“My turn,” the woman said. She touched Arram on the shoulder. “Get Ramasu to bring you back soon. Everyone appreciates your work.” She reached a bare table just as men carried in a huge gladiator. He was from the icy lands far to the north, by his coloring. Someone had dislocated one of the man’s shoulders and broken both of his legs. Immediately another healer joined the woman to assist her with the damage.
Arram had been talking for a little while with Ramasu, Daleric, and some of Daleric’s healers when a slow, rhythmic booming filled the tunnel and the room. Many of the others ran to the door to see what was going on.
Ramasu did not wait. “Quickly,” he told Arram. “Stuff your table with supplies; be certain your waste bucket is empty and your water bucket is full. If you need to relieve yourself, do so.” He pointed to the privy door at the far end of the room.
“Why the rush?” Arram inquired.
“A grand combat is about to begin. They must have added it for the prince. Hag curse them, they could have warned us,” Ramasu said with unusual heat. “Perhaps the prince brought captives he wanted to throw onto the sands. In any case, it’s a crowd of fighters divided into two and ordered to fight. Butchery, sheer butchery. Get going.”
Later, after things had calmed down, Arram learned that Ramasu was right. Mikrom had brought the losers of his last battle home and sent them into the ring against those gladiators who were not used up. Sometimes Arram’s nightmares were of this part of the day alone, a never-ending stream of screaming men and women, rushed to the tables as quickly as people could be found to carry them. Such pickups were dangerous work, as many who dashed between fighters in the arena discovered. Daleric set up a surgical table for them alone, to show his appreciation for their courage, or foolishness.
Soldiers strolled through the chamber as if they were on patrol. They made work harder. Arram heard later that they were regular army, not arena guards. Mikrom had sent them to ensure that no injured captive escaped a future in the arena by capturing a healer and threatening his way to freedom. It was plain to all that the heir did not understand how the gladiators were kept.
A soldier got in Arram’s way for the third time. His concentration on his gladiator shattered. Arram turned on the intruder, his raised hand filled with sparkling black fire.
“Trip me up once more, and they’ll send a rock for your family to bury!” he shouted. “Or I’ll trade your spirit for his and let you die!”
The soldier put his hand on the hilt of his sword but did not draw it. He could see the other helpers around the table were stepping back.
“Soldier, this man is going nowhere.” Ramasu stepped between Arram and the veteran. “Arram has him under control.”
“He’s half mad is what he is,” the soldier snapped.
Ramasu drew himself up to his full height. “My word as a Master of the School for Mages. Your captive will not escape Arram. You are better employed elsewhere.” Ramasu wore dignity and power like a cloak, despite the blood on his robe and face.
Magic billowed away from him. It was the touch of something that made the soldier feel unwanted.
“Take it on yourself, then,” the soldier snapped as Arram turned back to his patient. “If that rat on the table escapes and kills decent people, it’ll be you to blame.”
“If Arram turns you to ash, it will be yourself to blame. Did no one teach you the folly of impeding a working mage?” Ramasu’s voice was ice. “Go, before I place a complaint before your captain.”
The man moved off, though he kept his hand on his sword’s hilt.
“Thank you,” Arram murmured.
Despite the noise, Ramasu heard. “You’re lucky I was within earshot. Mikrom’s men have been in combat for a very long time. It’s not wise to tug their tails.” The man leaned closer. “And you might find you don’t have as much Gift for combat as you thought. It doesn’t stretch like healing does, so watch yourself.”
Arram nodded and continued to do his best, praying softly to Hekaja to save the man before him. At last the moment came when he had done all he could do without draining himself completely.
“Graveyard Hag, roll the dice in his favor,” he prayed softly. “Black God of Death, please turn him from your door.” Gingerly he touched his fingers to the man’s throat. There was the tiniest trace of a pulse. “He’s alive. Leave him here for a while; see how he does,” he told one of the helpers. “I’ll move elsewhere.”
He bent to gather his bag of medical supplies. It was then his body decided that he should keep on bending, until his forehead struck the stone tiles. After that things went dark for a while. He roused briefly while someone carried him on a stretcher—more than one someone, he corrected himself; it would take at least two people to carry him on a stretcher. Then he got the horrible idea that they thought he was dead.
“No, no!” he shouted, though the noise that came from his throat was more like a croak. “I’m alive! I’m fine!” He tried to wave, but his arm proved too hard to lift.
“Is he tryin’ to talk?” asked a voice down by his feet.
“Don’t matter,” a hoarse voice near his head replied. “The master gave us our orders.” A face—female, upside down—appeared in Arram’s vision. “Just you be quiet. Your master says you’re done for now. You go back to sleep.”
“But I’m needed—”
“Boy, I’ve been arguing with gladiators and mages all day,” the woman told him. “Hush. Sleep.”
He slept.
—
For the next two days, he and Ramasu, together with Daleric and his group of healers, rose at dawn to see to their wounded. For the most part they handled those whose hurts had not been deadly serious on the first day, and those who had been healed enough to keep them alive overnight. Preet sang to entertain the sick. Arram juggled after supper, when everyone was too weary to work magic or to endure having it worked upon them. Daleric produced a set of pipes, one of his friends a drum, and another a round form of harp.
On the third day, most gladiators and captive soldiers were healed and had been sent to the gladiators’ housing. Those who were still abed could be handled by Daleric. It was time to go home. While the senior healers attended the captain’s lunch in thanks for their work, Arram remained in the small cell he and Ramasu had shared under the arena, packing up the last of the medicines for Daleric’s patients. He’d finished and was looking for Preet—she had flown off somewhere—when he thought he’d heard something.
“Psst!”
He had heard something. “Who’s there?” He raised his lamp and looked around the corridor.
Something tapped his shoulder.
He whirled and saw nothing. He was struggling to remember a spell of detection when he looked down. On the packed floor, clear in the lamplight and the torchlight from above, was someone’s shadow.
His tormentor began to laugh. “I forgot about the shadow—Master Chioké would mark me down for that!” The air in front of Arram rippled, and Ozorne appeared.
Arram gaped, then cried, “What—? Ozorne, how did you get here? Where are your guards? Where’s Okot?” Preet dropped from the shadows, trilling happily, and lit on Ozorne’s shoulder.