Gameplay (26 page)

But in the moment that Journeyman turned away, Scartaris seized the opportunity and flexed his remaining power.

He brought the entire mountain down upon Journeyman, sealing the reality beneath uncounted tons of rubble.

The earthquake threw Delrael and Vailret to the ground. Delrael rolled onto his back to watch the mountain collapse. The horned peaks toppled aside in an enormous tremor that shook the heart of the map itself.

The black hex-line split, and sections of terrain rocked and tilted upward at the seams, as if Gamearth were falling apart hexagon by hexagon. Delrael almost lost his grip on the silver belt in his hand.

The roar continued, then slacked off as gray white dust poured up into the darkened sky.

Then, from the broken rubble of the destroyed mountain seeped a glowing brilliant light—pinks and oranges and yellows, sprawled and oozing over the debris. The immense blob crawled out of the rocks and sat pulsing, as if peering down at the gathered army.

“Is that Scartaris?” Vailret gasped beside him, but the words made little sound in the thundering echoes of the air. Every creature on the battlefield stood hushed and staring.

Scartaris moved, looking enormous and frail at the same time, damaged and retaining only enough energy to keep himself alive. He slid and rolled down the rocky slope toward the disrupted hex-line.

Delrael thought for a moment that Scartaris would reach the cracked map and spill through to where he could annihilate the Outsiders. But Scartaris stopped and throbbed, heaving himself up. At the center of the blob Delrael could see glittering lights forming, like diamonds and stars, building up.

“It’s the metamorphosis!” he heard Vailret shout behind him. “Journeyman told us about it! Scartaris is going to end the Game right now!”

“You must take us!” the Earthspirits cried in a metallic voice from inside the belt. “Take us across the last hex-line! Then we will be released.”

The starbursts inside the giant blob grew brighter, fissioning with energy. Once Scartaris released his pent-up energy, he could wash the map clean of all terrain. Scartaris had lost his Game. He and the Outsider David had wanted to savor the victory, to let the vast monster army march across and lay waste to everything, but now Scartaris was forsaking that fun. He would obliterate them all and call himself the Game’s winner.

“Hurry! He is greatly weakened now,” the Earth spirits said. “Perhaps we can defeat him.”

Delrael ran toward the gaping hex-line, but the deep crack in the map cut him off from Scartaris.

From a corner of the broken hex-line, a black wind sprang up, pouring straight into the air. Swirling, it formed into three dark hooded figures. They stood vast and awesome, cavernous hoods covered their heads, shrouding their faces.

Delrael stumbled as he ran. The figures looked familiar and yet unfamiliar. He had never actually seen them, only their white counterparts.

“The Deathspirits will not allow you to end the Game, Scartaris,” the black figures said in unison.

“Play your feeble war games for terrain, but you will not destroy the map. We are bound by the Rules here, too. If you destroy Gamearth, we cannot complete our own set of Rules. We are trying to escape from this existence. You may not interfere.”

The Deathspirits hovered tall and black. All the monsters on the battlefield stood in a hush, appalled and uncertain.

But the starburst lights built up further within Scartaris, growing in intensity.

Delrael scrambled ahead, stumbling on the new slope from the tilted hexagon of terrain. He saw himself struggling there, an unknown human fighter from across the map. No one knew he had come, but he appeared where he was needed, bearing the weapon to save Gamearth. Delrael smirked. “Maybe they’ll call me the Stranger Unlooked-For.”

He crawled toward the crack in the map. When he reached its edge, the black lip of desolation sliced down into nothingness, a broad gulf apart from the adjoining mountain terrain. He could not crawl across. He could not jump the void. His body was too exhausted to do more than move.

Scartaris’s internal lights grew blinding at the point of his devastating metamorphosis.

“We cannot cross the hex-line,” the Earthspirits said.

Delrael held the belt. “You’re not very much good, are you?” Then he threw the silver belt crafted by the old Sorcerers, a gift from his father Drodanis.

As it flew through the air across the hex-line, the silver links began to dissolve in white light. The three Earthspirits emerged just as their Deathspirit comrades swooped down upon Scartaris.

***

22. Stranger

“Let the Game go on forever, and may your score always increase!”

—Gamearth drinking toast

Three dazzling white figures rose into the air, hooded and powerful, billowing in the wind rising from the broken hex-line. They alternated with their dark counterparts.

Vailret stared at the Spirits, all that remained of the ancient race of Sorcerers. He had read so much about them, and now he saw them towering in front of his eyes. Both factions had fought each other for turn after turn in the early days of the Game. Now, the six Spirits had reunited for the first time since the Transition, on the site of their worst battles.

Without a word, they fell upon Scartaris before he could complete his metamorphosis.

The titanic battle was difficult to watch. Vailret squinted, but the intangible fighters became an inferno of power and blazing lights, black and white and colors. The sounds of a storm rang on the air. Chunks of rock and dust blasted into the air in backlashes of power.

Scartaris grew dimmer and smaller in the fray. The starbursts in his body twinkled and faded.

Tension built up like a spring being wound tighter and tighter. The six Spirits combined their power into one final assault.

And Scartaris fell.

A great flare of light blasted into the air, a geyser of luminous power that sprayed outward and then faded on the winds, swirling, as if trying to find some dark corner where it could hide. One high-pitched shriek echoed around the rubble of the mountains; the astonished horror in it sliced through Vailret’s bones.

The silence on the battlefield held back for a moment as the dawn itself seemed to gasp. A sudden cold wind blew by and then died away to nothing.

* * *

Professor Verne stood on the hillside, perplexed and angry. He rubbed his eyes. The flash from the battle of the Spirits and Scartaris left dancing colors on his vision, but he frowned with disappointment. The outcome of the battle didn’t really matter, though the Spirits seemed to be fighting with
magic
rather than something more sophisticated.

The Sitnaltan weapon had not worked. Something had gone wrong.

“But it should have been foolproof!” He placed his hands behind his back and paced in front of a boulder. “It had to work. Did I miscalculate something? What did I forget to take into account?”

He muttered to himself, parading ideas in front of his mind. He could imagine nothing that would lead to such a failure. A burning curiosity began to grow. He stared at the crumbled mountain and squinted his eyes, wondering how difficult it would be to locate the steam-engine car in the rubble. He wanted to find the weapon and study it.

As dawn came up and lit the battlefield, Verne saw the monsters milling around, trying to organize themselves. The prime mover seemed to be the awesome manticore marching about, rallying the army of Scartaris.

Verne blew through his lips as he looked at the manticore. “What a hodgepodge,” he thought. “Man’s head, lion’s body, scorpion tail—probably has the brain of a cactus or something.” To him, it showed clearly how little the Outsiders themselves understood the basic precepts of biological sciences.

Scartaris was destroyed. Part of the map was disrupted, and he had no idea what effect such titanic forces would have on Gamearth and the Rules themselves. Perhaps it would allow technology a bit more freedom to operate. Perhaps he could fix the weapon, or dismantle it. He couldn’t just leave it there.

But the growing light reminded him how exposed he was on the barren terrain, with nothing but the monsters to see him. He wondered how he could possibly hide from Scartaris’s entire army.

* * *

Delrael crawled back toward Vailret, trying to keep his balance on the tilted terrain. Both of them stood panting with exhaustion and the aftereffects of terror.

Around them the stunned monsters wandered about, no longer in the grip of Scartaris. Only the manticore had a purpose, growling orders and trying to terrify the other demons into ranks again.

Delrael wondered how long the relative calm would last. The sky itself was a whirlwind of chaos, overloaded with power dissipating up and out of the map’s boundaries.

Delrael could see no sign of the six Spirits, or of Scartaris.

The illusion army of human fighters shimmered and melted away as Bryl released the Air Stone. Some of the monster soldiers made angry noises, but most didn’t notice in their own confusion.

Hundreds of slaughtered demon fighters lay on the ground, killed by their own weapons and the firepowder bombs. Thousands of dead animals, birds, insects covered the sand, as if a part of the black cloud had settled to the earth. Pools of red mud dried slowly in the dim sunlight.

The surviving animals and birds gathered in a thinner, less-organized black cloud that floated up and drifted off. They struck out across the desolation back to the forest and grassland terrain.

“Scartaris is dead,” Vailret whispered. He grinned and clapped a hand on Delrael’s shoulder. “Scartaris is dead! We finished our quest.”

Delrael looked uneasily at the gathering of monsters that stood angry and leaderless. “I still don’t like this. We’d better find Bryl.”

Vailret nodded, and they hurried back along the edge of the battlefield, trying to escape the notice of Scartaris’s surviving fighters.

Then the air in front of them rippled. Delrael thought that heat shimmers rose up from the warming sands, but white mist swirled above them, condensing until it resolved into the transparent outlines of the three Earthspirits, flickering like a vision on the breeze.

The Spirits looked tenuous and fragile, much less substantial than when they had first appeared to Delrael in the forest. That night seemed so long ago now. That was before he had known Tallin. Before he met Mindar.

The Earthspirits spoke. “Scartaris is destroyed, and we still live. With the aid of the Deathspirits and the Stranger Unlooked-For, we did not need to sacrifice ourselves.

“But we are weak now. We must go dormant for many turns to recover our strength.”

The Spirits wavered, faded for a moment, and then rose up again. The tilted hexagon of terrain settled under Delrael’s feet and he stumbled. The other monsters stood uncertain and afraid of the giant hooded forms.

“By destroying Scartaris and unleashing power of such magnitude, the map has suffered severe damage. As have the Rules themselves. They are twisted and loosened.

“We have proved to the Outsiders that Gamearth is as strong as their own powers. That is a profound victory. Even now, the Deathspirits are using this to their advantage. Perhaps they will mold their own
reality
.”

Delrael looked across the battlefield to see Bryl running toward them, drawn by the towering forms of the Earthspirits. Delrael waved his hands to show that he had seen him. Vailret squinted up at the Spirits with an expression of awe on his face.

“To show our gratitude, we will twist the Rules even now. The Outsider David is stunned by his defeat. We can do things the other Players will not notice, for now.

“Your quest is over. You have gained experience and won the battle. We will return you to your home. If only we were not so weak, we could do more.…”

The Slac regiments had pulled themselves together again and rallied around the manticore. Several other monsters rebelled or moved too slowly, but the Slac cut them down with their own weapons.

“Gamearth is ours!” the manticore bellowed.

Then the Earthspirits swept their billowing sleeves through the air. Delrael felt a harsh wind pour into his body, his bones. The air dissolved around him. He felt dislocated and cold—

* * *

—and the terrain became the path leading up Steep Hill to the Stronghold. The morning around him was deathly quiet. He heard only the sounds from the forest.

The village seemed deserted and silent. All the people were hiding. Something had happened.

Bryl and Vailret appeared beside him. Both stumbled, suddenly finding themselves disoriented on the sloping path. “We’re back home!” Bryl said. He fell to his knees. He looked exhausted

“I wonder where Tareah is.” Vailret looked around him, getting his bearings. He started up the hill.

“Something’s wrong,” Delrael said. He strode up the hill. His body was exhausted, but he felt revitalized just by being back home.

They neared the top of Steep Hill. The forest pressed around them, thick and ready to conceal many things. They still heard no sounds. Delrael felt like a stranger outside his own home.

When he saw what remained of the Stronghold—the burned buildings, the shattered walls—he stopped and felt sick inside. “We shouldn’t have left them,” he whispered. “We shouldn’t have left them all alone. They were defenseless!”

Suddenly, seven other characters, men and women heavily armed, leaped out of the forest terrain, pointing arrows, spears, and swords at them.

Delrael whirled and straightened, yanking free his own notched sword. Then he stared as he recognized, behind the armor and the weapons and the battle-hardened stares, Mostem the baker, young Romm the farmer, and others from the village.

“It’s Delrael!” Tareah cried. “And Vailret! They’re back.”

Other villagers cheered as they emerged from the forest where they had been practicing and lying in ambush. They seemed terrified of an actual fight but ready to defend their homes.

Delrael stared at the wreckage of the Stronghold, at the fighting force Tareah had managed to put together. She walked up to stand next to Vailret. “I missed you.” She glanced at Delrael and answered quickly, “Both of you.”

Bryl shuffled his feet, scowling and looking out of place.

“I’m sorry about the Stronghold. Scartaris destroyed it. Tarne is dead.” She sighed and lifted her chin, showing her new strength. “But we’ve sent messengers to all the other villages. We’re gathering an army. We’re getting ready to fight.”

Delrael saw a proud determined look in her eyes that reminded him of something he had seen in Mindar.

“The Outsiders won’t ever catch us unprepared again,” Tareah said.

Delrael smiled and looked up at the sky, wishing the Outsiders were watching. “If they want to fight against us, I hope they know what they’re getting into.”

***