The True Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Oh, the ice and the wind and the seven devils, I said to myself. Now why did you do that?

  You did that, I answered me, because Jinian is right. Silkhands does not want to go to Waeneye. Moreover, she does not want to journey like this at all. Moreover, her eyes when she looks at King Kelver are calm and considering, like the eyes of a cook choosing fresh vegetables for a banquet on which his reputation will rest. And the time when you and Silkhands might have been lovers is gone, Peter, and that is why you are angry.

  That, at least, had the virtue of being true, whether I liked it or not, and I did not. Still, Windlow had seen me in the northlands with Silkhands. So what would she do now?

  I could not make my face happy when I went down to the supper which King Kelver had arranged. I bowed to Jinian and apologized for my bad temper. Her lips smiled in response, but there was something distant and dignified in her eyes. So. We went in to dinner.

  We had sausage grole, of course. Anyone within fifty leagues of Learner will eat sausage grole. I do not remember what else we ate. I do remember Chance being much in evidence, in and out of the room, directing this or that servitor; platters, in, soup bowls out, flagons in, dessert bowls out. There were candles on the table. I saw Silkhands' face, dazzled in the light, rosy, laughing eyes turned toward the King. I saw Jinian's as well, hearty, simple, regarding me from time to time under level brows. Then we were drinking wineghost from tiny, purple vessels which were only glass though they could have been carved from jewels the way they broke the light, and the King was speaking.

  "We are all well met, new friends all, and I have a wish that this friendship be not cut short without good reason. Therefore, as you go toward Learner on this journey you have set yourself" (and I wondered what Silkhands had told him), "we of the Dragon's Fire Purlieu beg your consent to accompany you." He smiled directly at me. "You will not forbid me, young sir?"

  I nodded my courteous permission, gnashing my teeth privately. If there had been any better kept secret, the whole world seemed to know of it now, and it would be difficult to do anything secretly with such a mob gathered about us. Not to be outdone in courtesies, Queynt was talking.

  "Ah, how generous an offer, King Kelver. How generous an offer and how kind an intent! Why, I have not seen such courtesy since the time of Barish, when courtesy was an art and sign of true refinement. Things change throughout the centuries, isn't that so? But courtesy remains the same, today as in any century past."

  I would not have heard him except for Jinian's warning. As it was, only Jinian and I did hear him. He had not seen such courtesy since the time of Barish, eh? And where had he been in all that time? Was he a dreamer? Madman? Mocker? Or a Gamesman with a deeper Game than we knew? His eager little eyes were upon me, and I let my face seem as slack and wine-flushed as the rest.

  The next morn I hired Chance away from the Tragamor's Tooth with much noise and many objections on the part of the innkeeper. We left the town, having seen none of it, to move in slow procession onto the road to Learner, along the deep, silent flow of River Reave. It took the King out of his way, but not greatly. He could go on north of Learner and then cut across country to the Dragon's Fire Purlieu, did he choose. Queynt set the pace for us, slower than I would have liked, with Silkhands riding beside him once more and King Kelver on a prancing mount alongside. Two of his Dragons followed behind, mounted, saving their Gaming and displaying for some better time. Far to the rear to avoid the dust came Jinian and I, with Chance and the baggage beast bringing up the tail.

  "The King seems willing to follow you to Waeneye," I said to Jinian.

  "The King isn't following me," she replied in a steady voice. "Though he is an admirable Gamesman. I had been ready for anger or threats, but he made neither. He is too wise for that. If our agreement is kept-or rather, if his agreement with my brother, to which I assented, is kept-he wants no memory of anger to stain the bed between us."

  Hearing her talk in this way put me in a temper again, though I was uncertain why. If it was Silkhands he was courting, why did Jinian's speaking of him thus upset me? It should rather have pleased me as though to say Kelver would not long be seeking Silkhands' company. Looking back on it, it seems that it should have pleased me, but the truth is it did not. I was flustered with myself, eager to fight with someone and ashamed for feeling so. So, we jogged and jogged until the silence grew tight and I sought to break it somehow.

  "Have you made your stew yet?" She looked at me with incomprehension, forgetting what she had said on the road from Three Knob. "The stew you said you were making up, your hypothesis?"

  "Oh," she said. "That. Why, yes, Peter."

  We went on a way farther.

  "Are you going to tell us what it is?" I asked, keeping my voice as pleasant as possible. She was very trying, I thought.

  "If you like, though it is only to tell you what you already know."

  "I? I know too little," I said, sure of it.

  "Perhaps. But you know what you are going to find on the top of the Waenbane Mountains. You are going to find Barish's place, his Keep, his hideaway. You will go to find the bodies matching the blues you carry."

  "Yes, I suppose so," I gloomed. That much seemed unavoidably clear. "So much we learned from a whirly ghost," said Chance. "Of that much we may be certain."

  "Is there more?" I asked.

  "Some more," she said. "I believe I know what plan it was that Barish had, what he intended should be the result of all this mystery and expense of time. We shall see if I am right."

  "You think we'll find Barish then?"

  She shook her head. "Everything indicates he was awakened last in the time of Riddle's grandfather. He left the northlands then, and he did not return. In which case, we will not find Barish himself. Only the eleven. Your Gamesmen."

  "The eleven," I murmured. "Barish's eleven. And a machine to resurrect them." I clutched at the pouch in my pocket. Perhaps, I said to myself, the machine is broken. Perhaps it cannot be used. The other ones, those the magicians had, were broken. If it is there at all, it will be centuries old. Rust and corruption and rot might have spoiled it. The serpent coiled cold upon my heart, and I thought of Windlow.

  "Logic says it should be there," she said. "If it was used to wake Barish at intervals, it will be there, where he was."

  "And what then?" asked Chance, eager for more mystery.

  "And then," she said, serene as the moon in the sky, "we will do whatever it was Barish would have done if he had returned."

  That one struck me silent in wonder at her audacity in saying it, even more at her colossal arrogance in thinking it.

  "Barish was a Wizard." I laughed at her, the laughter fading as she turned cold eyes upon me.

  "Well, certainly, Peter," she said. "But then, so am I."

  8

  Hell's Maw

  ONE OF THE EARLIEST THINGS they had taught me at Mertyn's House in Schooltown was that one does not meddle with Wizards. Himaggery was the only one of the breed I had known, and I couldn't say that I knew or understood him well. Strange are the Talents of Wizards, so we are told, and I could not have told you what they were. Had anyone other than Jinian made claim to Wizardry, I would have laughed to myself, saying "Wizard indeed!" I did not laugh. Jinian did not joke about things. If she said she was a Wizard, then I believed her. Surprisingly, all I could feel was a deep, burning anger at Silkhands that she had not told me and had let me play the fool.

  Oh, yes, I had done that right enough. I had said to Jinian that she was very young, that she did not understand. One does not say to a Wizard that the Wizard does not understand. I must have muttered Silkhands' name, for Jinian interrupted my anger with a peremptory, "Silkhands did not know, Peter. Does not know. I would prefer she not. You keep my secret, I will keep yours."

  "I have none left," I muttered. "Silkhands has given them all away."

  "I think not," she said. "Queynt knows what Queynt knows, but not because Silkhands has told him." Then she smil
ed me an enigmatic smile and we jogged our way on to Learner.

  So, in the time it took me to consider all this, to feel alternately angry and guilty and intrigued, let me stop this following of myself about in favor of telling you what was happening elsewhere. I did not know it at the time, of course, but I learned of it later. What I did not hear of directly, I have imagined. So, leave Silkhands on the wagon seat beside strange Queynt; leave King Kelver and his men trotting along beside, full of courtesies and graceful talk; leave Jinian there upon the road, calm as ice; leave Chance-Oh, how often I have left Chance; leave Yittleby and Yattleby in their unvarying stride, their murmured krerking. Leave me, and lift up, up into the air as though you were an Armiger to lie upon the wind and fly toward those powers which assembled against us and which we knew nothing of.

  Go up, up the sheer wall of the Waenbane Mountains, high against that looming and precipitous cliff to the place where they say the wind has carved monstrous, organic forms which they call the Winds' Bones. Do not look north to Bleer. We will travel there soon enough and stay longer than we would wish. Instead, cross the mountain scarp and the high desert to come to that gorge the Graywater has cut between two highlands. There is Kiquo and the high bridge, narrow as a knife edge, and the steely glint of the river, then high cliffs once more and another highland north of Betand.

  Find the wide roadway there which leads into the northlands, see the strange monuments built along it, the greeny arches which hang above it. In spring, it is said, they glow with an undomainish light and have been known to drive travelers mad. Follow this road as it approaches the gorges of the River Haws and along the edge of that gorge to the town of Pfarb Durim. Hanging there high above Pfarb Durim, turn your head back toward the east and notice how all the lands between this city and the Wastes of Bleer lie flat and without barrier. A man might walk from one place to the other in two or three days, an Armiger fly it in much less time. Yet it is true that Peter did not think, nor Jinian, nor any in that company of the place called Pfarb Durim along the River Haws.

  Look down now at that city. Come down to Pfarb Durim. The walls are high and thick and heavily manned. What do they defend against? What are these mighty gates closed against? Why do the balefires burn upon the parapets of Pfarb Durim? The city seems of an unlikely antiquity. Where else are these strange, keyhole-shaped doors found? Where else these triangular windows which stare at the world like so many jack-o-faces cut into ripe thrilps? Well. Leave it. Go aside from the walls and walk down the road which cuts the edge of the gorge, down to an outthrust stone where one may see what lies below-the place called "Poffle" because the people of Pfarb Durim are afraid to say its name. The place which is Hell's Maw, held now by a certain Gamelord, Huld the Demon.

  Let us be invisible, silent, insubstantial as a ghost, to slide down that road to find the truth of what is there.

  We will go down a twisting track, graven into the cliffside, sliced into that stony face by the feet of a myriad travelers over a thousand yearsmore, perhaps. Perhaps the city, the trail, Hell's Maw were there before the Gamesmen came. The trail winds down, deepening as it goes, until it is enclosed by stony walls on either side, shutting off any but a narrow slice of sky. Walk down this darkening gash until the rock edges above close to a silver's width of light; find that dark pocket of stone which nudges the path with a swath of shadow; step in to find yourself at the upper end of a cloaca which bores its echoing way into the bowels of Hell's Maw.

  It is dark, and the dark clamors, but as silent feet edge forward, sensible sound intrudes upon the cacophony of echo, and voices converse there in the terrible dark, voices of skeletons fastened to the walls with iron bands and the voice of their warder in hideous conversation.

  "Take this torch, old bones. Pass it along there, pass it along. Some one of the high-and-mighties will be along that path soon, and they'll want light whether we need it or not." The warder may have been a Divulger. He is dressed as one, but flabby jowls droop beneath the black mask, flesh wobbles loose on the naked arms protruding from the leather vest. His eyes are blanked almost white with blindness, and he feels the end of the torch to know if it is alight. Behind him in the dark another Gamesman lies stretched upon a filthy cot, dressed black and dirty gray, a Bonedancer, empty face staring at the stone ceiling as acrid numbing smoke pours from his nostrils. "Hey, Dancer," the warder calls. "Kick up the bones there. They're slow as winter!"

  The voice, when it comes, is full of sighs and pauses, long unconscious and unwitting moments. "Slow. Always slow. Well, why not? Bones should lie down, Tolp. Lie down. Slow and slow in the summer sun. Summer sun. I remember summer sun."

  "I remember summer sun," cries a skeleton from the wall, waving the torch wildly before its empty eyes. "Summer sun. Winter cold. I remember pastures. I remember trees."

  "Shush," says the warder, mildly. "Shush, now. Remembering is no good. It only makes you careless with the torches, Bones. Don't remember. Just pass the fire along there, pass it along to the end so the highand-mighties can see their way."

  "Who?" asks an incurious voice from the dark. "Who is it using the way to Hell's Maw, Toip? They came yesterday, I thought. The legless one and the skull-faced one and the cold one…"

  "Came and went and will come again," replies Tolp, lighting yet another torch. "Legless one is a poor Trader, Laggy Nap. They put boots on him, he said, and sent him into the world. When the mountains blew up, so did the boots, and now he has no legs…"

  "No legs, no pegs; no arms, no harms…" the bones sing from the dark wall. "No ribs, no jibs…"

  "Shush. Cold King came yesterday, too. Old Prionde. Not liking what he sees here much. Well, he's not far from bonedom hisself.".

  "And the Demon, Demon Master, Huld the Horrible?" The Bonedancer laughs, a sound full of choking as the miasma pulses in and out of his cankered lungs.

  "Went out, will come in again. Always. Since he was a child. For a while he was in Bannerwell with his pet prince, pretty Mandor, but Mandor's dead so Huld is here now, almost always. Hell's Maw has been Huld's place for a long, long time…"

  The Bonedancer sighs, coughs, sits up to spit blood onto the slimed floor. "Huld's been here forty years. Old Ghoul Blourbast brought him here first when Huld was a child, before he was even named Demon. You remember him then, Tolp. Used to help you in the dungeons." The Bonedancer laughs again, a hacking laugh with no joy in it. "Liked the hot irons, he did, specially on women."

  "Oh, aye. I remember now. Forgot that was Demon Huld as a child. Mixed him up with Mandor. Well, Huld's only been here really since Blourbast died in the year of the plague in Pfarb Durim. He sent all the way to Morninghill for Healers, I remember. Caught some, too. I got them before he was dead."

  "Healer, healer, heal these bones," sing the skulls from the wall. "Call the Healer, broken bones, token lones, spoken moans… A clattering echo speeds down the line of them into the mysterious, endless dark.

  "Hush," says Tolp. "Hush now."

  "Wish I had one now," says the Bonedancer. "Any Healer at all."

  "There's some up there with flesh power," says Tolp. "One came through here not more'n two days ago."

  "Flesh power! That's how I've come to this pass, letting those with flesh power lay hands on me. They may be able to Heal when they're young, Tolp, but when they've laid bloody hands on a few, they forget how to Heal. All they can do is make it worse. No. I mean a real Healer."

  "Been long," answers Tolp, "since a real Healer set foot in Hell's Maw. Those I Divulged for Blourbast was the last."

  "Those you killed, Tolp. Say what's true. You tortured them and you killed them because Blourbast wanted vengeance on them. They wouldn't Heal him. You killed them, and no Healer will lay hands on you ever because of it. Nor on me. Nor on any who's come here of their own will."

  "We could go away," says Tolp. "Travel down to Morninghill ourselfs. They wouldn't know us there."

  "They'd know." The Bonedancer lies down with a gasp, takes up the mo
uthpiece once more to suck numbing smoke and release it into the dank air. "Don't know how they'd know, but they'd know. Soon as they touched you, they'd know. Left a print in your bones, somewhere. Any time you hurt a Healer, they leave a sign on you. Even if they can't get at you right then, they lay sign on you. I always heard that."

  "Lay sign," sing the bones. "Pray shrine, weigh mine…"

  "Hush," says Tolp. "They're coming. I hear them at the end of the tunnel."

  And the light comes nearer as skeleton fingers pass the torch from fleshless hand to fleshless hand keeping pace with those approaching. First legless Laggy Nap on the shoulders of a bearer, a loose mouthed pawn wearing one of the jeweled caps of obedience; then cadaverous Prionde, tall crown scratching the rock above him, deep set eyes scowling over bony cheeks as he draws his robes fastidiously about' him; then Huld in trailing velvets which his followers must leap and jitter to avoid. Followers-a Prince or two from the northern realms; a monstrous Ghoul from the lands around Mip; three or four Mirrormen in the guise of other persons; lastly a scarred Medium who drags a limp body behind. Tolp and the Bonedancer crouch in the redolent dark, drawing no attention. Huld does not look at them when he passes, merely calls into the swampy air, "Let this body be hung with the others." To which the hideous Medium grunts a response as he lets his burden fall. Then they go on down the tunnel, the torches following them from bone to bone until they pass from sight and hearing.

  "Now it'll stink again," says the Bonedancer. "Stink for days. If he wants bones on the wall, why can't I take them from one of the bone pits? Why put bodies on the wall while they stink?"