by Jo Sparkes
Pinter ought to do something, say something. Rescue his master. Instead he waited on the High Priest’s reply.
“You defy Yute?” Bowag shouted.
“I welcome her wisdom,” the Agben smiled.
She speaks well, Pinter realized. Perhaps being out in the world, helping Terrin instead of hiding in a Tower and shouting commands, gave her an authority Zaria lacked.
Beyond her, he spied Prince Tryst. The one skin he himself had seen as key to it all - and the boy he’d ordered to be brought to him. Pinter had even commissioned a special Reeder potion, to make Prince Tryst’s obedience both absolute and long-lasting. A brilliant plan to divert the course of the skins for the good of the Terrin. And it would have succeeded if Rain had done her part.
That plot must not now be exposed.
And as little as he liked Bowag, the Tower must not be exposed. Far better to protect it, to pluck the black rot from inside the walls without letting others see. There was already too much suspicion of Zaria - they might never recover from full exposure.
Behind the Prince the other skins assembled, and it gave him an idea. He rubbed the Loud Speak on his own throat.
“Gamesmen?” Pinter asked aloud, and the enhanced word echoed across the Gathering. “Yute shows her wisdom quite clearly.”
The Agben turned to him, eyes narrowing above her disappearing fangs.
“The gamesmen surely came to play,” Pinter smiled. “We shall let them.”
The whole Gathering was in an uproar.
Marra felt the reaction in the air. Smugness from the priests, anger from Tinge, dismay from Kirth. Elation from Qwall and his men, as if they and they alone had produced the answer to a Zaria conundrum.
And Drail, damn him, was eager. Purely, boyishly eager.
Now she perched on an old log near the trees, facing away from all the activity. Wrapping her arms about her knees, she tried not to think.
His approach cut through the madness behind her. “Marra, what do you think? Drail wants to use both the Birr Elixir and the Terrin potion. But might they not be compatible?”
She saw the toes of Tryst’s boots step beside her. When had his very movement become so familiar that she recognized the sound long before his speech?
“Marra?”
She sighed. “Tis foolish to play Terrin.”
“That horse has already fled the barn,” he said. “We have played them several times.”
“They were…amused. They indulged you. This game is for the Tower, for Zaria and their god! Can you not see the difference?”
For an answer he sat beside her, laying an arm across her shoulders. She looked up - and read in his face that he did see. Of course he understood - Tryst was no fool.
She ought to have swallowed her fears and kept silent.
“Drail is a great gamesman from a line of great gamesmen. He’ll come to no harm.”
“And you?” The words escaped before she could stop them.
His arm squeezed her shoulders. “As the Terrin will discover, my skills are sufficient.”
Are they? Marra wondered bitterly. But she had enough command of herself to keep that question between her teeth.
“The game is tomorrow, after the first meal has digested.”
Drail, loosening his shoulders, grinned at Qwall, who thumped his back in approval. “You will display well.”
Jason and Tryst - who’d been doing more murmuring than stretching - approached. “If we give a good game,” the Prince frowned, “that says Yute smiles on us.”
Drail smothered a sigh. These two had been on and on about what it all meant. Unable to just accept things as they were, to simply play.
“Agben and the Tower feud over the truths in the scrolls,” Jason told him. “If you are badly thumped, that bolsters the priest’s claims. But if somehow you draw a little admiration, even a tiny smile or two, they’ll perceive it as their god’s smile. Such a show of approval weakens Zaria’s claims.”
Qwall nodded. “Yute would crush you quick if she did not like you.”
“If we win….” Drail began and was cut off by Qwall’s bark of laughter.
“You cannot win, puny one.”
“Who do we play?” Tryst asked.
Adeena strode into their midst. Pregnant with news, Drail judged by the set of her lips. News that she did not like.
“The High Priest sought the wisdom of the stones. They name the Terrin champion Murgar.”
“The Bone Breaker,” Jason hissed.
“Murgar’s village arrived even as the stones were cast. The priests did not know.”
“Of course they did not know,” Tryst sighed. “They would not think to scan the Gathering or heed scouts reporting back to them.”
They were worried, Drail knew. To them much hinged on this game - perhaps even the long-standing peace between the continents. Princes had responsibilities, Jason had once told him in a tavern on a different continent.
But this challenge appealed to the gamesman in him. In truth, delighted him. To test his skills….
Drail spoke aloud, and it was Raston’s words, his grandsire’s speech from the days in the desert, that flowed from his tongue.
“To worry about prize money has never aided victory, nor the fear of losing aim a single shot. Just play with all your strength and mind and heart. For then, whatever the outcome, tis at least an honest one.”
Adeena beamed at him. For the moment, that was enough.
Kirth spoke with Tinge long into the night.
“An enhancement potion,” Kirth frowned. “Does it enhance the wrong things? Should we alter it for a skin?”
Tinge’s fur quivered with her answering head shake. “Enlargement, not enhancement. Somewhat delicate in its balance. It took years to perfect the formula - we dare not alter it in a single night.”
Kirth sighed. Terrin potions, she had come to realize, had no division between disciplines. What exactly did the brew enlarge?
“We know the skins took it without ill effect. We know they felt more powerful, better able to play.” Tinge stared into the small fire at their feet. “If we had a full cycle of moons, we might better the ingredients. With but a single night….”
Near the tree line, a sleep-sling hung peacefully. “Marra,” Kirth called softly. The sleep-sling rustled; Marra appeared through its folds.
“Can you do anything with this enhancement potion?”
The child blinked owlishly. “I’ll try, Mistress.”
The next morning Qwall brought Marra a scarlet waterskin. She thanked him and plucked the stopper free.
As soon as the cork was drawn the odors assailed her - odors of land and Kwitt. And now she could detect the hint of Wiskett Bramble.
This brew had made the others seem larger to her - the others who had drank the potion, she realized. And it had made her seem larger to others who had not drank.
Marra threaded her way through Qwall’s villagers as they laughed over their breakfast of grain balls. She nodded at Drail and Tryst without pausing to answer their calls to stop and eat.
She slipped past the gathered males to the single log near the swamp forest, where the two Agben elders nibbled their food. Marra sat at their feet.
“Wiskett Bramble,” she asked. “What does it do?”
“We do not know,” Kirth said.
“How would you know Wiskett Bramble?” Tinge spoke sharply.
“We have a vine planted at the school in Missea,” Kirth frowned. “Rain discovered…Rain claimed to discover it on her climb down from your place. We have yet to discover a use.”
Up till then Marra had only been able to read one expression on the Terrin’s face - when her fangs lengthened into a grin. Yet watching the green teeth vanish beneath her drooping jowl, she knew Tinge felt angry.
“Our Rain is devious,” Tinge growled. “Wiskett Bramble is an extremely potent vine. Very rare. She could only have stolen it from my private garden.”
“And its use?”
“It…mirrors.”
Mirrors. Marra remembered how the gamesmen had seemed to grow large before her eyes. “It shares the effect?” she gasped. “Causes those who have not swallowed the herb to still experience it?”
“Impossible,” Kirth scoffed.
Tinge sighed. “The effect is not nearly as strong, and some herbs work better than others. But yes - it can make a reaction echo through those present. The comet juice makes one believe he is bigger, stronger. Better. A touch of Wiskett Bramble makes others believe it as well.”
“If the Skin’s juice had more Bramble,” Kirth slowly began. “Would that make the Terrin believe it more? Tilt the balance?”
Fangs slowly lengthening, Tinge nodded. “We’d not even need to brew more juice - just add crushed Bramble to one of Qwall’s stash.”
Marra wasn’t so sure.
She was checking the stores in her herb sash when Tryst, Drail, and Jason strode up.
“Kirth says you can enhance the Terrin brew,” the Defense Master said, his shadow blocking the sun.
“We think this one can,” Tinge rumbled, appearing from the other side to take a seat beside Kirth. She must have told the men.
Marra shielded her eyes to see the circle of faces. All solemn, all expectant. All waiting on her.
This would not be easy.
“You drank this before several games?” she asked. “Did it make you better?”
Drail and Tryst exchanged a look. “I felt better,” Tryst said. “I felt stronger, bigger. More powerful.”
“But were you? Stronger, I mean?”
“Of course they were!” Jason was impatient. “I could see the difference from the sidelines.”
“Marra,” Kirth frowned. “Never mind what I said about the third discipline. This is an exception, child.”
“I think you spoke truth, Mistress.”
Jason was glaring at her, but they needed to understand. “Did you play any game without the drink?” she persisted.
“Just the first,” Drail spoke slowly. He was thinking - she could tell from the furrow on his brow.
“And how did you do in that game?”
His silence held as the others stared. At her, at each other.
“That was the closest we came to winning,” Tryst answered slowly.
“I believe the third discipline works more on the mind than the body,” Marra sighed. “It makes you feel…better. Makes you believe you’re larger than you truly are. But it’s really a trick. You do not actually grow at all.”
“I saw….” Jason’s voice tapered off.
She nodded. “We all saw King Bactor walking the Palace gardens, issuing orders. But he was not there.”
“Wiskett Bramble.” Kirth breathed, whirling to stare at Tinge. “Others are trapped in the same illusion.”
The Terrin slowly nodded. “You see clearly, little Marra. That is indeed what the red waterskin does.”
The men gaped, shared looks. Digesting the idea, Marra thought, and had to suppress a wild desire to laugh.
It was the Defense Master who spoke first. “Are they not better off with the same potion? Equal footing?”
“Drail missed blocks he never missed at home,” Marra replied. “Every play the Hand made was a hair short or a blink of the sun late. You all had as much trouble sinking a ball as the Terrin.”
Tryst nodded grimly. “The only balls we sank were before we drank the potion.”
“We sank one ball here….” Manten began.
“Tryst did,” Jason told him. “He’d only pretended to drink.”
“It distorts things!” Drail hit her shoulder painfully, but she knew it was his approval thump. “We can’t accurately judge their body placement!”
“If they don’t drink,” Kirth stooped low beside her, “Won’t it affect them all the more? Make them see the Terrin even larger, feel more fear?”
Marra smiled softly. “There is a potion that enhances the senses. It focuses mind and body…allows one to see clearly.”
Drail broke into a wide grin. “The Birr Elixir.”
The Birr Elixir, as Tryst remembered, needed an hour to work properly. They had almost reached that time when Murgar and his team marched out onto the comet field.
“Mur-gar. Mur-gar.” The chant arose as the champion moved, keeping pace with his hairy feet.
And the Great Goose guide him if the Terrin didn’t appear the part - surely the biggest creature Tryst had yet to see. Was he truly so big - or would he shrink once Marra’s brew took hold?
Drail strode out to meet him, that perpetual boyish eagerness shining from his eyes. How could the man feel so confident? Or had the gamesmen learned to hide his doubts?
Tryst felt enough doubt for both of them. Best to shake that off, for it wouldn’t help him on the field.
Watching the Trumen and Terrin select their comet balls beside the darop teeth ring, Tryst felt a profound calm rise through him. If Drail could do this with such bravery….
And then Olver’s face came into view. The Trumen was terrified.
So much for desert courage.
Pinter followed Bowag out into the sunshine.
The land felt bright - brighter than he’d ever seen. Or perhaps that was the result of living inside a dark tower for so long.
Too long, really. The gloom hid much, allowing doubts to fester. The very silence within isolated the priests with their own thoughts. And while Zaria walled itself off from the rest of the world, Agben lived among the people, generously sharing knowledge and skills.
Before him the mass of villagers surrounded the field, eager to watch the game. The Tower will not be able to alter this story, Pinter realized, whatever happened. Too many witnesses to tell tales of their own.
Best to hope for a resounding Terrin victory.
Murgar, the Bone Crusher, dominated the arena, the skin beside him less than a third of his mass. Far better if the champions played gently, without the brutality for which they were famed, but such would not happen. The Misseans might not survive the encounter.
Bowag turned. Pinter glimpsed a reed dart in his paw - the thin stalk of a water puff plant with the tiny puff attached to a Cack needle. The needles were dipped in poison and lethal to any creature pricked by the point.
“The Black Tower will not lose today,” the High Priest said softly.
Until that moment, Pinter had felt they’d win through. That Yute would favor them and none would ever know of Bowag’s plot to destroy half the creatures of the world. He’d been certain in the same way he once was certain of Zaria’s wisdom. But spying the green tube of death, he felt a chill.
The High Priest, even now, could not trust to the goddess he supposedly served.
“Comet!”
Whirling, Drail hurled his ball. Even as it left his fingers, something whacked his shoulder blades. He struck the ground so hard moss shot down his nostrils.
He pushed up to glimpse Murgar loping away.
So it was one of those games. A game where opponents erred on the side of bodily harm rather than risk losing. He’d play a few of those - any gamesman had. But never on the Dim Continent against Terrin three times his mass.
Shoving off the turf, he discovered his lower arm was damaged…possibly broken. Drail had to balance carefully on his feet and shake off the dizziness.
Thus he saw Tryst’s body arcing high into the air, slamming into the ground at a grinning Terrin’s feet.
A strange hiss sound encircled them, as if angry snakes surrounded the field. Not snakes - spectators. When he saw Qwall’s shaking fist, he realized they were booing the Terrin gamesmen brutality.
The crowd’s reaction angered Murgar. Drail feared the result might be fatal.
Snatching a fallen comet from the ground, Murgar trotted toward the center cone. Flaming eyes locked onto Drail’s as he took aim.
Oddly, the Terrin shrank before his eyes. Not due to dizziness - but the Birr Elixir. The potion had reached full s
trength.
Murgar’s ball shot over his head, probably intended to make him duck. Instead he caught it - fumbling as pain blasted down his injured arm. Steadying the sphere against his body, Drail turned and tossed with his good hand.
The comet arced perfectly straight into the cone.
For a blink of the sun, silence.
And then a deafening roar thundered across the field. For whatever reason, the Terrin were cheering the underdog skins. Drail smiled at the stomping creatures.
Until he saw Murgar hurtling towards him, slowing only to scoop up another ball before racing full out. Even with the Birr Elixir nullifying the enlargement potion, an all-out Terrin was a frightening thing to see. Drail bent his knees, ready to dive out of the way, but the creature was so quick he knew he’d not make it.
Thin, muscled legs drove it blindingly fast. In all his time on the Dim Continent, he’d never seen a hint these things could move like that.
Even as Drail dove to the left - fully prepared for a bone-crushing collision - Murgar staggered. A tiny flinch really, but enough to alter his coarse. The Terrin veered right, clipping Drail’s legs as the monster fell.
Rolling to his feet, Drail was relieved they still supported him.
Murgar rose to hands and knees before him, the size of a small pony. Drail scooped the Terrin’s lost ball - if he sank it, the game would be over.
Still on the ground, the Terrin let out a roar that echoed off the jungle. Of frustration…of pain. The massive arms trembled and gave out.
The comet dropped from his hands as Drail knelt beside the champion.
“Yute….” Murgar choked, and closed his eyes.
“Yute!” hissed the High Priest beside him. Pinter could only gape.
Bowag had actually raised the reed dart to his mouth, despite the violation of the laws of Yute, despite the risk to all the players. Instinctively Pinter had shoved it aside - a blink of the sun too late.
Already the fallen Terrin was surrounded. They’d never be able to retrieve the dart.
Marra felt smothered in the heat and the dust. The air carried a smell of baked leaves and unwashed Terrin.