When Jathen finally collapsed an hour later, Enrod took him to an overhang of rock. The setting sun cast long shadows from the mountains, like black hands reaching across the hexagons toward Tairé.
Jathen’s legs started to spasm, and his feet jittered against the ground. His teeth chattered. He had retched several times, pulling up nothing from his empty stomach.
Enrod positioned him comfortably, where Jathen could look across the landscape, toward the great desolation and the distant city walls.
“If I’m going to die here anyway,” Jathen said, wheezing great breaths of mountain air, “then I wish I had just died in Tairé.”
Enrod sat next to him and placed a broad hand on his shoulder. His mind became sharp and clear for a moment. “Can’t choose when and where we die. Not part of the Game.”
“I don’t care about the Game anymore,” Jathen said. Enrod could think of no way to answer him.
Enrod looked out, and with his sharp eyes he could see Tairé. Masses of figures poured out from the ruined gates. He sat up straight. As he hoped, Enrod had provoked the manticore to march out before he was ready.
Jathen coughed, but he couldn’t see. “Do you think we defeated them?”
“Sure of it,” Enrod answered. Without further words, he stared down at the desolation, where he could see Siryyk’s immense army pouring out, mobilized and heading toward them. . . .
Enrod waited there until full darkness had come. By that time, Jathen died.
Enrod did the best he could to pile scrub wood around the body, a mound of brush and twigs and stunted branches. “I can still make fire,” he said.
With a simple, powerful spell, he turned the pile into a blazing funeral pyre for Jathen. He stood, holding his hands up to the flames and feeling the heat.
With a last glance behind him at the advancing monster horde, Enrod moved upward to rejoin Delrael’s army. Jathen’s funeral pyre crackled in the night.
13. Frankenstein’s Drone
“As our enemies find better ways of fighting us, so we must develop better ways to strike back. Is there any character in Sitnalta who is not willing to meet this challenge?”
—Professor Frankenstein, in a guest lecture to beginning inventors
Frankenstein pulled Bryl toward the back of the cluttered workroom. The professor’s fingers left greasy marks on his blue cloak.
Vailret blinked in the dim light shining through cobweb-covered skylights. If anything, the workroom looked more chaotic than he remembered it from the first time he had visited there. He tripped on a stack of half-opened books, sheaves of paper, and scrawled drawings.
“Hurry, if you please,” Frankenstein said over his shoulder. “It’s most disquieting to be so vulnerable out here.”
In the back of the room, the professor heaved open a trapdoor, then let it thud onto the floor. Bright chips of wood showed where the heavy trap had gouged marks from repeated openings.
“Down you go!” Frankenstein practically stuffed Bryl into the hole.
“Wait! I—” Bryl said, but the professor lifted his foot and pushed down on the half-Sorcerer’s shoulder.
“Professor, why don’t you just explain yourself?” Vailret said.
Frankenstein climbed into the trapdoor as well. He turned with his shoulders above the floor. “You may follow us if you like, or not. I can’t stay out where the invisible force might get me. I have too much at stake.”
He continued to descend. Vailret could hear Bryl’s footsteps clicking on a metal staircase. Frankenstein reached up to grasp the handle of the trapdoor. “Are you coming or not?”
Vailret squeezed past the professor and worked his way down the twisting stairs. Frankenstein used both hands to swing the trapdoor over his head and ducked as the heavy door crashed into place. “Ah, much better,” he said. Frankenstein closed his eyes and sighed.
The bottom of the trapdoor, along with the walls, ceiling, and floor of the entire underground room, had been covered with plates of dull, dark metal.
Bryl stood at the bottom, waiting for them. Frankenstein descended the narrow stairs while Vailret squinted around the broad chamber. Serving trays, dirty plates, and half-eaten food lay piled near the stairs. The professor had obviously spent a great deal of time down here.
“Professor Verne and I constructed this underground workroom years ago. Every inch of it is covered with lead shielding.” He ran his fingers along the wall.
“The lead prevents even the Outsiders from detecting what we do down here. We use this place for our most secret investigations into certain topics. We didn’t want the Outsiders to know that such ideas had even occurred to us.”
He made a thin-lipped smile. “With that invisible force attacking four times a day, I took refuge here. The force can’t penetrate the lead. That has been proven time and again.” Frankenstein strode into the chamber. “Here I can work alone and undisturbed to develop some means to rescue Sitnalta.”
The entire chamber was piled with tools and raw materials: metal piping, pulleys, gears, glass spheres, switches, wiring, sheet metal. Boxes crammed full of rivets and screws lay stacked on top of each other. Wrenches, screwdrivers, and soldering irons rested beside half-assembled pieces of machinery.
Vailret could make out little among the chaos. Bryl poked among the coiled wires on a table.
“Don’t touch anything,” Frankenstein said.
In the center of the room, propped up on solid blocks, stood a large squarish frame in which Frankenstein had hung a network of cables and pulleys. Wires protruded from the corners of the frame.
Vailret stepped forward to peer at another object on one of the long worktables. Five curved cylinders as long and as thick as his leg protruded upward and bent in the middle. Vailret cocked his head, then stopped as the skewed perspective finally came into focus. The metal framework and the five cylinders looked like a giant hand as large as his own body.
“What is all this?” he said, staring at the enormous central frame, the other scattered cylinders and gears. In his mind, a picture began to come clear.
Frankenstein patted the “thumb” of the metal hand and picked up a long roll of paper. He tacked the top against a cork board he had mounted on the wall, unrolled the paper, then pinned down the bottom. The corners curled up, and the professor swiped with his hand, trying to get them to lie flat. Finally, he stuck the corners down with two other pins.
He stepped back to display a sketch of a burly manlike machine, an automaton the size of ten characters. “I will call it my Drone,” Frankenstein said. “My servant, like a worker bee.” He paused a moment, as if for them to appreciate his work.
“I have analyzed that magical force coming from below. It plays living characters just like a game master, but has no effect on Sitnaltan machines. If the controller could manipulate our machines, the entire city would have been leveled long ago.”
Frankenstein turned away from the sketch to look at Vailret and Bryl. “I spent my life discovering the way living creatures work. Professor Verne and I constructed small automatons, playthings like the mechanical fish in the fountains, or character-sized robots that played games against solitary characters.” Frankenstein’s eyes looked wistful. “A tremendous success, that. Our automated dicing companion never cheats, you know.”
Then he dismissed his nostalgia. “But those were just practice inventions. This is my crowning achievement. Drone will seek out and destroy the perpetrator of this vile force.” He paused, turning his gaze away. “Verne was always good at implementing the mechanical manifestations. I just studied the life forms, explained them to him, and he made similar machines. Unfortunately, Drone has been an entirely solo effort.”
He pointed to the top of the drawing, snapping out of his distraction. “The human brain is far too complex for me to understand, much less imitate. I have dissected several brains and tried to discover how they work, but such organs are fairly difficult to come by these days.”
Frankens
tein sighed, as if distressed at having to admit his failure. “So, since I’m unable to construct an adequate mechanical substitute, I will act as the brain of Drone. I’ll construct a control chamber, also lined with lead, so that I can ride along with the machine to hunt out our enemy.”
Vailret watched him, listened to the speech, and had the odd impression that Frankenstein had taken on this task as a challenge to his problem-solving ability, rather than to stop the terrible manipulations from happening.
“Dirac is dead,” Vailret said. Maybe that would shake him out of it. “We thought you should know.”
Frankenstein continued to stare at his drawing, tracing a finger along a nested diagram of gears. Old oil and grease left a dark curve under his fingernail. “What?” He looked up.
“I said Dirac is dead. The invisible force made him come after us in a steam-engine car. Dirac tried to kill us, but instead he crashed into your communications facility.”
“Oh, no,” Frankenstein said. “Is it destroyed?”
“Dirac is dead. There was a big explosion.”
Frankenstein made an impatient wave. “No, the communications facility. All of Morse’s wires.”
Bryl blinked. “Aren’t you listening? Your city leader is dead.”
Frankenstein frowned, and his voice grew hard-edged. “Plenty of greater characters than Dirac have already fallen. I choose not to tear my hair out in grief because of it. I’ve got too much to do.” He looked at them in defiance. “Jules never returned from his mission—he’s probably dead, and I’d certainly mourn him sooner than I would shed a tear for Dirac.”
He plucked the bottom pins out of the drawing, which rolled back up into a loose cylinder. “If Dirac hadn’t quashed the idea years ago that we Sitnaltans should attempt our own Transition through technology, we wouldn’t be in this trouble right now. We might all be in a far better place. Dirac’s own daughter Mayer was very disappointed with him about that.”
“Mayer?” Vailret interrupted. “How is she?”
“Rather high tempered about this whole mess. Her heart is in the right place, but she’s too bull-headed about the challenge. She will charge and meet it head-on, no doubt. But sometimes it doesn’t help to charge into a brick wall. It’s better to find a door. Fewer headaches that way.”
Bryl picked among the scattered dishes on the floor, as if looking for something still worth eating. “But what do you want with me, Professor? You dragged me in here.”
Frankenstein put a finger to his lips and raised his eyes. “Ah, yes! I can’t find any explanation for this force other than that it must be caused by some evil sorcery. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about magic.
“If the Rules have indeed been damaged, and magic can operate even here in Sitnalta—then I’d better learn about it. You see, I was able to discover exactly how the old Sorcerers succeeded in their Transition spell. Oh, it took a while to track down the records and everything, but when I did I found something amazing.”
He looked to Vailret, who felt a sudden keen interest. The stone gargoyle Arken had told his own memories of the grand event, but Frankenstein, with his strange technical perspective, would have a different assessment.
“The probability of the exact dice roll the old Sorcerers needed—even though it took them day after day of constantly rolling the dice in the attempt—defies common sense. To get five ‘20s’ in the same roll should happen only once in three million two hundred thousand times! Some sort of magic must have had its hand in that.
“Therefore, if Sitnalta is depending on me to combat a magic-driven enemy, I need to understand how best to strike back.” He turned to Bryl. “Spend a few hours here with me, explaining spells and magic. Tell me what are the limitations, tell me how a spell works. What is it that you say to invoke the magic? It’s very important.”
“We have a favor to ask as well, Professor,” Vailret said, but Frankenstein waved his hand in dismissal, as if that were a trivial problem.
Bryl finally found a half-eaten piece of cake. He brushed off part of it, flicked crumbs from his fingertips, then pushed the piece into his mouth. He spoke as he chewed.
“At least here it’s safe.”
14. Role Playing
“The merit of any sacrifice, small or large, can be judged by no one but the character who makes it. Small sacrifices gravely made may outweigh great deeds that are done without forethought.”
—The Book of Rules
By the time General Korux and the marauding creatures had scoured the ruins of Tairé for the escaped professor, Verne had already crossed his second hexagon of desolation terrain at a dead run.
The night was cool and clear. He wheezed in the dry air, but continued to forge eastward. Wherever possible, he stepped on rocks to hide his trail. It would likely be mid-morning or so before Korux began to investigate beyond the city walls.
Before dawn, though, Verne wanted to be on the other side of the forested-hill terrain. The hills stood tall and covered with grasping skeletal trees. The thin branches were so long dead that they looked fossilized in the baking dry climate.
While languishing in his miserable cell, Verne had calculated that eastward would be the least-expected direction for his escape. He could have gone south, back toward Sitnalta. He could have gone west, where the mountains and the forest terrain would make it easier for him to hide. But Verne had no hunting or forest skills, and any of Siryyk’s creatures would no doubt succeed in tracking him down. If they looked in the right place.
His best chance lay in avoiding pursuit for as long as possible. He aimed for the awful forbidden zone of terrain where the climactic battle with Scartaris had broken the map.
Everything would be strange there—or so he had heard. The monsters were terrified of that place. No character would go there intentionally—which was why Verne considered it a safe bet. And, though he didn’t want to admit it, the sheer anomaly of the bizarre area had piqued his natural curiosity.
Verne felt weak. He had nothing to drink, and had eaten little for weeks. But after Siryyk forced him to create the cannon, Verne knew he could not remain a captive any longer. Knowing the manticore also possessed the Sitnaltan weapon made things even worse.
The weapon contained the power source from the Outsiders’ ship—a hybrid of reality and the imagination. If it was deadly to Gamearth, it might be just as deadly to the Players. The Outsider Scott had created a bigger stick than he bargained for. And the manticore wanted to use it.
Verne cursed himself for not being able to dismantle the weapon or sabotage it in some way before his flight. But Siryyk kept the weapon under very close guard.
He had verified that the device itself remained undamaged, and he hoped that the manticore would not discover how to reset its timing mechanism. But Verne held little hope of that; Siryyk had already shown himself to be highly intelligent.
He wondered what Frankenstein would have done. He wondered what Frankenstein was doing now. Detectors would have shown that the weapon never detonated. Did Frankenstein think him dead? What did Victor think of him and his failure?
Verne had no way to send a message. He had no way to fight. Simply by taking all his undeveloped inventions away from Siryyk’s army, he would strike a severe blow.
Verne limped across a hex-line where the desolation butted against an adjoining section of forested-hill. Verne chose to continue along the desolation, heading northward to steer away from the sharp eyes of any pursuers.
Though he stood low on the desolation, by late afternoon he saw the first distorted hexagons of broken terrain. The hexes had been pried up from the map and tilted at the wrong angles. In the center he discerned a misty void, shapeless and colorless, like a death wound for Gamearth, growing larger.
Scouring dusts gusted up from the desolation, staining the sky. Verne’s throat felt as if he had swallowed hot dry rags rolled in sand. His legs shook. His woolen greatcoat felt hot and sticky, but he could not leave it as a flag for any following
creatures.
He plowed ahead. He didn’t know what he would do in the destroyed zone, but his mind had focused on that one goal, and he continued in that direction.
Behind him, Verne heard a faint puttering sound that grew louder. He turned and saw a tiny black form. The sun lowered toward the distant mountain terrain and shone in his eyes. Verne squinted, wishing he had brought an optick tube. But even without enhancements, he could make out a Sitnaltan steam-engine car coming for him.
He thought he had become delirious. Professor Frankenstein had come to rescue him, somehow knowing where Verne would be. His heart lifted with elation. Finally, signs of civilization! Yes, Frankenstein’s detectors must have seen the terrible anomaly with this portion of the map, and he had come to investigate.
Two large figures accompanied the steam-engine car, much taller than any human character could be. They loped along with great strides that allowed them to match speed with the vehicle.
Verne waved his arms, trying to draw their attention. His voice came out hoarse and raspy. “I’m over here, Victor!”
The vehicle veered and came toward him. Gouts of steam showed that the driver had jammed the acceleration lever all the way forward. Verne dropped his arms down to his side. He blinked his red and sore eyes. “Oh, dear,” he said.
He recognized the hulking monsters bounding beside the car. The reptilian form of Korux sat behind the steering levers. “Oh, dear!” he said again.
Somehow pulling new energy from the marrow of his bones, Verne ran blindly toward the broken hexagons. He didn’t know what he would find there, but he did know what would happen if Korux captured him. Siryyk wanted Verne alive, but the Slac general could cause a great deal of pain and maiming before he endangered the professor’s life.
Verne stumbled on the rocky soil and kept running. The sound of the steam-engine car grew louder, chugging and puttering. Up ahead he saw the first broken hex-line, a small lip half a man high where the terrain had shifted.
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