Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (31 page)

His son Regar and the red-robed priest, Master Peig, came on deck then.
The priest scowled at Abramm but said nothing as he followed the others
over the side. Shortly the shore boat heaved away, oars flashing as it glided
through Vorta’s bustling harbor toward the dock and the gray-walled city
looming above it.

Cloaked, cowled, and escorted closely by Zamath, Abdeel, Dumah, and
the others, the Kiriathans drew little more than casual interest on their walk
from the dock to the Ul Manus Arena. Built on a low hill at the city’s midst
and crowned with the colorful banners of the twenty-two Houses of the Brogai, the arena’s entrance ramps thronged with arriving spectators. Zamath
bypassed these for a busy service tunnel that descended into the arena’s stinking, bustling underbelly, where a network of low-vaulted chambers housed
rows of iron-barred cages along a curving central aisle. Men, women, and children occupied those cages, as well as beasts of all kinds, both predators and
prey. The Games, Abramm had learned from his talks with Katahn, were not
so much about fighting as about killing and death. Death, Esurhites believed,
was a part of life and not to be feared. Great power was released at the
moment a soul was liberated from its flesh, power that might be conferred
upon those who witnessed it. For some it was a spiritual experience, a linkage,
however brief, with the power of Khrell himself.

And so, there was not only combat between equals, not only the great
dramas played out in all their gory finality, there were sometimes simple contests of hunter and hunted, the lion against the lamb, albeit controlled and
directed by a Game Master for maximum suspense and impact.

Hearing about it in Katahn’s spacious gallery over a game of uurka and a
cup of tea was quite different from suddenly finding himself a part of it all.
Those people in that cell over there, scrawny and dead-eyed men, women,
and children-they were no warriors. And if not warriors, they must be victims, herded into the ring to act out some past event or prognosticated future.

Which was exactly the role he and Trap were expected to play. Yes, they
would be given weapons, but no one, not even Katahn, expected them to live.

As a Game official hurried up to them, Abdeel pulled back their cowls
for inspection. The official had seen them unpainted last night, and now he
started, then chuckled openly. His assistants laughed as well, exchanging dry remarks with the handlers as the official got down to business. He peered
closely at the Kiriathans, making them turn around before him, then checked
the number on his list against that on the bronze bands sealed-with magic,
it seemed-round their wrists yesterday. Finally he examined the bands
themselves and, finding nothing amiss, approved them for admittance.

`And you’re here none too soon,” he informed their handlers. “They’re up
after the Dorsaddi Deliverer, and he’s in the wings right now.”

They were brought to a holding area before a pair of wooden doors, filled
with men and women dressed in Kiriathan high-court finery-frills of lace
and ribbon and satin-and long wigs of every color. Like Abramm and Trap,
their faces had been painted white and onto that, in red and black, various
comical expressions-prissy heart mouths or wide silly grins, round red cheek
spots or mournful, downslanting brows complete with painted tear.

They sat or stood silently, staring at the floor, at the wall, or into space,
their eyes dull and empty.

A young woman in a yellow gown sat dully on a bench, tears streaking
the painted happy face she wore. She looked up as Abramm and Trap
entered, examining them with dead, disinterested eyes. Old eyes, though
Abramm guessed she was younger than he was. Two other women sat beside
her, staring into space.

“Why are you here?” Trap asked one of the men in the Tahg. When the
stranger only looked at him blankly, he repeated himself in Kiriathan.

That sparked a stirring of interest. The man’s eyes flicked from him to
Abramm and back. “We’re your courtiers.” He hesitated, looking at Abramm
again. “You’re supposed to defend us. It’s the Fall of Kiriath-Beltha’adi
meets the Kalladorne king.” He flashed Abramm a look of bitter reproach,
then turned away. “But they always give us imposters,” he muttered.

Abramm understood his feeling easily enough. Everyone here must know,
despite their behavior to the contrary, who Abramm was. He’d been paraded
around last night for all to see, spectators and fellow participants alike, his
name blared out clearly, even accented by the Tahg.

They knew.

How many times had they taken part in this “Fall of Kiriath”? How many
defenders pretending to be king had failed them already? Here, at last, their
masters gave them the real thing, a man of royal blood, and instead of vindication, they could only believe he’d bring them the worst humiliation of all. For if they knew of him, they could only know what he had been-the weakest of the Kalladorne brothers. Little Abramm, the pious servant of Eidon.
The smallest, the least talented, the poorest trained. A boy who’d spent the
last eight years of his life studying how not to fight. In their eyes, having
Abramm Kalladorne as their defender would be worse than no defender at
all.

Looking at them now, with their eyes downcast or deliberately averted,
none of them wanting to have to acknowledge his presence, he felt something
harden within him. For the last six days he had dreaded this hour, knowing
full well that fighting at practice was not in the least like fighting for real. Old
doubts had resurfaced, strengthened by an all too vivid capacity to imagine
the possibilities for failure. Would he panic? Freeze? Forget everything?

These warriors he would face had killed hundreds of times before. He had
never killed a man in his life and wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it if he had
to.

But now, seeing these people-his own countrymen, sharing his fate-a
long-dead sense of duty resurrected within him. He was a prince of Kalla-
dome blood, the object of his people’s respect and tribute, for which he owed
them nothing less than the sacrifice of his own life to their service. Even his
entry into the Mataio had reflected this, for he’d given up as much as any
soldier-more, even-to do it, and all for the sake of the realm and the people within it.

If he was no longer Brother Eldrin, he was yet Prince Abramm. If he no
longer served the Flames, he still served his countrymen. And now more than
ever he understood the power and the reality of the threat that menaced
them. When he entered that ring out there, he would be fighting not only for
himself but also for the reputation of his family and his homeland and for
these individuals who shared this cell with him. Individuals with faces and
names, with eyes ashamed to look at him but whose ancestors had revered
and trusted his own. He wanted fiercely to be worthy of that trust, to restore
their faith, and most of all, to wipe the despair from their eyes.

The crowd’s roar drew him to peer through the crack where the double
doors met. He’d seen the arena last night, a walled oblong of sand surrounded
by steeply rising tiers of seats. Now, though, the stands were packed with
screaming spectators, making the smallish ring seem even smaller and more
intimate.

At the moment black-tunicked warriors swaggered across the sand amidst
bloodied figures in Dorsaddi ochre. As the few survivors were herded
together by the victors’ subordinates, the champions strutted and postured
before the audience.

`And so the Dorsaddi fell,” the Taleteller intoned, “and the SaHal remains
dead to this day. Let all who defy the gods take heed. None can stand against
the power of the Black Moon. None can-“

“NO?” One of the surviving Dorsaddi broke free of his captors. Dodging
the bodies and preening victors, he challenged the gilded box on the far side
wherein sat the elite of Vorta, among them the infamous Beltha’adi himself.

“You are wrong,” the man cried out in the Tahg. “Sheleft’Ai has not forgotten, nor will he suffer your arrogance much longer. Even now the Deliverer is coming to slay you. Within two years the sand will drink your blood
and the Dorsaddi will rise again?”

He stood straight-backed and proud, his bloodstained robes swaying
around him. No one moved or breathed, every eye fixed upon him.

From his distant vantage, Abramm could see no more than a slight shifting
amidst the figures in the shadowed box-heads turning, a hand lifted-then,
from the adjoining box, where sat the warlords’ Broho, streaked a violet
plume of death. In an eyeblink it crashed into the Dorsaddi’s chest and
exploded out his back. He stood for a moment, head high, chin up, as if it
did not matter that he no longer had a heart. Then he pitched forward, falling
in an attitude of supplication, his arms reaching out ironically to the great
Beltha’adi before him.

Profound silence followed. Then a group of workers hurried out from the
far gate to carry him away. The Taleteller began again, his deep voice making
the doors shiver.

“None can stand against the power of Khrell. None can stand against the
power of Aggos. Let all who defy them take heed and know: As Sheleft’Ai
has fallen, so will they. All will bend the neck to Khrell. In his name, we will
rule as we are destined and even the white-skinned infidels to the north, who
strut in their debauchery, will one day eat the dirt before him.

“Hail Khrell! Hail Beltha’adi! Hail Destiny?”

“Hail Khrell?” the crowd roared. “Hail Beltha’adi! Hail Destiny!”

The inner cell door squealed as Abdeel and Dumah hurried in with their
charges’ swords, withheld as always until combat was about to begin. They
strapped on the harnesses for both longsword and dagger, gave them grins
that were anything but friendly, and hurried out again.

A moment later the arena doors swung open, and Abramm gasped to see
what they revealed. The sand had vanished, replaced by a gleaming gold-andlapis court from which a long, marbled stair rose to a railed platform. White
partitions, some appearing solid, others clearly illusion, rose up here and
there around the set. High overhead a massive chandelier depended from a
vaulted ceiling that looked for all the world like it must block the view of the
spectators at the higher levels, and yet, he knew it did not. It was an illusion,
like all the rest. Double-sided, appearing solid from one vantage and as the
sheerest veil of gauze from the other.

But he was ready for that, having seen glimpses of the phenomenon in
the parade last night. What astonished him was that this set was a nearperfect replica of the king’s court at Whitehill.

The courtiers had hurried out when the doors opened, busy taking up
their positions, while Abramm stood entranced. Now he heard his own name
blare across the arena, fractured miserably by the Tahg, and the crowd fell
silent. With a glance at Trap beside him, he drew a deep breath, straightened
his shoulders, and stepped into the light.

It was only a moment before the laughter began, and once begun, it escalated quickly. People pointed and slapped each other’s backs; they screamed and squealed and howled, doubling over and falling on top of each other in
their mirth. Abramm walked with his head high, his back straight, his eyes
ahead, as he’d been taught as a child, ignoring them. Taunts flew out of the
general melee. “Yelaki Kiriatha! Hashta kermaad!”

He slid into that place of calm detachment, as on the beach at Qarkeshan,
thinking what a curious thing it was to be mocked and disdained by people
who knew nothing about him. Even more curious that they should do it with
such vehemence.

The strains of a popular waltz started up around them. At once the courtiers began to drink and prance and primp, apparently having been coached,
or maybe just making it up, for no one Abramm had ever seen at court acted
like this.

The girl in yellow met them at the court’s “entrance.” Her tears had dried,
and she avoided their eyes as she guided them up the stairs to the platform
where Abramm was to sit on the throne. Another ran up the stair with empty
silver goblets, wagged her finger at them, as if they were naughty boys, and
hurried away.

The stentorian Taleteller-Abramm could not imagine how he made his
voice so loud-launched into his introduction. The Fall of the King of Kiriath,
this act was called. With somebody or other as Beltha’adi and somebody else
as Beltha’adi’s second-not that he would find anything to do today. The joke
was received with a surge of laughter and applause.

Abramm was then introduced as playing the role of the King of Kiriath,
courtesy of Katahn ul Manus himself. `And in the role of His Majesty’s
retainer we have the Heathen Shield Trap Meridon, formerly of the Kiriathan
Royal Guard. Or so Lord ul Manus claims.”

Wrathful, contemptuous screaming greeted this announcement. Pieces of
rotten fruit splattered the outer edges of tile and sailed through the ghost wall
that stood between Abramm and the audience on the court’s far side.