Sayed grinned as he stood in the tunnels underneath the arena. Above, he could hear the people''s cheers. They cried for him to win, to show them what a real fight looked like. He held his khopesh tight in his right hand. The long, curving blade practically glimmered in the darkness. Who was he to deny them what they wanted? He was stuck on this island until he won all his fights, so he would make those fights glorious.


    Bump. Bump. Bump.


    The people above began stomping their feet in a rhythm that echoed down into the maze below. Behind him, his compatriots huddled together in the light of a single torch for protection against anyone who might wander the maze. One of them, a young boy, came up to Sayed and handed him his clawed gauntlet.


    "Thank you, Jack." Sayed held out his left hand, and the boy helped him slide it on.


    "No trouble, sir." Jack smiled up to him with a toothy grin that was missing quite a few teeth.


    Sayed clenched his hand tightly as Jack finished up on the straps. His gauntlet was a silvered one, the tips of the claws coated in silver even though most of it was forged steel. It gave Sayed''s left hand the look of a demon''s claw, fitting for his style.


    Bump. Bump. Boom. Bump. Bump. Boom.


    "Abed." Sayed looked back into his compatriots as the crowd outside grew louder and louder.


    Sayed knew. The fight would begin soon. Soon, the light would appear, and he would stand in it as chosen. Then, he would be transported to the arena above, ready to fight whatever was there to the death.


    "Yes, Saint." Abed came forward and bowed.


    Sayed put a hand on the man''s shoulders. Like Sayed, Abed wore the same flowing robes of their people. Abed wore a white head covering, the cloth on the back covering his hair and head from sight. Sayed''s head covering was a deep blue, marking him as the superior between the two. He and Abed had come through the portal to the new land together. They were the survivors of the last battle of their civil war.


    "Protect them both while I am gone, brother."


    Abed nodded, and Sayed held his gauntlet up to his face in a fist and closed his eyes. He whispered a prayer to God above that the Creator would look over him and his compatriots during this battle. God willing, he would come through the fight unscathed.


    Boom.


    The sounds from above ceased, and a light appeared in front of Sayed in the echo. Sayed took one last look back at his compatriots before he stepped into the light. He left the tunnels below the arena in a flash and was transported to the fight.


    Cheers erupted around Sayed as he walked out onto the ice-covered ground. He looked up to the stone walls around him and raised his khopesh and gauntlet high for all to see. Thousands packed the arena, ready to watch him and whoever else had come into their lights fight.


    Sayed took a moment to check just that. A group of rogues and ruffians stood around him, each dressed in completely foreign clothing. They were all the same, the fighters at Glory Plateau. They had all broken the law of the land and were sent to the arena to fight as punishment. So, he wasn''t surprised that many people who had come to fight had dark glints in their eyes or masks to cover their identity. He only hoped that they could all fight. Otherwise, none of them would make it back to the tunnels below.


    "Ladies and gentlemen," a voice boomed from the stands as the announcer set the scene for the fight. "Today, you will bear witness to a most marvelous fight. We have scoured the many islands of the world to find the most marvelous and deadly of beasts, a white dragon!"


    A white portal opened above the arena as if on cue, and a great shadow covered the field. Without even a whisper of sound, a giant winged lizard fell through the portal and onto the ice below.


    Crash.


    The ground shook around Sayed, and he widened his stance to avoid falling over. The dragon was a majestic beast. Large white wings flared out as it looked around the arena with feral yellow eyes. Four clawed limbs cut into the ground beneath its heavy form as it picked itself up from the ice and rose to full height. Sayed smiled as its jaw opened and roared, revealing sharp rows of blue-white teeth.


    "They can''t be serious," someone said beside him, a mischievous individual if Sayed had to judge from his dark hood and daggers. "They expect us to take out that thing?"


    "We can''t do it."


    "We''ll die if we even get close."


    "I want to go home."


    Sayed closed his eyes and brought his khopesh parallel to his face. Inside his chest, he opened the gate within and felt heat pump through his muscles like a pulsing heartbeat. He smiled, taking a stance, gauntlet out and khopesh held above his head.


    "Do not be cowards!" Sayed yelled and saw the dragon shift its gaze from the crowd to the fighters. "You all know the stakes of this as well as I do. Be ready to fight or perish in that thing''s maw. Those are the wages of the arena."


    He felt more than saw the others around him come to a grim acceptance of what would happen. They knew he was right. In Glory Plateau, once you were sentenced to fight, you only had two choices to find freedom. You could fight, or you could die.


    "He''s right. Ain''t no one here going to die today!" a man in silver armor yelled next to Sayed, drawing out his sword. "We can take it."


    He ran out before anyone else, his broadsword held high. Sayed watched momentarily before the dragon''s head lashed out and caught the man in its maw. The dragon ripped him in half with a sickening crunch and threw blood all over the ice.


    That chilled the other fighters around him. Sayed focused the heat in his body on his blade, orange light radiating from it in a glow as he focused his eyes on the chewing dragon. Even with one of their number dead, there was still a fight to be had.


    "For glory!" Sayed yelled as he charged at the dragon.


    <hr>


    The nightsea surrounded Alex as he looked out from one of the many masts of the Night Queen. The massive frigate slipship sailed through the darkness that made up the nightsea, following a light trail through the glowing globs that each marked an island. A cold wind blew around him, and he held his leather duster closer around his body. With just the duster, his shirt, and pants, he wasn''t made to be on watch duty out on deck, but that was the job he had taken to get a free ride to the next island.


    The nightsea was the connecting void between each island in the world Alex had found himself transported to five years ago. Before coming to the new world, he had just graduated from Columbia University with a degree in political science and was returning home to see his family after four years of hard work. He would have been holding his nephew for the first time if a white light had not consumed the plane and dropped him in the middle of the sea.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    As soon as he thought it, Alex knew that wasn''t right. He had been in the nightsea for ten years now- five years in the lab, five years out in the open outside of August. Mateo would be thirteen now. Alex shook his head as he looked out over the dark expanse of the nightsea. It was closer to space than an actual sea, and he was happy that he hadn''t been dropped in the nightsea when he first came to the world. That would have been a death sentence.


    "See anything, son?" Hubert called up from below, and Alex slid down the mast to the ground.


    "Nothing," Alex said, catching himself on the deck and letting go to stand beside Hubert. "We''re going to be at Glory Plateau soon, though. The light trail is about as wide as the ship now."


    "Good, we can get some drinks together before you leave us."


    Hubert was a short, squat, and stout fellow, a man as red in the face as the setting sun. Alex had known Hubert for only as long as the trip from Tombstone, but the man was reliable, and Alex liked him.


    "On you?" Alex asked, smirking as they walked over to the rails.


    "Split it."


    Ding. Ding. Ding.


    Bells ran up and down the ship. Ahead of the ship, Alex could see the bright white light of the island. He held up a hand to shade his eyes but quickly looked away so he wouldn''t go blind. Entry into any island''s bubble was like flying directly into a star. The light they gave off washed out the darkness of the nightsea, though they gave off no heat.


    "Brace!"


    The yell came up and down the ship, and Alex grabbed hold of the railing.


    Boom. Pop.


    The deck shook beneath them momentarily before the pop of passing out of the nightsea and into the island burst through the air. Alex opened his eyes and looked all around him. Dark blue water stretched around the ship as they sailed through the sky. Hubert elbowed Alex in the side as he looked around the water.


    "There it is. Glory Plateau."


    In the distance, a massive stone structure rose from the water. At first, Alex thought it might have been a mountain, or as the island was named, a plateau that reached into the clouds. However, as they grew closer and closer to the structure, Alex could see that it wasn''t a natural formation.


    Like the idealized Roman Coliseum he had seen time and time again in history books and movies, a circular construction rose in rings, covering most of the visible island in front of him and rising high up into the sky. Curved arches, balconies, and other ornate structures came off of it, and he knew immediately that it hadn''t been built with human hands. Someone had used an island core to form that structure.


    "Can you believe people live in that thing?" Hubert asked beside him. "The higher up they are, the richer they are."


    "Their homes are in it?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.


    "No, yes, but no," Hubert said, shaking his head. "I''ve only ever been on the outside, where they have a few places for travelers, but each layer is like a city on itself, all built around the arena."


    He held up his fingers in a circle and drew a circle around that with his free hand''s finger.


    "The center is an arena where everyone goes to watch the fights every day. The outside has peoples'' homes, shops, and everything else."


    "For every level." Alex whistled as he looked up at the towering structure. "You ever see one of the fights?"


    "I did." Hubert shook his head, stepping away from the rail and rubbing at his balding head. "Brutal thing. They make prisoners fight for entertainment. Always to the death. Whether they are fighting beasts or each other."


    "Prisoners?"


    "People who break laws on the island. Make sure you don''t do anything to draw attention to yourself while you''re here, Alex. Wouldn''t want to see you stuck in that arena fighting for your freedom."


    The structure''s shadow fell over the ship, and a chill ran up Alex''s arms. Ahead, he could see the docks and several circular platforms that went out into the water and rose to the sky. The size of the structure dwarfed them, but there were more here than there had been in Tombstone.


    "Well, islands are as they are," Hubert said, shrugging his shoulders. "Talking about it won''t help. Let''s get to work so we can go have that drink."


    They set to work as the ship approached one of the docks, hovering in the air as it was attached to the platform. For a ship as large as the Night Queen, it took over an hour for the entire docking process to finish, checks to be completed, and payouts to be made. As day turned to night, Hubert and Alex went to find a bar to have the promised drink, along with many of the other deckhands on the ship.


    Alex had to admit it was a good time. As he held his glass of rum across the table from Hubert, he couldn''t help but smile. Hubert grabbed the bottle between them and refilled his glass.


    "The Black Turtle makes the best drink you can find." He hiccuped as he poured another glass, setting the bottle on the table with a heavy thud afterward. "It''s amazing you can find it at almost every port you go to."


    The bottle had the same label Alex had seen in the saloon on Dry Gulch. The label did get around the nightsea. Some products and companies had a wide-ranging reach throughout all the islands. The Black Turtle brand was one of them, specifically in the alcohol trade.


    "You''ll have to get back soon." Alex raised his glass, and Hubert toasted him. "To good sailing."


    "To good sailing," Hubert said, taking the drink in one swig.


    He was redder in the face than when they had started drinking. Alex wished he could get drunk like that still. Ever since the lab, his body just processed through the alcohol too quickly to get drunk. He finished his current glass and then set down the glass on the table. Together, they left the bar, Alex walking with Hubert to ensure the man returned to the ship.


    "Keep an eye out," Hubert said as he stumbled back and forth down the lantern-lit road. "The outskirts of the city are always the most dangerous."


    Alex had seen that, both when they were coming to the bar and again now when they were going back to the ship. Men, women, and even children huddled around cobbled-together hovels and tents up and down the dirt road traversing Glory Plateau''s outskirts. From what Hubert had told him, those outside the arena were the poorest of the poor and often the most desperate.


    Some were beggars, some sold trinkets, and some did other things entirely, but all the people who lived on the outskirts were fighting to survive. Beyond the few businesses that catered to people passing through the port, there was little that so many people could do to make a living.


    Hungry eyes stared at them as they walked, and Alex kept his staff visible in his right hand. He didn''t need to fight someone. He was just trying to survive, so he made sure that anyone who looked over at them would see someone they didn''t want to mess with.


    "Give me a moment, son." Hubert stopped at a half-broken fence post and bent over, breathing heavily.


    "You feeling your drink?" Alex asked, stopping and leaning against part of the fence with his staff leaning on his shoulder.


    "Shut up," Hubert said as he dry heaved toward the ground. "Not all of us are young."


    Alex didn''t correct him; instead, he focused on the area around him. In a nearby tent, an old man was huddled next to a fire, rubbing his hands to keep warm. There was some movement in the distant shadows, but no one approached.


    "Okay!" Hubert rose, taking a deep breath. "I can make it a little more."


    "Stop! Thief!"


    Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.


    A woman ran toward them from down the dirt road, her dark green cloak fluttering behind her. She held a bag, and an older man in a worker''s smock ran after her. As they ran, the older man fell face-first into the dirt, and to Alex, it looked like she would get away. He resigned himself to do nothing as she ran closer to them. It wasn''t his business, after all.


    "Woah there, missy," Hubert interjected himself in front of her, and they both tumbled to the ground in the resulting crash.


    Alex shook his head. In Hubert''s drunken state, he was more of a liability than anything else, but Alex stood up from the fence to help him out. As much as he didn''t want to get involved, he also wanted to ensure Hubert returned to the ship.


    Vrrm. Thwoop. Thwoop. Click.


    As he reached down to help Hubert up, he heard it. From above came the hum of engines and blades, which sounded like a helicopter. In the darkness of the night and the shadow of the plateau, a beam of light shone down, illuminating both Hubert and the woman.


    "STOP. LAWBREAKERS." A mechanical voice droned from above. "JUDGEMENT COMMENCING."


    "There you go, lass." Hubert had helped himself up. "Looks like you''re going to the arena. Crime being crime and all that."


    "JUDGEMENT REACHED." The drone''s light focused into two cones, one of which followed Hubert as he started walking back toward Alex.


    "Wait!" Even in his drunken state, Hubert noticed something was wrong, waving his arms at the light. "I ain''t done anything. I''m not with her!"


    "SENTENCE!" The drone''s voice was unyielding. "ENTERTAINMENT!"


    Hubert looked to Alex, the color draining from his face as tears ran down his eyes. Alex sighed. There was a chance when he came here that he would be in the same situation. However, that was going to be after he gathered more information about the island. Granted, the plateau itself already told him that there was an accessible island core somewhere on the island, and if it were going to be anywhere, it would be where all the rich people were.


    The drone''s light grew brighter as Hubert and the prone thief were enveloped by the bright light. Alex sighed again, leaning forward and taking in a deep breath. It would be tight, so he needed to be sure of the timing.


    "DO NOT RESIST."


    "Step."


    At the last moment, Alex charged. He disappeared before he reappeared right next to Hubert. It was like he had taken a thousand steps, all compressed into one second. He pushed Hubert hard and out of the light as it consumed himself and the thief, transporting them away from the dirt road and into darkness.