Gamearth Trilogy Omnibus

by Kevin J. Anderson

  But if this had gained a future for Gamearth and all its characters, a future for them to forge their own lives without the Outsiders, then perhaps, in a way that his mind understood but his heart did not, the sacrifice was well made.

  When he looked up again, blinking colored spots from his eyes, the titanic Allspirit filled the grotto.

  The Allspirit towered gray-white and hooded, bearing no resemblance whatever to Bryl or Tareah. Its features were hidden: the cloak seemed merely a metaphor, a symbolic boundary that defined the limits of its tangible existence. The form stood so immense that it seemed to fold in upon itself to fit within the walls, like infinity wrapped in a shroud.

  Vailret couldn’t speak or move. He held his breath.

  The Allspirit stretched out its silently flapping sleeves. It paid no attention to Vailret or anything else in the ruins of the chamber.

  Frankenstein peeped up over the edge of Drone and stared.

  Vailret did not dare to make any noise. The Allspirit grew brighter with a wind of power, energy draining through the fabric of the map and into the Allspirit’s body. Vailret wondered if it had drained the dayid from Rokanun. . .and probably the other dayids as well. It seemed to reel with its own new power.

  “NOW WE ARE MASTERS OF THE GAME.” The sexless voice boomed out from the cavernous hollow in the hood. More stones and dust pattered down from the broken ceiling.

  Vailret felt a surge of enthusiasm, then a chill as he realized that the Allspirit’s “we” did not mean the characters on Gamearth, but only the plural identity of what had been Tareah and Bryl.

  “LET US PLAY WITH NEW CHARACTERS.”

  With a wave of the flapping empty sleeves, another part of the wall cracked. But it wasn’t an actual crack—just a dark seam opening to somewhere else. More wind came out, this time with a silent roar that Vailret could not hear or feel, yet it buffeted him backward nevertheless.

  Streaming out from other parts of the map, other parts of the universe perhaps, came the original six Spirits, three white and three black. Vailret remembered seeing the Earthspirits as they emerged, immense and awesome from Delrael’s silver belt on the threshold of Scartaris. He remembered the black Deathspirits, who had cursed Enrod, rising up from the broken hex-line, also to destroy Scartaris.

  Now, though, the Earthspirits and Deathspirits appeared much diminished. Colossal as they had been before, they now looked weaker, insubstantial in front of the dominating Allspirit. The Deathspirits and the Earthspirits remained silent, as if cowering.

  Beside Vailret, Frankenstein stumbled over the motionless wreckage of Drone and stood gaping at the Spirits with mouth wide and eyes bulging. “This is impossible! This is astonishing,” he mumbled to himself. Vailret glared at him.

  The Allspirit spoke to the other six hooded forms. “NOW WE CAN PLAY. NOW WE CAN HAVE FUN.”

  The air sang with exerted power. The Earthspirits and Deathspirits flickered and struggled, but eventually buckled, crouching down in a symbolic bow to the Allspirit.

  Vailret finally closed his eyes because he could not take in the immensity of the spectral shapes. The Allspirit’s words sounded nothing like either Bryl or Tareah. The thoughts could not be theirs, but some sort of manifestation of the power in the Stones themselves, some reflection on the old Sorcerers who had created them—the Sorcerers, dissatisfied with being manipulated by the Outsiders, who had taken the extreme step of the Transition in an effort to escape.

  “Tareah, listen to me!” Vailret shouted. His voice sounded like a ridiculous squeak. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, expecting to be wiped out of existence in a moment. The invisible weight of the Allspirit’s attention felt like a building collapsing across his back.

  Vailret had nothing to lose. If the Allspirit didn’t do what they needed it to do, then Gamearth was doomed, whether at the hands of the Outsiders, or the Allspirit itself.

  “Remember why you’re here! Tareah and Bryl—remember why you gave your lives to create this! You must save Gamearth.”

  “WE WILL DO WHAT WE WISH TO DO.”

  The scorn in the Allspirit’s voice made Vailret want to wither and throw himself over a cliff. But he shouted his next words through a raw throat, battering back his own emotions. They had to remember. Vailret had to make them see.

  “Bryl, listen to me! Remember when you linked with the dayid to stop the forest fire in Ledaygen. You felt the power then, you know how dangerous it could be.

  “Tareah, remember how Scartaris destroyed the Stronghold while you fought to save it. Remember how the power corrupted Enrod and made him want to use the Fire Stone for destruction!”

  The Allspirit remained unmoved. Vailret continued to speak as fast as the words could tumble from his mouth.

  “You knew this might happen! Think of the duel of Entarr and Dythat, when two rival Sorcerers unleashed such forces that swallowed them both up! You know all these legends Tareah! Remember the wedding celebration of Lord Armund and Lady Maire, and the disputed stone throw that sparked centuries of war?

  “Bryl, think about how your parents were too weak to bear the accusations against them, so they used the magic to destroy themselves. Remember it! The power that’s working through you now is not a part of you. You can’t let it control you—it has to be the other way around! You control the power.”

  The six Spirits remained silent, but the Allspirit spoke. This time the genderless echoing voice carried hints and undertones of Tareah or Bryl. “WE CANNOT FORGET. WE REMEMBER.”

  Vailret realized he had a new tactic. “Then remember how you took on this quest, to gather all four Stones together to become the Allspirit. The object of that quest was for you to hold Gamearth together by taking it away from the Outsiders. That was your quest—remember Rule #2! ‘Once characters undertake a quest, they must see it through to completion!’”

  He stood tall and opened his eyes again. “To complete your quest, you must save Gamearth. You’re still bound by the Rules.”

  “THE RULES ARE BREAKING,” the Allspirit said. But despite the power behind the words, they seemed to lack conviction.

  “Your true opponents are the Outsiders. You saw the clay face of the Outsider David. You know about the Rulewoman Melanie, and the Outsiders Scott and Tyrone. You must confront them.”

  He let an excited smile flicker across his face, then lowered his voice. “If you play with us to exercise your power, you won’t have much of a challenge. But if you confront a real opponent, imagine how much more fun it will be.” Vailret paused for just a moment, then shouted, “Remember Rule #1! Always have fun!”

  The Allspirit shimmered. “Yes, Vailret. We remember you.” The voices were more subdued now, a clear duet of Bryl and Tareah. “Our focus lies Outside.”

  The Allspirit expanded and drew out its great cloaked form, as if unfolding from other dimensions. The smaller Earthspirits and Deathspirits rose up as well; they all seemed to know what to do. The three black Deathspirits and the three white Earthspirits and the single gray overarching Allspirit broke down the boundaries between themselves, coalescing into one omnipotent being, incalculably more powerful than any of the individual Spirits.

  It was a kind of super-Transition that made the initial one seem like a half-hearted opening gambit.

  Neither the grotto, nor the hexagon, nor the entire map of Gamearth could contain such a Spirit. Vailret fell to his knees, blinking and stunned as the being rose—and kept rising, streaming upward, pulling with it all the magic, all the knowledge that it had gathered from Gamearth.

  Then it plunged outward into reality, leaving only silence roaring in its wake.

  “Great Maxwell!” Frankenstein said.

  Epilogue: Game’s End

  David felt pain exploding inside his head, in fact his whole body. Parts of him, characters that lived within him, were being murdered one by one. He tried to cry out but couldn’t. His cheekbones felt as if they had been crushed like eggshells.

  Tyrone’s blood-soak
ed corpse lay wide-eyed and mangled on the living room carpet, growing cold.

  Melanie kept screaming down at the map.

  Scott appeared broken, as if he had not the slightest idea what to do and couldn’t understand how it had happened this way.

  David forced his eyes open through a red haze of pain.

  With a crackling sound, the Allspirit streamed up out of the painted wooden map like some specter rising from a fire. The gray form spilled out of the hexagons, growing larger and larger until it towered to the ceiling.

  David scrambled backward. Melanie gaped at it. Scott closed his eyes and shook his head.

  The Allspirit surveyed them with its cavernous hood. The air sizzled with its buildup of power. “Your Game is over now,” it said. The words echoed around the walls of the house. The wind outside seemed to have stopped. “I will take Gamearth away from you. We want nothing more to do with the Outside.”

  “And we want nothing more to do with you!” David shouted. His words snapped in his swollen throat.

  Beneath the Allspirit, the map shimmered. The spidery black hexagon lines flowed like molten oil.

  The Allspirit drew back, engulfing the map in its translucent form. The hexagons of Gamearth splintered and expanded, flying apart like pieces in a puzzle. Brilliant points of light spun like a galaxy around the form of the Allspirit. Even the tiny broken pieces by the fireplace lifted up and swirled into the cluster.

  The Allspirit grew taller. “I leave only what is yours,” it said, then vanished with an audible pop. A few remaining bright hexagons flashed once, then winked out.

  Only the Sitnaltan weapon remained behind, canted on the carpet, as its timer ticked the last two seconds to detonation.

  “Well, Overlord Migan, this is most enjoyable. Shall we let the weapon detonate?”

  Comtar Durat stared down at the maps spread before him, the detailed sketches of the characters’ houses, the careful drawing of the living room. Next to them rested crystalline chits showing statistics for the characters David, Melanie, and Scott; the chit for Tyrone had been removed from play.

  Overlord Migan picked up the dice scattered on the playing surface. “I think we should roll for it.”

  He tossed the dice.

  The End

  For Ed Hagstrom, who remembers Rule #1 as much as anybody

  Acknowledgments

  Other eyes and other imaginations have helped me keep this book on a steady course. I am especially indebted to the suggestions from my writer’s workshop: thanks go to Lori Ann White, Gary Shockley, M. Coleman Easton, Clare Bell, Michael C. Berch, and Dan’l Danhy-Oakes—and Linda Searle takes full responsibility for the joke.

  About Kevin J. Anderson

  Kevin J. Anderson is the author of nearly 100 novels, 48 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 20 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, and New York Times Notable Book.

  Anderson has co-authored eleven books in the DUNE saga with Brian Herbert. Anderson’s popular epic SF series, The Saga of Seven Suns, is his most ambitious work, and he is currently at work on a sweeping fantasy trilogy, TERRA INCOGNITA, about sailing ships, sea monsters, and the crusades. As an innovative companion project to TERRA INCOGNITA, Anderson co-wrote (with wife Rebecca Moesta) the lyrics for two ambitious rock CDs based on the novels. Performed by the supergroup Roswell Six for ProgRock Records, the two CDs feature performances by rock legends from Kansas, Dream Theater, Asia, Saga, Rocket Scientists, Shadow Gallery, and others.

  His novel Enemies & Allies chronicles the first meeting of Batman and Superman in the 1950s; Anderson also wrote The Last Days of Krypton. He has written numerous STAR WARS projects, including the Jedi Academy trilogy, the Young Jedi Knights series (with Moesta), and Tales of the Jedi comics from Dark Horse. Fans might also know him from his X-FILES novels or Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son.

  His website is www.wordfire.com.

  Look for These & Other Digital Works from WordFire Press

  by Kevin J. Anderson

  Mythical Creatures

  An original, standalone story in the TERRA INCOGNITA universe: A prester in search of penance accepts an assignment to the rugged Soeland Islands, but he must confront his faith after he is cast overboard and then rescued by a mythical creature that the Scriptures tell him cannot exist. BONUS: Also contains the complete story and lyrics (written by Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta) for the two TERRA INCOGNITA crossover rock CDs performed by Roswell Six.

  Alternitech

  “Alternitech” sends prospectors into alternate but similar timelines where tiny differences yield significant changes: a world where the Beatles never broke up, or where Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t gunned down after the Kennedy assassination, where an accidental medical breakthrough offers the cure to a certain disease, where a struggling author really did write the great American novel, or where a freak accident reveals the existence of a serial killer. Alternitech finds those differences—and profits from them.

  Kevin J. Anderson’s Alien Landscapes 1

  Collection of four science fiction tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Landscapes,” “Fondest of Memories,” “Controlled Experiments,” and “Human, Martian—One, Two, Three.”

  Kevin J. Anderson’s Dark Labyrinth 1

  Collection of four horror tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Final Performance,” “Special Makeup,” “Much at Stake,” and “The Sum of His Parts.”

  Kevin J. Anderson’s Fantastic Realms 1

  Collection of four fantasy tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: “Loincloth,” “Frog Kiss,” “Short Straws,” and “Technomagic.”

  RESURRECTION, INC.

  In the future, the dead walk the streets—Resurrection, Inc. found a profitable way to do it. A microprocessor brain, synthetic heart, artificial blood, and a fresh corpse can return as a Servant for anyone with the price. Trained to obey any command, Servants have no minds of their own, no memories of their past lives.

  Supposedly.

  Then came Danal. He was murdered, a sacrifice from the ever-growing cult of neo-Satanists who sought heaven in the depths of hell. But as a Servant, Danal began to remember. He learned who had killed him, who he was, and what Resurrection, Inc. had in mind for the human race.

  CLIMBING OLYMPUS

  They were prisoners, exiles, pawns of a corrupt government. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek’s adin, surgically transformed beings who can survive new lives on the surface of Mars. But they are still exiles, unable ever again to breathe Earth’s air. And they are still pawns.

  For the adin exist to terraform Mars for human colonists, not for themselves. Creating a new Earth, they will destroy their world, killed by their own success. Desperate, adin leader Boris Tiban launches a suicide campaign to sabotage the Mars Project, knowing his people will perish in a glorious, doomed campaign of mayhem—unless embattled, bitter Rachel Dycek can find a miracle to save both the Mars Project and the race she created.

  “Drumbeats”

  A chilling story cowritten with Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. A rock drummer bicycling through the African wilderness encounters a village that makes very special drums. This one will make your heart skip a beat. Includes essays by Neil Peart and by Kevin J. Anderson.

  BLINDFOLD

  Atlas is a struggling colony on an untamable world, a fragile society held together by the Truthsayers. Parentless, trained from birth as the sole users of Veritas, a telepathy virus that lets them read the souls of the guilty. Truthsayers are Justice—infallible, beyond appeal.

  But sometimes they are wrong.

  Falsely accused of murder, Troy Boren trusts the young Truthsayer Kalliana . . . until, impossibly, she convicts
him. Still shaken from a previous reading, Kalliana doesn’t realize her power is fading. But soon the evidence becomes impossible to ignore. The Truthsayers’ Veritas has been diluted and someone in the colony is selling smuggled telepathy. Justice isn’t blind—it’s been blinded.

  From an immortal’s orbital prison to the buried secrets of a regal fortress, Kalliana and Troy seek the conspiracy that threatens to destroy their world from within. For without truth and justice, Atlas will certainly fall. . . .

  Gamearth Trilogy 1: GAMEARTH

  It was supposed to be just another Sunday night fantasy role-playing game for David, Tyrone, Scott, and Melanie. But after years of playing, the game had become so real that all their creations—humans, sorcerers, dragons, ogres, panther-folk, cyclops—now had existences of their own. And when the four outside players decide to end their game, the characters inside the world of Gamearth—warriors, scholars, and the few remaining wielders of magic—band together to keep their land from vanishing. Now they must embark on a desperate quest for their own magic—magic that can twist the Rules enough to save them all from the evil that the players created to destroy their entire world.

  Gamearth Trilogy 2: GAMEPLAY

  The Gamearth Trilogy continues. It was written in the Rules—Save the World! Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all had come alive. And now there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself and both the inside and the outside worlds.