Arena

by Karen Hancock

  Her face twitched and she looked away, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes fastened on Garth as he supervised the construction of the fire curtain, the poles extending eight feet high now. Hatred hardened her face, and, given what Callie knew of Garth’s sexual appetite before his exposure to the fire curtain, she guessed what must’ve happened. “Oh, Meg,” she murmured.

  “The second night after he rescued us,” Meg said bitterly. “And any time he’s wanted it since. It doesn’t matter where we are. Or who’s around to see.” Her face crumpled and she started crying again.

  Callie held her, swaying with nausea and fury and a hot regret for having told her about Pierce. Meg’s nightmare made her own good fortune seem hideously unfair and sent an irrational knife of guilt twisting into her heart.

  It took Meg a while to stop weeping. Then they sat in silence, holding each other until Meg asked, “What’s going to happen now?”

  “I don’t know. But something will turn up. You can count on that.”

  Meg raised hopeful eyes. “You honestly believe that? Even now?”

  “Especially now. This is the way Elhanu works. You’ll see.”

  The ground began to shake, and everyone froze, all eyes darting to the darkness above. Dirt and small rocks rained briefly upon them, then the tremor faded. Gradually activity started up again.

  The grit of a footstep and the sense of someone nearby drew their eyes to Brody, standing beside them, his eyes on Meg, his expression hesitant. “You okay?”

  Meg wiped her face again, smearing dirt across her freckles. “Better than I’ve been in a while.”

  Brody squatted beside her, and suddenly Callie felt like a third wheel. Murmuring an excuse she knew neither of them heard, she went to join Pierce. Whit idly tossed a palm-sized rock in one hand as the others watched their captors put the final touches on the curtain.

  “How is she?” Pierce asked as she settled beside him.

  “About as gutted as this substation.” She watched Garth gesticulating at his cronies. “I hope he does make it to the portal. And that I’m there to see him fry when he tries to go through it.”

  Pierce said nothing. But after a moment his hand slid over the back of her neck, fingers massaging away the gathered tension. She leaned into the pressure, grateful for the comfort of his touch, wishing there was some way to offer similar comfort to her friend.

  Meg and Brody were talking quietly now, keeping their distance, their body language still strained. Their trials had forged them into different people—there was a brokenness in Meg, a humility and soberness Callie had never seen before, and in Brody, a compassion and a gentleness that reminded her of Mr. C.

  “I don’t get it,” John muttered. “What’re they doing here?” He gestured toward Garth and the others. “Why were they allowed to make it up that canyon?”

  “For the same reason Mander was allowed to bring Jacki and Brian to the top of the cliff,” Pierce said. “Volition. The cliffs aren’t there to keep people out of the Inner Realm so much as to discourage them from seeking the Exit before they’ve been Changed. They make it harder to do the wrong thing, rather than removing the opportunity altogether. But those who are determined to go their own way, no matter how difficult, will ultimately be allowed to do so.”

  “And in the end reap the consequences of their decisions,” Whit said, still tossing the stone in his hand.

  “Yes,” Pierce said softly. To Callie’s ear, sensitive as it was to the subtle tones of his voice, he sounded almost sad.

  Garth’s voice rose abruptly over the murmur of conversation. “No, you moron! If they’re all battered, they’ll only hold us back.” He said something more in a lower voice, and then more loudly, “We’ll do this fast and get out, understand? Now turn it on.”

  Someone flipped a switch and a high-pitched hum accompanied the leap of energy from one pole to the other. Neon shades of green and blue oozed between slowly shifting globs of black, the light reflecting in a greenish arc that betrayed an ominous gathering of Watchers in the shadows around them.

  The curtain had long ceased to entice Callie. Now its whine only triggered an annoying vibration in her teeth.

  The first man stepped through, his bloodied right arm hanging limp at his side. The membrane jerked him off the ground, pulling out both arms like a marionette. He cried out as white flashes swarmed along his injured limb like fireflies. For three seconds he hung there, moaning and twitching. It released him abruptly and he staggered through, his arm no longer limp. Immediately he fell upon the food packets.

  A man with a ruined leg was shoved through next. The curtain caught him mid-stumble, and he spasmed upright with a cry of pleasure, just like the other man. Again he hung spread-eagled, shivering and shaking as the healing sparks crackled up and down his leg. It reminded Callie of the Aggillon’s regenerating gel, only more aggressive.

  They ran several more through, then Garth called for Pierce and Callie. He sat in a field chair about thirty feet from the curtain. This close its energy field sent unpleasant chills across Callie’s skin and set her teeth on edge.

  Garth stood and walked around Pierce, looking him up and down. “You’ve tasted it before, haven’t you?” he said at length.

  Pierce eyed him calmly. “So what if I have?”

  Garth sat down again. “Figured as much. It was the only way you could’ve survived with them as long as you did. Is that why you lived and Tom didn’t?”

  Pierce did not answer.

  “You’re feeling the pull, aren’t you?” Garth asked with a grin. “The need, the shaking want of it.”

  As far as Callie could see, Pierce was calm and solid as a rock.

  Garth tilted his head back. “How long’s it been, huh? A week? Two? I can see the craving in your eyes.”

  There was nothing of the kind in Pierce’s eyes. He couldn’t have been more deadpan. Besides, with the link so consistently open and active within him, Callie had long ago stopped worrying about his vulnerability to the curtain’s allure. Right now she suspected he was as revolted as she was, and Garth was simply projecting his own desires.

  “You can have it now,” Garth said, motioning for the guard to free him. Pierce didn’t move. “If you don’t, you’ll die before the day is over.”

  Pierce cocked a brow. “I thought you didn’t hold with accepting alien help.”

  Garth laughed. “I don’t see any aliens helping us.”

  “What do you call that?” Pierce gestured at the fire curtain.

  “It may be an alien device, but I stole it for my purposes.” He looked at the thing with an expression of warm pride. “That little baby’s given us the edge we need to make it to the Exit.”

  Pierce shook his head sadly. “It’s not making it to the Exit that sets us free, Garth. If you’re not Changed first, you’ll only die trying to walk through it. And if you die in this Arena Unchanged, that’s it for you. You’ll never see Earth again. There’ll be no more second chances.”

  For a moment it seemed he had captured Garth’s attention, that somehow the respect the man had carried for him all those years they were together pushed itself to the fore and made him listen where he wouldn’t have listened to anyone else. Callie saw it in his face—the sudden uncertainty, even alarm, with which he considered the possibility his old friend was right. But then it was swallowed up by the passions he’d so completely surrendered to of late, and he rejected it with a forceful vulgarity.

  Even then Pierce didn’t give up. “Come on, Garth. You must see our bodies aren’t like yours anymore. How else can we walk this realm unprotected and suffer no ill effects? How else can we can touch the toxvine, go unaffected by mite venom, and breathe the poisoned air?”

  “I can breathe the air fine.” Garth yanked off his respirator, glaring. “See?”

  “Then why were you wearing that thing?”

  Garth lurched out of his chair and seized Pierce by the throat. “Don’t mock me, you miserable Trog licker!
I could kill you in a heartbeat!”

  Pierce’s face turned red. He began to gasp and pry at the fingers gripping his throat. Laughing, Garth lifted him off his feet, holding him one-handed. Callie threw herself at them but was knocked away as if she were a fly. She slammed into the ground, and blinding agony speared her side. At first she could only twitch and gasp, dizzy and nauseated by the pain. When she came back to herself, Garth loomed over her, Pierce still in hand.

  “Please,” she said, her voice coming out high-pitched and infuriatingly meek.

  He grinned. “Oh, that’s nice. Beg some more, woman. I like it.”

  “Don’t hurt him.” She sat up, gathering her feet beneath her, trying to think of something aggressive and useful to do.

  Garth’s black eye glittered. “What will you give me in return, babe? Obedience?”

  “Yes.” She noticed Rowena behind him, watching avidly, the purloined belt sagging at her waist.

  “Respect?” Garth demanded.

  Callie swallowed. Nodded. The belt was fastened only by its Velcro tabs—Rowena hadn’t snugged it down, nor had she fed the end into its finishing slot.

  “Will you give me your love?”

  “Garth, please.”

  “Love?” Rowena grabbed his arm. “What do you mean by—”

  Callie charged, driving her shoulder into the woman’s side and carrying them both into Garth. He staggered, losing his hold on Pierce, as with a bellow, he flung both women off. By then Callie had her hands on the belt, swinging Rowena around to make her fall first. One yank on the Velcro, and the object was hers, though no one noticed because Pierce and Garth were now grappling with each other on the ground. Fastening the belt around her waist, Callie sprang for the fire curtain, whirling inches from the undulating membrane. Garth had Pierce pinned on his back, a knee in his belly, hands once more on his throat.

  “Let him go!” Callie screamed. “Or I’ll blow this thing out of existence.”

  She sought the link and power flooded through it, igniting the field in her clothes. Behind her the curtain flickered and crackled with its interference.

  Garth’s face peered over his shoulder, blazing yellow-green. “Do it, and I’ll kill him.”

  Coldness clenched her middle, but she hung on to the connection. “Don’t you get it, Garth? You can’t kill him. You can only send him home.”

  “Fine, then. I’ll send him home!”

  But during the distraction Callie had provided, Pierce had grabbed a rock with his free hand and now slammed it into Garth’s ear. He reeled backward, shook his bloodied head, and then lurched at Pierce with a roar. But something flew out of the prisoner’s stall—Whit’s rock?—to hit Garth square in the forehead, toppling him like a felled tree. Simultaneously Callie was tackled by one of the others, crushed into the ground by his weight. Rocks dug into her side, and pain flashed outward in nauseating waves. She couldn’t breathe. Dirt filled her mouth. Then the weight lifted. Light flared, and twisted currents zapped between the fire curtain’s poles.

  “Get him!”

  “Aiee! I can’t see.”

  “He’s got a gun.”

  She forced herself up and crawled toward the shadows, pain wracking her body with every breath. She must’ve cracked a rib.

  One of the curtain’s poles popped like a Fourth of July sparkler, fountaining a plume of blinding sparks and white smoke. Dark figures scrambled about, shielding their eyes and yelling for weapons. She heard a zip-zip-zip and crawled faster, flinching under recurring showers of sparks. The tang of ozone burned her nose.

  She was certain she was crawling undetected, but at the margin of shadow someone grabbed her arm, hauling her over a low wall. As she recognized Pierce, she stopped struggling and collapsed against him. They hid there in the shadows a few minutes, catching their breath, then set off for the interior. He had one of the short-barreled riot guns, and she bent down to pick up a good-sized rock, wincing at the pain in her side. Together they stole around a partition into deeper shadow.

  Garth’s people had their weapons out and were clustered into groups, one backed around their fallen leader, another guarding the fire curtain and the two men repairing it. A third group blocked the stairway leading topside, their hand-lamp beams stabbing wildly through the darkness. Apparently all their prisoners had escaped.

  Callie crawled after Pierce as they inched toward the hub’s center, but they’d not gone twenty yards when a commotion erupted on the stair, and new, more powerful lights speared the darkness. Then the rapid, high-pitched zips of weaponry overlaid the sputtering fire curtain. Someone screamed. Someone else started shouting, but the words were lost in a thunder of footfalls.

  “Splagnosians!” Pierce muttered. “Come on.”

  A glance back showed Garth’s men running, their wounded slung over their shoulders like sacks of grain. The Splagnosians clattered after them, shouting and firing, as Pierce and Callie picked their way through the darkness in the opposite direction, moving as fast as they could with bare feet. They soon met up with Whit, LaTeisha, and John, and shortly thereafter the rest of the group joined them. Between them they had two weapons, no boots, and one belt.

  “We’ll find a place to hide,” Pierce said. “If Garth was right about his reputation, they should be satisfied with him.”

  The chamber’s center was a maze of thick, slanting beams, half buried in mounds of earth and stone. They found a series of pockets— crawling with mites, but better that than Splagnosians—and portioned the group into three of them, Callie cramming with Pierce, John, and Tuck into one five-foot-long cavity. Pierce took the belt and sat on the outside with the riot gun, staring into the darkness. Callie huddled beside him, her rib aching dully. She was not at all worried. This was like on the mountain when the goats had distracted their mutant pursuers, only now it was Garth who would provide the distraction. They might have to wait a while, but she was confident they had weathered the storm.

  In the darkness she could see nothing, but she could hear Pierce’s heart beating under her ear. He smelled of sweat and dirt, the odor strong but not unpleasant, because it was his. Around them the mites chittered and began to move again. She flinched as one crawled over her foot, clenching her teeth to keep from squirming. The shouts, thumps, and zaps faded to silence as the mite, leg-tips pricking through her trousers, explored her hip. She wanted to brush it aside but had nothing to do it with, so she shifted slightly, hoping to discourage it from further exploration.

  Pierce’s arm tightened about her, and he whispered, so faintly she could hardly hear him, “Something’s out there.” In an instant her confidence evaporated. What was it? Some monster of the dark? They had no weapons, no boots. How would they fight it off? And if they did, wouldn’t that draw down the Splagnosians?

  She pushed away the fears and touched the link, feeling calmness return.

  Suddenly voices and footfalls erupted in the darkness, stunningly close. Light pierced their burrow, sending renewed alarm firing through her. It was only reflected light from a lamp they couldn’t see, but it seemed bright as day. Pierce held her tightly, and beneath her palm, his heart raced. Why had the Splagnosians come back when they had Garth to chase?

  From somewhere close a deep voice said, “We’ve got the exits covered. Must we come in after you, or will you do this the easy way?”

  No one said a word.

  Low voices conferred. Then the original speaker said, “You will not be harmed if you cooperate. If you resist, however, I can make no promises.”

  How can we resist with two riot guns and no boots?

  Pierce’s chest rose and fell with a resigned sigh. Then he crawled out of the hole. Reluctantly she followed. Whit, Gerry and the others were already emerging from their respective hiding places. One by one they stepped into the light, and when Pierce stood up, squinting before their visored, armored captors, a visible start went through them.

  “That’s him!” one of them hissed.

  Soft la
ughter followed. “We’ve got him,” the one who appeared to be the leader said, apparently into some communications link. “Looks like we’ve got his whole bunch.”

  There was a pause. Then, “No. We’ll get them at the other end. These are the ones we came for anyway.” He turned to someone standing in the shadows behind him. “Rest assured, you’ll be well compensated.” As his men surrounded their captives, light played across the figure’s face—Rowena.

  With a satisfied smirk, she turned away, escorted into the darkness by one of the Splagnosians.

  CHAPTER

  29

  By the time their captors prodded them into an armored transport and chained them to the bulkhead, Callie had stopped reeling from the shock of betrayal and capture and had come to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be sneaking into Splagnos after all. Elhanu had arranged a different way to get them in—one commensurate with his sense of humor.

  When they were in Hope, the Aggillon had sung a ballad about a Guide and three witnesses from a sister compound of Rimlight’s whom the Zelosians caught. Resisting the torture and attempted brainwashing, the trio was put to work on the lowest level of a blood-crystal mine near the Splagnosian border. They had been there a year when the Splagnosians bombed the mine. Too deep to suffer the devastation that rocked the upper levels, the witnesses escaped in the ensuing chaos and used a military caravan to smuggle themselves into Splagnos. When the caravan dropped them at the door of the palace, it was a simple matter to find the portal.

  Callie encouraged herself with that story now, certain she and her friends were right where Elhanu wanted them.