by Mark Teppo
I woke under a rounded roof, a cupola of iron girders rising to a capstone of riveted metal. Long shadows crept along the ribs of the roof. Tainted by the scent of dead fish and seawater, the air was damp and cold. Beneath me, a row of rivets pressed into my shoulder blade instead of the flat ridges of the container. My head was a block of wood, and based on the taste in mouth, I had been sucking on dirty wool.
I rolled onto my side and sat up. Metal bleachers from an old high school gymnasium lined up along one wall. On either side, oil drums burned with blue flame. Hollow Men, dressed in gray robes with deep hoods, were scattered across the seats. At the base of the bleachers stood two men-one in the same gray, the other in a black hoodless garment. I recognized him, though Doug was taller and thinner in person. They were standing at the edge of the ceremonial circle in which I lay.
At four equidistant points along the circle-the cardinal directions, probably-there were metal sculptures. Scrap iron fused by blowtorch into skeletal frameworks. Lion, bull, eagle, and angel. Each held a different object: rod, sword, cup, and disk. Tarot suits, held by evangelical symbols.
My first guess was that the circle was something out of Solomon's grimoires, but this was more medieval, more late-period European alchemy in its representation. The statues were the beings seen by Ezekiel in his vision. This was the-
"The Wheel speaks the law of the living and of the dead." Doug's companion spoke the words as liturgy. The phrase rolled around in my head, stirring dull roots. The Wheel of Fortune. The tenth card of the tarot's Major Arcana. The cycle of death and rebirth. The Chorus moved sluggishly, old snakes reluctant to rise from their hibernation.
"Rota taro orat tora ator." Doug said his part of the ritual. He was wearing the sort of shift that went over the head and tied around the waist with a length of old rope. Though Doug hadn't bothered with the rope.
Still unsteady with nausea, I managed to stand. A glob of thick spit was rolling on the back of my tongue and I worked it forward until I could spit it out. My input to the ceremonial rhetoric.
"Kings and princes are equal upon the circle of fate." The priest ignored my commentary. "And their fate is determined by the rotation of the Wheel." A mutter of agreement ran through the rank of Hollow Men. In the wan light of the blue flames, they looked like empty statues.
"You have been challenged by Douglas Rassmussen, Initiate Ascendant in the Order of the Hollow Men. While you have no rank within the Order, a temporary conveyance has been established to allow you to fight upon the Wheel. At the resolution of this combat, this conveyance will be terminated. You will have no recourse to membership or recognition by the Order. Is that clear?"
"Yeah," I said, finally getting my words under control. "I get it." I rolled my shoulders and shook out my arms. The turgid Chorus finally moved out of my belly and into the rest of my frame. I was weak from a lack of food-the water hadn't done much beyond whet my appetite-but I was functional. Functional enough for Doug, apparently.
It had been his voice in the container, when I had been given water. He needs to be coherent. If he wanted me dead, they would have killed me in the box. They wouldn't have bothered with all this pomp and nonsense. This was a sacrament that met some ritual need of Doug's. I couldn't sense Julian, and I doubted Bernard was one of those watching; this was an unsanctioned event. Those two wouldn't have bothered with showing me how the mirror worked if this was where I was going to end up.
Doug had deviated from the plan. He wanted something of his own. A little piece of me. "In the old days," I said as adrenaline finally started to charge my blood, "they would just rope off a section of floor and let us beat each other bloody. No one gave a shit about recognition or rank."
"We've grown more civilized," the orator said.
"I suppose he's planning on reading my guts if he can?"
Doug nodded.
"So much for civilized," I said. I raised a hand and waved Doug over. "Come on, chump. Quit letting your master bore us with his liturgy. Come and take what you think you deserve."
The orator looked over his shoulder at the assembled host. "Witnesses?" he asked. They all raised their right hands. He nodded at them. "I'm done talking then," he said, sweeping a hand toward the ring and me. "Shut him up," he said, breaking from his stoic character. Raising his hood to cover his face, he stepped back from the circle.
A puff of light followed Doug as he crossed the border of the circle, a mystic ripple that preceded a clatter of metal. Long triangular pieces of steel rose up from the trough at the edge of the circle. Speaking in one sepulchral voice, the Hollow Men incanted an old propulsion spell. They stamped their feet three times to focus, actualize, and initiate the magick. Machinery beneath the floor groaned, and the triangles began to move along a recessed track.
They spun about the circumference of the circle, their rotational rate increasing in time to the beat of the Hollow Men's feet. The blades became a blur, and the Hollow Men stopped. The barrier at the edge of the circle kept moving.
So many blades. I had drawn a lot of them in my reading. The Wheel was where they all came to pass.
Doug stripped off his black robe as he prowled along the edge of the circle. Underneath, he wore a dark track suit. He bunched up the collar of the robe and held the garment in one hand.
Chorus-sight revealed a sphere of violet light around his head. Tiny contrails drifting in his wake like long strands of mist. It wasn't a complex spell, hand-to-hand combat was the worst time to attempt an intricate incantation. While one fighter was busy shaping energies, his opponent would just brain him with a rock. Combat magic was sharp and quick. Not like the fire spell Julian had had floating over his head-that sort of magick took time to nurture and position. The tiny streamers coming off Doug's head were something else. .
Doug raised his hand to his mouth, whispering to the robe, and some of the violet light from his halo slipped into the robe. He let go of the garment and it spread out like a manta ray. Its edges rippled and pulsed as it soared across the ring.
It was just a cotton robe-it couldn't harm me-but it could distract me. If it managed to wrap itself around my arm or leg, I would be encumbered.
I side-stepped its first lunge. As it fluttered past, I charged the desiccated atmosphere in my mouth and spat a drop of fire. The hot spark struck the robe's fluttering wing, melting through the flight aspect of the spell. Fire beats air. Even in alchemy, there are Roshambo rules.
As the robe fluttered to the floor, I heard a screech of metal. Behind me. I had lost Doug. Misdirection, not a distraction. The robe had been a decoy. I glanced over my shoulder.
Doug had gone to the bull statue-the sword-wielding aspect on the Wheel of Fortune-and he had extricated the weapon from the statue's hands. Of course, the statues weren't just for show. They would have a deadly practicality. As Doug raised the sword and charged, the Weave twitched and I Saw the pattern. The Prince of Swords. Realized Mind, obsessively focused on a single goal.
Me. Antoine. Doug. We were all the same.
XX
The sword was a heavy two-handed blade, probably not all that sharp, but even a smack with its dull edge was worth avoiding. I back-pedaled and tripped over the flopping robe, which immediately wrapped itself around my left leg. Doug's first swing went over my head, whirring like the wing of a predatory bird.
Doug had no formal blade training, obvious in the way he let the weight of the sword over-extend him. He recovered clumsily, and opted for an easier downward stroke as a follow-up attack. Dragging the cloying robe with me, I rolled away from his swing.
Sparks danced on the riveted floor as the sword stuck. The force of the impact stung Doug's hands, and he struggled with his grip. While he tried to control the blade, I kicked at his knee with my robe-wrapped leg. I missed, but got close enough to confuse the robe.
The spell laid on the cloth was simple and didn't include a decision tree for target resolution. Confronted with choices, the magicked cloth partially unwrapped
itself from my leg so as to greedily snare Doug's knee as well. Doug staggered back from the overly friendly robe, dragging the sword across the floor. I flushed the Chorus into my leg, momentarily deadening the liveliness of my flesh. The robe fell off my leg, sensing only Doug's retreating body as an active target. It rippled across the floor and he swung at it.
I scrambled like a monkey for the nearest statue-the rampant lion, pentacle-shaped shield in its paws. As Doug, having slain his creation, came after me, I pulled the shield free and got it up in time to block his clumsy swing. My left arm, braced along the underside of the shield, went numb. He hit the shield again, and my clumsy stance collapsed.
We were close to the edge of the circle, close to the whirling barrier of steel blades. As he swung the sword like a lunatic golfer, forcing me to lower the shield so its bottom edge touched the floor, I realized he didn't need to actually hit me with the sword. He was keeping me off-balance, forcing me to retreat from his wild swings. Forcing me back into the spinning blades. I could hear their hungry whisper behind me, the keening relentlessness of their sharp edges.
Doug knew this arena. The motif was familiar and he knew how to play to its strengths. I was playing catch-up in a game running in sudden-death overtime. I had to wrap my head around a viable strategy. Now. Another step back and I'd be diced.
Doug danced away, giving himself a little space. The wind-up for the big swing. I could move left and right, but I was running along the edge of the ring. How long could I dodge his attacks? To get some real distance, I'd have to run, dropping all pretense of defense. He would have one clear shot. Sharp blade or not, one would be enough.
He spun, bringing the sword around at his waist. Head height for me. I raised the shield and braced myself for the impact. Doug hit hard, and I held my ground by shifting the blow off to one side of the shield. The rim of the shield crossed the plane of the circle though, and with a chattering bite, the triangular blades sheared off an arm of the pentacle.
Too close. The blades tore the shield from my grip, and it clattered against the floor. Out of easy reach. I stayed low, trying to duck-walk toward it.
Doug minced about in a gangly two-step with the sword, trying to keep me off-balance with his unpredictable movements. I couldn't avoid his next strike. His blade or the blades behind me: he liked those odds. Either was fine. Though he'd prefer that I stood there and took his blade.
The Chorus tightened at the base of my neck, squeezing my spine. Two choices. Which one? They rose like a pressure wave, carrying with them a chaotic burst of insight.
Blind Fortune turns the Wheel. Tied to its rim, the vegetable kings are pulled down by its persistent cycle. The cycle of the seasons. Kings are buried by the children; the children become kings. The Wheel, always turning. The alchemical and Hermetic symbol of transformation. Death. Burial. Rebirth.
Thoth guides the newly born. Thoth, who became Hermes in Hellenic Egypt. Hermes Thrice-blessed. Hermes Trismegistus. The only vice of the soul is ignorance. Reason guides the soul; the Enlightened Mind breaks free. The body is buried, and we are reborn by digging out of this grave of flesh. Reason allows us to make choices. Not the random circumstances of fate, but informed choices.
Sword raised, Doug trotted forward to deliver the killing blow. He hesitated at the peak of his back swing, the expression on my face giving him pause.
I was smiling.
This is not a death of my choosing.
"What are you laughing at?" The tip of the sword, raised over his head, trembled slightly.
"Something said to me recently," I said. "Ex lux et vita."
The Chorus erupted in a flash of visible light. Doug recoiled from the starburst, and the sword wobbled in his hands. I kicked his kneecap, connecting this time, and he went down, the joint of his leg bending at an obtuse angle.
He bellowed like a gored wildebeest, hands going to his shattered kneecap. The etheric strands streaming from his head thickened like fire hoses filling with water.
Energy. Channeled energy.
Doug was connected to lines of force, and these conduits were feeding him power. At the other end of the strands were his buddies, the sorcerers sitting in the bleachers. Doug was getting help from the sidelines.
He snapped his leg forward, and a spurt of violet energy around his kneecap popped the joint back into place. The magick nimbus brightened about his head as he near-levitated to his feet. Blood-stained tears-quivering tracks of pink luminescence-spread from the corners of his eye sockets. He interlaced his fingertips, and a storm brewed in the hollow of his hands.
Lightning. I needed a ground, something elemental to hide behind. I scrambled for the damaged shield. The pentacle was the suit of earth, and even with one arm missing, it was my best protection.
A tempest blossomed like a midnight flower between his palms, and with a ragged noise, the storm spat a jagged cable of lightning. The discharge struck the center of the shield, the pentacle attracting the lightning. The shield grew hot against my arm, but most of the energy was dispersed by the earthly ground of the symbol. A shower of crackling sparks, the bitter smell of scorched ozone in their wake, cascaded from the shield.
Doug coalesced energy for another bolt, the force lines pulsating around his head. I had to break his concentration. The weather flower was a volatile construct, difficult to control. I charged, the hot shield raised, and I plowed into him with all the grace of an out-of-control semi truck. The tempest popped, a pressure wave pounding my ears.
We went down in a confusion of limbs. Beneath me, Doug reached around the edge of the shield. A web of electricity danced between his fingers, weather still storming in his hand. He strained to touch my face.
I tucked in my chin and shoved his hand away with the shield. His arm hit the Wheel, sparks erupting from his fingertips. I smacked his unprotected face with the hot shield, eliciting a cry of surprise. I got both forearms behind the shield, ignoring the searing burn of heated metal-it was hotter on the front-and firmly pressed the star-inscribed disk against Doug's face.
He bucked me off, a violent rodeo-worthy undulation. The shield stayed, stuck to his flesh. With a scream that was more outrage than pain, he pulled the pentacle off his burned flesh. The star's outline was livid on his skin; his left eyelid was melted into the socket, a fused tab of burned meat hiding the ruin of his eye.
"That looks like it hurts." I fed him a smug grin as well.
He had too much accessible energy. I couldn't beat him by magick alone. I had to keep hurting him, keep goading him so he reacted without thinking. A course chosen by my Will, not his. Antagonizing him would keep it physical, down in the brutal animal arena. Down where I knew a few tricks.
Doug threw the shield away and scrambled for his sword. I needed a weapon, so I ran across the arena to the eagle statue. It held a long staff-the symbol of fire. In response to the heated touch of the Chorus, the bird blessed me with the metal stick.
Unlike Doug, I had experience with weapons. As he tried to hit me with the sword, I parried his clumsy attacks and responded with sharp taps: one to the thigh, one to the kidney, one to the back of the head. After the third shot, his enthusiasm for straight weapons combat flagged. As I banged aside his half-hearted swing with the long wand, he let go of the sword. He caught the end of the wand as I tried to jab him in the stomach with it.
Halo glowing, he shattered the staff with an exhalation of power. I had already let go of the wand so instead of losing a hand, I was just peppered with shrapnel. Blood stippled my stomach, and I could feel the acidic bite of metal under my skin.
I tried to steady myself, and my foot slipped off the base of the eagle statue. Doug, seizing the opportunity, came in close and pounded me in the stomach with an energized fist. Something moved unnaturally in my gut and I choked on a wet cough. "How about that?" he snarled. "Does that hurt?" His burned flesh was vivid, and his remaining eye was filled with burst blood vessels. The lines streaming across his cheek were more blood than
tears.
I spat in that bloodshot eye, the Chorus igniting the spittle as it left my mouth. His eye collapsed in a gush of hot steam, and he retreated. His pain confused him, and unable to see, he tripped over his own feet.
Grimacing against the molten pain in my stomach, I staggered along the rim of the Arena to the bull statue. Vis, I told the Chorus. Give me strength. They lit my hands as I reached up and tore off the two-foot-long curved horns of the statue.
By the time I returned to him, Doug had incanted an udjat eye-a floating sigil on his forehead giving him rudimentary sight. He turned his head like a mole questing for a scent, and when he turned in my direction, I caught him under the chin with one of the horns. The uppercut knocked him back down and, as he tried to get up, I kicked him in the ribs. He rolled away from the blow, sprawling onto his back.
"Compunge." The Chorus flowed into the curved horn, and I stabbed him high on the left hip with the magicked tip. The horn, sharpened and shaped by the Chorus, slid through bone and flesh until it struck the metal plate beneath his body. I leaned against it, and the horn slid into the floor until it was firmly planted in the plate. He curled forward around the metal spike. A bug protecting its belly.
I clobbered him on the forehead with the other horn, knocking him flat. Before he could curl up again, I put the second spike through his right shoulder. As the metal horn ground through cartilage and bone into the floor, he howled like a tortured animal.
"Do you yield?" I shouted at him, making sure the Hollow Men could hear my question over his agonized cries.
Energy sparked off his head and the udjat eye spun madly in the center of his forehead. He moaned around the spikes. All the magickal opiates in the world weren't going to blot out the pain.
I repeated the question, and he found the wherewithal to form a response. "Never!"
The Prince of Swords. Unable to see anything but his singular goal. Unable to realize his forward motion had been arrested. Incapable of knowing when to stop.