They did not. Instead, they slowed to a dragging walk, and then into a breath-gulping halt, sagging into the dust of the road with heaving moans of exhaustion.
"No way Handbright could have come so far north lugging two younglings," panted Barfod. "So we've got to figure we're in front of her if she came north. Not that I think she did."
"Think she went west? On no more than that crone's say so?"
"Only place she ever talked of going. Beyond Schlaizy Noithn to the sea. Wanted to do a bird thingy over the ocean. Fool idea, but that's what the crone said."
"What'd she expect to do with the childer? Put them in a nest on a cliff and feed them fish?" Torben Naffleloose chuckled, hawking through the dust phlegm of his shifted throat. "Take a big bird to carry a girl the size of Mavin."
"Well now, you're forgetting Mavin had turned shifter herself. Wasn't that what all the ruckus was about?"
"Oh, well, still. A just turned shifter is useless, Barfod, useless as tits on a owl. All they do for the first half year or so is fiddle with fingers and toes. You know that."
"I remember that. Fingers, toes, and some other interesting parts, eh, Torben. Remember when you was a forty-season child? Out behind the p'natti? Hah. All the shifter boys seeing who could … " He paused, listening. Mavin had shifted her weight, rustling some branches. "What was that?"
"Owl, prob'ly. No shifters around. I could feel 'em if there were. No. Just night noises. Owls. Maybe a shadowman, sneaking around behind the bushes like they do. This is the kind of mild night they like, I hear. They come out and sing on nights like this. Did you ever hear'em?"
"Oh, sure, when I was in Schlaizy Noithn. Playing flutes, playing little bells, singing like birds. There's lots of them up around the Schlaizy Noithn hills. There was one or two shifters when I was there claimed they could talk the shadowman talk. All full of babble-pabble it is, goes on and on. They'll sing for a half night, words and words, and then you ask what it was all about and get told it was shadowman talk for 'Look at the pretty moon.' Ah, well. Now that we're as far north as Hand-bright could have come, what's the next thing, old Barfod?"
There was a moment's silence while the two sat quiet, thinking, then Bartiban replied, "Now I think we start off through the woods heading south again, you on one side of the road and me on the other, casting back and forth to see can we smell hide nor fang of whatever Handbright is up to. There's others gone away west, and I'm betting my coin that they find her there. She's an unpracticed female, Torben, and unpracticed females aren't up to much, as you well know. Which is why we keep 'em unpracticed, right?" And he chuckled in a liquid gurgle before rising once more to take another, more forest ready shape. The two went off into the underbrush, and Mavin stayed silent, hardly breathing, to let them get clear of her.
So. They were seeking Handbright, a shifter burdened with two children. They were not seeking Mavin. Then so much for the horse shape, not-Mavin shape of the journey. She laid Mertyn upon the shadowed grasses and went away a little to give up the bulk she had taken, most of it, keeping some, for she wanted not to appear a child. There were child hunters, child takers in the world, and it would be better not to appear a child. Better not to appear a woman, either, for that. So. Well, first she would need to explain to Mertyn, and after that they would decide. She lay down beside him and let the night move over her like a blanket, quiet and peaceful, with no harm in it except the little harms of night-hunting birds doing away with legions of small beasties between their burrows; the slaughter of beetle by night-stalking lizard; the trickle of melody running through the forest signifying of shadowmen, shadow-men unheard for Mavin was asleep.
In the morning she woke to the child stirring in her arms, woke to a crystal, glorious morning, so full of freedom that her heart sang with it and she thought of Handbright wonderingly. How could she have waited so long? How could she "have given up all this to stay prisoned within the p'natti, within the keep, prey to I those old granders and their salacious whims? It was a I puzzle to her. She, Mavin, would not, ever, could not, I ever. She tickled Mertyn awake and fed him from their small stock of foodstuffs, knowing she would have to hunt meat for them soon, or gather road fruits, or come to some place where such things could be worked for.
"Where are we going, Mavin? You never said."
"Because I didn't have time, Mertyn. You see, you and I are running away from Danderbat keep."
"Running away! Why are we doing that? I didn't know that! You mean we can't ever go back?" The child sounded crushed, or perhaps only surprised into a sense of loss.
"You said you wanted to go traveling more than anything, Mertyn child."
"I know. I just—just thought I'd come back to Danderbat keep and tell everyone where I'd been and what I'd been doing. Like the shifters do at Assembly. Like that."
"Unlikely for us, Mertyn. We are going to Battlefox the Bright Day, high on the Shadowmarches, for there is your thalan and mine. Plandybast Ogbone." She patted the boy while he thought on this, chewing away at the tough dried meat they had brought with them.
"He was at Assembly. He gave me a thingy." The boy rummaged in a pocket, coming up at last with a tiny carving of two frogs grinning at one another on a leaf. It was the kind of intricate handwork which the shifters loved, tiny and marvelous, done with fanatical care and endless time in the long, dark hours of the keep nights of the cold season. "He told me he had brought it for Handbright, but that I looked as though I needed it. What did he mean by that, Mavin?"
"He meant that he thought you were still young enough to be tickled by it, child, and to keep it in your pocket forever. He could see that Handbright was beyond such things, beyond hope, beyond saving, perhaps. Perhaps not."
He looked questions at her, started to ask, bit his lip and did not. Mavin, sighing, took up the story. He would need to know, after all, child or not. "You see, Mertyn child," she said, "this was the way of it with Handbright … " So she told him, everything, he flushing at the harsh telling of it but knowing well enough what it was she meant. Once in a while she said, "You know what that is? You understand?" to which he nodded shamefaced knowledge.
When she had done, he whispered, "You know, the boys … they say … the ones like Leggy and Janjiver … they say the girls like it. That's what they say. They say that the girls may say no, but they really like it."
Mavin thought a time. "Mertyn child, you like sweet cakes, don't you?"
He nodded, cocking his head at this change of subject.
"Let us suppose I put a basket of sweet cakes here, a big one, and I held your mouth open and I crumbled a cake into your mouth and pushed it down your throat with a piece of wood, the way the crones push corn down the goose's neck to fatten it, so that your throat bled and you choked and gasped, but I went on pushing the crumbled cakes down your throat until they were gone. You could not chew them, or taste them. When I was done and your throat was full of blood and you half dead from it all, I would take the stick away and laugh at you and tell you I would be back on the morrow to do it all again. Then, suppose you came crying to someone and that someone said, 'But Mertyn, you like sweet cakes, you really like sweet cakes … ' "
The boy thought of this, red-faced, eyes filling with quick tears. "Oh, Mavin. Mavin. Oh, poor Handbright. I hope she has gone far away, far away … "
Mavin nodded. "Yes. She was bruised and the blood had spotted her skin, Mertyn. She had had no joy of the granders, nor they of her except the ugly joy of power and violence and the despising of women that they do. So. We have run from Danderbat keep, but they do not I know that we are gone one way and Handbright another. So, we will stop going as boy and horse and go as boy and something else. For I am a shifter, Mertyn, and shift I will to keep us safe and fed and warm of nights."
"But Mavin, you are only a beginning shifter. Everyone says they are not up to much."
"Well. Perhaps they are right. So, I will not shift much. I will only be your big brother instead of your big sister, and that
only so that no one disturbs us as we walk along."
"What will we do with the poor horse?" he asked gravely.
She began to laugh, then stopped herself. No. Let him go on believing there had been a horse. "I turned it loose back in the woods. It will graze there happily all the rest of its life, so we will leave it. Come, now. Let's pack all this stuff and be on our way. We have spent long enough in one spot, and it is many such spots before we come to the Shadowmarches."
She pulled him to his feet and busied him about the camp, burying the scraps and packing all the rest. Then, when she had changed herself under his wondering eyes into something not unlike herself but indisputably male, they went out onto the road to take the way north.
The road was thick with dust of a soft, pinky color, powdered rose as it fluffed upward in small clouds around their feet, coating them to the knees with a blushing glow and velvety texture. At the sides of the road grew luxuriant stands of rainhat bush, the conical leaves as stiff as funnels, furry tan fruit nestling in each. The fruit was blue-fleshed and sweet beneath the furry, itchy skin, and they amused themselves as they went, spiking the fruit out without touching it and slitting the skin away to reveal the turquoise juiciness beneath. Small boys considered it great fun to hide rainhat fruit skins in one another's beds or clothing, laughing uproariously at the frenzied scratching which would ensue. Mavin warned Mertyn with a glance when she saw him furtively hiding a fingerlength of skin, and he flushed as he threw it away.
Beyond the stands of bushes to the west the forest began, first a fringing growth of yellow webwillow, then the dark conifers building gloom against the bronze red cliffs which reached upward at their left. The cliffs were crumbly piers eaten away by ages of rain and sun into angled blocks stacked far upward to the ivory rimrock where the brows of the forest peered down into the valley. To their right the river ran silver, silent, slithery as a great snake, making no murmur save at the edges where it chuckled quietly under the grassy banks, telling its own story. Small froggy things polluped into the pools as they passed. Reeds swayed as though lurkers traveled there, though nothing emerged from the green fastnesses but stalking birds, high on their stilts, peering and poking into the mire with lancelike beaks. Sun glittered, spun, wove, twisted into a fabric of light and air and shining water, and they walked as though at the center of a jewel to the muffled plopping of their own steps.
Beside the river were hayfields, few and narrow between the water and the road. Across the river were more fields, with twisty trails leading onto the high ridge where villages perched upon the rocks like roosting owls, windows staring at them as they passed. That was the Ridge of Wicking, between the River Haws and the Westfork, which lay in a great trough north of Betand. Not far ahead, to the east, the high plateau at the north end of the Ridge bulked vastly against the sky, its black stone and hard outline menacing, the bare rocky top fisting the sky like a blow. There was supposed to be a Wizard's Demesne on Blacktop, but Mavin thought it unlikely anyone would nest there save Armigers, perhaps, or other Gamesmen who flew. Dragons or Cold-drakes, perhaps. Gamesmen of that kind. There appeared to be no comfort in the place, no kindness of wood or water. She preferred it where they were and said as much to Mertyn, who sighed, hummed, trudged along the road not talking and seeming unthinking in the warm and the light.
"Elators, maybe," she mused. "Perhaps they are initiated by being taken up there on some long, climby trail, and then once they have seen the place and can remember it, they flick up onto the high rock from the far places, flick, and there they are, the place full of Elators as a thrilp is full of seeds … "
"I think Seers," Mertyn offered. "It would be nice for Seers, up there, where they could really see for a thousand leagues in every direction." He hummed again, smiled up at her as though drugged, and trudged on once more. She thought that she herself must seem as drugged as he on the sunlight and the quiet, for she was in a mood of strange and marvelous contentment, so quietly peaceful that she almost missed the sound of hooves behind them on the road.
Mavin moved into the bushes at the side of the road, pulling Mertyn along with her. "Remember," she cautioned him. "I am your older brother. You may still call me Mavin, for that could be man or woman, but do not for the love of all the powers and freedom call me 'sister'." It was easy enough for her to seem male, the changes were superficial and easy; and if Mertyn did not forget, she would pass well enough. The horse sounds came on, more than one animal, and she turned at last to see what moved toward them in the morning.
They were two Tragamors, one male and one female peering through their fanged half helms, and a rough-looking man dressed in a strange garb which Mavin did not recognise. She had been told that the school in Danderbat keep was not good for much except teaching some shifterish skills and policies, and she knew that they had paid little enough attention to the Index. She wished at the moment that they had spent more time upon it, enough time at least to recognize what he might be. Not Tragamor—their fanged helms were unmistakable—therefore probably not having the Tragamor skill of moving things from a distance or tossing mountains about at will. It would probably be some complementary talent. The man was clad in skins and furs, and he had a long glass slung at his shoulder. She had barely time to look him over before the horses pulled up and the male Tragamor leaned from his saddle to hail them in a voice both unpleasant and challenging.
"Hey there, fellow. We are told there is a way into the highlands along this River. Would you know how far?"
Just as Mavin was readying herself to reply, Mertyn spoke, his childish treble firm and positive. "Just before you come to Calihiggy Creek, Gamesman, there is a trail leading back to the southeast onto the heights. Or, if you need a better road than that, there is one which goes south from Pfarb Durim to Betand, but that is many leagues to the north."
"Ah, a scholarly scut, isn't it," drawled the skin-clad man. "And where did you learn so much about the world, small one." He seemed to be struggling with his face, attempting to keep it in its frowning mold.
"I studied maps .. sir. I'm sorry, but I don't know what your title should be, Sir Gamesman. I mean no offense … " Mavin looked at the boy, fascinated, for he was smiling up at the men, a kind of light in his face, and they all smiled back, kindly, with no hint of trouble.
Mavin shook herself, drew herself into the persona she had adopted and said, "Indeed, we mean no offense, Gamesmen. We are country people and see few travelers."
The skin-clad one turned his eyes from the child to Mavin, face still kindly and happy. "No offense, young man. No offense. I am an Explorer, and there are few enough of my kind among all the Gamesmen in these lands. We go into the high country in search of fabled mines, and we must find a way the wagons can come after, for why should Tragamors delve when pawns can dig? Eh?"
"Why, indeed," caroled Mertyn. "Well, it is more than one day's journey to the trail, Gamesmen. We wish you speedy journey and comfortable rest." And he smiled, and the Gamesmen smiled and rode away, and Mavin was once more trudging in the dust which had I been so full of sparkling light and peace.
She shook herself. "What did you do to them?''
"Do?" He was all innocence. "Do?"
"Do, Mertyn. When that Tragamor spoke to us first, his fanged helm practically dripped menace at us, ready to bite us up in one gulp if we did not tell him what he wanted to know. Then, in moments, in a breath, he was all kindly thalan to us both, full of good will as a new keg is of air."
The boy frowned, seemed to concentrate. "I don't know, Mavin. It's just something that happens sometimes when I don't want people to be cross. It's nicer to be happy and contented, so I do the thing and everyone feels better." He stared at his feet, flushed. "I guess I make them love me."
For a moment she did not understand what he had said. She confused it in her mind with something natural and childish he might have said. "I guess I make them love me … " What could he have meant? Some childish game? Some pretend magic? Then came a
sickening combination of horror and understanding as she understood what he meant, a kind of nausea, yet with fascination in it. "Did you … did you do that to Handbright, Mertyn?"
He nodded guiltily. "Otherwise she would have gone away. I would have been lonely. That's the real reason she stayed, Mavin. I made her stay."
She could not keep the words inside. They spilled out.
"I wonder if you have any idea how horrible that was for her … " Her anger went away as quickly as it had come at the response she saw. The boy wept, his face flushed and red, tears flowing in a stream, his thin chest heaving with the pain of it, all at once bereft and cast down by tragedy, lost to it.
"I'm so sorry, Mavin. I'm so sorry. I didn't know, really until you told me. They said … they said it wasn't so bad, not really. They said women just complained to be complaining. When I saw her so sad, I should have known better, Mavin. Truly. Shall we find her and tell her? Will she forgive me?"
She was distressed at his grief, as distressed as she had been at what he had said. A child. Eight years, perhaps twenty-five seasons in all? Certainly no more than that. And yet, to have bewitched Handbright, kept her behind the p'natti to be abused, used, beaten … She pulled herself together. "There, child. There. No one really expects that you should have known better. I don't myself. Handbright is gone. I told her she must go away … as soon as we were gone. She isn't there any more, so we needn't go back. I'm all adrift, Mertyn. I don't know what to say to you. I'm just amazed that you can do this thing. But I've never felt you do it to me, Mertyn."
Tepper,Sheri - The Song of Mavin Manyshaped Page 5
