The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Mavin turned her back on the bird. She drew the Harpy’s wand from its case. The battle had driven the words of invocation from her memory, and it took a moment to recall them. Then she stood before Himaggery’s Face and chanted them, striking with the wand three times, three times again, and a final three.

  The stony lips opened. “What would you know?” asked the ghost of Himaggery’s voice.

  “Where are you?” she begged. “Where are you, Himaggery?”

  “Under the Ban, the Ban, Bartelmy’s Ban,” said the ghostly voice, and the lips shut tight.

  She had heard that meaningless answer before! She tried to open his lips again with the wand and the words, but it did no good. She wandered among the Faces, to see if there were others she knew. There were none. At length her weariness overtook her, and she returned to the water to wash away the harsh, biting smell of the place. After that was a long time of sleep on a moss bank, halfway up the cliff, where no Harpies had come to leave their droppings. And long after that, morning which was more than halfway to noon.

  She went down to the lake for water. The Harpy lay where Mavin had thrown her the night before, dried blood upon her throat and chest. That chest moved, however, in slow breaths, and the wound had clotted over. Mavin mused at this for some time before turning to the water. When she had washed herself and found something juicy for her breakfast, she returned to the Harpy’s unconscious form and took it upon her back. “I will return you to your master,” she announced in a cheery tone, Shifting to spider legs which could carry them both up the precipitous cliffs around the lake. “You and your wand – the Wizard’s wand. It may be he will be grateful.”

  “And if he is not?” asked some inner sceptical part of her. “And if Pantiquod is there?”

  “Well then, not,” she answered, still cheerily. “He can do no worse than try to enchant me, or whatever it is Wizards do. I can do no better than Shift into something horrible and eat him if he tries it. So and so. As for Pantiquod … likely she will have gone on by now. She did not intend to await her daughter’s coming.”

  The spider shape gave way to her lean, fustigar form when she reached the cliff top. Before her the canyon stretched away in long diagonals where the toes of two mountains touched, northwest then northeast then northwest once more. The small river in its bottom was no more than a sizable creek, bright shallow water sparkling over brown stones and drifts of gravel. Fish fled from the shallows where she stood and something jumped into the water upstream, bringing ripples to her feet.

  She lapped at the water, feeling it cool upon her furry legs. The water joined her breakfast to add bulk, making the body on her back less burdensome. Squirming to get it more comfortably settled, she trotted up the canyon into the trees, which grew thicker the farther north she went.

  At noon she put her burden down, caught two ground-running birds, Shifted into her own form and cooked them above a small fire as she watched the smoke, smelled it, smiled and hummed. The mood of contentment was rare and inexplicable. She knew she should feel far otherwise, but as the day wore on, the calm and content continued to grow.

  “Enchantment!” her inner self warned. “This is enchantment, Mavin.”

  “So,” she purred to herself. “Let be. What will come will come.”

  It was dusk when she rounded a last curve of the canyon to see the fortress before her, its battlements made of the same stone it stood upon, gray and ancient, as though formed in the cataclysm which had reared the mountains up. There was a flash of light from the tower, like a mirror reflecting sun from the craggy horizon. In that instant, the mood of contentment lifted, leaving behind a feeling of dazed weariness, as when one had drunk too much and caroused too late. She knew someone had seen her, had weighed her up and determined that the protection of enchantment was not necessary any longer. She snarled to herself, accepting it.

  After waiting a few moments to see whether anything else would happen, she trotted forward. A road began just before her, winding, grown over in places, but a road nonetheless. She followed it, tongue out and panting. The way had been long and mostly uphill. Breakfast and lunch were long gone.

  The fortress stood very high upon its sheer plinth of stone. From the canyon floor, stairs wound into darkness up behind the pillar. Mavin dropped her burden and lay down at the foot of these stairs, first nosing the Harpy to determine whether she still lived. She stretched, rolled, then began licking sore paws. She would stay as she was, thank you, until something definitive happened. She was not about to get caught in any shape at all on that dark, ominous staircase.

  “Is that as far as you intend to bring her?” asked a hoarse, contentious voice from the stairs.

  She looked up. He stood there, framed against the dark, in all respects a paradigm of Wizards. He had the cloak and robe, the tall hat, the beard, the crooked nose and the stern mouth. She was silent, expecting sparks to fly from his fingers. None did. He seemed content to stand there and wait.

  Mavin fidgeted. Well. And why not? She Shifted, coming up from the fustigar shape into her own, decently clothed, with a Shifted cloak at her shoulders. Let the man know she was no savage.

  “I had need to borrow her wand,” said Mavin flatly. “She fought me.”

  “So you wounded her. Considerably, from the look of her.”

  “She called down a flitchhawk from the sky. It wounded her. I thought her dead until this morning. Then, when I saw she breathed, I decided to return her to you.”

  “What did you expect me to do with her in that state?” There was a movement behind the Wizard as someone emerged upon the stair, a tall, gray woman in a feathered headdress – no longer in Harpy’s shape. Pantiquod.

  Mavin shrugged elaborately, pretending not to see her. “If she has value, I presume you will have her Healed. If she has none, then it doesn’t matter what you do. In any case, I have returned your property. All of it.” She took the wand from her shoulder and laid it upon the Harpy’s breast where it moved slowly up and down with her breathing.

  Pantiquod screamed! She started down the stairs, pouring out threats in that same colorless voice Mavin had heard her use in Pfarb Durim, hands extended like claws, aimed for Mavin’s throat. “Shifter bitch! It was you killed Blourbast! You who set our plans awry! You who have wounded my daughter, my Foulitter. Bitch, I’ll have your eyes…”

  The Wizard gestured violently at the Harpy, crying some strange words in a loud voice, and the woman stopped as though she had run into a wall. “Back,” the Wizard shouted. “Back to your perch in the mews, loathsome chicken. Back before I put an end to you.” The woman turned and moved away, reluctantly, and not before casting Mavin one last, hissing threat. Mavin shivered, trying not to let it show.

  Somewhere nearby a door banged. There were clattering footsteps, and several forms erupted from the dark stairway. Servitors. The Wizard pointed to the limp body.

  “Take her to the mews. Maldin, see if the Healer is in her rooms. If not, then find her. Fermin, take that wand up to the tower and hang it on the back of the door where it belongs.” He turned to Mavin and gestured toward the stairs. “Well, Shifter, you had best come in. Since you have taken the trouble to return my property, it seems only fitting to offer some thanks, and some apologies for a certain one of my servants.”

  Mavin stared upward. The castle loomed high above her, an endless stair length. She sighed.

  He interpreted her weariness correctly. “Oh, we won’t climb up there. No, no. We use that fortification only when we must. When Game is announced, you know, and it’s the only appropriate place. It’s far too lofty to be useful for ordinary living. Besides, it’s impossible to heat.” He turned to one of the servants who still lurked in the shadowy stair. “Jowret, tell the kitchen there’ll be a guest for supper. Tell them to serve us in my sitting room. Now, just up one flight, young woman, and through the door where you see the light. To your left, please. Ah, now just open that door before you. And here we are. Fire, wine, even a bi
t of cheese if hunger nibbles at you this early.”

  He took off his tall hat and sat in a comfortable-appearing chair before the tiled stove, motioning her to a similar one across the table; and he stared at her from under his brows, trying not to let her see that he did so.

  Uncomfortably aware of this scrutiny, Mavin cut a piece of cheese and sat down to eat it, examining him no less covertly. Without the tall hat he was less imposing. Though there were heavy brows over his brooding eyes, the eyes themselves were surrounded with puffy, unhealthy-looking flesh, as though he slept too little or drank too much. When she had swallowed, she said, “I overheard the two Harpies talking. I know Pantiquod from a former time, from the place they call Hell’s Maw. She called the other her daughter.”

  “I doubt they spoke kindly of me,” he said sneeringly, reaching for the cheese knife. “Both of them attempted to do me an injury some years ago. I put them under durance until the account is paid. Pantiquod was sly enough to offer me some recompense, so I freed her, in a manner of speaking. The daughter was the worse of the two. She owes me servitude for yet a few years.”

  “She questioned the Faces. I heard her doing it. Three of them for you. One for Pantiquod.” Mavin hesitated for a moment, doubting whether it would be wise to say more. However, if she were to find any trace of Himaggery, some risk was necessary. “And then I took the wand away from her and questioned one myself.”

  “Someone you know?” His voice was like iron striking an anvil.

  “Someone I’m looking for. He set out eight years ago to find you. His friends have not seen him since.”

  “Oh,” he said, darting one close, searching look at her before shrugging with elaborate nonchalance. “That would be the Wizard Himaggery, I think. He stopped here, bringing two old dames with him from Betand. Foolish.” He did not explain this cryptic utterance, and Mavin did not interrupt to ask him to clarify it. “He’d been collecting old talks, songs, rhymes. Wanted to solve some of the ancient mysteries. Well. What are Wizards for if not to do things like that? Hmmm? He wanted to go north. I told him it was risky, even foolish. He was young – barely thirty? Thirty-two? Hardly more than a youth.” He shook his head. “Well, so you found his Face.” He seemed to await some response to this, almost holding his breath. Mavin could sense his caution and wondered at it.

  “You put it there?” She kept her voice casual. There was a strange tickle in her head, as though the man before her sought to Read her mind. Or perhaps some other person hidden nearby. She had never heard that Wizards had that Talent.

  “Well, yes. I put it there. It does them little damage. Scarcely a pinprick.”

  “How did you do that? What for!” Still that probing tickle.

  “How do I make the Faces?” He leaned back, evidently reassured that she carried the question of Himaggery’s Face no further. “It would take several years to explain. You said your name was? Ah. Mavin. Well, Mavin, it would take a long time to explain. It took me several decades to learn to do it. Suffice it to say that the Lake is located at some kind of – oh, call it a nexus. A time nexus. If one takes a very thin slice of person and faces it forward, just at that nexus, then the slice can see into its future. That is, the person’s future. Some of them can see their own end, some only a little way into tomorrow. And if one commands a Face to tell – using the right gramarye, a wand properly prepared and so forth – then it tells what it sees. Believe me, I use only a very thin slice. The donors never miss it.” Again he seemed to be waiting some response from her.

  Why should he care whether I believe him or not, she thought. This question seemed too dangerous to ask. She substituted another. “Why did you want to know his future?”

  He paused before answering, and Mavin seemed to hear a warning vibration in her mind, a hissing, a rattle, as when something deadly is disturbed. She leaned forward to cut another piece of cheese, acting her unconcern. This misdirection seemed to quiet him, for the strange mental feeling passed as he said, “Because he insisted in going off on this very risky endeavor. Into places no one knows well. I thought it might yield some new information about the future, you know. But none of it did any good. He went, and when I questioned his Face a season later, all it would say was that he was under the Ban, the Ban, Bartelmy’s Ban. I have no idea what that means. And his quest into the old things is not what I am most interested in.” Again that close scrutiny, that casual voice coupled with the tight, attentive body.

  Some instinct bade Mavin be still about the other Face which had also spoken of Bartelmy’s Ban. Was it logical that the Wizard would have two such enigmas in his Lake of Faces?

  “That surprises me. I was told that the Wizard Chamferton was interested in old things, that he had much information about old things.” She pretended astonishment.

  “So Himaggery said. Which is why he brought the old women from Betand. Lily-sweet and Rose-love.” He paused, then said with elaborate unconcern, “Well, at one time I was interested. Very. Oh, yes, at one time I collected such things, delighted in old mysteries. Why, at one time I would probably have been able to tell you everything you wanted to know about the lost road and the tower and the bell…”

  Still that impression of testing, of prodding. What was it he wanted her to say? What was it he was worried about her knowing? Mavin chewed, swallowed, thanked the Gamelords that she knew nothing much, but felt herself growing apprehensive nonetheless. She went on, “Do you mention roads, towers, bells by accident? One of the Faces your Harpy questioned spoke of a tower, of bells.” She quoted all she could remember of what she had overhead, all in an innocently naive voice, as though she were very little interested.

  “Old stories.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “The old women Himaggery brought – they were full of old stories.” He would have gone on, but the door opened and servants came in to lay the table with steaming food and a tall pitcher of chilled wine. Bunwit and birds, raw or roasted, were all very well, but Mavin had no objection to kitchen food. She pulled her chair close and talked little until the emptiness inside her was well filled.

  “Well,” she said finally, when the last dish had been emptied – long after Chamferton had stopped eating and taken to merely watching her, seemingly amazed at her appetite; long after the mind tickle had stopped completely, as whoever it was gave up the search – “I must learn what I can from you, Wizard. Himaggery is my friend. I am told by a friend of us both that he came in search of Chamferton because he desired to know about old things and it was thought that you had some such knowledge. Now, you say he went from you on some risky expedition you warned him against. The story of my entire life has been spent thus – in pursuit of kin or friends who have gone off in pursuit of some dream or other. I had not thought to spend this year so, but it seems I am called to do it.”

  “Why? For mere friendship?” Prodding again, trying to elicit information.

  Mavin laughed, a quick bark of laughter more the sound of a fustigar than a person. “Are friends so numerous you can say ‘mere’, Wizard?” What would she tell him? Well, it would do no harm to tell him what Pantiquod already knew. “A long time ago, a Gamesman helped my younger brother during the plague at Pfarb Durim. You heard of that? Everyone south of King Frogmott of the Marshes heard of it!” And especially Pantiquod, who caused it, she thought.

  “I heard of it,” he agreed, too quickly.

  She pretended not to notice. “Well, I am fond of my brother. So, even if there were no other reason, in balance to that kindness done by this Gamesman, I will do him a kindness in return. He is Himaggery’s friend and wants him found.”

  The Wizard’s tone was dry and ironic, but still with that underlying tone of prying hostility. “Then all this seeking of yours, which you find so wearying, is for the Seer Windlow.”

  “That is all we need consider,” she said definitely, seeming not to notice his use of a name she had not mentioned. So, Himaggery had talked of his personal life to this Wizard. Of his life? His f
riends? Perhaps of her? “Anything beyond that would be personal and irrelevant.”

  “Very well then,” he replied. “For the Seer Windlow, I will tell you everything I can.”

  As he talked, she grew more certain there was something here unspoken, something hidden, and she little liked the feel of it. However, she did not interrupt him or say anything to draw attention to herself, merely waiting to see what his voice would say which his words did not.

  “Himaggery came here, eight years ago. Not in spring, but in the downturn of the year with leaves blowing at his heels and a chilly wind howling in the chimney while we talked. He had a map with him, an interesting one with some features on it I didn’t know of though they were near me in these hills. He told me about Windlow, too, and the old books they had searched. Himaggery had been collecting folk tales for six or seven years at that point. He wanted to hear the ones I knew, and I told him he might have full liberty of the library I had collected. Old things are not what I am most interested in now. Now I am interested in the future! It has endless fascination! Himaggery admitted as much, but he didn’t share my enthusiasm. Nonetheless, we talked, he told me what he had found in the books, and we dined together and even walked together in the valley for the day or two he spent here. I took a mask from him for the Lake of Faces, which amused him mightily.” He fell silent, as though waiting for her to contradict him, but Mavin kept her face innocent and open.

  “So! What sent him on? Where did he go from here?”

  “Ah. Well, truthfully, he found very little helpful here. I was able to tell him about the road. There is a Road south of Pfarb Durim, with Monuments upon it. Do you know the place? Yes? Well, so did he. And when I told him that the Road goes on, north of Pfarb Durim, hidden under the soil of the ages, north into the Dorbor Range, then swinging west to emerge at the surface in places – when I told him that, he was all afire to see it.” He nodded at her, waving his hands to demonstrate the enthusiasm with which Himaggery was supposed to have received this information. “Like a boy. All full of hot juice.”