J. King - Onslaught

Do you remember what you did for me?

Reluctant, suspicious, the Mirari brought to mind what it had done. It showed Kamahl mantled in power, invincible in battle, surrounded by his admiring people. It showed him overcoming any foes that came against him and ruling more surely than any of his folk ever had.

Kamahl turned his thoughts toward one of those foes-his sister. He remembered the look of horror and betrayal that Jeska wore as his sword sliced into her. He dredged up his deep self-loathing for having struck the blow. He tasted again the bitter gall of fighting her in the arena. Kamahl poured out his terror, all the darkness that clouded his soul. Let it cloud the Mirari. Let it darken the mirror and kill the cancer.

That mind blackened. It had seen enough. No longer would it reflect the world around. Its eye had turned inward to darkness, and it ceased wishing and wanting. It only ached. The Mirari went inert, a benign and inactive tumor in the brain of the forest.

Kamahl had taught it something new-compassion. He had shown it the way past reflections and to the heart.

Do not be so arrogant, Kamahl. You are, after all, but a thought in our mind. We have many more thoughts, ones that could teach you a few things.

Suddenly, Kamahl saw. In its fever, the forest had grown across hundreds of miles of desert. It stopped near the Corian Escarpment, a great spine of granite that thrust up from the sands. On the other side of the stone wall, another realm rampantly expanded-a vast swampland. Just as Kamahl had become the avatar of the wood, his sister-his nearly slain sister-had become the avatar of the swamp.

"I know. She is my own great wrong, which I must right. There are evils that consume me as well. I know."

Not all. You do not know all.

Through the eyes of eagles, the forest saw. It soared above black swamps and found avenues laid there. It followed lines dredged through water and lines laid upon land. Roads, bridges, canals thronged with folk. They rode and walked and sailed along convergences, drawn to the center of a vast web.

And what a center-a great circle in stone. Kamahl had never seen so stately a stadium. Though thousands flocked toward it, a whole nation already sat in its seats. On the sands below, elephants raced fifty abreast. Their feet churned up clouds of dust, and their blade-barded shoulders brought blood from each other. Red lines followed them as they went. Cheers roared out with each pachyderm that fell, and great lizards ran across the sands to tear into the beasts.

The Cabal pits had been recreated for a vaster audience.

Stands, luxury boxes, vendors, waiting pens, the sands, the elephants, the speaker's pinnacle-all of it centered on a single figure. Jeska. The unhealing wound on her belly had festered into a wound on the world.

Leave the Mirari sword here. It can do me no more harm and can do you no more good. Leave the sword, and leave the forest giant that it pins.

I will let you go from the cave, from the forest. You have set right the evil within me. Now, you must set right the evil within you.

Go, Kamahl. Take your army. Bring back Jeska.

From the top of the central pillar, Phage watched the elephants race. They really were magnificent beasts-so powerful, so fast, so full of blood. They were down to twenty now. The ones that remained had to dodge the ones that had fallen. Phage had planned on the corpses providing obstacles, but she hadn't realized that every time the beasts came in sight of their slain kin, they would trumpet and charge the giant lizard scavengers and set in for a ferocious melee. It was all the handlers could do to drive off the remaining beasts and resume the race.

Down to thirteen.

The crowd loved it. Most of them had never seen an elephant. Now, they saw fifty of them and watched forty-nine die. It was merely the opening act, the diversion that kept everyone happy while they got seated.

Half the world was getting seated. Twenty thousand filled the lower reaches, and twenty thousand more flocked across the bridges and rode the courtesy barges. Once they had seen today's entertainments, there would be fifty thousand tomorrow, and then eighty thousand, and then a capacity crowd of one hundred thousand.

Braids had brought all these people. She had traveled the whole continent of Otaria, taking with her a taste of the coliseum's splendors. To yokels, she presented a freak show. To families, she showed a menagerie of exotic creatures. To magistrates, she offered an arena for the resolution of disputes.

The coliseum was everything to everyone. The rich enjoyed luxury boxes replete with every pleasure both legal and illegal. The poor crowded on dusty benches and screamed their lungs out. Braids had proven herself a human Mirari, knowing just what each person wanted and providing it-for a price. She had arranged walk-in one-day passes and boat-in week-long excursions with full accommodations.

By the end of the week, the coliseum would have paid for itself. By the end of the month, its revenues would have outstripped those of the pits.

Only one elephant remained-bloodied but unbowed. The crowds cheered it with almost vicious approval. The animal meanwhile stomped stupidly beside the bone piles of its kin. It bobbed its head in manic distress. Its handlers jabbed it with short hooks, leading it toward the animal paddock.

At the arena's edge, Braids announced the next spectacle. She opened her throat to two worlds-reality and dementia space-and wove the sound together into a bellow that reached for miles: "Come one, come all to the newest, truest wonder of the world! Come see beasts you have only heard of. Come see beasts that have never been! Leave behind your weary world. In the Grand Coliseum, every man is a king. Every woman is a queen. Every child is heir to the riches of the world!"

Braids was both the coliseum's promoter and one of its star attractions. Even as elephants died below, many folk watched Braids capering above.

"Behold the brutality of beasts. View the vendettas of warring clans. Witness the wonders of history.

"Get ready now for the battle of the centuries-the War!" crowed Braids. "Look here to the south and behold the heroes of Dominaria!"

A thick wooden door swung wide, and from it emerged two great gladiators.

The first, a seven-foot-tall giant of a man, wore a tan and maroon jumpsuit and bore a huge polearm.

The crowd responded with a furor of cheers and boos in equal measure.

Beside him stood a very different figure-tall and gaunt, with ash-blond hair and goggles that looked like gemstones. The fidgety light that played at his fingers promised impressive combat spells. The mage raised a hand to a violent ovation… and a pelting rain of rubbish.

The crowds didn't care who won or lost, but only that the men fought.

A fight there would be, though in keeping with the century-old tradition, these two gladiators would begin on the same side. They strode from the doorway, leading a continent of humans, elves, dwarves, minotaurs, and Keldons. This team- the Dominarians-would square off against the Invaders.

"Every last one of them is a condemned murderer, but fear not! They all are well controlled by our handlers. You will see them pay their debt to society and reenact a critical battle in the history of our world. Now, behold to the north, the Invaders!"

Another door swung wide, and from it emerged a horrid host. A scaly demon led his team out upon the sands. Demons were rare in the extreme, ancient creatures that had evaded a century of hunters, but they had not evaded Phage's folk. This one had a head like a sack of skin stretched across a skull. Horns jutted up all along its shoulders. Its torso was an amalgam of cable-taut muscle and metal framework. Its legs and arms were living mechanisms as well. The thing trudged forward, lifting its minuscule eyes to the crowd and raising clenched claws at them.