Fallen Star

by Steven Drake

  “Ah, not quite unconscious after all,” the slaver said. “Well, we can fix that easily enough.”

  Nia sensed the presence of the man leaning over her. The stench of sweat, blood, and death assaulted her nose, only to be replaced by a pungent, slightly sweet, medicine odor, some kind of ether. Before she could think to struggle, darkness descended.

  Chapter 26: The Grand Coliseum

  Niarie wakened again to a pounding headache. With a groan, she opened her eyes to a dim room, unaware of where she had been taken, or how much time had passed. She sat up slowly, fighting the dizziness that lingered from her ordeal, and found herself on a sandy dirt floor. She looked around as her eyes slowly focused and the blurriness receded from her vision. She was in some sort of communal prison cell, lying against a wall, surrounded by dozens of other prisoners. Most were sleeping. No torches or lamps were lit, but soft blue moonlight shone through a narrow window along the wall behind her. The entire day had passed, and it was now the night after she had been caught, at least she assumed so.

  Nia rubbed her head, leaned against the stone wall, and surveyed the room. It didn’t look like any dungeon Nia had ever seen. The communal cell where she awakened was little more than a roughly rectangular space surrounded on three sides by iron bars that extended from floor to ceiling, and on the other side by a stone wall with a slight outward curve, suggesting a rather large round room. Still, Nia couldn’t be sure, as she could not see much outside the cell, mostly shadows, silhouettes, and blurry outlines. Nia could see several other smaller cells beyond the bars of her own. Most of the cells were occupied, but not by other prisoners. Rather, most of them contained wild animals. Some kind of large jungle cat eyed her from its cell a dozen yards away, its eyes glowing green in the darkness.

  The presence of the animals gave Nia a good idea where she was, the holding pens beneath the Golden Coliseum. The coliseum was the site of the regular jousts, combat tournaments, magic demonstrations, and other entertainments of Trinium. It also served as a forum for executions of the most infamous criminals, usually by hanging or by the headsman, but occasionally by more exotic methods. Nia shuddered and almost threw up as the disturbing possibility of a public execution crossed her mind. The worst criminals were sometimes chained in the arena to be devoured by starving animals. Nia gave the jungle cat across the room another look. Its eyes still focused on her, likely drawn by her slight movements. She was sure she could hear the cat licking its lips. She wondered if it might be the same kind of animal that Jerris kept. She shuddered as she had seen firsthand how deadly a creature like that could be.

  Nia instinctively reached for her magic, just to get some light, but instead felt her wrists pulled downward as her magic drained away. She had forgotten about the shackles. They grew heavier, and pulled her down, but the effect seemed somewhat less than before. Nia examined the shackles more closely. These were different than the cuffs Stephan and the undersecretary had used. These were heavier, dirtier, and much larger than the others, too large in fact. Wondering if the slaver had made some kind of mistake, Nia tried to pull her wrist out, but had no success. As she looked closer, she finally noticed that there were actually two sets of shackles, one set of large outer rings attached to a smaller set of inner metal rings that adhered more closely to her wrists. Despite several minutes of poking, prodding, squeezing, and scraping Nia couldn’t discover how the two sets attached to one another, though neither moved independently of the other. She found she could reach a finger into the gap between the inner and outer cuffs. She felt more pieces of metal in between, a few corners and edges, but still nothing budged. Nia almost laughed at the odd thought that this was now the third different set of magic restraining shackles she had worn. She was quickly becoming an unwilling expert on the subject.

  After perhaps an hour of fighting in vain against her bindings and rubbing her wrists nearly raw, Nia decided to try something else. Perhaps if she couldn’t remove the bindings, she could overpower them. They didn’t seem to restrict her as quickly or completely as the other sets she had worn. Nia looked around to be sure no one was watching. She focused on her hand, and tried to produce a light. The shackles grew heavy, and she pushed more energy into the spell. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she breathed more deeply. Finally, after about thirty seconds, a faint ball of white light appeared above her hand. Her gleeful reaction however, was enough to scatter her concentration. The spell faded, and with it, her hope of using her magic to escape. That spell had been well short of what she would need to attempt an escape, and it had drained her completely. The sweat was dripping down her face. She slumped against the wall, exhausted, beaten, and hopeless once again.

  Still, Nia had one more idea. When she had been captured by Nielas, Jerris had been able to use their connection to find her. Perhaps that could work again, although that time, he had reached out for her. Could she reach back? Would it work with her magic restrained? Nia calmed herself and focused her mind on Jerris and her connection with him. At first, it went well, but then when she started to reach outwards from herself, she felt the drain of the mage bindings again. It didn’t work without at least being able to tap into her mage aura. Dammit. She sobbed and leaned her head against the stone wall.

  Nia put her face in her hands and sobbed softly. Everything had gone wrong. She cursed her own weakness and chided herself for ever thinking she could succeed. Her only hope now was Kesz. Had everything gone according to plan, she would have returned to the spot where she left the sewers before nightfall, to let him know what happened. Once she failed to appear, Kesz would have certainly started searching for her, but the little dragon had no idea where to look. With her magic aura stifled by the bindings, Kesz would have to guess where she might be held. He would probably look for the dungeons, but even if he found them, he would not find her there. Kesz would never think of searching the coliseum at all. It seemed hopeless.

  She spent the remainder of the night leaning against the wall, alternately dozing and sobbing to herself. The few times she did bother to look around, she noticed many of the other prisoners seemed just as bad off as her, perhaps worse. One rail thin man with a scraggly red beard sat muttering something unintelligible in the far corner. Another man stared at Nia with blank, empty eyes. These two were the only people awake, and Nia didn’t want to talk to either of them.

  When morning dawned, more prisoners started waking up, but none of them offered any conversation. Two adolescent men crouched against the stone wall a few feet from where Nia sat. Nia tried to listen, wondering if they might have some kind of plan of escape. She was about to move over to speak with them when she heard a loud clanging din behind her. She turned to see a fierce eyed guard with a pot belly rapping his large iron club against the bars.

  “No talking,” the man barked. “’Les you wanna try running from yer death with a broke leg.”

  The two youths abandoned their conversation, but a bald middle-aged man immediately got to his feet and started ranting at the guard about being framed, demanding to be released, and claiming to know personally every Golden Shield official from the High Inquisitor on down. The pot-bellied guard stood listening, scowling coldly at the large man for a moment. Then the pot-bellied guard smiled, opened the cage door, and yanked the man outside. The bald man started to thank the guard, but before he finished a sentence, the guard slammed his iron club against the bald man’s knee. Nia heard bones cracking, and the bald man crumpled to the floor, wailing in pain. The pot-bellied guard dragged the bald man back into the cell, then pulled out a leather strap and gave the bald man a dozen lashes. At the end, he left the bald man broken and bleeding on the sandy floor. No one spoke above a whisper from that point forward.

  Nia returned to fighting with her shackles, repeatedly trying everything she had tried before, and everything else she could think of, desperation increasing by the moment. She hid her activities by crouching and hiding against the wall. No one disturbed her, but after what seemed only a
short time, the area began to bustle with activity. The noisome air filled with wails and roars of beasts, sharp clangs of metal on metal as the cages opened and closed, the quiet hum of shuffling feet all around, and occasional shouts that echoed in the underground space. Panic rose in Nia’s stomach. She was running out of time.

  After what seemed only moments, Nia heard a clank of the steel cage being opened. A harsh voice ordered everyone up, the same pot-bellied guard who had made an appearance earlier. The prisoners all shuffled to their feet, even the bald man with the broken knee, who hobbled as best he could. Nia thought of making a run for it, but someone else beat her to the idea. Another young woman, about her age or a few years older, bolted off randomly across the room, darting back and forth between the irregularly placed cages. She made it about twenty yards before an arrow through the neck sent her sprawling on the ground. Nia searched for the source of the arrow, but could not locate whatever hidden position the archer had taken. Running seemed like a bad idea.

  Without any further difficulty, the pot-bellied guard herded the prisoners across the room, winding through the various cages, then past countless racks filled with weapons of all shapes and sizes. Nia thought of trying to grab one, but before she could find an opportunity, the weapon racks ended, another opportunity missed. They passed into a narrow hallway that grew rapidly darker as they moved through it, until it ended abruptly at a small room with another cage of about half the size of their holding cage. This cage had bars on three sides with a fourth set of bars folded down onto the ground in front of them. The guards herded the prisoners into this new cage and raised the fourth set of bars into place, imprisoning them once again. Then the guards disappeared, taking their torches with them, and leaving the prisoners in near total darkness but for a few thin slits of light that streamed through narrow cracks in the ceiling.

  In the darkness, time seemed to creep slowly. Nia had no idea how long they would be kept here, or what the purpose of this room might be. The noises from the holding area could still be heard back down the hallway, but this area seemed set apart for some reason. The air filled with the sounds of nervous breathing, soft whimpering, and an occasional sickly cough. A few of the prisoners whispered to each other, most too quietly for Nia to catch any of what was said. Nia had no time to talk anyway. She continued to struggle bitterly with her shackles. If she could get the shackles off, she could use her magic to free everyone. She lost track of everything else, and with an ever-increasing frenzied desperation, pushed, pulled, and poked at anything that felt like it might possibly move.

  After several more minutes of frustration, something suddenly moved. As she poked her finger between the inner and outer rings, she felt something move on her right cuff. After a bit more coaxing, she finally dislodged something, a small block of metal that felt rectangular. She couldn’t tell exactly what it was in the near total darkness, but she guessed it was part of the apparatus that fixed the outer rings to the inner. The outer ring on the right now wiggled about a half inch in either direction.

  After a few more minutes of furious struggle, Nia exhausted herself, so she paused, and closed her eyes. Perhaps the shackles magic-stifling effect would be lessened. She focused on channeling magic to her left hand, then her right. Sure enough, the right hand was easier. It still wasn’t enough to cast a spell, and she didn’t want to waste more energy trying. Perhaps she could try contacting Jerris again. She focused her magic, and reached out. It was easier this time, and she found that her mage sight could extend out several dozen yards, perhaps half a mile, but not nearly enough. Still, she felt something, a burning sense of some kind of magic somewhere on her left and above her. It couldn’t be Jerris. It was too close.

  Before she could ponder the matter any further, she felt the floor lurch beneath her. At the same moment, the room filled with light. The sudden daylight after the near complete darkness momentarily blinded her to what was happening, but she could feel the floor slowly rising beneath her. After a few moments, her eyes adjusted enough to look up. It appeared a hole had opened in the roof. With a sudden wave of sickening horror, Nia realized what was happening. Nia remembered seeing it once years ago. A trapdoor would open in the ground, and a platform with a cage would rise into the gap, usually bearing a combatant, or a victim. In this case, Nia guessed they were meant to be victims.

  Nia heard the sounds of the roaring crowd as the platform rose, and prepared herself. She had another idea. If she could find someone in the crowd who could recognize her, perhaps they would help. As the platform finally rose into the arena, Nia cast her eyes about. The Grand Coliseum was truly huge, stretching at least fifty yards in all directions, with the cage located roughly in the center of the sprawling space. Several other cages dotted the dusty floor of the arena, each filled with a few more frightened prisoners. A stiff cool wind blew from the north, kicking up puffs of dust that skittered across the arena. The wall that separated the stands from the field was at least twenty feet high all around, much too high for Nia to climb. A few large openings in the wall could be seen, some quite large, all barred by heavy iron gates.

  The stands were filled with people, many dressed in their Golden Shield uniforms, a few in full armor. The people ate, drank, and talked merrily to one another, oblivious to the fear of the victims in the cages, or perhaps not oblivious, perhaps they looked forward to it.

  At the north end of the coliseum, a well-armed contingent of knights in full armor surrounded a walled-off section of seats. Nia couldn’t identify anyone in particular at the distance, but she guessed that was the Empress’s private box. The Empress’s box was surrounded by dozens of other smaller walled off and well-guarded boxes containing various stripes of nobility and important officials. The boxes took up the northern half of the stands, while the southern half of the coliseum was left for the common folk, rows upon rows of low benches, currently unused, as everyone was standing.

  Nia looked to the north end of the coliseum, fixing her eyes on a stone platform that extended from the wall out into the arena. The man who stood there would shortly announce what would happen, amplifying his voice either with his own magic or with an enchanted device. Nia found the announcer standing on the edge of the platform, wearing magnificent white robes trimmed with gold and an amulet about his neck with a ruby so large it was clearly visible fifty yards away. She kept her eyes glued to the man as he strode out onto the center of the platform.

  “Empress Lorina Barris Sarenna, gathered kings of the free lands, members of the Golden Shield, and visitors from all corners of Terralien, I welcome you.” He spoke with a thunderous booming voice that echoed through the arena. He then launched into a more formal introduction that continued for about two more minutes. He lavished praise on the new Empress, thanked the various foreign lords by name, recognized a dozen wealthy contributors who had helped pay for the day’s ‘entertainment’, and finally prayed to the Seven Divinities to forgive the sins of the criminals sentenced to die. It made Nia want to throw up, but instead she started scanning the stands, looking for anyone who might recognize her. It didn’t do much good. She was too far away. When the man finally concluded, the Empress stood and raised her hand, quieting the crowd almost instantly. Nia wondered for a moment if she would speak, but she returned to her seat. The quiet, however, persisted, and the announcer adopted a much graver tone.

  “With the coronation of our Empress, we have begun a new age of peace and prosperity amongst the kingdoms of man, yet we live under a shadow of war. The Demon King of the east sits in his dark castle, ever plotting our destruction, but we, the Order of the Golden Shield are ever watchful, ever vigilant. The Demon King boasts an army of beasts, gargantuan ogres, foul trolls, violent green skinned orcs, fire breathing dragons, hordes of slavish goblins, and worst of all, the horrible nightmare creations named chimeras. For ages, the Demon King alone has held this advantage, yet no longer. We, the Golden Shield, have not been idle. Witness, Empress Sarenna, people of Trinium, foreign
lords, the pinnacle of our achievement, the fruits of many years of labor by our most skilled enchanters. I give you The Golden Champion.”

  Nia felt ill, guessing at what horror might be forthcoming. The largest of the gates in the arena opened, a taller opening that extended several yards above the inner wall. Still, the monster that moved through the space had to stoop to pass through. Nia froze as the strange composite creature lumbered through the gate. Nia knew enough about chimeras to know that somebody, perhaps several somebodies, used domination magic to control the creature. They probably had taken positions somewhere in the stands, but at the moment, that barely registered against the horror of the beast.

  She had never seen a live chimera before, but she had seen the remains of those killed in the battle of Kilnar, and this creature put those to shame. It was fully twenty feet tall, all of it warped to gigantic proportions. The legs were thick as the trunks of ancient trees, scaled. Nia guessed they must have come from one of the so-called thunder lizards of the southern jungles. The scales continued up the massive legs, tapering in rings of swelled and sagging flesh up to the much narrower torso. The torso appeared to be something like the body of two massive mountain ogres standing back to back, fused together, with two matching sets of massive arms. Each fisted hand bore a long and heavy weapon, for a total of four, one a long sword, one a cruelly spiked iron morning star, one a double-edged battle axe, and finally a spear perhaps ten yards long. Each torso was topped with what appeared to be the head of some massive hawk-like bird with golden feathers, but enlarged to gigantic proportions. The heads of the monster twitched in quick, staccato, movements, much like a songbird, a disturbing habit on such a huge creature. Nia gasped as one of the heads fixed its light golden bird eye on the cage where she and the other prisoners remained trapped.

  “Witness the power of our newest weapon, Empress Sarenna. Witness the power that we shall use upon our enemies,” the announcer boomed from his platform.