The trail remained steep for another hundred meters, then turned into a decline. A large expanse of sparkling blue sea was visible from the first bend, as was the jutting rise of the volcano, now half a mile away. The path was only wide enough for two abreast, and Griffin was glad: it discouraged bunching, and this looked like prime ambush territory. In fact . . .
“Chester, how about a ‘reveal ambush’ spell?”
“I can see what you mean.” He raised his arm. “Hear me, oh Gods . . .” His green aura surrounded him. “Reveal Danger!”
Red light tinged the thatch of trees a hundred feet ahead. Chester grinned. “I’m not sure who you really are, Griffin, but you’re not bad. Let’s catch ’em with their pants down. Mary-em, Oliver, Griffin, Acacia, Holly and . . . Gina. Split into two groups and work your way through the brush. The rest of us will keep going straight to draw their fire.”
Mary-em, sidled up next to Alex. She seemed very quiet, and he rubbed her shoulder. “How do you feel, lady?”
She gave him a friendly elbow, but there was no juice in it, and she knew it. “A little tired, Gary.” He knew that it , It had to be true, but it was still shocking to hear her say it.
“Well hell. If you’re tired, who’s going to watch out for me?”
She smiled up at him from her four feet nothing. “All right, handsome. For you, I’ll tough it out.”
He grabbed her hand and set off through the bush before the positive mood could fade. Gina was with them, but Alex walked Point, trusting that any nasties in the underbrush would be more visible to a Thief than a Warrior or Magic-user.
Something touched Alex’s shoulder, and he jumped. It was only Gina’s power staff. “I’m getting a reading,” she mouthed silently. He nodded understanding and slowed down, keeping eyes and ears open for clues.
And there they were. A group of eight Foré clustered behind a bush by the side of the road. Two of them had guns, five of them bladed weapons, and one was burdened with an odd apparatus, reminiscent of primitive scuba diving gear.
“I think that’s a flame thrower on that one’s back. Wide angle and high lethality. Not good. The guns are a lot easier to deal with. Can you run a psychic message to Chester?”
Gina frowned. “It’ll cost me a lot of energy, but I can do it. Hear me oh gods! Give me communion with our leader. “Your humble servant begs this boon.”
Mary Martha pulled her halberd from her back and gave the blade a half-twist, disengaging it and triggering the hologram blade. Her nut-brown face turned happy again. “Now this is what I need.” Griffin followed her example preparing his weapon.
“Chester’s ready.” Gina fingered her staff eagerly. “He says for us to go for it.”
Mary-em started to edge forward, but Griffin stopped her. “I don’t like that flamethrower. I want to try taking it out with a throw. My agility score should be high enough.” He stood to a balanced position and drew his arm back as he had seen Tony do it at the wrecked mission. He snapped it forward, hiding the knife as he did, and watched the holo projection flash quick as light toward the man with the flame thrower. It buried itself in his neck.
Mary-em was howling and jumping, her halberd cleaving the air. She reached their enemies before the gun men could turn around, and her blade passed through a skull effortlessly. Crimson spattered in the air.
The sounds of combat were echoing from the other side of the path now, and a bright streamer of flame rose in the distance. Griffin wrenched a spear from the first Foré who came at him and the man flipped with the motion; Griffin buried the hologram spearhead in his vitals. Gina yelled “Look out!” and Alex ducked as something sizzled by his head. The Sorceress gestured with her staff and two Foré clutched their heads and toppled.
A dive and roll, and Alex had a rifle, courtesy of Mary-em’s first victim. The Thief came up firing and took a bright red spear wound in the shoulder as he downed another opponent.
Shocked with the speed of the encounter, he looked around to see that all of their enemies were dead. Gina tested her aura and it flickered a pale green: she shook her head worriedly. “I don’t have much left. We’re going to have to be careful.”
Alex rolled over one of the dead, and took another surprise. The man was dark enough; the sun had burned his skin almost black. But his features were oriental. “Jesus. What do you make of this?”
“Wasn’t New Guinea occupied by the Japanese during World War II”
“I don’t know, Mary-em . . . I guess so, yeah. Check the others.”
“No time. We’ve got to help our own people. Here, Gary, take the flame thrower.”
Alex liked that idea. He peeled the tank off the back of the dead man and slipped his arms through the straps. He fired a test burst into the trees. It worked fine, except that some of the fireburst streamed to the side, just under his elbow, into the pot of black fire at his waist. He flinched violently.
Gina said, “Better give me that. It seems to attract fire.”
Alex handed her the pot. “All right, let’s do it.”
The three of them scrambled down to the path to find the Foré in retreat. Holly Frost was on one knee squeezing shots off in steady progression, protected by Chester’s white energy shield.
Dark Star was in a swordfight. The last desperate Foré was trying to reach—Lady Janet!—who was trying to climb a rockslide and getting nowhere.
S. J. saw what was going on. He threw one of his carefully prepared antifire bombs: ashes and black fire wrapped in a big leaf. It exploded against the Foré’s head in a puff of darkness. The half-black, half-oriental face glared pure disgust at S. J. before his backhand swing nearly decapitated Dark Star.
“Well, that didn’t work,” S. J. muttered, and leapt at the Foré’s back. The native whirled, and Dark Star skewered him.
Flame arced out of the bushes towards the Gamers. It looked like it was going to cremate them, until S. J. hurled another antifire bomb. The firestream vanished into the puff of blackness, just above their heads. Griffin answered it with a burst of his own, and there was a bloodcurdling shriek as a flaming Foré ran spastically from the brush to finally lie twitching and blooming oily smoke in the road.
Henderson seemed ecstatic. “That’s it! That’s what the black fire’s for. Okay, we’ve got ’em on the run, now let’s finish it!” The Gamers yelled their agreement and chased after the fleeing enemy.
Every few hundred feet one of the Foré would stop and try to shoot or chuck a spear at them, but all were mercilessly picked off. Bursts of flame ended magically above their heads. They had reached the base of the volcano itself: the Foré were circling left, trying to stay hidden within the tree line.
Gwen Ryder called, “Griffin! Dagger wound! Hold up and let me cure that.” She picked her way toward him. “It’ll affect your agility—”
An oversized Foré rose out of a bush, impossibly near, grinning like a thief. The huge machine gun in his arms must have weighed almost as much as he did. He took a moment to brace it against the tree behind him.
Alex yelled, “Duck!” and fired the flame thrower.
The machine gun roared and thrashed as if trying to escape its master. Then Alex’s firestream engulfed the man, and the bullets stopped. But Gwen looked down, horrified, at six red blotches lined across her chest.
Alex was standing, cursing, when the sound of another gunshot slapped his ear, and the flame thrower tank jerked against his back.
He fought to pull the straps loose. “Tony!” he yelled at the nearest Gamer. “Anti-fire! Quick!”
McWhirter didn’t seem to hear; he watched wide-eyed as the tank whoofed into flame. It was still in Griffin’s hands as it erupted. He screamed, “Anti-fire, God Damn it!”
Heatless flame glared white around him, blinding him. He flung the flame-thrower gear into the bushes. He was still embedded in flame. In Game context, he must be covered with gasoline. He threw himself to the ground and rolled to try to put out the flames. Waiting for the metal disk
at his throat to shock him dead.
S. J. threw his last prepared bomb and struck him squarely on the back.
There was a snakelike hissing sound as frost and fire vied for his life. Then the fire winked out and left him in a cloud of sawdust.
Alex got up. He looked for Gwen . . . and saw two Gwens, one very pale, one haloed in black. The darker Gwen doffed her pack and set it down carefully. Frankish Oliver was standing open-mouthed and paralyzed. She winked at him, and pointed at the pack, before she moved off behind her tindalo.
Ollie groaned. He turned from the other Gamers and buried his face against a warm boulder. Acacia moved up beside him, put her hand on his shoulder. He brushed it off. She hesitated, then left him.
Alex saw Chester looking at him nervously. He looked down and saw red and black flickering on his hands and arms. He felt strange: ready to faint. Tony wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Am I dead?” I didn’t feel a shock . . .
Owen looked him over carefully. “Chester? It would take a lot of energy, but I think we can do it.”
Chester watched the last of the Foré disappearing in the distance. To their right was the steep, rocky slope of the volcano. “Damn,” The Lore Master said. “That’s two already today. Maybe three. And the Game’s only been on for four hours.” He wiped his palms on his fatigue pants, staining them dark with sweat. “This is going to be murder. All right, try to save Griffin. We can spare the energy. We’re going to need every man we’ve got.”
Alex relaxed as Owen bathed him in gold light. It felt like a stiff shot of whiskey taking effect . . . as if deep wounds were actually healing. A wonderful thing, imagination. He stood up with new energy flooding his veins.
Tony McWhirter said, “Sorry. I froze.”
“Don’t do it again,” Alex said briskly. It was a subject he would raise again, but later. Meanwhile, it would be best not to depend on Fortunato’s good will.
Chester and Ollie were hunched down next to each other, with Gwen’s backpack between them. Yes, of course: Gwen had thought to leave them her backpack full of ashes. Win the Game. Alex couldn’t hear the conversation, but presently Ollie wore one of the evillest smiles that Alex had ever seen. On second thought, Alex didn’t need to have heard. It undoubtedly had something to do with getting Lopez’s balls in a basket, a sentiment he could sympathize with wholeheartedly.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE EGG OF THE AIRPLANE
Chester Henderson must have been running on rage. He forged up the slope of the volcano as if it were level ground, his head swinging from side to side in Gamer’s paranoia, seeking the next attack. Lady Janet stayed just behind him. Being kidnapped hadn’t done her any obvious harm, Griffin thought. He managed to keep up, but he needed his breath. The rest of the Gamers were strung out halfway to the base of the cinder cone.
“Stop a minute,” Chester directed. “God help us if we’re spread out like this when the enemy hits us.”
They stopped and flopped against the cinder slope, fifty meters or so below the volcano’s lip. The line began to close. Chester asked, “Janet, what exactly did they say? Could they have been talking for your benefit, or Maibang’s?”
Lady Janet shook her head. “They’d already left Maibang. They were boasting getting up their courage. They bragged about the power, their ancestors’ tindalos. They swore to defend their Cargo until all of the European thieves are dead, or all the Foré. They . . . they bragged about what they’d do to you. One of them offered to give me your . . . private parts,” she siaid with evident distaste. “That was for my benefit. Partly”
“But they were going to fight”
“They meant it. They were egging themselves on.”
“Then where are they?”
Lady Janet shrugged.
She’ll be one hell of an actress, Alex thought. She’ll be too good for Gaming. Will she give it up?
The Gamers bunched up around them. Acacia dropped with her back against Alex’s knees; but her head was up, alert for the next attack. The enemy had last been seen hiding among the trees at the volcano’s base. Where were they now?
Chester stood up. “Everybody got his breath back?”
They charged up the last fifty meters to the rim, each screaming his own war cry. At the lip of the crater they paused, feet skidding in the loose rock.
A few wisps of steam floated within the bowl, obscuring part of the view, but the crater seemed as deserted as the slope. Nothing human showed at all. Chester ordered, “Ollie, Gina, stay here with Lady Janet. The rest of us are going in.”
Crevices in the rock vented more steam as Alex slid down into the mists. The rock as loose enough to make him cautious, but the incline isn’t as severe as he had feared. Digging in with his heels stabilized his balance.
The body of water at the bottom was not much bigger than a pond. It steamed gently. He caught Chester’s eye. “Still no defenders.”
“I don’t like it either.”
“Here!” Owen called, and Alex turned to see the older man scrambling towards something dark and egg-shaped. Alex checked sideways and up towards the lip for visitors again, and followed Braddon.
As the shape became clearer, Griffin felt a chill. The fins attached to the blunt end said “bomb” so clearly he could almost hear it tick. The others had caught the same message; their headlong rush slowed to a cautious advance. At last they stood in an uncertain semicircle about the bomb.
It was darkly corroded metal, a pointed cylinder. The flat rock it lay on had been positioned like an altar and draped with white cloth: a parachute. A glass jar held fresh flowers . . .
Even S. J. looked a little disconcerted. “What in the world do we do with this, Chester?” He edged closer to it, to within five feet, but still couldn’t bring himself to touch it. “Can we carry it out? This baby has to weigh two or three hundred kilograms. Margie?”
“I wouldn’t know how to move it, Chester. Across flat ground, maybe. . .” Her eyes lit up. “Wait just a minute. How did the Black Hats get it in here in the first place?”
“Good thinking. It had to be magic.” Chester walked around the bomb in a decreasing spiral, fascinated. “I don’t know if we have enough power, though.”
Tony was giving the bomb plenty of room. “Maybe we don’t want to fool with it at all. Maybe Lopez just wants an excuse to blow us all up.”
But S. J. had moved in closer, and now he was actually touching the smooth surface, eyes closed as if trying to sense its internal workings. “Chester. . .” he murmured.
Then louder. “Chester! Why can’t we just extract the plutonium and take that with us? It’s got to be almost as valuable as the whole damn bomb. And lots lighter.”
“Jesus, Waters. You want to fry us all? Or did you bring a ton of lead shielding?”
“I thought maybe the black fire?”
Chester hesitated, then, “No. Radiation isn’t fire.”
“He’s got the right idea,” Tony insisted. “We don’t have to steal it. Wreck it. Make it useless for the Enemy.”
Chester shook his head. “Good common sense, but our mission is theft.”
“But look at it! We’ll never move it!”
“Magic,” the Lore Master said. “I’m not sure I like it, but it’s the only way out that I can see. It’ll take everything that we have, and by the time we’ve got it out we’ll be down to the dregs of our magic.”
Gina carefully walked closer to the bomb, nose twitching. “The heat and steam, Chester. That thing could be pretty unstable.”
“Maybe leaking radiation, too.” Acacia seemed almost reluctant to say it. Instantly the Gamers shied back a few feet.
“Alright, then. We need a continual Danger scan on this while we try to move it. Margie, you and S. J. work out a way to lower it once we get to the lip.”
“Damn,” Margie cursed sedately. “I broke another fingernail.”
“Try keeping your fingers out of the knots,” Waters laughed, cinching the l
ine tight. They had rigged guide ropes around the bomb that ran up to the crater rim. With luck, they would turn the moving job from an impossibility to a mere back-breaking task.
Chester had sent Acacia up to the top to substitute for Gina, who had entered into deep meditation with Chester in preparation for the attempt. When they rose they both seemed hollow-eyed and deadly serious.
Tony was making them all nervous, the way he kept watching the rim. “With luck we could get it almost to the rim before the Enemy jumps us.”
“We’ll get warning,” Ollie told him.
“We’d still be afraid to let go of the bomb, won’t we? While they’re killing our three scouts!”
“Lopez doesn’t make it easy,” Ollie granted him. “Wish you’d stayed home?” Tony didn’t answer.
Chester called, “Are the lines tight?” He moved into position beneath the bomb without waiting for an answer. “The rest of you, get on the lines. As soon as the Reveal Danger spell is in force, start pulling, gently but evenly. Gina and I will do what we can. We’re well ahead of schedule, troops. If the Gods—” and he lowered his voice to growl through his teeth, “—and Lopez—” Gina nudged him, and a faint smile finally cracked through his mask of fatigue, “—are willing, then we will taste victory today.”
Griffin got into position on line, directly behind Owen. “Do we get a prayer from the Padre?”
Owen tested the line, grunting. “Good Lord, help us move this mother. Amen.”
“Good enough.”
A weak green glow surrounded the shape of the bomb, growing slowly more distinct. Chester and Gina stood erect, faces shining with sweat—from exertion, or the heat?—and down the middle of the emerald wave they projected came a darker thread of green. It pulsed and sparkled within the lighter hue like a vein of green blood, and when it touched the bomb the casing trembled.
“Now!” S. J. put his back into it even as he called the stroke, and Alex bent to the task, feeling good to have an understandable physical task in the midst of the make-believe.
Dream Park Page 28
