Kevin J Anderson (11 page)

In late afternoon she crested a peak and abruptly crossed another hex-line of mountain terrain where the slope changed and the crags spread out before her in a different pattern. The quest-path zig-zagged ahead like a white line carved into the cliffs. The air felt cold, like rough cloth against her face, but so far she had not encountered enough ice and snow to make for treacherous riding.

Some of the peaks on Mayer's left blocked the setting sun, filling the air with shadows. As she looked ahead, she could discern the stark parapets of the crumbling Slac fortress, the tiny black window slits, the jagged and forbidding spikes. She stopped for a moment, drawing a deep breath.

As the fading light glinted around the cliffs, she saw gleams and reflections of the collapsed metal from the Outsiders' ship, excavated girders that the Sitnaltan expedition had left exposed.

Mayer pedaled furiously, picking up speed as the quest-path plunged downhill. The narrow tires were awkward on the rough trail, sending her careening against loose rocks as she tried to stop herself. The ship seemed to be waiting for her, a box filled with wonders and ideas, all the things she could discover.

With the incentive burning in her, Mayer felt the need to discover something of tremendous significance to the entire Game. The answer lay buried somewhere in the ruins ahead.

"I'll show you Professor Frankenstein," she muttered between teeth clenched with effort and the cold, "and I'll show you, Vailret."

――――

POOL OF PEACE

"I shall never return. I am done with the Game, and the Game is done with me."

― Drodanis, on his departure from the Stronghold

The great still Pool, as smooth and flat as a puddle of quicksilver, began to drain away. It seemed as if a hole had cracked open at the bottom of the map, letting it all pour to the Outside, into nothingness.

Drodanis stood beside the trees, staring down at his reflection. His face shone back at him, but he also saw through the placid water to the depths of the Rulewoman's Pool.

Near the bottom he glimpsed the boy Lellyn, frozen in a block of forever-ice. The Rulewoman Melanie had encased Lellyn there to protect him from his own destructive doubts. But now as the level of water in the Pool fell visibly, without a sound, Drodanis realized that even her protection could not last.

The Rulewoman had not shown herself to him in many turns. She had come occasionally to speak with Drodanis, to talk of the rest of Gamearth and how it continued without him. Drodanis had been one of her favorite characters, she said. When the Outsider David began his work to destroy the map, she had allowed him to send a warning to his son Delrael, but then she had departed and never returned.

The Rulewoman would be occupied with other concerns, more serious adventures with a bearing on the entire Game, he thought. Drodanis remained in the silent forest, resting ... existing, but doing nothing else. The past had left its crippling scars on him. His mind had replayed the tragic events of his life so many times that the memories had exhausted themselves ―

The death throes of his beloved Fielle, sweating, her skin warm and damp to the touch as Drodanis knelt over her and watched the fever course through her system like a serpent's venom. He felt weak, barely recovered from the fever himself ... the fever he had passed on to her while she tended him back to health. Fielle died as he stood there. He watched the milky glaze on her eyes when the delirium faded into a thicker glaze of death....

He saw again the last cocky grin on the face of his brother Cayon while he fought the deadly ogre out in the forests. Cayon: always trying to compete with him, to outdo his older brother, to prove that he could tackle this monster on his own. But he was desperately mismatched, and didn't even realize it until it was too late....

Again and again those memories had flooded Drodanis's mind, focusing his thoughts. It had made Drodanis leave his life behind, to come here in search of forgetting, to avoid the responsibilities of questing and amusing the Outsiders.

Here in this peaceful place, the bad memories had replayed themselves so many times ― and with each recollection they grew smaller and weaker, like a river eating away a giant wall of rock. By now those memories were withered ghosts, still part of his past, but powerless.

Drodanis stood by the trees, feeling empty. Now that the pain from his past had faded away, it left him only numb. He had nothing else to do, no companions, not the Rulewoman, not young Lellyn who had followed him on his long journey here.

And now the Pool of Peace was draining away before his eyes.

Drodanis stared at the reflection of the old fighter looking up at him from the Pool's surface, and he asked himself if he really had changed that much. In his own mind he still pictured himself as the brash young quester, the fighter character who had gone out with Cayon on adventures, who had found piles of treasure, slain dozens of monsters.

But now he saw a man whose face looked drawn and slack; his eyes appeared hollow, his expression vacant. This man frightened Drodanis. His rich brown hair, long moustache, and beard were now streaked with gray. He hadn't cared for his appearance anymore; he had seen no point to it.

Drodanis remembered when Fielle had combed his hair for him and he had braided hers, when he strutted around wearing the jewels and weapons and fine armor he had won through his quests. Now he recognized only a once-brave character who had been badly used and then discarded.

Drodanis drew a deep breath and felt a strange emotion stirring in him, resentment and anger ― not directed toward himself, but focused outward, at the Game.

A ripple in the Pool of Peace startled him. The very thought of something marring the surface was so puzzling that he took a moment to realize that the water level had dropped enough that the motionless, encased figure of Lellyn began to protrude. The Pool drained around him, exposing the young boy's head and shoulders.

Beneath the milky ice, Drodanis could see Lellyn's expression locked in astonishment, disbelief, and terror at what the boy had just realized. "Ah, Lellyn, what is going to happen to us?" Drodanis said.

But he heard no noise, not even a trickle from the draining water. Tall black pines and oaks and willows shielded the Rulewoman's Pool from curious characters. No quest-paths led here, and Drodanis had found the place only after long searching.

When Lellyn was still beside him, they had debated with the Rulewoman about the Rules and
reality
. Lellyn seemed too perceptive for his own good. Lellyn himself was a Rulebreaker ― a human character with powerful magical abilities, a contradiction in itself. Lellyn became obsessed with the contradictions. He had queried the Rulewoman too much about
reality
and about Gamearth's place and how it had been created.

When in his mind he so firmly grasped the idea that Gamearth was not
real
, that he was not
real
... when he had locked onto the concept and refused to let go, and in his heart he completely disbelieved in his own existence ― then the Rulewoman had stopped him. She froze him in forever-ice and submerged him in the Pool a moment before he could vanish into nothingness.

Now the Pool had nearly drained away, and Drodanis could see the forever-ice melting.

Lellyn's body stood exposed up to his shins, and the water drained even faster. The boy apprentice had his arms locked in a warding gesture, trying to wave away the realization he was forcing upon himself. His legs were taking a step backward, as if trying to flee.

The remaining water stood out in glistening puddles, like frozen mirrors. The bottom of the Pool showed dark and lumpy, rocks where no plant could take hold in the magical water.

"Rulewoman! What do you want me to do?" Drodanis shouted into the air, breaking the silence. His voice sounded like a roar, and he expected to hear disturbed cries of birds in the forest terrain, but nothing answered him, not even a breeze among the trees. The air felt perfectly warm and still, too comfortable.

The spark of anger in him grew a little brighter.

He heard a crack, and saw that a chunk of the forever-ice fell from Lellyn's shoulders. Other spidery lines appeared along the filmy coating that masked the boy's entire body. The forever-ice split and fell off, part melting, part vanishing into sparkles of light in the air.

"Lellyn!" Drodanis cried.

The boy moved, turned his head, keeping his eyes wide. He took one more step backward and waved his hands. "No!" he said ― but he was answering a question asked many turns ago. He could not change his thoughts fast enough. "How can I get this out of my mind?" he cried, but his voice turned high and distorted.

Lellyn rippled and faded. "Where am I going?" he managed to say, and just for an instant before he flowed into an uncertain image, Drodanis watched the boy's expression change to one of wonder.

Lellyn dissolved into the air, leaving behind no more trace than had the water in the Pool.

Drodanis hung his head and squatted down at the rim of the basin. Everything was gone now, his memories, the Pool, Lellyn, the Rulewoman ... his reasons for existing.

If the map survived, these would be remembered as the greatest times of the entire Game, not simple quests, but battles for survival of Gamearth itself. Drodanis had stepped away from all that, bowing out to let other characters shoulder the burden.

The only small part he had offered to the Game was to send a message ― a warning ― to Delrael about the need for stopping Scartaris. Delrael had taken the quest, and the younger generation of characters now determined the events of the Game. Drodanis was proud of his son.

He blinked his eyes, and the tears burned there. It felt strange to him. Living too long with comfort and peace had drained him, like the waters from the Pool; it made his life gray instead of filled with the bright colors of happiness and sadness.

He could not compete anymore, this old empty fighter who had not used his training for many turns. He felt useless. He wondered if he had made the right decision so long ago in leaving everything behind.

Drodanis concentrated on the small flame of anger inside, and it seemed to be the only living part in his entire body, the only spot of color in his world. As he thought about what he had done ― and what he had failed to do by running away from it all ― he watched the spark grow brighter. He felt his senses reawaken.

"No, I am not useless," he said to himself. "I can still remember how to fight. How to change things."

Perhaps the Pool had gone away to punish
him
for going away, to kick him out of his numb surrender and show him that Gamearth still needed Drodanis.

He stood up and went to one of the few remaining puddles at the bottom of the Pool of Peace. He bent over and scooped up the cool water in his hands, splashing it on his face and trying to wash away some of his weariness. But now it was just water after all, and the refreshing strength he gathered came from within himself.

Drodanis stood again, took a deep breath, and felt his muscles: arms that could still swing a sword, eyes that could still spot an enemy and aim an arrow.

Leaving the empty Pool of Peace behind, Drodanis walked out to the trees without turning back, searching for a quest-path that would take him back into the Game. Back into life again.

――――

BLACK FALCON

"Few characters have a mission as clear as ours. Few characters have a responsiblity as great as ours. If humans are to win this Game, then we must be pure in our motivations and we must be decisive in our actions. We answer to no one but ourselves and to the Outsiders."

― Annik, chief of the Black Falcon troops

When Delrael's army arrived at the ylvan settlement, the Black Falcon troops had already slaughtered most of the forest people.

The trees stood too dense for Delrael to see the smoke rising up until he could smell it. He heard distant sounds of shouting, some kind of struggle, screams. Delrael sent three characters to run ahead and investigate as he swung the rest of the army toward the disturbance.

He broke into a trot off the quest-path directly through the forest, urging his fighters to greater speed. He wrestled with his own impatience to strike against a tangible enemy rather than continuing a long, tedious journey.

"Prepare for a fight," he said to Jathen behind him. The other characters passed the message along so that Delrael did not have to raise his voice and alert an enemy. Delrael elbowed branches out of the way, kicking at brambles by his ankles. He drew his own sword. He heard shouts, the crackling of flames, scattered painful screams.

The three scout characters hurried back to Delrael. They looked shaken and gray, their eyes wide with terror. "They're being slaughtered!" said young Romm, a farmer from the village.

"I can hear what's happening," Delrael said, then he broke into a run. When he burst into the clearing, the apalling violence of the scene stunned him enough that he stopped for a moment and had to concentrate to keep from dropping his sword.

Three of the camouflaged ylvan nest dwellings crackled with orange flames that licked up the matted brush. The air smelled of oily smoke and blood. The towering trees all around were stained with soot and white gashes from axes and swords. Ruins of a campfire lay on the ground, stomped and scattered.

One of the blazing dwellings burned through its anchoring rope with a groan and split open at the bottom, dumping smoldering debris. Sticks and ylvan possessions tumbled onto the ground as the nest dwelling toppled after.

Around the clearing rode a dozen burly Black Falcon fighters on their own dark horses, outfitted as Corim had been. One towering woman rested a bloodstained two-handed sword on her shoulder as she pointed and shouted orders. The others charged around in circles, shooting arrows at a few surviving ylvans who tried to flee in the trees above.