Sheri Tepper: Wizard’s Eleven

“Ah. Then she is still in Xammer. Nothing has changed with Silkhands since I — passed into this state of being.”

It was a nice phrase. I knew he had started to say, “Since I died,” and had decided against it. After all, one cannot consider oneself truly dead while one can still think and speak and have visions, even if one must use someone else’s head to do it with. “She is still there, Windlow, so far as I know. You’re sure Silkhands was in your vision?”

“I think you should go to her, boy. I think that would be a very good idea. North. Somewhere. Not somewhere you have been before, I think. A giant? Perhaps. A bridge. Ah, I’ve lost it. Well, you must go. And you must take me along … and the Gamesmen of Barish.”

I asked him a question then, one I had wanted to ask for a very long time. “Windlow, why are they called that? You called them that, Himaggery called them that. But neither of you had seen them before I found them.”

There was a long and uncomfortable silence inside me. Almost I would have said that Windlow would have preferred that I not ask that question. Silly. Nonetheless, when he answered me, he was not open and forthcoming. “I must have read of them, lad. In some old book or other. That must be it.”

I did not press him. I felt his discomfort, and laid the blue back into the pouch with the others, let him go back to his sleep, if it was sleep. Sometimes in the dark hours I was terrified at the thought of the blues in my pocket, waiting, waiting, living only through me when I took them into my hand, going back to that indefinable nothingness between times. It did not bear thinking of.

Now, since I had never told anyone about having Windlow’s blue, I could not now go to them and say that Windlow directed me to visit Silkhands. A fiction was necessary. I made it as true as possible. I reminded them of the School House at Xammer, of the blues which were undoubtedly there, of the fact that Silkhands was there and that I longed to see her. At which point they gave one another meaningful glances and adopted a kindly but jocular tone of voice. Besides, said I, Himaggery always had messages to send to the Immutables, so I would take the messages. I could even go on to a few of the Schooltowns farther north, combining all needs in a single journey. What good sense! How clever of me! I would leave in the morning and might I take my own pick from the stable, please, Himaggery, because I have grown another handswidth.

To all of which they said yes, yes, for the sake of peace, yes, take Chance with you and stay in touch in case we find Quench.

Which explains why Chance and I were on the frosted road to Xammer on a fall morning full of blown leaves and the smoke of cold. We had been several hours upon the road, not long enough to be tired, almost long enough to lose stiffness and ride easy. The ease was disturbed by Chance’s whisper.

“‘Ware, Peter. Look at those riders ahead.”

I had seen them, more or less subconsciously. Now I looked more closely to see what had attracted Chance’s attention. There was an Armiger, the rust red of his helm and the black of his cloak seeming somehow dusty, even at that distance. The man rode slouched in an awkward way, crabwise upon his mount. Beside him I saw a slouch hat over a high, wide collar, a wide-skirted coat, the whole cut with pockets and pockets. A Pursuivant. Those who worked with Himaggery had given up that archaic dress in favor of something more comfortable. Beside the Pursuivant rode a Witch in tawdry finery, and next to her an Invigilator, lean in form-fitting leathers painted with cat stripes. What was it about them? Of course. The crabwise slouch of the Armiger permitted him to stare back at us as he rode.

“Watching us?” I asked Chance. “How long?”

“Since we came up to ‘em, lad. And they wasn’t far ahead. Could have started out from the hill outside the gate, just enough advance of us to make it look accidental like.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He snorted under his breath. “Why is sky blue and grass green. Why is Himaggery full of plots. Why is Mertyn bothered about a Shifter boy with more Talent than sense. ‘Tisn’t me they’re bothered over.”

“Me?” I considered that. Ever since I had left Schooltown I had been pursued by one group or another, on behalf of Huld the Demon, on behalf of Prionde the High King, on behalf of the magicians. Well, the magicians were probably all dead but one, so far as I knew, but both Huld and Prionde were alive in the world. Unless I had attracted another opponent I knew nothing of.

If someone had put the group together to win a Game against me — the me I appeared to be — then they had selected well enough. Both the Pursuivant and the Invigilator had Reading, though not at any great distance. Both the Armiger and the Invigilator could Fly. Both the Invigilator and the Witch could store some power. In addition, the Pursuivant would be able to flick from place to place — not far and not as quickly as an Elator would have done, but unpredictably — and he would have limited Seeing. Add to this the Witch’s ability as a Firestarter (her Talent of Beguilement didn’t worry me) and they were a formidable Game Set.

I wondered how much they knew about me. If Huld had sent them, they knew too much. If Prionde had sent them, they might not know enough to cause me trouble. And if someone else? Well, that was an interesting thought.

“' ‘Their aim, what Game?’ “ I quoted softly for Chance’s ears alone.

“No Game this close to Himaggery, boy. Later on, it’ll be either kill or take, wouldn’t it? Why Game else?”

“I wonder what I should do,” I mused, mostly to myself, but Chance snorted.

“You went to School, boy, not me. Fifteen years of it you had, more or less, and much good it did you if you didn’t learn anything. What’s the rule in a case like this?”

“The rule is take out the Pursuivant,” I replied. “But no point chopping away at them if they’re only innocent travelers. I’d like to be sure.”

“Wait to hear them call Game and you’ll wait too long.” He shut his mouth firmly and glared at me. He did that when he was worried.

“There’s other ways,” I said. Under cover of the heavy fur mantle, I reached into the pouch which held the Gamesmen. I needed Didir. She came into my fingers and I felt the sharp dryness of her pour up my arm and into me. Lately she had dropped the formality of “speaking” in my head in favor of just Reading what she found there. I let her Read what I saw. A moment went by.

Then, “I will Read the Witch,” she whispered in my brain. “Small mind, large ego, no Talent for Reading to betray us. Just ride along while I reach her…”

So I rode along, pointing out this bit of scenery and that interesting bird for all the world like a curious merchant with nothing more on his mind than his next meal and the day’s profits. Covertly I examined the Witch in the group ahead. Shifters have an advantage, after all. They, and I, can sharpen vision to read the pimples on a chilled buttock a league away. I had no trouble seeing the Witch, therefore, and I did not like what I saw. She was sallow, with bulging eyes surrounded by heavy painted lines of black. Her mouth was small and succulent as a poison fruit, and her hair radiated from her head in a vast frizzy mass through which she moved her fingers from time to time, the finger-long nails painted black as her eyes. The clinging silks she wore revealed a waistless pudginess. Overall was a Beguilement which denied the eyes and told the watcher that she was desirable, wonderful, marvelous.

“Pretty Witch,” I said to Chance.

“Beautiful,” he sighed.

Oh, my. She was using it upon both of us, not knowing my immunity to it. Or, perhaps knowing my immunity but testing it? The possible ramifications were endless.