Delrael chuckled and clapped a hand on the half Sorcerer's shoulder.
"Good thing Gairoth's Maw came at just the right time."
"Let's give credit where credit is due." Bryl held up the glittering diamond. He turned to look at the section of the Stronghold wall that the ogre woman had smashed. It stood intact, untouched.
"His 'Maw' will follow him most of the way back to the swamps, maybe even make him take a bath in the cesspools. She'll tell him to be good, because he can never know when she'll be watching."
Delrael saw Bryl's eyes glittering with delight. "Making illusions is easier than I thought."
Delrael looked down and saw that Gairoth's iron crown had also been false, just a twined circlet of straw. The attack had never been real, the ogre army had never been real. Ogres don't work together! It all gave him a headache.
"At least it's nice to feel completely safe again."
The arctic winds howled around the mountains, slicing like frozen knives. Tryos's ears ached. His body felt leaden and sluggish ¯ reptiles weren't made for cold such as this. Snow splattered against his eyelids, smearing his vision. He felt ready to fall from the skies out of sheer exhaustion.
After more than a full day of breathless pursuit, Rognoth had led him to this land of rocky outcroppings glazed with ice and jutting out of glacial debris. The little dragon had somehow eluded Tryos in the blasting snow and raging wind.
Through his numbed weariness, Tryos thought he caught a glimpse of the fat little dragon behind an ice-clad bluff. He surged forward, blasting his last few breaths of fire. The ice melted away, exposing only naked rock, not Rognoth. Perhaps he had escaped, perhaps he had never been there.
Rognoth was lost in the arctic cold and raging storms ¯ and good riddance to him! The larger dragon shook a coating of ice from his scales, freeing him of some excess weight. He had punished Rognoth once and for all -he'd never be naughty again.
Tryos wheeled around and glided southward again, toward the Stronghold.
As he traveled over the landscape, he viewed the terrain with a critical, admiring eye. No longer would he need to be content with a tiny island.
The dragon felt proud as he surveyed the land. His land.
*13*
Mountain of the Dragon
"Science and magic cannot coexist in the same area. Their Rules are contradictory: Science says you can't get something for nothing, magic says you can. We have to choose how we want to play the Game."
¯ Professor Frankenstein, Published Notes,
Selected Excerpts
Vailret leaned forward, squeezing his fingers against Dirac's polished drafting table. "It's been six days!"
He stopped himself from making a fist and smoothed out his voice.
"Please give us a boat or something. We have to try to rescue them."
"The time for waiting is past," Paenar said. "We must do something. We must make a difference!"
Dirac flinched from the stare of Paenar's new eyes. The two professors had designed a pair of goggles filled with exotic oils and floating lenses sandwiched between two wafers of transparent crystal. A wire connected the goggles to a small galvanic battery that had been surgically implanted at the base of Paenar's skull.
After the invention of the eyes and a simple operation, the blind man had turned around in awe, staring at the clutter of the professors' workroom, looking at every corner, every shape, every shadow. Paenar smiled, stretching his arms upward and ready to challenge the world. "Now I don't feel so helpless!"
But in Dirac's workroom Vailret felt the helplessness return. Many of the trappings of an inventor remained in Dirac's laboratory: the chalkboard, the drafting table, the scrawled equations waiting for answers. But everything was too ornate, and too clean, merely for show. The drafting table looked oddly like a desk, and the equations on the chalkboard appeared to have been there for a long time, unaltered. Vailret could not remember having seen chalkdust on Dirac's fingertips. Mayer had never mentioned how long it had been since her father's last invention.
"Your companions volunteered to be subjects in a scientific experiment." Dirac sat on a three-legged stool behind his drafting table. He folded his pudgy fingers together and rested his elbows on the table's clean surface.
"They were to test Professor Verne's balloon. Since six days have indeed passed, we can draw only two conclusions ¯ either the balloon failed and they have been killed in its crash into the sea ... or they reached the island of Rokanun, and Tryos the dragon has destroyed them. Either way, your friends are dead." He cracked his knuckles and sat up straight.
"I can imagine other scenarios," Paenar said.
Dirac smiled deprecatingly. "I suppose we cannot expect you to understand the Rule of Occam's Razor. You see, when more than one hypothesis fits the facts, the simplest solution must be the correct solution."
Dirac stood up from his stool; it creaked as he lifted himself. He picked up a piece of chalk and walked to the blackboard, studying his equations, but ended up writing a short reminder note to himself instead.
"There." He blew on his fingers to get rid of the chalkdust, then smiled at Professor Verne, who stood watching by the door. Verne had accompanied Vailret and Paenar, ostensibly to monitor the functioning of the blind man's mechanical eyes; Verne had known full well what the two men intended to ask. He made it clear, though, that he would not argue for or against them.
Paenar stood cold and motionless, as if he knew his presence made Dirac uncomfortable. "Give us a boat, and we will see for ourselves."
"You owe us that much," Vailret said. "Our friends risked their lives to test your invention."
"The Sitnaltans owe you no debt, young man. You have no contract, no written agreement that requires anything of us. You are our guest ¯ do we demand that you repay us for the food and shelter we have freely given? Do not insult me by making similar demands in return."
He rubbed his hands together and smiled at them again. "You are welcome to remain in Sitnalta. Perhaps in time you can be taught the rudiments of mathematics and make yourselves useful to the community."
"Oh, stuff your platitudes," Vailret snapped.
"Don't you understand?" Paenar gripped the sides of the drafting table, making Dirac take refuge behind it. "The Outsiders have already set the wheels in motion! They have thrown Scartaris here to grow and grow, sucking all the life from Gamearth! You can't just ignore this ¯ it won't go away!" He hung his head, but the anger returned to his face. "Apathy is the worst of all sins, and you are guilty of it!"
Dirac gave him a self-satisfied smile. "You are extrapolating a great deal from a small amount of data, gentlemen. We have only a few ambiguous measurements from Professor Verne's apparatus ¯ hardly enough information to concoct such a doom-filled hypothesis. Don't you agree, Professor?"
Verne remained silent for a moment, tugging on his great gray beard, then he frowned. "You are showing very little scientific objectivity, Dirac," he said quietly, and turned to go. "But, then, perhaps you are no longer an inventor."
Before Dirac could reply, Vailret turned his back on him and followed Verne without a word. Paenar looked as if he wanted to shout some more, but he scowled and moved in Vailret's wake.
Dirac recovered himself and called, "Have a nice day!" as the three men disappeared down the hall.
"Follow me," Verne said. Vailret blinked when they emerged into the sunlight, and Paenar adjusted his mechanical eyes. The wind had come up, whipping the ocean's damp scent through the winding alleys.
"Why bother?" Paenar said. "You may as well go and enjoy yourself. Play a game or two. We don't have much time left."
Verne stared at Paenar's artificial eyes. "Follow me," he repeated and turned to stride down a hex-cobbled street.
The professor stumped away from his workshop at a brisk pace, as if always two steps behind where he wanted to be. Vailret grew curious about what Verne had in mind. Paenar followed, fuming and angry, impotent in the face of the end of
the world.
"Dirac is too quick to dismiss theories he does not like," Verne said.
"One of Maxwell's golden rules says that we must search for the truth, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant."
He stopped and shrugged. "Besides, my data supports what you have said about Scartaris. If nothing else, I trust my own data."
Verne led them out to the seawall around Sitnalta. Part of the wall had been battered away by the choppy water, and now many Sitnaltan engineers scurried about designing and constructing a new section of the wall, adding supports. A large spidery apparatus used elaborate systems of weights and counterweights to raise gigantic stone blocks, positioning them in rows along the wall. Puffs of steam and groans of stressed metal drifted into the air against the rumble of the ocean. Vailret could smell the salty, fishy mixture of the sea mixed with oil and smoke from the machinery.
Verne indicated the damaged section, speaking in a tone of amazement.
"Several weeks ago the ocean attacked our wall. The day was clear, and the sea was still as glass ¯ but a huge fist of water surged up from the sea, as if ... called by someone." He shrugged, "None of our theoreticians can account for it."
Vailret saw a vision of Bryl, possessed by the dayid of the khelebar forest, calling on all the water in the world to come to their aid. Vailret shuddered, but did not volunteer the information to Professor Verne.
They descended a steep, rime-covered staircase on the seawall, reaching a network of docks that stuck out like insolent tongues into the water. The cold wind blew in their faces. Vailret found it refreshing after Dirac's stuffy reception.
On the docks two men operated a vibrating generator submerged in the choppy water in an effort to lure fish into complex electronic traps. The fishing engineers soon gave up in disgust, covering their equipment with a canvas, and walked off the docks, leaving Professor Verne alone with his two companions.
Verne led them to the end of one of the docks and pointed to a large mechanical object floating in the water, tied up against the pilings in front of them. He whispered, filling his voice with a childish sense of wonder.
"This, gentlemen, is the Nautilus."
It looked like a huge motionless fish, nightmarish and prehistoric.
Jagged ridges ran down its long body, jutting like fins from crucial steering points. Thick gaping windows gleamed translucent at the waterline. Vailret sensed it was some kind of boat, and yet more than a boat. Paenar cast his mechanical eyes over the steel-plated hull and made a satisfied noise.
"Frankenstein studied thousands of fish, trying to figure out how they worked, how they swam, how they submerged themselves, how they remained under water. We used his results to create those frivolous toys in the fountain around our water clock, little mechanical fish that swim around and around, aimlessly. But I took his information one step further and combined the physics of the fish with the practicality of a boat. So this is not just a boat, but an underwater boat for submarine travel!"
Vailret looked at the Nautilus, not anxious to step out on the rocking, spray-covered hull. The round hatchway looked like a lidded eye on the front end of the ship. "Does it work?"
Verne tried to sidestep the question, then faced it squarely. "Yes, Frankenstein and I have taken it for several test runs near the shore. Oh, it is beautiful under the water, a world one does not normally see. My Nautilus will take you out toward Rokanun." He sighed and turned his eyes away.
"But this is not an exploitation of a simple law of nature, as the balloon was. The Nautilus is pure Sitnaltan technology, rooted in science and conceived through my own inventiveness."
Paenar understood and turned to Vailret. "He means we will not be able to cross the technological fringe beyond the city."
"No, I mean you may not be able to cross it," Verne said. "Nothing is absolute on Gamearth ¯ it depends on the roll of the dice the Rules of Probability [Kevin, punctuation after "dice"?]. Once you cross the fringe, the probability that machinery will fail increases exponentially. You always have a chance to make it, if you try enough times."
Vailret frowned, looking at the gleaming metal fish. "Does this mean you're giving us permission to take the Nautilus? Why didn't Dirac say anything about this?"
"I'm not certain if I can give you permission. But I can show you how to pilot her, and I can assure you that I will not be here to stop you if, say, tonight you wished to take her and go."
"Why are you dancing around your words?" Paenar said.
Verne shoved both hands in his pockets. "I am a prolific inventor ¯ I cannot remember how many certificates I have acquired from the Council of Patent Givers. But I am also a Sitnaltan. Since we rarely encounter strangers, and since none of our devices will function far from the city anyway, the question has never arisen if one of my inventions belongs to me, because I invented it, or if it belongs to the people of Sitnalta, who have constructed it and manufactured the materials.
"So, you see, if I were to ask Dirac about giving you the Nautilus, he would say the ship belongs to the city and not to me." His eyes sparkled.
"However, if I do not ask the question, then the issue will not be raised. And no one will deny you the right to take the boat."
Vailret digested the logic and grinned. "Admirably devious, Professor.
You are shrewd in other ways besides being just a great tinkerer!"
Verne stepped on the narrow deck of the Nautilus. He lifted up the round metal hatch and climbed into the control room. Vailret saw panels filled with switches, dials, and other controls. It all looked exotic and exciting.
The professor paused, looking up at the sun's position in the sky. He withdrew a ticking timepiece the size of an apple and cracked it open, nodding. "We should have sufficient time. Would you like to learn how to pilot her?"
* * * *
To celebrate the liberation of the Stronghold, Jorte dug up one of the last vats of the previous year's spring cider outside of his gaming hall and broke open the top. He took a wooden rod and stirred sediment from the bottom before everyone dipped cups into the cool brown liquid. Jorte waddled over to a table to drink and enjoy himself for the first time in a month.
Early in the afternoon, the veteran Tarne and several other villagers had crept out of the sheltering forest. They had seen the dragon in the sky, heard the loud battle inside the stockade fence. But now the Stronghold stood silent and ominous. Tarne hoped the ogres had killed each other. The gates were ajar and somehow intact again. He climbed Steep Hill alone, standing in front of the open gates, not knowing what to do next.
And Delrael rushed out to greet him.
After the word had spread, the other villagers flooded back into their old homes and buildings like a long awaited sigh. Lantee the butcher and his wife stared stricken at their demolished, empty smokehouse. Others were relieved that the destruction had not been greater. Most drifted off to Jorte's gaming hall, not yet ambitious enough to start the job of putting their lives in order before the harvest.
For two days they assessed the damage to the land and recovered from their shock. After his battle with Gairoth, Bryl seemed to be held in higher esteem by the villagers. Delrael stood with Tarne and Bryl inside the Stronghold fence, looking out over the landscape visible from the top of the hill. Tarne pointed to one of the cleared hexagons of cropland. "Our harvest this season will be poor. We tried to come out at night and do the weeding, but that was risky. The storehouses are empty.
"It's going to be a hard winter for all of us."
Delrael looked across the cleared land, past the beginning of the hexagon of forest terrain, but he said nothing.
"If the game lasts that long," Bryl muttered.
A reptilian shriek sliced through the air. Delrael crouched, letting his fighting instincts take over. Tarne and Bryl looked up to see the huge form of Tryos sailing overhead.
The dragon flapped his wings, splaying his pistonlike legs so that he landed with grace on the flat training area. He beat his wings
a final time and folded them across his back, ignoring Tarne and focusing his attention on Bryl and Delrael.
"Finished!" Tryos cried in his high-pitched, clipped voice. "Rognos far from here! Never come back. Never."
"Very good, Tryos," Delrael said. "Gairoth is gone, too."
Tryos blinked his eyes-and bobbed his head up and down. "Isss good! No more Rokanun for me! Ssstay here now! Home of Tryos!"
Tarne stared, but Delrael ignored him. Bryl fell silent, standing back from the discussion.
"No more Rokanun?" Delrael asked, speaking in a slow and careful voice.
"Nah! I have thisss land."
"Okay," Delrael fidgeted, looking first at Bryl and then at Tarne. He got no encouragement from their appalled expressions. "But what about your treasure? All those years you worked to gather it, surely you don't just want to leave it there for robbers?"
Tryos lifted his head, snorted smoke. "They would not dare!"
Delrael crossed his arms over his leather jerkin. "Who do you think you're kidding, Tryos? If you stay away, it's a treasure for the taking."
The dragon turned his blazing eyes away. But Delrael smiled. "You could, of course, bring your treasure here. Look at these big empty storage chambers we have ¯ wouldn't they make a great start for a new set of catacombs?"
The dragon cocked his head, extending his long reptilian neck into the musty darkness of the storage pit Rognoth had gutted. "Pah! Smellsss like grain!" His voice echoed in the chamber; then he lifted his head back out again, blowing dust from his nose. "But they make good cavesss. I bring my treasure here."
"We'll help," Delrael volunteered. "Can we go right away?"
The dragon turned around in circles, then slumped to the ground, stretching his neck out and plopping his chin on the dirt. "Nah ¯ long flight." He closed his eyes. "Tired now."
Within moments, low rumbling sounds of the sleeping dragon drifted into the air, drowning out the faint noises of the villagers still rejoicing in the gaming hall.
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