by J. R. Ford
“This whole time, even back when we were just living in the cabin and doing what pleased us, I’ve been so tense. I was afraid that it would be snatched from me at any moment. And now it has, and all I can think of is all that time that I wasted playing it safe. I’ve been so afraid of making a mistake, I haven’t let myself even try.”
“You still have time.”
“What, two futile hours? If you’ve taught me anything, it’s not to try catching a falling knife. If I’m going to fail here, I’ll do it with grace.” He swallowed. “But I hope, when we’re all back on Earth, she thinks on me fondly.”
I shook my head. “You’re still an idiot.” Then I put my arm around his shoulders. “No matter what happens, I’ll think of you as my friend.” One day he’d disappear, like the rest had. But for all the gaming buddies swallowed by time and distance, none could compare to the comfort I found in him. “The best friend I’ve ever had.”
He was quiet. When he finally spoke, his voice was cracked and dry. “Yeah. Me too.”
17
Farrukh shook me awake. “Show time,” he whispered.
Show time indeed. When I enabled my stream, there were 5 million viewers already tuned in. I did my best to ignore them.
Their judgement had no impact on reality. What mattered now was performance. I’d failed Heather twice now. I wouldn’t, couldn’t do it again, not when our future was on my shoulders.
I prepared the three somatic shapes for nullify momentum, and Ana and Farrukh latched onto my left arm. Together, we leapt from the cliff.
We plummeted through the darkness. Our landing was barely visible under a sliver of crescent moon. I held in my scream and pressed my null ring to our arms a few feet above the uppermost tower.
The fortress was built like a wedding cake: a couple of married turrets — we had landed on the bride — then two tiers of cake, all connected by stairs. From both lower levels, crenellated walkways stretched over the water, leading to a solitary tower rising from the river itself. Heather dangled below the upper walkway.
The dragon was asleep, still tied on its barge.
One sentry stood atop the groom turret, about thirty feet away, wearing a leather cuirass and helmet. Farrukh’s arrow in its neck made it drop with a thump and wheezing sounds.
We hurried down to the middle level and beelined for the stairs to the lower floor. Ahead, the door to the groom creaked open. The orc had barely stepped out before I blindsided it, my dagger punching into its face. It gurgled a shout, but another punch shut it up. Hopefully the meager garrison would be slow to react.
No such luck. My companions had already made it to the lowest level, but an orc emerged before them, brandishing a spear and calling for its fellows.
A strike from the Lightning Blade would waken the anthill. Farrukh held his bow wardingly, without time to draw his poleax from the loop over his shoulder.
It was only ten feet down, and Heather needed me. I leapt between crenellations and drew my spare dagger, holding it in a reverse grip.
The blade caught the orc in the shoulder and we both collapsed, the shock of the fall jarring me to the teeth. The orc thrashed and shouted its rage, only to get one of Farrukh’s arrows thrust into its eye. I disentangled myself and limped after my friends onto the walkway.
Heather looked disheveled, her legs dangling out between the bars of the black iron cage. Her hands were raw red and bound. Her eyes were bright with fear and hope.
“Pradeep,” she started, then Pradeep Lokesh burst out of the river tower.
He wore the same haphazard armor as the last time I’d seen him: breastplate, mail skirt, and helmet, all imbued with dull purple circuitry. The rest of him was bare. His right hand grasped his gauntlet-sword, and his left was already whipping through familiar incantations.
I raced through my own just in time to nullify the blast of lightning. I readied another nullify spell, but he was making gestures I’d never seen before.
No lightning sprang for us. Instead, he threw a bright blue ball of light above our heads.
It erupted in a shower of lightning bolts. I raised my null ring high to absorb the lightning hail, but not before it thundered down on Farrukh.
He shielded his face with his arms and staggered against a crenellation as a thousand needles of lightning smote him. The air smelled of fried ozone and singed hair.
Ana pounded forward, forcing Pradeep into a defensive stance. Their swords met with a bang, then danced too quick to follow.
She landed a strike on his breastplate, but her sword stopped dead without a flash. The purple runes on his armor blazed. His retaliation clanged against her helmet and knocked her down.
That was my cue. I rushed past her, stabbing with my rapier. He turned two of my blows before completing his lightning bolt cast. I spun to the side, his spell crashing past me, then diverted his follow-up thrust with my gauntlet-dagger while stabbing into his bare shoulder. He reeled back toward his tower. Past him, I caught a glimpse of an orc in bedclothes with a sword in one hand and a crutch in the other.
“Behind you!” Heather cried. “Orcs!”
They would have bows. We needed leverage, quick. Ana was stirring but not up, Farrukh still stunned. These monsters spoke to each other — did they understand compassion?
I dropped my rapier, symbolled nullify momentum, and sprang onto one of the crenellations. One side was water ten feet down, the other an angry man swinging a sword for my shins. I nullified it and leapt into the tower doorway. The orc with the crutch swung for me, but I parried with my dagger and tackled it.
When I turned back, there were a dozen orcs on the battlements, mean-mugging us. But Pradeep was still.
“Shoot and this one gets it!” I yelled. The orc beneath me began hyperventilating. No one moved.
“Harm her and you all die,” Pradeep said.
So they did care about their own. “Then let’s trade,” I said, because Ana seemed too dazed to adopt her usual mantle. “Let us take Heather and go, and you’ll get your pet back.”
He hissed air. “Not the Alchemist. You don’t understand how badly I need her. How about this: let her go, and I’ll let all of you live.” The corner of his mouth perked in a grin, but he was trembling. “I have more cages.”
I shook my head. “The moment we release her, we lose our bargaining power. This blade isn’t leaving her throat until we’ve safely sailed past Tyrant’s Vale.”
“Is the Alchemist’s freedom the chip so dear you’d rather all die than part with it?”
“Is it yours?”
Pradeep laughed. “Point made. Then we are at an impasse. Until one of my soldiers thinks they can get a shot, then we’re all done for.”
“How do you control them?” I asked.
“There is a level 3 Storm spell, ‘Homogenous Breath’,” he said. “I tried all Beta long to figure out what it did, to no avail. But then, during the Beta, Vedanth was the only one of us to meet them. He said he shielded us from them.”
“And the spell lets you control them?” I asked.
“It translates,” he said. “It almost came to blows before I figured that out, but my lightning deterred them. When we first met, they were quite intent on killing me, you see. Some members of the Azure Lance had explored upriver and taught the orcs their taste for human flesh.” Pradeep licked his lips. “A tasty 50 points each.”
“What?” I said dumbly.
“Once I cast the spell, they could speak the tongues of man, to my ears. And my words reached them as well.”
“Those brutes speak English?” Farrukh asked. He’d straightened, but his legs were shuddering.
“Imagine when I figured out I was a blue-skinned, red-eyed invader of their homeland.”
“They’re players,” Ana breathed. She was up, though unsteady.
My dagger didn’t waver. But if the orc — the woman — had tried to shake me, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to stop her.
“A warlord amon
g them was plotting to conquer nearby cities, but after learning there was a whole land of 50-point ‘orcs’ just downriver, she redirected her armies. I could help them or die.”
We let the lie hang in the air.
He laughed. “Okay, fine. I chose to help them.”
“Why?” Ana asked. “Why do you care?”
“Someone needs to bring the heat,” he said. “Every story needs a villain.”
The developers were some real assholes, letting an overpowered, bloodthirsty Beta tester rampage around on a whim. But why would he attack humans? “Your wife,” I said. “She was all you cared about.” I looked down. My memory of the portrait in Riyaasat was hazy, and the blue skin threw me off, but the face shape was the same. This was Geeta, Pradeep’s wife, respawned as an orc cripple.
Terror gripped me. “You’re a Visceral! Why don’t you heal her?”
He gritted his teeth. “My magic can’t heal orcs. We’re designed to be enemies.”
Another question bubbled out. “And why is she an orc cripple? She was a human in the portrait, then got turned into a gastrolith.”
“Part of our compensation as Beta testers was tickets to the main game. Some of us returned to our old avatars, but I’d failed to restore her. Rather than reincarnate her into a gastrolith, the developers gave her a new account and dropped her in the orc city, where she was injured in the warlord’s bloody ascension. They were probably laughing the whole time.”
“Enough!” Ana said firmly. “This nonsense changes nothing. Tell them to get Heather down.”
“My soldiers told me something interesting,” Pradeep said. “They told me that you were killed by the gastroliths. That was a miscommunication on my part — I’d told them that to enter that cave was death but didn’t mention the delay. Still, the three of you are on a clock.”
“You’re on the same hand,” Ana said. “As soon as our legs start to fuse, she gets the blade.”
“Negotiating with the dead is always tricky,” Pradeep admitted. “You have nothing to lose. But there is something you need, more than anything else, and it will cost you everything.”
My blood ran cold.
“What can I take? Your freedom? Your will?”
“Don’t forget we’re paying with her life,” Ana said. “So you’d better come up with a better offer.”
“You roll your dice boldly. But remember that you’re betting your friends’ lives.”
Ana looked at Heather.
“She’s safe with me. No harm will come to her, so long as I’m alive.”
“What do you need her for?” I asked.
“Why lay siege to a city when an Alchemist can transmute the walls to water?”
“I’ll never help you!” Heather said, shaking.
“‘Never’ is such a weak word,” Pradeep rebutted. “What would you pay for it? Your boyfriend’s life?”
No. Not again.
Pradeep continued, smiling. He wasn’t trembling anymore. “I’ll keep him safe. He’ll be fed and given water whenever he wants. All you have to do is whatever I ask. Wouldn’t it be nice, knowing he’s safe while you’re helping me conquer the city you call home? So much better than watching fish nibble at his corpse.”
“Don’t do it!” I yelled, before I could help myself. I wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t worth a city. I wasn’t worth her.
Moonlight glittered on Heather’s tears. “Let him go,” she said. “Like Ana said, once that blade is gone, you have no reason to keep your word. Let him and Ana and Farrukh go, and I’ll help you.”
“I get her sword,” Pradeep said.
“Is the Lightning Blade the chip so dear you’d rather let your wife die than part with it?” Heather asked. Her voice wavered.
Pradeep laughed. “Very well. But Geeta and I stay here. I have no reason to believe you once those bows are gone.”
Farrukh went to the cage, Heather’s legs dangling just above his head. He reached up, and she reached her roped hands down, an angel come to man. He glowed for a moment, then shivered. “That’s it?” he said. “I won’t turn?”
“Nope,” Heather said, smiling through the tears.
He nodded and came back over to us. Ana received the boon next. Farrukh put his machete to Geeta’s throat and told Pradeep, “Tell her to put her hands where I can see them.”
Heather’s dress was stained with grime and blood. Her face didn’t look much better. Her hands were red and swollen from the dragon-fire, and purple inscriptions etched her bindings. But there was no fear in her tired yellow eyes, only piercing resolve.
“I’ll come for you,” I said, trying to believe it. “I promise. This isn’t the end.”
Her smile was sad. “Don’t get yourself killed on my behalf. You promised you’d survive.”
But promises were just words. I turned away before the look in her eyes destroyed me.
“Come on,” Ana said, and made for the boat, where the dragon had woken and watched us with one huge eye. She turned back. “Wait.”
Farrukh’s voice was hoarse. “I’ll take the fall on this one.” He tossed Ana his bow.
The puzzle piece that hadn’t quite fit clacked into place. Someone had to keep a knife on Geeta’s throat. “Farrukh,” I said.
He shook his head. “They’ll let me live. I can brew Health Potions, and I know where the ingredients live. If my potions work on orcs, I’ll be invaluable. Neither of you can say the same.” He was unreadable, his eyes dark. “Go, now!”
“This isn’t the last time I see you,” Ana said. “I promise.” We really were slinging those around.
One last issue: the orcs of Tyrant’s Vale were not likely to let us pass. But I already had a solution. I nullified momentum on the dragon, which calmed it while I severed the ropes.
“Are you sure about this?” Ana asked.
“No,” but I hopped on the saddle anyway. There was plenty of room for her behind me. I looped my feet into the stirrups and grabbed reins tied to two massive horns.
I couldn’t look back. The dragon leapt and caught the wind.
18
Don’t know why I'd thought flying a dragon home was a good idea. It shot through the pass at heart-hammering speeds, twisting with the rock faces to either side, occasionally pulling in its wings and half-plummeting through the air.
Ana screamed in my ear, not that I could understand her over the rushing air and my own screams. Then the dragon beat its wings again, and all I could do was try to breathe. My thighs were iron on the hard leather saddle, and Ana, without stirrups, had locked her arms around my waist.
I wasn’t sure what to do with the reins, but the dragon seemed to be doing fine without my input. I wrapped them around my gauntlet and held them in a tightly clenched fist.
The hike that had taken us hours sped by in minutes, and we burst over the Vale. A legion of orcs — for I still had no better word for them — readied bows. I panicked and jerked the reins hard to the right. The dragon’s head veered, and the body banked. I couldn’t see the arrows in the night, only hear a couple clink off scales. Then the dragon beat its wings fiercely, and we were out of range.
Other than when falling, I don’t fear heights. Small print: does not apply when riding dragon-back a thousand feet in the air.
“Where to?” I yelled.
“White Fir!” Ana said.
“Not Bluehearth?”
Her justification was lost to the wind.
I had only a vague idea of where White Fir lay, but silvery rivers gave me a good approximation. Three days’ hike disappeared in one terrifying hour.
There was a sense of majesty, so high up, a thousand feet over my problems. A sense of elation. I didn’t have to think about how Heather was caged, her sacrifice so I could fly free, and how unfair that was, and how undeserving I was. I just marveled at the beauty of the landscape. We were flying too fast for my worries to catch hold, too high for self-doubt to ensnare me, far from the hungry earth.
Computer-generat
ed forest and mountains and plains spread out beneath us, gray in the dim moonlight. Just because it wasn’t real didn’t mean it wasn’t real to me. The hurt I had felt in the pass was real, and the high I rode now was real, if fleeting.
White Fir rapidly approached.
“We need to go lower!” Ana cried.
I agreed. I’d rather not plummet a thousand feet, though I doubted I had the skill to actually land the dragon.
Only problem was, I didn’t know how to make it descend either. I could pull the reins back, left, or right, but not down. I tried pushing on the back of the dragon’s neck, but it didn’t register. When I pulled up, the dragon ascended higher.
I cursed into the racing wind. We were above White Fir now, or near it, because the trees below us bore the light needles that gave them their name. Gripping tightly with my legs, I grabbed one of Ana’s hands and, for lack of a better option, put it on my thigh. Three pings sounded clear, even over the rushing of air. I pressed my nullify momentum ring into my thigh, Ana’s hand, and the saddle.
The air stopped rushing. There was no lurch, only the confused vertigo that came with hurtling forward at a hundred miles per hour one moment and floating still the next. The dragon beat its wings, then as gravity reasserted its presence, it glided down toward the trees.
“Ready?” I called, over the much gentler breeze.
Ana wrapped her hands tight around me. I prepared the three gestures, then kicked free of the stirrups and wheeled one leg over the saddle horn to sit sidesaddle. Ana wriggled into a similar position beside me and grasped onto my left arm with both hands. Together we fell, back down to the waiting earth.
The cabin felt hollow. Our guests had long made for Bluehearth, still alive judging by the red dots on the leaderboard, though none had gained the kind of points that came with leveling up. But neither had Absame or Edwin — either no one had claimed the Citadel, or the Citadel hadn’t contained the Artifacts Jeremiah thought it had.