Gamearth Trilogy Omnibus

by Kevin J. Anderson

  —The Book of Rules

  The khelebar sat stunned. The heartbeat of the night fell silent, interrupted only by the insects. Vailret could hear the soft crackle of the bonfire and the whisper of a breeze through the interlocked trees.

  “Can you not hear me?” Tayron Next-Leader choked on his words, aghast at his own people. “Ledaygen is burning!”

  Fiolin broke from his shock and drew himself taller as he pointed to four of the khelebar. “Ydaim Trailwalker, you and three others go scout and tell me the extent of the fire. Quickly! We must know how fast it is spreading.”

  Ydaim glanced back at Vailret, then bounded with the others into the mass of trees. The four khelebar became dark ripples in the forest, loping toward the orange glow.

  Fiolin Tribeleader continued to motion at the. other panther-people. “Aratok Treetender, Stynod Treescavenger—find everyone else in Ledaygen. Tell them to come here. The khelebar must be alerted!”

  Stynod had to shake the other khelebar man out of his shock before they both ran into the forest.

  Bryl moved over to Vailret, leaning forward on the damp grass. His eyes were bright in their nest of wrinkles. “I wonder how serious this is.”

  Vailret stared into the bonfire, “It’ll be bad enough.” He turned a heavy gaze at the half-Sorcerer as the implications popped one by one into his mind. “Think about it—the Cyclops nearly killed Delrael. Now there’s a forest fire.” He heaved a deep breath, frightened. “I don’t know how we could have hoped to hide it after we made the Barrier River.

  “The Outsiders know what we’re doing. And they’re trying to stop us.”

  Delrael moved in tight circles, flexing his kennok limb with difficulty. “I can move it.”

  Thilane Healer paid no attention to him. Troubled, she paced about the clearing, back and forth. She had been silent for a long while, sniffing the air. Delrael watched her back, the tight skin against her shoulder blades, the muscles wrapped around her sides melding into the panther body.

  He limped around the clearing once more and rested on a boulder; the rock felt cool as he sat on it. His kennok limb felt tired. Deep night penetrated Ledaygen, broken only by the moonlight.

  “Something is wrong in Ledaygen.” Thilane touched a tree trunk, closed her eyes, then shook her head, as if amazed to be talking to herself.

  A few seconds before Delrael heard anything, Thilane glanced up and stared into the trees. Rough sounds of passage came through the forest, too careless to be a khelebar. But Stynod Treescavenger burst into the clearing. Her eyes were wild and her dark braids undone. Flecks of sweat streaked down her face and chest.

  Thilane waited in silence as Stynod caught her breath in great gulps. “Ledaygen burns!”

  The Healer bit back an outcry. Delrael could see the pain drive like a sword through her side. But he had helped fight grass fires in other villages to the south of the Stronghold. “How far has it spread? What kind of help do you have?” he asked.

  The Treescavenger shook her head, motioning them toward the trees. “Go to the council clearing for your answers. I have no time.” She set off into the forest again, moaning to herself. “How can I bear to tell any others?”

  She fled the clearing, fueled by her own fear, and vanished into the thickness of the trees.

  More khelebar converged on the council clearing, their faces filled with silent horror. Vailret watched them, amazed at how helpless the graceful panther-people now appeared. Left untended, the council bonfire had burned low, turning red as the moon rose higher in the sky.

  “Delrael!” Bryl stood up as Thilane Healer led the man out of the trees. Vailret whirled, grinning.

  Delrael stopped at the edge of the clearing, sweating and breathless. He placed a hand on Thilane’s dusky back and rested. The Healer didn’t seem to mind.

  Vailret and Bryl ran forward. Several khelebar glared at their happy outburst, but Vailret ignored them. Delrael smiled wryly and took another limping step forward. The Healer kept pace with him.

  Vailret gave Delrael a careful hug as Bryl hovered next to him, grinning. “You’re all right!”

  Delrael lifted his hand from Thilane’s back and steadied himself. “Well, not quite as good as new, but . . . different. It’ll take some getting used to.”

  Thilane looked at the three of them in turn. “You can thank the dayid for challenging me to heal him. Kennok wood is rare and precious, but the dayid holds all of you in great value. Perhaps you will save us from this fire?” She snorted and went to join the other khelebar. Around the circle, Tayron Next-Leader described the blaze as they waited for the scouts to return.

  “Look.” Delrael lifted part of his mended trouser leg and showed the feathery grain of his kennok leg. “And I can move it.” He puckered his brow in concentration as he bent the knee partway.

  “It’s not any kind of magic I’ve ever heard of,” Bryl said. Vailret agreed.

  “I need to sit down,” Delrael said. Vailret and Bryl helped him over to the bonfire, away from the other khelebar.

  Vailret felt light-headed at having his cousin back. Somehow, he could not worry about the forest fire at the moment. He smiled at his own memories, watching Delrael. “Del, do you remember when we were little? You always picked on me because you were older, and bigger, and stronger.”

  “Yes, but you got back at me every time with some practical joke. Molasses on the privy seat in winter. A puddle of water on my chair.”

  “Sand in your birthday honey roll. Your father said it was just like when he and my father were young. But it all changed when those outlander villagers tried to beat me up. You saved me.”

  Delrael shrugged, but allowed a smile to drift onto his face. “I didn’t want anyone picking on you but me.”

  “I was only ten. You were fourteen. And now we’re a team.”

  Delrael propped himself up on his elbows, stretching both legs toward the lowering bonfire.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Del?”

  “Just give me some time. We’ve got a quest to finish.” He rubbed a hand on his kennok leg.

  Bryl cleared his throat, isolated from the conversation. He pointed to the gathered khelebar. “I don’t think they’re all right.”

  Vailret looked once again at the Tribeleader’s haggard face. Fiolin looked filled with anguish for his burning trees.

  “Maybe we can do something.” Delrael reached out, and Vailret helped him to his feet. Together, they went to where Fiolin stood. His emerald eyes were glassy with tears and visions from his own imagination.

  “Ledaygen will be consumed to the soil itself. We have no way to fight fire.”

  The Tribeleader closed his eyes, but Vailret touched his shoulder. Fiolin’s eyes snapped open, piercing him with a lost gaze.

  “We were going to offer help,” Vailret said. “Bryl can use the Water Stone to make it rain on the fire. Delrael and I have both fought against fires before. Every summer the grassland and grassy-hill terrain to the south and west of the Stronghold gets dry as a match. When the fires start, people of the Stronghold village work to stop them from spreading.”

  Delrael agreed. “Last year it got so bad that the Sidonne village nearly burned. But we saved it.”

  Fiolin Tribeleader looked unwilling to embrace hope. “What power do you have that can defeat a raging fire?”

  “Just common sense,” Vailret said softly. “Fire is deadly, but it is no evil force. It’s just fire.”

  One of the logs in the bonfire settled with a crunch, startling Fiolin. Some of the other khelebar now shied away from the fire, as if that too had turned into an enemy.

  He squatted on the dirt of the clearing and motioned for the Tribeleader to stand beside him. “Draw me a map of your forest, Fiolin. Del, help me think of some strategy. “

  Fiolin hesitated, looking lost. Vailret raised his voice. “Come on! Another tree dies for every minute you waste.”

  When the Tribeleader saw that others had gathered to wat
ch, he regained his composure. He sent one of the younger khelebar running for a stick and some ashes. The youth scattered two handfuls of white ash from a dead part of the bonfire, spreading it on the ground to make a smooth surface.

  Fiolin took up the thin stick and sketched out the precise hexagon of Ledaygen and the surrounding hexagons of terrain. He indicated the terrain types. “This is our forest.” He handed the stick to Vailret.

  Vailret frowned and ran a finger along his lips. He tasted ash and wiped his hand on his trousers. Delrael watched him think. “Okay, any rivers, ravines? Rock outcroppings that might slow the fire?”

  Fiolin shook his head. “Ledaygen is forested-hill terrain, but rather flat. The dayid draws water from underground springs that reach the surface in a few places, but we have no rivers.”

  Bryl joined them, looking smug. “The dayid always saved you before. Why doesn’t it just stop the fire and protect the forest?”

  Fiolin forced a smile, looking pathetic. “The dayid does not work that way. It offers assistance and gives hope, but the khelebar must do everything that needs doing.”

  Bryl shook his head, sighing. “Not much of a dayid then, is it?”

  Vailret found Bryl’s attitude puzzling. But then he remembered about Bryl’s parents, Qonnar and Tristane, how they had both destroyed themselves in blazing sorcerous fire, a partial Transition, as their young son watched . . . all because they had failed at something. He couldn’t remember much else, and Bryl himself never talked about it.

  One of the khelebar began sobbing, as if he felt the burning in the forest itself. “Silence!” Thilane Healer said. “You show disrespect for the forest in its pain.”

  Fiolin sniffed the air. His shoulders sagged. “I can smell the smoke already. Already.”

  Delrael turned his head. He wet one finger and raised it. “A breeze is blowing this way. It isn’t strong, but it will push the fire along.” He looked to Vailret. “With the help of the khelebar, you might have enough man power to make an effective fire line, cutting down trees and digging trenches. Unless the wind changes, though, we’ll never be able to set a controlled fire back into the first one—”

  Fiolin gripped Delrael’s arm, aghast and angry. The lines in his face made his expression look as if it had shattered. “Do not speak of such things! Chopping down trees, digging in the sacred earth of Ledaygen, starting another fire! Is the damage not great enough already? How can you think the khelebar would do this!”

  Delrael controlled his own reply and thrust the Tribe leader’s hand back at him.

  Vailret made a disappointed noise at Fiolin. “You khelebar may be faithful to your forest, but you are blind to reason. If you’re willing to take these measures now, you may save most of Ledaygen.”

  Vailret turned his back from the Tribeleader. Mists rose softly up the side of the gaping discontinuity at the edge of the clearing where the forested-hill terrain dropped off to the mountainous hex below.

  The four khelebar scouts led by Ydaim Trailwalker leaped back into the clearing, pouring out of the tree shadows like dun-colored spears. Sweat and tears streaked the scouts’ faces. The other khelebar stood up, anxious.

  Ydaim crossed to the Tribeleader in three enormous bounds. He pawed at the bare ground and his tail swished in tension and fear. “The fire is raging!” He paused to swallow a mouthful of dry air, then glanced at Vailret, but his glassy green eyes showed no recognition. “Nothing can stop it.”

  “The trees are falling, spraying red coals!” One of the other scouts put a hand to her throat to slow down her throbbing breaths. “The flames move onward and onward!”

  Someone moaned, and the sound grew as others joined in an eerie keening sound. Vailret watched them and shuddered.

  “Enough!” Fiolin Tribeleader shouted, then blinked his eyes at his own vehemence. “We will not surrender so soon. To abandon hope is to abandon the dayid.” He clenched his teeth and drew a deep breath. Vailret got the sense that he was afraid to speak further, but Fiolin swallowed and continued. “The travelers claim they may know a way to help. It will be painful to us, and to Ledaygen—but I say it is more painful to do nothing as the trees die around us.”

  He hung his head. “Perhaps it is a test. Perhaps it is time we show the Outsiders just what we are made of.”

  Fiolin drew himself up again and thrust his drawing stick into Ydaim’s hand, pointing to the hexagonal out lines drawn in the ashes. “Here, Trailwalker. You have the best sense of your surroundings. Show us the extent of the fire.”

  Ydaim glanced at Vailret and Bryl. He took up the stick and studied the map.

  “Ledaygen is a small forest, and the flames are moving rapidly.” He drew a line from one vertex to another across the hexagon, cutting off about a quarter of the enclosed area. “By now, the flames have destroyed this much of Ledaygen. By morning—” He drew a second line over about a third of the hexagon, “The fire will have devoured its way to here.”

  The other three scouts nodded their agreement.

  Delrael swore. He shifted his hand from his silver belt to the sword given to him by Sardun, to his bow. Nothing seemed a useful weapon.

  Vailret shook his head and rested his knuckles against his left temple. “The fire just rushes over your neat carpet of dead leaves on the ground. Then it can burn the trees at its leisure.”

  Bryl didn’t seem to know what to do. “We might as well be sitting on the wick of a candle.”

  Fiolin hung his head in disbelief. “What you say frightens me. The dayid has told us to tend the forest as we do—and the dayid would never ask us to do something that might harm the trees.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” Vailret said.

  “We would rather die than forfeit our bargain with the dayid,” Tayron Next-Leader said, looking around at the other khelebar for support.

  “We may well have to.”

  The silence held for a moment, then Bryl pulled out the sapphire Water Stone. Firelight glittered off its six smooth facets, but the gem glowed with its own sleeping blue fire. “Let me try to help with the Stone. I could make it rain or I could change the wind. I don’t know what will work, but I’ve got four spells per day.”

  Delrael patted him on the back. The half-Sorcerer looked embarrassed.

  “Ydaim, will you take me to the fire? We can travel faster if you let me ride on your back. And we need to get there before midnight so I can use my spell allotment for today. After midnight I can try four more times.”

  Ydaim Trailwalker did not appear eager to return to the blaze, but he squared his shoulders. “We must hurry to the defense of Ledaygen.” Bryl slid onto Ydaim’s panther back and wrapped his arms around the khelebar’s stomach. He closed his eyes for the ride. “Do you want me to come along, Bryl?” Vailret asked.

  The half-Sorcerer shook his head. “Stay with Delrael. And keep convincing them to fight.”

  As Ydaim bounded off into the forest again, Fiolin called after them, “You are our hope, Bryl Traveler.”

  Several other khelebar followed, chasing fairy-lights of hope.

  The shadowy trees of Ledaygen flew past. Ydaim Trailwalker loped through the night, seeing the unexpected obstacles with his green khelebar eyes.

  Bryl held the Water Stone in his hand, eager now to have the opportunity to use it, anxious to feel its power. He rubbed his thumb on the slick flat facets. The forest fire offered him a chance to see exactly what the Stone could do.

  He did not understand how the Outsiders could ever become bored with all this.

  Bryl smelled burning wood long before he could see the orange flames peeling bark from the trees. He had to crouch low to the khelebar’s back because Ydaim had stopped being careful about dodging branches. Ydaim charged forward, shouting his anger at the fire. Bryl heard the crackle of burning underbrush. His eyes stung from the thickening smoke.

  They reached the edge of the blaze.

  “It is nearer than before. Ah, dayid, help us!”

  Bry
l stared as Ledaygen’s trees fell into the burning mass, one by one. In his imagination he saw the end of the world, a conflagration caused by the Outsiders, tired of their Game and burning their master maps.

  He tightened his fist around the Water Stone. With the power of the old Sorcerers and the dead Sentinels, he would fight back. He would not allow failure to swallow him up, as his parents had.

  “Bryl Traveler, do something!” Tears streamed down Ydaim’s cheeks, not caused by the stinging smoke.

  The heat of the fire focused Bryl’s thoughts. He stared at the rippling sheets of flame as he slid down from the khelebar’s back. Holding the Water Stone with both hands in front of him, he stepped toward the fire. Tentatively, he sent a thought into the sapphire, focusing it through the crystalline facets and unlocking the Sorcerer power.

  “I want it to rain!” He envisioned the storm he wanted, and what he would have to roll to succeed. The higher he rolled, the bigger the storm he could summon. If he rolled a “1”, he forfeited an entire spell for the day.

  Kneeling, Bryl tossed the Water Stone to the ground, rolling it on the unburned leaves. The facet showing “4” came to the top.

  It began to rain. The crawling black smoke in the air clumped together to form thunderclouds that shone pale gray from the firelight and the night. A violent downpour spilled onto a swath of the flaming forest, but the droplets hissed into steam before they touched the ground.

  Slitting his eyes half-closed, he let the rain continue but reached forward to pick up the Stone again. He filled his lungs with the smoky air. He felt larger, stronger.

  “This time, I want to turn the wind back.”

  Bryl shifted his fingers to a different facet of the Stone, then closed his eyes as he tossed the gem to the ground. A thin line of sweat broke out on his forehead. A “2”. Close . . . but close enough.

  The wind died without a whisper. The rain continued to fall. But his manipulation with the Water Stone affected only an area around him. He did not have the strength and training that Sardun had, his Sorcerer blood was not pure—and he had not rolled well. In the rest of Ledaygen, the fire continued to rage.