Morning came. We stopped to eat the little food we had brought, and when Yarrel laid the old man down, his eyes opened in surprised alertness. "I see, " he said. "They are coming behind us. We are pursued." There was almost panic in his voice.
Silkhands shook him gently, touched his face. "Have you Seen our arrival at the Bright Demesne? Have you seen us with Himaggery?"
He nodded, still in surprise and with something of shame. "I have seen myself there, dearest girl. So, I assumed…Oh, wrong to assume. Wicked to do so. Having seen myself in safety, I did not think for you, not any of you. How vain and mean to let you come this way with so little protection ."
We hushed him, comforted him, but I was fearful. They might pursue him, true, but I thought he needed fear little more than being taken back to his garden and his birds. Me? Well, someone wanted me for something, but I did not think I had offended anyone enough that I was seriously in danger. But Silkhands was another matter. Her fate would be a dire one, denounced by her envious sister, accused of treachery by sister and brother to one who would kill at a word and mourn his error later. Windlow had been right. The High King was a bare, hard man who would believe his fear first. I did not want Silkhands lost to him.
Windlow pulled himself together and we made plans, hasty plans, plans with perhaps too little chance of success. Still, it was better than doing nothing and falling meekly into their claws. It was decided that we would split up, each horse would take a separate way down the twisting canyons. As we went, we would each concentrate on playing a game of two-space-jumper in our heads. It was an infants' game, one we all knew, played with two Armigers on an otherwise empty board. If we could keep our concentration clean, uncorrupted by other thought or fear, the Demon following us could not tell us apart. We would all be alike to him, and perhaps the searchers would split up, as well, or failing that, would choose one way and ignore the others.
Then, when we had gone in this way until noon-and it would not be easy to keep only those thoughts for so long a time-we would sit quietly upon the slope of the canyon, wherever we happened to be, chew a certain leaf which Windlow gave us, and "become as one with wind and. leaf." I had no great confidence in being able to do this, but Windlow said the herb would do it if we did not fight it. "Let go, " he said. "Let everything go. And if you are pursued, they will lose you and pass you by."
If we did it well, there was a chance the pursuit would pass us by and we could hide behind them, protected from their searching minds by a thousand rocky walls. This was the hasty plan, depending much upon luck and resolution rather than on skill, for we had no practice of this deep meditation while the hunters came after us on swift feet.
"Ill prepared or no, we must go on," said Windlow. "If we had waited another day, we could not have escaped at all. We must go on." So we did. Yarrel and Windlow went down the middle way, the widest and smoothest. Chance and Silkhands took the western branch, narrow and deep. I went down the easternmost way. If the chart told true, all these ways would spill into the Long Valley sooner or later and we would meet there if we met at all. As we left one another, I was not at all confident of it, and Yarrel's half-pitying glance over his shoulder at me. did little to reassure me.
My way led among rocky heaps full of whistling burrowers who marked my passage with alarm sounds. I paid them no attention, being intent upon the Armiger game, jump by jump, trying to keep the whole board in my head and remember which squares had been ticked off. This thought had to be interrupted only a few times to remind the horse that he was expected to keep moving. Once or twice, ! checked the place of the sun in the sky. I lost myself in the game, truly, able to keep that and only that in mind far better than I would have thought possible.
So-I did something foolish. Only later did I realize what it had been. The canyon I was in was a twisting one. The sun was only a little before noon, in the corner of my right eye. Much later, oh, much, much later I caught it still in the corner of my right eye and said to myself, see, the very sun is standing still. It had not. Nor had I. The way had turned upon itself, the sun had moved past noon, and I was still thinking the Armiger game in my head. It took a moment to realize what had happened. By then, of course, mine had been the only mind which the pursuers could have followed for a very long time.
I knew it was probably too late to do any good, but losing myself in the herb and the silence could at least do no further harm. If anyone had been Reading during the past hour, only my thoughts would have been there. Perhaps I had decoyed some pursuit away from the others. I tried to convince myself this was a good thing if it had happened. The white horse and I went up the slope to hide among the trees where I sat beneath a fragrant, needled tree and chewed Windlow's leaves, concentrating the while upon the grasses around me which moved so gently in the sun and air. In a little time it was as though the world dropped away, and I was me no longer. I was grass. I was air, perhaps, as well, but certainly grass, moved by the wind, gloriously green and flexible in the sun. So time passed and I was not. Even as I became the grass upon the hillside, they came down the canyon after me. All the others had vanished at noon, gone into nothingness. I had not. The Demon had tracked me as a fustigar does a bunwit. They came down the canyon below me, would have gone on by me into the great valley without seeing me, precisely as planned. Except for the little, white horse. From wherever I was, whatever I was, the noise of the little horse was no more than a bird call, a beast cry, a little "whicker, whicker, here I am, abandoned and left all alone upon the hillside…" The noise which followed, however, was more than that; shouting, calling of men, whistles blown shrill into echoes. Something deep within me wrenched, and I was myself upon the hillside as men clambered toward me. The little white horse had been lonely, no doubt, had thought himself abused, had called out to the mounts of the men who passed below. At that moment somewhere deep inside me it seemed that I knew a way of escape but had forgotten it. I longed to become as the grass again, then mocked myself for so foolish a desire. No matter how convinced my mind might be, the men would see me for what I really was. All this occurred to me within seconds, and without abating that strange notion that escape was there, within reach, if I could only remember…
And then they surrounded me. Dazzle was there, Borold fiercely smiling, the lean and villainous pawner, and a Demon. Now I knew the Demon. I had seen him last on Festival night in School Town: Mandor's friend from Bannerwell. I was not afraid, only confused. What could this assemblage want with me? Despite all Yarrel's imaginings, I could not be convinced that I was the real object of their search, could not be, would not be.
Part of the puzzle unraveled at once. The expression of fury on Dazzle's face told me that I had not been her quarry. She was infuriated that Silkhands was not with me, demanded to know where she was. My thoughts said, gone, down the valley, safe to Himaggery's. So I thought, and so they believed. Why should they not? I believed it. Some in the train had been sent in search for old Windlow. I put my head into my hands and thanked the Gamelords that Silkhands was well gone. If she had been found with Windlow, the two escaping together, it would have been considered proof enough of that treachery which the High King so feared. What did it really matter if his old teacher ran away to a better place? It did not, save to the High King, and for no good reason. I turned my thoughts from this as they clambered around me and over me, searching the rocks and trees, sure that the others were not there and yet bound to search for them, bound by the same terror which chained the High King. Doubt. Doubt and more doubt. Fear and more fear. I sighed. The little white horse whickered at me, and I cursed him and his lineage for several generations.
I sat in the landwrack of my dreams and cursed a horse, doing the dreams no good and the horse no harm. So it is with much of life, as old Windlow had said, a jest. We stand at the side of the board and are overrun by the Game of others. When I was younger, I would not have believed that.
7
Mandor Again
There was a shrill,
hissing argument among the Demon, the pawner, and Dazzle. Dazzle, backed by Borold and the High King's men, demanded aid in seeking Silkhands. The Demon refused. Silkhands was no part of his bother. The pawner, meantime, felt ill used since he had not been paid for finding me. Of the three, the only one with any dignity was the Demon, and him I could almost have admired though, at last, even his patience broke upon the shoals of Dazzle's temper.
"If you would dispute, then ride with me to Bannerwell, for it is not my will I do, but the will of another. If you would dispute, then bring your disputation to Bannerwell and submit them there to my Lord and Prince, Mandor."
Ah, said my inner self, so he is not dead after all. I waited for love to well up in me, for gladness to occur, for some emotion to flow as it had used to do and felt nothing. Within was only the memory of grass and wind and a longing for peace. Well, I said to myself, you are tired after all. Tired from all that riding and concentration. Later you will feel something. I saw Dazzle, still screaming at the Demon, saw her real face, at which I shuddered, gulped, so deeply sick I had to put my head between my feet to gulp for air. The pawner mocked at me.
"Well, boy, and what is it with you? You need fear nothing. They mean you no harm."
I told him I knew, I knew, but the feeling of sickness and sorrow did not abate even when we had mounted and ridden off along the twisting canyon in its winding way north. Some good spirit was with me, for I did not think of the others at all but only of my own internal miseries. As a result, the others were not further sought. Wherever they were, they escaped the notice of my captors, and when we reached the long, east-west valley Dazzle and Borold turned eastward and left us. I did not notice they were gone as we turned west and rode up into the hills. It was a winding way, a climbing way, but it was definitely a road leading up and over the high scarp which was the southeasterly end of the Hidaman Mountains, those most lofty of peaks, tonsured in ice, beyond which lay Bannerwell. The setting of the High Demesne in the same range had been beautiful, but the way we traveled was simply wild; fearsome, grim and deep the chasms, remote and chill the peaks. I was glad of the road and felt that the white horse would be punished enough by the time we arrived anywhere. So, that first day while I rode I did not think of anything at all. At about sunset we reached a way station where horses were kept. I was chained. I had never been manacled before, and I did not like it. They did nothing more than link my ankles with light bonds and that to a tree, but it made me feel less than human.
When I complained, the Demon was half kindly about it. "It is only for your own protection, " he said. "You are not with us of your own free will, after all. You might decide to wander away in the night. If you were to end up in these mountains alone, well-there are beasts, quadrumanna, chasms. We mean you no harm, and you will be safer with us."
They fed me well. There was water from the snow melt which smelt of pine, fragrant as tea. There were camp buns baked in the ashes and slices of meat from the day's hunt. The Armiger had brought down a small, hoofed animal which I did not know. The beast was called "Mountain zeller, " but the meat was named "thorp."
I thought I would not sleep, not for a moment, and woke in the chill dawn thinking that only moments had passed. I had slept the whole night, not feeling the chain, so tired that nothing had moved me during the black hours. So, I thought some about Silkhands and Windlow, wondering if they were well and had gone far on the road to the Bright Demesne. The Demon gave me a puzzled glance, as though what I thought of was not what he expected. Well, what did he expect? I did not even know why I was sought, much less what expectations they might hold. Nothing would be lost in trying to find out. When we were on the way, I kicked the white horse into a clumsy canter and came up to the Demon's side. It was like riding beside a giant. The horse he had taken from the way station was one of those great, feather-footed mobsters Yarrel had known at once as Bannerwell bred. I felt that running so dwarfed was good for the white horse. An exercise in humility. I had not yet forgiven him.
"I would feel less distressed, sir, if you could tell me why I was sought? Why we are going to Bannerwell? I have done nothing to warrant enmity from anyone…"I let my voice trail off, not quite pleadingly. His jaw was set, and for a moment I thought he would not answer me at all. Then he did, grudgingly.
"You are not sought in enmity, boy. Were you not close friend to my Prince Mandor? Did you know he was hurt?" He east a curious glance at me out of the corner of his eye, almost covert, as though to see what I thought of that.
"I was told so." It seemed wisest not to say much. "I, too, was hurt." I would not have been human had my voice not hinted asperity. Had it not been for Mertyn, I would have been more than hurt. I would have been damn near killed.
He jerked angrily, the little muscles along his jaw bunching and jumping as though he were chewing on something tough. "Yes. Well, you are better healed than he. There were no Healers in the Schooltown during Festival. It was long before one could be found and longer yet before we found one who was competent." The little muscle jumped, jumped. "He is not healed of his hurt. Perhaps you can aid him in that."
"I am no Healer!" I said in astonishment. "So far, I'm nothing at all."
Jump, jump went his jaw, face turned from me, stony. At last, "Well, your presence may comfort him. As a friend. He has need of his friends."
I could not stop the thought. It bloomed angrily in me as fire blooms on grassland. "He who sought my death claims my friendship! A fine friend indeed!" The Demon caught it, had been waiting for it. He could not have missed it, and he looked down at me out of a glaring face, eyes like polished stone set into that face, enmity and anger wished upon me. I felt it like a blow and shuddered beneath it.
"You were friends once, boy. Remember it. Remember it well, and be not false to what once was. Or regret be thy companion…" He spurred his horse and went on before me. I did not see him again until we camped that night. Then he was as before, calm, but did not speak to me nor I to him. In his absence I had thought of Mandor, of how I had once felt about Mandor. No echo of that feeling remained. It was impossible to remember what once had been. For the first time I began to be afraid.
By the time we had come over the last of the high passes of the Hidamans and down the fast stretch of road to Bannerwell, I was more frightened yet. I had also forgiven the white horse. He had carried me without complaint or balk, growing noticeably thinner in the process. The sight of my own hand and wrist protruding from my sleeve for a handsbreadth told me some of the reason. While mind and emotion may have been disturbed by all the journeys since Schooltown, body had gone on growing. Measuring my trouser legs against my shins, I guessed myself a full hand higher than when we had left Mertyn's House. My hand shook as I lengthened the leathers to a more appropriate stretch, and my eyes brooded over the close-knotted forest of oaks which fell away from us down the long hills to Bannerwell itself, a fortress upon a cliff/surrounded on three sides by the brown waters of a river.
"The River Banner," said the Demon, reading my question before it was asked. "From which Bannerwell takes its name. The ancient well lies within the fortress walls, sweet water for harsh times, so it is said." He cast me one of his enigmatic looks before rounding up the train with his eyes, counting the men off, arranging us all to his satisfaction. I noted the silence among the retainers, the gravity each seemed to show at our approach. The Demon said, "I was to have returned with you a season ago, boy. I rode from this place due east on a straight road to Schooltown only to find you gone."
I knew he could Read my question, but I felt less invaded if I asked it aloud. "Why, sir Demon? It is not for friendship. You know that as well as I. Won't you tell me why?"
For a time I thought he would not answer as he had not when I had asked before. This time, however, he parted reluctant lips and said, "Because of your mother, boy."
"I have none. I am Festival born." I felt the deep tickle in my head as I said it and knew that he had plunged deep enough into me t
o Read my inmost thoughts. His face changed, half angry, half frustrated. "You have. Or had. Her name is Mavin Manyshaped, and she is full sister to Mertyn, King Mertyn in whose House you schooled. I Read it in Mertyn's mind at the Festival. There is no mistake. He saw you at risk and knew you for close kin in that moment. He called you thalan, sister's son."
Turmoil. We approached Bannerwell, but it was someone else seeing those walls through my eyes; someone else heard the thud of the bridge dropping across the moat, the screeching rattle of chains drawing the screen-gates upward to let us through. I suppose mind saw and heard, but / did not. Inside me was only a whirling pool of black and bright, drawing me down into it, full of some darting gladnesses and more many-toothed furies, voiced and silent, leaving me virtually unaware of the world outside. There was only an impression of lounging gamesmen in the paved courtyard; the gardens glimpsed through gates of knotted iron, light falling through tall windows to lay jeweled patterns on dark, gleaming wood. The smell of herbs. And meat and flowers and horses, mingled.
Someone said, "What's wrong with him?" and the Demon answered, "Leave him a while. He has been surprised."
Surprised. Well. That is a word for it. Astonished, perhaps. Shocked. Perhaps that word was best, for it was like a tingling half deadness in which nothing connected to anything else. I think I fell asleep-or, perhaps, merely became unconscious. Much later, long after the lamps were lit, I realized that I, Peter, was sitting against a wall in an alcove half behind a thick curtain.
The shadow of a halberd lay on the floor before me, and I looked at it for a long, long time trying to decide what it was. Then the word came, halberd, and with it the knowledge of myself and where I was. Someone was standing just outside the alcove; beyond was the dining hall of Bannerwell full of tumult and people coming and going, smells of food, servants carrying platters and flagons. Well. I watched them for some time without curiosity until one of them saw me and went running off to tell someone. Then it was the Demon standing over me; reaching down with rough hands to turn my face upward. "I did not know it would take you so. I had hoped you knew-that you are thalan to Mertyn, as Mandor is to me…"
The True Game Page 10
