The True Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "This one isn't even a body, yet," says Tolp. "Still alive." He turns the lax form over with one foot to peer blindly down into a child's unconscious face. "Isn't even grown. What'd he bring us this for?"

  "So you can hang him on the wall and listen to him scream and then cry, then whimper, then sigh, then beg, then die," says the Bonedancer in a husky chant. "Then rot, then smell, for he's come to Hell…"

  "Why? I just asked why?"

  "Because he's Huld," replied the Dancer. "Because this is Hell's Maw." Silent under the pulsing smoke, he reflects for a time and then speaks again. "I think it would be good for you to take the one who isn't dead yet out of here. Up to Pfarb Durim, maybe. Leave it on their doorstep."

  "You out of your head, Dancer? Huld'd roast me."

  "Huld's got lots on his mind. Might not even think of it again."

  "Might not! Might not! And might, just as well. You stick to keeping your bones moving, Dancer. Leave the hanging up to me. Might not!

  Devils take it."

  The Bonedancer shakes with another long spell, half cough, half laugh. "Oh, old Tolp, you'll be hung on that wall yourself, don't you know? You and me. Besides, I'm not keeping the bones moving. Haven't had the strength for that for a long time now…" His words are choked off by Tolp's horny hands upon his throat.

  "If you aren't, then who is, Dancer? Who is? Tell me that? Whose power?"

  The Bonedancer's head moves restlessly from side to side between the choking hands. When Tolp draws away, growling, the Bonedancer only mumbles. "Ghostpieces, maybe. Who knows whose power?"

  "Abuse power," cry the bones. "Blues devour. Choose hour."

  Down the black gut of stone the bones cry, gradually subsiding into restless, voiceless motion, finger bones endlessly scratching at the wall, heels clattering on the stones, a ceaseless picking at the iron bands and chains which hold them. One day a skeleton finger will find the keyhole of the lock which binds them, will fiddle with it until the simple pins click and the lock falls open. Until that time, they remain chained to this stone. Pass it by. Go on beyond the last, small skeletons to the oozing stairs. So much I, Peter, have imagined from what I later saw and what Tolp was still able to say. What follows we have been told is true.

  At the top of the stairs an anteroom opened to an audience hall, shadow-walled, its ancient stones dimming upward into groined darkness. Many powerful Gamesmen feasted at the lower tables. Huld and Prionde were seated upon a dais, Huld listening to Prionde with a semblance of courtesy, though his impatience could be judged from the hard tap-tap of a finger upon the arm of the massive chair.

  "What meat is this?" asked the King.

  "The animals are called shadowpeople."

  "You eat them?"

  Huld gestured at the raised hearth, the fire, the spits, around which were littered the woolly feet and wide ears discarded by the feasters. "Why should I not? There is no flesh forbidden to me, Prionde. Nothing is forbidden to me. Is it forbidden to you?"

  "It seems near to human," said the King doubtfully. "Very near to human, in appearance at least."

  "Why should that matter? When I hunger, I eat. Meat is meat, human or otherwise. It is all fuel to my fire, Prionde. I think it can be fuel to yours as well."

  The King stirred the delicate finger bones on his plate with a finger of his own. Indeed the ones on the plate did look very kin to the finger which stirred them. "Why do you roost here?" he asked at last. "Why in this place, Huld?"

  "Because it chills you," the Demon sneered. "You, and any who come here, and any who hear of it. It is the age old place of terror. It was terrible when I was a child and Blourbast brought me here. Mandor found it terrible, and fascinating, as I had in my time. It is the place of ultimate pain and horror, ultimate evil. From what better place may we strike terror into the minds of all? Our task will be easier when the world knows we move upon them from Hell's Maw. This is the place of atrocity, and power!"

  "And yet your Ghoul did not return."

  Huld shrugged, rubbed his greasy hands upon his velvets in complete indifference. "He was not expected to return. The Phantasm who flew in the trees and observed what happened, though, he did return," and Huld made a gesture of command to one of the Gamesmen sprawled in half drunken abandon in the hall below, a summons which the Phantasm was quick to obey. He knelt at Huld's feet, head bowed, the lantern light flashing from the faceted mask he wore.

  "Tell the King what you have reported to me."

  The Phantasm began: "I waited as I had been ordered to do, in the forest near where the Ghoul made his foray against the women on the road. When the Ghoul brought them into the forest cover, I followed, staying ahead of him and hidden in the boughs. He had not come far before someone came through the trees behind him. I heard the person cry Game and Move upon him, a risk call. I could not stay hidden and see clearly, but I heard the Ghoul cry out in triumph, as though the pursuer had played Gamefool.

  "Then there was a cry from the pursuer, as though to some other Gamesman, words I could not hear clearly. Then a fire came up, all at once, as though a Sentinel had been present. I came closer to see, but the smoke and fire drove me away. I heard someone blunder away through the trees, and it was not the Ghoul. I did not let myself be seen, but came away as instructed to do." The Phantasm remained bowed down, awaiting the King's pleasure. Huld gestured him away.

  "The point is," said Huld, "that the pursuer, Peter, arrived too quickly to have Flown. We must assume he Ported. Also, the fire came about because of him."

  "What is he? I thought he was Necromancer named?"

  "He was named Necromancer inaccurately. It misled me for a time. I believe him to be a twinned Talent. We have seen their like in the past. Minery Mindcaster, for example, was a strong twinned Talent, Pursuivant and Afrit. In my youth I knew of another, Thaumaturge Mirtisap who was, I know, both Thaumaturge and Prophet, though he denied it. Some say they start as twins in the womb, but the stronger swallows the weaker and is born with both Talents. Perhaps Peter is twinned Afrit and Archangel. When I encountered him in the caverns, I thought he was merely Afrit, but Afrits do not have a skill with Fire."

  The King sneered beneath his beard, narrow lips curling in a mockery of humor. "You have forgotten that he seemed to have Beguiled Mandor's people at Bannerwell. I never learned that an Archangel has a skill with Beguilement."

  Huld waved an impatient hand. "Churchman, then. Churchmen have both Fire and Beguilement. I do not intend to search the Index to find what combination of Gamesmen he is, or what obscure name is given to such a combination. He may be called Shadowmaster for all I care. Enough to know that now we know it, he will not escape me again. No, he will lead us as the arrow flies to that place we want to go, to obtain that which we want to obtain…"

  "Which you believe is… "

  "Barish, King Prionde. Barish of the ancient times. Barish with his knowledge of the old machines, the old weapons, before which the knowledge of the magicians is as nothing. Barish who lies there in the northlands somewhere. Where we have not been able to find him, but where Peter can lead us."

  "And how do you know all this, Demon? Whose head have you rummaged it out of?"

  Huld chortled, a nastiness of tongue and mouth as though eating something foully delicious. "No person's head, King. I have put it together out of books, old books, books which lay unread in the tunnels of the magicians. Out of books, legends, and common talk. Out of things Nitch told me before he died, his intellect o'erleaping his pain to find things to tell me. I had an advantage Nitch had not. I saw the machine. I saw how the tiny Gamesmen are made! I saw the bodies stored away in caverns like so many blocks of ice. Well, they will not come to life again. The machine which could have brought them to life once more is dead and broken and blown to atoms."

  "Assuming you are correct, then how will Barish be brought to life again? If the machine is gone, buried under the mountains?"

  "I think the machine beneath the mountains was not the only o
ne. There will be another, alike or similar, where Barish lies."

  "And what is it makes you think Peter will guide you there? What is he that he should do this thing? What interest has he? His aim, what Game?"

  "Only that he was mind-led by the old Seer of yours, King. Windlow the Seer was searching for the same thing I have been searching for, I'm convinced of it. He'd found something. He knew something, or had a Vision of something. Why else does Peter go north now, into the lands of mysteries?" He laughed, a victorious crow. "Why else does he go north, now, in company with my man? Mine!"

  "Nothing more than that? It is all so indefinite and misty, Demon. I would hesitate to commit my men on such a Game had I nothing more than what you have told me. Perhaps it is not Barish who lies hidden in the north. Perhaps it is the Council."

  Huld mocked. "There is no Council save ours, King Prionde. When I had worked my way into the confidence of old Manacle, the fool, and his lick-heels, I asked how long it had been since they had heard directly from this Council. Not for seasons, he told me. The machine which brought the words of the Council no longer spoke. And so I told them I brought messages from the Council, and they believed me. So judge for yourself."

  "You think if the Council still existed, it would not have let its communication be interrupted. Nor would your representations have gone so unquestioned."

  "Exactly. Whoever, or whatever, the Council was, its last member has gone, or died, or found something else to play with. No, we are the Council, Prionde. I regret only that we have no more magicians to do our work for us. I found only those few tens of techs, scattered among the valleys." Huld gestured at a far wall where a few forms huddled in sleep. "I would like to find the one who led them, Quench. He knew things others did not. I would not have been surprised to learn that he knew of Barish, that his many times great forefather had passed some such knowledge along to him. Well, we may find him in time…

  "And meantime we build terror, Prionde, and utter despair. And when Peter has led us where we want to go, we will descend upon him in horrible power. I do not think he will withstand us. Even a twinned Talent is not immortal."

  And so they went on feasting and drinking, while the people of Pfarm Durim kept watch upon their walls lest more innocents be swept up and chained in the endless tunnels of Hell's Maw where Tolp, even then, fastened the iron bands around the kidnapped child. In the blackness, the Bonedancer coughed his life away and lay quiet. When he had not moved for several days, Tolp fastened his body beside that of the child.

  9

  Nuts, Groles, and Mirrormen

  THERE HAD BEEN SOME DISCUSSION during the ride between Reavebridge and Learner as to the route we might take to reach the top of the Waenbane plateau which hung above us in the west. Certainly, it would not be up the eastern face, a wall as sheer as that of a jug, almost glassy in places. My map showed the long notch coming into that tableland from the north, the way they called Winds' Gate, leading up into Winds' Eye, Waeneye. Queynt said he had been there, but I was not that trustful of Queynt.

  When darkness came up and we had set camp only a league or so outside Learner, I decided I would ride on into the town and make some general inquiries. It had the advantage of getting me away from Jinian as well. Something in our relationship now made me rather uncomfortable. As I left, I saw King Kelver riding away with a stranger, the King looking very angry and disturbed. I thought to call out, offering assistance, then told myself he had able assistance from his own Dragons if he wished help. I often have these good ideas which are as often ignored. So it was in this case, and I let him go. The results were unpleasant, but then, that's yestersight, which is perfect.

  My way led down quiet lanes through the nut orchards. We were well into Nutland by then, so called because of the orchards which pimpled the flats along the river. The ground nuts bulge out of the ground like little hillocks, at first gray-green and shiny, a ring of flat, hairy leaves frilling their bottoms. As they grow wider and higher, the shells turn brown and dull and the leaves squeeze out into multiple ruffles. Some nuts are round, some elongated. When they have ripened, the orchard master drills a hole near the ground into the shell and feeds up to a dozen sausage groles into the hole. This is done at dusk. When they emerge at dawn, as they always do for some obscure reason of their own, their heads are lopped off and a lacing run through the skin of the neck. This is grole sausage, to be smoked or dried or otherwise treated to preserve it. Sausage groles are rather small as groles go, thick through as my thigh and a manheight long or more. Their teeth are formidable, however, for all the small size, and grole growers have terrible tales to tell about being caught inside a nut with unmuzzled groles. At the side of the road were piles of sawn nutshells, stacked like so many great bowls. I asked a nut sawyer what use would be made of his odd shaped pile.

  "Why, Gamesman, these go down river to Devil's Fork, then up river again to the very top of the East Fork of Reave, then over the hill to the upper reaches of the Longwater and from there down to the Glistening Sea. We grow the best boatnuts here grown anywhere. It's a special strain my own granddad worked on to get it so long and narrow."

  "I knew they made houses of them," I said. "I had not seen boats before."

  "Oh, for housenuts you go over the West Fork to the orchards in the north of Nutland. People around there won't live in anything else. Warm and dry and smooth to look at, that's a good housenut. I saw one over there big enough to put three stories high in, five manheights it was, ground to top. There's vatnut groves along the river there, and one fellow had a tiny strain he calls hatnuts. Novelty item is what it is. Merchants buy them. But then, they'll buy anything to sell up north. Well, good evening to you, Gamesman."

  And with that he shouldered his nutsaw and walked away into the dark. I smiled at the notion of a hatnut and then stopped smiling as I thought how light it would be in comparison with a metal helm. Nutshells were said to be tough as iron.

  I went first to the Minchery, the school for musicians and poets, run by a sensible group of merchants on the same lines as a School House is run, except that the students are pawns, not Gamesmen. Except for that, it was much the same in appearance. The young are very much the young, no matter where they are. Which was not quite true. Mertyn's House had never been so melodious as this place sounded.

  I had thought out my story well in advance. A certain song, I said, had won a prize at a Festival in the south. The prize was to be given to the songwriter. I hummed a bit of it, sang a few words, and was taken into a garden to be introduced to a frail, wispy girl whose eyes were misty with dreams and songs. I put the gold into her hand and told her the same tale, glad I had thought of it for it brought her great happiness.

  "Did it come to you all at once?" I asked, careful not to seem too interested. "Or did you compose it over a long time?"

  "Oh, truth to tell, Gamesman," she piped, "I dreamed it. The tune was in my head when I woke one morning, and the words, too, though they took some working at to fit into the music. It is almost as though I dreamed them in another language."

  Well, there was nothing more to be got there, so I thanked her, complimented her skill, and went away to find some place where merchants and traders gathered. It was not difficult. Learner lies upon the main road between all the fabled lands of the north and south. I came soon enough to a pleasant-smelling place, went inside and sat me down beside a leather skinned man with smile marks around his eyes. He was not averse to conversation, and by luck he had been up the Wind's Gate.

  "Curiosity is what I did it for, Gamesman. Nothing up there to buy or sell, far as I knew, nothing to trade for, no people, no orchards, no mines. Curiosity, though, that's a powerful mover."

  I told him I thought that was probably so.

  "Well, so, I'd traveled along this road between Morninghill and the jungle cities for thirty years, boy and man. Saw these cliffs every time I came this way. Saw those old bone shapes up there. So, one time there wasn't any hurry about the trip sout
h, and when we came to the notch there, the one they call the Wind's Gate, I said, well, fellows, we'll just turn in here and go up this notch to see what's there."

  He seemed to expect some congratulations for having made this decision, and I obliged him with another glass and a hearty spate of admiration for his presumption.

  "Well, Gamesman, there's a kind of road in there. No real trouble for the wagons save a few stones needing moving where they'd rolled down off that mountain. Little ones, mostly. We moved and we rolled and moved and rolled, and the ground began to go up. Now I'll tell you, Gamesman, there at the end of that notch the ground goes up like a ramp. Like it had been a built road. You'd think it would all be scree and fallen stuff, loose and slidy, but it isn't. It's hard and sure underfoot, just as though somebody put it there and melted it down solid.

  "We didn't want to wear out the teams. We left them at the bottom and went on to the top, me and some of the boys. Right up where those bone shapes are, and aren't they something? I'll tell you: Unbelievable until you see them close and then more unbelievable yet. Wind carved, so they say, and that's hard to countenance. Well, we looked around. There's nothing there. Waste. Thorn bush and devil's spear. Flat rock and the Wind's Bones. That's it. Then, not far off, we heard that krerking noise the krylobos make, and a roar like rock falling, and one of my old boys says, `Gnarlibar,' just like that, `Gnarlibar.' Well, we hadn't seen one, but we'd heard about 'em, and we weren't about to stay up there and wait for a foursome to show up, so we turned ourselves around and .came back down quick as you please."

  "What have you heard about gnarlibars?" I asked. Perhaps I might find out, at last, what the beasts looked like.

  "Big," he said. "And bad. Low, wide beasts they are. They come upon you four at a time, from four directions. Always hunt in fours, no such thing as a single gnarlibar. Contradiction in terms, so I've heard. Well, who knows. Somebody told me they're born in fours, twin ones to each female of a four, so every four is always related. It may be storytelling for all I know. We didn't stay to see." And he laughed over the limits to his vaunted curiosity.