Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal

  “It’s getting to be time,” was all Vish would say. She had come a long way in the Speech in the last few years, and though she knew she was lacking the vital property of enacture, the gift of the Powers that turned Speech and spells into wizardry, she could feel the fringing around the edges of things fraying strangely. The world was waiting for her. It was her time.

  She remembered again, one night, that feeling from long ago, in the egg. This is your time. As she ran across the world each day in the blazing heat, or through rare brief ferocities of rain, the sense of time ebbing away had begun repeatedly to creep down her spine. It’s foolish, she said to herself. I’m still so young! But the thought wouldn’t let her be that there was something waiting to happen for which she needed to be as young as she could.

  Vish ran.

  And at last there came a day when things around her looked strangely familiar—so that she stopped and stared around at the peculiar rock formations throwing their long shadows over the sand. She’d seen their like elsewhere on Wimst, however many years ago… though not with this fringing of familiarity, as identifiable to her now as the Speech itself.

  Podrist was looking around too, not as eagerly or with as much interest.

  “Where is he!” Vish demanded.

  Podrist shrugged her tail. This is where he was when last he and I spoke, she said. But Vish, he may not be here now. He has this whole world in his care; he doesn’t just sit in one place doing that!

  “If he’s caring for this whole world, he’s not doing a very good job of it,” Vish said, annoyed. “Just look at it!”

  One may care and do a good job of it, and yet have all things otherwise seem the same, said Podrist. Sometimes the only way you would know otherwise is by comparing with how things would be if no care was being taken.

  Vish let out a long hiss of annoyance. “So what now?” she said.

  We keep walking.

  “Running,” Vish said.

  And so they did: years more, millions of lengths more. Vish kept learning the words of the Speech, listened to the conversation of her behind the-eyes kin, and wondered how she was going to put the world right if there was nothing more she could do now but run and run and run across the face of a wounded world.

  Yet the Speech itself seemed to suggest to her, sometimes when she was just waking up after a long cold night under stone, that the running, in its way, was not just a way to get where she was going, but an important part of the putting-right. This seemed to her such a ridiculous idea that once out in the heat of the sun again, she began wondering if there might be something to it.

  “As strange as these stories about other worlds,” she said to Podrist on another day. “Why can’t we see them?”

  They were making their way down into a wide white salt-pan that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, making even the sky pale at the edges, more a turquoise than its usual dark blue-green.

  They’re too far for our eyes to see, Podrist said, and the Beyond itself hides them. But not from wizardry. It knows the way.

  Vish knew that, and wreathed her tail with interest at the thought. “Why doesn’t everybody go, then?” she said, “all the wizards? Why stay here, if there are other worlds that aren’t marred and this one’s so hard to put right?”

  Because this one is, and it needs us. Podrist sounded grave. It’s not as if we can’t ever go. But we know this world best.

  No answer came right back; but that was because Vish was squinting across the salt pan. “Is there something there?” she said. “A big rock or some such out in the middle there?”

  It was hard to tell, with the heat shimmering all around the object. In fact Vish found it difficult to believe that the thing had been there a moment or three ago.

  She stopped and stared harder. It was definitely there, the thing. And more: it moved.

  Vish took a great breath and ran faster.

  The dark shape out on the salt pan was no more than ten thousand lengths away, surely. It stood still and watched her come. It was a Tauwff, long-necked, eight-legged, massive of shoulder, long of tail. As she got close enough to see colors through the blinding whiteness all around, it was plain that this was no ordinary Tauwff, for he was a dark blue like midnight, and under his hide patterns and words in strange charactery swam and shifted, bright even in that blinding day.

  Vish went straight to him, and then stopped, not knowing what to do or say. Podrist was keeping quiet, and her other mind-kin were mute.

  “Well, Vish my little eft,” the Tauwff said, “a long time I’ve been waiting for you to be ready; but here you are at last. Whither away?”

  Vish said, “I’ve come seeking the Chief Wizard of Wimst.”

  “I am Mentaff, Wimst’s wizard,” said Mentaff, “and the one who stands on this world’s behalf before the Powers and the One.”

  Vish stood there and looked at him. She was trying hard not to shake, for she could feel the power in him, like lightning in the bellies of the clouds before the brief ferocious rain begins.

  “I hear tales in the wind and from the sand about how you’ve been walking about all by yourself in the wide world all this long while,” he said. “How you’ve walked a year and two years and five years and ten, once and twice and three and four and five and six times over, to put right what’s been done wrong to the world. But tales told by the wind and the sand are skewed by their own points of view. It’s best if you tell me yourself why you’ve come.”

  Vish felt abashed, for the longer she stood before the Planetary she more she felt as if Mentaff knew everything about her and everything she was going to say before she said it.

  Nonetheless, she said it anyway, because she’d said it to everyone else. “I’m the last and youngest of seven clutch-kin, and I’ve come right around the world in a great quest to put right what’s gone wrong. And to do that I tried to become the wisest and strongest and quickest and bravest person who ever was, by seeking out the wise and the strong and the quick to make a meal of them and make them young again. So now I come to you—”

  And suddenly it seemed madness of her to say anything more, for this Tauwff was plainly what she had been trying to become: the wisest and the strongest and the bravest… and a wizard as well, the greatest wizard there was.

  “Yes?” said Mentaff. “You were saying?”

  Vish’s tail lashed in embarrassment. “I said to them, and I would have said to you: I’ll make you young again, and once that’s done you can come with me on my quest.”

  “But now,” Mentaff said, “you’re doubting that this is an offer I’ll take kindly.”

  Vish gnashed her fangs in a sudden anguish of self-doubt. Maybe I should just run away, she thought, and be a normal Tauwff from now on.

  …Yet I’ve come all this way and all these weary years to do this. And I will do it!

  Vish held her head up. “That’s as it may be,” she said. “Will you give yourself over to me, brother?”

  Mentaff looked down at her in silence for a few moments. Then he said, “How would you make me do that if I refused? For though you’re big enough and strong enough for someone your age, compared to me you’re still hardly more than an eft.”

  Vish felt abashed, for this was true. Still, “Others have said that,” said Vish, “and found out otherwise.”

  “That may also be,” said Mentaff. “Yet I have also made many Tauwff young in my time; and made many others my own age; older than young, and older than that. Some of them have given themselves willingly: some have fallen in my path through their own ill doing, for as part of my work I do justice on Tauwff on the Powers’ behalf.”

  Vish held very still under the thoughtful fixed stare of Mentaff’s yellow eyes. “Once long ago I met one of this kind,” he said, “one with blood on her claws, and incorporated her. When her marrow and mine had grown familiar, I heard a voice that she had not heard, and heard a heart beat that she had stopped from beating—enacting that which is crime even to the Poiso
n-fanged One, incorporating someone not even out of the egg yet, one too small to say yea or nay to their incorporation. For even the Lone One demands that those suffering Its cruel gift have the right to agree or refuse: otherwise the evils or virtues of it are worth nothing.”

  “That is what needs to be put right!” cried Vish, her own heart aching inside her.

  “Indeed it does,” said the Mentaff, “for the heart that the wronged one’s heart heard beating, until it heard nothing more, was yours.”

  Vish stared.

  “Now what will you do, my little eft?” said the Planetary of Wimst.

  She barely knew what to say. But finally she found the words. “I can’t trick you, not being wise enough,” she said. “Being quick or strong will not avail me here. And even if they did, I would not kill you, for you have my clutch-brother in you. He died—you died next to me once and I didn’t feel it. I can’t have you die next to me again and feel it this time. My heart will break as it broke when yours went still!”

  “That is the Poisoned Fang,” said Mentaff. “That is the fang that sinks into all our hearts sooner or later. So what will you do?”

  “I want to put the world right,” Vish said, very low in heart. “But I can’t do it if killing you is the price.”

  And having said that, she could think of nothing else to do.

  Vish lay down there on the hard white salt, and the sky above them seemed dark to her though it was day, and her breath seemed loud to her: too loud. At last she said, “Everything I desired has at the last come to nothing. I will unwrap my soul from my bones and let my last breath adorn the air; and perhaps some day I will come back and try to find my clutch-brother again.”

  A long time they stayed there without moving, the two of them, the great Tauwff and the smaller one. At last Mentaff spoke: and Vish did not understand his laughter.

  “What there’s no doubt of at all,” said Mentaff, “from the stories I’ve heard, is that you are the boldest and most shameless Tauwff that ever was clutched. But it may be that you’re also the bravest and most stubborn, and the least likely ever to have come so far so fast, or with such purpose. So we will find accommodation, you and I. For the Powers have said to me that it’s time I was made young.”

  Vish stared at him again.

  “And also the Powers have said to me that there would be born in this time a Tauwff of unusual gifts—” He laughed again. “One who was single-minded beyond all others, and fearless, and foolhardy and short-tempered; but one who might do unexpected things when loosed upon the Worlds. Yes, Wimst is marred. So are many other planets. Would you not be interested in setting some of them right as well?”

  Vish gaped.

  “So it was that the Powers sent all your helpers to you one by one—or you to them, to see what you would do. And finally they sent Podrist on errantry to you to help you on your way and test your resolve. Those tests I would say you have passed. Therefore I may safely recommend to them that you should have Enacture bestowed on you—for the Speech you already have, by Podrist’s grace. And what happens after that… well, we shall see. Wimst is broken, as you say, and must be put right. But so must other things. We will see what you choose, and how.”

  “…Recommend?” Vish said, confused. “I thought no one could make them do anything.”

  “Make? Of course not. I cannot command them. No one can.”

  Vish’s heart sank.

  “But I can,” said Mentaff, “make very strong suggestions. Which they will take.”

  Vish’s jaw worked in astonishment. “But how will I run this planet? I don’t know how!”

  Mentaff roared with laughter. “Isn’t it amazing that you even think of such a thing? The worlds have no idea what is coming for them.” And it took many breaths for him to stop laughing again. “You need not worry yourself,” he said at last. “To be Planetary is a dangerous job, so there are always wizards ready to take it up. My apprentice Kasveth will be glad enough to take my place.”

  “Well,” Vish said after a moment, “I suppose that’s all right then.”

  Once more Mentaff laughed. “So by your leave, mighty one,” he said, and lay down on the salt pan, “may we begin?”

  Vish could do little but lash her tail “yes”.

  Mentaff looked at her with one stern eye. “Now, the malfeh told me,” the Planetary said, “that even when you were just barely hatched, you always saw that they got their rightful share. So make sure you do so now.”

  And so the Planetary of Wimst composed himself to greet the One, and stopped his heart and laid down his head.

  “Go now,” he said, “and put the world right.”

  And his soul unwrapped itself from around his bones, and his last breath adorned the air. And as it did, Vish felt what cannot be described—felt Enacture descend upon her, the force that would turn all the words of the Speech that she knew into words of power.

  “This then I promise,” she said. “Life and the putting right of the worlds: that is my work until my soul unwraps itself from my bones! Nor will I eat anyone unready to be eaten, or make young those who don’t desire it, for that’s not our way. And wherever I go in the worlds beyond this one, I will serve the ones who gave me this power! …And now it’s time for something to eat.”

  She looked down at the feast Mentaff had left her, and then stamped her feet. “Why didn’t you think this through?” she said. “Now I’m going to have to drag you all the way back to high ground before I can settle in to dine.”

  Idiot, said Podrist, and showed her a spell that would let her levitate Mentaff’s gift.

  Vish grinned and started back toward the edges of the salt pan, and her new life as a wizard. But the dreams of what was to come were nothing like as sweet to her as what she was already beginning to hear: the beat of another heart inside her, and the glad laughter of her clutch-brother Hwenmam.

  ***

  Once wizardry ensues, so the saying goes, the Ordeal follows hard on its tail, in company with the One who’ll bite your tail off short if you’re not looking.

  But sometimes… just sometimes… not.

  ***

  It took Mamvish five days to do justice by Mentaff, for he was unusually big and strong and heavy-boned. Quite late on the fifth day, after the sun had set, she left the rude cave where Mentaff had sometimes lived while in that locality, and went out to look at the sky.

  It was blank to her no more. She already knew enough of how to use wizardry that she could see the stars, and hear, faint and far away, the songs and the lives of other worlds through the darkness. Mentaff had been right. Wimst must be put right, and she would help see to that. But there were many other worlds also that needed to be seen to, and all her soul was burning fierce with the desire to get out there and do it.

  Not until I’ve had a little rest by my supper, however.

  She sat down on her back legs and stretched her front ones, and tilted her head back to look at the sky.

  Podrist looked through Mamvish’s eyes with her, along with Hwenmam, who had been stretching his jaws out of shape inside her with smiling at their egg-dam and egg-sire and the Sacrificer. He had already bitten Tarsheh’s tail several times, which had gladdened Mamvish out of all proportion. Things may become dangerous outside, she said to Podrist, but inside, all goes well.

  Well, we’ll see about that, said Podrist, for Ashmesh had been complaining that Hwenmam didn’t treat him with proper dignity. And there are other problems…

  “Yes,” said Mamvish. “But they’re not here yet.”

  Nor will they be, said a voice that did not belong to any of her mind-kin.

  All of them froze still and silent. But Mamvish looked up and said, “Really? Why?”

  Because you give me a headache, said the Lone Power, the Poison-Fanged.

  “I do?” Mamvish said, not quite sure how to take this.

  Yes. And therefore I will not be attending.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” Mamvish s
aid. “The legends say that it is almost impossible to have an Ordeal without you.”

  Almost, the Lone One said. We will meet often enough in the future. But right now…

  Mamvish shrugged one hind leg at It. Go well, then.

  Things went quiet again.

  Mamvish encouched herself and looked up at the sky for a while, considering, while the voices once more resumed their casual conversations behind her eyes.

  Gradually she began to suspect something like the truth. For to be present in an Ordeal, at least in the Tauwff mode, the Lone One must be physically present. And Mamvish suspected—though wisely she did not say, or think too loudly—that the Lone One was a little afraid of her. For every other Tauwff she had chosen to make young again, she had done so, by strength or skill or wiles or (finally) by asking the other’s grace. And what—It must be thinking—will I do if she decides I am to be her prey?

  Theoretically, on the surface of it, the possibility might have seemed laughable. Theoretically a mere created being, tethered to flesh, could never overcome and devour the true being of one of the Powers that Be.

  Theoretically.

  …But was that all she was?

  For all Its terrible power, for all that once upon a time and for aeons almost beyond counting it was Fairest and Highest, standing at the very pinnacle of created being… nonetheless the worlds have changed, and that was not how things were any more. The Lone One was excluded from Heaven, forcibly separated from its part in the great Order of things—an outcome that to Its way of thinking should have been impossible. Now It spent much of Its timeless existence mired in a frustration and rage of certainty that the other Powers were spending all their time looking for ways to frustrate It.

  And from such a point of view, it was just barely possible that even a creature seeming as simple and obvious and transparent as this young green Tauwff… could be more: a power cunningly disguised beyond any expectation, a trick or trap designed for the Lone One’s further humiliation. Though many beings might say (with reason) that more than anything else they fear the laughter of the Lone One, most of them would never suspect how It feared and despised, perhaps more than anything, others’ laughter at It: for of all its weaknesses, the most dangerous is how seriously It takes Itself.