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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.
