by neetha Napew
It was only when a servant said she had seen me leaving the main house with Sylbie and when the Sentinel said he had seen Sylbie sneaking away to the camp, confirmed by their finding evidence of my passage through the ditch, that they realized what had happened. Barish was wise enough to realize I had been decoyed away; he even suspected they had used the baby to do it. The baby, however, was found sleeping in his crib, and with a total lack of foresight, they left him there, unattended except for a half-wit serving man, who promptly fell asleep and was still asleep when the baby later wakened.
Barish and Himaggery immediately went into conference with all Barish’s Gamesmen who were present to plan an attack against the besiegers in order to rescue me. Barish and Himaggery had been working on a Wizardly stratagem against the shadow; they decided it must be tried immediately, did so with a minimum of fanfare and found it would not work. It had to do with sucking the shadows down with a great fan, chopping them up with the blade, and compressing them somehow. The shadow sucked up nicely but refused either to be chopped or compressed. It merely flowed up again, against the wind, as it were, and resumed its patrol. All this went on during the night, you understand, and then Bryan woke early.
Bryan’s mother was not present. The serving man was asleep, possibly drunk, for he did not awaken even when Bryan turned into his most monstrous gorbling form and fled the tiny gatehouse to wreak havoc in the Demesne. According to Himaggery, people were fleeing every which way, the place was like a hive of warnets that had been overset, and there was serious danger of the inhabitants breaching the gates in their panic and falling straight into Huldra’s hands. Huldra, however, had departed before dawn, leaving only half her strength behind. Otherwise, the story of the Bright Demesne might have ended at that point.
The noise brought Mavin out of the orchard, blossoms in her hair and apples growing from her ears. She did not wait to be told what had happened but went straight to the place Bryan was gorbling and boiling, howling like a monstrous siren. There she began to take bulk, screaming at Barish and Himaggery to bring her bread. Afterward, it became a kind of joke. ‘Twenty more loaves,’ she cried. Only they two and some of the Gamesmen could withstand Bryan’s howling. All the others in the Demesne had fled as far away as possible, and only the loyalty and training of Himaggery’s men kept the walls manned.
When Mavin had gobbled enough bread to give her the bulk she needed, she Shifted into the form of a giant basket, which snatched up the gorbling ghost. Then she closed, compressing what was within into smaller and smaller shapes, compressing even more, and more, until baby Bryan was uncomfortably pressed into his own shape, no other, and had learned he could not terrorize the Demesne with impunity any longer.
‘It was quite a horrid sight,’ said Himaggery thoughtfully. ‘In some respects, it is not easy to love a Shifter.’
‘I quite frankly thought I would be ill,’ said Baiish. Thandbar never did anything like that in all the time I knew him.’
‘I found it interesting to watch,’ said Dealpas the Healer. ‘I thought she’d squash the baby, but she didn’t. Bryan was perfectly all right, though less temperamental subsequently.’
‘The part that interests me is that taking on of bulk,’ said Shattnir the Sorceress. ‘Theoretically, at least, it should provide additional power to . . .’
Well, you get the idea. Other Gamesmen find Shifters either repulsive or odd, for the most part. Himaggery told me all this much later, including the comments of those present, laughing over it in genuine amusement, and I suppose I laughed as well. Mavin would not have been offended. She had come past the time of being hurt over what others think of us Shifters. One thing Jinian never said to me was that it was difficult to love a Shifter. Perhaps that is why I loved her so much when I finally decided that I loved her at all.
Which is beside the point. All of this happened by midmorning of the day I had been carted away.
Not content, then, with merely having squelched the baby and restored general order, Mavin decided to get into the besiegers’ camp and see to my rescue herself. She did this just as I had, eeling herself along the drainage ditch from the Porridge Pot, slything out onto the bank among some bushes, then creeping silently as any wraith - avoiding the shadow meantime - into the camp. While there was shadow plastered over every possible exit from the Demesne, there was none at the drainage ditch. I was known to be the only Shifter present; everyone thought Mavin was far away. It is a mistake ordinary Gamesmen often make: assuming we’re far away when we’re not. In the camp there were scattered tents for the Gamesmen, a rather large contingent of Armigers and Armigerian types, along with any number of Tragamorians. No Elators. Huldra had taken them all with her. No Seers or Demonics or Healers. No Rulers, of course. Huldra would not have wanted her own sway threatened by any other’s Beguilement. There were, however, several Sorcerers and Sentinels, ready to assist an assault on the Demesne if and whenever its defenses failed.
Mavin noticed all these and ticked them off as of no importance once she knew I was no longer there. Her interest focused on that other tall tent at the midst of the camp, a tent with closed flaps and guards set close around it. Though I had never seen her do it, Mavin had told me of her practice at moling and weaseling, a skill that took her underground, beneath the guarded tent, and allowed an extruded eye to protrude inside at the canvas edge.
There were two beribboned forms within the tent, forms with painted faces and a strange way of moving. ‘Like Eesties,’ she said, ‘trying to move like humans, waving their points first here, then there.’ She watched for a time, not betraying her presence, and was horrified to realize that the creatures were controlling the shadow.
‘It made me peevish,’ she said with her typically Mavinish understatement. ‘They were so silly looking; so much a travesty of humanity. Making a parody of us in order to mock us; waving and weaving their points to make the shadows flow first here, then there. Well, those two will not mock again.’
She told us later what she did to the Eesties, leaving the tent empty. ‘For the mystification of the guardsmen. Mystification is always good for guardsmen,’ she remarked. ‘It makes them watchful.’
She returned to the Demesne in time to supervise Bryan’s supper and bedtime. She did not bother to tell Himaggery what she had done until afterward, by which time he had already noticed great rents and vacancies in the shadow. The fluttering menace seemed no longer organized by malicious will; though
dangerous still, it was patchy rather than ubiquitous. Waiting for a propitious conformation, Himaggery and Barish made a sortie in force from the main gates, shadow or no shadow. Good fortune may have had something to do with it. They were not shadow eaten, and they left very little of the besiegers for the were-owls.
‘We will go after Peter,’ Himaggery announced, furiously ordering horses and wagons and equipage for the road while the Gamesmen ran hither and thither and Barish gave similar orders to his own men.
‘No,’ said Mavin. ‘You must go to the Old South Road City,’ and she told them why. She says they were very stubborn about it, almost disbelieving. It was only when she threatened to turn Bryan loose on them that they began to listen seriously to her. And, at last, she had her way - and mine. Himaggery, Barish, and all but a small garrison of the inhabitants of the Bright Demesne set out for Old South Road City, while Mavin, somewhat slowed by being burdened by Bryan, came after me. Often I wonder what might have happened had she gone with Himaggery instead. Often now I wish she had done so.
Eleven
Jinian’s Story: The Caverns
Murzy had been right. By moving swiftly, calmly - and by trading the barrows for a farm wagon on the third day of our trek - we managed to reach the Ice Caverns before Huldra did. The old codger living at the edge of the marches had not been at all willing to let his only wagon go, but between Cat’s talking and Margaret’s Beguiling, he couldn’t hold out against us. He was well paid for the wagon, and we left half a dozen of the shadow
-eaters with him as lagniappe. When we left him, he had begun telling them the story of his life, and one of the turnips had a sprout out its top that looked suspiciously like a flower head to me.
They’ll seed, you know,’ said the Gardener in his gloomy, uninflected voice. ‘Soon they’ll be all over everything.’
‘I can think of worse things,’ said Sarah.’ Wildthorns, for example. Or purple briar. Or shadow.’
‘True,’ murmured the Gardener. ‘Except that wild-thorn extract cures heaves in wateroxen. And split purple briar makes the best sieves in the world.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Cat, showing immediate interest. “What else are they good for?’
He told her, for the better part of a day. Everyone else walked away from the wagon, tiring of his voice, but Cat sat up there on the seat, taking it all in, and the turnips babbled to one another about every cloud in the sky and every new flower or stone along the way. I was beginning to see differences among them, differences in their markings and the locations of their eyes. I
named them to myself; Bulgy and Flop-top and Big-blue, who had the widest, bluest belt. Pasty, all white with yellowish leaves; Fringes, who had at least ten or twelve root legs; Molly-my-dear, slender - relatively speaking - and coy, with an almost supersonic giggle. They had no names for themselves and were delighted when I began to name them, after a time beginning to think up titles for themselves, some of which made them collapse into the bottom of the wagon, full of mysterious, vegetable mirth. I could understand the words well enough, but not what they really meant. It was not a humor I could share, though that fact seemed to frustrate no one but me.
The Gardener had been right. More than a few of them were sending up flower stalks and casting meaningful looks at one another. I had not thought of pollination as an erotic exercise before, but these hybrid creatures did not regard it as routine, so much was obvious. They were full of devious, volatile pranks, reminding me rather of the deep dwellers I had summoned up in Fangel. Devious or not, they were more interesting than the Gardener. I had yet to see him display any interest in anything whatsoever.
All of which was a mere distraction, to keep my mind off Peter. When I thought of him, I thought of him being tortured, maimed, savaged by Huldra’s wanton evil or Dedrina’s casual brutality. Once or twice I had fallen into shivering fits, and Cat or Murzy had had to recall me to myself with an utterance of names. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering whose names we uttered and why they made any difference. Who, or what, was Eutras? Who, or what, was Favian?
At any rate, we came down Cagihiggy Creek at some speed. The way is level along there, not precisely a road but without major impediments to travel. As we neared the place where we thought the caverns were, we made camp while Murzy, Cat, and Bets sent up some kind of Wize-ardly signal, a tall, blue smoke with
sparkly bits in it. They went on making it for some hours. Along about dusk, it was answered by a cautious call from behind some rocks, then by a tall, serious-faced man, who stepped out and approached us with visible trepidation.
I went to him, showing my empty hands. ‘I’m Jinian Footseer,’ I told him. ‘A friend of Peter, Mavin’s son. He may have stopped by here fairly recently? I’m also known to Mertyn and a man named Quench, and I know the name Riddle, Governor of the Immutables, though we have not met.’
He gestured vaguely at the others of us. ‘And these?’ He was staring at the turnips, frankly staring, as though he could not believe what he saw.
‘The vegetables are shadow-eaters,’ I told him. ‘And the women are Wize-ards, friends of mine. The man is simply called the Gardener. I’m afraid I know very little about him.’
‘They’re real,’ he said with plaintive satisfaction. ‘As I approached, I thought they were a Beguilement of some kind; a mind image, perhaps. But they stayed, even when I came quite close and watched them for a long time, so they’re real!’
‘You must be an Immutable, then,’ said Cat, coming up behind me. ‘I tried to Read you and could not, nor anyone else who’s here.’
He bowed. ‘Riddle,’ he said. ‘As you put it, Governor of the Immutables, though there is little governance involved these days.’ He showed us a trail, hidden behind a line of transplanted bushes, and suggested we go on up to the caverns, not waiting until morning. ‘There’s a threat coming.’
‘We received a Sending from Huldra, the Witch,’ said Murzy. ‘She is holding Peter captive to assure Jinian’s compliance in some scheme of hers. Is there more threat than that?’
He shook his head as if to say that was quite threat enough. ‘Witchness I can quell,’ he said. ‘As with all other Talents of the Gamesmen.’
‘What about the wize-art?’ I asked him. ‘Can you quell that?’
He looked slightly confused for a moment. ‘The wize-art? That isn’t a Talent, is it?’
‘It is and it isn’t,’ said Murzy. ‘Some can do it and some can’t, so to that extent it’s a Talent. However, it doesn’t come all at once as a Talent does. It must be learned. Come. I’ve always wondered. Do the Immutables quell wize-artry?’
‘Let’s see,’ I said, picking up a pebble from the ground and putting it in my palm. ‘Mothwings Go Spinning,’ I murmured, making the gestures with my other hand. ‘By Eutras. By Bintomar, by Favian, by Shielsas, go spinning.’ The pebble lifted and began to twirl. I let it drop. ‘So, wize-artry is something else.’
Riddle nodded, his face gloomy. ‘Do I understand this Huldra is not merely a Witch but has also studied the art?’
I sighed deeply. ‘You understand aright, Riddle. She is, however, first a Witch. She may have built her Talent into her study of the art, scarcely remembering which part is which. Witches have Firestarting, and Power Holding and Beguilement. If she relies upon one of these, you may well quench her. At least, we will hope so.’
‘If you can quell her Talent,’ said Cat, more cheerfully than I would have thought proper under the circumstances, ‘we seven will take care of her artistry.’ Cat did not call it the wize-art when speaking of Huldra. When done for evil purposes, it was not the wize-art so far as the seven were concerned.
We went up behind the bushes onto the trail, through the Immutables’ lines, and thence upward to the caverns. About halfway there the trail thinned to the point the wagon would go no farther, so we hobbled the oxen and told the turnips to find themselves root space up the little side canyons. There were many windy
arroyos thereabout, most with patches of deep, sunny earth washed into rock hollows. All of the shadow-eaters went off except Molly-my-dear and Big-blue. Those two stayed close to my ankles, begging to be taken up to see the caverns. So I perched them in the top of my pack and carried them the rest of the way.
A good deal had been done since Peter had stopped there. Some twenty or thirty teams of Demons and Healers were scattered throughout the caverns, directing Tragamors at unpiling the bodies. Sorcerers stood about, feeding them power as they needed it. Far off to one side, that strange, hollow-cheeked man from under the mountain, Quench, worked with a group of techs at a monstrous machine. I had seen it before, on the Wastes of Bleer. Peter had very nearly killed himself trying to repair it. The resurrection machine! It was working now, making a horrid scream and flicker of lights as it joined the bodies and minds of the frozen ones. Every few moments, some Gamesman would be newly wakened, either by the machine or by a Demon-Healer team, would stagger to his or her feet, and would be taken off to be fed and clothed. Whenever five or ten of them were ready, Mertyn spoke to them, his hoarseness betraying how often he had done it over the past few days. He spoke of history, current circumstances, the need for rebuilding Old South Road City; he covered it all in a very short time.
‘I couldn’t do it except for the crystals,’ he confessed, gulping hot tea liberally laced with wineghost. ‘We’re putting a crystal in the mouth of every Gamesman before he’s wakened - thanks to the Flitchhawk, who brought them. Almost all of them waken with some helpful
ideas already in their heads. From that point on, it’s merely a matter of channeling. Trying to bring them up to date without getting bogged down in ancient history. They’re so curious. Gamelords, wouldn’t you be! Frozen dead for hundreds of years and suddenly wakened into a world they’ve never seen before! So far we’ve only lost a dozen, a dozen out of hundreds!’
‘Lost?’ Murzy asked.
‘Lost. I suppose lost. They weren’t interested in helping, put it that way. Not even the crystals seemed to make any difference. . . .’
I shivered. What kind of Gamesman would not care whether the world died? Those without bao wouldn’t want to help. Crystals wouldn’t make any difference to them. Crystals such as the blue ones spoke to bao. Those without bao could not hear the message. ‘Where did they go, Mertyn?’
‘Away north. I had to think of something to get them out of the way. Some of those who wouldn’t help were starting to cause trouble, so I told them about a Great Game north of here. I felt the best I could hope for was they’d stay out of the way. .. .’
‘Mertyn,’ I said softly. ‘Are there any midwives here in the caverns?’
‘I suppose so. The old gods know there are everyr thing else. We even found a Warbler yesterday. And a Thaumaturge.’
‘Waken one or two midwives, Mertyn. Have them look into the frozen Gamesmen before you wake them. If the midwives find no ... if they do not find in the frozen Gamesmen that which they seek in newborn children, then do not wake those Gamesmen. Yet.’
He gave me a strange, straight look, as did Murzy and Cat, but I would not be stared down. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Do it, just for now. If I cannot explain, perhaps time will do so.’ I was beginning to understand something, rather dimly. It had to do with a pathetic Sending, and with the Sanctuary I had seen. And with the Dragon of Zale. And perhaps, perhaps with what Ganver had been trying to teach me.
