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and you'll recover.
You are the man playing the game (as are we all) . . . Still something wrong,
though, something both missing and added. Think of those vital errors; think
of that dividing cell, same and not-same, the place that's turned inside out,
the cell cluster turning itself inside out, looking like a split brain
(unsleeping, moving). Listen for somebody trying to talk to you. . . .
(Silence)
(This from that very pit of night, naked in the wasteland, the ice-wind
moaning his only covering, alone in the freezing darkness under a sky of chill
obsidian:)
Whoever tried to talk to me? When did I ever listen? When was I ever other
than just myself, caring only for myself?
The individual is the fruit of mistake; therefore only the process has
validity . . . So who's to speak for him?
The wind howls, empty of meaning, a soak for warmth, a cess for hope,
distributing his body's exhausted heat to the black skies, dissolving the
salty flame of his life, chilling to the core, sapping and slowing. He feels
himself falling again, and knows that this time it is a deeper plunge, to
where the silence and the cold are absolute, and no voice cries out, not even
this one.
(Howled like the wind:) Whoever cared enough to talk to me?
(Silence)
Whoever ever cared -
(Silence)
Who - ?
(Whisper:) Listen: 'The Jinmoti of - '
. . . Bozlen Two.
Two. Somebody had spoken once. He was the Changer, he was the error, the
imperfect copy.
He was playing a different game from the other one (but he still intended to
take a life). He was watching, feeling what the other was feeling, but feeling
more.
Horza. Kraiklyn.
Now he knew. The game was . . . Damage. The place was . . . a world where a
ribbon of the original idea was turned inside out . . . an Orbital: Vavatch.
The Mind in Schar's World.
Xoralundra. Balveda. The (and finding his hate, he hammered it into the wall
of the pit, like a peg for a rope) Culture!
A breach in the cell wall; waters breaking; light freeing; illumination . . .
leading to rebirth.
Weight and cold and bright, bright light . . .
. . . Shit. Bastards. Lost it all, thanks to a Pit of Self-Doubt Treble . . .
A wave of despondent fury swept over him, and something died.
Horza tore the flimsy headset away. He lay quivering on the couch, his eyes
gummed and smarting, staring up at the auditorium lights and the two white
fighting animals hanging half-dead from the trapezes overhead. He forced his
eyes closed, then pulled them open again, away from the darkness.
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Pit of Self-Doubt. Kraiklyn had been hit by cards which made the target player
question their own identity. From the tenor of Kraiklyn's thoughts before he'd
pulled the headset off, Horza thought Kraiklyn hadn't been too terrified by
the effect, just disorientated. He'd been sufficiently distracted by the
attack to lose the hand, and that was all his opponents had been aiming for.
Kraiklyn was out of the game.
The effect on him, trying to be Kraiklyn but knowing he wasn't, had been more
severe. That was all it was. Any Changer would have had the same problem; he
was certain . . .
The trembling began to fade. He sat up and swung his feet off the couch. He
had to leave.
Kraiklyn would be going, so he had to.
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Pull yourself together, man.
He looked down to the playing table. The breastless woman had won. Kraiklyn
glared at her as she raked in her winnings and his straps were unfastened. On
the way out of the arena, Kraiklyn passed the limp, still warm body of his
last Life as it was released from its seat.
He kicked the corpse; the crowd booed.
Horza stood up, turned and bumped into a hard, unyielding body.
'May I see that pass now, sir?' said the guard he'd lied to earlier.
He smiled nervously, aware that he was still trembling a little; his eyes were
red, and his face was covered in sweat. The guard gazed steadily at him, her
face expressionless. Some of the people on the terrace were watching them.
'I'm . . . sorry . . . ' the Changer said slowly, patting his pockets with
shaking hands. The guard put out her hand and took his left elbow.
'Perhaps you'd better - '
'Look,' Horza said, bending closer to her. 'I . . . I haven't got one. Would a
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