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.