The True Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  I thanked him sincerely and left. There was no traffic at all on the road when I returned, guiding myself by our campfires which gleamed lonely against the dark bulk of the mountain. I found the place quiet, Silkhands busily talking to Queynt. I asked her where Jinian was, and she told me Jinian had ridden out a little time past in company with someone who had brought her a message from her brother Mendost. I went on to the separate_ fire where Chance squatted over his cookery, readying a bowl for me.

  "Well, lad, did you find our way to satisfaction? Did some keen eyed merchant tell you the truth about our journey?"

  This led to chaffing him at some length about gnarlibars and his former desire to have me Shift into such a beast. "They come in fours," I said. "You would have been riding an anomaly had 1 Shifted into a mere single beast, Chance. Your widow would have despised you for lack of knowledge."

  "Ah, well, Peter, since you say it's a wide, low beast, it's as well you didn't. There's plenty of tall, dignified beasts what don't require all that company."

  I chewed and gulped and gazed across the fire to the one where Silkhands sat. There, riding into that light was King Kelver, returning from his errand, face bleary and ill-looking as though he had been stricken with some disease or had been drinking since he left us. Chance saw it, too.

  "Ah, now he doesn't look like he's feeling crisp, does he?"

  "He doesn't," I agreed. "I wonder what the problem is?" And then, noting her absence, "I wonder why Jinian hasn't returned?"

  Chance struck his forehead a resounding blow and fished around in his clothing to bring out a sealed message. "Fuss me purple if I didn't forget it in all this talk of gnarlibars. She left you this message and said give it to you soon as you returned."

  "Chance! I've been sitting here over an hour!"

  "Well, you got so stiffy about my opening the last message for yourself that I didn't open this one. What I don't know the contents of, I can't be overconcerned with, can l?" He was getting very righteous, and I knew he was angry at himself.

  As well he might. The message read, Peter, if I have not returned, it is because I cannot. This is a fool's errand, but I must find out. Say nothing to Kelver. Find me quickly, or likely I am dead.

  For a moment it did not enter my mind as making sense, then I screamed at Chance, "Which way did she go? Tell me at once! Which?"

  "Which way? Why, lad, I wasn't watching! Somebody came and said they were from Armiger Mendost, and she should come along to the person carrying the message. Though that doesn't make sense."

  It did not make sense. If her brother Mendost had sent a message, it would have been delivered to her in the camp. No need to ride elsewhere. "That was all a trap, a snare," I hissed at him. "Somewhere this minute she may be dying. Did anyone else see her?"

  "They paid no more attention than I did, Peter. They were talking among themselves, Silkhands, Queynt, the Dragons."

  "Not the King?"

  "No. He'd gone away with some messenger before."

  I was frenzied, not questioning the frenzy, not questioning why my heart had speeded or my mouth gone dry. I was lost in a panic of fear for Jinian, not thinking that a Wizard should be able to take care of herself.

  It was very dark. No one could follow a trail in this dark, and yet she had said, "Find me quickly." To find her at all was beyond me. "How?" I demanded of him. "I must find her."

  "A fustigar," suggested Chance. "Trail her?"

  I had never tried to follow scent, was not sure I could. In any case, the fustigar hunts mostly by sight. I shook my head, frantically thinking. Could I use one of the Gamesmen of Barish?

  "Not Didir," I mumbled aloud. "No one here knows where she is. She misled them herself, purposely. Not Tamor. Who…" Even as I spoke, I fumbled among them. Oh, there was Talent enough to move the world, if one knew what one wanted to do, but I didn't know where, or how, or when…

  "If I had only seen which way she went," mourned Chance. "If I'd only seen…"

  If he had seen. If I could See. I did not much believe in Seeing. It seemed unreliable at best, so much flummery at worst. I had never called upon Sorah, but what choice had I else? I could not find her with my fingers, so dumped the pouch onto the firelit ground, hastily scrabbling the contents back into it before Chance saw the blue piece among the black and white. Sorah was there, at the very bottom, the tiny hooded figure with the moth wings delicately graven upon her mask. For the first time, I wondered how it was that the machine had made blues dressed as Gamesmen when, to my certain knowledge, the bodies they were made from often wore no clothing at all? The question was fleeting. I gave it no time. Instead, I took Sorah into my hand and shut my eyes to demand her presence.

  At first I felt nothing. Then there was a sort of rising coolness as though calm flowed up my arm and into my head and then out of it-outward. I seemed to hear a voice, like a mother soothing a fractious child or a huntsman a wounded fustigar. I could feel her stance, arms straight at her sides, shoulders and head thrown back, blind eyes staring into some other place or time, searching.

  "What is she like?" the voice asked. "Think for me. What is she? Who is she?"

  Likenesses skipped. Jinian in the river pouring water over her head, face rosy with sunset and laughter. Jinian speaking to me seriously on the wagon seat, telling me things I had not thought of before. Jinian angry and chill, turning in my doorway to instruct me. Jinian bent over a book; Jinian beside me laying hands on the great grole; Jinian…

  Within me, Sorah turned and bent and reached outward once more. Evocation ran in my veins. A net of questions flung outward toward the stars. Jeweled droplets ran upon this net, collected at the knots to fall as rain. An imperative upon the place. "World. Show me this!" Jinian a composite, a puzzle, breaking light like a gem.

  And I saw. Jinian, held tight between two men. Dusk. Hard to see. They were beside a ground nut, taking out the plug, thrusting her within. I could hear groles inside, grinding.

  Where? High to the west one bright star hung in an arch of Wind's Bones, fainter stars to left and right, above a close, high line of cliff. Around me only scattered hillocks of nuts, stones, wasteland…

  The vision was gone. Sorah was gone. I dragged Chance off with me to the horses, and we two mounted to ride away. No one called after us to know where we went. It was as well. I do not think I could have answered. I could barely get the words out to instruct Chance what to look for as I sharpened my own Shifter's eyes to scan the rimrock silhouetted against the stars. "North," I hissed. "Closer to the cliffs than here." We galloped into the dark like madmen, our horses stumbling and shying at things they could not see.

  I almost missed the arch of bone shapes upon the height. They were smaller than they had seemed in Vision, a slightly different shape seen from the side. Also, the stars had fallen lower against the rimrock but were still unmistakable. One bright, two fainter neighbors. We slowed to pick our way farther north. The nut orchards around us had given way to drier land, the plants themselves were sparse, scattered, oddly misshapen. When I saw the right one, my eyes almost slid over it before noticing the plug. Only that one had a plug cut.

  We thundered toward it, dismounted at the run, and hammered at the side of the plug until I thought myself of pombi claws and Shifted some for the job. Then the plug fell to the ground, and I leaned into the dank, nut-smelling dark to call, "Jinian! Jinian!"

  There was an answering cry, faint as a breath and hoarse. We began to climb in, but I heard the gnawing of the groles. They cared not what they ate. They loved the taste of bone. I thrust Chance to one side, muttering fiercely at him. "Stay out of here. Do not come in! But, keep calling. I need to hear her to lead me to her." Then I had crawled into the place, all tunneled through with grole holes like the inside of a great cheese, and Shifted.

  Do you care to know what it is to be a sausage grole? It is an insatiable hunger coupled to an unending supply of food. It is a happy gnawing which has the same satisfaction as scratching a not unple
asant itch. I began as a rather generalized grolething. Within moments, I encountered a real nut grole, and my long, pulsating body slid over and around that of my fellow in a sensuous, delightful embrace, half dance, half play. After that, I was more sausage grole than before. I heard a shouting noise somewhere, another one somewhere else. Neither mattered. Nothing mattered except the food, the dance.

  I suppose it was some remnant of Peter which brought me out of this contented state, some artifice or other he had learned to use in Schlaizy Noithn, perhaps, or the touch of the Gamesmen from within. At any rate, after a little time of this glorious existence, the grole-I-was began to make purposeful munching toward the screaming inside the nut. Groles have no eyes. I remedied this lack. There was no light. I remedied this as well, creating a kind of phosphorescence on my skin. I saw her at last, high on an isolated pillar of nutmeat, crouched beneath the curve of the shell, three groles gnawing away at her support. In light, she might have been able to avoid them. In the dark? I doubted it.

  So there was Jinian atop the pillar; there was Peter in shining splendor below. What did one do now? She solved the problem by half falling, half scrambling over the intervening bodies and onto my back where I grew a couple of handholds and a bit of shielding for her. It was no trouble, and I was pleased to think of it. We got out in a writhing, tumbling kind of way, over and under, and I was still not quite full of nutmeat when we slithered out of the shell and I gave up all that bulk to become Peter once more. It lay behind me, steaming in the night air, and I wondered what the grole growers might make of it when they returned at dawn.

  Only then did I realize she was crying. I put my arms around her and let her shake against my nakedness, gradually growing quiet as I grew clothes. I did not release her, merely stood there in a kind of unconscious, not un-grolelike content, stroking her hair and murmuring sounds such as people make to small animals and babies.

  "I was frightened," she said. "It was dark, and I was afraid you would not come. I was afraid you would not come in time."

  I gave Chance a look which should have fried him into his boots, and he had the grace to mumble that it had been his fault. I told her I had used Sorah.

  "I knew you would do something," she said. "I knew you would find me because you are clever, Peter, though you often do not seem to know it. But so much time went by, and I became terribly afraid." After which we murmured nonsense things at one another and did not move very much until Chance harumphed at us.

  "All well and nice, lad, lass. I'm sure it's gratifying in all its parts, but we don't know who put you there, do we? Or why? What's next? Will they be coming back to find out whether you're sausage or what?"

  She stepped away from me to leave a cold place where warm content had been. "It would be better if they think I'm dead, Chance. We must find some place to hide me. Queynt's wagon, I think. The ones who took me must think they succeeded, at least until we find out what's going on!" And she directed us to replace the plug as it was when we found it, turning the pombi-scarred place to the bottom.

  She told us what had happened as we rode back. "I saw King Kelver leaving the camp. I thought there was something odd about it, about the way he looked, or the men with him-something. Well, perhaps foolishly, I decided to follow him. After all, it is Kelver I am promised to-if, indeed, he still cares about that promise, which I have doubts over. I followed for a time, then lost them. I searched, quartering about, and was probably seen doing it. I gave up and returned to camp.

  "Then in an hour or so, came a fellow saying he came from Armiger Mendost with words I should hear about King Kelver. I knew that was a lie. Mendost sends messengers, but never yet sent any except Heralds or Ambassadors or others in full panoply. Mendost is too proud to do else.

  "But I thought even lies lead to the truth, somewhere, if one knows them for what they are, and a lie announces a Game as well as many a truth. So I left word with Chance and went with the fellow. He had another hid nearby, and the two of them bagged me and would have fed me to the groles surely had you not found me in time. As it is, I never saw what Gamesmen they were."

  "And all that merely because you followed King Kelver?" I asked, thinking it did not seem like much.

  "For no other reason," she said. "Something is toward there, Peter, and whoever Games wants no one to know of it. So I must hide and you must find out what goes on."

  She thought to hide in Queynt's wagon. I didn't trust the man. We argued. She won. She thought she could hide even from Silkhands, though Silkhands rode upon the wagon seat all day. Well. What could I do. We hid her away in some brush near the camp, and I returned with Chance. At first light I sought out Queynt and took him aside as quietly as the man would allow me to do so.

  "Consult with me, young sir? Ah, but I am flattered that such a proud young Gamesman-for surely pride goes with honor and ability, isn't that so?-would have use for such an old and traveled body as myself. Advise, I often do. Consult, indeed, I often do. Though when advice and consulting are done, who takes any serious regard for the one or puts any faith in the other-why, it would surprise you to learn how seldom words are given even the weight of a fluff-seed. Still, I am flattered to be asked, and would lie did I pretend a false and oleaginous humility…"

  "Queynt," I said in a firm voice. "Hush this nonsense and listen." His jaw dropped, but I saw a humorous glitter in his eyes. It went away when I told him someone had tried to kill Jinian, that we wanted to find out who, that she needed to hide in his wagon. "No one must know," I said. "Not even Silkhands. And, Queynt, it is Jinian's thought to trust you. I don't. So, if no one knows but you, and anyone finds out or harms her, I will consider my suspicions justified."

  He coughed. I thought he did it to hide laughter which was inappropriate for there was no matter of laughter between us. "I will guarantee to hold her beyond all possibility of discovery, young sir. The word of Vitior Vulpas Queynt is as highly valued as are the jewels of Bantipoora of miraculous legend. Say no more. Wait only a bit and then bring her to the camp. I will have sent all eyes to seek another sight that she may come unobserved."

  "Queynt," I replied, "I will do so, but I tell you that you talk too much."

  "But on what topics, Gamesman? Ask yourself that? On what subjects do I talk not at all?" He smiled at me and went away. In a little time

  Kelver and Silkhands and the Dragons rode away toward Learner. Queynt opened the wagon door at the back of the vehicle, and we brought Jinian to be lifted in. It was a well-fitted place, almost a small house, with arrangements for food and sanitation. "A technish toilet," said Queynt. "Something I obtained from the magicians long ago, when I used to trade with them." He greeted my incredulous stare with equanimity. Jinian took his words at face value.

  "Thank you, Queynt," she said. "I will treat your property with respect. If I may lie up within for a few days, we can perhaps discover who means us ill." She gave him her hand, and he bowed over it, eyes fixed sardonically on me. I left them, hoping she would have sense to shut the door in time. I need not have worried. When Silkhands and the others rode back from their expedition to the orchards, the wagon was shut tight. Silkhands, however, was in a fury. She came to visit me and Chance.

  "That little fool Jinian. The King tells me she has left us! Without a word to me! Mendost may Game against me, or against the House in Xammer because of this. She did not even tell me goodbye."

  Chance blinked at me like an owl and went on stirring as I feigned surprise. "King Kelver told you this? When was that?"

  "This morning. Queynt suggested we might like to see the grole sausage made, so we rode over to the orchards. We had gone no distance at all when the King told me she had gone. Gone! It seems she told him she did not like the bargain she had assented to and intended to return to her brother's Demesne."

  "The King must be mightily disappointed," I said carefully. "He looks very ill over it."

  "I know." She dabbed at her eyes where tears leaked out. "He does look ill. I reached ou
t to help him, Heal him, and he struck my hand away as though I had been a beggar. He is very angry."

  "Ah, the King did not want you to help him." I cast another long look at Chance who returned it with a slow, meaningful wink. "I will tell the King we share his distress," I said, rising and walking off to the other fire.

  Once there, I bowed to the King where he sat over his breakfast, the bowl largely untouched before him. I murmured condolences in a courteous manner, all the time looking him over carefully beneath my lashes. Oh, he did indeed look very unwell. The crisp curl of his beard was gone, the hard, masculine edges of his countenance were blurred, the lip did not curl, the sparkling eyes were dim. The man who sat there might have been Kelver's elder and dissolute brother.

  I returned to our fire, comforted Silkhands as best I could, and waited until she rejoined Queynt upon the wagon seat before saying to Chance, "It isn't Kelver."

  "Shifter?" he asked.

  "No, I think not. Few Shifters can take the form of other Gamesmen. Mavin can, of course. I can. Most of Mavin's kindred probably can. It isn't easy, but those of us who can do it at all can do it better than it has been done here."

  "Perhaps someone less Talented than Mavin's kindred, but more Talented than most Shifters?"

  "I think not," I said. "Instinct tells me not. Is there not some other answer?"

  Chance nodded, chewing on his cheeks as he did when greatly troubled. "Oh, yes, lad, there's another way it could be done right enough. I like it less than Shifters, though, I'll tell you that."

  "Well? Don't make me beg for answers like some child, Chance. What is it?"

  "Mirrormen," he said. "Never was a Mirrorman did anything for honorable reason, either. When you find Mirrormen, you find nastiness afoot, evil doings, covert Game, rule breaking. That's always the way with Mirrormen."