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  Mad with pain, Tryos soared upward, circled blind, and thrashed about in the air. He made a reckless, unseeing dive and plunged deep into the throat of the volcano.

  The dragon, and Paenar, and the Siren were swallowed up by the lake of fire.

  Vailret dove for cover as a belching explosion within the volcano spewed a geyser of fire into the air. He stumbled, dizzy from the echoing onslaught of the Dragon Siren. Lava splattered around Vailret, but the scant shelter of a few large boulders protected him.

  The Siren stopped as soon as Tryos vanished beneath the flames. The rumble inside the volcano faded away. On the side of the cone, Vailret could see dull red patches of cooling lava. Parts of the distant forest terrain gave off an orange glow as fires burned themselves out.

  Vailret stared in silence over the lip of the crater, peering deep within the cone, searching. The molten light shone upward, scattering the shadows. But Vailret saw nothing of Paenar, nothing of the dragon, nothing at all.

  *15*

  Sardun's Daughter

  "RULE #18: Remember Rule #1 ¯ always have fun."

  The red-and-white balloon drifted off the beach, splashing the bottom of the basket against the choppy waves before it rose into the air like swollen dandelion seed. Water dripped from the gondola, running through the holes in the wicker. The balloon fought a tug of war with gravity, pulling its heavy load of passengers aloft. Delrael removed every one of the sandbags just to get them in the air.

  When the metal gas tank had emptied itself into the giant sack, they heaved the empty tank over the side into the sea. Delrael watched it fall. A bright white splash bloomed on the surface of the ocean.

  Delrael's face and hands still appeared raw and blistered from the dragon's attack. Vailret sat in uncharacteristic silence, looking back at Rokanun as it faded into the distance. The volcano, alone and empty now except for the dragon's abandoned treasure, stood above the rest of the terrain.

  Even without the bulky canister of gas, the gondola offered little room for them to move. Tareah hung close to Delrael. Bryl acted uneasy, as if afraid a careless movement by one of the passengers could knock him out of the basket. Vailret wanted to be left alone, but no one could find privacy while bumping elbows with three other people. They all knew it would be a long journey.

  Bryl and Tareah took turns with the Water Stone, not speaking much but keeping a brisk breeze pushing the balloon northward.

  They drifted past the zigzagged shoreline where the hexagons of ocean surrendered to forest or grassland terrain. The city of Sitnalta rose on their right, alone and isolated from the rest of Gamearth. Without Sitnalta, they would never have reached the island of Rokanun ¯ not Delrael and Bryl in the balloon, not Paenar and Vailret in the Nautilus. Without the Dragon Siren, they would never have been able to destroy Tryos.

  But Vailret could not understand the characters there, and that disturbed him. The Sitnaltans replaced magic with science, then made themselves as elite as the old Sorcerers had.

  When they could see the city buildings clearly and recognize the hexagon-cobbled streets, they waved and signaled that they were all right. The bright balloon in the sky would draw the attention of most of the optick tubes in the city, proving to Professor Verne that his balloon worked beyond the technological fringe. Verne must already know that his Nautilus had died.

  Vailret leaned over the basket, looking down. "I guess we're giving the balloon an even more extensive test than they wanted. Do we have any intention of giving it back to Professor Verne?"

  "I can't stop there again," Delrael said, looking into the distance as he rubbed his kennok limb. "I don't know what would happen."

  "With the balloon we can return to the Ice Palace much faster." Bryl reached out to touch Tareah's shoulder, but she shrugged him away. "That's most important right now."

  They traveled without slowing. The balloon sailed over uncounted hexes of forest, forested-hill, grassland, and grassy-hill terrain. Drifting on the winds, they were not bound by the same distance limitations the Rules imposed on those traveling on foot. They rose over the craggy barrier of the Spectre Mountains, looking down at where the derelict Outsider ship lay in ruins.

  Vailret wondered if the Sitnaltans would ever do anything with it.

  Air currents swirled over the mountains, but Tareah used the Water Stone to smooth the updrafts. She appeared tired, but hardened somehow within.

  Bryl curled up against the wall of the basket, snoring in exhausted sleep. He had used his minor replenishment spell several times to refill their packs with food and water.

  Night and day passed again and again, and still they did not rest or stop. Nothing could harm them so high in the air. The balloon's height fluctuated noticeably from day to night, rising and falling. Day after day, too, they could see the red-and-white sack beginning to sag as the invisible gas leaked out of the imperfect seals of the flaps. They drifted northward, but they also drifted downward.

  The travelers all felt stiff and cramped, confined in too small a space for too long, but they endured, thinking how much more uncomfortable it would have been to trudge across the map for weeks, sleeping on the ground and then crossing the rugged mountain terrain, vulnerable to whatever wandering monsters lay in wait.

  Delrael and Tareah talked together. He told her heroic stories of the quests he had undertaken, the adventures, searching in dungeons for treasure and monsters. Tareah, accustomed to stories of long-dead Sorcerers, was charmed to know someone who had personally done something worthy of retelling.

  Listening to Tareah's intelligent comments, Vailret forced himself to remember that the little girl had lived a decade longer than he himself had.

  Tareah continued to grow, though, alarmingly. Her arms stretched out, and her body grew, and her facial features changed, becoming more mature but still retaining an expression of wide-eyed wonder at the world she had never seen. She appeared to be in her early teens, and her body filled out, making her look like a woman instead of a girl. She complained of terrible pains in her limbs and muscles, as if she were being twisted and pulled, forced to catch up with her years. Delrael tried to comfort her when he could; Tareah said it helped, which made him glow inside.

  But none of them wanted to guess why Tareah was released from the spell that had held her in the body of a child for decades.

  Unless something had happened to Sardun...

  Vailret hung on the rope netting that held the red-and-white balloon in its spherical shape. Delrael scrambled on the other side, opening some of the flaps to release the remainder of the buoyant gas, enjoying himself. He used his kennok leg with natural ease.

  The balloon drifted closer to the ground, skimming over the surface of the wide lake that now filled the haunted Transition Valley. The Barrier River surged through the deep canyons in the mountains, rushing from the Northern Sea along its course.

  As the gas escaped, the bag crumpled, sagging inward. The basket bounced on the ground, knocking the travelers to their knees. It rocked back and forth as if it couldn't decide whether to take to the air again or not, then finally came to rest where the mountain terrain met the valley on the western side of the Barrier River. They brushed themselves off and stood on firm earth again, stretching and blinking.

  "We couldn't have navigated through those mountains, anyway. Not the way the balloon was leaking," Vailret said. "We can walk to the Ice Palace like we did before."

  "Without Sardun attacking the weather, the trip shouldn't be too bad."

  Delrael looked around and started walking.

  "I, for one, would not mind stretching my legs a bit." Bryl rubbed his knees.

  Anxious to get back to her father, Tareah wouldn't let them rest. She glanced at the northern landscape, trying to recognize the mountain peaks and letting relief mingle with worry on her face.

  They set off, abandoning the limp balloon on the cold and soggy ground at the river's edge. At the black hex line dividing the terrain types, they passed betwe
en the two towering ice sentries that guarded the winding road.

  The wind around them was cold and whispering, making the silence seem deeper.

  Moving stiffly, Tareah went forward into the ruins of the Ice Palace, alone. Tears glistened on her cheeks. Delrael tried to speak to her, but his throat went dry. Neither Vailret nor Bryl said anything.

  The once-magnificent Palace lay tumbled in pools of motionless water covered with a scum of ice as the sun set and the mountains cooled. Gigantic bluish-clear bricks lay scattered like a child's building blocks. Delrael remembered the tall shining spires, the gate, the rainbows of light penetrating the blue ice walls. A dusting of snow brushed against the larger blocks; other massive chunks of ice had left deep impressions in the half-frozen mud around the foundation.

  "What happened here?" Bryl finally whispered, but no one answered him.

  Tareah stared, unmoving. Delrael put a hand on her thin shoulder and stood by her at the crumbling arch of the main gate. She shuddered when he touched her, but he did not let go. The glistening rubble reflected tinges of orange as the afternoon neared sunset. "I have to go inside," she said.

  "There's nothing left," Delrael said.

  "My father's in there. Somewhere."

  She stepped through the blind Palace gate, crossing the threshold. A burst of blue light glowed around her, and a vision filled the air: the last moments of Sardun recorded and frozen within the arch.

  "Father," she said.

  "It's just an illusion, a message," Vailret said. "What happened to Sardun?"

  "Tareah," said the image of the old Sentinel, clothed in his gray robes and looking thin and withdrawn. "You will have returned by now. The dayid has shown me, shown me many things."

  The Sentinel's throne had melted. In the image the ceiling came down in chunks around him, spraying slush, letting the sunlight penetrate where it had never gone before. The warmth of the northern summer slashed at the Palace like knives to draw cold watery blood.

  "The Ice Palace cannot remain intact without the Water Stone. It cannot resist the weather, it cannot stand the heat of the sun."

  Sardun seemed to know everything Delrael, Bryl, and Vailret had done.

  His voice sounded tired, and his lisp had grown heavy. "But without the Water Stone, you could not have been rescued. I made the right choice."

  The wavering illusion stared at them. "The Ice Palace is melting, and I can do nothing to stop it. Nothing." Behind him, an avalanche of icicles came tumbling down. Delrael silently urged the old Sentinel to flee the danger. But Sardun's eyes filled with a far-off gleam, a shining emotion that made him want to shudder.

  "The dayid is calling me, clamoring in my mind. The voices have not let me alone since I woke them to create the Barrier River."

  His words dropped to a whisper. "The voices in the dayid want me to join them. With the spirits of the other Sentinels."

  "No!" Tareah said. "Don't..." Her voice sounded very small.

  Delrael stood beside her, but he didn't know what he could say to comfort her. "This already happened, days ago."

  In the image, Sardun drew a ragged breath, blowing steam through his drooping moustache. "I have lived far too long. It is time I leave Gamearth to those who deserve it. You, Tareah, are the last of us. Make the right decisions. Do what is best for yourself and for the memory of our race.

  "Give my utmost thanks to those who have rescued you. I can withstand the pull no longer, the urging of the voices. I must join them in their loneliness, and make it better for awhile."

  Sardun's skin had taken on a translucent, whitish glow. The firm distinction between his skin and the air around him grew fuzzier as the light intensified. Behind him, water poured down the blue walls of the Ice Palace, breaking the bonds that held the ceiling arches together, letting an avalanche of ice boulders come raining down.

  But Sardun was consumed in a flash of blinding white fire that swallowed up his flesh, the huge ice blocks, and the vision itself.

  The dimness of sunset filled the air again.

  Tareah stood motionless for a long moment, and then, slowly, started to cry.

  * * * *

  "You'll like the Stronghold. You'll see," Delrael said, trying to convince her with the enthusiasm in his own voice. They hiked down out of the mountains, resting and discussing what to do next about Scartaris.

  "I'm going to kill that thing," Vailret said under his breath. "I made a promise."

  Tareah turned against Delrael, craning her neck to look into his eyes.

  She was tall enough now to stand face to face with him. "I'll try to like it."

  She wore her grief like a half-healed wound. "And I will try to help."

  They crossed a hex-line into new terrain, heading back home.

  *Epilogue*

  Melanie stretched her arms and glanced at the clock. Scott yawned loudly.

  "We played a long time," Tyrone said. "That was great."

  Melanie felt delighted. At the climax they had been shouting, rolling dice, cheering, enthralled by the adventure. She tried to see if David's expression had grown softer.

  "Didn't you have fun, David?" she asked. "That was better than any of the other adventures from before."

  "Yeah," Tyrone said as he carried the dishes to the sink. "You can lighten up now."

  David shrugged into his denim jacket. He seemed unable to take his eyes from the new line of blue hexagons marking the Barrier River. "I don't think so."

  Melanie felt disappointment stab through her. David stood up and moved toward the door.

  "You don't understand," he turned back to them and said. "If we don't stop now, and stop for good, we'll never be able to quit. The Game will control us. The Game will be everything and we'll never get away from it."

  He turned to point at the changed map. "Can't you see how powerful it's getting already?"

  Then he walked out the door. By the way he moved, he had intended to let it slam, but the door-closer eased it shut against the jamb.

  "Well, see you next Sunday," Tyrone said as he gathered up his things and left. Scott followed him to the door.

  Melanie went back to clean up before her parents got home. Of course she wouldn't say anything about what had happened.

  "Yeah. See you next Sunday."

  ¯ END ¯

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