Kevin J Anderson (16 page)

But it was more than that now. And David couldn't keep pretending.

Between turns, Scott went into the kitchen and pulled open a new bag of chips. With a rattling sound he dumped them into a bowl. "You guys want anything else to drink?"

David stared into the fire, watching the flames dance like sharp broken edges of heat. He heard the crackle. He felt a sharp claw tickle his spine.

As his eyes blanked, he saw not the fire in the family room but a smoky blaze in the firepits of a dark ampitheater. He saw soot stains on the wall, defaced paintings, friezes chiselled into stone columns.

David blinked his eyes, and he felt huge lids come down and up again. His chest filled with rumbling breaths. As he moved he sensed something incredibly massive, bunched muscles like steel rope, an enormous body. He turned his head, expecting to see claws the size of pencils. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Go away!" He said the words in the back of his throat, keeping his mouth shut so no one would hear. The alien thoughts poked around in his head, playing, exploring.

It was Siryyk. David had set up his own schemes to destroy Gamearth, adventures to be played out to the end ― the monsters would devastate the map or just wipe out Melanie's characters, he didn't care. And the thing he had planted in the southeast, much as Melanie had created her golem character Journeyman, would keep her other team of questers from helping. Together it would be enough to stop Gamearth.

But his own characters were no longer willing puppets. He had given too much power to the manticore, too sharp a mind, and now the monster had crawled outside, into David's thoughts. He didn't know if he could resist long enough for his complicated plans to come together. He wondered if this possession had happened with the other players as well.

He saw how they were paying little attention to him.

The fire continued to burn, warming the room.

It struck him that it would be so simple. Enough of this weekly arguing and suffering through nightmares, trying to fight in subtle ways against the Game. Gamearth was never subtle.

David would take his own action.

"What are you going to do next, Mel?" Tyrone asked, hunkering down beside her.

When she had her head turned away, David rolled to his knees and snatched up the painted map on the floor. He lunged to his feet. Dice clattered off the hard surface of the map and plopped to the carpet. He twisted, yanking the map away as Melanie reached out to grab it.

"Hey, Dave ― !" Tyrone said.

Scott came out of the kitchen.

David jumped to the fireplace with the big map in his hands. He had to get the glass hearth doors open ― if only he could shove the map into the flames, the wood would burn, the paint would bubble and blacken, destroying the hexagons. He had to hold the others off for only a few minutes.

"No!" Melanie screamed.

She grabbed his arm. He gave her an elbow in the jaw and heard her teeth click together. But she grabbed onto the map and pulled. He heard a splintering sound, and a handful of bright blue hexagons fell off, pattering to the stones around the fireplace.

David kept silent, wrestling with her for the map. Tyrone pulled on his shoulder. He squirmed.

He had gotten the fireplace door open now. The flames seemed to flare up, eager for new food. The heat blasted him. He was going to do it.

Gamearth would end once and for all.

In the kitchen the telephone began to ring in one long steady bell, like an alarm. But David knew the phone was dead ― Gamearth was just trying to distract him.

"David, what are you doing!" Scott stopped, holding glasses of soda in his hands.

David's eyes glistened with tears from the strain as he fought. He stared down into the dizzying kaleidoscopic colors of terrain on the map. He seemed to be falling down into it. He let out a cry of terror as the map tilted.

With one last push he attempted to hurl it into the flames, but Melanie and Tyrone both had their hands on it now.

A flash of light came from one of the brown hexagons of desolation terrain, a puff of smoke and a barely heard sound. A jolt of pain sliced across David's cheek, just under his eye.

Crying out, he cast himself away from the map. He stumbled aside, holding his hand to his face. Blood dribbled between his fingers.

Melanie grabbed the map to herself, hugging it, and took it back to where the dice lay on the floor.

Stunned and defeated, David bowed over. Scott and Tyrone both saw the blood. "Hey man, what happened?" Tyrone said. "Are you nuts or something?"

David glared up at him. Blood dripped from his fingers.

"You got a bad cut there, David," Scott said. "What did you hit?"

"I didn't hit anything," he answered. "Gamearth shot back at me."

"You mean Verne's cannon! Wow!" Tyrone came close to look at David's wound.

Scott gave him a wadded handful of napkins, which David pressed under his eye. Blood seeped into it, but he held it there. The stinging pain made him focus his anger. He had failed.

"That's cheating, David, if you're trying to end the Game," Scott said to him. "I thought you knew better by now."

He stared into David's eyes. Scott's glasses had slid down on his nose. "I don't even want to
think
what might happen if we throw away the rules. Because when you start breaking them yourself, Gamearth can too. It's bad enough when we know what the Game's limitations are."

David stared at him and understood what Scott meant.

Down by the fireplace, he saw a dozen broken hexagons scattered like colored tiles on the floor.

――――

NIGHT RECONNAISSANCE

"I cannot imagine how I would ever grow weary of seeing the streets of Taire. Or the characters standing high and proud, defying the desolation on which it sits. Taire is a monument of all that is hopeful on Gamearth."

― Enrod the Sentinel

Jathen squatted down, resting his back against the sharp edges of rock. He drew his knees up and folded his numb hands around them, staring down the eastern side of the Spectre Mountains.

He sat apart from the others in Delrael's army, but he felt comfortable with that now. As night deepened in the mountain terrain, he gazed across the sprawling map.

The rest of Delrael's army made exhausted noises as they set up camp, handing around blankets and building small fires in the shelter of rocks. Old Siya wandered about, muttering that they should have taken more blankets along, that they should have brought warmer clothing.

Jathen shivered once, but he clenched his teeth together. He cleared his mind, washing the cold from his thoughts. He had survived other things; he had been through worse than this. Much worse.

The army had trudged across the map for days, crossing hexagon after hexagon, through forest and hills and finally the last two days of difficult winding mountain paths. They traversed snow and narrow tracks through the ice, but the fighters had crossed the pass and looked down on the opposite side, where Scartaris had reigned only a short time ago ― and where Siryyk's monster army still lay encamped.

Jathen remembered crossing that distance with other survivors who had fled Taire, running from the monsters, closing their ears to the echoing screams of all the characters trapped there.

Jathen squeezed his eyes shut, then shook his head slightly, feeling the pain against the stiff muscles in his neck. He tried to find the blank spot in his thoughts again, the place he had emptied of memories.

Delrael came up beside him, crossing his arms over his chest. His brown hair blew back in the brisk wind; it had already tangled at one side, and his cheeks looked spotted with a red flush from the cold. Steam came out of his mouth as he spoke.

"We can see the fires of Taire from here." He pointed with his chin. "Siryyk is still encamped in the city."

Jathen had already seen the orange glow marking the city terrain. Cooking fires, encampments, perhaps even a burning building or two. He didn't know. They didn't know why the monsters had remained in Taire for so long.

Jathen said nothing, nor did he stand up. He felt just uncomfortable enough where he was.

Delrael continued, "We thought the manticore would only pause there before marching across the map. But if they made a permanent settlement in Taire, maybe we've got more time. Maybe they decided not to march against us."

Jathen scowled at the thought. Delrael kept talking.

"Now I don't know what to do. We don't have enough characters to fight them all down there. I've sent scouts to look for likely ambush places in the passes we crossed in the last few days."

Jathen continued to stare at the dull glow of his city. Off to the side, he saw Enrod standing on a rock, not even chilled in his thin white robe. His dark bushy hair lay matted and unmoving in the breeze as he also gazed down at Taire. Jathen had no idea what confused images passed through Enrod's mind.

"Then send scouts into Taire to see what's happening." Jathen kept his voice low, but he knew Delrael heard him.

Delrael frowned. "Too dangerous. I wouldn't ask any character to do that."

Jathen couldn't tell if Delrael was simply being coy, or if the idea truly hadn't occurred to him. "I'll go, of course. And I wouldn't doubt that Enrod will want to come with." He finally stood and turned to face the distant firelit hexagons. "That was our home."

In Jathen's mind, the mountain wind hooting around the rocks sounded like the moans of all those Tairans who had died because of Scartaris, those who had fallen by Jathen's own hand in the tannery. He tried to find the empty, peaceful spot in his thoughts again, but somehow it was all filled up.

Enrod responded with as much enthusiasm as Jathen had expected. The Sentinel stood by one of the large campfires, fixing his gaze on the bright flames. He didn't even blink his eyes.

"He and I can survive there. We know Taire. We will learn ― "The fire popped, apparently breaking his train of thought. After a moment of silence, Enrod finished his sentence. " ― what Siryyk is doing."

He lowered his voice and turned his dark eyes toward the distant heaxagons of Taire. "I built that city."

Jathen stood next to Enrod. "If we leave now, we can cover the first hexagons, lie low during the day, and reach the hills by nightfall tomorrow. We can get into the city after dark and look around when we'd be least likely to be spotted."

Enrod nodded, and kept nodding. Jathen felt thrilled to be a partner to the Sorcerer who had created the city where Jathen grew up. The Sentinel would strike a blow for Taire. Enrod could win. Enrod could make it right again.

Delrael nodded. "Go when you're ready."

Siya prepared packages of food for them, from which Jathen and Enrod ate sparingly through the rest of the night. They stumbled down the winding quest-path into the growing dawn.

The two moved in silence for the most part. Enrod seemed swallowed by his own thoughts; at times he rubbed his hands together and stared at the skin. Jathen felt too much in awe of him to start small conversation.

Finally, as the morning grew bright and a line of grassy hills blocked their view of the city, Enrod turned to him and said, "Your last memory of Taire. After Scartaris. Tell me what I should expect."

"Imagine the worst you possibly can," Jathen answered. His throat felt thick, clogged with too many screams he had never dared to utter. He closed his eyes. "And then double it."

Thoughts of his own work in the tannery, with the gray-skinned and gray-clad Tairans shuffling up and down the streets, mindless because of Scartaris.

"Tairans were put to work making weapons. Our blacksmiths forged swords and spear heads. Our tannery made shields and armor. You knew that already. We emptied our storage bins to provide supplies to Scartaris. He took all our horses."

Jathen took a deep breath. "Scartaris didn't slaughter characters just to amuse himself, though. He killed them when he needed their bodies more than he needed their lives. Siryyk the manticore killed everyone just because they were in his way."

Enrod shook his head and kept walking. "Wish I could remember."

Jathen turned away. "I wish I could forget."

When darkness had fallen and the orange flames glowed behind the city walls, Enrod and Jathen stared at a Taire that had become a complete stranger, a dark and broken whisper of itself.

Several of the side gates stood unguarded; other parts of the wall had been torn down, with broken stones strewn on the barren ground. The two of them slipped through the narrow Tairan streets, avoiding all noises.

Keeping their backs to the walls and sinking into the shadows of deep-cut friezes, they moved deeper into Taire. The buildings showed black windows filled with shadows on the inside. Jathen had never thought his city looked so sinister before.

Enrod appeared too appalled even to utter a comment. His dark eyes looked like wide black holes in his face. He seemed most disturbed by the malicious defacing of buildings and artwork. "Why?" he muttered. "Why?"

They stood in front of the broad fresco showing the powerful but faceless image of the Stranger Unlooked-For who had once rescued the land around Taire. Some of the monsters had drawn a cruel, distorted visage on it; Jathen took a moment to recognize that the scrawled mane and horns were meant to indicate Siryyk the manticore. Siryyk, replacing the savior of Taire.

Around another corner they stumbled upon a pile of bones, some picked clean, others glistening with gelatinous lines of red and yellow. Skulls poked out from the refuse. Jathen slapped a grimy hand over his nose to prevent the smell from making him retch.

Moving ahead, they came as close as they dared to a group of monsters around a blazing bonfire. The creatures ate shapeless lumps of meat or scooped steaming black gruel out of bowls with their fingers. Others talked and roared and made strange sounds. Many of the gathered creatures appeared relaxed. Weapons lay next to discarded and uncomfortable pieces of armor.