So she told, for the manyeth time, what was to be done. The armies of King Frogmott assembled to confront the armies of Blourbast. Blourbast himself led beneath the monuments on the road, settled there with his immediate retinue. The ritual – whatever that might be – conducted by the shadowpeople. The cure wrought – Mavin had no idea how; presumably the Eesty did, since it was the Eesty’s Bone which was involved. Then, when the cure was wrought and Blourbast tried to leave, then the Shifters would rise up about him from their disguise as stone and tree and earth, rise up and consume him, all but Ganver’s Bone. Which would be returned to the shadowpeople…
“Which will be returned to me…” whispered the voice. “I did not intend it to be used in these Games of back and forth. I am not a bakklewheep to be used in this way, cast between players in a Game I do not choose. Oh, I have been long asleep, Mavin Manyshaped, but I know of your Game world. Tell me, if I gave you my Bone, would your people cease their Game of eating one another as Proom’s people stopped their own?”
She bowed her head in shame. “I do not know, aged one. Truly I do not know.”
“No,” it said sadly. “You do not know. Perhaps in time. There are some of you who talk with some of us. Perhaps in time. Now I have interfered once, and my holiness is dwindled thereby. I may not take myself away from it all but must continue in the way my foolishness led me. So. We will come to your place of monuments, which is also my place of monuments – for they are my people as well – when the Blue Star burns in the horns of Zanbee. And later, Mavin Manyshaped, I will regret what I have done, and you must pray peace for me.”
The thing came down from its pillar, all at once, so quickly that she did not see it move. It rolled, as the smaller creatures had rolled, and it made a music in its rolling, a humming series of harmonic chords which caught her up into them so that she could not tell where she was. She felt herself move, or the world move beneath her. It was impossible to tell which. There were stars overhead, and a sound of singing, and she heard Himaggery’s voice crying like a mighty horn.
CHAPTER NINE
It was dark. She could hear Himaggery shouting at someone, his voice carrying fitfully on the shifting wind which whipped her hair into her eyes. There were stars blooming above her, and Zanbee, the crescent moon, sailed upon the western edge of the sky. She searched for the Blue Star, finding it just below the moon. Soon it would hang upon the moon’s horns, or appear to do so, and she had no idea where the hours had gone since afternoon.
She stared into the dark, making her eyes huge to take in the light, blinding herself at first on the arcing rim of fire which burned at one side until she identified it as the torches of King Frogmott’s army gathered on the high rim about Pfarb Durim, between her and the city. Soon her eyes and mind began to interpret what she saw, and she located the place she stood upon, a small hill just west of the road where the Strange Monuments loomed among lights which moved and darted, hither and thither, and from which the Wizard’s voice seemed to emanate.
“The Agirul says they’ve left the place below. It will take them almost till midnight to get here. Help the shadowpeople with that cauldron…”
She couldn’t see enough through the flickering lights to know what was going on. But the closer she came the more confused things became, and when she stood at Himaggery’s side while he fumed over some drawing in the dust, she knew less than she had to begin with. She laid a hand upon his shoulder and was surprised to feel him leap as though he had been burned.
“Mavin,” he shouted at her. “You … where have you … they said you might not…” Then as she was about to make soothing sounds, he said more quietly “Sorry. Things have been a bit hectic. I had word that you probably wouldn’t make it back, and that you wouldn’t bring any of your kin to help. Except the fellow who brought the message, of course. Your thalan, is it? Plandybast? Nice enough fellow. A bit too apologetic, but then it doesn’t seem that the Battlefox branch of your family has much to recommend it outside himself, so perhaps he has aplenty to apologize for.”
“Plandybast came then,” she said in wonder. “I really didn’t think he would.” She leaned over the dirt where he had been drawing diagrams. “What are we doing? Have you changed the plan?”
“Of course. Not once or twice, but at least six times. At first we couldn’t find a Herald, but then I managed to locate one I knew slightly. Suborned him, I suppose one might say, right out of Frogmott’s array.”
“And you sent him to Blourbast.”
“To the front door. What there is of it. Most of Poffle is underground, as you well know, and what shows above ground isn’t exactly prepossessing. Well, the fellow went off to Blourbast full of Heraldish dignity and made his move, cried challenge on the Ghoul to bring the amulet – that’s what we decided to call it, an amulet. Why let the Ghoul know what he’s holding? – to the Monuments at midnight tonight to assist in preparing a cure for the plague. We didn’t let on that we know he has the disease himself. The Herald just went on about honor and Gamesmanship and all the rest.”
“Was there a reply?”
“Not at first. We thought there’s wasn’t going to be, and I’d started to re-plan the whole thing. Then this woman came out. It must be his sister, the Harpy…”
“Pantiquod.”
“Right. She came out and gave us a lot of double talk which meant that Blourbast would show up but that he didn’t trust us. So he would come with a retinue. That’s what she called it. A retinue. By that time it was getting on evening, and Proom showed up with the Agirul. Or rather Proom showed up and we found the Agirul hanging in a tree by the side of the road. Fortuitous.”
“Fortuitous,” repeated Mavin, not believing it.
“Among the three of us, we decided that ‘retinue’ probably means the entire army of Hell’s Maw as well as a few close kin and men sworn to the Ghoul. And about that time your thalan arrived to tell us you probably wouldn’t be coming if you weren’t here already. You’d left him a note or something?”
“Or something, yes.”
“Which meant I had to plan it again. And then Proom’s been busy with his kindred. Evidently this ritual hasn’t been performed for a thousand years, and there’s only a song to guide them in the proper procedures, so it’s been sing and run, run and sing every moment since dark. Now we’ve just received word that Blourbast and his retinue – we were right, it is the army – are on the road coming up from Hell’s Maw. So. Now here you are.”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, starting to tell him about the Eesty, wondering why the Agirul and Proom had not already done so, only to find that she could say nothing about it at all. The words stuck. She thought them clearly, but her throat and tongue simply didn’t move. She did not choke or gasp or feel that she was being throttled. There was not any sense of pain, but the words would not come.
Then for the first time she wondered about the Eesty and looked around for it. Nothing. Dark and stars and the flicker of torches: shouting, fragments of song from the area around the arches, nothing more. And yet the darkness was not empty. She could feel it boiling around her, something living, running its quick tentacles through her hair, its sharp teeth along her spine. She shivered with a sharp, anticipatory hunger, a hunger for action, for resolution, a desire to make something episodic out of the tumbled events of her recent past.
“You’re forgiven,” he said distractedly. “Some day you must tell me all about it. But right now we’ve got to figure out how to accomplish everything that needs doing in this one final do.”
She crouched beside his diagram. “Show me.”
“King Frogmott’s army is here,” he said, retracing a wide circle just inside the line that was the arc of road outside Pfarb Durim. “From the cliff’s edge south of the city, all along the inner edge of the road, curving around and then over to the cliff at the north side of the city. On high ground, all the way, able to see everything.”
“Except a Wizard who may want to
get out,” she remarked in a quiet voice, not expecting the hand he raised to stroke her face.
“Except that,” he agreed in a satisfied voice. “There’s another line back a few leagues, one which encloses Pfarb Durim and Poffle, but those besiegers cannot see what is going on. Now, the road which comes up from Poffle to the top of the cliff is outside Frogmott’s lines, so Blourbast can bring his ghoulish multitude up and along toward the Monuments. The Agirul and I believe he will marshal his own army in a long array between him and King Frogmott’s men. He will want to be protected against the besiegers, for they have threatened anyone who comes out carrying the plague. Then, having protected himself against King Frogmott, he will bring a considerable group with him to the Monuments – to protect himself against whoever is here. The Herald challenged him in my name. Huld may have mentioned me to him. I don’t know who else he expects to find here, but he certainly won’t come alone.”
“I was supposed to Shift … where he’d be.”
“You were supposed to Shift. Right. You and a dozen more just like you. Well, two of you just aren’t enough, that’s all. I had hoped we could make a very natural-looking setting, one he wouldn’t hesitate to sit himself down in comfortably, but with only two of you, what could we manage? A couple of rocks, trees?”
“I’ve never tried a tree,” she said in a small voice. “Or a rock either. I haven’t had much time for practice.”
“Rocks aren’t easy,” said a voice from behind them. “I hate to do them myself. Trees are easier, but they do take practice. I could probably show Mavin how in an hour or so…”
“Plandybast.” She turned to him gladly. “I didn’t think you’d come. I really didn’t. I thought Itter would talk you out of it.”
“Itter is always perfectly logical,” said Plandybast, rather sadly. “But she’s frequently wrong, and after a while I just get very tired of listening to her. The others haven’t been disillusioned, not yet, but the time will come. Until then I’ll just have to do what I think is right and let her fuss if she wishes. And she will.”
“What are the shadowpeople doing?” she asked. “Is it anything we could help with?”
“I think not,” said Himaggery. “They located an ancient cairn near the road and moved it to disclose a huge old cauldron underneath. They rolled that over to the middle of the road under the arches, dragged in a huge pile of wood for a fire, and now they’re out on the hills gathering herbs and blossoms and who knows what. Meantime they’ve assembled an orchestra all over the hills – I have never seen so many drums in my life – and what seems to be the greater part of several other tribes. For a creature that I have always considered to be mythical, it seems to be extremely numerous.”
“I doubt we’d ever have seen them in the ordinary way of life,” Mavin said. “If it hadn’t been for Blourbast and the plague.”
“And Mertyn,” he said, touching her face again. “And Mavin.”
She flushed and turned away toward the dark to hide it. She wanted, didn’t want him to touch her again; wanted, didn’t want him to look at her in that particularly half-hungry fashion; wanted, didn’t want the time to wear on and things to happen which would take him from her side and throw them both into violent, unthinking action. “Why should I feel safer fighting Ghouls,” she asked herself, rhetorically, not seeking an answer, not wanting an answer.
“You’ll have to give me something to do,” she said. “I can’t have run all this way just to sit and do nothing.”
He sighed, looked for a moment older than his years as the firelight flickered across his face. She could imagine him as he would be at age forty, tall, strong, but with the lines deep between his eyes and at the sides of his mouth, lines of both laughter and concentration. And some of anger, she told herself. Some of anger, too. He said, “Whenever Blourbast and his crew get themselves settled, try to get close to him, as close as you can. Then when the cure is done or made or created, if you can do it without getting hurt – remember, there are no Healers closer than Betand – if you can do it without getting hurt, try to get the Bone. Then get away from him.”
“You don’t want us to try to dispatch him?” asked Plandybast.
“If there were a dozen of you, yes. With two of you, no. Just get the Bone and get out. The dispatching of Blourbast will have to wait for another time.”
They sat, the three of them, staring down at the lines in the dirt, the curving arc of the road, the waving line of the cliff’s edge, the x’s marking the army of the King. The Strange Monuments loomed beside them, and on the road the shadowpeople scampered and sang to one another, short bursts of music which sounded harsh and dissonant.
“One of Proom’s people says the Ghoul is almost at the cliff’s top,” said the Agirul from behind them. Mavin had not known it was there, and she tried to see it, but saw only the massed bulk of foliage against the lighter sky.
“Who does he have with him?” asked the Fon.
“In addition to the army, there is his sister and her twins, Huld and Huldra. Then there are a few guards, a Sorcerer, two Armigers, two Tragamors.”
“And here, with us?”
“Me,” said Himaggery. “And you two Shifters. Proom and his people. The Agirul. And my friend the Herald. He is waiting in the trees to make whatever announcements may seem most useful.”
“Windlow?” she asked. “Mertyn?”
“I haven’t been back in the city” he said softly. “I don’t know, Mavin. Believe me, Windlow will have done everything possible for him.”
“I know,” she admitted. “Except that it is hard to let someone else do it while I am out here, not knowing.”
“We’d better get out of the light,” he said. “I’ll go down near the road. We found some logs to use as seats for Blourbast, arranged where we want him, in the middle of the road. We’ll try to get him there. Once he is there, do what you can…”
He left the two Shifters, taking the torch with him. They sat for a moment silent, then Mavin said, “A log should be easier than a tree.”
“It is,” Plandybast admitted. “Much.”
“We couldn’t be much closer than to have him sitting on us.”
“If the small ones do not make the cure…” Plandybast said, “and he is sitting on us…”
“They’ll make it. Plandybast, I’ve seen them do wonderful things. Don’t doubt it for a moment.” And she drew him up to follow her down into the darkness of the road where the shadowpeople had lighted the fire beneath their cauldron and a pungent smoke poured into the night sky, making her dizzy yet at the same time less troubled. It was not difficult to become a log. She Shifted once or twice, then simply lay there and let the smoke wreath her around, driven as it was by a downdraft of the fitful wind.
She heard Huld’s voice first, a petulant whine, a sneering tone, “They have made a place for you, dear thalan. The seats are not what you are accustomed to, I fear. There is no velvet cushion.”
“Hush, dear boy. I have no need for velvet cushions. Does one need a velvet cushion to witness a wonder? Hmmm? And are we not to witness a wonder tonight? The making of a plague cure? Who has heard of such a thing? The Healers will be frantic with embarrassment and envy. Not a bad thing, either. I am not fond of Healers.”
Another voice, so like Huld’s that it might have been mistaken for his, yet higher, lighter. “Dear brother, dear thalan, indeed we would all dispense with cushions to see this thing. And to take – what may I say? – advantage of it.”
“Be silent, girl,” said Pantiquod, following them down onto the road where they clustered around the logs with their guardsmen, all staring suspiciously into the darkness. “Say nothing you would not like to have overheard. The dark is all around us, and it trembles with ears.”
“Of course, mother,” said the voice sweetly. “One would not wish to be overheard saying that a cure of the plague is of great interest to us.”
“Your mother said hush,” grated the Ghoul. “Now I say to you hus
h, Huldra. You may think that child in you protects you from my displeasure, but I have no care for that. If you trouble me, girl, both you and the child may go into Hell for all me.”
“Not so quick, thalan,” purred Huld. “I am thalan to the child in her womb, you know. Mine own. And mine own child, too – as is the teaching of the High King, away there in the south – a child linked to me doubly if not to you at all. So, Blourbast, go quietly with my gentle sister or I will make your sickness seem a day’s walk in the sun.”
“Let us all be still,” said Pantiquod. “We are here for a reason. Let the reason be manifest. I see nothing except fitful torches and scampering shadows. Is this a mockery?”
“No mockery, madam,” came Himaggery’s voice from the dark. “The Blue Star moves towards the horns of Zanbee. The little people of the forests have lit their fires beneath the great cauldron. They will begin to sing soon. There will be drums, voices, manifestations. At some point in the ritual, I will call to you to strike the … amulet you carry. Strike it then, and the cure will be made.
“I will return in time. Until then, seat yourselves and do not disrupt what must occur.” They heard him moving away into the shadows.
“Where will this cure be made?” asked Huldra, seating herself on Mavin’s back with a moue of discontent. “What form will it take?”
“They have spoken of a cauldron,” said the Harpy Pantiquod. “Undoubtedly the cure will be therein. When it is made, we must move quickly to take it. If the cauldron is too heavy to be carried, then we will take what we can in our flasks and dump the rest upon the ground.”
“How dreadful for Pfarb Durim’ said Huld. “They will not receive their portion.”
“I have promised you Pfarb Durim,” said the Ghoul. “When it is empty.”
“I am glad you remember that promise,” said Huld, fingering the dagger at his side. “It is a promise I hope much upon. There are some in that city who may not die of plague, and I wish to be first among them like a fustigar among the bunwits. They have not pleased me.”
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