Sheri Tepper - Shapeshifter 01

by King's Blood Four(Lit)

  "If it is madness, " Mandor lisped, "then it is what I choose. I choose that you be sent to the Divulgers,

  Healer. " His voice was full of contempt and anger, and it was then I knew why he hated Silkhands and why he had hated me. He did not believe that she had secrets or conspiracies against him anymore than he had believed it of me. He simply hated her because she was a Healer who could not Heal him, hated me because I had once loved him and could not love him now. The talk of conspiracies was only talk, only surface, only something to say so that Huld would have an excuse to forgive him without despising him utterly.

  The reasons no longer mattered, however. Peter had come up to the surface. Swallow had ceased to be. The half-made plan I had made for the rescue of Silkhands would have to go forward at once, ready or not.

  I had observed the stewards as they went about the place bearing food or linens or running errands for

  Gamesmen of rank. Each wore a coat of dull gray piped in violet and black, Mandor's colors. Swallow had stolen such a coat together with a pair of trousers and soft shoes. I changed into these garments in the orchard as I changed myself to match them, becoming an anonymous steward with an ordinary face. Then I had to watch until the kitchen was almost empty before going into it to pick up a tray with bottle and wine-cup. Only one of the pawnish wenches saw me, and I prayed the face I wore was ordinary enough that one would not notice me particularly. I walked away, staying to the side of the corridors, standing against the wall with my head decently down when Gamesmen went past, bearing the tray as evidence that I belonged where I was, doing what

  I was doing. When I came to the door of Silkhands' room, it was barred and guarded by a yawning

  Halberdier. He looked me over casually, without really seeing me, and turned to unbar the door. He did not get up after I hit him with the bottle. It didn't even break. I dragged him behind an arras to take his clothes. He would have a vast headache when awoken, but I was as glad not to have killed him as I was not sorry to have killed Grimpt. He was a simple man with a very small

  Talent for firemaking and a tiny bit of follow-me. This made him popular among his fellows, but was no reason to wish him ill.

  When I went in to Silkhands and told her to come with me, she was hideously frightened. I wanted to tell her not to be afraid, but it was necessary that she feel fear if anyone saw us and felt curious about her. Only if she were truly afraid would the thing work at all, so I put

  Peter well down into the depths of the Halberdier and let that man escort her into the corridor. We went down a back flight of stairs, along corridors and down yet another flight which brought us into a short hallway off the dining hall. There was still much coining and going though it was very late. Catching Silkhands by the shoulder, I told her roughly to stand quiet. She did so, whimpering. I cursed inside as a group of Gamesmen went past, laughing and quarreling after some late play at cards. Three of them stopped to talk, and I thought they would never go. Then, when they went through the door and away, as I was mentally rehearsing the way to a side door and down through the gardens to the wall, there was an alarm from above. I knew at once they had found the Halberdier.

  There was no time left to attempt the escape through the gardens and orchard to the rope over the wall. They would be guarding the walls at the first sound of the alarm. I pulled Silkhands to me and hissed, "If you wish to live, be silent. If you truly wish to live, think of being grass as once you did upon a canyon side with Chance beside you... "

  She searched my face, then said, "Peter. " I do not know how she could have known so quickly who it was, except that my hands were on her and she could see into the body I wore. Perhaps it had some distinctive feel to it that she recognized. She was quick and compliant, however, for she stopped gaping at once and let her face go blank. I knew she was doing everything she could to be invisible if Huld sought her.

  The surface mind of the Halberdier knew the castle well, but I could find no sure hiding place in those memories. Then I remembered the words of Huld and

  Mandor when they spoke of Grimpt. The Caves of

  Bannerwell. Where? The Halberdier did not know, but

  Grimpt knew. I sought the pattern of that memory once more, pulled it back into being. Oh, yes, Grimpt had known well. There was the way, the rusty door, the key, the cobweb hung tunnels...

  I did not wait to explore the memory or understand it.

  Instead, I turned back the way we had come and tugged

  Silkhands into a stumbling run. Here was a panel which opened to a secret pressure. Here was a door hidden behind a tapestry. Here were cobwebby stairs hidden within walls which led downward to that same torture dungeon toward which Grimpt had led Peter those long days before.

  We did, not stay to examine the instruments there.

  The place was empty though a torch burned smokily on the wall. The way in Grimpt's memory lay through a half-hidden door, its metal surface splotched with corruption, the hinges red with rust, the key in the lock. It opened protestingly, the hinges screaming, and we stepped within to lock the door behind us. I had known the way would be dark so had taken up the torch to light our way down into the belly of the earth. There was no sound. Our footsteps were pillowed in dust and our panting breaths lost themselves in the vaulted height above. Silkhands followed, her face still carefully blank until I shook her and said, "There is stone between us and the world, Silkhands. We cannot be Read here. "

  Then she sighed and almost fainted upon my arm, and I knew it was from holding her breath for endless moments.

  "How did you find this place?" she whispered.

  "Where does it go?"

  "I don't know, " I confessed.

  "You're a Shifter, " she said, almost accusingly. I was reminded of Yarrel's tone. "You did turn out to be a

  Shifter, like your mother. "

  "You knew about my mother?"

  "Himaggery found out. Before we came after you.

  He said. it would make no difference if I knew, for

  Mandor already knew of it. How did you find this place?"

  "I took the shape of one who knew. The memory came with the form. "

  "Ah, " she said. "It's like Healing, then. "

  "Is it? I suppose it must be. Like Healing. Like

  Reading. It feels to me as though several of those things are going on, all at once. "

  "Where do we go now?"

  I laughed, then wanted to cry. "Silkhands, I don't know. I don't know what this place is, or why Huld thought of it as a hiding place or why Grimpt knew of it.

  I only knew we needed to get away, and this was available. It seemed better than being given to the

  Divulgers. "

  "Well, " she offered, "if you don't know, then we must find out. "

  So we explored. We did not fear losing our way for we could always follow our own footprints in the dust to go back the way we had come. That dust, undisturbed for ages, indicated that we were in no frequently traveled place. It was almost a maze, winding corridors with niches and side aisles and rooms. After a very long time, during which we went down and then up and then down again, we came to an opening into a great open space filled with tombs, a veritable city of tombs. They stretched away from the torchlight in an endless series to a high, far line of lights, dim, fiery, as though of windows into a firelighted place.

  "Could we have come under the walls?" Silkhands asked me. "If this is the place Bannerwell gives its dead, then there must be another entrance, one better suited to processions. "

  She was right. Funeral pomp and display would require a ceremonial entrance of some kind, something with ornamental gates and wide corridors. "If we could find it, " I whispered, "it would probably be well guarded. And I don't feel that we are outside the walls... "

  "How had you planned to get us out?" She laughed when I told her. "Down a rope? Well, it might have worked. I was fearful enough to risk my life down a rope. Why did you not shift into an Armiger and carry us away?"
r />   I told her that I did not because I could not, and she became very curious, full of questions, while we both stood in the land of tombs and the torch burned low. I wanted to hug her and slap her at once. There was no time for this, for this chatter, no time and I couldn't decide what was best to do. As was often the case, while I dithered and Silkhands talked, events moved upon us.

  There was a booming noise from the far, high firelit spaces, an enormous gonging sound, then a creaking of hinges. One of the firelit spaces began to enlarge, torches starring the space behind it.

  "There is your ceremonial gate, " I said. "They've come to search for us. "

  "And we've left prints in the dust a blind man could follow!"

  "No, " I said. "We'll leave nothing behind us. Turn and see. " Grimpt's small Talent for moving was enough. The dust rose in little fountains and settled once more, even as a carpet. We turned and ran, little dust puffs following us like the footfalls of a ghost. I thought of Ghost Pieces and of the surrounding dead and shuddered, glad I had seen no Necromancer in

  Bannerwell. "Try to remember which turns we make, " I panted. "When they have gone, if they go, we'll try to find our way back. " She saved her breath for running, but I knew she heard me. We twisted, backtracked down a parallel way, then down a branching hall, into a small tomb chamber, then into an alcove behind a carved cenotaph. "The torch must go out, " I said. "Eke they'll find us by the light. "

  "Gamelords, " she sighed. "I hate the dark. "

  "It's all right. I can light it again. " I blessed the

  Halberdier and was glad once more that I had not killed him. He knew enough to light the torch, thus I could do it when I had to. We crouched hi the blanketing dark.

  They would not be able to Read us through the stone, or track us by eye, but they might use fustigars. Indeed, we heard baying rise and fade, rise and fade again. "They cannot smell our way in this dust, " I said. "Our tracks are gone. They cannot find us... "

  , I had spoken too soon. The sound of the animals grew nearer, and we waited, poised to run. As I rose to my feet, I caught the string of my pouch on a stone and it snapped. Some half-dozen of the tiny Gamesmen fell to the floor. I felt for them with my hands, cursing the darkness, gathering them up one by one. I had heard one of them fall to my left, groped for it, found it at last and gripped it tightly just as a beam of light went by the entrance to the tomb chamber out of which our alcove opened. It grew warm in my grasp, wanner, hot. Almost

  I dropped it, then opened my hand to find it shining in the dark, the tiny Necromancer glowing like a small star on my palm.

  I closed my hand to hide the light. It spoke to me. It said, "I am Dorn, Raiser of the Dead, Master of all my kind... "A pattern was there, complex as a tapestry, knotted and interwoven, vast and ramified as root and branch of a mighty tree. It did not wait for me to Read it or take it. It flowed into me and would have done even if

  I had tried to stop it or dam it away. Silkhands gasped, for the Gamespiece shone between my fingers so that the flesh seemed transparent. Far away was the yammer of voices and animals. I only half heard it as I dropped the piece back into the pouch. It was no longer glowing.

  The searchers were returning. They paused at the entrance to the tomb room and began to come inside. I heard Huld calling to them from a distance. "Search every room. Mark every corridor to show you have searched... " They could not fail to see us if they came inside as those obedient forms began to do, long shadows reaching ahead of them in the torchlight.

  Something within me sighed, deeply.

  Between us and the searchers were seven tombs, cubes of marble set with golden crowns. Here lay some past rulers of Bannerwell, some Princes or Kings of time long gone. I sighed once more, the Dorn pattern within me beginning to Read time, back and back again, taking measure from the stone in which the dead Kings lay, back into their lives, taking up their dust, 'their bones, the rotted threads in which they were clad, making all whole again as though living, to rise up, up from the sepulchre into the air, a shade, a spirit, a ghastly King peering down upon these intruders out of shadowy eyes, A speaking with a voice in which the centuries cried like lost children in a barren place, "Who comes, who comes, who comes... "

  Beside me Silkhands hid her face and screamed silently into her hands. Before me the searchers drew up, eyes wide, each mouth stretched into a rictus of fear.

  The fustigars cowered, and the spirit confronted them,

  "Who comes, who comes, who comes, " as yet another rose beside him, and then one more, and yet again and again.

  The searchers fled and the spirit heads began to turn toward the place we hid. Within me came the sigh, and

  Dorn let them rest once more. Now I knew why Dazzle had so feared the threat of her dead. These had been no dead of mine, and yet I feared, for out of these had come a hungering and a thirst which my life would not have slaked. One who raised these dead raised terror. And yet, even as I knew this, I knew that Dorn could hold them so they did no harm, or loose them, as Dorn would.

  I comforted Silkhands, blindly, babbling.

  "Himaggery told me to keep the Gamespieces safe. To keep them to myself. Well did he say so. I wish I had buried them back once more in the earth. "

  "We are alive, " she whispered, practical and fearful at once. "I would rather be alive, even sweating like this. Having seen death, I would rather be alive. "

  "I can raise them up again, if we need to... "

  "Not now, " she begged. "I am so tired. I have been afraid for so long. Not now. "

  We lit the torch and followed the footprints of those who had fled, but the hope of escape was vain. The great room of tombs was lit with a thousand torches and there were watchers at every corner of it. I could Read

  Mandor in the room, glowing with anger. I could read

  Dazzle there, as well, writhing thoughts, like a nest of serpents twining upon one another in incestuous frenzy.

  A telltale tickle at the edge of my mind pushed me back behind a towering midfeather which held up the groined ceiling. I hugged Silkhands to me. "We can't stay here.

  Huld is searching for us. We need stone between us and him... "

  My words were interrupted by a fury of sound, drums throbbing, a wild clatter of wheels, and a thunder upon the bridge. Trumpets called. Silkhands said, "So, someone has come to give Mandor a Great Game. Those are the last of the wood wagons being driven across the bridge with fuel for the ovens... "

  We heard Mandor scream instructions at the guards.

  The doors clanged shut and there was a scurry of purposeful movement. We withdrew into the shadows of the corridor. "I have not slept in days, " said Silkhands.

  "If we may not get out, let us hide away and rest. I cannot Heal myself of this weariness much longer, and I am hungry... " . ?'

  I was hungry, too, and we had nothing with us to eat or drink. As for sleep, however, that we could do. We went from squared and vaulted rooms into dim bat-hung halls where dawn light filtered down from grilled shafts twenty manheights above us, and from there into darker corridors lined with vaults bearing each the sign and legend of him who slept there. At last we found a high, dry shelf three-quarters hidden behind hanging stone pillars down which water dripped endlessly in a mournful cadence. There we would be hidden by stone in all directions, hidden by shadow, hidden by sleep. We shared the last of Windlow's herb and fixed our minds upon peace. Lost in the darkness of the place of tombs, we slept.

  12

  Mavin

  I woke to a clicking sound, a small, almost intimate sound in the vastness of that stone pillared cave. It reminded me of the death beetle we had often heard in the long nights in School House, busy in the rafters, the click, click, click timing the life of the Tower as might the ticking of a clock. I was still half asleep when I peered over the edge of the ledge we lay upon. The cavern drifted in pale light, mist strewn, and at the center of it a woman was sitting in a tall, wooden chair, knitting.

  She had not
been there before. I had not heard her arrive. For the moment I thought it was a dream and pinched myself hard enough to bring an involuntary exclamation, half throttled. Silkhands heard it, wakened to it, sat up suddenly, saying, "What is it? Oh, what is it?" Then she, too, heard the sound and peered at the distant figure, her expression of blank astonishment mirroring my own.

  Before I could answer her, if I had had any answer to give, the woman looked up toward us and called, "You may as well come down. It will make conversation easier. " Then she returned to her work, the needles in her hands flashing with a hard, metallic light. I stared away in the direction we had entered this vault.

  Nothing. All was silence, peace, no trumpets, no drums, no torches. Finally, I heaved myself down from the ledge and helped Silkhands as we climbed down to the uneven floor of the cave. The clicking was now interspersed with a creaking sound, the sound of the chair in which the woman sat, rocking to and fro. Once, long, long ago