“Hush,” said Agirul. “Start again. Slowly. What is the trouble?”
So she began again, telling it more slowly, giving Agirul time between thoughts to translate her meaning. Proom’s face changed, gave way to horror, then despair. When Mavin said that Mertyn lay ill with ghoul-plague, he cried out, tearing at his fur with both hands. Others ran toward him, questions trilling on their tongues, only to begin keening when he explained.
“What is it?” cried Mavin. “What’s the matter?”
Agirul shook its narrow head. “Mavin Manyshaped, you have come on a fruitless quest. The disease you speak of is one which long ago took great toll of their lives. Then came Ganver, Ganver the Great, Ganver of the Eesties, to tell the people he would give them a gift in return for a song. So they made a song for Ganver, and he gave them his Bone. It is only by using the Bone they may cure the illness, and the Bone is gone—gone down there, in Blourbast’s hands, where you may have seen it yourself.”
“Is that the thing Blourbast took? The thing he wears around his neck? The thing he was holding for ransom?”
“It is. And Proom believes that when Blourbast found the shadowpeople had escaped, he probably destroyed the Bone as he threatened to do. Proom says he could not leave his people, his own child, to be eaten, not even for Ganver’s Bone, but now he is unable to repay his debt to Mavin Manyshaped. He says he will kill himself at once.”
“No!” she shrieked. “Tell him no. Mavin forbids it. Ganver forbids it. Tell him whoever forbids it so that he won’t do it. That’s terrible. Oh, Gamelords, what a mess.”
She set herself to think. It did not come easily. There was too much in her head, too many squirming thoughts, Blourbast and Pantiquod, the caverns below, the flickering lights and horrible smells, Pfarb Durim high on the cliff surrounded by the host, the song of the little people, the face of Agirul. Too much. “I want the Fon,” she said, not even knowing she had said it.
“The Fon?” asked Agirul.
“A Wizard. But he’s shut up in Pfarb Durim, so even if I sent the message we agreed upon, it would do no good.”
“A Wizard? I would not be too sure about that. If I were you, I would send the message and leave it to the Wizard to decide whether it will do any good or not. Is there not a saying among your people? ‘Strange are the Talents of Wizards?’ What was the message?”
“The letter M, in any form, set so he could see it.”
“Well then. Dark comes soon. We will send him a message he cannot fail to see.”
Though she fumed at the delay, she could think of nothing else to do. She had not slept since leaving Pfarb Durim, and when the Agirul suggested she do so, and when Proom’s people made her a leafy nest cradled in the roots of a great tree, she told herself that she would need to sleep sooner or later, so it might as well be done now. Though she was sure worry would keep her awake, the shadowpeople were singing a slow, calm song which reminded her of wind, or water running over stones, and she sank into sleep to the sound of it as though she had been drugged. She went down and down into dreamless black, and did not come up until the stars shone on her through windwoven trees.
“Be still,” said the Agirul from a branch above her. “Look through the trees to your right.” She sat up, stretching, seeing through the branches a long slope of meadow on which dozens of tiny fires burned in long lines.
“You cannot see it from where you are,” the lazy voice from above her mused, “but the fires make your name letter on a slope which faces the city. They have been burning since dusk, half a night’s length. The shadowpeople have been bustling about dragging branches out of the forest for hours. They will keep the fires alight until dawn.”
“No need,” said a firm voice from the trees. “They may let the fires die.”
“Twizzledale!” cried Mavin. “How did you get out? How did you find me? How ...”
“Ah,” as he came silently across the grass, a moving blackness across the burning stars, “it took much longer than it should have done. However, when I went to one of the watchtowers, I found that the watchmen had gone—for tea, perhaps, or to quell some disturbance in the city. They had left a rope ladder there, useful for climbing down walls.”
“But the armies? The besiegers?”
“Evidently there had been some attempt to leave the city by some half-score merchants, and a group of the besiegers had gone to drive them back, leaving the road unguarded. Quite coincidental, of course, but fortuitous ...”
“Fortuitous,” murmured the Agirul. “Coincidental.”
“Whom have I the honor of addressing?” asked the Fon in measured tones, as though he were a Herald preparing to announce Game.
“The Agirul hangs in the trees above you,” said Mavin. “It is a translator of languages. The shadowpeople wakened it so that they might talk with me.”
“And kept me awake,” said Agirul in an aggrieved tone. “I will not catch up on my sleep for a season or more.”
“I have great honor in speaking with you,” said the Fon, “though I would not have wished your discomfort for any purpose of my own convenience ...”
The Agirul tittered. “Wizards. They all talk like that. Unless they are involved in some Game or other.” The titter turned into a gurgle, then into a half snore.
“Well, Mavin,” said the Fon, seating himself close beside her in the nest. “What have you been up to?” As she spoke, the fires died. Proom returned to sit beside them, ashy and disconsolate. The Agirul was roused from time to time to ask a question or translate a response. Night wore on and the stars wheeled above them, in and out of the leaves like lantern bugs. At last the Fon had asked every question which could be asked and had set to brewing tea over a handful of coals, humming to himself as he did so. Proom crouched by the fire, humming a descant, and soon a full dozen of the shadowpeople were gathered at the fire in full contrapuntal hum, which seemed to disturb the Fon not at all. When he had the tea brewed to his satisfaction, he shared a cup round with them then brought a full one to share with Mavin.
“Blourbast has not destroyed the Bone,” he said.
Over his head, Agirul murmured, and a sigh went round the fire.
“He would not. He would think that a thing held in such reverence by the shadowpeople must be a thing of power or value. Blourbast would not destroy anything which might be a source of power. He is vicious, wantonly cruel, irredeemably depraved, but he is not stupid. He would not discard a thing of value merely to avenge himself upon those he despises. He would keep it, study it, perhaps even seek out those who might know of such things. Now I have heard of Eesties, as have we all. Myths, I thought. Legends. Stories out of olden time. This thing, whatever it may be, whether Eesty bone or artifact or some natural thing, must be obtained if we are to work a cure upon your brother and the others who lie ill and dying in Pfarb Durim. There are some hundred of them in the city. Mertyn is no worse than he was, but he is no better either. So a cure is needed, and if not for him then for the others. The Healers will not relent. Heralds have been sent to them—even Ambassadors, with promises of magnificent gifts—but they stand adamant. Until Blourbast is dead they will bring no healing to Pfarb Durim.”
“Why?” cried Mavin. “Pfarb Durim is not Hell’s Maw. Why hold the city ransom for what Blourbast has done?”
“Because the city profits from what Blourbast does,” replied Twizzledale. “It stands aloof, pretends it does not share in Blourbast’s depravity, murmurs repudiation of his horrors, but sells to Hell’s Maw what Hell’s Maw buys and takes in return the coin Blourbast has stolen or extorted or melted out of the bones of those he eats. The Healers lay guilt where guilt is due. No. Pfarb Durim is not innocent, nor are those who trade there innocent.”
“And we,” mumbled Mavin, white-lipped, “we who came there unknowing, but still spent our coin on lodging, on food? Are we guilty?”
The Fon shook his head, smiling, reached out to touch her face—then thought better of it, for she was close to tears.
“Mavin, did you know of all this before entering the city? Well, neither did I, nor Windlow either. I do not hold us guilty of anything but ignorance, though we will be guilty indeed if we come this way again or buy anything which comes from Pfarb Durim. Enough of this conscience searching. We must find this thing, this Bone.”
“Blourbast had a thing around his neck, something long and white, which he stroked. He spoke of it to that woman, his sister, stroking it with his awful-looking hand, covered with sores. She wore a kind of cap with birds wings at the side, and there were feathers on her shoulders. I don’t know what Talent she has ...”
“Harpy,” he replied. “His sister, a Harpy, mother of that Huld whom we so much enjoyed meeting. Not only Blourbast’s sister, seemingly, but his emissary as well. She who arranged for the plague to be spread in the city. Did she assume herself immune?”
“Probably she was simply careful not to touch anything, not to become infected. But Blourbast thought himself immune. Even now he thinks he will recover.”
“Perhaps,” mused the Fon while the Agirul translated what they said to the shadowpeople amid much twittering and warbling. “And perhaps he only blusters. If what you say is true, however, if he wears it upon him, touches it, then we may not think of your going to fetch it. You would become ill and we would be no better off. No, we must get him to bring it out, find a way to use it without touching it ...”
The Wizard got up to stride to and fro, rooting his hair up into spiky locks with both hands, as though he dug in his brain for answers he could not find. “He sought to compel healing from the shadowpeople, what would happen if it were offered to him? Can Proom tell us in what way the Bone is used in preparing the cure?” He waited for the usual twittering exchange before the beast replied in a sleepy voice.
“It is a matter of music, Wizard. One note of which is summoned from Ganver’s Bone.”
“Need the Bone be in Proom’s hands? Could any person holding it summon the note as needed?”
This time there was a lengthy colloquy, argument, expostulation, before the beast said, “Proom acknowledges that the note could be struck by any. He denies that any has that right except himself, but it is hot a matter of impossibility.”
“Ah,” said the Fon with satisfaction, “Then, then ...” And his hands waved as he sketched a plan, improvising, leaping from one point to the next as the Agirul muttered along and Mavin watched in fascination.
When he had finished, Mavin said, “But ... but, your plans call for several shifters. Three, four, more perhaps.”
“That is true,” he murmured. “No help for it. We must have them. Well, shifter girl? Have you no kin to call upon?”
“Danderbat keep, from which I came, is not within a day’s travel,” she replied. “I was traveling to Battlefox keep, somewhere in the Shadowmarches to the north. My thalan is there, and my kindred and Mertyn’s. Is it within hours of travel? I do not know. Shall I run there seeking help which may arrive too late?”
The Agirul began its murmuring and twittering while the little people chattered and trilled. “Battlefox is within a few hours, Mavin,” it said at last. “One or more of the people will go with you as your guide.”
The Fon was staring at the ground where his busy hands made drawings in the dust. At the edge of the world dawn crept into the sky. “When must it be done?” he asked of Proom. “What time of day or night?”
“In the deep of night,” replied the beast. “When the blue star burns in the horns of Zanbee. Do I say that right?”
“You do.” The Fon smiled. “Were you translating, or did you think of that yourself? It is an odd bit of esoterica for you to know. Well then, Mavin, you must return to that road south of Pfarb Durim which we have traveled once before. Beneath the Strange Monuments there, at midnight, we will find a cure. Come with whatever help you can muster. You do understand the plan?”
“As well as I may,” she said distractedly, “having heard it only once. You will probably change it, too, as the day wears on. Nonetheless, I will do what I can. Do you, also, Fon, for my hope rests in you.” She was very sober about this, and the tears in the corners of her eyes threatened to spill.
He took her hand in his to draw her up but then did not release her. Instead he pulled her tight to him. At first she struggled, fighting against the strength of his arms as she would have fought the constraints of a basket in Danderbat keep, full of panic and sudden fear. Then something within her weakened, perhaps broke, and she found herself pressed against his chest, hearing the throb of his heart beneath her ear, aware for the first time that he was seeing her, holding her, in her own shape, in her essential Mavin-ness. He did so only for a moment, then let her go with a whisper.
“Go, then. Trust in me so for as you may, Mavin. It is your Wizard, Himaggery, who promises it after all. Bring what help you can and we will put an end to this.”
She did not trust herself to say anything more, but turned to run from him in that instant. From him, or in order to return to him, but she did not really think of that.
Chapter Eight
“I run,” she said between her teeth, putting one foot before another on her long-legged form, feeling the clutch of shadowperson knees behind her shoulders where the little creature rode astride, whooping its pleasure at the speed of their movement. “I run,” concentrating on that, trying not to think of the plan the Fon—Himaggery—had sketched before them, vaporous now, too many details missing, too many things that could go wrong. “I run,” chanting it like an incantation, moving in the direction the little heels kicked her, up long slopes under the leaves spangled with sun, out into green glades where flowers bloomed higher than her head, then into shade again and down, down into gullies where gnarled black branches brooded against the sky, making a cold shade over the wet moss. The way tended always upward, coming at last to a leg-stunning climb beside a tumbling fell of water, all white spray and wet, slick rock where ferns nodded in time to the splashes. “I run,” she panted, trying to convince herself, making the back legs longer to kick herself up with and the front ones clawed to scratch at the slippery rock. It was not a run, more like a scrambling climb. At the top, however, the land leveled into long shadowy rides among the groves of sky-topped trees, and the little heels kicked her into a lope once more.
“Away northwest,” the voice on her back trilled, and she needed no Agirul to translate the song. It sang of sky, tree, and direction, and she understood it in her bones. The shadows dwindled but it was still short of noon when she topped a long ridge to look downward upon Battlefox keep sprawled wide in the center of its p’natti. And here she was, come to Plandybast’s place—not with a modest appeal for lodging and food, perhaps for friendship if kinship should not be enough. No, here she was to beg followers, warriors, fighters, shifters to shift for something they had probably not heard of and would not care for.
Well then. How did a shifter enter a keep? Or, how best might Mavin enter a keep to make such demands upon short acquaintance?
She urged the little one down from her back so that she might sit herself down, back against tree, to eat a bit and think. The shadowperson sat comfortably beside her, snuggled close for warmth, but making no protestations at the sight of the place before her. After all, she told herself, the creature had guided her here. It probably knew as much about the place as Mavin did. Once it trilled, but her hand stilled it, and it merely hummed quietly like a kettle boiling.
Suppose that Battlefox Demesne was not so hidebound as Danderbat keep. Still, they were shifters, full of shifterish Talent and seeming. Would they respect her need? Could they offer help where they did not respect? Could she ask from weakness what she could not demand from strength? How did Plandybast stand within the walls? Was he high up in the way of things, or a mere follower after? All in all, well—all in all, would it be better to do something shifterish and fail at it or to do nothing shifterish at all and leave them wondering? She chewed and ruminated, unable to make up her mind, wis
hing the Wizard were there to give her some firm instructions to take the doubt away.
Finally she swallowed, sighed, pointed firmly at the base of the tree where they sat and said to the shadowperson, “You stay here.”
The little head cocked. A narrow hand was placed on the trunk of the tree, and a voice warbled, “Quirril?”
“I suppose,” she said. “Quirril. Until I come back.”
She stood long upon the hill, remembering the way Wurstery Wimpole had come into Danderbat Keep, the drumming, the rolling, launching, flying, slything down, then up once more into veils which fell as soft as down. She sighed. She had never flown, had no idea how. Serpent forms were easy, but those immediate transitions were something she had never practiced. Better not to try anything of the sort.
And there was always the she-road, cutting through the p’natti straight as a shadow line. But if Plandybast had been correct, then only pregnant women used that road coming into Battlefox. What to do, to do, to do?
“Well, girl,” she said to herself. “What would you have done if you and Mertyn had come here as you planned? You’d have walked up to the gate in your own shape, holding Mertyn by the hand. For aren’t you the thalani of Plandybast, and hasn’t he invited you to come? There’s no time for anything else, no time for making a show of yourself, so go, go, go.” And before she could talk herself out of it or think of anything else to worry about, she stepped out into the light of the sun and began walking toward the keep.
The drum sounded when she was only halfway there. It boomed once, then once again, not in any panic sound, more as a warning to let those in the keep know that someone was on the road. She did not hurry, merely kept walking, her eyes upon the walls. Forms materialized there as she watched, dozens of them, still as stone and as full of eyes as an oxroot. No sound. No welcome, only those eyes. What were they looking at? Nothing to see upon the road but one girl, dressed in whatever old thing she had shaped around herself. Mavin stopped suspiciously. They were entirely too silent. She turned her head slowly. There, behind her, was her guide—her guide and two or three dozen of his kindred.