Previously on Saga of the Jewels…
The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, VISH the poppy-seed-addicted assassin, RISS the spirit-summoning girl, and QUEL the water-projecting bard. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the evil EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they are competing in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its grand prize, the EARTH EMERALD…
EPISODE THIRTY-EIGHT: THE TOURNAMENT: QUARTER-FINAL ONE: RYN VS. ROGAR THE UNSURPASSABLE
The crowd thronged and pressed against Nuthea.
Even though she, Elrann, Cid and the two newcomers, Riss and Quel, had been given a place right at the front of it, next to the wooden barrier, she still felt hemmed-in.
There were no seats for this spectacle, so they had to stand like everybody else. Behind and to either side of them, and in front of them on the other side of the flat stone squares of the arena, stood thousands of Farrians, and their children, and in some cases their animals–she had already spotted a cow, a cochobo, and several goats–going back as far as Nuthea could see, pushing up against one another and chattering. The entirety of Farr seemed to have turned out to watch this tournament.
Nuthea caught a few sentences.
“I heard Rogar made it through the heats,” said an enthusiastic young man somewhere just behind her.
“That’d make sense,” said his friend. “He’s been dominating on the circuit recently.”
“He’s my favourite to win.”
“What about Li Ash-Tai?”
“I don’t know if he’s even entered.”
“If he has, he’s sure to take the prize. He’s beaten everyone on the circuit, more than once–including Rogar.”
“He can’t have. Nobody’s beaten Rogar.”
“I don’t know how any of them will be able to fight in this heat, really.”
“True. These fights will be endurance tests as much as anything else.”
They were right about that. The heat was sticky and cloying. Sweat ran down Nuthea’s arms and legs underneath her dress, making it stick to her skin. It never gets this hot in Manolia. She didn’t think that Ryn and Sagar would be used to this sort of heat either. Though perhaps Ryn would be able to handle it because of his fire-alignment. That gave her some hope.
She looked up at the sky. An unbroken, bright blue canvas for the sun, except for in one place where a single white cloud about the size of half her hand drifted.
One God, she prayed. Please help us. Please give us success today. Please help one of Ryn, or Sagar, or Vish to win this.
She returned to watching the slabs of the arena floor.
If only I had been able to enter, I could have won this with my lightning…
In the end she had had to reveal to the others that she was blocked in her lightning in order to explain why she wasn’t entering. Elrann and Cid still hadn’t wanted to enter either, and neither of the two newcomers were keen, so they had ultimately had to forfeit one of their four assigned places in the quarter finals. The Governor had taken no issue whatsoever with this, and said that there would be plenty of Farrians able to fill the vacant eighth slot from the tournament heats.
So they had reduced their chances of winning the tournament already.
But had their chances ever been that great? Could any of the boys really win this?
Vish, she thought. He should be able to cope in this sort of heat, given that he was from Aibar originally. The Shadowfinger was probably their best chance of winning this tournament, since he was the most proficient hand-to-hand fighter among them by a long way.
True, he did not possess any elemental magic, though, so that could tip the balance in Ryn’s or Sagar’s favour, if they ended up using it. Of those two, Sagar was the more skilled fighter, and had been fighting with his gift for longer.
However, some of the Farrians might have elemental projection as well now, from the Emerald. That could mean that Ryn would have the advantage, if he used his magic, what with earth-alignment being vulnerable to attacks from fire-alignment, as they’d found in the Earth Temple.
But they didn’t want to use their magic unless they absolutely had to, as they didn’t want to make their location known to the Empire. So far they appeared to have gotten away with avoiding that, since the audience at the Manyiro play seemed to have thought that Ryn and Sagar’s powers were part of the show, though that had only happened last night. On the other hand, the Farrians were so skilled at hand-to-hand fighting that magic might not even come into it–in which case that brought her back full circle to Vish as their best chance.
If Vish won, though, could they trust him to hand over the Jewel to the group for safekeeping? Could they really trust this former Shadowfinger whose life Ryn had spared, just because Grandfather Cid was supplying him with poppy, and supposedly helping him to ‘come off’ of it? It wasn’t as if he was even making much progress in doing that, given his own activities last night.
Nuthea shook her head. Vish had proved his allegiance time and again on their journey, by fighting alongside them and stepping in to save their lives multiple times. Of course he could be trusted.
Or at least, so she hoped…
She lifted her eyes to the sky again.
Oh, and One God, would you please un-silence me and give me back my lightning powers again?
She sighed. What was the use? She had prayed this prayer many times, and it just didn’t seem to be being answered. Or at least, if it was being answered it wasn’t in the way that she wanted. Oh well. She would just have to keep praying it. That was all she could do.
“Here we are,” said Cid at her side. “It’s starting.”
Nuthea looked.
From the mouth of a narrow tunnel built into the ground in front of the wooden barrier at the far side of the arena strode a thick-set man with a shaved head in the green garb of the Farrian fighting monks.
As soon as he became visible the crowd roared with approval, a deafening wave of noise that almost knocked Nuthea over.
The man walked to the centre of the square arena, smiling at the cheering and applause. He had a wide face and a mischievous smile.
He made a few rotations, clapping and cheering himself and making raising gestures with his hands. The shouts of the crowd grew even louder. He was whipping them up into a frenzy.
Then the man held up both hands, and miraculously the crowd stopped cheering all of a sudden and went quiet.
An eerie hush fell over the arena, almost as disturbing as the noise had been. Nuthea could hear her heartbeat inside her head. A mosquito buzzed past her ear, thrumming briefly before flying away.
“Fellow Farrians!” the monk bellowed, voice carrying over the crowd. “Welcome to the One Hundred and Twenty-First Fighting Tournament at Tenkachi!”
The crowd began to cheer again, , but the announcer held up his hands once more, calming them.
“Please!” he yelled. “Save your adulation for the combatants! Many qualifying bouts have been fought, and we now have eight quarter-final contenders ready to fight for your entertainment today!”
More cheering, and the announcer had to motion for quiet yet again. Nuthea was glad that the Governor had allowed Ryn, Sagar and Vish to bypass the heats and go straight to the final bracket, even if the Farrian crowds didn’t know this.
“As you know,” the announcer continued, “the rules of the tournament are simple: If a combatant falls out of bounds”—he indicated the dirt perimeter that bordered the arena in front of the wooden barrier that separated it from the crowd–“or if they yield, are incapacitated, unconscious or otherwise unable to fight for the count of ten, then their opponent is declared the winner of the round! Now, without further ado, I give you your first quarter-finalists: Ryn of Efstan versus Rogar the Unsurpassable of Morekemia!”
The crowd cheered and applauded, though not as loudly as it might have. Nuthea was surprised to hear that ‘Rogar’ was not a Farrian, but a Morekemian, but gathered from what she had overheard earlier that he was a foreign free agent who fought on Farr’s tournament circuit. So not everyone who had progressed from the heats was a native Farrian—that must have irritated the Governor.
She watched as Ryn walked out of the tunnel that the announcer had emerged from. His eyes found her at the front of the crowd, then quickly looked away. The boy took his place on one side of the arena.
Nuthea winced. Ryn didn’t seem to know where to put his hands, and ended up half-hugging himself with one of his arms. He looked hopelessly uncomfortable.
Then ‘Rogar the Unsurpassable of Morekemia’ walked out of the dugout.
Oh dear, thought Nuthea.
Ryn regarded the man standing ten paces away from him across the arena floor.
About two feet taller than him, Rogar the Unsurpassable cast a shadow that almost reached the young Efstanish farmboy even in the midday sun. The man was a giant. He was even bigger than Huld. The difference between this man and Huld, however, was that whereas Huld’s bulk was all honed muscle, Rogar’s was fat.
There was no other way to put it. A gigantic girth almost burst out of his trousers, which appeared to be made out of stitched-together sack-cloth, spilling over the top of them where they were tied together by a belt of rope. He was hairy- and bare-chested, except for a glistening black leather waistcoat which covered his nipples, but not all of the enormous rolls of fat that sat atop his belly like breasts, bigger than those of any woman that Ryn had ever seen.
Most of Rogar’s face was hidden by a thick mess of curly, deep-black beard which came down past his collarbone. Two mad beady black eyes peered out from above it, intensely focused on Ryn with a look of deranged glee. The top of his head was shaved, except for where a ponytail stuck out the back of it and hung down behind his neck.
Can a man so fat really be so skilled at fighting? Ryn thought. He may be big, but I am sure I am younger, and nimbler, and faster. I’ll use the techniques Vish has taught me to best him before he even has a chance to get a blow in. I’m not scared of him.
Although, if he wasn’t scared, then why was he shaking in his boots?
Somewhere far off, as if from outside a pool of water that he was submerged in, Ryn was aware that the tournament announcer was declaring the beginning of their bout. He didn’t fully heed it because all of his attention was focused on Rogar.
Unexpectedly, the giant spoke. “Do you know why they call Rogar ‘Rogar the Unsurpassable’, boy?” He had a deep, grizzly voice with a sadistic edge to it, and appeared to be referring to himself in the third person. He spoke loud enough that anyone in the audience, which had gone completely silent, would be able to hear him.
Ryn thought about trying to make some witty remark about the man’s size in reply, but his mind was fog and none came to him.
The giant didn’t wait for a response anyway. “It’s ’cause Rogar has never been beaten in single combat. Rogar has been doing this for years, and he is much better at it than you are!”
Ryn’s mouth had gone very dry. How did the giant know that? He hadn’t even seen Ryn fight. He’s just making an unmerited assumption…isn’t he?
Now Rogar did drop his voice, so that only Ryn and the nearest audience members would be able to hear. “Rogar heard they even let you skip the heats for some reason. Why? You are clearly only a puny untrained insect. What do the tournament organisers know that Rogar doesn’t?”
Ryn had no reply. He could give none. He decided that he would let his actions, and his fighting, speak for him instead.
Slowly and deliberately, he shifted his body into a fighting stance that Vish had shown them, standing facing his opponent side-on with his right foot forward, his left hand pulled back to his waist in a fist, and his right hand raised in front of his face with bent index and middle fingers extending slightly out from it, trying as hard as he could to hold himself so he did not tremble.
Rogar visibly suppressed a laugh, then turned it into a wide grin, showing brown and rotting teeth through his beard.
“Okay, Efstanish,” he said, back at his original theatrical volume. “You have some heart, Rogar gives you that. Rogar will give you one free blow. Rogar should warn you though, his other nickname is ‘Rogar the Insatiable’. Rogar eats children like you for breakfast. And once you have had your free blow, Rogar will eat you!”
At this goad a large component of the assembled crowd cheered, so loud that the noise broke through Ryn’s bubble of concentration. The cheer had bloodthirst in it.
The thing was, Ryn could genuinely imagine this man eating children. But he didn’t really do that, did he? That was just theatrics. That was just a taunt designed to unsettle him, surely?
Rogar raised a tree-trunk arm and beckoned Ryn towards himself. “Come on, little boy!” He spread his hands in a gesture of welcome. “Take your free shot at Rogar! Please!”
Ryn gritted his teeth. Pressure had built up in his groin–he needed to pee. Could the crowd see that he was shaking?
It doesn’t matter that he’s taunting me, he thought. One of us needs to win this, and I’m going to try my hardest for it to be me. I just need to try not to use my fire projection if I can manage it, so as not to give us away.
His eyes jumped to the place at the front of the crowd where he had seen Nuthea when he had walked out. There she was, hunched and tensed, both hands raised to her mouth. It looked as though she was biting her nails.
He looked back at the gigantic form of Rogar the Unsurpassable, whose hands were still spread in invitation, presenting him with his opportunity of a free attack.
Please don’t me look stupid and be humiliated, especially in front of Nuthea.
Ryn ran at Rogar across the square stone slabs of the arena floor.
He pulled back his fist as he approached, but deliberately did not will fire into it.
“Hyah!” he yelled as he punched, twisting his fist round as it moved through the air, just like Vish had taught them to do.
Ryn’s fist went right into Rogar’s paunch with a dull thwap…
…and stayed there, buried.
The folds of flesh just swallowed his hand up, accepting it, containing it, absorbing the force of the punch completely.
“Ahahahaha!” Rogar laughed heartily, clutching his sides as his whole belly shook–Ryn felt the vibrations running from his hand down his arm, making his teeth knock together. “You want another free shot, Efstanish? Have one! Have two! Have three! Have as many as you want! Ahahahaha!”
When Rogar spoke Ryn did not just hear the words with his ears, but felt them moving horribly from the giant’s belly, through his arm and his whole body. He felt them in his bones.
He heard the crowd watching them laughing too, somewhere.
His heart sank within him.
Mother. Father. Hometown. Found Vorr. Got Vorr. Killed Vorr. Find the Jewels. Save the world. Stay with Nuthea. Don’t look like a fool in front of Nuthea. Get the Emerald. Beat this man.
Damned if he was going to give up this easily.
Ryn’s temper lit, but he still retained just enough self-control to stop his hand from lighting on fire too. He hadn’t completely exhausted the non-elemental approach yet.
He pulled his fist out of the Morekemian’s gut. It came out with a slippery squerching sound and Rogar’s belly fat wobbled back into place after it.
Ryn smashed his fist into the laughing man’s nose, which he could just about reach.
Without pausing, he followed up with an uppercut to Rogar’s chin with his other hand.
Then a kick to his leg, then another spinning kick to his side, then several more punches to his chest.
Ryn had gained momentum now.
He threw blow after blow at the man, hitting him all over his body, unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks on the massive Morekemian.
Eventually, Ryn ran out of steam.
He stopped punching and kicking and took a step back, huffing and puffing hard from the exertion.
Rogar was laughing again.
Ryn’s attacks had had no visible effect whatsoever on the man. His punches and kicks had either bounced off Rogar’s flesh without leaving a bruise, or been absorbed by it. The man did not even have any marks on his skin from Ryn’s efforts, let alone bruises.
Well, poodoo, Ryn thought. He might as well have been throwing pebbles against a huge hanging slab of meat.
“Ahahahaha!” Rogar laughed, holding his heaving belly. The crowd were laughing again too, sadistic and relishing. “Now do you see why they call Rogar ‘the Unsurpassable’, puny child? Rogar has shown you why, and now he will show you why they also call him Rogar the Insatiable!”
Damn it, I need to use my fire, Ryn thought as the giant strode towards him.
He threw another punch at the man’s chest–this time lighting his fist aflame.
Quick as a snake-strike, Rogar’s hand shot out and grabbed Ryn’s forearm, squeezing it vice-tight.
Pain flashed along Ryn’s arm so bright and sudden that it made his fire go out instantly.
Before he knew what was happening, a strange weightless sensation took him as Rogar lifted him up from the ground by the arm…
…and then the arena floor slammed into Ryn’s face.
Shock reverberated through his body. His vision blurred. He tasted copper.
The pain caught up to him. Pain in his nose, pain in his head, pain flashing along the front of his body. So much pain. He heard himself crying out with it.
The crowd were cheering vehemently now, though Ryn could hear someone screaming too. Was that him screaming, or somebody else?
The vice-grip still held his arm tight. He caught a blurry glimpse of some of the people in the crowd moving across his vision as Rogar lifted him into the air again…
…then slammed him back down against the stony floor.
Pain, pain, so much pain.
His vision blurred again, and yet new pain wracked him.
The man was smacking him against the ground like some sort of plaything, Ryn understood somewhere in a corner of his mind.
Fire… he thought dimly with what was left of his wits. I’ve got to use my fire…
But then he smacked down against the ground another time and the thought was knocked out him.
Up, down, up, down. He hit the ground again and again.
There was a lull in the beating. Ryn’s head swam and spots danced in his vision. He was aware of blood running down his face, into his mouth. He may have lost consciousness a few times, but the next thing he became aware of was that he was hanging by his arm in front of Rogar’s horrible bearded face.
Someone was still screaming somewhere in amongst the cheers of bloodlust coming from the crowd. Nuthea. Ryn didn’t have the energy left to scream himself.
“—quite tough,” Rogar’s voice was saying somewhere. “Rogar will give you that too, Efstanish. Rogar would have expected you to pass out by now. The fact that you are awake is something. Oh well. Come here for a cuddle.”
Amidst the pain, Ryn was aware of being pressed up against Rogar’s flesh–against the sticky, sweaty, smelly flesh of his chest, and the curly chest hairs that tickled his broken nose and his bloody cheeks.
Two impossibly thick cords of rope constricted around his arms and torso.
No–not ropes. They were Rogar’s arms. The giant had enclosed him in a massive bear hug.
And then Rogar squeezed.
“Aaaaarrrggghhhh!” Ryn screamed in a paroxysm of pain. He felt some of his ribs snapping.
The spots in his vision turned black, and started growing, threatening to consume it.
Fire… he thought vaguely, though the thought was almost entirely drowned out by the pain. I’ve got to use my fire…
But it was no use. The pain was so intense, and the blackness in his vision so all-consuming, and it had spread to the whole of it. He had lost focus completely now, and his thoughts became very slow. He was about to lose consciousness.
One God…help me…
The crowd was roaring again.
Only, it wasn’t a pleased, triumphant kind of roar anymore. It sounded more like an angry sort of roar, punctuated by shouts of outrage and harshly-called phrases that Ryn could not make out.
He opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the sky. Clear blue, with the bright orb of the sun off slightly to the side, except, curiously, for one small dark cloud that had formed.
Nuthea appeared in his vision, brows knotted in concern. She looked pretty when she frowned. Then again, she always looked pretty.
“Are you alright, Ryn?” she asked.
He realised he wasn’t in pain any more. That had been his most recent memory from before he had passed out: Pain. So much pain.
“Yes…” he answered her. “Somehow…”
He remembered what he had been doing before the pain.
“Oh! Did I lose the fight? What happened to me?”
“That horrible man squeezed you until you passed out,” Nuthea said. “But when you passed out, your fire-gift activated. Your whole body exploded with fire, so powerfully that it blasted him out of the arena, right into the crowd, and burned him–quite badly. Cid had to go and heal him even before he came and healed you.”
“Cid?”
The old man popped up next to Nuthea. “Hello.”
“Oh. Thank you for healing me.”
“A pleasure, young man!” Cid smiled, showing his teeth. “It took considerably less mana than I had to use on our friend Rogar the Unsurpasaable over there…”
Ryn looked back to Nuthea. “That man was so strong… So…I lost the match, then?”
Now Elrann appeared too, next to Cid. “No you didn’t, farmboy! Didn’t ya listen to what princess-girl said? You passed out, sure, but ya gotta be out for the count of ten before they make the other guy the winner. Fat-man landed out of bounds before you got anywhere near a count of ten. So ya won! Way to go. Pretty impressive that you managed to win and pass out at the same time, though. You’re always passing out, ain’t ya? It’s, like, your ‘thing’. Fact, it had been a little while since you last passed out. I think you were probably due one.”
Ryn couldn’t help himself from grinning at her.
“The crowd are pretty pissed off about it, though,” Elrann continued.
“What? Why?”
“Well, they thought Rogar was a dead cert to win, for sure. He’s pretty popular on the regular fighting circuits apparently. And for most of your match he dominated.”
Ryn winced at the memory of his useless blows bouncing off the man’s flesh, of being repeatedly slammed against the floor and then crushed in a bear hug by the big Morekemian.
“But then right at the end ya did something they ain’t ever seen before, and you won unexpectedly, all of a sudden, without even being awake! They feel like you cheated. They feel cheated.”
“But I didn’t cheat…” said Ryn. “The Governor said we could use elemental projection if we wanted to. I just held out trying not to because of what Nuthea said about keeping it a secret for as long as possible…”
“Yes…” said Nuthea. “Well, the chocobo’s out of the stable on that one now, isn’t it? I know it wasn’t your fault though. We need to talk about this some more. But let’s get you out of this arena first. Come on, they’re waiting to start the next match.”
She took Ryn’s hand and helped him onto his feet. As he stood, the crowd immediately started to jeer and boo him. He saw faces scowling.
“Cheat!” someone shouted.
“Trickster!”
“Charlatan!”
“Sorcerer!”
Poodoo to you, Ryn thought as Cid and Elrann returned to their viewing area and he walked with Nuthea back towards the entrance of the tunnel that led from the arena to the preparation chambers, the announcer ushering them off while making calming gestures to try to pacify the crowd as they continued to boo. I don’t care if you think I ‘cheated’, Ryn thought. Find the Jewels. Save the world. Stay with Nuthea. Win the tournament. Get the Emerald. At whatever cost. By whatever means.
They made their way down the tunnel, and the daylight was blocked off, then replaced by lantern-light. Close air pushed in at Ryn inside the stuffy preparation chamber where he had waited with Rogar and the other combatants before going out to fight his match, carved out of the brown earth of Farr like so many of its structures.
Sagar ran up to him straight away.
“You won, pup?”
Ryn nodded. He wasn’t sure whether Sagar was concerned for him or for himself. “Yes,” he said, “But I had to use my fire. I wasn’t planning to, it just sort of happened. So they know at least one of us has elemental projection now.”
“Yes,” said Nuthea. “And news will travel. We need to get this tournament over with as fast as possible. You may want to use your gift too, Sagar, but remember you’re wanted by the Empire as well, so you do so at your own risk.”
Sagar set his jaw. “Got it.” He dropped his voice in a rare moment of seriousness. “It’s easier for me to hide my projection than you, pup. But if I have to use it, I will.”
From beyond the tunnel came the distant sound of a man shouting something very loudly. The referee announcing the second quarter final–Sagar’s match.
“Sagar,” Ryn said. “Be careful out there. The guy I fought was really strong.”
The corner of Sagar’s mouth twitched up, whether from amusement or because he appreciated the concern, Ryn couldn’t tell.
“Don’t worry about me, pup,” Sagar said. His brown eyes twinkled. “I’ve got this.”
The Farrian announcer appeared in the entrance to the dugout.
“Sagar of Imfis?” he asked, looking around.
“Here,” said Sagar, holding up a hand.
“And Hiuna of Farr?” said the announcer.
“Here,” said a defiant, distinctly female voice.
Ryn turned to see a woman dressed in the same green robes that Huld and the other Farrian monks wore, tied at the waist with a black cloth belt, striding forward. He recognised her as one of the other quarter-finalists that had been gathered together in the dugout before his first fight with Rogar. It would have been easy to mistake her for one of the male monks were it not for her slightly-higher-than-male-pitched voice and her short dark hair. That by itself set her apart from all the other monks, whose heads were all shaven.
“Godsdammit,” Sagar murmured under his breath, rolling his eyes. “Why do I always get paired up with these women who want to look and behave like men?”
“Do you?” asked Ryn, confused.
“Nevermind…” said Sagar. “I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t underestimate her, Sagar,” Ryn said quietly. “I meant it: The guy I fought was really strong. Remember we got a free pass through the heats. That lady has beaten a load of people to get here, unlike us.” 111
“Enough, pup!” Sagar brushed him off. “I’ve told you I’ll be fine!”
He walked out of the dugout shoulder to shoulder with ‘Hiuna of Farr’ to go and fight his match against her.
“Let’s go and watch them!” Ryn said to Nuthea, still standing a little way away.
“Not yet,” Nuthea said. “We need to go and talk to the Governor first.”
“We do?”
“We do. You showed the Farrian audience that you have the gift of fire. That’s fair enough, given that you needed to use it to beat that man as there was no way you were going to beat him without using it.”
Ryn fought back a blush unsuccessfully. His cheeks heated, and not from his ‘gift of fire’.
“But word of this will travel,” Nuthea continued. “It may take a few days for it to reach Morekemia so many miles away, but we can be sure it will reach them eventually. We can’t take any chances. We need to convince the Governor to get this tournament over with as quickly as possible. That way we can claim the Earth Emerald and get out of here with it as soon as we can. If the Empire send anyone here to investigate before we have the Emerald, it could be disastrous–if they have any soldiers left who can project fire, we now know that earth is weak to fire, so even if the Governor has used the Emerald to grant more of his monks earth projection, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Right,” said Ryn, grasping the seriousness of the situation. “Let’s go and talk to him, then.”
“Hold it right there, boy,” said a grizzly, hostile voice.
Ryn, who had turned and been about to walk off, froze in place and looked up into the fat, frowning, bushy-black-bearded face of Rogar the Unsurpassable. His blood ran cold.
“What did you do to Rogar?” the humongous Morekemian growled. “Rogar had you utterly beaten, Rogar had you crushed and soon to be out-for-the-count, and then all of a sudden you explode with fire on Rogar, and blast him out of the arena? What did you do, little boy?”
Apparently Rogar referred to himself in the third person even off the arena tiles.
“Er…” Ryn said. “I guess I can tell you, seeing as everyone will know before too long…” I’ll probably have to use them again to win my next match anyway, he thought. “I have fire projection powers. I got them from a magical ruby which my father gave me just before he died.”
Rogar looked at Ryn for a few moments with his beady, vein-riddled eyes, peering out over the mass of beard and fat.
Ryn wasn’t sure what was going on behind those eyes. Was the Morekemian angry, or confused, or had Ryn’s explanation satisfied him? Was he about to congratulate Ryn, or try to continue their fight, or pick him up and eat him?
Then: “Ahahahahaha!” Rogar burst out laughing, and slapped Ryn hard on the back with one meaty hand, knocking the wind out of him and making him put out both his hands to break his fall.
“A magical ruby, he says!” Rogar guffawed, still laughing in between sentences. “That is a good one! Well, whatever you pulled out there, boy, I hope it takes you all the way to winning the final! Rogar thinks that his reputation will stay intact! Either you will beat everyone with your fire trick, or you will be disqualified for cheating and Rogar will be called upon again to fight!”
With that, the giant stalked off.
Ryn locked eyes with Nuthea from where he lay on the floor. She was suppressing a smile.
“Well, that was interesting…” he said. “I guess not everyone out there knows about the Jewels. They might not understand where my fire attack came from.”
“Yes,” said Nuthea, helping him to his feet for the second time that day, “of course not. But that doesn’t matter. Even if people don’t understand where your fire projection came from, they will still talk about it, and sooner or later news of it will reach the Empire. That’s why we’ve got to go and talk to the Governor. Come on.”
Nuthea walked with Ryn up the steps of the underground preparation chamber’s back exit.
This led to an area of the audience specially marked for combatants and their special guests to watch the fighting from.
It also contained a wooden platform guarded by green-robed monks, on which sat a number of Farrian officials and, on an elevated chair, the Governor.
Nuthea made straight for the platform. On the way she noticed that the lone cloud occupying the sky earlier had grown in size. Odd.
The same sickly-looking Farrian minister who had originally granted them an audience with the Governor stood at the foot of the steps to the platform.
“Not you again,” he moaned, rolling his eyes. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk to the Governor,” said Nuthea.
“Of course you do. And are you going to threaten me with magic again to do so?”
Nuthea looked across her shoulder at Ryn, who immediately held out his hand, a small flame appearing on his palm.
“Alright, alright!” snapped the Farrian. “Put it away. You’ve caused enough of a scene already today by doing that during your match. You can see him. But he won’t be pleased at you interrupting his viewing.”
The governor was leant forward in his chair, watching the current match intently, rubbing his chin with a chubby hand. He didn’t even acknowledge Nuthea and Ryn.
Nuthea could hear the crowd cheering and gasping at Sagar’s match, but she couldn’t bear to look. There was too much at stake and she was too nervous for the sky-captain.
She just hoped that he wasn’t being humiliated by his opponent, especially as he had opted not to receive Vish’s fighting lessons with the rest of them over their past week in the manse in Shun Pei.
“Excuse me Lord Governor, but I need to speak with you about something.”
The Governor humoured her with the briefest of looks then returned to watching the fighting. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy? There’s a tournament going on here, for Eto’s sake! Your Imfisi rogue is getting his backside served to him by one of our women. One of our women!”
Oh dear, Nuthea thought, though she resisted the temptation to look. Sagar won’t like that at all.
She swallowed, ignoring the other ruler’s rudeness. “Be that as it may, what I need to talk to you about is the tournament.”
The Governor finally broke off from watching and looked at her properly. “What is it? What’s so important that you need to interrupt my viewing of Farr’s triumph over you impetuous foreigners?”
Nuthea licked her lips. “I’m concerned that now Ryn here has made his fire abilities public, the Empire will get wind of them and come looking for him.”
“So what? I fail to see the problem. Why would the Morekemians be interested in a single little Efstanish boy with a pyrotechnic trick? They won’t care. Neither do I.”
Nuthea decided she didn’t need to mention that she, Ryn and Sagar–possibly Cid, Vish and Elrann too–were all wanted by the Empire with bounties on their heads.
“But Lord Governor, remember the Empire have encountered the Fire Ruby before. They may even still have some troops that can use fire magic themselves. At the least, if they hear of another fire-wielder they will associate them with the Ruby and may come here looking for it.”
“Let them come!” said the Governor, turning back to the match. He winced for a moment as the crowd cheered, perhaps because Sagar had taken a particularly nasty hit, but Nuthea didn’t want to know. “Morekemia may be powerful, but the Emperor has never openly challenged the might of Farr. If he dares to do so, we will simply crush his forces. It will be especially easy now that we have the Earth Emerald back again.”
“But Lord Governor…” Ryn chipped in, and Nuthea was grateful he did because she wasn’t sure whether she could retain her politeness for much longer. “...don’t you remember that earth-aligned people and creatures are vulnerable to harm from fire? That’s the only reason we were able to retrieve the Emerald from the Earth Temple at all.”
“Of that I am sceptical,” said the Governor. “I’m quite convinced that the only reason that you were able to retrieve the Emerald is because I sent Huld with you, from the way you told it. If the Morekemians come here with fire-hurling, as you are so afraid of, we will humiliate them with our greater mastery of earth. You will see, foreigners, that Farr reigns supreme when Huld beats all of you, and everyone else, in this tournament, elemental magic or not. That will put your little minds at rest.”
Oh, for The One’s sake… Nuthea pulled her lips in tight to avoid speaking her rare blasphemy out loud. She decided to try another approach.
“But Lord Governor, even though Farr will doubtless claim victory in this tournament, I am not actually asking that it be called off.”
“What?” barked the Governor. “What are you asking for, then? Why are you here wasting my time and distracting me from watching a fine fight?”
A ‘fine fight’? That sounded a bit more promising. Maybe Sagar is holding his own after all…
Nuthea was getting distracted. “All I am asking is that you consider just…speeding up the tournament a little bit.”
“Speeding it up? Why in Mid would I ever want to speed it up? Half of Farr has come to watch, and as the tournament goes on over the next three days the other half will come to watch too, and that is very good for national spirit, and for our economy!”
“Yes, Lord Governor, but the longer the tournament goes on for, the more likely the Empire are to hear about Ryn’s fire magic. We can’t let them get here before…” She broke off, realising she had been about to say something undiplomatic.
“Before what?” said the Governor, daring her to say it.
“...before we have had a chance to move on.”
The Governor snorted. “Well, that is just a chance you are going to have to take, Manolian.” His eyes bulged at the match. “Oh! I wasn’t expecting that to happen!”
What to happen? thought Nuthea. Ryn looked round and gasped, but she kept her eyes straight ahead.
The Governor leaned back in his chair and threw up his hands. “Now the match is over, and because of you I didn’t even get to watch it properly.” He finally gave her his full attention. “Your suggestion is ridiculous, Manolian. Not least of all, the combatants need time to recover in between bouts. You can’t expect the winners to fight a quarter-final, semi-final and final all in the same day.”
“Ah,” said Nuthea “but I have a solution for that. Amongst our party there is a skilled healer, Grandfather Cid, who has the Jewel-imparted gift of being able to revive people from fatigue and injury in an instant. Cid can heal the winning fighters after their matches so that they are able to fight again immediately.”
“Aha,” said the Governor, “so that is why you are so interested in speeding along this tournament! You seek to use your old man’s tricks on your own combatants, at the expense of the Farrians! That’s been your plan all along!”
“Lord Governor, no! I would never even consider doing such a thing! That’s why I’m telling you about Cid’s Jewel-gifted abilities.”
“Or so you say. What’s to stop you only healing your own combatants, and just pretending to heal ours?”
“Nuthea,” said Ryn, “I think Sagar might have actually–”
“I wouldn’t have even considered doing that,” Nuthea repeated, cutting Ryn off. “I am somewhat offended that you are suggesting I would even be capable of such a deception, Lord Governor. May I remind you that I am the heir-apparent ruler of a sovereign nation?”
“Manolian,” said the Governor, “my answer is no. The whole idea is ridiculous. Take your irritating requests somewhere else–or in fact, just do away with them all together! I will not change my mind on this matter.”
Nuthea gritted her teeth, and just for a moment she fancied she felt a current run along her arm, down to her fingertips, and that her lightning magic was returning. But then the moment passed.
“Fine,” said Nuthea, imitating one of Sagar’s less endearing mannerisms, but not caring. “If you won’t be persuaded, we shall just have to win this tournament on your terms and take the Emerald away with us in three days’ time. I just hope for your sake that the Empire doesn’t get wind of our location and come here to find us before then. Come on, Ryn; let’s go and find out how Captain Sagar got on.”
She made a derisive “Hmpf!” sound, then turned on her heel dramatically and walked away, leaving Ryn to follow.
“You show your true colours, Manolian!” the Governor called after her. “You think you can win this, but you cannot! None can compete with the might of Farr–Manolia or Morekemia alike!”
As Nuthea and Ryn walked down the platform steps and back towards the entrance to the dugout, she noticed that the single cloud in the sky had now been joined by another one, and they were growing darker.
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