Through the Black Veil

by Steve Vera

  They were roughly the same age, though Roland was a bit heftier, and they possessed the familiarity of an old married couple, speaking reams without uttering a word. Roland dissected Gavin and his men with his eyes.

  “They match the description of four of the Seven. I sense no enchantments or illusionary craft—it is either an uncanny circumstance...or they are telling the truth, though how that could be possible goes beyond even my craft.”

  “And what of them?” Merevus asked Gavin, pointing to Sir Taksony, Arnaut and Aluvion.

  Gavin sucked in his lips. He doubted even he would believe the answer that was about to come out of his mouth, but he didn’t have to. The Captain spoke up.

  “I am Sir Taksony, Captain of the Guard of His Majesty King Makabru’s Royal Cavalry.”

  This time, Merevus failed keeping the shock from his face, and very quickly, his expression became grim. “If this is some sort of Vambracian ploy...”

  “I assure you, Senator Merevus,” Sir Taksony said, “that the greater surprise belongs to me. I am told that I stood as a pillar of stone in the depths of the Pass of Almitra for five hundred years until released by the very Shardyn that stand before you.”

  “Pass of Almitra?” The senator pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes and rubbed vigorously. He stopped. Looked up. “If what you say is true, show me your runes.”

  Slowly, Gavin, Cirena, Noah and Tarsidion raised their right hands in unison. Roland tensed but did nothing and together, the four of them glimmered their runes. When they were through, Neither Merevus nor Roland spoke or moved. Gavin gave him all the time he needed.

  After what had to be a solid twenty seconds, Merevus glanced at the garden sundial resting on a pillar of bronze among a manicured tangle of vines and sprawling white-trimmed leaves. Gavin watched him do an equation in his head.

  “Roland, please inform the counsel I will be detained and offer my humblest apologies.”

  “Senator, perhaps—”

  “Thank you, Roland. Your service as always is something I cherish. It seems I read an incomplete account of the Tale of the Seven Apprentices.” Merevus opened the double doors that led inside his home. “I should like to hear the rest. Please come in.”

  * * *

  There were many names for what was about to happen. Fate. Destiny. The alignment of stars. For Donovan, it was the breaking of the dam.

  He’d told nobody where he was going. It was none of their business and nobody tried to stop him.

  From his left, among the throngs of sweaty bodies and grumbling voices, Donovan felt the glare of a knobby-headed giant with a deformed nose and lopsided eyes. He was easily as large as Tarsidion, seven feet high, and was at least a head taller than everyone else. Unlike Tarsidion’s mesomorphic proportion, this brute was a misshapen mess with arms that were too long, feet that were too big and a torso as thick as an oak. His muscles were like tree knots and looked even harder.

  Donovan met his stare.

  The rage that poured out of the giant’s mismatched eyes was directed specifically at Donovan, a bitter resentment of Donovan’s perfect features and innate grace and that hatred, that resentment had made this thing powerful. The colors of the giant’s soul were vivid and unflickering, a constant storm of eruptions and thrashing prominences.

  And he was just one of many; every one here had one goal in mind...to win a slot to compete. All they had to do was beat everybody else.

  For two hours Donovan waited patiently in the warm spring air, watching each match as it transpired, taking notes, observing styles and patterns of styles, updating his files on the capabilities of the human race that lived here. They were similar but with distinctions. Humans here on Theia were tougher. Harder. Hungrier. The result of increased competition, of not being the dominant species.

  Until now.

  * * *

  Merevus interrupted only when necessary, a totem mask of concentration. His Sorcerer Roland had returned quickly, ashen-faced, and also listened with intensity, asking probing questions of his own, good questions. Traditionally there had never been any animosity between Magi and the Sorcerers of the Parthenon (White-cloths, for short), though neither was there any warmth between them. Just a simple, professional respect. Sometimes they’d been on the same side of an issue, and other times not.

  Another nail fell from a candle and clattered to the time-clock’s plate as Gavin spoke, indicating the passage of twenty minutes. He kept it as succinct as possible, elaborating only when necessary on little details such as Earth, The Back Veil and the Pass of Almitra. When he was through they said nothing. Their eyes had fogged over.

  Bet you didn’t have this on your list of stuff to do today, Gavin thought, quoting Skip.

  “In essence, your tidings are simple,” Merevus finally said and licked his lips, which had become brittle. There was an upside down V creased into his brow. “That the War of the Drynn has returned.”

  “It has resumed,” Gavin said. The other seven nodded. “It never ended, was simply on...a long respite.”

  Senator Merevus’s strong-jawed face had lost a solid shade in hue, and Gavin noted a faint line of beads dotting his upper lip. “How long do we have?”

  “Who can know? But if I were to bet my life and the lives of everybody on this world, I would say days, a week if we’re lucky.”

  “Surely not,” Merevus breathed.

  “Do you understand what that means, Senator?” Cirena asked, announcing her presence for the first time.

  Merevus regarded her and met her intensity solidly. “At the University of Nu’rome, I read in detail about the Great War of the Drynn.”

  “Then you know what must be done,” she continued, leaning forward so that only a couple inches separated their faces.

  Merevus cleared his throat. “Yes. But be forewarned, Vambrace sits heavily upon this city.” His eyes clouded. “They will make things difficult—their hatred of the Magi is as venomous as it ever has been and after your...confrontation with a Collector—need I say more?”

  “Is not Nu’rome a sovereign nation?” Noah asked.

  Merevus’s eyes cleared with a slow, subtle nod. He stood. “Aye it is. Come.”

  By the looks of his eyes he’d come to a decision. “I happen to be late for the official welcoming ceremonies of all the ambassadors and dignitaries of the major powers of the civilized world. What a meeting it will be.”

  * * *

  Sorikus was in trouble. He was far behind schedule and the Caesar would accept no excuses—this sector had to be cleared by eventide. As the Offlander foreman for the last four Olympiads, Sorikus was accustomed to the mobs of eager contestants who desperately sought entrance into the games, but this was beyond reason. Where were they all coming from?

  “Sorikus!” came a bellow from deeper in the Colosseum, followed by clopping horseshoes configured in steel to make twice the racket. His shoulders sagged. Vorbian. The foreman of the Equestrian Offlanders and nephew of General Normiar was the bane of Sorikus’s existence. That cur didn’t know a damn thing about anything besides shouting orders and inflicting aggravation. Had Vorbian not been connected to the upper echelons of Nu’romian society, Sorikus would taken him out back and stomped his teeth out long ago.

  “The Caesar himself demands an announcement by eventide—why do you move so slowly?”

  The knuckles in his right hand cracked as he clenched it into a fist. “I will be ready,” he said through his teeth.

  “You will not. Look at this madness. The Caesar is going to feed you your own ass, and I will watch laughing.” Vorbian snorted and clopped away.

  One day your uncle won’t be around to save you, Sorikus thought darkly as he glared at Vorbian’s back, but the cur was right. Mobs and throngs of hopeful amateurs were still jostling to get a better place to stand. T
o make matters worse, four of his six judges had been commandeered by Aquatics, leaving him a mere two, another flagrant example of this nepotistic cesspool, and they expected him to be done by dusk. Fine.

  Being nearly seven feet tall had never been easy on Sorikus, and neither had his face, but there were times when his physique and his fearsome visage had its advantages. Like now. He climbed atop one of the sixteen stone pedestals used by the judges and surveyed his sector of the Colosseum.

  There were hundreds left, hundreds of sweaty bodies and multi-culturally garbed contestants milling and waiting in the warm sun. He’d never make it. Looking out among them though, one in particular caught his attention. Perhaps it was his garb, which was nothing Sorikus had ever laid eyes on before, but there was something else. His eyes were covered by strange glass lenses that reflected sunlight. At a glance he was no different than the thousands Sorikus had seen throughout the years but as a gambler, Sorikus knew a winner when he found one. He liked the way the man stood, a quiet supremacy lurking just beneath the surface of a dispassionate face. They’d find out soon enough.

  Sorikus cupped his mouth and boomed a single sentence: “Last man standing becomes this Olympiad’s Offlander!”

  And then there was mayhem.

  * * *

  Donovan wasted no space. He moved one millimeter beyond the reach of the hairy elbow spearing toward his face before retaliating with a body-withering fist to his assailant’s midsection. Ribs broke beneath his knuckles like sticks. Before the man could properly scream, Donovan was already retracting his other fist from shattering the man’s face. Screaming while clutching his nose, he crumbled to the ground and writhed. Donovan moved on to the next.

  I win, you lose.

  Two weeks, even for Donovan, wasn’t enough time to have healed completely from his wounds. Three of the wounds in his side and ribs had already torn, and a swath of the scabs on his forearms were bleeding.

  It was nothing he couldn’t handle.

  Now that battle had officially commenced, Donovan welcomed the familiar surge of adrenaline that roared through his body, and like every time before, the world turned to syrup. It was a phenomenon that had been happening to him since his first memory, a heightened awareness and ability to move when the rest of the world was mired in mortality.

  Calmly, amidst the chaos of grunts, cries and screams of pain, Donovan moved from one opponent to the other, closing space, flashing crisp, devastating jabs, sweeping crescent kicks and flawless judo throws, savoring each moment, his body like water around stones. This was why he’d been born, what he was made for. With each pound of his heart and crack of his fist, adrenaline pulsed to every sensory node in his body.

  It had never felt this good before. In seconds he’d dropped eight bodies and within a minute, the field of worthy adversaries had narrowed considerably. Donovan wasn’t the only mauler. The lopsided, misshapen knobby-headed giant had laid waste to any and all who challenged him. A sort of contest had begun between them; each time one of them dispensed with an opponent, eye contact was made followed by a snarl or smile. The field was getting smaller. The gap between them closer.

  There were others as well, a carbon-skinned woman with green paint on her face, a brutish-looking Viking, even a kneecap-breaking D’worf.

  In three minutes there were only a couple dozen standing. Donovan’s next victim came at him like a cannonball, but instead of colliding, Donovan melted backward and dropped to his back, planted his foot right in the middle of the wedge-shaped torso and proceeded to send him to orbit. The man milled in mid-air, tucked himself into a roll with surprising agility and landed neatly on his feet, knees slightly bent. Unfortunately for him, Donovan knew where he was going to land and greeted him with a forearm to the face. The momentum of the blow knocked his assailant horizontal so that his upper body crashed before the rest of his body could catch up. He didn’t move again.

  Donovan looked around for his next target and homed in on knobby head. There was nobody between them. He’d just finished with his latest victim as well.

  It was time.

  There was a pause, a locking of eyes, and then the charging of bulls. Donovan devoured the space between them before launching into the air. At the height of his arc he speared out his right foot, knife-edge out, and caught the beast right in the middle of both arms, which had gone up in protection. Despite the size and mass difference between them, Donovan’s blow sent the brute careening backward, and before he even had time to consider recovering Donovan was smothering him with a barrage of jackhammer punches and heavy-heeled kicks.

  But the gangly giant weathered the storm. Blows that would have crumpled others were simply absorbed with a grunt. It was like hitting a piece of wood.

  “Ah keeanna svet!” the giant spat, licking the trickle of blood that rolled down his eye and smiled, brandishing thick, square teeth spaced too far apart. With his fists, Casanova beckoned Donovan to try again.

  Oh, Donovan liked this man very much. Whoever he was, he had the distinct honor of not going down when Donovan had willed it. Donovan would have to do something special for him.

  Mimicking his smile, he brought his hands up boxing style, surveyed the rest of the field, which seemed to have ceased all activity in interest of their contest, and then moved in.

  With a vengeance.

  Side-to-side—snap-snap! Two jabs right through Casanova’s guard and into his nose. Dance back, side-to-side, hiss of air of a close haymaker—snap-snap, crack! Donovan’s fists were like rifle fire. Blood. Up-down, side-to-side, this time to the body, the next to the face, and then another to the face. And then another. Donovan had watched men die from as much damage as he was giving but not only did Casanova not fall, his attacks were sharp and lethal, so fast that one clipped the side of Donovan’s face and brought on a flash of white.

  He reeled back, avoided the follow-up barrage of demolition-ball punches, got clipped again before recovering and putting up his guard. This time it was his turn to grin and suck his own blood off his fingers, and the funny thing was, his smile was real. The warmth that blossomed in his chest was pure ecstasy. The world was bright, his senses aflame. He felt a click in the back of his mind and after that...things became one-sided. Bones began to break. It was not just a hurricane of pain he was raining on Casanova, but of damage.

  Slower, sloppier, half-blind by a swollen eye, his rival simply fought harder. His beady eyes glinted with eagerness, as if the communication between body and mind had been severed. It was if he felt no pain. He just kept coming, grinning, lunging.

  Donovan might just have to kill him to put him down.

  Minutes passed and more blood was shed. His adversary changed tactics—he tried to charge but rushed empty air, tried to kick but was kicked instead. His footwork, so light and fast in the beginning, had been reduced to a clumsy shuffle that spit dust and blood.

  Donovan felt the size of the circle around them growing, and out of his periphery he could feel the hush of suspense, could hear their murmurs and see the pointing of fingers.

  Now.

  In the time it took a normal person to sneeze, Donovan leaped up, corkscrewed his body and speared the heel of his boot dead-center of Casanova’s face. There was an audible crunch, a stream of blood and like an imploding skyscraper, the towering, spindly giant went down in a scarlet plume.

  He did not get up. He did not grin. There was no sound save the din of the city beyond.

  Standing over his inert form, Donovan studied the grotesquely swollen and tenderized face of the best fighter he’d ever come against. He should be dead but there in front of him the gangly giant’s chest rose and fell.

  Donovan then looked up to the judge and saw the bald man’s aura sparkling with the smugness of a poolshark who’d just won a bet. A horse galloped off.

  After a long pause, the mammoth judge
with the face of a hedgehog raised his hand and pointed at Donovan after scanning the arena for other contenders—there were none—and inhaled to speak. The assembled leaned in.

  “Winner!” the judge bellowed.

  Donovan basked in the roar of the crowd.

  Chapter 37

  “Where’ve you been?” Amanda asked as Donovan shut the double wooden doors behind him. Like everything else about this place, the architecture was top notch, twin dark cherry doors moving on a track set within the marble construction of their very plush suite. There was even a mosaic pool on the roof that she felt too guilty to use.

  Donovan glided through the suite past the two cherubic marble statues that flanked the entrance to the living room and stopped in the kitchen. That was when she noticed his face. Even though his shades were on, a huge, mottled purple-black welt was growing from under his eye. His fat lip seemed like an afterthought.

  “Geez, Donovan, did somebody hit you with a two by four?”

  “Basically,” he said with a shrug.

  The gesture seemed alien coming from him, as did the slight smile on his face. It lacked the customary sinister coldness.

  “Did you get mugged?” she asked.

  “Spare me, Amanda,” Donovan said absently. He plucked a red pear out of a fruit basket sitting on top of the rose-colored granite countertop and sank his teeth into it. Juice ran down his chin.

  “What happened, then?”

  Still chewing, he actually took his sunglasses off and set them by the basket. His eyes were a bright, piercing blue she’d never seen on his face before. It was beautiful.

  “I’m going to be in the Olympics,” he said and then took another bite, sucking his teeth as he chewed.

  “That is unheard of,” Dwensolt said from across the living room, eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. “One does not simply decide to compete in the Olympics. Even a hermit from the other side of the world knows that. There are those who train a lifetime and never once stand beneath the judges.”