Aemos saw my look and said, 'Aegis insubstantial, before the deluge' in perfect Glossia.
Which meant Betancore had somehow avoided the sweep that had incarcerated all my other companions. A tiny fragment of good news.
I got up, mainly thanks to my determination and the support of Aemos and Bequin. I was still stripped down to my leggings and boots, and my torso, neck, arms and head were washed in my own blood and stippled with bruised micro-puncture wounds. Gorgone Locke had been thorough.
Gorgone Locke would pay.
"What do you know?' I asked them as my breath returned.
'We're as good as dead,' Heldane said frankly. 'No wonder my master leaves this kind of work to you suicidal radicals. I just wish I hadn't agreed to join you.'
Thank you for that, Heldane. Anyone else want to offer something less editorial?'
Aemos smiled. 'We're in a prison cell under the west wing, to the rear, almost under the woodlands. They burst into our quarters after you'd been gone three hours and seized us at gunpoint. I memorised a careful note of the route we were taking to this place, and have mentally compared it with Midas's map, so I'm fairly sure of our location/
'What the hell did they do to you?' Bequin asked, dabbing at wounds on my chest with a strip of cloth torn from her gown.
Wincing, I realised that was why her gown was so shredded. She had been mopping my wounds while I was unconscious. A pile of torn and blood-soaked scads of material nearby stood testament to her devotion.
They came here an hour ago and tossed you in with us. They didn't say anything,' Heldane added.
'Are you really an inquisitor, Sire Farchaval?' Macheles asked, stepping forward.
Yes, I am. My name is Eisenhorn.'
Macheles began to sob and his fellow envoys did the same.
We are dead. You have taken us to our deaths!'
I felt some pity for them. Guild Sinesias was rotten to the core, and these men were corrupt, but they were only in this predicament because I had duped them.
'Shut up!' Heldane told them.
He looked round at me, and slid a tiny something from the cuff of his body-glove. A small red capsule.
"What is it?'
'Admylladox, a ten gram dose. You look like you need it.'
'I don't use drugs,' I said.
He pushed it into my hand. 'Admylladox is a pain-killer and a mind clearer. I don't care if you do drags or not, I want that in your system if that gate opens.'
I looked at the gate.
'Why?'
'Have you never been to a pit-fight?' he said.
The Glaws had got everything out of me they could. Now they wanted me dead. Me and my party.
And that meant sport.
The gate cranked open at what must have been dawn. Thin, grey light wafted in and was almost immediately replaced by hard, bright artificial luminescence.
House Glaw militiamen in body armour burst into our cell and drove us out through the gate with force shields and psyk-whips.
We were out in the open, blinking into the light, as the gate shut behind us.
I gazed around. A vast circular amphitheatre, enclosed by a dome high above, undoubtedly the golden dome we had seen on our approach. The floor of die pit was dank moss and earth, and lichen climbed the sheer sides of the ten-metre-high stone walls. Above the wall top, House Glaw and its guests sat in steep tiers, jeering down at us. I saw Urisel Glaw, Lord Oberon, Locke, Lady Fabrina, the ecdesiarch Dazzo, the pipe-smoking man. Terronce, the militia captain who had sat at our table during dinner, led an honour guard of nearly forty men of the retinue. All wore green armour, plumed silver helmets and all carried autoguns. More than two hundred baying members of the Glaw clan, house staff, militia and servants made up the rest of the crowd in the meatre. They'd been up all night, drinking and doing whatever other indulgence it took to turn them into hyperactive bloodthirsty hyenas by first light.
Ignoring the noise, I surveyed the compound. Breaks of trees sprouted at various places, and there were low outcrops of bare rock, giving the arena a sort of landscape.
Nearby stood a rack of rusty weapons. Macheles and his brethren had already rushed to it and taken blunt shortswords and toothless lances.
