The hypogeum’s fearsome stench was now associated with fear and failure for Gideon, and its presence made him irritable. He wholeheartedly wanted to forget the terrible mistake he’d made; his total lack of courage in coming to Kenan to fight in the tourney, and the awful smell would not allow it. The bravery he demonstrated against the Easterner now seemed hollow and pointless, and even the promise of money could not lift his mood from the depths of a gathering depression. The desire to leave the hypogeum before its stink soaked into his clothing became an ardent need, and he almost barked at the master of ceremonies to quicken his pace before he thought better of it. The money was now the only thing that could possibly ameliorate Gideon’s disappointment with himself, and it would not do to antagonize the man who was leading him to it.

The master of ceremonies took Gideon and the princess through winding, claustrophobic halls past rooms stacked high with dusty boxes and strange mechanical apparatus that served no visible function. The three of them were silent as they walked, the only noise being their footsteps and the clinking of the princess’s chain. On one hand, Gideon welcomed the quiet for the relief it brought to his headache, but on the other hand the silence seemed to suggest the princess was judging him at least as harshly as he was judging himself.

Impulsively, Gideon decided that after cutting the princess loose he would leave Kenan; perhaps after spending one more night in the city to nurse his headache. He was very sick of the Kenanites, and in any case there were better places to spend so much money. Levidia was only a few weeks away by caravan, or perhaps he’d even take the months-long journey to Loso.

The destination didn’t matter much. What mattered was getting out of Kenan with his money, and body, still in his possession.

The master of ceremonies came to a stop in front of a service window cut evenly out of the hypogeum’s stone. Thin wooden blinds covered the portal, accomplishing little more than partially obscuring the room beyond. There was audible activity in the room, and torchlight shone through the gaps between the blinds.

The master of ceremonies rapped his knuckles against them, and a few seconds later the blinds lifted, revealing a stocky Kennanite soldier standing at the counter. There was a look of bored indifference on the man’s face as he quickly scanned the three people standing before him. His gaze settled on the master of ceremonies.

“Suppose it’s the big fella, then? She don’t look strong enough to carry a carton of milk, and he look like he spent the day drunk underneath a butcher’s table.”

“Just give me my money, you fat fuck!” Gideon snapped.

The master of ceremonies interjected before the bursar could respond. “The king has decided to award him with an additional twenty-five hundred denars.”

“Five thousand? You mean I’m near emptying the arena’s treasury for this scuffed up loser?”

Gideon was about to curse him out when the master of ceremonies interjected himself once again.

“Perhaps I should tell the king you refused to obey his command.”

The bursar stiffened, and his eyes widened a bit. There was a hint of fear in his voice. “No need for that. I’ll do the job.”

He reached below the counter and lifted up two burlap sacks filled with coins, dropping them on the counter with a grunt. “You’ll have to wait as I scrape together the rest.”

“Yes, of course. We don’t mind.” The master of ceremonies turned to Gideon. “Do we, Gideon?”

He glanced between the two men with an angry scowl. He did mind, very much, but there was clearly nothing he could do about it.

“No.”

The bursar went towards the back of his cubby and pulled out two empty burlap sacks from a bin full of them. With the sacks in hand he stepped over to an oversized iron chest that was resting on the ground. He unlocked it, revealing a sizable pile of denars inside, and moved the denars from the chest to the sacks one coin at a time, counting aloud with each transfer.

As the bursar worked, Gideon grabbed one of the full sacks resting on the counter and untied it. Inside, there were at least a thousand gold coins. He pulled one out and inspected it; noting an embossed symbol of the statue of Kaan on one face, and a side profile of the king’s head on the other. The coin seemed pristine: not a single trace of wear and tear was evident on it, and it gleamed in the bursar’s torchlight as Gideon flipped it around.

The master of ceremonies looked on with his ugly smile as Gideon investigated the coin. “Ah, they’ve been freshly minted. Smelted from Forelian gold, no doubt.”

Gideon looked up from the coin and saw that the master of ceremonies was smirking at the princess. He half-turned to look at her and saw she was glaring back at the master of ceremonies. There was pure hatred in her voice as she spoke.

“I suppose you’ve never received coin for your service to that man, have you, creature? You’re not worth enough to him for that. No, the mere act of service to shaitan’s servant is the entire reward one such as you could ever hope for, I think.”

Oh, is he Forelian? Gideon thought. He watched as the smirk faded from the master of ceremony’s face.

“You should keep your slave under better control, Gideon.” He said. “When she was in the king’s possession he took great joy in showing her what happens to a woman who speaks out of turn.”

Gideon pocketed the coin he was holding and took a step towards the master of ceremonies. He leveled a swift and powerful slap across his face.

The sound of the slap echoed loudly through the hypogeum’s narrow halls, and the master of ceremonies fell on his bottom with a surprised yelp, sending up a small cloud of dust when he landed. Astonished, he held his left hand over his reddened face and looked up at Gideon.

Gideon sounded calm, but his hands were curled into fists as he spoke down to him.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

A small amount of blood escaped from the master of ceremony’s left nostril. He dabbed lightly at the blood with his finger and looked at it with a mix of anger and shock.

He slowly got back to his feet, trying to regain some of his grace and lost pride in the controlled motion. When he was standing once more he dusted himself off with sharp, angry motions —but it was a futile effort, and he was quick to give up on it.

The master of ceremonies lifted his chin at Gideon. The threats and curses he must have had in mind were not forthcoming. What came from him instead was a simple farewell, devoid of emotion.

“Enjoy your rewards, sirrah.”

He turned to the princess and gave her a very low bow, nearly bending over double. To her his voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Majesty.”

Without another word, he lifted himself out of his bow and strode away from them, retreating down the hallway with what little dignity he still had left.

The bursar had stopped counting and turned around when the slap rang out. Gideon waved him on. “Why’d you stop? Keep going.”

He gave Gideon a careless shrug and turned back to his work.

As the bursar resumed counting, Gideon felt the princess’s eyes on him. He looked over at her, and they immediately made eye contact. It was obvious she had something to say. Gideon waited for her to speak, but she said nothing, and the silence between them drew out as they stared at each other. The only audible noise in the hypogeum was the bursar’s counting and the coins clinking as he dropped them into the sacks.

The staredown continued for an uncomfortable amount of time. It had become a competition between the two; who would lose patience first and say something.

Gideon’s patience ran out first.

“What? Like what you see?”

The princess’s lips curled with disgust. “What? No, I don’t.”

“Then don’t stare at me.”

Her outrage was instant and heated. “You are the one who was staring at me!”

Gideon rolled his eyes as he looked away. The aggravation radiating from her was palpable.

Why didn’t she just say what she wanted to say? I don’t get it.

“Two thousand four hundred and ninety-eight… Two thousand four hundred and ninety-nine… Twenty-five hundred.”

The bursar quickly tied the sacks off with some twine and lifted them up. He walked them over and dropped them onto the counter, right next to the other two sacks.

“There, five thousand denars. Take it, ya fuckin’ bandit.”

Gideon lifted one of the sacks to get the feel of its weight. It was somewhat heavy, perhaps nearly twenty pounds.

“Here, princess, make yourself useful.”

He pushed the sack into her arms. She struggled to get a solid hold on it and just barely managed to not drop it.

“Wha-”

Gideon grabbed the three other sacks and heaved them over his left shoulder. He nodded at the bursar. “Where’s the exit?”

The bursar gestured with his hands as he spoke, pointing at the hallway the master of ceremonies had taken. “Down there and to the left.”

“Great.” He turned to the princess, who looked quite flabbergasted at being tasked with carrying something. “Let’s go.”

The princess rushed to follow along as Gideon strode away. Her voice was strained as she raised a question that sounded more like a complaint.

“Where are we going?”

“Away from here.”

That answer seemed to satisfy her, but after about a dozen steps, she shouted at him.

“Slow down! Your legs are much longer than mine!”

Wordlessly, Gideon shortened his stride.

“Thank you,” she said with a hint of surprise.

They walked together through the hypogeum’s snaking hallways, trusting in the bursar’s guidance for lack of any other choice. There were no directions posted anywhere to indicate where anything was —which could only mean that the regulars had the place’s layout memorized. Gideon was becoming aggravated with how long it was taking to find the hallway on the left when a draft of fresh air washed over him.

“Fresh air, thank God!” The princess exclaimed.

Sunlight glowed at the end of the new hallway. They both sped up unconcsciously, eager to get outside and take a breath of air that didn’t smell rancid. A small flight of stairs led up to the outside world, and the pair hurried up them, Gideon taking the steps two at a time.

When he stepped outside and felt the heat, he nearly changed his mind and walked back down into the hypogeum. The late afternoon sun made the outside world feel like the inside of a baker’s oven, and the glare coming from the buildings in the city center had only intensified in the time he’d been in the arena. He instinctively raised his arm up over his eyes to shield himself from it.

Gideon couldn’t see well enough to get a proper idea of where he was.

“What now…?” The princess asked, sounding very much like she’d like nothing more than to add a few insults to the end of her question.

“First, we’ll go buy some sun goggles,” Gideon said. “And then… I dunno. You know any good places to stay around here?”

The princess gaped at him. “You… you don’t have a home?”

The way she said it made him angry. “You don’t have a home either, princess! Now, come on.”

Gideon took a few steps, but something in her voice brought him back to a stop.

“Don’t call me that.”

He turned back to look at her. “What, princess? Why not?”

“Just don’t!” She snapped. “My name is Surelin.”

“Alright. Surelin. Can we please get going now?”

She sighed and gave a reluctant nod, shifting the sack around in her arms a bit. Gideon returned her nod with some exasperation and set off once again, wondering why she’d stopped him just for that.

They cast their gazes down by their feet and came across the thoroughfare’s sidewalk by almost tripping over it. It would be difficult just to find someone selling the goggles with so much glare, but Gideon could hear plenty of activity all around him. Many footsteps, an odd swishing sound, people chatting, carts moving slowly through the nearby street, and barkers calling out over it all, describing the goods they had for sale.

He took it slow as he walked down a slope in the direction of the closest sounding barker. The glare left him more or less blind, and he could only partially see the sidewalk under his feet by squinting at it. A group of people walking in the opposite direction stepped around him, grumbling and muttering about the slow foreigners who’d been in their way.

A barker saw the two of them before they’d even known there was one nearby and he called out to them.

“You two! The big foreigner and the pretty girl, you two being blinded by the sun! You need sun goggles! I have sun goggles! Come over here!”

They made their way over to him, obstructing a few more pedestrians along the way before they managed to reach him. The barker belly laughed at the sight of the two of them approaching slowly, squinting hard at the ground. When they stopped in front of him, Gideon could see the man’s sandals and the wheels of the cart he was standing by, but not his face.

“Alas, it’s always easy to pick out the foreigners in this city.”

“How much for the goggles?” Gideon asked impatiently.

“Well sir, unfortunately prices have been inflated recently with the increased amount of travelers, and what with the war being over now the demand is higher-”

Gideon pulled out the denar in his pocket and tossed it at the barker. The barker was surprised at first, but then stupefied when he realized what he’d just been given.

“Is… is this a real gold denar?”

“Yeah, now hurry up. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

There was some clattering and crashing as the barker rummaged through his cart. After a few seconds he eagerly held a pair of sun goggles up to Gideon’s face.

He snatched up the goggles with his right hand, working the strap down over the back of his head and shutting his eyes as he settled the lenses over them. When he opened them again the world had been transformed.

They were standing at the bottom of a vast, bowl-like concourse framed by immense rectangular buildings. The thoroughfares ended at the bowl’s lip, but their sidewalks snaked down into it and merged into a small, rounded square centered around a large stone-brick well. A ring of street vendors had set up around the well, selling food and water mostly, but some had baubles and other tourist kitsch on display.

People were absolutely everywhere, walking along the sidewalks or across the square. Those who weren't in transit stood around in groups and conversed, or idled before the carts and display cases. The swishing Gideon had been hearing was from their robes; a very small sound that was multiplied a thousandfold by the thousands of people walking around in them.

To the south were the diamond shaped turrets of the king’s palace. They were many stories tall, and reached into the sky from behind a twenty-foot high wall which ran along the palace’s perimeter. A wide open-air stairway led up to an opulent set of double doors that served as the palace’s entrance, and a line of armed guards, between ten and fifteen in number, were stretched out across the stairway’s first step. They had no shade, and Gideon felt some sympathy for them.

To the west was the forum, which was the main source of the concourse’s activity. It was squat but enormously wide, decorated with a massive relief of some ancient battle stretching across the building’s entire width. The entrance to the forum was another rectangle —large, doorless, and open to the concourse. It was wide enough to admit dozens of people, and about that many were passing through it at any given time.

The arena dominated the entire eastern side of the concourse. Sculpted stone figures, armed and armored like warriors, were carved out of the arena’s walls. Together they gave off a grotesque impression of crawling movement, as if the mass of figures had all been frozen while trying desperately to climb to the top of the arena's wall. Gideon expected the figures on the walls were honored warriors from Kenanite history, or something, but he found it disturbing and quickly looked away.

The north side of the concourse looked like an opulent residential area, with a surprising amount of greenery decorating the exterior of the buildings. It was difficult to determine whether the buildings were temples or simply homes for wealthy residents, but there wasn’t much pedestrian activity going to or from that sector of the concourse.

After putting on her own pair of sun goggles, Surelin had been taking in the concourse and its surroundings as well. She had a very sour expression as she looked around, and when she noticed Gideon was looking at her she looked away from him sharply.

“Are the sir and lady pleased with their goggles?”

They turned in unison to look at the barker. He was a rather wrinkled old man, dressed in old desert robes that looked very stuffy and uncomfortable. His long and unkempt hair was gray, and it looked thin and dry, presumably from too much exposure to the sun.

“Why do they sell water if there is a well nearby?” Surelin asked him.

The barker smiled at her. “Oh, that old thing? It ran dry many years ago, long before I was even born! The city gets most of its water from other wells, nowadays. Actually, now that you mention it, imported water is a highly valuable commodity, and in fact I have a lot of it for sale right over here if you-”

Gideon talked over him for a few words until the barker gave up. “Yeah, anyways, do you know where the good inns are around here?”

The barker’s face fell only a little as he lifted his arm and pointed to the north at the opulent buildings. “Northside market is just past the temples, though you’ll need much more than a single gold denar to stay at any of those inns.”

“Great.” Gideon said, as he turned away and set off to the north. Surelin followed him with an exasperated sigh, the sack hanging low in her arms.

“Farewell, kind lady! Farewell, rude man!” The barker called out to them. “May death turn his eyes away from you both.”