The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “Wouldn’t go amiss,” she hissed through gritted teeth. If she was lucky, it’d only leave a bruise. “Ouch!” It didn’t hurt quite as much as she made out, yet if he believed that…

  If nothing else, he was a gracious host, he had an ice pack ready in minutes, breaking up cubes from his minibar into a sock and holding it out to her, an apologetic expression on his face. She slipped off her shoe and held it there against the arch of her foot, the pain subsiding quickly.

  “Talk about your misunderstandings, huh?” he said, scratching the back of his head uneasily. “Sorry, ma’am. Again. The humblest from down the bottom of my heart.”

  “Listen,” Alana said. “It’s okay. But seriously, you need to listen to me. Just hear me out on this. I know you don’t want to talk about your sister, but…”

  “I don’t,” he said. “I really don’t. Didn’t like her when we were kids. Don’t want to talk about her now. She sent me an invite to Meredith’s wedding. Declined politely. Shame, I liked that kid before she grew up into a spoiled little madam. I blame her for that.”

  “Look…” Alana paused before she could even start, not even sure what she could even say to change his mind. Or at least make him think about it. This so wasn’t her forte and part of her resented being put in this position. “I get that. Nobody likes family. They’re a bunch of horrible, horrible bastards at time. But…”

  He raised an eyebrow at that. “Strong words. You ever spoken to my sister?”

  “Yeah. She’s my boss.” She made a point of rolling her eyes as she said it, bringing a grin out of him.

  “So, you’re not going to say anything bad about her? That’s okay, I got enough for both of us. You ever looked her in the eyes? I mean properly? There’s just nothing there. She forgot what it was like to be human a long damn time ago and there’s no way of her remembering that. She can fake it with the best of them. No wonder Meredith ended up so damn screwed up. And that whole thing about nobody knowing who her father is… A kid needs a father.”

  Something long ignored twitched in Alana’s memory, she couldn’t push it back down before it took root. Memories she didn’t want to remember. “I didn’t,” she said quietly. “I’d have been better off without one. You want to talk about family issues, I’ll match you. Your childhood can’t have been worse than m… Some peoples.”

  He smiled gently. “You’re right. I can’t say it was or it wasn’t. Considering our fortune, it was a pretty comfortable time. You didn’t like your father, did you Ms Fuller?”

  She pressed her legs together and folded her arms, trying to apply fresh coolness from the pack down to her throbbing foot. “I often dreamed about killing him,” she said. And she meant it as well. “Stab him in the throat while he’s sleeping, poison in his beer, scorpion in his clothes. There were always options.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “How was yours?”

  “Distant,” he said. “A busy man. Cold. I think my sister inherited that from him. Me, I think there’s too much of my mother in me. That’s what they always used to say. The staff. I loved my mother. She did her best.”

  She did her best… Those words stabbed deep and Alana blinked back the thoughts that came with them. Could she honestly say that about her own mother? Thinking back to the woman once beautiful gone thin and haggard with the life she’d been dealt, she didn’t know. Now she was thinking about it, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to know.

  “When they died, a part of me died with them. Of course, we were both left wealthy by their passing. But you know what, I didn’t want it. I wanted them back and all the credits in the five kingdoms wasn’t going to change that. It hadn’t saved them, when their speeder crashed, they were still as mortal as anyone else. A few billion credits and majority ownership in a company worth the same wasn’t going to bring me any happiness. Do you know what it’s like waking up and just realising there’s no point to life anymore?”

  “I’ve woken up not wanting to,” Alana admitted. “Back when I was a little girl, I… Everything was simpler when I was asleep. Sometimes I’d wake up with the tears dried on my face and it’d all come flooding back to me. There’d be nothing I could do about it. Sometimes I thought about killing myself.”

  “But you didn’t. And things got better?”

  “Eventually,” she admitted. “I was kicked out of home at fourteen. At the time I was glad. Later, not so much. I did some things I’m not proud of. There’s things I really want to forget so excuse me if I don’t talk about them.”

  “Hey, your choice.” He nodded in agreement. “Look, I can’t imagine what you had to do. And I won’t if you don’t share with me. I’m not disputing you had it rough. You know what I did with my inheritance? I gave it all away. Told my sister she could have it and I’d be going. I left with the clothes on my back and my spirit calling equipment. I pawned the expensive summoner and bought a cheaper one, changed my name with the remainder of the credits. I want nothing more to do with who I was. I’m more concerned with who I am. And who I’m going to be.”

  Alana nodded slowly. “I can respect that, I guess. But all that’s in the past. I mean, sure you might not like her anymore. Doesn’t mean you can’t get along. She wants badly to speak to you…”

  He snorted. “No doubt she does. Maybe her guilt reflex is finally developing after all these years. You know, I seriously doubt she’s capable of loving another human being, you know. Meredith was the one I pitied.”

  “I think she wants to make amends. Prove you wrong. Look, you seem like a decent guy. I mean you really do. I seem to meet nobody but scumbags…” She thought of Ritellia and blanched a little, trying not to dwell on it. “… believe me when I comment on how rare that is. You’ve confided in me, a stranger about your past…”

  “I have nothing to hide. I’m not ashamed of who I was. I was born to luxury and I turned my back on it. I don’t think it makes me better than anyone else. What sort of man would I be if I did?”

  “But,” Alana continued, ignoring his interruption. It was a slight thread but one she wanted to grasp with both hands and pull until it either unravelled or went taut with a result. “Say you’re wrong about her. Say she really does want to reconnect with you. If she’s genuine, how can you turn her down and still look at yourself? What then does that make you?”

  She winced a little as she sponged at her foot, smiled weakly. For the first time, he looked taken aback as he considered her words thoughtfully. “And as for saying you’re not ashamed, Collison… You changed your damn name. What does that really say about how you feel about her?”

  Maddley had been located easily enough, he’d sequestered himself away on the roof of his hotel, a beer in front of him, and she’d decided to make an entrance. She’d wrapped the scarf around her face to retain her anonymity, it was warm but she pushed it away from the forefront of her thoughts for the time being. Her discomfort wasn’t important. If her dreams were to come true, there’d be a lot more discomfort than a bit of warmth. Her anonymity was more important. The air was cool-ish, not the warmest part of the day which was a relief.

  Her taccaridon spirit wasn’t quite as impressive as the vos lak that Domis favoured for travel, but it had an unusual factor about it that frequently made people take note. Whereas the vos lak resembled a serpent dragon from the far side of Burykia but wasn’t quite a relative, nether was the taccaridon quite related to one of the extinct ones that had existed so many years ago. A leather skinned aerial monstrosity, it could ride the winds like very few beasts she’d ever seen, not so much flying as gliding through the air.

  It was a very smooth flier, no constant unpredictable jerking motions that she’d experienced across riding giant birds or even dragons. Its head was reminiscent of a wolf’s, its tail like that of an oversized scorpion while the claws could grip onto anything with ease. Acquiring this spirit had been a considerably difficult task and it was handy in a fight as well. It was a clo
ne. Just like the vos lak but the efforts to attain it had been even more difficult. The vos lak started to vanish decades ago, the taccaridon had vanished centuries since.

  At what point Maddley noticed she was there, she couldn’t say. Maybe he was just doing a good job of ignoring her until the shadow passed over him. He hadn’t cried, she was relieved by that. If he was to reveal himself that weak emotionally, this whole thing would have been a waste of time. But still he looked angry, his cheeks flushed with it and his knuckles white where he’d clutched them tight into his palms.

  “Mr Maddley,” she said. “Hard luck earlier, I have to say.”

  He didn’t reply, just stared defiantly in her. She could see the insolence in him and it intrigued her more than she wanted to admit.

  “Still, live and learn, right?” she continued. “I’m sure you’ll grow from it. Use it to build a better future from your experiences.”

  “Perhaps,” he said slowly. “What’s it to you whether I do or not?”

  Yes, he had fire. She could hear it in his voice. He’d be perfect. Under her instruction, he could well be an asset.

  “Because well, you could say the future is something I have a vested interest in,” she said. “Let’s talk about it, shall we? You and I.”

  Chapter Thirty. Proposal and Fire.

  “It’s something that you’ll never be able to completely remove. Something wouldn’t be right if it was a hundred percent improvement. The nature of the job means that our people will get hurt. Our people will die. But since I took over Unisco, agent casualties are down by twenty percent. I’ve been out in the field. I can only consider that a good thing. I’m proud of that achievement.”

  Terrence Arnholt in a report to the Senate on his Unisco tenure.

  The eighth day of Summerpeak.

  “So, before we start, how are you holding up? That was a bit of a beating you took earlier?” She knew he’d had the time to calm down now and that was important. The hours had passed, it had taken this long to track him down and the main thing was that she got what she wanted out of him.

  He shrugged, a dismissive gesture which she chose to ignore. If he joined, it would be something that would need to be worked on. He lacked respect and it grated a little. This was why she had Rocastle to do what he’d done ably for the most part... “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I mean; it was what drew you to my attention. Nobody wants to see that in a contest. I’d feel short changed if I’d paid to see that.”

  He studied her briefly with an appraising eye. Something was going on behind those eyes and she didn’t know how to read it, an unideal situation but not one she was at a loss to deal with. Yet.

  “I lost. It happens. Nobody gave me a chance and I didn’t disappoint. So there.”

  “Yes, well.” She joined him in staring out across the island, only a few years ago untouched by the rest of the world. She’d built this kingdom and changed the way it would operate for a very long time. A trial for her new future. If she could change the fate of this small island, then it would only be a matter of time before the rest of it all followed suit.

  Granted, they were far from that now. But baby steps and all that. Sometimes you took the time to line everything up so when it all fell into place, it fell damn quickly. “Bitterness will get you nowhere unfortunately.”

  Her taccaridon had looked unperturbed by being left to its own devices as the two of them spoke at length, great teeth munching away contentedly at the side of the water tower, leaving huge gouges in the metal as it sought out the liquid inside. She would have brought it back to its container crystal had the possibility she may need a swift exit not been a factor. It wasn’t causing any harm, she’d made sure of that before diverting all her attentions to the conversation with the sullen young man.

  Darren Maddley had the stocky build of his father, his hair a dirty blond colour that she vaguely recognised as inheriting from his mother, a particularly vacant trollop in her opinion who’d latched onto Maddley Sr when he’d become famous and rich and made to leave when it had all faded. Women like this young man’s mother gave the rest of them a bad name. None of this she said aloud of course. It wouldn’t do to alienate him before she’d even started. Some people could get so attached to family, it seemed. Whether he’d be one of them or not, she couldn’t say. And yet if she’d read him right, he held some antipathy towards the woman who had ruined his father.

  Who wouldn’t in his situation? Did revenge drive him or success? Credits or creed? Power or position? These she’d need to find out and quickly. Offering him a role would be a wasted effort should he not prove to be suitable and right now every move she made was a vital one. No venture was without risk but the one she was spending by being here was feeling more and more a foolish one by the second. Still, she was nothing if not an effective worker. Either way, she wanted to have an answer in the next few moments. If he hesitated, it was unlikely he’d have the conviction that she required. And that would be a shame for him.

  “What about the future?” he asked slowly, his voice devoid of some of the sullenness it had held seconds earlier. It would appear she’d at least gotten some interest out of him at last. “What does it matter right now?”

  “Potentially,” she said. “Nothing. Actually? Everything. It’s all linked you know. The past, the present and the future. What happened in the past goes on to affect the present and what we do now will shape the future to our own ends. That’s always been the curse of humanity, I feel. We change everything and we very rarely take the time to consider the effects of our actions. Tell me now that it doesn’t matter.”

  He said nothing, she took that as a cue to carry on. “The details don’t matter now but I’m currently engaged in a venture that should everything come off, well it would make the future a new and fantastic place. The way we’re going, it… It doesn’t look so good. Tell me, do you actually like the world we live in right now?”

  “It’s okay,” Maddley said noncommittal. “Good and bad.”

  “Give me an example, then. What’s so good about this place? And what makes it bad? Weigh them against each other and I wager that you’ll find the bad outweighs the good. Just look at this entire process.” She waved a hand out across the island below them. “Couldn’t the credits have been spent so much better? Incurable disease might be one step closer to not being so. Homeless could have been homed.”

  It was hard not to laugh at the idea that might have been what she’d chosen to do with her credits but Maddley wasn’t to know that. Every argument was a weapon until she found the one to drive home a point. “And this whole tournament is a gross mistake. It has become a giant juggernaut unable to stop moving and growing larger and larger and more unwieldy by the year. I know you competed and that’s fantastic for you, but take off the blinkers and tell me you don’t think things could have been organised a little better. We’re in Vazara for divine’s sake, have you not seen some of the stuff that’s gone on since the tournament started? Storms, suicides and kidnappings. Shootings for divine sake. Was this really what we wanted?”

  It was what she’d wanted but that was beside the point right now. Maddley wasn’t to know that.

  At some point he’d sat down again, staring out disinterestedly over the island. Either that argument wasn’t working or he was considering what she’d said in silent musing. She hoped it was the latter. Or she really would be wasting her precious time. Ideally Rocastle would have been the one doing this had he not messed badly up. He had that touch with people. He might grate them but he got them talking.

  “Well I guess that’s up to other people, right?” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me. I can’t change their mind. They’ll do what they do and I’ll do what I do and… Well I don’t know.” He leaned back to glance at her. “Guess I never thought about it before. But if someone wants to build all this, why should they be stopped?”

  Hmmm… “Maybe they shouldn’t. Maybe that’s the beautiful thing about this wo
rld that was created. A free will. The ability to do whatever whenever wherever you choose. And that’s not what I’m talking about. Not removing that. That would be a grave abuse of humanity and I don’t desire that. A race full of automatons and endroids would do nobody any good at all. There’d be more problems than there were before. No initiative, no creativity, no flair. Can you imagine…”

  “I’m through imagining,” Maddley said bluntly. “Either make your point or leave me alone.”

  She sighed, rubbed her hands together to try and remove some of the sweat and stood up a little straighter.

  “I’ve had someone here examining the callers in the tournament,” she said. “Looking for ideal candidates for my new world. Because out of the chaos of this world springs the order of the next. There will always be a need for those who are strong to impose that order. You weren’t on my spotter’s list, an oversight from him, but I think you have potential despite what that bout showed me.”

  “Only potential? I managed to get to this point, didn’t I?” He looked annoyed more than anything by her comments, she brushed it off and smiled sweetly at him.

  “You did and now you’ve gone out at the hands of someone who had infinitely more advantages than you did when it came down to it. She was stronger and you were weaker. It showed, she cast you aside without breaking sweat. That, my boy, is an achievement on this island. Except maybe it wasn’t as clear cut as that, was it? What were your thoughts when you stepped on that field?”

  He took one long blink, rested his chin in his hands and exhaled sharply. “I wanted to win.”

  “Just that? You wanted to win and that would be the end of it? What would victory accomplish? A good feeling? Closure for your family…”

  “You know what?!” He suddenly yelled, rising to his feet in anger. “I’m sick of people bringing up the whole thing about how she beat my dad. Yeah, you know what? She did. That’s not going to change. I could have beaten her and it’d still be there. The past can’t be changed. I’m not even trying to do that. I wanted to win for me, not for him! I wanted to win this whole damn thing, I wanted the prestige and the trophy and the credits. Is that so fucking bad?! I’m not different from anyone else here like that! You can turn it all into some noble thing about how I want to destroy that bloody witch and well, I just want to get ahead in this whole damn great game!”