Arram would remember that day as a giant stinking roar in hot darkness, one where hands clutched his arms and hands and, once, his throat. Despite the wax plugs, his ears filled with the screams of the wounded and the dying. They were carried into the room on stretchers by soldiers or gladiators, sometimes by the very gladiators who had been trying to kill them a moment before. They were slung onto a freshly cleaned table, where the next free healer looked at them and judged whether to take this one himself or herself or to refer the case to Daleric or Ramasu.
He vomited into the bucket more than once.
The wounded called on their gods, mothers, lovers. They cursed the emperor and no one hushed them, not there. They begged for death and screamed for life. He learned the truth of what he’d been told, that newcomers were hurt first.
And not only the newcomers. Quomat, who had been married at ten and fought for years, died just as she reached his table. Arram growled and reached deep into his Gift, thinking to go after her spirit and bring it back. He couldn’t lose her to the Black God without so much as a fight!
Then Preet was on his head, pecking, having dropped from her perch on the candleholders above. Arram shook his head to dislodge her and put his hands on the woman’s chest. Suddenly copper fire slid under his palms, coating her entire body to shield her from him. Arram glared up into Ramasu’s face. Three of his patients had died so far. He would not surrender another!
“She has passed into the Peaceful Realms,” Ramasu told him, his eyes steady. “Will you deny her that? Look at her scars. Look inside, at her muscles. How many are nicked and shortened by swords? This isn’t life, Arram. Let her go.”
So he looked, and wept at the ragged mess that battles had made of a good, strong body. “Black God bear you up and give you peace, Quomat,” he whispered.
“Gut wound here!” someone shouted. Ramasu left. Arram turned Quomat’s remains over to the handlers and went to the next clear table. Someone told him there was time enough to catch their wind. The next event was a chariot race of twenty laps—twelve for the Goddess in her three aspects, four for Mithros, and four for the Graveyard Hag. Once the tables were cleared, they could eat if they wished.
Their wish was not granted. Three chariots crashed on the fifth lap, causing crashes in later laps as the drivers struggled to avoid the mess. One driver died on the spot, a helper told Arram. Two more came to the hall, one for Ramasu and one for Arram. His had a smashed collarbone and left arm, as well as a broken leg and hip.
“I’ll take the leg and the arm, if you’ll take the collarbone and hip.” Daleric had come to stand at the other end of the table. “I don’t have the power you do, to heal complicated bones that are smashed, but I can do these easy.”
Arram looked at the older mage with gratitude. “Thank you, sir. That would be good.”
Daleric nodded. “I’ll do leg first, then arm? We’ll switch places then.”
It was strange, feeling another’s Gift run along veins and bones next to his, but it gave him confidence to pull the pieces of collarbone back into their original positions. He plunged into the painstaking work, shifting swollen muscle and veins into place, until he realized Daleric was pounding on his shoulder.
“What you have is good enough!” the man shouted over the racket. “Splint it and finish the work tomorrow or the day after! Get the hip the same way—we have the rest of the race, the beast fights, and the prize matches yet. Save your strength!”
About to protest, Arram closed his mouth. Daleric was far more experienced at this. He nodded and moved down to his patient’s broken hip, while Daleric summoned one of his people with a splint.
There were more casualties of the chariot race. Apparently that was the point of such things. The faces of the wounded blurred. Ramasu made him stop to rest when there was a lull, and Preet came to sing to him. Other healers and their assistants who were free gathered around to listen. It was a moment of quiet that ended too soon. The beast matches had begun, leading with the executions of criminals before the fighting. A few warriors came in, all cared for by other healers than Arram and Ramasu. They were restoring the supplies under the tables when another fighter was brought in.
“I want Arram!” she shouted in a fury. “Arram, you rhino bums, you globs of elephant dung!”
“Here,” Arram called. He went to his position and waited, hands shaking. Should he have asked Ramasu to help him with someone obviously arena-crazed, as they called it?
Four workers carried over a woman on a stretcher and eased her onto Arram’s table. She was covered in blood, with a large stab wound in her side, a smaller one across one forearm, and a large one in her thigh.
Arram had discovered there were no niceties here. A helper poured a bucket of water over the gladiator carefully, to wash away blood and sweat. It also washed sand into the wounds, but that was a problem for the healer to handle. Arram had changed a rock-moving spell he knew to cover tiny rocks: that cleared wounds out nicely. Only then did he look at the panting gladiator.
“Gueda?” he whispered, horrified. He had not wanted to see another familiar face on his table.
She seized his wrist with her good hand. Tears streamed from her eyes. “They killed my beautiful Tacuma,” she croaked. “My cat, my only friend, they killed him.” She turned toward Arram and sobbed.
For a moment he held her as if she were Varice. Then he whispered, “I’m going to help you sleep, so I can do my work better. Is that all right?” She nodded. He said, “I am so sorry. I know you were devoted to each other.” He eased her into slumber, to help her escape heartbreak as much as to ease her body’s pain.
“Very kind.” Musenda, glorious in bronzed chest and leg armor, wearing a short sword and carrying a helmet, had come to the side of the table. “I saw the match. They thought she’d be useless without Tacuma. Others have tried it, but these succeeded in killing the cat, at least. I know she talked to the keepers about Tacuma maybe not seeing so well in his left eye, and that’s where they got him.”
“What happened to them?” Arram asked. He gently put Gueda flat on the table and let his Gift flow over her to see if he had noted all of her wounds.
Musenda smiled thinly. “They’re dead. She went berserk when they killed her cat.” He bent and kissed Gueda on the forehead. “Heal, sword sister,” he whispered.
“Sarge?” someone bellowed.
“Time,” Musenda—Sarge—sighed as he straightened. “We’ll see if the emperor, or Prince Mikrom, feels merciful.”
Arram looked up. “Prince Mikrom?”
“Oh, we’re graced with the presence today,” Musenda replied. “His Imperial Highness is here for a rest, if you can believe that. His Majesty wants to show him off.”
Arram knew better than to wish the big man luck. Gladiators thought that wishing someone good luck before a fight was like a curse. Instead he said, “You look very threatening.”
It was good to hear Sarge laugh as he walked off.
There were fewer fights now as the popular individual warriors engaged in battles on the sands. It gave Arram unwanted time to think after he finished with Gueda.
Ozorne is there, I’ll wager, and Varice, he thought. If Mikrom is present in a ceremonial way, they’ll be in attendance along with the princess. And in the normal manner of things I’d be up there with them.
He looked around. Helpers washed down the stone tables. Ramasu talked with Daleric as they ate. All the wounded who were bandaged and waiting for more healing the next day had been carried into a room next to this one. They wouldn’t hear the screams of those freshly cut or dying.
“They think of everything here,” Arram said bitterly.
A nearby healer didn’t appear to notice his sour tone. “They’ve had centuries to smooth away the wrinkles,” she replied. They both heard the approach of someone screeching in agony.
“My turn,” the woman said. She touched Arram on the shoulder. “Get Ramasu to bring you back soon. Everyone appreciates your work.” She reached a bare table just as men carried in a huge gladiator. He was from the icy lands far to the north, by his coloring. Someone had dislocated one of the man’s shoulders and broken both of his legs. Immediately another healer joined the woman to assist her with the damage.
Arram had been talking for a little while with Ramasu, Daleric, and some of Daleric’s healers when a slow, rhythmic booming filled the tunnel and the room. Many of the others ran to the door to see what was going on.
Ramasu did not wait. “Quickly,” he told Arram. “Stuff your table with supplies; be certain your waste bucket is empty and your water bucket is full. If you need to relieve yourself, do so.” He pointed to the privy door at the far end of the room.
“Why the rush?” Arram inquired.
“A grand combat is about to begin. They must have added it for the prince. Hag curse them, they could have warned us,” Ramasu said with unusual heat. “Perhaps the prince brought captives he wanted to throw onto the sands. In any case, it’s a crowd of fighters divided into two and ordered to fight. Butchery, sheer butchery. Get going.”
Later, after things had calmed down, Arram learned that Ramasu was right. Mikrom had brought the losers of his last battle home and sent them into the ring against those gladiators who were not used up. Sometimes Arram’s nightmares were of this part of the day alone, a never-ending stream of screaming men and women, rushed to the tables as quickly as people could be found to carry them. Such pickups were dangerous work, as many who dashed between fighters in the arena discovered. Daleric set up a surgical table for them alone, to show his appreciation for their courage, or foolishness.
Soldiers strolled through the chamber as if they were on patrol. They made work harder. Arram heard later that they were regular army, not arena guards. Mikrom had sent them to ensure that no injured captive escaped a future in the arena by capturing a healer and threatening his way to freedom. It was plain to all that the heir did not understand how the gladiators were kept.
A soldier got in Arram’s way for the third time. His concentration on his gladiator shattered. Arram turned on the intruder, his raised hand filled with sparkling black fire.
“Trip me up once more, and they’ll send a rock for your family to bury!” he shouted. “Or I’ll trade your spirit for his and let you die!”
The soldier put his hand on the hilt of his sword but did not draw it. He could see the other helpers around the table were stepping back.
“Soldier, this man is going nowhere.” Ramasu stepped between Arram and the veteran. “Arram has him under control.”
“He’s half mad is what he is,” the soldier snapped.
Ramasu drew himself up to his full height. “My word as a Master of the School for Mages. Your captive will not escape Arram. You are better employed elsewhere.” Ramasu wore dignity and power like a cloak, despite the blood on his robe and face.
Magic billowed away from him. It was the touch of something that made the soldier feel unwanted.
“Take it on yourself, then,” the soldier snapped as Arram turned back to his patient. “If that rat on the table escapes and kills decent people, it’ll be you to blame.”
“If Arram turns you to ash, it will be yourself to blame. Did no one teach you the folly of impeding a working mage?” Ramasu’s voice was ice. “Go, before I place a complaint before your captain.”
The man moved off, though he kept his hand on his sword’s hilt.
“Thank you,” Arram murmured.
Despite the noise, Ramasu heard. “You’re lucky I was within earshot. Mikrom’s men have been in combat for a very long time. It’s not wise to tug their tails.” The man leaned closer. “And you might find you don’t have as much Gift for combat as you thought. It doesn’t stretch like healing does, so watch yourself.”
Arram nodded and continued to do his best, praying softly to Hekaja to save the man before him. At last the moment came when he had done all he could do without draining himself completely.
“Graveyard Hag, roll the dice in his favor,” he prayed softly. “Black God of Death, please turn him from your door.” Gingerly he touched his fingers to the man’s throat. There was the tiniest trace of a pulse. “He’s alive. Leave him here for a while; see how he does,” he told one of the helpers. “I’ll move elsewhere.”
He bent to gather his bag of medical supplies. It was then his body decided that he should keep on bending, until his forehead struck the stone tiles. After that things went dark for a while. He roused briefly while someone carried him on a stretcher—more than one someone, he corrected himself; it would take at least two people to carry him on a stretcher. Then he got the horrible idea that they thought he was dead.
“No, no!” he shouted, though the noise that came from his throat was more like a croak. “I’m alive! I’m fine!” He tried to wave, but his arm proved too hard to lift.
“Is he tryin’ to talk?” asked a voice down by his feet.
“Don’t matter,” a hoarse voice near his head replied. “The master gave us our orders.” A face—female, upside down—appeared in Arram’s vision. “Just you be quiet. Your master says you’re done for now. You go back to sleep.”
“But I’m needed—”
“Boy, I’ve been arguing with gladiators and mages all day,” the woman told him. “Hush. Sleep.”
He slept.
For the next two days, he and Ramasu, together with Daleric and his group of healers, rose at dawn to see to their wounded. For the most part they handled those whose hurts had not been deadly serious on the first day, and those who had been healed enough to keep them alive overnight. Preet sang to entertain the sick. Arram juggled after supper, when everyone was too weary to work magic or to endure having it worked upon them. Daleric produced a set of pipes, one of his friends a drum, and another a round form of harp.
On the third day, most gladiators and captive soldiers were healed and had been sent to the gladiators’ housing. Those who were still abed could be handled by Daleric. It was time to go home. While the senior healers attended the captain’s lunch in thanks for their work, Arram remained in the small cell he and Ramasu had shared under the arena, packing up the last of the medicines for Daleric’s patients. He’d finished and was looking for Preet—she had flown off somewhere—when he thought he’d heard something.
“Psst!”
He had heard something. “Who’s there?” He raised his lamp and looked around the corridor.
Something tapped his shoulder.
He whirled and saw nothing. He was struggling to remember a spell of detection when he looked down. On the packed floor, clear in the lamplight and the torchlight from above, was someone’s shadow.
His tormentor began to laugh. “I forgot about the shadow—Master Chioké would mark me down for that!” The air in front of Arram rippled, and Ozorne appeared.
Arram gaped, then cried, “What—? Ozorne, how did you get here? Where are your guards? Where’s Okot?” Preet dropped from the shadows, trilling happily, and lit on Ozorne’s shoulder.
Ozorne smoothed her back. “I love you, too, sweetheart.” Then he scowled at Arram. “And there’s a friendly greeting from you.”
Arram smiled and hugged his friend with a care for Preet. Ozorne hugged him fiercely in return. “No, no, Ozorne, I missed you, of course I did. It’s been miserable, but you shouldn’t be here! It’s too dangerous!”
“Dangerous monkeywash!” his friend replied scornfully. “Even you didn’t know I was here until you saw my shadow. I’ll fix that next time, believe me! Okot doesn’t know because my mother summoned him to report on my status in person. I think she wants to find out if Varice and I have gone to bed yet.”
“Ozorne!” Arram snapped as heat rushed into his cheeks. Preet gave a chuckling sound.
Ozorne clapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, she isn’t interested in me, nor I in her, not like that. Anyway, I gave the guards the slip, sneaked a horse, and came to see if I could find you. I didn’t see you at the games.”
“I was back here,” Arram replied. “Working.”
Ozorne studied him with sharp eyes. “That bad, was it?”
Arram looked down the corridor toward the big room where so many had died.
Ozorne hugged him around the shoulders. “All right, friend.” His voice was gentler than before. “You’re going home. I’ll make sure you don’t get this kind of duty again.”
For a moment the thought of never hearing those screams, smelling those stinks, feeling blood and organs spill through his hands made Arram dizzy. Not to be afraid when a thick-muscled brute caught him alone in the infirmary…He shook it off and smiled at his friend. “Don’t do that. I’m needed here and places like it. Not enough of us can do healing spells. I have a knack for it. And some of these people are all right. Sarge—Musenda—for one. And there’s this woman, Gueda—”
“Oh ho!” Ozorne said, laughing. “A woman!”
He can always make me turn red, Arram thought unhappily as he protested, “It’s not like that. She’s a gladiator, and a good one.”
“Wait, the one with the big cat that was killed?”
Arram nodded.
“She was magnificent,” Ozorne said with awe as Preet toyed with his braids. He wore no beads that would give him away with their noise. “They killed her cat, and we thought she was done. Instead it was like she turned into a tiger herself—outnumbered five to one, and she killed them all. Varice made a fortune betting on her. Did she live?”
Arram smiled. “Yes.” He didn’t say he was the healer who treated her.
Ozorne looked at their gloomy surroundings. “Would you…show me around? I may never get back here. You know they’ll make me pay for this little excursion. I’ll be lucky if Okot doesn’t chain me to my seat whenever I attend games again.”
As little as he wanted to return to those blood-stinking rooms, Arram heard the touch of sadness in his friend’s voice. It was true; the list of things that Ozorne was not allowed to do grew longer each year. He nodded and led his friend up through the underside of the arena. Without emphasizing it, he was careful to ensure that Ozorne saw the dark, stinking cells where the unhurt gladiators and animals were kept before and after combats, cramped lockups without fresh air, water, or privies.
“They deserve better,” Ozorne said grimly as they returned for Arram’s bundles. “They give their lives for us; they should have better places to wait.”
“They deserve to live,” Arram murmured.
“You cannot take the games from the people,” his friend said gently, helping him to collect the various packages of medicines. “There would be rioting. There has been rioting, and murder, when past emperors have tried it. I have a book on the history of the games—you should read it.”
When Arram had everything he needed, Ozorne stood in the corridor and reworked his invisibility spell. “I’ll follow you,” Ozorne said when only his shadow remained. “Where do you go when you’ve dropped these off?”
Arram had meant to attend the lunch, but he couldn’t with his friend there. “Back to my quarters to get my things, and then to the wagon to wait for Master Ramasu,” he said. “We leave once he comes.”
“I’ll ride on your wagon, then,” Ozorne said as they walked down the corridor. Preet flew ahead. “I left my horse tied up outside camp. The trickiest part of this whole adventure has been waiting for someone to pass through a gate so I can go, too.” He fell silent as Arram let them out into the open. The guards waiting there nodded to him.
“I’m the last mage,” Arram told them. “No one else is inside.” He walked on toward the temporary tent where the remaining injured gladiators were housed. He hoped that the sight of these fighters, battling the worst of wounds, their lives still in question, might convince Ozorne that changes should be made to the games. He knew the likelihood of Ozorne’s becoming emperor was small, but as Mesaraz’s heir he would have influence.
The yard was quiet. The wounded were resting. Two guards were dicing quietly in front of the tent: they nodded to Arram and returned to the game. They didn’t notice that Arram held the flap open for a moment before he walked inside, making certain that Ozorne could walk in.
“Make the bird be quiet,” one of the gamblers said. “She’ll wake the lads.”
Preet was screeching from inside the tent. Arram stepped in and pointed at the flap he still held open. “Preet, bad girl!” he scolded. “Out!”
A pair of hands seized him and yanked him aside. A rough, callused hand clapped over his mouth; a muscled arm gripped him by the throat. Preet fled through the smoke hole in the canvas roof. Ozorne, shocked out of his grip on his spell, flickered into view. He was grabbed by a man who had been positioned behind the tent flap.
Arram clawed at the hand that blocked his mouth and nostrils. Suddenly remembering something Varice had told him, he stamped down hard on his captor’s foot. The man behind him grunted; the hand over his mouth loosened. Arram grabbed the arm around his throat and pulled it back enough that he could catch his breath. Without air, he couldn’t remember any spells. He shifted his hand and drove his thumbnail as deeply into the tender flesh next to the big wrist tendon as he could.
A dart of pain shot through his temple. A trickle of warmth rolled down his cheek—he knew it was blood.
“Next time I’ll use more of my blade,” his captor said. “And I recognize your friend. I can hurt him awful bad without killing him. You ease off or I’ll tell my friend where to start.”
Arram looked at Ozorne. His captor had gotten him by the hair and yanked his head back. With his free hand he had a dagger point at Ozorne’s ear. One movement and Ozorne would lose his hearing on that side, if he was lucky. Ozorne’s eyes were wild with rage, but he dared not move.
Arram’s captor said to Ozorne, “I’ve no such qualms about this piece of dog mutton. I’ll start with one of his eyes if you so much as say ‘ouch.’ ”
Arram knew that voice. He’d heard it before the games, talking with Chioké. Arram glanced to his side. Kottrun, that was his name, held a short sword to his temple.
“Unless you want your face sliced away a bit at a time, put your hands behind your back,” Kottrun ordered. “The slightest wrong move from either of you, and my friends will start killing the sick.”
Arram looked around. Three more gladiators stood inside the tent, the forbidden short swords in their hands. Each was within striking distance of one of the recovering gladiators on the cots, all five of whom had been gagged, then bound hand and foot with rope. Someone had put a sleep spell on them—they were taking no chances. Was it Daleric’s attendant? There was no sign of him.
Kottrun swiftly bound Arram’s hands behind him. “Turn around, boy,” he ordered, slapping the back of Arram’s head.
Arram did as he was told, eyeing the patients. “I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said mildly, still trying to think of a spell that might work. “We don’t keep medicines here.” It was a lie, and a weak one. If this man had been after drugs before, he’d search for them now. And he could always use Ozorne to get some brought to him, though he’d never escape afterward.
“Dolt, I was never after medicines,” Kottrun said, to Arram’s disappointment. “And now I can get anything I want. I don’t even need you, not with the princess’s only boy in my fist.” He pointed to the man who had finished binding and gagging Ozorne. “Yemro, fetch the university mage. Tell him his student had an accident. Leave your sword.”
The man ran to do as he was bidden.
“And as for you,” Kottrun told Arram, jabbing him in the chest with his sword, “one word, one bit of pretty light, and I start trimming bits off each of you, understand?”
“You won’t get Ramasu’s cooperation if I’m dead,” Arram said.
Arram didn’t see Kottrun strike. He only felt the blow against the side of his head that knocked him down. His ears rang. He lay still for a moment, battling a rush of fury as well as pain. Ozorne was bellowing behind his cloth gag.
“Quiet, prince,” Kottrun told Ozorne, “or I’ll give him something like this.” Kottrun kicked Arram in the belly. “I don’t need him now.” He pointed his weapon at Ozorne. “Keep trying my patience and he’ll get everything I’ve taken in the arena!”
Arram tried to curl up, yanking the ropes around his wrists. The pain in his stomach overshadowed the raw fiber digging into his skin. His Gift surged like wildfire, fighting the control he kept on it, threatening to flare and incinerate Kottrun. If he’d believed the gladiator would be the only victim, Arram wouldn’t have struggled. He just couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t burn the entire tent and everyone in it. Slowly he breathed in through his nose and released the breath, fighting tears of pain and rage. Could he deal with this brute without speaking? Without allowing his Gift to show to non-mage eyes?
Kottrun walked over to Ozorne. The prince was trembling with fury, though no sounds came from behind the gag on his mouth.
“You’d be a splendid shield, but…no,” Kottrun murmured. “Too gaudy. Too visible. They’d never stop hunting if I took you. But Ramasu will move the gods and the dead to save you, oh, yes.” He nodded and grinned.
He beckoned to one of the others. The man came over and helped Kottrun to haul Arram to his feet. He returned to his hostage when he was certain Arram would stay upright.
“Now we understand one another,” Kottrun said. The smile he gave Arram was tight and mean. “Your master will get us a ship out of Carthak….”
Arram had stopped listening. There was a time when he worked magic without words but with gestures, standing in front of a class and a bowl of water. But he had thought about it, pulled on it, and had his concentration broken to flood his classroom. He was older and stronger now. If he tried to work the spells he could do silently and lost concentration, his classroom flood would be nothing in comparison.
“You are mistaken.” Ramasu walked into the tent with Preet on his shoulder and Daleric’s assistant at his side. Apparently they had fetched the mage before Kottrun’s messenger could reach him. “I would never do something so criminal. The university forbids us from helping slaves in any fashion.”
“Cat turds,” snapped Kottrun. “We have His Splendidness Prince Ozorne right here. You’ll help us.”
Arram felt his ears tingling. He felt magic seep into the room—magic other than the stuff he was drawing on. He glanced at Ozorne, who nodded—he felt it, too. Mages outside were working sleep spells. He began to tremble. If Kottrun suspected, he would give the order to start killing the patients.
In fact, Kottrun was telling Ramasu his plans. “The slightest itch of magic, and I will start cutting.” To Arram’s horror, he pointed to Ozorne. “I can do plenty of damage and still leave enough to be heir. I learned from experts.”
Ramasu shook his head. “It will be as much as your lives are worth.”
“And the lives of you and your precious assistant and everyone here. I’ll see to that, Master Mage. You don’t come from here. The emperor sweeps wide when he thinks folk should have saved one of his darlings and didn’t.” He looked at one of his yawning men. “What’s the matter with—” he demanded, and yawned. His eyes went wide with fury. He whirled and ran at Ozorne, his sword aimed at the prince’s belly.
Arram could only see the blade aimed at his best friend. He opened his entire mind to the water summons that had changed his life. His Gift plummeted, far stronger than it had been in the Lower Academy, to plunge into the water table that lay for miles under and around university and arena. It rose, thundering up in the wake of his power, letting him guide it straight to Kottrun.
The hard ground quivered. The gladiator lurched.
The cold fountain smashed through the earth, knocking Arram, Ozorne, Ramasu, and the standing gladiators down. It drove Kottrun into the air until he struck the tent’s ceiling. His sword dropped from his grip; he hit the ground with a thud. Preet immediately attacked his face with her claws, screeching. He lay there, unresisting.
Ramasu made a sign of undoing. Arram’s and Ozorne’s bonds fell away from their hands and mouths. Struggling to his feet, Arram dashed the water from his eyes and drew three fiery signs in the air with his Gift. The column of water halted as abruptly as it had risen and returned to the ground. Dizzy and trembling, Arram drew two more signs to knit the earth back together as Ozorne scrambled for Kottrun’s sword. Rising to his knees, the prince leveled the blade at Kottrun’s throat.
As the man’s followers, glassy-eyed with sleep, blinked at their leader, Ramasu called out the most powerful sleep spell Arram had ever heard him use. The slowly rising spell cast by the mages outside leaped higher as Arram wrote the sigil on his palm that would keep him from falling victim to it. The attackers’ eyes rolled up in their heads, and the swords fell from their hands. Their bodies followed. Ozorne, too, was caught by the spell. He collapsed onto the ground.
Soldiers rushed in and began to put manacles on the rebels. Ramasu glanced at the prince, then sighed. Reaching out, he sketched a sign of invisibility over Arram’s friend. “Make sure he doesn’t get stepped on,” he told Arram quietly. “It’s better if we limit those who know he’s here.” Arram nodded and shifted position to sit directly in front of his invisible friend.
Ramasu and Daleric’s assistant checked the healing gladiators. The danger of the spell that had dropped their captors was that it was risky for men already in a healing sleep. When they were certain that all of their patients were unharmed, Ramasu turned to Arram to heal his still-bleeding cuts.
The captain of the camp’s guard arrived as two of his men dragged the manacled Kottrun to his feet. “Hag’s dice, what happened here?” he demanded. “Master Ramasu, Arram, are you hurt?”
“We are fine,” Ramasu said, helping Arram to stand. Arram swayed. Ramasu propped him up and told the captain, “More important, our patients are fine.”
“But what happened?” the captain demanded.
“Arram thought the sleep was happening too slowly to put the rebels down,” Ramasu explained. “So he opened a fountain in the ground and knocked the leader against the top of the tent.” He touched the ground with his foot. “It’s still a bit damp—we might want to put rugs down to keep the sick from getting chilled, and ask Daleric to put them in dry gowns.”
“Sorry, Master,” Arram mumbled.
“You were rushed,” Ramasu said kindly. “Though you might trust the arts of your elders more next time.” He flicked his fingers at Kottrun, who woke. A guard dragged him to his feet. “The captain—and I—would like to know what you were thinking,” Ramasu said mildly.
Kottrun replied with obscenities.
“They were going to force you to help them to escape, Master,” Arram said.
“Cackleheads,” the captain said with contempt. “Everyone knows we search the healers’ wagons when they go, in case someone tries to sneak out. A week of bread and water for this lot, and they get to play the Sirajit army in the next games.”
“Wait!” Kottrun yelled. “I—”
The guard who had seized him cuffed him into silence. Arram glanced at Ramasu. For a moment he thought he’d felt a spell leave the master and attach itself to Kottrun and his men, but he hadn’t seen it. He staggered in Ramasu’s hold, dizzy again and barely able to stand.
Daleric rushed in and braced Arram’s free side. “Arram, what’s this?” he asked with concern. “You were fine when we left.”
“Apparently Kottrun and his pack took Arram and the wounded as hostages,” the captain explained. “They must have run mad to think Master Ramasu could walk them out of here. Our mages put sleep on them, but before it took, the boy made a fountain that smacked Kottrun silly and then dropped him.”
“Kottrun hit me in the head, too,” Arram said cheerfully. His knees turned to water, and he sagged in the mages’ grips. “But I’m fine.”
Daleric raised his eyebrows. “No wonder you’re wrung out, then,” he told Arram. “Three days of serious healing, a clout on the head, and whatever you just did on top of it. Don’t tell me you’re fine.”
“I am,” Arram protested.
“Mm-hmm,” Daleric said dubiously. He motioned for a soldier to take charge of Arram. “Take him to the healers’ quarters and let him lie down for a bit, will you?”
When Arram woke, it was full dark outside the window. He was on his cot, tucked snugly under a light blanket. The touch of soft feathers against his ear told him that Preet was sleeping there.
Movement in the room made him flinch. Preet grumbled and went back to sleep as Ramasu pushed a folding shade aside. He had been reading behind it, using a globe of magic for light. He set his book down and produced a bowl and spoon from a small table.
“Ozorne?” Arram asked, worried.
“Smuggled out while he was still unconscious,” Ramasu told him. “You will have to convince him that he missed nothing spectacular.”
Arram sighed in relief. “Good.”
“Now, I must ask, did you have any part in his surprise visit to this camp?”
Arram sat bolt upright. “No, Master! I didn’t know anything until he crept up on me in the coliseum!”
Ramasu smiled. “Do you know, I believe you. It’s that startled fawn aspect you wear when you have been taken by surprise….I think I shall have to speak to Chioké about giving Ozorne more challenging work, to keep him out of trouble in the future.”
“He didn’t mean to get in trouble,” Arram protested.
“No, and it is the fault of his family for trying to restrict so high-spirited and clever a youth. It will be well, Arram. He is very lucky to have a friend like you.” Ramasu picked up a napkin and unfurled it. “Are you hungry?”
Arram’s stomach lurched, three-quarters with excitement and one-quarter with nausea. “A little,” he admitted.
Ramasu passed the bowl and spoon to him, saying, “Before you try that…” He shaped a glowing sign in the air. Arram’s stomach settled immediately. “Better?” Arram nodded. “Eat, before it gets any colder.”
He said nothing as Arram wolfed the mild soup, but continued to read from his book. When Arram put the bowl aside, Ramasu asked, “Have you any questions about this afternoon?”
Arram scratched his head. “How did they get the weapons? I thought they were counted and locked up after the games.”
“Apparently they bribed an animal seller to bring them in last year. They buried them under their barracks until yesterday,” the master replied. “And they arranged for an accident to happen to the seller the next time he came, with no one the wiser for why it happened.”
Arram yawned. “I’ll be glad to be home,” he admitted.
Ramasu gathered his bowl and spoon. “As will I. It is useful work here, but it is hard on the body and the spirit. You have done very well. I am proud of you.”
Arram smiled. He was asleep as soon as he put his head down.
They loaded their things into the wagon first thing the next morning. Only Musenda and Gueda came to see them off. Arram’s heart broke at the dark circles that surrounded Gueda’s eyes, and the slump to her shoulders. He reached out a hand to touch her, then stopped. She might not care for that. “How are you?” he asked instead, walking a little way aside with her.
She shrugged. “They want to give me another cat, but I won’t do it. I almost punched the captain of the arena when he asked me.”
Arram nodded. He’d feel the same if something happened to Preet and anyone offered him another bird the next day.
“But I mean to live,” Gueda said. Her eyes sparkled dangerously. “You’ll see. I’ll have vengeance for Tacuma.”
“But…you killed the gladiators who killed him,” Arram said faintly. She looked deadly.
“Oh, aye, that, but there’s those that scheduled us against them, and I mean to see if his feed was drugged. It’s been done before,” she said in response to Arram’s look of shock. “When an animal’s so good no one can beat ’im, no one bets against ’im. Gamblers don’t like to lose money at the games, so they make their arrangements. If that’s what happened, I’ll sniff it out, you’ll see. In the meantime…” She bumped her fist gently against Arram’s cheekbone. “Hekaja bless you for putting me back together—twice! I wish I could do better than thank you—”
“Your thanks is more than enough for me,” Arram said. He smiled at her. “Gods go with you, Gueda.” He watched her as she trudged off.
Musenda turned away from Ramasu, who was already on the wagon’s seat. They’d been talking quietly. Now the gladiator took Arram’s hand. “I told Master Ramasu it’s fine with us if you return. Not once did you treat us like animals. That’s rare. Take care of yourself, Arram.”
“If you will do the same, Sarge,” Arram replied.
The gladiator grinned. “That’s what I’m best at.” He followed Gueda back into the heart of the gladiators’ compound.
“Arram,” Ramasu called.
Arram mounted the seat beside the master and nodded to the gate guards as they drove through. He turned to look back at the camp as the iron gates clanged shut. He shuddered. He had learned a great deal while he was there, it was true. In particular, he had found that he wasn’t certain he could stay in a country where slavery was practiced. He had always thought he would manage to avoid it somehow when he left the university, or that he would become used to it. Now he understood he could not avoid it. The university managed to live slave-free, but it was a lie. The shadow of slavery lay over it. The arena was only the very worst of this way of life. Lesser forms of brutality to men and women were everywhere. When people were bought and sold, it was just too easy for free people to treat them as things. He couldn’t face that. Sooner or later he would have to leave his friends and his teachers. He could not stay here.
Lindhall greeted him with a warm hug. Preet announced her happiness over their return with a cheerful set of whistles as she fluttered all over Arram’s stale room. The master opened the shutters to air the place out and went into the sitting room next door. He returned with wonderfully cold tea—Arram had struggled to learn the spell for a year without success—and a small bowl of cherries. “With Hulak’s compliments,” he said, placing the bowl on Arram’s table.
As if by magic, the tortoise Sunstone appeared at Lindhall’s side, making his begging groan.
“No, Sunstone. You know very well they aren’t good for you,” Arram said with a smile. Little muscles all over his body were starting to relax. He hadn’t even known how tense he had been until this moment. He glanced at Lindhall. “How did Master Hulak know I was coming home?”
“Come—you know we masters talk all the time,” Lindhall replied, dusting Arram’s table with his handkerchief. “Ramasu kept us apprised on how you fared. We were concerned,” he said in answer to Arram’s questioning look. “We weren’t certain that the camp was the proper place for you.”
Thinking of Kottrun’s attack, Arram grimaced. “It was…educational,” he replied.
“So we feared. Will you go again?” Lindhall asked. He sipped his tea.
“I learned a great deal of surgery quickly,” Arram told him slowly. “I’d like to learn more, and make sure of what I’ve learned already. But perhaps I could do that in a city infirmary, and do the rest of my healing studies during plague seasons.” He looked away from Lindhall as his chin began to tremble. “It’s a horrible place.”
For a long moment the older man said nothing. Then he remarked, “Certainly I will benefit from your knowledge, however acquired. The patients are smaller here, but perhaps their reason for coming to us is more…bearable. Speaking of patients, I have three meerkat pups left with me by a traveling show. The adults were stolen, but—”
Arram grinned. “Meerkat pups?” He’d seen pictures and heard descriptions, but he’d never seen one in person. “Where, the menagerie?”
Lindhall chuckled. “No, these are pups. We’ve been fighting to keep them alive for three days. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather rest?”
But Arram was already on his way through the sitting room to Lindhall’s private nursery, stepping nimbly around Sunstone. Preet cheeped at Lindhall as if to say “What can you do?” and perched on the older man’s shoulder, ready to see these marvels for herself.
Arram went back to his room near suppertime with a small meerkat nestled in his shirtfront. He was trying to decide if it was worth the trouble of returning the youngster to the heated nursery before he went to the noisy dining hall, or simply looking for whatever Lindhall and the students had tucked away for snacks, when someone rapped on his door. He opened it, expecting to find a mastery student with Preet, who had gone wandering when the nursery proved too warm for her.
Instead he saw Varice, pretty in a pale blue cotton dress under her white robe. Her golden curls were pinned up, but some had tumbled forward over her shoulders. He wanted to touch them more than he’d wanted anything in his life. He moved forward to hug her—surely in a brotherly way—and remembered the meerkat in his shirt just in time. She was also holding a large basket with both hands.
She smiled at him. “I asked Master Ramasu how you were, and he said flat with exhaustion. When I didn’t see you at any other meal, I thought I’d bring you supper. There’s plenty if Master Lindhall wants some.”
He took the basket. “Oh, he’s at some meeting at the masters’ dining hall. Will you join me? We can eat in the study.” He led the way there, keeping his arms and the basket well away from his small charge. Once inside the study, he put the basket down with relief. It was heavy.
“Why are you walking so strangely?” she asked. “Did someone hit you?”
Arram grinned at her. “No. I’m being careful of my friend.” Unbuttoning his shirt, he showed her the meerkat pup. “Master Lindhall has the other two,” he explained. “He said he hopes they don’t get lively during the meeting.”
“I’ve seen the adult ones in the menagerie,” she said, gently lifting the pup out.
“These were abandoned. Lindhall hopes the adults will accept them once we’re certain they don’t have any illnesses.” He watched her a little nervously as she set the pup on one of Lindhall’s many cushions.
She stepped closer to him and said, “I missed you so much. I can’t believe how much.” Smiling, she stood on her tiptoes, twined her arms around his neck, pulled his head down, and planted her lips on his in a very no-nonsense way. She had kissed him on the mouth a few times before, just as a friendly salute. This was far more than friendly. Arram closed his eyes and sank into the kiss. Her lips were very soft. He held her comfortable body tightly, lifting her clean off the floor so their mouths were on the same level. She was running her hands over his shoulders and the side of his face. For once in his life he could barely think.
He was also barely breathing. Gently, regretfully, he drew back, setting her on the ground.
“Well!” she said, brushing her gown into order. There was a very pleased smile on her face. “Finally! I waited and waited for you to make the first move, like the gentleman is supposed to. If I’d realized you only needed me to do it, I would have proceeded ages ago!”
He smoothed her tumbled golden hair with trembling hands. “Those were hints?” he asked plaintively. “I thought those were…kisses like you’d give a brother.”
Varice laughed. “You have very odd ideas about how I kiss my brothers, then!”
He wobbled. “I’m sorry,” he said apologetically as they nearly tripped. “I haven’t eaten since—I think this morning, but it wasn’t much.”
“That won’t do. We’ll get you fed and then—” She bumped him with her knee. “We can discuss other things.”
Arram beamed down at her. “I hope so.”
“I know so. I am tired of waiting for you to do something, Arram Draper,” Varice said as they turned toward the food.
He stopped. “You remind me. I brought you something.” He hurried to his room for the favor he’d requested of Sarge. Ramasu had explained that the gladiators commonly burned their used-up gear, so foes in the arena or among the bettors could not steal it to use for spells to bring them down. Arram had persuaded Sarge and Ramasu to let him have a token, properly spelled to remove Sarge’s essence, for Varice. He gave the silk-wrapped bundle to her. She gasped when she opened it. The glove was a nasty, dirty thing, worn out at the fingertips and the seams, but Sarge’s name was inked on the back, and it had clearly been hard used.
Varice crumpled it in her hands. “Is this—?”
“One of his training gloves,” Arram told her.
She yelped and flung her arms around his neck for another kiss. Arram could have continued all night, if someone had not rapped on his door. Quickly they released each other and straightened their clothes before Arram gathered up the meerkat and went to see who had come to call.
It was Ozorne. Immediately he tried to embrace Arram, only to stop when he saw the meerkat pup. His face, already alight when he saw Arram, brightened even more. He reached a finger to the small creature. “I heard Lindhall had pups,” he said softly. “There are two more?”
“With Lindhall,” Arram said. “This one was asleep until a moment ago.”
“Did Varice wake him? She wasn’t at the dining hall—”
“I’m here,” Varice called from the study. “I brought Arram supper.”
There was nothing else to do, and truly, Arram didn’t begrudge his best friend for interrupting his time with Varice. “Will you join us? Varice is staying—you know she brought enough for twelve.” He passed the meerkat into Ozorne’s hands.
“Oh, oh, yes, of course,” Ozorne said absently, stroking the pup’s head. He looked at the two guards behind him. “I’ll be dining here. You can wait.” He slid into Arram’s room and closed the door. He lowered his voice. “Listen, I wanted to say, about what happened…”
“There’s nothing to say,” Arram said. “We came out of it alive, that’s the important thing. Sergeant Okot?” he thought to ask. He was surprised Ozorne’s chief guard was letting him wander.
“Not back from Mother’s yet,” Ozorne replied. “I’ve been informed I’m in for it when he is, and I’m not to leave this building except for lessons.” He gripped Arram’s arm with a many-ringed hand. He cradled the pup against his chest with the other. “And there’s plenty to say,” he said firmly, looking into Arram’s eyes. “We’ve been friends for a long time. I’ve always been glad of it, but…you saved my life in that tent. I panicked, Arram. I couldn’t think of a single working—”
“You would have,” Arram assured his friend. “When you’d caught your breath—”
“But I didn’t,” Ozorne protested. “You saw how the wind blew, and you did what had to be done before that madman gouged our eyes out. I will never forget that. I can’t think of anyone who would do so much for me without wanting something—except you.” He frowned. “Do you want something?”
“Supper,” Arram replied.
Ozorne laughed. “I have never had friends like you and Varice. I don’t know anyone who’s ever had friends like you two!”
“And if you’re lucky, you never will,” Varice called. “Will you let him collapse of starvation, or will you come to the table?”
Arram had just settled the pup in a basket nest by his place when Varice asked, “Why are you back so soon? You said your mother meant to keep you until late Saturday?”
“She did,” Ozorne replied, then grinned as they took their seats. “But I’d had about enough of her chatter regarding the eligible girls I must try to meet this week, when she started over lunch. Lucky for her and me she’d invited Chioké to share the meal. Right away he started telling her how much trouble I was having in my classes with Cosmas and Dagani. How I was going to miss Cosmas’s next examination and it will hurt my marks. Well, no Tasikhe will score badly in an examination! I tell you, my mother practically shoved me out the door!” Ozorne chuckled as he shook out his napkin. “I wish I had Chioké’s way with her.”
“You could try his technique,” Varice suggested, filling his cup with pomegranate juice.
Arram frowned. Gently, not wanting to upset his friends, he asked, “Ozorne…you trust Chioké? Truly trust him?” He explained about the conversation between the mage and Kottrun.
Ozorne was silent for a moment before he said, “It could have been that he was trying to rig fights. I know he does that.”
Arram was shocked. “And you condone it?”
Ozorne chuckled. “Arram, don’t you know? It’s good to have something on those who might try to gain power over you. Just in case. You gave me something to hold over Chioké, should he get artful with me.” He patted Arram on the cheek. “I even have something on Mother.”
“And me?” Arram asked, trying to hide his outrage. “Varice?”
Ozorne kissed his cheek. “No. I believe in the two of you without reservation. A fellow never had better friends, Arram.”
“Ozorne!” Varice announced patiently. “Arram! The food grows cold!”
“Your hearts are as true as gold,” Ozorne said, grinning as he slung an arm around Arram’s shoulder. “Let’s eat.”
Arram sat cross-legged at the low table between his two best friends. Preet landed on his shoulder and squawked in his ear. Unseen, Varice rubbed one of her knees against his as she passed a dish of couscous. Ozorne was laughing as the meerkat tried to work free of his basket.
He listens to Varice and me, Arram told himself, offering Preet a piece of flatbread. I have years and years of studies before I’m a master. Something will work out so we can leave Carthak. Or perhaps Ozorne will convince the new emperor to put an end to slavery; then I can stay.
In the distance, he thought he could hear an old woman’s cackling laughter. A Hag’s laughter.