The Player of Games

pieces.

'Yes,' Flere-Imsaho said. 'The fire's less than two hours away. They can drop the shutters in the last few minutes if they have to, but they don't usually wait that long. I'd watch it, Gurgeh. Legally, the Emperor isn't allowed to call on the physical option at this stage, but there's something funny going on. I can sense it.'

Gurgeh wanted to say something cutting about the drone's senses, but his stomach was churning, and he felt something was wrong, too. He looked over at the bench where Hamin sat. The withered apex hadn't moved. His eyes were still closed.

'Something else,' Flere-Imsaho said.

'What?'

'There's some sort of extra gear up there, on the ceiling.'

Gurgeh glanced up without making it too obvious. The jumble of ECM and screening equipment looked much as it always had, but then he'd never inspected it very closely. 'What sort of gear?' he asked.

'Gear that is worryingly opaque to my senses, which it shouldn't be. And that Guards colonel's wired with an optic-remote mike.'

'The officer talking to Nicosar?'

'Yes. Isn't that against the rules?'

'Supposed to be.'

'Want to raise it with the Adjudicator?'

The Adjudicator was standing at the edge of the board, between two burly guards. He looked frightened and grim. When his gaze fell on Gurgeh, it seemed to go straight through him. 'I have a feeling,' Gurgeh whispered, 'it wouldn't do any good.'

'Me too. Want me to get the ship to come in?'

'Can it get here before the fire?'

'Just.'

Gurgeh didn't have to think too long. 'Do it,' he said.

'Signal sent. You remember the drill with the implant?'

'Vividly.'

'Great,' Flere-Imsaho said sourly. 'A high-speed displace from a hostile environment with some grey-area effector gear around. Just what I need.'

The hall was full, the doors were closed. The Adjudicator glanced resentfully over at the Guards colonel standing near Nicosar. The officer gave the briefest of nods. The Adjudicator announced the recommencement of the game.

Nicosar made a couple of inconsequential moves. Gurgeh couldn't see what the Emperor was aiming at. He must be trying to do something, but what? It didn't appear to have anything to do with winning the game. He tried to catch Nicosar's eye, but the apex refused to look at him. Gurgeh rubbed his cut lip and cheek. I'm invisible, he thought.

The cinderbuds swayed and shook in the storm outside; their leaves had spread to their maximum extent, and — whipped by the gale — they looked indistinct and merged, like one huge dull yellow organism quivering and poised beyond the castle walls. Gurgeh could sense people in the hall moving restlessly, muttering to each other, glancing at the still unshuttered windows. The guards stayed at the hall's exits, guns ready.

Nicosar made certain moves, placing element-cards in particular positions. Gurgeh still couldn't see what the point of all this was. The noise of the storm beyond the shaking windows was enough to all but drown the voices of the people in the hall. The smell of the cinderbuds' volatile saps and juices pervaded the air, and some dry shreds of their leaves had found their way in to the hall somehow, to soar and float and curl on currents of air inside the great hall.

High in the stone-dark sky beyond the windows, a burning orange glow lit up the clouds. Gurgeh began to sweat; he walked over the board, made some replying moves, attempting to draw Nicosar out. He heard somebody in the observers' gallery crying out, and then being quieted. The guards stood silently, watchfully, at the doors and around the board. The Guards colonel Nicosar had been talking to earlier stood near the Emperor. As he went back to his stoolseat, Gurgeh thought he saw tears on the officer's cheeks.

Nicosar had been sitting. Now he stood, and, taking four element-cards, strode to the centre of the patterned terrain.

Gurgeh wanted to shout out or leap up; something; anything. But he felt rooted, transfixed. The guards in the room had tensed, the Emperor's hands were visibly shaking. The storm outside whipped the cinderbuds like something conscious and spiteful; a spear of orange leapt ponderously above the tops of the plants, writhed briefly against the wall of darkness behind it, then sank slowly out of sight.

'Oh dear holy shit,' Flere-Imsaho whispered. 'That's only five minutes away.'

'What?' Gurgeh glanced at the machine.

'Five minutes,' the drone said, with a realistic gulp. 'It ought to be nearly an hour off. It can't have got here this quick. They've started a new fire-front.'

Gurgeh closed his eyes. He felt the tiny lump under his paper-dry tongue. 'The ship?' he said, opening his eyes again.

The drone was silent for seconds. '… No chance,' it said, voice flat, resigned.

Nicosar stooped. He placed a fire-card on a water-symbol already on the board, in a fold in the high terrain. The Guards colonel turned his head fractionally to one side, mouth moving, as though blowing some speck of dust off his uniform's high collar.

Nicosar stood up, looking around, appeared to listen for something, but heard only the howling noise of the storm.

'I just registered an infrasound pulse,' Flere-Imsaho said. 'That was an explosion, a klick to north. The viaduct.'

Gurgeh watched helplessly as Nicosar walked slowly to another position on the board and placed one card on another; fire on air. The Colonel talked into the mike near his shoulder again. The castle shook; a series of concussions shuddered through the hall.

The pieces on the board juddered; people stood up, started shouting. The glass panes cracked in their frames, crashing to the flagstones, letting the shrieking voice of the burning gale into the hall in a hail of fluttering leaves. A line of flames burst out over the tops of the trees, filling the base of the boiling black horizon with fire.

The next fire-card was placed; on earth. The castle seemed to shift under Gurgeh. The wind tore in through windows, rolling lighter pieces across the board like some absurd and unstoppable invasion; it whipped at the robes of the Adjudicator and his officials. People were piling out of the galleries, falling over each other to get to the exits, where the guards had drawn their guns.

The sky was full of fire.

Nicosar looked at Gurgeh as he placed the final fire-card, on the ghost-element, Life.

'This is looking worse and worse all — grrreeeeee!' Flere-Imsaho said, voice breaking, screeching. Gurgeh whirled round to see the bulky machine trembling in mid-air, surrounded by a bright aura of green fire.

The guards started shooting. The doors from the hall were thrown open and the people piled through, but in the hall the guards were suddenly all over the board itself, firing up into the galleries and benches, blasting laser- fire amongst the escaping crowds, felling the screaming, struggling apices, females and males in a storm of flickering light and shattering detonations.

'Grrraaaaak!' Flere-Imsaho screamed. Its casing glowed dull red and started to smoke. Gurgeh watched, transfixed. Nicosar stood near the centre of the boards, surrounded by his guards, smiling at Gurgeh.

The fire raged above the cinderbuds. The hall emptied as a last few wounded people staggered through the doors. Flere-Imsaho hung in the air; it glowed orange, yellow, white; it started to rise, dripping blobs of molten material on to the board as it went, enveloped suddenly in flames and smoke. Suddenly, it accelerated across the hall as if pulled by some huge, invisible hand. It slammed into a far wall and exploded in a blinding flash and a blast that almost blew Gurgeh off his stoolseat.

The guards around the Emperor left the board and climbed over the benches and galleries, killing the