Carr

“Trying to decide the order of the fencers for the team match?” Celle asked. We had retired to our room earlier that needed that night, and were in no rush to get to sleep. She was in bed, reading a book, while I sat by the desk studying a piece of parchment. “Anything bothering you?”

I threw my hands up in a mocking despair and smiled bitterly at her. “It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it just a matter of having the best fencer go on last?”

“Yes but also no.” What was the easiest way to explain this? “Do you know how the scoring works for team matches?”

Celle nodded hesitantly, as if worried this was a trick question of some sort. When she was reasonably confident I wasn’t going to make fun of her, she said, “It’s nine bouts in total, with the score carrying over. The score is incremented by five points every bout, right?”

“Correct. The first bout goes to five points, then the score carries over to the next bout, which goes to ten points, then the bout after that goes to fifteen—and so on, until the ninth and final bout that goes up to forty-five.”

“So the score always ends in something like 5-4, 10-9 and so on?”

I smiled. She was asking the right questions, and I appreciated that. “Not necessarily. There’s also a time limit on each bout—three minutes back on Earth, I believe five minutes here if I understood things correctly. So it’s entirely possible for a bout to end at 2-0 or even 0-0.”

Understanding dawned on Celle and with it came concern. “I’m beginning to see the issue here…so it’s possible that early bouts are low-scoring but that the maximum score increases anyway?”

“Yeah. Let’s say that I’m fencing the first bout and keep the score 2-0 against one of their top fencers. It sounds good on paper, but it means that the second fencer from their team could end the next leg of the match 10-2 against Fedal, for example.” It was also the case that if you tried to go for a 5-0 victory instead of settling for the 2-0 before the time ran out, you could easily make mistakes and allow your opponent to defeat you instead.

Celle laughed. “You didn’t have to use Fedal as an example of who could cost us points, you know? He’s trying really hard now.”

“I know he is. I don’t blame the guy—he’s just a beginner. We all suck at the start, but he’s making some really good progress. He should feel proud of how far he’s come in such a short time.”

“You should tell him that. He’d like to hear that.”

“He already knows that.”

“He’d still like to hear it.”

“I know.” I sighed. “Damn it, I know. But regardless of how much I respect him, he is the weakest fencer in our team right now. Trying to pretend that isn’t the case would be irresponsible of me…and put too much pressure on him. I have to formulate a strategy around that.”

“Well, the ace position is pretty clear though, isn’t it?” She was talking about the anchor position, the one who fences in the 9th bout. “That’s yours.”

I laughed. “Yeah, of course, I—”

Something about the way she looked at me so trustingly made me stop. Heavens, those last two weeks aboard the ship with her had really…made me stop and think. About things I never wanted to. But I wanted to be honest with her now. “I don’t know if I should be the anchor,” I muttered quietly, diverting my eyes from hers. It felt like confessing to murder. “I…I don’t know if I’m the strongest fencer on the team anymore. To be honest, I don’t know if I could beat Valle in a fight again. I…”

It was something that had been haunting me since I lost to Johan. Had I reached my limit? In this sword world, where people fought with magic instead of actual skill, my craft took me pretty far. I even defeated the Executioner, one of the strongest duellists around. But Johan had defeated me without trying at all, and Valle had managed to push him enough to allow us time to escape. True, I hadn’t given up on getting stronger…but the thought haunted me slightly. What if this was it?

Even my greatest victory in this world came at a heavy cost—my left arm would never heal. I could never so much as turn a doorknob with it anymore. My knee hurt every night, and without daily healing it seemed unlikely I would even have been able to fence again. The costs of my pride weighted heavily on me now. “You know what I’m thinking,” I said, “don’t make me say it aloud.”

“I don’t,” she muttered back. “I…I really don’t.”

There was something fragile in her voice that made me quickly snap my head toward her. For perhaps the first time since I had known her, she looked as though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to say something. “My whole life I’ve used [Investigation] in social situations. Nothing as big as reading people’s minds, but…it gave me context as to how they were feeling. It helped me put things together. It told me what the answers were, and…and I can’t do that anymore. It’s gone. It’s like a part of what let me talk to people is just gone. Like I suddenly lost the ability to speak a language or…something.” Celle laughed nervously and pushed her hair off her face. “I…I don’t know what you’re thinking unless you tell me. Even if a normal person would be able to tell, I don’t know if I can right now. Pretty lame, huh?”

“Celle, I…” I didn’t know what to say. What did you say to someone who lost part of what made them who they were? I had never noticed how affected she was. She really played down how much this was affecting her. Not knowing what to say, but seeing she was in pain, I stood up and laid in bed beside her. If I didn’t know what to say, I would at least be close to her. “I’m sorry for not noticing it earlier.”

“It’s…it’s fine. I’m the one who didn’t say it, you know?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I can’t beat anyone stronger than the Executioner.”

“Why? That never really bugged you before. You just went on about how if you died, that was that, and that you didn’t really worry too much about it.”

What changed for me? My silence stretched long as I thought about it, and she said, “If I can be honest…I actually feel really anxious when you don’t answer those questions. I used to be able to just read between the lines and call it a day, but now…”

“I’m more afraid of dying now,” I told her, without thinking. Even if it sounds lame—I’ll tell her whatever I think of. “I can’t imagine how bad it is to suddenly not know how to process a social situation like that. It…it must be hard.”

“It is. But I can manage. It’s just exhausting to do it without having really done it for so many years, you know?”

“You can relax with me at least,” I told her, softly. “Just tell me what you want to hear and I’ll answer as if you were reading my mind.”

Celle smiled mischievously at me. “Oh? Are you sure you should be giving me that power?”

“Not even slightly, but I don’t want to see you sad.”

“That’s really sweet but I’m still going to abuse that power.”

“Do your worst.”

“So, you’re afraid of dying? Tell me more. What changed?”

I really regret this. This is really embarrassing. “Those last few weeks aboard the ship. Being with you. The downtime. I…I still hadn’t—guess I still haven’t in a way—dealt with my friends dying, you know? It doesn’t seem…normal. Like the world was supposed to have them here. But sometimes I would be walking around and remember that they weren’t here anymore and…nothing made sense anymore. Then I just want to burn everything to the ground. Myself included. It didn’t really seem to matter if I lived or died. There was nothing that really mattered anymore. But…” God, make it stop. I don’t want to keep talking. But Celle waited patiently for me to continue. “But lately I’ve…I’ve come to accept it a bit more. And I’ve started to enjoy things again. And look forward to spending time with you, Valle and the others. It’s weird when you have things to look forward to, things that didn’t use to scare you at all seem so much more…terrifying. I used to think I had seen everything life had to offer already—I traveled a lot, you know? Before I died. Saw the most beautiful things in the world…then I died. But now I—I don’t know.”

Silence following your heart’s speech is terrifying. For the next few moments, I felt scared—as if Celle would make fun of me or reveal a flaw in my logic that would make me the most foolish of creatures. Every second it stretched on felt like agony, like when you await a referee’s judgement on whether a touch was valid or not. Hesitantly, I looked up at her, and saw she wore an unsure expression. Slowly, she nudged ever so closer to me in the bed, and lifted up her blanket so we would both be covered by it. “I’m glad you’re human,” she whispered. “Sometimes I see you doing some stupid crap and assume the worst…but you are processing this in your own way, aren’t you?”

“I guess?” I rubbed the back of my head and sighed. “How the fuck do you process your best friend killing all of your friends and—and his own brother right in front of you? It’s a lot easier to deal with it when I’m just in a blind rage over it. But when I stop to think about it…when I remember about sharing ice cream with him, when Johan pulled me into the pool with him, when we laughed doing groceries together, when we played board games together…it just seems so wrong. Just something that it shouldn’t be. But it is. There is no book on how to deal with something like this and I’m just sort of stumbling around and I guess I’m rambling about it now.”

“That’s fine.” Celle’s voice was warmer than the blanket. “Just be yourself. Stumble along if that’s what it takes. Ramble on, sword boy. You don’t have to be perfect or know what words to choose. I just want you to say what you want to say.”

“I…I miss Johan.” It was the first time I said it aloud. “My friend, Johan. Before he did all of this, I mean. I wish we could all go back and I could forget everything he did—that we could just go back to how we were, that he had never done this, that this was just a fucking dream. But I can’t. And it isn’t. And I’ll never forgive him for what he did. There are times when I can’t even believe it’s real still. But for all the others…all I feel is an unspeakable rage. Something I can’t even describe, it’s like there’s a monster inside of me and the only thing it wants for substance is Johan’s fucking blood. I’ll kill him myself if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Is that something you want to do or something you think you have to do?”

I considered the point. “Both,” I answered, after a pause. “I miss a person that never existed. Johan was always the twisted psychotic monster he is today, but he had the good sense of hiding it. And even all those fond memories don’t stop me from wanting to kill him. Next time I see him, I will annihilate him.”

It was an odd feeling. Nostalgia was still there, but the fury in my heart hadn’t ceased for a single second tonight. Katherine, Jack, Clara, Danner…I would never see them again. They would never get to live out their dreams. All because of that selfish monster. And he would pay. I would see to it.

“I accept what I lost, and I miss it,” I said, softly. “But I will move forward, and I’ll pave that way forward with Johan’s blood.”

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear that,” said Celle, with a kindness that seemed almost eerie given the topic. At my confused glare, she added, “I don’t mind your murderous rage toward Johan. That…I can understand. But when you talked about not caring about dying, that annoyed me a little, you know?” She smiled at me. “But now you’re talking about something after Johan dies. A future. And I’m curious what that would be like.”

A future after Johan…I had considered that, only vaguely. “There’s two things. One is…traveling.”

Celle perked up. “Travelling? Really? You?” Every word was a full question and she was smiling broadly. It was like she was mocking me, but I couldn’t take it seriously. “Didn’t have you pegged for the travelling type.”

“Like I said. I saw all of the wonders of the world back on Earth—thought I had seen everything there was to see. Valle told me the other day that this world had similar things. Eleven sights he said I cannot die without seeing.” I squinted my eyes, as if that would aid me in remembering anything. “The Flying Castle of Vyzerworth…I want to see that one day. I heard that’s where one of the World’s Duelling Championships is held. The Underground Waterfalls of Inglaterra—I can’t even imagine what that looks like. It must be beautiful. I want to see all eleven of those sights.”

Celle smiled. “I’m glad you have thought of a future. It…helps. Makes me not worry about you so much.”

“What about you?” I asked, full of curiosity. “After you prove that Johan is the culprit? Be hailed in your hometown like a conquering, detective hero?”

She laughed. It was nice watching her laugh, it often made me smile and nearly always forget all about my problems. “We’ll talk about that later—tonight is your therapy session, not mine.”

“Oh, fantastic.”

“Come on you said two things about the future—what’s the second one?”

My answer was stereotypical, I knew, but I could not help it. “When I think of the future, I see myself fencing Valle for the title of World Champion one day,” I said.

I was dead. I would never return to Earth. That was just as well, the only people I loved back there were all dead already. Making this insane world my home wasn’t my first choice but I had grown to like the people here as well. And every time I saw Valle fence, I felt the same spark I did when I saw people like Jack and Max fence back on Earth—the one that made me excited to be on the piste with them again. Deep in my heart, I still think I’m the best. No, I knew I was the best. There was fear and excitement in my heart but I still knew I hadn’t reached my full potential yet.

“I’ll be the anchor,” I said confidently. “And Valle will be the second.”

Celle nodded. “And the issue is…”

“The last fencer. We can have one substitute, so it’s conceivable that we can bring them in during the match in case someone gets injured but…the third spot is still going to be rough. Isabella or Fedal…”

“You said it yourself that Fedal was the weakest link, so why hesitate there?”

“Because…” There were a few answers, but none I wanted to say aloud. No one had any idea how strong Isabella’s powers were, and Fedal had been growing at a very impressive rate. He was a reliable fencer, if nothing else. “Honestly because one is a loose cannon and the other is a consistent, albeit weaker cannon.”

“Just follow your heart. Or your fencing experience, really. None of us have much experience with team bouts, so no one is going to argue with you. You are the our captain, after all.”

Captain.

It’s an empty title, that. No one really cares about it because there is hardly any merit in being the captain in a mostly individual sport. That’s how things should be but I’ll be damned if that’s how they are. There’s a lot of unspoken pride in being captain, even if there was hardly anything you actually did besides meeting with the opposite captain before a match and flipping a coin to decide which side got what order, though even that didn’t seem like it would happen in this world, as the order was already determined.

Yet sometimes, in some teams, the title did mean something. The captain held a responsibility he placed on himself, one that none had dared impose on him, the one that made his reliable back project a single message to his teammates as he walked into the anchor bout: “You have done enough, you can leave the rest to me.” That reliable figure that teammates could approach after practice or a tough loss and ask for advice from.

“I did everything I could,” I said, breathing heavily. “It’s up to you now, Captain.” I high five’d Johan as I walked away from the piste. The score was 40-31. Johan would need to pull off a miracle.

And a miracle he did.

To me, for most of my fencing life, that was Johan. The one who I always ran after and couldn’t quite surpass.

A few hours and a few shots of tequila later, I was most definitely in the team and had loudly proclaimed I would be many things: world champion, a god on the piste, undefeated for the entire season, and team captain. They accepted most of my stupidity, but on this last point, even drunk, they disagreed.

“It will be Johan,” Jack had said. It didn’t sound like he disagreed with my opinion so much as was informing me that I was wrong. Like he was correcting me about the weather. “It will always be Johan.”

I had agreed with him too, after a while. But things had changed. Johan had become—or shown himself to be—a complete monster, and I had found friends who placed their faith in me. And I had become a stronger fencer.

I was the captain now.

“You know, you were wrong earlier,” Celle said, with a sort of academic tone about her. Her hair was messy now, in bed, and she had pulled the blanket over her so only her head was poking out—it took effort for me to keep her from stealing the blanket entirely. “There’s twelve sights you can’t live without, not eleven.”

“Valle was pretty sure there were eleven. Vyzerworth, Underground Waterfalls, the Skeleton Dragon, the Frozen Forest—”

Celle pouted. “I promise you that Valle has never seen this twelfth sight.”

“What is it?” I asked. I sort of knew knew where this was going, but I had to play along. I smiled back at her and said, “Well? What’s this twelfth beautiful, peerless sight in this world?”

“Why, me, naked. What else?”

I swear I thought she was going to say her face but I can work with this. “Modest, huh?”

“Not particularly,” she replied. “Wouldn’t be much fun if I was, would I?”

“Are you—” I looked at her, fully covered by the blanket, and upon noticing my inspection, she giggled. “Are you wearing—what are you wearing under the blanket?”

“I was wearing my nightgown earlier,” Celle said with a smirk. “As for what I’m wearing right now…well, why don’t you dive under the blankets and find out, sword boy?”

I hadn’t seen any of the eleven peerless sights in this world yet. But I was confident that none of them could beat the twelfth.

The Referee

My favourite cane armchair served me well that night, as did the blazing fire and the warm glass of rum, which I held on one hand as I studied the match sheet in front of me. It had been years since I oversaw any matches that didn’t involve the World Title, but when royalty called, there was little space for disagreement.

Yet, peering over that parchment, I was now looking forward to the contest. “Most curious,” I thought to myself, grinning. “This match will be most curious indeed.”

Team Name The New Bladewolves The Real Bladewolves Captain Carr the Swordsman of Zero Carr the Champion of Earth Sub: Isabella the Queen of all Devils Valder the Executioner #1 #4 Fedal the Hero Max of Relampago #2 #6 Valle of Cresna Katherine the Duellist #3 #5 Carr the Swordsman of Zero Carr the Champion of earth MATCH ORDER 3-6 (To 5) Carr the Swordsman of Zero Katherine the Duellist 1-5 (To 10) Fedal the Hero Carr the Champion of Earth 2-4 (To 15) Valle of Cresna Max of Relampago 6-1 (To 20) Fedal the Hero Katherine the Duellist 3-4 (To 25) Carr the Swordsman of Zero Max of Relampago 5-2(To 30) Valle of Cresna Carr the Champion of Earth 1-4 (To 35) Fedal the Hero Max of Relampago 6-2 (To 40) Valle of Cresna Katherine the Duellist 3-5 (To 45) Carr the Swordsman of Zero Carr the Champion of Earth