I first saw this trump card, sitting in the half frame of the dealer’s index and thumb, on the morning of the night I earned that nickname. The card dealer had given me the run around, messing with me, showing me inferior products either homemade or without real histories, but I had waved all away until this one. The early sun filled its punches brighter than I could bear. “The man who sold me this card claimed it had been in his family for thirty generations, since his grand uncle of some remove used it to earn his fortune. The drops changed. Their ill winds are your opportunity.” Yes, see more here the edges of the fillboard, all the cards used to have square holes there, and you know what the mouth was?

I had such a deck then, a collection I’d been building across the villages, to which I added the final piece before I’d even egressed the merchant’s threshold. I had chased rumors and rumors of rumors, of cards that had a history of food and wealth. I squirmed into crevices only I could squeeze through, hunted the dry corners of card stores with perpetual drips. My allowance had more than enough for the filler cards that kept the program clean and simple, understood and clear.

That precise language of goods, as variable as the vast material of the world permits. Permutations innumerable as stars. Unknown and almost understandable, but through intuition alone, through the gates unopenable with sight or reason. There lies the perfect deck.

I had earned a name as the youngest sharp to collect a Farthingsquart, reknown player’s progenitor, if you’d want to know your history. He’d only been able to work the mouth to greatest effect in his late thirties. My father did something not dissimilar, coming away with the great feast a little later in his life and not long before discarding this shell.

 Mother worried after me, being so young to wander, and alone in that massive house I wondered if she too needed something to worry her. But I never met a villager that didn’t love a dedicated sharp. I sat in the corner of folk dances and smiled as though the height of politeness. I listened as their most weathered faces encircled me to reminisce about their finest hauls, times the mouth had emptied floods of coins, feasts, or glorious, glorious cards. Too often I had to beg off second or third servings, lest I not even be able to walk home to our manor.

Our caravan always left early. Our village’s allotted mouthdays came late in every second week and craftsfolk and traders started to get antsy as the days ticked on. Even though the journey to the mouth only took half a day, everyone would be too eager to let it sit empty for long. Still in the delirium of half night when the first shivering adherents lined up. Even still, they fell behind those with the money, strength, or friends enough to carry them to the front. Truthfully, well known sharps and accomplished goodgetters, both of which I was, were supposed to march or ride up there too, but my success had earned me a nemesis, vain and inferior. Sik had cronies and a well-honed slap, and both of these obligated me to the rear.

The canyon went up, winding into and up the mesa. My feet slipped in the gravel as I chased behind them. I slunk as close to the ground sloth’s paws as I dared, crept with the pallbearers for Hershon’s nine foot deck boxes. Ahead, Sik’s well coifed wings of hair flapped as his proud mule plodded.

The path narrowed several times. A careless slothherd could run his beast’s burden against the stone wall and chip off a flat plane of spinning flint that could cut off the canyon or wound a sloth or kill me. Deck building forces you to see the future, think about the array of tolerable possibilities to your actions. You become almost a clairvoyant. A half day of straining under heat and dodging caravan wheels and Sik’s gaze, we came to the box canyon where the mouth waits.

The mouth is a soul sucker. It waits without speaking, moving only to accept cards into the deepest uninterpretable darkness. Millennia of card minders have looked down into that throat, waiting for its meanings. There were always players certain the mouth was made for them. I had always expected it to close on my hand as I leave my cards on its waiting tongue.

The line is long and in lieu of getting cuffed, I slunk to its furthest end. Sik’s hair flapped with laughter. The day’s heat pulled at my edges. A hot pulsating ulcer named the sun burnt my ears until it was all I could to not leave the line. The Sharps who’d bought their way to the front loved to linger on the edges of their cards, pressing with both indexes to ensure maximum ease for the mouth’s consumption. A pool of delicious umber beckoned languid under a nearby sloth.

I slept until deep night. The line had cracked, only a few addicts circled the hole to endlessly test their luck. Hershon filled the mouth with each next section of his deck, watching the tongue lap up stacks upon stacks of cards. Standing in front of the mouth, hands empty, anticipation cranking the air tighter and tighter in his lungs until it snaps. The mouth let nothing slip. His cards spill everywhere following the sweep of his ragefilled palm. The other late night players scatter, Hershon raging on their heels.

Wake up, it’s good again.

The mouth is free.

I approach the silence. Whatever the mouth is, ancient artifact or natural occurrence, I face it. My grip risks bending the cards as I leave them quickly on the tongue.

Nothing, for the longest time no action, no development, no change. I sink to the ground, but at least I don’t have to be Hershon, you know? Grinding from within the mesa, the unmistakable cough of a glitch, the conflict of cog’s teeth. What followed could only be described as vomit, as every good and commodity left in its gullet spilled out upon me, eddied and swirled around me. The entire camp was stirring, surrounding me and my collection of riches.

There were gems and coins and a flood of cards, edges fresh and sharp. I tripped upon a smoked leg of ham, fell admist a few small kegs of beer. Porter, I confirmed, once I lifted my head from the puddle.

Of course, as you know, that was the end of the mouth. Anyone who had not awoken before, now could not rest for the mountain itself collapsed. Everyone tried to ferry as many of the goods as they could away from the rockslide we felt certain would come. But it didn’t. All that remained after the chaos were splitting paths through the cracked mesa.  

This was my peak. I was carried on shoulders and cheered with treasure I handed out gleefully as we paraded home. I gave my mother a gleaming set of pearls. I gave away silks and coins. I stood on the balcony of our home and threw food until mother said “Enough, you don’t know what’s next to come.”

The first path’s explorers found the quick ways between the villages. The shattered mountain had left stones balanced and waiting, flat and wide enough for people to sit across from each other and have a meal. Some of these tables earned infamous regulars instantly, others only as the game spread.

 The card surplus spilt everywhere. Those same stone tables became the betting crevice, the place that cooked you in the sun, that you’d better bring something worth wagering or walk home. Nervous players would agree, “Most holes on the field,” aligning the edges of their little bazaar bought spreads and then a custom built deck like mine would smoke them. There was no Cornucon, there were no widespread rules. Maybe a village would have a dictate, but at the crevice, the rule of law was a handshake.

Their eyes were huge with trust. I had fame and wealth; I was the deckmaster. So I came to be feted everywhere, feasted on the last turnips and carrots in the rootcellar (though looking and hoping for a little meat), the story begged of me again and again. When people came and asked how I knew to destroy the mouth I merely smiled serenely. Sitting on this bench now, I can tell you I still don’t know.

You’re playing now so you expect the Cornucon, need it, but we were more than enough for each other. Those little players who demanded and built the government had a greater sense of victimhood than their ability to play the game. But I played like a star. The ebb and flow of new goods at the crevice came and went by reasonings I cannot divine and yet still, on the bias, my wagon remained amply filled. Fewer wheelbarrows, pack animals come though. The day I win a sack of months old jerky, I eat it on the spot, the slavering crowd gathered to watch.

The game had shifted. All the punches were to be filled and a guaranteed card market set up. I had thought, what’ll they do, occupy the crevice? At my next visit referees greeted me at every gate. You could keep time by how they tapped their truncheons against poles, their polos, everything within reach.

I hadn’t really even realized before I approached a duel without even a coin to bet. I started betting cards. I still won, sometimes enough that I would leave the cards alone, even for a week before hunger drove me back again. The house had been sold off or lost to squatters sometime after mother died but there were a few inns, a few kind houses who never turned their backs on the old deckmaster.

Deckmaster, the name hooked a snicker somewhere along after I’d emptied my pockets. A jeer lingered in the air around tournaments, a stench among gathered sharps. So now I have this withered remainder. This last, best card. For a while I have survived as a single draw king – win in the first play or lose. A perfect discourse of a single word. I thought I might even win enough to get a deck back together.

But you saw the ruling.

I see your eager eyes, learn a little patience I’m nearly finished. The Cornucon will no longer countenance the last way I could play the game. So, I’m off. Take the card already kid, I’m done.