A Game of Universe (36 page)

The part of my mind that was Osrick moved my hand then, slipped my thumb under and between my ring finger and pinkie. It was the sign language gesture for the letter “m.” It was also the first mnemonic for the borrowing ritual. He wanted me to release it? On Lilian? Why?

Do not attempt it,
the psychologist warned.
Another personality added to yours in its current fragile state will overwhelm your ego, especially one as strong as the princess’s. Our minds would lose cohesion. It would be utter chaos. She would drive you insane.

I tried to understand the parts of me that were Osrick, the parts of the dead knight that blended with mine, but they eluded me, evaporated at my touch. Again, my hand moved, and the first key turned. The next mnemonic was on my left hand—which was gone. I had mastered the sorcery however; I could use it without the mnemonics if I had to. But again, why?

It would either destroy Lilian or me. Is that what Osrick wanted? To die rather than live without his beloved? It wasn’t despair that I sensed from him, however. It was hope.

My hand moved again, and this time I did not resist. I loosed the magic, allowed the coiled memories to unwind: the
Seven Scrolls of Telepathic Construction,
and the Physiological Fundamentals of Intelligent Thought surfaced. I sent my mind toward her.

To the spirits of air, she commanded, “Kill. But be quick about it. Do not play with him.”

“Knowledge,” I whispered. “Give me your life.”

Insubstantial fingers took shape in the fog, and attached to them, long groaning faces with piranha jaws.

My mind touched Lilian’s.

She was shocked, then furious that I had the audacity to violate her in such a manner. She resisted me. Lilian had the mind of a muse, two centuries old, trained and disciplined, honed to an edge by her isolation. Even with Osrick, even with my other personalities fighting together, her resolve was greater than mine. She would have crushed me immediately had I not tasted damnation, had I not experienced Erybus’s
punishment.
It gave me something she didn’t have: desperation. Having been to Hell once, even if it was only for seconds, was enough to make the difference. It evened the odds.

We viciously embraced, swarming through each other’s recollections, looking for any weakness. She found one first, in Osrick: his affections for her. Lilian ripped them out by the roots. Doing so, she revealed to me a similar weakness to me. There, a memory of her and Osrick, strolling through the palace’s garden, under two moons, her heart filled with desire, a tiny kiss, and a promise of love eternal. I removed that image with the skill of a surgeon.

Circling again, wrestlers seeking leverage to throw the other, we clashed.

Osrick collapsed in my thoughts. Without a fight, he gave up.

Lilian took advantage, and savaged his mind, destroying whatever she chanced to touch upon. I heard her laugh. She relaxed her own guard however; she ignored me, Germain, at Osrick’s expense. This was why he wanted the borrowing ritual: a pair of deaths, star-crossed lovers.

I lunged, penetrated deep into her mind, tearing through two centuries of memory and madness. In her core was what Osrick desired: his princess. I took her. Lily’s first fifteen years were there: training in etiquette, politics, her first magic, her first communion, a delicate laugh that sounded like little bells, countless hours spent with dressmakers, a love for her father I never suspected, and most importantly, a crush on Sir Osrick. Genuine feelings of warmth she once had for him, fantasies of them together, far away from courtly matters. I took it all from her, took it for Osrick.

She pulled free from our embrace, realizing her mistake too late. I was close to her center. I went to her core, scrambled her autonomic nervous system, then withdrew.

Osrick was gone from my mind. Lilian had dismantled him.

The sorcerous energies faded. My perceptions returned to the physical world. Yet, there was something left, in between imagination and reality like the afterimage of the sun when gazed at too long. I beheld a ghostly translucent Lilian in a dress of light, smiling, her bare hand holding Osrick’s. And Sir Osrick no longer wore his armor, but a silver robe and a crown of diamonds. They remained like that for three heartbeats, then the knight bowed to me, and they vanished, passed into oblivion.

The creatures of mist paused, writhed and boiled, seemingly confused without their mistress. They reformed over her body. Nebulous fingers ran over her length, soothing, pushing her chest up and down, but Lilian did not awaken. The cloud diffused through the suite until only a faint haze remained in the air, and that too faded.

One last sigh escaped Lilian and she was still.

The princess and Osrick finally found one other after two hundred years. I grieved, but more for myself, at what I had lost, than for her. She had tranquility, I think. So did Osrick. I missed his presence. Annoying as the knight was, there was a part of him that I was weak without. In my thoughts was a space left from his existence, hollow.

And all I had left was a string of murders like so many pearls strung on a thread.

I left Lilian among her flowers, not even bothering to place the Grail back in its bag.

It was cursed. Osrick lost all he cherished, so did the others who found this cup. Myself, I lost my family, every person I might dare to call friend, and Virginia, and I had yet to drink from it. I almost laughed. There was nothing left to lose, my life perhaps, but that seemed unimportant.

I wandered through the casino, and didn’t even bother to hide the Grail. The gambler left me alone. The tourists were too busy to notice me, consumed with their games, drunk, and winning and losing their money. Three tables away, a tournament of three cubes in the hole was in progress. A roar of approval erupted as a young man threw a winning combination. From the cheers it sounded like a long shot. He was jubilant as he raked in a pile of orange and pink chips. It was a sizable chunk of cash, yet he stayed and bet again, and rolled the dice. He lost. Didn’t he know the casino would switch dice on him, tilt the table, or alter the magnetic field to recover their losses? Why did he stay and play their game?

A cocktail waitress found me. I was not drinking or losing money. Her job was to see that I did both in large quantities. “Sir, can I fill that for you?” she inquired, pointing to the Grail.

Below her lovely throat were twin topazes, the insignia of a full-apprentice server. Her dress was cut low at her cleavage, high on her thigh, and revealed anything a man might want, but my eyes wandered back to her insignia, reminding me of another full apprentice that I had met here.

“A drink?” I echoed. “Yes, that’s precisely what I need, a drink.” I got up and left her bewildered, ran through the casinos, back to the
Grail Angel.

“Setebos, are you here?”

On the cockpit console a cube of blue and green stained glass appeared and cried, “You have the Grail!”

It wasn’t important if I erased him, if I only hallucinated doing it, or if Setebos was a real angel. He could fly the ship and that was all that mattered. “Set course for the Erato system, and get me there fast.”

“As you wish, my Master. Should you not drink from the Grail? There is much that can go awry between here and there. It might be wise to—”

“No,” I insisted, “the Erato system. Don’t wait for clearance from the tower.” I slumped into the copilot’s chair, and examined my Grail. Inside, I traced the path of silver veins across the smooth blue stone. It was the loveliest thing I could imagine. “Take me home, Setebos.”

I must have nodded off, a sleep without dreams, for when I looked up, the terraformed world Erato shone with the reflected light of its gold and white suns. Clouds covered a quarter of its surface. The rest was indigo and dots of hazel, patches of emerald and a few smears of red. One pole had a frosty cap of ice, while the other was a warm amber.

“Find a spot to land please,” I said.

The world loomed large on the displays as Setebos took us into the atmosphere. He dove to the underside of the planet, a long arc that gave me the sensation that we fell straight up. We skimmed over snow-capped mountains, then across a clear lake. A flock of geese took flight, startled by the large black angel in the sky above them. The ship slowed, hovered over a meadow, then gently touched down.

I went to the captain’s quarters. Without looking at Virginia’s burned body, I wrapped her and the Grail in the comforter, then dragged the bundle outside with my one arm.

“I suppose you will leave me soon, Setebos.”

“Yes, Germain, Grail King. There are other games to be played. The ship shall remain here, however. You may have need of it.”

“I don’t think so, but thanks. And thanks for making sure I won.”

In a fading voice he added, “Go drink from your Grail. Go heal yourself and your fragmented land.”

I marched through the meadow’s knee-high grass into a grove of ancient black-barked oaks with golden leaves that sighed in the breeze. Mockingbirds sang challenge songs back and forth, and chased each other—a flurry of white and black feathers. I was owner of this new world. Here is where I would start anew. Elk crowned with antlers and full-eyed rabbits paused only momentarily from foraging to note my arrival, unafraid.

I walked until my strength left, until I came upon a stream that meandered its way through this fairy forest. Above, a band of sunlight shone through the parted canopy. I stepped in the water and found it frigid and waist deep. Kneeling, I unwrapped Virginia and the Grail, pulled her into the water with me, let her drift a moment, then guided her to the opposite bank.

Three times I rinsed the Grail, filled it, then gazed deep into the vessel. It looked like ordinary water, but a sense of power built within, magic that made every hair on my body stand on end.

The mockingbirds took flight. Another set of eyes watched me; I felt them. Looking around, I saw nothing, no one. Except in the shade of a tree, a slice of shadow moved and took the shape of a man. It was Fifty-five.

“Hang on a second there,” he said. “I’ll take that first.”

I handed him the Grail and watched as he took a long drink from the cup.

“I know we’ve had our differences of opinion in the past, junior, but I wanted to tell you that it was great working with you. We got farther up the corporate ladder together than I ever could by myself. You’ve got talent. You can do anything you want with it.” He clasped my hand, then whispered, “Good-bye. Watch your back.”

His shadow skin cloaked him in darkness, but the shadow didn’t move, it remained there, grew lighter and lighter, until the sun passed completely through it. He faded both from my sight and from my mind. His memories were still in place, but his voice was silent, his presence nonexistent.

“My turn, honey,” Celeste said. She sat by the edge of the stream, her high heels off, and her delicate feet soaking in the water. She wore too much makeup: blood red lipstick, white face powder, and eyes stained Kelly green. It would have made any other woman look like a clown, but on Celeste it made her look like a ceramic doll, perfectly molded. She stood, smoothed her white kimono, then took gracefully tiny steps over to me. With her small skilled hands she caressed my face and took the Grail. She drank a sip, and left a faint imprint of her lipstick on the rim.

“I wish I could stay with you,” she said. “There were so many adventures out there for us. But this is one little orgy I must attend by myself. Have fun.”

I blinked and she was gone.

A pair of dice rolled on the sandy shore. The gambler picked them up. “Eleven,” he said. “I should have bet.” He wore the same suit I killed him in, a dark brown tweed that was long out of style, with sleeves wrinkled beyond repair from being repeatedly rolled up. He took the Grail and guzzled, letting most of the water spill down his chin.

“Try to remember to bluff when you’ve got a lousy hand,” he said. “And try to relax. Life is too short for you to worry about the odds.” He slipped his dice into my pocket. “That’s for luck.” He winked. “They’re loaded.”

Behind me, I sensed Medea.

I ducked and spun around just in time to see her foot lash out where my head had been a second ago. “I know your tricks,” I told her.

She brushed half of her long hair behind one ear, and replied, “Most of them.”

I offered her the Grail, and she took a single long draw, without removing her eyes from me, then said, “I don’t have any advice for you like the others. You were the only one to best me. The only one to catch me off guard. So maybe you know more about killing than I do.”

She offered her hand, but I didn’t take it. She smiled, and left me.

Only the psychologist remained.

From the other side of the stream, he came, marching through the forest, in gray robes, and using his bamboo staff as a walking stick. Perspiration beaded on his bald head, and when he halted, it glistened in the sunlight.

“What’s happening,” I asked. “Why are you all leaving? Is it as Erybus said? Are you parts of my own fragmented mind? Am I crazy?”

“That is one possibility,” he said. “The Grail heals your psyche or it releases our captured souls to heaven. I cannot answer with any degree of accuracy, because I am part of the diagnosis. Any conclusion would be entirely subjective. But I can say this: every person has voices in their heads, whispered doubts and aspirations, dreams and nightmares. How much reality one gives them, how much you allow yourself to be controlled—that only you can decide.”

He touched the surface of the water with his staff, watched the ripples float downstream, distort, and disappear. “We leave you a whole man,” he said. “Singular, yes, but stronger, I believe without our voices.” He sighed. “You were an interesting case. Would that I could remain to see what happens next, but I must depart. I have stayed in this world too long.”

I offered him the cup, but he declined with a wave of his hand. “There is no need for me to drink. I know my way out.”

He was gone, and I was finally alone.

Not a drop was gone from the Grail. There wasn’t any lipstick smeared on its rim.

I drank half of the water within. It was icy, and did not warm once inside my mouth. It went cold down my throat, into my body, refreshing and revitalizing my flesh. I knew I could walk the circumference of this planet, explore the whole world in a day, slay every dragon I came upon, build a castle in an hour, father a dozen sons and daughters before breakfast the next morning, and be happy. My body surged with strength. My lost arm was whole again, regenerated by the healing water. I knew without a doubt that I had power now, power to influence my world, even the entire galaxy, power to make peace or to wage war, to split this planet in half, or to make it a paradise.