The Immutable frowned. It was his Talent to form a barrier against the use of any other Talent. Barish and Queynt were said to have bred his people long ago in the early years of the millennium as a kind of defense against the unlimited Talents of the Gamesmen. Now he objected, “If Demons and Healers are to be used to raise the frozen Gamesmen, we Immutables must withdraw. Else their Talents will not work.”
“Withdraw, Riddle, but only so far as you must, and let a good rank of you camp between the cavern and Lake Yost, where the Bright Demesne is. Let Huldra’s Seers struggle to get a vision through your people. Let them try to get an Elator through. They won’t be able to penetrate the barrier you’ll make. They’ll continue to try, however, so be on your guard. Sooner or later they’ll send a force to try and destroy the place.”
“Why does this Witch want the resurrection stopped?” Mertyn was puzzled by this, as he should have been.
I had thought about this for many hours during the flight from the Maze. “She cares nothing for the resurrection, thalan. But the one who gives her orders, that one cares that the resurrection should not take place. Huldra thinks she is doing this for the giants in the northlands, giants who are dead, though Huldra probably doesn’t know it. Dead or not, I do not think it was ever the giants who decided upon this. They were huge and powerful, but they were not subtle. They were cruel but not amused at their cruelty. No, they were guided by another mind, a mind more subtle and more depraved, though they never knew it.”
I told them about the Oracle.
There were expressions of consternation, vows of retaliation, loud expostulations from Quench, mutterings from Riddle. When all their exclamations and posturing were done, however, the truth was still there before us. Lom was dying, and avenging ourselves against the Oracle had to take second place to that. When that understanding finally came, also came silence.
“You must get the frozen Gamesmen moving,” I said gently. “The Demons and Healers to raise the others. To raise Tragamors to move the stones of the Ancient Roads and set them in place again. To raise Sorcerers to hold power for them. Sentinels to keep watch against the shadows. Armigers and Elators to carry word across the breadth of Lom. Even the Necromancers, Seers, and the Gamesmen of mixed Talents. All who can must go south, to the site of the Old South Road City,” and I told them where it could be located, using Stoneflight Demesne as a guide. “The city must be raised up again. The Tower must be rebuilt. It must be done as soon as possible, and even that may be too late.
“All beneath the mountain were chosen because they were good,” I said. “By which is meant, I suppose, that they were unselfish persons of perception. And the lords of fate know we need those qualities now.”
“I have not heard that oath,” said Mertyn. “What lords are those?”
I laughed, perhaps a little shrilly, for I was very tired. “The lords of fate? Those we pray are larger than Lom. If nothing is larger than Lom, then whom shall we swear by if Lom dies?” They smiled at this, as I had intended, though not much.
“That is all we have to do, then?” asked Riddle.
Mertyn answered, shaking his head. “Yes, that’s all. To undo every wrong man has done. Rebuild every road. Replant every forest. Clean every river. Send the message that is in these crystals to every being who walks, swims, flies upon the world. . . .”
“Stretch the crystals as far as they will go,” I advised them. “Have Healers try laving their hands upon other creatures. The Eesties convey messages in this way, and Healers may be able to do it also.’
I sighed. The sleep that my pombi self had had the night before seemed very long ago. And I was worried about Jinian. I seemed to see her face before me, that troubled, slightly concentrated expression she so often wore. “Danger,” her vision face said. “Danger, Peter.” I took a handful of the blue crystals from the basket and secreted them in a pocket. Something told me I would need them.
“Well, then, we’ll be at it,” said Riddle. “And what about you, boy?” “Why,” I said, “I have no choice, really. Someone must carry this word to the Bright Demesne.”
5
JINIAN’S STORY: THE FIRST LESSON
Time in the gray spaces between memories was not an easy thing to judge. I might have been there for a season, or perhaps for a few breaths. However long it may have been, there seemed to be a good amount of thinking time. About the time I had decided to count my pulse as a way of measuring—realizing with a panicky sense of loss that the Eesty shape had no pulse I could detect—Ganver came back, sliding through the gray walls of the place like a fish into a shallow.
“Is Peter out?” I asked.
“Out of the Maze, yes. It is evening in the world. He will fly in the morning, south to the lands of your people.”
I must have shown some emotion at that, though how it could be perceived in that Eesty shape I don’t know.
“He is in your bao?” Ganver asked. “Your wholeness, your ubiety?” Wholeness and whereness. I had not thought of it in those terms, but it was true.
“Yes,” I said. “Peter is my . . .”
“Bao-lus,” said Ganver, giving me the right Eesty word for it. “I, too, have experienced this. Once. Among our kind, it takes five to become bao-lus. And only from the perfection of bao-lus does a new form come. You have no child as yet? No. There is an oath among the sevens. I had forgotten. Well, we five had a child. Among our people we say `a following of perfection.’ “
It was silent, then, for a very long time. I did not want to interrupt its thoughts. Finally, Ganver shivered and turned to and fro, as though shaking its head. “I will take you now where you may be safely hidden while I lead the Oracle away .”
I shook my top end. “Before we do that, Ganver, there’s something else we can do.”
“Do?” it asked, as though “doing” anything were foreign to its ability. Well, in a sense, I suppose that was true of Eesties. They had never really “done” much except buzz about carrying messages. At least those of Ganver’s generation hadn’t.
“There are a great many things which might be done,” I said, not wanting to give it any time to think the matter over. “The first one that comes to mind concerns how memory works. From what you’ve said, I don’t suppose Lom is remembering everything all the time, simultaneously. At least my mind doesn’t work that way.”
“No,” said Ganver stiffly, not unbending but condescending to explain. “As we messengers move through memory, Lom remembers. Part of the duty of the Eesties is to move through memory, wandering, dancing through every part, recalling all past time to Lom’s consciousness.
“Well, since you’ve been holed up in your grave there, Ganver, who’s been doing the remembering? Don’t tell me. I already know. The Oracle and his friends, right?”
It nodded. If an inclination of the top three points can be considered a nod, that’s what it did, and it did it in that superior manner that made me very angry.
I stamped one point of me. “You know,” I said in a conversational tone, “mankind is no great shakes in the holiness department. I think the Shadowpeople have it all over us, quite frankly. But I’ll stack us against your people any day, great Ganver. Half of you are fanatics and the other half are quitters.”
This was not really a very diplomatic thing to say, nor was it at all kind. I repented of it immediately but was angry enough to go on in dogged fashion, “If the Oracle is in the Maze with its brethren, Ganver, we can take it for granted it is circulating repeatedly among the worst possible memories. It is undoubtedly recalling everything it can of destruction. Of pain. Of the fall of the Bell. All that. And while that is going on, how many of you elder Eesties are sequestered away, not doing anything?”
“Too many,” the Eesty said. It was said so humbly I was ashamed of myself for the outburst. “It seems even one is too many.”
“Well, the point is, of course, that if there are enough of your generation—enough who aren’t ‘Brotherhood’—I’d suggest a th
ing you might do immediately is to start circulating among the pleasanter events of history. Recall to Lom’s memory some pleasanter times. Cheer it up a bit.”
Ganver did not reply. Even I had to admit to myself that when talking about an entire world, “cheering up a bit” did sound undignified. “And another thing,” I went on stubbornly, “is to figure out whether any particular memory can be destroyed.”
“Destroyed!” The Eesty was aghast. You’d think I’d suggested murdering its entire race.
“Yes, damn it, Ganver. The memory in which the Bell is destroyed. If we could just get rid of that one! If Lom didn’t remember it was gone—don’t you see, if it didn’t know the Bell was gone, it might act as though it weren’t.”
“But the Bell is gone!”
“Where did it come from in the first place? Lom made it, didn’t it? Constructed it, Eesties didn’t make it, did they? I thought not. I think it’s like newts, I really do.”
“Newts?” Ganver evidently didn’t know the word. Well, why should the Eesty know about newts? Nevvts aren’t exactly prepossessing, and they certainly aren’t native to this world because they have tails.
“Newts. If you cut off a newt’s foot, it grows another one. I think it’s because a newt is so stupid it doesn’t know the foot is gone, so another one just pops out. Somewhere inside the newt is the idea of footness, and footness takes over when it is needed. You cut off my foot, on the other hand, and I know very well it’s gone, so another one just doesn’t grow. Well, if Lom didn’t know the Bell was gone . . .”
“You think another one might pop out?” Ganver sounded exactly like Murzy, that same tone of slightly outraged elder dignity.
“I think it’s worth the chance, whether it does or not. Even if another Bell didn’t pop out, it would make Lom feel better not to remember the actual act of destruction.”
The thing I was remembering really had nothing to do with newts. It had to do with that time in Chimmerdong when I had grodgeled with the D’Bor Wife, pretending to find the Daylight Bell, only to see the Bell itself, golden and glorious, sinking beneath the waves of the lake. That was the idea of the Daylight Bell, I knew it. The idea, the model, whatever. If I had seen a Daylight Bell in that distant lake, there might be more or could be more than one. If I had seen another, it must mean that Lom could make another, several, many, If it felt like it. If it felt better!
“And if Lom felt better, maybe it would stop making those yellow crystals that are killing everyone,” I finished, knowing I had not been particularly persuasive. Ah, well, it was mostly hunch, intuition, not reason. Still, to do that would be better than doing nothing.
“How?” asked Ganver, much to the point.
“I’m not sure whether it would work or not, but I’d start by getting some flood-chucks in, and we’d cut all the hedge away from the outside until we got to the place the memory is, then we’d tunnel underneath and collapse it and dig it all out and carry it away. I mean, Ganver, I don’t know how Lom’s mind works, but I do know that part of it is material. Real. Lom-flesh, so to speak. So if we take the real flesh part away, then the memory will have to go with it, won’t it?”
Ganver did not indicate comprehension. I decided to try again. “Look, sometimes a Gamesman will get whacked on the head. After which, at least once in a while, that Gamesman forgets things because part of its brain has been injured or destroyed. So if Lom’s memory is at all like other creatures’ memories, and if we’re very careful about it, why couldn’t we remove just this one memory?”
Ganver breathed a word that I could only translate as “Sacrilege,” though what it said was, “Corruption of the holy reality greatly to the discomfiture of those whose job it is to maintain the status quo.”
Really, this old Eesty did make me peevish. “Well, the real sacrilege was when young Oracle and his friends brought the Bell down, Ganver. After that, anything else that is done can’t be called anything but helpful. If we could find Mind Healer Talley, she might have a better idea, but short of that, I don’t know what else to do.”
“We could go to that place, to that time,” it said with a certain chill reserve. “The Oracle would not expect to find us there soon again.”
“Yes, let’s go there. Let’s go outside the Maze, onto the road. I’d like to have my own shape back and eat humanish food.”
It took me to the road below the Dervishes’ Pervasion, standing silent at the edge of the trees while I in my Jinian shape built a fire and made myself tea. I was fully clothed, as though I had never changed, with my pack still on my back. While I drank, it stood. While I toasted bread, it stood. Finally, it said, “This thought of yours. This destroying of memory. It could do great damage.”
“It could. Yes. But quite frankly, I can’t think of anything which would make things much worse. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s shadow all over the hillside behind us.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” it replied, “but the forest on the mountain to the east is dead. It would have been alive when you entered the Maze.”
Ganver was right, and so was I. I wondered how much time we had actually spent in the Maze. I remembered there had been widow’s bush in bloom back at the little lake when I called up its dweller. If I wanted to hike back there, I could see how far it had come toward setting seed, which would give a measure of the time. If it hadn’t merely died. Hardly worth it. It didn’t matter how much time; the fact was sufficient unto itself. There had been enough time for a forest to die. Enough time for shadow to come flowing along in a gray carpet.
“I can’t think of any good reason not to,” Ganver said at last, sounding almost personlike.
I got out my things. A summons. An easy, any-first-year-Wize-ard-can-do-it summons. I couldn’t. It took me three tries before I could even remember the words. “Gamelords,” I whispered. “Something terrible is happening.”
“Of course,” Ganver said gently. “As Lom dies, so all our senses and skills die. Both yours and ours. Remember.”
Well, of course then I remembered. Remembered, gritted my teeth, and did the summons. Did it right, too, even though it was like wading through deep mud. Every word was an effort. This close to the bad memories, this close to the shadow, the life-force had to be at an absolute minimum.
In a few minutes, however, I heard a chirruping call from the top of the hill and saw three worried-looking chucks threading their way down the path, staying well clear of the shadow. We bowed halfheartedly. I began talking. They were the ones who had been given the blue crystal before, so they understood at once what I was talking about. Still, they conferred for a long time before agreeing. One of them went back up the trail, even more carefully, for the shadows were thicker than ever, and returned after a long while with six or seven more of them. Meantime, I’d gone back into the Maze and found the edge of the memory place.
The chucks and I decided to clear all the growth between the road and the path so we could get at the edge of the memory place. I explained carefully that they must not get onto the path itself, and if that accidentally happened, they were to stay very still in one place and I would come in after them.
They set to work. I would have liked to help, but I had brought no tools at all, and my teeth were not up to the job. By nightfall, they had all the brush cleared along the edge of the path, cleared and carried away. I asked if they could bring gobblemoles on the morrow, and they said yes, After which they went carefully away while Ganver took me somewhere else for the night. I don’t know where, and it didn’t matter. I was asleep by the time we got there.
The next day we dug out the memory. That is, I think we dug it out. The gobblemoles went under the path from the cleared space, tunneled it all out underneath, then let it collapse. After which Ganver and I went in at the other end of the path, watched the ship arrive, watched the moon fall, and then ducked into the crevasse, which should have brought us out into the Temple of the Bell just in time for the destruction. Instead,
we came out in the bottom of the gobblemoles’ pit. No destruction of the Bell.
Which might have meant it was gone. Which might have meant it had moved. Which might have meant nothing except that we had no access to it anymore. I thanked the creatures, explaining as much as I could, and they departed.
Coincident with their departure, we heard a threatening sound, rumbling, like a mutter of thunder. “The Oracle knows we’re here,” breathed Ganver, scooping me up. I heard the sound again. A fluttering roar. Above Ganver’s shoulder I could see the slope behind it. The shadows rose from it like a flock of monstrous birds. It was their fluttering we heard. “They are controlling the shadow,” Ganver said, horrified. “No one has controlled the shadow before. . . .”
They were around us before Ganver could move. It did something, a kind of shifting of space. The gray, formless place was all around us, but some of the shadows had come through as well. Ganver dropped me, spun, roared, picked me up, and did the thing—whatever it was—again. We were somewhere else, only a few shadows now, fluttering madly. One of them brushed by me, so closely I felt it and shuddered, remembering being shadow bit from that time in Chimmerdong.
“Pfowgrowl,” snarled Ganver. “Would that I had a dozen of the Gardener’s shadow-eaters and I would teach these shades to leave Eesties alone.” We fled once more, Ganver muttering as we went. “I’m going to leave you, Jinian, Dervish Daughter. Stay until I come for you. If you would know the meaning of the star-eye, watch and learn.”
The Eesty dropped me again; I felt it go, the shadows in close pursuit. Anger burned behind them like a lightning track through the gray. I was alone in a place, making a great crackle of broken shrubbery as I picked myself up.
A quiet glade. No sign of anything dying, not here. Dark stone buildings half-sheltered by the trees. Zellers grazing on the sward. Evening? Dawn? Lamplight in the windows of the place. A door opened and someone, evidently attracted by the noise I was making, called into the half-light, “Hello? Hello? Can we help you?”
The End of the Game Page 50
