Anger can allow you to feel pretty heady about your impromptu speeches.   Its real advantage is that it turns off the internal edit button. 

In the end, though, it comes back to poker.  Well, at least in part.  You see, I can’t bluff.  I’m no good at it.  I can watch my various “tells,” and develop some fake ones (like playing with my chips) but while I can maybe fake some low-level players out, the truth is I know I’m bad at telling lies.  That’s why I’m so ecstatic whenever I get away with something; I keep expecting my opponent to call me on it and watch as I’m left with an eight as my high card.  (Did I mention that luck is at best a fickle ally of mine?)

The fact that I could actually end Ivan’s life wasn’t just my hole card, but the only card I had to play.  I mean, if I was a math guy (I happen to know there’s a fairly specialized wizard working at, say, 538) I might be able to give you the identity of my other cards.  They’d read, “location,” and probably “opportunity,” and I might get a slight bonus for being a “friend of Nikolai”‘s if that was tapped for the encounter, but while Artur and Viktor were players, Ivan was my focus.  He could get me what I wanted, and, if they took a moment from wanting to flay his wizardly buttocks, he could probably solve their issues as well.

“I grow tired of this,” Artur said, and dumped Ivan onto the floor.  The big man was relatively graceful in how he landed, I mean, given the situation.  “I have claim on the wizard.  He will give me the creature Naul.”  He leaned over, ready to pick Ivan back up, but Viktor intervened, giving Ivan a hand to help stand.

“A redress for long ago wrongs will not give you the honour you seek,” Viktor said.  “Your masquerade should become fact, instead.  Be Artur the sorceror, not just another lost son of a dying race.”

It sounded like my kind of story, or at least one in my genre.  A bard’s tale in the making.  “The Story of Artur the Lesiye-born,” and it would discuss the journey of how he came to be here, and what other adventures he had had.  I had a feeling that it took a little more than a plane ride and Tuesday nights at the library.

Those things rightfully shouldn’t discount it, though.  Everyone has their stories, it’s just that some people prefer to squash them in terms that make them seem more, well, landish.  (If “landish” is the term for something that isn’t, well, “outlandish.”)  Any time humans interact can be a drama or a comedy, although it might take the right person to portray it in the angle with the best spin.  That’s what a good author does, though, right?

How would a good author describe this scenario?  The five of us (one of us a canine), and Ivan’s discarded husk on the floor in a kitchen of a small restaurant.  Artur, so tall that he with his horns and pointed ears brush the ceiling and have to adjust to not tangle themselves with the hanging lights, Viktor in his lumberjack clothes, loaded to the gills for metaphorical wolf, Ivan, the necrolocutor, sullen wizard with a stained apron and white jacket, considering seriously razing half the city in order to protect his lover, a dragon, me, and the dog, Nikolai.  If it was television, something or someone would have to blow up pretty soon to keep the drama fairly unreal.

The only question was…who? 

Ivan growled and his hands went together in something not quite a thunderclap.  The smack of his hands covered up the sound of his speaking a Word, and the lumbering form of his husk stood up and ran clumsily towards Artur. 

I grabbed a hanging pan and ducked out of the way.  Artur smacked the zombie into a wall with a lazy backhand, and I heard the queasy way the flesh had excess air slammed out of it.  I really hate those moments when I remember I’m made of meat.

Nikolai chose the better course of valour or whatnot and ran towards where I stationed myself under the sink.  Viktor prepared a course of bright blue fire and drew a chur around himself.  (It’s a boundary line, a kind of border that can lead to portal-making, or as kind of a protective circle.  Not a language guy, but I know the words for my specialty, alright?)

“Drop your erestun,” Artur yelled at Ivan, as Zombie-Ivan collected itself, smashed front and all, and began its return lumber.  “This is over, Ivan.  Who are you protecting?”

Viktor’s chanting drifted towards me.  I could feel the pressure developing as his spell began to develop, and I was not sure the kitchen sink was likely to protect me and the shivering puppy. 

“I am sworn to her,” Ivan said in English, and then followed it up with something that was probably Russian.  I wasn’t able to follow it, but I kind of got the gist, anyway, which was Ivan’s whole argument; not that he was a thrall, but that he had willingly chosen her side.

Bleepin’ dragons.

Viktor shouted the last few words, and a whip of blue fire wrapped around from his hand to Zombie-Ivan.   Several strands of fire grew from it, kind of like lightning, and maybe a bit more organic as with a gesture like pulling a cord on a light switch, Zombie-Ivan fell to the ground, the various cords of magic causing the undead creature to twitch and moan, but it appeared neutralized.

“You too, Viktor?” Ivan asked turning around.  He could probably see me under the sink, I realized.  I had chosen a place where I could see the action and determine if I had to run, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“Your magics have darkened, old friend.  It is touched by a devil, whether it be your friend in dragonskin or your despair at your lost love.  I would not have you go to the Lesiye, but send Artur and E,” he used my name again and gestured behind himself at me, like he knew exactly where I was. “Nellya must defend her own sins.”  It was an eloquent speech, and had the least amount of accent in it I had heard from him.  I expect it was partly for my benefit.

Or maybe it had to do with Nikolai?  I realized I had my hand on the dog, petting it nervously.  A spell to kill metaphorical wolves might have a sympathetic translation form within it, especially if it was to understand its owner.  That was plausible.

“It will likely end me,” Ivan said.  I really missed his “Ha Ha!”s now.  He held his hand over his heart.  “I did not want to die.”  That was to me, I realized.  And it was in English, for sure.

I pulled myself out from under the sink.  “I don’t want to kill you,” I said.  I really don’t know how to lie, so it had to be the truth.