I don’t think that I have a grasp on time anymore. We have been in this room for hours; sometimes it feels like days, whiling the time away as we wait for our final match. At some point, I was certain that this entire competition was supposed to be a race against time, but with how much time I have spent sitting in a chair or sleeping in a somewhat comfortable cot, that is easy to forget. Not that I can complain much. The rest has been refreshing, and after the last win each of us even found a new set of clothing in the dresser near the wash bin. Considering I only have two changes of clothes, it was a prize I was happy to receive.
As we wait, at least three in the room joining me in reading books from Arabella’s shelf, Samielle finally awoke. The man was groggy, and he still looks like someone lightly splashed fire over his whole body, but he was awake long enough to eat something. Jess fed him before re-wrapping the dressing we have applied to his damaged wing to make it more comfortable for him. Wouldn’t you know it, none of us knew how to properly bandage a wing. The man is still in an awful condition, and though I hate to think it, he will probably be a liability going forward. He sleeps again, more soundly than before.
Jor’Mari continues to sulk in the corner of the room, pretending to stare at the words in a book on applied economics when he isn’t staring into the corner of the room. He hasn’t turned the page in over an hour now. I don’t know what to say to the man. Up until a few hours ago, I had bought into the cavalier attitude, the display of brash rudeness that makes him seem so confident. He is a nobleman; he acted how I expected. For some reason, I never pictured anything truly terrible happening in his life.
Even my books eventually grow dull, not that I think anyone would find most of the topics all that engaging in the first place. A month ago, I wouldn’t have. I find myself speaking at length with Jess, exchanging stories from our youth with one another. It is amazing what kinds of stories a peasant girl from Gale and the niece of a migratory herding tribe’s chief have in common. I find that she has a skill at forging, that she has been apprenticing in the art for almost a decade now. I know that if I wish to continue pursuing enchanting, picking up such an art will be incredibly valuable in the future. That, or making good friends with someone already proficient.
After an interminable amount of time, the shining arch of the doorway begins to glow and hum once more. I stretch out of my chair as the pathway back to the field begins to appear, getting a good pop out of my back before we march forward. We need to leave Samielle behind again, but the man waves us on, cheering us to win this final match. The display is a bit heartbreaking, and Jess decides on her own to help the man limp to the seats on the side of the field.
The field stands somewhat changed. Rather, rain softly drizzles from the roof overhead that now looks like a billowing mass of gray clouds. Each step on the grass squelches as my boots seep into the grass beneath my feet. It only occurs to me now how strange it should be to have such a healthy lawn of grass inside of this tower. I suppose all sorts of wonders can be done with an educated application of magic, even keeping grass green and flush while it is far from the sun.
A confusing distortion of gray covers the view that was the tundra before. Rivulets of darkness running through the pallid color that churns against the open air, almost like clouds pressing in on glass. I might mistake the illusion presented to us for a thick fog if it weren't for the intermittent moments of ghostly hands pressing out of the gray, slapping against the walls of the illusion for the barest instant, disappearing once more into the torrent a second later, leaving nothing in their wake but disturbed color. Whatever could possess Arabella Willian to present the outside world like this I have no idea, but it does mark this particular match as an outlier.
The sprinkling of rain in the interior of the tower is a mystery as well. Perhaps she simply wants to make everyone more miserable than they already are. The rain does not bother me as it seeps into my scalp, sticking long strands of orange to my neck and face, dampening my clothes, making them heavy with water. The cold of the downpour never reaches me. I find cold reaching me less and less these days.
Looking around, my companions don't seem too concerned with the minor downpour either. Should that surprise me? These are all supposed to be elite magicians after all. Even Jasper seems to take the sheet of rain falling on his head in stride, merely removing a cap from his pocket and slapping the thin piece of leather down on his head. A point of light, a rectangle of blue shines across the field from us, the lair of our opponents.
We do not need to wait for them to slowly emerge from their own chamber, each stalking to the center of the field, each more menacing than the last. No, six figures already stand in the center of the Stoneball field, though, they seem far more concerned with the rain than does my own team. The entire field is cast in a darker light, the roiling of gray clouds overhead and horrid mist pressing in at the walls does little to illuminate the field itself. The rain cutting sideways through the chamber, blowing as if in a harsh wind despite the complete and utter lack of a breeze, further obscures, or it should have. Despite everything darkening the field, the grass itself almost seems to glow, as if it was sitting pretty underneath the noonday sun. The entire effect makes it feel as if I was stepping onto some ghostly island in the middle of a rainstorm as my boot scuffs across the painted exterior of the field proper.
The Dispatch, incredibly visible, its black geometry somehow standing out against the blanket of angry clouds overhead, hovers once more in the center of the field, its ever-present rider standing astride it. Arabella Willian, still disguised as a goddess, looks down at the assemblage, noting with a glance Jess hurrying to catch up with the rest of us after offloading Samielle onto a seat on the side. I think the man might be happier recuperating in his cot. He would be a great deal dryer at the least, warmer too.
Of the thirteen people in the chamber, Arabella stands as the only one proof from the constant drizzle of rain. Tiny crystals, shards of ice cast in chaotic geometry, drop away from the dispatch around her, frozen the instant the water even thinks to approach the woman and ruin her pristine appearance. The motes of ice cascade into the grass between our two groups, melting once they hit the grass, piling a slurry in the center of the field. Not even my eye can detect the barrier that must be around her, turning the water to ice, but I know that it is there.
There is a look in the woman's eye, a hunger and excitement that makes me feel like a vole staring up at a raptor. In the previous two matches, the woman never looked so excited.
"We are at five participants for Team Mari and six for Team Forendous. I am afraid that you will once again have to cast one of your lot to the side Faux-Baroness," she intones, the sound of the rain splattering into the wet grass disappearing as she speaks and returning once her words have reached us.
I study our opponents for the first time, really study them. I do not like what I find.
In the center of their line, six in all, stands a woman of alien origins that I can only guess at. She is not tall, barely over five feet I think, and her skin has a shiny blue pallor that bears hints of green; I have never seen anyone like her before. Her eyes are piercing, yellow, almost golden, orbs run through with thick red veins that somehow catch what scant light floats about on the field, shining like I have seen wild cats’ eyes do in the nighttime. Her face is poised and dignified, beautiful in its way, but it is a dangerous beauty. She seems bored with the proceedings, but when she catches me watching her, some spark of interest seems to light in her shining eyes as she turns them on me. The Eye of Volaash tells me about her, but I could have guessed at some things based solely upon the ravenous aura that licks at the air around her, a blanket the color of translucent steel that roils in the rain.
Kit Auger Forendous
Abyssal Caller Conflux
"That is a dangerous one," Jess says in a whisper next to me. "I'm fairly certain that she is the one that tore down the gate in the courtyard. Crumpled a big man named... like a twig before almost killing him."
"I've never seen anyone like her," I say, not bothering to whisper back.
"She must come from the Vivantee Empire. They live in the seas of the world. A powerful people, ruthless too," Jor'Mari says from my other side.
I look at the man, but I cannot see any clear trace of the melancholy he displayed the day before. He stands, arms folded across his chest as he smirks at our competition who are now arguing with one another about who might be allowed to join the match. The man's mask of sneering indifference is impeccable, but I've seen behind it now. I can't even begin to guess at what he might do in this match, but given that woman in the middle of the field opposite us, I am glad to have him on my side.
"What is a Faux-Baroness?" I ask.
He quirks a brow and snickers, shaking his head. "It means that she must be the daughter of a Baron, or perhaps a Baroness. From what I understand about the Empire, the hereditary titles of the young nobles actually carries weight, not just the weight of mommy and daddy's displeasure. Real, legal weight. Quite something that we are so graced by this woman."
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"I suppose that it is," I say, turning my eye on the rest of our opponents.
The next one that I land on happens to be an elven man standing at the side of Lady Forendous, his subtle smile and open posture a counterplay to hers, though they share the same boredom in their eyes. They must believe that this match is a foregone conclusion, and it is difficult to blame them. This man too is a rank two magician, meaning that they have two where we have none. My eye gives me his name, Graessa Mor, the son of a Count. His long cascading curls are the color of cool-blue crystal, the rain completely unable to do anything other than complement their pearlescence. He stands, imperious and passive, looking at each of us with dull gray eyes, elegant even though you could almost think he was a statue by his stillness. There is something in the way that he stands, two red-gloved hands clasped in front of him, wisps of gray power floating into the air from his shoulders–hinting at his soul presence–that unnerves me. This man is dangerous, maybe even more dangerous that the strange woman he stands near.
Despite the disturbing nature of those two, I find a small comfort in seeing that the rest of their group is not so overtly dangerous. A man and a woman( more a boy than a man really, he is the youngest that I have seen in the contest so far–maybe fifteen) argue in the rain. The similar nature of their golden hair, its sheen turned copper in the downpour, and their shining green eyes tell me that they are siblings as powerfully as my eye does, the children of a duke from some land I have never heard of. The woman’s name is Kess while her brother’s is Allann, and she holds a dainty parasol in one hand as she stares up at her younger sibling. Not that the parasol does her any good, the rain still soaks through both of their incredibly well-tailored and adorned black clothing all the same.
Seeing their clothes and looking around at the other four that stand on the line across from us, it occurs to me that they are much better dressed than we are. The clothes provided to me by the guild are nice and well-made, but they lack the ivory tassels, jeweled cuffs, and fine accessories that these people wear. I wonder briefly whose pocket I need to tickle in the guild to get clothes so fine, not that I have ever tickled someone’s pocket before. Girls in town have done far more for far less. I doubt I would get anything so fancy as what our opponents wear despite how deft my fingers might be; my blood just isn’t clean enough. A lot of good their fine clothing does for them in the rain; it’s all mostly the same in the damp.
“Bah,” Kess barks, waving her parasol in her brother’s face, forcing the boy to step back and slap it away. “I yielded to your pestering too many times. I will not sit aside once again.”
“You agreed to wait until I made a score. Has that time come yet? Hmm? Go back on your word when it no longer suits you to follow through with it, hmmm?” he demands. “Take your place to the side.”
“You would use your own inadequacy to try and keep your place on the line?” she questions. “If you cannot provide anything for the group, then you should be the one to step aside.”
And on they continue as we watch the spectacle, Jor’Mari’s smirk growing wider. I turn my attention to the last two members I haven’t given a good inspection. Two men, each elven and dressed like they are about to attend a ball, ascots sagging from waterlogging, the fine white linen that peeks from their suit coats dripping in the drizzle.
The one on the right is the palest elf that I have ever seen, an honor held by Coriander before, and his silver hair only adds to the lack of color in his features. His name is Jason Kal’Liefer. The burgundy suit he wears still stands buttoned all the way to his neck, as if he is expecting dinner guests to drop out of the sky at any moment. What stands out to me most is my eye telling me his conflux, Retreating Mist, and the redness of both his irises and his full lips. There is a pitying look on his long and narrow face, as if he is the only one who knows some great secret and we are all the poorer for our ignorance.
His counterpart is similar to him in the paleness of his skin, but the onyx of his own hair, pulled into a long ponytail that languidly lays over his shoulder, reminds me too much of Coriander for me to believe the similarity is coincidental. My eye tells me he is from some house called Brimman, from a barony that carries the same name. Suddenly I wish I knew a bit more about the relationships between the elven nobility.
With the name of Laet Brimman, he stands with a slouch that I have not seen many elves bear. His once brilliant green suit, now darkened from the rain, stands open, its corners leaking a steady heartbeat of drippings into the grass. The fabric bunches around the man’s arms, as if the suit jacket is ill-fitted, but that may simply be the effect of the rain. The man has a hideous scar cutting a jagged path down the right side of his face, leaving his right eye blind and gray. His one good eye stares at the ground, studying a lone yellow flower in the middle of the field, its stem bent from a recent trampling.
“Enough of this!” Lady Forendous shrieks, turning on the bickering siblings to her side. The brother and sister fall instantly silent, cowed by the sudden anger on the short woman’s face. Lady Forendous calms herself, running a black nail through her forest-green hair, pulling a loose lock out of her face. “Given that this is the final match that we will be partaking in, it would be better if you both participated. I know how heart set you are to be of use, Kess, and I would measure your worth.”
The Faux-Baroness’ eyes flick skyward toward Arabella, but the fake goddess gives no sign of complaint. It is Clarice that speaks up for our team.
“We only have five to play with,” Clarice says, gesturing down our line. “Five on six hardly seems fair.”
“If I am not mistaken, that miserable fellow there is a part of your merry band, is he not?” Lady Forendous asks, pointing toward Samielle where he sits in a chair off the side of the field. “He does seem awfully battered, and I am certain that he would be in a better mood playing for his team. If you like, I can have Lord Brimman here heal him of his injuries, allowing his participation.”
“Yes!” Jess says, taking a step forward to speak before Clarice can think of a reply. “Yes, please.”
The smile painting Lady Forendous’ face grows wider, revealing needle-like teeth lining the woman’s mouth. I can’t help but shudder at the sight of that smile, imagining what those teeth are meant to bite into, feeling their thin tips dragging over the skin on my forearm.
“This is a friendly competition after all,” Lady Forendous says, gesturing to the sullen and scarred man standing at her side. “Who would I be if I did not offer the hospitality of my underling’s services. Bearing such injuries up further into the tower might imperil him, and I do not want such a thing.” Lord Brimman nods to her and begins to walk toward where Samielle sits when she catches him by the arm, stopping him. “Given the nature of us being in competition, I cannot bring myself to be too charitable, however; it would be an insult to you in its way. We will heal him, but only once, either before our game or after. That choice is to you, but I would consider the option carefully, as you may find yourselves a bit more broken than he is now at the end of all this. Others in the groups we have faced before you have.”
A silence lapses between our two lines, the sound of the rain splashing into the grass the only sound passing for a few seconds. The disquiet is broken by a bark of laughter, and I look sidelong to find Jor’Mari holding his hand over his mouth, making a poor attempt to stifle the laughter bubbling up from his throat.
“We will take the man now,” he says, dropping his hand to reveal a smile more manic than I have seen him wear before. I cannot tell if the crazed look in his eye is for the benefit of our opponents or genuine. “You may yourselves find need of Lord Brimman’s ministrations following this match. I would hate for him to be too exhausted then to aide you.”
Lady Forendous releases Lord Brimman’s arm, her smile never faltering as the man proceeds to stride from the field to where Samielle waits, ignorant and in pain. “Team Mari was it; would that make you the infamous Jor’Mari? An acquaintance on the dry bid me to relay her feelings of fondness to you should we cross paths in this contest. You know Lady Quelth, do you not? She had much to say on your account.”
The smirk on Jor’Mari’s face dips just the barest. “No doubt.”
“Indeed,” Lady Forendous continues. “She did speak of the bravado, so it is no surprise to me to find such high words of confidence coming from you, half-breed.”
Jor’Mari snickers. “I however do find your own high words a surprise, given your…shall we say, vertical challenges.”
That does the trick. The disdainful glee on Lady Forendous’ face turns into a scowl. She glances off the field to where Lord Brimman is standing over Samielle, a wash of blue energy peeling off the scarred man’s hands to wash over Samielle. I watch as the injured man starts to sit a little straighter, the wrapped wing on his back twitching and seeming to grow stronger and stronger in barely any time.
“I suppose we shall see whose confidence is out of place in just a few moments,” Lady Forendous quips as Lord Brimman finishes his work. Samielle stands, both wings flexing, the man moving his arms in circles, working out the stiffness in his shoulders. “Though, there is almost no chance that it will be me.”
“As you say, my Lady. As you say,” Jor’Mari says, craning his neck to the side, earning a fantastic pop. He sighs, rolling his own shoulders as Samielle comes prancing out onto the field, catching Jess as she leaps at him, wrapping her arms around him. “They all talk big in the beginning.”
Lady Forendous leaves the talking at that, beckoning Lord Brimman to return to the line, dictating his spot with a snap of her fingers and a point. All attention turns skyward once more as Samielle takes his spot in the line beside us. It occurs to me, just as Arabella begins to call checks to make certain that each team is ready, that Samielle may not know the rules of the game. Our line calls that we are ready before I can ask for a delay, the Dispatch whines overhead, power swelling inside the black cube as it prepares to thunder down the first ball of the match. Light explodes away from it in a green streak as the first ball thuds into the wet grass, power swells off of magicians on both lines while others dash forward. The final match has begun.
Lady Forendous
Abyssal Caller Conflux
Jor’Mari
Demon Conflux
Graessa Mor
The Still Space Conflux
Clarice Morningcall(level 44)
Eclipse Conflux
Laet Brimman
Green Beast Conflux
Jess Keller
Blade Dancer Conflux
Jason Kal’Liefer
Retreating Mist Conflux
Charlene Devardem(Level 34)
Emperor Conflux
Allann Bel’Varath
Lasher Conflux
Samielle Kraesh
Nightmare Conflux
Kess Bel’Varath
Disturbed Earth Conflux
Jasper Callaway(Level 32)
Seer Conflux