The entryway into the club looks like nothing special. Several times I’ve had to double back to make sure it’s the same dull and litter-filled dead-end street. At the end of the grime, well, there’s more grime, and beyond that is your average broken window. Only after delivering a few harsh taps and dusting some of my magic over the opening does something interesting happen. The broken glass and the frame grow, elongating like a jaw dropping open. A huge wizard pushes aside the curtain behind the glass and throws open the window door. I no longer need the password because I get the nod, smirk, and sneer, in that order, indicating that I’m allowed entrance.
I lower myself into the cesspool of smoke and haze. The stickiness of sweat and heat due to lack of ventilation hits me like an awkward hug. I’ve heard a few wizards exclaim, “Ah, back at home!” as they walk in. So yeah, the clientele who likes to watch cage casting isn’t the most profound or hygienic.
In the dark recesses of corners, wizards and witches press the fine powder of Bloodlurst into their Touches. Their eyes flash a brilliant red for a brief second and then dull. The healer in me has to hold myself back, still myself from lurching toward them and explaining the pain that comes with burning out forever.It will happen in three stages!I would yell at them: Beads of sweat. Endless spasms. Limp weakness. Then, magic finally gone, permanently, and all for the happiness and power it brings them now. I turn away from the laughter and sighs.
Along the wall, the names of fighters and their stats flash in sequence. I catch mine emphasized in red. Next to my fake name are the more important betting opportunities and stakes, which flicker, constantly fluctuating. Ten to one, it says, I will win against a fighter named Ax, whose name flares in purple. A lot of money will be lost tonight.
I take two steps toward the back room where I change and prep for fights, when Sonna, the bartender and a fellow fighter, calls to me. “Smoke!”
I push past the clog of consumers and amble up to her. “What?”
“Sims was looking for you.”
“Yeah?” I try to read whether this is good news or bad.
Sonna looks as disinterested as ever. “Said something about you fighting first.”
“First?”
“Yeah, that’s what he said,” she says as she presents a row of fresh drinks and sweeps up leftover condensation circles with a wave of blue smoke.
Sims likes to sandwich his event. Give the audience big shows at the beginning and the end to hook interest and keep the people here betting and drinking. So first means a good level of respect. Guess I didn’t lie to Naupure after all. Ihadjoined the big leagues, which means I have more to leverage with for tonight’s needed information. Perfect.
Agent Smoke has given straightforward guidelines to finding the Underground. A list of objects and clues notify fighters and audience members of the hidden location. An upside-down hammer, which I find on a rotated sign outside a metal crafter’s shop. An arrow on a dyed sheet hanging in a yard directs me down an alleyway.
Soon the rest of the signs become unnecessary because I’m able to follow a group of wizards who are obviously heading toward only one thing. They smell of pent-up violence, or maybe it’s body odor mixed with alcohol. One wobbles into a wall and the others laugh as they pull him forward. I sustain the black magic just in case, but I don’t think these men would know they were being tailed even if I went up and introduced myself.
They lead me down several alleyways before they slosh to a stop at a dead end, where only a broken window peers out into the night. One of the wizards rattles his fist on the glass, right near the shards of razorlike teeth.
“Hello!” he calls, then laughs with his friends. They’re drunk. I’m going to have to backtrack and navigate from scratch. Stupid mistake. I’m a few steps away when I hear it, the groan of a wooden frame bending and the snap of glass breaking. I turn to see the window has expanded to a door, and a man is opening the wicker crossbeams and cracked glass like a screen.
I retreat into the shadows, then whisper in order to be visible again. When I round the corner I spot the last man tumbling through the door. The gatekeeper is about to close the elongated window frame as I rush forward.
“Hey, entrance for one more?” I slur.
His face twists as if I’ve made an uncomfortable joke. “You aren’t a regular and you aren’t on the list,” he says.
“Yeah, but a friend invited me and I’ve got the money.”
“Friend, huh? What’s the password, then?”
“A bloody place like this doesn’t need a bloody password,” I quote from Smoke’s files. Gods, I hope that was the actual password and not Smoke ranting in curse form in her research.
Unbelievably, the guy nods and holds the window door open for me.Two for two! Thanks, Smoke.
“Four gold.” He holds out his hand and I surrender the outrageous amount of money. But I have much more pressing matters as I enter the Underground. For one, the smell—a mixture of mold and body odor—presses on me like a damp cloth thrown over my head. If at any time I get used to this frontal assault my olfactory glands must have been obliterated.
After a few stairs, I duck under a low-hanging exposed beam and am confronted by the sight of mobs of people in the dusty gloom. The number of beings mushed into this giant open warehouse calls for a moment of proper gaping. No one gapes back, though, and I realize with a start that I’m anonymous for the first time in my life. Even if I were to make a scene, this is Belwar and I’ve been gone for nine years. It feels good.
To my direct right, a bar stretches and then hooks around a corner. In the middle of the room, barrels of bright light shine upon a giant sphere five meters high. It sits on a raised platform, with an attached runway leading to a black-curtained doorframe. All attention is fixated on and reaching toward the sphere. I shove my way closer, squeezing between pressed bodies.
Inside this rounded cage, two dark figures zoom around. So that’s how they control the spells from hitting the audience. They have amplified an orb, made it as thick and strong as a Wickery prison cell. Transformed it into a playground of destruction. As I think this, a blast of spikes fire and stick to the walls of the dome before bursting into purple smoke. One fighter—a woman—whooshes to the left to physically hit the other fighter in the face. Why do people want to see a girl, or anyone for that matter, get beat up? This is disgusting. Isn’t there enough suffering and death already? The purple magic wizard leans backward and backhands the witch. She crashes into the side of the dome closest to me and I finally see her face, her beautiful and bloody face.
Jaya.
Jaya stands and wipes her bleeding lip. “You want to play? Let’s play!” she yells. The crowd shouts in response. Some who were cheering for the wizard have turned. A man screams in my ear, “Destroy him, Jaya!”
I have made a lot of ignorant judgments in my life, but never have I been so oblivious. This girl. This girl, who burned out in my arms, cage casts.
