'Come,' Myra said as she arrived at the entrance. 'We will show them that my luck is sufficient to find a path to a fortress without fear or hesitation.' She prodded one of her talisman-protected men-at-arms forward, and he began pacing rapidly out onto the casino floor. 'Follow his footsteps, follow them exactly,' Myra commanded. 'Match him step for step, if you wish to survive until you are needed later.'
Kestrel hesitated while he watched the man-at-arms suddenly veer sharply to the left and then just as quickly resume his course toward the protective barricades. He felt the sharp prodding in his back and sucked in his breath. Stepping out into the warrior's footprints, he reached behind to pull Phoebe's hand. He took two tentative steps and then half a dozen more, matching the zigzag path of his predecessor as best he could. Moving with increasing haste so that he would not lose the trail, he pulled Phoebe after him, only dimly aware of Myra and her other followers snaking behind.
A sudden crack sharper than the boom of the mines suddenly pierced through the din on Kestrel's right. He felt a sudden rip of pain in his hand and looked down to see a streak of blood, as if he had been neatly nicked by a blade. He looked up to see the nearest boulder of the barricade just ahead. Instinctively he snapped Phoebe forward and tumbled her over the rock, just as a second pop sounded behind him. As he jumped for cover, what sounded like a shower of pebbles skittered against the thick granite behind.
'A grenade,' Myra muttered behind him as she was helped over the rock by two of her retainers. She stopped and coughed, trying to blow the dust from her lungs, 'Shrapnel will find the unlucky. About that there can be no doubt.'
Elsewhere in the casino, the other contesting groups were also seeking what shelter they could. Those who arrived the latest were beginning to erect makeshift barriers of shields and protruding lances on open ground as far removed from the other contingents as possible. More grenades began to soar through the air, lofted from one group to the one closest. The dull boom of the mines was replaced by the staccato pop of many tiny projectiles.
One of the less protected groups sallied from their cover and raced with swords drawn at the adversaries on their left. Kestrel expected to see a protracted and grim struggle like the carefully choreographed dances of the reticulates, but instead, in a brief mкlйe, the encounter was over. Half of the attackers stumbled and fell when they engaged their opponents; the rest were dispatched by the first lucky swings of carelessly aimed swords. Kestrel shifted his focus and saw another brief flurry erupt on the opposite side of the casino floor and, far to the right, yet two more.
'The ones whose wishes exceed their stores of wealth,' Myra said at Kestrel's side. 'They mimic the contest of old when strength of arm and cleverness of siegecraft determined the victor. Soon they will all be gone, and those of true potential will struggle as it should be done.'
Fulfilling her prophecy instantly, a strong voice suddenly rang through the din. 'A challenge, a challenge of true virtue to masqueraders on our left.'
Immediately the crowd fell silent and all the hostilities ceased on the casino floor. Kestrel craned around to see Milligan standing on the top of a small boulder near one of the tunnels with a megaphone to his mouth. Evidently Jelilac's had been one of the last contingents to arrive.
'We do the great practice of our art disservice by such crude measures,' Milligan continued. 'Avoiding mines and the shrapnel of grenades takes a measure of luck, to be sure, but it in no way answers which of us has the greatest power and hence the authority to rule.' Milligan paused and circled to address the stands at his back. 'Remember our heritage,' he said. 'This very edifice is enshrined with the name of the grand casino-not the arena, not the stadium, but the casino where all is ruled by chance. The events to be decided here are to be based upon the pristine twisting of gaseous luck, not the slashing of bloodied blades.'
The crowd roared in approval, but Milligan motioned them back to silence. 'Yes, luck is to be the mechanism of decision-luck, pure and unsullied with irrelevant skill.'
He pointed at his side to a large glass bowl with two transparent tubes snaking out of the top and filled with tiny white spheres. 'Of all those who have assembled to struggle here Jelilac is the most mighty, the one with the greatest hoard of fortune. He issues a challenge to one and all. The first to have three numbers discharged will be the victor. The vanquished will cease their struggles and submit all talismans to aid in the greater cause.' Milligan paused and then shut his eyes. Extending his arm, he pointed out across the casino floor and spun about three times, quickly pirouetting to a sudden halt.
'You!' He laughed as he sighted down the length of his arm toward a small fortification across the floor. 'You shall be the first to test that Jelilac's luck is the most potent of all.'
Kestrel turned to watch a young aleator rise from cover and shake his head. 'No, that is not my plan,' he protested. 'My only hope is to win against others similarly endowed and capture what luck they have remaining after the battle. Only by that means would I have the chance to face the likes of Jelilac in the end.'
The crowd roared in disapproval. For a long while, the high walls of the casino echoed with their lust for the confrontation. Kestrel squeezed Phoebe's hand and tried to settle into a comfortable position. At least for the moment, everyone was distracted and no grenades were hurling their way.
He watched Milligan and two other retainers set up a wooden frame and then drape it with tapestries embroidered in intricate designs. A long hose was connected to one of the tubes protruding from the glass bowl and run back behind the panels where Kestrel could not see. In an instant, the tiny spheres began to dance in the confines of the bowl, like a boiling liquid just about to erupt. In the distance, Kestrel saw that each ball was inscribed with a few strokes of precise lettering in black ink.
'Your numbers,' Milligan shouted over the fading din of the crowd. 'Everyone here demands it. Remember the fourth tenet-luck favors the believer. If you have doubts and hesitate, then surely you will fail.'
The aleator across the casino floor looked wildly out into the stands and then slumped his shoulders. He grasped at the handful of talismans about his neck and tightly clenched shut his eyes 'Seven, nineteen, and thirty- seven,' he shouted after a moment. 'And by the third tenet, may these charms beget all the fortune that I will need.'
Milligan laughed and marked the selected numbers on a huge slate handed to him from within the canvas framework. 'Nine, forty-two, and forty-three,' he called out without apparent thought and added them in a line below the first. 'Now we shall contest in the manner in which it has always been intended.'
Milligan removed a cover from the second tube emerging from the bowl, and the crowd again fell silent. No one moved while the white spheres churned and frothed. After a short while, one of the balls bounced into the conical orifice that fed the exit and popped out into Milligan's waiting hand. 'Forty-two.' He laughed as he held up the orb and waved it over his head. 'Forty-two on the very first ball, even though over two hundred spin about.'
Before Milligan had finished speaking, a second sphere followed the first. Another of Jelilac's retainers dashed out from the cover of the framing and caught it as it arched into the air. 'And forty-three.' Milligan laughed again. 'I can see the marking clearly from here.' He looked across the casino floor and shook his head. 'You may as well make ready. It appears that the we you wager against Jelilac is meager indeed.'
Milligan turned his attention back to the glass bowl just in time to receive the third ball emerging from the tube. 'The third is nine,' he said. 'Yes, after the first two so suddenly, there could be no doubt.'
Most of the crowd broke into enthusiastic cheering, although Kestrel saw one small grouping high in the stands sit silently with faces pulled to their chests Milligan waved both arms over his head to keep up the volume of sound as he tripped across the casino floor to the aleator who had been defeated. With a theatrical flourish, he accepted an armload of talismans and carried them back to Jelilac's framework.
'Who is next?' he shouted. 'Who is next to challenge? Jelilac is ready to battle with one and all.'
Kestrel looked at Myra out of the corner of his eye. He saw the old woman slowly shaking her head. 'Not yet,' she muttered. 'Each contest dissipates a little of Jelilac's wealth back into the ether. And there is always the chance that he will not be able to beat them all. I will wait until the last, when my own opportunity is the best.'
Kestrel scanned the casino floor and saw the wave of a banner from another of the fortifications. A new cheer went up from the crowd. 'Five, thirty-nine, and fifty-two,' a voice heavy with resignation sounded in the distance. 'I may as well be next. It seems that at the last moment, my luck turned fickle. This fortification is made of anvilwood, not simple fir or pine like the rest.'
The cheer reverberating in the stands suddenly stopped. Milligan nearly doubled over with his laughter. 'Barrier logs made of anvilwood,' he said. 'The custodians of the casino have prepared for this contest better than
