Game Play (21 page)

She took her eyes
away from the sky and saw Mostem the baker coming toward her. Tareah still had
difficulty identifying all the villagers in her mind, but she remembered that
Mostem had three daughters. According to Siya, Mostem hoped that either Vailret
or Delrael would be interested in pairing with one of them. Tareah had never
met the daughters, nor had she tried. She was not sure if she should feel
jealous
―
she had trouble pinpointing her feelings, either about
Vailret or Delrael.

Mostem's eyes moved
from Tareah to Siya, then to the ground. From the way the other villagers
watched him, Tareah realized that they had all discussed this beforehand. She
let a slight frown cross her face.

Mostem looked as if
he didn't know how to begin, and finally he said, "You're all alone up
here now. Are you sure the Stronghold is safe? Do you think you should stay
here?"

He didn't wait long
enough for her to say anything. "We were talking, uh, I mean I was
thinking that maybe you could come stay with us? Or one of the other villagers.
We're not sure that staying at the Stronghold is a good idea anymore."

Tareah was
surprised at the suggestion and tried to decide how to react to it, what
Delrael would want her to do. But Siya drew herself up, indignant.

"What, and
just abandon the Stronghold? It's been here intact for generations, and this is
my home!
I don't take that lightly." She crossed her thin arms over her
chest. "I will stay here."

Mostem took a step
backward and continued to speak to the ground. "We just thought it might
be best if
―
"

Tareah cut him off.
"I promised that I would remain here and do my best to defend the
Stronghold." She stood beside Vailret's mother. "You know the Rules.
I made a vow
―
I can't break that. I'm not one of those characters
who takes such things lightly."

She and Delrael had
gotten into arguments on that point before. But this time she didn't think he
would object.

"Besides, look
around you." She indicated the double walls topped by sharp points, the
weapons storehouse, the heavy gates and the trench around the Stronghold, the
Steep Hill path. "This is the most defensible place, the safest spot for
hexagons around! And don't forget I have the Water Stone, too.

If we're not safe
here, we certainly won't be safe anywhere in the village."

She raised her
voice so the others would hear her clearly. "If you're concerned for our
safety, any of you is welcome to stay here and help guard us against
attack."

Mostem cleared his
throat and looked to the others to see their reaction. The death of Tarne and
the threat of Scartaris was too close on their minds.

But Romm the farmer
straightened. His blond hair was mussed, and his skin looked dry from spending
too many hours outside in all weather. "That's a good idea. We should
arrange our schedules so some of us can be up here. We were willing to fight
against Gairoth, with Tarne
―
we shouldn't do any less than that
now."

His words heartened
Tareah. She nodded to them all. "We do need a stronger defense, now that
Tarne isn't here to assist me."

"We can
discuss this tomorrow," Siya said. Her stiff movements showed how much
Mostem's suggestion had upset her. "We'll roll dice to see who stays up
here with us. You
all
could brush up on your training a little."

Apparently
relieved, the villagers left, going down the hill into the night and back to
their homes. Tareah could hear muffled voices as the villagers went along the
path.

Siya and Tareah
worked together to swing the heavy gate shut. They fastened the solid wooden
crossbolts in place. The shadowy empty buildings inside the walls looked spooky
enough that Tareah decided to leave the torches burning in the courtyard.

Before going to
bed, Siya and Tareah began the ritual of closing up the Stronghold for the
night. With the others to help, they always finish quickly before, but it took
them longer and longer each night as the evenings grew colder, now that they
were the only two to do everything.

They made sure all
the windows were shuttered, the cracks stuffed with rags to keep the cold out.
They stoked the main fireplaces with enough wood to keep burning all night
long, since it was such a tedious task to rebuild the fires the next day.
Tareah saw no point in keeping the entire main building heated and tended, but
she didn't countermand Siya's wishes. Siya seemed to attach a far greater
importance on maintaining her routine than on actually thinking about it.

Tareah was exhausted
by the time she reached her own quarters and heaped wood on the fire. Her
joints would ache if she did not keep her room warm, which seemed odd to her
since she had spent so many years in the bright coldness of the Ice Palace.
Over the weeks she felt as if the pain had faded somewhat, but her body would
take a long time to adjust to the dramatic stretchings and twistings her
accelerated growth put it through.

She stripped off
the formal dress she had worn for Tarne's ceremony and pulled on a comfortable
shift, then climbed under the blankets. She lay back in the bed and thought of
Delrael and Vailret on their quest, all the stories they were adding to the
history of the Game. She wished her father Sardun could be here to discuss
them.

Tareah kept the Water
Stone with her even in bed. She ran her fingers over the cool blue facets. They
reminded her of the ice in the rainbow halls and crystal towers. She dozed with
that thought.

And woke up some
time later. The fire still burned bright, so she couldn't have been asleep too
long. It was just past midnight, she guessed.

She blinked her
eyes in the dancing firelight. Her nose was cold, but she could smell the
aromatic wood.

Tareah heard
scratching, scrabbling sounds. The wood in the fireplace settled with a slump
and a small shower of sparks. The noises stopped for a moment and began again
with renewed intensity. The scrabblings sounded like rats in the walls, clawing
their way out.

Tareah rubbed her
eyes on the blanket and tried to see in the wavering orange light. Sharp
shadows lay in the corners. Then her eyes came to focus on the dark and
churning wall beside her bed.

The wood was
crawling with small figures, each about the size of her hand. Emerging from
cracks in the wood, pushing themselves out between splinters and scrabbling
over each other, along the walls, along the floor.

Tareah sat up,
flinging tangled hair out of her eyes, and bit back an outcry. Her blankets
were covered with the little creatures as well, tiny ratlike animals, but vaguely
human in form. They had ear tufts and pointed faces with sharp fangs. On two
hind legs they walked upright, and they bore two sets of humanlike arms, one
sprouting from their shoulders and another set along their abdomen, giving each
creature four hands full of sharp claws.

She snapped her
blanket, spraying the creatures off her bed and onto the floor. She grabbed for
the Water Stone under her pillow, but some instinct warned her not to show it,
not to use it just yet.

The ratlike
creatures swarmed over the room as they searched for something. They scurried
down the mantle of the fireplace, disassembling the wood splinter by splinter
with their sharp claws. Now that Tareah had awakened, they chittered among
themselves, making no effort to keep quiet.

She kicked her
blankets away and rolled to the edge of her bed. Her voice hitched as she tried
to call out
―
but there was no one to help her.

She would have to
fight by herself. One of the bedposts groaned and broke free from its joint,
torn apart by the creatures. The bedframe cracked and dropped to the floor with
a
thump
.

More rat-creatures
scurried to the storage chests and peeled the locks and hinges from the base
wood, splintered the sides, and spilled the treasure from Delrael's past
adventurings onto the floor. They searched through the plunder, using four
hands to paw and toss away diamonds and gold and silver links as if they were
worthless.

"Stop!"
Tareah shouted. They hesitated, glaring at her with pupilless red sparks for
eyes
―
empty, as if something had erased the minds behind them.
She felt very afraid to look at the hundreds and hundreds of tiny, pointed
teeth and sharp claws. Then the creatures fell to ransacking again.

The shelves on the
wall crumbled, and Tareah's possessions crashed to the ground, breaking and
clinking on the floor. Every splinter of wood spawned another of the small
creatures as they pushed out and added to the army. Above the chittering,
rustling din, she heard noises from the other rooms.

Tareah jumped out
of bed, stepping on squirming furry bodies and trying to kick them away from
her. "What do you want?" she shouted. She drew herself up to look
menacing.

The rat-creatures
fixed their blank gazes on her. Many of them cleared an empty spot on the
floor, and others moved into formation with some kind of intent. Dozens of them
aligned themselves to form letters with their own bodies.

On the floor, they
spelled out "FIRE STONE."

Scartaris knew the
Deathspirits had stripped the ruby Stone from Enrod and delivered it to the
Stronghold. He had sent the rat-creatures to tear everything apart until they
found it.

Scartaris knew
nothing about Delrael's quest to bring the Earthspirits across the map
―
because of Tarne's ruse, Scartaris thought the Slave of the Serpent had killed
Delrael. Perhaps Scartaris knew nothing of her Water Stone either. She clutched
the six-sided sapphire in her hand.

"No!"
Tareah stamped her foot on the ground, squashing one of the rat-creatures and
making the others scurry out of the way. "You can't have it." She
waited to feel sharp claws and teeth on her bare legs.

One section of the
wall slumped down in a shower of broken wood. Flames from the fireplace caught
on the kindling. The creatures ran around, dismantling the room.

A few of the
rat-creatures on the floor of the room spelled out "WE WILL FIND IT,"
forming and dissolving one word after another.

From her own room,
Siya screamed
―
but it was a scream of anger and disgust, not
pain. The ceiling groaned above Tareah, and she looked up to see the planks
buckling.

In her bare feet,
trying not to look where she stepped, Tareah ran to the door and struck it with
her shoulder to push it open. She ran down the main hall.

Everywhere she
looked, the scrambling creatures emerged from the splintered wall and set about
ransacking everything in sight. The structure of the main building groaned and
creaked above the insane chittering.

Tareah ran out the
broken doorway into the cold night. Two of the courtyard torches had burned
out, but the other three flickered in the sharp wind. Small, furious sounds
came from all buildings within the Stronghold walls.

"Siya!"
she called.

Tareah saw the
creatures piled on top of each other in the roof structure, throwing pieces of
wood in the air and over the edge in glee, digging and searching. Others
tunnelled in the courtyard, uprooting sword posts. The weapons storehouse
crashed and toppled to the ground. Other walls in the outbuildings split and
collapsed.

Tareah felt
outraged, but didn't know how she could fight against the infestation.

Siya burst out the
front door, frantic. She had a broom in her hands, and she flicked it right and
left to knock away the creatures in front of her.

"Get
away!" She whacked them off the walls. "Leave that alone! Stop!"

Her gray hair hung
down below her shoulders in broad tresses. Several of the creatures grabbed on
and yanked, climbing the strands like ropes. Siya tossed her head and flung
them off, then chased after them with a vengeance.

"Get away from
the door, Siya!"

Siya ran into the
courtyard. Chittering, some of the rat-creatures followed her, but most swarmed
over the door jamb, peeling away the wood. Two of the shutters cracked and fell
off their hinges. New rat-creatures burst up from the fresh wood, flexing their
forearms and bouncing down to the ground.

With scrabbling
hands in a blur of motion, they fell upon the wooden walls and kept tearing it
apart in chunks. Dust and smoke filled the air from collapsed mantels and the
burning fires in the hearths. The main building was on fire.

Tareah took out the
Water Stone. "I've got to do something." She rolled it on the ground.
The six-sided sapphire landed with a "4" up. She grabbed it again and
cast her spell at the main building.

The wind whipped
up. The already-cool air dropped below freezing.

Biting snow blasted
down and, with a snap of cold, ice encrusted the Stronghold, freezing the wood
solid. The cold itself shattered some of the shutters; the support beams
groaned inside from the weight of snow. She heard a loud pop from somewhere
inside.

When the wave of
cold struck the rat-creatures, they withered and disappeared. Siya chased
others with her broom and left blots of fur and blood on the ground.