Game's End

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "I am honored to be your champion," he said.

  When Annik looked at him she seemed even more pleased. She shifted the giant two-handed sword with her massive arms. Delrael wondered if the single-combat challenge had been such a good idea after all. He did not feel a much better match for her than one of the ylvans would have been.

  But Delrael had undergone all the training his father could give him; he had gone on numerous quests; he had fought Gairoth the ogre, the colony of Anteds, Tryos the dragon, the shadow-creature Cailee, and the entire horde of Scartaris's creatures.

  "Well, Delrael." She let out a small chuckle. "Make your first move." She raised the sword and held it close to her shoulder.

  Delrael turned to Kellos. "I'll do my best for you."

  The moment he was distracted, Annik lunged forward, sweeping her great sword with both hands. Delrael saw the sudden change of expression on Kellos's face. At the same moment Jathen spat out a warning.

  But he was already diving to the ground. The edge of Annik's blade made a moaning sound as it scythed across the air. Delrael rolled up and sprang to his feet, watching her recover from the stroke. She twisted her face with concentrated effort to wield the heavy weapon. She had intended to lop his head off before he could even strike back.

  Delrael leaped to his feet. The Black Falcon troops snickered among themselves. Corim sat stony-faced on his horse.

  Delrael charged in with his sword up to guard himself. His fighting fury seethed through his veins, worse now than just outrage at what the Black Falcons had done to the ylvan village.

  He swung and ducked, trying to get close to Annik where she could not use her two-handed sword. But she swept with the point of the blade, low this time. It would have disembowelled him if he had not skipped back.

  Delrael's ears roared with the cheers and cries of ylvans, his own army, the Black Falcons. He thought he heard Tareah wishing him luck. He knew old Siya would be watching in horror, remembering another battle that had slain her husband.

  Delrael felt his muscles sing with the energy. This was fighting, this was doing something, this was the way the Game should be played. But it should be fought against a worthy enemy, not a misguided fool.

  Delrael forced himself to pause for one heartbeat as he recentered his thoughts. He looked at Annik, trying to drive back the emotion, focusing on how to defeat her rather than on how to get revenge. Revenge would only distort his thoughts.

  Delrael gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and reached up to block Annik's swing. When the blades struck, the clang of metal rang out in the forest air. Delrael felt his arms shake in their sockets ― it reminded him of trying to battle against Gairoth's spiked club. But Gairoth had been stupid; Annik and the Black Falcon troops were not stupid.

  He kept his eyes on her blade locked against his, but a movement of her arm distracted him. Annik took one hand from her sword and moved it to her waist, where she slid out a long dagger. The massive sword in her right hand dipped toward the ground as she concentrated on the dagger, thrusting it forward and up.

  Delrael squirmed away, but the edge sliced along his leather armor, gashing it open in a stinging line along his ribcage.

  He struck up with his sword, trying to knock Annik's knife hand away. Then he noticed, too late for him to act, that even with only one hand Annik brought her great sword around, low to the ground because she couldn't lift it high enough for a lethal blow. Her face grimaced with the effort.

  The wide blade smashed into Delrael's unprotected left leg below the knee. He heard a loud thwock.

  White lights and thunderous pain exploded up his leg and popped into his brain. Delrael screamed and fell over backward, unable to think, unable to move.

  He heard vague echoes of his army crying out in dismay. He thought he heard ylvan voices among them. He tried to blink the swimming black blotches away from his vision. As his sight finally cleared, he attempted to somehow defend himself. But a sickening feeling greater than the pain told him he had lost, that he would never fight against Siryyk's army and save Gamearth. He would fall here, the victim of another human fighter.

  Annik stood over him, broadsword upraised in two hands. Her dagger lay behind her on the ground where she had dropped it. Annik obviously intended to lop off his head on the forest floor among the ashes of old ylvan campfires.

  But her expression transformed into one of horror. Her ponytails, weighted with the iron balls, hung in front of her face like reaching tentacles. She gawked down at the wound at his leg, at the lack of blood.

  He squirmed up, seeing only a white gash, the chewed notch in the kennok wood that had been carved into the shape of a human leg by the khelebar.

  Delrael felt the pain, but the injury would not be crippling. Thilane Healer had shown him how to repair the magic leg.

  The Black Falcon troops stood around with astounded expressions. Annik looked appalled. "You're not even human!" she said, working the words out of her mouth one at a time.

  Delrael, still holding onto his sword, gathered up his own energy, ignoring the artificial pain in his leg. He croaked, "Are you?"

  He moved his body, coiling at his waist, bunching his shoulders. He lunged upward at Annik standing over him. The tip of his sword pierced into her stomach, struck something hard and deep ― her spine ― slid sideways, and then poked out between ribs and her back. The black leather vest folded like puckering lips around the protruding blade.

  Blood gushed up and ran down her dark leather armor. Annik's eyes bulged, filled with red as they hemorrhaged from inside. She choked, coughing blood, and hung balanced on Delrael's sword until her weight drove his own arms down. She slumped farther onto the blade, collapsing on top of him.

  Annik lay over him like a smothering weight. Delrael couldn't hear anything but her dying gasps and gurgles. Her body spasmed as she tried to move. But it was just reflex. Annik had already died.

  Delrael pulled himself out. Jathen helped him up. "You won," he said.

  Delrael took a deep breath. "Wonderful, isn't it? Help me stand."

  The Tairan pulled Delrael's arm over his shoulder and hauled him to his feet. Delrael left his sword in Annik's body and used his free hand to wipe at the blood on his chest. He succeeded only in smearing it into dark streaks that soaked into his leather armor. He looked down at his injured leg and saw that a large chunk of the wood had been hacked out, as if a woodsman had struck him with an ax.

  Delrael ignored that. The pain still surged through him, but he could stand it. Trying to keep his breathing in check, he looked at the upset and confused Black Falcon riders.

  "I've won in single combat," he gasped. "According to the Rules. You must now leave the ylvans alone and join us in our fight against the manticore."

  Anger flared in the Black Falcon riders, but Corim held up his hand. He urged his mount to take two steps forward, then turned his dispassionate expression toward the dead form of Annik lying face-down in the dirt. Blood pooled under her. The end of Delrael's sword protruded from her back, gleaming bright as the stain ran off of it.

  "Annik fought you," Corim said, "but I never heard her agree to your terms." The other riders grunted their assent. One laughed.

  "Therefore, you had no agreement. We don't feel bound by that bargain."

  Delrael's army made sounds of their own anger, and the ylvans shouted. But Corim continued, "However, if you offer protection to the ylvans, I don't think it's very wise for the Black Falcons to keep preying on them. But we will never join your army ― there's too much difference between us."

  Corim swung his bow and mounted it back on his shoulder. "Though you might not agree, Gamearth's enemies are our enemies too. We may fight with you someday if we see you battling a worthy enemy and need our assistance."

  Corim motioned at two of the Black Falcon riders. "We'll take our dead, Delrael, and let you do as you wish."

  Other riders dismounted and went to the dead fighter against the tree. Lifting him
, they spread his body across the back of his horse, sideways on the saddle. The Black Falcons plucked the ylvan arrows from the corpse and threw them to the ground in disgust.

  Corim himself rolled Annik's body over and removed Delrael's sword. With no expression on his face, he handed the blade back to Delrael. Jathen took it, glared at the Black Falcon man, but Delrael kept staring at Corim.

  The Black Falcon troops completed their preparations without speaking a word to Delrael or his army or the ylvans. Delrael motioned for his fighters not to interfere.

  Corim bent under the horse and tied Annik's hands beneath the saddle so her body would not slide off. The horses appeared upset by the blood and dead bodies. The Black Falcon riders mounted up again.

  Kellos stared at them like a weapon ready to explode. Delrael had trouble keeping his voice steady as the pain pounded in his leg. He turned to the little man. "Gather your survivors. Free the others and go find the rest of your people. The ylvans will come with us."

  Corim looked back once at Delrael, met his gaze, but said nothing. Without a word, the Black Falcon troops rode into the forest.

  Then Delrael allowed himself to pass out.

  ――――

  Chapter 10

  UNWELCOME GUESTS IN SITNALTA

  "We cannot blame the Outsiders for everything that happens to us. Characters are responsible for their own actions. No one can take that away from us."

  ― Dirac, city leader of Sitnalta.

  The quest-path reeled out in a pale line across the flat grassy terrain. Vailret squinted ahead. The walls of Sitnalta rose tall, visible from a long distance.

  "I'm actually relieved to see that place," Bryl said, "though we didn't have much fun there last time." Vailret murmured his agreement. It was the first group of human characters they had seen since splitting off from the main army.

  His feet felt sore and his body ached, but he walked with exhilaration as well as exhaustion. Though Bryl complained about aching joints and the cold of sleeping outside, and how he was too old to keep doing this, he managed to keep up with Vailret.

  Their journey had been smooth and uneventful, but Vailret felt anxious to get the Earth Stone and return to the protection of the main army. He had spent too much time studying legends instead of swinging swords; he could not defeat many opponents if it came to a battle. Vailret didn't know how well Bryl could defend them, even with the Stones as weapons.

  The observation parapets on the Sitnaltan walls looked out at the surrounding terrain. Vailret shaded his eyes and threw his hair back. He could see no human faces in the tiny windows.

  Vailret remembered approaching the city the first time, with Delrael limping on his stiffening kennok leg; its khelebar magic had begun to fade inside the technological fringe. Delrael could never return to Sitnalta, because it would leave him crippled again. Mayer had come out to meet them from the tower.

  "Hello the tower!" Bryl shouted, then lowered his voice. "At least they'll give us hot food."

  Vailret waited for an answer, but no one came to the dark windows. "We need the Sitnaltans to help us cross the ocean hexagons. A boat or another balloon or something. That's more important than food."

  "I am not riding in a balloon again!" Bryl said. "I prefer keeping my feet on the ground." He stamped on the quest-path for emphasis.

  "Well unless you can find some way to walk across the water hexagons to Rokanun, you're going to have to put up with it."

  Bryl huffed and looked toward the city. "The gate's open. Let's just walk inside."

  They entered Sitnalta, and Vailret looked around, puzzling at how it had changed. The sky remained clear of belching smoke and steam from the large manufactories. The air carried only normal noises: people and activities, not the bustle and frantic pace Sitnalta had shown before. Vailret and Bryl stopped and stared, standing on the clean streets cobbled with hexagon-shaped tiles.

  A little old man hurried out of an annex building beside the observation tower. "You don't want to stay here!" the old man said, waving his hands to shoo them back out the gate.

  "Yes we do," Bryl said. "We've been here before."

  "No, no!" the old man insisted. He had dark brown eyes deep within sockets haloed by wrinkles. His gray-flecked eyebrows protruded from his forehead like bottle-brushes. He looked older and more intense than Bryl. "Get away before it notices you! If you wait too long, you might never be able to leave."

  Vailret bent down to the old man's height. "We need your help. We don't have any choice."

  The old man appeared distressed, and Vailret spread his hands to look as diplomatic as possible. "Can you call Mayer, or Professor Verne? Or even Dirac ― they'll speak for us."

  Bryl frowned at the mention of Dirac, the bureaucratic city leader who had created many inventions ― seventy of them, as his daughter Mayer had said over and over ― but Dirac had refused them any assistance in their first quest.

  "Do you have some way of communicating with them?" Bryl said.

  The old man's eyes lit up. "But of course! The best communication system on all of Gamearth. I'm Professor Morse ― I developed it myself. Installed through all the streets of the city, direct and instantaneous communication via electrical impulse. Amazing, amazing ― I wonder at it myself sometimes, and I invented the thing! Amazing, indeed."

  He paused and put a finger to his shriveled lips. "But some of the lines are down. The wires snapped, you know, when the buildings toppled. I'm ... who was it you wanted to contact again?"

  "Mayer. Professor Verne. Professor Frankenstein even, or Dirac." Vailret ticked off the names, hoping Morse could reach at least one of them.

  Morse counted on his fingers. "Well, Professor Verne left a long time ago. Something to do with the destruction of the world, I believe. I didn't pay much attention. Mayer's gone too ― she disappeared just a day or two ago. Back to that Outsider ship. Got it into her head that she'd find some way to rescue the city of Sitnalta from our dreadful plight." Professor Morse flashed another broad smile. "When you sit by the communications systems you get to hear all sorts of little tidbits." He chuckled.

  "Professor Frankenstein is very busy, I'm afraid, and I'd rather not disturb him." Then he held up one finger by itself. "Ah, but Dirac! He'll find the time. We have lots of work rebuilding what we've destroyed, but I don't think he bothers with any of it."

  Morse ducked inside his small building. Vailret and Bryl peered inside as the old man flipped switches on an apparatus. He began tapping on a gadget that sent clicks along a wire. After a moment, he scowled down at it, frowned, and adjusted a dial.

  "No, that won't work." He tapped his fingernails against the desk. "Alternate routes, alternate routes. With the complexity of our system here, there are always alternate routes."

  Morse began tapping and clicking again, and this time he beamed. "Ah yes, that's done it. Now, we just wait." He flicked the machine again.

  "What are we waiting for?" Bryl asked.

  Two thick prongs of a metallic gadget began wobbling together like chattering teeth. "That!" Professor Morse cocked his ear, slitting his eyes half closed. He seemed to be keeping track of something on his fingers.

  "What are you ― " Vailret began.

  "Shhh!" Morse continued to mark invisible letters on the palm of his hand, then sat up. "It's a code you know. I have to pay attention. Yes, Dirac is coming right over."

  "What is this dreadful plight you keep talking about?" Vailret asked. "What's happened in Sitnalta?"

  Morse turned red with contained anger. "It's a curse, I say! But that's not very scientific, so I don't say it often. But until proven otherwise, I'll continue to call it a curse."

  "So what is it?" Bryl asked.

  Morse pursed his lips and hummed, as if trying to construct an acceptable explanation. "You know how the Outsiders supposedly Play us? Make their characters do whatever they want? The Outsiders do it well, because we all operate under the illusion that our actions are our own. When you move
your arm up and down ― " Morse waved his arm from side to side. "It doesn't seem to be any idea but your own. Although we know otherwise."

  Vailret tapped his fingers against the wall.

  "Some force has suddenly taken on the role of doing that more directly, like a controller making us move, yanking our arms and legs like little automatons, forcing us to do things that aren't in our own heads. Four times a day, every day! It's made us demolish the manufactories and wreck some of our facilities. Why, we even did without street lights for a while because the gas conduits had been broken."

  "What's causing it?" Vailret asked. He cocked his head, listening for the approach of Dirac's vehicle.

  Morse shook his head. "None of us has formulated an acceptable hypothesis. Although Dirac has offered a prize for the character who does it ― a genuine patent certificate and an engraved metal plaque on a building."

  "Oh boy," Bryl muttered.

  Morse turned toward the open door. Vailret heard a faint chugging noise. "That must be Dirac himself." Morse glanced at a timepiece propped against the wall, then tilted his head so he could see the correct time. "Yes, it's been long enough."

  They stepped outside and saw a blue steam-engine car coming around the corner. Pennants and flags poked up from either side, red and gold and green, each bearing the stylized crest of Sitnalta. The colors waved in the breeze as the vehicle rattled across the cobblestones. The pennants flipped away from the clouds of steam gushing out the stack.

  The car rolled along, grinding its own gears. In front, Dirac sat alone in the seat. A portly man, with reddish-brown hair curled around ears that looked like tiny plates. His lower lip protruded pink against his florid skin. Dirac's fingers were short, like sausages wrapped around the steering levers.

  His eyes looked wide and wild, though. As he approached, Dirac drew back his lips and clenched his teeth. A line of spittle trickled into his puffy beard.