Borrowed Levels

Chapter 4: Interest

The Guild duel ring was a sand-floored circle in the basement of the Guild hall, surrounded by tiered stone seats that were already half full when Ren walked in on Friday.

He had spent two days preparing. Not training, exactly. He'd gone back into the lizard tunnels alone and hunted everything he could find, repaying a few weeks of debt and borrowing, here and there, the pieces he thought he'd need.

Strength from a cave bear. Reflexes from a night wolf. A scrap of stone skin from the Warden's core, which he'd kept.

The total cost, according to the Ledger, was two years and three months.

He'd stared at that number for a long time before he accepted.

[ DEBT: 3.1 YEARS ]

The gray had spread from his temple to a streak across the front of his hair. In the mirror, he looked like someone who'd had a very bad shock. He told himself it would fade.

Kessin was already in the ring. He had traded the jeweled sword for a plain longsword with an enchanted edge, and he rolled his shoulders like a man who expected to win.

"Rules," said the referee, a tired Guild official. "No killing. First to yield or be knocked unconscious. Begin."

Kessin attacked first. He was fast, faster than Ren expected, with a bought level twenty-one and a lifetime of expensive lessons behind it. The first blow rang off Ren's forearm. The second sliced a line across his shoulder. The third drove him back across the sand.

The crowd roared.

"Is this what an Unrated can do?" Kessin called. "I'm disappointed!"

Ren stopped retreating.

He let the next strike land on his stone-skinned side and caught Kessin's wrist in his left hand. The bear's strength flooded his arm. He twisted, and the longsword went spinning across the ring.

The crowd went quiet.

Kessin stared at his empty hand. "That's impossible."

"Yield," said Ren.

"A level six cannot..."

"Yield."

Kessin snarled and threw a punch. Ren dropped under it and drove his shoulder into Kessin's chest. He felt the air leave the man's lungs. They went down together in the sand, and Ren pinned him with a forearm across his throat, and for one long, dangerous heartbeat he wanted to press.

"Stop," the referee shouted.

Ren let go.

Kessin lay coughing. "You cheated," he rasped. "You used something."

"I used what I had," Ren said.

The crowd was shouting now, some cheering, some jeering. Dara and the others were on their feet at the edge of the ring. Pip was waving both arms.

It should have felt like a victory.

It didn't. Something cold had settled in Ren's chest, and when he looked up at the high gallery, he saw a figure in a dark coat standing perfectly still among the cheering strangers.

It had no face. It lifted the book, and a silver line traced across a page.

[ GRACE PERIOD SHORTENED. ] [ REASON: ACCELERATED BORROWING. ] [ DEBT: 3.1 YEARS. 6 DAYS REMAINING. ]

Ren's stomach dropped. He'd thought he had weeks.

He walked out of the arena on legs that did not feel like his, past the Rustwing crew, past Dara calling his name. He had to get outside, into air.

He was halfway up the stairs when a hand caught his sleeve.

It was a Bank officer, a thin man in a gray uniform with a silver pin. He smiled politely.

"Mr. Calder? Director Voss would like a word."

"I'm busy."

"It was not a request."

Ren looked at the man's pin, and at the two armed guards waiting at the top of the stairs.

When he reached home that night, Mira was coughing so badly that she had to sit up to breathe. He held her until it passed. Her hand on his arm was thin as a bird's.

"What's wrong with you?" she whispered. "You look old."

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her everything. But a voice in the corner of his mind kept counting, six days, six days, and he could not make the words come.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm just tired."

She closed her eyes. Her breath rattled.

Ren sat by her bed until sunrise, and then he went to see the Director of the Guild Bank.