Kamahl turned, heading back up the corridor. "I prefer to fight to the life. Tell Phage I will meet her there."
*****
Kamahl strode through the gates of the prep pen. He entered the sandy arena and looked up at the stands, curving overhead like the inside of an egg. Spectators packed every tier and balcony, and they cheered the return of the barbarian champion. Kamahl was a living legend, a victor who gave a good show. The folk had endured countless lesser matches in anticipation of this grudge match, this blood feud. The ovation pounded him like a downpour. He made his way through the shouts to stand in the center of the pit.
Kamahl carried only his century staff and willow whip as weapons. He wore only his travel armor, with tattered wolf skin from shoulder to waist and light plate from waist to knees. His truest defense would be the place of stillness in his soul. His truest weapon would be questions for his sister: What has happened to you? Who has done this? Will you come away with me?
The crowd noise became a veritable gale.
Jeska's gate had swung open. She emerged-a coagulation of darkness. Black silk covered her from knuckles to toes. A crimson lightning bolt sketched across her belly. On some level, Kamahl knew he ought to recognize that emblem, but he did recognize her-spiked black hair standing above a pallid face.
It was Jeska.
The pit shook with the screams of the crowd. Through the deafening roar, Jeska walked, as poised as a cat.
Kamahl watched her with outward eyes. Inwardly he sought his core of calm. It had saved him from jackals in the desert and had allowed him to heal the mule. It would empower him to save his sister. He breathed from that inward place, and the breath of the perfect forest spread through him.
The start bell tolled.
The woman in black made no move. She neither lifted her hands to cast spells nor crouched in a ready stance.
Kamahl mirrored her quiet posture. He only stood, clutching the century staff. A few derisive hoots twisted down from above, but otherwise all was still.
"It is I, Kamahl. Your brother."
She hurled herself at him, hands lashing.
Without shifting his stance, Kamahl raised the staff. Grasping it in both fists, he sent the verdant power of the forest into the wood. The staff moved with the lissome grace of a dragonfly, there one moment and gone the next. Too fast to see, one end caught and bashed Jeska's first strike. The other whirled inward to strike her in the gut and shove her back.
Jeska took a great bound away. Never before had an opponent been able to avoid her attack, let alone throw her off. She landed lightly on her feet and circled like a leopard.
The two ends of the staff moldered, blackened to rot by the mere touch of her skin. Kamahl eyed the corruption. The staff's aura told him of the corruption that lay deep within her, a well of despair.
While she circled, Kamahl pivoted calmly, keeping her before him. He took another breath of the perfect air. "Jeska. Don't you know me?"
Mention of her name made her snarl. Phage vaulted across the arena, throwing sand in her wake. Where she crossed an old blotch of blood, black footprints remained. Phage leaped toward him, hands and feet foremost.
Kamahl swung the staff. It seemed as light as a reed, as quick as light. It struck her side and thrust her away.
Jeska came down in a roll. She crossed half the arena before jumping to her feet.
Jeers resonated through the pit. This wasn't blood sport. Only one combatant sought to kill. This was a boy setting his hand on his little sister's forehead while she swung at him.
Even Braids was angry, howling on the sidelines. Dark figures streamed from the dementia summoner's eyes. They crossed the sands and sank into her champion.
Kamahl ignored all the noise. While he fought his sister in this hell, his feet were grounded in paradise. "I don't want to harm you," he said soothingly. "I came to bring you back. Come with me, Sister."
She charged him. Black enchantments trailed her as she went. Her legs were fast on the sand, snapping like the blades of shears.
Kamahl drew upon the inner quiet and planted the butt of his staff.
Jeska bounded toward him.
He flung his feet into the air. Instead of hitting him, she hit the staff. Any other polearm would have snapped under the impact and rotted away a moment later, but the power of the wilderness filled the century stalk. It hurled Jeska back on her hands and haunches.
Kamahl came down beside her, staff yet in hand and robes unruffled. He extended a hand to his sister.
She panted on the ground nearby. No longer was she circling, no longer prowling. Her dark eyes fixed on him. Perhaps she would listen at last
"What happened to you? Why do you fight this way? Who did this to you?"
Each question seemed a blow to her belly, but her eyes never left her brother's. She rose slowly. Sand fell from the silks. She absently brushed the red thunderbolt on her stomach. Her muscles were calm, her pallid face impassive.
"Just answer me," he said.
Jeska took a step toward him, well within his guard.
It didn't matter. The forest had given him sufficient strength and speed to deflect any blow.
Very deliberately, Jeska took her forefinger and sketched it across the lightning bolt on her midriff. Raising her hand, she extended it toward Kamahl's stomach. With the gentlest touch, she drew her fingertip in a jag across his flesh.
A slim black line followed her touch. It clove through his skin and spread out foul tendrils. The wound opened and oozed. It ate inward with indescribable pain.
Jeska stepped back, her face still dispassionate.
Kamahl could not stand. He doubled over around the gangrenous wound. It would have killed any other man. Kamahl survived only by marshaling the woodland power within him. Still, he could only stop the advance of the corruption. He could not heal the wound.
As he fell to his knees, Kamahl understood. The jagged red line on her suit represented the unhealing wound on her belly. He had cut her there, and now she had cut him. She had answered all his questions: What happened to you? Why do you fight this way? Who did this to you?
You! You! You!
He had done this to her. He had driven her to this.
Her shadow lengthened across the sand. She approached to finish him off.
Kamahl was never sure whether it was mercy or torment that the death bell tolled for him. The match was done.
The crowd responded with cheers and jeers in equal measure, disappointed with the bland show.
Kamahl could not even look up at her. She was right. He had done this to her. He lay on his face as her shadow retreated across the bloody sand.
"I will return for you, Jeska," he vowed quietly. "I will return to save you."
CHAPTER FIVE: HER TOUCH
Phage sat in her cell, her home.
The violence of the day was gone. Only this sweet stillness remained. Her muscles ached from the bout with Kamahl, but her skin remained ever ready to corrupt. She was at her most virulent now, bare but for the black silk robe given her by the Cabal patriarch.
She could not wear most fabrics. Her skin simply rotted cotton or flax or wool. Leather putrefied instantaneously. Anything that lived or once had lived could not withstand her touch. She had to sit on iron, to sleep on stone. Of all fabrics, only silk could survive, for life had never been in it. It was comfortable and beautiful, stronger than steel but thin enough to let her deadliness sieve through.
Phage was a weapon, the First's weapon, and these silks were her sheaths.
Phage's fighting suit hung from hooks worked directly into the bars. Some prisoners killed themselves on those hooks. It was the reason they were part of every cell. A suicidal fighter made for bad shows, and occasionally for costly upsets. The First wanted only warriors with fight in them. Besides, Phage was not his prisoner.
This cell was all she could want. The cool of the cave walls salved her burning skin. The shuffling of fighters nearby provided all the ent
ertainment she needed. These bars were walls enough. Phage decorated them with her memories.
Kamahl lay on his face. His burly shoulders, which once had borne the weight of a nation, were grounded in sand. His hands clutched the suppurating black wound across his belly.
She lay facedown not in sand but gravel and gripped a red wound across her own stomach. She bled and wept into the craggy face of the Pardic Mountains. Her assailant held high his sword and shrieked in triumph.
Her brother.
The visions drained through the black bars like sewage through a grate.
Jeska clutched the wound, and the wound clutched her, and Kamahl clutched her, and the sword clutched him. He carried her across half the continent. From mountain to forest he carried her. It was his penance. Perhaps it healed him, but it did not heal her. She was dying slowly. Why had he struck her the coward's blow, in the belly? Why had he hurt but not slain? Did he hate her so much?
Betrayal. He had left her with beastmen-centaurs and mantis folk-had claimed another victim with his sword while she had died.
She had died.
Sewage down a drain.
Phage breathed deeply and watched the gray curl of her breath roll out in the black air. She was home. Silk and iron, stone and memory, she was home.
There came a glimmer of gold among the black bars. Braids was on her way. Savior, master, friend-Braids was always welcome, no more obtrusive than dream. A dementia summoner, she was half dream herself.
Braids passed along the bars. She seemed to skip, but how could a killer skip? How could she carry the tray of food? Braids always seemed that way to Phage, a stark ambivalence-two conflicting truths overlaid. Old and young. Scarred and beautiful. Evil and good. Idiotic and brilliant. Killer and savior.
Jeska lay on her belly in the forest, dying. Seton could do nothing for her. He bent above her, his simian face rumpled in concern, his fingers feeling her life flee away. Braids came skipping. Her feet poked down like knives. She did something that killed Seton and saved Jeska. Just as she died, he died. Just as her soul fled, his soul shifted into her. Braids did something that killed and saved.
The bars swung open, and Phage lay on her face on the stone.
"Oh, sweet girl," said Braids, delight in her girlish voice, "you know you don't have to bow."
"I know," Phage murmured to the stony floor, though she knew she would bow every time.
"We're girlfriends. Remember that."
Phage nodded.
"You can get up now, little sister."
Phage rose. The cold moisture of the stone floor lingered in the silk. Steam coiled up from her robe.
Braids smiled a smile that had been crooked even before knives has split it twice. She lifted a platter that held a plate of raw meat. "I brought your supper." Braids believed in raw meat for all her fighters-to whet the appetite.
Phage stared at the gleaming pile of meat and slowly shook her head.
"Don't worry," Braids said comfortingly. She lifted a complex silver utensil from beside the plate. "I've made more modifications. The retractors are wider and more curved. They'll hold your lips back while the fork slides the meat in." Braids's last design had been insufficient, and the meat had rotted before it reached her teeth. Only Phage's internal membranes did not bring putrefaction. Braids squeezed the utensil, causing the retractors to widen and the tines to plunge through. "Feel game?" She speared a bit of meat.
Phage settled resignedly into her iron seat.
Braids swooped forward, setting the platter on the floor and kneeling before her champion. Eyes sparking avidly, Braids relaxed her grip. The red gobbet withdrew between closing retractors. She set the device to Phage's lips and gently squeezed. Her lips were forced outward. The meat jabbed between her teeth. It settled, still warm, on her tongue. The fork withdrew. The retractors closed.
Braids smiled. "I think we've worked it out. No more rot."
Chewing quietly, Phage nodded.
"You fought well today, little sister," said Braids as she absently skewered another hunk of meat. She twirled it to keep a drip from falling away. "Aggressively. Like never before."
"I fought my brother-"
Braids's utensil interrupted the words, forcing Phage's lips back. "He's not your brother. He was Jeska's brother, not yours."
"Jeska is dead," answered Phage as she had been taught. Her corpse lay there amid the weeds, dead hands clutching her dead belly. She had been taught to remember standing outside her corpse and looking down at it.
"Why are you holding your stomach?" Braids asked.
Phage released her grip. "I'm not hungry-'
"It's not that," Braids said as she inserted another morsel. "Open your robe."
Phage did, revealing the jagged scar sewn closed with black stitches.
"Jeska had a wound there. A killing wound. You have a scar. It's completely different."
"I'm completely different." Phage pulled the silk back around her waist.
Braids intently watched her. One eye glowed with love, the other with hate. "You are different. Completely." She blinked, and only compassion remained. "The First has plans for you, little sister."
He stood there beneath the oil painting of himself, and Jeska was unsure which looked more alive. The First's skin was as gray and smooth as stone. He wore robes of black hide, gleaming with oil to keep them supple, and a tall black miter. Eight attendants accompanied him, wearing the Cabal's livery of hand and skull. He touched no one, for his touch could kill. Only his hand servants touched for him, and his skull servants did the bidding of his mind. She had known she would be sick in his presence, and she was, and the hand servants cleaned it up. She had not known he would invite her into his killing embrace. It stung. It blistered. It burned, but she did not die. She was different. Completely.
"He has plans for me?" Phage asked, feeling still that stunning, killing touch.
"Yes. He wants to see you."
"When?"
Braids positioned the utensil between her lips and squeezed. A too-large hunk of meat shoved between the widening retractors. Though most of it cleared her teeth, the juices that dribbled from it turned rancid on her lips. "As soon as you are done eating."
Chewing, swallowing, Phage pushed the plate away with her toe. Immediately, the meat turned gray and then mottled white and black, with maggots crawling through it. "I am done."
"You've always been different, little sister," Braids said, "since before I made you."
Phage marched across the desert, feeling the occasional goad of a stick in her side. Braids drove her like a skinner driving a mule. "You didn't make me," she said absently. Phage was elsewhere, feeling the jab of a worse goad, an iron bar tipped in jagged glass, and she fell in the arena sands beneath the gloating smile of Braids. "He made me."
Braids's face hardened. "Kamahl did not make you. He killed you."
"No, not him" Those killing arms wrapped around her. "The First made me." At last, Phage had caught Braids short, with nothing to say. "Did he think I would die when he embraced me? Was it an execution? Or did he think I would become… what I am?"
"You have always been different."
*****
Phage and Braids stood side by side in the dark antechamber. The walls were soot-black, papered in black vellum and hung with gold-gilded portraits. Fat candles on silver sticks glowed solemnly beside glass doors. The women had come straightaway. They had been waiting for more than an hour.
Phage stood unmoving in her black silk suit-tall, straight, and imperturbable. She was not confined to the present time and space but wandered the whole of her life. Whether surrounded by iron bars or silver candlesticks, she conversed with memories.
Braids was fit to be tied. Short, crooked, irate, she clutched arms across her chest to keep from cracking her knuckles. One leg jittered impatiently, and her teeth skirled slowly across each other. Still, her composure was admirable, given that her mind was turning back flips.
The glass
doors parted and swung inward. Two glaze-eyed attendants appeared in the space, stooping just slightly as they conveyed the doors to rest against the antechamber's walls. The emblem of a yellow hand showed on their chests. The First had many hands-all those in the Cabal were his hands-but these servants physically touched and grasped for him. One stood to either side, bowed, and motioned the two women into the inner sanctum.
Level-eyed, Phage strode forward.
Braids snorted and took a hitch step to catch up to her.
They passed between the attendants, who swung the doors closed behind them. Braids eyed them suspiciously. In the fall of Cabal City, the First had lost his hand servants and had lived for a time as a social amputee. Eventually, he had gained new hands, this time making sure they were hands that could kill.
The servants followed Braids and Phage into a room that was cavernous, though it felt small. Black walls, deep carpet, dark portraits like cave mouths to either side, polished mahogany tables, thick-embroidered seats, and candles that seemed to rob the room of light and warmth-all shrank the space. The presence of the man on the other side made it claustrophobic.
The First stood staring at them. His eyes were like obsidian, and his face was like limestone. He did not move beneath the portrait of himself. His black robes were utterly still. To either side stood more attendants, eyes downcast Braids clenched her fists, warring with the nauseous aura that surrounded the man. Her eyes streamed. She trembled and repeatedly swallowed. A brief lurch in her stomach ended with a gulp-Phage had felt it too the first time she had entered his presence. Not now. She was accustomed to his dread aura. Her own skin emitted it.
The First moved, spreading his arms. Two of his hand attendants stepped toward the two women, but he stopped them with a simple "no." During any other audience, the hand attendants performed every manual task for the First, but not when Phage came calling.
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