Game Play (25 page)

"Enrod was
strong, very strong. He resisted longer than most of the Tairans. But he became
obsessed about the Barrier River. I watched him. I think Scartaris used that as
a hook to trap him, to twist open a weak spot in his mind and drive in the
puppet strings." She sighed. "Still, his fate doesn't seem
fair."

Vailret pursed his
lips. "I don't suppose the Deathspirits were much willing to
compromise."

The Cailee hit the
door, but its efforts seemed to be losing enthusiasm.

"In a way, I'm
glad Enrod isn't here to see what's happened to his city. He loved it so
much."

She took the water
skin from Delrael's hands and drank a deep gulp.

"Scartaris is
using the characters here to make weapons, swords and shields for his great
battle." Mindar shuddered and looked at them, but seemed disappointed with
their reaction. She scowled.

"You wouldn't
understand how great
that
defeat is. Remember that Taire is built on the
worst scars of the ancient wars. The mechanics of game battles and personal
combat are abhorrent to us. When Enrod founded this city, it was to be
progressive and forward-looking. He knew the future of Gamearth lay in the
hands of human characters
―
he wanted to make sure we succeeded without
repeating the mistakes of the Sorcerers."

Vailret lit another
candle to replace one of those that burned low. He spoke up. "That's where
Enrod and Sardun had their differences, I think.

Sardun wanted to
enshrine the memory of the Sorcerers. Enrod wanted to work at keeping human
characters alive and safe. Is that right?"

Mindar nodded. She
kept her eyes lowered. "By using Taire to forge swords, Scartaris struck
another psychological blow
―
it makes his victory more fun to him.
Imagine, Tairans making weapons!

She sat brooding,
thinking. They fell into silence, waiting for the night to pass. The Cailee
took to scratching along the stone walls outside their room, then howling in
the echoing basement.

"How many more
years are we going to have to stay here like this?" Bryl asked.

"Time flies
when you're having fun," Journeyman answered.

They waited.

They sat in silence,
listening to the ticking, random noises of the room. Outside, they heard quiet
shuffling, the unknown movements of the Cailee that were even more frightening
in their stealth than the occasional violent crashes against the door.

They sat for hours
with no way of knowing how much time passed. They heard nothing from the
Cailee. Bryl huddled in the blue robe, running his gnarled fingers through his
gray beard. Journeyman appeared dormant.

Delrael looked at
Vailret and Mindar. "Do you think it's morning yet?"

Mindar stood up.
"We can see if the Cailee is gone. I'll go out. You watch the door."

Delrael began to
protest, but she cut him off. "No. If I find the Cailee, then I'll have
what I want." She lifted her sword. "If I don't find it, then we can
go to our work."

Delrael and Vailret
stood close to each other by the door with their own swords drawn. He imagined
the edge of the old Sorcerer blade clanging against the slash of silver claws.

Mindar popped up
the sturdy crossbar, and Delrael yanked the door open.

Mindar slipped
through the crack and vanished into the basement. He caught a glimpse of
grayish morning light before he and Vailret threw their weight against the door
to close it.

They listened, but heard
no immediate sounds until Mindar's quiet steps went up the stairs.

"Cailee!"
she cried.

Delrael tensed,
ready to yank open the door and run to fight with her, but they heard no
scuffle, nothing else.

She came back down
the stairs and stopped by the door. "It's all right.

The Cailee is
gone."

They opened the
door again. Mindar put her shoulders through. The anger in her eyes was
rekindled.

"I saw the
Cailee standing in the shadows. It was fading with the dawn light. I ran with
my sword, but it was too insubstantial. Now I'll have to wait for another
night."

She pushed open the
door. Delrael breathed the cooler air of the basement, saw the murky light that
filtered down from the narrow windows above, bright and clean after their night
in the storeroom. They looked at the sturdy wooden door and stopped.

The door had been
shredded. Great gouges and splinters were peeled away, torn out by hooked
silver claws. The iron pins of the hinges hung loose from the wall, nearly
pulled from the stone.

"That's not
going to last another night," Delrael said. Bryl swayed on his feet, but
managed not to faint.

When they got to
the open air and bright sunlight, Delrael stood blinking and breathing deeply.
He liked to be out where he could
do
something, where he could fight
―
not trapped like a victim in a cell.

Mindar looked
changed
―
strengthened. She had a bounce to her step, and her
demeanor did not seem so hopeless. "Come. I want to show you something."

She took Delrael's
elbow and led them through the streets. Nothing stirred. The Tairans seemed to
be hiding.

"I painted
this back when I was happy and idealistic." She pointed to one of the
frescoes on a building. "It was easy to think up nice things to paint
then, of our bright future and how the Game would continue forever. We were
going to make ourselves strong and self-sufficient. That's what we thought the
Outsiders wanted! To make lives of our own so we wouldn't be dependent on
them."

She led them to the
side of an old building with a flat expanse of hexagonal stone blocks.
"This one I did later."

A half-finished
fresco had been sketched on the blocks, but in the center of the wall the
soot-grimed plaster had been scrubbed away and overlaid with a fresh coating.
Mindar had drawn a new picture showing the mountains to the east. A great
featureless human figure towered over the landscape, holding his arms up in a
gesture of victory. But the fresco was finished, not just a sketch. She had
drawn the figure without features, but it had a mystique, a
power
to it.

"It's the
Stranger Unlooked-For," she said.

Vailret looked at
her, frowning as if trying to recall something he had heard. "Who was
that?"

"Nobody knows.
But he saved Gamearth." Mindar put her hands on her hips and walked over
to the wall, inspecting her artwork. "It was just after the Transition,
before Enrod established Taire, when the rest of the Gamearth characters were
fighting each other over who would rule the map."

"The
Scouring," Vailret said. Mindar ignored him.

"In the middle
of the desolation grew something that would have destroyed us all, something a
lot like Scartaris."

Mindar stared up
into the sky. "The Outsider David must have tried to end the Game once
before, and failed. He failed because the Stranger Unlooked-For came and
destroyed his monster. The Stranger used some kind of weapon more powerful than
anything ever used in the old Sorcerer wars. Nobody knows who the Stranger was.
Nobody knows how he succeeded in killing David's first monster. But we should
all remember him as a hero."

She took out her
rippled sword and rested its tip on the flagstones of the street. "I know
one thing, though. We can't count on the Stranger to return. We've got nobody
but ourselves to fight Scartaris."

Shuffling away from
the painting, Mindar kept her eyes averted. "Before we go, there's one
thing I want to do. I'll need your help. I hope you'll join me."

Bryl shifted his
feet uneasily.

"The journey
of a thousand miles begins with a single step," Journeyman said.

Mindar took a deep
breath. "Scartaris has one large smithy to fashion swords, and the tannery
to make shields. I want to destroy them before we go.

Strike a
psychological blow back at Scartaris. That'll teach him not to use Taire to
make his weapons."

Delrael looked at
the deserted streets and saw in his mind the dream that Enrod had, to raise the
city out of the desolation, to turn it toward the future. And he saw how
Scartaris had twisted that idea.

Yes, he liked the
thought of striking a real blow, now that Scartaris knew who they were anyway.
They no longer needed to keep their quest secret.

It was time to stop
hiding
―
time to start showing that they meant business.

"Yes."
Delrael met Mindar's eyes. "Let's do it."

Mindar smiled, and
Delrael felt a thrill, perhaps of fear, run down his spine. She looked
beautiful and determined, and more deadly than any weapon he had ever seen. The
angry red
S
-scar marred her forehead.

"Let me find
my mare. If we get horses for you too, we can increase our travel allotment,
get to Scartaris sooner."

Mindar led them
through the winding streets. Delrael noticed a few Tairans shuffling along
doing indecipherable tasks. They took no notice of the travelers. Mindar
pointedly did not look at them.

When they reached
the stables, Mindar's gray mare waited for them.

Mindar patted the
mare on the neck, and Delrael could see a genuine attachment between them. She
left the horse outside as she motioned the others in. Only two horses remained
in the stable.

"They've taken
three more." Mindar shook her head in disgust.

"Sometimes
Scartaris sends his monsters here to get weapons. Other times he has the
Tairans use horses to haul cartloads off to his army. The horses never come
back."

"There aren't
enough horses for us," Bryl said, although from the tone in his voice,
Delrael thought he sounded relieved. Bryl had never ridden a horse, and
probably wasn't thrilled at the idea.

"I don't need
one," Journeyman said. "I can keep up with any pace you set."

"Bryl's light
enough." Vailret stood beside the half-Sorcerer. "He can ride with
me. We'll take one horse. Del, you take the other. Mindar has her own."

Mindar nodded and
turned to the door. "Let's get going."

Delrael approached
one of the horses skeptically, a mottled brown gelding that appeared calm
enough. He ran his palm along the horse's shoulders and then, trying not to
look inexperienced, he scrambled on the gelding's back. Delrael held onto the
mane and swayed, finding his balance. The horse felt warm and vibrant under
him, strong and alive.

"Don't
worry," Mindar said, "You're a fighter character. You'll ride easily.
It's natural for you. Part of your characteristics."

Vailret watched his
cousin, then worked his way onto the other horse.

Bryl frowned, then
Journeyman picked him up bodily and set him in front of Vailret. The horses
seemed anxious to leave the stables. Outside in the street again, Mindar
mounted her own mare.

She stopped in the
square in front of the stables to where an iron bell, embossed with flower
patterns, hung over a stone foundation. Four Tairans shuffled from one building
to another, keeping their heads down and slouching. Their gray clothes and
sunken expressions made it impossible for Delrael to tell if they were even
male or female characters.

Mindar removed the
whip from around her waist and, holding onto the gray mare's mane with one
hand, she lashed out and struck the bell. A
gong
echoed through the streets.

The Tairans looked
up, gawked at her for a moment, then moved back inside. Mindar struck the bell
again with the whip and waited. Nothing stirred in the buildings. Her
expression turned dark and stormy. Tears glistened in her dark eyes. She rang
the bell twice more, then hung her head.

"Taire has
died," she said. "That bell should have brought all characters in the
city flocking to see what the danger was." She fastened her whip, then
urged the mare forward.

"We'll give
them some danger."

The smithy stood by
itself, surrounded by smoke and noise. On three sides, the alleys were broader
than usual. One wall of a nearby building had been knocked down to give greater
access for raw material to be shipped in, for weapons to be carried away. The
rubble lay where it had fallen; white chips and broken brick showed that the
wall had been intact not long before.

Smoke curled into
the bright, hot sky; feathery black stains smeared the smithy walls. A mound of
pig iron lay piled near the door. From the inside came gusts of heat and
banging sounds as Tairans worked on swords and shield frames.

"What are we
going to do?" Vailret said, squinting his eyes as if deep in thought.
"We can't burn it."

"I can still
cause a lot of damage." Journeyman smacked his fists together.

"We don't need
to destroy the buildings," Mindar said. "This is still my city. It
won't do any good to save Taire if we ruin it in the meantime.