Past Imperative [Round One of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

  When Edward came to the man he had felled, though—trying not to look at the bloody wreckage inside the hood—he discovered that the victim was still moaning.

  "This one's not dead!"

  "A purely temporary state of affairs, dear boy. Go on."

  Unable to refuse, Edward dragged the man to the bridge and disposed of him as he had disposed of the bodies. He felt more nauseated by that than by anything else that had happened. He was really a murderer now. The Vales’ equivalent of Inspector Leatherdale would be justified in swearing out a warrant for the arrest of D'ward Liberator.

  The last reaper followed the others. When morning came, travelers crossing Lameby Bridge would see no evidence of the massacre.

  "There, that's better!” Tion sighed. “And I suppose I must let you be on your way, tempting though you are. Mustn't upset any of the prophecies! The pass is clear, you'll have no trouble. You did frightfully well to dispose of that reaper without mana—but you are altogether the most interesting thing to come along in centuries, dear boy! I can't imagine how you're going to settle that horrible Zath, but I do so hope you succeed! I can't wait to see how you do it."

  "You heard what I told Mrs. Mason—I'm not fulfilling any prophecies! I am going Home."

  The Youth shrugged disbelievingly. “Beware the Service, D'ward Liberator. Remember Verse 114!"

  Edward Exeter must be the only man on Nextdoor who had not read the Filoby Testament. “Which one's that?"

  "Oh, let me think.... How does it go now? Men plot evil upon the holy mountain. The servants of the one do the work of the many. They send unto D'ward, mouthing oaths like nectar. Their voices are sweet as roses, yea sweeter than the syrup that snares the diamondfly. He is lured to destruction by the word of a friend, by the song of a friend he is hurled down among the legions of death. Horrible prose, but you see what I mean, darling?"

  If he was telling the truth, that did sound ominous. Holy mountain must refer to Olympus, because there was no other holy mountain. It was odd that Tion had made the connection, but he had known of Apollo, too.

  "Well, that completes the night's business,” Tion said. “It's been a most entertaining evening. Bye-bye!"

  "Wait!"

  The Youth cocked an eyebrow, almost as if he had been waiting for the word. “Yes?"

  Edward braced himself to plead with this monster. “If you enjoyed the show, let's pass the hat. The girl who's mentioned in the Testament, Eleal—she deserves the credit for staging it. She's only a child. She has a crippled leg."

  Tion switched on a smile that was too sudden to be genuine. “You want me to heal her for you?"

  "Would you, sir?” It was hard to be respectful to this seeming-boy who had so callously let four people die, but Mason had said he was not as bad as some of the other strangers. “She'll go mad with joy."

  "That's trivial, D'ward! Nothing to it. Delighted to do you a favor."

  There was bound to be a catch, though. Cautiously, Edward said, “Thank you, sir! I'd be very grateful—and she'll be ecstatic!"

  "You can't have omelette and roast goose, of course."

  Trapped!

  Tion's smile grew broader.

  Edward wiped his forehead. He owed his life to Eleal, but to repay that debt would force him to stay here on Nextdoor, and inevitably he would find himself fighting in the wrong war. His war lay on another world.

  What would his father have done?

  Zath and the Chamber had killed his parents ... but he had only Creighton's word for that.

  Zath had killed Creighton. What sort of chap did not try to avenge his friends? But he had only Eleal's word for that.

  He could cause Eleal's limp to be cured and thus repay her for saving his life ... but he had only Tion's word for that.

  Tion was smiling gleefully. “You understand what I mean?"

  "You mean I can't have my cake and eat it, too."

  The boy smiled sweetly. “I mean, if we're into doing favors ... You have an Eleal problem, I have a Gunuu problem, that unmanned aspect. You'd make an excellent god of courage, D'ward, you really would.” The childish face glowed with innocent appeal. “Even a beginner ought to be able to raise that much mana in a fortnight or so. To pay me back. I mean, that would only be fair, wouldn't it?"

  "A fortnight? Just a fortnight?"

  Tion pursed his cherub lips. “Perhaps a little longer. It's hard to say.... I'd have to see how you perform.” His pale eyes shone very bright.

  Speak ye one word in elfin land ... If Edward bit, he would be hooked, somehow. Perhaps forever.

  Where did honor lie in this morass? Where were courage and duty?

  King and Country! There were no doubts about those. They took precedence over anything else.

  "I cannot accept a favor from you on those terms, sir. I withdraw my request."

  Tion sighed, but he did not seem surprised. “Good-bye, then, D'ward Liberator! I wish you luck—god knows you'll need it, and I speak with authority.” He shrieked with childish glee and faded away.

  Edward was alone.

  He didn't even have Eleal to look after him now. Oh, Eleal!

  Would the dragon find her way home to Olympus? Would she return in search of her mistress? He could not control her if she did. The only course of action open to him was to head on over the pass and find Kalmak Carpenter.

  Having nothing else to do, he walked over the bridge and began climbing the trail on the other side.

  He was going Home! That was what mattered, he told himself. Duty called. Onica's death gnawed at his conscience. So did his despicable betrayal of the child who had saved his life, but there he had made his own choice and it was too late to back out now.

  Nextdoor was a snare and a temptation. He must answer his country's call. Zath was not his proper foe. He would go Home and enlist to fight in the war he was meant to fight in.

  There a man at least could know who was right and who was wrong. There a man fought with bullet and bayonet, not hideous sorcery. There a man could hope for honor, trust in courage, believe in a cause.

  END OF ROUND ONE

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Round Two: Present Tense

  Round Three: Future Indefinite

  In Round Two of “The Great Game,” Edward Exeter goes Home and discovers that even there he cannot escape the workings of the Filoby Testament.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Acknowledgements

  I have been granted willing assistance by many people. Some merely confirmed a single fact, others slaved over the manuscript for me word by word. To list them in anything but alphabetical order would be invidious, but to all of them I extend my sincere thanks:

  J. Brian Clarke, Janet Duncan, Michael Duncan, Jean Greig, Betty Hutton, the Public Library of Wiltshire County Council, Jean-Louis Trudel, and John Welch. All responsibility for the text, however, is mine.

  The Embu and Meru are authentic tribes of Kenya, although I have taken some liberties with their history.

  I have no desire to offend anyone's religious sensibilities. To the best of my knowledge, there never was a Lighthouse Missionary Society. This is a work of make-believe. Even on its own terms, the “gods” it depicts are divine only in the eyes of those foolish enough to worship them.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  The Game's not over yet ... The intrigue and suspense continue for Edward Exeter and his fellow players.

  Turn the page for an excerpt from

  PRESENT TENSE: ROUND TWO OF THE GREAT GAME,

  available now in hardcover from Avon Books.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  TWO MEN SAT IN A GARDEN AND TALKED ABOUT HELL. ONE of them had been there.

  The time was a Saturday afternoon in early September, 1917. The site was a sunny corner in the grounds of Staffles, which had been an English country home since the seventeenth century and was now a hospital for wounded returning from the Great War.

  The two sat side
by side at the top of a short flight of steps leading up to a set of glass doors. Inside those doors, a row of beds prevented anyone from coming out or going in, so the speakers would not be disturbed. It was a sheltered spot. The younger man had found it, and it was probably the best place in the entire hospital for a private chat. He had always had a knack for coming out on top like that. He was not greedy or selfish, yet even as a child he had always been the one to land the best bed in the dorm. Draw a name from a hat, and it would almost always he his.

  The steps led down to crazy paving and a lichen-stained stone balustrade. Beyond that, a park sloped to a copse of beeches. The grass badly needed cutting, the rose bushes were straggly, the flower-beds nurtured more weeds than blossoms. Hills in the distance were upholstered with hop fields, their regular texture like the weave of a giant green carpet. Autumn lurked in the air, although the leaves had not yet begun to turn.

  Once in a while a train would rush along behind the wood, puffing trails of smoke. When it had gone, the silence that returned was marred by a persistent faint rumbling, the sound of the guns across the Channel. There was another big push on in Flanders. Every man in Staffles knew it. Everyone in Southern England knew it.

  Men in hospital blues crowded the grounds, sitting on benches or strolling aimlessly. Some were in wheelchairs, some on crutches. Many had weekend visitors to entertain them. Somewhere someone was playing croquet.

  In front of the two men stood a small mahogany parlor table, bearing a tea tray. One plate still bore a few crumbs of the scones which had come with the tea. The sparrows hopping hopefully on the flagstones were well aware of those crumbs.

  The younger man was doing most of the talking. He spoke of mud and cold, of shrapnel and gas attacks, of days without rest or relief from terror, of weeks in the same clothing, of lice and rheumatism, of trench foot and gas gangrene. He told of young subalterns like himself marching at the head of their men across the wastes of No Man's Land until they reached Fritz's barbed wire and machine guns scythed them down in their ranks. He told of mutilation and death in numbers never imagined possible in the golden days before the war came.

  Several times during the tea-drinking and scone-eating, he had reached out absentmindedly with his right sleeve, which was pinned shut just where his wrist should have been. He had muttered curses and tucked that arm out of sight again. He chain-smoked, frequently reaching to his mouth with his empty cuff. At times he would try to stop talking, but his left eye would immediately start to twitch. When that happened, the spasms would quickly spread to involve his entire face, until it grimaced and writhed as if it had taken on an idiot life of its own. And then he would weep.

  At such times the older man would tactfully pretend to be engrossed in watching other men in the distance, or studying the swallows gathering on the telephone wires. He would speak of the old days—of the cricket and rugby, and of boys his companion had known who were now men. He did not mention the awful shadow that lay on them as they waited for the call that would take them away and run them through the mincer as it run their older brethren. A war that had seemed glorious in 1914 was a monster now. He did not mention the evergrowing list of the dead.

  He was middle-aged, approaching elderly. His portly frame and full beard gave him a marked resemblance to the late King Edward VII, but he wore a pair of pince nez. His beard was heavily streaked with gray and his hat concealed a spreading baldness. His name was David Jones and he was a schoolmaster. For more than thirty years he had been known behind his back as Ginger, not for his temperament or his coloring, but because in his youth Ginger had gone with Jones as Dusty went with Miller.

  The gasping, breathless sobs beside him had quieted again.

  "The swallows will be heading south soon now,” he remarked.

  "Lucky buggers!” said the young man. His name was Julian Smedley. He was a captain in the Royal Artillery. He was twenty years old. After a moment he added, “You know that was my first thought? There was no pain at all. I looked down and saw nothing where my hand should be and that was my first thought: Thank God! I am going Home!"

  "And you're not going back!"

  "No. Even better.” There was another gasp. “Oh, God! I wish I could stop piping my eye like this.” He fumbled awkwardly for a cigarette.

  The older man turned his head. “You're not the worst, you know. Not by a long shot. I've seen many much worse."

  Smedley pulled a face. “Wish you'd tell the guv'nor that."

  "It's the truth,” Jones said softly. “Much worse. And I will tell your father if you want me to."

  "Hell, no! Let him brood about his yellow-livered, sniveling son. It was damned white of you to come, Ginger. Do you spend all your weekends trailing around England, combing the wreckage like this?"

  "Paying my respects. And no, not every weekend."

  "Lots, I'll bet.” Smedley blew out a long cloud of smoke, then dabbed at his cheeks with his empty sleeve. He seemed to be talked out on the war, which was a good sign.

  "Ginger?..."

  "Mm?"

  "Er, nothing."

  It wasn't nothing. They'd had that same futile exchange several times in the last two hours. Smedley had something to say, some subject he couldn't broach.

  Jones glanced at his watch. He must not miss his bus. He was running out of things to talk about. One topic he had learned never to mention was patriotism. Another was Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig.

  "Apart from school, how are things?” Smedley muttered.

  "Not so bad. Price of food's frightful. Can't find a workman or a servant anywhere."

  "What about the air raids?"

  "People grumble, but they'll pull through."

  Smedley eyed the older man with the ferocity of a hawk. “How do you think the war's going?"

  "Hard to say. The papers are censored, of course. They tell us that Jerry's done for. Morale's all gone."

  "Balls."

  "Oh. Well, we don't hear rumors at Fallow. The Americans are in, thank God."

  "They're in America!” Smedley snapped. “How long until they can build an army and move it to France—if the U-boats don't sink it on the way? And the Russians are out! Good as. Did you know that?"

  Jones made noncommittal noises. If the Hun could finish the Russians before the Yanks arrived, then the war was lost. Everyone knew it. No one said it.

  "Do you recall a boy called Stringer? Before my time."

  The schoolmaster chuckled. “Long Stringer or Short Stringer?"

  "Don't know. A doctor."

  "That's Short Stringer. His brother's a Brigadier or something."

  "He drops in here once in a while. I recognized the school tie."

  "A surgeon, actually. Yes, I know him. He's on the board of governors. Comes to Speech Days."

  Smedley nodded, staring out over the lengthening shadows in the garden. He sucked hard on his cigarette. Jones wondered if the unspeakable, whatever it was, was about to be spoken at last. It came in a rush.

  "Tell me something, Ginger. When war broke out I was in Paris, remember? Edward Exeter and I were on our way to Crete. Came home from Paris just before the dam broke."

  "I remember,” Jones said, suddenly wary. “Dr. Gibbs and the others never made it back, if that's what you're wondering. Never did hear what happened to them."

  "Interned?"

  "Hope so, but there's never been word."

  Smedley dismissed the topic with a quick shake of his head, still staring straight ahead. “Tough egg! No, I was wondering about Exeter. We parted at Victoria. I was heading home to Chichester. He was going on to Greyfriars, to stay with the Bodgleys, but he wanted to send a telegram or something. I had to run for my train. Next thing I knew, there was a copper at the house asking questions."

  He turned to look at Jones with the same owlish stare he had had as a boy. He'd always been a shy, quiet one, Smedley, not the sort you'd have ever expected to be a hero and sport those ribbons. But the war had turned thousands of t
hem into heroes. Millions of them.

  "Young Bodgley was murdered,” Jones said.

  "I know. And they seemed to think Exeter had done it."

  "I didn't believe that then and I don't now!"

  "What innocents we were ... Fresh out of school, thinking we were debonair young men of the world...” The voice wavered, then recovered. “Wasn't old Bagpipe stabbed in the back?"

  Jones nodded.

  Smedley actually smiled, for the second time that afternoon. “Well, then! That answers the question, doesn't it? Whatever Exeter may have done, he would never stab anyone in the back. He couldn't stab anyone in the back! Not capable of it.” He lit a new cigarette from the previous butt.

  "I agree,” Jones said. “He wasn't capable of any of it—a stabbing, or killing a friend, or any of that. A quick uppercut to the jaw, yes. Sudden insanity even. Can happen to ... But I agree that the back part is conclusive proof of his innocence."

  "Bloody nonsense,” the young man muttered.

  "Even Mrs. Bodgley refused to believe he killed her son."

  The owlish stare hardened into a threatening frown. “Then what? He escaped?"

  "He totally vanished. Hasn't been seen since."

  "Go on, man!” Suddenly the pitiful neurotic invalid was a young officer blazing with authority.

  Jones flinched like some lowly recruit, even while feeling a surge of joy at the transformation. “It's a total mystery. He just disappeared. There was a warrant issued, but no one ever heard from him again. Of course things were in a pretty mess, with war breaking out and all that."

  Apparently none of this was news to Smedley. He scowled with impatience, as if the recruit was being more than usually stupid. “The copper told us he had a broken leg."

  "His right leg was smashed."

  "So someone helped him? Must have."

  Jones shrugged. “An archangel from the sounds of it. Or the Invisible Man. The full story never came out."

  "And you genuinely believe it was a put-up job? Still? You still think that, Ginger?"