Along the lakefront a bastion of stone had been built, a kind of high quay with a crenellated wall, broken in several places by wooden gates above stairs that went down to the jetties. Thus the Demesne was surrounded on all sides by walls or heavy gates. As you will know, walls are no protection against Elators, who may flick in or out where they will. Himaggery had met this threat by channeling the power of the hot springs into a network of glowing fire which hung above the Demesne like a great inverted colander. He had used this power first at the Battle of Bannerwell, as I had good reason to remember. It was kept in place by the concentration of linked Sorcerers and Tragamors, working in shifts, or it may be by some Wizardry Himmagery and Barish had worked up between them. That is, if they were speaking to one another. They had not been when I had come to the Demesne last.
Outside these walls, above this net of fire, the shadow lay or everything, including the surface of the lake. Even in the sky there were shadows, rippling masses of gray, like wind-torn storm clouds. There were shadows everywhere except along the level lands to the southeast, where stood the tents of the besieging army.
I Shifted vision, creating telescopic eyes to spy out Huldra's tent; she was flying her dead brother's banner.
I recognized the colors and ensign from my captivity in Bannerwell. At some distance was another high pavilion; this one belonging to Dedrina Dreadeye. I did not recognize the ensign of Daggerhawk Demesne - now vacant and home for were-owls, according to Jinian -but I recognized the Basilisk herself. She had not improved in appearance during the seasons since we had encountered her in Fangel. Along with these two were a great horde of Durables and Ephemera, major and minor Gamesmen. I recognized a few banners; players all, whom Himaggery had not much respected, and there was one tall tent with no device or banners at all.
So, it appeared the Demesne was safe enough. Those outside could not get in. However, neither could those inside get out, and in time food would run short, even though there were stores in the cellars below the great house and fertile gardens inside the wall. They produced crops in all seasons beneath the gentle benison of the steams. I wanted to get in, mostly to tell those inside that others were aware of the difficulty and ready to assist. However, the fact that Himaggery had not struck at those camped at his gates when he had the power to do so troubled me and gave me another reason for the attempt.
I lay there the better part of the day. There was no activity in either camp. When night came, I decided to try to get in. If shadows could not exist underwater, my maneuver would probably work. If they did - well, if they did, I would be in considerable difficulty.
Dark came. I slipped down to the lakeshore under cover of the night and into the water. Snake shapes were easy to take. Eel shapes were no more difficult. A fish might have been easier yet, but the water gates that let the water of the hot springs run out through the base of the bastion were covered with grills too small for a large fish to enter.
It was a long cold slither from the western shore, warming as I went farther, becoming quite warm, rather too warm, near the jetties. I thickened the eel's skin, building in a layer of insulation below it. I hadn't thought about the heat, which made me divert my path from the northernmost water gate to the one farther south. The water there was cooler since it had been used to warm the buildings before flowing out into its own drainage ditches.
No shadows could be seen on the surface of the lake, but they could be felt. There was a tingling discomfort on my eelskin, that same feeling one gets sometimes when being watched, not palpable but discernible. I slithered and was silent, wriggling among the water weeds and ooze, up current, finding my way to the gate.
It was hotter than any human could have withstood. As it was, there wa a good deal of discomfort when I snaked through the grill and plunged madly upward into the familiar tunnel, seizing its rough rock roof with spider claws to pull myself out of the hot water and hang panting from that slimy vault, gasping, putting out feathery gills to shed heat, waving them madly. I suppose it was a fairly noisy process,
`Who goes there?' came the bellow, then the lantern light peering down the tunnel at me like some huge eye. `Who goes there?'
For a moment it was so surprising, I couldn't remember how to Shift vocal organs, and it was only in the nick of time I managed to gargle, `Himaggery's son, Peter,' before someone decided to launch a flaming spear at me. Mumble, mumble. `Didn't look like a person at all.' Mumble, mumble. `Heard he was a Shifter!' `Shifter? That's right. Child to that Mavin.' Mumble, mumble. `Best thing would be to kill'm.' Mumble, mumble. `Not if he's who he says. Come out slowly.'
`I'm not in man-shape,' I called. Mumble, mumble, in which `Get rid of m,' and `Come out slowly' were equally voiced.
So I came out, pincer foot by pincer foot, then Shifted very slowly while they watched. They made faces. I don't know why other Gamesmen always make faces, but most of them don't like Shifters, and that's all there is to it. So far as I can tell - and I've watched in a mirror -there's nothing particularly repulsive about it. Oh, an occasional inside-outness, perhaps, but guts are guts, after all. We all have them.
I stood there, decently dressed though dripping. `If one of you will be kind enough to inform Himaggery I am here, he can identify me.' I said. All the guardsmen were strangers, and they looked nervous. Being under siege had done nothing to improve their equanimity. `Or, if Barish is available, he can identify me.' Some of their faces smoothed somewhat. Uh-oh, I said to myself. There's factionalism here. It occurred to me an excellent time to try the Eesty way of message transmission. I stepped forward and laid my bare hand on the hand of one of the guardsmen. `I would appreciate your bringing word to either one of them,' I said, concentrating on my skin, `pushing' the blue crystal message through. It had worked when I was an Eesty.
It worked here, also. The man's face was slightly hostile when I approached him and touched him. Then less so. Then conciliatory. `Brog,' he said to one of his fellows. `Go tell the boy's father he's here.'
Ah. So it did work. I offered my hand to another of the guardsmen, and then the others, one by one.-`Cooperation,' that was the message. All of them got it but one. Him, I had no initial success with, a blank-faced, squint-eyed fellow who nodded at me but would not take my hand. `My name is Peter,' I said to him, smiling. `And yours is?' This was the one who had wanted to kill me. I was sure of it.
He would not answer me. An officer told him sharply to mend his manners. `This's Shaggan, sir. Joined us just recently. Came down from the north. About the time the Lady Sylbie came.'
I smiled at Shaggan once more. `A difficult time to come to the Bright Demesne. Was it a pleasant journey?'
He looked around him, shifty-eyed, trapped into talking though he obviously didn't want to. I reachec out and brushed at his face. `Spiderweb,' I said pushing the blue crystal message for all I was worth. `II badly needs cleaning down here.'
He stepped back, mouth open, confused looking. He had received the message I was carrying. But then, I had received a jolt of what he was carrying as well. I covered up as well as I could. `He's been spider bit. Look at his face, pale as ice.' Which was better than saying, `He's a spy sent here by the Witch, Huldra.' The picture had come through my skin, clear as though an artist had drawn it. The man had been dosed with a crystal and was no more aware of what he was doing than the citizens of Fangel had known what they were doing, day by day. I wondered how many more spies the Witch had sent, and then I remembered what the officer had said. This fellow had come down from the north. Where he had been recruited, undoubtedly. And he had come at about the same time as `the Lady Sylbie'? Interesting. How had Sylbie come to arrive near the same time as a man like this?
I murmured something soothing and told them to take the man to the Healer. He was struggling in the grip of half a dozen of them at the same time he was trying to remember why he was here. I left him to it. If the blue crystal I'd pushed at him didn't make him forget why he'd come, Himaggery's Demons might find out somethi
ng interesting by Reading it out of his head.
We went out into the cellars; Himaggery came and embraced me. As soon as we were private, I told him about the spy, and he shook his head angrily. He knew as well as I that if there were one, there might be more, and it would be no easy job to find them. There were thousands of men within the Demesne, many of them
recently recruited, and though I could go about touching them all, it could not be done quickly. He would have to set his Demons to Reading the men, and that couldn't be done quickly, either.
I told him once more about message crystals and for the first time about the shadow and the Shadowbell and my having to leave Jinian behind. I did not mention the fact that Mertyn, Quench, and Riddle were busy raising the hundred thousand. There was at least one spy in the Demesne; I could"not know who might be listening; and this was something that should not be widely known. At any rate, without mentioning that particular stop on my journey, I told him everything else. He was open, sympathetic, and warm, which was both surprising and gratifying. When I had been here before, neither he nor Barish had been able to talk except in peevish monosyllables and not at all to each other, which was the reason I'd slipped blue crystals into their food. It had had a salutary effect as far as his relationship with me went. I wondered if it had solved the other problem.
`How are you and Barish getting alone?' I asked.
He had the grace to blush. `You got the message to us one way or another, didn't you, my boy? Well, so far as that goes, we've made up our differences. Trouble is, we made them up just before the siege set in, so it's been little noticeable good to us.'
`There's a good deal of factionalism among the men,' I said.
`Well, Peter, you know how it's been. We hadn't been able to agree on anything, and though most of our disagreement was in private, word got out and sides were taken. It was simply a case of my men championing me and Barish's men championing him, and who cared what the truth was? Now it all seems foolish. Still, it's hard to undo several years of conflict all in one strike. That's why we've thought it unwise to try countermeasures against Huldra until we've had
time to sell the men on one plan. At the moment, we're not sure they'd act as a unified army. Quite frankly, Barish's men might sell me to Huldra, or vice versa. I wish we had more of those message crystals.'
`We do,' I said, showing him the contents of my pocket. `But I can push some cooperation into them without using these up if I have enough time.' I told him then about the Eesty method of message transmission, which he then tried on one of his servitors with no success at all. I sighed. I had known it wouldn't work for him. I was pretty sure a Healer could do it. Otherwise, it would have to be someone who had had the experience of being an Eesty. Probably no one but me could do it at all.
About that time Barish came in. Or, I should say, Barish-Windlow or Windlow-Barish. Last time I'd seen him, it had been Barish-Windlow, with poor old Windlow very much eclipsed, and I had been quite saddened thereby. I blamed myself often for having put them both in one body, though it had been all unwitting and with the best intentions. At any rate, he came in, embraced me, looked me squarely in the face, and said, `I want to thank you, Peter. I know you tricked me, but it was wisely done. The message you brought may have been a good thing to others, to me it was salvation.' He didn't say anything more. He didn't need to. I understood in the instant. The two warring halves of himself were now at peace, brought into alignment by the same message meant to align mankind to Lom. It was the best thing that had happened in quite a long time, and I was pathetically grateful for anything good.
We talked a long time, sitting in the comfortable firelight as the evening wore on while I told them about leaving Jinian in the Maze. Small scuttling noises spoke of creatures in the walls, a sound I always associated with the Bright Demesne, though once Barish went to the door and looked sharply outside as though he had heard someone lurking there. If anyone had been there, they had fled at his approach. All our nerves were a bit on edge from the siege and the discovery of the spy and the possibility of conflict among the men. I told them about the giants then, and they exclaimed at Jinian's luck and level-headedness in getting free of the monsters. When it was very late, I went off to bed, knowing I'd see the others in the morning.
Queynt and Chance and the rest had been at the Bright Demesne for about fifty days, almost half a season. Roges and Beedie were still with them, though the giant Flitchhawk had shown up a day or two after they had arrived and carried the strange, dual-minded Sticky creature in the basket away over the sea.
`It said it owed a boon to Jinian,' Queynt explained, `that it needed the Sticky in order to complete the mission.'
`The Mirtylon part of the Sticky was a bit apprehensive,' Beedie confided, `but the Mercald part was in ecstasy. To have been a bird worshiper all his life and then to be going off with the very god of all the birds made him believe he was in heaven. I assume the Flitchhawk was going after more blue crystals?'
`That's the mission it was sent on,' I replied. `And given the fact that the Flitchhawk is probably one of the old gods, he will undoubtedly complete the mission with satisfaction. Though it is a very great distance, as I understand it, and he may not return for quite a long time.' That sounded incredibly pompous, even to me, but I've never been able to lie in a casual voice. I was still resolved not to tell Queynt or Chance or anyone that the Flitchhawk had already returned and that Mertyn and his crew were busy at the caverns. With spies about, it was better if no one knew.
`Where's Sylbie then?' I asked, changing the subject, `She should have arrived only a few days after you did. Jinian said she sent Sylbie off not more than seven or eight days after the rest of you left.'
`She didn't arrive until twenty days ago,' drawled Chance. `And when I twitted her for being a slow-grole on the road, she flounced me.'
`Her manner was odd,' agreed Beedie. `And it's continued to be.'
`Now Beed,' said Roges.
`Don't now Beed me,' she said. `The girl was very pleasant on the way down from Fangel, after we all escaped from the Duke. Very well spoken. Excitable, but reasonable. Now she's... well, she's different.'
I, too, thought it curious that it had taken Sylbie so long to arrive but did not pursue the matter just then. `Where have you put her?' I asked, wondering why I had not heard the baby.
Himaggery made an embarrassed face. `We put her in the little gatehouse, Peter. Her and the baby. That baby - well, it's got this habit of changing into a howling something-or-other, which it does whenever it's peevish or doesn't get fed on time. It happens less frequently if it's kept quietly off to itself where Sylbie can devote her full time to it. Not that she's fond of the isolation, but she does understand the problem. Being under siege from the outside is quite enough without being under siege from inside as well. Last time, we almost lost the gate guards and the Demesne. I must confess, I didn't realize Shifter babies manifested Talent quite that early. Or so violently.'
`They don't,' I said. `This one is exceptional. There was some prenatal interference, you'll remember.'
`Ah,' he murmured. `Of course. It seems the little creature needs discipline, but none of us here are capable of arranging it. Thank heaven it always changes back to baby shape when it gets hungry enough, or the whole matter would be quite hopeless. I kept thinking Mavin would show up, or that Thandbar would come back from his trip - he went off just before the siege, he, Trandilar, and Dorn, to set a guard over the cavern where the frozen Gamesmen are, and don't mention it, Peter, I don't want anyone to know. At any rate, there's no one here to provide guidance for the baby. Something he much needs.'
`I'll see what I can do,' I promised, privately thinking that it would take Mavin or Thandbar or more likely both to do what needed doing. Nonetheless, I did want to find out what Sylbie had been doing on the road for so long, so I trotted through the pear orchard and one of the smaller vineyards to the gatehouse, taking along some fresh fruit tarts from the kitchen, which I th
ought she and the baby might enjoy. High over the walls of the Demesne the sky showed blue and gray, a patchwork of shadow and clear air between the meshes of fire. It looked safe, but depressing. We couldn't stay penned up here forever. I put it out of my mind for the moment and knocked on her door.
She had Bryan in her arms, and he came to me in a moment, babbling on about something or other, getting his face all covered with berry juice as he happily gobbled tarts. She smiled and smiled, exclaiming over the tarts, telling me they'd go so well with tea. While she went to get it, I jiggled the baby on my knee, commenting loudly at how much he'd grown since Fangel. He seemed happy enough, though if the tarts gave him bellyache, I supposed we might be in for a haunting. After a time Sylbie was back, bearing a steaming pot with various accouterments, and we sat comfortably on either side of the fire while Bryan finished his share of tarts on the rug.
The little gatehouse is actually set into the wall of the Demesne, or rather into the bases of two great buttresses of those walls. There is a small gate that opens from the gatehouse - from the room in which I sat - through the wall itself, though it is always kept heavily barred from the inside. I noticed the heavy chains across it and nodded to myself, thinking that she and the baby were secure enough here while still being private. There were parapets upon the buttresses and Sentinels keeping watch not more than two or three manheights above that door.
Sheri Tepper - Jinian 03 - Jinian Stareye Page 10