Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  “Like what?”

  I had a whole speech planned about how I’d banded myself with shadow—the seventh and deadliest of magics, the one forbidden to us all. If that didn’t scare him I had a different bit about how the truly great mages among our ancestors could wield the high magics without sparking their bands at all. Just as I was about to speak though, I saw a falcon flying overhead and decided to switch tactics.

  “You don’t need to spark your bands if you’ve found your power animal.”

  Everyone looked up to see. Tennat’s smirk was just angry enough to tell me he was getting nervous. “Nobody bonds with familiars any more. Besides, how would someone with as little magic as you ever attract a power animal? And a falcon? No way, Kellen. Not in a thousand years.”

  I noticed the falcon was about to swoop down on a smaller bird. “Dive, my darling,” I whispered, just loud enough for everyone to hear. There was a sudden nervous intake of breath all around me as the falcon’s claws took merciless hold of its prey. It occurred to me then that I might have made a decent actor if it hadn’t been a forbidden profession among the Jan’Tep.

  “All right, all right,” Osia’phest said, waiving his hands in the air as if trying to cast a banishing spell on all our nonsense. I was fairly sure the old man knew I hadn’t acquired a familiar, but I guess it’s bad form to reveal another mage’s secrets, even when they happen to be lies. Or maybe he just didn’t care. “I recognise that it’s traditional for there to be a certain amount of… posturing prior to a duel, but I think we’ve all had just about enough. Are you ready to begin?”

  I nodded. Tennat didn’t bother, as if the implication that he might not be ready were an insult.

  “Very well,” Osia’phest said. “I shall commence the counting.” The old man took in a deep breath that was probably excessive given that all he said next was, “Seven!”

  The breeze picked up and my loose linen shirt flapped noisily against my skin. I dried my hands on it for the tenth time and cleared my throat to get rid of the tickle. Don’t start coughing. Don’t look weak. Whatever you do, don’t look weak.

  “Six.”

  Tennat gave me a wide grin as if he had some big surprise waiting for me. I would have been more scared if I hadn’t seen him give every opponent that same look prior to each duel. Also, I was already as terrified as I could possibly be without collapsing to the ground.

  “Five.”

  The bird swooped overhead again so I looked up and winked at it. Tennat’s smile wavered. Evidently he was capable of simultaneously believing I was a weakling and yet had also acquired a power animal. Moron.

  “Four.”

  His left hand formed the somatic shape necessary for his shield spell. I’d never seen him prepare the shield before the sword. He looked down at his hand to check the form. Tennat was just a little worried now.

  “Two.”

  Two? What happened to three? Pay attention, damn it. Tennat’s right hand made the somatic shape for the iron attack spell we informally call the gut sword. His fingers were perfectly aligned to cause the maximum pain in his opponent. His head was still down, but it was starting to look as though he might be smiling again.

  “One.”

  Okay, Tennat was definitely smiling. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.

  “Begin!” Osia’phest said.

  The next thing I felt was my insides screaming in pain.

  Like I said, magic is a con game.

  Mostly.

  To an observer, it wouldn’t have looked as if anything was happening. There was no flash of light or roar of thunder, just the early evening light and the soft sounds of the breeze coming from the south. Iron magic doesn’t create any visual or auditory effects—that was why I’d picked it in the first place. The real fight was taking place inside our bodies.

  Tennat was reaching out with his right hand, carefully holding the somatic form: middle fingers together making the sign of the knife, index and little fingers curled up—the shape of pulling, of tearing. The horrifying touch of his will slipped inside my chest, winding itself along my internal organs. The pain it created—more slithering horror than anything blunt or sharp—made me want to fall to the ground and beg for mercy. Damn, he’s fast, and strong too. Why can’t I be strong like that?

  I responded by letting out the barest hint of a laugh and smiling effortlessly. The look on Tennat’s face told me I was creeping him out. I was probably creeping everyone out, since confident smiles weren’t exactly my customary expression.

  I let the corners of my mouth ease down a bit as my gaze narrowed and I stared straight into Tennat’s eyes. I thrust out my hand as if I were stabbing the air—a much more pronounced gesture and by all rights much too fast for an initiate like me to do while holding on to the shielding spell. Where Tennat’s hand formed the somatic shape with care and precision, mine was looser, almost casual, something few would dare because of the risk of breaking the shape.

  At first nothing happened. I could still feel Tennat’s will inside my guts, so I let my smile grow by a hair—just enough to let him see how sure I was that he was completely screwed. The painful pulling at my insides began to subside just a little as Tennat’s gaze lingered on me for several agonising seconds. Suddenly his eyes went very, very wide.

  That’s when I knew I was going to win.

  The other reason I’d chosen iron magic even though I couldn’t wield it myself was because when a mage uses the gut sword to attack, he has to use a second spell—the heart shield—to protect himself. But it’s not a shield the way you might think of a big round thing that acts as a wall. Instead, you use magical force to maintain the shape and integrity of your own insides. You have to picture your heart, your liver, your… well, everything, and try to keep them together. But if you start to panic—say, if you think the other mage is beating you and nothing you’re doing is working—you can inadvertently compress your own organs.

  That was how Tennat had beat Panahsi. That was how he’d hurt him so badly, even though nobody but me—not even Tennat himself—had realised it. Pan had been trying so hard to protect himself that he’d actually ended up crushing his own internal organs. Now it was Tennat who was so convinced that his spells were failing that he was pushing them too hard. I was still in blinding pain, but I’d expected it. I was ready for it. Tennat wasn’t.

  He struggled for a while, increasing his attack on me even as he unconsciously tore at himself with his own shield spell. I felt my legs shake and my vision start to blur as the pain became too much for me. It had seemed like such a good plan at the time, I thought.

  Suddenly Tennat stumbled out of his circle. “Enough!” he shouted. “I yield… I yield!”

  The fingers of his own power disappeared into nothingness. I could breathe again. I tried my very best to keep my tremendous sense of relief from showing on my face.

  Osia’phest walked slowly over to Tennat, who was on his knees gasping. “Describe the sensation,” our teacher demanded.

  Tennat looked up at the old man as if he were an idiot, which was a fairly common impression of our teacher. “It felt like I was about to die. That’s what it felt like!”

  Osia’phest ignored the belligerent tone. “And did it feel the same as with the other students?”

  A jolt of fear ran through me as I realised Osia’phest was testing his suspicions. Tennat looked over at me, then at the old man. “It… I suppose not at first. Usually it feels hard, like a strong hand grabbing at you, but with Kellen it’s different… worse, like tendrils insinuating themselves all around my insides. By the end I could feel him crushing my organs.”

  Osia’phest stood in silence for a long time as the breeze picked up and drifted off again around us. The other initiates were still staring at me, wondering how someone who hadn’t broken any of his bands had beaten the best duellist in our class. But they’d all seen Tennat falter and heard him describe what sounded like someone being overwhelmed by superior magic
. Finally Osia’phest said, “Well done, Kellen of the House of Ke. It would appear that you’ve passed the first test.”

  “I’ll pass the other three too,” I declared.

  I did it, I thought, as a surge of joy erupted inside me. I beat him. I won. No more spending hours and hours staring at the bands on my forearms, praying without success to break the bindings between the sigils to spark them. No more sitting awake at night wondering when I would be sent away from my family home, doomed to become Sha’Tep and take a position as a tradesman, clerk or, ancestors help me, Tennat’s personal servant.

  A few of the other initiates applauded. I doubted any of them other than Panahsi and maybe Nephenia had wanted me to best Tennat, but among my people? Let’s just say everyone loves a winner. Even Tennat bowed to me, with about as much grace as you’d expect given the circumstances. I hadn’t hurt his standing in the trials. Every initiate was allowed three attempts at the duel and he’d already won several.

  “All right,” Osia’phest said. “Let’s have the next pair and—”

  “Stop!” a voice called out, cutting off our teacher and, with more force than any spell I could imagine, shattering everything I had done and everything I would ever do. I watched with a sinking heart as my sister pushed past Osia’phest and strode forth to stand in front of me, hands on her hips. “Kellen cheated,” she said simply.

  And, just like that, all my hopes and dreams came crashing down around me.

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  DEAD MAN IN A DITCH

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  SENLIN ASCENDS

  The Books of Babel: Book One

  by

  Josiah Bancroft

  Mild-mannered headmaster Thomas Senlin prefers his adventures to be safely contained within the pages of a book. So when he loses his new bride shortly after embarking on the honeymoon of their dreams, he is ill-prepared for the trouble that follows.

  To find her, Senlin must enter the Tower of Babel—a world of geniuses and tyrants, of luxury and menace, of unusual animals and mysterious machines. He must endure betrayal, assassination attempts, and the illusions of the tower. And if he hopes ever to see his wife again, he will have to do more than just survive.… This quiet man of letters must become a man of action.

  Chapter One

  The Tower of Babel is most famous for the silk fineries and marvelous airships it produces, but visitors will discover other intangible exports. Whimsy, adventure, and romance are the Tower’s real trade.

  —Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, I. V

  It was a four-day journey by train from the coast to the desert where the Tower of Babel rose like a tusk from the jaw of the earth. First, they had crossed pastureland, spotted with fattening cattle and charmless hamlets, and then their train had climbed through a range of snow-veined mountains where condors roosted in nests large as haystacks. Already, they were farther from home than they had ever been. They descended through shale foothills, which he said reminded him of a field of shattered blackboards, through cypress trees, which she said looked like open parasols, and finally they came upon the arid basin. The ground was the color of rusted chains, and the dust of it clung to everything. The desert was far from deserted. Their train shared a direction with a host of caravans, each a slithering line of wheels, hooves, and feet. Over the course of the morning, the bands of traffic thickened until they converged into a great mass so dense that their train was forced to slow to a crawl. Their cabin seemed to wade through the boisterous tide of stagecoaches and ox-drawn wagons, through the tourists, pilgrims, migrants, and merchants from every state in the vast nation of Ur.

  Thomas Senlin and Marya, his new bride, peered at the human menagerie through the open window of their sunny sleeper car. Her china-white hand lay weightlessly atop his long fingers. A little troop of red-breasted soldiers slouched by on palominos, parting a family in checkered headscarves on camelback. The trumpet of elephants sounded over the clack of the train, and here and there in the hot winds high above them, airships lazed, drifting inexorably toward the Tower of Babel. The balloons that held the ships aloft were as colorful as maypoles.

  Since turning toward the Tower, they had been unable to see the grand spire from their cabin window. But this did not discourage Senlin’s description of it. “There is a lot of debate over how many levels there are. Some scholars say there are fifty-two, others say as many as sixty. It’s impossible to judge from the ground,” Senlin said, continuing the litany of facts he’d brought to his young wife’s attention over the course of their journey. “A number of men, mostly aeronauts and mystics, say that they have seen the top of it. Of course, none of them have any evidence to back up their boasts. Some of those explorers even claim that the Tower is still being raised, if you can believe that.” These trivial facts comforted him, as all facts did. Thomas Senlin was a reserved and naturally timid man who took confidence in schedules and regimens and written accounts.

  Marya nodded dutifully but was obviously distracted by the parade of humanity outside. Her wide, green eyes darted excitedly from one exotic diversion to the next: What Senlin merely observed, she absorbed. Senlin knew that, unlike him, Marya found spectacles and crowds exhilarating, though she saw little of either back home. The pageant outside her window was nothing like Isaugh, a salt-scoured fishing village, now many hundreds of miles behind them. Isaugh was the only real home she’d known, apart from the young women’s musical conservatory she’d attended for four years. Isaugh had two pubs, a Whist Club, and a city hall that doubled as a ballroom when occasion called for it. But it was hardly a metropolis.

  Marya jumped in her seat when a camel’s head swung unexpectedly near. Senlin tried to calm her by example but couldn’t stop himself from yelping when the camel snorted, spraying them with warm spit. Frustrated by this lapse in decorum, Senlin cleared his throat and shooed the camel out with his handkerchief.

  The tea set that had come with their breakfast rattled now, spoons shivering in their empty cups, as the engineer applied the brakes and the train all but stopped. Thomas Senlin had saved and planned for this journey his entire career. He wanted to see the wonders he’d read so much about, and though it would be a trial for his nerves, he hoped his poise and intellect would carry the day. Climbing the Tower of Babel, even if only a little way, was his greatest ambition, and he was quite excited. Not that anyone would know it to look at him: He affected a cool detachment as a rule, concealing the inner flights of his emotions. It was how he conducted himself in the classroom. He didn’t know how else to behave anymore.

  Outside, an airship passed low enough to the ground that its tethering lines began to snap against heads in the crowd. Senlin wondered why it had dropped so low, or if it had only recently launched. Marya let out a laughing cry and covered her mouth with her hand. He gaped as the ship’s captain gestured wildly at the crew to fire the furnace and pull in the tethers, which was quickly done amid a general panic, but not before a young man from the crowd had caught hold of one of the loose cords. The adventuresome lad was quickly lifted above the throng, his feet just clearing the box of a carriage before he was swung up and out of view.

  The scene seemed almost comical from the ground, but Senlin’s stomach churned when he thought of how the youth must feel flying on the strength of his grip high over the sprawling mob. Indeed, the entire brief scene had been so bizarre that he decided to simply put it out of his mind. The Guide had called the Market a raucous place. It seemed, perhaps, an understatement.

  He’d never expected to make the journey as a honeymooner. More to the point, he never imagined he’d find a woman who’d have him. Marya was his junior by a dozen years, but being in his midthirties himself, Senlin did not think their recent marriage very remarkable. It had raised a few eyebrows in Isaugh, though. Perched on rock bluffs by the Niro Ocean, the townsfolk of Isaugh were suspicious of anything that fell outside the regular rhythms of tides and fishing seasons. But as the headmaster, and the only teacher, o
f Isaugh’s school, Senlin was generally indifferent to gossip. He’d certainly heard enough of it. To his thinking, gossip was the theater of the uneducated, and he hadn’t gotten married to enliven anyone’s breakfast-table conversation.

  He’d married for entirely practical reasons.

  Marya was a good match. She was good tempered and well read; thoughtful, though not brooding; and mannered without being aloof. She tolerated his long hours of study and his general quiet, which others often mistook for stoicism. He imagined she had married him because he was kind, even tempered, and securely employed. He made fifteen shekels a week, for an annual salary of thirteen minas; it wasn’t a fortune by any means, but it was sufficient for a comfortable life. She certainly hadn’t married him for his looks. While his features were separately handsome enough, taken altogether they seemed a little stretched and misplaced. His nickname among his pupils was “the Sturgeon” because he was thin and long and bony.

  Of course, Marya had a few unusual habits of her own. She read books while she walked to town—and had many torn skirts and skinned knees to show for it. She was fearless of heights and would sometimes get on the roof just to watch the sails of inbound ships rise over the horizon. She played the piano beautifully but also brutally. She’d sing like a mad mermaid while banging out ballads and reels, leaving detuned pianos in her wake. And even still, her oddness inspired admiration in most. The townsfolk thought she was charming, and her playing was often requested at the local public houses. Not even the bitter gray of Isaugh’s winters could temper her vivacity. Everyone was a little baffled by her marriage to the Sturgeon.

  Today, Marya wore her traveling clothes: a knee-length khaki skirt and plain white blouse with a somewhat eccentric pith helmet covering her rolling auburn hair. She had dyed the helmet red, which Senlin didn’t particularly like, but she’d sold him on the fashion by saying it would make her easier to spot in a crowd. Senlin wore a gray suit of thin corduroy, which he felt was too casual, even for traveling, but which she had said was fashionable and a little frolicsome, and wasn’t that the whole point of a honeymoon, after all?