Game Alive: A Science Fiction Adventure Novel (16 page)

“Come on, then,” said Gravin. He started down the stairs. Jake and Des followed, and Gravin spoke over his shoulder to them as he led the way. “Have to warn you, some of the ramp’s broken off in one of the storms this past winter. Nobody’s been round to repair it yet, so we’ve a bit of a jump coming up.”

“Jump?” Des echoed weakly.

“Yes,” said Gravin, “Hurry up.”

Des looked at Jake in his heavy armor. “Don’t you dare fall,” he warned his friend in a low voice. “I don’t think we get to respawn anymore.”

Jake nodded, staring over the side and down into the canyon. The clouds still drifted along, but even if the air had been clear he wasn’t so sure he would have been able to see the bottom. How deep was this canyon? How long would he be falling if he failed to make the jump?

They reached the bottom of the stairs, where a stone ledge led to the near side of the bridge. Jake saw the gap and his heart sank. It had to be a dozen feet across!

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

“Of course you can,” Gravin said, turning to place a hand on Jake’s armored shoulder. “I’ve done it twice already this morning. Come on, we have to hurry. I’ll go first. Just watch me, and do what I do.”

“Why are you doing all this?” Jake asked the boy suddenly. An extra ten marks was an extra ten marks, but he had seen how little that would buy in this new Xaloria. He didn’t understand why the innkeeper’s son would go to such lengths to help two complete strangers, and now he was getting suspicious. He was
not
just stalling because he was afraid to jump across the bottomless gap.

“I’m just trying to help you out,” Gravin answered with a shrug.

Jake bristled, remembering all the times Gerald had used those exact words. Gerald was always “looking out” for Jake and trying to help out. Well, Jake didn’t need Gerald’s help and he didn’t want it either. He didn’t need or want
anybody’s
help, and he opened his mouth to say so. Before he could speak, Des gripped his arm sharply.

“Thank you,” Des told Gravin with exaggerated sincerity. Then he looked at Jake and gave a tiny shake of his head. “We need all the help we can get these days.”

Jake jerked his arm away from Des, but knew his friend was right. Gravin wasn’t Gerald, and this had nothing to do with homework or cleaning up his bedroom. And Jake
did
need people’s help sometimes. He certainly needed Des. He shook his head, briefly ashamed of himself.

“I’ll go first,” Jake remarked. Just because he accepted someone’s help, didn’t mean he needed to be shown the way. He knew how to jump. Des looked at him worriedly, but Jake shrugged his friend off and stepped forward to the edge of the gap. It was a dozen feet or so, which would be difficult even with his agility stats. He looked down, but could see nothing below but the rock face and misty clouds. As if to taunt him, the clouds parted momentarily to reveal hundreds of feet of empty air between him and the distant chasm floor. Jake swallowed and stepped back, readying for his leap.

“Try not to think about it,” suggested Des, having noticed Jake looking down over the edge.

“Yeah,” said Jake. “Sure thing.” He closed his eyes and swallowed again. Opening his eyes, he ran forward. The heavy pieces of his armor clanked together as he lumbered forward and launched himself over the edge. For a moment he felt like he was flying free, weightless and unstoppable. Just as he felt gravity reassert itself, he landed with a thud and staggered forward several steps before he caught himself at the railing.

Turning around to look across the gap at Gravin and Des, Jake broke into an enormous grin. “I made it!” he shouted, the words echoing eerily through the canyon.

Without heavy armor weighing them down, the other two boys made the jump easily and landed lightly. When they were all three across, Gravin turned to the swaying bridge that would take them to the waiting Flightmaster. The boards were thick and solid, slung between the ropes in a fashion that at least
looked
secure. But the whole thing rocked in the wind, back and forth.

“Just past the halfway point, two or three of the boards are missing,” Gravin warned them. “It’s a slightly longer jump than that last one.”

“You’re kidding me,” said Jake, groaning. He looked at Des, and could tell his friend knew what he was thinking. Long jumps were always Jake’s downfall in Xaloria. Literally, his downfall. He never got them right on the first try, and always had to reload some distance away and try again.

“You’ve got to make it on the first try,” Des whispered. “We don’t know what will happen if you don’t.”

Gravin turned around and gave the other two a sharp look. “You’ll fall to your death,” he said simply. Then he paused, rubbing at his temple with the fingers of one hand and looking slowly back and forth between Jake and Des. His eyes widened and he slapped his forehead. “You’re from the Next!” he said. “I should have guessed.”

Without another word about it, Gravin turned from the startled adventurers and started out across the bridge. Exchanging a glance, Jake and Des mouthed “the Next?” to one another before Des shrugged and turned to follow the innkeeper’s son. When they reached the missing section, Gravin hopped across easily. Des went next, making the leap look simple.

Jake stood on the bridge, swaying a bit more violently now from being jostled, staring down at the gap in the boards. He could feel the sweat running down the sides of his face, and it felt like real sweat. This felt like real danger. He was almost certain that it was.

“Back way up,” called Des from the far side of the gap. “Get a running start. You’ll need it to make up for the extra weight of all that armor.”

“I hate jumping,” Jake grumbled to himself, walking a dozen paces back along the swaying bridge before turning to make his run. Heart pounding in his ears, Jake waited for a lull in the constant wind. Just when he thought it would never come, the air stilled for a brief instant.

“Now!” shouted Des in the instant Jake launched himself forward, thundering toward the gap. At the last second, Jake bunched his muscles and threw himself into the air. Time seemed to slow, air whistling past his cheeks in slow motion. Jake’s breath caught in his throat and he knew he wouldn’t make it. His flight slowed and the gap rushed up toward him. He was still too far away. He caught his breath and flung his arms desperately forward, just barely catching the edge of the wooden plank with his fingertips.

He dangled there precariously, shouting at the others to help him up. His fingers were slipping. He was going to fall.

Then Des was there. The thief threw himself down on his stomach to grab at Jake’s wrists with both hands. He switched his grip, grabbing hold of Jake’s shoulder with one hand to haul the heavy knight back up onto the bridge. It was no good. Des felt himself sliding over the edge. He hooked one foot around one of the rough, supporting ropes.

“Give me your hand!” shouted Gravin.

Jake threw one hand up toward the leaning boy, but didn’t even come close. He took a deep breath and tried again, drawing on skills learned on childhood jungle gyms. He kicked his feet, swaying back and forth. At the height of his swing, he threw out his arm again and felt Gravin clutch his wrist firmly in both hands. Together, Gravin and Des dragged Jake panting and terrified up onto the violently rocking bridge.

Jake fell flat against the boards and just lay there for a few moments. His heart hammered against his ribs as he gasped for breath. He squeezed his eyes shut and almost pressed his lips against the coarse wood in gratitude.

“We need to keep going,” Gravin reminded them.

The weary knight forced himself up on trembling legs and followed the others to the blessedly solid stone platform on the far side. The Flightmaster waited for them there.

Ovrun was a grizzled old man with scraggly, white whiskers oddly blackened at the ends as if singed away. Up close, Jake could see that the top of the Flightmaster’s staff was carved in the stylized image of a dragon’s head. Ovrun greeted them curtly, and turned toward the Combs.

“She’s ready,” he said simply. “You’ll have to go now if you mean to reach the Barrier on time.”

Ovrun led them down a short flight of steps and then into one of the honeycombed caverns drilled into the side of the ravine. A foul odor hung in the air, a mixture of rotten meat and sulfur. Des gagged loudly as they made their way into the shadowy cave. He coughed and cleared his throat, then looked up and froze. Very slowly, he reached out one hand and tugged at Jake’s chainmail covered sleeve. With his other hand, he pointed forward.

Jake followed Des’s pointing finger and smirked, not at all surprised. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a dragon. How else did you think we were going to fly in Xaloria?”

The dragon was an enormous, fat-bellied lizard with stumpy legs and great, leathery wings that were folded against its scaled hide. Its long, triangular head was split by a wide mouth filled with sharp fangs and a long, forked tongue that flickered like the tail of a curious cat. The creature’s eyes were filled with intelligence, however, and it studied the two young adventurers with some interest.

The two boys piled into the carriage, a wicker and bamboo box strapped across the dragon’s back just behind the wings. Inside they found two benches and nothing else. Des looked fruitlessly for a seat belt before giving up. Meanwhile, Flightmaster Ovrun beckoned to the dragon. The creature lowered its massive head for the Flightmaster to whisper into one of the tiny holes that served as its ears. The dragon nodded at Ovrun’s instructions, then lumbered forward to the opening in the cliff. Hooking its rear claws over the edge, it crouched and burst into the air. Folded wings opened wide to catch the swirling wind. Jake’s stomach flipped as they lurched upward into the clear blue sky.

“Wow,” he said softly, pressing his face against the criss-crossed bamboo of the carriage. Des joined him there, face green, to look down at the swiftly passing ground far, far below.

“You okay?” Jake asked, seeing his friend’s face.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Des gulped and turned away from the view, sinking back onto the bench on his side. “I’m just going to sit here in the middle, though, how’s that sound?”

“You’re going to miss all the scenery.”

“I’ll live.” Des closed his eyes and white-knuckled the bench.

Jake shrugged and turned back to the view. He was hardly aware of the passage of time as they glided high above the landscape, hundreds of miles flashing beneath in patterns of stone, field, and forest, cut through by the glittering ribbons of waterways or the dull flatness of country roads. Their path traced north and east, toward the broad blue sea. Jagged mountains rose ahead in stark contrast to the grasslands and rolling hills they left behind.

After gliding along for what seemed like only a few minutes, Jake caught sight of a strange blue shimmering cube in the distance. Almost in the same instant, the dragon began its long, swooping descent. The gradual flight down gave Jake plenty of time to study the peculiar “Barrier” they had traveled so far to see. It was a tall, opaque blue wall perhaps two or three miles long. It didn’t rest on the ground, but hovered a few feet above the dirt and stone near the ancient ruins of a once-mighty city. The Barrier flickered randomly, and pulses of energy snaked along its length. Jake’s earlier suspicions about the “Great Blue Barrier” were confirmed.

“It’s a program error,” he said excitedly, turning to Des. “There’s a problem with the graphics, so the program displays that instead. It’s the same thing that happens when I build a new feature – a mountain or a lake or just a cabin in the woods – but it isn’t finished yet. Keeps the locals from wandering in. But this means that the Prime must have-”

Jake broke off in mid-sentence, having spotted three figures moving near the base of the blue expanse.

“It’s them!” he cried.

Overcoming his air sickness, Des joined Jake to peer through the bamboo window at the ground below. He saw them almost immediately, three tiny people scurrying over a humongous, flat gray stone buried in the earth just in front of the blue wall. The surface of the stone wobbled, rippling as if it were some kind of gel. Jake and Des had seen that effect before.

“Hot fix,” Jake said, starting to worry. They were still too high to see what, exactly, the people below had done. But now he knew for certain that the Prime – whoever he was – was the one who had hijacked Xaloria. “Something’s about to change.”

The stone’s appearance wavered again, and when the rippling stopped the surface of the stone was deeply engraved with an intricate symbol. Thick white paint had been applied in the deep grooves of the carving, making the giant ankh visible from high above.

“There it is,” Des exclaimed. “Just like on the list. So we were right!”

They were getting closer, but still too far away to take action. They could see faces now, and as they watched they saw Torin clutching the back of Kari’s shirt with one hand, shaking her violently as he jabbed his finger toward the magical white symbol. Kari threw up her hands helplessly, the iron shackles glowing where they bound her wrists. Alys stood nearby, watching with a smug expression.

“He’s hurting her!” shouted Jake. “We’ve got to get down there
now!
”

At once, the dragon folded its wings flat against its leathery hide and their slow descent became a wind-shrieking plunge. Jake felt himself rising off the floor, and felt his stomach turn. Des grabbed at his seat with one hand, covering his mouth and bulging cheeks with the other.

Below, the two NPCs whirled and stared open mouthed at the diving dragon. Alys drew her silver daggers and began waving them in an intricate pattern before her. Torin shoved Kari aside and pulled his broad, double-bladed axe from his back and stood ready to attack.

Inches above the ground, the dragon swooped sharply aside. Jake and Des flew across their tiny cabin, slamming against the wicker and bamboo painfully. The great flying lizard opened its beaky maw and roared like thunder. Torin and Alys both took a step back.

The dragon’s stumpy feet clawed at the earth as she made her landing, running to a stop a few dozen yards from the stone and the blue wall. The boys, shaken as they were, jumped up and flung open the carriage door. Leaping down to the ground, Jake tipped a one-handed salute to the dragon who snorted and flapped her wings.