"Sheri S. Tepper - The True Game - 3 books" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

We were all half frozen. The models could only be controlled if they were kept ice cold, so we spent half
our lives shivering in frigid aeries. I was as cold as any of them, but I wanted to let Karl get out of the
way, so I went to the high window and leaned out to peer away south. There was a line of warty little
islands there separating the placid harbor with its wheeling gulls from the wide, stormy lake and the
interesting lands of the True Game beyond. I mumbled something. Gervaise demanded I repeat it.
"It's boring here in Schooltown,тАЭ I repeated, shamefaced.
He didn't answer at once but looked through me in that very discomforting way the Masters sometimes
have. Finally he asked me if I had not had Gamesmaster Charnot for Cartography. I said I had.
"Then you know something of the lands of the True Game. You know of the Dragon's Fire purlieu to the
North? Yes. Well, there are a King and Queen there who decided to rear their children Outside. They


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 Tepper, Sheri S. - The True Game

wanted to be near their babies, not send them off to a distant Schooltown to be bored by old
Gamesmasters. They thought to let the children learn the rules of play by observation. Of the eight sons
born to that Queen, seven have been lost in play. The eighth child sleeps this night in Havad's House
nursery, sent to Schooltown at last.
"It is true that it is somewhat boring in Schooltown, and for no one more so than the Masters! But, it is
also safe here, Peter. There is time to grow, and learn.. If you desire no more than to be a carter or laborer
or some other pawn, you may go Outside now and be one. However, after fifteen years in Mertyn's
House, you know too much to be contented as a pawn, but you won't know enough for another ten years
to be safe as anything else. "
I remarked in my most adult voice that safety wasn't everything.
"That being the case," he said, "you'll be glad to help me dismantle the model."
I bit my tongue. It would have been unthinkable to refuse, though taking the models apart is far more
dangerous than putting them together. Most of us have burn scars from doing one or the other. I sighed,
concentrated, picked a minor piece out of the game box at random and named it, "Talisman!" as I moved
it into the Demense.. It vanished in a flash of white fire. Gervaise moved a piece I couldn't see, then the
King, which released the Demon. I got one Tragamor out, then got stuck. I could not remember the
sequence of moves necessary to get the other Tragamor loose.
One thing about Gervaise. He doesn't rub it in. He just looked at me again, his expression saying that
heknew what I knew. If I couldn't get a stupid Tragamor out of the model, I wouldn't survive very long in
the True Game.
Patiently, he showed me the order of moves and then swatted me, not too gently.
"It's only a few days until Festival, Peter. Now that you're fifteen, you'll find that Festivals do much to
dispel boredom for boys. So might a little more study.. Go to your supper. "
I galloped down the clattering stairs, past the nurseries, hearing babies crying and the unending chatter of
the baby-tenders; down past the dormitories, smelling wet wool and steam from the showers; into the
firewarm commons hall, thinking of what the Gamesmaster had said. It was true. Brother Chance said that
only the powerful and the utterly unimportant lived long in the True Game. If you weren't the one and
didn't want to be the other, it made sense to be a student. But it was still very dull.
At the junior tables the littlest boys were scaring each other with fairy tales about the lands of the
Immutables where there was no True Game. Silly. If there weren't any True Game, what would people
do? At the high table the senior students, those about to graduate into the Game, showed more decorum,
eating quietly under the watchful eyes of Gamesmaster Mertyn, King Mertyn, and Gamesmaster Armiger
Charnot.. Most of those over twenty had already been named: Sentinel, Herald, Dragon, Tragamor,
Pursuivant, Elator. The complete list of Gamesmen was said to be thousands of titles long, but we would
not study Properties and Powers in depth until we were older.