"I will pay the fees," choked the Fon. "In return for saving my life, Mavin. Huld would have killed me."
"He would have tried. I think you might have stopped him quite successfully.''
"And you, Mavin?" asked Windlow, quietly, softly, like a child trying to capture a wild bunwit without scaring it. "You?"
"Will you come with Mertyn?" The Fon, less wary, too eager.
"No, "she said.
"No? Never?"
She shook her head, biting her lip over an expression which might have been part smile. "I did not say never. I only said no, I will not come with Mertyn." She folded her napkin as she had seen other diners do, reached out to take their hands, one on each side.
"I am Mavin of Danderbat keep? What is a Mavin of Danderbat keep? What shape is it? What color is it? What does it feel and know in its bones? Does it fly? Crawl? Does it grow feathers or fur?
"What places has it seen? What Assemblies has it attended? You who are not shifters do not know what an assembly is, and neither really does a shifter girl who has not left her keep to go into the wide world.
"What is in Schlaizy Noithn? For me?
"No, Fon. I will not come with Mertyn now. Though I may, some day. Some day."
And she would not let them try to dissuade her, nor would she let the Fon be near her with the two of them alone, for she knew what her blood would do and how little her head could manage it. Instead, a day or two later, she stood beside the parapet with him, with Boldery and Mertyn playing at wands and rings nearby, and told him farewell.
"My sister is out there somewhere. I would like to find her, see if I can help her. She may need my help. As for you, Fon, you do not need my help, not now."
"Do not call me Fon. You named me before. I am the Wizard Himaggery, and I will be that Wizard until you name me else."
"The Fon is dead." She laughed shakily. "Long live the Himaggery."
"So be it." He was not laughing at all. "Will you make a bargain with me, Mavin?"
"What sort of bargain?"
"If you go out into the world, and if the world is exciting, and you forget me, and time spins as time does, and the world passes as the world does, will you return to this place twenty years from now and meet me here if you have not seen me before then?"
"Twenty years? So long? Do you think I will not seek my friends out long before that?"
"Well, and if you do, better yet. But will you promise me, Mavin?"
"I'll be old, wrinkled."
"It will not matter. Will you promise me?"
"Oh, that I'll promise!" She laughed up into his unlaughing face.
"On your honor?"
"On my honor. On my Talent. On my word."
"Twenty years?"
"Twenty years." She turned away, biting her Up, afraid that her calm might break and the tears spill over. "Now. I am going west, my friend. I have made my farewells to Mertyn." She reached out to stroke his face as he had done so many times to hers, then turned down the stairs and away down the street'of the city, without looking back.
Windlow came to him where he stood, looking after her. "Did she make the promise?"
"Yes."
"Did she know it was a Seeing of mine?"
"I didn't tell her."
"Does she know she will not see you again until then?"
"I didn't tell her," he said. "I could not bear to say it. I can not bear to think of it now."
The road south of Pfarb Durim is arched by great, strange monuments. Mavin Manyshaped walked that way, seeing the arches with new eyes. She felt eyes from the branches of the trees watching her pass. On the hills, voices added to a song, spinning it into a lazy chant which made small echoes off the Strange Monuments, almost like an answer.
As for her, her eyes were fixed on the horizon where Schlaizy Noithn lay, and the western sea. There was something in her mind of wings. And something of places no other eyes than hers had ever seen. "I am the servant of the Wizard Himaggery," she sang, quoting the Mavin of a younger time. "Perhaps," she sang, making a joyful shout at the sky. "But not yet!"
Scan History:
[20 feb 2003—scanned for #bookz]
[18 jun 2003—scanned for #bookz]
Tepper,Sheri - The Song of Mavin Manyshaped Page 17