Suddenly he plucked the curtain back again and craned out. But they had turned the angle of the avenue by the fountain, and that part of the street was lost to view.
There was something in this incident, small though it was, that unsettled Katemval. There were certain legendary traditions in the west that showed death as a thin colorless ice woman with claws—
Death was always vigilant. She—it—being ultimately inescapable. So what? How one lived, the gifts of life, these were the valid matters. Death was the end. No less, but decidedly nothing more.
He had watched Rehger in combat and competition at the stadium whenever trade permitted. In recent years, seldom the traveler now, Katemval had been there to watch at every event. He saw Rehger fight, and ride, and strive and win, and fame on him like pure gold. But death was always there, too, and only a fool did not know that. Why be troubled now?
At eighteen, Rehger had lost footing in sand slick with various life-fluids. The sword of the Kandian youth they had paired with him had cleaved the air in a terrible blaze—cutting home into Rehger’s breast, high, against the shoulder. That had nearly been the finish, then. The crowd, Katemval recalled, which had already begun to adore him, becoming one with him as he fought, groaned the sound they termed the death-moan—But Rehger, sashed in his own blood, had steadied himself, and when his adversary came in at him again, returned the blow, this one straight to the Kand’s heart. A year later, on the proceeds of a bet laid, in Saardsinmey’s most honored manner, upon that fighter one most truly loved, Katemval had bought his house on Gem-Jewel Street.
The pale races existed, and maybe might come to see the boxing and sword-play, and the chariots, in Alisaar. To glut their eyes on the Lydian, too, that Katemval had rescued from the mire of backland Iscah. Had he not said to him even, at the first, trying to seal the boy’s destiny to it—Grow for glory, glory days, and a death clean and fair—Stop thinking of it. Katemval chided himself, superstitious, for the litter was by now forcing through the press of people, toward the stadium gate. It was a lamplit, febrile dusk. And here and there the retired taker of slaves heard the friendly cry, “There goes the Lydian’s father!” An old jest, not inapplicable. The father gave life.
“Twenty white pigeons,” Katemval muttered under his breath, in his heart, to Daigoth, as the litter went through the gate. “And a two-year bull. And my most cherished wine to quench the burnt offering. If he lives.” And added, being now thoroughly a resident of the metropolis, “And wins.”
There were ten for the Fire Ride this year. It could accommodate as many as thirteen; often only seven or eight dared it. The prize was weighed on the old measure, twenty bars of gold. But the renown was better.
The slave champions of other places, three long seasons training for it, sponsored and financed by the cities and prospering towns of New Alisaar—and from everywhere else. There were free men, too, who thought it no embarrassment to compete with such slaves as these. Mixes, Vis, the yellow-headed men of the Sister Continent. Flaunting Karmians, dark or blond, and sly Xarabs, whose pretty chariots were unloaded from the ships like courtesans enameled with flowers, the surly Ommos, Dortharians in their pride, their cars with black storm emblems and gold-leaf snakes. Men came, too, from Var-Zakoris, for the Vardian conqueror had his own customs of such racing, as he had had his own rules of war. Conqueror Shansars arrived, the charioteers of ships. And Shansars from Sh’alis, riding their horses overland to be gawped at and envied, though for this evening’s work they had had to learn to manage the hiddrax, the chariot-animal of the Vis, bred to race since the times of the All-King Ramammon.
This night then had brought its usual assortment.
A Thaddrian, a free man and seemingly a bandit-noble, color brown and ocher. An Ott, free man, merchant stock but game and wily, color swarthy cream. A Zakorian, from Free Zakoris, what they called a fighting-leopard, color applicably black. A man from Corhl, a petty princeling, color steel.
For Alisaar, a slave racer from Kandis, highly esteemed, color Alisaar red with rose. And a Jowan aristocrat, one of the Jow Guardian’s nephews apparently, color Alisaar red with black. Saardsinmey’s contender, a slave racer unbeaten in any contest for three years, but never before drawn in Daigoth’s lots for this one, the Lydian, color red with red.
While from Sh’alis the trouble had come. Two mixes, both free men, since no man with a touch of fairness in his pigments might be lawfully a slave. One Shalian with the color raw yellow, the other yellow with blue. And last, a Shansarian lord who owned estates in Sh’alis and in Karmiss, color white.
(White. There was the answer to the riddle. In his box now Katemval, having glanced along the program, neatly copied and brought him by a stadium scribe, acknowledged respite. If the Shansar devil could bring ten horses with him he would not need—he had—why not an Amanackire mistress with whom to ride after the Ride?)
It was full night now, the sky above the stadium deep as a bowl of ink and splashed by stars. Along the terraces, the lamps were dim, the wicks trimmed purposely low, or capped by smoky vitreous. Tension close as darkness, waiting for the storm to break.
The stadium trumpets sounded.
A huge single cry went over the stands, and was echoed all along the wide artery of Five Mile Street.
In the dense torchlight under the stadium, the chariots had been drawn up waiting. The teams of hiddrax, backed into the shafts one quarter of an hour before, catching the night’s fever, pawed the ground and shook their long heads, the light flowing over their groomed and burnished skins, their adornments of metal and ribbons.
The brass dice of Daigoth had been cast, each position allocated. Now the priests came along the line, to foreigner, free man and slave alike, the first offering him the cup of Daigoth, a solitary taste of wine, while the second priest uttered the ritual sentences before him.
“You are the god’s. Go, be yourself a god.”
Rehger, in eighth place, listened to the phrase repeated over and over. The Ott, the Jowan, the Thaddrian, the Kand and the Free Zakorian, each drank and accepted. Whatever their personal religion, tonight they were Daigoth’s, tonight they would be gods. But when the priests reached the color-yellow Shalian, he interrupted harshly, “No. None of that. I worship the one true goddess.” The priests came away from him at once, without response. But the Corhlan, next in the left-hand position to Rehger, laughed loudly. He said to the man from Sh’alis, “Corrah is the one true goddess. You mean Corrah?” The Corhl did not have much of an accent; his comment was quite clear. The Shalian ignored him. Their teams fidgeted and shook their tasseled bits, sidling away from each other. (On the bodywork of the yellow chariot had been represented the Sh’alis sigil, a staff roped with a golden snake.) The priests had come to the Corhlan. He drank from Daigoth’s cup and received the benison. Then he spoke to the Shalian again: “Corrah will trample your snake-dung of a whore-goddess under these hoofs and wheels.” The Shalian stood like stone, holding back his sizzling animals, a smile of fury on his mouth.
The cup had reached Rehger. He bowed his head and drank the thin sugary wine. “You are the god’s,” said the priest to him. “Go, be yourself a god.” Not immune to the galvanic of the incantation, Rehger felt it pierce him through, and closed his eyes a moment, in the verity of its power.
Returning to himself, he was aware of the Shansar next to him on the other side, saying, “I ride for Ashara-Anack. Your Daigoth’s a phantom.” But the other Shalian, the last of the line, drank from the cup and heard the words without protest. Even in Sh’alis men might worship as they desired, providing they also made offerings to the Shansarians’ fish-serpent-woman.