Sheri Tepper - King’s Blood Four

TOTEM TO KINGS BLOOD FOUR. The moment I said it, I knew it was wrong.I said, No!

Gamesmaster Gervaise tapped the stone floor with his iron-tipped staff,impatiently searching our faces for a lifted eye or for a raised hand.No? he echoed me.

Of the three Gamesmasters of Mertyns House, I liked Gervaise the best.

When I said no, I meant the answer wasnt quite right. Behind meKarl Pig-face gave a sneaky gasp as he always does when he is about toput me down, but Gamesmaster Gervaise didnt give him a chance.

Thats correct, he agreed. Correct that it isnt quite right andmight be very wrong. The move is one we havent come across before,however, so take your time. Before you decide upon the move, alwaysremember who you are. He turned away from us, staff tap-tapping acrossthe tower room to the high window which gaped across the dark bulk ofHavads House down to River Reave where it wound like a tarnished ribbonamong all the other School Houses each as full of students as a dog isof fleas, as Brother Chance, the cook, would say. All the sloped landbetween the Houses was crowded full of dwellings and shops, all humpingtheir way up the hills to the shuttered Festival Halls, then scatteringout among the School Farms which extended to the vacant land of theEdge. I searched over the Gamesmasters shoulder for that far, thin lineof blue which marked the boundaries of the True Game.

Karl cleared his throat again, and I knew his mockery was only deferred,unless I could find an answer quickly. I wouldnt find it by staring outat Schooltown. I turned back to the game model which hung in the airbefore us, swimming in icy haze. Somewhere within the model, among thegame pieces which glowed in their own light or disappeared in their ownshadow somewhere in the model was the Demesne, the focal area, the placeof power where a move could be of significance. On our side, thestudents side, Demon loomed on a third level square casting a long,wing-shaped shadow. Two fanged Tragamors boxed the area to either side.Before them stood Gamesmaster Gervaises only visible piece, the King,casting ruddy light before him. It was Kings Blood Four, anImperative which meant I had to move something. None of the battlepieces were right; it had to be something similar to Totem. Almostanything could be hiding behind the King, and Gamesmasters dont givehints. Something similar, of like value, somethingthen I had it.

Talisman, I blurted. Talisman to Kings Blood Four.

Good. Gervaise actually smiled. Now, tell me why!

Because our side cant see what pieces may be hiding behind the King.Because Talisman is an absorptive piece, that is, it will soak up theKings play. Totem is reflective. Totem would splash it around, wedmaybe lose some pieces

Exactly. Now, students, visualize if you please. We have King, mostdurable of the adamants, whose blood, that is, essence, is red light.Demon, most powerful of the ephemera, whose essence is shadow. Tragamorsmaking barriers at the sides of the Demesne. The player is a student,without power, so he plays Talisman, an absorptive piece of the lesserephemera. Talisman is lost in play, sacrificed as we say. The playergains nothing by this, but neither does he lose much, for with this playthe Demesne is changed, and the game moves elsewhere in the purlieu.

But, Master, Karls voice oozed from the corner. A strong playercould have played Totem. A powerful player.

I flushed. Of course. Everyone in the room knew that, but students werenot strong, not powerful, even though Karl liked to pretend he was. Itwas just one more of his little pricks and nibbles, like living with ahedgehog. Gamesmaster tilted his head, signifying he had heard, but hedidnt reply. Instead, he peered at the chronometer on the wall, thenout the window to check where the mountain shadow fell upon the harbor,finally back to our heavily bundled little group. So. Enough for today.Go to the fires and your supper. Some of you are half frozen.

We were all half frozen. The models could only be controlled if theywere kept ice cold, so we spent half our lives shivering in frigidaeries. I was as cold as any of them, but I wanted to let Karl get outof the way, so I went to the high window and leaned out to peer awaysouth. There was a line of warty little islands there separating theplacid harbor with its wheeling gulls from the wide, stormy lake and theinteresting lands of the True Game beyond. I mumbled something. Gervaisedemanded I repeat it.

Its boring here in Schooltown, I repeated, shamefaced.

He didnt answer at once but looked through me in that verydiscomforting way the Masters sometimes have. Finally he asked me if Ihad not had Gamesmaster Charnot for Cartography. I said I had.

Then you know something of the lands of the True Game. You know of theDragons Fire purlieu to the North? Yes. Well, there are a King andQueen there who decided to rear their children Outside. They wanted tobe near their babies, not send them off to a distant Schooltown to bebored by old Gamesmasters. They thought to let the children learn therules of play by observation. Of the eight sons born to that Queen,seven have been lost in play. The eighth child sleeps this night inHavads House nursery, sent to Schooltown at last.

It is true that it is somewhat boring in Schooltown, and for no onemore so than the Masters! But, it is also safe here, Peter. There istime to grow, and learn. If you desire no more than to be a carter orlaborer or some other pawn, you may go Outside now and be one. However,after fifteen years in Mertyns House, you know too much to be contentedas a pawn, but you wont know enough for another ten years to be safe asanything else.

I remarked in my most adult voice that safety wasnt everything.

That being the case, he said, youll be glad to help me dismantle themodel.

I bit my tongue. It would have been unthinkable to refuse, though takingthe models apart is far more dangerous than putting them together. Mostof us have burn scars from doing one or the other. I sighed,concentrated, picked a minor piece out of the game box at random andnamed it, Talisman! as I moved it into the Demense. It vanished in aflash of white fire. Gervaise moved a piece I couldnt see, then theKing, which released the Demon. I got one Tragamor out, then got stuck.I could not remember the sequence of moves necessary to get the otherTragamor loose.

One thing about Gervaise. He doesnt rub it in. He just looked at meagain, his expression saying that he knew what I knew. If I couldnt geta stupid Tragamor out of the model, I wouldnt survive very long in theTrue Game.

Patiently, he showed me the order of moves and then swatted me, not toogently.

Its only a few days until Festival, Peter. Now that youre fifteen,youll find that Festivals do much to dispel boredom for boys. So mighta little more study. Go to your supper.

I galloped down the clattering stairs, past the nurseries, hearingbabies crying and the unending chatter of the baby-tenders; down pastthe dormitories, smelling wet wool and steam from the showers; into thefirewarm commons hall, thinking of what the Gamesmaster had said. It wastrue. Brother Chance said that only the powerful and the utterlyunimportant lived long in the True Game. If you werent the one anddidnt want to be the other, it made sense to be a student. But it wasstill very dull.