Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (37 page)

“Okay, fine, you win,” he conceded. “Just put
them away for now, please!”

“I can agree to that,” I said and brought the
tools back in, relaxing some. Peter swept in behind me, freshly
showered, carrying his boots and swiped a biscuit off the table
before moving to a chair to put his socks on, ignoring the face-off
between Kieran and me.

“I don’t like this at all, Seth. I want you
safe, not out in the middle of a pitched battle without any
experience,” argued Kieran.

“I don’t want any of us out there, Kieran,” I
said, “but there’s no way out now, and if any one of us goes, I go.
I can’t walk away from this, Kieran.”

“How did you develop the armor?” he asked
quietly.

I shrugged. “I didn’t. The Stone came up with
that one. I’m beginning to think these things have minds of their
own.”

“And little things like brownies creep you
out?” he scoffed, grinning slightly.

“Master Seth? Would you come in here,
please?” called Shrank from the doorway.

“Go finish scaring the brownies,” said
Kieran, sighing. “Then come back. We need to talk about strategies,
I suppose.”

“I don’t want to scare them,” I said,
defensively.

“Well, you have. Just hurry up,” he snapped
and went back to Ethan.

“You will be surprised by him, Kieran. Don’t
worry so much,” I heard Ethan say, consoling Kieran as I left the
balcony.

I walked into the main room of the apartment.
Shrank was hovering over the coffee table between the two sofas
nervously flitting short distances.

“What’s up, Shrank?” I asked.

“You wanted to meet the brownies who lived in
the apartment, Master Seth,” said Shrank. “I have managed to
convince three of the elders of the tribe to speak with you. They
are a very skittish race, Master Seth, even more so here but quite
capable.”

As he spoke, three very thin forms took shape
on the sofa opposite me. It wasn’t a sudden appearance, but quite
slow. The three figures were standing in the center of the sofa in
gray waist coats with black slacks with white ruffled shirts and
black ties, very much the English butlers, as long as butlers were
no taller than half a foot and weighed about four ounces. They
looked similar to the elves, but honestly, it looked like these
three guys enjoyed life a little more than the elves ever did or
would. I could see the geas bindings on them as little golden rings
around their souls, yet there was still a great deal of joy in
their hearts. Not at the moment. Right then, they were scared out
of their wits.

“Sirs,” I said quietly. They bowed deeply at
the waist, almost down to their feet and held it. “Please, don’t.
I’m not used to such displays. I’m just used to doing everything on
my own and having y’all is a shock to me. I’m afraid I’ll step on
you or hit you or something if I don’t know you’re there.”

The center brownie stood slowly while the
other two faded slowly from sight. They weren’t completely
invisible to me anymore, now that I knew how to see them, what to
look for. They showed as a faint brown halo as they moved off the
couch and around the room. The one that stayed chirped at Shrank
quickly. He trilled something back and they went back and forth a
few times.

“You’ve confused them, Master Seth,” Shrank
said, giggling. “I have to admit you still confuse me quite a bit,
too.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked him.

“I told him you’re nuts, he just doesn’t
believe me,” Shrank sang out.

“Why is it nuts to believe that nothing
living is beneath notice,” I asked him. “A plague is too small to
see and it has devastated many civilizations over time, mostly
carried in small parasites on small animals over short distances. I
just want to know what’s around me and frankly, these three look
quite happy. This is a good thing and within limits of a guest
here, it’s my responsibility to make sure nothing gets in the way
of their happiness while we’re here.” It made perfect sense to
me.

“See what I mean?” Shrank squealed at the
brownie. “He starts to make sense and then off the cliff he goes.”
Shrank made a melodramatic tip off the tabletop, falling almost to
the floor before righting himself and flying back up again. I heard
a chorus of really high-pitched giggles from all around me. I
started looking around for the faint halos. There were a lot of
them in the room now, some very small and holding on to the larger
ones. They faded into view briefly as I looked, smiling at me
shyly. I smiled back. There were about twenty-three in all.

“Thank you,” I said to the brownie on the
sofa, still visible and watching me cautiously. “It will be easier
for me now that I know you’re here. And thank you, Shrank, for
getting them to talk to me.” I stood up slowly and left for the
balcony.

“See? He thanks us. His servants! He’s crazy,
but in very good way,” I heard Shrank squeak to the brownies. I
just shook my head and kept going.

“These matches are going very quickly,” said
Peter as I walked out onto the balcony.

“If they are to get to the third level by
noon, they would have to go fast,” said Kieran. “And I don’t think
all of these are intended to progress past the first level anyway.
Look at that kid over there. He can’t be more than twelve or
thirteen. There’s no way he’s supposed to go up against an elf of
six hundred, and we’ve yet to see a team on the field.”

“Look who’s coming,” said Ethan, quietly,
looking to the right. MacNamara was walking down the aisle with
Cahill and Florian in tow, his proxies right behind him. Today he
was dressed in his pale blue day suit with tails, pinstriped in
bright orange, and carrying the tall cane. The usual attire of the
pictures we’d seen of him. They stopped at the gate and MacNamara
spoke through his proxies again.

“Good morning, gentlemen… May we… come in?”
he asked. As I was closest to the gate, I jumped up and opened it
for them.

“Of course, your Grace. To what do we owe the
pleasure of a visit this morning?” I asked, barely containing my
eagerness to question Cahill about my mother’s condition. I didn’t
understand “Hostage rules” but I had to contend with them all the
same.

“We are about to begin… the first level of
solo contests… We are all curious… about the McClures’… opinions on
the matches,” said MacNamara through his proxies, smiling. He had
an odd gleam in his eyes and his aura was piqued in curiosity.
There were other emotions layered in him but I couldn’t
differentiate them.

“Oh, they haven’t started, then what have we
been watching? We thought they we going too easily,” said
Peter.

“These are mostly what you would consider
roughly equivalent to regional championships,” said Florian.
“Measuring control, strength, duration in situations that are
difficult to maintain elsewhere. In essence, practice.” Señor
Florian seemed to have lost most of his accent with the change to
more casual clothes: black shorts with black athletic shoes with
white ankle socks and a colorful silk short-sleeved shirt. He was
lean and lithe, with an athletic build that the tuxedo had hidden
last night. Cahill, on the other hand, showed a few years of
neglect over a once strong build. He, too, wore shorts, tan khaki
with a blue oxford pullover, but he had a bit of a gut. His arms
and legs were thick from years of previous muscle, deteriorated
from the underuse of the bureaucrat, though it didn’t look like it
would take more than a few months for him to get back into shape
again.

“Let me see about some more chairs,” I said,
closing the gate behind them. “Would you care for some
refreshments? Something to eat? There are some very good croissants
on the table there.” When I turned, they were seating themselves in
five new chairs staged behind where Kieran and Ethan were standing.
MacNamara’s was, of course, much taller than the rest. “Oh,” I
said, a master of words. Then I grinned a little. Of course, there
were new chairs. There were twenty-three brownies in the apartment
and an elf-king walked in. Silly me. I sat down and whispered a
thank you to the brownies, hoping they’d hear.

“The field is clearing now,” said Ethan. “How
many will start during the first rotation?”

“The field will hold forty… matches at
first,” said MacNamara. “These will go… quickly, paring down… half
the combatants… for the second level. …We will see… three, maybe
four waves… of humans. Then the Fae matches occur… They will move
faster.”

“Why so fast?” Kieran asked.

“They are randomly picked,” said Florian, “so
skill levels can be pretty mismatched.”

“That seems pretty … off-kilter for something
that can get you killed,” I said, more than a little disturbed.

“Most will not be using deadly force at this
level,” said Florian with a smile. “It would be
‘unsportsman-like’.”

“But it could happen,” I said.

“Yes,” replied MacNamara, both left and right
this time.

Eighty people ran out onto the field, men and
women. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that the fountain
of power streams was missing from the center of the Arena until now
as elves in pale blue and orange striped jerseys spread out from
the center among the contestants. As they formed forty trios of
combatants and referees, a grid formed from the ground up,
separating each group into equal-sized enclosures to roughly
head-height.

A bell rang once and the contestants faced
each other, glowering and threatening. The referees were stoic. A
second bell rang, lower in tone, and I could feel the immense draw
of power in the Arena and I pulled up a low-level shield to
maintain the power level I had. It was purely a reflexive move. A
third bell rang, even lower, and power was released throughout the
Arena’s field level. Massive amounts of power, laced with different
tastes and smells, burned across the space in front of me and
bounced around the grid, sometimes hitting targets, often battering
hastily constructed shields, mostly returning to the ground again.
Only about half pulled power again. The other half either didn’t
need it or couldn’t use it if they could pull it in—they’d already
won or, mostly, lost. A second pulse of energy pushed through the
Arena floor. This one was mostly kinetic energy, slamming people
around, beating them unconscious. Then the walls started coming
down. The first wave was over. It hadn’t taken five minutes.

Kieran looked over at me and asked, “Ready to
back out now?”

I stared out over the field. Even the winners
looked dazed and some were barely standing. Men with canvas
stretched between eight-foot rods of wood ran out onto the field
and started collecting fallen figures. It took longer to clear the
floor than to mount and conduct the battle combined.

“I will if you will,” I responded.

Cahill cleared his throat loudly, not saying
a word but making his presence known. I looked at him, right in the
eyes. He met my gaze steadfastly.

“No,” I said, turning back to Kieran.

With the second wave, I decided to pick out
one cell in the grid and watch it specifically. I had to detach
myself from the fact that these were actual people trying to hurt
each other—that disturbed me too much. Maybe if I’d gone to public
school and played football or something, it’d be easier… I didn’t
really believe that.

The next wave started out onto the field and
I locked onto a flash of bleached blond hair. The Arena’s
perspective let me zoom right in on the guy.

“Hey, that’s the British guy from Atlanta!” I
just about shouted as I recognized the jerk. I jumped up to the
rail, looking back quickly to make sure I wasn’t blocking anyone’s
view.

“What? Where?” asked Ethan, almost giggling
as he got up beside me.

I pointed him out and watched as he was
partnered against a man of Middle Eastern or maybe Indian descent.
I wasn’t sure and I wasn’t going to ask anyone here. It just seemed
kind of rude to me, but maybe I was being overly sensitive. I
watched as the two men assessed each other for the first time and
took in their auras, their senses of selves, and how their powers
flowed through them. I felt confident that the arrogant blond guy
would win even though the other man was twice as powerful. It was
kind of empowering for me, even though I really didn’t like the
guy.

“Whatch’ya think?” I turned and asked
Ethan.

“The other guy, hands down,” he said,
puzzled. “He’s twice as powerful, more structured in his thinking,
his flow is more regular. He should win. You think otherwise?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right about the fact
that the other guy should win and that’s exactly why he’s not going
to. He’s decided he is, so he’s going after blondie in his fashion,
whatever it is. But whatever it is, it’s going to be structured and
overly powerful and safe for him. So blondie’s going to do
something totally unexpected for this guy. It’s not going to be
terribly powerful or immensely slick, just new to him. And bam,
he’s the last man standing.”

“You’re saying he’s over-trained,” said
Florian.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said.

“Overly confident,” suggested Kieran.

“That I can see,” I agreed, nodding. “And
misjudging his opponent’s desire to win. Blondie’s here because he
has to be, not because he wants to be. He’s a street fighter, not a
competitive fighter. He’s out of his league here. There’s something
up with him and his opponent isn’t bothering to take that into
consideration at all.”

The anxiety level was rising in the Arena.
Something was slowing the proceedings down.

“That is an interesting… take on that
conflict,” said MacNamara. “What about… this one?” My view on
blondie and his opponent was yanked away and moved to the far
corner of the Arena, to another couple taking position on the field
as the grid began to form on the ground and push up. A man and a
woman this time, the first woman I’d seen. Her magic was wilder
than anyone’s I’d seen yet, less controlled, like vines in the
swamps. The man was similar to Blondie’s opponent, structured and
practiced. At their first glances at each other, mental barriers
crashed into place and they both became nervous and tense. They
knew each other.