Light crossed lid and eye to penetrate a dormant mind. Sense yanked Stephen upright, who pulled an arm across the bright assault. There he awoke, in a long arch of back. Bones popped, muscle creased until satisfied his spine returned adjusted. With head downcast the arm stuck firm released, leaving only lids which kept only so much from tender eyes.
Stephen peeked again, onto a cloth wrapped at the waist below a belt wound of rough leather. Nothing wrapped the rest above, nor there below the knee except the sandals at his feet. Stephen ventured to stand, and then a step. Blood rushed once, but stayed aloft, to issue more.
Toward the door he went, down between rows of beds on low frames carved of wood. An eagle petrified in gold stood perched above the frame, head caught in a proud search. Stephen arrived, crossing the threshold with a final lingering glance.
The hand of a girl, or not too far beyond one raised before him. Stephen stopped, tracking a device darting his vision in her hand. Her gaze crushed until the arm rescinded. Then her eyes fell to the device, while Stephen’s lifted to the room.
Four walls spread wide apart, and curiously equal, rose absurdly high and dully grey. Not a room as much as empty hall, or chamber of some gaudy impoverished android giant.
‘Greetings, Crybabies!’
The words descended from above, where also scrolled across in neon all the same. Stephen scrutinized the room again, finding only he and the pretty girl, in her white dress wrapped at the waist in green.
‘Welcome to the Circuit!’
The words crept past and hid, before more chased them.
‘Pardon the drab, but all will soon resume, and certainly immerse. First though we must get past this brief interim. You see these games, of which yours, you lucky dog is much adored, must first wean you. The world is changed, as you requested I am sure, to be here as you are, but we do hope not too much and so first send you through this nascence. By your performance we learn much, which will inform your place outside this simulation.’
Stephen recalled a man not thirty, but nearer every day, who sought and found somehow to reach into the future he so craved.
‘So do try, because as I say your life will depend on what you do here. But also do try all the more, with confidence you will find only in the Circuit.’
Stephen laughed. ‘I should’ve guessed you weren’t real.’
The girl’s head rose. A quick glance cut Stephen’s smile, before she turned and sought a door at the room’s side.
‘So go to win, go slay! Go to prove yourself before a world beyond your wildest dreams when this short trial is concluded. But know many regret their work here, and any dim lives which succeed it. Do not dwindle amongst them. Stoke your flame, consume in hearty spirit any weakness. Stay warm, you Gladiators.’
While the last fiery letters drifted past the far wall lifted. Stephen saw for a moment a garage, raised by hand before the dawn, and car in neutral rolling down the drive before the key started him toward his cold exodus from the past.
A mess crowded the darkened space behind this new threshold. Barrels, crates, racks and just as many piles left completely dispossessed held hostage all but a single weaving path amongst them. Blades rose and hung, and also blunter instruments amongst them, which rested beside many weirder things conceived all with one purpose.
Stephen walked forth, to resume his immersion. Shadows slashed the floor wherever floor escaped the violent clutter, from fickle torches hung at odds along the pocked stone walls. Then they slashed this sandled man who dared peruse amongst them, while any brighter witness stayed behind the rumbling closing wall.
But that which filled the armory was far from foreign. Most he recognized, the swords and axes, clubs and spears and pitchforks, from his studies. Some he knew more intimately, in sports of youth which forged an adept mind. Here many arms arrived out of their season, of eastern, medieval, barbarian and even a cluster of somewhat modern make.
Stephen pulled a glorious Nipon steel from its barrel, tightly curved and almost blue past the blanched blossomed red of silk wrapped round the hilt. A Zweihander rose next, its higher guard reaching to half the breadth of any man. Then a pitchfork, with net draped along the wall beside, which did evoke a certain memory.
All these and more he scrutinized with care. Amongst the great diversity he ran a tally, producing after a time a hearty laugh. The cost of such a fine collection, forged authentically for games and recklessly abandoned, meant a world of lavish excess few even amongst the visionaries of the pages of his childhood had dared imagine.
For this Circuit though, it fit quite well. Every element a test, his selection here as much as any subsequent performance. The endless pondering of metaphor of every kid’s enduring frustration did shed its dread here, outside the malaise of a classroom. Impossible of course, in the past’s present.
‘You’re late you know.’
Stephen looked from his latest muse, a club of splintered barbs. The girl stood there at the room's end, beside a pair of great wooden doors positioned at the side still quite far from him. ‘Oh so it’s not just me.’ He smirked. ‘Hope there’s not much desync.'
She said nothing, so on Stephen went to meet her. A thin sword caught his eye, however. Bravely thin, and a bit longer than the rapiers of college. From the rack he took it, swiping the air with some light bounces. Much the same, a second arm beyond his own sweeping in blazing circles.
He continued, behind a wry smile teasing his lip. Foremost amongst the class, and regionals and state, only his teacher proved his equal. They sparred as most men fought, in speech as much as sport. ‘Move, Stephen. Bait your opponent, always bait, never commit until you’re sure. Loser is he who tips his hand, always.’
‘No armor, then?’
Stephen lowered the rapier. Around him now was armor as she said, of no interest to speed. A certain piece though, near the door reaching out from a barrel did attract him. It covered a single arm and shoulder in black slates, which after its application and some strikes afforded ample range of motion. It was comfy enough too, gutted in leather. ‘Ok then.’
‘That’s all?’
To her creased brow Stephen offered a shrug. ‘Sure.’
She turned, knocking the doors. A hum swelled as they parted, ever louder. Once they unfurled enough to pass she did, while Stephen’s gaze sank to a dome of discarded helmet near the door, bored with many holes across the face. He crouched to pluck it in following.
A brisk walk brought them down the corridor. At its end the girl assumed a post along the edge, with arm extended. Stephen meant to speak, but the hum had grown to roar, so with an unreciprocated wave he left her.
Around the bend a different mass awaited. Dozens of men adorned in all manner of brutal dress stood stacked along a gate whose ponderous links of chain hung from a hole in the vaulted ceiling. Stephen saw a hue of green running the armor beneath pale streams of light pouring through the hatched gate, before sneaking in to join them. None noticed his approach, nor might have heard it had he wanted.
Over the helmets through the hatched wood of the gate only tan returned. But then the chain went taught to drag the gate and as it did a Gladiator ducked the rising teeth, leaving the rest to follow suit. Stephen emerged among the last, noting a deepest green swirling the black along his own singular arm of armor in the bright moonlight.
Onto sand his sandals fell. High walls spreading wide into a circle held around them, and above a thousand rows of thousands from which the now deafening roar issued without respite.
Yet even here a wild scream drew Stephen to the floor. A Gladiator ran, kicking sand across toward a similarly lifted gate posted opposite their own, which soon slammed shut again. PANEM was writ above it, and below a rival force, diverse as uniform in hue of yellow like the rising sun.
More joined the first. Almost without thought Stephen donned his bulbous helmet, luckily holed enough to see the most of what had matched their reckless charge. Screams like the first rose in the sprint, to which Stephen contributed as the waves crashed.
Half a dozen caught their end along the crest of that swift meeting. Stephen dodged one of his own thrust back on a spear’s tip into the sands. Another yellow swung a flamberge for the head, an easy duck and thrust to counter. Staggered spurts escaped the man before he joined the sands, with hand plastered to neck.
From this first clash chaos erupted. Swings, dodges, parries, strikes, whatever kept Stephen afoot a moment longer to watch the cloud of fury thin. The colors parted only when the walls at last appeared again beyond the fray.
In heaves Stephen enjoyed the brief relief. Flushed with sense he waited, sharper than any contest. This was no practice, no parley, no tournament of points. Whatever this was, was worth the wait. And quite responsive.
The crowd settled with their Gladiators’ breaths. In strange silence beneath a curious moon only four remained across a field sown in the fallen. Two held spears, between a short sword freshly pulled from sandy sheath and a pair of broad squared shields rested against the ground.
A cheer descended. Stephen tracked the four’s slow spread apart, with a sweeping darting glance. Only a single green remained to either side, who matched the fan. For some shuffling steps a gap fattened between the spears, until the twins turned to convene.
Stephen retreated. Slowly, slower than the two approached. They joined, while the rest collided somewhere in periphery, drawing from the stands a noise to swallow all delay, which spurred the spears.
Another final scan revealed no hope of aid through many holes. From the back Stephen tor off his helmet in a crouch, eyes fixed below. Their steps came quick as steps cross sand, labored and heavy, both deep but one much deeper. Up, down went the legs, up at a small knoll of sand in just it looked to be two more.
With a twist the helmet flew, right to its naked ankle. Stephen dove forth to meet the quicker twin, under spear which crossed his back with rapier loose in hand. Straight up the chin it went and out the back as the two fell.
Sand filled the mouth which spat and rose. Stephen studied a head impaled, then plucked from a still rigorous grip the bloody spear below it. This he knew not well, but already the second spearman rose, so into his bare hand it went to brace his lonely stretch of armor for the swing.
But no swing came. Instead the spear went flying from the man. He collapsed in the throw, which cast its twirling tip glancing off the armored arm and past a grimaced cheek. Stephen jumped forward clutching his own, to finish while he lay.
Deep into the sand beneath it went, to a mighty uproar. The dizzying crowd maintained and there, past a pair of piled shields stood cause, a short sword held in arms spread wide, with grizzly chunk sliding the blade.
Stephen turned from him. He found the first spearman, kneeling to press the twisted face and tease his rapier free. It caught but once, sliding with little stay thin as it was, through the limp eliminated man below.
Slashing the air again his busy needle raised. The short sword tossed from hand to hand in answer, beneath the wall holding them close. Raised to new heights at this final encounter the crowd boomed, to a thunder sweeping all thought, except with a wide raise of arms to charge again.
Sandals sank. Nearly upon him Stephen feinted, with a flick to spurn the sword. At once the yellow spun in plunging slash upon a parry. As nail under the hammer Stephen caught a wild flurry, the last glancing along his armor.
A single riposte was mustered, to the leg. No great victory, if enough to send the two in orbit. Circling they went, farther then close again, while the wound wept. Stephen feinted a feint, baited a gap in action into which he poked again.
But the short sword got the play. Again loose of grip the rapier escaped in arching twirl, arriving in the sands far to a side. Stephen reached for the yellow’s sword arm still in motion, finding new craze in his foe’s eye. With fingers laced behind the elbow Stephen yanked, earning a scream too close to lose for any crowd as the blade plunged deep into gut.
Stephen followed with a kick to hilt which sealed the blow, and down went the last yellow to the sands. A flailing leg wrapped in sharp greave did pull behind the knee, however, and it was together that they fell.
Beside the last sputtering foe Stephen lay well in victory, head craned toward the CIRCENSES plastered above his own of this bloody theatre’s curtains, past countless actors stuck in scene. The grainy stage beneath tickled a stinging in his back, shoulder to hip. That lunge under the spear perhaps was not so clean then.
A pounding filled Stephen’s swirling head. It arrived from behind, maybe. It matched a pulse, but banged, and also something hollered through the roar, no this was not within. Stephen went to his elbows in a search which sent the coliseum spinning, before his head crashed down again. He landed facing up, where there along the wall, from arms draped over the stands, a crudely scribbled sign waved its cold message. ‘it’s all real’