Keith Decandido - Under the Crimson Sun

“I expected to see Jono here.”

“He got himself hired to guard a caravan.”

“Wish I’d thought of that.”

“Right, like anyone’d hire you to guard a caravan. You can’t even see over the carriages.”

“Wonder what the deal here will be.”

“Didja hear? They killed Calbit and Jago.”

“Good riddance.”

“Hope they killed that bitch of a daughter of Calbit’s too. You know what she did to me?”

“Nothin’, prob’ly, but I bet she promised a whole helluva lot.”

“Yeah.”

A barmaid brought over Barglin’s ale, which he sipped eagerly, foam getting into his mustache, and some of the ale dribbling down his chest. He didn’t care. The crisp sensation of the ale cascading down his throat was the most wonderful feeling in the world right then.

“A little thirsty, there, Barglin?”

Barglin swallowed, paused, let out a loud belch that echoed off the tavern walls, then smiled. “A bit, yeah.”

A voice from behind him said, “There’ll be more where that came from.”

Turning, Barglin saw the one-eyed human who’d come in with Rol Mandred. “Gan, I thought they traded you out for that mul.”

With Gan was a curly-haired blonde. “They did,” she said with a smile. “My name is Feena-I’m Gan’s sister. And we have an offer for you gentlemen.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Barglin said.

“What is it?” another asked.

“Simple-we want you to return to the Pit.”

Silence fell over the table.

Barglin burst out laughing. “Good one, Gan. You and your sister have a great sense’a humor.”

“We’re not kidding, Barglin,” Gan said. “But it’ll be different this time. For starters, it’s only for a day or two. For another, you won’t have to fight.”

A half-giant asked, “What do we have to do?”

Feena said, “Sit in the cubicles while we pretend to be fixing the place up for the grand reopening. Once we’re done, you’ll each get three silver and be on your way.”

Gulping down some more ale, Barglin then wiped more foam from his mustache. “We don’t have to fight?”

“No. You’re just there to make it look like we have fighters ready to go once we open. There’ll be mind-mages there, so we need to have people who are used to being in those cubicles. The mind-mages will be busy elsewhere, but we don’t want to take the chance.”

“So basically,” Barglin said, “you’re paying us three silver to sit on our asses?”

Gan chuckled. “Pretty much, yeah. Think you can handle that, Barglin?”

Three silver would pay for a corner of a carriage in a caravan that would get him away from this town with its royal nephews who picked fights in taverns. “Yeah, I think I can. When do you need us there?”

“Right away,” Feena said. “Finish your drinks, and we’ll head over now.”

Rol had to admit to taking great pleasure out of the creature’s frustration.

For days, he’d been hearing importunings and implorations, not to mention boasts and threats, all relating to the great power wielded by the monster that had taken over his mind and transformed his body.

And yet there it was, being held in check by three mind-mages.

Rol himself was just as helpless, of course, but at least the thing that had taken everything away from him was being stymied.

If only those mind-mages would figure out a way to change him back …

Still, it was something.

You are a fool. This is only a temporary setback. Soon, chaos will reign over this world and-

“Oh, will you give it a rest, already?” Rol was really getting tired of the thing’s speeches. “These guys have you.”

Yes, but they are attempting to study me. To learn more about me so they can control me-they are even bigger fools than you are, and soon they will discover their mistake, though too late to stop me. I only need them to waver but once, or to probe too deeply .

The creature’s ramblings were interrupted by the door to the cell opening. A soldier was standing in the doorway. “Bring him.”

The soldier was talking to the mind-mages, apparently, since Rol’s newly oversized legs proceeded to get up and walk toward the door, even as the creature was screaming.

Rol just laughed. “What are you complaining about? Isn’t this the part where they might probe too deeply?”

Perhaps. They will rue the day they attempted to control me, for I am chaos and cannot be controlled .

To Rol’s surprise, the psionists took them away upstairs and out of the dungeon area.

Where are they taking us?

“How the frip should I know?”

They put Rol into a carriage that was attached to a pair of crodlus. They trudged their way slowly through the streets of Urik. Rol didn’t know the area well enough to figure out where they were going until they arrived at a very familiar mine.

“We’re coming back here?” Rol said, but of course only the creature heard, and it didn’t respond.

He was brought to a cell-or, rather, cubicle-very much like the one he was in when Calbit and Jago brought him there. On the way, they passed several other cubicles, many of which had familiar faces in them.

For a long time, he sat, which wasn’t qualitatively different from sitting in the castle dungeon. He wondered if he’d be asked to fight again.

He hoped not. Rol had never shied away from a fight in his life, but knowing what the creature could do, he feared for what would happen to whatever poor bastard got into the ring with him.

At least it would probably be over quickly …

Drahar was stunned when he went down to the dungeon to find Mandred’s cell empty.

There were no psionists, no guards, nothing. Just an empty room.

He stormed back upstairs and summoned Cace. “What happened to Mandred?”

Calm as ever, Cace replied: “The king agreed to send him back to the arena. The new owners plan to contribute their future profits toward expanding the Imperial Guard, which they agreed to in exchange for having Mandred be the main attraction again.”

“Is he-” Drahar cut himself off. It wasn’t wise to even think about questioning the King of the World’s sanity.

Normally, the first couple of words wouldn’t even escape his lips like that, but he was well and truly frustrated.

No such person as “Tharizdun” existed anywhere in any archive that Drahar had been able to track down. He’d gone to his tutors at the King’s Academy, many of whom were mages of many centuries’ standing, and who were in touch with wizards from all across Athas. Few people in the world kept any kind of history-surviving the present generally took precedence over preserving the past-but it did survive to a degree in the minds of the oldest residents of Athas. They didn’t recall everything, of course, but surely they would remember something powerful enough to turn Mandred into the creature he had become.

None of them had the slightest idea who Tharizdun might be, nor did they recognize the creature.

And the king had taken the creature away.

A panic seized him. “Please tell me the psionists went with him.”

“Of course,” Cace said.

“Don’t say ‘of course’ as if it were a normal thing,” Drahar snapped, then immediately regretted it. “My apologies, Cace, it’s been a trying day. Cancel my remaining appointments.”

“Where will you be?”

“At the arena, of course. The whole point of bringing Mandred here was to use him to supplement the Guard, without having to pay to train more soldiers.” He let out a long breath. “Still, if that’s what magnificence wants, that is what he will get. But I will continue to do as I was instructed, so I’m going to the Pit to continue my work.”