This time, however, the dvergar indicated by word and gesture that Max was free to choose from among the dozen or so arranged before him. They spanned almost every class—a heavy bardiche, a flanged mace, and even a two-handed sword as tall as he was.
Why these weapons?
Max doubted they had been selected at random. Examining them more closely, he saw that they were coated with a bluish metal he’d not seen before. It was used sparingly and only on edges and points. Max gathered that the material must be exceedingly rare and highly valued. He imagined his opponent’s defenses must be very difficult to pierce.
Max lingered at a weapon that was a hybrid of sword and spear. It was tall and heavy, with a leaf-shaped blade some three feet long. It would do.
After riding up in the Workshop pod, he found an unfamiliar teal-skinned imp waiting for him. The officious creature did not bother introducing himself, but led Max swiftly down the hall to the empty waiting room. Bowing, the imp took his leave, and Max was left alone in the dark room, with its bloodstained pelts and bizarre, unearthly artworks. Several minutes passed before Max heard the announcer’s voice. She spoke in the demons’ language; the only parts Max understood were his name and the roar that followed.
Inch by inch, the portcullis was raised.
Max felt the familiar twitching in his fingers.
Taking up his spear, Max McDaniels emerged from the doorway’s shadows and walked one more time into that arena where he had come to expect so much light, noise, and pain.
This was the only time he’d been summoned first into the arena. The experience was profoundly different. In the past, Max’s opponents were already waiting and had provided him with an initial focal point. But now he stood alone in that vast space before the eyes and expectations of a hundred thousand spectators. He had never felt so isolated. A nervous dread hollowed his stomach as he stared at the opposite portcullis. Was Death lurking behind those bars?
Max shook off these thoughts, determined not to betray any doubts or weakness by stance or gesture. Gripping the spear, he stood as tall and proud as the image of Cúchulain he’d glimpsed in the tapestry so long ago. If this was to be his end, he’d meet it with both eyes open.
The announcer’s voice droned on. Over the crowd, Max strained to hear the name of his opponent, sifting the words for anything approximating Rùk or Myrmidon. But he heard nothing of the sort. Instead, a curious migration began—a surge of spectators who abruptly abandoned the lower rows of seats and crowded into the aisles of the upper tiers.
Despite the activity in the stands, Max kept his focus on the far portcullis. It did not move. Instead, an entire section of the neighboring wall slid aside, exposing a vast black opening. Staring deep within, Max saw tiny winking lights that almost resembled the constellations in his bedroom at Rowan. But these lights were growing rapidly, as though on an approaching train.
When the grylmhoch rushed into the arena, Max knew that its origins were fundamentally from someplace else, some distant star or universe or hell.
The first comparison he made was to an enormous spider, for the monster had a cluster of many eyes amid the center of what passed for a face. Below these eyes were snapping mouths that appeared and disappeared spontaneously, as though the creature’s bubbling, glabrous flesh created them at random.
Max realized it was pointless to compare this creature to anything terrestrial. Nothing in the monster’s form remained a constant. Not even its phase appeared fixed, for there were moments when its dreadful bulk abruptly flickered and became translucent, as if some natural law rebelled against its presence in this world.
Within the grylmhoch’s spherical eyes, there was no spark of animal intelligence. Its dozens of eyes stared unblinking about the arena.
While its appalling size and pale, squidlike coloration had the power to shock, it was the monster’s movements that evoked true horror. The grylmhoch did not walk so much as slide about the arena floor, pushing aside cresting dunes of sand as it advanced using some slimelike substance that it secreted from its spreading underbelly. It had a host of legs and arms along with flipperlike appendages, tentacles, and pseudopods, but these seemed wholly inadequate for propelling such a mass. It seemed better suited to the ocean or even space.
Max involuntarily retreated a step and glanced at his weapon.
How could a spear possibly hurt such a thing?
One by one, the pivoting eyes came to focus upon him. A scream issued from one of the grylmhoch’s mouths—it was the scream of an afrit, a spirit of fire. Max had heard that sound once before when an afrit had escaped the Frankfurt Workshop’s biological museum.
Why was the grylmhoch screaming like an afrit?
The answer soon became obvious.
As the creature slid toward Max, another mouth protruded and made a wholly different sound, the ferocious roar of some unknown creature. The roar transitioned to a weird, subsonic hum followed by a repulsive chittering.
The monster was mimicking sounds it had heard. Were they some mindless echoes of past victims or some bizarre attempt at communication? Max shuddered as a woman’s hysterical voice issued from the abomination.
“Send someone right away! My husband has done something terrible.”
The crowd cheered wildly as Max stood his ground, failing to realize that he did so from complete shock. The monster loomed over him, bigger than a house. As Max stood, transfixed, the grylmhoch formed a fleshy pseudopod and extended it slowly like a probe. The appendage halted some four or five feet away from Max’s face, its skin boiling and bubbling with pustules. To Max’s horror, these pustules formed a mouth—a squashy circle of puckered flesh that yawned wider as razor teeth pushed through its pale pink gums.
Revolted, Max overcame his shock and swung the weapon.
As the blade met the grylmhoch’s flesh, Max felt an electric jolt that raced up his arm. The edge sliced cleanly through the pseudopod, cutting it in half. The severed portion thudded onto the sand, its mouth snapping blindly about, while the remaining stump withdrew slowly into the monster’s body.
Max backed quickly away from the severed, snapping mouth at his feet. Its flesh began to bubble once again. Dumbstruck with horror, Max gaped as the flesh reshaped itself into a man-sized version of the grylmhoch. With a squeal, it rushed at Max, who leaped aside just as its full-sized parent sent several more pseudopods toward him.
The crowd yelled as one of these pseudopods seized Max in midair. Its still-forming mouth clamped onto his left wrist. Its hold was surprisingly soft, until Max felt a sudden, enormous suction. In an instant, his arm was enveloped up to the shoulder by squelching, pulpy flesh that reeled him steadily toward the tooth-lined abyss that was forming in the monster’s midsection.
In his free hand, Max gripped the spear. With terrified desperation, he cleaved it down upon the pod that had engulfed his other arm. There was no time for precision; he could only hope that he would not cut himself.
He experienced another electric jolt, followed by a sensation of falling. Crashing to the arena floor, Max found that he still possessed both his arms but one remained encased in the grylmhoch’s pulpy, living flesh. He tore frantically at the rubbery tissue, peeling off squirming chunks and flinging them away from him.
With chilling patience, the grylmhoch hunted Max from one end of the arena to the other. Like the troll, it pursued him with a mindless determination. But unlike the troll, the grylmhoch did not seem to tire. It moved no faster than a jog, except that it could maintain this pace indefinitely. Throughout its patient pursuit, it never ceased making alien cries or frantic pleas in a host of languages.
And yet Max could not focus solely on this carnivorous mountain, for he had lopped away four more pseudopods, which had also formed into miniature offspring and joined the others in pursuing him about the arena.
The smaller the offspring, the faster it moved. Whenever Max was able to evade the gargantuan parent and race to the arena’s opposite end, its spaw
n was already in swift pursuit. Forced to defend himself, Max invariably cleaved the things into ever-smaller pieces, which swarmed like ravenous jellyfish while the methodical grylmhoch bore down once again.
The crowd delighted in his anguish. He had never heard the arena so loud. Coins and flowers rained down upon the arena floor as Max ran, panting, toward the other end. His helmet was insufferably claustrophobic. His lungs felt scorched. Desperate to catch his breath, Max sagged against the bars of the portcullis. He had not rested for more than a second or two before he heard an eager squeal.
Turning, he saw the smallest and swiftest of the things catching up to him. Too weary to muster a full swing, Max transfixed it on the spear and let the heavy blade’s weight bear the flailing thing to the ground. Again, he felt a mild shock as the weapon delivered its electric charge. Instead of simply removing the spear as before, Max allowed it to deliver multiple jolts. A hideous smell filled Max’s nose, akin to burning hair.
The spawn stopped moving entirely.
There was no time to marvel, for the others were soon upon him. Using his weapon’s handle as a bludgeon, Max knocked the creatures back, stunning them until he could destroy each with a fatal dose of electricity. Within five furious minutes, their still forms littered the arena.
But despite this momentary triumph, the grylmhoch remained.
And as exhausted as he was, Max found that the colossal thing was now gaining on him. Despite Max’s previous blows, the creature appeared utterly unharmed. No scars or stumps marred its pale, fleshy whole. Eyes and mouths continued to form at random as it slid across the arena, pursuing Max while it methodically enveloped and devoured its lifeless offspring.
It could seemingly do this forever; Max could not.
Staggering to the arena’s center, Max turned and tried to gather his wits. In the stands, many of the spectators rose to their feet as though anticipating a climactic finish. The Coliseum hushed as though the crowd held its collective breath. Over the past two months, they had seen Bragha Rùn cleave shields and shatter swords, but his unique appeal lay in the possibility that he might do something that the crowd had never seen before. These moments were as unpredictable as they were dramatic, an explosion of raw rage and power that utterly overwhelmed an opponent and often brought the match to a sudden, spectacular finish.
Behind his mask, a grim smile spread across Max’s sweat-drenched face. He knew what they were hoping for, but it was not to be.
Sorry, folks. No more rabbits in the hat. I’m all tapped out.
Max would have given anything to tear off the mask and fling it away. If this was to be his end, he wanted to see the stars and breathe the night air without its unwholesome filter.
Max wanted the crowd to know who had been behind the mask.
Taking up the spear, he resolved to make a final charge. He took five running steps before planting his foot to spring. He felt that wonderful, momentary weightlessness as his body soared ever higher. The grylmhoch’s many eyes followed his trajectory. Mouths formed, great yawning maws that could have swallowed a bulldozer. Carrying just past them, Max plunged the spearhead into a glossy eye some eight feet across.
The point slid smoothly through the pupil.
And Max’s world exploded.
In a spasm of pain, the grylmhoch flung him halfway across the arena. Crashing upon the hard-packed sand, Max felt several ribs crack. There was a ringing in his ears, but he could still register the wild screaming of the crowd.
Rolling onto his side, Max recovered his wits slowly. Despite his blurry vision, he perceived that the grylmhoch was advancing with the steadiness of an ocean liner. Still dazed, Max reached distractedly for his spear.
But it was gone.
Squinting, Max spied the spear still protruding from where the enormous eye had been. That eye had been withdrawn, apparently churned back into whatever alien matter constituted the creature’s essence. Now there was merely a bubbling expanse of vascular white tissue that puckered about the weapon’s shaft. A moment later, the spear was absorbed into the grylmhoch’s body like a splinter.
For a moment, Max simply watched it come closer. He could not fight such a thing. While Max was battered and disarmed, the monster did not even appear tired, much less wounded. An ugly temptation reared its head.
Lie still. Lie still and it will soon be over.…
But something in Max smothered that thought. It came from someplace deep—Max could not decide if it was the Old Magic or something else, something profoundly human. Digging his fingers into the sand, Max pushed himself up.
The crowd roared as Max regained his feet. He backed unsteadily away from the monster until he found himself pinned against one of the arena’s high, enclosing walls. But even as the grylmhoch was closing in on him, Max suddenly noticed something peculiar about the crowd.
At the match’s beginning, the majority of spectators had abandoned the lowest rows of seats as soon as they’d learned that Bragha Rùn would face the grylmhoch. It was a sensible decision—why would anyone stay within reach of so huge and mindless a thing? But in one of the lower sections, the spectators remained. He could see them across the arena, occupying the first rows of seats just beneath the royal box.
Why hadn’t they bothered to move?
There must be some reason why they felt safe despite their proximity to the monster.…
But that monster now loomed above Max. Its writhing white mass was framed against the ink-black sky and the twisting spirals of the cathedral far above. A pair of pseudopods whipped toward Max. Exhausted, he could barely duck as they smashed into the wall behind him. Scrambling to his feet, it was all he could do to run.
He staggered toward the royal section, his heart and lungs ablaze as he whittled away his final reserves of energy. He could hear the grylmhoch’s squelching, droning pursuit but refused to turn around. Instead, he kept his attention riveted on Prusias, the surrounding nobles, and the spectators shrieking beneath them.
And then he saw it.
The object was hanging some twenty feet up the wall face, its dull appearance inconspicuous against the rich hues of Prusias’s banner. It was a stone seal some two feet in diameter that had been etched with a crude sign shaped vaguely like a star. Max had never seen it before. Did it exert some influence over the monster?
Too exhausted to jump, he would have to climb and scrabble to reach it. Gasping, he sank his fingertips into the soft mortar, determined to reach the stone.
As Max climbed, the grylmhoch continued to close. All too soon, its shadow began to envelop him. Frantic, Max tried to redouble his efforts, but he simply lacked the energy. He would never reach the stone in time.
But then something curious happened.
The grylmhoch appeared to have stopped.
Glancing over his shoulder, Max confirmed it. The monster had halted some fifty feet away as though it had reached some invisible barrier. Its roiling eyes were still intent upon him, but it would come no closer. Instead, it bubbled and screamed, its appendages searching for some other way to reach its quarry.
As the thing lingered at this apparent threshold, its physical state flickered with a greater intensity. Max could now see through the monster, glimpsing hazy patches of the arena beyond. Gritting his teeth, he resumed his slow, painful progress toward the dull, greenish stone.
The seal’s crude star was worn and weathered, suggesting that it had been carved eons ago. Unhooking it from its iron chain, Max took a deep breath and dropped down to the ground.
Max landed on the sand and his legs nearly buckled, but he propped himself against the wall. The grylmhoch abruptly ceased its gibbering speech and sprawled upon the arena floor like some beached abomination. Staggering toward it, Max hoisted the tablet aloft so that the strange, star-shaped sign faced the flickering monster.
The flickering intensified to a blur as Max approached.
When Max had arrived within an arm’s reach of the quivering creature, the stone grew
unbearably hot and issued a pulse of white light.
In a blink, the grylmhoch was gone, banished to some alternate world or plane of existence.
Dropping the heavy stone, Max collapsed onto the sand.
He awoke upon a table in a dim, candlelit room. Moaning softly, he felt about with his fingers and struck some sort of ceramic bowl. An herb-scented liquid sloshed over its side, wetting his arm. Some gentle hand sponged the liquid away before guiding his arm back to his side. Glancing up, Max expected to see one of Rowan’s kindly moomenhovens, but instead he saw the cracked, sorrowful masks of the malakhim hovering over him.
“What …?”
Memories of the grylmhoch, of his broken ribs came flooding back. In a daze, he sat up and scooted his legs off the table, knocking several bowls and metal instruments to the floor.
Was he on an operating table?
Clutching his side, Max felt his naked skin and half expected to find a gaping wound. But there was no wound; no pain, either. Confused, he stared at the silent malakhim, who were dutifully cleaning up the mess he had made.
“Am I dead?”
He spoke the question aloud, his voice hoarse and low.
To his surprise, someone answered.
“No, my boy. You’re very much alive.”
Turning, Max saw Prusias sitting in a deep chair at the far end of the room. The demon’s eyes were mere slits as he casually sipped champagne.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I feel … fine,” said Max in quiet astonishment. Looking down at his torso, he saw no bruising, no blue-black wreckage of his ribs. There was only smooth skin and the faintest trace of a thin scar along his left side. “Is that from me?” he asked, gesturing at a small pile of bloodstained towels.
“It is,” said Prusias. “Touch and go at first, but you are resilient.”
“Where are we?” asked Max, gazing about the room.
“The Coliseum,” Prusias replied. “The malakhim were afraid to move you.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Almost two days.”