The Sanctum of the Sphere: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 2

by Luther M. Siler

  “They’re over there with the crew, I think,” Darsi said. “They brought an elf and a human through here a few minutes ago.” Grond looked again, and this time picked out Asper, determinedly ignoring everyone else and meditating cross-legged on the floor. He didn’t see Haakoro. The man was likely sprawled out on a couch somewhere facing away from the halfogre.

  “Heard from your mom?”

  “No. That’s one of the things I need to talk to Dad about.” Grond raised an eyebrow, and the girl waved him off. “She’s fine. Just … kidnapped a little.”

  Grond nodded. “Ah. No big deal, then.”

  “No.”

  There was a chorus of wails and complaints as Brazel disentangled himself from the rest of his children and joined Grond and Darsi.

  “You two are conspiring. There must be bad news.”

  “I’m sorry about the ship, Daddy,” Darsi said.

  “Boat,” Brazel corrected. “And you only call me Daddy when you want something. Don’t be that kid.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  Brazel shrugged, dismissing the mistake. “What’s happened to your mother?”

  “Kidnapped. I don’t know a lot of details. You’ll have to talk to Lorryn. She might know more. All I know is that an elf and an ogre took her and–”

  “An elf and an ogre,” Grond said, his tone silencing the girl. He had suddenly gone very still.

  Darsi took a stop back, almost involuntarily. “Yeah. Grond, what–”

  “We need Remember. Right now,” Grond said, addressing the comment to the air over their heads. A deep red spark shone in his eyes. “I know you hear me. Right now.”

  A panel in the ceiling slid open and a security ‘bot dropped out.

  “The Lady Remember grants you audience,” it said. “Follow me.”

  “Get the ship’s crew and Asper. Tell Haakoro to stay here,” Brazel said to his daughter. “And tell Hazel she’s in charge until we come back. You’re coming with us.”

  Interlude 3

  Then

  Grond gritted his teeth, biting off a scream as he popped his shoulder back into place. He tested his range of motion—painful, but it would do—and turned his attention to his wounds. He had a laceration along his side that would want stitches, and it felt like he might have lost another chunk of his ear. His whole left side would be a mass of bruises for a day or two. At least it didn’t feel like anything was broken. He ran his tongue over his teeth. None of those broken, either. One of his lips was split and swollen, but that would heal up quickly enough.

  “That wasn’t bad,” K’Shorr said, unlocking the cell Grond had been put into and letting himself in.

  “Four on one. Not bad is about the best I can expect,” Grond said. “How many of them died?”

  “One ought to make it. One’s questionable. The other two I imagine you know.”

  “Yeah.” He’d broken an elf’s neck, and punched a human in the chest hard enough that he thought he’d spotted a few bits of lung tissue on his spiked gladiator’s gloves after the hit. He didn’t expect that either of those two were still breathing.

  K’Shorr tossed Grond a spool of surgical thread and a needle. The ogre caught them, breaking open the sterile package the needle was in and starting to stitch up the hole in his side.

  “We still can’t afford wound gel? That fight should have earned Barren some decent coin.”

  “I have no idea what he can afford,” K’Shorr said. “I know who he ain’t spending it on.”

  The ogre nodded. It was a marvel he was even still alive. Barren, for whatever reason, didn’t seem to want Grond’s blood on his hands, but didn’t have any objection to someone else—or groups of someone elses—doing the job for him. Grond had been fighting in the pits for Barren for years, ever since the elf had been cast out. In all that time he’d only really lost one fight, and the victor had rather pointedly refused to end the battle with a kill. Barren hadn’t let him eat for a week after that. Grond suspected K’Shorr had intervened to keep the elf from simply starving him to death. His skin was scarred enough by now that the hardened tissue almost counted as armor. He’d started letting K’Shorr tattoo him whenever he won a fight. At least that way he had some control over how his skin looked.

  “How long until the next one?” he asked. Please let it be at least a week. His shoulder alone warranted at least three days and possibly some actual medical attention.

  “Barren hasn’t said,” K’Shorr said. “But I’d imagine you’re in for a long couple of days.”

  Grond looked around. He’d slept in worse places. “Are they feeding me?”

  “Shit, I don’t know,” K’Shorr snapped. “You have any other requests, boss?”

  Grond quickly lowered his eyes, not responding to the taunt. K’Shorr, unlike Barren, actually appeared to thrive in their reduced circumstances over the past years, and there were days he was almost friendly. Grond always had to be careful to not take it for granted.

  “K’Shorr.”

  Barren stood outside the cell. The elf looked a bit sickly—then again, he nearly always looked at least a bit off since the thing with Eremite had happened. He’d lost weight, and his threadbare clothes hung on him. His lack of attention to his dress mystified Grond. The elf had been very concerned with his appearance before, and the ogre was sure that his fights had to be winning some money. There were days that Barren was barely better dressed than Grond was, and Grond was a slave.

  K’Shorr looked up. “What do you need, boss?”

  “I need you to accompany me. We have business to conduct,” the elf said, collapsing into a coughing fit upon finishing the sentence.

  “He coming with us?”

  “No. Leave him here,” the elf said. “We’ll be back for him soon enough.”

  K’Shorr nodded.

  “I’ll try and get something sent back for you,” he said quietly. “If only because I don’t need your ass getting killed in your next fight because we were starving you. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting. They don’t exactly have high standards for customer service around here.”

  I don’t think I’m actually a customer, Grond thought. Livestock usually got fed on time. After all, it was easier to sell if it was healthy.

  The pair left, the cell door clanging shut behind them.

  He was left alone long enough to get some sleep. He was awakened by someone knocking on the bars of his cage. He cracked an eye open, wincing—that side of his face had some bruising too—and saw a small shape standing in the shadows by his cage.

  “If you’re not here to feed me, you shouldn’t have woken me up,” he said. “And I don’t smell food.” Except—wait—that wasn’t true. He did smell food. Meat, specifically.

  “I can tell you’re not a gnome,” the shape said, and Grond opened both eyes. He’d seen gnomes in the crowds at his fights from time to time, but hadn’t ever spoken with one. This one was a male, around exactly half his height. His fur was as blond as Grond had ever seen on a gnome. All the ones Grond had seen had tended toward darker colors. He was wearing what looked like basic work clothes made of sturdy materials, with spots and smears of oil or something scattered all over him.

  Blood? Nah. There was none on his fur, and Grond figured he’d not had time to wash his hands if he’d just killed someone.

  “You got something for me?”

  “You trust me enough to eat it?” the gnome asked, revealing a slab of grilled meat and some kind of vegetable paste. The meat smelled delicious. The vegetable paste … well, was food. “I figure you can eat while we talk.”

  So he doesn’t work here. This was interesting.

  “I’m in a cell. Anyone who wants to kill me can just shoot me through the bars. If that’s poisoned, you must enjoy wasting your time,” the ogre said.

  The gnome pushed the plate through a slot in the cell. “I’m Snider,” he said, and that was all he got out before Grond grabbed him through the bars and lifted him off his feet.<
br />
  “Plenty of folk like wasting their time,” Grond said, holding the gnome a meter off the ground. He took a moment to be grateful he’d used his good arm by reflex. He doubted he’d be able to hold the gnome off the ground with the other one for very long. “I hope your chef is talented, because if this doesn’t taste right I’m not putting you down.”

  The gnome looked like he was trying to shrug, so Grond quickly dipped the meat in the vegetable paste and took a bite, chewing slowly. His eyes fluttered a bit at the taste, and he dropped the gnome. He tried to make it gentle.

  “Don’t care if it’s poisoned,” he said. “It’s good. Really good. Talk.”

  “Your boss is meeting with some important people right now,” Snider said.

  “Don’t have a boss,” Grond said around a mouthful of food.

  “Fine, your owner and somebody else’s boss,” he said. “And my boss, too. Either way, they’re meeting right now. And they’re putting a deal together. For a lot of money. And my boss … well, let’s say maybe my boss doesn’t like that deal very much. And wants a different deal. So I got a question for you: how much d’you like Barren?”

  Grond grew very still, and stopped chewing.

  “You asking me to throw a fight?”

  “Only thing I asked you was how much you liked your owner,” the gnome said.

  “I’m not sure I like this conversation,” Grond said. It wouldn’t be the first time that either Barren or K’Shorr had tried to catch him in a scheme. Not at all. He still remembered which of his scars were from the last time it had happened.

  “I get it,” the gnome said. “You’re not stupid. This could be a setup. Or it could be a chance.”

  “A chance for what?” Grond asked. “Your boss to get rich? You to get rich? I got a steak. And a nice little side of fearing for my life. For all I know Barren’s got this place wired. I’m not helping you, Snider. Or your boss. Somebody goes into the pit with me, I beat them until they can’t fight anymore. Sometimes they live through it. Sometimes they don’t. That’s all you’re getting from me. I might not kill all your guys.”

  “Freedom,” Snider said. “Listen, this fight’s not gonna be like your others. You need to—”

  “I don’t even know what freedom is,” Grond interrupted. “How do I know it’s better than this? It’s not like I have job skills. I beat people. That’s what I’m for.”

  He shoved the rest of the plate back through the slot, suddenly not in the mood for food any longer. Fuck Barren. This was probably a setup anyway.

  “I’m gonna do what I’ve got to do. And right now I need some sleep. Fuck off.”

  He laid down on the bench in his cell, his back to the bars. Snider didn’t say anything else, and after a while he heard the gnome leave.

  One way or another, this isn’t going to work out very well.

  The fight was three days later. He spent nearly all of the time in between in his cell, only getting about an hour or so a day outside. “Outside” didn’t mean much. Wherever they were, its atmosphere wasn’t conducive to breathing and staying alive for long—it was okay for short periods of time, if you didn’t mind a burning feeling in your lungs until you passed out—but most of the residents stayed underground all the time. He didn’t even know what region of space they were in, much less the name of the planet. “Outside” basically just meant out of his cell, where there was at least room to stretch his legs.

  Ogrespace, he realized. He had to be in ogrespace. He could just barely reach the ceiling if he stood on his toes, and he was underground. There was no other race that would bother giving them a ceiling height that high if they didn’t have to. Not if they were underground.

  He wondered how close he was to home, then fought the thought off. Tromaxis had been home once. No longer.

  “So do I get any kind of warning about what’s coming?” he asked.

  “Just this,” K’Shorr said, handing him a helmet. The helmet was made of some sort of polymer and had an opaque visor.

  “I assume I don’t have to keep it on,” he said.

  “Nope. But you’ll wear it until you’re in the pit,” K’Shorr said. “Once the fight starts you can do whatever you want.”

  “First blood?” It was never first blood.

  “Kill,” K’Shorr said. “You know better.”

  Grond put the helmet on, and let K’Shorr lead him from the cell.

  This wasn’t the same pit they’d been in before. He could tell that much even with the helmet on, just from the way the roars were echoing about the space. First of all, there were a lot more people watching this fight, and it sounded like the pit he was in was a lot larger as well. The floor, or at least the part of it he was standing on, was sand. He preferred to fight on sand. It soaked up blood and didn’t get slippery, and could be used to blind an opponent in a pinch. Of course, bashing his opponent’s head into a sandy floor didn’t result in a kill as often as stone did, but he had other ways to do that.

  He’d been given no weapons. Not even his gloves, which were usually the minimum he was provided with. This could be good news or very, very bad. It could mean that there would be weapons in the pit somewhere. It could mean that everyone was unarmed, which he felt was probably to his advantage. Or it could mean that he was the unarmed one, which would be a problem.

  He rolled his shoulders, feeling carefully for any lingering pain. It felt okay. He’d have to favor that side, but it wouldn’t be a real handicap.

  An announcer started speaking. He didn’t bother listening. The helmet muffled the sound anyway, and it wasn’t like the place was set up to pump sound into the pits. The announcer wasn’t there for him.

  It did mean the fight was starting soon, though. He bent his knees slightly and listened, waiting for the tone that would signal the start of the fight and cut him loose to do what needed to be done.

  A few moments later, he heard it. He whipped the helmet off his head.

  Oh, that’s bad.

  He dove to the right as a flurry of projectile shots missed him entirely and thudded into the wall behind him. He’d only gotten a glimpse of the person with the rifle—it was too big to be anything but an ogre, but wearing armor from head to toe. He landed behind a broken piece of stonework, pulling his knees up and taking a second to glance around. The pit looked to be about ten meters wide, roughly circular, with moderate amounts of cover everywhere, most of it taller than he was. It looked as if someone had wrecked most of a small building and thrown it down here. The pit was practically a maze. Plenty of room to hide, but plenty of room for them to hide, too.

  There were at least four. The ogre in the armor, who had the gun, and three others, all smaller. Elves or humans, too big to be gnomes or dwarves. He waited a moment, listening to see if there would be more shots. Nothing happened.

  I can’t be that lucky. There was a chance that the ogre had wasted all his bullets in one quick burst, hoping to take him out before the fight even started, but it didn’t seem likely.

  He had to move, one way or another. He continued in the direction his dive had taken him in, crawling around the perimeter of the pit, keeping his good shoulder in front. He kept the helmet. The ogre was nowhere to be seen. The crowd’s roaring and screaming was deafening, so he didn’t have to worry about being quiet. Just unseen.

  One of the smaller ones found him first. He had a sword, and Grond was able to block the swing with the helmet, knocking his—no, xir, it was an elf—swing wide and giving Grond a clear shot at xir face. Grond punched the elf once, breaking xir nose, then grabbed a handful of face and slammed the elf’s head into the nearest piece of stonework. The elf’s skull cracked like overripe fruit. The cheers from the crowd were a physical force beating down on him.

  One down. He took the sword. Shorter than he’d like, but it would do. He continued along the perimeter, his senses straining, trying to spot the others before they found him.

  This didn’t make any sense. The crowds were here to see a
battle. But there was too much cover. There was no way most of the crowd could even see him right now. He risked a glance up. There was a lattice a few meters over his head that was covered with cameras. They were watching on screens, then. But what was the point of that? Why not just set it up so that they could watch the fight? Unless—

  Unless the fight wasn’t the point.

  He heard Snider’s voice. This fight isn’t gonna be like your others. And that elf hadn’t put up much of a fight. He’d won fights quickly plenty of times, but that swing had gone so poorly—

  “I’m supposed to be hunting them,” he mumbled to himself. That’s why the one had had a gun.

  The odds weren’t stacked against him. They were stacked against the other three.

  He stood up straight, striding toward the center of the pit. He caught sight of one of the two smaller combatants, who turned and ran when he saw Grond coming.

  The one with the rifle was standing in the center of the arena. He was facing the wrong way.

  “Hey,” Grond shouted.

  The other ogre turned, brought his rifle up to his shoulder, and fired.

  And missed Grond by two meters.

  What the hell.

  He threw his helmet, hitting the other ogre squarely in the face, and closed the distance between the two of them in an eyeblink. He tore the rifle out of his hands, breaking the stock open to clear the ammunition from it and then swinging it like a club, hitting the ogre in the back of the head and putting him on the ground.

  He dropped the rifle, placing a foot on the other ogre’s armored chest and taking his helmet off.

  It was a kid. Barely even big enough to fit in the armor. And he was terrified, tears running down his cheeks and snot running from his nose. I didn’t know ogres this age even could cry.

  “What the fuck is this?” he asked the kid.

  “P—please,” was all he said. “Don’t kill me.”

  “What the fuck is this?” he said again, this time louder and to the entire arena. He looked around. He’d just given the other two a perfect opportunity to take a shot at him and they were nowhere to be seen. Which meant that they weren’t coming out at all.