“Spider.”
Lord Perikos stands by a locked door that leads into the undercourt and its secret mechanisms. He nods at me, but I hesitate before I go over to him. Adversaries are never allowed to speak to any of the Fives administrators or engineers.
“What did General Inarsis say to convince you to join our cause?” I ask.
He answers in a somber voice. “It was the king who persuaded me. Of course he mentioned my son, but that’s not all we discussed. Some years ago my wife and I dedicated a daughter to Eternity Temple. When the holy priestesses were expelled from the temple we went at once to the queen’s palace to find her, but she wasn’t there. We were told she was given the honor of accompanying the oracle to the tomb of Clan Tonor. King Kalliarkos revealed to me that she could not have been among the oracle’s attendants. The priests did not even have the decency and courage to admit that she is dead, and that they killed her.”
“I’m sorry.” The heat of his sadness fuels my resolve. I wonder if it was her spark that walked Lord Ottonor to his tomb, if the vitality of the nameless girl lives on in Wenru. “I thank you for what you have done for us today.”
“I have done as the king requested. You’ll see some familiar patterns, Spider. May fortune be with you.”
He retreats into the undercourt. Through the briefly opened door I glimpse a passage and beyond it a dim underhall packed with people.
A fanfare announces the arrival of the royal households. No boisterous cheers greet the king and queen, because the highborn are above such enthusiastic displays. Even Father tempered his behavior after he was raised to the rank of captain and stopped socializing with the companions of his early days. I see now that Mother, wanting him to be happy, went along with his efforts to turn our family into a mimicry of a highborn Patron household.
“First trial!” shouts the custodian at the ready cage.
It’s time for the last obstacle in the fight for Efea.
I’m ready.
I’m not surprised when I am given the same belt I received the other time I raced at the Royal Fives Court: the brown belt, for Pillars. Like the flowers strewn at the entrance, like Perikos waiting to reassure me, I feel Kal’s hand in this. He’s sending me signals, telling me that I can trust him.
I have no choice but to trust him now.
I follow my custodian up a ladder into the dim passageway that leads to the start gate. From above only a thin skin of conversation buzzes. It seems awfully muted. Do the highborn Patrons suspect? Have the lords come armed, as they would normally never do on the Fives court? What if I’m wrong? What if Kal intends to betray us? Will I be captured and killed? Will the rebellion die here, put to rest for another hundred years?
Or what if Kal doesn’t have the strength I believe he does? What if he simply doesn’t have the courage to go through with it? But that’s what Gargaron would say, the man who never believed his royal nephew had the toughness to succeed.
I won’t follow Gargaron’s lead. I’ll know when I see Kal with my own eyes.
We halt beneath the closed hatch, where I rub chalk on my hands and shoes. The gate-custodian and my custodian nod at each other. They are conspirators too, although they are Saroese.
“Why do this, when you know what the outcome will be?” I ask them.
The gate-custodian shrugs. “I work for Clan Rikos. I do what Lord Perikos tells me. I trust him to take care of his retainers.”
The other custodian says, “My beloved daughter fell in love with a mule like you. When I shut her in her room to keep her away from him she ran away. We didn’t see her for five years and my wife stopped speaking to me because of it. Then she came back with her partner and their two children, the sweetest little babies you ever saw, our first grandchildren. I still wish she’d accepted a decent Patron suitor, but since she didn’t it would be better if her and her love could get married like respectable people.”
A shout of excitement heralds the canvas’s being pulled back, unveiling today’s configuration. After the siege and the uncertainty of the last months, even highborn Patrons willingly break into the customary song that begins the Fives. The words convey such a different meaning to me now.
Shadows fall where pillars stand.
Traps spill sparks like grains of sand.
Seen atop the trees, you’re known.
Rivers flow to seas and home.
Rings around them, rings inside,
The tower at the heart abides.
Deep in the undercourt the start bell rings. The hatch opens. Sunlight spills down over me, and on its rays of brightness I climb.
The tiers of seating ripple with color as ribbons tied to the awnings flutter in the breeze. From here I can’t get a good look at the royal balcony but that’s not my first concern. A quick scan reveals soldiers stationed at all the entrance arches. They’re standing at parade rest like people expecting no trouble, just an ordinary day of duty. Most wear the colors of the Firebird Guard, but soldiers wearing the sea-phoenix tabards of the palace surround the royal balcony. They will become a problem, but that obstacle is not mine to solve.
Rope stairs lead up to a maze negotiated off the ground on a series of narrow beams. It’s a clever design: the need to balance diverts a certain amount of concentration from figuring out the correct route. I’ve been on a maze rigged like this one so recently that my body remembers the course it took. At one turning when I step to the right instead of the left an odd reluctance checks me; this way leads to a dead end. I’m so sure I know this route that I let go of thinking and let memory guide me without a single wrong turn.
My bell is first to ring for a second obstacle as I head into Traps.
I’ve seen this exact entry into Traps before: a choice between ropes and beams running hip high above the ground and a set of ascending horizontal bars that lead up to a faster, and highly dangerous, route. Pythias is still in this obstacle, doggedly clambering upside down along a tipping bridge at the lower level. He’s right where an adversary named Sandstorm was, the only other time I ran a trial in the Royal Fives Court.
That’s when I realize what Perikos was telling me. Kal must have ordered him to re-create the course from the Maldine victory games, a course that favors my skills. I once swore never to run a rigged court again, but today the Fives obstacles aren’t the real trial, and anyway the court of Efea has been rigged for a long time; it’s just I couldn’t see it before.
Of all the chances I must take this is the big one. I test the brace and binding on my wrist. It’s not hurting yet. So I leap, grasp the horizontal bar, swing up to catch the next-higher bar with my knees, and fly backward to release and catch the highest bar, which swings me up onto the most dangerous and thus shortest path, beams and ropes so high that if you fall, you can die.
I should go slowly. I should.