‘Very pretty,’ said the tree I was under.
I leapt to my feet, claws forming on both hands, fangs halfway to my chin.
‘Very, very pretty,’ said the tree, turning itself slowly into my mother. Mavin. Mavin Manyshaped.
I retracted the fangs. ‘When did you get here?’ I snarled. There was simply no privacy in this place. ‘No one knew where you were. Mertyn said he couldn’t find you.’
‘Actually,’ she said, stretching, ‘I never left. I simply grew weary of the constant arguments and decided to take a rest. Trees are an excellent vacation. Birds are good, too, of course, but trees have an elemental quality which is restorative.’ She chucked me under the chin with one hand, as I suppose she had done when I was an infant before turning me over to Mertyn’s to raise. ‘What’s going on, love? I take it Jinian’s not with you? Or have you had a lovers’ quarrel?’
‘We have not had a lovers’ quarrel,’ I said impatiently, almost angrily. ‘She’s somewhere in the Great Maze, being shepherded by Ganver the Eesty, who’s trying to save her life. The Oracle is after her. And I’m here because she sent me here, and I don’t like being separated from her one bit. And, a little thing you wouldn’t know because you’ve been so occupied with treeishness, the Demesne is under siege.’
‘It is?’ She sounded interested but not at all distressed. ‘Who? Let me see. It would be Huldra, wouldn’t it. It would have to be Huldra. Tosh. I should have done her in long, long ago when I was only a log she sat upon. Have I told you of that time, Peter?’ She j had, of course, more than once. It was long ago, when I Mertyn was only a child. She went on. ‘I could have Shifted long, long teeth and eaten her, bottom first. Shame that I didn’t. An opportunity lost. Ah, well, I suppose we shall have to get out of it somehow.
‘And you haven’t had a lovers’ quarrel? Ah, Peter, Peter. I’m so sorry, child. I didn’t mean to tease. Come now. Sit back down and tell me all about it.’ She plumped herself down on the grasses. ‘Have some fruit. I seem to have shed a good deal.’
It was true. She had shed fruit widely over the orchard grass, and it smelled like all the honeycombs of the forest, rich as perfume. So we sat eating Mavin fruit while I told her everything, including all the things I had not mentioned to Himaggery - being careful to say I had not. ‘If we get out of here,’ I told her, ‘we must head straight for the Old South Road City, not to the Ice Caverns. Things are already moving well there, and I don’t think they need help. But the Old South Road City must be rebuilt.’ We talked about this for some time, she nodding and nodding, seeming to understand exactly what was needed. Well, she had seen the Shadow Tower, after all. When we had finished, she brushed off her skirt and told me to go along. ‘I want you to go fetch your son,’ she said. ‘Tell his mama you are taking him for a walk. To get better acquainted. Then bring him straight to me. What nonsense, trying to rear a Shifter child somewhere other than behind a p’natti. Though, I must remember, you turned out well enough reared elsewhere though you were.’
‘You didn’t like it behind the p’natti much yourself!’ A p’natti, according to Mavin, was a kind of ritual obstacle course the Shifters used during their holidays.
‘I didn’t like Danderbat Keep, my boy. I didn’t like Danderbat of the Old Shuffle, that’s the truth. But Battlefox the Bright Day was a good place for Swolwys and Dolwys.’ She was speaking of my cousins. ‘And there’s Bothercat the Rude Rock and Fretowl and Dark Wood, and Watchhawk Keep and Fustigar Mountain Keep as well as a half hundred others. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was only going to look him over, for now. From what you tell me, we’ve no time to be running weanlings off to a Shifter keep. There’s too much else to do.’
I went off to collect Bryan, finding Sylbie still full of questions about where people were but quite willing to have the baby gone for a while. I took him down to the orchard and left him there with Mavin for a time while I went back to see what Himaggery and Barish had decided. I didn’t tell them Mavin was back- or that she had never left. She preferred not, so she said. I have never understood my mother or her relationship with my father. I thought I was unlikely to understand it in my lifetime and would be wise to give up trying. Better to leave it alone, which I did.
Seven
Jinian’s Story: Further Lessons
We two came out on a hill overlooking a long, fertile valley, Ganver whirling as we came into the place, whirling us into other shapes, other sizes. When Ganver had done, we began to walk down the winding road, Ganver in the guise of a statuesque woman clad in an Elator’s dress and I a page, smaller than myself, with a face I knew was changed though I could not see it. ‘Do you think the Oracle will follow us here?’ ‘I think not. The Oracle will cool, in time. It will stop this flapping pursuit and start to think. It will not consider this place. Why would it seek meaning in what it thinks merely symbolic?’
The bitterness in Ganver’s voice was deep and harsh, but I knew it was not directed at me. ‘Watch and learn,’ it said to me again, so I turned face forward and watched where I was going, Evidently there were more lessons in store. More lessons that would make no sense and from which I would draw no meaning. Who had said that? The Oracle. In the giants’ stronghold. The Oracle had looked at my unconscious body and mocked the meaning of star-eye. Remembering it infuriated me. I resolved to find meaning or die, then set that resolution aside as I saw what awaited us.
Two fortresses stood on opposite sides of the road, tall and strong with mighty walls, facing one another like two Gamesmen in the lists during a contest of skill.
‘Watch,’ said Ganver again. ‘And learn.’
As we approached the two fortresses, Armigers detached themselves from the opposing walls and there, and I don’t think they need help. But the Old South Road City must be rebuilt.’ We talked about this for some time, she nodding and nodding, seeming to understand exactly what was needed. Well, she had seen the Shadow Tower, after all. When we had finished, she brushed off her skirt and told me to go along. ‘I want you to go fetch your son,’ she said. ‘Tell his mama you are taking him for a walk. To get better acquainted. Then bring him straight to me. What nonsense, trying to rear a Shifter child somewhere other than behind a p’natti. Though, I must remember, you turned out well enough reared elsewhere though you were.’
‘You didn’t like it behind the p’natti much yourself!’ A p’natti, according to Mavin, was a kind of ritual obstacle course the Shifters used during their holidays.
‘I didn’t like Danderbat Keep, my boy. I didn’t like Danderbat of the Old Shuffle, that’s the truth. But Battlefox the Bright Day was a good place for Swolwys and Dolwys.’ She was speaking of my cousins. ‘And there’s Bothercat the Rude Rock and Fretowl and Dark Wood, and Watchhawk Keep and Fustigar Mountain Keep as well as a half hundred others. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was only going to look him over, for now. From what you tell me, we’ve no time to be running weanlings off to a Shifter keep. There’s too much else to do.’
I went off to collect Bryan, finding Sylbie still full of questions about where people were but quite willing to have the baby gone for a while. I took him down to the orchard and left him there with Mavin for a time while I went back to see what Himaggery and Barish had decided. I didn’t tell them Mavin was back- or that she had never left. She preferred not, so she said. I have never understood my mother or her relationship with my father. I thought I was unlikely to understand it in my lifetime and would be wise to give up trying. Better to leave it alone, which I did.
Jinian’s Story: Further Lessons
We two came out on a hill overlooking a long, fertile valley, Ganver whirling as we came into the place, whirling us into other shapes, other sizes. When Ganver had done, we began to walk down the winding road, Ganver in the guise of a statuesque woman clad in an Elator’s dress and I a page, smaller than myself, with a face I knew was changed though I could not see it. ‘Do you think the Oracle will follow us here?’ ‘I think not. The Oracle will cool,
in time. It will stop this flapping pursuit and start to think. It will not consider this place. Why would it seek meaning in what it thinks merely symbolic?’
The bitterness in Ganver’s voice was deep and harsh, but I knew it was not directed at me. ‘Watch and learn,’ it said to me again, so I turned face forward and watched where I was going, Evidently there were more lessons in store. More lessons that would make no sense and from which I would draw no meaning. Who had said that? The Oracle. In the giants’ stronghold. The Oracle had looked at my unconscious body and mocked the meaning of star-eye. Remembering it infuriated me. I resolved to find meaning or die, then set that resolution aside as I saw what awaited us.
Two fortresses stood on opposite sides of the road,
tall and strong with mighty walls, facing one another
like two Gamesmen in the lists during a contest of skill.
‘Watch,’ said Ganver again. ‘And learn.’
As we approached the two fortresses, Armigers detached themselves from the opposing walls and stalked toward us, one from each side like fighting birds in a pit, plumes high and spurs glittering, a yellow-clad one on the left, a black-dressed one from the right. Ganver stopped. ‘My name is - well, what should it be, Jinian, Dervish Daughter?’
It - she looked very militant, and I bethought me of Gamemistress Joumerie at Vorbold’s House back in Xammer, a time that seemed long ago indeed. ‘Joumerie,’ I said, giving Ganver my old gamemistress’ name. ‘You are, ah - you are Gameswoman Elator Joumerie.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Now keep a modest face on you.’
The Armigers stalked, pace on pace, posing and posturing, lifting their feet high, plumes nodding on their helms, keeping in step with one another until they came up on us at either side. The one from the left-hand fortress spoke first, leaving the other fuming a bit, red in the face.
‘What business have you here?’
‘None at all,’ said Ganver. ‘We but pass through on our way north.’
‘Your names and station?’ demanded the other.
‘I am Gameswoman Elator Joumerie,’ it - she said. ‘Passing quietly with one servant, opposing none, asking no Game.’
Left hand sneered. ‘We accept none such in this valley, Gameswoman. You must choose left or right, right or left, the fortress of Zyle or the fortress of Zale.’
‘I have heard of two brothers styled Zyle and Zale,’ said Ganver in a mild voice. ‘Could these be they?’
‘Who or what they are is no business of yours. You have only to choose which you will follow.’
‘And if I choose to follow neither?’
‘Then you will go no farther on this road.’
‘Then we will return the way we came.’
‘You will neither go forward nor return.’
I looked over my shoulder to see the Armigers ranked behind us, interspersed with Sorcerers to Hold Power for them and a few Tragamors for depth of attack. Half of them were in yellow and half in black, standing well apart, alike in intent though not in allegiance.
‘Well then,’ said Ganver, ‘I will let my page choose, for it matters nothing to me.’
I had had enough of blackness, blackness of shadows and grayness of spaces where nothing happened. The yellow reminded me of the Daylight Bell, so I moved a step to the left.
‘Zyle it is,’ said Ganver. There was a low growl from the black-clad Armiger, and he stalked off toward his fortress with the others after him. We, surrounded by a yellow-clad escort, went toward the left-hand fortress. As we drew near, I saw they were much alike, these two bastions, both with high, crenellated walls and fangy portcullises, both decked with banners that hung slack in the quiet morning air. When we came through the barbican gate, we were confronted by a pale, slender man wearing the shabby cloak of a Prophet and walking with the aid of a cane.
‘Accept my apologies for delaying you, Games-woman. It is my way of saving travelers the inconvenience of serving Castle Zale. If you will accept a meal, rest perhaps a day, there are tunnels which will take you into the forests north and safe away. . . .’
Ganver mimed confusion, modest outrage. ‘And what if my page had chosen Castle Zale?’
The Prophet dug into the paving with his cane, seeming unconcerned at the question. ‘Few do. They find the black garb of my ... of the Dragon Zale forbidding. Also - I am able with some degree of certainty to See if that is a likelihood. . . .’
I remembered then that Prophets have the Talents of Flying, Fire, and Seeing. If the Dragon of Zale was indeed this one’s brother, they shared family Talent. If I remembered the Index aright, both Prophets and Dragons were Armigerians; Zale would lack Seeing and have a limited power of Shifting instead.
Ganver was asking in a cold voice, ‘And if you had Seen that likelihood?’
‘I... ah, I would much have regretted it. The Dragon of Zale does not treat travelers well. We do what we can to assure fairness.’ He looked at us with dead eyes that did not seem to see us, glancing always away toward the other keep across the valley as though whatever he could feel was housed there, not in this place at all. As though, I told myself, his heart were there, with his enemy.
Ganver did not press further; we accepted the hospitality of the place, I wondered all the time what this was about. Evening came. Ganver asked to see the Prophet Zyle, and we were escorted into his presence. As we went, Ganver whispered once more, ‘Watch and learn.’
The Prophet was on the walls, and we went to him there. As we came up to him, I heard a sound, far and far to the north, like a reverberation from memory, quiet as evening and yet with a plangent hush that flooded the world. The Shadowbell. In a moment the echo returned from the south. The Daylight Bell, resonating softly to keep the shadow in check.
Both Ganver and the Prophet stood facing me. In Ganver’s face I saw the brightening, the awakening, the hearing that I knew was on my own. On the Prophet’s face nothing, no consciousness. He turned from me impatiently, peering at the keep across the valley, and I thought again it was as though his being dwelt there and not here where we were.
This one lacked something. If he did not lighten at the Daylight Bell, however soft and far its sound might be, it meant something within him was missing. My heart was sick within me, and I could not understand. He had treated us well, though coldly. He had not seemed a soulless wight. The Eesty caught my eye, shaking like a garment the Elator head it wore.
‘We came to express our thanks, Prophet. If it is convenient for you to show us the tunnels to the north, we will take our leave. We go on a matter of some urgency.’
And we went, to come out far to the north under the early stars. ‘Now we will return,’ said Ganver, ‘in yet another guise ‘ Ganver whirled, whirled, and it was afternoon. In new forms we were coming down the long hill to the valley from the north, seeing the castles of Zyle and Zale on our right hand and our left. Ganver was in the likeness of a crowned Sorcerer, and I at his back in the black frock and white collar of an Exorcist.
This time we chose the black-garbed Armiger and were taken before the Dragon of Zale.
He was charming. Full of humor and gaiety, sudden quips and outrageous jests. He invited us to eat with him, listened to Ganver’s fictitious tale of a Great Game to the north, and when the meal was done he invited us to walk with him upon the battlements.
There were men there, Divulgers and other torturers, busy with braziers of hot coals and devices to rend and tear. There was a chuffing of a little bellows and the shrill cry of a wheel on which knives were sharpened. I stopped short. Ganver stopped also.
And beside these horrors the Dragon of Zale turned toward us with a charming smile as he offered to cast lots with us to see which of the two of us would be tortured to death where we stood.
I could not believe the words coming from that smiling mouth. As he spoke, the Bell rang as it had the evening before. And his eyes did not hear it, neither the Bell of the dusk nor the Bell of the day, and I knew that in this one, t
oo, some necessary part was missing.
‘Why would you say such an outrageous thing?’ asked Ganver. ‘We have no Game with you, nor was Game announced to us. You have treated us hospitably. Why would you now take one of our lives?’
‘Oh, I will take both,’ said the Dragon of Zale off-handedly, with a twinkling smile and a charming shrug. ‘One today and one on the morrow. As to why, it
a Game I play with my brother. He dislikes it very much, to see me at my play. He does all that he can to forestall me, but in the end I always win.’ And the
Dragon laughed, a high-pitched wail of amusement, like a wind-soul lost in chasms of dark. My skin crawled as though slimy things moved there, testing
their barbed feet. Ganver was looking at me, urging me to do something, and I caught my lip between my teeth, thinking furiously. This was a lesson, and I had no idea what it was I should learn.
‘I will die first, Master Sorcerer,’ I said, surprising myself immensely.
‘Ah, faithful one,’ said Ganver in an odd tone. ‘I call upon the Rules of the Game, Dragon. I claim the Victim’s Interrogation.’
Well, I had forgotten. It isn’t often one is threatened with terminal torture - I should imagine once in a lifetime would be about the limit. However, the Rules of Play did allow the Victim’s Interrogation, the three questions that must be answered honestly. I wondered if the Dragon of Zale would allow it.
He merely smiled, without objection, and we stood there in the dusk on the battlement as his Divulgers and Invigilators readied the irons and the knives and I tried not to look at them. I did Inward Is Quiet very softly to myself in the passive mode, hoping it would help me understand what was happening. I concentrated, not helped by the sizzling noises behind me as the Invigilators spat upon hot irons.