“How far can you go?” probed Daniel.
“Anywhere I can see or anywhere I have ever been,” said the other man.
“So you could escape…” said Daniel with a sense of inspiration.
Garlin touched the necklace at his throat, “For me to be somewhere beyond the limit they have set me, would mean death.
“There is no escape, resign yourself to it, baratt. For you there is only battle and pain. Learn to enjoy it, or let one of them kill you if you cannot bear it. Those are your choices,” said Garlin, a hard note entering his voice.
Daniel fell silent, and soon they had reached the arena. As before, he was placed in a small room that occluded his magesight, to await his turn.
Without being able to sense the outside world, he was unable to judge the passage of time. Knowing that he would soon be fighting for his life ate at his nerves, and he paced the small room. He tried sitting, closing his eyes and relaxing, but his inner tension grew until it was unbearable and he was forced to his feet again. The wait was much longer than it had been the last time. He was certain that hours passed, but whether it was one hour or ten he couldn’t have guessed.
The door opened and the wardens gestured him forward. Moving with assurance, based on his previous time in the arena, he took his place without being directed. The announcer was speaking loudly to the crowd, and they cheered as he said the opponent’s name. Daniel only recognized one word, ‘Mordan’.
The crowd grew quiet when the name Tyrion Illeniel was announced. Raising his eyes to the She’Har lining the balconies, Daniel couldn’t see Lyralliantha, but his mind found her, and after that he was able to spot her standing on one of the upper platforms. She was too distant for him to see her eyes, but it felt as though their gazes met. As if in response to his attention, she turned away, putting her back to the arena.
The chime sounded, and the lights changed from blue to red. The blond haired man on the other side of the arena smiled and raised a close personal shield around himself, walking slowly forward.
Daniel saw no sign of strange animals being summoned, and his foe didn’t vanish so he guessed that those must have been special talents of other groves. He had seen a warden teleport twice now, so he had some idea what to expect, especially after Garlin’s demonstration.
If I stay in motion, it will be more difficult for him to use his ability to ambush me, thought Daniel, and even as it occurred to him the blond man disappeared. He leapt forward, fearful that his enemy was going to appear behind him.
The blond man laughed, having teleported to another position almost a hundred feet to Daniel’s right. He sent a light probing blast of pure aythar at Daniel, testing his shield before teleporting again a few seconds later. He reappeared this time fifty feet directly ahead of Daniel.
Scrambling to change direction to avoid his opponent, Daniel went to his right but then had to switch again when the man showed up in yet a new place.
“Keep running little rabbit!” shouted his opponent. “I will choose the time and place!”
This is stupid.
Stopping in his tracks, Daniel sent a flicker of aythar along his index fingers, drawing a broad circle around himself roughly seven or eight feet in diameter. As soon as it was complete he sent a surge of aythar into it creating a powerful shield around himself. His enemy sent several more probing blasts at it, but unless he was concealing his strength it was readily apparent that he wouldn’t be able to penetrate it.
Daniel lifted his arms, flattening his hands out as he crossed them over his chest in an ‘X’. He kept the vision of what he wanted in his head, and he felt the lines that traced his arms in his mind. He stopped just short of actually putting any of his strength into what he had envisioned.
The other man smiled wickedly before teleporting again, this time showing up just outside Daniel’s circle. He laughed when he saw Daniel flinch. “Your shield won’t stop me, wildling. I can kill you at any time,” he mocked.
The man began teleporting rapidly, barely stopping in any one place before moving again. He laughed while Daniel jerked and shuddered in response, expecting him to appear beside or behind him at any moment.
He’s trying to deaden my reflexes, force me to react over and over until I get used to it and relax.
Daniel closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, watching his opponent vanish and reappear once again. He’s waiting until I stop flinching, and then…
He had grown utterly still, and as the man appeared behind him his arms flared with a blaze of deadly power. Whipping his arms outward he spun, the blades of force that extended from his hands nearly touching the boundary of his shield barrier. First one and then the other cut through his opponent’s shield, continuing onward through unresisting flesh.
The Mordan mage died instantly, his body falling in three gruesome pieces to the ground before Daniel. The crowd had become silent and all eyes were on him.
Drunk on adrenaline and exultant in the rush of power that filled him Daniel raised his bladed arms to the sky. He felt alive in a way that he had only experienced twice before, when he had killed his two previous opponents. The girl had sickened him, but he remembered it anyway. The rush of being alive.
And still the crowd did not cheer.
Filled with joy and rage simultaneously, he screamed at the She’Har on the balconies, “Go fuck yourselves, you bastards! I am alive!”
He had no idea how many of them spoke the human language, but as the adrenaline receded and his body lapsed into shaking, he knew his words had been foolish.
“Learn to enjoy it, or let them kill you,” Garlin had said.
“I’ll choose the former and dare them to try,” Daniel muttered to himself. “Either way I’ll die eventually, but at least I won’t do it cringing and crying.” A calm grew in him as he made a new resolution in himself.
As he was led back to his room in Ellentrea, Garlin spoke, “We’ll have to whip you for your insolence back at the arena.” He glanced over at the other warden.
Daniel’s face hardened, “Do what you must.”
They whipped him until his resolve broke and he begged for mercy, and then they continued until he finally fell unconscious from the pain.
***
A few days later Daniel sat in his room, mad with boredom and solitude, waiting for Amarah to bring his morning meal.
The time was drawing close, and he felt ashamed to admit that it was the only thing he had to look forward to. When she entered at last, he stood immediately, greeting her with as much warmth as he could muster, “Good morning, Amarah. You look even lovelier today. Surely the sun has kissed your cheeks to endow them with such a glow.”
Her eyes flickered toward him before returning to the floor. He couldn’t see whether she was blushing through her weather-beaten skin, but her aura told him quite plainly that she was. Amarah was far from what he had once considered attractive, but he had begun to crave the subtle fragility lent to her by her innate femininity.
She placed the tray down and made for the door, but once again he blocked her way. “Do you have a boyfriend, Amarah, or a husband perhaps?” he asked.
“I don’t know this word, ‘husband’, but we are not allowed to mate, if that is what you mean by ‘boyfriend’. Such things are not permitted,” she said as if the idea shocked her.
Daniel ran his hand along her thick, slightly coarse hair. Being so close to a woman after so long alone made his pulse quicken. “Names aren’t permitted either, Amarah, but yours sings from my lips each day when you enter here.”
She glanced up at him, eyes widening slightly. “Stop, we’ll be punished.”
He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Daniel. My real name is Daniel. ‘We’ll be punished, Daniel’ is what you should say.” He took the edge of her ear lightly between his teeth, letting his warm breath out softly.
Amarah’s body shifted, leaning closer to him, and he saw her aura flicker with growing arousal, even though he had done noth
ing to manipulate it directly. Her passion was entirely her own.
Responding with fierce fervor, he pulled her tightly against him, for once grateful for their state of nudity. There was no hiding his desire, nor did he need to. Amarah growled into his chest, stretching up on her toes in order to grind herself against him.
Daniel bent his knees, lowering himself to reach her when a sudden searing pain shot through him, burning along his nerves from his neck to his spine and in both directions, destroying any erotic thought he might have had. Amarah screamed as well, releasing him and falling to the floor in agony, clawing at her throat.
The pain was brief, disappearing after a short span of seconds, but it had left him breathless with its intensity. “What the hell was that?” he said aloud.
“I told you we would be punished,” said Amarah as she quickly got back on her feet and ducked out the door.
“It sounded a lot sexier the first time you said it,” he said despairingly to the empty room.
Chapter 24
Daniel was depressed, even more deeply than before. His failure with Amarah the day before had destroyed the one thing he secretly dreamed of, the last hope he had of the pleasure of feminine company. In the weeks he had been trapped in isolation, he had never been punished by the necklace for pleasuring himself. But such things grew old rapidly. For some reason the She’Har had set things up to make certain their slaves never did anything similar with each other.
He still dreamed of Kate almost nightly, at times waking from dreams that seemed so solid they made his heart ache. Reaching out into the darkness as she faded from in front of him, he found only cold air beneath his fingers.
There was no one to see him crying in the dark.
The next day he practiced with his shields and shapes again, but after a few hours it grew boring. For what must have been the hundredth time, he wished he had his cittern. All his life he had taken its music for granted, first listening to his mother play and then learning himself. Since leaving home there had been no music.
The people of Ellentrea seemed to be completely ignorant on the subject. He had yet to hear even a hint of a melody sung or played when he was escorted in or out of the town of captives. Given Lyralliantha’s confusion and Thillmarius’ remarks, he was beginning to suspect that music simply didn’t exist among the She’Har and had been forgotten by their slaves.
If I had my cittern I would at least have some solace here in this dark space.
Glancing around his tiny room, Daniel’s eyes lit upon the flat, wooden ‘stump’ that rose next to his bed, forming the table that served as his only piece of furniture aside from the bed he slept on. His senses had long ago told him that it was composed of a solid piece of wood that had grown up with a gnarled internal pattern. It was easily large enough to form the body and neck of a cittern if one could cut and shape it properly.
Angry and frustrated he used his power to cut the uppermost foot of it neatly off, leaving a bare scarred stump. The wood was damp, still wet with living sap, but he thought that if it dried without cracking, it might be usable. Taking his prize he stashed it under his bed, wondering if the She’Har would discover the damage he had wrought upon the root that formed his tiny home.
He was already regretting his action, his back tingling at the thought of being whipped again.
What’s done is done.
In less than an hour the wardens came.
They entered his room and immediately pointed at the damaged ‘table’. “Outside,” commanded Garlin.
Cold sweat beaded on Daniel’s brow as they marched him into the open air and brought out the red whips that had dealt him so much pain in the past. “Please,” he told them, desperate, “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I won’t do it again!”
His answer came by way of the first touch of a whip on his back, and soon he was howling in agony.
Later he lay on his small bed, unable to summon the tears that he felt. Life had become nothing more than a succession of pain and boredom, punctuated by adrenaline soaked battles in the arena. He found himself looking forward to his next summons to fight. It was the only time he felt even a modicum of control over his own life.
***
A few days later he was standing in the arena again staring up at the balconies crowded with She’Har come to enjoy the fruits of their blood sport. Across from him stood a tall woman, lean and muscular, with short cropped hair. Daniel had failed to hear her name, or more importantly the name of the grove she had gotten her gifts from.
His heart was beating fiercely, filling him with strength and vitality, demanding that he fight to survive. As the light shifted from blue to red he walked forward, using his fingers to direct his aythar, sketching several large circles in the earth around him.
Her first attack came without warning, a fierce blast of force that tested the limit of the shield he had placed closely around his body. He ignored it, continuing to walk toward her. His magesight had already told him that his strength was greater than hers. If he could avoid being blindsided by some unexpected ability, he felt certain of victory.
The woman knelt, hands picking at the stony soil around her, and when she stood again he could tell she held several small rocks in the palm of one hand. Daniel thought of Kate and her prodigious throwing arm. If she thinks she can kill me with such small rocks she’s sadly mistaken.
Flicking one stone into the air, the woman sent it hurtling toward him with blistering speed, propelled by the force of her aythar. It struck his shield, hard. If his defense hadn’t held it might have caved in his chest. As it was, he staggered, caught off-guard by the powerful impact. A second stone slammed into him, and his shield shattered, sending waves of pain through his head.
Falling, Daniel hit the ground, struggling to collect his wits. Hesitation meant death. Rolling sideways he made it into one of his circles and sent a desperate pulse of power to raise a new shield with it. His head was throbbing with the effort. Another stone hammered into it almost as soon as it came up, and he felt the impact with his mind. The world swayed around him.
If she’s a Mordan, I’m dead, he thought.
The woman was sending a steady barrage of small rocks against his shielded circle but Daniel was recovering. Putting forth more of his power the shield stabilized, forming a barrier too strong for even her deadly stones to crack.
Stretching out her hand, the woman clenched it into a fist and pulled it downward, snarling, and the earth fell away beneath him, opening into a pit. Daniel dropped into it, and the soil closed over his head, encasing him in an earthen tomb.
Using a shield to push outward, Daniel fought to shove the dirt away, to reach the surface again. Claustrophobia assailed him, and his heart was filled with fear; he had only the air still in his lungs. Time was not his friend.
The earth held him tightly, reinforced by his opponent’s strength. Already underground and buried by a large amount of heavy soil, he was fighting an uphill battle, unable to muster enough strength to force his way free while she used her power to keep him down. His magesight showed her close by now, gazing down at the dirt and rock that covered him. She was smiling.
Chest burning, he gave up trying to escape and sent his power further outward, clawing at the loose soil of the ground above, whipping it into frenzied whirlwind, filling the air around his enemy with a savage flurry of sand and grit.
His assault seemed to surprise her, and her focus faltered. Shifting his power, Daniel thrust downward, against the earth beneath him, while shaping the shield around him into a spear-like form. He rocketed skyward, shooting up from the ground like some fearsome revenant come back from the grave.
She recovered quickly however, sending more rocks to slam into his shield as his whirlwind died away. Daniel put all his strength into the shield around him to keep her stony assault from breaking it. He couldn’t afford to be stunned again.
The woman advanced as he retreated backward. Sparing a small bit of power, he drew anoth
er circle on the ground, but rather than stand in it he continued his withdrawal. Seconds later she stepped across it, never taking her eyes off her fleeing opponent.
Daniel changed tactics instantly, sending a surge of aythar into the circle, trapping his foe within a powerful shield. Suddenly panicked, she struck out with her aythar, attempting to break free, but her strength was nowhere near great enough. Daniel was charging toward her, blades of energy enshrouding his arms.
The earth vanished beneath him once more but he was ready for it, creating a plane of force beneath him as he ran to prevent a fall. Reaching the circle, he scythed his arms forward, releasing the shield the instant before they touched it.
Jerking backward to avoid the deadly attack, the woman almost escaped, but the blade of his right arm caught her with its final two inches, slicing through her shield and cutting a deep gash in her left arm and breast. A second step forward and his left arm-blade removed the upper half of her skull. Her body twitched and then went limp, sagging back and sideways to strike the uncaring ground.
Daniel spat, clearing the grit from his mouth before lifting his arms to the sky. Mad with adrenaline and vitality, he screamed at the sky.
And then the audience began to cheer.
It began slowly, hesitantly, as if the onlookers were embarrassed to show their support, but it grew steadily until the sound reached a respectable level. Nothing quite like what they had shown for Carwyn, but their cries lifted Daniel’s heart even further.
Leaving the field, Daniel was immediately flanked by two wardens, Garlin and one other whom he didn’t recognize.
“Nicely done,” said Garlin, congratulating him.
Daniel was immediately struck by the sentiment, it was the first time anyone had said anything positive to him since he had been taken.
“He barely survived,” said the other man. “He won’t last another match.”
Angry, Daniel spoke without thinking, “It’s a shame you’re a warden. If we met in the arena, I’d teach you a lesson in manners.”