Free Game Play by Kevin J. Anderson

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 delight. "Journeyman, tell us something about the
Outside, since you can see parts of it. What's it like?"
    The golem grinned
his huge smile again, puckering flexible lips. "More wonders than you can
imagine! Good to the last drop and squeezably soft!
    Refrigerators that
make their own ice cubes, fabric softener that goes