Part 1 (1/2)
Guardians of the Flame.
The Sleeping Dragon.
by Joel Rosenberg.
Part One:.
The Student Union.
CHAPTER ONE: The Players.
Karl Cullinane reached out his fork and speared the last stick of asparagus from the stainless-steel serving plate in the middle of the table, not bothering to set the asparagus on his own plate before taking a bite, It was cold and mushy, almost tasteless; he swallowed quickly ”Karl, you're a pig. A skinny one, granted, but a pig.” Andrea Andropolous' smile took most of the sting out of her words, pitched low enough so that n.o.body else in the crowded cafeteria would have been able to hear her over the clatter of dishes and the chatter of a hundred or so students.
Karl put it down to a natural gentleness. h.e.l.l, she'd been able to make him like ita”almosta”when she'd turned him down. Usually, the let's-just-be-friends routine drove him into a silent, stomach-churning rage.
”I gotta rush, Andy-Andy. There's a game tonight.” He took another bit, added a mouthful of lukewarm black coffee, and swallowed quickly. ”If I'm late, sure as h.e.l.l they'll start without me, put Barak out to pasture for the night.”
”You mean that they'll put him out to stud.” She chuckled, revealing a mouthful of even, white teeth.
Karl liked her laugh, her smile. He had always thought that the notion of somebody brightening a room with a smile was just a fantasy. Until he had met Andy-Andy, that is. Not that he had anything against fantasy, quite thea”
”It's bulls.h.i.+t, Karl,” she said, smiling sweetly ”Just an absurd male power fantasy.” She reached out and stroked his skinny forearm with a long, dark finger. Was it tanned, or not? Andy-Andy always seemed to find something better to do during afternoon tanning hours than loll in the sun like some well-oiled, roasting slug. Probably the olive tone of her skin was natural coloration. Maybe not. Of course, there was a way to tell. Trouble was, Karl had never had the chance to check her for bikini marks.
d.a.m.n. ”No, it's just a game. A way to spend a little time, have a little fun.”
”A little fun?” She arched an eyebrow. ”You call pretending to chop up a pixie, rape a virgin or three, slice an ogrea”you call that fun?” Quirking a smile, she sat back in her chair, crossing her arms almost defensively over her blue velour pullover. Which was amply filled out, but not tight. Karl liked that; Andy-Andy was more than a little pretty, but not an exhibitionist.
”First of all”a”he tapped his index finger on the table, forcing himself to pay attention to the conversationa””you're missing the point. Pretending isn't the same thing as really doing it. I meana”take last week's session, for instance. Barak strangled an elf, chopped a half-orc in twoa”hey, now the critter's really two halves of an orc. Or should that be 'quarter-orces'? Never mind, the point is that he took three points of damage. One's a light wound, two's more serious, going up to five, which is certainly lethal. Three's the equivalent of getting sliced up pretty bad.” He reached for his s.h.i.+rt's top b.u.t.ton. ”Care to check for scars?”
”Some other time.” She tossed her head, sending shoulder-length black hair whipping around her face. ”Maybe.” A strand came to rest on her slightly too long, slightly bent nose. She blew it off. ”Then again, maybe not,”
”Teaser.”
”That's only half the word, Karl. You don't have to use that bulls.h.i.+t with me.”
”In my neighborhood, mother was only half a word.” That might sound good, but it wasn't true: Karl was a product of middle-cla.s.s suburbia. ”And besides, I was... kind of pointedly told to watch my language arounda”women.” If you consider having your mouth liberally washed out with Lifebuoy to be a pointed telling. Which it was, after a fas.h.i.+on. ”But to get back to the point, it's all just a fantasy, a game. No harm; no damage. Anyway, Barak isn't that sort of charactera”he'll violate a law, but he's no rapist.” That was true, but omitted a new character Doc Deighton had helped him roll up, one Lucius of Pandathaway. Lucius was not a nice person. Not at all. ”The trouble with you is that you feel perfectly free to judge something you haven't tried. How many times since the start of the semester have I invited youa”ten? Twenty?”
She shook her head. ”I don't have to jump out a window to decide that I'm not going to like it.”
”Irrelevant. If you try role-playing and you don't like it, you quit. Period. No scarsa”not even on your psyche. Which is part of the fun.” He shrugged. ”Besides, it's probably beneficial. You get to work out some aggressions without hurting anybody. Not yourself, not anybody else.”
”Stop trying to sound like a psych major. You're supposed to be studying to be an actor, these days.”
”I used to be a psych majora””
”a”and a poli sci major. Plus American lit, engineering, philosophy, sociologya”am I missing something?”
”Prelaw. And two weeks of premed, back when I was a freshman. What's your point?”
”You're a dilettante, Karl. This role-playing stuff is just another one of your temporary obsessions. Remember last year, when it was bridge? You spent a whole semester nattering about Stayman conventions and South American Texas transfers, whatever the h.e.l.l they area”''
”South African Texas, not South American.” He dipped two fingers into his s.h.i.+rt pocket and pulled out a cigarette, then lit it with his s.h.i.+ny new Zippo. Karl let the flame flare for a moment before snapping the cover shut. He figured that he might as well enjoy it while he could; he'd lose it soon. Karl could never seem to keep track of things; the Zippo was the third lighter he'd bought that semester. ”I still play bridge,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. ”It's just that this is more funa”particularly with this group. Sometimes...” He let his voice trail off.
”Yes?”
”Sometimes, when you get the mechanics of the game out of the waya”rolling the dice, keeping track of what you're carryinga”it's almost like you're there.” He lifted his head and smiled. ”And that's something. How often do you think I'm going to get the chance to, say, rescue a princess or slay a dragon?” He glanced down at his wrist. 6:48. Karl pushed himself to his feet. ”Well, I've got to run, if I'm not going to be late. See you later?”
Andy-Andy's brow furrowed. ”How late are you going to be? Getting back, I mean.”
”Mmmm, probably be back before midnight. If you want to meet me in the lounge, I'll help you go over Deerslayer, if that's what you mean. It's a rotten book, thougha”I've got a Twain piece on it that pretty mucha””
”No.” She shook her head. ”I'm caught up with that, but I do have a quiz in astronomy tomorrow. If you're sure we can be back by twelve, I'll come along, give it a try. If the invitation's still open.” She stood, taking her bulky yellow ski jacket from the back of her chair and slipping it on.
”You know it is.”
She sighed. ”Yes, I do.” Andy-Andy shook her head slowly. ”Which is part of the problem. Never mind; let's get going, shall we?”
James Michael Finnegan was the first player to get to Room 109 in the Student Union. It was a matter partly of habit, but mainly of pride. The others, well, they'd wait for him, sure. Only for him, dammit.
They wouldn't wait for him because he was now the most accomplished player in the group. Davy Davidson had been the best in the group until he'd dropped out last year, and n.o.body would wait for Davy and his character, Erik of the Three Bezants, on the not too infrequent occasions that he'd arrive late.
James Michael s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in his chair, his hands limp in his lap.
No, they wouldn't wait for him because he was a nice person to be around, with a dry sense of humor and an always friendly smile. That monomaniac flake Karl Cullinane cracked better jokes; that hick jock Walter Slovotsky always seemed to have a grin pasted on his facea”and everybody always liked being around Doria. But if one of them showed up late, it was well-too-bad-it-seems-your-character-is-down-with-a-cold-tonight, Just last week, Doria had fluttered in breathless, just five minutes after they'd started, and even Riccetti had ignored her implied promises and threats; Doc Deighton had just turned a very cold eye her way and suggested that lateness was an implicitly hostile act.
He spun his chair in a tight circle and swore softly under his breath.
It wasn't all that bad, not always. The one time he'd had to wait for the Special Student Services truck (all the way muttering a spell to change the driver into a toad, a particularly small, unusually ugly toada”with one eye) and had been wheeled into the elevator late, coming out on the first floor late, his car-battery-powered chair zipping down the tiled hall and into Room 109 LATEa”
a”n.o.body had said anything. Except, ”Hi, James,” and ”Nice to see you, James,” and ”Let's play, James.”
The tolerance, the implied pity, was bad. Not playing would have been worse. Much worse.
All cripples fantasize, you see. They have to, just like normal people, although not always about the things normal people do.
And when you've spent your whole life with muscular dystrophy, you're really lucky, in a way. There's lots more things to dream about. Like being able to punch a computer keyboard at better than a scorching ten words per minute. Like sleeping in a top bunk. Like feeding yourself quickly, wolfing down food so you could run off somewhere. Like using a G.o.ddam bathroom without having someone else wipe you off.
Like not having to be so G.o.ddam cheerful all the time since because you're a feeb in a chair, people will let you get away with anything as long as you don't touch them.
But the game... ah, there it was. All at once. ”I'll walk across the room, heft my axe, and chop at the ogre,” you'd say, and everybody would react to it, just as though you'd really done it.
A miracle? Well, not quite. An addiction, yes.
James Michael lifted his right hand to the steering k.n.o.b and wheeled himself over to the long table in the middle of the bright room, getting himself so close that his chin was directly over the edge of the battered mahogany surface. He reached into the denim bag on his lap, secured there by a long cloth loop around his neck, and pulled out a large plastic bag, bringing it up to the tabletop.