The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

  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 recognize. 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 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.”

  “I wouldn’t do it to you, Mavin. You’re childer, like me. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Ah. Do you know what it means, Mertyn child? It means you’re probably not Shifter. It means you must be Ruler, King or Prince or one of those high-up Beguilers. But you only eight years old? A twenty-four or -five season child, and showing Talent already? I’ve never heard of that.”

  “I didn’t think it was Talent. I thought it was just something I could do.”

  “Well, that’s what Talent is, boychild. That’s all Talent is, something we can do. Well.” She looked at him in amazement, seeing that the world around them had become less shining, less marvelous, less peaceful. “You were doing it this morning.”

&
nbsp; “Not to you. Just to me, to the world. To make it prettier for us. You know.”

  “What I know, Mertyn, is that you’d better keep that thing you can do very quiet to yourself. Don’t use it unless there’s need. I’m worried now that those men may begin to think, there on the road, of how sweet a child you were, and thinking may lead them to more thinking, which might lead them to deciding you have a Talent. And there’s a market for any child, much more a child with Talent. I worry they may start thinking and come back for us. Me they’d hit over the head and leave for dead, but you they’d sell, I think.”

  He considered this, thinking it over gravely before saying, “I don’t think so, Mavin. Truly. No one has ever thought it was Talent. Not in all this time…”

  “All this time? How long have you been doing this thing?”

  “Oh, since I was a fifteen-season child, at least. I used to do it at Assembly, to the cooks, to get sweets. They didn’t mind. And I did it to the Shifters, too, and to the granders when I wanted something. And to Handbright.”

  A fifteen-season child. Five years old. And already with a Talent seeming so natural that no one knew he had it. Mavin tried this thought in a dozen different ways, but it made no sense to her. Children did not have Talent. That was one of the things that made them children. And yet here was Mertyn. Slowly, hesitantly, she moved them on their way. “It will still be best to use it only when we must. Elsewise you may do some unconsidered damage with it. So. Agreed?”

  He nodded at her, rather wanly, and they went on their way, Mavin cautioning herself the while. “He is only a child. Because he seems to have this Talent, you will begin to think that he is more than a child, that he understands more than a child can understand. You will make demands upon him, you will expect things from him. He will make childish mistakes, and you will blame him. Don’t do it, Mavin. He is child, only child, and that is quite enough for the time being. Let him live with his thalan, Plandybast, at least for a little time. Let him not have to make people love him…” Shaking her head the while, impressing it upon herself, demanding that she remember. The light had gone out of the day, and she longed for it, longed to have Mertyn bring it back, but would not allow him to do it even if he would. “Child,” she said to herself yet again. “A child.” She had the feeling that she herself had never been a child, having to remind herself what she had been until the past few days. Before the Assembly she had been a child. Before she overheard the granders she had been a child. Before she had seen Handbright’s body striped with the whip, before she had known what it would be not to be a child…

  “Don’t worry, Mavin,” he whispered to her. “It’s really a good thing to have. You’ll see. I’ll only use it to help us.”

  They went on toward the north for that day and most of the day following. The latter part of that day they accepted a ride on a farm wagon hauling hay from the fields along the river to the campground at Calihiggy Creek. Mavin had grown used to her boyish shape, had managed to hold it constant even while sleeping. Mertyn nagged at her from time to time. “I thought Shifters couldn’t take other people shapes, Mavin. They taught us that. Handbright taught us that.”

  To which she replied variously, as the mood struck her. “I think most Shifters can’t,” or “It was a lie,” or “I think it’s only other real people we can’t Shift into,” knowing that this last was as much a lie, at least, as any other thing he had been told.

  “You need a fur cloak,” he said seriously to her. “With a beast head. Barfod had one with a great wide head on it, he said it was a monstrous creature from the north. I like pombi heads best. Let’s get you one of those.”

  “Mertyn, child, I don’t want anyone to know I am Shifter. I don’t want anyone to know that either one of us are anything except – just people.”

  “Pawns?” he asked in a disgusted voice.

  “Well, maybe not pawns. But whatever is next to pawns that would make the least problems. I don’t want anyone carrying tales about us back to Danderbat keep. I don’t want any child stealers coming after you. I don’t want any woman stealers to be taking me. So, we’re just two – whats?”

  He began to think about this, laying himself back in the haywagon and staring at the sky. It was growing toward evening, and the lights of the campground were showing far ahead of them on the road. “I know,” he whispered to her at last. “You shall be a servant to a Wizard. No one wants to upset a Wizard or trifle with a Wizard’s man. I shall be the Wizard’s thalan, son to his sister. That way no one will trifle with me either.”

  She considered it. It had a certain audacious simplicity which was attractive. “Which Wizard? We’d have to say which Wizard?”

  “It couldn’t be a real one with a Demesne around here, or we might get caught. I heard of one. There’s one called Hagglefree who has a Demesne along the River Dourt.”

  “You know some very strange things,” she said.

  “There are lots of old books and maps at the keep that no one paid any attention to,” he replied. “We should have learned all about them at school. Someone must have learned about them long ago, or they wouldn’t have been there.”

  “We had become decadent,” she said. “That’s what Plandybast said to someone at the last dinner. That Danderbat keep was decadent. That we hadn’t any juice anymore.”

  He nodded solemnly. “So. If he’s still alive, Hagglefree, I mean, then we should be all right.”

  “If he had a sister. If she had a boy. If he keeps servants, for some do not. We might be better to make up a name, Mertyn. Make one up.”

  He thought for a moment, said, “The Wizard Himaggery. That’s who we are connected with.”

  “And where is his Demesne?”

  “Ah … let’s see. His Demesne is down the middle river somewhere, toward the southern seas. There’s lots of blank space on the maps down there. No one knows what’s there, really.” He put his hand in hers, “Shall we swear it, Mavin? Shall it be our Game?”

  “Let it be our Game, brother. The campground is ahead, and we will see how it sits with the people there when I buy us supper and a bed.”

  “Do you have money, Mavin? I brought a little. I didn’t have much.”

  “I didn’t have much either, brother boy, but I took some from the cooks’ cache before they left. It will get us to Battlefox the Bright Day – if we are careful.”

  The wagon driver leaned back toward them, gesturing toward the firelights down the road. “That the place you were going, young sirs? There it is. Calihiggy Campground. I’ll take the wagon no further, for I’ve no mind to have my hay stolen during the dark hours. I’ll sell it to the campmaster come morning.”

  They thanked him and left him, then wandered out of the gloaming into the firelight before a half hundred pairs of eyes, both curious and incurious.

  It was the first time Mavin had been anywhere outside the keep of the Danderbats where she had needed to speak, bargain, purchase, seem a traveler more widely experienced than in fact she was. She did it rather creditably, she thought, then noticed that the man to whom she spoke smiled frequently at Mertyn with a glazed expression. Shaking her head ruefully, she accepted the bedding she was offered and allowed them to be guided to a tent pitched near the western edge of the ground, near Calihiggy Creek and a distance from the privies.

  “I thought I told you not to do that,” she hissed.

  “I had to,” he said sulkily. “The man was beginning to think you were a runaway pawn from some Demesne or other. You stuttered.”

  “Well. I haven’t practiced this.”

  “You’ve got to seem very sure of yourself,” he said. “If you seem very sure of yourself, everyone believes you. If you stutter or worry, then everyone else begins to stutter and worry inside their heads.”

  “I thought you had Ruler Talent, not Demon Talent to go reading what’s in people’s heads.”

  “It isn’t like that. I can just feel it is all. Anyhow, it didn’t hurt anything. Now you’ve got
to practice walking as though you knew just where you were going, and when you talk, do it slowly. As though you didn’t care whether you talked or not. And don’t smile, until they do. I’m tired. What did you get us to eat?”

  “I got hot meat pies, three of them, and some fruit. You can have thrilps or rainhat berries.”

  He had both, and two of the pies. Mavin contented herself with one. They weren’t bad. Evidently some family from a little village along the road brought a wagonload of them to the camp every day or so, and the campmaster heated them in his own oven. When they had done, they wandered a bit through the camp, trying to identify all the Gamesmen they saw, and then went back to their tent. “No one is looking for us,” Mavin said. “No one at all. They’ve all gone back to Danderbat keep. And likely we will not see Handbright again until we come to Battlefox. Well, it’s less adventurous than I’d thought.”

  “It’s adventurous enough,” the child responded, voice half dazed with sleep. “Enough. Lie down, Mavin.”

  She sat down, then lay down, then pulled the blankets up to her chin. They were only three days away from the place she had lived all her life, and already the memory of it was beginning to dim and fade. She was no longer very angry, she realized in a kind of panic. The anger had fueled her all this way, and now it was dwindled, lost somewhere in the leagues they had traveled. Something else would have to take its place.