Gamearth

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "I'm going to grab for that guard's spear and dash out into the arena with it. Then I'll have more than just a club," Vailret broke in.

  Bryl and Drodanis looked at each other. "All right, pick a number between one and fifteen," Bryl said.

  "He has the advantage, Bryl ¯ he's surprising them," Drodanis said.

  "All right, a number between one and twelve, then."

  "Eight."

  "Got it!" Bryl said, surprised.

  Unseen in the blackness, Drodanis chuckled. "The Slac shout in anger, but they're not about to follow you to get the spear back. You have the spear in your hand. The club is about ten feet in front of you, lying on the bloodstained sand. Behind you the Slac slam shut a heavy door, trapping you in the arena. You can hear a grunting noise, like something running. The sand and gravel is covered with broken bones, but you can see large foot prints appearing as the Akkar charges toward you."

  "I'm going to run and get the club. I'll pick it up off the ground and hold it in my hand, waiting to throw it as hard as I can at the front of the creature when it gets close to me." Vailret felt breathless, as if his life was really at stake.

  "You get the club and you throw it. Pick a number between one and three."

  "Two. There is only one number between one and three."

  "Hah! Caught me. All right, then. You hit the beast with a loud thump, probably in its head. You can't see if it did any damage, but you have halted the creature's charge. For the moment."

  "Now I'm going to try to stick it with my spear. Is it making any noises so I can find it easier?"

  "Yes, you hear a snorting, breathing noise."

  "I'm jabbing with my spear."

  "Pick a number between one and seven."

  "Five."

  "Missed." "I'm jabbing again! And again, until I hit something."

  "You hit it. I'm thinking of four different sections of the creature's body. Pick numbers one, two, three, or four and I'll tell you where you hit."

  Vailret paused in the darkness, concentrating. "One."

  "You skewered the monster's throat! Several points of damage. Blood is gushing out ¯ you can locate the Akkar easily now. But it is angry and charging."

  "I'll dodge, now that I know where it is. Can I try to get my club again?"

  "You can't get to the club," Bryl said flatly.

  "You said there were lots of bones lying around. I'm going to run and pick up the first big one I find and throw it at the Akkar."

  "All right. After you've done so, you see another blotch of blood appear in front of the spear wound ¯ one more point of damage. This time you hit the monster in the head."

  Vailret paused again, considering his next course of action. "Is there one Slac around the pit who looks like a leader, like an overlord?"

  Drodanis paused, but he did not ask what Vailret was considering. "Yes, one seems to be dressed more magnificently than the rest. He has a portion of the arena circle to himself."

  "I'm going to steer the Akkar to get near the Slac warlord. I'll pick up another bone and throw it if I have to."

  "You throw another skull. It misses, but the Akkar is getting cautious.

  It is still bleeding heavily from its neck wound."

  "I'm up against the wall of the pit below the Slac warlord."

  "The beast sees you cornered and charges."

  "I'll plant my spear in the sand, bracing the haft and myself against the pit wall, sticking the point directly in front of me so the monster will charge into it."

  "Good," Drodanis laughed. "Pick a number between one and five."

  Vailret paused a long time, sweating. Two? Four? One? "Five!"

  Drodanis laughed again. "The Akkar has impaled itself on your spear!"

  In the darkness, Bryl's voice became serious. "Pick another number.

  Between one and ten."

  Vailret picked five again.

  "You have been gored by one of the many invisible spines on the Akkar in its death throes. Your side is laid open and you are bleeding badly."

  Vailret let out a quiet cry. "Is it bad?"

  "Very bad. If it isn't taken care of, you will soon bleed to death."

  "The Slac will never take care of it, will they? I'm going to pull the spear free from the Akkar's body. Can I do that?"

  "Yes."

  "Remember I'm just below the Slac overlord in the pit. And he's alone in his own part of the circle, you said. I'm going to throw my spear directly at him to kill him!"

  Drodanis apparently found this exciting and let him succeed. "The spear strikes him squarely in the chest! You know it is a mortal wound. The other Slac start shouting and screaming. They begin firing arrows at you."

  "I'm going to take shelter behind the carcass of the Akkar!"

  "It helps some, but not enough. You are hit by three arrows. A fourth," Drodanis said. "You are dead."

  Vailret felt a cold lump form in his stomach.

  Bryl lit the candle again, dazzling the three of them. Vailret felt confused but exhilarated. After a long silence, he finally asked the question that had been bothering him. "What should I have done to win?"

  Drodanis looked at the boy, hiding a gleam of pride in his eyes; but Vailret saw it there. "Nothing. We left you no way out."

  Vailret frowned, baffled. "Then why did I have to play the game? What did it teach me?"

  Drodanis grinned. "It taught you never to let yourself get captured by Slac."

  The three men traveled northward across hex after hex. The fifth day of walking took them over a ridge forming the southern rim of a bowl-shaped plain. They could see mountains on the near horizon. Vailret stopped to stare out across the grassland, but Delrael and Bryl plodded ahead. He hurried to catch up.

  Overhead, the sky was clear. They saw no birds, no wildlife. The silence in the air started to bother Vailret as they marched out onto the lake of dry grass. The dead blades whispered against each other as if confiding secrets, but he could detect no breeze. Bryl stopped and spread his arms out in amazement. "Something happened here. I can still feel it."

  Vailret scanned the valley, the mountains to the north, the high grassy hills to the south. He sniffed the air, but smelled only grass and dust. A memory skittered around the back of his mind. Then it came to him, but the hissing sound of the wind in the grass covered his gasp of surprise.

  "This is where the Transition took place!" He turned around, eyes wide and mouth open in wonder.

  Delrael stopped, baffled. Bryl knelt down and touched his fingers to the ground, then looked up in childish delight. Vailret wondered what the half-Sorcerer could sense, what emanations the spectacular Transition had left behind, an echo that only a magic user could hear.

  The valley did look large enough to hold the entire Sorcerer race.

  Vailret pictured in his mind all the surviving Sorcerers marching there to pool their magic, to transform themselves collectively into ... something else.

  The silence buzzed around them, as if the valley itself was still stunned. Many of the Sorcerers would have been afraid, some of them eager. But they had summoned up all their magic, pooled it ¯ it was something even the Rules did not know how to handle. The Sorcerer race had transformed themselves into six Spirits ¯ three Earthspirits and three Deathspirits ¯ leaving their bodies behind, fallen like scattered wheat.

  Only pure-blooded Sorcerers could join in the Transition. A few Sentinels had remained behind because of human or half-breed loved ones. The Sentinels had carried the fallen, dormant bodies into the mountains. They had erected the Ice Palace as a monument to their race.

  Vailret shielded his eyes, trying to squint and focus on the high range standing ahead of them. "The Ice Palace must not be far from here."

  Vailret thought he heard voices riding on the cool wind, Sorcerer ghosts trapped in the air and trying to get back into their empty bodies. He felt uneasy. The history fascinated him, but from a distance. He didn't like this place. Delrael and Bryl seemed uneasy as well. All
three of them pushed forward at a faster pace to the mountains.

  Sheer peaks stared down at them. At the black line separating the valley floor from the first hexagon of rugged mountain terrain, two statue sentries towered, thirty feel tall, carved from ice. Vailret stared at the monolithic sculptures ¯ gaunt soldiers in full armor, with the insignia of the old Sorcerer race chiseled into their uniforms. They carried glistening icicle spears as weapons.

  The silence pounded down on the travelers. The ice sentries stood in front of them, oozing cold, somehow casting crossed shadows on the road.

  Slowly, the three men passed between the statues. Vailret looked to his companions. Delrael appeared calm, but Vailret could see tension in the way he walked. Bryl acted as if he were stepping on a giant mousetrap. Vailret tried to ignore his own uneasiness.

  As they stepped over the black hex-line, the chill around them grew distinctly worse. The wind itself carried an essence of absolute cold.

  Vailret's skin became numb, the feeling in his nerves snuffed out like an extinguished match. Flecks of snow danced in the silent air. Bryl tightened his sky-blue cloak around his shoulders, but he made no complaint.

  "Sardun could be doing this with the Water Stone," Vailret said, uneasy about suggesting the possibility. "It controls the weather, you know."

  "But he's a Sentinel!" Bryl's words were muffled around his cloak.

  "He's supposed to help people."

  From behind came a loud clattering sound. They turned to see that the monolithic sentries had crossed their icicle spears on the return path. Then only the cold breeze broke the deathly hush.

  Claws of wind slashed at the blankets, bleeding warmth away. The stars shone intensely bright in the sky as clear as black glass. The three travelers had stopped for the night, shivering under a sheltered rock overhang, but they found nothing to burn for a fire, nothing to keep them warm. Bryl wasted one of his day's spells to force a small magical fire, but that did little to warm them. Delrael roused them before dawn. "We should have come more prepared.

  Come on ¯ we'll freeze if we don't keep moving."

  Handfuls of snow had collected in the tiny pockets and notches on the rock faces. Lady Maire's Veil cast auroral light down on the landscape, enough to see by.

  They plodded onward with sore feet and aching legs, but the cold had deadened most of their feeling. Vailret felt giddy and floating. Numbness roared in his ears. At dawn they reached the top of a boulder-strewn rise in the path. Delrael looked northward, then extended his arm. "It's there! See that glint?"

  Vailret could not see anything clearly enough; the peaks in the distance blurred out of focus, but he trusted Delrael's eyesight. They pushed on at a faster pace, and within an hour even Vailret could discern the gleaming towers of the Ice Palace nestled in the rocks.

  Then the sky smeared over with clouds, and sleet pelted down. Vailret's fingers were sluggish to respond when he tried to curl them inside a fold of his tunic.

  Vailret squinted to see the Palace's structure made of clear blue ice.

  But the gray sleet kept details hidden. He had seen a few sketches showing the main building, a pyramid flanked by two thin spires capped with onion domes.

  The vast Palace was inhabited by only one old Sentinel and his young daughter. They tended the frozen underground crypt that held the husks of Sorcerers who had departed in the Transition centuries before. The other Sentinels and half-breeds had once made pilgrimages to the monument, but as the Game slowly ground to a halt, few made the effort anymore.

  Few human characters would appreciate the monument and its treasures, but Vailret felt his own excitement growing. He could now speak with Sardun himself, have access to the original source material, even the Water Stone.

  Vailret felt optimism creeping up on him again.

  Tall cliffs closed in on either side, finally blocking off the sleet-wind. The Ice Palace loomed up in front of them, but it did not match Vailret's imagined picture at all. "Something's happened," Bryl exclaimed.

  "Look at it!" Delrael craned his neck upward. Vailret stared, letting his mouth drop open.

  The tall crystal spires were warped and drooping, with their decorative pinnacles melted away. A stumpy cascade of icicles ran like tears down the sides of the towers. Motionless frozen streams hung down the walls, stained black with a sooty residue. The structural blocks were now cloudy rather than transparent ice. The top of the main pyramid had been sheared off, blasted inward and leaving ragged, melted edges.

  Vailret forced back a strong urge to cry. He felt angry and helpless.

  "What did this?"

  "And what if it's still here?" Bryl mumbled. His wrinkled skin made him look parched and afraid.

  Delrael narrowed his eyes and looked for enemies hiding in the rocks.

  He broke the astonished silence and nudged them toward the destroyed buildings. "Let's get out of this cold." He moved forward, ready with his hunting bow, though his fingers were probably too numb to use it.

  The tunnel entrance to the main pyramid gaped like an abandoned trap.

  The Palace had no gates, no defenses at all.

  "The whole point was that anyone could come here, whenever they wished," Vailret said with a note of despair. "It was a memorial ¯ why would someone destroy it?"

  Snow had piled up at the entrance. The ragged wind hooted through the hole. Everything inside lay desolate and untended, empty. Delrael led the way down an uneven, half-melted corridor, deeper into the main pyramid. The rough texture gave them footing on the ice walkway. The main tunnel spiraled around the outer wall of the pyramid, working its way toward the central chambers.

  Their boots sounded like thunderclaps on the frozen floor.

  Refracted light seeping through the prismatic walls made unnatural rainbows, rippling and bathing them in color. Vailret looked from side to side, feeling the loneliness and emptiness gnaw into him.

  The sound of the wind soon vanished behind the thick blocks of ice, but the cold itself seemed to focus and deepen as they neared the heart of the Palace. Up ahead, lights danced on the frozen walls, ricocheting and sparkling like tiny meteors. The wind returned, louder, from a source within the central chamber.

  Intrigued but uneasy, Vailret pressed close to his cousin as they moved forward. A vaulted arch rose over the corridor, and the three of them emerged into the main reception room.

  The entire ceiling of the central pyramid had been blasted away, and frigid air swirled out of the wide hole. Great rivers of ice streamed to the floor like petrified waterfalls. Snow drifted down to settle in a bull's-eye pattern of ripples in the floor where the ice had been melted and refrozen.

  A blocky white throne stood in the center of the room. Encased in tendrils of frost, an old man sat staring mindlessly at the blasted walls.

  Sardun the Sentinel looked shriveled, mummified by cold. A long gray mustache hung against the wrinkled folds of his face. Vailret stopped and stared, afraid to make any sound. Delrael looked at him, questioning. Sardun blinked.

  "He's even older than Bryl!" Delrael whispered.

  "He's old enough to be my father," Bryl said, annoyed.

  The old Sentinel had plunged his left arm up to the elbow in the translucent ice of the throne's armrest, embedding it. Through the murky ice, Vailret could see Sardun's gnarled hand grasping the sapphire Water Stone. The Stone was a cube with a number etched on each face, shaped like a six-sided die, more powerful than the four-sided Air Stone. Unnatural cold spewed from the gem, swirling up and out into the world. "Sardun!" Vailret called. His voice cracked.

  The Sentinel swung his eyes back to focus around him. The wind breathed a ragged gasp and failed as the blue glow in the Water Stone died away.

  "Haven't I been wounded enough?" Sardun's high pitched voice held a tone of condemnation, then he chuckled a little. Vailret noticed that the old Sentinel lisped. "What's left for you to destroy? There's no more damage you can do!"

  Sardun heaved the Water Ston
e out of the frozen armrest of the throne, pulling it up through the solid ice. A few drops of water dripped off his hand and disappeared into the air. The cavity in the armrest filled again and solidified. Sardun glared at the three and leaned forward.

  "Look out." Delrael edged back against the wall. "He's going to roll it." Unless Sardun rolled a "1", his spell would be successful and would grow in power depending on how high he rolled.

  The Water Stone sapphire bounced twice on the ice floor. The number "4" came up.

  A thin bolt of lightning shot from the Water Stone, striking at the three travelers. But the Sentinel's aim was skewed. The bolt pinged off the glistening walls several times before it dissipated.

  Sardun did not pick up the Stone to roll again. His attack seemed halfhearted.

  Vailret stood a moment in turmoil, knowing it might be safer to run away, but then he'd never know what had happened here. Nor could they ask for help to save Gamearth.

  Confusion and indignation overcame Vailret's better judgment. He stepped into view and spoke quickly, hoping the Sentinel would hear his sincerity. "Wait! You're Sardun! You cherish the history of Gamearth as much as I do. Sentinels aren't supposed to destroy people!"

  Sardun swung his gaze at Vailret and snatched up the Water Stone from the floor to roll it again. Vailret knew he had little chance of avoiding a direct strike. Lightning traced the gray veins under the skin of the Sentinel's hands.

  Delrael shouted at him, but Vailret kept walking. He forced himself to be calm and brave, keeping his voice level. "We are friends, Sardun. You don't have to hurt us. I know about the old Sorcerers and the Transition. I know about the Sentinels and how you built this Palace as a monument to your race.

  This was to be a place for pilgrimages, where all interested characters could come and see what had happened during the previous turns."

  He gestured behind him, where Delrael and Bryl remained out of sight.

  "One of my companions is a half-Sorcerer, son of the Sentinels Qonnar and Tristane. My other companion, Delrael, runs the Stronghold. See, Delrael wears a silver belt that is an ancient Sorcerer relic. He and I are both descendants of the great general Doril, who fought in the Scouring."