Game's End

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Despite his apparent determination, he seemed to have an underlying aura of calmness about him. He carried an unsheathed broadsword in his right hand. When he stepped forward, the fighter looked as if he would make no compromises.

  "He came right through the army," Romm said. "He won't tell anyone who he is. Just wanted to see you."

  Tayron and Ydaim fell silent in the clearing, as if sensing the import of the moment.

  Delrael felt amazement stab through him like blue-cold steel. Part of him grew surprised that Romm hadn't recognized the fighter, but it had been many years.

  "Father!" Delrael's voice came out in a whisper.

  Drodanis took two steps forward and rested the flat of his sword on his shoulder. "I've come to help. Could you use another fighter?"

  Delrael stood stricken for a moment, and then ran forward as both of them burst into huge grins.

  The campfire crackled, shedding warmth into the night. Above, stars showed through patchy clouds and the tangled ceiling of branches.

  Delrael and Drodanis sat near each other. The rest of the army rested by their own fires with strict instructions not to harm any trees or to wander from the well-marked paths. They left Delrael and his father to catch up on years of conversation left behind.

  "I was very angry when you left," Delrael said. "I wasn't ready for the responsibility you gave me. I had my training, but you suddenly placed me in command of the Stronghold while you ran off. You gave up! A great fighter like you shouldn't surrender!"

  Drodanis stared into the flames and made no comment.

  "I had companions die too ― " Their faces welled up in Delrael's memory, but he blinked them away. "But I continued the Game. I didn't let my grief poison me. You ran away and left me."

  Delrael took a deep breath. "And then you sent that message stick from the Rulewoman, giving me the responsibility of saving Gamearth. You told me to find a way to stop Scartaris ― while you sat and wallowed in self-pity for turn after turn!"

  Drodanis accepted all the comments Delrael flung at him, and he turned tired eyes at his son. Delrael saw the firelight reflected in them. "Everything you say is true. I did give up. I was wrong ― that's the loser's way out. We weren't created for that kind of response. That's why I came back to rejoin the Game, to make amends."

  "I wish you'd come back sooner," Delrael said. The campfire snapped and popped over his words.

  "Yes," Drodanis said. "We forgot our purpose here on Gamearth. We allowed ourselves to get too wrapped up in dull activities and day-to-day life. Our whole purpose on Gamearth is to amuse the Outsiders. We are here to have adventures, and the Outsiders are not at all interested in our chores, in our bland home lives.

  "When we stopped questing, when we stopped searching for treasure and exploring catacombs and battling monsters for the sake of having fun and nothing else, that's when we lost the Outsiders. We can only hope that this struggle against Siryyk is exciting enough that we rekindle the Outsiders' interests. They can save us all."

  Delrael frowned with distaste. He poked a branch into the fire, stirring the flames. "My purpose in life is not to amuse someone else. I'm responsible for this army, for the characters in the Stronghold village. I'm working to save the map from destruction. And I'm doing that because it must be done, not because I hope the Outsiders are going to enjoy watching my efforts. If they find my tasks entertaining, then so be it. But that is not the only reason I'm here."

  Drodanis looked at his son as if he had just uttered blasphemy. "Are you forgetting Rule #1 Delrael? With the end of the Game, our purpose in life goes away. If that happens, it doesn't matter if the map survives. If the Outsiders no longer play, then we have no reason to be here at all."

  Delrael shook his head. "Rule #1 has taken on a whole different meaning. Rule #1 is to survive, not just to have fun."

  Drodanis closed his eyes with a disturbed sigh. He lay back on the ground, ready to sleep. "So much has changed, Delrael. So much has changed. This isn't my Gamearth anymore."

  Delrael tried to sleep, though his mind continued to swim with conflicting thoughts. "But that's the Gamearth we're fighting for."

  Tayron Tribeleader walked among the dark passages in the regrown Ledaygen. The trees rose tall around him. The branches appeared black and oily, lit by the gleams of stars.

  His pawed feet moved silently among the ashes on the ground. He let his fingertips touch the trunks as he passed them.

  Tayron tried to remember what Ledaygen had been like before, but it was so long now. He had spent many turns convincing himself that this was natural, that the forest had suffered no fundamental change. He forced himself to ignore the pain in the trees. He remembered the horror of the fire. He remembered his father Fiolin crushed under a great slab of rock hurled by the Cyclops. That had left him as Tribeleader.

  Tayron passed two sleeping human fighters curled up near the base of a tree. They didn't move as he passed.

  The decision weighed heavily on him, caused by the fear and uneasiness at admitting his basic failure.

  Tayron wondered if he would ever be considered a great leader of the khelebar. Would he ever be compared to Jorig Falselimb and his great courage as he faced the slavering wolves and drove them from Ledaygen?

  He plucked a curved twig from the end of a branch and held it up. The twig looked like a long sharp hook. When he brought the broken end to his nose, the sap smelled sour and rotten.

  Tayron squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the tears to run sideways down his cheeks.

  This was not Ledaygen. It would never be Ledaygen. He fooled himself, as did all the khelebar. All their effort had merely been to distract them from grief. They should have accepted the loss, healed, and moved on. Ledaygen was gone; it had been gone since the fire.

  Delrael's army completed their preparations several hours before the vanguard of Siryyk's horde arrived. Most of the fighters had moved into position on the far side of the hexagon.

  Many fighters walked about, eager for battle. They had marched long and trained hard; knowing that the monsters were so near made them enthusiastic for a fight. But Delrael refused, telling them that they had no need to tip their hand yet, or to risk lives.

  Tayron Tribeleader's ambush plan required none of that.

  Kellos and seventeen ylvans waited on the leading edge of Ledaygen, watching as the vanguard approached. They hid behind trees, camouflaged in their splotched uniforms. Kellos crouched close to one of the trunks, but avoided touching the bark. The wrongness of all the trees made his skin crawl.

  He looked behind him, making sure he could find the tiny marks on the ash-strewn forest floor. The other ylvans also noted their positions, making sure they could locate the subtle signs even in the frenzy of retreat.

  The front line of monsters approached under the hot afternoon sun. They plodded along at a steady pace. The creatures on the flanks seemed uneasy; they had been harried enough by scattered attacks and traps that they walked with heightened awareness.

  A regiment of Slac formed the rigid front lines with locked shields made of greenish-tan leather. They held various pointed weapons, spiked balls, barbed spears, and jagged swords. Behind them followed ranks of demons with exagerrated claws and fangs and spined armor. They did not slow as they reached the hex-line into the forest terrain.

  Kellos made a crackling noise with saliva in his mouth. It sounded like branches clicking together overhead, but the ylvans withdrew their crossbows. As soon as Kellos coughed, all seventeen leaped away from their hiding places, shouting as they launched forth a full attack with crossbows. They fired over and over again. The tiny bolts made whistling sounds in the air.

  As the monster army reacted with a roar, fourteen of the front Slac toppled with crossbow bolts in their eyes and throats. Predictably, the rest of the army lunged forward, brandishing weapons and charging into the trees.

  Kellos paused for two seconds longer and let off another pair of crossbow bolts, bringing down one more enemy. T
hen he gave the signal for retreat, and the ylvans turned and fled deeper into the trees, stepping only on their marks.

  When the front wave of the vanguard crashed into the forest terrain, suddenly the ground vanished beneath their feet with a puff of gray ash. Twenty monster fighters plunged face-first into long trenches filled with spikes.

  The second wave of booby-traps sprung as the ylvans brushed past them, and a line of trees toppled backward into the monster army. All the topmost branches had been sharpened into wooden stakes.

  Laughing, Kellos and his ylvans continued to flee, still avoiding any touch from the warped trees of Ledaygen.

  Siryyk's vanguard howled behind them, negotiating the obstacles and struggling deeper into the forest, deeper into the trap.

  Delrael waited as the ylvans burst back to the hex-line where his own army stood prepared. The little forest people looked flushed, smeared with ashes and scratched from their rapid flight. Even Kellos bore an expression of stormy delight at the destruction he had caused.

  Tayron clapped his hands for the attention of the other khelebar. "You know your positions. You know what you must do."

  The panther-people stood uneasy. Ydaim turned to the Tribeleader. "Are you certain, Tayron? You can't change your mind once we go."

  "My decision has already been set in motion," Tayron answered. "We must hold the memory of Ledaygen true, not waste our efforts with a distorted imitation. We've worked hard, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. But now we must do what the Game calls for. The true Ledaygen vanished in the first fire."

  One of the khelebar groaned, but Tayron whirled. "We will have no more despairing! We are strong. Now go..." Despite his words, his own voice caught as he spoke the command. "Go, and burn Ledaygen."

  The khelebar, bearing torches, loped off to their positions around the hexagon, where they would flank the monster vanguard. Their torches flickered like beacons as they vanished among the doomed trees.

  A sharp breeze whipped up and over the hex-discontinuity, whistling around Noldir's carving. The hole where Tayron Tribeleader had dug up the pine seedling looked like a dark wound.

  Tareah waited in the trees on the far side of the council clearing. She heard the sounds of the approaching monster army long before they actually arrived. She got ready.

  Across from her, Enrod stood in his tattered robes, preparing his own spells. He held his hands out under the bright sunshine, staring at the warm light on his skin.

  Delrael had at first forbidden them to take part in the attack. "Not necessary," he said. "And I don't want to risk you." But Tareah had looked at him with a thread of anger behind her eyes, and Delrael stumbled on his words. "Well, only if you think it's safe. And I mean that!"

  Tareah had smiled. He seemed afraid of repeating his own mistakes over again. "We can strike from a distance and cause some damage, then we'll leave before they can find us."

  Delrael had dispatched several scouts to keep an eye on her. But that didn't bother Tareah; she found his concern touching, as long as he let her participate in the adventure.

  The vanguard of the monster horde had lost all semblance of rank and order when they charged into the clearing. Tareah wasted no time and rolled the Water Stone. She grabbed it up again; power surged into her.

  Thick storm clouds congealed in the sky, swirling and scraping masses of air and sending many-pronged spears of lightning. The bolts struck, blasting chunks of dirt and monster fighters into the air. The creatures screamed at the sudden attack.

  Tareah rolled the sapphire again, using more than a single spell at once. This time she summoned an enormous wind that caused the running monsters to stagger. She caught a group of demons near the edge of the hex-discontinuity and, jutting her chin with an imaginary push, flung them over the edge. Then she struck again with the lightning.

  The vanguard swirled about, not knowing where to run or where the attack was coming from.

  Enrod made a fist and looked up with glazed eyes. The weapons held by the creatures suddenly turned cherry red. They dropped their steel, hissing with burned hands. Four black-robed Slac erupted into flames from the insides of their bodies; blue fire spurted from their eyeballs and ears with a popping sound. They didn't even scream. Enrod let out a shuddering sigh of ecstasy.

  "Enough!" Tareah called among the screams. She wanted to roll the sapphire again, but she had agreed. Together, they turned and ran back through the forest before the monsters could find them.

  Delrael watched the smoke from the advancing fires. The khelebar had laid out careful kindling paths so that the inferno would inward, leaving the monsters with no escape.

  "Let's move out of here," Delrael said.

  "That soil is thirsty for blood," Tayron said. "It has acquired a taste for it."

  The Tribeleader carried a deep wooden container that bore the seedling of the one healthy pine. "We are not destroying Ledaygen. Ledaygen died long ago. We are merely making it impossible for an abomination to thrive."

  As they drew farther away from the hexagon, Ydaim and the other khelebar returned. Tareah and Enrod stared behind him, toward the edges of the forest.

  Great curls of smoke poured up from the entire hexagon. Dozens of individual blazes reached out and encircled the trapped monsters.

  Ledaygen burned.

  ――――

  Chapter 16

  THE VIEW FROM THE VOLCANO

  "What lies beyond the edge of Gamearth? An ancient map fragment bore the notation Here Be Monsters. But we have monsters aplenty on Gamearth itself. Does the edge hold something even worse?"

  ― The Book of Rules

  Professor Frankenstein walked with a hunched back from the enormous weight of the lead helmet on his head. He plodded with each step, grimacing as his legs hauled their extra burden.

  "How do you know that helmet will even work?" Vailret asked.

  Frankenstein shrugged, but the gesture made his head tip forward off balance, about to roll off his shoulders. "I don't know it'll work. But I must do anything I can to decrease the risk. If the invisible force is controlling our minds, then I must shield my brain."

  "Whatever you say," Vailret said.

  They kept pace with Frankenstein as he took quick, tiny steps. They reached a tall building near the ocean hexagons.

  "We destroyed the manufactories up and down this thoroughfare with our own hands, under direction of the evil controller," the professor said. "But this warehouse hasn't been a target yet. We use it only for storage."

  From his belt, Frankenstein removed a ring that jingled with many keys. He started to bend over, but grasped the brick wall for balance. "Please look down at the bottom brick," he said. "There should be a code number chiselled in it."

  Bryl knelt down. "It's a long one ― R124C 41+."

  Careful not to tilt his head, Frankenstein held the key ring up to his eye level and flipped through the keys until he found an identical number stamped along one shaft. He opened the padlock in front of the door and then, wavering on his feet, he stepped back to let Vailret and Bryl pull the doors open.

  The warehouse proved to be one large hangar. Light shone from cracks in the roof slats, and dust motes fell like gold flecks through the sunlight. Inside, near the front, Vailret saw a leather-trimmed basket ― the gondola of a balloon just like the first one they had taken from Sitnalta. Tucked inside it and draped along the back lay the voluminous folds of the balloon itself, with bright splashes of red and white.

  Frankenstein stood with his elbow against the wall. His hand propped up the back of his head to take the weight of the lead helmet from his neck.

  "You recall that when we first gave you experimental balloon number VI, we weren't sure it would work. We had never found a Sitnaltan volunteer to test it.

  "But after you proved it to be a complete success, Jules and I enlisted the aid of other inventors to construct this larger model, which can comfortably carry several passengers. Otherwise, all the details are the same, even
down to the red-and-white color scheme, on the chance that the heat-absorption properties of specific colors made some small but significant change in its performance." He ran his fingers along the folds of the bright balloon lying limp in the basket.

  "But we grew engrossed in other things. Investigating the Outsiders' ship, which you told us about, occupied most of our time." Frankenstein turned his head and winced at the strain on his neck muscles. "We never got a chance to go exploring with this balloon."

  Vailret looked off to one side, deeper in the dusty shadows, and saw another large machine. This one was bright green with a wooden framework and several stretched batlike wings extending from the sides of a waspish body. Two propellers protruded, one from the rear and one from its top. Other wires and rudders connected to steering levers, and two fragile seats sat just behind sets of pedals.

  "What's this?" Vailret said.

  "We're not interested," Bryl said.

  Frankenstein turned to look, and his dark eyes took on a distant expression. "Oh, that's another flying contraption, called a 'pedal-kite,' I believe. It was invented by Professor Wright and his brother Professor Wright. It's got a very light construction, good for updrafts once you reach a certain height. By pedaling with your feet, the propellers turn and provide lift for the entire vehicle, which then can glide a short distance. It's aerodynamically sound and based on solid scientific Rules, everything a good invention should be.

  "But it does have one drawback. You see, if you stop pedaling, the entire vehicle crashes." He frowned. "Not good for long journeys, I'm afraid."

  "We'll take the balloon," Vailret said.

  "I thought you would."

  Bryl helped Vailret drag the gondola across the concrete floor of the hangar and out into the middle of the street. Frankenstein watched them, breathing heavily. "Blast this helmet!" he muttered to himself.