All The Skills

Frustrated, Arthur struck at the spot where the sun ring portal had been a moment before. His hand struck the brick wall, sending a bright burst of pain up his arm. Hissing, he shook his hand out.

Of course. His Blunt Damage resistance was gone, too. That was just great.

Arthur resisted the urge to kick at the wall. With his luck right now, he’d probably break a toe.

Did it matter? He was going to die.

This can’t be it, he thought frantically. This can’t be the end.

He looked desperately inward for inspiration, for anything. All his cards were blocked. He couldn’t even retreat into his Personal Space. He was as helpless as someone uncarded.

That was when a voice, breathy with song, drifted through his mind.

“At last…”

Arthur froze and the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end.

He looked around the small room — it was more of a pit with a low ceiling he could stretch up and reach, and just enough room to move three paces. No entrances or exits. No windows. This was a room meant to stash prisoners using card portal powers.

The only light came from a low-glowing brick in the ceiling. It wasn’t strong enough to cast shadows and there were no places to hide.

But Arthur felt he was not alone.

“Wh-what?” He licked his suddenly dry lips. “Who?”

“Let us not play games, Arthur. You know exactly who I am,” the voice crooned, the words almost lyrical.

With a shudder, Arthur clapped his hands over his ears, though he knew it was hopeless.

“Mind singer?”

He hadn’t thought much about the scourgeling that had helped cause so much trouble during the Legendary recruitment test. Once he was safe in Buck Moon hive his time had been taken up by Brixaby’s pending hatching.

Arthur’s lips lifted back in an involuntary snarl, “I hoped you’d died along with the other scourgelings.”

“We suffered losses,” the mind-singer whisper-sang. “The most grievous was suffered by your hands.”

A memory flashed in front of his mind so intensely it was like being back, fighting the bat-like scourgeling by hand.

“You killed my sister,” the scourgeling hissed.

Yes, he had. And he had harvested its mind card. Though for the sake of morality, he hadn’t used it.

Arthur choked out a laugh. How could this day possibly get any worse?

“What do you want? Wait, how are you speaking to me? All card powers are blocked.”

“They are blocked while you are in the Mythic dragon’s aura range. However, they have put you at the edge of its power. A place where someone suitably strong enough may break in. And at last,” she crooned and repeated herself, “at long last you are not shielded against me.”

“What…?” he said again, but something in the way the scourgeling spoke gave him a clue to figure it out. “You mean I have been shielded against you? Unconsciously?”

“Yes!” it—no, they hissed.

Because the more that they spoke, Arthur got the impression there were two voices twined together in a duet. One that was stronger and more coherent than before.

However, it used to be a trio.

He summoned his courage from somewhere and spat back, “Well too bad for you. It won’t matter if you take over my mind. I don’t have access to my cards. And the king is going to have me killed shortly, so whatever you have planned won’t work.”

“I am aware of your limitations, but you are wrong. My plan has a chance at succeeding. Arthur Rowantree, you and I are on the same side.”

He stiffened. “No, we are not.” Then he looked around again. “Where are you?”

“Outside the palace, hiding in plain sight like I have always done.”

He received flashes then, of Buck Moon hive, of following Valentina through the portal to Wolf Moon. The mind singer sisters had been close as a breath at times and no one, not even the Legendaries, had sensed them.

“We were waiting for the right moment to strike,” the mind singer said, “For you to use our sister’s card and for us to become a trio again. But you did not. And now the card is at risk of being lost to us forever.” A pause. “Tell me what happens to the contents of your Personal Space if the card is harvested from your body?”

“I don’t know.”

“The card is in your heart, stamped to your soul. You know.”

He did.

It wasn’t written on the card. It was intuition. As the Mind Singer said, it was stamped on his soul.

“The items inside will be lost forever. Personal Space… It's personal. It’s my space. If someone had my card, they’d create their own personal space.”

“Thus, our dilemma,” the Mind Singer said, “I want that card back.”

Arthur frowned. He hadn’t used that card for very good reasons — mind magic felt like a slippery slope. Now that he knew it would link him in a minor way to the Mind Singer, he knew that instinct had been sound.

Still, he wasn’t about to give a scourgeling what it wanted.

“Maybe I’m saving it for a rainy day.”

“That rainstorm is about to descend on you. Even now the Duke and his son are trying to convince your little dragon to pluck out cards from your heart and pass them around like treats before they dispose of your body.”

Arthur’s breath caught. “You know what’s happening now? Is Brixaby okay?”

“He is not bending to their wills. Yet. But soon the Duke will tire and ask the king to use his mind mages to convince him. Or they will retrieve you and hurt you until your dragon gives in and they give you mercy at the end.”

Arthur shuddered.

Ruthlessly, the Mind Singer continued, “And then your dragon will bond with Penn Rowantree. They are compatible. And after some time, Brixaby’s resentment may turn into grudging acceptance. You have betrayed Penn many times,” it added almost gleefully. “I can see the hurt in his mind. He thought of you as a friend.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Arthur ground out.

“You tell yourself that and you shove the guilt down deep under a layer of childhood scar tissue built over trauma. But you know the truth. You blame that boy for the sins of his father… and the inadequacies of your own.”

“Shut up!” he roared and for a second, he felt his Telepathic Blocking skill activate.

The Mind Singer’s voice faded.

Then the skill was crushed down again, and she returned.

“My, I think you do have some natural affinity for the mind arts.”

“What do you want?” Arthur demanded. “You have no chance of getting my card while I’m in here. So, unless you can break me out—“

“I can,” the Mind Singer said.

Arthur stopped. “What?”

“Of course, I cannot influence the mind of the king or anyone near that dratted dragon which suppresses powers,” it corrected, “I am a Rare and it is Mythic. But I have ways of influencing humans outside of the Mythic’s reach. In doing so, I can give you a chance at freedom in exchange for a price.”

“What price?” he asked warily, though he knew.

She laughed— and the laugh had two voices. “What else? The card, of course.”

He shook his head. “I’m not giving it to you. I haven’t fallen so far that I’m willing to aid the scourge.”

“Arthur,” it said with a mental tisk-tisk, “you could hardly fall any further. Do you think you are the only one who has worked with the scourge? Do you think those scholars you freed me from allowed my sisters and I to spawn and then educated us with knowledge cards for fun?”

“Why… Why did they? Why would anyone?”

“Many reasons. They told themselves it was to establish a line of diplomacy between themselves and the enemy, but really it was for power. Their inner thoughts spoke of jealousy over the strength of the hives, and how they wielded it over the rest of the kingdom. They wished to undermine that power, and they thought the King would reward them.”

Arthur shook his head. He didn’t know what to think of that — or if he should trust it. And establish diplomacy with what? Other scourgelings? Ridiculous.

“I’m still not going to give you something you could use to hurt people.”

“Arthur, I could have hurt you at any time. I could have whispered to one of your little friends.” Images of Cressida, Horatio, and Carley flashed through Arthur’s mind. “But in the end, we want the same thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“Freedom,” it sang.

The word echoed like a bell through his mind.

He shook his head. “I need to think.”

“Don’t take too long.”

Arthur paced the two and a half steps it took to reach the other end of his cell.

He was in dire straits, but to aid a scourgeling was to betray humanity.

He had done things he knew weren’t kind or good — most of them directly impacting Penn — and he had even used his skills in ways that weren’t legal or bordered on cheating when gambling.

Nothing like what he was contemplating now.

Was the scourgeling influencing him?

He didn’t think there was an easy way to tell, but… at the same time he didn’t think so. Logic said any influence would quickly fade away once he got closer to the Mythic. So, there wasn’t much of a point.

What if he did agree?

He could tell himself that whatever harm he did today would be offset by the good he could do when he was a full Legendary dragon rider. But he didn’t know that for sure.

The fact was, Arthur wanted to live. He also didn’t want Brixaby to live a sad, mediocre life with Penn while they learned to not resent one another. Arthur had plans. He wanted to rescue people in his borderland village. He couldn’t do any of that if he was dead.

But…

He stopped, sighed, and said, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” The Mind Singer sounded taken aback, which was another point to him not being influenced.

“Because I’ve seen scourgeling eruptions. I’ve seen what they do to communities, to the land. If I gave you this card and you tried to raise another Legendary Demi-Scourgeling… every death would be on me.”

The scourgeling scoffed in his mind. “We were not responsible for the eruptions — nor the increase in eruptions. I merely took advantage of the opportunity that was presented. I am a mere Rare, not one of the Mythic Scourge Gods.”

“The… what?”

“Seven Scourge Gods,” the Mind Singer all but sang, “And seven Mythic dragons to balance them. Oh, but only five dragons right now so the balance slips further and further toward us. Also not my doing, but so sweet to think of...”

There was only one Mythic level dragon in the kingdom. Did that mean…

“Are there other kingdoms?”

“Obviously. Perhaps you should eat some knowledge cards of your own.”

Arthur’s heart raced. Other kingdoms!

A pang of instant regret followed that thought: Other kingdoms he would never learn about and certainly never be able to see.

“What if I promise to take this card and go to one of the other kingdoms. Far, far away,” the Mind Singer suggested, slyly.

“Are you reading my mind?” he demanded.

“Does it matter?”

He scowled. “How do I know you will keep your promise?”

“You don’t.”

“That’s what I thought,” Arthur grumbled, then looked at the brick wall. He sighed and his shoulders slumped.

“Perhaps I will go to another kingdom which would welcome my talents and see me for what I am,” the mind singer mused.

He didn’t believe that any kingdom worth living in would welcome the antithesis of life. Nor did he feel good about making the Mind Singer someone else’s problem, but…

He didn’t want Brixaby to face a lifetime of resentment with someone else.

Arthur wanted to live.

“How would you you get me out?”

He sensed hesitation from the singer. “It is not guaranteed. I can provide a distraction — there is some sympathy for your plight by allies. But you will have to be the one to convince the king. His mind is feeble, but too well shielded. I cannot influence him.”

Arthur nodded once.

“Then when you are free,” the Singer continued, “you will give me the card as payment.”

“Okay,” he rasped. “Give me that chance.”

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