The City of Ashes Read online

  The people of Gath appeared healthy and well fed. They were taller than average but few of them appeared happy. They walked along with a determined stride, unsmiling and rarely looking at their surroundings, but then there wasn’t much worth looking at.

  Jennifer and I went into a clothing store, just to see what they had. It was depressing. Little color, most of it variations on the standard gray civilian uniform, which looked much the same as the standard gray military uniform. Utilitarian, not ugly, exactly, but exceedingly drab. Jennifer felt the material of a few jackets and a skirt, frowning, then shrugged. “The cloth isn’t flimsy. It’s well made,” she said. “Nobody would want to wear it back home, though.”

  “I don’t know. You might start a trend.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I doubt it.”

  We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and were given a table by the window. Our unofficial escort sat down at a table nearby. They did nothing obvious but the crowd seemed to recognize them for what they were and we were given a wide berth. There wasn’t a lot of choice on the menu: a chicken breast, a pork cutlet and a small piece of steak, with grilled vegetables on the side. The food was hearty but bland and under-seasoned. A little salt and pepper improved it, though, and we almost enjoyed it. The other diners gave us curious looks but otherwise appeared to ignore us.

  A hologram played in a corner near the ceiling, a military parade. The voice was turned down too low for us to make out the words but the presenter seemed to be extolling the wondrous virtues of the fatherland. Another holo in the opposite corner ran a feature on the upcoming games. There wasn’t much conversation in the restaurant and I don’t think it was because of us. These people were not in the habit of revealing their thoughts in public. I wondered if it was any different when they were in private. Probably not. Such regimes tended to have a lot of spies and even your kids might wind up turning you in if you said too much of the wrong thing.

  We wandered through a public park, which did have a few shrubs and scraggly trees but was mostly covered in exercise equipment, which groups of young people were diligently using. After another hour of wandering around and finding little worth seeing, we gave up and returned to the hotel.

  Chapter 3

  The stated purpose of the Grand Tournament was to identify potential military assets among the populace: the best fighters, the best strategists, potential leaders. The fact that every five years, the Grand Tournament also rubbed the world’s collective face in the facts of Gath’s superiority was an unstated—but to the government of Gath—an equally valid and important purpose. Prizes were given at all levels of the competition and for the average citizen of Gath, success in the Grand Tournament was the surest, quickest way to promotion.

  “Check,” I said.

  My opponent frowned down at the board and then gave me an angry look. I didn’t feel sorry for him. You take nothing for granted in chess. It doesn’t matter what an opponent looks like; he could be a beginner at the game or he could be a grandmaster. A skinny little guy with buck teeth and glasses is just as likely to have the soul of an assassin. So, you play every game as if it counts and treat every opponent with respect, if not fear.

  This guy, however, wasn’t very good. It was an elimination tournament and we were both playing our second match, which meant that both of us had already won or at least drawn our first game, but he must have gotten lucky or maybe his opponent was just lousy.

  I was not a grandmaster but I was pretty good at the game. I had gained a one pawn advantage early on and then traded pieces. One of the principles of endgame strategy is to simplify both positions as quickly as possible. Once you have an advantage, you want to reduce the available options. I had done so. My opponent stared at the board for a long time but staring was not going to change his position. Finally, he sighed, glared at me, shook his head and tipped over his king. I glanced at my interface. I had an hour for lunch before the next bout.

  My next opponent was better. He had white and opened with a King’s gambit, which frankly, rarely works. White trades a pawn for a supposedly superior position but in the end, the trade is hardly ever worth it. We exchanged pieces for almost thirty moves and the game ended in a draw. I was satisfied with a draw. A draw wouldn’t hurt me.

  My last opponent of the day was a highly rated player but he made a classic mistake: he fell for his own propaganda. He didn’t know me but he knew I was a foreigner and he knew that foreigners are inherently inferior to the glorious natives of Gath. It was probably unconscious on his part but he just assumed that I didn’t know what I was doing. He started out sloppy, lost a pawn early on and by the time he realized that he was in trouble, it was too late. He lost a game that he should have won.

  “How did it go?” Jennifer asked.

  “So far, so good. Better than expected, anyway. I won three and drew one.”

  We were sitting in the hot tub, sipping wine. “That’s good.” Jennifer put her glass down, leaned over and kissed me. “Have you ever had sex in a hot tub before?” she asked.

  “Once or twice,” I said.

  She grinned. “You can’t have too much sex in a hot tub.” She kissed me again and moved on top.

  Yep. So far, so good.

  I lost the next morning to a guy with a grandmaster rating, which knocked me out of the chess portion of the tournament but I had accumulated a lot of points. They wanted to winnow the field, and we were already down to fewer than a thousand contestants. John Mead and Allesandro Abruzzi, I was interested to see, were still in it.

  The three of us had exchanged very few words during our voyage. Mead and Abruzzi had deliberately avoided each other, and myself as well, except for dinner at the Captain’s table, where neither of them had said more than a few words. One day, however, I came upon Mead in the ship’s library, a carpeted room with sturdy wooden book cases. The books were carved wooden shells containing electronic readers, each stuffed with many thousands of copies on every subject imaginable.

  The room was entirely whimsical, since any of us could call up any volume we wished on our own personal interface, it’s real purpose to allow private meetings in a comfortable, soothing atmosphere. I wasn’t looking for Mead and I wasn’t interested in looking for a book. I was restless, exploring the ship, merely out of curiosity, and here he was, sitting in an easy chair, looking at a volume on Renaissance art.

  I nodded when I saw him sitting there, and began to close the door.

  “Please,” he said, “come in.”

  I hesitated and Mead smiled at me. It was the most expression I had yet seen on his face. I stepped in and closed the door.

  “I was hoping for an opportunity to speak with you,” he said.

  I sat down in a soft leather chair. “Why is that?”

  “Stephen approves of you. That intrigued me.”

  “Stephen?”

  “Stephen Sarnoff.” Seeing my bewilderment, he grinned and said, “Master Chen.”

  “Ah…” It occurred to me belatedly that I had never before heard my sensei’s real name.

  “We trained together, way back when, in the same dojo. He liked to play practical jokes.”

  “He did?” Somehow, I couldn’t see the grave, controlled sensei as a player of jokes.

  “I keep in touch with him. I spoke with him shortly after the invasion of your capital city. He told me that you planned on entering the tournament in Gath.”

  I pondered that. I hadn’t told Master Chen my plans beyond what had been publicly announced but it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out what we were doing. It was obvious, after all. We wanted it to be obvious.

  Mead gave me a searching look. “He says that you are skilled, a diligent pupil. I wanted you to know that I bear you no ill will but I am going to do my best in the upcoming tournament.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I would expect no less. This isn’t personal. So will I.”

  He shrugged. “It might not be personal to you or to me but it is very perso
nal to many others.”

  “Abruzzi,” I said.

  “I know Allesandro Abruzzi only by reputation. He is a talented fighter but he allows his emotions to get in his way. Be careful around him.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I will.”

  I had also spoken just once with Abruzzi. The day following my little demonstration with Lieutenant Grant, Abruzzi made a point of coming up to me in the gym. We were both dressed in work-out clothes. Abruzzi’s body looked like it was carved out of rocks. He watched me on the bench press for a moment, waited until I had put the weights back in their rack, then said, “You’re not quite the pretty boy that you appear. I wanted you to know that I know that.”

  Okay. Good that we got that off our chest. “And now that you know it, so what?”

  He gave me a brooding look. “It doesn’t matter what you look like,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that you think you know how to fight. If you get in my way, I will go through you.”

  Yes, yes, yes…blah, blah, blah. You are without doubt the greatest fighter in the Universe, and your terrified opponents will look upon your magnificence and despair. “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.

  He glared, turned and walked away.

  After the chess tournament, I rotated onto a virtual reality simulation. It was a standard scenario, with lots of dark forests, rushing rivers and drizzling rain. I was a private in the king’s army. My platoon had been sent on a scouting mission and stumbled on a horde of invading goblins. Now, we were trapped, surrounded on three sides. Our only chance of breaking out was to swim a raging river back to our own army’s position on the other side of the water.

  Piece of cake.

  I took it upon myself to cover the retreat, bobbing and ducking, swinging my sword, cutting off goblin heads and arms and legs and having a merry old time until all my comrades were in the river and then I jumped in and began to swim along with them toward the farther shore…until an arrow hit me in the back. A buzzer sounded. I was officially dead and out of the scenario but I had demonstrated both skill and initiative. Privates, like pawns, are expendable. Privates are expected to die but the way I died counted for a lot. At this level of the game, I couldn’t have done any better.

  The next level up was Sergeant. I organized the retreat, gathered the men together, wasted a few privates in the process and got most of us out alive. Again, I racked up points to the max. By the time the game ended, late in the day, I was fifth in the overall standings, out of more than eight hundred competitors left in the contest.

  John Mead was seventh. Allesandro Abruzzi was seventeenth.

  The next day was simple: running and lifting. I came in fiftieth in the lifting portion of the competition. Since there were no weight divisions, I was competing against men (and a few women) who outweighed me by a considerable margin and I was pleased with my score.

  The races were divided into sprints and distance. I came in fifth in the hundred meters and fourth in the ten thousand. All in all, a pretty good day’s work. My overall score drifted up from fifth to fourth.

  The obstacle course came next. I wasn’t looking forward to this. In the past, a lot of competitors had crashed out on the obstacle course. We ran one by one, another contestant crossing the starting line every minute. We had been given a map and so we all knew what to expect in general terms but we would have to discover the details for ourselves.

  The course was five kilometers long. I ran across a flat track for a hundred meters, and then jumped a fence. Two others of increasing height quickly followed. I had to climb the last one, which slowed me down for a few seconds and then I came to a rock wall. We had been given knives but neither ropes nor pitons. The sheer granite face had minute indentations for hands and feet but if we fell, it was going to hurt, or worse. Enhanced strength gave me a slight advantage but most of the competitors, the ones who were left, at least, were both strong and fast. No matter.

  The sun was hot, the sky a cloudless blue. Thankfully, there was no wind. I dug my fingers into small holes in the rock, went up as fast as I could and didn’t look down. A few minutes later, I got to the top and ducked as a swinging wooden pole swept over my head. I waited two seconds, hauled myself up, jumped over the pole on its next pass and ran down a grassy, muddy trail. The trail looked…odd. Bare patches were spaced at suspiciously even intervals. I stopped for an instant, picked up a large rock and dropped it onto one of the bare patches. It fell in. I peered into the hole; at least half a meter deep. If I had fallen into one of these, I could easily have broken a leg, and of course, the grassy parts of the trail could contain traps, as well. I ripped a branch from one of the trees, stripped the leaves and used it as a staff, probing the ground in front of me as I walked. All the bare patches covered holes and one grassy area, near the end of the trail, covered another.

  Clever, I thought. The bastards.

  I ran on. The trail ended in what appeared to be a thick copse of nearly impenetrable forest. I had to drop my improvised staff but I grabbed an overhead branch, swung myself up into the trees and kept going, jumping from tree to tree like a squirrel. Vines hung at convenient intervals but somehow, it didn’t seem smart to try swinging on them. I stopped for a moment, however, and used my knife to cut a nice length of vine, wrapped it around my waist and tied it. It might come in handy later. Nothing untoward occurred in this part of the course and a few minutes later, the forest ended at the edge of a rushing stream.

  According to the map, the stream was less than half a meter deep but it looked a lot deeper, the water dark and tumbling over submerged rocks. Well, if it worked once, it ought to work again. I used the knife to cut a tree branch and made another staff, then probed the streambed with the staff and as I suspected, the water plunged into a hole almost two meters deep. I unwrapped the vine from around my waist, tied it around a rock and threw the rock between two closely spaced boulders on the opposite side. I pulled back until the rock caught between the boulders then I waded out into the water. I almost lost my balance but held onto the vine, pulling myself through the water hand over hand. The current helped. It dragged me downstream and the vine swung me around and close to the opposite bank.

  I got my legs under me, regained my footing and went on over a paved pathway until I reached a flat rubberized surface that stretched for two kilometers straight to the end of the course. The track was designed to let those who still had the energy push themselves through and maybe even gain a few seconds. I ran.

  A few minutes later I could see the finish line. Only one obstacle left: a maze full of swinging, weighted poles suspended from a frame overhanging the last hundred meters. The poles were set to come down at random times and variable speeds. No help for it. I entered the maze, stopped as one pole passed in front of my face, jumped over another, barely dodged a third. There was no way to do this fast. If I tried, I would get slaughtered. I stopped, started, stopped, started, gaining a few centimeters, maybe sometimes a meter or more, worked my way to the end as quickly as I could and crossed the line.

  Dimly, I could hear the crowd. Some were cheering but the cheering was muted. I glanced at the scoreboard. My time in the obstacle course was the third best, which put me into third place in the overall standings. I was the only foreigner left in the main competition and the good residents of Gath were not exactly pleased.

  I drew a deep breath. The sun was a red-golden ball on the horizon and I was finally done for the day.

  Thank God. I needed a bath and a good night’s sleep.

  Chapter 4

  My first actual fight took place the next day. It was almost a joke. My opponent was a skinny kid who had probably entered the competition on a dare. He had done well at chess, however, and moderately well against the goblins, so he was still in the overall tournament.

  The number one rule of competition in the octagon is the same as it is for any other game: never underestimate your opponent, but in this case, it was hard. The kid was pale and almost trembling. He looked like
he didn’t want to be there and he probably didn’t. The referee held up his hand, let it drop and for a moment, neither of us moved. The kid seemed confused. He turned his head from side to side, desperately looking for help but this was the last place anybody was going to help him. Finally, I glided forward into the fifty-four steps of the Goju Shiho. He stared at me. “Come on, kid,” I said. “Do something.” He cleared his throat and just stood there.

  Okay. I moved into the Taikyoku Shodan, a kata which emphasizes low blocks and middle lunges, gliding closer and closer. I was two feet away from him when he gave an ear-splitting shriek, flipped forward and aimed a kick at my abdomen. Suddenly, he was smiling.

  I suppose he thought that his pretense of bewildered incompetence had lulled me into underestimating him but I glided to the side and underneath his kick, grabbed him by the pants and flipped him upside down. He was fast, very fast actually and despite his little act, he must have thought he was hot stuff, but once you’re in the air, you’re committed. You can’t change direction when your feet are off the ground but an opponent can change it for you. He came down hard on his head, flopped over on his back and was out cold.

  What a jerk.

  I bowed to the audience and the referee and walked out of the circle. I had a three- hour break before my next bout and I went back to the suite for a shower and some lunch. I knew that the majority of the Endeavor’s crew would be gathered in the media room, which had a wet bar, snacks, a fully equipped kitchen, padded chairs and couches and an enormous holo-screen in the center. A running commentary of the games kept the score constantly updated, so I decided to grab some food while watching the rest of the competition. Captain Jones looked up when I walked in. He frowned when he saw me. “Look at this,” he said.

  Two women were fighting with knives. The blades were dull but they had the weight and feel of the real thing and could do some damage if the fighter really tried. They were filled with red ink containing a nerve poison that would temporarily cause paralysis on the part of the body that was hit. One combatant had two red streaks on one arm, which was hanging limply at her side.