"We are pleased that Jernau Gurgeh was not badly injured and has been able to attend this audience," Nicosar said. He nodded briefly to Gurgeh and then looked to a courtier, waiting impatiently to one side. Gurgeh stood, bowed, and backed away.
"You only have to take four backward steps before you turn your back on him," Flere-Imsaho told him. "Otherwise; very good."
They were back in Gurgeh's room. "I'll try and remember next time," he said.
"Anyway, sounds like you're in the clear. I did a bit of over-hearing while you had your tête-à-tête; courtiers usually know what's going on. Seems they found an apex trying to escape through the forest from the maser and the exo-controls; he'd dropped the gun they gave him to defend himself with, which was just as well because it was a bomb, not a gun, so they got him alive. He broke under torture and implicated one of Hamin's cronies who tried to bargain with a confession. So they started on Hamin."
"You mean they tortured him?"
"Only a little. He's old and they had to keep him alive for whatever punishment the Emperor decided on. The apex exo-controller and some other henchman have been impaled, the plea-bargaining crony's getting caged in the forest to await the Incandescence, and Hamin's being deprived of AGe drugs; he'll be dead in forty or fifty days."
Gurgeh shook his head. "Hamin… I didn't think he was that frightened of me."
"Well, he's old. They have funny ideas sometimes."
"Do you think I'm safe now?"
"Yes. The Emperor wants you alive so he can destroy you on the Azad boards. Nobody else would dare harm you. You can concentrate on the game. Anyway, I'll look after you."
Gurgeh looked, disbelievingly, at the buzzing drone.
He could detect no trace of irony in its voice.
Gurgeh and Nicosar started the first of the lesser games three days later. There was a curious atmosphere about the final match; a sense of anti-climax pervaded Castle Klaff. Normally this last contest was the culmination of six years" work and preparation in the Empire; the very apotheosis of all that Azad was and stood for. This time, the imperial continuance was already settled. Nicosar had ensured his next Great Year of rule when he'd beaten Vechesteder and Jhilno, though, as far as the rest of the Empire knew, the Emperor still had to play Krowo to decide who wore the imperial crown. Even if Gurgeh did win the game, it would make no difference, save for some wounded imperial pride. The court and the Bureau would put it down to experience, and make sure they didn't invite any more decadent but sneaky aliens to take part in the holy game.
Gurgeh suspected that many of the people still in the fortress would as soon have left Echronedal to head back to Eä, but the coronation ceremony and the religious confirmation still had to be witnessed, and nobody would be allowed to leave Echronedal until the fire had passed and the Emperor had risen from its embers.
Probably only Gurgeh and Nicosar were really looking forward to the match; even the observing game-players and analysts were disheartened at the prospect of witnessing a game they were already barred from discussing, even amongst themselves. All Gurgeh's games past the point he had supposedly been knocked out were taboo subjects. They did not exist. The Imperial Games Bureau was already hard at work concocting an official final match between Nicosar and Krowo. Judging by their previous efforts, Gurgeh expected it to be entirely convincing. It might lack the ultimate spark of genius, but it would pass.
So everything was already settled. The Empire had new star marshals (though a little shuffling would be required to replace Yomonul), new generals and admirals, archbishops, ministers and judges. The course of the Empire was set, and with very little change from the previous bearing. Nicosar would continue with his present policies; the premises of the various winners indicated little discontent or new thinking. The courtiers and officials could therefore breathe easily again, knowing nothing would alter too much, and their positions were as secure as they'd ever be. So, instead of the usual tension surrounding the final game, there was an atmosphere more like that of an exhibition match. Only the two contestants were treating it as a real contest.
Gurgeh was immediately impressed by Nicosar's play. The Emperor didn't stop rising in Gurgeh's estimation; the more he studied the apex's play the more he realised just how powerful and complete an opponent he was facing. He would need to be more than lucky to beat Nicosar; he would need to be somebody else. From the beginning he tried to concentrate on not being trounced rather than actually defeating the Emperor.
Nicosar played cautiously most of the time; then, suddenly, he'd strike out with some brilliant flowing series of moves that looked at first as though they'd been made by some gifted madman, before revealing themselves as the masterstrokes they were; perfect answers to the impossible questions they themselves posed.
Gurgeh did his best to anticipate these devastating fusions of guile and power, and to find replies to them once they'd begun, but by the time the minor games were over, thirty days or so before the fire was due, Nicosar had a considerable advantage in pieces and cards to carry over to the first of the three great boards. Gurgeh suspected his only chance was to hold out as best he could on the first two boards and hope that he might pull something back on the final one.
The cinderbuds towered around the castle, rising like a slow tide of gold about the walls. Gurgeh sat in the same small garden he'd visited before. Then he'd been able to look out over the cinderbuds to the distant horizon; now the view ended twenty metres away at the first of the great yellow leaf-heads. Late sunlight spread the castle's shadow across the canopy. Behind Gurgeh, the fortress lights were coming on.
Gurgeh looked out to the tan trunks of the great trees, and shook his head. He'd lost the game on the Board of Origin and now he was losing on the Board of Form.
He was missing something; some facet of the way Nicosar was playing was escaping him. He knew it, he was certain, but he couldn't work out what that facet was. He had a nagging suspicion it was something very simple, however complex its articulation on the boards might be. He ought to have spotted it, analysed and evaluated it long ago and turned it to his advantage, but for some reason — some reason intrinsic to his very understanding of the game, he felt sure — he could not. An aspect of his play seemed to have disappeared, and he was starting to think the knock to the head he'd taken during the hunt had affected him more than he'd first assumed.
But then, the ship didn't seem to have any better idea what he was doing wrong, either. Its advice always seemed to make sense at the time, but when Gurgeh got to the board he found he could never apply the ship's ideas. If he went against his instincts and forced himself to do as the Limiting Factor had suggested, he ended up in even more trouble; nothing was more guaranteed to cause you problems on an Azad board than trying to play in a way you didn't really believe in. He rose slowly, straightening his back, which was hardly sore now, and returned to his room. Flere-Imsaho was in front of the screen, watching a holo-display of an odd diagram.
"What are you doing?" Gurgeh said, lowering himself into a soft chair. The drone turned, addressing him in Marain.
"I worked out a way to disable the bugs; we can talk in Marain now. Isn't that good?"
"I suppose so," Gurgeh said, still in Eächic. He picked up a small flat-screen to see what was happening in the Empire.
"Well you might at least use the language after I went to the trouble of jamming their bugs. It wasn't easy you know; I'm not designed for that sort of thing. I had to learn a lot of stuff from some of my own files about electronics and optics and listening fields and all that sort of technical stuff. I thought you'd be pleased."
"Utterly and profoundly ecstatic," Gurgeh said carefully, in Marain. He looked at the small screen. It told him of the new appointments, the crushing of an insurrection in a distant system, the progress of the game between Nicosar and Krowo — Krowo wasn't as far behind as Gurgeh was — the victory won by imperial troops against a race of monsters, and higher rates of pay for males who volunteered to join the Army. "What is that you're looking at?" he said, looking briefly at the wall-screen, where Flere-Imsaho's strange torus turned slowly. "Don't you recognise it?" the drone said, voice pitched to express surprise. "I thought you would; it's a model of the Reality."