"All right," said Ronnell. "Your sword blade bounces off the ogre and stabs you through the heart."

Farfell opened his mouth to protest, but blood began to pour out. His eyes widened and he clutched at his chest. There was more blood oozing between his fingers. His eyes shone with anger and confusion, and then with one final despondent glance in the direction of the Mousser, he keeled over.

Just before Farfell hit the floor, once again there was that glorious glow of light that, under other circ.u.mstances, I would have gazed upon with wonder. Now it simply horrified me as the essence of Farfell leaped across the table and into the receptive Ronnell.

He gasped in what sounded like almost s.e.xual delight, and then he sat there, his head lolling for a few moments, rubbing his chest while his tongue strayed across his lips. Then he let out a contented sigh and looked at me.

"You're obviously full," I said. "We can continue this later. I'm sure..."

"The door awaits ye," he told me.

I forced a smile, trying to ignore the rapid thudding of my heart.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure it does. And don't think I'm not anxious to get myself killed for your dining and dancing pleasure. But the fact is, I was never much for adventures to begin with. So if it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon shut this one down."

"Tell ye what. I'll make it easy for ye," he said. "Ye suddenly find yerself magically transported through the door into the adjoining chamber. There before ye, ye see a great flaming sword hanging in the middle of the room, suspended by an invisible force."

"And you must think I'd be a great flaming idiot for even considering getting anywhere near it."

"Ye are going to reach for the sword. Roll the dice to see if ye are able to command it."

I still couldn't rise out of my chair. I tried to reach around to yank my own sword from its scabbard in the hope that I could fling it at him, perhaps impale him. But my arm wouldn't move.

"Ye think t'kill me," he smiled, as if able to read my mind... which, for all I knew, he could. "It doesn't end that easily, Apropos. Ah am the Magic Maestro. Ah control yer destiny."

Something in the way he said that, the incredible smugness, overcame my blinding fear and ignited my rage, which was always bubbling just beneath the surface anyway. "The h.e.l.l you do!" I said. "I'd've lived a long and happy life if I didn't have a destiny of any sort. Instead I've spent my entire existence with different people telling me I have a great destiny that I'm supposed to live up to. A destiny I want no partof, thank you very much. But this much I know: I'll be d.a.m.ned if I give a bullying, soul-sucking lunatic like you command over whatever destiny my future holds, great or not. You control my destiny? G.o.ds supposedly control man's destiny, and I've killed a G.o.d or two in my time, so don't think you can sit there all menacing and magical and get me to knuckle under to your parlor tricks!"

He didn't seem remotely impressed. "Roll the dice."

"Youroll the b.l.o.o.d.y dice!" and I lunged, sweeping my hand back as if to knock them toward him.

And he flinched. His face was still a mask of forboding, but for a heartbeat there was a look of concern in his eyes as he shrank back from even the prospect of the accursed dice coming his way.

That was when I realized. I thought about how he had never actually touched the dice. He had upended them onto the table from their pouch.

The thunder cracked outside, closer and closer, and there were even more alarmed shouts from above.

A desperate thought flashed through my mind, and apparently it did so at the exact same moment in Ronnell's. We both grabbed our respective ends of the table and tried to upend it, angle it so that we were in the superior position and the downward slope of the table would send the dice clattering toward the other.

The power in my arms, thanks to a lifetime of hauling myself around by them to compensate for my lame leg, is not to be underestimated.

He shoved the end of the table upward, and the dice tumbled toward me. I pushed forward, shoved back, briefly s.h.i.+fting the tilt so the dice began to roll the other way. I tried to shove the table over so the accursed things would fall to the floor. It didn't work. They clung to the table with an uncanny life of their own, which I was beginning to suspect they truly did possess.

We grunted, cursing at one another, trying with all our respective might to bring ruin upon the other.

The dice rolled one way and then the other as we jockeyed for position, and the rocking of the boat itself didn't help matters.

The mug of mead I'd been drinking from overturned, falling against my chest and sending foaming liquid cascading into my lap. I jumped from the unexpected coldness, and Ronnell let out a triumphant howl as he thrust upward with all his strength and the dice tumbled right toward me. There was no way I was going to be able to avoid them.

Seized with a final burst of desperation, I grabbed the mug and brought it up to the table level. The poisonous dice tumbled into the mug without coming into physical contact with my person.

For an instant Ronnell hadn't seen what happened, and tried to move the table so he could get a better view. Grabbing the opportunity, I slammed the table forward. The far end struck him full in the face, and I heard a satisfying crack, which I recognized as the sound of a nose being broken (having heard it several times emerging from my own face). I shoved the table aside, the game components clattering to the floor, Ronnell flopping back onto his chair and grabbing at his nose, muttering a string of imprecations.

"And you can choke on your flaming death sword!"I shouted, as I swung the mug around and let flythe dice.

For the first roll of the evening, luck was with me, for Ronnell opened his mouth wide to shout something at me, and the dice flew straight in as if they had eyes. Snake eyes.

He gasped, choked, and reflexively swallowed, and I reached into myself and into him with pure force of will and snarled, "The flaming sword of doom doesn't like you."

He coughed, gagged, clutched at his throat, at his chest, as whatever dark magic the dice possessed worked its way and will through him. He began to tremble and toss about, and suddenly I could stand once more, which I did so forcefully that I overbalanced the chair and fell backward out of it. I scrambled to my feet as best I could, clutching my staff. I pressed the hidden trigger and a blade snapped out of the open mouth of the carved dragon on the end.

I wasn't going to need it.

Ronnell fell against the bulkhead, trembling, howling, energy appearing to build up from within him, smoke rising from his open mouth, from his ears. His eyes began to smolder, and jets of flame suddenly ripped from them as he screamed. It was then I realized the significant problem. When others had rolled the dice, whatever horrific circ.u.mstance had hit them had struck from without and worked its way in.

With Ronnell, it was going from the inside out.

The table was sideways on the floor. I threw myself behind it just as Ronnell exploded with deafening force. The game doc.u.ments, the part.i.tion he'd used, all went up instantly. The incredible power of the energies released slammed the table back against me, and me in turn against the far wall.

I heard a ma.s.sive roaring and thought it was coming from within my head. Then the smell of salt and spray was overwhelming, and I peeped out from behind my table just in time to see a sight that caused my heart to sink somewhere into my boots.

Ronnell was gone.

So was a good chunk of the boat.

Where he'd been standing and exploding, there was now a vast, gaping hole, and seawater was rus.h.i.+ng in with the eagerness of a group of sellswords at a virgins' convention. There was no way out.

The water was gus.h.i.+ng everywhere, barreling up the steps leading to the upper decks. I did the only thing I could think of: I clutched onto the table for dear life, lying flat on my staff to hold it in position as best I could.

Seconds later there was water everywhere. I took a deep breath, wondering how many days I could hold it, and then I was yanked out of the room, holding on desperately. I had clutched my first lover with less tenacity than I did that large piece of wood.

Water pounded against my face, and I held on all the more tightly. Then I was out of the s.h.i.+p and completely submerged, whipping around, closing my eyes and trying not to gasp reflexively from the shock of the chill water and violence of the spin. I wanted to cry out, I wanted to curse. Either response would have been fatal. So instead I sank my teeth into the inside of my lower lip and found myself praying to beings for whom I'd had nothing but contempt before. At that point I even recalled the time when I'd crossed a stone bridge into the land of Wuin and had fancied I'd seen sea G.o.ds raging at me from either side as the waters had surged around me. They seemed rather annoyed with me at the time. Iwondered bleakly if they carried a grudge.

I tumbled about, lost track of which way was up and which was down. I figured that I had some measure of safety, since wood floats. Then I thought about the fact that the boat I'd been on was most likely going to sink like a rock, and suddenly the buoyancy of wood was called into question. Trying not to panic even as I felt the air beginning to burn in my lungs and seeking release, I let out a few bubbles and watched them float. They trickled away in the direction that, had I been left to my own devices, I would have sworn was down. Perhaps the G.o.ds were perverse enough to reroute air bubbles to lead me astray. I'd put nothing past those poxy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Nevertheless, I decided to trust in what I laughingly referred to as nature and I kicked in the direction of the bubbles, keeping the table tightly under me.

There seemed to be nothing but darkness ahead, and I was becoming more and more certain that I was simply steering myself to a dark and soggy death in the pit of inky blackness that was the ocean.

And then suddenly I was up and out, bobbing to the surface under a night sky that was alive with lightning all around. I looked down and saw that my staff was still wedged beneath me. I was relieved. That walking staff and I had been through a lot together, and I would have been loath to lose it.

I bounced up and down like a leaf upon the rough waters. I started screaming for help, why I don't know. I managed to twist around enough to see the s.h.i.+p in the distance. TheLarp was listing wildly, and I could see sailors tumbling into the water. They were so far away that I couldn't even hear their screams against the storm, and so ceased my own, realizing that all I'd do was hurt my throat.

Then I saw something that will always stay with me. High, high in the crow's nest, I saw Captain Stout. I was certain it was he, even as far away as I was. He was clutching onto the main mast, and he was saluting, making no effort to abandon the s.h.i.+p and save himself... not that he would have likely had much opportunity for salvation. For some reason, I was certain that he was smiling as I watched the mast slowly descend into the water. Seconds later the s.h.i.+p rolled over onto its side and then sank without a trace. There was no indication that there had been a vessel there at all.

Here I'd sat down to a simple foolish game, and as a result was stranded in the middle of nowhere on a plank, all thanks to Ronnell McDonnell.

"I deserve a break today," I muttered.

Chapter 3.

Bored on Board

I've spent a considerable portion of my life drifting, essentially. Never before, however, had I found myself in a position where I was doing so literally rather than figuratively. It was somewhat ironic, really,although I've noticed that irony is something better appreciated from a great distance of either miles or years, or both, and best appreciated when it's happening to someone else.

In this instance, it was happening to me. Then again, why not? Everything seemed to happen to me.

Except as I floated under the night sky, calling as loudly as I could to see if any voices responded and hearing none, I had to admit that for all I mourned my unceasing hideous luck, I also possessed the most uncanny streak of good fortune that any fool had ever been "blessed" with.

Over and over again, I would be thrust, all unwilling, into the mouth of danger Once again for no d.a.m.ned good reason, I'd survived it. The former incident was bad luck, the latter, good. Which led me to decide that I was the luckiest b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the face of the planet, since my luck ran so extremely in both directions.

It was now simply a matter of finding out which aspect of my luck was going to be holding sway for the duration of my decidedly disturbing ocean voyage.

I clutched tightly to the table, skimming over the choppy waves as best I could. Every so often I would be completely submerged, and I would wait to be dragged down to the bottom. A nameless watery grave: how fitting for one whose greatest boast throughout his life was that he had nothing.

But G.o.ds or fate or what-have-you were not interested in letting me off that easily, no. As many times as I was pulled down, I bobbed back to the surface moments later. I was drenched, I was miserable, I was cursing the fates (since at that point I wasn't taking the long view of being grateful to be alive), and overall it was one of the most miserable nights I'd spent in my life. And considering some of the nights I'd spent, that's saying something.

I didn't think I was going to be able to sleep at all, because I was concerned that as soon as I dozed off, I'd lose my grip on the table and slip off into the water. Apparently my survival instinct was more powerful than even I realized, however. One moment I was flat on my back, staring up at the moon, and the next I was blinking against the morning sun. Spray was misting in my face, and the salt water caused my eyes to tear. Slowly I sat up, being careful not to dislodge my rather precarious perch, and looked around.

Nothing.

Just vast, vast stretches of emptiness. Water as far as I could see, stretching to the horizon, stretching away.

It had not been all that long ago that I had been "adrift" in a similar situation that was simultaneously the exact opposite. I had been in the middle of a fearsome desert with nothing but sand and dirt all around me. Water was a distant and fanciful dream. Now here I was with more water than any sane person could hope to want to see, but just as helpless. Worse off, really. At least I couldn't drown in sand. Also, at least Sharee was with me the last time. If you're going to die alone, it's always nice to have someone along for the ride.

I pulled my feet up to make sure they were clear of the water, and checked that my sword and staff were still with me. I also had a skin of water attached to my belt. After my experience in the Tragic Waste, it had just become force of habit. Out of curiosity, I cupped my hand and dipped it into the ocean, then tried to drink it. It tasted salty, as one might have expected, and not especially palatable. So I took a judicious sip from my water skin, even though my impulse was to suck it dry. Then I waited.

What I was waiting for, I hadn't the faintest idea. I had no reason to expect a s.h.i.+p to come along and rescue me. I had no real means of paddling. I could use my sheathed sword as a makes.h.i.+ft oar, I supposed, but what direction would I head? The s.h.i.+p had been going east....

I looked up at the sun. It was still low to the horizon, so I knew the approximate direction that east was. But so what? Miles upon miles of empty ocean stretched before me, and even if I did manage to gain a little ground with my sword as an oar, so what? Better, I reasoned, to save my strength and dedicate it to a useful pursuit such as not falling off.

I prayed no storms would arise, because if they did, I was a goner. I had no protection from the elements, and any truly fierce waves would likely sweep me off the wood and away to the aforementioned watery grave.

And so I lay there.

And lay there.

And lay there.

I watched the sun track across the sky and wondered if the old stories about it being pulled through the air by a vast being on a great chariot had any basis in fact. I somehow doubted it. If I were a creature with as much power as that, I'd certainly find some pursuit more worthwhile and interesting than doing the exact same thing day in, day out. I reasoned that one of the benefits of omnipotence was the right to be spared mind-numbing boredom and repet.i.tion. Otherwise what was the point of infinite power in the first place?

The sun finished its arc and night fell once more. The silence was deafening. Just the steady lapping of water against the table and my labored breathing, that was it. I fell asleep and dreamt of Sharee, and of Mordant. I dreamt of the Princess Entipy, and the court of King Runcible. They were pleasant dreams, which was surprising considering I didn't usually have pleasant dreams. In the taunting night vision, I was back at Runcible's court, except this time everything had worked out. I was respected, loved, admired. I was dancing with Entipy, and people were bowing and smiling whene'er I pa.s.sed.

And my mother was alive. She was standing to one side, grinning at how much her great and glorious son Apropos had accomplished. "Your destiny," she mouthed, and Mordant was on her shoulder.

I woke up. It was night, but I could sense that the sun would soon be rising.

It did.

It crossed the sky. More tedium. More of the same. I supposed I should be grateful as there was still no sign of anything to break the tedium, such as a storm. I remained judicious about the water, even though my lips and throat were begging for more. My stomach was thick with pain from lack of food. It had been a day and a half since I'd had anything to eat, and I had no clue how much longer it would be, if ever. Why, oh why hadn't I thought to keep some sort of nonperishable food items upon me? Wouldn't that have made some degree of sense?

I castigated myself for that, and soon I was chiding myself for everything else in my life that I had donewrong or foolishly. It was a considerable list. What was interesting was that in virtually every instance, I found someone else to blame. This person or that person had done me wrong, had ill-used me, had found some way to exploit me. Poor, poor Apropos, never to blame for any foul deeds or unfortunate happenstance that befell him, for they were always the fault of someone else.

This was certainly not a new mind-set. Nevertheless, for the first time, with no one else around to voice my frustrations to or commiserate with, it seemed rather... I don't know... hollow.

The problem with any boring situation is that sooner or later you tend to become bored with yourself.

With only yourself to talk to, it's easy to realize just how little you have to offer for intelligent conversation.

It wasn't as if I had always been my own greatest enthusiast. My loathing for the world was generally superseded only by my self-loathing. But when you're adrift on a piece of wood, even self-loathing will take you only so far. Sooner or later, you begin to wonder... why?

Why?

If life is so terrible, why notdo something about it? Find options, look for new ways to approach it. If there was one thing I knew, it was that I was a rather ingenious individual for searching out alternatives to dealing with a.s.sorted predicaments. It had gotten me this far, hadn't it? Granted, where it had gotten me was a piece of wood in an ocean in the middle of nowhere, but still, the point was that less inventive people would have been dead long before this.

Most of my approach to life was filled with a desire to be left alone. Beyond a steady appet.i.te for vengeance on those who had made my existence a living h.e.l.l, I really didn't aspire to anything other than to let others get on with the business of adventuring, fighting, and killing each other. Leave me be. Don't drag me into it. Don't look at me.

But was that reasonable?

I had become the physical embodiment, the epitome of that philosophy. I had achieved the perfect state of isolation. There was certainly the downside of having no food and a very limited water supply.

But let us say that I had both in abundance, through whatever means--mystical or natural--you could devise. Let us say that the constant concern over inclement weather and the resultant speedy death were not a consideration. Let us say, in short, that pure survival was not a concern.

It left me looking upon an endless vista and saying,Is this all there is?

I was an island unto myself. I was my own best friend, my own beginning and my own end. I was the ultimate in isolation, and the humanity for which I held such contempt was a distant and irrelevant consideration to my life.

It was the perfect existence for one who disliked so much.

I had to say... it wasn't much fun.

I stared down into the watery depths, hoping perhaps that some stray fish would pa.s.s by and I could snare it. Once I managed that feat, I had no clue what I would do with the d.a.m.ned thing. It wasn't as if I could cook it. I could certainly eat it raw; I'd consumed raw or nearly raw animals before when making a fire wasn't feasible. It didn't sound particularly appetizing. Then again, the way my stomach was feeling,just about anything should have been appetizing.

By the time of the third morning, I was ready to eat plankton.

By the time of the fourth morning, I was ready to eat plank. Specifically, the board of wood I was floating on.

I had never been so hungry in my life. The temptation to gulp down the entirety of the skin's contents was becoming overwhelming. I was going to die. I had no doubts on that score. What purpose, then, to dying thirsty as well as hungry? How would I be served by it?

I drifted in and out of sleep, regardless of time of day. The dream about the party at King Runcible's court was becoming more and more expansive. By this point, everyone was there. Everyone who had ever tried to kill me--and that alone was enough to fill a fairly sizable hall. Everyone who hadn't tried to kill me was there as well, although they took up a considerably smaller portion of the room.

Even within the context of my dream, I was impressed by the staggering number of people who had, at some point or another, desired to see my life terminated. It was quite an accomplishment, in a depressing sort of way, to find the means of annoying so many people.