The Master of Revels

SEE!

The poster proclaimed in enormous letters,

MEN AND WOMEN RIPPED LIMB FROM LIMB!

GAMES THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU’VE NEVER SEEN!

Salvatore Russo, New Eden’s Master of Revels, nailed the yellowing poster to the wooden post that served as the settlement’s public messaging system. He shook his head as he looked at the hand-made advertisement.

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we?” he said to no-one in particular; he’d designed the poster, after all.

He looked toward the gates of the settlement, looking for the telltale cloud of dust on the horizon that would tell him his clients had returned with their merchandise. Nothing yet. He breathed a sigh of relief. He still had time before he had to face the worst of his duties. He sat on the bench next to the message board, groaning as his knees crackled on the way down. New Eden hummed around him, human sounds having long replaced the incessant noise of the old world.

Without thinking, he reached into his pocket and took out the locket. He held it lightly in his hand, rubbing his thumb over its face. It was roughly heart-shaped, even after the heat of the bombs had warped the metal. Miraculously, its contents had been spared; a picture portrait cut into a rough circle and a name inlaid in gold below –

Isabella.

How many hours had he stared at her face? It wasn’t anyone he’d known – he’d found the locket in a pile of rubble years ago. He knew that face almost as well as his own, her features pulled into a laughing smile, freckles scattered across her cheeks, a picture of carefree joy from a world long gone.

Why had he kept it? Was it a reminder? A memory? Some vicarious companionship?

Salvatore had no good answer.

On the horizon, the first wisps of dust began to appear.

His clients had arrived.

#

The cages were bolted to the back of an old flatbed truck, now pulled by sickly-looking mules. The people – no, the merchandise – inside looked out with desperate eyes. One man in a ragged suit kept ridiculously insisting that he be allowed to see his lawyer. The gruff mercenaries hardly acknowledged their captives’ presence except to prod them with makeshift spears whenever they got too noisy. Salvatore gave the mercenaries their pay without a word: a bushel of corn, a gallon of water, and three tabs of anti-radiation meds per head. They loaded their take onto the trucks they’d come in on and headed, inevitably, to the little brothel at the edge of town. As always, a discreet member of his staff handed Salvatore a list of the merchandise they’d acquired.

In another life, Salvatore knew, he’d been a good man. At least, not the man he’d become. He’d moved names and numbers around on spreadsheets, dealt with people, dealt with their money. In another life, he’d helped them plan for their futures.

Now, he reflected bitterly, he did much the same thing. The difference was that every name he moved was another death. Every number another human life extinguished.

But it was order. He was the Master of Revels – it was his job to make sure New Eden was entertained. Without him, Empress Selena had assured him, they would descend into the same anarchy that had nearly destroyed them all. It was barbaric, but it was mercy compared to the alternative.

He thanked his staff and turned away as the cartload of human cargo was shuttled off to the Pens. He headed toward the arena; the midday Games were on soon, and the Master of Revels was expected to be in attendance.

#

The Games were nothing special, save that the Empress herself was in attendance. Salvatore sat in his usual place beside her, high on the converted bleachers that served as stands. From here, New Eden looked like the model of order and efficiency. They had built something here that had seemed like an impossible dream – order from chaos, tranquility from violence. Their walls grew higher with every passing day, built from mortar and brick and barbed wire scavenged from the local farms. At the center of it all was the arena, converted from an old high school football field.

Selena watched the fight below her with vague interest. Two sickly men were swinging improvised clubs wildly at each other in a desperate frenzy. Around them splayed the bodies of three others – today’s losers. Whichever of these two was still alive at the end of the day would walk free, for all the good it would do him outside the walls.

Before she’d declared herself Empress, Selena had been a historian, or at least an enthusiast, hence the outdated names and titles. Their ‘civilization’ was a mish-mash of throwbacks to a hundred old cultures cobbled together into something more suitable for their new reality. People had flocked to her, persuaded either by the promise of stability or the barrel of a gun. It was civilization, or something very much like it.

Below them, one of the men scored a hit on the other’s kneecap. It shattered so loudly that Salvatore could hear the snap from the stands. The crowd roared.

Selena had shown terrible prescience when she created the Games. People, she knew, could be swayed by spectacle; give me the bread, she’d promised her followers, and I will bring you the circuses.

Rather, The Master of Revels would bring them. He would provide you the raw human material to watch your most violent desires acted out live. For some, it was better than the old way.

For others, it was better than sex.

Not so Salvatore – he watched the scene unfolding beneath him with practiced calm, glad to be so far from the stench. The kneecapped man was weakly holding up his club, failing to block the blows now raining down on him, rearranging his facial features one hit at a time.

Salvatore had watched up close once, at the opening of the Games. He’d retched when the first set of intestines spilled to the gravel, and excused himself when a woman’s brains had been splattered across the stands. ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste’ was all he could think as he rushed out of the stands to puke into a patch of browning grass.

The fight below was all but over. Egged on by the crowd, the victor yelled in incoherent triumph and brought his club down again and again on the crumpled form of his opponent. Partially out of habit, partially for a reason to look away from the carnage, Salvatore pulled the list from his pocket and began to skim it. It was standard fair: names, heights, weights. Helpful guides to pairings for tomorrow’s Games. As he made to fold it back up, something caught his eye.

It was a small thing – a single name, third from the bottom. He’d nearly missed it, but there it was.

Isabella.

#

Salvatore had never been to the Pens before. He’d avoided them, avoided looking his work too closely in the face. The prisoners held in the converted bank were filthy and bedraggled, many of them bleeding from fresh wounds. Salvatore strode past the rows of cells, never daring more than a passing glance at any of them – desperately looking for the face he had seen looking out at him so many times.

There was nothing. The smiling, freckled face was nowhere to be found. When he asked the taciturn guards, they pointed him to a woman huddled in a cell tucked away in the far corner.

He stared down at her; she was wretched, days-old blood and dirt still caked on her face. She watched him with wild eyes, silent. She looked nothing like the woman in the locket, nothing like the woman he’d seen in his dreams. What had he expected to find here? Some connection? Some improbable coincidence? The two women shared a name and nothing more. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. What was there to say?

He turned to go. There was nothing for him here.

#

“You seem distracted.” Said Empress Selena, staring at him over a wine glass full of clear water. Salvatore blinked, surprised.

He looked at the plate of vegetables – the best of the crop grown in New Eden’s own gardens – and realized he’d barely touched his dinner. He’d been invited (in his official capacity, of course) to discuss the plans for tomorrow’s Games. The five year anniversary of New Eden’s founding called for a grand spectacle, and Salvatore had been gathering material for weeks to provide.

“I was just…thinking.” He said at last.

Selena gave him a wry smile.

“Dangerous proposition in your line of work.”

Salvatore nodded, still thinking of Isabella – the real flesh and blood Isabella, sitting at the bottom of the squalid cell. She’d die tomorrow, and he’d have to watch. Why should he care? She was no different than the others. A name was a name, nothing more.

“Care to speak up?” Selena gently prodded him.

He thought of the man in the arena earlier that day – the human features beaten into an unrecognizable pulp. His mind superimposed the smiling, freckled Isabella’s face onto the same scene, and a shudder of revulsion unlike anything he’d felt before clawed its way up his spine.

“I was thinking” He began tentatively, “That tomorrow might be different.”

Selena raised an eyebrow.

“Different how?”

Salvatore hesitated.

“We might use it to demonstrate your benevolence. To show your subjects how far New Eden has come.”

She furrowed her brow, then laughed.

“I see. And how do you propose we do that?”

“We could…” He’d never been good at conversation, especially not under pressure.

“Spare one –”

Why?

“— at random, perhaps. Draw lots.”

Lots could be rigged. He was Master of Revels.

“An act of unprompted clemency from your majesty. A change of pace, if you will.”

He finished, astonished at what had just come out of his mouth.

It was only a name. Surely, he’d gone insane.

Selena sat silent for a few moments, then smiled at him, a mirthless smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Benevolence is keeping the human race alive, Salvatore. Showing pity to malcontents who won’t help us isn’t mercy, it’s inviting others to tear down what we’ve built. But, I’m glad you brought it up. I had a different idea for tomorrow’s festivities.”

With that, she unfolded her plan for the greatest spectacle New Eden would ever see. A spectacle that would leave no survivors.

#

“Special request from the Empress.” Salvatore said it with as much conviction as he could muster, looking the guard straight in the eyes. In his pocket, his hand clutched the locket so tightly he thought it might crack.

Once, in another life, he’d been a good man. A man who could live with himself.

The guard brought the dazed Isabella to him, hands tied roughly in front of her. Salvatore thanked the man, and hustled Isabella out without another word.

A name was just a name, but a person was still a person.

She tried to ask questions, but he hushed her, desperate that she not attract attention until it was too late to stop him. Only once they reached the gate, Salvatore’s hands fumbling in the dark with the knots at her wrists, did she understand. He watched Isabella run into the night, as fast as her legs would carry her.

One last time, he pulled out the locket. Looking at the woman inside, he finally understood.

She was a ghost, a relic of dead world. A reminder of a time when they were allowed to be better.

The hope that one day, they could be again.

They would catch him come morning, and there was only one punishment appropriate for such a crime.

SEE!

The posters would read,

THE TRAITOROUS MASTER OF REVELS RIPPED APART IN HIS OWN GAMES!

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we?”

He smiled to himself in the gathering dark.