Sheri Tepper - Necromancer Nine

Swolwys and Dolwys arrived in good time. They had delivered Izia, improved in both health and spirits by the time they arrived. More important, when they had come to Izia’s home, Yarrel had been there and she had remembered him. The cousins did not say much about that meeting. I hoped for their sakes that Yarrel had not treated them as coldly as he had treated me when last we met. His rejection of me still hurt, and I hoped that Izia’s return might make him feel more kindly, though I knew that if he learned all she had gone through in the intervening years, he might hate all Gamesmen even more. And this line of thought brought me to thoughts of Windlow. I figured that matter out in the privacy of the cave, unwilling to talk about it with anyone. I simply chipped at the corner of the tiny Didir figure with my thumbnail until the white covering flaked away to show the blue beneath. The Gamesmen of Barish were blues, simply (simply!) blues, made in the long past for some reason I could not know, though I was beginning to make some rather astonishing guesses. The Gamesmen themselves did not tell me, though whether they could not or would not, I did not know. At the moment I was content to let things be. Except for one thing.

At one time or another, casually, over a period of several days, I handed one or another of the Gamesmen to my cousins, to Mavin, even to Himaggery. They handled them as I had done, with bare hands, but they gave no indication that they felt anything or experienced anything at all. So. “Blues” could not be Read by anyone who handled them. It was a particular Talent which I had, seemingly I alone of all the world. So again. No one had seen me take the Windlow blue. No one knew I had it. I doubt that either Mavin or Himaggery ever thought about it, and I did nothing at all to remind them. We traveled to the Bright Demesne together, three horses and two horsemen. We younger ones were the horses, two for riding, one for baggage. I thought of Chance when I did it. He would have approved mightily of how inconspicuous I was. I could not help but overhear the long conversations between my mother and Himaggery (I could not think of him as “Father”). As the hours of our travel wore on. they spoke more and more often of certain Gamesmen they had known. I heard again the name of Throsset of Dornes. I heard again the name of Minery Mindcaster. Himaggery spoke of the High Wizard Chamferton, and Bartelmy of the Ban. They were cataloging all those they had seen in the cavern or suspected might be there. And they were making plans to bring all the blues of all the world to the Bright Demesne. “There will be a way,” Himaggery insisted. “A way to do it without the machines. Or to build a new machine to do it. So many, so great. We cannot leave them there, stacked like stove wood.”

And then they would talk more, list more names, and end by saying the same thing again. Peter in the horse’s head nodded wisely. We were no sooner out of one mess than we would get into another.

And, of course, they talked about the Council. The mysterious Council. The wonderful Council. The probably threatening Council. They could not decide whether it was totally inimical, perhaps beneficial, or, possibly, nonexistent. Peter inside the horse’s head nodded again. Such questions could not be left unanswered, not by one like Himaggery. Peter inside the horse’s head had other thoughts, about Quench, Huld, books, about what several hundred or thousand pawns who had been “techs” might do when loosed into a world which did not know they existed.

And we came at last to the Bright Demesne. Word having been sent ahead, we were expected. There was a certain amount of orderly rejoicing, and Mertyn seemed to have some trouble letting me out of his sight for several days. Chance, on the other hand, behaved as though I had only been gone on a day-long mushroom hunt and was no different on my return than on my going. Only the quantity and quality of the food which kept appearing before me told me that he had worried about me. I helped him by pretending I did not notice.

There was mourning, too, for Windlow. I wept with the rest and kept my mouth shut.

And then Izia arrived — with Yarrel.

They rode into the kitchen court about noon. I was in the kitchen garden with Chance, pulling carrots. There is no Talented way to do this easier than simply stooping over and yanking them out by their tops. So I was muddy and sweating and unsuspecting when the clatter of hooves came from the cobbled yard. I looked up, wiping my eyes with my shirttail, and saw Izia looking at me, very pale and very beautiful. She reached one hand to the person beside her, and then I saw Yarrel. He was looking at me, too, but with an expression in which resentment and eagerness seemed equally combined. He slid from the horse’s back, helped Izia down, and they came together toward me. All I could think of was that I wanted to hide, not to have him angry or hateful to me again. Perhaps he saw this emotion on my face, for he stopped and smiled, almost shyly. “Peter.” Was there something of a plea in that voice? I gritted my teeth and stepped forward, the shirttail still between my hands, wiping away the mud so that I could offer him a clean hand. He did not wait for that, but took both muddy fists in his own and drew me within the circle of his arms.

It was only a moment, a moment before he stepped back, his face calm again as he raised his hand to Chance and let me guide them into the kitchens. We sat there in the fireglow as we had sat year on year, within hands’ clasp of one another, eating Chance’s baking and telling one another of all that had happened in our worlds. It would be good to write that all was as it once had been, the old friendship, the old closeness. But that would be a sentimental story, not true. It was not as it had been; it was only better than it was before he came. And Izia sat there, sometimes smiling a little, a tiny smile, tight and tentative, but a smile, nonetheless. Once she even laughed, a short little hoot of laughter, like a surprised owl. I knew then that I had loved her for herself, and because she resembled him, and because I had rescued her. I knew in that same way that she would never know it, that it would only be a burden to her. She could accept Yarrel’s touch, and only his, a gentling, animal-handler’s touch, with nothing in it of lust or human ardor. She would grow more secure, less frightened, as the years went by. But — no, she would never accept what might remind her of Laggy Nap. Nap. I had not thought of him or wondered where he had come to. I wondered now, idly, whether it would be worth the trouble to avenge myself and her. So I rejoiced that Yarrel had come, and grieved that Yarrel had come bringing Izia, and then simply stopped feeling and was while they were there.

And after they had gone, I went to Himaggery, where he sat in his high, mist-filled room and asked him whether he would still accept my help, my Talents and my help, in whatever it was he intended to do. Mertyn was there with him. It was being said that Mertyn would stay, would not return to the Schooltown, so I thought the matter might well be discussed with them both. “Ah, you see,” said Himaggery to my thalan. “It is precisely as Windlow said.” Then, turning to me, “Windlow told me you would come into this very room and say that very thing, Peter. He did not know when it would be. Ah. Ah — but his vision was wrong in one thing. He thought he would be here, too. Tshah. I shall miss him.”

“As I will, also.” I said. Oh, Windlow, I thought, why did you not simply tell me before I left the Bright Demesne! If you saw the threat, knew the danger, why didn’t you tell me.

But there was no answer to that. He rested softly in my mind and did not answer though he was present, as he had foreseen. So I asked the question of Himaggery again, and this time he told me, yes, he would accept my help with great pleasure. It was precisely as I thought, of course. We were to locate the Council. We were to bring the blues to the Bright Demesne. We were to find a way to reunite the body and spirit of ten thousand Gamesmen. We were to pursue Justice, for Windlow had desired that. We were, in short, to do enough things to take a lifetime or two, most of them complicated, some of them dangerous, all of them exciting.