Sheri Tepper: Wizard’s Eleven

Hell’s Maw.

We went there, Dorn, Himaggery, Mertyn, Mavin, and a host. There were bones there wandering free, moving on their own, talking to an old, blind man who wandered among them with a key, trying to find the lock he had lost. Dorn put them to rest, large and small, in such form as they may not ever be raised again. There is nothing left of the place now. Every stone of it has been tumbled and spread by a hundred Tragamors as far away as the Western Sea. There I linked the Gamesmen once again, realizing for the first time that I had what Himaggery called Talent Thirteen. Jinian was right. I do not need anyone but me — and a hundred or so Gamesmen with large Talents.

So you may picture us now as we ride to the very highest point of the road across the Dorbor Range, that place where the road bends down toward the jungles of the north. Queynt and Chance are upon the wagon; Yittleby and Yattleby are pulling them along with that measured, effortless stride. Jinian and I are looking back to the south where all the lands of the True Game are spread, town and demesne, land and stream, tower and field, far and veiled by distance in the light of the westering sun. There is no mist giant now to walk the edges of the world. We may walk it ourselves, in time, in chance, in hope.

Who knows?