The shape dropped away. Mavin found herself standing bare in the roadway, covered with Blourbast’s blood, too weary to shift a covering for herself. She felt Himaggery’s cloak swing around her, his arms draw her close. A quivering voice asked, “Is it all right to change now?” and Himaggery replied, “Yes, Plandybast. It’s all over. You can unlog yourself.”
“I’m glad there wasn’t any real violence,” said Plandybast. “I’ve never been able to handle violence.”
“I’m glad, too,” said Himaggery, lifting her up and carrying her away to the comfortable shelter of the trees.
“Is she all right?” asked the Agirul.
“She’s covered with blood,” said Himaggery. “See if you can get someone to bring water.” Then he sat beneath the tree, cuddling her close in his arms. She could not remember being so held, not ever, not even by Handbright in the long ago. She sighed, a sigh very like the Eesty’s sigh, and let all of it fade away into dark.
Chapter Ten
When morning came, they went into Pfarb Durim. The armies of King Frogmott were no barrier. The sickness had been spreading among the besiegers, and the cure was as evident to them as it was to those in the city. Indeed, when Mavin and Himaggery passed, they were already taking down the tents and putting out the fires, preparatory to the long march back to the marshes of the upper Graywater, to the northeast.
They found Mertyn still in the room in which they had left him, Windlow still by his side, though both were sound asleep on the same bed, and Himaggery forbore to wake them. Instead, he ordered a room for Mavin, and a bathtub, and various wares from clothiers and makers of unguents. By the time Mertyn wakened, she was more mistress of herself than she had ever been in Danderbat keep or since.
All of this had gone to make her a little shy, not least by the fact that she knew things the others did not, and could not tell them. She had been unable to speak of them even to the Agirul when she had wakened beneath his tree that morning. She had tried, and the Agirul had opened one slitlike eye to peer at her as though it had never seen her before and would not see her again.
“Many of us,” it said at last, “remember things that cannot be shared. Sometimes we remember things that did not really happen. Does that make them less true? An interesting philosophical point which you may enjoy thinking about at odd times.” Then it had gone back to sleep, and she had given up. She did not for one moment believe that she remembered a thing which had not happened, but she was realist enough to know that it would be her own story, her own memory, and only that.
Now she sat at Mertyn’s side in her luxurious room—he had been moved as soon as he woke—looking out across the cliff edge to the far west. “Schlaizy Noithn is there,” she said to him. “Southwest, there beyond the firehills. Perhaps Handbright is there.”
“There was more to her leaving Danderbat keep than you told me, wasn’t there?” He was still pale and weak from not having eaten for some days, but his eyes were alert and sparkling. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Perhaps someday,” she said. “Not now.”
“That Wizard is in love with you,” he said. “I can tell. Besides, he was talking to Windlow about it.”
She didn’t answer, merely sat looking at the horizon. The sea was there, beyond the firehills. She wondered if she could find her way back to Ganver’s Grave. She wondered if Ganver’s Grave had not been moved elsewhere.
“He’ll probably ask you to go with them.”
“Where are they going?”
“Windlow has a school at the High Demesne, near the Lakes of Tarnoch. That’s far to the south, west of Lake Yost.”
“That’s right,” she mused. “Valdon is the King’s son. And Boldery. Windlow is to educate them both.”
“Not Valdon,” Mertyn went on, a little cocky, as though he had had something to do with it. “Valdon and that Huld got along so well that Windlow had words with Valdon about it, and that made Valdon mad, so he took the servants and went riding out at dawn. He says Windlow may school Boldery all he likes, but Valdon will have none of it.”
“That’s too bad,” she said. “If he follows Huld, it will be the death of him.” She turned to find the boy’s eyes fixed on her in wonder.
“That’s what Windlow says. He had a vision about it,” he said.
“It doesn’t take a vision. Anyone would know. Huld is walking death to anyone who comes near him. Well, he’s gone, for a time at least.”
“And the plague is cured. And Windlow says so long as no one eats shadowpeople—yech, I wouldn’t—no one will ever get the plague again. You don’t think anyone ever will, do you?”
She shrugged. “Many strange things happen, Mertyn, brother boy.”
There was a light knock on the door. She opened it to let Windlow and the Fon come in, Boldery close behind them bearing a wrapped gift. ”I brought it for Mertyn,” he said. “Really, it’s for us both.” Then, “It’s a game,” he announced proudly to Mertyn. “I came to play it with you.”
“The Seer and I thought—that is, we felt the boys might like to play together for a time while we have a meal downstairs.” The Fon held out his hand to her, but she only smiled at him, using her own hands to gather her skirts. They had not been much for skirts at Danderbat-keep. She rather liked the feel, the luxurious sway of the heavy material at her ankles and the warmth around her legs, but they still took a bit of managing.
“I’d like that.” She smiled at them both, going out the door and preceding them down the stairs. There was a table set for them on a paved terrace beside a fountain, and the servants of the Mont were busy in attendance. There was fruit and wine already on the table. She sat and stared at it, smiling faintly, not seeing it.
“Mavin.” She did not reply. “Mavin, what are you thinking about? Are you troubled by the Ghoul’s death?” She looked up to find Windlow’s eyes fixed on her, his face full of concern.
Briskly she shook her head, clearing it, giving up the dreamy fog she had moved in since waking. “I’m sorry, Seer,” she said. “Today has been ... today has been like a dream. It is hard to wake up.”
“It’s the first time in days you have not had to do something outrageous,” he replied, spooning thrilp slices into his mouth. “Quite frankly, it’s the first such day for me, too, in a very long while. Prince Valdon was not an easy traveling companion. Huld was worse, of course, but not by much. I understand he made off into the woods?”
“No doubt he is back in Poffle by now,” she said. “His sister is pregnant. By him, he says. Their mother the Harpy is with them. I would say Huld is master in Hell’s Maw now.”
“I had hoped the place was empty.”
“Not now, not soon,” she said. “Though it is bound to come, one day.”
“Aha,” he laughed. “So now you are a Seer.”
“No.” She frowned. “Now I am beginning to learn to use my brain.” She laughed in return. “It is like Seeing in one way. It, also, can be wrong from time to time.”
The Fon sat while they talked, watching her hungrily, eating little. When the waiters had brought fresh bread and bits of grilled sausage, he said, “Mavin, will you be going to Battlefox keep, now that you have been there once and seen the people?”
“No. No, our thalan, Plandybast, is a good fellow, as you yourself said, Fon. But that is not what I want for Mertyn. Mertyn has Talent, you know. Beguilement. He has had it since he was a fifteen-season child. It is a large Talent, and he must learn to manage it. They could do nothing for him in Battlefox save savage him and make him vicious with it. No. He must have a good teacher.” She was looking at Windlow as she said it, half smiling. “I spoke with him about it, and he told me what teacher he would prefer. Of course, I cannot pay much in the way of fees.”
“I will pay the fees,” choked the Fon. “In return for saving my life, Mavin. Huld would have killed me.”
“He would have tried. I think you might have stopped him quite successfully.”
“And
you, Mavin?” asked Windlow, quietly, softly, like a child trying to capture a wild bunwit without scaring it. “You?”
“Will you come with Mertyn?” The Fon, less wary, too eager.
“No,” she said.
“No? Never?”
She shook her head, biting her lip over an expression which might have been part smile. “I did not say never. I only said no, I will not come with Mertyn.” She folded her napkin as she had seen other diners do, reached out to take their hands, one on each side.
“I am Mavin of Danderbat keep? What is a Mavin of Danderbat keep? What shape is it? What color is it? What does it feel and know in its bones? Does it fly? Crawl? Does it grow feathers or fur?
“What places has it seen? What Assemblies has it attended? You who are not shifters do not know what an assembly is, and neither really does a shifter girl who has not left her keep to go into the wide world.
“What is in Schlaizy Noithn? For me?
“No, Fon. I will not come with Mertyn now. Though I may, some day. Some day.”
And she would not let them try to dissuade her, nor would she let the Fon be near her with the two of them alone, for she knew what her blood would do and how little her head could manage it. Instead, a day or two later, she stood beside the parapet with him, with Boldery and Mertyn playing at wands and rings nearby, and told him farewell.
“My sister is out there somewhere. I would like to find her, see if I can help her. She may need my help. As for you, Fon, you do not need my help, not now.”
“Do not call me Fon. You named me before. I am the Wizard Himaggery, and I will be that Wizard until you name me else.”
“The Fon is dead.” She laughed shakily. “Long live the Himaggery.”
“So be it.” He was not laughing at all.”Will you make a bargain with me, Mavin?”
“What sort of bargain?”
“If you go out into the world, and if the world is exciting, and you forget me, and time spins as time does, and the world passes as the world does, will you return to this place twenty years from now and meet me here if you have not seen me before then?”
“Twenty years? So long? Do you think I will not seek my friends out long before that?”
“Well, and if you do, better yet. But will you promise me, Mavin?”
“I’ll be old, wrinkled.”
“It will not matter. Will you promise me?”
“Oh, that I’ll promise!” She laughed up into his unlaughing face.
“On your honor?”
“On my honor. On my Talent. On my word.”
“Twenty years?”
“Twenty years.” She turned away, biting her lip, afraid that her calm might break and the tears spill over. “Now. I am going west, my friend. I have made my farewells to Mertyn.” She reached out to stroke his face as he had done so many times to hers, then turned down the stairs and away down the street of the city, without looking back.
Windlow came to him where he stood, looking after her. “Did she make the promise?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know it was a Seeing of mine?”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Does she know she will not see you again until then?”
“I didn’t tell her,’* he said. “I could not bear to say it. I can not bear to think of it now.”
The road south of Pfarb Durim is arched by great, strange monuments. Mavin Manyshaped walked that way, seeing the arches with new eyes. She felt eyes from the branches of the trees watching her pass. On the hills, voices added to a song, spinning it into a lazy chant which made small echoes off the Strange Monuments, almost like an answer.
As for her, her eyes were fixed on the horizon where Schlaizy Noithn lay, and the western sea. There was something in her mind of wings. And something of places no other eyes than hers had ever seen. “I am the servant of the Wizard Himaggery,” she sang, quoting the Mavin of a younger time. “Perhaps,” she sang, making a joyful shout at the sky. “But not yet!”
The Flight Of Mavin Manyshaped
Book 2 of The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
From her perch on the side of the mainroot, Beedie could lean back at minor peril to her life and look up the Wall, the mainroot dwindling away in perspective until the solid, armspan width of it had shrunk down to a mere hair’s breadth line at the rim of the chasm. So much height above was dizzying, and she slapped at the right piton to hear the comforting thwunging sound which indicated it was solidly set. Setting her spurs more deeply into the bark, she thrust back against the strap to look up once more at the light fa lling through the leaves of the flattrees, huge even at this distance, a ten-day climb from the rim. She didn’t want to miss the noonglow, that vivid, emerald moment when the light came directly down through the leaves, making the whole chasm shine with the same verdant light it now shed on the western, morning-light, wall. Sometimes birds could be seen in the noonglow, enormous white ones, messengers—so the Birders said—of the Boundless.
It was in the noonglow that the birdwoman had come, slanting down in the green rays, white plumes streaming from the edges of her wings, to alight on the bridge rail of Topbridge, almost within the arms of Mercald the Birder. And Mercald had had her ever since, ever since he caged her that day only to find a girl in the cage the following morning. It had been either bird or girl every day since, with no one able to say for sure what it meant or why she had come in the first place. Still, the Birder caste had gained more status from that event than they had in all the history of the bridges—so much so that there was serious consideration of elevating them to the same high status as the Bridgers, Beedie’s own caste. Not that she cared. “Not that I care,” she advised herself. “It makes no difference to me,” knowing that it made considerable difference to some. There were three Bridger families in the chasm, and while the Beeds and the Chafers were not jealous of caste status, the Banders certainly were. She would bet that old Slysaw Bander would do everything in his power to prevent any Birder being considered his equal. “Thank the Boundless he isn’t the eldest,” she reflected. “If old Slysaw were the eldest, the whole chasm would regret it.”
Judging noonglow to be some time off yet, she dug in her spurs and began climbing upward; chuff, heave, chuff, heave, chuff. The roll of measuring cord at her belt had unreeled almost to its end. Chuff, heave, chuff. Left, right, heave the strap, left, right, heave the strap. The measuring cord began to tug. She leaned out on her strap once more, judging how close she had come to her starting mark. Immodest self-congratulations. Within an arm’s reach; not bad. She began to set pitons on the mark, right and left. Might as well set them deep. She would be back to this place with others of the Bridgers soon, getting ready to set the lines, tackle and winches. Topbridge had become crowded, too crowded, many thought, and the elders wanted the bridgetown widened. Even from this distance she could hear the sounds of the crowd from Topbridge, cries from the market, the rasp of a saw from the middle of the bridge where the Grafters House stood, hammers banging on anvils. She took up her own hammer, concentrating on the job. When the pitons were set deeply she leaned on her strap once more, waiting for the noonglow.
High above the bridgetowns the rim of the chasm was edged with flattrees, wider than they were high, one set of roots anchoring the trees to the rock of the plain, another set dropping down the chasm wall into the dark pit of the bottom with its unseen mysterious waters. Here and there the mainroots bulged into swollen, spherical water-bellies, sole source of water for the bridge people. At intervals the mainroots sent out side roots, smaller though still huge, which grew horizontally along the wall before plummeting downward. The side roo
ts put out ropey, smaller roots of their own, and the ropey roots were heavily furred in hair roots, the whole gigantic mass curtaining the sides of the chasm like a monstrous combed pelt, a matted shag of roots so dense that none of the chasm wall could be seen. In shadow, the roots appeared dark and impenetrable, but now in the emerald light of glorious noonglow the shaggy mass blazed out of shadow in jeweled greens as bright as the high glowing leaves, each strand an individual shining line. A chorus of floppers began to honk somewhere in the mass; flocks of birds from the distant rim to circle in the light like devotees circling the altar of the Boundless. All the noises of Topbridge ceased—the other cities were too far down to be heard except as a murmur—the sound of the bell and the call to prayer coming from the Birder’s tower in a thin, cutting cry, sharp as broken glass.
Below her right foot she could see the Bridger house of Topbridge and the bridge itself, wide and solid, diminishing into a long wedge stretching across the chasm to the far wall, 2000 paces away. On either side of it were nets looking like lace, dotted with the fallen flattree leaves they were put there to catch.
Below her left foot she could see the narrower wedge of Nextdown, too tiny to seem real, and beyond it to the left, up-chasm, the thin line of Midwall. Down there somewhere lay Bottommost, barely visible, shining sometimes at noonglow as the merest thread. Potter’s bridge and Miner’s bridge were up-chasm, hidden by the bulk of Topbridge, but she could see Harvester’s far off to her right, just at the place the chasm began to turn away west. Seven cities of the chasm. And the broken one above. And the lost one below. The lost one which had disappeared, so it was said, all in one night into the depths of the chasm together with all its people and all its fabled treasure—punished, the Birders said, because of some insult to the Boundless. Lately, though, there had been talk of other reasons, perhaps other bridgetowns in jeopardy—talk of something down in the depths which threatened them all. She made a religious gesture, a ritual shiver at the thought of the lost bridge, then put it out of mind.