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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ellinor" data-source="post: 5594872" data-attributes="member: 14561">22x01Ehkt AscendantWind whistled through the bell tower of the Priesthood, carrying the echoes of the bells at the close of midnight services on the eve of Ehkt’s Judgment.  Below, through an aura of highly repressed excitement, activity bustled as arenas and viewing stands arose across the city of Cauldron.  Through the night, the city transformed.  ROSESavina woke Rose before dawn.  Rose had requested she do so, to allow Twiggy time to prepare herself for the Go tournament.  And Savina was up anyway  “You’re really competing in the Trials?” Savina asked, as Rose began to dress in the dark.  “I’m proud of you—truly—but no one will think any less if you just watch.  I won’t be competing,” Savina pointed out.“I want to,” Rose smiled. “The endurance events are a historical hallmark of the Trials and, as Dame Mena would say, I have trained for it…” Rose quirked a deadpan eyebrow.  “Few are as accustomed to waiting patiently as I am.” “Good for you,” Savina replied.After her prayers, Savina and Arden walked down toward the city’s center.  There, Rose and about three dozen others were already posed above the sulfurous lake, each occupying a small platform.  Their feet balanced on narrow ledges; their hands grasped handholds.  Rose looked uncomfortable, but steady, her toes jammed firmly into the footholds, her arms softly balancing against the handholds, her knees slightly bent.A small crowd stood by the lakeside, watching quietly.  Tavi was among them, pressed against the railing, his face a combination of concern and pride.Savina slid beside him.  “She’s doing well,” Tavi whispered.  As the rest of the city was waking, men dressed in oilcloth waded into the water, climbed onto the platforms and pulled one foothold from each competitor’s wall.  Several competitors lost their footing and dropped immediately.  Rose, visibly gritting her teeth, maintained focus.  Savina wanted to cheer—but no one was cheering.  In Pol Henna, Ehkt Ascendant was a boisterous affair; Savina had been warned that the Trials were more sedate than an ordinary sporting event, but she hadn’t imagined they would be so eerily silent.“Stay strong, Rose!”  she whispered.  Tavi smiled.By about 10 a.m., the field had narrowed considerably, but Rose remained.  Savina was thrilled—not only that Rose was performing well, but also that Rose was competing at all.  Ever since the group had left Pol Henna, Rose had refrained from decision-making, according to plan.  But in turning over her life to the others so completely, Savina feared, Rose had stopped looking for her own joy.  Savina knew the prophecy was serious, and knew that Rose was right to be concerned about her fate.  But that shouldn’t stop her from having a little fun once in a while, Savina thought.  Soon thereafter, the men in oilcloth returned.  Without ceremony, they pulled the second footrest from each platform.  Rose held on for a few moments, hanging from her hands with arms bent . . . then she lowered herself to a straight-armed position . . . her wrists trembled . . . and then her fingers gave way.  She dropped into the water and waded to shore, stopping to look back at the 15 competitors still remaining.  Tavi and Savina rushed to her side.  Tavi wrapped a cloak over her shoulders.  “Well done,” Savina said.“I suppose I’ve done more of that ‘waiting patiently’ while standing on my feet than hanging from my arms,” Rose smiled, squeezing water from her silvery hair.###MENA AND KORMICKMena donned her wrestling gear after breakfast.  Wearing wrestling gear outside the hall of the Keepers felt a bit like going out in one’s underwear:  the outfit consisted of a sturdy loincloth on the bottom and, for women, a tight wrap on the top.  It was practical for wrestling—in this style of wrestling it was customary to grasp an opponent’s garb for leverage and stability, and these outfits allowed for freedom of movement while staying secure.  Good for wrestling, she thought, as she threw a cloak over her shoulders for the walk to the venue, but a bit ridiculous.  Or so she thought until she arrived at the common room of the Inn of Comfortable Repose, where Kormick was waiting for her, similarly attired.  He was all confidence as he leaned against the wall, one thumb hitched in the waistband of his loincloth.  Maybe not so ridiculous, after all.“I gather you’re wrestling in the Trials today?” she asked.  “Thought I’d give it a go,” Kormick responded with a smile, “if only just to watch you.”The wrestling venue was a large outdoor enclosure near the walls of the city.  Seven wrestling circles were each surrounded by viewing areas where spectators had already begun to gather.  Dozens of wrestlers surrounded a stern official, who distributed a ranking sheet and explained the format: the tournament would proceed on a single-elimination basis.  Matches would take place simultaneously until the field was winnowed to 8 competitors, at which point all matches would take place in the center ring.  Competitors were free to watch each other’s matches, as long as they were ready and present for their own.Mena looked at the ranking sheet.  At the top, as expected, was Brother Ono Arato.  Below him was a sea of names she did not recognize.  She and Kormick were both in the lower half of the list.  She had a match in the very first heat.After the customary bows and formalities, Mena wasted no time in pushing her first opponent out of the ring.  It was a good start, she thought.  She strolled over to Kormick’s first match.  He looked out of place, with his blond hair and his street-fighter stance.  He barely knew the sequence of bows and nods that opened a match.  But once it began, he held his own.  Kormick pushed, his opponent pushed . . . and Kormick hooked his opponent’s arm, twisting it and spinning the young man to the floor just outside the circle. Kormick was breathing heavily as he left the ring.  “That is harder than it looks,” Kormick gulped.  As they waited for their next matches, they watched one of Brother Ono’s bouts.  His moves were precise and efficient, and he brought down his opponent effortlessly.  It was a relief:  there could be little doubt that he would prevail in the tournament, and would therefore play the role of Rikitaru in the dance, giving Nyoko the opportunity to whisper in his ear.  “Good to know we won’t have to fix the tournament,” Kormick said.Mena’s second opponent was a woman whose slight build matched Mena’s.  The match was harder than her first, but Mena had defeated more difficult opponents at the hall of the Keepers.  When she’d won, she found Kormick again. He was already in the ring, bowing to a man nearly twice his size.  In one fluid movement, the giant hulking mass of a man bowed, nodded, thrust his hip forward, THWAM straightarmed Kormick to the floor outside the circle, stepped back, bowed, and left the ring.  The whole ordeal took five seconds.  Kormick lay stunned on the ground outside the ring.  “All part of my cunning plan,” he gasped, “to get injured early, so I could go to the first aid tent and try to talk . . . to . . . secret . . . Alirrians.”  Mena helped him to his feet and they staggered off toward the healers through the still-silent crowd.###At the Inn, Kormick changed back into his street clothes, stuffed his Inquisitorial robe into a bag, and hurried out.   He was eager to alert Savina to the possible Alirrians among the healers at the wrestling venue—but even more than that, he suspected something odd was going on at the wrestling trials.  He couldn’t put his finger on what was odd, exactly, but he had seen runners going coming and going from the venue, carrying what could only be betting slips . . . At that moment, Savina, Arden, and a very wet Rose arrived at the Inn.  “Savina!  Just the thing,” he said.  “I have met some folks you might find interesting, at the wrestling trials.  They patched me up.  To be sure, I do not know much about Alirrian traditions, but some of them sounded very much like you sound.  And you—Arden—I need you.  Come with me.”Arden shrugged a questioning look at Savina, who nodded, and Arden stepped back outside the door.  “Whatever you need, Justicar.”“We are on our way to the bookmakers’,” he grinned, and together they trotted through quiet alleys toward the temple of Sedellus.###It took a few moments for Arden’s eyes and ears to adjust:  the Sedellan temple was dark and louder than any of the Trial venues, as announcers called odds on upcoming matches and people rushed to tables with their wagers.  Arden heard Tavi’s name; according to the announcer, he had won an early match.  Just inside the door, Arden spotted the man whose purse she had cut the week before.  Arden pulled out a pouch of gold pieces, pulled up her hood, stepped beside the man, and, with a deft stumble, fell into him.  With apologies, she slid the pouch between the folds of his kimono and spun away into the crowd before he could even see her face.  From a distance, she watched as the man’s hand flew to his chest and he drew out the pouch.  He looked around, surprised eyes searching for his benefactor.  He would not find her.###“Here’s what I need you to do,” Kormick told Arden as they reached a corner of the room.  “Take this”—he handed her a few gold pieces—“and wager it on Tavi for his next arcane match.  And while you’re up there, listen closely for the bets the others are making on the physical wrestling.”The only way to figure out what was going on at the wrestling venue, Kormick knew, was to come to the only place he could see all the matches at once:  the betting parlor.  He approached one of the betting tables.  “Five gold on Dame Philomena in the next physical wrestling match,” he offered to the young man.  “Oh, another Ehktian, are you?” the young man replied, with a knowing smile.Gradually, Kormick got the gist of the room’s conversations: Brother Ono was heavily favored, and most bets were on him.  A few Ehktians were betting on Dame Mena.  Who else is betting against Brother Ono, and who do they want to win?  Arden returned from the other side of the room.  “I’m hearing a handful of very large-sum bets for someone named ‘Kiyari’—at least I think that’s the name—” Arden handed Kormick 30 gold pieces.  A more-than-respectable return on an investigatory wager, Kormick thought.But the point was the investigation, not the wager.  Kiyari was the brute who had thrown Kormick to the ground so easily.  He was a large man, and a strong one, but not as skilled a wrestler as Brother Ono.  In a fair fight, Ono would win.  A gambler might believe otherwise, Kormick supposed, but that did not resolve the nagging question in Kormick’s mind.  Ten more minutes of eavesdropping revealed that Kiyari worked as an enforcer for the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/251423-rose-wind-saga-halmae-updated-may-26-2011-a-24.html#post5476139" target="_blank">Eighths</a>. Not exactly a popular man, then.  Why would so many people bet on him?  Did they have inside information?  Were the Eighths fixing the tournament against Brother Ono?  If they were, that spelled disaster for their plan to whisper to Brother Ono in the Pageant . . .Kormick had a hunch, but he couldn’t confirm it.  For that, he’d need to watch the action.  He collected his winnings and signaled to Arden, and the two ran together back to the wrestling stadium.###Mena was having a crisis of faith. She’d bested four opponents.  Three were easy.  The fourth required skill and tactics; when her opponent finally went down, the crowd had whooped and clapped.  A mass of Ehktians chanted “Brother Spark! Brother Spark!”  It was the loudest thing she’d heard all day. It made her nervous.  Not because Brother Soburu had warned her against being too conspicuous—although he had—but because it was fun.  And Mena knew that fun was dangerous.  Fun had a way of crowding out the guilt—the guilt that had made Mena pledge her life to fighting evil.  For the last month, she had rationalized that wrestling was a part of that fight.  But if it was fun, how could it be?  As the officials led her to the center ring for her next match, Mena’s mind was clouded with doubt.  The other rings were closed now; all eyes were on her.  The Ehktians in the crowd maintained their low, steady chant.  “Spark. Spark. Spark. Spark.”There, before her, stood Kiyari, seven feet tall and as wide as a house.  He adjusted his loincloth.  Mena tried to clear her mind.They bowed and nodded.  He moved in.  Mena ducked under his arm and got purchase on his leg.  He thrust his hip forward.  She lost her footing, but recovered.  She came at him again.  It was like pushing on a wall.  But she managed to hook his knee, destabilizing him.  He adjusted his loincloth.  All of a sudden, Mena slipped, fell backward, and landed on her rear.  It wasn’t over yet; he hadn’t pinned her or pushed her out . . .Mena struggled to recover.  As she scrambled, her mind calmed and everything slowed.  She could see Kiyari looming over her, coming down, ready for the pin.  She could feel the ring, slippery beneath her.  Something was wrong; she couldn’t grip the floor.  Kiyari wiggled his hip.  The floor became slicker—as if Kiyari was doing something to make it so…using something…something hidden in his loincloth…She heard a commotion in the crowd.  A man in Inquisitorial robes plowed forward, shoving people out of the way—it was Kormick.  He raised a warhammer to point at Kiyari and boomed:“PERFIDY!”And Mena did what might have been the first truly lucid thing she’d done in a month.  She reached up toward the descending figure above her, grasped both sides of his loincloth, and pulled it off.</blockquote>

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