Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists)

by Giacomo, Jasmine

  Tarin squatted down on his other side, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You belong with us, Bayan.”

  Kah landed on its lowest branch and bobbed his head as if in agreement. “Kah!”

  “Aye, and we belong out of sight before someone comes out and sees what he did,” Calder hooted, darting by with Kiwani and grabbing Tarin’s arm. Eward helped Bayan tug his hands out of the holes that had formed around his wrists, then Bayan slid his flag from the tree. They ran after the others, pelting up the wooden steps and into the covered walkway, trying to smother their laughter.

  “What do you think they’ll do when they see the tree?” Kiwani panted, once they had run all the way to the Chantery steps.

  “They’ll name it after him, o’ course,” Calder said, catching his breath. “’Bayan’s tree. Not for convenient urination. Attempt, and it will snap your twig off.’”

  Tarin squealed with laughter, while Eward and Kiwani held their sides and laughed silently so as not to lose the breath they’d just regained.

  Even Bayan laughed. “You see? This is why I love you people. You understand me.”

  Calder placed a consoling hand on Bayan’s shoulder. “Bayan, laddio. No one understands you. You’re far too weird. We’re just the ones who like you that way.”

  Bayan grinned at the sight of his friends’ smiling faces. Something old and tight eased in his chest. “Let’s go steal some pies from the kitchen and eat them up at Esme’s sint tree.”

  “Aye, that’s the way,” Calder agreed heartily.

  As they headed toward the kitchens, Bayan finally thought to ask, “Did you all leave the ceremony before it was over?”

  “Aye,” Calder said, jogging beside him. “The headmaster seemed too surprised to say whatever else he had planned, so we just thanked everyone for coming and walked out.”

  Bayan puffed a short laugh. “I’m corrupting you all.”

  “It’s not corruption,” Kiwani called over her shoulder. “I hear swamp mud is very healthy.”

  ~~~

  To Surveyor Philo Sallas,

  Warm greetings from Tuur Langlaren, Duelist Academy Headmaster.

  Your sponsored student, Bayan Lualhati, has passed his Elemental Duelist exams with excellent skill. I hold high hopes for his ability to master avatars as well, but as always, such things are in the care of the sints. In the meantime, let me inform you that I shall be contacting the Duelism Office for the next available Talent Tournament locations. Bayan’s remaining hexmates have passed their exams, so they’re all eligible to travel to a duel den and showcase their skills for potential clients. I will inform you of the location when I hear from Duelism, so that you may have the opportunity to attend and see your sponsored duelist in action.

  Philo stared at the letter. A fatuous grin spread across his face, and he leaned back in his chair and pattered his silk-slippered feet with delight. Thank you, Bayan! And thank sints. This is exactly what I need.

  “Good news, Philo?” Kipri asked from his small mapping table.

  “Yes, my boy. Yes, indeed.” He pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and reached for his quill. “Now, I need you to take a break and run this short note over to the Duelism Office.”

  Luck of the Sints

  Qivinga heard the cry from the wine cellar, but thought nothing of it until Uunaq ran upstairs, bloody to her elbows, and grabbed an armful of clean towels from a kitchen shelf. She dashed down the chilly stone stairs into the broad room below, with Qivinga striding at her heels.

  The wine racks had been moved into the next chamber, leaving the floor bare for combat practice. Hahliq crouched at Kuvi’s side and stripped towels from Uunaq’s hands as quickly as she could offer them.

  “What has happened?” Qivinga approached the men’s circle gathered around their fallen member.

  “Knife accident.” Hahliq kept his eyes on Kuvi’s leg, where he layered another towel. “At least he missed the artery.”

  Qivinga saw one of her Aklaa warriors hang his head in shame. She lifted her eyebrows in surprise; Caspar would have been her choice for a clumsy attacker. “Will he live?”

  “Aa, if I can stop this bleeding. I think it’s slowing, finally.”

  Qivinga frowned. “He won’t be able to go south with you now, will he?”

  Hahliq sighed. “Naa. Tuq’s will all along, then, that Caspar trained with us.”

  “He what?”

  Hahliq turned to her. “You didn’t think we’d bring a plump, pale aristocrat on this journey, merely to lift him over our heads and carry him so he didn’t get dirty, did you?”

  Qivinga blinked. The idea was both absurd and humiliating. “Naa, of course not.”

  “We are still twelve strong, with Caspar at our side. Our mission cannot fail.” A curious look, full of inside knowledge Qivinga did not possess, passed among the uninjured warriors, but she made no comment. The success of her mission was her only concern.

  Turning to Caspar, she asked, “So, Waarden. Have you the stomach, now, to raise your hand against your brother and his people? To strike a blow for our freedom, against your own?”

  Caspar looked uncomfortable. “It’s why I’ve come, isn’t it? To get back what is rightfully mine.”

  Qivinga’s lips twisted. She turned aside and strode toward the stairs. “Make sure Kuvi lives, Hahliq. He can remain here until we make our way out of Waarden lands during the uproar.”

  “Aa, Starflower.”

  “And, Hahliq.”

  He looked up at her.

  “Don’t let this happen again.”

  ~~~

  Bayan sauntered into his room with Calder, while Eward took a detour to the campus mail depot. “Is it me,” Bayan asked, sprawling on his new, third-floor bed, “or are these new Avatar classes seven times easier than the Elemental classes we just finished?” He sighed and admired the new tattoo that spread across the back of his left hand.

  Calder executed a spinning leap that centered him perfectly atop his thick new mattress. “I was going to say ten times easier. But then, I am better than you are.”

  Bayan threw his pillow at Calder, who ducked and laughed. “If that were really true,” Bayan said, “you’d have manifested an avatar by now.”

  “Or all six.”

  Eward opened the door and came in bearing two letters.

  “Any chance one of those is from Odjin?” Bayan asked.

  “Sorry, no,” Eward replied.

  “Wish we could tell him we all passed,” Calder said. “Maybe they’re not letting him write to us.”

  Bayan frowned. He had no idea what sort of retraining Odjin had endured to become a potioneer; maybe letter-writing to former hexmates was deemed too distracting.

  “One of these is for you, Bayan.” Eward handed him a thick cream envelope sealed with matching wax.

  “What’s this?” Calder sat up on his bed at the sight of Surveyor Philo’s trademark envelope. “No taffies?”

  Bayan sat and opened up the envelope. “I should just tell Philo to send the candy directly to you.”

  Calder agreed and flopped on Bayan’s bed. “What’s he say?”

  Bayan scanned the first few lines. “He’s congratulating me on earning Elemental rank. The Academy sent him a letter when I passed because he’s my sponsor. Wait, what is this?

  “‘I’ve been informed’,” Bayan read, “‘that your hex’s Talent Tournament is scheduled to occur in Muggenhem three days before Low Spring. You’ve got the luck of the sints in securing such a prestigious town to advertise yourselves. By happy chance, my assistant Kipri, whom you will recall from our journey north, will also be there at that time. I’ll send him some extra trifles for your consideration, in accordance with your last letter. Please look for him without delay at the Gyre’s Breath Inn on the main square. Bhattara na.’”

  “‘In accordance with your last letter’? The one about the half-digested assassin?”

  “That’s the one. It sounds like he learned something importa
nt, but he doesn’t want to write it down. I guess I’ll have to wait and hear it from Kipri.”

  Eward finished his own note from home, then dragged a chair over near Bayan’s bed and straddled it. “Did I hear you say something about our Talent Tournament?”

  “Aye. It seems Bayan’s sponsor is psychic. We haven’t heard the decided time or place, ourselves.”

  “Maybe it’s prearranged, and the headmaster mentioned it to Surveyor Philo as a courtesy,” Eward guessed.

  Bayan folded up the letter. “I guess we’ll find that out too.”

  ~~~

  “Focus!” Mikellen shouted over the roar of shuddering sand.

  Bayan tried, but he wasn’t sure what he was trying to focus on. He thought he was holding the Earth avatar invocation pose correctly, with his right wrist pressing against the inside of his left, at perfect right angles. But visualizing an avatar for the first time? He didn’t know where to begin.

  Avatars, his instructors had informed him, were physical manifestations of a single element, and they could take any form the duelist gave them. But once chosen, the form was permanent, an aspect of avatars that led duelists to give them names.

  They spoke to them, too, he recalled, thinking of Aleida’s Wind avatar.

  Thinking of talking to mountains put him in mind of the Striders, mythical rock men of northern Balanganam. As soon as the image formed in his mind, a pair of basalt hands thrust up from the rumbling sand in the middle of the Earth arena. The Strider clambered out, his long, slender hexagonal rock limbs protruding from a small spherical torso, and slowly got to his feet. His small, eyeless head was a mere lump atop minimal shoulders. The avatar stood motionless, a slice of cliffside looming eight strides high.

  The sand settled. The arena went quiet.

  Bayan stared up at his avatar. His very own Earth avatar. Even the dark force within him paused in awe for a moment, before surging in sheer joy.

  “Excellent, Bayan!” Mikellen gazed up at the avatar. “He’s a fine size as well, though he’s mostly legs.”

  “He looks like half a spider!” Calder hooted from the first row of seats. “Where’s his other legs, then? What sort of duelist can only manifest half an avatar? I’m ashamed to be seen with you, Bayan!”

  “Now that you have him, Bayan,” Mikellen said, “let me reiterate the rules for keeping him. When you use him in combat, the spell magic will keep him in existence, because you can only battle with an Earth avatar when you’ve invoked Earth. If you’re going to Idle him, you must keep your arms in that position and visualize the action you want him to perform. This can be difficult at first, but over time it will become second nature to you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Bayan said, trying not to move his arms at all.

  “Good.” Mikellen invoked Earth, then her own avatar, who thundered up from the sand in the form of a lumpy pillar of crackling, cooling lava that radiated heat onto Bayan’s skin even at a distance. “Now, direct your avatar to perform the same Idling motions that I send to Kallas.”

  Bayan struggled to keep his attention on his new avatar’s motions while not losing the perfect cross his arms formed. He managed to get the rock-spider-man to walk around the arena, step sideways, and pick up a scoop of sand with his hand. But when he tried to will Strider to run, he unconsciously moved his arms, changing the angle, and the avatar crumbled to a pile of rock chunks before vanishing.

  Bayan stared, aghast. Did I kill him?

  “Don’t worry, Bayan. You did very well today. And aye, you’ll be able to summon him again. It will be easier now that you’ve met. Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll let someone else try. Now that you’ve broken through the mental barrier and summoned an avatar, the rest of your hex should have an easier time of it, if they have the strength.”

  Bayan walked toward Kiwani and sat down, as Tarin strode to Mikellen. His mind was full of wondrous ideas and worries.

  “You did it, Bayan.” Kiwani smiled. “Well done! It looks like you’re finally better than I am at something.”

  “Like farming? Planting and harvesting rice? Knowing where and how to dig an irrigation channel? How to level a paddy? What to feed a seerwine pitcher? How to direct planting crews or negotiate with itinerant harvesters?”

  Kiwani’s brow furrowed. “I was only—”

  He grinned at her.

  She pouted and punched his shoulder. “You dirty sneak.”

  “That’s ‘muddy’ to you.”

  “For that, I’m going to manifest my Earth avatar tomorrow, just to spite you. And it’ll be a perfect, beautiful statue… of myself.”

  Bayan laughed. “Excellent! Then I can practice breaking it into pieces during class.” Kiwani’s disconcerted frown let Bayan know she hadn’t thought that far ahead, and he laughed again. “It would be a great way to advertise your services, though. Everyone would know which duelist you were within your duel den.”

  She lifted her chin. “Everyone will know who I am anyway, Bayan. I’m going to be the most famous duelist ever.” Her smile faltered. “Since I can’t really be anything else, anymore. I guess I just don’t know how to chase a dream half-heartedly.”

  “That’s not a bad thing.” He looked into her dark eyes. “At least you didn’t make a full-grown eucalyptus tree because you couldn’t keep focused.”

  She giggled. “I’ve been listening to the newniks gossiping on the lower level of the barracks about how it got there. Someone said Sint Esme decided to switch trees, but there wasn’t one where she wanted to be, so she made one appear. I’ve even heard them say they’re leaving offerings there, just in case.”

  Bayan winced. That hadn’t been his intention at all. No one had come to discuss the tree issue with him, for which he was grateful. But he was reminded yet again that, as a duelist, his strength and power were augmented, but so were the consequences of his magic, whether intended or not.

  ~~~

  That evening, Bayan and his hexmates sat at their usual table in the dining area, and wolfed down thick bread and an oily cold-stew dish while flicking olives at each other, when Headmaster Langlaren approached them with a note in his hand.

  “Hsst.” Kiwani sat up straight and adopted proper manners. The others copied her as best they could, so that by the time the headmaster arrived at the table, Tarin was politely asking for another slice of bread, and Calder was cutting it for her, holding the bread steady with the breadfork rather than crushing it with his hand as he usually did.

  “Good day, Headmaster,” Kiwani said. “Do you need us for something?”

  “No, no,” he replied, smiling. “I’ve brought you some good news. No, keep eating. Don’t let me stop you.”

  He unfolded the note. “Your Talent Tournament has been scheduled. Does anyone have a guess as to where it might be?”

  No one spoke. Bayan could tell Calder in particular was having a hard time not giving away the fact that they already knew where they were headed.

  Finally, Kiwani spoke. “We’re going to Muggenhem, Headmaster.”

  He frowned at her. “Yes… you are.” Glancing around at the rest of the table, he pursed his lips. “It’s not a common occurrence that I am the last to learn something. May I assume that Master witten Oost is in some way involved with your generous assignment?”

  Bayan looked at Kiwani, confused. She shrugged.

  “We don’t think so, Headmaster,” Eward said.

  “My sponsor, the eunuch Philo Sallas, arranged it somehow, Headmaster.” Bayan hoped he wasn’t getting Philo in trouble.

  “A Kheerzaal eunuch with this sort of influence?” Langlaren glanced at the note in his hand. “These assignments are handled by an office under the direct supervision of the emperor himself, so that an even distribution is maintained, both of existing den duelists and of Talent Tournaments. Perhaps Master witten Oost has a contender after all.”

  “Sir?” Bayan asked.

  “Apologies. Rambling in my old age, I expect. To the poi
nt, you have two more days of classes before you pack up and head out. Make the most of them; they’re the last training days you’ll receive before you must show how well you can earn your keep.” He nodded pleasantly and left the hex to their meal.

  But no one ate any more food. Bayan’s stomach squirmed around the oily stew. The idea that he needed to perform well in order to secure a good duel den for himself rankled. Worse, the idea that he might soon need to rely on the impressions he made in Muggenhem, because he topped out of the Academy, unable to manifest all six elemental avatars, was a depressing one. Early avatar manifestation was no guarantee of creating a complete set.

  “All feels a bit more real after that, aye?” Calder fiddled with his half-eaten bread slice.

  “Aye,” Tarin said soberly.

  “None of the other hexes have even tested up,” Kiwani said. “And here we are, heading out in two days for a free trip to the seaside getaway of the imperial nobility—”

  Bayan leaned forward. “It’s on the ocean?”

  “Yes, on the Gyre. It’s the only strip of coastline in Helderaard, and the closest place the nobility can go to play in the sand. It’s winter now—storm season—when most of the nobles stay in Helderaard, but a Talent Tournament will draw them in by the score, along with their entourages and servants. The town will be bursting. The mayor should write us a personal thank-you letter. Trust me.” She looked around the table. “A permanent assignment to the Muggenhem duel den is the softest, prettiest job in the entire empire. You only work half the year, and all your clients are well-off and generous.”

  “Sounds like heaven to me,” Calder said.

  “It sounds too good to be true,” Bayan said, worrying what Kipri would say to him once he arrived.

  The group finished their meal and headed back out to the Wind Arena. With only two more days to practice before they left campus, every minute not spent training seemed wasteful.