But I did not think of that. Nor of the shadows. Those thoughts teased at the edges of my mind, but Peter drove them away. There were his hands upon me, gentle and inexorable. His strong, velvet-skinned legs moving against mine. A sweetness between us, down the whole length of us, like a pouring of honey, and him sliding into me as though a hand into a glove. . . .
A Shifter. Until that moment I had not understood the lovemaking implications of that. Human bodies are designed for many things, lovemaking among them,
but there are elbows and knees and awkwardnesses?
But with a Shifter there is - there is nothing left undone. There can be no awkwardness. When a Shifter loves, he ... he Shifts to a shape for that alone. There is no part left uninvolved. There is-
There is what we had.
When I opened my eyes, the moon had moved from the top of the sky. Beside us on the pedestal the lamp glowed with its own light, softly lambent, and-I knew it had drawn from us a light that could not be dimmed, as it had drawn a light from the city in times long past. Dawn crept into the east. On the far side of the wall the men called encouragement to one another, and we heard the long, falling hiss of molten metal flowing into the Bell mold.
As I lay there looking into Peter’s eyes, I understood what it was Ganver had been trying to teach me. It did, yes, have something to do with lovemaking. What was it Ganver had called it? ‘A following of perfection.’
‘How long before we can use the Bell?’ I asked.
He shook his head, stroking my hair back from my forehead. ‘A day or more, I think, Jinian love. It must cool.’ And then he laughed. ‘As I think I must.’
‘Not for a day or more, surely.’ I pressed my mouth into the hollow of his throat.
‘Not that long, no.’
I did not explain. The night would come soon enough. I would have to use what I thought I understood then, but I said nothing about it, merely smiling up at Peter in anticipation of what he might do next.
Which was a surprise, for he suggested breakfast.
Along about midmorning, I left him and went with the rest of the seven to the hills. Everyone in the city and outside it had been wandering about, brave smiles on their faces, making kind speech to this one and that one, just as I had done. We knew general Wize-ardry wouldn’t work. We knew the shadow-eaters couldn’t stay the monstrous flow that would come at us. And those who had been shadow bit, like Himaggery and me, had been at some pains to tell others what it was like, leaving it to them whether to face the shadow or take their own lives. Not one of those in the city had suggested flight. Not one Armiger. Not one Elator. Whoever had selected the hundred thousand in that long-ago time had done well.
‘You’ve learned something,’ said Cat to me, observing me closely, perhaps noting the little smile I wore.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I won’t talk of it, Cat. It’s too tenuous yet. Too uncertain. It has to do with love and children and parts contained in the whole. It has to do with weeding a garden without destroying the good plants in it. It’s coming, slowly. I’m letting it come.’
She nodded, not badgering me. Evidently they understood very well what this kind of feeling was, the notion that one knows something but cannot yet put it into words. ‘I’ll need your help, though. Come night and the Oracle again, I’m going to try the final couplet.’
‘Jinian,’ Murzy breathed while Dodie looked white-eyed at me. ‘Dangerous.’
‘And fatal not to,’ I said, still smiling at them all.
‘It can only be used once in a generation,’ said Cat in her most pedantic voice.
‘Has it been used in mine?’
She shook her head at me, pursing her lips. ‘No. No, Jinian. So far as I know, it hasn’t been used in centuries.’
I laughed at her, at Murzy. ‘Then there are many uses stored up to use now. Don’t fret, Murzemire Hornloss, nor you, Cat Candleshy. We will or we won’t, and fretting won’t help either outcome.’
The things needed to invoke the final couplet were many, varied, involving all of us in a daylong search for this and that. It would have been easier if the land had been alive and verdant. To find certain herbs among the ash and choking smokes, amid the dead trees and fallen branches - that was more difficult than we liked.
It was not until after dusk we came back to the city to find the shadow-eaters spread into their circle, not shrilling now, not making any sound, as frightened as the rest of us. It had occurred to them perhaps for the first time that we were all mortal, they and we, that they, too, could be eaten into nothingness. Thus I was not surprised when I crossed their line to hear a soft sound like a tiny growl coming from the ground.
‘Courage,’ I whispered. ‘Perhaps you will have help tonight.’
We mounted to the hilltop above Himaggery’s camp and began our preparations in a glade beside a fall that came down from the higher mountains beyond. Peter came and sat on the grass behind me.
‘You’ll be more comfortable below,’ I told him. ‘With the others.’
‘I am more comfortable here,’ he said. ‘With you. No matter what comes.’
I shut my mouth, remembering what I had asked him to do for me if the Oracle came too close. Of course he must be here. By me. I went to him and knelt there, my cheek against his. ‘Is the mold of the Bell cooling?’
‘Not noticeably.’ He made a grimace. ‘The foundry-men say it takes days sometimes. They dare not crack the mold until it is cool.’ Then, pulling me close, ‘Have you seen the lamp?’
I stood tall to gaze down into the valley. The lamp in the ruined Tower glowed, shone, setting all the broken stones into silver and shade. ‘Did we do that?’
‘Seemingly. We. Or perhaps Mind Healer Talley. Someone did.’
‘There’s still the Bell and the book,’ I said. ‘The book was long ago eaten by mice, I’m sure. Used by bunwits to line their nests.’
‘It wasn’t really the book,’ he said, holding me even closer. ‘It was the music from the book. The Shadow-people’s singing.’
‘Jinian,’ whispered Sarah Shadowsox.
‘Jinian,’ called Margaret Foxmitten from the other side. ‘Shadow!’
He let me go, all at once, knowing he must not detain me. I touched him once more, quickly, then turned to the work. He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have watched, but it was dark and what difference did it make?
The shadow was piled higher than before. On its fringes the Oracles danced, their mockery less treble, more angry. They tired of the game. Tonight they would come to finish us, if they could. The thought made me tremble. Peter had a sharp dagger. I had made him promise I would not come into the grip of the Oracle.
Enough. The things were laid out before me on a rough stone altar. As the shadows drove nearer, lunging upward into towers of dark across the last of the sunset glow, I wove.
I wove by forest and meadow, branch and leaf. I wove by stream and pool, by river and fall. I wove by cloud and air, by thunder and sunset glow. I wove by depths of the earth, rock and gem, glittering ores and crystals blooming in the dark, old bone and new. Beside me the others wove as well. ‘Forest,’ I called. ‘Chimmerdong. Eutras.’ ‘Eutras,’ sang Sarah and Bets Battereye. ‘Earthways,’ I called. ‘Gobblemole, Bintomar.’ ‘Bintomar,’ caroled Dodie, swaying. ‘Wingways,’ I called. ‘Flitchhawk, Favian.’ ‘Favian,’ intoned Murzy and Cat in antiphony. ‘Waterways,’ I called. ‘D’bor Wife. Shielsas.’ ‘Shielsas,’ sang Margaret, her voice soaring, reverberating in the cloud-strewn sky, making rings of color that spread outward from her voice, outward from her call, to the farther horizons.
‘And all within sound of my voice or reach of the wind,’ I cried, thrusting my voice after hers, like a Sending, like a magic spear, driving it upward. ‘And all within sound of my voice or lick of the wave, or all within sound of my voice or stretch of the soil, or all within sound of my voice or where green grows and leaf springs up. Named or unnamed, silent or speaking. Let this message be brough
t,
‘By the Eye of the Star, Where Old Gods Are!’
On the altar stone something blazed up, a quick blue flame, sputtering into silence. Above us our words gathered like a flock of birds, circling, making rings of color on the sky. In the center of that widening gyre something spread great wings.
‘Jinian,’ it called down from the height. ‘Jinian.’
‘I am here,’ I cried.
The earth shuddered beneath us, cracked, opened to admit the gigantic form of the Gobblemole. The fall opened like a curtain and D’bor Wife came forth. Around us the greenery rustled, began to burgeon upward, swallowing us in its depths. Forest. Come again.
And not only that. It would have been enough, those four. Quite enough. But I had called others as well, the named and unnamed. Those, too, came to the final couplet.
A thing of great bones. A thing of rock. A thing of gems. A thing of wind. A thing of cloud.
A quintessence of deserts, hot as molten brass and glowing with sun. A distillation of great groles, monstrous and hungry.
A songster, multivoiced, crying in the language of the Shadowpeople with a silver flute in its hands.
These - all these.
I looked at them, mouth open, forgetting why they had been summoned. Murzy jostled me with her elbow, bringing my attention back to the rough altar before us.
‘Those surrounding us are your enemies,’ I said. ‘The shadow. The Oracles. They come to harm us, but they will also kill you all. I beg help from all the old gods. By the Eye of the Star.
‘By the Eye of the Star,’ they whispered at me, a torrent of sound, like a river in spate. There was one of them - oh, I don’t remember which one. An immensity. Sometning so huge my senses could not encompass it. It was simply there, before me, around me, asking a simple question in a voice that could no more have been ignored than a lightning stroke could be ignored.
‘Look at me, Star-eye! What do you see?’
‘Bao,’ I said, holding on to Murzy’s hand for all I was worth.
It was replaced by another thing, asking the same question. I made the same reply out of a dry throat, wondering if this was right, if I had guessed aright, or if we would all be swept away. The threatening shadows, the Oracles, they were out there somewhere. I wondered if they saw, if they knew what was happening, then could not wonder any longer, for a third being was around us.
‘What do you see, Star-eye?’
‘Bao.’ Bao, yes, to them all. I felt Cat at my shoulder, trembling, proud Cat, trembling like a sapling in storm.
Then something new. A being there, before us, and with it a smaller version of itself.
‘Look at my child, Star-eye. What do you see?’
Oh, what could I say? What should I say? I knew, knew the answer I had was right, but to say it. To say it. . .
‘I see love, Great One. I see a following of perfection.’
‘And do you see bao?’
‘No, Great One, neither bao nor its lack. Until time shall show. Watch and learn.’
Storm then, a wildness of cloud. Dodie crept close to us. We were all seven gathered tight. Somewhere behind us, I could feel Peter’s presence, firm as stone, holding to the earth and waiting. Before us the sky broke and roiled, a being half-seen vanished in its depths to reappear beside us. Something green, then. Forest, I think. Chimmerdong. That great being, that old god we had so long invoked under the name of Eutras. It held out its hand -hand. It held out a great promontory of branch and twig and leafy swag, within which rested a flock of silly birds, twittering and hopping about. They did not see me or know me. ‘What do you see, Star-eye?’ it asked. ‘I see bao,’ I croaked from a dry throat. ‘Part of your own, Great One.’
‘In all, or each?’ it asked in a great, windy whisper. ‘In all or each?’ ‘In all, Great One.’
‘Will you take one for your supper?’ it asked me gently.
Murzy’s hand tightened on mine. Oh, Murzy. ‘I will, perhaps, if there are plenty, if you will allow, sometime, though not now.’
‘And if there were not plenty?’ ‘I would not, Chimmerdong,’ I cried. ‘I would not. None of us would.’
And Eutras was gone and all the others, and there was only the mighty Flitchhawk there before us. ‘Well, Jinian,’ it said. ‘Well, Star-eye.’
‘Well Flitchhawk,’ I said, trying to get enough spit in my mouth to make a sound. ‘We meet again.’
‘What is your wish, Star-eye? Shall we punish these shadows for you? These Oracles?’
Oh, tricky Flitchhawk. I heard Peter moving behind me, held up a hand quickly to keep him from speaking, to keep any of them from speaking.
‘The star-eye knows you may not, great Favian. For they have not bao of their own, and punishment would be vicious. We do not punish what cannot learn.’ ‘Shall I kill them for you then, Star-eye?’ ‘The star-eye knows you may not, Flitchhawk. For the shadows are of the bao of Lorn, and the Oracles are of the bao of the Eesties.’
‘Then what may I do for you, Star-eye?’
‘Drive them away for a time, Flitchhawk. If you will. We need time.’
Wings then. A thunder of wings, beating down, raising a cloud of choking dust and a heart of storm.
As usual, we all ended up flattened. Whenever the Flitchhawk flew, everything around it ended up flattened. There was wind, a monstrous, howling wind that moved out from us and away. I saw it thrust the shadows before it like a mighty broom, saw the banks of darkness fade into distance. Most of the Oracle’s followers, as well, tumbled away. Behind them the Oracle stood, untouched, ribbons slapping wildly on the gale. Alone, it could not really harm us all.
It became very quiet. I heard the Oracle calling, almost laughing at me.
‘Oh, very good, very good. Didn’t we say she is the heroine type? One time, Jinian Footseer. Two times, Jinian Dervish Daughter. Three times, Jinian Star-eye. And the third shall be the last! The old gods will not come to your aid again.’
I sagged, feeling Peter’s arms around me. Murzy and the others were whispering among themselves.
‘They’ll be back?’ Murzy said. It was only half a question.
‘Oh, yes,’ I sobbed. ‘They’ll be back.’
Fifteen
The Dagger of Daggerhawk
We went down into the windswept morning to find the city swarming with workers. There were sevens scattered among the Gamesmen; there were Gamesmen I had not seen before. Even as we watched, a new troop of them came down the hill into the city, the very last, so they said, from the caverns. So, stones screamed their way into walls; high above the street a crew was lifting rafters into place. For a moment, just a fraction of a breath, I could believe the city was as it had appeared in memory.
‘An Elator came to tell me what happened,’ said Dodir. ‘You’ve driven them away, is that it?’
‘Temporarily,’ I said. ‘Until tonight, perhaps. Not for long.’
We went on toward the Tower. I noticed the lamp was burning more brightly than it had before. Himag-gery was there, sitting by Mavin, stroking her arm. Any honest feeling, it seemed, made it glow the brighter. Though Peter and I had started it glowing, it went on gathering light from everywhere it could. That is the way of the light, to gather, as it is the way of shadow.
Himaggery rose when we came in. ‘So, we have yet a little time?’ He didn’t sound hopeful, but he wasn’t depressed about it, either. A kind of fatalistic cheer, that was it. A sense that pervaded the city and all of us who were in it.
‘We have yet a little time,’ I said. Privately I believed it was our last day to live, but I didn’t say so. It might just have been weariness, There had been little-enough sleep for all of us lately, and there was no point in dispiriting the others.
We went through the broken walls to the foundry. The foundryman was moving around the mold, looking at it doubtfully. ‘I thought perhaps it would have cooled,’ he said. ‘An ordinary bell that size would have cooled by now. It’s still hot. Too hot to take out of the
mold. I don’t understand it.’
I shared a glance with Murzy. The Bell had melted into it my star-eye and all our pool fragments dipped in the milky stuff with which crystals came. I mentioned this to the metalworker, seeing his face crease with concentration as Peter’s often did.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. The quantity was very small, but strange alloys can be made with very small quantites of additives. ...”
I put out a hand toward the mold. It was too hot to touch. Far too hot to break open yet. ‘Perhaps by night,’ I said, not believing it. ‘Undoubtedly by the time the Oracle returns.’
Peter and I went into the woods together. There was a glade above the camp that was untouched by the sickness of the world, a place where flowers bloomed and trees were still green. We went to have the privacy to say and do what all lovers say and do. I learned again what it is like to be loved by a Shifter. He learned again, so he said, that he loved me. I had had all the best of it and told him so. We argued about that. The day wore on. We ate meat and bread and drank wine. We laughed, even, at some silliness or other. Sun sparkled through the leaves, dappling our bare skins with coins of gold, and we spent them prodigiously on our pleasure. And night came, as we had known it would.
‘I have to go,’ I said.
‘Where are you going, Jinian love?’
‘Up there.’ I pointed. ‘The Oracle will come up there.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No.’ I pushed him down, fixing him with my fiercest glance. ‘No, Peter. I have the Dagger of Daggerhawk Demesne. Though I may not call on the old gods again, there are other beings I may call. If necessary, I will use the Dagger on myself. No. Don’t say anything. It will be easier for me this way.
‘I’ve told Murzy and the others to stay at the Tower. I’m going to call Shadowpeople and send them there. I want you to go to the foundry. The Bell must be cooled by now. It must be! Remember the words of the Seer, Peter? Sorah, so long ago? Upon the Wastes of Bleer. She told us the Wizard had the Bell, the book, the light. There are Wize-ards here in plenty, and we must have all three. The Bell. The light. The singing.’