Garet sat in the shade of Obbela’s outdoor tavern. There was an hour of sunlight left in the day, so the place was only starting to fill up, and the wind was favorable to the carriage of voices, so he could hear Runar and Mazie.
Runar said, with a laugh, “Sleeping on the job?”
Mazie sat up. “I was just closing my eyes.”
“Wouldn’t hold it against you if you were. It’s too hot to do much else.”
Garet looked over to the bar, where Kanos was trying to engage in banter with a woman who didn’t seem to have much use for him. Claes was still out about a mile from here. He had told the others he had gone to haggle for foodstuffs, and he had successfully procured about eight hundred pounds, but now he was trying to figure out who had salted the animals’ hooves—when something so low was done, it was always useful to know by whom and why.
He looked back at Mazie, who had adjusted her hat to block sun. “Did you do well today?”
“Eighty pounds of smoked fish. Could’ve done worse.”
Mazie stood up. “I got enough oil to last for months. Forty cents per gallon.”
Runar whistled. “Impressive.”
“Not really. I just know what stuff’s supposed to cost.” Garet saw her take something from the table. “Oh, I also got these.”
“What game were you playing?”
“Oh, nothing. Eric was bored, is all.”
Runar looked aside. “There’s Farisa.”
The young woman, wearing a wide-brimmed white hat and a light-colored plaid shirt, had come to join them. “How’d we all do?”
Runar shrugged; Mazie said something Garet couldn’t hear.
The three of them came closer to the tavern, and Talyn approached them as they did. “What are those cards for?”
“I hear you can use them for a bunch of different games,” said Mazie.
Runar pointed. “There’s a table over there in the shade that’ll fit all of us.”
The four of them sat down about ten yards away.
Runar called for Garet’s attention. “Would you like to join us for cards?”
He considered it, but the local newspaper had printed a crossword puzzle he was in the midst of solving, and this might be his last one for a long time, so he said, “Thank you, but I’ll pass.”
Farisa said, “So what are we playing?”
“There’s some clay chips under the table,” said Runar. He spun one on the table like a coin, then caught it. “If anyone would like to play ehrgeiz, I’d be up for a game.”
“I’m down,” Mazie said.
Farisa chuckled. “You’re up for a game, you’re down for one. Those should mean opposite things, but they’re the same. Prepositions are weird.”
“Ehrgeiz?” said Talyn. “Ambition, that game?” Eric had come to her side. “Not around my boy. It makes me curse like a sailor.”
Farisa crossed her arms. “If you don’t like hearing yourself swear, then don’t fucking swear.”
Mazie laughed. Garet surmised that Talyn, though he could only see the back of her head, was not smiling, though he personally found Farisa’s comment to be comical. Things happened on the Road—animals wandered, water spilled, campfires refused ignition—and the boy had heard, and had probably even said, worse a hundred times.
Farisa continued. “I’m not sure these distinctions of words as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ matter out here. The matter of which words are classified as vulgar comes down to historical prejudice. The word ‘piss’ was a perfectly fine one for urination until, centuries ago, as the Thuya were conquering the Rhyoan Plain—”
Mazie shuffled the cards and looked at Runar. “Shall I deal?”
He said, “Yeah, let’s play.”
#
Runar considered ordering coffee, but decided he didn’t need any. He’d been arguing with fishmongers all day in seven-flag heat; for the fact, he had a surprising amount of energy. His half-brother Kanos had joined the table.
“What are you playing?”
“Ambition,” said Runar.
Farisa added, “Ehrgeiz, if you’re from the west.”
“Money stakes?”
Runar shook his head. “No.”
He knew there was little point of bringing such wagers into a group that, by necessity, would share the means of survival. Gambling was fun, until it wasn’t, and he knew that lethal divisions could begin in groups like this over less.
Kanos turned his head and spit behind himself. “Then why play?”
“If that’s how you feel, don’t.”
Gambling had brought Runar here. There was a roulette wheel in every casino that wobbled enough to give an observant bettor an edge. There were one-armed bandits who ought to have retired to jobs better suited to their mechanical lack-of-talent than theft. There were crooked dealers everywhere—Runar never cheated, but was not above copying the plays of a dealer’s brother. There was also, in every gambler’s mind, a switch that ought to be left alone, and one that a sufficient run of bad luck could trigger—faith in one’s edge collapses, superstitions proliferate, ordinary mathematics turns inscrutable, and casino noise ceases to be a pleasant buzz but runs so loud it breaks one’s attention into pieces. The mind becomes a fifty-two card mess. Winnings carefully earned become debts that spiral. All had gone wrong in a week. One never lost the taste for the dry hope of a gamble, but this journey would be the last risk he took.
“The Mountain Road’s stakes are high enough,” he added.
Besides, it would be refreshing to play cards for the game itself.
“I agree,” said Mazie.
Kanos said, “If you insist on being pussies…”
Mazie started to deal out four hands. “So, you’re not playing?”
“No, I’ll play.”
Runar noticed that Claes had come by. “Would you like to join us?”
“No, I’ll sit out.” He dug the toe of his boot into the ground. “Last time I played cards, it went badly.”
Kanos laughed. “How much did you lose?”
“Badly for the other guy.” After a long silence, he added, “I still have work to do in town. I’ll be back by nightfall, though.”
#
Farisa leaned over the table. Her bare heel almost popped out of her woven-straw shoes; the fear of exposure made her heart race, but the weather was too hot for boots.
She asked, “Where’d you get these cards?”
“I bought them in the market earlier today,” Mazie said.
“I haven’t seen cards like that for a long time. They're Lorani style.”
Kanos’s breath smelled of alcohol. “I was wondering what the hell was wrong with them.”
Talyn said, “There’s a D and an R and a B.”
Farisa said, “D means dlayo—king. The M is marquessa, which isn’t a Lorani word, but we use it for the queen. R is rhakis, lieutenant. That’s the jack. The B, batsa, might translate as mercenary. It’s the ten.”
“And the V’s?”
Farisa looked through the cards to confirm. “Vletra, or spy. Ace.”
Mazie called over to Garet. “Do you want to join us?”
He laughed. “I’m too old for it.”
Farisa smiled. “You’re not old.”
“A young sixty-three, yes, but I haven’t the copper in my blood for competition. In fact, I should go help Saito with the animals.” Before he left, he approached Farisa and whispered at a volume only she could hear. “Observe everyone. It’s never ‘just a game.’ Nothing is, out here. If something seems odd, take note.”
“So we have six people,” said Mazie.
“Eric’s not playing,” Talyn said.
“I don’t see why he can’t. We’re not gambling. We’ll take turns.”
Talyn glared at Mazie, and then at Farisa, because Talyn’s logic regarding the other two women in the group was that anything one of them said was also the other’s fault.
Kanos said, “If we’re not playing for money, we still ought to have some kind of wager.”
Runar glared at him. “I don’t think that’s—”
“Something must be won or lost. Otherwise, what’s the point?” He paused. “How about this? The loser drinks after each round.”
Mazie leaned in. “If you want to drink, Kanos, then drink.”
Kanos pulled one lip into an off-center smile.
Mazie said, “If Eric’s out, we have five: me, Farisa, Talyn, Runar, Kanos.”
Farisa said, “It takes exactly four, right?”
Kanos said, “You’ve never played, have you?”
“No, I haven’t played this game. I’ll sit out.”
“Nonsense,” Mazie said as she dealt the cards into four hands, thirteen long. “I’ll teach you enough to play the first hand, and then we’ll alternate. Does anyone mind if we do it that way?”
“Of course not,” Runar said.
“Seems reasonable,” Talyn said.
“I mind,” Kanos said. “I want a straight game.”
Runar said, “Kanos.”
“The way you two girls look at each other, it makes me sick.” Kanos put a fist on the table. “It’s like you’re lesbians.”
Eric tugged Talyn’s sleeve. “What’s a lesbian?”
“She’s not,” Farisa said. “I can vouch. She has a boyfriend back home.”
“I had a boyfriend back home.” Mazie gathered the cards in her hand and showed them to Farisa.
“I’ll sit out,” Runar said. “Without me, it’s a table of four. Nothing to argue about.”
“No,” Farisa insisted. “If Kanos’s objection is important to him, he can leave.”
Kanos picked up his cards, then buried two knuckles in the palm of his hand. “You know what? You two work together. You do that. I’ll beat you both.”
“Let’s see it happen,” Farisa said.
Mazie said, “Everyone has their cards, right? For Farisa’s benefit, I’ll go over the rules.”
Kanos bobbed his head left and right.
“It’s standard trick play,” Mazie said. “Thirteen cards, thirteen tricks, with the winner of each one leading into the next.”
Farisa said, “The winner is?”
“Highest card in the suit led. If you can play in the led suit, you must, but if you have nothing in that suit, you can play anything you want.”
“Who leads to the first trick?”
“Ah,” Mazie said as she sorted their cards by suit. “The person with the 3 of drums does, but can play any card in the drum suit.”
Farisa was impressed that Mazie, given the differences between these cards and the Ettasi ones, had already figured out the correct suits’ names: clovers, drums, horns, and swords.
“There’s a wrinkle in the ranking, though,” said Mazie. “We call the aces and faces honors. In this game, two is high against an honor. So if the trick were four, eight, ten, and two of swords, the ten would win, but if someone had played the ace, then—”
“The two would win,” Farisa said.
“Lovers beat the spy,” said Mazie.
Runar added, “If it’s off-suit, though, it doesn’t trigger the two. If it were four, eight, and two of swords plus the ace of clovers, then—”
“The eight would win,” Farisa said.
“Correct.”
“Now, are we trying to win or avoid winning tricks?”
“Both,” said Runar.
“Huh? What kind of game is this?”
Mazie explained, “All the cards have point values, which is what these chips are used to track—red is five, white is one. The red suits—drums and horns—are worth three points for an honor, one point for the high spots—that’s seven to ten—and zero for the low spots, which are two to six. For swords, it’s five points for the honors and three for the high spots. The clovers are all zero points, except for the king, which is worth thirteen. So there are eighty points in the deck.”
Farisa added the numbers up. “Seventy-seven.”
“Oh!” Mazie covered her mouth. “I forgot about that. The first trick is worth an extra three points.”
Farisa said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“You want to take as many points as you can—without taking the most.”
“The name ambition is ironic,” said Runar.
“If you take the most points in a round, that’s called ‘overstrike’ and you score nothing, but if you take less than 10, you also get nothing and that’s called ‘understrike.” Otherwise, you score what you took. So if the split of the points was this—”
She wrote 34-26-17-3 on a piece of paper that Eric had found.
“—then the points scored to the game would be like so.”
She wrote 0-26-17-0.
Farisa said, “The 34 is an overstrike and the 3 is an understrike?”
“That’s right.”
Farisa said, “So you want to be in the middle? Second place?”
“Usually, but not always,” Mazie said. “If you have a really weak hand, you can try to take no point cards at all. That’s called Nil and it’s worth 20 points. On the other hand, if you have a really strong hand and think you can take a lot of points, you can go for Shvatz, or Slam. Slam is if you take 51 or more of the 80 points. It scores you 40 points for the round—the most you can get—and everyone else gets a zero. So there’s a strategy for every hand.
“Did I forget anything?”
Runar put up a finger. “Just one thing. The passing.”
“Oh! Thank you. After hands are dealt, but before you play tricks, you trade three cards with an opponent. First round is pass-left: I will pass to Talyn, and she’ll pass to Kanos, and he’ll pass to Runar, who’ll be passing to—”
“Us,” Farisa said.
“Second round’s pass-right; third round, you go across. Fourth round is ‘scatter’, meaning one card to each opponent. And then it’s back to pass-left. You play to 100 points, which is typically six or seven rounds.”
Farisa nodded.
“Tell me what you think I’m going to pass,” said Mazie.
She pointed at the seven of drums.
“Indeed.” Mazie put the card face down on the table.
Farisa touched the six and jack of horns. “And maybe these?”
“One could do worse,” Mazie said. “That’s how I’d play it.”
Mazie slid the facedown cards to Talyn.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Runar sent them the ten of drums, the ten of clovers, and the king of horns.
Mazie said to Runar, “That was a singleton, you bastard. Wasn’t it?”
Runar chuckled. “I don’t know.”
Mazie pointed at Runar. “That man knows how to play cards, Farisa. I’d watch him.”
Farisa whispered, “You have the top three horns, so you’re guaranteed to win those, right? Queen, king, ace.”
“Not quite,” Mazie whispered back. “We don’t know who has the two.”
“Right,” Farisa said.
“On the other hand, in the sword suit, we do have the two, and that’s good for us. It gives us a lot of options.”
Talyn tapped her fingers on the table. “I’m ready.”
“So are we,” Mazie said. “We’ve got the three of drums, so it’s on us to start.”
She put the card on the table, and the first round began.
#
“No, Eric, the red ones count as five, not ten.”
Talyn didn’t want Eric to become a gambler, but she had decided it would be harmless to let him handle the chips while the rest of them played. It did feel unseemly that a child should be familiar with cards and dice... but he had already survived an orcish ambush, so he would probably never be a normal child—and he could still be useful, regardless.
“It’s your turn,” Talyn said to Mazie.
Farisa and Mazie had decided to alternate as active player; Mazie took that role in the second round, so she was explaining her choices to Farisa after they were made, and this was slowing down the game, but perhaps it was preferable to the tantrum that all of them would have to endure if these girls played against each other again. It had only been a dozen days or so since some tiff between them had resulted in Mazie almost leaving forever.
Then again, that might not have been the worst outcome. Mazie was smart, Talyn had come to recognize, but in a watch-your-bag sort of way. She was Snake Bay trash and did not seem the least bit ashamed of where she had come from.
Farisa, on the other hand, had been described to her as superlatively intelligent, but Talyn didn’t see it—the young woman was socially awkward and had no common sense, but one could see by the set of her arms, and hear in the way she talked, that she still felt she had some right to inherit the world, and this exacerbated the general unlikeable nature of her personality—prudish, bookish, snobbish. Still, Talyn wouldn’t have been here at all, on the cusp of fortune—remember your mission, Talyn—if not for Claes, and this weird brown girl was important to him for some reason.
After Mazie played the five of drums into a led nine and a king of clovers. Talyn forced a smile. “I think I’m stuck eating all these points.” She let the queen of drums fall from her hand—it had to seem like unskilled, inattentive play.
Eric counted the points. “One, thirteen, three, zero. Seventeen.” He slid three red and two white chips to her.
“Puts me at 27.” Talyn shook her head. She could make Slam if she took every trick for the rest of the round, but she didn’t want to make her strategy obvious, because it was possible that she had miscounted cards or that someone could still stop her, so she had to show dismay. “What can you do.”
She rearranged the cards in her hand, even though they were already sorted.
“I don’t think I have any good options,” she said as she put the ace of clovers on the table. As expected, zero-point low cards followed: three, two, six. “The rest are mine too.”
“No,” Mazie said as she put a finger on the two. “Two’s high over the ace. Remember?”
Talyn’s teeth pressed together. She had lost at cards before; that wasn’t the problem.
“You’re correct,” she said in a monotone. “The two takes it.”
“Lovers beat the spy.”
#
After the third round ended, Mazie looked at the scoresheet. They had scored 21 points in the shadow of Talyn’s overstrike in the first round, but the second had gone badly—Farisa got stuck in the lead toward the end, taking 37 chips—an overstrike, for zero. The third hand produced a lackluster score of 11, bringing them to a total of 32.
Mazie touched Farisa’s arm. “You see what Kanos is doing, right?”
“Two Nils in a row,” Farisa whispered back.
“Right. He’s playing Nil, even when he has a strong hand, to convince the table he’s always going to play low, so no one else should bother. This pushes people into the action with weak hands. It’s a sort of bluff.”
Farisa said, “What’s the defense?”
“It depends.” Mazie looked over the table. “For now, just keep a note of it. This game’s only half about the cards; it’s about the interactions of strategies. You have to get inside each opponent’s head.”
“Not literally.”
“No, not literally.” Mazie smiled. “If he keeps sitting back and your hand is strong, you have better odds of making a Slam, so use it. On the other hand, if your cards are weak and it should be you who’s going for Nil, then duck so he falls into the game.”
In the fourth round, Farisa followed Mazie’s advice, sliding a two of drums—the only strength in that hand, but low as there were no honors—under Kanos’s seven, forcing him to eat a couple chips. Unfortunately, she ended up taking a late trick with her four of clovers, atop Talyn’s three, busting her own Nil.
“Understrike,” Farisa said with a frown.
“It couldn’t have been helped,” Mazie whispered. “But you forced Kanos to change his strategy.”
“He’s still winning.”
“By how much?”
“A lot,” Farisa said. After four rounds, Kanos had scored 74 points, Runar was in second with 49, and Talyn held third place with 42. Farisa and Mazie had only scored 32 points.
“We’ll make it up,” Mazie said. “Or not. It’s just a game.”
“Is it?” Farisa said.
Mazie recognized Farisa’s point. They had been in desert heat for so long, they hardly noticed it, but the irritable spirit of the place remained, and there was a tension in the game that suggested it had become more than a way to pass time. The results might bruise someone. Runar would be graceful, if he won. Talyn would take it as another sign of her being smarter than everyone else, but would have the courtesy not to voice her opinion. Kanos, on the other hand, was that player who rushed everyone else but took ample time during his own turns, and he had the makings of an insufferable winner.
Eric dealt out the cards for the fifth round.
Farisa tapped Mazie’s shoulder. “You’re active this round.”
“Right, I am.” Mazie looked at her cards. She held the king-ace-two of drums; Runar passed her the jack. “This is promising,” she said to Farisa. “Strong drum suit, good swords.”
On the first trick, she used her protected ace to score ten points.
“No risk of understrike.”
Farisa nodded.
Mazie played conservatively, setting herself up to take only one or two more small tricks, but got stuck near the end of the round with a singleton two of spades against a queen-ace-jack trick. “That’s fifteen.”
Eric tossed her three red chips.
Mazie looked at Farisa, who looked nervous, as if ready to say, Mazie, don’t fuck this up.
She needed to get out of the lead, but had no good exits. In drums, she had the king and two; in horns, she had only the king; in clovers, she had the nine and the ace. Was her two live? She wished she had kept better track of the drum suit, but Kanos had been tapping his fingers impatiently for the past half hour, and she was usually immune to that sort of thing, but it had disrupted her game enough to lose count.
Drums, drums.... I won the first trick with the ace, and I played the jack a few tricks ago. Where’s the queen? Talyn did play a red queen, but wasn’t that in horns?
“I guess I have to take a chance.”
With a flick of her wrist, she threw the two on the table. Talyn offered a four. Runar and Kanos, void in the suit, sloughed other cards. She had pulled a successful late exit, but she still had, as the five red chips in front of her were a reminder, a take of 25 points, and the cards in her hand were quite high. The smallest bit of bad luck would have her eating more points, taking the overstrike, and possibly losing the game.
Talyn led a low sword. Mazie had a void in swords, so could play anything; she played the king of horns, an obvious liability. Kanos ended up taking the trick, then led the ten of clovers.
“Watch this,” Mazie said to Farisa, showing the nine and ace. To play ace in second position with a blocked take of 25, with any other options, was an insane play, but the right one. Runar offered a low sword; Kanos, a low clover; and Talyn stuck her with the jack of horns, causing her to eat three points.
“Twenty-eight,” Mazie said. She looked at Farisa and smiled. “Now I play the nine.”
Kanos, who held the king, ended up taking the trick, and pulling in the rest of the points. He kicked the table. “Fuck!”
Mazie said, “Eric, mark twenty-eight for us and an overstrike for Kanos.”
Farisa gave Mazie a playful smack on the arm. “How’d you know that was the right play?”
Mazie gathered the cards and squared them up. “Classic flipper.”
Runar said, “You count cards well.”
“I could be better.”
“What are the scores?”
Mazie looked at Eric’s scoresheet. “Kanos remains in the lead at 74. You, Runar, scored 22, so you’re in second place with 71. Talyn, you got your Nil, so you’re at 62. Farisa and I, we took 28 chips, so we’re at 60.”
Kanos shook his head. “I fucking...”
“We’re still in last place,” Farisa said.
Mazie said, “We are, but it’s a better last place. It’s still anyone’s game.”
#
Kanos seethed. His lead was narrowing, and he had to be sure to win this game, because one learned so much about people from their reactions to stress and loss, even when the stakes seemed insignificant. They all had different reasons for taking the Mountain Road, but his mission was the hardest of all, and he’d need to understand all of these people if he wanted to pull it off.
He was building a mental catalogue of tells. Defeat at a friendly card game was usually not something people took badly, but he made himself an unpleasant opponent to heighten their irritation. This seven-flag heat had become tolerable to them, but the Ivory Ashes got up to ten, at which point they would realize they had marched into the bowels of hell where there was nothing to find. It was useful to know how they might react.
Runar’s tell was his lower lip. When a round started to go badly for him, it trembled. Farisa’s tells were in her eyes; they would narrow when she didn’t like what was happening, and turn buoyant when cards broke in her favor. Talyn rolled her wrist whenever she wasn’t sure what to do, and this was usually a sign she was about to make a mistake, because the woman could not handle uncertainty. Mazie was a decent player of cards, probably even better than Runar, but clearly developing a headache—he could almost see it building in the veins of her forehead—and it pleased Kanos to imagine he had put it in her.
Kanos knew his half-brother had struggled with gambling in the past, but Runar’s problem was that he had insisted on playing fair, surviving on skill, and there was always a more skilled (or less scrupulous) player out there somewhere. Kanos had made his winnings through methods more reliable, if less honorable, and was caught only twice in his life, both times by his indulgent father, who encouraged the practice. The man had told him, as a young boy, all one needed to know. “If you play a game straight, you learn how to win that game; but if you cheat, you learn how to win in life.”
There had been no wager, so he’d kept his cheating minimal—a glance at a spoon by an outstretched arm, and on only one occasion—but, with his lead narrowing, he was starting to think he should get more serious about ensuring his win. If he lost to Runar, he would tolerate it; he would not be shown up by a woman.
“Sixth round,” Mazie said. “Pass right.”
Runar said, “Farisa, you really never played this in Cait Forest?”
Farisa, in a lousy rendition of an Easthorn accent, said, “A lady doesn’t gamble.”
“That’s not what—” Kanos stopped himself. —they sound like there.
It would not help him to mention that he had ever been to Moyenne. He still remembered the middle-aged man, almost as ugly as he was, whose wealth and position made him so superior and obnoxious he almost turned down the job. He hated that man; he hated the nickname the man had assigned him, even if the fat fuck had never used it to his face. Still, he could do this job well, for money and for glory and for a million other reasons, because Kanos Evergarde, in his whole life, had only made one mistake, and since then had never erred. This jaunt into the Bezelian wild would be the ninety-ninth in a string of successes.
I’ll cheat. As an insufferable winner, I learn more about these people than I do if I lose.
First, though, I have to get rid of Mazie.
#
The setting sun wobbled in the atmospheric heat shimmer; it could be seen with no compulsion to look away, and struck Farisa as like a bright red grape about to pop.
Mazie smiled as she looked at the cards she’d been dealt: two-ace-king-queen-ten-five-four of swords, along with top clovers. Slam was possible; if the first few tricks fell right, it would be likely. Farisa’s poker face must have failed her, though, because Kanos was staring at her—now, at Mazie—and, for about half a second, she’d felt a slight pressure behind her forehead, though it passed quickly, making her glad that daylight’s heat would die down soon.
“One, two, three,” said Kanos as he clicked with his mouth, counting slowly and laying cards on the table. “Four, five, six.” A long pause. “Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten!” Kanos paused again. “Eleven.” He let the last card drop from his hand, face up to mock Runar’s ineptitude as dealer. “Twelve. Misdeal.”
Farisa counted her cards. “I have thirteen.”
Talyn and Runar did likewise, reaching the same count.
Mazie rubbed her temples. She had turned as pale as husker leather.
“Let’s all count again,” Mazie said.
They did. Kanos, going last, looked around to make sure the others were paying attention, then did his own count. “Twelve.”
“That’s strange,” Runar said. “I never make mistakes like this. Perhaps the cards stuck together.”
Farisa thought it odd that this would occur, because it was humidity—not heat—that made cards stick together in the summer, and out here it was drier than a dead man’s dustpan.
“Talyn,” Kanos said. “Check under your seat.”
Talyn looked down. “There it is. Found it.”
“So it is a misdeal,” Runar said. “I apologize.”
As Runar shuffled the cards, Mazie stood up. “This headache is killing me.”
“I have it too,” Talyn said. “It feels like a rat’s running around in my skull.”
Mazie put a hand on Farisa’s forearm. “I need to lie down. Do you know this game well enough to carry on?”
“I do,” Farisa said. “I hope you feel better soon.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Mazie said. “It came on just now.”
Farisa swallowed. Obbela was an unsettling place, and she didn’t believe for a moment that Mazie’s headache, or Talyn’s, had been caused by heat alone, because it had been just as hot as it was now for several days. Something toxic in this town was making people sick. Even Kanos seemed affected, as the game was requiring more of his concentration than it usually would, and he wasn’t usually this impatient. None of them were.
“It’s your turn, Farisa,” said Talyn.
The cards had all been dealt. She picked them up and looked at her hand. “Right. It is.”
They played the sixth round, Farisa alone now that Mazie had gone to sleep. The commerce of glances around the table was unsettling, suggestive of unclean knowledge. It almost seemed like Kanos was... cheating? Talyn’s play was deteriorating as her headache worsened, but she always seemed to make mistakes favorable to him, and Runar had been looking askance at the man for quite a while.
Are they working together? They are brothers.
She looked under the table to see if anyone was tapping feet. No one was.
Why would they cheat, though? We’re not playing for stakes, so they have nothing to gain.
No, Farisa—Kanos isn’t cheating. There’s no mechanism in sight, nor a place to hide one. He’s just better than you, and you’re losing your nerve.
Her arms were covered in sweat.
But maybe... last round, it was awfully suspicious that—
There you go with memory, Farisa. Stop it. Stop pretending you can rely on anything your senses have told you more than six minutes ago; you know your mind is—
“Your mind is the place you make it.”
Stop.
She had, due to inattention and unjustified paranoia, lost the round. She had overstruck, Talyn had understruck, and Runar had taken eleven points.
“I scored twenty-five,” Kanos said. “I’m at ninety-nine.” He smiled, pointing at Farisa. “That puts me thirty-nine points ahead of you.”
“That is how math works,” Farisa said.
“One more point, and I win the game.”
#
Runar looked at the scoresheet. Kanos, 99; me, 82; Talyn, 62; Farisa, 60.
This game, in its seventh round, had taken on an almost hostile overtone, worse than he’d seen in any of the money games he’d played, and it almost made him want to leave the table, though that too would be poor sportsmanship. In a casino, people knew what was to be won or lost, and seasoned gamblers had suffered enough defeats to handle loss gracefully, but in this game, it was dealer’s white guess how people would react.
“Whatever happens, we should make this the last round,” Kanos said. “The place is getting busy, and others could use our table.”
“No,” Runar insisted. He recognized “the fidget,” the player whose impatience and contempt for the game was rehearsed in order to make others feel rushed and cause mistakes. Usually, the fidget and the reaper—the one who exploited others’ errors to win—worked together and split the profits, but he seemed to be insistent on playing both roles. “We agreed to play to 100. That’s what we’re going to do. Unless you intend to forfeit.”
Kanos said, “At least Mazie’s gone. You can’t trust her kind to play fair.”
Farisa glared at him.
“You can,” Runar said. “Where she’s from, cheaters get killed.”
“That’s enough,” Talyn said, having finished dealing.
Kanos tilted his head back and forth as he sorted his cards.
Runar picked up his own cards. He’d been dealt two long suits: three-six-queen-ace-two in drums, and five-six-seven-eight-king in swords. These were too weak for Slam to be a possibility; his nine of horns and his five-king in clovers would not be much help either. In passing, he decided to keep his imbalanced drum suit intact—this would give him more options in the middle of the round—while passing the seven and eight of swords, along with the singleton nine, to Talyn. In return, he got the six and eight of horns, thwarting his attempt to make a void there, and the nine of drums, lengthening that suit.
If conditions fell just right, he could Slam. There were other ways he might do well; the hand had potential, and if he won, he’d be more decent about it than Kanos. He’d buy Farisa a glass of tamarind juice—she had earned it.
Talyn said, “Ready?”
Runar nodded. He flashed the three of drums to show he had it, but played the two. Farisa played the eight; Talyn, the king, making Runar’s deuce high; Kanos played the seven.
“One, three, one, zero,” he counted. “Plus three, as it’s the first trick. That is... eight for me.”
Eric handed him a red chip and three white ones.
I’ve taken 8 points, I need a couple more chips to avoid understrike.
He led the ace of drums, knowing it would win, because he’d already played the two. Farisa responded with the five. Talyn, void in drums, dropped the two of clovers. Kanos, with an illegible half smile, played the ten.
“I shouldn’t give you anything for playing protected,” said Kanos.
“Then don’t next time.” He counted the points. “Four.” He handed Eric a white chip in exchange for a red one. “I’m at 12.” Two red, two white.
It’s not impossible that I Slam through the drum suit, though I still have to wait for top swords to get tossed. If I lure the jack of drums, I’ve got a chance.
He led with the queen. Farisa answered with the four. Talyn played the jack... of clovers. Kanos, also void in drums, dropped the two of horns.
“Up to 15,” Runar said as he slid two white chips over to Eric, who gave him a red one.
“Forcing, forcing,” Kanos said. “We’re not a charity.”
Runar wasn’t sure why, but his heart was racing. “I know how to play cards, brother.”
Drums are busted; play it safe and exit the action.
He led the five of clovers. Farisa played the queen; Talyn, the six. Kanos, with the ace, won.
“One of those beautiful zero-point tricks,” Kanos said.
“Indeed,” Runar said.
“Protected,” Kanos said as he led the ace of horns.
“You don’t need to say that. We know.”
Kanos netted seven points. He played the king in that suit, for another seven.
“Exactly fourteen.” Kanos laid down the four of swords, exiting the trick under Farisa’s ace, which took a total of 10 points. “You can quibble over the rest.”
As Eric handed Farisa two red chips, she thanked him between halted breaths.
Runar gritted his teeth. His instincts were rarely wrong at a card table, and it looked like Kanos was going to win—he’d set himself up to dodge for the rest of the round, which would put him at a game-ending 113 points. No one could catch up.
Kanos made a fist. “It’s your lead, Farisa.”
“I know, I know.” Farisa put a hand to her face. Her eyes darted. Uncertainty and distress elevened her brow. “Let me…” She exhaled, as if in pain, then put the two of swords on the table. “Let’s see what this does.”
Talyn responded with the eight. Kanos played the queen, and Runar played the king.
“Thirteen points,” Farisa said. “Puts me at twenty-three. I better get out of the action, huh?” She played the four of horns.
“Sorry,” Talyn said. “Couldn’t help you if I wanted to. Nothing in the suit.” She played the ten of swords.
“That isn’t my problem.” Kanos smirked as he played the three of horns.
She’s going to lose on a four-three. Dammit.
Runar looked at his hand. He didn’t have any horns, so he could play any card from his hand. He could drop the five of swords, or one of his low drums; or, he could drop the Big One, the king of clovers, which was the correct play except for that it would push Farisa well into overstrike territory.
If I drop the king, then I am the reason Farisa lands in last place, which’ll give Kanos one more thing to gloat about—that I did it to her, not him.
If I don’t, then she’ll know I refused to play at my best, that I took it easy on her, even though she’ll probably still lose. That will be just as humiliating. And that will also be my fault. I have no option.
“Sorry, Farisa.” Runar played the king of clovers. “With the hand I’ve got, it’s the only option.”
The girl’s eyebrows twitched up. “Sixteen more points I don’t need. That puts me at…”
“Thirty-nine,” Kanos said.
“Yes. Thirty-nine.”
Kanos snickered as he sat back in his chair. “You’re not making friends today, are you, Runar?”
“I didn’t come here to.”
Farisa led the ten of horns.
Talyn played the nine of clovers.
Kanos set his cards on the table. “Farisa, the game is over. You’ve taken thirty-nine points. My brother has fifteen. I have fourteen. However the rest of the points go—”
“Just play,” Farisa said.
He shook his head. “A man of character doesn’t humiliate a lady.”
“Do you concede?”
“If you insist on drawing out your loss...” Kanos slid the seven of horns to the center of the table.
Runar played the three of drums.
“Forty-one.” Farisa shook her head. “Yeah, I really am stuck in it. Well, for the sake of an ending...”
Kanos folded his arms and leaned forward. “Farisa, you’re just wasting everyone’s—”
“These are now high.” Farisa laid down the eight and ten of clovers. “So’s this.” She put down the jack of drums. “So, I take everything, which puts me at—”
“Fifty.” Kanos chuckled. “Too much and not enough.”
Runar’s fists tightened.
“Fifty-one,” Farisa said. “Slam.”
Kanos’s mouth opened. “What the...? No. No, you’ve made a mistake.”
Farisa’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s count it out, then.”
“Farisa’s right,” Runar said. He checked the math. “She makes Slam, which is forty points to the game which also means... she wins.”
“You played us,” Talyn said. “I felt so bad for you.”
“She played all of us.” Runar shook Farisa’s hand. “Fantastic bluffing. I’ll remember this game to the last of my days.”
Farisa beamed. “I can hardly catch my breath. One mistake, and I would have lost.”
Kanos growled. “I can’t believe you let that happen. Bunch of fucking morons.” He swung his arm across the table, causing the cards to fly everywhere, including over neighboring tables where other patrons had sat down.
Runar put a hand on Kanos’s leather-clad shoulder. “You’re going to clean that up, right?”