But I had no time to pursue the thought. Far to the back of the caverns was a clean-swept tunnel off which opened several quiet, twisty rooms, rock-walled but
clean. We were given one of these to make our camp in, with a supply of firewood ready cut. Out in the caverns the murmur and clatter of activity continued, though muted by distance; an occasional shout, once in a while a voice raised in tired anger or expostulation. In general, however, it was the busy hum of a thing happening, a properness occurring.
‘Bintomar,’ said Murzy when the blankets were spread, laying her hand on my forehead. ‘By Shielsas and Eutras, sleep.’ I slept.
There was only that one peaceful night. The next morning came one of Mertyn’s Elators from the back side of the mountain - flicking his way to us in vast, zigzaggy steps to avoid the Immutable line - to say that Huldra and her train were not a full day’s journey from the Immutables. According to the Elator, there was no shadow with the train, only Huldra, Dedrina, and a vast crowd of Elators and Tragamors. It was obviously her intention to tumble the entire mountain down into the caverns, filling them so deep with rubble that the hundred thousand would be buried forever.
Mertyn went down to Riddle and conferred there a while. At the end of the conference, Riddle moved up toward the caverns with almost all his men, staying just beyond the line that would have stopped the Demon-Healer-midwife teams working to raise the hundred thousand. If Huldra’s Gamesmen got past Mertyn’s men, then Riddle was to move further toward the caverns, protecting them from Talents of any kind. The resurrection machine would go on working under all circumstances; Quench and the other techs were working each day and night around even now.
The remaining few Immutables came to the bottom of the canyon with the seven, with Mertyn, and Mertyn’s men. He had not brought many with him of a warlike kind, but we made such display as we could. Surprise is always useful, if one can pull it off. We did not want Huldra thinking about Immutables, and had
she seen no Gamesmen at all, it might have made her wonder.
We set ourselves in a thin line along a low bluff that knelt at the foot of the mountain, Sentinels and Heralds spotted along the line to make a show, we seven clustered at the center behind a twisted dike of red stone. It had a gap in it in which I could show myself without disclosing the others. There were some spare banners and whatnot in the caverns, surprisingly unfaded considering they had probably been there for hundreds of years, part of the gear of the Gamesmen who had been frozen. These we spaced to show above the dike, making an appearance of an army several times our real size.
Huldra, the Elator said, had several thousand men. We had at best a hundred or so. Of course, seven of us were wize-ards.
And we seven worked like pawns. There is a saying in the art, ‘Slow spells make sure spells.’ It means simply that taking time repays the time taken, in sureness, in thoroughness, in calm consideration. We set spells throughout the valley Huldra would traverse, spells that could be released with one word spoken or one gesture. A clump of leaves or a lump of rock concealed symbols and signs already in place. The bluff extended outward from the mountain, leaving only a narrow way between its edge and the little ravine cut by the creek. On the other side of the creek, there was only a narrow path between the edge of the ravine and a soaring cliff edge. Riddle’s damping power extended up to the cliff edge and over it, down beyond the bluff for several hundred paces, and up the mountain slopes on the near side. If the Witch came close enough to see me clearly, she would have no Talent. If an Elator of hers tried to flick up to the cliff edge to get above us, he would drop from midair partway there. No Tragamor would be able to move anything against us. And we were hoping against hope
she would believe it was all art and would not think of Immutables. If we could get her busy working up counterspells against nonexistent Wizardry, it would use up her strength and power, giving us a definite advantage.
After I thought we were finished, Murzy and the others gathered around me, sat me down on a convenient stone, and proceeded to lay a very complex spell that I had never heard of before. Dodie only watched, showing she had not learned this, either. It was called, so they said, The Net of Enlees, and when it was finished they wrote the word that would release it on a piece of bark, told me to learn it without saying it, then burned the bark carefully until it was completely gone.
‘Huldra spell-bound you in the giants’ cave,’ said Murzy. ‘Binding you against any use of the art. Probably she did the same to Peter, binding his Talent so it could not be used. Since spell-binding has worked for her before, likely she will attempt to use it again. If she does, she will have to make the binding gesture, you know.’ Murzy illustrated abortively, being sure I understood. ‘Watch for that. Don’t let her finish it. At the first sign of it, call out that word in a loud, firm voice, and you will be enclosed in The Net of Enlees. It won’t prevent her doing any other rotten thing she can think of, but it will leave you free to fight back.’
They were frightening me, though I’m sure they didn’t know it. Somehow, since we had met in the Shadowmarches, I had assumed we would be together if anything dreadful happened. This advance spell casting to protect me, as an individual, made me very nervous.
‘Murzy? Have you - have you Seen anything? To make you think Huldra would . . . will try it again?’
‘I have Seen enough to make me careful,’ she replied in her stiff, no-nonsense voice. ‘I have not Seen Huldra dancing on your recumbent body, but that is hardly an indication we are all safe. The Talent of Seeing, as you very well know, is not as reliable as most Seers like to pretend it is.’ And that is all she would say on that subject.
When we had done everything we could think of, some things twice, we went back to the caverns to await Huldra’s coming. A Sentinel posted on the high cliffs to the north would give us plenty of warning. The hum of activity had increased, if anything, and the piles of frozen bodies were definitely smaller. Three Seers went by me, carrying in their hands a dozen or so of the little ‘blues’ - the tiny images that contained the memories and minds of those frozen in the caverns. Blues had to be matched to bodies, and the Seers were arguing violently over the quickest way to do it since these blues had been found in a cupboard, separated from the bodies they belonged to. Luckily, most of the blues had been laid on the bodies they went with. Otherwise, we might still be sorting out the hundred thousand today.
Murzy went over to them staring curiously at the blues. They looked like miniature Gamesmen, like little carvings made of ice. Murzy reached for one of them with an exclamation, calling to Cat. ‘Mind Healer Talley. Cat, come quickly. It’s Mind Healer Talley!’
Within moments she was the center of a gesticulating mob of Gamesmen and techs, all talking at once. Mertyn made his way to the center of the mob, said a few words in his best Beguilement voice, and everyone hushed. Murzy beckoned to me, and I went to join them.
‘The only Gamesman ever to Heal sick and wandering minds was Mind Healer Talley. She had a special Talent, unlike other Healers. Jinian, the Dervishes spoke of her in connection with the Great Maze, did they not?’
I replied, ‘The Dervish told me it was Mind Healer Talley who said the Great Maze contained the memories of the world. Which is true, by the way.’
‘You have said Lom is sick to death, Jinian. Could Mind Healer Talley ...” Her voice trailed away into uncertainty.
I thought of that vast maze we had traversed with Ganver and of ourselves lost in it, motes on an ocean. I shook my head sadly. ‘I doubt it, Murzy. Oh, I think she could understand it, but it’s so big. It would take a lifetime merely to explore a small corner.’
‘But if the sickness emanated from only a small corner?’
Privately, I thought the sickness of Lom was pervasive, all-encompassing, and mostly our fault - ours and the Eesties - but I did not say so. ‘Raise her up, certainly, and ask her. Who are we to say what she can and cannot do?’
So they went back to trying to lo
cate the body that went with the blue, and I went back to my corner to worry about Peter. Murzy hadn’t used any words on me today. My head had had to be clear, my intentions firm. As long as we had kept working, I’d been all right, but now the thoughts of Peter held captive chipped away at me until I was ready to scream. When I could stand it no longer, I put on my pack, wrapped myself in a cloak and two blankets, and went out of the cavern, telling Murzy I’d be down on the bluff waiting for something to happen. I went through Riddle’s lines halfway down the mountain, hearing a turnip complain bitterly that I had almost stepped on him. Her. It. The path was steep and rocky down to the knoll where the remaining Immutables stood guard. Once there I sat down, wrapped in my blankets, staring into the north, where Huldra’s army would come from. Somehow, it seemed to bring me nearer to him.
Sometime deep in the night we heard a yelping scream from the sky, followed by a dull, squishing thud. Torchlight found the source, an Armiger, dead as a Ghoul fetch. He had been Flying some fifty or a hundred manheights up and run abruptly into the Immutables’ screen. We moved the body behind some rocks, heaping some others over it. He had been a scout. Huldra wouldn’t be far behind.
Before dawn, Murzy and the others joined me, together with Mertyn and his men. When the sun rose, we saw them, all drawn up in battle array from wall to wall of the valley, with some Armigers floating high in the air and others just above the creekbed to keep the lines straight. They had a Herald out front, floating importantly along. He stopped just short of the place the Immutable screen would have touched him and gave voice.
‘All within sound of my voice, give ear; Huldra, Witch, Student of the High Arts, having taken the person of the Shifter, Peter, offers him now in exchange for the insignificant person of one Jinian, so-called Wize-ard, named Footseer. Let her come forward and the Exchange be made.’
Huldra was standing at some distance behind the Herald. The person next to her did look like Peter. Murzy sighed and did Bright the Sun Burning in the affirmative mode, a disclosing spell. The person next to Huldra no longer looked like Peter. Shit. Huldra wasn’t going to let Peter go. Even from this distance I could see the creature was a mere semblance, not unlike a Sending or a wraith. She’d spent some poor fool’s blood on it, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. We had a quick conference, and our Herald jumped up on the rock.
‘All within sound of my voice, give ear. Mertyn, King, most powerful, most Puissant, calls the Witch Huldra to account for her un-Gamely abduction of Mertyn’s thalan, Peter, Shifter, friend of Wizards. Let Huldra make her camp where she stands, and then between the lines will her accounting be heard.’
Where was Peter? Back at the rear of the battle, no doubt. In one of those tents pitched far back along the flat. I hiked back to the Immutable lines and found one of Riddle’s men, then pointed out the tents. ‘Could you get close?’ I asked him. ‘Not close enough to be noticed, just close enough to damp any Talent in those tents?’
The man nodded, grinning at me. I rather like Immutables. They are so very secure in everything they do, knowing we Gamesmen are utterly harmless when they are around. ‘Any price you ask, Sir Immutable,’ I said. ‘My love is in one of those tents, and your presence may help him escape.’
‘No price, lady,’ he whispered, putting down his banner and preparing to slip away along the mountainside among the trees. ‘Your love is Peter, and it was Peter who broke the evil at Bannerwell, and Peter who destroyed the evil of the Magicians. Any small assistance I can give, I am only too willing to provide.’ And he took himself off, still grinning, at what, I had no idea.
Behind the ledge of rock, other Immutables were marching to and fro with banners in their hands, first one banner, then another, giving the appearance of an army. From the canyons above the knoll I heard shrill cheering. The turnips had half planted themselves along a ridge to watch the battle. I thought of Big-blue and Molly-my-dear, wondering where they were. The last I had seen of them, they had been squirming into the earth outside the cavern entrance, and I had not thought of them since. There was no time now, for Huldra’s ranks surged forward. She had no intention of camping and negotiating anything. The Peter semblance at her side stood in idiot confusion. She had forgotten to tell it what to do.
No time to think about that. Armigers darted forward through the air, arching high to get a sight behind our rock parapet before releasing their arrows. Elators flicked out of existence at Huldra’s side. A line of Tragamors stepped forward, Sorcerers just behind, their eyes fixed on the rock wall that protected us and on which the other six members of the seven leaned, casually, as though watching a display of horsemanship or a class in cooking.
Armigers screamed, fell, thrashing about like wing-clipped birds. They had encountered the Immutable barrier. Elators appeared halfway to the wall, their faces bloody, battered. Most of them fell at once, one or two staggered about, shrieking. The Tragamors were holding their heads, and a Sorcerer blew up all at once in a flash of violet flame.
‘Snakes,’ said Murzy to Dodie casually, and Dodie nodded, beginning to make a complex set of gestures, her face set in concentration. From the rocky slopes of the mountain to the left of the approaching army, snakes appeared, as big around as two men, heads reared high and eyes fixed on the approaching men. Some hundreds of Huldra’s minions dropped their weapons and fled as the snakes reared even higher and hissed with a harsh, venomous breath that seemed to choke all those before it.
Huldra’s voice was raised in fury, screaming words I had not heard before. The snakes vanished, all at once.
‘Oh, quite good,’ said Murzy to Cat. ‘She did that very quickly.’
They were designed to be easy to disperse,’ said Cat. ‘We want her lulled into a false sense of security.’
‘Still,’ Murzy murmured, ‘she was quick. I think deep dwellers next, Dodie, if you don’t mind.’
This was only one word. Everything else had been done ahead of time. Dodie spoke the word, and the stones before the approaching army lifted from the ground to disclose endless lines of deep dwellers, popping out like corks, just as they had in Fangel. Fangy monsters, virtually impossible to kill, they launched themselves at Huldra’s myrmidons, jaws gaping and claws fully extended, dancing, leaping, among the ranks before Huldra could react.
She was close enough now that I could see her turn pale with fury. Thinking, thinking. Twice she reached out to make a gesture, aborted it each time. I could almost read her mind. She thought we had rigged a wall of enchantment across the valley. She knew she would encounter it in a moment. If she stopped to deal with the deep dwellers, the army might encounter the wall. If she dealt with the wall, the dwellers would make chopped meat of her men. She did the only thing she could do, signaled abruptly to a sentinel at her left, who struck his drum three great whacks while a trumpeter blew taratta taratta tara tara. Retreat.
‘She hasn’t thought of Immutables yet,’ muttered Murzy in my ear. ‘Why are you carrying those turnips about with you?’
I turned my head, catching only a glimpse of a floppy leaf at the edge of vision. Growling, I took off my pack. Big-blue and Molly-my-dear had hidden in it and accompanied me to battle, peering over either shoulder. Shrill cheering came from the ridge behind me. It had not been us they had been cheering for. No wonder the Immutable had been grinning.
Twelve
Peter’s Story: A Shift in Time
I heard the Herald. I’m sure Huldra wanted me to hear the Herald. I’d seen the semblance of me she intended to trade for Jinian, and I knew it wouldn’t fool Jinian for a moment. From what glimpses I could get of the country outside the wagon and then outside the tent, I thought we were in Cagihiggy valley north of the Blot. Not that the Blot was there anymore, but north of where it once had been. I drifted into that unpleasant dreamy state that was the best I could manage in the way of sleep and gave myself a few nasty minutes’ dreaming about the Blot. Izia. I had rescued Izia at the Blot. Yarrel’s sister. My friend Yarrel. Something ter
rible was to happen to Izia, and I woke up choking back a scream.
‘Wozzer rampin?’ the warder demanded with his usual elegant articulation. ‘Wozzer imperashun.’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’ There were screams from outside: running feet fled past the tent.
‘Wozzer rampin?’ demanded the warder from those who fled past. ‘Somin atterus?’
He received no answer, which seemed to make him nervous. He went outside and stood there, scratching his groin and rubbing the back of one leg with a boot. He was one of the itchiest men I had ever had the misfortune to meet, and the fact that he itched and I could not scratch was one of the most refined tortures of which mankind is capable. I wanted to scream.
More running feet. He took one quick look at me, then went around the tent and away, after the runners.
Now I could not even ask him to scratch my nose. Not that he would have done. I thought of scratching my nose, thought deeply and lovingly of it, and found one hand doing exactly that. The cords that had bound me were sliding toward my ankles. I knew at once what had happened. The cords had been made at least partly through Talent, and there was an Immutable near. I prayed he was going or gone, as quickly as may be. I needed my own Talent to escape.
‘Taratta taratta tara tara!’ Retreat screamed through the air, sounded by a Sentinel. No time to worry about how or why. I Shifted, frantically, gasping as waves of pain punished every part of me. Nothing worked right. I tried a claw and achieved a feathery thing that looked vaguely like a duster. Memory. Gamelords, I couldn’t remember how!
Voices. Huldra approaching the tent. No time, no time to do anything. Panic lent strength, and I flowed up the tent pole, coating it with a round smooth layer of Peter, hard and brown as itself, appearing no different at all, not at all. Where I came through the tent top, an extruded eye peered forth at the world, an ear listened, invisible from below.