Gathering of the Chosen (24 page)

Zaos took her hand and shook it again, but
this time, he shook it a little harder than before, almost as if he
was trying to harm her. When Raya looked into his eyes, she briefly
saw a distaste in them that contrasted sharply with his friendly
tone from before.

“Yes, Princess, sounds good to me,” said
Zaos, letting go of her hand and letting his own hand fall to his
side. He then looked around at the other godlings, who were still
trying to find their partners. “Sure would be awful if that
assassin that tried to kill you last night showed up again,
huh?”

Raya froze. She almost asked how he knew
about that, but then realized that it wasn't exactly a secret.
Still, just his mentioning of the assassin caused fear and panic to
return full force to Raya's mind. She wanted to run away, but she
kept her position, because she didn't want to look weak in front of
him.

“Ah, yes, well, that would indeed be a bad
thing,” said Raya, brushing strands of her hair out of her eyes
with a nervous laugh. “But you know, I don't think that that
assassin will try to get me or anyone else today. If he tries,
he'll be captured and stopped by the Soldiers.”

“Mmm hmmm,” said Zaos, though she didn't
like the tone in which he said that. “Yep, the Soldiers are
supposed to be real good at that. Still, if I had been attacked by
an assassin like that just the night before, why, I'd never be able
to concentrate on the challenge. Nope, I'd be watching every
shadow, jumping at every sound I couldn't identify the source of,
and not think clearly. I might even hide under my blankets and
never come out again.”

Raya's hands shook, but she quickly
stopped that before Zaos could notice. “Yes, well, I think I will
be just fine. That assassin was scary, yes, but I have nothing to
worry about.”

“And that is why your hands were just
shaking a second ago, yes?” said Zaos. He leaned closer to her, his
smile no longer looking quite as friendly. “Just a tip, princess:
If you want to win a competition—
any
competition—then you
don't show genuine fear to your competitors that they can
exploit.”

Raya gulped, but wasn't sure what to say
to that. All she knew was that Zaos was not nearly as friendly as
he appeared. In fact, she had a feeling that he had put on that
friendly face as an act, and nothing more.

Zaos stood up to his full height again,
while at the same time, Alira said, “The last of the challengers
have been paired up. Now go down the tunnels until you find a set
of doors for each of you to enter. After everyone is set, I will
then tell you when to enter the field.”

Zaos, nodding at Raya, walked over to the
two doors in front of the group. He took the right door, while Raya
took the left, but Raya no longer looked at him. She kept her eyes
resolutely on the door, now wondering just how much of Zaos's story
had been true and how much of it had been false.

And he is probably wondering the same
about me,
Raya thought.
Unless he thinks I'm too naïve to
lie about my past.

In any case, Raya was quite glad when,
about five minutes later, she heard Alira say, “Challengers,
prepare to enter the field and begin the challenge. The first to
succeed in taming their Steed will become one of the chosen ten
that will go onto the Hollech Bracket Challenge. All of the
Tournament rules apply and any cheaters will be punished
accordingly.”

Raya prepared herself mentally for
whatever she was about to face. She still didn't look at Zaos, but
she could sense that he wasn't looking at her, either, probably
preparing for the challenge just like she was. She almost prayed to
Grinf for aid before catching herself, as she was not certain that
praying to the gods for guidance counted as cheating or not.

Finally, the doors opened before them and
Alira said, “Let the first challenge of the Tournament begin!”

***

O
n the twenty viewer bubbles that
showed the field of the Stadium, Carmaz saw all of the Hollech
Bracket challengers emerge from doors with a stylized horse-man on
them. The bubbles displayed the competitors as clearly as if they
were right there in front of him, even though they were probably
several hundred feet below the box.

It didn't take long for Carmaz to spot
Raya. She stepped out of the door, looking around somewhat
uncertainly at her surroundings. She then went rigid when she
spotted something off-screen, causing the bubble to blink and then
show what looked like the biggest horse that Carmaz had ever seen
in his life standing at the other end of the small enclosure in
which Raya stood.

The horse was not merely big, but it also
had a red mane that looked like flame and had sharp, angry-looking
eyes that made even Carmaz feel unsafe around it, despite being
nowhere near it. The horse—one of Hollech's Steeds—pawed the ground
and sniffed the air, but it wasn't that it had not noticed Raya.
Rather, Carmaz was under the impression that the horse simply did
not think Raya worth its attention at the moment.

Wonder how she's dealing with that,
Carmaz thought, trying not to smirk.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Raya
seemed to have come to the same conclusion as him about the Steed's
nature. As Carmaz predicted, she looked rather offended, but she
still didn't approach it. She seemed deathly afraid of the horse,
though whether it was because of its large size and its unfriendly
appearance or because she was actually afraid of horses, he didn't
know.

If she doesn't get over her paralysis
soon, she'll end up losing before anyone else,
Carmaz
thought.

Then he noticed Yoji, whose bubble was
directly above Raya's. Yoji had confidently approached his Steed,
which had a silver mane and metallic eyes. He seemed to be having
slightly more luck with his Steed than Raya was having with hers,
although the Steed kept prancing just outside of his reach, eying
him with distrust.

The rest of the participants weren't
having much better luck, from what Carmaz could tell. The Steeds
seemed to distrust the participants greatly, which was somewhat
amusing to watch at first, but then it became boring after a while
and Carmaz started to worry that this challenge would take all
day.

Just as he thought that, however, he heard
a clanging bell that caused him to look to the front of the seats.
Alira was holding a bell in her hands and pointing at one of the
bubbles, saying, “We have our first winner, Yoji Nama! He has
successfully tamed Beluchi the Third Steed!”

Skeptical, Carmaz looked at Yoji's bubble
and saw that Alira was correct. The Steed—Beluchi—was standing
still by Yoji, who was stroking its mane and saying something to it
in a low voice. He was even feeding it some kind of treats, though
they were too small for Carmaz to see even on the viewer
bubble.

“Yoji will move onto the Hollech Bracket
Challenge,” said Alira, who sounded very excited about it. “His
opponent will be shipped back to his home island after the rest of
the participants have finished taming their Steeds.”

Yoji's bubble then vanished, as did the
bubble to its right, which had featured Yoji's rival, although
Carmaz didn't remember who that was. He just sat there, stunned at
how quickly Yoji had won, while most of the other godlings began
muttering among themselves, most of them marveling at how quickly
Yoji managed to tame his Steed.

“Damn,” said Braim, who sounded genuinely
impressed. “That kid really knows his stuff, huh?”

“That he does,” said Tashir, nodding. “I
suppose all of his early bragging wasn't just empty air. He's a
force to be reckoned with, all right. I'm just glad that I am not
going in the Hollech Bracket. I don't think I'd stand a chance
against him in a straight competition.”

“Think Raya will win?” said Saia, who was
leaning forward in his seat, his eyes locked on Raya's bubble.
“Because she seems to be having a lot of trouble with her
Steed.”

“I guess it's possible,” said Carmaz with
a shrug. “But truthfully, I don't see her winning. I think she'll
probably lose. And if she
does
win, then it will be by some
kind of divine miracle.”

“Can't say I'm enthusiastic about her
chances of success, either,” said Braim. “Not that she's not
trying, but she clearly doesn't know the first thing about horses
at all.”

“She needs the luck of Goda if she is
going to win,” said Tashir flatly. “But to be fair, the others are
also having trouble their Steeds. I doubt that she's the only one
who doesn't know much about horses. Although if she can't get over
her apparent fear of horses, then it seems to me that she is
destined to fail.”

As usual, there was a lot of truth in
Tashir's words. Raya did manage to take one step toward the Steed,
but she didn't move any further than that. She looked more like she
wanted to be anywhere else but here, even though she had nowhere to
run to.

I wonder if she's going to throw the
match so she doesn't have to compete,
Carmaz thought.
She
wasn't very happy about being put in the Hollech Bracket, after
all. It might be less that she is afraid and more that she just
doesn't want to compete at all.

Then—quite without warning—the bubbles
flickered and vanished, showing the same blank stone wall from
before.

Immediately, the rest of the godlings went
into an uproar, shouting and asking what was going on and why had
Alira turned off the bubbles. Alira silenced them, however, by
ringing her bell loudly, so loudly that it drowned out their
collective shouts of anger and confusion, forcing them all to
become quiet and listen to her.

“I do not know why this happened or what
caused this,” said Alira in her most authoritative voice, although
Braim caught a hint of fear under her authoritative tone. “I did
not turn off the bubbles, but I do not know who did.”

“Can you turn them back on?” asked one of
the godlings sitting in the front. “I want to see how the others
are doing.”

“We will get to see them all again very
shortly,” said Alira. “But please remain seated. I will have this
figured out soon enough.”

The godlings did remain seated, but there
was a lot of grumbling and murmuring among them, like some of them
didn't believe Alira when she said that she wasn't responsible for
this sudden turn of events.

Braim looked at the others sitting on
either side of him and said, “What do you guys think happened?”

“I have no idea,” said Tashir. “Perhaps
someone wrest control of the bubbles from Alira and forced them
off?”

“But why would someone do that?” asked
Saia, rubbing his hands together anxiously. “Is this some sort of
dumb prank?”

“Probably not,” said Carmaz. “This seems
too well-planned to be a mere prank. I think that someone is trying
to disrupt the Tournament.”

Saia gulped. “You don't think that that
'someone' is the assassin from earlier, do you?”

“Maybe,” said Carmaz. “Or maybe it's a
friend or ally of that assassin. Of course, it could also just as
easily be something less sinister.”

“I don't know about that,” said Braim,
rubbing the back of his neck. “Alira is acting like it's something
bad, so I figure it has to be something
really
bad if it's
freaking her out like this.”

Alira was facing the wall that the viewer
bubbles had been in front of mere moments ago, frantically waving
her arms at it like she was trying to cast a spell without really
knowing how. Yet the viewer bubbles did not reappear, despite her
best efforts to make them appear again.

Carmaz wished there was something he could
to help, but unfortunately, he was not a mage and knew about as
much about magic as a newt. He wondered if Raya and the other
participants in the Hollech Bracket were still all right or if they
were now at risk due to the fact that Alira couldn't see them
anymore.

If I was an assassin, I'd take this
opportunity to kill as many godlings as I could,
Carmaz
thought.
They're all alone, all separated, with nothing to help
them except the Steeds, which are hardly a threat when you consider
how untamed they are.

While Carmaz still didn't like Raya all
that much, he disliked the idea of her getting murdered even more.
He had to figure out a way to ensure that she and the others were
all right, but he wasn't sure how. He considered leaving the box
and entering the Stadium's field through the door that the Hollech
Bracket godlings had, but then he doubted that Alira would let him
leave.

If that assassin really
is
somewhere nearby, then it makes sense for us all to stay in one
place where Alira can keep an eye on us,
Carmaz thought.
But
that still leaves Raya and the others at risk. What if the assassin
is killing them off one by one even as we sit here
worrying?

Carmaz couldn't take it. He hated leaving
innocent lives at risk like this.

He stood up and looked down at Saia.
“Coming with me?”

“Where?” said Saia, who looked bewildered
by Carmaz's sudden movement.

“To the Stadium field, of course,” said
Carmaz. “We have to head down there to make sure that Raya and the
others are all right.”

“Hold on, Carmaz,” said Braim. He grabbed
Carmaz by the arm and, with surprising strength, pulled him back
down into his seat. “You can't go down there. Alira told us to
remain seated. She'll handle this on her own. She's the Judge. This
is part of her job.”

“I know, but the fact is, while Alira
tries to figure out what happened here, Raya and the others are all
at risk of being killed by that assassin,” Carmaz argued, pulling
his arm out of Braim's hand. “If I were an assassin trying to kill
some godlings, I'd pick this opportunity to do so, when no one can
see or stop me.”