We locked eyes over the battlefield. It was a small battlefield, no more than three feet wide, but what it lacked in size it made up for in shine. I’d raised the pool, he’d reraised, and we’d gone back and forth once more, the silver in the center soon covered with gold, the gold covered with plat. The other players were silent, the dealer was silent, even the beetles on the walls and ceiling had quit stomping around.
I peeked again at the stones in front of me. Black Diamond, Black Heart, Red Sword. I looked at the stones face-up in the center: Black Sheath, Red Skull. Put it all together, they call it the Demon’s Soulsuck. A very strong pile, but not strong enough to justify shoving the rest of my life savings in the center.
Not … necessarily.
“Are you calling, or not?” Hexel said, nostrils flared wide. I didn’t answer, kept my eyes on him, hoping to find something in the light bouncing off his rings, the twitch in his right cheek, the bead of sweat on the ridge of his temple. I had a lot invested in this bout already — a quarter of my net worth was in the pool. Why I was willing to risk so much of it wasn’t important. I’d like to say it was because I’d heard that this game would be incredibly soft, and a high-stakes Splinterstones game with bad players comes along once a Cycle. The honest answer is probably closer to something about being bored and being stupid, and wanting to quit my boring stupid job.
He rolled his eyes at me as he grabbed a copper coin and rolled it across his fingers like he’d been doing it since birth. Funny, that. Supposedly, he was a merchant from the Southeast Quad of Brantz, specializing in high-end galicyl, the kind that the fancy-pants types like their tables and chairs grown from. Except he wasn’t. No merchant with that much clink had callouses like that on the pads of his fingers. A professional, then, like I was, or at least seemed to be on my better days.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Depends whether you have me beat.”
I thought it was a pretty good answer. The coin rolled in and out, between thumb and forefinger, forefinger and middle finger, middle finger and ring finger, ring finger and pinky, then back. He leaned forward in his chair a little, a sign of weakness, unless he was faking it … or just had a boil on his butt.
I nodded. “If I toss, will you tell?”
“Are you tossing, then?”
I looked at the pile in the pool, and then at the stones in front of him. I reviewed the betting, ran through everything he’d said this bout and last, and the hundred or so others we’d played in the last ten hours. He was running well, getting lucky, but maybe he was good, too. It sucks when they’re lucky and good.
“That’s not an answer,” I said.
He contorted his face a little to show me he was thinking about it.
“Probably not.” If he wanted me to toss, give up the bout, he’d say he’d tell afterward. Unless he was saying that because he knew I’d think that, and he wanted me to call. The ole reverse-reverse-psychology ploy. So his answer was, as I was guessing it would be, useless.
What wasn’t useless is what he did next. He brought a mug of beer to his lips, took a drink. I ran through the bouts again. Not once did he drink in the middle of a bout and actually show down the best pile at the time. Sloppy, but everyone has a weak spot. Even the pros.
“I call.” The dealer counted out my clink and added it to the pool. I locked my eyes on Hexel, looking for a sign I’d gotten it wrong, that he’d been playing me from the start. But Hexel let go a deep sigh, defeated.
I let go a sigh of my own. All I had to do now was dodge a miracle that’d improve Hexel’s pile to better than mine. His hands hovered over his unflipped stones. I wasn’t out of the Pits yet.
“One stone to come,” the dealer said, and reached into the sack. The room took a deep breath.
One stone left between me and my dreams.
“White mushroom,” the dealer said, putting it next to the pool, and I exhaled. It was the most harmless stone in the sack. He might as well not have put it out at all.
“I’ve got a Soulsuck,” I said, flipping over my stones.
“Nothing,” Hexel said, flipping his stones toward the muck. “Nice call, Axiom. Should have known better than to bluff you!”
I figured the least I could do while counting his money was console him. “It was a strong move. I almost tossed.”
“Well, I’m still learning. Thought it was worth a try.”
“Still learning?” I said, confused. That was when the world ended.
The dealer straightened Hexel’s pile of stones, lined it up next to the stones in the center. “Hexel has a Souldeath. Black Sheath, Red Skull, Red Archmage, Red Wand, Black Spirit. Hexel wins the pool.”
There was a lot of screaming, then. Screaming and wailing, a great pit opening up in the center of the room and swallowing everything whole, and that was just what was going on in my head. The rest of the players in the room were making their own little scene, arguing whether his stones had hit the muck, invalidating his hand. They hadn’t, and it seemed churlish to argue about it just because my life was over.
“Sorry about that,” Hexel said as the fortune — my fortune — was pushed to him. “I thought I had a Red Sheath, not a Red Wand. When we played back in the bank, our Sheath looked a lot like that. Made that mistake a couple other times tonight.”
“Back in the bank?”
“Yeah, where I worked, the Bank of Lorx. My grandfather is Silverseller of House Lorx. I finally talked him into pulling me out of there and giving me a shot running things in his guild. Was getting damned tired of counting clink all day, I’ll tell you that.”
“I bet you were,” I said, sniffing the air. It had a slightly hoppy smell, with a tinge of wet earth. I stood up, thanked them all for the game, and left. I had to be at work in four hours. It seemed like it would be a good idea to show up on time for once. Also, there was the tiniest chance that I was about to burst into tears.
