Dangerous Games

by Clayton Emery

  “And them?” she asked.

  The barbarian hoisted his sword, wiped the blade clean, and marched to the mutants, who cowered before him. Even the testy raptors in their makeshift corrals were quiet, almost docile. Standing tall, arms on hips, Sunbright asked, “Who’s the eldest here?”

  A withered crone with blind eyes raised a shaking hand and said, “I, sir.”

  “Then you’re chief now, for Wulgreth won’t be back. This forest will no longer tolerate him. Nor will it abide torture any more, or raids on your neighbors. You are to become a people of peace from now on, at one with the land. Nurture it, care for it, and it will care for you. The elders can teach you, for they remember when this land was healthy and alive, liked the feel of human feet, and nourished its dwellers. Will you do this thing?”

  The old crone bobbed her head and told him, “We shall, your highness. We shall.”

  Sunbright nodded, satisfied. Knucklebones was more skeptical, but realized the mutants probably thought Sunbright a glowing god risen from the earth itself. Certainly they’d seen it, would tell one another and their children in years to come, and so they’d believe, and obey.

  Sunbright took Knucklebones’s small hand with the brassy bars adorning it and led her to the far side of the camp, where a path wended into the diseased forest. Up high a bird sang, and was answered from afar. Liking the feel of his strong, gentle fist, she asked, “So they’ll heal, get better?”

  “No.” The barbarian shook his head as he answered. “These scars, on people and plants, will remain, and die out slowly, naturally. But the children will be normal, and the seedlings. Nature moves slowly, like a glacier, but nothing can stand before it.”

  “That sounds like something a prophet would say,” she half kidded.

  He grinned in answer, saying, “It does, doesn’t it? Ooh!”

  “What?”

  He touched the back of his neck where his horsetail rested.

  “Besides all my other aches and pains, now I’m burned on my scalp. Candlemas must be signaling me, as I called him. We’ll have to go see.

  “But I think I’ll wash first,” he added, studying his bloody arms and hands.

  “Candlemas?” Knucklebones frowned. “He’s up in the city. How will we get there?”

  Sunbright studied the high treeline as if reading the weather. Distantly, he asked, “Why don’t we fly?”

  Chapter 19

  The game had gotten out of hand. War blazed between Karsus and Ioulaum, and people died by the hundreds.

  Candlemas crouched with Aquesita in her rose-painted carriage. They’d tried to cross the city, spiraling out from the castle mound, but the driver kept stalling at obstacles: fallen trees, torn up roads, shattered buildings, bodies, and marching columns of soldiers and city guards. Time and again they had to circle. Aquesita had promised a friend aid, to fetch her from her mansion to Karsus’s castle, where no destruction had yet struck, or would. Candlemas had tried to dissuade her, but she refused, stubborn as her famous cousin, and he’d come to watch over her.

  But the danger and disasters were more serious than either of them had reckoned, and growing worse all the time.

  No one was even sure what the attacks were. Candlemas knew about the super heavy magic exploding runes, and he’d seen many graceful ballista shafts, like arrows from the gods, arc over the city, fall, and explode with tremendous force, tearing up stone and people and trees. The heat ray, too, he’d seen at close hand, and many city towers had been turned to molten slag that coursed down the buildings like candle wax to set innumerable fires below.

  Fires raged throughout both cities, far more than city guards with water or mages with spells could ever put out. Smoke roiled along the ground, stung the eyes, dirtied everything it touched. Other magics had been visited upon Karsus’s city, and even normal weapons. Something in Ioulaum could hurl rocks the size of houses that crushed whole blocks. And there were many more weapons.

  “How can this happen?”

  Aquesita cowered in Candlemas’s arms as the carriage rattled through back streets. Frightened and angry faces passed by the small windows, some weeping, others cursing and waving their fists. Candlemas knew the throngs were no danger, for the carriage was warded against unwanted entry. But a huge boulder falling from the sky could hash them, along with their carriage and wards. The woman insisted, “It’s not possible the war has gone this badly. Karsus wouldn’t let it. He’ll stop it. I know he’s working on it right now.”

  Candlemas said nothing, for he knew Karsus had caused this nightmare. And since nothing rained on his castle, he wouldn’t care much, might even be oblivious to it all.

  The carriage rattled on, but stopped abruptly and began to back awkwardly. The passengers heard the driver curse. When they stalled completely, Aquesita opened the trap door at the front of the compartment and called, “What’s happening, driver?”

  The man’s worried face filled the square hole. “Beg pardon, milady,” he said, “but they’re riotin’ again. We can’t go for’ard, but I’m hopin’—”

  “Rioting?” interrupted the noblewoman. “Again? Over what?”

  “I couldn’t say, milady. Malcontents, is all. The guards are seein’ to ’em. We’ll be right on our way shortly.”

  He slapped the trap door shut.

  Aquesita plucked a handkerchief from her embroidered sleeve and mopped her brow as she said, “What could they riot about? Surely even the poor support our efforts in the war. Don’t they, Candlemas?”

  The mage didn’t answer, for he didn’t want to lie to his ladylove. He stared out the window at a brick wall. But, no fool, Aquesita demanded an answer, so he finally said, “They riot for food, Sita. There isn’t any for the poor. It’s finally run out.”

  “What? What do you mean, finally?” She stared at her friend and lover with a blank face. “How can there be no food?”

  Candlemas shrugged helplessly. “There hasn’t been enough for a long time,” he told her. “Since before I arrived here, they say. Something wrong with the distribution.…” He was hedging, as if breaking bad news to Lady Polaris, and he hated it.

  “The, uh, nobility was somewhat … shortsighted in its goals,” he continued, “and misjudged the amounts needed to feed everyone. Now with war here and on the ground, the supply of food has stopped completely, and there are no reserves. So the poor riot in hopes of … I don’t know what. Justice, I suppose.”

  “Justice? This is abominable! No food? Do children go hungry too? That’s insufferable! I’ll see that Karsus fixes that problem first thing!”

  “Karsus is—” again Candlemas swallowed his words, “—too busy.”

  “Not to see me, his only living relation, he’s not! I’ll be busy too, filling his ear with what’s right and what’s wrong! But we can’t just sit here. Come, Candy. We’ll walk!”

  “Walk?” the mage balked, grabbing her hands. “No, Sita, you can’t do that! It’s not safe!” By the gods, he knew Aquesita was misinformed about her cousin’s true nature, but for any noble to show her face in the streets now would be certain death. Wards or not, the crowds would tear her apart. “No, Sita! We must remain here! We shouldn’t even have come—”

  “Nonsense! The empire needs us, and so does my friend, and the poor. Come!”

  Before he could stop her, short of knocking her flat and trussing her, Aquesita had popped open the carriage door and hopped out, skirts flapping. Candlemas scrambled after her, shouting as did her driver and footmen over a greater roaring.

  Aquesita stamped into the street, then stood frozen, pointing, disbelieving.

  Down at a crossroads, past a barrier of rubble and furniture, raged the riot. Ragged poor suffered under the brutal hands of city guards and soldiers. None of the guards plied silver-tipped clubs any more. It was all blade work. As Candlemas watched, unable to turn away, some fifty guards and soldiers with long lances chopped into the crowd while a hedge wizard in a garish uniform sent lightning crackling a
midst them. The terrified mob boiled and bled and fled down the street toward the city center, leaving twitching victims and leaking corpses behind. Some of the slowest had been children.

  The screaming and shouting was awful, but the crying of Aquesita was the worst for Candlemas.

  “Love of Mystryl, Lady of Love,” she whispered. “I didn’t know it had come to this. I didn’t know … but Karsus knew, didn’t he?”

  Gently Candlemas put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. She wanted truth, not dumb comfort.

  “Yes, Sita. He knew. All the leading nobles knew. But they did nothing about it, and it just got worse. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she sobbed. Tears coursed down her cheeks, but her plump mouth was firmly set. “Sorry I’ve been so blind, so coddled, and so stupid. But no more. I’ll see Karsus, and this will stop—”

  Her voice seemed to rise into a high, whining scream that no human made. It was a missile arcing across the sky. Candlemas grabbed Aquesita’s head and pulled her down just as a rollicking explosion jarred them both off their feet. Not far off, screams filled the air. The bomb had landed smack in the city’s center.

  With a short cry, Aquesita grabbed her skirts and ran toward the site of the disaster. Candlemas jogged after her, puffing. City guards, blood-spattered and weary unto death, tried to stop her, but she evaded them and ran on. By the time Candlemas caught up, she’d gotten to the end of the street and stopped cold.

  What he saw made his blood run just as cold.

  The great fountain at the center of town, a high fluted, complicated affair of many spouts and cherubs and fans, boiled red. Rose-colored spray filled the air, staining white marble, and a frothy pink bubbled in the many pools. Candlemas’s jaw dropped at the horrific sight, but Aquesita’s words were even more chilling.

  “The prophecy! The sign. A fountain of blood, Oh, and look!”

  Weeping, Aquesita stepped over a dead man. Rubble and corpses littered the plaza, but Aquesita picked up a ratty bundle of white feathers. Candlemas didn’t even recognize it until her voice came faintly, “Our storks. The guardians of the heights, the wings of Mystryl, our feathered friends. This is a sign, too.”

  Reverently she laid the bird down, as if laying the entire empire to rest. For the first time she saw the limits of the devastation. The fountain had pumped itself clear, spraying clear and merrily again, but blood spots lingered everywhere like the fingerprints of mischievous imps.

  “It’s the end, Candlemas.” Her haunting tones chilled the mage. “The end of the end, the end of everything. The Netherese Empire will fall now, and no one can prevent it.”

  Not even Karsus, thought Candlemas. Not even him.

  * * * * *

  Much later, as the sun set, they got back to the castle. Their driver had finally abandoned the carriage, cut the traces, and mounted Candlemas and Aquesita bareback on the horses. As they wolfed soup and bread in the kitchen, servants and hangers-on buzzed about the portents of disaster.

  Even the feared “rain of skulls” had come true earlier when a stray explosion on the underside of Ioulaum opened a forgotten cavern. Bones and skulls had gushed in a stream like snowmelt, and only then had people recalled that Ioulaum had cut his enclave from the Rampant Peaks, either Bone Hill or Thunder Peak, where tens of thousands of orcs had been exterminated in a war lasting sixteen months.

  Yet no one knew Ioulaum’s thoughts, for the ancient and venerable mage had gone missing. Great Karsus himself had tried to contact Ioulaum with his strongest palantir and drawn a blank. The sages of Ioulaum proclaimed that their master was not dead, but, they hinted darkly, he might have abandoned the city because “sinners” had “resisted his will.” Faint hearts and weak resolve had disappointed the master, they warned. As penance, to appease Ioulaum and show their true devotion, everyone must reapply himself to his work and carry out the archwizard’s final orders: intensify the war and destroy the city of Karsus. And this too matched prophecy, for wasn’t the loss of Ioulaum be “the disappearance of the first of the brightest?”

  But what, they asked, did it mean for the empire, if these were portents of its demise? Prophecies had come and gone, and little changed. The city had not winked out of existence. So perhaps they meant nothing, and the church sages would invent new ones?

  Fatigued, fretful, Candlemas excused himself from Aquesita. He had an idea to offer Karsus, he explained, one that might stop the hostilities. Aquesita asked what, but Candlemas didn’t want to “dilute the magic” by repeating it. Kissing her smudged forehead, he left her wondering.

  He wondered himself if his idea would work. He hoped Karsus was still listening. He needed just one more favor from the mad mage.

  * * * * *

  Candlemas found Karsus in the highest workshop overlooking what remained of the city and the distant enemy, Ioulaum. The madman still wore his ridiculous general’s costume, though he’d abandoned the drooping helmet. He was surrounded, as usual, by slavering to adies who complimented his every notion and laughed at his feeble jokes.

  Nor were any dissuaded by the destruction so visible from the balcony. In fact, they planned more mischief. Two apprentices were explaining their latest fiendish invention. By thinning heavy magic with a grease spell, they could form a slush. Into the slush they could sprinkle fleas containing the blood of cows sickened with anthrax. Once flung into the city, the slush would ooze down gutters and storm drains. At the least, rats at the lowest levels of the city would be plagued with anthrax. At the best, the ooze might filter into water reservoirs and sicken hundreds at one stroke. Karsus loved the idea, whooping with delight, and ordered the pair to develop it immediately.

  Candlemas stood stock still, fists clenched tightly at his sides to keep from screaming and slamming the apprentices’ heads together. He was not a violent man, had never warred or fought, but he could see sometimes justice needed to be dealt swiftly with a sword or club. Pounding these capricious fools to death would be a good start. Bashing Karsus over the head, locking him in a chest, and tilting it off the city’s precipice might be wise, too.

  But he had to be polite, smile, even praise Great—no, General—Karsus if he hoped to save himself and Aquesita, and Sunbright, if he could locate him. So when the mages bustled away, and other sycophants clamored for Karsus’s attention, Candlemas raised his voice. “Gr-General Karsus, I believe I have the ultimate weapon, one to banish Ioulaum from the sky!”

  “What’s that?” Karsus asked, stifling the mages at hand and raising his swirling golden eyes to Candlemas. “Ultimate weapon? What could that be? You intrigue me, Eadelmas.”

  Lucke’s Love, thought the mage, now he’s even forgotten my name. But he bulled on. “I’d need to relate it in secret, General Karsus, Greatest of Any Who Ever Led Us.”

  The archwizard preened at the flattery, smoothing his tangled, tattered hair with one hand. The other hand fiddled with his belt buckle. “Very well,” he decided. “Begone, you lot! Shoo, shoo! Anvilmast and I shall talk privately of wizardly things.”

  The disgruntled mages dispersed, passing Candlemas with black looks. He ignored them, trotted to Karsus and caught his elbow, talking fast to keep the flighty archwizard’s attention. “Time, milord, time! Consider this: if you could reach back in time—the same way you grabbed the fallen star, and the barbarian and myself—you could seize Ioulaum when he’s just beginning his magic research! If you dragged him here, you could imprison him! He’d never become a great mage, one they whisper is almost as great as you. He’d never create the flying enclave of Ioulaum, and you’d have won the war without ever leaving this room! You’d be the most famous of this, and every other epoch in the empire! No one would speak of any archwizard without first mentioning Karsus the All Mighty!”

  The mad golden eyes lit like lanterns. “Why, it’s true! We never thought of that. Of course! Why couldn’t it work?” (Candlemas could think of many reasons, including that if the first flying enclave were never created, th
is one might not be either. But he wasn’t pursuing logic.… ) “Oh, yes! Yes! We’ll do it. I’ll do it—”

  “Sire,” interjected Candlemas loudly, giving the archwizard’s elbow a small shake. “It wouldn’t be mete for you to pursue such a path yourself. For one thing, it might be dangerous, and nothing must endanger the life of Karsus the All High. Rather, sire, I suggest you assign someone—me, perhaps, who’s already moved through time once—to perform the task. I’d see you got all the credit, for I live to serve only your greatness. So, if you tell me the secret time travel spell you so cleverly employed …”

  Flattery, fast talk, simple, twisted logic, and a conspiratorial tone all worked. Within minutes, Karsus was gabbling about how he’d imagined the fallen star and twitched his fingers to summon it. From there, Candlemas led him to the hypothetical reversal of the spell: how to send something or someone back, to that same spot.

  * * * * *

  Candlemas’s brain whirled with spells, cantras, lists of potential materials, and the overall weirdness that was Karsus. The combined spells he’d outlined seemed just too illogical to work. Candlemas had pried and prodded, desperate to grasp every nuance, but Karsus grew bored, wanted to move on to the next subject.

  Candlemas mentally shrugged. He’d tried his best to retain it all, but would have to experiment, muddle through. He was about to beg his leave to get started when Karsus caught his elbow.

  “I must tell you, dear Carpalmen, that you’re a clever fellow, but a mere birdbrain compared to He Who Knows Everjrthing and Tells Naught.”

  “He Who—?”

  “Me!” Karsus beamed. “Because what you’ve outlined is fine, but I’ve conceived a true ultimate weapon!”

  Candlemas felt faint and cold, as if all his blood had run out his feet. Pockall’s Hex, what now? Calm as possible, he asked the source of this ultimate weapon.

  “Myself!” Karsus cried and slapped his chest, giggling so hard he almost fell over. “Myself! Us, Great Karsus! I’ll turn myself into a weapon! That’s the secret project I’ve been working on. Think, Niselmutt! What’s the greatest living thing in all the empire? Me, of course! And what’s the most potent magical source in the empire? My super heavy magic! So it’s logical—though only I could think of it—to combine them!”