"I am your obedient child, Pater." Chainer suddenly smelled Dragon's Blood. The First watched him with mild interest as the boy began sniffing the air.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, Pater. It's just that…" He sniffed again, absently looking behind him, above him, all around. "Something's… pulling me. Do you smell incense?"

"This room is scented daily."

"No, I mean… this room reeks of Dragon's Blood. Can't you smell it?"

"Perhaps you should take a moment to gather yourself, Caster Chainer. You're not making sense."

Chainer cried out and slammed the palms of his hands into his forehead. He smelled the smoke, he felt the black sand beneath his feet, he saw the mustard sky…

"Chainer," Skellum's voice said. It was high pitched, buzzing with distortion. It cut through Chainer's head like a blade.

"Skellum?" Chainer said, as the First's hand attendant slapped him for the third time. Chainer broke the man's collarbone with his metal fist, shoved him back, and bolted for the door. Two brawny killers leaped out of the shadows and took him down before he went four steps.

"Don't harm him." The First spoke loudly but calmly. "Mazeura," he whispered, hissing the secret name and freezing Chainer in mid-struggle. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Skellum," Chainer said. He was immobile beneath the weight of the First's guards and the power of his secret name on the First's lips.

The lead wolf-monkey stopped five feet from Skellum and bared its teeth. Behind it, the rest of the troop chattered and pounded the ground. Skellum himself stood with his hand raised, as if in greeting. With a start, the dementist master came back to the pit and saw the wolf-monkeys closing in. The crowd booed his complete lack of motion.

Skellum stopped his hat with a gap in front. The leader was tensing for its charge. Skellum smiled amiably.

"Animal," he said. The leader snarled, then dove for Skellum's face. Before its slashing fangs could latch on, however, the vortex in Skellum's head boomed and a smoking comet erupted out of his hat and crashed into the wolf-monkey. It was a near-formless horror, all shadows and teeth, but it devoured the lead mandrill whole in a single bite. It hissed, and snapped at another wolf-monkey. Then it began to fade.

"How are you doing, Skellum?" Fulla was bedeviling Major Teroh with a pair of wolf-headed spiders and was beating Sgt. Baankis back with her gladius. She crowed happily and unleashed a zombie centaur at the justicar. Yewma cried out in horror when she saw Fulla's latest contribution, and the wolf- monkeys reoriented on the caster.

"Better now," Skellum said, the sing-song quality of his voice resonating in his own head. "I've got a lot on my mind, however." He spat out four small comets in rapid succession, each transforming in midair. While the pack of wolf-monkeys howled and gibbered toward Fulla, Skellum sent a quartet of man-sized millipedes scurrying after them.

Skellum saw that he had a moment's respite and let his mind drift away from the pits.

"Chainer?" he called. "Forgive me, my boy, but I need you to see this."

Chainer swooned and found himself standing in the pits. There was a match going on, a busy one with monkeys and toy soldiers and dementia castings and glowing knights. Chainer's hat spun before his eyes. He blinked. His hat?

"Skellum!" Fulla called. She was tossing out monsters left and right, but she was slowly being overwhelmed.

Chainer's vision dropped, and there were suddenly twice as many monsters fighting with Fulla. She howled again, knocking one Order soldier to his knees and ducking under another's sword.

"I know those two," Chainer said aloud, but he didn't hear his own voice.

"I'm sorry, Chainer," Skellum's voice said in his head, "but I couldn't go without saying goodbye."

"What?" Chainer's voice still carried no sound. "What do you mean? That's Bunkus and Teroh, isn't it?"

"Remember me." A vision of Skellum stood, his eyes sad and pleading. "Remember how I died." The vision put on its hat and raised a hand. "We deserve better than this, my boy."

There was a horrific screech, and Chainer turned just in time to see a glowing knight tear a hydra's headless body in half. His skin had begun to crackle beneath his shining armor, giving the impression that he was composed only of armored plates and energy. Arcs of electricity crawled over him from head to toe.

"Sergeant Baankis?" the glowing knight's voice clanged like a gong. "It is time." The arcs of electricity on the justicar's body began to grow bigger and brighter. They increased in number and frequency, with more and more rolling over him until his body was scarcely visible at the center of an electrical storm. The air in the pit was being stirred up as if by a great wind, and Chainer felt a deep, vibrating hum in his ear. It seemed the entire building was shaking.

Disoriented, Chainer bowled Baankis over and took a few faltering steps toward the justicar. Whatever he was doing, it was affecting Chainer's balance. He couldn't see Fulla, but if she was still on the pit floor, she was caught in the same maelstrom he was. Chainer was willing to lose the match, but the longer this went on, the more he felt like the justicar wouldn't stop just because the flag was down. He couldn't concentrate enough to cast the death bloom or unleash a monster, so he snapped his metal arm out straight and tried to lash a chain across the justicar's face.

Before the chain could even form, electricity leaped in one huge arc from the justicar to Chainer's body. For Chainer, the world went white. His body was blasted halfway across the arena…

… Chainer opened his eyes in the First's private chambers, carried by cutthroats and attended by zombies.

Skellum rose painfully to one knee. His hat was torn and burned and hung in tatters across his face. One eye was swollen shut, and he could feel the blood running freely from his nose. Fulla was down, halfway across the floor, and the smoking carcasses of their combined summonings were quickly fading away. The surviving wolf-monkeys turned and oriented on Skellum once more. "We give," Skellum called, as loudly as his burned lungs permitted. The wo If-monkeys kept coming. He saw Teroh laugh and cross his arms. The major gestured and spoke to Yewma, and the druid shrugged. With a finger on either side of her mouth, she blew two short, sharp whistles.

The monkeys spread out and surrounded Skellum.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Skellum, and I wear-"

The wolf-monkey flanking Skellum's left lunged forward and hit him high on the shoulder before he could continue. Skellum felt a wet, searing slap and found himself on both knees, hat gone, face-to-naked- face with the lead primate. They stared at each other for a moment, the wolf-monkey slavering and Skellum coughing blood.

"Finish this," Teroh said. Yewma whistled again, and the wolf-monkeys piled on to Skellum with a chorus of hideous screams. The victory horn sounded over a chorus of boos, and Yewma the druid frantically blew the signal that called off her troop. It took quite a long time to get all the blood-maddened mandrills back into their cage.