Under the Crimson Sun

probably hadn’t.

Rol then punched the mul right in the nose while letting go of Gorbin’s fist. Rol’s fist struck Gorbin’s nose with a meaty thud, blood flying from his nostrils, and he fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

The crowd went completely quiet.

Walking over to the fallen mul, Rol looked down at him. “That the best you can do?”

Snarling, Gorbin wiped his nose with the back of his wrist, then leaped to his feet and started throwing dozens of punches. Rol was able to counter some of them, and some struck full on. Rol didn’t fight back, just let Gorbin hit his arms, keeping his elbows in so that Gorbin didn’t strike his stomach or chest.

Then Rol grinned again.

Gan’s heart skipped a beat. “What the hell is wrong with you, Rol?”

Rol let loose with a quick kick that slammed into Gorbin’s stomach, causing the mul to blow out a big breath and stumble backward. Not letting up, Rol kicked him again and punched him in the face a few more times.

Gorbin’s face was caked with blood from his nose and mouth, and he was breathing very heavily, spitting blood onto the stone floor. Rol was still grinning.

Then Rol grabbed Gorbin’s arms and lifted the mul-who had to weigh twice what Rol had ever been able to pick up before-and threw him across the arena floor. Gorbin hit the stone ground and skidded along to the obsidian wall.

Still the crowd was silent.

Gan looked at what he could see of the audience from the holding area. The signs had been lowered; the dolls of Gorbin’s likeness were being clutched for dear life, as if to ward off the mul’s apparent defeat.

Rol ran over to Gorbin’s prone, broken form, and stepped on one of his arms. The snap of bone echoed throughout the subdued amphitheater. Then he picked Gorbin up by that arm-causing the mul to scream in pain- and threw him toward the holding area.

Backing up instinctively, Gan watched as Gorbin slammed into the metal cage with a clang.

Struggling to get to his feet, Gorbin said, “I don’t understand-I’m the biggest and the strongest. I should be winning.”

Walking over to stand over Gorbin, Rol spoke in a quiet tone that Gan could barely hear. “There is no ‘biggest.’ There is no ‘strongest.’ Because there’s always someone who’s stronger and bigger. And sooner or later that person finds you.” Rol then kneeled down on the mul, his knees pinning Gorbin’s chest. Despite just wiping the floor with the greatest fighter in Urik, Rol didn’t even sound winded. “When that person does find you, it’s your time to die.”

Oddly, Gorbin’s blood-caked face brightened at that. “You mean I don’t have to fight anymore?”

“Nope.”

“Thank you.” Gorbin sounded incredibly relieved.

To Gan’s amazement, it seemed that-when Rol grabbed the sides of Gorbin’s hairless head and yanked it to one side, snapping the mul’s neck-Gorbin died happy.

However, Gan had someone else’s happiness on his mind-not so much that of a dead fighter, but that of a restless crowd who had come there to watch the latest in a series of predetermined Gorbin fights.

The silence extended for several seconds.

It was broken by Jago, who was grinning even more widely than Rol had been.

“My friends, we have ourselves a new champion! For the first time in a decade, Gorbin has been defeated!”

More silence.

Gan was seriously worried that the crowd would riot.

Then one person in the audience bellowed, “It’s about damned time!”

Someone else-or it might have been the same person, Gan couldn’t tell-started to clap.

Then another.

Soon the applause started to spread throughout the arena.

That was followed by cheers and yips of joy.

After a few seconds, one of the incomprehensible yells started to coalesce into something understandable:

“Rol! Rol! Rol! Rol!”

At once Gan was relieved and frightened. The former because the crowd seemed to accept Rol’s victory. Indeed, they were embracing it, having gotten over the shock of Gorbin’s defeat.

The latter because what he just saw was completely impossible. There was no way, none, that an unenhanced human of Rol’s strength and talent-considerable though both were-could have wiped the floor with any mul like that, much less a mul as talented as Gorbin.

Something was wrong with Rol, and Gan needed to find out what it was.

He really wished that Feena was there …

Rol’s hands hurt.

That was the worst part.

No, the worst part was the headaches. They were awful.

No, the worst part were the horrible lesions that kept sprouting on his skin and would not go away.

No, the worst part was that those lesions would sometimes pop and smear red ooze all over everything.

No, the worst part was constantly being forced to fight for the pleasure of other people instead of being paid for it like a sensible person.

No, the worst part was that Rol was starting to forget who he was.

Yes, that was definitely the worst part.

He tried not to think about it too much.

Besides, that was only sometimes. Most of the time he knew damn well that he was Rol Mandred, that he was a human, that his best friends were Fehrd Anspah and Gan Storvis, that he hired himself out as a rent-a-thug, and that his parents were named-

He couldn’t remember his parents’ names.

But he tried not to think about it too much.

His hands hurt.

Some nights, when he slept-on those rare occasions when he could actually sleep, not toss and turn in the “cubicle” that Calbit and Jago had put him and Gan in-he dreamed about the red liquid. But in the dream, the red liquid was swirling madly in a whirlpool. Unfamiliar images crashed onto his consciousness like dunes overflowing during a sandstorm: a large golden vortexlike eye, a strange creature with gray skin but with shoulders covered in red crystal, a female wizard turning a tiefling into stone …

Plus phrases he did not recognize: the Elder Elemental Eye, Bael Turath, Voidharrow.

That last one he heard a lot in his dreams.

But then he woke up. And he tried not to think about it too much.

Sometimes he thought that he was better off not thinking at all. Just giving in to all of it.

That would make life easier.

“Rol, you okay?”

For a moment, Rol panicked. He knew the voice, knew it, as certain as he knew his own name was-

What was his name?

Gan. That was it. No, Gan wasn’t his name, Gan was the name of the person talking to him. His own name was Rol Mandred. He knew that.

He always knew that. Except when he didn’t.

“Rol.”

“I’m fine.” His voice sounded weird. “My hands hurt a little, but I’m fine.”

He looked around the cubicle, but couldn’t see Gan.

Maybe he was imagining Gan. Maybe he was imagining all of it. Maybe Gan didn’t exist. Maybe it was all a