Ah.
“Well,” I said. “Looks like I’m on the losing side of this battle.”
“En garde,” Mort said, raising his sword in a salute, then stepped forward in a fencing stance, his rapier held ready in front of him. Mort’s confident smile did little to improve Chauvelin’s weasely little face.
Crap. Even if he hadn’t been cast for some reason as the winning character in this little scene, Mort knew how to duel. I did not.
“Hello,” I said. “My name is Finn Gramaraye. You’re a dumb ass. Prepare to die.”
“Bring it,” he replied.
I did not, in fact, bring it, but backed away, keeping my distance from the pointy painy deathy end of his rapier.
Mort shuffled forward and made two quick strikes, beating aside my own blade. He smiled, and came at me more aggressively, striking my blade once, twice, three times, and then I felt pain slice across my thigh. I stumbled back, holding up my sword in an attempt to keep him distant, and looked down. My thigh had been slashed open, the pants and flesh separated in a clean line, and blood trickled down my leg.
“Come on, Finn,” Mort said. “Don’t make this too easy.”
“Screw you, Mort.”
I tried to will my wound closed, and to replace my vest with a nice shirt of mithril mail. For a brief second, the change flickered into existence, but then the brown vest and throbbing agony of the wound snapped back into place.
*The rules of this duel are set,* Alynon said. *You cannot change them. You must use them.*
Mort smiled, and advanced.
“Shouldn’t you be fighting left-handed?” I said, as I tried to buy time to figure this out.
Mort frowned. “Why? I’m right-handed. Or did you conveniently forget that same as you forgot all the ways you’ve screwed over our family.”
He gave a quick exploratory beat at my blade.
“You know, you’re not nearly as witty as the real Wesley,” I said, shuffling back and trying to stay out of cutting range.
“I don’t know who Wesley is,” Mort said. “But I would rather cut you with steel than words.”
And then it occurred to me that Mort didn’t know the source of our setting or roles, while I did. I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. If a film didn’t feature explosions or naked women or both, Mort probably hadn’t seen it.
But how could superior knowledge of the source material help me?
I retreated. I edged around a low stone wall, and then kept moving to keep the stones between myself and Mort.
Mort watched me, an amused grin on his face, clearly enjoying the fact that I was running away from him and outmatched. “You’re only going to drag this out.”
Damn it. He was right. While I was dressed like Inigo Montoya, I obviously had not inherited his skill with the blade. And even if I had, then Mort would have gotten Wesley’s, and I’d still be screwed. Maybe, if this had been the battle with Fezzik I’d have stood a chance, might have been able to beat Mort in a wrestling match. With swords, I—
Wait!
I turned and fled, running up the stony path to higher ground, and jumped across a gap between two sections of wall.
Mort watched, a patient expression on his face. “Higher ground is a good choice, but only if you know how to use it. And you can’t escape the room.” He began climbing a second path to where I stood, his pace slow but determined.
I switched the rapier to my left hand and picked up a chunk of broken stone wall the size of a grapefruit. Not the boulder that a gentle giant would have been able to hurl, but large enough to create a new part in Mort’s hairdo if it struck his head.
Screw dueling, and wrestling for that matter. I felt no need to prove anything to Mort except that I could beat his butt.
I threw the stone at Mort as hard as I could.
The rock flew through empty air as Mort ducked and slipped on the gravel. “You—!” He scrambled back to his feet and toward me. “That’s cheating!”
I ran up higher in the ruins, grabbed another rock, and lobbed it at Mort.
This one hit him in the shoulder and knocked him sideways. He cried out in pain.
“He’s cheating!” he shouted. “Do something!”
“Do something yourself!” I shouted back. I picked up another rock and threw it. This one missed as he ducked behind the base of a fallen wall. He emerged and threw a rock back at me, and as I dodged he ran up the hill toward me.
Crap. I dropped the rapier and picked up a giant slab of granite the size of one hell of a headache. I lifted it above my head, and turned toward Mort.
Mort lunged, overextending and practically falling on his face, but I felt his sword point slide into my gut. My knees went wibbly wobbly.
The hernia-heavy slab of stone slid from my hands and crashed to the ground behind me, and I fell forward, toward the smug grin on Mort’s stupid little face.
“Victory!” Hannibal’s voice declared. “The duelists shall separate now.”
The landscape, weapons, and wounds melted away, lowering me to the bright green floor.
Mort knelt down to smile at me as I uncurled from the phantom pain of being skewered. “This is fun, huh? Let’s make the next one last a while.” He turned and walked back to his side of the room from where he’d started the duel.
“Arcana,” Hannibal said, motioning to my side of the room.
“Great.”
I moaned as I rose to my feet, then walked back to my starting point. A memory flashed sudden and vivid across my mind, of my mother handing me and Mort each one of the mixer beaters covered in chocolate cake batter, and saying, “A treat for my two handsome little men.”
I felt the memory being pulled from me, and tried to hold on to it, but then it was gone.
I stumbled, and almost fell to my knees at my starting point. I felt as though I’d lost something more than just a fight, I’d lost some part of myself. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I didn’t like the feeling, that I never wanted to experience it again.
And I had two more fights to go. Well, only one if Mort killed me again. Yay?
I turned to face Hannibal and Mort.
Hannibal raised his hand. “The second duel begins.”
20
IT AIN’T OVER ’TIL IT’S OVER
Hannibal lowered his arm, signaling the start of the second duel, then disappeared.
“Wait,” I said. “Can I have—”
A broad, pebbly stream filled the center of the Room of Contest, separating Mort and me. The stream looked too swift and deep to wade across, but was bridged by a broad log whose top had been worn flat by the passage of feet and the occasional axe.
A staff of blackthorn appeared in Mort’s hands.
I looked down, unsurprised to find myself clothed in Lincoln green, a freshly limbed oak staff now in my hand.
I looked at the river, and shivered in response. I had gotten over the worst of my fear of water that had begun after drowning in Grandfather’s underwater villain lair. Ironically, nearly drowning in an attempt to save Dunngo in the Elwha River had helped. But the thought of Mort sending me tumbling into that water, possibly to drown me, still made both my knees and my stomach unsteady.
“I wish a different setting,” I called out.
“The setting and rules have been chosen,” Hannibal responded. “They cannot be changed.”
Mort climbed up onto the log bridge, and began advancing toward me, his staff held in both hands to aid his balance.
I remained where I stood, on good old solid ground. I started retreating to put my back to the tree line, then realized I would be giving up my one chance at an advantage, and instead walked up to the end of the log bridge. If I waited for him there, I would have a good shot at hitting his legs out from under him when he reached my end of the log.
Mort stopped at the center of the log bridge. “Let’s go,” he said. “I know this scene. You’re Robin Hood, right? That makes me Little John, and I need to send yo
u for a swim.” He turned the staff slowly in his hands.
Damn it.
I couldn’t win this, any more than Robin had. Any more than I had won the last fight. And I doubted that Mort would be happy with simply knocking me off the log, or willing to embrace me as friend and leader afterward as John had done. He would go for the kill.
Mort thumped his staff against the log. “I’m not going away,” he said.
“You and the common cold,” I replied.
Mort waved at the scene around us. “You know, Costner made a horrible Robin Hood, but there was that bit about how Robin Hood’s father totally screwed over his other son to treat Robin as his favorite, I could totally relate.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” I replied. “I didn’t ask Grandfather to be a dick to you. And I’m certainly not the one doing his dirty work now.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Mort said. “In fact, I finally wised up. I’m going to get everything I can out of this mess with you and Grandfather before it all falls apart.”
“Yeah, you’re a regular Joseph Donnelly ya are, lad.”
“What?”
“Far and Away? Never mind. How is it that I’m more up on movies than you?”
“Because some of us had to raise a child and run a business rather than sitting in their room with the television all day.”
Hannibal’s voice echoed from above, “This is a battle, not a conversation. If one of you does not advance to victory soon, then both shall forfeit.”
“Come on, let’s get this over with!” Mort said, waving at me again to advance.
“Toe pick!” I heard Dawn shout from somewhere above. “I lo—”
Her voice cut off. Apparently the Fey didn’t approve of a cheering section.
Focus. Right.
There had to be a way to hack this game, a cheat code to give me invulnerability or skip a level or something. The setting and the rules were set by me, by my memory of this duel. That had to give me some advantage, right? Except I knew how this story went. I remember being surprised the first time Mother read it to me. Robin was the hero, so how could he lose? And she’d explained—
Wait. Maybe I did have one chance.
“Mort, I won’t come out onto the log to fight you. And if you come to me, I’ll just wait to knock you from the log when you reach this end. I don’t suppose you’d trust that I’ll let you come to this side without attacking—”
“Nope,” Mort replied.
“Then let me meet you on your side. If you give me your promise on Mattie’s life that you’ll allow me to cross the log and step safely onto the other shore, I will cross, and then we can see who wins this duel fairly.”
Mort’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I?”
“Surely you’re not afraid that me and my buck-and-a-quarter quarter staff will beat you on even ground?” I goaded. I could tell he was trying to find the trick in my offer, but he also must have realized there was little choice. Either he did as I asked, or he would have to come at me and give me the advantage. Or we would both lose. “Fine,” he said. “I promise, you can cross safely to my side. But as soon as you step off of the log, you’re fair game.”
“Sounds fun,” I replied.
Mort paused a second longer, then nodded, and carefully back-stepped to his side of the stream. He jumped to the rocky ground and took several steps away from the log, then motioned for me to proceed.
I stepped up onto the log, and crossed with the care of Indiana Jones navigating across a greased pole over a pit of snakes. Every time my eyes fell to the water, my legs went wobbly and I had to slow way down, bending over in case I fell to my hands and knees. As I neared Mort’s side of the stream, I prepared to defend myself. “Okay. Here I come,” I said.
I hopped off of the log, away from Mort. My feet hit the stream’s stony bank with a crunching of pebbles.
Mort advanced on me, and I raised my staff, prepared to retreat to the trees—
“Victory!” Hannibal announced.
“What?” Mort demanded, and held his staff to the side. “Who? How?”
The scene melted away, as did the staves and medieval clothing, and Hannibal reappeared.
“Me, I believe,” I said, looking to Hannibal. He nodded in acknowledgment, the horse tail on his helmet swishing, and I continued, “The point of the duel between Robin and Little John was that both wanted to cross the stream, and neither wanted to give way. It was a contest to see if one could get past the other. I reached your side of the stream, therefore I won.”
“You cheated! Again!”
“No. That’s diplomacy,” I replied. “I should think you would be good at diplomacy, being a big important ambassador and all. Huh.” I rubbed my chin. “That must be embarrassing.”
Mort advanced toward me. “I’ll shove embarrassing up your—”
“The duel is done,” Hannibal said, raising a hand between us. “Honor the outcome.”
Mort stopped in his tracks, and looked from Hannibal to me, then glanced briefly up in the direction of our invisible audience. “Fine, whatever,” he said at last, “have your victory. But I’m not falling for your crap again.”
He strode back toward his side of the room.
He stumbled mid-step, and placed one hand against his head, almost falling to his knees. But his hands closed into fists; he straightened, and finished walking stiffly to his side of the room.
“Arcana,” Hannibal said, motioning to my side of the room. I nodded, and returned to my starting point.
The ground became an arena of light brown earth, surrounded by a circle of brown stone trilithons. In the center glowed what looked like a fire pit full of honey-colored crystals, and beside that a green metal obelisk. The sky turned blood red.
A weapon appeared in my hands, a polished wooden pole with a cone-like steel weight at one end and a fan-shaped blade at the other. The same appeared in Mort’s hands, who now wore black pants and a blue shirt.
I looked down, and saw that I now wore black pants and a yellow long-sleeved shirt.
“Amok Time”! Of course this would be one of the duels my mind conjured up. Kirk, a man out of his element, the environment itself his enemy, facing an opponent stronger and native to this world. Granted, native only in body, but then Spock had been of two worlds as well.
It could have been worse, I supposed. I could have been Monty Python’s Black Knight facing King Arthur. Judging by Mort’s face, he’d have been happy to give me quite a few flesh wounds. But this battle still hadn’t worked out too well for Kirk.
The all-too-familiar battle music began pounding from all directions.
“Ah, Gorn crap,” I muttered. And then Mort leaped at me, his fan-shaped blade swinging down for my head.
I stepped back and raised my own weapon to block him. Or at least attempted to. Mort powered through my block, and the blade sliced down my shirt.
Agony screamed along my chest, and I stumbled back further.
Mort twirled his weapon casually, and said, “Nowhere to run, no way to cheat this time.”
“Uh,” I said.
I fled. I ran around the edge of the arena, past the trilithons to place as much space between Mort and myself as I could. I needed a minute to concentrate, to think.
Boos and mocking jeers came from above.
*What would Kirk do?* Alynon prompted.
Kirk would have a doctor friend who could give him shots to help him adjust to the environment and fake his own death. Kirk would also get into a grappling, shirt ripping, karate chopping fight with the guy. But Kirk rarely won fights mano a mano against Spock.
My lungs were starting to feel the strain of all the running. I stopped on the far side of a trilithon, and played ring-around-the-rosy with Mort, trying to catch my breath while keeping the stones between us.
Mort pushed at a trilithon, toppling it toward me, and I had to dodge out of the way. The stones fell with the sound of Styrofoam. I resumed sprinting, but Mort closed on me.
Damn it! I said to Alynon. Are you sure there’s nothing you can do to help me here?
Alynon remained silent for several heartbeats, then said, *Why was Kirk the hero?*
What? Because he was Kirk, I don’t know. He was the best fighter, strategist, diplomat, ladies’ man, all of that.
*Those were his qualities. A villain could have those qualities.*
I appreciate your sudden interest in Star Trek, but is this really necessary for you to help? I asked.
*Yes! Why was Kirk the hero?*
Fine. I thought back, narrowly dodging a stone Mort kicked in my direction and gaining some distance as I did. Kirk was a hero because … he fought for something, for the safety of his crew, of his Enterprise family, for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all the good stuff. And he was willing to sacrifice himself or break the rules to do it, but he still stayed true to the principles of the Federation. Is that a good enough answer? Can you help me now?
*So what have you been doing if not fighting for the safety of your world, of your family? And while you broke rules, you did so for good reason, didn’t you?*
That’s what I keep telling myself. But even I’m not sure any more. I’m not fighting some Fey here, I’m fighting family. And maybe he’s right. I … it felt—
It felt good to use dark necromancy. It felt deeply satisfying to see Barry defeated, Kaminari no longer a threat, Mort embarrassed. Was I a hero? Or just a weaker, unfocused version of my grandfather?
*For all that is holy, get over yourself!* Alynon shouted. *You’re a damned hero! And believe me, I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. So start acting like it! Release the Kirken!*
I winced. Really? Release the—
*You of all people do not get to judge me on wordplay!*
Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.
I didn’t know about me being a hero, but one thing was true: right now, I was Kirk, damn it! The most badass of Starfleet captains. And he was definitely a hero. As long as I played the role, I would live up to it.
I stopped fleeing, and turned. I advanced on Mort in a fighter’s crouch, holding the weapon ready as I tried to replay the fight scene from the show in my head, to remember Kirk’s moves.
Smells Like Finn Spirit Page 21
