Aces and Eights

Part 11: Duel

When I finally stopped for a breather, I found myself in a wide hallway that continued on for a short distance before curving away out of sight. I stepped into an alcove there, across the hall from a window, and leaned against a multicolored tapestry. Looking beyond the window, I saw that the sky was a weird swirl of lemon and black. This seemed to confirm my suspicion that Merequist's home existed within multiple Shadows. The tower I had initially entered was probably only one of numerous entrances.

Below the exotic sky, lying like great gray tumors on the skin of the world, I could see several sprawling sections of the place I occupied. A blind dome (windowless, doorless) lay half buried upon a broken field of slate. Stretching out from the dome were four wandering structural wings. I could see one part of a monstrous wall that looked to encompass the entire place. Nothing moved.

Pulling my gaze away from the scene beyond the window, I rubbed my legs, trying to work out the soreness brought on by my recent paralytic condition. Unsure of how long I had before someone found me, I used the time to think through my alternatives.

A few minutes later, having alleviated much of the stiffness in my muscles, as well as my indecision, I reached for my set of Trumps. I had decided that it was time to call in reinforcements. Sorting rapidly through my cards, I selected Luke's, and concentrated.

The painting on the card showed a clean-shaven, red-haired man, smiling a friendly (yet somehow conspiratorial) smile. In the picture--a self portrait--he wore a green riding cloak, hood up, and fastened by the prized phoenix, no less. Snow-covered hills stretched out at his back.

The colors swirled, and suddenly his image--his presence--grew to fill the space before my mind's eye. "Nigel. Good to see you again." Dressed in a brown shirt with billowing sleeves, and a black vest, Luke stood before a large bronze bell. I did not recognize the scene. His gloved hands rested upon a stone railing, and I could see that he wore a slender, slightly curved blade at his hip. He had grown a beard since the last time I had seen him, too.

"Hello. How are things on the home front?"

"Our problems have been resolved. Several days ago, in fact. I'm no longer in Kashfa, though; I'm taking a short break in a fast Shadow." He looked to his left, waving and smiling at someone before turning to face me again. "How goes the chase? Having fun?"

I exhaled. Pleasantries over, it was time for my report. I wondered where to begin, which parts to skip, which to elaborate upon. Noticing my hesitation, he grinned. "If it's all that complicated, why not come through to me? We'll discuss it over lunch."

"I'd like to, but I'm still in the middle of it. In fact, the reason I called, was that I thought you might want to involve yourself personally in this."

"Oh?" He took on a more serious expression.

"It involves an old enemy of yours; a sorcerer named Merequist."

"What?!"

"Yes, he still lives. I trailed the thieves who took your pendant for some time. Eventually, I ended up following one of them through Shadow to an odd tower. As it turned out, the thieves had been acting on this guy Merequist's orders, trying to set a trap for you. Only, I got caught instead."

"I see. Go on." His expression was now deathly cold.

"While being watched over by a werewolf named Kyla--the same woman leading the shapeshifters who nearly did us both in on the night you first took me to Kashfa--I had the privilege of meeting Merequist. Later, I managed to escape. That was only moments ago. Now, I'm somewhere inside a large structure which I believe exists within several Shadows at once, and also may have been created expressly for the purpose of nailing you."

Luke appeared to consider for a time. Watching him, I wondered at what his course of action would be. It seemed likely that he would want to pull back to prepare some sort of long term strategy against this new/old enemy. His words then, when they came, surprised me.

"Bring me through." He extended his hand.

I reached forward, pulling him across the Shadows. In half a second, his image gained complete substantiality. He took in our surroundings, and asked, "Any idea where the bastard is right now?"

"No. I only saw him for a brief time. As I told you, Kyla was my keeper. Chances are, though, even if Merequist isn't currently somewhere in this Shadow, she is. And I'm fairly sure she has his Trump."

"Finding her should work for starters, then." He surveyed the corridor.

Gesturing, I said, "I was held back that way by some sort of magic wheel."

He turned and looked at me sharply. "Describe it."

"It was very potent . . . some sort of energy construct that manifests in the form of a large, pictographic circle. A wheel."

"Did it ever talk to you? Was it mobile?"

"No, it didn't seem sentient, and it did not move--it was inscribed upon the floor." I watched as his expression of concern faded to one of puzzlement. "I'm not familiar with a design like that, so it's probably something Merequist cooked up himself--a personalized power tool. It probably draws its strength from the Sign of Chaos. I doubt if Merequist, being an initiate of the Logrus, would fool around with anything less."

I shrugged. "Whatever it is, it seems to be a fairly important aspect of this place. We might be able to find Kyla, or another of Merequist's allies there. Hell, for all I know, he might show up himself to check out all the damage I did there."

He fixed his eyes on me. "What did you do?"

"Well, I left the room in shambles, but I'm really not sure how much I might have affected the long-term operation of the thing."

"It looks like we get to find out," he said quietly. "Going there sounds like the best way to get to Merequist. Are you up for it?"

"Yes. I am uninjured."

"Great." He raised one fist above his head, and I felt a slight tingle pass through me as he lowered it.

"What was that?"

"A cloak, of sorts. It will keep most anyone, or anything, from registering our approach on a psychic level. We can still be seen and heard, though, so we'll have to watch ourselves."

"This way, then." Together, we moved down the hall toward its elbow bend. Reaching it, I peered around the corner. "It looks clear," I said. Beyond lay several doors, and a stairway leading upwards.

Several minutes later, we were very near the entrance to the room in which I had been held hostage, at a point where a final twist in the passage would bring the archway into view. Oddly, though the air was still, I could hear the sounds of a strong wind blowing from ahead.

"That's strange," I said softly. "The wind tunnel sound effect is new; things were pretty quiet when I left this place."

"Let's go find out what's going on." He drew the curved blade that hung at his side. I, too, armed myself. We walked cautiously forward, turning into the remaining section of hallway. Ahead, through the archway leading into the room, I could see nothing but a swirling wall of gray-green mist.

"Things here have changed," I told him. "That curtain of fog wasn't here when I left." I concentrated briefly, probing the wall with tendrils from my ring. The wall did not react to my investigation, but it effectively blinded me to whatever might now lie beyond. While my awareness was shifted into a higher band on the mystical spectrum, I noted that an oval shape which could only be a representation of the great Pattern of Amber hung before Luke's face. He appeared to be conducting an inspection of his own.

Seconds later, he said, "Whatever it is, it doesn't appear to be a trap of any sort. The area beyond the mist is in a serious state of flux. Merequist is there, but he seems to be occupied. Before we go through, tell me exactly what it was that you did."

I explained my trick with the acorn.

"Hmm. Interesting." He seemed amused. Raising a flame-colored brow, he said, "What you did seems to have had an odd effect upon the wheel construct. I felt it there, but like I said, things in and around the area are changing rapidly. This might work to our advantage if Merequist has his hands full."

"Were you able to determine if he is alone?"

He shook his head. "He might have company. Either way, let's go check it out. I'll make a quick attempt to put him out of action, but if things get rough, don't hesitate to Trump us home."

I nodded.

During our conversation, I had noticed that the sounds of the wind had increased some. Still, the phenomenon was an aural-only effect; the air felt calm. Without further discussion, Luke turned to face the gray and green curtain of mist. Again, with the ring enhancing my sensitivities, I could see that he was invoking the Pattern. This time, though, he was doing more than probing through the archway. I felt the first gust of wind as Luke forced a small opening within the fabric of the curtain. As the hole dilated, I could see into the room beyond. Things *had* changed.

Fog hung in clumps at various levels about the room, occasionally ripped and moved into new configurations by the powerful currents of air. The floor was completely lost under a roiling blanket of mist. I could no longer see the far wall, and the left and right walls were equally blanked by fog. The area seemed larger, no longer confined to a single room.

Spread out before us at an indeterminate range, the energy wheel burned darkly again, though it was still dominated by the massive tree. This time, however, the two did not seem at odds. The wheel, I suddenly suspected, was integrating the tree. It was either being manipulated by Merequist, or it was altering itself. Surrounded by a nimbus of indigo, syrupy flame, the massive oak pulsed in time with the wheel. The fog on the floor did not touch the thing, but was held back by an unseen force.

As I studied the place, the circle in the gray-green mist opened continually wider, venting greater amounts of wind. When the window Luke was creating was large enough to be called a doorway, he said, "Follow me," and moved forward.

And I did, stepping through the foggy archway in his wake. Behind me, I heard the portal slowly closing, whistling as it shrank in size. Buffeted by the wind, we walked cautiously ahead, watching for anything unusual, and seeing plenty of it. Merequist, however, was still not in sight. Distance perspectives, I began to notice, seemed to function differently here. The wheel and tree now appeared farther away than they had before. The area around us and above us seemed voluminous, endless.

We passed a patch of drifting emerald mist that was perhaps thirty feet in height, a half that distance across at its widest point. "I wonder where we really are right now," I said to my red-bearded companion.

He laughed. "Anywhere and nowhere--some godforsaken corner of Limbo." After a few seconds of silence, he pointed forward and to the right--one o'clock from our position--and said, "He's out there, still doing whatever it was he was occupied with when I first probed this place."

As we headed in the direction in which he had indicated, I suddenly glimpsed a flicker of movement to the left. I was not sure if I had actually seen something move, or if it had merely been a trick of this weird place. I started to mention it to Luke, but he beat me to it. "What was that?"

"I couldn't tell. If you want, I'll go check it out, then meet up with you over near where you suspect Merequist is located."

He nodded quickly. "Sounds good, but be careful."

We parted ways there, and as I headed away through the fog, Luke's form grew more vague with every step. A moment later, I could no longer see him at all. Walking along, I kept the massive oak to my right, giving it a wide berth. I manoeuvred between columns of mist that were scattered through the area like trees in some shadowy, insubstantial forest. Due to the wind, some of the columns drifted slowly, rearranging themselves intermittently. That layer of fog which had settled to the ground prevented me from seeing anything below knee level, so I walked with careful steps.

I briefly considered altering my shape, but I was doubtful that the odd atmospheric conditions would allow me to benefit from any olfactory cues, so I decided against it. Besides, I had been through a lot, and shapeshifting is generally an exhausting pain in the ass. A few steps farther and the mist parted to reveal a form.

Kyla stood before me, curved blade in hand, and feet spread apart at shoulders' width. Her weapon, held pointed downward along her right leg, was about two and a half feet long, made of some blue-toned metal, and bore a series of wicked-looking points and upturned edges along the inside arc of the blade. "Nigel," she said, saluting me with the devilish thing.

"Same place, different circumstances." I forced my gaze from her sword to her eyes, which were just as piercing.

"Is it the same place, really?" She took a small step forward, and offered me an ethereal smile.

"Sorry, but I never got a copy of the blueprints, so I can't answer the question. Maybe you should ask the architect."

"Even Merequist isn't sure exactly what happened. At first, he thought that you had deliberately worked some incredible change on this place--upon the Shar'Chal itself. But he discarded that idea quickly; he realized that you could not possibly have managed it. He concluded that whatever has happened is simply the by-product of your desperate action."

"The Shar'Chal is what he calls the energy wheel?"

"Yes."

"It's some sort personalized power tool, isn't it?"

"Yes. A Chaos construct."

"So what happened to it?"

She glanced to her left, where the skeletal tree was still visible, standing at the center of what she had called the Shar'Chal, reaching up through the mist. "It warped the Shadows around it, effectively relocating certain portions of itself. It now exists in many separate places."

"Sounds like Merequist isn't calling the shots anymore."

"I do not know what degree of control he currently possesses over the thing." Her voice held a faint touch of apathy.

"So he sent you to find me, while he tries to figure out how to fix his toy."

"Essentially, yes."

"So . . . you've found me. What now?"

"I suppose," she said, "we could fight a duel, or--"

From a distance away, a long wailing sound rose from a deep bass level to a high, canine-annoying pitch, and was followed by a thunderous rumble. I took it to mean that Luke had located Merequist.

"Any idea what that was?" I asked Kyla.

"No." She bit her lip, hesitating. "Do you want to accompany me while I check it out?"

Oddly, she seemed serious. I was beginning to wonder again about her involvement with the entire setup. Was she simply, after all, a hired gun? And if so, was Merequist late on a payment? "Does this mean that our duel is canceled?" I asked with a smile.

"No, only postponed."

"Good enough. I'll come along peacefully--for the moment."

Watching each other with all due suspicion, and walking apart but abreast, we headed in the general direction of the Shar'Chal. I wondered what her response to Luke's presence would be. As we drew nearer to the center of things--my questionable enemy and I--the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck began to rise. A tangible current of power seemed to run through the air near the tree. Also, the light fell by a number of shades, giving the place an even creepier feel. Several times, odd noises came to us through the gloom.

When we were very close, I could hear the ringing of one blade against another. A final curtain of fog lifted, and I beheld Luke and Merequist engaged in a duel.

They were standing several paces apart. Luke was holding his sword loosely in his left hand, while Merequist was wielding a pair of fiery sickles. I saw a small, flower-shaped spot of blood growing on the front of Luke's shirt. Merequist, I noted, had lost some of his humanity. His fingers now sported spindly, black claws, and the lower portion of his face had stretched forward, forming a reptilian snout. An awful array of shark-like teeth were visible whenever he drew back his lips.

Nearby, the outer section of the Shar'Chal wheel burned in its own purple fire, the flames now roughly six feet in height. Standing at the heart of the pictographic wheel, like a tower of skeletal wood, loomed the tree I had planted. The mist stopped at the edge of outermost designs, as if forced back by an area of extremely high pressure. The paired combatants both noticed our arrival, but, other than making flickering side-glances toward us, they remained focused upon one another.

Kyla did not yet seem to have anything in mind in the way of helping Merequist out, and Luke did not appear to need my immediate aid, so I stood back a ways, watching without comment. Kyla did the same.

Merequist abruptly raised and crossed both sickles over his head, and a stream of spiralling fire shot forward and down. Simply stepping to one side of the crackling stream of flame, Luke jabbed with the slender, curved blade of his weapon, scoring an effective hit on his opponent's left triceps muscle. Immediately, blood began to flow down Merequist's arm, and a grimace of pain briefly crossed his feral, tattooed face.

Moving with snake-like quickness, Luke pressed the attack, stepping in close. He caught up one of the sickles with his sword, reached out with his other hand and grabbed Merequist's free wrist, then stomped down hard on the arch of the sorcerer's left foot. Merequist responded by screaming in agony and rage. He dropped his mouth forward and bit deeply into Luke's shoulder.

Breaking, they backed away from one another, circling for a moment until Merequist stood with his back to the purple flames rising from the wheel. Pointing with one of the sickles, he said, "I have tasted your blood, Amberite."

"And I hope it gives you heartburn," laughed Luke as he executed a fancy attack. Merequist parried, and they were at each other again.

From beside me, Kyla spoke up. "What are you going to do if the wrong man wins the fight?"

"He won't. Luke's a survivor. He'll polish Merequist off shortly. I'm sure of it."

She was quiet for a few seconds, pausing to watch Luke behead some striped, serpentine thing that Merequist had just called into being. Continuing, she said, "I believe that you're right, which is one of the reasons I've just opted to summarily end my agreement with Merequist."

"Considering what I've seen of him, it seems that your decision is long overdue."

"It was not always like this. It started off, really, as a means of achieving a kind of security; the place I'm from is not a friendly one, so it pays to be tougher than whatever comes along." Though my eyes did not wander from the battle before me, I nodded; I could sympathize with Kyla's desire to gain an edge against a world full of predators.

"At one time," she said, "my responsibilities primarily involved enacting military raids against Merequist's adversaries, providing security for his various Shadow holdings, and doing a number of other things that he didn't want to involve himself in personally. I was usually rewarded well, and I've benefitted greatly from remaining in his employ for as long as I have. But over the last few years, his obsessive hatred for Luke has grown for reasons I don't understand. I have suspected for some time that his vendetta would eventually get him killed."

Glancing at her, I asked, "So, to hand your own question back to you, 'What are you going to do if the wrong man wins the fight?'"

She chuckled. "Like you said, Luke will take him. If he doesn't, he'll injure him badly enough so that you and I can finish the job. Either way, after this is over, I'll be moving on."

A dazzling burst of pyrotechnics forced my attention back to the fight. Luke was advancing, swinging his sword in a series of rapid attacks. The last of these, a blinding downward arc, Merequist was unable to parry. The sword and sickle missed one another by half a foot, Luke's blade instead passing through his opponent's left wrist. Gnashing his teeth and clutching the stump of his wrist, Merequist staggered. He was bleeding from more places than I could count, and had lost even more of his human form.

Not hesitating, Luke leaped forward, thrusting. The point of his blade pierced quickly and cleanly through Merequist's right eye and beyond. The sorcerer collapsed in a jumbled heap. Lifting the body, Luke hurled it forward, over the purple flames. It landed with an incandescent flash at the base of the dark tree, igniting and burning brightly. Breathing hard, Luke stood watching as the fire consumed his enemy.

I turned, and saw that Kyla was holding a Trump. With her free hand, she tossed me something. It was the phoenix pendant. "Thanks."

"Goodbye," she said with an odd smile. "It has been interesting." She began to take on an iridescent sparkle.

"Wait," I said, quickly digging for my own set of Trumps. "Take this." I sorted through the deck, retrieving my own portrait. Luke had painted several in case I ever wanted someone to be able to contact me. I handed her the card. "Give me a call some time."

"I will." Looking at my Trump, she smiled again, then faded away.

When I turned around, Luke was standing still, a look of concentration on his face. Shifting my awareness into my ring, I could see that the great Pattern of Amber was hanging before him. He drew upon it heavily for purposes I was unsure of. A few minutes later, he finished whatever he had been doing, allowing his hold over the Pattern to slip away. As he approached, I could see that he had lost a lot of blood. His clothing was torn in many places, revealing a collection of nasty wounds.

He grinned, "Getting rid of that guy was something I thought I'd done a long time ago." He ran a hand through his sweaty red hair. "You know what they say about doing the job right the first time around."

I laughed.

"What happened to your friend?"

"I'm not sure where she went, but she won't cause any problems; she had no personal stake in all this."

Luke looked at me in an appraising way, then nodded sharply. "I'll take your word on that. What's she like?"

Chuckling, I said, "Complicated, of course. And interesting. She returned your pendant, too." I handed it to him. "What were you doing with the Pattern?"

He looked around, taking in our misty surroundings. "I greatly slowed the time flow in this place. The process will continue for a while, and before long, local time in this Shadow will barely creep along. That'll give me a chance to decide whether anything needs to be done about this ugly thing." He gestured toward the Shar'Chal. "For now, though, let's get out of here. I'd like to take a hot bath and get bandaged up. Then, after a few hours sleep, I want to take you out to this Tex-Mex place I discovered while you were away. You ought to like it; it's back on Shadow Earth, down in Austin. Over dinner, you can give me a more detailed account of everything that happened after you left Kashfa."

"There's a lot to tell for just one sitting."

"That's okay, I'm really hungry. I'll even pay for the food."

Reaching for my Trumps, I said, "You've got a deal."

Previous Chapter

Back to Index