Sheri Tepper - Wizard’s Eleven

“He will, indeed he will,” agreed Chance, nodding at me over his beer. At which I nodded, too, and agreed that a man will indeed do strange things.

“What was it he went back for, do you suppose?” asked Chance, as though it didn’t matter at all.

“Who knows, who knows,” murmured the second oldster, who was growing very tipsy with the unaccustomed quantities of free beer.

“His contrack,” the loquacious oldster said. “That’s what I heard. Was his contrack from the long ago time of Barish. That’s what they kept at Dindindaroo. Charts and books and contracks to keep ‘em safe until Barish comes back for ‘em. That’s what.” And he hiccuped softly into his glass before looking hopefully to Chance once more who bought another round and changed the subject. They got into an argument then as to whether Salamanders are really fireproof. After that was a good deal of calling on the seven hells and the hundred devils, after which we went to bed to lie there in the swimming darkness talking.

“So he died there in the ruins, Chance. I have no bad feeling about calling him up. I didn’t know him, and he’s dead this eighty years, but Dorn himself couldn’t call anyone up with all those Immutables about. All of them would have to leave.”

“As they may do,” suggested Chance, “if they heard that the thing they’re looking for had come to light elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?”

“Somewhere far off. Leave it to me, Peter. We’ll spend one more night here.”

The which we did. And there was more buying of beer and more talk, and this time Chance made the circle of acquaintances larger so that there were more listeners to what was said. Middle of the evening came, together with jollity and general good feeling, and into a pause in the noise, Chance dropped his spear.

“You know, it was odd your mentioning Dindindaroo last night,” he said to the oldster at his side.

“Odd? Was it? Did I? Oh, yes. So I did. What was odd?”

“Oh, only that I met a man in Morninghill, not a season gone, and he told me he’d dug up treasures around Dindindaroo.”

At this there was general exclamation and interest. Chance turned to me for verification, and I said, “Oh, he said so, Father, yes. Dug up treasures, he said, and was selling them moreover.”

Chance nodded, said nothing more, waited. The questions came. What had the man found? The Smitheries, father or son, did not know. Something small and valuable, they thought. Something wonderful and rare, for the man was a famous dealer in such. Old things, certainly. Then, when interest was at its height, Chance led the conversation away from the subject onto something else. I saw two dark-cloaked men leave the place immediately thereafter, and when I went to the window for a bit of air I could hear the pound of hooves going away south.

We slept there that night, and on the morning went out of the Land of the Immutables, riding publicly east toward the Great North Road. Once out of sight, we turned into the forests and began the circle which would bring us into the cover of the trees nearest the ruins of Dindindaroo.

We spied upon the place, I with my Shifter’s eyes, keen as any flitchhawk’s, and Chance with a seaman’s glass he carried with him. Sure enough, there were two dark-cloaked men talking with Riddle, the three of them standing upon a mound of crumbled stone and soil, Riddle gesturing as though he were in a considerable turmoil. Troubled he was. His face was white with frustration. After a time they settled down, and by noon they had reached some decision, for many of them went away north into their own land while others, Riddle among them, rode south. So. He was going to look around in Morninghill, and a long weary journey that would be.

We waited until early evening, until the westering sun threw long golden spears across the tumbled stone, and then we came to the ruins and walked about on them. The industrious diggers had changed them about somewhat. Still, the crumbling walls were there where Dazzle and Borold had sheltered to watch the fire dance, and so was the high slit window where I had hung my shirt to counterfeit a ghost. I stood, looking at it, feeling that deep brown emotion made of dusk and smoke and sorrow which is so piercing as to be sweet beyond enduring. Then I shook myself and took Dorn into my hand.

“Well, Peter,” he said to me in my mind. “Here lie many dead. Would you have us raise them all?” He knew what I had thought of, but he was ever courteous, treating himself as a guest. Besides, in clarifying for him, I made clear to myself as well. “A name,” he said. “Did you neglect to learn the man’s name?”

I uttered an oath, disgusted with myself. If we were to draw out one from among so many, a name would be needed for we did not know precisely where he lay. “What was his name?” I growled to Chance. And he answered me, soft as pudding, well Riddle of course, same as his grandson. So we went with that.

I began to sense the dead about us, the feeling of them, the luxuriant quiet of them. They were at peace in the long slow heat of summer and the long slow cold of winter, the ageless waft of the wind and the high cry of the hawk upon the air. In them the leaves moved and the wavelets of the river danced. In them sorrow had no place; time for sorrow had gone with the turn of the seasons and the fall of the leaves. “Pity,” said Dorn, “to disturb this peace.”

Still, he called the name of Riddle into the quiet of the place, drawing out and up, and at last we saw a little whirlwind of dust turning itself slowly upon the tumulus before us, spinning and humming a quiet sound into the twilight. Through this whirling dust the sun fell, turning it golden, so that we confronted a shining pillar and spoke as with a Phoenix, for so those Gamesmen whirl into flame and are consumed before rising once again.

We asked, and asked again. This revenant was not so old as those we had raised in the caves beneath Bannerwell, so we had created no monster of dust which hungered for life. Neither was it so short a time after death as the raising of Mandor, so there should have been no remembered agonies. Despite this, it seemed disinclined to speak with us, resisted being raised. I was about to give up when I heard Didir within, unsummoned, feeling — was it excited? Surely not. Impetuous. “Let me.” She reached into that whirling cloud and seemed to fumble there as though Reading it, making some tenuous connections of sparkling dust.

Then the humming cloud took the shape of a man, a wavery shape, still resistant, not unlike Riddle in appearance, looking at something I could not see.

“I see Dorn,” the phantom said. “Barish promised us immunity, Gamesman. He promised, but I am raised from the dead by Dorn. Ah, but then, I broke my pledge, my oath to Barish. All unwitting, all unwise. Forgive and let go…”

Chance and I looked at one another, a hasty, confused glance. This was not what we had expected. I stuttered, reaching for a question to clarify. “Riddle, tell me of your pledge to Barish.”

“Barish … Barish. He gave us immunity from your power, Gamesman, for us and our children forever, immutable throughout time, so he said. And in return we must keep his body safe, keep the bodies of his Gamesmen safe where they lie, north, north in the wastes, north in the highlands where the krylobos watch. We must keep the Wizard safe, and the Wizard’s eleven. But he went away and did not return. I brought the Gamesmen here, Barish’s book here, thinking to find him somewhere, find him and return them, but the waters came, the waters came and I died…” The figure writhed, became the humming cloud once more. From it the voice came in prayer and supplication, “The contract broken, all unwitting … and Barish’s promise broken as well for I am raised by Dorn to suffer my guilt. Ah. Forgive. Let me lie in peace…”