Under the Crimson Sun

but it wasn’t the good burning that he got from the liquors in the taverns.

Then the room started turning all kinds of interesting colors. Particularly the ceiling …

It was only when he noticed that the ceiling was bright pink that he realized that he was on the floor. He couldn’t feel his legs. The burning sensation in his mouth and throat had become an embracing numbness.

“Shouldn’t he be asleep?” the mul asked, which confused Sasker, as the mul should have been asleep.

Clumsily reaching for his bone knife, he saw the thri-kreen standing in front of the open cubicle door, the mul standing next to her.

“I don’t get it,” the thri-kreen was saying-except she sounded different, much quieter-“the feresh should have taken him out in an instant like it did the other guards.”

Sasker tried to make his mind focus. Obviously the thri-kreen wasn’t who she said she was, which was kind of annoying, and she had drugged his wine. Sasker was so grateful that he had a high tolerance.

He almost lost his grip on the bone knife. Concentrating, he held onto it.

If only someone was close enough for him to stab. Unfortunately, the thri-kreen and the mul were moving away from him.

“What the frip is going on?”

That was Tirana.

“Something’s happened to the guards, and-Why is the mul out of his cubicle?”

The mul said, “Gan told us what you did to him and Rol to lure them here. That means I don’t need to be nice.”

Sasker struggled to his feet even as Tirana screamed. He heard the sound of bones breaking, and then the screams stopped. Sasker couldn’t see what was happening, as he was staring at the floor after having managed to get to his knees.

He gathered every inch, every muscle, fighting through the fatigue that was covering him like a blanket, and struggled to his feet.

Once he did so, he found himself face-to-face with the mul. Beyond him was the thri-kreen, and beyond her the broken body of Tirana, her head at an impossible angle.

“I told you to drink with your friends,” the mul said. His breath was awful.

“Wouldn’t have helped,” the thri-kreen said.

Needing all his energy to raise his arm, he did so without speaking.

Before he could strike, the mul grabbed his hand and directed it right down into his chest.

The wine from Yaramuke-or whatever it was-had numbed him to the point that it didn’t actually hurt. But he could see his blood dripping from his chest onto the stone floor.

Sasker’s final thoughts before the darkness claimed him were that he really, really hated his job.

Fal Jago always went back to his office after the fights were over and had a drink. By the time the last fight was done, he was exhausted and wired at the same time. Being out on the stage, hearing the roar of the crowd as he riled them up, preparing them for the fight, was at once thrilling and tiring.

Since Calbit didn’t do anything during the fights, Jago was more than happy to leave the supervision of the guards and the closing down of the arena to him.

One could argue that Calbit didn’t do much of anything beyond recruiting, but that wasn’t fair. After all, if it wasn’t for Calbit, Jago wouldn’t even have known that the Pit was available for sale. And Calbit was expert at finding prospects for the arena.

But it had been Jago who provided the capital to allow them to purchase the arena from the crown. Jago rather wished Calbit remembered that more often.

Jago missed Storvis, but the mul who’d replaced him was doing very well. He suspected that their profits would be tremendous before too long.

He had no idea what it was that Mandred was turning into, but he was more than happy to have it out of his arena.

Reaching down, he yanked open the lowest of the drawers of the desk he and Calbit shared in the office, then removed its sole item: a bottle of wine from one of Urik’s finest vineyards. Jago had come to an arrangement with the vintner; he provided Jago with the finest bottles from his stock, and Jago gave him free seats in the arena.

He hadn’t actually shared the details of the arrangement with Calbit. What his partner didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and besides, then Jago would just have to share the wine.

As he poured it into a goblet, he shuddered at that notion. Twirling it around in the goblet, he imagined Calbit slugging it down like the uncouth sand rat he truly was.

Calbit hadn’t been able to find anyone to properly train fighters since Sorvag’s death. Sorvag’s boys would always give the people a good show, but once Gorbin killed him, that was the end of it. Gorbin’s skills not withstanding, Jago thought the lack of good training was the real reason the fights had become so poor.

The ease with which Mandred took Gorbin down bore that out. Mandred and Storvis had training. The only other people who did so well in the arena were ex-military.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that the partnership was not working. Calbit’s contributions were less and less valuable-and took him farther and farther away from the arena for longer and longer periods of time.

Jago had been saving since he and Calbit bought the place from the crown. He hadn’t been able to save as much the past couple of years, but he had enough coin stashed away that he could sell his share of the arena to Calbit and finally retire.

With the new mul in place and the fights becoming unpredictable, it was a good time. Jago wouldn’t need to sell the fights anymore-worst-case, Calbit could hire a professional barker.

Or maybe Calbit would try it himself. That would be a laugh. The least charismatic person in all of Athas trying to announce the bouts. Jago would probably come back to the arena to see that.

Though that was unlikely. Urik was a city of magnificent architecture and glorious spires that clawed for the skies like the lions that provided the motif for so much of it.

And Jago spent all his days and nights in a tapped-out obsidian mine. Never feeling the red sun on his face, instead all his hours were spent surrounded by stygian darkness barely illuminated by inadequate torches.

He’d had enough. A few more fights, once the profits were guaranteed to be back on track, and Jago would sell to Calbit. He’d buy a castle with lots of windows so he could see the sun for as long as it was up.

It would be glorious.

“Where the frip is everyone?”

Jago sighed at the sound of his partner’s voice. Usually Calbit was supervising the guards at this point, leaving Jago in peace.

Calbit stormed in. “What the frip is going on?”

“What are you blathering about, Calbit?”

“I can’t find a single one of the guards.” He frowned at Jago. “What are you drinking?”

Setting the goblet down quickly, Jago said, “Nothing. What happened to the guards?”

“I haven’t the first fripping clue. I can’t find Tirana or any of the mercenaries, either, and-”

Calbit cut himself off at the sound of someone walking down the hall. Jago peered past his partner to see the new thri-kreen guard, whose name he couldn’t remember, skittering down the hall.

“You’re both here,” the thri-kreen said. “Good. I need to show you something.”

Moving toward the thri-kreen, Calbit snarled. “What is going on? Where is everyone?”

The thri-kreen chittered in her native tongue for a bit. Jago’s Chachik was a bit rusty, but it was something about being unable to believe what she was hearing.

Jago certainly felt that way a lot when Calbit spoke.

“It’s really difficult to explain,” she finally said in Common. “If you’d just come with me, it’ll all make sense.”

Shooting Jago a look, Calbit asked, “Can you believe this idiocy?”

Somehow, Jago managed to restrain himself from saying what he wanted to say.

“Look,” the thri-kreen said, “if you just come this way …”