Accidental Duelist Read online

  "This is crazy," the Empress muttered to herself. "Hal is older than I am. Even with the strange difference in time, he’s probably dead and gone, like all my companions from the war."

  Kareena stared at the magical device in her hand. What would happen if she pressed the buttons? Magic didn’t work as well as it used to.

  Before the mage Tildi died years before, she had explained how the advent of gunpowder and other technologies stole energy from magic, making it far less reliable. There were no more arch-mages in the land. Only the healing power of earth-magic had any reliability any more and even that didn’t work as well as it used to.

  If she pressed the buttons on the mouse, there was no guarantee the magic still existed to bring Hal here. Even if it did, he could not be young and vibrant enough to take up the call and return to Fantasma.

  Still, Kareena had no choice.

  She had to try before it was too late and even young Timron was taken from her.

  Returning to her divan, Kareena sat once more and stared at the strange device in her hand. With a final nod, she pressed her fingers down on both buttons at the same time and waited.

  When nothing happened after nearly a minute, Kareena tried pressing them one at a time, in different orders and combinations. She continued trying to activate the "mouse" for almost an hour before she gave up. Whatever magic had once been housed in the device must have faded with time, like much of the magic in Fantasma.

  Kareena shook her head. Tildi must have been right when she said magic and advanced technology, like gunpowder, could not coexist in the world.

  She stared at the useless device in her hand. Perhaps it never worked at all, no matter what Tildi said it could do. She would never know. There was no magical help coming, no mythical hero to swoop in and save what was left of her family and the Empire from those who would steal it away.

  Her failing health would bring about the end of her dynasty and all hope for a Fantasma where all races and peoples were respected would be ended. Soon, opportunistic nobles like the Duke of Charon, who believed in the ascendancy of man over the other races, would take over and divide the land up between them until their petty squabbles tore apart everything she'd worked so hard to bring about.

  Kareena, the last Empress of her line, placed the mouse talisman back in its box and closed the lid letting the latch snap shut, sealing the device away forever. She would not take it out again. The time to believe in such things as a mythical hero had passed.

  Inside the box, Kareena didn't see the red light on the underside of the mouse blink once, twice, and then repeating again and again in a rapid succession of flashing patterns too quick for the eye to track. It sent its magical signal across time and space to a world far very away.

  Chapter 1

  Cari Dix ducked under the lunging thrust of her opponent's rapier, raising her off-hand dagger upward to push the blunted tip up and away to the right. She used the opportunity to press her rapier attack with a lunge of her own.

  A grunt from her opponent, as well as the jolt up her extended arm from the contact, told her she'd connected for a hit as much as the flashing message in her mask’s heads up display.

  She pulled back, laughing with delight, retreating as the rules of the sparring ground required so the two in the ring could reset for the next point. She waggled her dagger back and forth in front of her masked face, as if to say, "not this time." Cari had been giggling at her opponent's expense since the bout began.

  There were few who were her equal in here despite the fact she was barely sixteen years old. Her fencing master often told her she possessed the physical maturity of a woman several years older than others her age.

  Her masked opponent surprised her when he shouted in anger and charged at her as she walked back to her starting point in the ring.

  "Don't you dare laugh at me. I won't be beaten by a girl."

  He launched a flurry of rapid attacks, pushing Cari to retreat as she danced backward around the ring. Despite being on the defensive, she was having fun, laughing the whole time as she parried every blow with either her rapier or dagger.

  Finally, though, she'd had enough and she decided to end the contest. Technically it had ended already when her brutish opponent broke protocol and pressed an attack before both of them reset. Cari decide to teach this misguided man a lesson about his betters.

  Engaging his blade against hers, sliding her rapier up his until their guards met, Cari stomped down on her opponent’s foot, driving her booted heel down on the bones of his instep. At the same time, she punched out hard, once, twice, and then a third time with the blunted tip of her dagger against the padded tunic her opponent wore.

  The man doubled over in pain, dropping his rapier and dagger to clutch his middle with a groan.

  "Miss Dix! That will be quite enough!" Master Thorne shouted across the practice arena.

  Cari spun around and pulled off her wire mesh mask with its heads-up display and threw it to the floor in anger. "He came at me first, Master Thorne! I was only defending myself."

  The tall, broad shouldered weapons instructor crossed to the sparring ground to stand between Cari and her hapless opponent. The man who’d been sparring with her still clutched his belly, groaning in pain as he limped away. He didn’t bother to hide the naked anger in his eyes. Cari thought she caught a hint of fear in his gaze as well. That brought a fresh grin to her face as the fencing master approached her.

  "And you wonder why no one will spar against you."

  "Am I not supposed to defend myself? He broke protocol when he refused to disengage between points."

  Her opponent straightened despite the pain in his abdomen and pointed an accusing finger at her.

  "You, young lady, should learn better manners and sportsmanship when sparring in the arena. Someday, someone's going to put you in your place."

  "Yeah, well it won't be you, that's for sure. If this were a real fight, you'd be dead six times over by now."

  "Well I'm never sparring with you again and I'm filing an unsportsmanlike conduct complaint against you with the HEMA central authority for your poor attitude during the bout. You’re a danger to anyone who steps into the ring with you."

  The angry man turned and stalked away after gathering his mask and blades from the floor.

  The master of the practice arena watched him leave then turned back to her. He shook his head. Disappointment revealed itself in his expression.

  "Cari, you are a gifted swordswoman, but you have a chip on your shoulder that I don't know how to train out of you. I’d hoped pitting you against more skillful opponents might help challenge you enough to break the attitude but I see no change at all.”

  "I'm not going to let anyone tell me what I can or cannot do. He challenged me today after I told him I could best any person in here, with any HEMA-approved weapon he chose."

  "You showed up today looking for a fight. I can only assume you’ve been arguing with your parents again. I watched you goad him in front of his friends until he had no choice but to challenge you. That is what I'm talking about, Cari. You walk around like you always have something to prove. Sometimes it is best to let the hidden challenge lie. It only matters that YOU know you're better. Proving to everyone in the room, over and over again only serves to make more enemies."

  Master Thorne held out his hand.

  "Hand over your practice weapons. I think you're finished for the day."

  "But I want to spar some more."

  "I said you're done. When I agreed to instruct you in Historical European Martial Arts, you agreed to listen, obey, and learn at all times when you were here. Well it's time to listen and obey. Go home and think about how you can avoid the next challenge for a change. That is what you have to learn now: when NOT to pick a fight."

  "Where's the fun in that, Master Thorne?"

  "This is a sport that is supposed to be instructive and fun for all participants. You have to respect your opponent and offer them the op
portunity to bow out of a fight gracefully, not press the fight until you've proven they're defeated in every possible way. Think on that while you head home. Don't return until you can offer a sincere apology to Mister Head for embarrassing him today in front of his friends and colleagues from work.”

  Cari almost said something else about many men needing to be embarrassed sometimes but stopped herself at a warning glance from Master Thorne. He’d made her swear to follow his instructions without question. She’d already gone too far. Cari swallowed her anger and gathered her gear from the sparring platform, heading off to the locker room.

  It did her no good to argue with Master Thorne. He was the one person in the room who could best her almost every time they sparred. He was blindingly fast and seemed to have an unlimited list of new tricks to best her. Him, she respected, mostly because he didn't look down on her just because she was a teenaged girl. That idiot Head had made one too many blonde jokes to his friends while she warmed up and stretched nearby. She listened and knew they were talking about her while she danced around the sparring robot, parrying each cut and thrust in a dizzying array of attack after attack.

  She'd like to see him try and take on the bot at those settings. He wouldn't last ten seconds. He was just another dumb man who thought ladies shouldn't play at swords with the big boys, just like her father.

  It was 2032 for God's sake.

  Women had proven they were just as capable in almost every other endeavor. While they had to concede men had the edge in most sports due to their increased strength, in edged martial arts like HEMA, speed and quickness were almost more important than brute strength.

  Cari had plenty of both and didn't back down from anyone when it came to proving it.

  In the locker room, Cari pressed her thumbprint against the locker's touch panel and the door popped open. She reached in and grabbed her gym gear, slipping the electronic mask and padded tunic covered with tiny touch sensors to register hits in the sparring ring.

  Cari glanced at her watch. Damn, she was running late.

  That last sparring match had put her over her planned workout time and she'd have to make good use of her time on the ride home. She was supposed to finish up her weekend homework tonight so she'd be allowed to go to the Renaissance Faire with Julie and Stella over the weekend.

  Cari ran, pulling her long strawberry-blonde hair back into a pony tail and through the back of her baseball cap before slipping the duffle bag's strap over one shoulder. She might be able to make it home in time for dinner if she hurried. The last thing she wanted was a fight with her parents again, especially over being late due to something as frivolous as practice sword fighting.

  Placing her hand on the window of her car, the door popped open after reading her implanted biometric chip and identifying her palm print. Cari threw her duffel in the back and climbed in. As the door swung shut, the internal voice prompt sounded.

  "Good afternoon, Cari. Would you like to go home?"

  "Yes. Use the fastest possible route."

  "Travel will begin once seat belts are fastened for all passengers."

  Cari pulled the belt across her body and snapped the buckle into the receiver. She didn't understand why cars still had safety belts. There hadn't been a fatal car accident since autonomous cars had been mandated five years before. It was hard to believe her parents survived to adulthood at all given all the ways people could die during routine highway travel back in their day.

  As the electric motor quietly spun up to speed and the car pulled away from the curb, Cari opened up her personal communications interface between her implanted comm chip and the car's wireless transceiver and selected her history assignment from the recent documents on the holographic display before her. She began dictating the next part of the report while the car took her home via the interstate. She had a half hour between the HEMA gym and home. That would be plenty of time to finish her report on the historical importance of simple explosives, like gunpowder, on warfare in the late renaissance period.

  Cari had just finished up the report as the car pulled into the driveway at home, the wrought iron gate closing behind the red sedan as it drove up the lane and into the garage bay. A glance at the car's dash chronometer told her she was late for dinner despite hurrying home. She hoped her mom didn't go into the whole personal responsibility thing with her again. If she heard one more time about how important trust was between children and parents in the digital age, she'd scream.

  As soon as the car pulled into its charger in the garage and the parking brake engaged, Cari slipped out of her seatbelt and grabbed her duffel. She jumped out to head inside. Mom and Dad were already seated at the kitchen table when she walked in.

  "Cari, you're late," her dad, Hal Dix, said. "You were supposed to be home an hour ago."

  "You know you're supposed to call us or leave a message in the family comm system so we know you're running late," Mona Dix, Cari's mom added.

  "I know, Mom. I got distracted at the arena."

  She saw her dad's glance at her duffel with her practice blades attached to the outside. He shook his head.

  Here it comes, she thought.

  "Cari, your mother and I have been more than patient with your extracurricular activities, no matter how strange they are, but they do not take the place of real life responsibilities. You can't just disappear into your little fantasy world of swords and battles and not tell us what you're doing or when to expect you."

  "Your father's right, Cari. You owe us the respect you give to your blade instructors at the very least. What would Master Thorne think of the way you treat us at home? If you were unable to attend one of your planned sessions or were going to be late, you'd comm him about it as soon as you could. Why won't you extend to us the same courtesy?"

  Cari started to roll her eyes at her mother's tone and tried to stop herself before it was too late. She was unsuccessful.

  "Don't you make that face at me, young lady," her mother snapped. "Perhaps we have been too lenient with all this swordplay nonsense you've insisted on engaging in. It's time to join the real world, Cari. You’re not a child, living in an imaginary, made up world anymore. Have you finished your homework assignments?"

  "Yes, I completed the last one this afternoon on the way home. And my work with my swords is not nonsense. It's a sport that is every bit as real as your triathlons or Dad's golf outings. Besides, I would think you'd want a daughter who knew how to defend herself."

  Her dad sighed.

  "Cari, this is just a holdover from your obsession with that fantasy from your youth. I fear we indulged your imagination a little too much."

  "Dad, just because I choose an unconventional sport like HEMA doesn't mean I still believe in Fantasma. I gave that up a long time ago. I know it's not real. You wasted a lot of money on Dr. Susan just so she could convince me that magic and alternate universes were not real. I'm not a child anymore. I'm nearly a grown woman."

  "Sixteen is not a grown woman by any stretch, Cari," her mother replied. "We just don't understand why you won't hang out after school with your friends like everyone else. We made sure you're birth control implants were up to date. You should find a nice boyfriend like your friend Stella."

  "Mother, for the last time, I'm not having sex with some random guy just to prove to you I'm a normal teenager."

  "I don't think that's what your mother is suggesting, Cari. Besides, you know how I feel about such talk."

  Hal's face reddened at the mere mention of Cari having sex. That annoyed Cari even more.

  "Just because I told Mom I'm not having sex to prove her right doesn't mean I don't have the same rights every other girl my age has. I'll have sex when I'm good and ready and I don't have to tell you anything about it."

  Her dad opened his mouth to say something then shut it. He looked at her Mom and the two of them shared a look that told Cari she'd won this particular skirmish. She resisted the urge to smirk in satisfaction. Her parents were so easy to m
anipulate.

  "Just sit down and eat with us. Dad and I are going away for the weekend again and it's important we spend some time together before we leave.”

  "You're going away?" Cari said as she slid into her seat. "Let me guess, another road race, or is this one a couples golf outing?"

  "Actually, a bit of both. I have a triathlon on Saturday in Raleigh and then we're meeting work friends of your father's in Atlanta for golf on Sunday. We'll be back late Monday evening. You'll probably already be in bed so we'll not see you until Tuesday morning."

  Cari shrugged. She wasn't surprised the two of them wouldn't be home with her. They had their lives and she had hers. The three of them had drifted apart more and more in recent years.

  "I hope you guys have fun. I'm planning on spending the weekend with Julie and Stella at the Ren Faire."

  She couldn't help but notice the glances her parents exchanged.

  "I don't know why you don't approve of the Ren Faire. We used to go as a family when I was little."

  "Mom and I just wish you'd spend the money we give you on something other than swords, daggers, and your silly costumes. We hoped you'd give up this obsession long ago."

  "It's not an obsession. It's where I fit in, where I belong. The people there aren't pretentious business executives without anything interesting or meaningful in their lives like you two."

  "Those pretentious executives are the ones who make your extravagant lifestyle possible, Cari," her mother snapped. "I think perhaps it's best if you take your plate up to your room. None of us are going to be able to finish dinner at this rate and I need to eat something since I'm in training. Maybe you'll think about what you said and remember how much of what you have you get from us, young lady."

  Cari stood up. She knew she'd gone too far. That didn't mean she was going to apologize, of course. She picked up her plate and the chilled water canister and went upstairs to her room. She couldn't believe they sent her to her bedroom like that. What was she, ten?