Chapter 3

  Fighting the Future

  Basil, Duelist-Scholar

  Living Soul

  Uncommon

  Perfect card memory

  “If you can’t beat me, you have no hope in the Rising Stars Tournament, Basil. It’s a fact, boy, simple as sunshine.”

  It wasn’t that I really expected Tipfin to say anything new on our final day of practice duels, but as always, the words reached right into the secret heart of my fear and poked me. Perhaps encouragement cost more than I was able to pay him.

  “I don’t even have all the cards you’ll be facing, and still you struggle,” Tipfin harrumphed, pulling at his narrow salt and pepper beard.

  I swallowed my unease and put on a bright smile to ease my words of disagreement. “I’ve put together a good deck.” I opened and closed my hands in preparation for the cards I would soon be summoning from my Mind Home. The brackets had been finalized earlier in the week for all of the noble participants, and they placed me in the same grouping as Losum Drakk. Tipfin’s research had found that Losum used an Archer-centered deck, capable of dealing damage to whoever it wished, the opposing duelist included. “He’ll decimate flying decks and be able to race fast decks for the kill. I can outlast him, even with the extra threats he’ll be holding. I just need to fine-tune my opening turns.”

  “Pfff,” Tipfin said dismissively, taking a swallow from his ever-present flask. Our sessions always ended when he started to sway, but I usually got something close to the agreed-upon hour I paid for. I’d gone to some lengths to make sure he didn’t know the funds were coming out of my own pocket – it would have embarrassed the family no end if that got out – so I kept my occasional petty thoughts about not getting my crowns’ worth to myself. Besides, he’d been a good trainer to my elder brothers in their day. Perhaps he was fighting some private battle of his own right now. The best thing was to treat him respectfully. Yes, that felt right.

  He stood precisely twenty-four feet away from me in the round training hall, perfectly shaped brown bricks making up the floor and walls, lending the room a sense of Order that pleased me. Only my unkempt trainer disrupted the aura as he hawked phlegm out of his throat and stuffed his liquor back into his waistband. “Orelus is what pulls it together,” he warned me for the umpteenth time. “Without that Mythic in the mix, I can’t show you the real oomph of an Archer deck. The only thing in your favor is that the fool boy isn’t using Air Source to refresh his Archers. I don’t know what their resident trainer is doing, letting him go without.”

  I agreed with Tipfin about the Air Source, but I knew Losum never would. “He’s terrified of heights.” I couldn’t say Losum and I were friendly, but one couldn’t grow up in Treledyne’s noble families without plenty of exposure to one’s peers.

  My trainer raised a bushy eyebrow at me. “Are you telling me the Drakk family can’t afford an Air fabricator? Preposterous.”

  I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. The Drakks were some of the wealthiest people in the city, and the idea was preposterous for them, but Tipfin’s statement struck uncomfortably close to home for me. The King’s decision that Father, as head of the City Watch, was financially responsible for the riots two years previous had been nearly ruinous for us. Only the Twins’ grace had kept that fact secret in the lean seasons since. But in Losum’s case, money didn’t solve everything. “They probably bought him a fabricator, but when I say he loathes heights, he truly does.” Years ago, our families had gone on an excursion together to Pirtash Peak, the small mountain in the southern portion of the city where summoners cultivated Air. Nine-year-old Losum had wet himself halfway up and refused to go any farther. A fabricator would give him a few Source without the usual cultivation work involved, but he’d still feel their essence when summoned, and if today’s Losum was anything like back then, he’d probably sick up from the sense of soaring freedom using Air always gave me.

  “Regardless,” Tipfin said, “let’s get this farce over with. If you can’t beat me without this deck’s key component or how it should be played, I don’t know why I bothered to train you for the last six months. Some days, boy, I think I might as well have stayed retired.”

  I swallowed hard to keep a hot retort buried. Some days I think you should have stayed retired, Tipfin. Even at the slightly discounted rate he offered for having loved training my brother Gale so much, I was still pouring every last clip I earned working for Father in the City Watch into paying for these sessions, and often when the older man staggered out after not quite an hour’s worth of uninspired tips and grumbling insults, I wished I had used my money to buy a set of basic dueling manuals instead. It would have been a fraction of the cost, and the books wouldn’t have smelled of alcohol. I’d have gently dismissed the old fellow long since had he not demanded full payment up front.

  I had hoped against hope that this session would give me a boost of confidence before starting the tournament tomorrow. For all my candlelight reading and dreaming of being a duelist, I knew I was underprepared. The Rising Stars Tournament was a serious affair where the best young cardholders in the city competed. It would have been wiser to start with some private tourneys, but the only way I’d convinced my parents to let me pursue this course had been to show them the size of the winners’ purses. Five hundred crowns for reaching the Top 5 might not mean much to the Drakk family, but it would smooth matters considerably in the Hintal household. The thought that reaching the winners’ circle would also earn me a place in officer training at War Camp was a private dream I’d not dared mention. Gale was already a Captain in the forces, and Mother would not be amused by having another son in the army’s ranks.

  The Orc hordes would come massing next season – they were so consistent about it one would think they cultivated Order – and I wanted to finally be able to stand with my eldest brother and the King against them, no matter what Mother said about me being too fragile. What’s more, the recent surprise of an engagement offer for me from the Haraine family left me feeling a desperate need to prove myself. Even without taking into account my family’s secret financial woes, Esmi was a much better match than I ever could have hoped for. My parents had not hesitated to approve the betrothal, and while I’d not thought to marry for some time yet – neither Gale nor Randel had bothered – I was tremulously excited for the idea too. I’d not seen Esmi in the flesh for years, but we’d been dear friends as children, and her correspondence during her time living in Charbond had been lively and interesting. If a winner’s purse could ease my family’s woes, a strong alliance with Haraine could erase them, and I had to make sure I made myself the most capable and desirable partner I could.

  “Well?” Tipfin asked. His temper grew shorter as his flask got lighter. He had his hands raised, ready to summon his own cards.

  I nodded, and since we had no announcer for our duel, Tipfin barked, “Begin!”

  Wasting no time, from my left hand I pulled two Source cards. Unlike Losum, I had spent hours and hours atop Pirtash Peak, surveying the land below and sky above while the high winds stripped me of my worry. That cultivation had earned me three Air Source, and one of them sat in my hand now, a card with bronzed edges and a swirl of roiling clouds on its face. The other Source was Order, the card depicting a bright sun, bathing perfectly lined fields of golden grain.

  I didn’t even need to look at the summon cards in my right hand to know my play, so I flicked the Air Source up, where it reformed into a tiny storm cloud, lit from within by self-contained lightning. Looking over at Tipfin, he had also called a Source forth, but it was moving slower, the Order taking the form of a porcelain ball that gradually floated up to hover above his head. That was a major advantage of Air: it was quicker than any of the other three Elemental Sources, as well as Order.

  No summons in my deck could be paid for with a single Air Source, so while I waited the few seconds it would take for my heart to recover enough to draw more out of it, I looked over my right hand to think through future turns. All my cards in hand were silver-bordered Uncommons, as were most of the summons I possessed. My brothers had gotten the lion’s share of the good cards from our family library, and we hadn’t been able to replenish ourselves in recent years, so now that I’d finally formed a deck, only the less desirables had remained tucked into the pages of our generational tome. One of the perks of working for Father in the City Watch was very occasional access to cheaply auctioned cards taken from thieves or harvested from executed criminals, which had allowed me to add to the collection on a tight budget. Despite Tipfin’s frequent criticism, I was quite proud of the deck that now sat in my Mind Home. After years of deep study and dreaming, I knew the look of each and every card in it better than almost anything else in my life, so it took me less than a second to recognize the two Souls and a Spell I held: an Assassin, a Headsman, and Penitence.

  Human Assassin

  Order Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Order + 1 Any

  1 Attack / 1 Health

  Stealth, Hunt, Venom

  Order always comes at a price.

  Human Headsman

  Order Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Order + 1 Any

  3 Attack / 2 Health

  If attacking a Devoted Soul, the target is Destroyed

  no matter its Health or what abilities it has.

  Someone has to do it. Oddly satisfying

  if you don’t think about it too hard.

  Penitence

  Order Spell

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Order

  Fast Speed

  Focus an opposing Soul that is Ready, or

  Devote an opposing Soul that is Focused.

  Shame has bent more backs than any king.

  “I don’t see you exchanging anything!” Tipfin snapped, ever the eagle-eyed critic.

  Within the first few moments of generating one’s opening hand, any duelist could call on the pity of Fortune to let them swap some of their summon or Source cards for the next ones sitting in their randomly-sorted decks. Tipfin was a great believer in making the most out of Fortune’s kindness, and I had been part of enough matches to know that a bad opening could spell disaster for even the most skilled duelist.

  However, since my deck was mostly cobbled from the family’s remainders, I only had two copies of many of my summons, sometimes just one. When I was fortunate enough to get a decent combination, I’d much rather keep it and find a way to make the cards I had work rather than risk getting something even worse. I had tried to explain my thought process to Tipfin on more than one occasion, but after so many years tutoring my older brothers, who had three copies of everything, the cranky old trainer just couldn't seem to grasp the subtle change in strategy my deck required to be effective.

  “Fortune’s luck,” I said to him over my cards to explain why I wasn’t changing any of them, and he gave me a sour, skeptical look back.

  As if to accentuate the point, three of the cards in his own hand vanished, instantly replaced with new ones. He let out a sharp bark of a laugh and then tossed one into the air.

  I had studied the deck list for my opponent as soon as Tipfin revealed his findings to me, obsessing over it the last few nights. Losum likely wouldn’t be my first opponent – common folk were allowed to enter the Rising Stars Tournament too, if they were willing to risk the few cards they owned, and the King’s gamemasters tended to save the duels between better-trained and deeper-decked noble youngsters for later rounds – but he’d almost certainly be my first really difficult one, and I’d prepared accordingly. None of Losum’s Spells would make sense to cast yet, and the only Soul he ran that could be paid for so cheaply was the very backbone of his forces.

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  Sure enough, when the floating card snapped out of existence in a flash of light, standing in front of Tipfin was the Soul of an Archer.

  Human Archer

  Order Soul

  Common

  Cost: 1 Order + 1 Any

  0 Attack / 1 Health

  Devote: Deal 1 damage to target Soul or Summoner.

  Great from a distance… but up close they’re mincemeat.

  The Soul looked to only be a few years older than me, face framed by a baggy hood and a bow slung over his shoulder, which he quickly unslung. Like with all summoned Souls, his skin and clothing had vibrancy to their color and texture, as if he were somehow more present in the here and now than either Tipfin or me – a trait I always found odd, yet equally entrancing, considering it was he who was long dead and we were still alive.

  Also, since I’d been studying Order cards for years, I knew his stats and abilities without the need of gamemaster glasses, which most duelists wore to see the details of unknown cards they faced… if they could afford the expense.

  “Shoot him,” Tipfin yawned at the Archer.

  This card was only a Common, so it reacted silently to the command, pulling an arrow from the quiver strapped to its back and nocking it in a practiced motion. Its dull eyes found me – the one part of it that didn’t shine brighter than us – and then released.

  The arrow crossed the intervening space to me in half a second. Even though it was just a Common, only the most skilled and talented of people left cards behind when they died, so it was no surprise that the arrow he fired flew straight at my face, targeting the space between my eyes. It was far too fast to have any hope of dodging, and I had no defensive Spells to cast in reaction, so all I could do was watch it streak toward me. Before it connected with the bridge of my nose, the metal head froze a bare inch from my skin, everything around me slowing down.

  This was Fate’s Grace, a moment I had heard more than one Tender describe as a “glimpse of the divine” or “the closest one can get to communing with the Twins.” In my training with Tipfin, he had been much more practical about it, calling the brief freeze in time one of the many critical points that separated master duelists from those who were mere pretenders. (The fact that he had inferred that I dwelt among the latter group had not escaped me.) During Fate’s Grace, I had the opportunity to decide if I would block the incoming damage with a card in hand, thus losing a known resource, or let the attack strip the next card from my Mind Home, leaving my hand intact but potentially depriving me of an even better card in the future. A few wrong choices could leave a duelist so far behind he never recovered, which was part of why Tipfin was forcing me to make such a decision so early. That, and I was fairly sure he liked defeating me so he could go on in rambling, acidic detail about what I’d done wrong.

  I knew that an Archer’s shot would do a single point of damage to me, which, until I was able to don my Scalemail Relic, was annoying for my deck to deal with – yet another fact that Tipfin knew all too well. This was because my deck featured perhaps too many cards with decently high Source cost, which meant I could block mid-sized attacks effectively but also that I would be overpaying to stop a single point of damage. Out of my current hand, all three of my Summon cards could block 2 points of damage, so to use them now to stop only 1 felt like a waste.

  The arrow was still spinning oh-so-slowly toward me, so I needed to make a decision quickly. Yes, it was frustrating, but this was exactly why I had practice matches, so I could test counterplays before it really, deeply mattered.

  I nearly chose to block the arrow with the single Source in my hand, which was capable of stopping 1 damage – an even trade – but in the end I let go of my Penitent Spell. The silver-bordered card drifted out of my hand and then suddenly zipped between me and the arrow. Time resumed, the metal head slammed into the floating card, and both vanished in a spray of sparkling light that briefly obscured my vision.

  I had chosen the Spell because, though it interacted well with my Headsman, I didn’t need it to take out Tipfin’s Archer. Also, I only had one copy of each of the three Rare cards owned – all still in my Mind Home – and I wasn’t about to risk losing any of them by letting the arrow do a random point of damage to my deck.

  The interaction had been just long enough for the tightness in my mind to lessen, indicating I could pull from it again, so I did with a mental tug, two new cards appearing between my fingers next to the others I still held. This time, instead of drawing one Source card and one summon, I pulled both from my summons deck. I was rewarded with a Carrion Condor, which I was quite glad to see, as well as the gold-bordered Master Assassin – one of the Rares I had just been protecting – which I would have preferred getting much later.

  Carrion Condor

  Air Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 1 Air + 3 Any

  2 Attack / 4 Health

  Flying

  Gains +1/+0 for every enemy Soul that is Destroyed

  and was not damaged by this Carrion Condor.

  Flesh is sustenance, whether warm, cold, or bloated.

  Human Master Assassin

  Order Soul

  Rare

  Cost: 3 Order + 2 Any

  2 Attack / 2 Health

  Stealth, Hunt, Venom, Fast Attack

  Pay 2 Order: Return this Soul to the

  bottom of your Summon Deck.

  Amateurs die on the job. Masters die

  when they damn well please.

  I tossed my Order Source into the air almost absently, looking at my four remaining cards. The Master Assassin was one of my favorite and best Souls, but its utility was greatest near the end of a duel. Having it now meant I didn’t need to worry about coming up short in the late game, but I hoped it wouldn’t clog my hand in the interim. After all, if I turned into a pincushion in the next few rounds, it wouldn’t matter what I might have done had the duel lasted longer.

  When my ball of porcelain Order joined the one of Air that swirled above me, I drew on them both to power my first Summon of the match. I drew even more deeply on the Order Source, wringing it dry to produce double the usual Source essence, leaving the porcelain sphere dull and shrunken. It would take two turns before that one became usable again after devoting it like that, but I wasn’t concerned. Even Tipfin didn’t bat an eye. This was an extremely common early-game tactic to get more expensive summons into play more quickly.

  The Source entered my body through my head, tingling my hair, before shooting down the back of my neck, out around both arms and then through my fingers, straight into my card of choice. Since I had used two different Sources, I felt two different sensations: Air, as always, making me feel light on my toes, almost like I was on the edge of falling even though I stood straight, or about to shoot into the sky, electric energy dancing over my skin. Order, on the other hand, came with a profound sense of balance and dignity, as well as a nagging desire to straighten my tunic, which was hanging just a hair lower on one shoulder than the other. These were passing sensations, there and gone in a flash, and something I had learned years earlier to not linger on.

  Instead, I watched my chosen card break into glittering motes before reforming out of a mist before me. A helmeted Headsman stood with his back to me, a large ax connected to a long pole already in his hands.

  Human Headsman

  Order Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Order + 1 Any

  3 Attack / 2 Health

  If attacking a Devoted Soul, the target is Destroyed

  no matter its Health or what abilities it has.

  Someone has to do it. Oddly satisfying

  if you don’t think about it too hard.

  “Remove the Archer,” I told him, and he lumbered forward dutifully. The Archer, for his part, was still recovering from the shot. Common card as he was, firing the shot had completely depleted him for the following turn – he was devoted, as Summoners tended to say, just as my Order Source currently was – and he stood slumped, as if half asleep. He did stir slightly when the Headsman lifted the ax over his head, but not enough to move away or defend himself, so my card had no trouble splitting him down the middle with his weapon. The Archer Soul didn’t cry out, but simply broke into shards of light that spun through the air before fading away.

  The kill had been guaranteed because the Headsman’s special ability to destroy any devoted Soul card. It was a good ability, to be sure, and one that let me compete with decks that had cards that were much better than mine, but I paid for it in the card’s high casting cost. Also, attacking with a Soul the first moment they were summoned devoted them, so now it was my card who stood slumped in the middle of the training round looking vulnerable, giving me no choice but to let it spend my next turn in recovery.

  Meanwhile, Tipfin had been busy, drawing two cards of his own – Source or summon I couldn’t tell, since all cards had the same twelve-pointed star on a smoky glass background that represented the twelve eternal Sources. He’d also summoned a second Source during this time, another porcelain ball of Order that glistened much brighter than his first since it hadn’t been used and stood at the ready. Like me, Tipfin had been forced to devote his first Source to summon the 2-cost Archer so early, which meant he couldn’t use it again yet. That left him with only his new Source to call cards forth with, and a max spend of 2 if he wanted to devote it like he had his first.

  That was why I had risked attacking with my Headsman as I had. The Soul was certainly vulnerable now, unable to defend himself if he was attacked, but the only things that could do enough damage to kill my Headsman in Tipfin’s deck were his Master Archer and High Paladin, neither of which he could summon even if he devoted his remaining Source for 2. For now, I was safe.

  Or so I thought.

  Tipfin released a card from his hand into the air, and another Archer Soul took form. This one was a shorter woman with wide shoulders, but despite the difference in appearance, I knew she’d have the same traits as the other; it was only as Souls leveled to Uncommon or higher that divergences occurred. Her attack would be 0, and even if she devoted to shoot an arrow it would only do 1 damage, not enough to kill my Headsman with his health of 2.

  Without hesitation, Tipfin said, “Fire at the duelist,” and the newly created Soul did just that, another arrow streaking toward me, just as fast as the first had flown.

  Fate’s Grace slowed time again, giving me an opportunity to look at my three remaining cards in frustration. All of them could block the arrow, of course, but I wasn’t about to spend my Master Assassin on 1 point of damage. I couldn’t use my Carrion Condor either, as that was the play I planned to make next; my Headsmen and Assassins were very good at killing enemy Souls, which, when my Condor was on the field, strengthened the great bird, letting me then do a large – often undefendable – attack to the opposing duelist. The regular Assassin was the only one I could afford to lose, but I didn’t want to part with him either.

  With a prayer on my lips, I didn’t choose anything, letting the arrow strike me when time resumed. The metal head easily cut through the light sparring shirt I was wearing but then ricocheted off my skin, a spray of colored shards bursting from where it had connected instead of blood. In those fragments, I saw the pieces of another Condor, and my heart started beating again. I could afford to lose one of those. If the card had been my Equality Spell, I would have had almost no way to come back if I got behind.

  A good duelist gets into his opponent’s head while protecting his own, Tipfin always said. He’d needled me plenty already; I needed to return the favor, no matter how much it felt like I was being rude. “You’re throwing your Archers away,” I said, as boldly as I dared. “Using a Shieldbearer first would have given them some protection.”

  “They’re fodder,” Tipfin snapped back, paying more attention to his dwindling flask than to me. “And much more expendable than this motley assortment you insist on using. I already have the Source and deck advantage. Best not to question too hard when you’re the one losing.”

  That stilled my tongue, much as I wished I had a witty rejoinder in my pocket. I knew he was right: he’d landed two attacks on me, costing me two cards, while I’d only managed to remove one of his; not to mention he had done so for less Source since he had cast his first Soul before me, giving the Source he had used more time to recover.

  I pulled two more cards into my hand. One card was a Source, since I couldn't afford to fall behind in my power to fuel summons, and the other ended up being the Spell Execution.

  Execution

  Order Spell

  Uncommon

  Cost: 3 Order

  Fast Speed

  Deal 3 damage to a Focused

  Soul or 6 to a Devoted one.

  Accepting one’s fate is the bravest

  of last acts.

  Seeing it, I lamented no longer having my Penitent Spell, as the combination would let me kill even the Mythic card Orelus that Tipfin wished he possessed. I shook off the thought; I actually had two more Penitents in my deck, so I could still draw into the pairing later in the match.

  I played my new Air Source while my existing Order was still refreshing, sagging in the air with only part of its luster recovered. My Headsman was looking much more alert but I knew it would still be a few more seconds before he could act, but no matter; I had enough Air Source now to summon my Carrion Condor, which Tipfin’s deck couldn’t easily remove.

  I’d get to start playing my game now.

  I was about to devote my Source and release the Condor from my fingers when the door to the training room burst open, banging loudly on the brick wall. I jumped, spooked, and Tipfin shouted at the newcomer, “Randel! What in the Twelve are you on about?”

  One of my older brothers stood in the opening, his focus on one of his Earth Sources which he was holding in one hand and carving with a sculptor’s tool with the other. He was forever doing that; any marks he made on the rocky ball disappeared when he dismissed it, and he liked always having a reusable practice piece for his art. He had one foot still raised, which he had obviously used to absentmindedly kick the door open. His hair was full of rock dust.

  “Ah, Master Tip,” he said, catching sight of the old trainer, “still managing to stay upright, and we’re past noon. Drinking something weaker today?”

  Tipfin’s jaw worked in reply but no words came out. Gale had been a massively successful student for him, but Randel was a complete loss as a duelist, and Tipfin liked to pretend he didn’t exist. Randel smirked at him before turning to me.

  “Esmi’s come to call on you,” he said to me. “Looks like she even brought you a gift.”

  “Esmi?” I said, my voice going much higher than expected. She’d only returned to Treledyne a few weeks before, and I’d thought my mother was arranging a formal, chaperoned event for our reunion. All thoughts of dueling fled. I dropped my cards into nothingness, and the Sources vanished from over my head. I was totally unprepared. A gift? What gift? I had nothing to give her in return. Panic rose within me, and I could feel disaster looming. I hadn’t seen this girl since she was seven, and here I stood in a torn sparring shirt with my face sweaty and my tunic still hanging just that tiny bit lower on one side.

  “Esmi,” my brother confirmed. “And you probably don’t want to leave her alone much longer with Gale.”

  “Gale?” I said, my practice duel with Tipfin all but forgotten. “Why is Gale in town? Why is Gale with her?” Gale was the older of my twin brothers, and a notorious womanizer. He also delighted in telling anyone I tried to associate with the most embarrassing stories about me.

  “I’m in the middle of a project, and she’s not my fiancée,” Randel said, turning down the hall while continuing to talk, still digging away at his Source. “Be glad I even came to tell you what’s happening. He was going on about that time you fell down Mount Pirtash when I left. But that was, oh… nearly a half hour ago now. I’d get moving.”

  I was already moving and had pulled well ahead of my brother by the time he finished speaking. Tipfin called something after me, but I didn’t hear it in my mad dash to reach Esmi before Gale could do more damage than I knew how to repair.