Anden discovered that he was one of the better players. Relayball was the primary national sport in Kekon, but here in Espenia, only the Kekonese and Shotarian communities played the game, so the most athletic members of Cory’s informal league had other pursuits that they took more seriously—bootball, ruckets, swimming—and they came to the Secondday and Fifthday games at the high school field purely for recreation. There was a lot of joking and mock feuding, and Anden found it hard to follow all the Espenian slang that was tossed around, but soon the gatherings became the highlight of his week. He didn’t quite fit in, but that was fine, he was used to that. At least he was becoming an accepted member of the community. No matter how busy he was with schoolwork, the Hians always encouraged him to go. “It’s good that you’re finally making friends,” they said.
Cory played the position of finisher. He was the best player, and the unofficial organizer and leader of the neighborhood league. At first, Anden assumed that could be attributed to the fact that he was a Green Bone and the son of the Pillar, but he soon came to realize that the young man stood on his own feet. Cory never spoke of his father’s dealings, and even after two months of seeing him twice a week, Anden had not figured out where he wore his jade. As far as Anden could tell, Cory never employed his advantages of Strength or Lightness while on the relayball field. Even so, he always placed himself and Shun Todorho, the other Green Bone who regularly showed up at the games, on opposite teams, so all would be fair. He didn’t argue about points either. More than once, when a game grew heated, Anden heard him say, with a laugh, “We’re just here to have a good time, crumbs.” Contrary to the stereotype of the Kekonese being quick to fight, Cory never seemed to take offense, nor to give it either. He seemed to get along with everyone. Even when he called Anden, “you fool islander,” he did so lightheartedly and with a teasing wink that could not be construed as mean-spirited.
Anden had a hard time imagining how Cory would fare as a Finger in Janloon. People would not know what to think of a Green Bone who was so easygoing, who seemed so quick to please.
They played throughout autumn, when damp wind billowed the relayball nets and the evenings grew cold enough for them to need hats and gloves. One Fifthday, they were finally driven off the field by the first real winter storm; the ever-present clouds over Port Massy darkened to the color of slate and began dumping icy sleet over the city. People ran between cars and buildings with briefcases and newspapers held over their heads. The clumpy turf behind the high school turned into a soggy marsh. Anden slipped during a pass and landed hard on his back in a puddle of freezing slush. He’d never experienced such cold before in his life. He decided, as he rose with his teeth chattering, all his extremities numb, and his glasses too smeared and fogged to see through, that it was no wonder the Espenians were a people who’d sailed all over the world, if their homeland was so inhospitable.
Cory called a premature end to the evening; everyone hurried for their homes. Anden dreaded trying to bike back to the Hians’ house in such weather. “This won’t last long,” Cory said to him and two of the other remaining players as they huddled under the high school’s covered back entranceway. “Let’s run over to the grudge hall to warm up and get something to eat while we wait it out.”
They hurried two blocks through Southtrap to a rectangular, gray building that from the outside looked not unlike a school or library. The large white sign over the front entrance read KEKONESE COMMUNITY CENTER in both Kekonese and Espenian. Anden had passed it many times and walked through the doors out of curiosity one Seventhday morning. Inside and to the right he’d discovered a tiny Deitist shrine with a framed poster print of the mural of Banishment and Return hanging on the wall in front of a couple dozen faded green kneeling cushions and a row of blackened incense candles. To the left was a cafeteria-style kitchen behind an area of clumped tables and armchairs occupied by elderly people playing circle chess or reading out-of-date newspapers and well-used books taken from the unstaffed Kekonese-language library, which consisted of several bookcases crammed against the back wall. Down the hall, there was a small fitness room with exercise equipment and a schedule of classes posted on the door. The drop-in hourly daycare was manned by two teenagers.
“The community center?” Anden asked skeptically, his lips numb with cold as they ran across the slicked street through a gap in traffic. He didn’t think the place would be where a group of young men would want to spend Fifthday evening. “That’s what you meant by the grudge hall?”
One of Cory’s friends, Ledt Derukun, snickered, but the other, Shun Todorho, said, “That’s just the front of the place, crumb. The grudge hall’s in the basement; you get in from the back.” They jogged around the rear of the gray building to a set of unmarked metal doors, where to Anden’s surprise an erected portable metal awning sheltered a long line of people—mostly men, but women as well—young and old, rubbing their arms and stamping their feet against the cold as they waited to get in. Cory led the way to the front where the door attendant, a muscular man in a fleece-lined raincoat said, “Cory, it’s been a while.” He nodded to the other two. “Derek, Tod, good to see you.”
“Hey, big Sano,” Cory said, clasping the doorman’s hand and bumping his shoulder with his own. “Miserable night, but maybe that’ll mean a lot of people tonight, yeah? My folks in there?”
“Sure are.” The man pushed the metal door open and stepped aside to let them enter ahead of all the others waiting. Anden was surprised; it was the first time he’d seen Cory take advantage of his status as the Pillar’s son. The doorman stopped Anden before he could go in. “Not him,” Sano said in Kekonese, eyeing Anden with disapproval before saying to Cory, “You know the rules about outsiders in the grudge hall. Thirddays only, and it’s twenty thalirs.”
“He’s one of us,” Cory said. “Straight off the island, even. Plays relayball like a pro.”
“That true?” asked Sano, speaking to Anden. “You’re Kekonese?”
“I was born in Janloon,” Anden said. “My family sent me here to study.”
Cory said, “It’s true. You can even ask my da; he’ll vouch for him.”
Sano raised his eyebrows. “How about that,” he said, and let Anden pass.
Inside, the warm smell of food hit Anden at once. They were in a large open room with exposed ceiling beams and a concrete floor—it appeared to have been originally built as the community center’s garage. From portable cook stations situated behind long white tables, people were serving up spicy noodles in soup, hot fried bread, and Kekonese pastries on trays. There were also cheese-stuffed potato cakes and the sour sweets so ubiquitous at Espenian sporting events. A line was already forming where a cask of hoji had been rolled in and set on a low platform. “Let’s go downstairs and snag a place to sit, first,” Tod suggested.
They crossed the room and went down a flight of stairs. Anden was having a hard time reconciling what he’d seen in the uninspiring front part of the building with the liveliness of the rear half now. In the basement, small bar tables and stools were crowded along the brick walls; people were claiming spots by draping jackets over their chairs. Tod and Derek found seats for the four of them near the loudly chugging radiator. Anden followed more slowly, distracted. An area roughly the size of an indoor ruckets court was cordoned off with blue rope and bordered with bench seating. In the center of the bare space, a cockfight was occurring. Bettors leaned over the barrier, shouting in excitement or groaning in disappointment as one of the gamecocks fell beneath its opponent’s steel spurs in a feathery melee.