Oddly, Gorbin’s blood-caked face brightened at that. “You mean I don’t have to fight anymore?”
“Nope.”
“Thank you.” Gorbin sounded incredibly relieved.
To Gan’s amazement, it seemed that-when Rol grabbed the sides of Gorbin’s hairless head and yanked it to one side, snapping the mul’s neck-Gorbin died happy.
However, Gan had someone else’s happiness on his mind-not so much that of a dead fighter, but that of a restless crowd who had come there to watch the latest in a series of predetermined Gorbin fights.
The silence extended for several seconds.
It was broken by Jago, who was grinning even more widely than Rol had been.
“My friends, we have ourselves a new champion! For the first time in a decade, Gorbin has been defeated!”
More silence.
Gan was seriously worried that the crowd would riot.
Then one person in the audience bellowed, “It’s about damned time!”
Someone else-or it might have been the same person, Gan couldn’t tell-started to clap.
Then another.
Soon the applause started to spread throughout the arena.
That was followed by cheers and yips of joy.
After a few seconds, one of the incomprehensible yells started to coalesce into something understandable:
“Rol! Rol! Rol! Rol!”
At once Gan was relieved and frightened. The former because the crowd seemed to accept Rol’s victory. Indeed, they were embracing it, having gotten over the shock of Gorbin’s defeat.
The latter because what he just saw was completely impossible. There was no way, none, that an unenhanced human of Rol’s strength and talent-considerable though both were-could have wiped the floor with any mul like that, much less a mul as talented as Gorbin.
Something was wrong with Rol, and Gan needed to find out what it was.
He really wished that Feena was there …
Rol’s hands hurt.
That was the worst part.
No, the worst part was the headaches. They were awful.
No, the worst part were the horrible lesions that kept sprouting on his skin and would not go away.
No, the worst part was that those lesions would sometimes pop and smear red ooze all over everything.
No, the worst part was constantly being forced to fight for the pleasure of other people instead of being paid for it like a sensible person.
No, the worst part was that Rol was starting to forget who he was.
Yes, that was definitely the worst part.
He tried not to think about it too much.
Besides, that was only sometimes. Most of the time he knew damn well that he was Rol Mandred, that he was a human, that his best friends were Fehrd Anspah and Gan Storvis, that he hired himself out as a rent-a-thug, and that his parents were named-
He couldn’t remember his parents’ names.
But he tried not to think about it too much.
His hands hurt.
Some nights, when he slept-on those rare occasions when he could actually sleep, not toss and turn in the “cubicle” that Calbit and Jago had put him and Gan in-he dreamed about the red liquid. But in the dream, the red liquid was swirling madly in a whirlpool. Unfamiliar images crashed onto his consciousness like dunes overflowing during a sandstorm: a large golden vortexlike eye, a strange creature with gray skin but with shoulders covered in red crystal, a female wizard turning a tiefling into stone …
Plus phrases he did not recognize: the Elder Elemental Eye, Bael Turath, Voidharrow.
That last one he heard a lot in his dreams.
But then he woke up. And he tried not to think about it too much.
Sometimes he thought that he was better off not thinking at all. Just giving in to all of it.
That would make life easier.
“Rol, you okay?”
For a moment, Rol panicked. He knew the voice, knew it, as certain as he knew his own name was-
What was his name?
Gan. That was it. No, Gan wasn’t his name, Gan was the name of the person talking to him. His own name was Rol Mandred. He knew that.
He always knew that. Except when he didn’t.
“Rol.”
“I’m fine.” His voice sounded weird. “My hands hurt a little, but I’m fine.”
He looked around the cubicle, but couldn’t see Gan.
Maybe he was imagining Gan. Maybe he was imagining all of it. Maybe Gan didn’t exist. Maybe it was all a dream and he’d wake up from it soon.
Maybe the red liquid was the reality and Gan was the fantasy.
Yes, embrace the Voidharrow …
“Rol, listen-”
“Shut up.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Not you. The other voice.”
“There is no other voice, Rol. It’s just me.”
After a second, Rol realized that he couldn’t see Gan because Gan was in the cubicle across the hall. Now he remembered-once they became the new main event, Gan and Rol were each given their own cubicles. That was just a stupid name for what was really a cell, just like any other. Rol had been in plenty over the years, so he knew what they were like, and this was most definitely a cell, no matter what they called it. Like that time in-
He couldn’t remember where it was.
“Rol?”
Grimacing, he tried to recall that time when he was in that cell. There was a woman-there was always a woman-and her husband got a little peeved the way husbands always did, and did they take it out on the woman who cheated? No, they took it out on Rol, who was just having a bit of fun, and they threw him in a cell. They were quite humorless, the magistrates in-
Why couldn’t he remember the city-state where he was imprisoned?
“Rol?”
“Gan, do you remember where it was when I was imprisoned for sleeping with that girl?”
At that, Gan actually laughed. “Seriously? Rol, you’re gonna need to be considerably more specific than that.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Rol, we need to work on escaping this place.”
“What? Why?” Rol knew that Gan was right, but he couldn’t remember why Gan was right.
Speaking very slowly, Gan said, “Because we’ve been enslaved, you jackass.”
“Right, right, I knew that.” Rol tried to force himself to focus. It was just so hard …
He wished he could remember how they got there. It had something to do with Fehrd, but he could no longer recall how Fehrd was involved. Or even where Fehrd was. He should have been with them.
Gan was talking about something that may have been important. It was hard to tell with Gan, since he was always talking. “It’s gonna be a lot harder now. Ever since you became the featured attraction, they’ve hired a lot more security. The crowds’re bigger too.”
“Why is that?”
“You, you moron.” Gan sounded angry; his yelling made Rol’s headache worse. “You beat the unbeatable fighter. People actually give a frip about the fights in this arena for the first time in years. Calbit and Jago hired about a dozen mercenaries to supplement the other guys, and some of them even have metal swords. The patrols are all random too-haven’t been able to find any kind of pattern. I gotta tell you, we had a better chance of escaping before you killed that mul.”
“What the hell choice did I have?” Rol screamed, and slammed a fist into one of the cubicle walls.
His hand no longer hurt, oddly, and a large chunk, and several small chips, fell to the floor from the stone wall.
“Will you please calm down?” Gan said. “You’ll bring the guards, and then we can’t talk.”