William Forstchen - Arena

The raggedy man watched the exchange with open amusement, nodding his head with approval.

“You’ll do, you’ll do just fine,” the old man laughed. “Now please let my brother go.”

Garth looked into his assailant’s eyes, seeing the fear, smelling his fetid breath. He flicked his dagger, making a small cut under the man’s chin, then released him, the old man howling with pain, while the others in the room roared with delight.

“You’ll do just fine,” the raggedy man said, motioning for Garth to come over and sit by the fire.

“No more tricks now, I swear it by the honor of my brotherhood.”

The other old men in the room laughed and Garth looked around at them. Most of them looked like scarecrows, several were missing fingers, a few their right hands; one of them sitting by the fire was missing both.

“Pickpockets and cutpurses?” Garth asked. “I’m to take the word of the brotherhood of pickpockets?”

The raggedy man laughed.

“Believe me, No House, it’s as good as the word of any of the fighting Houses.”

There was a murmured chorus of agreement, as if Garth had just offered the most grievous of insults for doubting his host.

The old man motioned Garth to sit down and a moment later a fine goblet was placed before him, the raggedy man lifting a heavy jug from under the table and filling his guest’s goblet with wine and then filling his own. Garth took the drink and tasted it.

“Borleian,” Garth said, obviously surprised.

“Ah, you know your grapes.”

“How did you get such a good vintage?”

“How does a No House, a hanin, know such a vintage?”

“I’ve been around a bit.”

The raggedy man put his own goblet down and looked appraisingly at Garth.

“How old are you?”

Garth smiled and said nothing.

“Hard to tell with one who can control the mana; you could be twenty-five as you look, or you could be near to a hundred. I’m willing to bet twenty-five.”

“Am I supposed to answer you?”

The raggedy man shook his head.

“As a hanin you know it’s suicide to be in this city during Festival. You have no colors and the Grand Master forbids any mana user without colors to be in his city on pain of death.”

“The Grand Master,” Garth said softly and the raggedy man could sense a sudden hardness. “First the bastard will have to find me.”

“He has his ways,” the raggedy man replied, and he looked around at this friends, who nodded their agreement, the one without hands holding his arms up and cackling, his voice twisted with insanity.

As Garth sipped the wine, the raggedy man regaled his comrades with a description of the fight and Garth’s victory. At the end of his tale he reached into his tunic and pulled out half a dozen purses and tossed them on the table.

“You seem to have made a profit from the spectators as well while you played the circle master,” Garth observed quietly.

“Merely a business proposition.”

“Festival must be a good time for business propositions.”

The room was filled with laughter.

“We’re too well known to most folk of this city,” the raggedy man said. “Now for all those fools coming into the city, we’re more than happy to relieve them of some excess baggage. Call it a poor tax if you will. There’s enough to be made in the next seven days to feed us through the winter.”

The raggedy man refilled his cup and then Garth’s.

“So are you here for Festival?”

Garth said nothing, his attention focused on the cup, as if studying the intricate gold inlay.

The raggedy man leaned down low and looked up into Garth’s face.

“How’d you lose the eye?”

“A childhood prank that got serious,” Garth said quietly.

The raggedy man nodded slowly, peering up into his face.

“Looks like it got cut out, from the scar on your cheek.”

“Something like that.”

The raggedy man sat down, silently looking at Garth.

Garth leaned back, drained the rest of his cup, and set it back down. The raggedy man quickly refilled it.

“You know, we could put a patch on the other eye, a loose weave you could see through, and take the patch off the bad one. You’d make a hell of a pickpocket.”

The raggedy man chuckled at his joke and watched Garth closely.

Garth snorted disdainfully and took another sip of his drink.

“But you’re a fighter, not a pickpocket. The way you killed Okmark of Fentesk, a masterful reversal, a rare spell, only a true adept controls such power. He had fourteen wins in the arena and was at least a third-rank. How did a No House like you obtain such a spell?” And as he spoke the raggedy man looked down at Garth’s spell satchel with open curiosity as if he was struggling with the temptation to tear it away and look inside.

Garth looked up from his drink and fixed the raggedy man with his gaze.

The raggedy man extended his hands in mock horror and recoiled backward.

“Never ask a fighter where his victories and powers are won,” the raggedy man said. “I know, I know the customs.”

One of the old men came over to the table and dropped a silver plate down in front of Garth while another brought over a roasted duck from the fire. Garth cut away a leg and munched on it meditatively.

“You’re hungry, that’s obvious,” the raggedy man chortled, watching as Garth sliced meat away from the bird and hurriedly popped the hot slices into his mouth, washing them down with another goblet of wine.

“Are you master of this brotherhood?” Garth asked between bites.

The raggedy man laughed and extended his arms wide as if beckoning Garth to view his domain.

“My brothers here and others hiding in other hovels. The loyal order of pickpockets, with a lineage as august as any of the fighting Houses and just as ancient. And, might I add, with far more honesty.”

“How’s that?”

“The fighting Houses, Fentesk, Kestha, Bolk, and Ingkara, they claim to be the upholders of honor. They are nothing but harlots.” The others in the room grunted their agreement. “Since the night Zarel became Grand Master of all the colors they think of but one thing, the profits to be won by their powers, the mana to be drawn from the lands to support their spells, and the common people pay the price. At least we are honest about it all; we steal and we admit we steal; thus we are honorable men in comparison. At least we do not hide behind the mouthing of platitudes that have lost all meaning.”

The others in the room fell into a solid round of cursing, the insane man without hands cackling out an obscene song about the Grand Master while hugging a goblet that had been fashioned so that he could pick it up with the stumps of his arms.

Garth ate the rest of his meal in silence, listening to the old men pour out their hatred and anger. Finishing the duck, he meditatively picked his teeth with a bit of bone, slid his stool back, and stood up.

“Thank you the for the meal, old man. I think it’s time I moved along.”

“You have a place here for the night.”

“Why?”

“I find you amusing and a bit of a mystery.”

“How so?”

“Amusing that you so easily set up Okmark for the kill and fleeced his gambling manager. At first I thought you were the yokel from the countryside, some boy puffed up with a couple of spells in his satchel thinking to prove something and usually losing his life before Festival has ended.”

“It’s been a long time since I was called a boy,” Garth said coldly.

“Son, to me you’re still a boy. Killing Okmark might have given you his powers, but you now have nearly a hundred sworn enemies of his House looking for you. Beyond that, the Grand Master must have word by now that a one-eyed hanin did the killing. Every warrior and fighter in his command will be looking for you.”