The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  At what point Maddley noticed she was there, she couldn’t say. Maybe he was just doing a good job of ignoring her until the shadow passed over him. He hadn’t cried, she was relieved to see. If he was to reveal himself to be weak emotionally, this whole thing would have been a waste of time. But still he looked angry, cheeks flushed and knuckles white where he’d clutched them into his palms.

  “Mr Maddley,” she said. “Hard luck earlier, I have to say.”

  He didn’t reply, just stared defiantly at her. She could see the insolence in him and it intrigued her more than she wanted to admit.

  “Still, live and learn, right?” she continued. “I’m sure you’ll grow from it. Use it to build a better future out of your experiences.”

  “Perhaps,” he said slowly. “What’s it to you whether I do or not?”

  Yes, he had fire. She could hear it in his voice. He’d be perfect. Under her instruction, he could well be an asset.

  “Because well, you could say the future is something I have a vested interest in,” she said. “Let’s talk about it, shall we? You and I.”

  Chapter Four. Proposal and Fire.

  “It’s something you’ll never be able to completely remove. Something wouldn’t be right if there was one hundred percent improvement. The nature of the job means our people will get hurt, will die. But since I took over Unisco, agent casualties are down by twenty percent. I’ve been out in the field and I consider that a good thing. I’m proud of that achievement.”

  Terrence Arnholt in a report to the Senate on his Unisco tenure.

  The eighth day of Summerpeak.

  “So, before we start, how are you holding up? That was a bit of a beating you took earlier?” She knew he’d had time to calm down now, which was important. The hours had passed, it had taken this long to track him down and the main thing was getting what she wanted out of him.

  He shrugged, a dismissive gesture she chose to ignore. If he joined, it would be something that would need to be worked on. He lacked respect and it grated on her. This was why she had Rocastle to do what he’d done ably for the most part. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I mean; it was what drew you to my attention. Nobody wants to see that in a contest. I’d feel short changed if I’d paid to see that.”

  He studied her with an appraising eye. Something was going on behind those eyes and she didn’t know how to read it, an unideal situation yet not one she was at a loss to deal with.

  “I lost. It happens. Nobody gave me a chance and I didn’t disappoint. So there.”

  “Yes, well.” She joined him in staring across the island, only a few years ago untouched by the rest of the world. She’d built this kingdom upon it, changed the way it would operate forever, a trial for her new future. If she could change the fate of this small island, it would only be a matter of time before the rest of it all followed suit. Granted, they were far from that now. But baby steps. Sometimes you took the time to line everything up so when it all fell into place, it fell damn quickly. “Bitterness gets you nowhere unfortunately.”

  Her taccaridon looked unperturbed at being left to its own devices as the two of them spoke, great teeth munching contentedly at the water tower, leaving gouges in the metal as it sought the liquid inside. She would have brought it back to its container crystal had the possibility she may need a swift exit not been a factor. It wasn’t causing any harm, she’d made sure, before diverting all her attention to the sullen young man.

  Darren Maddley had the stocky build of his father, his hair a dirty blond colour she vaguely recognised as inheritance from his mother, a particularly vacant trollop who’d latched onto Maddley Sr when he’d become famous and rich only to leave when it faded. Women like this young man’s mother gave the rest of them a bad name. None of this she said aloud of course, it wouldn’t do to alienate him before she’d started. Some people could get so attached to family, it seemed. Whether he’d be one of them or not, she couldn’t say. And yet, if she’d read him right, he held some antipathy towards the woman who had ruined his father.

  Who wouldn’t in his situation? Did revenge drive him or success? Credits or creed? Power or position? These she’d need to find out and quickly. Offering him a role would be a wasted effort should he not prove to be suitable, right now every move she made was a vital one. No venture was without risk but the one she was spending by being here was feeling more foolish by the second. Still, she was nothing if not an effective worker. Either way, she wanted to have an answer in moments. If he hesitated, it was unlikely he’d have the conviction that she required. And that would be a shame for him.

  “What about the future?” he asked slowly, his voice devoid of the sullenness it had held earlier. It would appear she’d gotten some interest at last. “What does it matter right now?”

  “Potentially,” she said. “Nothing. Actually? Everything. It’s all linked you know. The past, the present and the future. What happened in the past goes on to affect the present and what we do now will shape the future. That’s always been the curse of humanity, I feel. We change everything, and we very rarely take the time to consider the effects of our actions. Tell me now that it doesn’t matter.”

  He said nothing, she took that as a cue to carry on. “The details don’t matter now but I’m currently engaged in a venture that should everything come off, well, it would make the future a new and fantastic place. The way we’re going, it… It doesn’t look so good. Tell me, do you actually like the world we live in right now?”

  “It’s okay,” Maddley said noncommittal. “Good and bad.”

  “Give me an example, then. What’s so good about this place? And what makes it bad? Weigh them against each other and I wager that you’ll find the bad outweighs the good. Just look at this entire process.” She waved a hand out across the island beneath them. “Couldn’t the credits have been spent so much better? Incurable disease might be one step closer to not being so. Homeless could have been homed.”

  It was hard not to laugh at the idea that might have been what she’d chosen to do with her credits. Every argument was a weapon until she found one to drive home a point. “And this whole tournament is a gross mistake. It has become a juggernaut unable to stop moving, growing larger and more unwieldy by the year. I know you competed and that’s fantastic for you but take off the blinkers and tell me you don’t think things could have been organised a little better. We’re in Vazara for Divines sake, have you not seen some of the stuff happening since the tournament started? Storms, suicides and kidnappings. Shootings for Divines sake. Was this really what we wanted?”

  It was what she’d wanted but that was beside the point. Maddley wasn’t to know that. At some point he’d sat down again, staring disinterestedly over the island. Either the argument wasn’t working, or he was considering what she’d said in silence. She hoped it was the latter. Or she really would be wasting her precious time. Ideally Rocastle would have been the one doing this had he not messed up. He had that touch with people, he might grate them, but he got them talking.

  “Well I guess that’s up to other people, right?” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me. I can’t change their mind. They’ll do what they do, and I’ll do what I do and… Well I don’t know.” He leaned back to glance at her. “Guess I never thought about it before. But if someone wants to build all this, why should they be stopped?”

  Hmmm… “Maybe they shouldn’t. Maybe that’s the beautiful thing about this world that was created. Free will. The ability to do whatever whenever wherever you choose. But that’s not what I’m talking about, removing that. That would be a grave abuse of humanity and I don’t desire that. A race full of automatons and endroids would do nobody any good at all. There’d be more problems than before. No initiative, no creativity, no flair. Can you imagine…”

  “I’m through imagining,” Maddley said bluntly. “Either make your point or leave me alone.”

  She sighed, rubbed her hands together to try and remove some of the sw
eat and stood up a little straighter. “I’ve had someone here examining the callers in the tournament,” she said. “Looking for ideal candidates for my new world. Because out of the chaos of this world springs the order of the next. There will always be a need for those who are strong to impose that order. You weren’t on my spotter’s list, but I think you have potential despite what that bout showed me.”

  “Only potential? I managed to get to this point, didn’t I?” He looked annoyed more than anything by her comments, she brushed it off and smiled sweetly at him.

  “You did and now you’ve gone out at the hands of someone with infinite more advantages than you when it came to it. She was stronger, you were weaker. It showed, she cast you aside without breaking sweat. That, my boy, is an achievement on this island. Except maybe it wasn’t as clear cut as that, was it? What were your thoughts when you stepped on that field?”

  He took one long blink, rested his chin in his hands and exhaled sharply. “I wanted to win.”

  “Just that? You wanted to win and that would be the end of it? What would victory accomplish? A good feeling? Closure for your family…”

  “You know what?!” He suddenly yelled, rising to his feet in anger. “I’m sick of people bringing up how she beat my dad. Yeah, you know what? She did. That’s not going to change. I could have beaten her, and it’d still be there. The past can’t be changed. I’m not even trying to do that. I wanted to win for me, not for him! I wanted to win this whole damn thing, I wanted the prestige and the trophy and the credits. Is that so fucking bad?! I’m not different from anyone else here! You can turn it all into some noble thing about how I want to destroy the bloody witch, but I just want to get ahead in this whole great game!”

  “And I can help you with that,” she said smoothly, not even breaking stride. “I’m offering you a way out of where you are. A nobody living in your father’s shadow to somebody. Take my hand and people won’t remember you as Luke Maddley’s son. They’ll remember him as Darren Maddley’s father.”

  More than anything, she suddenly realised that might have got through, his eyes lighting up with consideration. She could almost see the cogs moving in his head, she rubbed her hands together in glee. Nearly, nearly…

  “Maybe I just want to be me,” Maddley said, her elation suddenly deflated. “I mean why does everyone have to have some grand divine purpose? I mean, you sound ambitious wanting to build your own new world and well, don’t get me wrong, it sounds nuts. How are you even planning that? I mean, it’s a good dream but you almost sound delusion…”

  She wagged her finger at him sternly, cutting him off. Her heart pounded angrily in her chest, but she kept her voice calm. She didn’t like people questioning her sanity. It was rude. “Now that’s a secret I’m not about to share with you at this point. All I want from you is your devotion and your faith. That’s all. I ask for that; I give you everything you could ever want.”

  He shook his head. “I doubt that very much.” She was losing him, she could see that, just as she’d thought his interest was on the rise a few moments earlier, it was suddenly fading again. She could taste the first seeds of failure and they were bitter.

  “I can’t give you back your family, admittedly but…”

  He cut her off before she could carry on. “You know what always gets me when they talk about my family? Nobody who tells it ever actually knew my mom or my dad. Because those who did had more respect than to go along with the frenzy. Everyone loves knocking someone down who rose higher than them.”

  She conceded that was true.

  “My dad was a winner; it just took a while for people to realise. But when he lost, they couldn’t wait to jump on him. You know what it’s like being a running joke in a profession you love? But winner or loser, he was still my dad and I loved him! I loved my mom too! They loved each other, despite what the stories say about them. You know nothing so don’t talk about stuff!”

  She could see the anger in his eyes and nodded smoothly. “You want to enlighten me?”

  “No, I don’t. I want you to leave me alone,” he said angrily. “I don’t know what you want with me, I don’t know what you intend to do but leave me the hells alone! I want no part of it. You don’t want me to know who you are, which tells me everything I need to know.” He gestured at the scarf covering her face. “Now goodbye!”

  With that, he stood up and made for the door, halfway across the roof before she let out a sharp exhale of breath. “That truly is regretful, Mr Maddley. You do know I can’t let you walk away, don’t you?”

  He turned, eyes wide as if he’d just realised before the taccaridon lunged at him in a flare of wings and he let out a scream as claws went for his face. There was a snap and a flash, he’d gotten his summoner out and suddenly they weren’t alone, an eagle buzzing around Tac’s face. Should she be worried? No, she decided, she shouldn’t. Maddley’s strongest were doubtless still recuperating following his bout, the most she had to deal with would be with the best of the rest. And that eagle, as unusually shade of vivid bright blue as it might be, would struggle to deal with Tac.

  Far worse would be the commotion caused by a vicious battle, if Maddley had any sense, he’d make it so. This wasn’t a bout in an arena with rules and good intentions, this was a very public arena and a fight for survival. Already he’d managed to wriggle out from underneath Tac, eagle and taccaridon lunging viciously at each other. The eagle’s hooked beak had yanked a clump of scales from Tac’s face, she heard the screech and rolled her eyes. For Divines sake, she chided the spirit silently. Stop fottling with that thing and finish it!

  With a snarl of anger, Tac lunged after the eagle who took to the sky to escape. She fought urges to laugh in derision. In the sky, the taccaridon was king. Tac went after it with a push off the ground, wings flaring into a flight position as it went after the smaller opponent.

  Smaller, it might be more manoeuvrable but was it quicker? She doubted it. Tac was one of the fastest non-mechanical things in the sky. And large as it might be, it was agile as well. That wasn’t her only problem though, Maddley was fleeing, already at the door and struggling to yank it open.

  “You should have seen this coming,” she said softly. Down below, she could hear screaming and shouting and she winced. Of course, Tac’s presence in the sky was going to cause some consternation. Howls and screeches from the great grey mouth were drowning them out but it meant she was running out of time. “To spurn me is to…”

  She heard the shriek of agony, glanced back and saw Tac had won, the eagle in its jaws as it flew towards them. There was a thump, and the bloodied remains of Maddley’s spirit hit the ground between them. She took no pleasure in it, folded her arms as Tac landed.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?” she asked, reaching up to stroke Tac behind the skull, her nails catching on rough leather skin. “I have been known to forget insult in the past. Granted, it doesn’t happen too often.”

  He shook his head, brought back his eagle to a container crystal. She let him do it, antagonising him by prevention wouldn’t help anyone. “I’ll never join you, psycho bitch! What the hells is wrong with you?!”

  Wrong? Wrong? It echoed through her head, she shaped out a repeat of the word through her lips. “Wrong? You think I’m wrong? There’s nothing wrong with me. Your lack of foresight betrays you as it does the rest of them. I’m truly sorry it must end like this, I am. But compassion has no place in the world I’m trying to build. You won’t be the first blood spilled in the foundations of the new. But every transformation has its casualties. It has been so since the dawn of time and will continue. There’s no shame in a death so others can thrive. Goodbye, Mr Maddley. It’s a shame we couldn’t work something out.”

  Something dark flashed across the rooftop and she froze on the spot, the sound of beating wings in her ears and slowly she raised her head to look at the sky. There was no mistaking the two dark shapes hovering above, she felt a sinking sensation in the pit of he
r stomach as she turned to look at the dragons.

  Not just the dragons. In fact, one of them wasn’t a dragon on inspection, rather a shark lizard, streamlined and spindly like a fighter ship. The other was a vivid orange and bigger, a lot bigger. If the spannerhead was a fighter, this was a dreadnought, almost docile-looking as it hovered on giant wings. There was something simple in its face, from rounded snout to large green eyes. Cream coloured scales swept from its jaws to its thick tail, four muscular limbs tucked in for flight.

  They weren’t alone, she realised very quickly with dismay. They had riders, one on the back of each, clothes indescribable and their faces little more than blurs. She knew then what that meant, and it terrified her, she wasn’t afraid to admit. Unisco! Not here! Not now! She let out a little moan and looked at Tac. Two against one, this wouldn’t be easy. She’d done a Rocastle, let her judgement be clouded and it could cost her everything.

  No!

  I will not fall! I will not submit, and they will die before I let them take me!

  Brave words, she knew, but she believed in the weight behind them. She had to. She had survived through worse, she wasn’t going to let a few men… She thought they were men, but she couldn’t quite be sure… who thought they were doing the right thing get in her way. Their motives didn’t match up, they had to be dealt with. A little violence was good for the soul, Domis had once volunteered to her. It had been the first and only thing he’d ever said to her on his beliefs and it felt strangely appropriate. Sometimes, you needed to cut loose and live a little.