“The fighters know what happens if they assault a guard.” Yadeen pointed. The area was spotted with shielded torches, offering something of a view. “This open ground is where they practice. Barracks are over there.”
Arram nodded. Ozorne was going to be so jealous—whenever the emperor insisted that the princes attend the games, Ozorne made sketches of the gladiators and wrote down all the information he could glean. He would give anything to see this, rain or no. “What are those things? The big white rolls, the log stick figures, and the barrels?” he asked, pointing.
“The white rolls are practice dummies for wrestling and hand-to-hand combat,” Yadeen replied. “The log figures are for weapons practice. The barrels hold weapons. They must have taken the weapons themselves indoors. I didn’t know you were interested.”
Arram was saved from having to explain that the information was not for him, when more guards opened another gate in a massive wall before them and waved them through. “The arena,” Yadeen told him. To the escort he said, “We can manage.”
One of them shrugged. “Suit yourself, Master.” He and his companion rode back to the training yard. The slam of the gate as the soldiers closed it made Arram flinch. They were alone in the vastness of the sleeping arena, under the many rows of seats.
The way before them was a tall, wide corridor lit by baskets full of burning coals. Arram’s jaw dropped. An appalling stench reached his nose: at once he was reminded of what he always thought of as the Day of the Elephant, when he had met one in addition to gladiators. The day he had seen a woman die. He swallowed. Part of the smell was definitely blood, human and animal, darker than the scent of blood in his animal dissections. Another part was sweat, and still another was animal dung. It made him dizzy. He held his sleeve under his nose as he clamped his free hand around his saddle horn.
They were passing cells on both sides, large ones, barred with iron. Both smelled equally of dung and piss, but the straw gave away the knowledge that the right-hand cages were used for animals. Arram wondered why anyone would place humans who would fight the beasts in cells across from them.
The huge gate at the end of the temple was wide open. Near it he saw cells far larger than those secured with iron on both sides of the tunnel. These chambers were closed and barred with wood. “What are those?” Arram inquired.
If the stink bothered Yadeen, the master showed no sign of it. “The healing rooms,” he explained. “The wounded go in those.” He pointed to the doors on the left. “That’s if they’ve used up the tables in the workrooms on the right. Sorry—surgeries. Don’t be in such a rush to learn about them. You’ll be chopping and sewing men and women soon enough if Cosmas has his way. Got your hat on?”
Arram touched his head. “Yes, sir.”
“Out into it, then. I hope they have a dry place for us.”
Yadeen led the way out onto the wet sands as the horses protested. The rain had begun to ease, but winds swirled around the vast structure, pulling at Arram’s hat. In the distance thunder boomed softly.
“Odd to hear that!” Yadeen remarked as he steered them toward the lanterns that gleamed ahead. “Thunder, so late in the season. The storm gods are amusing themselves.”
They passed the part of the arena where Arram had once sat with his father and grandfather, the length of rail where a man had once shoved him and Musenda had caught him. Arram’s heart pinched in his chest. Was the big man even still alive? And what of Ua the elephant and her rider? He had put offerings of bits of meat at the school’s shrines to Mithros, when he remembered to, and pieces of fruit at the shrines for Hekaja, the Carthaki goddess of healing, just in case, but he had been too afraid to ask those followers of the best-known gladiators if they knew about Musenda or the elephant riders. He didn’t want to know if they had been sent on to the Dark God’s peaceful realms.
Ahead he could see the imperial seats. They stood in the blaze of mage fires over the wall. A shadowed space filled the corner of the stand where it jutted forward into the sands. A roofed structure had been built over the entire corner to keep the rain off the area.
Nearby was the tunnel used by the imperials and the favored nobility to reach their seats high above. Torches burned in brackets on the walls, casting their light over large white chunks of stone on sledges. Each stone had to be as tall as Arram.
Yadeen reined up and drew Arram close to him. “Keep my kit beside you,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving the stones or the half-naked men who stood between them. “No one but you must handle either workbag, understand? You will be more aware of the outer world than me. Only touch my shoulder and I will return to it.”
A burly man in a leather vest and kilt trudged out of the tunnel. “Are you coming to work or gossip?” he roared. He was short and squat, with long, knotted black hair wound into a fat roll at the back of his head. His skin was not quite as dark as Yadeen’s, but his eyes were as dark as the night around him. Hammers and chisels hung from his sagging belt.
“We are settling upon our own approach, Najau! When we are ready, we will consult you!” Yadeen bellowed in reply.
“I don’t see why you brought a toothpick, unless he’s for the elephants!” Najau shouted. “He don’t look like he could lift a pebble!” He stomped back into the tunnel.
“Who is that rude man?” Arram asked. No one addressed a master of the university in such a way.
Yadeen smiled. “That is Master Najau, head of the stonemasons’ guild. We’ve known each other for years. For a man without the Gift, he can make any stone do as he wishes. Of course the emperor demands the best for a task any decent marble cutter could do.”
Arram blinked at his master. Then he inquired, “Aren’t you the best?”
Yadeen chuckled. “I am a mage. I can do certain things with rock, such as put magic in it, and shift it in the air. I can carve it by hand only to an extent—enough to make a clumsy bowl, unless I use my Gift. If you ever visit the palace grounds, try to get a look at the temple of Minoss. Najau did all of it, from the rough cutting of the stone to the carvings.
“Now, here’s how we shall work while you keep our bags with you. I will use my Gift to prepare the stones and begin. Watch closely, particularly with your power—I shall want you to write up what we do for a paper. After a short time you will feel my summons, and you will loose only so much Gift as I need. Are you certain you will do this? As I said, you have my oath. Hold out your hand.”
Arram wavered, then offered a hand. There was a dent in the palm from his clutch on the saddle horn. Yadeen dismounted and walked over to Arram’s horse. Drawing a small dagger from his belt, he slashed his palm and pressed it against the dent in Arram’s.