“My parents baffle me sometimes. Before we left, they sent me a message telling me they had nothing to say.” Eje tells Octave. Life at the Muse Manor must be like silks in spring. “Nothing happening in their lives, nothing interesting going around. They couldn't even think of advice to send me.”
“So they sent you a status update?”
“Not even that. Their message said, and I quote Nothing is happening here. Hope you're well. Not even a mention of the weather. Can you believe it?”
“Perhaps something is happening and they want to allay your suspicions.”
Eje considers this and says “Who knows?” Before them, the city slips down into the shadow of the mountain and nestles into its crater like a newborn kitten nestling beneath its mother. And fifty paces ahead, the road is barricaded, the entrance guarded by half a dozen callow men with spears and gambesons. Octave can almost smell the dim-witted bravery they exude. “What are guards doing here, Octave?” Eje drags Octave off the street to a public fountain. Beneath beech trees, water flows down up-mountain pipes, bubbling out into stone basins, before falling to subterranean drains.
“Guarding, it seems.”
Eje sips water without taking her eyes off her new nemeses. “Don't joke around. We need to get by them somehow.”
“That man there seems to share your idea. Let's see how he performs.” They watch a young man in a cloak slipping nonchalantly into a group of five or six pedestrians. As they approach the barricade, the guards stop them. Octave can almost hear the questions: where are you from? where are you going? what business have you in the underground? The cloaked man shuffles awkwardly at the back, then as a guard pushes toward him, he makes his move. He slams the people ahead of him into the guards, then as they sprawl against each other, rushes around. Grabbing the wooden stakes, he pulls himself up and vaults the barricade in a single graceful bound. The guards break into a commotion as they bump into each other in an effort to chase him. Two get stuck against each other in the narrow entrance through the barricade. They break through with some effort and one of the faster ones chases him from view down an alley. The other guards make a halfhearted effort to follow and stop after a few paces. “Not a bad effort, but I doubt he'll make it.”
“His friend did a little better though.” says Eje. Only then does Octave notice the plainly dressed woman slip through the barricade opening behind the spectators and disappear in the other direction. She gives Eje a look of newfound respect.
“Good catch. Give it a few minutes to settle down and then we'll go.”
Eje snorts. “What, are you going to distract them while I slip through?” They watch as the guards return to questioning the party. After minutes of questions and searches, they allow the party to pass.
“I think answering their questions will be easier.” Octave strolls over to the guards. Eje follows uncomfortably.
“Are you sure about this?” hisses Eje in her ear.
“Why shouldn't I be? If you're worried, let me do the talking.”
As they approach the barricade, a guard steps forward to challenge them. “Hold it there. Where are you coming from?”
“What's this about?” asks Octave lazily.
“The city is in lockdown, miss. All people going to or from the underground are subject to questioning.” Octave looks the guard up and down, taking as long as possible. He's about Eje's age. Neatly pressed trousers and tunic beneath the rough gambeson. Hair combed, face clean, shoulders stiff.
“My apologies. I didn't realise.”
“You did not realise after criers came down every street warning that the palace had been robbed? You did not notice guards everywhere locking down the city?” He's earnest too.
“I'm a deep sleeper.” Octave leans forward and delivers the words with quiet deliberation.
“Well, um, be as that may, I still need to know where you two came from.”
“Blossom Street. Fourth house on the left, and she,” Octave jerks her head back at Eje, “is from the fifth house on the left.”
“We may send someone to confirm you live there.”
“Please do. Ask for Feline and Vulpine.” Octave idly wonders if anyone is ever taken in by the illusion of competence the guards put on. This one in front of her probably has someone shine his boots.
“What's your business in the underground?” Now he's reduced to using contractions.
“We're pleasure seekers. Headed to the fairgrounds. You know about the fairgrounds, don't you?”
“That's none of my interest.” says the guard hastily. Probably still lives at home. Eje behind her quivers as though bursting to say something contradictory.
“Well it's our interest. Would you like a description of what we seek?” Octave's face is neither concerned nor interested. Her voice betrays no hints of seduction or craft. She's never been so straightforward in her life.
“Are you carrying anything of note or value?” The guard's voice has raised a higher, shriller pitch. “We may have to search you.” And has never left the city in his life.
“Nothing unless you count ourselves. Is that what you're after?”
“Of course not.” In the event of a real emergency, this man would be about as useful as an alarmed bobcat.
“Your companions seem to think so. They're looking at us strangely as if they suspect something.”
“No, I, look, just go. You're cleared.” The guard's shoulders slouch like cold pudding. He motions to the others who step aside.
“What the hell was that, Octave?” Eje demands after they're out of the guards' earshot.
“What was what?”
“Did you just, I don't know, sexually bully that guard into letting you pass?”
“Interesting way of putting it.”
“I'm not ok with this, Octave.” Eje crosses her arms even as they walk. “It's degrading. Now those guards will always remember us as the pleasure seekers.”
“It wasn't my first choice for bluffs.” admits Octave. The sky above them is replaced with stony ceiling. “It seemed like the right one though. Besides, they would have searched us. They would have found the team logbook, and that would have been difficult to explain, wouldn't it?”
But Eje won't be so easily swayed. “That's the last time I let you do the talking, Octave. You're a maniac. Unhinged. Devoid of sanity. The first time we lied to that creepy woman and the captain about the books. This time you've branded us sexual deviants. I'd almost rather admit to having broken in. Next time you'll casually admit to conspiring against the crown.”
Octave frowns. “There's nothing casual about that.”
Eje mutters a string of profanities. “Fine. Whatever. Where are you headed?”
“I'll know it when I see it. And looking around the underground is always a treat.” There was doubtless a time when Salkrit's underground was a sight to behold. Naturally occurring stones in the mountain glow white and yellow, outlining the enormous cavern in a phospholuminescent glow. Chunks of the meteor that carved it still linger like great stone barbs left in a wound when the harpoon has been removed. Every year Octave sees it, that glow has become dimmer and grainier under layers of smoke pouring out of chimneys. Faces are visible in the faint light, but not fully, just enough shining from the ceiling and walls that Octave can see Eje's nose wrinkle at the smell of damp. The vaunted Salkrit system of sewage pipes and aqueducts has broken down so many times that the underground is perpetually swamped in the faint background scent of filth. The perpetuation of society summed up. And speaking of filth, guards stand on every street corner, spears at the ready.
“Do you really like this place?”
“The underground is Salkrit in the truest sense: without the sparkle, without the trees, without the delusion of pride. The people think that they can hide away down here, and in doing so, reveal themselves clearly. People are honest in the darkness. When everyone can see them, then they lie.”
“That's just absurd.” Eje shakes her head. “I don't know what you're talking about. The underground is full of criminals. Thieves, robbers, and worse. They seek the darkness to hide. These people deserve only contempt.” They pass another team of four guards hustling in the other direction, faces pale, eyes obscured by darkness.
“Speaking of which, what's your business down here?”
“What's yours?”
“I'm meeting someone later on.”
“In that case, come with me. I'll show you.” Eje picks her way around potholes and bits of broken carriage. “Don't these people even clean up the streets? I think the lack of sunlight stunts their brains.” Eje's business turns out to be an open air bar. People come and go as they please, though at this hour, most are coming. “Hold on.” Before they join the revellers, Eje pulls her aside and takes a small parcel from her pocket. “You'll need one of these.”
Octave examines the furry offerings in Eje's hand. “Are those dead mice you found in the street? Why are you on putting them on your face?”
Eje shoots her a disapproving look from underneath a small bush of hair. “Fake beards, Octave. We need them for this.”
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“Why?”
Eje's eyes drop. “It's hard to be a woman in bars, Octave. You've noticed that, I'm sure. Men here are low bred. They're crude and pushy, they don't have manners, they're interested only in excitement. Sometimes they buy you drinks and won't let you refuse them. If you go in as a woman, you become the centre of attention. And when it comes to fighting rings, well, you won't get in without a disguise.” She waves a fake beard at Octave. It's something a cat would cough up.
“Eje, if you don't put that disgusting thing away from my face, I'll lodge it in your intestinal tract.”
Eje pulls it away but persists. “Look, I know it's demeaning, but you just can't go in there without one.”
“Watch me.” Octave walks on. Past the perimeter of wistful torches and posts with scrawled signs advertising cheap swill, life takes on a florid hue. If the soul of the city yearns for release behind cracked windows overlooking streets empty with darkness, the heart of the city throbs among the ebb and flow of chatter. It takes her a few moments to realise what's unusual: people here smile. Laughter clinks against glasses, hands hold hands, conversation speaks to the good in life. The glowing walls are a world away, and the dampness is overruled by the honest scent of exertion. Instead of cracked streets, the earth is trampled hard and smooth.
A barman sits on a wicker chair behind a writing desk repurposed into something more useful. Glasses and mugs cover its surface. Barrels of questionable ale lie around him, and underneath are rows of unlabelled bottles. Behind him, several youngsters are dunking used drinking vessels into a portable bathtub full of stagnant water. He brushes long greasy hair from his face, spots her, and roars like a bear over the crowd. “A drink on the house, miss!” Octave takes the mug with a nod and sips her sour drink as she approaches the centrefold. Somewhere at the far end, a pair of musicians strike up a tune. She can't see them, only hear the tambour hitting a beat and the wail of a viol in response. Even the blur of conversation seems to lilt around the music, as if the people gathered are playing their part in an immense choir. Then the crowd parts and Octave is at the centrefold. A oval ring of posts some twenty paces in length and ten at the widest. Two contestants are going at it, hands around backs, arms and legs straining for the edge to dump the opponent. Desks, tables, chairs, and other improvised seats litter the area, anything to get a head up over the audience.
“Wait up.” Eje pushes over to Octave's side, her hands drinkless and her face clean again.
“I'm glad you've decided to rejoin the female sex. I don't think you'll feel too out of place here.” It's true. Wearing long woven skirts or trousers and tunics, women cheer on the fight as loudly as any man.
“It's weird.” says Eje. The audience cheers reach a pitch as one of the contestants is hoisted into the air and slammed down on his shoulders. Eje covers her ears. Then it all dies down and the two men leave the ring, the loser being helped to his feet by friends.
“Impressed as I am by your good taste, I'm somewhat surprised you chose this venue. It's no Muse Manor or cherry garden.”
“Don't remind me of happy places. These people are vile, Octave. They have no decency, no upbringing. Just animals cheering for blood. I'm going to punish them.”
Eje approaches the bookkeeper, a wiry man with a table and chair all to himself. He's writing another row of numbers in a battered ledger, licking the pen nib every now and then with a black tongue. “I want the next fight. Not a wrestling showmatch. A fight.” She reaches into her satchel and drops a handful of acorns onto his ledger.
He looks her over, thin lips curling at the edges. “Do your parents know you're out here, girlie?” Eje says nothing but dips back into her satchel. The man's eyes widen then narrow as a pair of silver stags clink down onto the acorns. “Name?”
“Eje. No, E-J-E. 'Eejee'. There you go.”
“Your number is three-eight-two.” He hands her a slip of yellow paper and motions to a fight official. “She's next. Bet of seven plus two stags.”
Octave takes another swig of her drink, it's getting better now, as Eje takes her place opposite a man twice her size. “Ready to die?” she asks. He gives her a pained look. The cheers from the audience are halfhearted at best; people trade looks of confusion as though not wanting to goad the man into committing a potential crime. If the bookkeeper had no qualms, at least the others do.
The fight ends quickly. Eje's smoke cuts a dark swathe through the bright torchlight and circles around her head before she knocks him to the ground as he advances. Silence. His palms grip the floor and he pushes his head back up only for another blow to knock him still. The audience erupts. If Eje had hoped to crush their spirit, she's only managed to bolster it. Another fighter steps up to challenge her, and he's dispatched as quickly. Now the cheers are reverberating off the faraway ceiling and walls, breaking the barrier between arena and city. The lowborn people, with their dirty fingernails and course tongues are rallying around their new hero. Drinks are raised and coins pile up on the bookkeeper's table. Another opponent shows up, and Eje finishes him in a vicious flurry. Then another. Her technique is aggressive, perhaps overly so. Long footsteps that leave her off balance, and with every attack, there's an overextension, especially when she goes for the kill. It would take someone with skill in not only magical defense, but hand-to-hand combat to exploit it.
“Bring in the gladiator!” are the cries from the audience. The gladiator is a woman, in plain clothing, with magic of her own. If Eje recognises her as the woman who slipped through the barricade earlier, she gives no indication of it. The gladiator has shadows of her own, not smoky dusk magic, but true shadow conjuration to shield her against Eje's blows. But shadow is a poor defensive tool. With each blow blocked, she's pushed back until she's against a post for support. When Eje lunges in, her feet step to the side. She throws her counter. Eje slips the black hammershot as though she saw it before it appeared. The gladiator's moves have all been defensive up to this point, but now that's she gone on the offensive, she's left an opening. Eje's fists leave dark trails behind as she sinks a pair of rapid blows into her opponent's stomach followed by a hook to the face. The viol player strikes a triumphant cord as the gladiator crumples to the ground, then all is lost in the din.
Octave claps as Eje steps out of the ring looking as though she was the one dazed and beaten. People swarm them, yelling their approval. Eje pushes them away with awkward smiles and nods. After nearly a minute, the applause and cheering dies down, ears gradually cease their ringing, and Eje asks her “Why do they celebrate?”
“You fought well.”
“I'm a stranger. A nobody entering their world and beating their heroes. They should hate me.”
“You don't understand people, especially the ones you purport to despise, Eje. You're their hero now. You've become one of them.”
Eje pushes a proffered drink away and Octave takes it, discarding her empty mug. “But I don't understand.” she protests. “This has never happened before.”
“Think about it.” says Octave as people scramble around them to find another opponent worthy of their new champion. “People love a performance. They love a mystery. You're both. You looked down on them, and they've given you their gratitude. In your heart, I think, you always wanted this, but couldn't admit it for fear of ruining your outlook on life. Dinner on the manor veranda? Live-in servants? Were your parents also distant? This is far more exciting, is it not?”
“You've become a great deal more talkative down here.”
“Why shouldn't I? Look at the people drinking, embracing, loving. This is what life is about, not mission logbooks or sucking up to palace oafs. I'm going to join them.” Octave wanders into the crowd, squeezing her way onto a table and waving her drink in salute. The man next to her throw's an arm around her shoulder, and to Eje's chagrin, she does the same.
But if Eje has something to say, she's interrupted by her next opponent showing up. The cheering dies down as the two face each other, replaced by a whispering murmur as if a dozen streams were flowing through the arena.
Eje's opponent is an ogre. Rarer still, an ogre with lightning magic. Instead of blasting her from afar, he's found a way to accentuate his enormous size and strength with it. He moves with a speed that nobody expected, hands crackling with electric gloves that cast aside Eje's smoke with ease. He plants an enormous foot against her chest and she flies, landing on her back with a silent gasp. She springs to her feet and circles, seeking an opening. However, his boxlike chest shrugs her blows off. As she aims for his face, he catches her by the arm. Eje yelps as a fist the size of buckler crushes her arm and pumps electricity through her body. She struggles to break free, her other hand pattering against his torso like raindrops. Then he tosses her against a post and she falls face first to the ground.
The audience rallies before Eje can. They're screaming for her to stand up, to fight on, to ignore the pain. Octave screams with them. People leap off tables to yell their encouragement. And Eje stands. She now understands that her technique won't win out against an opponent of this size; skill could trump her aggression, but so too can power and bulk. Her footwork and slips mean nothing when the ogre can simple grab her like a child grabbing a doll. An ogre's weakness isn't on the chin: his skull is too thick. Counterintuitively, the correct place to strike for is the body just below the right ribcage. Eje takes a more defensive posture: hands up, waiting for his attack. Wrong again. The ogre doesn't need to commit to a blow, and simply walks her down. He opens his mouth wide enough to swallow a ham and belches lightning in her face. Eje's smoke again retreats, and she's just able to circle around him and get back to the centre of the arena, ducking a wide swing of the arm. Octave watches, first for her feet, second for her arms, last for her face. The audience is the opposite.
The ogre advances again, and the tension in the arena could snap a neck if it released too suddenly. Eje's smoke slashes high to get the ogre to cover his face, then she steps in. Her feet plant. The ogre deflects her right hand and grabs it again, readying himself for another electric blast. Eje's left drives itself into his side below the ribcage. Perfect positioning. Her arm vanishes in the layer of soft fat covering his belly. For a second the ogre's mouth hangs open in shock. Then he doubles over, clutching at his liver. Eje's followups rattle off his head, but she isn't strong enough to knock him out. With a desperate kick, she trips him as he steps away, and he sprawls into a poorly affixed post, uprooting it in his fall and landing outside the arena.
Good enough. People leap into the arena and hoist the shocked Eje into the air, passing her around on their shoulders. The girl who beat an ogre will be talked about in the underground for years to come. After what seems like hours of celebration, and finally accepting a drink, Eje collects her winnings from the bookkeeper and makes it back to Octave's table. “You should fight too.” she says, while Octave's new companions look at her with respect now that they know she's on speaking terms with the champion.
“Maybe later.” Octave gives a push to her side and the people on the table squeeze together, creating room for Eje. “Nothing will top that though.” People are still coming up to her eager to get a nod. Even the ogre shows up to shake Eje's hand and congratulate her on the fight. She can't deny it: the people of the underground, beaten, trodden, and taunted by the rest of the city, are nonetheless willing to accept her with open arms. Each cheer reminds her that instead of enraging the audience, she has earned their admiration; torn between two worlds, her aristocratic ego is reborn into merely an ego. Then, as fresh fighters take their places in the arena, the audience's attention shifts away from Eje in her most fragile state of development. She was their superior both in her mind and their own, and now she is another spectator wondering how these nobodies could ever match up to the previous bout. Before anyone can find out, the party is broken.
A commotion sounds behind them. “Enough. I said ENOUGH!” a gruff voice announces. A group of guards has appeared. Surprising how long it took them, really. Another unit of four, then another and another. They have the hundreds of revellers surrounded and they fall silent. “Where's your permit?” The guard captain demands as he approaches the barman. He shrugs and gets a slap across the face from a gauntleted hand.
“We need to get out of here.” Eje hisses in Octave's ear. “We can't be caught in some underground fighting ring.”
“I don't run from garbage.”
“They're not garbage, they're city guards doing their job.” Octave has a different idea. As the captain grabs the barman by the shoulders, she pitches her mug at him. It flies through the air, spilling alcohol onto the audience, catching the captain perfectly on the temple. He falls to his hands and knees, bits of ceramic falling beside him. The open air bar erupts again, this time with cups and mugs flying almost as heavily as the screams and curses. The people of the underground have been monitored and questioned one too many times, and now they fight back against those who would deny them even the simple pleasures of life. Guards reach for swords or brandish spears, but are jumped by the masses of people and pulled to the ground. Octave rushes to join them, spitting and hurling kicks onto the guards as they cover their heads and curl into balls, her fury echoing and expanding through the crowd. The guards on the outside of the perimeter flee. And, just as quickly as it started, it ends. The people stand amidst the wreckage of the bar and arena, the ground littered with broken furniture and bodies. Eje, reborn as an infant, gazes about the carnage with wide eyes.