Game's End
Page 29
Vailret stumbled backward, shielding his eyes as light greater than an exploding star crackled out of the gems. White, blue, red, and green, soaring up to engulf both Tareah and Bryl, settling around them like incandescent snowflakes. Vailret couldn't tell exactly at what point he stopped seeing Tareah altogether, when she and Bryl became indistinguishable from the glare. The pinpoints of sorcery spread and grew and swelled into a blaze unrivalled since the Transition.
The remaining worm-men, with their thin gray skin unaccustomed to any sort of light, shrivelled backward as their bodies blackened. Those that did not die instantly fled deep into the earthen walls.
Vailret turned away from the brilliance, feeling a devastating sense of loss. In his mind he realized that he and Bryl had gone on their long quest for the sole purpose of bringing this about. But as he stared at the inferno of magic, he knew that Bryl was now as dead to him as if he had simply bled out his life on the grotto floor; only this way, Vailret lost Tareah as well.
But if this had gained a future for Gamearth and all its characters, a future for them to forge their own lives without the Outsiders, then perhaps, in a way that his mind understood but his heart did not, the sacrifice was well made.
When he looked up again, blinking colored spots from his eyes, the titanic Allspirit filled the grotto.
The Allspirit towered gray-white and hooded, bearing no resemblance whatever to Bryl or Tareah. Its features were hidden: the cloak seemed merely a metaphor, a symbolic boundary that defined the limits of its tangible existence. The form stood so immense that it seemed to fold in upon itself to fit within the walls, like infinity wrapped in a shroud.
Vailret couldn't speak or move. He held his breath.
The Allspirit stretched out its silently flapping sleeves. It paid no attention to Vailret or anything else in the ruins of the chamber.
Frankenstein peeped up over the edge of Drone and stared.
Vailret did not dare to make any noise. The Allspirit grew brighter with a wind of power, energy draining through the fabric of the map and into the Allspirit's body. Vailret wondered if it had drained the dayid from Rokanun ... and probably the other dayids as well. It seemed to reel with its own new power.
"NOW WE ARE MASTERS OF THE GAME." The sexless voice boomed out from the cavernous hollow in the hood. More stones and dust pattered down from the broken ceiling.
Vailret felt a surge of enthusiasm, then a chill as he realized that the Allspirit's "we" did not mean the characters on Gamearth, but only the plural identity of what had been Tareah and Bryl.
"LET US PLAY WITH NEW CHARACTERS."
With a wave of the flapping empty sleeves, another part of the wall cracked. But it wasn't an actual crack ― just a dark seam opening to somewhere else. More wind came out, this time with a silent roar that Vailret could not hear or feel, yet it buffeted him backward nevertheless.
Streaming out from other parts of the map, other parts of the universe perhaps, came the original six Spirits, three white and three black. Vailret remembered seeing the Earthspirits as they emerged, immense and awesome from Delrael's silver belt on the threshold of Scartaris. He remembered the black Deathspirits, who had cursed Enrod, rising up from the broken hex-line, also to destroy Scartaris.
Now, though, the Earthspirits and Deathspirits appeared much diminished. Colossal as they had been before, they now looked weaker, insubstantial in front of the dominating Allspirit. The Deathspirits and the Earthspirits remained silent, as if cowering.
Beside Vailret, Frankenstein stumbled over the motionless wreckage of Drone and stood gaping at the Spirits with mouth wide and eyes bulging. "This is impossible! This is astonishing," he mumbled to himself. Vailret glared at him.
The Allspirit spoke to the other six hooded forms. "NOW WE CAN PLAY. NOW WE CAN HAVE FUN."
The air sang with exerted power. The Earthspirits and Deathspirits flickered and struggled, but eventually buckled, crouching down in a symbolic bow to the Allspirit.
Vailret finally closed his eyes because he could not take in the immensity of the spectral shapes. The Allspirit's words sounded nothing like either Bryl or Tareah. The thoughts could not be theirs, but some sort of manifestation of the power in the Stones themselves, some reflection on the old Sorcerers who had created them ― the Sorcerers, dissatisfied with being manipulated by the Outsiders, who had taken the extreme step of the Transition in an effort to escape.
"Tareah, listen to me!" Vailret shouted. His voice sounded like a ridiculous squeak. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, expecting to be wiped out of existence in a moment. The invisible weight of the Allspirit's attention felt like a building collapsing across his back.
Vailret had nothing to lose. If the Allspirit didn't do what they needed it to do, then Gamearth was doomed, whether at the hands of the Outsiders, or the Allspirit itself.
"Remember why you're here! Tareah and Bryl ― remember why you gave your lives to create this! You must save Gamearth."
"WE WILL DO WHAT WE WISH TO DO."
The scorn in the Allspirit's voice made Vailret want to wither and throw himself over a cliff. But he shouted his next words through a raw throat, battering back his own emotions. They had to remember. Vailret had to make them see.
"Bryl, listen to me! Remember when you linked with the dayid to stop the forest fire in Ledaygen. You felt the power then, you know how dangerous it could be.
"Tareah, remember how Scartaris destroyed the Stronghold while you fought to save it. Remember how the power corrupted Enrod and made him want to use the Fire Stone for destruction!"
The Allspirit remained unmoved. Vailret continued to speak as fast as the words could tumble from his mouth.
"You knew this might happen! Think of the duel of Entarr and Dythat, when two rival Sorcerers unleashed such forces that swallowed them both up! You know all these legends Tareah! Remember the wedding celebration of Lord Armund and Lady Maire, and the disputed stone throw that sparked centuries of war?
"Bryl, think about how your parents were too weak to bear the accusations against them, so they used the magic to destroy themselves. Remember it! The power that's working through you now is not a part of you. You can't let it control you ― it has to be the other way around! You control the power."
The six Spirits remained silent, but the Allspirit spoke. This time the genderless echoing voice carried hints and undertones of Tareah or Bryl. "WE CANNOT FORGET. WE REMEMBER."
Vailret realized he had a new tactic. "Then remember how you took on this quest, to gather all four Stones together to become the Allspirit. The object of that quest was for you to hold Gamearth together by taking it away from the Outsiders. That was your quest ― remember Rule #2! 'Once characters undertake a quest, they must see it through to completion!'"
He stood tall and opened his eyes again. "To complete your quest, you must save Gamearth. You're still bound by the Rules."
"THE RULES ARE BREAKING," the Allspirit said. But despite the power behind the words, they seemed to lack conviction.
"Your true opponents are the Outsiders. You saw the clay face of the Outsider David. You know about the Rulewoman Melanie, and the Outsiders Scott and Tyrone. You must confront them."
He let an excited smile flicker across his face, then lowered his voice. "If you play with us to exercise your power, you won't have much of a challenge. But if you confront a real opponent, imagine how much more fun it will be." Vailret paused for just a moment, then shouted, "Remember Rule #1! Always have fun!"
The Allspirit shimmered. "Yes, Vailret. We remember you." The voices were more subdued now, a clear duet of Bryl and Tareah. "Our focus lies Outside."
The Allspirit expanded and drew out its great cloaked form, as if unfolding from other dimensions. The smaller Earthspirits and Deathspirits rose up as well; they all seemed to know what to do. The three black Deathspirits and the three white Earthspirits and the single gray overarching Allspirit broke down the boundaries between themselves, coalescing into one omni
potent being, incalculably more powerful than any of the individual Spirits.
It was a kind of super-Transition that made the initial one seem like a half-hearted opening gambit.
Neither the grotto, nor the hexagon, nor the entire map of Gamearth could contain such a Spirit. Vailret fell to his knees, blinking and stunned as the being rose ― and kept rising, streaming upward, pulling with it all the magic, all the knowledge that it had gathered from Gamearth.
Then it plunged outward into reality, leaving only silence roaring in its wake.
"Great Maxwell!" Frankenstein said.
――――
Epilogue
GAME'S END
David felt pain exploding inside his head, in fact his whole body. Parts of him, characters that lived within him, were being murdered one by one. He tried to cry out but couldn't. His cheekbones felt as if they had been crushed like eggshells.
Tyrone's blood-soaked corpse lay wide-eyed and mangled on the living room carpet, growing cold.
Melanie kept screaming down at the map.
Scott appeared broken, as if he had not the slightest idea what to do and couldn't understand how it had happened this way.
David forced his eyes open through a red haze of pain.
With a crackling sound, the Allspirit streamed up out of the painted wooden map like some specter rising from a fire. The gray form spilled out of the hexagons, growing larger and larger until it towered to the ceiling.
David scrambled backward. Melanie gaped at it. Scott closed his eyes and shook his head.
The Allspirit surveyed them with its cavernous hood. The air sizzled with its buildup of power. "Your Game is over now," it said. The words echoed around the walls of the house. The wind outside seemed to have stopped. "I will take Gamearth away from you. We want nothing more to do with the Outside."
"And we want nothing more to do with you!" David shouted. His words snapped in his swollen throat.
Beneath the Allspirit, the map shimmered. The spidery black hexagon lines flowed like molten oil.
The Allspirit drew back, engulfing the map in its translucent form. The hexagons of Gamearth splintered and expanded, flying apart like pieces in a puzzle. Brilliant points of light spun like a galaxy around the form of the Allspirit. Even the tiny broken pieces by the fireplace lifted up and swirled into the cluster.
The Allspirit grew taller. "I leave only what is yours," it said, then vanished with an audible pop. A few remaining bright hexagons flashed once, then winked out.
Only the Sitnaltan weapon remained behind, canted on the carpet, as its timer ticked the last two seconds to detonation.
――――
"Well, Overlord Migan, this is most enjoyable. Shall we let the weapon detonate?"
Comtar Durat stared down at the maps spread before him, the detailed sketches of the characters' houses, the careful drawing of the living room. Next to them rested crystalline chits showing statistics for the characters David, Melanie, and Scott; the chit for Tyrone had been removed from play.
Overlord Migan picked up the dice scattered on the playing surface. "I think we should roll for it."
He tossed the dice.
――――
― END ―
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