Arena (38 page)

“There’s no way we can bring him through that crawlway, Cal. Not in the shape he’s in.”

“No.” It occurred to her that even if they found the passage, they wouldn’t get him through it in time to save his life.

Her stomach churned.
Don’t think about that
.

She swept the beam slowly across the chamber again, searched the yellow wall beside her for indication of an opening. Finally she turned her focus inward, seeking the link, but her thoughts kept straying to images of Pierce lying gray-faced on the floor, and to the horrible notion that they’d been mistaken, or tricked, that there was no Safehaven.

No, there had to be something, something important that she was missing.

As she turned toward the exit, the sense of being watched prickled up her spine. Realizing with a start that Gerry had left unnoticed, she hesitantly flashed the lamp left and right—and spied a Tohvani, standing at the base of the talus slope about twenty feet away. It did not flinch or blink in the light but just stood there, staring at her. Was this proof the door was here? Was the creature waiting to see if she could find it? Mocking her because she hadn’t?

Anger erupted. Though she had been watched by these creatures since her first day in the Arena, she never got used to it, and she hated it now more than ever. Those cold, empty eyes, so devoid of expression, so . . . so superior. It was their disdainful attitude, more than their appearance, which made them seem so alien.

She turned her back on it, feeling for cracks in the wall again.

We can’t help what we look like. He won’t let us appear any other way
.

She froze.

We’re as much victims as you are. He’s the one who runs things, after
all
.

She should leave now.

Makes you wonder why he’s gone to all this trouble, doesn’t it? I mean,
bringing you here, demanding you jump through all his hoops?

Get out now
, she told herself.

Ah. You’re telling yourself you shouldn’t be listening to me. I might
make you think, and we can’t have that. When puppets start thinking, it’s
no time until they’re trying to cut their strings
.

Her legs trembled. Her heart pounded.

Why are you still here, Callie? You know I’m evil
. The word was drenched with mockery, even in her mind.
Why aren’t you running away
like a good little witness?

She clenched her fists and took a step down the slope. When had she turned around?

Is it because for the first time you’re beginning to grasp the fact that
“truth” depends on who you’re talking to?

Confusion rattled her. It was as if everything she believed had come loose from its moorings and now swirled around in her head, nothing more certain than anything else. From the beginning she’d seen the Tohvani’s side of things only through Aggillon eyes. They had been dismissed as evil, and she had been warned not to speak to them. Was that for her own good, as she’d been led to believe, or because the Aggillon feared she’d learn the truth of the other side’s plight?

If he made them look like this, if he forbade them to speak, was that not unfair?

The black eyes bored into hers.
We’re all in this together, Callie. We
want to help you
.

She blinked. “You made the fire curtains.”

He made the Arena, fire curtains and all
.

“You’re lying.”

Am I? Or is he?

She swallowed hard.

He brought you here, Callie, not us
. He’s
letting your man die, not us
. The creature paused to let her absorb the truth of that, then added,
He
could easily save him. But no. First you have to find the secret door. Does
that sound like someone who really cares about you?

The words fell like drops of acid, eating into Callie’s soul, exposing a long-buried vein of resentment. He
had
brought them here—snatched them away from Earth for his own purposes, not for theirs. How could she have forgotten that? How could she have stopped being bothered by that?

She licked dry lips. “
Is
there a door here?”

There are doors all over the Arena. How do you think they collect the
bodies?

“I mean, is there one here, in this cave?”

He could save your man. But he won’t. Can’t you see he’s just playing
with you?

“If there is a door here, can you show it to me?”

Laughter burst through her brain and the creature vanished. Callie stood there, reeling, feeling strangely empty, as if something vital had been ripped out of her. Her knees wobbled and gave way. She held her suddenly splitting head in her hands and took deep breaths. Gradually the pain passed, and when she looked up again, a faint nausea was all that remained.

The maelstrom of confusion had settled, but it had reduced her convictions to ashes. Suddenly she didn’t know what she thought. Elhanu
did
seem to be toying with them. To bring them all this way, lead them through that awful camp, promising safety and succor if they just reached this slit. . . .The taste of betrayal lay bitter on her tongue.

She flashed the light around the room and sighed. There was nothing left but to go back to the others. Yet she hesitated, afraid of what she might find in the next room.
Oh, please
, she thought fervently.
Don’t let him die. I couldn’t go on without him. . . .

Back in the main chamber, Pierce was still with them, but even Callie’s untrained eye saw he was failing. Every so often he would rouse, grope for her arm, and mutter, “Can’t see . . . belt . . . belt’s off . . .” Then he’d lapse into unconsciousness. She sat with him, stroking his face and hair, holding his hand as if their connection might keep him from slipping away.

Besides Pierce, four others had sustained life-threatening injuries. Karl was in shock, bleeding internally. He lay on the ground beside Jesse, whose chest wound would certainly kill him without treatment. Anna had wandered around for half an hour before collapsing. LaTeisha suspected a brain injury, and the woman now reclined beside the others. Along the near wall, Evvi lay eerily still on a sleeping bag, her glazed eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her skull had been fractured when she fell down the same bank Callie had, and LaTeisha was surprised she lived at all.

Teish herself lay stretched out beside Evvi, sound asleep, her dark face hollow with exhaustion. The others, about fifteen of them, were spread out between the slit opening and the flowstone. Fatigue pulled their faces and flattened their eyes. Surveying them, Callie suddenly realized who was missing.

“Where’s Mr. C?” she demanded, her voice sharp and loud in the silence. The others roused and blinked at each other.

Dell said, “He didn’t make it.” His cherubic face was pale around the bruises and grubby whiskers. “He was behind me when we set off, but I don’t know what happened.”

The others mulled this over in silence.
How could we have lost
Mr. C?
Callie thought. His humor, his steady patience, his understanding— they’d been the glue that held the group together. And more than that—in so many ways he’d been the father she’d never had. . . . A wave of grief swept through her, and suddenly she was fighting tears, struggling to think of something else.

At the slit Tuck unwrapped a chocolate chip rations bar and bit into it.

Whit stood. “I’m gonna have another look around,” he said.

“You’ve already looked three times,” Brody protested, scowling up at him. “And Callie’s scoured the place bare. Why bother?”

“Maybe we missed something.”

Brody snorted as Whit walked past him and disappeared around the flowstone. In the lamplight, its crystalline veins glowed like fresh blood. As the sounds of his footfalls faded, John leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, his earring gleaming in the lamplight. Tuck crumpled the rations bar wrapper and stuffed it in his pocket. Ian continued to stare blindly out the slit. For the first time, Callie realized Alicia wasn’t with him. She hadn’t been with the prisoners either, though, so maybe she had died and had finally gone home.

Before the night was over, would the rest of them be home as well? Or would they be in mutant hands? Strengthened and rejuvenated by the fire curtain, their enemies could sustain an assault until the defenders had no more E-cubes. Or, even easier, they could just wait for their water to run out.

Callie swallowed and closed her eyes, fighting hysteria. Pierce stirred, muttered. She smoothed the hair from his face. The new scar on his temple gleamed pink against his skin.

She kept coming back to the same thing. Why had they been brought here? Were they supposed to wait for a door to open? Or had something gone wrong? Perhaps the Tohvani had gained the upper hand offstage, and now Elhanu couldn’t carry through on what he’d promised.

The light from the slit was fading when Gerry slapped his knee and cried, “We can’t just sit here!”

“What do you suggest?” John asked, lifting his head. “A frontal assault?”

“We could surrender,” Ian said.

Everyone stared at him.

He studied his big hands. “I went through it. It wasn’t that bad.”

“They didn’t torture you first,” Brody sneered. “Or rape you or cut off your—”

“Shut up, Brody,” John said.

“What, afraid to face the inevitable? Maybe a frontal assault isn’t such a bad idea. We take out as many of ’em as we can, then blow our own brains out.”

Whit came around the curtain of flowstone then. His face was haggard, his ruined eye socket still shocking. He hunkered down beside Callie and Pierce. “Has he said anything?

“Nothing new.”

Whit’s dark brow furrowed. “I don’t get it. Why bring us here and hide the passage?”

“Obviously your great leader miscalculated,” Brody sneered.

Whit shook his head. “I’m certain we’re where we’re supposed to be.” He looked at Callie. “John said you all were led over the mountain pretty deliberately.”

“Yeah, by a bunch of goats,” Brody said. “Real deliberate.” He shifted against the wall, grimacing. “Man, you guys are stubborn. Isn’t it obvious this is a mistake? We should’ve followed Morgan.”

“Following Morgan didn’t do
you
much good,” Callie said dryly.

“If we’d listened to him in the first place, we’d still be on the road.” He snorted. “I would’ve been better off staying back in that pen.”

“Yeah,” John said, “but then you wouldn’t be able to blow your brains out.”

Brody scowled at him.

The air pulsed with a familiar nauseating disorientation, and then came the high-pitched, brain-spearing tone and the antlike crawling of the skin. But there were no ants, and no amount of thrashing would diminish the sensation. The Trogs had turned on their fire curtain.

“What did the manual say?” Whit asked. “Beneath the Devil’s Window where the water of life mingles with the Blood of Sacrifice? I thought it was that flowstone, but there’s nothing there.”

Callie shook her head grimly. “Nothing we can see, anyway.”

The irritating buzz backed off to a soft vibration of almost pleasure, promising relief, empowerment, ecstasy. Pierce stirred, opened his eyes, and moaned about his belt. Outside, the Trogs began to shriek and howl. Soon after, the first of their victims screamed. The sound crawled up the scale, ululating with agony. It cut off briefly, and then began again as the Trogs roared approval.

Brody’s wide eyes were fixed upon the slit. His swarthy face was gray beneath streaks of dirt and blood. Gerry lifted his head, and Ian stepped into the opening, resting a quivering hand upon the rock beside it. After that, no one moved. They just listened in silence as the screams went on and on and on.

Callie’s fingers dropped to her belt, flipped the switch from long habit. She felt the vibration as it started up and quickly died. She did not turn it on again. It had been off for hours. What good would it do her now? It couldn’t ward off sound.

The keening degenerated into dreadful animal gruntings, then momentary silence, swiftly followed by the roar of the mutant spectators.

Callie’s eyes strayed back to the glittering flowstone. Blood of Sacrifice— water of life. Was that the door? Had the Trogs or Tohvani somehow obscured it? They could have entered this cavern earlier and somehow covered over the telltale marks.

“There’s something I keep wondering about,” Dell said, drawing everyone’s attention. His hazel eyes flicked around the circle, his baby face drawn. “Those bodies we saw hanging in the camp—the human ones. If they’re destroying our bodies, how can we be sent home?”

The question unnerved them all, and no one had an answer. Callie looked down at Pierce, his face lined with pain even in unconsciousness. A vision of that awful rack assailed her, and her stomach knotted.

John leapt to his feet. “Gerry’s right. We can’t just sit here. Maybe there’s another slit outside. With all the explosions, who knows how much it was changed? That must be what the mutants intended all along.”

Whit glanced at him. “You’re suggesting we blunder outside in the dark?”

John gestured at Pierce. “He’s dying, Whit. If we don’t do something soon, we’re gonna lose him. And the others, too. And ourselves. All given up to that thing out there.”

Whit had no answer to that.

“I could use Pierce’s armor. You could use Dell’s, and Gerry and Tuck still have their own. With the belts, we’d be protected—”

“Not from their bare hands,” Whit said, frowning. “Not from exploding rocks—”

“They’re distracted right now. And it shouldn’t take long with the belts enhancing our vision.”

Callie gasped. “The belts!” Letting go of Pierce’s limp hand, she leapt up. “Of course! How could we have been so
stupid?

” Whit looked at her in dawning comprehension, his hands going to his own waist, which had been stripped of its belt when he’d been taken prisoner by the Trogs.

Callie was already fumbling with the switch on her own belt, turning to face the flowstone.

“Water of life . . . eyes to see . . . belt off . . .”