Duel at the Old Jedi Temple

Duel at the Old Jedi Temple

by

Bobby Derie

Eiven Task used the air blower to carefully push away the dirt from the bones. The toothless skull of a Duros stared up at him, the strange oval eye sockets filled with caked red earth. An orange sun rose in the sky as he cleared his find, burning off the little dew that settled on the ground of the excavation site, muttering notes into the microphone hanging off his ear. Six other graves stood open in the eroded courtyard walls of the old Jedi temple, a small outpost that had been set up in the early days of Duros colonization, probably abandoned a few centuries later. The faded scraps of cloth on the skeleton resembled those of the old Jedi robes. Sunlight caught the flash of metal, and Task bent back down.

Eiven stared intently at the object as it slowly seemed to tug itself free from the soil. When the human had first suffered his injury, the searing stroke that had cleft his left side from collarbone to hip, and received the prosthetic left arm and implants that saved his life, he thought that had been the end of his abilities. The ghostly presence of his lost arm had remained with him always, as though it was still there…and in time it had become the focus of regaining his telekinetic abilities. Task felt as much as ordered his ghostly fist to close about the object and lift it free, and the ancient lightsaber came free of the soil.

Unhurriedly, he brought his prize back to his ship, the Memory of Alderaan, the exposed bones temporarily forgotten. Cool air kissed his pale, sun-burnt skin as the door slid shut behind him, and he struggled out of his sweat-stained workshirt, caught a momentary glance of himself in the mirror. He ran his flesh hand through the close-cropped mane of gold and brown hair on his scalp, matched by overgrown sideburns on his cheeks and three day’s stubble on his chin, though he’d never managed to grow a mustache. Eiven was of average height for a human, and with the exaggerated lean build that bespoke a marathoner or a drug addict. He could usually pass as full human, though some slight strain of alienage had left a silver sheen to his brown eyes. Task looked away from the mirror; even he had never really trusted those eyes.

With the press of a concealed button, a portion of the bulkhead moved aside to reveal a smuggler’s panel with his weapons, his armor, and the small treasures he had wrested from the bones of Sith and Jedi alike. Front and center was a small workplace, a half-completed mechanism laid out, a polished crimson krayt dragon pearl at its heart. The very sight of it tugged at something inside him, and Eiven Task hastily sat down, laying the old Jedi lightsaber in front of his half-completed design, and set about dissecting it.

On the left hand side of the smuggler’s shelf before him, the head of the ancient Sith droid A1S1 opened its shuttered optics, beeping as it scanned the weapon, offering hints and instructions. Across from it on the right, a tapered red pyramid of gold and crimson crystal glowed as the hologram of Darth Modas flickered to life, silent and judging. Much of the Jedi device was useless—the case had corroded and air and water had spoiled the inner circuits, the crystal was cracked, power cells long depleted—but the emitter matrix shined like new, and the focusing lens flawless and undamaged. With these final pieces, his weapon would finally be complete.

*

Acti Kas circled to Eiven’s right; her partner Eddi Kas moved in time to his left. Both were Near-Duros, descendants of different groups of colonists who had split off from their ancestral species over ten thousand years ago. Task tried to stay calm, focused, watching their moves in his peripheral vision, strove to see what they would do next. They struck at nearly the same moment. Acti went high, padded fist aimed at Eiven’s right temple, his Echani form flawless. Eddi swung her leg low, aiming at Task’s left knee, a perfect K’thri strike. Eiven twisted his body not to dodge their attack, but to meet it. The Duros staggered back.

Kelliban was an ancient but not especially populous or important world; still dominated by the descendants of the original Duros colonists, it was marginalized under the Galactic Empire and continued to be nearly forgotten in the Imperial Remnant, and had grown insular and wary of “aliens” like Task. After each civil war and invasion Kelliban had accepted and absorbed the Duros refugees from the conflicts, and now the cities teamed with near-Duros of every creed and color. It was the ancient birthplace of Darth Modas, and Eiven Task had followed the memories the Sith had recorded in his holocron, excavating temples and tombs.

Acti and Eddi continued to move and strike, testing his guard, reading his movements, trying to keep him on the defensive. Kelliban was also home base to a regiment of stormtroopers, recruited from the native Duros, trained and housed here between engagements. The Kas were instructors in unarmed combat; ostracized for some taboo related to their relationship, the pariahs were willing to deal with Eiven, acting as his intermediary. He provided them with the artifacts he discovered, and they turned them into credits—enough to cover his food, shelter, and training.

“Good!” Acti shouted as Task read her blow and dodged it, the padded fist missing his face by millimeters; the Echani battlemaster pressed the assault, but Eiven moved inside her guard and managed a solid knee-strike. The padded training armor took the edge off the blow, but Task still imagined his instructor would have a bruise. Almost without thought the human turned to intercept K’thri battlemaster Eddi, time enough to see her foot but not do much about it as it smashed into his face. The force knocked him backwards into the hunched Acti and both fell to the padded floor in a sprawl. Eddi’s foot came stomping down near his neck.

“Better.” Eddi said between lung-filling gasps. “That was thirty-two minutes without a fall.” She offered both Acti an arm and pulled her up into an embrace. Eiven grinned as he pulled himself up. The two battlemasters were as complementary as their different styles, roughness married to grace. With their efforts, he had refined his skills considerably under their tutelage.

“I’ll leave you two to it. Same time tomorrow?” Task called out, but the Duros were already oblivious to all else but each other.

*

Kelliban City was primarily a military town; the two-thousand plus stormtroopers and their support staff brought in most of the credits. But it was also a very old town, right back to the second wave of colonization; pre-fabricated buildings from last month stood side-by-side with stone houses two thousand years old. Eiven Task walked the back alleys to the hangar where the Memory of Alderaan was parked, passing the lower tier businesses and establishments, many of which let out apartments above and below. In this part of town, in this section of streets where the traffic was sparse and each minded their own business, the human could walk undisturbed and without catching much attention.

So it came as a surprise when Eiven felt eyes on him. The hangar was only a block farther, but he turned to take a longer, more circuitous route. Mapping his way in his head, he hurried over a small bridge that crossed a deep, narrow canal; beyond it the street split into four alleys, but Task dove into the shelter of the nearest doorway and stared. Before long another human crested the bridge—skin like burnt honey, with close-cropped reddish hair, a handful of dots tattooed under his left cheek—and Eiven ducked out of sight. He waited tense minutes, but his shadow never passed into any of the other streets, and when Task looked back the bridge was empty.

With a sudden bad feeling, Eiven crossed the bridge again and hurried to the hangar. The lock sat in a pool of metal slag that had cooled to grey on the outside, a cherry of dull orange in the center. He pushed it open with his boot. The door to his ship was still locked, but someone had cut a ragged oval straight through it. Task took a breath and stepped through the hole to survey the damage.

The ship was a mess. His belongings lay scattered all about, some of the plates broken where they had been thrown on the floor. Bed and tables were bolted to the floor, but every compartment that could be opened was opened—including the smuggler panels. His armor was laid out on the bed, the black visor glinting at him, but his weapons were all missing—darts, grenades, the blasters, and most worryingly his lightsaber-pike. At his work-bench Eiven noted with relief that A1S1’s head was still there and intact, but the red pyramid of the holocron was missing. In its place was a small square of local paper. He read it without touching it.

At midnight, bring the artifact from the Prophet’s Tomb to the Old Jedi Temple. Come alone. We have unfinished business.

The sigil beneath the note looked like a twin-tailed skull.

Task whistled. A1S1 blinked awake, and Eiven began giving instructions as he took inventory. The broken Jedi lightsaber remained, obviously not worth taking. A few knives in the kitchen. The long-handled trench tool used during the excavation. There were hours yet until midnight.

*

Kelliban had no moon. When the sun fell, the night came on and only got blacker and blacker, with only the stars to give shape to the darkness. Eiven Task set the ship down a little ways off from where he usually did, the broken door rattling the whole way with the quick patch-job he did. Task opened the door and stood framed against the light from inside for just a moment before stepping off into darkness. He could feel them out there, at least a dozen presences, waiting in the ruins. Eiven wanted them to see him; the armor was of the same form as the Imperial Royal Guard, one of the most universally feared units in the history of the galaxy—and while his was dead-white while their was blood-red, the mask inspired dread and hesitation in many. The fact that he was wielding a long-handled trench tool rather than his customary lightsaber pike diminished the effect only slightly.

They did not come at him right away, but started moving in around him as he approached the temple ruins. Imaging circuitry in the helmet helped accommodate for the darkness. They were human or near-human, dressed in tight-fitting black clothes, divided equally between men and women. In their hands were short metal clubs, long knives, and lengths of chain. A slight rush and clarity hit Task as the stimulant he had taken kicked in, and he paused before the recently-purloined graves.

When the first one that drew close enough, Eiven moved with startling speed, his prosthetic arm whipping the trench tool down at the full extant of its reach. Impact shuddered up his arm as the sharpened edged of the trenching tool bit deeply into the neck, cleaving to the bone. A woman screamed and launched herself at him, spinning a length of chain; Task caught let go the trench tool and caught the chain in his left hand, bringing his right arm straight up so the momentum of her charge helped smash her onto his fist. Her eyes went wide as she slumped to the earth, the impromptu punch dagger Eiven had made sliding out of the wound with a wet schluck.

Battle was joined. The sensitives fought by instinct; they learned to let the Force guide their blows and their steps, the fractional precognition making them react a split second before their opponent had begun to make their move. Task knew the feeling well; it was how he was used to fighting. Eiven moved among the cultists as a streak of white terror, wielding the sharpened trench tool as a pike, slashing at unprotected faces and necks. With the reach the weapon offered him and his superior awareness, he could have held his own against this lot for some time. Yet the lessons of the battlemasters served him well, his Force-driven instincts honed to a finer edge than any of the cultists had managed. One by one, as they grew desperate and sloppy, Task cut them down.

*

“I see your skills have improved,” A female voice called from behind him. “Last time, it took you much longer to slaughter my acolytes.” Eiven turned and saw the Sith adept emerge from deeper in the ruins. Pale blue skin criss-crossed with blue-black tattoos, to which she had added the image of a skull drawn over her face since last Task had seen her—when they had battled over the contents of the Prophet’s Tomb. Eiven had escaped with his life and his prize, leaving her entombed with her last crop of cultists. Her gear was better than that of her apprentices, black leather and black silk, her head-tails bound behind her with a cord. The pommel of a Sith sword poked out of the scabbard at her belt; a lightsaber hilt dangled from the other side. In her left hand was his lightsaber pike; in her right the glowing holocron, the image of Darth Modas examining the scene in silence. Flanking her were four more “acolytes” with blaster pistols drawn.

“Drop your weapons.” She said.

Task opened his hands. The punch-dagger and trench tool fell to the earth.

“You have the artifact from the Prophet’s tomb?”

With exaggerated slowness, Eiven unclipped the lightsaber from his belt with his right hand.

“As I said,” the hologram of Darth Modas croaked. “He has incorporated it into a lightsaber.”

“Marak.” The twi’lek said. “Bring it here.”

One of the cultists stepped forward, blaster level with his belly. Task recognized him as the one who had tailed him earlier in the day. Eiven handed the lightsaber hilt over without a struggle, his ghost hand thumbing the control. He started counting.

“I must admit, after your earlier performance I expected more of a struggle.” The Sith adept said, as Marak retraced his steps.

“He is a terrible apprentice,” Modas croaked. “But not to be underestimated.”

As Eiven’s count reached ten, the lightsaber exploded in his hand. Task lunged for the nearest acolyte. The sudden flash had ruined their night-vision, and he made it almost within arm’s reach before they had the sense to raise their weapons again. Eiven’s ghost hand thumbed the new control beneath the sleeve on the armor of his left arm. There was an electric howl and the smell of burning plastic and ceramic as the blade of the lightsaber he had just recently installed in his prosthetic arm burnt through the armor.

The bloodshine blade flashed as it moved almost of its own accord, intercepting the blaster shots, deflecting them back to their sources. In only a few heartbeats, the three remaining acolytes were dead, smoke rising from the charred holes burned in their chests. Marak lay on the ground, curled around the charred stump of a hand.

The twi’lek kneeled on the ground, setting down both his lightsaber pike and the Sith holocron. With a single backwards step she drew her weapons, and moved into a fighting crouch, putting space between them. With an audible click, her lightsaber ignited.

*

Eiven recognized the twi’lek had assumed a Niman form, the Sith sword was held in front of her the smaller lightsaber blade—a shoto—held in a reverse grip in her off-hand, the emitter guard keeping the foot of red-colored plasma from charring her forearm. The blade that burned over the back of Task’s prosthetic hand was about the same length, putting him at a disadvantage. He stood flat-footed, outside of the range of her thrusts, the holocron and his lightsaber pike on the ground between them.

With a sudden movement he tucked into a forward roll, his ghost hand clicking off his bloodshine blade before he burned a hole in himself with it, right hand going to his boot. The twi’lek moved forward, blade arching down to split him as he rose, be he stopped in a kneel and flung his right hand forward. The knife flew at her, and she shifted her strike to bring the lightsaber shoto forward to block; the sharpest of Eiven’s kitchen knives spattered to the ground as a lump of half-molten metal a few feet away, but the distraction bought him the time he needed to lung for the lightsaber pike.

Sith sword clashed against phrik-staff as Task clumsily raised it to ward off her stroke, then retreated, using the meter-and-a-half pole to fend off the Sith adept’s increasingly aggressive strikes. After six passes and as many steps back, Eiven had the presence to ignite the lightsaber pike; the sudden presence of the foot-and-a-half long silver-white plasma blade caught the twi’lek off-guard, moving to avoid a low slash that would have taken off her left foot.

Panting and flushing nearly purple, the twi’lek resumed her Niman form. Eivan shifted the lightsaber pike to his right hand and raised it over his head, blade pointed downward. With a flick of his ghost hand, the bloodshine blade in his prosthetic left hand ignited into life again, held low in front of him. Her eyes flickered with momentary uncertainty, swiftly replaced by cool rage. Now the duel began in earnest.

Task’s stance was a modified Soresu form, and he moved forward carefully, knees bent, feet in line, keeping his angles of attack and defense open. The Sith adept did not retreat, but moved in with a sudden burst of speed, sword and lightsaber moving in from opposite directions. Eiven moved his own blades out to meet the attack;. But where he felt the sudden impact of the sword against his bloodshine blade, Task’s lightsaber pike moved through empty space as with a click the twi’lek’s shoto blade disappeared, only to ignite again after the lightsaber pike had passed, the blade still aimed at his heart.

Panic and instinct flared before realization hit, and Eiven dropped the block on the Sith sword, his left hand blade blazing down in an arc to counter the twi’lek’s shoto. The two smaller lightsabers connected awkwardly. Pain flared in Task’s chest as the lightsaber burned a shallow cut through his armor and the flesh beneath; it was quickly followed by a sickening crunch and bright blossom of pain as the Sith sword bit into the flared neck-guard of his helmet. Eiven swung the lightsaber pike wildly, but her next blow knocked it from his hand.

Now reduced to one weapon again, Task switched to the defensive. Presenting only his profile to her, the bloodshine blade moved almost of its own accord as he fended off the Sith sabreur’s increasingly ferocious attacks, striving to clear his head from the pain of his wounds as his tireless cybernetic arm met her own Force-enhanced blows time and again. This was the first time Eiven had used the artifact from the Prophet’s Tomb in combat; he could feel his instincts sharper and more precise than ever before, the jewel set in his lightsaber always shifting his awareness to her next attack. It was disconcerting, but familiar: the same basic tactic as the Force sensitives had used before. Even as he parried and retreated through the ruins, Task understood he had been fighting on instinct—and if he continued, she would kill him just as he had dealt with her acolytes.

The next time she came at him, Eiven responded with a leap, his right knee crushing cartilage as it slammed into her nose. His momentum countered her charge, and as she fell back he pressed forward. She dropped the Sith sword as he came inside her guard and grabbed his left wrist as the bloodshine blade aimed for her face. Task’s own hand caught her left wrist that held the lightsaber shoto. They stood locked in that struggle for a moment, blood dripping from the twi’lek’s ruined nose exacerbating the skull-tattoo on her face, rage pouring off her in waves as she focused all her strength on the contest. But Eiven locked his prosthetic arm, and he moved to a K’thri grip on her arm, slowly forcing her own lightsaber blade toward her chest.

With a quick movement, his right leg latched behind her knee, causing them to fall backwards, adding gravity and his own weight to the force pushing down on her lightsaber. A moment before the tip would have driven into her, she thumbed the shoto off, and flashed Eiven a bloody smile, the emitter guard poking into her breastbone. Though she could not see it, Task smiled too—as his ghost hand flicked the blade black on. Shock washed over her as streams of smoke poured out as the plasma burned through her heart.

Eiven stood up as the lightsaber burrowed straight downwards into the earth. It wouldn’t stop until it hit groundwater or ran out of power, and he was damned if he was going to dig for it. With a click, he turned off his own lightsaber, the bloodshine blade vanishing back into his prosthetic arm. Several feet away, the hologram of Darth Modas nodded its wizened head.

“A superior effort, apprentice. Finally, you are ready.”

*

The Tenth Student

The Tenth Student

by
Bobby Derie

South of Sibiu, up in the old mountains where it is still wild, there is a secluded portion of the country that was never conquered when the Romans warred against Dacia. Three peaks look down on a little brother, packed so tight together that they form a valley about that smallest peak, and the cold water of their melting snows form streams through the dense, foggy forests, and fills up that valley so it looks to be the deepest lake in the world, and that small peak an island in the middle of it with roots that go down to the heart of the world. If one climbed those peaks and hiked through the forest on the game trails to the shores of that lake and looked out across the clear waters that reflected the sky, they would see the foundations of some mighty tower, long toppled. There, in a cellar beneath a cellar, is the celebrated school of Scholomance.

Now every ten years the master of this school goes forth, and scours the land for ten boys marked for magic by their red hair and other signs, and takes them back with him for instruction. It is not as schools today, for he is a hard master and cunning, and each student must find their own path and overcome their own trials to mastery. And when their course of study is complete, nine are released into the world as master occultists, and the tenth the master keeps for himself. Yet always that dark master smiles to see his nine charges go, for whatever good or ill they do with their powers, it is his work that they accomplish, and he knows he will see them all again in time.

It was the tenth year, and the old master rode out upon his dragon, which had taken the form of a horse as black as coal with antlers like an antelope, cut cabochons for its eyes, and iron teeth and iron hooves that struck sparks with every step. The master had his own strange ways of going that few are privy to, and was surprised at one dark crossroads to find a mother and child and a cat waiting for him there—and then the woman straightened and looked him full in the face, and he smiled to recognize a favorite retainer from the Sabbat-revels, a drowner of ships and despoiler of men and cattle. The cat he knew too as her familiar, a disreputable one-eyed dam named Wotan whose fur was so long and wild that the cat seemed almost shapeless. He greeted the witch with familiarity, and she bent to perform the old obsequious kiss, but he waved her away and had a look at the child. The cat ignored him, and he returned the favor.

“Who is this that stands before me? Some abortion you have delayed to deliver up to me, these seven years, as I judge.” Said the master. The child stood tall for its age, with close-cropped henna hair and green-blue eyes, and was dressed in a simple sack of white cotton that hid much of its shape.

“His name is Aiden, lord. Born with the caul, oh lord, and a mouth full of teeth so that when I brought him to my breast his first meal was blood. The seventh child I had delivered, the other six of which I had given up to you as soon as they were born, their throats slit to proffer you libation. Yet this one I kept, my seventh son, and I have schooled him in all that I know—yet I would have him go to the Scholomance.”

Now the old master licked his lips at the memory of the drinks she had served him as a wild girl of sixteen, naked and still aching from the birth, blood dripping down her thighs as on shaky legs she brought to him the old copper cylix full of hot blood. And each time the witch said “son” he smiled wider, for he took pleasure in lies.

Kneeling down to the child, the old master looked deep into those eyes.

“Well, little witch. I have heard your mother make your case, and good it is too. Yet you must know that this course lasts nine years, and at the end I keep one of my students as payment for my services. Do you accept these terms?”

The child nodded, and with that the pact was sealed. Mother and child embraced one final time, and the dragon bent at the knees to except his newest passenger, who sat behind the master. Then in a crash of sparks, they were off.

Nine more children came to Scholomance, all with their own skills and their own secrets, and Aiden kept hers as well as any of the others. Some had been schooled already in certain arts, while others possessed only their native skills, but all had come to learn, and the master had his own peculiar style. It was rare of him to give any straight answer to a question, but he would always proffer a path to the solution that rewarded and enriched the earnest or clever student. There were no tests or exams, but always the ten children awoke to new challenges and perils that drove them onward.

So it was that one day the whole school might be covered with venomous serpents of every description, and it was up to each to deal with the situation, scrabbling through the books in the vast library for some spell or conjuration to deal with the crisis of the day; and the next day a creature of balefire stalked the halls, but the only book to bind or dismiss it was written in runes none had yet mastered…yet by the end of the day they had. Other parts of their training were more subtle; their every meal was laced with dire poisons in growing strength, so soon they evinced immunities to many life-threatening drugs, and every day their cloths grew a little more heavy, so in five years’ time they wandered about stooped as a group of muscled blacksmiths in smocks heavy as iron.

In the fifth year, individual lessons began. While no student had ever been denied access to any book in the library, now the master queried them closely on the lore they wished to master, and told them which books to read, and what they might do to improve their skills and attain the powers they wished, and together student and master would plan out their course. It was in the fifth year that Aiden determined to summon a familiar.

Now in her twelfth summer, Aiden still maintained the guise of a boy, using a wrap to contain her budding breasts, and keeping her hair shorn close to the scalp. The master approved of her project, and they talked long about the various benefits and difficulties of a familiar, and the rights and responsibilities of the pacts to be made, and where the various ingredients for certain of the spells might be kept.

“But master,” Aiden said. “Could you not simply assign me a familiar, as you did my mother?”

At that, the master hesitated. “I did not assign her that creature, my child.” He said. “I had given her a thing of crooked wings with the face of an old man, a descendant of some elder race that might have become Man before they fell from favor and grace, and it would have served her well and faithfully through all the years she was bound to me, fed by the bloody milk of her witches’ nipple.” He sighed. “The cat ate the thing, after a long night of torturing it, and attached itself to your mother in its place. A rare case of the familiar choosing the master.”

Aiden said nothing, and did not smile, but the master was not surprised a week later to recognize the pile of fur that followed his student’s steps, and coiled in her lap to listen during their private lessons. It was of no fixed breed, but the long hairs were black and brown and grey that seemed to shift whenever it moved, and its limbs always seemed a little longer than any domestic mouser. Most worrying of all, the master noted, was that the cat had no fear of thunder at all, but would come and watch as the students of Scholomance went to the lake to craft storms and lightning.

In the ninth year, each student at Scholomance was given a book, and charged as their final effort to fill it with all they had learned—and this was the sole grade of the whole nine years of study, he said to them, for he would read each book and so determine which was to be payment for their time here, and as for the rest they would no longer have access to the sprawling occult library of the school, but would have only their own book to refer to. So for a twelvemonth, they set to work.

Now the master did not set them this task and leave them to it, but guided them in their work with questions and suggestions, and never more in their nine years did the ten students so deeply reflect on what they had learned, nor questioned so much of what they had taken for granted. More than a collection of recipes, each grimoire they crafted was a universe to itself, a personal manifesto of all they knew and understood of magic, and with many original insights as well.

One day late in the eleventh month, Aiden approached the master with the request. “I have studied well here, and written down nearly all I think I’ve learned in my book.” said the girl dressed as a boy. “Yet I approach the final chapter and I know it is incomplete, for there are some final secrets of my early training with my mother I have forgotten and must know again.” And the master smiled, for he liked to hear lies.

“In the final year, the students are permitted to sojourn beyond these walls unaccompanied,” he said “and may even go beyond the barriers of this valley by whatever powers they possess, for not all the instruction of Scholomance is in dusty books and unlocked crypts. Your mother dwells just beyond this valley; go to the east where you will find a trail of bones, and follow it to her house.”

So Aiden and Wotan took themselves across the still, clear waters of the lake, and the dragon in its depths blinked as they walked across the surface as though it were solid ice, and took themselves into the woods to the east. The master stood on the shore and clucked his tongue, for Aiden had not thought to ask what might have left the trail of bones to her mother’s house.

In the forest Wotan became as one with the muddy darkness, and Aiden picked the way through secret game trails she had learned to find and to follow, and recalled all the names of the herbs and plants and trees that she passed and their uses, and caught the signs of all the game that had been this way before. After an hour of this winding way, the land slowly climbing as she went up the side of the valley, the trees gave way to scrub grass. Before her she could see a slight pass between the mountain peaks, and trailing down on it to the forest’s edge was a heap of bones bleached by sun and wind, picked clean by birds and insects, all the way to the forest’s edge where there was a bare muddy spot with a track that Aiden had never seen before. It was something like a lion, if a lion had been the size of an elephant, and Wotan crept next to her and the cat’s tail twitched as it sniffed the wind.

Together, they climbed the road of bones, and at the crest they found the sphinx, gnawing on the remnants of a horse. It was indeed the size of a small elephant, and it had the deep chest and tawny limbs of a panther rather than a lion, but it was wide at the shoulder and the spine curved up at the back, so that it’s front limbs were always splayed and the chest always appeared puffed out, the better to display its vast bare breasts, and the face was of a dark-skinned human woman with the teeth of a cannibal, and matted hair twisted into long hanging dreads. A little ways off Aiden could see her mother’s house, which in truth was a cottage built into the side of the mountain, and so overgrown with grass and moss as to seem almost a part of nature.

“Good evening,” she said to the sphinx, as the sun was setting but it only stared at her and spoke in a hissing sibilance. Now Aiden grew afraid, for she knew the purpose and way of the sphinx, to devour any who did not answer their riddles. She knew too that the beast had likely been set here by the master to guard the entrance to the valley, and keep any of his charges from escaping their doom. All this she knew—yet never once did she think that the sphinx might not ask her riddle in a tongue she spoke.

Then Wotan hissed and yowled a reply, and the sphinx stared down at the one-eyed cat and stiffly bowed its head—and Aiden remembered that the cat is cousin to the sphinx, and speaks her language.

The reunion with mother and daughter was brief and joyous, and they talked long into the night, each feeding Wotan choice morsels and doting on her between them by the fireplace. From outside came the yowl—Frieda, her mother’s other cat, who was with kittens and would go into labor any time now. When the moon was high the old witch told her daughter the last of her secrets, the three great secrets all witches share, the least of which is that every woman has it in her power to be a witch, and needs no pact or bargain, but only to decide to be so. Then as the moon hid its face behind a cloud, Aiden wrote the last page in her book and slipped into a dreamless sleep.

The master arrived well past midnight, and the old witch was by the fire, and seemed to expect him. He took the book there because the light was better, and finished that final chapter.

“A good student,” he said. “And like the mother, will make a good and devoted servant.”

“You’ve decided then, lord?” she said, her voice barely a whisper, devoid of hope.

“I have.”

And the conversation turned to other things, remembering rites long past, and obscenities lovingly crafted over the years. Neither paid any attention as Wotan uncurled herself from the fire, and padded softly to where Aiden lay sleeping.

It had been many years ago since last she had done so, yet the cat clambered up and sat high on her mistress’s chest, head drawn close to the witch’s gaping mouth, and opened her own as though in a silent scream. Long minutes passed as Aiden seemed to find it harder and harder to breathe, and finally a shudder ran through her body and something flitted out from Aiden’s open mouth and Wotan’s jaws crashed sharply on it.

There was a roar and peel of thunder behind her as the cat sprinted from the cottage, and the master appeared at the doorway in surprise, but his eyes caught sight of the dark mottled shadow and gave chase into the night. It was a brief run, for by the time he had caught up with Wotan the one-eyed cat sat guarding before Frieda and her passel of new kittens, all of which where black with white bellies and feet—save for one, henna-furred, and though its eyes were not open the master knew they would be blue-green.

“You dare cheat me?” he addressed the one-eyed cat, and it flicked its ears at him.

“You know well the bargain you made with my race,” Wotan rasped as the rain began to fall, and lightning flashed on the mountains. “We alone tread the worlds of day and night, and carry your news and act as your eyes and ears. We have burned and drowned for your servants’ crimes, and submitted to many sorceries and cruelties by those who seek a path to you, and all for this: you cannot harm a cat, nor lay claim to us.”

The master trembled with anger as the storm raged, her book still clutched in his grip, but at last the mood lifted, and he turned back to the school. There were, after all, nine others to choose from for his price.

###

Duel at the Prophet's Tomb

Duel at the Prophet’s Tomb
by
Bobby Derie

A serpent-bird landed on the stone lintel of the entrance to the prophet’s tomb. It hissed once before one of the diggers shooed it away. Eiven Task, lay flat on the white sand a kilometer away, watched the scene through his binocs. They had dug an angled trench three meters long with the entrance to the tomb on the north end of it. The entrance formed a trilithon, set at an angle into the white sands. The cover marker had been removed and set aside. He tapped the button on the side, zooming in on the half-eroded Sith runes on the marker.

The information he’d bought on Corellia seemed to have been correct. The ex-Imperial spymaster claimed this was one of hundreds of archaeological sites throughout the galaxy that Emperor Palpatine’s private archaeological corps was set to survey and excavate before the Battle of Yavin. The purported tomb of one of the early Prophets of the Dark Side, hundreds of years old, apparently intact and undisturbed. The artifacts within would go a long way to covering his costs for this trip. Someone had beaten him to the punch.

Task shifted the binocs to the camp, located away from the expedition. About twenty, mostly human or near-human, at least three twi’leks and a duro. They looked like students, but a few of them carried themselves like soldiers. One or two held blaster rifles, ex-Stormtrooper gear, nothing special. A trio of heavy-duty landspeeders for transport. No satlinks or antennas visible, which was odd but worked in his favor. Based on the latrine pit they’d dug on the outskirts and the extant of the excavation, Eiven estimated they’d been there at least a week.

There was something else. A nagging sort of itch at the back of his brain that seemed to drag his attention back to the dark tunnel of the tomb. He laid still, chin on the sand, closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, probing. Eiven fell back into his training, knowing that part of his abilities at least had not diminished. Something—or someone—disturbed the flow of the Force in this place. In the tomb. Eiven felt the familiar need stir up in him. Whatever it was, he wanted it.

Task pulled his senses back. If there were any Force-sensitives in the camp, he didn’t want them to feel his presence. Opening his eyes, he stared out at the camp again with new eyes, mapping the approaches. He could deal with a guard or two if it came to it, but most of them should be asleep tonight. The tomb was already open, he doubted they’d begin removing the artifacts immediately—they’d want to catalogue everything first, do things properly.

A quick excursion. If the Force was with him, he would be out of the tomb with whatever he could carry long before anyone in the camp knew he was there. Eiven scuttled backwards on his belly, away from the camp.

*

Nine kilometers later, Task disabled the blaster-trap and stepped onboard his ship, the Memory of Alderaan. The ship was a Lone Scout class that had seen better decades and not a few wars; a civilian variant of the TIE model adapted to commerce. Eiven used it as a residence, the cargo hold converted into living quarters, complete with a meditation chamber.

Task breathed deep the cool recycled air, struggling out of his shirt and boots to feel the mechanical breeze on his parched, pale skin. Of average height for a human, and might have passed for a full human if not for the gold mixed into his short brown hair, and the slight silver sheen to his brown eyes. His body looked thin, emaciated, pale skin stretched over wiry muscles. With a grunt he scratched at the line of rough, red tissue on his left side, where what was left of his flesh met the plastic and metal implants that sustained him. A bit of sand had gotten into the gap, irritating the tissues there.

Ignoring the itch for now, Eiven pressed a hidden button, causing the smuggler’s panels to retract from the wall, revealing his small armory and the few treasures he had managed to uncover so far. Fragments of the old Sith empires, long thought lost; forgotten remnants of Imperial projects; the scraps left by the Jedi Order in various incarnations. Near his left hand, the red crystal pyramid of the holocron blinked, then projected the hazy hologram of a Duros in a dark cloak and hood.

“You return empty-handed.” The gatekeeper observed. Darth Modas had been a scholar and archaeologist among the Sith over two thousand years ago, an expert on the ancient Jedi, and whose philosophy was to know your enemy was to overcome them. His holocron had been Eiven’s greatest asset in the decade he had spent studying the Force after his injury.

“I was only scouting.” Eiven said. “Someone else got there first. An archaeological team. They have already breached the tomb. I sensed…something there. Perhaps an artifact. I will return tonight while they are sleeping and take it.”

“Bold action must be mediated with caution.” recited the gatekeeper. “Your training is incomplete. Do you think yourself ready to face them, should you be discovered?”

Task only grunted in reply, and began taking down his armor, weapons, and other bits of kit as he planned the evening’s mission.

“A terrible acolyte,” the hologram of Darth Modas scowled. “May the Force be with you on your quest.”

From the opposite end of the smuggler’s shelf, the rusted head of A1-S1 beeped and burbled in Droidspeak. The droid had been built near the end of the New Sith Wars, a repository for lightsaber designs built as a guide on their construction, modification, and repair. Task’s other treasure, dug out of a trash heap at the rear of an old academy—it was amazing what the ancients threw away.

“Yes, I will be taking it out tonight.” He answered the droid-head. “With luck, I may even blood it.” The droid bleeped its approval, and then closed the covers on its optical sensors as it returned to a rest state.

Eiven finished setting out his gear, and then closed the panels.

*

The first moon had risen and the second had set by the time Eiven had snuck back to the tomb. He didn’t need the moonlight to find his way back—the Force-presence he had felt back in the tomb was stronger now, and drew him on through the night. He boots sank in cold white sands, the heat of the day having bled out, and now he was grateful for the warmth his armor afforded him, even if the mask restricted his vision somewhat. Task paused on the ridge he had used before.

Through the binocs he could see two human guards in front of the open tomb door, with blaster rifles. Light spilled out of the entrance. Eiven had a bad feeling about this, but stamped it down. He had come too far now to go back empty handed. He prepped the Echani stimulant, peeled back the armor on his right side to expose the flesh, felt the sting as it went in. The drug would take a several minutes to kick in.

Carefully he followed the route he had mapped out in his mind, circling around behind the excavation trench. On his belly, the staff crooked in his arms before him, Task crawled up the slope. The presence in the tomb below seemed to draw at him. Eiven stopped at the edge of the trench, with the tomb entrance and the guards immediately below.

He held his breath, willed himself not to make a sound, and carefully removed two of the darts secured on the side of his left leg. A peek over the ledge, he saw them—a man and a woman, no armor or helmets, backs to the tomb-tunnel, staring out into the night. Task didn’t hesitate. The first dart hit the guard on Eiven’s left, just above her ear. She didn’t have time to cry as the Imobilin kicked in. The second dart caught the other guard in the neck, and he too collapsed. Task waited a moment for the crumpled bodies to cease moving, then turned and dropped over the edge, his staff held at the ready.

No-one faced him. The hallway extended at a downward angle into a lit chamber. He could make out the movement of bodies there—and black robes, their backs turned towards him. A cult. He paused, considered retreat, and then opened himself up once more to the Force. Eiven Task could feel something down in the tomb. Something old…though whether it was an artifact or an adept at this point, Eiven could not tell…and something angry. He felt the stimulant kick in. Whatever power was locked in that tomb, he wanted it. One lone Force adept he could probably handle.

Kneeling down at the entrance, he checked the guards. They stared with palpable, impotent rage, paralyzed for at least another hour. Satisfied, Task removed the power packs from their weapons and set up a little surprise for later. He stood and thumbed the activator on his lightsaber-pike.

*

The tunnel was only a couple meters long, ending in a chamber filled with black robes with their backs to him. Womp rats in a box canyon. No idea on how many, but probably all of the ones he’d seen at camp. Task fetched a flash-bang grenade out of his belt, thumbed the button, counted off three seconds, and then tossed it in into the room as close to the middle of the group as he could manage.

People screamed, fell back, clutching at eyes and ears. Eiven strode to the end of the corridor. The lightsaber-pike was a meter and a half long, phrik alloy; the silvery-white lightsaber blade jutting out of the business end added another half meter. Not the most elegant or traditional weapon; most of the traditional forms of lightsaber combat had to be adapted to use it, but it was unexpected and it had reach, and Task would take whatever advantage he could get.

By the time the crowd in the tomb-chamber could see again, Task had stabbed three of the cultists through the chest and had beheaded a fourth. Those were the ones that had rushed the exit at the first sign of trouble, but when they fell the others pulled away, giving him space. Some froze when they saw him framed in the doorway: a silent figure in the unmistakable ceremonial robe, armor and helmet of the old Imperial Royal Guard—but colored white, instead of crimson. Recognition and confusion bought Task the seconds he needed to cut down two more that had stayed within range, clearing enough space for him to get a look at the chamber.

It was a long, low rectangular chamber, perhaps ten meters by eight. At regular intervals the walls were lined with scones holding small statue-shrines of stone, metal, and crystal. The chamber was illuminated by ancient lamps set into the walls and ceiling, powered by a portable generator that the cultists had installed. In the center of the chamber was a raised dais, on which rested an upright sarcophagus of black stone banded by metal. The lid had been wrenched open, the mummified corpse exposed, still in its starry night-sky robes. A ruddy jewel hung about its shriveled neck which tugged at his senses. A twi’lek woman stood there, holding an ancient, dusty double-edged sword that gleamed like crimson chrome. A lightsaber hung at her belt.

She smiled to see him. “Kill him.” her voice seemed to echo in his skull.

The black robes moved forward. Task shifted his stance, moved the lightsaber-pike to his right hand and waved them back as his prosthetic left arm slipped behind his back. The holdout blaster was small, short range, and only held enough charge for six shots, but at close range it was difficult to miss. He squeezed out three shots in rapid succession at the milling throng, and three more black robes went down.

The black robes surged back again, and this time he chased after them.

*

“Your skills are weak,” she said after the slaughter was finished. The twi’lek was colored a vibrant blue, head-tails drawn back with cords. Unlike the cultists, she was dressed in a fighter’s outfit: short sleeves and pants, drawn up enough to showcase the blue-black Sith tattoos on her legs and arms. “Not a knight, despite your trappings. A lost little apprentice, playing at being a Sith.”

Her words cut, as she knew they would. The twi’lek adept gave an experimental sweep of the blade, then raised the sword above her head in an opening Ataru stance. Eiven automatically moved into a modified Soresu stance, the pike held at chest level, burning blade straight ahead.

She took an experimental swipe; Eiven swiveled the pike, drove it aside. The Sith sword barely glowed where it had touched the lightsaber blade. Task lunged at her chest, and the twi’lek dodged, moved sideways, always facing towards him. Eiven followed, keeping his blade level with her heart.

The adept leaped, launched herself off the wall. Task shifted to parry. The Sith sword hit with all her weight and Force-enhanced strength; only Eiven’s prosthetic arm kept his guard up. She recovered, attacked again. After a half dozen passes the Sith blade glowed orange over half its length, and Task had retreated around the dais. He could feel her anger simmer just below the surface, let loose in those explosive bursts of speed and strength. Yet…she was not quite used to the Sith blade. Heavier than a lightsaber, not as quick. She attacked again, and Eiven gave ground, mentally fingered his final dart.

This time when she came at him, he met her head on. Giving up the advantage of reach, Task moved in, the lightsaber-pike held near the burning blade. She brought them into a clinch, the ancient Sith blade biting into the phrik staff centimeters from his face. They remained locked for a moment, each exerting all their strength. The presence of the red jewel at the mummy’s throat burned in his mind, it was an effort to focus his thoughts on the dart. He imagined his ghostly lost hand gripped it, tugged at it. Distracted, Task’s foot slipped, and he fell hard on his left knee. With a predatory grin, the twi’lek pressed her advantage.

“Your desires betray you. Such need.” She gloated. “But you have not yet discovered the power of the Dark Side.”

The twi’lek felt the prick of the needle jab as Eiken’s week telekinetic thrust jabbed it into her abdomen. Her grin assumed a rictus character, and Task pushed forward with the pike, knocked her over. Eiven grabbed the jewel from the mummy’s throat, and his senses seemed to expand. He looked over to see the twi’lek adept was already moving—alien anatomy and Force abilities counteracting the paralytic. He fled up the tunnel, sprinting up the tomb, and caught the catch-wire on the way out. The power-packs he’d primed exploded. The trench walls collapsed; the tomb entrance buried once again.

*

The Memory of Alderaan was past the orbit of the first moon when Eiven’s pulse finally came under control. He lifted himself out of the pilot’s cradle, began to remove his armor, revealing dark blue-brown bruises from the Sith cultists against tawny flesh. Eiven winced as he pressed the raw, aching flesh where his metal-and-plastic rib and collar bone implants met his still-human flesh. The twi’lek Dark Side adept had caused him to over-exert his prosthetics, straining the human parts they were still connected to. Eiven stretched, then reached for the tube of nullicane for the worst of his injuries. Shaky and starved, he sat down to a meal of Ghoba rice and Silika water and examined his prize.

It was spherical, somehow both glassy and nacreous, like it had been cut from a crimson cloud and polished to perfection. Ever since he had touched it, Eiven had felt more...attuned. His physical senses sharper, his intangible senses magnified. It had been most intense when he had touched the sphere, but even just staring at it Task felt more aware than he had been in a long time. Since the injury that had stolen so much of his potential.

He fetched the holocron and A1S1, to get their opinion on the sphere. The remains of the meal set aside, Eiven arranged his three treasures in a line on the table, the droid head facing the stone.

“Modas,” he said. “What do you know of this?”

The red-tinged hologram of the gatekeeper blinked into existence. “Many objects can be imbued with the Force. They are tools to use as needed, but beware becoming reliant on them. Such weakness has consumed many Sith, who become helpless without their crutch.”

Eiven had not expected much better; the Prophets of the Dark Side had formed centuries after Darth Modas was dust and ash. In truth, all he had gleaned from the stolen Imperial records is that they had focused their powers on foresight and clairvoyance…perhaps this stone was one of their oracles, used to strengthen their powers.

Task turned to the droid head.

“Ess-One? Examine this.”

The droid’s eyes fluttered up, servos whining as the lenses focused and unfocused on the sphere. After a few moments it began to bleep and burble. Eiven translated in his head.

“A krayt dragon pearl? You are sure?”

The droid booped an affirmative.

Such treasures, Eiven knew, were rare and costly. While he had no intention of giving up whatever powers this artifact held, it was probably worth more than his entire vessel. Task picked up the sphere in his artificial hand and stared into its crimson depths.

“What were they used for?” he murmured aloud.

The lightsaber-droid beeped out for a few moments, and a grin slowly grew on Eiven Task’s face as it recounted a list of the Sith who had used such gems as focusing crystals in their ligthsabers.

“Ess-One.” He said, eyes locked on the red pearl in his mechanical hand. “I have an idea…”

###

Conjure Rum

Conjure Rum
by
Bobby Derie

The demons stirred within their bottles as the hour approached. The dusky-skinned, bare-breasted barwoman left the fetching of drinks for thirsty sailors to her daughters, and went about setting up for the game. The long teak table at the back had seen long use in some captain’s suite on the rolling seas, heavy and square-cut at the ends, with faded bits of map glued to the surface—the whole constellation of the West Indies, drowned in years of rum, and marked here and there by a scratched rune or glyph.

The heat of the day was slow to dissipate as the night came on, and the air was thick and damp in her lungs like soup as she set up the chairs facing each other, and the three cut-crystal cups on either side. She laid no charms as she wiped down the table, nor whisper any prayers as she swabbed out the devil’s seat. It would be a fair match or none at all while she owned this place, and she did not play favorites.

The favorite came in first, the scent of molasses sweating from his dark skin, somewhere between burnt amber and dirty gold, with coppery curly hair to match. The barwoman watched him whisper three names in the ear of one of her daughters, and the girl ran away to fetch the bottles. Then he turned and made his salaam to the barwoman, that little smile still on his face, growing wider as the young girl pushed between them in a rush to set the three glass bottles on the table. Giving the maiden a kiss on the cheek, he took the devil’s seat, and waited for the challengers of the evening.

The bottles were placed out for all to see, the favorite’s right and requirement. The first bottle was a light white rum, clear and smooth, that had been filtered through charcoal and sand; aged three years, and perhaps half full. The second bottle was darker, tinged with allspice and citrus, hot and harsh and aged six months if a day, the cork barely pulled. Last was a smaller bottle, almost lost in the paper wrapper, barely a half a cup left—but that was liquid amber, which had sweated in wine barrels for ten years in private reserve before it had been bottled.

This was his arsenal, for the challengers to judge themselves against.

The barwoman took the challengers, examined their bottles, nodded or shook her head as would be. In an hour the crowd had grown to standing room only and loud, with only the space about the table clear of people. The barwoman put up the slate, the names and odds written up in chalk, and the girls at the bar took bets between drink orders.

An older woman with a painted face slid into the siege perilous, gold dust or glitter setting off the freckles across her breasts. She might have been a noblewoman or a whore, but there was grace in her poise and her spine was ramrod-straight, head held high and grey eyes steady as she set a blue-glass square bottle on her side, the label facing out, and next to it a smaller bottle of bitters.

The bets were placed, the crowd hushed.

The woman challenger dribbled the bitters in the glass, swirled it around until well coated, then splashed in a healthy dollop from the bottle. The favorite selected the first bottle, the light rum, and poured a few fingers in.

They toasted in salute, the hush so profound the whole bar could hear the clink, and as one they drank it down.

All was still for a moment, each lost in their drink, eyes going slightly glassy. Then the favorite opened his mouth, and a pale white vapor struggled forth, tiny claws picking at his lips and clambering onto the table. Its substance was a fog, but it was the shadows that gave it definition, picking out the tiny wicked claws and the dark gash of a fang-filled mouth, the grey hollows of its eyes. Across the table the challenger’s own conjure had come forth, a rougher beast, nearly transparent but tinged with pink and red, all spikes and horns.

They met in the middle of the table, the gamers’ eyes lost on the sight before them, the pulses quickening at wrist and temple. The white demon slashed and faded, dancing in and out of the wild swings of its opponent, leaving red splashes on the table as it whittled down the near-transparent form, the bitter-tainted devil landing blows only on mist. The pink demon was driven back, back, almost to the woman’s lips…then collapsed in a small splash. The crowd cheered, and money clinked as the white devil dissolved into the air.

The second challenger was an old salt with something of the native peoples in the slant of his eyes and the curl of his brow. There were rings in those ears of raw gold, and the tattoos on his arms were an education in themselves. One gnarled hand set down a stoneware bottle sealed with tar, the old way, and none there save perhaps the favorite might have recognized the label. He laid beside it an old knife.

This time, the betting was even money.

With the knife, the gnarled hands worked to uncork the bottle—and when he had done so, the whole crowd drew back as far as the press of bodies would allow. It was a foul, harsh odor that came out of the bottleneck, the strong, nasty stuff from the early days of blood, salt, and sugar, when rum was the strength and demon of every slave and the ruin of every man. The old challenger spilt a double shot into the glass.

The favorite reached for the third bottle, and emptied it into his second glass. Those who had known it before remembered the scent of dates and oak, but if it came forth now it was buried under the choking odor of the ancient rum. Still the light played on the clear, dark golden liquor, while the cloudy black rum of the old man seemed to drink it in.

The glasses clinked, then down the hatch.

A cough sputtered from the old man, a soundless hacking, and black smoke flecked with blood pulled itself forth from his lungs. The demon on the table stood huge, nearly a foot high, and defined like a giant of old caught in black ice. There were the scars of stripes on its smoky back and cheeks, the lick of blue flames from within its broad skeletal chest, wiry limbs that bulged with veins of pale fire. The old rummy seemed hollowed out by his creation, and the crowd might have taken him for a century or more at that moment.

The favorite breathed deep and evenly, eyes half-lidded, and the pale brown wisps from his mouth and nose wove together to define a lithe form like a broken angel, feral and sweet, the stamp of the mixed breed on the slant of her eyes, the flattened nose, and the curling grin of her mouth. It was an angel that might have been born in Jamaica or New Orleans, with sins Moses had lost the tablet to define or damn, and a thin curved-sword seemed to stretch from one hand, a cruel whip from the other.

The demons met at the center of the table. Long minutes passed, blue sparks flying in a haze, the amber angel sometimes lost from sight in a haze of musky smoke, only to beat it back with a clap of her wings. The betters shifted their feet as it went on, some murmuring or asking to change their bets this way or that. The favorite had used the last of his third bottle already, and if it came to a draw would be defenseless against a second glass…if the old man could survive that.

At ten minutes, the strain showed. The black rum smoked from a dozen deep wounds, the brown angel tattered and frayed, one wing torn off and cast aside. It loomed for the final blow, but with a soundless scream she launched herself blade-first and skewered the demon’s heart; there was a brief flash of blue flame and the old man shuddered, then brought his hand up in amazement at the bloody slash on his lip. Still shaking, he rose and bowed, then turned away, leaving his bottle behind.

The favorite took a few moments to collect himself as the third challenger sat down. A woman again, but healthy of hip and sloe of eye, cheeks spotted with six little eyes. One breast hung out, a silver aureole peeking from around the nipple, while the other lay covered in a silk gown decorated with scenes of bamboo. She smiled and showed sharp teeth against healthy pink gums. The bottle she placed was the same as his remaining, and he smiled at that and bowed from the neck.

Bets placed. Glasses clanked.

Orange peel and allspice filled the room as the demons came forth, near-identical as befit their origin—catlike manticores with skinny rat-tails driven through with rusty nails, amazingly sharp and clear; the favorite’s was marked by a dark oily spot on the flank. The demons circled then launched and scrabbled, nipped and feinted back, ranging all over the table. Her demon was perhaps a tad quicker, his last two drinks taking their toll, but he played it careful and kept up the dance. Then his demon’s guard dropped for a moment—those near the front felt sure they saw the challenger’s bare foot snuggle into his crotch—and her spicy demon lunged at the opening, claws bared. Yet at the last moment his manticore danced up on his hind legs. The she-demon missed its mark, and the he-demon fell upon her back, spiked tail curling behind him. The end was swift and bloody, like a tom and a dame who’d stopped fucking and started fighting.

The barwoman called the game for the evening, and set about collecting the money. The favorite kept the devil’s seat, and offered a toast to his final challenger for her health, and she drank to his.

In their bottles the demons still stirred, waiting for the next game.

###