The Fall


Chapter 7: Selfish


When the convoy halted, Tyko made her wait. She was fine with that—she preferred to stare at the arena from behind the bars over milling around at its base with the gathering crowd of vessel-children outside the carts, craning their necks and letting out sighs or staring over the cliff edge into dawn oblivion and realizing it was too late to run now, and maybe they should've taken their chances earlier, like that girl from the lake village. She was a brave one. Moth could feel them wishing they were brave too.

She and Ty were last out of their cart, stepping through a small metallic doorway cut into the bars and jumping the distance to the ground—craggy, dead earth crumbled beneath their feet. Clumps of pale grass sprung up in cracks in the stone, the only places seeds must've been able to lodge before the stronger winds of that altitude blew them over the edge and into the jungles and forests below. The cliff itself gave way to a wide plateau face that stretched far towards the northern horizon and dipped down into a jagged alcove where masses of trees sprouted, but she couldn't quite see far enough to know where it fell away to a sheer wall of rock again, or if there was a village or two farther from the hulking arena, perhaps spared this time from the twenty Ribular villages selected to give their children for the tournament, perhaps empty of any children at all for fear they'd be forced to compete anyway.

The arena itself looked more like a fortress, and perhaps in a way it was. It was a rising, gargantuan structure, its colored sandstone walls set fully ablaze by the sun. At its base and set into the walls higher up were arch structures and pillars etched with squared-off angular patterns; perhaps if she could look closer, they'd look like a few species of ancient beasts caught in a duel, different patterns and creatures and fights wrapping all the way around the sprawling arena's circumference and up the sides. At the top were ringed pillars supporting large stone bowls, likely for fires for the matches that would take place at night. Maybe the lightning and fire from the warring beasts themselves weren't enough to see by.

Stepping off the convoy, she and Ty were halted by a stocky figure clothed in a light sort of armor—he had a helmet, but it was hooked to a belt around his waist, exposing a craggy, wizened face. Shocks of white hair still sprouted above his eyes and in unkempt clumps around the bald spot on his head. He held a thick bound notebook in both hands, squinting down the bridge of his roman nose at what was written there.

She wondered if he was too old to use the spear sheathed at his side. She decided it didn't matter, because he certainly wasn't too far away.

"Eri of Null-king," Ty said cheerfully, tentatively holding out his obsidian stone. It caught the light and gleamed—Moth imagined if he held it up to the sun, they might be able to see a tiny curled-up Flame-flight at its core, like an embryo, dormant to her but alive and active in Ty's own mind.

The man raised his milky gray eyes to stare Tyko in the face, like there was something wrong with what he'd said.

"Flame-flight," he offered, giving a half-nod and raising his stone.

The guard furrowed his brow and turned his attention suddenly to Moth. "And you?" His voice was as old and strong as Moth had imagined it—she could see him standing here five decades ago, glaring with stoic skepticism at the meek faces and voices of vessel children long gone by now. Or perhaps he had been one himself. It was easy to picture him in the arena, side-by-side with perhaps a Sky-sloth, standing strong against the roaring of the crowd.

"Moth," she said. "Null-king. Sky-horse." His eyes barely grazed the pumice in her hand.

"Huh," he muttered. "Not too many Null-kings these days." He drew two quick strikes on the notebook page with a quill pen he held between a middle and pointer finger. "Gather by the guards and prepare to enter the arena."

She glanced across the space between the convoy and the arena where the less-than-eight hundred vessel children were trying to line up, herded in opposite directions by armed guards—and now that she was watching, now that she knew the men might have them, she could notice the ephemeral glimmers of diamond stones catching the light, hidden inside tense fists or small pockets hanging off belts, ready to release at an instant's notice the Z-beasts they contained.

She had to remember—here were over seven hundred ancient beasts, revived with power greater than they'd ever held in a past life. If all the vessel children released them at once, they could reduce the plateau to rubble. If any child dared show signs of aggression or disobedience, they would have to be taken care of in seconds, lest he or she trigger a revolt or a massacre.

Perhaps if she was a little more reckless and had a little less to lose, she would try it—maybe raise her stone to the sky call for Arashi, never mind she could do it with barely a thought, never mind he could do it himself. It was all for show. From the moment she raised her hand till the moment she was pinned beneath the heavy red talons of a Z-king, she would count down, doubting every time she'd make it to the next second till she didn't. Just to see how long it would take them.

"Move it!" The guards sounded like they looked, tough and fast and paranoid—and she flinched, no longer sure she'd ever have the courage to stand against them.

"Come on." Tyko touched her shoulder suddenly and she followed him, phasing into the crowd of children too nervous for the immense power they clenched in their fists and trapped in their minds. A ring of guards circled the mass of them, guiding stragglers from the convoy toward its edge. A few took their places on the sweeping stone staircase at the arena's main archway, just high enough to see the stretching edge of the cliff from where they stood. The man who looked like a Sky-sloth was among them, whispering things to the man and woman beside him as he cast scathing glares among the vessel children, who were falling into an eerie silence as the last of them gathered.

Moth watched the man pick her out among the crowd—it couldn't have been too difficult. Her hair must've been glowing like fire in this light.

He pointed to her and her throat went dry, watching him mutter furiously to the taller, younger man beside him, scribbling things down in another notebook.

Moth elbowed Ty, who she swore had remained beside her—but the boy who had somehow taken his place was much taller, and the burning glare he shot her made her fists clench and her teeth grit. He looked like he wanted to hit her, but he wouldn't dare move or even speak into the silence.

She shifted far away as the Sky-sloth man spoke, his voice the same as it'd been when addressing she and Ty, yet louder, more powerful, something that led her to believe she had no other choice but to listen to him.

He spoke and the guards behind the vessel children began closing in, then the men on the sides thinned out, moving into place until a pathway towards the steps had been formed, ringed on the sides by men brandishing spears.

She began to move, watching the guards on the steps as they made their way across the arch's threshold, seemingly oblivious or indifferent to what was following them.

She thought the steps may crack or turn to dust beneath her feet—she didn't know how many decades the arena had been standing to serve the same purpose it had for as long as their King had been their King, but they were strong and adamant, hardly disturbed by the weight of so many underfed Caliostean children. The whole structure had been built to withstand the force of earthquakes, firestorms, hurricanes, tsunamis, anything the beasts themselves had the power to create and more. As she passed through the arch and then across the edge of where the light couldn't reach in the tunnel, she felt the weight of old, musty darkness gone undisturbed for years and years, wishing she were at the front of the group so she could look for footsteps in the dust still lingering from the last time vessel children had entered this place. Her grandfather would have been among them. She was walking exactly where she had, too nervous to run over again in her head the careful strategy Cain had laid out for her in the moments before she left him, never mind the fact he knew nothing about the structure of tournaments or her odds against the other competitors, but it didn't matter, because he was only trying to help her. That, or trying to make up for the all the years he'd been distant.

Besides, she was only interested in what Eri had told her. The odd, insane things he'd told her when no one else was close enough to listen.

Hallways branched off from where they walked, wide to encompass huge groups of people, staircases in the dark to lead them up to the stands. Moth descended with the group, following the sound of breathing and the scrape of moccasin or hide against dust and stone till the walls inflated around them, expanding to another wide arch where gray morning light seeped into the darkness, untouched yet by the sun but bright nonetheless, more than enough to see by and take in the vastness of what they stepped into—a pale expanse of dust and hardened dirt, wide enough to contain every building in her village and more—wide enough to contain herds of the largest beasts, the earthshakers, if they still lived, truly, free of stones that could seal them away.

She gaped like the rest of them. Empty stone stairs rose on each far side to function as both seats and walls, she guessed, reaching just high enough to keep out any sunlight for some time yet—and from the inside now, as she was jostled nearer to the arena's dead center, she realized the place looked like it'd been hewn from the cliff itself and thus was sealed to the ground beneath it, not by its foundations but because they'd never been separate.

"Fall into formation!" A sharp, unfamiliar voice from one of the guards. "Masters of Flame-beasts, farthest to my right, then Earth, Sky, Sea, Null to the left. I want a clear grid and a single arm's length of space between each of you! Do it now!"

She lurched, because to disobey orders from men that wielded those sinister diamonds suddenly seemed unthinkable. Those of Flame and Null stones had it easy—they broke to opposite sides of the arena, still close to the center, gathering and falling into rows and columns.

She caught a glimpse of Tyko moving away from her. He was small in such a crowd, able to duck seamlessly through the mass, darting in and out of her vision, here-there-gone like a hummingbird.

Moth stepped back, gripping her pumice and letting herself be swept with the crowd toward the very center of a grid gradually falling into place. She set out in search of an open area in a fourth-or-fifth row, far from the guards and almost invisible. She found herself in the middle as she wanted. Standing at the head of a column as she'd tried to avoid.

She was still amidst the restless silence of shuffling feet, jostling bodies, arms raised and lowered to measure distance, the clinking of metal as spear sheaths were adjusted. No one else dared speak, not even the guards. Not till the restless silence was accompanied by restless stillness, the tension of so many held breaths and clenching of fists around sharp-edged rocks.

Five or so guards stood at the head of every type-sector of the grid. More were behind them, Moth knew, but her attention was fixed on the Sky-sloth man and the two beside him. They had put away their leather notebooks and stood somberly a distance from her, staring with eyes she could feel, motionless in an unnatural way.

Moth dropped her chin and studied the old dust patterns at her feet for what felt like some large fraction of an eternity, till she was sure it was warmer than when she'd entered and she was many times older than she had been before the convoy left with her.

She was expecting the voice sometime after she'd settled into herself—she was expecting it to jolt her when it sounded, so it didn't. It was the Sky-sloth man who spoke.

"Look at you!"

But he was looking at her.

It was a voice that would carry to every corner of the arena, but not so powerful as Moth knew he could sound that it would seep over the walls and into the outside world—no, on the outside, the arena looked as dead and old as it had before they entered.

"The lot of you."

She felt the collective ripple of motion as heads lifted, wanting to look the man in the face but faltering before their gazes could pass his neck as he paced, dragging heavy leather boots in the dust of the arena. Soft clouds drifted at his feet.

"You're exactly the weak, starved, broken-down bastards anyone'd expect. Try and exude a little self-respect! A little strength!"

Moth's head tilted. She didn't stop herself and didn't care his gaze kept flitting back to her. He sounded almost fatherly.

"You're pathetic. It's saddening to see what vessel children have become. The lot of you used to be noble, powerful. You used to carry this burden with dignity. Now look at you."

She stared at the children beside her, catching what she could of them out of the corner of her eyes.

"Time has made you weak. And time has made our King the most powerful being from here to the ends of the earth. Were he any stronger—I dare say it could have been enough to halt the sky's meteor in its path when the beasts you hold in your hands last walked this world."

Slowly, every head began to fall again. The clear sky above was reason enough for uneasiness—the man was foolish to mention something as evil as a meteor while standing below it. Not that there was anywhere else to stand.

The man froze. He stopped nearer to Moth this time—she could see the whites of his eyes when her shiver had passed and she thought it safe to raise her head again.

"You are selfish in your weakness. This tournament will remind you of that. This tournament will cure you of that."

How?

She couldn't have been the only one to think the word. Perhaps enough of them had, and the Sky-sloth man heard it.

"You will never again cry for yourselves. Our King, great immortal genius as he is—he has orchestrated something rather beautiful. A tournament in which you do not fight for yourselves. You do not even fight for him. Your purpose, standing here, is rather to fight for the preservation of all you love."

Moth wondered—had he spoken those same words before? Was every vessel child across the islands of Caliosteo listening to them now?

Or perhaps this was the first and only time anyone would hear them.

"There are seven hundred and thirteen of you here. Not a one of you wants to win." Pacing again. "All of you want to be back home with your families by the end of summer—mere months from now. I stand here to tell you that to achieve this would be granting yourself and your loved ones a fate worse than death. Lose in this arena and you may suffer in other ways, but as for your family—it simply depends on the will of the King. Relocation. Separation. Recruitment. A guaranteed place for your descendants or even your entire village in the next tournament. There have even been cases of replacement—your own troopmates entered in your place, should you lose too early or too easily."

Like that—the warp and weave of Cain's plan was unraveling through her fingers. She bowed her head and watched the weak strands of fabric disintegrating in the dust at her feet.

"The only advice I have for any of you is to win. Win, and your village and loved ones will be rewarded—not punished. They may be granted money, food, protection, better homes, as long as you fight well in the next months or years. As long as you entertain. These benefits may remain even if you lose, assuming you've fought your hardest. It simply depends on the will of the King.

"But win the entire tournament—however unlikely the victor turns out to be any of you—and you will be granted these rewards and more. You will have ensured nothing short of immunity for all you care about. Your troopmates will be safe. Your families. Your village will not be reaped for participants in the next tournament."

Moth's head snapped up.

"You see, vessel children of the King's sixteenth tournament, you have everything to gain and more to lose."

That wasn't right.

No, that was most definitely wrong.

The Sky-sloth man retreated, head bowed, hands clasped behind his back. The tall, younger man that had arranged the grid began to take his place, walking not with solemn control as he had but rather a permeating authority that might've made her want to bow her head again—but Moth had hardly yet noticed him.

Because the Sky-sloth man must've misspoke. Either that or Ty had been wrong a night ago, when he spoke with such surety, such intensity about the man she'd always known was Zongazonga, however unconsciously, however stubbornly she'd ignored it.

If her grandfather had won fifty years ago, if he had become the Majestic Vessel—then her village should have been granted immunity from the tournament. She should not be here. Eri should not be crippled. Tyko should not have taken his place; no, she wouldn't even know he existed.

She would perhaps be someone different. The tournament to her would mean nothing—unfortunate for those entered in it, yes, but not worth much thought. She was just a girl, and she would grow up to be just a farmer or a woodworker or an artisan or a merchant or even a priest of the skies. She would be hungry and poor but without fear. Without any fear at all.

"Right, right. You all get it, huh?" This new man, as Moth could tell, was crude and so distant from the people themselves that he could never understand what scared them about this tournament. "Win and you protect your family, lose and you condemn them. It's very simple."

He stopped in place, ran a hand through flattened black hair.

"Now, as for… the difficulties. The number of you is all wrong, to say the least. Seven hundred thirteen. It's not easy to form teams with that." He sighed, an odd, grating sound like his throat was made of stone. "We had a cleaner number last week—seven hundred five, predicted. Unfortunately, there was a runaway incident we've since handled, and we got lumped with a couple Cranial and Ilium vessels this tournament." He shot a glare to Moth's far right. The Null sector of the grid. "That means we delay aptitude testing for a little while. Get into something we call whittling rounds."

His face split into a sinister grin and Moth had to hear the gasps from behind her before her heart went cold. She didn't know what he meant, but a few of the others did, and it was already enough to make her want to run again, in spite of what she knew would happen to her if she tried.

He crossed his thick arms over his breastplate, ground his heel into the dust. The clouds he stirred up were violent and opaque, not like the gentle wisps of dust that skipped on the heels of the Sky-sloth man as he paced. "Oh, they'll be fun. I can already tell. They were decreed by the King himself; just a little something to trim the numbers a tiny bit, weed out any boring competition, keep things interesting. You know, your job's not just to win for your families—you have to entertain too. Don't, and that makes you subject for disqualification all by itself."

Maybe there was a sob far behind her. A fast, pathetic sound.

Maybe it was in her head—not hers, but in her head nonetheless.

"Ah, don't scare yourselves yet! We've got time till we start the whittling rounds. Just about enough for me to tell you how they work!"

She wasn't sure why, but her eyes sought out the Sky-sloth man and watched him as he stood stone-still, far beyond her.

"We let you loose, basically. You and your beasts get free reign of the forests from here to, well—the Z-beasts will keep you inside the boundaries. And keep in mind it's every man for himself when we start. You're on your own till we can trim the number down to something workable. Or till we feel like calling it off."

The murmurs, the shifting—they were like currents through the grid. The tide in Moth's head had been still glass before; now the waves shattered on a mental shore, churning and heaving in on itself.

She allowed herself then to move more freely than she had since she stepped off the convoy—her whole body swiveled, her head lifted so her eyes could search the crowd for Tyko, never mind he was probably too short for her to see. She had to know, if she could, if he was close to her or not, if she was near enough to talk to him with her eyes, to ask him about all this because of course he knew—somehow, she was sure there was almost nothing he didn't know. Just far too much he wouldn't tell her.

A flash of light like the sun breaking through clouds made her flinch and whip back around, facing forward to see a pit of glowing white between her and the man expand and dissipate, blinding, yet she was unable to look away again—at its center burst a gigantic silhouette, a shape that took on dimensions as it grew, as the light about it died, as she was suddenly able to see it as it really was.

A Z-king then loomed beside the crude, dark man, its heavy skull ducked just low enough to avoid the creeping tide of dawn light, its cobalt eyes evil and empty like it had no soul, its bloody knife fangs clenched so hard they'd lodged themselves in the Z-king's own flesh. There were no nerves to feel the wound or blood to be drawn from it.

"Oh, relax!" the man cried, shifting to rest a hand on the Z-king's leg. It didn't react at the contact. It stared into nothingness, its jaw shifting ever so slightly, tearing further into its purple flesh. "He's not here to attack. He's here to give you something to run from—when the whittling round begins, I recommend you're all spread out. We don't want a massacre, do we?"

Moth was sure she understood—whittling rounds forced the vessel children and their beasts to fight each other with absolutely no experience, a sure way to eliminate the few that could never do it well in the arena and work the number of them into something manageable.

She didn't want to consider the penalty of losing a whittling round.

"Go!" snapped the man. A low, unearthly growl rumbled in the Z-king's thick throat and slipped through its teeth. "Get out of here! Listen for his signal—then it starts."

Moth didn't know if it was courage or fear that told her it was okay to run this time. She turned and fled, darting in between the rows and columns of vessel children as they broke down and shattered.


Z-king: Z-Rex

Sky-sloth: megath

I think for further down the road, it might be more fun to have you guessing till the AN what certain vivosaurs are based on the names I give. I mean, Sky-sloth was obvious, but I suppose not all of them will be.

Either that or it'll just confuse you. If you have an opinion on this, you should let me know or I'll keep it the same.

Anyway, thanks for reading and leave a review!

-Angel