Keith Decandido - Under the Crimson Sun

But as before, there were three figures on the plane. One was the Voidharrow, one was Drahar-but the other was Rol Mandred.

But no, he was merely a shadow, a remnant of the original consciousness that belonged to the body. Mandred was curled up in a corner of the plane against one of the green walls, not moving, not even breathing.

Even that shadow would be gone before too long.

Drahar faced the Voidharrow. Unlike the previous time, Drahar came in on the floor.

You wish to control me, minion?

“I wish to work with you, dreadnaught,” Drahar said. “We should not be at odds. Together, we can-”

Do nothing. The Voidharrow does not collaborate, I subsume. And then I destroy. Your assistance is neither required nor necessary, minion .

And then the dreadnaught struck Drahar. The walls grew darker, becoming the color of cacti.

“Something’s wrong.”

Komir looked up at his sister’s words. He was standing in the arena, looking up at the wooden seats in front of the obsidian walls. With no people in the seats, the black walls were intimidating as hell. He felt as if he was staring right into the Abyss.

Karalith had come in through the entryway to the holding area. Remnants of a rusted metal gate hung from the top of the entryway like stalactites, all that remained of the gate after Zabaj had kicked his way through it, freeing the enslaved fighters.

“What’s the matter?” Komir asked.

“Gan isn’t in the office. And one of the fighters said he saw Drahar walking around with a soldier.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah, crap. We’ve got our ‘investment’ from Hamanu, we just needed Feena to distract the psionists so we can get Rol and get out of town. That’s gonna be a lot harder with the chamberlain here.”

With a sigh, Komir said, “Yeah. C’mon, let’s see what Drahar’s doing here-maybe we can use it to our advantage.”

“I don’t know, Komir.” Karalith sounded hesitant, something Komir had never experienced in his sister before.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve already taken a lot of risks here. I mean, we’ve gamed the King of the World.”

Komir glared at her. “How else were we supposed to get Rol out? If we didn’t game the king, we’d have had to try to figure out a way to break him out of the dungeons in Destiny’s Kingdom-something we’re utterly ill-equipped to do. Gaming the king is a bit more within our means. Besides, what happened to all that nonsense about not caring who the victim is, just running the game the same no matter what?”

Karalith stared at him. “I was trying to reassure Gan. But he’s right, this is a little crazy, and if we try to game Drahar again , we’ll be pushing our luck all the way over the edge. We need to cut and run.”

“Fine, then,” Komir said, “let’s do that.”

“Good.” She sounded relieved. “We’ll get the coins out of the office, get Feena, Gan, and Zabaj, and get the frip out of here.”

“What about Rol?”

Karalith threw up her hands, causing her bracelets to rattle up and down her forearms. “What about Rol? Have you seen what he’s been turned into? I’m not sure he wouldn’t be better off with the psionists.”

“Uhm, okay,” Komir said slowly, “but you get to explain that one to Gan and Feena.”

“I will. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go.”

Komir wasn’t at all confident that there would be nothing to worry about-but she was also right that they needed to finish this and get the hell out of Urik. They’d rescued Gan, at least, and they were about to make off with almost three thousand gold. It was a helluva big score, one that would have Komir dancing in the streets normally, especially given who they took the gold from.

But Gan wasn’t going to like them leaving Rol.

However, he saw the same thing Karalith saw: whatever that creature was, it could no longer truly be considered to be Rol Mandred.

Komir wondered if that meant that Gan was going to want to stay with the emporium. Komir certainly didn’t mind-he’d always enjoyed Gan’s company, even if he did talk a little too much-and Feena would naturally be all for it.

The others, though, might take some convincing.

As he followed Karalith down into the catacombs, he reminded himself to worry about one thing at a time. They had to get out of there alive, first, a notion complicated immensely by the presence of the chamberlain.

Zabaj was walking down one of the corridors when they got down there, and Karalith walked up to him.

“Can you retrieve the coins from the office and bring them to the carriage?”

The mul raised both eyebrows. “We’re leaving?”

Karalith nodded.

“About time.”

Komir snorted. “Yeah.”

“Just hold back enough silver so we can pay the fighters,” Karalith said. “Oh, and when you get to the stable, have Mother and Father get the carriage ready to bug out. We’re going to have to get out of Urik pretty much the instant we all get into the carriage, and since they’re back there guarding the merchandise anyway, we might as well have them make the getaway as smooth as possible.”

Zabaj turned to carry out that instruction. Komir allowed himself a small smile. Nobody got their crodlus moving faster than Mother.

As soon as he turned the corner, the malformed body of what had once been Rol Mandred came crashing through the stone wall, pulverizing it as if it were made of sand.

Komir looked at his sister. “There’s just no way that that’s a good thing.”

An eldritch glow that Komir recognized as the residue of powerful magic covered Rol, followed by Drahar floating through, surrounded by a similar glow.

Then he saw that the chamberlain’s nose was gushing blood onto his upper lip. That was less impressive-he knew from Feena that such only happened to practitioners of the Way who were overstepping their abilities.

Rol gestured and seemed to throw the glow off him, slamming it instead into Drahar, who deflected it aside, causing it to shatter another wall, sending rock flying. Komir raised his arm to protect his bald head from the debris.

Beyond that wall were the cubicles that held the fighters. Peeking out from his arms, Komir saw that at least one of them was dead, one was buried under rubble and might have been dead too, and several others were injured.

“What the frip is that?”

“Volmar’s dead.”

“Hell with this-I’ll get three silver somewhere else.”

As the fighters scattered like mice, Komir saw one of the dwarves-a bald fellow with a thick mustache-trying to help the one who was buried.

“What are you doing?” some idiot asked. To Komir’s shock, he realized that he was the idiot-confirmed by his feet moving, somewhat against his better judgment, toward the dwarf to aid him.

The dwarf-whose name, Komir recalled, was Barglin-said, “Gan’s under here.”

Komir felt his stomach drop. “What was he doing in here?”

Barglin was grabbing rocks and throwing them to one side, trying to clear Gan’s body. “He got knocked in here by that thing with the three mouths that used to be Mandred. Now you wanna help me, or not? He might live if we get him out.”

“If we don’t get out of here, we might not live.” Even as Komir said the words, he kneeled down and, like the dwarf, started tossing stones aside. He wasn’t about to leave Gan behind on top of everything else.

Drahar was losing.

In truth, he had lost before he started. Whatever the Voidharrow creature was, he was considerably more powerful than Drahar. The chamberlain feared he might be more powerful than Hamanu.

Drahar had to put everything he had and more into his fight. To spare anything, even to summon the king to aid him, would be suicidal.