Skeeter's lanista dragged him past and thrust him into the group doing calisthenics. He was unchained and forcibly prodded into movement with the tip of a long spear. Sweating, head spinning uselessly, Skeeter did what he was forced to do, vaulting low hurdles awkwardly and going through the motions of the calisthenics. Then he was handed a dull-edged wooden sword and a shield and found himself facing his trainer. He swallowed again, dizzy and terrified.

"Shield up!" the man shouted-and lunged with a short wooden sword.

Skeeter's reaction time, dulled by pain and shock, was slow. The wooden sword caught him in the gut, doubling him over with a retching pain. His trainer waited until he'd caught his breath, then dragged him up again and shouted, "Shield up!"

This time, Skeeter managed to drag his arm up to catch the blow across the wooden shield. The smack and force of the blow drove him to his knees.

"Thrust!"

Over the next two miserable, wretched weeks, his trainer beat the drills into him, until he could at least follow the instructions. He learned the various methods of fighting, tried to use the various types of weapons different classes of gladiators used. His lanista spent a great deal of time grumbling, while Lupus Mortiferus stalked the training-arena like a god and laughed at him, besting every opponent sent against him with lazy ease.

Disheartened, bruised, Skeeter slept in chains, too exhausted to move once allowed to collapse on his hard bed. He ate the gruel he was given as fast as he could shovel it in. It tasted faintly of beer; barley gone a little too far toward fermentation, perhaps? Occasionally Lupus Mortiferus would visit his cell, grinning and taunting him from beyond the iron bars of his cage. Skeeter returned his gaze steadily and coldly, while his insides quaked with deeper terror than he had ever known, deeper even than his terror at falling through the unstable gate into Yesukai the Valiant's life.

Each night as he drifted into bruised sleep, Skeeter dredged up from memory everything Yesukai had ever taught him, every trick and dirty move he'd ever learned on the plains of Mongolia. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he was reviewing the wrong memories. And he thought of his time on the broken, filthy streets of depraved New York, where a boy, even a grown man, could find himself fatally trapped before he knew anything had gone wrong. Certain areas of New York were said to be as deadly as the ancient Roman gladiatorial combats. Looked like he was about to find out.

At the moment, Skeeter would take the concrete-and-glass canyons of New York, even the washed-out ruins of New Orleans, over this. He just prayed he had time to come up with some sort of escape plan before Lupus Mortiferus killed him in the arena. Given the diligence of the guards, he didn't hold out much hope.

"QUIET!"

Brian Hendrickson had sufficient command presence to be heard-and obeyed-when he wanted The babble in the library sliced off like a dagger cut. He glared at Goldie Morran, whose nostrils flared unpleasantly as she breathed hard. Ianira Cassondra, clutching her pretty little children close, glared at Goldie, hatred and possibly even murder in her dark, ancient eyes. This had to be defused, and fast.

"Goldie,- he said, speaking as gently as possible, considering her recent release from the infirmary-and the reasons for it, "I know as well as you do the terms of the bet. The most cash at the end of a month. But this evidence about Skeeter's disappearance. complicates matters. Considerably."

He glanced at Ianira. "You will swear by all you hold sacred," he asked her gently--in archaic Greek-"that Skeeter Jackson was trying to rescue Marcus when he crashed the Porta Romae?"

"I swear it," she hissed out, with another murderous glance at Goldie.

"Do you have any way to prove that?"

"Dr. Mundy! I spoke with him on the telephone! He arranged for Skeeter to pick up money to pay that man Farley. He will speak the truth for me! And my `acolytes' were following me. Someone must have taped it!"

"All right." He glanced across the growing crowd, many of them the loons who followed Ianira wherever she went. "Any of you catch on vid Skeeter Jackson crashing the Porta Romae?"

One timid, mousy little man near the back cleared his throat five times, casting awestruck, terrified glances at Ianira, then managed, "I-I did

Brian nodded. "Cue it up, would you, while I place a call?"

The loon began fiddling with his camera as Brian picked up the telephone behind the library counter, placidly ignoring the crowd which grew by fives and tens as word of the argument over the wager's terms spread through La-La Land. The telephone was answered testily by Nally Mundy.

"I'm in the middle of a session, here, so if you'd please call back-"

"Dr. Mundy, Brian Hendrickson here."

"Oh. Yes, Brian? what is it?"

"Ianira Cassondra tells me you offered Skeeter Jackson money to help Marcus the bartender pay off a debt.

A long silence at the other end of the line caused Brian to sigh. Skeeter had ripped off the old man, after all, and vanished downtime

"Yes, I did. But he never picked up the money. Odd, you know. Heard about that ruckus at the gate. I'd say Ianira's telling the truth. If Skeeter'd had time, he'd have picked up that money and something tells me young Marcus would still be with us. Don't trust that dratted Jackson much, blast him, but he didn't take the money. If I could just get one decent session taped with that boy, the mysteries about Temujin that we could solve-"

"Yes, I know," Brian hastened to interrupt. "You've been very helpful, Dr. Mundy. I know you're busy, so I'll let you get back to your session."

The historian hurrumphed into the phone, which then clicked dead. Brian cradled the receiver. "Well. Have you cued up that camera?"

The little man pushed his way through the crowd and handed over the camera, then knelt and kissed the hem of Ianira's gown. "May my humble camera bring you comfort and victory Lady."

Brian watched the whole thing unfold, from Lupus Mortiferus kicking down Skeeter's door to Skeeter's desperate lunge up onto the ramp, the hoarse cry he'd uttered for Marcus to wait, the man with Marcus bodily snatching him through-and, finally, Skeeter vanishing through the gate after them. He clicked off the camera thoughtfully, wondering what in the world had possessed Skeeter to such altruistic rashness. Then he roused himself slightly and handed the camera to Ianira, who returned it to the man at her feet. He uttered a tiny cry and pressed lips to her hand, then snatched the camera and scuttled more than a yard away before rising to his feet again, face alight as though he really had touched the hand of Deity.

Odd bunch of folks, Ianira's followers.

Brian cleared his throat. "It seems Ianira is telling the truth. Nally Mundy and that videotape prove it, beyond any question in my mind." When he glanced up, he wasn't surprised to find a crowd of nearly a hundred 'eighty-sixers; pressed as close to the reference desk as they could get, with more peering in through the door.

"Well. As I said, this unexpected gesture of altruism by Skeeter changes everything. I'm afraid, Goldie, I can't declare you winner by default on the grounds that Skeeter will be gone for at least two weeks downtime. Your wager stipulated a month, true, but that doesn't mean the month has to run straight through, uninterrupted. I declare this wager on hold until Skeeter returns. If he returns."

Ianira blanched and blinked back sudden tears. She clutched her children more closely to her breast. Alerted by their mother's sudden fear, communicated in that mysterious way between mothers and their offspring, the two little girls began to whimper.

Goldie sniffed. "If he returns, indeed. That maniac who's been chasing him has probably carved out his entrails by now. And it would serve him right!"