No! Focus on the spells! Weight means nothing to a magical avatar!
Mistbow had no corporeal form; Strider had nothing to attack. But Bayan recalled how he had defeated Mikellen during his Earth exam. With a grin, he silently thanked Bhattara that standard duel dens boasted sand floors instead of training pebbles.
Mistbow’s sand burst from Strider’s body and flew across the arena, piercing the Wind avatar with hundreds of thousands of miniature stones. Strider reversed their direction and dragged them through Mistbow again. The Wind avatar thinned. Tarin ordered it to stay on the far side of Strider.
After an amusing few moments of sand and cloud playing tag around the stone avatar, Strider folded his arms as if in affront and sank into the earth, a move which earned a cheer from the arena stands. Again, Mistbow was exposed. Though the avatar tried to soak the flying sand with rain and drag it to the arena floor, most of the particles escaped the raindrops and continued to attack the rainbow avatar. The tiny rocks passed repeatedly through Mistbow’s form, imitating a Water spell’s wave motion, in effect bringing both Earth and Water to bear against Tarin’s avatar.
Tarin struggled to order Mistbow to perform further spells, but its body was losing cohesion. In moments, the rainbow faded entirely, leaving Tarin defenseless.
Strider’s hand shot out of the arena’s sand and grasped her around the torso, lifting her off the ground.
“I yield,” she called, kicking her feet.
The crowd went wild, cheering and clapping as the duel ended. Hanna strode to Bayan’s side of the arena and plucked his sigil flag from the sand, holding it aloft.
Bayan had Strider release Tarin, then let his avatar dissipate. Hanna waved his flag to show that he had conquered, and Bayan felt a heat in his chest. Duelism felt good, and he wanted more. Or was that just his anger magic? He couldn’t tell, amid the thunderous applause.
Tarin congratulated him. “Always with the sneaky attacks.”
“Anything for my clients.” Bayan accepted a cup of water from one of the den’s duelists.
Behind Bayan, Kipri called his name. Bayan approached him in the first row of seats. Kipri held out his forearm and fist, and Bayan did the same, bumping the side of his wrist against Kipri’s.
“Excellent duel, Bayan! I’ll be washing sand out of my hair for days, but it was worth it. I’ve seen my fair share of duels, and I think you’ve got the gift to become as good as any of the best duelists I’ve watched. The way you got her Wind avatar all full of rock… genius.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Bayan muttered through his smile. “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the performance. I’ll duel again after lunch today. If your hairstyle can handle it, come sit here again. I’ll arrange it with Hanna.”
“You’re fabulous.”
Tarin and Bayan slipped into the common room under the stands to pick over the comestible gifts that the locals had donated for the Talent Tournament’s first day. Bayan picked up a palm-sized apple tart and took a bite, finding it rich with cinnamon and nutmeg.
“Mmm, this is way better than at the Academy. I wonder if food gifts are standard fare for duelists.”
Tarin looked up from the thick slice of bread she was smothering in marmalade. “It really depends on who hires us and how they pay. I don’t think many places across the empire will measure up to Muggenhem. Akkeraad for sure, and all the provincial capitals. But there are many more duelists in the towns and villages than those few cities, so chances are you’ll get paid in live chickens or raw squash or with a bushel of fresh olives.”
“You say that like you’ll get paid in shiny new ducats,” Bayan returned, before stuffing his mouth with the rest of the apple tart.
“Sure an’ I will, Bayan Lualhati.” She tossed her bright red hair and struck an arrogant pose, supporting her slice of bread as if it were a ball of flame. “And I’ll use them on hair combs and nets and clips, and jackets with my sigil on them. Everyone will know who I am. I am the Mistress of Flame.”
Bayan snorted. “You can only choose a moniker if you make Hexmagic Duelist, Tarin. You’ve still got two ranks to pass to get there.”
“Aye, I know.” She lowered her nose. “But just in case I really am that strong, I want to be ready with a moniker. I even checked the records in the Academy Library, and no living Hexmagic Duelist is using it.”
“Well, if they were, they should give it up to you unless they’ve also got flame-red hair,” Bayan said, selecting a pear tart.
Tarin grinned. “I’d rather to duel them for it.”
~~~
Late in the afternoon, after Bayan and his hexmates had all fought one duel—and Kiwani two—Teos brought a mail bag into the common room and dumped its contents onto the large table.
Bayan stared. They were all scrolls. Tasseled, perfumed, wax-sealed scrolls of invitation. “That many?”
“Talent Tournaments are a big deal, Bayan.” Hanna sat in a padded chair with one arm in a perfect arc and a large ball of cream yarn in her lap, and directed her Wood avatar, a tiny palm tree, in the knitting of a long, fluffy scarf, using a pair of dark cherrywood needles wrapped in two of its fronds. “With as few duelists as there are in the empire, everything you do off-campus makes the gossip rounds. Atop that, the residents of Muggenhem are a little further removed from the realities of everyday imperial life and more inclined to entertain themselves with your presence.”
“Well, go on.” Teos smiled. “Sort them out and see which of you wants to go where. We can tell you something about everyone, if it’ll help you decide where to go and whom to avoid.”
Bayan and the others gathered around the table. They cracked open all the wax seals and read all the names at the top, then sorted the piles of invitations. When all was said and done, Bayan had fewer scrolls in front of him than the others did, but he had the one he was looking for.
He lifted the small scroll of paper and unrolled it, pushing aside the pale blue tassel that had been pressed into the thick wax. A simple invitation, it didn’t use the flowery language that most of the others employed. Despite what he’d heard about Lady Qivinga, he appreciated her lack of formality for its own sake, or for the sake of impressing him.
“I like this one. I think I’ll see her. Or let her see me, rather.”
The others in his hex leaned close to read the invitation.
“She found your perspectives fresh and thought-provoking, did she?” Kiwani quirked an eyebrow.
“You didn’t?” Bayan asked. “I worked so hard on my perspectives. Whatever they are.”
“Lady Qivinga’s never sent an invitation to the duel den before.” Teos’ voice was filled with admiration. “You must’ve impressed her.”
Calder unrolled the very bottom of the scroll. “‘Please bring your Aklaa friend.’ Does she mean who I think she means?”
Bayan’s eyes widened. Kipri. Did Qivinga know who he was?
Bayan’s Choice
“This carriage smells funny.” Kipri wrinkled his nose at the dank, vaguely fruity aroma that wafted up from the seams in the leather bench he shared with Bayan.
“It’s a hired carriage. Lady Qivinga told the courier that hers was being repaired when I sent him to confirm our meeting.”
The eunuch clenched and unclenched his hands and glanced at the window as if he wanted to leap through it. “They’re probably going to kill me.”
“I won’t let that happen. Besides, Lady Qivinga didn’t seem to know who you were, remember?”
They arrived in the side drive at the vooren Zeegat manor, tucked against the edge of the sea, atop a small rise. The large, ornate houses on either side sat perched on the same low cliff overlooking the beach. Several low, shrubby trees flanked a beach-access alley just across the low wall that surrounded the property, giving the carriage house area a secluded feel even though there was another row of manor houses across the street.
The carriage driver brought them around to the front door, where Lady Qivinga herself me
t them. She was very short, with a large fluff of hair piled atop her head—no shell headdress for her—which made her seem taller. Her dress of patterned blues and browns was not at all Waarden, yet it suited her figure and skin tone beautifully.
“Be welcome to my home, Duelist,” she greeted Bayan. Her dark eyes settled on Kipri’s face next, before traveling down to his eunuch uniform. “You are welcome as well, little brother.”
She led them to a front parlor and invited them to sit on a fine padded sofa draped with a pale bearskin. Kipri frowned at the sight of it, and Bayan wondered if it was an Aklaa creature he recognized, or if Kipri simply objected to the decoration of rooms using dead animal parts.
Lady Qivinga requested tea by ringing a small bell. Sitting down in a highback chair, she smiled at her guests. “I very much enjoyed your performance this morning, Duelist Bayan. You showed more spirit and inventiveness than the others. Surely you must be top of your class at the Academy.”
Bayan snorted. “Not really. I had a hard time adjusting to Academy life when I arrived there last winter. I still feel like an outsider most of the time.”
“Ah. I know that feeling. I was torn from my family at fifteen years of age and wed to a man I had never seen before, far from my home, my soil and everything I’d ever known. That feeling… it never truly goes away.” She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and stared at the wall behind Bayan, her dark eyes wide and blank, like a daydreaming child’s. “But,” she continued, pulling her attention back to Bayan, “there are always things one may do to fit into a new place, don’t you agree?”
Bayan thought of all the things he’d learned from his teachers and friends, which had helped him adjust to Academy life. “I do. It seems like the lessons don’t always come when or where you expect them, either.”
She tipped her head, her expression pleased. “So true! You’re wise for one so young. But then,” she said with a pout, “that’s the way it always is, isn’t it? Tell me, Bayan, if you could use your magic for anything, what would you do with it?”
“Anything?”
“Absolutely anything.”
“I’d go back to the day before my magic first manifested, and I’d live my life without it.”
She and Kipri both frowned. “Really,” Qivinga said. “What an interesting choice. Why is that?”
“It’s brought me nothing but trouble, my lady.” Bayan felt pulled into the conversation despite the danger. “I was kidnapped from home because of it. I had to deal with misconceptions about my people, about me, because of it. My life would have been so much easier if I could have stayed home with my own family and lived the life my parents intended for me.”
Lady Qivinga slid onto her knees and took his hand in both of hers. Bayan was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “My brother,” she whispered, “such is the deepest longing of my own heart. Sending for you brought tilaa, indeed.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.” Bayan wondered what craziness Philo had gotten him involved in.
“You do not share the typical prejudice of the average Waarden.” She rose to her feet and pulled Bayan up beside her. “Is this not true?” she asked of Kipri.
The eunuch stood as well, towering over them both. “It is true. Bayan had never met an Aklaa before he met me, and he treated me well, as did all the Balanganese people.”
Lady Qivinga’s eyes shifted left, looking into some speculative world Bayan couldn’t see. “An alliance in due time, perhaps,” she muttered. “Come! Let me show you my home. I’ve made some recent changes. After, we may enjoy a light repast before you return to your duel den. And I shall make a point to come and watch you duel again tomorrow, and the next day as well.”
As he and Kipri followed the Aklaa princess down the hallway, Bayan couldn’t shake a feeling of foreboding. Surely, if this woman had anything to hide in the house, she wouldn’t be giving them a tour of it. And if she had any sort of preparations to make before Low Spring, wouldn’t there be a sign of it here as well? And wouldn’t she need to focus on that instead of attending Bayan’s tournament?
Qivinga led them through eating and dining parlors, showed them a viewing loft, glided ahead of them down numerous portrait-laden hallways, and even showed them her large wine cellar from an upper platform. Though her words were gracious, her tone struck Bayan as oddly gleeful.
As they ascended a broad staircase to view the well-appointed guest rooms, she said, “I doubt anyone will use them ever again, though.”
“Why is that, my lady?”
She paused, seemingly confused by her last sentence. She turned to him with a blank look that reminded him of his little brother Mindo’s face right before he made up a not-very-convincing lie to try and get out of trouble.
But before she could speak, a yell came from one of the side rooms ahead. “Tuq’s hairy stones, woman! Have you no pity for the fallen?”
Lady Qivinga giggled. “My apologies. I have a wounded friend—”
Kipri burst past them both, running toward the door from which the voice had come.
“Wha—Kipri!” Bayan chased after him.
Kipri flung open the door. Bayan grabbed him by the arm and began to drag him away, but motion within the bedchamber drew his attention: an Aklaa woman tended to a nasty wound on the back of a man’s leg as he lay in bed.
“What are you doing here?” Kipri whispered.
The injured man propped himself up on his elbows with a grimace of pain. “I could ask you the same, little brother. Has Qivinga recruited you as well? Let me advise you, don’t get injured. Uunaq has a butcher’s hands.”
“Uncle Kuvi,” Kipri said. “You’re in it deep again, aren’t you?”
“Kipri? Tuq have mercy, it is you!” Kuvi’s face relaxed into a smile. “Where have you been?”
Bayan’s gaze darted between the two. He could detect a faint family resemblance in the men’s noses and in the narrow set of their eyes.
“In the Kheerzaal and Balanganam, serving my emperor,” Kipri hissed. “You filthy rebels! I see what you’re doing, I see it all! You, her… are the others in on this one, too?”
“Kipri, what in Bhattara’s name are you—” Bayan stopped speaking as a cold metal blade slithered against his throat from behind.
“Hold still, if you please,” a male voice said in his ear.
“You’re one of them now, aren’t you, Kipri?” Kuvi rose and limped toward the doorway. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.”
“Liar. You never tried! You let my father take the blame last time. You might as well have killed him yourselves! I’m a eunuch because of you!”
Kuvi backhanded Kipri, and the eunuch staggered across the hallway, slamming into the far wall and sliding to the floor.
Bayan reached for his friend, but the man behind him pressed the blade harder against his skin. “Can you guess, young duelist, what this blade is made of?”
Bayan froze, heart thumping. The universe shrank to a cold line of death pressing against his pulse. Steel.
“Your father was weak,” Kuvi said to Kipri as the eunuch slowly got to his feet. “We didn’t do it because we hated him. He had to be sacrificed to keep the rebellion strong. And we are strong. We will succeed this time, where last time we failed. Nothing can prevent our victory now. Not only are you too stupid in your cowlike Waarden ways, Little Plum. You’re also too slow. Hahliq’s team left for the Kheerzaal this morning.”
Qivinga finally spoke from somewhere behind Bayan. “I’m afraid that’s all the time I have for you this afternoon, boys,” she said in a silky voice. “It’s time for Sanniq to escort you downstairs.”
With a wordless scream of rage, Kipri flung himself at the wounded warrior.
Bayan shouted for him to stop. Kuvi lunged with his good leg and punched Kipri in the face, dropping him to the floor at Bayan’s feet, where he lay groaning, with blood oozing from his nose.
Bayan felt the bite of the steel blade on his neck, could sense
it cutting through his magical focus. His breathing sped up. If I use my magic, I’ll lose, and we’ll both die.
Kuvi, Qivinga, and her servants Sanniq and Uunaq herded Bayan and Kipri downstairs and into a large sitting room. Sanniq’s blade remained against Bayan’s neck.
“Sanniq,” said Qivinga, “you get the duelist. Kuvi, take your niece downstairs and kill the rest of her.”
Kipri struggled, so furious he was crying, but he was no match for his warrior uncle. Sanniq gave Bayan a nudge toward the next room. Bayan felt a broad swath of pure terror shoot down his spine like lightning.
But its return stroke was nothing but rage. No! I am not helpless! I will not let you kill us!
He raised his hands and waved them around. Sanniq tightened the blade, drawing blood. Bayan arched suddenly, crying out, and collapsed limply against the Aklaa’s chest.
“Fool,” Qivinga said. “Too stuck in his training.”
Sanniq pressed Bayan toward the ground. Bayan tensed and grasped his sleeve then jerked the slender man against his back and bucked forward, tossing the servant across the nearest divan. Kuvi, near the doorway to the wine cellar, paused in surprise.
Uunaq had no such hesitation. She leapt on Bayan’s back, clawing at his face and screaming in a tongue Bayan didn’t understand. He spun, dragged her off his back, and slammed her onto an end table.
Sanniq leaped back across the divan and thrust his gleaming blade at Bayan’s chest. Bayan grasped the man’s wrist, keeping the blade away from him, and dropped to the side while putting a foot in Sanniq’s gut. His momentum whirled Sanniq overhead again, and the Aklaa crashed through a lamp and tumbled into Kuvi’s legs as the man dragged Kipri toward the cellar stairs. The three of them sprawled to the floor.
Bayan leaped forward to grab Kipri and drag him from Kuvi’s desperate reach. As the eunuch scrambled to his feet, Bayan urged him toward the sea porch.
Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists) Page 30
