True knowledge is like an ever-growing tree; no single pair of hands can encircle its vastness.

  - A Quassian Aphorism.

  Frustration, that unwanted friend had once again made its presence known. My hands gripped the collar of the messenger who dared to inform me of the news…

  “Please, samasa, unhand me. I was only delivering the message. A thousand apologies if this has offended…”

  “Why has this Sevas forfeited our match before it has even begun? Does the dog know no honor?” I snarled, lifting the little worm off his feet.

  He shook his head, panicked, his brow beading with worried sweat. “I do not know any of this… I am just here to give you the message… if it pleases you… Put me down, I beg of you!” the messenger cried pathetically.

  I needed to lash out, and the messenger was conveniently here. His death would go some way to ameliorating my current condition.

  “Put the man down, please,” a familiar feminine voice cut in, drawing my attention. “Perhaps this Sevas person wishes to live, no? It works to our advantage.”

  Lady Aelayah sauntered up to me, placing a soft hand on my arm, and I found myself unconsciously putting the messenger down.

  “Go,” she whispered to him in soft-spoken command. It had the annoying tone of one who was used to giving orders for all of their lives. The man bobbed his head at her and wriggled out of my grip. He all but fled out of the room.

  “Leave us,” she repeated, this time in a firm voice to the almost invisible servants. Bowing deeply, they did as they were bade to do.

  “The way you were speaking to the poor man, I would think it was almost personal… Oh, you should not treat the help that way. It demeans you as much as it demeans them,” she advised archly, sighing as she continued. Though the girl was smiling, the expression did not quite make it up to her eyes.

  “What enmity do you possess against the Silver Sevas?” the Lady Aelayah asked, flopping unceremoniously down on the divan. Very unladylike.

  “That is no…” I growled.

  “That is no concern of mine. Yes, yes, I have now made it a concern of mine. Now answer me to my satisfaction. You are sworn to me, are you not? Or is a foreigner’s word only wind?” she insisted, eyes blazing. Only the tiniest of quavers in her voice betrayed her fear.

  “We have met before…”

  She crossed her arms and legs. “I am guessing it was either due to intoxication or over a woman,” she stated searchingly, her eyes roving over my face, looking for the tiniest of signs.

  Deception would not serve me well here. “You would not be too far off the mark,” I admitted, feeling petty and small.

  She crossed her legs. “I am also guessing that the man wishes to live. After seeing your unnecessary performance in Vindication… I hope I was correct in placing my hopes in you, against most of the advice offered to me to the contrary.”

  “I will win this competition, of course,” I explained confidently.

  She laughed, a tinkling sound that in any other context I would have appreciated.“So why did you lose, Gilgamesh?”

  I shrugged. “For the same reason I made that request of you not too long ago.”

  “This troubles me. Either it must be true, the whispers that death empowers you, or you that simply revel in death. Both are pauses for thought.”

  Instead of replying, I looked at her pointedly.

  She threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Keep your air of mystery like a beggar with his precious rags. We will talk of this again. A leader does not care about the process, only the causes and the effects. Just make sure you win,” she sniffed, clearly annoyed at my impassivity.

  “I have never lied to you, and I have no intention of doing so,” I stated calmly.

  “Spare me the clumsy attempts at reassurance. I will be watching your next match. You have promised the Salahaem a lot, it is yet to be seen if you can deliver,” she said flatly.

  Incredulously, I asked sharply. “Has not the slaughter I have dealt so far not been enough?”

  “Perhaps, as a personal achievement, yes. On the grand scale of things but a grain of sand. Not enough to tip the balance one way or another. Win this tournament, or at the very least put on a good enough show to not dishonor my House,” she demanded. “I will leave you now, your next match is within the hour. I am sure you will require a period of meditation to find your center and calm yourself down,” she suggested deprecatingly, standing up and exiting the room.

  With no strong or witty response at hand, I could only let her leave in silence.

  Once the doors to my rooms had closed, I felt a pressure against my throat. A hint of sharp, cold steel. A blade. Without thinking, I slammed an elbow behind me, feeling the contact of pliant flesh.

  The knife nicked me across the throat before clattering to the marble floor. My would-be killer was quick to recover, trying to dart back towards the window. My throat burned with something, and my Health was slowly being leeched away.

  Poison, no doubt. The weapon of the weak, women, and assassins. The person I saw before me, the escaping figure, was most likely two out of those three.

  Improved Dash closed the gap between us, and one of my hands closed around his throat, my other free hand ripping off his face coverings and revealing the man beneath.

  It was a face that could be seen everywhere: someone’s brother, a cousin, or a younger uncle. The homely face of the market seller or the priest with his lies. A nobody who could be anybody. It was a face that suited this one’s face well.

  I laughed uncontrollably as my Sage’s Sight told me about my caught prey, my grip tightening around his neck. This was the weakling who dreamed he could kill me. However, as I laughed, I felt the poison seep further into me, spreading ever faster through my body. My regenerative powers were barely keeping up with the damage wreaking havoc in me.

  What was this? Asad was better trained than I thought; instead of futilely going for his neck in a bid to loosen my grip, he had been busy stabbing my arm and chest with another hidden blade. Now, this was not polite at all. Simply not cricket this, for all I wanted to do, at least for now, was just to talk.

  I coughed in warning. “You can stop that now.” I was bleeding down my front and would need a change of clothes. The Assassin Bashir had, almost heroically, been able to reduce my Health to around three-quarters. A feat that had been beyond nearly all of my challengers thus far.

  Assassin, that ‘Calling’ or class reminded me of someone. “Who sent you?” I asked, loosening my grip only slightly to allow him to speak.

  “You are a monster…” he half-spat between desperate gasps for air.

  That line was growing tiresome.

  I slapped him lightly with my free hand, an open-handed blow meant more to humiliate than to do significant damage. Still, it knocked off about twenty points of his Health, and his little poisoned blade fell from his hands. Feebly, he kicked at me in retaliation.

  “Who sent you?” I repeated, ignoring his anemic blows.

  “No one. I am one of her Shadows… her favored Shadow. I wanted to teach you a lesson in manners when addressing her!” the fool confessed between great draughts of air.

  “Aelayah?”

  He nodded mutely. I should have known.

  “Know that she dies now for this insult,” I threatened coldly.

  “Please… this was my decision…” he begged, despair… and yes there was something else in his eyes.

  “Beg me, and I may still let her live,” I offered cruelly. “Be convincing.”

  The boy had no pride. He went on in a litany, listing a thousand and one things that I cared little for. It was time to twist the knife, figuratively speaking, of course.

  “You love her, don’t you?” I stated more than asked. He looked away, and that was answer enough for me.

  I would brook no rival, no matter how remote their chances.

  With my free hand, I casually broke his arms and threw him to the floor. As he wriggled about on the floor, screaming like a tortured worm, I cast Greater Drain, his cries of pain a subtle counterpoint to my spell’s dark song. This way, I would reclaim the Health he had stolen from me, the obnoxious cur.

  Once the notification popped across my vision, I called the servants to attend to me. To their credit, they did not question me about the body on the floor and kept their eyes down as they helped me change.

  This place had really good service.

  *****

  Between Greater Drain’s harvest and half a glass’ worth of time napping, I was more than ready to fight again. A half-squad of guards escorted me now, the attempt at the life of one of the competitors in this stage of the tournament a black mark against the honor of the Council. They came with me to the arena platform, and I thought of them as almost like an honor guard of sorts.

  It added to my prestige.

  Mocking my dour guards with a playful salute, I hopped onto the arena's stone floor. Oddly, I received a single point of experience, as if the arena itself was acknowledging my arrival. It had been happening more often lately, and I still couldn’t puzzle out why.

  The judge introduced my opponent to the crowd, his voice clear and steady. Whether by magic or expert acoustical design, his words carried effortlessly to every corner of the arena.

  There was a scattering of applause from the crowd which my adversary acknowledged.

  The man who was facing me was black, very black. Dark as coal, the whites of his eyes and perfect teeth stood out almost as accusations. Lean, fit, and athletically muscled, he seemed as if he had been sculpted by the wilds of nature itself. Bald as a dark egg, I had heard his name Msuwa Chembe chanted by the crowds, and it was certainly a mouthful to say. The man must have cursed his parents many times for inflicting him with such a name.

  He was a competent fighter, of that there was no doubt. This one could also command the element of Earth, but I had seen him use it only sparingly.

  “Hail to you, Gilgamesh, I come from the Dancing Isle and my na…” he started to offer in polite introduction.

  “You are nothing,” I cut in, scraping a bit of blood from under my nails. My whole situation could be much improved with a skip dialogue option sometimes.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him bristling in reproach, but he soon mastered his emotions. I realized that I was not goading him in search of any particular advantage; rather, I found a certain sadistic pleasure in the act.

  “It is a shame that with a warrior of your caliber, I will not be able to use the full breadth of powers without my staff,” he continued with his little spiel.

  I looked at him as if he were dung I had discovered on the sole of my shoe. “Is this a disclaimer for your upcoming failure and loss? Please spare me,” I laughed.

  The judge decided to interject and announce me to the crowd. Before he had finished uttering my name, there was already a thunderous applause.

  I raised my hands and pointed my thumbs down, causing the crowd to go wild. I knew what it was that we wanted.

  Once the roar died down, his face opened into a wide smile that displayed the pearly whites of his teeth. “Haha! Perhaps it is so. To summon my true powers takes too long without the channeling aid of my staff,” Msuwa Chembe claimed with a sardonic grin on his smug face.

  Vaguely intrigued, but mostly for the kicks and giggles, I used Sage’s Sight on him.

  He had a fully leveled spell. At least, I assumed it was fully leveled since my own spells didn’t go beyond level five. Curiouser and curiouser. I decided to let him show off whatever little trick he had. It wasn’t like he could do me any real harm, and I wanted to see this Earth Golem spell in action.

  The judge stepped to the edge of the fighting pit, his blade flashing in the sun as he cut downward, signaling the start. Fresh applause rippled through the arena, hungry for the next display of blood and skill.

  "Go on, then... let’s see your little party trick," I said with a casual wave, my voice calm, disinterested. "I’ll allow it, so you’ll have no excuse when you face your ancestors after this." My tone was mild, but the challenge hung heavy in the air.

  He bowed low. “My thanks. It is a great thing to be best Riyu Jien of the Land of Streams. Surely, you’ve trained for years to attain such mastery—”

  “Started about a year ago,” I interrupted flippantly, my voice flat, boredom gnawing at the edges of my patience. “Now, hurry it up. We’ve got an audience, and they didn’t come to watch you talk.”

  The man stiffened, clearly rattled by my indifference. He recovered quickly, though, beginning to chant, his deep voice calling on the mana of the earth, summoning whatever elemental power he hoped would save him. I let my eyes drift to the crowd as I counted the seconds, my mind wandering while his voice droned on and on.

  By the time I reached ten, he was still chanting, his spell crawling at a pace that tested my restraint. Worry crept in, just a whisper, but enough to stir me into action. With such a long chant, surely he was summoning a spell of great power. Silently, I began to shape the Greater Drain spell in the halls of my mind, slow and steady. The magic fought against my control, eager to break free, and it was like trying to hold an eel in slippery hands. But my mastery of the dark magic was such that I was able to keep it under control. For now, at least.

  Hurry up, damn you. I could feel the palms of my hands itching, the spell within coiling tighter and ready to spring. How long did the fool plan to take?

  The crowd stirred, booing at this turn of events. They had become restless, and so had I.