Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal

by Diane Duane

  None of the voices inside had answers for her, not her egg-dam or egg-sire or any of the others. There was nothing she could do but go on. And so on Vish went under the wide sky, and seasons came and went over and around her through another year and two years and five years and ten. Over the great Northern mountain ranges near the pole, she went, and southward again into the endless badlands under their slopes, up and down the rocky vales, where one was so like the one before it and the one to come that she often couldn’t be sure where she was.

  She came into one more of these endless sharp-bottomed valleys and scuttled down among its stones until, far away, she saw a glint of something bright red amid the round dun rocks.

  Vish made for that spot of color, and saw that it was a Tauwff very wizened and withered and old, lean as a new hatchling but naturally much bigger. He saw her coming and said to her, “Whither away, bold young traveler, and why do you walk about all by yourself in the wide world?”

  “I’m the last and youngest of seven clutch-kin,” Vish said, “on a great quest to put right what’s gone wrong in the world. And to do that I’m seeking out wizards, for I have already made young within me Tauwff who’re wise and strong and quick, but they are not enough for my task.” There was always a certain amount of muttering inside her head when she would say this, but Vish had come to ignore it. “I seek a wizard, to make a meal of them and make them young in me, so we may go questing together. So tell me, if you will: are there wizards hereabouts, and if there are, which way?”

  “No—” said the old red Tauwff.

  So annoyed was Vish that she was choosing the best of the maledictions she had learned in her years of wandering when the old red Tauwff said, “Not wizards, impatient traveler.” And it stared at her in annoyance. “Just one.”

  Vish’s mouth fell open. “Excellent brother,” she said, “where?”

  “Just over that next ridge,” said the old red Tauwff, “in a cave under that slope, lives Podrist Short-Tail, who is a wizard and has been these hundred years or more. She is young yet, but she says that young wizards are strongest in the fight against the Poison-Fanged One.”

  Vish’s heart began to pound. “We shall see about that,” she said, and went straight up the slope toward the next ridge without bothering to say farewell in any of the prescribed ways.

  And sure enough, she crested the ridge and hurried down the far side, almost falling several times in her haste, and so came to a place where there was a crack in the slope, like the one that had been Tarsheh’s den a long time ago. And lo, down among the boulders and rubble that lay about the long tall narrow doorway, there was a Tauwff not much bigger than she, and as yet as four-legged as she though a bit heavier in the shoulders. In color she was a tawny dark yellow of a kind Vish had not seen before, but otherwise there was nothing much remarkable about her.

  Vish came down to the valley floor and hurried to this Tauwff, who sat down on her back legs and awaited her. And when Vish came up with her, she wreathed her tail in greeting and said, “Whither away, sister from afar?”

  “Are you called Podrist the Short-Tailed?” Vish said, out of breath.

  The yellow Tauwff waved the tail, which was indeed missing a third of its length at the end. “That I am, as you see. And what name might you have earned in your travels?”

  “I am Vish.”

  “Welcome then, hrasht Vish.”

  Vish lashed her tail a little, not understanding; though the word seemed friendly, and for some reason sounded as if it meant the one to whom it was spoken was a clutchling of one of one’s egg-parents’ clutch-kin.

  “I don’t know that word,” Vish said, though little used to admitting what she did not know.

  “’Cousin’ is how we say it,” said Podrist. “Tell me then, hrasht Vish, what’s sent you walking about the wide world all by yourself?”

  “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 with everything. I’ve sought the quick and the strong and the wise to make them young so they could help me in my quest. And what wisdom has told me is that I need wizards to help me next. You’re a wizard, your neighbor tells me. So will you give yourself over to me, sister?”

  “I know your quest,” said Podrist, “for righting the marred world is what all wizards seek to do. If you want to do that too, I say that you’re well met on the journey.”

  “If all wizards seek to put the world right,” Vish said, looking around her in a meaningful way at the waste of sand and rocks where they stood, “I would say you’re not doing a very good job.”

  “Some things take time,” said Podrist, “and some take power, and some take both. Not even the Great Wizard who leads all wizards in this world and knows what must be done has been able to achieve this task. Yet who knows, maybe with your help he will.”

  Podrist fell silent for a moment then, and looked at Vish. Vish looked back, uncertain what was needed.

  Podrist sighed. “No matter. I both see your quest and hear it in my heart; for the Poison-Fanged One’s clutch-kin speak to wizards there. The Bright Clutch bids me help you, and so I shall.”

  “Help me how?” Vish said, feeling rather confused by all this sudden helpfulness.

  “You must unwind my soul from my bones and take this body if you can, for the Bright Clutch tells me you’ll need it more than I.”

  Vish’s mouth dropped open in surprise at that. “Well then, surrender yourself to me,” she said, “and I will make you young.”

  “I can’t surrender myself to you,” Podrist said. “My Art forbids it. If you want my body, you may take it if you can: but you must fight me for it. You have not been tested yet, and I am your test.”

  Vish was not sure what that meant. “I am stronger than you,” she said.

  “We will see about that,” said Podrist.

  “I am quicker than you,” Vish said.

  “That may be so,” said the wizard, “for you see my tail and how the Poison-Fanged One bit right through it when I first fought It for my power. But will being quicker than I am now be quick enough? We will see about that also.”

  “I am cleverer than you,” said Vish.

  “We will see about that as well,” said Podrist. “But that won’t help you today, unless your cleverness teaches you ways to fight me that can help you beat me. If you kill me and incorporate me, hrasht Vish, I promise I will be your loyal friend and help you find the Great Wizard and the answer to your quest. But you will not find him without first fighting me and unwinding my soul from my bones.”

  And Podrist leapt at her throat.

  Then she and Vish fought. And where Vish was quick with Firtuth’s speed, Podrist was quicker: and though Ashmesh hissed advice behind her eyes about how best to fight, Podrist was cleverer: and though Tarsheh’s strength was bound into her bones and sinews, Vish feared it would not be enough, for Podrist’s bones were like stone and the weight of her like boulders when it fell on Vish.

  Together she and Podrist rolled on the stones and beat one another against them to make each other sore and weak. They kicked at one another’s bellies with their hind claws, and tore at one another’s eyes with their forelimb-claws, and bit at one another’s armor with their teeth. Though Vish had had many fights in her days and seasons and years of walking, she had never had one like this, for every time she moved it was as if Podrist knew what she was going to do and did it first.

  But at last Vish felt Podrist wearying a little, and knew that though her adversary was strong, her own journeys had made her stronger. And as they rolled across the rocks together and Podrist grappled with her claws for purchase, for just a moment she bared the spot between the right fore-shoulder and the base of her jaw, where scales are fewer and the great vessels run near the surface; and straightway Vish closed her jaws hard on that spot and tore it wide.

  Podrist’s heart was strong and beat well, so very quickly Podrist f
ell back limp as her bright blood pooled among the stones. Yet she laughed at Vish as she lay there, and at that Vish felt very strange.

  “I will take your name,” Vish said as she stood over Podrist, “for you fought most bravely.”

  “I thank you for that,” said Podrist as her soul unwrapped itself from around her bones, and her last breath adorned the air.

  But I have much more to give you than just my name.

  And now it was Vish’s turn to stagger and fall down limp, for with Podrist’s freed breath a great rush and flow of knowledge poured over her like a flash flood coming down a ravine, and poured all of itself into her mind so that she hardly knew her own thoughts amid the thunder of it. She was deafened by words and spells, she was blinded by figures and diagrams written in the air as if scratched on stone. The rocks under her claws and the air in her lungs buzzed and burned with a great rush of knowing—knowing that the world was not empty, that the sky was not blank: that beyond it lay more, other worlds, more than this world, endlessly more, worlds full of strange creatures and languages and thoughts, worlds soaked in wonders unimaginable.

  Vish was staggered and terrified by what she saw and heard and knew. Suddenly the whole of Wimst that Vish had walked and everything she had learned about it seemed small and negligible things in the face of what Podrist had in her time learned and seen and known. And the Great Wizard, Vish now knew, knew far more.

  In her head now she heard the language she had not recognized when Podrist called her hrasht, but she recognized it now: the Speech, the one true Speech in which things were made and later marred. And in that Speech she heard Podrist speaking to her, and laughing. That laughter was the strangest thing that Vish had ever heard; for she had not even begun to do Podrist justice as yet.

  Silence fell after a while, or something like silence: for all the space behind her eyes was full of that Speech, and her egg-parents and the Sacrificer and Firtuth and Ashmesh and Tarsheh were all abashed and silenced by it. So Vish got up, and not knowing what else to do, spoke the words of the Protocols over Podrist. “I thank you for your gift, Podrist the Short-Tailed! For it means I’ll be that 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!”

  I was already part of that deed, said Podrist. And Vish was startled, for one does not normally hear one’s new mind-kin until they have done them justice. And I still am.

  Vish lashed her tail at that, not very much used to being talked back to at this stage, and a bit put out. “Therefore rejoice,” she went on, “and come away with me across the world. And as we go, tell me how you think we might best proceed.”

  I could have told you that a whole fight and half a hundred breaths ago if you’d asked, Podrist said. But when I waited for you to ask the next question, you didn’t, and so I couldn’t answer. So that fault is on you.

  This kind of judgment too Vish was not used to from someone she hadn’t known a long time; and she could hear Tarsheh laughing at her behind her eyes. “Well, are you going to tell me now or not?” Vish hissed, quite annoyed.

  Since you ask, of course I am, said Podrist. I’m just one wizard of many in the world. What you propose to do in your quest is a mighty deed in truth, one that all of us have worked at for days and years and lives. Once marred, no world is made whole all at once! But if this one can be mended, the Chief Wizard of Wimst will know how that can be done; so to him you must go.

  “And where is the Chief Wizard?”

  Right on the other side of the planet, said Podrist, under another sky.

  Vish dropped her jaw in horror. “Walking and running there, even for me, will take a year and two years and five years and ten years ten times over!”

  So it will, Podrist said. And it’s sad, for had you asked me how to find the Chief Wizard, we would not have had to fight. And if we had not fought I could have taken you to him quicker than you can twitch your tail, right across the broad wastes in a single step and halfway ‘round the world from here, to stand under the other sky.

  “But you know how to do it! Why can’t you do it now?”

  Because my breath’s adorned the air, you idiot, said Podrist, and though you do me justice and incorporate me, still all that comes to you is my knowledge, not my power. Without both the knowledge and the power, there is no wizardry. And the power comes not from flesh and blood, but from the Powers that Be. They grant it and they withhold it at their pleasure; with the breath of acceptance it comes from them, and when the breath of life goes, to them it returns.

  And Vish roared and stamped all her feet and tore at the stones with her claws. “You might have told me sooner!” she cried.

  Well, you’ll know to be more patient next time, said Podrist quite cheerfully. And now you’d best drag me inside and do me justice, for I can feel the predators circling even if I can’t see them except through your eyes.

  So muttering under her breath, Vish did so. Three days it took to do Podrist justice, and for those three days Vish was quite curt and short-spoken with her, though Podrist spoke amiably enough behind her eyes with Vish’s egg-dam and egg-sire and the Sacrificer and the rest.

  Finally she was done, and Vish pulled the rest of Podrist’s gift out into the open air on the morning of the fourth day so that the small things could enjoy it as well. Then she stood and looked around at the world and found it strange—for the new Speech was taking root in her mind, and everything had new names. And to her surprise Vish found that it was hard to be angry with Podrist now, for the ridges above her seemed fringed with a tremor of mystery that had not been there before, and the air seemed to be whispering things she could not hear. Even the stones beneath her feet felt strange and changed. And is it them, she thought, or me?

  Behind her eyes Vish could feel Podrist looking out at her. “Whither away now?” she said.

  To the Chief Wizard, said Podrist. And it’s well that you’re the quickest Tauwff alive, now, for you will need to be if you truly want to meet him and put the world right at last. Now run!

  ***

  So began the longest of Vish’s journeys.

  She walked and ran and walked and ran again across the broad face of Wimst for a year, and two years, and five years, and ten, and ten years more after that, eating what she could, drinking where she could, asking and answering. But all her asking was about where the Chief Wizard was. Some had heard of him; some said he was a myth; some said he had died in the Choice of the World, and some said that though he had died he would someday come again to put Wimst right.

  That last answer always put Vish out of sorts. “That’s what I’m here for,” she said. And Podrist would just laugh.

  “It’s not funny!” Vish would mutter. And Podrist would say, Vish, it’s not you I’m laughing at! The Chief Wizard will laugh, though, when you tell him him how dead he’s supposed to be.

  And Vish would mutter or growl or snarl under her breath, “Have we reached the far side of the world yet? When will we be there?”

  And Podrist would laugh at her (as indeed she had been laughing at her for most of this time). It’s a long while yet to the far side of the world. You’ve got to walk for a year and two years and five years and ten years more, time and time again!

  But the snarling and the growling grew less frequent over time, for Vish was starting to learn the Speech. Having had so much of it poured into her head to start with, initially she resisted the Speech as one resists being rushed down a gully by a flash flood, possibly to be drowned. But slowly she realized that drowning her was the furthest thing from its intention.

  And it had an intention. That was a most peculiar discovery, and she’d needed to come back to it again and again over an entire year, touching it and then shying away as if from a not-quite-dead predator that had turned in her jaws and bitten her tongue. What had filled her up when Podrist had released it, meant her to use it.

  So Vish kept coming back to that
long slow study as she ran, her mind filling little by little with words for which until now she had had no concepts. Slowly she was learning them. Slowly she was learning not only to see at will that extra layer of meaning that had begun to fringe all the physical reality around her, but to be able to see beneath it, and find the words that described what she now saw as clearly as the stone or water or flesh: mass, atomic structure, interruption of timespace, dimensional intersectionality.

  Ashmesh’s cleverness helped her here. Strangely, so did Tarsheh’s strength; for the body sometimes reacts badly to the spirit when the spirit suddenly has access to more power than it had previously. Vish’s muscles ached and her bones ached and her head and her jaws and even her tail ached, but Tarsheh always seemed to know how to stretch during the day and fold everything up by night when dug in so that the aches quickly faded.

  “Why can’t I just be a wizard now?” she would mutter to Podrist as she dug in under stone every night. “I know the words!”

  You know some of the words.

  “I know a lot of the words!”

  There are always more. But anyway, it doesn’t matter. You can’t just decide to be a wizard. They decide.

  “Well, how do I make them decide?”

  Laughter, a bit sad. You can’t make them do anything.

  Vish scowled. “We shall see about that,” she would say.

  For the first couple of seasons, for the first couple of years, Podrist would laugh at that. Then she stopped laughing.

  On Vish went, learning the words, walking the world: another year, and two years, and five years, and ten, just as Podrist had foretold; eating what she could, drinking where she could, asking and answering, speaking and challenging. Late in that ten-year tranche, the walking stopped and the running began.

  What’s the matter? Podrist said to her at last, a season or so after Vish had started doing nothing but run at any time when she wasn’t eating.