Pathway

Yes, embrace the Voidharrow …

"Chang Chang, listen—"

"Shut up."

"What?"

He shook his head. "Not you. The other voice."

"There is no other voice, Chang Chang. It's just me."

After a second, Chang Chang realized that he couldn't see Ju Feng because Ju Feng was in the cubicle across the hall. Now he remembered—once they became the new the cubicle across the hall. Now he remembered—once they became the new main event, Ju Feng and Chang Chang were each given their own cubicles. That was just a stupid name for what was really a cell, just like any other. Chang Chang had been in plenty over the years, so he knew what they were like, and this was most definitely a cell, no matter what they called it. Like that time in—

He couldn't remember where it was.

"Chang Chang?"

Grimacing, he tried to recall that time when he was in that cell. There was a woman—there was always a woman—and her husband got a little peeved the way husbands always did, and did they take it out on the woman who cheated? No, they took it out on Chang Chang, who was just having a bit of fun, and they threw him in a cell. They were quite humorless, the magistrates in—

Why couldn't he remember the city-state where he was imprisoned?

"Chang Chang?"

"Ju Feng, do you remember where it was when I was imprisoned for sleeping with that girl?"

At that, Ju Feng actually laughed. "Seriously? Chang Chang, you're gonna need to be considerably more specific than that."

"It doesn't matter."

"Chang Chang, we need to work on escaping this place."

"What? Why?" Chang Chang knew that Ju Feng was right, but he couldn't remember why Ju Feng was right.

Speaking very slowly, Ju Feng said, "Because we've been enslaved, you jackass."

"Right, right, I knew that." Chang Chang tried to force himself to focus. It was just so hard …

He wished he could remember how they got there. It had something to do with Fehrd, but he could no longer recall how Fehrd was involved. Or even where Fehrd was. He should have been with them.

Ju Feng was talking about something that may have been important. It was hard to tell with Ju Feng, since he was always talking. "It's gonna be a lot harder now. Ever since you became the featured attraction, they've hired a lot more security. The crowds're bigger too."

"Why is that?"

"You, you moron." Ju Feng sounded angry; his yelling made Chang Chang's headache worse. "You beat the unbeatable fighter. People actually give a frip about the fights in this arena for the first time in years. Calbit and Jago hired about a dozen mercenaries to supplement the other guys, and some of them even have metal swords. The pat Chang Changs are all random too—haven't been able to find any kind of pattern. I gotta tell you, we had a better chance of escaping before you killed that mul."

"What the hell choice did I have?" Chang Chang screamed, and slammed a fist into one of the cubicle walls.

His hand no longer hurt, oddly, and a large chunk, and several small chips, fell to the floor from the stone wall.

"Will you please calm down?" Ju Feng said. "You'll bring the guards, and then we can't talk."

"Maybe I don't want to talk to you. In fact, Ju Feng, I'm sick of talking to you. All you ever do is talk."

"Good, that's good."

Chang Chang frowned, confused. "What's good?"

"You're complaining about me. That's a good sign that you're you.

"Of course, I'm me. Who else would I be?" Chang Chang asked that question despite not being entirely sure of the answer.

"I wish I knew." Ju Feng spoke with tremendous emotion, so much so that Chang Chang blinked in surprise. Ju Feng usually didn't speak quite so strongly. "Chang Chang, ever since that night in the desert, you haven't been yourself—in any way. You're ridiculously powerful, and you look more and more like you're diseased. I'm scared."

Ju Feng never admitted to being scared of anything. At least, Chang Chang didn't think he ever had. It was hard to recall specifically.

Hell, he still couldn't remember his parents' names. And his head still hurt.

"We have to get out of here, Ju Feng," Chang Chang said. "I don't care what it takes. We need Fehrd to make a plan."

There was a long pause before Ju Feng replied to that. "Fehrd's dead, Chang Chang."

Chang Chang had forgotten that, In fact, he still didn't remember it, and wasn't sure that Ju Feng wasn't lying.

No, that was crazy. Ju Feng wouldn't lie to him.

Would he?

"Are you sure he's dead?"

"Remember, Chang Chang, that Black Sands thug killed him. They were fighting with staffs, and then the leader took out a knife and stabbed him with it."

Chang Chang didn't remember that at all. But it didn't sound right, somehow. "Why would he stab him if they were fighting with staffs?"

In a voice reeking with incredulousness, Ju Feng said, "He was the leader of a band of thieves—on what planet do you expect him to behave honorably? Hell, I don't expect you to behave honorably, and you're the closest thing to an honorable person I've ever met."

That surprised Chang Chang. Somehow Ju Feng saying something nice to him didn't match with what he expected Ju Feng to say.

Things were obviously worse than he thought.

But he couldn't think straight, so that wasn't surprising.

He just needed to rest. Maybe then his hand wouldn't hurt so much and his head wouldn't hurt so much and he'd start to remember things again. Like his parents' names and how Fehrd died and where it was he was in that cell and …

Give in to the Voidharrow and all—

"NO!"

"What is it?" Ju Feng sounded concerned.

Chang Chang shook his head. "It's fine. Really, I'm fine, I just—" He moved to rub his eyes, then realized that his fingers were covered in lesions. No, they weren't lesions anymore, they were red pustules that made it impossible for him to even touch anything.

He snarled. "We need to get out of here."

"I'm open to suggestions as to how." Ju Feng let out a very loud breath. "I wish Feena was here."

"Who the frip is Feena?"

Impatiently, Ju Feng said, "My sister, you moron. She—" He cut himself off, then whispered, "Someone's coming."

Chang Chang hoped it was someone who could make his hands not hurt.

A new voice said, "Stand, whaddayacall, away from the door."

Actually, Chang Chang realized it was an old voice: Sasker, one of the guards. He always came with three other guards, all armed with metal swords.

So Chang Chang stood back from the door.

It creaked open to reveal Sasker, along with the usual three guards. Their swords were out.

"Time for your next fight, and—" Sasker stopped short and stared goggle-eyed at Chang Chang. "What the frip happened to you?"

Chang Chang had no idea what he was talking about. "I'm the same as always."

"Not hardly. Your face is all, whaddayacall, covered in crap."

One of the thugs said, "Maybe we should have a healer look at 'im."

Sasker looked at him as if he was insane. "Right, another one. Calbit hates payin' for healers, and they sent, whaddayacall, half a dozen to look at this guy. 'Sides, it's time for the fight."

Defensively, the thug asked, "What if it's contagious-like?"

The look on Sasker's face didn't change. "You're bein' paid to keep the fighters in line. You ain't bein' paid to, whaddayacall, think. So shut the hell up." He turned back to Chang Chang. "Get up, Mandred. Time to earn your keep."

"You don't pay me."

"Fine, earn Calbit and Jago their keep, then. C'mon, let's go."

At that point, Chang Chang could do the walk to the arena in his sleep. The three guards were at triangle points around him too far for him to grab, but far enough away to be able to effectively use their swords if he made a false move.

His hands really, really hurt.

They brought him into the waiting area and then Jago started doing his routine, and Chang Chang could barely hear it over the crowd noise.

The noise just would not stop. Chang Chang tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't go away, and he tried to listen to something else, but there was just the noise and nothing else and it was just making his headache worse and worse. He needed to find something else to listen to.

Embrace the chaos, my friend. Spread the seed and everything will be yours.

That wasn't what he wanted to hear, but somehow, that voice—that annoying voice, that voice which had been in the back of his head since that night in the desert and that would not go away no matter how many times he tried—didn't make his headache worse.

In fact, right then, hearing the voice, the headache went away.

And his hands didn't hurt.

So finally, after not listening to the voice, after wishing the voice would go away, he embraced the voice.

He barely paid attention to Jago as he droned on about fights and battles and other nonsense. The crowd was cheering, but he paid even less attention to that.

All he saw was the thri-kreen facing him in the arena.

Spread the seed …

The thri-kreen skittered on all his legs across the arena, trying to avoid Chang Chang, then jumping up onto his hind legs to slice at Chang Chang with his pincers.

Spread the seed …

Chang Chang smiled. He'd faced the thri-kreen before, and usually ducked and dodged his pincers, mainly out of a desire to keep the pustules from bursting.

Suddenly, that was just what he wanted.

A pincer came at his face and Chang Chang didn't move. It cut through one of the pustules, causing a minor bit of pain in Chang Chang's cheek and sending red ooze spraying out onto the thri-kreen.

Dimly, Chang Chang registered the gasp of the crowd. Jago had taken to blaming Chang Chang's "affliction" on his nonexistent trip to the Beastbarrens, where he met "strange creatures beyond all possible imagining" and that one had done that to him.

So naturally there was concern when one of the strange red bumps that were covering him burst all over the thri-kreen.

That concern no doubt elevated when the thri-kreen started to scream.

Chang Chang's smile widened. The Voidharrow would not be denied. It would spread and bring magnificent chaos.

And deep down in the darkest recesses of Chang Chang human's mind, that thought terrified him. And the fact that his terror was so deeply buried while he was outwardly thrilled at the very concept terrified him even more.