Gameplay (21 page)

Mindar blinked. Her vision snapped back into focus. She stumbled, suddenly regaining her body.

In the back of her mind she heard a mocking voice, Scartaris laughing at her, telling her to watch. Watch him die. You will lose. You will always lose.

She didn’t know where she was, how she had gotten there or what was going on. She remembered nothing beyond the Cailee and the circle of firelight. And the pain, memories sparkling with pain.

Then she saw Delrael in the grip of the Slave of the Serpent.
Watch him die.
Scartaris had toyed with her, showed his power. Now he would have fun by letting her witness Delrael’s death.

* * *

The Serpent drew back to strike, and Delrael closed his eyes.

The snake’s head flashed downward as Delrael heard racing footsteps, a
swish
. It all happened too fast. He opened his eyes and saw the Serpent still descending toward him with its mouth open and fangs bared, but somehow the head had become severed from the body. Squirting blood, the snake’s head continued its arc, struck Delrael in the shoulder and bounced off. It fell on the sand, staring up with dead red eyes.

Mindar regained her balance and swung the rippled sword back through empty air, flinging droplets of the Serpent’s dark blood into the air.

Apparently stunned, the Slave released his grip and let Delrael fall to the ground. His right arm was still numb, but he managed to snatch up his sword as he scrambled out of the way. He heaved in great gasps of air. His ribs ached. Sand crusted the globs of yellow blood sticking to his leather armor.

Mindar stood poised and ready to fight the Slave, wearing a snarl on her lips. Her red
S
-scar glowed. She had returned. Delrael wanted to go to her.

The Slave pivoted around. Yellow blood drooled down the matted fur of his leg. He seemed to ignore the pain of the wound. He stared at Delrael with his liquid, anguished eyes. Then he gawked in awe at the ragged dripping stump of the Serpent. His face wore an impossible, stupefied expression. When he lifted up the dead Serpent, dark blood ran down his fingers, but the poison did not harm him.

Then he raised his huge paws into the air in a gesture of triumph. “
Sadic is free!
” The monster’s words were clumsy, as if the flat, plated mouth was not suited for speech. The Slave unwrapped the entwined body of the Serpent as if he were casting off a heavy chain.

Delrael continued to breathe hard. He didn’t know what to think. He saw Mindar raise her eyebrows.

Moving with obvious disgust, the Slave held the snake’s body away from him. Black blood drizzled from the decapitated end, leaving foul pools smoking on the ground. The Slave’s fur had been worn off in pink, raw-looking patches by the Serpent’s scales rubbing against his hide.

“Ring around the collar,” Journeyman mumbled out of the side of his mouth.

The Slave of the Serpent stalked to the edge of the deep crevasse. He raised the Serpent’s body over his head and, with a roar of exhilaration, cast it down into the void. Then he turned back to Delrael and Mindar, dragging his wounded leg behind him along a trail of thick yellow blood.

Delrael grabbed his sword, ready to fight again, though his aching ribs and numb arm protested. Mindar stood glaring at the demon. Journeyman, Vailret, and Bryl all joined them.

The Slave of the Serpent stopped and stared at them, pleading. He spread out his massive flat paws. “Sadic will not hurt you. You freed Sadic. You killed Serpent.”

“Just stay away, big fella,” Journeyman said.

The Slave kept his distance, trying to look harmless. He made no sudden moves. “Sadic will do no more harm.”

Then Mindar turned pale and sick looking. Her rippled sword fell to the ground. She staggered and dropped to her knees, making strange noises. She covered her face. Delrael heard her sobbing.

He put a hand on her shoulder, hesitant. She didn’t flinch. Then he put both arms around her in a hug. He felt her trembling, the spasms as she tried to control herself.

Mindar choked out words. “I don’t know what happened. All I remember is fighting the Cailee, and then the pain, and blackness.…”

“The Cailee almost killed you,” Delrael said quietly, soothing. “But Scartaris didn’t let you die. He … he controlled you. You were like the other Tairans. Your eyes …” He let the words trail off.

“Scartaris released me only so I could watch you die. For
fun.
” She looked up, and her dark eyes were filled with a complex mix of emotions.

“I saw my daughter, I think. She was like a dream in the darkness, and it’s fading. The more I try to hold onto the memory, the faster it slips away.” Mindar drew a hitching breath and pulled herself to her feet, brushing her singed green tunic. Feeling awkward, Delrael took a step away.

“The first thing I saw was you fighting. And the others were just standing there, not helping you. I knew what I had to do.”

Delrael saw Vailret flinch and shifted his short sword from one hand to the other. “The Serpent bound us with single combat protocol. We
couldn’t
help.”

Mindar let that sink in for a moment, and then a slow smile crossed her face. “Scartaris wanted to bind you with a strict interpretation of the Rules—and we turned the tables on him, hah! We can find loopholes, too. Since Scartaris kept me unaware of anything that was going on, I didn’t hear the challenge.” Her grin broadened. “I beat Scartaris with his own trick!”

Then her expression fell again and she became serious. “I learned one other thing, though—we’re already too late.

“Scartaris has informed his army that they will march tomorrow night. They will charge across the map, pillaging and laying waste to every hexagon. Even if you destroy Scartaris, there’s no way you can stop the whole army.”

Delrael felt betrayed. He wondered if the Earthspirits knew what Mindar had said, if they knew anything beyond Scartaris. In his belt, the Earthspirits gave no sign, no communication. If Mindar was right, then the quest, Tallin’s death, the first plea in the message stick from Drodanis—everything they had done was for nothing!

“One problem at a time,” Delrael said. At least they were questing and
trying
to do something. No one had thought of a better way to confront Scartaris.

The Slave made a grunting noise to attract their attention, but remained standing where he was. “Sadic will help.”

Delrael scowled at the hairy, reptilian monster, feeling his aching ribs. The Slave plastered his paw against the deep sword cut in his thigh to slow the bleeding.

“Serpent made Sadic do bad things. Scartaris controlled Serpent. You freed Sadic. Sadic will help. Sadic knows you want to destroy Scartaris.”

Bryl muttered, “Seems just about everyone knows that by now.”

“Remember Rule #3, about taking new companions,” Vailret said. “We could use all the help we can get, especially powerful help like that.”

“The plot thickens,” Journeyman said.

Delrael turned, still feeling weak from the combat. The wide white quest-path stretched across the desolation.

He saw the towering black cloud charging toward them, little more than a hexagon away. He heard an eerie buzzing sound, a cacophony of many noises, like a storm of voices, tormented souls. The cloud itself looked fuzzy and indistinct, rolling along the ground in thousands of frenzied pieces, large and small, looking for something to attack. Huge clouds of dust from its passage bubbled into the air.

“I want to see Scartaris destroyed,” Mindar said.

“Cross tunnel,” the Slave said. “Do not trust Sadic. He will cross by himself.”

Mindar nodded at Delrael. “Three of us should cross, then Sadic, then the last two. Otherwise he might push the tunnel bridge over the edge when we’re all inside it.”

“He looks strong enough to do it,” Delrael agreed.

Sadic hunched his hairy shoulders. “Yes. Go.”

They cast dice in the dust to see who would go first. Delrael, Vailret and Bryl won the rolls and stood at the edge of the foul-smelling opening. They entered the rotting and ancient bridge of vertebrae.

Wind whistled around and through the cracks. The dried sinews stretched taut, and the giant vertebrae swayed and rattled over the gulf. Delrael took the lead and put his boot on the rough, curved surface of the inner bone wall, checking his footing.

The passage was wide and tall. Delrael strode forward. He didn’t want to think about traps, didn’t want to worry. Gaps and holes between the segments of vertebrae showed too plainly the depths of swirling blackness far below, the shadows of things he didn’t want to see.

The sinews were dry and leathery, holding the vertebrae together. Delrael kept telling himself that armies had funneled through this, that heavy cartloads of supplies and pounding Slac regiments had gone through. The bridge would hold.

They pushed ahead and saw the other side not far away. He listened to Bryl whimper behind him. Then they hurried out of the last segment, anxious to be on solid ground again. Gasping and trembling, they emerged, each trying to cover the look of fear he wore.

Sadic came next. Delrael kept his sword drawn, uneasy. He could see the vertebrae in the tunnel sway as the massive Slave lumbered through and then emerged beside them.

“Sadic will not hurt you,” he said in a low voice, trying to be reassuring.

Mindar and Journeyman rapidly followed. The shadows grew longer around them with late afternoon.

“We should hurry,” Mindar said. “Within another day we’ll be near Scartaris. We have to be ready.”

Delrael swallowed in a dry throat. “We will be.”

They set off across the packed white quest-path.

* * *

The Serpent’s head lay on the sand. Its eyes remained dead and pupilless, storm-colored jelly. Then the eyes lit up, glowing red again.

Scartaris looked through them at the questers as they set off toward his mountain lair.

***

19. Professor Verne’s Extraordinary Journey

“I never realized the map was so huge. I never fully conceived of the parameters of Gamearth from one edge to the other. If the Outsiders can create such a world as a Game, then they must be powerful indeed.”

—Professor Verne,
Les Voyages Extraordinaires
(unpublished journal)

The steam engine car chugged along, hissing and sputtering. Professor Verne’s ears ring with the racket. The steel-shod wheels rattled along over the uneven and rocky terrain. Harsh sunlight made him sweat and scratch at his gray beard. His forehead and nose stung with sunburn—he didn’t usually sit unprotected in the open air for so long. His legs ached, and his buttocks felt sore from the bouncing ride hour upon hour, day upon day.

Grit and dust puffed into the air behind him, stirred up by the rolling car. Verne’s warm woolen coat lay wadded in the seat beside him, but he would not put it on until the sun fell toward the horizon and the air grew cool again.

The Sitnaltan weapon was secured in the seat behind him. One monitoring gauge stuck out on an elbow of pipe. Polished bronze rivets reflected against the old metal around the chamber that contained the deadly Outside power source. The controls of the weapon consisted only of a timer knob and a detonation button. Angled red fins protruded from the sides for no reason other than that Verne had dreamed it that way.

The vehicle rolled along. The desert sprawled out gray-brown and lifeless in front of him. For a while the sweeping emptiness of hexagon upon hexagon filled Verne with an awe at the sheer size of the Gamearth map. Then it all grew boring until he spent his time daydreaming and working out difficult ideas in his head.

In the pockets of his overcoat Verne had tucked neatly folded sheets of paper on which he scribbled concepts and designs for other inventions. Verne’s handwriting was difficult to read, and the diagrams were shaky—the vehicle jostled him too much as it bounced along. But neatness didn’t count. The ideas did.

The professor also kept track of his progress so he could mathematically deduce the variation in travel allotments while journeying long distances with the steam-engine vehicle. Rule #5 specifically listed walking rates, but the supplementary tables in
The Book of Rules
made no mention of the Sitnaltan car. Verne came to the conclusion that with the vehicle he could proceed at about three times the pace he could go on foot.

But even as he made the calculation in his head, something made an odd
clunking
noise inside the boiler of the steam engine. The clean white exhaust belching up from the stack hiccoughed, curled black for a moment, then dissipated entirely. The machine hissed. The vehicle clattered, then slowed, coming to a stop all alone on the dusty rocks. The boiler groaned again, and the pistons locked.

Verne pursed his lips. “Hmmmm,” he said, tugging at his beard. He climbed out and went around to the engine. He removed a toolkit from the sidebox and began to tinker, making sure nothing mechanical had gone wrong. But he had expected this to happen at any time …

At dawn, three days before, Professor Frankenstein had helped him carry the Sitnaltan weapon to the back of the vehicle. Before the Sitnaltan technicians were awake, shivering but ready for another day’s work excavating the Outsider’s ship, Verne and Frankenstein had filled the car’s main boiler and the reserve water tank from the stagnant cistern in the Slac citadel.

The boilers heated the water, raising the temperature and building up steam. Verne and Frankenstein waited, chatting, killing time and making plans. A few of the others stirred and came out into the frost-covered courtyard before the pressure-release valve in the boiler hissed, spitting out its announcement that the car was ready to travel.

Verne climbed aboard and made sure the weapon was safely secured. He waved to all of their puzzled expressions as the vehicle chugged forward, gaining momentum and traveling away from the citadel, out of the mountains.

All that day Verne rolled on without stopping, despite difficult times on the harrowing switchbacks of the forested-hill terrain, and then going through the easier forests or, better still, the hexagons of flat grassland. Black lines marking the sections of terrain passed beneath his wheels.

Verne consulted his own map of Gamearth to make sure he was indeed taking the shortest and most efficient route. He calculated the speeds and estimated travel allowances for the best types of terrain.

He made sure to keep well away from the city of Sitnalta, just in case the weapon detonated prematurely.

The first evening he had pulled up the vehicle and let the boiler fires run low. He found a stream and, handful by handful, he refilled the water tanks for the boiler. “Victor, why didn’t you remind me to bring along a simple bucket?” He sighed. “I hate poor planning.”

Verne lay down in the grass to sleep, but woke up in the middle of the night, cold. He curled up next to the metal of the still-warm boiler and slept again.

The second day he headed due east around sloping grassy hills, around a spur of the Spectre Mountains. When the mountains ended, he turned straight north across grassy hexes. At the end of the day, he entered the first section of desolation. Verne stared at the growing boundary where Scartaris’s influence had drained all life dry. The long-range detectors in Sitnalta had suggested this would occur.

Verne had spent the entire day moving across barren terrain, chewing up dust and sand and rocks. He felt thirsty, but he kept most of the water in reserve for the engine. His lips were cracked, and he felt grit between his teeth. He had covered five hexagons in one day.

But now, far from the Sitnaltan technological fringe, the steam engine had died. He couldn’t complain—the Rules of Probability stated that technological devices would have a smaller and smaller chance of functioning as they moved farther from the city of Sitnalta.

Verne tapped at one of the gleaming bronze piston shafts with a wrench, but it was no use. Unless he got the steam engine moving again, he could not destroy Scartaris, and Verne would be stranded out in the middle of the wasteland with a doomsday weapon powerful enough to blow a hole right through the bottom of the map.

Verne checked and rechecked the steam engine. He didn’t know what else to do. He could never carry the heavy Sitnaltan weapon by himself. Nothing
mechanical
was wrong—that much was obvious. Nor was it any surprise. He muttered to himself about the vagaries of Gamearth, and the rigid Rules that dictated everything. He hoped the Outsiders enjoyed making things difficult for him.

After the long day, he decided to reward himself with a precious cup of tea while waiting for the car to function again. He poured a little of the water out of his canteen into a tin cup from the car’s supply case, then used his fingertips to hold the cup over the flames by the boiler. He shifted his grip from one hand to the other as the handle grew hot, but the water began to boil at last. He sprinkled tealeaves into it. They swirled with the heat currents in the water, and sank to the bottom as they let brown coloring seep into the cup. Steam rose from the hot tea.

Then Verne stood up so quickly he sloshed some of the tea onto his pants. “Incredible!” he cried as the idea struck him. This was one of his own ideas, something clearly his own, not inspired by the Outsider Scott at all.

Here, far beyond the Sitnaltan technological fringe, water still boiled, did it not? Steam still rose, did it not?

He set his cup in a depression on the ground and went to the engine of the car. With both hands, he grabbed the pistons and pulled them out, pushed them back in. Yes, the pistons still moved, one cylinder inside the other.

The steam engine was a simple machine. He knew how it worked. Not a thing could go wrong.

It made no sense. Nothing got Verne more frustrated than things that
made no sense
. He knitted his eyebrows and pursed his lips, pacing around and around the steam-engine car. He grew angry.
There was no reason for it!
His face grew red with emotion, and he pounded his fist against the side of the boiler.

The Rules he had made a part of his life were completely arbitrary! Yes, he had always accepted that Sitnaltan technology would not function beyond the fringe—but when inspected closely,
all
technology was based upon fundamental laws of nature. Simple principles.

“It’s not fair!” he shouted up, as if the Outsiders were listening. He hoped they were. He would throw their own arbitrariness back into their faces.

“I am beyond the technological fringe, yes—but what is the reason for this vehicle not working? Water still boils. Steam still rises. A piston will still move up and down. Wheels still turn.

“Everything in this vehicle
must
work, even on the other side of the fringe! I have used nothing out of the ordinary here. Just boiling water, rising steam, and turning wheels.”

The sky remained silent and empty.

“You had better rethink your rules and restrictions.”

Verne coughed because his throat was dry and caked with dust. In annoyance he kicked the iron-shod wheel of the car with his heel.

The steam engine sputtered and gasped, surging back to life. Startled by the noise, Verne jumped out of the way. The vehicle lurched ahead, rumbling along the quest-path by itself.

Verne blinked and smiled. His tea sat ready on the ground, but he had no time to go get it. The vehicle moved farther away, picking up speed. He ran to catch up with it.

* * *

By noon the next day the steam-engine car labored up a slope. The rock outcroppings had gotten larger and more jagged. Verne had to devote more attention to steering around sharp boulders and other debris that could cause serious damage to the vehicle.

He began to grow concerned. The water level was going down in the main boiler, and he had already used the auxiliary tank. But according to his calculations, based on data he’d taken from the Sitnaltan detectors, he should be nearing Scartaris. And the doomsday weapon was still intact.

When the steam-engine car came to the crest of the hill, Verne looked down over a vast basin. A hooked line of jagged mountains bordered hexagon upon hexagon of desolation. Ah, he thought, those cliffs would be where Scartaris dwelled.

But in front of him, spread out in encampments, was the greatest horde of monsters he had ever imagined. They seemed unreal to him, all those creatures the Sitnaltans had ignored for turn after turn.

Verne pulled the car to a stop and then coaxed it into the shelter of a broken rock outcropping. The professor dismounted from the car, removed an optick tube from the sidebox, and peered down at the armies.

He saw marching angular-faced Slac covered with scales. He turned the field of view to observe monsters of all kinds, stone gargoyles, hairy brutes, a few ogres, worm-men sloughing through the broken sand in churned paths, green-skinned and pointy-eared goblins in their breeder groups.

On his scraps of paper, Verne noted the main features of each monster he saw, documenting them for future reference. With his interest in biological matters, Victor Frankenstein would probably delight in such first-hand observations.

Then Verne realized that each of these monster soldiers would stand in
his
way, block his passage to Scartaris. They would want to attack him, capture him, perhaps kill him. He suddenly considered what might happen if these unpleasant creatures managed to possess the powerful Sitnaltan weapon. He and Victor had not thought of that.

“This could cause a problem,” he muttered to himself.

A direct road led to the mountains. He saw a wide but steep path heading directly to a great opening in the flat cliff like a lipless mouth of rock. Strange and oily colors flashed from inside the broad cavern.

As he expected, the Outsiders would make the lair of Scartaris wonderfully obvious. Reaching it, though, would be the primary problem.

He shut off the boilers in the steam engine, remembering that he had to remain hidden. The car would make plenty of noise when he restarted it. When he decided to move, he would have to make all possible speed to his goal and hope he could cover enough terrain, to get to a place where he could detonate the weapon … before the monsters got him.

Verne sat with his back against the shaded rock and took out his last clean piece of paper. He jotted down notes to himself, waiting for dark.

***