I first noticed I was different when I wrote my name in the dirt for the first time perfectly—perfectly backwards. My brothers and sisters had a good laugh over it, so I thought it was nothing. I think the first time my mom took notice of me was when she realized that I had a problem. No, not with my writing—a serf had little use for reading and writing. Her concern was that when I tried to pee in the outhouse: I almost always missed. She told me to sit down like a girl if I couldn’t hit it like a man. My brothers developed all manner of names for me, like misser pisser, and others I won’t even repeat.
There were many examples of my problem.
In Veridi, the preindustrial town where we lived among the mountains, time was precious to kids who spent all day making mows, or weeding, or threshing, or churning or some such tedious task. The eighth day of every week, Amaethday, was sacred and lucky, and we were allowed to rest and be reverent, but more often we used this time for play—which my father said pleased the Goddess more than our piteous whines when we were forced to pray.
So on Amaethday, when the days were long and warm, my siblings loved to played kickball using the pig’s bladder Father had given us. My brothers and sisters divided themselves six to six, and it didn’t matter what team I was on, if I made a run or not, or even got out; they wouldn’t count it either way. How could I go wrong? Once, when I was in the outfield—the way outfield—the ball finally came to me. I was charging in when my foot kicked it before my hands could reach it. Under other circumstances, it would have been my greatest kick ever, except this time the ball slipped through the cracks of the fence and into the bull’s pen. The bull turned around and stepped on it, and right then I felt my family’s appreciation of their little brother deflate with the ball.
The luck of Amaethday rarely spread its grace on me. When the children of Veridi had time off, they had more time to make my life a hell. We were poor kids from poor families, subjugated through poverty to toil daily in the fields for little shelter and less food. I suppose seeing someone less fortunate than themselves—me—made the other kids feel better. I was too young to know that where the mountains turned to soft plains, people had it worse than I did. Unlike the other children, though, learning it didn’t make me feel better about myself.
My fortune turned around when I was seven, and my siblings taught me how to play Rogue. For the first time, I was a star. I’d spent plenty of time as the star loser, the star screw up, but this was real stardom—the kind you get when you finally do something right.
To understand, you have to know a thing or two about Rogue. Whoever thought of it must have been as backwards as me. You didn’t win at Rogue by being the best, the highest, the fastest; you won by being the worst and lowest. I was unstoppable. Sure, I spilled my cup of water at every meal, and I lost at least some part of that meal across the table when I was trying to cut it, but suddenly I had a use. My eldest brother, Felix, was the first to recognize it:
“Rob, if it didn’t dishonor our mother, I’d think you a bastard, born of some ne’er-do-well son-a-Satan, but when you roll those dice, it’s like the Goddess is sitting on your shoulder. How d’ya do it?”
Felix was perceptive maybe, but not smart. He didn’t understand that if I’d been playing poker, checkers, or goose, I’d have lost. Hatching a get rich scheme, he dragged my sandal-shod feet through the snow of inner Veridi until we passed the coughs and groans of the town’s homeless and the smells of its sleeping tosspots. On a doorstep in a back alley, a man sat and wept; his fancy clothes were streaked and torn from the mud and stone of the street. Felix stepped up and knocked on the door behind the man. A tough with a neck bigger than my waist answered the door, but he ignored us and went about kicking Mr. Fancy-Clothes down the street. With the door left unguarded, Felix grabbed my sleeve and pulled me inside to witness a real round of Rogue.
The men smoking their tobacco leaf rolls laughed when my stunted, malnutritioned head appeared just above the table edge. My brother fronted me ten coppers, and a hour later the men weren’t laughing anymore. My brother and I were young and ignorant and played until we’d emptied every pocket and tread on every fragile pride. We had our first lesson in winning as the men slapped us around the room and held us upside down to make sure they took back every cent and our ten coppers, as well.
My brother cursed me, realizing I really was Satan’s bastard and told me so.
I was sore at being beat around, but I realized I was wiser than my brother—if there was anything that constant failure taught a person, it was wisdom. I had it in spades.
I started out small. I crafted four pair of dice out of river clay and fired them in my mother’s cook fire. They were hardly perfect, and I remade them more than once. I started with boys my own age, winning things that boys hold dear: smooth or pretty stones, sticks that looked like bows or swords, an apple, and once a real knife. I was so delighted by the dull iron treasure, even as the kid sat and cried over his loss, that I ran all the way home to show it off. For the first time in my dispirited life I witnessed one of my older siblings jealous over something I had. I felt like a god.
My inner longing had been kindled. I was like a performer who receives a standing ovation for the first time and is left with a hunger to hear the applause and see the smiling faces again and again. I was eight now and had formed my first addiction. The condition was hard to argue with: it was feeding me more than my family, it put better shoes on my feet, it made kids whisper when I went by, and even some of the toughs began regarding me with an air of respect. Forget that winning was feeding an infinite sized hole of egotistical need that had been lurking inside me; I didn’t even understand the concept at that age. All I knew was that I was living better than I ever had with only myself to thank for it—and a bit of consistent bad luck.
The song of morning rose quietly among the altae gathered on the stark eastern cliffs overlooking the sea. They awaited the first rays of sunlight, the moment of awakening and rejuvenating. Their lungs would fill with crisp air, and their bodies would drink the sunlight until their muscles felt strong and their thoughts were washed of fear.
Monifa stood naked for the ritual like all of her tribe, their emerald skin shivering slightly. She didn’t mind the cold; what was cold in the face of such intense beauty? The sky glowed red. The birds played melodies around the song of morning. The trees swayed in the sea breeze, their boughs laced with dew. A fog hung low and heavy over the warm ocean waves where the gray form of dolphins slid like playful shadows.
She would hold onto this moment and all before it until her mind hurt from the remembering. And all that came after…
“Monifa! Monifa!” Her mother’s voice brought her out of meditative bliss.
The trees had rustled and come alive, casting up visions of monsters and demons that sprang forward with nets, ropes and knives. The song of morning rent and broke into screams. The altae warriors were at their most vulnerable, weak from the dark night’s hunt.
Monifa felt the ropes bite into her green wrists as she watched the chief thrown from the edge. She was dragged away from childhood innocence to the pit that the humans called hell. They’d know this place better than her kind who had no such abominations as the hold of a slaver’s ship. The terrors of her journey would be blocked from her consciousness and only arise in dreams. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she could not forget her mother’s screaming voice fading in the distance, “Monifa! Monifa! My baby girl!”
Monifa—such irony.
In the manor house of Colonel Brewer, seemingly a world away from the land of her birth, she was trussed up like wild mushrooms in a sack, wearing an uncomfortable clothing they called a dress. As she served tea to two elegantly dressed gentlemen with powdered wigs and a scornful lady dressed in satin and shining like a peacock, she bitterly scoffed at her name. It meant lucky, but she had never seen the blessings her name spoke of. Was she lucky to have been one of a few who didn’t die of disease and starvation in the hull of that s
hip? Was she lucky that the only good time of her life was fading from memory so that her heart felt the sting of its absence less and less? If that was luck, then she spit on luck.
In her heart, she was still Monifa, though, and always would be—she clung to it like the remains of her soul—but just as her luck had changed, so had her name.
Her hand trembled. The skin of her fingers had long faded to a faint lime color making her feel like some translucent frog from a dark cave. Her nerves betrayed her at seemingly random times, though she understood it was her thoughts that were random and uncontrolled. Inside she was raging, and that fire reminded her of an autumn bonfire used for a harvest corn roast, but she had no sky in which to cast her flames. And so the fire roiled inside her and set her limbs to shaking like the lid of a cook pot.
She felt the woman’s eyes on her, a hungry predator looking for quarry. A drop of tea escaped the edge of the tea cup’s rim as Monifa set it down before her. Only a drop! The peacock lashed out, her fan scratching Monifa’s hand as it was pulling away. Monifa bowed her head and took a hasty step backward.
“I declare, this serving girl should be whipped or sent to the fields, one or the other, the result would be the same. How do you endure such dross?”
“Sary is timid; patience.”
And there it was, that name. She hated it because it stuck to her like pine pitch, and not because they always called her that, but because it reminded her of the human word that she felt so akin to: sorry.
“Colonel Brewer, surely you have the means to hire a proper servant.”
Monifa was sure the woman meant a servant who was not an altae like her, since popular opinion said they were only good for the fields where their skin fed on sunlight giving them strength and endurance, making their labors cheap.
“Honestly, you give them clothes and everything like they’re one of us. It seems so…unnatural.”
The Colonel shrugged. “Altae wear clothes in their native habitat, though their clothes are scant at best; it is our kind that strip them unnaturally. Would you really prefer a naked serving girl, Mrs. Odell, to one respectably dressed?”
Mrs. Odell’s face reddened “That is not what I’m saying. I am sorry to bring up difficult matters, Colonel, but I think that since your wife died, the affairs of your house have perhaps slipped. I think it is only right that I should help you set them straight; your wife was one of my dearest friends.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I can manage.” The Colonel waved Monifa away, and she was relieved to comply and grateful that the Colonel hadn’t taken the woman up on her offer.
Monifa endured this visit and many others like it. She was never quite sure why her master continued to keep her in the house, despite her many spills, splatters, chips, and shatters.
For her part, she tried. The issue became a personal challenge to her. It wasn’t that she cared if she dumped a pot of boiled tea water on ladies like Mrs. Odell, even if it cost her a flogging, but she wanted to know that she could do something well. She tried in earnest, but her mind seemed full of sand that scattered with the slightest wind. Other times, she thought the ash of her internal fire must mix with the sand of her mind and harden like a bricklayer’s cement. The wall would go up, she froze or thought nothing, and whatever she was doing ended in failure.
In those moments she was convinced her luck—if she’d ever had any—had abandoned her.
She was Sary now.
Being a winning loser had taken me far and wide. Every town learned of my Rogue abilities, but not before I’d scoured several pockets and made a host of enemies. More than once I’d barely escaped being burned as a sorcerer. I gathered money, but I longed for friends and a place to settle and set my sights on grander winnings.
I hired a tutor and a tailor and after five years was able to fake my way among the aristocracy. My new status completely changed the rules of the game. Instead of wise townspeople trying to cook me in tar, or leaving me tied to a submerged ducking stool, I was invited into homes as an honored guest to perform my parlor trick. What I didn’t expect was that these well-educated foolish people were more vulnerable because they were the product of an age of reason, and the seemingly magical influence of luck stood reason on its head.
Through experience, I had learned to trust in luck—at least bad luck.
For this reason, I expected an easy victory when I entered Colonel Brewer’s manor house, but before I could shake the man’s hand, I tripped on the doorstep and fell flat on my face. The Colonel had fine leather shoes buffed and oiled so perfectly I could see my pitiful reflection on their surface—but I was comforted to see my luck was as bad as ever.
“It is not necessary to prostrate yourself before me,” chuckled the gentleman and offered me a hand up. “I’m only a Colonel.”
I took his hand, strong and firm, and let him haul me to my feet. “Thank you, Sir. Rob Lyar. Pleased to meet you.”
“And I you. Your name is on everyone’s tongue these days. I understand that you have come into the Billings Estate solely from playing Rogue. I find that both troubling and extraordinary. I’ve never doubted that the Billings were anything other than a bunch of lackwits who would someday squander their father’s good fortune, but I didn’t expect it quite so suddenly.”
I nodded. “I was also surprised, and offered them every chance to walk away from the table—I had already won enough for a simple man like myself to retire. Pride is often the sin that loses the sinner everything.”
“Why didn’t you walk away? If you’d won enough to retire, why did you want more?”
I took this opportunity to hang my hat and coat, letting the question hang, as well. It didn’t speak well of me, I knew, to say that I wanted the arrogant asses to be faced with their own failings in hopes of wiping some of the snobbery from their long noses, the way I faced it every time I tried to do the simplest things. My hat fell to the floor, then my coat slipped and followed. Business as usual. I accepted my failings and so could the Billings.
I picked them up again, feeling the Colonel’s eyes boring into me. It was the same look everyone gave me when they realized that something was off about me and tried to puzzle it out. This time I took careful steps to make sure the coat was hooked in a way that even bad luck couldn’t undo it unless it was going to twist the laws of physics. I was about to hang my hat when the rack fell off the wall.
“Wait,” said the Colonel, as I bent down to pick it up. “I’ll have someone get that for you—I wouldn’t want my house to fall over.” He said it in jest, but from my experience, he had a point.
He took a bell from his pocket and rang it. A serving girl bustled in looking nervous—no, not a girl, an altae left too long out of the sun. I followed her frown to the fine line of her jaw and down the delicate nape of her neck. I was intrigued by the long curve of altae ears; I imagined she could hear my thoughts with ears like that. She must have stirred something deep and primal in me because I was suddenly enraged. I felt that I was looking upon a bird caged for its beautiful song, but without freedom loses the heart to sing. I bit my tongue; I was a guest, and I kept my manners.
“Sary, see to this man’s coat and hat, and have the rack rehung. Come along, Mr. Lyar. After what I have seen so far, I have even greater doubts as to your extraordinary luck.”
I was still a little stunned by Sary, and I hesitated, watching her deal with the rack. She looked it over and hung it back on the wall, the holes in the wood catching the nails perfectly. She looked at it oddly, and I realized she was anticipating failure—I knew the look from my own face—but nothing happened. I moved off to follow the Colonel, but glanced over my shoulder before I left the room and saw her standing with her head cocked to one side, puzzling over my hat and coat hung neatly on the hooks.
“So, Mr. Lyar—”
“Rob.”
“Rob, then. I understand that you only play Rogue.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll be honest,
it’s not—what is a tactful way of putting it?—often played among the gentry.”
“I am aware it’s considered a low-born sport, and yet the gentry seem all too eager to show one of my common stature how it’s played.”
The Colonel filled two lowball glasses with a pale whiskey and set them at a cleared chess table. “All games are based on some chance and some strategy; therefore it seems unlikely that you could always win this game—especially this game, which is based on the roll of dice. If it were chess, I could believe that you were a master strategist and therefore possessed some superior intellect that gave you advantage, but Rogue? I believe you have a trick, and I want to see for myself what it is.”
“Well, then, let’s set the terms and be on with it. Though you may be surprised to find no tricks.”
“Please—it’s Rogue. I could flip the coin in my pocket and settle the question as easily.”
I shrugged. “I think you should put your coin on the table, and may the best loser win.”
The Colonel chuckled. “Well put, but I have higher stakes in mind.”
“Don’t forget my lesson in pride.”
“This is purely a business venture.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I want a chance to win the Billings Estate.”
I snorted derision. “One estate is enough for me.”
“You are confident.”
“I’m experienced.”
“Fair enough,” said the Colonel. “I must have something you would gamble it for, though.”
I pulled out a bag of coins and set them on the table. “I don’t need to make more enemies, Colonel. Let’s have a few rounds and see if you still have visions of grandeur.” The Colonel seemed disappointed. “Give me a chance to think on your offer,” I added.
The Colonel grudgingly obliged, placing his coin on the table.
Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate Page 20