The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  She smiled, stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him, her lips brushing against his, her arms around him. As best he could, he returned the gesture clumsily. He felt awkward but strangely, he wasn’t worried about that too much. An unusual feeling for him.

  “It’s not about repayment,” she said. “Consider it an investment in the future. You’ve been blessed with talent, tenacity, ferocity but no small measure of skill. Do you really want to be just a spirit caller for the rest of your days? Or do you want to actually do something to make a difference?”

  He didn’t know what to say about that.

  “Think about it. There’s always a need for talented spirit callers like you. It’s just a case of where and when.”

  Harvey was waking up, she could sense him coming around from the drugs they’d fed into him, the stretch of his fogged mind grabbing for any sort of conscious thought. Touching the surface of his mind was like plunging face first into filthy water. She wondered if he could feel her touch, feel her fury. He needed to. To describe herself as furious with him was too gentle a term.

  More than once she’d held back smothering him while he slumbered, it’d be far too quick and easy for him. What she had in mind was so much more useful. And painful for him. Couldn’t forget that. He’d screwed up badly, she’d given him orders and he hadn’t carried through on them. More than that, he’d deviated from them. By any logic, it should have earned him a death sentence. She couldn’t carry any sort of useless weakness.

  But no. She’d chosen mercy after a fashion. If he continued to be of use, he’d live a little longer. If he didn’t… She wouldn’t lose any sleep over him. Not that she had slept recently. Fatigue had been something that escaped her. Strange.

  A moan escaped him as he tried to sit up, couldn’t. He tugged at the restraints, she put a finger to his lips and shushed him gently.

  “Quiet!” she said. “You’ve suffered traumas.” It was true. He’d broken many bones through his fight with Roper, his left leg and kneecap had been shattered, several broken ribs and shattered teeth, his shoulder dislocated and wrist re-broken. His nose had almost been flattened by an elbow, Doctor Hota had commented on how he was lucky to be alive. The leg had had to come off, she’d made that decision and it had been carried out. If she said it had been totally benevolent for his health, it would have been a lie. It felt like a just punishment to make a point. The look of numb shock and terror on his face as he clutched at the stump was just delicious, she found herself drinking it in. For several long moments, he wailed and cried and begged, she thought he would stamp his foot if it wasn’t beyond him now.

  There was only so much of it she could take, she cleared her throat and glared at him, a silencing stare that shut him straight up.

  “Right,” she said. “Consider this. We’re already fitting you up for a prosthetic limb so quit your whining. You won’t even notice. You’ve already got cybernetic fingers, what’s a little more?”

  “Because…” he started to whine before thinking better of it. Her eyes narrowed and she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “You have screwed up a number of times,” she said. “But you’ve had some successes in there as well so I’m willing to forgive you. Your obsession with that girl has proved to be your undoing once again.”

  “Not my fault she’s surrounded by people tougher than me,” Rocastle moaned. She grimaced. He couldn’t really have just given that excuse to her, could he? It sounded pathetic, she fought the urge to strike him. Must have been the painkillers. “What can I do?”

  She smiled coldly at him. “Get better. I have a few ideas. We’re working on some stuff. And when we’re looking for volunteers, I expect you to be the first in the queue. After all, it doesn’t do for me to have doubts about where your loyalties lay.” She grazed her fingers across his cheek, drawing lines of blood with her nails. “Sleep well Harvey for the days will be long and hard ahead. But in this new world, a lord you shall be.”

  If he had anything else to say, she didn’t care, just turned to leave. Outside, Domis bowed to her. He didn’t seem to be diminished by his recent traumas, like a mountain, he was just as she always remembered him. Giant. Terrible. Imposing. He’d shown up earlier in the day, none the worse for the wear without anything as much as a complaint. She could do with more like him.

  “Goddess,” he whispered. Even more than the term Mistress, that pleased her. That pleased her so much. “What can I do to enhance your cause?”

  “It’s starting,” she said softly. “Soon the kingdoms will be changed forever and I will have won. But for now, we all have work to do. The time of Coppinger is coming and the kingdoms are never going to be the same again. You and I, my son, we are going to bring it all down and then raise it all up from the ashes.”

  Ever since she’d started to do something, ever since she’d taken to the skies in her fortress, ever since she’d gone through the gateway, she felt at peace with herself. She was doing something. She was ensuring that the visions she’d seen in her dreams wouldn’t come to pass. She’d been sleeping soundly since the war had begun, getting handfuls of hours wherever she could, peaceful if not lengthy. The dreams of death and destruction had faded, not completely but they troubled her less.

  That alone told her she was on the right path. She’d set foot on it now and she wouldn’t stop until she reached the end of it. Things were going to change in the kingdoms. She’d made a vow and she was going to stick to it.

  The storm came out of nowhere, nobody saw it coming, not even the people at the Khazri Kel’an Institute of Weather, Vazara. What they did know was that it almost appeared out of nowhere above the deepest, driest part of the thickest desert across the kingdom, covering almost the length of it and drenched it in an absolute downpour for six straight hours, no longer, no shorter. By the time they got people out to investigate it, it had ceased. Although interviewed nomads had later told them that there had been something quite not right about it. They’d called it, in their own tongue, divine rain. A gift from the gods. The elder of the tribe had reached down, scooped up a hand of sodden sand and let it trickle through his fingers, along with the word ‘alive’ accompanying it.

  The team had taken samples back to send off for study, curious. Less than a day later, the first shoots of greenery broke through the sands. At the same time, the deep gouges left in the desert by the Reims scar-mining technique saw water seeping through the base, more and more of it coming from somewhere. Soon there were rivers all over the plains, the vegetation sprouting up first alongside them before the green spread out across the desert…

  To Be Continued ...

  The Great Cycle.

  Coming 2018.