The End of the Game Read online

  7

  A brown bird gave the warning, erupting from their path before I heard them myself. First a bird scream, then feathers diving past me to make me stop right where I was, hardly breathing, then the sound of voices and something large blundering about in the woods.

  “Fine tracker you are,” growled a voice. Porvius Bloster.

  “I am not a tracker,” hissed the other. Oh, what a cold hiss. “As you know. No Pursuivant was available.”

  “Basilisk, then,” Porvius said unwillingly. “Fine Basilisk you are. Here we are, lost in this wilderness, and you keep saying the girl is here. Where? We’ve been wandering for a day!”

  Another voice, this one recognizable. One of the three men who had been with Porvius when he’d captured me. “No trail down that way, Bloster. Want me to try up the stream?”

  “Well, Basilisk?” Porvius sneered. “Shall he try up the stream?”

  They were separated from me by a screen of trees, close set, their branches tangled together with briar. I stayed frozen in place, not thinking, only listening, letting myself be as silent and invisible as possible. Basilisks have the Talents of Reading, Beguilement, and Shifting. I have heard the Reading and Beguilement are strongest when the creature is in its lizard shape, and strongest of all if it can fix you with its eyes, but that did not mean it could not Read me now if it stopped arguing with Porvius and scanned the area around. Away past the men several tree rats started a violent quarrel, throwing nuts and chittering at each other. Under cover of that noise, I slipped to the ground and lay there imagining I was vegetation. “Yes, try up the stream,” the Basilisk hissed. “And you, Kinsman Porvius, put sweeter words in your mouth or I’m back to the Demesne to have a few words with your sister while letting you hunt your quarry on your own.”

  “So far I might have done as well,” said Bloster. “ ‘Twas you said the girl was not with her brother Mendost. I still think we’ll find her there.”

  “The farmwife had seen someone like her,” the Basilisk hissed. “Seen her not long before. And in the child’s mind the picture was clear of the girl riding east toward this forest. And in the woodman’s mind the memory of a loose horse, coming from this direction. What more would you, Porvius Bloster? A map? A chart? The creature is here.”

  “Then why haven’t we found her?”

  “Because all around is a confusion of thought, small things, animals, birds, a constant commotion. Once we find a quiet glade, once night comes and the small creatures sleep—why, then we will find her. Then I will enjoy the hunt.” I could imagine the thing licking its lips.

  By Towering Tamor, I could not help thinking, but they must have been on my trail only hours after I had gone if Bloster had had to get himself to some Demesne to find this Basilisk, then backtrack the way I had come. They had not dallied! He must want me very badly to have ridden so hard, I thought. While I was ambling along the side of Longbow Mountain, he must have been lathering his horses to get somewhere. “Why bother with her?” one of the men asked, echoing my thought. “It’s Mendost you’re after.”

  “Mendost was my Game,” he growled. “Mine and no others. But when I returned to the Demesne, I found a message awaiting me there concerning this Jinian. It seems she has become larger Game than I knew. There are those—we will not mention names—who want her dead. They want her gone. They want her head sent up to them to verify I tell them no tales. There are those—still nameless—to whom I have sworn certain allegiances, let us say.

  “Even if this were not so, I would have sufficient cause for personal enmity. If you are asked why, say because she poisoned me!”

  He lied. I had done no such thing, though I could have killed him while he lay there. Had he thought of that? Certainly not! I heard the Basilisk draw a hissing breath and realized I had been thinking—clearly, angrily.

  Consider water, I told myself desperately. Limpid, cool, gently sloshing to and fro in a pool, slosh, ripple, slosh, cool, sliding, slosh.

  “I thought for a moment I sensed her,” the creature said, “but it was only some fish ...” And then they moved away, up the stream, where I knew the forest had opened a path for them. Lovely forest, trying to protect me. How far could it go in doing things without drawing the shadow to investigate? Little as I wanted to fall to that Basilisk, still less did I like the idea of that shadow.

  I learned how far the forest would go when the voices retreated past hearing. There was suddenly a daft bunwit at my side tugging at me, whumping off a few paces, then turning to tug at me again. As clear a game of follow-me as had ever been played. This was my own, crumb-fed bunwit; I had no fear of him nor any now of the forest, but much fear of that creature which had gone hissing off up the rivulet, so I followed. We went back toward that same deep, hidden hollow of huge trees, this time me on my own two feet struggling down the slope. “Murzy,” I mumbled, “I wish you were here.” She would have some commonsensical thing to tell me that would make things go more smoothly. Tess Tinder-my-hand would give me a little lecture, possibly irrelevant. Cat would be silent and urge me to be the same. Bets and Sarah would argue about what to do next. And Margaret Foxmitten would smile a secret smile. It was my own style to grumble, so I grumbled. I can admit it now. The grumbling covered fear. Even when Mendost used to threaten to drop me from great heights, I had been no more afraid than of that Basilisk.

  The hollow bottom was no less mysterious by day. The trees were great towers, lunging upward until all their tops drew to one point, a tiny circle of distant sky. Giant rocks stood among them, tilted centerward like heads of listeners, and dark lay deep and gentle among them all.

  Tug, went bunwit. Tug, tug, hop. We went between two of the large rocks, turned left, and found ourselves confronted with a ladder. Very neat it was, sides straight as string, little steps all in a row, fading upward into invisibility, becoming no more than a spider’s web against the great trunk far above. Bump, went bunwit against my bottom. Up, it was saying. I couldn’t believe it.

  Resolving to be unafraid when hauled aloft by Mendost and one can do nothing about it is one thing. Resolving to climb a ladder that looks like spidersilk into a height so monstrous even an Armiger might take fright is something else again. I stood where I was, unmoving. Bump, went the bunwit again, impatiently. I stood, mouth open.

  Far back in the forest a noise was building, loud shouts and calls, rather the sound of men on a hunt. I knew the Basilisk had caught scent of me somehow. Perhaps some mental trace I’d been unable to cover. Perhaps they had blundered across a place I had actually been, and from there it would be like a fustigar trailing prey. Part of me knew this. The other part stood at the foot of the ladder, paralyzed. Bump, went bunwit yet again, frantic.

  Far up the trunk a speck emerged from the foliage and began to run down the trunk toward me. When it came very close, I saw it was a tree rat, running head downward as they do, all its teeth exposed as it chittered at me. It bit at my hair, tugged upward, growling angrily between its teeth. The bunwit pushed once more from below, desperately, and near in the forest came the sound of a horn.

  The paralysis broke. I scrambled for the ladder, realizing it would be far better to fall to a splattery death than into the hands of the Basilisk—or of Porvius Bloster. Below me the bunwit leapt into the circling trees, and I heard him blundering away, thrashing about, making a great deal of noise. Above me the tree rat chittered and growled, tugging from time to time, moving below me to nip my behind when I seemed to lag. We approached the first limb, and I foolishly looked down, only to lean into the ladder, clasping it like a lover, mouth open and dry. The tree rat would have none of this. It bit me, quite hard, and cursed at me in an almost recognizable language. In another moment we came to a hollow in the trunk, and I was urged within. There was a slithery, scraping noise, and the ladder moved in front of the hollow, going up. When the bottom of it reached the level of my feet, it stopped.

  It was no mechanical thing, that ladder, but something grown by the
forest itself. Even while I lay in the tree hollow, panting, heart thubbing away like a drum, I knew the forest had grown the ladder for some purpose of its own. Then the sound of shouts came up from below, and I risked a peek over the edge, half-masked by a leafy spray. Setting his mighty claws into the bark of the tree was the Basilisk. Even from this distance I could see his long tongue dart out to taste the air. He tasted me. Those red, burning eyes were looking up, here, there, wanting me to look into them so he could Read me, Beguile me, bring me into his jaws ... I started to go out and climb down.

  The tree rat bit me again. It was getting to be a game with him, or he had acquired a taste for me. Chittering, he threatened me onto the ladder and we climbed once more, this time the ladder moving up with us on it, a slow, easy glide into the heights. After a time I merely clung, too tired to climb, the tree rat deciding it, too, preferred to ride. We ascended together, branches and leaf clusters passing us by: great, pale bunches of flowers circled by flimsy green-winged flying things, rising into view and then dropping below. From far, far down the trunk shouts rose up, then a great howling hiss. “Zzzt,” said the tree rat, beginning to climb again. Evidently the Basilisk had gained the bottom branches.

  At last we came to the end, a place where the ladder curved over and disappeared into a hollow in the tree, presumably dropping its incredible length down inside. We moved onto a branch that zigged, and another that zagged, climbing upward always, toward the sun. The wind was making gusty noises. I realized this for some time before noticing that the gusts did not move the leaves. The tree rat prudently fell behind, nipping at me to show I was to go on. There was no earth any longer, only this cloud of leaves with the sky above. A gust came again, loudly, and I thrust my head above the leaves to be buffeted over the head by a feather.

  It knocked me down. There was a great “Keeraw!” and the wing the feather belonged to moved aside. Golden eyes the size of washtubs looked down at me, and one great talon moved to hold me tightly to the branch. It was not necessary. I was holding quite tightly on my own.

  The thing—the thing was a flitchhawk, really. One the size of a small keep or a large barn, with wings like roofs flapping. The thing reached out with its left foot and grabbed at a passing cloud, then the same with its right foot. Then again. Remember the old story I told you of, the one Tinder-my-hand had learned from a woman in Betand, many years ago, and told to me? The one about Little Star and the flitchhawk? I couldn’t help it. I had to say, “What are you doing, flitchhawk, grimbling and grambling that way?”

  And the flitchhawk said, “Grimbling and grambling to find the Daylight Bell, Little Star.”

  Well, what could I do? I mean, the story was what the story was. The next line was what it was, and so I said it. “Well then, let me help you, flitchhawk, and I’ll grimble and gramble, too.” So I stood up on that branch and grabbed for the clouds that went by, left hand, right hand, and as soon as I was standing up, the flitchhawk grabbed me.

  “Now I’ve got you, Little Star!” it screamed. Well, it certainly did. Of course, he’d had me the whole time, so to speak, so I went on with the story as though it had been a nursery play, trying not to remember how far down was.

  “Now why did you do that, old flitchhawk?” I cried, giving it the next line. “Just when you grabbed me, I caught sight of the Daylight Bell right there, behind that cloud.” My voice trembled terribly, but the flitchhawk didn’t seem to notice.

  “Where? Where?” he cried, just as though it wasn’t exactly what he was supposed to say. “Let me see,” as he sat me down on the branch. Well, I had no rope, no nothing to tangle him in, and he was too big for that anyhow, so I took the star from my neck and wrapped the thong around one talon, shouting at the top of my lungs, “Now I’ve got you, flitchhawk. Daylight Bell in treetop can’t be. Tricksy lie brings tricksy tie, now give me boon or else you die!” Which was about as silly a thing as I have ever said under any circumstance. This whole thing was not sensible. I was quite aware of that, even at the time. One might have thought it was a kind of magic, perhaps, with the exact words having some esoteric meaning, but that was not the sense of it. It was rather more like a play in which the players are required to know the cues and give the correct responses before they can move on to the next act. So, I merely went on with it in a kind of delirium, not learning until a long time later that it made a terrible kind of sense if one only knew what was really going on.

  “What boon will you have, child?” asked the flitchhawk, and it sounded to me similar to the voice of the forest, rather sorrowful and very quiet. It had quit grimbling and grambling and was standing very still, great wings outstretched, the sun coming down through them. He didn’t need to ask me twice.

  “Please, sir or ma’am,” I begged, “will you take me out of here and save me from Porvius Bloster and the Basilisk?”

  Which explains how I came to be delivered to Vorbold’s House in Xammer in a manner that made my life there somewhat a problem for the next several years.

  8

  As Murzy said to me from time to time, “A little pomp is no great matter, but ostentation should be avoided.” And then you will recall her counsel on the matter of invisibility. And finally, you may know something I did not of the nature of girls. I met girls for the first time at Xammer.

  I was delivered at dusk on the roof of Vorbold’s place by the giant flitchhawk. Because it was dusk and because it was the roof, only a few people saw it. One was the gatekeeper, who came lurching up the stairs, out of breath and furious, to berate the person responsible for such an outrage. Such deliveries were improper. During her attempt to say so, she was knocked down by a departing stroke of the flitchhawk’s wing. She then dragged me before Queen Vorbold herself, who demanded to know the name of the Gamesman—Dragon or Colddrake, she presumed—who had broken custom by Gaming, that is, Shapeshifting, in the town of Xammer.

  I told her honestly that so far as I knew, the creature that had brought me to Xammer was only itself, a pure flitchhawk of giant kind, no Gamesman in Shifted shape. When she pursued the question, I told her something of my adventures—leaving out quite a lot, including anything about the forest asking for my help, as I realized even then she would not understand it and would much resent that fact. I did leave in some parts about Porvius Bloster. That could be checked. The College of Heralds keeps a record of every official challenge, and the business between and among Porvious, Mendost, and Dorto of Pouws should have been open, public, and official enough for anyone’s notice.

  Seeing no diminution of the disbelief in her face, I thought to give her a convenient way out. “Of course, Gameswoman,” I said, “someone may have taken that shape without my knowledge. I am only an ignorant girl. That could have been possible, but if so, it was without my knowledge.”

  Since she could think of no other questions to ask, she drew herself up and demanded, “Where is your baggage?”

  I’m afraid that made me disgrace myself by crying. It was precisely the right thing to have done, for unlike girls who arrived in flitchhawk talons at the supper hour, girls who arrived in tears without baggage were familiar ground to Queen Vorbold. She arranged for me to have clothing and a room at once, and for a message to be sent to King Kelver and another to Joramal Trandle.

  So far, no occasion for dismay. However, my arrival had been seen by one or two others, and from them rumor spread throughout the School. Jinian had been delivered by Dragon from Dragon’s Fire Demesne, King Kelver disdaining the customs of Xammer. Jinian had been delivered by a tame beast from a circus, since she was actually the daughter of a pawnish acrobat by some Gamesman of note. She had been dropped out of a cloud by a Wizard, reason unspecified. It didn’t matter what the story was. Whatever story was told made me an object of speculation, something bizarre and questionable. Any such thing could be either interesting or suspect.

  They would have been even more interested had they been present to hear the words of the flitchhawk as it set me down. “This h
as been a small boon, child,” it said. “I will owe you another. The ways of the sky are mine, treetop and cloud, sunlight and starlight, wind and rain. If you have need there, call on me.” Whatever the girls of Vorbold’s House might have said of my arrival, they had not heard that. I was not sure I believed it myself.

  At any rate, that was the way in which I entered Vorbold’s House.

  What can I tell you about the place? It was quite luxurious. We were pampered with good food and clean laundry, excellent wines and occasional entertainment. The classes—well, compared to what the dams had been teaching me, the classes were not much. After only a few days, I realized they were not supposed to fit us to take any major part in Game.

  We were taught crafty things, calligraphy and flower arranging; costume design and stitchery—we needed to be able to supervise the making of all the clothes needed in a Demesne, including all the Game costumes involved—and then how to walk and sit in the costumes we had designed. And conversation. Hours and hours of conversation. We spent ages learning to make graceful compliments, and I was reminded of Cat Candleshy drilling me before my talk with Joramal.

  We learned precedence and protocol, who would walk first in procession, who would sit by whom at dinner. We learned the Index. We learned a lot of cartography, the names and locations of Demesnes, which ones were allied with which and which should be avoided. (At all costs stay away from the Dukedom of Betand, the High Demesne, and a new Demesne northeast of Betand ruled by the Witch Huldra.) We learned a good bit about contracts, since most of us would be contracted for in one way or another.

  There was a class called The Way of Prudence, which I assumed to be something literary (we were encouraged to read books, since it kept us out of trouble) but found to be the study of all the various ways one might duck for cover. Things like determining whether a dangerous level of tension existed and getting oneself out of it—excusing oneself to go to the privy, for example. And how to appear so stupid and generally inadequate that enemies would pay no attention to one. And how to set up a ransom fund for oneself as part of a contract, just in case prudence didn’t work. Part of this class was dedicated to things like stopping bleeding or fixing broken bones temporarily until a Healer could be found.