Piers Anthony: Steppe

"This," he said, indicating the screen.

"Master, I have," she answered uncertainly.

Cimmerian was now beating up a dwarf named Greek. Greek was partly civilized but retained some fighting spirit. Still, he was no match for the steppe giant.

"Is this the usual presentation? Comic figures?"

She remained perplexed. "Yes, Master."

"And from this players are expected to judge the course of the Game?"

"Surely you know this is true, Master!"

Alp watched the screen again. Greek had given up the unequal struggle and taken to his ships, splitting into several tinier dwarves in the process. Each subdwarf tried to find a new home, but the more civilized dwarves resident around the little sea were not eager hosts. There was a wave of bitter fighting. One subdwarf took over the island marked Crete which, a verbal footnote explained, had recently suffered a terrible calamity that stunned its own civilized dwarf and rendered him helpless by also sinking his ship. In a few days that subdwarf took the name of Philistine and raided the fertile riverland of Egypt, but he was driven off by the resident dwarf. Then he managed to land on the coast marked Syria, where he shoved aside the dwarflings Canaan and Israel.

"This is no history of Steppe!" Alp complained. "Who cares about the bickering of the runts of the distant coast?"

The woman shook her head, unable to clarify the matter. Alp realized he should have questioned the eunuch instead; a man, even a partial man, should comprehend the concerns of men.

"Your former master—he watched this?"

"All of them watched," she said.

"All the programs?"

"All my masters."

"What happened to them?"

"They were turned off after—"

"I meant the masters, not the programs!"

"Some were in other parts," she said.

Other parts. So women also went from part to part through the Game and remembered past experience. No doubt this generous-bodied, scant-minded female, because of her inherent limitations, failed to rise above the minimum level. "Your last master. The Uigur." For she must have had a master in this part; menials were not set up to serve each other.

"He annoyed Chief Uga."

So Uga did eliminate opposition! Obviously he had the qualities necessary to maintain his office. It was treason for a member of a tribe to plot against the chief, but proper for the chief to keep strict discipline. Alp would not have cared to serve a weak man.

Alp had been trying to determine the extent the cartoon summaries had assisted individual players to achieve perspective. Not much, he judged. And no wonder, if they bore no closer relation to true Steppe history than this! About all he had accomplished was to verify that this was the official presentation... and that Uga tolerated no impertinence from tribesmen.

"All right," he said.

She began to remove her clothing.

"No," he said, annoyed again by her density. She would have been ideal—if he had not needed to learn anything. "That—later. Now—I want to watch the program."

She waited.

He realized that even dismissal had to be specific. "Go take a nap."

She departed submissively.

It was amazing how circumstance changed taste! Had he known before he fell into the gorge that he would have access to such a woman, he would have assumed she was the reward of heaven. Now what he really wanted was a smart woman, even if she were shaped like a dead pine tree. He returned to the cartoon.

One Greek subdwarf, or possibly a related dwarf from an adjacent territory—it was hard to tell them apart, and hardly seemed important—was named Phrygia. He traveled by land, only crossing the strait from Greek ground to the land of Anatolia. That was the territory of the civilized giant Hittite, a formidable ancient warrior.

But Hittite had grown flabby in his centuries of dominance and had also suffered at the hands of the Steppe giant Cimmerian. For almost a thousand Days Hittite had reigned virtually unchallenged; now he was old and ill, and so the thrust of the aggressive dwarf Phrygia was enough to break him up entirely. The consequence of this breakup, said the cartoon voice, was severe.

Alp leaned forward, becoming interested. He had read of Hittite in the translated manuscripts and knew that that giant had been important to the later events of the Steppe. Maybe this cartoon was relevant after all!

There was now a closeup of Hittite. "Hittite was an iron worker," the narrative voice explained. "He knew how to make swords and spears of iron when others did not, and he kept his process secret. That was the reason for his great strength in battle. But when he was beaten, all the dwarves and giants began to learn how to use iron, and that changed things in both Steppe and the bordering civilized world. An iron weapon is superior to a bronze one, because it is so much harder and sharper. Even a dwarf with iron technology is strong enough to humble a giant with bronze—in many cases.

"When the knowledge of ironworking spread over the known world, the whole community of giants and dwarves was shaken up. Some giants were reduced to dwarves, and some dwarves grew into giants, and they all quarreled and fought endlessly. This, then, was the root significance of Cimmerian's push against Greek: the spread of iron technology and the consequent reordering of ancient powers."

Alp turned it off. He had not lost interest; in fact he had found the cartoon most illuminating after all, and he needed time to think about it before assimilating more. Of course iron was important; all the warriors of Steppe used iron weapons, and the skilled technicians and smiths of the mountain regions were virtually immune from attack, no matter which nation controlled the empire. Alp had not realized that old Cimmerian had been responsible, however deviously, for the world's acquisition of this blessing.

The cartoons looked foolish but were not. The magic brain of the Game Machine was behind them, its potency manifesting like the bright sun veiled by clouds. The pictures gave only cursory details on the political situation but did bring out the important fundamental points. The problem was to relate that information to current events in the Game, so as to know better than rival players how to improve one's own position.

Alp had prevailed over the four Kirghiz in part because of his superior horse and bow: that was a similar principle. In the Game there were many other improvements in weaponry; if he failed to appreciate their nature, he would lose. So already he had profited from the cartoon insight!

Better to absorb Game history in easy stages, so that he would not become confused and misread it. He could not afford to make any serious mistake! He had ten Days to make good; while that was not much time, he could spare a couple to assimilate the past properly. His own prior knowledge of history would simplify the task.

Alp snapped his fingers twice. The girl reappeared, rubbing her eyes sleepily. "Now," he said, indicating her clothing.

She was voluptuous and tractable, so it went well enough. Then: "Hey!" she cried, confused.

Alp paused. "What is the matter, girl?"

"What are you trying to do?"

"If it isn't yet obvious, girl, it soon will be. Silence, now."

She obeyed, but it was apparent that she was unfamiliar with his technique. She was vaguely resistive despite his skill. Another Galactic anomaly: their women were unversed in the refinements of pleasure!

First the loss of literacy, now this. How much else had mankind forgotten in the past fifteen centuries?

After the girl left, bemused but educated, Alp checked the weapons he had set aside. This was a conditioned reflex with him. They were in order, except for one item: his marked sword had been exchanged for another. Uga's doing, obviously; probably the eunuch had been instructed to do it at the first opportunity. But why?