Gamearth Trilogy Omnibus

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Journeyman paced around and remained alert. “A blast of fire and it goes away?” He used his other hand to smooth the gouges and push his clay skin back into place.

  “The other Tairans never resisted it before,” Vailret said. He picked himself up and brushed at his skinned elbow.

  Mindar shook her head. “The Cailee is still out there. Scartaris isn’t finished with us yet.”

  Roaring inhuman rage, the Cailee burst back into the camp, opposite from Delrael. Without an instant of hesitation, Journeyman charged at it, balling both fists.

  But the Cailee knew exactly what it wanted. The shadow-thing streaked in the flickering light and reached out its silver talons for Bryl.

  Mindar’s whip cracked like the sound of a breaking spine. She crouched and placed herself in front of Bryl. Her gaze locked on the Cailee’s pupilless yellow eyes. The moment seemed to hold for hours. Vailret could see violent emotions surging through Mindar’s mind.

  The Cailee laughed silently and tried to dodge sideways to reach Bryl. Bryl scurried backward, bumping into Journeyman. He cried out, but the golem held him firm.

  Mindar struck out with the whip again, tearing into the lightless flesh.

  A fistful of silver claws exploded forward, hooking into the leather whip, and jerked backward swift as a shadow. The claws shredded the whip into a snowflake of leather tatters, throwing Mindar’s shoulder out of joint.

  Though crying out in pain, Mindar was already reaching for her rippled sword with her left hand. She swung clumsily, trying to protect herself, and sank the blade into the dark void of the Cailee’s body. Droplets of night sprayed onto the sand, vanishing into the shadows.

  Delrael ran forward with his own sword. Bryl rolled the Fire Stone, scrambling out of the way.

  With a roar of pain, the Cailee lunged at Mindar, striking in an arc of silver claws as it tore open her side, breaking through ribs to her heart.

  She fell, spewing a red rain of torn flesh and spattering blood

  “Mindar!” Delrael screamed.

  Bryl touched the Fire Stone again. A wall of flame erupted between the shadow-thing and Mindar, burning both. The Cailee howled, blinded by the blaze, scratching at the air with silver claws.

  Delrael stabbed through the flames, probably burning his own hands, blistering his skin. Singed hair curled back away from his forehead. But the old Sorcerer sword struck something solid where the Cailee’s chest should have been.

  Bryl let the flames die away. Delrael staggered back, nearly tripping over Mindar on the ground. Vailret went to help him.

  The Cailee made a high-pitched moan, then faded as they watched, dissolving away into the night.

  Delrael stood trembling in the wake of his attack. He stared at the blade of his sword as if to see how the Cailee had stained the steel, but it seemed untainted.

  Bryl whimpered in the firelight. Vailret crawled forward to join him.

  Mindar made a choking sound on the ground. Delrael knelt beside her, pushing aside a sharp rock. Her spring-green tunic had been crisped brown by the fire. She shuddered, curling herself into a fetal position.

  Together, Delrael and Vailret rolled Mindar on her back. Fresh, dark blood poured out of her torn side. Her face had a wet, gray appearance. Her mouth made a choking, sucking sound as she tried to breathe.

  Delrael touched his fingers to her forehead. “It’s gone. We killed it.”

  Vailret stared at his cousin, but Delrael would not look up. Mindar had no chance. Vailret was amazed she still could think or speak. He doubted even the khelebar healer Thilane, who had created a new kennok leg for Delrael, could have saved her.

  Bryl hunkered down, wide-eyed in his fear. Journeyman appeared disappointed that he had not been able to fight again. Off in the east, behind the lair of Scartaris, dawn light seeped into the sky.

  Delrael propped Mindar’s head up and placed it on his knee. He brushed her singed dark hair away from the lumpy S-scar. It reminded Vailret of how Tallin had died in a pool of blood while Delrael held him. Delrael stiffened and seemed to realize the same thing.

  “We’ll destroy Scartaris, Mindar.” For a moment his face carried enough anger to rival her own. “And I will have fun doing it.”

  The flow of blood from her wound slowed, lacking the force of a heartbeat. The last breath out of her mouth seemed to form one word.

  “Luck.”

  But she did not die.

  Mindar jerked in a convulsion that ripped through her body. She sucked a long hiss of breath through her teeth. Vailret’s eyes were drawn to the livid S-scar on her forehead. The scar throbbed with a red light, like a twisted channel of lava.

  Mindar’s skin grew red, also glowing. Heat poured from her body, and Vailret had to step back. Delrael stared down. His jaw hung open in surprise; his face was ashen.

  The pools of wet blood on Mindar’s skin smoked, bubbled, and burned away from her form, fading even from her stained clothes. The open gash and splintered ribs clenched themselves in a staccato spasm, like a mouth smacking its lips, until the wound congealed, bound together and sealing the skin without leaving a scar.

  Her eyelids jammed shut, and she wheezed a great breath into her lungs. Her chest rose and fell. She jerked.

  “She said Scartaris wouldn’t let her die,” Vailret said. He felt as if a great weight hung on his shoulders.

  Delrael grabbed Mindar’s shoulder, but she was still too hot and he snatched his hand away.

  Mindar twitched her muscles, then rolled over, stumbling to her knees. Tears streamed from between her closed eyelids. The S-scar continued to glow red. She struggled to her feet, then turned to face them.

  Mindar stood straight and opened her eyes. She did not move. She made no reaction at all.

  Her eyes were blank white, and pupilless. Scartaris’s eyes.

  Interlude: Outside

  Tyrone shook his head with an expression of naive astonishment.

  “Man, this is getting pretty intense. How about we just, uh, take a break for a while? Watch some TV. I’ve got all the Star Trek movies on tape.” He stood up and looked toward the living room where the television sat switched off like a dull gray-green eye.

  “Shut up and sit down!” David’s voice had a hollow power to it, an alien sound that caused Melanie to jump.

  She frowned and brought her own anger to the surface. David was doing this just to sicken her, just to flaunt his disregard for the people of Gamearth. “How can you you do that to one of your own characters, David? Didn’t you put Mindar through enough already?”

  “She’s my character. I can do what I want with her. It’s fun.” In the globe light over the dining room table, his smile looked bright and jagged. “We’re playing this game for fun, remember?”

  Melanie stared across the table at him. She felt stronger now, keyed up. It didn’t matter what David did. She had her characters. They were fighting together, she and them. She had given them Journeyman and the secret weapon she had painted into the map; Gamearth had brought back the Earthspirits on its own.

  “You’re changing, David. What’s happening to you? Are you playing Scartaris. . .or is he playing you?”

  David scowled at her, but didn’t seem to know how to answer. Scott cleared his throat. “It’s getting kind of strange even with you, Melanie. Do you know that when you play different characters your voice changes? You’re even worse than David. Your eyes get sort of. . .funny.”

  “Yeah,” Tyrone said, not noticing the thin smear of dip on his chin, “it’s like something out of The Exorcist.”

  “When you’re playing your characters, it’s like you’re swallowed up in them. Like you don’t even know what you’re saying.” Scott pursed his lips.

  Melanie felt sweat prickle at the back of her neck. She covered it by reaching for some chips and stuffing a handful in her mouth. “That’s crazy. I know exactly what was going on. I remember everything we did, like I was—” She paused and choked a little on her chips. She
took a drink from her glass and swallowed before she finished her sentence. “It’s like I was there myself. . . .”

  “Do you see?” David said. “Do you see? If we don’t end this tonight, we might never be able to escape from the game! It’s coming out, it’s taking over. We’ve put too much magic in it, and now Gamearth doesn’t need us to play anymore!”

  “Maybe it’s fighting back against you—but I’m trying to save Gamearth. I don’t have nightmares. I have nice dreams about the world. I’m not afraid of it. You are. I’m going to fight you to the end in this battle. And I’m going to win. I’m going to save their world, and ours.”

  David’s face looked pale and waxen. “What if you’re wrong?”

  Melanie shrugged. She saw the deep fear behind David’s false arrogance. “If you’re afraid to lose, you should never have started playing in the first place.”

  “I’ll stop you with the Slave of the Serpent.” He cracked his knuckles and looked at the wide black line on the painted map where he had marked the demon’s lair. The map seemed to be cracked there, exactly along the hex-line. Puzzled, Melanie bent over to look at it, but Scott interrupted her.

  “She’s not the only one with plans.” He drummed his fingertips on the table, then wiped his glasses on the untucked ends of his shirt. “Hurry up and finish your turn. We don’t have all night.”

  17. Fighters

  “We must learn how to use the Rules to our advantage in any situation. That means we need to train ourselves with every weapon listed in The Book of Rules. We must study role-playing games to enhance our experience and decision-making capabilities. Gaming doesn’t come easy—it is a lot of work to have fun!”

  —Drodanis, speech to trainees at the Stronghold

  Tareah held the sapphire Water Stone so that it glinted in the noon light. Her eyes were tired; her body felt exhausted. But the anger and shock had given way to a clarity of thought that made her absolutely sure of what she had to do. She felt brave now.

  On top of Steep Hill, in the burned and splintered ruins of the Stronghold, she turned the six-sided gem to show each of its facets to the gathered villagers. The smell of smoke still hung in the air, and the ground at her feet was muddy from the rain she had summoned to quench the flames.

  “My father Sardun gave me this Stone.” To her own ears, her voice sounded gruff and old. The villagers listened to her now. “He used it to build and maintain his vast Ice Palace. He used it to control the weather, and to fight against the dragon Tryos.”

  She narrowed her eyes and looked at the other characters, making sure she held their attention. Tareah had studied the rhetorical techniques used when the ancient Sentinel Arken tried to convince other Sorcerers to renounce the Transition.

  “I am the last full-blooded Sorcerer woman on Gamearth. That’s why Tryos found me so valuable and kidnapped me. You all know that story. Maybe I haven’t been trained enough in fighting—” She drew herself tall, widening her eyes. “But I have powers, too. Great powers. I will have to train myself how to use them.”

  She sensed a difference within her as she stood before the villagers. Tareah could imagine herself as an old Sorcerer queen, maybe even Lady Maire herself. Her joints no longer ached, and she didn’t feel out of place with the other characters. The destruction of the Stronghold had shaken her, hammered home the new turn the Game had taken.

  Tareah was responsible for her actions. Her powers and her abilities would not permit her to remain passive in the coming battles.

  She paced around the fallen wall where dirt trickled between toppled logs that had been sharpened on top. The Stronghold buildings were all collapsed, the sword posts knocked over, the gate and the bridge across the trench both crumbled. A crude walkway allowed the other characters to look at the result of Scartaris’s attack.

  Tareah ran both hands through her light brown hair. Her eyes had a distant look as she began to speak. The villagers still did not interrupt her—the destruction of the Stronghold awed them too much.

  “Many turns ago, at the beginning of the Scouring, the great human general Doril founded this Stronghold. He had just lost all of his fighters as well as the Sentinel Oldahn, his friend, in a Slac fortress. Doril wanted to escape the battles of the Scouring, to live in peace away from the Game.

  “He found the characters here innocent and completely unprepared to defend themselves. When he arrived, Doril strode out of the forest terrain to the fields where farmers were working. He told them of the marauding Slac armies in the nearby hexagons, and of the bloodshed in the Scouring. ‘Do you comfort yourselves by thinking the Outsiders would never bring the battles here?’ he asked. ‘Or do you fancy you could defeat a brutal Slac regiment with your rakes and sticks?’”

  As she told the story, Tareah put her hands on her hips, imitating the stance she imagined Doril had taken. “So Doril build this Stronghold. It has withstood many attacks and protected the characters in this village for all that time.

  “But Scartaris sent the Slave of the Serpent here to slay Tarne. He brought the rat-creatures to destroy the Stronghold itself. Scartaris has brought the battle here. Like those first farmers confronted by Doril, we can no longer live our lives and ignore the rest of the Game. We must be prepared to defend ourselves in any way we know how.”

  She stood there watching. The forest terrain around Steep Hill seemed tranquil, filled with quiet sounds of rustling leaves, birdsong and insects. The stream gushing along the hex-line rattled over rocks. The deceptive peacefulness bothered her.

  The villagers fidgeted, uneasy. “When is Delrael coming back?” Derow the blacksmith asked, mumbling the words into his full dark beard.

  “Yes,” Mostem the baker said, grinning. “Once Delrael destroys Scartaris, we won’t have to worry anymore.”

  Tareah felt anger rising within her. “Delrael left me here! He trusted me to watch over the village and the Stronghold. Even if Delrael does destroy Scartaris, how is he going to stop a gigantic army that’s waiting to charge across the map? Think about it! Scartaris has gathered ten times as many fighting monsters as ever engaged in the old Sorcerer wars. Are they just going to sit still even if Scartaris is destroyed? We have to be prepared.”

  Siya stood by Tareah. She appeared frightened and confused, with red-rimmed eyes that showed how tired she was. But most of all she looked angry. “The Outsiders won’t leave us alone to live our lives. If they want us to fight, then we should fight them.”

  Tareah went forward to the villagers. She walked among them, looking each in the eye as she talked. “None of us is trained. But we’ll have to learn how. We must train ourselves.”

  The sun shown down on them, and Tareah felt exposed on top of Steep Hill, as if giant Outside eyes were staring down at her. She pushed the thought out of her head and turned her mind to the job before her.

  She directed the villagers to sift through the wreckage of the storehouse, to pick out all the old weapons that could be used or repaired. Tareah helped them, though she grew gloomier as she waded through the splinters and broken walls. Marks from tiny teeth and claws scored every scrap of wood.

  Drodanis had conducted all his private role-playing training in the darkness here, surrounded by old weapons. Vailret told her of his imaginary adventure, how real the training had been for him. Now the storehouse lay collapsed. The Stronghold was ruined. It had been her responsibility.

  They separated the swords, bows, maces, spears, shields, armor all into separate piles. Tareah found herself wasting too much time staring at the inlaid designs of relics that had been gathered from various treasure hoards. Apparently, Drodanis had been as avid a collector as her father.

  Tareah held one of the simple blades, a short sword, up for the blacksmith to see. “From now on, Derow, concentrate on making swords. We’ll need a greater supply if we’re going to gather an army. We’ll send out couriers to gather all the other characters from settlements far and wide.”

  Derow shuffled his feet and l
ooked at the sample blade she held up. “My craftsmanship can never match anything like this.” His face turned red with shame. “The old Sorcerer swordsmiths were masters. Look at the skill in even their simplest pieces! I can’t begin to—”

  “You’ll do fine, Derow.” Tareah held up her hand. “A sword needs to cut. It doesn’t need to be beautiful.”

  The blacksmith still looked at her skeptically, but he set to work gathering and studying the remaining swords.

  Tareah clapped her hands and walked among the other villagers, directing some to mount the archery targets, others to erect the sword posts, using logs from the fallen wall if necessary. Others went out into the forest to find straight twigs for arrows, saplings for bows. The children made bird traps to furnish feathers for fletching the arrows.

  Siya wandered around, acting busy. Tareah kept too occupied to notice what Siya was doing until the old woman picked up a sword for herself and went over to the section of the wall where they had recently buried Tarne. Siya’s husband Cayon also lay there.

  She stood with the sword propped in front of her, its tip stuck in the soft ground. The sun glinted off gems in the hilt. Tareah noticed a strange gleam in her eyes.

  “We will train. We will be ready,” Siya said. She took a step forward to stand by Tareah. The other villagers paused to look up at her.

  “We will be fighters!”

  18. Delrael’s Second Chance

  “RULE #10. Combat on Gamearth follows rigid guidelines. The accompanying tables give details on how fighting is commenced according to experience, armor, available weapons, and many other factors. Combat can come in different forms, such as surprise attack, team attack, or single combat.”

  —The Book of Rules

  Mindar’s blank white eyes stared at them. She did not blink. Her skin was pale and cold. Delrael couldn’t see her breathing, but he knew she remained alive Scartaris had healed her—he wasn’t finished playing with her yet.