The Arena was not bronze after all, but mostly black stone and polished wood. It bulked upwards, taller than all but a few of the city’s scattered towers and minarets, topped by a shining bronze dome that gleamed with the orange rays of the sunset. Gargoyles peered from the various narrow windows, carved of stone and hammered from bronze and wrought iron. The great doors in the black stone walls were fashioned of metal as well, and there were twelve of them, each facing a different sector of the City of All Houses. The colors and the etching on each gateway were distinctive to its house.
Lyronica’s sun was a fist of red flame smearing the western horizon when Herold Norn led Haviland Tuf to the games. The housemen had just fired gas torches, metal obelisks that stood like dart teeth in a ring about the Bronze Arena, and the hulking ancient building was surrounded by flickering pillars of blue-and-orange flame. In a crowd of gamblers and gamesters, Tuf followed Herold Norn from the half-deserted streets of the Nornic slums down a path of crushed rock, passing between twelve bronze ironfangs who snarled and spit in timeless poses on either side of the street, and then through the wide Norn Gate. The doors were intricate ebony and brass. The uniformed guards, clad in the same black leather and grey fur as Herold Norn himself, recognized the Beast-Master and admitted them; others stopped to pay with coins of gold and iron.
The Arena was the greatest gaming pit of all. It was a pit, the sandy combat-floor sunk deep below ground level, with stone walls four meters high surrounding it. Then the seats began, just atop the walls, circling the arena in ascending tiers until they reached the doors. Enough seating for thirty thousand, Norn boasted, although Tuf observed that those in the back had a poor view at best, and other seats were blocked off by iron pillars. Betting stalls were scattered throughout the building.
Herold Norn took Tuf to the best seats in the arena, in the front of the Norn section, with only a stone parapet separating them from the four-meter drop to the combat sands. The seats here were not rickety wood and iron, like those in the rear, but thrones of leather, huge enough to accommodate even Tuf’s vast bulk without difficulty, and opulently comfortable. “Every seat is bound in the skin of a beast that has died nobly below,” Herold Norn told Tuf as they seated themselves.
Beneath them, a work crew of men in one-piece blue coveralls was dragging the carcass of some gaunt feathered animal toward one of the entryways. “A fighting bird of the House of Wrai Hill,” Norn explained. “The Wrai Beast-Master sent it up against a Varcour lizard-lion. Not the most felicitous choice.”
Haviland Tuf said nothing. He sat stiff and erect, dressed in a grey vinyl greatcoat that fell to his ankles, with flaring shoulder-boards and a visored green cap emblazoned with the golden theta of the Ecological Engineers. His large pale hands interlocked atop his bulging stomach while Herold Norn kept up a steady stream of conversation.
When the arena announcer spoke, the thunder of his magnified voice boomed all around them. “Fifth match,” he said. “From the House of Norn, a male ironfang, aged two years, weight 2.6 quintals, trained by Junior Beast-Master Kers Norn. New to the Bronze Arena.” Immediately below them, metal grated harshly on metal, and a nightmare creature came bounding into the pit. The ironfang was a shaggy giant, with sunken red eyes and a double row of curving teeth that dripped slaver—a wolf grown all out of proportion and crossed with a saber-toothed tiger, its legs as thick as young trees, its speed and killing grace only partially disguised by the blue-black fur that hid the play of muscles. The ironfang snarled and the arena echoed to the noise; scattered cheering began all around them.
Herold Norn smiled. “Kers is a cousin, and one of our most promising juniors. He tells me this beast will do us proud. Yesyes, I like its looks, don’t you?”
“Being new to Lyronica and your Bronze Arena, I have no standard of comparison,” Tuf said in a flat voice.
The announcer began again. “From the House of Arneth-in-the-Gilded-Wood, a strangling-ape, aged six years, weight 3.1 quintals, trained by Senior Beast-Master Danel Leigh Arneth. Three times a veteran of the Bronze Arena, three times surviving.”
Across the combat pit, another of the entryways—the one wrought in gold and crimson—slid open, and the second beast lumbered out on two squat legs and looked around. The ape was short but immensely broad, with a triangular torso and a bullet-shaped head, eyes sunk deep under a heavy ridge of bone. Its arms, double-jointed and muscular, dragged in the arena sand. From head to toe the beast was hairless, but for patches of dark red fur under its arms; its skin was a dirty white. And it smelled. Across the arena, Haviland Tuf still caught the musky odor.
“It sweats,” Norn explained. “Danel Leigh has driven it to killing frenzy before sending it forth. His beast has the edge in experience, you understand, and the strangling-ape is a savage creature. Unlike its cousin, the mountain feridian, it is naturally a carnivore and needs little training. But Kers’s ironfang is younger. The match should be of interest.” The Norn Beast-Master leaned forward while Tuf sat calm and still.
The ape turned, growling deep in its throat, and already the ironfang was streaking towards it, snarling, a blue-black blur that scattered arena sand as it ran. The strangling-ape waited for it, spreading its huge gangling arms, and Tuf had a blurred impression of the great Norn killer leaving the ground in one tremendous bound. Then the two animals were locked together, rolling over and over in a tangle of ferocity, and the arena became a symphony of screams. “The throat,” Norn was shouting. “Tear out its throat! Tear out its throat!”
The two beasts parted as suddenly as they had met. The ironfang spun away and began to move in slow circles, and Tuf saw that one of its forelegs was bent and broken. It limped on its three remaining limbs, yet still it circled. The strangling-ape gave it no opening, but turned constantly to face it. Long gashes had been opened across the ape’s broad chest, where the ironfang’s sabers had slashed, but the beast seemed little weakened. Herold Norn had begun to mutter softly.
Impatient with the lull, the watchers in the Bronze Arena began a rhythmic chant, a low wordless noise that swelled louder and louder as new voices joined the chorus. Tuf saw at once that the sound affected the animals below. They began to snarl and hiss, calling battlecries in savage voices, and the strangling-ape moved from one leg to the other, back and forth in a macabre little jig, while bloody slaver ran from the gaping jaws of the ironfang.
The killing chant rose and fell, swelling ever louder until the dome above thrummed with the noise. The beasts below went into frenzy. Suddenly the ironfang was charging again, and the ape’s long arms reached to meet it in its wild lunge. The impact of the leap threw the strangler backwards, but Tuf saw that the ironfang’s teeth had closed on air while the ape wrapped its hands around the blue-black throat. The canine thrashed wildly as they rolled in the sand. Then came a sharp, horribly loud snap, and the wolf-creature was nothing but a rag of fur, its head lolling grotesquely to one side.
The watchers ceased their moaning chant, and began to applaud and whistle. Afterwards, the gold and crimson door slid open once again and the strangling-ape returned to whence it had come. Four men in Norn black and grey came out to carry off the corpse of the ironfang.
Herold Norn was sullen. “Another loss. I will speak to Kers. His beast did not find the throat.”
“What will become of the carcass?” inquired Tuf.
“Skinned and butchered,” Herold Norn muttered. “House Arneth will use the pelt to upholster a seat in their section of the arena. The meat will be distributed to the beggars who clamor outside their gold and crimson door. The Great Houses are all of a charitable mien.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. He rose from his seat, unfolding with slow dignity. “I have seen your Bronze Arena.”
“Are you going?” Norn asked anxiously. “Surely not so soon! There are five more matches. In the next, a giant feridian fights a water-scorpion from Amar Island!”
“I wished only to determine if all that I had heard of Lyroni
ca’s far-famed Bronze Arena was so. I see that it is. Therefore there is no need for me to remain any longer. One need not consume the whole of a flask of mushroom wine to ascertain whether the vintage has a pleasant taste.”
Herold Norn got to his feet. “Well,” he said, “come with me out to Norn House, then. I can show you the kennels, the training pits. We will feast you as you have never been feasted!”
“This will not be necessary,” said Haviland Tuf. “Having seen your Bronze Arena, I will trust my imagination and powers of deduction to visualize your kennels and training pits. I shall return to the Ark forthwith.”
Norn reached out an anxious hand toward Tuf’s arm to restrain him. “Will you sell us a monster, then? You’ve seen our plight.”
Tuf sidestepped the Beast-Master’s grip with a deftness belying his size and weight. “Sir. Restrain yourself. I am not fond of being rudely seized and grasped.” When Norn’s hand had fallen, Tuf looked down into his eyes. “I have no doubt that a problem exists upon Lyronica. Perhaps a more practical man than myself would judge it none of his concern, but being at heart an altruist, I cannot find it in myself to leave you as I have found you. I will ponder your situation and address myself to devising the proper corrective measures. You may call upon me in the Ark on the third day hence. Perhaps by that time I will have a thought or two to share.”
Then, without further ado, Haviland Tuf turned and walked from the Bronze Arena, back to the spaceport of the City of All Houses, where his shuttle Basilisk sat waiting.
Herald Norn had obviously not been prepared for the Ark. He emerged from his tiny, battered, black and gray shuttle into the immensity of the landing deck and stood with his mouth open, craning his head this way and that, peering at the echoing darkness above, at the looming alien ships, at the thing that looked like a metal dragon nesting amid the distant shadows. When Haviland Tuf came rolling up to meet him, driving an open three-wheeled cart, the Beast-Master made no effort to disguise his reaction. “I should have known,” he kept repeating. “The size of this ship, the size. But of course I should have known.”
Haviland Tuf sat unmoved, cradling Dax in one arm and stroking the cat slowly. “Some might find the Ark excessively large, and perhaps even daunting in its spaciousness, but I am comfortable,” he said impassively. “The ancient EEC seedships once had two hundred crewmen, and I can only assume that they, like myself, abhorred cramped quarters.”
Herold Norn seated himself beside Tuf. “How many men do you have in your crew?” he asked casually as Tuf set them in motion.
“One, or five, depending on whether one counts feline crew members or only humanoids.”
“You are the only crewman?” Norn said.
Dax stood up in Tuf’s lap; his long black fur stirred and bristled. “The Ark’s inhabitants consist of myself, Dax, and three other cats, named Chaos, Hostility, and Suspicion. Please do not take alarm at their names, Beast-Master Norn. They are gentle and harmless creatures.”
“One man and four cats,” Herold Norn said speculatively. “A small crew for a big ship, yesyes.”
Dax hissed. Tuf, steering the cart with one large pale hand, used the other to stroke and soothe his pet. “I might also make mention of the sleepers, since you seem to have developed such an acute interest in the various living inhabitants of the Ark.”
“The sleepers?” said Herold Norn. “What are they?”
“Certain living organisms, ranging in size from the microscopic to the monstrous, fully cloned but comatose, held in a perpetual stasis in the Ark’s cloning vats. Though I have a certain fondness for animals of all sorts, in the case of these sleepers I have wisely allowed my intellect to rule my emotions and have therefore taken no steps to disturb their long dreamless slumber. Having investigated the nature of these particular species, I long ago decided that they would be decidedly less pleasant traveling companions than my cats. I must admit that at times I find the sleepers a decided nuisance. At regular intervals I must enter a bothersome secret command into the Ark’s computers so that their long sleep may continue. I have a great abiding dread that one day I shall forget to do this, for whatever reasons, and then my ship will be filled with all manner of strange plagues and slavering carnivores, requiring a time-consuming and vexing clean-up and perhaps even wreaking harm to my person or my cats.”
Herold Norn stared at Tuf’s expressionless face and regarded his large, hostile cat. “Ah,” he said. “Yesyes. Sounds dangerous, Tuf. Perhaps you ought to, ah, abort all these sleepers. Then you’d be, ah, safe.”
Dax hissed at him again.
“An interesting concept,” Tuf said. “Doubtless the vicissitudes of war were responsible for inculcating such paranoid attitudes into the men and women of the Ecological Engineering Corps that they felt obliged to program in these fearsome biological defenses. Being myself of a more trusting and honest nature, I have often contemplated doing away with the sleepers, but the truth is, I cannot find it in myself to unilaterally abolish a historic practice that has endured for over a millennium. Therefore, I allow the sleepers to sleep, and do my utmost to remember the secret countermands.”
Herold Norn scowled. “Yesyes,” he said.
Dax sat down in Tuf’s lap again, and purred.
“Have you come up with anything?” Norn asked.
“My efforts have not entirely been for naught,” said Tuf flatly, as they rolled out of the wide corridor into the Ark’s huge central shaft. Herold Norn’s mouth dropped open again. Around them on all sides, lost in dimness, was an unending panorama of vats of all sizes and shapes. In some of the medium-sized tanks, dark shapes hung in translucent bags, and stirred fitfully. “Sleepers,” Norn muttered.
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. He stared straight ahead as he drove, with Dax curled in his lap, while Norn looked wonderingly from side to side.
They departed the dim, echoing shaft at last, drove through a narrow corridor, climbed out of the cart, and entered a large white room. Four wide, padded chairs dominated the four corners of the chamber, with control panels on their thick, flaring arms; a circular plate of blue metal was built into the floor amidst them. Haviland Tuf dropped Dax into one of the chairs before seating himself in a second. Norn looked around, then took the chair diagonally opposite Tuf.
“I must inform you of several things,” Tuf began.
“Yesyes,” said Norn.
“Monsters are expensive.” Tuf said. “I will require one hundred thousand standards.”
“What! That’s an outrage! I told you, Norn is a poor house.”
“So. Perhaps then a richer House would meet the required price. The Ecological Engineering Corps has been defunct for centuries, sir. No ship of theirs remains in working order, save the Ark alone. Their science is largely forgotten. Techniques of cloning and genetic engineering such as they practiced exist now only on distant Prometheus and perhaps on Old Earth itself, yet Earth is closed and the Prometheans guard their biological secrets with jealous fervor.” Tuf looked across to Dax. “And yet Herold Norn feels my price to be excessive.”
“Fifty thousand standards,” Norn said. “We can barely meet that price.”
Haviland Tuf said nothing.
“Eighty thousand standards, then! I can go no higher. The House of Norn will be bankrupt! They will tear down our bronze ironfangs and seal the Norn Gate!”
Haviland Tuf said nothing.
“Curse you! A hundred thousand, yesyes. But only if your monster meets our requirements.”
“You will pay the full sum on delivery.”
“Impossible!”
Tuf was silent again.
Herold Norn tried to wait him out. He looked around with studied nonchalance. Tuf stared straight ahead. He ran his fingers through his hair. Tuf stared straight ahead. He squirmed around in his chair. Tuf stared straight ahead.
“Oh, very well,” Norn said in frustration.
“As to the monster itself,” said Tuf, “I have studied your requirements clo
sely, and have consulted my computers. Within the cell library of the Ark are samples of thousands upon thousands of predators from uncounted worlds, including fossilized tissue samples, locked within which can be found the genetic patterns of creatures of legend long extinct upon their original homeworlds, thus allowing me to replicate such species. Therefore, the choices are many. To simplify matters, I have taken into account several additional criteria beyond the mere ferocity of the animals under consideration. For example, I have limited myself to oxygen-breathing species, and furthermore to those who might be comfortable in a climate such as prevails upon House Norn’s windswept prairies.”
“An excellent point,” Herold Norn said. “We have, from time to time, attempted to raise lizard-lions and feridians and other beasts of the Twelve Houses, with ill success. The climate, the vegetation . . . ”He made a disgusted gesture.
“Precisely,” said Haviland Tuf. “I see you comprehend the various and sundry difficulties incumbent in my search.”
“Yesyes, but get to the point. What have you found? What is this hundred-thousand-standard monster?”
“I offer you a selection,” Tuf said. “From among some thirty species. Attend!”
He touched a glowing button on the arm of his chair, and suddenly a beast was squatting on the blue-metal plate between them. Two meters tall, with rubbery pink-grey skin and thin white hair, the creature had a low forehead and a swinish snout, plus a set of nasty curving horns and daggerlike claws on its hands.
“I will not trouble you with the formal nomenclature, since I have observed that informality is the rule of the Bronze Arena,” Haviland Tuf said. “This is the so-called stalking-swine of Heydey, native to both forests and plains. It is chiefly an eater of carrion, but has been known to relish fresh meat, and it fights viciously when attacked. Furthermore, it is reliably reported to be quite intelligent, yet impossible to domesticate. The stalking-swine is an excellent breeder. The colonists from Gulliver eventually abandoned their Heydey settlement because of this animal. That was some twelve hundred years past.”