The Nine Bishops

Mika returned to the guild to find her stunned guildmates gathered there, waiting anxiously for her and Master Beng to return. She told them what she could about the outcome of the fight from her own perspective but decided it was best not to tell them about her conversation with Master Beng. She merely told him that she’d tried hard to find him.

When Doc chided her for abandoning them right before the fight, she apologized. And she agreed with their conclusion that this was all for the best; the important thing was that neither she nor Master Beng had been hurt, and there were no hard feelings.

Mika noted that her guildmates’ attitudes had changed. They now seemed to be fully in support, while before they had seemed guarded. It was clear they had been of a divided mind, that they cared for Master Beng and Mika equally, but differently. Now that Mika was the sole contender in the tournament, they were adamant about rooting for her.

Eventually, the conversation turned to Mika’s next round, which was approaching all too rapidly.

She learned from her guild members that Vixin Tamrie had made it to the fight. Lancel had won, of course. However, this time he did not win instantaneously. From what she learned Lancel had not gone on the offensive immediately. He let down his guard at first and offered to spare his master’s life if she yielded.

Acclaimed as one of Seemos’s most powerful mages, Master Tamrie was able to transform her body into fine sand or sandstone. According to Mika’s guildmates, she’d had some very impressive victories.

Lancel may have been Vixin’s pupil, but that did not mean they were on good terms. Rumors had circulated that Crow’s Nest, despite its superiority over other guilds, was suffering internal divisions over who was the rightful master. Veteran members vouched for Vixin, in part because of her seniority. Their critics argued that the rightful master was simply the most powerful one—without a doubt, Lancel.

Mika believed seniority ought to be an important factor. Wisdom, she knew, was almost as important as power, which was why she never spoke ill of Master Beng, even though there were times when both of those characteristics seemed lacking in him.

After all the debate, the guild’s argument was to be decided on the battlefield. Offering Vixin a chance to surrender, however, signaled disrespect and arrogance. Master Tamrie ignored the offer and tried to attack him while he was open.

Under the circumstances, Mika understood why Master Tamrie felt obligated to assert her position. While Lancel may have allowed her to attack him, it had no effect. Vixin shot a sandstream at Lancel, but all the sand fell to the ground in front of him, as though it was nothing.

He pleaded for her to surrender. She ignored him. When she initiated a second attack, Lancel didn’t allow her to complete it. He did to Vixin the horrible thing he’d done to Master Mandrake.

Mika wasn’t surprised by this. She was more shocked that Lancel had given Vixin a chance to live, knowing that she herself would not be afforded that luxury.

And so, she accepted her fate while simultaneously preparing the best defense she could.

***

In the day she’d had to prepare, Mika had contemplated the single word Master Beng left her with: Gravity.

She felt she had studied as much as she could about magic. She had read all the books, witnessed all kinds of magic, and mastered her own. However, gravity as a magic strain defied everything she knew. The magic Mika had grown accustomed to was simple at its root, though its application may have been complex. Gravity, on the other hand, was a complex concept to begin with. What does it mean to control gravity?

In the realm of physics, Mika learned that gravity was defined as the force that attracts a body towards the center of the earth, or towards any other physical body having mass. Mika knew physics well, so that was the first thing she thought of. But that seemed insufficient to explain Lancel’s magic. In a way, Lancel was attracting another physical body to his own center of mass. He was able to isolate the gravity in certain areas towards him, which was how he was able to rip the skeleton out of his victims’ bodies. Even if that was all he could do, it was enough to strike fear into Mika.

Mika pondered how to fight that seemingly irresistible force. Nothing defies gravity; there is no counteracting force, Mika puzzled to herself throughout her preperation. Even if she were able to survive Lancel’s first attack, there was no knowing what else he was capable of.

No wonder the betting shops had put heavy odds on her death, giving her just a one-tenth of one percent chance of winning. Mika knew the Filth, somewhere out there beyond the white barrier, were the only ones in the crowd rooting for her.

***

And now came the countdown. “Five … four … three … two … one. FIGHT!”

Instantly, Mika saw her life flashing before her eyes. Her body was being pulled apart; she felt as though the gravity of the world had shifted from vertical to horizontal inside her body. Why am I being being spared an immediate death? Mika thought, surprised she was still alive. Seconds felt like hours. What Mika didn’t realize, was that she was only a split-second away from being torn inside out.

She had anticipated the pain, and prepared for it, but not the longevity of the experience.

So, she took her magic strain to new extremes, slowly and subconsciously creating a wall of ice on her outer skin, manifesting her power in an invisible barrier beyond anything she’d created before.

Mika’s body felt like it was about to explode from the pressure, but somehow, she was still alive. Maybe I am not dying after all.

***

Moments before, she and Lancel had been standing face to face. Feeling oddly at peace, she’d come to the battleground at the last possible moment, to maximize her time with those she most cared about before going to what she assumed would be her death.

Lancel asked a string of questions without giving her time to answer: “Why did he yield to you? What makes you special? Does he think you can actually defeat me? What are you two hiding? Do you think I am going to let you live?”

He was growing more and more frustrated and angry. Mika wasn’t sure if that might help her or only make things worse. Would his frustration lead to a more focused attack, or make him sloppy, so the end was excruciatingly painful? She wanted a painless death if she could have it.

Lancel’s rage was palpable, and in that fraction of a second before the heavy pressure fell on her, like a mountain being dropped onto her shoulders, Mika pitied him.

***

Now she heard a loud crack, something like the sound her bones made when they were breaking in the lighthouse falls, but different.

Feeling her magic ice armor give in, Mika decided it was time to let go of the crushing weight. She felt the pressure increase, but in such a way that it didn’t hurt. In fact, instead of being shredded, Mika felt energized. It felt as though deep, pent-up energy was erupting from her skin.

A moment later, Mika felt neither crushing pressure nor surging energy. Everything went bright for a moment. She found herself standing in a strange place. Blinking in the sunlight, she looked around and saw thousands of people staring at her, open-mouthed. Where am I?

Then, she remembered. Her eyes darting around and upward, she realized the barrier that had separated the arena from the people was gone. In fact, it had been destroyed. So the cracking that I heard was the barrier being destroyed?

Mika was now standing in the central square that had been hidden from public view for the past two years. A silent crowd surrounded her.

Mika looked around at the speechless expressions on each face. What happened?

She turned around and surveyed what had been the battlefield moments before. Lancel was at the edge of the former arena, the lower half of his body submerged in the canal, the rest out of the water. He appeared to be unconscious but breathing.

As always, Mika’s magic happened at a certain unconscious level. Now, she drew more conscious conclusions about what had occurred.

From what she could gather, the immense pressure Lancel had exerted had raised the temperature of the air inside the arena—in fact, an oppressive heat lingered. She wondered at first if that was her doing, but then recalled that she had restrained herself from attacking.

The ice surrounding Mika’s body had protected her from both the pressure and the heat. The combination of pressure and heat rose to a level so high it created a spontaneous explosion, blowing the lid off the barrier like a geyser. Mika’s magic wasn’t powerful enough in itself to destroy it, but her magic combined with Lancel’s could.

This hadn’t been Mika’s intention. All she’d wanted was to somehow prevent the inevitable. By some miracle, her ice shell had been more than a defense.

Mika did her best to stay on her feet. Lancel’s magic had not been without consequence. As the adrenaline dissipated, her pain was intense. Every part of her body ached, every breath was excruciating, as though every rib had been cracked.

Even more painful was the laughter that followed her relief at surviving. But she couldn’t help but laugh in sheer amazement over an outcome she could never have imagined. She laughed, realizing she had made some gamblers extremely wealthy, and wondered if the Filth who had put coin down on her unlikely win would be compensated fairly.

Mika was brought back to her senses by an eruption of cheers. The crowd had finally come to the realization that this young woman, a complete unknown before the contest, was the winner of the Selection of Sixteen.

Mika had no idea what was to come, except that she would inevitably face off against Bishop Frost. No new message appeared on her palm. When she looked up to the sky, the broadcast was gone. Had it all been destroyed by the explosion?

She didn’t have time to think about all that. Around her, the overheated air was now cooling, and Mika began to see her breath billowing frostily. Though it had been a bright, warm day, the air was growing too cold, even for Mika. At first, she wondered if this had accidentally been her doing. But she was shaking too much for that to be true.

Mika looked out into the crowd and saw that others had noticed the change as well. The cheers slowly turned to a quiet murmur. A wave of cold was sweeping in from the north. Mika couldn’t recall ever experiencing such a strange change. The air grew colder and colder, until the water in the canals began to freeze over.

Suddenly, an object crashed into the ground from the sky, not far from Mika, briefly knocking her off her feet. She quickly got up, despite the pain in her ribs, and looked to see the thing that had created a crater in front of her. It was a giant block of ice that reflected the sun’s rays, temporarily blinding her. When she looked back again, the ice was gone and a person stood in its place.

There was no mistaking who it was. The contest was not over, as Mika had thought. It had only just begun.