Under the Crimson Sun

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  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.

  Many options were open to Drahar after graduating the Academy, but he found himself gravitating to politics. The true power in Athas belonged with those who ruled the city-states, and Drahar knew he had to be part of that. His only plan was to work his way into the king’s inner circle. His skills in the Way got him appointments he might not have received otherwise, and his own intelligence and craftiness took him the rest of the way. He became a sirdar, just like his parents.

  Unlike his parents, he was able to elevate himself to one of the highest positions possible for someone not actually of royal bloodlines.

  Stupidly, he had assumed that would mean never having to go to the arena. What was the point of being one of the most powerful people in Urik if he couldn’t avoid the things that revolted him? And there was nothing on Athas more disgusting than watching two people fight for no reason. Truth be told, watching people fight for cause wasn’t particularly appealing, either, but there, at least, Drahar could understand it.

  But to call two people punching each other repeatedly “sport” made a mockery of true sport. Drahar wasn’t much for participating, but he loved to watch, especially simtot, which was a field sport that involved directing a ball toward a net while riding a crodlu. That required riding skill, as well as observation of one’s surroundings, and a certain skill in geometry, since one needed to calculate angles of trajectory and such. It was a sport that rewarded intellect and skill.

  However, affairs of state were often conducted in the royal box at the Pit. A critical trade agreement was hammered out during one of the fights between Gorbin and Szanka, before Szanka died in his sleep of unknown causes.

  According to Hamanu, that was when the fights started going downhill. It was Drahar’s considered opinion that they were already deep in a valley, but he said nothing, mindful of his predecessor’s fate.

  After a while, Gorbin won every fight quickly, and after a while, the king got bored with the fights. Drahar could have danced in the streets, he was so overjoyed when two months went by without an arena visit.

  Soon the king turned to other hobbies—including, to Drahar’s joy, simtot—and Drahar was convinced that he would never need to set foot in the Pit, or any other such place, again.

  Unfortunately, it was Templar Tharson’s favorite entertainment. And Drahar needed Tharson on his side.

  Tharson actually went to the Pit every night he was able to. Sometimes—often, in fact—his duties as commander of the Imperial Guard kept him away, but if he was free, he was there. The king even let Tharson use the royal box, which had the benefit of being raised high above the arena. If Drahar did have to suffer through the fights, he could at least do it from a distance.

  They had gone there that night after a particularly frustrating meeting with the king.

  Hamanu sat on his throne, which was unusually drab. One of the things Drahar admired about Hamanu was that the king did not believe in what he referred to as “unnecessary finery.” He wore silks that were well-tailored, of course, and jewelry appropriate to his station, but he saw no need to be ostentatious. His throne was simply a chair, albeit one that was cushioned and apparently comfortable, on a dais that kept the monarch on a higher plane than the others in the throne room.

  Drahar was sitting with the other members of the court in uncushioned chairs that were arranged in a semicircle around the throne. The meeting had been to discuss possible methods of raising capital to increase the ranks of the Imperial Guard. Although the king’s army more than served its function to protect the city-state against invaders, many in the court felt that the king’s sights should be set beyond the walls of Urik. But the Guard, as currently situated, would be spread too thin to properly wage a war and also protect the homeland.

  Both the mines and the orchards—the two primary sources of income for Urik—had produced low yields of late. It wasn’t enough to cause major difficulties for anyone living there, but it also meant that they had no surplus. On the one hand, it was one reason why raising the capital necessary to expand the Guard would be difficult. On the other, it was all the more reason why Urik needed to conquer more lands—like, say, Tyr.

  The meeting was being held because Tharson and Drahar were attempting to convince Hamanu to take the latter position.

  “We could always expand the ranks through conscription of civilians into the service,” Tharson said to the king.

  Tharson barely finished his sentence before Hamanu replied, “No. We need soldiers, Templar, not knife fodder. More to the point, we need trained soldiers, not random fools taken off the streets.”

  One of Drahar’s fellow sirdars said, “Even if we did conscript, we would have to feed and clothe them.”

  Tharson made a noise like a fireball. “We’d have to pay them if we wanted them to be any good at it. Unpaid soldiers are poor ones.”

  “It does not matter,” the king said. “I do not wish to sully the ranks of the Guard by lowering the standards of service.”

  Drahar knew that Hamanu had had experience in that regard, i
ncluding some campaigns that had been lost due to not recognizing that quantity was not the same as quality. Still, he had hopes that the king might see reason.

  “Magnificence, the mines are not going to suddenly improve their yields. In the long term, such gains are always temporary. The only way for us to remain as powerful as we are is to find another resource to exploit—which, sadly, does not exist anywhere in the region, if at all in Athas—or expand our territory.”

  “In fact,” the king said witheringly, “the mines have always fluctuated. Next year might see an uptick, and the orchards are certainly likely to bounce back as well. I appreciate the desire to expand my kingdom, but it must wait at least another year. That is all.”

  Drahar managed to control his reaction in public with the ease of long practice—he was always mindful, after all, of his predecessor’s fate.

  But internally, he was seething.

  He and Tharson walked out of the throne room together, Drahar saying, “We must discuss this.”

  Tharson nodded. “Tonight, at the arena.”

  For once, Drahar didn’t bother to control his reaction. “Must we?”

  “Oh, yes, we must.” The templar smiled. “Someone managed to kill Gorbin.”

  “So?”

  His eyes widening, Tharson said, “What do you mean ‘so?’ This is Gorbin.”

  “It’s just people punching people. There’s no art to it. Sooner or later, someone was bound to be able to punch better than Gorbin.”

  “Regardless, it’s past time I saw a good fight at the Pit.”

  Drahar was still waiting for the first time he would see one, but said nothing.

  And so, the pair of them were taken on palanquins to the Pit. Drahar was grateful for the silk curtains that kept him from having to look out onto the streets of Urik as he was carried through—bad enough they couldn’t contain the smell. It wasn’t so bad when they first left, but the Pit was located closer to Urik’s slums. The architecture changed from large, complex buildings with elegant stonework and molding that were sculpted into leonine themes—even the palanquin they rode had bas-relief lions carved into the sides—to ramshackle structures that barely protected their inhabitants from the harshness of the midday sun.

  Depressingly, Drahar could track their progress via his nose. He wasn’t sure whether it was due to the poor handling of local sewage or the fact that the populace never bathed. While Drahar knew that water was hard to come by, the very least they could do was try to clean themselves at least once a month, if not the weekly bath Drahar himself always took.

  After that, arriving at the royal box at the Pit was something of a relief. Drahar could smell soap and cleaning waxes—obviously the owners kept the place clean for Tharson, which Drahar appreciated in the abstract. Certainly, it made having to sit through such nonsense a great deal easier.

  Wine was brought for everyone, and Drahar gulped down most of a tankard in one sip, hoping the alcohol would dull the experience.

  It failed in that regard, leading Drahar to suspect that the wine was watered down as a cost-saving endeavor. Either that or the owners saw the value in their customers not being too drunk.

  Any hope that the experience might have improved in the years since the king lost interest in the arena were dashed when Drahar saw that Jago—or was it Calbit? he could never keep the arena’s owners’ names straight—was still doing the same tired barker routine at the top of each fight. Even more pathetic: the crowd was eating it up.

  The first few fights were of little interest even to Tharson, as they were lesser bouts between contestants whom Jago claimed were all “among the finest brawlers in Urik.” Drahar finished his third tankard by the end of the second fight, having endeavored to pay as little attention as possible to the events on the stage, endeavoring to engage Tharson in conversation about how they would go about convincing Hamanu that he was wrong to put off invading Tyr for a year.

  At first, Drahar was successful, but then Jago came out and announced that “the moment you all came here to see” had arrived.

  Only then did Drahar notice that the crowd had expanded considerably. Therefore the reception to Jago’s request to welcome the new champion, whose name was apparently Rol Mandred, was much, much louder than their previous reactions.

  Then the fighter came out, and Drahar nearly dropped his tankard.

  This Rol Mandred was a creature of magic. What’s more, he had a taint that was, quite simply, impossible.

  Tharson was staring at him. “What’s wrong, Drahar?”

  Drahar shook his head. “I’m sorry? What makes you think anything is wrong?”

  “You’re actually watching the arena,” Tharson said with a grin. “Usually you only pay that level of attention to something that relates to magic.”

  Quietly, Drahar said, “Very observant, Templar.”

  Now the grin fell. “There’s magic on the arena floor?”

  “The new fighter—Mandred, is it?”

  “He’s the reason we’re here.” Tharson gulped down whatever he was drinking from his tankard. “That’s the one who killed Gorbin.”

  “I doubt it took him much effort,” Drahar muttered. “He appears human, but he’s a creature of magic.”

  “He barely appears human,” Tharson said with a snort. “Look at those poxes all over him. And I’ve never seen a human that size.”

  Looking more closely, Drahar saw that the clothes Mandred was wearing were tight against his pockmarked skin. In particular, they were pulling on his shoulders. The clothes were also well-worn and had desert sand on them—which meant they were probably being worn by Mandred when he was brought in from whatever forsaken land Calbit found him in.

  “He’s human,” Drahar said, “but he’s growing. The magic is changing him slowly.”

  “Is that why he looks diseased?”

  “Possibly.” Drahar shook his head. “What I do not understand is that he has the taint of the Abyss.”

  “What’s that?”

  That prompted a rare smirk from Drahar. “A theory. The Abyss is the void in the chaotic realms beyond our world.” At Tharson’s blank expression—Drahar had to remind himself that, while Tharson was one of the finer military minds in Athas, he had no training in the Way—the sirdar added, “There are—theoretically—many realms beyond our own. The Abyss is like an open wound across them all.” He shuddered. “It’s a horrible place.”

  “How’s that? A wound in reality?”

  Drahar blinked. He thought that an odd question for Tharson to ask—but, again, he had little training. “And in theory—it’s a mad chasm of entropy. The Abyss is a void of sorts, yes, but it’s also a presence—a death urge capable of devouring the world if left unchecked. The triumph of chaos over order is what they tell us.” Another smirk, as he recalled several lecture-hall discussions that quickly degenerated into arguments. “Or the triumph of order over chaos, depending on who you ask.”

  “Really?” asked Tharson with a thoughtful sip from his tankard.

  “Yes.”

  “And you think that one bears its mark?” The templar pointed at Mandred, who was facing off against a half-giant.

  The roar of the crowd muted Drahar’s response, and he found himself, for the first time in his life, fascinated by what was going on in the arena.

  Having no clue as to what constituted good technique, Drahar simply watched what looked to him like incredibly graceless stumbling about. The half-giant had tufts of hair all over his body, which were only slightly more attractive than the pustules that ravaged Mandred’s flesh.

  They were circling each other at first, and then the half-giant lunged.

  He crashed right into Mandred, who barely even seemed to notice.

  Mandred just smiled and swung his fist downward onto the half-giant’s head like a hammer.

  The half-giant fell to the floor, either unconscious or dead. Drahar couldn’t really tell, and also didn’t really care.

  What fascina
ted him was that the power of the magic he sensed increased when Mandred pounded his opponent, who was carried out on a wheelbarrow. Drahar could see the half-giant’s large stomach rise and fall, so the blow wasn’t fatal.

  Three others came out to fight Mandred—a bulky elf, who’d been one of the earlier fighters; a scrawny hejkin, one of the abominations of the desert covered in boils that made him an amusing visual match for Mandred; and a fat human—and none of them lasted much longer than the half-giant had.

  He sent the elf flying into the crowd, nearly crushing two children. The hejkin, Mandred picked up and twirled over his head. He then threw the creature into the obsidian wall, and its bones made wet, cracking sounds that echoed throughout the arena. Some of his boils burst with the impact, leaving pus to ooze out onto the arena floor. Somehow Drahar couldn’t bring himself to be surprised that nobody bothered to clean it up.

  With each victory, Drahar sensed the increase in Mandred’s power.

  It was the fight against the fat human—Jago identified him as Daj Douk—that was of particular note to Drahar. For starters, it lasted the longest of the battles, which meant it could be measured in minutes rather than seconds. That was mainly due to Mandred’s blows being struck at Douk’s voluminous belly. Mandred’s fists seemed to be absorbed by the rolls of fat, while Douk just stood there and laughed it off.

  Unfortunately, Douk had two things going against him: first, that his own blows to Mandred’s body were even less effective; and second, that Mandred had the presence of mind to change his strategy and strike at Douk’s head.

  Douk was not an entire fool, however. He managed to parry the first blow to his head.

  Unfortunately, it caused one of the lesions on Mandred’s skin to burst, sending a red liquid squirting out from the broken skin.

  Drahar winced and frowned, finding the sight more than a little revolting. The simultaneous gasp from the crowd indicated a similar reaction. What surprised him was Tharson—a hardened veteran of dozens of campaigns—also pursing his lips in disgust.

  The gasps got louder when Douk started screaming as the liquid sprayed onto his face.