"Harek. Harek." It was Thea, dragging on my arm. The others were all heading inside the burning stable, which appeared close to collapse itself. It couldn't hurt us. Even if we seemed to catch fire, the effect would go away when the spell faded.
Which suddenly made me wonder. "Cornelius," I called, running to catch up. "How long does this spell last?"
He shrugged.
Wonderful.
These townspeople were going to be awfully mad when they realized what we'd done.
The horses, unfortunately, were just as fooled as everybody else. They whinnied and reared in terror as tongues of flame flickered across the straw and up the supporting timbers. Even Phoenix, the drooping, swaybacked mare we'd almost bought, kicked at her stall, which was more energy than I'd have thought she had.
Each of us picked one of the ten other horses. Enough tack for all of them was hanging on the walls, but since I was the last one in, I had to take the saddle that appeared to be on fire.
"Steady, steady," I murmured to my chestnut-colored horse as he tried to circle in the narrow stall. I knew what to do, but it wasn't easy. Fastening the bridle first, I looped the reins around one of the timbers to hold him fast. He couldn't turn his head, but I could see his white-rimmed eyes trying to catch glimpses of me from the sides. "Steady." If those hooves came down on me, or if he bit me, the computer stimulating my brain would cause me to feel pain.
I checked to see how the others were doing. Better than me, but not by much. The only exception was Nocona. Being Indian, he didn't have to bother with a saddle, and he seemed to have a natural way with the horses. Not only had he gotten his horse bridled already, but now he was preparing Phoenix so we could use her for carrying packs. Even as I watched, he wrapped the lead rope around her stall's gate and looked us over to see who he should help.
Me, me, I thought, but I wasn't going to ask, and he went to my mom.
"You all right?" I heard him ask.
"Just getting a headache from all this smoke," Mom answered.
I jerked my hand back in time to avoid my horse's teeth. "Stupid horse," I muttered. "Can't you feel it's not burning you?" In fact, the flames seemed to be fading, not quite so intense as before. "Spell's going," I warned the others.
But instead of being thankful for the information, Robin said, "Come on, Harek. How come you're always last?"
I gave the cinch belt one final tug, then looked up. Glaring. Daring Marian to pipe in with agreement. She didn't.
Mom did. "Ready, Ar—Harek?"
I backed the horse out of the stall and swung up onto him. Conditioning was with me: the action felt natural and easy. I dug my heels into the chestnut horse's sides, and he was so high-strung we practically flew out of the stable, despite the semblance of fire by the door.
The others were right behind me.
Outside, Cornelius's dragon still swooped and incinerated. None of the townsfolk seemed to have noticed yet that there was a patch on the creature's tail where you could see through to the sky beyond.
Our horses' hooves thudded against the packed dirt of the street as we headed west. Away from the fire. Out of the town. Toward Sannatia.
5. FOREST
As soon as we passed the last buildings of the town, we were surrounded by tall trees. They pressed thick against each other, overhanging the narrow path on which we rode. Roots and creepers snaked across the way, forcing us to slow the horses' pace. In places, two or three of us could ride abreast. Mostly we went single file.
We rode in silence, each of us glancing back frequently to see if we were being pursued and scanning forward for any new danger. We could hear all sorts of small skitterings, and once a dark shape hurtled itself into the underbrush as we rounded a curve, but so far the biggest danger seemed to be the path itself, and the likelihood that one of the horses would trip and injure itself or its rider.
After a while the final traces of Cornelius's imitation fire disappeared from my horse's saddle. The dragon and the fires it had set in the town must have disintegrated by now also. There were going to be an awful lot of people mad at us. But, so far at least, nobody was following.
After it seemed as though we'd ridden for our full five days' allotment, at a point where the path ran alongside a wide stream, Robin said to Feordin, "Tell us about the land. What do you know of it?"
Feordin shrugged. "Nothing. I've never been west of the town."
Terrific. And here I'd thought he was our guide.
"Didn't you come this way with the dead guardsman's body?" Thea asked. "Where did you find it?"
"I didn't find it at all." Feordin was beginning to sound pricklish. "One of our people did, a forester, and he brought it to another forester stationed closer to the town, who brought it to me at Forester Headquarters. Apparently the first man found the body where the forest meets the desert."
Nocona pointed to the ground ahead of us. "You can see where the body was dragged along here, no more than six, seven hours ago."
Well, maybe he could.
From up ahead came a scream, loud and terrified, as if someone alarmingly close was getting murdered.
In the stunned moment while the rest of us sat there giving each other dumb ooh-what-do-you-think-that-was? looks, Thea Greenleaf reacted. She dug her heels into her horse's flanks and forced him into the underbrush, following the stream where it curved into the forest away from the path.
I tore off after her even before the others. Sure, I was eager to get personally involved in this adventure that everybody else seemed to be running for me, but mostly it was the computer-ingrained rivalry: I couldn't let a Greenmeadow elf show me up.
I leaned forward to avoid the whipping branches, flattening myself against n^y mount. My horse's hooves thudded loudly, echoed by the others who'd taken up the chase. Ahead the trees thinned. There was another scream, closer this time. Whatever was happening, it was happening in that clearing.
Thea broke through the trees several seconds before I did. In the time it took me to catch up, I saw her swing her bow around and pull an arrow from her quiver.
I reined in beside her. We were on a gently inclined bank. The stream widened here, from something you could almost jump across, to a wide pool with this big rock in the middle of it. A lot of splashing was going on near the rock, but for a second that was all I could tell.
"Something's got her!" Thea cried. She had her arrow readied, but whatever she'd seen was no longer visible.
Then somebody's head broke through the surface of the water. Judging by the long hair it was a woman, but the distance was so great and everything happened so quickly, I couldn't be sure. She disappeared back under the water, fast enough to make me agree with Thea that she had been pulled under. I could see one of the woman's hands, still scrabbling for a hold on the rock, but then this thing that looked like a vine snaked out of the water and started prying at her fingers.
Thea shot her arrow, which was a risk considering all the thrashing that was going on. Her aim was good, though: the end of the vine split off, and for a second the woman almost heaved herself up out of the water. But her body was covered with more of those vines, writhing and twisting and obviously intent on pulling her back in. She got out one more scream, which was cut off with a gurgling sound as she went under.
I could hear the clatter of the hooves of our companions' horses on the stony bank even as I urged my horse down and into the water. There was no way we could save that woman in time by shooting off the vines one by one.
My horse balked, and I could understand why: the water was frigid and scummy and stank of rotting vegetation. I forced him forward, my sword ready. The water churned, but the woman didn't resurface.
Though the water was no higher than the horse's knees, he'd go no farther. I jumped into the frigid pond, close enough to see the woman's face under the water, a tendril around her neck.
The water was up to my chest as I hacked at the vines—and they were vines, despite the fact that they seemed
to have a will of their own. When I cut them, they were pulpy and they oozed what looked like that white glop in milkweed. The water was so roiled from our struggles—me, the horse, the woman, the vines—I couldn't even tell if there were a bunch of separate plants or whether all the vines were attached to some central stalk. But they were all around the woman and she was flailing about. I had to be careful not to strike her. Under the water, her face and her fair hair had a greenish tinge.
I could hear my friends calling out encouragement, and there was splashing as some of them waded into the stream. Grabbing hold of the shoulder of the woman's dress, I started to drag her up out of the water.
Her hair and face, which had looked green under the water, were still green. And the vines ... I couldn't tear my gaze from the vines. They were growing from her body. She smiled, showing what seemed to be hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth, stained pink as though she'd been eating ... as though she'd been eating...
Before I could bring myself to finish that thought, she kicked my legs out from under me. The water closed over my head, cutting off sound, isolating me.
I could hear the blood pumping through my arteries and the roar of the water pressing against my ears. Keeping my mouth and nose shut I tried to figure out which way was up. But the woman—the creature—was hanging onto me, dragging me down, holding me down.
I swung my sword with all my force, which, underwater, was nothing. A vine blocked me, then coiled itself around my wrist. The water pressed against my face, against my chest. At the pool at our school I'd never been able to make it all the way across underwater, and the water sang into my ears that I wasn't going to make it now, either. Stop struggling, the water whispered. I'll be gentle, it whispered.
The water was icy cold, and suddenly drowning didn't seem as bad as it was cracked up to be. Except somebody had hold of my hair—and that hurt—and whoever it was dragged me to my feet and held me upright. All I wanted was to sit down in peace, but by the way I was being jostled I could tell—even with my eyes closed and my ears still blocked with water—that whoever was holding me was also fighting the naiad or kelpie, or whatever the green monstrosity was that had lured me into the stream. It certainly didn't seem fair on my part to make my rescuer work at two things at once, so I concentrated on keeping my balance, opened my eyes, and said, "Mom?"
My mother was fighting the water creature with her bare hands—Mom, who calls me or Dad, then leaves the room if a spider needs squashing; who lets the Home-School Association walk all over her; who won't stand up for her rights with her co-workers. She was biting, scratching, kicking, punching.
And the creature was backing up, trying to get away.
I was aware of people behind us and Marian commanding: "Harek, Felice—duck!"
I ducked, Mom ducked, and Marian's sword swept through the air, taking the water creature's head off as neatly as a Weed-Eater decapitating a daisy.
It wasn't as yucky as it could have been, the creature being a plant and all. The head plopped into the water, then the body tipped over. The vine around my wrist slipped off. All the vines twitched for almost a half-minute more, as if they couldn't tell they were done for and were wondering what they should do next. Then the water got all white and cloudy and started to bubble.
Nocona pulled me in the direction of the shore, while Robin and Marian helped Mom, whose face had suddenly gone all white and scared now that the danger was gone.
Back on dry ground, we whooped and hugged and congratulated each other on a fine first adventure.
I turned to thank my mother. "You done good," I told her.
She stood there, dripping wet, looking at me, and the only sign that something was wrong was that her bottom lip quivered. Then she sank to her knees and began to cry.
6. GLITCH
Marian knelt down and put her arms around Mom. "It's OK," she said. "It's all over."
It should have been me comforting her—after all, she was my mother—but I had no idea what to do. So I did nothing. I just stood there, digging my toes into the gravel on the water's edge while the others moved in to fill the space where I should have been.
"Don't cry," Feordin told her in a gentle voice.
"Whatever that thing was," Abbot Simon said, "it's dead now. It can't hurt anybody."
Brynhild patted her on the shoulder. "The first killing is always the hardest. But even the Sisters of the Sword would be proud of how you fought."
Nocona just stooped down near her, offering his presence as comfort.
Between sobs, Mom kept saying, "I'm sorry." And, "I'm fine." But talking seemed to make her worse.
Robin kicked a stone into the water. "It's just a stupid game," he muttered, which was a surprise to hear from any of them.
Next to me, Abbot Simon jerked as though he'd been slapped. "Game?" he repeated. But he said it softly, tonelessly, as though all his energy was focused on not losing his temper, on not going for Robin's throat. Shelton takes the game very seriously, and the abbot's reaction convinced me he was Shelton. To be caught up short just when he was really getting into it was bad enough. No doubt he figured Robin's calling the game "just a stupid game" was in the same category as referring to chocolate as just another candy.
Nobody else seemed to have heard them, and meanwhile Cornelius had materialized a silk hankie, which he now offered to Mom.
She took it, all the while keeping her face averted as though that would hide anything.
Thea gave me a shove. "He's all right," she told Mom. "He didn't get hurt. Tell her you're all right, Arvin."
"I'm all right," I mumbled. They'd all tried to help. All. Considering that two of them were computer generated, that didn't say much for me. And Thea'd gone and called me by my real name. Not that there could be anyone left with any doubts by now.
"I feel so stupid," Mom said. "It's just this miserable headache makes it hard for me to think straight. I'm sorry. I'm all right now."
Behind me, Abbot Simon's rage at Robin had obviously not diminished. "Game?" I heard him say again.
Mom shoved the used hankie up her sleeve and tried to smile chipperly. You could have told it was a fake even if you didn't know her.
"She's had this headache since the stable, at least," Nocona said.
"No problem," Cornelius announced. "Clerics have all sorts of healing spells. Abbot Simon?"
"Game?" Abbot Simon said, just as expressionlessly as before.
I glanced from the abbot to Robin, then back to the abbot. He had given his head the same jerk as before, but suddenly it looked less like a shocked reaction than the way a parrot will cock its head to the side when it's learning a new word. So much for my grand deduction. Chills ran up and down my arms. It had nothing to do with being wet from the stream.
"Abbot Simon?" Cornelius repeated, just the barest beginning of sounding worried.
Abbot Simon pulled himself straight. Then jerked his head to the side. "Game?" he said yet again.
"What's the matter with him?" Feordin rested his hand on the haft of his mace, as though concerned the abbot's quirkiness might take a violent turn.
For a moment we all stood there, except for Mom and Marian and Nocona, who were kneeling on the ground, and looked at each other. Then Abbot Simon cocked his head and said, "Game?"
Cornelius rubbed his arms like he'd had a sudden chill too. "Looping," he said.
Brynhild, standing next to me, shivered.
"Loopy?" Mom asked.
"Looping. A defect in the program." Cornelius rubbed his chin. "See, a program is a series of instructions. The program tells the computer, 'If such-and-such happens, do this. If thus-and-so happens, do that.' And so forth. In a loop, the program keeps telling the computer to go back to the same step, on and on, over and over again."
Brynhild shuddered, just as Abbot Simon said, "Game?"
Feordin said, "Rasmussem wouldn't have loops in their programs."
"Sure they would," Cornelius snapped. Of course he was Shelton. Plain a
s anything—now. Shelton knew a challenge to his hacking ability when he heard one. "Something this complicated? There's no way their programmers could anticipate every single thing the players might say or do. Real people are too variable. Every once in a while they're bound to come up with something so unexpected it never even crossed the programmers' minds."
I heard Abbot Simon say "Game?" but I wasn't watching him to see if he'd given his head that ridiculous sideways tilt. Of course he had. He always would. I wasn't watching Cornelius either. I was watching Brynhild. A moment later she gave another shudder.
"The thing with Rasmussem," Cornelius went on—and I caught just the slightest shifting in his eyes, as though he'd been distracted—"the thing with Rasmussem is that they've got people monitoring. They see a loop, and they interrupt and patch around it before the players even know what happened."
"Uh-huh," I said. "Something unexpected? Like when somebody starts talking about the game like it is a game? Or when somebody starts talking about computers and programmers and loops during a medieval adventure?"
As if on cue, Abbot Simon said, "Game?" and Brynhild did her somebody's-just-walked-on-my-grave shiver. This time I was sure Cornelius noticed it. Everybody noticed it.
"Wonderful," Nocona said, standing and wiping his buckskinned knees.
"It's not important," Cornelius said. What else could he say? "We don't need them."
Nocona stepped close enough that Cornelius had to lean back. "Clerics are the ones with the healing spells." Nocona threw the wizard's own words back at him. "What are we going to do if we need to raise somebody from the dead?"
"Well"—Cornelius grinned at us—"we're just going to have to be careful not to die."
Nocona gave him a disgusted look and pushed past.
Cornelius's grin lingered a moment longer, then he said, "And I've got some good spells, too, you know." He faced my mother and raised his arms. "Sassafras Saskatchewan," he said—or anyway, that's what it sounded like. He lowered his arms and looked at Mom. "All better?"