Authors: Kevin J Anderson
The black hex-line
split, and sections of terrain rocked and tilted upward at the seams, as if
Gamearth were falling apart hexagon by hexagon.
Delrael almost lost
his grip on the silver belt in his hand.
The roar continued,
then slacked off as gray white dust poured up into the darkened sky.
Then, from the
broken rubble of the destroyed mountain seeped a glowing brilliant light
―
pinks and oranges and yellows, sprawled and oozing over the debris. The immense
blob crawled out of the rocks and sat pulsing, as if peering down at the
gathered army.
"Is that
Scartaris?" Vailret gasped beside him, but the words made little sound in
the thundering echoes of the air. Every creature on the battlefield stood
hushed and staring.
Scartaris moved,
looking enormous and frail at the same time, damaged and retaining only enough
energy to keep himself alive. He slid and rolled down the rocky slope toward
the disrupted hex-line.
Delrael thought for
a moment that Scartaris would reach the cracked map and spill through to where
he could annihilate the Outsiders. But Scartaris stopped and throbbed, heaving
himself up. At the center of the blob Delrael could see glittering lights
forming, like diamonds and stars, building up.
"It's the
metamorphosis!" he heard Vailret shout behind him.
"Journeyman
told us about it! Scartaris is going to end the Game right now!"
"You must take
us!" the Earthspirits cried in a metallic voice from inside the belt.
"Take us across the last hex-line! Then we will be released."
The starbursts
inside the giant blob grew brighter, fissioning with energy. Once Scartaris
released his pent-up energy, he could wash the map clean of all terrain.
Scartaris had lost his Game. He and the Outsider David had wanted to savor the
victory, to let the vast monster army march across and lay waste to everything,
but now Scartaris was forsaking that fun. He would obliterate them all and call
himself the Game's winner.
"Hurry! He is
greatly weakened now," the Earth spirits said. "Perhaps we can defeat
him."
Delrael ran toward
the gaping hex-line, but the deep crack in the map cut him off from Scartaris.
From a corner of
the broken hex-line, a black wind sprang up, pouring straight into the air.
Swirling, it formed into three dark hooded figures.
They stood vast and
awesome, cavernous hoods covered their heads, shrouding their faces.
Delrael stumbled as
he ran. The figures looked familiar and yet unfamiliar. He had never actually
seen them, only their white counterparts.
"The
Deathspirits will not allow you to end the Game, Scartaris," the black
figures said in unison.
"Play your
feeble war games for terrain, but you will not destroy the map. We are bound by
the Rules here, too. If you destroy Gamearth, we cannot complete our own set of
Rules. We are trying to escape from this existence.
You may not
interfere."
The Deathspirits
hovered tall and black. All the monsters on the battlefield stood in a hush,
appalled and uncertain.
But the starburst
lights built up further within Scartaris, growing in intensity.
Delrael scrambled
ahead, stumbling on the new slope from the tilted hexagon of terrain. He saw
himself struggling there, an unknown human fighter from across the map. No one
knew he had come, but he appeared where he was needed, bearing the weapon to
save Gamearth. Delrael smirked. "Maybe they'll call me the Stranger
Unlooked-For."
He crawled toward
the crack in the map. When he reached its edge, the black lip of desolation
sliced down into nothingness, a broad gulf apart from the adjoining mountain
terrain. He could not crawl across. He could not jump the void. His body was
too exhausted to do more than move.
Scartaris's
internal lights grew blinding at the point of his devastating metamorphosis.
"We cannot
cross the hex-line," the Earthspirits said.
Delrael held the
belt. "You're not very much good, are you?" Then he threw the silver
belt crafted by the old Sorcerers, a gift from his father Drodanis.
As it flew through
the air across the hex-line, the silver links began to dissolve in white light.
The three Earthspirits emerged just as their Deathspirit comrades swooped down
upon Scartaris.
"Let the Game
go on forever, and may your score always increase!"
―
Gamearth drinking
toast.
Three dazzling
white figures rose into the air, hooded and powerful, billowing in the wind
rising from the broken hex-line. They alternated with their dark counterparts.
Vailret stared at
the Spirits, all that remained of the ancient race of Sorcerers. He had read so
much about them, and now he saw them towering in front of his eyes. Both
factions had fought each other for turn after turn in the early days of the
Game. Now, the six Spirits had reunited for the first time since the
Transition, on the site of their worst battles.
Without a word,
they fell upon Scartaris before he could complete his metamorphosis.
The titanic battle
was difficult to watch. Vailret squinted, but the intangible fighters became an
inferno of power and blazing lights, black and white and colors. The sounds of
a storm rang on the air. Chunks of rock and dust blasted into the air in
backlashes of power.
Scartaris grew
dimmer and smaller in the fray. The starbursts in his body twinkled and faded.
Tension built up
like a spring being wound tighter and tighter. The six Spirits combined their
power into one final assault.
And Scartaris fell.
A great flare of
light blasted into the air, a geyser of luminous power that sprayed outward and
then faded on the winds, swirling, as if trying to find some dark corner where
it could hide. One high-pitched shriek echoed around the rubble of the
mountains; the astonished horror in it sliced through Vailret's bones.
The silence on the
battlefield held back for a moment as the dawn itself seemed to gasp. A sudden
cold wind blew by and then died away to nothing.
Professor Verne
stood on the hillside, perplexed and angry. He rubbed his eyes. The flash from
the battle of the Spirits and Scartaris left dancing colors on his vision, but
he frowned with disappointment. The outcome of the battle didn't really matter,
though the Spirits seemed to be fighting with
magic
rather than something
more sophisticated.
The Sitnaltan
weapon had not worked. Something had gone wrong.
"But it should
have been foolproof!" He placed his hands behind his back and paced in
front of a boulder. "It had to work. Did I miscalculate something? What
did I forget to take into account?"
He muttered to
himself, parading ideas in front of his mind. He could imagine nothing that
would lead to such a failure. A burning curiosity began to grow. He stared at
the crumbled mountain and squinted his eyes, wondering how difficult it would
be to locate the steam-engine car in the rubble. He wanted to find the weapon
and study it.
As dawn came up and
lit the battlefield, Verne saw the monsters milling around, trying to organize
themselves. The prime mover seemed to be the awesome manticore marching about,
rallying the army of Scartaris.
Verne blew through
his lips as he looked at the manticore. "What a hodgepodge," he
thought. "Man's head, lion's body, scorpion tail
―
probably has
the brain of a cactus or something." To him, it showed clearly how little the
Outsiders themselves understood the basic precepts of biological sciences.
Scartaris was
destroyed. Part of the map was disrupted, and he had no idea what effect such
titanic forces would have on Gamearth and the Rules themselves. Perhaps it
would allow technology a bit more freedom to operate.
Perhaps he could
fix the weapon, or dismantle it. He couldn't just leave it there.
But the growing
light reminded him how exposed he was on the barren terrain, with nothing but
the monsters to see him. He wondered how he could possibly hide from
Scartaris's entire army.
Delrael crawled
back toward Vailret, trying to keep his balance on the tilted terrain. Both of
them stood panting with exhaustion and the aftereffects of terror.
Around them the
stunned monsters wandered about, no longer in the grip of Scartaris. Only the
manticore had a purpose, growling orders and trying to terrify the other demons
into ranks again.
Delrael wondered
how long the relative calm would last. The sky itself was a whirlwind of chaos,
overloaded with power dissipating up and out of the map's boundaries.
Delrael could see
no sign of the six Spirits, or of Scartaris.
The illusion army
of human fighters shimmered and melted away as Bryl released the Air Stone.
Some of the monster soldiers made angry noises, but most didn't notice in their
own confusion.
Hundreds of
slaughtered demon fighters lay on the ground, killed by their own weapons and
the firepowder bombs. Thousands of dead animals, birds, insects covered the
sand, as if a part of the black cloud had settled to the earth. Pools of red
mud dried slowly in the dim sunlight.
The surviving
animals and birds gathered in a thinner, less-organized black cloud that
floated up and drifted off. They struck out across the desolation back to the
forest and grassland terrain.
"Scartaris is
dead," Vailret whispered. He grinned and clapped a hand on Delrael's
shoulder. "Scartaris is dead! We finished our quest."
Delrael looked
uneasily at the gathering of monsters that stood angry and leaderless. "I
still don't like this. We'd better find Bryl."
Vailret nodded, and
they hurried back along the edge of the battlefield, trying to escape the
notice of Scartaris's surviving fighters.
Then the air in
front of them rippled. Delrael thought that heat shimmers rose up from the
warming sands, but white mist swirled above them, condensing until it resolved
into the transparent outlines of the three Earthspirits, flickering like a
vision on the breeze.
The Spirits looked
tenuous and fragile, much less substantial than when they had first appeared to
Delrael in the forest. That night seemed so long ago now. That was before he
had known Tallin. Before he met Mindar.
The Earthspirits
spoke. "Scartaris is destroyed, and we still live.
With the aid of the
Deathspirits and the Stranger Unlooked-For, we did not need to sacrifice
ourselves.
"But we are
weak now. We must go dormant for many turns to recover our strength."
The Spirits
wavered, faded for a moment, and then rose up again. The tilted hexagon of
terrain settled under Delrael's feet and he stumbled. The other monsters stood
uncertain and afraid of the giant hooded forms.
"By destroying
Scartaris and unleashing power of such magnitude, the map has suffered severe
damage. As have the Rules themselves. They are twisted and loosened.
"We have
proved to the Outsiders that Gamearth is as strong as their own powers. That is
a profound victory. Even now, the Deathspirits are using this to their
advantage. Perhaps they will mold their own
reality
."
Delrael looked
across the battlefield to see Bryl running toward them, drawn by the towering
forms of the Earthspirits. Delrael waved his hands to show that he had seen
him. Vailret squinted up at the Spirits with an expression of awe on his face.
"To show our
gratitude, we will twist the Rules even now. The Outsider David is stunned by
his defeat. We can do things the other Players will not notice, for now.
"Your quest is
over. You have gained experience and won the battle. We will return you to your
home. If only we were not so weak, we could do more..."
The Slac regiments
had pulled themselves together again and rallied around the manticore. Several
other monsters rebelled or moved too slowly, but the Slac cut them down with
their own weapons.
"Gamearth is
ours!" the manticore bellowed.
Then the Earthspirits
swept their billowing sleeves through the air.
Delrael felt a
harsh wind pour into his body, his bones. The air dissolved around him. He felt
dislocated and cold
―
―
and the terrain
became the path leading up Steep Hill to the Stronghold. The morning around him
was deathly quiet. He heard only the sounds from the forest.
The village seemed
deserted and silent. All the people were hiding.
Something had
happened.
Bryl and Vailret
appeared beside him. Both stumbled, suddenly finding themselves disoriented on
the sloping path. "We're back home!" Bryl said. He fell to his knees.
He looked exhausted.
"I wonder
where Tareah is." Vailret looked around him, getting his bearings. He
started up the hill.