The Great Game Read online

  Of course, that made no difference. Not really. What would decide the bout would be what he did. Or what Hopper did. Not who had the fancier equipment.

  Maybe right there and then, he made the choice that he was going to school him completely. No more slip ups. No more failures. He’d had enough of those. This was going to be the start of something special. Hopper could hurt him. He was going to hurt him worse.

  No excuses. He folded his arms, found his summoner. The referee was coming out, going over the rules just for their benefit. Bigger tournaments didn’t bother with human referees, too prone to error in the opinion of the rulers of the sport. It wasn’t like anyone in the crowd could hear it, even with their momentary silence. They were too engrossed to cheer or make any sort of noise, their earlier welcoming acclaim had died down for the few early seconds of the pre-bout rituals. The commentators were doing their own rundown for those that hadn’t gone off to get extra food and drinks for the upcoming battle. The referee was a Burykian, Wilsin smiled politely and nodded at him as he shook his hand. He shook hands with Hopper and retreated to his own technical area.

  “And with that out of the way, we are minutes away from probably the most exciting competition you’ll have seen this year, we are going to see action, we’ll see drama and violence and we will ultimately see one man leave this arena as a victor. We may see tears but we are going to see something very special tonight.”

  “That’s right, John, something special indeed. These two are going to serve us something which might be quite remarkable. Hopper, the up and comer with a point to make on a world that doesn’t quite know what to make of his talent. Wilsin, the old hand with a point to prove, he’s been out of form and he’s ready to strike back with a vengeance…”

  I’m not that old, Wilsin thought wistfully. Cheeky bastard.

  “… But a man when on his game, can be deadly. A man with seventeen competitive wins this season. Will he make it eighteen here? All experts think he should. And with that in mind, the first call is about to be made. The first call that should set the tone of the fight ahead.”

  It touched something in him, Wilsin noticed, a sense of sudden urgency and pride that he’d previously found lacking in this whole thing. Before, he’d supposed he COULD do it. Now, he knew it was going to be his night. With a build up like that, no way he was about to lose this. Wilsin smiled, grabbed up his summoner and made his choices in his head. Hopper stared at him with unflinching blue eyes. He fingered his own device; the giant sand serpent emerged, thundering into being as the great body crashed to the arena floor. That giant head arched back and it bellowed, an eerie sound that brought the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

  “The bigger they are,” he said out loud. Privately, he was smiling. This was the place. This was his bread and butter. The other stuff was secondary right now. And he wasn’t going to let this chance go to waste.

  This was going to be his eighteenth win. No mistake at all.

  Chapter One. Out of Paradise.

  “I’m very proud to announce that we will be continuing the process introduced during the last tournament of applying wild card entrants to the Competitive Centenary Calling Challenge Cup. Sometimes, the very best callers necessarily might not be the ones who have accrued enough points to be automatically considered of a place. There are always other factors to account for. Yes, I think it could be called a success last time. And as an idea, I believe it was entirely my own.”

  President of the ICCC, Ronald Ritellia, live from a press conference ahead of the upcoming tournament.

  The Seventh Day of the Month of Summerdawn.

  “Scott!”

  He paid the voice no attention. Instead, he pulled back his shades and rolled onto his side, letting the warmth of the afternoon sun kiss his left cheek while his right one held cool against the damp rubber of his lounger. It smelled of fresh chemical water, a noticeable smell but not too unpleasant. He’d inhaled worse. Right now, he couldn’t be bothered. He wasn’t meant to be bothered. Apparently, she hadn’t been told that. He grimaced, just for a moment and then put it out of his mind.

  “Scott!”

  He knew she was going to want something. And he didn’t want to oblige. Not right now. Too comfortable. Too rested. First time he’d had some time away from work in a while. Not that you could call spirit calling work. Not really…

  Except sure, you had to work at it. And it was hard work at times. Really hard work. To gather the essences of all those fantastic creatures around the world, take everything that made them the way they were and then to modify and develop them to the point that they were virtually unrecognisable sometimes in the end from what they’d been at the start.

  Genetic engineering for dummies it had once been called and he had to admit that they weren’t wrong. If someone like him could do it, then anyone could. It wasn’t like you needed to entirely understand the theory behind it. Like any difficult task, it was all in the mind. He got that impression sometimes.

  “Taylor! Quit ignoring me and wake your ass up!”

  Now she sounded pissed and he duly obliged, rolling back onto his back and sitting up. Scott Taylor tipped back his shades and stared at her with tired eyes.

  “Okay, I’m up. What’s your command, love?” he said.

  He didn’t want to sound flippant. Only an idiot was flippant with Jesseka Blake. His sparring partner and his confidante. His girlfriend. Better people than him had had strips torn off them by her temper, a state of mind almost as fiery as the shade of red her hair had been for as long as he’d known her. Recently she’d started adding blond streaks to it, the great mane covering a deceptively cute face, a button of a nose still bearing the traces of a long-healed break. Her bikini did very little to hide a body that was in no way something only he had seen exclusively. He’d come to live with that now.

  Just as he’d come to live with the scars that marred what was close enough to perfection. Her left arm was a mess of them; years old burn remnants that time hadn’t been kind to. She’d tried getting tattoos over them. It worked after a fashion; ink couldn’t hide the rough sensations of scar tissue but it was enough to keep those who didn’t know about them from flinching. Or, even worse for her as he’d realised from experience, staring at them.

  He’d seen worse stuff. Rough growing up in Delhoig after all. Majority of women there had scars rather than not. Those that didn’t were usually the exceptions. Not quite this bad. But hey, she was pretty much hotter than anyone else he’d ever dated. And he’d been surprised to learn down the line that she wasn’t horrible all the time.

  What a bonus!

  He’d thought that at the time. Sure, nobody was perfect. She sure as hell wasn’t. But things weren’t that bad. They had fun together. Most of the time. If he shut out the arguments, it almost felt like paradise sometimes. Life was pretty good right now; he’d known worse times. He looked at her through the cracks in his eyes, saw her striding the last few feet.

  And she was carrying his summoner. He’d left it in the room earlier. His mistake. But, he wasn’t expecting to be challenged. Bit of a rookie mistake but hey, he was relaxing. It was like the international sign for Do Not Disturb Me.

  “You’ve got a message,” she said, tossing it at him underarm. He went to catch it, missed and felt it bounce off his chest. It hit the floor with a crash, he cursed silently. Privately he was sure she’d done it deliberately.

  “Hey, don’t break it!”

  “Don’t catch like a girl,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. He saw the flash of silver from her piercing as it caught the light.

  “I do not catch like a girl.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Jess sneered, sitting down and returning to her drink, not seeing Scott roll his eyes at her comment. It was an exotic looking thing, a tall orange and green liquid with what looked to be berries hanging over the top. Red, blue, black, berry colours of ascending darkness in an almost fake looking pattern around the rim
inches from her fingers. He could see the stains on the glass. It stank of more fruit and alcohol than had to be reasonably good for the body.

  “Got us here, didn’t I?” Scott said. “Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me, would we? I clearly have my uses, huh?” He didn’t add how if it had been left up to her, the two of them would probably be on the street. There was some tact left in him apparently. Unlike him, she wasn’t a spirit caller, rather dabbling more on the artistic side of the spectrum. Not that she’d done too much with it lately. Neither of them had. Time together had cut deep into that. It wasn’t a trade he was sure he was entirely unhappy about making.

  “Sometimes,” she said. She threw back her drink and stood back up, dropping down on the lounger next to him. She gave him a smile, reached out and rested a hand on his stomach. He could smell the booze on her breath “A lot of the time. You’re not that bad. Sometimes.”

  “Don’t get happy on me, Blake. It doesn’t suit you. I’ll start to worry,” Scott said, resting his head back on his arms. He gave her a sweet grin. She punched him lightly. He leaned over and grabbed his summoner up. “Let’s see that message.”

  “Bet its bad news.”

  Scott sat up at that, bolt upright in surprise. He almost dropped the device again, just managed to stop it slipping through his fingers at the last moment. His thumb hovered over the message icon, ready to open it up. He hadn’t heard that voice in a few months.

  “I mean, bad news always follows the two of you, right?”

  There he was. Arms folded, he stood across the way, caller around his neck and grin on his face. He wasn’t entirely the tallest, though he had a good few inches on Scott. There wasn’t much between him and Jesseka. Maybe if she wasn’t wearing heels, maybe if he wasn’t stooping, he’d be taller. It’d take a brave man to push him though. Peter Jacobs looked like he enjoyed the act of working out almost as much as he enjoyed spirit calling. Scott had known him for years. He had a habit of doing dangerous things in the name of an adrenaline rush. It wasn’t the body of a man who avoided risk in his life. They’d started together back in Delhoig, they’d run in the same gang for a little while. Scott had gotten out. Later Pete had as well.

  They’d travelled together, had some run-ins, they’d fought with and beside each other. There’d been the good times and a few bad. But the rivalry, if you could call it that, had been a friendly one. Neither of them felt an iota of nastiness for the other. He looked like he was enjoying the sun almost as much as they were. More than that, he looked like he’d only just got here. The sun hadn’t browned his skin yet. He still looked way too pale, the thick black hair framing his face making him look even pastier than he was. Already Scott was planning a dozen different jokes to make about that.

  “Don’t know,” Scott said. “That’s just a nasty rumour. Stop spreading rumours about us, Pete.”

  “He spread rumours about us?” Jess asked. There was a note in her voice that made the hairs on Scott’s neck rise. He’d heard it before, it usually meant trouble.

  “Hey Blakey J,” Pete said. Either he didn’t know or he didn’t care. Scott didn’t know which worried him more. “Long time, no see.”

  “You spread rumours about us?” she repeated, slightly louder. It did have the pleasant side effect of disarming some of the menace in her voice, at least slightly.

  “Do I look like I have a death wish?” he said, managing a laugh that somehow came off both disarming and charming simultaneously. “Course not. You know Taylor, right?”

  “Should do.”

  “He speaks a lot of crap. About ninety percent of what he says, it’s bullshit, you know that don’t you? You’ve been with him what, a year now? Longer? You not worked that out yet?”

  “I might have caught a few hints,” Jess said. Apparently, she’d been disarmed nicely, Scott privately envied Pete’s way with women. He’d never met one who could stay angry at his buddy for too long. “I mean, every time he opens his mouth, he does give that impression he’s not thought through what he’s going to say.”

  “Are you two done insulting me yet?”

  “I have more,” Pete said with a cheerful grin. “I’ve always got more where you’re concerned. But it can wait. You got more, Jesseka?”

  “Nothing that I can’t save for tonight. You want a drink, Pete?”

  “I’m good,” he said. “But thanks. Did you get it, Scotty?”

  He let it go. Pete called him Scotty sometimes, mainly when he wanted to get a rise out of him. It wasn’t going to work. Not today. He was going to ignore it today. Last thing he wanted was to look a fool in front of the girl he was with. Not like this. He wasn’t going to start flinging insults at him. Even though he did have plenty of ammunition.

  “Get what?” he asked. Pete’s eyes gestured down towards the summoner and he mentally kicked himself. Oh. That.

  “You’re getting slow,” Pete grinned. “You’d forget your own head. Probably pick someone else’s up and then we wouldn’t recognise you.”

  “I’m clearly distracted by seeing my good buddy again,” Scott said dryly. “Puts everything else into perspective. Like how much of a nice time I was actually having five minutes ago.” Okay, he didn’t say that last part. It wasn’t worth the trouble. He pushed the message icon, saw them open on the screen in a flurry of files and irrelevance. Too much spam, too much crap he wasn’t going to need. “I need to clean this thing out.”

  “He sucks with technology,” Jess said helpfully.

  “I know,” Pete said. “I remember when he blew that microwave up when we were in Canterage. We got banned from so many places. He got you thrown out of anywhere yet?”

  He was still ignoring them as he went through the files quickly, deleting the ones that weren’t helpful, his fingers dancing across the buttons… Want to buy cheap container crystals? Home use methiliation? Spirit dancer still missing… That one was moderately interesting. Moderately. It had been all over the news recently. A woman named Selena Stanton had been missing for a few days. He thought Jess might know her but if she did, she hadn’t mentioned much about it. Vaguely interesting but not relevant. Beyond his focus, Pete and Jesseka were still back-and-forthing at his expense, not something he was paying too much attention to.

  “Just a few places. He got into an argument with a waiter about a month ago. We had to leave the restaurant pretty quickly.”

  “Sometimes I think he does it to avoid paying the bill in places.”

  “You know I can think of plenty of bad things to say about the two of you as well,” Scott finally said. Still scrolling. Scrolling… Scrolling. Plenty of stuff he needed to delete. “Ah, got it.” He saw the little tape icon, noted the lack of a recognisable sender ID and pushed down on it. A few seconds and…

  “Reckon its good news?” he asked before the message finally kicked in. The first voice was undoubtedly female. Sounded sexy. He grinned at that. Jess would kill him if she knew what he was thinking.

  “Message for Scott Taylor on behalf of the International Calling Competitive Committee. Stand by to receive.”

  If anything, the second voice was a little harder to make out, he’d have gone for male. It sounded sterner. More authoritative. But his interest was piqued. What did they want with him? Sure, he was a member. He had a licence to practice calling as a competitive sport. You needed one. Just because any idiot COULD do it, didn’t mean that they did let any idiot do it. There was an exam and everything. So, what… Unless…

  His heart bounced in his chest, he felt a flush of exhilaration. Surely not… Really?

  They couldn’t have.

  Could they?

  Only one way to find out.

  “Dear Mr Taylor. We are pleased to inform you that you have qualified for a wild card entry into the Competitive Centenary Calling Challenge Cup. Congratulations on your selection on behalf of all of us here at the committee. On this occasion, the tournament is to take place on Carcaradis Island…”

  “It’s o
ff the coast of Vazara,” Pete mouthed. Scott made a shushing gesture. As if he didn’t already know that. Jess shook her head in disgust as if she wanted to hit him.

  “… starting on the eighteenth of this month…”

  Slightly less than two weeks away. Plenty of time to get to Vazara. Plenty of time to make the connecting trip to Carcaradis Island. Already the dreams of winning were filling his head. He could always listen to the message again. Parts of the message were filtering out. They didn’t feel important now. A bubbling feel of excitement was gestating in the pit of his stomach, a warm feeling seeping through him that he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever felt before. He had to fight the urge to bounce up and down on the balls of his feet in glee. Ho-lee crap.

  “… at most two months. We wish you luck and await your arrival for the opening ceremony. Should you wish to decline your invitation…”

  “Has anyone actually done that?” Pete wondered. “The Quin-C? Nobody turns that down.” It was true. Being dead was the only reason people didn’t show up for the Quin-C. It was the most prestigious tournament available to compete in. You had to be good to get invited. Qualifying conditions were strict, it operated on a points system too complicated to be understood by mere mortals. Only the higher ups at the ICCC seemed to be able to get to grips on it. Something about the competitive caller’s competition performances over the last five years, wins, losses, heavy defeats and narrow wins, prestige of tournaments, trophies and points, all mixed into one bag of insanity that you needed an old-style abacus to work out.

  “… next five working days. Further information will be forwarded to you very shortly. Again, congratulations on your place and we will see you in short due. Yours, Ronald Ritellia. ICCC president.”