The Rithmatist (43 page)

“Oh hush, you,” she said. “You’ll deal with unicorns—maybe some flower people and a pegasus or two—and you’ll like it. Otherwise, you can just go draw your own circle, thank you very much.”

Joel smiled, growing less nervous. The lines felt natural to draw. He’d practiced so much, first with his father, then alone in his rooms, finally with Professor Fitch. Putting the lines where he did just felt
right.

The waves of chalklings came first, a surprising number of them. He glanced up to see that Nalizar’s students—with their advanced training in dueling—had already eliminated some opponents. Drawing so quickly and offensively had given them an advantage in the first part of the Melee. It would hurt them as time wore on.

Joel and Melody, along with three or four other unlucky students, were in the direct center of the floor. Surrounded by Nalizar’s team, who formed a ring. Obviously, their plan would be to eliminate those in the direct center, then fight those at the perimeters.

What’s your plan for these students, Nalizar?
Joel wondered.
What lies are you teaching them?

Joel gritted his teeth—the positioning was great for Nalizar’s students, but terrible for Joel and Melody. He and she were surrounded by a ring of enemies.

Large waves of chalklings swarmed Joel and Melody. By now, however, Melody had up a good dozen of her unicorns. That was one of the great things about an Easton Defense—a large circle with nine bind points, each with a smaller circle bound to it. Each of those smaller circles could theoretically hold up to five bound chalklings.

With Melody on the team, that was a distinct advantage. Her little unicorns frolicked in what Joel thought was a very undignified manner, but they did it even as they ripped apart enemy trolls, dragons, knights, and blobs. The Nalizar chalklings didn’t have a chance. As their broken corpses piled up, Melody added a couple more unicorns to her defense.

“Hey,” she said, “this is actually kind of fun!”

Joel could see the sweat on her brow, and his knees hurt from the kneeling. But he couldn’t help but agree with her.

Lines of Vigor soon began to hit their defenses, blowing chunks off Melody’s unicorns—which made her quite perturbed—and knocking holes in the outer circles. Nalizar’s students had realized that they would have to beat their way through. Fortunately, Joel had built their defense well anchored with Lines of Forbiddance. Too many, maybe. Melody kept running into them and cursing.

He needed to do something. Nalizar’s students would eventually break through.

“You ready to show off?” Joel asked.

“You need to
ask
?”

Joel drew the new line—the one that was a cross between a Line of Vigor and a Line of Forbiddance. They were calling it a Line of Revocation, and he’d spent hours practicing it already. It was more powerful than a Line of Vigor, but not really
that
much.

However, it would probably have a big impact on morale. Melody traced his line, and hers shot across the floor—conveniently dusting away Joel’s original as it moved. He’d aimed it at a student who hadn’t anchored his circle properly, and wasn’t disappointed. Joel’s Line of Revocation blasted against the unfortunate student’s circle, shaking it free and knocking it a few feet out of alignment.

That counted as a disqualification—the student was, after all, now outside of his circle. A referee approached and sent the boy away.

“One down,” Joel said, and continued to draw.

*   *   *

The gathered professors and island officials muttered among themselves. Fitch stood directly above Joel and Melody and just watched. Watched the defense repel dozens and dozens of chalklings. Watched it absorb hit after hit but stay strong. Watched Joel’s shots—fired infrequently, yet timed so well—slam against enemy circles.

He watched, and felt his nervousness slowly bleed to pride. Beneath him, two students battled overwhelming odds, and somehow managed to start
winning.
Circle after circle of Nalizar’s students fell, each breached by a careful shot on Joel’s part.

Melody focused on keeping her chalklings up. Joel would lay down a line, then watch, patient, until there was an opening in the enemy waves. Then he’d get Melody’s attention, and she’d trace his Line of Revocation without even looking up, trusting in his aim and skill.

Usually, a defense with two people inside of it was a bad trade-off—two circles beside one another would be more useful. However, with a non-Rithmatist on the field, it made perfect sense.

“Amazing,” York whispered.

“That’s
got
to be illegal,” Professor Hatch kept saying. “Inside the same circle?”

Many of the others grew quiet. They didn’t care about legality. No, these—like Fitch—watched and understood. Beneath them were two students who didn’t just duel. They fought. They understood.

“It’s beautiful,” Nalizar whispered, surprising Fitch. He would have expected the younger professor to be angry. “I will have to watch those two very carefully. They are amazing.”

Fitch looked back down, surprised by just how excited he was. By surviving inside Team Nalizar’s ring, Joel and Melody had destroyed the enemy strategy. Nalizar’s students had to fight on two fronts. They slowly destroyed the students on the outside of their ring, but by the time they did, Joel and Melody had taken out half of their numbers.

It became six on two. Even that should have been impossible odds.

It wasn’t.

*   *   *

Joel heard the bell ring before he understood what it meant. He just kept drawing, working on some outer circles to add a secondary bastion of defense, since their main circles had nearly been breached a dozen times.

“Uh, Joel?” Melody said.

“Yeah?”

“Look up.”

Joel stopped, then raised his head. The entire black playing field was empty, the last student in red trailing away toward the doors. The girl walked over broken circles and unfinished lines, moving between the Lines of Forbiddance, scuffing circles with her passing.

Joel blinked. “What happened?”

“We won, idiot,” Melody said. “Uh … did you expect that?”

Joel shook his head.

“Hum,” Melody replied. “Well then, guess it’s time for some drama!” She leapt to her feet and let out a squeal of delight, jumping up and down, screaming, “Yes, yes, yes!”

Joel smiled. He looked up, and though the ceiling was tinted, he thought he could see Nalizar’s red coat where the man stood, eyes focused on Joel.

I’m watching you,
the professor’s stance seemed to say.

It was then that the stunned audience erupted into motion and noise, some cheering, others rushing down onto the field.

And I’m watching you back, Nalizar,
Joel thought, still looking up.
I’ve stopped you twice now. I’ll do it again.

As many times as I have to.

TO BE CONTINUED

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been a long time in the making.

I first started writing it in the spring of 2007, half a year before I was asked to complete the Wheel of Time. My epic fantasy project at the time, titled
The Liar of Partinel
, just wasn’t working for me. It had too many problems, and rather than continue to try to force it, I found my way into a fun, alternate-world “gearpunk” novel that I titled
Scribbler
. It was one of those projects I’m prone to do when I’m supposed to be doing something else—an unexpected book that makes my agent shake his head in bemusement.

The book turned out really well, but like most of my off-the-cuff stories, it had some major flaws that I needed to fix in revision. Unfortunately, with the Wheel of Time on my plate, I couldn’t afford the time it would take to revise this story. Beyond that, I didn’t think I could release it, as there’s an implicit promise of something further in the world, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to make good on that promise for many years.

Well, the Wheel of Time is finally done, and I’ve been able to return to
Scribbler
, which we’ve renamed
The Rithmatist
. I’m reminded of just how fun this book was. I’m also reminded of the many, many people who gave reads on it over the years. It has now been almost six years since I did the first draft. (Where does all this time go, anyway?) With so much time involved in getting this book ready, I’m worried that I’m going to miss some people. If I do, I’m terribly sorry! Make sure you let me know so I can fix it.

My original writing group on this book included Isaac Stewart, Dan Wells, Sandra Tayler, Janci Patterson, Eric James Stone, and Karla Bennion. They read this in a very early form, and were a huge help in getting it ready. I also want to make note of the early American work
The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
, which makes an (admittedly altered) appearance in this volume.

Other alpha and beta readers include Chris “Miyabi” King, Josh & Mi’chelle Walker, Ben & Ben Olsen, Kalyani Poluri, Austin Hussey, Jillena O’Brien, Kristina Kugler, C. Lee Player, Brian Hill, Adam Hussey, and Ben McSweeney—who was a valuable alpha reader as well as the artist. We toyed with doing a graphic novel along the way; if you can ever corner him, ask to see some of the test pages for that. They’re awesome.

Stacy Whitman was also very helpful in getting this book ready. (At one time, as an editor, she wanted to buy it. Thanks, Stacy, for your help!) The copyeditor was Deanna Hoak, and deserves your thanks (and mine) for helping make the manuscript less typo-y. (Though I believe it’s beyond the power of any mortal to completely relieve my prose of typos.)

Susan Chang, the book’s editor, and Kathleen Doherty at Tor have been wonderful to work with, and have both been big believers in this book for many years. I’m glad we were finally able to release it. As always, I’d like to thank Moshe Feder for his support, Joshua Bilmes for his agent-fu, and Eddie Schneider for his sub-agent-fu.

A special thanks also goes out to Karen Ahlstrom and the intermittent Peter Ahlstrom. For many years, they believed in this book and pushed me to give it the time and love it deserved.