Gameplay (19 page)

They couldn’t all have the same resistance to Scartaris that Mindar and Tallin had. The Rules of Probability made that highly unlikely. But if the Earthspirits were somehow protecting them, shielding them—that meant the Spirits must still be alive! The screeching sound they’d heard back in the forest had
not
been a death cry.

But they could say nothing of this to Mindar, especially if Scartaris watched her so closely. Vailret could think of no safe way to answer her question.

But suddenly a sheen of sweat broke out on Mindar’s forehead and around her eyes, making her face look oiled in the firelight. The horses snorted and stamped, making strange, uneasy noises. Vailret didn’t know what that meant—he wasn’t used to horses.

“The Cailee is here,” Mindar whispered. “It’s close, and it’s coming.”

The horses milled about in greater alarm.

Delrael stood up. “How can we hold them?”

Journeyman hurried over. The horses reared up, blowing and snorting. And then they bolted, all three of them.

“Wait! Wait!” Mindar cried.

“They’re gone!” Bryl said.

Above the crackle of the fire, they heard the horses pounding off across the desert.

Mindar stood up and yanked her rippled sword away from her hip. “I’m going after them. You stay here.”

“No!” Delrael said. “I’m going to help you if the Cailee’s out there.”

She whirled. Her jaw was rigid, and her eyes blazed with anger. “No! You have to stay here! The Cailee wants us all to be separated, away from the fire, where it can get you one by one! The Cailee won’t harm me—it wants you.
You
stay here. Together. By the fire.”

Without another word, she ran off into the darkness. They heard her panting, calling for the horses, growing more distant.

Vailret waited, sitting up straight and listening to the fire burn. He looked at the stars overhead, wishing he could hear the sounds of the Stronghold village, the forest, anything. Wishing he could be by Tareah, discussing old legends. He wondered what she was doing.

Far off in the distance they heard Mindar shout “Cailee!” Then nothing more.

“What should we do?” Bryl asked.

Delrael held his own sword, looking off into the muffling darkness. His eyes were wide and shining with worry. “We’ll wait here, as Mindar said. She’s right. I’m not going to let the Cailee win because it’s smarter than we are.”

“I’d rather have stuffing instead of potatoes,” Journeyman said. He fidgeted and moved to where the horses had been.

Mindar stepped back into the firelight with such suddenness that they all whirled, startled. She looked drained, as if something had been yanked out of her. She took a drink from one of the water skins and sat down next to the warm fire.

“The horses have run off. The Cailee went after them.” She took another drink and said nothing else.

Far off they heard the oddly human screams of horses in the darkness. Vailret felt fear slice down his spine.

Mindar pulled the length of her whip between her fingers, feeling the rough braid. Her eyes were dark pools reflecting the dancing flames.

“The Cailee is there!” She lunged to her feet and pointed at the other side of the fire.

Delrael and the others turned, trying to react. Vailret saw the Cailee silhouetted, a black human shape so dark that it made the night look dim. It moved, flowing and oily, and let out a snarl from an unseen mouth. Silver claws glinted in the firelight. Yellow pupilless pools glowed where the eyes should have been.

The Cailee danced into the light just long enough to throw something heavy and dripping into the bonfire, then it vanished again.

The head of Mindar’s gray mare tumbled through the burning wood, slumping into the coals. The head smoked, and drops of blood sizzled on the embers. The mare’s eyes were rolled up like tiny white plates; the tongue hung partway out of the mouth. The severed end of her neck had been torn by silver claws, the spine snapped in two and twisted off.

The fire cracked and hissed. Sparks swirled up toward the stars.

Mindar stumbled backward, gaping without words. She tripped and fell gracelessly to the dirt, never taking her eyes from the mare’s smoldering head.

“I didn’t even hear the Cailee come!” Journeyman said. He strode out to the edge of the light and came back again. The golem’s gray-brown body absorbed the firelight and shadows. Vailret thought he looked astonished at his lapse, disappointed in himself.

Bryl held onto the Fire Stone with trembling hands. His lips were white, and his eyes glistened with fear.

Mindar’s head snapped up from her grief to scan the perimeter of darkness. “Prepare yourselves!”

Vailret caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and, by some instinct driven into him from all the battle training Drodanis had forced him to endure, he knew to drop and roll. He felt the wind of something moving very fast, the sigh of silver claws whistling past his ear and grazing the back of his neck.

Journeyman leaped in to block the Cailee with a solid clay arm. The claws gouged great troughs in the golem’s skin, but Journeyman slammed sideways with his other arm. He struck the shadow-thing with a soft, wet sound.

Vailret rolled onto his back and kicked his feet against the loose ground to push himself away. It was all happening so fast. Mindar and Delrael were shouting, running with their swords drawn.

An explosion of fire erupted around the perimeter to separate the golem and the Cailee. Journeyman made no sound, though the fire blackened his clay skin. The Cailee shrieked and flung itself back into the darkness.

Bryl sat with the Fire Stone cradled in his hands, biting his lip. He struck out again with the flame spell, though he saw no target. When the fire faded away, Vailret smelled smoke in the air.

He heard nothing else, no insects, no footsteps, only his own heavy breathing.

Delrael scowled and used a stick to push the mare’s head out of the fire. The blackened hide smoked with the smell of roasting meat.

Journeyman paced around and remained alert. “A blast of fire and it goes away?” He used his other hand to smooth the gouges and push his clay skin back into place.

“The other Tairans never resisted it before,” Vailret said. He picked himself up and brushed at his skinned elbow.

Mindar shook her head. “The Cailee is still out there. Scartaris isn’t finished with us yet.”

Roaring inhuman rage, the Cailee burst back into the camp, opposite from Delrael. Without an instant of hesitation, Journeyman charged at it, balling both fists.

But the Cailee knew exactly what it wanted. The shadow-thing streaked in the flickering light and reached out its silver talons for Bryl.

Mindar’s whip cracked like the sound of a breaking spine. She crouched and placed herself in front of Bryl. Her gaze locked on the Cailee’s pupilless yellow eyes. The moment seemed to hold for hours. Vailret could see violent emotions surging through Mindar’s mind.

The Cailee laughed silently and tried to dodge sideways to reach Bryl. Bryl scurried backward, bumping into Journeyman. He cried out, but the golem held him firm.

Mindar struck out with the whip again, tearing into the lightless flesh.

A fistful of silver claws exploded forward, hooking into the leather whip, and jerked backward swift as a shadow. The claws shredded the whip into a snowflake of leather tatters, throwing Mindar’s shoulder out of joint.

Though crying out in pain, Mindar was already reaching for her rippled sword with her left hand. She swung clumsily, trying to protect herself, and sank the blade into the dark void of the Cailee’s body. Droplets of night sprayed onto the sand, vanishing into the shadows.

Delrael ran forward with his own sword. Bryl rolled the Fire Stone, scrambling out of the way.

With a roar of pain, the Cailee lunged at Mindar, striking in an arc of silver claws as it tore open her side, breaking through ribs to her heart.

She fell, spewing a red rain of torn flesh and spattering blood

“Mindar!” Delrael screamed.

Bryl touched the Fire Stone again. A wall of flame erupted between the shadow-thing and Mindar, burning both. The Cailee howled, blinded by the blaze, scratching at the air with silver claws.

Delrael stabbed through the flames, probably burning his own hands, blistering his skin. Singed hair curled back away from his forehead. But the old Sorcerer sword struck something solid where the Cailee’s chest should have been.

Bryl let the flames die away. Delrael staggered back, nearly tripping over Mindar on the ground. Vailret went to help him.

The Cailee made a high-pitched moan, then faded as they watched, dissolving away into the night.

Delrael stood trembling in the wake of his attack. He stared at the blade of his sword as if to see how the Cailee had stained the steel, but it seemed untainted.

Bryl whimpered in the firelight. Vailret crawled forward to join him.

Mindar made a choking sound on the ground. Delrael knelt beside her, pushing aside a sharp rock. Her spring-green tunic had been crisped brown by the fire. She shuddered, curling herself into a fetal position.

Together, Delrael and Vailret rolled Mindar on her back. Fresh, dark blood poured out of her torn side. Her face had a wet, gray appearance. Her mouth made a choking, sucking sound as she tried to breathe.

Delrael touched his fingers to her forehead. “It’s gone. We killed it.”

Vailret stared at his cousin, but Delrael would not look up. Mindar had no chance. Vailret was amazed she still could think or speak. He doubted even the khelebar healer Thilane, who had created a new
kennok
leg for Delrael, could have saved her.

Bryl hunkered down, wide-eyed in his fear. Journeyman appeared disappointed that he had not been able to fight again. Off in the east, behind the lair of Scartaris, dawn light seeped into the sky.

Delrael propped Mindar’s head up and placed it on his knee. He brushed her singed dark hair away from the lumpy
S
-scar. It reminded Vailret of how Tallin had died in a pool of blood while Delrael held him. Delrael stiffened and seemed to realize the same thing.

“We’ll destroy Scartaris, Mindar.” For a moment his face carried enough anger to rival her own. “And I will have
fun
doing it.”

The flow of blood from her wound slowed, lacking the force of a heartbeat. The last breath out of her mouth seemed to form one word.

“Luck.”

But she did not die.

Mindar jerked in a convulsion that ripped through her body. She sucked a long hiss of breath through her teeth. Vailret’s eyes were drawn to the livid
S
-scar on her forehead. The scar throbbed with a red light, like a twisted channel of lava.

Mindar’s skin grew red, also glowing. Heat poured from her body, and Vailret had to step back. Delrael stared down. His jaw hung open in surprise; his face was ashen.

The pools of wet blood on Mindar’s skin smoked, bubbled, and burned away from her form, fading even from her stained clothes. The open gash and splintered ribs clenched themselves in a staccato spasm, like a mouth smacking its lips, until the wound congealed, bound together and sealing the skin without leaving a scar.

Her eyelids jammed shut, and she wheezed a great breath into her lungs. Her chest rose and fell. She jerked.

“She said Scartaris wouldn’t let her die,” Vailret said. He felt as if a great weight hung on his shoulders.

Delrael grabbed Mindar’s shoulder, but she was still too hot and he snatched his hand away.

Mindar twitched her muscles, then rolled over, stumbling to her knees. Tears streamed from between her closed eyelids. The
S
-scar continued to glow red. She struggled to her feet, then turned to face them.

Mindar stood straight and opened her eyes. She did not move. She made no reaction at all.

Her eyes were blank white, and pupilless. Scartaris’s eyes.

***

Interlude: Outside

Tyrone shook his head with an expression of naive astonishment.

“Man, this is getting pretty intense. How about we just, uh, take a break for a while? Watch some TV. I’ve got all the
Star Trek
movies on tape.” He stood up and looked toward the living room where the television sat switched off like a dull gray-green eye.

“Shut up and sit down!” David’s voice had a hollow power to it, an alien sound that caused Melanie to jump.

She frowned and brought her own anger to the surface. David was doing this just to sicken her, just to flaunt his disregard for the people of Gamearth. “How can you do that to one of your own characters, David? Didn’t you put Mindar through enough already?”

“She’s my character. I can do what I want with her. It’s
fun
.” In the globe light over the dining room table, his smile looked bright and jagged. “We’re playing this game for
fun
, remember?”

Melanie stared across the table at him. She felt stronger now, keyed up. It didn’t matter what David did. She had her characters. They were fighting together, she and them. She had given them Journeyman and the secret weapon she had painted into the map; Gamearth had brought back the Earthspirits on its own.

“You’re changing, David. What’s happening to you? Are you playing Scartaris … or is he playing
you
?”

David scowled at her, but didn’t seem to know how to answer. Scott cleared his throat. “It’s getting kind of strange even with you, Melanie. Do you know that when you play different characters your voice changes? You’re even worse than David. Your eyes get sort of … funny.”

“Yeah,” Tyrone said, not noticing the thin smear of dip on his chin, “it’s like something out of
The Exorcist
.”

“When you’re playing your characters, it’s like you’re swallowed up in them. Like you don’t even know what you’re saying.” Scott pursed his lips.

Melanie felt sweat prickle at the back of her neck. She covered it by reaching for some chips and stuffing a handful in her mouth. “That’s crazy. I know exactly what was going on. I remember everything we did, like I was—” She paused and choked a little on her chips. She took a drink from her glass and swallowed before she finished her sentence. “It’s like I was there myself.…”

“Do you see?” David said. “Do you
see?
If we don’t end this tonight, we might never be able to escape from the game! It’s coming out, it’s taking over. We’ve put too much magic in it, and now Gamearth doesn’t need us to play anymore!”

“Maybe it’s fighting back against you—but I’m trying to save Gamearth. I don’t have nightmares. I have
nice
dreams about the world. I’m not afraid of it. You are. I’m going to fight you to the end in this battle. And I’m going to win. I’m going to save their world, and ours.”

David’s face looked pale and waxen. “What if you’re wrong?”

Melanie shrugged. She saw the deep fear behind David’s false arrogance. “If you’re afraid to lose, you should never have started playing in the first place.”

“I’ll stop you with the Slave of the Serpent.” He cracked his knuckles and looked at the wide black line on the painted map where he had marked the demon’s lair. The map seemed to be cracked there, exactly along the hex-line. Puzzled, Melanie bent over to look at it, but Scott interrupted her.

“She’s not the only one with plans.” He drummed his fingertips on the table, then wiped his glasses on the untucked ends of his shirt. “Hurry up and finish your turn. We don’t have all night.”

***