Game Play (7 page)

Bryl stood to the
side, but Delrael leaned over the mouth in the mud.

Vailret looked
around for a stick, wondering if he should poke at it.

"Where's the
beef?" the mouth continued in a different voice again.

"Four out of
five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew
gum."

"This thing
isn't making any sense at all," Delrael said, glancing at Vailret.
"What is it?"

"What's up,
doc?"

A bulge pushed up
from the surface of the mud, then became a rounded lump straining harder until
it grew into a blockish, clumsily formed head made of clay. It drew a great gulp
of air through its mouth, then exhaled with a whistle through the caverns of
its nose.

"Ah, how sweet
it is!"

The head struggled,
then a neck emerged, forming out of the mud as it rose. The shoulders and torso
squeezed up as if forced out of a mold from below.

"I want to get
out of here," Bryl said.

The clay man
emerged from the bank until it stood as tall and as burly as Delrael. It flexed
both arms and blinked empty eye sockets. The clay man bent over the river,
splashed some water on its skin and rubbed down a few rough spots with its
hands.

"Well
surprise, surprise,
surprise
!" Then he turned to face the three of them.
The clay of his lips formed a wide, misshapen smile, showing soft sculpted
teeth. "You deserve a break today!"

He patted his clay
chest so hard that he made an indentation.

Perplexed, he
smoothed over the mark. Clay eyelids came down over the empty sockets, then
blinked up again.

"G'day, mate!
My name is Journeyman, your friendly neighborhood golem.

I'm from the
government
―
I'm here to help you. I was sent by the Rulewoman Melanie
to join your quest to destroy Scartaris. One for all and all for one!"

"All
character races were created by the Sorcerers to fight in their wars: humans,
Slac, khelebar, werem, ogres, ylvans. Do not forget, however, that the
Sorcerers also created individual monsters according to their imaginations.
Many of these monsters still wander the map with no other purpose than to cause
havoc. Questing characters should beware of such monsters, as their methods of
fighting will be unfamiliar, and their weaknesses will not be known."

Preface,
The Book
of Rules

The veteran Tarne
woke in the middle of the night with ice in his stomach and a crawly feeling on
his skin. He stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, and he knew the aurora in the
sky would speak to him again.

With the silent
step of a practiced fighter, he slipped out of his borrowed quarters in the
Stronghold's main building. He stood on the wide open grounds enclosed by the
hexagonal stockade walls.

The greenish light
of Lady Maire's Veil swirled and shone down upon him with visions of the
future.

Tarne stared
upward, heedless of the bunched muscles in his neck. He was able to see things
in the aurora ever since his head injury. It had been his last real fight, part
of Drodanis's vengeful ogre hunt after Cayon was killed....

Tarne had been
delirious for a while, slow to heal. His scalp felt as if it had been pierced
with white-hot needles, visions, ideas of what would come in future turns of
the Game. He shaved his head, exposing the network of scars, thin and thick,
from the knocks he had taken during other quests. With smooth skin on his head,
with nothing to stop the flow of thoughts, everything seemed clearer to him.
When he watched the shimmering aurora, sometimes everything fell perfectly into
place.

His last vision had
shown Gairoth invading the Stronghold with his army of ogres. Tarne foolishly
tried to fight against the prediction and led a group of desperate defenders,
to no avail. He could never force the visions to come to him
―
and
he could do nothing about what he saw.

Vailret insisted
that this kind of magic was fascinating in its own right. Tarne had no Sorcerer
blood, and as a pure human character he should have no magical abilities at
all.

But anomalies
happened. Gamearth operated on the Rules of Probability, where even unlikely
things were statistically possible. Tarne had visions of the future. Bryl's
former apprentice Lellyn, also human, could work any imaginable form of
sorcery. Even the mighty Earthspirits and Deathspirits, by their very
existence, tied the Rules in knots. It seemed that some things were more
powerful even than the Outsiders.

Tarne suspected
Gamearth had its own kind of magic the Outsiders knew nothing about. And that
magic was awakening in these last days of the Game.

The throbbing
aurora above confirmed his guess. Then sent him a message.

The green folds of
Lady Maire's Veil made him see images in his head.

They made no sense
to him, but a part of him understood:
Clenching, coiling, preparing to strike.
An enemy approaching, evil, death.

The bright white
streak of a meteor stitched across the aurora, startling Tarne. Then the
shooting star faded and was gone.

Tears ran down the
veteran's face. The chill night breeze made him feel cold tracks on his cheeks.
He was very afraid.

He had learned one
thing from his visions
―
fighting against them was useless. The visions
showed him only things over which he had no control. But at least he knew what
he had to do, what role he must play.

The night was
silent and cold. The next day would be the autumn equinox, when Sardun's
daughter Tareah planned to lead the villagers in a celebration of Transition
Day. When he thought of that, the veteran felt a pang inside. He went to the
gates of the Stronghold and opened them up.

He would tell no
one about this. It was better that way.

He walked across
the bridge covering the trench and worked his way down Steep Hill in the dark.
Tarne thought of too many things, and he tried to empty his mind of thoughts.
His entire body was in turmoil. He had no time for any of this. No time at all.

He walked into the
silent and darkened village until he reached his own home. He lit a candle. The
inside smelled musty, closed-in. He had covered all the windows now that he
spent most of his time guarding the Stronghold.

The light from the
candle jumped around the walls. He went to a corner of the room and dug his
fingernails into the wood of one of the hexagonal floor tiles. He lifted it,
then popped up the adjacent tile to uncover a shallow storage area he had dug
out beneath the floor.

Tarne paused, sighed,
then forced all the memories away. He reached in to pull out a long bundle
wrapped in rags. Peeling away the cloth, he stared down at the notched but
well-cared-for blade of an ancient sword. The sword had been used centuries
before in the old Sorcerer wars; it had been used in previous years when Tarne
himself was a fighter. The orange candlelight made it glow with the blood and
fire of past victories.

He reached under
the floor once more and pulled out his old suit of leather armor. He had oiled
it well before wrapping it up for storage.

Everything was
still intact, mended of scuffs and cuts, studded with chain links for extra
protection. He brushed off dust and powdered dirt. He never thought he would
need either the sword or the armor again.

Of all the fighters
of his generation, Tarne was left here alone. After his injury, he gave up
fighting and questing to become the village shearer and weaver. Some of the
designs of fate he saw in the aurora he wove into his personal tapestries; no
one but himself could understand them.

Tarne slipped on
the leather armor and patted it against him. He listened to the chains jingle
in the dimness. The armor seemed to grow on him again, become part of his body.

He held onto the
sword, gripping the handle. Yes, it felt right. His reflexes and all the old
training awakened. On impulse he whirled and slashed at the candle on the
table. The flame went out.

On her unfamiliar
bed, Tareah lay back but couldn't sleep. The lonely darkness did not comfort
her. Her bones and joints ached again; she wondered if it would ever get
better.

Back in the Ice
Palace, when she couldn't sleep she got up and wandered the cold rainbow halls,
or pick through Sardun's collection of ancient artifacts, or stand on the
balcony of the high tower and look out at the checkerboard of mountains and
wasteland terrain.

Tareah climbed out
of bed, feeling the cold air on her legs. Many thoughts kept her awake. She
missed Delrael and Vailret. It upset her that they hadn't taken her along, but
she was also frightened, overwhelmed that they had left her with the duty of
watching over the Stronghold.

Tareah dressed,
pulling one of Siya's warm shawls over her shoulders and tugged her boots on, a
pair of Vailret's old comfortable castoffs. She had plenty of things to do,
especially in preparation for tomorrow, the anniversary of Transition Day.

Her father had
pounded into her a respect and a wonder at the Game and the accomplishments of
her race. The villagers seemed to know nothing about their own heritage
―
yet human characters had undertaken many of the greatest quests, the most
difficult journeys. She was in awe of them for what they had done.

According to what
she had seen, though, the characters were drifting away from that way of life.
Instead of treasure hunting and fighting monsters, they had become farmers,
villagers, peaceful people. Siya said that they were sick to death of the
shallow, adventurous life.

Tareah crept into
the courtyard. The door moved silently as she opened it. The night air was cold
and fresh, warm compared to the nights far in the frozen north.

Transition Day. She
grinned with excitement. She would tell the story to all the villagers. They
could rejoice and be happy in their heritage, how Gamearth had come to be. And
then they would let off the fireworks.

Tareah smiled as
she strode across the courtyard to the weapons storehouse against one wall
segment. The storehouse held several small clay containers filled with
firepowder. Bryl, Vailret, and Derow the blacksmith concocted a powder that
would flash and explode in brilliant colors. She wondered what kind of magic
the sealed clay containers held
―
some fire spell rolled up inside
a little package? A hand-length of fuse dangled out from the containers. During
the celebration they would use an old catapult to fling the containers into the
air for the show.

She looked forward
to that most of all. Vailret talked about the spectacle, his eyes gleaming. It
would be like the meteor shower that came every autumn.

Vailret fascinated
her. He knew so many of the same things she did, they could talk for hours. But
Delrael kept her in awe. He was so much like the legendary fighter characters
she had read about. She adored listening to his adventures and his questing. He
was exactly what she expected a fighter character to be.

Bryl, though, she
did not know
―
he was a magic user, yet his attitude was strange
to her. She couldn't understand his bitterness or his reluctance to learn.

Leaving the
firepowder where it was, Tareah turned away from the door of the storehouse,
then stopped. Under the light of the aurora she could see the training
equipment in the yard. The wooden sword posts were monuments by themselves in
the shadows, the hanging sacks, the archery targets. They looked like
scarecrows in the darkness.

The Stronghold gate
stood wide open. Tareah stared at it, wondering how that could be. She heard
someone coming up the hill path. She didn't know if she should sound the alarm
or just watch.

A bulky
well-muscled man walked through the gate. He stood in shadow for a moment, then
closed and secured the gate. It took her a moment to recognize the veteran
Tarne
―
only now he carried a long sword she had never seen him
bear before. And he was clothed in leather armor. Metal chains jingled and
glinted in the faint light.

But Tarne would
never fight unless he had to. What was going on here?

The gate was
opened, Tarne was armed
―
treachery? Something none of them knew about?

Tarne had always
seemed completely on their side in the Game. But all characters were like
puppets on a string if the Outsiders decided to manipulate them....

On the verge of
saying something, Tareah paused and looked at the fighter from the shadows of
her hiding place. He did not know she was there.

She would watch and
see.

The veteran walked
slowly in his armor, as if under a burden. He seemed ... afraid, very tense.
But he moved with dignity. He walked to the training area and stood still. He
rested the sword tip on the ground in front of him, squared his shoulders, and
waited
for something.

Tracks of sparkling
tears ran down his cheeks. Sardun's daughter felt a shiver dance along her
spine. Was he betraying them?