15 - Ousted

When I say mad, I don’t mean crazy. I mean mad. As in, the plane-touched girl just lost the people in this pub a collective ton of silver. Mine included. The upset victory became an upset victory. Tables flipped. A fire already burned on the far side from a shattered oil lamp. A stein flew over my head, and a second one close behind clipped the top of it. I winced, feeling the effects of the three of dragons that had left me drained. As quickly as I could, I restacked the deck and restored it to my pocket. Storm got up beside me, flipping the table out of our way. I was glad he hadn’t done that while I had my cards spread on the bottom.

“Storm!” I shouted, but he was already ahead of me, pushing toward the ring. He tossed drunken patrons out of his path, and it was all I could do to cover his back. The elf hadn’t had the only knife in the bar—Dragonmaw was a city of knives. I had my own out, fending off the occasional blade and ducking the odd thrown chair.

We made it to the ring and I leapt the rope. I ducked under a thrown chair, spotting a glint of metal as I did so. Annalisa had knocked off the elf’s guild badge, and the enchantment had reverted to a dull tin luster. I scooped it up. The badges were valuable enchanted assessment devices, enough so that I always found it odd that the guild issues them to low-rank adventurers at all. The color and material shifted in my hands as the assessment freaked out at changing owners. The archetype designation shifted to ???? and the material fluctuated between tin and bronze. It would come up with something to classify me, if I held onto it long enough. I stuffed the badge in my pocket.

I ran to Annalisa’s side as she struggled to sit up. Closer now, I confirmed that I wasn’t just seeing things. I’d somehow inverted her crown. I’d willed her destiny to change. Dragons above, I hope it hadn’t broken something inside of her. Or, gotten unwanted attention. Changing fate is the domain of the temple of Skein, and they do not appreciate competition.

I leaned down, pulling Annalisa up. She was cut and bloody in a handful of places. I looked around for the medicae, but he was busy getting the piss beat out of him by the orc lady who’d organized the other side of the fight. Huh. Guess I’d found their ringer.

“I won,” she slurred. “Never… stood. A chance…”

Something struck me from behind, knocking me forward onto my hands and knees, just a hands span from Annalisa. She caught my face in her hands. Looked at me. Then looked up. And then I saw it.

Reflected in her eyes, a card, for the first time ever, burned above my head.

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Annalisa reached up, confused and half-delirious, and waved her hand through, as though trying to pluck it off my forehead.

She could see it.

I didn’t have time to dwell. Jeedle rolled under the ropes and took Annalisa by her boots. We heaved. I grabbed her horns. The madam from the Mop was right; they did make good handles. But Annalisa was much heavier than she looked. We got her out of the ring, and Storm cleared us a path.

Before we could make it to the door, hands as strong as iron manacles wrapped around my upper arms from behind. I struggled, but it might as well have been a block of granite behind me. I looked up into the half-orc face of Kridick’s man, growling down at me through a mouth of sharp teeth. “You,” he said, “are coming with me!”

Jeedle made to drop the plane-touched, but then he saw who had me.

“You know who I work for,” said the orc thug.

Jeedle looked between me and the orc, conflicted. But when Storm-laden tried to push past, he held out a hand to stop the larger mongrel. So, that was where I stood.

“Sorry, Darcent,” he said as I was trundled out of the rioting pub.

Betrayal, cheating, kidnapping, and riots. Just an average day in Dragonmaw.

I still had my knife and my cards, but I was too exhausted for either. The orc forced my head down and steered it into the nearest alley. We cut across the next street, and down to the next tier dockwise. I didn’t bother asking him where he was taking me. Kridick’s front was near and we headed straight for it. I smelled smoke above the claustrophobic miasma of the low-tide. Barrowdown might have one less watering hole when the sun came up.

There was some commotion when the orc kicked open the door to the Mop n’ Bucket and hauled me inside. The madam made to raise a fuss, but thought better of it when she caught the orc’s expression. The girls just watched, as did the card players from the last time I’d been here. One of them even winked at me over his hand.

Up the steps we went. Down the narrow hall, office at the end. The orc let himself in, and then sat me in the chair. I tried to stand back up, but he hit me across the jaw with a backhand that persuaded me to remain sitting. He walked off, and returned with a pair of leather straps which he used to secure my arms. His breath was ragged and smelled of spirits.

He left me, then. And I was alone in Kridick’s office.

I tried to get my breathing under control in the time I had before he came back. They had nothing. I’d lost money. Just because a Seeker had bet on the sure thing wouldn’t have swayed their own odds-making. I recited a litany of arcana meanings to calm myself.

“Alkazarian: power, fire, innate strength. Inverted: destruction, material greed, unhealthy appetites. Skein: natural cycles, seasons, fate. Inverted…” I gulped. “trapped. Lack of alternatives…”

Hells below.

I tried to distract myself. I’d seen a card hovering in front of my forehead. That had never happened before. I took it to mean that I was futureless, unimportant, disposable. I told it to myself over and over: That Margot Bethane was wrong. There was no reason for her to darken my door in stitch alley. No destiny choosing me as its champion. No reason my—

The door banged open. I recognized Kridick’s growl before he leaned my chair back back. I away from him as he shoved his face close to mine. He’d been wearing a scarf over his face. He pulled it down.

“You’ve been a naughty boy, Darcent of Stitch Alley.”