TWELVE

Rufus sat on the floor of his cage. There had been three moves so far on both sides; neither of the two mermaids playing had attacked each other. Rufus could see and hear that the crowd had died down—the anticipation of the bouts to come still visible on their faces—but they weren’t cheering anymore.

Rufus saw the mermaid controlling the black side of the board pick up her knight and tap the top of a white pawn. Then she moved the knight to the side of the board and the other mermaid moved her pawn and placed a gold token on the contested square.

Two gates from either side of the room lifted into the air—one with the image of a black knight and the other with a white pawn hanging above them. Out of the opened cage on the black side of the cavern sped a ten-foot long snake. It had small fins right behind its gills, a row of spikes along its back and two large triangular teeth that jutted out of the sides of its bottom jaw and rose well above its head. The fangs were rounded on the outside and came to a razor sharp edge on the inside. The snake’s mouth had two slits just big enough to let the snake close its mouth without cutting its skin. Rufus looked back at the white side—across the cavern and saw the sea sprite float as if on air out into the middle of the fighting space. From where Rufus sat, the little creature looked like a mote floating in sunlight.

The snake circled around the middle cage holding the two mermaids and sped directly towards the sprite. The speed in which the snake’s body slithered through the water surprised Rufus. The sprite still in its lazy ascent, looked unconcerned about the attacking serpent.

The snake wasn’t taking any chances—it swam past the sprite once, and then a second time, each time coming a little closer. Finally, the snake attacked, snapping its fangs down on top of the small creature. Rufus expected to see a Deathstroke freeze stop the snake before it closed its mouth, but it didn’t. It just swam up high towards the cavern’s ceiling. As it was climbing a blue light emanated from around the snake’s front fangs. Then an explosion of light occurred in the snake’s mouth busting off one of the snake’s fang. A blue light zipped out of the snake’s mouth and around the room so fast that it was hard for Rufus to keep track of it. The sprite darted in a zigzagging motion back and forth across the back of the snake. With each pass, the sprite let fall a jolt of blue sparks. The skin of the snake turned black from each strike. Eventually the sprite came close to the snake’s head and the tiny creature stopped mid flight by the bright silver light of the Deathstroke paralysis. The snake slowly sank to the bottom of the cavern, breathing—but very much in need of assistance. It stopped on the floor of the cavern right next to its long needle-pointed fang.

All four of the mermaid judges lifted a hand. Unanimously the water sprite had won.

A metallic scratching sound began as a number one slid into view above the sprite’s white pawn image. The blue-lighted creature slowly and lazily glided through the water stopping only to retrieve the snake’s broken fang. It looked as if the small creature picked up the fang, which was easily ten times its size. The fang floated through the water, the sprite was hidden to Rufus’s view and lazily made its way into its gated cage. Its gate fell with a heavy boom sealing the tiny creature in.

Another gate in the wall of the cavern opened up and a floating sled pulled by two large seahorses came through it. A frog like man holding a large shovel hopped off the sled and waddled over to the snake. His wedged shaped head swiveled back and forth on a stump of a neck, trying to figure out what end of the snake would be best to shovel first. He shoveled the tail end of the snake onto the sled and then the other end. The snake was done. It was still sucking in water, but it was tired and could not help the frogman.

After the frogman left, the mermaids in the center of the cavern moved a couple more pieces. Gigantic shadow hands moved in and out of the projected board on the ceiling. The announcer boomed through the cavern. Telling all participants the pieces that were in play and from which grid numbers they were being moved.

Rufus walked over to the large gate looking across at the mermaids in the center of the cavern. He wrapped his hands around the bars and started looking in the crowd for Imogen. He had only searched half of the crowd—not finding her—when a vibration started to rumble through the bars and into his hands. He hadn’t been watching the match. He looked over to the challenge stand and saw two pawns—one black and the other white, his.

His gate slowly pulled upward. He wasn’t ready for this, he thought. He ran back and grabbed his sword and then turned in time for the gate to pull high enough for him to walk through. He slowly walked through the gate and into the cavern. On the exact other side of the cavern across the mermaids playing their game, was another man. He had a suite of black armor that glistened from the obvious use of watergel. That meant he felt the same lightness of foot and the same cool breeze that Rufus did. But he had armor on and strung across his back was a massive battle-axe with its blades engulfed in flame.

Rufus was toast if he didn’t come up with a plan. He walked out into the cavern. The rumble from the crowd cheering was shaking the floor and reverberating through the water. Rufus could hear the announcer.

“The white challenger, Rufus Fenuch, a skilled artisan and blacksmith, today is his first day in this Arena! And the black challenger, Joshua Slittlebaker, also known as Deathman—not my first choice of name…Let the best win!”

Rufus hefted his sword in his hand; its movement was strange to him, due the water that slowed it down. It wasn’t the longest sword, and his chiseled muscles could have easily worked with a larger one, but this is what he had; this and…and his ability to imbue.

He thought about that as he watched his opponent cross behind the mermaid whalebone cage.

Deathman, a.k.a. Joshua, drew his axe from his back as he picked up speed. It came apart into two single-bladed axes, both steaming the water around them as the flame coursed off of their blades. He reached Rufus and brought down both blades at once attempting to crush Rufus in his first blow. Rufus reacted with his sword and held back the axes. He shoved the axes to his left sliding them down the blade of his sword and doubled back slamming his sword into the back of his opponent. The crystal sword rang against the man’s armor. Making a small dent in Deathman’s black armor. Deathman jumped back up from the cavern floor and came back at Rufus swinging both axes over and over—incensed by Rufus getting the first hit.

Rufus backed up a bit, trying to figure out a way to protect himself from the onslaught. That small idea of using his imbuing power had opened a door inside his projected mind. He realized that if he used his sword like he would his hammer he could imbue his opponent’s armor with a debilitating thought. In that moment he tested it. Standing there on the cavern floor, with his sword in both hands, blue lightning traveled from his arm up into the sword.

Rufus had timed it so that he could use the corporeal thought against the axes coming at him, however the commotion from the steaming axes caused him to pause. He meant to feign to his left, but he stumbled and the imbued power slipped off the tip of his sword right in between the hacking axes. The water around both of the axes and Deathman’s arms instantly turned to ice. Deathman fell forward, following his own momentum. The flames from the axe burned away the ice around the blades, but the ax handles and Deathman’s arms remained incapacitated. Rufus immediately pushed an imbuing thought down his sword and locked the man’s feet in ice as well. Then he simply held his sword at his opponent’s neck—Rufus had survived his first bought.

The cavern vibrated from the crowd cheering. Slittlebaker squirmed to no avail. His hands and arms were trapped and he laid on his side. A loud horn sounded indicating that the match was over. Since Rufus didn’t attempt a Deathstroke, he won by time elimination. All four of the judging mermaids raised their arms with their palms open.

Seeing the ruling, Rufus walked back to his cage and waited for his gate to come down with his back to the open cavern. A metallic grinding sounded, indicating that he had been given a one count above his pawn symbol. But his gate didn’t slide down—he waited for the gate’s clang, but the sound didn’t happen. He turned around to look out at the cavern floor and see what was going on. Slittlebaker was still lying there on his side where Rufus had left him. He had stopped thrashing about, seeing that the judges had each lifted their webbed hands. The whole crowd was watching Rufus. Their silence was deafening and their eyes were boring a hole in Rufus’s chest.

Rufus didn’t know what to do so he just stood there. Both of the mermaids playing the chess game were watching him with disgust and so the white mermaid snapped her fingers and the same frogman came through with his seahorse drawn sled. He drew up next to where Slittlebaker was on the ground. Two other frogmen came in behind the sled. All three of them had tridents. Two of the frogmen chipped away the ice around Slittlebaker’s hands and feet—freeing him from his icy enclosure.

When they had chipped the ice a part—enough that Slittlebaker could freely move his arms and legs—the frogmen stood around him pointing their tridents at him in a threatening way.

Slittlebaker was about to attack the frogmen, but he must have thought twice about it as he looked towards the two mermaids in the center of the cavern. He wasn’t scared of the frogmen, but he was scared of the mermaids.

He used the flame from one of his axes to melt the rest of the ice off of his armor. He then dropped the axes to the floor. The two hafts immediately pulled together as if they were two opposite magnetic poles. He then flipped a casing on his gauntleted wrist—under this casing was an onyx stone the size of a thumbnail. He pressed it and immediately the suit of armor rippled and formed into a liquid that was pulled into the edge of the gauntlet containing the stone leaving Slittlebaker standing in the middle of the cavern in just a white loincloth. He took off the gauntlet and threw it down next to the axes. His suit had been covered in the watergel and so he had no way of breathing. His face started to turn blue. One of the frogmen saw this and turned to the sled, picked up a star liked animal and flung it at the breathless man. It attached to his mouth directly and pumped oxygen from the seawater so that Slittlebaker could breath.

Two of the frogmen marched Slittlebaker to the sled and the third picked up the double hafted axe and gauntlet and walked them over to Rufus’s cage. He dropped them down inside the gate and walked back a few steps. The frogman turned back and said, “When you win, you win”. He pointed at the axe and gauntlet and Rufus with his trident, “When you lose, you lose.” Turning his gauntlet to Slittlebaker pathetically sitting on the sled behind the seahorses.

Rufus’s gate slid down as the frogman turned and walked back to the sled. He hopped up on the sled, grabbed the reigns to the seahorses and drove the “loser” out of the cavern.

Rufus had two thoughts running through his head as he watched the four leave. One was that he now had armor and magic weapons to compete with. The other was that he had his sunshard in his bag and that he would loose it if he didn’t survive the chess game. He couldn’t loose. He was still pondering this thought when a fourth frogman came swimming up to his gate with a bag. A small door opened inside of the gate, big enough that the bag could be dropped into Rufus’s cell.

“What’s this?” Asked Rufus.

“Deathman left some trinkets in his cage. They are yours.”

The frogman was across the cavern and out a small hole in less than three strokes.

“So much for leaving the sunshard in here.” Murmured Rufus.

The games continued as the mermaids marched their pieces across the board.

Rufus tried to put on the gauntlet, his hand was a bit larger than its previous wearer, but even though it was made of a metal, it expanded enough that it fit Rufus’s hand and forearm like spandex.

He flipped the casing on the bottom side of the gauntlet and pressed the onyx stone. Slowly a liquid metal, which felt and looked like quicksilver, enveloped Rufus’s body. After several minutes the liquid metal solidified into armor that had the same color as the onyx stone.

Rufus was amazed at how light the armor was. He easily moved without feeling the weight of the suit. He was able to see out of the armor as if he weren’t looking through a visor. The suit had a blank face, no slits to see or breath out of, but it didn’t inhibit its wearer in doing either of those things. The helmet curved off of Rufus’s forehead, coming to a ridged point that went down the front of his face, from forehead to a sharp point at his chin.

He threw down the crystalline sword and hefted the axe. It was heavier than he thought. Not a problem for his muscles, just unexpected, considering how easily Slittlebaker had wielded them. He tried to split the axes into two hand axes, but couldn’t find any release or catch that allowed it. He resigned to using the axe in its current form.

There were several more matches, before Rufus was called upon. This time however, he was much more prepared. And that was a good thing. As the gates rolled up he saw in the distance the gate to the black queen moving at the same time. Above her queen symbol was a ten count of defeats. Rufus had seen her fight and the bouts had been over quickly.

The gate had to roll all the way to its full height to allow the black queen’s champion out. Black-blue silt spilled out of the gate as if it was smoke coming from a dragon’s snout.

A red head filled half of the gate’s opening. It had lidless eyes with two sets of massive gills twice as tall as Rufus. Small webbed fins sprouted from its head and laid flat against its neck. As Rufus stepped out of his own gateway the creature opened its maw and let loose a piercing scream. The crowd went quiet as they covered their ears, but they immediately stood up and cheered.

The sound waves that burst from the creature’s mouth knocked Rufus over and back into his cage. He got back up and ran out into the cavern. He ran towards the chess table in the middle of the cavern, hoping that he would be able to protect himself from the concussion of the creature’s roar.

The crowd started booing Rufus, when they saw him crouching next to the chess canopy. The white mermaid saw what was going on and she flicked Rufus back out into the cavern with her tail. Rufus looked back at her with disdain, not believing that she would be against him.

The creature finally was coming completely out of its cage. It had a sinuous body, with three pairs of wing-like fins that collapsed against the sides of its body. It also had four sets of legs, ending in talons. There was a triple row of spikes along its back, which started as large bumps behind its head and gradually became large curved spikes at its tail. The center row of spikes rose higher than the two to either side.

Its long body came out of its cage and circled around the top of the curved ceiling of the cavern. Its legs had been pulled into its body as if they didn’t exist.

Rufus struggled to think of a way to defeat this beast. He knew from what he had seen earlier that it was fast and that it could spit venom that burned like acid. There were scorch marks that pocked the cavern floor all over. Also, its teeth could probably slice right through the armor he now wore.

The sea dragon continued to make lazy circles around the curvature of the ceiling. Rufus knew that the only chance he had was to imbue the dragon’s skin with fire or some thought that would cause it pain. He could only do that if the creature came down to his level.

That didn’t take long, Rufus just stood his ground and, in less than the blink of an eye, the sea dragon launched itself off of the ceiling and towards him.

Rufus would have stood still and afraid for his life if he had been just his teenaged self, but he wasn’t; he was also a hardened blacksmith who knew how to strike iron when it was hot. The dragon shot towards him like a bullet from a gun. All of its fins had propelled it towards Rufus and now were tucked flat against its long body.

Rufus stood his ground waiting for the right timing. The dragon came closer and closer, until it was right on top of Rufus. He quickly sidestepped the gaping maw with its many rows of teeth and, in one fluid motion, he brought his axe up against the dragon’s jaw. The axe singed the outside of the dragon’s scales like a match to an ingot, and bounced off the dragon as if he had used a rubber mallet.

The dragon reached for him with its many legs as they passed by him. He had to duck and scramble to dodge their grasp. Due to the length of the dragon’s body it couldn’t see him any more and so its legs and claws were flailing every which way, trying to get in a lucky strike.

One of the dragon’s powerful claws grazed Rufus, knocking him to the ground. The armor now had a silver line where the claw had hit him. He rolled to his feet, picking up his axe. The sunshard was in the back of his mind; he wasn’t going to loose this fight.

He pulled the crystalline sword off of his belt and stood there with the axe in his left hand and his sword in his right. He had to think of a way to stop the dragon from its “aerial” attack. The dragon glided back up to its lazy circles at the top of the cavern.

Again the creature shot down at Rufus. This time, Rufus didn’t attack its head knowing what had happened the last time he tried. Instead he pushed the thought of uselessness of being broken into his sword. The lightning that ran out of his arm and up the blade was interweaving sparks of white and red. The dragon snapped at him and he easily rolled out of the way. He then quickly leaped to his feet and threw the sword like a javelin at one of the wings passing over him. Its tip stuck into the webbed wing as the sparks were about to peter out. But enough of the sparks lodged into the wing to render a small part of the wing lifeless. This didn’t slow down the dragon much, but it did help Rufus figure out a way that he might beat the creature.

Rufus slung his axe onto his back and grabbed onto one of the striking legs. It kicked and tried to knock him to the ground, but he held on. He climbed up the leg and unslung his axe—hooked one of the blades around a spike above him and climbed up on to the back of the dragon.

The speed of the dragon’s movement had been fast when Rufus was on the ground; however, now that the dragon had an unwanted passenger its movements had become erratic. Rufus had to hold on as well as he could. The dragon flew to the top of the cavern and back down. Rufus felt like he was riding a roller coaster that was trying to kill him. Whenever he could he would imbue his axe with the same thought of uselessness and touch it to a scale or to a spike, which would then would slide off into the water and leave the dragon exposed.

At one point in the wild ride he was able to slide towards a wing. He was able to reach the joint of a second wing.  After Rufus disabled the second wing’s joint, the dragon lost control of its movement and glided down to the cavern floor. It landed its legs on the ground and immediately twisted its torso to snap at Rufus. It bucked and shivered its back where Rufus stood, finally dumping him onto the ground.

Rufus rolled onto his feet and stood ready. The dragon moved slower as it turned its bulk towards Rufus, its two broken wings dragging across the floor, slowing it down that much more.

Rufus rushed at the head of the dragon as it turned to face him. The dragon let loose a tremendous roar—the sound waves again pushed Rufus to the floor and up against one of the cages. The dragon held the roar with circular breathing, allowing it to get close enough to make a final strike and win the match by Deathstroke.

Rufus was pinned against the gate but his hand still held his axe. The dragon crouched and readied itself to pounce—it’s long snout just a few feet away from Rufus. The dragon stopped its roar for a split second as it heaved its bulk towards Rufus—its maw as wide as it could go. Before the dragon could snap his gigantic teeth through his body, Rufus had only a fraction of a second to fully complete the thought. He let that one last thought travel out of his arm and through his axe, directing it towards the dragon.

A bolt of liquid fire shot out of his axe, clipping the dragon in the side of its mouth. The bolt knocked several teeth out and destroyed the creature’s jaw. The creature caught Rufus in its mouth, but it no longer had the power to puncture his suit of armor. Rufus slipped out of the bereft dragon’s mouth and pointed his axe at the massive wound in the creature’s jaw. He created the same thought of liquid fire, but nothing happened. He was having difficulty recreating the same imbuing that he had just moments before. The dragon was dazed but finally came to, realizing that it hadn’t lost and that it still had a way of defeating Rufus.

Rufus realized that the thought he’d used to create the liquid fire was much more complicated than the ones he had ever used before. He had to make the water he touched combustible, and not only that, but that the combustibility of the water had to travel in a particular targeted path. He recreated the thought as the dragon was making a clicking sound, which Rufus knew preceded its spewing acid. He had only an instant to push this thought from his arm and through his axe.

Even though he’d had more time to create this thought than the first one, he didn’t get it exactly the same. Instead of a directional imbuing, his thought imbued all the water in every direction. Within seconds, the fire from his axe had lit the combustible water and, instead of traveling in a direct path, all of the water in the cavern was consumed. A transparent shield protected the mermaid judges, crowd and participants, but Rufus was thrown to the ground and stunned. He came to moments later and realized that there was no water in the cavern, just vapor.

The frogmen were trying to pry open one of the gates in the wall, but the pressure on the gate was creating immense resistance. Finally they forced the gate to slide up a few feet, and water slowly began to rush back into the cavern. Rufus stood up over the dragon. It lay on its side, gasping through its gills like a fish out of water. He walked over to it and put one thought into his axe. Death. As he was about to touch the dragon’s head, the Deathstroke shine encapsulated him in its aura. He had beaten the black queen.