When he replied it was not in the ponderous, Wizardly voice she had begun to associate with him. It was rather doubtful, tentative.
“Do not talk of it, Mavin. When Himaggery is brought back to himself, discourage him from having interest in it. Though I have read much, studied much, I understand very little. I will say only this…
“Before men came to this world – or to this part of the world, I know not which – there were others here. There was a balance here. You may say it was a balance between shadow and light, though I do not think what I speak of can be described in such simple terms. One might as well say power and weakness, love and hate. Of whatever kind, it was a balance.
“There was a symbol of that balance. More than a symbol; a key, a talisman, an eidolon. A tower. In the tower a bell which cannot ring alone. Ring the bell of light, and the shadow bell will sound. Ring the shadow bell and the daylight bell will resonate. So was the balance kept. Until we came. Then … then something happened. Something withdrew from this world or came into it. The tower disappeared or was hidden. The bell was muffled…
“An imbalance occurred. Does the real tower still exist? Is the bell only muffled? Or destroyed? Does something now ring the shadow bell, something beyond our understanding?
“Mavin, do not speak of this. In time the balance must be restored or the world will fail. But I think the time is not now, not yet. Any who attempt it now are doomed to death, to be shadow-eaten. So – when you have brought Himaggery to his own once more, do not let him seek the tower.”
Mavin heard him out, not understanding precisely what he attempted to say – and knowing that he understood it no better than she – yet assured by her own sight and hearing that he spoke simple truth as it could be perceived by such as they. She, too, had seen the shadows. She, too, had heard the sound of their presence. It was not the time.
“I will remember what you say, Arkhur,” she promised him. Then she took leave of the Healer, accepting many useful gifts, and went out into the dawn.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At Chamferton’s invitation – though it was actually the Healer who thought of it – Mavin took several horses from the stable beneath the rock. None was the equal of Prettyfoot, but any at all would be easier than walking. She rode one and led three, the three ridden – or better, she thought, say “inhabited” – by Proom and his people. They did not so much ride as swarm over, up and down legs, around and across backs. The horses, at first much astonished and inclined to resentment, were petted into submission. Or perhaps talked into submission. Mavin had a sneaky belief supported by considerable evidence that Proom spoke horse as well as fustigar, owl, flitchhawk, and a hundred other languages.
She showed Proom the picture of Singlehorn only after they had found the place from which the Fon-beast had bolted, a place in the woods still some distance northwest of the Lake of Faces (former Lake of Faces, Mavin said to herself, trying to think of a good name for it now). He looked at it with obvious amusement, then passed it around to the accompaniment of much discursive lalala, snatching it back when one infant attempted to eat it.
The search was immediately in motion, with a dozen shadowpeople up as many trees, all twittering into the spring noonday. They descended after a time to swarm over their steeds once more, pointing away to the west and urging Mavin to come along. Calls kept coming throughout the afternoon, always from the west, as they proceeded into the evening until the forest aisles glowed before them in long processionals of sun and shade, the sky pink and amber, flecked with scaly pennants of purple cloud. None of them had slept for a full day and night, Though the guiding song had not yet fallen silent there was general agreement – not least among the horses – that it was suppertime.
They built a small fire and ate well, for the Healer had sent packed saddlebags with them, bags full of roast meat and cheese, fresh baked bread and fruit from Chamferton’s glasshouses. Then they curled to sleep – except that they did not sleep. The shadowpeople were restless, getting up again and again to move around the mossy place they had camped upon, full of aimless dialogue and fractious small quarrels. Finally, just as Mavin had begun to drift away, one of them cried a sharp, low tone of warning which brought all of them up to throw dirt upon the coals of the fires.
“Sssss,” came Proom’s hiss, and a moment later tiny fingers pressed upon her lips.
It took time to accustom her eyes to the dark, though she widened them as much as she could to peer upward in the direction all the little faces were turned, ears spread wide, cocked to catch the least sound.
Then she heard it. The high, shrill screech of a lone Harpy. A hunting cry.
“Pantiquod,” she whispered, questioning their fright.
“Sssss,” from Proom. A shadowperson was pouring the last of Mavin’s wine on the fire while others peed upon it intently, dousing every spark and drowning the smoke.
“Why this fear?” she asked herself silently. “They played tag with Foulitter upon the hill near the lake. They led her into a trap without a moment’s hesitation, yet now they are as fearful as I have ever seen them.”
The horses began an uneasy whickering, and a dozen of the little people gathered around them, talking to them, urging some course of action upon them and reinforcing it with much repetition. Mavin did not understand their intention until the horses trotted away into the darkness, returning as they had come.
“No!” she objected. “I need…”
“Ssss,” demanded Proom, his hands tightening on her face.
Then she saw them. A line of black wings crossing the moon, beat on beat, as though they breathed in unison, moving from the northeast. From that purposeful line fell a single hunting call, as though only a lone Harpy hunted there upon the light wind. Beat on beat the wings carried them overhead, and as they passed directly overhead Mavin heard a low, ominous gabble as from a yard of monstrous geese.
They waited in silence, not moving, scarcely breathing. After a long time, Mavin tried again. “Pantiquod?”
Proom showed his teeth in a snarl. “Perdum, lala, thossle labala perdum.”
“Perdum,” she agreed. “Danger.” The little ones took this word and tried it out, “ger, ger, ger,” decided they did not like it. “Perdum,” they said, being sure all of them were in accord. Mavin thought not for the first time that she must learn Proom’s language. Perhaps – perhaps there would be a time of peace while she waited for her child to be born. Perhaps then. She considered this possibility with surprising pleasure. It was ridiculous not to be able to talk together.
Be that as it may, she could appreciate the danger. One Harpy could be teased, baffled, led on a chase. Perhaps two or three could be tricked or avoided. But more than that? All with poisonous teeth and clutching talons? No doubt Pantiquod had learned of Foulitter’s death and was out for vengeance. “Fowl, bird-brained vengeance,” she punned to herself, trying to make it less terrible. Proom had sent the horses away because they were large enough to be seen from the skies. So long as those marauders ranged the air, travel would have to be silent, sly, hidden beneath the boughs. She hoped that Singlehorn was not far from them and had not chosen to wander down into the plains or river valleys where there would be no cover.
At last, having worried about all this for sufficient time, she slept.
Proom shook her awake at first light, and they made a quick, cold breakfast as they walked. The twittered directions came less frequently today, and more briefly. Obviously other shadowpeople went in fear of the Harpies as well. Rather than travel today in a compact group, they went well scattered among the trees, avoiding the occasional clearings and open valleys. When it was necessary to cross such places, they searched the air first, peering from the edges of the trees, then dashed across, a few at a time. Mavin judged that the Harpies were too heavy to perch at the tops of trees – and the thought made her remember the broken vine outside her window at Chamferton’s castle – but they could find suitable rest on any rock outcropping or
cliff. Proom, well aware of this, kept them far from such places, and they did not see the hunters during the daylight hours.
Nor did they see Singlehorn. That night as they ate another cold meal without the comfort of fire, Mavin remembered that forlorn, bugling call the Fon-beast had sent after the Band as it marched away west. If Singlehorn were following the Band, then he might be moving ahead of them at their own speed. If that were the case, they might not catch up with him until he came to the sea, a discouraging thought. Though the shadows had little interest in him in his present shape, she wondered if the Harpies did.
At midnight she woke to the sound of that lone, hunting cry. There was an overcast, and she could not tell if there were more than one. Around her, the shadowpeople moved restlessly in their sleep.
So they went on. On the third night nothing disturbed them. Proom began to be more his usual self, full of prancing and jokes. The fourth and fifth night passed with no alarms. Mavin had convinced herself that the Harpy flight coming so close to her own path was mere coincidence. As Chamferton had said, Pantiquod had likely gone south to Bannerwell by now. Or somewhere else where her habits and appetites could be better satisfied.
They began to travel on the road which they had paralleled for many leagues. Now they came out upon it, staying close to the edge, still with some nervous scanning of the skies. They could move faster on this smooth surface, and by the time the sixth night fell, Mavin smelled the distant sea.
And on the following morning, a friendly family of shadowpeople drove Singlehorn into their camp, head hanging, coat dusty and dry, tongue swollen in a bleeding mouth. The broken strap of the halter still hung from his head, making small, dragging serpents’ trails in the dust. Mavin lifted Fon-beast’s head and looked into dull, lifeless eyes. She growled in her throat, hating herself for having wanted him gone. There were swollen sores around his ears, and remembering her own pain and the gentleness of the Healer, Mavin cursed her impatience with him. And with herself, she amended. It was not the Fon-beast himself, but her feelings about him that disturbed her. “I will forget all that,” she resolved in a fury of contrition. “I will forget all that and concentrate on taking care of him until we get to Windlow’s.”
They gave him water. She squeezed rainhat fruits into his mouth. Obviously he had not eaten well in the days he had been gone, or rather he had tried to graze on common grasses. Though he thought himself a grazing beast, the grasses had not been fooled. They had cut his mouth and tongue until both were swollen and infected. Mavin made a rich broth of some of the meat they had carried and dropped this into his mouth from a spoon while infant shadowpeople rubbed his dusty hide with bundles of aromatic leaves.
She had not noticed that Proom had left until he returned with a group of the older shadowpeople carrying bags full of herbs and growths, most of which she had never seen before. These were compounded by the tribe in accordance with some recipe well known to them all. It resulted in a thick, green goo which Proom directed be plastered around Singlehorn’s mouth and upon the open sores. Some of it trickled into the Fon-beast’s mouth as well, and Mavin was restrained from wiping it away. Finally, when everything had been done for him that anyone could think of, she covered him with her cloak and lay down beside him. After a time the smell of the herbs and the warmth of the day made them all drowsy – they had been much awake during the past nights – and they slept once more.
When they awoke in the late afternoon, the Singlehorn was on his feet, pawing at the ground with one golden hoof, nodding and nodding as though in time to music. Dried shreds of the green goo clung around his mouth and ears. Beneath this papery crust the flesh was pink and healthy-looking, the swelling reduced; and while his eyes were still tired, he did not look so hopeless. There was a pool a little distance away, and while the shadowpeople yawned and stirred, readying for travel, Mavin led him there. She let him out to the length of the new rope she had tied to his halter but did not release him. “No more running away,” she said firmly. “Whatever I may feel about this whole business, Fon-beast, however impatient it makes me, we are bound together until we reach safety.” And to herself, she said, “And when we reach Windlow’s – then we’ll see if there is a true tie between us.”
Singlehorn, rolling in the shallow water, tossing his head and drinking deep drafts of cool liquid, did not seem to care. She let him roll, unaware of the sun falling in the west, enjoying the peace of the moment. When she returned to the road, the shadowpeople were gone.
“Hello?” she cried. “Proom?”
Only silence. Perhaps a far-off twitter.
“Goodbye?” she called.
No answer.
Well. They had observed and assisted while Mavin had done several interesting things. They had introduced their children to this person. They had, perhaps, made a new song or two – the Lake of Faces was surely good for at least a brief memorial – but now the shadowpeople had business of their own. Mavin had found the creature she sought, and now they might be about their own affairs. She sought the edges of the road for any sign, any trail, but saw nothing.
Nothing…
Except a grayness lying quiet beneath a tree. And another superimposed in fluttering flakes upon a copse, wavering the light which passed through it so it seemed to shift and boil.
Her soul fell silent. Shadows from the tower come to haunt her once more. Not upon the road, which still prevented their presence, but nearby. Perhaps the shadowpeople had been shadow-bane, but without them the bane prevailed no longer.
There was nothing for it except to get on to the south. They must come to Tarnoch at last, or so far from the tower that the shadows would give up. Though what they would give up, or how they were here, she could hardly imagine. Was it she who drew them, or Singlehorn? Were they set to follow any who left the Dervish’s valley? And if so, until when? Until what happened? Perhaps this was only conjecture. Perhaps they had not followed at all but were everywhere, always, ubiquitous as midges.
To which an internal voice said, Nonsense. You have not seen them in your former travels because they were not in this part of the world before. Now they are, because they have followed you here from the Dervish’s valley. But follow you where they will, they did not harm you when you were with the shadowpeople, and they do not harm you if you stay upon the road.
As she walked away, leading Singlehorn, it was to the steady double beat of those words; the road, the road, the road. “On the road, the old road, a tower made of stone. In the tower hangs a bell which cannot ring alone. One, two, three, four, five…” When she reached one thousand she began again. “Shadow bell rang in the dark, daylight bell the dawn. In the tower hung the bells, now the tower’s gone.”
Why a stone tower? Was it important? She hummed the words, thinking them in her head, then saw all at once how thickly the shadows lay, how closely to the road, how they piled and boiled as she sang.
Gamelords! Was that verse of the weird runners a summoning chant? It could be!
Sing something else. Anything. A jumprope chant. “Dodir of the Seven Hands, a mighty man was he; greatest Tragamor to live beside the Glistening Sea. Dodir raised a mountain up, broke a mountain down. See the house where Dodir lives, right here in our town. One house, two house, three house, four house…”
The shadows were not interested in this. They dwindled, becoming mere gray opacities, without motion beneath the softly blowing trees.
“Dodir of the Seven Hands, a mighty man to know, every tree in Shadowmarch, he laid out in a row. One tree, two tree, three tree, four tree…”
It was true. The shadows were fewer. “Well, Mavin,” she said, “Chamferton told you not to think of it, so best you not think of it. Sing yourself something old and bawdy from Danderbat keep or old and singsongy from childhood, and keep moving upon the southern way.” She soothed herself with this, and had almost reached a comfortable frame of mind when she heard the scream, high and behind her. She spun, searching the air, seeing clearly the
dark blot of Harpy wings circling upon a cloud.
Pantiquod had found her at last.
Oh, damn, and devils, and pombi-piss. And damn you, Chamferton, that you let her get away.
And damn you, Himaggery. Damn you, Fon-beast. I should raise you out of that shape and let you fight for yourself. Why must I do everything for you?
The Harpy circled lazily and turned away north. Mavin knew she would return. That had done it! There was no way she could face even one Harpy without Shifting. Being Harpy bit taught that. Even a scratch could be deadly. There being no help for it, she went on walking, singing over in her head every child’s song she remembered, every shanty learned in the sea villages, even the songs of the rootwalkers she had learned in the deep chasm of the western lands across the sea, and these led her to thoughts of Beedie which led in turn to nostalgic longings to be wandering free again. She had not truly wandered free for five years, not since bringing Handbright’s babies back to her kin, and the longing to break away from the rigid edges of the road became almost hysteria by nightfall.
Off the road, beneath the trees, her mind sang, shadows piled up to your knees. Safe from shadows on the road, and you’ll feel the Harpy’s goad. She had not seen Pantiquod again, but she knew the Harpy would return in the dark, or on the day which followed, and she would not return alone.
“Now, Mavin,” she harangued herself angrily, “this hysteria does not become you. Were you nothing but Shifter all these years? Were you a Talent only, with no mind or soul to call upon except in a twist of shape? Your Shiftiness is still there, may still be used if we need it. It is not lost to us, but by all the Hundred Devils, at least try to figure out if we’re Shifty enough without it. So, stop this silliness, this girlish fretting and whining and use your eyes, woman. Think. Do.”
The self-castigation was only partly effective. She tried to imagine it having been administered by someone else – Windlow, perhaps. That lent more authority, and she forced herself to plan. There were narrow alternatives. If she stayed upon the road to be protected from shadows, she would be exposed to the air. However! “We came a long way from the Dervish’s valley to this road, and though the shadows swarmed all about us, we were not hurt. Use your head, woman!”
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