“You’ve just arrived back, sir?”
“Yes.” Master Ignaas turned, finally giving Tammo his full regard. “What’s your hurry?”
“Sir, there’s been an explosion up in the hills! Some of us saw a cloud of smoke.”
Master Ignaas leaned closer, concerned. “In which direction?”
Tammo told him. “Isn’t that where you’re holding Bayan Lualhati?”
He must have sounded too gleeful. Master Ignaas’ face closed down, and he spun away from the cracked wood at his feet. “I shall see to things, Tammo. You’re to remain here.”
“Here, sir?” Tammo looked around. “In your office?”
“Yes. Watch over it until my return. I need someone I can trust, since my door has failed me.” Without another word, the master left, stepping over the powdered wood and leaving Tammo alone in the vast, finely decorated room.
Tammo made an angry pout. The man had no idea how valuable an asset Tammo was. He shouldn’t be treating him this way. There was nothing for it now. He’d have to prove his loyalty once more if he expected a reward of any kind. Sometimes, Master Ignaas seemed so scatterbrained. He wondered if the instructor weren’t losing his touch, like that old chanter who had gotten the boot soon after Tammo arrived on campus. Any leader worth his seerwine would recognize the value in a loyal, intelligent follower.
He sat in Master Ignaas’s desk chair for a short while, then spied a bowl of nuts. He picked up a fat walnut. After all, in case Master Ignaas forgot to reward him this time, he should ensure that he got a little something. Tammo struggled to crack the unfamiliar nut between his hands, then smacked its shell against the edge of the desk. Instead of finding large quantities of rich, fatty nutmeat, all Tammo found was a small metal sphere. He looked at it, cradled in the bottom half of the cleaned-out shell. “What in Bhattara’s name…?”
~~~
Sivutma stared at the round ball of metal in Tammo’s hand and froze in the hallway, just shy of the powdered door fragments. He stared at it, too, seemingly unaware of her presence. Instructor de Rood had just given a lesson last week on the evils of steel. He’d explained the differences between iron and steel, which had recently come to light thanks to the investigative efforts of the Minister of Information himself.
The little gleaming ball in Tammo’s hand had to be steel. Sivutma couldn’t decide what scared her more—the steel itself, or Tammo’s odd smile as he stared at the thing. She backed down the hall, slipped out of the Hall of Seals, and ran down the steps. Once she’d fled past Sint Esme’s Second Tree, she slowed to a brisk walk. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, nor whom she would tell about what she’d just witnessed.
Then it came to her. She bolted through the tunnel straight ahead, her feet thudding ominously on the wooden planking of the raised walkway. Blasting past clusters of newniks from the second wave, she jinked around the form training buildings and puffed into the cultural awareness classroom.
Liaison Kipri looked up at her sudden entry. “Sivutma? What’s wrong?”
She slapped her palms onto his desk. “I just saw steel.”
“You what?”
“Steel! In Tammo’s hand. In the headmaster’s office. He cracked open a nutshell, and a little ball of steel fell out!”
Kipri looked blank for a moment. “But… isn’t steel—”
“Yes!”
Again, the pompadoured eunuch hesitated, seemingly slow to comprehend.
“You’re my filthing liaison, aren’t you? So filthing liaise!”
Kipri stood and tugged his tunic straight. “Right, then. Come with me.”
Hexing Savants
“Perhaps I can shed some light on your question, Kiwani.”
Bayan, Kiwani, and Eward spun toward the tunnel entrance. Witten Oost strode toward them, wearing a casual smile and keeping his hands in what would have seemed a harmless clasp mere hours ago. Now, Bayan knew better.
“There is much you don’t understand about my motivations, my goals. I can see why an intelligent person with only partial facts could come to the erroneous conclusions you have. I do not hold this miscalculation against you. On the contrary, I value your contributions to the empire—those you have already made, and those I naturally assume you will continue to make as you enjoy a long and productive career as loyal duelists.”
Bayan’s feet itched to run over and stomp the man into the floor. “What could you possibly say to us that will excuse your attack on Kiwani, or your lying to the entire duelist community about your Master Duelist status?”
“The rest of the truth, of course.” Master witten Oost paused halfway across the domed room’s smooth floor. “Shall we begin with the fact that I’ve saved Kiwani’s life, not once but twice?”
“Liar!” Kiwani called.
“I’m afraid it’s quite true. Do you recall the assassin who tried to slay you last year? I believe Bayan left him dangling over a precipice, enmeshed in a massive icicle. I made sure he didn’t get a second chance to carry out his mission.”
Bayan’s jaw dropped. “You killed him? You stuffed his remains into Bituin’s pitchers and nearly gagged my seerwine plant?”
“I most certainly did. Kiwani is a valuable asset to the Academy. Such a powerful duelist is to be protected at all costs. All costs, no matter her blood status.”
“And… the second time?” Kiwani asked. Bayan heard the tremble in her voice.
“Why, just this season, when you unwittingly stumbled across part of my operation. Or rather, across someone else who was in the act of stumbling across part of my operation. Certain aspects of my methods are not to be revealed to anyone, whether they are duelists, villagers, or the emperor himself.”
Bayan felt his hands clench into fists of rage. “What are you saying? That you’d have killed Kiwani to keep your secret safe? But since we rescued her, you made her forget somehow instead? I don’t think saving her from your own murderous tendencies counts as a point in your column, Ignaas.”
“Who did she see?” Eward asked, his voice small and still. “Have you kept another prisoner down here under the mountain all this time? Or… did you… ”
“I do not make a habit of killing, thank you, Eward. Due to her particular sensitivities, I could not set her free with a potion of amnesia, as I planned for Kiwani. Even in this extreme case, I would rather let a duelist live a life shrouded in sleep than take away that life entirely.”
“Aleida. You have Aleida.” She’d once commented on her allergy to potions. Bayan rocked with the shock that permeated his voice, his entire being. “You’ve held her here the whole time! You lied to her den master about her reassignment!” As he shouted at the false master, the true horror of Aleida’s fate sunk deeper and deeper into Bayan’s soul. Not living out her life serving as a duelist in a nameless duel den. Not even a recipient of the mercy of death. No, Aleida—kind, smiling, generous Aleida—lay somewhere nearby, breathing endless sleep at the hand of the monster who stood before Bayan.
What if he’d done that to Kiwani? Before he could think twice, Bayan dragged red mist around him and flung the Firecast of Firewhirl toward Ignaas. The startled headmaster managed to fling it aside with a quick whirlwind of air.
“Bayan! What are you doing?” Kiwani’s voice seemed far away, muted by the rage screaming in Bayan’s ears.
“You bastard! You traitor! You’ve turned this campus into your own personal toy room! Your network is full of puppets! You attack us, maim us, bring us to the brink of death to protect your secrets, but you won’t kill us? There are things worse than death, Ignaas witten Oost. You’re one of them!”
“You wish to know of that which is worse than death, Bayan?” Ignaas’s avatars appeared in a circle around him—a walking candle, an animated corn plant, a blue crystal spider, water in an invisible goblet, a cloud of sheet lightning, and a howling disc of air. “Let me instruct you! Being misunderstood is worse than death. Being maligned for your bizarre gifts is worse than death. Having
the empire say to you, ‘you are my slave,’ that is most certainly worse than death!”
Bayan’s anger jerked to a sudden stop. The blackness of his magic cloud dissipated as he heard the thoughts he’d wrestled with earlier in his duelist career spoken by the powerful man before him.
“And I have the answer to all the duelists’ problems. Even better, I can rescue the Singers from their lonely prison in the Spineforest. A coalition of magic, if you will, to take back our fate from the hands of common villagers.” Witten Oost’s avatars stirred like eager combatants.
“‘Common villagers’ like His Imperial Majesty Jaap voorde Helderaard?” Kiwani blurted, scornful.
“Yes. Exactly so!”
“But he’s the emperor.”
“He is a villager! A man with no magic, neither elemental nor song. He cannot possibly grasp the true value of our contribution to the empire. Therefore, he is not worthy to control our fates. The Duelism Office in the Kheerzaal has already been infiltrated by Singers, who have encouraged the government’s employees to assign newly topped-out duelists wherever we deem fit.”
“‘We’—you and the First Singer at the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. But what you really mean is, just you.”
“Liselot and I have entered into an equal partnership. The success of her Singers is critical to the success of the Duelists.”
“Of course it is.” Kiwani’s voice fairly dripped with sarcasm. “And all that talk in your classes regarding the subtle investigation of clients, all the soft techniques you taught us to use when dealing with delicate political alliances… none of that would be fair to use on her, would it?”
Witten Oost finally showed anger. “You cannot possibly understand the complex relationship between Liselot and myself!”
Kiwani lifted her chin. “No, I think I’ve got it pegged.”
Bayan had to grin at his hexmate’s courage. “What I haven’t figured out yet is how Treinfhir fits into all of this.”
Ignaas squinted one eye, giving Bayan a sharp look. “And who or what is that?”
Bayan’s eyebrows rose. “The Tuathi you stole from the Kheerzaal. Treinfhir is his name.”
“Ah. Master Duelists are not limited to elemental magic. They can cast anima magic as well. Even song magic. Thus, I needed to research my role. The Tuathi seemed to be the best source in the empire.”
“No doubt he is. You planning to invade the Horse Lords next, after booting the emperor to the sand?”
Ignaas gave a mocking laugh. “Hardly. The empire’s borders contain enough complexity to keep me busy for a lifetime. I’ve no need to bring in any more fractious societies. First, I need to complete my takeover.”
“I can’t let that happen.”
“You stand no chance against me, Bayan. Be reasonable. Take a dose of Sweet Amnesia, and you can live a long, happy life in the freedom my rule will provide for you. For all of you.”
“I’d rather die!”
Ignaas’ smile faded. “That is always an option. Choose now, Bayan. Submit willingly and live, or face my vastly superior magic, and take your chances with my mood when I subdue you.”
Bayan bit back his second denial and turned to his friends. He couldn’t choose for them, but in their eyes, he saw the same determination, revulsion, and anger that he felt.
He faced his enemy. Muckling splatted onto the smooth stone floor in a cloud of blue smoke. Beside him, Eward invoked the enormous crystalline Snap. Kiwani let Candlewick go—leaving the room lit only by witten Oost’s Flame avatar—and summoned Ghaw, who clawed his way through the floor, flower-pot head first.
Witten Oost tsked.
With no discernible motion on witten Oost’s part, his spinning, howling disc of air attacked. Ghaw, caught off guard, was flung across the room, where he slammed into the curve of the dome and collapsed face-first. Witten Oost’s walking candle, with its head of flame, lunged toward Muckling, blasting a spray of fire into his brown, watery body. The thundercloud zipped toward Snap and transformed its sheet lightning into powerful bolts that lit upon the crystalline avatar’s numerous clear spikes and leaped among them. Moments later, witten Oost’s other three avatars moved in too.
Bayan concentrated on his own defense, trusting his hexmates to do the same. He tried to wring every little trick and technique from his memory of the one hexmagic class he’d taken.
Muckling took a pounding from the false master’s candle and corn avatars before Bayan could get off a single spell in return. Bayan found himself wondering how witten Oost was able to split his concentration enough to fight three separate avatars at the same time by controlling six. He couldn’t see that the man was making any motions at all. Bayan looked at witten Oost’s hands. Each made small, quick gestures. One of his feet was pivoting and pointing as well—and his body shifted in strange, sinuous patterns. Witten Oost had stripped the six sacred motions down to the minimum for speed. And it was working.
Kiwani abandoned Ghaw and summoned her crown-of-lightning Coruscon in a burst of white. Eward had already switched to Crackle, whose hovering sparks lent the fight a friendlier glow than it deserved.
“Unfocus!” Bayan called over the hissing of steam, a series of electric explosions, and the echoing thumps of stone on stone.
“What?” Eward bellowed back.
“He’s faster than we are. Drop the invocations and match speed!”
It was easier said than done. Precious moments were lost as his hexmates took the time to perform the Revocation, then perform their spells again, sans Invocation. Though their spells came faster, they were also weaker. Bayan, his hexmates, and their avatars were forced back from the center of the room. No matter which clever spells they tried, or how they overlapped them for extra damage, they were still three on six, and they were fighting a vastly superior duelist.
“Are you ready for your potions yet, duelists?” witten Oost called. “I’m sure you’re working up quite a sweat over there. Surely a nice, cold drink would ease your exhaustion—and your minds. My offer still stands. I cannot guarantee such if we continue much longer.”
“We should try hexmagic,” Eward called.
“I agree!” Kiwani said.
Bayan wanted to agree as well, but he knew the chances of their success were slim, and anything they could produce would still be fighting six avatars. Six vicious, wickedly fast avatars. His heart sank.
Muckling vanished, ripped away from him. A steel ball bounced past his foot and skittered toward the back wall, which wasn’t far behind him. Outraged, Bayan glared past the avatars to witten Oost, who held a small slingshot in his hands.
“A useful gift, no?” witten Oost said with a smirk.
Bayan swirled red mist and dragged Firemark into the room. The stylized flame flashed into existence and threw itself at the two avatars bearing down on Bayan. Beside him, Coruscon vanished with the clang of another steel ball. Moments later, Crackle followed.
Crying out in denial, Kiwani thrust Candlewick at Ignaas’ Wind avatar. Eward vanished amid a dark blue fog and reappeared a moment later with Slurp.
Bayan backed away. Eyes wide, he let Firemark buy him time as he scrambled for the back edge of the vast room. He skittered along its edge behind Kiwani, then past Eward, staying out of range of the attacks targeting his hexmates’ avatars.
“Nowhere to hide, Bayan,” witten Oost taunted.
Bayan stalked forward and cocked his arm back. “Not hiding. Getting ammunition.”
He let the first steel ball fly. It ripped through witten Oost’s Flame avatar, shredding it into hot spirals that flung themselves out of existence. The next ball disintegrated his Wood avatar, leaving Firemark free to take on one of Kiwani’s opponents. The third ball destroyed the water in the invisible goblet, easing pressure on Eward.
Witten Oost let his other avatars vanish. Bayan saw him perform the Revocation, rendering all the steel balls in the room useless.
“You want to play tactics with me, Bayan? Let’s pla
y.”
Taban’s voice echoed from the tunnel doorway. “Oh, a game, is it? Room for one more, then?”
“Taban, run!” Kiwani cried. “Tell everyone that he’s—”
Kiwani never got to finish her sentence. Crystalline spider legs emerged beneath her and yanked her down into the floor.
“Kiwani!” Eward and Bayan cried. Taban bolted across the floor, looking less like he was planning magic and more like he was planning murder. Bayan let Firemark go and summoned Timbool, but kept him beneath the floor so he could search for Kiwani.
Eward let out a howl of rage and threw Slurp forward. Witten Oost split the Water avatar with his walking candle and retaliated with his blue crystal spider, which still lurked beneath the floor. The long-legged beast wrapped one of its slender legs around Eward’s and yanked him into the air upside down, where his free limbs flailed helplessly. Unsupported by magic, Slurp faded.
Bayan’s heart stuttered. Taban’s angry cursing tirade only registered in Bayan’s mind as a hexmate he didn’t need to save. Reluctantly, he let Timbool fade and brought Root up from the floor in a rush of green energy, hoping to secure the flailing Eward before he crashed down and killed himself.
He was only partially successful. Eward’s head thudded against the floor as the slender, fuzzy taproot secured his body in midair. Crying out with a combination of guilt, frustration, and fear, Bayan made Root slide the now-limp Eward to the edge of the room, then let him fade. He re-summoned Timbool and made him as large as he could. How deep did that infernal avatar drag her? Bhattara, please, don’t let her die! Hear my prayer, and help me find her!
Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) Page 29