The End of the Game (43 page)

“Taste it.”

I recoiled. I’m sure my face was flaming. “I ... I can’t.”

“Let me,” said Queynt. “I’m already overdosed on the damn things it can’t hurt me worse than I already am.”

“It won’t hurt you,” said Roges, shocked. “I’ve tasted it, and Beedie. All of our children. Almost everyone in the chasm by now, I imagine.”

I didn’t object. He took the thing from my hands. I couldn’t watch him. In a moment, however, he gave it back to me and spoke in a puzzled voice.

“I can’t taste anything, Jinian. It must be identical to the one the Shadowpeople gave me all those years ago. Why are you so nervous about it?”

I tried to laugh. “Probably nothing. Nerves. The wraiths have put my skin on backward. Put it down to some personal quirk, Queynt.” I held the thing but did not taste it. “If you are agreed that it should be taken to Mavin, then take it. And if you believe it should be taken quickly, then take it quickly. If it will undo some of the evil those yellow crystals are causing, then do it, soon as may be.” I turned the blue crystal in my fingers, passed it from one hand to the other. I thought I knew without tasting it what the intent of it was.

Queynt gave me one of his odd, concentrated looks. I stared him down, not letting him see how troubled I was. I could have been wrong. I wanted to think about it more. This time I couldn’t be breezy and quick. This time I wanted to crawl in a hole and think, and sleep, and think some more. I put the crystal in my pouch. Beedie had others. I might have need for this one.

The baby, newly trousered, staggered toward Peter’s lap and almost fell into the fire in transit.

Under cover of this confusion, I leaned near the strange being—very careful not to touch it—and asked, “Mercald-Mirtylon, in the cavern where the blue crystals were, was there any evidence of any living creature?”

“(Puff.) Nothing there at all. Stickies were the first (puff) and probably only. Very hot. (Puff.) Not good for living things.”

“Do you think the blue crystals had been there long?”

“Very long. They were (puff) far from the white stuff. At the edges of the (puff) cavern. Only yellow crystals near the white stuff (Puff.) I think, very old.” I thanked the creature, remembering at the last minute not to pat it, which would have been my instinctive gesture of thanks with most beasties.

The baby had been rescued, had gained Peter’s lap and plumped himself down there, chattering in sleepy infant talk which even my language Talent could not follow. Sylbie came to curl beside Peter and the child, inserting herself neatly under Peter’s arm so that he held her, perforce, without actually having reached for her. Still, he did not draw away.

He looked up to catch my gaze, flushed in half guilt, then gave me an unrepentant stare as though to say, “Well, you won’t and she will, so gaze me no gazes, Jinian Footseer.”

“We must sleep,” I said carefully, keeping my voice expressionless. “All of us need sleep.”

As I moved about the clearing, preparing for the night, I stopped beside Queynt. His eyes were still red, and there was a great lump on his forehead, but he looked otherwise his own indomitable self.

“These crystals the visitors believe are so important perhaps you have known their contents so long you have not really thought about them, Queynt? Perhaps you have not considered the implications—if, for example, everyone had had one.”

He seemed surprised at this. “Well, yes, Jinian. That’s possible. In which case, someone new, someone like Mavin or Himaggery is needed to make a judgment. To consider, as you say, the implications.”

I stared at him, willing him to pay utmost attention.

“A bit farther down the hill, Queynt, there is a fork in the road. The southmost road leads down to Luxuri and thence to Bloome again. From there it is not far to the Great Road which comes north from Pfarb Durim. And on that road, the journey to the Bright Demesne should not take long—or no longer than any such journey will take. If you can get there, and if you can get Himaggery and Barish to quit calling meetings to discuss the hundred thousand, perhaps they would consider what the true meaning of the blue crystals may be. Perhaps Barish would do it for you?”

“I can ask him,” he said.

“It’s important enough to go, and quickly.”

There was no point in further talk. No sense in worrying them with questions that could not yet be answered. We arranged ourselves for the night. To rest, if that were possible. Roges lay looking at the dark. Beedie close beside him. The creature was back in its basket. Peter had stretched himself out on a blanket by the fire, with the baby beside him, and Sylbie lay against Peter, half-curled around the baby.

Peter slept, one arm across the child, the hand touching Sylbie’s breast, and she not moving away from this touch. I, wandering late, saw this. Well, where else would Sylbie sleep except beside the one among them she knew as a friend?

I lay down away from the fire, able to see the flames as they undulated against the black of the forest yet unlit by them, lost in a pocket of darkness as in some secret closet, spying upon the outer world as through the keyhole of that closet, closed about with baffled jealousy coupled with the anxiety that my suspicions had aroused. If they were true, did it matter what Peter did?

None of them saw. All the myriad clues were there in front of them, and none of them saw. Not even Queynt. Queynt, who should have seen long ago on the Shadowmarches, when he was given a blue crystal by a Shadowman and interviewed by the Eesties.

Oh, yes, Queynt should have seen then. But he did not. Only I believed I saw, from this cavern of quiet darkness.

And I could be wrong.

But if I were right, could I do anything useful if I stayed here? Where Sylbie was and Peter’s child? I thought of the baby, opening each day with his bubble sounds, crowing like some cock-bird from his basket, pure joy unalloyed. Could I accept that, not grieve over it, and get on with what must be done? Even if I could accept it, what good could I do here? Could I think of staying only to stand between Peter and Sylbie and the child? Would Jinian take a parent’s love away from a child? Jinian, who knew well enough what it meant to be the victim of an abductor of love, a robber of faith? Should I do to another what Eller of Stoneflight had done to me?

There was an easy way to do it. Jinian could go into these dark woods and gather the needful things: sixteen herbs and earths, and those easy to find, not scarce in any land, not difficult to locate even in the dark. A torch would be enough light. Her own senses would serve without any light at all. To make a love potion. To guarantee Peter loved Jinian, not Sylbie but Jinian, not the crowing child but Jinian. A simple thing, taking only from now until dawn. And then she could bring him his tea and sit by him looking into his face while he drank it...

There was a pig that had loved me in the Forest of Chimmerdong, loved me well, unable not to love me. So would Peter be unable not to love me. And if I were a monster, he would love me still. And if I were Valearn, Ogress of Tarnost, still he would love me.

And I, knowing that, would feel—what would I feel?

If crystals could compel without blame, could not one small Wizard? And if what I feared was true, who would be alive to judge me for it? And if what I feared was true, what time would there be for any alternatives? And if what I feared was true, what point in refusing to taste the blue crystal and verify what I believed?

Except that if I knew, I might be too terrified to act.

But as long as there was doubt, however small, then action could take place.

Exactly.

Even if I did it totally alone, I had to do something.

This was the lesson of Chimmerdong.

So, not the sixteen herbs and earths. Not the liquor of love, the efficacious potion. Not love at all.

And not a patient traveling with them, either, coming between them, becoming less myself with every passing hour as I sought to become whatever it was he loved, forgetting my oath, changing myself to the needs of love rather than being true to myself and doing what must be done. Not jealousy.

And not the mere running off in a huff, to sulk in some distant place until the world was changed. Not anger. No. Not love, not jealousy, not anger. Duty instead. The lesson of Chimmerdong instead. I would need to depart, but depart to some purpose.

I sneaked from my pocket of darkness to gather the things any traveler would need. Quiet as shadow I drifted into the forest, up along the hill, back toward Fangel. Morning would take me far enough from this place that they could not find me, even if they looked, which they would not. The need for them to move southward was too imminent, too persuasive.

Pray Queynt understood this. A man as perceptive as he must understand it. Pray they did not delay.

And I would do what I had to do. This was to find the Dream Miner and this companion, this Storm Grower, and see if they knew why the foul yellow crystals were being spread across the world. And, I reminded myself, learn why they wanted me dead.

Behind me, a log broke among the flames, showering sparks, shattering into coals. An omen. Even the hottest fire would break and cool in time. It was a better hope than nothing. I moved into the night, pacing leagues back toward Fangel between myself and the sleepers.

It was again near dawn the final sending came, high in the eastern sky, a pale gray blot white-fanged against the dark, the voice a howl of wind from between the stars. “Jinian,” and again, “Jinian.” So, whoever it was in Fangel had found me out, put two and two together to come up with six; put Jambal and Biddle and Chorm in a pot to pour out Jinian. Was it Huldra behind this sending? Or Dedrina Dreadeye? Or Bloster? Whichever, this one would not be put off with strawmen.

There were defenses against sendings. Defense was a paltry game that waited upon others for its intentions. I was too tired and angry for defense. Therefore, let the forest beware!

I left the trail, moving into the forest. Then.

The amethyst crystal from my pouch. Set upon a stone. Then Music and Meadow to bring an innocent creature near, to wring its neck quickly so that it died without fear or pain. Unjust to use its blood so, and yet I could not use my own. Bright the Sun Burning set upon crystal and blood. Dream Chains to Bind It to hold an image there.

“Oh, here I am, Sending,” I sang in the false light of predawn, dancing widdershins about the crystal on the stone, blood on the stone, song on the stone, herbs and twigs on the stone. “Here am I, Sending, deep in amethyst halls, deep in crystal silences, within, hidden within.

“A twig of red rowan, a sprig of midnight tree, a leaf of web willow, shall summon you to me. Come, Sending, to find Jinian where her blood leads you. Come, Sending, and feast where your hunger waits.”

“Jinian,” the sending called, spiraling down from the empty sky. “Jinian,” in a husky, hungering voice which raised bumps on the skin as a cold wind might. “Blood,” it called, rejoicing. “Blood.” Down to hover above the stone. It did not see as others saw, did not perceive as others perceived. It was both sent and summoned, and the blood led into another place. Into which it went, all at once, like a wisp of smoke drawn into a chimney, and then Jinian gathered the last of her strength to do Dream Chains once more, quickly, holding the wraith where it was, within the crystal, where it could not get out.

And when it was done, she fell on the earth like a felled sapling, unconscious, limp, all strength gone and drained away, the place cold as a glacier around her. She, not I, for I was far away already, lost in some inner maze without any way out. On the stone the amethyst crystal burned, trembling. Around her, me, the dark changed slowly to day.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I was awakened by something, then lay for a long time on the cold earth wondering if me and I and whoever had reassembled themselves to be a person again. Where that person might be was another question which took some time to settle. I was near the trail that led from Fangel, hidden from it by a slope and a line of trees, and there were voices coming from the trail. I had lain there for about a day.

I felt fairly weak, without much will or ambition, but otherwise normal. Beside me on the stone the amethyst crystal rocked as though inhabited—which it was in a sense— and I put it in my pouch rather unwillingly before crawling into the trees to see who came forth from the city into the dusk.

It was the Duke of Betand, traveling from Fangel with far less panoply than when he had entered. His allies and the Dream Merchant traveled with him, escorted only by Porvius Bloster and a few Armigers and Tragamors, men evidently not corrupted by the crystals, for they went in alert watchfulness as outriders of the small procession. Huldra and Valearn had left their high-wheeled carts; Dedrina, her huge crocodile.

They, like the Merchant and the Duke, were mounted on stocky ponies and wore sensible traveling garments. The air of menace that accompanied them was as great as when they had entered the city, however, and it brought me alert among the underbrush, suddenly threatened and vigilant.

There was Valearn, the Ogress. All the fears aroused by nursery tales were made immediately manifest, swarming in the shadows, wakened more by this one danger than by the presence of others, equally perilous. In her lands of the High Demesne in the south she had walked the woods alone, garbed in ragged robes with the staff of an old mendicant, seizing children who wandered by themselves, leaving their bones half-gnawed for the were-owls to finish. She had not troubled adults, only children.

Them she had sought relentlessly, the child from the cot by the window, the babe from the blanket by the fire, the toddler snatched from a mother’s arms. But, only children. Only children. I told myself this, more than once, assuring Jinian the child that she was too deeply buried in Jinian the Wize-ard for Valearn to find her, ever. Jinian the child was not so deeply buried inside me that she did not doubt this. We all doubted it together.

I waited until the troop had moved almost out of sight, then laid a hiding spell, Egg in the Hollow, that I might not be seen by them, that I might most assuredly not be seen by Valearn. It was all very well to assure oneself that the child one had been was outgrown. Such children had a habit of coming back at odd moments, moments that might prove unpropitious indeed.