the Deadliest Game (1998)

by Tom - Net Force Explorers 02 Clancy

  Minsar was several hundred years old, and had outgrown its walls twice. Around the outsides of the old granite-block walls was a more or less permanent town of tents and shanties, and the inevitable little crowd of industries too foul-smelling or dangerous to be allowed to do business inside the walls, like the tanners and papermakers and the bakers (like other cities, Minsar had discovered that, under the right conditions, flour could become a high explosive). Now, though, there was a new ring of tents and temporary structures outside the "outer ring": the pavilion and wagons of the army that had defended Minsar, and the structures of several other groups of warriors, large and small, who had come there under the auspices of one lord or another to check the situation out.

  Megan and Leif made their way toward the city gates through a maelstrom of noise and ferocious odors. Roasting meat, spilled wine, baking bread (the bakers were apparently working twenty-four hours a day to meet the increased demand), horses and horse dung, the stinking stagnant pools under the city walls, the occasional drift of perfume from some passing camp-follower or newly scrubbed-and-scented soldier just out of the bathhouses built outside the walls, all their smells wove together amid the sound of the many voices speaking or shouting in many languages, laughing, cursing, joking, talking. Leif and Megan listened to the talk as best they could as they made their way to and through the gates.

  The gate-wardens were keeping only the slackest watch. The town was plainly still in holiday mood after being saved from being sacked by Delmond. Most of the talk around Leif and Megan, as they made their way down the cobbled open space of the main street, was about that: the narrow escape, the army suddenly without its leader, and what would happen to that army now.

  "Where'd the knife go?" Leif said softly.

  "Away," Megan said.

  "Good. Knives are illegal in here."

  "Don't think anyone'll be able to enforce the statute tonight," Megan said, looking around at the hordes of armed men and women milling around, trying to get into the town-square taverns, or spilling out of them with drinks in hand. She found herself trying not to stare at one gaudily dressed hunchbacked dwarf who crossed her path, pushing his way through the crowd and waving a miniature sword, to the guffaws of others. "You want to try taking the swords off all these people? How many watchmen do you think there are in Minsar?"

  "Tonight? Fewer than usual," Leif said. "I take your point."

  They drifted past another crowd outside a tavern door. Inside was an impossible crowd, packed together like medieval sardines, shouting and pushing to get to the bar or to get away from it. A burly barmaid was pushing through the crowd with double handfuls of beer mugs, made not of glass or ceramic, but of leather, tarred inside. She was using the leather "jacks" as effective offensive weapons, and there was a small clear space around her as people backed off to avoid being splashed or trampled.

  Leif drifted into the crowd outside the door and burrowed into it a little way, and Megan followed him. The rush of voices closed over her head like water over a swimmer.

  "--don't know why Ergen insists on coming in at night when it's going to be the most crowded--"

  "--get out of here--"

  "--up in the big hall looking for Elblai, she didn't stay there long, so I thought--"

  "--too many idiots in here looking to get drunk and start a brawl, I wouldn't--"

  "--five malts and a burned-wine--"

  Megan watched one of the earlier speakers head out of the crowd, followed by a couple of friends. She nudged Leif, and gestured him away.

  He nodded, following her a little way out of the press. "It's a pity they don't have showers here," he muttered. "I feel like I need one after that."

  "Hey, the night is young. Listen, I heard a name I know."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. Elblai. See those guys? Going down that little lane. Come on."

  He looked around, located them in the crowd: two tall men, two smaller ones, and one who was very short indeed, heading off down a street which was more the size of an alley. Megan headed on after them.

  Leif followed. "What did they say?"

  "Just something that made me feel nosy." She smiled slightly in the torchlit dimness. "When you spy long enough, you get hunches about what's worth listening to. This could be something."

  Megan turned into the lane, with Leif behind her. The lane was no more than four feet wide, with shuttered doors and windows on both sides. "This isn't a street," Leif muttered, "it's a walk-in closet." Down at the end of the lane, one door was open a crack. The flicker of firelight streamed through it, and from inside came the mostly shut-in sound of more talk, laughter, shouting.

  The door opened wider to let in the men who were ahead of Megan and Leif, then started to close again. Megan pushed forward to follow them before the door closed completely. She squeezed through, trying to make it look casual. Inside, there was a fireplace directly across from the door, and beside it a hatch leading through into the kitchen. The hatch had a broad sill with several pitchers of beer waiting on it, and as Megan and Leif came in, hands poked out through the hatch and handed a passing server a roast chicken on a plate. This was apparently a moderately classy place. Where other taverns might have had torches stuck in iron brackets in the walls, this one had real lamps, oil lamps with glass in them. On the old scarred tables scattered around there were rushlights, each rush clamped into a little iron holder and burning like a small smoky star. Most of the tables were full of people eating and smoking and drinking and talking.

  Leif, behind Megan, nudged her, indicating an empty table off to one side, not too close to the one being taken by the men they had followed in, not too far away to make their conversation inaudible. Fortunately, the men seemed to have no concern about inaudibility. They shouted for the tavernkeeper, ordered wine, settled down around their table, and picked up their conversation more or less where it had left off.

  "--just go away like that."

  "He got bounced. Everybody knows that."

  "Yeah, well, are they sure it's genuine?"

  "Oh, come on, whoever heard of anyone faking a bounce? I don't think it can be done. The Rules."

  "Don't know that there's anything in the Rules against it," said the smallest man, a fellow with a hawklike face and small wise eyes. "Might be an interesting new tactic. Vanish...then come back where you're not expected."

  Megan was distracted as a tall slender woman stopped by their table and said, "Whaddayawant?"

  "Your best honeydraft, good woman," Leif said. "And for my companion--"

  "Gahfeh, please," Megan said. "Morstofian roast, thick cream, double sweet."

  The tall, slender woman tossed her long dark hair back and said, "No cream. Double sweet's extra."

  "Oh, well, no cream, single sweet," Megan said, resigned. The woman went away, making a face that suggested Megan's sanity was in question for asking for extras.

  "...think that's a tactic I'd care to try," said one of the men. "And it doesn't sound like Shel either."

  "Oh, you know him well, do you?"

  "No, but I hear the stories the same as everybody. If he--"

  They broke off as the serving-woman came to their table, and there was a long digression mostly involving hot and cold drinks. Megan wasn't interested in that, but she was interested in the reaction of some of the other people, warriors and merchants both, who were sitting near enough to hear what was going on. Some of them were leaning in the men's general direction while trying to look as if they weren't. When the serving-woman went away, the men to whom Megan had been listening had dropped their voices considerably. She frowned a little and became interested in her gahfeh, which had just arrived.

  "Nasty theory," Leif said under his breath.

  "Sometimes people can't stand believing what's really happened," Megan said. "They start rationalizing. I wish they'd mention that name again, is all."

  Leif shook his head, a "what's-the-use" gesture. One of the men's voices was growing louder. "--wh
y we should be slumming it down here when the rest of them are up in the great hall."

  Megan found herself wishing that this were not a game, but some more mundane form of entertainment that you could simply turn up so as to hear better. "No way they'll let us in there," said the man the first one had addressed.

  There was another pause as their drinks arrived. The first man lifted the leather jack with the ale he had ordered, and took a long swift drink from it. "Not us maybe, but all the big Players, they're all gettin' in. They can't afford to piss anyone off up there tonight. Who knows who might turn up, not get in, go away angry...and turn up next week with five thousand people that nobody here'll dare turn away? The city's picking up the bill for executive entertainment tonight, I'll bet. In their best interests. Tomorrow, who knows, they might run out of food and have an excuse to throw everyone out. But nobody's gonna throw the big guys outa there, not tonight. Too many deals brewing."

  "Aah, what would you know about deals?"

  "Oh, I know, all right."

  "Yeah, you're Argath's best buddy, I know all about it. That's why you're down here with the rest of us, drinking this watered stuff."

  There was laughter, and a growl that suggested that it might turn nasty if the others kept teasing its owner. Leif looked over at Megan.

  "You heard a name? What name?" he said.

  She told him.

  "Well," he said, "I think we just heard another one. Sounds like it might be worth a visit."

  "Yeah, sure, if we can find a way to sneak in there without getting tossed out on our ears."

  Leif looked thoughtful. Megan sat quiet for a few seconds--the chat at the other table had dropped out of audibility again as a couple of the men tried to calm down the one who had sounded ruffled--and then said very softly to Leif, "How good a hedge-wizard are you?"

  He looked at her with slightly affronted professional pride. "Pretty good."

  "Want to do another transit?"

  "What, from here? Miss a decimal place and we'll both wind up inside a wall, and there go a couple of perfectly good characters. And this whole mission. No, thanks!"

  "Okay. Can you do invisibility?"

  Leif looked at her, slightly surprised. "Of course."

  "For two?"

  He thought about that. "Not for long."

  "It doesn't have to be. Just long enough to get us into the main hall where the bigwigs are having their meeting. After that we can hide behind a tapestry or something."

  "This is going to cost me points," Leif said.

  "It's in a good cause. Oh, come on, Leif. I'll transfer you some points to cover what we use! I'm not short of score myself."

  "Okay," Leif said. "Let's get as close as we can, though. The great hall here is where?"

  "In the central keep, I'm pretty sure."

  As casually as they could, they finished their drinks, paid their bill, and headed out into the tiny lane, chatting in a way they hoped would sound normal. It was quiet people moving through the dark who would attract attention on a night like this. "If they're both in there," said Leif, "we're in business."

  "If they are," Megan said. They headed for the keep, a tall square stone structure that towered over the rear of the central marketplace-square.

  Around its open front door were gathered what looked like part of several companies of bodyguards, drinking out of good metal cups and talking quietly while looking around them with at least some semblance of alertness. Most of them wore colored surcoats over their armor, and almost all of them had someone's badge embroidered on the surcoat-breast. They looked at Megan and Leif with only mild interest as they passed by, heading for the shadows off to the side of the keep, where a narrow road ran deeper into the city. As Megan passed, she got the briefest glance through the big door of what was going on inside: a whirl of color, voices muttering and echoing off the room's high ceiling, huge tapestries at the back of the room moving slightly in breezes from the high slit-windows they concealed.

  Leif picked a spot just around the front corner of the keep, where the torchlight didn't fall, and felt around in one of his pockets. "Game interaction," he whispered to the air.

  Megan felt the slight vibration in the air that told her the games computer was speaking to Leif so as not to be heard by anyone else. "Points transfer," he said. "Invisibility. Locus for two." He paused, and his eyebrows went up. He looked at Megan. "Do you know how much this is going to--"

  "I don't care, as long as it's not more than three thousand," she said, "because that's about all the points I've got."

  "Oh, no, it's only two hundred."

  "Fine. Game interaction," she whispered.

  "Listening," said the computer softly in her ear.

  "Transfer two hundred points to Leif."

  "Done."

  "Finished."

  "Okay," Leif said. "You know how this works?"

  "Generally."

  "Don't get between anybody's line of sight and a strong light source," he said. "Fortunately, it's going to be mostly just torches in there. Stay close to the walls, that's the best way, and if you do have to cross in front of light, do it low. Keep your voice real low. The locus amplifies sound. And for Rod's sake don't bump into anybody."

  "Right."

  "Game intervention," Leif said.

  A brief silence. "Invisibility locus," Leif said.

  Suddenly everything was buzzing, and her skin itched. Megan looked around her. Everything else was normal, but when she lifted her hands in front of her eyes, she couldn't see them.

  She turned, and found that she couldn't see Leif either. This was a side effect that she hadn't quite anticipated for some reason. "Okay," said his voice nearby, sounding unnaturally loud. "Look, I'm going to head in through the front door when the guards aren't paying too much attention to the space between them, and there's no one else going in or out. You do the same. Then I'll make for the nearest hiding place on the right side. You do the same, but cut left. Circulate for a while. Then pick out the biggest tapestry in the place and get behind it. I'll let the invisibility relax while we're there--it's a strain holding it too long."

  "Okay. But what if there's somebody behind the biggest tapestry already?"

  "Pick the next biggest. And pray it isn't occupied, too."

  They made cautiously for the big front door. Megan had to dodge quickly a couple of times as people brushed past her, nearly touching her. She had to do it a few times more as she stood in front of the open door, waiting for her moment. But finally there came a period of a few seconds when no one was going in or out, and the soldiers guarding the door were both looking in opposite directions.

  She slipped in, bumping against something she couldn't see: Leif. It took her a moment to recover from the shock, and then she was through the door, ducking out of the way of an elegantly dressed nobleman who was coming right toward her. She held still just long enough to scan the room quickly. It was a nobly decorated place, for a chamber that had started out as just four bare walls and a lot of holes to put ceiling-joists in. Now there was a permanent ceiling, instead of the temporary one that would have been there when the keep was built strictly for defense. Tall white polished pillars had been installed down the length of the room. A large patterned red-and-blue carpet ran down the middle of the room, and the skins of various beasts, mostly sheepskins, were scattered over by the far walls, where the tapestries hung to cover the bare stone and keep the drafts out. In the center of the room, people were scattered all over, mostly in small knots of three or four, drinking and talking. Down at the end of the room, in front of the biggest tapestry, was a dais--one hardly worthy of the name, really. It only went up one step, and on it was a white chair. The chair was empty.

  That chair spoke, possibly more eloquently than anything else, of the situation here. The city of Minsar had no real owner now: not since Shel was gone. Now its great hall was full of potential owners...people who were looking over the real estate on the assumption that its former o
wner might very well not come back--or might not come back in time to keep one of them from moving in--and some of whom were not what a real-estate agent would have called "time wasters."

  Megan looked around as she made her way cautiously over toward the left wall and pressed herself up against it to get her breath for a moment, and try to shake some of the buzzing out of her ears. She considered that there might be a bad time coming for Minsar. Unless the city could find itself a powerful protector, and soon, it would shortly find one or another of these people at its door, in front of an army, and the message being delivered would be: "Accept us as 'protectors'...or lose what you've got." There was a chance that its potential protector was somewhere in this crowd; that, Megan suspected, was why this party was being held. No city wanted to be on the outs with its new owner, or to be accused of having offered him or her inadequate hospitality, after the dust had settled.

  She looked around the hall to determine which was the biggest tapestry. That was the one behind the throne: no way around it. At least no one seemed to be gathering there. A lot of people were looking at that throne, from a distance, but no one was going too near it. Maybe nobody wants to look too eager this early in the proceedings, Megan thought.

  She stepped out cautiously and made her way slowly along the left-hand side of the hall toward the dais, listening carefully as she went. Up ahead of her was a big spread of food laid out on a U-shaped array of tables, and the noble guests were in the process of descending on the buffet as if they hadn't eaten in days. Strolling among them, trying to look casual--or so Megan thought--was a man fairly plainly dressed in dark gray, but with a thick golden chain around his neck, its links the size of fists.

  He was the mayor of the town, the only statutory authority left in Minsar now that Shel was missing. To Megan's eyes, the man had a rather harried expression, despite his casual air; he was watching the guests with a look that suggested he wasn't sure whether some kind of fight over his town might not break out right here. Fortunately, there was no sign of this. Megan looked around at the nobles and high-caste warriors eating and drinking Minsar's food, and thought she saw people mostly intent on taking advantage of a good feed. What she didn't see, though, was the kind of clustering or circling of people that suggested that someone really important was there. She had learned to look for such small status-oriented gatherings, having come to recognize them from the occasional cocktail party her mother and father hosted. The rule was that the most important person at a party inevitably became the center of such bunches, though the people in the "bunch" might cycle as the party went on. The other rule was that sooner or later, everybody ended up in the kitchen...though here, that was unlikely. The kitchen was strictly for the servants.