Under the Crimson Sun

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Sasker glanced inside the mul’s cubicle. He was still snoring.

  “What the hell.” He took the proffered drink and gulped it down.

  It was sweet and caustic, which wasn’t at all what he was expecting. The liquid also burned in his throat, but it wasn’t the good burning that he got from the liquors in the taverns.

  Then the room started turning all kinds of interesting colors. Particularly the ceiling …

  It was only when he noticed that the ceiling was bright pink that he realized that he was on the floor. He couldn’t feel his legs. The burning sensation in his mouth and throat had become an embracing numbness.

  “Shouldn’t he be asleep?” the mul asked, which confused Sasker, as the mul should have been asleep.

  Clumsily reaching for his bone knife, he saw the thri-kreen standing in front of the open cubicle door, the mul standing next to her.

  “I don’t get it,” the thri-kreen was saying—except she sounded different, much quieter—“the feresh should have taken him out in an instant like it did the other guards.”

  Sasker tried to make his mind focus. Obviously the thri-kreen wasn’t who she said she was, which was kind of annoying, and she had drugged his wine. Sasker was so grateful that he had a high tolerance.

  He almost lost his grip on the bone knife. Concentrating, he held onto it.

  If only someone was close enough for him to stab. Unfortunately, the thri-kreen and the mul were moving away from him.

  “What the frip is going on?”

  That was Tirana.

  “Something’s happened to the guards, and—Why is the mul out of his cubicle?”

  The mul said, “Gan told us what you did to him and Rol to lure them here. That means I don’t need to be nice.”

  Sasker struggled to his feet even as Tirana screamed. He heard the sound of bones breaking, and then the screams stopped. Sasker couldn’t see what was happening, as he was staring at the floor after having managed to get to his knees.

  He gathered every inch, every muscle, fighting through the fatigue that was covering him like a blanket, and struggled to his feet.

  Once he did so, he found himself face-to-face with the mul. Beyond him was the thri-kreen, and beyond her the broken body of Tirana, her head at an impossible angle.

  “I told you to drink with your friends,” the mul said. His breath was awful.

  “Wouldn’t have helped,” the thri-kreen said.

  Needing all his energy to raise his arm, he did so without speaking.

  Before he could strike, the mul grabbed his hand and directed it right down into his chest.

  The wine from Yaramuke—or whatever it was—had numbed him to the point that it didn’t actually hurt. But he could see his blood dripping from his chest onto the stone floor.

  Sasker’s final thoughts before the darkness claimed him were that he really, really hated his job.

  Fal Jago always went back to his office after the fights were over and had a drink. By the time the last fight was done, he was exhausted and wired at the same time. Being out on the stage, hearing the roar of the crowd as he riled them up, preparing them for the fight, was at once thrilling and tiring.

  Since Calbit didn’t do anything during the fights, Jago was more than happy to leave the supervision of the guards and the closing down of the arena to him.

  One could argue that Calbit didn’t do much of anything beyond recruiting, but that wasn’t fair. After all, if it wasn’t for Calbit, Jago wouldn’t even have known that the Pit was available for sale. And Calbit was expert at finding prospects for the arena.

  But it had been Jago who provided the capital to allow them to purchase the arena from the crown. Jago rather wished Calbit remembered that more often.

  Jago missed Storvis, but the mul who’d replaced him was doing very well. He suspected that their profits would be tremendous before too long.

  He had no idea what it was that Mandred was turning into, but he was more than happy to have it out of his arena.

  Reaching down, he yanked open the lowest of the drawers of the desk he and Calbit shared in the office, then removed its sole item: a bottle of wine from one of Urik’s finest vineyards. Jago had come to an arrangement with the vintner; he provided Jago with the finest bottles from his stock, and Jago gave him free seats in the arena.

  He hadn’t actually shared the details of the arrangement with Calbit. What his partner didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and besides, then Jago would just have to share the wine.

  As he poured it into a goblet, he shuddered at that notion. Twirling it around in the goblet, he imagined Calbit slugging it down like the uncouth sand rat he truly was.

  Calbit hadn’t been able to find anyone to properly train fighters since Sorvag’s death. Sorvag’s boys would always give the people a good show, but once Gorbin killed him, that was the end of it. Gorbin’s skills not withstanding, Jago thought the lack of good training was the real reason the fights had become so poor.

  The ease with which Mandred took Gorbin down bore that out. Mandred and Storvis had training. The only other people who did so well in the arena were ex-military.

  It was becoming increasingly obvious that the partnership was not working. Calbit’s contributions were less and less valuable—and took him farther and farther away from the arena for longer and longer periods of time.

  Jago had been saving since he and Calbit bought the place from the crown. He hadn’t been able to save as much the past couple of years, but he had enough coin stashed away that he could sell his share of the arena to Calbit and finally retire.

  With the new mul in place and the fights becoming unpredictable, it was a good time. Jago wouldn’t need to sell the fights anymore—worst-case, Calbit could hire a professional barker.

  Or maybe Calbit would try it himself. That would be a laugh. The least charismatic person in all of Athas trying to announce the bouts. Jago would probably come back to the arena to see that.

  Though that was unlikely. Urik was a city of magnificent architecture and glorious spires that clawed for the skies like the lions that provided the motif for so much of it.

  And Jago spent all his days and nights in a tapped-out obsidian mine. Never feeling the red sun on his face, instead all his hours were spent surrounded by stygian darkness barely illuminated by inadequate torches.

  He’d had enough. A few more fights, once the profits were guaranteed to be back on track, and Jago would sell to Calbit. He’d buy a castle with lots of windows so he could see the sun for as long as it was up.

  It would be glorious.

  “Where the frip is everyone?”

  Jago sighed at the sound of his partner’s voice. Usually Calbit was supervising the guards at this point, leaving Jago in peace.

  Calbit stormed in. “What the frip is going on?”

  “What are you blathering about, Calbit?”

  “I can’t find a single one of the guards.” He frowned at Jago. “What are you drinking?”

  Setting the goblet down quickly, Jago said, “Nothing. What happened to the guards?”

  “I haven’t the first fripping clue. I can’t find Tirana or any of the mercenaries, either, and—”

  Calbit cut himself off at the sound of someone walking down the hall. Jago peered past his partner to see the new thri-kreen guard, whose name he couldn’t remember, skittering down the hall.

  “You’re both here,” the thri-kreen said. “Good. I need to show you something.”

  Moving toward the thri-kreen, Calbit snarled. “What is going on? Where is everyone?”

  The thri-kreen chittered in her native tongue for a bit. Jago’s Chachik was a bit rusty, but it was something about being unable to believe what she was hearing.

  Jago certainly felt that way a lot when Calbit spoke.

  “It’s really difficult to explain,” she finally said in Common. “If you’d just come with me, it’ll all make sense.”

  Shooting Jago a look, Calbit asked, “Ca
n you believe this idiocy?”

  Somehow, Jago managed to restrain himself from saying what he wanted to say.

  “Look,” the thri-kreen said, “if you just come this way …”

  Calbit turned on the thri-kreen. “I will not ‘come this way’. I am the owner of this arena.”

  Picking up his goblet, Jago muttered, “part-owner,” into it before gulping down more wine.

  “And I will not tolerate being told what to do by some idiot thri-kreen guard whom I only just hired yesterday. Now tell me what’s going on or I’ll—urkkklggggg.”

  While Jago was in mid-sip, the thri-kreen suddenly slashed at Calbit’s throat with a bone knife. Blood spurted everywhere, splattering onto the obsidian walls. Jago choked on his wine and started coughing like crazy.

  “What the—”

  “Shut up,” the thri-kreen said.

  Dimly, Jago registered the sound of breaking glass, only then realizing that he’d dropped the goblet. Wine spilled, pooling in the uneven cracks on the floor. Some of it ran toward the wall, mixing with Calbit’s blood.

  Slowly, Jago backed toward the wall. He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, or what you want, but I can—”

  “Do nothing,” said another, deeper voice.

  The mul walked into the office, past the thri-kreen.

  “Sorry for taking your kill, Zabaj.” The thri-kreen pointed with one of her pincers at Calbit, who was lying on the floor, gurgling and dying as blood poured from the cut in his neck. “He wouldn’t come.”

  “No matter,” the mul—whose name was apparently Zabaj, even though the paperwork Wimma had provided called him Harkoum—said. “I can still kill this one.”

  Jago held up both hands, as if to ward the mul off. “Wait—wait, please. I don’t know what you want, but—”

  “Oh, that’s simple,” Zabaj said. “We want you dead.”

  “But I haven’t done anything.” Jago’s voice broke, and he sounded squeaky, like a young girl. It rather distressed him.

  The thri-kreen made a chittering noise. “You enslave people in your arena, you force them to fight for your own profit, and you say you haven’t done anything?”

  “I don’t do anything more than what thousands of other people in Athas do. Why don’t you kill them?”

  The mul moved closer to Jago, looming over him. Jago could smell the food they fed him on Zabaj’s breath. Jago made a mental note that, in the unlikely event that he lived through the next seven seconds, he should improve the quality of the food given to the fighters.

  “Because they didn’t kidnap my friends.”

  “Kidnap?” Calbit didn’t kidnap anyone, they were all purchased fair and square, except for—

  Suddenly, it came clear to Jago.

  “You’re friends of Mandred and Storvis, aren’t you? Look, that wasn’t me.” He was getting frantic, waving his arms back and forth. “That was Calbit. You already killed him.” Sparing a glance over at the floor, he saw that Calbit was no longer moving, thus proving his statement true. “I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t even want those two in the arena.” That was only half true—he liked Storvis, he was a good fighter without being insane like Mandred—but he wasn’t about to say that.

  Zabaj shook his head, the topknot waving back and forth. “You might—might—have convinced me that you weren’t worth killing. But you participated as much as your partner did, and your attempts to distance yourself from the blood on your hands sickens me.”

  Jago swallowed down the bile that was building up in the back of his throat. “What are you going to do?”

  Zabaj smiled. It was the most frightening thing that Jago—who had spent the last several years of his life managing life-or-death fights in the greatest arena in the world—had ever seen in his life.

  “Kill you quickly,” was the mul’s reply.

  When Zabaj returned to the carriage, Feena hugged and kissed him repeatedly.

  “I’m so sorry, my love, truly.”

  Zabaj let her molest him for several seconds before grabbing her arms. “We will talk later.”

  “I know I made you go back on your word, and I’m sorry we couldn’t mount the rescue until after you had to fight, but—”

  Gan winced as he watched Zabaj grip Feena’s arms even tighter, so much so that she grimaced. “We will talk later,” he repeated.

  Staring at him with his one good eye, Gan said, “Zabaj, I never got the chance to thank you for helping get me out of there.”

  “You may do so again,” Zabaj said. “Between us, Tricht’tha and I killed Tirana, Calbit, and Jago. They all died wondering where their guards were.”

  Tricht’tha chittered. “They were very easily swayed by the lure of Yaramuke wine.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be?” Komir said with a chuckle. “Especially with all the feresh you put in it.”

  Sitting next to him, Karalith said, “Our next goal is to find a way to make ourselves the new caretakers of the arena.”

  “I can help there,” Tricht’tha said. “One of the guards was talking about a party that the king is throwing.”

  Zabaj added: “And one of the fighters said that it wasn’t the king who wanted Rol.”

  “What?” Gan thought that was absurd. “It was the Imperial Guard who took him. They report straight to Hamanu.”

  “The fighter was a dwarf named Barglin.”

  Gan frowned. “Bald, thick mustache?”

  “Yes,” Zabaj said.

  “Okay, yeah, I knew him—didn’t know his name. Even fought him once. I’d trust him.”

  “You never learned his name?” Feena asked.

  “Wasn’t really focused on making friends, Sis.”

  “In any case,” Zabaj said, “he was watching the royal box. The king wasn’t there, it was his chamberlain and the commander of the Guard who were watching Rol.”

  Tricht’tha rubbed her pincers together in a manner that Gan had always found just a little nauseating. “One of the other guards said the same thing as that dwarf. He was posted near the royal box. Chamberlain Drahar was the one who noticed Rol, and it was after he talked to Templar Tharson that Rol was ordered to be taken to the palace.”

  “Perfect!” Komir leaped to his feet. “That’s our way in. We set Hamanu against Drahar and Tharson.”

  Gan felt his stomach churn. “Uh, wait a minute. Look, I’m grateful for what you’ve done—honestly, if I lived to be as old as Hamanu, I wouldn’t be able to pay you guys back. But now you’re talking about gaming the King of the World. Isn’t that just a little insane?”

  Feena looked at him. “No crazier than playing frolik against Hamno Sennit and expecting to win.”

  Glaring at his sister, Gan said, “We’re talking about a slightly different scale here, Sis. Now, look, I want Rol back more than any of you. But—taking on the king?”

  Komir sat back down, facing Gan directly. “See, that’s the wrong way to think. The way to play the game is to never, under any circumstances, think of any player in the game as different from any other player. The victim is the victim, regardless of whether it’s a miner or a king. You play the game the same way.”

  “But the consequences if you fail …”

  That got a grin out of Komir. “That’s why we try very hard not to fail.”

  Gan shuddered. He’d seen that grin before—on Rol before he went after a woman. And the last time he did that …

  Meanwhile, Komir got back up and went over to the shelves on the right. “Now where did Mother and Father put those letters of introduction from that dead sirdar?”

  Karalith uttered a long-suffering sigh and also rose. “They’re not there, idiot.”

  While the siblings dug around for what they needed, Gan watched as Zabaj rebuffed every attempt Feena made to talk to him. Finally, he left the carriage, and she did as well.

  Tricht’tha sat down on all sixes next to him. “How are you feeling?”

&
nbsp; “Miserable—but also grateful. I never expected you guys to come after us. Hell, I never expected you guys to find us. So many things had to go right …”

  “Feena was the one who wanted to get you. So did Komir. And Zabaj.”

  Gan chuckled. “But not the rest of you?”

  “No.” Tricht’tha pulled some jerky out of a pouch and offered Gan some.

  He held up a hand. “Thanks, no. I’ve had enough jerky to do me the rest of my days. Anyway, I am truly grateful. I just hope we can rescue Rol—and cure him.”

  “Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

  “No.” Gan shook his head and blew out a breath. “The more I see, the more it’s something magical, but beyond that …” He shrugged. “I got nothing.”

  Tricht’tha was masticating her jerky. “Did you have to fight him?”

  “Mercifully, no. I was the second-best fighter they had left after him, so they used me as the lead-in to him. Sooner or later, though …” He shivered, then looked at the thri-kreen’s compound eyes. “Thanks for deciding to help.”

  “Feena argued that you were part of our clutch. I suppose you are, in a way.”

  Gan frowned. “I thought you didn’t like your clutch.”

  “You thought wrong,” she snapped. “I simply am happier with the clutch I have found than the one I was born to.”

  With that, she moved away to clamber up to her hammock and sleep.

  Feena came back into the carriage alone. She sat down next to Gan, who wrapped an arm around her.

  “You okay, Sis?”

  “Zabaj may never forgive me. I all but forced him to do this because I made the offer to trade him for you without consulting him first.”

  “If you were just going to send Tricht’tha in anyway, why do the trade at all?”

  “Because we needed to get you out of there, and we needed Zabaj in place in order to properly game the arena. There was no way to get you the plan in time.”

  Gan nodded. Feena could send sentences into Gan’s mind without much effort, but anything more complicated than that—like, say, a plan—would require her to focus and concentrate, and also be proximate to Gan. She couldn’t do that if she was at the Pit and still in her “Wimma” persona.