J. King - Onslaught

The First nodded very slowly. "Let's not use the word 'duty' in conjunction with the coliseum. We want folk to think of pleasure and fun, not of duty. We want to lure them, not drag them in."

Braids was suddenly out of the chair, kneeling low in sick worship. "Forgive me."

The First watched the distant fight, seeing the Dominarian warrior decapitate the mage. "There is nothing to forgive." While the crowd roared, the First glanced toward Phage. "I have the perfect such match in mind for you. I have spent the last few months arranging it."

"Only say the word, and it is done," Phage said.

The First smiled. "You will fight your brother Kamahl. He is on his way. You will fight in a month."

Phage bowed. "Eagerly, Master."

"Forgive me," Braids snickered, bounding away. "I must announce the next match." Her voice faded as she withdrew through chamber and antechamber. By the time she got outside, the sound rose again. "Behold, young and old," she barked, leaping up the stands, "the miracle coliseum brings you none other than the miracle workers who built it. Behold!"

While giant lizards dragged away the remains of the armies, doors swung wide. A trudging platoon of dwarves emerged. Behind them came gigantipithicus apes and shorn rhinos, goblins and mule men. They were armed with the tools of their trades-hammers, chisels, ropes, wedges, chains. All had the sweat and grit of months of labor on them. Their faces were grim despite the glad shouts of the crowd.

The First watched in amazement. "Who could they possibly fight?"

From beyond the luxury box, the voice of Braids belted out. "A thousand slaves, kept in line by a hundred whips. Behold their foes, the taskmasters!"

More doors opened, disgorging a motley group of creatures in black leather suits and spiked helms. Magic scourges cracked in their hands. Hisses and boos greeted the taskmasters, but they only whirled their whips more viciously.

The First smiled.

"They've been at war all this time," commented Phage quietly. "The wreckage of their war is this new coliseum. While they built, I forbade them to kill each other. Now they have permission, and all have agreed to it. It is a sort of prelude to the grudge matches."

Braids' voice intruded, ringing throughout the stands: "And at the head of the taskmasters will fight their own masters-Braids and Phage of the Cabal!"

The resultant ovation was deafening.

"I must go," Phage said, gesturing toward the door.

"Win, Daughter," the First said. "I will place a hundred thousand gold on you."

Phage bowed her head. "That is too dear a price."

"If you lose," the First said, "I will have paid a far dearer one."

Phage and Braids walked side by side across the sand. The roar of the crowd heaped on their shoulders. It was a perfect moment: blue sky above, red sands below, taskmasters behind, and slaves before.

The two sides rushed into battle. Oh, so many scores would be settled today. Best of all, though, the world was watching.

The First was watching too.

"They've strength, but no magic and little speed," Braids said, bouncing gladly as the lines neared. "I say we strike with speed and magic Kicking up her feet, she hurtled across the sandy no-man's land. Braids flashed into and out of being, running half the distance in dementia space. It was as if she ran through an invisible forest. In a heartbeat, she reached the slave contingent, leapt, and darted across their heads. Spike heels dropped dwarves and goblins in their ranks. Braids ran up the chest of a gigantipithicus, kicked its massive chin, and flipped over backward as it fell. She gave a ululating cry and cartwheeled away over the heads of the goblins. In mere moments, she bounded back to her army.

"Sounds fine," Phage answered.

Braids grinned avidly and fell in step. "That was the quick bit. Here's the magic."

Her face blanched. She gripped her stomach and wretched. Her mouth stretched violently wide, and from between ragged teeth, she spat a huge creature. The thing was all sliding triangles of black carapace and claws. It squeezed past distended jaws and thumped down on the ground.

As it rose, the hulking beast dripped saliva. A pair of bug eyes lolled in its bristly forehead. Teeth splayed in a false smile, and it galloped out across the sand.

"A brotal," explained Braid. "Saw it in dementia space and swallowed it to bring it here."

"Very nice," Phage said quietly as the monster tore into the front ranks of the slaves. Its claws were the length of sling blades, and they cut apart the dwarf vanguard. It seemed to be hungry for goblin.

Still more slaves came on, their weapons clutched tightly.

Impassive, Phage raised her hand and signaled her forces to launch their ranged attacks.

Grinning eagerly, the taskmasters complied. They brought their scourges hissing and snapping before them. From each metal-tipped thong spun vicious magic, the sorceries they had used on the slaves all along.

A torrent of spells whipped the dwarfish vanguard. The blackest bolts killed outright. Husks of skin and bone tumbled to the ground. Other strands, laced with blue radiance, were even more pernicious. They lashed the arms and legs of the slaves and attached themselves like the strings of a marionette. Dwarves and goblins turned, screaming resistance even as their limbs attacked their comrades.

A hundred slaves had fallen in those first moments. Nine hundred more remained. Each taskmaster would have to kill ten even to survive.

"Attack!" shouted Phage, hand held high.

They did. Taskmasters with whips and swords laid into slaves. Slaves with mauls and spikes fought back.

Braids ran atop them all, belching beasts into the fray.

Phage meanwhile strode in the midst of the fight. No one wished to attack her, whether because of her brutal reputation or because she was in some ways the great ruler they all revered. Slave and taskmaster both recoiled. They would rather ram into each other than confront their mistress. Phage walked, queerly calm in the midst of the horrors. Wherever she stepped, bodies rotted rapidly to nothing. Most had not been dead but only maimed, writhing until she touched them.

The crowd chanted something. Over the wild roar of the melee, it sounded merely like a great heartbeat-lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. Phage lifted herself on tiptoes to listen. At last, the sound came clear:

"Death-touch. Death-touch. Death-touch…"

That's what she would do. Her taskmasters were only butchers. She was the one who brought quietus. These had been good workers, and they deserved a rapid death. The crowd deserved it too.

After all, the world was watching, and so was the First.

Phage began the dance of death. Her hands floated out in gentle, flashing flourishes. She grazed the neck of a goblin… A step, a leap, and she caressed the cheek of a bloodied dwarf… She pirouetted, brushing a gigantipithicus…

"DEATH-TOUCH! DEATH TOUCH! DEATH-TOUCH!"-a staccato accompaniment to staccato death.

Phage swept forward, trailing her hands along the flanks of folk who parted before her… On she danced, death untouched in the midst of battle.

Amid a forest of easels, Ixidor sat upon his broadest balcony. Its white sweep of stone jutted above a lake where dolphins sported and leviathans sang. The platform hung beneath a sky draped in giant jellyfish and teeming with flying fish.

This was his world, Topos. It had been born from his mind through his hand, borne on canvas into truth. This was his palace, Locus, huge in dimension and infinite in recursion. He should have been in ecstacy here, but instead he was fretted, rattled, panicked.

"I'm tired," he said to no one-in fact, six no ones.