Zip wiped his nose and wiped it a second time. He ought to be running, except that he had no strength left. Except that this thing was real, and in a world where magery and power ruled, it was talking about Ilsig, and power of a sort Ranke had had a monopoly on too damned long.
Me, he thought. Me. With this thing. He was not sure what it was. God did not quite describe it, but it assuredly had ambitions to be one.
A temple Ilsigis might build. A priesthood other than those damned eunuchs and temple prostitutes the Rankans called state-approved Ilsigi gods. A priesthood with swords. And real power.
He sniffed and swallowed down the taste of blood, licked a bruised and swollen mouth. "If you're a god," he said, "tell my followers come to get me. If you're a god, you know who they are. If you're a god, you can call them here for me."
Do you really want them here, yet? We should talk strategy, man. We should make plans. You made one expensive mistake. Don't gather all your forces in one place. Cooperate •with these foreigners. With everyone. Get your information in order. Deal only with authorities or use subordinates. You have to learn to delegate.
"Prove to me-"
Oh, yes. The red slits crinkled at the comers, the mouth stretched in a wide, wide smile. Of course you'd come to that.
Chenaya screamed, in the dark, in a sudden nowhere as if the world had dropped away. She fell and fell....
... hit a bruising surface that wrapped about her and bubbled past her and folded in on her with a terrible pressure. Water drove up her nose and filled her mouth and ears, threatening to burst her eyes and eardrums. Instinctively she tried to move her limbs and swim, but the momentum was too great, until she had gone deep, deep, and the pressure mounted.
Asleep in her own bed, her brain tried to tell her.
But the cold and the crushing force increased in one long narrowing rush downward after the impact, till she slowed enough to kick and the natural buoyancy of her body began to hurl her inexorably toward the surface. Salt stung her eyes and her throat; her lungs burned for air and her stomach was trying to crawl up her windpipe as she struggled with arms gone weak and legs kicking against too much water pressure.
... not going to make it, not going to make it, consciousness was going out in red bursts and gray and her lungs were clogged, needing to expel what they had taken in, in a spasm which would suck water in after it, and finish her.
Savankala! she wailed.
But nothing hastened her rise. She stroked and kicked and stroked, and her gut spasmed; she forced the last few bubbles out her nose, trying to gain time, fought with all instinct demanding to intake air where there was no air: she would faint, was going out, and her body would breathe by that instinct-
Her hand broke surface, and she grabbed at it with that hand and the other, one last desperate effort that got her face half clear and a froth of water and air sluicing down nose and throat. She coughed and spasmed and nailed, trying to spit up water and take in a clear breath while her temples ached to bursting and her gut racked itself in internal contractions. Stroke by flailing stroke she gained on life, gulped clear air and vomited, swam and gulped and choked in the toss of waves. Her sight showed her nothing but dark, abysmal dark.
"Help!" she yelled, a raw, animal sound. And gasped a mix of air and water as the chop hit her in the face and washed over her. Her voice was small in the wind and the night sky.
She gained enough strength to cast about her then, and blinked at the lights that she saw when she turned in the water, the distant line of the wharf, the Beysib ships riding at anchor. She had not a stitch of clothing. She was chilled and bruised and half-drowned, and she had no idea in the world how she had come there, or whether she had gone mad.
She started to swim, slow, painful strokes, until she remembered that there were sharks in these waters. Then she threw all she had left into the drive across Sanctuary's very ample harbor, toward the distant lights.
NO GLAD IN GLADIATOR by Robert Lynn Asprin
Chenaya shivered, pan from her damp nakedness, part from fear, as she clutched the threadbare blanket more tightly about her. Fear? No, rather nervous anticipation.
The whole thing so far had a surreal, dreamlike quality to it. First the rude awakening, sans clothes, deep in Sanctuary's less-than-fragrant bay, and then the long swim to shore, worrying all the while about the hunger and size of aquatic predators lurking below. There had been men waiting for her on the pier, three of them, one bearing the blanket she now wore. Nervousness made her declare her identity unasked, including all her ranks and titles, yet they seemed as unimpressed and unmoved by her station as they were by her nakedness. The blanket itself was a silent statement of friendship, or at least sympathy, however, so it seemed natural to follow without protest as they hurried her through a bewildering maze of back streets and alleys to the room where she now sat waiting.
Ignoring the scattering of candles and oil lamps which cast flickering shadows about, she glanced again at the large chair which dominated the room. All signs indicated that she was finally going to meet the man she had been trying to contact since she reached town. Well, her requests had said a time and place of his choosing.
Her thoughts were cut short by the entrance of a man through a door she had not seen in the shadows. Although his features were obscured by a blue hawkmask, she had no difficulty recognizing him. Tall and lean as he was dark, she had applauded him often in the Rankan arena, and stood near him in the "tribunal" that Tempus had convened on Zip.
"Jubal," she said-more a statement than a question.
He had been studying her covertly as she waited, and admired her spirit despite himself. Naked and alone, she showed no sign of fear, only curiosity. It was clear to him that this conversation would not be an easy one to control.
Neither acknowledging nor denying his name when she uttered it, he set one of the two clay bottles he was carrying within her easy reach.
"Drink," he ordered. "It's better against the night chill than your blanket."
She started to reach for the offering, then hesitated, her eyes going to him again as he settled himself in the thronelike chair.
"Aren't you supposed to taste this in front of me? A hospitable gesture to guarantee against poison? I was told it is a local custom."
He took a long drink from his own bottle before favoring her with a mirthless smile. "I'm not that hospitable," he said. "The wine I'm drinking is of a notably better vintage than yours. I swore off that slop when I left the arena, and I don't intend to break that vow just to make you feel better. If you don't trust it, don't drink it. It makes no difference to me."
He watched her quick flash of anger with amusement. Chenaya was indeed a Rankan noble, unused to being told that her actions were a matter of indifference to anyone. Jubal half expected her to throw the wine in his face and stalk off... or at least try to. The girl proved to be of sterner stuff, though. Either that, or she wanted this meeting more than Jubal had realized.
Defiantly, she raised the bottle to her lips and took a long pull. It was the coarse red wine given to gladiators.
"Red Courage," she said, using the gladiators' nickname for the drink as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, letting the blanket slip to expose one bare shoulder. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not shocked. I've had it before... and liked it. In fact, I've developed a taste for it and drink it often with my men."