William Forstchen - Arena

Hammen spit on the ground.

"The old days are dead, hanin. If you came here thinking different, I think I'll simply leave you right now. I've taken a bit of a liking to you and would hate to see you dead before the day is out. Only a fool would believe that fighters care about the rest of us."

"So why should the people care?"

"That's what I mean," Hammen replied. "You don't understand the human soul. They know the truth, but they'll still cheer their hero on and by doing so feel that somehow they're part of his glory and power. Once Festival starts they're transported to heaven for three days. They can forget the squalor, the sickness, the short brutal lives that consume them. They're out there in the arena, listening to the chanting roar, dueling for power, for prestige, for their lives and for the approval of the Walker, who takes the final winner with him so that he can serve in other worlds. For three days out of the entire year the mob can live the dream."

Garth looked over quizzically at Hammen, whose voice had grown soft, his tone serious, and surprisingly the touch of an accent of high breeding creeping into his words.

"You speak like you've been out there," Garth said, fixing Hammen with his gaze.

Hammen looked back at him and, for a brief instant, Garth felt as if someone other than a raggedy pickpocket and gutter dweller walked beside him. He sensed a distant power as if the man could control the mana, the foundations of power for all fighters, which was derived from the lands and all creatures who lived upon them. Hammen slowed in his walk and Garth sensed an infinite sadness and then like a frost melting away in the light of dawn Hammen became the raggedy man again, cackling, hawking, and spitting on the ground, pointing out the sights of the city to an outsider.

They continued up the street, which was now starting to fill. Garth pulled out the two pomegranates tucked into his tunic and tossed one over to Hammen. Garth bit into the fruit and ate it slowly as they strolled along. They passed by the street of steel and Garth stopped for a moment to watch as the merchants hung out their cheap blades in front of the store. Stopping in front of one, he looked into the gloomy interior and saw the finest weapons hanging inside, the merchant's guards sitting in the shadows. Scimitars, broadswords, and light rapiers caught and reflected the pulsing glow of the forges working deeper within the shop, the smiths hammering out their creations in showers of sparks.

"Good blades in the back, blades with long histories and names for connoisseurs of refined weapons capable even of piercing through fields of spells to draw a fighter's blood," Hammen whispered as if filled with distant longing.

Next came the street of brass workers, and then the silversmiths and workers of gold, each stall guarded by armed men and even an occasional spell caster of the first-rank, who could conjure a single creature of the beyond to kill thieves. Garth looked at the first-rank men and shook his head. Most of them were old men, who had never gone beyond the first-rank since they lacked the skills and the innately given power to harness the mana, to manage and control anything beyond the simplest of powers. In a real duel with another fighter they would lose their single spell in seconds and most likely their lives, thus they were doomed to the back alleys, the guarding of miser hordes and fat merchants. Most of them, he sensed, were scared within their hearts that someday they might actually be challenged by something beyond a peasant with a dirk, and even that peasant was a source of fear.

After passing the streets of metal they came closer to the heart of the city and Hammen looked around warily, watching closely as a squad of the Grand Master's fighters marched by on patrol, their multihued jackets, capes, and trousers shimmering in the morning light. Not one of them looked toward Garth and his companion chuckled.

"Overdressed popinjays. Out looking for you, most likely, and too stupid to sense such things."

Garth noticed that the color of the pennants lining the street had started to change. For several blocks there was a mix of browns, grays, and even an occasional orange or purple.

"We're getting near the center of the city, where the five quarters of the city converge. Directly ahead in the center of the Plaza is the palace of the Grand Master and the barracks of his fighters and warriors. The Houses of the four colors flank the main Plaza."

Garth looked up the street into the main Plaza, which was nearly three hundred fathoms across, and finally saw the towering five-sided pyramid, which was the Grand Master's home. The building stood at least thirty fathoms to a side and soared nearly as high and was sheathed in polished limestone that glowed like fire from the reflected sun. The main palace, in turn, was flanked on all five sides by the dark, squat barracks of his warrior guards and fighters. The entire complex, in turn, was surrounded by fountains, which danced and splashed in the morning light, the columns of water soaring nearly as high as the great palace, the water in the fountains dyed every color of the rainbow.

As Garth reached the edge of the Great Plaza he slowed. On four sides of the Plaza four more palaces were now plainly in view. Each was different; each flew a color of the four great Houses. Fentesk, on the far side of the Plaza, was a heavy, squat structure with massive pillars lining its front, with four great banners of solid orange fluttering at the four corners of what Garth decided was positively an ugly building.

Next to it was the House of Ingkara, this one similar to the Orange House except the tedium of pillars was at least relieved by a great arched entryway from which a purple banner hung. To the other side of Fentesk was the House of Bolk, this one looking like a fortress, with crenellated towers and battlements, and finally, next to the Brown House, was that of Kestha, its front decorated with massive squat statues representing fighters, with their hands raised upward as if about to cast spells across the pavilion against the other buildings.

"Whoever designed the palaces should have been drowned at birth for the benefit of all mankind," Hammen sniffed.

"They're Houses of fighters, not palaces for potentates," Garth replied. "The old Houses were different but things have changed of late and these new ones went up."

"Still, there is such a thing as taste."

Garth started walking toward the House of Kestha, Hammen hurrying to keep pace with him.

"You know, this is really rather foolish of you," Hammen sniffed. "You're a wanted man around this city."

"So much the better."

As they walked toward the House of Kestha Garth slowed, turned, and looked toward the fifth side of the Plaza. The Plaza was lined with squat shops, eateries, and several small palaces of what were most likely well-heeled merchants.

Garth turned and walked toward the buildings and then came to a stop at the edge of the Plaza and looked around.

"This is where the fifth House used to be," Hammen said quietly.

Garth turned and looked back at Hammen.

"The fifth House?"

"Turquoise. Twenty years ago there were five Houses."

"I know that."

"Then you know that the other Houses, led by the old Grand Master and his assistant, Zarel, massacred the House of Oor-tael on the evening of the last day of Festival. They fell upon them in the night, burned the House, and murdered nearly all the fighters."

"Nearly all you say."

"Some supposedly escaped," Hammen replied.

The raggedy man paused and looked up at Garth.

"You were most likely too young then even to care," Hammen snapped, an edge of anger to his voice.

Garth said nothing, looking at the corner of the Plaza, which looked so out of place with the grandeur of the other four sides.