Game World

by C. J. Farley

And that’s when Dylan was reborn.

  He finally got his powers back.

  Of course he had to die—it all made sense now! He was a duppy—a Caribbean ghost. The magic words that he’d seen written in the rock behind the waterfall when he first arrived in Xamaica blazed with complete clarity in his mind:

  There is no way—but The Way

  There is no time—but now

  There is no love—but one love

  Anyplace, anytime, anyhow

  Give your life—and you will find it

  Lose your path—you won’t be lost

  Don’t waste time—for time’s a-wasting

  Tomorrow begins today

  —The Inklings (H.G., J.K., C.S., J.R.R., E.G.)

  The Duppy Defender was back.

  “It’s on!” Dylan shouted.

  He picked up the Airavata and carefully dropped her on a nearby hill. He knocked the Rolling Calves back like ants. And with a breath, he blew Chad away like so much smoke. He made sure none of them were hurt—and that they wouldn’t be hurting anyone else.

  He peered across the battlefield and fixed his gaze on his real target. The Crimson Beast had tried to destroy Dylan’s family and friends. On this day, on this hour, at this defining moment, Dylan would take him on. Now he flew at the Baron. Actually took wing. All the abilities he had when he played the game of Xamaica returned to him now. He clawed at the Baron like an Iron Lion. He bound his limbs with webs like a giant spider. And finally he blew flame like a Rolling Calf and the Baron’s feathers, so vulnerable to fire, crumbled into ashes.

  His friends were at his side now, and Emma too, fighting against a sea of enemies. Eli snorted fire at the feathered dinosaurs and butted them with his flaming horns. Ines batted back attackers with swipes of her paws. Emma hacked and parried and sliced with her cutlass.

  But the Baron had a final spell. As the tentacles around his beak waved and twisted, he began a guttural chant. The words were an ancient tongue, older than stone and sea. The children couldn’t recognize the language but the meaning could be felt in their bones: it was a spell about greed. The desire for wealth, for power, for status—it was channeled into the Baron’s obeah like a garbage chute. And the great Green Cloud that the Baron and his minions had stolen from the shadows and memories of Xamaicans was swiftly sucked and slurped into the gluttony.

  Now a slimy green bubble was growing around the Baron, slick and bending the light like a smear of grease on a window. An awful wail went up from the battlefield, and the members of Nanni’s forces dropped their weapons and grabbed their heads in pain and despair. Feelings of piggishness seemed to overwhelm all thought, avarice overcame every recollection, and greed, huge and insatiable, filled every heart. Some of the fighters fell to the ground, wiggling, their limbs melting away, their features fading.

  “They’re becoming worms!” Eli yelled.

  Ines stuck out her tongue. “Gross! Why does it have to be worms? Why not fish? Don’t birds eat fish? Or how about mice?”

  A great depression seemed to sink every spirit. And still the bubble grew, bigger than the battlefield, expanding until it filled the sky, and all of Xamaica was under an ugly green light, the color of snot, an infected wound, or paper money.

  Dylan’s powers were starting to dissipate. His fireballs fizzled and his strength faded. A sweep of the Baron’s tail knocked him to the ground.

  “Dylan—what’s the matter?” Ines asked.

  “He can only copy the abilities of others for short bursts,” Eli said. “He’s becoming a regular dude again.”

  Newly powered by the bubble, the Baron melted the webs that held him and pinned Dylan to the earth with a taloned foot. His guards quickly subdued Ines, Eli, and Emma.

  The Baron loomed over Dylan like a mountain. His tentacles twisted around his beak. His fangs were bared in a kind of awful smile.

  At last—the Duppy Defender meets his fate! Now, I will feed on you as I feast on the worms!

  But there was another game afoot.

  It turned out Nestuh was one of those spiders who was good at untying things.

  While the Baron reveled in his seeming victory, Nestuh had freed his remaining arms, wriggled away—and now stood alone beside the Great Drum of Anancy.

  He beat the drum once and every creature halted, including the Baron. With that strike, barriers were broken and illusions were shattered. Creatures on the battlefield who imagined that the Baron’s wooden carts carried the treasure of their fantasies, who thought that their vaults back home were laden with hummingbird-granted riches, were suddenly aware that, all along, they had been hoarding nothing but air.

  Nestuh struck the drum eight times in all, and with each hit came a vision. Of a time when the creatures of Xamaica pulled together and not apart. When they worked to enrich the land, not just themselves. When they sought not simply for their wishes to be granted but struggled to make them come true. It was more than just a dream, it was a goal.

  The Baron swept Dylan aside with a beat of his wings.

  Get him! cried the Baron, pointing at the spider.

  Nestuh tried to scamper away. But, mortally wounded and missing limbs, he didn’t get far and never really had a chance. The Baron’s guards easily pinned him down.

  Finish him!

  At that, his guards, using their knifelike claws, ripped Nestuh almost in two.

  “Noooooo!” screamed Dylan.

  The spider’s body fell limp onto the battlefield. His remaining legs twitched once and then twice.

  Then his body was still.

  “Nestuh!”

  Eli fought his way to where the great spider had fallen. He blazed a path through Higues and hummingbirds. Reaching the spot, he cradled Nestuh’s head in his arms.

  “Now I’m missing more legs than you.” The spider smiled. “Can we be friends again?”

  “We never stopped being friends!” Eli cried. “You’re going to be okay! This isn’t the end!”

  The spider’s eyes twinkled one last time. “Eli, my friend—have I taught you nothing about storytelling?”

  And thus perished Nestuh Elisha of Akbeth Akbar, the 1,555th child in his family. Though he was one of many, he is the only member of his clan of whom the bards would sing.

  Nestuh’s beat, however, still echoed across the battlefield. It rattled the rocks and swayed the trees and shook the confidence of the members of all the armies. The dragons were suddenly doubtful. The Baron had lied about the wishcoins—so he couldn’t be trusted about anything. The Iron Lions murmured in their ranks. Couldn’t their differences be discussed? The hummingbirds were atwitter; leaving their weapons and armor behind, many of them flitted away to seek flowers to sip.

  Above, in the middle of the sky, the bubble burst.

  The Green Cloud split and the clean light of day swept across the battlefield. Sweet memories and precious recollections returned to their rightful owners. The Baron’s plans had gone awry. And now, there was a sound, a Great Note, a Grand Chord, that reverberated across Xamaica—the final passage of a vast symphony.

  “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Eli shouted.

  The last strand had snapped, and the Great Web of the World was coming down.

  The Baron’s army scattered in fright. The web was an immense thing, wondrous in its design. Each strand was made up of many smaller stands, like a snowflake is made of smaller crystals. The strands of the web now separated, and, by some ancient obeah that went back to the time of the Great Weaving, the web fell on the Baron’s army and not those who opposed them. It entangled Soucouyants and brought them down. It netted Higues and their burning eyes went out. It brought down flying dinosaurs that served as the Baron’s personal guard.

  The Baron himself reared up, caught in the sticky strands of the Great Web. He writhed and roared but could not free himself. The members of his army were in retreat, or captured, or had switched sides. Whatever hold he had on most of his followers had been broken by the beat of Nestu
h’s drum. The Baron was out of obeah and, with a final roar that blew away clouds and shook stone, he gave up his terrible gigantic form.

  Emperor Zarathustra I was once again a hummingbird, a menace only to bugs and nectar. His number fell to 0. Everyone else’s ranking blinked out.

  Dylan flicked the Baron away with a finger.

  After a day of terror, a mighty laugh rolled over the battlefield and the Baron fluttered into the forest and was not seen again in that form in this age of Xamaica. The Groundation had come to pass. The old world was over; a new one had been born.

  In the distance, the Baron’s tornado tower fizzled into a light breeze, and the roulette city went spinning off into the far distance. All bets were off.

  Emma bounded onto the deck of the Black Starr and pointed her cutlass at the horizon, in the direction of the faraway nest trees.

  “Alas for you who get evil gain from your houses, setting your nests on high, and believe yourselves to be free from ruin!” Emma cried. “The prophet Habakkuk.”

  “And hasta la vista too,” Eli chimed in.

  Dylan felt his body stiffen. He was becoming flesh and blood again—and he was having a seizure. There was a metallic taste on his tongue. He lost control of his arms and legs and fell to the earth. The world turned blurry and he felt like he was choking. With that, he saw and heard no more.

  Dylan woke up beside a waterfall. He was resting on soft grass and the flowers around him were singing. There were two moons in the sky and he couldn’t see the Earth.

  Ines, Eli, and Emma were standing over him.

  “What happened?”

  “You’re back in your human form,” Eli said. “Your avatar is so powerful, there isn’t enough magic to maintain it for long.”

  “You also had a seizure,” Emma said, “since video games trigger them. So when you came here, it was only a matter of time before you had a big one. You need to rest.”

  “Where’s the Baron?”

  “His rule is over,” Ines said.

  Eli smiled. “All he left behind were a couple giant crimson feathers.”

  “So the web has fallen?” Dylan asked.

  “Folks are just going to have to live up to the principles without it,” Ines said. “Maybe it’s better that way.”

  “How did you get here anyway?” Dylan asked Emma.

  “I played Xamaica when you weren’t around. I went way past the forty-fourth level, found this magic boat, and put together my own crew. I used a fake name, so I couldn’t take my slot as a Game Changer. ”

  “Ariel November? The girl picked before me? Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Hello? Half the school still calls me Viral Emma! You think I needed one more thing to make me seem pirate crazy? Anyway, I became something of a legend around here. When the water flooded into the Mee Mansion, it took me by surprise—I had never entered Xamaica for real before, only as an avatar. The Baron ambushed me and my crew and I had to go into hiding. I sent my ship to get you when you first arrived, but the Baron destroyed it. It’s a magic ship, though, so it wasn’t wrecked for long. It took me all this time to get a new crew together and track you down.”

  “What happened to the real Ma Sinéad?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe every few years they have to change the person in the position. Like they do with popes, or poet laureates, or the guys who play James Bond.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back!” Dylan exclaimed. “So where’s Nanni? Is the witch okay?”

  Eli and Ines looked at each other.

  “Tell me,” Dylan demanded, his voice tight with concern.

  “You better go see her,” Ines said softly.

  Dylan went alone into a nearby grove of palm trees. Nanni was on the ground leaning her head against a trunk. It was the same tree into which Dylan had carved his name a lifetime ago.

  She was holding her iron book close to her chest. He gently took it from her arms and knelt down beside her. “You knew the Baron would lose. The prophecy—the Baron’s final victory would be your final defeat. It had a dual meaning. Once you lost, he couldn’t win again. It was his final victory. The Baron was so bent on destroying you, he couldn’t see that.”

  Nanni coughed, and blood stained her lips.

  “You’re not well,” Dylan whispered. “What can I do?”

  She stared at him, and pursed her lips a bit as if to say shhhh. Then she told him something he had sensed from the start, but didn’t dare to hope.

  (On Earth my name was Lunnette. His name was Griffith)

  * * *

  Lunnette and Griffith married and had a son. She cooked jerk pork in the kitchen, played chess in the living room, and sipped mango juice on the porch as she reflected on the treasures in her secret book. The days passed and she saw herself aging, as any human would. She could have lived forever in Xamaica. She gave up obeah for life on Earth.

  But then came her mistake. No, she wouldn’t call it that, because she did what she had to do, what any mother would do. How would any parent feel, seeing their firstborn convulsed in seizures, his eyes rolling back in his head, his tiny mouth an oval of pain? The doctors told her then that there was no cure, that the condition was fatal, that the only only hope for her baby Dylan was a miracle.

  So, without telling Griffith, Lunnette breeched the portal between worlds. She knew she was risking everything by doing so. She reached back to Xamaica to draw on her obeah, to cast a spell that would stop the seizures and save the life of her child, uttering the ancient words inscribed in stone by the Inklings themselves:

  There is no way—but The Way

  There is no time—but now

  There is no love—but one love . . .

  The spells did their work. Now, unless her baby came into contact with sorcery, he would be forever free from his ailment. Her spells also ensured that her new daughter, Emma, would be born without the magical malady.

  But the Baron was watching. And when she cast her spell, it drew his eye. He knew he had at last tracked down his prey. It was then that he sent his spies to destroy her happiness. He dispatched a flock of hummingbirds to clog the engines of Griffith’s aircraft. And the Baron himself arrived in the form of a feathered crimson beast to attack the plane. Without her spells, Nanni was unable to stop him—but she somehow survived the onslaught. Confused by the attack and shattered with grief, however, she thought she had lost a husband, a son, and a daughter. She returned to Xamaica, her power sapped for a time, and wandered the land. That was when she found The Way.

  * * *

  Emma was here now, kneeling beside Dylan. With eyes full of tears, Nanni peered at them both.

  “Why didn’t you tell me who you were when I first saw you in Xamaica?” Dylan asked.

  (I couldn’t let myself hope that it was true. Then, before the battle, I saw myself in your mind. And soon it all came back—a trickle, and then a flood. My time on Earth was like a different life. It was a sweet time. Perhaps in a way I made myself forget. I’ve now pieced together my memories, and I can picture what happened and how we were saved. On the plane, when we were crashing, your father gave his life tearing magic feathers from the Baron’s chest that softened my landing and saved my life. I escaped back to Xamaica uncertain of where I had been and what exactly had happened. I thought you had perished—but now I know your father’s actions saved both you and Emma)

  She closed her eyes.

  “My soul is satisfied. I am Nanni and Lunnette. I am warrior and mother.” Her voice sounded thin and tired and happy. “And now I’ve found you—my children.”

  With those words, she put a single heart-shaped piece in the puzzle in Dylan’s mind, and his family portrait was suddenly complete. He knew who he was.

  Nanni spoke no more. Her cheek brushed against Dylan and, all at once, he had a flood of memories of cozy evenings and lazy afternoons, before he could walk or talk but not before he could feel love, when she was his mother and he was her child, and nothing in the w
hole world, or any other planet, really mattered but that tender fact.

  Then her cheek grew cold, like a marble bust, and that was that. A flight of shadows came and bore Nanni away into the comforting darkness of the woods.

  Some would tell the tale that moments later, on the place where Nanni’s body rested, a great dandelion bloomed, went to seed, and sent offspring flying to all corners of Xamaica, where they flower still.

  Dylan didn’t cry but Emma did. So he held her until her tears stopped flowing. And for the first time he noticed how much his little sister looked like their mom.

  * * *

  They laid Nestuh to rest in the morning.

  His people came from Akbeth Akbar and took his body back to that region in the south of Xamaica, where the great spiders live. There, they prepared for his passing in the traditional manner, holding a vast Weaving. Dylan, Ines, and Eli went with them, and were given the honor of carrying Nestuh’s burial cocoon.

  “If I hadn’t left him to go after Nanni’s book, he would still be alive,” Eli sobbed. “I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for that.”

  Ines turned to face Eli, and hugged him with her Iron Lion paws. “You don’t have to forgive yourself,” she whispered. “I’m doing it for you.”

  All 1,554 of Nestuh’s siblings attended the Weaving, except a sister who was in the midst of delivering 2,765 babies of her own. The relatives gathered on a green hillside of a white cliff overlooking the harbor of Akbin Agneth. There, in the long grass, the spider sisters did their spinning, until they had woven a web larger than a ship’s sail. One spider—bigger and grayer than the rest—stood near the top of the slope. She gave a welcoming wave to the hummingbirds watching the ceremony from the treetops. There was no trace of bitterness in her eight eyes.

  “I am Kaysee, mother of Nestuh,” she said in a voice smooth as silk. “We spiders believe that in Time Out of Mind, Anancy connected every living thing with a web. Because the web could not be seen, other creatures didn’t believe it was real.”

  A breeze—flower-sweet, like the breath of Jah—caught the vast funeral web, which had been fastened with long strands, like a parachute, to the burial cocoon.