The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Was a twit here, Jinian,” said Yattleby. “I stomped him, only a little. Tried to poison us each with some pink thing.”

  “The whole town’s a trap,” I mumbled. “Keep watch, will you. I’m going to sleep in the wagon. I’m exhausted.” Peter had not been the only one to spend a troubled night.

  I fell into sleep as into a pit, disturbed by pertinent dreams of crystals and mines and dead bodies along the road, wakening when the others returned along about noon.

  “The lady wanted to be sure I shared the town’s need to honor the Duke,” Queynt confessed. “I came very close to tasting this pretty pink crystal, friends, though I managed to avoid it with a minor Wize-ardry. They are persistent here.”

  Peter was very white-faced and not in a mood for this jocularity. “Jinian was wrong,” he said. “The buildings I could get into are all full of people. Laid out on the shelves like so many sacks of grain. Children. Men. Women. And creatures, lizardy things. Furry things. Asleep, I think. When the gong goes, some of them must get up, but the others just stay there. There’s nothing in those houses but storage. And all of them have crystals in their mouths.”

  “Gods!” I had not even imagined this. “What do they have the look of, Peter? An army, perhaps?”

  “Could be.” He pursed his lips, thinking, making quirky wrinkles around his eyes. “Come to think of it, most of those on the shelves are fighting size—big. Men or other things, both big. Some smaller ones, but I’d say nine out often could be warriors.”

  “Gamesmen?”

  “It would explain where they’d all gone.” That was a disquieting thought. We didn’t have time to worry over it, however, for there was a trumpet blast that spun us around facing the avenue. Heralds rode toward us, horns in hand, tabards gleaming. “All those within sound of my voice give ear! All those give ear! His Grace, the Glorious Duke of Betand. Her Highness, Valearn, Queen of the High Demesne. Her Worship, Huldra, Heiress of Pfarb Durim. Her Eminence, Dedrina, Protector of Chimmerdong!”

  “Heiress of Pfarb Durim,” stuttered Peter. “Still claiming the city, is she? Not damn likely.”

  “Protector of Chimmerdong,” I snarled obstinately, even while my body melted in a sweat of terror. “Over my dead body.”

  There was no time to say more. The first of the procession was passing, a sonority of trumpets, a frenzy of drums, so loudly bellicose as to drown all other sound and all thought. Then striding banner bearers, then muzzled pombis shambling in formation with small, frightened shapes tied to their backs.

  “Shadowpeople!” hissed Peter. “And not here of their own will.” A huge cage on wheels with a gnarlibar inside, asleep: twelve chained krylobos who screamed such a cry as could have been heard in Schooltown far to the south when they saw Yattleby.

  “Rescue! Rescue!” they cried.

  “Wait! Wait!” cried Yattleby in return, a vengeful shriek. “We will!” Several of the guards along the route turned at this, scowling.

  “Hush,” I hissed at them in their own language. “You will betray your purpose.” The great bird subsided, his anger shown only by the huge toenail tracks he was scratching in the earth. “Shhh,” I said again.

  “All honor to the Duke of Betand,” piped Queynt, giving us cautionary looks out of the sides of his eyes. “All honor to the Duke of Betand!” He waved his fists, smiling as the cart came toward us on which the corpulent hulk of the Duke rode, canopied with silken draperies and jeweled like a Tragamor’s helm. He bowed from side to side, waving a puffy, negligent hand. Behind him marched his retinue, and behind them a line of captives in chains, both men and women. Most carried treasure on display. One stalwart couple carried a huge woven basket between them.

  Just behind them was a young woman in rags, carrying a child. She was a pretty thing, little more than a child herself, and I was about to say something to Peter about her when he made a strangled cry.

  “Sylbie!” he shouted, so loudly that the chained young woman heard him and turned searching the crowd. Her face was very lovely, though tracked by tears. The child she carried had a wave of ruddy hair across its forehead. “Sylbie,” Peter said again, a guttural snarl. “That bastard broke his bond.” The marching woman was not the only one who had heard. So had the Duke. He heaved his bulk upon the cart, trying to see who had called out, spoke sharply to one of his guards, who spurred away from the procession and into the park.

  “Happy he’ll be,” Queynt caroled in frantic rhyme with Peter’s exclamation. “Happy he’ll be. All honor to the Duke of Betand.” He had made his voice sound almost like Peter’s.

  The guard stopped, came forward more slowly.

  “What’s that you’re yellin’, Merchant’s man? Somebody’s name?”

  “No one’s name. No, only a fervent wish for the Duke’s happy future, Guardsman. All honor to the Duke of Betand!” This was echoed by the others in our group, and the guardsman galloped back to his place beside the Duke’s cart. We saw him speak, saw the Duke heave himself up to cast a smiling wave in our direction as the cart turned the corner to circle the park.

  “Gods,” murmured Queynt. “Don’t scare me like that again, Peter. Thank all the gods you’ve got that veil over your face. Who in the name of all that’s holy is the girl?” Peter didn’t answer. Only his eyes showed above the veil, the skin around them very red, then very white. I watched him with a sick, sinking feeling.

  “Someone you knew?” I prompted him.

  He nodded. “Someone … ah, someone I met in Betand. When I went through there some—oh, it would be almost three years ago.” I had judged the baby the woman was carrying to be about two. So.

  “You said the bastard broke his bond. You meant the Duke?”

  “He was set on having Sylbie for himself—set on having her dowry, at any rate. I did the town a considerable service while I was there. In payment, he was to let Sylbie choose her own husband. I don’t know what he’s done to her, but she was a wealthy girl when I left Betand.” Wealthy and pregnant, I said to myself. Queynt threw me a sidelong glance as though he read my mind.

  Peter was still worrying at it. “If she’s a captive in the Duke’s train, he’s done some foul thing. He was a mean-spirited bastard in Betand. It’s unlikely he’s changed.”

  “If she is a friend of yours,” I said in a voice as calm as a glacier, “then we must rescue her. Her, and some Shadowpeople, and several krylobos. It seems we have our night’s work cut out for us.”

  “Where’ll all that mess be stayin’?” asked Chance. “Inside the residence grounds?”

  “There’s a large guest compound there,” said Queynt. “Together with barns and dormitories. I saw it this morning. I’ll try to get a better look during the reception. Gods, Jinian, you mean to try getting the krylobos out, and the Shadowpeople, and the girl and her baby?” He popped his eyes at me in pretended astonishment.

  “Well, Queynt, I don’t think Yittleby and Yattleby will give you a choice about the krylobos. Either we do it or they will. In case you hadn’t noticed, Yattleby is about to take on the Duke of Betand and all his retinue, all by himself. He won’t restrain, so I wouldn’t try it. As for the Shadowpeople, I’ve wanted to meet them ever since Mavin told me about them. And the girl? Well, I think that’s Peter’s baby she’s carrying, so we have no choice there, either. Wave, now. Smile. Here comes Huldra!” Amazed at my own chilly calm, I waved.

  And there was a cavalcade of mounted drummers, beating an erratic thunder on great copper tubs, followed by a high, black cart with the still-faced Witch upon it, long dark hair curling around a white, red-lipped face with eyes that burned. The dangerous, watching feeling I had been having all day suddenly intensified like fire. It burned. There was a seeking feeling in the air, as though a creeping tentacle reached toward us. Peter turned to one side, hiding even his eyes. The invisibly flaming hunter passed with the creaking cart, turning the corner to continue the procession. Some kind of seeking spell. I shivered.

  Next a row of f
an-horns, shattering the air with dissonant blasts to announce Valearn, gray hair standing in great spikes around her ravaged face, eyes like dead coals, black and lightless, and the skeletons of children rattling on the wheels of her wagon. It should have sickened me. Instead, I felt anger, hot and horrid. Queynt put a hand on my arm, hissed at me.

  Then came a row of men bearing huge wooden spirals that emitted a blood-chilling hiss when stroked, endless and chilling. Dedrina Dreadeye, mounted upon some great lizardish form that none of us had seen before, its monstrous tail heaving back and forth as it waddled down the avenue, head swinging left and right, as did its rider’s, left and right. At her side on a blindfolded horse rode Porvius Bloster, looking old and ill. This time it was I who turned my face aside. I felt the Basilisk’s attention on the crowd. She looked exactly like Dedrina-Lucir except for age, and seeing her was like peering back into time. I had already killed three who looked like this. Daughter and two sisters of this one. I had killed them with the Dagger of Daggerhawk Demesne. On my leg, that same Dagger burned and throbbed.

  The head of the procession had come around full circle and moved into the grounds of the residence, musicians, guards, and animals moving off to the left, honored guests to the right. The girl and her child went to the left. I asked Queynt, “Do we have a better chance during the reception, Queynt? Or after it, when all visitors are presumed to have left Fangel?”

  “After, Jinian. After,” he whispered. “My suggestion is that you depart northward now. I am expected to leave by the south gate when this affair is over. Is there a path from north to south outside the walls of this place?”

  “Dungcart Road,” answered Chance. “Along the western wall. Shall we wait for you then, Queynt? Outside the north gates?”

  “Wait for me there. Except you, Peter. You might slip along Dungcart Road and offer me help, if needed. Hard to say how many there’ll be in company when we leave. I’ll have to get away from them somehow.”

  Thus quickly were we determined. Two of us three putative Zinterites began hitching the birds while one talked with highly irritated krylobos. “We’ll come back, Yattleby,” I kept saying. “If we stay now, it will attract attention, and some of your kin may end up getting killed. If we leave, they’ll all go to sleep thinking there’s no danger. Wait until dark. Come on, now. Take the harness and quit kicking. We won’t leave your kinsmen—ah, kinsbirds behind.” Eventually the giant bird agreed, though I knew very well he wouldn’t go far from the walls. His eyes were red and furious. I had never seen them like this before. He was too angry even to talk to me.

  Queynt went to the residence, nimbly bowing and smiling, full of quirky gestures and fulsome words, echoing the universal greeting. “All honor to the Duke of Betand.” I know from him what he learned there and will tell it here.

  Inside the gate he encountered Willome once more, and they made their way to the tables where liquid refreshments were provided. “Will we be introduced to the guests of honor?” Queynt asked offhandedly, seeming to pay attention only to the spitted chime birds he had been offered.

  Willome shook his head. “I think not. Hoorah for Valearn. They have not done so on any occasion heretofore. We are here to fill the grounds, I think. As is proper.” He bit a crisply toasted bird in half, spluttering bone fragments in all directions. “Hail Huldra.”

  “Hail Valearn,” said Queynt. “I must find a place to relieve myself.”

  “ ‘Round back,” said Willome. “Near the stables.” But it was to the residence itself that Queynt repaired, carrying with him, so he said, the worried look of a man seeking a necessary with a view to immediate utilization. He carried the expression only so far as the deeply carpeted corridor leading to an ornate audience chamber he had located from outside. Here, sheltered from the glow of midday but visible to the mob on the terraces, the guests of honor and their more highly placed attendants eddied to and fro in a swirling slosh of sidling waiters. Here, hidden from observation behind heavy portieres of gold-crusted velour, Queynt came to rest, poised on one foot to flee if necessary, ears pricked and one eye applied to a judiciously located crack between the hangings.

  The Dream Merchant, seen only at a distance that morning, was less than a manheight away, his long face still as a carving, the looming upper lip immobile as stone, undisturbed by the words that sprayed from its foot.

  “Well, Betand! Tho you have come to Fangel at latht.”

  “Well, Merchant! So I was invited at last. Little wonder I came.”

  “Invited for what, I wonder. Has the Backleth Throne determined upon thome action? Ah?” The Merchant regarded his guest with suspicion. “Thtorm Grower and Dream Miner, my lovely parenth? Have they told you why you are thummoned?” The Duke belched lovingly, threw bones over his shoulder which struck the hangings before Queynt’s nose, almost startling him into betraying movement.

  “Have they told me? Come now, Merchant. Do they write me letters? I got this!” And he waved a bezel-mounted crystal in the Merchant’s face. “This. As did those three crones with me. Give it a lick and you’ll know everything I do. We’re off to That Place, higgypiggy, as may be, and Devils take him who lingers. I am much bewitched in this endeavor, may I tell you, Merchant, with three such ugly dams as you have yet to dream ill of. I will tell you that Valearn is enough to give a child nightmares for all his life, whether she threaten to eat him or no, and the lovely Dedrina does the same for me.”

  “And yet, even in thuch company, you go?”

  “Do you hear me preaching rebellion? There is profit in following the Backless Throne. They suggest this alliance, and so we ally. I do well by the Throne and they by me. I have always felt well paid.”

  “And you are taking all thith entourage with uth?”

  “Unlikely, Merchant. That lizard of Dedrina’s is only something Huldra called up and will as easily let go. The others ... well, when I go hence tomorrow night, I will leave most of the traps and booty here in your charge until I return.”

  “Not in my charge, Betand. I am to go with you. I am thummoned ath well.”

  “We will be six, then. Valearn will go, and that Witch, and the serpent queen, Dedrina Dreadeye, with her lackadaisical brother, Bloster. He wants only a minor catastrophe to kill himself over, so depressed he is. Well. We will go and find out what’s wanted and then return.”

  “I take it you have not been there before,” said the Merchant, sulky and offended at the Duke’s offhand tone. “If you knew what you will find there, you would thound leth casthual. I have not been there for a very long time, but I do not ekthactly look forward to the vithit.”

  “So much the better for us, to have your company. Though I am told some visitors don’t come out as well, I suppose we need not fear that. So long as they need us to distribute the crystals they send.”

  “They require enough of that,” he replied sulkily. “More and more crythtalth, more and more every theathon.”

  The Duke turned at this, piggy eyes burning into the Merchant’s face. “And what do the new ones require, Dream Merchant? More of the same? A little perversion there? A little treachery here? Self-interest in odd quarters? Subversion and deceit? Or is there something new?”

  “They will tell uth when they are ready for thomething new. They thay they are not ready for the latht thingth, not yet. And I mutht thit here until they are.” They were interrupted by the close approach of another guest, that woman who had been so curious upon the streets of Fangel. She simpered toward the two men, curtsying and nodding like some doll on springs, face creased like a nut in a hundred sycophantic puckers.

  “Sweetning Horb, Your Grace. I’ve been busy among the visitors to Bloome, as I was bid. I thought you might want word of them—though there’s little enough to tell.” The three drifted away from the portieres, leaving Queynt straining his ears. He could hear only fragments. “Say they’re Zinterites ... got their names in case you want them ...”

  Queynt watched as they turned away, then drifted
out onto the lawn once more, thoughtful, breaking his concentration from time to time only to utter the obligatory “Hail to Valearn.” Meantime, we three had departed through the northern gate, where the guardsman referred to a list, checking us off as we went. They were careful to be sure all visitors who came in also went out. It made me nervous, this great care. What had there been in Fangel we had not seen? “Pleasant journey,” the guard wished us. “Hail to Huldra.”

  “Hail to Huldra,” snarled Peter, no happier than were the krylobos.

  Poor thing. Wasn’t he caught in a dilemma? It was Sylbie, and he had no doubt of it. It was his baby, and he’d no doubt of that, either. Perhaps he had even known that she was pregnant when he’d left Betand.

  Evidently he had taken some steps to provide for her, yet here she was, unprovided for. And here was Jinian. Not saying anything. He watched me from the corner of his eye. I didn’t help him, though it would have been kind to do so. He knew I had not missed any of it and knew well what he was thinking.

  “Oh, shit,” said Peter, muttering. “Pombi piss. Hell and damn and may the Hundred Devils dine on my gizzard.” He did not need to have invoked them. Seemingly he was feeling as though they already were.

  The road continued upward for a short distance before entering the jungle which had climbed to meet it. Out of sight of the walls of Fangel it began its twisting descent toward Luxuri. Here we left the wagon, unhitching the birds.

  “I think reconnaissance,” I said to Peter, keeping things quiet and emotionless. “They took the captives off to the left after they were inside the gates. Also, we will need something to cut chains if we’re to free the birds.”

  “That’s my metal saws,” said Chance. “All neat and nice in the tool box, sharp as a file can make ‘em. You goin’ to have a look around?”