Little by little, I released the restraint I held on my power, so that with each throw I was less and less in control of my power leakage. Asterion could sense magic, but I wasn’t directly doing anything with my magic, merely releasing my hold on it. That’s when the tables began to turn. I was hopelessly behind and it was his turn. He could have rolled almost anything and won.
But he didn’t.
He sat staring at the dice on the table. Three one’s, also known as the Sisters of Fate to the Greeks. It wasn’t even enough of a roll for him to actually take the turn.
I scooped up the dice and tossed them disinterestedly, not thinking, not worrying. As they hit the table, I felt reality shift. It wasn’t purposeful, and it was so discreet and natural that even Asterion didn’t notice it. It was identical to when the thief had blundered into the cops by the river earlier. Odds running wild.
As a child, when I had hit my first new power plateau, strange things had happened. My parents had been baffled by it, saying they had never heard of such a thing happening, but over the next week or so the things that happened around me became too random to ignore: a phone call from a girl who had never before shown interest in me; a cop suddenly deciding not to give me a ticket when I had been doubling the speed limit; a fellow student deciding to apologize to me for being so cruel when we had been children; and even a fire starting in a chemistry lab where I was supposed to give a report that I hadn’t yet written. Then they had ceased, and life had returned to normal.
And they had all happened after such a sensation as happened now.
I rolled three sixes. Asterion grunted, and I moved my pieces, slashing a third of his pieces from the board. He actually grimaced at the physical pain of losing so many at once, probably drawing blood on one of his beefy fingers. My luck had taken over. He had already lost. He just didn’t know it yet.
He rolled again, and although it was a better roll, it wasn’t anything that helped him. Within three moves, I sat staring at the board full of my pieces, only one of his stones left. He scowled up at me, and then flipped the board over in frustration at his loss. Gunnar hid his smile well. I didn’t.
“The first part of our duel is in your favor. We shall have a discussion next.” I nodded, rolling my shoulders for circulation, glad that he hadn’t noticed the change in odds as anything unnatural. What bothered me most was that I knew he wanted to hand over the book, but he had to fulfill the necessary obligations that Hermes had bestowed upon him.
Now, I knew that compared to all the other problems I was facing, finding a book for a client was not that important. But I had given my word that it would be done. And that is something I do not give lightly. But Asterion had also mentioned that the book had something to do with dragons, which I was neck-deep in at the moment. So, here I was, playing a board game and risking my life in order to figure out what the fuck, exactly, was going on in my city.
Asterion’s voice was harsh as he spoke next. “Explain these three weaknesses to me. Life, death, and love.” I blinked, waiting for more.
“I don’t understand.” I finally answered.
“How so?” He asked, heavy eyebrows lifting slightly.
“I don’t know how love could be a weakness.” I gave as an example.
Asterion leaned forward, folding his arms before him across the table to support his bulk. His gold nose ring glinted in the firelight. I heard the stamp of hooves outside the circle, and shivered as I remembered the scream from earlier. “Answering one answers them all. You love to kill, yet love to promote life. You would end the lives of a few wicked to promote the lives of others. Yet you relish in the act. You kill too easily, and no executioner can be allowed to roam the streets without a check to that power. And finally, like the hummingbird, you love to flit from one pretty flower — a woman — to the next, tasting each, but never filling yourself. With humans, this hurts the woman, even if they presently do not understand it. Eventually they will. But by then it will be too late for them.”
I thought hard about his words, because they were true, but I still felt I was right. On some of it. “The last is true. Something I was beginning to realize just recently.”
“Oh?” He motioned for me to continue.
“Love is precious, and shouldn’t be wasted on every passing whim, or it will mean nothing by the time you truly wish to share it with someone who matters.” I said softly.
Gunnar grunted in surprise. Asterion smiled. “And the rest?”
“I seem to link them all to justice. I do not relish the act of killing, but what it signifies.”
“But who are you to judge right from wrong? Is it because you have power?”
“Yes.” I answered without thinking.
“Socrates would roll over in his grave…” Asterion began.
I understood where he was going. “Okay, hold on. Not because I have the power, but because I have the ability. I do not judge who is naughty or nice. If someone harms an innocent, then they are wrong. Especially if they do so to gain power. I am an executioner, but only on behalf of those who cannot protect themselves. I relish the act of delivering justice, but not in the act of delivering harm. There is a significant difference.”
Asterion weighed me contemplatively and then smiled. “Then it seems I owe you a token of my gratitude.” My shoulders relaxed. It was over.
“Does this mean I won? Can I tell people I defeated the Minotaur in a duel?”
“You beat me at a childish board game. But you passed a test.” He smiled eagerly. “Now, we duel.”
Chapter 31
A sterion stood. “Step away from the table, if you please. You may embrace your gift now.” I did, and he led me away from the table, but still within the circle of firelight. I whipped up a hasty bit of magic behind his back, but he was too excited about the duel to notice. He turned to face me, bowed with hands formally folded together like a martial arts bout, and then he was rushing at me, head down. His horns gleamed in the flickering firelight. They pierced me below the stomach, and I screamed out in agony as I fell down to the ground. But as soon as my form touched the grass, it disappeared.
Asterion blinked, suddenly wary as his eyes darted about, searching for my wounded body. From the comfort of the table, I spun my spell a second time, creating a second visual replication of myself to stand off to Asterion’s right. He turned, nostrils flaring as he saw the image of me flicker, bloody hands clutching the wound. The Minotaur darted forward again, flicking his head at the last moment to send me up into the air, but then I disappeared again.
I smiled from my front row seat atop the table, invisible to him and Gunnar. I crossed my ankles as I wove three more visual replications of myself, placing them evenly apart before him. He leaned back, face angry, attempting to judge which version of me was real. One had no injury, one had only the stomach wound, and the other had both wounds. I made them flicker in and out of existence, but not the uninjured form, luring him. He charged, tearing up the grass in his rage. As his horns struck the resemblance, gossamer ropes as strong as Kevlar snapped around him, limiting his mobility. He roared in fury, lunging at the second replication of me.
I smiled, pleased at my work, and also the raw fear on Gunnar’s face as he watched the Minotaur maim me. Asterion pierced the second form as it turned to run away in mock fear. This time, the gossamer ropes of power latched around his arms even tighter, pulling them back to his sides, while several others restricted his thighs. Asterion bellowed triumphantly as he struck the last form hard enough to kill me for real. I let the spectral image vanish on contact, and the last of my gossamer ropes wrapped firmly around his boots, snapping tight as he fell to the ground, completely immobilizing him.
I withdrew the cocoon of magic around me, clapping my hands as I stepped down from the table, now visible to all. Gunnar and Asterion both stared back in disbelief, realizing that I had never left the table. My voice was soft. “You question me on life and death, and yo
u were so ready to kill me just now. I saw you mortally wound me five times. Bad Buddhist. Bad, bad Buddhist.” I waggled a finger at him. “I have not harmed you in the slightest, yet I have incapacitated you. How do you suppose this is, if I am so intent on killing everyone who crosses me?”
He smiled as he spoke three words. “Your turn, Grimm.” The torches around us evaporated with a puff and I heard the strange horse-like neigh again. Then the sound of galloping hooves raced towards me from the sunset shadows. I heard Gunnar grunt as something slammed into him, knocking him completely across the clearing. But in the sudden lack of firelight, it was difficult for me to see clearly, even with the fading sunset, because the surrounding trees cast an army of shadows around us, and they still moved back and forth as if alive.
A place between worlds, the Minotaur had said. What was out there, and what were the shadows? A dark blur moved before me, and I leapt back onto the table, just missing a single gnarled horn from stabbing my thigh. Silky black feathers brushed my arm, and I leapt backwards off the table. I heard a heavy flap of wings as a huge silhouette rose up before me, and then it disappeared again. It was toying with me. I called Stoneskin around me before I consciously thought about it, just like I had against the gargoyles.
Panicked — but better protected — I swept the clearing with my eyes, trying to use my power to light up the clearing with fire so that I could see what the hell was attacking us. But my fire quickly flickered out, as if the darkness had simply swallowed it up. Before the light disappeared, I spotted Gunnar lying on his back, staring up at the sky, but he was breathing. I hissed at the Minotaur, not looking at him as the world plunged back into darkness. “This wasn’t part of the duel.”
“We each brought a pet. Don’t you like him? He’s rather territorial though, I must admit.” I heard something behind me only a second before I felt the impact knock me forward enough to blow the air out of me in a rush, the sound of crunching stone armor filling the clearing. I landed on my chest and rolled. I remained kneeling, hoping to use the sunset to outline my assailant while hiding my own silhouette from view. I hoped it had been using my silhouette to find me, and not that it had some seriously kickass night vision.
Then it suddenly appeared in front of me.
A horse the size of a Clydesdale pawed at the earth with a silver front hoof, fire tracing away from the ground in a smoky burn, helping me see it clearly for the first time. Its eyes were like blazing orange embers, and it was mostly covered in feathers like a peacock, but black with fiery red circles on the tips instead of the usual pretty turquoise. Similarly-feathered, monstrous, black and red-tipped wings flared out behind it, tripling its size, and more feathers flared out around its entire neck in a lion-like mane, quivering as it snorted at me.
One massively thick barbed-horn spiraled up from its forehead, looking more like a trio of horns braided together with tiny spikes curling off the sides like thorns on a rosebush. Then it surged forward. To say it was graceful was an understatement. It was so beautiful that I was frozen still in admiration as I watched the red-rimmed mane of feathers tug back against the force of its sudden movement. Its horn struck my chest, and my Stoneskin crunched before the aged bone. The pressure was immense, but just as suddenly, it stopped.
I opened my very brave eyes, which had somehow closed as it hit me, and stared into a silky smooth-haired face. The beast neighed at me, stomping an angry hoof, but didn’t bolt. Stupidly, I reached out a hand to pet the magnificent creature. Asterion and Gunnar both began to shout a warning, but stopped as my fingers brushed the snout. The feathers were just as smooth as they looked, but there was also regular velvety hair on its face. The eyes calmed as they watched me, and then it pulled its head away from my chest — as if apologizing — and snapped closed the red-tipped mane surrounding its head. I blinked, letting the stone slide away from my skin in sheets.
Asterion spoke. “It is finished. The book is yours.” He was somehow standing up, my restraining cords of power gone.
I blinked at him, lost in the feel of the creature’s fur beneath my fingers. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Granted, I should have taken into account the myths involving unicorns.” Asterion muttered. “I should have remembered that they couldn’t harm virgins.”
I adamantly began to protest as Gunnar burst out laughing. “I am in no way a virgin! Of that I can assure you. Tell him, Gunnar”
The Minotaur smiled, reaching out a hand to help the werewolf stand. Instead of backing up my claim, Gunnar accepted Asterion’s assistance with an awed gaze as he stared upon the myth towering over him.
For future reference, I mentally noted that Gunnar was useless in a duel.
Asterion clasped a meaty arm around Gunnar’s shoulders. “That is where myth deviates from truth. You see, it’s not just a virgin that is immune to a unicorn’s wrath. It is also the last of a bloodline. It is just a coincidence that all of the documented survivors happened to be either a virgin, or both the last of their line and a virgin. It seems Grimm likes you.”
Grimm knelt before me like a servant to a king. I stepped back, unsure. “This isn’t really what I imagined a unicorn would look like.” I said.
Asterion chuckled. “No, but you are imagining the adapted stories of Pegasus. This is his brother, Grimm. Perseus never met him… lucky for him, I should say.” Until that moment, I had thought the unicorn and Pegasus were two different beasts, but didn’t want to flaunt my lack of knowledge. I had a reputation to uphold after all.
Asterion judged Grimm as he knelt with head bowed before me. “Grimm is obedient, and takes care of himself. All one must do is call him when in need, and he will appear out of any nearby shadow to help.” Just as quickly, Grimm suddenly disappeared. A single feather drifted down to the ground in his place. I picked it up, admiring the blazing red orb at the tip before carefully placing it in my pocket.
“What am I supposed to do with a horse?”
Asterion frowned. “You would be well advised not to demean his help. He is far more than a horse, as you just saw.” I nodded back, swallowing reflexively. “You beat me fairly, Master Temple. But why didn’t you simply battle me directly?”
“Sheer confidence in your superior ability to maim and murder, I assure you.” I replied grinning. “I have friends that need my help, and I couldn’t do that if I spent all my energy battling you directly. It was the path of the least consequences.” The Minotaur smiled at the compliment.
“One can’t die at the Dueling Grounds. You would have recovered from any injury in a day or so. Any injury…” He added with a grin.
I stared back in surprise. “Truly?” I asked, astounded.
“Truly.” Asterion smiled.
With knowledge like that, I wouldn’t have been so fucking stressed out about tonight, but I let it go with a heavy breath. Woo-sah, I rubbed my earlobe meditatively. “I would also like to add that your Karmic conversation with me hit a point that I couldn’t refute. So I tried the path that would be the least offensive. I incapacitated you, but didn’t hurt you directly. Hopefully Karma will remember that when it comes my way again.”
Asterion appraised me studiously. “How appropriate. You are, of course, correct. You would make an excellent student.”
I shook my head. “I would look terrible bald. Or fat. With both I would look positively ridiculous.”
Gunnar rolled his eyes. “Here.” Asterion handed me a book that I hadn’t seen him grab. “This is what you seek.” I accepted the aged leather tome from his hand without asking where he had grabbed it from, and tucked it away in my coat, noticing the picture I had drawn for him on the cover, and the faint smell of cold stone and snakes. Oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place why.
“Thank you.”
“Perhaps I should thank you, Master Temple. It has been in my care for so long now, and one can only hope that a better guardian was needed, and that is why I lost today.” Gunnar was still staring from
one of us to the other, a stupid grin on his face.
“We must be leaving now, Asterion. I have dragons to face.”
“Of that I am certain.” He answered cryptically. Again, I wondered what the book was about, and what it had to do with dragons. He had said it was an original, but an original what? He turned to Gunnar. “It is nice to make your acquaintance, Wulfric. Perhaps the next time will be under a less stressful occasion.”
Gunnar smiled back. “It would be my pleasure.”
Then everything was suddenly gone, and we were left standing in the middle of a field, staring at each other. “You do lead the most interesting life, Nate.” Gunnar said, glancing around in surprise.
“Tell me about it. Come on. We have a nightclub to visit, but I need to chat with Peter first. You can take Tory home to change, and pick me up after. We’ll figure out something to do with Misha on the way.” We walked towards the car, the headlights blinding as I realized it was suddenly night. How long had we been gone?
Chapter 32
I stumbled inside my shop, shouldering the door open wearily. Some of the lights were on. Peter must already be here. I headed back into one of the projection rooms, following both the light and the sound of epic music and dying screams. Ah, what a peaceful sound.
I nudged the door open to find Peter sitting before one of the screens, playing Gods of Chaos IV, leaning forward eagerly as if it would help against the dozen enemies he was battling. “Hey,” I said, falling down onto the couch beside him.
He started, but didn’t take his eyes off the game. “Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.” He gestured at the table to a full drink he had made. Another sat empty beside it. “Poured you one of your elixirs of life. Absinthe.”
“You will make a good wife someday, Peter.”
Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) Page 23