Free Gameplay by Kevin J. Anderson

Delrael.
    “How do we know he’s from the Rulewoman? The Outsider David might have sent him to kill us while we sleep.”
    Delrael frowned as if the thought had never occurred to him. Vailret scratched his blond hair and nodded. “He’s got a point, Del.”
    Bryl sighed, relieved that they had conceded that much.
    Journeyman spread out his hands and splayed his fingers even wider. “Cross my heart and hope to die?” When that didn’t appear to be good enough, the golem drew himself up, swelling his chest and stretching the pliable clay to make his shoulders broader.
    “The Rulewoman Melanie commanded me to destroy Scartaris. That is my quest and that must take priority. I would rather join forces, offer my services, and accompany you—but if you don’t trust me, I’ll go alone.”
    He tilted his head forward on a rubbery neck. “Delrael, I know your father Drodanis. And I’ve seen Lellyn, Bryl’s apprentice. They both reached the Rulewoman and her Pool.”
    Delrael snapped his head up, blinking. Bryl saw a haunted look in the fighter’s brown eyes.
    Journeyman nodded. “Your father is well, though he is in a daze most of the time. Drodanis wants to forget. He wants to be without pain, without memories. He wants to stop playing. And on Gamearth when a character wishes to give up the Game, there is nothing left of him.”
    Delrael reached out to snap a twig from a branch. His knuckles were white, but he made no comment. Vailret put a hand on the shoulder of his cousin’s armor.
    “What about Lellyn?” Bryl asked. The boy had been rather likeable, although an affront to his teacher. A pureblooded human who somehow, through the Rules of Probability, was able to work more magic than Bryl himself could. The boy worked spells intuitively, wielded greater power than his teacher, but Bryl had still taught the boy what little he could, before Drodanis took him along on his quest.
    “Lellyn is a rulebreaker in many ways,: Journeyman continued. “He was nearly destroyed by his own doubts. The Rulewoman froze him in a block of forever-ice, sink to the bottom of her Pool, for his own protection.”
    “Why would she do that?” Bryl said.
    Journeyman tilted his head up again and moved a branch out of the way as they began to walk again. The branch gouged tracks into the soft clay of his arm. Absently, he smoothed his skin back into place.
    “None of us is real . We are made-up characters created for the Outsiders’ amusement. You know that. We all know that. But the Rulewoman herself is a manifestation of one of the Outsiders. She is so beautiful, with her long brown hair and her big eyes filled with all the colors of mother-of-pearl. She moves with such grace and power.…” Journeyman paused, as if daydreaming.
    “And when Lellyn saw her, maybe he saw more than he should. Somehow in his mind he knew that she was real and he was not. That doubt grew and grew until, when he completely disbelieved in his own existence, he would have vanished, winked out, annihilated. Reality is a powerful thing, too much for anything on this world to handle.
    “In the last instant the Rulewoman froze him to save him from his own doubts. He is still here, but he is not here.”
    As Journeyman spoke, Bryl remembered the ruined ship that had carried the Outsiders David and Tyrone into the Spectre Mountains near Sitnalta. That was how the Outsiders had brought Scartaris into the world. He also remembered the Scavenger, Paenar, who had come to the deserted fortress looking for treasure, and found instead the Outsiders. He had taken a brief glimpse of the Outsiders in their real forms, and the sight had blasted his eyes from their sockets. Yes, reality was a powerful thing.
    Grudgingly, Bryl decided not to push the argument. They trudged on, crossing a hex-line into another section of forest terrain by mid-afternoon. Journeyman snapped his fingers and sang something about being “king of the road.”
    Vailret’s eyes gleamed wide with