The End of the Game

by Sheri S. Tepper

  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.

  Sometime deep in the night we heard a yelping scream from the sky, followed by a dull, squishing thud. Torchlight found the source, an Armiger, dead as a Ghoul fetch. He had been Flying some fifty or a hundred manheights up and run abruptly into the Immutable’s screen. We moved the body behind some rocks, heaping some others over it. He had been a scout. Huldra wouldn’t be far behind.

  Before dawn, Murzy and the others joined me, together with Mertyn and his men. When the sun rose, we saw them, all drawn up in battle array from wall to wall of the valley, with some Armigers floating high in the air and others just above the creekbed to keep the lines straight. They had a Herald out front, floating importantly along. He stopped just short of the place the Immutable screen would have touched him and gave voice.

  “All within sound of my voice, give ear; Huldra, Witch, Student of the High Arts, having taken the person of the Shifter, Peter, offers him now in exchange for the insignificant person of one Jinian, so-called Wize-ard, named Footseer. Let her come forward and the exchange be made.”

  Huldra was standing at some distance behind the Herald. The person next to her did look like Peter. Murzy sighed and did Bright the Sun Burning in the affirmative mode, a disclosing spell. The person next to Huldra no longer looked like Peter. Shit. Huldra wasn’t going to let Peter go. Even from this distance I could see the creature was a mere semblance, not unlike a Sending or a wraith. She’d spent some poor fool’s blood on it, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. We had a quick conference, and our Herald jumped up on the rock.

  “All within sound of my voice, give ear. Mertyn, King, most Powerful, most Puissant, calls the Witch Huldra to account for her un-Gamely abduction of Mertyn’s thalan, Peter, Shifter, friend of Wizards. Let Huldra make her camp where she stands, and then between the lines will her accounting be heard.”

  Where was Peter? Back at the rear of the battle, no doubt. In one of those tents pitched far back along the flat. I hiked back to the Immutable lines and found one of Riddle’s men, then pointed out the tents. “Could you get close?” I asked him. “Not close enough to be noticed, just close enough to damp any Talent in those tents?”

  The man nodded, grinning at me. I rather like Immutables. They are so very secure in everything they do, knowing we Gamesmen are utterly harmless when they are around. “Any price you ask, Sir Immutable,” I said. “My love is in one of those tents, and your presence may help him escape.”

  “No price, lady,” he whispered, putting down his banner and preparing to slip away along the mountainside among the trees. “Your love is Peter, and it was Peter who broke the evil at Bannerwell, and Peter who destroyed the evil of the Magicians. Any small assistance I can give, I am only too willing to provide.” And he took himself off, still grinning, at what, I had no idea.

  Behind the ledge of rock, other Immutables were marching to and fro with banners in their hands, first one banner, then another, giving the appearance of an army. From the canyons above the knoll I heard shrill cheering. The turnips had half planted themselves along a ridge to watch the battle. I thought of Big-blue and Molly-my-dear, wondering where they were. The last I had seen of them, they had been squirming into the earth outside the cavern entrance, and I had not thought of them since. There was no time now, for Huldra’s ranks surged forward. She had no intention of camping and negotiating anything. The Peter semblance at her side stood in idiot confusion. She had forgotten to tell it what to do.

  No time to think about that. Armigers darted forward through the air, arching high to get a sight behind our rock parapet before releasing their arrows. Elators flicked out of existence at Huldra’s side. A line of Tragamors stepped forward, Sorcerers just behind, their eyes fixed on the rock wall that protected us and on which the other six members of the seven leaned, casually, as though watching a display of horsemanship or a class in cooking.

  Armigers screamed, fell, thrashing about like wing-clipped birds. They had encountered the Immutable barrier. Elators appeared halfway to the wall, their faces bloody, battered. Most of them fell at once, one or two staggered about, shrieking. The Tragamors were holding their heads, and a Sorcerer blew up all at once in a flash of violet flame.

  “Snakes,” said Murzy to Dodie casually, and Dodie nodded, beginning to make a complex set of gestures, her face set in concentration. From the rocky slopes of the mountain to the left of the approaching army, snakes appeared, as big around as two men, heads reared high and eves fixed on the approaching men. Some hundreds of Huldra’s minions dropped their weapons and fled as the snakes reared even higher and hissed with a harsh, venomous breath that seemed to choke all those before it.

  Huldra’s voice was raised in fury, screaming words I had not heard before. The snakes vanished, all at once.

  “Oh, quite good,” said Murzy to Cat, “She did that very quickly.”

  “They were designed to be easy to disperse,” said Cat. “We want her lulled into a false sense of security.”

  “Still,” Murzy murmured, “she was quick. I think deep dwellers next, Dodie, if you don’t mind.”

  This was only one word. Everything else had been done ahead of time. Dodie spoke the word, and the stones before the approaching army lifted from the ground to disclose endless lines of deep dwellers, popping out like corks, just as they had in Fangel. Fangy monsters, virtually impossible to kill, they launched themselves at Huldra’s myrmidons, jaws gaping and claws fully extended, dancing, leaping, among the ranks before Huldra could react.

  She was close enough now that I could see her turn pale with fury. Thinking, thinking. Twice she reached out to make a gesture, aborted it each time. I could almost read her mind. She thought we had rigged a wall of enchantment across the valley. She knew she would encounter it in a moment. If she stopped to deal with the deep dwellers, the army might encounter the wall. If she dealt with the wall, the dwellers would make chopped meat of her men. She did the only thing she could do, signaled abruptly to a Sentinel at her left, who struck his drum three great whacks while a trumpeter blew taratta taratta tara tara. Retreat.

  “She hasn’t thought of Immutables yet,” muttered Murzy in my ear. “Why are you carrying those turnips about with you?”

  I turned my head, catching only a glimpse of a floppy leaf at the edge of vision. Growling, I took off my pack. Big-blue and Molly-my-dear had hidden in it and accompanied me to battle, peering over either shoulder. Shrill cheering came from the ridge behind me. It had not been us they had been cheering for. No wonder the Immutable had been grinning.

  12

  PETER’S STORY: A SHIFT IN TIME

  I heard the Herald. I’m sure Huldra wanted me to hear the Herald. I’d seen the semblance of me she intended to trade for Jinian, and I knew it wouldn’t fool Jinian for a moment. From what glimpses I could get of the country outside the wagon and then outside the tent, I thought we were in the Cagihiggy valley north of the Blot. Not that the Blot was there anymore, but north of where it once had been. I drifted into that unpleasant dreamy state that was the best I could manage in the way of sleep and gave myself a few nasty minutes’ dreaming about the Blot. Izia. I had rescued Izia at the Blot. Yarrel’s sister. My friend Yarrel. Something terrible was to happen to Izia, and I woke up choking back a scream.

  “Wozzer rampin?” the warder demanded with his usual elegant articulation. “Wozzer imperashun.”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing.” There were screams from outside; running feet fled past the tent.

  “Wozzer rampin?” demanded the warder from those who fled past. “Somin atterus?” />
  He received no answer, which seemed to make him nervous. He went outside and stood there, scratching his groin and rubbing the back of one leg with a boot. He was one of the itchiest men I had ever had the misfortune to meet, and the fact that he itched and I could not scratch was one of the most refined tortures of which mankind is capable. I wanted to scream.

  More running feet. He took one quick look at me, then went around the tent and away, after the runners. Now I could not even ask him to scratch my nose. Not that he would have done. I thought of scratching my nose, thought deeply and lovingly of it, and found one hand doing exactly that. The cords that had bound me were sliding toward my ankles. I knew at once what had happened. The cords had been made at least partly through Talent, and there was an Immutable near. I prayed he was going or gone, as quickly as may be. I needed my own Talent to escape.

  “Taratta taratta tara tara!” Retreat screamed through the air, sounded by a Sentinel. No time to worry about how or why. I Shifted, frantically, gasping as waves of pain punished every part of me. Nothing worked right. I tried a claw and achieved a feathery thing that looked vaguely like a duster. Memory. Gamelords, I couldn’t remember how!

  Voices. Huldra approaching the tent. No time, no time to do anything. Panic lent strength, and I flowed up the tent pole, coating it with a round smooth layer of Peter, hard and brown as itself, appearing no different at all, not at all. Where I came through the tent top, an extruded eye peered forth at the world, an ear listened, invisible from below.

  “Warder?” she screamed. “Warder!”

  Then she found the cords. Fury. Rage. Summoning of this one and that. Dedrina summoned. Could not be found. The warder searched for. Could not be found.

  “He’s a Shifter!” she screamed. “He could still be here. Bring everything out and throw it on the fire.”

  They built up the fire and began to haul stuff out of the tent. Pillows, chests, rugs, mattresses, costumes and paraphernalia. All fed to the fire until it was put out by the sheer volume of fuel. More screaming, other fires started and fed more gingerly. Everything Huldra owned fed into the flames to make a stinking smoke that swirled around my top, making me want to sneeze. All. Everything that had been in that tent. But not the tent itself, and not the tent pole. Thank all the gods.

  After a very long time, they went away. Huldra went flouncing off to some other tent, still screaming; the men seemed to be gathering for some kind of assault. It was getting dark. The fires glimmered into coals and went out. At which point I slid down the pole and crept away, flat as a leaf upon the ground, flowing like a tide of melted sugar out of the camp and up toward the hills.

  Abruptly losing my Shifted shape and finding myself nakedly in my own.

  “Ah, there he is,” said Mavin.

  She was seated comfortably beneath a tree, dandling Bryan on one knee and talking contentedly to an Immutable, one who tugged his forelock, grinned at me, and unceremoniously took his leave. When he was far enough away for Talent to work once more, I Shifted some clothing.

  “Worked, did it?” asked my mother. “I told him to go close to the tent for just a brief time, then withdraw. Close, to get you loose—assuming it was Talent which held you, which it seems to have been—and then far enough away to let you use your own Talent to escape. Clever, wasn’t it. Not my idea, actually. Jinian sent him.”

  “Where is she?” I begged.

  “Just up the hill, boy. Don’t fume so. She’s quite all right, but she’s surrounded by Immutables, so your clothes won’t last.” She put Bryan down to burrow in her pack. “I have a sort of robe kind of thing here. You might like to have it before you go haring off. . . .”

  I had it in a moment and tarried only long enough for her to hug me. Only that long. She let go of me reluctantly; there was a tear in her eye. I knew she wanted to hold me for a time, knew she had longed for my escape as a thirsty man for water, that she had ached and agonized over me—I knew that, but I was telling myself there was plenty of time later, and I was halfway up the hill before she could say anything more.

  I found Jinian behind a rock on a knoll kind of place. Surrounded, as Mavin had said, by Immutables. Mertyn was there as well, and some men I recognized from Schooltown. I saw none of them until later. Jinian was all I saw. She caught sight of me then, and a kind of light came over her face. I forget what happened next; there were some things said as I recall—and I do, really recall. When we had done hanging on to each other for all our lives were worth, I settled down a little. Mertyn was shaking his head at me. Mavin was standing there smiling that outrageous smile of hers, her face quite clear of the longing that had been in it down the hill—almost as though she had set that need aside for the time. I remember feeling grateful to her and resolving to do something exceptionally nice for her soon. One of Mertyn’s serving men was waiting patiently with some trousers over his arm. Jinian’s and my greeting had evidently taken some time.

  “How did you get out of the Bright Demesne?” I demanded of Mavin, hugging Jinian to me. “Huldra left half her army there, and all the shadows.”

  Mavin shook her head, making a face. “The shadows were not following Huldra. No. There were Oracles there. At least I suppose they were Oracles, for they looked as Jinian described.”

  Jinian gaped. “What did you do?”

  Mavin laughed uncomfortably and described the technique she had developed to control Bryan. “A kind of basket,” she said, making a face. “Baskets were used for discipline back in the place I grew up. The only way to control a Shifter, really, though I never appreciated that fact until your son came along, Peter. At any rate, when Bryan misbehaves, I make a basket of myself, scoop him up, squeeze him into his own shape, and then hold him till he settles down.” She jiggled the baby, he crowing at her. Evidently he bore no ill will for having been basketed.

  “And that’s what you did to the . . . Oracles?”

  “Basketed and squeezed, yes. Only this time rather smaller than their natural shape. I’m afraid they were quite squashed. I buried everything under the tent to cause mystery and confusion among the troops. Evidently it worked.” She told us a few more details of what had happened at the Bright Demesne, concluding, “The shadows fell into disarray, and Himaggery managed the rest.” She spoke with a kind of weary pride, and I knew that despite everything, she continued to love Himaggery. Those two! I had never understood them.

  “I wish it had been the real Oracle,” whispered Jinian. “Though I’m afraid they were only followers.”

  “Well, there are two fewer followers now,” Mavin said, hugging her. I was struck, not for the first time, by how well these two seemed to get along.

  Evidently there had been enough time for Huldra to regroup, for we heard trumpet and drum sounds from her lines, and everyone behind the stone became suddenly very busy.

  The oldest member of the seven, Murzemire, materialized at my elbow and suggested in a kindly voice that I go with Jinian up to the caverns. “We’ve put everything in place already, everything a seven can do, Peter. Jinian’ll not be needed here for a while, at least. Your mother, too. I’m sure she’s tired from the journey”-not seeing or perhaps purposely not noticing Mavin’s outraged face at this presumption—”and there are more comfortable quarters up there.”

  We were rather a cynosure at the moment, and I could understand her wanting us out of the way. Mertyn was shouting commands. Great pillars of flame had erupted from Huldra’s lines, fire elementals, as Murzy said in a horrified voice. “I really didn’t think she’d dare.”

  “It’s all right,” said the one with braids, Cat. “We’ve prepared for it with water elementals of our own. Do get out of the way, Jinian.”

  So we went up the hill, hand in hand, through the Immutable lines, on to the caverns.

  13

  JINIAN’S STORY: WITCH AND BASILISK

  After all my longing and agony, Peter’s escape was almost anticlimactic. He simply showed up, wearing some kind of lounging robe
, having escaped when the Immutable came near the tent, then hidden when the Immutable left again. Mavin, it seemed, had suggested that refinement of my original plan, and she told us about it in a chuckling voice as she followed us up to the Ice Caverns.

  “Immutables,” she mused while Bryan burbled and chortled at her. “Now that’s the answer for you, grandson. You may try to gorble all you like, but with Immutables around, it won’t work. I think a few days spent among the Immutables would train you very nicely, and all the Gamelords know I’m tired of basketing you.” She sounded lively and jolly, rather more contented than I had ever thought of Mavin as being. Seeing her face as she played with Bryan, I realized she must have enjoyed Peter when he was a babe. And I thought I knew why, too. That time must have been the only time in her life when she did not Shift, was not Shifter, did not think about Shifterish things, but merely was, womanlike, rejoicing in the flow of life through her and on. Seeing her, my eyes teared up, and I thought again of bearing Peter’s children. If there should ever be time.

  There was a jostling on my shoulders. The turnips had tired of my pack and were trying to get out, so I let them loose at the entrance to the caverns, introducing them to both Peter and Mavin. Both these Shifters had seen many strange things in their lives, but they stood there with their mouths open when they were introduced to Big-blue and Molly-my-dear. Both turnips were in full flower, much given to nodding their tops at one another in an obviously lubricious way. I was a little embarrassed, frankly, but Peter and Mavin seemed to pay no attention to that.

  “Shadow-eaters?” Mavin asked. “Really, Jinian? Have you seen them do it?”