Picking up his goblet, Jago muttered, “part-owner,” into it before gulping down more wine.
“And I will not tolerate being told what to do by some idiot thri-kreen guard whom I only just hired yesterday. Now tell me what’s going on or I’ll-urkkklggggg.”
While Jago was in mid-sip, the thri-kreen suddenly slashed at Calbit’s throat with a bone knife. Blood spurted everywhere, splattering onto the obsidian walls. Jago choked on his wine and started coughing like crazy.
“What the-”
“Shut up,” the thri-kreen said.
Dimly, Jago registered the sound of breaking glass, only then realizing that he’d dropped the goblet. Wine spilled, pooling in the uneven cracks on the floor. Some of it ran toward the wall, mixing with Calbit’s blood.
Slowly, Jago backed toward the wall. He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, or what you want, but I can-”
“Do nothing,” said another, deeper voice.
The mul walked into the office, past the thri-kreen.
“Sorry for taking your kill, Zabaj.” The thri-kreen pointed with one of her pincers at Calbit, who was lying on the floor, gurgling and dying as blood poured from the cut in his neck. “He wouldn’t come.”
“No matter,” the mul-whose name was apparently Zabaj, even though the paperwork Wimma had provided called him Harkoum-said. “I can still kill this one.”
Jago held up both hands, as if to ward the mul off. “Wait-wait, please. I don’t know what you want, but-”
“Oh, that’s simple,” Zabaj said. “We want you dead.”
“But I haven’t done anything.” Jago’s voice broke, and he sounded squeaky, like a young girl. It rather distressed him.
The thri-kreen made a chittering noise. “You enslave people in your arena, you force them to fight for your own profit, and you say you haven’t done anything?”
“I don’t do anything more than what thousands of other people in Athas do. Why don’t you kill them?”
The mul moved closer to Jago, looming over him. Jago could smell the food they fed him on Zabaj’s breath. Jago made a mental note that, in the unlikely event that he lived through the next seven seconds, he should improve the quality of the food given to the fighters.
“Because they didn’t kidnap my friends.”
“Kidnap?” Calbit didn’t kidnap anyone, they were all purchased fair and square, except for-
Suddenly, it came clear to Jago.
“You’re friends of Mandred and Storvis, aren’t you? Look, that wasn’t me.” He was getting frantic, waving his arms back and forth. “That was Calbit. You already killed him.” Sparing a glance over at the floor, he saw that Calbit was no longer moving, thus proving his statement true. “I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t even want those two in the arena.” That was only half true-he liked Storvis, he was a good fighter without being insane like Mandred-but he wasn’t about to say that.
Zabaj shook his head, the topknot waving back and forth. “You might-might-have convinced me that you weren’t worth killing. But you participated as much as your partner did, and your attempts to distance yourself from the blood on your hands sickens me.”
Jago swallowed down the bile that was building up in the back of his throat. “What are you going to do?”
Zabaj smiled. It was the most frightening thing that Jago-who had spent the last several years of his life managing life-or-death fights in the greatest arena in the world-had ever seen in his life.
“Kill you quickly,” was the mul’s reply.
When Zabaj returned to the carriage, Feena hugged and kissed him repeatedly.
“I’m so sorry, my love, truly.”
Zabaj let her molest him for several seconds before grabbing her arms. “We will talk later.”
“I know I made you go back on your word, and I’m sorry we couldn’t mount the rescue until after you had to fight, but-”
Gan winced as he watched Zabaj grip Feena’s arms even tighter, so much so that she grimaced. “We will talk later,” he repeated.
Staring at him with his one good eye, Gan said, “Zabaj, I never got the chance to thank you for helping get me out of there.”
“You may do so again,” Zabaj said. “Between us, Tricht’tha and I killed Tirana, Calbit, and Jago. They all died wondering where their guards were.”
Tricht’tha chittered. “They were very easily swayed by the lure of Yaramuke wine.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be?” Komir said with a chuckle. “Especially with all the feresh you put in it.”
Sitting next to him, Karalith said, “Our next goal is to find a way to make ourselves the new caretakers of the arena.”
“I can help there,” Tricht’tha said. “One of the guards was talking about a party that the king is throwing.”
Zabaj added: “And one of the fighters said that it wasn’t the king who wanted Rol.”
“What?” Gan thought that was absurd. “It was the Imperial Guard who took him. They report straight to Hamanu.”
“The fighter was a dwarf named Barglin.”
Gan frowned. “Bald, thick mustache?”
“Yes,” Zabaj said.
“Okay, yeah, I knew him-didn’t know his name. Even fought him once. I’d trust him.”
“You never learned his name?” Feena asked.
“Wasn’t really focused on making friends, Sis.”
“In any case,” Zabaj said, “he was watching the royal box. The king wasn’t there, it was his chamberlain and the commander of the Guard who were watching Rol.”
Tricht’tha rubbed her pincers together in a manner that Gan had always found just a little nauseating. “One of the other guards said the same thing as that dwarf. He was posted near the royal box. Chamberlain Drahar was the one who noticed Rol, and it was after he talked to Templar Tharson that Rol was ordered to be taken to the palace.”
“Perfect!” Komir leaped to his feet. “That’s our way in. We set Hamanu against Drahar and Tharson.”
Gan felt his stomach churn. “Uh, wait a minute. Look, I’m grateful for what you’ve done-honestly, if I lived to be as old as Hamanu, I wouldn’t be able to pay you guys back. But now you’re talking about gaming the King of the World. Isn’t that just a little insane?”
Feena looked at him. “No crazier than playing frolik against Hamno Sennit and expecting to win.”
Glaring at his sister, Gan said, “We’re talking about a slightly different scale here, Sis. Now, look, I want Rol back more than any of you. But-taking on the king?”
Komir sat back down, facing Gan directly. “See, that’s the wrong way to think. The way to play the game is to never, under any circumstances, think of any player in the game as different from any other player. The victim is the victim, regardless of whether it’s a miner or a king. You play the game the same way.”
“But the consequences if you fail …”
That got a grin out of Komir. “That’s why we try very hard not to fail.”
Gan shuddered. He’d seen that grin before-on Rol before he went after a woman. And the last time he did that …
Meanwhile, Komir got back up and went over to the shelves on the right. “Now where did Mother and Father put those letters of introduction from that dead sirdar?”
Karalith uttered a long-suffering sigh and also rose. “They’re not there, idiot.”
While the siblings dug around for what they needed, Gan watched as Zabaj rebuffed every attempt Feena made to talk to him. Finally, he left the carriage, and she did as well.
Tricht’tha sat down on all sixes next to him. “How are you feeling?”
“Miserable-but also grateful. I never expected you guys to come after us. Hell, I never expected you guys to find us. So many things had to go right …”
“Feena was the one who wanted to get you. So did Komir. And Zabaj.”
Gan chuckled. “But not the rest of you?”
“No.” Tricht’tha pulled some jerky out of a pouch and offered Gan some.