The True Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "Will you bear it?" she asked. "Or, shall I heal it?" In that time it seemed an ultimate horror that I could be healed of the pain while Tossa lay unmourned. I said,

  "Let me bear it-if I can." I was not certain I could. They carried her body back to the edge of the trees, wrapped well against birds and beasts, and buried it under a cairn, leaving a message there to her father for those who would come searching. Chance trembled at the thought of that man's anger following us; the Immu tables were said to be terrible in wrath". We went off to the ruins as I wept and ached and drew breaths like knives into me. She had been a girl, only a girl. She had been. She was not. I could not understand a world in which this could be true and the pain of it so real. I did not know her at all; I was her only mourner. This was more horrible than her death.

  The Healer called out as we approached the ruins. While the others circled it, I went through the tumbled stones to retrieve my shirt. The trickery had been laid bare, but it was a good shirt and I had no intention of leaving it there. The route I had taken on the night before eluded me; I came at the slit windows from a different direction. There was a sharp, premonitory creak, then the earth opened beneath me to dump me unceremoniously into a dusty pit. My head hit the floor with a thump. When I stood up, dazed, it was to find myself in a kind of cellar or lower room which smelled of dust and rats. The walls were lined with slivered remnants of shelves and rotten books. Something small turned under my foot. I picked it up, saw another, then another, stooped to gather them up. They were tiny-no longer than my littlest finger-game pieces carved from bone or wood, delicate as lace, unharmed by time. Pieces of a rotten game board lay beneath them, and a tiny book. I gathered it up as well, even as I heard Chance calling from above.

  I wondered afterward why I had moved so quickly to hide them and put them away in my belt pouch. It would have been more natural to. call out, to show them as a prize. Later I thought it was because of the way we had lived in the School House. There had never been any privacy, anything of one's own. There were few secrets, virtually no private belongings. Secret things were wonderful things, and these were truly marvelous, so I gathered them as a squirrel does nuts, hiding them as quickly. They were not paying any attention to me at any rate, for the Healer had attracted it all. She had found all her belongings gone, Borold and Dazzle gone, and was in full lament.

  "My clothes, " she wailed. "My boots. My box of herbs. Everything. Why would they do that?"

  "Probably because they thought they were following you," said Yarrel, sensibly. "To that Wizard Peter pretended the message came from…"

  "Oh, by the ice and the wind and the seven hells, " she said. "They would be just such fools as to do that." Then she fell silent and we didn't find out for some time what that was all about. There was nothing for us to do but travel together, for the Bright Demesne, of the Wizard Himaggery lay south, the way we were going.

  We slept before starting out, I crying myself to sleep, hurting because of Tossa, saying to myself, "This is what love is." It was not love, not at all, but I did not know that then. When we woke it was with a high riding moon to light our way south.

  During the way south I learned something more of women. Yarrel taught me. He did not see the Healer as anything mysterious or strange. He saw her as a woman and treated her, so far as I could see, as he had treated Tossa, with a certain teasing respect which had much laughter in it. The first village we came to he insisted we buy her a pagne to wear, she having nothing with her but the one dress and light robe, both becoming raggedy from the road. Once the people saw a Healer was come, however, nothing would do but that they stoke the oven in the market place and bring the sick to lie about it. She, all glittering-eyed and distant, walked among them touching this one and that until, when she was finished, most had risen on their feet and the oven was cooled no warmer than my hand from her draw of power from it. They paid her well, and she insisted on repaying us for the pagne, though I argued it was small pay for healing me.

  "I have your company, " she said simply, for once not going on like a coven of crows gabbing all at once. She was tired. I could see it in her face. "It is good to have company on the road, even pawns and boys, if you take no offense at that."

  We told her we were not offended by truth. Later, when we stopped for the night, she wrapped herself in the bright pagne and combed out her hair. I thought once again of birds, but this time of the clamorous, unpredictable parrots with their sudden laughter and wise eyes. Her hair was the color of silver wood ash, and her eyes were green as leaves in her pale, oval face. Chance was once more gloating over his charts, and she leaned on his shoulder to trace our way south among the hills.

  "Dazzle has gone to the Bright Demesne, " she said. "She and Borold, thinking Himaggery sent for me. Oh, she will be a jealous witch, Dazzle, thinking anyone has sent for me." She sounded very tired. I thought of Dazzle's beauty and shivered. How could one such as that be jealous of anyone? Silkhands went on. "She believes she loves him, you see, the Wizard. But Himaggery is proof against her, and it drives her to excess. Ah, well, we will get there soon after her and no doubt bring her away again. She will be very angry."

  Yarrel asked, "Why do you care? Are you her leman?"

  "Half sister, rather. Our father was the same, but she was born to another mother than Borold's and mine. I am oldest, by six years."

  "Why were you sent away?"

  "Because Dazzle stirs trouble as a cook stirs soup. You called her Godspeaker, Priestess, but she is no Priestess. She is a witch, as uncontrollable as storm."

  "Where is this Bright Demesne?" asked Chance. "I can't find it here what should be so sizeable." She helped him search, but there was no sign of it upon the chart. Chance puffed his cheeks in complaint.

  "No trust, lads, that's what it comes to. Pay gold, or healing, or laughter if you're a clown, and get nothing but tricks and lies. This chart was said to be complete, and look at it-some old thing dusted off and sold with pretense." He folded it sadly, stroking the parchment with a calloused hand. I knew how he felt. It was a godlike feeling to spread the charts and trace one's way softly along a crease of hill, imagining the way, learning the names and aspects of the land. It was less wonderful if one knew that the charts lied. Then it was only pretend, not true game.

  That night I lay awake after the others slept, mazed by a lucific moon, and set out the tiny Gamesmen I had found. For the first time I noted they were not like those I had played with as a child. Of the white pieces, the tallest was a Queen, but there was no King beside her. Instead there was a white Healer. There were two Seers, two Armigers, two Sentinels, but no Churchmen. Of the black pieces the tallest was a Necromancer. There was a Sorcerer almost as tall, then two Tragamors, two Elators, two Demons. I could not tell what the little men were, crouchy and fuzzed in the moonlight. In the first morning light I looked again. They were crouchy indeed, Shapeshifters all, of the same ilk but differing in detail. Each piece had the same fascination in the hand I had felt when I first held them. Unwillingly, I put them away, each wrapped in a scrap of cloth and buried under my needfuls.

  Traveling south, sun and rain, forest and meadow, Silkhand's chatter, Yarrel's silences, Chance's wry commentary upon the world, no chill, no menace. Silkhands said that Himaggery had taken much of the land around Lake Yost and assembled thousands of Gamesmen there. Chance laughed, but she claimed it was true. How so many could find power to exist, she did not say. We did not ask. It was only a tall tale, we thought. Hum of bees, quiet sough of wind. Then, suddenly, as we climbed a high ridge of stone, a cold gust from above,chill as winter, without warning. We ran for overhanging stone and peered from beneath it like badgers.

  "Dragon, " whispered Yarrel. I saw it then, planing across the valley beyond, great wings outspread, long neck stretched like an arrow, tail behind, straight as a spear. Fire bloomed around its jaws. I was the first to see the other, higher, diving out of the sun. It was something I had never seen before.

  "Cold
Drake, " someone said in a hiss. The cold intensified. We huddled close, pulling clothing from the packs to wrap with our blankets around us, to keep Our heat in. Neither of the Gamesmen knew we were there or cared. They would soak our heat for their play just as they would that from the sun-hot stones. All we could do was wait in the shelter of the stones, praying they would fly on before it grew too cold for us.

  I wondered as we lay there how many thousands of pawns-and lesser Gamesmen, too-had died thus, lying helpless under stones or trees or in their houses while Gamesmen drew their heat away, slow degree by slow degree, until they fell into that last sleep. We had seen bones here and there as we traveled, littering the roadside, heaped around the ruins where Silkhands had been, all those who had stayed quiet and cold while Gamesmen played. Even so, it was a wondrous thing to watch the Dragon and the Cold Drake fight. The cine was all sinuous movement, twisting coil, black on black with frosty breath; the other all arrow darting, climb and dive, amber on gold with the breath of fire. As it grew colder around us, it grew more difficult for the Gamesmen to draw heat as well, and their movement slowed. We kept expecting them to move away, over the sunwarmed plains, but they did not. We knew then that they dueled, that they had set the boundaries of their Game and would not leave them until one or both were dead.

  The end came as suddenly as the beginning. The Cold Drake caught the Dragon full in a looping coil which tightened, tightened. The Dragon screamed. They fell together, linked, faster and faster, wings unmoving, a blur in the clear air. Then they were upon the plain before us, lost in a stirred cloud of frigid dust which erupted into the wind and was gone. The Healer sobbed and moved into the open, stumbling toward those distant bodies, we after her. She paused at one body only a moment, then went on to the other. He breathed feebly, back in his own form, a slender youth looking scarcely older than I, pale of skin with black hair and the long ears of the southern people.

  He tried to focus his agonized gaze upon the Healer, said "Healer…please…" Silkhands reached out as though to touch him then turned away.

  "Too cold, " she said. "Oh, there is nothing to make into a fire. If we could have fire swiftly…" We all looked around, but there was nothing to burn upon the hard-packed earth. The youth gave a bubbling cry and was silent. I turned to find Silkhands weeping.

  "Too cold, always too cold and I can do nothing. No power, no way to get power. Oh, Lords of the seven hells, but I wish you were a Tragamor…" She sobbed upon Chance's chest like a child. Looking toward the far line of forest I, too, wished I were a Tragamor, though with the cold as it was I doubted even a Tragamor could have ported wood from that forest in time. My eyes caught a glitter there; we all stared at the procession which came. It was not lengthy but puissant, the tall figure on the high red horse most of all. I knew him by the fur-collared robe embroidered with moonstar signs, even before Silkhands sank to her knees murmuring,

  "The Wizard Himaggery." My eyes did not stay long on the Wizard, for behind him rode one whose face I well remembered, that pawner from the Gathered Waters who had sought me, followed me. Well, I thought, run as we might he had found me. Blood gathered behind my eyes and I launched myself at him, shouting.

  The next thing I knew I was on the ground with two men sitting on me. There had been a sudden burst of heat from someone in the train, a Sorcerer most like. The Elators sitting on me had not needed it, however. They had needed only their own strength and my clumsiness. The Wizard sounded amused.

  "And what occasions this animosity, my good pawner? Is this the one you have been telling me about?"

  There was a mumbled reply before the Wizard spoke again. "Let him up, but keep your eyes on him. This is no time nor place to sort out such matters. We must look upon the bodies of our foolish young." And with that he rode forward, almost over me where I struggled with the Elators, unwilling to give up. He stopped by the youth's body and spoke to Silkhands. A Sorcerer rode but of the train and offered her his hand so that she might draw upon his stored power if she would. She shook her head. Too late. The Wizard turned his mount and came toward us again.

  "Oh, stop squirming, boy. You will not be dealt with unfairly, " and rode away toward the forest. There were extra horses, evidently brought in the hope the duelers could ride home. Chance and Silkhands had one, Yarrel and I the other. Behind us the bodies of the duelers rose into the air to float behind us, a Tragamor riding before each with a Sorcerer between. Even irritated as I was, I admired the crisp way it was done, each knowing what to do and doing it. Yarrel did not notice. His face was glorious. There would never be anything in the world as important to Yarrel as, horses.

  The Gamesman who rode beside me, one I could not identify-gold tunic embroidered with cobweb pattern, magpie helm and gray cloak-began to talk of the ones who floated behind.

  "Young Yvery and even younger Yniod, " he said, "both having conceived a passion for the Seer, Yillen of Pouws, and having studied the madness of courtly love (much studied by them and some other few fools in Himaggery's realm) did each claim the other had insulted the lady. She, having been in trance this seven month, could not intervene. So was challenge uttered, and by none could they be dissuaded. Himaggery demands that all may have free choice, and so did this occur."

  I found my voice somewhere beneath my giblets and got it out. "Which of them did the Seer love?"

  "Neither, She knew neither of them. They had only seen her sleeping."

  "What is this courtly love you speak of?"

  The Gamesman gestured to Silkhands. "Ask your Healer friend, she knows."

  Silkhands turned a miserable, shamed face to me. "Oh, yes, the Rancelman is right. I know. It is some factitious wickedness which Dazzle thought up and spread among the impressionable young. She may have read of it in some ancient book or come upon it in amusements for herself, and none will do unless there is combat and ill feeling. "That is why we were banished to the ruin. Three times we have lived in the Bright Demesne, and each time Dazzle has started up some such foolishness. It does nothing but cause trouble, dueling, death, stupidity. Each time Himaggery has sent her away…"

  "Her? Not you?"

  "No." She seemed almost angry that I had asked. "Not I. Not Borold. But we cannot let her live alone…"

  "I would, " snorted Yarrel. Of course, he had not seen Dazzle. "So long as she has you to comfort her, why should she mend her behavior?"

  "So says Himaggery, " she admitted. "But this last thing must have started ages ago. Dazzle could not have begun any new mischief. There has not been time."

  I mumbled something intended for comfort. We went on through the fringe of forest and out into the clear, blue shining of the lake's edge. For a moment I did not understand what I saw rising from the earth. Fogs spiraled from steaming springs which fed the waters. The town was scattered among these mists, and I knew why Himaggery had taken the Lake of Yost and how it was that thousands could gather here.

  "There is power here." I said as I felt the heat.

  "Yes." Silkhands agreed. "There is plenty of power here, and not much is needed here. There is none out there, and that is where it is always needed. It is never here I need it!" Her voice rose in a pained cry.

  I said, "It hurts you! When you need to heal and have not the power, it hurts you!" The idea was quite new to me.

  "Yes. That is true for all Healers. And for all Seers, and all Demons, too. We who are the children of Gamesmother Didir have this pain."

  She was speaking of the legendary grandmother of our race. Didir was progenitress of the mental powers, Gamesfather Tamor the progenitor of the material ones. Religion has it that all of us are descended from these two. I was not thinking so much of. that, however, as of the idea of pain. When Tossa had been wounded, I had felt her pain, felt her death. When Silkhands had felt pain, I, too, had felt it. What did this pattern mean? Understand, for boys of my age-and, I suppose, for girls too, though I had no way of knowing-the most important thing is to know what name, what talent we will have
. We search for signs of it, hints, even for auspices. We beg Seers to look ahead for us (they never will, it is forbidden). What did this mean? Was I a Demon emergent, reading the feelings of others? But, no, this was foolishness. Tossa could not have been read in this fashion. It spun in my head endlessly, so I tried not to think about it.

  So, we were given food and water and proper amenities and brushed up to be presented to Himaggery in his audience hall as soon as might be. I heard water under the floor, the warmth of the stones telling their own tale of power. Dazzle was there, and the pawner. When they had been heard, Chance took our let-pass from his breast and gave it to the Wizard who perused it.

  "All right, lad, "the Wizard said. "You've heard the pawner say he was hired to find you, hired by a Demon and paid well for his work. You've heard Silkhands say you played a forbidden game to get a Healer to a wounded Immutable, something anyone could have told you wouldn't work. I've heard complaining from Dazzle, as usual, but you merit no punishment on that account. Now, let me hear from you. Why does this Demon want you?"

  "I do not know, sir. I have met only one Demon in my life, at the last Festival, and I don't even remember his name."

  "Well, easy tested by a Demon of my own." He gestured to a tall Demon who stood at his left, and that one fixed his eyes upon me. There was a tickling in my head, a fleeting kaleidoscope of colors and smells, quickly gone. The Demon shook his head and said to Himaggery,

  "He speaks only truth. He is only what he seems, a student, a boy, nothing more."

  "Ah. So. Well then, why did you try to kill this pawner? He was, after all, in my protection."