The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Something happened there,” I said to bunwit. “Some very large thing.” That was all I could manage. Later, of course, when I learned what had happened, that the lair of the Magicians had been destroyed in that one monstrous cataclysm, I felt sorry not to have known, not to have cared. At the moment, however, there was no energy with which to care. I crawled back into bed to sink into my dark core of sleep. There are animals that sleep in that fashion, spending a whole summer, a whole storm season, lost in kindly darkness. I wanted to sleep that way, so deeply that no dreams would come at all, so well that nothing could wake me. I could no longer ignore the sickness that had come upon me. After the forest visited me. Before the pig was trapped. Between those two events some essential link within me had been corroded by this creeping disorder, and I could not repair it. I did not even know it had been eaten away.

  The sleep would not last, however. In a time I awoke, suddenly, preternaturally alert, as though by some efficacious drug that sharpened sight and sound and intellect and energy, all in one dose. This was more of the same illness. This wild energy was no less abnormal than the lethargy that had preceded it. Briefly, I wondered what the name of this cyclic disorder might be. It was a passing wonder.

  I rose, jigging in place, feeling the tingle on my bare feet which said remnants of the Old Road were there beneath my toes. With no motivation at all beyond a need to use this hectic excess of enterprise, I began to walk along it, here, there, first in one direction then another. Sometimes the road was there and sometimes not. Parts were buried under mountains of mud and rock with huge trees grown up in it. In some places a river ran where the road should run, and wherever the road entered the slime it simply disappeared. I couldn’t tell whether it was underground or gone. It gave no sign of being there, and even digging down a little—oh, what a stench when that ground was dug into—disclosed nothing. Reason said perhaps the road was still there, but eyes, ears, fingers, feet said nothing.

  From the northernmost edge of the forest, when I reached that point, I could see Daggerhawk Demesne squatted like a toad on the top of a rock, glaring down at me from a dozen glassy eyes. It was hypnotic, that place. I found myself staring at it, open-mouthed, without moving while the sun slid over the sky. I shook myself, muttered angrily, only to begin staring at it again. They were there, the Basilisks, the mother and mother’s sisters of Dedrina-Lucir, probably De-drina-Lucir herself, the vengeful, the threat to my safety, to my life. Porvius Bloster was there, my enemy, my captor, my adversary. Those who hated me and opposed me were there, all there, and I felt a red glow of anger kindle deep inside at the sight of the place.

  Eventually I left it there to wander a nearby path which wound among groves of green-trunked trees to end in a stretch of meadow around a house.

  A house. I had been alone in the forest for a long time, aware of no other occupant, yet now I stood in baffled confusion, confronting someone standing before a house.

  “My dear,” called the person, “I did hope you’d feel free to stop by. Do bring the darling animals and come in.”

  He—she? It? This stout, much painted and powdered person, with rosy circles drawn upon its cheeks and long diamonds of black paint drawn vertically through its eyes; this clown, acrobat, actor, pawnish performer of some kind or other, invisible within its robes and makeup; this incredible visitant posed in the door of the dwelling and beckoned to me as some merchant might summon reluctant custom from the street. Thoughts of wicked Witches, of the Ogress of Tarnost, of Trolls, and Ghouls, came to mind and were discarded. Whatever this person was, it was not precisely that. There was menace, but a menace more subtle than that; terror, but a terror more insidious. Had all my will not been paralyzed by the strange illness that had come upon me, I would have fled. As it was, I approached, mouth gaped like any simpleton at a fair.

  “I wanted to thank you, my dear, for disposing of the pig. Monstrous great thing. I can’t imagine what they were thinking of. Daggerhawk, I mean. They’ve never been known for sensitivity, but releasing a thing of that magnitude into a closed system—and I’m sure you’d be the first to agree that Chimmerdong has been most dreadfully closed of late—simply begs for disaster.”

  “I think that was their intention,” I said, mouth going on where wits were absent. “They seemed determined upon destruction.”

  “No! You don’t say so. Well, Porvius Bloster was a nasty little boy who always picked his nose at parties, but I didn’t think he’d grow up to be like that. His sister, of course, we used to call—behind her back, I do assure you, my dear, she’d have been livid—the Lizard Duchess because of her cold, reptilian nature (one duplicated, so I understand, in her daughter), but I did think Porvius had a hint of warmth to him.”

  The person fanned itself for a moment, looking off into the distance with a smile in which satisfaction and a certain cynicism were blended. Then it turned to me with its false, painted smile.

  “Oh, my dear, I’m forgetting my manners entirely. Just see what a little stress will do to normally well-behaved people. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Oracle. Not only am, but have been for the remembered past.” It gestured toward the door. “Please. Do come in. You must be very tired after all that road trotting, and I have some soup warming on the fire.”

  I had already smelled it. It was the one thing that could have tempted me into the house. I told myself a rogue and devil might mimic good humor and kindliness, and most of them do, but surely no one could connive the smell of good soup. For a moment the smell lifted my depression, taking me back to the good smells of kitchens when I was a child. We went in, bunwit, tree rat, and I, and the Oracle seemed not unkindly disposed toward any of us.

  That person was now standing against a wall of its room, taking bowls from a cupboard and wiping them on a corner of its fantastic robe. This was made up of straps in bright colors, purple and blue and gold, all depending from ornamental strips that went from wrist to shoulder, across over the ears and head, and down the other side. Except for the long, pale hands, the creature was totally covered with fabric or paint. “I haven’t met an Oracle before,” I said, struggling to be polite, to make conversation. Even this minor effort was almost beyond me, and I silently cursed the dangerous extent of my debilitation. I had a brief, petulant vision of myself reduced to permanent catalepsy, unable to move at all.

  “Well, my dear young person, I should think not,” it said in astonishment. “I may be the only one at all. In fact, that is entirely likely. It is certain there is no Oracle in the Index. I’ve had the matter looked into. That has been, in fact, part of the problem. They have their Seers by the dozens, all with the pretty little mothwinged masks, available on any street corner. Why should they seek an Oracle! Hmm! I ask you. And, of course, I’ll answer you, too, my child. Because the Oracle really knows. That’s why. Tell them that, and what do they say? They snort, or mock. So. I’ve given up talking to them at all. I know. That’s all. Let them fumble.” It declaimed this last, waving the soup spoon with sufficient force to throw droplets around the room. One landed on my lips, and I licked it up. It was, indeed, very flavorful soup.

  “Do you really know?” The endless whirl within me spun into silence. Oh, to have answers, to have the realities. To hold in one’s hands the keys, the cure! “Everything? And could you tell me?”

  “Well, of course I could. Will I? That depends, doesn’t it. On whether you have the price. No freebies. Doesn’t do to dispense freebies. Persons of consequence don’t respect you. High prices mean high respect. Would your bunwit like some soup as well?”

  I mumbled something about the bunwit liking anything leafy, or one of the fruits I could see on the table. It took a proffered vegetable, munching away watchfully while the Oracle gave me soup and bread with soft yellow cheese.

  “You see,” I said at last, driven to it by the silence and the desperate need to fasten upon some subject, some perception of actuality. “I’ve been asked to rescue th
e forest. And I really have very little idea how to be successful at it ...”

  “Well, of course you will do it, my dear. Quite unmistakably. You’re the heroine type. A survivor. When it comes to matters like that, one always wants a heroine type.”

  “Well, this heroine type doesn’t know how to proceed,” I gritted between my teeth, wanting only to be away from there, curled on my leafy bed in the ruin. Not thinking of anything. I bit my lip until the blood came, ashamed to show this incredible weakness. “How come you stay in the forest, here, by the way? You can’t get much company.”

  It shrugged, blinking its diamond-painted eyes so they squinched into four-pointed stars, then opened again. “At one time there were quite enough. That was before Bloster’s forebears decided to cut the forest off, of course. Stupid men. I don’t know what they thought they were doing.”

  “You don’t?” I asked. “An Oracle should know, shouldn’t one?”

  It waved a spoon at me in mock chastisement. “Silly girl. I don’t mean I don’t mean I don’t know, I mean to make conversation. I mean, conversationally, that it seems ridiculous for them to have done so. Doesn’t it?”

  “Not from what I know about Bloster and his kin, no,” I replied, struggling to set words together. Whatever the creature was before me—and a good cook was certainly part of it—it was no giggling schoolgirl, much though it talked like one. “It seems entirely in keeping with knavery and lying and bad Gamesmanship. Bloster took me captive when I was a student, not even Gameable. Then he switched Game to me when I evaded him. Then he sent his thalan, a Basilisk named Dedrina-Lucir, to kill me, a task which she failed, in Xammer, a Schooltown which had been held free from Game by every Referee ever. Exactly the kind of man who would kill off a forest for the sheer joy of it.” My words dwindled away into silence, the spoon falling from my hand.

  “Oh, my dear child, how you have suffered,” it said, seeming to push its top lip down under its lower teeth in that expression of sympathy which I detest. “Such a brave little girl.”

  “Nothing of the kind,” I whispered. Though I had been thinking exactly that. Some deep, sad vein had been opened to bleed exactly such suffering thoughts. I was choking on them. I could not admit it. “Annoyed little girl. Increasingly angry little girl, if you like.”

  “Well, yes,” agreed the Oracle with irrepressible gaiety. “That, too.” It offered me more bread and cheese, which I refused. “I wonder if you could come up with my fee. It might be worth it to you, considering the way you’re feeling.”

  “How much?” I murmured. “How much, Oracle? In what coin?”

  “Well, it would depend on how many questions, wouldn’t it. How many do you think you have?”

  I sighed. All my gut turned and tumbled in that sigh, nausea moving with it, sickness rising like a tide. I sat very still, tasting the bitterness of bile, willing it away. “One,” I said, beginning the enumeration, “why did my mother love me so little that she cared not whether I died? Two: Why did my brother Mendost share this dislike of me? Three: Why am I here, alone, faced with some task I do not understand? Four: How may that task be accomplished?

  “Five: Who is it directs Porvius Bloster to Game against me to the death? Six: How could I be sure to make someone love me without using potion or spell?”

  Question six had not been one of those I had thought to ask, though it had obsessed me since the killing of the pig.

  “Seven,” said the Oracle, “is there only this one task for you to do, or are there other things, greater and more? I will answer that one for you. There is much more, Jinian. Much more indeed.” It giggled, a high, humorless sound rasping like a file.

  My throat was full of tears. The thought of more of anything made me weep.

  Oracle gave me an arch look. “Interesting questions, those,” it said. “Very interesting.” It hummed, did a little dance, turning around and around like a wheeling moth. “Have more bread, dear child. See, the bunwit likes it very much. I made the cheese myself. Would you credit it? With these very own soft, white fingers. Not at all what one was brought up to do, but then times change, times change.”

  “Thank you.” I nodded, unable to move. We sat in muffled silence, the very air around me heavy with my own malady. The Oracle had fed me well, though it had eaten nothing itself. I did not wonder about that, being too busy wondering whether the Oracle was going to set me a price or not. Perhaps it was thinking about it. I began wondering whether the creature was male or female, and it gave me such a look!

  “I thought better of you, dear child. Really I did.”

  “I was just ...” I made an equivocal gesture. I didn’t care, really.

  “Well! Whatever, whichever, no one cares but me and mine. Keep your mind decent and the rest of you will follow, so my Great-Grandma Acquackabby is said to have said.”

  “Was she an Oracle, too?”

  “No doubt,” it said, mouth twisted in amusement. “No doubt. Well. I’ve decided. I’m going to give you an answer. Not a freebie. You can owe me for it. I’ll think of a price later on when our heads are clearer. I’ve decided to answer question number six. That’s the one you care most about, child, and we both know it. Six is a lovely number. I have a passion for easily divisible numbers. So nice to deal with. Besides, it has been my experience that petitioners often know the answers to most questions before they ask, so I’ll answer the one question you can’t answer and trust you for payment. If I may say so, my dear, you do seem trustworthy.

  “How can you assure that someone will love you without potion or spell? Well, you do that by letting him save your life a time or two. There is a problem with it, of course. It would be better to be sure you don’t get killed in the process. I see something nasty by way of groles or Ghouls in your future, perhaps both. Saving you will require a risk, and it might happen both of you will be lost. Or, it could happen”—and it looked at me here with that terrible sidelong glance which seemed to say things no ears should hear—“it might be he would be killed and you would be quite safe.”

  It let me think about that, let the picture of it penetrate my disordered brain, let me begin to shudder at the thought. Even through the fog of depression, the thought of his death brought tears bubbling out of my eyes. I bit my lip as the Oracle went on, “You could guarantee his safety and your own, of course, if you had the Dagger of Daggerhawk Demesne in your possession.”

  “What dagger is that?” I mumbled through the fog.

  “I have a copy of it here,” the Oracle said, taking it from the same cupboard in which the bowls were stored. “It amused me to make the copy once when I thought of stealing the original. The people at Dagger-hawk had annoyed me. Dedrina Dreadeye, her sisters, her daughter. Bloster. Annoyed me greatly. All their power comes from the Dagger, and I thought that removing it without their knowledge might be a proper punishment. However, after a time I cooled.” It laughed, a high, tinkly laugh without amusement. “Here. Ugly, isn’t it?

  The wings of an impaled hawk made up the guard, a coiled Basilisk the handle of the weapon. I took it cautiously in a hand that trembled beneath the weight. “Couldn’t I use this one to protect myself?”

  “It’s only a copy, child. It has none of the powers of the real one.” The Oracle’s face swelled and receded, like a face in delirium, like a Festival balloon. I wanted to laugh but could not.

  “Which are?”

  “Death, death to the person touched by it in anger. Death to any creature touched by it in anger. A ghost raised from the grave would be returned therein by the Dagger of Daggerhawk.”

  “A dangerous thing to handle,” I said.

  “Not at all. It will not harm one to whom it is given, or one who steals it. Only one against whom it is used in anger, dear girl. On consideration, I decided I was not angry enough to use it for anything.” The Oracle laughed again. Perhaps it was not anger but some other dark emotion behind that laughter, something I did not care to examine more closely. Instinct told me to lea
ve the place, then, at once, with no further conversation.

  Instead, I heard myself asking, “Where’s the real one?”

  “On the wall of the council hall of Daggerhawk Demesne. Where any good thief could have it down in a minute. And most of the power of the Basilisks with it.”

  “And you say it would protect me—me and the one I love—if need be?” To which the creature only smiled.

  And I lost track, then, of what was said. It went away, I think. When next I looked about me it was gone, though I held the false dagger still in my hand. Some of the bread and cheese remained upon the table, but the place was empty and echoing otherwise. I would have preferred, somehow, that the Oracle remain in one place. The thought of it roaming the forest in its own or some other guise was disquieting. Enervating. I crawled out upon the doorstep to sit in the sun. All that talk had been to no purpose. I would not have energy to steal anything at all, even to save my own life.

  When night came, I built a fire and curled up beside it, retreating into sleep from forest and flitchhawk, from duty and desire, from endless expectations, hoping, I think, not to waken. For a time the fiery core of life and hope burned low.

  Bodies are stubborn. Minds are stubborn, too. Came morning and my own mind and body sat up once more, burning with purpose once more, full of a dream in which I fed branches to a fire, brimming with hectic initiative.

  I would steal the Dagger from Daggerhawk Demesne. I would clear the slime from the edge of the forest. I would do both at once, with fire. By feeding branches to the fire.

  The day went by in a rush of effort, dragging branches into a pile that grew into a hill just inside the screen of forest. Above, Daggerhawk Demesne squatted on its cliff, glaring down from malign sunset eyes, red and furious. Then dark came, the eyes shut, and somehow the small mountain of wood was moved out onto the gray. Just there the gray was thin, worn away, not as choking or burning as elsewhere. Perhaps the Basilisks had walked there often enough to scatter the gray dust. Perhaps there had never been as much of it in that spot. Whatever the cause, we were able to work there without dying. Once I was moving, it was easier to go on moving than to decide to quit, even as my forcefulness gradually left me.