The Titan's Tome

by M. B. Schroeder

  Lanis snorted in amusement. “Fine, little messenger. Some slaves will be by shortly to take you to the arena. I’ll have your weapons ready for you there.”

  The sun was high in the sky when the two iron-collared slaves collected Kharick. He was beginning to detest that glaring ball in the sky. The southern continent rarely offered anything other than heavy heat. Clouds were a thing people came out to see, as though they were falling stars. They left through the iron gate and crossed the broad avenue to a small stone alcove, in it was a narrow set of stairs that descended beneath the street. The stench below was of sewage, but it was how a multitude of slaves scurried about the city without interfering with the traffic of their betters.

  Slaves were only allowed on the streets when their tasks required they go there. Below ground, they could avoid the heat of the day, but it also served as the sewers of the city. Pathways had been built up on either side of the channels so the slaves could walk without getting their feet covered in fetid sludge. But the channels also brought fresh water from the oasis within the palace’s walls. The fresh water was channeled into clay pipes to keep it from contamination. The sewage was sent away into the depths, where few of the slaves bothered to go, the further down those tunnels, the deeper the refuse became.

  Kharick followed the men through the dark tunnels. There was little light in them, no one carried an open flame. If a grate didn’t let in light from the street above, luminescent lichen and mushrooms offered enough to see where the edges of the pathways were. Most slaves simply kept a hand on the wall to guide them. Kharick noted that some would stop at corners, trace over the carvings, and move on.

  “What be the carvings?”

  “Directions,” answered the man in front. “Basic pictures of things in the city, the docks, arena, and palace; there are some for the streets above, where the stairs are and what have you.”

  “Only iron collars need to learn them,” said the slave behind him.

  The arena wasn’t far from Talas’s mansion, and so they were ascending another set of stairs before Kharick could ask another question. At the top of the stairs, the roar of the crowd was louder. They were in a cell-lined hall. The basic stonework and sounds were enough to tell Kharick they were under the arena. The two slaves led him to a cell where his ax and hammer waited on a wooden pallet.

  Kharick hurried past the two and picked up his weapons. They were familiar friends, and he loathed to think of giving them up again once he finished here. The two slaves closed the door and locked it.

  “Someone will get you when it’s your turn. It won’t be long.”

  He needed to find a way to escape. No place with so many slaves was so secure that a few couldn’t get away sometimes. It was the surrounding desert that was probably the true jailor. To carry out enough provisions to make it to the next oasis would be difficult. And then there was the matter of the obvious collar.

  Kharick set those thoughts aside and prepared himself mentally and physically for the coming fight. He couldn’t escape if he was slow and got killed. Lanis had mentioned it would be a new gladiator, and Kharick hoped he wouldn’t have to kill the newly enslaved person. Perhaps just knocking him to the ground or unconscious would work?

  An orc, unfamiliar to Kharick, unlocked the door and grabbed his left arm and put a manacle on it, but only on the one wrist. He pointed with his spear down the hall. If the orc knew the Merchant language, he didn’t speak it, as he directed Kharick up a series of ramps to a staging area behind a set of bars that led out to the arena. Beyond the bars, was a vast stretch of the sand covered arena. The people in the stands on the far side looked little more than colorful waving blobs. The cheers and jeers made the stones vibrate around him. The stench of blood and loosened bowels from death was heavy on the arena floor.

  Kharick cursed under his breath as he saw two awkward men hacking at each other with pitted swords. They were chained together by the left arms. He wouldn’t be able to use both hands effectively; he usually wielded his hammer in his left. That meant he either switched weapons, or he was likely going to kill the person he was paired with on his ax.

  Around the arena, another nine pairs were performing much the same. One at each section for the crowd. One of the pairs near him collapsed, the other’s arm shook as he lifted his sword in victory.

  The orc signaled for the gate to be opened and gestured for Kharick to go out. Another gladiator and an uncollared man came toward them. They were chained together with only two feet of slack, and the pimple faced youth pissed himself as their names were announced. “The Harbinger, and Frell.”

  “Ju… Just k, kill… ill me quick,” he stammered. He threw aside his spear and fell to his knees.

  The crowd around them booed.

  Kharick’s beard twitched, his heavy brows lowered, and he smashed his hammer into the side of the man’s head. He pulled the blow enough to not kill him, but he couldn’t be sure how much damage he’d done. Even as skilled as he was, hammers weren’t meant to gently knock someone unconscious. A chorus of jeers and hisses began, but the orc was already back; unchaining, then leading him away.

  ***

  “That was a piss poor fight.”

  Kharick squinted against the sun to look up at Lanis.

  “But it wasn’t your fault you were matched with a coward.” Lanis huffed and beckoned Kharick to follow him. “Talas said letting you see the giant was a cheap reward, so you get to see her.”

  Lanis led Kharick through the gate to the gardens. His thick eyebrows rose as he boggled at the garden, though he didn’t slow to admire it. When Lanis brought him around the corner, to where the stream and pond were, Madger looked up from a book in surprise. She was still chained, but the lengths were long enough that she could easily reach the large stone bench brought in for her. Her cage door was swung wide open, and the tethering chains allowed her close to twenty feet of freedom.

  “If any of the others had asked to see her privately, I would shackle them first,” Lanis said as he looked between Kharick and Madger. “You have until the servants bring the midday meal.” He left without a backward glance.

  Kharick walked to where Madger was seated. “How ya been, lassie?”

  Madger smiled at him. “Better than you it seems. The sun’s roasted your head.”

  Kharick stopped himself from running a hand over it. “You have some freedoms here?”

  Madger nodded. “I said I would serve. It gets me some magic tutelage.” Her face became grim. “I’ve been learning as fast as I can, while still making the instructors think I don’t understand. I think I’ll be able to get us out soon if they don’t hood me again.”

  “Hood you? With an icren wing hood?”

  “The bat-people?”

  “Aye. They’re naturally immune to magic. Folks use their skin, usually the wings, to make hoods to block mages from magic.” Kharick leaned closer to her. “How can ya get us out, lass?”

  “Watch,” she whispered and using a spell that Kharick couldn’t see, she broke the chains around her wrists. “It’s a variation of the levitation spell Gerran taught me. Instead of lifting something, I just have to put enough force on the chain to break it.” She shrugged, it was a little more complicated than that, she needed to make sure she wasn’t pushing against her own wrist. The spell needed to be braced, or in the case she just demonstrated, two spells needed to push against each other to push the link open.

  Kharick looked at her in surprise. “How long?”

  “A week. I think I scare the mage trainers they’ve hired. The first left when I wasn’t hooded, the second observed me and never came back. The third agreed to train me, but when I began to push for harder spells, he left as well. And I was hooded again.”

  Madger reattached the chains around her wrists with her magic. That was more difficult, to press the link back into the shape it had been and then heat it enough to melt the ends together without burning herself. The welding of the ends involved a more complex we
ave of the spell that she used to spark a fire, and she had to make sure not to let the heated metal touch her skin until it cooled. That took a spell the third instructor had shown her, a shield. No sign of damage was left on the chains.

  “Gerran had mentioned I was powerful, or would be, but I still don’t know many spells. I can work the magic without a lot of extra help from hand gestures or words to focus it. I’ve enough power that I don’t need special items to burn for it to work. The last instructor I had seemed surprised when I began to understand how to shape the magic into spells on my own, without them teaching me a specific weaving.”

  “How many teachers ya have, lass?”

  “I’m with my third one now that has actually bothered to try and train me. Talas had to send for him from outside the city.” Madger flicked a leaf into the nearby pond. “And it isn’t me trying to intimidate them, I want to learn.” She leaned closer and whispered, “I want to get us out of here. Do you think we can find the children? The other people from Pero?”

  Kharick grunted in thought and rubbed at his beard. “No, lass. If we’re to get out at all, we can’t be hunting for them. I don’t think I saw Jula or Jorn get off the ship.”

  Madger’s eyes got misty and she looked away from him.

  “You did the best ya could for ‘em, lass.”

  “I carried them to it.”

  “We both did, but we did no make slaves of ‘em. Don’t lose yourself to guilt that you should no carry.”

  Madger nodded and rubbed the tears from her cheeks roughly. She wouldn’t burden Kharick with trying to make her feel better.

  He moved the subject away from the children. “There are tunnels beneath the city. It carries the sewage out. If the sewage goes out, then we can too.”

  Madger couldn’t help the look of distaste at the thought of following the flow of refuse from a city this size, but she nodded.

  “I’ll find a way out for us,” Kharick promised. “With your magic, we can get free of here.”

  ***

  DraKar kicked at a black-robed body. “This is pointless.”

  “Better to fight the Hells here,” Armagon reminded him. He didn’t blame DraKar for his frustration.

  It was the third temple they had desecrated and slaughtered all the worshippers. There were several more they could attack, but DraKar was right, they were pointless assaults. The building they were at now could hardly be called a temple. It was a simple wooden structure, and DraKar had set it ablaze with a quick spell. There had only been fifteen people, most of them humans who had been trying to open communication with the Hells. They had little success and now were all dead for their paltry efforts.

  Armagon picked up one of the bloody corpses and tossed it into the inferno. Few had made it outside the building before being killed. The forest around the building danced with shadows from the flames, and the sound of the burning timbers was loud amongst the newly budding trees. No animals had lingered after the sound of the massacre began, and now nothing was left to witness the destruction of the temple but the brothers.

  “Four months of this and nothing to show for it,” DraKar snarled as he flung the last body into the fire. “No demons sent after us, no messages vowing revenge. The devils are laughing at us!”

  Armagon couldn’t find fault in DraKar’s summation. The archdevils that ruled each plane of the Hells had little invested in the temples. They sought souls from the Mortal plane, each one a drop of power for the archdevil, another demon to serve them. It was the same for gods, the more souls that believed in the god, the more power derived from the eternal spirits. Gods could grant some return of the power to clerics, those they deemed worthy enough to demonstrate their supremacy. The archdevils simply existed and didn’t require the belief of mortals. So they couldn’t, and wouldn’t, give similar powers in return to those mortals who worshiped them.

  “Going back will just put us within their reach,” Armagon said. He wasn’t telling DraKar anything he didn’t already know, but sometimes his brother needed a reminder when his anger took hold.

  DraKar stared into the forest, the fire painting the trees with yellow light, the heat against his wings and back a soothing sensation. Drunah deserved better recompense for her death than what he was doing. This tickling at the fringes of the Hell’s influence on the Mortal plane was trivial. They should wreak such havoc in the archdevils own realms that they would never again dare to touch what the brothers held dear.

  It was a pleasant thought, but in the end futile. There was nothing they could do to stop the archdevils from trying to control them, short of killing each of the rulers on the seven planes.

  DraKar wasn’t sure he and Armagon could do that. A minor god, they could destroy. It had been a hard and extended campaign, and long before they had regained their memories. He adjusted his grip on his sword, the dark splinter of the god’s arm bone the blade had been forged around, thrummed at the memory.

  The only thing on the Mortal plane that held any true importance to the Hells, were the permanent portals to each of the seven planes. Even though he had been the one to open those gateways, the power of the Hells now sustained them, and DraKar knew he couldn’t destroy them physically or magically. The Hells hadn’t been able to gain a permanent gateway to the Mortal plane without him, his living soul had been a conduit to the Mortal plane, and the Hells had used the connection to forge the portals with his magic.

  Only the portal in the southern continent had been able to reach the Hells before. The one that had first brought him and Armagon to the Hells.

  He had needed to burn souls for the power to craft each gateway. Such a skill was something only the archdevils known, until DraKar had been taught how to do it. The intoxicating power still called to him. He could tap into those reserves, those bottled souls he’d captured, and go to the Hells to avenge Drunah. But he knew each time he destroyed an immortal essence, no matter the purpose he put the power to, would further shackle his own soul to Asmodeus, who’d taught him the spell.

  DraKar was drawn from his thoughts as Armagon stepped up beside him. “I am not going to stop.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to, but I do have a better plan.” When DraKar turned fully to him, he continued, “There is no large contingent of demons here, the gods wouldn’t allow it. But there are dragons.”

  The plot became plain to DraKar as soon as Armagon hinted at it. “Tiamat's brood.”

  “We’ll set her and Mammon at each other’s throats. Let them do our work for us. I’ll get word to the dragons that Mammon is sending us to attack them.”

  “And we make good on that threat.”

  “And once we spark the fight from here, the First and Third planes will be at war again. Mammon won’t be able to convince Tiamat that we would go through the bother of attacking her dragons here without him ordering us.”

  DraKar nodded, it would be a good beginning for what Mammon had ordered done to Drunah.

  Chapter 14

  310 Br. summer

  “Sarpand hide is the best armor. Once cured with our special solution, the scales harden further, making them akin to any metal scale armor. It’s lighter than metal, breathable, and the color never chips like enamel.”

  -Lorck, Leader of the Black Blood tribe

  K harick watched the canyon wall to the south of Talas’s mansion become crowded with people. It was the only section of the wall he could observe. At first, he thought they were the city’s guards, but as time went on, he realized the people weren’t patrolling. He asked the other gladiators about it, but none of them knew.

  “What be that?” Kharick asked. Lanis scowled down at him, and Kharick added, “Master.”

  “Every year the Red Skulls come for a tribute. Usually, the royals give it to them and they move on. This year it seems the Red Skulls have a new leader and we have a new king. There is a disagreement.”

  “What be the Red Skulls?” Kharick quickly added, “Master.” Lanis wouldn’t give him the informa
tion he wanted if he agitated him.

  “A mercenary company, a small army really.” Lanis gave the distant figures on the canyon wall a disgusted look. “A roving band of bandits that some of the city-states idiotically hire.”

  Kharick’s beard twitched as his jaw worked. “Master, does Neosho have guards? An army to fight back?”

  Lanis gave him a curious look but answered, “The city has guards, but we’ve never had a standing army. It’s always been cheaper to pay them off than keep an army. No one is foolish enough to attack a city-state whose only real riches are her slaves and gladiators. People come here to gamble and whore.” He frowned and appeared to put together something in his mind. “Why do you care? Get back to training!”

  Kharick did as he was told. He’d asked too much, and now Lanis might think he was something more than a fighter.

  For the next week, he didn’t raise any more questions about the Red Skulls mounting the walls. Barrels were being gathered on top of the wall, but he doubted they were filled with water. The noise and feel of the city changed as the tension mounted. Even hidden behind the thick walls of Talas’s estate, Kharick could tell people were frightened. The boisterousness of the city had diminished.

  ***

  Madger startled awake when the first warning bells sounded. A burning barrel careened overhead through the night sky like a flickering star. It smashed with an eruption of fire beyond the garden. She could just pick out the blaze through the trees. More barrels were rolled off the canyon wall and into the city below. Another barrel flew, this one not going as far into the city. She caught the site of the spell that flung it before the magic released, letting the momentum carry the barrel.

  Screams rose with the glow of flames, and it became Pero all over again. Panic tightened her chest, making breathing difficult. Everywhere she went, people died. The shouts within the mansion drew her attention, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. Then the gladiators started shouting.