They did the cash change. The supervisor okayed it and made a note on his clipboard. He put the two chips on black and used the kinetic spell to nudge the ball from three into twenty-four black. He doubled the bet and watched as the ball plopped straight into fifteen black the next spin. He then took one thousand off the table, his original bet, and left three thousand. The next spin tried to land in thirty red, but he used the spell to nudge it over into eleven black. He added one thousand of the winnings to the bet and took two thousand off. This time he made no attempt to prevent the ball from landing in one red, and the dealer took his chips away. He was still two thousand up.

He took the two thousand he was up and put them on red. The ball came up nineteen without any help from him, and he repeated his earlier ploy of adding one thousand of the pay-out chips to the stack and taking one thousand away. The next spin had the ball bobbling around, and it looked like landing in ten, so he used the kinetic spell to push it into five red. He repeated his betting method of adding one thousand of the winnings to the bet and pocketing the remaining two thousand. He was now up three thousand. He let the bet ride unsupported, and the ball landed in one red anyway. All right. Follow the system.  He added one thousand to the bet to make it the table maximum of five thousand. Indeed, the dealer checked the amount under the direction of the supervisor. The next number up was black, and the five thousand was swept away. But he was now ahead six thousand with the extra win.

He pulled some chips out of his pocket and put three thousand on black. Eleven came up again without needing any help from him, and he added two thousand to the bet and pocketed one thousand. The next spin, he had to help the ball into twenty-eight black and so collected five thousand. Nine thousand up. He left the bet out there and refrained from helping the ball land in a black number again, and double zero came up. Losers all. Good. Mind you, the supervisor and the suit were still watching him, although not as intently as the fellow the previous day.

He made a show of hesitating with his next bet, then not betting at all on the next spin. The result was black, so he bet that for three thousand. Nudged the next ball into seventeen black, took one of the winning three thousand, and added the remaining two thousand to the now maximum bet, which the dealer checked. Eight black without any need for interference, and he took his five thousand payout. Twelve thousand up. He left the next spin alone and still hit twenty black. Seventeen thousand up, and they had run out of five-hundreds and had to pay him partially in hundreds.

late sorry –

Finding a table, he put three thousand on red, hit five red straight off without him having to help, and noticed the man in the dark, expensive-looking suit who was watching him from the other side of the podium in the middle of the pit. The close-in supervisor woman whose table he was playing on was watching closely as well. Right! I’ve been noticed! Let’s start playing games. He left five thousand on red and pocketed one thousand. A flick and twenty-three red. Five thousand. He left his bet on red, but with this spin, he made sure the number was black, so his bet lost. He pulled chips back out of his pocket and put three thousand on black. Twenty-nine black. Did the same as the previous time and put one thousand in his pocket and left five thousand on black.

The ball bobbled and bounced and settled into eleven black without needing help, and he pocketed the five-thousand. On the next spin, he needed to help the ball into fifteen black, and he pocketed another five thousand. He was up seven in total at this table, so he let the ball go where it wanted on the next spin. It bounced into two, then zero, then rolled over into twenty-eight black, and he had won again. He left the five thousand on black again, and this time it came up seven red, and the dealer swept his chips away. Of course, he was now up twelve thousand. He sauntered over to the bar, had a drink to soothe his nerves, then cashed four thousand out at the cashier. Then he went and had dinner before he returned to the cashier for another four thousand cash out.

He wandered around the whole establishment for a bit. Found a spot where he could sit and ogle some pretty girls having drinks before going out on the town. He was mentally too exhausted to do any more, and his head was now pounding, so he waited another hour before he noticed the shift changing in the cashier’s booth. In the process, his headache decreased somewhat. He delayed another thirty minutes before cashing out his remaining four thousand in chips, and then he headed out to the front, where he grabbed a cab back to his hotel. Once he was back in his room, he counted out the money he had made and found it came to twenty-eight thousand dollars for just that one day! Holy shit!

The problem now was, what did he do with the money? If he banked it, the IRS would be all over him, although he supposed that for this time around, if he banked a bit here and there over time, they probably wouldn’t notice. Maybe. And pay for everything in cash. Hmm. The trouble was that if he openly won big amounts like this in the casinos and cashed them out legally, it was not really the fact he would have to pay tax that was the problem. Rather, he suspected the real problem would be the casinos realizing how much he was winning and banning him from entry. Although if he did that win, win, lose type thing regularly, it may take them a while to twig. Hmm. Okay, he thought to himself, tomorrow I’ll try that at another casino.

The Bellagio looked nice, what with that fountain display out the front which he sat and watched for a while. They had three five-thousand max tables to choose from, which was even better. He plonked down a thousand.

“How do you want it?” Asked the dealer.

“You got any thousand chips?”

The dealer boggled and then glanced over at his cash chips. “No. Only five hundreds.”

“Two of them then, please.”

Because of the way the tax laws worked in the US, he didn’t want to bring himself to the attention of the IRS, so he wandered over to the cashier and changed four thousand worth of the chips. He then made his way slowly to another table and bet two thousand again, this time on red, and after collecting his winnings, went to a third table and bet two thousand on red again. He nearly had the zero come up, but the ball flipped out, and then he nudged it into fourteen and collected another two thousand. He cashed out the four thousand he had won before heading to the bar, where he sat and relaxed. The tension he had been feeling gradually eased over a cold Coke! He had a personal rule of not drinking alcohol on the job!

Deciding he had done enough damage to this establishment, he cashed his remaining four thousand in chips and headed out the door. Out in the street, he hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to Caesar’s Palace. Inside, this famous establishment was much more upmarket, bigger, brassier, and busier. He wandered around the casino floor and found a table with a five-thousand upper limit and what looked to be five-hundred-dollar chips in the float, as they called the area where all the chips were, and this time started by cashing in just five hundred dollars. The dealer looked a bit surprised when Jason asked for a single five-hundred chip but complied, and the jacket-wearing person okayed the transaction, after which Jason placed the chip on red.

The dealer started to say. “Chips…”

But the suit cut them off with a. “Yeah.”

The ball lobbed into twenty-four black, and Jason flicked the kinetic spell to make the ball jump forward into thirty-six red. The dealer hadn’t noticed the jump as he was watching the layout, and the jacket person was attending to something on the next table over. He doubled up the two chips and waited for the next spin.

The obligatory.

“Chips played.”

That got the supervisor back for the end of the spin, but fortunately, the ball lobbed straight into thirty-red, and Jason was paid again. He removed one of the now four chips and put it in his pocket before stacking the other three up.

The next spin saw the ball bobble into thirty-one, then ‘bounced’ into eighteen red, and Jason was paid again. He stacked the chips up, then made as if he was going take his winnings and run, then shook his head and plopped them back down on red for the fourth time. The number of bets on black grew a little. He thought the ball was going to land on the zero, but it bobbled out, danced with landing in twenty-eight, and then finished in nine red, all without him doing anything!

He now had six thousand in winnings. He took two chips and put them on black while he pocketed the rest. The next spin had the ball look like it was going to stop in thirty red, so Jason flicked the spell, and it tipped over into eleven black. The supervisor was watching closely now, so he collected his ill-gotten gains and sauntered off. He went to one of the bars and had a drink while relaxing from the tension that had stiffened up his neck and shoulders. He was also developing a headache and thought about packing it in for the evening but decided to play on and win a bit more. He wandered over to the cashier’s booth and cashed four and half thousand, his original five hundred and four thousand in winnings. After settling himself mentally, he headed back to the roulette tables and looked for another one with the five-thousand upper limit.

Jason considered matters and remembered horror stories of lucky gamblers getting beaten up or accused of cheating and their winnings confiscated before they were physically thrown out of the premises. Admittedly, the stories were from the good old days, but he could imagine there were modern equivalents so that the casinos made sure they didn’t lose. He wandered away, trying to look casual and as if he was going to try his luck on another table, that one there, maybe, no, not that one, maybe this one. He hoped he was putting on a convincing act as he moved across the casino floor nearer and nearer to where the cashier’s booth was. And then he had his chips changed for cash and was casually walking outside without a problem. His shoulders slumped in delayed relief as he headed up the street without anyone accosting him!

He saw a Burger King sign, so he wandered into their air-conditioned comfort and spent some time recovering while he had a small burger with a coffee and let his nerves settle down. He generally tried to avoid junk food, but the burger was just what he needed right then. Forty minutes later, he wandered into a different casino that was rather less pretentious than some of the bigger ones. He quickly found the few roulette tables, and he stood and studied them for a few minutes. He found a table with a stack of purplish-looking chips against the back rail, which he guessed were the five-hundred-dollar chips like the ones he’d had been using at the end in the previous casino. All the casinos had the same basic color scheme for their chips. For instance, green was for the twenty-five-dollar ones, and black was used for the one-hundred-dollar ones. They all used different shades, though, and had different colored flecks and bands in their chips to differentiate them from the chips used by other casinos.

He pulled a wad of notes out of his wallet and counted out two thousand, which he placed on the table after the next spin. The dealer scooped the cash up, counted it out front of him with the deliberate manner they used in casinos, and looked up at Jason.

 “Color, sir?”

“Ah. No. Just four of those five-hundreds you’ve got back there.”

The dealer glanced over, then reached for the stack of purple or mauve chips and spread four out next to the cash.

“Two thousand cash.” He announced.

The black jacketed person was leaning on the plexiglass barrier at the back of the chip area, watching already, and nodded.

“Go ahead.”

With which the dealer put the four chips in front of Jason and dropped the cash through the slot in the table.

Jason put the four chips on black and then readied himself to watch the next spin while mentally trying to keep calm. The dealer announced,

“Chips played.”

Jason stood ready to cast the kinetic energy spell to move the ball if it landed in a red number, but it bounced about and lobbed straight into four black! Great. Jason doubled the two piles of chips up in the approved manner he had learned since he first started playing and waited for the next spin. Thirteen black, again without a nudge. Excellent. The dealer sized his stack into Jason’s stack and left the eight winning chips there. Jason couldn’t leave them all there because the table limit was only five thousand. With the second result, he had sixteen chips or eight thousand’s worth! Holy crap!

Sorry about last week people – just stuff….
Special double length snippet to compensate…..



Jason doubled the chips up and repositioned himself in front of the wheel so that he could use his spell easily. Or not as the case may be, as, on the next spin, the ball landed smack in twenty-three red without needing any assistance. Jason removed a chip to cover his original investment and left the other three in the red section. On the next spin, the ball went to land in three red but bounced into twenty-four black, and then Jason made it bounce into thirty-six red. It looked decidedly odd, but no one did anything, and the dealer cleared the table as usual and then paid the winning bets. Jason collected his six chips and, given the size of the bet and his earlier nervousness, found himself feeling a little stressed and decided he needed a break. Despite being confident he could influence the wheel, he found it nerve-wracking betting real money in hundreds like that! Up until now, back home, he hadn’t used anything bigger than a twenty-five-dollar chip!

He wandered over to a bar cum coffee lounge and discovered he could use one of his roulette chips to pay for a coffee and a cookie and get real money in change. Excellent! While he relaxed and released the tension that had been enveloping him, he considered the ethics of what he was doing. He had debated this with himself before, but he did so again while he rested, and after some further internal debate, he reached the same conclusion he had previously. These establishments that offered games to the public where the odds were rigged in the house’s favor, he felt were fair game for him to be rigging things back his way! At least as far as he was concerned! He hoped he was strong-willed enough not to use his ability in a situation where he would be ripping innocent people off. He certainly had no plans to do anything like that. He had long felt that casinos were leeches on the fabric of society; consequently, he found himself feeling no remorse while making money from them.

After a nice break, people watching, or if truth be told, girl watching, of which there were plenty, although interestingly there were practically none on their own, he headed back into the casino floor area and soon had a spot near the wheel of a different table. He took his five one-hundred-dollar chips and stacked them on black before standing back and waiting. The dealer simply looked over at them and said.

“Chips played.”

The person wearing the jacket and standing between the tables glanced around at his chips. Ah, the casualness of people in an industry where thousands were won or lost on a single result every few minutes. The ball bounced around and lobbed neatly into twenty-nine black without any assistance, and the dealer added five more black chips next to his stack. He left them there and waited for the next spin. The dealer saw them after she had started the ball spinning and stacked them up into one big pile. The ball plopped into thirty red, and then his quick spell flipped it over into eleven black. After clearing the losing bets, the dealer sized a stack of black chips in next to his stack and left a matching pile of ten chips as his winnings.

Hmmm. Two thousand dollars just like that.

“Have you got any bigger denomination chips?” He asked the dealer.

“Yes, sir. I have five-hundred-dollar chips.”

 “Good. Can you change my chips, please?” And he pointed at the two piles of black chips.

The dealer picked them up and moved them to the table area in front of herself, stacked them up, and then cut them down into piles of five, breaking the last five down into a spread of five. The dealer reached over to the back of the table and returned with four chips of a bluish color which she spread next to his black chips before announcing.

“Colour change. Two thousand.”

The suited individual looked over and nodded.

“Go ahead.” He made a note on a clipboard he carried.

The dealer put the four blueish chips in front of Jason, and he picked them up, made a show of hesitating, then put all four on black. A few minutes later, the ball came down, bobbled around, and landed flush in seventeen black. After the dealer had paid the outside bets, Jason picked up his four thousand worth and wandered off. He was once again mentally exhausted. Partly, it was from the stress of betting so much money, but he was also feeling the strain of keeping the spell ready to use at the last second to make sure the ball landed in a winning number. Fuck! It was proving to be hard work, mentally!

He wandered around a bit, thinking about the tiredness, and watched a craps table for a few minutes but decided that the rolling dice would be even harder to affect than the ball in the roulette wheel. He was finding it much more fatiguing than at home in San Diego. Partly it was because back home in the much smaller casino, he had spaced his betting out a good deal to make it less obvious, plus the bets were considerably smaller and, therefore, much less stressful! Eventually, he wandered over to another roulette table and put three thousand on red.

“Chips played.” The dealer announced.

The woman wearing a jacket standing between this and the next table looked around at the small group of people playing at the table, and the dealer nodded in Jason’s direction. The ball came down and landed in the double zero, but Jason used his spell quickly enough that it wasn’t too obvious, and the ball flopped over into twenty-seven red. Yes. The jacketed woman watched carefully as the dealer paid him and made a note on her clipboard. Then she signaled to a fellow in a suit who came over, and they had some quiet words. The fellow looked Jason over, then went to a podium in the middle of the area inside the tables and got on the phone.

Calming himself down took some time, and it was several minutes before he finally sidled over to the roulette wheel he’d chosen and watched for a couple of spins. The wheel looked no different to ones back home except for the double zero, so he trotted out the now finely tuned kinetic energy spell he had designed and which he had used to good effect back in San Diego. He had found it easiest if he used it to make the ball flop into the next number over to the one it appeared to land in, which could be either right or left, depending on the spin of the wheel. The ball bouncing onward in the direction it had been traveling looked much less suspicious than if he tried to make it bounce backward. With the small push, the ball simply jumped over into the next number, usually in a quite natural-looking manner, thus moving from red to black or black to red, depending on which color he had bet on that spin. It was also much easier than trying to time the push to press the ball down into a red or black number slot and stop it from bouncing out again. The only problem areas were the zeros, with the single one having black numbers on either side and the double one having red numbers on either side. Oh well, he still had better odds than anyone else!

He cast the spell five times as practice, aiming for a black number and hitting black numbers five times in a row without any problems, after which he let the dealer have a few spins without bias to settle things down. He noticed with surprise that his butterflies were under control now that real action was imminent, and he pulled a hundred dollars out of his wallet and put it on the table. The dealer grabbed the money, and moved it back to the table area in front of him, and looked at Jason questioningly.

“Color?”

Jason shook his head. “Got a hundred-dollar chip?”

The dealer nodded and put a single black chip next to the cash.

“One hundred cash.” He announced firmly, and the lady with the coat standing in the gap between the table Jason intended to play, and the next table over glanced their way.

 “Go ahead.”

The dealer put the hundred-dollar chip on the table in front of Jason, and Jason put the chip in the section for betting on red. There were a couple more money changes, so it was a few minutes later before the dealer finally spun the ball, and after several rotations, the dealer announced in a clear voice.

“No more bets.”

This was accompanied by the usual wave of the arms over the table. The ball was slowing and rolled down into the numbers, bounced about, and went to settle into eleven black before Jason hit it with the spell and made it flip over into seven red.

“E… Seven Red!” The dealer announced and began clearing the betting layout of the losing chips with those smooth motions the experienced dealers developed. After clearing the table of losing bets, he paid the outside winning bets, including Jason’s one hundred dollar bet. It was all pretty much the same as Jason had seen before, but it was the first time he’d played with a single hundred-dollar chip!

Taroniah had barely returned from defeating the Dragoth when a delegation arrived asking for her help against a God who was rampaging through southern Ithria. As the only person likely to be able to face down the God and survive, she couldn’t very well say no, so she packed up and headed south. Meanwhile, Kyron, the King of Marhingia, was headed home from installing his friend on the throne of Pilia when he too was approached to help those facing down the God in southern Ithria.

Taroniah quickly discovered that facing down the God was not that easy, and even with Kyron’s help, things didn’t go well. Has she finally met her match, or will she devise some trick or new spell to deal with Wexkarn, the mad God of Magic?

Taroniah & Kyron Unite

The next few weeks were spent studying what he could and couldn’t do, or at least what he couldn’t work out how to do. Flying was one thing that defeated him. He simply couldn’t make himself fly like Superman. Hmm. There had to be something he was doing wrong, but he couldn’t work out what it was. He left off working on that after numerous failed attempts and several bumps and scrapes and concentrated on other things. He practiced his ball control on the mini-roulette table but also practiced what he came to call a force punch out in the ravine. He simply pushed out the kinetic energy or whatever it was he used to move the roulette ball in a much stronger, forceful manner. After a few days of practice, he actually broke a small sapling off about a yard up from the ground! He stood there and thought about it some more before narrowing the punch down to a pencil-thin projection of force and then punched a hole right through a small tree’s trunk!

In between forays out to what he began calling his testing grounds, he made a bit more money at the local casinos, being sure not to be too obvious, or at least he tried not to be! Anyway, they didn’t ban him or anything, nor did he notice anyone paying him any special attention. At some point, he decided that he was ready to hit the big time and booked flights to Las Vegas!  His folks weren’t happy about the whole idea when he told them where he was going, but surprisingly, they didn’t give him too much serious grief, confining themselves to a general air of silent disapproval.

Chapter 10

Roulette magic

It had been really satisfying seeing the looks on his parent’s faces when he said he didn’t need any money for his trip to Vegas.

“I’ve won enough to pay for the trip plus have plenty of spending money when I’m there, so don’t worry. I’m not using up any of my pathetic savings or anything.”

The implication of how well he’d been doing locally, ostensibly playing poker, meant they had no real grounds to object to his trip. It was still rather nerve-wracking going on his own to somewhere as larger than life as Vegas, not that he told his parent that, but in the event, the trip from the airport to his hotel was interesting but not as exciting as he had been expecting. Vegas was like a combination of a theme park interwoven amongst large office blocks, almost. It had shed the bright lights and mob-ruled vibe of decades past and looked more like silicon valley these days.

Jason wandered around the casino floor for a bit, scoping out the roulette tables, crowd, and casino staff. He had deliberately chosen to start in a different casino to the one in his hotel, and after wandering around, he decided it really wasn’t any different from the casinos back in San Diego, just bigger and much busier. Finally, he headed for a table with only a few people around it. As he approached the table, he discovered that he was far more nervous than he had expected to be! Damn. The difference between playing in the little leagues and hitting the big time! By the time he reached the table, it felt like he didn’t just have a few butterflies in his stomach; no, it felt like there was a whole air wing performing combat aerobatics in there! Finally, he stopped just short of the wheel area at the head of the table. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and tried to settle. He was too strung out to concentrate properly.

He picked up the rifle, aimed, then squeezed the trigger, not knowing what to expect, and what he got was a small flash of light and then nothing. Huh? He ran over, and the jacket looked untouched. In fact, he didn’t think it had moved at all. Of the bullet, there was no sign. Hmm. He was mentally keeping the spell active despite the tiredness he was feeling already, so he trotted back to his mark and rapidly fired three more rounds at the jacket. Each time, there was a small flash of light or something, and then nothing. Neither the jacket nor the bush moved as much as an inch! Woohoo! He wondered how big and fast the shell would have to be for it to overcome whatever it was the spell was doing. Would it work with flying objects like, say, shrapnel? He had no way of testing those problems, at least not at this moment with the gear he had available. Still, he now had a bulletproof shield! Watch out, bad guys! Ha. He had a mental image of himself walking through a hail of bullets like the Terminator carrying that coffin! Woohoo!

But then he sobered as he felt dizzy. He started seeing stars and cut the spell, but he was so drained he nearly fell over. he staggered back to the truck for a drink while he considered things. How did you go about finding bad guys, and is that what he really wanted to do? And would the government be keen on him wandering around doing almost superhero stuff without wanting to study and use him themselves? No. Almost certainly not. Hmm. The last thing he wanted was notoriety. There would be no respite for him, his family, or even his friends. FBI, NSA, KGB, or whatever the current incarnation of them was, bloody Mossad, the Chinese, sheesh. They’d be all over him like the plague! Right. No public displays without a good cover! Damn, that meant no showing off for the girls! He realized that not showing off was going to be the hardest thing of all. Fuck!

Very well, so be it. He had recovered somewhat from holding the kinetic shield on the bush, so it was time to get back to the magic spells. He had thought about fireballs which should be doable in an oxygen atmosphere. He had even come up with a spell that he thought would work. He focused on a bush some distance away and cast the spell, which caused the atoms to vibrate and create heat. A few seconds and a sort of distortion appeared in the air, and then poof!

The whole bush and the air in the immediate area all exploded in a fireball! Which didn’t last very long nor spread to other nearby bushes, which was fortunate, he realized somewhat ruefully as he studied the smoldering remains. The sheer ferocity of the blaze that had engulfed the bush had surprised him. The bush kept smoldering for a while, even though the wood had to be green and full of sap. The surrounding bushes were not all that suitable for getting a brush fire going, which was lucky. He wouldn’t want to use it on any old brush, though! From his previous experience with the few spells he had come with already, he knew he would need to practice the spell to improve control and power, but well, now he was really starting to feel like a wizard from a fantasy novel! And it was all really just basic science, well, not the translocation perhaps, nor the bullet thing, he had to admit. Well, it was sort of, but the force punch thing he was using to push the roulette wheel ball around was, well, it wasn’t really standard physics either, he supposed. At least the fireball spell was basic physics, pretty much, except that he used mental abilities to cause it to happen. Damn. He realized he was still using real physics for the basis of his “magic,” just using it to do things real physics didn’t allow. He supposed he was a sorcerer now. Maybe. Bah, who cares! I can throw fireballs! He laughed out loud and kept smiling to himself all the way home.

Just a quick update:
Taroniah & Kyron Unite is with the editor and should be released around the end of the month – I was hoping for a late January release date but it appears to be slipping into the 1st week of February.
The next book will be The Mercenary – the first of the Count of the Western Marches series which is Princess Gizel’s second series. Probably early April
After that will be Taroniah at Home
Probably late June
Then Kyron the Conqueror
Maybe early September
Then the Kelad Conflict the 4th New Federation book
Probably in November.

release dates at provisional and not cast in stone!

For those interested I have another story set in Pam Uphoff’s universe – totally unrelated to the first that I am working on

I have submitted a short story about Bargan – when he is in his final year at the Academy – and has to deal with a snooty noble.
This may grow into a complete Bargan novel – not sure yet.
I have another vague idea for a Taroniah story set after Taroniah at Home but I have not real plot yet.
I do have an alt-history story about a yachtsman dropped back tot he Maine coast in like the 12th century and finds the survivors of Welsh Prince Madoc’s first expedition being overwhelmed by the natives.
And of course I have other stories – besides Jason who runs to 5 books at present – most just bits and pieces – 2 is 3/4 done and 5 is 1/2 done….

Anyway – I will press on with The Mercenary