Game Play (38 page)

Mindar/Cailee
raised her blade to cleave Delrael's head.

"Mindar..."
he whispered.

Her sword swung
down, but Mindar's pupils flickered back for an instant. In her downstroke, she
twisted her wrist sideways and struck him on the head with the flat of the blade.

Bright light
exploded behind Delrael's eyes, then it all turned black.

He slid to the
floor.

Professor Verne's
steam-engine car clanked down the slope toward Scartaris's mountain, skirting
the edge of the battlefield. The ratcheting noise was not noticeable over the
shouts of fighting monsters and human soldiers.

He stoked the fires
under the boiler as high as they would go. The car picked up steam and chugged
along faster than a man could run. The hex-line separated him from the rocky
terrain, but he also saw the clear path leading up to the grotto.

Verne swallowed and
blinked his eyes. He checked to make sure his journal was carefully secured
with him. He didn't know what indignities he would have to bear on his long
walk back to Sitnalta. If he survived at all.

He carried one tiny
galvanic cell that powered a detector he had mounted next to the car's steering
levers. It was one of the instruments he and Frankenstein had used to detect
Scartaris's presence all the way from Sitnalta.

He switched the device
on and saw the needle move, then fall dead, move, then fall dead. He was too
far beyond the influence of Sitnaltan technology, regardless of how arbitrary
he had proven the concept of the technological fringe to be. But even given the
worst of situations, the Rules of Probability made the detector certain to work
some of the time. The homing mechanism would need to function only at
infrequent intervals to steady the course of the car along the straight path to
Scartaris.

Verne knew his
weapon was so powerful he needed only to get near the grotto.

For a moment he
wondered in terror if the weapon itself might fail to work. But then he brushed
that thought aside. The Sitnaltan weapon was powered by the force that had
driven the Outsiders' ship. It would work anywhere on Gamearth
―
it had to. The Outsiders set up their own exceptions to the Rules, and they
would follow them.

But this weapon
combined the power of the Outsiders with the resourcefulness of Gamearth. What
if he and Frankenstein had forged a destructive power greater than either world
had seen before?

As the car chugged
along, Verne watched the ground pass under the rattling wheels. He set his
mouth in a firm line, thrusting out his beard.

This was close
enough for him.

He turned to the
weapon and found the timer knob as the car jostled over the terrain, steering
itself. Verne twisted the timer knob to a red mark on the dial and released it.

A rapid ticking
came out of the weapon as the spring-driven timer began its countdown to
detonation.

Verne had heard of
a prophesied hero from some of the other human settlements outside the fringe,
some unknown savior who would come out of no where and rescue them from great
peril. They called him the Unseen Stranger, or something like that. Not that
Verne put much stock in prophesies, since they had no scientific basis. But
after he unexpectedly used his weapon to destroy Scartaris, no doubt the
storytellers would make him out to be their Stranger. He clucked his tongue in
disapproval.

Suddenly, a
gigantic barefooted ogre bounded away from the battlefield toward the car,
drooling down his chin. The ogre tripped twice and regained his feet to stumble
after Verne. He limped from a deep wound on his ankle.

Verne had nothing
with which to fight this ogre. He felt a flash of fear, but the ogre seemed
more intent on the speeding car itself than on its driver. Gairoth hopped
forward, clutched the side, and scrambled aboard, heaving himself over the low
door. He grabbed Verne by the collar of his woolen coat.

"One moment,
monsieur!" Verne stammered.

But Gairoth was not
interested in him. "Haw!" he said, spraying spittle in Verne's face.
With an expression of dismissal, he tossed the Professor over the side.

Verne landed in a
tumble, bruised and hurt. He stood up, brushed himself off, and scowled. He
watched the steam-engine car move on, homing in toward Scartaris.

Gairoth sat in the
seat and bounced with delight as the car sped automatically toward the
mountain.

"I don't think
you wanted to do that," Verne muttered.

In the front of the
car, the Sitnaltan weapon continued to tick.

Mindar stared at
Delrael's unconscious form against the rocks. Weird lights flashed on and off
in the background, bathing him in strange colors. A spot of blood blossomed on
his forehead and trickled alongside his nose, into his eyes.

Mindar had forced
herself to the front of her mind, but she had to grit her teeth and
concentrate, not letting her thoughts lapse for a second. The Cailee gibbered
in the back of her head, making her ears ring. Her anger surged, but she had to
keep it directed away from the Cailee. She would gain nothing by that.

Scartaris.
Scartaris was her enemy.

The Cailee was part
of herself. She had to accept it, dominate it, turn it to her own advantage.

Mindar felt
blackness slough away from her face and shoulders as she grew stronger. In one
arm she held her sword, and curved silver claws stuck out of her other hand
―
but she could see her own skin appearing in patches through the inky blackness.
She was growing stronger. She knew what she could do.

Part of her felt
appalled at what she had done to Delrael, but she knew he would forgive her.
Mindar would never be able to forgive herself, though, not unless she finished
Delrael's quest for him.

She knelt down, and
with the clumsy claws on her hand she worked the silver belt free from around
his waist. She stared at it in the light, letting it dangle in front of her.
The silver felt cold and slippery, tingling with power.

The Earthspirits
lived in the belt. She held them, vulnerable, in her own hand
―
but they could destroy Scartaris. They could wipe him from the map. She cast
her rippled sword on the floor. It clanged on the rock and landed near
Delrael's blade.

"You won't
make me cause any more harm, Scartaris!" The belt glittered in the weird
light. "This is all the weapon I need to destroy you."

Heavy footfalls
sounded outside the entrance to the grotto. She turned.

Her black form was
liquid and cast no shadow of its own.

She saw the blocky
form of a huge Slac general. It dragged its feet on the rocks with scattering
sounds, and the clank of a chain rattled in the silence. The monster let a
needle-spiked ball dangle at its side.

"Scartaris has
grown bored with you," the Slac said in its husky, grating voice. The
pupilless pits of its eyes were filled with emerald fire.

Mindar/Cailee
coughed out a laugh and held the silver belt as she strode recklessly toward
the Slac. She held the belt between her two hands.

"I'm bored
with him, too. Earthspirits, destroy this thing of Scartaris!"

She squeezed the
belt with her shadow-stained hands and held it, waiting for some explosion of
power that would whisk the Slac out of the Game entirely.

But instead the
Slac lashed down with his heavy spiked ball and smashed one of Mindar's wrists.
She screamed in shock. The wrist bones snapped, and her fingers spread out as
blood sprayed in the air. She backed away in agony.

The silver belt
fell to the floor.

The Cailee's
furious presence clamored in the back of her head and tried to surge into
dominance again. She pushed it away. The shadow-stain dripped from her body.

The Slac general
said, "Scartaris wants you dead. You're no fun anymore."

Wincing the pain
away, blind to what she was doing, Mindar/Cailee laughed again. "I can't
die!"

She leaped at the
reptilian creature, spreading the claws of her uninjured hand. In the back of
her mind, she drove the Cailee further away with her determination and victory.
The blackness faded from her arms, and she made a savage slash at the Slac's
throat.

But the long silver
claws snapped off and dissolved as she struck. Her hand became her own again
―
human and weak.

"All
characters can die," the Slac said. He wrapped his spiked ball and chain
around her throat, yanking it from one end to strangle her and driving the
ball's spikes into the back of her head. The Slac jerked again, and Mindar's
neck snapped before she felt any more pain.

The Slac let her
body unravel from the chain and fall to the floor.

Then the monster
twirled the spiked ball in the air to clean droplets of blood from his weapon.

Delrael groaned on
the floor and stirred.

The Slac general
strode to him. The ball clanked at his side. Breath hissed through needle-like
teeth as the Slac leaned over Delrael.

"Well,
excuuuuuuse me!" Journeyman said from the opening of the grotto.

The Slac general
snapped his head up and turned, hissing.

The golem looked at
Vailret beside him and grinned with flexible clay lips. "He likes it! Hey
Mikey!" Journeyman swaggered in, and the Slac general faced him, dangling
the spiked ball.

Vailret saw
Delrael's motionless form and Mindar lying dead. He stood behind and to the
right of Journeyman, waiting and anxious. When he saw an opportunity, he
slipped around and ran to Delrael.

"This here
town ain't big enough for the both of us," Journeyman said.

The Slac's green
eyes blazed brighter.

Vailret cradled
Delrael's head and wiped blood away from his eyes. The fighter mumbled and
moaned. The bump on his head looked serious, but far less severe than Vailret
had feared.

He glared up at the
Slac general facing Journey man. The golem did not appear frightened at all,
but Delrael lay injured, Mindar murdered. Delrael's silver belt lay beside her.
Vailret did not know what had happened.

The Slac general
stood tall and dark and filled with all the evil of Scartaris.

As he saw the Slac,
Vailret remembered the training Drodanis had put him through back at the Strong
hold, the role-playing game where Vailret was captured by Slac while his
imaginary comrades were tortured and slain. An imaginary general like this one
had ordered Vailret's execution, but Vailret managed to kill the Slac general
before other arrows struck him down. It had felt so real to him, the terror,
the helplessness, the failure. But it was only a game within the Game; this
Slac battle was happening now.

He stood up as
anger filled his features. He held his short sword.

The Slac general
twirled his spiked ball. Journey man waited for the monster to make the first
move.

Instead, Vailret
did.

In true Game spirit
he should have bellowed out a cry of challenge, but Vailret moved silently as
he leaped forward. He jammed his short sword all the way up to its hilt,
through the back plates of the Slac, into its kidney, and up into its pulsing
heart. The tip of the sword pushed out through the reptilian chest. The Slac
general gurgled in surprise and sprayed black blood out of its mouth.

"Stabbing in
the back may not be fair," Vailret said, "but since when have Slac
ever fought fair?"

The monster
bellowed as it weakened, trying to jab backward with its elbows. But Vailret
let go of his sword and stepped away. With a bestial grunt, the Slac fell to
its knees. Journeyman bashed a rock-hard fist into its forehead. "Bah,
humbug!"

Vailret blinked in
shock. The hot Slac blood burned his hands, and he tried to wipe it on his
pants and tunic, leaving dark stains there.

Delrael groaned
again. Journeyman glanced from him to Vailret, then squared his shoulders. The
golem stared down the tunnel to the center of the mountain. "I must go on
ahead now," he said. "Take Delrael and get out of here."

Vailret looked up.
"What are you going to do?"

Journeyman's lumpy
clay brows twitched and knitted together. "I'm going to destroy Scartaris,
as I was always meant to do. I'm glad I was created for this purpose. I'm glad
I knew you. I will not be coming back."

"What do you
mean? Will it destroy you?"

Journeyman didn't
answer. Distressed, Vailret stood up. Delrael blinked and moved his head. He
groaned.

"Wait
―
let Del take the Earthspirits. They'll destroy Scartaris and you can stay here.
You don't need to sacrifice yourself."

The golem squared
his shoulders. "It is what I am. I was made for this task. I must
sacrifice myself."

"But it makes
no sense!"

Journeyman stared
with cavernous eyes. The clay eyelids blinked together, and he answered
stiffly. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."