Sheri Tepper: Necromancer Nine

“Yet still we pursue our goal, our studies. Himaggery. His allies. Windlow’s old students. Though our allies vanish, our numbers continue to grow—slowly, too slowly. I warned Himaggery to draw no attention to himself. Bannerwell was a mistake, though we had to do it. As Windlow would say, it was morally correct but tactically wrong. So it has happened. Old Windlow evidently had some foreknowledge of it; he told you I would be needed. Well, I will go and try to hold things together while you seek out Mavin because we need her. We need her clever mind, her hidden ways, her sense of strategy. You can help most by finding her, which you would have done in any case.”

I could not be so discourteous as to argue against that. He meant what he said. It was no mere sop for my comfort. I swallowed my pride and assented, sorrowing that I had refused help earlier and that it was now too late. He pulled me close, whispering.

“Thalan, mark me. You have the eidolon of Dorn. I know you dislike using it, but if you have chance to do so, query among the dead for Himaggery and Windlow. If you—by any chance—use others of those Talents—no, don’t say anything, boy—seek for Himaggery and Windlow. Even half answers are better than no answers at all.”

He kissed me and went. I was left in his place alone, among the tumble of packing, things half out of boxes, paper scattered upon his table, maps curling out of their cases, a disorder which spoke more harshly than words of his state of mind. I spent an hour setting it right, then went to make my own preparations and to take farewell of Chance.

It was not easy. He did not accept that I would have to go alone. He could accept only that Mertyn had so ordered, and he was as bound by that order as I. At the end he told me he would go back to the Bright Demesne to await my return. He said that two or three times, to await my return, as though by saying it he could assure it would be so. It comforted me more than it did him, I’m sure. Perhaps he intended it so. I was very uncertain of what was to happen next, so preoccupied I paid no attention at all to Karl Pig-face and by my contemptuous silence (for so he and his followers interpreted it) did his unpleasant reputation grave and permanent harm. At the time, I didn’t think of him at all.

I rode out of Schooltown at first light. It was a three-day trip to Bannerwell from the town. I made it in two, riding late and rising early, paying no attention to the scenery and eating in the saddle.

Havajor Dike lay just east of the fortress of Bannerwell. I came upon it at evening, late, with only an afterglow in the sky where the high clouds still shed a little reflected light. A star shone above the clouds, only one, trembling like a tear in the sadness of dusk with its blue-brown scent of dark, bat-twittered and hesitant. I saw one lonely figure upon the Dike, black against the glow, and rode up to ask what housing might be available for the night. As I came closer, I saw that it was Riddle, Tossa’s father, that lean Immutable who had come to Bannerwell with Chance and Yarrel at the very end of the battle, making battle unnecessary.

It struck me when he turned to face me that he showed no fear at all. No stranger had confronted me since I had left the Bright Demesne without showing some shrinking from me. Perhaps a curious, awed stare followed, more times than not, by the “ward-of-evil,” by an over-the-shoulder stare as he hurried away. Riddle had no fear, but it was a few moments before I realized that he did not know who I was and that it did not matter. He was an Immutable. They did not fear the Talents of Gamesmen, not even of Necromancers.

“Do I know you?” he asked, leaning on the wall, gaze burrowing at my gauze-wrapped face. “Have we met?”

“It’s Peter, Riddle,” I said, pulling the hood from my head and running dirty fingers through my dirtier hair. “I should have spoken.”

“Peter.” He gave me his oddly kind smile, reached out to touch my face as though I had been his child or close friend. “To see you dressed so. I had forgotten you had this Talent. I thought it was something to do with … changing shape.”

I started to say something about the Gamesmen of Barish, caught myself and said nothing. No one knew of the Gamesmen but Windlow and Himaggery, Silkhands, Chance—one or two others who would say nothing about them. Instead of explaining, I shrugged the question away. “Small reason for you to remember. I did not stay long here at Havajor Dike once Bannerwell was overthrown. Have you played jailor here alone since then?” I knew the Immutables had intended to stay at Bannerwell long enough to assure there would be no more of Mandor’s particular kind of threat, but I had not expected Riddle himself to stay among them. He was said to be their leader, though I had never heard him claim any such title.

“No,” he replied. “They sent for me after Mandor died.”

“Dead? Mandor?” I could not imagine it, even though I had foretold it myself. I had known he could not long withstand the pain of a disfigurement visible to everyone, of loss of power, of the absence of adoration, not he who had lived for power and adoration and had adored himself not least among them. And yet … it was strange to think of him dead. “How did he die?”

“From the tower.” Riddle indicated the finger of stone which gestured rudely from the western edge of the keep. “He stood there often. We saw him in the dusk, or at dawn, a black blot against the sky. Then one morning he was not there, and his body was found among the stones at the river’s side. They sent for me then, and I arrived in time to learn that Huld had gone as well.”

“Dead?”

“I fear not.” He looked angry, biting off the words as though they tasted bad. “Himaggery had left Demons here, around the edges of the place, to Read if any tried to escape. They did not Read Huld. I theorize that he drugged himself into unconsciousness after hiding in a wood wagon or some such. Certainly he went past us all without betraying his presence.”

I said nothing. I did not like the idea of Huld loose in the world. I shivered, and Riddle reached out to me again.

“So, my boy. What brings you to the Dike? Was it to meet with Mandor again?”

I shivered once more. “Never. I have an errand away north of here, and the Dike is a convenient place to begin the northern journey.”

“Ah. Well, you will not begin that road tonight, will you? There is time for hot food, and for a bath? Some talk, perhaps. I have not had news of the south for some time.”

So I went with him to his camp, a sturdy stone house near the mill, once almost in ruins but reroofed and made solid by the Immutables and those pawns released from Bannerwell. We were waited on by quiet people with faces I thought I recognized from the time of my captivity. At my unspoken question, Riddle explained.

“These were Mandor’s people, yes. Once his powers were nullified by our being here, he could not beguile them any longer. None would stay. They saw him, feared him, gradually learned what he had done to them and so began to hate him, I think. He could not bear it.”

“What had he done to them?” I asked cynically. “More than any Gamesman does?”

“More,” he said. “Though perhaps it was not he who conceived it…No. I will say no more about it.”

I wanted to hear no more about it, though later I was to wish I had insisted. I told him of the disappearance of Windlow and of Himaggery. He withdrew into startled silence, but then told me of other vanishments he knew of. He speculated, almost in a whisper. I drank wine and tried not to fall asleep. Others of the Immutables came in and greeted me kindly enough. They murmured among themselves while I yawned. Then we were alone and Riddle was leaning across the table to put his face close to mine.