Gamearth Trilogy Omnibus

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Tareah looked dejected and her voice sounded bereft in the empty, echoing grotto. “You promised to stay here and guard the treasure. Why did you have to do that?”

  “We’re not honor-bound to keep a promise to an evil dragon,” Bryl said. “Are you crazy?”

  Delrael looked at her, puzzled that she needed justification. “Tryos kidnapped you and he nearly killed your father. Look at all the treasure he’s stolen. Do you want to stay here?”

  “But you promised. I thought you had a better plan than . . . than cheating!” Tareah looked confused, torn between two loyalties. “My father made me study the Rules, all of them. He hammered into me the ethics of gaming and sportsmanship.” Her eyes glittered with either tears or anger. “When you agree to undertake a quest, the Rules force you to complete it. But isn’t a vow to do a quest just an elaborate promise? By the same token, how can you break your promise to Tryos?”

  “You’re very naive,” Bryl said. “The object of the game is winning. Whether by battle or by trickery.”

  Delrael took the question seriously, though. Vailret would have been able to make much more convincing arguments. “Tareah, trickery is accepted Game play. I didn’t make up the Rules. A precedent has been set—have you ever played poker? It’s a game played with cards, not dice. Bluffing is a vital part of the play. We bluffed Tryos into believing we would stay here.”

  Tareah frowned at Delrael’s reasoning. “Well . . . he did steal the treasures in the first place.”

  “Tryos is our opponent. We should be allowed to use every means we have to beat him. Especially when your life is at stake. You don’t feel sorry for a dragon, do you?”

  Delrael put his hand on her back and moved forward with her as they entered the dank tunnel and hurried upward. “Come on, your father is waiting for us.”

  They entered the tunnel, but Bryl stopped as if struck with a spell. His eyes became glassy and he looked around the piles and piles of gems, gold, treasures. He swallowed hard. “Wait! The Earth Stone! It’s here!” He turned to stare at Delrael. “We have to find it!”

  “Why?” Delrael asked, showing more impatience. “You said magic won’t help out against a dragon anyway.”

  “It won’t,” Tareah said.

  “It was lost for more than a century in one of the first battles of the Scouring. A ten-sided emerald.” Bryl sniffed the air, then looked disappointed. “I lost it now, but I had another vision, like when I found the Air Stone. It’s here somewhere.” The half-Sorcerer’s eyes gleamed with a frightening expression. “We don’t have enough time, Bryl,” Delrael said.

  “We have to find it!” the half-Sorcerer insisted. “It might help us against Scartaris. Remember what Vailret said. The Earth Stone is the most powerful of all four Stones.”

  Delrael shook his head. “We can’t possibly ransack all of his treasure, not if you don’t know exactly where to find it. Our time is too short.”

  Bryl closed his eyes, holding his breath as if trying to squeeze another vision out.

  Tareah hardened her expression and took a step away from Delrael. “I won’t go with you if you steal any of the treasure—that’s worse than breaking your promise to guard it. You’re not at all like the heroes in the legends I’ve read. I’d rather stay here with the dragon. At least he plays by the Rules.”

  “But he stole the Stone in the first place!” Bryl said.

  “He never promised he wouldn’t. You did.”

  That decided it for Delrael. Unhappily, Bryl followed as all three of them ducked into the dark lava tunnel, fleeing the dragon’s lair.

  Vailret looked out at an underwater wonderland. He pressed his face against the thick glass of the eyelike porthole, watching the Nautilus plunge forward. The ship’s cyclopean headlight stabbed into the ocean’s secrets, signaling that this was more than just a fish. Few of the undersea creatures showed curiosity; most fled into the midnight-blue murk.

  Vailret absorbed the strangeness of the darting gleams of color, the fishes, the fronds of pale seaweed drifting like sirens’ hair. A colony of winking lights fluttered around the Nautilus, swirling in hypnotic colorful patterns. Before Vailret could wonder at them, the strange lights vanished like extinguished candle flames.

  Paenar glanced out the ports only cursorily, impatient to arrive at Rokanun so he could fight Tryos. He turned to the stolen Dragon Siren, inspecting the simple controls and making certain he knew how to work them.

  The sub-marine boat flashed through the water, driven by its churning screws.

  Three hours after midnight a huge black wall loomed up through the water, cutting across their path like a guillotine blade. Vailret sat drowsy at the controls, wishing he could rest for awhile. He blinked and saw the black wall moving toward them.

  For one sick instant he forgot how to bring the Nautilus to a stop. Professor Verne had shown them, but Vailret had no time to try any of the controls. He let out a cry of despair. Paenar stood up so quickly he hit his head on the low metal ceiling. The other man ignored the pain and lurched toward Vailret. Both saw the black wall and knew they could never stop the boat in time. The Nautilus struck the blackness.

  Everything went dark for an instant, and then they were through, traveling as if nothing had happened. Paenar dropped back into his seat; Vailret blinked, dizzy. The air in the Nautilus seemed close and stifling, and he wondered if the air pumps were still working. Perhaps they had passed beyond the technological fringe—

  “It was just the hex-line!” Vailret cried. “That’s all! The line probably goes all the way to the sea bottom” He laughed. Paenar stared at him in shocked realization for a moment, and joined Vailret in relieved laughter.

  They had traveled the distance of a full hexagon in barely four hours. According to the map, from the Sitnaltan docks to the closest shore of Rokanun was only two hexes if they navigated correctly, but they intended to use the speed of the Nautilus as long as they could, trying to circle half the island to reach the dragon’s lair on the opposite end—if the sub-marine boat continued to function that long.

  They cruised through a second hex-line just after morning light turned the dark ocean a murky green. They had altered their course to follow alongside the island, and the ramparts of the rising volcanic ocean floor stood like blocky shadows in the wavering distance off to their right.

  “We’d better rise closer to the surface,” Vailret said. “No telling when we’ll pass the technological fringe, or when this machine will stop working.”

  Paenar took the controls and brought the Nautilus nearer to the surface at a gentle angle. The sounds of the engines made a stuttering pop, then resumed smoothly.

  The Nautilus began to break apart late in the afternoon. Twice during the day the engines had stalled, but the two men managed to start them again after several tries. The sounds of the screws were more sluggish, whining and clunking, but neither Paenar nor Vailret knew anything about the workings of the Sitnaltan engines. The Nautilus labored on the surface of the ocean, crawling forward.

  Thick oily smoke oozed around the sealed door of the engine room. At the same instant some of the floor panels split apart, popping rivets and letting harsh seawater squirt up through the deck. The ship lurched sharply to the right, toward the brooding island.

  The engines sounded as if they were shredding themselves in howls of torn metal. The hot propellers churned the water around the tail of the Nautilus into a steaming froth.

  Sea water gushed through breaches in the hull. Smoke from the dying engines made breathing and seeing impossible.

  “This machine has served its purpose,” Paenar shouted over the noise and stood up to unfasten the hatch over their heads. He turned his face to Vailret, peering through the smoke with his mechanical goggle-eyes. “We must swim to shore. By the sound of those engines, the Nautilus might explode.”

  Vailret cried out, choking. “—reef!”

  As Paenar stuck his head out the hatch, a powerful blow struck the ship, throwing
him back to the floor. Vailret half-caught the other man, keeping him from dashing his head against the instrument panel. A black elbow of rock punctured the hull of the ship. The Nautilus groaned to a halt.

  Paenar clambered to the hatch again as foamy water spurted into the compartment. He peered outside, wiping sea spray from his goggles. “We’ve caught on a reef. It will be tricky going, but I think we’ll be able to walk to shore.”

  Vailret coughed and struggled out of the hatch, dropping to the rugged rocky shelf. Choppy water washed over his boots. Rokanun lay not far from them, but a careless blow from an incoming wave could easily sweep them away.

  “The Dragon Siren!” Paenar scrambled back into the ship. Vailret crawled back to the top of the hatch, leaning inside. He urged the other man to hurry and helped him lift the Sitnaltan device out of the hatch. Paenar tossed up a coil of rope, and Vailret caught it, wondering how the other man could be calm enough to think of such details.

  Panting, they struck out as fast as they could, dodging the crashing waves on the slippery rock, lugging the Siren between them.

  With a small explosion, the engines of the Nautilus started themselves again. The powerful screws drove the armored ship relentlessly forward, ripping open its side against the rough rock and sending it plunging into the deep water again. Vailret turned, watching as gouts of smoke spewed into the air from the open hatch and the breaches in the sides. The heavy hull split wider, and the Nautilus slipped beneath the waves, struggling to right itself, like a dying prehistoric beast. Then it vanished completely from sight, leaving only a circle of froth, like a wound on the water’s surface.

  Vailret and Paenar heaved themselves up on the rough and rocky beach, panting. The crashing waves knocked both men to their knees as they tried to scramble out of the surf. They somehow managed not to smash the Dragon Siren.

  Vailret shook out his stringy blond hair and looked up at the huge cinder cone looming over them. He coughed and spat warm seawater out of his mouth. “Look how far we’ve come.”

  Paenar turned to him, but didn’t quite look at the young man. The expression on his face was plaintive and forlorn. “You’ll have to describe it to me, Vailret.”

  He tapped his goggles, but the lenses hung dead in the colorless oils sandwiched between the thin glass. “The Nautilus was not the only mechanical thing here. I’m afraid I am quite blind again.”

  Tryos dared not swallow, afraid that he might send one or two gold coins into the furnace in his gullet. He flew steadily, leaving the zigzagged outline of Rokanun far behind and striking out over the honeycombed surface of the world. The dragon kept his eye on the different colors of the hexagons below, trying to match it to his dim memory of the route. But often he forgot.

  He struck out over land, flying south until he stumbled upon the ocean shoreline again. He followed the shore until he came upon the mud-choked delta of the Barrier River, frothing and still cutting its channel through the forests and plains of the south. He thought he remembered the river, but the surrounding landscape did not look familiar.

  The dragon continued westward. His wings felt tired enough to drop off. Anger and discouragement bubbled up inside his chest. He had tried to ask the little humans for detailed directions before he departed, but they had kept him from speaking. Were they anxious to get rid of him?

  Tryos snorted because his laden mouth would not allow him to voice the comments he had in mind. He swung around. He’d just have to ask them for directions again. Though he could not find the Stronghold, he was not lost.

  Dragons could always find their way home.

  After only five hours of flight, Tryos flew back toward the volcano on Rokanun.

  14. Battle on Rokanun

  “RULE #13: All monsters were created during the old Sorcerer wars. Each monster has its own set of limitations, its own vulnerabilities. Some may be obvious, some may be well hidden. No monster is invincible, but its weaknesses can be very difficult to find.”

  —The Book of Rules

  Vailret and Paenar worked their way up the volcano’s steep side. In places they had to crawl on hands and knees over the broken-glass terrain of lava rock, cutting and scraping themselves. Darkness fell, making things worse. The stars scattered tricky light on the uneven ground. The two men climbed higher, hauling the Dragon Siren after them.

  Paenar’s mechanical eyes flickered on and off intermittently. “They function only about one fifth of the time, I would guess.” He turned to Vailret, then stopped. “There they go again.”

  He set off, taking the lead, but Vailret caught up to him and walked alongside.

  “I can see flashes of the landscape. I’m used to it now. I just memorize what I see during that instant and keep going until my eyes flicker back to life again.”

  Vailret didn’t know what to say.

  “I can endure it, so long as it doesn’t ruin my chances of fighting the dragon.” Paenar shrugged, but did not look at anything. “I have to strike at least a symbolic blow for all those times when I refused to do anything.”

  They had traveled two thirds of the way to the lip of the cone when Vailret heard a whooshing sound in the silence of the dark sky. Paenar wedged the Dragon Siren beside a massive outcropping. Both men took cover under the overhang, hiding in the shadows.

  Vailret looked up at the star-spattered sky and saw a black shadowy form swoop low over the mountain—immense pointed wings, a long tail, a jagged reptilian head. Orange-tinted smoke from the volcano drifted into the night, swirling when Tryos flew through it and descended into the yawning mouth of the cone. The shape of the dragon ducked out of sight below the rim.

  Vailret’s eyes glinted wide in the quiet starlight. “He’s going to be very upset if he finds Delrael and Bryl in there!”

  Instead, the dragon was upset because he did not see them.

  Tryos sat back, his mouth full of treasure in the dark and humid chamber. He grunted, trying to call to Delrael and Bryl. He sniffed but found the human scent was cold. He plodded deeper into the cavern—the scent of the men disappeared into the narrow tunnel leading up and out of the mountain.

  Then he looked frantically around: one of his treasures was missing, the daughter of Sardun, the last remaining Sorcerer woman—more valuable than any of his baubles. Tryos let out a roar of rage and betrayal, spraying the gold jammed into his vast mouth in a molten starburst on the grotto walls.

  “Tricked! Tricked!” the dragon roared. In his fury he intentionally set fire to one of the stolen Sorcerer tapestries. He forgot how Delrael and Bryl had led him to Rognoth, he forgot how they had shown him a vast new land. The only thing that mattered was their trickery.

  Tryos surged out of the grotto and into the night sky. He wheeled around to the opposite side of the cone, picturing in his mind how he would make the two men writhe as he crisped them with his fire.

  Delrael, Bryl, and Tareah traveled two hexes by night fall, when the Rules forced them to stop. They had skirted lava rubble and crossed a hex-line that separated the perimeter of the volcano from the surrounding grassy-hill terrain.

  Delrael stayed close beside Tareah as they traveled, seeing to her safety. The wind whipped in his face, fluttering Tareah’s long hair in front of his eyes. Delrael carried his old Sorcerer sword again and his hunting bow, neither of which would help at all against Tryos.

  “My bones hurt.” Tareah rubbed her arms and elbows. “I think I’m growing too fast. I don’t know why.”

  On the top of a tall rise they stopped to rest. They had crossed a hex of grassy hills and waited on the black edge of thick forest terrain. In half an hour or so it would be midnight, and they could push on for another day’s allotment of distance. Delrael turned back to see the outline of the stark volcano etched in the haze from its inner lake of fire. Then his mouth went dry as a winged and monstrous form flew up against the fiery glow. He heard a distant outraged cry.

  “Bryl! Look!” he said.

  Tareah fell silent, rigid with
her own fear. “Now he’s come back for us.” The dragon came after them, blasting the countryside with his flames. Bright orange pinpoints of fire made him appear distant, but Tryos flew at them fast.

  “We have to get out of here!” Bryl turned around in panic.

  “We can’t go into the next hex until midnight,” Delrael said, standing in a fighting stance but feeling helpless.

  Tareah kept her despair in check, making Delrael proud of her. “You won’t have another chance to talk with him. You tricked him, and he’ll want to blast you to ashes. He’ll be more intent on destroying you than he’ll be on keeping me from harm.”

  “I’ll protect you,” Delrael vowed quietly. “I just wish I knew why he came back so soon.”

  They searched for a place to hide, a place they could defend . . . although they had nothing to fight with. Tryos moved erratically across the sky, searching. Delrael felt alone and exposed on the clear grassy hills.

  “Is it midnight yet?” Delrael stared up at the stars. Bryl stood at the black hex-line, pushing against it—but he could not force his feet to move.

  In the distance they heard Tryos roar again. An orange tongue of flame flicked out to destroy a few lone trees.

  “What are we gong to do?” Tareah asked. “Have you planned for this?”

  Delrael just put a hand on her shoulder. He looked at his hands, at his sword and bow.

  Bryl shouted. “Now—now we can go!” He danced on the other side of the hex-line. “Hurry!”

  They ran into the dense forest. The black shadow of Tryos had come much closer.