The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Yes. Now go.” I didn’t watch him, not out of any sense of dismay at the changes, but simply because I was crying and didn’t want him to see. I heard odd sounds, a strangled cursing, and then the irregular beat of wings. When I turned at last it was to see a blackwinged form staggering across the sky. Evidently Peter had not recently practiced wings. The thing looked more like a dragon than a bird, and it was not built for speed. Even as I watched, however, the black silhouette elongated, became more slender, more streamlined. It plunged out of sight against the southern clouds.

  So much for that. I dried my face, noticing in passing that all my hermitish notions seemed to have left me. So much for the lonely life, then. If there were any future, I would spend it with Peter.

  If there were any.

  I plodded a league away, seeking the cave, calling softly when I should have been near it, and only after wreathing the area with Inward Is Quiet, a pacifying spell when done in the passive mode, to be sure no one lurked there with evil intent. No response. I walked another league, repeating the call. Nothing.

  Now seriously worried, I returned the way I had come, this time casting back and forth either side of the trail. Halfway to the place I’d met Peter, I found it, a cave well dug in sandy soil, half-hidden behind a fallen tree. And tracks around it. Boots. More than one pair. Two parallel lines, where someone’s feet had been dragged. The soil still moist. It had not happened long before. A baby nappy drying on a branch. It, too, still damp. Half-hidden under a stone, the baby trousers Roges had sewn, their bright checks showing up against the dun earth.

  I didn’t need window magic to peer into the past and learn what had happened. Huldra had been watching, through a Seer, perhaps. Through a sending, perhaps.

  Or perhaps Valearn herself had hired some Rancelman to help her find the food she yearned for. It did not matter which. More than one person had come here to drag Sylbie and the baby away. Up the hill a way were the tracks of horses, not on the trail. That’s why I hadn’t seen them as I searched. They did not join the trail to Fangel for another league beyond.

  Weariness left me. I went at speed through the waning day, forgetting the ache in my legs. At sunset the trail left the forest, sloped downward along the meadow toward the walls of Fangel. When dark came, the city would lie in a cataleptic sleep; watchers would watch, but they would not be the people of Fangel. Huldra? Valearn? Perhaps the Duke of Betand?

  There was no spell I could cast that Huldra might not be able to counter. Worse, if I used any spell at all, anyone competent in the wize-arts could smell it out. My use of the arts would say “Jinian” as loudly as the Fangel curfew gong. The only advantage I had was that they all thought I was dead.

  I sat, arms wrapped around knees. Shortly it would be night. If Sylbie was to be saved, it could not be put off until the morrow. On the morrow there might be no Sylbie, no child. The walls of Fangel loomed, the gates still open but shortly to close. I dared not use a spell, not the least one in my art, for Huldra was there and watching, there and waiting. Huldra might have learned much from the return of her sending. Full of Storm Grower’s blood and d’bor wife’s water, it might have had much to tell her.

  So. Get in. Without a spell. Without being seen.

  There were wains moving in and out of the north gate when I arrived, hay wains, others that had been loaded with meat and vegetables for the markets and were now returning empty. My hair was thrust up under a cap, my face dirtied, my clothes stained. I walked beside a horse, talking to it, it obligingly hiding me from the wagoner who drove, my face further hidden behind a sheaf of fodder I had picked up along the way. The team hid me not only from the driver but from the guards as well, troubled enough by this great load of hay arriving so late.

  “Business?”

  “Oh, come down from it, Gorbel. You know my business. I’ve got a load of hay for the residence stables, and I’m late enough without all this.”

  “You’re almost too late. Word runs there’s a hunt tonight. Get in and get out.”

  “I’d ‘a been in and out except for a broken wheel. Don’t shut the gate ‘til I’m through. Won’t be long.” When the wain turned into a side street, out of sight of the gate, I slipped away into an alley. The late afternoon light made cold blocks of shadow in the streets. People were leaving the park, the alleys. Doors were shutting. A food cart still plied along one alley; I hid my face behind a meat pie, working my way toward the center of the town.

  From there one could see in all directions down radiating avenues, almost to the wall. I ensconced myself in a deep doorway, black with shadow. After a time I heard the distant creaking of wheels as the last wagon went out through the gate.

  The gate closed with a metallic, clamoring echo.

  Nearby, at the residence, the great gong rang its tremorous demand upon hearing, shattering into silence.

  The streets were empty. On the western horizon the sun sank in a swollen ball, leaving a stripe of red like a bloody sword upon the horizon. Dusk came, then the rushing dark, then the first light of the full moon setting alternating blocks of gray luminescence and ebon shadow, long diagonal lines of black slanting down the sides of walls and into the street to make hard-edged crevasses of dark. I walked from light to dark to light again, no less conscious of being watched in the darkness than I was in the light. And yet, it was almost an impersonal watching. A machine kind of watching.

  High on the walls the twined letters of the Dream Merchant’s monogram glittered and twinkled, little gems gleaming with a light of their own. It was a machine watching! Up there on the walls were eyes.

  But who observed what the watchers saw? Was there some deep den in this place where human observers crouched, seeing through these glittering eyes? I thought not, sensed not. The city of Fangel watched for itself, but what it watched for or why it cared, I did not know. There was undoubtedly some action that would bring out the denizens of this place.

  Briefly I wondered what would happen if one rang the great gong now, in the middle of the night. The idea sent horrid premonitory shivers down my spine, a kind of visionary grue, as though a door had opened into some unpleasant future.

  I shut down the thought, crept around a corner, paused within sight of the residence, its serpentine gates now opened wide.

  Somewhere in the city a pombi roared and was answered by another, a howling, grumbling tumult that waxed for a time, then waned into silence. There were beasts loose in the city. And hunters. What had the guard at the gate said about a hunt tonight? For whom? By whom?

  Somewhere a baby cried, shockingly close, and a woman’s voice hushed it. Echoes from this, from one side, from the other. No direction. I sought the location frantically, running back the way I had come.

  Nothing. Nothing but the sound of my own steps magnified. Nothing but the sound of laughter. Laughter. Somewhere. Nasty, chuckling laughter, a sound that reveled in its hunt, in its prey.

  Valearn?

  Footsteps, not my own. I shrank against the wall, into a hollow there where a heavy door barred entry to the courtyard beyond. Out in the street a skulking figure walked from shadow to shadow, its long staff tickling the stones with a small clicking, barely audible.

  Again a pombi roared, closer this time, perhaps only a street away. The skulker turned, mouth stretched wide in a gape of surprise, Ogress fangs exposed to the moon. Yes. Valearn!

  She moved too fast for me to follow her. One moment she was there, the next moment gone.

  Again the baby cried, was silent.

  So. The Ogress was hunting the baby. Sylbie was fleeing from the Ogress. The pombis would eat either the Ogress or Sylbie, though it seemed the Ogress might not have known of their presence. And Jinian . . . What are you doing? I asked myself. You’re not being useful here!

  Light and shadow. A sound of something panting, a massive body running, scratch of claws upon the stone, heavy lungs heaving as the thing went past. I expelled my breath, tried to melt into the stones, thanking w
hatever gods there were that I smelled only of greens and hay. That had been something larger than a pombi. I remembered the caged gnarlibar in the procession and cursed silently. What kind of zoo was loose in the streets? How many hunters were there?

  Now a horn. A horn and the sound of hooves, far away. An echoing clatter in the hard streets. It was to be a drive. The game was to be driven into the hunter’s claws. Or the hunters upon the game? Or both against the wall for the amusement of whoever was coming?

  Enough of this. Risk or no risk, I had to find Sylbie and the baby. Huldra or no Huldra, I had to use the art. I fled along the streets, seeking. Somewhere should be something besides blank, closed walls. A window that could be used for window magic, to make a summons. Even a room, an enclosure, a corner of a courtyard.

  Everything closed tight, obdurate walls towering over my head, stone streets, black and gray, the moon swimming in silence, far off the horn and nearer than that the howling of things abroad in the night. A chuckle again, echoes, how near? Valearn.

  The distant hunt was circling the walls. The sound had come at first from the south, but now it extended east and west from there, a circle growing. As soon as I realized this, I knew what they were doing. They would circle the walls, then drive in along each street, ending at the residence, with all driven before them to a bloody conclusion there. Valearn could merely have waited to have Sylbie driven into her hands.

  Again the chuckle. Waiting was not Valearn’s way.

  I ran quick footed down that street, around the corner. I thought the baby noises had come from this direction. Nothing. Gamelords. I was planning what of the art to use. Assuming that Valearn had none.

  Assuming that Huldra was elsewhere, with the hunt, perhaps, not hanging around the next corner waiting to sniff me out.

  Abruptly, I saw it. There in the wall next to me was a grill, a rare, narrow window in the wall that separated courtyard from street. I grabbed the bars with both hands and went up it like a thrisbat, up and over the wall and down the other side. Unseen, one hoped. Unseen. I was in a barren little court, barred door at my back, barred gate to one side, grill before my face, blank wall to the other side.

  I could not lay a hiding spell on Sylbie if I didn’t know where she was. Or, truth to say, I could, but it would have taken too long. Each uncertainty one added into a spell made it take that much longer. All I could use was her name and the baby’s name, very important, true, but without knowing where she was, a hiding spell wouldn’t do. Besides, Egg in the Hollow wouldn’t cover the baby’s crying. There was another one I should have learned, one Cat was going to teach me. Damn. Too late. No point thinking about it now. It had to be something else. With the grill before me, I could do window magic. Summoning.

  Them to me. Or something else to Fangel, to confuse the issue.

  Which made me think of what Queynt had said about not being pregnant when one did summons.

  Which made me remember what he had said about summons resulting in mermaids and dryads. Which made me remember the deep dwellers.

  Mischievous. Pesky. And childlike.

  Valearn sought children.

  So. There were only two things I needed that I did not have in my pack, and I found both in that barren little courtyard. Luck? Perhaps. I set them out on the sill, where the iron bars were anchored in the stone, starting the summons silently. Music and Meadow.

  The bars were perfect for this window magic because it established that those summoned were barred from me. If the window had been an open one, I would have hesitated to try it.

  I called them up, those near, those far, those within sound of my voice, those within the intent of my action. Deep dwellers. By Bintomar. By Favian. By Shielsas. By Eutras. By the scent of this herb, by the sound of this bell, by the color of this stone. By the flame I flicked from a fingertip, by the winding of a hair. Dwellers of the deep, all you childlike creatures of the depths, come up, come up and into Fangel, where Valearn who loves children awaits you.

  The first sign I had that something had heard me was the rattle of a cobble in the street. I peered between the bars, quickly brushing the necessaries of the spell into my pack. I didn’t want the dwellers even looking for me. I had used Valearn’s name, and that was where they should be going.

  The cobble rattled again, heaved up, banged upon another to reveal a cavity below out of which a pair of luminous eyes stared at the walls of Fangel. What came out of the hole did look childlike. Short. Slender. Large headed. Arms and legs nicely proportioned. There were not children anywhere with such teeth as those the dweller had, however. When the thing smiled, the grin split its head in two and both halves of the grin were fang-fringed and eager.

  Now, quickly, protection from these specific creatures for the baby and Sylbie. That was a simple distraint, done in a moment. It wouldn’t keep the dwellers away from the girl, but it would keep them from harming her. And they would find her. I was certain of that.

  Up and over the wall once more. Follow the trail of forms pouring out of the earth where they went sniffing, seeking, like hounds upon the trail. They called to one another, chuckling, a pleasant chuckle, not like Valearn’s. I remembered hearing them, long ago, when Murzy first did bridge magic over Stonybrook. Almost, one would like to pat them on the head. One did not, wary of those teeth.

  A calling from this one to that one, running feet, taloned toes scraping upon the stones. I looked back.

  They were still coming up out of the hole. I frowned, reviewing what I’d done. It had been a rather unlimited summons.

  Chatter of voices; baby cry again, fretful. I went toward it, through the crowded dweller forms to find Sylbie crouched against a wall, baby tight held against her, just getting ready to scream. They weren’t menacing her, just looking at her, but she was ready to scream anyhow.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Get up from there and follow me.” I turned on the dwellers. “Valearn,” I hissed. “By the stone, by the hair, by the bell, by the flame, by the scent of the herb, find Valearn.” They chittered at me, mockingly, knowing well enough what they were here to do and that it suited them marvelously, but still taking time to make a bit of deviltry over it.

  Pesky, as Queynt had said.

  “What are they?” shrilled Sylbie, barely able to stand.

  “Never mind what they are. You and I have to get out of this city. Away.”

  “They’re hunting me. With horses, the Duke said. And with strange creatures he wakened up, like people only not. Like lizards. Like frogs. And when they catch me, they’ll kill me.”

  “Very probably. Which they will do if you insist on standing here talking. There’s worse than the Duke abroad. The Ogress is looking for Bryan, there. She wants to eat him.” This was perhaps the only thing I could have said to get her moving. Threats to herself paralyzed her. Threats to Bryan mobilized her. Ah, motherhood.

  Nature is quite wonderful.

  We went back the way I had come, back to the grilled courtyard. I found it by following the line of dwellers, who were still coming out of the hole in the cobbles, single file, seemingly in endless numbers.

  One or two of them said “boo” at me as we went past, but I spat a spark at them and they let us be. I went over the wall, unbarred the gate, and let Sylbie in, barring the gate behind her. With any luck at all, the hunt would go by us. Sylbie sank to the floor, sagging there like a bundle of laundry. The baby seemed to have gone to sleep, and I fervently hoped he stayed that way.

  I hung in the grill, watching the dwellers pop out of the hole, one after another like so many corks. Far off something screamed. Pombi, I think. There was an avalanche of laughter, dweller laughter, so they’d found some mischief to get up to.

  Horns again. Hooves at the end of the street I was watching. I pulled a scarf to hide my face, leaving one eye to peer with.

  There at the end of the street came a mounted man, the Duke of Betand, perhaps, or even the Merchant himself. And to either side walked big men in remnants of
Gamesmen garb, Tragamors without their helms, with only arms telling what they were.

  Elators. Armigers. Blind-eyed, marching as in sleep.

  And scaly creatures out of nightmare, armed with whips. The whips were being dragged, slithering on the stones. It sounded like a convention of serpents. I dropped to the floor, crawled over beside Sylbie, and put my arms around her. Whatever else happened, I didn’t want her to yell.

  I needn’t have worried. No one could have heard her if she had screamed her head off. The dwellers had discovered the hunter. The scaly creatures had discovered the dwellers. What had begun in black, mysterious silence under the swimming moon went on in a tumult of sound such as I had never heard and do not wish to hear again.

  Laughter, screams, curses, whip cracks, snarls, shouts, horses neighing and screaming, hooves clattering on stone, growling, more mocking laughter, shrieks, howls, and all the time more dwellers popping out of the hole in the ground. Queynt had said they were not common. I think Queynt must have been mistaken.

  None of which was helping us escape from Fangel.

  I had hoped the dwellers would keep Valearn busy and the hunt would pass by. Neither had happened.

  They all met in a general confusion, much of it outside the grill, and there was no possibility of getting through that mess. Moreover, the noise had wakened the baby.

  So, I said to myself, on the verge of hysteria, why don’t we make it a really good mess? I fixed Sylbie with a hard, hypnotic eye and said, “Can I depend upon you to stay right here until I return for you?” She nodded fearfully and I took it (the more fool I) for agreement. “Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be back shortly.” Up the wall once more, this time to perch upon the top, well above the melee below. The wall stretched for a long block toward the residence, and I ran along its top, unnoticed by any of the participants in the brouhaha. At the corner, two dwellers were strangling a lizard man, and I thanked them for the courtesy as I jumped off the wall and went past. The next street was fairly empty. A pombi was trying to play bakklewheep with two dwellers in the middle of the block, they evading him and he getting angrier about it by the minute. He was too busy to notice me.