Game's End

by Kevin J. Anderson

  He lowered his voice and turned his dark eyes toward the distant heaxagons of Taire. "I built that city."

  Jathen stood next to Enrod. "If we leave now, we can cover the first hexagons, lie low during the day, and reach the hills by nightfall tomorrow. We can get into the city after dark and look around when we'd be least likely to be spotted."

  Enrod nodded, and kept nodding. Jathen felt thrilled to be a partner to the Sorcerer who had created the city where Jathen grew up. The Sentinel would strike a blow for Taire. Enrod could win. Enrod could make it right again.

  Delrael nodded. "Go when you're ready."

  Siya prepared packages of food for them, from which Jathen and Enrod ate sparingly through the rest of the night. They stumbled down the winding quest-path into the growing dawn.

  The two moved in silence for the most part. Enrod seemed swallowed by his own thoughts; at times he rubbed his hands together and stared at the skin. Jathen felt too much in awe of him to start small conversation.

  Finally, as the morning grew bright and a line of grassy hills blocked their view of the city, Enrod turned to him and said, "Your last memory of Taire. After Scartaris. Tell me what I should expect."

  "Imagine the worst you possibly can," Jathen answered. His throat felt thick, clogged with too many screams he had never dared to utter. He closed his eyes. "And then double it."

  Thoughts of his own work in the tannery, with the gray-skinned and gray-clad Tairans shuffling up and down the streets, mindless because of Scartaris.

  "Tairans were put to work making weapons. Our blacksmiths forged swords and spear heads. Our tannery made shields and armor. You knew that already. We emptied our storage bins to provide supplies to Scartaris. He took all our horses."

  Jathen took a deep breath. "Scartaris didn't slaughter characters just to amuse himself, though. He killed them when he needed their bodies more than he needed their lives. Siryyk the manticore killed everyone just because they were in his way."

  Enrod shook his head and kept walking. "Wish I could remember."

  Jathen turned away. "I wish I could forget."

  When darkness had fallen and the orange flames glowed behind the city walls, Enrod and Jathen stared at a Taire that had become a complete stranger, a dark and broken whisper of itself.

  Several of the side gates stood unguarded; other parts of the wall had been torn down, with broken stones strewn on the barren ground. The two of them slipped through the narrow Tairan streets, avoiding all noises.

  Keeping their backs to the walls and sinking into the shadows of deep-cut friezes, they moved deeper into Taire. The buildings showed black windows filled with shadows on the inside. Jathen had never thought his city looked so sinister before.

  Enrod appeared too appalled even to utter a comment. His dark eyes looked like wide black holes in his face. He seemed most disturbed by the malicious defacing of buildings and artwork. "Why?" he muttered. "Why?"

  They stood in front of the broad fresco showing the powerful but faceless image of the Stranger Unlooked-For who had once rescued the land around Taire. Some of the monsters had drawn a cruel, distorted visage on it; Jathen took a moment to recognize that the scrawled mane and horns were meant to indicate Siryyk the manticore. Siryyk, replacing the savior of Taire.

  Around another corner they stumbled upon a pile of bones, some picked clean, others glistening with gelatinous lines of red and yellow. Skulls poked out from the refuse. Jathen slapped a grimy hand over his nose to prevent the smell from making him retch.

  Moving ahead, they came as close as they dared to a group of monsters around a blazing bonfire. The creatures ate shapeless lumps of meat or scooped steaming black gruel out of bowls with their fingers. Others talked and roared and made strange sounds. Many of the gathered creatures appeared relaxed. Weapons lay next to discarded and uncomfortable pieces of armor.

  Siryyk's soldiers played dice games and threw sticks at a target on the wall. In the center of a ring of spectators, two hunchbacked beasts with great curling tusks crouched down and glared at each other, weaving back and forth until, at some invisible signal, they lunged forward into each other, butting heads with a sound like two bricks clacking together. The other monsters roared and threw down wagers.

  "They don't seem to be mobilizing," Jathen said.

  Enrod shook his head. "Can't let them stay. Not in my city."

  "We have to get back and tell Delrael," Jathen said. "This will change his plans."

  But when they turned, they saw seven tall Slac, each carrying a spiked mace. The Slac stood in silence and glaring at them, battle ready, and blocking their way.

  Jathen had never seen the manticore up close until the Slac guards dragged him into the ampitheater. Slac clutched his arms so tightly that their claws tore into his skin. He stopped struggling because that only deepened the wounds.

  This ampitheater had once been used as a meeting place for characters to discuss the future of Taire. Jathen remembered from the time he was a little boy how Enrod had stood on the platform, speaking his great visions for a reborn land. Enrod had been full of charismatic words then, calling for a flourishing Taire, for all the human characters to heal the scars that the Sorcerer Wars had left across the map. Enrod himself had made the first strokes on the large mural depicted around the ampitheater wall. The mural was now chipped away by thrown stones and smeared by soot and filth. Enrod stood beside him, another helpless captive.

  The manticore arched his lumpy eyebrows as he drew in a long breath of surprise. "What are these? More guests?" With a low growl, he looked at the monster soldiers. "I thought we had evicted all humans from the city and surrounding hexagons."

  "We captured them," one of the Slac said. "But we have not yet interrogated them. We thought you might like that pleasure."

  The manticore padded three steps closer, crouched down to glare at the two captives, and then suddenly he slashed across the air with a paw filled with razor claws. Siryyk missed laying open Jathen's chest by the thickness of a piece of cloth. Jathen stumbled backward, but the Slac guards stood like trees, still holding onto his arms.

  "Now," Siryyk said, "Tell me who you are. I don't want to play games just yet."

  Jathen saw no point in refusing this at least, especially when he could make a reasonable lie. "My name is Jathen. I ran into the mountains when you attacked Taire and killed all my people. I managed to escape, I managed to flee from your monsters sent to hunt us down. They were clumsy, and they didn't try very hard. Many of us escaped."

  Jathen tried to keep himself from smiling as Siryyk raised himself up, bristling from the shoulders down. He snarled at the gathered Slac.

  "Find who was in charge of that operation! I want to hear from him. Briefly."

  Then Siryyk swivelled his huge head. Jathen thought he could hear the muscles creaking. The manticore let his torchlike yellow eyes fall on Enrod.

  "You are Enrod the Sentinel, a powerful magic user. Scartaris sent you with the Fire Stone to destroy Delrael. And, because you failed, Scartaris didn't succeed in conquering Gamearth!"

  Jathen saw Enrod concentrating on the words. He made no answer. Jathen wondered if Siryyk would just kill them for Enrod's failure. Then the manticore laughed.

  "I'm glad Scartaris didn't succeed. Otherwise we'd all be annihilated now." He raised his voice to a roar. "But you lost the Fire Stone! Now Delrael has it to fight against me. And he has two other Stones, each as great as the weapon I possess."

  Siryyk hunkered down again. "Tell me, Enrod, what do you know of the end of the Game? You're a great Sentinel. Explain to me what the Outsiders intend to do when they stop Playing. How can we protect ourselves?"

  Enrod tilted his head, as if listening to the distant voices again. His lips curved upward in a secret smile, but he said nothing.

  The manticore continued. "Is it true that if I gather all the Stones I can create my own Transition? Where is the fourth Stone? I want them all. If I have that power, along with the Sitn
altan weapon, that might be enough for me to escape the map and continue an existence of my own ― even when the Rules have gone away and Gamearth is no longer part of any universe. It will certainly be enough for the Outsiders to notice."

  Siryyk leaned forward. His eyes blazed. "Tell me, Enrod ― what can I do to save myself from the end of the Game?"

  Enrod asked, "Do the Outsiders speak to me?" He seemed to be asking a serious question. His eyebrows raised. Jathen couldn't understand what Enrod was doing. He hoped the Sentinel had some kind of plan.

  Siryyk let out a long, bubbling sigh, and closed his eyes, as if knowing that further discussion would be useless. "Then it's time to play a game of our own. The moment you decide to answer my questions, we can stop."

  The manticore grunted at the troops crouched around a firepit. "Bring me my little pins," he said. "The ones I put in jars."

  Two of the creatures grumbled to themselves and then elbowed a smooth-skinned goblin, who scurried out a low door in a side wall. Jathen wondered what amusements a manticore would enjoy playing.

  Then a large Slac in a finer uniform than the others strode into the ampitheater. The nails on his squarish feet clicked on the flagstones. "Siryyk! Professor Verne has escaped!"

  "What!" the manticore roared. Blue lightning played on the tip of his scorpion tail as he held it erect. "How?"

  "He created some sort of mechanism that chewed through the stone wall. He must have palmed a caustic substance that ate through his manacles. He is not there."

  "Find him again! He must be inside the city somewhere. And Korux ― do a better job than you did capturing the Tairan escapees!"

  Korux didn't seem to know what the manticore was talking about until he noticed the captives. Siryyk continued before the general could ask a question. "See that no harm comes to him. Verne has much more work to do for me."

  "Bring out the car!" Korux turned around and shouted into the night. His flowing black robes flapped behind him. He clapped his scaled hands like the crack of a stick against a stone wall.

  Outside in the darkness, Jathen watched as four other Slac pushed a battered red vehicle of some sort. He had never seen anything like it before: four wheels and a torn canopy, protruding levers, along with seats for several characters. Steam poured out of a stack on the top. Acting very excited, Korux crawled into the seat and played with the levers.

  The other Slac turned the vehicle around, pushing it from behind. Great gouts of steam belched from the stack, and the car began to move by itself. Korux played with the steering levers, making the vehicle veer left and then right as it chugged off into the shadows.

  The goblin returned, cradling jars filled with different-colored liquids. The goblin hunched in front of Siryyk and placed the vials by the manticore's paws. One of the jars tipped over with a clink, but the goblin snatched and righted it before Siryyk could react. Then he scurried away.

  The manticore reached forward to hold one of the vials up to the light. "These jars contain liquids. Three are harmless, three are slow-acting poisons. Two contain a venom that I squeezed from the jaws of one of our deadliest monster fighters. Though this poison kills instantly, the pain appears to be excruciating enough to make it seem a long, long time."

  Siryyk used the tips of his huge fingers to claw at a long, jewel-studded golden needle that rested inside the vial. "These are hair pins. We plucked them from some of the dead Tairan women who weren't burned too badly."

  Jathen felt his insides squirm as his mind brought him too-vivid pictures of the slaughter.

  "Now, you will select one of the vials, and we will pierce you with the needle."

  Siryyk pulled the golden pin out so that one droplet hung at the end like a tiny blue sapphire, dancing and reflecting the light from firepits.

  "I refuse!" Jathen snapped.

  Siryyk gave a minimal shrug. "Then I'll be forced to choose the first needle for you."

  "Pick," Enrod said to him. "No choice."

  Jathen felt astonished, betrayed ― or did Enrod have a trick up his sleeve? Enrod, the great Sentinel, certainly would fight somehow. Jathen had to trust in Enrod's ability.

  "Give me the amber-colored one," he said, then closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath between his teeth.

  One of the Slac came forward to pick up the indicated vial, then withdrew a long pin with an emerald mounted at the top. Jathen remembered seeing similar pins in the piled hair of women at celebration dances marking the anniversary of Taire.

  The Slac shuffled forward, holding the needle in front of him so that Jathen could see the thick golden droplet hanging from its tip. Jathen didn't know how to read the fire in the narrow green eyes that stared at him. The Slac stood in front of him and raised the sharp pin. It slowly moved to the left, then to the right, like some serpent trying to lull its prey.

  Jathen tried to calculate his chances. Three of the liquids were harmless, out of eight vials. Less than one in two, but still not terrible odds.

  "If you have anything to say to me, you could pause this game," Siryyk said.

  "I have nothing to say to you," Jathen said. "Nothing you'd want to hear."

  Siryyk was not impressed. He nodded to the Slac.

  The creature moved behind Jathen. Jathen didn't turn. He kept staring ahead, staring at the manticore, waiting. At any moment he expected the sting.

  Beside him, Enrod squeezed his eyes shut and mumbled incoherently. Jathen couldn't tell if the Sentinel was just talking to himself. He turned his eyes as far to the side as he could, attempting to see the Slac.

  He heard a quick rustle of fabric, then felt a stab as the needle plunged into his shoulder. Jathen made only a tiny sound before he cut off his cry of pain. The gold needle felt like fire, and then the Slac jerked it back out again.

  Jathen waited for venomous lava to eat him from inside. But after a moment he still felt nothing more than the sharp sting.

  "Enrod, it is your turn."

  As if distracted, Enrod selected the blue liquid that Siryyk had used as his example. Jathen wondered if the monster's corrupt touch alone could be enough to transmute an innocuous liquid into poison.

  Enrod winced when the needle stuck his arm, but he survived as well. "It burns," he said.

  Six vials remained.

  Trying to stall, wondering what Enrod intended to do with his magic, Jathen took a long time to make his next choice. "The orange one," he said, then swallowed as his throat became dry. This time he had only one chance in six, assuming that they had both chosen a harmless liquid the first time around.

  The Slac wasted no time withdrawing the needle and jabbing him in the arm. Jathen felt a greater stinging, but nothing more. In Jathen's mind, he considered himself already dead from the moment the monsters had captured him.

  "Choose, Enrod."

  Enrod stared at the glowing firepits next to the wall. He didn't seem to be paying attention. Just when the manticore reached for one of the vials of his own choosing, Jathen interrupted. He couldn't just stand by any longer.

  "All right, Siryyk! Let me tell you this much. Delrael carries all four Stones now. He has already found the Earth Stone. But he can't use them, because he's a human character. He needs a strong magic user."

  Enrod shook his head, then nodded instead. He picked up Jathen's story. "Doesn't trust me. I came to destroy his land."

  Jathen raised his voice. "Delrael will never let you take the Stones. His army may be untrained, but they'll fight to the death."

  Siryyk made a grunting chuckle deep in his chest. "That's how I like it. He can't keep the Stones from me if I want them."

  Enrod continued to glare at Siryyk. At his side, his hands clenched and unclenched. His lips trembled, and his eyes had a vacant look, as if only partially distracted by the manticore.

  "Very well," Siryyk said, "For that information ― " He picked up one bottle filled with a diamond-clear liquid. "We'll remove this one. It contains one of the deadly venoms. Your odds are slightly bette
r. Now choose."

  "Green," Enrod said. His body went rigid. If only three vials had contained harmless liquids then, even with the best of luck, the next one contained poison.

  The Slac soldier moved forward, extending the long needle. One droplet fell to the flagstone. Jathen looked to see if the liquid sizzled on the floor; it left only a wet spot.

  When the creature tried to prick the base of Enrod's neck, the metal hissed and dripped molten down the white robe. Enrod clenched his eyes shut, and his entire body shuddered, turning red. Tears streamed down his cheeks and puffed into steam as his skin-glow brightened.

  Enrod drew his lips back away from his teeth. Waves of heat baked off of his body. The Slac stumbled back with a grunt of astonishment. The manticore rose up. "What is this?"

  With an outcry from the effort, Enrod smashed his fists together. His entire form blazed with heat and light, shimmering so that Jathen could see only the Sentinel's blazing silhouette.

  "Eyes and mouth!" Enrod hissed to Jathen. "Cover them!"

  As if hurling something heavy but invisible, Enrod motioned his arms to the vials on the floor. All the bottles shattered in the gust of heat. The mixed liquids erupted in flames. Two of the vials burst into greenish-black smoke that rose thick into the air; the other poisons sizzled on the floor.

  The manticore roared and clawed at his eyes as the corrosive vapors curled into his misshapen face. Smoke filled the ampitheater. The monsters choked and coughed.

  "Run!" Enrod hissed, and hurried out the front of the ampitheater. Jathen stumbled after, holding his breath and covering his stinging eyes.

  Slac guards rushed to assist the manticore. Five of them lay already dead from the poison. The other monsters ran around, making inhuman sounds of anger and surprise.

  Jathen burst into the cool night air. Enrod remained at the entrance of Siryyk's headquarters. Jathen saw an expression of pained dismay through the shimmering roar around Enrod's body. Then the Sentinel smashed his arm into the archway. Stone columns crumbled with a roar, blocking off the main entrance.