On the sand the armored contestants warmed up and played with their blades, practicing their movements and falls, keeping fit and practicing their routines for the performance that afternoon. It would be a performance, too. Deaths in the rings, although far from rare, were suspected to be faked. The truth was worse than that. The deaths were newcomers to the rings, inadequately trained fools with their eyes on fame, that the veterans aimed at when they tossed their blades above the ring. It was an unspoken and unwritten rule among the veterans: spare the guild and aim at the beginners. The newcomers got a split second of glory, the veterans got their prize money and commercial endorsements, and there was plenty of gore on the sand for the viewers at home. Something for everyone, as one disgusted human news commentator put it.
Instead of gods, in the niches of the Jaffri Ring there were bored video crews arranging their cameras and patching their signals for the afternoon’s sportscast. Dark smudges of movement behind them spoke of the Gezi demons and their numbers. The filthy creatures were thick in the Jaffri Ring. Only gods could see them, but the humans and phony blade throwers knew they were there, if only in their hearts. Gezi’s feed on fraud, deceit, and greed, and not one of them was losing weight in the Jaffri Ring.
I brought Lok and Diru up. They opened their eyes, looked at their temple, and wept at what they saw below. “Sister,” cried Diru. “Why did you steal me? Why have you awakened me? To witness this?” Her fire flashed out above the Jaffri Ring.
The blade throwers and video technicians below stopped what they were doing and looked up at the sky.
“That!”
“Did you see?”
“What was it?”
“It’s gone now.”
“What was it?”
A shrug, a head shaking, a coach clapping his hands for attention, a sharp word from a camera’s crew chief. Without the flames of their god’s despair singing their brows every moment, the contestants returned to practicing their scripts and the video technicians returned to preparing their equipment. One human, however, leaned upon a camera and continued to stare at the sky. He was someone with a bit of authority and was not barked into action right away.
“See that, Diru,” I commanded. “With the mere flick of your finger you commanded the attention of the entire ring. The human in the south niche, the one with the red hair, is looking for you still. Shall he find you?”
“I who slew Giya and crushed the faith of a world?” Diru held out her hands and blackened the sky for me.
I saw the Jaffri Ring as it was more than a century ago, the Mieuran blade throwers naked before their gods, the humans in the stands gaping at the strange novelty of the tossing. The great Giya strode into the center of the ring. Although he had tossed his white flowers at the southern niche and his blue flowers before Lok at the north, his manner did not witness the balance and protection of the gods. Instead his bearing seemed to say, “Look you at me. See me. See Giya. Celebrate my immortality.”
He came to a halt, bowed toward the north, bowed toward the south, and made one additional bow, the first ever seen in a ring. He bowed toward the west where a lone video camera, the first ever allowed into a ring, was mounted.
Diru saw into Giya’s heart and was horrified. Giya had been offered an incredible ransom for that bow, and for future appearances on the television. Everything in the universe had been granted him when, only days before, the single thing Giya had desired was to be one with his gods and bear witness to that union with his blades on the sand.
Diru’s attention was focused on her own dismay. Giya tossed the blades high above his head, and they did not whirl in the air for him. Instead Lok brought them down before Diru realized that they had even been thrown.
Giya had been the greatest. The throws were perfect. The points of both blades entered his skull, killing him instantly. His was the kindest of many deaths. At the same moment he died, faith died. The heart of a race grew suddenly barren.
The blade throwers who followed Giya that day, individuals and teams, were shaken. There had been no balance. All had seen it. Giya’s faith had been corrupted and there had been no balance. If the great Giya’s faith had been inadequate to balance the gods, whose could be sufficient? Those who had viewed the event on their new televisions asked the same question.
That day more than forty throwers died in the ring before the wardens called off the competitions. Competitions in other rings around the world were also called off when similar numbers of throwers fell. The rings were closed for many days while Mieuran politicians and human network officials made talk. When the rings opened once again, there was armor on the throwers. Soon came the video cameras, promoters, concessionaires, trick blades, and bloodpaint. The Gezis became bloated.
“This we have done to the world,” said Diru solemnly. “This we cannot undo.”
Lok was staring down at the Jaffri ring as the image of the old ring faded and was replaced by the present ring with its cameras, lights, armored competitors, and hoards of fat little Gezis. There were video screens around the inside wall of the ring advertising new gods: athletes, fashions, cosmetics, investments, foods, and medicines. Lok faced his sister and said, “Diru, there is a weightier sin than Giya’s lack of faith in us. It is our lack of faith in ourselves.” He turned toward me. “Ahnli, do you have a thrower?”
I brought them to the Diram Ring where Alan was doing his drills beneath the watchful eye of Giya’s grandson. “A human,” Lok stated.
“Watch him well,” I said. “He is better even than Giya.”
“He is a human,” said Diru. “If Giya’s head could be turned by the humans, what of him?”
Redgait grinned from his niche and said, “Diru, although they are exceptionally good at it, humans did not invent greed. They are capable of the choosing.”
“Show me,” Diru commanded. “Show me the consecration.”
“Ril,” I called to the old Mieuran. Alan halted his drills and stood silently at the edge of the ring as Ril approached the south niche. When he was in front of Diru, Lok, and myself, I said to him, “Present with me are the gods of the Jaffri Ring.”
“I honor them,” said Ril as he bowed deeply.
“Even though they killed your grandfather?”
“Diru knows,” said the old Mieuran, “that Giya’s greed killed him, not the gods of the ring.”
I studied Diru’s face to see if what Ril said would ease her burden. I could see nothing in her face. Instead she simply repeated, “Show me the consecration.”
“Diru and Lok would see the consecration,” I said to Ril. The old Mieuran turned, placed one hand atop another, and held them out toward Alan.
The human approached the center of the ring, crossed the blades and placed them on the sand in the center of the ring. He had no flowers to offer. Nevertheless he bowed toward Redgait and then bowed toward me. Taking the blades in hand, he threw them up directly over his head. Redgait grabbed the blades from the air and drove them down toward Alan’s skull. I reached between the blades and pushed them aside. As though they were describing the arc of a perfect bell, the blades stuck into the sand on either side of the boy.
Diru nodded once and said, “Very well, Ahnli. Bring him to the Jaffri Ring. Lok and I will look into the human’s soul to see if it remains pure.” She turned her face toward me and said, “Faith is easier in the Diram Ring, sister. There are fewer distractions. Here the Gezi would starve. It is different outside these walls.” And then they vanished.