King's Blood Four Read online

  "I want you to go with the lad to the High Demesne at

  Evenor. He is not half healed yet, and you can rid him of those scars along the way. "

  "Why me?" she muttered, wiping tears.

  "Because you'll be welcome there; Healers always are. Because if I sent a Seer or Demon they would think

  I sent a spy. Because you are to go to an old friend of mine who needs your help and care; I hope to bring him back here with you. The High King will not want to let him go, and you must use all your wiles as honestly as you can-which you will, because you are honest and cannot think thoughts which would seem treasonable.

  Are those enough reasons?"

  She cried, and he comforted, and I listened, and the hours went by while they talked of other things. They talked of heterotelics (I wrote it down) and an animal in the wastes of Bleer which makes scazonic attacks (I wrote that down, too) and of great Gamesmen of the past-Dodir of the Seven Hands, the Greatest

  Tragamor ever known, and Mavin Manyshaped. That name seemed familiar to me, but I could not remember where I had heard it before. And they talked more of that one to whom she was being sent, an old man, a

  Gamesmaster, but something more or other than that as well. They talked long, and I fell asleep. When I woke,

  Himaggery was brooding by the fire and Silkhands had gone.

  I was moved to thank him. The occasion demanded something from me, something more than mere words.

  I took the pouch from my belt and placed it in his hands, saying, "I have nothing worth giving you, Lord, except perhaps these things I found. If they please you, will you keep them with my thanks for your kindness?" When he opened the pouch, his face went drear and empty, and he took one of the pieces in his hand as though it were made of fire. He asked me where I had come by them, and when I had answered him, he said, "There, in a place I would not go because of her I had sent there. So, they were not meant for me, and it does no good to think about them.

  "Boy, I would have given the Bright Demesne for these if. I could have found them myself. However, they did not come to my hand and they are not to be given away. I may not tell you what they are-indeed, it may be I do not truly know. I may not take them from you. I can say to you take them, put them under your clothes, keep them safe, keep them secret. I will remember you kindly without the gift, "

  I wanted to ask him... plead with him to tell me something, anything, but his face forbade it. The next morning we left the Bright Demesne, and only then did I realize how strange a place it was. There had been no

  Gaming while I had been there. I had not seen a single pile of bones. I had no idea what talent the Wizard held.

  "Strange talents make the Wizard" they say, but his were not merely. strange, they were undetectable.

  Later, of course, I wondered what talent enabled him to see

  Dazzle as she was. Later, of course, I wondered what talent enabled me to see through his eyes.

  The Road to Evenor

  Just before we left the Bright Demesne, Dazzle saw fit to throw an unpleasant scene during which she accused

  Silkhands of every evil she could think of-of being

  Himaggery's leman, of being his treasonous servant, of plotting against her and Borold, of abandoning one whom she had been unable to compete with because her powers were pulish and weak, of being envious-- childish, evil, acid words. Neither Dazzle nor Borold saw us off, though Himaggery did. Silkhands was drawn and tired, looking years older than herself, and she only bit her lip when Himaggery told her to put it out of her mind, that he would take care of Dazzle. So, we rode off mired and surrounded in Silkhand's pain. I could feel it.

  The others could see it well enough.

  As I could feel her pain, so I could feel Yarrel's joy.

  We were mounted on tall, red horses from Himaggery's stable, and Yarrel beamed as though he had sired them himself. As for me, Silkhands bade me leave the bandages off, and as we rode she held my hand and led me to think myself unmarred once more. There was one deep wound which could not be healed, a puckered mark on my brow. Silkhands said my mind held to the spot for a remembrance. Certainly, I did not want to forget what had happened in Schooltown.

  She led me to think of Tossa and speak of her until that hurt began to heal as well. I learned that what I had felt was not love. It was some deeper thing than that, some fascination which reaches toward a particular one, toward a dream and thus toward all who manifest that dream. She made me talk of the earliest memories I had, before Mertyn's House (though until that moment

  I had not known of any memories before Mertyn's

  House) and I found memory there: scents, feelings, the movement of graceful arms in the sun, light on a fall of yellow hair. So, Tossa had been more than I knew, and less. Even as I grieved at her loss, I grieved that I could not remember who the one had been so long ago, before

  Mertyn's House. I could not have been more than two or three. I tried desperately, but there were only pictures without words. Tossa had matched an inexplicable creation, an unnamed past.

  As well as being Healer, Silkhands became

  Schoolmistress. Believing Yarrel and I had been too long without study, she began to drill us in the Index as we rode, day by day. It was something to do to while the leagues passed, so we learned.

  "Seer, " she would say. "Give me the Index for Seer. "

  Obediently, I would begin. "The dress of a Seer is gray, the mask gray gauze, patterned with moth wings, the head covered with a hood. The move of a Seer is the future or some distant place brought near. The

  Demesne absolute of a Seer is small, a few paces across, and the power use is erratic. Seers are classified among the lesser durables; they may be solitary or oath bound to some larger Game... " Then she would ask another.

  "The form of the Dragon is winged... breathing fire... and the move is flight through a wide Demesne.

  Dragons are among the greater ephemera... the dress of a Sentinel is red... of a Demon is silver, halfhelmed... of a Tragamor is black, helmed with fangs... of a Sorcerer is white and red, with a spiked crown... " and so and so and so. Some of the names she knew I had never heard of. What was an

  Orieiromancer, a Keratinor, a Hierophant? What was a

  Dervish? I didn't know. Silkhands knew, however, the dress, the form, the move, the Demesne, the Power, the classification.

  "When I was a child, " she said, "there was little enough to do in the village. But there were books, some, an Index among them. I learned it by heart for want of anything else to do. I think many of the names I learned are very rare. Some I have never seen anywhere in life. " Still, she kept me at it.

  "Of a Rancelman is cobwebbed gold, magpie helmed... of an Elator is blue, with herons'wings... of an Armiger is black and rust, armed with spear and bow... of a King is true gold, with a jeweled crown... "

  "And Shapeshifter, " she said. "What is the Index of a

  Shapeshifter?"

  I said I did not know, did not care, was too hungry to go one pace further. She let us stop for food but continued teaching even as we ate.

  "The Shapeshifter is garbed in fur when in its own shape. Otherwise, of course, it is clad in the form it takes. The Demesne of a Shifter is very small but very intense, and it goes away quickly. It takes little power to make the change and almost none to maintain it. They are classified among the most durable of all Gamesmen, almost impossible to kill. They are rare, and terrible, and the most famous of all is Mavin Manyshaped. "

  "Why Manyshaped?" asked Yarrel. "Can she be more than one thing at a time?"

  "No. But she can become many different things, unlike most shifters who can take one other shape, or two, three at most. But Mavin-it is said she can become anything, even other Gamesmen. That, of course, is impossible. It couldn't happen. "

  When we had eaten, we went on again, silent for a time while we digested. Yarrel stopped us several times to examine tracks on the road before us. "A party of horsemen, " he said, "some four
or five. Not far ahead of us. " For the first time I thought of the pawner who had ridden away south.

  "How far ahead?" I asked. I did not want the man near me and was suddenly sorry I had not asked

  Himaggery to hold him or send him back to his ship under guard. "How far?"

  "A day. We will not ride onto their tails, Peter. You think the pawner rides ahead?"

  "I think, somehow, he knew where we were going. "

  "We made no secret of it. "

  "Perhaps we should have done. " I was depressed at my own ignorance and naivete. Why had I thought the man had given up? All our ruminations were interrupted, however, by a blast of chill from above. Silkhands threw one glance behind her, cried "Afrit, " and rode madly for the timber, we after her in our seemingly permanent state of confusion.

  "Is it looking for us?" I asked. She shook her head.

  Another blast of chill came from another direction. She frowned.

  "What is going on up there?" She led us toward rising land from which we might see the countryside around.

  We found a rocky knuckle at last and climbed it to peer away across a wide valley. Our way led there, straight across, to a notch in the hills at the other side. It was not a way we would take. Drawn up upon the meadows were the serried ranks of a monstrous Game, files of

  Sorcerers and Warlocks standing at either side, glowing with stored power. Wagons full of wood lined the areas of command where pawns struggled beneath the whip to erect heavy sections of great war ovens. " Above the command posts Armigers stood in the air, erect, their war capes billowing about them, rising and falling like spiders upon silk as they reported to those below.

  "Lord of the seven hells, " said Chance. "Let's get away from this place. "

  Silkhands looked helplessly across the valley. Our way was there. Our way was blocked. We could not wait until the Game was over. Games of this dimension sometimes went on for years. We could not go around too closely or we risked being frozen in the fury of battle. Silkhands had no power to pull from those mighty ovens and thus protect us in the midst of war. "Borold, " she cried, "why are you not here when I need you?" Her brother could have tapped that distant power. We were forced to a fateful decision which meant that we were to come to the High Demesne. Had we gone across the plain, we would have gone no further. We did not know it, but we were awaited in that far notch of hills.

  Strange, how all plays into the hands of mordacious fate. Mertyn used to say that.

  "We'll go far around, " said Silkhands, and Chance agreed. It was all we could do. And we would not have done well at it except for Yarrel.

  It was he who read the maps, who found the trails, who found camp sites sheltered from the wind and rain, who kept the horses from going lame and us from being poisoned by bad food or worse water. He bloomed before my eyes, growing taller and broader each day. I woke one morning to find him standing beneath a tall tree looking out across the land, his face shining like those pictures one sees of the ancient pictures of

  Gamesmother Didir with the glory around her head.

  "Yarrel, " I said, "why were you ever in Schooltown?

  What was there for you?"

  He hugged me even as he answered. "Nothing, Peter.

  Except a few years during which my mother needed not worry about me. We pawns sometimes have short lives.

  My beloved sister was used in a Game, "lost in play" by some Shapeshifter who needed a pawn and cared not who it was. We are not considered important, you know, among the Gamesmen. If they wish to eat a few hundred of us in battle, they do it. Or use up a few of our women in some nasty game, they do that. By buying my way into the House, they protected me for a time. "

  "Bought your way in?"

  "With horses. Fine horses. Paid for my rearing, my schooling. Who knows. It may have done me good.

  Certainly, I know more than my family does about

  Gamesmen. And Games. And what can and cannot happen. To most of us the Game is a true mystery. If I get back to them, I will have a school of my own-for pawns. To teach them how to survive. "

  "Then you never expected to develop talent. "

  "No. To get me into the School, mother had to lie, had to say I was Festival got, by a Gamesman. I never believed that. My father is my father, like me as fox is like fox, no more talent than a badger has, to be strong, to dig deep. "

  "You could live among the Immutables, be safe there. "

  "Yes, " he replied somberly. "I have thought about that in recent days. "

  Yarrel my friend, Yarrel the pawn. Yarrel

  Horselover, my own Yarrel. Yarrel who had helped me and guided me. I saw him as in a mist, struggling beneath the whip to assemble war ovens, to cut the monstrous wagon toads of wood. Yarrel. "How you must hate us, " I said. "For all you've lived among us since you were tiny... "

  "I suppose I did. Still do, sometimes. But then, I learned you are the same as us. You want to live, too, and eat when you are hungry and make love to girlsoh, yes, though you may not have done so yet--and sleep warm. The only thing different is that you will grow to have something I have not. And that something will change you into something I am not. And from that time on, I may hate you. " He was thoughtful, staring out across the fog-lined vales, the furred hills, the rocky scarps of the range we traveled toward. When he went on it was with that intrinsic generosity he had always shown. "But I do not hate Silkhands. Nor Himaggery.

  Arid it may be I will go on liking you, as well. "

  "There were no games at the Bright Demesne. " I don't know why I said that. It seemed important.

  "No. There were no games, and I have thought much about that. All those Gamesmen. All that power. And no games at all. What did happen, the Dragon, I mean, was regretted. It means something In Mertyn's House we never learned... never learned that there was any... choice. " .

  Choice. I knew the word. The applications of it seemed small. One glass of wine or none. Bread or gruel. Stealing meat from the kitchens or not. Choice. I had never had any.

  "It is hard to imagine... choice. " I said. He turned to me with a face as remote as those far scarps, eyes seeing other times.

  "Try, Peter, " he said. "I have tried. I think sometimes how many of us there are, so many pawns, so many Immutables, all of us living on this land, and we have no Game. Yet, for most of us the Game rules us.

  We let it rule us. Imagine what might happen if we did not. That's all. Just imagine. "

  I was no good at imagining. Yarrel knew that well.

  For a time I thought he was mocking me. I was nettled, angry a little. We worked our way more deeply into the mountains, struggling always toward a certain peak which marked the pass into Evenor, and the way¯was hard. We talked little, for we were all weary. Far behind us in the valley were still smokes and confusions of battle. Ahead were only mountains and more mountains. I went on being angry until it seemed boring and foolish, and then I tried to do as Yarrel had asked and imagine.

  I tried really hard, harder than I had ever tried in

  Mertyn's House. It was no good. I could not think of choices and pawns and all that. And then in the night...

  I found myself standing beside my horse on a low hill overlooking the field of battle. I could see the ovens red with heat, the Armigers filling the air like flies, raining their spears and arrows down onto the Gamesmen below. I could hear the great whump, whump of boulders levered, out of the ground and launched by teams of

  Tragamors and Sorcerers, hand-linked as they combined their power to raise the mighty rocks with their minds. Behind enemy lines I could see the flicker as

  Elators twinked into being, struck about them with double daggers, then disappeared only to flick into being again behind their own lines. On the heights Demons and Seers called directions to the Tragamors and

  Armigers while Sorcerers strode among the Gamesmen to give them power. Shifterbeasts ran through the ranks, slashing with fangs or tusks, or dropped from the air on feathered wings to strike with
blinding talons.

  And on each side, at the center of the Game, stood the King and the Princes and the other charismatics to whose beguilement the armies rallied. Among the wounded walked Healers, each with a Sorcerer to hand.

  I could see it as though it were happening before me.

  And I saw more. At the edges of the battle, beyond the Demesne, stolid files of pawns. They stood with stones in their hands, and flails, and hay forks, sharp as needles. And it came to me in the dream, for it was a dream, what would happen when the war ovens grew cold and the Sorcerers were empty of power, the