The druid's chant grew louder, and he hurled the thorns into the air. With no animal defenders left, the trees and vines redoubled their efforts to take hold of the intruders.
"Kamahl," Chainer's echoing, musical voice called. "Do it!" Kamahl raised his axe and charged it. He held it by his ear until steam started rising from his hand, and then he cast it high overhead, dropping it into the middle of the copse. Two seconds later, the entire copse was engulfed in bright orange flames, and the druid vanished in a cloud of flame and soot. Debris rained down all around them, and Kamahl took shelter behind the dead wurm. Chainer was less fortunate. A jagged chunk of wood slammed into him, knocking him out of the air and onto the ground.
He heard Skellum's last words again. Remember how I died.
"Always, Master," Chainer whispered, tears falling from the black space where his eyes had been. "I will always remember." And then he fell unconscious to the forest floor.*****
Chainer awoke under the mustard sky. He knew he was dreaming, he could see his body from the outside as he scanned the landscape. The hole in the sky had run almost dry, only releasing an occasional drop. The red sea broke on the shore, driven by storm winds and earthquake rumbles.
Monsters milled around him in their hundreds, stretching out in all directions. They did not react to Chainer's presence but seemed to be in a state of torpor as they shuffled and bumped into one another.
There was a new addition to the landscape in Chainer's mind. The horizon was now broken by a broad, squat mountain whose peak glowed like a star. Chainer shielded his eyes against the glare and tried to focus on the peak. He must be dreaming, for the mountain was shrinking down to meet him, bowing its peak like a servant bows its head.
An indistinct figure sat on a throne at the mountain's peak, backlit by a sphere of harsh purple light. Dazzled by the mad perspective as much as the purple light, Chainer could not determine how far away the figure was, if it were humanoid, male or female. He could see the mountain, however, and he saw that it was not made of rock or mounded earth, but of currency. Huge piles of golden coins and silver markers were heaped on top of one another to create a single pyramid that stretched impossibly high into the sky. The figure leaned forward on its throne.
"Kuberr?" Chainer whispered. Was this what Skellum had wanted him to see? His mentor had sworn frequent oaths to Kuberr over the years. Did he have a vision of the wealth god as part of the shikar ritual?
Mazeura. The figure's voice was deep and sonorous, and it blasted Chainer's secret name through his head so violently that he felt blood trickling out his ears. It's a dream, he reminded himself. It's all a dream.
The mountain peak swayed to and fro, allowing the regal figure to survey the landscape and population of Chainer's mind. Well done, dementist.
The figure opened its arms wide, beckoning Chainer in. The mountain bowed further, and Chainer felt the ground beneath him rise up to carry him into those outstretched arms. He had pledged his life to the Cabal, and now he knew for whom he had pledged. There was power in the salt flats, power in Cabal City, power in the personage of the First. The expanding figure before him, however, was beyond power. It was that vast and nameless energy the Cabal had been created to harness, to use according to its consumptive nature. If black mana was the fuel, then the regal figure welcoming Chainer was its source.
Delirious with joy, Chainer closed his eyes and let himself be swallowed up by the dark figure that had expanded to fill the entire sky.
When the flaming shrapnel slowed, Kamahl rose and surveyed the battlefield. The flames were still raging in the copse of trees. The wurm and one of the wolf-monkeys lay dead at his feet, victims of his sword. The crimson night tiger and the centaur were little more than colorful smears on the grass, and Chainer was unconscious between them. There was no sign of the grendelkin or the other wolf-monkeys. It seemed he and Chainer had won, but he didn't feel much like a victor.
Kamahl sheathed his sword and crossed the field to his partner. The fight and the explosion had driven every other living thing within earshot as far away as they could get, and the forest was remarkably still. Chainer was breathing normally, but he was unrouseable. Kamahl half-carried, half-dragged him clear of the fire and tucked him safely behind a large, mossy boulder. Then he returned to the crushed corpse of the tiger.
Regret was not a common emotion for Kamahl's tribe. They spent most of their time in combat or training for it, and they tended to live short, brutal lives with little time for reflection. As he looked down on the magnificent red and black hide of the tiger, he regretted that he hadn't seen the creature hunt. It would have been beautiful in motion, a study in grace and power.
Kamahl turned, experiencing another unfamiliar rush of emotion. Kamahl had made two great friends on his first visit to Cabal City. One lay unconscious by a nearby boulder, and the other looked almost exactly like the dead centaur at his feet. Kamahl remembered Seaton clearly, his huge, apelike brow and his fierce protective streak for his home. He remembered how Seaton had become enraged when describing the poachers who raided his home, taking from the wild to stock the pits. Seaton's crusade was not Kamahl's quest, but he respected it, and he respected the centaur. Only now did Kamahl realize that he himself was one of those poachers.
Kamahl knew the shikar was only a small portion of the problem, but he was now part of it. He let himself be blinded to it because he had never had to defend his home from invaders. There was nothing in the Pardic Mountains worth taking, so invaders were completely unheard of. All the tribes Kamahl knew of, including his own, spent the greater part of their adulthood roaming Otaria looking for ways to improve their skills and their fortunes. Kamahl had spent so much time fighting in other people's homes that he'd forgotten not everyone welcomes such company. This dead centaur could have been Seaton's father, or brother, he thought. It could have been Seaton.
The fire in the copse of trees had died down, so Kamahl went in as far as he could. He found the druid's body crushed against a blackened tree. He had been a short, broad-shouldered male of about twenty. He had constructed a small stone altar in the center of the copse, which was half-disintegrated by the blast. Whatever spells or summonings he had been performing were long gone. He still held a fragment of pine wood in his charred fingers.
Kamahl's emotions had retreated. Now he felt only the clarity of the choice in front of him and the determination to see his decision through.
While Chainer slept, Kamahl built pyres for the druid, the centaur, and the tiger. He built another fire for the camp near Chainer's boulder, and then one-by- one he ignited them all with a snap of his fingers. Then he stuck his sword tip-first into the ground and waited for Chainer to wake up.
CHAPTER 19
Chainer and Kamahl hiked back toward the edge of the forest and the road to Cabal City. Chainer had slept until almost noon. The first thing he did when he awoke was to ask Kamahl to check his eyes. The barbarian reported that they appeared to be normal, and Chainer was both relieved and disappointed. The shikar felt like it was finished. He couldn't imagine anything more impressive than the vision he'd just had.
Kamahl took the news that the hunt was over as if he had been expecting it. Chainer was prepared to explain why, but the barbarian didn't ask. There was something about his manner, however, something defiant that made Chainer think his partner was planning to go back to Cabal City no matter what Chainer said. He didn't press the issue, still euphoric over his vision of Kuberr.