THE STONE CELL was hardly large enough for the two of them. The smaller man sat with his head in his hands on the stone shelf that served as a bed for the waiting contestants. Tears slapped the coarse sand spread across the floor, tracked in over decades from feet trooping to and from the arena above. Even from here, in the belly of the earth, the noise of the crowd was a heavy buzz. Like angry wasps in the wall, hungry for blood. The only light in the cell was shed by an unsteady lantern out in the corridor, where two eunuchs wrapped in yellow capes stood in mute, bored silence. Ulrem’s eyes were sharp as a cat’s, though, and with little else to do, they scoured the walls. He had seen the inside of many like it, but none he had seen were so covered. These walls were a testament to the grim procession of damned souls that had, however briefly, sought respite in the dark. Anaksos, Derion, Jaleed, they read, on and on, some in careful Collanian runes, some in the angular strokes of Imidian, others in scripts Ulrem did not know. Together, they sketched a map of the Collanian slave empire, scrawled by the hands of dead men. These faint memories, scratched in desperation, would outlast any other mark those names left on the world. Ulrem felt that in his gut the way he could feel balance in a blade. He ruminated on the names, taking them in. He, at least, could carry them a little further. What were a few more ghosts? He scowled when he saw scratched below the name Hirion a crude joke: a fool who died breathing like a woman in labor. There were others like it, cheap desecrations of these somber echoes. The tearful man looked up suddenly, his hatchet face flush with fear. His eyes were bloodshot with hangover. He rubbed his face and stood, then sat as if his knees had given out, and covered his eyes again with slender boned hands. “I didn’t know,” he said, his voice high, almost womanish. “I didn’t know.” The wretch had repeated it over and over again since Ulrem had been thrown into the cell with him in the small hours of the morning. Ulrem spit on the sand. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re here now.” As if noticing him for the first time, the man started. He leaned forward. “What did you do? You look strong. Like a soldier. Did you kill a man?” “Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “It does. A sinful man cannot go to the table of High Zol with sins on his chest.” The words came out in a tumble, like a nervous belch. He bit his lip and looked up to Ulrem, clasping his hands. Outside, the eunuchs shifted, standing straighter. “I can see you’re no priest, but a fellow man can serve when needs must. Will you hear my confessions?” “No.” Ulrem stood and flexed his neck and shoulders. “A man should carry his own burdens while he’s alive.” The frail man opened his mouth to protest, but before he could speak, three figures in broad blue robes appeared before the barred door. Judges, Ulrem knew, for he had seen one such that very night. Silver masks covered their faces, hammered into the visages of smiling, beatific children. The rest of their heads were completely covered by blue hoods, and even their fingers were wrapped in silk gloves. The foremost of the three carried a small stave, capped at the top with a silver eagle, its wings spread wide. “Juban a’hali Uvushi, of the west ward, come forth,” said the man with the stave. The thin man moaned deep in his throat. Ulrem had heard that same sound from men who had caught an arrow during battle. A little soul, leaking out. Juban sat stock still, hands still clasped, refusing to look at the masked figures. “You pled guilty to the charges laid at your feet. Trespass and rape, and destruction of another man’s property.” “I didn’t—I didn’t force myself on her. I thought she loved me,” Juban whispered, eyes filling with tears. “She asked me to come to her.” They spoke as if they had not heard. “The Lord of the Games, Prince Dardano, saw fit to offer you a deal: fight for the crowds, and you may earn your freedom. Should you die, you will have regained some honor through courage at least. Refuse, and the king’s justice will be done this hour.” “But it’s not true!” “The king has spoken,” said the man to the left. Ulrem could hear the leering relish in his voice. “They will give you to the snakes.” Juban looked sharply at them. Ulrem watched him, saw him vacillate between hope and terror. The nervous man couldn’t bear to look at those silver masks for more than a moment. Then he buried his head in his hands, and said, “I accept. I will fight.” Ulrem grunted. He might have heard a little iron there. They turned to him at last, and he watched with flat disinterest in his granite gaze. The man with the stave said, “Ulrem, man of the Oron. Outlanders are no exception to Collanian law, however ignorant you may be. You—” The fury came like a spring flood, a crash of icy power. He was at the gate before they could react, one hand wrapped around the fat iron bar, the other grasping through, clawed fingers snatching at the silver mask. He nearly had it. The gate rattled in his hand, the bolts squeaking in the stone. They backed up to the far wall, as far from him as they could get, and he laughed at how they cowered back from him. The eunuchs drew their jeweled scimitars but hesitated, unsure of what to do. “In the lands of my father, the man who passes a sentence must look you in the eye. You cowards hide from the light!” Ulrem snarled. “Your trial was nothing but lies and shadows. A thing fit for cockroaches and vermin.” The foremost judge regained a little composure when he saw that the gate held. Over Ulrem’s scornful laughter, he pronounced, “You are found guilty of disturbing the king’s peace, and for unlawful resistance.” No mention of the eight dead men. Not even men, in the end. Just whispers, fading to wind. “Your punishment was to be death by crucifixion in the market, but fate smiles on you, savage. It is the festival of the Dead. The Lord of the Games—” “I accept,” he snapped. “You think you are the first to make sport of me? Show me who to kill. I grow weary of this hole.” They hesitated, glancing at one another. Then, more formally, addressing both men in the cell, “Then so be it. The man who wins the games will go free, to honor the spirits who walk the streets on Marthuua eve.” “Wait,” Juban said, voice climbing with growing terror. “Wait, I have to fight him?” The masked men swept away. Ulrem shook the gate one more time, making the eunuchs jump. He laughed at them, a raw bark, and stalked back into the shadowed corner. Juban was on his knees, head bent low. He murmured into the sand. “You are a Collanian?” Ulrem said, interrupting the shuddering prayers. “Who is this Prince Dardano?” Juban wiped at his eyes. “I didn’t…do the things they said. She sent me a message. Yesterday, the first evening of Maarthua, her husband was to be at the races. She said would wait for me in the garden. There were to be no servants!” “Shut up!” Ulrem said. “Answer my question, or hold your peace!” But the truth was spilling from the man now. “She plied me with wine, good wine, Corvarian. Can you imagine? I drank a fortune last night! And I expected passion. Hells, my head was so thick… But then… she asked me questions. One between each kiss. I had to answer, or she wouldn’t let me… No. She was stalling me. I knew it, but didn’t believe it. I’m not a fool. She wanted answers, not me. Her husband was lurking in the garden too, and revealed himself only after I had given everything away. I panicked, tried to stab him.” Juban made a sound between a choke and a sob. “The servants overwhelmed me, stripped me naked, and dragged me to the judge’s house.” Ulrem’s hand curled around the ring on his finger. They had taken everything from him, but that. When they tried, he had bit the gaoler’s finger clean off and spat it back. They’d been afraid to get near him after that. Now he grit his teeth, but the question came unbidden from his lips. “What did she want to know?” “Merchant contacts. Names of men in the high city guilds. I drank a fortune, yes…but I gave her twice that in information. That’s all she wanted. Akale’s fire, I’m a fool! A bloody fool.” “Perhaps,” Ulrem said. The promises of wealthy women were seldom more than siren songs, too often leading one to the very nest of danger. He knew that better than most. Juban stared at him with hopeless eyes. Finally, he said, “What did you do?” With the plain, honest words of a barbarian unaccustomed to the shame that kindled liars, he explained himself: “A slaver was selling women to men in the harbor ward. No,” Ulrem corrected himself, curling his hands into fists. The ring on his finger grew warm, anger swirling within the strange metal. “He was selling girls. Oron law forbids such a thing. My fathers would have sentenced a man caught slaving women or children to a slow and brutal death. Only knaves, captured in battle, may be turned to chattel. This thing was in my head when I saw the cretin stood on his pulpit, hawking half-naked babes in the street like cabbages. Is it not said that the responsibility for justice lies with the strong? Such is the law in my land, though you southerners know us only as wolves and reavers.” Ulrem held up a firm hand, silencing Juban’s questing protest. “I have drank in your taverns. I know what tales your boatmen tell of my folk. Lies enough to rot the teeth from your head.” “What did you do to the slaver?” Ulrem grunted. “I struck him down in the street. And when your guardsmen came, I accounted myself honestly.” He shrugged. “Apparently, the law and justice are not acquainted in this reeking carcass of a city, and your king has some damnable rule against setting things to rights. So I fought them too, for they named me murderer and tried to arrest me. Small dogs bark loud, but flee before the stamping foot!” he laughed. Then, more somberly, “I have never killed a man who didn’t earn it, or set himself against me. I suppose that slaver bastard must have had friends, for they sent those black-veiled men for me in the night when I was abed.” Juban listened to all of this with wide eyes, blanching until he was white in the face. “They sent the shadows after you?” “Aye, and I fought them, too.” “I heard the men talking... It’s all over the city. That was you? They say you killed some of them.” Juban sat back against the stone wall. “I’m damned, then, if my blade must meet yours. Akale save me.” Ulrem stooped and picked up a nail that was half-buried in the sand. “Here,” he said. “Scratch your name up with the others.”