Chapter 20 – A plan comes together
I slipped the deck back into my pocket and pushed back from my seat, making my way past the fixer and to the bar to refresh my drink. Once collected, I made my way back through the crowd. When I brushed past the fixer, I twitched my deck and a single card slipped out and adhered to the bottom of his stool. I felt it, even as I returned to my table.
In the ring, Annalisa still took the worst of the exchange, though she’d regrouped with the help of the shield I’d given her. Just a few weeks ago, evoking a card ability while doing a reading would have tapped me dryer than a keg in Kalash. Now it was just the start of my plan.
I retook my seat just as the brass drum signaled the end of the round. Both fighters retreated into their corners. Despite the Mayazian fixer’s mire of invisible threads that would have exhausted another fighter, Annalisa showed no lack of energy and excitement for the next round. If anything, she’d been invigorated by the one-sided fight. Nothing stimulated her more than insurmountable odds. Her face showed some patches that were more purple than blue where the lamia had struck, and her arms were a patchwork mottle of bruises from fending off an extra set of arms. Her ribs couldn’t be feeling great, either. Yet, though all that, she grinned across the ring.
The Lamia slithered back and forth in her corner, confident both in her fixer and her chances. But must have known Annalisa had held back. The plane-touched had used no tunneling tricks. What most people didn’t know after the last fight, was that she struggled to use them without the aid of the dragon buff. She’d gotten better at tunneling, but it still required a degree of concentration Annalisa seemed to struggle to maintain on her own. Only with the aid of my siphoned focus and stamina could she manifest stable portals. For now.
The third round started. I spread the cards on the underside of my table again and sifted through for the rest of my bonded cards. I’d need everything in my arsenal if we were going to make this quick enough to escape suspicion. I watched the other fixer across the ring as he continued to slow Annalisa, and also pull her aim off center as the anchor points for his threads shifted around my partner.
Near him, a drakkyn had found his tankard empty. He turned it end over, chasing the last few drops around the rim with his tongue before looking around for a serving girl. Finding none, the lizard pushed back from his table and made for the bar. His path took him nearly directly behind the Mayazian fixer. Just as he passed, I activated the card under the fixer’s chair, the three of knaves, and infused it with another, the two of knaves. The rest of them buzzed in excitement, and... jealousy? I could feel them in the deck, almost as if they tried to push to the front. They felt close to the surface, like I might bond with yet another, soon.
It was difficult to cast my will over the intervening space. Black spots appeared at the edge of my vision. But it only needed to be for a moment. A shadowy apparition sprang from the card, appearing between the fixer and the drakkyn. It was a minor illusion, easily ignored—except that I’d infused it with the murderous intent of the blade of knaves. Both the drakken and the fixer sensed the apparition behind, and turned just as I cut the illusion off, each meeting the others eyes over the empty space. The fixer, being paranoid as he was, saw a knife coming for his back. The spell restraining Annalisa evaporated, and the fixer raised his hands to curse the drakkyn.
The drakkyn was faster. He hurled his tankard overhand, as hard as he could, directly into the face of the Mayazian fixer. It struck him square on the nose, and blood fountained up from his face as he fell back over his table, knocking it, and his chair and drink, over.
The commotion wasn’t exactly remarkable for a lower city pub. People were still more interested in the fight within the ring than outside of it. Including me. With the opponent’s fixer handled, I turned my attention to helping Annalisa close out the fight.
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The first thing I did was infuse her with the three of dragons. The effect was instantaneous. Between her bonds dissipating and the extra stamina coursing through her veins, she was like a fresh fighter. Her speed blurred. Suddenly, four arms weren’t enough for Kel of Bitterdeep to deflect every blow. Though the lamia was an expert at parrying fists with an open palm, more began to slip through her guard. She pulled her other hands up to defend, even as she whipped her tail. Annalisa ducked under it and turned her crouch into a rising knee. The lamia tried to lean away from it but found a newly-formed portal to the plane of obsidian blocking her retreat. The knee smashed through her guard and drove deep into Kel’s scaly gut. With no ground to give, it must have hurt something fierce.
A lesser fighter might have been sent to the ash by a blow like that. But Kel recovered quickly, striking Annalisa with two open palms in an effort to force her back. They were solid hits, but I’d already fed more of my will into the shield spell. Anna ducked back underneath a quick jab of her own that caught the lamia through a small gap in her guard. Anna brought around a hook. The lamia ducked to the side, but she was caught off guard again. In a maneuver we’d practiced, Anna used the extra focus granted by the dragon buff to tunnel through the plane of frost. A handful of snowflakes burst from a second portal on the other side of Kel’s head, along with Annalisa’s fist. Instead of rolling with the punch, the lamia was completely caught by it from the new angle, her own momentum working against her.
Annalisa withdrew her hand from the portal and shook the ice off. She could only tunnel a few feet, but we’d practiced this maneuver dozens of times. I could see her excitement that it had worked. The crowd roared as Kel slumped to the side, stupefied by the punch. Anna didn’t let up and pursued the retreating sea serpent with a flurry of strikes about her head and throat. Across, the fixer and drakkyn finally began to get themselves sorted out. We had to finish this quick.
I steeled myself and fed my will into the two of knaves for the second time. Ths was the hardest part of the plan—both due to my distance from the card and the complicated evocations I already held. The three of dragons constantly siphoned my stamina to maintain Anna’s. The knaves were my closest-bonded suit, and I don’t think I’d have been able to do it otherwise.
The stacked evocations still threatened to make me faint, and I barely held on to the three of dragons. The barest hint of a shimmer surrounded Annalisa’s horns and hands. She opened her fist and delivered a strike, not unlike one of the lamia’s, with the edge of her hand. Kel could sense something amiss about the blow and lowered all four hands to intercept it. All four hands wrapped around Annalisa’s wrist and forearm, stopping the strike in its place.
That’s when Annalisa smashed her horns into Ren’s face.
This wasn’t a perfect application of the two of knaves. It worked on a hand or horns, or even a sharp enough splinter of wood. But was best on something thin and sharp, like a blade. Still, an appropriate fountain of blood gushed from Kel’s face, and she let go of Anna’s hand.
Annalisa quickly reversed the grip and seized Kel’s wrists, even wrapping her tail around one of them. She pushed back, wrenching the lamia off balance. The deep sea serpent sprawled forward, hands groping for purchase as she toppled. With her guard forgotten, Anna danced to the side, aimed a fist, and struck Kel across the jaw. The lamia went limp, flopping onto the ash of the ring.
Across the ring from me, I saw the fixer look in horror, his replacement spellwork only half-way complete. His fighter had dropped while he was distracted. Behind and to his right, the Mayazian rep, a broad bastard with two sheathed swords, stared daggers at the elf. To her, it looked like Annalisa had won in the worst way possible. Fair and square in a fixed fight. I smiled, watching my plane-touched partner do a victory lap in the ring. I opened up a rift in my deck, and my missing card slipped home among its brothers, unnoticed in the revelry of the crowd.
I opened my robe to check the guild badge I’d pinned on the inside. It had finally settled on bronze, the second of fifteen ranks. But it still didn’t know what to make of my ability. The badge wasn’t originally attuned to me, so the archetype continued to shift, scrolling through Spellslink, inkheart, ????, card magician, fluffer, shadowmancer, and a half-dozen other designations. The guild lexicon had some very specific and niche designations—and yet soul-seeker didn’t seem to be among them.
It would sort itself out eventually.