Kamahl seemed angry, too, angrier than Chainer could remember. Most things that made Kamahl angry didn't last long enough to make him really angry, but the megolith seemed to have driven him over the edge. With flames shooting from his hands, he grabbed one of the foot soldiers by the throat and lifted him off the ground. The man's flesh sizzled and popped until Kamahl threw him into his fellow trooper, tangling both men into a painful, confused heap. The crowd oohed. Then Kamahl leaped onto the megolith and wrapped his huge hands around the thing's head. "Kamahl, get off!" Chainer shook off visions of Deidre and readied another weighted chain. Kamahl was much faster than the megolith, however. He dug his superheated fingers into the stone giant's jawline, and Chainer saw two axe-shaped bursts of red form inside the megolith's torso. Kamahl dropped off just as the megolith reached up to crush him. Kamahl dove away, rolled, and conjured a large warhammer in each hand. He charged back at the megolith, ducked under its crushing fists, and brought both hammers together with a boom.

There was a seismic shudder that cracked the stone floor, and the axes planted in the megolith's chest exploded.

This blast was different from the previous one. It was three times as strong, for one, and doubly constrained by the megolith's own body and the powerful vibrations caused by the hammers. There was a muted flash and a muffled boom, and a network of cracks raced across the whole of its body. Smoke poured from its half-melted mouth. It was standing completely still. The crowd was silent.

"Chainer," Kamahl called. He pointed at the frozen warrior. "Give that thing one last tap, will you?"

Chainer sent his weight straight into the thing's chest without hesitation. The dense crystalline creature had been transformed by the intense heat and pressure of Kamahl's magic into something far more brittle. When Chainer's weight struck it, the husk of the defeated megolith shattered into a fine, white sand that was littered with a few larger shards of broken glass.

For a moment, there was no motion or sound on the arena floor. The foot soldiers were unconscious, Devon was dead, and the megolith was dust. Even the mage was completely helpless in the python's grip. If Chainer didn't call it off, she'd soon be a meal for a nightmare. A single pair of hands started clapping from the stands. The applause grew, louder and louder until it was a roar. The competing chants of "Chainer!" and "Kamahl!" began.

"Your winners, ladies and gentlemen… Chainer and Kamahl! This marks their twelfth consecutive win!"

As the announcer prattled on, Chainer went over to his partner. Kamahl looked at him sullenly.

"That was fun," the barbarian said, "but next time, you get the megolith."

Chainer laughed and slapped Kamahl on the shoulder. "Agreed." As the crowd continued to cheer and chant, he took Kamahl's hand in his and raised them both high in the air.

Veza floated once more in the forward cabin of the empress's transport. She was alone, unaccompanied but for a handful of scribes and a quartet of Llawan's savage barracuda bodyguards. There were no air breathers on board, so all of the leviathan's internal and external compartments had been flooded for this fact-finding mission.

Llawan moved quickly in the wake of Aboshan's death. She and her leviathan full of Mer aristocrats descended on the ruins of the imperial palace before the sand had settled, and she quickly installed herself at the hub of a rapidly spinning wheel of circumstance. While her servants led chants of "the emperor is dead! Long live the Empress!" in the public byways, her peers stirred up support among the rich and influential. Llawan herself addressed the population as a whole, rallying her subjects via magical broadcast and bulletins posted throughout the empire. Her message was direct: Aboshan was dead, and his policies should be interred with his bones. The widowed empress announced a lavish funeral for her husband to be held at an undetermined time in the future. On that same day she staged a rally wherein all of Aboshan's informers were chained at the neck and driven out of the capitol, and all his secret surveillance files were publicly destroyed.

While the common citizen embraced her return, Llawan was less popular among the merchants and generals. The trading sector of Mer society had never done better than they did under Aboshan. As long as the imperial transaction tax was paid in advance, Aboshan's government was extremely friendly to all forms of commerce. He controlled the trade routes to and from Mer population centers, and those who paid for the privilege were allowed to move and sell their goods unmolested. All others were usually attacked by bandits-who wore imperial uniforms-beaten, and robbed down to the clothes they wore. Aboshan had made it extremely profitable to do business with him and extremely dangerous to do otherwise. For the pragmatic capitalists of Mer, it was a comfortable situation, one that they were not eager to change.

So while Llawan held meetings and exerted influence and tested loyalties, Veza was sent to inspect the newly formed Otaria Chasm. By all estimates, an area of over a thousand square miles of land was now a half a mile below the surface, and the northern tip of Otaria had become an island. No one had done a complete survey of the new sea, but there were bound to be some human settlements, people, and animals who had been caught in the catastrophe. The law of the sea said that anything below the waves is Mer territory, however, and Llawan was eager to have this new addition to her empire explored, catalogued, and quantified. In the name of the empress, Veza was commanding the survey mission.

A cephalid officer and Olsham the mystic swam into the chamber. "M'lady Veza," Olsham said. "We are approaching the chasm. It is time."

Veza stared straight ahead. "I will return to the bridge once we've made visual contact." The officer swam out, and Veza floated alongside Olsham in silence while the mystic softly clicked and keened to himself.

The great wound Aboshan had made in the above-air continent slowly materialized out of the murky waters ahead. Veza shook her head as Olsham's prayers increased in pitch and volume. The chasm was huge, so wide that Veza couldn't even see the opposite wall from where she stood. She remembered the shock wave that had passed through Llawan's transport. Whatever caused the cave-in must have forced millions upon millions of gallons of water out of the area. As soon as the initial force was spent and the ground had finished caving, those same millions of gallons had rushed in to fill the new valley.

Olsham stopped chanting and opened his eyes. "Please excuse me, ma'am. I would like you to return to the bridge now." Veza started to object, but Olsham said, "Please. Go. I will perform the ritual alone."

Veza nodded, then darted down the connecting chamber into the belly of the ship. The captain was waiting for her on the bridge. "We're ready to enter the chasm, ma'am. Is the spellcaster ready?"

"He's performing the ritual now. How long till we get there?" "If we maintain our present course and speed, about half an hour."

"That should be plenty of time. When Olsham is done, this ship will be Llawan's eye, recording everything that passes around it. The crystal gemstone Olsham had installed will store it. All we have to do is cover the distance, and the empress will have a complete and detailed survey of the area."

The cephalid captain scowled. "I hope it's going to be that easy, ma'am. Any idea what we're going to find in there?"

Veza shook her head. "But," she added, "nobody does. That's why we're here."