by Diane Duane
And while Tarsheh was still laughing at her and just starting to bend down over her with his mouth wide open and showing every tooth, from her coiled-down crouch Vish sprang up at him and fastened her jaws into his neck just under the jaw. With a scream of surprise Tarsheh tried to shake her off, but succeeded only in more deeply tearing the flesh there. Though Vish’s jaws were still only small, it took only one more snap of them in just the right place to bite right through the soft unarmored throat-flesh and into the vital vein that pulsed there.
Tarsheh’s heart was strong and it beat well and hard, so once Vish had bitten through that vein he had no more than a few shocked cries left to him before he toppled over. There he lay kicking every one of those muscular legs of his, bleeding his life out on the floor of his cave. And when he knew his last breath to be near, he gasped to Vish, “Take my name!”
“No, I won’t,” Vish said. “You used trickery on the small and weak to make your meals of them, and greedily ate yourself plump and strong when others went hungry within your sight. So if trickery’s been practiced on you in turn, you’re rightly served, and you’re lucky your fate’s been no worse. You may keep your name, and I’ll keep the rest of you.”
Before very much longer Tarsheh’s soul unwrapped itself from around his bones and his last breath adorned the air, and Vish sat down to begin making Tarsheh young. Because he was so big and strong it was several days before Vish finished this business. Such was his reputation at the Rock that she was not troubled in her feasting even once, for no one wanted to take the chance of running afoul of whatever powerful and ruthless Tauwff had ended him at last.
Vish did full justice to Tarsheh, mindful of how he’d been the terror of the Rock for years and years, making his prey those who had themselves come there to prey on smaller and more innocent meat. Not a scrap of flesh did Vish leave on his bones, and her own teeth were visibly sharper and her hide thicker and her claws longer by the time she finished incorporating him. And then she spoke the words of the Protocols over Tarsheh, honoring his strength if not his wisdom.
“Because your greed and folly made you careless,” Vish said, “it was well past time for you to be made young. Still, I thank you for your gift! For it means I’ll be much stronger in my quest to put things right. You’ll be part of that great deed, and together we’ll deal with the one who has caused all this trouble! Therefore rejoice, and come away with me across the world. And as we go, tell me how you think we might best proceed.”
But it was a good while before the spirit of Tarsheh’s flesh would speak civilly to her, possibly because of anger at his own folly. Vish did not wait for him to make his peace with his fate, but went down quietly from the Rock in the dusk of the fourth morning, paying no mind to the little creatures drinking water from the spring. Out into the sandy waste she went, with the voices of her egg-dam and egg-sire and Sacrificer murmuring in her ears, and Tarsheh hissing complaint in the back of her mind and cursing her for a pernicious skinny measly little eft.
***
And so she walked for yet another year, and another year after that, eating what she could, drinking where she could, learning the wide wastes and journeying through them. Many strange things Vish saw in her solitude, many wild places, desolate and bare; yet her eagerness to put the world to rights bore her up through the thousands and ten-thousands and hundred thousands of long empty lengths. Many Tauwff she also saw, scattered far apart across the rocky hills and sandy wastes, longing for one another’s company yet fearing one another lest they be devoured.
Many of these chance-met Tauwff wondered at Vish when they met, for by virtue of Tarsheh’s gift she was become strong and tall for so young a Tauwff. To everyone who wondered, she would say, “I am on a quest to put the world right, and I seek the wisest and bravest and best of all Tauwff, to make them young and go on quest with me!” And she would ask all whom she met where to find such Tauwff, and those she asked would quickly tell her that they weren’t the ones she was seeking—but they might know where she could find them.
Many such suggestions she was given, many tales of Tauwff of amazing gifts she was told; and one after another, with due care, Vish roamed the face of Wimst tracking each and every story to its lair. Most of these were rumors and legends spun out of control. Some of them were true but true too late, leading only to places where a few discarded splinters of bone or the crushed dome of a skull told the tale of a Tauwff long since fallen prey to illness or accident or (much more frequently) someone else’s hunger.
Sometimes these disappointments left Vish stamping her feet in annoyance and frustration under the uncaring sky. “How long is it going to take to fix the world if things keep going this way?” she would shout at the empty waste. Then her egg-dam and egg-sire and the Sacrificer would console her, but Tarsheh would mock at Vish and call her an ill-tempered little four-legged worm with the resolve of a two-day’s hatchling. And between the taunting and the comforting Vish would find her composure again and set out once more into the vast empty spaces of Wimst, following the slowly-increasing maps of the world that she was assembling by virtue of eating the flying predators, the siefern, whenever she could catch them.
On she walked, therefore, another year and another one after that, through wind and sandstorm and occasional blinding rain. And on these travels she met not one but two or three Tauwff who told her tales they had heard from others they had incorporated, or met while still living, of a Tauwff who had seven legs and could move faster than any Tauwff in the world.
“Seven is an unusual number for legs,” said Vish. “Certainly this is worth looking into.” So she examined the maps behind her eyes, where the siefern she had eaten lived and squabbled among themselves about who’d flown furthest, and set out toward where she thought the Tauwff of the Seven Legs might be.
And sure enough, Vish found her. The rumors and the siefern’s maps took her far north into hillier country than she had seen before, a vista full of long barren ridges from horizon to horizon. Up and down she went along the ridges, and up and down between them, for days and days and days of travel. Then on one day like any other, she saw tracks going down from the crest of one of those ridges and up the next one, and so out of sight.
In haste, for fear the wind should erase those tracks before she could follow them to their end, Vish went down the ridge and up the next one, down along the tracks beyond it and up again. And the tracks grew clearer and deeper, and at the bottom of the next ridge Vish could see a den or lair dug down into the furrow between the ridges.
Vish made her way down there and called out as she came, “I am here!” And something moved in the shadows of the den, and an old Tauwff crept out and blinked up at Vish.
The old Tauwff had been red-brown once, but she was long bleached pale by sun and age. Her muzzle was thin and her eyes started bulbous-proud from her head, and she was thin and lean of belly and thin of leg: and in number her legs were seven.
She blinked up at Vish and said, “Who is the ‘I’ that you are?”
“I am Vish fsh Tarsheh,” Vish said, having incorporated her first Tauwff; and though she would not use his name as part of her taken-name, she could use it as a given-name if she chose.
“So that is the who, and it’s well enough. Whither away, young Vish?”
“I’ve walked a year and two years and three years and four, up and down and round about,” Vish said, “seeking to put the world aright.”
“So that’s the where, and it’s well enough. How do you come to be walking about all by yourself in the wide world, young Vish?”
“I’m the last and youngest of seven clutch-kin,” Vish said, “and I’m following the sun around the world in a great quest to put right what’s gone wrong. And to do that I must become the wisest and strongest and quickest and bravest person who ever was. So I’m seeking out the wise and the strong and the quick and the brave, to make a meal of them and make them young again, so we may go questing together.”
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p; “So that’s the why, and it’s well enough. But it’s a mighty task for one hardly out of the egg,” said the seven-legged Tauwff. “And for all you’re big and strong, you’re barely more than an eft as yet.”
“Others have said that,” said Vish, “and found out otherwise.”
“That may be so,” said the seven-legged Tauwff. “What brings you to me, young Vish?”
“You were the quickest Tauwff there ever was, so the stories say.“
“And they say right,” said the seven-legged Tauwff. “I could outrun the wind without trying. I could move faster than rain sinking into sand. I was so quick that I raced the Poison-Fanged One and beat her, and she bit my eighth leg off in revenge, and even then I was still faster than her. ‘But I have sharper teeth yet,’ she said. And she was right, for every century is a hundred teeth in her mouth. Now I am old and all the legs I’ve got left creak from shoulders to toes, and I don’t have a single elbow that doesn’t keep me awake with its aching all night.”
“Then give yourself over to me, sister,” said Vish, “and let me make you young again! If you make me as quick as you were when you had all your legs, together we can put the world right that much faster.”
“That sounds very well, young Vish,” said the Seven-Legged Tauwff. “And that I’ll gladly do. But make me young again, and you make Her enmity against me young again as well. Be sure you won’t mind that nuisance biting at your tail!”
“Let her bite at me as she likes,” Vish said, “but she’ll have to catch me first; and I have some fangs of my own.” And she bared them in a smile.
“Take my name then,” said the Seven-Legged Tauwff. “It is Firtuth.”
“No, I won’t take your name,” said Vish. “You deserve to keep it for your own. But I will make you young: so prepare!”
So Firtuth the Seven-Legged Tauwff went back into her den and lay down on its stones with a good will. There she composed herself and bade her soul unwrap itself from around her bones, so that her last breath adorned the air. Then Vish went into the den with Firtuth and set about doing right by her. Three nights and two days that business took her, for though Firtuth was thin her bones were strong.
The next morning Vish came out of the den and spoke the words of the Protocols to Firtuth. “Thank you for your gift!” Vish said. “It was well past time for you to be made young, and the Poison-Fanged One will wish she’d let your eighth leg be. You’ll be part of the deed of fixing the world, and when that’s done together we’ll deal with the one who’s caused all this trouble! So rejoice, and come away with me across the world. And as we go, tell me how you think we should proceed.”
And off she went, with her egg-dam and egg-sire and the Sacrificer chatting with Firtuth in the back of her mind, and Tarsheh muttering that they were all a waste of her time.
***
So on Vish went, more quickly now every day, as she grew into the gift Firtuth gave her and learned the ways and means of speed. Even with only four legs she soon learned to run fast, faster than almost any Tauwff there was. Not as fast as me, of course, Firtuth would say from somewhere back in the space behind her eyes, but you’ll need more years and more legs for that.
Vish laughed at that through her impatience and just went on, walking and running and walking again across the world for a year, and two years, and five years, and another five; eating where she could, drinking where she could, meeting as many Tauwff as she could. Every time she met others of her kind whose souls were still wrapped around their bones she spent many hours with them asking and answering, speaking and listening, seeking to discover the whereabouts of the wisest and the bravest Tauwff there were. Many a weary ten-thousand or hundred-thousand lengths’ distance Vish ran, the journeys no less tiring to the spirit though she traversed them at greater speed. But she persevered, for there was a world to put right.
Many were the stories Vish heard along her way of Tauwff who were bold above and beyond all expectation, or cleverer than any others. One after another she followed every tale, through jagged stony sky-high mountains and across broad barren wastelands all covered with the tough pink springy caumis moss that nothing alive could eat. One after another the stubs of shattered bones half-buried in stony ground or tattered dried-up strips of ripped-off hide taught her that those she sought hadn’t been quite clever enough. And if they had been brave, that too had been passed to others who had now moved on. Or (in the case of some poor mummified bodies she’d found half-buried in the endless dunes of the vast desert that wrapped itself all around the southern pole) they had taken their courage out of the world with them unshared, a fate more terrible to many Tauwff than the dreadful sharing the Poison-Fanged One had forced upon them.
In the last year of the second five, by virtue of scraps of gossip and rumor picked up here and there and the maps her incorporated predators displayed for her behind her eyes, Vish found her way to a place where a little far-scattered colony of Tauwff had gathered along the banks of a trickling brackish stream running down from a great stretch of high-plateau ground to the eastward. Among those starveling survivors, desperate with hunger but (as they were true to the Protocols) equally desperate not to eat one another, she heard tales of a Tauwff they told Vish was surely the wisest and cleverest person in the world.
His name, they told her, was Ashmesh. He knew the answers to every question you could think to ask him, and he lived high up on the arid plateau. From there he came down among them every now and then, and he had recently returned from a long journey and gone back up to the plateau again.
“Then I’ll go there straightway,” Vish said.
“You mustn’t!” said all the Tauwff who lived by the river. “For his present cleverness doesn’t suffice him. He’s determined to become the wisest Tauwff in the whole world. He cunningly questions everyone he meets, and if he judges you to be clever enough, he’ll devour you whether you surrender yourself or no.”
“It’s true you’re big and strong,” said the eldest of these Tauwff, a long lean gangly oldster with dust-yellow scales gone dull with her age. “But he’s bigger and stronger far. If he thinks you’re clever enough to eat, he’ll tear your flesh and crunch up your bones and make you as old as he no matter what you do.”
Vish stood and thought a while. Her egg-dam and egg-sire and the Sacrificer murmured behind her eyes, dubious about it all. But Firtuth laughed and said, Can he run as fast as you can? The wise are often not much good at running, since they sit and think so much. Let him try to tear your flesh when you’re a hundred lengths away before he can squeeze his eyes shut and open again! And Tarsheh sneered with all his fangs and said, Whatever else you’ve become, you’re stronger than you look. Let him try to tear your flesh! If he bares his throat to you, you still might to do him what you did to me.
Still Vish stood and thought. “If he’s so clever,” she said, “he’ll know many ways to keep from having his throat torn. And he might well guess at my quickness by the way I move. I must think of another way to deal with him.”
“If you’ll be so daring as to try your luck with Ashmesh,” said the old gold-scaled Tauwff, “you should go full-fed. I will surrender myself to you if you’re hungry, for this life is nothing to me any more.”
Vish lashed her tail “no”. “It’s to make lives more than nothing that I go,” she said. “Because this is one of the ways the world needs to be put right! Maybe you should be made young again, but not for a reason like this! So let me go up to the plateau and see how chance favors my journey.”
Vish then bade those Tauwff farewell and began to follow the riverbed up into the heights. She did not hurry, for she wanted more time to think. And though she dug herself deep and safe under stone by night, in the daytime Vish sprawled herself out among the rocks of the river’s gully as if she’d fallen there, and kept very still under the sun. Sure enough, before long the winged predators came for her, thinking that because of illness or accident her soul had unwrapped itself from her bones.
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br /> But in her travels Vish had become expert at this ploy. That day and the next one and the one after that, as she made her way up the little river’s course, she caught the predators and crunched their bones and drank their blood and learned the maps that were woven in their marrow. So it was that within four claws’ worth of days she knew the lay of all the land thereabouts, and saw behind her eyes what the predators had seen: a lair or cave up on the high plateau by the riverside, where Ashmesh dwelt when he was not seeking out clever Tauwff to devour them and make himself wiser.
Though cleverness and wisdom are not the same, whispered Vish’s egg-dam inside her ear; and Vish, as she came up over the last rise onto the great plateau, wrinkled her jaw in a grin of agreement.
So onward and upward toward the high plateau Vish set her path with a good and high heart. “If it’s true that he’s wisest,” she thought, “then he’ll be well eaten as part of my quest. And if it’s not, then overcoming him will still be useful, at least for the people hereabouts, who sound like their lives will be quieter once he’s eaten; and so the world will be done good. But I must be sure that this matter goes my way.”
And there lay what was making her scales turn up at the edges; for she was by no means sure she could do so. On she went nonetheless as she had said she must, for there was a world to put right. And all the while her egg-dam and egg-sire and Firtuth and Tarsheh debated what would be best to do, while the Sacrificer was quiet. Only on the last night before Vish made her way up over the edge of the plateau did she whisper from behind Vish’s eyes, Where wiles and guiles may struggle or fail, persistence oft cracks the egg. And Vish dug deep under stone that night and turned the Sacrificer’s words over in her mind.
