Game Play

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "Get ready!" Delrael said. Vailret stood with him by the door, waiting to push it shut.

  Mindar ran for them, holding the sword in one hand, her whip coiled at her hip. She leaped down the last three stairs. Her boots skittered on the floor, and her dark braid flipped back and forth.

  "Close the door behind me! Close the door!"

  As she ducked inside, Delrael saw an oily black silhouette creep down the stairs. moving dark and humanlike, but completely without features. A solid black mass that looked like a hole, a cut-out in the shape of a human character, gliding down the stairs, smooth and fast.

  On the ends of each finger were gleaming, knifelike claws.

  "Close the door!" Mindar cried.

  Delrael shoved his shoulder against the door, and it thumped against the jamb. Mindar scrabbled with her hands and pulled the solid wooden crossbeam over the supports.

  An instant later they heard a howl as something massive struck the other side of the door. Delrael still had his shoulder against it and felt the wood vibrate.

  With another roar, the Cailee struck the door again. Then Delrael heard sharp, splintering sounds of silver claws ripping open the wood.

  Chapter 14:

  THE WOMAN CURSED BY SCARTARIS

  "The Outsiders put their characters through a crucible, forging us with their games, tempering us with agonies or pleasures. Some characters are destroyed by this testing. Others come through it galvanized and stronger than before."

  ― Stilvess Peacemaker.

  The Cailee attacked again.

  The door thudded as the monster slammed against the wood, then screeching claws skittered up and down the jamb.

  Bryl whimpered.

  "That's more than just a shadow," Delrael said.

  "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Journeyman said.

  Mindar looked at them. The flickering candlelight washed over her face, shining with the sweat of her effort, her fear. The air felt hot and close around them. Delrael took a drink from one of the water skins, but the liquid tasted warm and flat.

  Mindar turned away to stare at the door. She ran the braided end of the whip through her calloused hands.

  The Cailee struck the door again.

  "I've tried to hunt it down in the streets," she whispered. "I went out at night with my sword, but the Cailee always eluded me. It can vanish into any pool of darkness, hide in any corner where the light doesn't fall. I challenged the Cailee, but it chose to strike behind my back."

  Her fingers clutched at the whip, as if to use it as a garrote. "I ran through the streets. Everything was dark, since no one lit lamps in their homes anymore. I found that the Cailee had torn down the door to my own home.

  "I didn't try to be cautious. It wouldn't have done any good. When I pushed the torch into the shadows of my house, I could sense the Cailee. I also smelled fresh blood. When I came into the main room, I found ― "Mindar choked on her words.

  Delrael stiffened and wanted to go to her, comfort her. But he felt that she did not want any comfort. She might be afraid it would weaken her.

  "I found my husband and my daughter. Even mindless, they still knew where home was. They lived there. They were both slaughtered by the Cailee. It had thrown their blood in all directions, like it was playing.

  "They hadn't put up any struggle, of course. Scartaris killed their minds long ago. I suppose they didn't even feel any pain."

  "Mindar..." Delrael said.

  "I ran outside and found the Cailee. I slashed at it with my sword and scored a blow ― then the Cailee tore at me with its silver claws, laying open my side. I fell to the street with a mortal wound, bleeding for hours. But I couldn't die.

  "When I woke up at dawn, I had healed completely. And I found that the Cailee had also slain my brother. The one who had helped brand my forehead."

  On the other side of the door, the Cailee ran one claw down the wood in a long, slow scratching noise that made the skin crawl on Delrael's back. The Cailee seemed to be mocking them.

  Bryl's face looked the color of sour milk in the dim candlelight. He kneaded his fingers around the ruby Fire Stone. "If the Cailee gets in here, I'm going to blast it."

  Mindar looked at the eight-sided stone with an expression of scorn on her face. Her eyes had a dull despair to them, but suddenly her gaze focused.

  "How did you get that?" Her voice carried a sharp command, and she sprang to her feet. "Where did you get Enrod's Fire Stone?"

  Delrael stood up beside Bryl. Everything fell into place for him as he remembered. Vailret cleared his throat, but seemed reluctant to start explaining.

  "Delrael..." Mindar said, rolling the name around her mouth. "You're the ones who made the Barrier River! Enrod said you cut us off!"

  Vailret coughed and turned away, as if avoiding her. "Enrod wasn't ... himself, I don't think. He tried to destroy all the hexagons west of the Barrier River. But the Deathspirits stopped him and cursed him to stay on the River until the end of the Game. They took the Fire Stone away from him and gave it to us."

  He lowered his eyes. "Scartaris must have been manipulating Enrod, but the Deathspirits didn't care about any reasons, only what he was trying to do."

  Mindar sat back down with slumped shoulders. She undid the braid in her hair and shook her head to loosen the strands. She closed her dark eyes.

  "That doesn't surprise me. I know how upset Enrod was about your River.

  He had found out about Scartaris and how we'd all have to escape soon. You made our escape impossible. You trapped us on the same side of the map with Scartaris." She shrugged and ran her fingers through hair that hung long and dark, kinky from the tight braid.

  "Enrod was strong, very strong. He resisted longer than most of the Tairans. But he became obsessed about the Barrier River. I watched him. I think Scartaris used that as a hook to trap him, to twist open a weak spot in his mind and drive in the puppet strings." She sighed. "Still, his fate doesn't seem fair."

  Vailret pursed his lips. "I don't suppose the Deathspirits were much willing to compromise."

  The Cailee hit the door, but its efforts seemed to be losing enthusiasm.

  "In a way, I'm glad Enrod isn't here to see what's happened to his city. He loved it so much."

  She took the water skin from Delrael's hands and drank a deep gulp.

  "Scartaris is using the characters here to make weapons, swords and shields for his great battle." Mindar shuddered and looked at them, but seemed disappointed with their reaction. She scowled.

  "You wouldn't understand how great that defeat is. Remember that Taire is built on the worst scars of the ancient wars. The mechanics of game battles and personal combat are abhorrent to us. When Enrod founded this city, it was to be progressive and forward-looking. He knew the future of Gamearth lay in the hands of human characters ― he wanted to make sure we succeeded without repeating the mistakes of the Sorcerers."

  Vailret lit another candle to replace one of those that burned low. He spoke up. "That's where Enrod and Sardun had their differences, I think.

  Sardun wanted to enshrine the memory of the Sorcerers. Enrod wanted to work at keeping human characters alive and safe. Is that right?"

  Mindar nodded. She kept her eyes lowered. "By using Taire to forge swords, Scartaris struck another psychological blow ― it makes his victory more fun to him. Imagine, Tairans making weapons!

  She sat brooding, thinking. They fell into silence, waiting for the night to pass. The Cailee took to scratching along the stone walls outside their room, then howling in the echoing basement.

  "How many more years are we going to have to stay here like this?" Bryl asked.

  "Time flies when you're having fun," Journeyman answered.

  They waited.

  They sat in silence, listening to the ticking, random noises of the room. Outside, they heard quiet shuffling, the unknown movements of the Cailee that were even more frightening in their stealth than the occasional violent crashes again
st the door.

  They sat for hours with no way of knowing how much time passed. They heard nothing from the Cailee. Bryl huddled in the blue robe, running his gnarled fingers through his gray beard. Journeyman appeared dormant.

  Delrael looked at Vailret and Mindar. "Do you think it's morning yet?"

  Mindar stood up. "We can see if the Cailee is gone. I'll go out. You watch the door."

  Delrael began to protest, but she cut him off. "No. If I find the Cailee, then I'll have what I want." She lifted her sword. "If I don't find it, then we can go to our work."

  Delrael and Vailret stood close to each other by the door with their own swords drawn. He imagined the edge of the old Sorcerer blade clanging against the slash of silver claws.

  Mindar popped up the sturdy crossbar, and Delrael yanked the door open.

  Mindar slipped through the crack and vanished into the basement. He caught a glimpse of grayish morning light before he and Vailret threw their weight against the door to close it.

  They listened, but heard no immediate sounds until Mindar's quiet steps went up the stairs.

  "Cailee!" she cried.

  Delrael tensed, ready to yank open the door and run to fight with her, but they heard no scuffle, nothing else.

  She came back down the stairs and stopped by the door. "It's all right.

  The Cailee is gone."

  They opened the door again. Mindar put her shoulders through. The anger in her eyes was rekindled.

  "I saw the Cailee standing in the shadows. It was fading with the dawn light. I ran with my sword, but it was too insubstantial. Now I'll have to wait for another night."

  She pushed open the door. Delrael breathed the cooler air of the basement, saw the murky light that filtered down from the narrow windows above, bright and clean after their night in the storeroom. They looked at the sturdy wooden door and stopped.

  The door had been shredded. Great gouges and splinters were peeled away, torn out by hooked silver claws. The iron pins of the hinges hung loose from the wall, nearly pulled from the stone.

  "That's not going to last another night," Delrael said. Bryl swayed on his feet, but managed not to faint.

  When they got to the open air and bright sunlight, Delrael stood blinking and breathing deeply. He liked to be out where he could do something, where he could fight ― not trapped like a victim in a cell.

  Mindar looked changed ― strengthened. She had a bounce to her step, and her demeanor did not seem so hopeless. "Come. I want to show you something."

  She took Delrael's elbow and led them through the streets. Nothing stirred. The Tairans seemed to be hiding.

  "I painted this back when I was happy and idealistic." She pointed to one of the frescoes on a building. "It was easy to think up nice things to paint then, of our bright future and how the Game would continue forever. We were going to make ourselves strong and self-sufficient. That's what we thought the Outsiders wanted! To make lives of our own so we wouldn't be dependent on them."

  She led them to the side of an old building with a flat expanse of hexagonal stone blocks. "This one I did later."

  A half-finished fresco had been sketched on the blocks, but in the center of the wall the soot-grimed plaster had been scrubbed away and overlaid with a fresh coating. Mindar had drawn a new picture showing the mountains to the east. A great featureless human figure towered over the landscape, holding his arms up in a gesture of victory. But the fresco was finished, not just a sketch. She had drawn the figure without features, but it had a mystique, a power to it.

  "It's the Stranger Unlooked-For," she said.

  Vailret looked at her, frowning as if trying to recall something he had heard. "Who was that?"

  "Nobody knows. But he saved Gamearth." Mindar put her hands on her hips and walked over to the wall, inspecting her artwork. "It was just after the Transition, before Enrod established Taire, when the rest of the Gamearth characters were fighting each other over who would rule the map."

  "The Scouring," Vailret said. Mindar ignored him.

  "In the middle of the desolation grew something that would have destroyed us all, something a lot like Scartaris."

  Mindar stared up into the sky. "The Outsider David must have tried to end the Game once before, and failed. He failed because the Stranger Unlooked-For came and destroyed his monster. The Stranger used some kind of weapon more powerful than anything ever used in the old Sorcerer wars. Nobody knows who the Stranger was. Nobody knows how he succeeded in killing David's first monster. But we should all remember him as a hero."

  She took out her rippled sword and rested its tip on the flagstones of the street. "I know one thing, though. We can't count on the Stranger to return. We've got nobody but ourselves to fight Scartaris."

  Shuffling away from the painting, Mindar kept her eyes averted. "Before we go, there's one thing I want to do. I'll need your help. I hope you'll join me."

  Bryl shifted his feet uneasily.

  "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," Journeyman said.

  Mindar took a deep breath. "Scartaris has one large smithy to fashion swords, and the tannery to make shields. I want to destroy them before we go.

  Strike a psychological blow back at Scartaris. That'll teach him not to use Taire to make his weapons."

  Delrael looked at the deserted streets and saw in his mind the dream that Enrod had, to raise the city out of the desolation, to turn it toward the future. And he saw how Scartaris had twisted that idea.

  Yes, he liked the thought of striking a real blow, now that Scartaris knew who they were anyway. They no longer needed to keep their quest secret.

  It was time to stop hiding ― time to start showing that they meant business.

  "Yes." Delrael met Mindar's eyes. "Let's do it."

  Mindar smiled, and Delrael felt a thrill, perhaps of fear, run down his spine. She looked beautiful and determined, and more deadly than any weapon he had ever seen. The angry red S-scar marred her forehead.

  "Let me find my mare. If we get horses for you too, we can increase our travel allotment, get to Scartaris sooner."

  Mindar led them through the winding streets. Delrael noticed a few Tairans shuffling along doing indecipherable tasks. They took no notice of the travelers. Mindar pointedly did not look at them.

  When they reached the stables, Mindar's gray mare waited for them.

  Mindar patted the mare on the neck, and Delrael could see a genuine attachment between them. She left the horse outside as she motioned the others in. Only two horses remained in the stable.

  "They've taken three more." Mindar shook her head in disgust.

  "Sometimes Scartaris sends his monsters here to get weapons. Other times he has the Tairans use horses to haul cartloads off to his army. The horses never come back."

  "There aren't enough horses for us," Bryl said, although from the tone in his voice, Delrael thought he sounded relieved. Bryl had never ridden a horse, and probably wasn't thrilled at the idea.

  "I don't need one," Journeyman said. "I can keep up with any pace you set."

  "Bryl's light enough." Vailret stood beside the half-Sorcerer. "He can ride with me. We'll take one horse. Del, you take the other. Mindar has her own."

  Mindar nodded and turned to the door. "Let's get going."

  Delrael approached one of the horses skeptically, a mottled brown gelding that appeared calm enough. He ran his palm along the horse's shoulders and then, trying not to look inexperienced, he scrambled on the gelding's back. Delrael held onto the mane and swayed, finding his balance. The horse felt warm and vibrant under him, strong and alive.

  "Don't worry," Mindar said, "You're a fighter character. You'll ride easily. It's natural for you. Part of your characteristics."

  Vailret watched his cousin, then worked his way onto the other horse.

  Bryl frowned, then Journeyman picked him up bodily and set him in front of Vailret. The horses seemed anxious to leave the stables. Outside in the street again,
Mindar mounted her own mare.

  She stopped in the square in front of the stables to where an iron bell, embossed with flower patterns, hung over a stone foundation. Four Tairans shuffled from one building to another, keeping their heads down and slouching. Their gray clothes and sunken expressions made it impossible for Delrael to tell if they were even male or female characters.

  Mindar removed the whip from around her waist and, holding onto the gray mare's mane with one hand, she lashed out and struck the bell. A gong echoed through the streets.

  The Tairans looked up, gawked at her for a moment, then moved back inside. Mindar struck the bell again with the whip and waited. Nothing stirred in the buildings. Her expression turned dark and stormy. Tears glistened in her dark eyes. She rang the bell twice more, then hung her head.

  "Taire has died," she said. "That bell should have brought all characters in the city flocking to see what the danger was." She fastened her whip, then urged the mare forward.

  "We'll give them some danger."

  The smithy stood by itself, surrounded by smoke and noise. On three sides, the alleys were broader than usual. One wall of a nearby building had been knocked down to give greater access for raw material to be shipped in, for weapons to be carried away. The rubble lay where it had fallen; white chips and broken brick showed that the wall had been intact not long before.

  Smoke curled into the bright, hot sky; feathery black stains smeared the smithy walls. A mound of pig iron lay piled near the door. From the inside came gusts of heat and banging sounds as Tairans worked on swords and shield frames.

  "What are we going to do?" Vailret said, squinting his eyes as if deep in thought. "We can't burn it."

  "I can still cause a lot of damage." Journeyman smacked his fists together.

  "We don't need to destroy the buildings," Mindar said. "This is still my city. It won't do any good to save Taire if we ruin it in the meantime.

  We'll destroy the forge and the hearth ― that will ruin things so they can't be used to make swords." She stared at the smithy wall with a gaze that seemed to bore through stone. "That'll be enough for now."