image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeauPj7TeMMpzsi8T6IsLt7p5QSs-aRCbwQdYG1eWfZEW6CZLP-SP9yexdxHPR-BWBYwaiZxKG_3CnHv23KCOmlZzcY54Rd-jh2_ysoL3nHxZr_P8Nl2f_Wa47OKg8P2sSC_Sj1rQ?key=BnFFJ993iFgrmSzh7J09nfgo]
The young woman blinked, scanning the room around herself with a furrowed brow. She stood in an entry hall of what might have been a well-to-do merchant home, but the style was one she’d never seen before. The floor was tiled in some kind of earthy stone with white veining and the walls were mudded with a terracotta plaster that managed to look both elegant and rustic. A chandelier of branching animal horns and wrought iron with no less than thirty fresh candles cast a pleasing glow over drowsy ferns and trailing greenery tucked into every nook and corner. A glazed-tile mosaic on the front wall showed a scene of some bucolic countryside with farmers scything wheat, and a low, wide fountain filled the space beneath it. Clear water burbled into the pool from pitchers held by lithe, cavorting youths, each with the same mischievous face and tousled hair. Everything smelled of fresh bread and cinnamon. It was a scene to inspire peace and relaxation, but the young woman felt confused. Troubled. I’ve forgotten something.
“Oh, hello,” someone said as they wandered past the wide arch leading into other rooms beyond. “A new face.”
The woman blinked again, her confusion increasing. She’d never seen a creature like this before, and she wasn’t used to being surprised by the unknown. She was well-traveled… or at least she thought she might be. The being that approached her stood on two legs and was willowy enough for an elf, but its proportions looked subtly off, somehow, not to mention the huge insect wings sprouting from its back. It had a mane of lustrous silver hair and bronze skin that seemed to glimmer. Its eyes were too big for its face, and its rosebud lips had a glistening sheen that put the young woman in mind of the skin of a poison-arrow frog. The creature was swathed in a diaphanous dress of rosebud pink that one moment looked demure and the next seemed scandalously sheer. She felt nearly overwhelmed by the beauty of the thing, but at the same time, she had the sense that if she could catch sight of the creature from just the right angle, she’d see something monstrous. “I… hello. What are you?”
The thing laughed, a chorus of tinkling bells with one off-tune in the center. “I am whatever I please whenever I wish. You can call me Hekat. And you are?”
The young woman gaped at the creature, confusion welling up into anxiety. “I don’t know.”
“Ah,” the winged thing said, sounding mildly vexed. “How terribly rude of me. You’re a Rare; I’m used to the higher sort around here. If I’d bothered to look closer I’d not have asked. I’m surprised, is all – Alexi is usually so picky. It’s fine, dearest. No one will lord it over you. Well, Gholamus might, but nobody likes him anyway. Come in and I’ll show you around.”
The thing put a clammy hand on her elbow to steer her deeper into the home, but the young woman planted her feet, resisting. “What’s going on? Forgive me, but I don’t understand any of this. Where am I? Why can’t I remember my name?”
The creature’s eyes went even wider than before. “Oh my, you’re fresh as milk. Oh dear. Who’d have thought he would…?” It shook its mane and steered her to a chair nested among the ferns, gently forcing her to sit. It knelt before her, holding her hands. “Dearest, you’re dead. Your card has been placed in our summoner’s Mind Home. This is where you live now.”
She stared in shock and then laughed. “Dead? Impossible. I’m the best duelist around, I’m sure of it.”
The creature’s sensuous lips twitched into a sad smile. “There’s always someone better.”
“Still,” the woman protested, “wouldn’t I–” Her voice died in her throat as a sudden memory overtook her. A white-faced vampire flecked with blood loomed over her, his fine suit straining over bulging muscles, one hand held stiff as if to drive into her chest. Blinding pain. She gasped, wrenching her hands free to clutch at her chest. She screwed her eyes shut, tears spilling out as she rocked back and forth, trying to shake loose from that remembered agony. “Twins, no. Oh Fate, take me back. Let me wake.”
“You have awoken,” the thing said. “It is life in the flesh which is the dream. This is the life that lasts.” It reached out to stroke her shoulders, and gradually the young woman felt herself relax. The creature was odd and unsettling, but it was being very kind. “I know this is hard, but you’re damned lucky, if I’m being honest. Most cards molder under the leaves in some wilderness or rot in a library unused. Even those that end up in a Mind Home usually belong to some uneducated brute who never bothers to attend to his own internal existence, leaving his Souls to bounce around in nothing better than a bare gray box. I’ve been in a few of those, and after a time all anyone can do is torment the ones they’re stuck with just to have a moment’s entertainment. But Alexi is a collector, see, and sentimental on top of that.” It swept its hand around at the lovely decor. “If there’s a nicer Mind Home in existence, I’ve never heard of it.”
The young woman firmed her jaw and dashed the tears from her face. “I don’t want to be in the mind of the one who murdered me.”
That unnerving laugh fell from the creature’s lips again. “My dear, I can assure you that you aren’t. Alexi has been atwitter about this war for ages, but the day he steps onto a battlefield is the day the sun ceases to shine. He likes his comforts, our Alexi does, and battle is a dirty business.”
“Why can’t I remember anything?” the woman whispered. “All I see is that face, and the…” She pressed her lips shut. And the moment of my death.
“Don’t worry your curly head about it,” the creature said, standing. “If you’ve already recalled your death, you must be high Rare, nearly on the cusp.”
“I thought if I beat him it would take me to Epic,” she blurted, surprised even as she heard herself say the words. “I’d been on the edge of elevation for days.”
“See?” the winged thing beamed. “It’s coming back already. In no time at all you’ll have it all back, at least the last few years’ worth. More than that will take an elevation. We might as well pick a name for you; even under the best of circumstances it’ll be a good long time before you reach Mythic and get your real one back. I think I’ll call you Curly.” It reached out and pulled the woman to her feet. “Come on, let me introduce you to the others. It’s been some time since we’ve had a new Soul to ogle. Watch out for Despica: she pinches, and with those claws of hers, you really feel it.”
Twisting her head, she gestured to the carved wooden door set in the wall behind her. “Where does that go? Can I leave?”
The thing waved her question away. “Oh sweetness, you’ve got enough on your plate for right now. We can worry about that later. Say what else you will about us Fae, we’re experts in knowing how much a person can take before their spirit breaks.” Pulling her through the archway, the thing raised its voice. “Gather in, everyone! We have a treat.”
Curly felt an urgent tug somewhere deep inside her and stopped where she stood. “What…?”
Turning to look at her, the thing – the faery – clicked its tongue in irritation. “Of course he is. Of all the bad timing–”
She felt herself yanked away as if by some huge, irresistible hand, and when her eyes cleared, the pleasant villa and its fountain were gone. She stood in a far more richly-appointed room with cream-colored carpets on the floor and a wide balcony that looked out over the roofs of a great city. Treledyne! She gasped and took a step toward it. There was the Coliseum, and beyond that the long descending road to the docks. Smoke filled the air, and the city was quieter than she’d ever heard before. I’m in the Palace. Yes, the war outside the walls. The King is dead? Impossible! How am I here? Her mind whirled as memories and knowledge fit into place like puzzle pieces. Most of it was still missing, but knowing something was an enormous relief.
“Don’t just gape at everything, lift this for me,” a bored voice behind her said.
Turning, Curly found herself sharing the room with a slender, terribly pale man in a perfectly crisp tailored uniform of deepest blue, with golden epaulettes of gold cord and brass buttons down one side of his trim jacket, the front an unbroken panel of finest silk with several medals dangling at the breast. He looked like the paintings of generals she’d seen from armies a hundred years past, right down to the saber glittering at his side and the pristine white gloves on his hands.
He arched a perfectly manicured brow at her and gestured to the heavy chest at his feet. “Well?”
She was moving before she knew what she was doing. “Where do you want it?” She grasped the handles and lifted, but the box was far too heavy for her. She grunted, but It barely budged from the floor before she dropped it. Who is this? I don’t want to move this box; why am I doing it?
“Put it against the wall,” he said, gesturing with a languid hand as he sank into a wingback chair to one side.
“This would be easier with both of us.”
“You handle it; there’s a dear,” he said absently, plucking a slim book from within his coat and opening it to where a red silk bookmark lay along the spine.
Curly opened her mouth to tell him she would do no such thing, but her body was already moving to do his bidding, grabbing one handle with both hands and heaving the chest a foot at a time across the carpet, its tail end leaving a trail of flattened fibers in the cream-colored rug. The brass corner caps screeched on the stone as she shoved the luggage against the wall by main strength. Standing to inspect her work, she realized she wasn’t breathing heavily. It’s because I don’t have a real body to exert. I’m a summoned Soul. A wave of loss swept through her, and a bone-deep sadness threatened to overwhelm her. Was it just that she was dead? She didn’t think she was the kind of person to mope. No, there was something else, but she didn’t know what. She couldn’t remember.
“Let’s look at you, then,” the slim fellow said, shutting his book, sounding resigned. “Over here.”
Unable to do otherwise, Curly went to him and stood at attention in front of his chair.
“A Rare,” the fellow said, almost as if he were talking to himself. She saw fangs peeking from behind his lips; he was a vampire. “Why would he give me a Rare? Plus one to Attack? Pfah. It’s so, so… common. And the Fire Skin is useless with only one Health. He wouldn’t insult me, would he? No, of course not. But why…?” He snapped his fingers, the sound muted by his gloves. “What’s so special about you, girl?”
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
She gaped and stuttered, not knowing how to respond. “I… I don’t know. I was an excellent duelist.”
“Mmm,” he said, dissatisfied. “With a good deck of kobolds, I suppose you would be. What does whisperer mean? Why are you whispering to kobolds?”
For a long moment all she could do was blink in confusion, but then she realized he must be referring to her card. Closing her eyes and focusing on herself, she was shocked to see that her soul card was no longer marked as a Living Soul. Of course it’s not. Get a handle on yourself. Her title was Kobold Whisperer, and at the sight she couldn’t help but break into a smile, memories flooding back of hours spent huddled with her dear kobold friends, learning their language, filing their talons, learning what they liked to eat. “It means that I have a way with their kind. I know all about them; I studied them for years and worked with them closely. It’s how I gained my Aura.”
His eyes went wide, and he sat forward. “Can you speak to them?”
“I can,” she said proudly.
He gasped and clapped his hands, drumming his booted heels against the carpets. “Oh, Twins bless him! Don’t move a muscle!”
Curly found herself locked into place, a familiar temper rising deep inside her with no outlet. I am not going to like this. Was I this demanding with my Souls?
The vampire’s single Fire and Order sources dimmed, and another Soul misted into being next to her. It was even bigger than her Giant Albino had been, though its skin was the same bronze color as most of its kind rather than pale. The great beast looked at the vampire – Alexi, their summoner, Curly realized now that her mind was clearing – and turned away, eyes downcast, hunching in on itself.
“See? He does this every time, and nothing I do helps,” Alexi said, wringing his hands. “Six months I’ve had him, and he’s making the others sad. He won’t speak! I’ve never had a Mythic hold out this long. He’s the perfect piece, a real find, but if he upsets the others too much I’ll have to get rid of him, and oh how I’d weep. He cost me two Mythics, if you can believe it, and that Fate-cursed Leonid wouldn’t take any less. I had to have him, but what do I do? Talk to him!”
It was strange to feel compelled to do what she wished to anyway, and she tried to shrug off the internal wrestle it caused her as she approached the kobold carefully. Their etiquette was complex, but she knew every nuance. He was both stronger and older – it took at least a century for a kobold to grow so large – so she jutted her chin to show deference while turning her hands palm-down and clawed to show a desire to relieve pain. Using the hissing, clicking language of the kobold burrow tongue, she said, “Honored elder, may the sun shine on your scales. Do you have a thorn?” It was an idiom for feeling pain. Her Sniffer had taught her that.
The kobold’s great head cocked, showing surprise. “Little lizard, shelter under me.” His voice was slow and deep, vibrating in her chest as he gave the greeting of safety intended for hatchlings. She’d never heard a kobold sound so resonant. She revised her estimate of his age to two hundred years. This was an elder indeed. “I have never met one of your kind that speaks Burrow.”
“I know Burrow, Battle, and even a little Mate,” she said, feeling proud. “I have spent nearly as much time with the scale kin as my own people for many years.”
“It is good,” he sighed. “Long has it been since I heard the sounds of home. The chatter the others make is slippery against me.”
Curly spared a sidelong glance for Alexi the vampire, who was nearly dancing with anxiety as he watched them. “The one who holds us wants to know of your thorn.”
“I am aware,” the old kobold rumbled. “It is unkind of me to ignore them all, but their noise grates on me. I feel as if I were wintering in a stranger’s burrow, and all my thoughts turn inward. I have no wisdom to give, no battles to win.”
Curly sank lower, letting her clawed fingers touch the carpet between his talon toes. “Can this little lizard draw out your thorn?”
He heaved a great sigh. “I know not how you would. My last Mind Home was with one who valued the scale kin, and by chance I was reunited with my first mate from many seasons past. She is a great fighter, and she knows me to the base of my tail. When this whelp bought me, we were separated, but her fangs are still in my hide. It makes me slow and sad.”
“May the seasons turn, elder,” she whispered, backing away from him in respect. Turning to Alexi, she said, “The one you bought him from holds another kobold; they were mates when they first lived. He misses her. He grieves.” Her words tickled something at the back of her mind, but she focused on the vampire, whose face had fallen.
“Another one? What will they say when I show up with two kobolds? You don’t get one of every source by letting yourself get overrun by a single type of card.” He threw himself down into his chair, sulking. “He’s my best damned card and I can’t even show him off. He just pouts in the corner; it’s embarrassing. I won’t have people thinking I can’t manage my Souls!” With a wave of his hand he dismissed the kobold Soul, which drifted away in motes of light.
He gently caught his own lip with one fang and nibbled at it thoughtfully. “I’ll have to make another deal with that Fate-cursed lion man. He knew what he was doing, damn him. He’ll take me for all he can. But… what must be done will be done.” He beamed up at me. “Stafford’s gift makes sense now. Looks like you’ve found yourself a job, girl, even if you’re not pretty enough or rare enough to belong in my collection. You’re going to tell that great sulking lizard that I’m going to fetch his precious mate and reunite them. And in the meantime, you’re going to be his best little friend and pull him out of his mood. Once I have the other you’ll keep them both happy. Ugh, we’ll have to elevate you. I can’t be caught in public flashing gold – how gauche.”
Curly burned inside, ashamed to be reduced to a bauble in this silly man’s collection. No, not even a bauble; an old dishrag to be hidden away, useful only to polish more important trinkets. I demand to be treated with the respect I deserve. She’d have said that once, she was sure of it. Now she couldn’t even make her lips form the words. She was an owned thing. A summoned Soul, and nowhere near elevated enough to talk back to her summoner.
The double doors to the suite crashed open. “What perfect rooms you’ve found us!” the intruder boomed.
Curly stiffened. She knew that face. It was the one she’d seen as she died.
“Stafford!” Alexi trilled, throwing himself into the muscular vampire’s arms and kissing him thoroughly. “She’s perfect, she’s perfect! You absolute doll of a monster you, how did you know?”
The brutish vampire, still looking like he was about to burst every last seam, beamed down at the slender, stylish man in his arms. “She was swarming with kobolds, and even as we fought all I could think of was the troubles you’ve had with yours. Will she do?”
“She’s already winkled the truth out of the old lizard,” Alexi laughed. “A genius and a gentleman is what you are. Ew, are you still dirty?” He backed away from Stafford, inspecting the front of his uniform and brushing at it with a gloved hand. “You brute, if you’ve stained my new jacket I’m going to make one out of your skin.”
Stafford chuckled and swept him into another long kiss. “I’m glad you like the card. Let me get changed and I’ll unpack that new cooking pad Artifact you got me. How does Orc blood pudding sound for tonight?”
“Delicious,” Alexi purred. He swatted his lover on the rear as he walked away. “Put on the blue velvet. I love that suit on you.”
Curly watched the entire exchange with frozen muscles and a helplessly clenched jaw. It had all come back the second she’d seen him. She’d known he was too much for her to handle within ten seconds of coming to grips with him, but then the King’s apotheosis had happened, and she’d thought that with a fresh start she could take him. She’d been so close to breaking through to Epic, and she’d known in her bones that defeating him would put her over the top. She’d been greedy.
The problem had been that he ran an aggro deck not all that dissimilar from her own, but full of slow zombies that she was certain her much faster kobolds could match. But then on top of that, Stafford himself had a powerful personal attack and what had to be an upgraded version of Strong on his soul, which kept any of her kobolds except the Giant Albino from being able to block him. It had been much like fighting Haze in the Rising Stars Tournament, but even harder. Even so, she was certain that she could use a From the Ashes to create a big swing that would overpower him.
image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXekXu8eVigvVOdxPFioqfd2kdVol2mHIYN92nzlCcmQgb7hCBD8rg3ejwJsJbzqwgdETyZIU5cHl3UfdOEeIuEapOGU2BZCEiuQNPSyxSorBAbkEjYkJ54vD4XVRtzNllythVxt6g?key=BnFFJ993iFgrmSzh7J09nfgo]
She’d been on the brink of pulling it off. Instead, he’d donned a Death Relic she’d never seen and pulled out a Soul that had cleared his shambling board and infused him with incredible power.
image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXec26l5qsGowehqbkFeXYKa7m9pO89QS7Vw70Eh1Z9bX1HPIh6CxDSHe_vp0PSCwEFoWS5xwkapVyCyH0LsqCga7YFQWimMiiK6qwxwqnw28k40D4S761GfeTa4wwqwt710X3uwUA?key=BnFFJ993iFgrmSzh7J09nfgo]
image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeWBYXfgbV31NNd5qZoCq_Z3ryvCosj7DGhRMx3pM_0C_rBl_sSVbJey7w1YdgefO4zUMz-ZCGqeKIGWUIdbeBg1EeQmyJGE88iUiB6PuiSSZziHROm6e5nCO2KqNnMnKD_TmEbmQ?key=BnFFJ993iFgrmSzh7J09nfgo]
Even the Giant Kobold hadn’t been able to block him after that, and he’d come straight for her, that ramrod hand plunging into her chest…
She came back to herself with a start, realizing that Stafford himself had stopped right in front of her. She stiffened even further, stumbling back from him until her back fetched up against the wall.
“Nothing to fear from me now, little one,” he said with a genial smile. “You’ve made Alexi happy, and that’s worth a thousand deaths. Do as he commands and I’ll never have so much as an unkind word for you.”
I’ll kill you, you bloodthirsty bastard, she snarled in her head. She could have said it; he wasn’t her summoner. But if she’d lacked wisdom to temper her courage when she faced him on the battlefield, she found it now and kept silent.
“You fought well,” the big vampire said, inclining his head in respect as he moved away. “Another few years and you really might have been something.”
I’m something now, she might have said. This time she actually opened her mouth to say the words, but then she saw movement in the grand hallway beyond the double doors Stafford had carelessly left open, and when the figures marched past, they drove the words right out of her mind.
A floating lich glided along a foot above the floor, ignoring the finery and beauty around her. Curly had seen her on the battlefield; she was one of the enemy generals. For the first time she thought past these rooms and her own private tragedy; the palace had fallen to the enemy. Treledyne was lost. They had lost.
Even that thought, gut-wrenching as it was, was given short shrift in her mind as a cluster of bodies followed in the lich’s wake. A quartet of undead wights were guarding a prisoner, a fair-haired noble youth with bloodied clothes and a face painted with despair.
Basil!
The name shrieked out within her, and she clapped her hands to her mouth as a flood of memories assaulted her. Basil lying wounded in his rooms at the Coliseum when she’d had to break down the door and heal him. Basil savoring the food she’d finagled from the fine restaurant Obu when he’d quarreled with Warrick. Basil dueling for her hand against that lout of an older brother of his. Basil kissing her gently, sweetly. Basil opening his soul to show her his card. Basil, the man she was meant to marry.
She did shriek then, long and loud and high, a sound that carried all her anger, her fear, her regret. He asked me to elope with him and I drew away. It was the last moment we ever had. Twins, why didn’t I say yes? She’d wanted to, but the thought of her father’s disappointment at missing the ceremony had been more than she could bear.
With a sound of offended disgust, Alexi unsummoned her, and she found herself screaming to the ceiling of the cozy villa where she’d been before. She was back in the vampire’s Mind Home. She didn’t care. Her nails were digging into her palms and her heart was tearing itself into pieces. If I’d said yes, none of it would have happened. She knew it wasn’t true, but she couldn’t get rid of the thought. It’s all my fault.
The other souls clustered around her, the faery and the great kobold and others she couldn’t yet make herself look at. She collapsed in on herself, sobbing hopelessly. The words the others were throwing at her were nothing but a babble in her ears. Basil, a slave to that power-sucking lich. Alive, tortured, and without a doubt mourning her.
I have to do something. The vampires are in the palace with him. Maybe Alexi will let me see him. Maybe I can help him. There must be something I can do.
Her sobbing eased as the thought took hold within her and burned like a candle catching flame. She could endure Alexi’s silly pouting and Stafford’s cruel favoritism if it meant she could help Basil. She wouldn’t let him be the lich’s next meal. She wouldn’t. She didn’t even know her own name, but she knew that fact as solidly as her own skin.
Hold on, Basil my love. Remember me. I’ll figure something out. I’ll make it right.
I’ll save you.