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  "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 t
he 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.