While the brutes searched their coat pockets, the village speaker called out. "Our families have lived on this island for two centuries. Not even monsters could drive us-"
With a powerful overhand swing, Phage hurled a flaming flask over the gates. It came down perfectly, smashing atop the ridgepole of the largest shack. Glass sprayed out, and alcohol with it, and fire thereafter. Thatch and twig and timber burst to sudden flame. It was as if a fireball had smashed into the building and tore the heart of it out.
The village speaker yammered, but no one listened.
Ten more burning flasks vaulted up through the skies, striking hovels and walls, towers, and even the gates themselves. All burst into flame. The dry wood gave itself eagerly to oblivion. Fire burned white-hot and smokeless. Heat dragged in swamp gasses that fueled the blaze, turning the flames blue. In a moment, the village was an oven. No one could survived that inferno.
The fiery gates opened, and figures ran out. They did not run as if to attack but staggered, burned and blinded. Some were on fire. All screamed and clutched their faces.
Phage strode toward them. She had given them an ultimatum, and an ultimatum had to be ultimate.
In wide-open arms, she caught a staggering young man. He came to pieces in her grip. An old woman nearby struggled with her burning dress. Phage wrapped her in killing arms, extinguishing the soul within. The next man burned too much to be embraced. Phage merely tripped him. While he rolled to put out the flames, he dissolved from the foot upward.
Male and female, old and young, screaming and silent, they died in her arms. While fire turned the village to ash, Phage did the same to the villagers.
The Cabal thugs stood and watched their mistress work.
In less than an hour, nothing remained-no hovels, no walls, no villagers. The spot was virginal, ready for exploitation.
Phage walked back toward the enforcers. She didn't pause as she passed them, expecting them to turn and follow. They did.
'Tell the survey crews to plot the site. Tell everyone else to make camp. Tonight, we sleep beside the new center of the world."
While her workers labored, Phage sat upon an iron throne. She could not sit in camp chairs, nor could she reside in a tent of canvas and wood. The masons and mages had fashioned her a stone house. It stood on high ground along the natural path toward the northern peninsula. With pillars of limestone, slab roofs, and even rock doors, the house was cold, powerful, and forbidding. It suited her.
Phage sat on a stone portico and took her breakfast. She watched slaves and taskmasters march in gangs from the tent city to the work site. None came near. She had forbidden her underlings from approaching while she ate, for the retractor fork distorted her face gruesomely.
Again she lifted the device to her lips and squeezed. Metal curves forced her lips back, and the fork jutted a warm gobbet between her teeth. Gingerly, Phage bit down. One tine dragged briefly across her lower lip, and the juice on the implement immediately went rancid, emitting a nauseous vapor. Phage flicked the device and dipped it into a cup of alcohol on her tray. Lifting the sterile thing, she speared more meat.
Phage's gaze roamed the work site. The teams had made much progress in the last month. Already, the foundations were laid, a circle a thousand feet in diameter, sinking fifty feet into the ground. Footings for massive buttresses jutted all around the perimeter. Paths radiated to the ports and bridge footings. At dawn, the foundation seemed a giant sun inscribed on the ground. In a way it was. Whole nations would orient themselves on the great coliseum. At noon, the foundations seemed the mouth of a drawstring bag. It was another pleasant resemblance. This one building would cinch up the whole continent. At night, the footings seemed a toothy pit. That was its best aspect. It was the Pit, let loose to roam the world.
The final morsel settled on her tongue. Phage withdrew the retractor. She set the tray aside on a small iron table. It was the signal that she was ready to receive her underlings.
The slave queues continued to march. The taskmasters kept their heads bent. The masons and mages remained busy.
That was her greatest difficulty. Her officers rarely reported in person and never consulted with her. They received her written orders-set down by a scribe-followed her directions without question, and sent back reports. When she toured the work sites, every last worker fell prostrate. Phage could see their ardent, fearful labors. Each team exceeded its daily assignments. Never did unforeseen obstacles impede progress. No one would report problems or deficits to Phage.
Today that would end. She had summoned her chief taskmaster and would make it clear that he must report in person every morning. Already he was late-a grave offense. Phage's wrath was known to be absolute. Gerth had better be dead, or soon he would be.
Phage stood, her eyes narrow with anger. She studied the workers, some marching wearily to work, others slogging more wearily away. Dwarf stonecutters, human joiners, centaur haulers, merfolk longshoremen, lich taskmasters… Gerth was not among them. He was not even among the slave apes or the shorn rhinos.
Phage stepped from the portico. The moment of grace was ended. Had he been in the crowd, she would have spared him, but now, even if she met him en route, he was a dead man.
She strode down the hill. The workers in the slave queue seemed to notice her approach and recoiled just slightly-all except a little old woman leading a mule.
The woman was not a slave like so many others. She was one of a handful of free folk who had answered the First's summons and hired on to work on the coliseum. Though bent and craggy-faced, the skinner had a sharp gleam in her eye. She peered fearlessly at Phage. Only as she approached did Phage realize the woman wasn't so small; her mule was monstrously big. It was the size of a horse, though with all the hardy sturdiness of its species. It clumped along beside its owner, ears back as the woman poured out a torrent of complaint. "-think your hooves had been turned to glue already, with how slow you're walking. You'd be better company in a pot." The woman strode straight toward Phage.
Some slaves lingered to witness the apparent suicide.
Reaching Phage, the crone bowed her white head and executed a crusty curtsey. "Hello, Mistress Phage. I've been sent by Gerth to report."
Phage stopped in her tracks, standing within hand's reach of the skinner. Black corruption spread from her feet through the grass. She looked the old woman up and down. "Gerth sent someone?"
"Yes, if I qualify," the skinner replied with a wink. "He said he was real sorry not to come himself. Just this morning, he impaled his foot on a sculptor's chisel, so he can't come. He sent me instead."
"You? A mule skinner?"
"I'm the only one who's not afraid of you."
Phage stared at her levelly. She wasn't sure whether to be angry or impressed. Still, she knew what she felt about Gerth. "You will take me to him." She walked on toward the cringing crowd of slaves.
The skinner gaped, then hauled on the reins and muscled her beast around. She growled at the animal and urged it along. They ran side by side, crone and mule, until they reached Phage.
The women, young and old, strode like sisters down the bank. Before them, the stream of slaves parted. All watched, goggle-eyed.
Phage said to the old woman, "Your duty to Gerth is discharged. Your duty is now to me. Gerth claims to have wounded his foot on a chisel. What is the truth?"
"He has… Mistress," panted the skinner.
"Intentionally?"
The crone smiled beneath her white mop of hair. "They say you can see through things to the truth. I guess they're right."
Phage chewed on that. The man would rather maim himself than report to her. He would have to die. She had no jobs for cowards. This crone, though, showed not the slightest fear. "Why aren't you afraid of me?"
The woman shrugged, struggling to keep pace. "I'm too old to worry about dying."