With a start, Rikus realized why he could not remember crossing the desert. “Is that it? I’m dead?” he demanded, waving a hand at the curtain of grayness. “This is all a lifetime of pain and bondage comes to?”
“This is all everything comes to,” the figure replied, its dulcet voice sounding from the empty space above its collar. With its empty sleeve, it gestured toward the swirling eddy.
Rikus shook his head. “It’s not enough,” he said. “Not for me.” He turned toward the desert plain and started walking.
The gray figure appeared in front him. “There is nothing more,” it said, raising its empty sleeves to block his way. “You can’t escape.”
“I can try,” the mul hissed, reaching out to clutch the cloak. “Besides, what’s to stop me?” He wadded the empty robe into a bundle and tossed it over his shoulder. “Nothing.”
He walked for miles, then tens of miles. The terrain never changed, save that the gray curtain at his back grew more and more distant. Ahead of him, an endless plain of orange shale stretched to the horizon, the dreary monotony broken only by the white caps of brittlebush, the green dots of spikeballs, and the barren stalks of thornstem waving in the breeze.
Finally Rikus’s legs grew weary. He sat down to rest, then yawned and realized he could not remember the last time he had slept. The mul leaned back, ignoring the sharp edges of shale that poked him in the shoulders and ribs. There was no sun in the yellow sky, only an ethereal haze that radiated an amber glow. Rikus closed his eyes.
When he woke, he was no longer in the desert. Instead, he lay in the center of a square room. Over his head hung a ceiling of mekillot ribs, lashed together to form a grid of squares. Above the bone grid, the twin moons, Ral and Guthay, shone through a scaly roof of stretched hide, filling the room with dim, yellow light.
The walls and floor were of solid stone, save that there was a large gate of iron bars in one wall. Once unlocked, the gate could be raised into a special slot by means of a sturdy giant-hair rope-and-pulley system located outside the cell.
“What am I doing here?” Rikus asked no one in particular.
Beneath him lay a pile of dirty rags that had been serving as his bed. The cell stank of offal and sweat, and through the gate came the roars, chirps, and shrieks of a dozen kinds of beasts.
Rikus sat up and shook his head, sending waves of throbbing pain through his skull. His back, arms, and legs were stiff and sore, and his abdomen burned where the gaj’s barbed pincers had punctured his skin.
The mul groaned, taking his first good look around the pen. In one corner, Yarig and Anezka lay curled up together. At Rikus’s side, Neeva’s massive form was stretched out on the stone floor, covered only by her heavy cape.
“I’m alive,” Rikus said.
“So it would seem,” answered a familiar, sarcastic voice. “What a pity.”
Rikus lifted his eyes to the gate. Boaz stood in the corridor beyond. The half-elf wore a cape of blue silk and carried an open carafe of milkwine. His eyes were blurry, and he stood awkwardly braced on stiff legs, as if he would pitch forward at any moment. At his waist hung a ring of keys and a steel dirk.
“No guards?” asked Rikus. In his mind, the saw the trainer standing atop the practice pit wall, wanting to know which of the mul’s friends should be flogged in punishment for his disrespect. The memory filled the gladiator’s heart with bitter anger. “That’s careless of you, Boaz.”
“I’m safe enough with that between us,” the half-elf replied, gesturing at the iron gate. His words were slurred. “Besides, my guards have all passed out. Not enough to do in this tedious compound, so they drink too much.”
“If there’s nothing to do here, why aren’t you all in Tyr?” Rikus asked, stepping to the gate.
Boaz lifted the carafe to his lips, then spat a mouthful of milkwine over Rikus’s face. “Because of you-you and Sadira,” the trainer said, taking the precaution of moving out of arm’s reach. Behind him, something stirred in the pen opposite Rikus’s. “I’ll see to it that you’re punished in the morning.”
“For what?” Rikus demanded, wiping the white froth off his face. Even if he could have reached Boaz, he doubted that he would have killed the half-elf at that moment. Doing so would have meant giving up the chance to win his freedom, and he wasn’t prepared to do that over a mouthful of wine.
Boaz lifted the carafe to his lips again. Rikus stepped away from the gate, but this time the only wine that left the half-elf’s mouth was what dribbled down his chin. In a rambling speech, the trainer told Rikus how Sadira had saved him from the gaj with her magic, then killed two guards to escape the Break. “Lord Tithian was furious with me and my fellows,” Boaz finished. “He confined us all to the pits.”
“You’re lying,” Rikus said. “Sadira would never-”
“He’s not lying,” Neeva interrupted. She stepped to Rikus’s side and leaned against the gate, wrapped in the same cape she had been using as a blanket. “What part don’t you believe-that Sadira’s a sorceress or that she left you behind?”
“That I was saved by a scullery wench,” Rikus answered.
“She’s no ordinary slave girl,” Neeva replied, giving the mul a sarcastic smile. “It’s surprising that I’m the one who has to tell you that.”
Boaz snorted at Neeva’s jealousy.
Rikus ignored the trainer. “What happened to her?” he asked. “Where is she now?”
“What does it matter?” Neeva demanded, narrowing her emerald eyes. “You weren’t in love with her, were you?”
“Of course not,” Rikus looked away and noticed that both Yarig and Anezka had also awakened. The dwarf and his halfling partner were doing their best to not involve themselves in the conversation. “I owe her a debt of honor.
That’s all.”
“There have been other slave girls and you haven’t lied to me yet,” Neeva said, thumping Rikus in the chest. “Why start now?”
Rikus found that he could not look his fighting partner in the eye. Instead, he cast a meaningful glance at Boaz and asked, “Do we have to talk about this here?”
“Yes,” Boaz chuckled. “It’s best to air these things immediately. Hidden resentments have ruined many a matched pair.”
“Well?” Neeva asked. “Is Sadira so different from the others?”
Rikus forced himself to meet his partner’s gaze. In his own mind, the mul did not know whether what he felt for Sadira was gratitude or something deeper, and the uncertainty made him uncomfortable. “Sadira risked her life to save mine. I guess that makes her different.”
Neeva turned away, tears welling in her eyes.
Rikus grabbed her shoulders. “My feelings for Sadira-whatever they are-have nothing to do with us. I just need to know what happened to her.”
Neeva pulled away and stepped into a dark corner of the pen.
“I wish I could help you two lovers,” Boaz sneered. “Unfortunately, nobody knows what happened to her. My guess is that someday I’ll run into her in the Elven Market. In a brothel, no doubt.”
Rikus thrust an arm through the iron bars, clutching at the half-elf. Boaz watched the gladiator’s fingers close a few inches shy of their target, then clucked at the mul. “Anezka will pay dearly for that.”
No sooner had the trainer finished his threat than Rikus felt an earthenware mug smash against his back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Yarig grab his halfling partner, who was just reaching for a wooden bowl to throw. The dwarf shrugged, but made no apology for her.
Rikus shook his head and faced Boaz again. Before he could say anything, he heard a wispy voice inside his head. He lies.
“What?” Rikus demanded, grabbing his ears. He turned to Neeva. “Did you hear that?”
When she ignored him, Yarig asked, “A voice inside your head?” The dwarf still had not released Anezka.
Rikus nodded.
“No, I didn’t hear it just now,” he answered. “But I have in the last few days.”