The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  It was the filthy smokes that had killed the trees. Looking down from my height, I could see creatures fleeing from shadow to light, from dead to living. Tree rats in little bunches, darting like bats across clearings. Bunwits, large and small. A follow of wild fustigars and a prowl of pombis moved into my sight and away again as I circled, and even from the height I could hear the cries of birds driven from their nests by shadows.

  “Brother Chance,” I said to my absent friend, “this is a rotten bad place we’ve come to.”

  “Then best get out of it, boy,” he absently replied.

  Which I did, winging away to the south over the blotched forests and the rising humors of decay. I’d had some practice with wings in that last trip, and a Dragon at the Bright Demesne had given me a few pointers. In my whole life, I’d done wings only briefly once or twice before. I hadn’t really understood the proper proportion of wing to body, the way wings could lift almost by themselves, the length-to-width ratio necessary for endless soaring flight. On the way back from visiting Mertyn, I’d experimented as the Dragon had suggested. This shape was a good one, one that could well have carried me over the Western Sea. Since I was not permitted to be with Jinian anyhow, I might as well have gone over the Western Sea. This thought upset me; I lost the proper structure at the ends of my wings and dropped a good part of a league before I got it right again.

  I did have sense enough to stick to the places where warm updrafts gave me the lift I needed. Far ahead, jagged against the southern sky, lay the southern mountain rim of the Shadowmarches. From above those peaks I could look down on Cagihiggy Creek, upon what little was left of the Blot, on Schlaizy Noithn.

  Upon the ice caverns, where lay one hundred thousand frozen men and women.

  I tilted a wing to steer a little west. The cavern was the closest place where I might find someone, and whether anyone was there or not, it would make good sense to check the caverns before I went farther.

  Below me the land was in ferment. Shadow bulks rose upon it, bubbling upward, subsiding once more. I circled, looking behind me. The air held roiling wings of shadow. Not near me, particularly, simply there, both high and low. I could see places that looked as though the air trembled, quivered, where a kind of grayness was. Once having seen them, I made a circle every few leagues, being sure that none of the patches was near me.

  Noon came above the Shadowmarch mountains. Below, the land sloped down in a long basin, east to where Hell’s Maw had been, where Pfarb Durim still stood—unless it had vanished in the years I had been gone. I had not flown above it on my return to Jinian. West the basin bent to run both north and south; north into a cul-de-sac rumored to be the site of a Bamfug Demesne, southward to the Blot. The cavern lay north of the Blot, hidden in a curl of broken mountain, the way to it blocked by falls from the time the mountain had exploded, when the Magicians were destroyed. My doing, at least partly. And mother Mavin’s. I found myself glad that Quench and some of the other techs had escaped, but I was not generally sorry the place was gone. An evil place; based on an evil custom.

  Ahead and to my right a swimming dot plunged about the sky in erratic flight. I Shifted eyes to see it, making telescopic lenses, wondering what would make any flier dodge about so.

  It was the Flitchhawk! Jinian’s Flitchhawk, coming from the west, carrying something large, pursued by shadow!

  It dropped and darted, dived and soared, mighty wings pumping hard as it fought to gain altitude. Behind it the shadow came, effortlessly, fluttering, dropping as the Flitchhawk dropped, soaring as the Flitchhawk soared. I beat my way toward it, hurrying, wondering even as I did so what possible help I might be, answering myself immediately that I might carry part of the Flitchhawk’s burden, for it was very heavily laden.

  I came beneath it, calling to it as I came. “Flitchhawk! I will carry one of your baskets!” It had two, one in each mighty set of talons. I beat upward, slipping sideways to avoid a flicker of shadow at my side, then the other way as it closed on me. Gamelords, but this shadow was persistent, and fast.

  I came just beneath the mighty bird, heard its heaving breath, heard the thunder of its heart. There was something almost like panic in its eyes.

  I don’t know what made me do it. It wasn’t reasoned out at all. Just memory and instinct working together. I saw the shadow. I remembered how the Daylight Bell had driven it away, how at dusk the Daylight Bell’s sweet resonance had cleared the city. I changed the chords of my throat and cried out, cried with the voice of the Bell. .

  Once, twice, and the shadows fled.

  We dropped from the sky, Flitchhawk losing one of his baskets as he fell. It tumbled down and down, breaking upon the earth to shed a sapphire radiance far upon the dusty ground. When we landed, I stood near him, panting. I heard the thunder of my own heart. I had never flown so high.

  “Where did you hear the Bell?” cried the Flitchhawk in a voice of heartbreaking woe.

  “In the Maze,” I mumbled. “In the Great Maze, from a time very long ago.”

  “I had never thought to hear it again.”

  “You will hear it again,” I promised. “We will recast it in the Old South Road City. We will build the Tower once more.” I was not at all certain of this, but it seemed a comforting thing to say.

  “We will build little unless we can gather up again what I have spilled,” it cried. I remembered the crystals then and began wandering aimlessly about, looking for them. There must have been thousands of them in the basket.

  And as we were wandering all futile in the underbrush, trying to pick up the crystals, we heard voices coming through the trees. I faded into the shrubbery. Flitchhawk somehow vanished. I crouched.

  “I heard your voice, Peter, Mavin’s son,” cried the voice. “Come out of there.”

  Someone else was mumbling, a rhythmic kind of chant. It ended with four words spoken loudly, clearly. “Where Old Gods Are.” Abruptly the Flitchhawk stood forth, looking surprised, as though unable to help himself. The bushes shook at the edge of the clearing, and six women came through. Two old ones. Two middle-aged. One not much older than I, one younger. They did not need to introduce themselves. I knew at once who they were. The other members of Jinian’s seven.

  “Well,” said one of the middle-aged ones with some asperity in a clear, demanding voice. “What were you hiding from? Ghosts?”

  I bowed. This could only have been Cat Candleshy. “We have just escaped the shadow, ma’am. And dropped a valuable cargo in doing so.

  Now we are faced with gathering up thousands of the blue crystals, scattered over leagues of earth, no doubt.”

  “A well-spoken thing,” said the beautiful one, who was little older than I. Margaret Foxmitten. It had to be. “Is this flying thing really Jinian’s Peter?”

  “Should you call him a thing?” This was the shy one, Sarah Shadowsox.

  “Why not? It looks like a thing.” The other older one, Bets Battereye, with the no-nonsense braids across her head. Indeed I was a winged thing, so I did not take offense.

  The white-haired one had said nothing as yet. When she did, I knew it was Murzemire Hornloss. Murzy. “Where’s Jinian, Peter? Is she all right?”

  I nodded. “Ganver’s looking after her. She’s still in the Maze, trying to stay clear of the Oracle.”

  “What was that ringing sound we heard?” This was the youngest, scarcely more than a child, still with baby fat on her arms. Dodie.

  It was the Flitchhawk who answered. “That was Peter, pretending to be the Daylight Bell. For which I owe him a boon.”

  “Did you really do that, Peter? How clever.” This was Murzy. “I suppose you heard it in the Maze? Is it true, as Mind Healer Talley says, that the Maze is the memory of Lom?”

  “Is it true that there are guides?”

  “Is it true that space and time are changed inside?”

  “Is it true . . .”

  I waved them silent. “Murzy. Madam Hornloss. We have a precious load scattered wide. I
am no Wizard, but it seems we need help. . . .”

  “Surely not,” said Murzy. “Not with a lord of the birds at your side.” She bowed deeply. “I have long known your name, but only recently your identity, great Favian.”

  The Flitchhawk inclined its mighty head. “Perhaps Favian is still great lord of the birds, ma’am. If the sickness is not too close. If the shadow is not nigh.” It called into the sky and was answered in a moment by a twittering from every side. Small birds began to gather by dozens, then hundreds, hopping about, darting here and there, their bright eyes seeking, their beaks opening to pick up crystals as though they were grains of giant wheat. It was not long before the contents of the broken basket were heaped before us. Murzy shook out a tablecloth, and we piled the crystals upon it, knotting the corners, while I answered the questions they had asked about the Great Maze. They asked a great many, and it was some time before they were satisfied.

  “Where are you going, Mavin’s son?” Murzy asked. “Up to the ice caverns where the Gamesmen sleep?”

  I nodded, wondering how she had known about that. Mavin, Himaggery, and I had not broadcast knowledge about the caverns, though there were a number who knew of it. “I thought I would stop there, yes. Then I would have come hunting you. Jinian asked me to find you, to tell you she needs you.”

  “Ah, well, we thought perhaps that was the case,” said Cat Candleshy. “Some time ago Murzy suspected it might be true. And Bartelmy said something of the sort, also. Your confirmation of it now makes us glad we left Xammer when we did.” Until that moment I had forgotten that Murzemire Hornloss was a Seer.

  “We’ll go on north to her, boy. You get on your way. Don’t try that bell sound again unless you must. It will only work when it comes as a surprise. It could not have been the sound of the Daylight Bell alone which kept the shadow at bay, but then you probably know that.”

  They nodded at me then and went on toward the north, across the Shadowmarches, as though they were out for an afternoon stroll. “So that’s a seven,” I said. There had been no opportunity for me to meet them before Jinian and I had set out two years before, but I had heard much about them since, of course. “So that’s a seven.”

  “Only part of one,” murmured the Flitchhawk. “They are more impressive when they are complete.

  I don’t know that “impressive” was quite the word I would have used. “Indomitable,” perhaps. I did not worry about them further; they needed none of my concern. Instead, I faced south and asked, “Are you strong enough to go on? We can get to the cavern before dark. I will watch if you will carry. Or I’ll carry and you can watch.”

  The Flitchhawk said something about meeting the terms of the boon, which meant it had to carry. I watched, therefore, from above him, or under him, or off to one side or the other. Several times I saw roiling air away in the distance, but nothing approached us. Evidently the surprise of the Bell sound had been enough for a temporary surcease.

  We came to the cavern before dusk, slipping in along the fold of hills to find it, spotting it at last by the firelight gleam in the cavern’s mouth. I started to lose my shape and knew that one of the Immutables must be present, so I turned and landed some distance away, coming the remaining distance on my own two feet, naked as a fish.

  The governor of the Immutables, Riddle, was there with Mertvn and Quench and a smallish crowd of men and women who could have been techs or pawns or Immutables. When they saw the Flitchhawk slantingdown out of the evening sky, there was a great hoorah, and Mertyn came running to the rock shelf, where he landed just about the time I arrived, puffing. He hugged me, and I him, and someone fetched me some clothing. Then we stood merely looking at one another until an outcry aroused our attention.

  The Flitchhawk had set down its burdens, knocked several dozen of the workmen down with its wings, then taken off again. I saw it circling high above me, moving off to the south while the workmen exclaimed and shouted. It was going toward Chimmerdong, I supposed. Jinian had said it preferred to live in Chimmerdong. I waved, not knowing whether it saw the gesture or not. Then they were all around me, pulling me along toward the tents and barracks they had set up just inside the cavern, invisible from above.

  “We’ve been waiting for you, boy,” said Quench. “Waiting for those crystals, rather. Didn’t want to start until we had them. Important things, those.”

  “Very,” affirmed Riddle, punching me lightly on one arm. “Good to see you, Peter. We didn’t really expect you just yet, but we’re glad to have you here. A matter has come up. . . .”

  “It’s the resurrection machine,” said Mertyn. “It’s in good repair, and they can start using it anytime, but the best they can do is bring back twenty-five or thirty a day. At that rate, it will take twelve years to get all the frozen Gamesmen awake, and yet the crystals you gave us urge haste.”

  “It’s more than mere urging, Mertyn,” I said, trying not to sound too panicky about it. “We don’t have twelve years. It is questionable if we have even a season left.” And I told them about the deadly yellow crystals and the tragedy of the Maze while they exclaimed and sighed and shook their heads. “We’ll have to do something faster,” I concluded.

  “It seems to me that something was mentioned about using Demons? Demons and Healers, wasn’t that what you did on the Wastes of Bleer? I couldn’t quite remember.” This was Mertyn.

  Of course they could use Demons and Healers. Silkhands the Healer and Didir the Demon had wakened Thandbar. After which Didir and Dealpas—also a Healer—had wakened others. “Didir should have remembered,” I said half-angrily. “She did it, and it wasn’t that long ago.”

  “I’m sure she would have remembered, Peter, but she’s down at the High Demesne. It’s something any Demon and any Healer could do, do you think?” This was Riddle, sounding very uncomfortable about something.

  “I should think so.”

  “Then I think our strategy is obvious,” said Quench. “Sort out the bodies in there, use the machine to wake the Healers and Demons first —Gamelords, what a job it will be to sort out both bodies and blues and be sure they match—then get teams of them resurrecting the others.”

  “lI would have thought Didir would have been here to help you. She and Dealpas.” The last time I had seen her, she had been at the Bright Demesne, with Barish-Windlow.

  They looked at one another, shifting from foot to foot very uncomfortably. It was Mertyn who sighed at last and invited me into his tent. “Come in, my boy. I’m afraid we have bad news.”

  He hummed and hawed until I was half-crazy with it. I don’t know what it was about Mertyn that made him so irritating; perhaps because he was so cautious not to use Beguilement (which was the Talent of Rulers) on me that he went the other way. He could not even be normally sympathetic without worrying whether he was being manipulative.” After a time I grew weary of it and said, “Mertyn, quit being diplomatic and tell me. Something’s happened to Mavin?”

  “No. No, not Mavin.”

  “Himaggery then. He’s dead.”

  “Gamelords, boy! What would make you think that?”

  “You would! You’re dodging all over the place, not telling me what’s happened. What has happened?”

  “It’s the Bright Demesne. It seems to be under siege.”

  I sagged. Bad enough, but not as bad as I’d feared. “How did you find out? Who’s doing it? Is it a Game?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. We sent an Elator with a message for Himaggery, and he came back saying he couldn’t deliver it. Game has been declared, and the place is shut off. The two main players seem to be a Witch named Huldra and a Basilisk named Dedrina Dreadeye. Ah. I see you know them.”

  “I do, yes. Yes, Mertyn. Indeed I do.” As I did. Huldra was, I hoped, the last of her family. I had done away with all the others, one way or another. As for Dedrina Dreadeye, she was Jinian’s enemy, which made her mine also. “Who’s in the Bright Demesne?”

  “Himaggery. Barish. I think all the Games
men of Barish as well, though some of them could have left before the siege was laid. Oh, that girl, the one Jinian sent from a place called Fangel. The Elator did manage a few shouted messages before the besiegers came too close.”

  “Sylbie? And the baby?”

  Mertyn blushed. “According to the Elator who saw her on the walls with the child. Do I understand the baby is yours?”

  “It is, and honorably got, Mertyn, so don’t make faces. Jinian fully understands the situation. So who else is there? How about Mavin?”

  “Mavin had gone before the siege, I think. I still haven’t heard from Mavin. She left another of those enigmatic clues of hers, and there’s been no time to figure it out. Something about the best apples to bake upon the hearth are those from one’s own orchard. She’s really quite maddening at times.”

  “No reason given for the siege?”

  “We have no idea why the siege, but the Gamesmen have turned up in overwhelming numbers and with an unfair advantage as well. They’re using shadows. Which is why my Elator couldn’t get in and none of the people in the Demesne can get out.”

  I smiled. The three who were watching me looked at one another, wondering if I’d lost my mind. “My expression isn’t one of joy,” I said. “It’s just that you seem at a loss for an explanation, and I can give you one. Huldra and Dedrina were sent south to dose us all with poisonous purple crystals. You, Mertyn, and Quench and Riddle. Everyone at the Bright Demesne. However, that could be done easily enough through spies and Elators without need for a siege. So, it’s obvious the siege is for some other reason, probably to do precisely what it is doing, which is to keep Himaggery and Barish bottled up. To keep them from coming here.” I laughed. “Huldra was instructed to come here and destroy everything, but she doesn’t know about you, Riddle. With you here, no Seer can peer into the cavern. So, they don’t know the resurrection is already beginning. Make sure they don’t find out!”