King's Blood Four Read online

  Sheri Tepper - Shapeshifter 01 - King's Blood Four

  1

  King's Blood Four

  "Totem to King's Blood Four. " The moment I said it, I knew it was wrong. I said, "No!"

  Gamesmaster Gervaise tapped the stone floor with his iron-tipped staff, impatiently searching our faces for a lifted eye or for a raised hand. "No?" he echoed me.

  Of the three Gamesmasters of Mertyn's House, I liked Gervaise the best.

  "When I said 'no, ' I meant the answer wasn't quite right. " Behind me Karl Pig-face gave a sneaky gasp as he always does when he is about to put me down, but

  Gamesmaster Gervaise didn't give him a chance.

  "That's correct, " he agreed. "Correct that it isn't quite right and might be very wrong. The move is one we haven't come across before, however, so take your time. Before you decide upon the move, always remember who you are. " He turned away from us, staff taptapping across the tower room to the high window which gaped across the dark bulk of Havad's House down to

  River Reave where it wound like a tarnished ribbon among all the other School Houses-each as full of students as a dog is of fleas, as Brother Chance, the cook, would say. All the sloped land between the Houses was crowded full of dwellings and shops, all humping their way up the hills to the shuttered Festival Halls, then scattering out among the School Farms which extended to the vacant land of the Edge. I searched over the

  Gamesmaster's shoulder for that far, thin line of blue which marked the boundaries of the True Game. Karl cleared his throat again, and I knew his mockery was only deferred, unless I could find ah answer quickly. I wouldn't find it by staring out at Schooltown.

  I turned back to the game model which hung in the air before us, swimming in icy haze. Somewhere within the model, among the game pieces which glowed in their own light or disappeared in their own shadow-some where in the model was the Demesne, the focal area, the place of power where a move could be of significance. On our side, the students' side, Demon loomed on a third level square casting a long, wingshaped shadow. Two fanged Tragamors boxed the area to either side. Before them stood

  Gamesmaster Gervaise's only visible piece, the King, casting ruddy light before him. It was King's Blood

  Four, an Imperative-which meant I had to move something. None of the battle pieces were right; it had to be something similar to Totem. Almost anything could be hiding behind the King, and

  Gamesmasters don't give hints. Something similar, of like value, something... then I had it.

  "Talisman, " I blurted. "Talisman to King's Blood

  Four. "

  "Good. " Gervaise actually smiled. "Now, tell me why!"

  "Because our side can't see what pieces may be hiding behind the King. Because Talisman is an absorptive piece, that is, it will soak up the King's play. Totem is reflective. Totem would splash it around, we'd maybe lose some pieces... "

  "Exactly. Now, students, visualize if you please. We have King, most durable of the adamants, whose

  'blood, ' that is, essence, is red light. Demon, most powerful of the ephemera, whose essence is shadow.

  Tragamors making barriers at the sides of the Demesne.

  The player is a student, without power, so he plays

  Talisman, an absorptive piece of the lesser ephemera.

  Talisman is lost in play, 'sacrificed' as we say. The player gains nothing by this, but neither does he lose much, for with this play the Demesne is changed, and the game moves elsewhere in the purlieu. "

  "But, Master, " Karl's voice oozed from the corner

  "A strong player could have played Totem. A powerful player. "

  I flushed. Of course. Everyone in the room knew that, but students were not strong, not powerful, even though Karl liked to pretend he was. It was just one more of his little pricks and nibbles, like living with a hedgehog. Gamesmaster tilted his head, signifying he had heard, but he didn't reply. Instead, he peered at the chronometer on the wall, then out the window to check where the mountain shadow fell upon the harbor, finally back to our heavily bundled little group. "So. Enough for today. Go to the fires and your supper. Some of you are half frozen. "

  We were all half frozen. The models could only be controlled if they were kept ice cold, so we spent half our lives shivering in frigid aeries. I was as cold as any of them, but I wanted to let Karl get out of the way, so 1 went to the high window and leaned out to peer away south. There was a line of warty little islands there separating the placid harbor with its wheeling gulls from: the wide, stormy lake and the interesting lands of the

  True Game beyond. I mumbled something. Gervaise demanded I repeat it.

  "It's boring here in Schooltown, " I repeated, shamefaced.

  He didn't answer at once but looked through me in that very discomforting way the Masters sometimes have. Finally he asked me if I had not had Gamesmaster

  Charnot for Cartography. I said I had.

  "Then you know something of the lands of the True

  Game. You know of the Dragon's Fire purlieu to the

  North? Yes. Well, there are a King and Queen there who decided to rear their children Outside. They wanted to be near their babies, not send them off to a distant Schooltown to be bored by old Gamesmasters.

  They thought to let the children learn the rules of play by observation. Of the eight sons born to that Queen, seven have been lost in play. The eighth child sleeps this night in Havad's House nursery, sent to Schooltown at last.

  "It is true that it is somewhat boring in Schooltown, and for no one more so than the Masters! But, it is also safe here, Peter. There is time to grow, and learn. If you desire no more than to be a carter or laborer or some other pawn, you may go Outside now and be one.

  However, after fifteen years in Mertyn's House, you know too much to be contented as a pawn, but you won't know enough for another ten years to be safe as anything else. "

  I remarked in my most adult voice that safety wasn't everything.

  "That being the case, " he said, "you'll be glad to help me dismantle the model. "

  I bit my tongue. It would have been unthinkable to refuse, though taking the models apart is far more dangerous than putting them together. Most of us have burn scars from doing one or the other. I sighed, concentrated, picked a minor piece out of the game box at random and named it, "Talisman!" as I moved it into the

  Demense. It vanished in a flash of white fire. Gervaise moved a piece I couldn't see, then the King, which released the Demon. I got one Tragamor out, then got stuck. I could not remember the sequence of moves necessary to get the other Tragamor loose.

  One thing about Gervaise. He doesn't rub it in. He just looked at me again, his expression saying that he knew what I knew. If I couldn't get a stupid Tragamor out of the model, I wouldn't survive very long in the

  True Game. Patiently, he showed me the order of moves and then swatted me, not too gently.

  "It's only a few days until Festival, Peter. Now that you're fifteen, you'll find that Festivals do much to dispel boredom for boys. So might a little more study. Go to your supper. "

  I galloped down the clattering stairs, past the nurseries, hearing babies crying and the unending chatter of the baby-tenders; down past the dormitories, smelling wet wool and steam from the showers; into the firewarm commons hall, thinking of what the Gamesmaster had said. It was true. Brother Chance said that only the powerful and the utterly unimportant lived long in the

  True Game. If you weren't the one and didn't want to be the other, it made sense to be a student. But it was still very dull.

  At the junior tables the littlest boys were scaring each other with fairy tales about the lands of the Immutables where there was no True Game. Silly. If there weren't any True Game, what would peopl
e do? At the high table the senior students, those about to graduate into the

  Game, showed more decorum, eating quietly under the watchful eyes of Gamesmaster Mertyn, King Mertyn, and Gamesmaster Armiger Charnot. Most of those over twenty had already been named: Sentinel, Herald,

  Dragon, Tragamor, Pursuivant, Elator. The complete list of Gamesmen was said to be thousands of titles long, but we would not study Properties and Powers in depth until we were older.

  At the visitor's table against the far wall a Sorcerer was leafing through a book as he dawdled over his food, the spiked band of his headdress glittering in the firelight. He was all alone, the only visitor, though I searched carefully for one other. My friend Yarrel was crowded in at the far end of a long table with no space near, so I took an open bench place near the door.

  Across from me was Karl, his red, wet face shining slickly in the steam of the food bowls.

  "Y'most got boggled up there, Peter-priss. Better stick to paper games with the littly boys. "

  "Oh, shut up, sweat-face, " I told him. It didn't do any good to be nice to Karl, or to be mean. It just didn't matter. He was always nasty, regardless. "You wouldn't have known either. "

  "Would so. Grandsire and Dadden both told me that

  'un. " His face split into his perpetual mocking grin, his point made. Karl was_son of a Doyen, grandson of a

  Doyen, third generation in the School. I was a Festival

  Baby, born nine months after Festival, left on the doorsteps of Mertyn's House to be taken in and educated. I might as well have been hatched by a toad. Well, I had something Karl didn't. He could have his family name. I had something else.

  Not that the Masters cared whether a student was first generation or tenth. There were more foundlings in the room than there were family boys. "Sentlings, " those sent in from outside by their parents, had no more status than foundlings, but the family boys did tend to stick together. It took only a little whipping-on from someone like Karl to turn them into a hunting pack. Well, I refused to make a chase for them. Instead, I stared away down the long line of champing jaws and lax bodies.

  They, all looked as I felt-hungry, exhausted from the day's cold, luxuriating in warmth, and grateful night had come. I thought of the promised Festival.

  I would sew bells onto my trouser hems, stitch ribbons into the shoulder seams of my jacket, make a mask out of leather and gilt, and so clad run through the streets of

  Schooltown with hundreds of others dressed just as I, jingling and laughing, dancing to drum and trumpet, eating whatever we wanted. During Festival, nothing would be forbidden, nothing required, no dull studies, the Festival Halls would be opened, people would come from Outside, from the School Houses, from everywhere. Bells would ring... and ring...

  The ringing was the clangor of my bowl and spoon upon the stones where I had thrust them in my sleep.

  The room was empty except for one lean figure between me and the fire: Mandor, Gamesmaster of Havad's

  House, teeth gleaming in the fireglow.

  "Well, Peter. Too tired to finish your supper?"

  "I... I thought you weren't coming. "

  "Oh, I drift here and there. I've been watching you sleep for half an hour after bidding some beefy boy to leave you alone. What have you done to attract his enmity?"

  I think I blushed. It wasn't anything I wanted to talk about. "Just... oh, nothing. He's one who always picks on someone. Usually someone smaller than he is, usually a foundling. "

  "Ah. " He understood. "A Flugleman. You think?"

  I grinned weakly. It would be a marvelous vengeance if Karl were named Flugleman, petty tyrant, minor piece, barely higher than a pawn. "Master Mandor, no one has yet named him that. "

  "You needn't call me Master, Peter. "

  "I know. " Again, I was embarrassed. He should know some things, after all. "It's just easier than explaining. "

  "You feel you have to explain?"

  "If someone heard me. "

  "No one will hear you. We are alone. Still, if this place is too public, we'll go to my room. " And he was sweeping out the door toward the tunnel which led to

  Havad's House before I could say anything. I followed him, of course, even though I had sworn over and over I would not, not again.

  The next morning I received a summons to see King

  Mertyn. It didn't exactly surprise me, but it did shock me a little. I'd known someone was going to see me or overhear us, but each day that went by let me think maybe it wouldn't happen after all. I hadn't been doing anything different from what many of the boys do in the dormitories, nothing different from what I'd refused to. do with Karl. Oh, true, it's forbidden, but lots of things are forbidden, and people do them all the time, almost casually.

  So, I didn't know quite what to expect when I stood before the Gamesmaster in his cold aerie, hands in my sleeves, waiting for him to speak. I was shocked at how gentle he was.

  "It is said you are spending much time with

  Gamesmaster Mandor of Havad's House. That you go to his room, spend your sleep time there. Is this true?" He was tactful, but still I blushed.

  "Yes, Gamesmaster. "

  "You know this is forbidden. "

  "Gamesmaster, he bade me... "

  "You know he is titled Prince and may bid as he chooses. But, it is still forbidden. "

  I got angry then, because it wasn't fair. "Yes. He may bid as he chooses. And I am expected to twist and tarry and try to escape him, like a pigeon flying from a hawk. I am expected to bear his displeasure, and he may bid as he chooses... "

  "Ah. And have you indeed twisted arid tarried and tried? Hidden among the books of the library, perhaps?

  Red sanctuary from the head of your own House?

  Taken minor game vows before witnesses? Have you done these things?"

  I hadn't. Of course I hadn't. How could I. Prince

  Mandor was my friend, but more than a friend. He cared about me. He talked to me about everything, things he said he couldn't tell anyone else. I knew everything about him; that he had not wanted to leave the

  True Game and teach in a Schooltown; that he hated

  Havad's House, that he wanted a House of his own; that he picked me as a friend because there was no one, no one in Havad's House he cared for. The silence between the Gamesmaster and me was becoming hostile, but I couldn't break it. At last he said, "I must be sure you understand, Peter. You must be aware of what you do, each choice you make which aids or prevents your mastery of the Game. You cannot stand remote from this task. You are in it. Do you know that?"

  I nodded, said, "We all know that, Gamesmaster. "

  "But do you perceive the reality of it? How your identity will emerge as you play, as your style becomes unique, as your method becomes clear. Gradually it will become known to the Masters-and to you-what you are: Prince or Sorcerer, Armiger or Tragamor, Demon or Doyen, which of the endless list you are. You must be one of them, or else go down into Schooltown and apprentice yourself to a shopkeeper as some failed students do. "

  "It is said we are born to it, " I objected, wanting to stop his talk which was making me feel guilty. "Karl says he will be Doyen because father and grandfather were

  Doyens before him. Born to it. "

  "What Karl may say or do or think is not important to you. What you are or may become should be important. " He seized me by the shoulders and turned me to stare out the tall window. "Look there. In ten years you must go out there, ready or not, willing or not. In ten years you must leave this protected town, this Schooling place. In ten years you will join the True Game..

  "You do not know this, but it was I who found you, years ago, outside Mertyn's House, a Festival Baby, a soggy lump in your bright blankets, chewing your fist. If you have anyone to stand Father to you, it is I. It may be unimportant, but there is at least this tenuous connection

  between us which leads me to be concerned about you, " He leaned forward to lay his face against mine, a shocking thin
g to do, as forbidden as anything I had ever done.

  "Think, Peter. I cannot force you to be wise. Perhaps

  I will only frighten you, or offend you, but think. Do not put yourself in another's hands. " Abruptly he left me there in the high room, still angry, confused, wordless.

  "Do not put yourself in another's hands. " The first rule of the game. Make alliances, yes, they told us, but do not give yourself away to become merely a pawn.

  This is why they forbid us so many things, deny us so much while we are young and defenseless. I leaned on the sill of the high window where golden sunlight lay in a puddle. A line of similar color reflected from a high