Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) (31 page)

“You were close with my father?” I asked softly, not even mad at the mention of them. It was almost pleasing to be able to talk to someone who knew my parents for who they really were.

“Occasionally. He would come to play now and again. Did he teach you the game?” I nodded. “Ah, then hopefully I will have a skilled opponent to battle this evening.” His face lit up at the prospect.

I hadn’t played it much, but my father had taught it to me, enjoying the complexity of the simple looking board game. Even with only two colors of stones, the possibilities were endless. I had seen many remakes of the game:
Reversi
, and
Go
, among others, but I had never seen one meet the difficulty of the original. They were like the children of this game — each merely a shade of the former glory of the original. I couldn’t help but feel the same about myself. Would I ever step out of my father’s shadow?

Asterion spread his sausage-sized fingers imploringly. “We shall roll for first turn. Abandon your power for the duration of the game.”

“No.” I immediately answered. “We are dueling, and for that I need whatever magic I have to be at my beck and call.”

Asterion eyed me for a moment. “Then at least do not cheat. The game does not appreciate… manipulations.” I furrowed my eyebrows at that so Asterion explained. “The game is powerful, and will punish any direct manipulation with force.”

I withdrew my own dice cup, packed especially for this unlikely possibility, and plucked out the correct five dice. They were ivory, real ivory. Asterion scrutinized them, eyes widening. “Those are quite… spectacular. Which animal lost his life for you to play such a game with them?”

“Mammoth.” I answered honestly, or at least as honestly as I knew. They could of course have belonged to some other creature, but that was what I had been told when my father had given them to me.

“Hmmm… They are not imbued with any devious magic, correct?”

I shook my head, offering them to him for inspection. “No, but yours are.”

His fingers hesitated as they reached out for my dice. “Pardon?”

“Your dice are loaded. Weighted opposite the five’s if I judge correctly, but not enough to always roll a five.” Honestly, I didn’t know where the words came from, but I could feel the extra weight that would throw them off balance.

“I would never do such a thing.” He said, glaring at me.

“You cannot fault something for acting in accordance to its nature. The nature of those particular dice is to cheat. Nothing in your new philosophy could possibly blame you for using them. Unless
you
made them to cheat, or are using them because you wish to cheat in order to win.” I added, face devoid of accusation.

He watched me for a moment, and then snorted, slamming a head-sized fist on the stone table, and I jumped up to my feet. “I do not feel the mood for a game anymore.”

“As you wish. Shall we have a dance-off then?” I threw down a quick dance move I had once seen a competitive break-dancer do to challenge his opponent. I thought it looked rather impressive, as I had practiced it quite a bit, but Gunnar burst out laughing.

“What was that? You looked as if you were having a fit.” Asterion frowned.

“It’s a perfectly good challenge move.” I argued. Gunnar laughed harder.

“Do not mock me, wizard. I am not pleased to discover that these dice are loaded. Your father gave them to me. I always wondered why we played such an even game, attributing it to our sharp minds. But now I realize it was because we used the same loaded dice.”

Interesting.

My father was a dirty cheat when necessary. Huh. Who knew?

“We could play with my dice.” I offered.

“Like father like son. Yours are probably also loaded.” He grumbled.

I squeezed my power tight, withdrawing all the tendrils to myself. Then I threw the dice on the table.
Five, three, six
. I scooped them up and did it again.
One, four, six
. I did it several more times, proving no consistent tosses. “Satisfied?”

After a moment, he nodded.

Then we began to play. It was a game of both luck and skill. Luck with the numbers rolled, and skill with how the player chose to use those numbers to move his stones. It symbolized life. One must make the best out of the cards they are dealt. I played rakishly in the beginning, but noticed a quick difference in this version of the game. Whenever I lost a piece to Asterion, I felt a sharp prick in my finger. After a few poor plays, the pricks grew more intense, one even drawing blood. Asterion had thicker skin than me, but he had also known about the consequences to the game beforehand. Gunnar inched forward as he noticed one of my flinches, watching us with both concern and interest mingling together.

After successfully goading Asterion into trusting me, I began to relax. He was leaning forward with excitement now as he watched the board, choosing where to place his stones. The board was heavily in his favor, as he had been playing more carefully, cautious of his new opponent.

Little by little, I released the restraint I held on my power, so that with each throw I was less and less in control of my power leakage. Asterion could sense magic, but I wasn’t directly
doing
anything with my magic, merely releasing my hold on it. That’s when the tables began to turn. I was hopelessly behind and it was his turn. He could have rolled almost anything and won.

But he didn’t.

He sat staring at the dice on the table. Three one’s, also known as the
Sisters of Fate
to the Greeks. It wasn’t even enough of a roll for him to actually take the turn.

I scooped up the dice and tossed them disinterestedly, not thinking, not worrying. As they hit the table, I felt reality shift. It wasn’t purposeful, and it was so discreet and natural that even Asterion didn’t notice it. It was identical to when the thief had blundered into the cops by the river earlier. Odds running wild.

As a child, when I had hit my first new power plateau, strange things had happened. My parents had been baffled by it, saying they had never heard of such a thing happening, but over the next week or so the things that happened around me became too random to ignore: a phone call from a girl who had never before shown interest in me; a cop suddenly deciding not to give me a ticket when I had been doubling the speed limit; a fellow student deciding to apologize to me for being so cruel when we had been children; and even a fire starting in a chemistry lab where I was supposed to give a report that I hadn’t yet written. Then they had ceased, and life had returned to normal.

And they had all happened after such a sensation as happened now.

I rolled three sixes. Asterion grunted, and I moved my pieces, slashing a third of his pieces from the board. He actually grimaced at the physical pain of losing so many at once, probably drawing blood on one of his beefy fingers. My luck had taken over. He had already lost. He just didn’t know it yet.

He rolled again, and although it was a better roll, it wasn’t anything that helped him. Within three moves, I sat staring at the board full of my pieces, only one of his stones left. He scowled up at me, and then flipped the board over in frustration at his loss. Gunnar hid his smile well. I didn’t.

“The first part of our duel is in your favor. We shall have a discussion next.” I nodded, rolling my shoulders for circulation, glad that he hadn’t noticed the change in odds as anything unnatural. What bothered me most was that I knew he wanted to hand over the book, but he had to fulfill the necessary obligations that Hermes had bestowed upon him.

Now, I knew that compared to all the other problems I was facing, finding a book for a client was not that important. But I had given my word that it would be done. And that is something I do not give lightly. But Asterion had also mentioned that the book had
something
to do with dragons, which I was neck-deep in at the moment. So, here I was, playing a board game and risking my life in order to figure out what the fuck, exactly, was going on in my city.

Asterion’s voice was harsh as he spoke next. “Explain these three weaknesses to me. Life, death, and love.” I blinked, waiting for more.

“I don’t understand.” I finally answered.

“How so?” He asked, heavy eyebrows lifting slightly.

“I don’t know how love could be a weakness.” I gave as an example.

Asterion leaned forward, folding his arms before him across the table to support his bulk. His gold nose ring glinted in the firelight. I heard the stamp of hooves outside the circle, and shivered as I remembered the scream from earlier. “Answering one answers them all. You
love
to kill, yet
love
to promote life. You would
end
the lives of a few wicked to
promote
the lives of others. Yet you relish in the act. You kill too easily, and no executioner can be allowed to roam the streets without a check to that power. And finally, like the hummingbird, you
love
to flit from one pretty flower — a woman — to the next, tasting each, but never filling yourself. With humans, this hurts the woman, even if they presently do not understand it. Eventually they will. But by then it will be too late for them.”

I thought hard about his words, because they were true, but I still felt I was right. On some of it. “The last is true. Something I was beginning to realize just recently.”

“Oh?” He motioned for me to continue.

“Love is precious, and shouldn’t be wasted on every passing whim, or it will mean nothing by the time you truly wish to share it with someone who matters.” I said softly.

Gunnar grunted in surprise. Asterion smiled. “And the rest?”

“I seem to link them all to justice. I do not relish the
act
of killing, but what it signifies.”

“But who are you to judge right from wrong? Is it because you have power?”

“Yes.” I answered without thinking.

“Socrates would roll over in his grave…” Asterion began.

I understood where he was going. “Okay, hold on. Not because I have the
power
, but because I have the
ability
. I do not judge who is naughty or nice. If someone harms an innocent, then they are wrong. Especially if they do so to gain power. I
am
an executioner, but only on behalf of those who cannot protect themselves. I relish the act of delivering
justice
, but not in the act of delivering
harm
. There is a significant difference.”

Asterion weighed me contemplatively and then smiled. “Then it seems I owe you a token of my gratitude.” My shoulders relaxed. It was over.

“Does this mean I won? Can I tell people I defeated the Minotaur in a duel?”

“You
beat
me at a childish board game. But you
passed
a test.” He smiled eagerly. “Now, we duel.”

Chapter 31

A
sterion stood. “Step away from the table, if you please. You may embrace your gift now.” I did, and he led me away from the table, but still within the circle of firelight. I whipped up a hasty bit of magic behind his back, but he was too excited about the duel to notice. He turned to face me, bowed with hands formally folded together like a martial arts bout, and then he was rushing at me, head down. His horns gleamed in the flickering firelight. They pierced me below the stomach, and I screamed out in agony as I fell down to the ground. But as soon as my form touched the grass, it disappeared.

Asterion blinked, suddenly wary as his eyes darted about, searching for my wounded body. From the comfort of the table, I spun my spell a second time, creating a second visual replication of myself to stand off to Asterion’s right. He turned, nostrils flaring as he saw the image of me flicker, bloody hands clutching the wound. The Minotaur darted forward again, flicking his head at the last moment to send me up into the air, but then I disappeared again.

I smiled from my front row seat atop the table, invisible to him and Gunnar. I crossed my ankles as I wove three more visual replications of myself, placing them evenly apart before him. He leaned back, face angry, attempting to judge which version of me was real. One had no injury, one had only the stomach wound, and the other had both wounds. I made them flicker in and out of existence, but not the uninjured form, luring him. He charged, tearing up the grass in his rage. As his horns struck the resemblance, gossamer ropes as strong as Kevlar snapped around him, limiting his mobility. He roared in fury, lunging at the second replication of me.

I smiled, pleased at my work, and also the raw fear on Gunnar’s face as he watched the Minotaur maim me. Asterion pierced the second form as it turned to run away in mock fear. This time, the gossamer ropes of power latched around his arms even tighter, pulling them back to his sides, while several others restricted his thighs. Asterion bellowed triumphantly as he struck the last form hard enough to kill me for real. I let the spectral image vanish on contact, and the last of my gossamer ropes wrapped firmly around his boots, snapping tight as he fell to the ground, completely immobilizing him.

I withdrew the cocoon of magic around me, clapping my hands as I stepped down from the table, now visible to all. Gunnar and Asterion both stared back in disbelief, realizing that I had never left the table. My voice was soft. “You question me on life and death, and you were so ready to kill me just now. I saw you mortally wound me five times. Bad Buddhist. Bad, bad Buddhist.” I waggled a finger at him. “I have not harmed you in the slightest, yet I have incapacitated you. How do you suppose this is, if I am so intent on killing everyone who crosses me?”