The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  I woke Chance early, while it was still dark, whispering to him, “I need to know what was said about that amethyst crystal, the one Queynt tasted.”

  “What was said? Little enough, girl. Let’s see, there was five of us gaming. Man named Chortle, two brothers from a place somewhere north of Bloome, man named Byswitch, and me. Byswitch had most of the coins and the big crystal. Said it was new, no one had anything like it, very unusual. Said I ought to try it. Share it with my friends. Just came, he said, from That Place.”

  “That place?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what he said. “’That Place north of Fangel where the Dream Miner is.’“

  “Would you say—Chance, would you say the fellow lost it easily?”

  “Didn’t put up much of a fight, that’s true. We gave him a chanst to get even, but he wasn’t up to much. Said he had a woman waiting for him.”

  “Who lost, besides him?”

  “Nobody much. All the rest of us was more or less even.”

  “So he lost, you won, and nothing else much changed hands?”

  “You’re thinkin’ it was a plot? Thinkin’ I was supposed to bring that thing where Queynt could get it?”

  “Queynt, maybe. Or Peter. Or me. Or all of us.”

  “More likely Queynt, I think. He’s been around long enough to attract attention. You, girl, you’re practically brand new.” I didn’t talk with Chance further about the Dream Miner. So far as we all were concerned, it made little difference which of us was the intended victim. Perhaps any of us would have served. If Queynt had not been to some extent immune, perhaps all of us would have been.

  I lay down, only for a moment, to wake much later with the sun a handsbreadth above the eastern mountains. Queynt was sitting up, staring at his hand from which the two remaining blue crystals winked and gleamed like eyes.

  “Two,” he said, noticing that I was awake. “I have two left.”

  “And the other?”

  He shook his head. “Like being drunk. I can see the map I have carried for this thousand years: forests and roads. Sparkling. Whizz. Dart. All speed and sureness. Mmmm. Cities, full of Full of people. Not quite. There’s a white road leading to a good place ... an inn. A place to rest. And over that is another, dark and hideous, and yet seductive. Leading to that terrible place. Buried down. Oh, too deep. Too deep.”

  “Are you going to take another of the blue ones now?”

  “I’m going to wait to see if the other wears off,” he replied with great dignity. “It is less demanding already than it was last night. Foolish of me to have done that. I was so sure I was immune. Why should I not be?”

  “Because the crystal you tasted had been sent particularly for you,” I said. “I think. Designed for you. Designed to get through whatever immunity you might have. Hell, Queynt, you’ve been wandering the world a thousand years. You think nobody knows about you? You think nobody knows about the blue crystal? We can’t be the only ones you’ve told. You must have had wives. Lovers. Friends, at least. You must have got drunk sometimes and talked about things.”

  He flushed. “Perhaps I have. Long ago. The Eesties knew I had it, of course. And perhaps there are Seers and snoops in various guises all around us. Why me?”

  “Why any of us?” I asked. “Perhaps it was designed for any of us or all of us. Why? Why did Porvius Bloster get an order to do away with me from Dream Miner and Storm Grower—it’s no fiction, I saw the parchment myself, read the writing on it. I didn’t even know such a thing as a Storm Grower or a Dream Miner existed. So, if it is nothing in my past, our pasts, then it is something in our future. Perhaps some Seer has told these two, whatever they are, that in the future something will happen which involves one of us, or all of us.”

  “I thought your search for these creatures might be a foolish one,” he said. “I did not even think they existed. Now we are sure they exist, perhaps it would be wiser not to seek them!” He sighed. “Though perhaps we will learn more in Fangel.”

  Queynt shut himself in the wagon that morning. I did not ask him what he was doing. The art is a secret art. Each Wize-ard had his own solitary ways. I know he worked to do what I could not do for him, protect himself. He did not ask about the amethyst crystal, and I did not tell him it was hidden away in a pouch beneath my skirts. Besides the crystal, it held the locket with my Wize-ard’s fragment in it and a lock of Peter’s hair. Since Shifters could grow hair as they pleased, of any kind and color, I had never been sure why this sentimental gesture had occurred to me. Nonetheless, I carried it just as I carried the star-eye around my neck, as a symbol of what I was and what I intended.

  It was a steady climb from the campsite to the city of Fangel. We passed the trail to Woeful at midmorning and stopped only briefly at noon. We walked a good part of it to save the krylobos and by late afternoon could see the walls of the city on the heights above us.

  We were no longer alone on the road. Other wagons and riders had filtered in from the east so that we were hard put to it to find a space for ourselves and the fire.

  We camped on a rocky shelf separated from the height by a tangle of steep roads and paths with no wood nearer than the jungle far below. A charcoal vendor moved among the wagons, doing brisk business, and we bought a sack to warm our supper over.

  “When are the Merchants’ men due in the city?” I asked Queynt.

  “Tomorrow, I think. About noon. The Dream Merchant will meet the various Merchants’ men in the residence, according to Brom, to be given their instructions. Merchants’ men change frequently, he said. No one will wonder that I have a face new to them.”

  “If it is new to them,” grumbled Peter. “Let us hope none of them have seen you before.”

  “Well, I must take the chance of that. However, the rest of you may do better. Remember those half veils the people in Zinter wore? I bought some when we came through there, along with several sets of their black dress. It occurred to me then we might need a disguise somewhere along the road. All three of you can be travelers from Zinter. They’re known to be belligerent when bothered, like those from Zib and Zog, so the likelihood is you’ll go untroubled.”

  “And when does the delegation from the south arrive? The Duke and his unlikely allies?”

  “Also tomorrow, I think. It gives us little time to look around.”

  I had been somewhat distracted by my own thoughts, but this mention of the Duke reminded me of something, and I asked if Brom had said anything about the location of the crystal mines near Fangel.

  “Where are they? How can we get there?”

  Peter stood thinking for a moment, turning to look up at the town above us. “Near here, I think. Chance? Brom said the .mines were just below Fangel, didn’t he?”

  Chance went on stirring the pot as he tried to remember. “I didn’t pay that much attention, to tell the truth. No. Wait. He said there was an old fella lived there, remember? While we were dressin’ him up. He talked about it.”

  “Buttufor,” said Queynt. “Gerabald Buttufor and his wife, Jermiole. Guardian of the mines. Right?”

  “Where?” I was cross with myself for being impatient with them, but I was impatient with them, though there seemed to be no reason for it. “Come on, where?”

  “Well, while the pot boils, we’ll see if we can find out.” Peter stalked away among the wagons, asking questions, smiling, chatting, playing the good fellow, Queynt off in the opposite direction doing the same.

  They returned almost simultaneously with the same story.

  “Down that southernmost path. Not far. We can go now, if you like. Food will stay warm on the fire.”

  I did like, leading off in the direction they’d indicated with a haste almost frantic. Curiosity, yes, but not only that. Something more than that. Since Queynt’s disastrous accident, it had become very important to me to learn everything I could about the dream crystals.

  We came to a small house at the edge of a pit, two old folk sitting on the stoop, he with a
pipe of some sweet-smelling stuff, she with a mug of some kind of happiness, chirruping like a tree frog in the evening.

  “Well, and well, visitors, travelers, folks bound for Fangel. Come to see the mine? Not much going on here anymore, not since the crystals started comin’ up spoiled, but you’re welcome. You’re welcome.” Nodding like a little doll, smiling at the shadows: I realized with a start she was blind.

  “You folks like a tour?” Gerabald Buttufor heaved himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. “Noticed two or three nodules this mornin’, ‘bout ready to bust. Interestin’ to see. Can’t use the crystals. Like Jermiole says, all spoiled now. Can’t say why. Don’t know why. Are, though. All spoiled.”

  Queynt passed coins into the old man’s palm. “We’d like to see it. Lucky we got here before dark.”

  “Oh, you could’a seen it after, as well. Nodules get all hot and feverish, shine like little moons, they do. Get along down here.” He led us, stumping along with the cane, down a twisting path into the declivity. The sides and bottom of it were pitted with rounded scars, as though from a shower of great stony hail or meteors.

  He went along a path, stopping abruptly beside a fistsized dome of stone.

  “Here.” He tapped it with his cane. It rang, twangingly, a harsh, ugly sound. “Good crystals don’t even sound like that. Used to like the sound of the good ones. Now you watch.” He struck the stone again, sharply, several times in one place. The cane was shod with iron. The ugly sound repeated, but on the last blow the rock broke.

  Fragments flew, disclosing the center. Like an egg, it held a yolk, a yellow crystal swimming in silvery liquid that oozed over the broken edge of the stone and into the ground. Peter leaned forward.

  “Don’t touch it!” I cried, seeing what it was.

  “That’s right, lassy. Not many know that unless they’ve worked the mines. Can’t touch the crystal milk, boy. That’s what we call it, crystal milk. Burn you right through to the bone.”

  I had last seen similar stuff in a great pool deep in the Citadel of the Sevens; I carried a fragment dipped in that pool as one of my most cherished things. It had been approached with great care and considerable reverence when I had seen it, enough so to make me wary of it.

  “May I borrow your cane, friend Gerabald?”

  I dipped the iron tip in the liquid to hear the same high singing I had heard in the Citadel of the Sevens, far beneath the surface of the earth. I clutched the pouch containing the locket, disbelieving. So! That most marvelous and esoteric stuff was, in fact, well known elsewhere.

  “How do you get the crystal out?” I asked.

  “Why, that’s no trouble.” He bashed away at the stone once more, breaking it so that all the liquid ran away, raking the crystal out onto the stone. “Soon as it dries, you can pick it up. Don’t taste it, though. It’s one of the death ones.” The others wandered off, but I waited while it dried, while the evening came on, bending at last to pick it up, piss-yellow and deadly as poison. I crouched over the empty shell, rising at last in some puzzlement.

  “Peter,” I called, seeing him turn and move toward me with more eagerness than I needed. “Lean down here,” I whispered. “Shift your eyes. I can’t tell, it’s too dark, but isn’t there a kind of channel or duct at the bottom of this hole?” He stretched out on the stone, taking the opportunity to put one arm around me as he stared into the hemispherical hole. Shift eyes, Shift nerves behind eyes, peer deep. Even in the deepening darkness he could see it. “Yes. A twisty little duct, leading down into the earth. You want me to look at some of the others?”

  “Please. Do. See if they’re all alike.” He wandered away, keeping his face with its oddly Shifted eyes turned from the loquacious old man who was lecturing Queynt and Chance on the intricacies of dream mining.

  “Sometimes there’d be a dozen little ones in one nodule, sometimes only one. Used to be pretty green ones in this mine, good ones, too. Happy stuff, no death dreams; forests and birds mostly. I ‘member one was about flyin’. Oh, me’n Jermiole shared that one, flew all over. Mountains, valleys. One great chasm we saw all full of cities built on tree roots, if you could believe that. Great groles down in the bottom of it, too, and up on top the hugest beasts you’ve ever seen. Saw parts of the world never knew were there. Well, p’raps they aren’t, if you take my meaning. In the crystal they were, sure as certain.”

  “Were a lot of these yellow ones dug out of here and put into commerce?” I asked Gerabald.

  “None from here. Fella used to work here dug up the first one, tasted it — well, we almost always did, you know. Didn’t know what to ask for ‘em until you tasted ‘em—and we found him four, five days later where he’d wandered off to, deader’n a baked bunwit, half the crystal still in his hand. Well, if that wasn’t enough, came some ijit through here a few days later, didn’t ask, didn’t tell anybody, and dug a bunch of ‘em, gave ‘em to his entire party, parents, children. They must’ve shared ‘em around, cause we found ‘em all gone. That was enough, let me tell you. We never sold another from this mine after that.”

  “If we’ve seen a lot of these on the road, then, they must have come from somewhere else?” I asked.

  The old man stumped over to me, looked up at me with rheumy eyes, whispered, “Way I hear it, lassy, they’re coming up ever’where. Used to be a mine over near Smeen, nothin’ but pure greeny-blue crystals. Most greeny-blue ones are the best kind. Make you healthy, they do. Long-lived. Me’n Jermiole’r more than a hundred ten, you know that? We just go on, cheerful as tumble-bats from the ones we used to get fifty, sixty years ago. Well, that mine’s nothin’ but these yallery things now. So I hear. Sad, too. I’ve got a few of those old ones left, but sad to think there’ll be no more.” He stumped away again.

  That was more than merely troublesome. It was scary. Peter came up behind me, began stroking my back. All I wanted to do was turn around, but I gritted my teeth and told my belly to stop melting in that ridiculous way.

  “All of them,” he said, continuing the stroking. “All of them have that little tube coming up from deep in the earth somewhere.”

  Gerabald Buttufor looked back at me, calling loudly, “Better throw that yallery thing away, lassy, pound it up to powder. Dangerous, those are.”

  “I know.” Who knew better than I? No one else had buried more of the victims than I had. Still, the thing went in my pouch. Sometimes one had need for dangerous things. This crystal was one. The idea I had just had was another.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As soon as it was light, Queynt arrayed himself quasifantastically as suited a Merchant’s man from Bloome.

  He wore the seal of office, the plaque of jet with the letters “DM” picked out in brilliants in a circle of multicolored gems. We three others put on the black garb from Zinter that Queynt had provided from his costume store. I considered it inauspicious clothing while accepting that nothing could be more anonymous. A stretchy black garment covered the body and head with a half veil over nose and mouth. Over all this went a voluminous cloak, dark as midnight, with one stripe, the color of dried blood, running from throat to hem. The cloak had a larger, metal-lined hood hanging at the back to be used in case of hail. The people of this region were preoccupied with the possibility of storm, and we were beginning to understand why.

  There were no boots among Queynt’s provisions, so we wore our own, decorated with new ornaments to make them look foreign and strange. I chose a pair of gilt snakes for the outside of each boot: Peter chose salamanders and Chance a pair of Basilisks. At the sight of these last, I couldn’t help shuddering.

  “What’s wrong?” Peter came to my side with a concerned expression.

  “Nothing much. It’s those Basilisks on Chance’s boots. Made me think of Dedrina Dreadeye. Dedrina-Lucir’s mama.”

  “Lucir? That was the one who tried to kill you?”

  “Yes, she tried, but I succeeded. I killed her, and I’ve walked in fear of the Basilisks’ vengeance since. De
drina Dreadeye is still alive; sometimes I remember that and it makes me go all over cold. Porvius Bloster came northward, I remember. Likely his sister Dreadeye did, too. I keep expecting to encounter her, or him, or both.” I wandered toward the rocky edge of the shelf we had camped upon, stood looking toward the eastern horizon.

  “We’ve seen no sign of her, or him.” He stood beside me, giving me lecherous looks. No. I thought of them as lecherous. Perhaps he intended them only to be admiring.

  “True. I’d feel happier if we had—if we knew, for instance, she was headed off in some specific direction, preferably away from us. Ah, well. Not important now. What is important is Queynt. How’s he feeling?”

  “Seems in good spirits. Asked me what we’d done with the amethyst crystal.” He turned to look back at the wagon, where Queynt and Chance seemed engaged upon wheel repair.

  “What did you say?”

  “Told him I hadn’t seen it since the event.” He moved toward me with a purposeful leer.

  “Peter,” I begged weakly. “Don’t.”

  “Peter, don’t!” he mimicked savagely. “Gods, Jinian. I’ve had enough of “Peter, don’t.”“

  “You know why. It isn’t that I want to say it! It’s that you’ll never listen.”

  “I’ve listened long enough. You’re not studying the art now. The seven aren’t here. But you’re here, and I’m here, and all this going on about your oaths is meaningless. I know you love me—want me. Unless you’ve changed completely since the Wastes of Bleer. I remember a certain night there. If we’d had a little more time, the oath wouldn’t have mattered then!”

  “You know I haven’t changed. But we thought we were going to die then.”

  “I know. And we could die tomorrow. Which makes this oath business even more stupid. Well, Jinian, love, I’m not going to go on like this ... “ He had the look of a man who had spent a restless night of frustrated desire and was determined it should be the last.

  What I might have said was stopped by Queynt’s voice.

  “Time to move,” accompanied by a bugling cry from the krylobos.