Chapter Thirty-Six Sadie
Thirty-Six
Sadie
I sat beside Nedd on the wing of the ship, which was illusioned to look like the deck of a boat. My hair was hidden beneath the kerchief I’d bought in town, with clips beneath it to keep stray strands in place. If I was going to my death in the nowhere, at least I was accessorized for it.
“Is there a way to tell which trees are scions?” I asked.
“One kind moves and the other doesn’t,” Dayan called from the other wing.
“Is that really the only difference? It’s strange that they look so alike. Do you think they’re related? Did the trees evolve into scions, or the scions into trees? Or were the scions an entirely different species that just evolved to look like the trees that they happened to be near?”
Stars, I was rambling again. At least this time I wasn’t rambling about Nedd’s trauma.
“It’s probably the last one,” Nedd said. “Turning from a tree into a scion seems like a pretty big evolutionary jump.”
“Good point,” I said. “And I suppose it’s probably a step backward to put down roots and stop moving forever.” I wondered if they reproduced by similar spores, if they’d come to this planet together.
We began to pass other boats on the river—motorized barges, small motorboats, and even the occasional barge pulled by a pruned scion like the one we’d followed up to the city the first time.
Nedd and I had to be careful to keep our legs from dangling out of the parts of the illusion where they would fall right through.
Even busy sailors would have to notice that.
A short while later, the city came into view over the trees, slowly becoming more and more visible as the trees began to thin on the approach.
I heard Dayan swear. Straight ahead, on the edge of the riverbank, was the wreckage of one of the enemy ships, partially submerged as if it had fallen into the river and then been dredged out.
“Stars,” I said. “Do you think they’ll think those are alien ships, come to attack them all the way from Elysium?”
“That’s what I would assume,” Dayan said.
At least if it landed in the river and not the city, the casualties were probably at a minimum.
Arturo’s “boat” sped up until it pulled beside us. “Let’s find someplace to hide the ships,” he said. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”
That made sense. We could dock our ships by the city, but Hoid wouldn’t be able to maintain the illusion permanently if he was coming with us to sneak into the portal.
At the next bend in the river, we pulled over to the side and waited until no boats were passing by.
Then we had Hoid put up an illusion of the riverbank behind us while we flew our ships at hangar speed into a grove of trees.
This wasn’t as remote as our previous hiding spot, but the vegetation looked undisturbed, so it should work for a few hours, at least. When the ships were safely stashed out of sight, we all climbed out to walk the path along the bank up to the city.
“You could stay with the ships,” Arturo said to Alanik as she climbed out of the Dulo. “Make sure no one discovers them.”
“You could also stay,” she said. “Or assign someone else to do it.”
Arturo sighed. “Fine. But if the pain gets too bad, or you start to feel faint, you let me know immediately. Promise me.”
Alanik nodded. “I promise,” she said.
I didn’t know if Alanik would keep that promise, but I wasn’t going to argue for leaving her behind.
The marketplace was emptier than we’d seen it before, and as we passed through, a woman flagged down Dayan, waving her arms excitedly. “Why aren’t you at the coliseum?” she asked. “Isn’t the final tournament about to start? I’ve been betting on you to ascend!”
“I’m on my way,” Dayan said. “Did you see the fallen ship outside the city wall? What happened?”
“The End Times are here,” the woman said. “Some of the gladiators will go to Elysium, and those who don’t make it will remain here to defend us when the rest of the aliens come.”
Stars, they were going to need a lot more than a few gladiators if that happened. I was glad we weren’t actually fighting a galactic war, because we didn’t have enough ships here to defend these people if it came to that.
“We’ll make sure Dayan gets there on time,” Arturo said, hurrying Dayan off in the direction of the arena.
“They must have started early,” Dayan said. “I won’t have as much time as I wanted to talk to the other gladiators. But I’ll get the word out. They all know about Zimmel’s disappearance. They’ll be ready to fight.”
I hoped so, because we were going to need them.
When we’d been to the arena before, the crowd had been impressive, but this time, the place was packed.
People stood in the aisles and along the back wall, many using the stairs as seats or standing on the ground floor with their arms dangling over the edge into the arena.
The crowds were great cover—there was no way our small group would stand out.
Nedd and I left the others to find seats as we headed toward the stairwell that led underground.
We weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. The crowd was so thick that at this rate, the battle was going to be over by the time we got there.
I kept my pack strapped to my chest and stayed close on Nedd’s heels to shelter Hoid and Bob from the elbowing crowd. Nedd had Twist in his pack on his back, where I could look out for them while Nedd pushed through the crowd.
Dayan had already joined the other gladiators, who stretched and waved to the crowds and waited for the fight to begin, their images projected on the screens above. There were seven of them so far. If this tournament battle was anything like the one we’d seen, it was likely to be over fast.
A wagon backed down the ramp and released a large scion onto the arena floor.
A gate opened on the opposite side of the ring, and two more scions with several broken branches each were prodded into the sandy fighting arena.
Those two were covered in cuts and scars, healed over by thick, burled layers of bark.
The survivors of past battles, probably, brought here for the last fight.
As we worked our way along the crowded lower aisle, I caught sight of Arturo, Alanik, and Gilaf squeezing themselves along the aisle near the ramp that led to the gate to Elysium.
They’d wait there to support Dayan after the fight was over.
Arturo watched us, a concerned look on his face.
He was probably both worried about what would happen if we didn’t reach the portal in time and what would happen if we did.
The crowd started to cheer, and I saw a flash of flags below us as the runner raced around the perimeter of the arena floor again, whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “I’m going to start kicking people.”
I didn’t actually kick anyone, but I did elbow my way past Nedd and begin to aggressively squeeze my way through the crowd, my arms wrapped protectively around the slugs in my pack.
I was doing a pretty good job of sheltering them until the announcer began to introduce the gladiators, one by one.
The first row of people all jumped to their feet, and one of them threw their arms out in excitement, shoving my arm out of the way and hitting my pack right on the pocket.
One of the slugs squeaked, and I yelped to cover it up.
The person who’d hit us—a woman with a child standing beside her on the bench, trying to climb up her side to see better—didn’t appear to notice.
I brought my pack up closer to my face, squeezing past the others and ducking through a gap between the people who stood at the edge of the arena, cheering loudly.
“Look at that!” Nedd said behind me, and I turned to see two more scions being prodded out of a wagon and into the arena.
The crowd was going wild—I doubted they’d ever seen a fight with five scions.
Eight gladiators had arrived now. Dayan stood among them, holding both a light-whip and a short sword.
As their name was announced, they raised both up over their head, posing for the crowd.
I hoped Dayan would be okay out there. It wouldn’t be easy to keep track of a battle with so many scions and so many competitors. If Dayan was killed during the fight, what then?
I wove through the last of the crowd, finding the stairwell right where Arturo said it would be. People were gathered at the top, several standing on the handrail to see better over the arena wall. I pressed myself to the opposite wall and slid past them, descending the stairs.
“All right, Hoid,” I whispered at my pack. “Give us some cover at the bottom of the stairs.”
We were relying on our verbal communication—I couldn’t communicate mind-to-mind with Hoid to give him an exact picture of what I wanted like Alanik could.
As Nedd and I slipped through the door at the bottom of the stairs, we flattened ourselves against the wall, hoping that Hoid had an illusion up in front of us.
This room was filled with empty cages—the place where the injured scions had been kept. The scion handlers had retreated into the room and were hanging up the barbed spears they’d used to drive the scions through the tunnel to our right and onto the arena floor.
None of them looked up at us, which was promising. We slid along the wall until we reached the second set of stairs, and then we descended into the bowels of the arena.
At the bottom of the stairs, we came to the locked door Arturo and Alanik had broken through.
Nedd pressed himself against the wall near the side of the door.
Now out of sight of the humans upstairs, I dared step away to make sure Nedd was covered by an illusion.
All I saw when I looked at him was a flat section of wall, so I stepped close again.
I reached for the door handle, half hoping it would be open and we wouldn’t have to shoot the lock the way Arturo had.
But I had no sooner set my fingers on the door handle than it turned and the door opened, revealing a creepy, faceless varvax in a hooded robe.
I didn’t know if it had heard us in the hall, or if they had installed some kind of alert system to let them know if anyone came down the stairs during the fight.
Regardless, the thing was less than a meter away and had a pistol protruding from its sleeve.
I drew my hand quickly under the illusion, hoping the varvax hadn’t seen, but I was too late.
The varvax stepped forward, running its hand along the wall where I’d disappeared, and grabbed onto my arm with smooth, cold fingers.
The varvax hissed something, though the translator pin I’d brought in my bag was still turned off, so I had no idea what it said.
Probably something along the lines of “Stop right there!” or “Intruders!” or “I will mop the shiny tile floors with your entrails, vile fiends!” Its pistol pivoted in my direction.
I did the only thing I could do. I aimed my own sidearm at the center of the robes where I knew the varvax would be housed in its strange suit, and fired.
The shot rang up the stairwell, and the varvax collapsed in the doorway, a sickly fluid leaking from the remains of its exoskeleton.
Nedd and I ran through the doorway, escaping down the hall before the scion handlers could come to investigate.
We pressed ourselves against the wall as two more varvax ran down the hallway past us.
Camera drones followed behind them. Probably Ivy’s eyes, searching for us from the safety of the space station.
The scion handlers came partway down the stairs and yelled in surprise when they ended up face-to-face with the robed varvax.
The handlers were speaking another language, though I didn’t know which one.
One of the varvax began to speak to the handlers through a translator pin, the stilted voice telling them to go back up the stairs.
We didn’t stop to hear how the handlers reacted.
Nedd and I hurried farther into the facility while Hoid blocked sight of us from the doorway.
We found the next staircase Arturo and Alanik had described and took it to what must be the weapons room, though it was mostly empty, probably because the weapons were all in use above us in the arena.
I could hear vibrations through the floor—the shouts of the crowd and Ivy’s booming voice, though I could only make out a few of her words.
“This way,” Nedd said, pressing his back against the doorway where the stairs led up again, toward the gate to Elysium. He held his pistol in front of him with his bio hand, peering around the doorframe. I slid against the wall beside him.
A few minutes later, two of the varvax returned, chittering in their harsh language. They passed through the weapons room and headed up the stairs to the gate.
I strained my ears, trying to make out Ivy’s commentary. We couldn’t be sure the gate was open until they called the gladiators to Elysium, but when it was, we’d make our move.