‘Welcome back, sir. Mister Mateo told me to keep an eye out for you tonight!’ said the doorman. He beckoned for Soren to enter the club from the doorway. ‘Good luck with your duel, sir,’ he added as Soren passed him.
The doorman’s obsequiousness sickened Soren almost as much as his bad teeth. He went down the stairs and quickly spotted Mateo standing by the table with the strongbox, talking to two men in particularly fine clothing. Now that he thought of it, there were a number of notably well dressed people there, even more so than on the last night. Soren hoped they were not there on the back of word of his duel on the previous occasion. Mateo spotted him and hurried over.
‘You’re here! Excellent! I was beginning to worry that you would not come. Your purse for tonight will be fifty crowns. As I’m sure you can see, word of your duel has generated quite a bit of interest in high society.’ He seemed a little nervous tonight in contrast to his relaxed and confident manner on the previous night. ‘There will be a few duels before yours, but yours is the main event of the evening. Needless to say there are some very important people here; this night could prove very beneficial to both of us. I hope you’ve brought your best.’
‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ Soren replied. He was slightly irked at having to wait for his duel again. Ever since leaving his apartment he had been anticipating the action like a hungry man awaiting a gourmet meal. ‘Is there somewhere private that I can wait?’
‘Yes, of course, this way,’ Mateo said. He led Soren to a small room behind the bar. It was far from luxurious, being little more than a storage closet containing a single stool, but it suited Soren. His primary concern was to be away from the gawking looks of the people that had gathered in the cellar that night. The room was damp, musty and dark, so he sat back and closed his eyes. His mind drifted to Alessandra. It always did when the darkness came. He tried to force his mind to other thoughts, but it was impossible to blot her out, or the hurt and anger that thoughts of her brought.
A knock on the door brought him back to his senses. He had no idea how long he had been resting in the small room, but apparently it had been long enough. The barman peered in and Soren followed him out into the cellar that played host to the duelling club.
The previously rowdy crowd quieted as he walked toward the black carpet, led out by Mateo. It made him uncomfortable to know that every eye in the room was on him, but he maintained as blank a face as he could, something that resembled a scowl, but not so much that it would seem forced. He was uncertain how much people would know about him, but the crowd was larger, and a significant percentage looked very wealthy. As with all things in the city, the underground duelling dens varied in their level of sophistication and class. This one would only have been somewhere in the middle of the scale. It was better than the rougher places that had little more than brawls calling themselves duels and would rarely if ever see a true swordsman, but it was not a top tier venue that attracted the wealthiest of citizens. This evening, many of the spectators looked decidedly out of place in their finery. He tried to ignore them as he took his place at the end of the carpet, but it made him wonder how Amero had coped with the thousands of spectators in the Amphitheatre.
Mateo launched into a speech that Soren didn’t pay any attention to. He looked at the man at the other end of the black carpet. After the last night, there would be no element of surprise available to Soren. After that display, he wondered what kind of man would put himself forward for this duel. Was he there by choice? It didn’t matter. It was not Soren’s intention to kill this man, although that had also been the case on the last night when he had killed. The fact unnerved him a little, but he was aware of it and forewarned was forearmed.
The man was again much older than Soren. This club seemed to attract a certain down on their luck type of swordsman. He was dressed in worn but well fitted duelling clothes, and his blades looked well maintained with a keen edge. The condition of a banneret’s weapons was often a better indicator of his mettle than his appearance. His face was firm and his eyes showed no fear. He looked like a man that had faced many hard fights, but had come through them on top. What would bring a man like that to a club like this? Could it have been the thrill of combat? The same thing that had brought Soren there?
Mateo had finished his introductions, so it was time to begin. They both saluted and it began. Soren fought off his initial urge to try to tap into the energy in the room. He was hesitant as a result of the death of his previous opponent. The killing had been uncontrollable, as though his body were entirely detached from his mind and was operating purely on instinct. Some detachment made for the best swordplay though. While the mind commanded the body, it was separated from the pain and fatigue signals that the body would ordinarily send back. The Gift seemed to have prevented him from sending a stop command back to his body though, and this bothered Soren.
Without any effort on his part, the Gift of Grace gave him an almost constant advantage in speed and strength. He reasoned that his perception of time was probably affected when he was in this state, although for him this was what was normal, and if there was any effect on how he saw things, it was not enough for him to notice. He had come to think of this as his ‘state of grace’. He could not forget however, the occasion when he fought dal Dardi and the state of grace had seemed to desert him completely, something he still had no explanation for.
The initial excitement in the crowd seemed to be waning quickly. After two or three exchanges there were more disappointed mutterings than excited gasps. Soren decided it was time to take the initiative. As he had on the previous night, he pictured the blue glow in his mind, and focussed all of his concentration on it. Distracted, he allowed a gap in his defence, which even with his superior speed he was unable to completely close in time. His opponent’s blade glanced from a parry and was deflected across his upper arm, neatly slicing through his shirt and flicking a little blood into the air. The man’s face betrayed the slightest hint of a smile as he backed away to recompose himself. He thought he had Soren’s measure. There was some tittering in the crowd and Soren felt a flash of anger. He forced himself to ignore the laughter and the pain in his arm, shutting out the world around him, focussing on his mental image of the blue glow surrounding everything. With his mind concentrated on this image and concept, everything suddenly became illuminated with the ethereal blue glow. His purpose achieved, he let his concentration return to his opponent, and the glow disappeared. It had been enough though, that fleeting connection with it. He felt the energy course through his body. His opponent’s movements slowed and Soren could not suppress a smile.
He lunged forward with speed that elicited a shocked gasp from the onlookers. In a smooth movement he neatly pushed aside the other man’s guard with his dagger and cut three times with his sword. The increase in speed had surprised even him to some extent, and he fought to focus on not killing the man. Only wound him, he thought.
The duel was over almost as soon as Soren had drawn on the energy. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that the man was still standing before him. His sword and dagger dropped from his hands, which hovered over the three diagonal wounds on his gut. He looked at Soren with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. It was an expression that Soren was becoming familiar with. There was something of a stunned silence in the room that gradually gave over to excited whispering and then applause. Soren looked at the man and began to smile, but his mirth was replaced with sick realisation. Blood bubbled from the man’s mouth, and his dark clothes had concealed the fact that blood had been running down his body. It was now beginning to pool on the floor. He gasped once, a raspy, gurgling sound before dropping to his knees and then falling over on his side. The fall exposed the three deep rents in his abdomen, one of which went all the way to the spine. Soren looked at the blade of his sword, half of which glistened with ruby red blood. Full applause broke out and Soren turned and bowed, trying to supress the wave of panic that was flooding over him. He couldn’t control it. Whenever he used it, his opponents would die. Could he learn to control it, as he had learned to unleash it?
He felt in limbo, not really sure what to do next. Mateo beckoned to him, and he was relieved to move away from the spotlight. The crowd parted to let him through, women applauding him and men clapping him on the back. He wondered how much Mateo had made from the duel. It was clear that the fifty crowns he had offered Soren was a bargain for him, but Soren had no idea the duel would draw so many aristocrats so he hadn’t thought to drive a harder bargain. Perhaps his prowess with a blade would allow him to renegotiate the terms, but that was a little too ruthless, even for him.
Mateo was standing by his small table with the strongbox flanked by his two guards.
‘The man of the moment!’ said Mateo in an overly familiar way. ‘Another excellent result, well done!’ He pushed a fat coin purse across the table to Soren. ‘After tonight it will be harder to find you an opponent. You’re the man to beat now, and the reward will be big for anyone willing to take the chance. That will attract someone to the challenge sooner or later, but for now, I don’t have anything more for you. I’m not one for sending notes, so if you call in here to see me in a week, I expect I’ll have something for you then.’
Soren nodded and took the purse. He was already beginning to feel woozy and wanted to get out of the cellar as quickly as possible. He had achieved most of what he had set out to in coming to the black carpet. He now knew how to draw on the energy, and he expected, by extension, also the Moment, although he had not yet tried this. He was no closer to controlling it, and the thought of piling up a stack of corpses while he tried to learn how was not appealing to him. He had already decided that he would not be returning.
As he left, there were two men watching him closely, but fighting off the fatigue that was falling heavily on him, Soren did not notice them.