The Spark

by David Drake

  “Somebody from Blue,” I said. “There’s been a lot of casualties, Lord Gismonde said.”

  “That’s the truth if I ever heard it!” Hopper said. “There’s been more crips this run than there was the past two together.”

  If I’d been more alert I’d have worried about what was obviously an unusual situation. As it was, I just felt flat. I hadn’t taken a single hard blow, and none of the three bouts had even taken very long.

  Buck was doing fine. He slurped water from the tub beside the back entrance, then flopped down by my side when I sat in the first empty seat I came to.

  “Red 12!” the manager called. “That’s you, Pal.”

  I hopped up. Gismonde and now Hopper both knew my name.

  “Blue group is straight opposite,” Hopper said from the doorway, pointing. “This is your last bout, so make it good.”

  “Yessir,” I said. I was looking forward to the tournament being over. I sure hoped that my last opponent was as puny as the third one had been, but I knew I couldn’t expect that.

  The big fellow coming toward me with his shield on wore white. His dog was a red setter. He was so clean that I wondered if he’d changed his tunic in the course of the tournament: that white would show any contact with the ground, let alone a blow.

  Of course nobody had hit me either. Well, each bout was a separate test.

  White and I reached the circle at the same time. I rushed as usual. White swung down from my left. He didn’t rush, but he stepped into the blow. I saw it coming and met it with my own weapon.

  I felt like I’d been hit by a building. I knew how good my shield was, but that stroke would have blown the shield’s circuits if it’d hit squarely.

  I shifted to my right, making sure that my right arm hadn’t gone numb. Bloody hell!

  White came after me. Well, I’d come to fight, not run away. I stepped forward and swung down just like we were each other’s mirror.

  White took the stroke with his weapon, spewing sparks in all directions. I’d hit as hard as I could and it didn’t seem like his arm and weapon had given at all.

  He thrust at my face but I ducked below the edge of my shield. I’d seen the thrust coming—Buck had; it was like each of my opponents shouted what they were planning before they did it—but I hadn’t tried to turn it with my weapon. Instead I cut at White’s ankles the way I had with my first opponent today.

  White got the edge of his shield in the way of my stroke. There was a great blast of sparks, but nothing like what happened where he stabbed at mine. I hadn’t been worried about a short thrust with the two of us standing close together, but he nearly penetrated my shield.

  I backed, raising my shield slightly. It might have taken permanent damage from that thrust. When White stepped toward me, I thought he wobbled—I’d come very close when I went for his ankle before. Maybe even contact, I thought.

  I hacked low at his shield, then slid my weapon down for the real stroke—again at his left foot. White went up in the air—dunno if there was anything wrong with his left foot, but it sure didn’t keep him from jumping with it. I carved a smoldering gouge in the sod while trying to throw myself backward and getting my shield still higher to cover me from his down-slash in response.

  This time the sparks as his weapon met the edge of my shield weren’t as gorgeous as they’d been before—because I blacked out. He’d rung my bell good.

  * * *

  I was seeing figures dancing. They were reddish, and I wasn’t sure they were human.

  I closed my eyes and groaned. I wondered if I was dead and in Purgatory. I hadn’t lived a bad life, but I couldn’t claim it’d been a really good one either. I hadn’t paid much attention to the life I was living—I’d just lived it and left religion to the priest.

  “Good evening, Pal,” Guntram said. “I hope you’re feeling better.”

  I sat up faster than I should have, but after a moment of wanting to throw up it was all right. “I’ve got a ways better to go,” I croaked. I needed something to drink. “That was quite a crack I took.”

  I was in Guntram’s workroom. I’d been lying on his healing bed. The light in the room came from figures of light dancing in the air in the middle of the room.

  “This is the projector you and I have been working on,” Guntram said, following my eyes. “I thought it would be a mild illumination and better than something brighter while you were recovering. Would you like something more now?”

  “No, this is fine,” I said. “But do you have anything to drink?”

  “Oh, sorry, of course,” Guntram said. He turned to a side-table where a carafe and cups sat. There were also covered dishes and, to my amazement, a bud vase with a white rose in it.

  Guntram returned with a cup of what turned out to be wine. That was fine. If it put me to sleep now, so much the better. I slurped a mouthful in and sloshed it around my cheeks and tongue before swallowing.

  “There’s…” Guntram said as he lifted the cover of the larger dish, “a chicken also.”

  “Maybe in a bit,” I said. I touched my scalp; it was tender, but there wasn’t matted blood as I’d expected. “Ah, Guntram?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses, but is there any chance the fellow I fought in the last round had his weapon set higher than twenty percent power? Because I know how good my own gear is and he just, well…”

  I touched my scalp again.

  “No, Pal,” Guntram said, moving directly in front of me and meeting my eyes. “Your opponent’s equipment was set at twenty percent. He had very good equipment, however, probably the best there is Here. You were fighting Lord Clain.”

  “What!”

  I shouldn’t have shouted. At least I hadn’t jumped to my feet, the way I’d started to do. I drank more wine, holding the cup with both hands.

  “You’d already been approved for the Admissions Tournament on the basis of your first three wins,” Guntram said. “Clain wanted to see if you were really as good as you’d appeared to be from where he was watching. He changed into a neutral tunic and borrowed the dog of an injured competitor to determine that himself.”

  A realization hit me harder than Clain’s weapon had. “Then I’ve already had my Admissions bout with a Champion,” I said. “And I lost.”

  “Scarcely,” said Guntram. “When you’re completely recovered, you’ll have an ordinary Admissions bout. The leading Champions never fight in those; you’ll be facing someone newly admitted.”

  He smiled. “From what Lord Clain says,” he added, “you shouldn’t have much trouble. And he apologizes. He says that if he’d known how good you were, he wouldn’t have put himself in a position where he might have to seriously injure you to avoid injury himself.”

  I didn’t know what to think, let alone say. I swallowed more wine, then said, “I guess I’ll have some of that chicken now, Guntram.”

  I ate, thinking about the rose in the bud vase.

  CHAPTER 20

  Next

  The Admissions Tournament was set for two weeks’ time. With Guntram’s agreement I spent the delay in his workroom rather than going down to Room Twelve again. After a couple days I resumed practice on the machines.

  I was…uncomfortable, I guess, with the thought of sparring with people, with my fellows. I’d hurt my first three opponents pretty badly, and I was lucky that Clain hadn’t killed me. If I’d been just a touch slower in getting my shield up, or if Clain’s earlier thrust had been a little higher so that his cut had met the weakened portion of the field, he’d have split my skull. Guntram assured me that the healing couch couldn’t bring the dead back to life.

  It wasn’t that I was afraid to get hurt or to hurt—to kill—somebody if I meant to. But sparring for practice meant that I could be crippling the fellows I’d been eating dinner with or playing checkers.

  For relaxation, I worked on Ancient artifacts, whatever Guntram offered me. I was partial to the image projecto
r. Now that Guntram had started working on it, his repairs gave me clues about how the Ancients had designed it. I could work with that—not fast, but I got faster as I did more and learned more. I was able to sharpen the dancers and smooth their movements.

  The figures had the same general layout as people, but they really weren’t people. Which made me wonder if the Ancients were people, as I’d always assumed, or creatures with fine scales and stripes of russet on beige like the dancers.

  I didn’t work on my shield, though Clain had damaged the top of it pretty bad. Guntram was repairing it. He said that if I liked he’d ask Louis to work on it instead, but I trusted Guntram before I’d trust any other Maker. Louis might be the best there was for arms the way Guntram said, but Guntram was my friend.

  I went off for walks up the Road alone except for Buck. Whenever we passed the track to the Consort’s Garden, I wondered if I’d see anybody coming out of it. I never did.

  * * *

  On the day of the Admissions Tournament I had scrambled eggs again for breakfast. It’d worked out the first time—except for meeting Clain, of course, and that wasn’t the fault of breakfast—and I didn’t want to change anything I’d done then.

  The way it was set up was two tents opposite each other in the middle of the long sides of the field. The Aspirants—only ten of us out of the seventy who’d qualified for the earlier tournament—were on the south. The Champions we’d be facing had a tent on the north, but most of them stood along the sidelines, chatting with friends and spectators.

  Garrett had qualified also. I hadn’t really chatted with him since the Aspirants’ Tournament, so I walked over to him now.

  Before we could speak, the Champion acting as manager called, “Garrett, you’re up first.”

  Garrett and I broke eye contact, but I followed him out the front of the tent. If the Champions who were testing us could do that, I supposed that we could. Anyway, I wanted to see how Garrett did.

  Garrett was in red today; his opponent was blue. Blue was a big man, but so was Garrett. The bout started slowly and never really picked up. Blue kept advancing on Garrett, blocking each stroke and counterstriking. Garrett took every counterstroke on his shield, but he was having to back away.

  Blue kept following. This contest was fought at forty percent. Garrett didn’t start really blocking Blue’s strokes until his shield was on the verge of failing. Blue swung hard down at Garrett’s head; Garrett got his shield up, but the circuits overloaded at the impact.

  Sparks fountained around both men, but Garrett stumbled backward and fell on his back. He tossed his weapon to the sod beside him. He probably had some bad burns in his left hand.

  The winner backed away and shut down.

  I sat down in the grass; Buck lay down also and stuck his big head in my lap. I rubbed his ears absently.

  I felt sorry for Garrett, limping off the field toward the castle, but I was really thinking about the fight itself. Blue’s gear was a little better than Garrett’s, his shield at any rate, but that wasn’t the real difference. Blue had spared his own shield and repeatedly attacked the same point on Garrett’s. By the time Garrett realized what was happening, it was too late for him.

  I know it’s easier to follow tactics when you’re watching from the sidelines than when somebody’s trying to whack you on the head, but it’s something you’ve got to be able to do if you want to be a Champion. Garrett hadn’t done it.

  I kept sitting with Buck while the rest of our group fought. Mostly the Aspirants lost, as expected, but a few won their place. There were a hundred and fifty seats in the Hall of Champions, but from what Baga told me—I’d never been through the doors, but all the servants talked—only eighty-three were occupied.

  I wasn’t really watching bouts. Mostly I was thinking about the way the Commonwealth worked now that I was here in the middle of it. The thing that I hadn’t realized from the books I read on Beune was that the people in Dun Add—in Jon’s court, in the Hall of Champions, all of them—were human beings, like me and my neighbors.

  Some of the folks here were smarter than we were. Guntram was about the smartest person there was, it seemed to me. Jon and Louis and I guess Clain, they had bigger dreams than anybody on Beune ever would.

  But they were people. They did human things and made human mistakes. Just like us, just like me.

  “Number Ten, you’re up!”

  I jumped to my feet. The manager’s shout had already roused Buck; he was getting up also.

  “Right!” I called. I took my shield and weapon from my pockets and we started for the chalked circle. I didn’t switch my gear on until I was almost there. We entered the ring in a gray expanse in which the referee standing to the side was sharp but everything else—grass and the distant tents and spectators—was a shadow.

  I was in green as before. My opponent was in yellow and white stripes, a pattern I recalled seeing among the audience when Jon was giving judgment. I hadn’t known who that man was, and it needn’t have been the same one who faced me now.

  I went straight for him. He responded, but there was enough hesitation that I think he would’ve preferred a more cautious grappling. Our shields met and shimmered. I—Buck—saw him start to swing down at me. My weapon met his and shocked him back.

  Yellow-and-White’s shield was at least as good as mine, but I knew from the softness when our weapons clashed together that his wasn’t as good as his shield—or my weapon.

  That’s what I went after, striking for his weapon rather than his head or his shield. Yellow-and-White didn’t see what I was doing at first, trying to counterstrike after each of my strokes. I took his blows on my shield and kept slicing at the edge of light.

  When he did figure out my plan, it flustered him. He started refusing his weapon and trying to push me back with his shield. That left his leading foot open. At forty percent power I could’ve taken it off—the left one at the time—if I’d been willing to, but instead I ripped a shallow gouge in the turf just short of his toes.

  That left me open if Yellow-and-White had been in position instead of trying to save his weapon. He’d jumped back from my stroke—it wouldn’t have been in time—and he was off-balance when he finally swung at me.

  I was ready for him. I took his blow on my shield and was bringing my weapon around with all my strength to meet his as he withdrew it. His failed in a dazzle of green and blue.

  I stepped back and shut down. My hands were both on the verge of cramping. I dropped my shield and weapon into my pockets without considering how hot they might be after that use. The weapon was warm against my right hipbone, but the cloth wasn’t on the verge of charring. As for the shield, it hadn’t even had a work-out.

  I thought again of how lucky I was for Guntram’s friendship…but also, I’d done what Garrett had not: I’d probed my opponent to find a weakness and then gone after it.

  Yellow-and-White had a short brown beard and short hair. I stepped toward him and offered my hand. “I’m Pal of Beune,” I said.

  “Not this hand,” he said. He managed a grin as he thrust out his left hand instead. He was holding his right up at shoulder height; when he turned it toward me, I saw he already had blisters on the palm.

  We shook, left to left. “I’m Conrad,” he said. “Bloody good job, kid. Clain told me to be careful, but I guess I wasn’t careful enough.”

  People were coming out to join us including a medic and her assistant. They’d have ointments for the blisters. I didn’t think either of us needed anything more.

  “Very well done, Pal,” said a voice at my side. I turned and saw Guntram.

  “Sir!” I said. “Thank you so much!”

  Guntram looked pleased, but he generally did. “The Enrollment Ceremony will be on Sunday,” he said. “In four days. But even if I’m a little early, let me congratulate you now on becoming a Champion.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Champion of Mankind

  The great hall was like Jon’s court bu
t way bigger. It was on the north side of the castle, but it was freestanding and open to the sky. I guessed it held a couple thousand people, and it was near full when I glanced up at the ranks of seats behind me.

  I wondered how many people lived in Beune. Probably not this many.

  “Boy, I never saw so many people all together!” Baga said. “Folks from everyplace can watch, you know? It’s not just Dun Add.”

  To hear him, the thought made him happy as could be. I agreed about how many people there were, but I was uncomfortable.

  The usher with a short gilt baton had put me on a chair with plush cushions but no arms, one of three spaced in a row in front of the stage. The back of the stage was a huge thing, a glittering chrome wall with fluted pillars and all sorts of carved figures on the ledge at the top that rested on the pillars.

  The figures probably meant something from history, but I doubt I’d have known what they were even if I could see them better. They were in bright sun; when I looked up at them, all I saw was a broken glare.

  I was wearing my red suit. It was Maggie’s choice. I agreed because she at least said she understood what was right and nobody else I knew did. If I’d asked Guntram, he’d have looked at me as blankly as if I’d been facing a mirror. I suppose Garrett and Welsh might’ve had opinions, but they’d never seemed to care much about clothes when we were all in Room Twelve.

  Baga and Maggie stood behind my chair, wearing their own best clothes. That was a bleached white tunic for Baga, while his wife had on a very pale pink dress with white embroidery on the lapels and bodice. Maggie’s taste in clothes was comfortable. I guess that was as good a reason as any to let her choose which of my three suits I wore today.

  There was a platform on top of the back of the stage. I didn’t know that till musicians with three kinds of horns stepped out onto it. They were in silver outfits, so it looked like a dozen of the carved figures had climbed knee-high up above their fellows and started playing music.

  I’m not used to horns—people back home used fiddles, and there was a harmonium in the church. This blast of noise sure didn’t make me wish I’d heard more horn music, but it got people’s attention and I suppose that was the idea.