Dream Park

It seemed that half the mountain was falling on them: waves of mud, a hailstorm of boulders. They saw the earth open and swal­low one of their bearers. Before the storm was over Acacia and Griffin were cuddling for warmth, still unspeaking, shivering as they held one another.

". ...osting us time!" Henderson muttered, while Mary-em bellowed a song into the storm.

"I have a magic Wizard's staff, I think it's really swell,

Whatever tries to slow me down, I blow it straight to Hell-"

They could barely hear her, and nobody would join her. She desisted.

When at last the rain stopped, and the storm clouds boiled away into vapor, the Garners crept out and looked anxiously into the sky, shaking water from their hair and bedrolls.

Acacia kept her eyes on the ground as she straightened herself up. She was barely audible as she answered Chester's roll call, and Alex watched her, worried.

Only Kagoiano had been killed, which left eighteen people in the Game: the fifteen players, Lady Janet, Kasan Maibang and the bearer Kibugonai. As soon as everyone had their breath back, they continued on.

After another mile of silent companionship, Griffin finally asked, "Does he do this to you often?"

"I don't know who's doing what to who, right now. Hell, maybe I am too bossy. Maybe I do play around too much..."

Alex chose to ignore the implied question. "Come on, Acacia. Yesterday you were telling me that I needed to get more involved in the Game. Okay. So do you, now."

"You're telling me to ignore the fact that the man... that someone I love has been hurt through my actions? I can't do that."

"Then go talk to him."

"No," she said softly. "I can't do that. Not yet. We might be able to talk later. We've had this problem before, and it's always worked itself out. Before. Maybe tonight we'll be able to talk." She looked up at him with the same pleading eyes he had seen under the waterfall. "I hope you don't think that I'm a tease, be­cause I really do like you. I just don't think that you and I should take things any further than they've gone."

"I can understand that. Really. Listen. Let's just forget that all of this happened, all right? If you help me believe that I'm a Thief out to steal back precious Cargo, then I'll help you remember that you're a beautiful Warrior heading for the fight of her life. How does that sound?"

She creased her neutral expression into a smile and said nothing.

The route they traveled was turning green again, but now the trees and bushes seemed stunted, twisted, as if the soil itself con­tained alien nutrients. No branches bore leaves, but strange golden fruit hung from them, and Griffin wrestled with the temptation to pluck and taste one.

He couldn't explain it, but somehow he knew they were being watched by hostile eyes. He found himself thumbing the hilt of his knife and whistling tunelessly, nervously, his eyes roaming the crags above and the occasional gullies below.

The other Garners were restless too. Alex caught Tony McWhirter looking back at them. Tony's eyes shied away when they met Griffin's. He seemed not resentful, but afraid.

"What do you think, Cas?"

"I feel it too. Something's happening. It'll be soon." She shiv­ered, and drew her sword, holding it at ready though there was no visible foe.

Fear. That was what he felt, pure fear, something on a level he couldn't touch intellectually, something more primitive than reason.

Up ahead, Chester called the line to a halt. The mass of Garners grouped around the Lore Master in a ragged semicircle.

Chester raised his hand for silence. "We all feel it, so I don't need to tell you that there is danger up ahead. I think we're near­ing Cargo. What form it will take I haven't a notion. If we have to break the line for combat, let's see mixed couples. Try to pick someone of a different guild to stand with now. We can't afford to lose two of any category. Let's try to spread the damage. All right? Anyone who needs to exchange partners, now's the time. S.J., up here with me."

The youngster whooped and raced up to stand next to the Lore Master. Some of the players scrambled around, but Alex and Acacia stayed together.

The path narrowed and led through a slit in the rock wall. Owen Braddon, a Cleric, provided a gentle white glow to protect and illumine their way as they passed through a long, roughly tri­angular tu

They were on the other side of the mountain now, heading into a wooded area filled with clumps of disturbingly twisted trees. They seemed to be on a plateau, and Alex watched Lady Janet point to another range of mountains beyond, and saw Chester smile.

One tree stood apart from the others, its branches spreading in all directions for a radius of a dozen meters. Looking at it, seeing the unhealthy brown of its mottled limbs and the ma

Chester stopped the group with a raised hand, and walked to­ward the tree a few paces. He studied it carefully, then came back. "S.J.," he said brusquely, "I think that this one is for you. We've got Cargo."

"Subsonics," S.J. nodded. "I can feel it. Okay, we've been lured and warned. How do we handle it?"

"I'm not sure..." Chester was watching the tree with a practiced eye. "The Cargo won't be buried under the tree. That would be too much like last time..." He watched the branches

swaying in the wind. "Wait a minute. The air currents here aren't strong enough to move the tree that much."

"Look at the shadow, Chester." S.J. pointed.

The tree's shadow was behaving even more strangely. It weaved, out of synch with the movements of the tree. The shadow-branches strained out, spectral fingers pointing towards.

"The caim of rocks." About twenty meters from the tree stood a pyramidal pile of large stones.

"S.J., Margie, Eames and Griffin. Come with me. The rest of you, stay back."

The quintet of Garners walked slowly to the pile. Chester halted them, and walked forward and around in a wide circle. At one point he stopped, backed up a bit, then turned and came back to them. "All right. 5.1., you and Eames take the far side. Margie, you and Griffin work this side. Let's get some of these rocks cleared away so we can see what we've got."

Alex thought he saw a guilty wince crease Chester's face when S.J. answered with a perky, "Yes, chief!" and bounded around to the far side. Something wrong here...#8226; but what? Alex bent to the job of clearing the rocks. Margie, as an Engineer, had to help supervise, but at her age she could scarcely be expected to move the small boulders herself.

He grunted, rolling away a stone. "What do you think of. • ." He heaved another aside. "... of this Game? I mean, so far?"

"Heavens. I've hardly had a chance to get into it. I'm hoping that I have a chance to rig something really interesting before too much longer."

"Don't you get points for everything you do in the Game?"

"Of course, but it's more fun to do something elaborate. Be­sides, the Garners vote for bonus points at the end, so it never hurts to be flashy."

Chester's voice cut in on them. "Don't worry, Margie. You'll have plenty of opportunity to show your stuff."

"I certainly hope so, dear." She stepped around toward the other side of the five-foot heap. "S.J.? How are you-?"

Chester moved quickly around to intercept her. "Let's keep our teams divided until-" Griffin watched, suspicion chewing at his nerves. Margie ignored Chester and walked smoothly around him to the other side. Chester took another step, turning. His legs were crossed when a rock rolled under his feet. As he stumbled, he grabbed at one of the rocks on S.J.'s side-