Uh-oh. Justin held his hands up. “Let’s be reasonable. The three of us right here are the ones who can save you from the wizard.”
“You didn’t, did you?” the man asked. He turned to look at the crowd. “These three came here, started speaking against Sephith, and angered him! He came to take vengeance because of them. Why should any of us suffer for that?”
“Um…” He was forced to admit that this was a good point, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say so out loud. He looked at his teammate. “Lyle!” Nothing was forthcoming, not even a snore. Regretting the necessity, he looked at Anna. “Any ideas?”
She cleared her throat nervously. “The wizard gave you a day,” she told them. “There’s time to discuss this. And, by this, I don’t mean who to send as sacrifices but who to send as an attacking force.”
Justin nodded. “As the lady asked, is your plan to live in constant fear and be picked off one by one when Sephith wants his fun?”
People looked at one another and muttered.
“We drove him away from here,” Anna said and had warmed to the theme. “Other adventurers went into his tower alone and all of them failed, but the three of us managed to hurt him. If he could have killed us, he would have done it, wouldn’t he? But he ran away. The more people we have, the better our chances.”
“So, you did need us,” he said in an undertone. “All that stuff about him being yours to kill?”
“You’re not helping,” Anna snapped in an undertone. “And that’s a fair amount of big talk for someone who spent most of the fight stuck in midair until I distracted him enough to drop you!”
“That tower is full of his thralls,” the leader told them. “Traps. Spells. You won’t beat him and neither will we.”
“So we lure him out!” Justin called. “Listen to me. Listen to me. I can help you.”
The crowd hesitated, then began to advance on them.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He threw a look at Anna. “This is all your fault.”
“You know what, you’re right.” She gave him a venomous smile. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead in a pile of ash right now and you wouldn’t be dealing with this problem.”
“You’re insufferable,” he told her.
“Well, look on the bright side,” she told him. “At least you’re taking me down with you.”
Tad went to the lab straight from his last meeting of the day. He knew Mary had intended to go past the PIVOT offices and he wanted to make sure all was well. It made him a little anxious that he hadn’t heard from her at all.
As he moved down the hallway, he could hear her in an intense discussion with Dr. DuBois, and he began to hurry. If something was wrong—
He couldn’t bear to think of that.
When he burst into the room, Dr. DuBois was stabbing at the screen as he tried to explain something to Mary. She argued with him, although there was doubt in her voice. Neither of them had noticed him. He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes as he moved quietly closer.
“But if they’re sacrifices, they’ll arrive at the tower with a significant disadvantage,” she said.
Tad grimaced. He had not expected to hear his wife say that sentence.
“It gets them there as a group,” DuBois countered, “which is good for Justin and Anna to bond.”
“Bond how?” she asked suspiciously. “Please tell me he won’t fall in love with a…video game…fake…made-up woman.”
That sounded more like his wife. He adjusted his tie and waited.
“Bond as a comrade in arms,” the doctor explained patiently. “I still don’t quite understand the problem with that. He’s ascribing very negative motivations to her. Of course, she’s doing the same to him. Then again, she does have some basis for it. Maybe…he feels differently about female warriors than he feels about tavern wenches.”
“That seems likely,” Tad interjected.
Both looked at him.
“Tad!” Mary came to give him a hug and a kiss.
“Are you debating aspects of the game?” he asked. He slid an arm around her. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“It’s complicated.” She pointed to a pad of paper where she’d written notes about the game. He could see phrases such as xp loss for dead villagers and debuff = handicap. “The game isn’t only one thing. It responds to what Justin does. That means the way he solves problems and the way he behaves can affect things down the line. It’s not only about having a big sword. He needs allies, too.”
“Ah.” Tad sat with a sigh of relief. He was exhausted and he still had no idea what to do about the lobbyists. Right now, he simply tried not to think about it.
“Your son’s imagination is remarkable,” DuBois told him. “He sees layers behind the story and they begin to exist because he creates them. The game he is playing is richer because he is the one playing it.”
He frowned. “The game isn’t all…programmed?”
“It adapts,” the doctor replied. “Its algorithms are truly incredible. Justin’s interest and hunches have shaped a whole piece of the narrative in a way that may give him significant advantages. He isn’t…entirely behaving like a hero. Yet. But he has a sense of purpose. He doesn’t like simply standing around while people get away with things. He could technically have done anything on this quest—tried to bargain with the wizard, tried to take the village over and make the people his slaves instead of Sephith’s. He’s trying to save them, and he’s invested in his friends surviving as well.”
Mary noticed Tad’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s…building all of this.” He tried to clear his throat but there was a lump in it. “You remember when we’d go down to the river sometimes and—no, not that. And just read? You’d get books from the library sales for five cents and we’d climb into that tree and sit all afternoon.”
“I’d forgotten that.” She smiled at him. “We read some awful books.”
“And some really good ones,” Tad said. “I loved books like this—whole different worlds. I could never make something like that up. Justin can, though.”
“Yes.” Mary was still smiling at the memory when she turned to look at the pod. “He knows it’s a game but he isn’t simply going through the motions. He’s building it. But he always did that kind of thing. Do you remember the stories he would make up for his friends in the one with the dice and the figurines?”
“No,” Tad said.
“Oh, notebooks and notebooks full of stories. There are some at home.”
“How could I never have seen that?” He moved to the pod. “How did I…just…not notice at all?”
Mary said nothing. She came to take his hand and he squeezed hers as he looked over the top of her head at DuBois.
“I want to send another message to him,” Tad said.
“Justin knows you love him,” she said.
“We haven’t heard anything after the last one.” He shook his head. “What if he didn’t get it? I need to speak to him. I need to tell him—so many things.”
Wordlessly, DuBois handed him the keyboard and he sat and began to type.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The cart jostled over the roads. It seemed as though a new pothole appeared every few seconds, each one bigger than the last and able to send the cart in a new direction. It would appear that Sephith didn’t spend very much on the infrastructure in the valley.
Justin supposed it was the kind of thing that happened when you were able to fly everywhere you went. He flexed his fingers and scowled.
“For the last time,” Anna said, “stop doing that.” She and Justin were bound back to back with their hands and arms tied together. The situation was not one either of them was pleased about.
“I’m not trying to grope you!” he retorted. “I’m trying to maintain blood flow to my fingers. They’re going numb. I swear if I wake up and I lost a hand—”
“You’re already awake, genius.”
“What
ever.” He fought the urge to wrench at the bindings with every ounce of his strength. All it would accomplish would be to pull Anna over, and if she went, so would he—at which point, there was no way he could see that they’d manage to get upright again.
In the corner of the wagon, trussed to the side like a turkey, Lyle snored. Whatever he was dreaming about made him smile.
“I still say you wouldn’t ever have gotten into that tower on your own,” Justin said finally.
“Who says that was my plan?”
“You, when you marched up to me in the inn and told me Sephith was yours.”
Anna didn’t say anything to this.
“You go on about stupid choices, but if you’d come to me and asked to help, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, well, we wouldn’t be in this situation if you had asked around to see if anyone else was planning to kill Sephith either. You knew you weren’t the only one who had been sent.”
“If you were the last one the mayor of Riverbend sent, I can see why he sent me, too,” he responded acerbically. After a moment’s silence, he abruptly felt bad. “Look. I’m…I’m sorry. You’re good with magic. You’re probably good with daggers, too.”
“When they don’t melt.” Anna sounded like she was trying not to cry, but she carried the joke off well enough. “And I suppose you should know—the mayor didn’t send me. Also, my name isn’t Anna. It’s Zaara.”
It took Justin a moment to place the name. “Zaara?” He tried to scramble and twist and almost made them tip over. “Fuck, ow. Wait. You’re the mayor’s daughter?” He craned to look at her with new respect. “You escaped the wizard…and you’re going back to kill him? That’s…kinda cool, actually.”
Zaara gave an unwilling chuckle. “I wish. If I’d escaped, I would know what was in that tower. No, I…ran away.” When she caught sight of his frown, she explained, “To kill the wizard.”
“Then why does your father think you were kidnapped?”
“He doesn’t but he’s embarrassed because I ran off.” She shrugged, a motion that yanked the rope on Justin’s arms and made him hiss with pain. “If he says I went to fight Sephith, people will ask why he didn’t send anyone with me. But if he says I ran away, they’ll ask why. So he’s trying to get adventurers to help without telling them what’s going on.” She blew out an annoyed breath. “Let me tell you that you don’t know how little you should trust some men until you hear them discussing how a woman should repay them for being rescued. They had no idea I was listening when they said it.”
“What did they say when you told them?” He was interested but could feel his cheeks burning with the knowledge that he might have said something similar.
“I didn’t,” Zaara said. “I was going to ask their help and tell them what I knew of Sephith, but when I heard that, I didn’t. And the next day, they went off to the tower and got themselves killed. I feel kind of bad about that one.”
“Well…they did go into the tower,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but I could have helped and I didn’t.”
“They didn’t ask.” He shrugged, then paused. “I would have gotten killed, wouldn’t I?”
“Cheer up,” Zaara told him. “You still might.”
That surprised a laugh out of him. The more she spoke, the more he was curious about her. “Why did you do it? Run away, I mean.”
The three members of the PIVOT team were hard at work when DuBois chuckled quietly. Nick looked up from his financial spreadsheets as the doctor leaned closer to the screen with another low laugh.
“Here we go,” the man said. He stretched his hand sideways without looking, picked up a new bag of popcorn, and opened it with his gaze fixed on the monitor. As he watched the readouts on the screen, he began to eat.
Jacob watched him for a moment, put another tick on the popcorn consumption chart, and went back to his schematics.
Justin listened as Zaara explained her history. Her father had wanted her to marry well—perhaps go to the city and marry a lord—so he had paid for every type of tutor he could think of. She knew how to play a lyre and a harpsichord, could speak three languages, had been taught to keep household accounts, could recite several entire epic poems by heart, and knew every court dance.
These things, however, had bored her. Although she enjoyed dancing, she had convinced the instructor to teach her tumbling as well. When her mathematics tutor ran out of accounting to teach her, she had asked the woman to teach her cryptography.
On her own, she had studied magic, thinking she might someday find a way to rid the nearby valley of the drifting embers. Although she had never gotten far enough to do that, she was able to do several spells, as Justin had seen. She had even bribed the blacksmith to give her an old, battered knife so that she could study how to wield daggers from one of the books in her father’s library.
As the daughter of the town’s mayor, Zaara had the freedom to do almost anything she wanted, but when her father found out about the lessons, he put a stop to them. Although Yannick, her elder brother, was allowed to continue his studies, she was expected to confine herself to ladylike pursuits.
When news of Sephith’s triumph had come to Riverbend, she was only twelve. Wizard duels were few and far between but usually, a wizard did not try to take over additional territories, so no one worried very much. There were scattered reports of Sephith’s cruelty, but it had only been earlier that year when word reached Riverbend of the abductions.
Yannick and Zaara had both begged their father to send someone to help East Newbrook. Unlike the villagers there, he could send word to one of the cities. He refused to help, however. Finally, he grudgingly posted a sign for an adventurer, but none of those sent ever returned.
“It needed a big expedition,” she said. “But he wouldn’t organize one, no matter how much we told him to. I didn’t even think of going until he told me not to bother thinking about it because it wasn’t my place. Then…I lost my temper.”
Justin laughed. “You did it because he told you to stay out of it?”
“Not only because of that!” Zaara protested. “I knew how to wield daggers and cast some spells. I thought I would go to East Newbrook and wait for all the other adventurers to arrive. I would convince them to wait until we had enough numbers, and then we’d go. Plus, I assumed if I went, my father might send more people.” She sighed. “I guess he still thinks one person can fix this. Either that or he doesn’t care if I come back.”
“I know how that goes,” he said quietly.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Did you run away, too?”
“Not…exactly.” He tried to think about how he could explain his circumstances. “I’m far from home right now, and I’m not sure if my parents want me to come back.” He swallowed. “I wasn’t the son they wanted. I would play games with my friends. In the tavern, I would talk to people from all over the world. I heard amazing stories. I learned to trust people with my life, and each of them taught me something. My parents wanted me to have a trade, though.”
“It’s hard,” Zaara said, “when your parents want one specific thing for you. They block your chance to do anything else and then what are you supposed to do? I don’t want to marry a lord. I like East Newbrook and don’t want to wear uncomfortable dresses and embroider all day.”
“I don’t want to argue cases in court,” Justin agreed and sighed. He couldn’t say he’d gotten very far with his choices, though. “Would you change anything? Now that you know how it ends?”
“It’s not over yet, adventurer.” Her voice was gentle. She considered his question. “But…yes. I think I would change one thing. I never said goodbye to my father. I wish I had.” She looked down, silent as the carriage jounced down the road.
He was trying to think of something comforting to say when his wrist vibrated.
“What’s that?” Zaara asked.
“It’s my magical apple watch,” he told her. “Uh—never
mind. Look, can you feel the medallion on my wrist?”
“I think…yes. The circular one?”
“Yes.” He stretched his wrist as far to the side as he could.
“Ow—ow! My shoulder doesn’t bend like that.”
“It’s only for a moment,” he promised her. He tilted his wrist so he would be able to see the message, then asked her, “Could you press the jewel in the center?”
“Does this get us out of our ropes?” Zaara asked in a hopeful whisper.
“If it did, we wouldn’t still be tied together. No, it’s…I’ll explain later. Just press it.”
She did, and the rest of the world froze as a blank white screen came up. He stared as script popped up. It wasn’t the handwritten script he had grown accustomed to in this world but instead, the very regular typeface of a computer.
Justin, the note read. I don’t know how much time has passed in the game. Dr. DuBois says it’s not very much. We miss you, though.
I want to apologize to you. I don’t think I ever told you what Mary’s father said to me when I was eighteen. He said I would kick myself forever if I realized I hadn’t been the man I could be. I hadn’t had any focus in life before that. I only cared about shooting pool and drinking beers with my friends, but that comment made me shape up.
Justin sighed. While he hadn’t heard that particular story, he’d heard versions of it. He didn’t expect much from the rest of this letter.
It has been difficult to watch you sitting around, playing games. I wanted you to succeed and live up to your potential. It has taken this experience to make me see that you always were. I have listened to Dr. DuBois speaking about how these games work, how you can be a hero by creating a team around you and learning new skills. I think of how I heard you laughing when you played the games or of how you used to tell your mother about the stories you came up with for your games with friends.
Your video games aren’t like me playing pool. I always thought I wanted you to grow up and achieve your potential, but what I was looking for was for you to have a life like mine. You weren’t born to be a politician—although Dr. DuBois tells me that you’re not too bad at enlisting help if you put your mind to it. When you wake up, I have a problem I could use your take on.
Too Young to Die Page 18
