Changing of the Glads (11 page)

Zalphia was headed back to the arena, of that he was fairly confident.  How could he remain close to her?  He couldn’t go back to being a Glad again.  He’d be recognized by the way he fought. 

What could he do?  Only trainers, Glads, and their physicians traveled, leaving him no way to be with his wife.  The realization that there was nothing left but to become part of the masses drove him from the trees.

He returned to the clearing and gathered his belongings. 

Gently he lifted the clothing he fashioned for Zalphia and held them close to his face, relishing her lingering scent before carefully folding them.

He shoved everything into his pack as he devised a way to work his way back into the arena.  He would be in Halcion when she returned, and he was confident that she would come back.  That city was known for the toughest Glads there were.  Eventually, Platy would bring Zalphia back there to fight.  And when she did, Max would wrap his hands around Platy’s throat and choke the life from her.

cHAPTER 11

Zalphia’s mind cleared, and she could hear Platy shouting instructions.  Fluttering, her eyes opened.  Her personal Glad doctor came into focus, and she felt him pushing and prodding her abdomen.  She was in the infirmary?  How?  What happened?  Where was Max?  The last thing she remembered was lying beside him. 

Platy ranted from across the room.  “That was illegal.  Everyone saw it.  I want him banned from the arenas, do you hear me?  No one can do that to my Glad and get away with it.”

The gray walls of the arena Zalphia fought in when she met Max came into focus.  She sat up and swung her arms at the doctor.  “Max! Max! What are you doing?  Where’s Max?  How did I get here?”

A tear slid down her cheek, and fear tightened her chest.  The perfect life she had just begun had been ripped away.  Or had it all been a dream?

Platy rushed to Zalphia’s side and roughly shoved her back.  “Lie down, Zalph.  The doctor needs to check you out.  That last Glad’s trainer electrocuted you in your cell.  I’m lucky you lived through it, although – what do you think, Doctor?”

“It’s not working, that’s for sure.”

“Where’s Max?  I need Max,” Zalphia cried.

Platy’s eyes narrowed, and she shook her head.  “Who’s Max?”  She turned to the doctor.  “Do you see what he’s done?  Look at her.  Tell me she’ll be able to fight again.”

“Take it easy.  I’m checking her out.” The doctor’s brow furrowed. “Don’t overdo it,” he said more quietly.

Concern flashed across Platy’s face, and she scanned the area.  “No one’s around.  As far as they know it all but killed her.  What about...?”  She jerked her head toward Zalphia.

“Cancel all her matches.  Everyone will understand.  I’ll say her nervous system has been affected, and she’ll need time to recover.  No worse than when she was stabbed.”  He glared at Platy.  “She’ll heal, but we should get her back to our training center where I can properly care for her.  She seems to be imagining events and seeing people that aren’t real.”

Platy stepped closer. “There is no one named Max.  He’s just a figment of her brain being zapped.  What if she can’t use her powers?” 

“It could have affected more than that.” The doctor cocked his head.

Platy leaned over her prone charge.  “Zalph, reach out.  See if you can read anyone.”

Anger rolled from Zalphia’s gut and rushed to her hand, which flew out and caught Platy across the cheek. 

Max was not a figment of her mind, nor was he a dream.  He was real, and somehow Platy tore him away from her.  How could Platy even be alive?  How had she survived what they had done to the entire arena full of people?  Everyone standing in this room should be dead.  And she should be lying with Max beside the fire.  How could she be here?  How could everything she remembered be brought on by an electrical shock?  No! Platy had somehow destroyed Zalphia’s new life.  But how? 

“I want Max.  What did you do with him?” she screamed, reaching for Platy’s neck. 

Two attendants grabbed her arms and pinned her against the cold, steel table. 

“I won’t fight for you anymore unless you bring Max back to me.  Do you hear me?”

Platy’s shocked look only delayed her punch to Zalphia’s gut for a mere second.  “Strap her down.  No one hits me and gets away with it!”  One of the assistants lay across Zalphia’s chest while the others moved to get the straps.

Max’s face loomed before her eyes.  She had to find him and get back to their place in the mountains.  Somehow she needed to escape.  Pulling her legs up, she wrapped them around the attendant to her right, then scissored them and broke his neck.  He slumped to the floor, but the other attendant jumped out of reach.

She sprang from the table.  She was a Glad, after all, and she’d kill everyone in the room before she let them put her back in the arena and destroy the life she’d found with Max.  A flash of becoming one with him flickered across her mind.  She dropped to her knees, sobs wracking her body.  “Please,” she cried.  “What have you done with Max?”

A sharp pain struck the back of her skull, and she caught a glimpse of an attendant with a club before consciousness began sliding away. 

Platy stood out of reach.  “So help me, if he’s ruined her completely, he’ll go to the crushing stones.  And so will
she
.”  She glared at Zalphia.  “And you.  You will pay for hitting me.”

Darkness played at the sides of Zalphia’s vision, and the infirmary faded into Max’s face.  He once more lay beside her.  The heat of his skin warmed her, and his musky scent drifted into
her nostrils.  Once again his essence seeped into her mind. He was hers again, if only for a moment as she slid to the floor and into the blackness.

***

Zalphia awoke to the doctor tightening a strap just above her eyebrows.  She tried to reach for him, but her arms were held fast by a strap at each wrist and one across her upper arms. Straps also held her legs in place as well as one across her chest, her abdomen, and her hips.  She couldn’t move, couldn’t even twitch the straps were so tight.

“Sorry, Zalph.  You never should have hit her,” the doctor whispered.

“Is she secure?”  Platy’s voice reverberated off the walls.

The doctor nodded.

Platy leaned over Zalphia, her eyes dark and flashing.  “You
never
lay a hand on a trainer, Zalph.  You know that.  But since you did, you must be punished.”  She pulled a prod, a weapon similar to a small lightning stick, from behind her back.  “I want you to remember every moment of this, and the next time you are tempted to strike or disobey me, you’ll get even worse.  I can’t believe you don’t remember the lesson you got all those years ago.  However, this should remind you of the rules.”

The doctor pried Zalphia’s mouth open, shoved a piece of wood between her teeth, and then taped her lips closed.   She couldn’t speak, and terror filled her mind.  She knew what the prod did to the animals, and their nervous systems were much tougher than a human’s. Only small bits of air came in through her nose as she tried to shake her head to convince Platy not to do this. 

Platy’s eyes narrowed.  “You’ll never hit me again.” 

She pushed the prod’s button and electricity hummed through it.  Platy stuck the end to Zalphia’s cheek.  The lightning stick was nothing compared to the pain that pulsed through her from the prod.  Her jaw clamped against the wood piece, and every muscle contracted, pulling her hands into fists and curling her toes.  If it had been possible, her body would have arched off the table, but the straps prevented it. 

Platy took the prod away and charged it again, this time hitting Zalphia’s breast.  She thought she’d explode.

Pulling it away, Platy recharged the prod and hit an armpit.

Agony sent tears to Zalphia’s eyes.  How could Platy do this?  Zalphia tried to use her training to ignore the pain, to set aside the torture.  She tried to picture Max’s tree and the babbling brook, but Platy hit every tender spot on her body, and Zalphia lost the ability to control even her thoughts.  Everything was about the pain. 

Platy continued until Zalphia wished for death.  If she’d been able to speak, she would have begged for that release.  When she felt there was nothing left and even her body refused to react to the shocks, Platy quit.

“There now.”  Platy returned to Zalphia’s head and almost touched noses with her.  “Hopefully this lesson will stay with you, and you’ll never do that again, will you?”

Zalphia couldn’t even manage a subtle shake of her head. 

“Good, but just for good measure.”  Platy laid the prod against one eye.

Zalphia’s vision swam, and thunder rolled in her ears.  The prod didn’t stay there long, but Zalphia thought her brain would explode and her eyes would shoot from their sockets. 

Torture!  She knew this would happen if she and Max were caught, and obviously they had been.  What was happening to Max now?  She tried to reach out with her mind, but pain crashed in waves over her, foiling the effort.  She wished for the oblivion of unconsciousness, but it wouldn’t come.

All she could do was cry for him like a baby. 
Maaaxxx!

Nothing. 

He didn’t come.

Maybe it had all been a dream after all.  Maybe Max wasn’t real, just something her clouded brain contrived because of an electrical current.  Although she didn’t remember another trainer or being electrocuted.  Wouldn’t she remember something like that?  Wouldn’t she at least recall someone coming to her cage other than Platy?  One thing she knew for certain, she would never forget the punishment Platy just put her through.

When the waves of pain subsided and Zalphia could finally open her one good eye, the doctor stood beside her, an appliance in one hand.

“I’m sorry again, but Platy insisted I replace your chip without putting you out.”

Chip? Max’s face flashed before her.  It
had
been real.  Max had removed a chip from her brain.  That she remembered for sure, and the doctor just verified it. 
Max is real.

“This is going to hurt, worse than what she just did to you.  But she’ll be back in a moment to observe.”

When Platy appeared, the doctor switched on the thing in his hand, and the whirr of a saw reached Zalphia’s ears.  This was the same thing Max had done, but at least he’d used the poison.  Five attendants appeared and added their body weight to hold her still. 

Platy grinned wickedly.  “Now you’ll become my obedient Zalph.” 

The trainer nodded, and the doctor began.

CHAPTER 12

Three days had passed since Platy and the trackers hauled Zalphia away.  Max followed them back to Halcion, where he and Zalphia had earlier faced each other in the ring.  Everyone seemed to be on the lookout for him, so he hovered in alleyways where the downtrodden and drunkards lay amidst filth and slime.  At least there if the outcasts of society were lucid enough to recognize him, they wouldn’t care about turning him in to the authorities.

The scene of Zalphia being dragged away constantly played in his mind, exhausting him physically and mentally.  Already the joy of their union and the time they shared seemed a distant memory, just out of reach like a dream after waking.  Where was the time Simeon promised?  The days he and Zalphia were supposed to share on Kilapon. Were the few days Max shared with his love all they would have?  Or had it indeed only been a dream?  Loss consumed him, leaving his heart and mind hollow and empty. 

The many ways he imagined torturing Platy morphed into debilitating grief, cluttering and muddling his thoughts.  Even reaching out for Zalphia’s mind yielded no results, which meant she remained unconscious.  He could only imagine what Platy had planned now that Zalphia was again in her custody.

The state of Max’s mind matched the state of his body.  He now lay in an alley, nestled on a bed of trash.  A tattered blanket covered the rags draped across his massive frame, and he matched all the other castoffs that surrounded him.  The overpowering smell of urine filled his nose, and he turned away from the protection of the brick wall to face the street where the breeze could push the smell away.  He pulled the cap covering his hair down to his eyebrows and slid further beneath the tattered blanket as a soldier, metal breastplate clinking, marched toward him.  The sound of metal against metal stopped, and the man’s raspy breathing reached Max’s ears.

Max closed his eyes, hoping he’d done so fast enough that the soldier hadn’t noticed their color.  The one thing that would give him away.  Other Afris with skin the color of Max’s didn’t have blue eyes, only the deepest color of brown.  Rumors ran rampant about the dark-skinned man with blue eyes and the girl who killed an entire arena of people.  The soldiers were constantly on the lookout for the criminals.

A moment later, a foot shoved Max’s shoulder.

“Hey, you.”

Taking a deep breath, Max let his mind flow into the soldier’s before opening his eyes.  “Humph.”  Sure that the image of brown eyes were firmly set in the man’s mind, Max looked up.

“Nevermind.”  The soldier turned and continued down the road, the tinkling of his armor fading as the distance between he and Max grew wider.

He sighed.  Laying here had gained him nothing.  He was no closer to finding where Zalphia had been taken than he was the first day he’d come to town.  He wasn’t even sure Platy would have stayed here.  She could have taken Zalphia anywhere.  But the fact she wanted to trap him, led Max to believe his love still remained on this side of the ocean. 

Once more, he reached into the throngs of minds, searching for the one he knew so well.  Then he felt her.  Confusion mixed with fear rushed into him.  He closed his eyes, and a vision of gray walls, bright lights, and metal tables filled his mind.  Recognizing the room, he bolted upright.

“Zalphia!”

“Shut up.” The drunk lying next to him groaned and turned over. 

Heart beating fast, Max tossed the tattered blanket over the man and snuck out of the alley.  The soldier had already turned the corner, leaving Max a clear shot up the street to the arena.  This time of night, patrols would cover the entire square before returning to this street, giving him time to make it to the arena before the next pass.

Max hesitated for a moment, listening to Zalphia’s unanswered questions.  He tried to reach into her mind and show her their place, but her emotions overwhelmed the subtle way he was used to reaching her.  If he took time to concentrate, he might be able to punch through, assure her that he was on his way, or he could run up the street, burst into the infirmary, and save her. 

He chose to run.

Slipping his sandals off so his footfalls wouldn’t draw attention, he hung them from a finger and sprinted barefoot up the simmering pavement.  The sun had set a couple of hours earlier, but the heat in the tar-covered road remained.

The soles of his feet seared with every step, but he didn’t care.  Zalphia was all that mattered.  Simeon warned Max when Platy had taken Zalphia that she needed to remain with her trainer and go back to fighting.  But in his heart, Max knew what that would do to her.  She’d
never survive.  The killer instinct had been stripped from her when he had taken her from the arena.

Anger emanated from Zalphia, lending speed to Max’s feet.  She’d do something irrational, emotional.  Something that would endanger her if he didn’t get there and soon.  Just as he reached the front gate of the massive arena, he felt the frustration and anger let go.

The scene spread before him as if he had taken her place.  Platy’s green eyes flashed.  Her nostrils flared, and Max felt the punch.  Being one with Zalphia always had its downside, and now she had done something that would affect them both.

Max barely scooted into the shadows of the bleachers when the torture began.  He reached out to Zalphia, wanting to sustain her, but the pain seared through him, driving rational thought away. 

Zalphia should have known better than to strike a trainer.  Now Platy would teach a lesson never to be forgotten.  Max gritted his teeth, laid the pain aside, and stilled his mind.  Once he gained control, he reached out to Zalphia, wrapping thoughts of calm and love around her, but she didn’t seem to notice.  Each jolt caused his body to react in sync with hers.  Platy accomplished torturing them both, and Max suspected that somewhere deep inside she knew that would be the case.

When it was over, Max lay trembling and exhausted beneath the Clubbers’ bleachers.  Pain seared through every nerve, and shame racked him for what he’d caused Zalphia to endure.  He should have let her take his life.  They never should have killed the Clubbers, fled the arena, or taken the time to succumb to their desires.  Every decision he’d made led them to this.  Now, all he could do was lie here and long for the moments when Zalphia was his.

He wished for the strength to leap to his feet, burst through the door, and whisk his beloved wife away to safety.  But he couldn’t.  The act of lifting his head was more than he could muster.

Simeon’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
 
Maximillion
.

Max didn’t want to hear it.  He knew Simeon wished to leave Zalphia where she was.  They needed to know about the Emperor and where things went wrong, but Zalphia would suffer.  How could Max let that happen?  Look what they’d already done to his beloved wife.

Max shook his head. 
I cannot leave her here.  Do you not see?  Can you not feel what we have gone through?  What she has suffered?  How can you expect me to abandon her?

I know it will be hard, Maximillion.  I know.  She is strong.  Stronger than you believe.  She will yet suffer many things.  It cannot be helped.  You may strengthen her, just as you always have.  Your mind will be one with hers.  She knows you and will be able to seek you out.  We need answers, and Zalphia is the only way we will be able to get them. 

No!  She is not as strong as you believe.  I have seen her.  Her emotions are not tempered as they once were.  She will never survive what they have planned for her.  They will do whatever it takes to get me to come running to her aid. I should just relinquish myself to them.  Require that they let her go in order to have me.  Then it will be I who will face the Emperor.

No, Maximillion.  They will never let her go.  You know this.  They would find a way to capture you both.  Then you both will be killed and coming here will have been for naught.

Max’s hands curled into fists in spite of the weakness wracking him. 
You are all knowing, you Elders.  Why can you not just get the answers yourself?  Why does Zalphia have to suffer?  I should have taken her back to Selestia, out of the reach of those who would harm her.  I would have gladly done what it takes to right the wrongs here.

Max’s chest tightened.  He didn’t want to hear more about what was best for this world.  He wanted to save his love.  This is what Zalphia begged for just days before.  If only he would have listened.  They could have left this world, returned home to Selestia.  There had to be another way to accomplish changing things without having Zalphia subjected to more torture.  Torture Max knew she’d never survive.

You know that you could never have gone back, Maximillion.  Zalphia knows it, and she would hate you once you arrived on Selestia without completing your mission.

Simeon was right.  Zalphia had been the one who volunteered to come here. 

There are only three pairs on Selestia who could accomplish this.  You know that, and so does Zalphia.

Simeon and his brother had been such a pair until the brother was stripped of his powers for misusing them.  The other pair already resided here, Vitus and Karaticus, Max’s own sons.  He and Zalphia were the only ones left who could do what needed to be done.

It can only be accomplished by the two of you.  She has the capabilities that you do not, but neither of you alone could change things.  You know this.  You sent your sons, and they have failed.  If you and Zalphia can’t bring this world into alignment with its course, there will be no other way than destruction.  Would you put all here at risk for a mere two?

How true.  He and Zalphia promised to save this dying and decrepit world, and Zalphia, the strong woman he knew before they came here, would never give up on their mission.  She would be glad to suffer exactly what she was going through at this very moment to accomplish what they set out to do. 

Very well. 
His fingers loosened. 
I will continue, although my heart is breaking for the pain she must endure. 

It will be only for a short while, I promise.  Change is in the works, and in a matter of time, all will be revealed.  Be patient, Maximillion, and you will be victorious.  Zalphia will once again be by your side.

Max let exhaustion take him.  When he awoke again, more pain came from Zalphia, and again he experienced it right along with her.  When he thought there was no way she could endure anymore, her mind disappeared.