Two-World Traders (progression fantasy)

Greta Redcaller said nothing in her final seconds spent among the living. She fell first to one knee before dropping her sword, her body decommissioning like a mechanical contraption depleted of its cobrium. She collapsed next to her side before unraveling onto her back, a single arm reaching outward with nothing to grasp.

Lucas lowered his pistol.

After the initial shock, High Collector Zylas ran to her, confirming the obvious. And soon the unmistakable. As he repeated her name as the living always do, green lights, as faint as fireflies, rose from High Collector Redcaller's body, floating like dandelion pappus pulled up in a timid breeze. High Collector Zylas kicked himself backward as the first few flew into him. He did not have her permission for this. After all, it was he who had taught Elias's class the law of death among the Valshynar: "Only the one dying may choose who, if anyone, may collect their power upon their passing," he had said. "This we call inheritance."

A few more emerald sparks flew into Lucas, then more into other collectors standing nearby. Her power began pouring out. Elias had observed firsthand the energy Orin Santori had contained within him, and he had been young and merely ascendant. High Collector Redcaller had lived many years, and more importantly, she had been transcendent. Even Elias inadvertently received some of her power. They all did. An unplanned death led to many unplanned inheritors, or perhaps they all knew on some level that if they retreated from it now—honoring the spirit of their law, permitting her energy to vanish into the world like vapor—Lucas would have instead consumed all of it for himself.

More weapons were drawn as a half-circle closed in around Lucas, though his allies fortified their positions too, and he had a good number of them. Others, including Elias and many of his classmates, stayed back, not choosing sides or at least not wishing to fight for one.

When someone finally charged toward the accused, a furious-looking man who seem more motivated by revenge than justice, Lucas parried his attack with ease and countered without mercy or restraint. Stomach bleeding, the attacker stumbled to the ground, an unambiguous warning to anyone else who might want to challenge the fastest fighter among them, for who could best Lucas Dawnlight? Elias could not tell if this injury would be fatal.

"Enough. Enough!" Mr. Grimsby forced his way through the mob and stopped halfway between opposing sides. "Is this what it has come to, Lucas? You would start your war today? High Collector Redcaller had served our people for decades with unwavering dedication to our cause and loyalty to our people, whatever your differences. She had helped train half of the collectors standing here today, yourself included, and you—you put a bullet in her without a second's thought." Those last words he spoke softly. They drifted in the air like steam, spreading and coiling, transcending speech and touching hearts.

Lucas did not respond immediately, peering down at what he had done before rediscovering his resolve. "And what of Mason?" He was referring to the deceased whose throat High Collector Redcaller had slit. "What was his life worth to you? Because I know what it was worth to me. A life for a life. A high collector's is worth no more than anyone else's here."

"And yet you would put so many of them at risk," Mr. Grimsby replied. "Let us settle this, then. Just the two of us. I will have no one else die on your behalf. I know how much you enjoy fighting competitions, and for once, I shan't protest the public spectacle. Surely you are not afraid to battle an old man."

If not exactly terrified, Lucas appeared rather taken aback—and about as intimidated as Elias had ever seen him. He'd not expected this, and yet he couldn't deny that he had set the stage for it. The anticipation was palpable. A few seconds late, he cleared his throat and beckoned his opponent as if inviting him to dance.

"Not here," Mr. Grimsby said. "We will do this properly."

* * *

Who could have predicted the final sparring match that afternoon would be faced by two high collectors? Surely not Elias, who joined the flock of people flying back to the sparring ring, eager to watch and already wondering—not only who would win, but what a win would even mean for them.

With High Collector Redcaller gone, her cardinal law had evidently vanished with her, which is to say that Lucas wielded not just one steel rapier but two—harking back to his fights in Azir's colosseum—while Mr. Grimsby had equipped himself with an almost ancient-looking glaive, taller than he was. The wooden swords, which Caius and Elias had dropped and abandoned on the ground, were kicked aside until Mr. Grimsby insisted that they be "properly" returned to their chest. Pistols, at least, were relinquished.

Elias had a predilection for making predictions, powered not only by his sight but equally by his personality—his need to always stay two steps ahead—and yet he could not even begin to guess at the outcome of this unlikely contest. On the one hand, Lucas was the best fighter he had ever seen, and Mr. Grimsby was old, very old. But reality was different for collectors. Lucas was transcendent, but what was Mr. Grimsby?

Elias recalled Jalander's enigmatic explanation. "They say a divine can thread the very fabric of time and space," he had said, adding that only one such man existed and that his identity remained a mystery, even to him. Could that singular person be Mr. Grimsby? Was the Trader's Guild's council chair also the divine in question, the sole collector to fully realize the power of their Ancestors? There was something different about him that was not purely the byproduct of his enviable station. His gray eyes, his ambiguous age, even his unusual demeanor—everything about Mr. Grimsby seemed slightly alien. If he was not the divine, then who else could it possibly be, assuming the tales were true? And could Lucas really win against such a man, no matter his age?

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They were about to find out.

Mr. Grimsby circled Lucas as if waiting for something, his weapon silently tracing the stone ground. Neither man wished to take the first swing, but it was Lucas who lacked patience in the end. His testing strike was easily parried and batted away by Mr. Grimsby's heavier weapon, springing upward like a snake released.

His next attack came more quickly, and the one after that so fast that a normal fighter would have failed to realize it was already too late. But a normal fighter Mr. Grimsby was not. Lucas tried to use his unnatural speed to overwhelm his opponent, an onslaught that was only multiplied by his twin blades. Elias could tell he was not holding back as he did that day in Azir, for he had nothing else to hide today. Mr. Grimsby, faster than you would ever believe looking at him, kept a safe distance with the long reach of his glaive.

While Lucas was infused with a relentless fury, Mr. Grimsby possessed an almost impossible confidence, as if he had seen every move before and knew the whole game. Maybe he had and did. His hits were surprisingly hard, and his heavier weapon frequently sent Lucas's rapier reeling, though the latter man often attempted to sneak in a second attack, the first one an obvious feign. Mr. Grimsby never fell for it.

The entire spectacle made the matches held earlier that day appear amateurish, though Elias still felt that at least he, Harriet, Caius, and Keo were respectable fighters. He looked to them again, uncertain where they stood, figuratively if not literally. They were only a few feet from him, and yet he could not read any of their expressions. Perhaps they still didn't know what to think or how to process the death of one teacher and the supposed betrayal of another. Did it hinge on the outcome of this fight? History was written by the winners: wasn't that the old saying?

Harriet, who was usually so open with him, would now not even meet his gaze as he searched for hers. Because she was too distracted, he wondered, or because she did not wish for him to see something in it—or for her to see something in his?

The wind intensified, waves booming below the bluff. Lucas brushed a lock from his cheek as he caught his breath. He had never looked tired in his other fights. His exhaustion did not go unnoticed. Indeed, their audience had the energy of sailors caught in a life-threatening storm, or perhaps like the ones who'd eaten the black during Elias's first trip to Sailor's Rise—when he had met Constance Eve, though he did not know her name then. She looked tense and deeply disappointed as she watched on, occasionally shaking her head for no one to see. Beside her, High Collector Zylas had not removed his hand from his mouth for the duration of the fight.

When Lucas initiated another two-part attack, attempting to parry Mr. Grimsby's glaive with one rapier so that he might come in close with the other, the elder collector performed a feign of his own, redirecting the angle of his swing before it ever connected. Lucas was forced into an unexpected parry with his second rapier instead, but with hardly enough time to properly position the weapon. Mr. Grimsby struck the skinnier blade with a cannon-like force he had apparently held back until his opportune moment.

Lucas's second rapier clattered to the ground. Mr. Grimsby followed up with a wide swing in the opposite direction, forcing the younger man to hop backward, abandoning his dropped sword.

The tide of aggression had turned, Mr. Grimsby putting the pressure on Lucas. Again, his surprising strength—combined with the leverage of a longer, heavier weapon—broke through Lucas's defense. Lucas theoretically parried the attack, but he was unable to add the strength of a second blade as he had often done before. He failed to fully redirect Mr. Grimsby's glaive and consequently received a deep gash across his left shoulder. He winced and swore.

A crimson constellation dripped into being across the gray stone. High Collector Zylas's hand tightened over his mouth.

"You may yield now and spare yourself further suffering and embarrassment," Mr. Grimsby informed his opponent. "The road to forgiveness is long and winding but… ever-present. Take the advice of an old man on that one. Time is a marriage, Mr. Dawnlight, and my relationship with her is very storied, indeed." In spite of everything, he chuckled a somewhat sad chuckle.

But Lucas—Lucas said nothing. Certainly, he was not about to yield. Elias couldn't quite tell whether it was anger or panic that had him so on edge, or perhaps some unstable concoction of the two. Whatever his feelings, they drove him to do the unthinkable.

For once, Lucas caught Mr. Grimsby by surprise. The latter man had not expected the former to place a foot on the blade of his glaive—before he could pull it back as he'd done before, defending himself with its solid oak shaft—and he had certainly not expected Lucas to then place a second foot farther up the weapon as he ran along the wood like a taut tightrope.

Mr. Grimsby tried for a futile instant to yank the weapon out from under his adversary, but Lucas had already taken his third and final step, leaping in the air like a bird of prey. Mr. Grimsby stumbled backward, unable to create distance quickly enough, as Lucas—five feet off the ground and flying—lunged forward with the deceptively long reach of his singular rapier.

Like a needle through a pin cushion, it pierced Mr. Grimsby's throat with a quiet precision—so quick as to be almost imperceptible—before Lucas pulled the blade out and landed catlike on the ground behind him.

There was a pause, penetrated only by a croaking sound.

The blood came suddenly, squirting across the sparring ring like a projectile fired from his torn artery. It marked Maria with a sash of crimson. She screamed. Others too.

But the old man had lost his voice, and already so much blood. He placed a hand on his throat, then pulled it back to stare at the red staining his shaking fingers in disbelief. Like a marionette without strings, his body twisted and collapsed. His face struck the hard ground without a flinch, a slick winter leaf sticking against his cheek.

And yet there was life, still, in his pale gray eyes. In that searing moment, they found Elias. This small detail, he would have sworn a thousand times over. The look lasted only a second, shared entirely and exclusively between he and Mr. Grimsby, but there was meaning in it. Not the hollow glance of resting eyes falling where they fell, but of deep intention, of a final thought held with fading strength, unable to be spoken.

And then his brow relaxed as he looked no longer at Elias but through him. At wherever it was Lucia Fisher had once looked as her son kneeled sadly beside her. After so many years, death's door had at long last opened for Bartholomew Grimsby.