*Prologue*

 

Sunday night, like every Sunday night, they played the Game.

Melanie carried four glasses of soda to the table, hating the real-world role of hostess. "We can make popcorn later, if you guys want." She flipped a strand of brown hair behind her ear and stared at the master map on the table. Gamearth, their beautiful fantasy world....

"Forget popcorn ¯ try my dip instead," Tyrone said. "Black bean and shrimp this week. And I brought some sesame crackers, too."

 

David arrived, late as usual. He stuck the keys from his Mustang in the pocket of his denim jacket. His dark hair looked soft, but his eyes were hard.

"We ready to play?" he asked, finding a seat at the table. He bent over to frown at the map and did not say hello. Melanie made him get his own glass of soda.

Her parents had found someplace else to go, as they always did when the group met at Melanie's house. At first her mother and father had stood on the sidelines to watch, curious and condescending. But the concept of a role-playing game seemed beyond them ¯ where it was all pretend and no one really won or lost. They (use another pronoun or names here?) played the parts of characters through adventure after adventure in a world created from their own imaginations.

The colorful map beckoned from the table. Flat, with precise hexagonal sections of forest, grasslands, mountains, ocean. She touched the smooth paint and thought of the characters they had played, generation after generation after generation. In her father's study she had used the computer to generate scores and to keep track of all their characters.

Scott cracked his knuckles. "Hey, Tyrone ¯ you know when geese fly south for the winter, how they always fly in a vee formation, right? And one side of the vee is always longer than the other, right? Why do you suppose that is?"

Tyrone pondered and shrugged. "Why don't you tell us, Mister Science?"

"Because there's more geese on that side!"

Tyrone coughed on his own dip. Melanie found Tyrone's reaction more amusing than the joke itself. Scott blinked behind his glasses, looking proud of himself but baffled, as if he hadn't considered the joke very funny in the first place.

Their group, the same group for two years, had started out playing with hexagonal graph paper, scrawling haphazard terrain markings with colored pencils. They were playing for fun, for something to do. But Melanie spent a month painting and color-coding each hexagon of terrain with bright acrylics to make a permanent master map on wood. She had looked at real maps to develop geography that made sense, deserts where the weather patterns might leave the air dry, forests where the climate should have been hospitable.

"Everybody's here. Can we start playing then?" David drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "Where were we last week?"

Melanie talked as fast as she could, trying to outrun his impatience.

"My characters Delrael and Vailret were just about to go into the swamp terrain to rescue Bryl, their half-Sorcerer friend." Melanie pointed to the map. "He was captured by an ogre, remember?"

"Well, go ahead and play," David said.

Melanie looked at him, but he kept his expression neutral. His brown eyes contained no emotion, his face showed no smile whatsoever. Something was bothering him. She didn't know what it could be, but Melanie thought he might try to take it out on the Game.

She gripped the dice in her hand. Twenty-sided. Eight sided. Six-sided.

Four-sided. They seemed to exude a kind of power, so much that she almost dropped them in surprise.

Melanie marked on the graph paper where her characters would begin their movement. She threw the dice.

Always remember this: every character on Gamearth was created by the Outsiders. We exist solely for the amusement of those who Play our world. Our ambitions, our concerns mean nothing ¯ everything is determined by the roll of the dice."

 

¯ The Book of Rules

 

* 1 *

Cesspools of Gairoth

 

"RULE #1: Always have fun."

 

As they crossed the thick black line that separated one hexagon of terrain from the next, the forest suddenly became an oozing swamp. Even the fresh woodland smell changed to the festering dampness of decay.

"Bryl is supposed to be lost somewhere in here?" Vailret promptly sank up to the top of his boot in swamp muck.

His burly cousin Delrael strode over the sharp hexagon line into the swamp, heedless of where he put his foot. He walked confidently, ready for anything. "Good thing friendship runs deep ¯ Bryl wasn't that much of a Sorcerer."

Vailret searched for a safer place to step, but it all looked the same to him. His eyes were weak from too much reading in dim rooms, though he found the reading much more interesting than questing from hexagon to hexagon.

"He hasn't had any training, Del. He's three times our age, but nobody's ever taught him worthwhile magic." He scratched through his spiky blond hair and thought of the manuscripts still waiting to be deciphered, chronologies of legends to be worked out. "You of all people know how important training is."

The thin mud slurped against Vailret's boot as he took another step.

Running from quest to quest, exploring catacombs, searching for monsters and treasure ¯ it struck him as being juvenile. The world had changed since all that. He wished the Outsiders could amuse themselves by playing more sophisticated games, like hexagon-chess.

Delrael slogged ahead. His leather armor covered broad shoulders, but he wore no helmet to protect his head. Vailret saw bits of forest debris clinging to his cousin's brown hair from sleeping on the ground the night before. Even on an adventure, Delrael wore his gold rings, badges, and especially the silver belt his father had given him.

Delrael sighed. "About time we had another quest together ¯ it's been, what, six years? The world is settling down too much. I spend all my time down at the game tables or practicing with the trainees at the Stronghold, and you waste away poring over manuscripts. We should find us a good cave to explore, maybe even an ancient dungeon left over from the early days of the Game."

Vailret squinted into the hazy air, frowning. "Bryl was looking for the Air Stone, not just wandering around for fun."

"Well, I wish he'd waited for us to give him some reinforcements -whoever heard of going on a quest by yourself?" Delrael shouldered branches and weeds aside, grumbling. "And now we have to rescue him."

Delrael had plenty of strength, charisma, and endurance for situations like this. Vailret was by no means weak, but he had trouble doing anything graceful with a broadsword or a battle-axe; and with his weak eyesight, he made a poor archer. He could prove his worth if they needed some serious thinking or planning. He had not been born with any Sorcerer blood, so he could not use magic to defend them.

"Next time we'll have to teach him to leave a trail of breadcrumbs."

Vailret brushed aside a beard of Spanish moss and followed behind his cousin.

Delrael pushed ahead without slowing. "Come on, we should be able to cross another hex or two before nightfall."

As the swamp thickened and began to drool with humidity, clouds of starving mosquitoes feasted on the two men. The forest sank in on itself, separated by scattered pools of stagnant water the color of tea. Dusty brown butterflies flitted across the ground.

Wide-boled cypress trees dangled branches like fingers and thrust knobby knees upward as if trying to keep their balance in the muck. Huge pitcher plants, large enough to swallow a man, gaped with wide and colorful mouths, exuding a sweet aroma that made Vailret feel dizzy. Curious, he peered down the gullet of one plant and saw partially digested birds and a dead frog.

He stumbled away, breathing deeply to clear his head.

"When is this swamp terrain going to end?" Vailret heaved in a lungful of the thick air. Sweat seemed to hang on him. He thought of his own dwelling with the scented candles lit, with the manuscripts of scribbled folktales stacked up, waiting to be read....

Around midmorning they encountered a stench so overpowering that it hit them like a slap on the face. Vailret pushed his nose into the crook of his elbow.

Delrael blinked his watering eyes. "We have to investigate."

"Don't you dare, Del!"

"Anything out of the ordinary. You know how to Play the Game. We can't just ignore it. Besides, I'm a fighter, remember? We might find Bryl."

Vailret grumbled to himself. "I'd like to have a talk with whoever wrote the damned Rules."

Thorns lined the rim of a wide cesspool. Decomposing matter and stagnant water had condensed into one horrible battering ram of smell.

More mammoth pitcher plants clustered near the thornbushes, but the cloying narcotic fragrance did little to abate the cesspool's miasma. The slime-covered surface of the pool stirred, as if something actually lived within it.

"So, now what do we do?" Vailret asked, covering his nostrils. He spoke in a whisper as the sounds of the swamp hummed and faded into the background.

He focused his attention. "Wait, I hear something."

Delrael cocked his head. "What?"

A rhythmic crashing grew louder, nearing the cesspool. Bom bom bom BAM! Delrael stood up and stared into the forest across from the cesspool until Vailret pulled him down to cover. They watched through the tangled peepholes in the thorns.

Something massive stomped toward the pool, rattled a chain, and grumbled, accompanied by splashing sounds. Vailret blinked his eyes, trying to see more details, squinting until he had a headache.

A burly ogre emerged from the trees, wiping gobs of mud from his dirty fur garments. As he strode forward, the ogre knocked his spiked club against the cypress trunks, keeping his beat and smashing against every fourth trunk.

Bom bom bom BAM! The wobbly cypress trees shivered with the impact.

The ogre stood nine feet tall, with muscles big enough for him to break rocks. A nose the size of a potato peeped out from between strands of long black hair like hand-drawn wire. One of the ogre's eye-sockets was empty, and his pockmarked face sported a drooping overhung lip. Garments of brown furs held themselves together with crude stitches that were popping in many places.

His big feet squished swamp mud between his toes.

In his free hand the ogre clasped a rusty iron chain that led to a small dragon like a dog on a leash. A bulky iron collar throttled the dragon's neck, apparently put on years before and never replaced as the creature grew.

The dragon panted and wheezed, lolling a purple forked tongue and looking more like an overgrown crocodile than a fearsome fire-breathing reptile. Two stubby wings stuck upward from its body like arthritic elbows. Many of the dragon's scales had fallen off, and its pointed teeth were brown and cracked.

"Doesn't look like much of a dragon," Delrael said. "Nothing we can't handle. It'll be fun."

Vailret squeezed his eyes shut. He felt his heart leap, then grow cold.

"The ogres were supposed to have been wiped out in the Scouring." Vailret breathed in deeply. His stomach churned, and sweat popped out from his pores.

"Your father said he killed them all."

Vailret felt a bitterness in his voice that surprised even him. He kept seeing visions, ghosts from his childhood. He had only been eight years old, but the sight of the ogre brought all of his memories into razor-sharp focus.

He stood just inside the gate of the Stronghold, a little boy with his mother and his Aunt Fielle. His father Cayon had gone hunting with Uncle Drodanis, Delrael's father. By the first weeks of spring, everyone in the Stronghold got tired of the old stores buried in the cellars, and fresh meat would make a good feast down at Jorte's gaming hall. They might even dig up an early barrel of spring cider.

Cayon and Drodanis were always competing with each other, in the true Game spirit ¯ dicing, hunting, weaponry contests. They had adventures that were legendary in the Game lore. But this time Drodanis came back alone. Young Vailret watched his uncle plodding up the path of Steep Hill to reach the Stronghold on top. Drodanis had marched in silent grief through the village, bearing Cayon's body in his arms, letting the villagers' questions bounce off him unheard. Young Vailret was afraid, but he kept himself quiet. He didn't understand.

Aunt Fielle shuddered. Vailret's mother, Siya, watched in horror.

Drodanis did not speak until he had met them at the gates, gently placing Cayon's body on the ground in front of the already-weeping Siya. Drodanis untied a sack from his waist and tossed the bloated head of an ogre to the dirt.

"I'm going to wipe out all of the ogres," he said.

Drodanis gathered a small party of the Stronghold's best trainees, including his wife Fielle, and set off eastward. Two months later another slow procession returned with the heads of five ogres Drodanis and his fighters had slain, along with the bodies of two trainees....

Now, though, the one-eyed ogre stopped in front of the cesspool and looked around, unaware of the two men. The dragon strained against its chain, tongue lolling as it tried to reach the cesspool.

Vailret made fists, as if he were trying to strangle his knuckles. He had only a dagger with him. He wished he could cast a spell that would make the ground open up beneath the ogre's feet, but he was only human.

Delrael reached forward to clasp his cousin's shoulder. He squeezed, making it more than just an empty gesture. "What if he's got Bryl?"

Two weeks before, Vailret had been studying in his rooms at the Stronghold. Several candles burned on his table, and he had all the windows open to let in as much light as possible. Otherwise, Siya would nag him about reading in the dimness and ruining his eyesight further. Vailret disliked the candles because the crumbling old manuscripts were highly flammable.

Old Bryl, the half-breed Sorcerer who lived at the Stronghold, came in to bother Vailret, bored from watching Delrael train his students at the chopping posts or the archery targets. "Nobody's ever going to read a history of Gamearth, Vailret. Why bother with all this work?"

"It's important to me." Vailret looked up at him over the candle.

"Don't be so defeatist all the time."

Bryl was short and frail-looking. Gray hair and a narrow gray beard stuck out from his head and chin. He wore the scarlet hooded cloak his father Qonnar had given him. At one time, Bryl had claimed the slick and shiny fabric had been woven of the threads from caterpillar cocoons, but nobody in the gaming hall believed him.

Vailret touched his fingertips together and explained to Bryl as if he were lecturing to a child. "Someone should set down the events of the Game. To the Outsiders, we're just an amusement, adventures to free them from their ennui ¯ everything must be too perfect in their world. But to us, that's our history. The Game is worth nothing if we don't learn from previous turns."

Bryl puttered around with the artifacts and manuscripts on Vailret's table. The young man eyed him, exasperated. "What do you want, Bryl? Go play a game or something."

The half-Sorcerer shrugged and picked up a worn scrap of sheepskin. On the rough side, tiny letters had been painstakingly scratched into the surface. "What's this?"

Vailret removed the scrap from Bryl's fingers. He brushed at smudges the old man had left on the edges. "Please be careful ¯ do you know how much we have to pay Scavengers for any one of these scraps?"

"I'm sorry." Bryl didn't seem to care. "Well, what does it say?"

Vailret sighed and put his elbow on the table. "If I tell you, will you leave me in peace for awhile?"

"Of course," Brylmon looked away, uneasy. He mumbled, "I thought you'd be glad I'm showing interest."

Vailret scowled, mostly at himself, and tried to cover up his expression by studying the manuscript. "It tells how the four elemental Stones were created as a parting gift from the old Sorcerers before they went on the Transition. They made one Stone with special powers for each element ¯ Air, Water, Fire, and Earth. The ones who stayed behind were supposed to use the Stones as weapons to protect the humans and half-breeds left on Gamearth after the rest of the Sorcerers had gone."

"Where are the Stones now?" Bryl asked. He reached for one of the other scraps of writing, but Vailret deftly moved it out of his reach.

"Why don't you pay attention to things like that, Bryl? How many full-blooded Sentinels are left in the world?" He held up three fingers, flaunting them in front of the half-Sorcerer's face. "Enrod, who lives far to the east in the rebuilt city of Taire ¯ he holds the Fire Stone. And Sardun keeps the Water Stone in his Ice Palace to the north. He lives with his daughter."

Bryl narrowed his eyes. "My parents never taught me anything like that ¯ they killed themselves when I was a child. As you're so quick to point out, there aren't very many Sentinels left. Who was going to teach me?" He waited in silence for a moment, then pointed to the manuscript. "Well, what about the other two Stones?"

"As near as I can tell," Vailret considered the scratches on the leather, searching for details, "the Air Stone and the Earth Stone were both lost during the battles. The magic in the Stones helped us wipe out a lot of surviving monsters, but now those Stones are gone."

He waited for Bryl to remember his promise and leave, but the little half-breed sat watching the dancing flame on the candle. He seemed hypnotized by the trails of wax crawling down the candlestick. Then Bryl snapped his gaze away from the flame and stared eastward with glassy eyes, as if looking through the walls of Vailret's dwelling.

He said in a distracted voice, "I have to go now." Muttering something about the Air Stone, he stumbled toward the door. Vailret watched him, baffled, and turned back to his work.

Next morning, Bryl was gone from the Stronghold. He had left a clumsily scrawled note behind. Vailret could imagine the length of time it had taken him to remember how to write all the letters.

"Think I know where AIR STONE is. Vision yesterday while listening to V. tell story. East, 10-12 hexes. Swamp terrain (?). Stone is in eye of skull, on pile of bones. Adventure and treasure. Going to get it."

Bryl's father had been a full Sorcerer, and his mother was a half-breed herself, but they had died when he was young, many, many years before, and no other Sorcerer had given Bryl full instruction on how to use his magic. Not that Bryl ever seemed concerned about it. And he had seen a glimpse of where he could find the lost Air Stone. He could have the Sorcerous power immediately, with no hard training. Maybe Bryl thought it would make up for the magic he had never been able to use before. Bryl, a man who couldn't care less where the Stone came from or what its history was ¯

Vailret resented the way the Rules excluded him from such revelations.

Being only a human, he had to sweat over old manuscripts, sift through folktales and remembrances, cramming his brain with details he hoped would come together. Bryl had such power handed to him on a serving platter. If the half-Sorcerer brought the precious Air Stone back to the Stronghold, Vailret could never use its magic, not even to study it.

Since then, two weeks had passed, and still Bryl did not return.

Delrael decided to go find him, and Vailret followed.

At the cesspool the dragon bounded forward, jerking the ogre's arm and nearly pulling him off his feet. The ogre grumbled and kicked the dragon, catching one of its back ridges with his bare toe.

Unconcerned, the dragon stopped at the brink of the cesspool and waited as the ogre scooped at the surface, exposing fresh bilge water.

"Aww, it shore be hot, Rognoth," he rumbled at the dragon, wiping his brow with a muddy finger. The ogre bent to scoop up a handful of the thick water, slurping it with satisfaction on his face. Green scum ran between his fingers to plop back into the water.

Vailret winced.

Rognoth the dragon bent to lap up some of the water as the ogre straightened and pointed a proud finger at himself. "Ahhhh! Gairoth knows how to keep his cesspool!" The dragon's tail twitched like a convulsing python.

"Ogres aren't supposed to be able to talk!" Vailret whispered.

"Maybe he's part human," Delrael said. "A human breeding with an ogre?

That's disgusting."

Vailret scowled. "The Outsiders have a sick sense of humor sometimes."

The ogre rubbed his hands together, as if getting down to business. He raised the club over his head, bringing it down with a crash on the edge of the pool. A chain of shock-wave ripples marched across the coated surface of the water. Gairoth slammed his club down again and again, sending thunderclaps through the swamp.

"Wake up, you!" the ogre bellowed at the cesspool. The dragon bolted for the forest, slinking close to the ground, but Gairoth jerked on his chain.

Rognoth whined miserably.

The ogre grinned as a translucent, spine-covered tentacle reached up from below the surface. The tentacle coiled in the air, reaching for Gairoth, but the ogre bent back out of the way. The pool stirred again, and more thin tentacles whipped in the air. The body sack of a gigantic jellyfish, hemispherical and milky translucent, broke through the scum. A lumpy ridge crowned the creature, speckled with dots of color. Deep inside the thing's skin, a splash of scarlet outlined a small human form.

Vailret stiffened, startled. Bryl! He tugged on his cousin's arm, and Delrael nodded.

The jellyfish churned in the water, waving tentacles. "In you go, Rognoth!" Gairoth caught the dragon as he made one last attempt to flee, then hurled him into the cesspool with a grunt of effort. The dragon paddled frantically back toward the shore.

The tentacled thing ejected the form of Bryl, apparently seeing more interesting prey. Gairoth rubbed his hands together as the jellyfish drifted toward the dragon, then he lumbered toward the other side of the pool where the red-cloaked Bryl floated facedown in the bilge.

Rognoth whimpered as the first thin tentacles wrapped around his tail and lower body, but his patchy scales provided temporary protection from the paralyzing needles. Gairoth waded into the cesspool, fished out the half-Sorcerer, and sloshed back to shore before the jellyfish could notice him.

Finished with his work, Gairoth strode back to the dragon. The ogre dropped the slime-covered burden of Bryl and picked up his club. "Come on, Rognoth. We gots to go home."

Two more tentacles had coiled around the dragon's neck. Rognoth floundered in the water. Gairoth gave a sigh of disgust and fished in the pool for the end of the dragon's chain. He found it and pulled with enough force to stretch Rognoth's neck out of joint. The dragon ripped free, tearing off three of the jellyfish's tentacles in the process. Rognoth scrambled to the shore and collapsed, panting and wheezing A laugh belched from Gairoth's lungs.

"Haw! Haw!"

He grabbed Bryl's pale foot and dragged the half-Sorcerer behind him into the forest. A thin trail of slime trickled along the ground. Rognoth lay on the ground shivering, then got shakily to his feet, following the ogre into the trees.

Delrael sighed. "It's all part of the Game."

Vailret's anger bubbled up within him, but he brought it under control.

He had never seen an ogre up close before, and now he wished he could destroy Gairoth and finish the job his uncle Drodanis had begun. Wheels turned in his head as he considered the possibilities. They would have to think of a sophisticated way to fight Gairoth. Vailret's father had pitted his luck and battle skill against an ogre ¯ and he'd lost. This would take something more.

A slow smile grew on his face.

"You're thinking of something, aren't you?" Delrael cocked an eyebrow and looked at him. "What are we going to do?"

"I always think of something." Vailret took a deep breath. "It's going to be good. Even the Outsiders might enjoy it."

"That's what we're here for." Delrael shrugged, ready for anything.

Gairoth's feet had left deep impressions in the soft ground. Following, Delrael bent low, taking one careful step at a time. Vailret tried to imitate him.

Up ahead, Gairoth snapped branches and grumbled curses. After a brief silence, Vailret and Delrael crept closer. Uneasy and afraid of what they would see, they slipped behind a large lichen-encrusted boulder and looked into Gairoth's encampment.

The ogre sat cross-legged in a small and cluttered clearing, munching on a bone torn from the rotting carcass of what appeared to be a goat with reptilian legs. The dragon drooled and fixed large yellow eyes on the oozing meat, intent on his master's jaws as they churned up and down. The spiked club lay close beside Gairoth's leg.

Behind the clearing stood the ogre's abode ¯ the hollowed-out rib cage of some massive beast. Dried sinews and scattered furs covered the bones to provide some shelter but left plenty of gaps for flies to get in (and out again after they had smelled the stench). A small pile of treasure lay beside the tumbledown dwelling: jewel-studded weapons, gold artifacts, and gaudy ornaments.

Wedged into one of the monster ribs sat a small skull the size of a child's ... and inside the skull's eye-socket shone a fist-sized diamond, triangular-shaped, like a four sided die. It glinted in the hazy swamplight.

 

Though Vailret's weak eyesight blurred the details, he remembered Bryl's vision of the diamond. "Stone is in eye of skull, on pile of bones."

Vailret's eyes reflected the splashes of sunlight shining through the woven swamp foliage. The Air Stone ¯ he thought of holding something so old, so powerful in his hands. The old Sorcerers had made it before they left Gamearth.

He thought of all the stories he had heard about the Stone, its origin, its history ¯ and the power of illusion it held. It was still the weakest of the four Stones, but it could be used very effectively with a little imagination.

But as far as Vailret was concerned, the Air Stone might as well be just another diamond. Without Sorcerer blood, he could not use the magic.

Bryl never worked at his abilities, nor did he know much about the background of his race. Vailret spent all his time staring at the legends, trying to uncover the reasons, straining his mind to be worthy, all in vain.

He gritted his teeth.

Delrael tugged on Vailret's arm, pointing at a red cloaked and dripping figure strung by his feet to a branch of an overhanging cypress. Vailret saw no signs of life in the half-Sorcerer's wet and grayish skin.

Gairoth pulled another appendage from the carcass, making a sucking pop as it separated from the rest of the meat. The ogre licked his lips and slurped oozing flesh off the bone. "Ahhh, aged perfect!" Gairoth sucked the last of the juices from the bone. Rognoth sat, entranced with his master's meal.

"Time for us to split up," Delrael whispered.

Vailret nodded. "Luck."

"Luck. We'll get the job done." Delrael left his cousin where he was and slipped off into the forest.

Delrael drew a deep breath, heady from the adventure. Vailret's plan buzzed through his head ¯ everything seemed perfectly clear in his mind. Ah, it made him feel alive again, not stagnating in the interminable training classes that kept all the fighters in practice. The Outsiders had done little in years to make life interesting.

In the clearing, the ogre tossed a thick bone to Rognoth. The dragon snapped it up, cracking the bone open with a yellowed fang and spilling the runny marrow down his throat.

Delrael took five deep breaths, closing his eyes and coiling his muscles. Ready, ready, ready ¯ wish me luck. This was what the Game was all about. With a grin on his mud-spattered face, he stood up and strode into the ogre's camp.

Rognoth let the bone fall from his mouth, snorting menacing clouds of smoke. His chain clanked as he took one step forward. With the instincts of a fighter, Delrael assessed how long it took for Gairoth's reflexes to react.

The ogre dropped his meat and scrabbled for the club.

The man paid them no heed as he swaggered into the clearing, whistling to himself. He sat down and faced the astonished expressions of both the ogre and the dragon. "Howdy, neighbors."

Taken aback, Gairoth rubbed his thumb on the wood of his club and took one step forward. "What you be?"

"What you mean?" Delrael blinked his eyes innocently. He lowered his voice, speaking with a gruff and thick-lipped accent.

"Be you human?" The ogre's face brightened for an instant, then he frowned again. "You plenty bigger than him." He jerked his thumb over to waterlogged Bryl hanging from the tree.

Delrael laughed. "Naw ¯ me not be human. Me be ogre, like you be."

He smiled broadly, knowing Gairoth could never have seen his own reflection in the scum-covered cesspools. He held his impulses in check ¯ his arms wanted to grab for the sword, lunge forward and hack at the ogre. But he knew his uncle Cayon had failed, and if a fighter like Cayon had not been able to defeat an ogre with his strength, then Delrael had little chance.

Gairoth looked down at his dirty furs, brushing off cakes of dried mud.

He scratched his scalp as he glared at the young man's own mud-stained clothes, the leather armor. Gairoth's mouth hung open as if he were going to say something but hadn't found the words yet. Delrael beat him to it.

"Gairoth's furs better than mine be. Me bonked another human, took his clothes. But don't worry. Me ogre too."

The ogre blinked his eyes. "Uh..."

Delrael jabbed a finger at himself. "Me be in swamp all these years.

Never bothered to say Howdy! Watched you long time, though, Gairoth. Uh, I be ¯ " (Gairoth, Rognoth ... what's in a name?) "Delroth."

The ogre hadn't moved or relaxed his grip on the club. "How come you talk, Delroth?"

Delrael paused a moment. "Huh?"

"You be no ogre ¯ you talk!"

"Ha!" Delrael felt a cold sweat. "You talk, Gairoth. You be ogre. How come you talk?" Judging from the monster's expression, Delrael saw he had struck a point of pride.

"Gairoth be an in-tell-ee-gent ogre. My Paw was Sorcerer, but he dead now. Paw give Gairoth smarts ¯ Maw give Gairoth muscles!"

To emphasize his statement, he bashed his club against the dirt.

The stench from the rancid meat made Delrael feel queasy. Vailret had told him once how, near the end of their centuries-long wars, the desperate and dying Sorcerers had interbred with humans, whom they had created, to restore the strength of their race ¯ but Delrael had no idea the Sorcerers had been driven to breed with their other creations, especially something so foul and ugly as a female ogre!

But the laws of probability allowed even the most unlikely dice rolls, given enough turns.

Delrael forced a yawn, trying to appear at ease. He looked at the grayish form of Bryl, hanging from the nearby tree. "What that be, Gairoth?

Dessert?"

The ogre spoke around a dripping mouthful of meat. "Naw ¯ he be Sorcerer, too. He teach Gairoth how to use magic Stone." With his elbow, he indicated the gleaming diamond in the tiny skull's eye. Delrael saw the diamond and decided that it must be the Air Stone Vailret had gotten so excited about. He looked back at the half-Sorcerer.

"He be dead?" Delrael brushed a fly away from his face.

"Naw. He be awake soon enough."

"You feeds him to the thing in the cesspool? What for?"

The ogre shrugged. "Keeps him from running away. And makes him skeered of Gairoth."

"Thing don't hurt him? Just hold him there?"

Gairoth reached for his club again. "Questions! Talk!" He spat.

Delrael spread his hands. "Gairoth be in-tell-ee-gent ogre. You gots answers."

That did the trick. "Aaahhh. I dips him into a pitcher plant afore I feeds him to that thing. Jellyfish can't digest him then."

Delrael rubbed his hands together. "Real smart. Haw, haw!"

Vailret crouched in the underbrush as close to the half-Sorcerer as he dared to go. The hanging form of Bryl stirred, but Vailret couldn't risk making a move just yet. He wished Delrael would hurry up. He wanted to go home.

"So, Gairoth," Delrael leaned forward and lowered his voice. "How you keep treasure pile safe? I be scared someone steal mine. Humans, adventurers, quests ¯ you know how the Game be. I works my fingers to the bone to get jewels, then can't never leave my camp. Afraid treasure might get stole."

Hidden in the underbrush, Vailret squirmed and motioned for his cousin to hurry. Delrael didn't notice him.

"Hey, you wants to see my treasure?" Delrael smiled, open and friendly.

"Promise not to steal it? I gots no guards. But I trust Gairoth. You be good neighbor."

Even from his distant viewpoint, Vailret thought he could see the gleam in the ogre's eye. Soon ... soon.

Gairoth stood up, ready to follow Delrael. Then, to Vailret's dismay, the ogre turned around and plucked the skull with the Air Stone from his dwelling. "Now we go."

No! I wanted the Stone! Vailret shouted in his mind.

Delrael looked at the pyramid-shaped diamond swallowed up in the ogre's hand and flicked a glance toward where Vailret hid. Vailret noticed his cousin heave a sigh as he motioned Gairoth to follow him into the swamp. The dragon bounded along, eager.

When the trees blocked them from sight, Vailret emerged from his hiding place, holding a hand to his stiff back. Flies buzzed around his head.

He cautiously went to where the half-Sorcerer hung dripping.

Greenish-brown water puddled in the dirt below him. Bryl seemed to be regaining his consciousness and vitality, but too slowly to help. According to the Rules, he would take about a half-day to recover completely. Vailret scowled, knowing he'd have to carry the half-Sorcerer on his back. Bryl's red cloak and scraggly gray hair reeked like the loathsome cesspools, and the smell would soak into Vailret's jerkin.

He grumbled at the invisible Outsiders, knowing they would never listen. "Why don't you go play a game of hexagon-chess? Why don't you make me a magic user? Why can't you entertain yourselves and leave us alone?"

Vailret withdrew his knife and cut the rope, catching Bryl as he fell.

He hiked the half-Sorcerer across his shoulder blades and stooped as he scuttled forward. Delrael was the one who had the strength score for this type of work, but he was preoccupied at the moment. Bryl stirred, and the smell of spoiled-everything rose into the air.

Vailret sighed. It was nearly over ¯ all the Game adventures had become tedious. Predictable. Vailret would rather be finishing his history of Gamearth ¯ not stuck with these frivolous, familiar quests the Outsiders played all the time.

Grunting with the effort, he shifted Bryl's bony body to a more comfortable position, then moved away from Gairoth's encampment toward the cesspool.

"It be gone!" Delrael wailed. "Stole!"

Rognoth nearly collapsed after the wild-goose chase the man had led through the swamp, circling back and forth, getting even the ogre hopelessly lost. But Delrael's tracker-sense would not let him get confused.

Delrael stared at the clearing they had stumbled upon, pointing an accusatory finger. He gaped at the ogre, incredulous. "Gold, gems ¯ right here! All be gone! Someone stole it!" He switched his own dismayed expression for one of horror. "Oh, no! You be next, Gairoth! Hurry!"

The ogre looked as if he grasped what was going on. "Come on, Rognoth!"

Gairoth smacked the dragon with the end of his club. "We gots to get home!"

Delrael crossed his fingers, hoping Vailret had done his part.

Everything seemed to be going well, too well for a Game adventure, and he wondered how long the Outsiders would keep making dice rolls in his favor.

He sprinted after the alarmed ogre.

Vailret slogged through the swamp, stumbling with the added weight of the unconscious half-Sorcerer. Bryl hung like a half-full sack of wet flour on his shoulders, and Vailret's muscles felt as if they wanted to snap. Most of all he ached for not being able to grab the Air Stone. Why had Gairoth taken it? Damned monster! Why hadn't Bryl managed to get it somehow? And the worst insult of all was that Gairoth ¯ Gairoth! ¯ had Sorcerer blood in him and could use the magic inside the diamond. It seemed ridiculously arbitrary.

The heavy stench made the air difficult to breathe near the cesspool.

Vailret's eyes stung. He found a weed-sheltered place where he could set the half-Sorcerer down. The cesspool seemed quiet now, waiting.

Vailret peeled off Bryl's sopping scarlet cloak. He removed a blanket from his pack and tossed it on top of the half-Sorcerer.

Bryl snored softly.

In the background of the swamp he could hear Gairoth bellowing. The insect songs fell silent for a moment, then continued.

Vailret crumpled the soggy cloak into a ball before tossing it onto the scum of the pool. Then he sat back to watch the tentacled thing rise to the surface, waving its whiplike appendages and curling around the scarlet fabric.

The creature pulled the cloak beneath the scum, like new prey.

Lurching forward as fast as he could, Gairoth reached his camp and smashed the spiked club against a tree trunk. He roared a battle cry that made the air vibrate, holding high the skull with the Air Stone. Rognoth lunged to the end of his chain, snarling.

But they found no one to fight.

Rognoth blinked his eyes. Gairoth came to a full stop, confused. "Haw!

We skeered 'em off! They gots none of my treasure! Haw!" Gairoth mopped his brow.

Breathless, Delrael reached the camp and flashed a glance to the trees.

He saw the damp patch on the ground where cesspool water had dribbled from Bryl's cloak, but the half-Sorcerer was gone.

Rognoth raised his scaly nose in the air, looking around with runny yellow eyes. When he saw the spot where Bryl had been, he snorted clouds of black, oily smoke.

"Shut up, stupid dragon! Nothing be there!" Gairoth snatched up a bone from the ground and bounced it off Rognoth's head.

"Gairoth, they gots your magic man!" Delrael pointed to the severed rope hanging from the cypress branch.

The ogre let his mouth drop open. Rognoth leaped to his feet, but the chain strangled him and he wheezed. Gairoth turned around in circles, looking for someone to hit with his club.

Delrael saw that the ogre needed help. "Cesspool! But we catch 'em!

Bonk! Quick!" He gave Gairoth a helpful shove in the right direction.

Rognoth galloped down the path as Gairoth stumbled after him, clinging to the iron chain. The ogre clutched the skull in his hand, holding the Air Stone in place with his thumb as he grasped the thick iron chain. But he didn't seem to know what to do with the diamond. Delrael ran behind.

The dragon reached the edge of the cesspool, with Gairoth fighting to keep his footing. They arrived just in time to see the tentacled creature swallow something bright and scarlet. Rognoth yelped and leaped ahead, not slowing down as he reached the bank.

"Stupid dragon!" Gairoth bellowed. He let go of the chain, but it became tangled around the Air Stone and the skull. Both the dragon and the ogre plunged into the cesspool, vanishing under the scum. Rognoth splashed to the surface, looking around, tongue lolling out. A whine broke from his throat as he realized where he had landed. Clawing at the thick water, he began to swim.

Gairoth emerged, pulling duckweed out of his eye and spitting green sludge from his mouth. Delrael saw with dismay that the skull in the ogre's hand had broken. The Air Stone had sunk to the bottom of the foul cesspool.

In the water, Gairoth's gaze settled on the pitiful dragon. His nostrils flared, and the cypress trees trembled as he roared his rage.

"Rognoth!"

The dragon gulped as the ogre heaved the spiked club out of the cesspool and sloshed toward him. Threads of green slime dribbled from the club into the water, following Gairoth as he moved. Rognoth ducked under the deep water just as the ogre swung at him with a crashing blow.

Delrael sauntered up to the edge of the pool, chuckling. Vailret emerged from his hiding place, but looked downcast at seeing the Air Stone gone. He watched Gairoth's struggles in the water without sympathy. Vailret heaved a limp and groggy Bryl to his feet, bringing him into view.

The ogre stopped splashing and glared at them, astonished and betrayed.

 

Delrael couldn't resist adding a last comment. "Now you've gone and lost the Air Stone, you clod. But we've got your magic man!"

Gairoth exploded in fury and charged toward the young man, but he stumbled in the mire. The ogre scrambled to his feet again and shook his fist in the air. "Delroth! I gonna bash you!"

Spine-covered tentacles rose up and writhed around him, translucent and glinting in the slanting afternoon light. A tentacle slapped around Gairoth's neck, and another slimy appendage grabbed his ankle and jerked him under the water.

Rognoth paddled toward the shore, but he could go no farther than his chain allowed.

The bulbous body sack of the jellyfish rose to the surface and burbled; more tentacles emerged, wrapping around Gairoth. The ogre trashed right and left, annoyed and helpless.

Tentacles coiled around the dragon's tail, but Rognoth whirled and snapped at them, biting deeply into the translucent flesh.

"Time to get going, Vailret," Delrael said. "How's Bryl?"

Vailret shrugged but kept looking dejectedly at the cesspool. "Why did Gairoth have to drop the Air Stone? Now we've lost it all over again!"

Delrael smiled. "At least we know where it is. Maybe there's another quest in the offing?"

"It would keep the Outsiders satisfied, I guess." He picked up his pack and wrapped Bryl in the blanket. "You carry him, Del. Your strength score is a lot higher than mine."

Gairoth finally yanked his right hand free and with a thick slurping sound pulled the club out of the slime. Dragging himself toward the jellyfish with its own tentacles, the ogre bashed his club into the mass of the creature's head. More tentacles wrapped around the ogre's face, and both monsters went under the water thrashing.

Delrael hiked the half-Sorcerer over his shoulder. "Well, do you think the Outsiders enjoyed that one? The whole adventure?"

Vailret frowned at him, puzzled. "Why shouldn't they? It's the same type of stuff they've always liked."

They walked off, listening to the bellows and splashings from the cesspool until the sounds vanished into other swamp noises. Soon they would reach the hex-line and be back into forest terrain.

But Vailret kept thinking about Delrael's question. What if the Outsiders were no longer interested? It felt like a premonition.

 

INTERLUDE: Outside

 

David yawned, making sure everybody saw him. Tyrone smiled with delight at the adventure, but Melanie saw Scott fidgeting. He and David seemed ... disinterested. She couldn't understand what had changed for them.

David picked at his fingernails.

Tyrone finally asked, "What's up your butt, David?"

Melanie nodded. "You've never been this bad before."

David looked at her, and suddenly Melanie had a sinking feeling that they had done exactly what he wanted. Now he could always say they had raised the question.

"Since you ask ¯ " David dropped a handful of dice on the table with a loud clatter, "there's something I'd like to bring up."

Melanie frowned as he looked at each of them in turn, like Charlie Chan about to announce his pick for the Murderer of the Month.

"I think we should quit playing the Game."

Even Tyrone, who was usually happy to play anything someone suggested, gasped in surprise.

"But why?" Melanie asked.

"It's boring. We've been at it too long. There's nothing left to it -it's not interesting anymore. Is that enough reasons? Look at the adventure we just finished: good, standard stuff. A big bad ogre, some treasure, an exciting chase. Your characters tricked their way out of it, as they always do, Melanie. It's like watching Star Trek reruns ¯ they're great for a few years, but it gets old after a while." He brushed at the sleeve of his denim jacket.

"And aren't we getting a little old for this stuff, too? Do you know how much crap I take from my parents about our stupid Game every week?"

Melanie stared at him, then at Scott and Tyrone, then at the dice scattered across the table. Anger kept her voice even. "Would you rather go out for sports, David? Be a jock? Or how about hanging around in video arcades turning into a joystick zombie? Would your parents prefer that?

"The Game makes us put ourselves into a world we made up. Think of all we've done, all the history we've made. That's a lot more important than bouncing a ball through a hoop."

Scott looked at her a bit in surprise. "Don't go overboard, Mel. This is just a game. It's nothing real."

"Are New York or the Rocky Mountains real? Have you ever been there?

No! Then how do you know they exist? Huh?"

She thought of Gamearth, the villages, the characters. Every one of them seemed to be real to her. Couldn't the others see it? Or feel it? Scott blinked at her vehemence, which surprised even Melanie. She could feel something going on here, something important.

Since the four of them had equal experience in role-playing, they took turns acting as Game-master. Each of them ruled a particular section of the map and interacted with the other players.

"Why don't we just go back to exploring dungeons? That was fun," Tyrone said.

Scott made a rude noise. "Those were boring, Tyrone. Wandering through catacombs gets monotonous really quick. And what do all the monsters eat? What do they do all the time? You can't say they just stand there waiting for our characters to come along? How am I supposed to have fun if I can't believe any of it?"

Melanie grabbed at the idea. "But we outgrew the boxed dungeon adventures! We broadened the Game to cover an entire world. Our world.

Didn't you enjoy the old Sorcerer wars, David? You thought of that."

Tyrone said, "I liked it when the old Sorcerers created all sorts of creatures to do their fighting, not just humans."

"Oh, you just like monsters," Scott said.

David used a cracker to scoop up some of Tyrone's dip. "Yes, and the fighting got boring, too. Battle after battle in a war that was never going to end. What's the point?

"We had the Sorcerers make peace between themselves. They used the rest of their magic to turn the race into six giant Spirits. The Transition. We should have known enough to end it there."

"There was more to the story!" Melanie said. Why weren't Scott and Tyrone helping? "How could you just stop the Game there?"

She began to feel clammy sweat on her back. What if they put Gamearth away to gather dust on a shelf, never to play it again? What about the world?

What about the characters?

"I tried," David sighed.

"But I won. Roll of the dice."

"Yeah, Melanie," Scott added, "and we spent the past three months playing the Scouring of Gamearth. The humans and a few leftover Sorcerers hunted down surviving monsters to make the world safe for Mom, democracy, and apple pie. Tyrone had a lot of fun. But the humans are all settled down now.

You've got your Stronghold established and safe. There's nothing else to play."

"I want to quit," David repeated.

"No." Melanie tried to glare him down.

"Doesn't matter to me," Tyrone said. "I thought even the dungeons were fun."

Scott pursed his lips, putting on his coldly logical "Mr. Science" persona again. "Settle it like we always settle disagreements. Why don't you two just roll for it instead of arguing?"

Tyrone shifted in his seat. "I'd like to play something tonight ¯ it is Sunday, you know."

Melanie watched David, and they both reached for the twenty-sided die at the same time. David grabbed it first.

"If I beat you, we stop playing. We think of something else to do, or we stop meeting altogether. We've got our lives to live, you know."

 

Tyrone and Scott sat up straight. Melanie took a deep breath. David was serious ¯ it meant more to him than she had thought. Something worse than this was bothering him.

But the Game meant even more to her. She wanted to hold onto the world they had created. Gamearth was a part of her and a part of them all. They couldn't just put it away and forget about it like a game of Monopoly.

David squeezed his hand around the die. He threw it down hard onto the smooth painted surface of the master map. The die bounced, but came to rest before it could fall off the table.

*18.*

"Eighteen, Melanie. You won't beat it."

She picked up the twenty-sided die ¯ the expensive transparent kind from the hobby shop. Each facet looked smooth and perfect, with a number etched in the center.

"But if I win the roll, we keep playing. We stay in Gamearth with all our characters there. No chickening out."

David bristled at that, but Scott and Tyrone remained silent.

As she leaned forward over the master map, Melanie felt that she could fall into the world. She imagined the mountains, the forests, the islands, the frozen wasteland, vivid against a backdrop of the history they had played.

She closed her eyes, silently asked for help from whom ever else watched over Gamearth, and tossed the twenty sided die onto the table. "Come on!" she whispered. The die skittered and rolled and came to rest against the master map.

The 20 faced up.

"Yowza!" Tyrone clapped his hands.

"There." Scott sounded businesslike again. "Now can we get started?

It's your turn next isn't it, David?"

David glared at the twenty-sided die that had betrayed him.

"Come on, David. Don't be a sore loser."

He drank from his glass but continued to look at the map. "If we don't quit, I'm going to destroy Gamearth. I'll have my turn and I can set things in motion. There won't be anything left to play in. Then we'll have to stop."

"You've got to follow the rules," Scott said.

"I'm going to. But I'll unleash something so horrible upon this world that nothing can stop it. Your characters can try all they want. It won't work. I'm going to win."

Melanie stiffened. Scott and Tyrone seemed to be enjoying the friction.

Melanie thought of the Game's characters, looked at their settlements, their lands, and felt a pang inside her. Something seemed to be calling out to her.

Melanie ran her fingertip over one of the smooth faces of the twenty-sided. She hoped she hadn't used up her luck for the evening. She wished the characters themselves could help in the fight ¯ if only they knew what the stakes were.

She wanted to warn them somehow.

"The rules work both ways, you know. I can use them to save Gamearth." Melanie forced a smile, trying to look self-assured and a little wicked. "I'll beat you, David. You can count on it."

 

*2*

 

Attack on the Stronghold

 

"Gamearth has been built around a precise set of Rules. Though we may find them restrictive at times, these Rules can never be broken, lest we invite chaos and anarchy into the world."

 

¯ Preface, The Book of Rules

 

Making good time, while carrying Bryl, Delrael and Vailret crossed nine hexagons of terrain. They reached the Stronghold by the evening of the third day.

Vailret wished he had remembered to bring map paper with him to mark the terrain and keep his bearings. Delrael claimed to have memorized the colorful mosaic master map inlaid into one wall back at the Stronghold.

The trees were thick and full, the undergrowth colorful and lush.

Clear-cut paths wound through thick stands of oak, maple, and pine, leading off to various adventures. But all the terrain had been explored and mapped, all the dungeons uncovered, all the adventures played out and exhausted in days long past.

A clear stream followed the boundary between two hexes of forest terrain. One willow dangled over the bank, like a Medusa washing her hair in the water.

During the bloody Scouring, well-organized human armies and magic-using Sentinels had removed most of the enemy monsters from the map. The Outsiders had not seen fit to create any major new threats for more than a century. The forests had once been inhabited by ogres, sasquatches, packs of intelligent wolves, marauding bands of reptilian Slac ¯ all descendants of monsters that the old Sorcerers had created to fight in their wars. Vailret's father had been killed by one of the surviving ogres.

Vailret imagined Cayon, a great fighter but hopelessly outclassed by the ogre in the early morning mists. Drodanis, his uncle, had told of awakening to the sounds of battle, seeing the camp fire cold and his brother's blankets neatly folded. In a clearing he had found Cayon and the ogre ¯ two of Cayon's arrows protruded from the ogre's back.

Vailret tried to remember, but somehow he could not picture his father's face. He recalled only a few rare occasions when Cayon had focused attention on him; how frightening and godlike the great warrior had seemed.

The memory of his father eluded him, but the ogre seemed real, vivid to the last wrinkle in his leathery skin.

Drodanis said he had drawn his bow to join in the fight. He thought Cayon had looked impish, as if trying to show off with his sword. Why?

Vailret kept wanting to ask him. It was so stupid! Because of that, you were killed! Who were you trying to impress? I was proud of you anyway.

The ogre had swept his club sideways, breaking Cayon's wrist and knocking the sword from his hand. Drodanis sank an arrow into the ogre's chest, but the monster still drove at his first victim. Cayon stood ashen gray and tried to stumble backward, out of the way. The ogre smashed the twisted club across Cayon's chest, spraying blood into the forest. Drodanis roared in rage, sank three more arrows into the monster's back and neck, and then launched himself upon the wounded ogre, slashing with his sword from behind

 

Vailret had heard the story many times from others in the gaming hall.

Drodanis had completed his pogrom against the ogres, and then became a recluse behind the walls of the Stronghold. He had never spoken of Cayon's death after the first time, not once in all the hours he had spent staring at manuscripts with young Vailret....

About an hour after Vailret and Delrael had left the ogre's cesspool behind, Bryl came back to full consciousness. The half-Sorcerer walked by himself now. He moved a little slowly, but they made better time than when Delrael carried him. Bryl sulked, ashamed and grumbling to himself. "Wish we didn't have to leave the Air Stone there."

"It's at the bottom of the cesspool," Delrael said, turning around on the path. Vailret had watched Delrael's impatience with Bryl grow, watched him tense every time the half-Sorcerer said anything, but until now he had been able to stifle his urge to speak out. "Do you want us to take you back so you can dive for it? Or maybe you'd like to ask Gairoth for help?"

Bryl moaned quietly. "I just wanted to have more magic. I don't know much ¯ it could have helped us all." Delrael made a rude noise, and the half-Sorcerer turned to him, looking defensive. "Well, you imagine being trapped inside a giant jellyfish, just waiting to be digested ¯ and your only hope of survival is a dim-witted ogre who might not remember to come back before it's too late." Bryl sounded indignant. "I was just trying to find the Air Stone. Gairoth tortured me! He made me teach him how to use the Stone!"

Vailret spoke softly but with enough seriousness to make Bryl pay attention. "By showing Gairoth how to unlock the magic, you've given an ogre one of the most powerful weapons left on Gamearth. A weapon that was specifically given to humans." He saw Delrael ball his fists.

Bryl looked broken and upset. "He shouldn't have been able to use the magic anyway. How was I supposed to know an ogre could have Sorcerer blood?"

Vailret scowled at him, beginning to lose patience himself. "You should have known something was wrong when an ogre could speak."

"You know I don't study things like that."

"Maybe you should consider it." Vailret sighed, letting his anger drain away. He squinted through the trees to see the boundary of the forest. The light had grown dim in the late afternoon, but he sensed they were near the Stronghold.

Bryl sounded close to despair. "What are we going to do?"

Delrael kept walking, plainly upset. "Good thing the Stronghold can keep Gairoth out if worse comes to worst." They came upon a cross path and Delrael paused, looking both ways to take his bearings. He turned left and set off. Vailret and Bryl followed.

The sun had set behind them as they crossed from the last hex of forest terrain to the flat agricultural areas. Narrow roads separated the hexagonal fields from the unclaimed areas, but the fields had expanded outward as more and more characters settled around the Stronghold. All the cropland had been reclaimed since the Scouring, and the human foothold had grown stronger as characters worked the land, tending to their own existence rather than questing for treasure or adventure.

Vailret could see the Stronghold perched on the crown of Steep Hill, overlooking the village and surrounding lands like a sleeping watchdog. The double-walled stockade appeared imposing even to Vailret. Just the sight of the structure evoked thoughts of epic adventures in his mind.

At the beginning of the Scouring, the great general Doril had built the Stronghold. He wanted to help protect the poor farmers and miners trying to make a life for themselves against the back-and-forth tides of the wars. Doril had chosen Steep Hill, which stood rugged and unscalable from the rear, cut off to the north by a swift stream, and open to assault only on the south and west sides. An attacking army would break most of its momentum charging up the abominably steep path.

A double wall of pointed logs surrounded the Stronghold proper. The villagers had packed the gaps between the outer and inner walls with dirt, more than doubling the strength of the barricade and making it almost fire proof at the same time. A steep trench encircled the Stronghold walls, as deep as a man stood tall. The trench was filled with pointed rocks and sharp sticks.

The Stronghold had withstood serious attacks during the long Scouring wars. Monstrous Slac armies had besieged it several times, but the Stronghold had never fallen. Now, few of the Slac still existed on Gamearth, and they hid themselves in the mountains to the east, letting humans live in peace. The Stronghold had not seen an enemy in years, and Vailret suspected that many of its defenses were obsolete.

The days of empty questing had faded away, leaving the characters to attend to problems of day-to-day survival. No one bothered to remember the old adventures.

 

Seven years before, more than half a decade after the death of Cayon, the peaceful times had lulled Drodanis out of his gloomy seclusion. Vailret liked to think that if an enemy had indeed threatened, Delrael's father would never have left the Stronghold in the hands of his eighteen-year-old son and a couple of old veterans from his early campaigns. Vailret had been only fourteen then, and he had wanted to accompany Drodanis on his self-indulgent quest to find the Rulewoman Melanie. But Drodanis had chosen someone else, leaving Vailret behind.

In the seven years since, Delrael had done little more than train the villagers and miners over and over again, killing time until something adventurous happened. It seemed that the Outsiders took little interest in Gamearth, tired of throwing threats at their hapless characters. This pleased Vailret, though ¯ the characters could worry about their lives, instead of tedious adventures. He could go about writing down the history of the Game....

Dusk had set in as they started along the pathway up Steep Hill.

Already Vailret could see Jorte getting his gaming hall ready for the evening, where the villagers would gather for dicing and other amusements. Characters in the village below had seen them return and they'd all want to hear the story of Bryl's rescue and the adventure with Gairoth. It would be their first quest-telling in a long time.

But Vailret didn't much like the loud gaming and conversation. He hoped he could talk Delrael into describing the adventure by himself ¯ he only wanted to get back to his work on the old manuscripts. Documenting the quest on paper was as important as telling it. More important, in fact, because his original words could remain unexaggerated in telling after telling.

At the top of the hill they crossed the split-log walkway spanning the trench and passed through the only gate in the Stronghold walls. Heavy wooden mallets hung on ropes next to the walkway, ready to knock out the pegs and sever the walkway in case of an invasion. Directly on the other side of the heavy gate was another hidden pit covered by a second walkway.

Vailret's mother, Siya, stood outside the main building. Her hair was dusted with early gray, and she wore it pulled back in a tight braid, which stretched her wrinkles tight but left her scowl firmly in place.

"It's about time," Siya said, but Vailret thought he saw genuine relief in her eyes.

"This time we beat the ogre, Mother," Vailret said.

Alarm flashed in her eyes. Delrael cut off any scolding as he offered to help her cook something. "I'm hungry. And I'm going to start heavy training again tomorrow with some of the best fighters."

Delrael turned to Vailret with a glint in his eyes. "After all, we know where the Air Stone is. We know where a surviving ogre is ¯ at last, we've got some questing to do again! Doesn't it make you feel alive? To have a purpose in life?" He patted his leather armor, the silver belt, the knife and sword at his side. "This is what we were made for."

Sounds from the gaming hall rang distant but clear in the damp night.

At the edge of the trees, the veteran Tarne stood, preferring the silence and the dark. He kept watch in the muffled shadows, looking at the aurora overhead. To him, visions filled the night. He wondered if he would catch another glimpse of the future.

Tarne was one of the surviving warriors from the campaigns with Drodanis and Cayon. In his adventures, he had found more treasure, slain more monsters, explored more trails than any other character save Drodanis and Cayon. Tarne had accompanied Drodanis on his vendetta against the ogres, slaying half a dozen of them himself for the murder of Cayon.

But none of that mattered to him anymore.

Since those bygone days, Tarne had given time to reflecting on his life. Sometimes he reveled in the companionship of others, in the gatherings for the winter tales, telling story after story about the old campaigns. But other times he spent weeks alone in the forests. He had shaved his head to let the thoughts flow unimpeded, exposing all the scars from battle injuries. An ogre's blow had knocked him unconscious many years before ... and had opened up his ability to see visions.

After ending his active service as a fighter, Tarne had become the village shearer and weaver. He was big enough to wrestle the sheep for shearing, and he also knew enough woodcraft to find the proper flowers and berries for dyeing the cloth he wove. It was a different life for him, but Gamearth itself had changed. He kept an old set of leather armor hidden in his dwelling along with his most precious possession, an ancient sword from the Sorcerer wars. Sometimes he took the old things out from under his table just to look at them.

Another round of laughter came from the gaming hall. He could discern the clatter of dice on tabletops, the tallying of points. Delrael and Vailret would likely come down to tell of their adventures, but the others had begun their amusements without them.

Tarne considered young Delrael for a moment, admiring him. Seven years before, he would not have guessed the young man could run the Stronghold so well in the absence of his father ¯ but Drodanis had been a recluse for his last few years anyway, before he'd gone off in search of the legendary Rulewoman Melanie.

Even as he thought of Drodanis, Tarne felt an echo of the man's pain.

Barely a year after the slaying of Cayon, Drodanis's wife Fielle died. A new fever spread its claws through the village, causing the villagers to hide in their homes. Drodanis lay sick for days as Fielle cared for him, nurturing him so closely that she fell ill herself. He recovered; she did not. They had been married fourteen years.

Drodanis had reacted to Fielle's death more strongly than he had to Cayon's. He and Fielle had been perfect for each other ¯ only she could beat him in archery, only he could beat her in throwing knives at targets.

Drodanis grew more somber each day, leaving no one to attend the Stronghold duties. Training stopped. Tarne had helped when he could get away from his own shearing work. But for the most part he could only watch Drodanis withdraw into himself.

Drodanis studied the legends of Gamearth. Roving Scavengers ¯ the only characters still actively questing in the world ¯ had found many papers and scrolls left behind by the Sentinels. Young Vailret also took an interest in the legends and spent much time looking over Drodanis's shoulders. He ran errands and helped decipher faded writing.

Drodanis had come across an obscure tale that fascinated him ¯ a mysterious Rulewoman named Melanie, possibly a manifestation of one of the Outsiders, who watched over the Game and directed the characters that interested her. The legends said she could be found deep in the forests to the south, and whoever found her would know peace for the remainder of his days.

Drodanis became obsessed with the legend. For years he searched for every scrap of knowledge concerning her. He wanted to find the Rulewoman so he could demand an explanation for the misery inflicted in his life. What had he done to offend the Outsiders so deeply?

Finally, when Delrael turned eighteen, Drodanis announced he would embark on a quest to find her. Tarne volunteered to accompany him, as did young Vailret, but Drodanis refused them both.

He took with him only Lellyn, Bryl's twelve-year-old apprentice. As if the old half-Sorcerer knew enough about magic to teach anything, Tarne thought. Lellyn, a boy from one of the northern mining villages, exhibited strong sorcerous powers, though he bore no trace of Sorcerer blood. Lellyn was a wild-card, a manifestation of magic that should never have occurred. His use of magic broke all the Rules, but somehow Gamearth had allowed it to happen.

Drodanis said he would take only Lellyn with him on his quest because the boy was an anomaly. And if Drodanis was going to find the Rulewoman, he needed to have the help of someone who could break the Rules.

So Drodanis and Lellyn traveled south and disappeared into the deep forests. Seven years had gone by, but they sent no word. Most of the villagers believed them to be dead.

Tarne turned his eyes to the sky again, looking at the shimmering auroral curtains that called to him. The rippling light of Lady Maire's Wedding Veil painted the summer night in delicate pale colors, swathed across a great portion of the northeastern sky. Tarne stared at the hypnotic patterns that showed him visions of the future.

Like Lellyn, Tarne was an anomaly, too, a Rule-breaker. After his head wound had healed, he found he could sometimes see things in the dance of the Veil. Though his ability was well known in the village, Tarne kept the details of his revelations to himself. He considered them to be private glimpses into the plans of the Outsiders. Only rarely did he weave the visions into special tapestries, which he explained to no one.

He had no Sorcerer blood either. Sometimes it seemed to him that Gamearth had a magic of its own, a magic that knew nothing of the Outsiders'

Rules and acted only to preserve itself.

The Veil held Tarne's attention now. The revelations didn't always come, but he felt giddy this night, filled with a fuzzy claustrophobia that made him want to release whatever visions were trapped in his head.

As he watched, Tarne saw a clawlike tendril of greenish light reach from the east and stab into the rosy color of the main aurora. The shrouds of light changed, and the details of the future struck deep into his mind.

Tarne fell to the ground in awed dismay.

Behind his eyelids the truth reeled. He lay against the cold grass for a long moment. He blinked his eyes open, and the Veil was a simple aurora again, lights painted on the sky, reflections from the Outside world. Tarne climbed to his feet, stiff and off-balance, and waited for his emotions to die down. He knew he could not keep this revelation to himself ¯ or else the Stronghold was doomed.

Vailret held the wooden message stick in his hands, afraid that he might damage it. His eyes sparkled with wonder. "This wasn't here when we left, I swear it."

Delrael put his hands on his hips, resting thumbs against the silver belt. His hair hung wet and clean, and his face was shaved and scrubbed raw.

"It's got my father's seal on it?"

"Look for yourself." Vailret passed the message stick to his cousin.

The fireplace in his room burned with a hot new fire. The message stick had been waiting for him, prominent on the tabletop with his other papers.

"And my mother says no one came in here while we were gone."

"Maybe Drodanis really did find the Rulewoman." Bryl looked awed and frightened by the short polished stick. "She's supposed to be an Outsider -she could have found a way to deliver the message stick."

"The Outsiders can't communicate directly with us ¯ it's against their own Rules." Vailret frowned, more confused now than ever. "I don't know what's going on here."

Delrael shifted the message stick from one hand to the other, staring at it. "When the need is great enough, some people are willing to break the Rules."

That settled a blanket of silence on them, a few minutes thick.

A message from Drodanis ... Vailret had spent five years with the older man, growing up as he helped Drodanis study, then deciphering scrolls himself.

But when Drodanis left on his quest for the Rulewoman ¯ after working beside Vailret for years, he took Lellyn with him instead. Vailret had begged to go along, but for some reason Drodanis found Bryl's young apprentice more appropriate. It stung Vailret like an unexpected slap in the face.

The boy Lellyn had no Sorcerer blood, but he was remarkably adept with magic. He had the powers by accident. Vailret resented that, and he wanted to know how the Rules had been bent. It seemed unfair to him, arbitrary. Though seven years had passed, Vailret wasn't sure he wanted to know what the message stick said.

"Well, are we going to burn it or just look at it?" Bryl fidgeted.

 

Before Vailret could answer, a pounding on the main door of the Stronghold building distracted him. The veteran Tarne stood in the wide doorway, cocooned in the night. He shielded his eyes as Vailret swung open the door, then eased himself closer to the light. "I've been watching the Veil."

After Vailret had ushered the veteran inside, leading him along a corridor to the firelit chambers, Siya came down the hall, curious. Wax covered her fingertips; she had been dipping candles again. He motioned that everything was all right and closed the door of his room before she could make a fuss.

Tarne stepped forward to stare at the flames, warming his big hands in front of the hearth. The night was cool enough, but Tarne looked chilled to the bone. Vailret could see the map of pale scars on the veteran's bald head.

Tarne rarely said anything about his visions, but Vailret coaxed him now, anxious to get a hint of what had frightened him. "Did you see something tonight?"

Tarne wiped the shine of sweat from his forehead. "The Stronghold is going to be captured. And I don't believe we can do anything about it."

"Attacked!" Delrael leaped to his feet. "By whom?"

After a moment of silence, Bryl said, "We've had peace for so long!"

Delrael's eyes went wide. "The Outsiders are probably getting bored with peace." He slammed one fist into his flat palm.

 

Vailret looked at the veteran, forcing himself to remain calm, to get the facts and try to come up with a solution. "Any other details, Tarne?"

The veteran shook his head. "The visions aren't like that. Just a certainty that we are going to be attacked in two days. I don't know who the enemy is. But the Stronghold will fall for the first time in its history."

Tarne stared down at his dye-stained hands. "I thought I saw something else to the east, though ¯ terrible and growing, drinking all life in its wake. I feel so helpless! But the danger to the Stronghold is more immediate and drowned everything else out."

Vailret wished he could know what it felt like to have the power, even unbidden magic like Tarne's, singing through his body.

"I wonder if that has anything to do with my father's message?" Delrael held the carved stick up to the fire light. Vailret noted the expression of interest on Tarne's face.

Delrael took a step toward the fireplace. "We'll never find out if we don't get started. Tarne, you're welcome to stay ¯ we'd like to hear your thoughts."

The veteran shrugged and remained standing by the table. He seemed uninterested in Vailret's scrolls and scraps of writing, though he was careful not to touch any of them.

Delrael closed his eyes for a moment, as if making a wish, then he tossed the message stick into the fire.

Vailret held his breath ¯ Drodanis had put his seal on the stick. He had sent a message. Had he reached the end of his quest? Had he found the Rulewoman? Did Drodanis regret taking young Lellyn instead of him?

The flames attacked the wood, peeling away the outer spell and shelling the spoken words, sending them into the fire. The crackle of consumed wood rose to a hiss, then to whispered words. The flames climbed higher, dancing together, forming a memory-image of Drodanis.

Vailret's eyes glistened as he stared at the flickering silhouette of his uncle. Drodanis appeared older, but he wore the same clothes Vailret remembered him in. Drodanis's eyes were dim and downturned. He seemed content, not haunted as he had been ¯ but he also seemed dead inside, with nothing left now that his sorrow was gone.

The spectre spoke from the glowing hearth.

"Delrael, Vailret ¯ the Rulewoman Melanie is risking everything to let me send you this warning. She is bending her own Rules, hoping she does not get caught by the other Players.

"Gamearth is doomed ¯ the Outsiders have grown tired of us. One of the Players has set events in motion to destroy our world.

"None of us is real. We exist only for the amusement of the Outsiders. You know that. But now the Outsider named David has planted a monstrous, growing thing far to the east. He wants to end the Game. As his creature sucks up life, it grows ever stronger and it will soon spread across the entire map. That will be the end of everything for us.

"The Outsider David is playing by the Rules. And the Rulewoman Melanie will try to fight him in the same way. But we must help as well. You must find some way to stop the enemy. We are the characters on this world, and we have a stake in it."

The fire popped and crackled, drowning some of Drodanis's words.

Vailret watched, feeling numb from his uncle's warning. The image wavered, and Drodanis's tone changed.

"...Stronghold is in danger from an entirely different source. You must ignore that. Do not waste your time and effort trying to regain the Stronghold, should it fall. This is my warning ¯ you must listen. The Outsiders have set up the second threat as a distraction, an adventure to amuse themselves. You know what is more important. The Stronghold will have no significance if Gamearth is destroyed."

The message stick crackled again. Layers of ash slid off, leaving little of the stick unconsumed. Drodanis's words became garbled, overwritten with a sound like frying fat.

"The other Outsiders do not know you are aware of their plans. The Rulewoman has slipped this message past them. But be prepared ¯ if they find out, they will do everything to stop you.

"I am begging you to find a way to protect the world. Do not be sidetracked. This is the grandest quest in our history ¯ not for entertainment, but survival."

The hissing grew louder, and chunks of words drifted up into the chimney. "I am well. Lellyn is ... gone. Preserve Gamearth."

The message stick crumbled in a final burst of light. The image of Drodanis scattered and vanished with the flames up the chimney, leaving only the logs and the low fire.

The morning air had a fuzziness to it, erasing sharp details of the forest and the countryside. Tarne kept watch at the Stronghold walls, looking down upon the few villagers who still tried to do field work in the rising midmorning heat. Other defenders moved within the empty Stronghold courtyard, waiting. Waiting.

Tarne could not be specific about the time of attack, nor could he even tell them what enemy they would face. He had gone out again later that night and stared at the aurora for hours. He rubbed his temples, trying to concentrate, willing the clues to come, but the Veil remained closed to him, nothing more than silent green-gray curtains suspended above the world.

After burning the message stick, the four of them had discussed possible solutions. Delrael had seemed upset at his father's instructions to ignore the threat to the Stronghold.

Tarne stood tall and stared at Delrael. "I will stay here and fight.

This is my home. The Veil has given us a brief warning, and I will not waste it."

Delrael turned to watch the fire. He pounded a fist into his palm. "I hate to leave you, especially if you might have a battle ¯ but you heard the Rulewoman's message. We have to go and confront the greater enemy, whatever it is."

"How?" Vailret had said. "We need to cut this thing off somehow, protect ourselves. But we know nothing about our enemy. It's hard to make a plan when you're blind-folded and have both hands tied behind your back."

Bryl hung his head and looked dejected. "If only we had the Air Stone."

"What about the other Stones?" Tarne asked. "Weren't there four of them?"

"Yes." Vailret furrowed his forehead. "The only one we could get to in a few days is the Water Stone. Sardun keeps it in his Ice Palace, north of us.

That one controls the weather and water, and Sardun's a powerful Sorcerer himself."

Bryl scratched at his ears. "Maybe we should go and ask him for help."

Delrael looked at Vailret, who shrugged. "It's a start."

Tarne had rapped his knuckles on the table, feeling the charisma grow in him again. He remembered fighting with Drodanis, he remembered giving orders on the battlefield. "I will gather up all the fighters from the village. We'll be ready at dawn."

He had stared beyond the walls, pondering. "The others may have to leave the village for a time and hide in the forest. But don't worry ¯ I will take care of them."

Before dawn Delrael, Bryl, and Vailret set off northward, bearing their standard packs and the weapons they had chosen at random. Vailret's precious old manuscripts lay in a large buried chest sealed with wax to prevent dampness from getting in. Tarne had no idea when they would return. His world, his adventure focused on protecting the Stronghold.

Now, at dawn, other villagers furtively glanced up at the top of the Hill. The Stronghold had protected their homes for centuries. Tarne realized that most of them hoped his vision would prove false, but he knew better. He had never been so sure.

Each of his picked defenders had been armed, some with relics from the old Sorcerer wars, others with less ornate creations by Derow the blacksmith.

Derow had little experience in making weapons and felt ashamed to see his swords next to the elaborate weapons used by the former warlords. But Tarne had seen how well Derow's blades cut ¯ and little else mattered.

A hush fell over the abandoned Stronghold. Occasionally, the air rang with the distant clink of a hoe striking a rock, or a dissolving snatch of nervous laughter from the villagers far below.

"I thought I heard something," said the young farmer named Romm.

And suddenly Gairoth, wearing the dazzling Air Stone set in an iron crown on his head, appeared on the Hill, stepping out of thin air and leading Rognoth the dragon ¯ and an army of other ogres. Their combined howl of attack sounded like an avalanche.

In the instant of surprise, one thought shuttled through Tarne's brain:

Ogres don't work together Flashbacks of his campaign against the ogres came flooding back, hunting down the monsters one by one with Drodanis and the other fighters. Tarne could not imagine that so many of them had survived the Scouring, or that they would band together. But Vailret had already warned him that Gairoth was part Sorcerer himself, and no ordinary ogre.

The ogres roared and lurched up the hill path, gaining momentum in defiance of the steep slope.

"Sever the walkway!" Tarne cried. Romm was already there, picking up one of the dangling mallets and striking out the wooden pins that held the walkway across the stone-filled trench.

The ages-old bridge settled a little, but jammed in its supports. "It won't drop!"

The ogres had almost reached the top of the path, swinging their clubs in anticipation of wreaking havoc.

"It'll drop when they come across it! Secure the gates! Quick! Jorte, help him!"

The two men swung the heavy doors shut while others slammed the crossbars into place. A few defenders shot arrows at the oncoming giants. One arrow struck Gairoth's tree-trunk arm, but he plucked it out without a wince of pain. The monsters kept coming. Tarne had never believed there were so many ogres in the entire world, not even at the beginning of the Scouring.

Gairoth surged like a battering ram across the walkway, and still it did not fall. Rognoth crouched behind his master as the ogre took his club and pummeled the heavy doors. They splintered.

"Ready the trap inside the door. This one better work!"

 

With one massive final blow, Gairoth blasted the thick doors inward, sending spear-length splinters of wood flying into the courtyard. Arrows struck at him like lightning bolts, but bounced away like raindrops.

"What the hell?" Tarne looked at his bow as if it had betrayed him.

"Arrows always worked before."

With the other attacking ogres behind him and Rognoth at his side, Gairoth strode into the courtyard wearing a smug and triumphant grin.

"Now!" Tarne bellowed, and Derow the blacksmith pulled the lever that would plunge the ogres into the pit inside the gate. With incredible agility for bodies so large, Gairoth and Rognoth simultaneously leaped to the side as the trap fell inward, exposing the deep pit. The other ogres roared, working their way around the trap and into the Stronghold courtyard.

"How can this be happening?" one of the men wailed in shock. Though the defenders launched volley after volley of arrows, not a single ogre appeared to be injured.

"Where is Delroth!" Gairoth bellowed. He leaped into the air and brought his club down on the ground for emphasis.

"We knew it would happen," Tarne said to the defenders. "And we were foolish enough to think we could prevent it. To the ladders! Everyone out!"

Ogres flooded into the courtyard as the defenders set up rickety wooden ladders against the northeastern wall of the Stronghold. The men scrambled over, dropping to the ground. They made their way through the thick forest toward the caves in the hills, hoping the ogres would not follow.

 

* 3 *

Sardun's Ice Palace

 

"RULE #5: The speed at which a character may travel on foot is strictly limited. Characters may traverse no more than three hexagons of grassland, forest, or grassy hill terrain per day; two hexes of forested-hill, swamp, or wasteland; and one hexagon of mountain terrain. Once a party has covered the allowable distance, they must stop at the intervening hex-line.

"Naturally, if characters have access to other modes of travel, such as horses or boats, the allowable distances are modified, as given in Table A-1..."

"Good thing we weren't there," Bryl said. "Try not to sulk so much."

"That was our home, and now Gairoth has it," Vailret answered. Delrael said nothing.

They had watched from the top of a hill shortly after sunrise. Delrael squinted into the long shadows of dawn, describing details that Vailret could not see. None of them could believe the ogre had won so easily.

Delrael finally shook his head. His eyes, Vailret saw, were heavy and red. "There's no excuse for how we've failed. We brought it on ourselves by being lazy. I wanted my father to be proud of me. What would he say now?"

They talked as they continued northward at a brisk pace. The Rules allowed them to travel three hexes per day in forest terrain and three in grassland. At one point a panoramic view of grassland terrain bordered an abrupt line of forest. The black barrier was sharp and hard as a razor stretching off into the fuzzy distance; lush forest lay on one side of the line, vast grasslands on the other.

"Your father told us not to fight for the Stronghold, Del. He wouldn't consider you a failure. We're doing exactly what he wants by focusing on the main threat."

Delrael shook his head. "It's not that." He shifted his hunting bow, rubbing the red spot where the quiver strap had chafed his neck. "I mean we failed in a larger sense ¯ the Outsiders got bored with us. We didn't perform like we were supposed to. That's why we were created in the first place ¯ and they found Gamearth so tedious that they want to destroy it."

He shook his head, avoiding Vailret's gaze. "We should have gone questing more often, started some wars among ourselves." He made a distasteful noise. "Farming and training ¯ even I found it boring. No wonder the Outsiders gave up on us."

Delrael kept moving along the trail. Vailret caught up and put a hand on his shoulder. Delrael seemed uncomfortable at being touched, but Vailret held him there anyway. "The Rulewoman Melanie is fighting on our side, too.

Gamearth isn't a complete failure ¯ she must be enjoying it."

Delrael didn't answer and pushed ahead.

For the rest of the day Delrael kept to himself, brooding. Vailret remained busy planning how they might fight the Outsiders' threat. Bryl complained most of the time, but Vailret found him easy to ignore.

He doubted they could do any serious fighting. Delrael had only a bow and his leather armor; Vailret had only a dagger, and not much battle skill or training to go with it; Bryl never practiced his magic and knew few spells.

The half-Sorcerer could work some useful everyday magic such as starting a camp fire and replenishing their packs with food and water, but his only unusual spells were that he could make flowers bloom on demand (a useless talent, Vailret thought) and that he could blunt or sharpen a blade, which might prove valuable in a battle. Bryl had no one to show him new, more powerful spells, and he did not have the ambition to learn them himself.

Vailret had always wanted to be a fighter, like his father Cayon ¯ but he did not have the physical build or the skill in weaponry, and his weak eyesight spoiled him for anything but close combat. Or reading.

He remembered the days of training at the Stronghold. At daybreak, the other villager trainees would leave their homes and trudge up Steep Hill.

Visiting trainees from other villages lived within the Stronghold walls and helped with some of the preparations for the day's instruction. Drodanis and Cayon would send everyone back down Steep Hill to come running up again, to strengthen their leg muscles. They made the trainees carry water up from the stream, whether the Stronghold needed it or not.

But after the deaths of Cayon and Fielle, Drodanis had done little training. Delrael, who was then fifteen, and the old veteran Tarne conducted the necessary exercises. Young Vailret had thought quests were old-fashioned and juvenile, and he spent much time with Drodanis, learning to think and read.

On Vailret's eleventh birthday ¯ two years after the death of Fielle ¯ Drodanis had led him outside, across the enclosed yard to the small, windowless weapons storehouse in a corner by the double wall. The sky was gray, and Vailret could hear wind whipping in the trees of the hill, but the tall walls of the Stronghold sheltered them. Bryl waited for them at the storehouse door, looking bored.

"Has he agreed?" Bryl asked. "Do you think he's prepared enough?"

Drodanis shrugged and looked at young Vailret, who felt a touch of fear at the back of his curiosity. "I haven't even told him what we're going to do."

Without looking at Vailret, Drodanis opened the door of the weapons storehouse and stepped inside. Bryl looked at the boy, keeping a grave expression on his face.

Just inside the storehouse, Bryl snapped his fingers to light a single candle. Vailret looked around in the dim orange light. The dark interior of the storehouse seemed to be a haven for shadows and hidden fears. Spears, swords, arrows, and bows ¯ mostly ancient Sorcerer artifacts sold by the Scavengers ¯ lay stockpiled against the walls. Bryl's face wore a nasty grimace as he gestured the boy inside, then closed the door behind them.

Vailret held his head up, trying to keep his composure. He knew Drodanis wouldn't hurt him.

"This is a role-playing game, Vailret. It is to be a test of your imagination," Drodanis said. "And also to see how quickly you can think, how adequate your solutions are, how well you react under pressure."

Bryl blew the candle out. Darkness swallowed all of them. The man's low voice resonated in the shadows.

"You are imprisoned in a Slac fortress. You have watched as the Slac cut your companions to pieces, one by one, for amusement ¯ you heard the screams from your friends, the laughter from the Slac. You are the only one still alive. Two guards come and drag you out of your dank little cell. What do you do?"

Vailret didn't answer for a moment. "I don't understand. What am I supposed to do?"

"Pretend you're in the situation I just described. What would you do?

The guards are taking you. Are you going to struggle, or come along peacefully?" "I'll struggle!" Vailret said. "And then what?" "And then run."

"Where? Back to your cell, or blindly through the tunnels?"

"Pick a number from one to ten," Bryl said.

"What?"

"Pick a number. If you guess the right one, I'll let you break free. If you guess wrong, the Slac keep their grip on you. It's like rolling dice."

"Three."

"Wrong." Drodanis picked up the story again. "A guard raps you on the side of the head, causing one damage point and knocking you nearly senseless.

They laugh. You are being taken to an arena where you will be thrown in with the Akkar, an invisible spine-covered creature that feeds on Slac victims.

They want to watch your death convulsions. Any questions?"

Vailret paused only a second. He had begun to feel the game now. He closed his eyes and imagined, seeing himself in the Slac tunnels. "Will I have any weapons to fight with?"

"You are given a small club. That's all."

"Do I have the club now?"

"No. When they get to the arena entrance ¯ and you are almost there now ¯ they will throw it into the arena and force you out there."

"How are the Slac guards armed?"

Drodanis paused. Bryl answered, "With spears."

"You see the end of the tunnel ahead. It opens into a wide area covered with sand and gravel. All around the pit are jeering Slac, out of reach of the invisible Akkar. One Slac guard tosses your club out into the pit."

"I'm going to grab for that guard's spear and dash out into the arena with it. Then I'll have more than just a club," Vailret broke in.

Bryl and Drodanis looked at each other. "All right, pick a number between one and fifteen," Bryl said.

"He has the advantage, Bryl ¯ he's surprising them," Drodanis said.

"All right, a number between one and twelve, then."

"Eight."

"Got it!" Bryl said, surprised.

Unseen in the blackness, Drodanis chuckled. "The Slac shout in anger, but they're not about to follow you to get the spear back. You have the spear in your hand. The club is about ten feet in front of you, lying on the bloodstained sand. Behind you the Slac slam shut a heavy door, trapping you in the arena. You can hear a grunting noise, like something running. The sand and gravel is covered with broken bones, but you can see large foot prints appearing as the Akkar charges toward you."

"I'm going to run and get the club. I'll pick it up off the ground and hold it in my hand, waiting to throw it as hard as I can at the front of the creature when it gets close to me." Vailret felt breathless, as if his life was really at stake.

"You get the club and you throw it. Pick a number between one and three."

"Two. There is only one number between one and three."

"Hah! Caught me. All right, then. You hit the beast with a loud thump, probably in its head. You can't see if it did any damage, but you have halted the creature's charge. For the moment."

"Now I'm going to try to stick it with my spear. Is it making any noises so I can find it easier?"

"Yes, you hear a snorting, breathing noise."

"I'm jabbing with my spear."

"Pick a number between one and seven."

"Five."

"Missed." "I'm jabbing again! And again, until I hit something."

"You hit it. I'm thinking of four different sections of the creature's body. Pick numbers one, two, three, or four and I'll tell you where you hit."

Vailret paused in the darkness, concentrating. "One."

"You skewered the monster's throat! Several points of damage. Blood is gushing out ¯ you can locate the Akkar easily now. But it is angry and charging."

"I'll dodge, now that I know where it is. Can I try to get my club again?"

"You can't get to the club," Bryl said flatly.

"You said there were lots of bones lying around. I'm going to run and pick up the first big one I find and throw it at the Akkar."

"All right. After you've done so, you see another blotch of blood appear in front of the spear wound ¯ one more point of damage. This time you hit the monster in the head."

Vailret paused again, considering his next course of action. "Is there one Slac around the pit who looks like a leader, like an overlord?"

Drodanis paused, but he did not ask what Vailret was considering. "Yes, one seems to be dressed more magnificently than the rest. He has a portion of the arena circle to himself."

"I'm going to steer the Akkar to get near the Slac warlord. I'll pick up another bone and throw it if I have to."

"You throw another skull. It misses, but the Akkar is getting cautious.

It is still bleeding heavily from its neck wound."

"I'm up against the wall of the pit below the Slac warlord."

"The beast sees you cornered and charges."

"I'll plant my spear in the sand, bracing the haft and myself against the pit wall, sticking the point directly in front of me so the monster will charge into it."

"Good," Drodanis laughed. "Pick a number between one and five."

Vailret paused a long time, sweating. Two? Four? One? "Five!"

Drodanis laughed again. "The Akkar has impaled itself on your spear!"

In the darkness, Bryl's voice became serious. "Pick another number.

Between one and ten."

Vailret picked five again.

"You have been gored by one of the many invisible spines on the Akkar in its death throes. Your side is laid open and you are bleeding badly."

Vailret let out a quiet cry. "Is it bad?"

"Very bad. If it isn't taken care of, you will soon bleed to death."

"The Slac will never take care of it, will they? I'm going to pull the spear free from the Akkar's body. Can I do that?"

"Yes."

"Remember I'm just below the Slac overlord in the pit. And he's alone in his own part of the circle, you said. I'm going to throw my spear directly at him to kill him!"

Drodanis apparently found this exciting and let him succeed. "The spear strikes him squarely in the chest! You know it is a mortal wound. The other Slac start shouting and screaming. They begin firing arrows at you."

"I'm going to take shelter behind the carcass of the Akkar!"

"It helps some, but not enough. You are hit by three arrows. A fourth," Drodanis said. "You are dead."

Vailret felt a cold lump form in his stomach.

Bryl lit the candle again, dazzling the three of them. Vailret felt confused but exhilarated. After a long silence, he finally asked the question that had been bothering him. "What should I have done to win?"

Drodanis looked at the boy, hiding a gleam of pride in his eyes; but Vailret saw it there. "Nothing. We left you no way out."

Vailret frowned, baffled. "Then why did I have to play the game? What did it teach me?"

Drodanis grinned. "It taught you never to let yourself get captured by Slac."

The three men traveled northward across hex after hex. The fifth day of walking took them over a ridge forming the southern rim of a bowl-shaped plain. They could see mountains on the near horizon. Vailret stopped to stare out across the grassland, but Delrael and Bryl plodded ahead. He hurried to catch up.

Overhead, the sky was clear. They saw no birds, no wildlife. The silence in the air started to bother Vailret as they marched out onto the lake of dry grass. The dead blades whispered against each other as if confiding secrets, but he could detect no breeze. Bryl stopped and spread his arms out in amazement. "Something happened here. I can still feel it."

Vailret scanned the valley, the mountains to the north, the high grassy hills to the south. He sniffed the air, but smelled only grass and dust. A memory skittered around the back of his mind. Then it came to him, but the hissing sound of the wind in the grass covered his gasp of surprise.

"This is where the Transition took place!" He turned around, eyes wide and mouth open in wonder.

Delrael stopped, baffled. Bryl knelt down and touched his fingers to the ground, then looked up in childish delight. Vailret wondered what the half-Sorcerer could sense, what emanations the spectacular Transition had left behind, an echo that only a magic user could hear.

The valley did look large enough to hold the entire Sorcerer race.

Vailret pictured in his mind all the surviving Sorcerers marching there to pool their magic, to transform themselves collectively into ... something else.

The silence buzzed around them, as if the valley itself was still stunned. Many of the Sorcerers would have been afraid, some of them eager. But they had summoned up all their magic, pooled it ¯ it was something even the Rules did not know how to handle. The Sorcerer race had transformed themselves into six Spirits ¯ three Earthspirits and three Deathspirits ¯ leaving their bodies behind, fallen like scattered wheat.

Only pure-blooded Sorcerers could join in the Transition. A few Sentinels had remained behind because of human or half-breed loved ones. The Sentinels had carried the fallen, dormant bodies into the mountains. They had erected the Ice Palace as a monument to their race.

Vailret shielded his eyes, trying to squint and focus on the high range standing ahead of them. "The Ice Palace must not be far from here."

Vailret thought he heard voices riding on the cool wind, Sorcerer ghosts trapped in the air and trying to get back into their empty bodies. He felt uneasy. The history fascinated him, but from a distance. He didn't like this place. Delrael and Bryl seemed uneasy as well. All three of them pushed forward at a faster pace to the mountains.

Sheer peaks stared down at them. At the black line separating the valley floor from the first hexagon of rugged mountain terrain, two statue sentries towered, thirty feel tall, carved from ice. Vailret stared at the monolithic sculptures ¯ gaunt soldiers in full armor, with the insignia of the old Sorcerer race chiseled into their uniforms. They carried glistening icicle spears as weapons.

The silence pounded down on the travelers. The ice sentries stood in front of them, oozing cold, somehow casting crossed shadows on the road.

Slowly, the three men passed between the statues. Vailret looked to his companions. Delrael appeared calm, but Vailret could see tension in the way he walked. Bryl acted as if he were stepping on a giant mousetrap. Vailret tried to ignore his own uneasiness.

As they stepped over the black hex-line, the chill around them grew distinctly worse. The wind itself carried an essence of absolute cold.

Vailret's skin became numb, the feeling in his nerves snuffed out like an extinguished match. Flecks of snow danced in the silent air. Bryl tightened his sky-blue cloak around his shoulders, but he made no complaint.

"Sardun could be doing this with the Water Stone," Vailret said, uneasy about suggesting the possibility. "It controls the weather, you know."

"But he's a Sentinel!" Bryl's words were muffled around his cloak.

"He's supposed to help people."

 

From behind came a loud clattering sound. They turned to see that the monolithic sentries had crossed their icicle spears on the return path. Then only the cold breeze broke the deathly hush.

Claws of wind slashed at the blankets, bleeding warmth away. The stars shone intensely bright in the sky as clear as black glass. The three travelers had stopped for the night, shivering under a sheltered rock overhang, but they found nothing to burn for a fire, nothing to keep them warm. Bryl wasted one of his day's spells to force a small magical fire, but that did little to warm them. Delrael roused them before dawn. "We should have come more prepared.

Come on ¯ we'll freeze if we don't keep moving."

Handfuls of snow had collected in the tiny pockets and notches on the rock faces. Lady Maire's Veil cast auroral light down on the landscape, enough to see by.

They plodded onward with sore feet and aching legs, but the cold had deadened most of their feeling. Vailret felt giddy and floating. Numbness roared in his ears. At dawn they reached the top of a boulder-strewn rise in the path. Delrael looked northward, then extended his arm. "It's there! See that glint?"

Vailret could not see anything clearly enough; the peaks in the distance blurred out of focus, but he trusted Delrael's eyesight. They pushed on at a faster pace, and within an hour even Vailret could discern the gleaming towers of the Ice Palace nestled in the rocks.

Then the sky smeared over with clouds, and sleet pelted down. Vailret's fingers were sluggish to respond when he tried to curl them inside a fold of his tunic.

Vailret squinted to see the Palace's structure made of clear blue ice.

But the gray sleet kept details hidden. He had seen a few sketches showing the main building, a pyramid flanked by two thin spires capped with onion domes.

The vast Palace was inhabited by only one old Sentinel and his young daughter. They tended the frozen underground crypt that held the husks of Sorcerers who had departed in the Transition centuries before. The other Sentinels and half-breeds had once made pilgrimages to the monument, but as the Game slowly ground to a halt, few made the effort anymore.

Few human characters would appreciate the monument and its treasures, but Vailret felt his own excitement growing. He could now speak with Sardun himself, have access to the original source material, even the Water Stone.

Vailret felt optimism creeping up on him again.

 

Tall cliffs closed in on either side, finally blocking off the sleet-wind. The Ice Palace loomed up in front of them, but it did not match Vailret's imagined picture at all. "Something's happened," Bryl exclaimed.

"Look at it!" Delrael craned his neck upward. Vailret stared, letting his mouth drop open.

The tall crystal spires were warped and drooping, with their decorative pinnacles melted away. A stumpy cascade of icicles ran like tears down the sides of the towers. Motionless frozen streams hung down the walls, stained black with a sooty residue. The structural blocks were now cloudy rather than transparent ice. The top of the main pyramid had been sheared off, blasted inward and leaving ragged, melted edges.

Vailret forced back a strong urge to cry. He felt angry and helpless.

"What did this?"

"And what if it's still here?" Bryl mumbled. His wrinkled skin made him look parched and afraid.

Delrael narrowed his eyes and looked for enemies hiding in the rocks.

He broke the astonished silence and nudged them toward the destroyed buildings. "Let's get out of this cold." He moved forward, ready with his hunting bow, though his fingers were probably too numb to use it.

The tunnel entrance to the main pyramid gaped like an abandoned trap.

The Palace had no gates, no defenses at all.

"The whole point was that anyone could come here, whenever they wished," Vailret said with a note of despair. "It was a memorial ¯ why would someone destroy it?"

Snow had piled up at the entrance. The ragged wind hooted through the hole. Everything inside lay desolate and untended, empty. Delrael led the way down an uneven, half-melted corridor, deeper into the main pyramid. The rough texture gave them footing on the ice walkway. The main tunnel spiraled around the outer wall of the pyramid, working its way toward the central chambers.

Their boots sounded like thunderclaps on the frozen floor.

Refracted light seeping through the prismatic walls made unnatural rainbows, rippling and bathing them in color. Vailret looked from side to side, feeling the loneliness and emptiness gnaw into him.

The sound of the wind soon vanished behind the thick blocks of ice, but the cold itself seemed to focus and deepen as they neared the heart of the Palace. Up ahead, lights danced on the frozen walls, ricocheting and sparkling like tiny meteors. The wind returned, louder, from a source within the central chamber.

Intrigued but uneasy, Vailret pressed close to his cousin as they moved forward. A vaulted arch rose over the corridor, and the three of them emerged into the main reception room.

The entire ceiling of the central pyramid had been blasted away, and frigid air swirled out of the wide hole. Great rivers of ice streamed to the floor like petrified waterfalls. Snow drifted down to settle in a bull's-eye pattern of ripples in the floor where the ice had been melted and refrozen.

A blocky white throne stood in the center of the room. Encased in tendrils of frost, an old man sat staring mindlessly at the blasted walls.

Sardun the Sentinel looked shriveled, mummified by cold. A long gray mustache hung against the wrinkled folds of his face. Vailret stopped and stared, afraid to make any sound. Delrael looked at him, questioning. Sardun blinked.

"He's even older than Bryl!" Delrael whispered.

"He's old enough to be my father," Bryl said, annoyed.

The old Sentinel had plunged his left arm up to the elbow in the translucent ice of the throne's armrest, embedding it. Through the murky ice, Vailret could see Sardun's gnarled hand grasping the sapphire Water Stone. The Stone was a cube with a number etched on each face, shaped like a six-sided die, more powerful than the four-sided Air Stone. Unnatural cold spewed from the gem, swirling up and out into the world. "Sardun!" Vailret called. His voice cracked.

The Sentinel swung his eyes back to focus around him. The wind breathed a ragged gasp and failed as the blue glow in the Water Stone died away.

"Haven't I been wounded enough?" Sardun's high pitched voice held a tone of condemnation, then he chuckled a little. Vailret noticed that the old Sentinel lisped. "What's left for you to destroy? There's no more damage you can do!"

Sardun heaved the Water Stone out of the frozen armrest of the throne, pulling it up through the solid ice. A few drops of water dripped off his hand and disappeared into the air. The cavity in the armrest filled again and solidified. Sardun glared at the three and leaned forward.

"Look out." Delrael edged back against the wall. "He's going to roll it." Unless Sardun rolled a "1", his spell would be successful and would grow in power depending on how high he rolled.

The Water Stone sapphire bounced twice on the ice floor. The number "4" came up.

A thin bolt of lightning shot from the Water Stone, striking at the three travelers. But the Sentinel's aim was skewed. The bolt pinged off the glistening walls several times before it dissipated.

Sardun did not pick up the Stone to roll again. His attack seemed halfhearted.

Vailret stood a moment in turmoil, knowing it might be safer to run away, but then he'd never know what had happened here. Nor could they ask for help to save Gamearth.

Confusion and indignation overcame Vailret's better judgment. He stepped into view and spoke quickly, hoping the Sentinel would hear his sincerity. "Wait! You're Sardun! You cherish the history of Gamearth as much as I do. Sentinels aren't supposed to destroy people!"

Sardun swung his gaze at Vailret and snatched up the Water Stone from the floor to roll it again. Vailret knew he had little chance of avoiding a direct strike. Lightning traced the gray veins under the skin of the Sentinel's hands.

Delrael shouted at him, but Vailret kept walking. He forced himself to be calm and brave, keeping his voice level. "We are friends, Sardun. You don't have to hurt us. I know about the old Sorcerers and the Transition. I know about the Sentinels and how you built this Palace as a monument to your race.

This was to be a place for pilgrimages, where all interested characters could come and see what had happened during the previous turns."

He gestured behind him, where Delrael and Bryl remained out of sight.

"One of my companions is a half-Sorcerer, son of the Sentinels Qonnar and Tristane. My other companion, Delrael, runs the Stronghold. See, Delrael wears a silver belt that is an ancient Sorcerer relic. He and I are both descendants of the great general Doril, who fought in the Scouring."

Sardun watched Vailret with narrowed, watery eyes. Still holding his hunting bow in front of him, Delrael stood where he could be seen from the Sentinel's throne. The wind whistled over the wide opening in the ceiling.

Bryl also peeked around the corner and held his palms out to the Sentinel. Gray-haired and frail-looking, Bryl posed no threat. "You can trust us."

Sardun sat for a moment, wavering on the edge of consciousness. His eyes seemed half-crazed with grief and desperation, but even that faded into listlessness. The Sentinel had surrendered. He said nothing.

Vailret undid the frozen straps on his pack and with drew a wadded second blanket. Feeling awe at approaching the legendary Sentinel, he delicately wrapped the blanket around Sardun's shoulders. He looked at the old man's fur-trimmed gray robe; snowflakes had been embroidered along the shoulders and down his sleeves.

The air in the main chamber had grown warmer. Outside, he could see the sun shining again as the Water Stone released its hold on the storm.

Delrael entered the chamber, looking from side to side with narrowed eyes. Vailret watched him inspect the corners and the openings of other passageways, as if expecting something monstrous to crawl out and attack. Bryl waited, fidgeting in uneasy confusion.

Vailret tucked the blanket around the Sentinel and discovered that his legs were frozen solid, like meat left too long out in the snow, as was his chest and his right arm. For a moment Vailret was appalled that Sardun had been left alone like this, with no one to care for him. Then the other thing that nagged at the back of his mind snapped into place. "Sardun, where is your daughter?"

The old Sentinel was like a fragile clay pot, shattered by Vailret's question. He fell backward, almost drowning in the ice of his throne.

"Tareah!" he said. "She's gone ... gone." Tears ran down Sardun's face, branching in the network of wrinkles in his skin. As Vailret watched, the tears froze, then evaporated and were gone.

Delrael paused in his inspection of the room and then squinted at a thick, soot-covered icicle that looked like a maggot in the ceiling's wound.

He wrinkled his nose, as if sniffing at a strange taint in the air. Delrael seemed lost in deep thought, then he stood with one word on his thin lips.

"Dragon."

Vailret looked up at his cousin's comment. His gaze drifted to the fangs of icicles running straight down toward the floor, at the hole that had been blasted through from the outside. "A dragon did this!" Delrael said.

Confused words spilled out of Sardun's mouth. "Yes, a dragon! Tryos, from the island of Rokanun, south of the city of Sitnalta, many hexes from here. He flew all the way ... to steal Tareah! Oh, my Tareah."

Vailret stared at him, then rubbed the old Sentinel's shoulder. "You can tell us what happened. We might be able to help."

Sardun shuddered. "I couldn't stop him! The Water Stone was no help -dragons are not affected by magic." He stared down into the flat faces of the sapphire Stone. He rolled it in his hand, looking at the number engraved on each face. "That is why they caused so much destruction in the old Sorcerer wars."

He swallowed and looked up to meet Vailret's gaze. "Tryos came, blasted his way in here ... and took her."

"But why would a dragon want to do that? Why Tareah?"

Sardun glared at him. "Because dragons collect treasure! Tryos is very old and he is bored with colorful baubles. Gold, gems, silver ¯ he already has enough of those. Now, he collects anything that others place value on, anything precious or beautiful. He has stolen works of art, sculptures from the height of the Sorcerer days, precious relics.

"And now my treasure, my Tareah! I tried to defend her ¯ I really tried. But I am weak. I have been here waiting one hundred and seventy years, tending this museum that no one ever comes to see ... do I not have an excuse to grow weak?" His lisp grew worse as he became more distraught.

The Sentinel stared at the wall in his silent horror. His lips trembled, but he said nothing else. The three stood numb for several moments before Bryl finally spoke up. "But why would Tryos take your daughter?"

"Idiot! She is everything!" Sardun turned his head sharply, but the gesture was odd and jerky because of his frozen lower body. "She is our future! Tareah is the last full-blooded Sorcerer woman. One day she may be strong enough to awaken all the sleeping Sorcerers in the vault below the Palace. Our race will rise again. She will shepherd them back to us, to make things the way they were. And now Tryos has taken her."

He hung his head, trapped and paralyzed on his throne. "Oh, why couldn't I have more strength? I used more magic than the Rules would allow. I sacrificed most of my body." He swiveled his head to indicate his frozen arm, his lifeless legs. "All for nothing."

"We might be able to rescue her," Vailret said softly. He looked at Delrael. His cousin shrugged and nodded slowly. "If you will help us in turn, Sardun."

The Sentinel looked at him, then turned his gaze to Bryl and Delrael, unimpressed. "Where were you when Tryos attacked? Who stood by my side to fight him? To protect Tareah? How dare you ask me for help!" Sardun's hand clenched the Water Stone again, ready to roll it and cast another spell.

"Because we have no choice, Sardun," Vailret said. He laid a hand on the old Sentinel's rigid shoulder. "The Rulewoman Melanie sent us a message -the Outsiders are trying to destroy Gamearth. They have placed a growing enemy in the east. They will play out turn after turn, putting their own plots into motion. We have to do something to stop them. You are the most powerful Sentinel left alive. We hoped you would have a solution."

"I am not powerful enough. Tareah is gone. I don't want to save anything except my daughter." A winter storm glimmered behind his eyes again.

"That's why I brought the cold. Why should I be the only one to suffer?"

"You can send us on a quest to rescue your daughter. You know that we would be bound by the Rules to complete the quest. But we first need your help to complete our mission."

Sardun cocked his head at Vailret, helpless and pathetic. "And what would I have to do? How do you plan to stop this outside enemy?"

Vailret smiled and consciously did not look at Delrael and Bryl as he described his idea.

"If our enemy is growing in the east, maybe we can cut it off from at least part of Gamearth. You have the use of the Water Stone, Sardun, and the Ice Palace is near the Northern Sea and the far edge of the map. If you could channel a river from the Northern Sea down to the southern edge of the map, that river could act as a barrier. It would cut off and protect at least half of Gamearth. Make the river so wide that whatever armies or monsters the Outsiders send against us are unable to reach the western side. We'll be safe."

 

Delrael crossed his arms over his damp leather armor, smiling at Vailret.

Byrl scowled, looking terrified at the thought of embarking on an even longer quest. "Think of the damage such a river would cause on its way to the sea. There'd be no way of stopping it."

The aspect of destruction seemed to intrigue Sardun. The expression in his eyes went far away and he muttered to himself, lisping. "The Northern Sea would come rushing down to the ocean like a battering ram. A wall of water from the frozen seas, crashing through the canyons and mountains and grassland, pounding its way to the ocean. Think of the power, think of the destruction! A Barrier River ¯ a whole hex wide!"

"No other Sentinel has ever left so great a mark on Gamearth," Vailret whispered to him, afraid he might sound too manipulative. "Tareah would be so proud of her father!"

Sardun's lips moved, and then he answered louder. "Yesss."

 

* 4 *

The Barrier River

 

"RULE #2: The system of quests and adventures is all-important to the Game. Once a group of characters undertakes a quest, they must see it through to completion. Incidental adventures are likely to occur along the way, but the ultimate goal of the quest should always remain foremost in a character's mind."

The balcony of the Ice Palace's tallest tower drooped at a deadly slant, scarred with soot and the marks of dragon claws. A waterfall of icicles poured from the balcony's edge.

Sardun was alone out in the open air, rooted to the ice and clutching the Water Stone with his one functioning hand. The northern breeze whipped around the tower, but he used the sapphire's power to surround himself with a pocket of calm, weaving the winds away from his body.

The Sentinel stared across the geometric landscape of Gamearth. The sight of the sprawling hexagons of terrain always filled him with awe. And now that Tareah was gone from him, he just wanted to stare and stare until he faded away into nothingness.

"Sardun, are you sure you'll be all right?" Vailret called from the balcony doorway. He refused to step out on the slanting ice after he and Delrael had carried the old Sentinel to the top of the tower.

Sardun did not turn to answer him. "I will do what you ask. And you are bound by the Rules to keep your bargain, to go on a quest to find and rescue Tareah."

"We'll do it, Sardun," Delrael said.

Sardun doubted they would succeed. In fact, since they were required to continue the quest, no matter how hopeless it seemed, he felt almost certain he was sending Vailret and his companions to their deaths.

But if there was a chance, if Tareah might be rescued, Sardun had to take the gamble. Too much of Gamearth's future rested within Tareah. She was the last full-blooded female Sorcerer. And she was his daughter.

Tareah.

 

"Leave me. I have never controlled this much power before. I would not want you standing in the backlash." He turned and fixed his eyes on Vailret.

"Go ¯ begin the preparations for your journey to Rokanun."

He turned back to the scene below, not waiting to see if they departed.

To the south, he saw the valley where the Transition had taken place.

As a small boy Sardun had been there himself, two centuries before. He had offered his ineffectual help as the adults carried thousands of motionless, bereft Sorcerer bodies ¯ people he had known ¯ up into these mountains in a solemn and seemingly endless procession. They had placed the dormant bodies in a frozen underground tomb in the mountains and protected them.

Years later, when Sardun had full training in the use of his own powers from the elder Sentinels, he had erected the Ice Palace over the tomb as a monument to his race. He made himself the custodian of all their relics so that all of Gamearth would remember the old Sorcerers.

He stood in the cold wind, sensing the crypt deep below, untouched even by the dragon's attack. The husks of the Sorcerers slept, empty and unchanged over the centuries ¯ while the six powerful Spirits that had arisen from their metamorphosis had vanished from the world, ignoring Gamearth and its problems. Why hadn't they come to help when Tryos attacked?

He tore his eyes from the landscape and looked down at the sapphire cube in his hand. Within the Water Stone resided magic from the ancient Sorcerer race, magic that ¯ unknown to the Outsiders ¯ was not necessarily bound by the Rules of the Game.

Sardun rolled the Water Stone and came up with only a "2", but he didn't need a very high roll to forge a frozen pedestal from the balcony floor. Chips of ice swirled up from the rippled surface, glittering like rainbow fireflies, and wrapped his dead lower body in a cocoon that held him firmly erect on the sloping surface.

"Sardun ¯ thank you." It was Vailret's voice, coming from the tower's doorway.

Sardun continued to stare at the smooth face of the sapphire, clearing his mind for the ordeal, but his chapped lips formed a slight smile.

At first, the other Sentinels had made pilgrimages northward to the Ice Palace, to see their fallen friends, to reminisce about the Golden Age of the Game. They brought with them their own relics, their own memories, and Sardun had collected all of the items.

But as the Sentinels died, so had Gamearth's interest in its past.

During the rampant bloodshed and racial hatred of the Scouring of Gamearth, half-breeds and humans concerned themselves only with their own survival, with fighting and gaming and uncovering treasure. Some characters grew bitter toward the Sorcerer race, who had deserted them in their time of need. The remaining Sentinels vanished one by one as they used magic to end their lives.

The Sentinel Kahleb had been the first to annihilate himself in a burst of Sorcerous glory. Kahleb had remained behind on Gamearth to be with his new human wife ¯ but only a year after the Transition, she had died trying to give birth to a stillborn child. In his anguish, feeling desperately alone and unable to make the Transition without the rest of his race, Kahleb unlocked the depths of his own magic to destroy himself and his wife's body in a spectacular funeral pyre.

But this release was more than simple destruction: Kahleb had discovered a partial Transition that liberated his own spirit, raising it up to where it could have a life of its own. Over the years, Sardun had watched as other Sentinels imitated this half-Transition, giving up hope and freeing themselves as they grew weary of life.

Tareah's mother, an old Sentinel woman named Tiarda, came to the Ice Palace one winter to gaze at the tomb of the Sorcerers a final time. She had been beautiful once, but now looked worn and strained. She refused to play games with Sardun, not dice, not even hexagon chess. Sardun never asked why she had forsaken the original Transition, but he devised a desperate plan as she mourned over the dormant bodies in the crypt. Sardun had often gone with her, looking for one body she mourned in particular, but she never pointed out any one.

Sardun was at the peak of his strength, and lonely. Tiarda had no positive emotion left in her. Sardun sifted through Tiarda's despair and apathy. He asked her to wait. The two of them might make a new hope for the Sorcerers. She reacted passively to Sardun's romantic advances ¯ she didn't seem to care one way or another. This hurt him, but he could not let something so important slip away.

Tiarda was old, older even than Sardun, but she conceived a child, and Tareah was born. Sardun had hoped this would restore Tiarda, change her mind, but she refused to wait any longer. Sardun held the baby daughter in his arms as her mother called up the magic, unleashing her spirit in a blinding flash.

She seemed to grow younger at the last instant: the gray in her hair ignited and filled with molten gold. Her face held an achingly beatific expression until the light broke through and blurred her features into a brilliant glow that faded into the air, leaving only Sardun and his baby Tareah.

He had not loved Tiarda, but the loss of yet another Sentinel struck him. Only the need to care for his daughter renewed his interest in life. He devoted himself to teaching Tareah her heritage, and her mission. Year after year he showed her the relics in the crypt, told her of the Rules and the Outsiders, taught her the historical accomplishments of the Sorcerer race.

Sardun waited, and hoped, and built his entire world around his daughter.

Then Tryos had stolen her.

Sardun swallowed a mouthful of stale saliva and began to chart the course for the great Barrier River. Bleak, towering mountains surrounded the Ice Palace. He looked to the southeast, toward Rokanun where his daughter had been taken. He seemed to feel her calling him, mourning for him and losing hope that she would ever be free. The gray crags extended, hex upon hex, as far as the eye could see.

The wind stroked his face, and he looked beyond the hexes of mountain terrain to the north, seeing the silvery reflection of the vast frozen sea.

The morning sky had been filled with clouds, but he'd sent them away with the Water Stone's magic. Now sunlight glinted off the snow flecked peaks.

The Barrier River would flow between the mountains, skirt the Ice Palace along its two western hex-lines, then burst into the Transition Valley, perhaps making a lake there. The river would wind through the grassy hills at the lower edge of the valley and plunge southward across the grasslands and swamps, restructuring the landscape, ripping a course through the forests and hills until it finally reached the vast ocean near the edge of the map. Sardun hoped no villages lay in its path.

As he stood out in the cold, very old and very alone, Sardun realized that he was not strong anymore ¯ he had wept too much and had not eaten enough. But this was to rescue Tareah. And he knew where to find the power he required. He did not know what the consequences would be for summoning the sleeping magic, for bending the Rules, but he had passed the point of caring.

When the other Sentinels destroyed themselves in the half-Transition, one by one, they had liberated their spirits to roam Gamearth. Some of these spirits, which were apparently aware of themselves in a murky way, had sought out other Sentinel revenants. Over the years, the congregations of spirits had settled in places still prominent in their fuzzy Sorcerer memories, blending and seeping into the fabric of Gamearth, becoming a wellspring of Sorcerer power called a dayid. The Ice Palace itself harbored one of the largest dayids, the spirits of those Sentinels who most regretted their decision to remain behind from the Transition.

Sardun looked down. The ice pedestal sheathing his lower body made him look like a crystal tree trunk with one arm and a head. He stretched out his arm and touched the Water Stone to the ice wall of the tower. The dayid contained the spirits of many Sorcerers; and the Sorcerers had created the four Stones. He would find the dayid below and tap into it.

His thoughts narrowed to a single focus and shot through the sapphire, plunging to the core of the Palace, to the tomb of the Sorcerers. Sardun's mind was pulled by a force stronger than gravity as his thoughts dodged the latticework of ice crystals.

Unconsciously, he let his arm fall, breaking contact with the wall as though the Water Stone had grown suddenly heavy ¯ but his consciousness continued to descend. He dropped the Stone on the slanted balcony. It rolled twice and then stopped with the number "6" facing up, the highest he could roll.

Sardun plunged deep into a hot lake of mental fire, encountering the whispered, dazed voices of Sentinels he had known. Even Tiarda was there, if Sardun chose to seek her out.

In an instant he communicated his need and then shot upward again, swelled with the power of the dayid. He released his power, channeling it through the Water Stone and launching it toward the Northern Sea.

Sardun felt the Ice Palace rock under him. The Water Stone itself looked like a blue sun burning into the balcony's floor.

He pointed his strawlike fingers and traced a winding course for the newborn Barrier River. In his mind he saw the enormous map of Gamearth on the wall in the lower vault, and he formed a line of terrain hexagons, turning each one blue as the river made its way southward to the edge of the map.

Still the power continued to pour into him from the dayid.

A mountain stood partly in the way, but it crumbled to one side; blocks of ice around the sea rim catapulted through the new canyon. Water spewed into its new path, frothing and spraying.

A great wall of water churned past the Ice Palace. It spiraled between the mountains and engulfed the Transition Valley. The Barrier River chewed its way through the grassy-hill terrain, then stampeded southward, seeking a route to the edge of the world and destroying everything in its path. The river would cut off the western half of Gamearth from the unknown danger in the east. No army could cross the wide, raging river ¯ but that also doomed all the people, all the villages on the wrong side of the river.

Sardun saw the mighty passage of water as insignificant when compared to the dayid's power, a power he fought to contain. With his heightened perceptions, he looked deep into the ice to see the hidden structural flaws, the damage the dragon Tryos had done to the Palace.

More power poured into him. He could not stop it from coming and had to release it somehow before it burst from him. Sardun turned the magic to reconstructing the Ice Palace. As swiftly as he could imagine the restorations, the improvements, the great Palace stood whole and undamaged, dazzling in the sunlight. The floor beneath him bucked and swayed as the balcony regenerated itself. The bent spire straightened.

Sardun then turned his energy inward, recharting his own veins and nerves and muscles, restoring the dead flesh he had sacrificed in his unsuccessful battle to save Tareah.

And after he had finished, the explosive power still would not release him, growing stronger as the dayid itself surged to new awareness after decades of dormancy.

Temptation grew in him, ravenous, demanding that he set himself free after two centuries of waiting. The dayid begged him to set his body ablaze, to annihilate himself in the half-Transition. The voices of the other lost spirits called to him, beseeching. Join us!

But he refused. Not now that he had hope for Tareah.

The Water Stone made the dayid's link more potent, more difficult to deny. Blue flames licked around the fringes of his body; his newly regenerated cells began to nova as the process of partial Transition began to take hold.

The Water Stone added its power, and the reaction grew stronger and stronger.

Sardun fought to break free, but the energy fed upon itself, growing.

Screaming inside, Sardun leaped downward again, dragging his consciousness back to the dayid in the crypt. Using all his ability as a living Sorcerer, he severed the link, thrusting the dayid's power back at it, and then fled to hide inside his own body.

He collapsed like a rotten fruit on the high balcony. The cocoon of ice holding him up had evaporated, leaving his pink, newly healed legs exposed to the wind. The smoking Water Stone had melted itself halfway into the new ice floor.

In the sudden silence, the grinding roar of the newborn Barrier River rose into the air....

These relics are free for all to see.

My only fee is that you REMEMBER.

Vailret read the placard above the tunnel leading down to the crypt of the ancient Sorcerers. Bryl waited partway down the sloping tunnel eager, but hesitant to go farther alone.

Sardun lay like a dead man on the throne room floor, wrapped in several blankets. Vailret had hovered over him for hours, looking for any sign of improvement. Delrael had agreed to watch over the Sentinel while Vailret and Bryl explored the underground vault.

"Are you coming, Vailret? Tell me now so I don't waste any more time waiting," Bryl called from the tunnel, sounding anxious.

"Don't be afraid, Bryl. They're not rotting dead bodies. They're just ... empty."

"I know that ¯ don't patronize me!"