by S. E. Smith
“Warmup my ass,” Sara muttered. “It was cold as hell out there.”
Suddenly Kev recognized her. Not that he’d ever noticed Sara around the University. Graduate students in the sciences were notorious for spending such long hours in their laboratories that they seldom appeared on the sidewalks. However, he’d heard about a grad student who was the niece of the xenoarchaeology professor Svetlana Tai. The resemblance was unmistakable, now that he was onto it. Svetlana was an attractive woman—curvy and compact with dark eyes and long dark hair—but she was a hotheaded troublemaker, the diametric and dislikeable opposite of most other professors. Sara looked like a younger edition of her aunt with some resemblance in the personality department. She had a temper. But on her, so far, it was charming.
“And the warmup was needed,” Elzebet was saying. “Winterfair is for insiders. We need to have our acts—fighting, adventuring, derring-do, and entertainment—down pat for the Ascendance Fair in summer, when visitors come from across the stars. Today I’ve already heard about too many injuries in Warway because of fighters being out of practice, while in Karnivale, a grandstand collapsed. And here, well, you’re the largest group I’ve had to address in a timeout today, but not the only one! That Avalanche was a special effect scheduled for later in this Fair. It was designed by the Engineer’s Guild and it shouldn’t have fallen when it did. Can anyone tell me why that happened?”
Her question met confused silence. Sara, though, stiffened and quietly said, “Oh. . . .” Kev wondered what she knew.
“Well, then, let me remind everyone of the Rules of Engagement.”
The crowd made an anticipatory rustle.
“Our Fair is like Earth’s ancient land of Europa—we call it Europa; history knows it as Europe—played for fun, adventure, games of skill and chance. But it’s not an exact re-creation, more like dreaming memory.”
This, Kev thought, was an unexpectedly honest assessment by an important insider. His opinion of Winterfair went up a notch.
“The Fair Country is the heart of Winterfair. Every player here should have a quest,” Elzebet stated.
“Not just ‘our side wins’?” Kev asked Sara in a whisper.
She nodded. “Anything from winning prizes for skill to finding buried treasure to being a monster who takes a pretty wife, like the Baron. Strange how some girls like that.” Her tone was not approving.
“Every player acts within a role,” Elzebet said. “It doesn’t have to be on the list of approved roles, just plausible. You do have to stick with it. Your role changes only if you do.”
“You two are fine,” Sara whispered to Kev. “Crusaders who made it home.” She crossed her arms. “Me too, no matter what that damned Monitor said.”
“Do note that modern technology is approved. I understand a Monitor raised an issue about that. An ancient sage once said, ‘Any sufficiently evolved technology is indistinguishable from magic,’ and that sensible guideline is one we use.”
Sara said softly, “So there!”
Elzebet continued, “And roles play out within a team. Even in the case of spies and assassins, if any.”
“That wasn’t in the rule book,” someone objected.
“It is now. We’ve got to get a handle on these accidents and injuries. Think of it as a buddy system to keep everyone safe.”
“Damn,” Sara said under her breath.
On a sudden and uncharacteristic impulse, Kev nudged her. “Want to team up with us?”
She gave him a radiant grin that warmed him to his toes. Then she said, “I can help find the unicorn girl for you.” At that, Jerad brightened too.
“What about the Lone Ranger?” came a voice in the crowd.
“He has a sidekick who’s an elf!” somebody else called out.
“If I may continue? Thank you. The roles play out within the Winterfair rules. Fighting can be fair or foul, calculated or spontaneous—that depends on your role—but if you deliver a killing blow, you’re out, and the victim’s hospital bill will be on you.
“If you’re the one injured out of play, you can return if the Hospital can mend you, but otherwise, better luck next year. We don’t want people staggering around half whole. And watch out for the Death Angel. If he singles you out, you’re out for the duration.
“Finally, each quest has points for wins on the way to the prize, but points will be deducted for inauthenticity. Points can be taken away for vandalism, injury to noncombatants, or inciting riot. Now, does everybody here understand these rules?”
Not far away from Kev stood the defrosted Baron. Presumably one of the less altruistic roles, the Baron nodded along with everyone else. Something odd struck Kev, though. Where was that cut where Sara had sliced his armor? Was his shell self-healing?
“All are dismissed. Good Fair.” Elzebet descended from the throne dais and came directly toward Kev. “Honored to have you in the Fair Country, Dr. Desler, but what are you two Crusaders doing here? I didn’t see you in the meetup beforehand.”
Kev explained how he and Jerad had been fighting in Warway and gotten out with his Wild Card.
“University people are turning up left and right in the Fair Country today. May I see that card?”
It was blank in her hand—keyed to Kev’s fingerprints. “Durzy! Bring over the analyzer.” A Fair worker ran over with a thin black box. “This won’t change the algorithm, just read the card.”
“Bess Elzebet?” Sara used a Wendisan honorific form of the other woman’s name.
Elzebet turned her head attentively. “Sara Serafina Tai, I believe?”
Sara made a polite bow. “About the avalanche, just before it started, I looked up at the snowfield. The Death Angel was walking there. He triggered the avalanche and flew away.”
Elzebet’s eyes narrowed. “Do say! Thank you. This will be investigated, you can count on that!”
The analyzer chimed and showed a readout.
Elzebet handed the card back to Kev. “It will return you to Warway if you wish, though I think you’ll enjoy the Fair Country more. But it was rigged to take you here. It should have been random. This may explain why so many of you University people are coming in through our Doors and Windows.”
“Universities were invented in Europe’s Middle Ages,” Kev said.
“Good point of information—we’ll highlight that next year. This year we’re awarding high points to all three of you for your rescue work after the avalanche. Any questions?”
Sara looked uncharacteristically wide-eyed. “Where’s the refresher?”
In distinct contrast to the Hall outside, the refresher was a perfectly normal facility of its kind, with clean slick fixtures and warm cleansing water that felt good on Sara’s still-chilled lower anatomy.
Unlike most of the Winterfair, comm worked in this refresher. The comm pod on Sara’s identity bracelet pinged. She touched the corresponding node in the wall. In response to her fingerprint, a top-priority message appeared on the screen.
It was from Aunt Lana.
Sara-finest, forget whatever game you had in mind today. Make your quest the Grail. Find Paolo Baneway—that one loves the Fair and is sure to be around, probably in the Fool Reversed. Ask Paolo about the Grail.
Recruit anybody else from the University you can find to help you too. The ones who take part in Winterfair aren’t stuffy academics like most of them!
Sara felt the sharp bite of disappointment. She had a plan of her own, uniquely hers, and she’d been as close as hoofprints in the snow. But Aunt Lana was her guardian, and had shown an unerring and breathtaking sense of fun in the Fair in past years. This time around, Sara was on her own because Aunt Lana was away from the university.
Lana was right about the not-stuffy academics—Kev Desler being one of them.
But a question circled Sara’s awareness like a horsefly, as unwelcome as it was insistent—did Aunt Lana have anything to do with Wild Cards sending University people to the Fair Country? Lana sometimes bragged that sh
e knew everyone in Avend University who could do anything smart, fast, cheap and secret. Lana could have orchestrated the Wild Card trick. But Sara couldn’t imagine why.
Sara’s final, slowest to form, and most decisive thought was that Elzebet had just called her Sara Serafina. In Wendis, that kind of name-form meant respect. Before now, Sara had been a young foreigner from the planet Goya, even though she’d been to Wendis often and long enough to move like a native. In past Fairs, Sara had just been Lana’s tag-along niece. This time she was a player in her own right. She valued that at least as much as she wanted to do Lana’s inexplicable bidding.
She wouldn’t abandon her plan after all. She checked her sash, finding the drone mote control box—all motes accounted for and safely stored inside; her scimitar, securely fastened; and yes, her secret special equipment—a vial with a spring-loaded needle.
Three
Fairmarket
The Hall of the Mountain King was reclaimed by the re-enactors who belonged there. Goblins and dwarves trooped down from the catwalk, and the lavishly robed King reclaimed his throne. All of them carried black weapons with shiny edges. Kev got the idea that the game here had to do with secret treasure and the discovery, retrieval, or theft thereof from the King and his warriors, or possibly from an animated dragon in an underhall.
For the warmed, tended, better-informed group from the Avalanche Zone, getting out of the Hall was less straightforward. It meant being questioned by a person as fantastic in his own way as the goblins. He sat behind a portable desk blocking the way out. His body looked misshapen under a flowing white robe and he had mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown. According to Sara, his looks were no costume. He belonged to a clan of Wendisans who were genetically damaged, generally good citizens—but not to be trifled with. His name and his role both were the Gatekeeper.
Glancing at Jerad’s University identity card, the Gatekeeper gave the young man a piercing blue-and-brown stare. “Have you a quest?”
Jerad said, “True love.”
“Good luck with that,” the Gatekeeper replied.
Which was Kev’s thought exactly.
“You?”
Kev handed the Gatekeeper his ID and replied, “The right question.”
“Spoken like a true academic,” said the Gatekeeper. “Next!”
“The Grail,” said Sara.
“Too dangerous for a solitary woman,” the Gatekeeper said severely.
“We’re with her,” Kev told him.
The Gatekeeper regarded them skeptically. “I’ve seen more able-looking teams. And less. Enter.”
With a wave from the Gatekeeper, a door slid open, and after a brief translator ride, the three of them came out on a hillside above what looked like a primitive village made of wood and stone. This was lower on Mount Zaber than the area called Winter. The spingravity was stronger here, the trees deciduous, and the air warmer.
“Does he randomly tell people their quest is too dangerous?” Jerad asked quizzically, as they walked along a path toward the village.
“I don’t know,” Sara answered. “I didn’t have to declare my quest to get in this morning, just bought a ticket like everyone else.”
“Where do we start?” Kev asked practically.
“How do I find Lin-Miri?” Jerad asked.
“Let’s start there.” Sara pointed toward the center of the village, which was an open-air enclosure. “The Market. For one thing, we can buy information there. For another thing, we can have lunch.”
The Market was busy with sellers of food and goods and customers interested in same. Most people wore period costumes, period being loosely defined. Kev spotted several fairgoers wearing imitation bearskin and carrying Stone Age atlatls. There were more Crusader soldiers and knights, though not as scuffed up as Kev and Jerad—and not as well armed, either. Signs said No bare lethal weapons permitted here. Jerad kept his sword in its sheath. Kevin retracted the diamond-edged blade of his spear into its hilt.
A vendor at a narrow kiosk sold maps and guidebooks to Winterfair. Saying she’d never bought a guidebook before—those were expensive and she’d learned enough from her aunt to enjoy the Winterfair well enough most years, but this time was different—Sara started to pull the purse with her Fair coins out of her sash.
Kev, as a professor, had more money to spare than these two, and he’d fattened his own wallet with Fair coins before all this started. He purchased the guidebook. They leafed through it after they bought food from the open-air vendors and found a sunny bench out of the wind.
In Kev’s opinion, the food vendors were among the Fair personnel who needed more practice. The synthmeat on sticks looked and smelled slightly burnt. Of course, people on ancient Earth with their cookfires probably ate such food every day, but the less authentic curry buns were a tastier choice.
Kev had an unasked question or two; now seemed like a good time for that. “Why is the so-called Death Angel around? The guidebook doesn’t really say. Why would he trigger an avalanche?”
Sara answered, “Well, the Angels were once human but they were genetically changed to inhabit low-gravity moons and space stations. Several of them do live in Wendis. They scare people because they have a treacherous and psychotic reputation. Anyway, the specter of sudden death in the Fair looks like one of them. Of course, the Death Angel isn’t supposed to be a real Angel. But what I saw—” she hesitated. “It looked more like an Angel than an actor. What it did was in character for an Angel. I can’t help wondering if it was real.”
It seemed to Kev that the Winterfair had more twists and turns than a Faxen airsnake. He shrugged and handed the guidebook to Jerad.
Daunted by a great deal of Winterfair information about Love with subheadings of Trysts, Marriages (arranged), Marriages (ceremonies), Illicit Relations, and Revenge, Jerad looked for information about unicorns.
Sara frowned as she read it over his shoulder. “It doesn’t say anything that isn’t well known. It doesn’t explain how that one you saw moved so fast. They’re built for low spingravity higher on the mountain.”
Kev said, “It was outfitted with gravity braces, like what people from low-g moons wear when they come here.”
Sara seemed taken aback. “Why the flutter would that be?”
“The unicorn probably has a handler. It’s not on its own. It has some kind of role in the Fair too.”
She nodded slowly.
Jerad said, “This says the unicorns are shy but if you touch one it’s means your true love is near!”
“I suspect your girl knew that,” Kev commented.
“I wonder where she is now,” Jerad said dreamily.
“Take out the tracer-finder and check the map,” Sara told him.
In the center of the guidebook, the pages briskly unfolded to a surface three feet square. They laid it across their knees. When Jerad held the ring near the map, a pink dot flashed. He read the fine explanatory print eagerly. “She’s in the garden of the Winter Palace.”
Sara nodded. “That’s where the Princess would pine for her suitor hoping he’ll come for her. You can’t just go knock on the Palace door, though. You’ll need something to give her father, the King, in exchange for her. And the Grail would be perfect.”
If that remark was calculated to win Jerad’s buy-in for a Grail quest, it worked. Jerad immediately became enthused about finding the Grail. On the map, he found a Grail Arcade, not far away from where they were now.
Sara said, “There may be more than one Grail. Not even the guidebook has complete information on a lot of Fair things, but I think I know where to find someone who knows more.” She led them through narrow, twisting streets to a drinking establishment called the Fool Reversed. Scanning the place, which was dimly lit and half full of customers, she saw a figure Kev recognized too—Paolo Baneway, an elderly professor in the University’s Linguistics Department.
Paolo lifted a hand in greeting. “Having fun?”
“Having questions, Dr. Baneway,
” Sara answered.
Paolo suggestively pushed an empty glass forward.
Kev ordered a refill.
Paolo Baneway proved more loquacious here than in any faculty senate meeting. “Ah, the Grail! It was thought to have been an ancient drinking cup, once filled with wine that symbolized blood. Or an ancient bowl once filled with real and holy blood. Alternatively, it had associations with sacred cauldrons from even older religions, for the cooking of life-giving potions. Or it was a stone with singular significance in ceremonies crowning pagan kings. Like a symbol with a thousand faces, or at least a hundred, it was said to be hidden in many other things. Concealed in a well, a palace, a lake, or even the underworld. Or hidden in plain sight in a church full of similar vessels.” Baneway’s intelligent, androgynous face lit with interest. “Even hidden inside a different bowl or cup or cauldron or rock. And the keeper of the Grail was, or is, or will be a mysterious figure called the Fisher King, who is wounded so he’s unable to walk, but fated to be miraculously healed.”
“You know all that from linguistics?” Jerad asked.
“I’ve read ancient Germanic and Romantic literatures. Obscure but fascinating.”
Kev said, “What I’d like to know is who else wants the Grail?”
“That is the right question,” Sara said.
Kev felt a warm glow at her approval.
“It’s also a hard question,” Paolo said slowly. “Oh, the Grail could be a whimsical quest for almost anybody. On the other hand, this is Wendis, where secrets coil within secrets and some of the coiled secrets have poison fangs. Never assume that any silly little thing is just that.”