Gamearth Trilogy Omnibus

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The reddish light grew brighter ahead of them. Delrael picked up his pace, impatient to get to their destination, to whatever adventure awaited them. He could smell his sweat in the armor, the claustrophobic thickness of the air.

  They rounded a corner, and the passageway opened up. Light washed over them, carrying with it a gush of harsh sulfur smell. Despite his own admonition to Bryl, Delrael broke the silence by letting out a gasp of amazement. He stepped into the grotto, wide-eyed.

  Half the room in front of him brimmed with mountains of treasure: gold, gems, pearls, coins, jewelry. In a smaller chamber off to the side stood several large statues—two leaning against each other and another on the floor, chipped and in disarray. A beautiful tapestry had been tossed in the corner, snagged on a sharp rock. Delrael saw painted hexagonal tiles, colored pottery, a bust of some forgotten old Sorcerer general.

  “Vailret would love it here,” Bryl said.

  On the far edge of the treasure vault sunlight shone down from the opening of the cone. They had descended to the level of the hot and smoking lava pool at the bottom of the volcano. The sound of burning and escaping gases filled the air, making Delrael’s ears ring. The huge treasure grotto had been hollowed out just above and beside the simmering lava—Tryos had made a home protected from any human invaders who wanted to steal his treasure. “The dragon doesn’t seem to be home,” Delrael said.

  He moved forward, dazed, like a Sitnaltan automaton. Taking treasure wherever it was found had formed part of his way of life, part of the society of Gamearth, for as long as the Outsiders had been Playing. But he had more important things to do now. If times changed, allowing more leisure to quest for treasure, he might come back. Someday.

  Delrael hiked his bow up on his shoulders and stepped forward, ignoring Bryl. “Hello!” he shouted. “Tareah?” His voice echoed in the grotto.

  Bryl wandered off again toward the Sorcerer artifacts in the separate chamber.

  Delrael heard a clinking sound, coins rattling against each other. He froze and eased his bow from his shoulder, holding onto the string and ready to reach for an arrow.

  Then he saw the young girl, Tareah, sitting up groggily from an exhausted sleep, lying on the piles of gems and trinkets, the softest bed she could find. The girl half-slid down the mound of treasure in a clatter and jangle of coins. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the man in silent disbelief, saying nothing.

  Delrael thought she was the most beautiful little girl he had ever seen—she looked to be about ten years old, but she was Sardun’s daughter and the only full-blooded Sorcerer female left on all of Gamearth. Her brown eyes were dark and wide, captivating, though laced with bloodshot lines and puffy from too many tears.

  Fawn-colored hair hung to her shoulders, tangled but once curled. She wore a pale blue gown of some shining material, now dirty and tattered. Apparently bored, Tareah had bedecked her body with jewelry, rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, a circlet around her head. She dropped some of the heavier pieces off when she stood up, still staring at Delrael.

  The young girl’s voice was husky. “I knew someone would come. I didn’t expect it to take so long, though. I was beginning to lose hope.”

  “Your father sent us here.” Delrael didn’t know what else to say. “We came to rescue you.”

  The hissing of the lava drowned out most of the back ground noise. “Bryl, I’ve found Tareah!”

  “According to my studies,” Tareah said, “people have stopped questing for the most part, now that the Transition has taken place and the Scouring is over with. My father must have had trouble finding someone to rescue me.” Tareah’s eyes brightened. “Tell me your names. Have I read about your adventures before?”

  Something in her manner, a confidence and smoothness in the way she moved, did not hint at the awkwardness of a young girl. Then Delrael remembered that this “young girl” was actually older than he was.

  For thirty years Sardun had held his daughter in the body of a child, afraid to let her grow up before the probabilities of Gamearth could spill forth another full blooded Sorcerer male. They had kept waiting and waiting for the Outsiders’ dice to roll in their favor.

  “I’m Delrael, and that’s Bryl. We’re from the Stronghold. Your father didn’t seek us out. We went to the Ice Palace to ask him for help. He was . . . in a bad state, but he’s better now. We agreed to try to rescue you.”

  Tareah’s eyes became glassy and distant. “He tried to save me. I remember—the dragon blasting his way through the palace walls, clawing through the ice. My father used the Water Stone to fight back, but he was afraid. He didn’t want to harm me.”

  “Well, even the Ice Palace is rebuilt, now. And he’s waiting for you to come back.”

  Despite everything they had encountered, Delrael had succeeded in reaching Sardun’s daughter. And she was safe. They had nearly finished the quest imposed on them by Sardun. They needed only to get Tareah back to the Ice Palace. And then go fight against Gairoth.

  “Bryl! Let’s get out of here before Tryos comes back.”

  The half-Sorcerer knelt beside the toppled, chipped Sorcerer statue in the smaller art chamber. Tears streamed down his face. “I remember some of this.”

  Tareah turned to Delrael. “That was an original sculpture, created by some Sorcerer lord in the peaceful days before the first wars. Centuries and centuries and centuries ago. Somehow it survived everything intact, all the battles, all the Scavengers, the weather, the years—”

  Bryl stood up. “And now Tryos tossed it here like a piece of dirt! These chip marks are fresh.”

  “All these treasures should be in the Ice Palace, where they can be appreciated. Where they belong!” Tareah swallowed further words and nodded formally to Bryl. “You are Bryl, son of Qonnar and Tristane, who were in turn the children of Cocker and Hellic, Karril and Junis. I could go further back, if you like.”

  Bryl blinked at Tareah. “How do you know all that?”

  Delrael eased them both toward the tunnel opening. “The balloon is a day’s journey from here. And we have a long climb.”

  Tareah shrugged. “My father made me study all the Sentinel genealogy. We needed to follow every thread of Sorcerer blood. He even considered you for me, but decided you were too old.”

  Bryl gasped out a brief chuckle. Delrael took Tareah by the hand.

  “Do you know,” she said, “that you’re the first humans I have ever seen? For thirty years I have been alone with my father in the Ice Palace. I have studied a great deal, but I don’t have much practice in social activity. I’d never been away from the north, until the dragon took me. I didn’t try to rescue myself—I had nowhere to go. Besides, I knew you would come. It’s too good of a quest for the Outsiders to ignore it.” She looked back at the artifacts. “If only we could retrieve these works of art. And some of the treasure, too—Tryos should pay for his careless damage.”

  “Where is Tryos?” Delrael asked. He felt a greater sense of urgency as they remained in the grotto. His luck was strong, but he did not want to abuse it.

  Too late, they noticed the jagged shadow covering the sunshine from the volcano’s opening. A sound like a blacksmith’s bellows thrummed in the air as the shadow descended.

  Tryos the dragon had returned to his lair.

  Just before absolute terror set in, Bryl realized how foolish he had been. While gawking at the treasure, he had not seen the obvious. For a dragon to have gathered and kept such a hoard, he must be more powerful and more intelligent than any other treasure-seekers, human or otherwise.

  The half-Sorcerer turned to run toward the tunnel. The Water Stone seemed worthless now. “Come on, Delrael! We have to hide!”

  Delrael grabbed him, though, and held his arm. Bryl struggled, wanting to scream—this was a dragon, one of the creatures that had caused so much havoc in the Sorcerer wars, the dragon that had defeated Sardun—but Delrael held tight, shaking his head. The fighter looked at the open cut on his palm and wiped it
against his leather armor. “He’ll know we were here. We’ll have to talk our way out of this.”

  Bryl felt cold fear creep under his skin. “What are we going to do?” The dragon’s armor-plated body dropped into view, glittering green and black depending on the light. Immense parchment wings, brown and leathery, slowed his descent above the lava. Bryl smelled dry heat and a reptilian mustiness. Tryos heaved himself into the grotto, using claws and the elbows of his wings, until he stood up in the chamber.

  Tareah’s eyes hardened, and Bryl took a close look at her for the first time. “Keep behind me,” she said. “He won’t harm you if he thinks he might damage me, his treasure.”

  Tryos took one step forward, thrusting his wings behind him. The size of the dragon was terrifying: Bryl had to stare several seconds just to absorb the entire monster. He felt a gagging fear, and his eyes watered and stung, making Tryos waver in front of him.

  The dragon sat back on his haunches and wrinkled his nose ridge. He curled a huge barbed tail behind him. His reptilian eyes tried to adjust to the dimness in the grotto, now that he blocked out the lava light. When Tryos blinked, eyelids as big as barn doors slammed shut and then opened with an audible click.

  Tryos snorted, making flames flicker in and out of his nostrils. Smoke blew back into his face, and he sneezed, exploding a great gout of flame onto the smooth rock floor. Bryl did not move or breathe. Tareah stood beside them, crossing her arms.

  Then the dragon spoke with words louder than a volcanic eruption. “Who isss here?” Tryos narrowed his eyes and craned his snakelike neck toward them. His voice was thin and nasal; his words were clipped and imperfect from his armored lips.

  Bryl held onto Tareah’s shoulders. She flinched. Delrael stood tall like a proud fighter from the ancient wars . . . like General Doril, or his own father Drodanis.

  “I sssee you! Ssstealing my treasure!”

  “No, not at all,” Delrael said. Bryl marveled at how rich and controlled the fighter managed to keep his voice. But he could see Delrael’s white knuckles and how his hands trembled with well-contained fear. “We don’t want your treasure.”

  “Then why are you here!” the dragon demanded, eyes blazing. “Why don’t you run?”

  “We, uh, came to see you, Tryos!” Bryl said, his brain trying to function as fast as his mouth. He and Delrael would have to work together now for their lives.

  “Yes, we journeyed many hexes just to see you.” Delrael rubbed his leather jerkin and preened himself. Bryl had a terrible fear that they were both tangling themselves deeper and deeper.

  “For what purpossse?” Tryos leaned forward to glare at them. Hot and rotten breath swirled the air. “Why sssee me?”

  “We needed to ask you something—” Bryl started, but his wits ran dry. He turned to Delrael, pleading. Through the exchange, Tareah held herself quiet, as if afraid that anything she said would be counted against them. She appeared to have perfect confidence in Delrael.

  “What? What would you asssk?” The reptilian tail twitched, slamming back down with enough force to crush a human head.

  Bryl’s shoulders sagged in defeat. His lips remained dormant, despite his hope that they would speak of their own accord

  “Ssspeak up!” Tryos said.

  Then Delrael cleared his throat. He slapped his hands together, getting down to business. He took a step forward. The dragon’s eyes shifted to the man, and Bryl felt as if a knife had been taken away from his throat.

  “We need your help, Tryos.”

  The dragon blinked in surprise, drawing himself back.

  “Would you please help us?”

  Bryl wanted to pull his wispy hair out in frustration. But Delrael spoke with great force, pretending to know what he intended all along.

  “Tryos, you are our last and only hope. An evil ogre and his dragon have captured our Stronghold. You are much larger, much greater—we know you could defeat this enemy dragon!”

  He turned around, spreading his hands to indicate the piled treasure. “You obviously understand the joy of personal possessions. Gold, jewels, things of value. That’s what Gamearth is all about, right? Quests and adventure, build up the highest score you can before you die.”

  Tryos bobbed his head up and down. “Be bessst. Get ahead. Be Number One dragon. Better than all others. Bessst!”

  Delrael nodded. “Will you help us regain what is right fully ours? The ogre has a treasure pile of his own—we’ll give it to you.”

  Bryl felt stiff from standing in terror for too long.

  Then Tryos snorted, raising one jagged eyebrow ridge. “Ogre? Dragon? Who isss thisss dragon? What isss hisss name?”

  “The ogre is Gairoth. He lived by a cesspool in the swamp terrain,” Delrael answered. “The dragon is Rognoth—”

  “Rognos! Rognos!” The dragon went into hysterics, launching himself in the air, blasting angry fire at the walls. “He isss my brother! Foul! Bad! Runt of the hatching!”

  Bryl cringed, astonished at what Delrael had unleashed. But at least the fury had been deflected away from them.

  Tryos brought himself under control, snorting and grinding his fangs together. He settled back to the ground, but his tail pounded an impatient rhythm on the rippled stone floor. His eyes blazed with green fire.

  “Rognos isss a disssgrace! Black sheep! Shame to my hatching! Worm! I hate him—Rognos!” Tryos hurled another battering ram of flames at the ceiling.

  “Thisss Ssstronghold—bigger than my Rokanun? Rognos have more land than me?”

  “Oh, much bigger, I’d say. Hexes and hexes, as far as you can see. And no one to stop him.” Delrael sighed. “It’s a shame.”

  Bryl cringed, afraid of what ideas might be tunneling through the dragon’s mind.

  “Kill Rognos! He isss bad!” Tryos roared, overpowering both of them. “Show me the way to Ssstronghold!”

  Bryl tried to be optimistic, tried and failed. If Tryos came back to the Stronghold with fire and thunder, it might scare off Gairoth’s ogres—they should never have been fighting together anyway. It went against their nature.

  That left Bryl and Delrael to contend with Gairoth—and Gairoth had defeated the half-Sorcerer before. The ogre had no doubt mastered the Air Stone by now.

  But Bryl had the Water Stone this time.

  Even with the wildest of advantages, even if they some how defeated the ogre army and got rid of Gairoth and Rognoth—what if Tryos did decide to make the Stronghold his new home? The problems got worse and worse . . . without even considering that the Outsiders wanted to stop Playing Gamearth.

  Tryos flapped his wings and stomped a clawed foot on the hardened lava floor. “I will kill Rognos! Now! Take me to Ssstronghold.”

  The dragon crawled forward, slogging his way through the treasure pile, scattering coins and gems. He heaved himself up and curled his tail around to them like a long scaly ramp. Delrael took Tareah’s hand and marched forward, maintaining his confident facade. He led her toward Tryos. She looked skeptical, still not believing that her rescuers had come.

  Tryos glared at them with his slitted eyes. “Treasure ssstays here. You sssaid you did not want treasure!”

  Delrael covered his expression of shock with a muffled cough. “But we must take—”

  “Leave treasure here! Come back later. Now we go kill Rognos!”

  Bryl touched the fighter’s arm to keep him from arguing. He turned away from Tareah’s sad face. “We’ll have to come back for her.”

  Bryl climbed the dragon’s wide tail, pulling himself up the sharp ridges as if they were steps. He motioned for Delrael. The man turned to Tareah, picked her up and gave her a hug. She looked surprised for an instant, then responded. “We’ll come back for you,” he said into her ear.

  “I can’t rescue myself,” Tareah answered. “There’s nowhere to go. I could walk out, but I’d never get off the island.”

  Then she spoke quietly to him. Bryl heard most of the words, but over the hissing of the la
va pool and the rumbling of his own breathing, the dragon would not have heard.

  “One thing to remember—Tryos is vicious if he thinks you’re trying to trick him. But he’s very bad with directions. He goes off on his forays and spends more time trying to find his way back than in treasure-hunting.”

  Delrael nodded and turned to scramble up the dragon’s tail. He used his kennok leg without thought. Bryl wondered if they should have told Tareah about the balloon, but he didn’t think any one person could handle the balloon alone.

  “Luck!” she called.

  Bryl tried to wave, but Tryos shoved his way back to the grotto entrance and spread his wings, making the half-Sorcerer cling to whatever handhold he could find.

  “There’s the Stronghold!” Delrael shouted to make himself heard over the rushing cold wind and the heavy beat of the dragon’s wings. He pointed down to where he could make out the fenced-in hexagon of the Stronghold proper and the scattered dwellings in the village. Every thing seemed flat from this height, like a giant map. He had to find Steep Hill by following the outline of the stream that skirted the hill and zigzagged along the village, separating the dwellings from the unclaimed forest terrain.

  Delrael stared over the curved edge of the dragon’s wing to look down at the Stronghold. This was worse even than being in the balloon. “Somehow or other, we got here.”

  During the night and all the previous day, Delrael and Bryl had taken turns crawling up to Tryos’s ears to tell him he had veered off in the wrong direction again. But now they could see the forested hills, the stream, the grassland, the fields, the village. The jagged shadow of Tryos skimmed over the ground at an angle below them.

  For two full days without stopping, Tryos had flown north and west, fueled by his anger and hatred toward Rognoth. They flew higher and faster than Professor Verne’s balloon had gone, and the landscape flowed under them like a mosaic of hexes. The wind numbed Delrael’s ears. “Land isss big!” Tryos said.

  “Yes. Too bad it’s all Rognoth’s!” Delrael called back. Tryos narrowed his reptilian eyes and sped forward.