Kevin J Anderson (15 page)

"Frankenstein is just down this street," he said, trudging ahead. With each step, he feared that the invisible manipulation would sink claws into his mind and drive his body to do terrible things ― especially now that they had called attention to themselves by using the Stones. If the force indeed used magic to control characters, maybe it would want the Stones for itself.

The doorways and facades marked the Sitnaltan homes and research establishments in a confused jumble of designs. Mayer had pointed out details as they walked, and now Vailret tried to remember the important parts. Mayer had been upset when he and Paenar asked to see the professors, rather than continuing their tour with her. She stopped at the appropriate doorway, then stalked off, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Vailret stopped. "This one."

An engraved plaque on the door announced:

Profs. Frankenstein and Verne

Inventors At Large

PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB

It looked as if a piece of tape had obscured Verne's name, but someone had peeled it away again.

"We're going inside," Vailret said. He pounded on the door, then winced as he struck the ornate carving with the side of his hand.

Loud curses and a clatter of toppling books and equipment came from inside. Footsteps moved toward the door, accompanied by continued mutterings. Vailret took a half step backward and put himself behind Bryl. "You can stand in front."

Someone yanked the door open from inside, and a gaunt man thrust his head out. His dark hair had been mussed, grease stains twirled across his cheeks, and his eyes looked glazed. His voice carried a thick overtone of anger.

"I'm doing important work here! If you want ― " He stopped, blinking at Vailret and then turned down at Bryl. After a moment of confusion, Frankenstein recognized them and, surprising them both, his face lit up with delight.

"Ah, magic!" He grabbed Bryl's arm and yanked him inside. "I need you to tell me some things!"

Vailret had to hurry through the door before Frankenstein slammed it, then threw the bolt from inside.

――――

"RULE #9. Weapons on Gamearth can range from simple improvised sticks and rocks to complicated siege machines. Clever characters will find weapons anywhere. The character with the best weapons and the most weapons has the greatest chance of winning the Game."

―
The Book of Rules

Two hairy, misshapen creatures grunted and strained at the giant handles, turning an enormous crucible to pour whitish-orange iron into its mold. Droplets of fire gushed into the air.

Jules Verne shielded his eyes, blinking tears and sweat away from his raw face. He wiped soot across his cheek. His lips were chapped, his mouth dry. His body felt weak.

"Enough, enough!" the Slac general Korux cried as the hairy creatures kept pouring even after the mold brimmed. Splatters of molten metal flew into the air, scorching one of the creatures. Its matted hair smoldered, sending greasy smoke into the stifling air. The creature shrieked, released its end of the handle, and beat at its smoldering back.

Tilted, the crucible sloshed sideways, letting liquid metal drool over the rim. The second creature planted both feet and grimaced as it tried to keep the crucible from overturning.

Verne, feeling dizzy, stumbled back on his painful bandaged foot. He leaned against the smoke-smeared wall. One burly Slac continued to pump the bellows, keeping the fire hot enough to maintain the iron at its melting temperature.

"Don't stop now!" Korux bellowed into the rumbling background noises. "We need to fill the other half of the mold!"

Several of Siryyk's monster fighters slinked toward the door. Korux pointed a clawed hand at one. "You! Take the place of that idiot! And get him out of here. Tend to his injury, ease the pain, and then kill him."

The burned creature snarled and scrambled to his feet, hunching into a defensive posture as several armed beasts came toward him. Korux paid little attention. Out of the corner of his brittle mouth, Korux said, "Or just kill him first if he doesn't want the medical attention."

Three squat gray-skinned monsters lifted and slid the first mold out of the way, scooping ashes around it to even out the cooling. They pushed second mold under the crucible.

"If this new weapon of yours doesn't work, human ― " Korux jerked his angled head at the glowing crucible. "We'll give you a bath in that."

Verne looked, but felt no increase in his constant state of terror. "No you won't," he muttered under his breath, but made sure the Slac general couldn't hear him over the hissing of the forges. "Siryyk needs me to make more weapons."

The most difficult part had been fabricating anything at all complicated under the primitive conditions of Taire. The old city had raw materials and some facilities, a few tools, but none of the technology Verne used in Sitnalta. Taire depended on manual labor and hand-held tools.

To stall for time, he had redesigned parts of the existing Tairan forges and casting furnaces. He delayed as long as he could, but he knew Siryyk had to see some results, or Verne would lose more toes.

The professor had drawn up a sketch of his new cannon, with several parts deliberately designed wrong so the weapon would fail, requiring that Verne take more time to fix it. But the manticore, whose paw was as massive as the sheet of plans, stared down with his slitted eyes. He curled his lips back and extended one claw to poke a hole through the paper.

"This part will not work." The manticore looked up with his squarish, distorted face. The curved horns protruding from the forehead looked deadly. His bestial eyes met Verne's. "You seem to have made a mistake, Professor. See that it does not happen again."

So Verne had redesigned the cannon, fixing his deliberate errors and beginning production of a prototype model. In his own mind, he knew it would work. He could no longer depend on defects he introduced himself. Of course, he never had any guarantee that his inventions would work anyway ― other faults occurred through legitimate misunderstandings of the Rules of physics or flaws in construction or engineering that he could never anticipate.

But a sick feeling in his stomach told him this invention would work just as intended.

But at least the cannon would be far less devastating than the Sitnaltan weapon. By giving Siryyk a new toy, perhaps Verne could hold off other catastrophes. He wondered what Frankenstein would think of his decision.

A gurgling howl broke through the background noises. Verne turned to see the burned hairy creature suddenly stabbed from three sides with barbed spears.

Beside Verne, General Korux smiled as best he could with hard reptilian lips.

Siryyk the manticore rumbled in his sleep, churned by nightmares of the Outside.

An explosion of power and falling rocks brought him away from his dreams. He raised his massive shaggy head, clearing his throat with a liquid cough. His scorpion tail still throbbed from the detonation.

In his nightmare he must have tossed and lashed out, striking one of the rock columns in the open ampitheater. Blocks of stone collapsed on his lion's body ― each of the blocks was large enough to squash a human character into a smear of blood and meat, but they only bruised him.

It reminded Siryyk of the blow the treacherous stone gargoyle Arken had struck against him during the battle on the threshold of Scartaris.

Smoldering blazes in the firepits lit everything with an orange glow. Siryyk blinked his eyes as he sat up. Slac guards stood around shivering, fearing what the manticore had seen in his nightmares.

Siryyk heaved himself to his four feet and shook his head. He looked again at the broken column and the swath of stars overhead he had exposed by collapsing part of the criss-crossed ceiling.

He had dreamed of the Players again. Outside, sitting in their cozy dwelling, they looked down at the map and manipulated Gamearth. Siryyk felt himself moving within the Outsider David's mind ― David was young and weak, with trivial thoughts and concerns overlapping with images of giant hands and puppet strings. Whimsical decisions ― and growing fear.

Siryyk knew he was just a creation of these weaklings. But the Outsider David had begun to suspect how powerful an opponent he had created. The manticore was supposed to be David's ally, but Siryyk had thoughts of his own.

Siryyk had fun with the battles on Gamearth, as the Outsiders expected all monsters to do, to gather forces and strike across the map. Scartaris had intended that. The Outsider David meant to devastate Gamearth, leaving nothing for the others to Play.

And when Siryyk marched with his armies, David would think the manticore warlord cooperated with him. But Sirryk had Verne's Sitnaltan weapon now, and the professor would create other gadgets for him. The army would strike at the human Stronghold and get back the great Fire Stone lost by Enrod when he went to attack the other side of the map. Siryyk had learned of other Stones ― a total of four, three of which were already held by the human character Delrael.

Siryyk would strike against Delrael's forces. But not because the Rules of Gamearth demanded it. Not because the Outsider David wanted that to happen. But because Sirryk desired the Stones. With the Stones, and with the Sitnaltan weapon, he would have enough power to strike back against the Outsiders. He would make them notice.

The morning sky hung blue and transparent enough that when Verne stared up, he thought he might be able to see the edge of Outside.

Off to the west, dust clouds churned in the ruins of the map by the final battlefield against Scartaris. No one dared venture there anymore, not after hexagons had fallen away into nothingness. The map itself had been damaged all the way through, leaving a great void, jagged edges, and broken Rules.

No one knew what happened there. No one dared to go near.

Twenty three muscular Slac, garbed in clinging black robes, worked together as they hauled Verne's cannon through the collapsed section of Tairan wall and out into the desolation terrain where they would test-fire it.

The cannon would have been functional two days before, but Verne had insisted on polishing the exterior and mounting bronze handles ― "support struts" he called them, but they served no purpose other than as decoration. Korux had melted down one of the bronze Tairan statues for the metal.

The great cylinder rode on metal-shod wheels as tall as Verne himself. The cannon was long, the bore smooth on the inside, black and shiny on its surface. Several goblins kept busy using pumice daily to remove any oxidation.

The wheels of the cannon left deep grooves in the ashen desolation as the team of Slac rolled it away from the city. Their own footprints left puckering indentations on the ground.

Verne limped along, accompanied ― no, guarded ― by Korux and two other Slac. The manticore strode into the daylight, taking ponderous yet agile steps. He looked as big as a small dwelling. Siryyk kept his slitted eyes turned up at the sky, then down at the cannon. He appeared pleased, which meant Verne would survive a little longer.

Siryyk carried the huge cannonball himself; both Verne and Frankenstein together could barely have lifted it. The manticore's scorpion tail stood erect behind him and ready to strike. All the monsters knew to stay well away from him, in case he had an accidental twitch.

Verne had commandeered dozens of the exploding firepots from the monster army, scraping out all the firepowder, which he would use to propel the projectile from the cannon. General Korux had objected to losing some of his valuable bombs, but Siryyk ordered the firepowder to be released. If the professor's cannon worked properly, he said, it would outdo any number of exploding pots.

The 23 Slac stopped hauling the cannon out and then turned it around, back toward Taire. On the side of a tall building, they had used ash and grease to paint a broad target. Standing behind the cannon, one of the Slac swivelled and cranked the bore so that the barrel pointed toward the bullseye.

Verne had no doubt the cannonball would smash and collapse any building it struck.

Korux carried a torch and stood at attention as the monsters dumped firepowder into the cannon and took the ball from Siryyk's paws. Verne watched them do everything properly. He knew it would work. This time he did not feel the joy he always experienced upon watching an invention tested for the first time.

"Now we shall see, Professor Verne," Siryyk said and took the torch from Korux.

But as the manticore stepped behind the cannon and stared toward the target on the building, he hesitated and looked overhead again. His face twisted in what seemed to be either a grimace or a smile.

Siryyk used his other front paw to push down on the back end of the cannon. The handle of the altitude-adjustment crank spun around as the gears turned. The manticore kept pushing until the end of the barrel pointed toward the sky.

"We can destroy buildings ourselves any time we wish," he said. "Let's show the Outsiders just what we can do."

With a deep bass growl, Siryyk touched the torch to the fuse of the cannon. The Slac, Professor Verne, and the other monsters took a step backward. But the manticore remained behind the weapon, without flinching.

The fuse hissed for just a second, then an enormous explosion rang through the still air. Verne cringed and then looked up.

Belching smoke curled from the end of the cannon, as expected. But the metal cannonball sailed high into the air, where it disappeared against the glass-blue sky.

Verne squeezed his eyes shut and refused to watch where it landed.

――――

INTERLUDE: OUTSIDE

The Game continued without apparent complications.

David sat back, tight lipped, and watched as the adventures went ahead, the characters moved on their quests. Tyrone looked just as possessed as Melanie, but in a different way. To him the Game seemed like a drug, and his eyes shone with the depth of his delighted smile. Scott had relaxed. They were all playing together ― this reminded them of old times, when Gamearth had been just a simple game.