The First smiled.
"They've been at war all this time," commented Phage quietly. "The wreckage of their war is this new coliseum. While they built, I forbade them to kill each other. Now they have permission, and all have agreed to it. It is a sort of prelude to the grudge matches."
Braids' voice intruded, ringing throughout the stands: "And at the head of the taskmasters will fight their own masters-Braids and Phage of the Cabal!"
The resultant ovation was deafening.
"I must go," Phage said, gesturing toward the door.
"Win, Daughter," the First said. "I will place a hundred thousand gold on you."
Phage bowed her head. "That is too dear a price."
"If you lose," the First said, "I will have paid a far dearer one."
Phage and Braids walked side by side across the sand. The roar of the crowd heaped on their shoulders. It was a perfect moment: blue sky above, red sands below, taskmasters behind, and slaves before.
The two sides rushed into battle. Oh, so many scores would be settled today. Best of all, though, the world was watching.
The First was watching too.
"They've strength, but no magic and little speed," Braids said, bouncing gladly as the lines neared. "I say we strike with speed and magic Kicking up her feet, she hurtled across the sandy no-man's land. Braids flashed into and out of being, running half the distance in dementia space. It was as if she ran through an invisible forest. In a heartbeat, she reached the slave contingent, leapt, and darted across their heads. Spike heels dropped dwarves and goblins in their ranks. Braids ran up the chest of a gigantipithicus, kicked its massive chin, and flipped over backward as it fell. She gave a ululating cry and cartwheeled away over the heads of the goblins. In mere moments, she bounded back to her army.
"Sounds fine," Phage answered.
«_»
Braids grinned avidly and fell in step. "That was the quick bit. Here's the magic."
Her face blanched. She gripped her stomach and wretched. Her mouth stretched violently wide, and from between ragged teeth, she spat a huge creature. The thing was all sliding triangles of black carapace and claws. It squeezed past distended jaws and thumped down on the ground.
As it rose, the hulking beast dripped saliva. A pair of bug eyes lolled in its bristly forehead. Teeth splayed in a false smile, and it galloped out across the sand.
"A brotal," explained Braid. "Saw it in dementia space and swallowed it to bring it here."
"Very nice," Phage said quietly as the monster tore into the front ranks of the slaves. Its claws were the length of sling blades, and they cut apart the dwarf vanguard. It seemed to be hungry for goblin.
Still more slaves came on, their weapons clutched tightly.
Impassive, Phage raised her hand and signaled her forces to launch their ranged attacks.
Grinning eagerly, the taskmasters complied. They brought their scourges hissing and snapping before them. From each metal-tipped thong spun vicious magic, the sorceries they had used on the slaves all along.
A torrent of spells whipped the dwarfish vanguard. The blackest bolts killed outright. Husks of skin and bone tumbled to the ground. Other strands, laced with blue radiance, were even more pernicious. They lashed the arms and legs of the slaves and attached themselves like the strings of a marionette. Dwarves and goblins turned, screaming resistance even as their limbs attacked their comrades.
A hundred slaves had fallen in those first moments. Nine hundred more remained. Each taskmaster would have to kill ten even to survive.
"Attack!" shouted Phage, hand held high.
They did. Taskmasters with whips and swords laid into slaves. Slaves with mauls and spikes fought back.
Braids ran atop them all, belching beasts into the fray.
Phage meanwhile strode in the midst of the fight. No one wished to attack her, whether because of her brutal reputation or because she was in some ways the great ruler they all revered. Slave and taskmaster both recoiled. They would rather ram into each other than confront their mistress. Phage walked, queerly calm in the midst of the horrors. Wherever she stepped, bodies rotted rapidly to nothing. Most had not been dead but only maimed, writhing until she touched them.
The crowd chanted something. Over the wild roar of the melee, it sounded merely like a great heartbeat-lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. Phage lifted herself on tiptoes to listen. At last, the sound came clear:
"Death-touch. Death-touch. Death-touch…"
That's what she would do. Her taskmasters were only butchers. She was the one who brought quietus. These had been good workers, and they deserved a rapid death. The crowd deserved it too.
After all, the world was watching, and so was the First.
Phage began the dance of death. Her hands floated out in gentle, flashing flourishes. She grazed the neck of a goblin… A step, a leap, and she caressed the cheek of a bloodied dwarf… She pirouetted, brushing a gigantipithicus…
"DEATH-TOUCH! DEATH TOUCH! DEATH-TOUCH!"-a staccato accompaniment to staccato death.
Phage swept forward, trailing her hands along the flanks of folk who parted before her… On she danced, death untouched in the midst of battle.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: STRONG RIGHT ARM
Amid a forest of easels, Ixidor sat upon his broadest balcony. Its white sweep of stone jutted above a lake where dolphins sported and leviathans sang. The platform hung beneath a sky draped in giant jellyfish and teeming with flying fish.
This was his world, Topos. It had been born from his mind through his hand, borne on canvas into truth. This was his palace, Locus, huge in dimension and infinite in recursion. He should have been in ecstacy here, but instead he was fretted, rattled, panicked.
"I'm tired," he said to no one-in fact, six no ones.
They surrounded him, six shadows cast upright in the air. He had created these guardians in his own image. They remained always around him, only a leap away. Each unman was a living portal to somewhere in the palace. Should a threat arise, Ixidor need merely dive through one of the unmen as through a doorway. The other unmen would follow, and then the portal man would close forever. Ixidor could elude six separate assassination attempts before running out of unmen. He should have felt safe, but he felt fear instead.
Ixidor stared critically at the living portals. They kept him safe, yes, but their lurking silence was unnerving. They were like animate pits gaping around him always. Any moment, he might fall through one. His own creations terrified him.
"I'm tired."
A caravan had happened upon Topos. They had drunk its waters and hunted its game, thinking themselves saved from death by sun. They had been welcome until they approached the palace. They called out, promising a grand show. Ixidor had not responded, but aerial jellyfish had. They swarmed, their tentacles long and lethal. They had only been following their instinct: Defend Locus. It was an unfortunate encounter.
Afterward, Ixidor posted warnings in the sand: STAY Our OR DIE.
Yes, the needless deaths distressed Ixidor. He was done with death, dealing it and being dealt it. Sadly, it wasn't done with him. Someone would come looking for the caravan. It waited, intact but for the drivers. Ixidor had left more warnings, which would of course be ignored. Where words failed, jellyfish, griffons, and air sharks would not. It was inevitable: All kingdoms had border disputes.