Card mage slumdog deckbu.., p.4
Card Mage: Slumdog Deckbuilder, page 4
Wyott considered me for a moment, then gave a chuckle, inviting the audience that had gathered around us to do the same, breaking the tension.
“Well, since you’re fans, I’ll let you off just this once,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, smiling at the crowd.
Then he leaned in to me, gripping my shoulder so hard I thought it would pop, and added in a voice low enough only I could hear, “but if I see you or that wildcat anywhere near me again, I’ll make you pay for these precious minutes you’ve just wasted.”
He dug his fingers in one last time, leaving what I was sure would be bruises in the morning, then smiled at the crowd again, linked up with his companions and took off down the road.
His destination was obvious enough. A short walk down the street, just beside the entrance to the Bridges, was Freehold. The tall, white-marbled building was where all fulldeckers who visited the Slums found free room and board - an exclusive luxury for the few Bridgedwellers who decided to scout out the less-civilised corners of the cathedral city.
“That chancer,” Gunne said, taking gasping breaths as the tension left her body. The street returned to its normal flow as massday celebrations approached. “He was lucky he didn’t push it further.”
“Lucky? That was Wyott Fielder, Gunne. The most successful card player I’ve ever heard of that bothers to visit the Slums. He’s probably got a rapport with every card in his deck. He’d squash you without even thinking.”
“He could try.”
I laughed then, and a second later she joined in - we both needed it.
Not long after, the priests took to the streets.
By now, most of the marketplace was filled with people. Traders and shopkeepers stood side-by-side, and a collection of armoured priests were setting up a wooden platform in the widest part of the street. The lead priest stood atop the platform, his faceless helmet looking out over the dozens of us that had turned to him. Although the priests were heavily armoured - it was a small mercy you could always tell they were coming by how much clanking they made - they still wore black robes over their gear, folding down to their ankles and billowing behind them like cloaks.
As was normal during massday, our preacher for today’s holy sermon held a long pole, atop of which a miniature wooden shrine was fixed, which always held a different card locked within.
Gunne and I knelt, joining the rest of the marketplace by lowering in supplication to the card, and to the power of the Lusiomancer who had sealed away the monster that was bonded within it. I took a quick glance up, to see if I recognised the card they were holding for us today - it was a Leviathan, one of the rarest Water cards. Massday was always a good time to catch a glimpse at some of the rarer cards, but I actually knew the Leviathan pretty well - it had led Ma’s final deck.
“Long one or short one?” Gunne whispered from beside me.
Talking during mass was a risky affair. The priests weren’t shy in physical punishments to remind anyone of their place, but Gunne had somehow magically avoided their truncheons up until now. Not for lack of trying, of course.
“Long, Gunne,” I told her, recalling the epic tale of how the Lusiomancer took down the Leviathan and bound it to the cards. “Really chancing long.”
She was smart enough to not groan in response, but Gunne replied by exhaling long and hard, so exaggerated that I was in danger of bursting out laughing as the priest began to preach. In a loud, nasal voice he lectured all of us, the unwashed, sinful dwellers of the Domstadt Slums, about the trials the Lusiomancer endured when he faced the Leviathan, ridding the world of yet another evil beast by dragging it back to his cathedral, sealing it forever in chains so it could no longer feed on innocent people, and so that its magics could be bound to the cards that were the lifeblood of Domstadt.
Gunne thought it was all nonsense, the stories about the Lusiomancer. Not a surprise - that’s pretty much her go-to reaction on anything regarding the Ecclesiarchy. As for me, I wasn’t sure. I knew from studying Ma’s card that the Leviathan was gargantuan - if you looked close enough at the image of it, you could actually see a three-masted ship being swept aside by the Leviathan’s head as it ploughed through the waves. How something that size could be bested by one man, let alone somehow chained into submission in the Zochendom was beyond me. Still, the card’s magic worked, so there must be truth in the story somewhere. The rest of it wasn’t important.
What was important was how chancing long the priest was taking. A decent sermon lasted for about twenty minutes, before we could get on with the rest of our day. If you were really lucky, you might only have to listen to the Lusiomancer taking on an Imp, or a Selkie - one of the really weak card monsters. Only once I’d heard the tale of the black cat card, and that lasted five minutes at the most. The rare ones, though, the unique cards, the big names - they could go on and on and on.
Beside me, Gunne grunted. At first, I thought it might have been just through discomfort - it wasn’t the nicest sensation in the world, having to kneel in the dirt for this length of time. However, a quick glance at her told me something else was up - Gunne raised her eyebrows, motioning for me to look down the street.
Someone new was coming.
You can tell a slumsider from miles away - we’re all poor, underfed and underwashed. Priests don’t count as new faces, as we never get to see theirs. For all I know, it’s the same old people that are patrolling the Slums streets every night, shoving us back into our homes or putting us to inquisition over suspected Demon deck sightings, or other such blasphemies. Or they could be new people each time. The priests in the Slums could change every week, every day even - they never tell us.
The only variety we get are when fulldeckers from the Bridges decide to come back through the gates, checking out the market in case any rare cards are up for trade. When they do come, the fulldeckers are a flash of colour, and most slumsiders could tell you them by name - Altergot, Prince of the Tides, Simmonette Baxter, famed for her Beast deck, or Wyott Fielder, who seems to flit between different styles of decks every time I hear stories about him.
The lady Gunne had noticed walking down the street was clearly no fulldecker. The black cloak she wore was emblazoned with the Lusiomancer’s seal, an infinity-twist of golden chains - this woman was a member of the Ecclesiarchy. I’d never seen anyone from the Ecclesiarchy before that hadn’t been a priest.
From the lines on her face, I’d have put this newcomer somewhere in her forties, although she could be younger than that - I’ve heard people say life in the Slums aged you early, and she certainly didn’t look like one of us. She was too well-fed, for one thing. Not that she was fat, but this woman had some good muscle on her bones - not someone I’d want to get into a scrap with. Instead of a priest’s armour, under her cloak and robes she wore a black leather outfit, all belts and pouches, and I spotted the hilt of at least two daggers secreted away at her waist and another strapped to her thigh. Instead of a helmet, she wore a tall, wide-brimmed hat that matched the rest of her gear. She wore her hair down, straight and raven-black, running to her shoulder from under her hat. It said a lot that the streaks of grey running through her hair were the only hints of brightness in her grim appearance.
Keeping my head bent in supplication, I glanced across to Gunne. The wrinkles on her forehead told me she had as little clue as to the woman’s identity as I did. I suddenly felt very uneasy, however, about this lady walking down the market street towards us.
The sermon had been uninterrupted by the newcomer’s arrival - and yea, did the Lusiomancer smite the Leviathan upon the brow once more, and yea did he smite it again once more after that, because why the chance not - but I could tell Gunne and I weren’t the only slumsiders who had noticed the lady in black. For the first time I can ever remember on massday, there were murmurs of confusion coming from the crowd around me. Some nasty, inquisitive part of me wanted to see how many people the priests were willing to club into submission. The rest of me just wanted them all to shut up, so nobody got hurt.
In the end, to my great surprise, it was the priest himself who caused the biggest interruption, stopping in mid-sentence when the newcomer stood to attention in front of him. I wasn’t the only one who dared to raise my head after that - I think half the marketplace had forgotten it was a massday by this point. Not even a whisper of this had ever happened before.
“M-magefinder Albrecht,” the priest stammered. “I had heard of your arrival, but did not think… praise to the Lusiomancer. Welcome to the Slums.”
The magefinder turned from the priest to look at the crowd, dismissing the man’s greeting with a wave of her hand. “May his name be forever hallowed throughout all of Domstadt. Even in the most lowly of districts.”
Around us, a few brave people had started to stand - perhaps they were hoping the end of the sermon meant their knees would be spared.
“Stay where you are,” the magefinder said, and with a firm gesture indicated we should keep our knees lowered to the ground. “I’m here to get a look at you all.”
Gunne was looking a little panicked at this point; I felt pretty uneasy too. There was no good reason to feel that way, of course - neither of us had been involved in anything that would get the Ecclesiarchy’s attention - at least, I hoped Gunne hadn’t been doing anything stupid when I wasn’t looking. At the end of the day, however, even I’d have to admit that being innocent didn’t always mean the Ecclesiarchy’s eyes wouldn’t turn in your direction.
A magefinder? I’d heard of them, of course, but we’ve never seen one down in the Slums before. The Card Mages were Domstadt’s most dangerous enemies, but they lived far to the north, and our armies were in constant conflict with them to keep them far from the cathedral city’s walls. Magefinders were supposed to hunt down the Card Mages’ agents, but that was outside of Domstadt, in the villages and towns that lay between here and the Kruez Mountains where the enemy themselves made their homes. Very few Card Mage agents ever made their way past the city walls, and of those who had, I can’t think of any good reason why they’d want to get locked here in the Slums with the rest of us.
“…twenty-three simultaneous sermons, I believe,” the lead priest was saying to the magefinder, as she walked among the slumsiders. “I’d have to check back at the monastery, however. I’m just a lowly parson, and don’t get consulted about the massday organisation. My skills, instead, lie in my oration...” The black-armoured man was considerably more animated than he had been earlier, and was almost stammering in his eagerness to impress the newcomer.
For her part, the magefinder didn’t look at him, and didn’t seem to be taking his babble in. Her eyes moved from slumsider face to slumsider face, resting on each in turn. Every so often she moved her finger under someone’s chin, tilting their head up so she could get a proper look at them.
She didn’t talk to the priest at all. If I wasn’t so chancing terrified of her, I think she might have been my new personal hero.
I took another glance at Gunne, and she was sweating. That’s when it first occurred to me that something might be horribly wrong here. What was getting Gunne worked up like that? Hopefully, it was just general hatred of these guys. They had killed her father, after all - executed him because of his involvement in circulating Demon cards a few years ago. Did Gunne think they were after her, following up on her da’s crimes?
Or had Gunne done something a magefinder might be interested in?
Damn, it would have to have been pretty bad, if that were the case - they normally let priests deal with all the card-related crimes down here, Demon decks included.
“You.”
The magefinder was speaking to Gunne. Gunne had her head a bit too low, and one word from the magefinder made her raise it. Sweat dripping from her brow, Gunne glared at the older woman. By the deck, I almost thought I could hear Gunne growling. The role of my personal hero had just been replaced.
The magefinder only locked her gaze on Gunne for a second, though, then moved on, same as she had done with everyone else.
As soon as she caught a glimpse of me, however, she grabbed my face with her hand.
I gasped, because of course anyone would - nobody else had been handled by the magefinder like this. My chin tight in her grip, she hunkered down to get a better look at me. The woman was spooked - her jaw was hanging slightly to the side, her eyebrows were narrowed down to her sharp nose.
She looked like someone had just ripped up a sacred card right in front of her.
“Boy - your name,” she said, a considerable amount of urgency to her voice.
“Hick. Ma’am.” I wasn’t exactly certain how one should address a magefinder. And my brain was currently freaking out over how to not die in the next couple of seconds.
“Family name, boy.”
“Durchdenwald.”
She withdrew from me as if I were a piece of shit she had discovered lying outside her doorway. All colour had drained from her face.
“Take him away,” she said to the nearby priest.
Two of the armoured militia stepped forward and grabbed me by both arms. I’ll admit, I did nothing to stop them - I was too shocked at what was happening to me. I wracked my brain to think about what I could have done to piss off the Ecclesiarchy, but there was nothing that would be even worth their time to chastise me over, let alone treat me like this.
The only thing that stirred me from my shock was Gunne, standing to her feet just beside us, her knuckles white, her face ready for war.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I hissed. I loved her for wanting to help me, but we both knew how that would go. Gunne had already got a chip in one of her front teeth from when she had tried to stop the Ecclesiarchy from taking her da away. “I’ve not done anything, I’ll be fine,” I said.
I turned to the magefinder, and found the balls to speak to her. “Tell her I’ll be fine, right?”
The woman looked from me to Gunne, then back again. Saying nothing further, she spun on her heel and walked off, flicking her wrist to motion for the priests to follow, bringing me with them.
Gunne, thank the deck, stood motionless in the middle of the market street, everyone else pushing away from her, wanting to have nothing to do with the people who had done something to anger the Ecclesiarchy.
Whatever in the Zochendom’s dusty halls had I done?
Chapter Three
The battle of deck dealing champions: The Card Clowns versus The Mimsy Borogroves! This Games Night, only at Anfang’s, your favourite card arena. Entrance: one chit a head. No discount for minors.
I’d never been inside the monastery before. Set against the wall to the Bridges, it was the Ecclesiarchy’s stronghold inside the Slums. It was the most unique building we had down here. Most of the Slums’ dwellings were old timber, rotting and twisted, whitewashed long enough ago that they were now stained an unpleasant brown. The monastery’s stone walls, in contrast, were grey, rigid, and sharp.
There were always rumours floating around about the kind of stuff that happened in there. Some said it was easy enough just to trot right through to the Bridges, that this was how the Ecclesiarchy moved back and forth between the different city districts. Others claimed there were card monsters chained up in here - the actual monsters themselves, not the magical echoes that we see when we use the cards in arenas. Many reckoned the corridor walls of the monastery were lined with heretics, enduring constant torture for crimes against the Lusiomancer’s many decrees.
I got to find out that the truth was considerably more boring than that - the monastery, as far as I could tell, was just a maze of boring, badly lit grey corridors, with many boring, badly lit small rooms branching off from them. At least, that was what the cell they finally threw me into looked like - it was small, with a caged candle bolted to one of the walls, with only one lonely wooden chair abandoned in the middle of it.
The priests in charge of me made it very clear via the medium of aggressive shoving that I was expected to sit in that chair and not get up, not if I valued my shoulders remaining in an undislocated state. Which I did, so I sat, doing my best to not soil myself out of sheer fear.
This place might be mundane, I might have committed zero crimes, but I was under no illusion that I was safe here. We heard plenty of stories about people being brought into the monastery. There were considerably less stories about anyone making it back out.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?” I tried. I got a gauntleted slap to the back of the head for that one, which made black spots dance on the edge of my vision.
The magefinder stood in front of me. Doing my best to focus after the blow from the priest, I tried to look up at her without being sick.
“Who is your mother?”
And just like that, I lost my breakfast down the front of my shirt.
I’d love to say that the priest had really hit me that hard, but the bigger shock was the mention of Ma - I hadn’t seen that coming, and anything to do with her was guaranteed to shuffle my insides in a major way.
Coughing, the smell of oats and bile rising from my lap, I spat the rest of the sick out of my mouth. The magefinder’s lip curled once I started to retch, but otherwise she had just stood there until I’d finished chundering.
Once I was done, she asked me again. “Your mother. Who is she?”
“You’ve seen my ma?”
“Who is your mother?”
“Regina. Regina Durchdenwald. You’ve seen her?”
It hurt me, to say her name - it brought back memories I’d promised myself that I’d forget, a part of my life I was trying to walk away from. The name seemed to have an effect on the magefinder, too - her cheeks began to flush, and she started breathing deeper.
“When did you last see her?” she demanded. The magefinder was pointedly ignoring all of my questions.
“Four years ago, when she left to the Bridges. She never came back. Do you know where she is?”
