The Makers of Light (27 page)

From the table at the far left, two older women and a younger girl waved at Linden, and she waved back, resisting a sigh.

There were about fifty male Science Guild members in the hall, and roughly ten female ones, at least six of whom obviously played together. A generation or two ago, Science women had been discriminated against because of their gender; they had been disregarded and ridiculed more than Science men had. Women had been discriminated in other, better-regarded, fields as well, and there were some fools who still thought a woman's main and only responsibility was to have babies. Of course, such fools should be opposed. But not like this.

"Is there a "
Men in Science
" organization?" Linden asked, smiling and pretending to ignore the others' obvious surprise. Pretending also to ignore the looks of the two young men from the table to her right, who seemed to have become a bit too focused on her and the exact way her trousers embraced her hips.

"Well, no ... I don't think that there is one." Dierdre shoved a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear. "But there are fewer women than men in Science, which, you agree, has to change. Our purpose is to create, encourage, and support women's educational, social, and professional opportunities."

"Our purpose is to get the
respect
we deserve." That from Jade, the lady-commoner animosity momentarily forgotten.

And you think that you will get it by huddling together, hiding yourselves behind the "women" label, acting as if there were something you needed to prove? Are the men trying to prove something to you?

No, they act as if the world were theirs. Have you ever thought that if you did the same, perhaps respect would come naturally—that it would be the default if you considered it to be the default?

Cliques within cliques, animosities hidden behind labels, looks, and whispers. The world was more needlessly complex than it seemed.

"Thank you very much for your offer. But I fancy a bit of a challenge, and I will try to save the city of Qynnsent."

"A noble purpose, although quite unachievable, I am afraid." One of the two young men had come closer, giving her what he probably considered a most charming smile. Lord Orlin of Iglika. His High Lady mother was involved in Desmond's latest Balkaene machinations, and officially, the two Houses were friends. But a game could allow for some real feelings.

"This unfortunate city is next in line for my and lord Everad's offensive, but it would be a pity to defeat such a pretty opponent. Perhaps you would surrender, my lady? We can then revive your city and"—he winked—"we might give you some autonomy later."

And what do you want me to give you—anatomy?
Right, here was a chance to get even with Rianor. This personage would probably not refuse a "
ladies' private room.
" Wretch them all, was there nothing else that these people—both women and men—could think about? He seemed so interested in her legs that perhaps she should allow him a chance to enjoy them—like in Master Keitaro's kick special. She should have kept the high heels. He was not unattractive, but he did seem a bit deluded as to what rights that bestowed on him.

Well, she would educate him. But she had to control herself first and not do anything reckless, and as with any other situation, she must think.

Fortunately, the other women provided her with the thinking time needed. Although the young lord had ignored Dierdre's unreadable expression, Miriam's pouting and even Jade's murderous look seemed to occupy him for a moment.

"Is it really so bad?" Linden smiled, casting a calculated, almost Marguerite-like, wide-eyed look at the game board. (But not at him!) Having met the scheming slut did have its advantages, at least as an example in camouflaging a razor-sharp mind with outer idiocy. "I have not played Stratagem before, and Rianor does not consider it important enough, so he did not teach me."

"Ah, Rianor is sometimes prone to, well, oversights—but we can easily remedy this one." The man's hand motioned towards her, and Linden slipped slightly back, then aside, so that the board now stood between them, watching him with her eyes narrowed. He seemed to like it. Like a fairytale hunter, intent on his quarry. Well, she was no quarry.

Still, Linden's movement looked like running away, and Dierdre seemed ready to intervene for her. Perhaps she
was
nice. But Dierdre must not—Linden could fight for herself, but it did not feel right to fight this man openly right now. Why? She had not become political, suddenly. "
House Iglika is essential to us,
" she could hear Desmond say, but she was not tolerating this conceited buffoon for mere politics. No, it was different. Consciously or not, the man acted as if he had rights over her, as if he had power, and an open fight would be almost as bad as enduring, for both would imply
recognition.
No. Linden scanned the board again. There should be another way.

"Oh, but can you really help me, lord Orlin?" Her voice was mocking as she looked at him challengingly. Let him read this as he wished, but since he seemed to respect her legs more than her person, she had a suspicion that he would interpret her attitude as a challenge to nothing but his manhood. This attitude was her limit. Unlike Marguerite, she would not resort to lascivious looks and other slutty devices. Even though, for the Lady of Laurent it was not resorting but quite natural ...

"Rianor did make me a list of dangerous opponents, but I do not recall your name being there, my lord." She met Dierdre's gaze briefly, silently pleading that the woman would not interfere. Dierdre nodded, barely, and Linden smiled. "I have no idea why Rianor would dismiss you so. Perhaps he thought you would be a friend?"

He inclined his head, the irritation almost invisible. "What Rianor might think is beyond me."
Quite so. He can actually think, an ability you seem to pitifully lack.

"But I might be many things, lady Linden."

"Can you be the person to explain the rules of the game to me, then, perhaps by showing me what your exact plans are for my city? Of course, I will understand if you refuse." She smiled brightly, looking at him and then at the other women. "I am new here, but an opponent should always be aware that I might turn out to be too quick of a learner."

Miriam laughed at this. Good. These people dismissing her skills was what Linden presently intended, even though it took willpower to tolerate them.

"Oh, you must have learned a lot, lady Linden, with the High Lord of Qynnsent as your master. He is a wonderful teacher." Miriam laughed again. What was that supposed to mean? Had Miriam truly slept with Rianor, as she obviously wanted to hint? And was Linden considered one of Rianor's sexual diversions now? She was not surprised. These people truly could not think of anything else.
Use it. Use it to grind them to dust.

The thought startled her; it was like a thought from that night with the Aetarx, when she had almost fought Rianor. And where had the phrase "
grind to dust
" come from? She had not seen something being ground more than she had seen drunk pigs, or predators.

In forgetting, there is remembering. In remembering, there is forgetting. Our minds are too full
.

Linden's mind right now was full of the thought that she would never fight
Rianor
—even if he was "
a wonderful teacher.
" Wretch him. But she would fight
them
because she did not care about them. Because they could take the anger away, even though they had not—could not—hurt her as much as he had. Because she did not love them! But she should not think about that. If she did, she felt like a lost little girl, wandering in the night with the snow falling, the whiteness threatening to swallow her.

She would fight. Right now she saw no other meaning in life.

Linden smiled brightly at lord Everad of Aarthi, too, when he came to essentially tell her that he could explain the rules of the game better than lord Orlin, his partner. Men were not better than women when they wanted to shove each other aside before the opposite gender, were they?

She knew how to play Stratagem but did listen to the two lords when they explained this particular Science-flavored version of the game. Generally, the Stratagem setup imitated the war-infested Mierenthia of centuries ago. Each player or team of players had an imaginary province comprised of cities, villages, noble and common inhabitants, and resources—all represented by drawings and pawns on the table. Players took turns to perform actions, such as training ordinary pawn citizens to become Master Crafter pawns, or using these Master Crafters according to their specialty to, say, build a House's estate. Players could make a group of pawn citizens transport goods from one place to another, trade with the citizens of another player, or, of course, attack another player's territory.

There were many possible actions and many rules regarding the effects of actions and the outcomes of interactions in Stratagem, and these varied throughout individual game instances and players. Usually there was a game master assigned per Stratagem game—someone who did not play but resolved disputes and made sure that the rules were followed.

The game master also represented Bers, Mentors, and Militia in the world of the game, granting or denying players' requests to, for example, build a certain kind of Factory in a player's lands so that the player's pawns could become employed there and the player could receive income from the Factory's product. Since game masters were not in reality Bers, Mentors, or Militia, and correspondingly lacked the knowledge of those, such decisions were mostly random—for no one knew what factors would influence Bers to put a Factory in, say, Dobria rather than Balkaene. Yet, the decisions' very existence made the game's imaginary world more like the real one. It made it more
right;
it gave people a certain peace of mind.

The game masters also owned and regulated the game's central city of Mierber, where, as in the real one, the headquarters of Bers, Mentors, and Militia were located, as well as the players' House seats. Players could send pawn citizens to interact, spy, assassinate, or trade in Mierber—or even to become, if the game master's rules allowed it, game Bers, Mentors, or Militia.

In a general Stratagem game, players fought each other with any means they could, the purpose being to supposedly have the best province they could, but really to subdue all others and annex their territories. It was in a way funny that in the real world the Bers would have never allowed such dominion of a single House to happen, but they did not mind letting people do it in a game and did not even label the game aberrant.

Like nobles in the real world of Mierenthia centuries ago, the players fought with both intrigue and armies. However, in this particular Science-flavored version of the game, they fought mostly with intrigue. Actions in the Science Guild's game were encouraged to have some Science involved in them, or ideas that were Scientifically plausible. Such Science-minded actions, as determined by the game master, brought a city and its players special Science points, the exact number of points determined by the game master on a case-by-case basis. A player or a team could theoretically still win the game, even with no points at all, if they defeated the others with armies. Yet, reaching a hundred Science points could also make a player the winner of the game, even if the player had not conquered or otherwise dealt with all others. Perhaps it was a peculiarity of Scientists, to like their numbers more than war ... Or perhaps that, too, was war, only different.

In any case, from what Linden saw, the Scientists played war like any other players would have, with armies and trade. Like any others, they thought Science itself to be no more than a set of concepts; no more than non-practical ideas confined in books. They could not
use
Science. They could not build with Science anything larger than, say, a specialized inclined-plane lock for a door—if they could even build that in reality. At least, some of them, including the lord Everad, knew that such small mechanisms were theoretically possible and thus used them in playing intrigue in the game's Mierber. Those were the few players who actually got Science points in the game.

Because Linden
could
build with Science, herein lay her chance to win—but if she did not have other things to worry about, she would have been very disappointed with the Science Guild.

Lord Orlin and lord Everad's next action towards Linden's province, as they cheerfully revealed to her and to the Women in Science threesome, was to send an army of ten thousand to wipe out what had remained of the province. Not much Science in this, certainly, but Qynnsent did not even own a House seat in the game's Mierber any more, and the province itself had a single city with five hundred inhabitants and weak fortifications. If she did not do anything, it would fall. Linden bit her lip again.

On the game map, Orlin and Everad's army would come from the northeast of Linden's tiny, narrow city. If it could be called a "
city
" at all. It was a bunch of small peasant huts, huddled together around the single two-story building where the game's Qynnsent High Ruler was supposed to live. Only two narrow roads led to the city. The northeastern road cut through high, steep rocks that were unclimbable and impassable. The northwestern road was similar, for it had the same rocks to one side and a narrow but deep and fast river to the other, with more of the same rocks on the river's other bank. There was not even a bridge, for it would lead nowhere. Elsewhere around the city, high peaks loomed—all impassable. Indeed, the city was scrunched so tightly into the game's southern mountains that it stood at the last possible place where human dwellings might exist—it was right by one of the game's Edges.

Linden's pawn citizens could try to escape via the northwestern road. However, far to the north of her city, the high rocks ended and the two roads blended to form one wide northern road. If the army decided to chase back, it would catch them.