A Trip to the City

We stepped outside and three men were standing by the door. The messenger frowned at the three. "What is going on here?"

"We will guard your trip home. We are worried someone might mistake our brother."

"You would leave your house with no trainers?"

"Of course not, we still have two trainers." I kept my expression neutral while I thought about that. The three men were the two oldest from my unit and our trainer. Who could the other two be? Oh, duh, the two others that normally guarded our matches.

The messenger put his hands in the pockets sewn into his robes. One hand was rubbing the red stone in his pocket again. "You know the price won't be waived, are you sure this is what you want to be doing with your time?"

The trainer and my men bowed to the messenger.

"Very well, I have no reason to stop you."

The messenger walked around the house. The women watched the group with curious glances as we walked past the edge of the house. I hadn't been aware of entering the city so I watched everything as we walked out of the city.

I was surprised the messenger didn't stop to borrow horses as we headed out of the city. Almost as surprised as I was about the fact that we were leaving so late in the day. Traveling was safer in our lord's lands but it still wasn't a great idea at night.

I glanced back after a few minutes of walking, I could see the house and beyond that the arena wall. Away passed the house was another house that looked exactly the same. The houses would circle the arenas there were more houses then arenas. When I looked back the way we were walking I could see smaller houses. These would only have women in them. They were considered a much lower class of woman then the ones that lived in the houses. These women worked the fields and took care of the animals. They had to trade their labors for the chance to obey the law. The priest would come around regularly and collect any of the women who were outlaws, and they would collect the boys to trade them into a house so that they had a chance at meeting their own quotas, because of this a son could be worth more to a poor woman than a daughter.

The farms spread out beyond the smaller houses. The messenger picked a path that led to the south. The capital was in the southernmost part of our lord's land. Every year in summer he would make a trip up to the northernmost part of his land. He took a random path that only he knew ahead and he camped up north for one week and then he came home again. It had to be getting close to when he was going to make that journey.

I followed on the messenger's heel and the messenger sped up. Soon we were doing a light jog through the fields. My brothers kept up very well. They seemed a little worried about me. I didn't ever go above ground the women had too much control up here. The women in the fields weren't going to interrupt a messenger of the lord but if we had tried to make this journey without him we would have been stopped quite a few times. They had to satisfy the law after all.

We were following the blood road. The messenger sped up again as we passed a marker on the road. I matched his pace and my brothers matched mine. They were breathing hard, I guessed it must be all those extra large muscles they ran with. Being smaller I had less to move, but I had found that I weighed surprisingly much for my size. Maybe it was the bulk of the muscles that were the problem and not the weight. The messenger seemed fine with the pace he was setting, and he was only a little bigger then me.

We ran for a few hours at that pace. The messenger's emotions were tightly controlled on his face but I didn't need to read his face. Something was bothering the man. The messenger started to slow so I did as well. We had started to approach another city. I swallowed my emotions as I saw the houses. We were already at the capital. The city where our lord lived most of the year. The house that had claimed me had been much closer to the capital then I had thought. The outer walls of the arenas were black with windows high up that had metal bars on them. Over the years the bars had rusted and been replaced to rust again. It caused red stains to run down the side of the stone. It almost looked like the arena itself was crying blood. Even from a distance.

The messenger approached the nearest house. He didn't stop as he walked around the building. The arenas in the other city were set up in the same manner as the arenas here. Both required you to go by a house to get to where the men stay, and you have to go by the men to get to the arena grounds. Where the other city has a priesthood in the center of the arenas, the capital actually had a large city center. It was a secluded city, without much trading or other things you might think of when you think city. It had mostly the devoted, male and female but the women where all over 45 and had gone through the second change without having enough children. The houses made sure that the priesthood had everything it needed and mostly the priests were librarians when they weren't maids, messengers, managers, or other needed maintenance people.

At the center of that city stood a building that we could actually see over the tops of the arenas as we approached the city. It was a relic of the age of man, though I doubted my brothers knew. The tower looked like glass but it had to be something much stronger then any glass I had seen. I knew the priest took religious care in tending the building, but we just didn't have the knowledge to really care for it any more. It had to be mostly luck and the power of our lord that kept the thing standing. It was impressive to see.

A few women walked up to us as we neared the house but as soon as they saw the robe the messenger was wearing they continued on like they hadn't seen us. When we entered the men's area a few men jumped to attention, one of their group turning to run down the pathway. I figured out why as we exited to the arena area undisturbed by any more men. He must have warned his brothers about the size of the messenger's party just in case one of his brothers ran into it from behind and didn't see the symbol on the messenger's robe. The messenger walked fast but he didn't run through the city. There were more buildings in the city than made sense but most had not been built by modern man. All but the tower in the center had been shortened to the height of the arenas.

The messenger didn't look around as he walked straight to the large tower. He had probably lived here his whole life. The messengers and other close chosen of our lord where picked out almost at birth. Born with some flaw that made them sterile serving our lord more directly is the only work they were deemed suitable for. There were perks to being that close to our lord from birth; not having a blood debt being the biggest I could come up with.

The messenger continued up the steps of the tower as the light faded from the sky. The large glass doors at the base of the tower stood open as well as another set just inside. Old writings labeled a few of the doors, most faded beyond recognition even if the words had been of the same language spoken. The entry was large, I couldn't stop myself from pausing and staring in wonder. The area seemed impossibly open to have such a tall tower built above it. The ground was polished stone but it seemed too delicate to be the foundation of something this size. There were chairs and plants inside by the entry doors were people wanting to speak with our lord could wait. Even at this late time of day there were more than a few people, waiting. Our lord expected us to handle most problems, but that didn't keep people from trying.

The messenger had stopped after stepping through, he was probably used to the effect the place had on people. As soon as he felt me watching him again he moved on. There were two priests at the bottom of the stairs but these men didn't look like the priests we had seen so far. These men looked like veteran fighters, and they might be. If they had won great honor but then been injured, they might have been allowed to take up work in the priesthood. If they were known to be loyal beyond fault they might have gotten the honor of being one of our lord's personal guards.

The guards weren't really for our lord of course. They were for the priesthood and to add just one more layer between the public and our lord. The guards didn't even twitch as the messenger started up the polished stairs. The messenger didn't touch the metal handrail attached to glass walls as he started up. I worried about sliding on the smooth stone, but even in my sad excuse for sandals the traction was good. The guards either knew what size your group would be or they knew the messenger would speak out if we weren't allowed up because they still didn't even look in our direction.

The messenger went down a wide walkway at the top of the stairs. He came to a stop before six golden doors. The lifts were not powered anymore but the priests took great care in their maintenance. If the lifts became too unsafe or unuseable they would end up having to take the stairs. It was a very long way to the top. They used a wheel system to move the lifts and human power. It worked and with a little study they had figured out quite a bit about the old failsafes that had been used before the fall of man. As a result the lifts were relatively safe.