As more barges bumped ashore, Phage strode up the muddy swale. Behind her, grass curled and dissolved.

Ahead lay long gray logs. One shifted, eyes rolling open and gazing gravely at her. Crocodiles-a dozen of them.

She did not slow her pace.

With a series of snorts, the crocodiles shifted. Sinking their claws into mud, the beasts dragged scaly bellies across the grass. Most of the reptiles scuttled toward the water. One snapper, though, larger and meaner, stood its ground. It raised itself on lizard legs and lifted a head full of wicked teeth. It lay directly in Phage's path, between barge and village.

Phage strode on.

The crocodile took a step back. It snapped massive jaws.

Phage walked on as if to climb down its throat.

The crocodile obliged, opening wide.

Phage stomped down on its lower jaw and drove her knee into its pallet. The beast bit, four teeth piercing her thigh just above the knee. Flesh tore loose and fell away, but not Phage's flesh.

The reptile's pallet had rotted to bone. Its gums blackened and dissolved, and its teeth dropped from their sockets. The crocodile tried to bite, but the jaw muscles were gone. It flapped in agony. The line of rot moved up the creature's head and consumed its vitals.

Phage kicked with her free leg, shattering the jawbones. She pulled free and plucked the teeth from her thigh. They were as brittle as chalk. Casting them aside, she stepped onto the convulsing back of the creature. Darkness spread in rings from her feet, and the little life that remained in the corpse quivered to nothing.

Phage climbed, her first few steps trembling from the tooth wounds, but they quickly closed and healed. She advanced on the village.

Behind its stockade, warriors gathered. They had seen what she did to the crocodile. They saw too the hundreds of barges converging, the work crews offloading, and the black-armored Cabal enforcers that followed Phage. There was no mistaking the intent of these arrivals.

Phage halted a stone's throw from the gates. In her slim black bodysuit, she was only one quarter the size of the brutes that sidled up behind her. They wore dark suits under dark capes, with hoods pulled up over jutting brows. Though no weapons showed in their meaty hands, these were warriors.

The villagers did not look at the thugs but only at Phage.

She called to them. "In the name of the patriarch of the Cabal, I command all who dwell within this village to come forth."

They did not. They mattered behind their stockade of twisted boughs.

Quietly, Phage said, "How many of you drink?"

It took a moment for the Cabal enforcers to answer. One coughed into his hand. "Never on duty, ma'am."

"How many of you have a flask?" she pressed, adding, "Don't lie."

"All of us, ma'am. Standard issue. We've got to study up for barrel raids." The whole time he spoke, the man kept his eyes on the stockade ahead. "You want a drink?"

"It has to be more than whiskey. A hundred proof or above."

The thug smiled. "I've got a hundred fifty-one proof. Karl has his own brew, near two hundred. The other two, I don't know."

One of the others offered, "It'll put hair on your chest." He reached into his waistcoat. As if by habit, he drew out a hand crossbow, loaded and cocked. Returning it to its holster, he produced a large glass flask, three-quarters full of a clear liquid.

"It's not for putting hair on my chest," replied Phage, "but for burning hair off others'." She took the flask and uncorked it.

Ripping the cuff from one of her sleeves, she stuffed it down, wicklike, through the mouth of the flask. "The rest of you, pull out yours too. Get them ready."

They did, some producing multiple flasks.

All the while, the villagers watched. At last, they answered Phage's summons. "What happens to us if we come out?"

Phage hefted the incendiary in her hand. "If you come out now, you will live to join this building effort."

"What building effort?"

"Your village stands on the site of the new coliseum, which will be the new center of the world. You may join us in building the coliseum, or you may join the foundation stones of the coliseum."

Silence answered at first. Then came a voice of outrage. "You want us to leave our village to be destroyed by you, and become your slaves and build your coliseum?"

"Or die," said Phage. 'That is the other option."

Voices debated beyond the stockade.

Phage said to the thugs. "Do any of you smoke?"

While the brutes searched their coat pockets, the village speaker called out. "Our families have lived on this island for two centuries. Not even monsters could drive us-"

With a powerful overhand swing, Phage hurled a flaming flask over the gates. It came down perfectly, smashing atop the ridgepole of the largest shack. Glass sprayed out, and alcohol with it, and fire thereafter. Thatch and twig and timber burst to sudden flame. It was as if a fireball had smashed into the building and tore the heart of it out.

The village speaker yammered, but no one listened.

Ten more burning flasks vaulted up through the skies, striking hovels and walls, towers, and even the gates themselves. All burst into flame. The dry wood gave itself eagerly to oblivion. Fire burned white-hot and smokeless. Heat dragged in swamp gasses that fueled the blaze, turning the flames blue. In a moment, the village was an oven. No one could survived that inferno.

The fiery gates opened, and figures ran out. They did not run as if to attack but staggered, burned and blinded. Some were on fire. All screamed and clutched their faces.

Phage strode toward them. She had given them an ultimatum, and an ultimatum had to be ultimate.

In wide-open arms, she caught a staggering young man. He came to pieces in her grip. An old woman nearby struggled with her burning dress. Phage wrapped her in killing arms, extinguishing the soul within. The next man burned too much to be embraced. Phage merely tripped him. While he rolled to put out the flames, he dissolved from the foot upward.

Male and female, old and young, screaming and silent, they died in her arms. While fire turned the village to ash, Phage did the same to the villagers.

The Cabal thugs stood and watched their mistress work.

In less than an hour, nothing remained-no hovels, no walls, no villagers. The spot was virginal, ready for exploitation.

Phage walked back toward the enforcers. She didn't pause as she passed them, expecting them to turn and follow. They did.

'Tell the survey crews to plot the site. Tell everyone else to make camp. Tonight, we sleep beside the new center of the world."

While her workers labored, Phage sat upon an iron throne. She could not sit in camp chairs, nor could she reside in a tent of canvas and wood. The masons and mages had fashioned her a stone house. It stood on high ground along the natural path toward the northern peninsula. With pillars of limestone, slab roofs, and even rock doors, the house was cold, powerful, and forbidding. It suited her.

Phage sat on a stone portico and took her breakfast. She watched slaves and taskmasters march in gangs from the tent city to the work site. None came near. She had forbidden her underlings from approaching while she ate, for the retractor fork distorted her face gruesomely.

Again she lifted the device to her lips and squeezed. Metal curves forced her lips back, and the fork jutted a warm gobbet between her teeth. Gingerly, Phage bit down. One tine dragged briefly across her lower lip, and the juice on the implement immediately went rancid, emitting a nauseous vapor. Phage flicked the device and dipped it into a cup of alcohol on her tray. Lifting the sterile thing, she speared more meat.