The True Game Page 19

  She did not answer me. I had not thought she would. She was too busy clutching the power to herself, weaving, weaving as Mandor was. Well, Let them weave. The Ghost army crowded out of the castle door, moving toward these pitiful mortals, moving to trample them, take them up, inhabit them, clothe themselves in life again…Dorn within me cautioned me. Before they grew stronger, it was time to send them back…back…

  And then, of a sudden, if was as though someone lifted a great heaviness from me. Before me the Ghosts began to waver. They cried softly, once, twice, and were gone. A sound swept through my head like wind in pines and the smell of rain. Dazzle looked up at me, horrid that face. Mandor saw her, screamed, and screamed again as his people looked upon him and scrawled away from him, away and away, clutching at one another like survivors of some great flood, and casting glances backwards at him in horror. Then it was that Mandor and Dazzle flew at one another, clawing, striking with their hands, locked in a battle of ultimate despair.

  Behind me someone spoke my name. "Peter. Enough. We have come to Bannerwell as you have asked."

  I turned. It was that lean man, Riddle, the Immutable, the leader of the Immutables, Tossa's father.

  "I have been told what you tried to do, " he said. "For Tossa. I thank you."

  "It was useless," I wept. "Useless, as this has been. But I tried to .."

  "I know," he touched my arm. Then I saw others behind him, Chance, Yarrel.

  "You got there," I said stupidly. "You got back."

  Yarrel's eyes were on Mandor and Dazzle, not upon me. His expression was one I dreaded, full of horror and contempt. I knew what he was thinking and did not want him to say it, but he did.

  "See there, " he whispered. "This is what Talents do. This is all that they do, and I have had enough of it…"

  "Shhh," said Riddle. "We have agreed; Part of the blame is ours. We have allowed it. to go on. And we are agreed that it must end…"

  "While you are here, they cannot use their Talents, " he spit the word at me.

  "But when you are gone, Riddle, they will use them once more. And again. And again."

  He turned away and went through the shattered wall, his shoulders heaving. Once he turned to look back and saw my face, saw something there, perhaps, which moved him for a moment. His hand moved as though he would have gestured to me in friendship, but his face hardened in that moment and he turned away. I knew what I could do. I could follow him. Soon we would be away from Riddle's force or power or Talent and my own would be usable once more. Then I could evoke Trandilar, and Yarrel would love me as once he had done-more, more. He would adore me. As Mandor's people had done. Oh, for the moment I -wanted that. Yes. For that moment I wanted that. And then I did not want that at all, never, not Yarrel. I miss him. I have not seen him, but I know he is well. Some days I need him greatly, greatly, more than I can say. Perhaps, Someday…well. All time is full of somedays.

  After a long time full of many confusions, we came away from Bannerwell. Dazzle and Mandor stayed behind, together with Huld and a few others-and the Immutables. Neither of them can hide what they are any longer. They are what they are.

  I imagine them there, inhabiting the corridors and stairways of Bannerwell, drifting like shadows down long, silent staircases, vanishing behind hangings, seen at a distance upon a crenellated battlement, dark shadows, moving blots, heard in the long nights as the wind is heard, a ceaseless moan, never encountering one another except to see a shade vanish from a lighted room, to hear a cry down a chimney stack from some long unused . place within that mountain of stone which is Bannerwell.

  I imagine them awake in the dark hours, veiled by night, hidden in gloom, plodding endless aisles of opulent dust in the Caves of Bannerwell to look upon the tombs, to dream of such a silence, such a healing as that, for on the tombs the marble dead sleep whole and unblemished, softly gleaming in torchlight, forever safe except to one such as I-such as I.

  I think of Huld, hopeless and without honor, committed to his endless servitude, his mordacious kinship with horror, and I imagine that he follows them there, down those endless halls, watering the sterile dust with his tears. Will we meet again, Mandor and I? I do not think he will live long. I would not if I were he. But-I am not he. And I-I returned with Himaggery to the Bright Demesne. We found Silkhands upon the mountain and brought her with us. She was changed by it all. She does not talk as much now as she used to. But then, neither do I.

  Windlow is here with us. Riddle conies to meet with Himaggery now and again. Our part of the world is only a small part of the world. Elsewhere there are Guardians and Councils and Wizardly doings and much persecution of Heresy. There are plans afoot. When a little time has passed, I may have heart to take part in them. Just now I do not take part in much. Himaggery says he is sure there is a way Talents such as mine can be fitted into a world which Yarrel would approve, a way in which a Peter and a Yarrel may continue to be friends. Just now, however, that world seems far away and long into the future.

  So, I think on that and 'imagine' what such a world might be like. What might my place in it be? I am such an animal as they have not known before, a Shifter-King-Necromancer who may, if he chooses, become Sorcerer, Seer, Sentinel-and every other thing as well. I must leave here to decide about that, I think. I must find Mavin. I think she knows something which all these solemn men have not yet thought of. The fruit trees bloom in the mists of the Bright Demesne. Soon will be Festival time. I shall no longer sew ribbons upon my tunic to run the streets as a boy. King's blood one. King's blood ten. King's blood, and the world waits.

  Necromancer Nine

  Book 2 of The True Game: Peter

  Contents

  1. Necromancer Nine

  2. A City Which Fears the Unborn

  3. Perlplus

  4. Befriend the Shadows

  5. Schlaizy Noithn

  6. Mavin's Seat

  7. The Blot

  8. The Magicians

  9. The Inner Doors

  10. The Labs

  11. Calling Home

  12. Huld Again

  13. Bright Demesne

  1

  Necromancer Nine

  I had decided to change myself into a Dragon and go looking for my mother despite all argument to the contrary.

  Himaggery the Wizard and old Windlow the Seer were determined otherwise. They had been after me for almost a year, ever since the great battle at Bannerwell. Having seen what I did there, they had decided that my "Talent" could not be wasted, and between them they had thought of at least a dozen things they wanted done with it. I, on the other hand, simply wanted to forget the whole thing. I wanted to forget I had become the owner—can I say "owner" ?—of the Gamesmen of Barish, forget I had ever called upon the terrible Talents of those Gamesmen. I'd only done it to save my life, or so I told myself, and I wanted to forget about it.

  Himaggery and Windlow wouldn't let me.

  We were in one of the shining rooms at the Bright Demesne, a room full of the fragrance of blossoms and ubiquitous wisps of mist. Old Windlow was looking at me pathetically, eyes threequarters buried in delicate wrinkles and mouth turned down in that expression of sweet reproach. Gamelords! One would think he was my mother. No. My own mother would not have been guilty of that expression, not that wildly eccentric person. Himaggery was as bad, stalking the floor as he often did, hands rooting his hair up into devil's horns, spiky with irritation.

  "I don't understand you, boy," he said in that plaintive thunder of his. "We're at the edge of a new age. Change rushes upon us. Great things are about to happen; Justice is to be had at last. We invite you to help, to participate, to plan with us. You won't. You go hide in the orchards. You mope and slope about like some halfwitted pawn of a groom, and then when I twit you a bit for behaving like a perennial adolescent, you merely say you will change into a Dragon and go off to find Mavin Manyshaped. Why? We need you. Why won't you help us?"

  I readied my answers for the tenth time. I behave
as an adolescent, I would say, because I am one—barely sixteen and puzzled over things which would puzzle men twice my age. I mope because I am apprehensive. I hide in orchards because I am tired of argument. I got ready to say these things.

  "And why," he thundered at me unexpectedly, "go as a Dragon?"

  The question caught me totally by surprise. "I thought it would be rather fun," I said, weakly.

  "Fun!" He shrugged this away as the trifle it was.

  "Well, all right," I answered with some heat. "Then it would be quick. And likely no one would bother me."

  "Wrong on both counts," he said. "You go flying off across the purlieus and demesnes as a Dragon, and every stripling Firedrake or baby Armiger able to get three man-heights off the ground will be challenging you to Games of Two. You'll spend more time dueling than looking for Mavin Manyshaped, and from what your thalan, Mertyn, tells me, she will take a good bit of finding." He made a gesture of frustrated annoyance, oddly compassionate.

  "You have others," I muttered. "You have thousands of followers here. Armigers ready to fly through the air on your missions. Elators ready to flick themselves across the lands if you raise an eyebrow at them. Demons ready to Read the thoughts of any who come within leagues of the Bright Demesne. You don't need me. Can't you let one young person find out something about himself before you eat him up in your plots…

  Windlow said, "If you were just any young person, we'd let you alone, my boy. You aren't just any young person. You know that. Himaggery knows it. I know it. Isn't that right?"

  "I don't care," I said, trying not to sound merely contentious.

  "You should care. You have a Talent such as any in the world might envy. Talents, I should say. Why, there's almost nothing you can't do, or cause, or bring into being.

  "I can't," I shouted at them. "Himaggery, Windlow, I can't. It isn't me who does all those things."

  I pulled the pouch from my belt and emptied it upon the table between us, the tiny carved Gamesmen rolling out onto the oiled wood in clattering profusion. I set two of them upon their bases, the taller ones, a black Necromancer and a white Queen, Dorn and Trandilar. They sat there, like stone or wood, giving no hint of the powers and wonders which would come from them if I gripped them in my hand. "I tried to give them to you once, Himaggery. Remember? You wouldn't take them. You said, 'No, Peter, they came to you. They belong to you, Peter.' Well, they're mine, Himaggery, but they aren't mine. I wish you'd understand."

  "Explain it to me," he said, blank faced.

  I tried. "When I first took the figure of Dora into my hand, there in the caves under Bannerwell, Dora came into my mind. He was., is an old man, Himaggery. Very wise. Very powerful. His mind has sharp edges; he has seen strange things, and his mind echoes with them—resonates to them. He can do strange, very marvelous things. It is he who does them. I am only a kind of. .

  "Host," suggested Windlow. "Housing? Vehicle?"

  I laughed without humor. They knew so much but understood so little. "Perhaps. Later, I took Queen Trandilar, Mistress of Beguilement. First of all the Rulers. Younger than Dorn, but still, far older than I am. She had lived. . . fully. She had understanding I did not of. . . erotic things. She does wonderful things, too, but it is she who does them." I pointed to the other Gamesmen on the table. "There are nine other types there. Dealpas, eidolon of Healers. Sorah, mightiest of Seers. Shattnir, most powerful of Sorcerers. I suppose I could take them all into myself, become a kind of.. inn, hotel for them. If that is all I am to be. Ever."

  Windlow was looking out the winDorn, his face sad. He began to chant, a child's rhyme, one used for jump rope. "Night-dark, dust-old, bony Dora, grave-cold; Flesh-queen, love-star, lust-pale, Trandilar; Shifted, fetched, sent-far, trickiest is Thandbar." He turned to Himaggery and shook his head slowly, side to side. "Let the boy alone," he said.

  Himaggery met the stare, held it, finally flushed and looked away. "Very well, old man. I have said everything! can say. If Peter will not, he will not. Better he do as he will, if that will content him."

  Windlow tottered over to me and patted my shoulder. He had to reach up to do it. I had been growing rather a lot. "It may be you will make these Talents your own someday, boy. It may be you cannot wield a Talent well unless it is your own. In time, you may make Dorn's Talent yours, and Trandilar's as well."

  I did not think that likely, but did not say so.

  Himaggery said, "When you go, keep your ears open. Perhaps you can learn something about the disappearances which will help us."

  "What disappearances?" I asked guardedly.

  "The ones we have been discussing for a season," he said. "The disappearances which have been happening for decades now. A vanishment of Wizards. Disappearances of Kings. They go, as into nothing. No one knows how, or where, or why. Among those who go, too many were our allies."

  "You're trying to make me curious," I accused. "Trying to make me stay."

  He flushed angrily. "Of course I want you to stay, boy. I've begged you. Of course I wish you were curious enough to offer your help. But if you won't, you won't. If Windlow says not to badger you, I won't. Go find your mother. Though why you should want to do so is beyond me and his voice faded away under Windlow's quelling glare.

  I gathered the Gamesmen, the taller ones no longer than my littlest finger, delicate as lace, incorruptible as stone. I could have told him why I wanted to find Mavin, but I chose not to. I had seen her only once since infancy, only once, under conditions of terror and high drama. She had said nothing personal to me, and yet there was something in her manner, in her strangeness, which was attractive to me. As though, perhaps, she had answers to questions. But it was all equivocal, flimsy. There were no hard reasons which Himaggery would accept.

  "Let it be only that I have a need," I whispered. "A need which is Peter's, not Darn's, not Trandilar's. I have a Talent which is mine, also, inherited from her. I am the son of Mavin Manyshaped, and I want to see her. Leave it at that."

  "So be it, boy. So I will leave it."

  He was as good as his word. He said not another word to me about staying. He took time from his meetings and plottings to pick horses for me from his own stables and to see I was well outfitted for the trip north to Schooltown. If I was to find Mavin, the search would begin with Mertyn, her brother, my thalan. Once Himaggery had taken care of these details, he ignored me. Perversely, this annoyed me. It was obvious that no one was going to blow trumpets for me when I left, and this hurt my feelings. As I had done since I was four or five years old, I went down to the kitchens to complain to Brother Chance.

  "Well, boy, you didn't expect a testimony dinner, did you? Those are both wise-old heads, and they wouldn't call attention to you wandering off. Too dangerous for you, and they know it.''

  This shamed me. They had been thinking of me after all. I changed the subject. "I thought of going as a Dragon."

  "Fool thing to do," Chance commented. "Can't think of anything more gomerous than that. What you want is all that fire and speed and the feel of wind on your wings. All that power and swooping about. Well, that might last half a day, if you was lucky." He grimaced at me to show what he thought of the notion, as though his words had not conveyed quite enough. I flinched. I had learned to deal with Himaggery and Windlow, even to some extent with Mertyn, who had taught me and arranged for my care and protection by setting Chance to look after me, but I had never succeeded in dealing with Chance himself. Every time I began to take myself seriously, he let me know how small a vegetable I was in his particular stew. Whenever he spoke to me it brought back the feel of the kitchen and his horny hands pressing cookies into mine. Well. No one liked the Dragon idea but me.

  "Well, fetch-it, Chance. I am a Shifter."

  "Well, fetch-it, yourself, boy. Shift into something sensible. If you're going to go find your mama, we got to go all the way to Schooltown to ask Mertyn where to look, don't we? Change yourself into a baggage horse. That'll be useful." He went on with our packing, int
errupting himself to suggest, "You got the Talent of that there Dorn. Why not use him. Go as a Necromancer?

  "Why Dorn?" I asked and shivered. "Why not Trandilar?" Of the two, she was the more comfortable, though that says little for comfort.

  "Because if you go traveling around as a Prince or King or any one of the Rulers, you'll catch followers like a net catches fish, and you'll be up to your gullet in Games before we get to the River. You got three Talents, boy. You can Shift, but you don't want to Shift into something in-con-spic-u-ous. You can Rule, but that's dangerous, being a Prince or a King. Or you can, well, Necromancers travel all over all the time and nobody bothers them. They don't need to use the Talent. Just have it is enough."

  In the end he had his way. I wore the black, broad-brimmed hat, the full cloak, the gauze mask smeared with the death's head. It was no more uncomfortable than any other guise, but it put a weight upon my heart. Windlow may have guessed that, for he came tottering down from his tower in the chill mowing to tell us good-bye. "You are not pretty, my boy, but you will travel with fewer complications this way."

  "I know, Old One. Thank you for coming down to wave me away."

  "Oh, I came for more than that, lad. A message for your thalan, Mertyn. Tell him we will need his help soon, and he will have word from the Bright Demesne." There was still that awful, pathetic look in his eyes.

  "What do you mean, Windlow? Why will you need his help?"

  "There, boy. There isn't time to explain. You would have known more or less if you'd been paying attention to what's been going on. Now is no time to become interested. Journey well." He turned and went away without my farewell kiss, which made me grumpy. All at once, having gained my own way, I was not sure I wanted it.

  We stopped for a moment before turning onto the high road. Away to the south a Traders' train made a plume of dust in the early sky, a line of wagons approaching the Bright Demesne.

  "Traders." Chance snorted. "As though Himaggery didn't have enough problems."