115 - It's a story

Iliakaj’s room smelled of Lakan incense and Haian camphor lotion, the kind that gives relief to old wound-aches. I didn’t ask about his worst wounds; that is not something a fighter ever tells other fighters, and so it would be rude to ask. Above his vanity was a mosaic of tiny paintings, astonishingly sharp for their size, of what looked like fighters. “All my opponents, to date,” he said. “A fan does them and sends them to me.”

As I marveled, a cricket began chirping, somewhere inside here with us. Somehow, in this room, in this building, it didn’t seem that incongruous.

“So if you mean to marry Irela,” I said, “you must not mean to leave Arko.”

“No. My life is here now. My family at home… well, I have been blessed with one dispensation. I was permitted to write home, after the first four times. They’d given me up for dead. But, you know, they expected me to marry and move to my own place when I grew up anyway… they just didn’t think it would be quite so far away. I wouldn’t want to take Irela, and kids, away from their place. The kids know nothing but Arko.”

“Why not marry her now, then?”

“I know it’s easy to forget with all this, Sievenka, but I’m still a slave. Slaves have to get their owner’s permission to marry, and I’m afraid the idiot would say no. First thing I do when I make fifty is apply for citizenship, and then I’ll marry her.”

“And then what; teach sword-craft? You could do what Koree does, if he ever quit, and you wanted to. How could the greenhands not respect you?”

“Or put my feet up,” he said. “I have enough that I need not work ever again.”

“You’ve earned it ten times over, by my book,” I said.

He absently petted the snake. “Silly fans,” he said. “What was I going to do with a live snake? I wear it for the one who gave it to me.”

“As long as it doesn’t strangle you,” I said. “The Immortal, killed by a symbol of immortality...”

He laughed, as I’d known he would, by the harmony we’d found between us. If we are matched, it will be there then, too, I thought, and he could use it to beat me. “It eats crickets,” he said. “I know you’re wondering why you heard one, but were too polite to ask. You were so obviously raised in a palace. The snake’s meal is noisier than the snake. I never cease to wonder at the inventiveness of fans.”

“What’s the most inventive thing they’ve ever done?” I asked. “That bit of… skin… perhaps?”

“That’s among the most inventive, for sure,” he said. “They threw me an amazing surprise party for my hundredth chain; that was nice. I was utterly surprised; I would never have thought of it.”

“They mystify me,” I said. “I despair of ever understanding them… and wonder if it’s in truth because I don’t really want to. How one moment they are so heartless, screaming for your blood, and the next, they’re acting as if they love you, and it seems so real.”

“Well, you can’t see them as one; they are all different,” he said.

“Well, sure, you have one person thinking one way and the next the opposite; but sometimes it seems like the same people. Tzen kellin ripalin, yes?”

“Arkans are good at that,” he said. There were a hundred stories in that creased brow.

When I’d first arrived and learned what my fate here would be, I’d shut out of my mind all thought of them. But over time they’d gathered *** over my mind, like a weight, and forced me to face them. Perhaps because they were the reason I’d been sentenced to this fate; perhaps their sheer number; or perhaps because they were people, and so called to the part of me that sees people in numbers and whispers, semana kra.

I bared my heart to Iliakaj. “After that, I hated them for a while, wished them massacred, wished the city sacked and razed, imagined a sea of their blood. But that didn’t stick either; my mind strains for reasons. It’s mostly at night, for some reason. What is this to them? What does it mean to them? It obviously means a lot—why?”

He waited, knowing I was not finished asking, even before I was. “I can see the fascination in watching two good fighters fight; the skill, the moves, siding with one of them in your heart and wondering who will win. I always loved watching my teachers spar; but that was to learn, also. Why don’t they get bored of it after a while? And why don’t they get sick of the gore? Why don’t they ask, ‘Why are we doing this to these men?’ and walk out as one? It means so much that they must keep us, against our will; why so much?”

He shrugged, but then thought for a bit, the furrow between his sharp-lined eyes deepening again as he searched for the best words. “They feel small in their lives,” he said finally. “Following a fighter is the closest they can get to a person who raises them out of themselves—or lowers them.” He laughed drily. “Who takes them to an extreme, either way, where they feel more. They don’t want to be themselves; they imagine they want to be like us, on the sword-edge, in the excitement and the drama, not living the grimness they bear every day.”

I ran this through my mind several times, trying to understand it, in vain. He went on. “They don’t know how to live for now, except vicariously. It feeds a kind of desperation in them.”

“But…” Finally I put words on my bafflement. “Why don’t they want to be themselves? Who else would they want to be? All right—I can see, here in Arko, why an okas would want to be an Aitzas. But that’s just about wealth; and besides, lots of Aitzas come; why would they want to be fighters, who are slaves? If you aren’t who you are, who are you?”

“Sievenka… well, curse it. I want to say, did you never want to pretend you were a prince, performing heroics in war, when you were growing up? But you were that. I read your page in Lives of Notables as soon as I found out, to study you, and almost wish I hadn’t… you don’t know what it is, to live a life that is insignificant. No wonder you’re confused.”

I remembered how I’d looked up at a shepherd on the mountainside, after Jinai’s reading, and wished I were him, living a life that was insignificant, and so not responsible to a nation. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

“Maybe if I put it this way: they would love to be someone who doesn’t hurt the way they do, every day of their lives.”

“But we hurt the way we do, and that’s got to be more than a vanishing few of them. For one thing, they generally have more than a year or two, tops, of life ahead of them.” I thought of how angry I would be even to lose my last eight or nine years, were my prospects in the Ring hopeless. “Besides, they aren’t us—they’re them! There is a custom we Yeolis have, chiravesa, being the other—but it’s always to understand the other, not pretend to live their life for some sort of bizarre, perverse need…”

“They don’t pretend enough of it to understand our pain—”

“Or don’t care; I’ve seen that plenty enough.”

“The part they pretend… Sievenka, it’s like a drug. That’s why you see so much Arkanherb smoke up there. Being a fan is like being addicted to an illusion… a dream. They are slave to it.”

“Well, I can see why people become drunks... drunkenness is happiness. It soothes pain. And I gather it’s the same with Arkanherb. Katzeriks, you just go mad if you can’t have one. But, how does this feel good? Where’s the pleasure? I am sorry if I seem an utter innocent here... but I guess I am.”

“They get to forget their own pain, by feeling for and with someone else, who lives a larger life than theirs. You know... the excitement, the drama. Without having to feel our agonies truly, just distantly.”

“I can see why they’d want to feel our ecstasy, just of surviving another day... but someone has to lose.” It came to me suddenly why tzen kellin ripalin ruled in the Mezem; by switching their love immediately from vanquished to victor, it allowed them all to stay in love with victors all the time. A shudder seized me, from the heart outward.

“Why do people like plays about horrific tragedies?” he said.

“I can tell you why I like them,” I said. “Because they reveal something searingly real, and they let you cry out your own pain, whatever it is, from your heart. But I wouldn’t want every play to be a tragedy; I couldn’t bear that. You have to have some comedies. And every fight is a tragedy.”

“We are the tragedy played out every four days, so they can cry out their own pain too, as you see. And the glory thrown in to gild it.”

“I can see why they’d want to see courage, heroism, someone coming back from all but defeat with a brilliant move, so you can’t help but love him; but so rarely is it that.”

“It’s a story, Raikas—Sievenka, I’m sorry. A fairy tale they come to see, four-day on four-day. They cast some of us as heros, some as villains; they make up stories about us every time they sit down in those seats.”

I had wondered why fighters wore what looked like circus or theatrical costumes; I’d thought they were being pretentious, or trying to intimidate their opponents—or, once I’d come to know Skorsas, their boys had such plans. And yet so often a man seemed entirely different in, say, the fighter’s parlour, than in the Ring. I’d thought it brought out different parts of their natures; now I saw what would have been obvious, from their moves, had I been able to bear it: they were acting.

“But why would they…” We were slaves, I remembered. They’d got orders, perhaps through their boys. Or perhaps they’d found it brought in more golden gifts. “Right.”

“My character is The Immortal, the one who never dies, even when he is defeated,” he said. “So they always show the white. Suryar Yademkin, they’ve made a heroic warrior; Dridas Danas, the fallen prince; Shorai the Black is a villain, a pirate; Arno Mayhem is the madman, whose moves you can never predict. Some of them indulge themselves in their own pretenses, in truth.” The moment he said that, I thought of two or three. “Then there was Riji Kli-fas, who was in a league of his own; when it came to madness, I think he was the real thing.”

I’d learned a little more about Riji, since the Sereniteer who’d questioned me had mentioned the name, but only a little: that he’d settled in Arko, and was still accorded the title “Living Greatest,” since those worthies who were deemed experts of the Mezem were still of the opinion that no fighter had come along since he’d won his fifty who could beat him.

“He was before my time, but I heard plenty,” said Iliakaj. “He came voluntarily; showed up at the Mezem gate with a sword and a stack of books. He played to the worst of the bloodbats, always, wearing a get-up that was all raggedy, his hair wild out to here; outside the ring he dressed immaculately, not a hair out of place. He’s a professor at the University here, now.”

“A professor at the University?”

“Yes—teaches Diverse Foreign Philosophy to the students who’ve already been there five years. The man is brilliant: he paints as well as any Arkan artist, plays the harp as well as a paid musician, speaks six languages, has written books, and is in with the brainiest of Arkan academia.”

“You mean, he’s a genius.”

“And an utter bloodthirsty madman in the ring, yes. He would kill, and torturously, even if they showed the white—some frowned on it at first, but then the crowd started always to indulge him, as did the idiot, and the Imperator.”

“You’re making this up,” I said. “You’re pulling my leg!” We were close enough, I felt now, that he might.

“Second Fire come, I am not! Ask Koree, or Iska!”

“I will. If it’s true, you can laugh at my naivete.”

“I already am, lad.” But he said it affectionately, not slightingly at all, so I could not be offended. “I meant to say, about what they make us play, though: you, they weren’t sure what to do with. One look at you and anyone’s going to think ‘hero,’ but then you were reluctant and cold to the fans and vicious to the writers and telling the idiot ‘fik you.’ So it was decided you would be one who has both the hero and the villain in him—which, of course, makes you everyman, too—which is why you have both the hero’s colour of red and the villain’s of black. Skorsas knows his stuff.”

As if that weren’t enough to make my head spin, he said, “I can’t imagine the idiot hasn’t caught wind of who you really are, so I’m surprised he hasn’t done anything with it, yet… don’t be surprised if he makes you wear blue and green and whatever insignia a king—sorry, whatever the position really is—of Yeola-e wears into battle.”

“Over my fikken dead body!” He flinched back from me, the faintest trace, then stared surprised, as I sprang up out of the fancy chair to pace, quivering. I keep thinking my suffering cannot get any more huge, or any further beyond imagining, I thought.

“I might be wrong,” he said hastily, though I knew it was out of kindness, not fear of me. “He may not be doing it because he feels the Karas Raikas persona is too entrenched with the fans. Skorsas feels for you enough that if he understands you, he’ll be dropping that in the idiot’s ear.” I seized calm. In this place, I was coming to learn, it was better not to worry about anything happening until it did.

It was near noon; I should go. But there was one more thing I wanted dearly to say. “Iliakaj, some fighters are determined to beat you without wounding you out; but others are more determined to kill you than anyone else, so that they can say, ‘I killed the Immortal.’ Right?”

“You’re getting the feel of it, Sievenka. The latter are almost easier to beat, often.”

I took my crystal in my hand. “I give you my oath, second Fire come if I am forsworn: if we are matched, though I hope we are not, and if I manage to get the better of you, I’ll make sure I don’t wound you out.”

He smiled, the laugh-lines creasing a thick scar on his cheek. “Thank you. Second Fire come says I will do the same for you.”

“Then we have a pact… probably not allowed, I would think; my lips are sealed. Of course if you get me, the crowd might show the red; not a chance that would happen with you.”

“I have a way of asking for them to show white,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

“You do? How? Do other fighters do that?” I’d never seen it, as far as I knew. “I want to do that every time!”

“What a gentle-hearted thing you are, Sievenka, for a warrior, and a king—not king, sorry. I told a writer, he wrote it, and they picked it up. Raise the empty hand, means white; raise the sword, means red.” He hadn’t cared either way in the fights of his I’d seen, it seemed. “Let a writer overhear that I’ve inspired you.”

“Then I do it… and your fans will show their whites, perhaps—and you have lots of fans.”

“Perhaps. It’s worth trying.” The noon bell rang, and all Arko, but for the tiny girls whose agonies were the chimes of noon, fell silent. When we were free to speak again, he said, “Well, my friend, shall we go to lunch?”

“I am honoured that you trust me enough to call me that,” I said.

He gave me his hand on it, and I did likewise, though then he pulled back, saying, “If that’s not too familiar for a… people’s-will-doer.”

“The Mezem might decree that it’s not too familiar for you to stick your sword into me, one of these days,” I said. “And here, you are the master and I am the student. So, no, not at all.” I grabbed his hand again. “I wish you fifty in a row and long life, Immortal.”

“Thank you, Sievenka. I wish the same for you.”

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