City of Games

by Jeff Deck

  “Yeah?” Ulrich breaks in. “What happens if one of the Wagerers decides to quit halfway through?”

  “The Hand will not suffer it to live,” Guhnach says. “But it’s rare for a Wagerer to show such dishonor. You’ll find our Wagers, and our Wager Lords, to be exceedingly fair.”

  Maybe this creature isn’t a complete monster—though I still don’t know what’s under that suit. Or behind any of those little doors. “So… you’re a Wager Lord, then? That’s how you have that—thing?”

  “A Relic.” Guhnach nods. “There are five of us in total. Each to lead one of the five castes. Well… there were five Lords, until recently.”

  “What happened to the fifth?” I ask.

  “Chaum the Soldier Lord has forgotten itself—and slain another,” the priest says. “The Peasant Lord, Gluhnt. I fear that Uench the Merchant Lord will be targeted next. The Wager I ask you to make—it will be to correct the damage the sorcerer from your world has wrought here. Chaum would have never considered slaying its fellow Lords if not for the poison the sorcerer planted in its heart.”

  “I—what?” The sorcerer, again. What had Ilana done to this place?

  “I have heard the wisdom of the Hand That Never Closes, here in this holy space,” says Guhnach. “Only another traveler from the sorcerer’s world can stop the destruction the sorcerer has set us toward. Come, I will leave my Sublord in charge here.”

  The Priest Lord heads between the rows of pews. I hurry to follow, and Sol and Ulrich trail behind me, protesting for more answers. Several of the acolytes rise and accompany us to serve as the Lord’s guard. The rest of the congregation stays in place, chattering among themselves as Guhnach leads us toward an arched pair of doors where two of the temple’s petal wings meet.

  As soon as I catch up with it, Guhnach says, “You say the sorcerer forced you through the Port?”

  “You keep calling her that,” I say. “I think there’s a misunderstanding here. Magic doesn’t exist—uh, not in our world, at least. ”

  “The misunderstanding is yours,” Guhnach observes. “The sorcerer may have originated on Earth, but its travels elsewhere and its Wagers here have much changed it. And it came here with an advantage that no Avariccian, not even a Lord, could match. It cheats.”

  “How?” I ask.

  Guhnach raises its hand and the large doors open of their own accord. “With a set of tools profane to the Hand, allowing it to control others and rob them of consent. Wielding these tools extracts its own cost, which the sorcerer itself seems to have forgotten. Whatever human it once was, think that human now dead. Now, refer to it as the sorcerer, one without background, identity, or family, defined only by what it seeks.”

  I let this line of inquiry drop, along with my jaw, as I see the world beyond the temple.

  We’re looking out onto Avariccia, a walled city of many narrow streets, with a warren of Renaissance-esque reddish-brown-roofed buildings crouching together. The Five-Petaled Temple, as Guhnach called it, sits on a hill, giving us a commanding view of the city. The scene is bathed in a violet light like no sky I’ve experienced before. In the middle of Avariccia is a vast plaza thronged with glinting creatures. And a red-brick tower, highest of all, looms over the plaza.

  Beyond the city walls, I see meadows, trees, forests, all Earth-like, but the dark shapes swooping above them wouldn’t belong back home. They make me recall the horrid pairs of serpents in Graham’s World. However, these new fliers show no interest in attacking the city. On a hill outside Avariccia, a mass of silvery figures glitters (an army?); clusters of houses dot the far hills. I wonder what other cities are out there past the horizon—oceans, mountains, canyons? It’s not my first Port, not my first rodeo, but how far have we traveled? How have we come to this fully realized Other place?

  Is this the heaven that Nadia and her Tenacious Trainers have been seeking? Or one of infinite hells?

  “Good God,” says Sol, thrumming with excitement. Next to him, Ulrich peers suspiciously out at the city, as if expecting something to ambush him at any moment. He’s probably got the right idea.

  “You are awed by the City of Games,” Guhnach says.

  I nod shakily. “Don’t think I’m a rube or anything, but I don’t get out beyond Earth much. I—”

  Then I clamp my fool mouth shut. I was about to mention that I had made a trip or two through other Ports, but that’s information on a strictly need-to-know basis, isn’t it? These… Avariccians don’t need to know, if they don’t already, about Portsmouth’s special status as a nexus of worlds. If these creatures have any interest in interdimensional conquest, then Portsmouth would make a fine place to call home …

  “You what, Allard?” Guhnach asks keenly.

  “Is this your only city, or are there more cities out there?” I ask.

  It brushes the question off. “Our world is vast. For me to speak of it would shatter your tiny brain. So let us move on through the city. We will petition the Doxe to hold the Wager tonight for your friend’s freedom. The Doxe will grant your desire if you promise to first fulfill the Wager I desire you to make… against Chaum.”

  “The guy who killed one of your fellow Lords,” I say. “Why in the hell would he want to Wager with me?”

  “As a human, you have… much to offer certain yearning Avariccians like the Soldier Lord.”

  “But—” I’m not ready to consent to a Wager when I don’t know yet what’s at stake, and certainly not against a killer.

  But Guhnach is already on the move. Sol and Ulrich follow the Priest Lord down a set of white marble steps to the stone road. I notice we have a good view of a bustling business district. Many other Avariccians call this city home. All wear metal suits with humanlike masks, but unlike Guhnach and his flock, most of these out in public aren’t red. Instead, three other colors pop up with regularity—gold, silver, and brown. Only once do I spot a fifth color, off in the distance, a blue.

  I can figure out what colors belong to the other castes in this city, because I’m noticing the pattern. Shopkeepers and hawkers all wear gold suits. Every Avariccian that I see with a weapon—mostly giant hammers and staves, for bashing through armor rather than trying to pierce it—wears a silver suit, so that’s clearly the soldier caste. And the scuffed and dented mud-brown suits must belong to the peasant caste, the one whose Lord was assassinated; these are the most numerous locals I see.

  What’s curious to me is that the paving stones of the road constantly trip up the suited creatures. Why pave the streets in a way that would be hard on their own feet?

  According to Guhnach, Mauguh was crowing about getting closer to “humanity.” Why would it want to be like us puny meatbags? Why do they wear human faces on their suits, come to think of it? Who are they trying to impress? Surely not us…

  I walk a little ways down the street and then look back at the temple.

  The structure from the outside takes my breath away. It is indeed in the shape of a flower, as I figured from the way the wings were laid out in the interior, bearing five petals with the same striking black-and-white striping pattern as inside. The Five-Petaled Temple perches majestically on the hill with the eerie violet light striking its ornate facade—are the sculpted figures all tightly interwoven playing out scenes of battle, or of fornication? All of them look human. None of the figures are wearing a metal suit.

  However, I do see a sculpted Hand crowning the triangular part of the facade—the pediment, I think it’s called. The Hand sculpture looks a lot like the one on the altar inside. A hole in its palm yawns darkness.

  The Hand That Never Closes. I hope it’s as much a figment of their imagination as Jeebus, Allah, and Shiva are for us. But that hard shield, that “Relic,” glowed with the stakes of the Wager…

  Guhnach leads us through a procession of lanes and alleyways. Little of the atmospheric violet light pierces through the close-set buildings looming over the streets; lanterns and torches provide most of the illumination. Along the
way, several Avariccians from the gold, brown, and silver castes greet the Priest Lord in the harsh native language. Each request or inquiry the Priest Lord answers with a brief few words.

  “What are they asking?” Sol finally inquires.

  “They wish to know whether the Hand will protect them from Soldier Lord Chaum and his army,” Guhnach says. “I do my best to reassure them, but I’m sure some will turn to the astragalomancers next for answers. Seeking the future from a roll of the ankle bones.” It snorts. “As if the Hand would gift a common street diviner with knowledge of things to come.”

  Suddenly the sight I glimpsed on the hill, the mass of silver creature, makes sense to me. “The Soldier Lord and his faithful—they’re camped right outside the city, aren’t they?”

  The Priest Lord grunts in assent. “The rogue army has remained on the Hill of Generation for days, plotting I know not what. Chaum’s rebellion casts a dark shadow over the Festival. So far Chaum has shown no aggression toward the city, though some fear it’s only a matter of time… the Doxe and I have been doing our best to keep everyone calm and celebrating.”

  “Goddamn alien buggers!” Ulrich swears, flinching, as he’s done every time he walks near one of the Avariccians. Can’t say I blame him. I still keep thinking of those little doors swinging open back in the temple.

  “I don’t believe Milly would have gotten herself mixed up with these creatures,” Ulrich hisses to me. “Not on purpose. That bitch Ilana must have done a Wager using Milly’s freedom as the stakes, rather than her own.”

  “Right, using that mysterious set of tools,” I say, appreciating his insight if not his choice of words. “Guhnach implied that that the toolset allowed Ilana to break the Avariccians’ laws of consent for Wagers. But without a handy rule-bending toolset ourselves, we leave ourselves to the mercy of chance if we do a Wager. Well, worse than pure chance, if this Hand thing wants to fix the Wager for the home team.”

  “Then we shouldn’t even do a Wager!” Ulrich says. “We know where she’s being held—in that tower. We could figure out a way to break her out on our own.”

  “How? By our nonexistent force?” I’m sure Guhnach is listening to us. “No, Ulrich.”

  “Let me also go on record against the force option,” Sol puts in absently. I see him examining his surroundings with fascination. He’s been inclining his ear toward the ground from time to time; I wonder if he’s using his powers of “psychogeography” here, too, like in Portsmouth. He claimed to me he could hear the voice of Portsmouth itself speaking to him. If this city speaks to him, will he even understand?

  “Hey,” I say finally. “What are you hearing, buddy?”

  Sol shakes his head. “I’d have to really go for a walk on my own. This walk is too purposeful for me to understand what this city is saying. But—don’t think I’d want to head out into these streets by myself…”

  “A wise idea to stick together, yeah,” I say.

  “All I can tell is that this city is muddled, somehow,” Sol says. “Upset and out of balance. Voices from the past affecting the present.”

  “Come, behold the Campo,” Guhnach breaks in to announce.

  We pass through a narrow alley and enter the city plaza—or rather, what now serves as an arena.

  Solid rows of fastidiously designed storefronts and mansions border the arena. Curiously, all of them feature human-sized doorways that have been crudely enlarged, so Avariccians can enter them with their bulky suits. In a normal city, this plaza might be a pedestrian area where people come to have a picnic, feed the pigeons, and listen to the splash of civic fountains. What looks like a racetrack runs around the plaza in an oval, separated from great masses of Avariccians in every suit color by walls on either side. The spindly brick tower overlooks the Campo; the tower is square-sided and narrow and comes to a bulbous travertine head.

  A blue-suited creature with a mask wearing a stern expression sits on a chair on a high platform underneath the building with the tower. It confers with other blue Avariccians and gestures at the crowd below. In its lap is a roundish black thing, a shield like the one that Guhnach has. This guy must be Doxe Ungam.

  Guhnach’s acolytes have pushed their way through the crowd in front of us, announcing the presence of the Priest Lord, and the Avariccians clear a path. Guhnach walks steadily onward, ignoring the throng as it speaks to us.

  “The great races determine life or death, liberty or imprisonment, the highest level of Wager. Mounts have been racing all day on this final day of the Festival of the Hand. But now the races are over, and the Feast will begin soon. Thus we must ask Doxe Ungam for special permission to hold one more race after the Feast.”

  I notice now, as we get closer, that the racetrack is muddy, as if the Campo recently experienced a very localized rainstorm. “Hey, Guhnach. What exactly are the mounts that your people race? I’m assuming they’re not horses…”

  Guhnach’s mask inclines toward me. “No. We have seen mention of ‘horses’ in the old writings, but no Avariccian alive today has had the opportunity to see one. Though I suspect the unicorns are a related race.”

  “Unicorns?!” Sol breaks in with a gasp. “Are you fucking kidding me? You have unicorns here?!”

  “Whoa, calm down,” I say, though my mind, too, is spinning at the casual mention of a mythological creature.

  “We are getting ahead of ourselves,” Guhnach says. “All matters of the race will be explained once we actually gain approval.”

  The Priest Lord leads us through the yielding crowd to the base of the Doxe’s platform. Before we can ascend the stairs to the platform, however, an outraged shout echoes above our heads.

  “Guhnach!”

  We look up to see Doxe Ungam looming over us, surrounded by blue guards. Its mask conveys stern impassivity, but fury radiates from the creature within the suit as it speaks in harsh words I don’t understand.

  “What’s it saying?” Sol says.

  “The Doxe is displeased at the sight of more visitors from Earth. It wishes to know my reasoning.”

  Ulrich frowns. “You sure that’s the wording it used?”

  The Priest Lord waves at us. “Be quiet. Let me speak for you.” It turns back to address the Doxe.

  The Doxe makes a sharp, violent gesture with his right arm, and blue Avariccians emerge from the platform base perimeter to surround us. Ulrich tenses. I murmur to him: “Don’t panic… yet.”

  “I’ll panic when I want to panic!” he retorts.

  “The sorcerer from Earth poisoned the Soldier Lord Chaum’s mind,” Ungam booms—in English. Now it seems to be looking at us humans rather than Guhnach. Ilana must have taught this one our language too, to further her own ambitions here… whatever they might be.

  The Doxe’s mask reveals nothing, but the creature’s voice drips with bitter pleasure at our surprise and confusion: “Oh, yes. Don’t think your tricks and deceits will work on me, humans. It was one of your kind who influenced Chaum to murder Gluhnt and take the Peasant Relic. Now Uench cowers in the Tower of the Glutton, fearing that Chaum’s forces will soon arrive for the Merchant Relic. Do you come to ensure Chaum will collect that Relic, and mine, and Guhnach’s? Do you take me for a fool?”

  I elbow Ulrich before he can speak. He looks at me furiously but holds his tongue.

  “The Hand will not allow any further disruption of the city,” the Priest Lord says. “The Hand has sent these humans to me. Here is a bargain to consider. If you grant them permission to hold a fifth-level Wager tonight, they could fix what the sorcerer broke, starting with a fourth-level Wager against Chaum.”

  I understand the necessity of Guhnach’s “favor,” now that I see how suspiciously the Doxe views us (and with good reason). If we’ve got nothing to offer this Doxe, it’ll have no reason to trust us, and no incentive to schedule a special race for us.

  However, the Priest Lord’s offer—our offer—has fallen flat. Doxe Ungam says “Absolutely not,” and it disappears from view
, past the edge of the platform. Its guards press in against us.

  Priest Lord Guhnach shouts: “Ungam! Where is your faith in the Hand?”

  “The Hand has abandoned us,” comes the reply.

  “The Doxe has… forgotten the Hand too, in its own way” Guhnach mutters.

  Now the blue Avariccians herd us away from the platform. I don’t want to resist, because I’m terrified of these big-suited things, but I hold my ground and say, “We can’t give up!”

  The Doxe’s guards shove me backward. I sprawl in the mud, then I spring right back up. “Guhnach!”

  “Divya, don’t fight them,” Sol says sharply. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  But it’s not Sol’s objection that makes me back down—it’s the sight of the eternal powder keg, Ben Ulrich, preparing to explode. I’ll get both myself and him killed if I persist. So I put my hands up and walk backward.

  Two of the red acolytes come between the guards and me, as if to say We’ve got this taken care of, now back off. The guards stand down as the acolytes guide us away from the Doxe’s platform and back into the crowd, which, as before, parts for our progress. I notice that my companions look dejected, but I haven’t given up and I haven’t stopped thinking.

  “Guhnach,” I say. “Do we need the Doxe’s permission to make a Wager against Chaum—or can we do it ourselves and ask for forgiveness later? I mean, we know where he is…”

  The Priest Lord says in a startled tone, “There would be consequences. But… it is technically possible.”

  “And isn’t it worth it to stop Chaum, whether or not Doxe Ungam approves?” I press on. Not worth it to us, but certainly to Guhnach and its people…

  Guhnach glances nervously around us, though I’m guessing most of these Avariccians don’t understand human language. Finally it says, “If you do not succeed—if you allow Chaum to win—you’ll bring doom on all of us. Are you prepared to win the Wager?”

  “If the Hand wills it,” I say with a sly smile.

  “Then… let us go to the Hill of Generation. I’ll tell you all you need to know to play your best hands, and… yes, the rest will be up to the Hand That Never Closes.” The Priest Lord pauses. “Whose name I trust you will not profane.”