by Scott Duff
Outside, the stadium was fairly full but a few people still traveled down the aisles. I settled down to eat with the others and people watch. The perspective of the Arena made that wonderfully easy, giving you up-close-and-personal views of everyone you chose to look at. Which of course meant that everyone else had an equally easy view of us, too. That was a little disconcerting. Made me wonder what we looked like to other people. MacNamara equated Kieran to a mannequin earlier. And Kieran said once that the Pact is not visible to the normally magically-active humans. The doctors didn’t see the Pact in my mother.
“Kieran?” I asked, “You don’t see the weapons including what sits with them, but you see my aura, right?”
“Yes,” he answered, turning in his chair to me.
“Ethan,” I asked, “You don’t see the weapons, either, but you see my aura as well as what sits with the weapons, right?”
“Yes,” Ethan said, evenly.
“And you, Peter,” I asked, “just the aura, like Kieran?” He nodded, chewing. “But you know what I’m talking about that Ethan sees, right?”
“Not exactly,” said Peter. He was hedging.
“How are they finding us, then?” I asked Kieran.
“That would be information that we do not have,” said Kieran. “But it is unlikely that someone stumbled over a written list of names. There is only one place that a list like that may exist. We may go there after the Crossroads.”
“So what do you suppose we look like to other people right now?” I asked.
Peter snorted, chewing on Esteleum. “Like a family of gargoyles pigging out on dirt.”
Ethan cracked up, choking back on the water he was drinking at the moment. Kieran chuckled, saying, “It makes invisibility and chameleon spells easier, I suppose.”
Martin appeared on the walkway in front of our balcony with another kid in tow, stopping at our gate. He pointed at Peter and said something to the kid. Peter and I exchanged glances and kept watching as they went back and forth for a moment. Martin kept nodding his head and pointing while the other kid pointed to something in his hand and shaking his head. Finally, Peter and I got up and went to the gate.
“Martin,” Peter said, “What’s up?”
Martin jumped a little, then said respectfully, “Mr. Borland, Mr. McClure, he has some correspondence for you, Mr. Borland, but it’s Named and won’t respond to you. So we’re a little confused about what to do with it.”
“Well, for starters, you call us Seth and Peter,” I said, smiling.
“I’m Peter Borland,” Peter said to the other boy. “You got something for me?”
“Well, it’s addressed to ‘Peter Borland’ and Master Cahill says you are he,” the man said. He wasn’t as young as he first appeared and his build was quite small. If I didn’t know what elves looked like now, I’d say he looked elfin. “It is not reacting to you at all,” he said, holding the envelope closer to Peter.
“Yeah, we’re all having that problem with Named items, lately,” Peter said, taking the envelope and returning to his seat. “It’s from Dad.”
“Sorry,” I told the man, “Something to do with not being visible in the universe. Martin, you wanna come watch the match with us? I think Ehran’s gonna root for your man, even.”
“You’re kidding me?” Martin said, grinning big. “Master McClure wants Ferrin to win?”
“Let’s just say, Ferrin’s the one he’s the least ticked off at,” I told him.
“Yeah,” he said, “That’s pretty much Da’s position, too.”
“Two conditions,” I said. “First, you don’t wear the robes, and two, if it lasts too long, you’ll have to excuse us when the warden comes. Okay?”
“Okay, let me walk him back and tell Da,” he said with a smile. “Are you satisfied? It didn’t blow up in his face or anything. It’s his. Let’s go.” He was almost shoving the little man along.
“Well,” started Peter, attracting my attention, “attorneys won’t be a problem. We can just keep the ones Dad’s hired to start. He’s already filed a half a dozen injunctions against the Justice Department and Harris, specifically. And those are just for him. He’s started the paperwork for Ehran and Seth, but there are a few problems there. Seth is still considered a minor and well, Ehran was proclaimed dead some time ago. Ethan just doesn’t exist at all.”
“Hey, I was born here!” objected Ethan. “Er, there, I mean. Many times, even.”
“Identification won’t be that difficult to insert,” said Peter, looking up at Kieran. “Actually, if you want to change your name, that would be a convenient time to do it.”
“Not yet,” said Kieran, thoughtfully. “MacNamara said when we first got here that someone had asked about Kieran McClure and another asked about a ‘kovel’ which holds a relationship to Ethan. I would prefer to investigate those areas before throwing ourselves out into the public eye so openly.”
“Can we get Mr. Colbert back?” I asked. “He seemed to know a lot of people.”
“I doubt the old dog would be amenable to being found just yet,” said Kieran, smirking a bit. “Besides, Artur is Father’s man for a reason.”
“You’ve said that before, are you ever gonna tell me what you mean?” I asked.
He laughed, shaking his head no. “Get a coupla belts into Father and Artur and get them to tell it. It’ll be far more entertaining! They’ll even do demonstrations of duels and everything. I can’t do it justice.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy at the relationship Kieran had with Dad. He had this whole side to his life that I never got to know about. Hell, Mom, too, for that matter. It’s not like I was abandoned. I’ve spent a great deal of time with both my parents. I thought we had a great relationship. Still have.
“There is some paperwork in the safe at home that gives me emancipation and enduring power of attorney on my parents in their absence,” I told Peter. I hadn’t known what it meant at the time, but it made sense now. He nodded as he reread the letter from his father.
Peter stopped his pull from the room just as I felt another pull coming down the aisle. Cahill and Florian were walking toward us with Martin a step or two behind them, eagerly poking his head over his father’s shoulder. It wasn’t really a pull so much as a presence the two men had together. They were obviously friends of long-standing.
“Mr. McClure!” called Señor Florian from a few feet away. “Young Martin tells us that you have a hate-hate relationship with the contestants in the next bout. Could that possibly be true? You’ve run across our Mr. Ferrin as well?”
“Unfortunately, yes, Señor Florian, in Atlanta a few days ago. It was not a pleasant experience and it ended badly for everyone,” I said with a grim smile.
“Yes, one of them tried to give me to an elf that wanted to kill me,” said Kieran at my side suddenly. “The other almost killed Ethan, Seth, and me, then broke the peace bond just now, almost killing six of his own men in the process.” He was smiling as he said it, but you didn’t have to see his aura to know it was sarcasm. “The show should start soon. Would you care to join us? I promise not to get too rowdy.”
As if on cue, the field began changing. The crowd grew quieter for a few moments, watching in anticipation of what scene was being built before them. Cahill and Florian exchanged quick glances but paid more attention to the field like everyone else. I opened the gate while they were distracted and Martin slid in and moved around to the far side of me. When the scene took the obvious form of a city complete with a building site in the center, Cahill turned to look for Martin and found him on the other side of me, both of us smiled coyly back at him.
With a wry grin, he said to Florian, “Come, Diego, it’s seems the matter has been decided for us.”
They joined Kieran and Ethan in the chairs. Peter joined us and we climbed onto the balcony wall with Martin between us. The three of us watched in rapt attention as the grass field turned itself into a small urban sprawl, complete with a building site for a high-rise some
thing in the center. The crowd noise had increased by that time. A group of four of MacNamara’s referees entered the field and started going through it slowly. After ten minutes, they seemed to be satisfied that it met with whatever criteria they needed and met up on the far side of the field again, waiting.
The noise tripled when Harris came jogging out behind another referee, eyes cast down. He wore his black gi. About half way out, he looked up and slowed instantly to a walk, the referee in front slowing to match him a step later. Meeting the group of four, the fifth referee peeled away, leaving the field. The noise level again rose as another referee appeared at the tunnel leading Ferrin out at a jog. Unlike Harris, Ferrin held his head up the entire time and didn’t slow midway through. He met up quickly with Harris and the group of four.
“I’ve not seen MacNamara do this before,” said Cahill.
“He’s done it several times in the past hundred years,” said Florian. “In ’73 he recreated the Olympic stadium in Munich. He thought it would be amusing. I heard that once he recreated the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to one side while a bout was occurring.”
“Not terribly subtle, is he?” asked Kieran.
Cahill barked out a laugh. “He has his moments, yes.”
On the field, the referees split in twos and started walking each contestant through the field of battle. It was larger than every battlefield thus far, taking up half the field and giving the cityscape two “blocks” to work with. It was cut on two sides with cross streets with the building-in-progress in the center. A perpendicular street ran down the center and would eventually loop around the fake building. As it was, the roads formed two giant T-structures with nothing joining them except paths through the construction site. It was obvious where the elf expected the battle to be performed.
Once they had finished their cursory inspection of the field, a blue shield wall was erected around the entire field and between Ferrin and Harris, blocking them from each other’s sight. The referees made signals to each indicating that they were to choose their own entry points to the field. Harris went for the far end road that looked straight down toward the construction site. Ferrin went for the closest road, parallel to the construction site. The first bell tolled and the crowd went wild again.
“Seth,” called Cahill, “MacNamara sets great measure in your predictive skills. How do you see this battle ending?”
“I’m afraid I have too much emotion invested here to predict anything reliably, sir,” I said, turning to him to answer the question. “While I’d like to say I don’t actively hate anyone, they have both pushed that idea to the limits.” Both Florian and Cahill laughed at that. Kieran merely nodded agreement.
“They do have those skills finely attuned,” said Florian, his accent only mildly touching his words.
The second bell tolled and unlike during previous battles, the outside walls of the cityscape descended into the ground allowing the two men into the city blocks. The center wall that kept them apart stayed intact. Both men entered the roadway but neither pulled in any power to indicate their location to the other. Ferrin ducked behind a building, forcing the perspective spell of the Arena to swivel around. It was disconcerting, to say the least.
“Ehran,” I asked, “this perspective spell that MacNamara has on the Arena, is this something that can be done on the fly, out in the world?”
“Yes and no,” he answered as he watched the field intently. “It works similarly to the wards at home which you are tuned into perfectly and don’t need this kind of visual acuity. You wouldn’t want to do it on the fly because it would show your position to whomever you were trying to see because of the necessary loop-back structures in the feeds. And it takes a considerable amount of power to feed those structures, at least on so many different levels.”
“You tie in that tightly to your wards?” asked Cahill, clearly impressed. “Maybe you should look at mine when you come. All we get is something is wrong.”
“If you can spare the time, I wouldn’t have a problem with that,” answered Kieran. “I would not consider doing such alone in your home.”
“Nor would I allow it. We are a suspicious lot, aren’t we?” Cahill said with a smile.
The third bell tolled and the center wall came down to much hooting and hollering from the crowd. Harris continued walking down the center of the road, searching back and forth for the ambush he expected at any moment. He was too far away from where Ferrin actually was, but he had no way of actually knowing that.
While I waited for them to get closer, I investigated the visual aid spell on the Arena. Kieran was correct about it being laid out like a warding spell. It was tiled onto the floor of the stadium and linked together onto the field. Conceptually it wasn’t that difficult to understand, but looking at the actual implementation of it was daunting. These weren’t static overlays but were constantly and rapidly moving. It wouldn’t work at all if the warding didn’t allow each and every member to link directly into the ward itself, thereby subconsciously controlling the direction himself. It definitely created a wicked power loop that marked each user, just as Kieran described, but here it was fed back into the matrix of wards to be reused. It also meant that if you knew someone intimately you could search through this ward and find that person.
Curious, I hooked into the ward and forced the perspective around to look at myself. It was strange to see myself with my own eyes, sitting with Martin and Peter on the wall. It was even stranger that, at the moment, I couldn’t see all of Peter, confirming that the warding spell couldn’t pierce whatever was hiding our auras. I moved the perspective around to see Kieran and Cahill sitting together and confirmed the same with them, seeing Cahill perfectly and Kieran only partially. I pulled the perspective back to view our balcony from a distance and saw we were pretty unremarkable. It figures then that if anyone was spying on us, they would have to look pretty hard to even find us.
The first of Ferrin’s attacks on Harris came from a distance and was an obvious distraction, at least to us, but it brought my attention back to the battle. Three separate explosions occurred in rapid succession around Harris but nowhere near him. Harris didn’t stop walking forward but his aura shifted slightly as he cast about on the astral plane, searching for Ferrin. Two loud thumps of something hitting the ground and a strong pulse of energy from Ferrin announced to Harris his exact location.
Harris looked up to see two large bags of cement mix flying overhead. A quick consideration of trajectory told him that they would land atop the buildings on either side of him, missing him completely, so he ignored them. He turned back to the construction site as the bags hit the buildings. He probably should have paid a bit more attention to them, though, as they seemed to hit perfectly on the corners of each building, bursting the bags, and sending dust and small rocks into the air and over the street. It seemed to be far more than the two bags would normally hold, but I really didn’t know.
I sent the perspective down onto the field, curious if I could see as Harris was seeing, and was delighted to find I could. He would be blinded by the dust for a moment or two, but still reasonably safe behind his shielding. Harris’ shields were spherical so Ferrin wouldn’t have as easy a time as with the Italian. Turning to see what Ferrin was doing, I saw him leaving one of the side buildings carrying a large mirror back to the building site on the far side of Harris’ position, still out of sight. He ducked down low as he ran, even though Harris was still waiting for the dust from the cement bags to settle. Ferrin shoved the mirror into the sand, leaning it against a pole and angling it toward a path between the adjacent building and the site. Then he ran to one of the girders that framed the building and climbed it like a squirrel. He had more upper body strength than I gave him credit for—I hadn’t thought he could tear a sheet of paper in two.
Ferrin scampered along a girder to come to the side of the building that Harris would travel. He sat down on the girder and waited, leaning back against another beam, legs stretch
ed out. Harris didn’t come along the path Ferrin wanted, though. He walked through the middle of the site, meandering past obstacles, and scanning left and right, up and down for Ferrin. For his part, Ferrin was relying on the cold steel to mask his aura and the heat signature of his body. I wasn’t sure why it was working because I was seeing him without issue.
“Why doesn’t Harris see him?” Martin voiced the question for me.
“I’d say he does,” said Cahill. “He’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. That close to steel, anything that Ferrin throws at him will be fairly diluted so he’s not really that much of a threat. Any real magical threat is already on the ground.”
“Hmm,” I grunted. “You’re missing the point with Ferrin, then, and if that’s what Harris is thinking, so is he.”
Ferrin slowly reached inside his jacket and pulled out a slingshot, the American kind made with rubber, not the whirl over your head kind. He aimed it back up the road and let it fly just as Harris passed under the girder he sat on to obscure the act. It was an amazing shot, no doubt helped along with a little magic, that hit a small wedge of wood tenuously holding back a large weight, barely balanced, cantilevered over the ledge of the next rooftop. The weight fell, providing the necessary energy for a catapult sitting on the ground below, to fire another bag of cement into the air. Harris looked up at the missile and casually flared a hand out and surrounded the bag with a soft field of energy, just enough that it wouldn’t burst on impact. Then he turned back to face Ferrin, but he wasn’t there anymore.
The bag of cement crashed to the ground behind Harris, startling him. He stepped forward, whirling in place and crouching. Ferrin chose that moment to leap as high as he could off the first floor girder he stood on and down into the road. He fired a single burst of violet magefire down onto the sandy ground near Harris. Catching Ferrin’s reflection in the mirror, Harris fired a similar shot of magefire at the mirror, wrongly taking it for Ferrin. His spell crashed through the mirror, but reflected back on something behind it and shot back through his shields, stunning himself. Ferrin’s shot broke through the plywood he’d placed on the ground. Harris fell into the hole in the ground as Ferrin flew overhead, rolling to a stop carefully.
