Win

  “Ignore the stupidity, Gwen,” Aeson says calmly. “And get ready for even more in the coming days.”

  I bite my lip.

  That’s when a servant comes in to announce the arrival of Anu Vei and Tiago Guu.

  Little do I know, but things are about to get ridiculous indeed.

  Chapter 20

  Tiago Guu is the biggest Atlantean I have seen to date. And I don’t mean tall, but wide and round, with a prominent belly and many chins. In fact, he resembles a Laughing Buddha figurine from Earth, except he is life-size, and he is not so much laughing as he is full of himself with a clever satiated cat expression. His wiry metallic-gold hair is cropped so close to his scalp that he could be bald, which only increases the Buddha likeness.

  Tiago wears a roomy deep plum colored jacket over wide pants. A heavy Egyptian-style jeweled collar circles his beefy neck, and his head seems to disappear in the folds of skin. His eyes are dark brown and heavily outlined in kohl, and he wears rich henna lip gloss that stands out against his equally dark brown skin. He enters the room ahead of Anu, and moves with surprising agility and energy for all his bulk, which makes me wonder how old he really is. Anu trails him, wearing an annoyed expression on his pasty face.

  Seeing Aeson and me, Anu bows in his usual brusque manner. Meanwhile Tiago makes a very courtly bow to the Imperial Crown Prince, and his round face breaks out into a smile full of gleaming white teeth.

  “Ah, My Imperial Lord, what a pleasure!” the Atlantean Buddha exclaims in a resonant baritone. And then he sees me and his dark-lapis-tinted eyebrows move up, while he exclaims again, in passable English, directed at me, “Ah, and there she is, My Imperial Lady! I am at your service! I got here as soon as I heard I’m needed by My Imperial Lord Kassiopei and his exquisite Bride! If I might be allowed to say, I’d like to personally welcome you to Atlantida! What an achievement it is to make such a long and difficult journey from our venerable ancient motherworld, the distant blessed Earth—”

  “Thank you . . .” I say, feeling a little awkward at his praise.

  “Yes, thank you, Tiago, come have a seat,” Aeson says with a serious expression, ignoring the sugary words. “Glad you could take time from your busy schedule, especially now.” And he nods at the levitating TV panel where a rival Pre-Games analysis broadcast is being shown on the larger screen, a show called Winning the Grail.

  Anu pulls up a big chair for Tiago, and a smaller one for himself, and Tiago settles in next to us, to watch the screens.

  “What? You’re watching that particular useless trash?” Tiago Guu reacts at once, raising a meaty hand with jewel-ringed fingers and surprisingly well-manicured nails, to wave disdainfully at the screen we have zoomed in the center. On it, we see an interview nook at one of the arenas, with bursts of crowd roar sounding in the background. A thin wiry man in a tall golden wig to rival Consul Denu is speaking in an energetic tenor with a beautiful teen girl athlete seated across from him.

  “Why waste time on that imbecile Buhaat Hippeis and his sub-par show?” Tiago speaks with passion. “Winning the Grail is sanitized nonsense, designed for old Court ladies and rich bureaucrats who are ready to make final bets. Buhaat Hippeis feeds them the final recommendations on his Category favorites, completely biased, naturally. You should be watching what the everyday working population does, raw talent recruiting footage!”

  Anu clears his throat. “You have to admit, Buhaat Hippeis does solid general analysis that will help My Imperial Lady Gwen to understand what is going on—”

  “With all apologies, I have to admit nothing of the sort!” Tiago gives a withering look to Anu, then casts a brief apologetic glance at Aeson and me. “I am here to provide advanced information, not to be interrupted by—by—”

  “Please go on,” I say to him. “I am very grateful for your advice, Mr. Guu. As you know, I am going to be entering these Games, as ordered by the Imperator, and I need your help.”

  Just for a moment the round face seems to grow solemn and still, observing me with pity. And then it lights up with a new special smile just for me. “Yes, yes, of course, you are. And ah, please, please, My Imperial Lady, simply Tiago—it is my name, and one by which I’m best known to the millions of viewers in Atlantida.”

  “Oh, sorry . . .” I hurry to amend. “I didn’t know what to call you.”

  Aeson gives me an amused glance.

  “No problem at all! Now, allow me to show you the Pre-Games Trials as they should be shown!” Tiago says. And then he calls up a different screen, this one showing a track with runners moving across a complicated obstacle course riddled with hurdles including fence walls, deep water-filled ditches, and burning fire pits.

  “Oh, ugh,” I mutter. “This is—horrible.”

  “Deep breath, My Imperial Lady,” Tiago tells me. “I want you to look at this race and see what the most difficult parts are—and do not be fooled, please. They are not the obstacles, but the people, the competition. Because in the Games of the Atlantis Grail there is only one thing that can defeat you, and that is the others—or better to say, their motives.”

  I watch Tiago’s many chins wobbling as he speaks, and wonder momentarily, how the heck does he know? What makes this huge round guy such an expert?

  And then I find out.

  “You might be surprised, My Imperial Lady,” Tiago Guu says, “but many years ago, I entered the Games of the Atlantis Grail myself. Believe it or not, I was almost as flabby as I am now. I had no particular talent. I could hardly run, and my strength and cunning were mediocre. However, I entered and I won.”

  I listen to him intently, definitely re-evaluating my opinion of this man.

  “How did I win?” Tiago continues. “I won, because I had a very powerful motive to keep me going—I was going to become a Citizen in order to buy a village. It was the village of my father’s birth, and there were just a few families living there, most of them my relatives. After many years of neglect and sea erosion, it was about to be flooded because those poor people could not come up with the funds to build a sea wall. The land was owned by a distant indifferent landowner who had no interest in improving things and wanted only to get rid of this unappealing property that had no buyers. My relatives—my grandmother, my sister, my dozens of skinny young cousins who could run very fast but could not think at the same speed—they were going to lose everything, and they were counting on me, because I was the only one who had been to the big city Poseidon and knew enough about things to improve their life.”

  “I thought that a non-Citizen could own land?” I ask.

  Tiago nods. “Very true, My Imperial Lady, yes. But in order to buy this particular ancient village, with its flooding coastline and pitiful neglected shacks, you had to be one of the noble Families, or a Citizen, because of its very special location. You see, the owner couldn’t sell it just to anyone, because the village was a part of the Agnios Coast, the most ancient and sacred land of the Upper Atlantida continent. The entire coastline was the home of the venerable fire-trees native to our planet.”

  “Oh!” I say, “I remember learning about the fire-tree, or Agnios, in our Culture classes. The ancient Agnios tree produced resin that hardened into these things called Pegasus Tears and something else—”

  “Pegasus Blood, My Imperial Lady, yes.” Tiago nods, politely appreciating my show of mediocre knowledge. “Pegasus Tears is the name we use for the modern newly hardened resin which is still clear or pale in color, while Pegasus Blood is the ancient fossilized resin which has turned deep red, purple, blue, or other dark colors with time. It is extremely rare, very valuable, and still occasionally found washed up on the Agnios Coast together with the more modern stuff that is plentiful in contrast, and has almost no value.”

  “I see.”

  Aeson watches my engrossed expression as I digest this, then says to Tiago, “I regret to interrupt, since you tell a fine tale. But, back to the original story, Tiago, we’re unfortunately short on time—”

/>   “Oh, yes, My Imperial Lord, my sincere apologies for the aside!” Tiago replies in haste. “As I was saying, the village was on this preserved coastline, and was unavailable for the ordinary buyer, but there was no income to be made from it, no precious Pegasus Blood to collect and sell—unlike the early days when we first colonized this planet and stripped it of the easy treasures. The worthless land was for sale, but none of the noble families or Citizens cared enough to buy it, not even for sentimental reasons or boasting rights. So I won the Games of the Atlantis Grail in the Entrepreneur Category, and became a Citizen, and was allowed to purchase a piece of the Agnios Coast, and my people got their seawall and a whole lot more. And my point in telling you all this, My Imperial Lady, is that my motive for entering the Games gave me the strength and inner resources, and the drive to not only qualify in the Pre-Games Trials, but to compete, win, and survive.”

  Tiago pauses, looking at me.

  “I think I understand,” I say, after a pause. “You want me to pay attention to my competition on a personal level, and to learn their true motives for being in the Games—their reasons why.”

  “Precisely.” The dark Atlantean Buddha smiles at me benevolently. “You will need to learn why they are risking their lives in the Games in order to understand their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses, their goals. Because once you do, you will be able to anticipate their actions, and to have the final advantage. However—you will also need to become aware of your own true motive, because it will show you in what way you will be vulnerable to others. And yes, it will be the main reason why you will stay alive long enough to win.”

  About an hour later, after giving me more clever advice, and making insightful commentary on the various aspects of the Games, Tiago Guu leaves.

  “I will return another day to continue our discussion,” he says with a bow, before heading out. “If I may ask, My Imperial Lady, would you be willing to come on my show for an interview at some point? It would be valuable to ‘show you off’ to the audience—not to mention, the perfect opportunity to announce your Category.”

  “Hmmm. I—” I hesitate, then glance at Aeson. “I don’t know. Does it really matter?”

  But apparently Aeson agrees with Tiago. “Yes, she will,” he says at once. And when I raise my brows in alarm, he turns to me. “Gwen, it’s a good thing to have the public know who you are.”

  “Well, the public already thinks that as an Earth refugee, my special power is sleeping. Is there a Category for that?” I wince slightly. “Ugh, hate interviews . . . but, okay, if you say so.”

  I can see when I’m overruled.

  After Tiago is gone, Aeson turns to Anu, who’s been sitting quietly all this time, keeping his mouth shut with some difficulty.

  “So, what have you to say, Anu?”

  Anu shrugs, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, okay, that fat kadaga-fish knows his Games stuff. But he doesn’t know everything.”

  Aeson frowns slightly. “No one knows everything. That’s why we’re talking to as many experts as we can.”

  “Well, how come Tiago didn’t help Earth girl—I mean, My Imperial Lady Gwen—pick out a Category now? She’s going to have to make a tough decision, choose a lesser evil,” Anu says grimly. “What’s she going to be, a Warrior? Hah! Of course not. It has to be an easy one, with lightweight competition.”

  “Wait,” I say. “I thought it was obvious. Aren’t I going to go in as a Voc—”

  “Gwen,” Aeson interrupts me unexpectedly, and his quick glance is meaningful. “It’s best that we consider your Category choice carefully, and besides, you have many days to decide.”

  Okay, am I mistaken, or does Aeson still not want me to talk about my voice to other people?

  So I bite my lip and say nothing more about it in front of Anu.

  Anu heads out soon, and Aeson and I spend the rest of the afternoon and then evening talking restlessly about more training for me, and what’s to come.

  “Tomorrow, you’ll start the day with more weight training,” my Bridegroom tells me in his serious businesslike tone over our late-night niktos meal. “Then, the astra daimon arrive, and we do various weapons, followed by more sparring.”

  “All right,” I say with sad resignation, gazing into his beautiful eyes across the short cozy table, while the star-filled night outside fills the grand windows. “But tell me, why didn’t you want me to say anything to Anu about being in the Vocalist Category? I thought that with my voice that would be the apparent and obvious choice?”

  Aeson sets down his eating utensil and exhales. “I need to explain to you a few things, and sorry I didn’t have a chance to do it earlier. . . . The Vocalist Category is not what you think it is. It is a catch-all, designed for people without any notable skills in any other Category. The reason is, voice in general is a commonplace and quite average skill in Atlantean society, but not the kind of Logos voice you have. ‘Vocalists’ are people who are generally proficient in controlling orichalcum-based technology—which most people are, from infancy—and the closest Earth equivalent would be having a high school degree.”

  “Wow, okay, I see now.” I think about it, and then remember an incidental fact that has a depressing effect on me—because of Qualification and all the rest of it, technically I never finished high school. . . . I don’t even have a high school diploma, and never will. . . .

  Aeson continues watching me intently. “Gwen, you are not to reveal the true extent of your abilities for as long as possible. Let them think that you chose Vocalist because you are generally incompetent and have no special abilities or talents. Let them underestimate you.”

  I let myself smile a little. “Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem, considering how little they already think of me.”

  Aeson appears much relieved. “Good,” he says gently. “We will withhold your Category choice up to the very end, right before the Games begin, after you pretend to consider all other options.”

  “Aha,” I say with a snort. “It looks like I’ll be playing the fool.”

  So be it, I think, if that’s what it takes for me to live.

  When Aeson said the astra daimon were coming over, he wasn’t joking. In the morning, I am awakened at an ungodly hour from a dreamless slumber with a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Gwen,” he says through the door, as I groan with interrupted sleep. “I’m sorry, but time to get up! Your weapons trainers are already here. Astra daimon training requires an early schedule.”

  “Huh?” I say, putting a pillow over my head. “No-o-o-o . . . tell them . . . tell the demons . . . just to hell with them. . . . Demons come from hell, so yeah. . . . Go away. . . .”

  I hear soft laughter on the other side of the door.

  “Gwen!” he says, this time loudly, but still chuckling. “Wake up! Get up, now.”

  “You are evil, I hate you . . .” I mumble as I stir in bed. And then it occurs to me that I’m being a lazy proverbial sleepy Earth refugee, and that in turn is very humorous. Which then makes me laugh and wakes me up.

  “Sorry! Didn’t mean it, love you!” I yell out to Aeson through the door, feeling myself blushing horribly as I rush about the room getting ready.

  “Prove it,” he says—just as I am about to hit the shower.

  “Huh?” I pause, sticking my head out of the enclosure, as I stand there naked. I actively consider what to do, and what could he possibly mean. . . .

  Just then I hear more of his laughter coming from outside the room.

  Oh, but he is wicked!

  Chapter 21

  I finally get out of my bedroom and follow Aeson to the dojo and gym hall where the sky outside the windows is still pale grey with dawn, and our early morning visitors are waiting for me. This morning Aeson wears a similar outfit to the day before, a sleeveless shirt and sparring pants combo, and I notice he looks more tired than usual.

  “Did you sleep okay?” I say with instant concern.

  “Yes, don’t worry about me,” he re
sponds in a calm voice.

  But I frown and worry indeed. Is Aeson not sleeping well? And does it have to do with me? Suddenly I feel terribly guilty for causing him all this disastrous trouble. . . .

  But there is no time to think along those lines, because when we get to the gym, there are four familiar people there—Oalla Keigeri, Keruvat Ruo, Erita Qwas, and Xelio Vekahat.

  The moment Aeson and I step inside the room, the four Pilots and astra daimon stop their exercise warm-ups and straighten into perfect Fleet postures of respect. And then they follow up with sharp courtly bows.

  “Nefero eos, My Imperial Lord and My Imperial Lady,” they say formally, almost in unison.

  “Nefero eos,” Aeson responds, looking at them with a blank expression and aloof bearing of the Imperial Crown Prince. There’s a tense pause during which I watch everyone in curiosity, and feel a little uncomfortable.

  But then Aeson snorts and gives them a surprisingly easy smile. “That’s enough of that, im sen-i-senet, astra daimon! Let’s do it!”

  And just like that, they immediately loosen up, and there are chuckles of laughter.

  “Good, because you know your face can get stuck like that, Kass,” Oalla says, heading for the equipment area near one of the walls. “Especially this early in the morning. Now, move your Imperial rear end over here and help me—wait, never mind, I got it.”

  “So, my brother,” Keruvat says in his deep rumbling voice, as he walks toward us. “Ready for a workout?”

  Aeson glances from Keruvat to me with amusement. “We definitely are. Im nefira here is awake and ready to show all of you what she can do.”