Chainers Torment mgc-2

by Scott McGough

  Chainer felt the first stirrings of panic. He had been planning on a bigger advantage from the element of surprise, but he hadn't counted on having to surprise something that wasn't alive. He wasn't sure what to do next. He couldn't simultaneously spin the chain and defend himself, something Skellum had warned him about. If he abruptly stopped spinning to lash out at the Order, would they all be trapped in the black desert? Could they ever get out? Or would they just flash back to the hallway as if nothing had happened?

  Deidre sprang hissing over Chainer's shoulder before he could decide to stand or fight. She pounced on the golem, clung to its head like an insect, and began slashing and tearing at its face.

  "You gonna stand there all day, little brother," she called, "or are you going to help me? Come on, they're all lined up for us."

  Chainer watched the strange world around them flicker back into a normal hallway as he reeled in the censer. He quickly whispered the spell that separated the cage from the chain and replaced the censer with a rounded weight. He then gathered the chain up in both hands and whipped the weighted end into the golem's kneecap. The limestone man's leg cracked, but held together. The golem himself didn't even notice.

  The soldiers started to spread out from behind the golem.

  Deidre's simian partner charged into them before they could separate and clumsily bore two of them to the ground. The officer still stood, however, and he looked first at Deidre attacking the golem, then back at the tangled knot of simian and soldier. He nodded, then prepared to drive the point of his glowing sword deep into the simian's back.

  Deidre wasn't faring much better. For all her effort, she was merely chipping away at the golem, doing cosmetic damage to its limestone head and throat. There were almost as many metallic shards of her fingernails as there were of the golem's face, however.

  Chainer's fighting instincts were coming back to him. The dementia trap hadn't worked, but he had spent two years in the pits before Skellum pulled him out, and to survive in the pits you strategized fast and acted faster. He sent the end of his chain smashing into the officer's hand. The officer squawked and dropped his blade, which stopped glowing as soon as it hit the floor.

  "Deidre," Chainer hollered, "get off him, you're not hurting him!" The simian cracked one of his opponent's arms at the elbow and then shoved the screaming man over the officer, who had bent down to retrieve his sword.

  Deidre had dropped off the golem and was now trading blows with it. Rather, she was striking off tiny chips from its chest and arms and in return, it was missing her entirely. She bobbed and weaved like the veteran fighter she was, avoiding each of its slow, heavy blows.

  "If I keep cracking you," she said through clenched razor teeth, "eventually you'll break." Deidre was dancing around so much that Chainer couldn't predict where she would be next, so he couldn't strike at the golem.

  The simian was doing better. He had the unwounded foot soldier in a headlock on one side and the officer's sword arm in a death grip on the other. The simian hooted, amused.

  Deidre turned a forward roll into a two-handed strike that landed square in the center of the limestone golem's chest. Her long nails dug in deep. For the briefest moment, she was held fast as she tried to reverse her momentum and pull herself free. In that moment, the golem brought his huge hands together in a wide, arcing clap with Deidre's broad shoulders in between. A sickening crunch followed.

  "Deidre!" Chainer said. "No!" The simian echoed Chainer's howl, shoved the officer back, and angrily snapped the headlocked foot soldier's neck.

  The golem let Deidre fall. The officer sprang forward and ran the simian through with his good hand before the Cabalist could get clear of the soldier he had just killed. The simian dropped, choking and grunting and clutching at its wounded chest.

  The golem began to shuffle toward Chainer, and the officer fell in step beside it. His sword and the golem's hands were bloody. In the last few wisps of Dragon's Blood smoke, Chainer faced them alone.

  "Surrender, filth," the officer said. He held the hand Chainer had smashed at his side, but he seemed just as comfortable with the sword in his other hand.

  "You're robbing us, and we're filth?" Chainer knew he had to stop the golem first. It was too tough for his chain or his dagger. He needed something better, something more dangerous-something drastic.

  "Give it up, officer," he called. He feinted at the man's face with the weighted end of the chain, flicking it back and forth to keep him at bay.

  The golem was getting closer as the officer stayed back. Chainer kept up the pretense that he was focusing on the human officer and letting the limestone golem get close enough to grab him.

  Two more steps to go. Chainer reached out for the Mirari, fifty feet and a thick metal door away. This close to it, he could hear its call and feel its power responding to him. It knew him. It was waiting for him.

  One more step. Chainer moved slightly to his left. The golem was between himself and the officer.

  "Kill him," the officer said.

  Now.

  Skellum had not been Chainer's first master. A Cabalist warrior named Minat lost most of his sight in the pit near Chainer's village in the salt flats. Chainer was alone, and Minat was bored. He showed Chainer the basics of pit fighting, gave him an unusual weapon to master, and amazed him with tales of the Cabal's power and influence.

  He also taught Chainer the death bloom spell. "As a last resort," he had told Chainer, "to be used only when it was absolutely necessary." Minat was long dead, but Chainer remembered him well. And there had never been a more necessary occasion for the death bloom.

  The golem reached out for Chainer's arm. Chainer crouched, pushed both arms out straight, and cocked his wrists back as far as they would go. With the Mirari behind him and the dark rage of Deidre's death still hot in his chest, Chainer spoke the words. He had never tried the death bloom on an artificial creature before, but it was his only hope.

  A beam of black energy exploded out of Chainer's hands and slammed into the golem's chest. The cracked limestone seemed to soak up the energy, drawing it in like a sponge draws water. Chainer maintained his stance and his focus, pouring more power into the spell. The golem's innards went black, and it started to shudder.

  With a roar, Chainer stepped forward and shoved the beam further into the golem's chest. The agonizing screech of ripping stone echoed down the hallway, and the golem exploded.

  Driven by the unrelenting power from Chainer's hands, the shards of limestone rocketed backward, away from the vault. At least a dozen embedded themselves in the officer's body like shaft-less arrows. The officer staggered and fell backward. The energy from Chainer's hands withered, and he fell to his knees, blood streaming from his nose and ears.

  Chainer shook his head to clear it, wiped the blood from his nose, and stood. He could see that the simian had stopped breathing. One of the Order soldiers was dead and another unconscious with his elbow twisted completely in the wrong direction. The officer was moaning as he lay bleeding. Chainer painfully shuffled over to Deidre.

  She was mortally wounded, broken beyond repair. Her arms looked like bags of shattered bone, and she coughed blood. Her legs and her face were undamaged, however, and Chainer watched sadly as all three of her eyes rolled back and forth in her head.

  "Don't you dare," Deidre rasped. Dazed, numb, and mute, Chainer stepped forward.

  "Don't… waste," Deidre managed. She choked and coughed before continuing. "Don't waste… us." She tried to gesture with her mangled arm and then screamed in pain.

  "Don't waste us," she said again. Her eyes were wild, unfocused. She smiled one last time.

  Chainer understood. "I won't, big sister."

  "Don't…"

  Chainer waited for a few silent seconds and then closed Deidre's eyes.

  "The Cabal is here," he whispered, and the jolt sent him sprawling backward. Deidre had been so very much alive that converting her savage life into death almost finished Chainer off as
well.

  He felt better as he picked himself up. Chainer caught his reflection in a mirrored hallway decoration. His tightly rolled braids were all undone and askew. His face was a smear of blood. His eyes were two black holes that glowed with an un-light very similar to the Mirari's.

  He glanced at the remaining bodies, and then walked past them to where the officer lay. He, too, was very near the end.

  "For Kirtar," he said. "For the Order." Then he died.

  "For the First," Chainer's voice was a bitter snarl. "For Deidre. For the Cabal."

  Chainer got out the censer and started another disc of incense burning. He left the cage at the mouth of the vault hallway so that the smoke would obscure the entrance. Then he went back and finished what he had promised to Deidre.

  *****

  Skellum and the First watched the scrying pool. Chainer's smoke did not affect the spell that powered the pool, and his Cabal masters could see him clearly. "You have trained him well, Skellum." "I didn't teach him that, Pater," Skellum said. "It's bad enough that he abandoned the assignment you gave him, but-"

  "I have nothing but praise for your student's behavior. He showed initiative. He stood by his family and protected our property."

  "But the Order… the tournament. We were going to give the Mirari away as a trophy. Why should he kill to protect it?"

  "Because it is my will," the First said. "And you, his master, doubted his abilities. Look at him now."

  Skellum was careful to keep his face neutral as he watched. Chainer was moving from body to body, standing over them, absorbing what he could of their dying energy. With each absorption, the black glow from his eyes grew stronger, and the more exaggerated and stylized his movements became.

  "He continues to impress," the First said. "He does everything properly and with enthusiasm."

  "He's a ghoul, Pater," Skellum said. "I know you think me overcautious, but what he's doing is exactly wrong for a dementist at his level."

  "Wrong?" the First asked witheringly. Skellum bowed his head.

  "Forgive me, Pater. You are wise and I see little. But I must-"

  "You must be silent," the First said. He sat watching Chainer for a few seconds. The youth was casting several chains at once, creating them out of thin air with the dying energies he had just absorbed. He used them to sound the edges of the space he was in, striking sparks off the stone walls and then drawing the chains back into his body. "How like a spider he is," the First muttered, "or a snake with a dozen flickering tongues."

  Skellum stood in silence. The figure of Chainer turned on some silent enemy, opened his mouth wide, and sent a barrage of chains lashing out from his fingers. He jerked the chains back and crossed his arms in satisfaction. Whomever or whatever he had been striking at had beat a hasty retreat.

  The First stood, and Skellum smoothly backpedaled to get out of his way. "When your student has bled off some of that energy he's holding onto," the First said, "I want you to collect him and take him home. By this time next week, I want him ready for the pits."'

  "In his mind, Pater, he's already there." Skellum kept his head bowed, anticipating a rebuke. But the First merely gestured, and one of his hand attendants stepped forward and put a comforting arm on Skellum's shoulder.

  "Your concerns have been noted. But you should be proud of what you have accomplished for the Cabal. And of what your student will yet accomplish."

  "I am proud, Pater, but I am also afraid."

  The First stared down at Skellum through his milky eyes. The barest hint of a smile played with the corners of his mouth.

  "Then you are no different from any other father. Come. I suspect the large dragon has been subdued by now, and I've yet to hear the final result of the tournament.

  "And then," he added, "we have to make sure the Mirari falls into the most deserving hands we can find."

  Both men fell silent as they continued to watch Chainer's lethal dance in the scrying pool, but only the First was smiling. Skellum's eyes were far away and his face slack, as if he were staring at something enormous that only he could see.

  CHAPTER 10

  The empress's mirror had been silent for weeks, and Veza had quickly become desperate for anything of substance to report. Obtaining information from or about Laquatus was not a problem. He frequently called to flirt and chatter about Cabal doings. Obtaining useful information from or about Laquatus was another matter. Veza had exhausted her private library and her admittedly sparse network of contacts, and had even paid passing sailors and local hoodlums for any gossip or rumors about the ambassador. So far, the ambassador remained a cipher.

  There were those who claimed Laquatus was a staunch supporter of the emperor, but there were an equal number who claimed he was firmly but secretly in Llawan's camp. The most prevalent opinion was that he was simply following the tide, which currently favored Aboshan. It was rumored that he had vast mental powers, and could rewrite your memories as easily as he could sign his own name. Veza heard tales of the awesome creatures he had enslaved with the power of his mind and the darkest of spells, of the pirates he had betrayed and the rivals he'd had purged. None of it was reliable or novel enough to report to Llawan.

  To avoid submitting another rehash of conflicting hearsay about Laquatus, Veza had at last resorted to magic. She was not an expert in any one particular discipline, but she did have a solid command of water- to-air breathing incantations and other basic seagoing survival spells. She was extremely adept at research, however, and she soon discovered a spell that could help her. It was a knowledge immersion ritual practiced by some of the more contemplative cephalids in the empire.

  It was designed to expand one's capacity to process information. Properly prepared and cast, the spell allowed scholars to read and retain a library full of scrolls in the time it took a hot bath to cool. In a sense, you gathered your data and poured it into a small body of water. Then you climbed in to soak up that data with every pore.

  Veza had made all the preparations and readied herself to carry them out. If it worked, she'd have something of value to share with the empress. If not, she had lost nothing but some time.

  She choked down a vial of the briny potion and grimaced. She scattered a mixture of herblike seaweed, powdered pearl, and dried fish entrails over the surface of her sleeping tub, then pronounced the words to the immersion spell. She blew on the carved driftwood effigy of Laquatus in her palm, then lowered herself into the churning, bubbling water. As her eyes sank beneath the surface, she experienced the flash and crack of lightning in her mind, and her body went rigid as steel.

  She saw Laquatus in a giant Cabal arena, watching a huge frog fight. She heard the frog's bellowing roar, which nearly drowned out the continuous internal whine of the predator's natural bloodlust.

  Veza trembled in the churning bath, her eyes sightless, her mouth voiceless.

  She saw the frog look at Laquatus, with the merman reflected in the beast's great eye. She saw Laquatus look at the frog, with the amphibian captured in Laquatus's stem glare.

  Another jolt of electricity slammed through Veza, and her paralysis broke. Still blind and mute she began to thrash, splashing even more water out of the tub. She was aware of her legs merging and melting together to form a tail, and the pain was as excruciating as ever. Her jaw locked, as it always did during these transformations, with her sharp teeth piercing her lower lip.

  She heard the frog's booming vocalization from Laquatus's point of view. She heard Laquatus's voice in the frog's head, issuing constant orders and demands for obedience.

  Veza found her voice and screamed just as a massive explosion of water and spray cast her completely out of the tub. Heavy, tailed, and clumsy on the wooden floor, she clawed painfully at the boards and then raised her torso with her arms. She heaved for breath and started to choke. During the shock- transformation, she had inadvertently gone into her true deep-sea form. She couldn't breathe because her lungs were empty and flattened inside her chest. Wit
h a powerful flip of her tail, she rolled herself to the edge waters that lapped at her living room and dumped herself into the bay. Clear, cold sea water flowed over her gills, and she quickly began to regain her equilibrium. In the water, she was no longer clumsy and her increased body weight was supported by its own buoyancy. Exultant, she thrashed her tail again and shot out under the walls of her cottage, out toward the open sea.

  Veza had the answer. She had seen something that would at last give Llawan direct access to Laquatus's schemes. Something to justify the imperial trust that had been placed in her.

  Laquatus controlled the frog. The frog obeyed Laquatus. There was a permanent, almost palpable link between them both, mind and body. And while Laquatus's mind was too well guarded to invade, and the frog's was too primitive to understand, the link between them was neither. To a practiced psychic, reading that link would be as simple as eavesdropping on a conversation between intimates.

  Laquatus's reliance on agents had just given them an opportunity to determine his loyalties once and for all. It wasn't much, Veza thought, but it was potentially the first drop in a deluge. She turned in mid-stroke, pleased at her grace underwater after so much time on land, and then she shot back toward her cottage and the empress's mirror.

  *****

  "And you are certain this will work?"

  "Yes, my empress," Veza said. She was still in her tailed form, but she had reopened her airways in order to speak. It had been difficult retrieving the mirror without switching back to her legged form, but she had managed it. Now she floated comfortably in the bay, perched on the edge of her cottage floor while she spoke into the mirror.

  "And Laquatus will not know we are monitoring him?"

  "Not if your psychics are careful, Empress."

  Llawan paused. "Are you psychic, Director Veza?"

  "No, Empress. I merely observed the existence of the link. I didn't attempt to examine it. To get the kind of information I think we can, we will need to employ an expert."