The Guardsmen who took charge of Blade obviously resented that little victory over their comrades. For a moment they looked at him so fiercely he was afraid they were going to take out their resentment on him. Before they could move two officers appeared at the top of the stairs and called them off.
One of the officers was Cha-Chern. He looked Blade up and down with what could only be called a leer on his face as they climbed the stairs. «The Protector may indeed find you interesting, barbarian. You would not be to my taste, but our master's tastes are not mine.»
Blade was happy he didn't have to reply to Cha-Chern's remarks. Then they reached the top of the stairs, the bronze doors of the palace swung open, and for a moment he couldn't have replied even if he'd wanted to. The spectacle of the palace was too staggering.
Beyond the door was a room five stories high, with a balcony across the rear, stairs curving up to each end of the balcony, and a quadruple archway under the balcony. Everything was on a colossal scale, dwarfing human beings to the size of ants.
It wasn't just a matter of sheer size, either. As Blade studied the room, he couldn't find a single square inch of wall or floor that wasn't decorated. The floor was inlaid with marble and other polished stones, separated by silvered metal bands. The columns of the arches were carved from something like blue jade into the forms of Horned Ones, birds, and snakes. Each step of the stairs was made of a different kind of stone, except for a few made of carved and polished wood. The railings of the stairs and the balcony were complicated metal lattice-work, all enameled or gilded. Everywhere Blade saw Blood of Hapanu, some faceted stones the size of a man's fist, others as fine as dust.
The walls were covered to twice the height of a man with paintings and mosaics. Some were landscapes or river or forest, others were abstract, but most were the most explicit erotic scenes Blade had ever seen. Absolutely nothing was left to the imagination. Every possible act that men, women, and animals could do with or to one another was set down in loving detail.
Along the walls stood more of the Protector's Pets, the leather of the officers brilliantly dyed and tooled and the armor of the men silvered. There were also a few servants scuttling back and forth, as nervous as mice passing under the noses of cats. None of the servants wore anything except makeup and heavy perfume. More perfumes floated out into the chamber, so overpowering that Blade was fighting not to cough.
The only thing in the whole chamber that wasn't part of the display was the ceiling. That was plain stone, painted or whitewashed to a pale ivory color. Blade found it a relief to look upward and rest his eyes and brain with the ceiling. Then his escorts prodded him toward the stairs. He went up them, his escort falling back as he approached the top. In a chair of plain white wood in the middle of the balcony sat the Protector of Gerhaa.
Blade stopped as the Protector's eyes met his, then examined the man. The ruler of Gerhaa looked hardly more than a boy, except for his eyes. They were large, dark, luminous, and full of hints of more knowledge than any three sane men ought to have. Otherwise the Protector was short and not particularly handsome, although well-muscled. He wore only knee length breeches embroidered with gold and a belt with a curved sword, and his skin shone with scented oil. He'd shaved the top of his skull and let the hair on the sides of his head grow down into long trailing sideburns, stiff with grease and heavily scented.
Across his lap rested a truly awe-inspiring badge of office — a staff four feet long, with a gold shaft and silver tips. The gold and silver were both almost hidden, though, under masses of Blood of Hapanu, forming swirling patterns up and down the shaft. At each end the silver flared into a mounting for a stone nearly the size of a hen's egg.
The Protector rose gracefully, putting his staff aside. Liquid fire seemed to flow up and down it as the light danced along the stones. The man beckoned to Blade. «Come to me, my fine barbarian friend.» Blade took one stiff step forward and stopped. The Protector laughed. «I said-come. To those I call friend, I give pleasure, not pain. May I hope to call you friend?»
The voice was low, smooth, and polite. To someone who wasn't looking at the Protector, it would have sounded like the voice of a civilized man making a reasonable offer. To Blade that voice completed the picture of the Protector he'd started building when he saw the man's eyes. He had to force himself not to take a step backward and raise his fists. This man was unclean, from head to foot and from his oily skin inward to whatever lay at the heart of him. It wasn't just his sexual vices-they were probably the least important thing about him. It was everything about him-more than Blade could have found words to describe.
The Protector sensed Blade's hesitation. He came toward the Englishman, cooing like a dove, hand outstretched to pat Blade comfortingly. Then abruptly he stopped, fingers inches from Blade's skin, as if a bear trap had closed on his leg. He'd seen the look in Blade's eyes and read their message.
If you touch me, you will die. Nothing you can do will stop me. Whatever you have for brains will be splattered all over your expensive interior decorating,
The Protector of Gerhaa had more than his share of bad habits, but stupidity wasn't one of them. He sensed that the man facing him was ready and able to kill him bare-handed, even if he died in the process. The Protector also sensed that even if he avoided a confrontation now, he'd never be safe or at ease with this man loose in the palace, or indeed within a hundred yards of him. There were other things to be sought beside pleasure.
So the Protector's hand froze in midair. Then he slowly lowered his arm and turned his head without stepping back. «Heh! Take him away. He is magnificent, but I should not be selfish. He will do as well in the Games, and then all can enjoy him.» Then he shrugged and sighed elegantly, as the two Guard officers came up the stairs to lead Blade away.
After the diseased decadence of the Protector's palace, the underground barracks of the gladiators in the Games of Hapanu came as a positive relief to Blade.
The barracks were a series of caves and tunnels far underground, on the west side of the city. More tunnels led from the barracks out to the Island of Death, where the Games of Hapanu took place every ten days, as well as on the various sacred holidays and every day during the week of the High Feast of Hapanu. This added up to about forty rounds of Games during the standard Kylanan year, more than enough to demand a steady flow of gladiators. Some of the fights were to the death, and even those that weren't often left men crippled for life or disabled for months at a time.
The tunnels to the Island of Death were the only way out of the barracks for the thousand-odd gladiators there. The stairs up to the city twisted and wound, with iron doors locked from the outside at several points. Even if by some chance all the doors could be broken down or unlocked, ten men could hold the stairs against an army. In fact there were only four armed men on regular duty in the guardhouse at the head of the stairs. That would be enough to call for help from the soldiers' barracks three streets away, then hold the head of the stairs until that help arrived.
There was a good reason for locking up the gladiators of the Games. A fifth of the thousand were usually beginners, too frightened to be rebellious and often too inexperienced to be dangerous. The rest were among the toughest fighting men Blade had ever seen in any Dimension. Most of them could use almost any edged or pointed weapon with either hand, and feared neither guards, soldiers, the Protector, nor Hapanu himself. Left where they had any chance at all of breaking loose, these men would be trying it once a week.