Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes by Raphael Ordoñez Page A

doors into the pit, then returned, some on their own feet, others on stretchers or in bags. Those who could be salvaged underwent surgery on the table in the middle of the room. There were two surgeons—former phylites by the look of it—and they worked with an array of jagged metal instruments. At one point one of them came over and looked into my eyes and examined my teeth.
    And then it was my turn in the pit. I was ported out in the cage. A dull roar struck us as we crossed onto the floor. The darkness round about was filled with throngs screaming for blood. Here and there a stray shaft of light showed the pinched, vindictive face of a man, or the flabby, eager face of a woman. The air was thick with smoke and sweat and fetid breath.
    My handlers stood my cage upright and faced it toward the great gate. This was two stories tall, set in an open recess overlooked on three sides by climbing rows of benches. They fixed a long chain to an eye-bolt in the floor. At its other end was an iron collar, and this they fastened around my neck.
    A voice projected itself over the hubbub: “Behold! An alien! A savage pygmy! An atavism in the Age of Peace! Note the collar and chain, helots! This is for your protection! Were he not chained to the floor, he would be up and among you in an instant! Who knows what havoc he would wreak before the guards brought him down? Just look at the shape of his skull! Is he a man, or a beast? You be the judge!”
    The handlers unlocked my cage and hastened from the pit. I pushed the door open and stepped out. A shower of foul water and offal and eggs rained down on me. I stood still with my fists balled, letting it pelt me.
    A tremendous noise, half squeal and half roar, rolled out of the darkness before me. Guards unbarred the gate from above and swung it open with chains. The shouting subsided. Everyone was watching. Slowly a vast bulk shambled out.
    Four legs like four pillars in an antediluvian temple stalked forward on big-jointed, padded feet. A wide mouth flanked by cracked ivory tusks and lined with flat teeth split its huge head. Scaly, gray-green hide streaked with dull orange and black hung in heavy folds from its sides. Its small red eyes blinked furiously.
    It was a bull behemoth, and it was not happy.
    The creature fixed me with its beady eye, squealed, and came at me, jaws agape. I circled around its flank, taking care to keep my chain from getting tangled in its legs. Round and round we went. The audience jeered and booed.
    The marks on the behemoth’s back told me that it had been goaded to madness. They had probably kept it masked until the moment it was released. I’d seen behemothim from a distance in Arras, for a herd— the herd, we had called it—had lived to the southeast of the Wabe, wandering from well to well. We’d held them sacred, and only hunted them once in a generation. This one was of a smaller breed.
    Grown weary from our unvarying cyclical dance, I sidestepped too slowly at last, and the beast trod on my chain, jerking me off my feet. I struck my chin hard against the floor, chipping one of my teeth. The crowd roared. Somehow a link of my chain got caught on the behemoth’s tusk, and it tossed its head to shake it off, throwing me across the pit. I crashed against the standing cage and knocked it over, narrowly escaping a broken neck.
    With a bellow the behemoth bore down on me. There was no time to get out of its path. I rolled off the cage and pulled it up before me. The beast drove into it, flinging me back against the wall, wedging its tusks in the iron bars.
    I struggled to my feet, coughing painfully. The behemoth was squealing and beating the cage against the floor, trying to free its hideous maw. This was my only chance. I dashed over to its side, laid hold of its fleshy dewlap, and pulled myself up. A cheer went up as I mounted the beast’s back.
    It succeeded at last in getting rid of the cage and began to seek me out, turning round and round in