"You're really angry," Chainer said.
"Not angry, Chainer. Serious."
Chainer shook his head. "I'm sorry, Kamahl. I truly am. The First is right." Chainer followed his patriarch's path, but he backed out, so he could keep an eye on Kamahl. "You should get some sleep. We'll talk more in the morning, and I'll see about… I'll see what I can do."
Kamahl remained silent for the next several hours as his anger and frustration grew. He couldn't stand the feel of Chainer's gift. The snakeskin itched and chafed his natural skin raw wherever the two touched. He could already feel how it threw off his timing and muted the messages the rest of his body continually sent to his brain. Worst of all, it marked him as a coward and a weakling who couldn't even overcome his own injuries without spare parts from the Cabal's nightmare pantry.
He couldn't stand it-would not stand it. Kamahl let his mind drift, back in time to his training at Balthor's feet, back in space to his home on the Pardic Mountains. Pardic was not the tallest range on the continent, but it was one of the deepest. Tribal legend said that the Pardics ran right to the center of the planet, where the temperature was so hot that the elements and mana alike were combined into one glowing, red-hot ball of fire and molten rock. Kamahl struggled to control the energy he was gathering. This would be an extremely difficult spell under ideal conditions. As it was, Kamahl would need every ounce of concentration he could muster to keep from immolating himself completely. He stared at his hands and focused his thoughts on the sensation of the alien skin. The same sensation echoed in his side, on his legs, on his face, all the places Chainer had treated. He isolated those sensations, in effect isolating those parts of his body and those layers of skin that were no longer his own.
In Kamahl's native language, there was a word for the act of sterilizing and sealing a wound with fire. The word was "cachede," and Kamahl pronounced it now.
The huge barbarian growled and gritted his teeth as the snake-skin grafts all burst into flame simultaneously. He could not clearly recall the pain of the original injury, but he was certain that this was far worse. The horrid stench of burning flesh filled the room, and noxious smoke stung his eyes. Kamahl clenched his fists as they burned, holding them aloft so as not to ignite the bedclothes. When the last of the scales was burned away, the fires on Kamahl's body sputtered and died. He sat in complete agony for a moment. Then he shoved himself out of the bed and clumsily began bathing his fresh wounds with water from the bedside basin. I will live, he promised himself. I will heal. I will fight again under my own power, on my own terms.
And I will leave this place with the Mirari in my fist, or I will not leave it at all.
CHAPTER 22
Chainer moved into his lavish new quarters in the First's manor and threw himself into his new duties. The Order's crusat blossomed into a full-blown war in the wake of Chainer's visit to the camp, and the First charged Chainer with bringing the hostilities to a speedy conclusion. While the First dealt with angry communiques from the Order's highest ranking officers, Chainer would respond to the marked increase in crusat raids around the region. The raiders were not yet numerous enough to mount another attack on Cabal City. Instead, small bands of troopers and officers were terrorizing the lesser Cabal strongholds in northern Otaria, especially those with pit facilities. So Chainer had very little time to dwell on Kamahl's betrayal. Mere days after mutilating himself, the barbarian packed up his kit and left the leech's chambers on legs that could barely support him. Chainer realized how completely Kamahl had turned his back on Cabal hospitality. He wondered what kind of madness led a man to spit on his hosts and make enemies of his closest friends. The last thing Chainer heard about his former partner was that he was renting a room in a public house near the docks, where the rents were low and interaction between landlord and tenant was minimal. None of that mattered in the larger scheme of things, of course. Kamahl insisted on being treated like any another contestant in the pits, and the Cabal would happily accommodate him. When he came for the Mirari he would fall to Chainer just like every other nameless challenger.
Chainer's new quarters were large and sumptuous, but he had no furniture apart from a chair and a sleeping cot scavenged from his room at Skellum's academy. He brought the cot because it reminded him of his mentor, not because he needed it. Sleep came to him in short, sudden bursts, and sometimes it never came at all.
Just as well, he mused. He had very little time to sleep, anyway. The First had sent scrolls and tomes for him to review, and the Master of the Games regularly added stacks of dates and pairings for upcoming games. Chainer himself had requested some additional reading material on his own, but all of the scrolls and heavy books and loose sheets of paper lay in a confused pile in the corner of the smallest room. Chainer had read them all and retained quite a bit of it, but he preferred to spend his time preparing for battle. He made snakes or weighted chains and aggressively hurled them at imaginary enemies as he sprinted and rolled from room to empty room.
They were all coming for the Mirari, he knew, all of them. The First had been so delighted with Chainer's use of the sphere on Kamahl that he had made Chainer its official keeper. It stayed hidden in a warded vault that would only open if Chainer and the First spoke the right charm at the exact same moment while standing side-by-side outside the door, but no one was ever permitted to touch the Mirari but Chainer, not even the First himself. Even better, when the Mirari games were staged, Chainer would represent the Cabal, and if he won the tournament, he would win the right to bear the Mirari permanently, as he now bore his dagger and censer. A victory for the Cabal meant a victory for Chainer, and vice-versa.
Chainer impulsively created two huge saber- toothed anacondas and set them on one another. He wanted to see what happened when they tried to squeeze each other to death. While the snakes wrapped around each other like a braided garrote, Chainer let his mind wander back to the sensation of holding the Mirari in his hands, of having unimaginable power literally at his fingertips.
Chainer had stood over Kamahl's sleeping body with the Mirari clenched between his palms. In his mind, he saw a bipedal snake man with copper scales standing alongside Kamahl. The two images slid together until they were two overlapping phantoms occupying the exact same space. The snake man's body faded away except for those areas that corresponded to Kamahl's wounds. Chainer felt the first giant wave from an endless ocean of power flow out of the Mirari and into his head. Something shifted deep in his brain, and when he opened his eyes the First was beaming, and Kamahl had live, healthy flesh ready for the leech's grafting spells.
Tapping into the Mirari was different than being in dementia space, different even from communing with Kuberr. The Mirari was its own power, and it didn't mingle or share with the person who held it. The sphere was more like an infinite battery in search of a will through which it could focus and release its energy. The Mirari could change the world, Chainer knew, but it couldn't decide how on its own. Making the decision and unleashing the power had proved fatal to everyone but him, and Chainer took enormous pride in that. Not only was he the only being alive who had used it, he alone was the only one who could. It was his to employ, his to use on behalf of the Cabal. It had told him so the first time he saw it, and everything it had shown him had come true. As soon as he had annihilated the Order and won the Mirari for himself in the games, his destiny would be complete.
A soft knock and a call of "Master?" interrupted his training.