Blue Adept (35 page)

It was Round Six of the Tourney. Barely one fifth of the original entrants remained. The concentration of the skilled and the lucky increased. The audience for individual Games was larger, and would grow larger yet, as the numbers of contestants dwindled further and each Round be-came more important.

His opponent was another Citizen. This was not unusual at this stage; the Citizens tended to be the best players, and suffered elimination reluctantly. This one was old, obviously not in prime physical vigor—but any Citizen was dangerous, in and out of the Tourney.

Stile resolved to put it into the PHYSICAL column if he had the chance, not risking this man’s accumulated knowledge and experience.

He had the chance. They were in 2B, Tool-Assisted PHYSICAL GAMES. Stile’s area of strength. Yet the Citizen did not seem alarmed. Did he have a secret?
 
They played the subgrids and came up with the Ice Climb. This was a frozen waterfall about fifteen meters high that had to be mounted by use of spikes and pitons from the base. Safety ropes suspended from above pre-vented it from being dangerous, but the climb itself was arduous. Stile did not see how this old man could handle it.

Stile was naked; all he had to do was put on the spiked shoes, gloves, and safety line. He did not need insulative clothing; the ice was frozen by elements beneath, while the air of the dome was warm. A naked man could handle it well enough, since his own exertion heated him.
 
The voluminous robes of the Citizen would interfere with his climbing. Slowly he undressed.
 
Stile was amazed. Under his concealing cloak the Citizen had a body of considerable gristle and muscle. The man was older than Stile—perhaps much older because of possible rejuvenation—but his torso resembled that of a man in his mid-forties, well developed. Stile still should have the edge, but much less of one than he had thought.
 
They donned their gear, and approached the waterfall. It gleamed prettily, like translucent quartz. Stile had the right channel, the Citizen the left. The first to touch an electronically keyed marker at the top would win. The first to fall would lose. Theoretically one person could swing across on his safety rope and interfere with the other, but he would already have lost. Throwing pitons at each other meant immediate forfeiture. Cheating and fouling never occurred in Games.

Now the Citizen faced the ice and stared into it, unmoving. It was time for the match to begin, but Citizens could not be rushed. Stile had to wait.

The man remained for several minutes in silence. What was he up to? Stile, alert for some significant factor, was alarmed by this behavior. There had to be meaning in it.
 
Why should a person delay a match by remaining trance-like?

Trance! That was it! The Citizen was indulging in self-hypnosis, or a yoga exercise, putting himself into a mental state that would allow him to draw without normal restraint on the full resources of his body. This was the sort of thing that lent strength to madmen and to the mothers of threatened children. Stile never used it, preferring to live a fully healthy life, saving his ultimate resources for some genuine life-and-death need. But the Citizen was evidently under no such constraint.

This could be trouble! No wonder the man had made it this far in the Tourney. He had suckered opponents into 2challenging him on the physical plane, then expended his inner resources to defeat them. Stile had fallen neatly into the trap.

But Stile, because of his light weight and physical fitness and indefatigable training in all aspects of the Game, was an excellent ice climber. Or had been, before the injury to his knees. Since he could place his pitons to avoid severe flexation of his knees, that should not hamper him much.
 
Very few people could scale the falls faster than he could.
 
He might win anyway. Trance-strength was fine, but the body reserves had to be there to be drawn on, and a rejuvenated Citizen might not have large reserves.
 
Stile did mild limbering exercises, toning up his muscles.
 
He could throw himself into a light trance at will, of course, but refused to. Not even for this.
 
At last the Citizen came out of it. “I am ready,” he said.

They donned the safety belts. The lines would keep pace with the ascent, rising but not falling again. Stile felt his heartbeat and respiratory rate increase with the incipience of this effort.

The starting gong sounded. Both went to work, hammering the first piton. There were little tricks to this Game; the ice could vary from day to day because of ambient conditions. Sometimes it was a trifle soft, which made insertion easier but less secure; today it was a trifle hard, which posed the risk of cracking. Since each piton had to be set as rapidly as possible, judgment was important. If a contestant took too long, making a piton unnecessarily firm for its brief use, he lost time that might mean loss of the match; if he proceeded carelessly, he would fall, and lose the match. Discrimination, as much as physical strength and endurance, was critical.

The Citizen worked faster than Stile. He was on his first piton and working on the next ahead of Stile. He was pushing the limit, hitting too hard, but the ice was holding.
 
Stile was close behind, but losing headway because he was playing it safer. Ice was funny stuff; sometimes it tolerated violation. Sometimes it did not.

They moved on up. Steadily Stile lost position—yet he did not dare hit his pitons harder. All he could do was marvel at the luck of the Citizen, and hope that the law of averages—

It happened. Halfway up, the ice cracked under the Citizen’s piton. The man had only to put it in a new spot and hammer more carefully—but he would lose just enough time to bring Stile even. The law of averages had come through at last.

But the Citizen, in his trance, was not alert to this.
 
Automatically he put his weight on the piton—and it gave way and fell out. The Citizen swung from the rope, disqualified.

Stile did not even have to complete the climb. He only had to proceed one centimeter higher than the point the Citizen had reached. His caution, his alertness, and his reliance on the odds had brought him easy victory. Somehow it hadn’t seemed easy, though.

There was no fake address this time. Sheen took care of him, questioning him about his latest adventures in Phaze, and let him sleep. She concurred with the Lady Blue; she didn’t like the notion of him bracing the Red Adept in the Red Demesnes. “She’s a mean one; I could tell that from the holo. She’ll cut your throat with a brilliant smile. But I’m only a logical machine,” she complained. “I can’t stop an illogical manbrained flesh creature from being insanely foolish.”

“Right,” Stile agreed complacently. “Even clownish.” She always made reference to her inanimate status when upset.

But first he had to handle Round Seven. This turned out to be against another serf of about his own age. He was Clef, a tall thin man named for a symbol on written music, who evidently had qualified for the Tourney only because the top players of his ladder had not wanted to. Stile knew all the top serf-players of the current ladders, but did not recognize Clef. Therefore this man was no skilled Games-man, though he could have spot-skills.

They chatted while waiting for the grid. “Whoever wins this Round gets an extra year’s tenure,” Stile said. “Or more, depending on which Round he finally reaches.”

“Yes, it is my best hope to achieve Round Eight,” Clef agreed. “I have no chance to win the Tourney itself, unlike you.”

“Unlike me?”

“I have the advantage of you, so to speak,” Clef said. “I am aware of your skill in the Game. To be fair, I should advise you of my own specialties.”

“Fairness is no part of it,” Stile said. “Use any advantage you have. Maybe I’ll misjudge you, and grid right into your specialty. In any event, I have no way of knowing whether what you tell me is the truth.”

“Oh, it has to be the truth!” Clef said, shocked. “There is no place in my philosophy for untruth.”

Stile smiled, once again finding himself liking his opponent. “Glad to hear it. But still, you don’t have to—“

“I am a musician, hence my chosen name. My single other hobby is the rapier.”

“Ah—so you have a strength in either facet. That’s useful.”

“So it has proved. That and fortune. I did lose one match in CHANCE, but since I won three in that category I can not seriously object. I have come further in the Tourney than I really expected.”

“But you know I’ll play away from your strengths,” Stile said.

“I could as readily play for CHANCE again and neutralize your advantage.”

“Not if you get the letters.”

“Then my choice is easy. Rapier and flute are both tools.”

The flute? Stile wasn’t sure how well the Platinum Flute would play in this frame, since its magic could not operate here, but it was such a fine instrument it might well make him competitive. “I am not expert with the rapier,” he said, thinking of the training Neysa had given him in Phaze.
 
“Yet I am not unversed in it, and in other weapons I am proficient. Unless you managed to get the rapier itself, rather than an edged sword, I doubt you would want to meet me in such a category.”

“I have no doubt at all I don’t want to meet you there!” Clef agreed.

 
“But I have lost one match in this Tourney through CHANCE, as you have, and am eager to avoid another.”

“Are you proffering a deal?” Clef inquired, elevating an eyebrow. He had elegant eyebrows, quite expressive.
 
“This is legal and ethical. Of course no agreement has force in the Game itself. But two honorable players can come to an agreement if they wish.”

“I understand. Are you willing to meet me in Music?”

“Yes, depending.”

“You grant me Music, and I will grant you choice of instruments.”

“That was my notion.”

“However, I should warn you that I am widely versed in this area of the arts. My favorite is the flute, but I am proficient in any of the woodwinds and strings. More so than you, I believe; I have heard you play. So you may prefer to select one of the less sophisticated instruments.” Stile’s fiercely competitive soul was aroused. He had a compulsion to beat opponents in their special areas of strength. That was why he had tackled Hulk in Naked Physical. He thought again of the Platinum Flute, surely the finest instrument he could employ. On it he could play the best music of his life. He might take the measure of this self-proclaimed expert! But caution prevailed. If the flute was Clef’s instrument of choice, no skill of Stile’s could reasonably hope to match him, and it would be foolish to allow himself to believe otherwise. Also the Flute was in Stile’s possession only on loan, and if his use of it here drew the attention of Citizens to it—no, he could not risk that. Fortunately he did have an alternative.
 
“The harmonica,” Stile said.

“A good harmonica is hardly a toy,” Clef said. “Properly played, it can match any instrument in the orchestra. Are you certain—I am trying to be fair, since you are so generously offering me the category—“

“I’m certain,” Stile said, though Clef’s confidence disturbed him. Exactly how good could this man be on the harmonica?

“Then so shall it be,” Clef agreed, and offered his hand.
 

“A handshake agreement is not worth the paper it’s printed on,” Stile reminded him.

“But it is also said that the man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes than he who distrusts them.”

“I have found it so.” Stile took the proffered hand, and so they sealed the agreement.

Their turn at the grid came. They played as agreed.

They would contest for this Round with the harmonica.
 
Sheen was ready with Stile’s harmonica; she was able to carry objects unobtrusively in her body compartments, and she was the only one in this frame he trusted with such things. It had to be this familiar instrument, the one he had played so often in Phaze, rather than some strange one issued by the Game Computer. It was not the Flute, but there seemed to be a certain magic about it. On this, he could play well enough to defeat a musician—he hoped.
 
For Stile thought it likely that a man who played the flute habitually would not be able to do much on short notice with the harmonica. Not as much as Stile could. Stile was by no means a bad musician himself, and he well under-stood the nature of the Game. There were tricks of victory apart from straight skill. And Stile had practiced with a unicorn.

Sheen, however, was alarmed. She had only a moment to speak to him during the transfer. “Stile, I spot-researched this man Clef. He’s no dabbler in music—he’s expert! He may be the finest musician on the planet—the one Citizens borrow for their social functions. He can play anything!”

Oh-oh. Had he walked into the lion’s den—again? It was the penalty he paid for spending his free time chasing down magicians in the fantasy frame, instead of doing his homework here. When would he learn better? Part of being in the Game was doing one’s research, ascertaining the strengths and weaknesses of one’s likely opponents, devising grid-strategies to exploit whatever situation arose. He would be much better off to remain in Proton for the duration of the Tourney, settling it one way or the other.
 
But he could not; the lure of magic, of Adept status, of free and open land and of his ideal woman—maybe that last told it all!—were too great. He had discounted Clef’s confidence as bravado, at least in part, and that might have been a bad error. “I’ll do my best,” he told Sheen.