Wagers of Sin

by Robert Asprin

  * * *

  He came to in ragged bits and pieces, aware of movement, of jostling as those carrying him grew tired and rearranged his weight in their grasp. He saw no light whatsoever and could catch no scent that might tell him where he was. He drifted out of consciousness again, then faded back into it, pondering this time who had him? ATF? Benson's men, intent on wresting whatever "unofficial" confessions they could beat and starve out of him? Or maybe Goldie Morran's henchmen, hired to do only the gods knew what—kill him, cripple him, send him uptime as luggage through Primary . . . Despite her capitulation on the bet, she must still hate him with all her greedy, cold little heart. Or perhaps it was simply a tourist with a taste for revenge, who'd hired enough men to do this, maybe dump him down the garbage incinerator. . . .

  A chill shook him inside the wrappings. Burned alive, like so many captives over the centuries. He'd heard the crazy stories about Kit's grandkid and that crazy Welsh bowman, both of whom had nearly been burned alive. His skin crawled already, anticipating the suffocating heat and the flames searing him while he writhed inside his black bindings and screamed himself to death.

  He finally was set down on a cold, hard surface, unable to move. Someone unfastened the wrappings from his eyes, allowing him sight. At first, he thought he must've gone blind during that semiconscious trip, for whatever room he'd been brought to was black-dark. Then he noticed specks of light as his eyes adjusted. Candles. Candles? He blinked a few times, clearing his eyes of dried tears and grit, and noticed shimmering golden draperies which formed a quiet, snug little room filled with candles—hundreds of 'em—and with warmth beyond any possible heat those candles could've given off and . . . he felt a fool for saying it even to himself . . . welcome.

  Some welcome, Skeeter, wrapped up tight so's you can't move, in black mummy bandages.

  He noticed a dais, then, low and right in front of him. It was wide enough to hold seven people comfortably. Currently six stood on it, with a gap in the center for someone unknown. The six were men of various builds and heights, robed in black, faces masked in black, but unmistakably male. The ones who brought me here, then. A shuffling of many feet and the sound of dozens of lungs in the utter silence told Skeeter that a crowd had gathered to witness . . . what?

  He shivered inside his imprisoning layers of cloth and looked up. He'd never gone lower in the terminal than the basement where the gym and weapons ranges were, having a Mongol's fear of tightly closed-in places. This must be the level beneath the basement, nothing but steam pipes, sewage drains, electrical conduits, and computer cables strung everywhere, festooning the girdered ceiling like the web of a very large and completely insane spider.

  Skeeter shuddered again.

  He didn't much like spiders.

  Being caught in one's web was even worse.

  At just that moment, the golden draperies stirred behind the dais, admitting darkness in the guise of a slim figure also robed and masked in black. Looks like it's showtime. Skeeter swallowed hard around the thick wad of cloth in his mouth. The gag forced every sound he tried to make shrivel and die in a parched throat. He gazed up at the seven robed figures, aware of dozens of figures still crowding into the already claustrophobic little space.

  It's a court, Skeeter realized with a tremor. It's a court and they're the judges and prob'ly the jury, too. Probability that he'd be sentenced without defense was decidedly high—but for what crime? And what would that sentence be? Skeeter had come through so much over the past few days, he couldn't credit the evidence of his eyes: robed, silent judges, a rack of what looked like knives and instruments of torture just visible at the edge of his restricted gaze, a neat, terrifying coil of rope, just the right diameter and heft for hanging a man.

  Skeeter, claustrophobic twice over, struggled in vain while the back of his brain whispered that any one of those ducts, pipes, and concrete supports overhead would make a great platform for a hangman's rope. And even if he hadn't been gagged, who would've heard him screaming, anyway, down in the bowels of the terminal where concrete met native Himalayan rock and merged with it?

  Well, Skeeter'd survived a bloodbath, giving the spectators their money's worth; he'd won the damned laurel crown and the money prize fair and square. He'd even managed to rescue Marcus, alive and uninjured, except for the desperation in his dark eyes that spoke eloquently of how much his one-time friend wanted simply to go home and forget everything that had happened.

  Skeeter hadn't expected elaborate thanks from the former slave and he certainly couldn't blame Marcus for wanting to forget those few weeks when circumstance and his stubborn, Gallic pride had forced him to pick up the burden of slavery again. True to his expectations, Marcus had not offered an elaborate, embarrassing demonstration of gratitude. A couple of beers; but no elaborate show of gratitude. Yes, Skeeter had predicted that and it had come true.

  A little bitterly, Skeeter wished he possessed a quarter of his former friend's character.

  But in of all his long musings over Marcus' eventual reaction, Skeeter had not predicted this. Not in his wildest, most terrifying nightmares.

  Before he was ready, a deep, male voice began speaking in a language so archaic Skeeter didn't understand a single syllable. When the robed judge had made his statement and retired to his place, another stepped forward. At least he spoke English. Sort of, anyway.

  "I will speak the words of our most learned colleague, Chenzira Umi, a scribe of pharaohnic Egypt, in English to you, for that is our common language now, necessary for survival; then will I add my own thoughts for your consideration."

  Skeeter didn't recognize either of those voices; his tummy did inverted spins like a dying aircraft.

  "Chenzira Umi speaks against this man, who is nothing more than a common thief and cutpurse. He should have both hands cut off to end his career of thievery and blasphemous conduct such as we might expect of a worshiper of Set himself, the dark one who murders even our very Lord, wise and all-knowing Osiris. These are the words of Chenzira Umi."

  Beneath his wrappings, Skeeter had turned whiter than his bindings were black. Cut off his hands? Who were these people? And what gave them the bloody, arrogant gall to pass such judgment on him? He was far from perfect, a scoundrel since earliest childhood—but that did not justify such torture! Did it? Well, the guy is from Egypt and people from the Middle East have funny ideas about crime and punishment. And there are six more to go. Surely reason would prevail?

  He wasn't so sure when the man who'd done the translating said in a scathing, late-Elizabethan-sounding voice, "If it were my choice, I'd say hang him, then draw and quarter the whoreson on yon wall, for the children to see as an example before he bled out and died."

  Skeeter closed his eyes, queasy to his soul and losing hope fast.

  One by one, the five male members spoke. Another one for violent retribution. One for mercy, because he'd never stolen from them, whoever the hell they were, although Skeeter was beginning to form a pretty good guess. Then, surprisingly, another vote for mercy for the sake of the children Skeeter had saved over the years with his large donations. Skeeter narrowed his eyes. How's he know I've been donating, never mind why? Dimly, Marcus' voice came back to him, explaining how The Found Ones had known about his gifts of money for a long time. Based on that alone, Skeeter knew he ought to know the man, but the voice was completely strange to him. Maybe they wore voice synthesizers under those masks? The sixth vote was also, astonishingly, for mercy, leaving the vote at a tie.

  Then the seventh, small-statured person stepped forward.

  Skeeter knew her voice in an instant. He stared, aghast that she could be a part of such a bloodthirsty organization, but there she stood, her voice as clear as ancient temple bells.

  Ianira Cassondra's voice, issuing from the black mask, said, "The voting of the Council of Seven stands at three against, three for. Should I vote either way . . . well, either decision's outcome would be obvious, would it not? I will not, cannot break a tie i
n this vote. As head of this Council, I may vote to create a tie, for some things must be considered very cautiously. But I may not cast the deciding vote. All of us having given reasons for our vote, I will speak as a special witness, then we will poll the Committee members again, lest any have changed their minds, hearing others' testimony."

  Skeeter felt like what's-his-name, that ancient Greek guy the Athenian city fathers had forced to drink poison. Ianira herself had spoken of it to him one time over dessert in the apartment she and Marcus shared, when Skeeter himself was the guest of honor. So fare the fortunes of men, Skeeter thought bitterly, when seven wolves and a sheep decide what's for lunch. Perfect democracy: everybody got to vote. Even the lunch.

  He wondered if this crowd would even bother asking this lunch before they devoured it, metaphorically speaking?

  Ianira Cassondra's voice, so soft she might have been whispering her children to sleep, yet so well projected Skeeter was certain even the back row of listeners could hear her perfectly, began to speak. Must've picked up that little trick in that big temple of hers. He waited for the betrayal to come.

  It didn't. Instead, disbelieving, Skeeter listened while she wove a thread that became the yarn of a great tale of evil and danger, with Skeeter caught at the center of it, Skeeter who had, indeed, donated large sums of his earnings to them, donations which had saved many a child's life—and many an adult's, as well.

  Then, as he was beginning to squirm with embarrassment, she launched hypnotically into the tale of Skeeter's run for life—Marcus' life—all the way from the back of Residential to the Porta Romae gate, already open with tourists filing through, while he dodged a man determined to kill him. How Skeeter had at last been forced to crash the Porta Romae to try and save his friend from the evil clutches of the man who'd planned all along to kidnap and sell Marcus back into slavery.

  A craning, strained glance backwards showed Skeeter a roomful of people leaning forward, intent on her every word.

  Damn, I'll bet she was impressive in that temple. In her flowing robes and flowing hair and that voice . . . Many a man would've thought she was whatever equivalent to angel he knew.

  Ianira's magic voice then softened in horror at the fate of each man: one sold to the master of the games and ordered to keep track of inventory—men and beasts. Beside that, she wove the story of the other man, kidnapped and sold to be a gladiator, hardly able to communicate with his captors, beaten and tortured into learning the art of butchering others to stay alive, when his own presence in Rome spoke eloquently of the fact that he could be no killer, that he had come here because he had promised to save Marcus, whatever it took. In trying to keep that promise, he had lost his freedom and was slated to die in the arena on the end of a grand champion's sword.

  By this time, there were murmurs in the back rows, murmurs that sounded angry. Skeeter didn't dare hope that note of anger was for him and the foul treatment he'd received.

  "And then," Ianira Cassondra cried out, raising both arms in a graceful, possibly symbolic motion, "our Skeeter defeated the champion and refused to kill his opponent! The Caesar—" she pronounced it Kai-sar "—gave him both laurel crown and purse as rightfully his. Aware that only more slavery awaited him, victory and prize notwithstanding; aware also that he had not yet freed his friend, who stood with his evil master on the great balustrade above the starting boxes for the races, Skeeter did what only a man with the smiles of the gods at his back could possibly have done."

  She deliberately stretched out the tense silence. Then, all but whispering, as if in holy awe herself, "He galloped his horse for the starting-gate wall. Leapt to his feet on the galloping horse's back—" a number of people, men from the sound of it, gasped in shock—"then dug the butt of his spear into the blood-drenched sand and spun himself up and over the balustrade. While every guard on the balustrade gawked just to see him there, instead of fifteen feet down in the arena, Skeeter tossed the heavy purse that was his well-earned prize to Marcus' new master as payment for his friend's freedom."

  Somewhere behind them, a ragged cheer broke out. Skeeter began to pray with the tiniest smidgen of hope that he might yet live through this.

  "And then?" Ianira's voice demanded of her audience. "Then our resourceful Skeeter arranged for them to impersonate more highly placed persons than they were, to throw off the slave trackers after them. They hid. They changed disguises and hiding places, again and again. And when gate time came for the Porta Romae, Skeeter caused a great diversion so that he and Marcus could win through to the time gate and come safely home.

  "Now," and her voice turned abruptly hard as diamond and angry as a rattlesnake stirred up in the rocks, "I ask you, members of The Found Ones, what was his reward for this? A monstrous fine from that evil group calling itself Time Tours whose employees use us badly and care not a bit for our health, our dependents left behind should we die, our very lives squandered like spare change without anyone ever warning us of the dangers! They actually had the gall to fine him! Both directions! And what followed that? Imprisonment by Station Security—during which he was starved, beaten, humiliated!

  "I ask!" she cried, sweeping off her mask, shaking out her hair, revealing her face, alight now with startling holiness—it was the only way Skeeter could find to describe the light that seemed to flow outward from her—"I ask you, each of you, is this any fair way to treat a man who has risked his very life, not once, but many times, for one of us?"

  The roar echoed in the confined space like a Mongolian thunderstorm trapped in the confines of a canyon deep in the high, sharp mountains.

  Very, very slowly, Ianira allowed her head to fall forward as though infinitely wearied by the gruesome story of treachery, courage, and betrayal she'd just been forced to reveal. When her head rose again, the mask was back in place. Symbolic, then, Skeeter realized. But of what?

  Voice carefully neutral again, Ianira said, "He has the qualifications. All of you know already the story of this man's childhood, lost in a time not his own. He has faced all that we have faced—and worse. Yet he has survived, prospered, remained generous in his heart to those in greater need than he. I now ask for a new and final poll of the Seven. Do we Punish? Or Accept?"

  One by one the answers came to Skeeter's sweating ears.

  In thick-accented English came the single word, "Punish," from the ever-condemning voice of the Egyptian.

  A pause ensued. The man who had previously translated the Egyptian's longer speech said very quietly, "Accept."

  The next man refused to be swayed, which, if Skeeter were reading the body language under the robe correctly, deeply irritated Ianira Cassondra.

  Down the line it went, skipping over Ianira: "Punish." "Accept." "Accept." "Accept."

  Skeeter wasn't certain he'd heard—or counted—correctly. Was that really four versus two? Now what?

  Ianira stepped forward, the final member of the Seven to cast her vote. Skeeter waited to hear her confirm what he thought he'd just heard. "The vote stands at four to accept, two to punish. As there is no chance for a tie, I may cast my vote freely." She looked down at Skeeter, lying helpless on the concrete floor at her feet. "I cannot deny that Skeeter Jackson is a scoundrel, a thief, and a man who charms people out of their money and belongings, to his own benefit.

  "Yet I must also repeat that he has saved the lives of many in this very room through donations he thought anonymous. And then, on nothing more than a promise, this scoundrel and thief risked his life to save a downtimer, a member of The Found Ones. I admit difficulty in putting aside personal feelings, for Marcus is the father of my children, but this is a thing in which I was trained at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: to look beyond personal feelings to the heart of the truth.

  "And that is why, peering as we have into this man's heart, his soul, judging him by his actions—all his actions—I must vote to Accept."

  Another thunderous roar went up while Skeeter stared, wide-eyed, at Ianira. He still didn't quite believe it
. Ianira approached from the dais, a sharp knife in her hands. Skeeter swallowed hard.

  "Do not fear, beloved friend." She cut loose the clinging, confining gauze wrappings, freeing him to stand up and beat his thighs with equally leaden arms to restore circulation. Then he was swept away, buffeted, occasionally kissed—and the kissers were not always female—his back pounded until he was certain the well-wishers would leave bruises the size of dinner plates. He wasn't precisely sure just what the vote to Accept meant.

  Apparently Ianira sensed this, as she sensed so much else out of thin air, for she called a halt to the merrymaking and restored order to The Found Ones' chamber.

  "Skeeter Jackson, please approach the dais."

  He did so slowly, filing down a sudden double line of grinning Found Ones, curiosity and uncertainty wavering within him still. He hated not knowing precisely what was about to unfold. He wondered what he should do when he got there? Show respect, his mind told him, somewhat dry with disgust that he hadn't thought of it sooner. So when he arrived, he went down on one knee and kissed the hem of her robe. When he dared glance up, her mask was gone and she was actually blushing—furiously.

  Regaining her composure quickly, however, she said to him, "There are things we must explain to you, Skeeter Jackson, for although you are now one of us, it is through accident only. Born an uptimer, you spent formative years of your life downtime, with a group of men as harsh as the summer's noonday sun on the marble steps at Ephesus. You have suffered, lived, and learned from every misfortune you have encountered. You might have become a creature like the gems dealer, Goldie Morran, who has no true heart anywhere in her.