The Player of Games

even account for your own success here, and you treat this battle-game like some filthy dance. It is there to be fought and struggled against, and you've attempted to seduce it. You've perverted it; replaced our holy witnessing with your own foul pornography… you've soiled it… male.'

Gurgeh dabbed at the blood on his lips. He felt dizzy, head swimming. 'That… that may be how you see it, Nicosar.' He swallowed some of the thick, salty blood. 'I don't think you're being entirely fair to—'

'Fair?' the Emperor shouted, coming to stand over Gurgeh, blocking the view of the distant fire. 'Why does anything have to be fair? Is life fair?' He reached down and took Gurgeh by the hair, shaking his head. 'Is it? Is it?'

Gurgeh let the apex shake him. The Emperor let go of his hair after a moment, holding his hand as though he'd touched something dirty. Gurgeh cleared his throat. 'No, life is not fair. Not intrinsically.'

The apex turned away in exasperation, clutching again at the curled stone top of the battlements. 'It's something we can try to make it, though,' Gurgeh continued. 'A goal we can aim for. You can choose to do so, or not. We have. I'm sorry you find us so repulsive for that.'

' «Repulsive» is barely adequate for what I feel for your precious Culture, Gurgeh. I'm not sure I possess the words to explain to you what I feel for your… Culture. You know no glory, no pride, no worship. You have power; I've seen that; I know what you can do… but you're still impotent. You always will be. The meek, the pathetic, the frightened and cowed… they can only last so long, no matter how terrible and awesome the machines they crawl around within. In the end you will fall; all your glittering machinery won't save you. The strong survive. That's what life teaches us, Gurgeh, that's what the game shows us. Struggle to prevail; fight to prove worth. These are no hollow phrases; they are truth!'

Gurgeh watched the pale hands grasping the dark stone. What could he say to this apex? Were they to argue metaphysics, here, now, with the imperfect tool of language, when they'd spent the last ten days devising the most perfect image of their competing philosophies they were capable of expressing, probably in any form?

What, anyway, was he to say? That intelligence could surpass and excel the blind force of evolution, with its emphasis on mutation, struggle and death? That conscious cooperation was more efficient than feral competition? That Azad could be so much more than a mere battle, if it was used to articulate, to communicate, to define…? He'd done all that, said all that, and said it better than he ever could now.

'You have not won, Gurgeh,' Nicosar said quietly, voice harsh, almost croaking. 'Your kind will never win.' He turned back, looking down at him. 'You poor, pathetic male. You play, but you don't understand any of this, do you?'

Gurgeh heard what sounded like genuine pity in the apex's voice. 'I think you've already decided that I don't,' he told Nicosar.

The Emperor laughed, turning back to the distant reflection of the continent-wide fire still below the horizon. The sound died in a sort of cough. He waved one hand at Gurgeh. 'Your sort never will understand. You'll only be used.' He shook his head in the darkness. 'Go back to your room, morat. I'll see you in the morning.' The moon-face stared towards the horizon and the ruddy glare rubbed on the undersurface of the clouds. 'The fire should be here by then.'

Gurgeh waited a moment. It was as though he'd already gone; he felt dismissed, forgotten. Even Nicosar's last words had sounded as if they weren't really meant for Gurgeh at all.

The man rose quietly and went back down through the dimly lit tower. The two guards stood impassively outside the door at the tower's foot. Gurgeh looked up to the top of the tower, and saw Nicosar there on the battlements, flat pale face looking out towards the approaching fire, white hands clutching at cold stone. The man watched for a few seconds, then turned and left, going down through the corridors and halls where the imperial guards prowled, sending everybody to their rooms and locking the doors, watching all the stairs and elevators, and turning on all the lights so that the silent castle burned in the night, like some great stone ship on a darkly golden sea.

Flere-Imsaho was flicking through the broadcast channels when Gurgeh got back to his room. It asked him what all the fuss was about in the castle. He told it.

'Can't be that bad,' the drone said, with a wobble-shrug. It looked back at the screen. 'They aren't playing martial music. No outgoing communications possible though. What happened to your mouth?'

'I fell.'

'Mm-hmm.'

'Can we contact the ship?'

'Of course.'

'Tell it to power up. We might need it.'

'My, you're getting cautious. All right.'

He went to bed, but lay awake listening to the swelling roar of the wind.

At the top of the high tower, the apex watched the horizon for several hours, seemingly locked into the stone like a pale statue, or a small tree born of an errant seed. The wind from the east freshened, tugging at the stationary figure's dark clothes and howling round the dark-bright castle, tearing through the canopy of swaying cinderbuds with a noise like the sea.

The dawn came up. It lit the clouds first, then touched the edge of clear horizon in the east with gold. At the same time, in the black fastness of the west where the edge of the land glowed red, a sudden glint of bright, burning orange-yellow appeared, to waver and hesitate and disappear, then return, and brighten, and spread.

The figure on the tower drew back from that widening breach in the red-black sky, and — glancing briefly behind him, at the dawn — swayed uncertainly for a moment, as though caught between the rival currents of light flowing from each bright horizon.

Two guards came to the room. They unlocked the door and told Gurgeh he and the machine were required in the prow-hall. Gurgeh was dressed in his Azad robes. The guards told him it was the Emperor's pleasure that they abandon the statutory robes for this morning's play. Gurgeh looked at Flere-Imsaho, and went to change. He put on a fresh shirt, and the trous and light jacket he'd worn the previous night.

'So, I'm getting a chance to spectate at last; what a treat,' Flere-Imsaho said as they headed for the game- hall. Gurgeh said nothing. Guards were escorting groups of people from various parts of the castle. Outside, beyond already shuttered doors and windows, the wind howled.

Gurgeh hadn't felt like breakfast. The ship had been in contact that morning, to congratulate him. It had finally seen. In fact, it thought there was a way out for Nicosar, but only to a draw. And no human brain could handle the play required. It had resumed its high-speed holding pattern, ready to come in the moment it sensed anything wrong. It watched through Flere-Imsaho's eyes.

When they got to the castle's prow-hall and the Board of Becoming, Nicosar was already there. The apex wore the uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guard, a severe, subtly menacing set of clothes complete with ceremonial sword. Gurgeh felt quite dowdy in his old jacket. The prow-hall was almost full. People, escorted by the ubiquitous guards, were still filing into the tiered seats. Nicosar ignored Gurgeh; the apex was talking to an officer of the Guard.

'Hamin!' Gurgeh said, going over to where the old apex sat, in the front row of seats, his tiny, twisted body crumpled and hopeless between two burly guards. His face was shrivelled and yellow. One of the guards put out his hand to stop Gurgeh coming any closer. He stood in front of the bench, squatting to look into the old rector's wrinkled face. 'Hamin; can you hear me?' He thought, again, absurdly, that the apex was dead, then the small eyes flickered, and one opened, yellow-red and sticky with crystalline secretions. The shrunken-looking head moved a little. 'Gurgeh…'

The eye closed, the head nodded. Gurgeh felt a hand on his sleeve, and he was led to his seat at the edge of the board.

The prow-hall's balcony windows were closed, the panes rattling in their metal frames, but the fire shutters had not been lowered. Outside, beneath a leaden sky, the tall cinderbuds shook in the gale, and the noise of the wind formed a bass background to the subdued conversations of the shuffling people still finding their places in the great hall.

'Shouldn't they have put the shutters down?' Gurgeh asked the drone. He sat in the stoolseat. Flere-Imsaho floated, buzzing and crackling, behind him. The Adjudicator and his helpers were checking the positions of the