Anderson, Kevin J - Gamearth 01 (9 page)

Vailret could not see anything clearly enough; the peaks in the distance blurred out of focus, but he trusted Delrael's eyesight. They pushed on at a faster pace, and within an hour even Vailret could discern the gleaming towers of the Ice Palace nestled in the rocks.

Then the sky smeared over with clouds, and sleet pelted down. Vailret's fingers were sluggish to respond when he tried to curl them inside a fold of his tunic.

Vailret squinted to see the Palace's structure made of clear blue ice.

But the gray sleet kept details hidden. He had seen a few sketches showing the main building, a pyramid flanked by two thin spires capped with onion domes.

The vast Palace was inhabited by only one old Sentinel and his young daughter. They tended the frozen underground crypt that held the husks of Sorcerers who had departed in the Transition centuries before. The other Sentinels and half-breeds had once made pilgrimages to the monument, but as the Game slowly ground to a halt, few made the effort anymore.

Few human characters would appreciate the monument and its treasures, but Vailret felt his own excitement growing. He could now speak with Sardun himself, have access to the original source material, even the Water Stone.

Vailret felt optimism creeping up on him again.

Tall cliffs closed in on either side, finally blocking off the sleet-wind. The Ice Palace loomed up in front of them, but it did not match Vailret's imagined picture at all. "Something's happened," Bryl exclaimed.

"Look at it!" Delrael craned his neck upward. Vailret stared, letting his mouth drop open.

The tall crystal spires were warped and drooping, with their decorative pinnacles melted away. A stumpy cascade of icicles ran like tears down the sides of the towers. Motionless frozen streams hung down the walls, stained black with a sooty residue. The structural blocks were now cloudy rather than transparent ice. The top of the main pyramid had been sheared off, blasted inward and leaving ragged, melted edges.

Vailret forced back a strong urge to cry. He felt angry and helpless.

"What did this?"

"And what if it's still here?" Bryl mumbled. His wrinkled skin made him look parched and afraid.

Delrael narrowed his eyes and looked for enemies hiding in the rocks.

He broke the astonished silence and nudged them toward the destroyed buildings. "Let's get out of this cold." He moved forward, ready with his hunting bow, though his fingers were probably too numb to use it.

The tunnel entrance to the main pyramid gaped like an abandoned trap.

The Palace had no gates, no defenses at all.

"The whole point was that anyone could come here, whenever they wished," Vailret said with a note of despair. "It was a memorial
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why would someone destroy it?"

Snow had piled up at the entrance. The ragged wind hooted through the hole. Everything inside lay desolate and untended, empty. Delrael led the way down an uneven, half-melted corridor, deeper into the main pyramid. The rough texture gave them footing on the ice walkway. The main tunnel spiraled around the outer wall of the pyramid, working its way toward the central chambers.

Their boots sounded like thunderclaps on the frozen floor.

Refracted light seeping through the prismatic walls made unnatural rainbows, rippling and bathing them in color. Vailret looked from side to side, feeling the loneliness and emptiness gnaw into him.

The sound of the wind soon vanished behind the thick blocks of ice, but the cold itself seemed to focus and deepen as they neared the heart of the Palace. Up ahead, lights danced on the frozen walls, ricocheting and sparkling like tiny meteors. The wind returned, louder, from a source within the central chamber.

Intrigued but uneasy, Vailret pressed close to his cousin as they moved forward. A vaulted arch rose over the corridor, and the three of them emerged into the main reception room.

The entire ceiling of the central pyramid had been blasted away, and frigid air swirled out of the wide hole. Great rivers of ice streamed to the floor like petrified waterfalls. Snow drifted down to settle in a bull's-eye pattern of ripples in the floor where the ice had been melted and refrozen.

A blocky white throne stood in the center of the room. Encased in tendrils of frost, an old man sat staring mindlessly at the blasted walls.

Sardun the Sentinel looked shriveled, mummified by cold. A long gray mustache hung against the wrinkled folds of his face. Vailret stopped and stared, afraid to make any sound. Delrael looked at him, questioning. Sardun blinked.

"He's even older than Bryl!" Delrael whispered.

"He's old enough to be my father," Bryl said, annoyed.

The old Sentinel had plunged his left arm up to the elbow in the translucent ice of the throne's armrest, embedding it. Through the murky ice, Vailret could see Sardun's gnarled hand grasping the sapphire Water Stone. The Stone was a cube with a number etched on each face, shaped like a six-sided die, more powerful than the four-sided Air Stone. Unnatural cold spewed from the gem, swirling up and out into the world. "Sardun!" Vailret called. His voice cracked.

The Sentinel swung his eyes back to focus around him. The wind breathed a ragged gasp and failed as the blue glow in the Water Stone died away.

"Haven't I been wounded enough?" Sardun's high pitched voice held a tone of condemnation, then he chuckled a little. Vailret noticed that the old Sentinel lisped. "What's left for you to destroy? There's no more damage you can do!"

Sardun heaved the Water Stone out of the frozen armrest of the throne, pulling it up through the solid ice. A few drops of water dripped off his hand and disappeared into the air. The cavity in the armrest filled again and solidified. Sardun glared at the three and leaned forward.

"Look out." Delrael edged back against the wall. "He's going to roll it." Unless Sardun rolled a "1", his spell would be successful and would grow in power depending on how high he rolled.

The Water Stone sapphire bounced twice on the ice floor. The number "4" came up.

A thin bolt of lightning shot from the Water Stone, striking at the three travelers. But the Sentinel's aim was skewed. The bolt pinged off the glistening walls several times before it dissipated.

Sardun did not pick up the Stone to roll again. His attack seemed halfhearted.

Vailret stood a moment in turmoil, knowing it might be safer to run away, but then he'd never know what had happened here. Nor could they ask for help to save Gamearth.

Confusion and indignation overcame Vailret's better judgment. He stepped into view and spoke quickly, hoping the Sentinel would hear his sincerity. "Wait! You're Sardun! You cherish the history of Gamearth as much as I do. Sentinels aren't supposed to destroy people!"

Sardun swung his gaze at Vailret and snatched up the Water Stone from the floor to roll it again. Vailret knew he had little chance of avoiding a direct strike. Lightning traced the gray veins under the skin of the Sentinel's hands.

Delrael shouted at him, but Vailret kept walking. He forced himself to be calm and brave, keeping his voice level. "We are friends, Sardun. You don't have to hurt us. I know about the old Sorcerers and the Transition. I know about the Sentinels and how you built this Palace as a monument to your race.

This was to be a place for pilgrimages, where all interested characters could come and see what had happened during the previous turns."

He gestured behind him, where Delrael and Bryl remained out of sight.

"One of my companions is a half-Sorcerer, son of the Sentinels Qonnar and Tristane. My other companion, Delrael, runs the Stronghold. See, Delrael wears a silver belt that is an ancient Sorcerer relic. He and I are both descendants of the great general Doril, who fought in the Scouring."

Sardun watched Vailret with narrowed, watery eyes. Still holding his hunting bow in front of him, Delrael stood where he could be seen from the Sentinel's throne. The wind whistled over the wide opening in the ceiling.

Bryl also peeked around the corner and held his palms out to the Sentinel. Gray-haired and frail-looking, Bryl posed no threat. "You can trust us."

Sardun sat for a moment, wavering on the edge of consciousness. His eyes seemed half-crazed with grief and desperation, but even that faded into listlessness. The Sentinel had surrendered. He said nothing.

Vailret undid the frozen straps on his pack and with drew a wadded second blanket. Feeling awe at approaching the legendary Sentinel, he delicately wrapped the blanket around Sardun's shoulders. He looked at the old man's fur-trimmed gray robe; snowflakes had been embroidered along the shoulders and down his sleeves.

The air in the main chamber had grown warmer. Outside, he could see the sun shining again as the Water Stone released its hold on the storm.

Delrael entered the chamber, looking from side to side with narrowed eyes. Vailret watched him inspect the corners and the openings of other passageways, as if expecting something monstrous to crawl out and attack. Bryl waited, fidgeting in uneasy confusion.

Vailret tucked the blanket around the Sentinel and discovered that his legs were frozen solid, like meat left too long out in the snow, as was his chest and his right arm. For a moment Vailret was appalled that Sardun had been left alone like this, with no one to care for him. Then the other thing that nagged at the back of his mind snapped into place. "Sardun, where is your daughter?"

The old Sentinel was like a fragile clay pot, shattered by Vailret's question. He fell backward, almost drowning in the ice of his throne.

"Tareah!" he said. "She's gone ... gone." Tears ran down Sardun's face, branching in the network of wrinkles in his skin. As Vailret watched, the tears froze, then evaporated and were gone.

Delrael paused in his inspection of the room and then squinted at a thick, soot-covered icicle that looked like a maggot in the ceiling's wound.

He wrinkled his nose, as if sniffing at a strange taint in the air. Delrael seemed lost in deep thought, then he stood with one word on his thin lips.

"Dragon."

Vailret looked up at his cousin's comment. His gaze drifted to the fangs of icicles running straight down toward the floor, at the hole that had been blasted through from the outside. "A dragon did this!" Delrael said.

Confused words spilled out of Sardun's mouth. "Yes, a dragon! Tryos, from the island of Rokanun, south of the city of Sitnalta, many hexes from here. He flew all the way ... to steal Tareah! Oh, my Tareah."

Vailret stared at him, then rubbed the old Sentinel's shoulder. "You can tell us what happened. We might be able to help."

Sardun shuddered. "I couldn't stop him! The Water Stone was no help -dragons are not affected by magic." He stared down into the flat faces of the sapphire Stone. He rolled it in his hand, looking at the number engraved on each face. "That is why they caused so much destruction in the old Sorcerer wars."

He swallowed and looked up to meet Vailret's gaze. "Tryos came, blasted his way in here ... and took her."

"But why would a dragon want to do that? Why Tareah?"

Sardun glared at him. "Because dragons collect treasure! Tryos is very old and he is bored with colorful baubles. Gold, gems, silver
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he already has enough of those. Now, he collects anything that
others
place value on, anything precious or beautiful. He has stolen works of art, sculptures from the height of the Sorcerer days, precious relics.

"And now my treasure, my Tareah! I tried to defend her
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I really tried. But I am weak. I have been here waiting one hundred and seventy years, tending this museum that no one ever comes to see ... do I not have an excuse to grow weak?" His lisp grew worse as he became more distraught.

The Sentinel stared at the wall in his silent horror. His lips trembled, but he said nothing else. The three stood numb for several moments before Bryl finally spoke up. "But why would Tryos take
your
daughter?"

"Idiot! She is everything!" Sardun turned his head sharply, but the gesture was odd and jerky because of his frozen lower body. "She is our future! Tareah is the last full-blooded Sorcerer woman. One day she may be strong enough to awaken all the sleeping Sorcerers in the vault below the Palace. Our race will rise again. She will shepherd them back to us, to make things the way they were. And now Tryos has taken her."

He hung his head, trapped and paralyzed on his throne. "Oh, why couldn't I have more strength? I used more magic than the Rules would allow. I sacrificed most of my body." He swiveled his head to indicate his frozen arm, his lifeless legs. "All for nothing."

"We might be able to rescue her," Vailret said softly. He looked at Delrael. His cousin shrugged and nodded slowly. "If you will help us in turn, Sardun."

The Sentinel looked at him, then turned his gaze to Bryl and Delrael, unimpressed. "Where were you when Tryos attacked? Who stood by my side to fight him? To protect Tareah? How dare you ask me for help!" Sardun's hand clenched the Water Stone again, ready to roll it and cast another spell.

"Because we have no choice, Sardun," Vailret said. He laid a hand on the old Sentinel's rigid shoulder. "The Rulewoman Melanie sent us a message -the Outsiders are trying to destroy Gamearth. They have placed a growing enemy in the east. They will play out turn after turn, putting their own plots into motion. We have to do something to stop them. You are the most powerful Sentinel left alive. We hoped you would have a solution."