Tristan's Tale Pt. 05

"Sure, later," I said.

"Thanks," he said, extending a hand to be shaken. "I really appreciate it."

I nodded absently, and walked to my last target. I sound like Jet, I thought.

No you don't.

Shut up.

"Shut up," I said quietly between gritted teeth, and walked up to the last guy.

"André?" I asked, just to be sure. It felt a little unreal that after all the work I'd done today, not taking a moment away from my focus, not once wavering from my goal...it might be over. I'd been focused to the point that, earlier today, I'd even walked right by Jade without noticing her — something that hit me two hours later. She'd even said my name, but it just washed over me, a thought I'd shoved to the side in my mind with the rest of them, blocking it off to deal with later.

André was a tall man with bright blue pants, dark eyes, and something I'd come to call the Tower smirk. They all had it. It was like a perpetual "fuck you" written on their faces. I'd joked once that they didn't even need the pins to identify themselves. It was particularly bad on André, as it complimented his artistic mustache nicely.

"Names," he said in a bored voice, and shrugged, returning to doing some weird ass hand pushing thing with Tori. They pushed at each other, but didn't move.

I ignored his jibe. "I challenge you for your rank, André." I extended my hand for the initiating shake. André was the bottom of the top twenty. The Gatekeeper position, I'd heard it called.

He glanced at my hand, glanced at me, then returned to his pushing game.

"André," I said. "I challenge you."

His eyes were closed, and his hands moved against Tori's. Searching, playing, folding. My own remained extended, waiting for him to turn.

"Okay. Unnamed person, I challenge you," I said, trying to play his game.

I received no response. Tori snuck past his hand and pressed her fingers against his chest, just enough to rock him back. He snatched at her hands to maintain his balance, but she'd withdrawn them quick as a snake, and he took a stabilizing step back.

"Nice," he said.

Tori did not respond, and André did not respond to me. They went back to their game.

Conscious to keep my Chi out of the way, I stepped in between them, breaking their hand contact.

I'd expected to be attacked, then. That had been my intent. I couldn't initiate combat without consent. But though Tori's eyes stared daggers at me, she wore a thin, obviously false smile. "Excuse me," she said, her voice brittle. They moved to continue their pushing. I moved with them.

But that still wasn't enough. I'd expected the characteristically short Tower temper, and was disappointed to find them not doing anything.

"Come on. You've got to fight me," I said.

"Actually," he replied, "I don't."

That hit me with a terrible, sinking feeling in my stomach. "Yes you do."

He gave me a disbelieving look.

I waited for him to capitulate. There were some disapproving murmurs from the crowd, and someone even boo'd. Admittedly, a lot of the people had taken to watching my fighting rather than training.

The social pressure should have convinced him otherwise. But it didn't. He kept up his strange hand pushing with Tori while I looked at him, blocking off astonishment and rage as best I could into their own corners of my mind. "You're joking," I said.

"No," he said, "I'm not."

I heard a snigger, and saw Derrik very obviously not-looking at me while he lightly boxed with Kelechi. I would have taken a moment to appreciate their form — and it was beautiful to watch them fight — had I not felt a very familiar, very old kernel of rage in me start to flare.

And as it flared, I suddenly did not feel as inclined to push it off to the side.

"Fight. Me." I said through clenched teeth.

André's hands and Tori's pushed against each other. It was an infuriatingly calm exercise.

I looked at Sailor, on the second mat. He shrugged. You'd think your friends would be the ones that were the hardest to fight, but Sailor and Rodrigo had been laughing the whole time, and encouraged me after I'd killed them. The rest of my friends had been unranked, for reasons that were self-explanatory if you knew them.

I turned back to André. "You're scared," I said. "You know I'm going to beat you."

Silence.

"You're a coward," I said, loud enough for the whole room. "You're a spineless coward. I have more respect for every person on the first mat than for a person as wed to their pride as you."

No response. Just the back and forth of their hands. Tori got off balance, and he gently guided her along her way to taking a step to the side.

"This is pitiful," I said, fighting to get control over my emotions. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to cry. "I'll ask you one last time. Will you fight me?"

Nothing. I could read the writing on the wall. There was no way I was going to change his mind.

A different man would have continued to pester him. To interrupt their games. To loudly decry his cowardice and pettiness, to inquire as to how often he had to gargle Derrik's balls to stay in his good graces. A different man would have provoked him to no end.

But I am not a different man, and I too am wed to my pride. I gave him a contemptuous look, gathering myself as best as I could. "So this is the heart of Tower," I said, musing out loud. "Out in the open, for all to see."

I left. André's expression was one of carefully controlled anger, tinged with a smug sense of victory. Derrik was flat out grinning like he'd just been given a new wooden post for him to bang his head against. I assume this was his toy of choice, as it explained how he'd become the degenerate donkey-fucker he was today. Tori, for her part, looked remote, thoughtful, and generally cold.

I hated them. I hated them all.

~

"Come in," came the voice from the other side of the door.

I opened the simple brass handle into Jet's office, glad that he was here. It meant I might still have time. I didn't know when class was over.

I was surprised to find books scattered across the floor. There was a small space for the door to open, though it bumped into something before opening even ninety degrees. There was a clear path from the hall to his desk. But aside from that, there were books everywhere. Some in stacks, some in piles, some in complete disarray, insides splayed open.

Like corpses, I thought.

That's disgusting.

You're disgusting.

No you're-

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP, I thought to all the people talking in my head. Without my Chi out, it was hard to keep them all separate.

A stronger person would have no trouble shutting us up, thought me to myself. I grew dizzy trying to reconcile which was, you know, me, and which was me that was not me. It was very confusing. They were all talking.

"Hi Jet," I said a little weakly. His eyes flicked up from where he was gently picking up a book that had been open, face down.

"Tristan," he acknowledged, and eased down the crinkles in the pages. He closed the book with some reverence, and put it on a tall pile behind him, without looking. The book was placed perfectly, the corners matching. It was an impeccable stack.

I struggled to pull my thoughts together, to speak in his brief, economic language.

The bells began to ring, and my heart sunk as I remembered. The last class ended on the hour.

Dinner soon, I thought.

Tater tots!

Please shut up. Please just please shut up, I begged in my thoughts, in my internal dialogue.

The bells continued to roll out and it was as if they were ringing for all my spent efforts. All my work today. Gone, just like that. I imagined Dante up there, like some great harbinger of time, ringing the futility of all things.

"Fuck," I said as tears started to well in my eyes.

"That's about as brief as it gets, isn't it?" said Jet. His tone was surprisingly gentle. He placed another book on a pile. I noticed his lower shelves were empty in many places.

"André wouldn't fight," I said, pushing down the urge to cry. Not here. Not in front of Jet. The librarian in the three piece suit.

That'd be a great name for a story, I thought.

You're retarded, I promptly informed myself.

Jet nodded. "The Gatekeepers rarely do."

I hung my head low, and looked at the floor. Of course. That should have been obvious from the start.

"It's by design," said Jet. "Usually people have Set by then. It's not in the Gatekeeper's interests to accept a challenge." He pushed a pile of books to the edge of the table, and then carefully, as if they were his children, began to put them back on his shelves, occasionally checking a piece of paper that bore many crease marks.

"So you have to make them accept it," I said, finishing the thought. I can't believe nobody told me. There were plenty of good reasons why: my friends wouldn't know, or wouldn't have thought to tell me, or maybe this was a well-kept piece of information among the top twenty.

"Correct," said Jet, who could have been alone in the room with the amount of attention he was paying me. All his attention, save for his words, was directed toward the books. It was beautiful, actually, watching this man handle these artifacts with such care. I couldn't recognize any of the script on the covers. And the room smelled amazing. Like the hallway's vague smell of old paper and dusty alcoves, but amplified. It must have come from this room. It wasn't too strong, like being doused with perfume. It was a wondrous smell, like I was a tea bag being steeped in something secret. But I could barely pay attention to it.

"At that level of mastery of the Art," said Jet, "It is challenging enough to break someone's mental guard. It is more challenging to then make them do something. And the less they want to do it, the harder it is. The easier they'll be able to see that the thought isn't coming from them."

Tell me about it, I thought.

Yeah, tell-

I shut my eyes fiercely closed. Shut. Up, I thought.

"I think Derrik told him not to fight me," I said. "But I know I'm a better fighter. I did everything I could, but Tower has this vendetta against me." Some of the frailty of my mind crept into my voice. "It's not fair," I said, my voice wavering. "I should be allowed to go to the Arena tomorrow but I know you're not going to let me."

Jet finished with the stack he'd moved on the table, and finally turned to look at me. "Correct. You will not be going to the Arena. You did not make the deadline."

"But it wasn't my fault!" I protested. "Derrik-"

Jet made a decisive cutting motion. "Children's squabbles," he said. "You did not, as you say, do everything you could." He pushed his glasses up. "No, it isn't fair. You hardly need me to tell you that such thoughts don't do you any good. The world is neither fair nor unfair. If you think something is unfair then you are robbing yourself of personal power."

"What do you mean?" I asked, taking a step forward. "I trained my ass off! I did everything I possibly--"

And in that step, I became acutely aware of the sensation of my necklace rustling against my chest. I stopped.

Jet gave me a sympathetic look so honest it unsettled me. "It's okay, Tristan. Not everyone can be Rinzai."

~

We were in the Lounge, by the fire, and I was shamelessly curled up with my head on Jade's lap. The first thing I'd done when I saw her was apologize for ignoring her in the hallway. She'd been ten kinds of perfect and said she'd understood. Still, I promised to make it up to her.

Vanessa had just finished spouting off a long string of Spanish when she heard the news. It had been longest single sentence in a foreign language I'd heard since coming here.

Sailor was nodding emphatically, as if he'd understood her. "That's so fucking disrespectful. I know you guys have got beef, but that was just fucked. Totally fucked. I can't even." He made a wild, frustrated gesture with his hands.

Yo, this chick is so hot! I thought as Jade's hands twined through the mess of my black hair. I needed to shower. I'd meant it when I said I'd been running all over Moleh.

Back off, I warned in my mind.

She's mine, I thought.

Please...

It was getting worse and I had no idea what was going on. I was fading in and out of the conversations as more and more voices that sounded like me piled up in my head.

"... ever done that. Ever. And he just puts a stop to it?"

"Tristan got them good, though. The heart of Tower. That's something people are going to remember, eh?" said Rodrigo.

"People like Tower?" said Emmit.

I wanted a blanket. I wanted to be held. All that practice. All that training and all that work, and damn. Damn.

The worst was that I'd actually done it. That I'd managed to pull it off. I felt good about my odds against Derrik — forget about some mid-tier Tower flunky who gets abducted from reality into another world and still grooms his goddamned mustache.

I'd done it. But I hadn't.

This place blows, I thought.

Tell me about it, I agreed. For once.

Jade ran her hands through my hair again, and scratched my head. Not all of it, I thought. It's not all bad.

That's what I'm saying! I thought. This chick is fine!

"...Tristan?"

I raised my head. "Hm? Wha—"

There was a small group of people standing above us. I vaguely recognized them. "We heard you started a Clan," said one, with something weird about his voice.

I nodded, dumbly. I looked around. Sailor was grinning like he'd won the moon.

"Are you accepting new members?" asked another. I realized then that what I'd heard in his voice was hesitation. No. Fear?

I blinked. "Yeah. Of course."

Relief washed over their faces, and they looked at each other excitedly. "I told you!" said one to the other.

I didn't know what they were getting so carried on about. "We don't have pins for you," I mumbled. "The only thing we have is training. All of free time tomorrow, and for an hour past dinner."

Unexpectedly, the nodded solemnly. "It's required. I know it's a change, I know it's going to be hard, but I really think--"

"We'll be there," said one. The rest fervently nodded.

Another guy walked up, followed by a few others. I recognized the guy as the one with the black broadsword I'd fought before André had ruined everything.

"Us too?" he asked, hopefully.

"Sure," I replied. He grinned broadly, and all the new people smiled at one another, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

What the fuck? I thought as they walked away.

"Anybody want to explain what just happened?" I asked, looking pointedly at Sailor.

"I spread the word," he said modestly.

I nodded slowly. "Okay. Sure. But why did it work?"

Sailor gave me a look I recognized. It was the Tristan's-being-dumb look. "Wait, what am I missing?" I asked. I looked up to Jade. "Help. I don't want to be the dumbest person in the room again."

She laughed. It was a beautiful sound amid the harshness of the day. "You wouldn't be you if you weren't," she said.

"Tristan, are you aware what you did today?" asked Emmit.

"Failed?" I said bitterly.

Like a failure.

Like you always do.

Like a failure.

You already said that.

Shut up. Shut up! I thought. Fuck, just leave me alone! Please!

"Well," said Emmit slowly. "Yes."

"And no," finished Vanessa, her eyes glittering. "What did you do before you failed?"

"I fought a naked man while he still had a hard-on," I offered.

Vanessa laughed, delighted. "Dios mio! I'd heard the story from someone that caught a glimpse, but I was sure she was making it up."

"But besides that," said Rodrigo, smiling, "You also fought..." he frowned, thinking.

"Over a hundred," prompted Emmit.

"Easily, amigo," said Rodrigo, nodding. "Easily over a hundred."

"Dude, you kind of just decimated all of Moleh," said Sailor.

I sighed. "Didn't do me much good, did it?"

"Maybe not for the Arena," said Jade. "But as for all your Lotus scheming...I think this might serve you well in some of your longer term plans."

"Not to mention," said Vanessa, "Practically everyone in the room keeps looking over here. They're all talking about you."

"About the new Rinzai! That's you, ese!" said Rodrigo, grinning.

"No, no. No thank you," I grumbled. "There's nothing to talk about." I suddenly felt the spotlight. Self-conscious, I put my face on Jade's leg. "Nobody's here. Go away."

They all laughed.

At you.

I got angry. That's it. I'm done with this.

I sat up, and looked into the deep green of Jade's eyes. "Will you See me right now?"

She took a sharp inhale. "Why?"

"Woah. Forward," said Sailor.

I blinked. "Is it rude to ask?"

Jade smiled. "A little. It's fine, from you. But why?"

I scratched my head, unsure how to put it. "Well, I think I'm going crazy."

Jade nodded, seriously. "Okay."

"Voices in my head," I continued. "Talking to myself." I shrugged. "Maybe you'll be able to see something that'll help?"

She agreed, on the condition that I didn't look back at her without warning her. I promised I wouldn't.

She moved her face close to mine, and took a few deep breaths.

Without warning, I kissed her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed in surprise.

I pulled back, smiling. "Sorry. You put our faces close. Your fault."

She gave me a mock glare, her cheeks reddening. "Tristan, I swear to God. Do you want me to See you or not?"

"Yes, please," I said, overly meek to the amusement of our friends.

We settled down. She closed her eyes. And when she opened them, they nearly took my breath away.

I won't describe them. I wouldn't dare. Think what you want — my soul was stilled.

When she came out of it, she looked at me, horrified.

"Oh my god, Tristan," she said, putting a hand to her mouth. "What have you done?"

~

"I don't think this is necessary," I mumbled as Jade marched me down the plush, red and gold hallway.

"What you think doesn't matter," she said. We came to Jet's door. She opened it without knocking, and it swung open all the way. He cleared the books because I bumped them earlier, I realized.

It was probably the first thing he did.

I can't believe you fucked up his books with the door.

It was an accident. It probably didn't even-

What the fuck did he mean by turtle-soup?

What?

...What?

"Jet, Tristan-"

She stopped. Jasper was sitting on the table, his small legs swinging. Jade paused, looking fearful. I waved happily at Jasper, who returned my good humor with a neutral gaze. Jet looked up from behind his desk, unsurprised at our brisk entrance. "Hello, Jade. What can I do for you?"

"I'm so sorry to interrupt," she said. "Truly, I know it's not okay to just barge in here." She pushed me forward. "His mind is fragmented. Fifty different ways. All his elements are broken and mixing together. None of it makes any sense. It's chaotic, it's dreadful. I'm babbling, aren't I? God." She clenched her fists, and started to breathe again.

I'd heard a little here and there. Seeing things wasn't like regular sight. It was deeper. More true. More liable to affect you when you saw it.

"Should I be worried?" I asked.

Jet shrugged. "People divide their minds. It happens."

"He doesn't have Set!" insisted Jade.