Chapter 48 - A Ward Winning Performance

I spent the rest of the evening digging through the wards book while Annalisa studied the maps and sulked at not getting a blasting wand because of, as she put it, my growing reputation for knavery. As if she was any better.

I never would have pegged the devilborn for a deft hand at charts and maps, but I suppose she’d grown up on them. Her father being in the Cartographers Guild and all. As she’d never had the poor grace to ask about my parentage until tonight, I’d opted to return the favor. No one from a whole and happy home ends up in a fighting pit in the downs. And no natural devilborn has a living mother to speak of. Plane-touched may be a more technically accurate term for those humans and elves born with the rare affliction, but devilborn comes from the trade at birth—the mother’s life for the child’s.

Her ability to parse what she saw made me quite jealous. I seemed to be having much more difficulty with the wards. Classical arcanism was little more than an elective study at the guild academy, and so few seekers—let alone Soul Seekers—paid it more than a cursory lip service. Much like the classes on health or physical sport. Soul Seekers may be able to read which way a ball will go when kicked, but good luck getting one on a scrimmage pitch. The sport field was the only thing on the campus used less than the dance hall. Of course, as a, well, let’s face it, a criminal oft-involved in fights, I was finding that gap to be a critical shortfall in my curriculum.

After thumbing through the book for the third time and still not understanding it any better, I sighed and pushed it back. I wasn’t sure what I was doing with it. I liked the idea of wards in principle, since we were going to be gone, but why? What would they do for us, other than let us know someone had crossed into Barrowdown while we were a hundred feet below the city streets? That didn’t help me. I wanted them out. I wanted the district fortified, not alarmed.

That thought resonated with the towers in my deck. I pulled the wills from the pocket of my robe and fanned them out. Closing my eyes and opening my inner senses to the wills lifted the veil dulling their pressure. I’d struggled so hard at the academy to hear what the wills had to say, now they didn’t ever seem to shut up.

The knaves and dragons were loudest, of course. Even if I’d failed to summon and bind the Court of Knaves, I understood the other four wills well enough. Dragons were a bit more enigmatic, as I lacked true bonding with the two and the five. But I felt they understood me just fine, as did the Heiress, which was worrying. I could feel her, even now, and what’s more, I could feel the card sensing me. There’s an old saying—beware a dragon’s attentions, for dragons see only two things: Wealth to be acquired, and rivals from which to protect it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Of towers and storms, I had but one card each. Yet, towers were much louder. They resonated most when I sought to deny, deflect, and deter. I separated all five from the stack and laid them across the book of wards. From the two to the Rook, they buzzed in equal parts desperation and defiance.

“What are you trying to tell me?” I asked. Of the higher orders of towers, one of them must be related to wards in some way. I sent my will into each one in turn, from the two to the Rook. But they didn’t seem to be acting as individuals. Rather, all five cards acted in concert, with another in my deck. Cautiously, I drew the Spire from the major arcana and put it with the suit.

They approved. I carefully channeled my will into all six cards. I expected little to happen, seeing as I wasn’t bonded with most of the towers—let alone the major arcana. And if Lancaster was right, the two should be anathema to each other. But it seemed Lancaster didn’t know everything. Something clicked into place, and I felt the cards snap into a six-pointed array that rose into the air above my desk. Not only that, but every muscle in my body seized. I grunted in pain.

“Darcent!” shouted Annalisa. She jumped to her feet, but something twisted my head back and forth. My jaw remained locked shut. It was like the rooks had sent their will into me. My hands reached up the desk, touching the book of wards and sliding it under the towers. I saw spots at the edge of my vision. When I said every muscle locked up, included in that were my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t call for help.

The rooks laid my hands flat on the pages, and the array began to spin. As it did, I began to see flashes. Believing it at first to be some sort of seizure, I quickly began to recognize patterns and designs within the book. What’s more, I began to understand them—or rather, the guiding principles behind them. They were, as I suspected, far beyond my ability. That didn’t matter to the wills. I tried to scream as the rooks etched the knowledge on my very brain, each page and image fading as though in a dream leaving behind only the pain of the scarring.

No more! I begged.

The towers didn’t relent. If anything, they pushed harder. From the corner of my eye, I saw Annalisa bounding between the balls of her feet, looking between me and the cards, unsure what to do with a problem she couldn’t punch in the face. I half thought she’d try it anyway, but she settled for dashing out the door and down the stairs, yelling for anyone who could help.

She needn’t have bothered. The flood of complex arcane loci finally slowed, and then stopped as five cards clattered to my desk: The two, four, and five of towers, the Rook, and the Spire. The pressure on my body relaxed, and I gulped in air, amazed I hadn’t passed out. The book of wards was little more than loose scraps in my hands that crumbled to dust when I let go.

Before me, in the air, the three of towers hung, infused with power. I lifted a shaking hand and plucked it from its position. It’s depths seemed to melt away, turning into a mirror that reflected the knowledge scarred on my own brain. It felt… very self-satisfied. I felt like I’d been hit by a ship of the line.

My eyes unfocused, and the depths of the three of towers disappeared. The room suddenly took an angle, and my stomach lurched. Annalisa returned with Miss Trundi and Mithra, just in time to see me vomit all over the floor and subsequently collapse into it.

I don’t think we’d be heading to the undercity tonight.