The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “Who’s who?” her brother asked, glancing around. Max’s gaze followed them until it fell on a couple, a red-haired girl with a large tattoo on her forearm and a mixed-race guy, brown-ish skin and dark hair who was looking increasingly more uncomfortable by the second. Neither of them looked familiar. Probably shouldn’t. About what he looked uncomfortable, he couldn’t quite see yet. “Him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know that guy. Well I know of him. That’s Scott.”

  “Scott? Nice name.” She clearly had an interested note in her voice. “When did you meet him?”

  “At a bout. Two years ago, maybe. I think. Could be more. What am I, a calendar?”

  “Old friend, eh? Want to say hello to him? Have a quick catch up?”

  What Matt had to say about that, Max didn’t hear, their passing of a musician temporarily blocking out his answer. He wasn’t playing the leelaphone well at all and unless he got better in the next few seconds, Max was finding himself tempted to take him off it and insert the long silver tube nozzle first right where the Vazaran sun wouldn’t blemish it.

  Yet he hadn’t been disappointed in his task, the girl and her brother had made a beeline for the half race and the redhead. He didn’t dare run to catch up, didn’t want to draw attention to himself, same rules of thieving applied here he noted with a wry smile, but in a few long steps he was close enough to hear some of it.

  “Yeah, yeah, course I remember you,” Scott had said, wringing Matt’s hand. “How you been?”

  “Good, good,” Matt said. “Didn’t know you were here, I saw you and thought I’d say hello.”

  “You met him a few years ago and yet you remember him?” the redhead remarked, sounding more than a little amused.

  “He let an impression,” Matt said defensively. Comprehension dawned on the redhead’s face, a nod of agreement. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Anyway, Scott, this is my sister, Mia…”

  So, the right one then. Max felt a surge of glee rush through him. This was turning out to be easier than he’d expected it would be.

  Scott and Mia shook hands, he noticed that she let her fingers linger against his for a few seconds more than was maybe proper, a faint pinkish tinge to her cheeks as she gave him a sweet smile. He couldn’t see Scott’s face from here; he imagined he’d have to have a heart of stone not to…

  The redhead coughed. “Put my boyfriend down, will you? I think he wants his hand back.” It could have been construed as a joke. Something in the way she said it, Max got the feeling she hadn’t meant it that way. There’d been a hint of outrage there, snappily angry. It looked like a very reluctant Mia who let go of Scott’s hand. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly; Max could see he was trying to avoid looking at his girlfriend. Silence held amidst the four of them for a moment, before Matt quickly broke it.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you again,” he said. “But we’ve got some place to be, so…” He quickly steered a pink cheeked Mia away from the other two and back into the crowd. Barely a second had gone before Max heard the fallout and promptly realised that they’d had the best idea.

  “The little bitch!” the redhead spat. “Who the hells does she think she is? She’s lucky I didn’t give her a slap! Touching my fucking boyfriend like that! I saw the look on her face! And you didn’t exactly discourage her, did you?”

  “Huh? What I do now?” Scott sounded confused. Max shook his head. He probably was going to get out of here. Mr R wouldn’t be interested in hearing this.

  “Way she had you, she looked like she didn’t want to let go. And you didn’t pull away, did you? What were you hoping for, a hug? A kiss?”

  The sounds of argument followed him as he’d wandered away, the two of them not quite shouting at each other but the air around them felt like it had grown a couple of degrees hotter as well as a thousand times more uncomfortable…

  Still, he wanted to know who those two were. Who the boy who she’d shown some attraction to was, maybe even who the red-haired girl might be. Perhaps a potential love rival? That might interest Mr R. It might not, but at the same time you could never quite be too thorough. Not when you found yourself working for a potentially unbalanced individual like him. That was why he’d found himself in this bar watching the opening ceremony. If he was a competitor and there was a pretty decent chance he was, his full name would be on the screen when they did a draw, given that was the whole point of it.

  Max silently applauded his own genius at this little brainwave. All he had to do was suffer through Carlton Bond’s incessant prattling for the time being, not a fun chore. How someone made a career as a presenter for hire when they had all the on-screen charisma of a cucumber was beyond him. About the only qualifications he had to get the job from Five Kingdoms Sport was his permatan. If crime didn’t work out, he should try getting involved in the media. He could do a better job than the big balding man on screen in front of him, droning on with his awful accent about how this was going to be the biggest and the best tournament to date. The same thing they said before every single one. They’d even gotten special pundits in to comment on the whole event, Terrence Arnholt, Prideaux Khan and Choksy Mulhern.

  Arnholt was the one speaking currently, a city champion of some repute who’d come out to support his son as well as do some media work, if the stories were to be believed. Max made it a habit of not believing everything he heard in the media. “I mean; we’ve seen events like this before but I think they’ve really outdone themselves this time.”

  Choksy Mulhern, a stern-looking brunette with cropped close hair and a former regional champion nodded in agreement. “They need to get it right. Everything needs to go for them. It they get it wrong, it’ll impact on the entire future of Vazara getting it again. Premesoir or Serran could have a bad tournament, they’ve had so many to get it right in the past. But I think they’ll pull it off.”

  “At the same time,” Prideaux pointed out. She was a tall Burykian with very dark hair and possibly more lipstick than was necessary. “The tournament is only as good as the skill of the callers on show.”

  “You think we have an assortment here to make it memorable?”

  “Carlton, the leagues are as strong as I’ve seen them for a long time,” Arnholt said. “I think this could be fantastic. We’re going to be in for some exciting bouts, I can see there being a surprise winner.”

  “Who do you fancy to win it at this stage?” Bond asked, looking past Arnholt. “We all know Terrence will say his son…”

  “I hope he does. I really do,” Arnholt said. “Whether he will or not is another matter. I don’t think you can look past one of the big names. Maybe a Wallerington or an Arventino but I don’t think the big names are as unbeatable as they used to be.”

  “Because there’s that much media saturation now, even compared to a few years ago. Just feels like it’s gone crazy,” Choksy added. “Everyone knows what they can do, what they’ll use, strategies… I agree with Terry. I can see someone come out of nowhere and if not win it, maybe cause a few upsets along the way.”

  “Wade Wallerington,” Prideaux said. “All the way. I know he’s been training with Nick Roper a lot over the past few months but he’s still one of the best I’ve ever fought. On his day, he is unstoppable. That said, Roper himself is up there when he’s on song and he could do it. Especially with Ruud Baxter declining the chance to retain his title for this competition.”

  “There’s always four or five favourites,” Arnholt said. “But there’s always someone who comes out of nowhere to have a good run to the quarter finals, maybe the semi-finals. And then people start to believe. That’s the magic of this tournament.”

  The stadium was packed. Scott was privately impressed; he was trying not to show it. He fidgeted on both feet; he had Pete next to him with his best Ruin face giving every effort to try and not show any emotion. It wasn’t quite working, some of the nerves and excitement were seeping through a little, he kept twitching in the face as
if biting down a grin but he looked composed. The corners of his mouth flexed back and forth as if they were on the verge of taking a life of their own. He saw Pete’s sister stood close to the front, all those faces staring down at them, thousands of eyes bearing on them eager to see what would happen next. They were hungry for the oncoming event. You got used to being scrutinised. It sometimes wasn’t pleasant but never was it something you could complain about.

  “Come on, come on, we haven’t got all day,” Pete muttered. “What they waiting for? Just do the draw, tell us who we’re battling and we can go do other shit. Feel like a bloody cow.”

  “Tell me about it,” a tall blond man said disgruntledly. “Been here before, it’s always the same. We wait around for a few hours, the crowd get a good stare at us, the dignitaries get their moment in the sun, they say a few words and then it starts.”

  “Yeah but I guess we’re here. That’s something,” Scott said. “I mean how many people would want to be here instead of us. Got to have the rough with the smooth, right? I mean, I’d rather be here than not.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” the blond man said, his voice a little peeved still. It was a hot morning and sweat sheened his face. “I just hope the actually opening ceremony doesn’t include dancers again.”

  “It’s always dancers,” Pete said. “Bet you twenty credits its dancers. And flags. Always those two things in these things. Still you remember that one before last with the strippers in it?”

  Scott laughed. “Oh yeah, that was class. Remember asking my mom why those girls were taking their clothes off. At least I wanted to, but it was strangely hypnotic.”

  “That’s my kind of originality,” Pete agreed, before his eyes lit up as he moved to change the subject. “So, what happened between you and Jess last night? She looked more annoyed than usual.”

  “Hells if I know. I’m close to giving up, if I’m honest,” Scott admitted, glancing about the crowd in hopes of spotting her, even from this distance. It was an action probably doomed to failure even as he attempted it. If she was in the stadium, he didn’t see her.

  “I’m sure you’d find someone nicer if you did,” Pete said. “I mean, you could probably trawl the prison system for women who got sent down for stabbing their husbands to death and you’d probably find someone nicer than her.”

  Before Scott could reply, could make some sort of half-hearted defence of how unfair that was, a horn blared out bringing the chatter to a silence not just on the stadium floor but in the stands as well.

  Here we go, he thought, taking a deep breath. The air stank around here, it was hot and humid and he was crammed amidst way too many people to enjoy the moment. He tried to peer through the crowd, realised he couldn’t see much of it any way. Just shapes and colours through a mass of bodies, the sound of music suddenly blurting out from a dozen speakers around the stadium. It all sounded authentically Vazaran, all sorts of instruments he couldn’t hope to name. One of them somewhere amidst it sounded like that stupid bloody flute thing that guy had been playing in the resort while he’d been having that argument with Jess.

  He rejected that thought violently. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. It was the time to enjoy the moment, such as it was. And he made the effort. He really did. He tapped his foot, even found the nerve to raise his hands and sway them in the air like some of the others were doing. Pete gave him such a patronising look he quickly desisted. He’d done it for a few seconds, far more than the few days of ridicule he’d probably get from Pete warranted. Oohs and aahs were starting to fall from the crowd; he wished he could get a better view of it all.

  “Told you it’d be dancers,” the taller Pete said, glancing down and shaking his head. “Spirit dancers but still dancers.”

  Max had to admit that the idea had been impressive, even if maybe the actual execution didn’t quite flow as well as it might have. Something about it just felt off, something he couldn’t quite explain. The stadium floor, with the competitors huddled off in one large crowd off to the side, had a podium and stage combination hung out in the middle of it, several microphones planted on top of the podium. And all around it, Vazaran talik dancers writhed together in unison, forty or fifty of them in bright coloured costumes, their moves reminiscent of how they’d once celebrated in battle.

  With them cavorted their spirits, two sandhounds for each dancer, the dogs moving in time with their callers. Probably the most common beast in Vazara, Max knew, given he had one himself. It hadn’t done him much good in the fight with that Unisco agent but that shouldn’t be an indictment against the species. There’d been other factors in that whole fiasco.

  The flags came next, circling the block of dancers, eight Vazarans to each of the five flags. Each of them bore the crest and colours of one kingdom, the black, white and red stripes and mountain of Vazara leading out the blue and red trio of stars of Premesoir, the cream and crimson castle of Canterage, the gold and grey bear of Serran and the black and yellow moon of Burykia. It wasn’t any indication of the power of the country the way they came out, rather the order in which they’d last held the tournament. It was the first time Vazara had led the rest of them out.

  He had to admit, as the dancers danced and the music played, a sound so reminiscent of his childhood, he did feel that tiny bit of patriotic pride he’d thought to have died long ago. Always they’d found some excuse to avoid giving it to Vazara, like rampant terrorism or mass genocide in one of its regions. Nobody ever brought up how the other four kingdoms had raped Vazara throughout its history for various minerals and resources they couldn’t find in their own kingdom.

  Max supposed that was just the way that the world worked. You couldn’t change it, no matter how much you might want to. The big boys told it how they wanted it heard and credits didn’t just talk, they screamed out loud.

  But it didn’t mean you had to like it.

  How long it went on, Scott couldn’t say, he’d left his timepiece back in his room and it’d look a bit impolite if he was caught on recorder fiddling with his summoner as would probably be his luck. But there was a burst of applause and the music died down as suddenly as it had started.

  “Oh, thank the Divines,” Pete muttered. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “At last.” Scott’s voice spoke relief.

  “Hey, shut up back there!” someone hissed as Ronald Ritellia wandered out onto the stadium floor flanked by several aides as well as a cadre of dark skinned Vazaran dignitaries, taking the steps up onto the podium. It was Ritellia himself who waddled over to the podium, drawing a deep breath as he spoke into the microphones with all the self-assured confidence of one who had done it a thousand times before.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, thank you,” he said, apparently unaware the crowd weren’t solely applauding him. “And thank you to the Keirabi national school of dance for providing their spirit dancers for our ceremony. Truly you’ve made it a memorable experience for all of us present.”

  Someone in the crowd booed him, but it was largely drowned out by the applause for the dancers and their spirits.

  “As you all know, we’re gathered here today for the commencement of the Competitive Centenary Calling Challenge Cup, held here on this magnificent island in this magnificent country for the very first time. Judging by what we’ve just seen, it’s a travesty it’s never been here before… But today isn’t about the past. It’s about the next few weeks and beyond that. It’s about what we’re going to see in stadiums like this. It’s about you, the people, not just those who fight, but those who watch and those who administer. Because without you, there is no sport.”

  He took a moment, before glancing back towards the dignitaries, searching one out the crowd before nodding to him.

  “Now to say a few words, I’d like to introduce to you a most important figure in ensuring that this tournament came to the kingdom of Vazara for the first time. A man who fought to see this staged here and now and his efforts have been rewarded. L
adies and gentlemen of spirit calling, I give you Premier Leonard Nwakili.”

  The Premier stepped forward past Ritellia, an impassive look on his face as he strode to the podium, his teeth glistening white against his dark skin. He filled out his suit nicely, ageing but not gone to seed, a solid man but not fat whose reputation had him down as much of a fighter on the political stage as he had been on the calling circuit.

  It had largely been the starting point for his political career, the base he’d held to broadcast his notoriety. Few who had seen them could forget his campaign broadcasts, video after video showing footage from his greatest bouts and using them to ram home inspiring sound bites of his policies and his ideas for the future. He gave the crowd a wave, adjusted the microphone on the podium to his height and cleared his throat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as the applause died down. “For those of you who are here for the first time, not only at this tournament but in my country, I have three words for you. Welcome to Vazara!” He raised both hands into the air and some sections of the crowd exploded into applause.

  “My country welcomes you. I welcome you from the bottom of my heart and I welcome this tournament into our great kingdom. Our coming together has been far too long in the making and I speak for all of you when I say let the great game of ours begin! Let the memories we forge here together hold us for the rest of our lives. To the competitors, leave nothing behind but your best efforts, to the observers, remember you are just as much a part of a new chapter in Vazaran history. And to those at home…” He winked at the camera. “Wish you were here.”

  This time nearly the entire crowd and most of the competitors burst into applause, Scott and Pete amongst them. They wanted it to get start, Scott especially found himself sick of the talking.

  Nwakili withdrew and was replaced by Ritellia again, sweating even more profusely than he had before and wiping his hands on his trousers. By the looks of it, he’d been just enjoying an iced water he’d had to hand over to an aide. He didn’t show any sign of discomfort though and once more started to speak into the microphone, his voice booming around the stadium.