The heavy stench made the air difficult to breathe near the cesspool.
Vailret's eyes stung. He found a weed-sheltered place where he could set the half-Sorcerer down. The cesspool seemed quiet now, waiting.
Vailret peeled off Bryl's sopping scarlet cloak. He removed a blanket from his pack and tossed it on top of the half-Sorcerer.
Bryl snored softly.
In the background of the swamp he could hear Gairoth bellowing. The insect songs fell silent for a moment, then continued.
Vailret crumpled the soggy cloak into a ball before tossing it onto the scum of the pool. Then he sat back to watch the tentacled thing rise to the surface, waving its whiplike appendages and curling around the scarlet fabric.
The creature pulled the cloak beneath the scum, like new prey.
Lurching forward as fast as he could, Gairoth reached his camp and smashed the spiked club against a tree trunk. He roared a battle cry that made the air vibrate, holding high the skull with the Air Stone. Rognoth lunged to the end of his chain, snarling.
But they found no one to fight.
Rognoth blinked his eyes. Gairoth came to a full stop, confused. "Haw!
We skeered 'em off! They gots none of my treasure! Haw!" Gairoth mopped his brow.
Breathless, Delrael reached the camp and flashed a glance to the trees.
He saw the damp patch on the ground where cesspool water had dribbled from Bryl's cloak, but the half-Sorcerer was gone.
Rognoth raised his scaly nose in the air, looking around with runny yellow eyes. When he saw the spot where Bryl had been, he snorted clouds of black, oily smoke.
"Shut up, stupid dragon! Nothing be there!" Gairoth snatched up a bone from the ground and bounced it off Rognoth's head.
"Gairoth, they gots your magic man!" Delrael pointed to the severed rope hanging from the cypress branch.
The ogre let his mouth drop open. Rognoth leaped to his feet, but the chain strangled him and he wheezed. Gairoth turned around in circles, looking for someone to hit with his club.
Delrael saw that the ogre needed help. "Cesspool! But we catch 'em!
Bonk! Quick!" He gave Gairoth a helpful shove in the right direction.
Rognoth galloped down the path as Gairoth stumbled after him, clinging to the iron chain. The ogre clutched the skull in his hand, holding the Air Stone in place with his thumb as he grasped the thick iron chain. But he didn't seem to know what to do with the diamond. Delrael ran behind.
The dragon reached the edge of the cesspool, with Gairoth fighting to keep his footing. They arrived just in time to see the tentacled creature swallow something bright and scarlet. Rognoth yelped and leaped ahead, not slowing down as he reached the bank.
"Stupid dragon!" Gairoth bellowed. He let go of the chain, but it became tangled around the Air Stone and the skull. Both the dragon and the ogre plunged into the cesspool, vanishing under the scum. Rognoth splashed to the surface, looking around, tongue lolling out. A whine broke from his throat as he realized where he had landed. Clawing at the thick water, he began to swim.
Gairoth emerged, pulling duckweed out of his eye and spitting green sludge from his mouth. Delrael saw with dismay that the skull in the ogre's hand had broken. The Air Stone had sunk to the bottom of the foul cesspool.
In the water, Gairoth's gaze settled on the pitiful dragon. His nostrils flared, and the cypress trees trembled as he roared his rage.
"Rognoth!"
The dragon gulped as the ogre heaved the spiked club out of the cesspool and sloshed toward him. Threads of green slime dribbled from the club into the water, following Gairoth as he moved. Rognoth ducked under the deep water just as the ogre swung at him with a crashing blow.
Delrael sauntered up to the edge of the pool, chuckling. Vailret emerged from his hiding place, but looked downcast at seeing the Air Stone gone. He watched Gairoth's struggles in the water without sympathy. Vailret heaved a limp and groggy Bryl to his feet, bringing him into view.
The ogre stopped splashing and glared at them, astonished and betrayed.
Delrael couldn't resist adding a last comment. "Now you've gone and lost the Air Stone, you clod. But we've got your magic man!"
Gairoth exploded in fury and charged toward the young man, but he stumbled in the mire. The ogre scrambled to his feet again and shook his fist in the air. "Delroth! I gonna bash you!"
Spine-covered tentacles rose up and writhed around him, translucent and glinting in the slanting afternoon light. A tentacle slapped around Gairoth's neck, and another slimy appendage grabbed his ankle and jerked him under the water.
Rognoth paddled toward the shore, but he could go no farther than his chain allowed.
The bulbous body sack of the jellyfish rose to the surface and burbled; more tentacles emerged, wrapping around Gairoth. The ogre trashed right and left, annoyed and helpless.
Tentacles coiled around the dragon's tail, but Rognoth whirled and snapped at them, biting deeply into the translucent flesh.
"Time to get going, Vailret," Delrael said. "How's Bryl?"
Vailret shrugged but kept looking dejectedly at the cesspool. "Why did Gairoth have to drop the Air Stone? Now we've lost it all over again!"
Delrael smiled. "At least we know where it is. Maybe there's another quest in the offing?"
"It would keep the Outsiders satisfied, I guess." He picked up his pack and wrapped Bryl in the blanket. "You carry him, Del. Your strength score is a lot higher than mine."
Gairoth finally yanked his right hand free and with a thick slurping sound pulled the club out of the slime. Dragging himself toward the jellyfish with its own tentacles, the ogre bashed his club into the mass of the creature's head. More tentacles wrapped around the ogre's face, and both monsters went under the water thrashing.
Delrael hiked the half-Sorcerer over his shoulder. "Well, do you think the Outsiders enjoyed that one? The whole adventure?"
Vailret frowned at him, puzzled. "Why shouldn't they? It's the same type of stuff they've always liked."
They walked off, listening to the bellows and splashings from the cesspool until the sounds vanished into other swamp noises. Soon they would reach the hex-line and be back into forest terrain.
But Vailret kept thinking about Delrael's question. What if the Outsiders were no longer interested? It felt like a premonition.
INTERLUDE: Outside
David yawned, making sure everybody saw him. Tyrone smiled with delight at the adventure, but Melanie saw Scott fidgeting. He and David seemed ... disinterested. She couldn't understand what had changed for them.
David picked at his fingernails.
Tyrone finally asked, "What's up your butt, David?"
Melanie nodded. "You've never been this bad before."
David looked at her, and suddenly Melanie had a sinking feeling that they had done exactly what he wanted. Now he could always say they had raised the question.
"Since you ask ¯ " David dropped a handful of dice on the table with a loud clatter, "there's something I'd like to bring up."
Melanie frowned as he looked at each of them in turn, like Charlie Chan about to announce his pick for the Murderer of the Month.
"I think we should quit playing the Game."
Even Tyrone, who was usually happy to play anything someone suggested, gasped in surprise.
"But why?" Melanie asked.
"It's boring. We've been at it too long. There's nothing left to it -it's not interesting anymore. Is that enough reasons? Look at the adventure we just finished: good, standard stuff. A big bad ogre, some treasure, an exciting chase. Your characters tricked their way out of it, as they always do, Melanie. It's like watching Star Trek reruns ¯ they're great for a few years, but it gets old after a while." He brushed at the sleeve of his denim jacket.
"And aren't we getting a little old for this stuff, too? Do you know how much crap I take from my parents about our stupid Game every week?"
Melanie stared at him, then at Scott and Tyrone, t
hen at the dice scattered across the table. Anger kept her voice even. "Would you rather go out for sports, David? Be a jock? Or how about hanging around in video arcades turning into a joystick zombie? Would your parents prefer that?
"The Game makes us put ourselves into a world we made up. Think of all we've done, all the history we've made. That's a lot more important than bouncing a ball through a hoop."
Scott looked at her a bit in surprise. "Don't go overboard, Mel. This is just a game. It's nothing real."
"Are New York or the Rocky Mountains real? Have you ever been there?
No! Then how do you know they exist? Huh?"
She thought of Gamearth, the villages, the characters. Every one of them seemed to be real to her. Couldn't the others see it? Or feel it? Scott blinked at her vehemence, which surprised even Melanie. She could feel something going on here, something important.
Since the four of them had equal experience in role-playing, they took turns acting as Game-master. Each of them ruled a particular section of the map and interacted with the other players.
"Why don't we just go back to exploring dungeons? That was fun," Tyrone said.
Scott made a rude noise. "Those were boring, Tyrone. Wandering through catacombs gets monotonous really quick. And what do all the monsters eat? What do they do all the time? You can't say they just stand there waiting for our characters to come along? How am I supposed to have fun if I can't believe any of it?"
Melanie grabbed at the idea. "But we outgrew the boxed dungeon adventures! We broadened the Game to cover an entire world. Our world.
Didn't you enjoy the old Sorcerer wars, David? You thought of that."
Tyrone said, "I liked it when the old Sorcerers created all sorts of creatures to do their fighting, not just humans."
"Oh, you just like monsters," Scott said.
David used a cracker to scoop up some of Tyrone's dip. "Yes, and the fighting got boring, too. Battle after battle in a war that was never going to end. What's the point?
"We had the Sorcerers make peace between themselves. They used the rest of their magic to turn the race into six giant Spirits. The Transition. We should have known enough to end it there."
"There was more to the story!" Melanie said. Why weren't Scott and Tyrone helping? "How could you just stop the Game there?"
She began to feel clammy sweat on her back. What if they put Gamearth away to gather dust on a shelf, never to play it again? What about the world?
What about the characters?
"I tried," David sighed.
"But I won. Roll of the dice."
"Yeah, Melanie," Scott added, "and we spent the past three months playing the Scouring of Gamearth. The humans and a few leftover Sorcerers hunted down surviving monsters to make the world safe for Mom, democracy, and apple pie. Tyrone had a lot of fun. But the humans are all settled down now.
You've got your Stronghold established and safe. There's nothing else to play."
"I want to quit," David repeated.
"No." Melanie tried to glare him down.
"Doesn't matter to me," Tyrone said. "I thought even the dungeons were fun."
Scott pursed his lips, putting on his coldly logical "Mr. Science" persona again. "Settle it like we always settle disagreements. Why don't you two just roll for it instead of arguing?"
Tyrone shifted in his seat. "I'd like to play something tonight ¯ it is Sunday, you know."
Melanie watched David, and they both reached for the twenty-sided die at the same time. David grabbed it first.
"If I beat you, we stop playing. We think of something else to do, or we stop meeting altogether. We've got our lives to live, you know."
Tyrone and Scott sat up straight. Melanie took a deep breath. David was serious ¯ it meant more to him than she had thought. Something worse than this was bothering him.
But the Game meant even more to her. She wanted to hold onto the world they had created. Gamearth was a part of her and a part of them all. They couldn't just put it away and forget about it like a game of Monopoly.
David squeezed his hand around the die. He threw it down hard onto the smooth painted surface of the master map. The die bounced, but came to rest before it could fall off the table.
*18.*
"Eighteen, Melanie. You won't beat it."
She picked up the twenty-sided die ¯ the expensive transparent kind from the hobby shop. Each facet looked smooth and perfect, with a number etched in the center.
"But if I win the roll, we keep playing. We stay in Gamearth with all our characters there. No chickening out."
David bristled at that, but Scott and Tyrone remained silent.
As she leaned forward over the master map, Melanie felt that she could fall into the world. She imagined the mountains, the forests, the islands, the frozen wasteland, vivid against a backdrop of the history they had played.
She closed her eyes, silently asked for help from whom ever else watched over Gamearth, and tossed the twenty sided die onto the table. "Come on!" she whispered. The die skittered and rolled and came to rest against the master map.
The 20 faced up.
"Yowza!" Tyrone clapped his hands.
"There." Scott sounded businesslike again. "Now can we get started?
It's your turn next isn't it, David?"
David glared at the twenty-sided die that had betrayed him.
"Come on, David. Don't be a sore loser."
He drank from his glass but continued to look at the map. "If we don't quit, I'm going to destroy Gamearth. I'll have my turn and I can set things in motion. There won't be anything left to play in. Then we'll have to stop."
"You've got to follow the rules," Scott said.
"I'm going to. But I'll unleash something so horrible upon this world that nothing can stop it. Your characters can try all they want. It won't work. I'm going to win."
Melanie stiffened. Scott and Tyrone seemed to be enjoying the friction.
Melanie thought of the Game's characters, looked at their settlements, their lands, and felt a pang inside her. Something seemed to be calling out to her.
Melanie ran her fingertip over one of the smooth faces of the twenty-sided. She hoped she hadn't used up her luck for the evening. She wished the characters themselves could help in the fight ¯ if only they knew what the stakes were.
She wanted to warn them somehow.
"The rules work both ways, you know. I can use them to save Gamearth." Melanie forced a smile, trying to look self-assured and a little wicked. "I'll beat you, David. You can count on it."
*2*
Attack on the Stronghold
"Gamearth has been built around a precise set of Rules. Though we may find them restrictive at times, these Rules can never be broken, lest we invite chaos and anarchy into the world."
¯ Preface, The Book of Rules
Making good time, while carrying Bryl, Delrael and Vailret crossed nine hexagons of terrain. They reached the Stronghold by the evening of the third day.
Vailret wished he had remembered to bring map paper with him to mark the terrain and keep his bearings. Delrael claimed to have memorized the colorful mosaic master map inlaid into one wall back at the Stronghold.
The trees were thick and full, the undergrowth colorful and lush.
Clear-cut paths wound through thick stands of oak, maple, and pine, leading off to various adventures. But all the terrain had been explored and mapped, all the dungeons uncovered, all the adventures played out and exhausted in days long past.
A clear stream followed the boundary between two hexes of forest terrain. One willow dangled over the bank, like a Medusa washing her hair in the water.
During the bloody Scouring, well-organized human armies and magic-using Sentinels had removed most of the enemy monsters from the map. The Outsiders had not seen fit to create any major new threats for more than a century. The forests had once been inhabited by ogres, sasquatches, packs of intelligent wolves, marauding bands of reptilian Slac
¯ all descendants of monsters that the old Sorcerers had created to fight in their wars. Vailret's father had been killed by one of the surviving ogres.
Vailret imagined Cayon, a great fighter but hopelessly outclassed by the ogre in the early morning mists. Drodanis, his uncle, had told of awakening to the sounds of battle, seeing the camp fire cold and his brother's blankets neatly folded. In a clearing he had found Cayon and the ogre ¯ two of Cayon's arrows protruded from the ogre's back.
Vailret tried to remember, but somehow he could not picture his father's face. He recalled only a few rare occasions when Cayon had focused attention on him; how frightening and godlike the great warrior had seemed.
The memory of his father eluded him, but the ogre seemed real, vivid to the last wrinkle in his leathery skin.
Drodanis said he had drawn his bow to join in the fight. He thought Cayon had looked impish, as if trying to show off with his sword. Why?
Vailret kept wanting to ask him. It was so stupid! Because of that, you were killed! Who were you trying to impress? I was proud of you anyway.
The ogre had swept his club sideways, breaking Cayon's wrist and knocking the sword from his hand. Drodanis sank an arrow into the ogre's chest, but the monster still drove at his first victim. Cayon stood ashen gray and tried to stumble backward, out of the way. The ogre smashed the twisted club across Cayon's chest, spraying blood into the forest. Drodanis roared in rage, sank three more arrows into the monster's back and neck, and then launched himself upon the wounded ogre, slashing with his sword from behind
Vailret had heard the story many times from others in the gaming hall.
Drodanis had completed his pogrom against the ogres, and then became a recluse behind the walls of the Stronghold. He had never spoken of Cayon's death after the first time, not once in all the hours he had spent staring at manuscripts with young Vailret....
About an hour after Vailret and Delrael had left the ogre's cesspool behind, Bryl came back to full consciousness. The half-Sorcerer walked by himself now. He moved a little slowly, but they made better time than when Delrael carried him. Bryl sulked, ashamed and grumbling to himself. "Wish we didn't have to leave the Air Stone there."
Gamearth Page 3
