The Duelist

by Eric Vall

  “I don’t know why he would want to, but everyone comes to the Blue Night Gala wearing something traditional,” Rylan puzzled, and his forehead pinched in the middle as if trying to work out a complex equation. “He must have known the Lady Zoie would come barefoot, as is Varthan custom for ceremonial wear.”

  “I’ll kill him,” I growled and jumped to my feet.

  “Alex, no,” Zoie gasped and gripped my wrist to prevent me from finding the fucker who hurt my wife.

  “Why not?” I demanded as I scanned the crowd for his stupid flippy ponytail. “Jenner told me someone of a lower rank can challenge someone who is higher, so--”

  Zoie pulled me back so I was back at her eye level.

  “Asher Ren would love nothing more than to goad you into a fight,” she said and then gripped my chin so I wouldn’t look away. “He makes a sport out of getting No-Ranks and lower Ashers to challenge him. He may look like he doesn’t do any heavy lifting, but he is very deadly with a broadsword. If you challenge him, he’ll have the upper hand.”

  “But he hurt you,” I said even though the fire in my heart was doused under her cool water gaze.

  “I’m f--” she started.

  “Don’t say you’re fine,” I interjected and pulled back so I could examine her cut foot again.

  “I can help the Lady Zoie,” Rylan piped up. “I’ve been taking lessons on field aid, and I am getting good at wrapping bandages.”

  “Thank you, Rylan,” Zoie said with a fond smile as we both helped her back to standing. “Alex, I will be alright in Rylan’s capable hands. You need to stay here.”

  “Why?” I asked, and my pulse drummed up at the thought of being left alone with these vultures.

  Actual, literal looking vultures in some cases. A hunched bald man with black feathered eyebrows cackled over by a lit brazier as he smoked a long skinny pipe.

  “You will draw more attention to yourself if you go missing before Bhraya’s eclipse,” she said as Rylan and I walked her back toward the long entrance hall where we came in.

  “Will you make it back before it happens?” I asked.

  “I’ll make sure of it!” Rylan jumped in with an eager grin at the chance to be more helpful. “I’m really fast at it, Asher Brightwood!”

  “Alex, Rylan, just Alex,” I reminded him. “Take good care of her. I’m trusting you.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but Rylan’s eyes got even bigger, and he made a small choking noise as if he’d swallowed his own tongue.

  “You can definitely count on me Asher--I mean, Mr. Bright--I mean, Brasher--I mean Ash--lex.” He stopped as he stumbled over his words, and he shook his head a bit as his mind did a little reboot right in front of us. “You can count on me, sir.”

  “We’ll work on the name thing later,” I chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.

  Rylan shot me a crooked grin, and if he had a tail, I was sure it would be wagging up a storm.

  I turned to Zoie. “Will you be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Zoie assured me as she tucked an arm through Rylan’s.

  “You know, I’m starting to really hate that word,” I grumbled, but I kissed the back of her knuckles to show her I wasn’t really mad.

  “I know.” She smiled and ducked her head as a light pink color stained her cheeks. “But I really will be okay. I have the best palace escort by my side.”

  “I know this place inside out,” Rylan said with a puffed-out chest, “I will take good care of Lady Zoie.”

  Zoie and I exchange an amused glance at how seriously he took his quest.

  “Hurry back,” I whispered to her before she let Rylan lead her back to the terrace archway. She waved at me and disappeared through the gauzy lilac curtains, and then I was left alone.

  I took a deep breath and faced the rest of the party.

  “Okay, Alex,” I said as I cracked my neck from side to side and shook out my shoulders. “Try to think of this as another stupid high school dance and find the spiked punch bowl. You’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t see a punch bowl, of course, but I did spy another server with more of those goblets of wine.

  Just what I needed.

  I grabbed a cup from one of the stoic servers and took a large gulp of the fruity wine. Even though it was sweet, it had a spice to it that reminded me of cinnamon, and it sizzled as it went down my throat.

  “Why, hello, stranger,” a voice said from behind me, which made me almost choke on my mouthful of Fireball Fruity Pebbles.

  I turned around as I tried to blink the moisture out of my eyes from the burning alcohol, and I was faced with a familiar and unamused expression.

  The cockatoo-woman I’d met when I first got to Aventoll was smirking at me with one hand on her hip and a long skinny cigarette thing in the other. She blew out a plume of musky smoke, and I choked and coughed once more.

  “Hello again,” I said as I waved away the cloud of smog.

  “Where’s your wife, Asher?” she asked and slinked so far into my space that if I looked down I would be staring at the silvery ink tattoos straight down her navy colored sheath dress.

  “She had a quick matter to attend to,” I responded and took a step back.

  “It’s a pity, you know,” the woman sighed as she brought the cigarette up to her red painted lips.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “Oh, just that you’re at a bit of a disadvantage with her, that’s all,” she replied and took another drag.

  “Who, Zoie?” I cocked my head. “In what way am I at a disadvantage?”

  The cockatoo woman shrugged and brushed a small piece of ash off her skin-tight dress. “It’s true. At least with Dagmar, he wasn’t locked into a union with her and could still decide if he wanted to trade up or not.”

  “She’s a person,” I said and put a little more distance between us. “Not property.”

  “Please,” she scoffed, and her white crest fluffed up a little. “If you’re an Asher, everything is property. The rest of us can only do what we can to make ourselves tempting enough to own. I doubted Dagmar would have kept her, honestly.”

  “Is that your deal, then?” I asked outright. “You’re trying to tempt me into ownership?”

  I was tired of the verbal sparring and was done with dancing around all the subtext.

  “Mercedes, no!” she laughed with a fake grin plastered on her face. “I already have a husband.”

  She nodded her head in the direction of that vulture-man I saw earlier, and I watched him as he blew his beaky nose into a handkerchief.

  “He seems… charming,” I said after the man hacked up a bit of phlegm and spat it in the open flame of the brazier he was still standing by.

  “Gordo is hideous and uncouth,” she responded. “But he’s an Asher, and he allows me to run my own business. Probably because he loves gold more than life.”

  “How kind of him,” I muttered for lack of anything better to say.

  “It could be worse,” she said with a double edge to her words. “At least I’m not from Vartha, like your wife.”

  “Vel-Rala!” the vulture-man barked from across the terrace. “Come!”

  Before I could even find out what the woman meant, she twirled around and glided away to her creepy bald husband.

  What did the cockatoo-woman even mean about Zoie?

  I didn’t know much, but the tone of her voice indicated being Varthan was something less-than or trashy. In fact, I didn’t know if the whole conversation was more culture-shock or just subtext, but I had a hunch she liked to stir up trouble just for trouble’s sake. In any case, I decided to watch out for this Vel-Rala in the future.

  Suddenly, a trumpeting fanfare sounded around the terrace, and the fluttering archway curtains parted for Lord Asher Mec and his entourage.

  “My fellow Natavians!” Mec thundered, and the chatter and movement stilled. “My astronomers have informed me Bhraya’s eclipse is almost upon us.”

  The crowd tu
rned as one to look up at the sky, and everyone oohed and ahhed as the tails of the comet cast off radiant beams of icy blue light. All of the flames in the braziers suddenly flared a deep indigo, and the various silvery ink tattoos favored by some of the women glowed under the comet’s light. By now, the comet was about half the size of the moon, and it was getting closer and closer as if picking up speed.

  As impressive and wondrous as the light show was, I looked around for Zoie instead. After how the beautiful cat-woman was maliciously targeted first by Asher Ren, and then all but condemned by Vel-Rala, I was worried maybe something had happened to prevent her from finding her way back to the terrace.

  I was just about to go and find out when I spotted Zoie as she rounded another one of those massive flower urns.

  “Sorry!” she said as she accidentally bumped into someone, and then she began searching the crowd like I was just doing a moment ago.

  I went to her and lightly touched the inside of her elbow.

  My wife startled but recovered quickly when she saw it was me, and she gave me a relieved smile that I knew matched my own.

  “How’s your foot?” I asked her as I held her hand in mine.

  “Better. Rylan is very talented.” She squeezed my hand and turned to observe the comet’s rays. Another soft smile drew her bow lips up into a serene expression, and I didn’t know what sparkled more, the stars in the sky or the reflection of Bhraya in Zoie’s endless blue eyes.

  The atmospheric light intensified, and the people gasped and chattered with excitement as the heavenly comet began to eclipse the moon.

  The Lord Asher made his way to the center of the terrace as the spectators parted for him like the Dead Sea. He stopped in the middle where the fountain was, and when he did, the jets of water died down to a trickle. Then a small series of steps was revealed up the back of the large Sacred Fish set as the fountain’s centerpiece.

  “People of Nata,” Asher Mec’s booming voice echoed out as he made his way up the back of the fish statue, and he raised his arms over the crowd when he got to the top. “Bhraya is here!”

  Cheers rose up into the blue night air as the Lord Asher held up his glowing Duelist Stone.

  “The Lord Asher’s Stone glows under Bhraya’s light because his Stone comes from a long line of successful herald hunts,” Zoie explained, and I was grateful for the extra commentary. “It is this strong will that made your own Stone glow when you ashed your first herald, and we bowed to Mec earlier out of respect for his status. That’s why it is considered rude to show off any glowing stones before the eclipse.”

  Oh. That made a ton of sense now. It was like upstaging the Queen of England in her own palace with an identical set of crown jewels. No wonder people were shocked by my stunt on the stairs, and now I wondered if my boldness was a good idea after all.

  “Now is the time, my fellow Natavians!” Mec cried out right at the apex of the eclipse as he raised his Stone higher. “Let us all see if any Ashers among us are worthy to heed the Goddess’ call!”

  All around Ashers of various species took this as their cue to finally pull out their own Duelist Stones. Some of the Stones remained dark, while a few here and there already glowed like Mec’s. Cheers and congratulatory shouts could be heard all around the terrace as some people’s dark stones now suddenly burst into life for the first time, and I pulled out my Duelist stone and watched it pulse blue like it had ever since I first killed that demon laser-beam style.

  “This is the one night a year when an Asher might be blessed with the Goddess’ conviction without having to ash a demon first,” Zoie continued into my ear. “Just like it happened the first time Bhraya came to Aventoll, the light fell on the people, and they were given the power.”

  “Welcome, my new brothers!” Mec bellowed and laughed his rolling thunder laugh. “We are now united as Mercedes’ children!”

  The eclipse was half over and now making its way across the moon. The vivid icy blue light faded into something less intense, and people began to conceal their Duelist Stones once more. I looked around for that ponytailed prick and was a little thrilled to see Ren’s Stone was still its regular clear crystal. A spike of glee went through me as I watched him throw a fit like a jealous toddler and cram the Stone back under his froofy robes.

  Suddenly, Ren looked up as if he could feel my laser beams of Fuck You. It didn’t take him long to find me in the crowd, and when we made eye contact, I held up my glowing Stone as I gave an exaggerated shrug.

  The look of outrage on his pointy face was worth it.

  Poor Asher Ren. Always a bridesmaid, and never a bride, it seemed. Better luck next year, bitch.

  “Come. Let us break the Night’s Fast in the great hall.” The Asher Lord descended the fountain statue, and the crowd parted for him again.

  Bit by bit, people trickled after him until we were all following the procession back through the curtained terrace arch.

  A hand clamped down onto my arm just before Zoie and I entered the banquet hall, and I was roughly spun around to face Asher Ren’s feral expression.

  “You dare insult me, and try to mock my honor?” he growled, and I smelled the spice on his breath from the verna berry wine. “That is grounds for a Duel as is within my rights as a Duelist.”

  Oh, fuck. This was like Dagmar all over again. I kept forgetting how much wounding an Asher’s pride was a big deal, and how they probably just murder people for even looking at them wrong.

  Before I could try to figure my way out of this clusterfuck of a situation, Zoie intervened with a simple question.

  “Was there a witness to your claimed insult?” she asked. “I was standing beside my husband and saw no such action against your honor.”

  Ren’s copper eagle eyes spiked her in place as a thunderous scowl transformed his features, but he didn’t have an answer for that one.

  “Because according to custom, a Duel can only be engaged if the offense was witnessed by the public,” Zoie stated flatly.

  “Don’t quote the laws at me, Varthan,” Ren spat, and then he directed his ire at me. “Mark my words, Asher Brightwood: I am not Dagmar, and I will not make the same mistakes.”

  Zoie and I watched Asher Ren as he stalked through the crowd. He passed by his wife Shale-Lea on the way out, and he manhandled her to his side as they walked into the great hall.

  I blew out a heavy breath. The gala had barely even started, and I’d serious doubts on whether or not I would even survive.

  Zoie squeezed my arm and snapped me out of my impending doom.

  “Thank you,” I said to her and tried to give her a grin, but my heart wasn’t really in it.

  She noticed, of course, and leaned up to kiss me briefly on the lips. “Try not to let Asher Ren trouble you. He is full of bluster, but he is also lazy and entitled, and his words are usually just words.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, but I had a growing feeling in the pit of my stomach that this wouldn’t be the last time I ran into Bala Ren.

  I hoped just this once my hunch would be proven wrong, and I wondered what was in store for me as I led us into the great hall.

  Chapter 7

  After another palace escort announced us to the crowd, Zoie and I entered the great hall arm in arm and followed Rylan to our appointed seats.

  We passed the rest of the party goers who were all seated at tables decorated with the blue and silver theme of the evening. The tables were arranged in one big circle which left a big open space on the floor in the middle, and in the center of the space, a statue of the Goddess Mercedes stood tall and proud as she raised a silver star above her head.

  For some light dinner entertainment, there was a band of musicians who were playing a variety of instruments at the statue’s feet. They strummed guitar-like things, piped into pan flutes, and drummed on drums made of unknown animal skin. A few pretty bird-women even twirled around in skimpy clothes as they waved silky scarves around in the air for the guests’ enjoyment.

&n
bsp; Many people were already eating food from various platters that kept being brought into the hall by a constant stream of servers, and the aromas that filled the air reminded me the last time I ate was Arvid’s stew a thousand years ago.

  I thought we were going to be led to one of the regular seats everyone seemed to occupy, but when Rylan kept aiming for the elevated and Very Important Person table at the far end of the hall, I remembered Asher Mec invited us to eat with him.

  Oh, fuck. I hoped this went well. The last thing I needed was the head dude gunning for me.

  Speaking of said head dude, the Lord Asher was holding court in the middle of the table with his green parakeet-wife on his left, and a lizard-man who looked like the combination of a Komodo dragon mixed with a Sleestak sat on his right. Next to Land of the Lost guy, there was that dick, Ren, and his beautiful phoenix-wife Shale-Lea. With Zoie and I, it made a total of seven of us at the table altogether.

  “Asher Brightwood and the Lady Zoie, milord,” Rylan announced us.

  “Ah, yes, Asher Brightwood,” the horned lord greeted me and then set a giant leg of meat back onto his plate. His shaggy sandy hair was now loosened from its leather cord, his cheeks were a merry red from the alcohol, and his open grin all made me feel a little more relaxed in his presence.

  “Sit across from Bala.” He gestured to the seats on the other side of the head table. “I believe you both have met, yes?”

  “Yes, we’ve already had the pleasure,” Ren grumbled like a spoiled child, and my eyes snapped to him. The brown pony-tailed man was slouched so low in his seat it was as if his Christmas had just gotten canceled.

  What an asshole.

  I recognized this was one of those occasions where saying something was probably not wise, so I simply bowed my head in mock respect to Ren.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Asher Mec,” I said with a genuine bow this time.

  Mec saluted me with his jewel encrusted chalice, and Zoie and I both took our seats.

  “How did you like your first eclipse, Asher Brightwood?” Mec asked when the formalities were said and done, and he paused with his chalice half-way up to his mouth. “Or, if the rumors are true, should I say… Traveler Brightwood?”