Sardun watched Vailret with narrowed, watery eyes. Still holding his hunting bow in front of him, Delrael stood where he could be seen from the Sentinel's throne. The wind whistled over the wide opening in the ceiling.
Bryl also peeked around the corner and held his palms out to the Sentinel. Gray-haired and frail-looking, Bryl posed no threat. "You can trust us."
Sardun sat for a moment, wavering on the edge of consciousness. His eyes seemed half-crazed with grief and desperation, but even that faded into listlessness. The Sentinel had surrendered. He said nothing.
Vailret undid the frozen straps on his pack and with drew a wadded second blanket. Feeling awe at approaching the legendary Sentinel, he delicately wrapped the blanket around Sardun's shoulders. He looked at the old man's fur-trimmed gray robe; snowflakes had been embroidered along the shoulders and down his sleeves.
The air in the main chamber had grown warmer. Outside, he could see the sun shining again as the Water Stone released its hold on the storm.
Delrael entered the chamber, looking from side to side with narrowed eyes. Vailret watched him inspect the corners and the openings of other passageways, as if expecting something monstrous to crawl out and attack. Bryl waited, fidgeting in uneasy confusion.
Vailret tucked the blanket around the Sentinel and discovered that his legs were frozen solid, like meat left too long out in the snow, as was his chest and his right arm. For a moment Vailret was appalled that Sardun had been left alone like this, with no one to care for him. Then the other thing that nagged at the back of his mind snapped into place. "Sardun, where is your daughter?"
The old Sentinel was like a fragile clay pot, shattered by Vailret's question. He fell backward, almost drowning in the ice of his throne.
"Tareah!" he said. "She's gone ... gone." Tears ran down Sardun's face, branching in the network of wrinkles in his skin. As Vailret watched, the tears froze, then evaporated and were gone.
Delrael paused in his inspection of the room and then squinted at a thick, soot-covered icicle that looked like a maggot in the ceiling's wound.
He wrinkled his nose, as if sniffing at a strange taint in the air. Delrael seemed lost in deep thought, then he stood with one word on his thin lips.
"Dragon."
Vailret looked up at his cousin's comment. His gaze drifted to the fangs of icicles running straight down toward the floor, at the hole that had been blasted through from the outside. "A dragon did this!" Delrael said.
Confused words spilled out of Sardun's mouth. "Yes, a dragon! Tryos, from the island of Rokanun, south of the city of Sitnalta, many hexes from here. He flew all the way ... to steal Tareah! Oh, my Tareah."
Vailret stared at him, then rubbed the old Sentinel's shoulder. "You can tell us what happened. We might be able to help."
Sardun shuddered. "I couldn't stop him! The Water Stone was no help -dragons are not affected by magic." He stared down into the flat faces of the sapphire Stone. He rolled it in his hand, looking at the number engraved on each face. "That is why they caused so much destruction in the old Sorcerer wars."
He swallowed and looked up to meet Vailret's gaze. "Tryos came, blasted his way in here ... and took her."
"But why would a dragon want to do that? Why Tareah?"
Sardun glared at him. "Because dragons collect treasure! Tryos is very old and he is bored with colorful baubles. Gold, gems, silver ¯ he already has enough of those. Now, he collects anything that others place value on, anything precious or beautiful. He has stolen works of art, sculptures from the height of the Sorcerer days, precious relics.
"And now my treasure, my Tareah! I tried to defend her ¯ I really tried. But I am weak. I have been here waiting one hundred and seventy years, tending this museum that no one ever comes to see ... do I not have an excuse to grow weak?" His lisp grew worse as he became more distraught.
The Sentinel stared at the wall in his silent horror. His lips trembled, but he said nothing else. The three stood numb for several moments before Bryl finally spoke up. "But why would Tryos take your daughter?"
"Idiot! She is everything!" Sardun turned his head sharply, but the gesture was odd and jerky because of his frozen lower body. "She is our future! Tareah is the last full-blooded Sorcerer woman. One day she may be strong enough to awaken all the sleeping Sorcerers in the vault below the Palace. Our race will rise again. She will shepherd them back to us, to make things the way they were. And now Tryos has taken her."
He hung his head, trapped and paralyzed on his throne. "Oh, why couldn't I have more strength? I used more magic than the Rules would allow. I sacrificed most of my body." He swiveled his head to indicate his frozen arm, his lifeless legs. "All for nothing."
"We might be able to rescue her," Vailret said softly. He looked at Delrael. His cousin shrugged and nodded slowly. "If you will help us in turn, Sardun."
The Sentinel looked at him, then turned his gaze to Bryl and Delrael, unimpressed. "Where were you when Tryos attacked? Who stood by my side to fight him? To protect Tareah? How dare you ask me for help!" Sardun's hand clenched the Water Stone again, ready to roll it and cast another spell.
"Because we have no choice, Sardun," Vailret said. He laid a hand on the old Sentinel's rigid shoulder. "The Rulewoman Melanie sent us a message -the Outsiders are trying to destroy Gamearth. They have placed a growing enemy in the east. They will play out turn after turn, putting their own plots into motion. We have to do something to stop them. You are the most powerful Sentinel left alive. We hoped you would have a solution."
"I am not powerful enough. Tareah is gone. I don't want to save anything except my daughter." A winter storm glimmered behind his eyes again.
"That's why I brought the cold. Why should I be the only one to suffer?"
"You can send us on a quest to rescue your daughter. You know that we would be bound by the Rules to complete the quest. But we first need your help to complete our mission."
Sardun cocked his head at Vailret, helpless and pathetic. "And what would I have to do? How do you plan to stop this outside enemy?"
Vailret smiled and consciously did not look at Delrael and Bryl as he described his idea.
"If our enemy is growing in the east, maybe we can cut it off from at least part of Gamearth. You have the use of the Water Stone, Sardun, and the Ice Palace is near the Northern Sea and the far edge of the map. If you could channel a river from the Northern Sea down to the southern edge of the map, that river could act as a barrier. It would cut off and protect at least half of Gamearth. Make the river so wide that whatever armies or monsters the Outsiders send against us are unable to reach the western side. We'll be safe."
Delrael crossed his arms over his damp leather armor, smiling at Vailret.
Byrl scowled, looking terrified at the thought of embarking on an even longer quest. "Think of the damage such a river would cause on its way to the sea. There'd be no way of stopping it."
The aspect of destruction seemed to intrigue Sardun. The expression in his eyes went far away and he muttered to himself, lisping. "The Northern Sea would come rushing down to the ocean like a battering ram. A wall of water from the frozen seas, crashing through the canyons and mountains and grassland, pounding its way to the ocean. Think of the power, think of the destruction! A Barrier River ¯ a whole hex wide!"
"No other Sentinel has ever left so great a mark on Gamearth," Vailret whispered to him, afraid he might sound too manipulative. "Tareah would be so proud of her father!"
Sardun's lips moved, and then he answered louder. "Yesss."
* 4 *
The Barrier River
"RULE #2: The system of quests and adventures is all-important to the Game. Once a group of characters undertakes a quest, they must see it through to completion. Incidental adventures are likely to occur along the way, but the ultimate goal of the quest should always remain foremost in a character's mind."
The balcony of the Ice Palace's tallest tower drooped at a deadly slant, scarred with soo
t and the marks of dragon claws. A waterfall of icicles poured from the balcony's edge.
Sardun was alone out in the open air, rooted to the ice and clutching the Water Stone with his one functioning hand. The northern breeze whipped around the tower, but he used the sapphire's power to surround himself with a pocket of calm, weaving the winds away from his body.
The Sentinel stared across the geometric landscape of Gamearth. The sight of the sprawling hexagons of terrain always filled him with awe. And now that Tareah was gone from him, he just wanted to stare and stare until he faded away into nothingness.
"Sardun, are you sure you'll be all right?" Vailret called from the balcony doorway. He refused to step out on the slanting ice after he and Delrael had carried the old Sentinel to the top of the tower.
Sardun did not turn to answer him. "I will do what you ask. And you are bound by the Rules to keep your bargain, to go on a quest to find and rescue Tareah."
"We'll do it, Sardun," Delrael said.
Sardun doubted they would succeed. In fact, since they were required to continue the quest, no matter how hopeless it seemed, he felt almost certain he was sending Vailret and his companions to their deaths.
But if there was a chance, if Tareah might be rescued, Sardun had to take the gamble. Too much of Gamearth's future rested within Tareah. She was the last full-blooded female Sorcerer. And she was his daughter.
Tareah.
"Leave me. I have never controlled this much power before. I would not want you standing in the backlash." He turned and fixed his eyes on Vailret.
"Go ¯ begin the preparations for your journey to Rokanun."
He turned back to the scene below, not waiting to see if they departed.
To the south, he saw the valley where the Transition had taken place.
As a small boy Sardun had been there himself, two centuries before. He had offered his ineffectual help as the adults carried thousands of motionless, bereft Sorcerer bodies ¯ people he had known ¯ up into these mountains in a solemn and seemingly endless procession. They had placed the dormant bodies in a frozen underground tomb in the mountains and protected them.
Years later, when Sardun had full training in the use of his own powers from the elder Sentinels, he had erected the Ice Palace over the tomb as a monument to his race. He made himself the custodian of all their relics so that all of Gamearth would remember the old Sorcerers.
He stood in the cold wind, sensing the crypt deep below, untouched even by the dragon's attack. The husks of the Sorcerers slept, empty and unchanged over the centuries ¯ while the six powerful Spirits that had arisen from their metamorphosis had vanished from the world, ignoring Gamearth and its problems. Why hadn't they come to help when Tryos attacked?
He tore his eyes from the landscape and looked down at the sapphire cube in his hand. Within the Water Stone resided magic from the ancient Sorcerer race, magic that ¯ unknown to the Outsiders ¯ was not necessarily bound by the Rules of the Game.
Sardun rolled the Water Stone and came up with only a "2", but he didn't need a very high roll to forge a frozen pedestal from the balcony floor. Chips of ice swirled up from the rippled surface, glittering like rainbow fireflies, and wrapped his dead lower body in a cocoon that held him firmly erect on the sloping surface.
"Sardun ¯ thank you." It was Vailret's voice, coming from the tower's doorway.
Sardun continued to stare at the smooth face of the sapphire, clearing his mind for the ordeal, but his chapped lips formed a slight smile.
At first, the other Sentinels had made pilgrimages northward to the Ice Palace, to see their fallen friends, to reminisce about the Golden Age of the Game. They brought with them their own relics, their own memories, and Sardun had collected all of the items.
But as the Sentinels died, so had Gamearth's interest in its past.
During the rampant bloodshed and racial hatred of the Scouring of Gamearth, half-breeds and humans concerned themselves only with their own survival, with fighting and gaming and uncovering treasure. Some characters grew bitter toward the Sorcerer race, who had deserted them in their time of need. The remaining Sentinels vanished one by one as they used magic to end their lives.
The Sentinel Kahleb had been the first to annihilate himself in a burst of Sorcerous glory. Kahleb had remained behind on Gamearth to be with his new human wife ¯ but only a year after the Transition, she had died trying to give birth to a stillborn child. In his anguish, feeling desperately alone and unable to make the Transition without the rest of his race, Kahleb unlocked the depths of his own magic to destroy himself and his wife's body in a spectacular funeral pyre.
But this release was more than simple destruction: Kahleb had discovered a partial Transition that liberated his own spirit, raising it up to where it could have a life of its own. Over the years, Sardun had watched as other Sentinels imitated this half-Transition, giving up hope and freeing themselves as they grew weary of life.
Tareah's mother, an old Sentinel woman named Tiarda, came to the Ice Palace one winter to gaze at the tomb of the Sorcerers a final time. She had been beautiful once, but now looked worn and strained. She refused to play games with Sardun, not dice, not even hexagon chess. Sardun never asked why she had forsaken the original Transition, but he devised a desperate plan as she mourned over the dormant bodies in the crypt. Sardun had often gone with her, looking for one body she mourned in particular, but she never pointed out any one.
Sardun was at the peak of his strength, and lonely. Tiarda had no positive emotion left in her. Sardun sifted through Tiarda's despair and apathy. He asked her to wait. The two of them might make a new hope for the Sorcerers. She reacted passively to Sardun's romantic advances ¯ she didn't seem to care one way or another. This hurt him, but he could not let something so important slip away.
Tiarda was old, older even than Sardun, but she conceived a child, and Tareah was born. Sardun had hoped this would restore Tiarda, change her mind, but she refused to wait any longer. Sardun held the baby daughter in his arms as her mother called up the magic, unleashing her spirit in a blinding flash.
She seemed to grow younger at the last instant: the gray in her hair ignited and filled with molten gold. Her face held an achingly beatific expression until the light broke through and blurred her features into a brilliant glow that faded into the air, leaving only Sardun and his baby Tareah.
He had not loved Tiarda, but the loss of yet another Sentinel struck him. Only the need to care for his daughter renewed his interest in life. He devoted himself to teaching Tareah her heritage, and her mission. Year after year he showed her the relics in the crypt, told her of the Rules and the Outsiders, taught her the historical accomplishments of the Sorcerer race.
Sardun waited, and hoped, and built his entire world around his daughter.
Then Tryos had stolen her.
Sardun swallowed a mouthful of stale saliva and began to chart the course for the great Barrier River. Bleak, towering mountains surrounded the Ice Palace. He looked to the southeast, toward Rokanun where his daughter had been taken. He seemed to feel her calling him, mourning for him and losing hope that she would ever be free. The gray crags extended, hex upon hex, as far as the eye could see.
The wind stroked his face, and he looked beyond the hexes of mountain terrain to the north, seeing the silvery reflection of the vast frozen sea.
The morning sky had been filled with clouds, but he'd sent them away with the Water Stone's magic. Now sunlight glinted off the snow flecked peaks.
The Barrier River would flow between the mountains, skirt the Ice Palace along its two western hex-lines, then burst into the Transition Valley, perhaps making a lake there. The river would wind through the grassy hills at the lower edge of the valley and plunge southward across the grasslands and swamps, restructuring the landscape, ripping a course through the forests and hills until it finally reached the vast ocean near the edge of the map. Sardun hoped no villages lay in its path.
As he stood ou
t in the cold, very old and very alone, Sardun realized that he was not strong anymore ¯ he had wept too much and had not eaten enough. But this was to rescue Tareah. And he knew where to find the power he required. He did not know what the consequences would be for summoning the sleeping magic, for bending the Rules, but he had passed the point of caring.
When the other Sentinels destroyed themselves in the half-Transition, one by one, they had liberated their spirits to roam Gamearth. Some of these spirits, which were apparently aware of themselves in a murky way, had sought out other Sentinel revenants. Over the years, the congregations of spirits had settled in places still prominent in their fuzzy Sorcerer memories, blending and seeping into the fabric of Gamearth, becoming a wellspring of Sorcerer power called a dayid. The Ice Palace itself harbored one of the largest dayids, the spirits of those Sentinels who most regretted their decision to remain behind from the Transition.
Sardun looked down. The ice pedestal sheathing his lower body made him look like a crystal tree trunk with one arm and a head. He stretched out his arm and touched the Water Stone to the ice wall of the tower. The dayid contained the spirits of many Sorcerers; and the Sorcerers had created the four Stones. He would find the dayid below and tap into it.
His thoughts narrowed to a single focus and shot through the sapphire, plunging to the core of the Palace, to the tomb of the Sorcerers. Sardun's mind was pulled by a force stronger than gravity as his thoughts dodged the latticework of ice crystals.
Unconsciously, he let his arm fall, breaking contact with the wall as though the Water Stone had grown suddenly heavy ¯ but his consciousness continued to descend. He dropped the Stone on the slanted balcony. It rolled twice and then stopped with the number "6" facing up, the highest he could roll.
Sardun plunged deep into a hot lake of mental fire, encountering the whispered, dazed voices of Sentinels he had known. Even Tiarda was there, if Sardun chose to seek her out.
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