Chainers Torment

CHAPTER 9

Chainer helped Kamahl find the location of the barbarian's first bout, then disappeared into the crowd. Kamahl was slowly warming to Chainer's presence, but Chainer took the first opportunity he could to break away.

He wanted to watch Kamahl fight from a clear vantage point, to see how good the mountain warrior really was. Chainer also wanted to avoid the centaur Kamahl had been given as a partner. Chainer didn't like centaurs, and he didn't trust himself to treat the man-horse as tactfully as the First required.

So he stood in the spot with the best view he knew, up against the railing in the mezzanine. When Kamahl and the centaur teamed up against a Cabal dementia caster, Chainer was honestly impressed. Kamahl was much more careful in his application of force than any barbarians Chainer had heard about. He was devastating in combat, but he was also in control. The centaur seemed competent enough, but it was Kamahl who finished off their opponent with some kind of exploding axe. It was marvelous.

Chainer gladly joined in the cheers for the victor. As he'd expected, the fixers had put long odds on the unknown warrior from the mountains, and anyone smart enough to put a bet down on Kamahl more than quadrupled their money. Chainer himself earned a tidy sum.

Until the moment Kamahl's bout started, he hadn't felt the rush of being in the pits again, hadn't recaptured the simple joy of combat. No wonder he'd felt uninvolved. The games had been lackluster, he was on an important assignment from the First, and he was unarmed except for a thrice-damned ornamental dagger. Watching Kamahl brought it all back for him. The elegant simplicity of the contest, the concrete rewards of developing one's skills, the pride of a well-fought victory, these things were missing from an apprentice's life.

Chainer picked his way through the crowd back to Kamahl's side and congratulated him personally. The centaur had trotted off to comb the nettles out of its tail or some such thing. Chainer was only glad it was gone.

Chainer and Kamahl were watching Turg tear apart a Krosan dragonette when the alarm sounded. The barbarian reacted a split second before the Cabalist, but both were up before the sentries blew a second warning.

"Something big is coming," Chainer said. "That's the full-on alert klaxon."

Kamahl grunted and unsheathed one of his throwing axes. "Come on, then. Let's go kill something big."

Chainer paused, trying to sort out competing priorities. The First had told him to stick with Kamahl, but the Cabal was under attack.

Chainer watched a pitiful few Cabalists standing firm against the crush of warriors and spectators trying to escape. The Master of the Games had lost all control.

"You go," Chainer said to Kamahl. "I can do more good in here." Kamahl nodded, and without a second glance charged off into the bedlam.

Chainer watched him go with a kind of jealousy. The barbarians had it good, he thought. All they needed was something to fight and their path became clear. Chainer didn't know what Kamahl was running off to confront, but then neither did Kamahl, and Chainer longed for that kind of abandon. Perhaps he should have been born in the mountains.

Chainer pulled the ceremonial dagger from his hip, tucked it into his shirt, and sprinted back toward his quarters. He would never throw away anything the First had given him, but he would be damned if he were going to wear it one second longer than he had to.

And while he could not stop the First from simply giving the Mirari away, Chainer vowed that he would stop anyone who tried to steal it from the prize cache.

Very few people took notice of a single, determined, unarmed young man as he dodged panicky civilians and hurdled slow-moving monsters. Two who did notice sat in a darkened room, deep inside the First's manor, staring into a scrying pool.

"He's going to get his weapons. His chain and dagger," Skellum said.

"Yes," the First answered.

"I should go to him. He's at a very dangerous stage of his training right now. A small error in judgment could cost him his life- and the Cabal a lot more." "And yet," the First said, "if he displays sound judgment, he'll take a great leap forward. He and the Cabal would both profit."

"Very true, Pater." Skellum waited for a moment. "May I go to him?"

"Stay with me a while longer," the First said. "Let us roll the bones with your young pupil there. You can't properly evaluate a student if his mentor never stops mentoring."

"The First is wise." Skellum anxiously watched Chainer in the scrying pool. He hadn't thought of it before, but the First usually watched the games from his private box that floated high above the arena, or he didn't watch them at all. The only reason to call Skellum in to join him for a private viewing was to keep him away from Chainer.

The First also watched Chainer in the scrying pool, ignoring Skellum for the moment. Then, he said, "Everything is working out perfectly."

Skellum knew that the next few minutes would either make his pupil great or break him down into a gibbering husk. Barred from action, Skellum's mind raced through all the potential outcomes of Chainer's impromptu trial by fire. And though he swam on the shores of nightmare and kept the creatures he found there in his pocket, Skellum realized he was afraid.

Chainer ran toward the prize vault with renewed confidence. With his chain and his dagger, he felt fully dressed again. A tiny seed of inspiration had also led him to grab the censer and a few discs of Dragon's Blood.

He turned down the last long hallway that led to the vault and narrowed his eyes. There was already a skirmish going on outside the vault. Two Cabalist humans were grappling with a pair of reptilian pirates, dressed for the sea, and a blue-robed illusionist. Chainer recognized Deidre, the long-nailed door guard, but the other, more simian Cabalist was unknown to him.

The illusionist was bedeviling Chainer's brethren with the image of a small sea monster and a swarm of stinging faeries. Chainer guessed the illusions were as convincing as the real thing when looked at head on, but he could see straight through them. The mage must have cast the illusion so that it only affected the guards in front of her.

Big mistake, Chainer thought. Without slowing, he broke out the full length of his chain and started spinning it overhead. When he was in range, he let out a whoop. The illusionist turned just in time to catch Chainer's rounded weight square in the temple. The sea monster and the faerie faded as the illusionist swooned and fell.

"She's not dead," Chainer said to the pirates. He spoke extra loud, for the record the First would surely make of this incident.

"You soon will be," one of the pirates hissed. Neither of the raiders looked comfortable with the sudden shift in the odds. As the pirate who spoke raised his short spear, the other continued to wrestle with the simian guard.

The spear never flew. Once the pirate had raised it to his ear, Deidre's razor fingers exploded out of the center of his chest. Ice-blue blood poured from the wound, and the reptilian looked down stupidly at Deidre's hand. She yanked it back with a rough jerk, and the pirate dropped to the now-slick floor beside the illusionist.

Deidre smiled at Chainer. "That one's dead," she said, and then she turned and drove her nails into the remaining pirate's spine with a vicious thrust of her right hand. The simian Cabalist continued to wrestle with the lifeless reptile until he realized Deidre had ended his fun. He grunted in exasperation and cast the dead pirate aside.

The unconscious illusionist groaned, and Chainer looked from her to her dead companions to Deidre's brutal smile.

"You killed them," he said.

"That's what I do, little brother." Deidre flicked a drop of blue blood off her index finger.

The noises from other battles echoed down the long hallway, but Chainer was too annoyed to mind them. "I got chewed out by the First himself for killing a bird. A bird! And you butcher two pirates in the blink of an eye and stand there smiling? How fair is that?"

Deidre laughed, and Chainer hadn't realized how disturbing it was to see a tall, beautiful woman smile when she had three eyes and blue blood dripping from both hands.

"The First told us to kill anyone who tries to get through this door," she pointed at the entrance to the vault room. "And if the First says so, it's fair."

Chainer considered. "Anyone?"

"Anyone."

"Including me?"

"Including you, little brother. You're part of anyone, aren't you?"

Chainer spooled his chain around his wrist and took out the censer. "If you don't mind, big sister, I'll go back to the mouth of the corridor and make sure no one else comes down here to rush the vault."

"Please yourself," Deidre said. She rapped the simian Cabalist with her knuckles and gestured to the door. "We'll be here as ordered, just on the off chance that someone gets past you. And little brother?"

"Yes?" Chainer waited.

"You can kill 'em if you want to." Deidre laughed a raucous, unpleasant laugh that made Chainer's blood run cold. As he retreated back down the corridor and the two guards retook their positions on either side of the door, Chainer reminded himself to stay on Deidre's good side.

He lit a charcoal disc, then loaded the censer with Dragon's Blood. The thick smoke soon filled the narrow hallway, and

Chainer began to swing the censer around his head, as Skellum had shown him.

Shouts of battle and screams of pain were echoing throughout the arena, but Chainer focused on the spinning censer and the smoke. Skellum had told him that dementia summoning was all about vision. What you saw, when and how you saw it. If you could see beyond the world around you, you could leave it behind and take yourself to the new place you'd created. Chainer stared at the pewter cage as it flew and smoked, breathing evenly. There were a dozen ways to reach dementia space, and Skellum explained them all in detail. Breathing, stance, concentration, stamina, all of these things and more could affect the end result of a dementia caster's work. Perhaps the old man thought he could give Chainer too much information, could confuse or discourage him from trying what he was about to try. Chainer grinned at the thought. He had an excellent memory, and while he didn't think he could produce a full-fledged dementia monster, he did remember enough of Skellum's lessons to defend the hallway.

Chainer heard the booted tread of an armed party heading his way, but he couldn't see them for the smoke. Deidre and the simian were too far behind to offer advice, but Chainer knew of one sure way to determine friend from foe.

"The Cabal is here," he called.

"Not for long," came the gruff reply. "Swords." Chainer heard multiple blades scraping out of multiple scabbards. "For Kirtar. For the Order." There was a bright flash, and Chainer could make out three glowing blades just beyond the miniature fog bank he had created. Behind the advancing boots, Chainer heard something heavy dragging its feet across the floor.

Chainer focused on the smoke, slowly becoming lost in its oily feel against his skin, the stifling odor, and the painful tears it brought to his eyes. He continued to breathe as Skellum had taught him, always fighting the impulse to cough. The marching feet drew closer.

Above their rhythm Chainer heard the whistling of the chain as it slashed through the air. He reached higher above his head, even going up on his tip toes to elevate the censer as high as he could.

Three members of the Order came slowly but steadily through the smoke, their gleaming swords out in front of them like torches. Chainer was gratified to see that they were crouching slightly, on guard like good toy soldiers ought to be. It gave him more clearance above their heads. He let the chain out another two feet as it spun, so that the Order were inside its radius.

"Who's there?" said the shortest of the three figures. He wore officer's robes and was the one with the gruff voice who had answered Chainer. "In the name of the Order, stand aside!" A tall, manlike figure loomed out of the smoke behind him.

"I'll stand aside," Chainer called, "but you're coming with me." He closed his eyes and remembered the feel of the place Skellum had showed him. Lightheaded, he felt his balance evaporate. He might have been falling forward or backward, down or up.

He remembered what Skellum had forced him to describe before he had ever seen it. The blasted landscape, the threatening skies. Chainer saw a whole world of his own that was just waiting for him to come and claim it. Yet it was tantalizingly out of reach, and all Chainer could do was imagine it.

He felt his stomach drop and suffered an extreme wave of vertigo. He opened his eyes. The hallway, the vault, and the entire building were gone. Chainer stood in a circle of smoke on an endless black sand desert. Three soldiers and a huge limestone golem were with him. The sky above was an unbroken field of sickening mustard yellow, and a bruise-colored moon shone overhead. Opposite the moon was a hole in the sky, and from the jagged hole poured a blood-red river that was slowly creating an inland sea.

Chainer and the Order soldiers alike stared upward, disoriented and hesitant. The limestone golem shuffled forward, oblivious to the change in location. It stood well over eight feet, so

Chainer's censer was impeded. The cage clanged noisily off its cheek and bounced on the wall and floor several times before Chainer got it back under control. The world flickered around them, flashing between the vault hallway and the black desert.

Once Chainer recovered the censer's momentum, the alien landscape returned and stayed. The interruption, however, snapped the officer with the gruff voice out of his awestruck daze.

"Forward," he barked at the golem. He stepped behind the limestone man and began following it like a shield. "Fall in behind me," he said, and the other soldiers quickly lined up. Single file, the strange procession slowly made its way toward Chainer.

Chainer felt the first stirrings of panic. He had been planning on a bigger advantage from the element of surprise, but he hadn't counted on having to surprise something that wasn't alive. He wasn't sure what to do next. He couldn't simultaneously spin the chain and defend himself, something Skellum had warned him about. If he abruptly stopped spinning to lash out at the Order, would they all be trapped in the black desert? Could they ever get out? Or would they just flash back to the hallway as if nothing had happened?

Deidre sprang hissing over Chainer's shoulder before he could decide to stand or fight. She pounced on the golem, clung to its head like an insect, and began slashing and tearing at its face.

"You gonna stand there all day, little brother," she called, "or are you going to help me? Come on, they're all lined up for us."

Chainer watched the strange world around them flicker back into a normal hallway as he reeled in the censer. He quickly whispered the spell that separated the cage from the chain and replaced the censer with a rounded weight. He then gathered the chain up in both hands and whipped the weighted end into the golem's kneecap. The limestone man's leg cracked, but held together. The golem himself didn't even notice.

The soldiers started to spread out from behind the golem.

Deidre's simian partner charged into them before they could separate and clumsily bore two of them to the ground. The officer still stood, however, and he looked first at Deidre attacking the golem, then back at the tangled knot of simian and soldier. He nodded, then prepared to drive the point of his glowing sword deep into the simian's back.

Deidre wasn't faring much better. For all her effort, she was merely chipping away at the golem, doing cosmetic damage to its limestone head and throat. There were almost as many metallic shards of her fingernails as there were of the golem's face, however.

Chainer's fighting instincts were coming back to him. The dementia trap hadn't worked, but he had spent two years in the pits before Skellum pulled him out, and to survive in the pits you strategized fast and acted faster. He sent the end of his chain smashing into the officer's hand. The officer squawked and dropped his blade, which stopped glowing as soon as it hit the floor.

"Deidre," Chainer hollered, "get off him, you're not hurting him!" The simian cracked one of his opponent's arms at the elbow and then shoved the screaming man over the officer, who had bent down to retrieve his sword.

Deidre had dropped off the golem and was now trading blows with it. Rather, she was striking off tiny chips from its chest and arms and in return, it was missing her entirely. She bobbed and weaved like the veteran fighter she was, avoiding each of its slow, heavy blows.

"If I keep cracking you," she said through clenched razor teeth, "eventually you'll break." Deidre was dancing around so much that Chainer couldn't predict where she would be next, so he couldn't strike at the golem.

The simian was doing better. He had the unwounded foot soldier in a headlock on one side and the officer's sword arm in a death grip on the other. The simian hooted, amused.

Deidre turned a forward roll into a two-handed strike that landed square in the center of the limestone golem's chest. Her long nails dug in deep. For the briefest moment, she was held fast as she tried to reverse her momentum and pull herself free. In that moment, the golem brought his huge hands together in a wide, arcing clap with Deidre's broad shoulders in between. A sickening crunch followed.

"Deidre!" Chainer said. "No!" The simian echoed Chainer's howl, shoved the officer back, and angrily snapped the headlocked foot soldier's neck.

The golem let Deidre fall. The officer sprang forward and ran the simian through with his good hand before the Cabalist could get clear of the soldier he had just killed. The simian dropped, choking and grunting and clutching at its wounded chest.

The golem began to shuffle toward Chainer, and the officer fell in step beside it. His sword and the golem's hands were bloody. In the last few wisps of Dragon's Blood smoke, Chainer faced them alone.

"Surrender, filth," the officer said. He held the hand Chainer had smashed at his side, but he seemed just as comfortable with the sword in his other hand.

"You're robbing us, and we're filth?" Chainer knew he had to stop the golem first. It was too tough for his chain or his dagger. He needed something better, something more dangerous-something drastic.

"Give it up, officer," he called. He feinted at the man's face with the weighted end of the chain, flicking it back and forth to keep him at bay.

The golem was getting closer as the officer stayed back. Chainer kept up the pretense that he was focusing on the human officer and letting the limestone golem get close enough to grab him.

Two more steps to go. Chainer reached out for the Mirari, fifty feet and a thick metal door away. This close to it, he could hear its call and feel its power responding to him. It knew him. It was waiting for him.

One more step. Chainer moved slightly to his left. The golem was between himself and the officer.

"Kill him," the officer said.

Now.

Skellum had not been Chainer's first master. A Cabalist warrior named Minat lost most of his sight in the pit near Chainer's village in the salt flats. Chainer was alone, and Minat was bored. He showed Chainer the basics of pit fighting, gave him an unusual weapon to master, and amazed him with tales of the Cabal's power and influence.

He also taught Chainer the death bloom spell. "As a last resort," he had told Chainer, "to be used only when it was absolutely necessary." Minat was long dead, but Chainer remembered him well. And there had never been a more necessary occasion for the death bloom.

The golem reached out for Chainer's arm. Chainer crouched, pushed both arms out straight, and cocked his wrists back as far as they would go. With the Mirari behind him and the dark rage of Deidre's death still hot in his chest, Chainer spoke the words. He had never tried the death bloom on an artificial creature before, but it was his only hope.

A beam of black energy exploded out of Chainer's hands and slammed into the golem's chest. The cracked limestone seemed to soak up the energy, drawing it in like a sponge draws water. Chainer maintained his stance and his focus, pouring more power into the spell. The golem's innards went black, and it started to shudder.

With a roar, Chainer stepped forward and shoved the beam further into the golem's chest. The agonizing screech of ripping stone echoed down the hallway, and the golem exploded.

Driven by the unrelenting power from Chainer's hands, the shards of limestone rocketed backward, away from the vault. At least a dozen embedded themselves in the officer's body like shaft-less arrows. The officer staggered and fell backward. The energy from Chainer's hands withered, and he fell to his knees, blood streaming from his nose and ears.

Chainer shook his head to clear it, wiped the blood from his nose, and stood. He could see that the simian had stopped breathing. One of the Order soldiers was dead and another unconscious with his elbow twisted completely in the wrong direction. The officer was moaning as he lay bleeding. Chainer painfully shuffled over to Deidre.

She was mortally wounded, broken beyond repair. Her arms looked like bags of shattered bone, and she coughed blood. Her legs and her face were undamaged, however, and Chainer watched sadly as all three of her eyes rolled back and forth in her head.

"Don't you dare," Deidre rasped. Dazed, numb, and mute, Chainer stepped forward.

"Don't… waste," Deidre managed. She choked and coughed before continuing. "Don't waste… us." She tried to gesture with her mangled arm and then screamed in pain.

"Don't waste us," she said again. Her eyes were wild, unfocused. She smiled one last time.

Chainer understood. "I won't, big sister."

"Don't…"

Chainer waited for a few silent seconds and then closed Deidre's eyes.

"The Cabal is here," he whispered, and the jolt sent him sprawling backward. Deidre had been so very much alive that converting her savage life into death almost finished Chainer off as well.

He felt better as he picked himself up. Chainer caught his reflection in a mirrored hallway decoration. His tightly rolled braids were all undone and askew. His face was a smear of blood. His eyes were two black holes that glowed with an un-light very similar to the Mirari's.

He glanced at the remaining bodies, and then walked past them to where the officer lay. He, too, was very near the end.

"For Kirtar," he said. "For the Order." Then he died.

"For the First," Chainer's voice was a bitter snarl. "For Deidre. For the Cabal."

Chainer got out the censer and started another disc of incense burning. He left the cage at the mouth of the vault hallway so that the smoke would obscure the entrance. Then he went back and finished what he had promised to Deidre.

Skellum and the First watched the scrying pool. Chainer's smoke did not affect the spell that powered the pool, and his Cabal masters could see him clearly. "You have trained him well, Skellum." "I didn't teach him that, Pater," Skellum said. "It's bad enough that he abandoned the assignment you gave him, but-"

"I have nothing but praise for your student's behavior. He showed initiative. He stood by his family and protected our property."

"But the Order… the tournament. We were going to give the Mirari away as a trophy. Why should he kill to protect it?"

"Because it is my will," the First said. "And you, his master, doubted his abilities. Look at him now."

Skellum was careful to keep his face neutral as he watched. Chainer was moving from body to body, standing over them, absorbing what he could of their dying energy. With each absorption, the black glow from his eyes grew stronger, and the more exaggerated and stylized his movements became.

"He continues to impress," the First said. "He does everything properly and with enthusiasm."

"He's a ghoul, Pater," Skellum said. "I know you think me overcautious, but what he's doing is exactly wrong for a dementist at his level."

"Wrong?" the First asked witheringly. Skellum bowed his head.

"Forgive me, Pater. You are wise and I see little. But I must-"

"You must be silent," the First said. He sat watching Chainer for a few seconds. The youth was casting several chains at once, creating them out of thin air with the dying energies he had just absorbed. He used them to sound the edges of the space he was in, striking sparks off the stone walls and then drawing the chains back into his body. "How like a spider he is," the First muttered, "or a snake with a dozen flickering tongues."

Skellum stood in silence. The figure of Chainer turned on some silent enemy, opened his mouth wide, and sent a barrage of chains lashing out from his fingers. He jerked the chains back and crossed his arms in satisfaction. Whomever or whatever he had been striking at had beat a hasty retreat.

The First stood, and Skellum smoothly backpedaled to get out of his way. "When your student has bled off some of that energy he's holding onto," the First said, "I want you to collect him and take him home. By this time next week, I want him ready for the pits."'

"In his mind, Pater, he's already there." Skellum kept his head bowed, anticipating a rebuke. But the First merely gestured, and one of his hand attendants stepped forward and put a comforting arm on Skellum's shoulder.

"Your concerns have been noted. But you should be proud of what you have accomplished for the Cabal. And of what your student will yet accomplish."

"I am proud, Pater, but I am also afraid."

The First stared down at Skellum through his milky eyes. The barest hint of a smile played with the corners of his mouth.

"Then you are no different from any other father. Come. I suspect the large dragon has been subdued by now, and I've yet to hear the final result of the tournament.

"And then," he added, "we have to make sure the Mirari falls into the most deserving hands we can find."

Both men fell silent as they continued to watch Chainer's lethal dance in the scrying pool, but only the First was smiling. Skellum's eyes were far away and his face slack, as if he were staring at something enormous that only he could see.