All That Lives Must Die (10 page)

               9               

LUDUS MAGNUS

Fiona peered down a long shadowy corridor that led into the Ludus Magnus. She heard distant cheers, angry shouts, and cries of pain. Part of her was afraid and wanted to run away, but part of her was curious and wanted to see.

Dante led the group into the vaulted entrance, through a passage lined with old bricks and ancient stones—even a few skulls and bones had been cemented into the mix.

They came out on a grassy field half a city block wide. In the center sat the most unusual structure Fiona had ever laid eyes on. It was a lattice of posts and crossbeams, a honeycomb of ladders, ropes, and metal poles. It looked like a crisscrossing three-dimensional web spun by an army of mechanical spiders.

In the lower part of the structure, a person could barely squeeze through, with sinuous crawlways, tunnels that angled underground, even a canal filled with roaring white water.

Higher, however, the structure was wide open and towered six stories tall with ropes dangling, rickety bridges, and wooden spans barely a handsbreadth wide—which all swayed in the breeze.

“This is the gym,” Dante said. “It is part obstacle course and part battlefield. You will learn to hate it by the end of the year. Today four sophomore volunteers will give you a demonstration.”

Eliot looked sick.

Fiona moved closer for moral support. This “gym” looked like everything her brother wasn’t good at—running, climbing, and dealing with heights.

Four students ran onto the field. They wore sweatpants and sneakers. Two wore red T-shirts; the others wore green. They ran past, giving Team Scarab a polite wave, then halted in front of the gym, eyeing one another with mischievous grins.

Dante clapped his hands. A red and a green banner unfurled at the very top of the structure.

“Winning is simple,” Dante explained. “Your team must get half their people to their own flag before the other team gets to theirs. Each team has ten minutes to accomplish this, or
neither
wins.”

Dante raised his arms. The sophomores tensed.

Dante dropped his hands. Both two-man teams scrambled onto the lattice and climbed.

“You can take a safer but slower route,” Dante said. “Or you can go faster, which is more dangerous.”

Fiona saw a green-team student stop climbing about a third of the way up and get onto a narrow beam. There was only a slender iron pipe alongside to help him balance.

“Aye, there be a bit more to it than that,” Jeremy said, and pointed higher.

Two boys were thirty feet off the ground. Both clambered toward a rope swing.

The red-team boy got there first, leaped for the rope, swung around, and knocked the other boy—

—off the platform. The green-team boy twisted and turned through the air . . . bounced off a ladder . . . landed with a thud in the dirt.

Fiona moved toward him, but Dante stepped in front of her. “No interference,” he said. “It has to play out.”

“Is he—?” Eliot asked, unable to finish his thought.

They watched as the boy who’d fallen slowly got up, his arm hanging at an odd, clearly broken, angle.

“Apparently not,” Dante replied.

“You may use
any
means to get to your goal,” Dante continued. “And you can use any means to
prevent
your opponents from getting to their goal—short of bringing weapons onto the field.”

Fiona thought it a razor-fine distinction between getting kicked off a thirty-foot-high platform and not using weapons. Both were potentially lethal.

Meanwhile, the boy who’d knocked his opponent off swung across a wide chasm, landed, traversed across monkey bars, and then grabbed the red flag.

“Red wins,” Dante announced.

“This will be more complicated,” Jezebel remarked, “with two eight-person teams. Sixteen participants. The probability for combat will be much greater.”

There was a glint in the Infernal’s eyes, and Fiona didn’t like that one bit.

Amanda Lane, on the other hand, looked so pale now, Fiona thought she might faint.

“Some students,” Dante said without looking at any of them in particular, “leave after they see this . . . or after their first match. It is not for the weak of heart.”

Fiona wondered how she would do. Lose or win? Grab a flag in glory—or fall into the dirt . . . maybe breaking her neck? She imagined herself climbing and jumping and swinging through the air high off the ground. It made her blood race.

But there was more to this. Maybe Fiona wasn’t the smartest here, or the prettiest, nor did she have a clue about the social mechanics . . . but
this
she understood. She could win here and prove to everyone that she belonged at Paxington.

“I can handle this,” she said.

“I bet you can,” replied Jeremy, who had moved next to her.

The boys climbed down and helped their wounded classmate get up and off the field—even the boy who had knocked him off. There didn’t seem to be any hard feelings.

Fiona wondered how much forgiveness there would’ve been had the boy snapped his spine.

“Well,” Dante said. “Any questions?”

“When is our first match?” Sarah asked.

“That’s up to your gym teacher, Mr. Ma. He’ll probably run you through practice drills first.”

Fiona was relieved. She’d need time to thoroughly understand all this and strategize.

Dante led them back to the tunnel and outside.

They took another path through the Grove Primeval, through a particularly dense and dark section of ancient black oaks, and came out on the far side of the quad.

A fountain splashed nearby, and Fiona welcomed the cooling effect on the warm day. In the center of the water sat a bronze bearded man holding a trident; leaping fish surrounded him—all frozen forever in gleaming metal.

Dante pointed to a row of stately brownstones. “Those are the dormitories for those living on campus.” He indicated a larger columned building of gray granite in the distance. “The health center. And over these steps on the hill is Plato’s Court, where you’ll have most of your freshman classes. ”

Robert interrupted. “Hey—what’s this?” He pointed back at the fountain.

Two boys stood on opposite sides of the fountain, facing each other across the water. Their Paxington jackets were off, and each held rapiers.

“A freshman duel,” Dante remarked. “I supposed I should’ve covered this. Let’s watch.”

The tips of their rapiers glistened. One boy was as big as a football player, the other smaller than Eliot . . . even more so because he crouched low.

“Duels are permitted anytime on campus,” Dante explained. “But only by mutual consent, of course.”

They circled closer toward each other.

The bigger boy rushed his opponent, trying to skewer him through the midsection.

The smaller boy sidestepped and parried—but still stumbled back from the force, and almost fell into the fountain.

“Don’t worry,” Dante told her, “it’s only to first blood.”

“But I hear there are always accidents,” Sarah added.

Fiona thought it the most barbaric thing in the world. People shouldn’t be shoving other people off thirty-foot platforms, and they definitely shouldn’t be attacking each other with swords at school.

The small boy parried another attack, riposted—and with a deft twist, skewered the larger boy’s hand . . . pushing his blade almost up to the hilt, and then twisting until the larger boy was on his knees.

“See?” Dante said. “Just first blood.” He turned away, no longer interested.

Fiona was horrified . . . but couldn’t look away.

The smaller boy smiled, accentuating a long scar on one cheek. His opponent was escorted away by two older students.

She wouldn’t forget the smaller boy. She might have to face him in gym class.

“Make sure to pick up your reading assignments at the gate,” Dante told them, and pointed east. “Miss Westin expects you to be caught up for her first class. You wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”

“Thanks,” Fiona said.

Dante gave her an appreciative nod and then strode across the quad to the library.

“Well,” Jeremy said, rubbing his hands together, “we have a fine team. We’ll be sure to trounce any competition.” As he said this, however, his gaze slid
around
Amanda, as if she weren’t there and his description
of fine
didn’t apply to someone like her.

Fiona glanced back at the bloodstains by the fountain and then looked over her teammates.

They, in turn, glanced at one another, maybe thinking the same thing she was: Would any of them get challenged to a duel? Would they end up fighting each other? Dante said duels were mutually consensual. No one actually
had to
fight. Or was it trickier than that?

“Yeah,” Fiona said. “We’re all going to do great.”

There was an awkward silence, which Mitch broke. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting over to the gate. I’ve heard Miss Westin assigns a mountain of books the first week.”

“We all passed,” Sarah said, and casually brushed a hand through her hair. “So what’s the worry?”

Fiona had missed almost every question in the magic section on the placement exam. She had a lot of catching up to do.

“I’m out of here.” Robert turned and walked toward the gate. He uncharacteristically looked deep in thought.

“Me, too,” Amanda murmured, and trotted off to the library.

“We better go,” Fiona said, and nudged Eliot. “It was nice—”

Her eyes locked with Jezebel’s. It was like staring into clear green water, and drowning. Fiona couldn’t quite say it was nice to meet
her
. She had a feeling this girl was going to be nothing but trouble.

She jogged after Robert, calling, “Hey—wait up!”

Eliot came, too. Fiona knew he would, and that was fine because she couldn’t leave him alone with
that
group, but she still desperately wanted a few moments alone with Robert. Why couldn’t he have figured that out?

Robert had gotten very far ahead of them, although he was just walking. She and Eliot had to sprint to catch up to him as he approached the gate.

Mr. Harlan Dells, the brawny Gatekeeper in the three-piece suit, handed Robert a page-long list of books. Robert scanned it. “I’ve never read so many books in my entire life,” he said.

This was one great difference between her and Robert: Fiona had read almost every book on everything . . . save the one small area of mythology.

Mr. Dells handed her and Eliot their reading assignments. There were titles like
Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Bough
(twelve volumes),
The White Goddess, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Even for her, this might take a little time.

“We need to talk,” she whispered to Robert.

“I know,” he said, and he pretended to still be looking at that stupid list. “I don’t know where to start. Things are so weird.”

There was something in Robert’s voice she had never heard before: doubt. She wanted to take his hand, but that felt wrong in front of Mr. Dells, the man who said he could hear and see almost everything.

“Walk me home?” she asked Robert.

Fiona nudged Eliot, who for once in his life got the hint.

“I think I’ll check out that coffee shop,” Eliot said, “just to—”

Eliot’s mouth was open, but he was no longer talking. He stared beyond the gate.

A black Cadillac with tailfins rolled to a stop just outside.

Mr. Dells growled and moved toward the gate, shaking his head. “You’re blocking the entrance. No one is allowed to park here. Not even you.
Especially
you.”

“Oh man,” Robert said, “I definitely cannot be here.” He walked away.

Fiona started after him, but froze as she saw the car door open and the tallest man she’d ever seen get out. His skin was dark. His smile, cold. His eyes locked on to her and Eliot.

Uncle Kino.

“I am not parking,” Uncle Kino told the Gatekeeper. “I’m here to pick up. Them.”

               10               

THE GATES OF PERDITION

Eliot stared at the man who climbed out of the Cadillac. Uncle Kino looked taller than he remembered—like he could step over the walls of Paxington, like he was more shadow cast at sunset than flesh and blood.

He blinked and Uncle Kino still looked tall . . . but no longer unnaturally so.

The last time he’d seen Kino, he and Fiona had just been officially accepted into the League. Kino had made a point of shaking Eliot’s hand.

“I am here to take them,” Kino again told Harlan Dells.

Mr. Dells crossed his arms over his massive chest. “This is a safe haven. They go only if they want to, Mr. Saturday.”
12

Kino sniffed (this might have been a laugh; Eliot wasn’t sure) and donned sunglasses. “There’s no trouble here today,” he told Mr. Dells. “Why don’t you go sweep some hallways, eh, janitor?” He turned to Eliot and Fiona. “Come, children.”

Audrey and Cee had drilled into Eliot and Fiona since they were little kids that it was very much
not
okay to accept rides from strangers.

But Kino was part of the League. It would be no different if Uncle Henry had come to pick them up. Wouldn’t it?

Eliot tried to see Kino’s eyes past the smoky lenses of his sunglasses, but couldn’t, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

“This is Council business,” Kino explained. “Your mother sent me. She said to tell you that you will be able to do your chores and homework afterward.”

Now
that
sounded right. After entrance and placement exams, a campus tour, a reading assignment that probably would take months, and whatever the Council now wanted—of course there would be chores to do at home.

Eliot looked at Fiona, and she slowly nodded, confirming his hunch.

“Okay,” Eliot said.

Mr. Dells uncrossed his arms, flipped the switch on the side of the gatehouse, and the large iron gate rolled silently open.

Eliot took a step toward Kino’s car.

“Wait.” Kino held up his large hand.

“You
just
said you wanted us to come,” Eliot told him.

“You got dice on you? No dice!” Kino said, and pushed his sunglasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “Not in my car.”

For a second Eliot didn’t know what he meant. He then realized he still had the dice from the Last Sunset Tavern in his pocket. His lucky charms. He’d used them to guess on the last multiple-choice parts of the placement exam he hadn’t had a clue about.

He pulled them out of his pocket. “They’re just—”

“They’re just getting thrown away,” Kino declared.

Fiona turned to Eliot and rolled her eyes. That was the look she reserved for when Audrey laid down the law. A look that said,
Shut up and do what you’re told, because we’re not going to win this one and it’s no use trying.

But Eliot wasn’t just going to throw them away. They were his.

He squeezed them in his fist, felt their recessed pips, all those random possibilities contained in his hand. It made him feel in control.

“Toss them here, boy,” Mr. Dells said. “I’ll hold them for you.”

With a sigh, Eliot handed them over.

Mr. Dells rattled them in Kino’s direction. The taller man sneered at this and slowly sank back into his Cadillac.

Fiona ran for the front passenger’s side door. Eliot sprinted after her.

“The back,” Kino told them. “No children up front.”

They reluctantly moved to opposite rear passenger doors and opened them at the same time. Eliot paused to admire the way the car’s back swept up into two tails.

He then slid inside, and so did Fiona.

The backseats were slick red leather, the interior panels mahogany with chrome accents. There was a smell, not that wonderful new car smell, but more like plastic that had decomposed in the sun.

He and Fiona simultaneously slammed the doors shut.

“Where are we going?” Fiona asked. She nervously plucked at the rubber band on her wrist.

“A short drive to show you children the road ahead,” Kino replied. “We want you to make the right decision at the crossroads.”

As answers went, this was what Eliot had come to expect from his family: something utterly cryptic.

Eliot eased back and fumbled about for the safety belt. There wasn’t any.

“There’s no—”

Uncle Kino sped out of the alley and onto the main street without even pausing to look for oncoming traffic.

Eliot and Fiona slid together into the door.

Fiona pushed him away; Eliot elbowed her back.

As he settled back down, he noticed a statuette of the Virgin Mary on the car’s dash, her eyes upraised to the pine air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. All the car’s gauges read zero.

They were headed the wrong way to be going home. Instead, Eliot saw the trees of Presidio Park ahead.

“So why no dice?” Eliot asked.

“They are not for us,” Kino told him.

“Us? You mean the League?” Fiona asked.

“Dice are an Infernal invention,” Kino replied.

“How can that be?” Eliot asked. “Dice have been around forever.”

Kino gazed into the rearview mirror. “No good has ever come from dice.”

They slowed at the entrance to Presidio Park and turned in.

Eliot had a feeling he should keep his mouth shut, but something bothered him about Kino’s distaste for dice. Audrey had a rule for them, too, one curiously devoid of her usual legally verbose wording.

RULE 3:
NO DICE
.

And when he and Fiona had first been shown to the League Council, they were tested by throwing dice. Everyone had looked so nervous when Henry produced them. What was wrong with dice?

“You’ve used them before?” Eliot asked.

Kino turned around to face Eliot—no longer even looking where he was driving as he veered onto Lincoln Boulevard. His features could’ve been molded from cast iron. “No dice,” he repeated.

Eliot was used to this stonewall treatment from Audrey. He had his argument ready. “How are we supposed to learn?” he said. “Or make the right choices when we come to this crossroads you’re talking about, if no one tells us anything?”

Kino snorted and turned back.

He was silent a moment as he slowly steered the car through the entrance to the San Francisco National Cemetery. Orderly rows of white headstones surrounded them on either side.

“Sure we used the dice,” Kino said. “Many, many times in the old days. We loved them . . . too much . . . and made many bad choices.”

The Cadillac rolled onto a single lane that turned toward a stand of eucalyptus trees. More headstones and statues of angels appeared clustered in patches of shade.

“The last time we used dice,” Kino said, “was after we took the Titans’ lands. This was before humans even stepped from the wilderness.”

They leaned closer. No one—not even Uncle Henry—had told them about the early parts of their family’s history.

Fog swirled through the forest. No big deal in the Bay Area . . . but it was kind of strange at this time in the afternoon. Strong sunlight shone through in patches and made the mists like veils.

“We had all wanted the land,” Kino continued. “We argued, used law and logic—but in the end, there were three who would not bend. Three whom men would later call Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.”

“So you rolled for the land,” Eliot said, guessing and inching closer.

More trees crowded this part of the cemetery, plunging everything into shadow.

“Zeus rolled the highest, claiming the kingdoms of sky and earth. Poseidon rolled second highest and took the domain of water.” Kino gestured ahead. “I rolled lowest and claimed the shadowy lands that were left as my domain.”

The Cadillac eased to stop before a gate. It was simple and small: two-by-fours and chicken wire, something you might put up to keep the rabbits out of your garden.

“We knew Zeus cheated,” Kino said, sounding bitter.

He got out and went to the gate.

The gate was some sort of optical illusion, though. As Kino stood by the thing, it seemed as tall now as he was—the chicken wire more solid chain-link and padlocked, too.

Kino opened it with a touch and pushed the gate aside.

He climbed back into the Cadillac, and they rolled past the barrier.

“That was the last time we settled
any
matter with dice.” Kino lifted a hand off the wheel and made a sideways cutting motion Eliot knew all too well. Audrey had made that gesture countless times—indicating this conversation was over.

Eliot made a note that Kino was Hades. He’d also remember the names Poseidon and Zeus, two more important-sounding relatives he should keep track of.

He had a feeling there was more to Kino’s dislike of dice, and much more to the story of how they related to the Infernals, than he was telling. Eliot felt, however, he’d pressed his luck far enough.

Outside, cemetery headstones packed together so tightly in places, they look like crooked teeth erupting from the ground; there were statues and monuments side by side so close that no one could walk through.

They rounded another curve, and the headstones thinned and became orderly again and all had military insignia upon them . . . royal crests and crossed swords and eagles in relief.

Eliot looked back. The gate was far behind them, and it had swung shut.

Kino drove up and over a low hill. There were larger structures: mausoleums, obelisks, crude cairns, and something that looked like Stonehenge. There were rolling fields and poplar trees. Sunlight broke through the fog, illuminating wildflowers and making a distant river glisten.

Eliot was positive there was no such river in San Francisco. This reminded him of one of Uncle Henry’s lightning-fast journeys across the world. It had that weird dreamy feel to it.

“This is Elysium,” Kino said. “Where the noble dead come to dwell for a time.”

“So it’s another place?” Fiona asked. “Like Purgatory?”

Kino grunted his assent and continued to drive.

So maybe this wasn’t like one of Uncle Henry’s rides. Kino was taking them to no place in this world. Did that mean
they
were dead now, too? No . . . Fiona had gone to the Valley of the New Year, which she said was part of Purgatory—and she had managed to get back.

He rolled down his window, scared, but wanting a better look nonetheless. Outside, it smelled of fresh earth and rain. Clean.

Eliot set his backpack on his lap. He wanted Lady Dawn close, just in case.

There were people outside. Some sat in marble pavilions talking, painting, or lounging in hammocks. Others gathered about great barbecues, or tossed Frisbees or collected flowers. Couples walked hand in hand.

“All these people . . . ,” Eliot said.

“Dead,” Kino told him.

They rode past orchards of cherry trees in full bloom that filled the air with feather white blooms, and over terraced hills with row after row of trellises heavy with bloodred and amber grapes.

How could this be? If this was where the dead really came, shouldn’t there be
billions
of them here?

Eliot wanted to ask. But he didn’t, not wanting to appear stupid.

The Cadillac picked up speed.

Kino touched a button on his door, and Eliot’s window slid up.

He turned onto an unpaved branch off the road. The sky was iron gray.

The car accelerated around curves until this road became a single dirt track. The trees became stunted and small, then there were just grass and tumbleweeds, and then just bare rocky dirt. There were no more people here—and definitely no one tossing Frisbees.

Eliot spied a drop-off in the distance.

Kino pressed his foot all the way to the floor, and the Cadillac leaped ahead, leaving plumes of dust behind.

“What’s going on?” Eliot asked.

“Now I will show you the part of the Underworld that belongs to the Infernals,” Kino replied, the bitterness thick in his voice, and his eyes glued straight ahead.

Eliot swallowed. That didn’t sound good.

The door locks thumped down.

Kino drove and said nothing.

Eliot looked to Fiona, and she gave a slight shake of her head. He wanted to get out, but how? They must be going over a hundred miles an hour—rocketing past jagged boulders—straight toward where the land dropped away.

The Cadillac fishtailed to the left, skating along a cliff—continuing at breakneck speed along its edge.

Eliot slid into Fiona. Neither of them seemed to notice or care; both their faces pressed to the window.

The land plunged more than a mile straight down. A river of molten metal carved through jagged spires of black volcanic rock. In the distance, a desert plain stretched to the horizon. Airplanes, meteors, and flaming debris fell from the sky. Tiny figures swarmed, crowds of people among the rocks and on dunes. They ran, and it looked like they were fighting. Winged creatures circled overhead. One swooped and plucked up a double clawful of people.

Eliot wanted to look away. He couldn’t.

“This is what the other family does to the dead,” Kino told them. “They torture. Turn souls into wandering insane things. Take a long listen. Remember this next time you hear one of your Infernal relatives and their lies . . . and choose wisely.”

Kino rolled down the electric windows.

There was the rumble of distant thunder and volcanoes, and carried on the hot winds were the screams of thousands of lost souls.

Eliot couldn’t stand the din. It made him want to scream along with them.

He turned to ask Fiona what she thought, but she was pale and stared straight ahead.

Kino flicked on the Cadillac’s headlights. The road they sped along was just a track now through a wilderness of dead twisted trees and whirlwinds of volcanic ash. There was no sun, no stars . . . just darkness.

The Cadillac slowed.

Along the cliff’s edge, a fence had been erected. It was giant femurs and rib bones, from dinosaurs, maybe. Concertina wire and long curved talons topped it, pointed away from their side to keep things in Hell from climbing over.