Gameplay (7 page)

“But how do
you
know it’s there, Journeyman?” Delrael asked.

Journeyman shrugged his shoulders in a ripple of gray-brown clay. “It’s marked on the map the Rulewoman Melanie uses.”

The forest all around them looked the same as always, with tree and shrubs, vines, moss, and the faint but clear trail leading toward the east. But around midday the birds and insects fell silent, replaced with the sounds of a struggle and a chilling, familiar bellow.

“Haw! Haw! Haw! BAM!”

Terror jabbed like an icicle down Bryl’s spine. He knew that sound—Gairoth. He remembered being captured, drugged, placed inside a giant jellyfish in a stinking cesspool in the swamps. The massive ogre had forced Bryl to teach him how to use the Air Stone.…though an ogre should never have been able to use magic.

Delrael stopped and cocked his head. He looked concerned, then a smile drifted onto his face.

Vailret met his cousin’s eyes. “Be careful, Del. Gairoth almost got you last time.”

Delrael appeared to be intensely aware of everything around him. Bryl had seen him this way before. The fighter motioned the rest of them to silence, then he crept ahead through the underbrush.

Bryl would have been perfectly content to remain where he was, to turn and bypass the ylvan village. But then they heard a thin, angry voice piping out. “Go away and eat rocks, you Loser! Why don’t the rest of you help me?”

Vailret moved ahead to join his cousin, and Journeyman nonchalantly shouldered branches aside. Bryl held the Fire Stone in one hand and the Air Stone in the other—even with all that power, he felt frightened of Gairoth.

They looked through a clearing of branches, dry moss, and some leaves blushing with color from an early autumn frost. Massive trees stood straight and high, crowded together, but the undergrowth in one area had been cleared away. Dangling from the lower and intermediate branches of the great trees hung large globes of woven sticks and grass and leaves, meshed together and sealed with hard golden sap. The sap varnish glistened in the light of a small fire on the ground and the green-filtered sunlight above.

The hanging “nests” were the dwellings of the ylvan. Clumsily mounted pelts hung drying, and rotting, on a few branches. On the ground, four of the little people, about chest-high to Bryl, stood by a smoky fire. Beside them, arranged rocks marked a communal gaming area that looked as if it hadn’t been used in weeks.

The ylvans’ hair was dark reddish brown, their eyes deep-set but dull, as if a milky film of cataracts had crawled over them. The men wore trimmed and pointed beards; the woman’s hair had been tied in green ribbons. The ylvans all wore outfits of leather dyed green and crosshatched with blotches and stripes that would make them invisible as they moved among the tree branches.

The fire had died to embers, untended. Too late, one of the ylvans had added a leafy green branch to the fire, which only made pungent smoke curl up to the sky.

“Master woodsmen?” Delrael whispered to Vailret. “Looks pretty sloppy to me.”

Vailret appeared concerned. “But the ylvan are supposed to be shadows in the trees, expert ambushers. Something’s wrong.”

Near the ylvans in the clearing stood Gairoth the ogre, looking befuddled and angry. His muscles knotted like a twisted tree trunk. His one eye glowered at the four listless and dazed ylvans who stood by their fire and refused to shrink away from him in terror, or even to take notice of the ogre at all.

Fear made Bryl cringe even from his hiding place. Gairoth’s furs were stained, worn, and falling apart; the spikes on his wicked club were pitted and rusty. Gairoth’s eye was bloodshot, underhung with a bag of tired skin. The ogre’s skin was grayish and unhealthy looking, peeling with splotches and rashes. He appeared miserable and furious.

Journeyman had an exaggerated expression of distaste sculpted onto his face. “Gross! Gag me with a spoon!”

Gairoth waved a ham-sized hand of dismissal at the four ylvans by the fire and looked around the rest of the dangling settlement. He strained upward and swung the club to rip out the bottom of one of the low-hanging nest dwellings. Dirt and twigs pattered down onto the ogre’s head, and he snorted in annoyance. But then some ylvan possessions tumbled out: small wood carvings, colorful flowers, pots containing gems and small bits of treasure. Basket-like furniture, a chair perhaps, fell partway through the opening and then caught.

One of the other ylvan picked up a crossbow and turned it around. She paused, as if forgetting what she had been about to do, and then reached for an arrow. The ylvan dropped the arrow, bent over with sleepy slowness and tried three times before she managed to pick it up. When she finally fitted it into the crossbow, she gestured at the ogre and fired. The arrow missed.

Bryl heard a sound inside the torn nest, a sluggish movement. Gairoth hooked the bottom of the gash with the spikes of his club, then pulled it down until he could reach it with his fingers. The branches above creaked.

The ogre pawed around into the opening until he grabbed something. He tugged, and an old ylvan tumbled out to land roughly on the ground with little more than a grunt of surprise.

Gairoth scowled. “Bah—too old.”

The ylvan sat where he was on the dirt. His dark eyes were also covered with a milky dullness. He reached inside his camouflaged tunic, withdrew a knife, and stared at it.

“You leave him alone!” The piping voice came again, and an arrow whizzed through the air to stick in the ogre’s furs. Gairoth roared.

Bryl looked around to see. Finally he spotted another ylvan blending into the tree shadows. This ylvan was younger than the others, with barely a fuzz of beard along his cheeks and chin. He swung around from where he hung halfway up one of the trunks, then slithered down looped ropes set into the side of the tree. He landed on his feet.

“Come on, you big clod!” The ylvan shot another crossbow arrow that nicked Gairoth’s chin, enough to make him roar.

The little man crouched and glanced at the ylvans by the fire, at the old man who had been torn out of his home. Bryl noticed other dull faces peering from openings in the hanging dwellings. Somewhere above, in a long-delayed reaction, a child screamed. No one seemed aware of what was going on. Some moved slowly, half-asleep; others shook their heads, as if to drive away a buzzing that overpowered their thoughts.

Gairoth strode across the clearing. In only three steps he towered over the young forest man who had defied him. The ylvan stood his ground.

The ogre yanked out a sack tucked into his fur garment, popping another of the seams in the shoulder. As the ylvan nocked another arrow, Gairoth scooped him up and pawed him into the sack.

Two of the ylvans by the fire had taken out their own crossbows. One tried to fire without first nocking an arrow.

The young ylvan continued to struggle, but Gairoth twisted the mouth of the sack shut and tossed the bundle over his back. The little man cried out as he struck the ogre’s shoulder blades. The bag squirmed and kicked, venting forth muffled curses, but Gairoth ignored it. He let out a gravelly sigh that sounded like heavy furniture scraped across a stone floor.

Gairoth did not look happy, but resigned. “Fresh meat not good like
aged
stuff.”

He glared at the other ylvans who stared down at their crossbows and knives, as if struggling to remember what to do with them. Above, the child screamed again. Gairoth looked at the broken nest home, at the dazed old ylvan man on the ground who had finally succeeded in picking himself up.

The ogre sneered and, swinging his club in front of him, he stomped off to the other side of the clearing. Bryl could hear him mutter while he crashed along. Occasionally Gairoth would smash his club against a tree, grumbling “Delroth! BAM! Delroth! BAM!”

Vailret turned to his cousin. “I think he still remembers us. Wasn’t Delroth his name for you?”

Delrael pursed his lips and nodded. “Just no pleasing some people.”

“Well, ah, we should get on with our journey now.” Bryl could not keep his voice firm. He felt obligated to try and make them see sense, to set their priorities. But he
knew
what they were going to do anyway.

“We have to go rescue him. It’s part of the Game, you know.” Delrael sounded distracted when he answered, already making plans.

“We need to continue our quest and destroy Scartaris.” Bryl tried one more time. “Journeyman, you have to get there, too. We can’t delay.”

Journeyman pondered before answering. “Incidental adventures don’t happen by accident. There’s always something to be gained. Look in
The Book of Rules
.”

Vailret raised his eyebrows at him. “I thought you didn’t want to go on this quest in the first place, Bryl.”

“I don’t! But I don’t want to face Gairoth again, either. You don’t know what he did to me!”

“Yes we do,” Vailret and Delrael answered together. “You’ve told us enough times.”

“Well, why didn’t we fight back right then, when the other ylvans could help?”

“They didn’t help him,” Delrael said.

Bryl sat down heavily. Branches and leaves cracked beneath him, and he found his seat very uncomfortable. Arguing further would be wasted effort.

He hated questing.

***

6. Tallin and the Ogre

“The Outsiders do not Play fair. Of all character races, ours is the smallest, the weakest, the fewest. We ylvans have faced more persecution, a greater number of attacks, a higher level of misery. We are the scapegoats of the Game.”

—Kellos, ylvan village leader

Delrael led the others along the path, waiting for the ogre to stop so they could put their plan into action. The air around them smelled damp and muddy.

Gairoth found a hollow where puddles of water stood among sunken trees and mashed leaves. Marks showed where a creek gathered during the rains of the spring. He squatted down on the wet earth, crossed his pale and puffy legs, then wiggled his buttocks into a better position. He contemplated the squirming sack in front of him.

Gairoth had tied the end in a knot, but now he couldn’t get it undone with his clumsy fingers. The ogre worked at it, trying not to tear the sack. He pursed his thick lips and glared at the bundle.

The scrappy ylvan struggled inside the sack. “Let me out of here, you Loser! Your breath smells like a dung heap!” One of the small arrows poked through the cloth and jabbed Gairoth in the palm. The ogre cried out, then slapped at the sack with enough force to roll it over.

Gairoth rose to his feet. Clods of mud and dried leaves stuck to his backside. “Gairoth squash you flat! Be like pudding! Haw! Too hungry to let you age right!” He raised the spiked club over his head to pound the sack.

Delrael prodded Journeyman’s shoulder, but the golem was already in motion, striding through the trees and making no effort to hide himself. He swelled up his clay chest, contorted his facial features into an angry grimace, and cleared his throat. “What’s all this then?”

Gairoth bristled for a moment, stunned. He held the club in front of him.

Journeyman continued with a sigh of impatience. “Are you going to release that young fellow without any trouble, or must we go through the motions of humiliating you with a drawn-out defeat?”

Gairoth hefted the giant club on his shoulder like a baseball bat. “No talk! You trick Gairoth! I kill you!”

Journeyman waved his wide clay hands in a gesture of dismissal. “Go away, boy, you bother me. I’m not trying to trick you. I’m being perfectly up front with what I want. Give us the little man back, that’s all.”

“Bam!” Gairoth lurched one step forward, snarling.

Journeyman stood his ground. The expression on his face became cold and tough. He intoned in a low, threatening voice, “Go ahead, make my day!”

Gairoth swung the club down with all his might—and squashed Journeyman flat with a wet thud. The golem’s head and chest caved in, oozed out to the side. He looked like a giant mud ball someone had stepped on.

Vailret let out a gasp of surprise. Delrael surged to his feet, blinking in shock. So much for the help the Rulewoman Melanie had sent them. He drew his sword and cried out.

“Gairoth!” The fighter charged into the clearing before he could think about what he was doing.

Gairoth stared down at the flattened golem with an expression of disappointment. But when he heard Delrael approach, his jaw dropped, then he grinned with angry glee. “Delroth!”

He pulled his club free of the wet clay with a sucking noise and turned to meet the fighter. “Haw! Haw!”

“Del! What are you doing?” Vailret called.

“Oh no,” Bryl said.

But Delrael paid no attention. He landed with both feet spread, holding the sword out. He seemed pitifully small against the ogre. Vailret’s father must have looked like this, fighting alone against an ogre—and dying.

“Gairoth be hurt by you!” Drool ran down the ogre’s chin. “Cesspools gone, Rognoth gone.

Now I kill you! BAM!”

Delrael became acutely aware that he had worked out no plan for this situation. Maybe Vailret had a point in suggesting that characters think things through prior to taking action.

Before Gairoth could make good his threat and swing the club, Delrael lunged in. He slashed sideways and then up, cutting a gash on the inside of the ogre’s thick arm. It was a minor wound, but it must have stung. Delrael skipped back, dodging forest debris.

As expected, Gairoth yowled in pain and swung with all his might, almost overbalancing himself. Delrael jumped out of the way and tried to run behind the ogre for another thrust. Maybe if he could slash Gairoth’s other arm and make him drop the club—but the ogre swung his weapon again and Delrael had to block it directly with his sword. A crash rang through the forest.

Delrael’s arm went numb from fingertips to shoulder. He couldn’t even tell if he still held his sword or not.

Delrael shook his head, stunned. He tripped backward on some of the branches underfoot, rolling as he fell. The sword dropped beside him and he picked it up with his left hand. He didn’t know how to fight with his left hand.

“Haw! Haw!” Gairoth said.

“Are you guys going to help me or what!” Delrael shouted.

Bryl took out the Air Stone and the Fire Stone and shuffled them from one hand to the other. “Do something!” Vailret said.

Bryl said, “Which one should I use?”

“I don’t care!”

Bryl picked up the Fire Stone, looked at it, then closed his eyes. He tossed it on the forest floor, hoping for a high number. He rolled a “1.” His spell failed.

“Wouldn’t you know it?”

“Gairoth, you big dummy!” Vailret cried out as he ran downhill into the hollow. It was an impulsive act, something Delrael might have done. He pulled out his short sword, though he had no idea what good it would do against the ogre. He slipped in the mud but grabbed branches to keep his balance and plunged on.

The ogre looked up, giving Delrael a moment to roll farther away. The rusty spikes on the club looked sharp, and thicker than Delrael’s fingers.

From the sack, the point of an arrow emerged again, opening a gash. Little hands poked through and tore the material, sawing with the arrow tip, until the young ylvan poked his head through. He squirmed with his shoulders until he finally got the sack down about his waist. He didn’t try to climb out, but instead grabbed his crossbow, nocked an arrow, and shot it.

The arrow struck the back of Gairoth’s wide left leg. The ogre released the club with one hand and slapped at the arrow. In doing so, he let the heavy club fall to his side, banging his own knee.

Delrael climbed to his feet, propped on his sword. With his left hand he bent the other arm to raise the blade and block another blow. His shoulders were trembling, and he knew he wouldn’t be strong enough.

But behind Gairoth, the flattened bulk of Journeyman squirmed. The golem rose back up, reforming himself from the soft clay. Without a sound, he pushed his head and shoulders into shape out of the central mass of mud and drew more moisture from the soft forest floor.

His chest and legs rippled, redistributing the clay, flowing most of it into one forearm and fist that became as massive as the golem’s body core itself, one giant hand the size of a heavy boulder.

“Just what the doctor ordered, Gairoth. Have a taste of your own medicine.”

Before the ogre could turn in response, Journeyman slammed his huge fist down on Gairoth’s head. “BAM! See how you like it.”

The ogre’s eye rolled up. His jaw dropped slack, and he tumbled like a falling tree, face first into the mud and leaves. His club fell beside him.

Journeyman slapped his palms together in finality. “How do
you
spell relief?”

* * *

They left Gairoth stone cold in the hollow as they hurried down the quest-path in the forest terrain.

“Glory hallelujah!” Journeyman babbled about his adventure. He tucked and nudged pieces of clay back into place. “Oh, what a feeling!”

“Yes, it was a good one, wasn’t it?” Delrael said. He shook his tingling and sore right arm.

The ylvan man brushed off his camouflaged leather suit and took out a sewn cap that sported a red feather. “I’m not much for formalities, but my name is Tallin. Thanks for rescuing me—you did a good job against the big clod! It’s nice not having to fight all by myself for a change.”

“Rule number one, always have fun,” Delrael said, shrugging his shoulders. They introduced themselves according to gaming protocol and each told his areas of expertise.

“Why were you the only one fighting against Gairoth?” Vailret asked. “Was something wrong with the others?”

Tallin strode ahead as if he knew where they were going. Delrael had trouble keeping pace with him.

“They were trying to fight. You saw them, and how sad it was. I didn’t do anything but yell at Gairoth from the trees until he started wrecking things. The old man he pulled out of the nest was Tranor. He tells good stories and he knows more dice games than any character I’ve ever seen.”

Tallin watched the forest floor, and his face bore a bemused expression. He rubbed his fingers together on the tip of his pointed beard.

“Tranor used to tell me stories about the old Sorcerer wars, how the ylvan once were the terrors of the forest, ambushing any enemy that entered our forest terrain. Hah!” Tallin sounded excited. “We could be invisible in the trees, and run up among the branches, shooting down with our arrows. We survived the Scouring, when some of you high-minded human characters decided to wipe out the other races on Gamearth.”

Delrael looked for some resentment in the ylvan’s eyes, but he saw none. After the Sorcerer race departed on their Transition, the remaining character races were left to fight over the map. Human characters rallied with some of the half-breed Sorcerers to defend against the reptilian Slac. Other human fighters, thinking themselves brave, went to extremes and tried to exterminate all other character races. In their fear and fanaticism they struck at even the benign ones, like the ylvan or the panther people, the khelebar.

That was many turns ago, though, and Tallin did not seem to carry a grudge.

“I stayed with my people
. Somebody
has to take care of them, since they all seem to have knocked their heads against a tree too many times,” Tallin said. “Even though they turned into a bunch of sore Losers even before they went into their daze. They stopped playing games for enjoyment. Kellos, our village leader, turned them sour, made them afraid and suspicious, for all the good it did them. They still succumbed to whatever put them in a daze anyway. They could have been having fun instead of worrying all that time. I’ve been getting food for them, since they don’t seem to have any interest in doing it themselves.”

Vailret repeated his original question. “But what’s wrong with them? Why are they acting like that?”

Tallin knitted his eyebrows and looked at Vailret. “Do I look like someone who sits around and explains things all day? Normally they would have fought like hornets, especially with Kellos stirring them up. Now, though, they’re just sleepwalking—well, you saw. What’s gotten into them? Is it some kind of spell? You tell me. I don’t understand these things.”

Vailret stared ahead, eyes fixed but unfocused on the little man’s green cap. Delrael couldn’t imagine any reason, but then Journeyman spoke up.

“Scartaris has the power to manipulate other characters with his mind, as if he is a Player in his own right. He can control actions, even from this great a distance.”

Tallin looked at them, puzzled. “What’s a Scartaris?” Nobody answered his question.

“Wonderful.…” Bryl said. “What’s going to stop it from happening to
us
?”

Delrael thought the Earthspirits in his belt might protect them, if the Spirits were even still alive.

“As a matter of fact,” Bryl continued, “What protected Tallin? He should have been controlled just like the others.”

Journeyman raised his lumpy eyebrows, like two hairless caterpillars arching themselves for battle. “Enquiring minds want to know.”

“Maybe
he’s
a spy, planted here to join our group and sabotage our quest,” Bryl said. He glared at the little man.

“Bryl, you said that about Journeyman, too.” Delrael frowned at the half-Sorcerer with open skepticism.

“Look, I didn’t
ask
you to come rescue me.” Tallin flared his nostrils, angry and insulted, but he managed to hold his temper. Delrael admired that. “Are you suggesting I
pretended
to get captured by Gairoth? You’ve got mud for brains.”

But Vailret’s face carried a doubtful expression. “If your entire village was corrupted by Scartaris, how did you alone stay untouched?”

“Brilliant question. I probably never would have thought of that one myself!” Tallin looked at the rest of them with a haughty expression, and then turned to Delrael for support. “How should I know? I’ve told you the truth.”

Delrael pursed his lips. “If he was working with Scartaris and the Outsiders, he’d make sure he had a good cover story.”

“Good point,” Journeyman said.

“Wait a minute.” Vailret motioned with his hands for them to calm down. “We all know about some of the rulebreakers. Characters like Lellyn, and like Tarne. Maybe certain characters have a natural immunity, something Scartaris can’t touch. It would fit with the Rules of Probability.”

“Maybe this is Gamearth fighting back with flukes of its own, twists in the Game,” Delrael said.

Vailret’s eyes sparkled with the possibility. Delrael could see how intrigued he was by the idea. “And what if the Outsiders don’t know anything about it?”

Delrael clapped the ylvan on the back to get them all moving again. “Can you give me a hint about where we’re going? I don’t waste much time sitting around and planning things, but I wouldn’t mind having the end goal in sight.”

“My feelings exactly!” Delrael said, smiling.

“I take it that means you’re joining our quest?” Vailret asked.

Tallin blinked. “You don’t expect me to go watch the other ylvan stare at trees all day, do you? After they just watched Gairoth carry me off, I don’t feel much attachment to home anymore.”

* * *

The sun was low in the west, shooting its last rays between the tree trunks, when they neared the edge of the last hexagon they could travel in a day. A cool breeze sprang up from the east, rippling the forest leaves.