“Maybe I don’t want to talk to you. In fact, Gan, I’m sick of talking to you. All you ever do is talk.”
“Good, that’s good.”
Rol frowned, confused. “What’s good?”
“You’re complaining about me. That’s a good sign that you’re you.”
“Of course, I’m me. Who else would I be?” Rol asked that question despite not being entirely sure of the answer.
“I wish I knew.” Gan spoke with tremendous emotion, so much so that Rol blinked in surprise. Gan usually didn’t speak quite so strongly. “Rol, ever since that night in the desert, you haven’t been yourself-in any way. You’re ridiculously powerful, and you look more and more like you’re diseased. I’m scared.”
Gan never admitted to being scared of anything. At least, Rol didn’t think he ever had. It was hard to recall specifically.
Hell, he still couldn’t remember his parents’ names. And his head still hurt.
“We have to get out of here, Gan,” Rol said. “I don’t care what it takes. We need Fehrd to make a plan.”
There was a long pause before Gan replied to that. “Fehrd’s dead, Rol.”
Rol had forgotten that.
In fact, he still didn’t remember it, and wasn’t sure that Gan wasn’t lying.
No, that was crazy. Gan wouldn’t lie to him.
Would he?
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Remember, Rol, that Black Sands thug killed him. They were fighting with staffs, and then the leader took out a knife and stabbed him with it.”
Rol didn’t remember that at all. But it didn’t sound right, somehow. “Why would he stab him if they were fighting with staffs?”
In a voice reeking with incredulousness, Gan said, “He was the leader of a band of thieves-on what planet do you expect him to behave honorably? Hell, I don’t expect you to behave honorably, and you’re the closest thing to an honorable person I’ve ever met.”
That surprised Rol. Somehow Gan saying something nice to him didn’t match with what he expected Gan to say.
Things were obviously worse than he thought.
But he couldn’t think straight, so that wasn’t surprising.
He just needed to rest. Maybe then his hand wouldn’t hurt so much and his head wouldn’t hurt so much and he’d start to remember things again. Like his parents’ names and how Fehrd died and where it was he was in that cell and …
Give in to the Voidharrow and all-
“NO!”
“What is it?” Gan sounded concerned.
Rol shook his head. “It’s fine. Really, I’m fine, I just-” He moved to rub his eyes, then realized that his fingers were covered in lesions. No, they weren’t lesions anymore, they were red pustules that made it impossible for him to even touch anything.
He snarled. “We need to get out of here.”
“I’m open to suggestions as to how.” Gan let out a very loud breath. “I wish Feena was here.”
“Who the frip is Feena?”
Impatiently, Gan said, “My sister, you moron. She-” He cut himself off, then whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
Rol hoped it was someone who could make his hands not hurt.
A new voice said, “Stand, whaddayacall, away from the door.”
Actually, Rol realized it was an old voice: Sasker, one of the guards. He always came with three other guards, all armed with metal swords.
So Rol stood back from the door.
It creaked open to reveal Sasker, along with the usual three guards. Their swords were out.
“Time for your next fight, and-” Sasker stopped short and stared goggle-eyed at Rol. “What the frip happened to you?”
Rol had no idea what he was talking about. “I’m the same as always.”
“Not hardly. Your face is all, whaddayacall, covered in crap.”
One of the thugs said, “Maybe we should have a healer look at ’im.”
Sasker looked at him as if he was insane. “Right, another one. Calbit hates payin’ for healers, and they sent, whaddayacall, half a dozen to look at this guy. ’Sides, it’s time for the fight.”
Defensively, the thug asked, “What if it’s contagious-like?”
The look on Sasker’s face didn’t change. “You’re bein’ paid to keep the fighters in line. You ain’t bein’ paid to, whaddayacall, think. So shut the hell up.” He turned back to Rol. “Get up, Mandred. Time to earn your keep.”
“You don’t pay me.”
“Fine, earn Calbit and Jago their keep, then. C’mon, let’s go.”
At that point, Rol could do the walk to the arena in his sleep. The three guards were at triangle points around him too far for him to grab, but far enough away to be able to effectively use their swords if he made a false move.
His hands really, really hurt.
They brought him into the waiting area and then Jago started doing his routine, and Rol could barely hear it over the crowd noise.
The noise just would not stop. Rol tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away, and he tried to listen to something else, but there was just the noise and nothing else and it was just making his headache worse and worse. He needed to find something else to listen to.
Embrace the chaos, my friend. Spread the seed and everything will be yours.
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but somehow, that voice-that annoying voice, that voice which had been in the back of his head since that night in the desert and that would not go away no matter how many times he tried-didn’t make his headache worse.
In fact, right then, hearing the voice, the headache went away.
And his hands didn’t hurt.
So finally, after not listening to the voice, after wishing the voice would go away, he embraced the voice.
He barely paid attention to Jago as he droned on about fights and battles and other nonsense. The crowd was cheering, but he paid even less attention to that.
All he saw was the thri-kreen facing him in the arena.
Spread the seed …
The thri-kreen skittered on all his legs across the arena, trying to avoid Rol, then jumping up onto his hind legs to slice at Rol with his pincers.
Spread the seed …
Rol smiled. He’d faced the thri-kreen before, and usually ducked and dodged his pincers, mainly out of a desire to keep the pustules from bursting.
Suddenly, that was just what he wanted.
A pincer came at his face and Rol didn’t move. It cut through one of the pustules, causing a minor bit of pain in Rol’s cheek and sending red ooze spraying out onto the thri-kreen.
Dimly, Rol registered the gasp of the crowd. Jago had taken to blaming Rol’s “affliction” on his nonexistent trip to the Beastbarrens, where he met “strange creatures beyond all possible imagining” and that one had done that to him.
So naturally there was concern when one of the strange red bumps that were covering him burst all over the thri-kreen.
That concern no doubt elevated when the thri-kreen started to scream.
Rol’s smile widened. The Voidharrow would not be denied. It would spread and bring magnificent chaos.
And deep down in the darkest recesses of Rol Mandred’s mind, that thought terrified him. And the fact that his terror was so deeply buried while he was outwardly thrilled at the very concept terrified him even more.
CHAPTER NINE
Drahar hated coming to the arena.
When he first was appointed to be King Hamanu’s chamberlain-the previous appointee having made the mistake of publicly disagreeing with one of the royal edicts-the king had attended the fights at the absurdly named “Pit of Black Death” once a month. And, of course, all the highest ranking members of the court had to attend as well.
At first, Drahar had dreaded the very notion. He had been born into a sirdar family, and one of the benefits of being born to that higher class was that he didn’t have to participate in the gutter practices of those beneath his station. From the time he was born, he knew he was destined for great things, especially once he proved to have some psionic ability, and therefore received training in the Way at the King’s Academy. Of course, as a scion of the sirdars, he was able to receive the advanced training.