“But Valdon says…”
“I am Gamesmaster here, Boldery. We know that Valdon seeks adventure, always, believing that the name of the High King is enough to protect him. It may not always be so. The Ghoul Blourbast holds … Poffle. He may care little for the High King.”
“Everyone fears the name of the High King,” the boy asserted, flushed skin showing through the pink dust.
“Not everyone, lad.” Windlow patted him gently. “I mean no disrespect to your thalan to say so. You have not been so far from the High Demesne before or you would know. If you think I am telling you fibs, then go ask Twizzledale. He will tell you aright, for he has traveled far enough to know that what I say is the truth.”
“Valdon says he’s a pawnish churl, no Wizard at all.”
“If Valdon said that, then Valdon was either silly or drunk.” Windlow’s voice held anger, and the boy flushed again as he turned away.
“He was drunk, Gamesmaster. He would be angry I told you. Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t mention it. You might remember it, however. It is never wise to drink so much that you say things others remember to your discredit. Now – ride on back to the young Gamesmen and tell them we take the cliff trail.”
Mavin had been somewhat embarrassed by this interchange, not knowing where to look, whether to seem interested or not to notice, though it would have been impossible not to hear. Windlow shook his head as the boy rode away. “Do not attach too much importance to that, Mavin. The boy worships his older brother, as is often the case. The brother is not worthy of such worship, as is often the case. Valdon is prideful. Over prideful. It would have been better had he not known since childhood that he would be a Prince.”
“Known since childhood?” She was startled. “How could anyone know in childhood what Talent they would manifest later? Why even in … the places I have been, they have not…” Her voice trailed away into betraying silence. She had almost spoken of Danderbat keep.
“I will tell you,” he said, seeming not to notice her confusion. “Prionde, when he was no older than Valdon is now, took his own full sister to wife, she being Queen in her own right and talent. My studies of history lead me to believe that such breeding is often unwise. It is true that traits – perhaps Talents – are intensified by such breeding. It is also true that dangerous and deadly tendencies are also intensified. There is a certain rashness in Prionde and in his sister-wife, Valearn, as well. It is amplified, greatly, in both Valdon and Boldery. I fear for them sometimes.”
“And so, the King was sure his children – his thalani would have the Talent of Ruling, Beguilement?” Within her arms she felt Mertyn stir and knew that he had heard the conversation. “He knew it when they were children and let them know it?”
“He was so sure that if they had not, I think he would have sent them away and not have seen them ever again.”
Mavin gulped, possessed by a frantic curiosity which she did not attempt to find reason for. “What did she think about it. Her. His sister?”
“She has not spoken of it in the High Demesne. She seemed to like her life well enough. However, she had complained of illness since bearing Boldery, and the Healers have been unable to cure her. Which makes me believe it is not her body which ails her.” He fell silent, biting his lip, then adopted a more casual tone. “Well, what a conversation to be holding with a casual acquaintance. I would appreciate it if you did not repeat what I have said. I am a loquacious old man, and on occasion I forget myself.”
Mavin nodded her agreement, feeling Mertyn tense against her, then relax. A shout from close ahead drew their eyes forward, and there at the beginning of the cliff trail Twizzledale waited for them. One of the wagons had already turned behind him and was lurching upward on the narrow way.
“We cannot get by the wagon,” he called. “The way is too narrow. Shall we have tea to give them time to get to the top?” His laughing eyes met Mavin’s. She flushed and looked away, though she did not know why.
From between her arms Mertyn spoke calmly, his shrill voice carrying over the sound of hooves and wheels. “Thank you, Wizard, sir. I am very thirsty. Besides, I have to get off this horse.”
And as Mavin followed him to the ground she thought that she, too, had to get off the horse. The world seemed to move beneath her feet, and she was hard put to it to seem balanced and secure upon her legs. Still, she managed a manly smile of thanks for Twizzledale’s hand and a cheerful offer to collect some wood along the slope to make them a fire. Once away from them all, she sighed deeply and let her face sag into its own girlish shape, just for a moment, just to know who and what she was. This role-playing demanded more of her than she had guessed it might, and the strain of it tugged at her muscles, tugged at the Shifter net within her, making concentration difficult. She breathed deeply, heard Mertyn call, “Mavin? Where are you?” and managed to find both an armload of wood and a feeling of calm before she walked back toward the group, waving to the child with one hand.
CHAPTER FIVE
They came to the city of Pfarb Durim at noon of the day following, for they had lingered on the road to investigate the Strange Monuments which the Seer Windlow had longed to see. The wagons had taken some time to get up the narrow path, and Valdon had been throwing unpleasant glances at the Seer long before the way was clear, sprinkling his displeasure with remarks made just loudly enough to be heard concerning the width and smoothness of the road along the valley floor. Perhaps Windlow did not hear them, but at the least he gave no evidence of hearing the sneering remarks, and when the trail to the highlands was clear, they made their way upward in some appearance of amity. The first of the Monuments stood over the road within spitting distance as they came over the lip of the cliffs, and from that time on the journey was one of continual expostulation and wonder.
“I had no idea they were this close to Pfarb Durim,” marveled Windlow. “I had always thought they were further south, nearer Betand. Though, as I think of it, some of the authorities – if any are to be considered authorities on such subjects as this – have said that these Monuments have a strange tendency to wander, seeming first nearer and then farther away.”
“Oh, come, Gamesmaster.” Twizzledale laughed. “You do not expect us to believe that. The things are ten man-heights above the road, anchored on pedestals which appear to be part of the mountain we ride upon. Surely you don’t take such stories seriously.”
The older man shrugged, eyebrows high to indicate his own wonder at the idea. “I repeat only what I have read, Gamesman. At certain seasons, these arches glow. All authors agree to that. At certain seasons, those who live hereabouts are in agreement that it is wise to avoid this road. Since that season coincides with the time of storms, during which wise persons avoid travel in any case, perhaps no one has seriously tested the notion that the arches are dangerous then. Or, if not dangerous, something else. Something stranger, perhaps.”
Mavin was following along behind, marveling as much as the two riding ahead, but less vocal about it. “Did you know these things were here?” she whispered to Mertyn.
“I read about them,” he answered. “But the book didn’t say much. Just that no one knows who built them or why. I can’t even figure out how anyone could have put them here.”
Mavin agreed. The arches might have been made of green stone, or metal, though they seemed more crystalline than metallic, giving an impression of translucence without actually letting any light through. Two man-heights broad at the base, they narrowed as they rose, dwindling to a knife’s edge straight above the road. Where the shadow of the arches lay upon the way, the horses hopped and skipped like zeller kids, sidling across the shadow as though it formed some mazy barrier which only they could see and only such frolicking progress could penetrate. Each transit of the shadow made Mavin think she heard twanging chords of music, rapidly blending, echoing briefly on her skin when they had come through, and – most interesting she thought – each passage of shadow seemed to ta
ke time totally out of keeping with the actual width of the shadow on the road.
“Remarkable,” breathed Windlow, trying to stay on his jigging horse. “I hear music. Quite remarkable.”
“Shadowpeople,” breathed Mertyn to Mavin. “Shadowpeople are supposed to have all kinds of musical magic, Mavin. Could the shadowpeople have built these?”
“Shadowpeople aren’t builders, are they? I thought they just sang in the wilderness and made music and ate a few travelers now and then.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they eat travelers, I mean. They trick people. Lead them over cliffs, or into bogs, but only if the people are doing something bad to them.”
“Children’s tales, brother boy.”
“Maybe. There’s some truth in children’s tales, though, or they wouldn’t go on being told. You’re right, though. No children’s tale I ever heard mentioned the shadowpeople building anything. Just the same, whenever the horse dances through one of those shadows, I think of shadowpeople.”
“Wise beyond your years, young one,” said Windlow, coming up from behind where he had stopped yet again to inspect one of the Monuments. “I, too, think of shadowpeople. As a Seer, I have learned thinking of some oddity is often prelude to other oddity following. It is tempting to wonder what actually does happen here in the season of storms.”
“I’d like to know where the road goes,” said Mavin.
“Why, it goes to Pfarb Durim.”
“No, I mean the other end.”
“To Betand?”
“Betand is just a human city. If the Monuments were built on a road, then it must have been important where the road went. It couldn’t have gone to a human city, because the human city wasn’t there. So it must have gone somewhere else.” She fell silent, noting that Windlow had fixed her with a somehow calculating eye, as though she had surprised him. Before he could reply, however, a cry came from before them.
“Pfarb Durim!” A cloud of dust bustled toward them, full of hoof clatter. It was Boldery. “Pfarb Durim is just down the hill.”
They jigged through the last of the arches to see the city spread before them, its high walls bulking hugely in the center of a saucer-like depression resulting from some long ago subsidence of the cliff’s edge. Around the rim of this saucer the road ran, making a wide circle to the east before turning north once more. To their left they could see a narrow road winding up from the valley, from Poffle, and from the circling road several broad avenues ran downward to the city which gulped them in through strangely shaped gates. These gates and the many doors made tall keyholes of black against the lighter stone. Vast iron braziers stood on the wall at each corner, twisted iron baskets hung before the gates, all stuffed full of grease-soaked wood which would be lit at nightfall to send a smoky pillar hovering over the place. The smell of burned fat reached them first, then the smell of the markets outside the gates, spices and fish, raw hides and incense, the stench of commerce carrying a wild babble of voices which rose and fell as the sound of moving water.
“Pfarb Durim,” said Windlow. “City of legends. Here, so it is said, when our forefathers came to this place a thousand years ago, they found the city already built by other than we, by not-men, perhaps by those who built the arches.”
“It smells very human to me,” said Mertyn, wrinkling his nose.
“It has been occupied by humans for some time,” he replied.
They led their animals through the market, fascinated to see so many things being bought and sold, hearing the cries of the merchants as they would have heard strange birds in a forest, with as little understanding. The gate was guarded by several red-nosed men who looked them over casually, inquired whence they had come, and seemed inclined to accept Mavin and Mertyn as part of Windlow’s group without any special inquisition as to their origins. Once inside the walls, Mavin handed the reins of her horse to Twizzledale, who was riding a bit behind the others, and bowed to him from the street.
“We appreciate your kindness, Gamesman. Now we must leave you with our thanks.”
“Where are you meeting your … whoever?” he asked, looking more closely at her than she found comfortable. “You’re welcome to stay with us until you are met.” Giving the lie to this, Prince Valdon shouted from the street corner.
“Leave the pawnstuff, Wizard! There’s wine waiting!”
Twizzledale flushed, but did not move. Mavin said, “Thank you again, Gamesman. But we will not inflict ourselves upon you further. I must obey the instructions I was given.” She smiled, more warmly than she had intended, backed away from him, and set out around the corner, Mertyn’s hand clutched firmly in her own. There she took refuge in a deep doorway while she tried to decide where to go next.
“Brother child, we need some cheap lodging to roost in while we find the best road to the Shadowmarches and Battlefox.”
“If you don’t want to run into the Seer and his students, we’d better see where they go,” said Mertyn, leaning around the corner, his voice betraying the sadness he felt. He had been looking forward to a few more hours with Boldery in pursuit of some form of exciting mischief. “It would have been nice to…”
“Yes, it would have been nice to. But I didn’t dare. That Twizzledale kept looking at me as though he could see through to my smalls. I don’t think I made a convincing man. There’s something more to it than shape, and he was suspicious of something the whole time. I could smell it.”
“But he liked you.”
“That might have been the trouble,” she answered. “If he’d despised me, as Prince Valdon does, he would not have looked at me so closely.”
The boy was peering around the corner still, then turned to her, sighing. “They’ve gone into a big inn right at the wall. I guess we should go on into the city. Should we ask someone?”
“We should,” she agreed, and set about doing so. Within a few moments she had the names of three cheap lodging houses, all within a short distance of one another, as well as three sets of instructions how to reach them. They set off in a hopeful frame of mind which changed to a kind of dismay as they left the open ways near the gate and began to wend down damp alleys, shadowed by protruding stories in the buildings to either side and threatened by a constant shower of debris from the windows and roofs. “Gamelords, what a warren,” she said. “I had no idea.”
As they made a last turn, Mertyn ran full into a staggering man who gurgled ominously, supporting himself against the wall. Mertyn reached out to catch him, then drew back, fastidiously wiping his face where the man had drooled on him. “Play … play…” the man gasped, his eyes protruding with the effort. “Play … ch’owt…” And then he crumpled onto the stones, fingers scrabbling weakly at the slimy cobbles.
“Come on!” ordered Mavin. “We can’t help him, but we can send help.” And they ran on, coming into a wider area in which the lodging houses they had sought all stood, one bearing a sign THE BALD BADGER near at hand.
The door jangled as they opened it, and a voice screamed at them from some other room. “Wait! Don’t move, now, just wait and I’ll get to ya. A minute. That’s all. I swear, only a minute, and I’ll get to ya. Are you there?”
“We’re here,” Mavin replied in a doubtful voice.
“A minute. I’ll get to ya. Everybody’s so impatient. Run, run. I’ll get to ya.” There was no sign of the person getting to them immediately. They looked at one another, then turned as a soft footfall whispered on the stairs behind them.
“Sirs,” said a gray voice. “You desire lodging?”
“Just a minute,” screamed the other voice. “Run, run.”
“A thrilpat,” exclaimed the colorless woman who owned the gray voice. “Over trained. A vocabulary of over twenty phrases, none of which are in the least useful. I’d sell it, except it has the mange.”
“Are you there?” screamed the voice hysterically. “Everyone is so impatient.”
“We need a room,” said Mertyn. “And there’s a man down the
alley who fell down. I think he’s sick.”
The gray woman smoothed her tightly knotted hair, slick upon her skull as paint. “A room I can provide. Assistance for men who fall ill in alleys is outside my competence, young sir. When I have shown you what we have – little enough, but cheap. Lords, yes, cheap is the name of the house – when I have shown you, I’ll get the kitchen girl to run tell the watch about the sick man. Will that satisfy your sense of the appropriate? The honorable? The kindly? This way. Watch the step, second from the top. It wants nailing down.”
They followed through half darkness until a door opened, flooding the corridor with light. “Step in. You’ll need to share the bed, there’s only one, but it’s fresh straw and linens washed only last week.” The slant-roofed room peaked over the open window which let in the turmoil of the street. The bed was low, wide, and the place smelled clean. “How much?” asked Mavin, in her bargaining voice.
“Coin or trade? Three minimum in coin. If you were a Healer, I’d give it to you for a bit of work. You’re not, though, nor anything else useful to me at the moment. Well, then, three minimum. With a bit of supper thrown in. Nothing fancy, a cup of this and that and some beer. By the by, my name is Pantiquod Palmfast. They call me Panty. Nothing to do with intimate trousering, young sir, so do not giggle in that unfortunate way. No, it has to do with breath, with breathing, with climbing these ghastly flights of stairs. Well, enough. Three minimum, is it?” She smiled, a smile as gray as her voice, and went away, closing the door behind her. Mertyn was already on the bed.
“Will you remind her about the sick man, Mavin. I think she’ll probably forget it.”
“I think you’d better not worry about it, brother child. I’ve a feeling there are more unfortunates in Pfarb Durim than you could possibly give worrying time to. Still, I’ll remind her, for what good it may do. Next thing is to see where we might get some maps, don’t you think?”