Kevin J Anderson (33 page)

You are the last one!

But Enrod had never given up. He turned all of his enthusiasm into helping human characters. That battle would never be over, but he felt so old now and so tired. He had played the Game for more turns than any other character. He had avoided this for so long, and now it seemed the only way.

It was the last thing he could do, a proper sacrifice and a fitting end. It would cleanse everything else from his mind. He would go through the half-Transition himself. Now. It would liberate enough energy to resurrect all the old Sorcerer bodies.

He stood in the dimness and walked toward the sloping ceilings where, in shadow, lay all the frozen bodies that had not moved since the Transition.

"You will help now," he said to them. "Yes, help.
You
will march out and fight. Fight until you drop. Feel no pain because you are not alive." He made a fist. "Real soldiers. Not just players like before, with other characters to do your fighting."

He bent down and looked at the motionless face of a middle-aged woman. Somewhere in the back pockets of his mind he should know her name, but it had been too long. He saw the frost in her hair, on her eyelids, on her cheeks.

He kept smiling in the dimness. "Do this for your human inheritors."

He moved to another man whose gray-streaked hair hung braided over his left ear. Enrod placed his hand on the man's frozen cheek, letting his own body heat soften the frozen flesh. Enrod bent close so that his breath warmed the man's face.

"You can make up for abandoning the humans. I think you owe it to them, don't you?"

He bent over the next motionless body. "Don't you?"

Enrod stood, still crouching under the low ceiling. "Like an old Sorcerer council!" He raised his voice, letting his words echo from the ice. "Does any of you object?" He laughed. "I thought not!"

He stepped back to the center of the vaults where he could stand tall again. "All right, then,
dayid
. Take me now. I'm ready."

He closed his eyes and hissed a long breath through his teeth. Deep within himself, he concentrated, pulled together threads of power into a pattern he had always known but had never dared to attempt. When he made the last connection, he squeezed his fiery eyes shut. A single tear oozed down his cheek.

And then he released it all with an exhale. The total magic he had learned through his long lifespan surged out, spewing through his veins, his muscle fibers, exploding out of every cell in his body. He saw an incredible light brighter than a thousand suns behind his eyelids. His body twisted, spiralled, spun into a cyclone of his own making.

He tapped into the vortex of the
dayid
below the ice fortress. Enrod felt it join him, help him along, increase his power. He knew what he wanted, and the
dayid
had already agreed.

All the power shot outward, melting the walls of the vault so that water gushed down the bricks into freezing stalactites. Steam swirled in the room as the magic spilled into the bodies of every one of the old Sorcerers lying there.

When nothing remained of Enrod the individual, silence hung for just a moment in the devastated vaults.

Then the bodies began to stir. The old Sorcerers sat up without blinking their eyes, staring straight ahead. They began to march.

Delrael ran down to the courtyard as Tayron and Ydaim hurried through the low gate, bearing an unconscious Siya between them. Though she could not hear him, Delrael became livid and shouted at her anyway.

"What do you think you're doing? I'm in command here! No one goes out without my permission!"

At that moment lights shot through the ice of the fortress, and steam poured out the windows.

"What's going on now!" Delrael held his arms up in exasperation as well as fear. He looked around but nobody could answer him. He guessed what it was. "Where's Enrod?" He stormed back toward the main entrance to the ice fortress.

Other characters came running out of the doorway, flashing glances behind them. Several of the sentries had tumbled down from the turret stairs in terror.

Parts of the frozen courtyard slumped. Snow melted in puddles as cracks opened in the ground and hot steam pushed out. Delrael planted his feet to keep his balance steady. He took a deep breath. The rest of his soldiers milled around in confusion. Too much had happened all at once.

Delrael felt the anger bubbling within him again. "I'm supposed to be in command of this army! Why does every character do whatever he pleases without telling me?"

Then the first ranks of old Sorcerers marched out of the fortress.

Delrael stared, speechless. Hundreds of powerful characters shuffled ahead, but he recognized none of them. They wore ancient robes and jewels and had long hair styled in the manner of Sorcerer lords and ladies he had seen on paintings and mosaics. He recalled all the frozen bodies that had been under the fortress.

The old Sorcerers marched out as if directed by something else. The
dayid
? Or Enrod? Delrael's own soldiers hurried out of the way as the resurrected characters moved toward the wall of ice.

A faint pearly glow surrounded the Sorcerers. They carried their ancient swords; some bore shields, others had taken the weapons Siya stockpiled within the fortress. Several went toward the older characters from the Stronghold village, the ones who would not fight, and commandeered their swords. Shocked, the villagers did not resist.

One Sorcerer woman, tall and thin with an angular face and unblinking vacant eyes, walked over to where Siya still lay only half-conscious. The Sorcerer woman picked up Siya's sword, and walked back to join the ranks.

They lined up and pushed forward, more than a hundred of them, five across and twenty deep. They stood with their faces only inches from the tall barrier wall.

The ice rippled, clarified, and then crawled away from them, opening up an broad gate, a portal for the old Sorcerer army. At an unheard signal, they all moved forward, raising their swords to an attack position. They trotted out to meet Siryyk's army, without a battle cry, without a sound.

Before Delrael could call after them and before some of his own fighters could think to run after and join in the battle, the ice wall bunched and rose, sealing them within the protection of the ice fortress.

Outside, the monsters howled and charged forward, seeing their enemy out to face them at last.

The old Sorcerer army marched out to meet them.

――――

INTERLUDE: OUTSIDE

David stared at the hexagons on the map. The black lines reminded him of an intricate net to trap him.

Outside, the wind from the storm sounded like the flapping fabric of a tent as visions of the manticore flickered behind his mind. He sat crosslegged, as he had for the past hour, and ignored his aching knees. His cheek still stung from his injury, much like Siryyk's face must have felt.

A sharp thunder of pain went through his head ― sympathetic hurt from the manticore? He squeezed his eyes shut.

"I've got an idea," Tyrone said. "And it's my turn."

David looked up at Tyrone. Scott went to try the phone again, but he heard nothing this time, not a dial tone, not Lellyn's voice. Melanie smiled at Tyrone, encouraging him.

She had lost the gargoyle and her Rognoth character ― who had originally been played by David, back when he introduced Gairoth the ogre ― but she had also saved Siya, and now launched an entirely unexpected fighting force against David's manticore. Pleased with the game, she continued to flash defiant glances at him.

"I know you guys don't think I know what's going on," Tyrone said. "But I
do
! I'm just so amazed, that's all. I mean, who will ever believe us anyway? Rule #1, always have fun. Isn't that what we said when we started this?" He looked at them.

"This is all straight out of the Twilight Zone. But think about it: if the Game can come out here and lock our doors and mess with the TV and the phone, and if it can blow up my mom's kitchen table, and draw its blue line on the map, and if Lellyn's ghost or whatever can come to talk to us ... well, hey, what's to stop
us
from going
in
?"

"It can't work that way," Scott said.

Tyrone turned on Scott. He had been pouting ever since Scott shouted at him before. "Listen, Mr. Science, you don't know how it works any more than the rest of us. Why should it be any different? We're the ones who came up with the rules in the first place. If I roll ― " He grabbed up the transparent twenty-sided die from beside the splintered edge of Melanie's map. "Say, a seventeen or better, what's to stop me from going
inside
Gamearth?"

"Tyrone, don't you dare," David said.

Melanie stared down at the white hexagons of frozen wasteland. "There's a battle going on down there. Are you sure you want ― "

"A battle is the most exciting place! David plays Siryyk, but I'm handling the rest of the monsters. I handled the Black Falcon troops, and all the other fighters. I can certainly handle this."

David grabbed his arm. "You don't know what you're doing."

Tyrone jerked away. "Quit telling me what to do! It's my turn, and I'm rolling."

"Don't!" Scott shouted.

Tyrone tossed the crystalline die on the carpet. It came to rest by the edge of the map, showing a perfect "20." Gamearth definitely wanted him in.

Tyrone vanished.

Scott stood with his mouth wide and gaping. Melanie let out a gasp, choking in a quick breath. David hung his head.

"What do we do now?" Scott whispered.

The snow under his feet felt real and wet and cold. Tyrone wore only his socks.

The air smelled different, biting and clean. The afternoon sun shone bright in his eyes after the artificial light of the fireplace and the lamps in David's family room.

"Wow!" he said, looking up into the sky with astonishment. He didn't even notice the wind through his thin shirt. "It worked!"

He turned and saw the magnificent ice fortress, glinting like something out of Disneyland. Tyrone kept making unintelligible sounds of disbelief.

He saw the marching ranks of old Sorcerers coming toward him, exactly as he had pictured them in his mind. All four of the players must have had the same visions to create something as real as this. "Wait'll I get back and tell them about this!"

Then he heard the shouting and the din of drawn weapons. He whirled to see the monster horde charging at him.

His nightmarish visions of reptilian monsters and sharp teeth and pointed blades had been only pale outlines of what he saw now. Even the most spectacular movie special effects had never been able to hint at the hideousness of these alien creatures.

They saw Tyrone and surged in his direction.

But he had created them. The monster horde with all its evil fighters were his own characters. He had moved them about, played them, used them to strike on the campaign. "Stop!" he said. But none of them noticed.

Too late, Tyrone realized that he should run.

The air in the family room made a wet, hissing sound, like rain falling on hot metal. Then Tyrone's body reappeared.

He sprawled on the carpet, not moving. Blood oozed from a hundred separate stab wounds. His battered face and open, staring eyes held an expression of profound disbelief.

Melanie screamed and shrank away.

Scott retched, grabbing some old newspapers in a useless gesture to protect the floor as he vomited. His glasses fell off as he stumbled to the kitchen. David heard the water running.

He knelt down beside Tyrone and rolled him over to expose the horrible gashes that tore open his chest and abdomen. He saw no use in checking for a pulse, but he did anyway. "He's dead."

Scott stood by the entrance to the family room, shaking. Without his glasses he appeared strangely vulnerable. "It's just a game! It's just a
game
, dammit!" His voice had a thin, whining tone. "What are we going to do? We can't keep playing a stupid game! Tyrone's dead!"

Melanie looked at David, and he felt a kind of communion between them. She glared at the map of Gamearth as if it had betrayed her.

"It's not a game," David said. He held one of the crystalline dice in his hand. Tyrone's blood still clung to his fingers and smeared on the transparent facets of the die.

"It's war. And I'm going to put an end to it all."

――――

WEREM GROTTO

"Characters must never give up. That is not one of our options. We have a responsibility to the Game, and that goes beyond our wish for despair."

― Enrod, on the second rebuilding of Taire

Vailret felt trapped in a cell darker than the darkest night imaginable. The packed dirt was gritty and damp against his skin, caked in his hair. His fingers throbbed and stung from trying to claw out of the grave. The air grew thick and stifling, liquid with dust and dampness from their own respiration.

He had too little room to move. Next to him, Bryl had given up in despair. "We lost the Stones!" Bryl moaned. "All three of them. Everything's useless now."

"We failed in a big way," Vailret muttered.

After the werem had packed the walls down tight, the invisible force had abandoned Vailret and Bryl, leaving them free to move, but with nowhere to go.

"They're going to come back and plant their larvae in us," Bryl said in the total darkness. "I just know it."

Vailret could hear the half-Sorcerer's teeth chattering together. "Or they'll just leave us here to suffocate," he said. He kept trying to scrape at the wall, but the werem had done something to the dirt and it seemed hard as dried mortar.

"If I still had the Fire Stone, I could blast us out of here," Bryl said.

"You'd probably burn us, too."

Vailret knew that Bryl had few other spells on his own without the crutch of the Stones. He tried to remember which ones Bryl knew ― he could keep blades sharp or make them dull, or he could make flowers open prematurely. Neither of those seemed particularly useful at the moment.