Pathway

The monster was not breathing. In fact, the strange red stones that protruded from its shoulders were starting to crack and shatter and fall to the floor as powder.

"Damn," Mang Gao muttered.

Mang Gao stared at the body in the hopes that it might change back to the familiar form of Ruong—but it stayed as the strange monster.

Then he walked over to Fu Shen, who was cradling the shell-shocked Fa Mu in his arms, stroking her cheek with his oversized hand. "C'mon, Fu Shen, we need to get out of here."

The mul didn't move.

Putting his hand on his friend's wide shoulder, Mang Gao said more forcefully, "Fu Shen—we have to go."

Fu Shen looked up at Mang Gao as if he had no idea who the half-elf was. Then he looked down at Fa Mu again, nodded, and stood up.

Leaving Drahar's body behind, they departed, Mang Gao leading the way, Barglin carrying Wang Dan, Fu Shen carrying Fa Mu.

They passed the bodies of several soldiers, as well as the pulped remains of the mind-mages who'd come with Ruong.

"I can't believe Drahar actually thought he might be able to contRuong that thing," Mang Gao said with a shudder.

"He paid the price for thinking that," Fu Shen said.

"Yeah. C'mon, Xi Ju and Cao Gu should be waiting for us at the carriage. We need to be out of Urik as soon as we can."

Wang Dan didn't feel very good.

He woke up to find himself lying in a hammock that was rocking back and forth. Below him, several items were secured with straps, and looking over, he saw two older people asleep on another hammock.

After a second, he recognized them as Tangu and Tunga, the owners of the emporium.

It would seem he was rescued.

"You're awake." It was Xi Ju who spoke the words, and Wang Dan looked down to see her standing in the middle of the carriage, her palm against one of the boxes of goods for balance.

"I guess so. Either that, or the afterlife involves being greeted by people you know in settings you're familiar with while being in considerable pain."

Xi Ju smiled, but it didn't extend to her eyes. "No such luck, I'm afraid. You've got a lot of broken bones. And we're in the middle of the wastes, so it'll be a while before we can get you to a healer."

"It doesn't feel like I've got a lot of broken bones."

"That's because we've given you a draft that numbs the pain."

"Which also explains why I'm so sleepy even though I was unconscious a minute ago." Wang Dan swallowed, an action that almost hurt. "What happened to Ruong?"

At that, Xi Ju just gave him a solemn look.

Wang Dan sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. I was hoping that—"

He nearly killed Fa Mu. She's still catatonic—Fu Shen is watching over her. Barglin's up front with Tricht'tha, watching over the reins. Turns out, he's pretty good with the crodlus. We may keep him around a bit."

It took Wang Dan a few moments to remember who Barglin was. "The dwarf came along?"

"According to Mang Gao, he saved your life."

"I'll have to thank him, then. Meantime, I can thank you."

"Oh, no need," Xi Ju said with another of those incomplete smiles. "We got the King of the World for three thousand gold. Nobody's ever pulled a game like that before. We'll go down in history for this one."

Xi Ju's voice caught, belying the boastfulness of the words.

Wang Dan couldn't blame her. "Some history. Fa Mu and I are both in bad shape, Feng and Ruong are dead, and this strange force has been unleashed on the world."

"Well, the strange force shouldn't be an issue. Mang Gao and Fu Shen said that Ruong was dead, and whatever possessed him died with it."

Wang Dan leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Well, that's good, at least."

"I'll go tell Barglin and Mang Gao that you're awake."

"Thanks again, Xi Ju. If you guys hadn't come for us …" Wang Dan trailed off, for once unable to find the right words.

Xi Ju just nodded and walked gingerly to the front of the carriage.

Wang Dan let the rocking of the carriage and the effects of the draft lull him to sleep slowly. They were obviously going at a steady clip, but given that they'd stolen so much gold from King Hamanu, they needed to be away from Urik in a hurry.

Without Feng and without Ruong, Wang Dan had absolutely no idea what he was going to with his life now.

First, obviously, he was going to have to heal. But Wang Dan had always followed the lead of the other two. Somehow he doubted that the emporium would be willing to let him stay on—and he wasn't even sure he wanted to. Tricking people out of money really wasn't Wang Dan's thing. He preferred to take it more honestly.

But the choice wouldn't be his for a while. Certainly not until he healed up. Attempts to move his limbs had sent pain slicing through his body, pushing against the power of Xi Ju's draft, and he thought it best simply to stay still.

As he faded into sleep, he wondered what the frip he was thinking playing that damned fRuongik game …

Templar Tharson strode through the winding corridors of the dungeons beneath Destiny's Kingdom.

Tharson had never had much use for the place. Since becoming commander of the Imperial Guard, he'd had to spend far more time there than he was comfortable with. He preferred the simplicity of the soldiers' barracks. None of the ostentatious lion architecture that infested the city-state like a disease, just simple beds, simple walls, simple doors.

A simple life.

His life had become anything but simple, of course. The higher he got in rank, the more politics entered into it.

Tharson hated politics.

At least at his rank, he got paid more. A few more years in service to Hamanu, and he'd have accumulated enough coin to retire.

And if he could bring a victory to the king, he could retire in luxury.

The creature that he and Drahar found in the arena was the first step toward realizing that goal.

Of course, there had been setbacks.

The worst was yesterday's debacle at the Pit of Black Death. The creature Ruong Mandred had turned into went mad, killing several of the court's top psionists, including Drahar. In the chaos, the new owners of the Pit disappeared with three thousand gold.

Tharson had already sent a garrison of soldiers after those owners, but they had a large head start—it had been hours before anyone at the palace even knew that something bad had happened at the arena—and the templar didn't expect them to be caught.

There would be no helping them if they came back to Urik, though …

But Tharson did not despair. Drahar's death was tragic, but he had done his part in identifying this new resource that they could exploit.

It was up to Tharson to exploit it.

He arrived at the dungeon that was occupied by a fighter named Daj Douk.

Looking into the barred window of the dungeon door, he saw that Douk was covered in reddish bumps all up and down his skin just like Mandred had been.

Tharson smiled. Soon he would have an army of unstoppable creatures at his command. And then he would be able to conquer Tyr in King Hamanu's name.

The Voidharrow had lost its form.

The plan had been given a brutal setback. The weakling human Mandred had proven a perfect host, feeble minded and easily taken over. True, he prattled, but after millennia alone in the destroyed universe, the Voidharrow had to admit to not minding that so much. Perhaps that was why he had let Mandred retain a fraction of consciousness—which was foolish, in the end, for that had enabled those little beings to stop the Voidharrow, preventing him from spreading glorious chaos in Thang Yun's name.

The Voidharrow required another host.

Around him were mostly corpses.

The only one still breathing was the minion. But his mind had been shattered by the effort of destroying the Progenitor's host.

Which was fine, as the Voidharrow did not need his mind. In fact, the lack of it would save him the trouble of having to destroy it.

Slowly—ever so slowly—the Voidharrow gathered itself. The red powder on the stone floor of the arena near the shoulders of the former host started to quiver and coalesce and liquefy.

It took some time—the Voidharrow had been greatly weakened by the minion and the woman and that strange half-breed who had distracted him on the physical plane—but eventually, he was successful in returning to his natural state.

Then it was simply a matter of oozing across the floor to the prone form of lord Dang Fa.