CHAPTER TWENTY: WHO'S WHO

Braids loved her job. It was like playing with toys.

Across the wetlands poled festival barges, their particolored flags snapping in the wind. A few had reached shore and offloaded their patrons onto fringe-covered palanquins. They stood on a path that led up the escarpment to brightly painted caravans. All were toys. So too were the slaves who bore them forward and the rich folk who rode within. Fun, fanciful, expendable toys.

"Welcome, all," Braids shouted to them from atop the Corian Escarpment. "Journey from the wonders of the wetlands to the delights of the desert. You've seen crocodiles and piranhas, now prepare for jackals and buzzards. Beyond lie unimaginable nightmares!"

Barge crews served drinks and shrimp pastries while litter bearers struggled to keep palanquins upright on the switchback path. Before the waiting caravans, escorts danced, promising to help weary patrons "settle in." AH of it delighted Braids. She loved to listen to the rich folk complain, sheep bleating among dogs. How they would bleat when only wolves remained!

"Avail yourselves of every amenity! Where else can you lie at ease, alone or in company, and watch warriors fight and die? Who else can lounge like a god and witness mortal wars? Feast upon red meat and blood wine, upon sweetbreads and marrow! The finest beasts have been slain for your bellies, and the finest warriors will be slain for your eyes."

Braids glanced out toward the army. It rode on grim barges and marched on dusty feet and bore blades instead of flags. How dull-until the killing started, of course. But all this travel… well, it would have been just plain dull if not for the entertainments. It was Braids's job to make the trip fun, and she was very good at her job.

A couple of slaves caused trouble below. Not really. All they did was struggle under a weighty dowager as they climbed the hills. Their motion, though, drew Braids's eye, and she could use them. It was time for a little show starring those fun, fanciful, expendable toys.

"Watch this now, folks!" she shouted as she leaped down the escarpment toward the troublesome slaves. "Where else do you get to witness a summary execution?" Even as she said the words, her mouth was beginning to distend. Something was forcing its way out, being birthed from her teeth, something that would eat the slaves alive. As she vaulted down, Braids smiled, and the thing came into being.

Braids loved her job.

Side by side, Kamahl and Phage rode across the wasteland. They were not brother and sister, not even comrades, but only commanders. To one side, General Stonebrow stomped stolidly, and to the other, Zagorka rode aback Chester. The allied army, twelve thousand strong, followed.

The commanders straddled a pair of gigantic serpents. Kamahl rode Roth, whose rubious scales had been scratched to a dull gray by ever-present sand. Phage's beast had no such difficulty. Its belly had long since worn away, and it wriggled along on rib tips like the white legs of an enormous millipede. Only an undead beast could bear Phage's corrupting touch.

"We'll destroy Akroma," Kamahl blurted, his thoughts suddenly spilling forth, "and the external threat to you will be gone. Then we'll deal with the internal threat."

Phage did not look at him. She only stared toward the gray hills on the extreme horizon. "What internal threat?"

Kamahl barked a laugh and threw her an incredulous grin. When he saw the flat line of her mouth, he grew serious. "This… infection, for lack of a better word. The poison in you that bleeds out of your skin. If it can kill anyone you touch, imagine what it is doing to your insides "The poison is my insides," she growled. "There's nothing but poison."

"I don't believe that-'

"Obviously." At last, she turned to look at him. "Your sister is gone, Kamahl. I am the wolf who ate her."

He fixed her with a level stare. "If you ate her, she is inside you."

Phage's face was dispassionate. "I bit through her neck, crunched her skull, chewed her flesh, and worried her bones. My teeth murdered her, my gullet swallowed her, my gut digested her. She's gone. You look at me and see her, but you don't know who I am."

Turning his face back toward the trackless waste, Kamahl said, "We shall see."

Shaking her head, Phage said, 'Tor all your transformations, you're still the same smug bastard."

Kamahl laughed again. "You see? I knew my sister was alive in you."

That ended the exchange. They were utter opposites, bound together only by a wager. Even so, when Phage's hate grew too strong or Kamahl's love grew too deep, they seemed somehow to feel the same thing.

In silence, they rode. Behind them marched a strange menagerie. Zombies shuffled mindlessly beside ranks of elf infantry. Goblins dodged among fiery tumbleweeds. Gigantipithicus apes knuckle-walked amid dryads. Shorn rhinos, giant squirrels, dementia horrors, great cats, doughty dwarfs, and enormous serpents all made their way toward a distant foe.

Strangest of all, though, were the fat merchants and indolent princes who rode in the sightseeing caravan nearby. Their feet were brushed with water and their lips with wine.

Soon the armies would be killing and the spectators applauding.

"Beware!" Stonebrow barked. "Something comes."

A light appeared above the gray rill on the horizon. It seemed a star, but no star could outshine that desert sky. It came toward them, not moving, but only growing larger and more intense.

"Full halt!" Kamahl called, lifting his hand to stop the army.

Something was wrong with that blazing figure. It was lopsided. Its radiance beamed to the right but not to the left. As it neared, the reason was clear. It was a man, with one arm sticking out and the other missing entirely. The man's eyes shone like mirrors, and his hair stood in flames from his head. He jutted his jaw toward Phage.

Out of the corner of his mouth, Kamahl asked, "A friend of yours?"

"I don't know his name," Phage replied flatly, "but I know who he was. He was the partner of a woman I killed, a woman who looked like Akroma."

The glowing man arrived. He hovered above that great company, casting their twisted shadows across the sands. Hundreds of glowing motes spun in a nimbus around him. Orbs occasionally peeled from the cyclone of energy and circled Phage and Kamahl.

The man in their midst said simply, 'Turn back. Enter here and you will die."

Ignoring the motes that probed his armor, Kamahl sat up straight aback the great red wurm. "We wish you no harm. We seek only Akroma, the vengeful angel."

The man's face pivoted toward Kamahl, and his fiery eyes were terrible to behold. "If you wish her harm, you wish me harm."

"Who are you?" Kamahl asked.

"I am Ixidor. This is my land. You are not welcome here."

One of the motes struck Kamahl between the eyes. A spark flashed through his mind. Kamahl tried to shake away the sensation. "What connection have you to Akroma Anathema?" As he spoke, the spark tumbled away between his lips.

"I created her," said the floating man, and he swung his arm to point at Phage. "I created her to destroy this one."

Growling, Kamahl reached to his belt and drew the axe that glinted eagerly there. He lifted it and said in a low voice, "If you made Akroma, you can unmake her. Do so, and we will turn back this army. Your land and you will be spared."

"I cannot," said Ixidor, a spark striking him in the forehead.

Kamahl's brows knitted. "You would sacrifice your land and all your people to protect one monstrous creature?"

"I am my land," Ixidor said placidly. "I am my people. I am every monstrous creature. Yes, I would sacrifice all of these for Akroma. You and I are the same, Kamahl. You cling to this thing that is not your sister in hopes of having her back. I cling to a thing that isn't my beloved for the same reason."