“I am Gudkind,” the man with the cleft lip says. I think it’s a woman, actually. Nope, a man. He’s got a beard. Wait, do some Obsidian women have beards?
“Freihild, girl, you look like you got shit out an aurochs.” She doesn’t. But the best thing that can be said about my new appointment is the vast potential for cursing at skuggi killers without fear of physical dismemberment. “Gimme your cards.”
“No cards,” she replies, unable to take that devilish gleam from her eye. I thought she’d make a fine liar. Turns out, she can’t turn it off. She just always looks smug as a fox in a hen hutch.
“Liar. Fine. Whoever gives me cards first gets a pass on argot homework. And a hundred credits to gamble away down in Olympia.”
Ten Obsidians rush forward. Freihild pulls out a pack too. “You sly minx. I knew you were lying. Go to the Bleeding Place and sit in the center for two thousand breaths.” I look at the rest of them. “You do not lie to your tessarius, you sorry sacks of offal. Lying to your tessarius is akin to killing a baby.” They do not react. Have they killed babies? “Akin to lying to Sefi! Do you understand?” They glower. “Akin to lying to Valdir.” There, that’s the right comparison. Freihild has not moved. “You deaf, brave?”
Her eyes widen a millimeter. “Gold spirits live in Bleeding Place.”
I grin. “So I hear.”
“I do not have shaman wards.”
“Move. Your. Ass. And no tiny Red breaths. Obsidian breaths.”
She slouches away. I grab a pack from another Obsidian and sit on the floor.
“Freihild.”
“I am Gudkind.” He points to the woman I just sent away. “That was Freihild, which you know. For all know Freihild, because she is deft in all things.”
“Right. Fetch me Xenophon. He’s in the war hall. Sorry, varHal.” Gudkind breaks into a loping sprint. I smile to myself and look around into the 198 frightening faces who watch me as if I’m about to pull a snake out of my boot.
“Who’s the best at Karachi here?”
“Freihild, for she is deft in all things, for she learned at the hip of Valdir the ways of the axe, and Screwface in the ways of cards.”
So Freihild was Valdir’s student. Scandalous.
I stare at the brave, utterly annoyed. “Jove on high. Who else?” I pick five from the ones with packs. “Everyone else, fall in, bear witness to slaughter. Come on, pack in.” Unable to crowd together for fear of touching, they align themselves according to height. Stupid Golds and their cultural departments. Must have had a riot thinking that one up.
I shuffle the octagonal cards, throwing in a couple tricks that made Rising coldies croon. I deal them out. “They had a saying in the Free Leg: as easy as taking chit from a coldie.” They’ve heard it before. “Now, I know you lot love your cards. Problem is you’re not any good at it. The Whites believe Karachi is their game because they invented it to fit their skill set. That’s why half of you are in for a quarter kilo of gold at the gambling dens down in the city. They count the cards in their heads, so they always know their chances and they bet accordingly. All their dealers do it. Simple statistical probability.”
Xenophon pushes through the Obsidians, looking disheveled. His voice is flat. “I was in the middle of an audit on the assimilation camp—”
“You play Karachi, right, Xenophon?”
The logos’s eyes lose their glaze and do a little dance. “It’s a little early, no?”
“Education has no schedule.”
“Then let yours begin.” The logos doffs a fine midnight coat, pools their midnight robes, and sits cross-legged. A coin-file appears in their hand and they push the release, spilling gold stamped with stars on the floor. “Deal me in. If you dare.”
“So that’s how we get your blood moving. Comets are low. No third draw. Five limit.” I deal the cards. Forty minutes later, I own Xenophon’s coat and coins, seventeen Obsidian warrior torcs, fourteen sets of earrings, and a custom pulseFist carved to look like a dragon’s mouth. “Can anyone tell me what just happened?” I ask them.
“Bald robbery,” Xenophon says in his customary drone. The logos shivers, missing the jacket as wind comes off the mountain. It’s the first time I’ve noticed how thin Xenophon is. Built almost like a salamander.
“I only won two hands of seven,” I say. “You won three. Why do I have all the chit?”
“Because you cheated on the last hand. I imagine there is a card-shooter on your wrist.” I pull back my sleeves to reveal no card-shooter. “Then an ambideck.” The logos takes a card in hand and bends it in half. No permutation of pixels in the card surfaces.
“Xenophon played cards. You played Xenophon,” Freihild says with an apologetic smile for the logos.
I look up at the pretty Obsidian. “The ghosts didn’t get you, I see.”
I glance at Pax, who watches from a low wall. I saw him follow Freihild. Boy just can’t stand staying out of other people’s business. Or maybe he’s just gathering his own intel. Mother rubbed off on him, I see.