PART THREE: DEMENTIST

CHAPTER 18

Chainer and the First both agreed that the shikar should continue as scheduled. Kamahl seemed concerned when Chainer asked him to replace Skellum during the ritual hunt, but he agreed immediately and without comment. Chainer realized how much he relished the barbarian's company. He had been prepared to explain the importance of the ritual itself, how important it had been to Skellum, and how fitting it would be for Chainer's partner in the pits to become his partner on shikar. If Kamahl had been a Cabalist or a merchant, he would have bantered and negotiated and otherwise extended the discussion until he figured out a way to profit from it. The barbarian, however, simply said, "Yes."

The journey was scheduled to begin at dawn, and Chainer spent the final few hours dining with Fulla. Chainer was still too stunned to speak during his meal, and Fulla seemed ashamed of what had happened. She was not good at comforting others, but even in his state of shock, Chainer appreciated her attempts at kindness. He even asked her to accompany him on shikar, but she declined.

"Oh, Skellum," Fulla had said wistfully. She walked around Chainer as she spoke, taking long, straight strides. "Always trying to send people somewhere. 'It's a big special journey, one step at a time, watch where you put your feet.' Always trying to keep it separate." She counted her steps out loud as she walked, then went around again, trying to reduce the count.

"It's an important ritual," Chainer said defensively. "First you learn to perceive, then-"

"Where do you keep your monsters, caster?" Fulla spun on one toe in front of Chainer, drew her sword, and presented it to him, hilt-first. "Where do you go to get them?"

"I keep them in here," Chainer tapped his temple. "In my head. In the place that Skellum showed me."

"That's good." Fulla pulled her sword back and tapped the tip thoughtfully on her chin. "Look me in the eye," she said.

Chainer leaned down and put his face inches from Fulla's. He opened his eyes as wide as hers and stared into her blue-white irises. "Don't look away," Fulla was careful to keep her head still. "But also look over my shoulder. Take your time."

Chainer sighed. Fulla's eyes were wide and bright. He could make out her half smile below them, and below that, the tapping point of her sword. If he concentrated, he could also make out the rows of beads in her hair, so similar to his own, and the space just beside her ear.

"Mine are always with me," Fulla said, and suddenly Chainer could see them. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, lined up behind Fulla and stretching as far back as his mind could see. Monstrous, misshapen, the shades of Fulla's monsters were always half a step behind her.

Fulla broke eye contact then, and the phantasms disappeared. "I didn't learn from Skellum," she told Chainer. "And I can't help you like he did. But I can still do what he does." They finished their meal in silence.

Chainer also spent his time ignoring Laquatus. The ambassador had sent numerous requests to Chainer, asking if he could come by and express his sympathies personally. Chainer left a pile of such requests lying unanswered by the door.

The books Skellum had which described the shikar ritual were more interesting to Chainer but harder to concentrate on. He knew that shikar would be extremely difficult without Skellum's guidance. At least the actual mechanics of it seemed simple enough, and the underlying rationale made sense. He and his partner were going to walk deep into the woods and interact with as many wild creatures as they could find. They would survive on what they could scrounge or hunt down.

The point of the exercise, as Chainer understood it, was to fill his head with fresh ideas. The more brutes he saw, the more beasts he mastered, the more he would have to draw on when he created his own creatures. Some dementists on shikar simply tried to see as many creatures as possible. Some captured the things they hunted or killed and ate them. Others were satisfied to touch their quarry or even simply to make eye contact. Each shikar was as unique as the dementist who took it, but the end objective was always the same, to align the world without to the world within and increase the dementist's ability to bridge the gap between them.

Chainer sat with an open scroll in his lap, Dragon's Blood smoking in his censer, waiting for the sky to brighten. He hadn't slept since Skellum died, and he didn't want to. All he wanted to do was leave the city behind. If Kuberr smiled on him, he might even have the good fortune to run across a pack of wolf-monkeys while he trekked through Krosan. And then, he thought, I will show Kamahl a few things about explosions and fire.

He continued to stare at the sunless sky. Absently, he created a small, buzzing mosquito with a three-pronged proboscis. With his other hand, he made a long-tongued iguana that dropped to the floor and immediately began circling under the mosquito. Chainer made a black owl with four orange eyes and a face on both sides of its skull, then a large, hissing cobra. The owl settled on the window sill and scanned the room as well as the courtyard outside. The snake coiled around Chainer's chair leg and spread its hood.

"Three," Chainer said aloud as the mosquito buzzed over his left arm, looking for a place to feed. "Two. One. Go."

The iguana's tongue snatched the mosquito out of the air. The owl suddenly swooped down and sank its claws into the iguana, and the cobra struck the owl before it could escape with its kill.

Chainer split his attention between the sky, which was at last starting to lighten, and the cobra, who was waiting patiently for the owl to stop convulsing. As the snake dislocated its jaw to enjoy a meal of bug, lizard, and bird, Chainer wiggled his metal fingers and the entire tableau disappeared.

Soon he would be in Krosan, and they all would discover just who sat at the top of the forest's food chain. And then he would return to Cabal City and teach both the Order and the Mer Empire a similar lesson.

It took Kamahl and Chainer two uneventful days of steady hiking to walk from the city gates to the edge of the Krosan Forest. They made their first camp about five hundred yards inside the forest's border, with another day's hike before the ritual hunt would truly begin.

"Hey, Chainer!" Kamahl called. "There's vermin over here. Are you hunting vermin?"

"What kind of vermin? Where?"

"Up there," Kamahl pointed into the trees. "It's about a foot long, with a big, fuzzy tail."

Chainer thought it over. "You mean a squirrel?"

"Yeah."

The black chain shot up into the tree above Kamahl. The dead rodent fell to the ground with a tiny thud, its back broken. Chainer nimbly pounced on his kill and scooped it up.

"In answer to your question," Chainer said, "no, I'm not hunting vermin. But squirrel aren't vermin. This one, in fact, is going to be dinner."

Kamahl scowled. "If it gnaws things and twitches its nose, it's vermin. And if you don't cook that right now it's going to stink."

Chainer put the dead squirrel in his satchel. He folded his arms and stared at Kamahl.

"What?" the barbarian said.

"You want fresh-killed meat," Chainer said, "you can kill it yourself."

Kamahl opened his mouth to swear at Chainer when the ground beneath them shook. From a hundred yards or so to their right came the sound of splintering wood.

"That sounds bigger than vermin." Chainer slapped Kamahl's shoulder. "Look alive, this is what we came here for." He started running through the woods toward the sound. Kamahl followed him,