Anderson, Kevin J - Gamearth 01 (19 page)

Bryl didn't seem to know what to do. "We might as well be sitting on the wick of a candle."

Fiolin hung his head in disbelief. "What you say frightens me. The
dayid
has told us to tend the forest as we do
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and the
dayid
would never ask us to do something that might harm the trees."

"It wasn't on purpose," Vailret said.

"We would rather die than forfeit our bargain with the
dayid
," Tayron Next-Leader said, looking around at the other khelebar for support.

"We may well have to."

The silence held for a moment, then Bryl pulled out the sapphire Water Stone. Firelight glittered off its six smooth facets, but the gem glowed with its own sleeping blue fire. "Let me try to help with the Stone. I could make it rain or I could change the wind. I don't know what will work, but I've got four spells per day."

Delrael patted him on the back. The half-Sorcerer looked embarrassed.

"Ydaim, will you take me to the fire? We can travel faster if you let me ride on your back. And we need to get there before midnight so I can use my spell allotment for today. After midnight I can try four more times."

Ydaim Trailwalker did not appear eager to return to the blaze, but he squared his shoulders. "We must hurry to the defense of Ledaygen." Bryl slid onto Ydaim's panther back and wrapped his arms around the khelebar's stomach.

He closed his eyes for the ride. "Do you want me to come along, Bryl?" Vailret asked.

The half-Sorcerer shook his head. "Stay with Delrael. And keep convincing them to fight."

As Ydaim bounded off into the forest again, Fiolin called after them, "You are our hope, Bryl Traveler."

Several other khelebar followed, chasing fairy-lights of hope.

The shadowy trees of Ledaygen flew past. Ydaim Trailwalker loped through the night, seeing the unexpected obstacles with his green khelebar eyes.

Bryl held the Water Stone in his hand, eager now to have the opportunity to use it, anxious to feel its power. He rubbed his thumb on the slick flat facets. The forest fire offered him a chance to see exactly what the Stone could do.

He did not understand how the Outsiders could ever become bored with all this.

Bryl smelled burning wood long before he could see the orange flames peeling bark from the trees. He had to crouch low to the khelebar's back because Ydaim had stopped being careful about dodging branches. Ydaim charged forward, shouting his anger at the fire. Bryl heard the crackle of burning underbrush. His eyes stung from the thickening smoke.

They reached the edge of the blaze.

"It is nearer than before. Ah,
dayid
, help us!"

Bryl stared as Ledaygen's trees fell into the burning mass, one by one.

In his imagination he saw the end of the world, a conflagration caused by the Outsiders, tired of their Game and burning their master maps.

He tightened his fist around the Water Stone. With the power of the old Sorcerers and the dead Sentinels, he would fight back. He would not allow failure to swallow him up, as his parents had.

"Bryl Traveler, do something!" Tears streamed down Ydaim's cheeks, not caused by the stinging smoke.

The heat of the fire focused Bryl's thoughts. He stared at the rippling sheets of flame as he slid down from the khelebar's back. Holding the Water Stone with both hands in front of him, he stepped toward the fire.

Tentatively, he sent a thought into the sapphire, focusing it through the crystalline facets and unlocking the Sorcerer power.

"I want it to rain!" He envisioned the storm he wanted, and what he would have to roll to succeed. The higher he rolled, the bigger the storm he could summon. If he rolled a "1", he forfeited an entire spell for the day.

Kneeling, Bryl tossed the Water Stone to the ground, rolling it on the unburned leaves. The facet showing "4" came to the top.

It began to rain. The crawling black smoke in the air clumped together to form thunderclouds that shone pale gray from the firelight and the night. A violent downpour spilled onto a swath of the flaming forest, but the droplets hissed into steam before they touched the ground.

Slitting his eyes half-closed, he let the rain continue but reached forward to pick up the Stone again. He filled his lungs with the smoky air. He felt larger, stronger.

"This time, I want to turn the wind back."

Bryl shifted his fingers to a different facet of the Stone, then closed his eyes as he tossed the gem to the ground. A thin line of sweat broke out on his forehead. A "2". Close ... but close enough.

The wind died without a whisper. The rain continued to fall. But his manipulation with the Water Stone affected only an area around him. He did not have the strength and training that Sardun had, his Sorcerer blood was not pure
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and he had not rolled well. In the rest of Ledaygen, the fire continued to rage.

The rainstorm extinguished the nearby flames, leaving a black and steaming moonscape of soggy charcoaled trees and scorched earth. For a moment, Bryl felt a sense of accomplishment, optimism.

The rain sputtered and stopped as the first spell ended. A few moments later, he felt the other breeze pick up again, brushing his face with the smell of heat and burning. The blaze slowed its march but moved forward, skirting the rain-soaked area. Soon the fire would encircle them.

But he saw in Ydaim Trailwalker's eyes an adamant refusal to give up.

Ydaim would fight for Ledaygen until his heart and lungs burst, and he would expect Bryl to do the same. If the half-Sorcerer succumbed to hopelessness and stopped trying, he knew the other khelebar would probably toss him over the hex-discontinuity as a traitor.

"Come. Let us try a different area with your magic." Ydaim extended his arm and helped the half-Sorcerer up onto his back. They set off again, racing toward the edge of the flames.

Since he had used one spell already against the Cyclops, Bryl had only one attempt left until midnight, when he would receive another day's spell allotment. As Ydaim carried him across the reeking wet ground, Bryl fixed his eyes on the flames like blurry hot knives slashing the trees. The forest fire might be something sent by the Outsiders to stop them from finishing their quest or as a prelude to their obliteration of Gamearth. Bryl would show them he was not ready to sit back and Play along.

Before rolling the Water Stone for the last time of the day, he looked at the moon and the stars through the interlocked branches. It would be close
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midnight had nearly arrived, and he did not get reimbursed for any spells he did not use in a day.

He successfully rolled for another rainstorm and drove back the flames in a wider section. Ydaim clapped and gave him encouragement. But the fire flanked them again, and Bryl could do nothing to contain it.

After midnight, feeling enthusiastic with four new spells to use, Bryl imagined summoning a larger storm, a "6" storm with the six-sided Water Stone
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but he failed. When the "1" came face up on the large sapphire, he had wasted one of his chances.

"Can't your
dayid
at least help me make a simple dice roll!" Bryl shouted, feeling cheated and afraid.

"You did not ask for help." Ydaim shrugged. "The
dayid
often bends Rules and works around them. Perhaps this is something it could do."

"Well, tell it to help me then
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I'm going to try one more time.

Dayid
, give me a six!"

The Water Stone came up with a "2", paused, then kept rolling, one facet at a time, until it stopped with "6" staring skyward.

Rain came down in sheets. A brisk wind pushed at the fire, driving it back. The storm spread out, attacking the blaze.

With the
dayid's
help, Bryl abandoned himself into the power of the Stone. He cast his remaining two spells
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both sixes
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and spent hours in the world bounded by the walls of the cube of sapphire. He enjoyed the release of power. He enjoyed fighting when he no longer felt like the weak contender.

With the Stone he could work magic even though no one had bothered to take the time training him.

He watched the flames fall back as they tried to run from the rain. He extinguished the embers, snuffed the little fires. A chunk of Ledaygen smoldered in wreckage, scarred by the fire, wounded and gasping for its life.

When his last spell ended, Bryl blinked dumbly as he came up for air.

Dawn shot through the darkness. Orange banners streaked across the sky above the plains in the east. Smoke from Ledaygen rose upward, clotting in the air like a dark pudding. The half-Sorcerer took a deep breath. His body sagged with exhaustion.

Vailret stood beside him, looking red-eyed and tired. "Good job, Bryl.

You made a lot of progress."

Bryl blinked but waited a moment before he felt strong enough to speak.

"Progress? That's all?"

Vailret spread his hands. "You fought back the fire, but it's still burning." Ydaim Trailwalker glared into the distance, clenching his fists.

Without the influence of the magic, the prevailing breeze had picked up again, stronger now, pushing the fire toward them.

Bryl let his voice drop to a whisper. He held the Water Stone in his grimy hands, but it was just a colored rock to him now. "I can't do anything else. I'm helpless until tomorrow."

"Now it's our turn." Vailret indicated the other khelebar he had brought with him. "The less thick-headed among them have decided the situation is desperate enough. They're willing to try something else."

Bryl saw the other khelebar carrying oar-shaped shovels made from dead branches to beat at the flames and dig at the earth. Ydaim went forward to take one of the shovels. "Noldir Woodcarver shaped these?"

Vailret pulled off his tunic, baring his chest. He looked thin and not strong enough to fight against the fire, but he shook his head, making sweat fly from his hair. "You should have seen him
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using his palms to slap off slices of wood from the ends, like it was butter."

Bryl hauled himself to his feet. His old bones creaked with weariness.

Ydaim Trailwalker looked at him, then at the others and at the shovel in his hand. Bryl waved in dismissal. "I'll find my own way back to Delrael."

"We have to keep working," Vailret said. "Thilane wouldn't let Del come and help."

The khelebar seemed terrified of the fire, but their fear for the trees outweighed it. They beat at the flames on the forest floor, attacking an enemy.

Before Bryl stumbled off into the forest toward the council clearing, Vailret stopped him. The young man lowered his voice and placed a hand on Bryl's shoulder. With a nod of his head, he indicated the approaching flames.

"You know this won't do any good, don't you?"

Bryl shuddered. He had hoped he was wrong, but he had seen through the Water Stone how good a grip the fire had on the heart of Ledaygen. If the Stone could not extinguish the blaze, wooden shovels would not.

"I know. This is all going to be one black hex."

Vailret took his shovel anyway and went toward the edge of the fire with a show of enthusiasm. "I have to get to work."

They labored through the morning, exhausted, until they had depleted even their adrenaline. The fire, gaining strength, pushed them steadily back.

Vailret could barely lift his shovel to beat down against smoldering leaves, to dig trenches that the fire leaped across. Dirt and sweat and soot trickled down his raw skin. A dozen glistening welts scored his back from flying coals. His soaked blond hair hung in ropy tangles, powdered with ash.

At noon he saw the despair reach its peak. Gorak Foodgatherer, a slim, sunken-eyed khelebar who had worked closely beside Vailret, paused and stared at the flames. Without warning, he shouted and hurled his blackened shovel deep into the burning forest. Clamping his hands against his ears and temples, he screamed and ran into the blazing mass of trees, plunging through showers of hot coals. He moved like a demon, severing burning trees from their roots with his bare hands, knocking them down with his shoulder. His fur smoldered and caught fire, but he ran faster, lopping at trees and putting them out of their misery.

The other khelebar watched. No one attempted to stop him.

"We can all hear the death screams of the trees," Ydaim Trailwalker said. "It haunts us from within."

Gorak Foodgatherer burst into flame, but still he stumbled and knocked down two more doomed trees, positioning himself so the flaming hulk of one oak mercifully fell on top of him.

The khelebar stood in grim silence for a moment, then drowned themselves in work again. Vailret stared in horror, feeling his heart pound.

Ydaim turned to him, listless. "What else can we do?"

Fiolin Tribeleader scratched another line across the hexagonal map in the dirt, leaving less than a quarter of Ledaygen unburned. The fire had looped along the boundary lines, cutting the khelebar off with flames to their faces and the cliff to their backs.