Nineteen
“We’ve got four challengers,” Venci says, crunching another of her seeds. “You only have to fight one, though.”
“Do we get more money if I fight them all?”
“Fuck yes,” she says. “And I sell more booze, so go crazy if you feel up for it. You can make the call after each match.”
I exchange a look with Star and grin.
“Ready to go?” Venci says.
“Don’t see why not.”
She matches my smile. “You’re getting cocky, kid. Keep backing it up, and we’ll all be rich.”
[Optimism: cockiness is appropriate], Star sends as Venci stalks away.
Let’s not go too far with it. We’re setting a target on ourselves now. People are going to take their best shots.
[Confidence: their best shots will be inadequate.]
That’s certainly what we’re hoping. But be careful of surprises.
“You’ve all been waiting for it!” Venci’s amplified voice booms through the arena. “The young man who’s been taking the pits by storm, now ready to build a streak of his own! Fighting only here at Venci’s, it’s our new king of the pit, Taj and Star!”
I step through the curtain into a wall of sound. The pit is even more packed than at my first appearance, bowing fences in danger of spilling excited spectators into the arena. Star, resplendent in his new paint job, capers and waves to rounds of delighted laughter.
“And who is bold enough to try to end this run before it begins? Only someone with solid steel balls, that’s for sure!” More laughter. “Another newcomer to our arena, it’s Agin and Crusher!”
The curtain on the other side opens, and I get the joke.
Crusher is a big runic with a beetle-like shape, six-legged and heavily armored along the flanks.
It has two more fighting limbs at the front, plus a peculiar bulbous protrusion like a globular metal nose.
Beside it, Agin looks sleek and well-fed, his clothes a cut above the usual for Malkuth.
Both runics enter the arena, and the gates are closed behind them. Agin meets my eyes across the pit and gives me a cocky smile. I was almost feeling bad for him for a moment there, but meeting his eyes I decide I’ll be happy to wipe the grin off his face.
The bell rings. Almost immediately, Crusher’s huge steel nose falls off its face.
It’s a ball, a brushed steel sphere half the size of Star.
A heavy chain connects it to the runic, and as I watch, Crusher’s head snaps up and the chain goes taut.
A twitch of the beetle-construct’s body sends the ball sliding along the arena floor and then up into the air, whipping around Crusher in slow, lazy circles.
[Fascination: that is new. Query: why don’t I have one of those?]
Looks heavy. The air thrums as the ball picks up speed. I can’t imagine the sheer strength necessary to get that much metal in motion—there must be orange or even yellow sigils inside the rotating socket. There’s a lot of money in this runic. I think this guy may be from Yesod. Watch yourself.
[Assessment: the ball poses a danger only in the horizontal plane.]
I see what he’s getting at immediately. Go for it.
Crusher comes forward, the whirling ball now a blurred disc of destruction around it. Star waits calmly until the bigger runic approaches his side of the arena.
Then he moves, not toward Crusher and its circling weapon but away.
The crowd roars, and Agin spits a command that sends Crusher lurching faster, trying to catch Star against the edge of the arena.
Star, however, has no intention of being trapped; he hits the pit wall and goes up.
While his combat body lacks the BIND sigils that let his smaller form scuttle along ceilings, thrusting his spiky legs into the gaps in the fences works almost as well.
Spectators scream and throw themselves backward, spilling drinks.
Watch where you’re poking. It’ll look bad if we stab somebody.
[Assessment: killjoy.]
Agin is shouting, though whether it’s directed at Crusher or me I have no idea.
Star jumps from two stories, descending with all eight legs pressed together into a single spike.
He lands right on Crusher’s midsection, and yellow-orange sparks fountain into the air; even armor plated with RESIST sigils can’t take that much force at once.
Crusher bucks and twitches, trying to respond to the increasingly desperate commands Agin shouts at it.
But its fighting arms can’t reach up to its back, and the spinning ball, though impressive, is useless once you’re inside its circle.
Star has all the time in the world to peel back the damaged plates and jab his legs down into Crusher’s workings, drawing more sprays of sparks as sigils shatter.
I wince instinctively at every burst of yellow. Those are expensive.
In a matter of seconds, Crusher sinks to the floor. The metal ball caroms off the wall of the arena and tangles its chain around the runic’s inert body. Star hops to the floor, doing another little dance and holding two legs in the air.
“A-and it’s over!” Even Venci sounds shocked, but she recovers quickly. “Star is now a true champion and king of this pit! But there are more challengers waiting! What do you think, Taj, are you ready for another round?!”
I savor the moment while the crowd’s roar builds to a fever pitch. Then I give a thumbs-up, and everyone goes mad.
The pile of coins on Weslai’s table takes my breath away.
It’s been a week. Ten fights, and Star has won them all, most in less time than it takes Venci to do the introductions. What we have here is not even the main pot, just the kickback Ky negotiated, but it’s still a shocking sum.
“I make this my share,” Weslai says, sliding a fraction of the pile across the table.
Ky looks at it, lips moving slightly as she counts, then wordlessly slides a stripe and a handful of bits back into the center.
“Ah,” Weslai says sheepishly. “I, um, forgot to carry the one.”
“Right.” Ky sweeps everything into a leather bag, the soft clinking music to my ears. “With what we got last time, this is enough for the entry fee.”
“We really made it,” I breathe. “A hundred stripes.” If you’d told me a month ago, I’d have laughed in your face.
“We’re not done yet,” she says, grinning. “There’s still a month before the Ascent starts. We’ll build up the main pot a bit more, then use it to upgrade Star.”
I nod eagerly. I already have plans for the Mark 5. I’ve picked up some tricks from our opponents, and I have an idea for increasing his total output by stringing multiple MOVE sigils along the same line—
“Or, you know, just saying, we could keep doing this until we’re all rich enough to buy palaces,” Weslai says. “Throwing that out there. Think about it.”
“Money won’t get me to Hod,” Ky says.
“Yeah, but what’s so great about Hod, really?”
“Besides.” Ky glances at me, as though worried I might be tempted. “This is a pittance compared to what we’ll get if Taj does well in the Ascent.”
She doesn’t have to convince me. I don’t just want to feed my family; I want them in a place where they’ll never have to worry about thugs or Twisted ever again.
“Yeah, but I’m not getting a cut of that, am I?” Weslai sighs. “Fine, fine. You’re the client.”
“I’m going to deposit this,” Ky says. “Taj, you’re going to make sure Star is ready for tonight?”
“He’s ready.” Frankly he’s taken so little damage in the last few fights that maintenance has become trivial. “I thought I might, um, come along with you. For protection.” I give an awkward shrug. “It’s a lot of money you’re carrying, that’s all.”
How exactly I would be able to protect Ky (without Star to back me up) is open to question. Fortunately, I get the sense she doesn’t buy my excuse; she puts her head to one side, then smiles one of those radiant smiles.
“I could use someone to watch my back, sure. Come on.”
We walk to a different part of Malkuth, one I haven’t visited before.
It looks a lot more… official, for lack of a better word, which kind of gives me the creeps.
Arbiters are everywhere, patrolling in pairs and—equally creepy—greeting the residents with smiles instead of harassing them.
The people we see are well-dressed, for Malkuth, and give a general impression of prosperity.
A wide-open square forms the heart of an orderly market, with vendors in neat rows and shops with broad windows lining the outsides.
Children run freely under the tolerant eyes of parents and Arbiters, rather than drawing curses and kicks as they do in the densely packed slums. It feels halfway to Yesod, and when I mention this Ky nods.
“One of the main stairs is just over there,” she says. “There’s plenty of visitors, so the Arbiters keep things orderly.”
She doesn’t seem at all worried by this, though she has her hair—easily her most distinguishing feature—bound up under a cap again. I have to stop myself from looking away every time an Arbiter meets my gaze. That just makes me look suspicious.
“Relax,” Ky says without turning her head. “We belong here.”
“You belong here, maybe.”
“It’s all about attitude. Here.” She steps closer, until we bump shoulders, and puts her arm through mine. “Does that help? We’re just a young couple running some errands.”
It does help, in the sense that it redirects my anxiety along entirely different lines. I haven’t gotten much opportunity to be alone with Ky since our flight from Yesod, and having her so close makes my palms sweat.
“Up there.”
She indicates a solid-looking two-story structure with the character for bank worked into its decorative facade.
A man in a dark uniform nods to us and opens the door to an interior with a dozen tiny desks, each separated from the others by tall dividers.
Ky strides up to the closest empty one and sits down, while I hover awkwardly behind her.
In a few moments a clerk takes the seat opposite, pen poised over a ledger book.
“A deposit,” Ky says brightly, and sets the sack on the table. “For Eclamia Ginnick.”