Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal

by Diane Duane

  When the sun rose again Vish made her way up into the broad bright day that lay over the great plateau, and paused there at its edge to look behind her and out across the wide world. Even though she’d spent years now on her journeys it was rare for her to have so clear a view of the lands she’d journeyed across; and the width of the space that stretched in all directions between her and the edge of the world left her feeling very small. But after a while it came to her that perhaps the world could best be saved by something small; for if things went well the One who’d marred the world might not see its savior coming.

  That thought so heartened her that Vish turned right about and began scuttling her way up the narrow stony watercourse that led into the heart of the plateau. And the sun had not traversed half the sky before she came to the place where the predators’ sharp eyes had shown her the lair of Ashmesh the Clever.

  Sure enough, there she saw him, lying in front of one of a number of small rocky rises that jutted up from the plateau. Ashmesh was long-bodied and thin-chested, narrow-jawed and slender-tailed, six-legged and most vividly green. His eyes were almost buried in his head and his teeth were nearly hidden away completely. All these taken together made him look hardy and wily and dangerous enough without him being wise as well.

  But Vish sank her teeth into her courage and scampered straight up to him, stopping just out of leap-reach and ducking her head to him in courtesy.

  “Whither away, little eft?” Ashmesh said to her.

  “I’ve come seeking Ashmesh the Wise.”

  “I am Ashmesh. And what name might an eft like you have earned?”

  “I am Vish.”

  “Well then, Vish, tell me how you come to be walking about all by yourself in the wide world.”

  “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. To do that I’ve become the strongest and the quickest person there ever was, and now I must become the wisest and bravest person as well. I’ve made a meal of the quick and the strong, and now I’m seeking the brave and the wise to make them young as well, so we may all go questing together. You are very wise, so everyone says. Therefore I’ve come to ask you: will you give yourself over to me, brother?”

  Ashmesh regarded her in a lazy way. “You’re tall and strong and quick for so young a Tauwff, I’ll grant you,” he said, “but you’re still barely more than an eft for all that.”

  Vish smiled. “Others have said as much and found out otherwise.”

  “But I don’t think I’ll be one of those,” Ashmesh said. “For I see broad and I see narrow: I see before me and behind me and all about from the height of my mind, as even one less wise might see all around with their eyes from this height where we stand. There’s no direction you can find to attack me from that I’m not already guarding, little eft, for I am the wisest Tauwff there is. I have eaten Pevek the Deep-Thinker from the polar wastes far away, and Dilathsk the Golden from the Last Marsh, and Mehtharknishel of the Four Names from Undersark: and not one of them was a match for my wisdom or skill or could answer the questions I asked. Therefore give up your plan, young Vish, for not only will you not make a meal of me, but I will not even bother making one of you. So run along now down the river with you, and go save the world somewhere else.”

  Vish puffed up in annoyance. But in her head Tarsheh spoke up and said, He’s as vain as a suitor just after his pre-clutching dance. Just hark to his bragging and preening! The last thing someone like you needs is to eat that. You think too well of yourself as it is.

  And for all that Tarsheh’s manner when he said this was as offensive as usual, Vish saw his point, and suddenly saw her way clear.

  “But wouldn’t it be fine to make a meal of me?” she said. “Think how much further you could pursue your travels to be the cleverest if you had my strength and speed.”

  Ashmesh snapped his teeth in bemusement at that, as if wondering why Vish would be so eager for him to eat her. “There’s little meat on that bone for you, I’d think,” he said. “Truly it’s wise for me to save myself a meal if you’re so witless.”

  “But I would then be part of the wisest Tauwff in the world,” Vish said, doing her best to sound as if this was truly an exciting opportunity. “For truly everyone says your mind is without equal and a gift to the planet.”

  “Do they say that?” said Ashmesh, stretching himself in the sun, a pleased gesture. “Truly? That is unusually perceptive. And indeed they’re right to say so.”

  “And that being true,” Vish said, “think how much better it would be if you were young again in me! For even if I surrendered myself to you for the good purpose of making your body stronger and your life longer, and even if you ate every last scrap of me, alas, I could not make you young enough—not young in truth. Your heart would gain my youth and strength, but not your body. Whereas if you give yourself over to me and I did right by you, you would have both all your mighty wisdom and my body’s strength and youth.”

  “This is mere idle chat and flattery,” said Ashmesh after a few moments. “I cannot be swayed by the blandishments of a mere eft.” Yet Vish saw the way his eyes looked and the way his jaw and dewlaps stretched when she praised him.

  “Of course not,” Vish said, looking shamefaced. “Yet where’s the harm in repeating what so many people say is true? They all talk about your travels and the great ones you’ve bested to become the wisest in the world.” And she made her eyes big and eager so that they swiveled with excitement. “Dilathsk the Golden knew everything about the shape of the world, they say, and what happens where the sky touches it at the edges! Yet you knew more than he? How did you best him? Tell the tale!”

  And Ashmesh, nothing loth, leaned up on his front legs and back on his back ones and told the tale entire, from first greeting to last crunch of bone, and all the questions and answers in between. And when he was done Vish praised him and said, “How keen your questioning was! How dreadfully he floundered! How kind of you to take his lesser wisdom into yours at the end and give him the chance to learn better!”

  Ashmesh nodded at that and actually looked a touch abashed , and Vish said, “But then there was Pevek of the South, who everyone says knows the secrets of the ground and the deep places and everything below—”

  “Knew,” said Ashmesh.

  “How did you best him? Tell the tale!”

  Ashmesh told the tale from start to finish, glossing nothing over and leaving nothing out. The sun slid down the sky and the day grew cool and things began to go dark: and Ashmesh looked up with something like regret. “Tales must end when night comes down,” he said.

  “But more may be told tomorrow, surely?”

  Ashmesh hesitated: but Vish’s eyes were still swiveling. “More may be told,” he said at last, and went into his lair.

  Vish went off and found stone nearby suitable for her to dig herself beneath. And when the morning came, before the light of the Sun broke over the edge of the world, she was waiting with eyes wide by the doorway of Ashmesh’s lair.

  His eyes went wide too, but with surprise: and Vish knew in her bones that her gamble had paid off. But she was careful to show no sign. “Tell the tale!” she said.

  So all that day she sat at Ashmesh’s feet and heard him tell the tale: not just that of Pevek of the South, but of many another clever Tauwff or wise one he’d met and bested. And ever and anon Vish would say admiringly, “What a thing it would be to make such wisdom young!” And Ashmesh would scowl his eyes closed and mock her for an upstart hatchling gone delusional with hunger, or chaffer with her as if he was yielding to her will, and then laugh at Vish for a poor outmaneuvered fool.

  Yet when she’d finished lashing her tail in frustrated sorrow, mere breaths later she would be begging him for another tale and praising the cleverness of Ashmesh. Each one being done, Vish would cajole him and praise him and speak him fair, and each time she did he would hesitate; but the hesi
tations grew shorter every time. As evening drew near again Vish once more begged Ashmesh for another tale of a battle of wits with some Tauwff to whom fame (in his always-available opinion) had attached itself with too little reason. Ashmesh laughed at her and took a breath’s worth of thought, and then began the tale of Sesmef One-Eye, which even her egg-dam and egg-sire knew, and which was far too long a tale ever to be done by the time the sun went down.

  Realizing that, Vish carefully kept her tail from lashing in triumph, but listened to the tale. And the sun went down in the midst of Ashmesh’s tale, and she said wistfully, “More may be told, surely?”

  “More of the tale may be told,” said Ashmesh, and more quickly than he would have said it had he needed to think about the answer.

  Then he went into his lair, but Vish could not miss the reluctance: and she dug herself in under stone and slept only with difficulty, for she didn’t need her egg-sire’s and egg-dam’s and the Sacrificer’s murmurs to know that Ashmesh was important to her quest; and even Tarsheh growled with annoyance at his cleverness and knowledge.

  When the sun rose before Ashmesh’s lair, Vish had risen before it and was there waiting. Ashmesh came out and greeted her by name, and then leaned up on his front legs and back on his back ones and began again to tell of how Sesmef One-Eye, who’d answered the deadly questions of the Clutch of Five and made them younger one by one, was (much later) made young in turn by Ashmesh.

  The sun was high before he finished that tale, and when he did once more Vish praised his cleverness—for truly he was able to find creative ways to use his knowledge, and he was not afraid to put himself in danger to do what he felt he needed to do. And once more after that she said, “Be made young in me, Ashmesh! Do it now, and walk the world for another two thousand years! For the world can use you.”

  She surprised herself, perhaps, by how true it felt to her now. And in his turn Ashmesh hesitated, for over the past two days without his knowing it his will had begun to bend toward hers. Ashmesh was lonely up on his high plateau, and weary of being feared by everyone even though he had provoked much of that fear to keep himself from knowing himself alone. But most of all, Ashmesh found Vish’s praise of him surpassing sweet—though he hoped he might keep her from knowing that.

  For her own part Vish was willing to let him believe for the time being that she did not. For the world needs to be mended, and what’s a little guarding of one’s thoughts against that? For now she simply said, “Only you, Ashmesh the Clever, can be of so much help in this quest. Tauwff from now until the Sun stops rising will know your name and praise it; for you’ll be one of the ones who helped put the world right.”

  Long, long he hesitated at the last. But finally, as the sun started to slide horizonward one more time, Ashmesh said: “It’s true that I’m looking over the edge of life toward that time which not even wisdom can delay.”

  “All Tauwff would have reason to mourn when that day comes for you,” Vish said. “So put it off for another lifetime’s worth of years!”

  “And if the world was put right, there would be many more people to be wiser than?” Now it was Ashmesh sounding wistful.

  Vish did not betray her notice of this by so much as a claw’s twitch. “And many more to praise you,” she said, “as time went by.”

  He sat silent for some moments. Then he said, “I shall do that.”

  So as the sun went down they went into his den, and Ashmesh couched himself in his bed-place, and bade his soul unwrap itself from around his bones.

  “Take my name!” Ashmesh said at the last.

  “No, I won’t take your name,” Vish said, “for I don’t know yet for certain if I want it. Your wisdom has yet to prove itself fully to me, and one should never take a name they’re not sure about. But you may yet convince me; so let’s see.”

  And seeing that matters would go no better than that for the moment, Ashmesh let his last breath adorn the air. That night Vish lay down by him and kept him company without starting to do right by him, for respect’s sake and because there was always less waste if one had enough light to work with. When the sun rose again she set to work, and it took her four full days to do him justice. On the morning of the fifth day she stood out before his lair in the sun and said, “Ashmesh, I thank you for your gift! For it means I’ll be much more clever 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.”

  And she set off down the watercourse toward the way down from the high plateau, full of hopes that Ashmesh would be able to help her work out what her next move should be. But Ashmesh was already telling the others behind her eyes the tale of the Tauwff Trapped in the Cave of the Second Doom, and how he had freed him and learned his lore before making him young. And Vish’s egg-dam and egg-sire and the Sacrificer and Firtuth all listened with interest, while Tarsheh muttered, Vainglorious braggart, this next demi-aeon will feel like an eternity!

  ***

  So she made her way down from the plateau, and over the days that followed her egg-parents and the others, even Tarsheh, spoke with him much (though Tarsheh’s speech consisted mostly of snorts of disgust).

  Vish for her part also spent much time talking with Ashmesh, asking and answering. He was initially much distracted by the feel of her body and the way it moved with so few legs (I’d almost completely forgotten. Once when I was out seeking after a sage of the Northern Sands…). But after having heard about her quest every day in fairly broad terms every day for three days running, he now began to question her more closely about it, attempting to get Vish to explain to him exactly what “putting the world right” meant.

  After several days of this Vish found herself becoming uneasy that, despite her years of journeying in this cause, she had never really thought deeply enough about that herself. She felt sure that the Poison-Fanged One, the Enemy of the World, was at the root of her troubles—that It was the reason the world went ill, the source of the Doom that had given Tauwff no choice but to prey on one another, and (secretly) she was sure It was responsible for the heart that had stopped beating next to hers so long ago. Though that was something of which she did not speak to Ashmesh.

  But all the other reasons they discussed at some length. And finally, as Vish lay by a great boulder at the edge of a rocky plain some days away from Ashmesh’s old lair, the Clever One said to her, It would seem to me that what you should do now is seek out wizards.

  She stretched and yawned, and then lay still again, for she was just beginning to get past the satiety that had come of doing right by Ashmesh, and it was in her mind that another of the flying predators would taste good about now. “And what might wizards be?”

  They are Tauwff with power, Ashmesh said. I once did justice to a wise one from the eastern stonehills who had eaten a wizard. He said that her mind had been full of astonishing things, as well as a strange language that no one had ever heard; and she used it to speak to stones and moss and water and air, and even the very sky.

  “That doesn’t seem like much use,” Vish said. “I can speak to those whenever I please.”

  But the wizard could hear them speak back, said Ashmesh, so the wise one of the Stonehills told me. And the dead things of the world would obey the wizard’s commands, after she had spoken to them a while.

  “That might be of more use,” Vish said.

  The most interesting thing, however, said Ashmesh, was that all wizards, apparently, come to meet the One who made the Doom and laid it on the world. They face that One in combat, and best It if they can.

  “And how do they best it,” Vish said, unimpressed, “if the world is still as it is?”

  The wise one couldn’t tell me, Ashmesh said. And the wizard he had eaten would only laugh at him, and would not tell him more.

  “That seems rude,” Vish said. “Well, it seems that I
must, as you say, seek out wizards. I will make them young within me, and they will tell me their secrets of how to meet the One who Made the Doom and discover how it may be unmade.”

  That may not be enough, said Ashmesh, if the ones you make young are as stubborn as the one the Wise One of the Stonehills ate.

  “If things turn out that way,” Vish said, “then maybe what’s needed is for me to become a wizard. If one wants to be a wizard, what does one do?”

  The Wise One could never tell me that, said Ashmesh, nor could anyone else I’ve ever eaten.

  Vish scowled in annoyance. “Then I will have to find out,” she said. And shortly a flying predator came down and she busied herself with catching and eating it; but the thought would not leave her mind.

  She was greatly irked. It seemed to Vish now as if all the gifts she had sought out and made her own, all her strength and speed and even Ashmesh’s wisdom, were as nothing compared to the prospect of becoming a wizard, which she had no idea how to do.

  Vish and the Wizards

  So on Vish went, running and walking and running again across the face of Wimst for a year, and two years, and three years, and five; meeting other Tauwff wherever she could discover them living, asking and answering, questioning and challenging, and telling them of her quest.

  The difference now was that everywhere she went, she asked after wizards. Many Tauwff had no idea what Vish was talking about. Others, who had at least heard of wizards, told her that all of them were dead—long ago driven out of life by the Poison-Fanged One during the Doom, or else long since dead in the times between.

  Still others told Vish that yes, there were still wizards, but they kept themselves hidden to avoid the Poison-Fanged One’s attentions. Or else they lived very far away, east and north and west and south, a thousand thousand thousand lengths away—no one knew how far. Vish gnashed her fangs when she heard this, for it seemed to her as if the wizards were hiding from her on purpose, now that she needed them. “Why are they doing this?” she demanded of the air. “We ought to be on the same side: we want the same things! Why will they not meet me?”