The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  She Shifted, lifted, beat strong wings down to raise her into the soft air, circling high, above the trees, sharpening sight so that she could see a tick upon a bunwit’s back. Circle higher, higher, peering down at the runners, separated again now. She could see their trail cleanly upon the earth, a troubling of the grass, a line of broken twigs. Leaves crushed. Dark then light.

  And more!

  Along their way a scattering of stones. No. Not scattered, tumbled. Heaved up. Some washed aside in spring rains, but still maintaining their relationship to one another. Lines of stones. A slightly different shade of gray than the natural stones of the hills. Lighter. Finer grained. Like the stones of the Ancient Road south of Pfarb Durim. She dropped like a plummet, down onto those stones, then Shifted once more.

  Yes. Now she could see the difference. But how did the runners know? She laid her palm upon the stone, shut her eyes, concentrated. It was there, a kind of tingling, a small, itchy feeling as of lightning in the air. Experimentally, she Shifted a human foot and laid it upon the stone. Yes. She could feel it. So then. She did not need to follow the runners, she knew where they would go. They would follow this road, this road, broken or solid.

  Satisfied, she trotted in the tracks of those who ran, wanting to see what they would do when night came.

  Had Himaggery come this way in pursuit of the runners? Or had he followed the map, which would likely have brought him to the same place? And where was that place? A tower, she thought. There is always something magical about a tower, a stone tower. Magicians and Wizards live in towers. Kings are held captive in towers. Signals come from towers, and dragons assault towers. So it is fitting that on this old road there should be a tower. But now the tower’s gone. So sang the runners. Then what were they looking for?

  “Shadow bell, it rang the night, daylight bell the dawn, in the tower hung the bells, but now the tower’s gone,” she hummed to herself between fustigar teeth. Not really gone, she thought. Gone, perhaps, but not really gone. Just as Himaggery was gone, but not really gone. Somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere.

  It became a chant, a kind of prayer which accompanied each footfall. Somewhere. Somewhere.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The way of the Ancient Road lay across hills and valleys, sometimes with the slope, sometimes against it, as though the road had been there first and the valleys had come later to encroach upon it. Sometimes trotting, sometimes scrambling, Mavin followed the way, the tracks of the runners going on before her, the sun crossing above her to sink into the west so that long bars of shadow stood parallel to her path, making a visible road along which she and the runners moved in a silence broken only by far, plaintive birdsong. Beside the road bloomed brilliant patches of yellow startle flower – no seed-pods yet to startle the traveler with noonday explosions. Beneath them lay the leafy lacework of Healer’s balm, a promise that great purple bells would swing above the moss toward the end of the season. Clouds had sailed in from the west all day, full of the threat of rain, but none had fallen. Instead the gray billows had gone on eastward to pile themselves into a featureless veil covering the Dorbor Range. The east was all storm and rumbling thunder while the west glowed softly in sunset. The shadow road was as clear before her as an actual road would have been.

  It was a moment before she realized that she ran upon the surface of an actual roadway. In this place the tingling stones had never been covered, or perhaps they had come up out of time to lie upon the earth once more. Among the trees she could catch glimpses on either side of huge, square stones which might once have supported monuments like those which arched the road outside Pfarb Durim. The light glared straight into her eyes from the horizon, blinding her, and she almost strode across the naked runners before she saw them. They lay upon the roadway, prostrate in their hundreds. She stood for a moment, troubled at the sight of so many figures lying as though dead upon the road, barely breathing.

  The light faded into dusky gray-purple. The runners heaved themselves onto all fours and crawled into the surrounding forest, scavenging among the litter on the forest floor for the moist carpets of fungus which lay in every sunny glade. Seeing them moving about, Mavin felt less pity for them and set to follow their example, making a pouch in her hide to gather this crop as well. The mushrooms were both delicious and nourishing, known among gourmands as “earth’s ears” both for their shape and raw texture, crisp and cartilaginous. Both the flavor and texture improved when they were cooked, which Mavin intended to do. The sight of the runners groveling offended her, and only after she had found a place to suit her, remote from them, did she build a fire at last, laying the wood against a cracked stony shelf beside a small pool. Her fire-starter was the only tool she carried, the only tool she needed to carry – though she had heard it said in Danderbat keep that one Flourlanger Obquisk had learned to Shift flint and steel in some long forgotten time. Mavin had never believed it a practical solution. Since one would have to Shift flint and steel into one’s body to begin with, why not simply carry them and have done.

  She sat warming herself, lengthening her fur to hold body heat from the evening cool, turning the thin sticks on which the fungus was strung, watching it crisp and brown. A strange sound pervaded the quiet, a soft whirring, as though some giant top hummed to itself nearby. She crouched, trying to decide whether it conveyed some threat, whether the fire should be put out or she herself put remote from it. She compromised by leaping to the top of the shelf and collapsing there into a pancake of flesh, invisible upon the stony height.

  Something came into the clearing, a whirlwind, a spinning cloud, a silvery teardrop gyring upon its tip. It glinted in the light of the fire, twirling, slowing, the long silver fringes of its dress falling out of their spiral swirl into a column, the outstretched arms coming to rest, one hand clasped lightly in another. It wore a round silver hat from which another fringe settled, completely hiding the face – if there was a face.

  Upon the stone, Mavin stirred in astonishment and awe. She had never seen a Dervish before, for they were rare and solitary people, devoted, it was said, to strange rites in the worship of ancient gods. Still, she could not fail to recognize what stood there, for the dress and habits of Dervishes figured often in children’s tales and fireside stories. Wonderful, remote, and marvelous they were said to be, but she had never heard they were malign. She dropped from the side of the stone and came around it to the fire once more, reaching to turn the splints on which the mushrooms roasted. Let it speak if it would.

  “I smelled your fire,” it said. Mavin could not tell if it was man or woman, for the voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “The runners build no fire, so I knew someone followed them. I came to warn.”

  Mavin chose to disregard the warning. “Will you sit down?” Mavin gestured at a likely rock beside the flames. “I would be glad to share my supper.”

  “Thank you, no. I seldom sit. I seldom eat. Like those poor runners on the road, I go on and on, without thinking about it very much.” There was a breathy sound beneath these words which, after a time, Mavin interpreted as laughter.

  “My name is Mavin,” she offered. “Mavin Manyshaped.”

  “A Shifter,” the other breathed. “I could tell from your fur. A pretty beast, you, Mavin Manyshaped. An unusual one as well. Most beasts do not cook their earth’s ears.”

  “They taste better cooked,” said Mavin, testing one with her fingers to see if it was done. “Also, when they are cooked, they do not make that noise between one’s teeth that makes one believe one is eating something still alive and resisting.”

  “Ah,” laughed the windy voice, “a pretty, sensitive beast. Are you following the runners?”

  “I am.” She saw no need for dissimulation. “I am seeking someone – someone who followed these runners eight years ago. Someone who has not been seen since, but who the Rancelmen and Pursuivants say still lives. Have you seen him?”

  The figure before her shrugged. “Perhaps, Mavin Manyshaped. I have seen
many since first I watched the runners go past. That time, the first time, they sang nine hundred years and twenty. This time they sing one thousand and thirteen. In that time, I have seen many, Mavin Manyshaped.”

  Mavin set the splint to one side to cool a little. “These runners – they run each year?”

  “Each year, beginning when the Blue Star approaches the horns of Zanbee, from the south city upon the Ancient Road, north, west, then south and east until they come to the south city once more. Many die upon the way, of course. Every year, many die.”

  “The road makes a circle?”

  “A circuit. Yes.”

  “And where is the south city?”

  “It is only ruins now. A place in the hills, at the headwaters of the River Banner, north of Mip and Pouws. Do you know that land?”

  “I never heard of any ruined city there.”

  “No. They hide it well, these devotees. Still, when the Blue Star rises, they assemble in that place for the run. Those who die upon the circuit are assured of bliss, so they say. Even those who live to return to the lands of the south have earned great merit.”

  “But…” Mavin took a mouthful of mushroom and sucked in the juice which spurted on her lips. “What is it all for?”

  There was that hint of breathy laughter once more. “What is it for? What is anything for, Mavin Manyshaped. There is something in their eschatology which speaks of rebuilding the tower. You will say, ‘What tower?’ and I will say, ‘What tower, indeed?’” The Dervish paused, seeming to invite response or comment.

  Mavin felt the question, chose not to indicate interest. “The tower that is gone, I suppose,” she said flatly. “Except that it isn’t gone. I think.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Now there was no mistaking the oddly expectant tone in that whispery voice. As though they had been talking in riddles. As though the Dervish were seeking some particular answer. Mavin decided to let the matter go no further. If Dervishes were not malign, still they were not understood. Least said, best handled. For now.

  She nodded over her meal. “Oh, just that it seems likely there must be some tower around someplace or other. Sufficient to keep the legends spinning. Don’t you think?”

  Something wilted in the Dervish’s stance. Still, it persisted. “Have you come this way before, Mavin Manyshaped? Upon this road? Or any other?”

  Surprised by the question, Mavin answered it honestly. “I have not come this way before, Dervish.” She finished chewing, swallowing. “Now. Dervish without a name, can you help me find the one I seek?”

  “Perhaps,” said the Dervish with a disappointed breath. “Perhaps.” It began to spin, at first slowly, arms rising until they were straight out from the shoulders, fringes rising, whirling, the figure moving faster and faster. When the fringe rose from the face, Mavin caught a look at it, skeletally thin, huge-eyed, lips curved in an eternal, unchanging expression of calm, and yet – Mavin thought she saw something of disappointment in the face, too, though it blurred into motion too quickly for her to be sure. The Dervish hummed, spun, began to move away through the trees. Mavin let it go.

  “If you will, perhaps,” she whispered to herself, “then do, perhaps. Though why you should have expected me to say anything else, I do not know. So, if you will help me find him, do. If not … well, I will find him by myself.” She lay back upon the mosses, replete, weary, not suddenly full of new thoughts. If the Ancient Road merely bent upon itself and returned to the south, then was Himaggery likely upon it or aside from it? Would he – could he have joined the runners? She would not have thought to look for him there.

  Groaning, she rose to her feet and made a torch to light her way. Back upon the road the runners lay sprawled, unconscious, driven into exhausted sleep. She moved among them, making an orderly pattern in her mind to assure that she examined them all. Men, women, even some who were little more than children. Lean as old leather straps, bruised and scratched from the road, with soles on their feet like cured d’bor skin, hard as wood. She turned over lax bodies, pulled hoods aside to peer into faces, and replaced them. There were hundreds of them, and the task took hours. Dawn paled the eastern sky before she was finished. The clouds of the night before had gone; now there was only clear sky to the eastern horizon, flushed with sickly rose. Mavin threw down the torch with a growl of disgust and wandered back to her fire to curl close around the coals and sleep, not caring that the runners woke, chanted, and ran on into the west. She could find them if she wanted to. She was no longer sure she wanted to.

  Late evening she wakened, stretched, scratched, built up her fire once more, gathered a new supply of earth’s ears thinking furiously the while. Himaggery had followed the runners. He had come, as she had, to this place on the road. Likely he, as she, had encountered the Dervish. The Dervish who had “come to warn.” The Dervish who had said that the runners would return to the south would likely have said as much to Himaggery. Who had not, at that time, joined the runners. At least he was not among them now. So he had turned aside, say.

  “As good a supposition as any other,” she encouraged herself. Himaggery had turned aside, then, after meeting the Dervish. Why?

  “Because,” she answered herself, “he, too, would have said something about the tower. Being Himaggery, he would not have done as I did, merely put the subject aside. No, he would have said something curious, something more Wizardly than mere chitchat. And if he did, then the Dervish would have replied with something sensible, also, and off Himaggery would have gone. So. Perhaps. At least it is worthy of examining further.” She covered the fire with earth and Shifted into fustigar shape. The Dervish would not be difficult to track.

  The trail was like a swept path, leaves and litter blown to either side by the Dervish’s spinning, a little drift on either side marking the way. The path led away north of the road, down quiet moon-silvered glens and through shadowed copses, up long, dark inclines where the black firs sighed in the little wind, quietly moving as in the depths of a silent sea. Though the way rose and fell, she was neither climbing nor descending overall. Streams fell from higher tablelands into the valleys, ran there as quick streams away into the lowlands beyond. She wove deeper and deeper into the hills.

  She could not recall ever having come that way before, and yet there was something familiar about a distant crest, the way in which a line of mountain cut another beside a great pinnacle. There was something recognizable in the way a bulky cliff edged up into the moonlight, catching the rays upon one smooth face so that it glowed like a mirror in the night. She stopped, tried to think where she had seen it before. It must have been some other similar place, though it teased at her, flicking at the edges of memory.

  From this place the trail led upward, over a ridge. On either side were great trees, those called the midnight tree because of its black leaves and silver bark. The trees were rare, had always been rare, and were rarer now because of men’s insatiable use of the black and silver wood, beautiful as a weaving of silk. Mavin shook her head, troubled. She had seen … seen such trees before. Not – not from this angle, but the bulk of them seemed somehow familiar, painful, as though connected with something she did not want to remember. Still, the trail led between the trees and down.

  Down. There was velvet moss beneath her feet. She could feel it, smell it. The moss was starred with tiny white blossoms which breathed sweetness into the night. Other blossoms hung in long, graceful panicles from the trees, and a spice vine twined up a stump beside the way. Here the Dervish had slowed, stopped spinning. He – she, it had walked here quietly, scarcely leaving a trail. Across the valley was a low stone wall, and behind that wall a small building. Mavin could not see it, but she knew it was there. Discomfited, she whined, the fustigar shape taking over for a moment to circle on the fragrant moss, yelping its discomfort. Across the valley a pombi roared, softly, almost gently, like a drum roll.

  The fustigar fell silent, Shifted up into Mavin herself, wide-eyed and bat
-eared upon the night, no less uncomfortable but more reasoning in her own shape. “Now, now,” she soothed herself. “Come now. It may be enchantment, or some malign influence or some Game you know nothing of, Mavin. Hold tight. Go down slowly, slowly, into this valley.” Which she did, step by step, pausing after each to listen and sniff the air.

  A pool opened at her side, ran lilting into another. The path crossed still another on a bridge of stone which curved upward like a lover’s kiss. Down through the blossoming trees she could see the valley floor, laced with streamlets and pools, like a silver filigree in the light. Beside one of the pools stood a glowing beast, graceful as waving grass, with one long horn upon its head.

  Mavin ceased in that moment, without thought.

  The place from which she came ceased, and the runners on the road. Windlow and Throsset ceased, and the cities of the world. Night and morning ceased, becoming no more than shadow and light. There was water, grass, the unending blend of foliage in the wind. There was whatever-she-was and the other, two who were as near to being one as had ever been. She was in another shape when she called from the hill, there from the crest where the great black trees bulked like a gateway against the stars, called in her beast’s voice, a trumpet sound, silvery sweet, receiving the answer like an echo.

  He ran to meet her, the sound of his hooves on the grass making a quick drum beat of joy. Then they were together, pressed tight side by side, soft muzzles stroking softer flanks, silk on silk, this joy at meeting again no less than the joy they had had to meet at first, that other time, so long ago. But that-which-they-were did not think of so-long-ago, nor of the time-past-when-they-were-not-together, nor of the moment-yet-to-come. Time was not. Before and after was not. The naming of names was not, nor the making of connections and classifications of things. Each thing was its own thing, each song in the night, each shadow, each pool, each leaf dancing upon its twig against the sky.