The True Game Read online

  There was some talk of disappearances. A Wizard from a town away east had vanished, as well as a respected Armiger from among his people. This talk reminded me of Himaggery and Windlow, so my earlier feelings of accomplishment and self- satisfaction were much dwindled by the time the blind Seer tapped his way through the door. I greeted him kindly and offered him a meal in exchange for his company. This seemed to surprise him, but he was nothing loath to take advantage of the offer. After a few mugs I could not have stopped the flow of talk had I willed to. So, I asked him the name of the place from which he came, and how he had first come to Betand.

  "Ah, that is a story." He raised his head and his toothless gums showed between curly lips. "For a man with time to listen, that is a story indeed."

  I told him I had time. Since I had no idea what the next phrases of Mavin's enigmatic directions meant, it would be wisest to listen to anything he might offer, hoping that sense would come out of it. "Say away," I said. "I'll keep your glass filled."

  He began talking at once, stopping only long enough to gulp more beer or put more food into his mouth.

  "I was reared in Levila," he said, "beside the shores of the Glistening Sea where Games are mostly in fun and Seers see nothing but peace. That is east of here some considerable way, Gamesman, some considerable way indeed. We have not so many of the Schools there, you understand, and many of us grow up in our own homes with family, it being a peaceful place.

  'Well, peaceful is well enough, but dull, if you take my meaning. For a young fellow with molten iron in his veins and a heart set for adventure, peaceful is duller than bearable. So, when I was some twenty years in growth, with Talent as good as it was likely' to get (not to say it was too great a one, ever, but good enough for some purposes) I made pact with an Explorer to go into the northlands to the headwaters of the River Flish and all the lands beyond. Have you seen an Explorer, Gamesman?

  Dressed all in bright leathers with a spy glass on the shoulder and a hat made of fur? Fine. Oh, my, yes but I thought that was fine. The moth wings on a Seer's mask are well enough, but for adventure I would have had an Explorer's skins every time."

  He spilled a little beer on the table and traced it with a finger into a long, wavering line. "This would be the River Flish coming from the north into the Glistening Sea. The mountains start up there a ways. There are wild tribes there, pawns who were never tamed since day the first, giant Gifters full of malice, shadow men, oh, you think of something wonderful and you'll find it there, Gamesman, be sure you will."

  "So we went along and we went along, not greatly discommoded by the travel for we were young fellows all. The land got steep and then steeper yet, so that there were places we were heaving the horses up the rocks with tackle and spending a day to go a league. But at last we came to the headwaters of the river, a great swamp full of reeds and birds and scaly things that came out of the reeds at night to leave horridsome tracks. And there were biting things there, flying things, big as a finger.

  Twasn't long before I had been bitten near the eye, and the eye swelled shut so that I could not see on that side. Well, I was not overconcerned. A bite is a bite, and they heal, you know. Save this one did not."

  "So, the way north was blocked by the swamp, so we turned away toward the west, following the sides of the hills, with me getting blinder in the eye as time went on and feverish from it, too. We had no Healer with us, more's the shame, and many a night as I lay there heaving and sweating I longed for one.

  Was then we were attacked by the shadow men. I never saw one, only heard their piping and fluting in the trees and felt the darts whirring by my head. Some of us they got, and some of us had and those they got were dead and those they missed went on, me among them. Well, soon after we came upon a camp full of big men who took us in and gave us food, and seeing how shabby we were and in what bad health, gave us a chart to lead us out of trouble. While they were at it, they gave me stuff to put on the eye which they said would fix it. Came morning they went on away north to wherever they were going, and we took the chart to begin working our way back into civilized lands.

  "We were fools, Gamesman, fools. Young and inexperienced and without the sense to save our necks. The chart was false and the salve for my eye was false, and when we had done with both I was blind and we were lost in the Dorbor Range somewhere, so lost we thought we'd never come out again. They'd been Gifters, you see."

  "Gifters?" I murmured.

  "Aye. Gifters. Devils in the guise of humankind, generous with gifts which lead only to destruction. Well, we didn't want to die, not even me, blind as a cave newt. So we worked our way south as best we could. There was stuff to eat enough. We killed mountain zeller and ate berries, and the cliffs were full of springs and streams, so it wasn't that we hungered. Then we came upon a sizable river running away south. We built ourselves a raft and let the few horses go-poor beasts, they might be living there yet if the pombis didn't get them-and floated away south.

  "Then it was hell, Gamesman, sheer hell for days on end. There were rocks in the river, and falls, and taking the raft apart and hauling it around obstacles and putting it together again. Once or twice my companions spotted smoke off in the woods, but we didn't dare see who was there for fear it might be Gifters again. We just went on and went on until we came to a long, placid stretch of river, and then we curled up on the raft and slept. I think we may have slept for some days, because when we came to ourselves we were coming to the town of Zebit, some ways south of here."

  "South of here," I said, puzzled. "Bannerwell is south of here."

  "No, no, Gamesman. Bannerwell is south and a little east. If you go down the west side of the mountains, you'll come to Zebit, and it is south of here, right enough. The river makes a long curve, so we had floated by Betand in the darkness. The river I speak of flows just west of the city, here, over a low swell of hills. "Well, they had all had enough exploring to last them a time, and I wanted only to have a Healer do something with my eyes.

  Those in Zebit said there was nothing they could do, but they recommended a Healer here in Betand who was said to be very powerful. So I bought a small pawnish boy to be my guide, and we crossed the river there at Zebit and found the trail into the mountains and then north to Betand. It was all nonsense about the Healer. She could do no more than the others. So, here I've stayed since, evoking small visions in return for a place to sleep or a bite to eat. The end of my great adventure, the only one I am ever to have."

  I shook my head, musing, as he nodded, lost in memory and the flow of his own voice. "So," I said at last, "you came here from the south." That didn't help me at all.

  "Oh, you might say so, Gamesman. But I came from the east, you know, and from the north as well. Twas my whole adventure brought me to Betand, and it was in all directions from here."

  "Save west," I said, suddenly enlightened."

  "True," he murmured, saddened. "I slept in the west, but I did not see it. Oh, I've seen it in visions, the sounds of metal, the green lights, the great defenders."

  Would I had paid him more attention, but I did not. My question had been answered, and I was on fire to be away.

  So I pressed coins into his hands and left him without hearing what he was going on about. He had come to Betand from every direction except the west, therefore west was the direction I should go. I wondered briefly what guise Mavin had taken to hear the old man's tale. She may have sat in the same place, buying beer as I had done and listening to him tell the well-rehearsed story. Well. Enough of that and time to be off. I did not even really listen to his tale of the perfidious Gifters. I left the city through the northern gate and would have ridden on at speed save for a voice hailing me from among tents and wains at the side of the road.

  "O, traveler. And were you amused by the city of Betand?"

  It was that same wide-mouthed trader I had met in the tavern to the south of the city. I remembered he had said he would meet me, but I had paid little attention. Cursing silently
, I reined in and waited for him to come up to me.

  "Was it interesting, Necromancer?"

  "The city was not a bad city, Trader."

  "Nap, friend. Laggy Nap. Oh, yes, Betand is interesting," he said and again came that lewd laughter I remembered. "Interesting to get for no cost what one must pay for in other places, hmmm?" When I did not reply, he went on, "Well, have you a story to tell?"

  "None, Trader Nap. I have accomplished my business in Betand and now ride west of here. Thank you for your interest."

  "Oh, more than interest, friend! Much more. Concern. Yes, true concern. We make it a practice, my fellows and I, to befriend any Gamesman traveling alone. It is a wicked world, young sir, an unconscionable world. It takes no account of youth or business. No, only with numbers does protection come. If you ride west, then you ride as we do. Come, let me introduce you to my people."

  I should have ridden away, simply ignored the fellow and gone, but the habit of courtesy was still too fresh in me. Fretting at the delay, I dismounted and walked with him to the line of wains at the roadside.

  "Izia," he called. "Come out and greet a Gamesman who travels alone."

  She came from behind one of the wagons, came like a vision, a Priestess, a Princess, a Goddess. I am sure my mouth dropped open. We had statues in the public square in Schooltown which embodied the ideal of female grace and form. If one of them had come to life and walked, thus was Izia's walk. Her hair was black without any light in it at all. Her eyes were smudged with deep shadow. Her lips curved downward and upward in the center in that most sensuous of lines, that half smile which is a silent evocation of passion. A few days before I would not have noticed. Now I did. So much had I learned in Betand. She walked with grace, but with a slight .. what was it? A kind of hesitation, a tentative placement of her feet, as though she had some reluctance. So she came beside the wide-mouthed man and said in a soft, neutral voice, "Welcome, traveler. Would you desire food or drink?"

  "Not for me," I said hastily. I felt I had done nothing but eat and drink for several days. "Truly, and thank you. I must ride on.

  "We will not hear of it." The Trader had a firm arm about my shoulders, fingers dug into my upper arm in what might have been a friendly grip but felt like the talons of a bird of prey. "Never. You will ride with us, and we with you, for our mutual protection. If you need to go now, then so will we." And with that he called instructions to some of the people in the shade of the wagons and provoked a swift turmoil of harnessing and packing. I tried vainly to remonstrate with him, to no avail. Each argument was met with firm, smiling denial, while all the time his eyes looked into my soul without smiling at all. I had never before met one who would, on no acquaintance, call me friend so often in so insistent a voice.

  Well, what could I do? They were moving out onto the road, going in the way I intended to go. It was with no good grace I accompanied them, but accompany them I did. All the while the woman, Izia, moved among the horses, as I watched her broodingly. clucking to them, speaking softly to them, fingers going to the harness as she murmured into their cocked ears, submitted to the nuzzling of their muzzles. When Nap came near, the animals shied away, but they responded to her as though she had been one of them. She was dressed in a swinging, wide skirt, a tightly-laced bodice over a wide-sleeved shirt, and high gray boots of some strange metallic weave. From time to time she would bend to stroke the boots, or more-to stroke her legs through the boots, first one and then the other, almost without seeming to know she did it. I wondered, once more, at the hesitancy in her step, then decided it must be a thing common to her people, for several of those in the train walked in the same way. Probably, I thought, it was a habit peculiar to whatever land they had come from.

  I cast my mind back to the time when Silkhands the Healer had spent hours and days teaching me all the Gamesmen in the Index. It had been boring at the time, but now I searched the memories to find what type of creature this Laggy Nap might be. "Trader" had been in the Index. I recalled the Talents of a Trader, to hold power, some, and to have beguilement. The dress of a Trader was leather boots, trousers of striped brown and red, wide-sleeved shirt, and over all loose cap and tunic embroidered with symbols of whatever stuff was traded. Laggy Nap's tunic was covered with embroidered pictures of everything from pans and lids to horses' heads; tinner to horse dealer, he seemed a man of many trades. None of the others wore the guise of Gamesmen. They were dressed much as the woman was, full short trousers over the gray boots, wide shirts and laced vests. I wondered where they came from but forbore to ask. I did not want to talk to the Trader more than necessary. I did not know why, could not have explained why, but the feeling was strong. It was as though I felt he could hear more in my words than I meant, see more in my face than I cared to show. I smiled, therefore, and nodded as he spoke to me, saying little in return. So are fools sometimes protected by instinct when they are too stupid to do it by wit.

  So we rode out, me silent as could be, spending most of my time watching the woman. At first it was because I thought her so beautiful, but after a time I saw that she was not so lovely as first glance had told me. Her nose was too long. Her mouth too wide. One eye was a little higher than the other, and she seemed always to have her head cocked as though waiting for the reply to some forgotten question. Still, I could not stop watching her, and I rode so that wherever she was in the train, I would see her as I rode. She drew my eyes as a treasure draws a miser.

  She saw that I watched her and turned her head away, not as if displeased, but as though saddened. I had done nothing to make her sad. There was another reason for that, and I resolved to learn it. Whenever we stopped, she was quick among some of the silent men to bring drink or prepare food, and I tried to talk with her about one thing or another. It was as though she had never learned to speak more than three words at a time. Yes. No. May I bring? Take some .. Her distress at being addressed was so patent that I stopped at last, pretending what I should have pretended from the first-disinterest. It was good I did. Nap was scowling at me when he did not think I saw him.

  There were some eight wains in the train, most of them open wagons loaded high with crates and covered with waterproofs. One or two were fitted up as living places in which the persons of the train might sleep and prepare their food. One was a chilly, small wagon which breathed vapor like a dragon and contained, so Laggy Nap said, perishable foodstuffs accounted great delicacies in the west. The wagons creaked along behind their teams, some of horses and some of water oxen, and the persons driving were silent. Izia was silent. I was silent while Laggy Nap talked and talked and talked of everything and anything and the world.

  So went a day, a night, another day, and in the evening of the second day, as I went to relieve myself in a copse at the side of the road, I realized that I was being guarded. One of the persons in the train walked by the copse, and I recalled that every time I had ridden a little ahead or lagged a little behind, someone had been beside me within moments. Yes, I told myself, you knew it before. It is this which has made you uncomfortable all along.

  These people are not simply offering you company on the way, they are keeping you, guarding you, and would not let you go away if you tried to escape. I was as certain of it as if I had been told it by Laggy Nap himself.

  I lingered in the copse, within sight of the man who watched me, giving no sign I was disturbed, going over and over in my head the words Mavin had left for my guide. "Befriend the shadows and beware of friends." She had warned me, and I had not been alert to the warning. Well. So and so. Time enough to be wary now.

  I adjusted my clothing and wandered back to the wagons, pausing now and then to look at a tree or a bush. Were there shadows? If so, where? I saw none, could find none, and was greeted by Laggy Nap at the fire as though I had been away for a year and we were lovers. My throat was dry as autumn grass, and I was afraid. Well, I would learn nothing to help me by silence. It was time to play their Game and hope I had time to yet win something to my b
enefit.

  So that evening I drank with him, talked with him, told him long tales of Betand, including three thousand things which had not happened there with at least a hundred maidens who did not exist. All the while his wide mouth smiled while his eyes looked coldly into my heart. All the while I kept my eyes away from Izia, praying I had not already harmed her by my interest.

  Finally, I pretended drunkenness, asked him about this and that.

  "Have you heard of magicians?" I hiccupped to show that the question was not of importance. "In Betand they talk of .. hic .. magicians."

  His hand twitched. I saw the jaw tighten over his smile and Izia, where she crouched by the fire, started touching her legs as though wounded, looking up as though she had heard an ugly voice call her name. I put my nose in the cup and made gulping sounds. Something wrong. Well, I would take time to consider it later.

  "Magicians," he said cheerfully. "No. I don't think I've heard of magicians."

  "Nor I before," I babbled, all bibulous naivete. "But there in Betand they talk much of magicians. Why is that, do you think?"

  "Oh, well, it's a parochial place, after all. Most of the people there are ignorant, superstitious. They must talk of something, and it is amusing to talk of wonders, freaks, Gifters .. yes, Gifters. They talk much of Gifters, but has any one of them ever seen a Gifter?" His eyes watched me over the top of his cup. I met them with a stare in which no glimmer of intelligence showed.

  "No, you know, you're right!" I slapped my knee, laughed. "No Gifters either, you think? Wonderful. Everyone lighting candles to something which doesn't exist .= . marvelous." I laughed myself into a long stretching movement which let me see Izia. Yes. She still stroked her legs, still frowned into the fire as though in pain. Well. Cold certainty seeped into me. The man meant me no good, no good at all.