlie’s veins, but he wisely kept it inside. So long as he wore that collar, he was at Tür’s mercy.
“The whole thing was a setup. A test.”
“Yes. And you failed quite miserably.”
“Well, good. You were going to trade me off to some guy to be a punching bag for a bunch of muscle-headed lunks?”
“No, I was going to make a hefty profit off of you, and in turn, you would learn to wield a konus, and possibly a small slaap as you developed into a more skilled fighter. It is a good living for those who excel.”
“And that’s not going to be me,” Charlie said firmly.
Captain Tür smiled. It was not a warming expression.
“You have proven to be a disappointment, a financial drain, and more trouble than you are worth,” Tür said with a tired sigh. “If you will not fight, then you will find value for me, one way or another.”
Charlie didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
Their ship took off late that evening. Whatever deal had been in the works had gone south, and Charlie had a sinking feeling he knew what the cause of that was.
They traveled for several days, and though there was no vibration to tell just how fast they were going, it seemed to him that the Drooks were working overtime. Wherever they were going, Captain Tür seemed to be in a hurry, though not so much of a hurry that he’d spend power jumping to the next planet.
Gradually, the light outside the ship from the new star system made its way in through the window, and the reaction from Tuktuk led Charlie to believe it was a bad omen.
“What is it, Tuk?”
The blue-skinned man quietly rocked on his bunk, his eye stalks darting about in fear. “We going to dark place, Charlee. We going to where Wampeh come from. We going to black sun system.”
Charlie had seen what the one Wampeh he’d encountered had been capable of many worlds ago. He had terrified Tür’s men, and they were exceptional fighters. He knew the same man wouldn’t be on this random planet, but the thought that there were more deadly creatures like him out there was unsettling, to say the least. And they were going to a world where they thrived.
A heavy, oppressive feeling crept into the ship, despite whatever magical shielding they had in place. The black sun’s powerful rays penetrated one and all, the light passing ultraviolet spectrum. When they touched down on the small planet, they stepped out into a dark world illuminated entirely by magical light.
Tuktuk may have been exaggerating when he said magic users were a rarity on such planets. Fully powered Wampeh, perhaps, but there were myriad other varieties of aliens with abilities not seen on other worlds. The planet was thick with magical energy, and it hardly seemed you could walk ten feet without stumbling into another enchanted device or system.
Even the sewage control was handled by magic, some creature’s powers being used to vanish waste from the toilet systems, perhaps teleported to some distant––and likely very upset––land.
The porter slaves all lined up at the usual spot near the ship’s exit, ready to hoist their big loads to their backs. One by one, they set out into the market, following Saur and Dolomir. Charlie, however, was given a much smaller pack, which was still sizable, but not nearly as immense as he’d grown accustomed to.
They set out into the market, and Charlie noted Captain Tür himself was accompanying the group.
“Kika rahm!” the captain grunted, violently blasting a group of ruffians from their path before they could draw their concealed weapons. “Keep moving,” he growled, keeping his slaap ready. Charlie realized Saur and Dolomir also had their slaaps firmly in hand.
This planet was not a friendly one, and the bazaar they were heading into seemed just the sort of place one would go if looking for trouble. Conscious of his surroundings, Charlie kept pace with the others, staying close to the safety of the group.
; “Kika rahm,” he quietly muttered to himself, wondering what exactly it meant as he committed the word to his mental list with a helpful tune. The little school trick he used with most of the magical commands he had learned thus far was doing the trick. A good memory and a knack for mnemonic phrases had served him well, and now he had quite the collection of little tunes compiled in his head, each full of dangerous magic words.
At least I won’t forget them, he thought gratefully.
“Ngthiri oolama tangopeh,” he whispered, but his collar stayed firmly attached. In all likelihood, even if he had a slaap he couldn’t have made the band release.
Well, it was worth a try.
Deeper they traveled into the bazaar, and heavy magic was everywhere. Goods and wares illuminated by spells, and castings of a dozen types of magic could be had at any one of the stalls and marketplace tents. Charlie even saw what could pass as a flying carpet, though the airborne conveyance was more of an upholstered sled than an actual woven rug.
“Stop gawking,” Tür said. “We’re not here for sightseeing.”
But there were so many varieties of pale alien life to see. Wampeh were plentiful, though none had that menacing look of the one Charlie had encountered many worlds back. These seemed to be normal people, albeit very pale ones, with slightly protruding spinal ridges.
Other types of aliens were there as well, most of which he had seen on other worlds. What was interesting was he found it relatively easy to spot the expats who had taken up residence from the mere visitors. It was in the skin. The skin and the eyes. The former becoming paler and paler, the latter wider of pupil from the endless darkness.
A sharp, invisible tug on his collar pulled him from the others.
“Tuktuk! What’s happening?”
His friend turned to look, but was hurried along with the other porters by Saur, who shot a dark smile Charlie’s way.
“We have a different destination.” Captain Tür looked around, then, once his bearings were straight, headed farther into the market, the invisible tug on Charlie’s collar urging him to follow.
