"We may have to climb all the way to the top to get inside. Tryos probably keeps all his treasure in a lower grotto, and we should find Tareah there." He sighed and shifted his long hunting bow on his shoulder. "But, then, I would not be surprised if we found a secret passage leading inside to the treasure chamber. The Outsiders seem to enjoy that sort of thing."
"Let's hope Sardun's daughter is waiting for us, and the dragon isn't!"
Bryl waited until Delrael set off again and then followed close behind. He sweated from the exertion, but he did not complain.
Just past noon, they rounded a corner and came upon a narrow cave broken into the wall of the volcano's cone. Two gray-brown boulders bordered the opening, and Delrael stopped. He felt the cool breeze and smelled the brimstone stench drifting out into the sunshine.
"What did I tell you?" Delrael said, smiling to himself.
He noticed how the rocks around the entrance had been partially melted, turned glasslike from blasts of heat. "I think we should try it. I don't like being exposed out here on the mountainside."
Inside the cave, they stumbled over two ancient and burned skeletons lying just out of the light. Melted items of stolen gold were clutched in their blackened hands.
Bryl gulped, but Delrael was unimpressed. "Cute," he said. "Such a subtle reminder."
The cave was deep and winding, burrowing all the way into the interior of the volcano. Their footsteps echoed as they worked their way deeper into the catacombs of the dragon.
When he had the afternoon to himself, Vailret went to Mayer's tower workroom. Verne and Frankenstein had summoned Paenar to their laboratory for some tests of his eyes. Professor Verne had had an inspiration during the night, another sending from the Outsiders, though this time the professor insisted he remembered a woman's presence instead of the familiar freckled boy.
The Rulewoman Melanie? Vailret wondered. Without giving further regard to Vailret, the two professors had attached probes to Paenar's arms, his temples, his eye sockets. Frankenstein checked his notes, impatient, as if nothing happened fast enough for him. After a few moments, Vailret slipped out the door.
He strolled by himself through the crowded and impressive streets of Sitnalta, trying to understand how some of the wonders had been accomplished.
He sat on one of the stone benches near the fountain and listened to the falling water, staring at the ornate water clock and trying to figure out how to read its gauge.
Finally, Vailret decided to go see Mayer, in part because he enjoyed discussing things with her when she could keep from being too defensive. She would explain things to him, but she did not have the patience to make sure he understood what she said. Vailret had grown to like Paenar more over the past day, but the blind man was still too intense at times.
Since he could see Mayer's tower on the edge of the city, he had no difficulty making his way through the streets. The tower was blurry in the distance, and he did not have the skill with directions that Delrael had, but he still felt confident as he made his way past the manufactories and tall buildings, pumping stations and generator shacks to the outer wall of Sitnalta.
He stood at the base of the tower. He wondered if he should knock or shout up to the window. He stared at the brass end of the speaking tube dangling beside the door; in the end he decided just to trudge up the stairs and find her.
Mayer stood in the wide, drafty room, staring at her chalkboard.
Equations went on in endless lines. He watched her wrestle with something in her mind. Chalkdust covered her hands; a white smear on her cheek and streaks in her short dark hair showed when she had run fingers through her hair in frustration.
A cool breeze gusted through the open tower windows, scattering some papers on the floor. Mayer turned, muttering to herself, and saw Vailret. She jumped in surprise.
"I didn't mean to startle you like that," Vailret said.
She scowled and bent to pick up her scattered papers, chasing one around the floor and keeping her face turned away from him.
"I didn't want to break your train of thought," Vailret continued. "I just got here. You looked so intent on what you were doing."
After a pause, Mayer sighed and looked at him again. "I'm frustrated because I can't solve this. You wouldn't understand."
"I'm not stupid, you know. I've spent years studying the history of the Gamearth campaigns."
She frowned. "History doesn't matter. You don't make progress with your head turned in the wrong direction."
"You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you are.
And you can't know where you are if you have no idea where you've been." He held up his hand in a truce. "Why don't you just try to explain what you're doing."
"You'll just criticize it."
"No. I'd really be interested."
Her expression softened, but Vailret doubted she believed him. "If this works, it will be a calculating machine. It will take some of the tedium out of long but simple mathematical problems," she said, and gave many examples, the relevance of which were lost on Vailret. But he kept nodding and listening.
Mayer regarded him for a moment, then turned back to her equations. "I said you wouldn't understand."
Vailret stared out the tower window, looking at the path they had traveled from the mountains. "Look, I admit I don't understand all you just explained. But you have to remember that out there, beyond your technological fringe, none of this stuff works anyway! It would be wasted effort for us to learn it."
The intensity in her eyes surprised him. "But it would do you good! If you insisted on using technology, then perhaps the Rules would change around your Stronghold as well! The more we Sitnaltans develop science, the farther out the fringe extends. If you want to be proud of your humanity, cast off this dependence on elite Sorcerer magic. Make your own magic, with science!"
Vailret tried to look open and receptive. "We're too busy trying to survive. We're now safe from wandering monsters, we have developed hexes of fertile cropland ¯ "
"Well, if you didn't spend so much time on those meaningless quests to get treasure or exploring catacombs, you might have time to devote to it."
Vailret sighed and shook his head. "We haven't done that since the Scouring, and that's been more than a century. The Game isn't like that anymore ¯ and that's part of the problem. The Outsiders got bored with all the run-of-the-mill quests, and then they got bored with our daily life. We can't win."
A racket of loud bells clanged from the tops of tall buildings. Others shouted the alarm. Mayer joined him at the tower window, craning her neck to see. "Here it comes," he said. "You'll find this interesting."
A large black shape winged out of the north, skipping over the updrafts. The thing soared toward the city, growing larger and larger.
Vailret recognized the shape from some of the terrified descriptions scrawled by survivors of the old Sorcerer battles. "A dragon?"
"Yes ¯ Tryos, returning to his island. He will probably attempt to attack Sitnalta first." She shook her head. "He never learns."
The dragon beat his huge batlike wings and drove forward, circling low over the city. Mayer grabbed her optick-tube and pulled on Vailret's sleeve.
"Come with me and watch."
They rushed up a winding staircase to a platform on the roof of the tower. The sounds of the streets and the manufactories seemed far away. He could see all three hexagons of the city and took a moment to orient himself with the landmarks he remembered.
Tryos floated over Sitnalta, taking no action. The dragon's wings creaked in the wind, making a sound like leather stretched taut over a frame.
Mayer tugged on his arm, pointing Vailret's attention elsewhere. "See that tall ziggurat, the pyramid over in the southeastern hex? Watch."
Atop the stepped pyramid, Vailret could barely make out the blurry shape of a small device. He squinted, but it did no good. Mayer handed him the optick-tube.
He stared at it, turning it one way and then
the other. "What do I do with this?"
"Don't be ridiculous. You look through it."
Vailret put one end to his eye, but could discern nothing. Mayer snatched it from his hands and turned it around. When he stared through the lens, his perspective shifted in a dizzying jump. The top of the ziggurat leaped out at him, distorted but so close that he almost dropped the tube. He removed the end from his eye and blinked at it. Lifting it, he stared through the tube again, finding the pyramid's top platform.
In a shelter sat a Sitnaltan woman beside a strange device. It looked like a dish mounted on an axis and pointed to the sky. A box with levers and buttons rested against the pedestal, coming into view as the woman wrestled with the dish to turn it toward the dragon. Then she sat back in a firmly anchored chair. She strapped herself in. The woman flipped one of the switches.
"What is that woman doing?"
"Just watch." Mayer gave him a confident smile.
The Sitnaltan woman fastened something over her ears before she lifted a microphone to her mouth. A booming voice echoed into the air and through the winding hex cobbled streets. "Tryos of Antas! Depart at Once. You know the consequences."
Provoked, Tryos wheeled in the air and came flying toward the ziggurat, scooping the air behind his great wings. He thrust his spined head outward, drooling flames down his chin.
Through the optick-tube, Vailret watched the Sitnaltan woman adjust the face of the dish once more. Vailret felt anxious, knowing she could not escape the dragon's attack.
Tryos swallowed a cavernous mouthful of air, feeding the furnace inside of him. The Sitnaltan woman spoke into the microphone again, appearing calm.
"You have been warned, dragon."
Tryos swooped down for his attack. The woman reached forward to flip a second switch on the control panel.
A destructive explosion of sound erupted outward, a roar of noise that blasted the dragon backward into the air as if he had been hit with a catapulted boulder.
The Sitnaltan woman slammed back against her chair. The pulses of sound continued to hammer forth. Tryos spun in the air in reverse somersaults. He tried to scramble away.
The device stopped itself automatically. Beaten, Tryos limped across the skies, fleeing Sitnalta.
"That is our Dragon Siren, small enough for a single character to lift, and powerful enough to defend our entire city." She smiled, smug.
"Impressive."
"The dragon knows he is defeated. He will go back to his island and sulk. We will not be bothered for a time. But he always forgets and comes back."
Through the optick-tube, Vailret watched the huge monster flap out across the blue glinting hexagon of ocean. Vailret swallowed to himself and handed the optick tube back to Mayer.
"I hope Del and Bryl are ready for him. He's not in a very good mood."
*12*
The Wrath of Tryos
"Creative adventurers use the situation, use the setting, and use their imaginations to solve any crisis. While pitched battles and direct combat techniques are always acceptable, they are sometimes less satisfying than a truly innovative approach to a problem."
¯ Preface, The Book of Rules
Delrael moved down the winding lava tube, feeling his way around broken corners. All his senses were alert, waiting for something horrible to spring out at them. The half-Sorcerer had used his own meager magic to make a floating torch, though he hated to waste a precious spell when they were about to enter the dragon's lair. But magic did not work against dragons anyway.
Shadows puddled against the rough walls.
In the old days, such catacombs would have been filled with wandering monsters, treasure, secret doors and passages. Now it was different, though.
Delrael just wanted to reach the grotto, find Tareah, and get back to the balloon as fast as possible.
Once away from the entrance, the air became chilly, locked away from any warmth or light. The heels of Delrael's boots slipped on a patch of ice still preserved in one of the shadowy rock pockets. Delrael reached out and grabbed a knifelike corner of broken lava, cutting his palm.
For hours they wound their way downward toward the heart of the volcano. Delrael did not want to think about how hard it would be to climb back up. Bryl muttered about how his knees ached, how hungry he was getting.
They paused for a short rest, then trudged downward again.
The air smelled heavier, damper. Occasionally, Delrael saw a reddish-orange glow bound past the jagged twists and turns of the tunnel. Bryl doused his fire spell.
The reddish light grew brighter ahead of them. Delrael picked up his pace, impatient to get to their destination, to whatever adventure awaited them. He could smell his sweat in the armor, the claustrophobic thickness of the air.
They rounded a corner, and the passageway opened up. Light washed over them, carrying with it a gush of harsh sulfur smell. Despite his own admonition to Bryl, Delrael broke the silence by letting out a gasp of amazement. He stepped into the grotto, wide-eyed.
Half the room in front of him brimmed with mountains of treasure: gold, gems, pearls, coins, jewelry. In a smaller chamber off to the side stood several large statues ¯ two leaning against each other and another on the floor, chipped and in disarray. A beautiful tapestry had been tossed in the corner, snagged on a sharp rock. Delrael saw painted hexagonal tiles, colored pottery, a bust of some forgotten old Sorcerer general.
"Vailret would love it here," Bryl said.
On the far edge of the treasure vault sunlight shone down from the opening of the cone. They had descended to the level of the hot and smoking lava pool at the bottom of the volcano. The sound of burning and escaping gases filled the air, making Delrael's ears ring. The huge treasure grotto had been hollowed out just above and beside the simmering lava ¯ Tryos had made a home protected from any human invaders who wanted to steal his treasure. "The dragon doesn't seem to be home," Delrael said.
He moved forward, dazed, like a Sitnaltan automaton. Taking treasure wherever it was found had formed part of his way of life, part of the society of Gamearth, for as long as the Outsiders had been Playing. But he had more important things to do now. If times changed, allowing more leisure to quest for treasure, he might come back. Someday.
Delrael hiked his bow up on his shoulders and stepped forward, ignoring Bryl. "Hello!" he shouted. "Tareah?" His voice echoed in the grotto.
Bryl wandered off again toward the Sorcerer artifacts in the separate chamber.
Delrael heard a clinking sound, coins rattling against each other. He froze and eased his bow from his shoulder, holding onto the string and ready to reach for an arrow.
Then he saw the young girl, Tareah, sitting up groggily from an exhausted sleep, lying on the piles of gems and trinkets, the softest bed she could find. The girl half-slid down the mound of treasure in a clatter and jangle of coins. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the man in silent disbelief, saying nothing.
Delrael thought she was the most beautiful little girl he had ever seen ¯ she looked to be about ten years old, but she was Sardun's daughter and the only full-blooded Sorcerer female left on all of Gamearth. Her brown eyes were dark and wide, captivating, though laced with bloodshot lines and puffy from too many tears.
Fawn-colored hair hung to her shoulders, tangled but once curled. She wore a pale blue gown of some shining material, now dirty and tattered.
Apparently bored, Tareah had bedecked her body with jewelry, rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, a circlet around her head. She dropped some of the heavier pieces off when she stood up, still staring at Delrael.
The young girl's voice was husky. "I knew someone would come. I didn't expect it to take so long, though. I was beginning to lose hope."
"Your father sent us here." Delrael didn't know what else to say. "We came to rescue you."
The hissing of the lava drowned out most of the back ground noise.
"Bryl, I've found Tareah!"
"According to my studies," Tareah sa
id, "people have stopped questing for the most part, now that the Transition has taken place and the Scouring is over with. My father must have had trouble finding someone to rescue me."
Tareah's eyes brightened. "Tell me your names. Have I read about your adventures before?"
Something in her manner, a confidence and smoothness in the way she moved, did not hint at the awkwardness of a young girl. Then Delrael remembered that this "young girl" was actually older than he was.
For thirty years Sardun had held his daughter in the body of a child, afraid to let her grow up before the probabilities of Gamearth could spill forth another full blooded Sorcerer male. They had kept waiting and waiting for the Outsiders' dice to roll in their favor.
"I'm Delrael, and that's Bryl. We're from the Stronghold. Your father didn't seek us out. We went to the Ice Palace to ask him for help. He was ... in a bad state, but he's better now. We agreed to try to rescue you."
Tareah's eyes became glassy and distant. "He tried to save me. I remember ¯ the dragon blasting his way through the palace walls, clawing through the ice. My father used the Water Stone to fight back, but he was afraid. He didn't want to harm me."
"Well, even the Ice Palace is rebuilt, now. And he's waiting for you to come back."
Despite everything they had encountered, Delrael had succeeded in reaching Sardun's daughter. And she was safe. They had nearly finished the quest imposed on them by Sardun. They needed only to get Tareah back to the Ice Palace. And then go fight against Gairoth.
"Bryl! Let's get out of here before Tryos comes back."
The half-Sorcerer knelt beside the toppled, chipped Sorcerer statue in the smaller art chamber. Tears streamed down his face. "I remember some of this."
Tareah turned to Delrael. "That was an original sculpture, created by some Sorcerer lord in the peaceful days before the first wars. Centuries and centuries and centuries ago. Somehow it survived everything intact, all the battles, all the Scavengers, the weather, the years ¯ "
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