The data stream faded from view, leaving only a solitary sentence behind.
I know what you did.
Villefort shut the box with a snap, and Dante lowered the viewer, sinking down into his premier seat on D deck, where he watched from a recreational balcony. He let out a long, trembling breath. He did know what Villefort had done. He’d known and forced himself to remember every day he’d been locked in that tiny cell, all by himself, for year upon year upon year. He’d memorized the man’s crimes, and slowly, like the movement of the stars above his asteroid prison, he had thought of what he would do if he ever saw Villefort again. After a while, it had changed to when he saw Villefort again. Revenge was one thing that would keep you alive when hope was long gone.
Now here he was, sitting on the floor of a private balcony in a pleasure park on the space station at New Rome, his revenge so close that its taste was on his lips. Everything in him longed to take a bite. Wait, Dante. Wait for the exact right time.
Why don’t you think of yourself as Edmond? the ship asked. Mercedes certainly does when she thinks back to the man you were.
Edmond is dead.
Is he? I wonder...
Stop wondering and get back on task. We have a man to drive mad with his crimes.
That shouldn’t be a problem. He was halfway there, already.
Dante stood, brushed himself off, and answered the ping of the door into this portion of the garden. Jack entered, followed by a droid carrying their drinks and lunch on a tray. They took the tray, sat at a floating table with an excellent view of the stream and palm trees, and dismissed the droid.
“It went well?” Jack asked.
“Exactly according to plan.”
The young man nodded. “You’ve been called up for a match with seven others, including a member of Mondego Industries. It’s not Albert—he’s playing a different game during that time.”
Dante nodded and looked off at the palm trees as if he were enjoying their waving fronds, but his mind was elsewhere. He was like a weaver, slowly winding the threads together and holding the tension just so until the very end. He just had to be careful not to pull any of the strings too tightly before the time was right.
“Are you sure you want this?” Jack asked gently. “I remember you from... before. You weren’t the type to destroy another person.”
Dante drummed his fingers on the table while picking at the fruit on his plate. What bent a man so far that he wanted to see his pain in the face of another? He knew, but could he explain that to someone who hadn’t lived it, themselves?
“They think I’m dead.They think they killed me, and do they look sorry?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“They look fat and happy,” Dante said, spitting the words in his bitterness. “They look prosperous and rich.”
“What about Mercedes? You loved her once, and at the party...” Jack swallowed. “At the party, it looked like she didn’t mind you all that much, either—and she didn’t even know it was you.”
“She’s the mother of another man’s son… and my betrayer. She makes me feel like a fool whenever I look at her. I never even suspected she meant to sell me to my tormentors.”
“You could call it off, tell her who you are. She doesn’t look happy with her husband. Perhaps…”
Dante leaned forward, catching the younger man’s gaze. “You’re the only friend I have in this world, Jack, but if you bring this up again, you’re off my crew. I’ve been planning this for a long time and no one–not even you–is going to take this from me now.”
“You know you won’t really send me away, Captain,” Jack said, but his eyes held concern. “Whatever your plans are, I’m your man.”
“I’m glad you think so, because I have to bet rather heavily on this next round.”
“How heavily, exactly?” He shifted in his seat, controlling his nervousness admirably.
“They required a bet of a lifetime of indentured servitude—a level-five bet specified by the Company. They’ve taken an interest in our success.”
Jack wiped his hands on his shirt and looked around, even though there was no one there to watch him. “Remind me why we’re doing this, again, Captain. Indentured servitude… it would be a kind of prison sentence.”
Dante took a long drink and cleared his throat before counting on his fingers as he named them, “Villefort, Mercedes, Fernand. In this life or the next, I’ll serve my revenge to them and make them eat it to the last morsel.”
Jack swallowed, his fists tightening nervously.
“And don’t worry—I didn’t bet my lifetime,” Dante said, taking a last swallow of his drink before standing and clapping Jack on the shoulder. “I bet yours. Enjoy the garden. It’s booked for an hour. Put whatever you want on my tab.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DANTE SANK INTO THE COMMAND chair and closed his eyes a moment. Lily, respectful of his small time alone before the match, stood silently at the door, crown at the ready.
This is the first game in which you face equals.
Equals? With you by my side, I doubt that.
You still have much to learn. The universe is wide; in it, you are nothing.
Even so, I will win and have my revenge.
Do not throw your care away. You are becoming strong, but I will not be a crutch.
“Your crown, sir,” she said, “and might I add, even though I can’t betbeing an employee, all my friends are betting on you to win—not just this match, but to win everything. We think you’ll win everything.”
She handed him the gold band, and he placed it carefully with a practiced movement.
He smiled at Lily as the connections came online. “That is a lovely necklace. It suits you.”
Lily put a hand to her throat with a shy smile. “It came yesterday, delivered by a courier. There wasn’t a name tag, but I can guess.”
Dante only smiled. “Good deeds should be rewarded.”
“The Red League are a pack of bullies, sir. Kick them where they won’t forget!”
“I’ll try not to disappoint,” he told her as reality was substituted for the negotiation area of the arena.
Seven more players were present, along with the official. Dante had read everything there was to read about each of his opponents. All his plans hinged on his continued success in the games. At least he didn’t have to face Albert, yet. He was starting to find it difficult to look the younger man in the eye, knowing he would betray him. How was it different from those who had betrayed him and sent him to prison? He suppressed the thought—this was no time for introspection.
Placed around the arena were a pirate, a merman, a dragon that looked almost feline, another elf lord with a laurel of greenery and wooden armor, what looked like an undead sorcerer, a crusader emblazoned with red crosses, and a human mage with a lightning storm caged on top of his staff.
Dante knew the pirate would be set against the crusader and the dragon, their representative companies currently locked in a fierce take-over bid that would be determined by the results of this match. That left four to worry about, and of those, the undead sorcerer seemed the worthiest opponent.
“Gune is a long-time fixture in the arena,” Jack had advised while reading from a dossier earlier that day. “He was a high-level executive who fell from grace—a powerful psychic and former inquisitor. Now, he sells his services. He’s a Mondego employee as of yesterday—an agent of Fernand’s.”
Dante had shrugged at the time, but now with the game moments from starting, he bent all his will toward the man. Who was this agent of Fernand’s?
He was met with a sea of calm—no emotions and no thoughts, just tranquil waters. Dante frowned and tried a different approach, but there was nothing. The man was like a block of stone and no thought radiated from him.
The Captain, I presume? So good to finally meet you, the rasping voice grated into Dante’s mind. I knew you had talent, my boy, but I never dreamed it would be so pot
ent.
You seem different from the others I’ve faced.
I would hope so. This is the Grand Tournament, after all—the big leagues. Ah, what’s this? Another mind close to yours? An aid, perhaps? That boy you keep as a lap dog? That won’t do, not at all. This is a contest of wills between giants. Anything else would be cheating.
A wave of nausea passed over Dante and he physically lurched forward in his command chair from vertigo. For the first time since meeting with the Great Mind, Dante could not feel the Monte Cristo’s presence.
There we are, much better. A battle of… well, I suppose it remains to be seen if we are equals. May the dice land where they will, Captain.
The other man was gone from Dante’s mind, then, and he was left alone while the official finished the details of the agreement.
“The top two competitors from this match will proceed and split the match winnings,” the knighted official droned on before raising his sword in salute. “Luck to you all!”
Disoriented, Dante accepted the agreement and retreated to his side of the field to prepare. What kind of mind could remain so strong in the face of his assaults? Since training with the Great Mind, Dante had grown stronger and keener, but this other man seemed by far his superior. He gritted his teeth and focused his thoughts. Before, the Great Mind had given him an extreme edge that few dreamed possible, allowing him to counter every move before it was made. Now he would need to rely almost solely on his Bacarrae skills, along with keeping his thoughts shielded from Gune.
I must win for my revenge to be perfect. Dante focused his mind into a knife’s edge, a weapon. I must win to make Fernand and Mercedes pay. I survived years in prison without the mind of minds—I will survive this. With those thoughts fueling his psychic reserves, he laid out his forces and prepared for battle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE ARENA WAS LAID OUT as islands with deep water between them—a choice picked by the pirate player for its clear advantage. Dante entered his elf lord avatar quickly and activated his special ability almost instantly: summon mount. This time, he chose not to use the griffon his opponents were so used to seeing and instead selected a tall, armored elk with razor-sharp antlers. He chose against elven archers, as well, and drew up battle lines of fast scouts equipped with a hooded hawk and short bows, a few specialist magic users, and heavy, slow-moving living trees that would perform well in and out of water. These units would be a challenge for Gune’s undead sorcery to corrupt.
Grim but satisfied, Dante carefully sent fast hawker units to scout. He kept most of his psychic energy for defense, lest Gune penetrate his thoughts and unravel his strategies. He kept in mind the six other high-level players he might encounter, each one possibly out for the glory of upsetting his winning streak.
Dante slowly moved his main forces up, walking his elk under the cover of the great, living trees while his scouts ranged wider. He came upon the pirate in a pitched battle with the dragon player and watched through the eyes of one of his scout’s hawks.
Of course the pirate would have a ship, Dante thought as he watched the battle through the eyes of a scout. Two dragons hovered just out of range of canon fire as an elegant ship sailed between the islands. One of the dragons swept around behind the ship and dove down, away from the pirate’s broadside.
He watched with a certain amount of fascination as the crew hauled on the sails and brought the big ship almost to a standstill, nearly capsizing her as she rolled in the turn, the bow pulling hard to the east and away from the diving dragon. The broadside guns came into play just as the dragon neared, and a full round of cannon fire was brought to bear with deafening efficiency. The dragon squawked, screamed, and then fell into the water, lifeless. Its companion stayed a moment longer before winging away from the battle. Dante brought his scout back; this wasn’t his fight—at least, not yet.
Being brash and rushing into fights had suited him when he’d had every advantage, but now his greatest ally was gone. He reached out again for the Monte Cristo, but there was nothing. He forced himself to dwell neither on it, nor on Jack. He couldn’t afford the distraction of worrying about the young man he had depended on for so much. He should have been more careful in his betting, but then he wouldn’t have had a seat in the game, at all. He couldn’t have expected that he’d lose the help of the Monte Cristo, either. He’d just have to fight smarter.
He began crossing a narrow bridge, and a ripple in the water beside him was his only warning before the attack came.
Fish men surfaced in formed legions and threw tridents in a coordinated attack. Dante lost one of his trees in the first barrage and only managed a lackluster response with one of the living trees scooping up a mermaid and ripping it in half before it could escape.
Not a good exchange, Dante thought, keeping an eye on the leaderboard and seeing himself fall nearer the bottom. He would have to do better than that to stay alive. The arena was against him, as many of his opponents were well-suited to fighting in or around the water. Except for his trees, the best that most of his units could do was hold their ground.
Words from a teacher filtered into his mind from so long ago that they seemed from a different life. “Every time you see weakness, turn it into strength.” He couldn’t defeat all the players in the arena and shouldn’t even try, but maybe he didn’t need to—maybe he didn’t even need to fight them.
Quickly, he ordered his magic users to cast a speed spell on three of his scout units before taking direct control of the middle one. He left the rest of his forces in a loose formation, slowly moving toward one of the larger islands after looting the tridents and equipping them awkwardly in branch-like limbs. They’d serve poorly as weapons, being more hindrance than help, but Dante had a plan. All the while, he kept a sharp eye out for any ripples and marked their location carefully when he saw them following behind, waiting to strike.
It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for: the storm wizard waged a bloody and very visual battle with the other elf lord. The wizard’s units seemed to have electrical attacks and shot mass lightning at range while the elven units had a hard time weathering the brunt of the attack.
Still fearful of Gune’s mental prowess, Dante risked easing his defense for a moment to find the wizard’s controller. Where Gune’s mind had been a pool of placid water, this man was a raging hurricane of emotions and haphazard plans. The man might have been a great psychic, but the patterns of his mind spoke of madness. Dante carefully surveyed the twisting mass of thoughts from afar until he thought he’d gleaned what he needed. Pride was foremost in the man’s mind—exactly what he needed.
Dante’s kept his slower units moving warily toward the storm wizard, coming up from behind the other player. The ripples in the water appeared and kept pace with them; the merman commander knew he was safe from Dante in the water. This time, Dante didn’t mind. Marching closer to the other battle, he drew merman and storm mage closer together.
Still controlling the hawker unit, he held his breath and waited, carefully feeling out the thoughts of the other two players while trying to keep his own presence masked. He had yet to sense Gune, but that might not mean anything. If the other man was powerful enough to sever his connection with the Monte Cristo, then he might have been standing right beside Dante without him knowing. He had one of his trees pass a trident to the elf lord and readied his units for battle. The moment was almost here—he could feel it.
When it happened, everything occurred in a blink. The wood elf mustered his troops and, under cover from several expert archers, charged the storm troops. Dante used that distraction to charge his own elf lord up and over the small crest he’d been hiding behind toward the storm commander. It was a risky move, exposing his commander like that, but nothing else would do. The bait had to be valuable for his trap. He cleared the rise swiftly and threw the trident like a spear, just as the wood elves were beaten back into a ragged group.
The trident struck squarely in the back
of a soldier guarding his commander, the tines digging deep into the unit’s armor and felling it with one strike. Sensing an attack against his life, the storm wizard spun, furious, in time to see Dante’s elf lord rear his battle elk and taunt him. He then ran back down the hill to relative safety.
“Insults!” the storm wizard screamed. “Insults will be answered in kind!” He enacted his special ability, a power called “storm call,” and directed the massive thunderhead over the hill without aiming, trusting the storm to do its work.
Dante grinned and ran away atop his elk, hawkers following almost as swiftly keeping just ahead of the rolling wall of lightning. He commanded his trees to throw their tridents into the banks of the sea, like so lightning rods sticking up from the bank. The trees then fell to their sides. The mermen, sensing something coming, rose above the water long enough to see the massive storm wall and perish as great forks of lightning struck the long, metal shafts of the tridents. The merman army disappeared in the flashes and ear-popping crashes of thunder, their screams too faint to be heard.
Several of Dante’s tree men had been struck and destroyed, as well, but the gamble had been worth it. The storm mage rose to the top of the leaderboard and two other sides all but disappeared; the wood elves were on the run and the mermen resigned from the battle, admitting defeat. The storm wall diminished and died, its power spent. As the remaining storm units crested the hill, they found a compliment of living trees in hiding, Dante’s magic units casting protection spells on their already-hardy compositions, and as the trees waded forward all but immune to the lightening attacks, there was one less opponent. His elf lord reversed his mad fleeing and charged back to the fray, the battle elk using antlers and hooves to thrash the enemy lines as his elven blade stuck out like a serpent.
Captain of the Monte Cristo: a space opera retelling of the classic tale (Classic Retellings Book 1) Page 10
