"Probably because they want to play, and you don't." Verna untied her shawl and flapped the ends, trying to cool her neck. "What's so interesting about it that everyone would want to go crowd together in the sun to see it."

"I guess it takes them away from their toil for a day of festivity. It gives them an excuse to cheer and scream, and to drink and celebrate if their team wins, or to drink and console one another if their team loses. Everyone gets quite worked up over it. More worked up than they should."

Verna thought it over a moment as she felt a refreshing breeze cool her neck. "Well, I guess that sounds harmless."

Warren glanced over out of the corner of his eye. "It's a bloody game."

"Bloody?"

Warren sidestepped a pile of dung. "The ball is heavy and the rules loose. The men who play Ja'La are savage. While they must of course be adept at handling the broc, they're selected mostly because of their brawn and their brutal aggressiveness. Not many a game goes by without at least some teeth getting knocked out, or a bone broken. It isn't rare for a neck to get broken, either."

Verna stared incredulously. "And people like to watch that?"

Warren grunted a humorless confirmation. "From what the guards tell me, the crowd gets ugly if there isn't blood, because they think it means their team isn't "Ting hard enough."

Verna shook her head. "Well, It doesn't sound like anything I would enjoy watching."

"That isn't the worst of it." Warren kept his eyes ahead as he strode along the shadowed street. To the sides, shutters so faded it was hard to tell they had ever been painted stood closed over narrow windows. "The losing team is brought out onto the field when the game is over, and each is flogged. One lash with big leather whip for each point scored against them, administered by the winning team. And the rivalry between teams is bitter; it isn't unheard of for men to die from the flogging."

Verna walked in stunned silence as they turned a corner. "The people stay for this flogging?"

"I think that's what they go for. The entire crowd supporting the winning team counts out the number of lashes as they're laid on. Emotions run pretty high. People get really worked up over Ja'La. Sometimes there are riots. Even with ten thousand troops trying to keep order, things can get out of hand. The players sometimes start the brawl. The men who play Ja'La are brutes."

"People really like rooting for a team of brutes?"

"The players are heroes. Ja'La players virtually have the run of the city, and can do no wrong. Rules and laws rarely apply to Ja'La players. Crowds of women follow the players around, and after a game there's usually a team orgy. Women fight over who will be with a Ja'La player. The spree goes on for days. To have been with a player is an honor of the highest order, and is so highly contested that bragging rights require witnesses."

"Why?" was all she could think to say.

Warren threw up his hands. "You're a woman; you tell me! When I've been the first in three thousand years to solve a prophecy, I've never had a woman throw her arms around my neck, or want to lick the blood off my back."

"They do that?"

"Fight over it. If he's pleased with her tongue, he might pick her. I hear the players are pretty arrogant, and like to make the eager women earn the honor of being under him."

Verna looked over and saw that Warren's face was glowing red. "They even want to be with the losing players?"

"It's irrelevant. He's a Ja'La player: a hero. The more brutal, the better. The ones who have killed an opponent with a Ja'La ball are renowned, and are most sought after by the women. People name babies after them. I just don't understand it."

"You're just seeing a small sampling of people, Warren. If you were to go into the city instead of spending all of your time down in the vaults, women would want to be with you, too."

He tapped his bare neck. "They would if I still had a collar, because they would see the palace's gold around my neck, that's all; they wouldn't want to be with me because of who I am."

Verna pursed her lips. "Some people are attracted by power. When you have no power yourself, it can be very seductive. That's just the way life is."

"Life," he repeated with a sour grunt. "Ja'La is what everyone calls it, but its full name is Ja'La dh Jin — the Game of Life, in the old tongue of the emperor's homeland of Altur'Rang, but everyone simply calls it Ja'La: the Game."

"What does 'Altur'Rang' mean?"

"'Altur'Rang' is from their old tongue, too. It doesn't translate well, but it means, approximately, 'the Creator's chosen, or 'destiny's people, something like that. Why?"

"The New World is split by a mountain range called the Rang'Shada. It sounds like the same language."

Warren nodded. "A shada is an armored war gauntlet with spikes. Rang'Shada would roughly mean 'war fist of the chosen. »

"A name from the old war, I guess. Spikes would certainly apply to those mountains." Verna's head was still spinning with Warren's story. "I can't believe this game is allowed."

"Allowed? It's encouraged. The emperor has his own personal Ja'La team. It was announced this morning that when he comes for his visit, he's going to bring his team to play Tanimura's top team. Quite an honor, from what I gather, as everyone is beside themselves with excitement at the prospect." Warren glanced around, and then turned back to her again. "The emperor's team doesn't get flogged if they lose."

She lifted an eyebrow. "The privilege of the mighty?"

"Not exactly," Warren said. "If they lose, they get beheaded."

Verna's hands dropped away from the points of her shawl. "Why would such a game be encouraged by the emperor?"

Warren smiled a private smile. "I don't know, Verna, but I have my theories."

"Such as?"

"Well, if you have conquered a land, what problems do you suppose might present themselves?"

"You mean insurrection?"

Warren brushed back a lock of his curly blond hair. Turmoil, protests, civil unrest, riots, and yes, insurrection. Do you remember when King Gregory ruled?"

Verna nodded as she watched an old woman far up a side street draping wet clothes over a balcony railing. It was the only person she had see in the last hour. "What happened to him?"

“Not long after you left, the Imperial Order took over and that was the last we heard of him. The king was well thought of, and Tanimura prospered, along with the other cities under his rule in the north. Since then, times have become hard for the people. The emperor allowed corruption to flourish and at the same time ignored important matters of commerce and justice. All those people you've seen living in squalor are refugees come to Tanimura from smaller towns, villages, and cities that Were sacked."

"They seem a quiet and content lot for refuges."

An eyebrow lifted over a blue eye. "Ja'La."

"What do you mean?"

"They have little hope of a better life under the Imperial Order. The one thing they can have hope for, dream about, is to become a Ja'La player.

"The players are selected because of their talent at the game, not because they have rank or power. The family of a player need never want for anything again; he can provide for them — in abundance. Parents encourage their children to play Ja'La, hoping they will become paid players. Amateur teams, classed by age group, start with five-year-olds. Anyone, no matter their background, can become a paid Ja'La player. Players have even come from the ranks of the emperor's slaves.

"But that still doesn't explain the passion for it."

"Everyone is part of the Imperial Order now. No devotion to one's former land is allowed. Ja'La lets people be devoted to something, to their neighbors, to their city, through their team. The emperor paid to have the Ja'La field built — a gift to the people. The people are distracted from the conditions of their lives, over which they have no control, and into an outlet that doesn't threaten the emperor."