The Duelist 11, page 12
The inside of the building was something like the lobby outside a theater or auditorium. It was mostly made of dark wood that had been varnished into a relentless shine, but the walls were inlaid with stone reliefs of several figures made of more white marble.
Underneath each figure was a gold plaque.
Karrion Sar of Nata.
Namar Felin of Vartha.
Tessen Tas of Alem.
“Tessen Tas,” I read off the plaque, and I looked up at the stone relief of the horned figure. “Are these meant to be the Sacred Sixty-Four?”
“They are,” Sha-Kane said with a nod. “Or for the most part.”
So these were probably fifty-six of the Sacred Sixty-Four, minus the eight Lycaen Ashers who’d been usurped and slaughtered in the so-called Ousting.
I understood why the osprey-man hadn’t elaborated when we were literally standing inside the Council Hall. We weren’t alone in the lobby, and there were throngs of mainly women milling about in groups. There were alcoves with circular tables and curved couches which had clearly been designed for guests, and while most of them had drawn curtains, not all of them did, and every person I saw was a woman.
After a few moments, I realized they must have been the various wives and concubines of the Councilmen.
“They bring their wives here?” I asked Sha-Kane in a low voice.
“Not all of them, but some, yes,” the osprey-man answered.
“Why?” I asked. “They have nothing to do here.”
“Some Councilmen are more traditional than others and believe wives should follow their husbands everywhere. Some are paranoid that their wives may be unfaithful if left alone too long.”
“Is everyone on the Council a massive asshole?” I asked, and Sha-Kane shot me a warning look. I’d kept my voice down, but it was still a risky thing to say considering where we were all standing. “Right. Anyway. How do we get in?”
“The main entrance is there,” the osprey-man said. “But first, we had best find somewhere to leave our friends.”
I realized as we walked that just abandoning Horus and the others would have been considered rude, and even if Councilmen were paranoid assholes, they had to at least maintain an illusion of politeness, so we walked along the curving hallway until we found a fairly large, empty alcove, and Zoie, Shay, Amaya, Horus, Anwaar, Nova, and Sera all sat down.
“I would advise that you don’t draw the curtains, in case rumors of infidelity spread,” Sha-Kane advised with a pointed look at Horus. “It’s unusual to leave a man alone with another Asher’s wives.”
“Shay is his sister,” I said to Sha-Kane, but the osprey-man just shrugged.
“The other people here don’t know that,” he said. “And besides, Zoie, Nova, and Amaya are not his sister.”
“I heard some pretty unsavory stories when I was a child,” Amaya added. “There was an Asher a few seasons ago who tried to marry his sister. He claimed it was to keep her safe from predatory suitors, but, uh… it wasn’t.”
“Okay, gross,” I said flatly, and I looked at Horus. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to do that.”
“You really don’t,” the falcon-man said with a grimace. “We’ll wait for you guys. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said, because I knew I would need it.
As Sha-Kane and I walked back around to the entrance of the actual Council Hall, we passed the alcoves again, and I heard some semi-muffled noises that caught my attention from at least three of them. It sounded a lot like some of the wives and concubines were ‘having fun’ without their Ashers, and I elbowed Sha-Kane.
“In the Council building?” I asked him, and I nodded to one of the alcoves. The curtains were drawn but far from soundproof, and their husbands were sure to find out. “Isn’t that tempting fate?”
“Not necessarily,” the osprey-man replied with a shrug. “There is no danger of pregnancy, of the Asher raising a child he did not sire. Some Duelists encourage, ah… good relationships between their spouses. It minimizes the chance of jealousy and contributes to a more nurturing family unit for any children.”
That was unexpectedly progressive, for the Council, but I wasn’t about to pat them on the back for it, considering the laundry list of shitty things they’d done to everyone in Aventoll who wasn’t the wife of a Councilman.
We came back around to the doors, and instead of pushing them open, Sha-Kane knocked.
“There is always at least one member inside the Council Chamber,” he told me. “The Council must always be at least partly ‘in session’ so Aventoll is always defended.”
“Can they really be doing much defending from inside a building?” I asked.
Not to mention, I remembered Zoie telling me when I’d first arrived to Aventoll that the first Red Sky I’d seen had been the first Red Sky in seventy-five seasons.
Now that I thought about it, maybe the Council had been warned about my arrival, or had somehow been able to detect it and tried to take me out from the get-go. Maybe my arrival had sparked the return of the Red Skies, and the subsequent change from ‘night only’ to ‘day or night’ to ‘sometimes demons will pop up without any Red Sky at all.’ It just seemed like too much of a coincidence otherwise.
“It’s symbolic,” the osprey-man told me, and then he sighed. “A lot about the Council is symbolic.”
“Gotcha,” I said with a nod, just as the doors were pulled open.
“Councilman Sha-Kane,” a surprised-sounding Varthan Councilman said, and he looked the osprey-man up and down. I could see past him that the Council was styled like an auditorium, with rows of seats that curved around a circular center floor. “We had not heard word of your return.”
“I didn’t send word,” Sha-Kane replied. “I confess I didn’t have the opportunity. My apologies, Councilman Felin.”
“And who is your… associate?” Councilman Felin then asked as his yellow cat eyes flicked over to me. I realized I recognized his name from the plaques outside. His ancestor had been one of the Sacred Sixty-Four. “He is dressed rather peculiarly.”
“This is Alex Brightwood,” Sha-Kane said. “He is our newest member.”
“New member?” Felin repeated.
“Teivel Tas challenged Alex to a Duel,” the osprey-man said in a very calm tone, as if he had no clue Teivel had been sent to kill me-- by the Council themselves, no less. “Alex was victorious. So, he now holds Tas’ seat.”
“What?” a voice squawked from inside the chamber. “The Tas lineage stretched back to the Sacred Sixty-Four! What is this outrage?”
“No outrage, Councilman Comor,” Sha-Kane assured the voice in the same calm tone. “Just a rather foolhardy young Councilman and an unexpectedly resilient Asher.”
“Where are you from?” Felin then asked me. “What Island?”
“I’m a Traveler, actually,” I said, because even without Amaya’s etiquette lessons, I knew it would be stupid as hell to lie to the Council’s faces. They all already knew I was a Traveler. They knew exactly who I was, even if they weren’t willing to admit it. “But I won my Duel against Tas fair and square. See?”
I pulled my Duelist Stone out from under my shirt and showed it to Councilman Felin, who eyed it suspiciously, but it must have held up to his scrutiny because he nodded shortly.
“Very well,” he said. “You can put it away, boy.”
“Councilman Brightwood,” Sha-Kane corrected him mildly.
“Don’t worry, I know that might take some getting used to,” I said in a far more gracious tone than I felt, but it was satisfying to see Felin’s annoyance that he couldn’t get under my skin. “May I enter?”
“No,” Felin said flatly, and I blinked.
“What?” I asked, and I looked at Sha-Kane.
“No new Councilman may enter the Chamber without first winning a fight against a Councilman already inside the Chamber,” Felin told me.
“That is true, I’m afraid,” Sha-Kane said, and I saw the dawning frustration in his eyes that he’d forgotten such a rule.
In his defense, he probably hadn’t had to think about that rule since his own ascension to the Council.
Unfortunately, though, because Sha-Kane had knocked on the door, and we’d intended to enter the Chamber together, he couldn’t offer to fight me to permit my entry. And somehow, I suspected none of the Councilmen already inside the Chamber were willing to grant me that offer so I could take my rightful place among them.
These bastards were trying to con me out of my seat.
Chapter 8
“Is this not a rather antiquated rule?” Sha-Kane asked Councilman Felin. “We have important matters to discuss, and the Council is already in full session-- in fact, I think this will be the first time in many seasons that all sixty-four seats will be present.”
“We are an institution founded on tradition,” Felin told the osprey-man in a flat tone. “If we start disregarding our ceremonies on welcoming new Councilmen, how long before we forego our history entirely?”
I had a lot of thoughts about the ‘slippery slope’ fallacy and how it was clearly just a front so Felin could legitimize the fact he didn’t want the ‘upstart Traveler’ inside his shiny, private Council Chamber, but I was starting to get annoyed.
“That’s a rather dramatic outlook,” Sha-Kane said to Felin. “I am simply suggesting we forego the ritual fight and vote. Alex has already won his seat by winning a Duel against Teivel Tas. The Council seat is his by right. Suggesting that it must be put to a vote on whether he can sit on the Council is a disrespect of his rights as an Asher and a Duelist.”
A vote? I hadn’t heard anything about a vote. I guess if I lost my fight against the other Councilman, they’d put it to a vote on whether I could enter anyway. Of course, if I lost, they would vote no and lock me out of the Council forever.
“He is a Traveler, and he killed the last descendant of one of the Sacred Sixty-Four,” Felin said with barely-contained disgust, and from behind him, the Council Chamber murmured in assent. “It seems fitting, to me, that he should be subject to our rules before he can sit on the seat he stole.”
“Councilman, Alex did not steal Tas’ seat,” Sha-Kane said in an irritated tone. “Teivel lost it in a Duel. Mercedes herself sanctioned it-- look at Alex’s Stone.
I held out my Duelist Stone for Felin to examine again, and I made sure the cat Councilman could see the sword in the background, surrounded by the two koi fish.
“Rank Twelve,” I said.
“I know how to read Duelist Ranks, boy,” Felin told me crossly.
“Councilman Brightwood,” Sha-Kane corrected him again. “That seat is his. Putting further stipulations on whether he can sit on that seat is an insult to Mercedes’ will.”
“We are not the Order here, Councilman Sha-Kane,” Felin said as he narrowed his eyes. “The Council was founded by Ashers, and serves the Ashers of Aventoll. We are blessed by Mercedes, but we do not serve her. We serve the Peoples.”
“How does denying me entry serve the Peoples?” I asked.
“Because you are not of the Peoples,” Felin answered in a clipped tone, and he turned his yellow eyes on me again. They were bright with disapproval. “You are a Traveler, and you cannot begin to understand the complexities--”
“I understand a fight is necessary for me to enter the Council Chamber for the first time,” I interrupted Felin, because all this back-and-forth was going to get us nowhere. “Very well. If you insist I must fight one of you to ceremonially earn my place, then I’ll do it. Who would do me the courtesy of challenging me?”
Just as I’d suspected, there was total silence. Not one of the Councilmen volunteered, because of course this was how they planned to oust me. If I left, they would probably just start discussing how to trick me into a Duel so they could take that seat back.
But for now, at least, I needed to look like I was going to play by the rules. It was the only way to get deep enough into the Council to root out Kavo’s influence and remove his corruption. There would surely be plenty of the Council’s own corruption left when we were done, but we could tackle that after we’d dealt with Kavo.
“Is there a problem, Councilman?” Sha-Kane asked Felin lightly, but I could see the growing frustration in the osprey-man’s expression.
Felin just smiled, and behind him I saw his cat tail flick from side to side in a way I could only describe as sly.
“Not at all, Councilman,” the cat-man replied. “But the rules are that someone must volunteer to fight the newcomer, and I suspect few of our number are eager to go up against the individual who killed an entire lineage of one of the Sacred Sixty-Four.”
“I killed one man,” I said flatly. “And he would have killed me if not. By the laws of your land, his assets became mine, including his seat on the Council. Who among you will fight me so I may claim it?”
“You’re rather audacious, aren’t you?” Felin remarked, and he looked me up and down. “I’m not entirely sure whether you grasp the enormity of this situation. Someone so nonchalant probably cannot handle the consequence of a seat.”
I felt anger rising inside me, but I told myself to keep calm. If I lost my temper, one of the Councilmen would call offense and challenge me to a Duel, or at the very least they would refuse to let me in the Chamber.
“Allow me to enter the Chamber, then,” Sha-Kane offered. “I will fight him.”
“But you were not already inside when Alex Brightwood made himself known to us,” Felin said in a tone that made it clear he was really clinging to the letter of the rule, but not the spirit.
He was enjoying watching us squirm. and I allowed myself the brief fantasy of punching him in the face in front of all his stuck-up friends. It would have only ended badly for me if I’d actually done it, but it was nice to imagine all the same.
“What would Mercedes say if we quibbled over such tiny technicalities every time we were in session?” a voice suddenly asked, and I craned my neck to try and see where in the Chamber it had come from, but the doorway was too narrow, and too much of it was filled by Felin. “We work according to Her Favor, after all. And Aventoll needs more rapid action if it is to be saved.”
“Councilman Crevan,” Felin said with irritation, and he was jostled aside by the appearance of another Councilman, this one with red fox ears and black markings around his amber eyes. He was Vulpian.
“I am Sinopa Crevan,” the fox Councilman said to me. “You come before the Council, asking to join our number and contribute to our wisdom. Are you fit for this challenge?”
I sensed this was part of the over-the-top ceremony of the first entry fight, so I nodded.
“I am,” I said.
“Do you swear to uphold Mercedes’ tenets, and to use your blessing for the good of the Peoples?” Councilman Crevan then asked me.
“I swear.”
“Will you prove yourself not just in words, but in action?” Crevan demanded. His voice had become louder and more grand as he’d gone on, and I was getting a little swept up in it.
“I will,” I said firmly, and I saw Felin hiss under his breath and grumble as he stepped aside.
Sha-Kane entered the Council Chamber, and Crevan stood alone in the doorway. He drew a short sword from his belt, and I drew my own. In the interest of being subtle, I hadn’t brought the earth guardian blade, but instead Decisiveness, and the demon core in the hilt glowed.
Crevan stepped backward, and I sensed I was supposed to follow him. Then the pair of us were standing in the center of the floor, and we circled one another as we waited for the fight to begin. I glanced up at some of the other Councilmen, who seemed to be arranged in blocks according to which Island they were from, and all of them looked deeply displeased.
“Ready when you are,” I said to Crevan, and a moment later, he pounced.
I was immediately taken aback by how swift he was. Part of it was probably his foxlike attributes, but a lot of it was just skill and training. I was reminded a little of how Zoie fought-- ruthless, but also with the grace of a dancer-- and yet there was an underlying ruggedness to how Crevan moved.
I raised Decisiveness just in time to avoid getting slashed on the shoulder, and the pair of us were then dancing around the center floor in a flurry of blows and parries. The ringing sound of clashing metal filled the air, and I barely had the time to think. I simply had to move and hope my instincts would know where to take me.
As we fought, I realized just how much Zoie’s training had done for me. I had my time-trance ability, which allowed me to slow time down and think for a few moments, but this wasn’t me giving myself time to think. This was all muscle memory and gut feelings, and it was working. I was matching Crevan blow for blow, and while there was no clear outcome of a victor yet, I certainly wasn’t lagging behind.
I debated whether or not to use my time-trance ability to give me an edge, but as I raised Decisiveness to deflect a blow that would have sliced the top part of my right ear clean off, I decided not to. The ability had been rather finicky as of late, and I didn’t want to encourage accusations of cheating from the observing Councilmen.
I needed to win this fight fair and square if they were going to let me in.
From how Crevan was fighting, I began to wonder whether he was being so full-on so as to make me lose the fight, and therefore force the Council into a vote on whether they should let me take my seat-- which, of course, they would vote against. I couldn’t quite figure out why Crevan would have offered himself as my opponent. But foxes were cunning and sly, so maybe Crevan was also cunning and sly, and this was just a way for him to amuse himself.
And yet, something niggled in the back of my mind as we continued to duel. Something didn’t quite add up, and as our swords clashed together again, it was like a lightbulb went on in my head.
I’d heard the name Sinopa Crevan before. Shay had mentioned him down in the Heartcave, as the newest member of the Council since Sha-Kane. He was something of a pariah because he’d killed another Leenian Asher for his seat, the first real Duel for a Council seat in centuries. Until I’d killed Teivel, anyway.
