“That battle’s not going to happen now,” Wayland said. “But suddenly…it seems like the word is that Argath’s turning his attention south, toward Toriva, toward Lateran.”
“Why the change?” Megan said softly.
Leif looked at Wayland. Just as softly, Wayland said, “You were never the kind to meddle, young Leif. What’s your interest with this? You going to take up with one side against the other? Doesn’t seem like a good thing to get caught up in.”
Leif sat quiet a moment, looked sideways at Megan.
Very slightly, she nodded.
“Not so much for or against any side,” Leif said. “We want to find who’s doing these bounces.”
Wayland nodded. “A lot of people would like to know that. This last one…” He shook his head. “Bad business. This isn’t why Rod created the Game. Not that any of these ‘bounces’ have been good at all. Somebody spends a year, two years, five, building up a character, being someone, and then all of a sudden—” He made a finger-flicking gesture, like somebody knocking a crumb off the table. “Gone. Just like that. All the work, all the friendships. It stinks.” His voice was soft, but vehement.
“It does,” Leif said. “Listen.”
He sketched out briefly for Wayland what he and Megan had been discussing — the possibility that Argath was merely a blind for someone else’s grudges against players who had beaten him or her in battle. And he mentioned the names of the generals and commanders who had lost campaigns to all the players Argath had lost to: Hunsal, Rutin, Orieta, Walse, Balk the Screw…and Lateran.
Wayland got a sideways smile at that. “Now that is very interesting,” he said. “Very. I wonder, does anyone else think this? Has anyone else looked as deep into this as they should?”
“We’re trying,” Megan said. “Before the Game gets ruined for everybody. It is still a game…it’s not supposed to end up in the emergency room.”
Wayland nodded. After a moment, he sighed, and said, “I’ll help if I can. I move on in a day. I was going east again. But I could go west and south instead. This time of year, if a man enjoys the summer weather, he has a right to change his mind….”
“If you could do that, it would be a help. And if you find anything out—”
“I’ll e-mail you.”
“There’s still one thing we’ve got to do before we leave here,” Megan said. “We’ve got to talk to Lord Fettick…try to warn him that he’s probably a target. I just wish we knew someone here who would vouch for us. The last time we had to do this, it didn’t work too well.”
Wayland grinned. “But you do have someone. You have me. I do Fettick’s horses. Just finished doing them this morning. Before I go tomorrow, if you like, I’ll take you up to the major-domo at the High House and introduce you. Can’t do it tonight, I fear…they’ll be up there with the Duke again, partying. That business with his young daughter…” Wayland shook his head.
“They’re not actually going to marry her off to him, are they?” Megan said, sounding very dubious.
“Her? Oh, no, surely not. Fettick dotes on her. He’d choke herself sooner than let her leave at such a tender age. Or any age, maybe, so the rumor goes…but it’d be some years before that would become a problem. Though little Dame Senel has a mind of her own, they say. Meanwhile, Fettick has to speak the Duke fair to keep him from doing anything rash or sudden…for the time being. He’s hoping, I think, that things will change quickly enough in this part of Sarxos that the Duke won’t be a problem for him any more.”
“If we can find out what we need to,” Leif said, “that might just happen.”
Wayland stretched. “All right. Tomorrow morning, then — I’ll meet you in the marketplace. I won’t be moving the cart out of the city until I’m actually ready to leave.”
“Great. Thanks, Wayland.”
Wayland lifted a hand in casual farewell and headed for the door. The young man came out of the back room and let him out into the dark street, then closed the door again.
They stayed long enough to finish their beer, then headed out into the street themselves, and started walking slowly back toward the marketplace. “Pity we couldn’t take care of this tonight,” Megan said.
Leif shrugged. “Never mind. Are you going to be able to log in tomorrow morning, early? That’s when we’ll need to take care of this.”
“Shouldn’t be any problem. Mornings are quiet around my place. It’s evenings that’re the…”
She suddenly fell silent.
“Huh?” Leif said.
“It’s nothing,” she said in a low voice. “Just keep walking.”
“It’s not nothing. What is it?”
“It’s evenings that’re the problem,” Megan went on loudly, looking sideways down an alley as they passed it. “My father can be an incredible nuisance about family nights. It’s him again,” she whispered.
“Oh, well, fathers,” Leif said as they walked. Megan saw that he, too, was trying to look down the alley she had been looking down, without seeming to do so. But he still looked baffled. I guess my night vision must be better than his…. “They’re pains, but you can’t live without them, and you can’t shoot them…Him, who?”
“Gobbo,” she whispered. “Once might be a coincidence…twice might be an accident…but three times is enemy action.”
“Sorry?”
“He’s following us.”
“Are you sure?”
“He has to be. And you know what? He’s been following us since Minsar.”
“It could be paranoia, Megan.”
“It’s not.” She turned suddenly into another alleyway, and pulled Leif in after her. For a moment they both leaned against one of the damp stone walls in the dead silence.
Not quite dead. A scurry of feet, then nothing. Then another scurry, closer.
“Down there,” Leif whispered.
“Maybe he is. I’m not waiting. I don’t like being followed…it makes me want to practice dwarf-chucking.”
“What?”
“Dwarf-chucking. A very old and very incorrect sport. My mother would be shocked to even hear me mention it.” Megan grinned, and looked around them. “Where are we?”
“Between the third and fourth walls.”
“No, I mean which way is east?”
Well ahead of them, leftward against one stone wall, was a patch of moonlight. Leif pointed off to the right.
“Oh, yeah,” Megan said softly, and thought for a moment. Being an incurable map-reader, Megan had had a good look at the game’s stored map of Errint before coming in today. Now she compared the spot where they stood with her memory of the map, and considered for another second or so.
“All right,” she whispered then. “There’s a gate in the wall to your left about sixty yards ahead. It goes through into the next circle. I’m going to leave you. Count thirty seconds and then follow me. Walk down the middle of the street. Don’t stop at the gate. Just keep going.”
“What are you going to do?”
She smiled. And she vanished.
Leif stared. She had not used game-based magic — there was a typical aura, a feel in the air, associated with magic use at close range, which he would have detected. But very quietly, very simply, between one blink and one breath and the next, Megan had stopped being where he had thought she should have been. It was a little unnerving.
One, two, three, he thought, wondering as always whether his seconds were as accurate as he thought they were. Leif listened to the sleeping city, listened hard. Somewhere, up high, a bat made its tiny squee-squee-squee of sonar, possibly targeting bugs attracted to the lights still burning in the windows of the towers of the High House. Nothing else moved.