Page 4 of Nemesis Mine
Dire, the lot of it, even forAthaca News. He was about to cast the news parchment away—into his fire, where it belonged—when something particularly unpleasant caught his eye.
Maximillian Announces Pre-Election Tour
Maximillian, champion of Heliarth, has announced that he is to embark upon an Athaca-wide tour over the summer.
The tour comes in advance of the triennial championship elections, with voters across Athaca set to take to the voting booths and place their ballots for their champion of choice.
In a statement released by his office, Maximillian comments: “It’s a chance for me to touch base with the people at the heart of everything we champions do. As elected champions, we can so often get wrapped up in the events of our own cities. I’m really looking forward to getting on the road, meeting all of you, and learning about what matters to you—and how we, as champions, can make your lives better. This tour is going to be so much fun and I can’t wait to get started.”
For appearance enquiries, contact the Champion’s Office of Administration, Heliarth. Please note, a postal autograph service can be arranged via raven at a cost of fifteen gold pieces.
Maximillian’s tour is sponsored by Baladasherie’s Breath Mints.
It was enough to make Cyrus want to bring up his sage and oregano dressing. His eyes narrowed as he took in the drawing of Maximillian: a wide, easy smile; a quirk of his eyebrow that was probably supposed to make him look intriguing. Personally, Cyrus thought it made him look simple. He really was an odious creature. Cyrus didn’t know how anyone could stand to look at him, the way he radiated obnoxious overconfidence even in sketch form.
The parchment crumpled in his fist. He tossed it to the fire and watched the flames lick over Maximillian’s face until there was nothing left but blackened ash and smoke creeping up the ventilation shaft he’d forced Ranragh’s labourers to construct for him.
If only he could dispel Maximillian from his thoughts so easily. Cyrus leaned back on his couch, massaging his temples. He couldn’t stop his mind from drifting back to his mural, swallowed up under Maximillian’s brash grin. The insult of the champion barging into his town. The kids and their laughter, their assumption that he was past his best.Not like he’ll be bothered about coming across our wrongdoer.
His reputation had always been so precious to him. He’d taken such care, crafting the persona he wanted the world to see. Cyrus had followed the same path as all the other young wrongdoers at first, convinced he had to kill to gain respect. But in truth, he’d never been all that good at it. He didn’t care for the mess, and people were very leaky. And provoking fights with powerful champions who would expect him to pit his magic against their own was obviously a bad idea. So Cyrus focused instead on finding creativeways to cause trouble. Clever little ploys, some mischief here and there. Wrongdoing with flair. It suited him.
He shifted uncomfortably, his back reminding him of the morning’s antics with an irritable twinge. He would have liked to blame the discomfort prickling in his chest on the pulled muscle, but it was deeper than that.
All those years of mischief over violence, the quiet life over an aggressive showdown. Had he really let his reputation dwindle so much?
Cyrus looked to the smouldering remains of theAthaca News. So many champions, turned to dust in his grate. The beginnings of an idea surfaced through his unease.
Lots of champions meant lots of opportunities to rebuild his reputation; to remind people that he was to be respected. Feared. Maximillian was one of them, yes. Cyrus longed, dearly, to make him pay for his planned encroachment upon Cyrus’s territory. But there was a problem tangled up in that, a jagged shard of history he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch.
Maximillian or not, the truth remained.
Cyrus needed to pick a fight with a champion.
Chapter Two
But first, he needed to brood about it.
It was one of his best attributes as a wrongdoer, his ability to take an upset and let it simmer unpleasantly in the darkest reaches of his mind until it had grown claws and warts and pus-filled boils. He’d been top of his class in “Spiralling: Let’s Make This a Big Deal.”
So, the next morning, Cyrus retreated to his special chair for brooding, positioned in a shadowy corner faintly lit by the tired glow of a jar of captive firebugs. It was chilly, cold creeping through the tasteful silks he’d draped here and there over the walls of his lair. The chill added to the atmosphere.
Time to get down to it. Cyrus threw a leg up over the arm of the chair, the other stretched out in front of him, and glared into the middle distance.
He needed a plan, or at least the starting point of a plan. Finding a champion would be simple enough—they so often advertised their whereabouts throughAthaca Newsin the hopes of coaxing out a welcoming committee of eagerpeasants. Finding therightchampion, someone he could humiliate with his token flair—that was the key. Someone famous enough to cause a stir, whilst also being realistically beatable. Someone whose defeat would make Maximillian think twice about coming to Ranragh.
Not Maximillian himself. Not yet. The risk that Maximillian might remember him was too great.
He could go after one of the other champions causing a stir in the news. The one who’d just got married, perhaps; he’d enjoy ruining her honeymoon. Or the champion with shapeshifting magic, the one who had the eccentrics bleating about the possibility of selkie blood in his ancestry. He was young, barely out of the Federation’s academy, but Cyrus had seen his face a few times inAthaca Newsalready—spotty and ginger. His magic was rare enough to garner a lot of attention.
But that magic was also probably a good reason to avoid him. Cyrus wouldn’t care to attack someone who could potentially use his own good looks against him.
Who else? He leaned over and opened the antique chest by his chair, poking through the clutter: parchment and broken quills, an inkpot on the verge of tipping over, his graduation certificate from the Guild (the key to getting one was missing enough classes), a skull of unknown origin, a pair of knitting needles. It was in here somewhere—
Ah. There. Cyrus pincered the rumpled pamphlet between thumb and forefinger to lift it out, holding it gingerly as though he might catch something from the cheerful colours.Athaca’s greatest champions!the pamphlet declared in bubbly lettering. He’d found it in the coat pocket of amerchant he’d robbed because he liked the man’s tailoring. He had only kept it because he’d harboured notions of using it as a hit list.
That had been nearly two years ago now, and he’d never done anything with it. Perhaps he had let his reputation slip, just a little. Cyrus grimaced as he smoothed out the pamphlet and inspected Athaca with a critical eye. In unnecessarily bright orange, the artist had inked out the island’s outline. The capital city Durov sat on the rocky southern shore with the Bek mountains dissecting Athaca through the middle, and the north tapering into jagged cliffs. The Roasham river wound about the island in unpredictable loops. Ranragh sat upon the northeast peninsula, curled like a crooked finger.
Most of Athaca’s cities called the drier southlands home; the sun shone brighter there and trade was richer, with precious rocks and large expanses of agricultural land that wasn’t half bog. From these cities, pink arrows pointed out the names of elected champions. The great and noble Elza, famed for the fire that sprang readily from her fingertips. Halax, the finest archer the realm had ever seen, his gold-tipped arrows finding their mark with devastating accuracy. Z’graf with her fathomless black eyes, towering above any man with spear in hand. She made wrongdoer kebabs with that thing, so Cyrus had heard. He scanned the pamphlet again, his gaze carefully avoiding the southwest coast and the beautiful city of Heliarth.
