Eleven
Jinian's Story: The Caverns
Murzy had been right. By moving swiftly, calmly - and by trading the barrows for a farm wagon on the third day of our trek - we managed to reach the Ice Caverns before Huldra did. The old codger living at the edge of the marches had not been at all willing to let his only wagon go, but between Cat's talking and Margaret's Beguiling, he couldn't hold out against us. He was well paid for the wagon, and we left half a dozen of the shadow-eaters with him as lagniappe. When we left him, he had begun telling them the story of his life, and one of the turnips had a sprout out its top that looked suspiciously like a flower head to me.
They'll seed, you know,' said the Gardener in his gloomy, uninflected voice. `Soon they'll be all over everything.'
`I can think of worse things,' said Sarah.' Wildthorns, for example. Or purple briar. Or shadow.'
`True,' murmured the Gardener. `Except that wild-thorn extract cures heaves in wateroxen. And split purple briar makes the best sieves in the world.'
`I didn't know that,' said Cat, showing immediate interest. "What else are they good for?'
He told her, for the better part of a day. Everyone else walked away from the wagon, tiring of his voice, but Cat sat up there on the seat, taking it all in, and the turnips babbled to one another about every cloud in the sky and every new flower or stone along the way. I was beginning to see differences among them, differences in their markings and the locations of their eyes. I
named them to myself; Bulgy and Flop-top and Big-blue, who had the widest, bluest belt. Pasty, all white with yellowish leaves; Fringes, who had at least ten or twelve root legs; Molly-my-dear, slender - relatively speaking - and coy, with an almost supersonic giggle. They had no names for themselves and were delighted when I began to name them, after a time beginning to think up titles for themselves, some of which made them collapse into the bottom of the wagon, full of mysterious, vegetable mirth. I could understand the words well enough, but not what they really meant. It was not a humor I could share, though that fact seemed to frustrate no one but me.
The Gardener had been right. More than a few of them were sending up flower stalks and casting meaningful looks at one another. I had not thought of pollination as an erotic exercise before, but these hybrid creatures did not regard it as routine, so much was obvious. They were full of devious, volatile pranks, reminding me rather of the deep dwellers I had summoned up in Fangel. Devious or not, they were more interesting than the Gardener. I had yet to see him display any interest in anything whatsoever.
All of which was a mere distraction, to keep my mind off Peter. When I thought of him, I thought of him being tortured, maimed, savaged by Huldra's wanton evil or Dedrina's casual brutality. Once or twice I had fallen into shivering fits, and Cat or Murzy had had to recall me to myself with an utterance of names. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering whose names we uttered and why they made any difference. Who, or what, was Eutras? Who, or what, was Favian?
At any rate, we came down Cagihiggy Creek at some speed. The way is level along there, not precisely a road but without major impediments to travel. As we neared the place where we thought the caverns were, we made camp while Murzy, Cat, and Bets sent up some kind of Wize-ardly signal, a tall, blue smoke with
sparkly bits in it. They went on making it for some hours. Along about dusk, it was answered by a cautious call from behind some rocks, then by a tall, serious-faced man, who stepped out and approached us with visible trepidation.
I went to him, showing my empty hands. `I'm Jinian Footseer,' I told him. `A friend of Peter, Mavin's son. He may have stopped by here fairly recently? I'm also known to Mertyn and a man named Quench, and I know the name Riddle, Governor of the Immutables, though we have not met.'
He gestured vaguely at the others of us. `And these?' He was staring at the turnips, frankly staring, as though he could not believe what he saw.
`The vegetables are shadow-eaters,' I told him. `And the women are Wize-ards, friends of mine. The man is simply called the Gardener. I'm afraid I know very little about him.'
`They're real,' he said with plaintive satisfaction. `As I approached, I thought they were a Beguilement of some kind; a mind image, perhaps. But they stayed, even when I came quite close and watched them for a long time, so they're real!'
`You must be an Immutable, then,' said Cat, coming up behind me. `I tried to Read you and could not, nor anyone else who's here.'
He bowed. `Riddle,' he said. `As you put it, Governor of the Immutables, though there is little governance involved these days.' He showed us a trail, hidden behind a line of transplanted bushes, and suggested we go on up to the caverns, not waiting until morning. `There's a threat coming.'
`We received a Sending from Huldra, the Witch,' said Murzy. `She is holding Peter captive to assure Jinian's compliance in some scheme of hers. Is there more threat than that?'
He shook his head as if to say that was quite threat enough. `Witchness I can quell,' he said. `As with all other Talents of the Gamesmen.'
`What about the wize-art?' I asked him. `Can you quell that?'
He looked slightly confused for a moment. `The wize-art? That isn't a Talent, is it?'
`It is and it isn't,' said Murzy. `Some can do it and some can't, so to that extent it's a Talent. However, it doesn't come all at once as a Talent does. It must be learned. Come. I've always wondered. Do the Immutables quell wize-artry?'
`Let's see,' I said, picking up a pebble from the ground and putting it in my palm. `Mothwings Go Spinning,' I murmured, making the gestures with my other hand. `By Eutras. By Bintomar, by Favian, by Shielsas, go spinning.' The pebble lifted and began to twirl. I let it drop. `So, wize-artry is something else.'
Riddle nodded, his face gloomy. `Do I understand this Huldra is not merely a Witch but has also studied the art?'
I sighed deeply. `You understand aright, Riddle. She is, however, first a Witch. She may have built her Talent into her study of the art, scarcely remembering which part is which. Witches have Firestarting, and Power Holding and Beguilement. If she relies upon one of these, you may well quench her. At least, we will hope so.'
`If you can quell her Talent,' said Cat, more cheerfully than I would have thought proper under the circumstances, `we seven will take care of her artistry.' Cat did not call it the wize-art when speaking of Huldra. When done for evil purposes, it was not the wize-art so far as the seven were concerned.
We went up behind the bushes onto the trail, through the Immutables' lines, and thence upward to the caverns. About halfway there the trail thinned to the point the wagon would go no farther, so we hobbled the oxen and told the turnips to find themselves root space up the little side canyons. There were many windy
arroyos thereabout, most with patches of deep, sunny earth washed into rock hollows. All of the shadow-eaters went off except Molly-my-dear and Big-blue. Those two stayed close to my ankles, begging to be taken up to see the caverns. So I perched them in the top of my pack and carried them the rest of the way.
A good deal had been done since Peter had stopped there. Some twenty or thirty teams of Demons and Healers were scattered throughout the caverns, directing Tragamors at unpiling the bodies. Sorcerers stood about, feeding them power as they needed it. Far off to one side, that strange, hollow-cheeked man from under the mountain, Quench, worked with a group of techs at a monstrous machine. I had seen it before, on the Wastes of Bleer. Peter had very nearly killed himself trying to repair it. The resurrection machine! It was working now, making a horrid scream and flicker of lights as it joined the bodies and minds of the frozen ones. Every few moments, some Gamesman would be newly wakened, either by the machine or by a Demon-Healer team, would stagger to his or her feet, and would be taken off to be fed and clothed. Whenever five or ten of them were ready, Mertyn spoke to them, his hoarseness betraying how often he had done it over the past few days. He spoke of history, current circumstances, the need for rebuilding Old South Road City;
he covered it all in a very short time.
`I couldn't do it except for the crystals,' he confessed, gulping hot tea liberally laced with wineghost. `We're putting a crystal in the mouth of every Gamesman before he's wakened - thanks to the Flitchhawk, who brought them. Almost all of them waken with some helpful ideas already in their heads. From that point on, it's merely a matter of channeling. Trying to bring them up to date without getting bogged down in ancient history. They're so curious. Gamelords, wouldn't you be! Frozen dead for hundreds of years and suddenly wakened into a world they've never seen before! So far we've only lost a dozen, a dozen out of hundreds!'
`Lost?' Murzy asked.
`Lost. I suppose lost. They weren't interested in helping, put it that way. Not even the crystals seemed to make any difference....'
I shivered. What kind of Gamesman would not care whether the world died? Those without bao wouldn't want to help. Crystals wouldn't make any difference to them. Crystals such as the blue ones spoke to bao. Those without bao could not hear the message. `Where did they go, Mertyn?'
`Away north. I had to think of something to get them out of the way. Some of those who wouldn't help were starting to cause trouble, so I told them about a Great Game north of here. I felt the best I could hope for was they'd stay out of the way....'
`Mertyn,' I said softly. `Are there any midwives here in the caverns?'
`I suppose so. The old gods know there are everyr thing else. We even found a Warbler yesterday. And a Thaumaturge.'
`Waken one or two midwives, Mertyn. Have them look into the frozen Gamesmen before you wake them. If the midwives find no... if they do not find in the frozen Gamesmen that which they seek in newborn children, then do not wake those Gamesmen. Yet.'
He gave me a strange, straight look, as did Murzy and Cat, but I would not be stared down. `Please,' I begged. `Do it, just for now. If I cannot explain, perhaps time will do so.' I was beginning to understand something, rather dimly. It had to do with a pathetic Sending, and with the Sanctuary I had seen. And with the Dragon of Zale. And perhaps, perhaps with what Ganver had been trying to teach me.
But I had no time to pursue the thought. Far to the back of the caverns was a clean-swept tunnel off which opened several quiet, twisty rooms, rock-walled but
clean. We were given one of these to make our camp in, with a supply of firewood ready cut. Out in the caverns the murmur and clatter of activity continued, though muted by distance; an occasional shout, once in a while a voice raised in tired anger or expostulation. In general, however, it was the busy hum of a thing happening, a properness occurring.
`Bintomar,' said Murzy when the blankets were spread, laying her hand on my forehead. `By Shielsas and Eutras, sleep.' I slept.
There was only that one peaceful night. The next morning came one of Mertyn's Elators from the back side of the mountain - flicking his way to us in vast, zigzaggy steps to avoid the Immutable line - to say that Huldra and her train were not a full day's journey from the Immutables. According to the Elator, there was no shadow with the train, only Huldra, Dedrina, and a vast crowd of Elators and Tragamors. It was obviously her intention to tumble the entire mountain down into the caverns, filling them so deep with rubble that the hundred thousand would be buried forever.
Mertyn went down to Riddle and conferred there a while. At the end of the conference, Riddle moved up toward the caverns with almost all his men, staying just beyond the line that would have stopped the Demon-Healer-midwife teams working to raise the hundred thousand. If Huldra's Gamesmen got past Mertyn's men, then Riddle was to move further toward the caverns, protecting them from Talents of any kind. The resurrection machine would go on working under all circumstances; Quench and the other techs were working each day and night around even now.
The remaining few Immutables came to the bottom of the canyon with the seven, with Mertyn, and Mertyn's men. He had not brought many with him of a warlike kind, but we made such display as we could. Surprise is always useful, if one can pull it off. We did not want Huldra thinking about Immutables, and had
she seen no Gamesmen at all, it might have made her wonder.
We set ourselves in a thin line along a low bluff that knelt at the foot of the mountain, Sentinels and Heralds spotted along the line to make a show, we seven clustered at the center behind a twisted dike of red stone. It had a gap in it in which I could show myself without disclosing the others. There were some spare banners and whatnot in the caverns, surprisingly unfaded considering they had probably been there for hundreds of years, part of the gear of the Gamesmen who had been frozen. These we spaced to show above the dike, making an appearance of an army several times our real size.
Huldra, the Elator said, had several thousand men. We had at best a hundred or so. Of course, seven of us were wize-ards.
And we seven worked like pawns. There is a saying in the art, `Slow spells make sure spells.' It means simply that taking time repays the time taken, in sureness, in thoroughness, in calm consideration. We set spells throughout the valley Huldra would traverse, spells that could be released with one word spoken or one gesture. A clump of leaves or a lump of rock concealed symbols and signs already in place. The bluff extended outward from the mountain, leaving only a narrow way between its edge and the little ravine cut by the creek. On the other side of the creek, there was only a narrow path between the edge of the ravine and a soaring cliff edge. Riddle's damping power extended up to the cliff edge and over it, down beyond the bluff for several hundred paces, and up the mountain slopes on the near side. If the Witch came close enough to see me clearly, she would have no Talent. If an Elator of hers tried to flick up to the cliff edge to get above us, he would drop from midair partway there. No Tragamor would be able to move anything against us. And we were hoping against hope
she would believe it was all art and would not think of Immutables. If we could get her busy working up counterspells against nonexistent Wizardry, it would use up her strength and power, giving us a definite advantage.
After I thought we were finished, Murzy and the others gathered around me, sat me down on a convenient stone, and proceeded to lay a very complex spell that I had never heard of before. Dodie only watched, showing she had not learned this, either. It was called, so they said, The Net of Enlees, and when it was finished they wrote the word that would release it on a piece of bark, told me to learn it without saying it, then burned the bark carefully until it was completely gone.
`Huldra spell-bound you in the giants' cave,' said Murzy. `Binding you against any use of the art. Probably she did the same to Peter, binding his Talent so it could not be used. Since spell-binding has worked for her before, likely she will attempt to use it again. If she does, she will have to make the binding gesture, you know.' Murzy illustrated abortively, being sure I understood. `Watch for that. Don't let her finish it. At the first sign of it, call out that word in a loud, firm voice, and you will be enclosed in The Net of Enlees. It won't prevent her doing any other rotten thing she can think of, but it will leave you free to fight back.'
They were frightening me, though I'm sure they didn't know it. Somehow, since we had met in the Shadowmarches, I had assumed we would be together if anything dreadful happened. This advance spell casting to protect me, as an individual, made me very nervous.
`Murzy? Have you - have you Seen anything? To make you think Huldra would... will try it again?'
`I have Seen enough to make me careful,' she replied in her stiff, no-nonsense voice. `I have not Seen Huldra dancing on your recumbent body, but that is hardly an indication we are all safe. The Talent of Seeing, as you very well know, is not as reliable as most Seers like to pretend it is.' And that is all she would say on that subject.
When we had done everything we could think of, some things twice, we went back to the caverns to await Huldra's coming. A Sentinel posted on the high cliffs to the north would give us plenty of warning. The hum of activity had increased, if anything, and the piles of frozen bodies were de
finitely smaller. Three Seers went by me, carrying in their hands a dozen or so of the little `blues' - the tiny images that contained the memories and minds of those frozen in the caverns. Blues had to be matched to bodies, and the Seers were arguing violently over the quickest way to do it since these blues had been found in a cupboard, separated from the bodies they belonged to. Luckily, most of the blues had been laid on the bodies they went with. Otherwise, we might still be sorting out the hundred thousand today.
Murzy went over to them staring curiously at the blues. They looked like miniature Gamesmen, like little carvings made of ice. Murzy reached for one of them with an exclamation, calling to Cat. `Mind Healer Talley. Cat, come quickly. It's Mind Healer Talley!'
Sheri Tepper - Jinian 03 - Jinian Stareye Page 17