DUCKING INTO A SIDE ALLEY, GARTH REMAINED silent, wary as a company of the city Watch marched past, their torches casting wavery shadows down the thoroughfare.

“So what is it this time?” Hammen whispered.

“Got a little too stuffy back in there, that’s all.”

“How was she?”

“How was who?”

“You know who.”

“Rather not say.”

“Rather not say,” Hammen mumbled. “I’m too old for it, he won’t let me watch, and now he’d rather not say.”

Garth stepped back out into the street, pulling the cowl of his cape up close around his face. He slipped back into the flow of the crowd, which was wandering aimlessly up and down one of the five main thoroughfares of the city. It was only two nights till Festival and the air was electric with excitement as the city filled up to the bursting point with visitors pouring in from the countryside and town from as far as Yulin and Equitar five hundred leagues away.

Besides being the final match of skill for all fighters of the Western Lands, it was also a time of market. Merchants came laden down with their wares and their order books. These were not just the peddlers with a horse or mule load of goods to sell but were the owners of the great trading consortiums which controlled vast caravans, warehouses, caravels, and galleys. They were here not only to place and fill orders, but also to pick the fighters they would need to protect their enterprises and harass those of their rivals.

Entertainers came so that the streets were filled with jugglers, singers, musicians, and actors. Hanin by the score slipped in as well, in spite of the Grand Master’s injunction, hoping to be noticed and gain the precious right of color before they got themselves killed. And most important of all came the princes, barons, dukes, and lords to watch fights and make bids upon the contracts for next year. The Peace of the Land had started as well upon the first day of the moon and would hold until the last day of the month so that they could prepare themselves for the season of wars that would follow in the time between Festival and the beginning of winter.

Garth drifted down the street, stopping to watch a troupe of jugglers, one of whom must have been a hanin who could control a single spell, for the balls they were juggling turned suddenly into snakes as they rose into the air, hissing and rattling, and then turned into balls again as they came back down. The crowd watched appreciatively and at a safe distance. Several of them kept taunting the juggler they suspected was the hanin, hoping it would break his concentration so that he’d wind up catching a poisonous serpent and thereby provide a good show.

Garth continued on and all around him the conversations were on the Festival. Gambling sheets were being printed by the tens of thousands and made available for a few coppers. Each scroll listed the lineup from each House and in an arcane code told of the fighter, his pedigree, trainer, spells believed to be carried, and most importantly, the win and loss record in previous Festivals. There were even sheets for the illiterate, which far outsold the ones with writing, marked with coded symbols and slash marks along with betting guides that detailed the odds for the probable matches fought by the higher-rank fighters.

The street echoed with arguments, some of them heating up to the point of fists and drawn daggers as the milling mob argued their favorites.

“It never ceases to amaze me,” Hammen said, as the two stepped around two old women who were rolling in the street and trading punches, “how the mob follows Festival. Here they barely have enough to eat. Taxes from the Grand Master, and for that matter the princes of the surrounding lands, are ruinous in order to pay for fighters. Yet do they see that?”

Garth looked down at Hammen.

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself when I first met you.”

“I was surviving and don’t interrupt me. As I was saying, any thought much beyond where their next meal comes from and which hand to wipe themselves with is beyond them. They don’t care about anything beyond that. And yet when it comes to the arena they can tell you the pedigree, the training master, the rank, wins, and spells of damn near every fighter of the four colors. It amazes me. Since you fighters live longer than us anyhow, we’re talking about records that sometimes go back several hundred years. Those two old crones fighting back there in the gutter most likely already had their favorites while still in swaddling and have been following them their entire lives.

“Yet you fighters, do you care?”

“Are we supposed to?”

“Like I said, son, shut up and listen, I’m in the mood to lecture. Most of the fighters I’ve known would squash a peasant like a bug. Especially those who carry black or red mana in their satchels. Using those bundles of mana to focus their psychic links gives them dark and near-godlike powers when compared to a stinking peasant who can only fight with his hands.”

“I have a few of those.”

“I know, and that’s disturbed me. But as I was saying, most fighters are nothing but leeches. They live like royalty in their Houses, they hire out to lords of quality or to merchants who can pay. And there they live like royalty as well. They fight and if it’s against those without the power, they usually kill them out of hand. If it is against another fighter, usually you just surrender a spell and be done with it, then go back and tell your employer that your mana was not strong that day. You stage these elaborate fights and in an entire year not more than half a dozen of you get killed. It’s only during Festival that things get a little bloody and even then most of it’s a sham. Most of you don’t give a good damn for anything other than yourselves, you’re all so damn haughty just because, as an accident of birth, you came into this plane with the ability to control the magics. As for the rest of us, we live our lives out in filth and misery to support you.”

“Am I being lumped into this?”

“I honestly don’t know at times, Master.

“And the fighters of the Grand Master,” Hammen continued, “they’re even worse. They get recruited into his service and stay in his direct employ for the rest of their lives. They’re there for one reason only, to offset the mob, the rival princes, and the other Houses. They’re even worse than the leeches of the Houses. They’re parasites that eat us alive from the inside out. At least the House fighters have only recently been corrupted; there was a time when they did do service to the people. But those serving the Grand Master, they’re lower than snake crap in a wagon rut.”

Garth, chuckling softly over Hammen’s rage, stopped for a moment at a fruit merchant’s stall and came back with two pomegranates, tossing one to Hammen, and he continued on. As he ate the delicacy with relish he made sure that his cowl still concealed his face so that he looked almost like a holy dervish of the Muronian order. The Muronians made their livelihood by passing out tracts promising that the entire universe was doomed and generally annoying the rest of the world so that some people wished it would end just to get rid of them.

Several city warriors slowed as they approached Garth, as if they recognized him. He reached into his pocket as if to pull out a tract and they quickly hurried on.

“I like this disguise,” Garth said.

“I still think you’re crazy to be out and about like this. Better to stay in the House. I’m willing to bet everything we’ve won so far that Varena would be happy to join you in bed tonight.”

“I want to see some things,” Garth said absently as he tossed aside the ends of the pomegranate.

Up the street a trumpet sounded and the crowd gave way as a line of horsemen came down the thoroughfare, swinging to either side with their riding crops to clear a path. Behind them came some petty princeling, who looked out from his carriage window with haughty disdain. As he drew past Hammen let fly with the remains of his pomegranate, catching the prince on the nose.