Gamearth

by Kevin J. Anderson

  They camped at the hex-line, and Vailret found enough scrub bushes to build a fire. He piled the wood in the center of a sheltered clearing, then left Bryl to start the fire. The old half-Sorcerer had always used a trivial fire starting spell, but this time he rubbed the Water Stone and rolled it on the ground. Bryl laughed as a lightning bolt came down from the sky, striking the scant pile of wood. He controlled the lightning, and the wood became a roaring fire.

  "Bryl ¯ it took me an hour to gather all that wood! You just blasted most of it into ashes ¯ now it'll never last until morning."

  "No matter." The half-Sorcerer shrugged. "I can adjust the weather to make it warm here. I've got three rolls left for today."

  Vailret squatted down close to Bryl, pointing a finger at the half-Sorcerer's beard. "Now look. Over the past couple of days, you've kept rubbing the Stone as if you're anxious to use it. But let me tell you something ¯ you don't even know what you did in Ledaygen. When we rode out to get the Cyclops, did you notice that the stream in the gorge had been ripped from its bed and thrown against the rock face?

  "You did that by summoning all the water to your aid ¯ you diverted a stream out of its course from a full hex away! That Stone is not a toy ¯ it's one of the most powerful weapons the old Sorcerers left on Gamearth. I liked it better when you were afraid of it."

  Bryl stared at the young man's outburst. "I pulled the stream from its course?" He blinked in awe and looked guilty, more so from being caught than from doing anything wrong.

  "Think about where the Stone came from and remember how much magic it contains." Vailret brushed his hands on his trousers.

  Delrael started heating their meal of spiced grain mash on the fire. He asked out of the corner of his mouth, "What makes the Stones so powerful anyway?"

  Vailret lay back and looked up at the stars. He did not feel ready for sleep. He thought about the possibility of keeping a journal of their quest, for future historians. If Gamearth survived that long.

  "Well, once the old Sorcerers had made their minds up, they waited a year before they finally embarked on the Transition. And during that year they thought about the half-breeds and humans the Rules made them leave behind.

  "Most of them could see that humans had little chance against the massing Slac armies and the monsters who wanted Gamearth for their own. One more time, Arken spoke to the other Sorcerers ¯ they knew that the Transition would require less than half of their total powers once most of the Sorcerers had joined together. Arken begged them to use that extra energy to create a gift for their children, a weapon the Sentinels could wield against their enemies ¯ something to make future generations remember their departed forefathers.

  "So, the Sorcerers worked together to create the four elemental Stones, shaped like dice, each with enormous powers. The two factions that had fought each other in the ancient wars broke apart once more, this time for the good of all. One faction, those who later became the Earthspirits, created the Air and Earth Stones. The other faction, who became the Deathspirits, made the Water and Fire Stones."

  He sat up against the rock and watched Delrael divide up their meal.

  "Wish we had the Air Stone, too," Bryl said.

  Delrael took the cooking meal away from the fire, frowning skeptically at it. "Well, Gairoth still has it, just like he still has the Stronghold."

  He leaned forward to hand Bryl his portion of the food.

  Without a sound, a tall stranger hopped down from a ledge above, landed expertly on a massive boulder, and stepped into the firelight.

  In alarm, Delrael flipped the hunting bow off his back and nocked an arrow. Bryl scrambled to his feet and lifted the Water Stone, but paused before using it. Vailret froze, not knowing what to do.

  The stranger had no eyes ¯ only crusted, burned sockets.

  He wore tattered robes and pointed a bulky, shining staff at each of the travelers. In the head of the staff Vailret stared into a confusing system of glass disks held together by a pale blue glow, shifting and clicking as the lenses focused on different objects. He felt something staring right through him.

  The stranger calmly set his staff upright again. "You have finally arrived. Good." He walked toward the fire, sidestepping a broken rock on the ground. "Come with me, please, or you will be destroyed. The Spectres have been awaiting you ... and the Water Stone."

  Vailret's shout overlapped Delrael's. "Wait a minute!" Delrael put a hand on his sword and spat his words at the blind face of the stranger. "We're not going anywhere with you."

  "Tell us what you want." Vailret tried to be calm. They needed to learn what was going on. "You have to give us some answers first."

  The tall man turned his face toward the gap between the travelers. His expression grew serious. "If you resist their request, the Spectres will take away my sight once more. Artificial though it is, I value my eye-staff highly.

  And they will do worse to you."

  Vailret narrowed his eyes, trying to spot something he might recognize on the stranger's face. "But who are the Spectres?"

  "And who are you, for that matter?" Delrael demanded.

  The tall stranger looked odd for a moment, as if he was trying to remember his own name. "I am Paenar. They ... are Outsiders."

  None of them moved. Vailret spoke slowly and clearly to Delrael. "If he's telling the truth, we'd better take heed and go. Now."

  They traveled in darkness, trying to follow the blind man's sure-footed strides over the broken terrain. Paenar seemed no more troubled by the dark than he had been by their firelight. The stranger mumbled a few replies to direct questions, but he held himself tight-lipped and silent most of the time.

  "What happened to your eyes?" Delrael asked. Vailret had not been able to find the courage to ask the same question.

  Paenar drew to a stop and turned his burned sockets at Delrael. "I was a Scavenger. I looked at the Spectres, just a glance. And it did this."

  He set off again, solemn, working his jaws as if chewing the words and wondering whether to spit them out or just swallow them.

  "I scoured the world alone, searching for relics of the Sorcerers, things buried in the ancient battlefields or left in abandoned keeps. Their weapons and jewelry are more sophisticated than what your own craftsmen make, so everything I found was always in great demand. There aren't many treasure-hunters or dungeon-explorers on Gamearth anymore."

  Paenar fell silent again and kept walking through the night. Vailret tried to encourage him to keep speaking. "Did you ever sell anything to Sardun?"

  Paenar paused. "Sardun, in his Ice Palace? Yes, yes, I have gone to him. It was such a little thing ... but I remember it made him weep with joy.

  I could see the tears running down his face. Just a sketch of the Earthspirits by someone who had actually seen them ¯ it made him cry. I dropped my price a great deal because of that." Paenar seemed to be having trouble selecting his words, but he kept talking.

  "I spent years sifting the dust on some of the battlefields far to the east, then I searched these mountains. I had success in some of the caves, but most were already empty from quests at the height of the Game. Then I heard that the Slac had all marched eastward, abandoning their fortresses. I didn't know why at the time, but it was true. I wanted to break into one of their deserted citadels and take whatever they left behind. No other Scavenger had ever dared that before.

  "People told stories about the ghosts, the Spectres, that had haunted these peaks since the beginning of the Scouring. I have heard many stories of many things ¯ but I chose to disbelieve the wrong tale. I came to the Slac citadel up here and watched the crumbling fortress. After I had seen no movement in a week, I decided the place was empty.

  "I entered through the huge gates. I explored, and then I found the Outsiders ¯ the Spectres ¯ by accident. They had forgotten to make themselves invisible, because they had not realized I was there. I caught a glimpse of them ... and it blasted my eyes into nothingness."

  "But why?" D
elrael asked.

  "Because they are real. If I had seen more, it would have annihilated me ¯ I suppose you could say I was lucky." His sigh sounded like a constrained whimper. "Yes, I am so lucky."

  He stopped and held his staff in his hand like a mace. "They gave me new eyes. I can see." A blue glow that looked like torchlight steamed from the end of the staff. The lenses in the staff clicked again and again as they continued to focus by themselves.

  "But how do they work?" Bryl asked, afraid to move closer. "Is it magic?" The tall stranger let him stare into the end of the staff for a moment, then he snapped it away.

  "These mountains divide the rest of the world from the city of Sitnalta. In Sitnalta your magic will not work ¯ science works there instead.

  The Outsider named Scott has set up a region of Gamearth where characters can duplicate some of the greatest Sorcery by using machines. In this hexagon we are on the border between the domains of magic and technology. My 'eyes' are a combination of both: the proper lenses with the correct focal lengths, held together and activated by magic."

  Paenar fondled the end of his eye-staff for a moment, then let out a long sigh. "I can even look at them now. There are two of them ¯ they call themselves David and Tyrone. Perhaps the Outsiders take a strange pleasure in letting me watch their machinations to destroy Gamearth."

  "It's true then," Vailret whispered. "Our world is doomed."

  "Yes, and now they need you to help them get back to the Outside world before it all happens."

  A fringe of dawn light set fire to the jagged edges of the Spectre Mountains, leaving the deserted Slac fortress in deep shadow. It stood in an elbow of the peaks, with spiked parapets sticking out above sharp corners.

  Thin arrow slits were like pockmarks on its weathered surface, and the crumbling arch of the huge gate made it look like a cave that would hide monsters. The path leading to the fortress widened into a road, paved with hexagonal cobblestones whose surface had been worn down by years of marching reptilian feet.

  Vailret stared up at the towering, deserted citadel. The air was brisk, and strong winds swirled among the peaks above them. He tried to feel the presence of the Outsiders, but he noticed nothing different.

  Paenar did not pause when the wide fortress gate loomed above them. He strode into the tunnel-like entrance. The heel of his eye-staff rang out in the early morning silence. Vailret reached out to run his fingers over the frost-slick blocks. The stone outer walls of the Slac fortress were ten feet thick.

  Vailret had been in such a citadel before, in his imagination, when Drodanis had challenged him with the role playing game in the darkened weapons storehouse. He hoped the outcome would be different this time.

  In all the years of the Scouring of Gamearth, only one man had emerged alive from such a hell-citadel. General Doril, the original builder of the Stronghold, who had been rescued by his friend the Sentinel Oldahn. According to the legend, Oldahn had brought the mountainside crashing down around them, killing all of Doril's captured men and losing the Air Stone in the tons of rubble. But even years later, after Doril had erected the Stronghold, he had never described what he had seen while a captive of the Slac.

  The blind stranger led them through musty, oppressive corridors in the citadel. The smell of stale air clung to Vailret, and he shuddered. Bryl stumbled along, clutching the Water Stone. Delrael remained silent, keeping his hands close to his weapons and looking from side to side.

  The wooden doors were all reinforced with iron. Each had a small window above eye level for a man, barred or ringed with spikes: not because each was a prison cell, but because the Slac seemed to enjoy bars and spikes. Sunlight filtered through chinks in the crumbling ceiling, casting weird shadows.

  Vailret tried not to imagine the hissing laughter of the Slac or the screams of captives.

  After the old Sorcerer wars had ended, the Slac remained in their fortresses, simmering in anger and waiting for the day they could rule Gamearth. When most of the old Sorcerers had departed in the Transition, the Slac came pouring down out of the mountains, howling and thirsty for the blood of men. But the humans fought together with the aid of the Sentinels and won Gamearth, beating the Slac back into the mountains.

  Now Paenar said the Slac had all abandoned their mountain citadels and gone east ¯ where the Rulewoman Melanie said the Outsiders were beginning the destruction of the world.

  Paenar's moodiness made Vailret feel cold and terrified. He was about to stand face to face with the Outsiders, who had created Gamearth in their imaginations, who had Played all the major characters in history.

  They were here, hiding, invisible. He sniffed the air, and the dank shadows seemed filled with mystery. Were they watching even now? What did they

  want? His throat felt thick. The back of his neck prickled with sweat. If the Outsiders forced him to look at their real selves, would it blast his eyes from their sockets, like Paenar ¯ or would such a sight annihilate him completely, because he was only imaginary to them anyway?

  "Why, exactly, are the Outsiders here?" he asked.

  Paenar paused in midstride, as if thankful for an opportunity to delay.

  "They've been here since the Transition, which was supposed to be the climax of their Game. While the Sentinels were gathering themselves together, while the Slac were getting ready to come back and fight for domination of the world, while the men began their Scouring of Gamearth ¯ two of the Outsiders came here to drop off a seed of evil that would engulf the entire map.

  "They spawned a thing called Scartaris in the eastern mountains beyond the city of Taire, almost at the edge of the world. It is a blob of energy that grows and sucks the life from the land, engulfing hex after hex.

  "Nothing can stop this thing from swallowing the world and ending the Game ¯ the Outsiders don't intend to give us a chance to win."

  Paenar hung his head. "Even the Outsiders can be sore losers. For almost a century they have been hiding here, working, creating. The Outsiders David and Tyrone are here to watch a spectacular end for their imaginary world.

  "Gamearth is doomed. It is already too late."

  Vailret shook his head, staring at the floor. "That means the Barrier River won't save us, either. Why didn't the Rulewoman tell us more?"

  "But what do the Outsiders want us for?" Bryl asked the blind man.

  His thin voice echoed in the claustrophobic passageway.

  An ironic smile curved on Paenar's lips. "They don't want you ¯ they want the Water Stone. They've been here so long they can no longer return by themselves. Their ship crumbled when they turned their immense imaginations to other things. They bent and twisted the Rules they created ¯ and now they need Gamearth's own magic to send them back. They can't return to the real world unless they use the power in your Water Stone."

  Bryl stood aghast, clutching the sapphire cube. Delrael began to laugh.

  "After they created this Scartaris thing to destroy us, they expect us to help? Well, if they can't play nice, we'll just take our dice and go home."

  Paenar turned to him. "They will not ask your permission. If you are not careful, they will simply destroy you. The Spectres toy with me but do little else. I hate them for blinding me, yet I am dependent on their power for my new eyes." He stretched out his eye-staff.

  "The Outsiders are mere children in their own world, in the real world. All the centuries of our history have been only a few years of gaming to them. And they have tempers like spoiled children as well.

  "I cannot give you any better advice, because I have none. They have doomed our world, and I would be happy to see them stranded here to share its fate. But that is not in my power, or yours. They will take what they need, whether you cooperate or not." He set off again. The foot of his staff rang out on the stone floor.

  "We'll see about that," Delrael said.

  The tunnel spilled out of the hivelike chambers to a wide, barren courtyard where the Slac had apparently conducted battle-training. Wooden posts
and crossbars had been erected in the dusty earth; bloodstained manacles dangled from them.

  Sprawled across the courtyard were huge twisted girders, coated with rust, that formed the skeletal outline of a metal ship like a dead prehistoric animal. The ship had crumbled into a shadow of its construction, not able to travel anywhere. Vailret stared at it in awe: The Outsiders had constructed it from their imaginations and had used it to carry them from their real world to Gamearth. But over the centuries, which had seemed like days to the Outsiders, they turned their efforts to destroying the world, allowing their fantastic ship to fade.

  They needed to use the Water Stone as a catalyst to get themselves off their own maps and back to reality. Vailret found the irony impressive. What possible power could the magic of the Stones have that the Outsiders' own dice could not work? It wasn't fair ¯ and fairness was supposed to be one of the cardinal Rules of Gamearth.

  They stepped out into the sunlit courtyard, and awe crept up on Vailret again. A tingling in the air, a vibration, told him others were there. He looked around the dusty, barren ground, but he could see no evidence of the Spectres other than the abandoned and disintegrating ship. Vailret stopped with Delrael and Bryl beside him. Paenar stood off to one side, scowling, gripping his eye-staff so hard his knuckles turned white.

  "You are here. Now we can go home at last." The voices boomed out in the silent mountain air, echoing like thunder. They came from different corners of the courtyard. More than one speaker stood hidden on the empty, bloodstained training ground. The words themselves were spoken in a deep, rich tone that sounded like a caricature of someone omnipotent and dangerous ¯ the voice of an angry god. Bryl clutched the sapphire Stone instinctively, protecting it but ready to use it.

  "We felt Sardun use the power of the Water Stone to create the Barrier River. We felt you, Bryl, use it to save the khelebar. Now it will set us free of this world, let us go back home before it is too late."