Tricht’tha chittered a curse in Chachik. “What? Why are we doing anything to the arena? The Pit is one of the most beloved arenas in Athas.”
“Because,” Karalith said, “we want the Pit’s owners to be out of business for two reasons. One, they kidnapped our friends.”
“And two,” Komir added, “it looks like we need to game the king once we’ve gamed the arena, and in order to do that, we need the arena to be bereft of ownership.”
Tricht’tha rubbed her arms together. “That doesn’t make sense. If something happens to the owners, the arena becomes property of the state.”
“Yes,” Feena said, “and then the state finds someone to administer it for them.”
Komir and Karalith both smiled. “That’s where we come in.”
“What does that give us?” Tricht’tha asked agitatedly.
“A place from which we can take Rol,” Komir said, rubbing his bald crown. “Right now, he’s a prisoner of the templars. There’s no way we can get him out of there-but if we can talk the king into releasing him back to the arena, and we own the arena, then we’re free to take him along with us at our leisure.”
Only then did Serthlara speak up. “There’s a problem with your plan.”
Feena already knew what it was, but Karalith and Komir looked confused. “What do you mean, Father?” the latter asked.
Staring right at her lover, Feena said, “Zabaj.”
The mul had been sitting silently during the entire exchange, staring daggers at Feena. “You did this without asking me.”
“I had no choice, Zabaj, you know that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No,” Karalith said, “she didn’t. We thought the provenance claiming ownership of Rol and Gan was sufficient, but we didn’t know that Rol had become their star attraction, or that Rol had been taken. She needed to come up with another solution fast, and offering to trade you was her best bet. Besides,” and she cast a glance at Komir, “her brother needs her.”
Zabaj ignored Karalith and continued to look at Feena. She stared right back. She couldn’t project her thoughts to Zabaj the way she could to Gan, but she was able to project her emotions onto him, and she let him know psionically just how important it was to her.
But she could also feel Zabaj’s emotions, and the mul had very strong feelings on that particular matter.
“I swore I wouldn’t fight in the arena again.”
“That’s not true.” Feena refused to turn away from her lover’s gaze-which was good, as accusing him of lying and then turning away would have been the gravest of insults. “You swore you wouldn’t be enslaved again. You won’t be a slave-at least, not really.”
“Once I’m inside, I’ll be a slave.”
“Until we rescue you,” Komir said. “Zabaj, this will work. We’ve never let you down before, have we?”
“There’s always a first time,” he muttered.
Feena walked up to Zabaj and stroked his cheek. She had yet to remove her gaze from him, nor had she ceased to project her feelings onto him. Aloud, though, she only said one word. “Please.”
They stared at each other for several seconds.
Zabaj finally looked away. “Very well. For you, my love, I will do this.”
“Thank you.”
After kissing the mul on the cheek, she turned back to the others. “I picked up from Calbit that they need more guards.”
Karalith regarded Tritcht’tha. “Time to bring Chrids’thrar out of retirement?”
“Why not?” Tricht’tha chittered. “Haven’t hunted with her in a while.”
Feena shook her head. Where the others all referred to their schemes as “the game” and “gaming” people, to the thri-kreen it was a hunt. That matched with the usual mode of thri-kreen, a predatory race for whom hunting was the primary means of survival.
But Tricht’tha had been the last survivor of her clutch, the rest having died during a particularly brutal sandstorm. Many a thri-kreen would have killed themselves, but Tricht’tha simply sought out another clutch. No other thri-kreen would have her, but she found satisfaction working with the emporium. She claimed to never be suited to the type of hunt that her own people engaged in-the impression Feena got, both from her psionic abilities and from Tricht’tha’s own conversation, was that her clutch might well have starved to death had the sandstorm not gotten them due to their mediocrity as hunters-preferring the type of challenge brought on by the game.
Karalith got up and moved toward the shelves on the left, specifically the one where the spices were kept. “Of course, Chrids’thrar goes nowhere without her flask, and this flask will be full of something special …”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At first, everything had been fine for Drahar. The soldiers brought Mandred and Douk to Destiny’s Kingdom, the king’s compound that included his palace, the King’s Academy, and more. Both prisoners were locked in one of the king’s dungeons, which both Drahar, as the king’s chamberlain, and Tharson, as the commander of the Guard, had full use of. Their task was to figure out how to exploit whatever it was that made Mandred so mighty.
Then the next morning, Drahar’s assistant, Cace, came into his office. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have some bad news.” She spoke in her usual calm tone-bringing him tea, telling him an appointment had been canceled, passing a message from his wife, passing a message from the king, telling him they were being invaded, Cace always delivered the news with the same soothing affectation.
Distractedly, Drahar asked, “What is it?” He was going over some shipping manifests that didn’t track with what was actually delivered.
“Mandred broke the dungeon door down.”
That got him to look up from the manifests. “Excuse me?”
Cace repeated: “Mandred broke the dungeon door down.”
“That would be the stone dungeon door?”
“Yes, sir.”
Drahar put his head in his hands. “Where is he now?”
“One of the psionists was able to subdue him, but he said it would only last a few hours.”
That prompted Drahar to put the manifests down and run to the dungeon.
Looking through the small window that allowed air into the cell, he saw Mandred lying on the floor.
Or at least something that resembled Mandred.
His flesh was no longer covered head to toe in pustules, but his entire epidermis was now a reddish gray color. The only exception were his shoulders, which still had the red-tinged lesions-and the flesh under them was fully red and pockmarked. His body hair had disappeared entirely, and his head and beard hair had thinned considerably.
The otherworldly magic was doing more than making him stronger.
He glanced at Cace. “Get one of the psionists over here-Frocas, maybe, or Danvier.”
“Danvier was the one who subdued him.”
Drahar nodded. That was why he kept Cace around, to remember details like that. “Fine, make it Frocas. I want a constant watch on him-control if necessary. Have Frocas go at it for eight hours. By then, Danvier should have recovered enough to take over. Mandred isn’t to make a move that isn’t controlled by a psionist, is that clear?”
Cace nodded.
The next morning, Cace ran into his office at the exact same time. “Something’s happened to Frocas.”
Again, Drahar ran down to the dungeon. There he saw Frocas lying on the stone floor, convulsing, while Danvier was on her knees, concentrating harder than Drahar had ever seen her do.
“Can … barely … hold … him.”
Drahar’s own psionic ability was nowhere as strong as that of a proper psionist, but he was able to help in some ways. Placing a hand on Danvier’s shoulder, he was able to bolster her own psionic talent with his own. His own participation was passive, but it served to strengthen Danvier’s ability to hold onto Mandred.
And then he felt it.
Let me loose, let me loose, let me loose, let me loose, let me loose, LET ME LOOSE!