The Deadliest Game

Elblai sighed and leaned the sword against the arm of her chair. “He’s going to attack,” she said. “I’m pretty sure.”

“So what’re you going to do?”

Elblai got up and stretched. “I’m going to run him and his troops right into the ground,” she said. “I don’t see that I’m going to have much choice, if I’m to sustain my position. As for him, I’d prefer to avoid the killing, but he hasn’t got the brains Rod gave bluepoint oysters, and he will insist on doing the showy thing. Won’t help him, not this time.”

The young woman sighed, almost exactly the sound her aunt had made. “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to the other captains and update them, and we’ll send out messengers to the reinforcements.”

“Do that. Tell them I think Argath will try to scrape together some more troops from the tributary kingdoms. I don’t think he can find many more than a couple thousand extra, though, not at this short notice. We’re still going to outnumber him three to one — which is just the way I like it. Never had time for these even-steven death-or-glory stands myself.” She snorted — a sound Leif had heard from his own grandmother occasionally, so that he smiled. “Let’s get that seen to…and then go down and have some dinner before everybody eats it all.”

They went out.

Once again, Leif relaxed the invisibility spells. To their relief, the buzzing in their ears subsided.

Leif glanced sidewise at Megan.

“We’ve got a big problem,” Megan whispered.

“Yeah? What?”

“Keep your voice down. Weren’t you listening? She’s going to take Argath,” Megan said. “That makes her a prime target for being bounced.”

Leif looked at her cockeyed. “Wait a minute. You were the one who was going on before about not theorizing without data. We don’t have any more data than we did before…except some about an attack that’s about to happen.”

“Sure…but you heard it, Leif! She’s got Argath outnumbered three to one. She’s going to cream him. And it’s people who’ve creamed him in the past who’ve gotten bounced.”

“Listen, I hope she does cream him,” Leif whispered. “He’s not exactly an example of high Sarxonian moral standards, is he? And besides, if his character gets killed and people still get bounced, then maybe we have some evidence that it’s not him doing it.”

Megan stared at him. “That would be as circumstantial as what we’ve got now,” she said. “Leif, if Elblai is going to be attacked somehow and we suspect it, we’ve got to go out on a limb a little and let her know about it! She’s got a tremendous character running here — it wouldn’t be fair to let her be bounced just for the sake of tempting the ‘bouncer’ out into the open. She’s got to take some precautions.”

“If we do warn her,” Leif said, “it could warn off Argath, or whoever’s responsible for these bounces. And we’ll lose a chance to find out who he or she is.”

Megan clutched her head. “I can’t believe we’re having this argument. You can’t just use another player as bait!”

“Megan, think straight for a moment! Warn her how? We don’t know who she is in real life, and we’re not going to find out. What about the confidentiality rules? If she’s secret, and chooses to be, there’s no way we can find her.”

“If we got hold of the gamesmaster,” Megan said, “through Net Force—”

“Sure. Ask them to break confidentiality on a suspicion? No way they’ll do it. Even if we could talk them into it, it would take too long to do any good.”

“We’ll have to go warn her now, then,” Megan said.

Leif looked at her for a long moment. Then, rather reluctantly, he said, “All right. You saw her device — that basilisk. There were a few of her people downstairs wearing it. Let’s go down and introduce ourselves…come out in the open about it.”

“Right.”

Leif let go of the invisibility, relieved that he didn’t have to hold it anymore, and they went back downstairs again. In the great hall, they looked around, but there was no sign of Elblai herself.

“There are some little private rooms off the sides,” Leif said. “She might be in one of those—”

“No,” Megan said. “They’d be guarded. But look there.”

It was the young woman whom they had seen with Elblai earlier. Over her plain blue robe she had thrown a darker one, with the rampant basilisk badge of Elblai’s people on it. She was looking thoughtfully around the room at the nobles and warriors as they ate and drank and talked.

Megan and Leif went over to her, causing some interest and amusement among the assembled nobles as they took in the sight of the somewhat oddly dressed party crashers. “Excuse me,” Leif said to the young blond woman, and bowed slightly. “If, as I think, you are with the noble Lady Elblai—”

“If you’re looking for an audience,” said the woman, eyeing him with an interested expression, “I’m afraid she is not available tonight.”

“Not an audience,” Megan said softly. “A warning.”

The woman put her eyebrows up. “Of what?”

“Argath,” Leif said.

The woman’s expression became much more guarded.

“If, as rumor has it, your lady is contemplating an attack on Argath’s forces,” Leif said, “we must warn her that something…unfortunate…might befall her afterwards. People who have beaten Argath in battle recently have been coming to harm…as we see from this gathering tonight.”

The expression on the face of Elblai’s niece began to get downright chilly. “An interesting warning,” she said. “Who sent you?”

Leif opened his mouth, closed it again.

“One might think that such a warning would be to Argath’s advantage,” the young woman said, “if indeed any such attack were in prospect.”

“No one has sent us,” Megan said. “We’re working independently…and we mean your aunt, the Lady Elblai, nothing but good.”

The young woman’s eyes widened just a very little, then hardened down again. “That relationship is not widely known,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Uh,” Megan said.

“We’re investigating the ‘bounces,’” Leif said, and Megan felt a sudden rush of relief that he hadn’t added “for Net Force.” That would have been going a little too far. “We’re afraid that your aunt is in danger of becoming a ‘bouncee’ if she keeps going the way she’s going.”

“Oh? And which way would that be?”

How do I put this the most diplomatically? Leif thought, wondering how his father would phrase this. Probably pretty elliptically. “If Lillan and Gugliem and Menel—” Leif began.

The young woman’s eyes narrowed right down. “One does not normally speak of — external things,” she said, “to people one doesn’t know, and whose bona fides can’t be guaranteed.” Her expression was quite chilly now. “I think I must ask you to leave.”

“Please — just let us have a word with Lady Elblai.”

“That is impossible. She has been called away on business: which perhaps is fortunate.”

“Look, it’s really important,” Megan said.

“Perhaps it is to you,” said the young woman coolly. “I would take your warning more kindly if it did not seem obvious that you, or someone connected with you, had recently been spying on us. Spies’ advice has two edges, they say, and it’s my business to protect my aunt against those who would do her harm.”

“But that’s what we’re trying to—”

“Good night,” the young woman said firmly. “Leave right now…before I have you removed.”

They looked at her, then headed for the door.

Leif looked over his shoulder at the woman one last time as they headed out. Elblai’s niece had beckoned over someone else wearing her aunt’s badge, a tall balding man, and was now whispering urgently in his ear. He looked after Leif and Megan, and then left the great hall hurriedly, out one of the side exits. Megan and Leif were