by Simon Archer
“What?” I blinked at the news. “I’m banned from the Blue Water Inn?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean it,” Deity said, not as reassuring as I hoped. “But, of course, you’re okay. You’re a big man, I’m sure you can take care of yourself. I’m sorry for coming by this early, I just--”
She bit the tip of her thumb as if to stop her talking. I knew she was delivering some harrowing news, but I really just wanted to keep looking at her like this. Bashful. Beautiful in the early twilight. Eyes alight with concern as they met mine.
“Thank you for coming by,” I said, meaning every word. I liked having her here. That was twice in two days that I got to see her outside of the bar.
“Oh, sure,” Deity said with a loud swallow. “Well, I guess you’re okay, so I’ll be going.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay?” I asked, the words leaving my mouth.
She cocked her head at me like I had more to say. Did I have more to say? I really just wanted her to stay here. Maybe forever. But something close to logic told me that was unrealistic. I needed her to stay… for what?
“For breakfast?” I supplied, finding an appropriate filler.
“Thanks, but I’ve actually been anxiety baking most of the morning, waiting for an appropriate time to come by, and I left some muffins on the fire.” Deity pointed behind her as if the oven was just down the stairs of my porch.
“Oh,” I replied, unsuccessfully hiding my disappointment.
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” she said, something changing in the tone of her voice. “I really knew you would be because I heard you kicked their asses. That is pretty impressive.”
“Impressive?” The word caught in my throat and came out more as a squeak.
If Deity noticed my change in pitch, she didn’t say anything. “Yeah. Definitely impressive. But a raincheck on breakfast, okay?”
“Okay,” I said with a nod as she walked down the steps and around the side of the house. She offered me a small wave which I returned.
I held my hand in the air longer than I needed, long after she disappeared from view. I sighed and hit my head against the doorframe. I went to smack it again, to punish myself for the inability to speak properly to one woman when a voice stopped me.
“She’s going to be a problem, isn’t she?”
Barth stood on the bottom step inside the house, with Graham sitting loyally by his side.
“No, I can guarantee Deity will not be a problem,” I lamented, putting stock in my humiliation.
Barth huffed and crossed his arms. Graham stuck his tongue back in his mouth and seemed to match Barth’s skepticism. Betrayal struck home as I thought about my dog siding with the elf when they’d only met a couple of hours ago.
“You got an answer for me?” Barth didn’t waste any time.
“I didn’t get any sleep,” I replied, rubbing my eyes for emphasis.
“Come on, Rico,” Barth groaned. “This shouldn’t be this hard.”
“Yes, okay? Yes, I want to fight, and damnit, I want you to train me.”
The words burst from my lips. Once I said them aloud, I knew them to be true. I sighed with relief at my confession and thought back to Deity, who said I was impressive. I wanted to be impressive and confident enough to speak to her properly. I wanted to fight, and I wasn’t going to miss what might be my only opportunity to do so.
“Good,” Barth said like he’d known the answer all along. And he probably did. “We start tomorrow. Come on, Graham, we don’t have to milk any cows, so we can go back to bed.”
The elf headed back up the stairs with my dog at his heels. Graham gave me one last look over his shoulders, and I sneered playfully at him.
“Traitor,” I teased.
8
“We’ve got a serious PR problem with you,” Barth said first thing the next day.
I finished the morning feedings, which Barth decided to follow me around and watch. He never offered to help, and honestly, I didn’t ask. I know he agreed to train me, but I still thought of him as my guest. Plus, it would have taken me too long to teach him, anyway. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
We now sat at my kitchen table, with Graham huddled between us at our feet. I nursed a mug of tea, which I offered to Barth, who opted instead for whatever was in his mysterious flask. I noticed that he continued to take sips from it, and reason would tell me that it should have been empty by now. I figured it was none of my business, so I kept those thoughts to myself.
“What do you mean by PR?” I asked ignorantly.
“Public Relations,” Barth clarified. “It’s essentially how you talk to people, how you present yourself, and how people see you.”
“Why do we have a problem?” I wondered, still not seeing the importance of this.
“Because you don’t know what PR is,” Barth said blandly. “Because you don’t know there is a problem, so we have a problem. You see?”
“No,” I admitted.
Barth took another sip from his flask and leaned back in his chair, sloping one arm across the back. “How do you think fighters get their titles?”
“Based on their special moves mostly,” I said, reciting the answer I’d given Deity to the same question two nights ago.
“Nope,” Barth said harshly, his voice as sharp as the round bell in the fights. “Their names are decided for them.”
“That can’t be true,” I protested, outraged by the very idea.
“It is,” Barth said as he lifted his flask in my direction. “Trust me, Rico, you’re going to learn a lot about your precious MFL that you aren’t going to like. Prepared to be disillusioned, my friend.”
“I know you have a problem with them,” I started, trying to be gentle, “and I haven’t pressed about that, even though the curiosity is killing me. That’s your business, but I do expect you to tell me the truth.”
“I am!” Barth insisted. “I’m just telling you that you’re not going to like some of it, understood?”
“Yes,” I relented with a deep swallow. “So, if the fighters don’t decide their titles, then who does?”
“Their agents and coaches,” Barth confessed. “It’s all about the image, how we want this fighter to be seen. The title says it all. I feel like we could go a lot of different ways for you.”
“Do we have to decide this now?” I asked, my voice slipping into a whine. “When you said we’ll start in the morning, I thought you were talking about physical training.”
“We’ll get there, I promise,” Barth said as he tapped the table in time with his words. “But this is where the money’s at. You have to be entertaining, or no one will give a damn about you.”
“Entertaining how?”
“Do you know the history of the MFL? How it got started?” Barth leaned forward to pet Graham who rolled over on his stomach to encourage more pets.
“Koris Gulianti started it,” I reported. The information appeared in my mind’s eye, and I read it off. “He found out about the underground fighting leagues throughout the city and the countryside. Then, it was much more natural. In those days, there was no discrimination.”
“Why?” Barth quizzed me.
“Barth,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You know this information, as well as I do. Why do I have to recite it to you now?”
“You said you don’t get to talk about fighting with anyone,” Barth countered with a smirk. “So, talk to me about fighting. Am I going to have to explain everything to you, Rico?”
“I do like to know what’s going on,” I confessed.
“I’m here to tell you, that’s not always going to happen,” Barth said. “You’re going to build a team of creatures around you that you have to learn to trust. Yes, you’re gonna be the fighter at the center of it all, but trust is what’s going to keep you a fighter.”
“Alright,” I said cautiously. I leaned forward in my seat to close the gap between Barth and I. “But I believe trust is earned.”
“I agree,” Barth said, meeting my eye unflinchingly. He clicked his tongue and continued. “Now, tell me why those underground fights let anyone fight?”
“Because magic wasn’t originally a requirement,” I proceeded with my explanation.
“When did it become one?” Barth tested.
“When Koris turned it into a projected sport,” I continued. “He got all of the elves to invest by calling it a combination of sport and magic that they had never seen before. That’s also when they established the rules too because the underground fighters had a lot less structure. It was more of a free-for-all. Hence the Magical Fight League was born.”
“Since then, who are the main demographic of the MFL?”
“Elves,” I said definitively. “They handle the stocks, they channel the projections, they set up the schedule. Everything in the MFL is run through them.”
“So, it stands to reason that it’s them you need to impress,” Barth said, tying the explanation back around to the beginning. “You need to adhere to their desires. They want a spectacle. They want drama. They want rivalries.”
As Barth continued, the MFL seemed a lot more complicated than just fighting. I found that as he talked, I didn’t give a damn about the politics behind it all. Public relations seemed like a waste of time when I just wanted to get in the ring and swing my fists.
There was something more to fighting. For some reason, ironically, all of the intricacies of brand and press seemed to ruin the sport of it. It distracted from the training and technique that went into the ring.
“You’re starting to make me think that none of it is real,” I interrupted one of Barth’s rants about interviewing and conducting oneself in the public eye.
“Oh, it’s real, alright,” Barth assured me. “The fighting is one hundred percent real. There is real blood of all colors. Trust me, some of those demons have some nasty looking liquids come out of them.”
“It really is a show, isn’t it?” I said, my voice sadder than I intended.
“To them, yes, it is.” Barth stuck his arm out, dramatically pointing out the window as if a horde of elves was waiting out there to watch our discussion. “But to you and me, we understand the heart of it. That’s something they’re too jaded to understand.”
“So, we’re going to train in public relations like we’ll train for the fight itself?” I double-checked, growing enthusiastic about the whole idea.
“Pretty much,” Barth said. “Because we need to pass you off as magical.”
“Wait.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “You want me to lie?”
“That’s the plan,” Barth said, unconcerned with my apparent opposition to this idea. “I figure the best move is going with half-giant. You would be on the small side, but you would pass. We need to get you the proper papers, and I still gotta figure out the magic part--”
“I didn’t sign up to lie,” I said as I rose to my feet. “I want to fight as myself.”
“Rico,” Barth said while kicking his chair back on two legs, “we both know that’s not going to happen.”
“Then I don’t want to do this,” I protested, wagging a finger between the pair of us. “I want to fight as Rico Jacek, the human.”
“I thought you wanted to fight,” Barth said, getting to his own feet now. “Or did I misunderstand?”
“No, I want to fight,” I assured him, meaning to continue, but Barth didn’t let me.
“Then this is how you do it,” Barth insisted. “I have the know-how to make this work, and you have the talent. We can get you in there, but you have to trust me.”
“I trusted you when you said you would train me, but now, you just want to use me to get back at the MFL for whatever crap they pulled on you,” I said as I waved my hand at him.
“I really did see something in you two nights ago.” Barth pressed his finger so hard into the table that it hyperextended. “And I see it in you whenever you talk about the fight. You love it, and there aren’t enough fighters like you in the MFL. Not anymore. We need more.”
“I don’t want to lie to do it,” I pressed.
“There’s not another way, Rico, there’s just not,” Barth informed me like I didn’t already know that. “We can train, we can practice interviews, you can love the sport with all your heart, but it won’t be enough.”
My mind clutched those words like a buoy. It would never be enough. I would never be enough. The same roadblock over and over again. The mere thought of it brought bile to the back of my throat. A fury pulsed through my veins that made me want to punch right through the nearest wall. Instead, I held as still as I could, though the clenched fists at my side shook from the excess energy.
“This lie, this little white lie, will get your foot in the door. Will finally get you in the ring.”
“I don’t know if I can do it, Barth,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s not how I want to fight, under some sort of guise.”
“Then, you won’t fight at all, ever.” Barth released a sigh and tapped the table twice. “You’re gonna want to think about this again, aren’t you?”
I offered the elf a stiff nod which he returned with his own. “I get it. Actually, no, I don’t get it, but whatever you need to do to sort this out for yourself, do it. And do it quick.”
Barth tucked his chair to the table and whistled. Graham popped up to his feet like he hadn’t been resting with his eyes closed a moment before. The two of them walked to the door, and Barth put his hand on the handle while the dog ventured out ahead. When the elf didn’t immediately follow, Graham stuck just his head back in and looked up as if to ask, “You coming?”
“I mean it, Rico, you got something special,” Barth said while facing the door. “But in order to get others to see it, we’ve got to play their game. It doesn’t have to be forever, but it’s how we have to start.”
Barth opened the door and stepped outside. I stood staring at the closed door, thinking I had just watched my chance at fighting walk right out it when suddenly, Barth walked back inside.
“Your lady friend is out here,” Barth reported with a jab of his thumb back behind him.
9
“Who?” I asked, too shocked to understand what he really was talking about. “I don’t have a lady friend.”
“That one with the light and dark hair who cooks for the inn that’s not an inn,” Barth described.
“You mean Deity?” I said as I ran a hand through my hair.
“If that’s her name, sure,” Barth commented uncaringly. “Is she always going to show up when you have a big decision to make?”
“Shut up, and go visit the cows or something,” I said as I rushed towards the door and pushed him out of it.
“I don’t like cows!” Barth protested.
“You didn’t like dogs either, but now you’ve got a new best friend,” I stated, gesturing to my dog, who didn’t feel much like my dog over the past two days. “Go make a new friend.”
Ever the picture of maturity, Barth stuck his tongue out at me. He pulled open the door and nearly collided with Deity, who stood on the other side. She stepped back and clutched a basket with a checkered cloth on top.
“Watch it!” she snapped as Barth back-peddled.
“Sorry, miss,” Barth said as he tipped a non-existent hat. “I was just leaving.”
“Haven’t I seen you before?” Deity pointed a finger at Barth as his eyebrows pinched together, trying to remember.
“Deity, this is Barth. He’s…” I started, but my words trailed off, unable to come up with an acceptable lie.
“I’m Rico’s uncle,” Barth supplied.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as Deity smirked. “You’re an elf. Wanna tell me how that works?”
Barth rolled his lips over his teeth and sucked in a breath. “The truth?”
“I’d appreciate it,” Deity said, her smirk deepening.
My heart raced at the thought of Deity knowing my desire to fight. Obviously, I liked the MF
L, she knew that much, but I didn’t want to go around advertising my intention to get in the ring. Especially not if Barth planned to have me lie about it. My throat closed as I thought about Deity’s reaction. How she might laugh at me, and then never speak to me again.
I reached out my hand, hoping to stop Barth from spilling his guts when the elf turned his back to me and faced Deity squarely. My arm swung at my side, a sign of my failure as Barth started his story.
“I got into a fight at the inn the other night and got kicked out,” Barth explained with a noncommittal shrug. “Rico here promised me a bed and a hot meal if I helped him out on the farm a bit.”
“I didn’t take elves to be the manual labor type,” Deity said skeptically.
“Well, don’t tell him that,” Barth said conspiratorially, with a hand to his mouth and pointing over his shoulder at me. “But here I am, off to feed the cows.”
Barth opened his hands innocently and squeezed past Deity in the doorway. We watched him walk down the steps with Graham at his side. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and whistled while he walked.
I stepped forward and leaned my head on the doorframe, exhausted by the mental cartwheels Barth put me through. He was one of the most complicated people I had ever met, and I briefly wondered if I made a huge mistake taking him up on his offer.
“I’d lock up your gold if I were you,” Deity suggested.
“Noted,” I grunted into the wall. Then I realized that she was still standing there. Deity was still on my porch. She had come to my house for some reason, and instead of addressing her directly, I was wallowing against the wall.
Quickly, I straightened up and adjusted my shirt. I cleared my throat and tried to lean casually against the wall, rather than lament on it.
“What can I do for you, Deity?” I asked, making my voice unnecessarily low.
“What’s wrong with your voice?” Deity wondered. She took a sudden step back. “Are you sick?”
