"I'll strike first," Ixidor said.

"No, together."

"You've already saved my life," Ixidor insisted. "Let me repay my debt."

Without waiting for her response, he lunged, swinging the pike as if it were a long axe. The head surged down toward Phage with speed enough to split her from skull to navel.

The crowd's cheers dropped to a communal gasp.

With both hands on the haft, Ixidor muscled the blade down toward Phage's brow.

Phage caught the blow in one slender hand. Her grip was implacable. She yanked, as she had done to the other pikemen just before ripping away their arms.

Unlike the pikemen, Ixidor released his hold.

Phage pulled the weapon away, quickly reversed it, and hurled it at Ixidor.

Futilely, he flung himself backward.

Once again, Nivea saved him, her pike intercepting Phage's in midair.

Ixidor crashed to his back on the sand.

The strike cost Nivea everything. While her weapon tangled with the other pike, her back was toward Phage. The silk-garbed woman stepped up behind her and wrapped her in a strange embrace-a killing embrace. From arms, hands, hips, and legs, rot spread onto Nivea's body. It was not mere gangrene but a living virulence that voraciously ate flesh. Gray skin and muscle sloughed from bone, which in turn went to ash.

Nivea flashed one final, desperate look to Ixidor. "Remember me!"

"Nivea!"

Her face rotted away. Her eyes dissolved to nothing. In mere moments, the rot had swept through her hair and down to her toes.

She was gone, utterly gone.

Ixidor meant to fight. He flipped over to rise, to charge, to kill, but his legs wouldn't move. It wasn't cowardice that made him weak. He wished nothing more than to kill or die. It was horror.

One moment, Nivea was there. The next, she was gone. It was as though the world had disappeared beneath Ixidor's feet.

The death bell tolled once. Once for Nivea. An amazed hush filled the stands. Half of the undefeated pair was dead, and the other half was down before the novice.

Clutching the sand, Ixidor raised an animal shriek and struggled to rise, at least to get off his groveling belly. He lurched to his side, to his back, not wanting to grant Phage the victory The death bell tolled again, now for Ixidor. He was too late.

The crowd surged to its feet, a thousand fists in the air. The bellow of triumph filled every mouth.

The roar struck Ixidor and curled him like a pill bug. He crouched at last in true surrender.

Nivea was gone. His world was gone.

Carrion vermin swarmed out across the arena. Barbed legs flung sand as they went. They tore into the pile of dismembered warriors.

The bristly beasts swarmed past Ixidor. Some took experimental nips from him but found that blood still ran beneath his skin. He didn't care.

A dementia summoner bounded from a prep pen, her braids flying gladly in the air. She came up beside Phage and bowed deeply to the crowd. A voice above, magically amplified, announced the winner-"Phage, champion of the Cabal by trainer Braids."

Again came that crushing shout. Ixidor crouched beneath it like a man trapped in pelting hail. Everything ceased to exist. Only numbness remained.

They had moved him out of the pit, they must have, but Ixidor could not remember it. He seemed forever to have lain here on the floor of his apartment.

Legs moved past-human legs, booted. Cabal officers ransacked the place. His disks lay in disarray. In one corner, counterfeit coins made a gleaming pile. Ixidor's clothes had been ripped down from hooks and tossed to the floor or seized for payment. Nivea's jewelry "No!" Ixidor screamed and lurched up. He got his feet beneath him and glimpsed the gold and jewels. A meaty hand slammed the case closed, and another crashed down on his head.

Again he crouched on his belly in the posture of surrender. This time, though, he was bound hand and foot and gagged and strapped to poles that dragged through sand. Grit covered his skin and scratched his eyes. Squinting against the glare, he saw two giant lizards ahead of him. They lumbered across the hot sand. Harnesses on their backs creaked as they dragged the travois forward. A couple Cabal stewards walked to either side of the beasts, applying sticks to their necks.

Ixidor tried to croak, "Where am I?" but the gag allowed only a moan.

One burly steward glanced back with annoyance and began upbraiding his comrade. An argument ensued, ending only when the other steward retreated, drew a knife, and cut the leather thongs across the travois.

Ixidor tumbled off, hands and feet tied, gag firmly in place. The sand was hot. It burned his face as he flopped against it.

Ahead, the lizards kept up their slogging pace. They dragged the travois away across the dunes.

Ixidor chewed viciously at the gag. His teeth ground together. At last, he bit through and spit out the sodden rag.

"Where am I?" he shouted.

The stewards and their giant lizards were gone.

Ixidor gulped a deep breath. "Nowhere."

CHAPTER FOUR: SIBLING RIVALRY

Once in a previous life, Kamahl had approached Cabal City. It had been the glorious capital of pit fighting, and he had been a barbarian spoiling for a fight. Now Cabal City and Kamahl the Barbarian both were gone.

A new Kamahl approached a new Cabal city: Aphetto. The settlement inhabited a deep, wet canyon carved by a winding river. The waterway was no longer even visible, trickling through black depths two thousand feet below the cliff where Kamahl walked. He made his way along one of many overhangs. Stone shelves jutted above the snaking heart of the canyon. Mists from below draped each level in gray curtains of moss.

Kamahl strode toward the city's main gate, atop the cliff. From it stretched a number of suspension bridges. One led to the upper plateaus at the center of the valley, where royal estates perched. These lofty aeries were joined to each other by rope footpaths, looking like cobwebs. Another bridge led to the wide lower plateaus with their marketplaces and guilds: the city proper. There, all of Aphetto's conventional trades had their homes. A third bridge led in switchback steps to the fighting pits: the city improper. Kamahl would head down that path.

His sister was there, in the pits of Aphetto.

All during his march across the desert, he had known where Jeska was. The forest's power, its stillness, dwelt within him. In his hand, the century stalk became a divining rod. He need merely sweep the staff through the arcs of the compass, and it dragged him toward Jeska. Even now, the staff trembled toward the cliff's edge and eagerly pounded the ground. Jeska was below.

"Patience," he told the staff. It was a word unknown to him before that morning at the tumulus. Its meaning had only deepened during his long trek across the desert.

Ahead, the gates of Aphetto towered atop the cliff. Horns jutted from the archway, and spikes lined both portcullises below. A full garrison of soldiers manned it. Along the main road stretched a line of folk seeking entry.

Kamahl got in line with the others. He did not wear his armor, nor did he carry his sword. Even his wolfskin cloak was in tatters. Still, with tawny skin and massive physique, his profession seemed clear.

"Another jack," muttered an elderly woman to her mule. They seemed long-time companions. Their hair was the same gray-brown, bristly and bunched, and their shoulders had a similar stoop. They snorted simultaneously.

Kamahl did not respond to them, though his staff pounded impatiently on the ground.