Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (34 page)

`And nearly lost his own.”

She looked down at her bite-marred hands, twisting one of her gold rings
round and round. It was true. Abramm had been sick for weeks after that
adventure.

Her retainer sighed again. “Just for the sake of argument, let’s suppose you are right. Let’s suppose it is him. Did you think to walk up to Lord
Katahn and simply buy him free? It won’t happen. Whoever this Pretender
is, he’s beyond the status of a simple gladiator. The way he challenges the
Supreme Commander, mocking his claims of divine destiny? And with the
Dorsaddi calling him Deliverer?” He snorted. “I’m not big on politics, but
even I can see the man has to die. And there’s not a blessed thing we can do
to stop it.”

A mist had sprung up around him, and her throat ached fiercely. “I won’t
believe that,” she whispered. “There’s got to be something.”

“Now you’re sounding like Philip, with his talk of Eidon making us a
way,” Cooper said. There was, for once, no mockery in his voice. Only profound sadness. He shook his head. “Think, lass. Do you really believe little
Abramm could have become this man who is renowned for his skill at killing
people?”

She could not speak, could hardly breathe. The mist grew thicker.

He reached across the table to touch her hand. “It isn’t him, Carissa. You
have to face it-Abramm died on the galley ship. And this White Pretender
is exactly what his name implies-a pretender.”

The ache in her throat sharpened to knifelike pain, and tears streamed
down her cheeks. She swallowed but could not find her voice. Finally she
looked back to her hands now in her lap, rings glinting softly in the shadow.

A knock at the door saved her from having to speak. It was a man from
the inn. Cooper went out to talk to him and returned shortly, settling onto
the pillows without speaking.

“It was about the Pretender, wasn’t it?” she prodded.

He picked up his cup of kassik, sipped from it, and finally nodded. “He’ll
be fighting tonight, as we guessed. A last-chance, all-comers challenge.”

He sipped again. The lamp flickered between them, and from the great
room below came the sound of muffled laughter and off-key singing.

“I want to go,” Carissa whispered.

Cooper shook his head. “The innsman said there’ll be no seating-not
even standing room-by now.”

“We can catch him along the way, then. When he goes back to the warriors’ compound.”

“He won’t be going back. They’re keeping him and the Infidel in the
Val’Orda itself. To forestall possible rescue attempts.”

He fell silent, watching her. She studied her hands a moment more, then
lifted her head. “I want to see him, Coop.”

“Lass-“

“I have to.”

He set the cup down, pain furrowing his brow. But what difference will
it make when after tomorrow he’ll be dead, regardless?”

She swallowed down the lump in her throat, but her voice trembled
nonetheless. “Because if it is him, I want to see him-at least see him once
more before-” Her throat closed, and she looked into her lap again, blinking
back tears.

After a moment Cooper sighed. “Very well.”

The great Val’Orda stood at the midst of Old Xorofin, linked by a long
plaza to an Ophiran temple now devoted to the worship of Khrell. Unlike
the city, which was disappointingly small and dirty, the amphitheater lived
up to its reputation of greatness. Five concentric rings of torchlight marked
its quintuple stories, illuminating the series of bas-relief arches that encircled
each level. Some framed niched statues; others looked more like openings to
interior chambers. Flags hung limply among the torches at the top, interspersed with huge, dark bird-forms perched on slender pillars. At first sight it
stole the breath and numbed the mind, so big it was, looming over them like
a glowing, gargantuan crown.

Largest and finest of all the southland amphitheaters, the Val’Orda was
one of the few remaining wonders of Ophir’s architectural prowess. It was
here that the Games’ final championships were always played out, here that
the strongest warriors triumphed, here that all the greatest contests in the
history of the Games had been fought. Tomorrow, it would be here that the
insolent White Pretender and his Infidel received their long-due comeuppance at the hands of Beltha’adi’s personal guard, the vaunted Broho.

The people were out in force, swirling around it, jostling among the myriad merchants’ booths that encircled it and clogged the great plaza before it.
The aroma of barbecued goat, fried spima, and sweet, sweet foaming fig filled
the air. Musicians, dancers, and jugglers vied with the peddlers banging their
pots for the crowd’s attention. From time to time a lion’s roar echoed over
the merrymaking.

It soon became apparent that the innsman had been right about their not
being able to see any of the matches. People stood in thick, pressing masses before all the main gates. Only the gate leading down into the warrens
beneath the arena floor offered egress, and though Cooper fought her all the
way, in the end that’s where they went.

If Carissa thought the streets of Xorofin stank, it was nothing compared
to the compound of manure, blood, oil, sweat, and death that awaited in the
warrens’ low stone corridors. Various rooms bathed in the warm light of
orange fish-bladder lanterns held ranks of iron cells for men and beasts alike.
Here and there, long ramps led up to gates opening into the arena itself, each
incline clogged with hopeful spectators. No one seemed to know for sure
which one the Pretender would exit from, however, until they found Philip
and Newbold.

The pair stood near the north ramp’s base, and spying them, Philip waved
them over.

“I think they’ll come out here, milady,” he said, gesturing at the heavy
wooden gates atop the ramp. Those nearest were peering between the cracks
where the doors met and offering commentary to those behind.

“There are at least six gates, Phil,” Carissa said. “How can you be sure?”

“Because this is the way they went in.”

`And how do you know that?”

He smiled at Newbold. The dog looked more alert and interested than
she’d ever seen him, though that was hardly surprising given the situation.
The lions alone had to be of interest to him.

“You’re saying he tracked your brother through all this?”

“I told you his nose is good. And the track was fresher when we first got
here.”

“Perhaps we should go to the last gate,” Cooper said from behind her.
“That way we’ll have two of them covered. Just in case.”

She glanced back at him, wondering at the annoyance his suggestion
roused in her. It was eminently practical, but she didn’t like it all the same.
Newbold had already proved himself once, and even if this tracking task was
admittedly difficult to the point of straining believability, still it was something more than random chance.

“We’ll stay here,” she said.

Behind her, Cooper sighed his disapproval.

It was a good decision from one standpoint-if they’d gone, they wouldn’t
have reached the other gate in time anyway. For they had no sooner settled in to wait than a great shout arose from the arena. It went on and on, so she
knew the match must have ended.

Excitement dried her mouth and dampened her hands.

At the door, people hissed and cheered and groaned. She ached to see
what was happening, suddenly consumed with fear that if it was Abramm,
he would be killed right at the last moment….

She could hear the Taleteller intoning something beyond the warrens’ din
but could not discern the words. Her anxiety was at fever pitch when the
doors ahead trundled open, pulleys and rollers squeaking. The crowd’s roar
beat at her ears and throbbed in her chest. The group of dark-tunicked handlers who had stood foremost among the gathering atop the ramp hurried
into the arena, returning shortly with two men, one in white, the other in
green.

Carissa’s heart froze. The one in white was about Abramm’s height-but
he was backlit from the lights of the arena, his face in shadow, and all she
could make out was the white paint and the thin, laughing lips of a court
fool. He was big, too-broad across the chest and shoulders, his build more
akin to Gillard’s than Abramm’s. Blood stained his white ruffled doublet.

Beside her, Philip clasped her arm, excitement raising the pitch of his
voice. “That’s him?” he cried. “It’s Trap for sure?”

But she had eyes only for the Pretender, straining to see past the paint and
the shadow and the long curly wig, straining for a glimpse of the eyes. Someone swirled a dark cloak around his shoulders, pulled up the cowl, and the
face was lost altogether. Others had done the same to the Infidel, but she
hardly spared him a glance.

The handlers pushed forward now, surrounding their prize warriors with
weapons bared. The crowd parted, screaming the Pretender’s name. Carissa
held her breath. He approached. Only a single line of onlookers stood
between them as he came even with her, startling her with his sheer physical
size. She wanted to shove forward and rip away the cowl. Instead her eyes
fastened on the only part of him she could see-his right hand. The strong,
long-fingered hand was light-skinned, as a Kiriathan’s would be, but callused
and scarred and stained now with fresh blood.

Then he was by her, and she saw only wide, dark-cloaked shoulders and
the crowd closing behind him and his guards. Moments later, as he reached the bottom of the ramp and turned into the corridor, he disappeared from
her sight.

She stood there, buffeted by those who surged around her, choking on
disappointment. He had been close enough to touch, yet she still did not
know if he was Abramm.

But wouldn’t I be sure if it was him? Even at only a glance, wouldn’t I know
him? The way he moves, the set of his shoulders …

Disappointment turned to gall. She swallowed painfully and forced herself to breathe again. That man did not move like Abramm, was too big to be
Abramm, and the hand … It was no scribe’s hand, certainly.

Her gaze caught upon a figure in garish Thilosian costume-yellow and
blue and red-standing at the foot of the ramp. He was facing her but staring
intently in the direction taken by the Pretender, and the dark aristocratic features were startling familiar. It was Danarin, Captain Kinlock’s former first
mate.

She had only a glimpse of him, hardly long enough to register the face,
before he disappeared into the crowd, and though she hurried down to the
main corridor after him, she didn’t see him again.

Questions tumbled through her head. They had left Danarin back in
Vorta almost eighteen months ago. What was he doing here? Did he, too,
suspect the Pretender of being Abramm?

Hope stirred.

Reason tempered it. If it really was Danarin-she was no longer certainhe must be Ray’s man, assigned to kill Abramm and Trap Meridon.

She thought again of the man who had passed by her, tried to dissect the
image of that painted face, tried to find in it something familiar. But all she
saw were a jester’s laughing lips. And the hand.

Abramm had long fingers. And if he had been trained to fight—

The reality finally dawned on her. Not just fight. Kill.

She turned back to the gate where the arena crew now brought in the
vanquished-Esurhite soldiers and professional gladiators who gasped and
moaned and cried, or made no noise at all, victims of the Pretender’s blade.

“He is a killer. A born warrior,” Cooper had said. “Do you really believe little
Abramm could have become this man?”

The mist was back, blotting out the crowd, encircling the bloodied,
moaning soldiers. Pressure closed her throat.

`Abramm died on the galley ship.”

She had not dreamed in almost two years. Not since Qarkeshan. And that
last dream … that fiery dragon, that flare of awful pain, the screaming, and
then … death?

A hand clasped her shoulder. She turned, looked up into Cooper’s sad,
dark eyes, and let the tears come.

Abramm slid his ivory archer three spaces on the diagonal and forced
Katahn’s shield bearer into the game board’s central pit, exposing the Esurhite’s king to attack. Then he looked up. “I believe you are besieged, sir.” He
spoke in fluent Tahg now, thanks to eighteen months of Shettai’s private tutelage.

Katahn scowled at the board. “Khrell’s Fire? How did you do that?”
Abramm had captured or cut off every one of his pieces, leaving Katahn’s
king with nowhere to go. It was a gambit he’d only recently thought updaring and risky but, if one’s opponent wasn’t anticipating it, devastatingly
effective. He’d won in six moves.

Katahn continued to study the board in disbelief as Abramm leaned back
on his pillows, glancing around for the first time since the game had begun.
The spacious top-story, four-chamber suite was one of only six in the entire
amphitheater. Darkened, bead-curtained doorways stood to right and left,
beside clusters of intricately beaded skulls. At his back, the cool night air
wafted in from an open window overlooking the city. Directly across from
him, ceiling-high potted palms framed a colorful mosaic of the goddess Laevion breathing life back into the stitched-together pieces of Khrell’s dismembered body.