It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  Then she pulls back, curt and formal, a professor again. Whatever that was, that quiet little conspiracy, is gone. I take the hint. “I’ll do you proud, Professor,” I say.

  “Good,” she replies. “Because I’d hate for you to prove me wrong.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Now

  Until now, I’ve barely spent any time in the Blackwater Library. Why would I need to, with Marlena helping me out? But I spend the next two weeks there, night after night, hunched by candlelight over books about Balitesta. It’s a beautiful building, certainly, maybe the prettiest on campus, with tall marble columns and stained-glass windows and enormous black-iron candelabras swaying overhead. But I have no appreciation for that, because I’m busy tearing my hair out trying to find a strategy for this stupid game.

  Balitesta translates in Old Marovian to the Game of Gods. It’s the oldest sport in Marovia, as old as the Republic itself, played by the First Fathers after their conquest. It is at once incredibly simple and staggeringly complex. The game is played in a circular arena six hundred feet in diameter, on a field of freshly cut grass. Five teams compete at once, made up of five members each. Each team has a fort positioned on the outside diameter of the circle, where it can retreat and strategize. At the center of the circle, behind an array of barriers and obstacles, sit ten daises, each with a gemstone. At the blow of a horn, a round begins, lasting ten minutes. The aim of the round is to collect as many of the gems as you can and bring them back to your fort where you can store them in a chest. A game takes three rounds, and in each round a new group of five players takes over on each team. At the end of the third round, each team’s chest is opened and the gems inside are counted. Whoever has the most gems wins.

  The actual game plays out entirely on the field, in the scramble to get the gems and bring them back to the fort. To do that, players can use magic from an approved list of fifty Glyphs. Some are obvious, like Blasts of Wind or Shields of Ice. Others feel more obscure, like Orbs of Shadow and something called Shawl of Radiance. The list is meant to exclude the more explicitly violent Glyphs, but there’s only so much they can do. The books are heavy with stories of players getting injured, maimed, even killed.

  Remarkably, that’s pretty much it. Sure, there are a few small details here and there, like “No leaving the field of play” and “Magic cannot be used on the referees.” But that’s basically the whole game. Anything not explicitly forbidden is permitted. You start in your fort and you fight to get the gems and then you fight to get them back, and you can use any strategy you want to win.

  That open-endedness means the game has infinite permutations. Many matches play out like mock battles, with players scurrying from barrier to barrier as they fight to the center. Some teams have won through brute force, battering their way to victory with volumes of powerful, well-cast Glyphs. Others have won through speed and trickery, by creating magical barriers of their own that block the other teams or by hurling the gems along on gusts of wind or torrents of water. Some teams fight as one, combining their magic into unstoppable salvos, while others divide, attacking all over to create chaos. The battle doesn’t even have to stay in the center of the arena! Players ambush one another on the routes back to their forts, and a few games have even been fought within their walls, victory wrenched away at the last second as the players are unable to deposit the gems into their chest. The possibilities are endless, a never-ending series of strategies and counterstrategies and countercounterstrategies, built up over centuries.

  I can see why Wizards like it. Hell, reading through the books, I find myself starting to enjoy it, especially some of the more cunning plays. But after two weeks of study, all I’ve got is a list of things I can’t do. “There’s a million strategies, and we won’t be able to pull any of them off,” I tell Marlena late one night, as we sit huddled together over a table in the library. “We’re not going to be able to overpower the other teams, that’s for sure. But we’re not going to beat them on Glyphcrafting, either. And I don’t think we have the speed or coordination to pull off some of these elaborate gambits.”

  Marlena sighs. For every hour I’ve spent reading the books, she’s spent three, and heavy bags hang under her eyes. I’ve begged her to take a break and let me handle it, but she’s insisted that she’s better at research (factually true). This matters to her, matters enough that she’s willing to push herself to her limits, to dedicate every free hour she has. Is this all still about getting off this island? Or does she genuinely care about me winning? Does she genuinely care about me?

  Now isn’t the time for those questions. “So what other options do you have?” Marlena asks.

  “Only one I can think of,” I say. “One path to victory.” And then I smile. “Luckily, it’s what I do best.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Then

  I am nine when I learn, really learn, what magic is.

  We’re back in Laroc, in that ramshackle city by the sea, in a cluster of warehouses not so different from the ones where I first met the Revenants. It’s midday when Whispers comes to get me, leading me by the hand to a room at the back, while Sera trails curiously after us. I don’t know what’s going on, just that it’s important. A group of Revenants came back from a big mission the other day, and since then everyone’s been whispering and looking at me.

  The room is sparse, just a dusty floor and a few rotting pillars. There’s a table at the back and a man sitting at it. He’s a Marovian, a burly man with a round face and a big belly. His long brown hair hangs in greasy strands around his face, and patches of uneven beard dot his chin. His breath comes in heavy wheezes. When he looks up at me, his eyes are bloodshot, framed by deep-purple bruises. “This is her?” he grumbles.

  “It is,” Whispers says, then turns to me. “Alka, meet your new teacher, Pavel.”

  In the years to come, I’ll learn Pavel’s whole story. I’ll learn that he’s an apostate, a Wizard stripped of all rank and title, disowned by his family. I’ll learn that he was a year into his magical schooling when he killed a boy in a fight, a boy related to a powerful senator. I’ll learn that he spent the next fifteen years in a brutal prison labor camp, his magic used at sword point deep in the Galfori Mines. I’ll learn of the tortures he suffered, the cruelties. I’ll come to look at him with, if not kindness, then at least sympathy.

  But that’s all later. Right now, all I see is a slumped, surly man gazing at me with a scowl. “This is the girl? Gods, she’s young.” Pavel sits back up in his seat, brushing some hair out of his eyes. “Going to be hard to teach her without a Loci.”

  “You’ll manage,” Whispers replies.

  Pavel sighs deeply. “All right, girl. These people say you’re a Wizard?” I hold up my wrist, showing him my Godsmark, and he lets out a low, wheezing laugh. “Well, I’ll be damned. A Wizard brought up by the Revenants. Those bastards in the Senate would shit themselves if they knew.” Whispers clears her throat, and he gets back on task. “So you’ve got the Mark. That’s a start. Can you carve any Glyphs?”

  I shake my head. Ever since the incident in the forest six months ago, when I’d nearly killed myself by accident, Whispers has forbidden me to even think about magic. Just to be safe, she’s had someone watch me day and night.

  Pavel isn’t pleased. “Nothing? Not a one? I’m supposed to teach you from scratch? I think I was better off in the mines.”

  Whispers shoots him a withering glare. “We’d be happy to return you.”

  Pavel throws up his big dirty hands in defeat. “All right, all right. We’ll start from the beginning. What is magic?”

  I look back to Whispers for guidance (she’s a stone slate), then to Sera (she shrugs). “Magic is power,” I try. “The power to do whatever you want. The power to kill whoever you want. The power to be strong.”

  Pavel cracks a smile, the corner of his mouth bloody. “Good guess. Wrong, but good. I’ll show you the truth. Can I get three cups?” He looks to Whispers, who narrows her eyes.
“Come on, lady, I’ve got my arms bound, no Loci, and there are dozens of your goons. I’m just trying to demonstrate to the kid.”

  “Fine.” Whispers jerks her head at Sera. “Bring the man three cups.”

  Sera leaves and returns with three tall tin cups, which she lays out before him. “Perfect,” Pavel says, and reaches into a little pocket on his vest to take out a round bronze coin. “We’re going to play a game, girl. You like games?” I nod. “This one’s called Find the Coin.” He places the coin flat on the table, under the middle cup. “Watch it go.” Then he moves the cups, sliding them around in lazy circles. I’ve seen street hustlers play this game, but Pavel isn’t anywhere near as good as they are. He moves the cups slowly, clumsily, his shaking hands threatening to knock them over. I have no trouble following the coin, and when he’s done, I point at it with a grin. “That one!”

  Pavel flips the cup, and it’s empty. I blink in surprise, and Sera lets out a snort of laughter. “Again,” I demand.

  We go again. And again. And again. Every time, I follow it perfectly, and every time, the cup is empty. After a half dozen tries, he offers to make it simpler for me by going down to just two cups, so we do that and I still get it wrong. I’m getting angrier and angrier, and Sera just finds this to be so funny, which isn’t helping. Finally, with a reluctant sigh, he goes down to just one cup, which has to be mocking me, but when I tap on it and he flips it, there’s no coin.

  “This game is stupid!” I shout.

  “Now you’re getting it,” Pavel says. “You want to see how it’s done? Join me in the Null. You can go into the Null, right?”

  I can, but I’m strictly forbidden to. I look back to Whispers for approval, and she nods. So I turn back to Pavel, and even though I’m still a little afraid, I take a deep breath and slip in.

  The world recedes into that ashy fog, so thick around us that the room is gone, Whispers is gone, Sera is gone. But Pavel is there, sitting across from me, as vivid and colorful as if we were in the real world. It’s comforting to have someone else in the Null with me, even if it’s this strange, surly man. He smiles at me, across the gray, and then he raises the coin up high. In the Real, it was a dull, faded bronze, but here it shines impossibly bright, glistening like a jewel. He turns it around, and I can see the Glyphs carved into it, bright and dazzling, a grid of cross-hatched arcana. He spins the coin across his fingers, and as he does, it vanishes, then reappears, then vanishes again.

  I jerk back into the Real with a gasp, the color flooding in quickly, and Pavel is back, too, sitting across from me with a satisfied look. “The coin is magic!” I shout. “You were cheating the whole time!”

  “Now you’ve got it,” Pavel says. Whispers crosses over, plucking the coin from his hands, and he barely even notices. “That’s what magic is, girl. It’s cheating. All those poor Humble bastards out there, all the people in this room, all of them have to go through life playing by the rules. The rules of the world. But people like you and me? We’re different. We’re special. We can break all those rules. We can make up down and black white. We can rig any game and get any outcome. Because that’s what we are. That’s what Wizards are.”

  Whispers has an uneasy look on her face, and Sera looks upset, but I’m on board. “Is that what you’re going to teach me?” I ask.

  “Damn right. And you’ve already had your first lesson. When a game’s rigged, there’s only one way to win,” Pavel says, lacing his fingers together to crack his knuckles. “Break the game.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Now

  The First Challenge of the Great Game plays out in the crisp fall air on a weekend afternoon, the sun bright even through a thin canopy of clouds. There’s a full-blown arena on the island’s western coast, a tall open-air colosseum built around a grassy Balitesta playing field. Everyone’s there, all the students, the professors, even the Humbles, piled up on rows of tiered benches to watch the big game. I spot Marlena, bustling about with a tray of drinks, and we share a conspiratorial glance. She knows what’s coming next, even if no one else does.

  We sit grouped by Orders, with the students below and the professors at the top. My team isn’t up until the third round, which means we’re spectators just like anyone else for the first two. The others around me are nervous, Desmond’s face slick with sweat and Fyl’s knee bouncing wildly. But I feel oddly calm, the calm I always get before a dangerous mission, the calm that feels like I’m not even really in my body anymore. My life’s not on the line, but in a way, I suppose it is. One way or another, today determines my course, and so much of it is out of my control. So for now, all I can do is sit back and watch.

  Groundskeeper Tyms descends to the center of the field to kick off the game. Everyone cheers for him, which is baffling because he’s awful, and he casts a Glyph up into the air, a dazzling firework that bursts into a multicolored bird. The players for the first round rise from their seats and descend into the arena, vanishing into their Orders’ respective forts.

  A massive horn blasts, a low warble like a whale’s cry, and the game is off. It’s absolute chaos to watch, twenty-five players coming from all sides to clash in a dazzling, deafening explosion of magic. Tornadoes howl across the field, lances of light streak and shatter, clouds of dirt billow with thunderous blasts. Players run and duck, slide and scream, cowering behind barriers and battling to the center. Referees rush about the outskirts in full-body plate armor, their faces hidden behind shining helms as they check on the fallen and monitor for forbidden Glyphs. The crowd whoops and hollers, leaping to their feet with wild excitement.

  The first round plays out brutally. The Vanguard players dominate, smashing to the center with wave after wave of offensive magic. The Zartans try to rush in and get bowled clean over, while the Javelloses settle for sneaking a single gem back. Only the Selura team, captained by Vyctoria herself, puts up a decent showing, shielding itself in perfectly carved ice and withstanding long enough to grab three gems. The less said of the Nethro team, the better. Captained by a pompous Kindrali I’ve never liked, they rush into the fray and are tossed aside by the Vanguard like rag dolls, with two of the students carried away on stretchers.

  After a lengthy intermission, the second round kicks off, and it goes better, but barely. Talyn captains the Javellos players and they rush onto the field with a clever play, combining their magic to disrupt the terrain with barriers of dirt that funnel the Selura and the Vanguard into one another and leave the center open for the others. It works briefly, long enough to stall the Vanguard from their usual rush, and Talyn makes it back to his fort with three gems before the barriers fall. A single Nethro player manages to get his hand on a gem and get it back to our fort, while the other players are all swallowed by the chaos of the center. In the end, the Seluras walk away with nothing, the Zartans claim two, and Vanguard still manages to take the rest.

  The second intermission commences, which means it’s time for my team to take the field. I stand up, crack my knuckles, stretch my neck. A banner hangs from the professor’s platform, with the current standing clear:

  Vanguard—10

  Javellos—4

  Selura—3

  Zartan—2

  Nethro—1

  Just what I need.

  My teammates get up around me, and we begin the long march down to our fort. I chose for loyalty, not skill, so I’ve got a ragged crew behind me: Fyl, Desmond, and Tish, my closest friends and the only Nethros I halfway trust. Rounding out the group as a fifth is Zigmund, the hulking blue-eyed Velkschen with biceps the size of my head. I don’t know him well, which is a problem, but I like him. When I asked them all to join the team, he got so excited he slammed his fist through a table. That’s the kind of spirit I need.

  We don’t talk as we pace down the stairs and onto the field, but I can tell everyone’s nerves are running high. A referee, his plate armor clanking, straps us into heavy padded chest plates and thick leather helmets, painted black for the Order of Nethro.
Our Loci rest in hip sheaths, and we’ve also each got a small leather bag hanging off our belts, for storing gems should we get them. I can feel the eyes of the crowd on me, all watching, and a few even boo us, chanting “Just one point!” Fyl’s expression sours, but I don’t mind. Let them underestimate us.

  Our fort awaits us at the edge of the arena. It’s a one-room structure made of stone brick, like a miniature castle from a picture book, down to the toothy parapets on the roof. It’s almost comically old-fashioned, but when it comes to Balitesta, tradition beats all. The inside is sparse, save a ladder up to the roof and the single most impressive chest I’ve ever seen. It’s made of cold, hard steel, with enormous bolts holding it shut and a wide, flat plate, like the kind I carved on in the practice room, at the top. Desmond wanders over and presses his hand to the plate. There’s the soft pulse of magic, and it slides open with a whoosh. I read all about these chests in my research, how they use a dozen intricate, interwoven Glyphs to ensure that only members of the team can open them.

  Desmond reaches into the chest and plucks out the one gem inside. It’s beautiful, a teardrop of vivid blue, smooth as glass. He turns it over in his hand, letting out a low whistle. “One point. Not bad. If we do this right, we might actually manage to take fourth place.”

  “I don’t even care,” Fyl says. We all look ridiculous in our gear, but she looks especially ridiculous, her helmet twice as big as her head. “My parents are going to be proud I just played in the game at all.”