Runar looked down as Ouragan, Farisa’s cat, rubbed against his leg to get his attention. A troll, somewhere in the distance behind them, was clapping its big, meaty hands together. Switch Cave was otherwise silent. Farisa, working to break the kasa, was still sitting cross-legged on the cave floor.

The Eye of Sophya, the talent Farisa had explained to them, was not unpleasant on its own but could be uncomfortable to open—he had to trick severed nerves into forgetting they existed to move muscles that were no longer there—although, once he had its sight, he could hold it for longer and longer. The white curtain of the kasa shimmered like the northern lights, and the increasing depth of its indentations suggested the mage’s efforts were achieving something.

The troll clapped its hands. “` ..............................Z

“That one I really don’t get,” Claes whispered.

“Ah,” Mazie said. “Written by a cat on a keyboard. Literally.”

Claes stroked his beard. “What’s a keyboard?”

Mazie chuckled. “You’ve never seen a typewriter?”

The troll shouted again, “Sudo mount man unzip strip finger fsck yes!”

Claes said, “What the hell does that mean?”

“He’s calling us eunuchs,” Mazie explained.

Runar chuckled. “I’m disturbed by Mazie’s fluency in troll culture.”

“It’s generational.”

“We’re the same generation.”

As the targets of the troll’s insults—Kanos and Talyn—moved up and northward, its insults sounded like the sad moans of a toddler that no one wanted to play with.

When Farisa stood up, Mazie asked, “What did you find?”

“I’m not done,” Farisa said. “Get back.”

The last lights of the kasa faded.

“It’s done,” Farisa said. “We can go on.”

There was a drop, steep if one wasn't expecting it, where the kasa had been. Switch Cave’s true final corridor, wider and rougher in texture than the false way they had gone before, stretched beyond them. Gravelly stones covered the cave floor; human steps had not fallen here for millennia.

Runar said, “Well, let’s see where the Mountain Road really goes.”

#

Kanos winced. His arms had been tied together at the wrists with no regard for his comfort—in fact, to cripple him with pain so he could not make himself dangerous—and he reminded himself that this agony was a minor setback. He had been through all kinds of misery to get here, and all of this would be paid off by his reward.

Still, he and Talyn were going the wrong way. As soon as he found a way to get himself free, nothing would stop him from capturing Farisa and delivering her to the Hegemon, thus acquiring the fortune and position he had always deserved. He had not been ruthless enough the last time; that would change.

If nothing else—if there was no way to deliver the prize mage—he would simply kill, kill, kill. To kill was a poor man’s last vote, as the means of a good life were rare and difficult to acquire, while those to end life were common.

“Untie me, Talyn.”

She refused.

He tried to enter her mind again. The pendant seemed to amplify her resistance, so he could not get in. He’d have to persuade her using a commoner’s means.

“What happens if we are attacked?”

“I made a promise to Claes. I intend to keep it.”

They turned right at the first major bend. The troll must have been hiding in the same corner as its deceased predecessor, because as they moved up the cave, its voice fell quieter. It whistled. “You there!” Its singsong voice was eerily feminine. “Soon they dead, soon they dead, breakfast time I munch your head.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Kanos said. “Or her. Just let me.”

Talyn tugged him. “Portal is this way.”

“That fucking thing is annoying.”

“We made a promise.”

Every step northward was, in duplicate considering the need to go back, a loss of time, and he had wasted too much of that already. He had always known that there were no rules—he followed no orders, believed in nothing—and yet, in retrospect, there had been so many options that would have kept to his plan. He could have killed the others for their meat. He could have twisted Eric’s young mind to make him a minion. He could have put a gun to Mazie’s head. That would have given him real power. Why had he thought it better to enter minds and corrupt a vote? Why hadn’t he shown real courage? The desert’s heat had addled him, perhaps. He would not be so foolish next time. Instead, he would be effective, merciless, and quick.

In his restrained state, though, he needed Talyn’s help. He tried to enter again, and the locket locked him—his ears buzzed and white pain spread through his body, forcing him out of the blue.

“You’re wasting my time and yours,” she said.

“You’re right,” Kanos said. “I am.”

In the past, he would use such a state of powerlessness to play on the woman’s childish sympathies and sentimentalities, but this hag had been employed by the Company for long enough that those had been burned out of her—she had been, in essence, turned into a man.

They kept walking in miserable silence. His arms were sore and his hands were numb. He could do nothing like this, with arms bound and Talyn wearing that locket, and he considered that his best move might be to beg, or simply to stop in place, refusing to go on. He could extract concessions if he was creative; Talyn did not want him to die.

Perhaps he should, though. What if he threw himself down one of those steep side alleys, and nothing broke his fall? He gave himself permission. He was a man without position or wealth—no one would care if he did, in fact, disappear forever. It would solve many problems...

But then he heard footfalls, and saw ugliness... vicious, moving ugliness... beautiful ugliness in the form of a slack-skinned drampf, a running scrotum on two legs, from one fetid alley to another. Kanos entered its mind as smoothly as a snake in shit.

#

Talyn looked back as Kanos gasped. She thought he was faking illness now, to gain her sympathy, but the pallor on his face and chattering on his teeth did not seem like an affectation. Something was physically wrong with him.

She said, “We can stop if this pace is too—”

A quarter-ton sack of sweaty flesh fell on Talyn, pinning her to the floor. The creature clawed open her jacket and shirt. In terror, she closed her legs together, to block one kind of assault, then hammer-punched its face, though its interest was not in her body after all but her jewelry. It grabbed the pendant around her neck, broke the chain with a swift yank, and ran off yoogling into the darkness.

Kanos still had that sickened, absent look on his face, but instead of arousing contempt it made him seem vulnerable, and she felt pity for this never-loved man. Had life treated him better, perhaps he would have become a good person.

“Come on, Kanos. Let’s go.”

The man made for rough company sometimes, but she was grateful to be here with him. She had failed to appreciate what a decent person he was at heart—a friend, a good friend, a friend with quick reflexes and excellent aim of the gunsights. The two of them had traveled together in a group of life’s discarded misfits; they had been doubly-rejected—rejected by rejects—because they belonged at home. The group with which they’d traveled had dozens of problems; the world they had left had only one: their inappropriately low position in it, which would be fixed upon return with a favorable commodity.

Oh, what cruelty. Why had his arms been tied up like this? Why had he been crippled in this dangerous cave? They meant for both of us to die. She untied the good man’s hands.

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“I’m sorry they did this.”

She felt sleepy. To collect a moment’s rest, she sat against the cave’s wall.

Her head swung in space and crashed into stone. Kanos’s fist crushed her throat. His knees pressed into her rib cage. The taste of iron filled her mouth. More blows followed. Pain spread. Quickness filled her nerves, but her muscles ignored their commands, spasming as they screamed for air her crushed windpipe no longer pulled.

Kanos’s ugly smile was the last thing she saw.

#

Kanos’s hands were free and Talyn was dead. He had achieved that much. Alas, entering the drampf had sickened him enough that a swill of bile filled his mouth and neck. Blinding pain erupted at his side, its throbbing matching the cadence of his heartbeat. His leg spasmed and he could not walk. He had all the drive in the world to capture Farisa, but in this state, he could only shamble. He decided he would need rest, and hoped the others would not go far in that time.

Against a wet mossy wall, he closed his eyes.

A twisted and low but unmistakably female voice said, “Hello, my child.”

No, I can’t be dying. I can’t be that sick. I was only in that drampf for a second. Auditory hallucinations were a sign of impending death, and his bodily weakness was no good sign. No. I refuse to die. He would face oblivion—he hoped death was oblivion, because he had chosen a life that would not send him anywhere good—at some future time, but not today. This was just a nap against a... a wall. So long as kept breathing, his chance to own the world was intact.

The cave wall seemed to breathe with him. The back of his neck settled against its furry softness and its patina of semisolid matter.

“Awaken, my child. We have no time for cuddling.”

Kanos groaned. He rolled over, realizing in horror that he had buried his head in a troll’s obese, hairy, sweaty flank.

“Are you Kanos Evergarde?”

“I am.”

“You’re a cunt-faced gutter-bred horse fucker.” The she-troll cackled. “But I think we have a common enemy. Do we?”

Kanos wheezed. “I don’t know.”

“You traveled with the ones who murdered my husband. As you walked with them, I should wish for you to be raped to death by the stallions of Ordenham, but I believe that group discarded you. Is that not true? Do not answer, it does not matter, I already know. Revenge is our mutual desire.”

“I... I’m not ready.”

“I send you to kill them, or I kill you.”

“Can I kill all but two? I need prisoners for the—”

“Five of seven, any five, will suffice.” The troll, twelve feet tall and equally wide, smiled as she handed him a rusty sword, the largest he had ever seen.

The blade weighed twenty pounds and would be useless in combat. “I’ll use my gun.”

“Do that, and you’ll blow all of us up. They are deep in flashfire and will be until they leave the cave.”

“I understand.” He looked at the too-heavy weapon. “Still, I’m in no state to fight.”

“There’s a potion they make south of here—”

“There’s nothing south of here. We were just there.”

“There wasn’t.” The troll’s laugh echoed. “This cave connects to a different south now. It so happens that my clan has the recipe. I might have some of the stuff. Let me look.”

Kanos heard squishy sounds.

“Yes, I still have some.”

“What does it do?”

“Does it matter? You have no choice. Open wide.”

Kanos opened his mouth.

“It’ll cure your fatigue, increase your strength and speed, and give you the ability to see in the dark. If you aren’t a fucking idiot, you should easily defeat all of them.”

Bubbles fizzed on Kanos’s tongue, and he smelled burning rubber. The potion tasted bad, and he had to lick his lips to be sure his mouth wasn’t dissolving, but the promised effects were setting in. He could now see, in spite of the cave’s darkness, the troll’s entire body. She was bald, but covered in hair below the neck, and in spite of being twelve feet tall and equally wide, she had the body shape of an infant.

“More,” Kanos said.

The troll squeezed the rotting fish she was using as the potion’s container, causing a milky sludge to ooze out of the face holes and into Kanos’s mouth. He swallowed. The cave turned bright with detail. He could see the crannies of the walls, the craggy ceiling, mounds of bat dung. He felt strong enough to crush a skull with one hand, fast enough to outrun a falcon. The troll’s oversized sword now felt light as a matchstick. He had been near-fatally exhausted one minute ago; now he had the energy of a six-year-old with a lighter in a room full of stuffed animals.

“It only lasts five minutes,” said the troll. “Don’t fuck it up, you twat-faced idiot.”

“I won’t. I’ll kill them dead, like I promised.”

Kanos readied himself to charge down the corridor at fifty miles an hour, but the troll grabbed him by the arms—“take the shortcut”—and threw him down a chute. Jagged slimy rocks broke his skin on the way down, but what little pain he could feel only doubled his rage and strength. He turned the odors of this orcish sewer into raw muscular power, and shot through bright darkness with speed, it felt as if he were propelled by a pneumatic current. He had four minutes and fifty-eight seconds, if the troll had told the truth, of invincibility, and he would use it to kill, kill, kill.

He heard Farisa's voice. “There's flashfire.”

“Torches off,” Claes said.

The lights ahead dropped to the low level offered by their safety lanterns.

“Guns away,” said Runar.

Circumstances could not be more perfect. As he ran, the world slowed down, enabling him to shove his rusty sword into the guts of the hindmost unta, ripping the weapon out with such force the body split in two, spilling innards. Mazie’s thrown knife came at him, but at the speed of melting butter. He dodged.

Claes charged, swinging a sword. Kanos smacked the blade with his back wrist and knocked it to the ground. Andor and Saito drew swords and charged as well. Kanos kicked Saito’s leg out from under him. He slammed his forehead against Andor’s nose. Both men dropped their weapons in shock. Kanos kicked the blades out of the way. Three men had been disarmed; he was halfway done.

Mazie threw another knife. He jumped, connecting the toe of his boot with the flat of the blade, and it whizzed back at her. The blade missed, but the expression of terror on her face was worth what little effort it took. He heard Runar behind him and threw his own shoulder into his half brother’s wooden shield, causing it to break into splitters Runar’s head hit the cave wall, stunning him.

He could see Farisa closing her eyes to go into the blue—this could not be allowed—so he threw her down one of the side chutes. He would deal with her later, after killing her friends and animals. He did not hear her land.

Eric raised a gun.

Claes yelled, “Eric, don’t!”

The boy lunged at Kanos, spinning the gun by the trigger guard. The weapon struck Kanos on the knee. It didn't hurt, but he refused to take a pistol-whipping lightly, so he threw Eric into the wall hard enough to stun him.

Mazie, who had not given up yet, came running with a sword. He hammer-punched the flat of the blade and jerked it from her outstretched arms. He wanted to kill her so badly, but he couldn’t—she would be his leverage over Farisa—so, instead, he swung his blade one-handed and lopped Mazie’s sword hand and forearm right off. Blood flew everywhere. The woman looked at her ruined limb with horror in her eyes. Her throat emitted a rattle, then a scream of rage.

Andor and Claes, both back up and fighting, tried to charge him. Andor had a sword and Claes had a chain mace and, in spite of Kanos’s enhanced reflexes, he could not avoid taking a chest hit from the mace, but the troll’s potion had hardened his skin into armor, so he felt no more than a thump, causing him to skip a breath and stagger, though no damage was done. Claes swung again. Kanos caught the mace around his own blade, then jumped away, kicking himself off the cave wall to bodily knock Claes over, ducking Andor's swinging sword, which he grabbed in midair and snapped in two.

A crossbow bolt from Saito came at the speed of a thrown ball. Kanos, though able to catch it, worried that the troll’s potion might be wearing off—the projectile was not as slow as it would have been a minute ago—so he’d have to end this battle soon. Fuck it, time for some kills. He roared in some furious ancient language of raw hatred as he ran for Saito, ready to break his neck, but felt a chill and his limbs and could not see because an animal now covered his face and, although its claws barely tickled, the blindness enabled another crossbow bolt to strike his knee with the force of a child’s fist.

Saito. Kanos remembered having killed him. Hadn’t he? He was now shifting through memories in which he had slaughtered all of them—the people, the animals, some three or four times—and some of them were clearly incapacitated but they were all...

Still fucking alive. Something is not fighting fair. Neither will I.

He grabbed Eric’s dropped pistol. “Stop!”

They halted.

“Everyone is going to do exactly what I say, or I will blow all of us up.”

Claes’s body language in particular showed surrender.

“Good.” They have no choice but to follow me. “You’ve all made it worse for yourselves. I have all the power, and you have none.”

He looked around to count the others. Where he had thrown Farisa? He’d figure that out later. Which ones had he killed? Who would be following him to the Hegemon? He remembered slaughtering the animals and laughing as hot blood gushed on his face. He remembered breaking Claes’s neck with his bare hands, twice. He remembered killing Mazie five different times because she kept coming back to life and each time had felt better than the last. He remembered pointing Eric’s pistol at Andor’s skull and pulling the trigger—but that couldn’t have happened because we’re in flashfire and then I’d be dead too. He had killed seventy, eighty, ninety times... how could any of these people be alive?

A cat meowed. Ouragan stood twenty feet away, and her eyes were glowing faintly blue.

He realized everything that had happened after the severing blow to Mazie’s forearm—that one, he was glad to see, had been real—had been imagined, for he had been stunned by his own sinking into fantasy. No, I must keep fighting. My mind is the place I make it. I will win. I will win. My mind is a place I... cannot trust? No. No, fuck these people. I deserve to win and I will. My mind is the place I—

He collapsed and when he woke up, he was prone with his hands and feet tied behind him. Claes paced about, striking sparks on stone with a heavy longsword.

“You don't want to do this,” said Kanos.

“It was, for quite some time, not my preference.”

“I know where Farisa is, and I’ll tell you if you—”

“You don’t know shit, and you won’t,” said Claes. “She’ll find her way to us.”

“She won’t.”

“You betrayed us at every chance. I wish I had done this long ago.”

Kanos, as he heard the blade fall, clenched his buttocks. His shoulders tightened. A blast of agony split his neck from back to front, then he felt a buoyant pop! and, as the corridor started to roll, flung arms he no longer had to stop a somersault that would not cease, the world instead spinning faster and faster as his headless body sped away and up the cave.