The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Somewhere, Mavin told herself, there are shadowpeople who know the Lake of Faces – perhaps even now they are near there. So the call goes out and is relayed across the forests until someone responds, and then that response is relayed back again. Song-guided, we go toward a place we cannot see. So they went until evening fell and the shade of the trees drew about them. Once more the fire, the foraging, the songs, the laughter. Once more lele-la, and choruses of joy. “I am unworthy of the great honour you do me,” said Mavin, bowing until they fell over one another in their amusement. “I am deeply touched.”

  In the night she dreamed once more, starting upright in the darkness with a muffled scream. In dream the Harpies had laid their talons upon her, she had felt their teeth. The dark around her bubbled with small cries of concern, small soothing songs. Poor lele-la, they sang. She is not used to it yet. After a time, the songs became a lullaby and she slept.

  When morning came, they could hear the guiding calls more clearly, this time with something of warning in them. Proom pulled at Mavin’s leg, asking to be taken up on her shoulders as he had ridden in the past. At first she thought he was weary of the long run, then she realized he wished to gain height in order to see better what lay before them. Two of the shadowmen ran far ahead this day, darting back from time to time. As noon grew near, they came back from their scouting with a rush of whispered words, and all the troop then went forward at a creep, silent through the brush, seeing light before them at the forest’s edge. It was not only the edge of the trees, but also the edge of the land where it fell away in steep cliffs down which streams trickled in a constant thin melody.

  She had not seen it from this angle before, but when she looked down, screening her face behind a small bush, Mavin knew where she was. The Lake of Faces lay immediately below them. Had she been able to Shift, she could have swarmed down the cliff and finished her business within the hour. Had she been able to Shift – had the place been untenanted.

  It was not only occupied but guarded. At the edge of the trees below were high, square tents of crimson stuff, main poles poking through their scalloped roofs like raised spears. From these poles limp pennants flapped, the device upon them raising old memories in Mavin. She had seen that Game symbol before. It had been blazoned on the cloak and breastplate worn by Valdon Duymit long ago in Pfarb Durim. So. The Demesne of the High King in the person of his thalan-son, Valdon.

  Aside from these tents and the armsmen lounging outside them, there were other occupants of the place. She shuddered, sank her teeth into her arm and bit down to keep from crying out. They were there, like giant storks, their white breasts flapping as they walked among the faces, their heads thrown back in crowing laughter so that she seemed to look down their throats, their endless, voracious throats. And he whom she had called the High Wizard Chamferton, strolling there without a sorrow in the world. Mavin stopped biting herself with a deep gulping sigh. She had hoped it would be easy; she had hoped it would be possible. Now what?

  She rolled away from the rim of the cliff into the mossy cover of the trees, the shadowpeople following her, silent as their name.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When she had recovered a little, the first thing which came into her head was that she wished to hear what Valdon and the false Chamferton – what had his brother called him? Dourso? – what those two would talk of. The fact they were here together said much: much but not enough. There was Game afoot, Game awing, Game doing something and going somewhere. Shifty Mavin was angered enough by that to ignore all the lumpty responsibilities and hard choices in an instantaneous retreat to a former self. “I need to get where I can hear them,” she growled to the shadowpeople, adding to herself – purely as an afterthought – “Without being seen by the Harpies. And without Shifting.”

  Proom seemed to understand this well enough, even without an Agirul translator present or a lengthy mime session. Perhaps spying out the ground was a routine first step prior to any interesting thing – a bit of sneaking and slying to learn what was going on. At any rate, he fell into discussion with his fellows, much whispered trilling and lalala, hands waving and eyebrows wriggling, ears spread then cocked then drooped, as expressive as faces. Several of them ran off in various directions, returning to carry on further conversation before inviting her in the nicest way to accompany them. She was not reluctant to go, though doubtful they had found any suitable way down those precipitous cliffs, and was thus surprised to find almost a stair of tumbled stone leading down behind one of the falls. The bottom of it was screened behind a huge wet boulder, and this way led to a scrambly warren among the stones and scattered trees at the foot of the cliffs which emerged at last within two strides of Valdon’s tent, the whole way well hidden.

  Proom had his neck hair up and his ears high, both expressing self-satisfaction, so she bowed to him, then he to her, then both together, trying not to make a sound, at which all the others rolled on the ground with their hands clamped over their mouths. There was nothing funny in the situation but she relished their amusement. They lay beneath the stone together, waiting for dark. Mavin could hear the Harpies screeching away at the far edge of the lake. They were a good distance away and she could relax enough to plan.

  Tomorrow the pombi should reach them, the pombi and Singlehorn. She hoped it would be sooner rather than later, the help of the Wizard being much desired. If she had been able to Shift, she told herself, she would have crept into Valdon’s tent at once, strangled him, then swumbled up his men at arms. Then … then she would have laid some kind of nasty trap for the Harpies. Yes. Something clever, so that she would not have to touch them. After which the Faces could have been taken care of with simple dispatch. As it was … well, as it was she would have to think about it.

  Just as dark was beginning to fall, there was a clucking Harpy chatter from the shore of the lake, and the false Chamferton came strolling along the water to be greeted by one of Valdon’s men. He disappeared into the nearest tent. The Harpies who had followed him scratched among the poles, pausing now and then to caw insults at the silent Faces. Foulitter carried the wand in its case upon her back. Soon they went back the way they had come, disappearing among the white poles in the dusk. Mavin unclenched her teeth and wriggled from behind the stones, barely aware of the shadowpeople who followed, each mimicking her movements as though they reflected her in a mirror. When she reached the back of the tent she lay still, head resting upon her arms as she strained to hear whatever was said inside.

  The false Chamferton was speaking. “Two days ago … knew something had happened … should have at the time…”

  “You should have done many things at the time!”

  Valdon’s voice was raised, easy to hear, stirring memories in her of a long ago time. He sounded no less arrogant now than he had done twenty years before.

  “Had you the wits the gods gave bunwits, you would have done many things differently. Eight years ago you engaged upon this elaborate scheme concerning your brother, the Wizard Chamferton. Why did you not merely kill him? Dead is dead, and it is unlikely a Necromancer would seek him out among the departed. But no. You must do this painstaking stupidity, this business of drugging him and having him dropped by Harpies. Why?”

  “Because it could have been to our advantage, Prince Valdon. I sent him where he could observe the shadow and the tower, the tower and the bell. I kept his Face here to answer my questions. So we might have learned much of mystery and wonder…”

  “Dourso, you’re a dolt! Mystery is for old men teaching in schools because they have no blood left to do otherwise. Wonder is for girls and pawns. But power and Game – that is for men. Save me from puling Invigilators who seek to outplay their betters…”

  “You are in my Demesne, Prince.” The voice was a snarled threat. “Shouldn’t you mind your tongue.”

  “I am in my own Demesne wherever I go, Dourso. You ate my bread and took my coin for decades among the least of my servants. Oh, it’s true you had some small
skill in treachery. Nothing has changed. You have had possession of a tower for a few years. You have learned a few tricks for a time. Do not overestimate the importance of these trifling things.”

  “I have them at your instigation,” Dourso hissed again. “Let us say at your command. It was you bid me come here and rid the land of the High Wizard Chamferton, taking his place in order that Valdon, King Prionde’s son, might have an ally to the north.”

  “Well, and if I did? I said rid the land, not encumber it further with enchantments and bother. Let be. What is the situation now?”

  “It is no different than it was an hour ago, or a day ago. When I drugged my brother – half brother, and on the father side, which makes it no kind of treachery – I had my Harpies drop him in the valley where the Shadow Tower is. None can come near that place without being shadow-eaten, so it seemed safe enough…”

  “Seemed,” snorted Valdon in a barely audible voice.

  “Seemed safe enough,” repeated Dourso. “I took his Face before he was drugged, but I never questioned it. There was no need to question the Face. I knew where he was. The Harpies swore to it under pain of my displeasure. That same year came the Wizard Himaggery in search of Chamferton, as you had said he would.”

  “In pursuit of an old tale I had taken some pains to see he learned of. His eccentricities were well recognized among more normal Gamesmen. It was not difficult.”

  “Well, so he came, bringing with him two old dames from Betand. I fed him the stories we had agreed upon, all of which are true enough, and he went off in pursuit of the runners and the tower. I took his Face before he left, also – though he did not know it – and the Face of one of the old dames as well. She was so far gone that the taking killed her, so it is as well he did not know of that either.”

  “So Himaggery came and went, and after a time…”

  “After a time, not long after he left, his Face began to answer that it was under Bartelmy’s Ban. Then I thought to question the Face of my brother, and so spoke the Face of Chamferton also. Thus I knew one fate had taken them both. So, I said to myself, Himaggery and Chamferton have both been shadow-eaten, and my friend and ally, Valdon, will be mightily pleased. As you were, my Prince. As you were. It is not long since you feasted in my tower and told me so.”

  “As I might have remained,” sneered Valdon, “if he had not returned from the shadow gullet after eight years like one vomited up out of the belly of death.”

  There was a pause. Mavin could almost see Dourso’s shrug. “It was that Mavin, I suppose. You told me years ago she would probably follow Himaggery.”

  “As I thought she would eventually. Long and long ago she promised to meet him. My brother Boldery told me of it, full of romantic sighs and yearnings – the young fool. And with her gone there would have been only two left upon my vengeance list – her younger brother, Mertyn, and the old fool, Windlow, at the school in Tarnoch.”

  “Why such enmity? If her brother is much younger than her, he must have been a child at the time. Was it not at the time of the plague in Pfarb Durim? Twenty years ago?”

  “Child or not, Mertyn is on the list. Senile fool or not, Windlow is there as well. Woman or not, Mavin shares their fate. What care I what they may have been. They offended me. They did me an injury. If it had not been for Himaggery, and Windlow, and Mavin and her brother, Pfarb Durim would have fallen into the hands of my friend, and thence at least partly into mine. So my friend tells me. And if I had the wealth of Pfarb Durim in my hands, I would not be grodgeling now about the northern lands in search of allies.”

  There was a long strained silence. After a time, the false Chamferton spoke again. “Well, so, Mavin came as you know, interrupting your own visit to me. And I did the same with her, feigning friendship and helpfulness, giving her bits and pieces of the story, telling her at the last about the runners. And I took her Face as I had the others and sent her off.”

  “But she did not die, and the others returned from the dead.” Prince Valdon spat the words, working himself up into a fury.

  “Which is impossible.” Dourso was vehement. “No one returns from the tower. It holds fifty generations of questing heroes sleeping the shadow sleep at its gates.”

  “What is it, this tower?”

  Again, Mavin could extrapolate the shrug from the expressive silence. “Something old, from the time before men came to these parts. Something to do with the Eesties. You say you do not care for such things. Well then, it doesn’t matter what it is. It is easy enough to stay away from.”

  “And to get away from, seemingly. At least your brother and Himaggery and Mavin seem to have done so.”

  “We don’t know that. We know only that when Chamferton’s Face was questioned yesterday, it did not speak of the Ban as it has spoken in the past. It said other garbled things, speaking of pombis and music. And when Mavin’s Face was asked, it, too, spoke of beasts and music. Only Himaggery’s face said what it has said for years, that it is under Bartelmy’s Ban.”

  “So it may be they have only exchanged one death for another?” Valdon asked, rather more eagerly than Mavin thought mannerly. “Then they may yet be dead, or as good as.”

  “I consider it likely. My Harpies consider it probable. They have been full of celebratory laughter all afternoon. I think you have little to concern you, Prince Valdon. Still, we will let tomorrow come and question the Faces once again.”

  “You will wait until tomorrow comes and question them, yes,” Valdon grated in a harsh, imperious voice. “And the day after that, and the day after that, until you have used up whatever lives they might have left in the answering, Dourso. There are more ways to plant a hedge of thrilps than by poking the dirt with your nose, and your maybe this, maybe not approach has not proved satisfactory.”

  “As my Prince commands,” said the other, conveying more ironic acquiescence than obedience. “I had intended to do so in any case.”

  Well, thought Mavin, squirming back from the tent into the gloom of the rocks. Isn’t he a carrier of long grudges. Twenty years of vengeful thought over a few boyish disagreements. “And a lost city,” reminded an internal voice. “At least part of one.”

  She looked over the area. Dark had come with a sliver of moon, enough light to find a Face, perhaps. She thought she could remember where Himaggery’s had been, on the far shore of the lake, about halfway between the water and the trees, roughly in line with a great boulder. Where might her own Face be? Somewhere in that forest, hard to see in the dim.

  A soft touch on her shoulder turned her. Proom, reaching out to touch her face, then gesturing away to the poles. Touching her face once more, gesturing away, that questioning gesture. She nodded in great chin wagging agreement and reached up behind her ears as though she untied something there. She moved her hands forward as though she stripped a mask away, then pointed at the mimed mask and said, “Mavin’s.” She indicated the poles, then gestured to Proom and his fellows as she raised her eyebrows. Could they find her Face? Could they get her Face? There was colloquy among them while she thought further.

  Proom had seen Himaggery once, on the side of a hill above Hell’s Maw. She reached out to him, went through the dumb show once more, this time naming the mask, “Himaggery’s.” He cocked his head, thinking. She did it again. “Himaggery’s.”

  Aha. His face lighted up, and he turned to his troop with a lilting quaver of words. “Maggeries, gerries, ees, ees.” Proom was becoming Himaggery, miming him, walking with a graceful stride, chin tilted a little in diffidence, face drawn down in a serious expression. For someone only knee high, he looked remarkably like her memory of the tall Wizard. Mavin tittered, smothering the sound, but it had been enough to set them off. In the instant Proom had a parade of Himaggeries, winding their way among the stones. Mavin lay back against a narrow mossy strip between the rocks, weary beyond belief. So. Perhaps they could find her Face, hers and Himaggery’s. She would have to look for Chamferton’s Face herself. There was no
way to describe him to Proom.

  The moon sank toward the west. Night birds called from the cliff tops and were echoed from the river bottom. One of the Harpies screamed in the forest, a quavering screech that brought Mavin upright in terror, making her head ache. She pressed her head between her hands, but the pain only worsened, two sharp, horrible stabbings around her ears, as though two knives were inserted there. Just when she thought she could bear it no longer, that she must scream, the pain weakened, became merely sore, throbbing rather than agonizing. Trembling, she dipped a handkerchief in the trickling fall and bathed her face and eyes. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. She was reluctant to move her head. Pressing the cold, wet cloth around her ears helped a little. She brought it away red with blood.

  She was still staring stupidly at the stains when Proom wriggled back through the rocks, holding a thing at arm’s distance from him, his lips drawn back in an expression of distaste and fear. He let it fall at her knees, and she recoiled as her own face looked blindly up at her, ragged holes chewed at ear level. Proom had gnawed the strap away which held it to the post. His lips were red, and he bathed them in the stream with much spitting and wiping. When Mavin showed him the wounds at her ears, he recoiled in mixed dismay and horror.

  The mask was paper light, like the shed skin of a serpent, fluttering in the light evening air with a kind of quasi life. She held it under the falls, feeling it squirm weakly beneath her hands, suddenly slick as frogskin and as cold. It became a slimy jelly in her hands, then began to dwindle in the cold water, becoming totally transparent before it dissolved and washed away. As it did so, the pain in her head almost disappeared though a quick touch verified that the wounds remained.