Game Play (39 page)

Vailret pulled his
short sword from the dead Slac general, but looked at it, not knowing what to
do. He couldn't fight Journeyman.

The golem sighed.
"Don't you know yet who I am?" He cocked his head.

"My
predecessor was Apprentice, many turns ago. I am Journeyman." He let the words
hang in the air. The lights from deep in the grotto flashed weird patterns on
the ceiling.

"I am the
Stranger Unlooked-For."

Gairoth jammed his
knees in the cramped seat of Professor Verne's steam-engine car. The vehicle
toiled along up the hill toward Scartaris. He had seen the bat-creature take
Delroth toward the mountain. The car moved faster than he could run.

Gairoth let his
spiked club dangle outside the vehicle, pinging against rocks that bounced up
from the ground. He saw the great cavern on the mountain face and knew that
Delroth would have gone there.

"Haw!" he
said. His arms were tired. His legs were tired. His feet were sore. He had
traveled across the map to get Delroth. He would bash Delroth's head in for
causing him so much trouble.

He shifted his
knees, banging against the steering levers, and squirmed. The seat was
uncomfortable, soft and human, and the space too confined for his bulky arms
and legs.

The vehicle rolled
up the slope, paused as if to gather its bearings, and then moved on its preset
course.

Beside him, the
Sitnaltan weapon continued to tick.

Gairoth bounced up
and down, anxious to see any sign of Delroth. But then the steam-engine vehicle
caught its wheels against the strewn boulders and stopped halfway up the side
of the mountain on a blind switchback. The steam engine hissed and belched
curls of gray smoke out its stack, but it could not move forward.

Gairoth fumed and
tried to stand up in the cramped front of the car. He banged his knee. He
roared in wordless rage and waved his club in the air. He couldn't even see the
cave; one of the curved rock spires blocked his view.

He hopped out and
tugged at the wheel, trying to get the vehicle to move on and find Delroth. He
hollered at the useless car. When the vehicle made no response, Gairoth lashed
out and kicked it with one big, bare foot.

The Sitnaltan
weapon jarred on its seat, tipping over against the side of the car. The timer
mechanism smashed and jammed. The ticking fell silent only seconds before its
detonation was to occur.

Gairoth grumbled at
the immobile vehicle and strode up the hill on foot.

Journeyman marched
down the low-ceilinged path, heading deep into the mountain where Scartaris
controlled his armies. The golem's soft clay feet slapped on the stone floor.
The temperature grew hotter around him.

His quest and his
reason for existence had almost reached its end. He knew he would succeed.

"Please,"
Journeyman had told Vailret, "I have enjoyed knowing you. I don't want to
overcome you by force. Take Delrael and head for the hills! I ... don't know
exactly what I'm about to do or what will happen."

Vailret had finally
agreed to take Delrael with him, leaving the golem alone to face Scartaris.

Journeyman felt a
buzzing around him, power flickering unseen in the air. His body tingled when
he moved ahead. Lights and echoes and frightening images floated around him, as
if Scartaris was trying to frighten him away.

But nothing could
stop him now. He molded a determined expression on his face, squaring his
shoulders.

The prospect of
fulfilling his purpose brought him to a peak of ecstasy he had not known
before. He felt his secret weapon growing inside, pulsing, ready to be
released.

The Rulewoman
Melanie would be so proud of him.

Ahead, he heard the
sound of grinding rock, a restless, awesome force.

The passage opened
up, and Journeyman emerged onto a ledge overlooking a vast pit, the heart of
the mountain.

Below him lay
Scartaris.

Immense, huge
beyond comprehension, bathed in colors that would have blasted human eyes from
their sockets. Fluorescent orange and yellow and burning pink. Scartaris was a
swelling, pulsing blob of energy, shaped like a vast brain the size of a small
mountain.

The golem sensed
vibrations around him. The air itself throbbed and pushed at him as he stepped
to the edge. The rock tensed, as if Scartaris could collapse the mountain on a
whim, but Journeyman didn't hesitate. He stood glaring down at the Outsider
David's monster. He planted his balled fists on his hips.

"You know I'm
here, Scartaris. But you don't know enough to be afraid," he shouted down
into the roar. The colors on the blob shifted and moved.

Scartaris was
listening to him.

He craned his head
down on his flexible clay neck. "The Outsider David created you
―
and the Rulewoman Melanie created me. You show off your power in extravagance.
I carry mine hidden. The Rulewoman placed it in me. She knows your
vulnerability."

Scartaris shifted
and raised up. Disturbed rocks pattered down from the ceiling. All the air
around Journeyman seemed like a bowstring ready to snap, but he continued,
spilling his words like a well rehearsed speech.

"We are only
imaginary characters created by the Outsiders. We have one great weakness,
something none of us can withstand. It's a simple thing, a speck of dust from
Outside, a piece of another world that is so deadly to us.

"The Rulewoman
Melanie brought it here, painted it into the map, inside me. It has made me see
visions, made me speak of things beyond the boundaries of Gamearth.

"Now it must
be released."

Journeyman ran a
finger down the length of his chest, pushing a crease into the soft clay like a
long zipper. He plunged his hands into his own skin and split a seam down the
middle. He opened himself up where his heart would have been. Out of the cracks
spewed a powerful white light, blinding bright.

"Scartaris,
behold the power of something you cannot possibly withstand. Gaze upon pure
reality!"

The light blasted
outward as the golem spread his chest wide, folding back his body to make a
great window, showing his core.

"It
worked!"

"What did you
do, Mel!"

"God, look at
that thing!"

"David, you're
sick. It's disgusting."

"It's real! I
can't believe it
―
it's real!"

"No, we're
real. And nothing there can stand it."

Journeyman did not
dare look himself, but he listened to the astonished voices. One of them set
him trembling, and he recognized the Rulewoman Melanie. He felt the clay
dissolving from the inside out as his core of reality poured out.

Scartaris made an
agonized wail that ripped through the seams of the map itself and caused all
the fighters on the battlefield to stagger on their feet. He lurched back,
quivering against the jagged walls of the stone chamber. Journeyman knew he
could not get away.

Scartaris could not
withstand even the sight of naked reality. He began to wither and shrivel as
parts of the great bulk sloughed away into nothing, fading.

Delrael felt his
ears ringing with a roar of blood, and he could not focus his eyes. Somehow,
Vailret was beside him, pulling him to his feet, dragging him out of the
grotto. His vision went dim again, then sharpened around the edges.

Vailret bent over
and picked up the silver belt on the floor. The Earthspirits! Pieces fell into
place in Delrael's mind.

"Del, can you
hold this? Do you want to carry it?"

He grunted and
nodded his head, but that made the rushing sound inside grow louder. The cold
air snapped into his eyes, and after several breaths he felt more alert.

"Mindar
―
" he said. His voice came out in a croak.

"She's
dead," Vailret answered. "She died de fending you from the Slac, I
think. Is that what happened? Is that how you got injured?"

The memories came
clear in his head, and Delrael stumbled on the steep path. Vailret caught him
and held him up, thinking his cousin still too weak to run. Delrael hurried
along
―
Vailret didn't know the truth about Mindar.

She would have
wanted it that way.

"Yes. That's
what happened."

Vailret led him
down a steep, narrow path on the other side of Scartaris's mountain, down to
the black hex-line in front of the battlefield.

They ran, and
Delrael found his strength coming back. The dizziness drifted away from him. "Journeyman
―
?"

Vailret hesitated,
then tugged on his cousin's arm. They crossed the hex-line and staggered onto
the soft dirt of the desolation terrain. "He's gone to Scartaris, to use
the Rulewoman's weapon. He told us to run as far as we can."

The other monsters
on the battlefield seemed to have lost their heart for the fight. Delrael
turned and looked up at the jagged lair of Scartaris.

The strange lights
were flashing in wild colors.

Gairoth stood
panting in the opening of the grotto as he looked back out at the massed dim
soldiers far below. He had climbed half the mountain, it seemed. His feet hurt.
The wound in his ankle from the Slave of the Serpent throbbed and made him
angry.

He didn't know what
the fighting was about, why the monsters had gathered. He only wanted to find Delroth.
He suspected the fighter had something to do with it all.

Delroth always made
trouble.

Inside the grotto
bright lights flashed different colors from a tunnel at the far end. The sight
gave him a headache. On the floor he saw two bodies, one woman and one Slac. He
curled his lip.

He squinted his one
eye and stared down the tunnel, but he could not make out the source of the
flashing lights, the throbbing roar that clutched at the back of his head.
Gairoth didn't want to think about it. He was too tired and too angry.

The burning colors
seemed to beckon him. Yes, Delroth must be down there, down in the tunnel.
Gairoth stooped under the low ceiling. He would sneak up on Delroth, find him,
and bash him. He made sure not to drag his club against the floor as he worked
his way forward.

Gairoth thought of
his lost dragon Rognoth and of his flooded cesspools. All Delroth's fault. The
ogre snarled and ground his teeth together as he stomped forward, then
remembering the need for stealth, tried to move quietly again.

Gairoth squeezed
the end of his spiked club. He had followed Delroth across the map, and now he
would get his revenge.

But when he moved
past the last turn, the ceiling opened up above him into a huge vaulted cavern.
―
He stopped and wheezed. The light danced in front of his eyes,
some of it real, some of it burning reflections on his retinas.

He sensed something
was wrong. Something was going on. The bright lights and the heat and the
roaring power channelled into the center of the mountain seemed to be
screaming, fighting back in ways that Gairoth could not understand.

Then he noticed
Journeyman. The golem had his back turned and stared down into the pit, shining
something out of his chest.

The clay man had
been with Delroth! Back in the forest, he had smashed Gairoth on the head and
helped steal the little ylvan. The ogre frowned. If he could not get Delroth
right now, he would at least get this clay man.

He stepped up
behind Journeyman on the ledge, raised his club to his shoulder, and belched
out a loud "Haw! Now I got you!"

He drew back his
club to swing, smiling, peeling his thick lips away from brown teeth.

Startled, the golem
turned around, pivoting on a flexible clay waist.

Gairoth saw that he
had opened up his chest
―
but his insides seemed to be a bottom
less window, an opening shining out into some other place. He gawked at the
vision, and for a fraction of a second he saw four humans crouched and staring
down at him. Strange objects were scattered around the table along with food
and colored dice.

"It's
Gairoth!"

Someone bumped over
a glass and scrambled to catch it, spilling soda.

Gairoth gaped his
mouth like a dying fish and then the reality of what he was seeing struck him.
Bright light washed over him and into him.

He felt a blinding
wonder, and despair, as his skin seared away, disintegrating into nothingness.
A long, low "Awwwww..." echoed in the air.

With nothing to
hold it up, his spiked club dropped clattering to the ledge, bounced once, and
pitched over to vanish in the molten blob of Scartaris.

But in the moment
that Journeyman turned away, Scartaris seized the opportunity and flexed his
remaining power.

He brought the
entire mountain down upon Journeyman, sealing the reality beneath uncounted
tons of rubble.

The earthquake
threw Delrael and Vailret to the ground. Delrael rolled onto his back to watch
the mountain collapse. The horned peaks toppled aside in an enormous tremor
that shook the heart of the map itself.