`Valearn!' she said. `Another strange alliance. Valearn is reputed to have gone north of Betand and joined there with Huldra, Huld's own sister-wife. So the two men stand together at Hell's Maw and the two women farther north under the protection of the Duke of Betand, so it is said!'
I did not know what to make of this. `I'm sorry, Silkhands. Should I know of this or be concerned?'
`Know of it? Not necessarily. Huldra has scarcely been heard of since her son, Mandor, was born. If you remember my words at all, Jinian, simply remember to give wide berth where any of these are: Huld or Huldra, Prionde or Valearn, or the Duke of Betand. Where they are, trouble and death are, also.' She shook her head, her face full of sad remembering. I mentally added Dedrina Dreadeye to the list and committed it to memory.
Silkhands, too, had suffered at the hands of those who should have been most dear. Brother, sister, one dead, the other lost, partly through the connivance of that same Huld. Sometimes she was very sad, and we sat together in the sun, commiserating. I think it helped us both. She told me of her friends, the Wizard Himaggery and the Shifter Peter, and all their adventures. It was then I learned that the lair of the Magicians was no more, that her friend Peter was responsible both for its destruction and for thwarting Huld's plans for it. I marked her warnings in my mind, not really thinking I would need to pay attention to them. Dragon's Fire Demesne was far east of Betand. It was not likely I would encounter the dangers she mentioned.
Time waddled on. So long as the weather remained unsettled we were in no hurry to depart. The old dams still had much to teach me, and I spent all the time with them I could. They had not yet decided whether to travel north with me when I went there, but all seemed agreed that I was to go for some reason or other. Not to marry King Kelver, but for some other thing. I remembered the calm gong of the Dervish's voice, ringing in the forest. `Murzemire Hornloss, the Seer,' she had said. Murzy, who evidently saw more and further than I had ever given her credit for. She, too, spoke of my going north.
`There's many a seven separates for years,' she said quite calmly, while leaving me in no doubt as to her affection. `Some meet only at long intervals. And there's others tight together as flea on fustigar. No matter where you go, you'll come to us or we to you. No matter where any of us be, you'd find us.' They did not seem worried by it, as though Murzy had some Seer's vision that reassured them. Long ago I had given up asking. They would tell me when they felt it wise or appropriate and not until.
The season wore on to the time of the song competition at Xammer.
The song competition is a tradition in Xammer. There are contests at all the Houses, though Vorbold's is probably the most prestigious. It goes on for ten days. Each of the first seven days there is a topic assigned, and all the songwriters must come up with something on that topic to be sung at banquet. During the last three days, the entrants sing their own selections. Students participate by choosing the topics or by submitting songs.
The final three days are most interesting - both musically and for the content of the lyrics - as the best songs are sung then, old or new, including some the musicians have written. Those who receive the prizes are those who please the audience most each night at banquet - and the judges, of course. Old Vorboldians, all of them, brought back through what they call the `old girls' net'.
So, since it was a splendid affair, I chose to wear my fringed dress and was not out of place to do so. There were those present who wore ten different dresses, one each night of the gala, but they were the girls who were being approved by some Negotiator or Diplomat or even by the Gamesman who was seeking alliance himself. I remember Lunette of Pouws being very nervous at competition time. Her brother was trying to make an alliance with the Black Basilisks of Breem - though I understood that no Basilisks had been born in Breem for fifty years. It was mostly a Demesne of Elators, now, though there was a strong strain of Tragamorians running in the people there. Lunette seemed well content with the idea of alliance, so I did not speak against it. There was a hard-faced man representing Burmor of Breem who came to dinner each night and stared at her.
I had no such worries. Silkhands had told me we would leave for the north soon after the competition was over. There was nothing I could do about that, not at the moment, so I was extraordinarily relaxed and amused by the whole thing.
The final night came. The favorite singer, Rupert something or other, was to present something entirely new that no one had heard before. There were many giggles and little squeals from the younger girls, who talked of him as though he had been some major Gamesman rather than a mere pawn, however skilled. I was to be at Silkhands' table.
See it, if you will. The great arched doorway is carved all about with leaves and fruit, two stories high, and the massive doors that swing in it are carved also in massive forms that shine like oil in the light of the chandeliers, crystal and silver, holding one thousand candles when they are filled. During the competition they are filled and every candle lighted. Great fat candles, too, to last out the evening. A long balcony runs around four sides of the hall, and on three sides of this are guest tables, laid in white cloths and silver, with crystal shining and more candles. Eight steps down from this to the floor, where the daises are raised up five steps again, each with its table. And between the tables the servants go, below the level of our eyes, so we do not see them.
The great doors open on the fourth side of the balcony, where no tables are. So the guests assemble and are shown to their tables on the balcony. Then the great bell rings, and a trumpet sounds, and a Herald shouts, `All present give ear, all present give ear.' Drums, more trumpets, and we come in, glittering like frangi-flies, all jewels and draperies, to descend the stairs to the floor, then up once more to the proper dais, where we sit on backless chairs in order that the view of us not be impeded.
I had done it hundreds of times.
That night I did it again, remembering my train and draperies, which weren't normal attire with me, but it was the tenth night I'd worn the dress and I was getting used to it. The guests were assembled at their tables. Ordinarily, I paid very little attention to them. Their voices were only a low, masculine rumble under our usual sounds. Mostly I was thinking about the dinner because I was very hungry.
He was sitting directly across from the entrance, only two tables away from Silkhands'.
I stopped at the top of the stairs, all my breath gone in one explosion of disbelief, and was pushed from behind by Lunette, who said, `Will you move it, Jinian? I'm standing on your train!' So I moved, in shock, not breathing, somehow getting around the dais and into my chair. He had not seen me. He was looking at Silkhands, who was now coming into the room, lovely as a flower. It was all there in his face: fondness, affection, lust. I wanted to cry. I had known him at once. The hair was the same, and the eyes, though he was taller now, taller than I, and with broad shoulders and narrow hips.
`Whom are you staring at?' whispered Lunette. `Your mouth is wide open.'
I snapped it shut. `The young Gamesman at the middle table,' I said. `The ruddy-haired one. Ah, I think I knew him back in Stoneflight.'
`You think you did?'
`Ah, we were children. He's grown.'
`Well, do you or don't you?'
`I don't know. Lunette, would you go over there during the interval? Find out who he is?'
`What'll you give?'
`Friendship, Lunette.'
`I've already got that.' She giggled. `What else?'
I didn't have much. `My scent bottle shaped like a frog that King Kelver sent me,' I said at last. I loved that bottle, but the other was more important.
Lunette looked at me with her weighing expression. `That's all right, Jinian. If it's that important, I'll do it for nothing.'
After the interval, Lunette returned. `His name is Peter,' she told me. `A friend of Silkhands. I think he comes from the Bright Demesne.'
So this was Peter, of whom Silkhands had spoken so much. So this was Peter, whom I
had given a nutpie in Schooltown, years ago. So this was Peter, whom I had dreamed over since, lusted over, longed over, loved With a passion beyond my years and an intensity that had not waned. I tried to think. The Bright Demesne was a Wizard Demesne! Was it possible we shared... `Wizard?' I asked. She shook her head.
`I think not, Jinian. Something else. He's wearing no insignia at all, but he's unmistakably Gamesman. Besides, he talks like a Gamesmaster. He told me all about Ephemera.'
`You already know about Ephemera. We all do.'
`Well, he didn't seem to know that.'
Then there was a rather strange occurrence.
The favorite singer sang, and was loudly applauded. To which he responded by singing something new, very strange, and seeming to direct it at Silkhands and at her friend. `Healer,' he sang. `Heal the wind. Gamesman, find the wind.' It was a strange song, with much longing in it, chill as a wind itself and personal as a blow. I saw their faces, Silkhands' and Peter's. Theirs looked as mine must often have looked in the Forest of Chimmerdong; confused by a strange voice that seemed to summon them to a task ill understood at best, with unknown limits. So they looked, baffled yet intrigued. When the song ended, Peter looked across at Silkhands and she at him, then his eyes fell on me. Oh, I knew those eyes. I had known those eyes for three years. No matter how he would change, ever, I would know those eyes. And as he looked at me, his face showed curiosity, a touch of bewilderment, as though he knew me, recognized me, but could not remember when or where.
The song had not been much appreciated by the rest of the audience. The singer quickly went to something else, and the competition went on.
At last the judges spoke, the prizes were given, and the dinner was over. He, Peter, left by the front door which led from the balcony to the courtyard steps; I from the great door which led inward to the living areas and classrooms. I would never see him again. I wanted to scream, and faint, and carry on. I wanted to have a tantrum.
Instead, I went to Silkhands' room. She didn't mind the students coming to see her occasionally.
`The singer sang directly to you and some young Gamesman, Silkhands. What was that about?'
`I wish I knew, Jinian. He's been singing about wind and Healers and such nonsense all week. I hear him first thing in the morning.' She gestured to her window, which overlooked the courtyard. `Infuriating!'
`And you have no idea what it's about?'
`None. Peter may, of course. I'll have to ask him.'
`Was that your friend? At the middle table?'
`Friend? Peter? Oh... well, yes. I suppose. Isn't that funny. Peter is a friend, of course, but I've always thought of him as a kind of brother. Perhaps to take the place of the one I lost.' And she smiled at me, her own sweet, tremulous smile. And I smiled at her, my own gleeful, dangerous smile.
Brother, was he? Oh, glorious. Still.
`He's very good looking.'
`Isn't he! He's grown so this past year. It quite surprised me. Not a little boy anymore.'
`Where does he come from?'
`Bright Demesne. The Wizard Himaggery's Demesne. At the upper end of Lake Yost.'
`And is he a Wizard?'
`No. Shifter. Thank the Eleven.' Of course. She had talked of him before. I just hadn't made the connection. Shifter. I began to remember the stories she had told me. She had gone to Bannerwell in his behalf and had been held there, threatened with death by Prince Mandor and the Demon Huld. Peter, Shifter, had saved her. It all popped into my head. Strange. When she had told me those tales, it had been like hearing stories told by the old dams. I had not thought of them as real.
`He's the one who conquered Bannerwell,' I said.
`Yes. And after I came here, he went into the north-lands to find his mother - have I spoken of her? Mavin Manyshaped? A very strange person, Jinian, very strange indeed - and while there was instrumental in destroying the place of the Magicians. Of course we all saw that! Who did not? Smoke rising halfway up the sky and ash which made the sun turn red! That was while you were in the Forest of Chimmerdong.'
`Ah,' I said intelligently. `I heard something or other about great Gamesmen held by the Magicians.'
`A hundred thousand of them,' she said promptly. Well, then she had been in touch with someone near to Peter to know all this. `A hundred thousand great Gamesmen held frozen under the mountain. And no one knows how to restore them. A terrible tragedy. Himaggery is quite distraught over it.' And she went on then to tell me more about them, and Peter, and Windlow the Seer, until I felt I had all his history tight in my mind.
So I knew who he was. And where he lived, at least from time to time. And now I had only to figure out how to bring myself to his attention. He might be a bit taken with Silkhands just now - and she was very lovely, that I will admit - but she obviously thought of him as a sibling.
In an instant, my complacency was shattered, for she said, `I'm glad you dropped in, Jinian. There are new rumors of trouble in the northlands. Before things get any worse, we should get ourselves to Reavebridge. I thought we'd start within the next few days, and I wanted to ask if you need any help getting ready to leave.'
Next few days. Next few days. What matter that I knew where he might live, or his name, if we were to go north day after tomorrow? What could I say? I nodded, mute, feeling myself falling away into thin shreds, as she went on.
`It would be good to have Peter with us on the trip. Perhaps he will be going in that direction. Or perhaps I can inveigle him to join us. You'd like that, Jinian. He's a good companion.'
I took it for a promise, slipping away early the next morning to give the dams the news. Murzy quirked her lips at me, smiling with her eyes. Cat looked slantwise, tight-lipped, as though to consign all love and lovers to some far-off pit, shaking her head the while. Margaret rejoiced with me.
`So you know who he is! And what he is, and that a proper Gamesman. Well, and to think of it. Strange that he, too, is going north.'
`Not strange,' snarled Cat. `Part of the Pattern. Jinian summons Peter with Lovers Come Calling. Kelver summons Jinian with an alliance. Jinian summons Silkhands to accompany her. Silkhands summons Peter. A kind of round dance. Though what it dances `round still eludes us, there in the northlands somewhere
Her words brought back something I had forgotten until that instant. Bloster, heading away north with all that was left of Daggerhawk Demesne. Bloster's words at the edge of Chimmerdong. `Do any of you know anything about the Dream Miner and the Storm Grower?'
They became very still, in the manner of creatures so startled they do not move for fear of attracting attention. After a silence, Cat said, `Shhh. Jinian, don't speak of them loudly. Not even here.'
`Who or what?' I demanded, though more quietly. `They plot my death!'
They hesitated, even Murzemire Hornloss, who seldom suffered tongue loss. It was Cat who spoke at last. `We have spoken of those Wizards who destroy in order to gain power. The things they choose to destroy sometimes appear randomly chosen. As are the things we choose to build with - they, too, - would appear randomly chosen to those unfamiliar with our art. Would a layman know why we lay an owl's feather upon a black stone? Why we set our heels upon a bridge sometimes, or place a stem of maiden bells beneath the spray of a fall? We have a reason. So, if Dream Miner and Storm Grower have marked you for destruction, they have a reason. It is said they dwell in the north. If they plot your death, they do not do it idly and you will be walking toward it.' She looked at the others. Grave faces all around.
`But that is where Peter is going.' As I recall, I said it calmly, without foreboding. But then, I have never been thought to have a Seer's Talent.
Murzy did, and what she said was, `Why must Storm Grower and Dream Miner have everything their own way? Perhaps we have walked in fear of them too long.'
Silence. Finally a sigh from Cat. `True, Murzemire. Though the very thought chills me.'
Margaret looked at me with love in her face. `Go, Jinian. Return to us when you can. Or perha
ps we will find you first.'
`I wish there were time to see to your clothes before you go,' said Bets predictably, completely destroying the melancholy mood we had all fallen into.
Dodie was out in the countryside learning herbary with Sarah, so I could not even tell them farewell. Those who were there, I kissed good-bye, not really understanding the separation was to start at once.
19
We left a few days later, after such a flurry of preparation as left me no time to see the dams again. The words of the Oracle had not been forgotten. Nothing pertaining to Peter was ever forgotten so far as I was concerned. `Let him save your life a time or two,' the Oracle had said. `I see something unpleasant in the way of groles or Ghouls.' Groles I had not seen. Ghouls I had. I preferred not to see one again, but this trip northward might be the opportunity the Oracle had in mind. In which case Peter's life, and mine, might be endangered.
Sheri Tepper - Jinian 01 - Jinian Footseer Page 21