The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “I counted it my fault he went there. He asked about the tower and I answered, not realizing his arrogance. I did not warn. Therefore this disturbance was my responsibility, Shifter. At least for that time. Now it is one I will pass on to you, for it is you who thwarted my releasing him. You will take him away with you. His presence, and yours, disturb my work.”

  “If you’ll put him into his own form,” agreed Mavin, not caring at the moment what the Dervish’s work might be. “Though he may immediately try to go back to the tower and finish whatever it was he started…”

  The Dervish hummed a knife-like sound which brought Mavin to her knees, gasping. “Not in his own form! And he will not go back to that tower! How far do you think these will let him go in his own form?” The Dervish gestured at the shadows, making a sickening swooping motion with both arms, then clutching them tight and swaying. “They would have him tight-wrapped in moments. No. It must be far and far from here, Mavin Manyshaped, that he is brought out of that shape. Come!”

  There were no shadows in the valley, at least none that Mavin could see. There was a silvery beast waiting beside the flowery pools, and she fought the instinctive surge toward him, the flux of her own flesh inside its skin. There was a pombi there as well, huge and solemn beside the low wall, leaning against it, an expression of lugubrious patience upon its furry face.

  “Come out, Arkhur,” commanded the Dervish.

  The pombi stood on its hind legs, stretched, faded to stand before Mavin as a sad-faced, old youngster dressed in tattered garments. Mavin gasped. It was the face she had seen at the Lake of Faces, the other which had spoken of Bartelmy’s Ban. So here was Chamferton’s brother, wearily obedient to this Dervish.

  “Go back, Arkhur,” said the Dervish.

  The youth dropped to all fours and became a pombi once more.

  “I didn’t know anyone could do that,” grated Mavin. “Except Shifters, and then only to themselves.”

  “No one can, except Shifters, and only to themselves. He only believes he is a pombi. You believe it because he believes it. He believes it because I believe it. Even the shadows believe – no, say rather the shadows do not find in him that pattern they seek. When Himaggery went to the tower, he found this one nearby, enchanted, perhaps, or drugged, or both. When Himaggery fled, he carried this one out with him, though he would have been wiser to go faster and less encumbered. I hid him as I hid Himaggery, though it is probable it was not as necessary. Now both must go. Those you meet upon the road will believe he is a pombi.

  “So, too, with the other. He believes he is the fabulous beast he appears to be to others. You believe it also. All others will believe it. The shadows will not sense in him the pattern they seek. But you must go far from here, very far, Mavin Manyshaped. No trifling distance will do. You must be several days’ journey from your last view of the shadows before you bring him out into himself once more. Do it as I did. Call his name; tell him to come out. Make him hear you, and he will come out.”

  “A place far from here.” Mavin staggered, too weary to stand. “Far from here.”

  “A place well beyond the last shadow, a place where no shadow is,” the Dervish agreed.

  She took up a halter which was hanging upon the gate, and wondered in passing whether it was real or whether she only believed she saw it. Whichever it might have been, the fabulous beast believed he felt it, for he called a trumpet sound of muted grief as they went up the road past the guardian trees, the pombi shambling behind them.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They could not go far enough. Mavin stumbled as she led the beast, dragged her feet step on step, looking up to see shadows in every tree they passed beneath, on every line of hill, in every nostril of earth. Still, she went on until she knew she could go no farther, then tethered the beast to a tree and coaxed him to lie down as a pillow for her head. The pombi lay beside them without being coaxed, and warmed by the furry solidity she rested. The smooth body beneath her cheek breathed and breathed. She forced herself not to respond to that gentle movement, though she passionately desired to lie right against that body and abandon herself to the closeness, the warmth. Something in the beast responded to her, and he turned to bring her body closer, touching the soft flesh of her neck with a muzzle as soft. She forced herself away, trying to find a position which would not so stir her feelings, found one of sheer weariness at last. Thus they slept, moving uneasily from time to time as night advanced, and it was in the dark of early morning that she woke to begin the trek once more.

  The thought of food began to obsess her. She did not know what the beast could eat. She remembered eating grass when she had been his mate, but she had actually Shifted into a form which could eat grass. What did Himaggery eat in this strange shape he thought he bore? Did belief extend to such matters as teeth and guts? Could she feed such a beast on grasses which would not keep the man alive? The pombi did not wait upon her consideration. He shambled off into the forest and returned with a bunwit dangling from his jaws, munching on it with every appearance of satisfaction. Soon after, they passed a rainhat bush. Mavin peeled a ripe fruit and offered it from her hand. The beast took it with soft lips and a snuffle of pleasure. Had it not been for the shadows clustered around them, she would have felt pleased.

  “I cannot call you … Himaggery,” she whispered, giving no voice to the name itself. “Not even to myself. To do so starts something within me I cannot hold. And I may not think of you as I did when I was your mate within the valley, for to do so melts my flesh, beast. So. What shall I call you?” She considered this while they walked a league or so, the pombi licking bunwit blood from his bib of white hair, she feeding the other two of them on fruit and succulent fronds of young fern which thrust their tight coils up among the purple spikes of Healer’s balm. Only the rainhat bush bore fruit so early, and she gave some thought to the monotony of the beast’s diet if, indeed, it could not eat grass or graze upon the young leaves.

  “I will call you Fon,” she said at last. “For you were Fon when we met. Or I will call you Singlehorn.”

  The beast stopped, staring about himself as though in confusion, and she knew her words had reached some inner self which was deeply buried.

  “Fon,” she said in pity. “It’s all right. It’s all right, my Singlehorn.”

  It was not all right. The shadows had only multiplied as they went, as though attracted by some ripe stink of passion or pain. Something in the relationship among the three of them, perhaps, or between any two of them. Something, perhaps, which sought to surface in either Arkhur or … Fon. Something, perhaps, which sought expression in herself. She thought of the bird which had severed its own wing, wondering what had motivated the shadow to cause such a thing, or whether any creature, once it had invaded the shadow, would have acted so automatically. Yet Himaggery had sought to invade the tower and had somehow escaped.

  The bird had simply gone into the shadow.

  How had Himaggery gone?

  The shadows had not sought the bird. Or had they?

  The shadows were seeking something now. Seeking, following, but not attacking. She wondered at their passivity, knowing they could attack if they would. Their failure to do so was more frightening than the actuality, making heart labor and breath caw through a dry throat without purpose. Running would not help. Conversation would make her feel less lonely, but there was no one present who could answer her. Even her words were dangerous, for either of the beasts beside her might rise to an unintentional inflection, an unmeant phrase, rise into that pattern which the shadows sought.

  So, in a forced silence, for the first time since leaving the valley, she began to consider where they were going. Somewhere without shadows. And where might such a place be found?

  “We need a Wizard,” she whispered to herself. “One walks at my back, and I cannot use him. Chamferton is far to the east of us. Besides, I cannot like him, dare not trust him. So. Perhaps instead of a Wizard, I need … a Seer. To find the shadowl
ess place. And who would be more interested than Windlow, Fon-beast, eh? Far and far from here, down the whole length of the land to the mountainous places of Tarnoch. Still, I could rely upon him. And once there – once there we could rest.”

  Even though the shadows did not attack, they were present. Weariness followed upon their feet, a weightiness of spirit, a heaviness of heart and foot and hand so that mere bodies became burdens. Mavin wondered dully if she could Shift into something which would be less susceptible to this lassitude and was warned by some inner voice to stay as she was, not to change, not to draw upon any power from the earth or air, for it was such a draw upon the power of the place which had stirred the shadows in her presence once before.

  “As we are, then,” she sighed. “As we are, companions. One foot before another, and yet again, forever. Gamelords, but we have come a wearying way.”

  They had not come far and she knew it. They had gone up and down a half-dozen small hills, tending always south, toward the road of tingling stones where the blind runners had been. She did not know why she had set out with that destination in mind except that it was a real place, a measurable distance from other places she knew, not so far that it seemed unattainable even to a group as weary as this one.

  One rise and then another. One hollow and then another. Trees blotted dark on a line of hill. Rocks twisted into devil faces; foliage in the likeness of monsters. Clouds which moved faster in the light wind than they three moved upon the earth. Each measure a measure of a league’s effort to cross a quarter of it. Until at last they came to a final rise and saw the pale line of the road stretching across its feet.

  The day had dawned without sun and moved to noon in half light. They could go no further, but she led them on until the road itself was beneath their feet. Once there, they dropped into a well of sleep as sudden as a clap of thunder. No shadow moved on this road. No shadow moved near this road. Pale it stretched from east to west, the stones of it cracked into myriad hairline fissures in which fernlets grew, and buttons of fungus, their minute parasols shedding a tiny fog of spores upon the still air. Mavin lay upon them like a felled sapling, all asprawl, loose and lost upon the stones, the beasts beside her. In their sleep they seemed to flatten as though the stones absorbed them, drew them down, and when they woke at last they lay long, half conscious, drawing their flesh back up into themselves.

  It was music which had wakened them, far off and half heard on a fitful wind, but music nonetheless. A thud of great drum; a snarl of small drum; blare and tootle, rattle and clash, louder as it continued, obviously nearing. There were no shadows nearby though Mavin saw flutters against a distant copse. She dragged herself up, tugging the beasts into the trees at the side of the road. They stood behind leafy branches, still half asleep, waiting for what would come.

  What came was a blare of trumpets, a pompety-pom of drums, three great crashes of cymbals, thrangggg, thranggg, thranggg, then a whole trembling thunder of music over the rise to the east. They saw the plumes first, red and violet, purple and azure, tall and waving like blown grass. The plumes were upon black helmets, glossy as beetles, small and tight to the heads of the musicians who came with their cheeks puffed out and their eyes straight ahead, following one who marched before them raising and lowering his tall, feathered staff to set the time of the music. Mavin felt the Fon-beast’s horn in the small of her back, up and down, up and down, marching in time to the music. Looking down, she saw pombi feet, Fon feet, and Mavin feet all in movement, pom, pom, pom, pom, as the bright music tootled and bammed around them.

  The musicians were dressed in tight white garments with colorful fabric wrapped about them to make bright kilts from their waists to below their knees, reflecting the hues of the plumes as they swished and swung, left-right, left-right. Polished black boots thumped upon the stones; the musicians moved on. Behind came the children, ranks and files of them, some with small instruments of their own, and behind the children the wagons, horses as brightly plumed as the musicians were, the elderly drivers sitting tall as the animals kept step, legs lifted high in a prance.

  She could see no shadows anywhere near, not upon the road nor within the forest, perhaps not within sound of the music. Mavin moved onto the roadway behind the last of the wagons. From the back of it, an apple-cheeked old woman nodded at them with a smile of surprise, tossing out a biscuit which the Fon caught between his teeth. Mavin got the next one and the pombi the third, throwing it high to catch it on the next step, marching as it chewed in the same high, poised trot the wagon horses displayed.

  “Are you Circus?” cried the old woman from a toothless mouth. “Haven’t seen Circus in a lifetime!”

  Mavin had no idea what she meant, but she smiled and nodded, the Singlehorn pranced, and Arkhur-pombi rose to his hind legs in a grave two-step. So they went, on and on, keeping step to the drums even when the other instruments stopped tweedling and flourishing for a time. The sun dropped lower in their faces, and lower yet, until only a glow remained high among the clouds, pink as blossoms.

  Then the whistle, shreeee, shreee; whompity-womp, bang, bang. Everything stopped.

  A busy murmur, like a hive of bees. Shouts, cries, animals unhitched and led to the grassy verges of the road. Fires started almost upon the road itself, and cookpots hung above them. Steam and smoke, and a crowd of curious children gathering around the Fon-beast and Arkhur-pombi, not coming near, but not fearful either, full of murmurs and questions.

  “Are they trained, Miss? Can you make them do tricks? Can you ride them? Would they let me ride them? Are you Circus?”

  “What,” she asked at last, “is Circus?”

  “Animals,” cried one. To which others cried objection, “No, it’s jugglers.” “Clowns.” “Acrobats, Nana-bat says.” “It’s marvels, that’s what.”

  An older child approached, obviously one to whom the welfare of these had been assigned, for he wore a worried expression which looked perpetual and shook his head at the children in a much practiced way. “Why are you annoying the travelers? One would think you’d never seen an animal trainer before. We saw one just last season, when we left the jungle cities.”

  “Not with animals like this, Hirv.” “Those were only fustigars, Hirv.” “Nobody ever told me you could train pombis, Hirv.” “Hirv, what’s the one with the horn. Ask her, will you Hirv.”

  “That beast is a Singlehorn,” Mavin replied in an ingratiating tone. “The pombi was raised by humans since it was a cub.” Which is true enough, she told herself. Arkhur must have been raised by someone. “I am not their trainer. I am merely taking them south to their owner.” She had thought this out fairly carefully, not wanting to be asked to have the beasts do tricks. “If it would not disturb you, we would like to go along behind you for a time. Your music makes the leagues shorter.” And she provided another ingratiating expression to put herself in their good graces. The children seemed inclined to accept her, but the one who was approaching next might be harder to convince.

  He was the music master, he of the tall, plumed staff and the silver whistle. He thrust through the children, planted the staff on the pave and looked them over carefully before turning to the child-minder. “What does she want?”

  “Only to follow along, Bandmaster. She says it makes the leagues shorter.”

  The Bandmaster allowed himself a chilly smile. “Of course it does. The Band swallows up the leagues as though it had wings. Music bears us up and carries us forward. In every land in every generation.”

  The children had evidently heard this before, for there was tittering among them; and one, braver than the rest, puffed himself up in infant mockery, pumping a leafy branch as though he led the marching.

  “What is your name?” the Bandmaster demanded.

  “Mavin,” she said, making a gestured bow. “With two beasts to deliver to the southland.”

  “I assume they are not dangerous? We need not fear for our children?”

  Mavin thought of the murdered bunwi
t and looked doubtfully at Arkhur-pombi, who returned the gaze innocently, tongue licking his breast hairs, still slightly stained with bunwit blood. “I will keep it near me, Bandmaster. Can you tell me where you have come from? I have traveled up and down this land for twenty years, and I have not run across your like before.”

  The Bandmaster smiled a superior smile, waving his hand to an elder who lingered to one side, arms clutched tight around a bundle of books. “Where have we been in twenty years, Byram? The Miss wishes to know.”

  The oldster sank to his haunches, placing the bundle on the ground to remove one tome and leaf through it, counting as he leafed back, stopping at last to cry in a reedy voice, “Twenty years ago we were on the shores of the Glistening Sea nearby to Levilan. From there we went north along the shore road to the sea cities of Omaph and Peeri and the northern bays of Smeen. And from there,” leafing forward in his book, “to the Citadel of Jallywig in the land of the dancing fish, thence north once more along Boughbound Forest to the glades of Shivermore and Creep and thence south to the jungle roads of the Great Maze. Oh, we were on the roads of the Great Maze ten years, Miss, and glad to see the end of them at last in the jungle cities of Luxuri and Bloome. And from there south across the Dorbor Range onto the old road where we are now. We have played the repertoire forty times through in twenty years…”

  “How long have you been doing this?” she asked. “Traveling around this way?”

  “How long have we been marching,” corrected the Bandmaster. “Why, since the beginning, of course. Since disembarkation or shortly thereafter. At first, so it is written, there were few roads and long, Miss, but as we go they ramify. Ah, yes, they ramify. Used to be in time past, so it is written, we could make the circuit in five years or so. Now it takes us seventy. In time, I suppose, there will be children born who will never live to see their birthplace come up along the road again. Jackabib, there, with his leafy bough pretending to mock the Bandmaster, why, it may be he will never see the city of Bloome again.”