All around Otaria, the flow of power reversed as a million nightmares began to flow back into the fragmented brain that created them.

"This kind of hurts," Chainer said. "Is it supposed to hurt?"

Buried by hostile monsters, Kamahl was helpless to stop Chainer. He watched the Cabalist as the Mirari sent blasts of light out in all directions, and then a thousand smaller beams began flowing back into Chainer's body.

"This kind of hurts," Chainer said. "Is it supposed to hurt?" "Drop it, Chainer!" Kamahl tried to yell more, but something with hooves instead of fists punched him in the mouth.

The swarm of monsters stopped tearing at him as the lights beaming into Chainer began to grow larger, faster, and more frequent. Kamahl was still unable to move, but at least he wasn't being damaged any further.

Chainer was screaming now. They were no longer merely beams of light slamming into him, but elongated streamers of flesh, eyes, fangs, stingers, and claws. Not just energy, but mass was pouring into him, and his physical form was not prepared to deal with it. In a final burst of triumphant, agonizing sound, the air around Chainer's body imploded and a flash of purple light blew outward, knocking stones loose from the wall and almost reburying Kamahl in rubble.

Many silent minutes passed. Then Kamahl broke the silence by shoving one of the larger stones off of his chest and letting it crash loudly to the floor. The barbarian painfully got to his feet and limped down the hall to where Chainer writhed. At first Kamahl thought his friend was coated in some kind of undulating ooze, but as he looked closer, he saw the truth. It wasn't something on Chainer's body that squirmed, it was Chainer's body. Though he still had the same build and the same shape, Chainer's arms, legs, chest, head, even his hair was now a turbulent mass of wriggling monsters. Tiny eyes looked up at Kamahl, and miniature fangs formed, struck, then melted again. Sometimes a head or a hand would rise above the surface of his skin, and snakes swam all through the unstable flesh like sharks in a feeding frenzy. His nose and mouth were only shapes, and those shapes were crammed full of tongues and scales and fingers and talons. Even his missing arm had been replaced with the cancer of living monsters.

Worst of all were his eyes. Chainer's brilliant blue eyes had returned, and they bore mute and tragic testimony to the agony he suffered.

The Mirari had rolled free and sat unobtrusively on the floor. It seemed smaller and drab, its eerie black glow extinguished. Kamahl marveled that he and so many others had fought and bled for something that appeared to be nothing more than a spent cannonball, or a discarded child's toy. He knelt down next to Chainer.

The hideous parody of his friend's body reacted to his closeness, and Chainer clumsily flopped a boneless arm toward Kamahl's hand. Kamahl took it, and he fought the urge to release the hideous squirming thing and start hacking it with his sword. Chainer pulled on Kamahl's arm, and the barbarian leaned forward to put his ear next to the place that had been Chainer's mouth.

"Mu. Ra. Ree."

Kamahl had no idea how the sound was created, but he understood. He shook his head. "You don't need it. It'll only make things worse."

Chainer shook his head, his eyes pleading. He tried to point at it with his free arm.

"Yours. Take. You. Take it."

"I'm not so sure I want it anymore."

Chainer's horrid grip grew tighter. "Must," he gurgled. "Not. Safe." "All right, Chainer. I'll take it, and I'll keep it safe." A hundred battles had taught him not to argue with a dying man.

Chainer's grip relaxed. "Sorry," he said. "So sorry."

Kamahl held his friend's hand until the squirming stopped and his ragged breath stopped completely. He stood, remembering the simple courtesy he had paid to dead enemies and allies alike. In this case, it was the least he could do to free Chainer's spirit from the hideous form it had been shackled to.

With a wave, Kamahl burned Chainer's twisted body to cinders. When he was alone, he caught site of the Mirari once more, so unassuming in repose. He had told Chainer the truth. He wasn't sure if he really wanted it anymore. But he also had made a promise to his friend, and he thought he understood why Chainer had insisted and why he had agreed.

After a few moment's hesitation, Kamahl bent and picked up the Mirari. For a brief moment, he saw a huge, smoking battlefield littered with corpses and an ocean of multicolored flames. And then he was alone, surrounded by the memory of monsters and the death of his friend.

EPILOGUE

Laquatus and his mercenaries had explored the length and depth of the chasm, and the news was the same: There was no simple way out. All the water in the chasm was surrounded by Veza's barrier, one giant, permanent portal that only led to itself. Anyone who touched the barrier from within or without instantly appeared on the exact opposite side of the chasm, on the same side of the barrier that they started on. Those inside couldn't step out. Those outside couldn't step in.

The trap for Laquatus also served as a source of income for Llawan. While Laquatus and his forces were trapped inside, Llawan's functionaries, had already fixed a price for merchants to use the portal's external surface as rapid transit for shipping from one side of Otaria to the other. He was not only trapped, he was isolated from any and all Mer commerce.

Disrupting the barrier from the inside was costly and difficult. Since the field was powered by the newly formed tides in the chasm, penetrating the field required enough magical power to baffle the elemental force of the tides themselves. For the time being, Laquatus couldn't do it alone for long, and he could only open a hole big enough for a few people at a time.

Still, he had the resources and the time he needed to breach the barrier. He still had his contacts inside the Order, and a good working relationship with the First, should the Cabal patriarch ever return. And the Mirari was still out there, in the hands of one ignorant savage or another.

Laquatus accepted defeat as he did victory. Each was merely a shorter step in his lifelong campaign for greatness. He had been bested and embarrassed in Mer, and it was his own fault. His mistake was to go after the Mer imperial throne and the Mirari at the same time. In the future, he would focus all his attention on obtaining the sphere and then use it to carve out a kingdom for himself. Llawan may have temporarily exiled him from the deep, but that simply meant that he must turn his sights inland. There were a million land crawlers to conquer, a dozen factions to play against one another, and a priceless source of power to be obtained.

First, the sphere. Then Otaria. Then, the empire. After that? Laquatus laughed in his spacious prison.

If his ambition was as bottomless as the seas, why shouldn't his power extend as far?

Kamahl stepped out of the Cabal City arena and squinted in the bright, setting sun. He was preoccupied by thoughts of the Mirari, the way it reacted so swiftly to its handler's thoughts. Therein lay the real danger of it. Chainer's thoughts had been dark and troubled, and Kamahl's own were violent. He wondered what would happen the next time Jeska gave him lip. Would she spontaneously burst in to flames because Kamahl thought about it?

The street was full of surviving spectators and pit fighters. The crowd was murmuring, and all eyes were on the Mirari. "… killed the entire Cabal…"

"… the only survivor… "