A Game of Universe (22 page)

Trouble: The lining of my shadow skin turned warm. That was the silent signal my batteries were dead. Thirty seconds of reserve power remained, then I’d be visible. I had to think of a way out. Fast.

I set the accelerator pistol to its maximum setting, overload, and placed it in between Osrick and me—then counted to ten, waiting for it to build to a critical level, before I whispered, “Tell me, Osrick, why do you care what happens to her? It’s been so long.”

A wicked smile materialized across the room. “Ah,” he said, “so you
are
here.” He drifted closer. “And a man of curiosity, even better. I shall tell you everything while I eat.”

I took two steps back, and set my hands in motion, unwound the memories of the borrowing ritual. It was a desperate act, but if Osrick survived the overload, and if I survived, I wasn’t about to let myself end up like Sir Benjamin. I’d absorb Osrick’s mind if I had to.

He came closer, directly over the pistol.

The lining of the shadow skin grew cold. No more shadows to hide in.

“A sorcerer, too?” he said, impressed. “Truly, you might have been the one to break her curse, Prince Germain.”

“I still might,” I said.

The pistol exploded.

A half-sphere of lightning splintered the air. A torrent of superheated silver plasma enveloped Osrick in a single flash of kinetic illumination, and I saw all he was. His face was twisted beyond human: eyes wide and lidless, a mouth frozen in a perpetual scream, and a thin veil of skin that barely covered his skull. It was the face of a man who had lived in rage and unbridled jealousy for two centuries. It was the face of a madman. He had a reptilian body, scaled and dark with muscles drawn taut and belly bulging, and a luminous green scorpion tail curving over his head. At the end of his arms were claws—curved a full half circle like crescent moons—black and still moist from the caress they gave Sir Benjamin.

My hair and brows singed from the heat, but I didn’t look away. Osrick’s shape wavered insubstantial as the plasma washed over him. He blurred to translucence, then the overload was spent.

He let out a colossal roar and rammed into me—crushed my body against the wall. Those claws seized me, one about my arm and chest, the other pinning my hand to my pelvis. He cut through my shadow skin and into my flesh.

All I had to do was move one hand, key the last of the mnemonics, and the borrowing ritual would flow from my mind. But he held me firm. I couldn’t release it.

Osrick shoved his leering face into mine and touched my lips.

The life trickled from my body, leaving me cold.

15

O
srick siphoned the life from me. Pinned in his razor grasp, I struggled, but this had no effect except to exhaust me. Even the energy from the ocular enhancer drained. I was blind.

Adrenaline pounded through my body and sang: fight or flight. I could do neither. I had to concentrate. If I could press my ring finger to my thumb, the last mnemonic would unlock. The power would be mine. My hand was flat against the wall. Osrick crushed it with his weight—and he wasn’t about to loosen his grip until I was dead.

Maybe I could have unwound the hundreds of memories without the mnemonic. No. The borrowing ritual was too complex. One forgotten element and it would fail. The power would turn on me, and my own mind would consume itself.

The psychologist remarked,
Do you see how dependent you have become on this archaic system? Fetishes and mnemonics instead of logic and rational thought?

Osrick’s magic burned between us, a cold static charge that crawled across my skin.

My bladder loosened, the spread of warmth down my legs, and I closed my eyes … slipped into unconsciousness.

Wake up!
Fifty-five cried.
You need to distract him before our strength is gone. Say something, ask him a question, anything to unhinge him. Quick!

With the last air in my lungs, I whispered: “Why curse her?”

Osrick’s grasp slackened just enough for me to inhale. I used the extra breath to say, “It wasn’t Lilian’s fault. It was the Queen and the prince.”

“But it
was
her fault,” he hissed. His claws sank deeper into my arm, cutting the bicep and scraping the bone. The pain shocked me awake.

“My princess, the Queen, and her adviser, they were the architects of this ‘illness.’ No common knight would do for her; no, she had to have a prince. They lied to me, all of them.” He exhaled, spilling frozen breath onto my face, the odor of rancid meat. “Our love was doomed from the beginning. I should have known better.”

His grip relaxed again. I wiggled my fingers. Almost enough.

“We swore our devotion to one another,” Osrick whispered, more to himself, I think, than for my enlightenment, “in the palace’s rose garden, under two full moons.”

His claws loosened another notch.

“I trusted her,” he said.

My smashed hand moved. The joints creaked, and my thumb slid past the index finger, the middle, until it touched my ring finger. Mental structures unfolded in my thoughts. The ritual of borrowing crystallized. Liquid lightning flowed.

“Revenge was my wedding gift to Lilian,” Osrick said, laughing, “poured from the cup brought to heal her. Its magic trapped us together for eternity. I shook the world, and I made their invented sickness real. She bears a plague so virulent none can touch her and survive. No one shall have my beloved if I cannot!”

“Knowledge,” I demanded from him as the magic required. “Give me your life.”

The sorcery bloomed. My thoughts embraced his. I tumbled through a red-hot steel corridor of twisted jealousy. I ran into a dark tower of revenge, then squirmed into the wormholes of his desire filled with wet warm flesh and passionate whispers.

We met on a grassy field in our imaginations. He was an armored knight, silver sword in one gauntleted hand, a shield covering his entire left arm. Upon the shield were two snakes coiled about a rod, facing one another. They were alive, too. They moved in a hypnotic pattern.

Sir Osrick gave me a slight nod beneath his helmet.

I lunged.

His shield came up, easily blocked my blade—both snakes uncoiled and struck. Hot venom pumped into my arm. I pulled away, but it was too late. My muscles went numb. I fell to my knees.

Osrick stepped back and waited for the poison to work into my tissues, then he declared, “Mortal, you are the first in two hundred years to face me upon this field of honor. You have my respect for that. I shall give you a swift, clean death.” He raised his sword high.

I willed my body to stab him, pierce that armor of his, but I was paralyzed with venom, and with fear.

He lopped off my head.

Self-control disappeared; personality blurred, and in its place the insane ghost took firm hold. Memories vanished, my thoughts scattered incoherent, and an evil chuckle escaped my lips that was not my own.

Parts of me, however, Osrick would never vanquish. I was more than one man; the remains of every soul I absorbed lived on within me. And the personae of Celeste, Medea, Fifty-five, the psychologist, and the gambler weren’t about to casually hand control over to him. Their schemes, their desires, and their strengths were all mine to draw upon. Everything they had ever done with bloody hands and cold hearts, I had done, too.

We gathered upon that field of honor and threw Osrick out as he was making himself comfortable in my body. “I rule here,” we said in unison. “BEGONE!”

Undivided, we mobbed him. Medea pounced first, and knocked Osrick to the ground. Fifty-five kicked his blade out of reach, then danced on his ribs for a while. The gambler took care of the shield. He flipped it upside down so the vipers on its heraldry couldn’t slither out, then jumped on it. I heard them squish. The psychologist joined in too, and ripped off his helmet. Inside, the plate armor was empty. Only a faint sigh escaped from within.

Osrick surrendered. We won.

Yet, I sensed him still present. His memories and emotions remained intact, a shell of all he was, but without awareness. This other mind blended with my own. I tried to stop it, but like water held too tight, the more I squeezed, the more I lost control. Osrick’s mind slipped into mine. It fit like a transparent glove. He filled all my empty spaces.

I had been the one to curse the Bren, the one who loved Lilian, and the one driven insane with jealousy. But I was also the one to escape the mining colony of Hades, the one to kill his Master, the one trained by Umbra Corp. I was Germain, but I was also now Osrick.

This had never occurred before. My other personas remained distinct, separate, but Osrick and I melded together, and made me someone else.

Slumping to the floor, I tried to sort out my jumbled recollections. They were hopelessly mixed. I thought of Lilian and Virginia simultaneously, my duty to the Corporation and my oath of fealty to King Eliot. I shook my head to clear this confusion. It didn’t help.

Fix your arm,
Medea whispered.
Use the blue shield.

The robot doctor was not on my belt. I swept the floor with my good arm, in a full circle, brushed over rocks and dust, moistened with blood, and found it near the wall—smashed in a hundred fragments—the microfingers and probes wriggling, searching for something to heal.

There’s so much blood,
Medea stated.
If we’re lucky, it’s only the cephalic or basilic veins that got severed. If it’s the brachial artery, you’re a dead man.

The Grail. I had to find it.

I recalled, or rather Osrick recalled, it had been buried with him, in a chest of silver among seven others. But there was no sign of this treasure when I, Germain, opened the vault.

I sifted through our memories.

Years ago, a man descended into Osrick’s lair as I had. This man, however, had been prepared for the ghost. With the finger bones of Saint Dominic held before him, he kept Osrick at bay. The relic forced the ghost into the corner and charred his phantom flesh. The pain was strong in our memory. And while Osrick writhed in agony, held by the magic, the man ransacked his seven silver chests. He wore a shadow skin and carried a half-moon blade, a weapon popular among my brothers in the Corporate elite.

The thief stole two satchels full of riches, then returned to the helpless Osrick. He boasted of how he had fooled the nobility of Kenobrac. He only came for the Grail, but they thought he wanted to marry their princess. He laughed a while at that. Then he told Osrick that he intended to sell his precious Cup of Regulus, and that it would make him powerful within his Corporation.

Umbra Corp? It was too much coincidence for my liking.

He scooped up the fingerbones, retreated into the tunnel, and that was the last Osrick saw of him. Hate burned fresh in my mind. I would find this man and kill him in a most unpleasant manner.

The memory was old though, decades, perhaps a century. My brother assassins rarely lived long lives. Had this thief lived long enough to sell the Grail? And if so, why didn’t Erybus have it? If another wealthy collector obtained the relic, certainly Erybus would have found out and purchased it regardless of the cost. But if this thief had died before he sold it, or had kept it for himself, then I knew where he’d be. No one left the Corporation.

Tracking him down would be difficult, but not impossible. I had a few favors I could call in with the registrar’s office. If he was dead there would be a record of who inherited his possessions. Either way I had to get back to Earth. It would take several non-relativistic months to get there, and then there was the return trip to Golden City. There was much ground to cover. Little time left.

I jumped to my feet and strode to the tunnel entrance—at least that was the plan. When I rose, the room spun, my legs collapsed, and I found myself lying in a mixture of blood and dirt. I touched my arm. The skin hung loose, peeling away from the wound, wet and sensitive.

With my good arm, I leaned against the wall, and stood, very slowly.

The effort made my head throb. For a moment, all I heard was that throbbing, and all I saw were flashes of purple and yellow. The blood on the floor became the shores of an ocean, crashing waves to match my pulse. A memory of Osrick’s: a sugar-sand beach with fingers of foam and warm water rushing between my bare feet. Reeds grew in the surf. Above me, gulls cried to one another. A slight wind caressed my skin, the cool morning breeze that shields the dew against the first heat of the gathering day.

The roar of the surf faded, and I returned to the chamber, cold, dark, and sick to my stomach. Gripping the wall, I felt my way to the tunnel, then crawling on three limbs like a wounded dog, I started back.

The first part went well. I only banged my head twice. Then I came to the downward turn in the passage. It was three meters deep; a fall could break my leg or neck. Cautiously, I positioned myself in the hole. With my legs braced against one side, back firmly on the other, I took tiny steps, my shoulders pushing and inching me along, until I touched the bottom. I sat there panting, chilled to the bone.

The level section that followed went quickly—until it dead ended. Feeling my way around in the dark, I found the tunnel turned straight up. The portion I so swiftly descended on my way down had been transformed into a climb of twenty meters.

I needed sleep, time to gather my strength.

Your arm,
Medea firmly reminded me.

I touched it. No pain. That was a bad sign.

The choice is clear,
she said.
Climb or die.

Reluctantly, I wedged myself in the passage, legs pushing on one wall and my good arm helping to pull me up. Ten meters, or so I figured, and I had to rest. My legs burned with lactic acid. They trembled and weren’t going to hold much longer.

I continued, pausing every two or three steps to rest. My legs were cramping. I had no idea how far up I was now. I only knew that I had to climb. Virginia was up there, Lilian too, and the Grail. I couldn’t give up.

Both legs cramped, badly. One slipped. I frantically pawed for something to hold onto. The surface, however, had been scraped quite smooth by Osrick’s claws.

I fell.

Writhing through utter darkness—a single moment of black panic—then I extended my legs, pressed against the walls of the narrow passage. My back scraped the other side, ripping my shadow skin off, and flaying my flesh away as the stone rushed past. Abruptly my body jammed in the passage. My feet pushing on one side, my neck twisted on the other.

Move slowly,
Fifty-five cautioned.
You could have snapped your spine in that maneuver.

I relieved the pressure on my neck and straightened out. How far had I fallen? It was impossible to guess in the dark. It could have been a few meters, or I could have gone all the way to the bottom. I might be able to reach down and touch the floor. I didn’t try. If I felt it, I’d give up.

With one hand and legs that were so tired they felt like wood, I dragged myself up. If I could have used my mouth somehow to propel me, I would have tried, biting and chewing my way to the top.

It occurred to me then, that maybe I did fall to the bottom. Maybe I was lying there, unconscious or dead, and this climb was a figment of my imagination. Or perhaps I was in Hell. What a clever bit of punishment that would be: to struggle through this dark chimney forever and never make it to the top.

My body moved of its own accord. It was not my willpower that fortified me, but Osrick’s. He had suffered through worse injuries and endured greater torture; he had died yet still persisted. Part of that legendary strength was mine now. It was odd to feel so noble and courageous.

Ahead, I saw movement, a shifting of the darkness, a fluid motion of black on black. It was the fluttering of light and shadows, the light from a torch.

I then realized I was in the final
level
portion of the tunnel, no longer vertical. How long had I struggled, pressing against the rock, believing my ascent continued? I wanted to collapse there, rest, but I crawled the last few meters and emerged in Osrick’s smooth marble tomb.

The ambassador turned pale at the sight of me. “Prince Germain?”

He timidly stepped closer, then exclaimed, “My prince!” He pulled me free and wrapped his crimson cloak about me. “You are injured.”

Osrick recognized him. He was a fine diplomat, intelligent and fair, able to compromise. He’d also put on a good twenty kilos.

“You managed to escape?” he whispered. “What of Sir Benjamin?”

“Dead,” I told him, “as is Osrick.”

His eyes went wide and he looked to his torch. It burned with a real fire, flames that leapt and danced with sparks and spiraling smoke. The ambassador touched it and drew back. “It burns!” he cried. “That means we are free. Free to leave Castle Kenobrac at last!”