The End of the Game (30 page)

Those we’d asked didn’t answer. Since we had no Demon with us to read minds, we had given up asking, but we hadn’t given up wondering. We went on, with me still suspiciously looking for shadow as we rattled along the road.

“There’s the city Peter heard,” said Queynt.

We had topped a rise and looked down into a green valley, a city cupped at the center. The place was crowned with ostentatious mansions, much carved stone and lancet windows and so prodigious a display of banners—which were either excessively pink or blushed by the sunrise—some festival must have been in progress. I sighed. Towns of any kind seemed to mean trouble recently, and I was too tired even to fight for my life.

“I wonder if there’s an inn with a good cook?”

“Burials make you hungry, do they?” I swallowed my protest. Fact was, they did make me hungry. As did traveling, practicing the wize-art, talking to animals, or virtually anything else one wanted to mention. “Good appetite, long life,” I said sententiously.

“I suppose you’re right.” He sighed, peering down at his own round belly. “My appetite is very good, and I seem to have lived some time.”

“Which is a story you have promised to tell me, Queynt. About long life, and immunity to crystals, and things.”

“Ah, well, Jinian. Sometime.”

“I’ll make you a deal, Queynt. You tell me about you and the crystals after breakfast, and I’ll tell you something you don’t know.”

“It’s a long, dull story.”

I snickered. Queynt didn’t tell dull stories. Oh, he could be dull, but if he was, it was for a purpose. At storytelling, he was a master. I said, “I presume as much, and we haven’t time now, anyhow. The city will be all around us shortly. But when we find lodging? Is it a promise?”

“You won’t let me alone until I do. You’re a presumptuous chit. A nuisance. Still, there’s no real reason not to tell you, and it may gain me a little peace.”

I held out my hand to clasp his, making a bargain. I’d wanted to hear that story for a long time, but Queynt always seemed to evade telling me about it.

A difference in the sound of the wagon wheels rang in my ear. Paving. The talons of the krylobos scraped upon cobbles. Beside the wagon a sign. BLOOME WELCOMES YOU. Another, only slightly smaller. SHEBELAC STREET.

CHAPTER TWO

We rode on Shebelac Street, paved as far as the eye could see with glistening cobbles, shiny as turtle backs from the night’s rain. At either side were high, carved curbs, and above that, slabs of walk-stone, embellished with an incised serpent’s twist, to make them more interesting to walk on, I suppose. On either side of the walks, the houses and shops of the outskirts of Bloome were still quiet against the jungle in the dawn time, not bursting from doors and windows with banners and bells and drums as they would on the morrow.

It took us very little time to learn that five days before had been the procession of Jix-jax-cumbalory and that tomorrow would be Finaggy-Bum. It took us no time at all to learn that today the procession route would be announced, and every house and shop holder attentive in the forum to know whether he would need to spend the night getting ready or might sleep for once.

Those along the Forum Road, Tan-tivvy Boulevard and Shebelac Street had given up sleeping long since. All processions came to the Forum along one of those three and left by another of the same. A one-in-three chance of sleeping the night before procession meant less and less as the season picked up speed. Five days hence, we were told, would be Pickel-port-poh, with Shimerzy-waffle three days after. The cloth merchants would rise early. The banner makers not long after.

Tent and marquee manufacturers would be in their shops even as we rode. As I say, we were soon to learn all this. And more.

And in the high mansion upon Frommager Hill, reached from the Forum by the twisty peregrinations of Sheel Street, Dream Merchant’s man Brombarg—whom we were shortly to meet—woke in an unusually foul temper. Time had come to make a decision. Time to go on or get out, one or the other, and he couldn’t make up his mind. If he decided to retire, he’d need a naif to lay the job off on, and there weren’t any strangers in Bloome to choose from.

He rose, fuming, yawning, scratching his crotch with erotic insistence. (I am not certain about this, but it seems in character.) The festivals of Finaggy-Bum and Shimerzy-waffle! Merchants’ men were always elected on the one and sworn in on the other. He could wear the pink vertical for the election. No one had seen it yet, and hideously hot and uncomfortable though it was, it was the most stylish thing he possessed. And it was pink! It would be at least a season before the fashions would swing back to anything comfortable to wear, and it might be forever before there was any other acceptable color. Damn the machine. Couldn’t afford the fine if he was judged to be far out of fashion, either. Being Dream Merchant’s man took every coin he could lay hands on. (It did, too. The poor fellow had next to nothing of his own.) Still scratching, he leaned from the westernmost of his tall, lancet windows. From this tower he could look across the city walls to the jungle, brilliantly, wetly green in the morning light, swarming with birds. From here every street in Bloome was clearly visible. Only the huddle of servitors’ huts along the walls themselves could not be seen, they and the prodigious mill that rumbled on the eastern border of the town, shivering the ground in a constant hyogeal vibration.

Sheel Street sinuated down Frommager into the Forum. He followed it with his eyes, imagining himself on a capacious horse riding there. Down Sheel, across the Forum, into Tan-tivvy and along that, titty-tup, tittytup, all the way to the city edge and away northwest.

Leaving it. Dressed in a simple shirt, mayhap, with trousers that fit. A cape to keep off the storm and a hat to shelter his eyes. “Oh, by all the merchants in Zib, Zog, Chime, and Bloome,” he moaned. “But I am sick of this.” And he was. He would leave it in a minute—if they would only let him!

A distant movement caught his attention.

There. Entering the city along Shebelac, which ran south, far south, becoming merely a track at the base of the mountains if one went far enough. What in the name of five foul fustigars was that? A wagon drawn by birds? And two riders alongside on great southern horses.

Sweating with sudden excitement, Brombarg moved toward his closet. Day before procession he could get away with something fairly simple. He dressed quickly, knowing he had to get to them before anyone else did.

Them, of course, was us, riding down Shebelac in the early morning. Chance and Peter kept their eyes busy looking at the houses and shops while I yawned and struggled to stay awake. The two days without sleep, mostly on the run, was taking its toll.

“Years since I’ve been here,” Queynt said, looking about him with interest. “Three, four hundred, maybe. Cloth-manufacturing town, as I remember. It isn’t much bigger. They used to have a special kind of wineghost—Good merciful spirits of the departed. What’s that?” Queynt drew up the reins, and the tall, dignified birds halted as one, their long necks bent forward to examine the creature that had come into the road at the distant corner and was now plodding toward them.

“Gods,” I murmured sotto voce. “A madman, perhaps?” At that first instant, I really thought it was, and my hands started for my bow.

But Peter shook his head. “A player, maybe. The town shows signs of festival. Costume booths on every corner. Banner wires across all the streets.”

“Trust you to notice such a thing.” I gave him a relieved and adoring look—remembering too late to make it merely friendly—and he flushed with pleasure, pushing back the ruddy wave of hair that seemed to be always draped across his forehead. I went on hurriedly, “I did see the streets were freshly swept. Look at those trews!” We examined the trousers together, equally interested, unequally appalled. I didn’t care that much about dress, quite frankly, and was simply dismayed at the thought of wearing any such thing. As a Shifter, however, Peter was professionally intrigued, busy calculating how the vast protrusions were kept afloat. The man coming toward us seemed to have a huge hemisphere of fabric around each leg, which bulged forward, back, and to either side like halves of a monstrous melon.

From the back of his shirt, five vasty wings exploded, their inclined planes just missing the edge of his huge, circular hat brim. Glitter shot from his hands; more glitter from the throat, where some seal of office—a plaque of jet picked out in brilliants—hung on a lengthy chain. Only the boots seemed rational, and even they were topped with a fringe of chain that swung and tinkled as he walked.

“He comes,” intoned Queynt, “robed in glory.”

Tinsel, I thought. Robed in tinsel. As a student in Vorbold’s House I had learned to distinguish quality, and there was no quality in this apparition. The materials were sleazy. The seams were crooked, gaping, shedding frayed thread from the edges.

“I greet you, strangers,” puffed Brombarg, horribly out of breath. The balloon pants were hell to walk in; he had forgotten that. (A perennial optimist, Brom. He did tend to forget unpleasant things.) “Welcome to Bloome.”

Peter and I bowed politely. Both of us had been school-reared for sufficient time to make courteous behaviour almost second nature. Chance and Queynt were subject to no such disadvantage. In any case, Chance wouldn’t have submitted to mere courtesy.

“What in the name of Seven Hundred Devils are you got up as?” he demanded.

Heaven smiles on me, thought Brombarg. A naif has come to save me. “Clothing, stranger,” he said. “We’re having a minor festival, and we all dress a bit ... fantastical during it.” (I can tell you what he was thinking. Later it became more than obvious.)

“There,” said Peter. “I knew it.”

I had seen lies before, and I knew one had just crossed Brombarg’s mind, though his lips might have told most of the truth. Still, I smiled with a kindly expression. “We’ll need costume, then, if we decide to stay.”

“Not obligatory.” He waved a coruscating hand, throwing sun-sparkles into my eyes. “Certainly more fun, wouldn’t it be? But no need to go to any trouble. I’ve a wardrobe full of festival dress. You’re welcome to it. And to the hospitality of the mansion. Yonder.” He gestured again, upward at the looming bulk of the walls upon Frommager Hill. “A short way up Sheel Street.”

“Then you are?” I pursued the point, catching Queynt’s skeptical look. He was no credulous youth to believe everything he heard. Chance, neither, who was still staring at the apparition before them, breathing heavily through his mouth as though to taste what it might be. “You didn’t tell us your name.”

“Auf!” Dramatic blow to the forehead to illustrate his own stupidity. “Dream Merchant’s man. Brombarg. Everyone calls me Brom.”

“Dream Merchant’s man? I don’t think I know the title.” Still smiling, though inside every fiber quivered to alertness. A solid lead to the Dream Miner, perhaps? I knew Brom wouldn’t take offense at a woman. Queynt was keeping still. He knew what I was trying to find out, though Peter didn’t, shifting on his horse impatiently as he was. Well, poor man, he had been riding all night.

“Ah ... why, there used to be a Merchant’s man in each town hereabouts. Cloth Merchant’s man in Bloome. Pottery Merchant’s man in Zib. Metal workers were over in Thorne, and so on. Merchants’ men did the job of managing the towns—you know, Zib, Zog, Zinter, Thorpe, Fangel, Woeful, Chime, and Bloome.” He chanted this last like an incantation, grinning and sweating the while. “All the towns need someone to see to the garbage, you know, and to the streets and the fire brigade. So, when the Dream Merchant set up in Fangel, he took over all the old Merchants’ men and made ‘em Dream Merchant’s men. Different title but same duty, you know.” The man was a fountain of inconsequential information.

“Dream Merchant?” Queynt was smiling, quiet, nonthreatening, helping me out. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

“Would your invitation include breakfast?” This Peter, breaking our concentration, changing the subject. “I’m starved.”

Sighs all around. I was peeved at the interruption, thinking it too soon to put ourselves in the man’s arena; Queynt likewise; Chance and Peter both hungrier than consonant with good sense and relying, as usual, on Peter’s Shifter Talent to get them out of trouble that a little patience might have avoided. Brombarg grinning, turning to lead us up Sheel Street. Windows beginning to open, now, and him in a hurry to get us high above the town before someone said or did the wrong thing.

Yittleby and Yattleby, the two giant krylobos who drew the wagon, turned to one another, then to Queynt. “Krerk whittle quiss?” I heard the question conveyed in this wise. “This man is dishonest, friend-humans. Do we follow him or kick him to death?”

“Follow,” I said to them in a croaking whisper. They whistled a few choice phrases and nodded plumes at me, argumentative but obedient. Queynt cast me a sidelong look. Perhaps I wasn’t fooling him. Perhaps he knew what my Talent was, though I had not told him.

Peter had already dismounted to walk beside Brombarg. “What is the nature of your festival, Merchant’s man? Is that the correct title?”

Brom nodded, puffing. “We are a festival-ridden city, my friend. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Peter. Just that. We don’t much use other titles.”

Brom smiled more widely. In his experience, those who had titles used them, and those who had none said they didn’t care for them. So, likely these were insignificant creatures of a certain eccentricity. (He had begun to patronize us.) The birds, for example. Now there was a team worth having. (This was evident from his expression.) He revised his earlier vision to include himself on Queynt’s wagon seat, riding titty-tup down Tan-tivvy toward away. (Extrapolation, but not unjustified.) “The lady’s name is Jinian. Beside her is Queynt, and the other one is Chance.”

“And you come from?”

“Far away,” said Queynt firmly. “To the south.”

Brom smiled more widely yet. No titles, no place of residence. Drifters. Tra-la. He did not notice my eyes fixed upon him from behind, like a gimlet into a hole, no longer smiling. “As to our festival, it is the festival of Finaggy-Bum, during which are processions, bands, feasting and gaiety, dancing in the streets, and fireworks at dusk. And,” he said with a sidelong, sly look, “the determining by the Cloth Merchants’ Council of who should be Merchant’s man for the next year.” He must have been disappointed that we showed no interest in this topic. Instead, Peter changed the subject once more.