The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped

  She examined the others carefully, one by one, discarding each as a possibility. She knew what he would look like, had visualized him many times. And yet—could it be that plumpish fellow by the wall? Perhaps it was. Her stomach knotted. Surely not. Not. No. He had turned toward her with his pursey mouth and heavy-lidded eyes. Not Himaggery.

  One of the men by the stairs, perhaps? The tall, martial-looking man? “Silly,” she said to herself. “He has a Sorcerer’s crown. Himaggery, if he wore Gamesman’s garb at all, would wear Wizard’s robes.” She finished the wineghost, stood up abruptly and left the terrace. She had been so sure that he would be here when she arrived, so sure. So certain.

  Inside she dithered for a moment. She could wander about the place, spend half a day doing it, without knowing whether he was here or not. There was a simpler way.

  “Your title?” demanded the porter, officiously blocking the door of his cubby. “Your title?”

  “If there is a message for me,” she said, “it will be addressed simply to Mavin. I am Mavin, and my title is my own business.”

  He became immediately obsequious, turning to burrow in the untidy closet among papers and packages, some of them covered with the dust of years. It was obvious that nothing was ever thrown away on the Mont. She was ready with significant coin when he emerged, the sealed missive in his hand. “Who brought it?” she asked.

  His eyes were on the coin as he furrowed his face, trying to remember. “A pawn, Gameswoman. A lean, long man in a decent suit of dark clothes. Many lines in his face. A very sad face, he had. The air of a personal servant about him. He did not stay at the Mont, you understand. He just left the message with me, along with the payment for its safe keeping and delivery.” He looked at the coin once more, his expression saying that the previous payment could not have been considered sufficient by any reasonable person. She flipped it to him, left him groveling for it in the dusty closet as she turned the packet in her hands. So. Not Himaggery. A message delivered by a man who could only be Johnathon Went, old Windlow’s man. Windlow. Himaggery’s teacher. Himaggery’s friend. The last of the morning light had gone and rain was falling outside. She found a quiet corner in one of the reception rooms, behind a heavy drapery which held away the cold. The note in the tough parchment envelope was not long.

  “Mavin, my dear,” it said. “I have no doubt you will be in Pfarb Durim, faithful to your promise. Himaggery will be there, too, if he can. If he is not, it is because he cannot, in which case you are to have the message enclosed. Over the years, each time he has left me to go on one of his expeditions he has left a letter with me for you. This one was left eight years ago. I am sending someone with further information. Please await my messenger upon the Ancient Road—where the Monuments danced ...

  “I think of you often and kindly. My affectionate regard.

  “Windlow.”

  It was sealed with Windlow’s seal. Another letter lay within.

  She stuffed them both into the pocket of her cloak, rose abruptly and went out into the courtyard, shouting for her horse, though the threatened rain had begun. When he was brought to her, she mounted without word and clattered through the city, almost riding through the guards at the gate. The rain had become a downpour and the roadway ran with water, but she urged the horse into a splashing canter up the hill toward the crossroad. She would not, could not have stayed in Pfarb Durim another moment. The city seemed to swallow her. She needed a smaller scope, with trustworthy walls around her.

  The tiny inn ghosted into existence through the slanting knives of rain. She shouted to bring a stable boy out of the barn; his mouth was half full of his lunch. Inside the inn she found a room, acceptably clean though sparsely furnished, with a fire ready laid upon the hearth. Food was brought, and beer, and then the kitchen girl was gone, the door shut behind her, and Mavin sat beside the fire with the unopened letter in her hand.

  “Well,” she said. “Well and well. So all this hurry was for nothing, Himaggery. All this long ride from Schlaizy Noithn, this Shifting into acceptable form with an acceptable face and acceptable clothing. All for nothing. Nothing.” Her thumb nail moved beneath the seal. It broke from the paper with a brittle snap, flying into the fire to sizzle upon the wood, hissing like a snale. “For nothing?” she said again, opening the page.

  Mavin, my love:

  Though I have called you my love often in these past seasons, you have never heard me. If you read this, the chance is great that this is the only time you will ever hear me.

  I am going into the Northlands tomorrow, first to see the High Wizard Chamferton—who, I am told, knows much of the true origins and beginnings of things which have always intrigued me—and then farther north into places which are rumored often but seldom charted. There is a legend—well, you probably are not much interested in such things. If you were here now, Mavin, I would not be interested in them either.

  Since it is not likely you will read this—I have been, after all, fairly successful at looking after myself for some dozen years—I will allow me to say the things I could not say to you if you were here for fear of frightening you, sending you off in one shape or another, fleeing from me as you fled from Pfarb Durim so long ago. I will say that you have been with me each morning and each night of the time between, in every branch which has broken the sky to let sunlight through, in every deep-eyed animal I have caught peering at me in the forests, in each bird cry, each tumult of thunder. I will say that the thought of you has held me safe in times of danger, held me soft in times of hardship, held me gently when I would have been more brutal than was wise or fair.

  Mavin, if I am gone, treasure how deeply I loved you, how faithfully, how joyously. Live well.

  Yours as long as I lived,

  Himaggery.

  She sat as one frozen into stone, eyes fixed on nothing, the room invisible around her. So she sat while the food chilled and the fire died; so she sat until the room grew cold. “Ah, Himaggery,” she said at last. “Why have you laid this on me, and you not here.”

  She rode out at dawn, spending the day upon the Ancient Road, waiting for Windlow’s messenger. That day she did not eat, nor that night. The next day she ate something, though without appetite, and stayed again upon the road. The third day she told herself would be the last. If Windlow’s messenger did not come, then no messenger would come, and she would ride south to Tarnoch to talk with Windlow himself.

  So for this last day she sat upon the tall horse as he fidgeted beneath her, sidling in and out of the shadows once more. “Be still, horse,” she said, patting him without thinking. “We are waiting for a messenger.”

  The horse did not care. He had waited for three days and was not interested in waiting more. He jumped, hopped, shook his head violently until the links upon the bridle rang and jingled.

  She dismounted with a sigh and led him upon the new grass of the hill. “Here then. Eat grass. Founder upon it. I’ll not sit on your twitchiness longer.”

  She stretched her arms toward the threatening sky, shifting her ribs experimentally around the soreness remaining from the long ride east. She had left Battlefox Demesne last year, had spent the intervening seasons in Schlaizy Noithn—trying, without success, to remedy an unpleasantness in that tricksy land—and had come out not long ago to Shift into her own shape and equip herself for the journey. So, horse legs instead of her own legs; real clothing instead of mere Shifting; her own face instead of the grotesqueries she had used lately. There was nothing Shifty about her now, nothing to betray her except the quivering Shifter organ deep within her which would announce the presence of another of her kind.

  As it did now.

  She crouched, ready to assume fangs and claws if needed for her own defense. There was no one on the road in either direction. She searched the dark forest from which a questioning howl rose, abruptly broken off, and her teeth lengthened slightly and her feet dug into the soil. The plump fustigar which trotted from the trees did not threaten her, however
. It sat down a good distance from her, peering about itself with attention to the road and the surrounding thickets, then Shifted into a woman’s shape clad much as Mavin was in tight breeches and boots.

  “Mavin Manyshaped?” the woman said, beating the dust from her trousers. “I am Throsset of Dowes, and I come from the Seer Windlow.”

  Mavin’s mouth dropped open. Throsset of Dowes? From Danderbat Keep? Mavin’s own childhood home? Such as it had been. Well and well.

  “Throsset of Dowes?” she asked wonderingly. “Would you remember Handbright of Danderbat Keep?”

  The woman grinned. She was a stocky person with short, graying hair, bushy dark brows and eyes which protruded a little, giving her the look of a curious frog. Her shoulders were broad and square, and she shrugged them now, making an equivocal gesture. “Your sister, Handbright! Of course. She was younger than I. I tried to convince her to come with me, when I left the keep. She would not leave Danderbat the Old Shuffle.”

  “They said you were in love with a Demon, that you went across the seas with your lover.”

  The woman frowned, her face becoming suddenly distrustful. “The Danderbats said that, did they? Well, they’ll say anything, those old ones. Likely Gormier said that. Or old Halfmad. Or others like them. I left, girl. So did you. It’s likely we left for the same reasons, and lovers had no part in it.”

  “It was Handbright told me, not the old ones.” Mavin felt an old anger, for Handbright, for herself.

  “Ah.” Throsset’s voice turned cold, but her mouth looked tired. “She had to believe something, Mavin. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that I simply went, that I got fed up with it and left. Girls of the Xhindi aren’t supposed to do that, you know. We’re supposed to be biddable—at least until we’ve had three or four childer to strengthen the keep. Well, it would be better to say the truth. I am not only Shifter, Mavin. When I was sixteen or so, one of the old ones tried something I didn’t care for, and I found a new Talent. It seems I had Shifter and Sorcerer Talent both, and the Danderbats didn’t know how to handle that. One Talent more and I’d have been a Dervish, and time was I longed for it, just to teach them a lesson. Still, there’s no basket discipline will hold a wary Sorcerer, though they tried it, surely enough. I burst the basket and the room, and then I left. I’m sorry Handbright didn’t go with me. How is she now?”

  “Dead,” said Mavin flatly, not caring to soften it.

  “Dead!” The woman slapped at her legs, hands going on of themselves, without thought, as though they might brush the years away with the dust. “I hadn’t heard. But then, I haven’t been back to Danderbat Keep.”

  “They wouldn’t have been able to tell you had you gone there. She died far away, across the western sea. She was mad—until the very end. She had two sons, twins. They’re fifteen-season childer now, five years old, at Battlefox Demesne, with Handbright’s thalan and mine, Plandybast Ogbone.”

  “So she did leave Danderbat at last. Ah, girl, believe me, I did try to get her to go with me. She said she stayed for your sake, and for Mertyn’s. She loved him more than most sisters love their boy-kin. I could not break her loose.”

  Seeing the distress in the woman’s face, Mavin tried to set aside her own remembered anger and to dissipate the chilliness which was growing between them. Handbright’s servitude and abuse had not been Mavin’s fault, or Throsset’s. “Mertyn made her stay,” she said sadly. “He had Beguilement Talent even then, and he used it to keep her there because he was afraid she would leave him. He was only a child. He did not know what pain it cost her. Well. That is all long gone, Throsset. Long gone. Done. Mertyn is a man now. Though his Talent was early, it has continued to grow. He is a King, I hear. Lately appointed Gamesmaster in some school or other.”

  “Windlow said to tell you he is in Schooltown.” The woman stopped brushing dust and frowned. “Look, Mavin, I have traveled a distance and this is a high cold hill. There is threat of rain. I have not eaten today and the city lies close below ...”

  “We need not go so far as the city. There’s an inn at the fork of the road, called The Arches. I have a room there.” She lifted herself into the saddle. “Come up with me. This twitchy horse can carry double the short way.” The woman grasped her arm and swung up behind her, the horse shying as he felt two sets of knees Shift tight around him. Deciding that obedience would be the most sensible thing, he turned quietly toward the road, going peaceably beneath each of the arches as he came to it with only a tiny twitch of skin along his flanks. The women rode in silence, both of them distressed at the meeting, for it raised old hurts and doubts to confront them.

  It was not until they were seated before a small fire in a side room at the inn, cups of hot tea laced with wineghost half empty before them, that old sorrow gave way to new curiosity. Then they began to talk more freely, and Mavin found herself warming to the woman as she had not done to many others.

  “How come you to be messenger for Windlow? A Shifter? He was Gamesmaster of the school at Tarnoch, under the protection of the High King. I would have thought he would send a Herald.”

  “I doubt he could have found a Herald to act for him. Windlow has little authority in the Demesne of the High King Prionde. Did you know the High King’s son? Valdon?” Mavin shuddered. Memories of that time—particularly of Valdon or Huld or Blourbast—still had the power to terrify her, if only for the moment.

  “I met him, yes. It was long ago. He was little more than a boy. About nineteen? Full of vicious temper and arrogance. Yes. And his little brother, Boldery, who was a little older than Mertyn.”

  “Then if you met him it will not surprise you to know that Valdon refused to be schooled by Windlow. His pride would not allow him to be corrected, so says Windlow, and he could not bear restraint. He announced as much to the King, his father, and was allowed license to remain untaught.”

  Mavin had observed much of Valdon’s prideful hostility when she had been in Pfarb Durim before. “But he wasn’t the only student!” she objected. “Windlow had set up the school under the patronage of King Prionde, true, but there were many other boys involved. Some were thalans of most powerful Gamesmen.”

  “Exactly. You have hit upon the situation. Prionde could not destroy the school without hurting his own reputation. He could let it dwindle, however, and so he has done. Windlow is now alone in the school except for the servants and two or three boys, none of them of important families. Since Himaggery left, his only source of succor is through Boldery, for the child grew to love him and remains faithful, despite all Valdon’s fulminations. Valdon is a Prince of easy hatreds and casual vengeance. A dangerous man.”

  Mavin twisted her mouth into a sceptical line. “Fellow Shifter, I sorrow to hear that the old man is not honored as he should be, and I am confirmed in my former opinion of Valdon, but Windlow has not sent you all this way from the high lakes at Tarnoch to tell me of such things.”

  Throsset gulped a mouthful of cooling tea and shook her head. “Of course not. I owed the old man many things. He asked me to come to you as a favor, because I am Shifter from Danderbat Keep, and you are Shifter from Danderbat Keep, and he believed you would trust my word ...”

  “Trust you because we are both from Danderbat Keep!” Mavin could not keep the astonishment from her voice.

  Throsset made a grimace. “Unless you told him, what would he know about the lack of trust and affection in Danderbat Keep? That wasn’t what he was thinking of, in any case. He asked me because we were both women there. That old man understands much, Mavin. I think you may have told him more about yourself than you realized, and I certainly told him more than I have told anyone else. He senses things, too. Things that most Gamesmen simply ignore. No, Windlow didn’t send me to tell you of his own misfortune. He sent me to bring to you everything he knows about Himaggery—where he went, where he might be.”

  “But he is dead!” Mavin cried, her voice breaking.

  “Hush your shouting,” commanded Throsset i
n a hissing whisper. “It is your business, perhaps our business, but not the business of the innkeeper and every traveler on the road. He is not dead. Windlow says no!”

  “Not dead? And yet gone for eight years, and I only hear of it now!”

  “Of course now. How could you have heard of it earlier? Did Windlow know where you were? Did you send regular messengers to inform him?” Throsset was good-natured but scornful. “Of course, now.”

  “He is a Seer,” Marvin said sullenly, aware of her lack of logic.

  “Poof. Seers. Sometimes they know everything about something no one cares about. Often they know nothing about something important. Windlow himself says that. He knows where Himaggery set out to go eight years ago; he Sees very little about where he may be now.”

  “Eight years!”

  “It seems a long time to me, too.”

  “Eight years. Eight years ago—I was ... where was I?” She fell silent, thinking, then flushed a brilliant red which went unnoticed in the rosy firelight. Eight years ago she had wandered near the shadowmarches, had found herself in a pool-laced forest so perfect that it had summoned her to take a certain shape within it, the shape of a slender, single-horned beast with golden hooves. And then there had been another of the same kind, a male. And they two ... they two ... Ah. It was only a romantic, erotic memory, an experience so glorious that she had refused to have any other such for fear it would fail in comparison. Whenever she remembered it, she grieved anew at the loss, and even now she grieved to remember what had been then and was no more. She shook her head, tried to clear it, to think only of this new hope that perhaps Himaggery still lived. “Eight years. Where did he set out for, that long ago?”