The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  He looked up to catch my gaze, flushed in half guilt, then gave me an unrepentant stare as though to say, “Well, you won’t and she will, so gaze me no gazes, Jinian Footseer.”

  “We must sleep,” I said carefully, keeping my voice expressionless. “All of us need sleep.”

  As I moved about the clearing, preparing for the night, I stopped beside Queynt. His eyes were still red, and there was a great lump on his forehead, but he looked otherwise his own indomitable self.

  “These crystals the visitors believe are so important perhaps you have known their contents so long you have not really thought about them, Queynt? Perhaps you have not considered the implications—if, for example, everyone had had one.”

  He seemed surprised at this. “Well, yes, Jinian. That’s possible. In which case, someone new, someone like Mavin or Himaggery is needed to make a judgment. To consider, as you say, the implications.”

  I stared at him, willing him to pay utmost attention.

  “A bit farther down the hill, Queynt, there is a fork in the road. The southmost road leads down to Luxuri and thence to Bloome again. From there it is not far to the Great Road which comes north from Pfarb Durim. And on that road, the journey to the Bright Demesne should not take long—or no longer than any such journey will take. If you can get there, and if you can get Himaggery and Barish to quit calling meetings to discuss the hundred thousand, perhaps they would consider what the true meaning of the blue crystals may be. Perhaps Barish would do it for you?”

  “I can ask him,” he said.

  “It’s important enough to go, and quickly.”

  There was no point in further talk. No sense in worrying them with questions that could not yet be answered. We arranged ourselves for the night. To rest, if that were possible. Roges lay looking at the dark. Beedie close beside him. The creature was back in its basket. Peter had stretched himself out on a blanket by the fire, with the baby beside him, and Sylbie lay against Peter, half-curled around the baby.

  Peter slept, one arm across the child, the hand touching Sylbie’s breast, and she not moving away from this touch. I, wandering late, saw this. Well, where else would Sylbie sleep except beside the one among them she knew as a friend?

  I lay down away from the fire, able to see the flames as they undulated against the black of the forest yet unlit by them, lost in a pocket of darkness as in some secret closet, spying upon the outer world as through the keyhole of that closet, closed about with baffled jealousy coupled with the anxiety that my suspicions had aroused. If they were true, did it matter what Peter did?

  None of them saw. All the myriad clues were there in front of them, and none of them saw. Not even Queynt. Queynt, who should have seen long ago on the Shadowmarches, when he was given a blue crystal by a Shadowman and interviewed by the Eesties.

  Oh, yes, Queynt should have seen then. But he did not. Only I believed I saw, from this cavern of quiet darkness.

  And I could be wrong.

  But if I were right, could I do anything useful if I stayed here? Where Sylbie was and Peter’s child? I thought of the baby, opening each day with his bubble sounds, crowing like some cock-bird from his basket, pure joy unalloyed. Could I accept that, not grieve over it, and get on with what must be done? Even if I could accept it, what good could I do here? Could I think of staying only to stand between Peter and Sylbie and the child? Would Jinian take a parent’s love away from a child? Jinian, who knew well enough what it meant to be the victim of an abductor of love, a robber of faith? Should I do to another what Eller of Stoneflight had done to me?

  There was an easy way to do it. Jinian could go into these dark woods and gather the needful things: sixteen herbs and earths, and those easy to find, not scarce in any land, not difficult to locate even in the dark. A torch would be enough light. Her own senses would serve without any light at all. To make a love potion. To guarantee Peter loved Jinian, not Sylbie but Jinian, not the crowing child but Jinian. A simple thing, taking only from now until dawn. And then she could bring him his tea and sit by him looking into his face while he drank it...

  There was a pig that had loved me in the Forest of Chimmerdong, loved me well, unable not to love me. So would Peter be unable not to love me. And if I were a monster, he would love me still. And if I were Valearn, Ogress of Tarnost, still he would love me.

  And I, knowing that, would feel—what would I feel?

  If crystals could compel without blame, could not one small Wizard? And if what I feared was true, who would be alive to judge me for it? And if what I feared was true, what time would there be for any alternatives? And if what I feared was true, what point in refusing to taste the blue crystal and verify what I believed?

  Except that if I knew, I might be too terrified to act.

  But as long as there was doubt, however small, then action could take place.

  Exactly.

  Even if I did it totally alone, I had to do something.

  This was the lesson of Chimmerdong.

  So, not the sixteen herbs and earths. Not the liquor of love, the efficacious potion. Not love at all.

  And not a patient traveling with them, either, coming between them, becoming less myself with every passing hour as I sought to become whatever it was he loved, forgetting my oath, changing myself to the needs of love rather than being true to myself and doing what must be done. Not jealousy.

  And not the mere running off in a huff, to sulk in some distant place until the world was changed. Not anger. No. Not love, not jealousy, not anger. Duty instead. The lesson of Chimmerdong instead. I would need to depart, but depart to some purpose.

  I sneaked from my pocket of darkness to gather the things any traveler would need. Quiet as shadow I drifted into the forest, up along the hill, back toward Fangel. Morning would take me far enough from this place that they could not find me, even if they looked, which they would not. The need for them to move southward was too imminent, too persuasive.

  Pray Queynt understood this. A man as perceptive as he must understand it. Pray they did not delay.

  And I would do what I had to do. This was to find the Dream Miner and this companion, this Storm Grower, and see if they knew why the foul yellow crystals were being spread across the world. And, I reminded myself, learn why they wanted me dead.

  Behind me, a log broke among the flames, showering sparks, shattering into coals. An omen. Even the hottest fire would break and cool in time. It was a better hope than nothing. I moved into the night, pacing leagues back toward Fangel between myself and the sleepers.

  It was again near dawn the final sending came, high in the eastern sky, a pale gray blot white-fanged against the dark, the voice a howl of wind from between the stars. “Jinian,” and again, “Jinian.” So, whoever it was in Fangel had found me out, put two and two together to come up with six; put Jambal and Biddle and Chorm in a pot to pour out Jinian. Was it Huldra behind this sending? Or Dedrina Dreadeye? Or Bloster? Whichever, this one would not be put off with strawmen.

  There were defenses against sendings. Defense was a paltry game that waited upon others for its intentions. I was too tired and angry for defense. Therefore, let the forest beware!

  I left the trail, moving into the forest. Then.

  The amethyst crystal from my pouch. Set upon a stone. Then Music and Meadow to bring an innocent creature near, to wring its neck quickly so that it died without fear or pain. Unjust to use its blood so, and yet I could not use my own. Bright the Sun Burning set upon crystal and blood. Dream Chains to Bind It to hold an image there.

  “Oh, here I am, Sending,” I sang in the false light of predawn, dancing widdershins about the crystal on the stone, blood on the stone, song on the stone, herbs and twigs on the stone. “Here am I, Sending, deep in amethyst halls, deep in crystal silences, within, hidden within.

  “A twig of red rowan, a sprig of midnight tree, a leaf of web willow, shall summon you to me. Come, Sending, to find Jinian where her blood leads you. Come, Sending, and f
east where your hunger waits.”

  “Jinian,” the sending called, spiraling down from the empty sky. “Jinian,” in a husky, hungering voice which raised bumps on the skin as a cold wind might. “Blood,” it called, rejoicing. “Blood.” Down to hover above the stone. It did not see as others saw, did not perceive as others perceived. It was both sent and summoned, and the blood led into another place. Into which it went, all at once, like a wisp of smoke drawn into a chimney, and then Jinian gathered the last of her strength to do Dream Chains once more, quickly, holding the wraith where it was, within the crystal, where it could not get out.

  And when it was done, she fell on the earth like a felled sapling, unconscious, limp, all strength gone and drained away, the place cold as a glacier around her. She, not I, for I was far away already, lost in some inner maze without any way out. On the stone the amethyst crystal burned, trembling. Around her, me, the dark changed slowly to day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was awakened by something, then lay for a long time on the cold earth wondering if me and I and whoever had reassembled themselves to be a person again. Where that person might be was another question which took some time to settle. I was near the trail that led from Fangel, hidden from it by a slope and a line of trees, and there were voices coming from the trail. I had lain there for about a day.

  I felt fairly weak, without much will or ambition, but otherwise normal. Beside me on the stone the amethyst crystal rocked as though inhabited—which it was in a sense— and I put it in my pouch rather unwillingly before crawling into the trees to see who came forth from the city into the dusk.

  It was the Duke of Betand, traveling from Fangel with far less panoply than when he had entered. His allies and the Dream Merchant traveled with him, escorted only by Porvius Bloster and a few Armigers and Tragamors, men evidently not corrupted by the crystals, for they went in alert watchfulness as outriders of the small procession. Huldra and Valearn had left their high-wheeled carts; Dedrina, her huge crocodile.

  They, like the Merchant and the Duke, were mounted on stocky ponies and wore sensible traveling garments. The air of menace that accompanied them was as great as when they had entered the city, however, and it brought me alert among the underbrush, suddenly threatened and vigilant.

  There was Valearn, the Ogress. All the fears aroused by nursery tales were made immediately manifest, swarming in the shadows, wakened more by this one danger than by the presence of others, equally perilous. In her lands of the High Demesne in the south she had walked the woods alone, garbed in ragged robes with the staff of an old mendicant, seizing children who wandered by themselves, leaving their bones half-gnawed for the were-owls to finish. She had not troubled adults, only children.

  Them she had sought relentlessly, the child from the cot by the window, the babe from the blanket by the fire, the toddler snatched from a mother’s arms. But, only children. Only children. I told myself this, more than once, assuring Jinian the child that she was too deeply buried in Jinian the Wize-ard for Valearn to find her, ever. Jinian the child was not so deeply buried inside me that she did not doubt this. We all doubted it together.

  I waited until the troop had moved almost out of sight, then laid a hiding spell, Egg in the Hollow, that I might not be seen by them, that I might most assuredly not be seen by Valearn. It was all very well to assure oneself that the child one had been was outgrown. Such children had a habit of coming back at odd moments, moments that might prove unpropitious indeed.

  I did not think of Sylbie’s baby, and Peter’s. Sylbie and the baby should have been far on the southern road by then; why think of them in connection with Valearn?

  The rest of the night was spent in scrambling down long dark roads the way I had come twice in recent days. A drift of krylobos feathers beneath a tree, a scatter of straw, confirmed the location. Here the sendings had come.

  The allies were not so far ahead I couldn’t hear them talking. “Clever,” drawled Huldra, seeing these telltale signs by torchlight. “Clever little bitch. She sent my creatures back to me full of straw and quills, them that cost good blood to send, back with nothing but trash in them. Save one which came back not at all.”

  “You think it’s that Jinian?” Bloster, sounding as bedraggled as he looked. “The one the Backless Throne wanted killed, the one who destroyed Daggerhawk Demesne?”

  “You don’t know that she destroyed Daggerhawk,” said Dedrina Dreadeye. “The Seers have not verified it.”

  “I know it,” he said obstinately. “Even if the Seers said she had not, I would know it.”

  “What ith thith girl? Thome great Afrit full of mighty powerth? Thome twinned Talent or other?” The Merchant did not sound really interested.

  “She’s the cause of my losing my captive,” snarled the Duke, trying to ease himself in the saddle. “You may lay money on that.” He was too fat to ride in comfort; he and the pony suffered equally upon the road.

  “And why doeth the Backleth Throne take an interetht in her?” the Merchant asked.

  “I was never told,” said Porvius, aggrieved. “Only that the Throne wanted her dead. As do I. I had her in my hands, like an egg between my fists. I was only concerned with her brother then; him I hated. But if I’d killed her when I had the chance, we’d not be homeless, traveling on the charity of our friends.”

  “Scarcely charity,” hissed Dedrina. “We pay good coin for our keep, brother. Cease your whining. If you have energy to spare, remember you are a Tragamor and spend it smoothing this road. It is unpleasant to travel full of bumps as it is.”

  “Talents don’t work well this far north,” he said, in the petulant tone of a child. “I have not the strength even to Move gravel.” Oh, how far Porvius had fallen, into this meekness, this whining infancy.

  “Keep silent, then, lest you waste what little power you have!” They rode on, becoming less loquacious as the hours passed. Near dawn they paused; and I was ready enough that they do so. I was wearier than the distance would explain. Following, keeping quiet, finding the trail in the dark, worrying that I might be about to step into shadows, all had been an exhausting effort. The fact that I did not step into shadows, that none of us did, should have told me something. I was preoccupied with other thoughts, however, and did not learn from what was not there.

  We had come to a small village. The Merchant called it Bleem. While the guards were left to camp in the forest as best they might, preparations had been made for the others to spend the night under roof. Someone’s house had been vacated and made ready for the group with a supper laid upon the table and the beds prepared with fresh straw. So much I learned from the lean-to at the back, where an old wagon lay half against the warm chimney, making a nest for me to supper in. I could hear them through the wall.

  Moreover, I could see out the open end of the shed well enough to observe the comings and goings of the people there. There was no rejoicing among them, certainly. I had seldom seen such a whipped-fustigar crew, their jaws dragging halfway to their bellies and more of the women crying into their neckerchiefs than not. I still had the hiding spell on me, so I left the cozy nest and went among them.

  Curiosity, I suppose. There was something about them that teased at me.

  There were two men standing at the well, one a fairly well-set-up middle-aged fellow, the other slightly older. He was lecturing the younger man, beating his fist upon the well coping, tears running down his face like a river.

  “I say we can’t go on, Dolcher. We can’t. You know that. First it was just a few zeller off to Morp. Then it was a few zeller plus a few old people. Now it’s all the oldsters and most of the zeller and half our children. By all the old gods, they’ll have your son next. This time it’s my Zenina they’ve chosen to take, and your boy was to wed her this season. Next time him. The time after that, what? There’s none of us left...”

  “Servants,” whispered the other man. “They want our young ones for servants, that’s all. When they’ve served a few y
ears, they’ll be home again.” His gray face belied this.

  “Man, are you blind? Why take our oldsters if they want servants? They took Granny Zeeble, and she so trembly the children had been calling her Feeble Zeeble for ten years. They took your own father, who hadn’t walked a step without two canes for seven seasons. Hush. Here’s the wife.”

  A woman approached them, one of the weeping ones. “You can’t let her go, Vorge. You can’t let Zenina go. The time’s come to say no. We’ve given enough.”

  “Well, well,” the younger man said, patting her clumsily on the shoulder. “That’s what we’ve said to them at Morp, Lina. We sent that message only yesterday.”

  “But he’s here. The Dream Merchant. They say he’s their son. Talk to him. Beg him. Make him understand.”

  “Now, Lina. We’ve sent the message already. I wouldn’t want to get them upset.”

  “If you won’t, I will.”

  The man called Vorge shook his head, wrung his hands. “It would be better if you did, Dolcher. You’re village chief. It would be more natural.” The old man shook his head. “We’ve got to do something.”

  Two of them went away. Dolcher stood at the well, one hand dragging into a bucket of water, lifting it to drip the water into the well, listening to the slow plop, plop. I examined his face; hopeless. Something was tugging at my memory about Morp. I’d heard the name somewhere.

  I wandered through the village. There were empty houses, small places falling to ruin, empty stables. Of all the people left in the place, Vorge was about the oldest. So, the oldsters had been sent—where? And if not as servants, as what? Around the village stretched the small fields; between the houses were the gardens.

  Ill tended. As though the people could not spare attention for them. It had the look of a settlement upon its last breath.

  Dolcher still stood at the well. At last he shook his head and went to the house occupied by the Merchant and his group. I slipped back into the lean-to, my ear against the wall.