"But it will not be as it was before," said Mavin, gritting her teeth. She had already said this twice. "The disease is one which afflicts the shadowpeople from time to time. They have always been able to cure it before, with the Bone. If Blourbast is left alive, if he returns to his tunnels with the Bone, then the disease will strike again, and again. As it returned again and again in the ancient time." The little creature on her shoulder trilled, and Mavin understood the meaning. "My friend says it may strike next time at you, Madam liter, and at the children you are so eager to see educated, perhaps your own. It would not be wise to return to that ancient time, before Ganver."
Hearing this name the shadowpeople began to sing, a lamenting song, full of runs and aching sadness, so engaging a song that they put down the food they held to put their arms about one another and sway as they sang.
"What are they doing?" asked the woman in sudden apprehension.
"They sing of Ganver. A god to them. Perhaps Ganver would have been a god to us as well. It is Ganver's Bone the Ghoul has. Listen to them, woman! Listen to them, Plandybast! To you they were legends? Myths? Now they are here before you, singing, and you owl me with those doubtful eyes and will not promise to help me." She flung her arms wide in a despairing gesture and moved away from them toward the shadow-people.
Plandybast came after her. "Some of them will probably come, Mavin. Just give them a little time. Itter is a kind of sister to me. At least, her mother said she was my father's child. But you've heard her. She always assumes that others are stupid, or evil, or both. It isn't only you, she behaves so to all of us. And she does have a point, you know. There seem to be a lot of details you're not sure of. And none of us relish the idea of having anything to do with the plague, or with the Ghoul, come to that. We don't really interfere in the business of the world that much, we Battlefoxes. Oh, we hire ourselves out for Game from time to time, but there seems to be no fee and no honor in this … "
"Fee! Honor! I have seen these little ones so frightened that their faces run with tears and shuddering so hard with sobs they can scarcely stand, and they go on while they are crying! I call that honor, Plandybast. You would respond better to a call to Game? If I had come with a Herald, announcing challenge, would that have made it easier? I could have done that! Watch, now, thalan. See the Herald come?" She was angry and tired. She shifted without thinking as she had done once before in Danderbat keep, without planning it, letting her shape become that of the Herald she had seen outside the walls of Pfarb Durim. She made her voice a bugle, let it ring across the walls of Battlefox keep. "Give ear, oh people of Battlefox Demesne, for I come at the behest of the Wizard Himaggery, most wise, most puissant, to bring challenge to the sluggards of this keep that they stay within their walls while Game moves about them!" Then she trembled, and the shape fell away. There was only silence from them, and astonishment, and—fear.
"Impossible," Plandybast quavered. "Shifters cannot take the form of other Gamesmen. But your face was the face of the Herald Dumarchdon. I know him. Your voice was his voice. Impossible. You're only a child."
"I'm a forty-six-season child," she agreed. "It is said to be impossible, but I can do it. Sometimes. You have not asked how we escaped from Danderbat keep, thalan. You have not asked how I came out of Pfarb Durim, a city under siege. It is better, perhaps, that you do not know, but I made use of this Talent to do it. I have been long on the road to you, coming to you at your invitation. Now look to your kin. They are all fainting with shock." And she turned away bitterly, knowing that fear had done what politeness might have prevented—made them refuse to help her.
Itter was already cawing at the group, "You see! What did I tell you! She is no true shifter! Can a true shifter take the shape of other Gamesmen? Can they? I said her mother was guilty of individuality, and so she was. Now will you believe me?"
"Go with them," Mavin said wearily to Plandybast. "I will wait out here here for an hour, perhaps two. I will sleep here on this sun-warmed hill and make strength for the journey back, among my small friends who account themselves my kindred while my kindred sort out whether they are my friends or not. Any who will come with me will be welcome. If none will come—well, so be it." And she turned away from him to move into the welcoming arms of the shadowpeople who snuggled about her on the slope, a small hillock of eyes watching the walls of Battlefox Demesne.
A voice spoke calmly from above her head. "They are not eager in your aid, your kinsmen."
She looked up. The Agirul hung above her head. "How did you get here?" she cried. Around her the little people twittered and laughed.
"I have been here," said the Agirul. "All along."
"Then you're not … the one who … you don't know … "
"What the Agirul knows, the Agirul knows," said the creature in a voice of great complacency. "Which means all of it, wherever its parts may be." It released one long, clawed arm to scratch itself reflectively, coughing a little, then twittering a remark to the shadowpeople which made them all sigh. "I said that you are saddened by your reception in this place."
"Old Cormier would have been biting on the bit by now," she said. "Him and Wurstery and the others. They may be evil old lechers, but they would have been full of fire and ready to move." Then she added, more honestly, "Of course, I don't really know that to be true. They might have been willing to be involved, but might not have responded to a plea from me, or Handbright, or any girl from behind the p'natti."
"Wisdom," growled the Agirul. "Painful, isn't it? We assume so much and resist learning to the contrary. Well, neither Danderbat nor Battlefox meets our needs at the moment. Shall we consider other alternatives?"
"Our needs, Agirul? I didn't know you were involved."
The beast swung, side to side, a furry pendulum, head weaving on its heavy neck. "Well, girl person, if we were to speak strictly of the matter, I am not involved. If we speak of curiosity, however, and of philosophy, and of being wakened and not allowed to go back to sleep—there are consequences of such things, wouldn't you agree? And consequence breeds consequence, dragging outsiders in and thrusting insiders out, will we or nil we, making new concatenations out of old dissimilitudes. Doesn't that express it?"
She shook her head in confusion, not sure what had been expressed. "Are you saying I shouldn't bother to wait for Plandybast?"
"Leave him a note. Tell him to meet you on the road south of Pfarb Durim tonight with any of his people who will assist or to go to Himaggery and offer himself if you are not there. In that way, you need not linger, wasting time, and it is indeed a waste. If one may not sleep and one may not act, then what use is there sitting about?"
After a moment's thought, she did as the Agirul suggested, finding a bit of flat stone on which a charcoaled message could be left. He could not fail to see it. The letters were as tall as her hand, and the Agirul assured her there would be no rain, no storm to wipe them away in the next few hours. "Where, then?" she asked him. "Back to Pfarb Durim?"
"I thought we might seek assistance from some other source," the Agirul replied, lapsing into shadowperson talk while the little ones gathered around in a mood of growing excitement. "I have suggested they take you to Ganver's Grave. It is not far from here, and the trip may prove helpful.''
"Ganver's Grave? We have no dead raisers among us, Agirul. And truth to tell, after Hell's Maw, I have no desire to see or smell any such."
"Tush. The place may be called Ganver's Grave, girl, but I did not say he is dead. Go along. It is not far, but there is no time to spend in idle chat."
"Are you coming?" she inquired, offering to help it down from the branch it hung upon.
"I'll be there," it said, humming, still swinging. "More or less."
Shaking her head she allowed herself to be led away, following the multitude which scampered ahead of her into the trees. A tug at her hand reminded her that a small person waited to be carried, and she lifted him onto her shoulder once more. He kicked her, and she shifted, making it
easier for him and herself to catch up to the fleeing shadows before them.
They led east, back toward the River, she thought, and the long valley in which it ran. The land was flat, easy to move across, with little brush or fallen wood to make the way difficult. After they had run for some little time, Mavin began to wonder at the ease of the travel and to look at the land about her with more questioning eyes. It looked like—like park land. Like the land at the edge of the p'natti, where all the dead wood had been cut for cook fires and all noxious weeds killed. It looked used, tended. "Who lives here?" she panted, receiving a warble which conveyed no meaning in answer. "Someone," she said to herself. "Something. Not shadowpeople. They would not cut brush or clear out thorns." Someone else. Something else. "Maybe some Demesne or other. Some great Gamesman's private preserve." But, if so, where were the thousand gardeners and woodsmen it would take? She had run many leagues, and the way was still carefully tended and groomed and empty. "If there are workers, where are they?"
She heard a warbling song from far ahead, one which grew louder as she ran. The shadowpeople had stopped, had perhaps arrived at their goal. She ran on, feeling the warmth of her hindquarters as the sun rolled west. There through the trees loomed a wall of color, a towering structure which became more and more visible, wider and wider, until she emerged from the trees and saw all of it, an impossibility, glowing in the light. "Ooof," she whispered, not believing it.
"Ooof," carolled the shadowpeople in sympathy, coming back to pat her with their narrow hands and bring her forward.
It was stone, she thought. Like the stone of which the strange arches were made. Although they were green and this was red as blood, both had the same crystalline feel, the misleading look of translucence. The wall bulged toward her out of the earth, then its glittering pate arched upward at the sky. "A ball," she marveled. "A huge ball, sunk a bit in the ground. What is it? Some kind of monument? A memorial? Agirul called it Ganver's Grave. Is Ganver buried here?"
"Unlikely," said the Agirul from a tree behind her. "I don't think the Eesties bury their dead. I don't think Eesties die, come to think of it. At least I never heard one of them say anything to indicate that they might. Not that I've been privileged to hear them say that much. No, I've probably not heard a word from an Eesty more than a dozen times in the last two or three thousand years."
"You're that old! Two or three thousand years!"
The beast shifted, as though uncomfortable at her vehemence. "Only in a sense, Mavin. What the Agirul knows, the Agirul knows. It may not have been precisely who spoke with the Eesties, but then it was in a sense. The concept is somewhat confusing, I realize. It has to do with extracorporeal memory and rather depends upon what filing system one uses. None of which has any bearing on the current situation at all. We came, I believe, to seek some help, and should be getting at it." The Agirul came painfully out of its tree and began dragging itself toward the red ball, moving with so much effort and obvious discomfort that Mavin leaned over and picked it up, gasping at the effort. The Agirul was far heavier than its size indicated, though she was able to bear the weight once it had positioned itself upon her back. She would need more bulk if she were to bear this one far, but the creature gave her no time to seek it. "Around to the side, to your left. There's a gateway there. It will probably take all of us to get it open."
The gateway would have taken all of them and a hundred or so more to open, had it not stood open already, a curved section a man-height thick, peeled back like the skin of a thrilp to show a dark, pointed doorway leading inside.
"You want us to go in there?" she asked. "In the dark?"
"Not we," said the Agirul. "You. Mavin. Don't worry about translation. If you meet an Eesty, you'll be able to understand him. Or her. Or thir. Or fie. Or san. Whichever. The polite form of address is 'aged one.' And the polite stance is attentive. Don't miss anything, or you may find you've missed it all. Go on now. Not much time left." It dropped from her back and gave her an enormous shove, one which propelled her to the edge of the black gateway, over which she tripped, to fall sprawling within, within, within …
There was no within.
She stood on a shifting plain beside a row of columns. Upon each column rested a red ball, tiny in comparison to the great one she had entered, and translucent, for she could see shapes within, moving gently as though swayed by a quiet sea. A gravel path ran beside the column, gemmy blue and green and violet stones, smoothly raked. Mavin turned to see a small creature pick up a round stone from the side of the path, nibble at it experimentally, then nip it quickly with his teeth, faceting the stone, polishing it with a raspy black tongue before raking it to the path with its claws. It moved on to another stone, taking no notice of her. When she knelt to look at it more closely, it did not react in any way. It had no eyes that she could see, no ears, only two pale, clawed hands, a mouth like a pair of steel wedges, and two pudgy legs on which to move about. It faceted another stone, then extended its neck and its hands to roll rapidly away on its feet, its hands, and the top of its head, like a wheel, disappearing into the distance.
This drew her eyes to the horizon, a very close one, as though the ground beneath her curved more than what she was used to. On that horizon marched a line of towers, each tower topped by a red ball, in each ball a hint of movement as of something moving slightly in its sleep or a watchman shifting restlessly upon a parapet. Between these towers giant wheels were rolling, creature wheels, stopping now and then to polish one of the towers with great, soft hands or trim the grassy verge with wide, scissory teeth before rolling on like huge children turning endless handsprings. Mavin moved toward them, noticing the sound her feet made on the jeweled gravel, an abrupt, questioning sound, as of someone saying "what" over and over again. She moved to the grass, only to leap back again, for the grass screamed when she stepped upon it, a thin wailing of pain and outraged dignity. So she went on, the gravel saying "what" beneath her feet, the grass weeping at her side, each section taking up the complaint as she passed.
Flowers began to appear along the verge, gray blossoms the size of her hands, five-petaled, turning upon their stems like windmills with a shrill, determined humming. Creeping, grublike things lay upon the stems of the flowers. Mavin watched as the creepers extended long, sharp tusks into the whirling petals, cutting them into fragments which floated upon the air only an instant before opening like tiny books and flying away.
Bushes along the road began to lash their branches, each branch splitting into a bundle of narrow whips which exploded outward into a net. The nets cast almost to the road, missing her, though not by much. Some of the flower creepers were caught and dragged back toward the bushes while they plied their tusks frantically, trying to cut free. The gravel went on saying "what."
She came near to the first of the towers, stepping aside to avoid the nets, paying no more attention to the crying grass. The gravel fell silent beneath her feet, and she stood gazing upward at the ruby globe, twice her own height in diameter, with something moving in it. Was this an Eesty? Was it alive? How did one attract its attention? There was nothing in this place to tell her the time, to tell her how many hours there might be between now and midnight. How many of these globes dared she knock upon, if knocking was the thing to do?
Then she remembered what Agirul had said. Remembered, stood back from the globe, and cried in a voice which would have broken rock had any been present to be broken, "Aged one. Oh, oho, aged one! I cry for assistance!"
At first there was only an agitation within the globe, as though a bubble of air had burst or some small thing whipped around in its shadowed interior, but then lines began to glow down the sides of it, golden lines, from the apex down the sides, running beneath the globe where it sat on its pillar, glowing brightly and more brightly until she could see that they were actually lines graven into the globe, pressing down into its mirror-smooth surface. The lines darkened, deepened, turned black with a sudden cracking sound as of breaking glass. The
n the sections began to fold outward, five of them, opening like a flower's petals to the sky, crisp and hard at first, turning soft, beginning to droop over the pillar to disclose what sat within.
Which was a star-shaped mound, one leg drooping over each opened petal, the center pulsating slowly as though breathing, the whole studded with small, ivory projections. As she watched, the thing began to draw itself upright, one limb rising, two more pushing upright, until what faced her was a five-pointed semblance of her own shape, two lower limbs, two upper ones with a protrusion between them containing what might be interpreted as a face. At least it had a slit in it which could be a mouth. Or could equally well be something—anything else.
She waited. Nothing further happened. Taking a stance which she defined in her own mind as attentive, she tried once more. "Aged one. Most honorable and revered aged one. I cry for help."
The voice formed in her brain, not outside it, a whispery voice, like wind, or the slow gurgle of a stream over stones, without emphasis, constantly changing yet unchanging. "Who calls Ganver for help? Ganver who gives no help? Ganver who does not interfere?"
"I was sent," she said. "Agirul sent me." There was no response to this. She tried again. "My name is Mavin. I am a shifter girl, from the world"—she waved vaguely behind her—"out there. The Ghoul Blourbast has stolen Ganver's Bone."
There was nothing, nothing. Beyond the pillar she could see another of the little jewel cutters, or perhaps the same one, burrowing into a pile of stones at the side of a branching path. It nibbled and scurried, paying no attention to her or to the star-shaped creature which confronted her. Finally the voice shaped in her mind once more.
"What is a Ghoul?"
"A Ghoul—well, a Ghoul is a person with the Talent of dead raising. Not only that. Most Ghouls eat dead flesh. And they kidnap people and kill them. And Blourbast is particularly horrible, because it is said he fastens live people to the walls of his burrows and leaves them there forever, animating the bones. And … "
Tepper,Sheri - The Song of Mavin Manyshaped Page 14
