Reamde

Dogshaker the moneychanger, apparently fed up with Lottery Discountz’s coyness, began to climb up out of the amphitheater, headed (Csongor guessed) in the direction of the ley line intersection that would tend to be used by visitors from the Torgai Foothills. “He’s headed for your LLI,” Csongor said. “I’m following him.” And he got his hands on the keyboard and sent Lottery Discountz running in pursuit.

“Does he have muscle with him?”

“No.”

“What class of character is he?”

“Merchant.”

“Then we’re probably okay,” said James, “unless he’s only pretending to be a merchant.” During this exchange, he had been sitting back from his keyboard, taking the advantage of a lull to stretch his arms luxuriously. Csongor guessed that nothing much happened during a ley line ride. But suddenly his eyes snapped back to the screen, and he sat forward, bringing his hands back to the keyboard. “We’re sort of committed now anyway.”

“You’re at the LLI?”

“Just popped out,” James confirmed. Csongor glanced over to see that Marlon too was once again fully engaged with his computer.

“Then I’ll lead him to you.” And Csongor typed into the chat window:

Lottery Discountz: Follow me, sir.

To which the moneychanger responded immediately with “K,” that being the chat abbreviation for the unwieldy two-letter message “OK.”

This LLI was a busy one, an area about the size and shape of a cricket oval surrounded by market stalls mostly occupied by small-time moneychangers. Upward of a hundred characters were scattered around it, some just standing there alone, others gathered in social clusters, still others engaged in duels that were frequently accompanied by spectacular magical light shows. Lottery Discountz stumbled to a halt in the middle of it and turned around several times.

Dogshaker: Is that them?

He turned to look the way Dogshaker was looking and identified Reamde and Thorakks coming their way. He replied with a Y, but Dogshaker was already running toward them. Csongor ran after. Their chat window went through some kind of reconfiguration: apparently the moneychanger had added the newcomers to the chat list, so that they could all see one another’s messages. This drew Csongor’s attention for a few moments. Another one of those crazy light shows flourished on the screen: some high-level character, locked in a duel, must be invoking a powerful spell.

“O M G,” said Marlon out loud.

Csongor looked at the screen. The ground was dropping out from beneath Lottery Discountz’s feet. Something was lifting him into the air. The others were coming with him.

James just laughed ruefully. “Oh man,” he finally said, “we are so fucked.”

Reamde, Thorakks, and Lottery Discountz were all together, standing on something translucent and bluish white, a platform that seemed to be about a hundred meters in the air above the ley line intersection. Csongor turned his point of view around and was startled to see a giant face glowering down at them. Utterly confused, he zoomed way out so that he could see his character from a greater distance.

He now perceived that he and Reamde and Thorakks were literally in the palm of a hand the size of a tennis court. The hand belonged to a towering, godlike figure standing like a colossus above the city of Carthinias, one foot planted at the ley line intersection, the other about a kilometer away near the Exchange.

Having gotten over his initial astonishment, Marlon was now furiously hitting keys, apparently trying to invoke various spells. Bubbles of light bloomed around his hands, but each was snuffed out by some sort of counterspell from the giant figure. Csongor finally had the presence of mind to mouse over the giant’s head and learned that this was a character named Egdod.

“Asshole,” Egdod proclaimed in a voice that once again obliged all three players to grope in panic for their volume knobs, “I could just kill you and take the gold—if that was what I wanted.”

Marlon sat back in despair and clapped his hands to the side of his head.

“Let’s go somewhere a little more private,” Egdod continued, and Csongor noticed that cloud formations were zipping past them, moving downward. He shifted his point of view down and saw that Carthinias was dropping away beneath Egdod’s sandaled feet. He was taking them up into the air like a Saturn V. Lottery Discountz’s health indicators were dropping at least as rapidly as their altitude was rising: hypoxia and hypothermia, as it turned out, being the main culprits. But then he noted that spells were being cast on him—and presumably the others too—such as “Heavenly Warmth” and “Breath of the Gods,” and his indicators began to climb again.

“Aiyaa!” Marlon exclaimed, having moved his hands around to cover his face altogether.

“Let me hear your voices,” Egdod commanded.

James, Csongor, and Marlon all reached for their headsets and slipped them on. Meanwhile, Egdod was explaining: “I’ll go through with the transaction just as I said. But first I want to hear everything you know about Zula.”