The End of the Game (44 page)

I did not think of Sylbie’s baby, and Peter’s. Sylbie and the baby should have been far on the southern road by then; why think of them in connection with Valearn?

The rest of the night was spent in scrambling down long dark roads the way I had come twice in recent days. A drift of krylobos feathers beneath a tree, a scatter of straw, confirmed the location. Here the sendings had come.

The allies were not so far ahead I couldn’t hear them talking. “Clever,” drawled Huldra, seeing these telltale signs by torchlight. “Clever little bitch. She sent my creatures back to me full of straw and quills, them that cost good blood to send, back with nothing but trash in them. Save one which came back not at all.”

“You think it’s that Jinian?” Bloster, sounding as bedraggled as he looked. “The one the Backless Throne wanted killed, the one who destroyed Daggerhawk Demesne?”

“You don’t know that she destroyed Daggerhawk,” said Dedrina Dreadeye. “The Seers have not verified it.”

“I know it,” he said obstinately. “Even if the Seers said she had not, I would know it.”

“What ith thith girl? Thome great Afrit full of mighty powerth? Thome twinned Talent or other?” The Merchant did not sound really interested.

“She’s the cause of my losing my captive,” snarled the Duke, trying to ease himself in the saddle. “You may lay money on that.” He was too fat to ride in comfort; he and the pony suffered equally upon the road.

“And why doeth the Backleth Throne take an interetht in her?” the Merchant asked.

“I was never told,” said Porvius, aggrieved. “Only that the Throne wanted her dead. As do I. I had her in my hands, like an egg between my fists. I was only concerned with her brother then; him I hated. But if I’d killed her when I had the chance, we’d not be homeless, traveling on the charity of our friends.”

“Scarcely charity,” hissed Dedrina. “We pay good coin for our keep, brother. Cease your whining. If you have energy to spare, remember you are a Tragamor and spend it smoothing this road. It is unpleasant to travel full of bumps as it is.”

“Talents don’t work well this far north,” he said, in the petulant tone of a child. “I have not the strength even to Move gravel.” Oh, how far Porvius had fallen, into this meekness, this whining infancy.

“Keep silent, then, lest you waste what little power you have!” They rode on, becoming less loquacious as the hours passed. Near dawn they paused; and I was ready enough that they do so. I was wearier than the distance would explain. Following, keeping quiet, finding the trail in the dark, worrying that I might be about to step into shadows, all had been an exhausting effort. The fact that I did not step into shadows, that none of us did, should have told me something. I was preoccupied with other thoughts, however, and did not learn from what was not there.

We had come to a small village. The Merchant called it Bleem. While the guards were left to camp in the forest as best they might, preparations had been made for the others to spend the night under roof. Someone’s house had been vacated and made ready for the group with a supper laid upon the table and the beds prepared with fresh straw. So much I learned from the lean-to at the back, where an old wagon lay half against the warm chimney, making a nest for me to supper in. I could hear them through the wall.

Moreover, I could see out the open end of the shed well enough to observe the comings and goings of the people there. There was no rejoicing among them, certainly. I had seldom seen such a whipped-fustigar crew, their jaws dragging halfway to their bellies and more of the women crying into their neckerchiefs than not. I still had the hiding spell on me, so I left the cozy nest and went among them.

Curiosity, I suppose. There was something about them that teased at me.

There were two men standing at the well, one a fairly well-set-up middle-aged fellow, the other slightly older. He was lecturing the younger man, beating his fist upon the well coping, tears running down his face like a river.

“I say we can’t go on, Dolcher. We can’t. You know that. First it was just a few zeller off to Morp. Then it was a few zeller plus a few old people. Now it’s all the oldsters and most of the zeller and half our children. By all the old gods, they’ll have your son next. This time it’s my Zenina they’ve chosen to take, and your boy was to wed her this season. Next time him. The time after that, what? There’s none of us left...”

“Servants,” whispered the other man. “They want our young ones for servants, that’s all. When they’ve served a few years, they’ll be home again.” His gray face belied this.

“Man, are you blind? Why take our oldsters if they want servants? They took Granny Zeeble, and she so trembly the children had been calling her Feeble Zeeble for ten years. They took your own father, who hadn’t walked a step without two canes for seven seasons. Hush. Here’s the wife.”

A woman approached them, one of the weeping ones. “You can’t let her go, Vorge. You can’t let Zenina go. The time’s come to say no. We’ve given enough.”

“Well, well,” the younger man said, patting her clumsily on the shoulder. “That’s what we’ve said to them at Morp, Lina. We sent that message only yesterday.”

“But he’s here. The Dream Merchant. They say he’s their son. Talk to him. Beg him. Make him understand.”

“Now, Lina. We’ve sent the message already. I wouldn’t want to get them upset.”

“If you won’t, I will.”

The man called Vorge shook his head, wrung his hands. “It would be better if you did, Dolcher. You’re village chief. It would be more natural.” The old man shook his head. “We’ve got to do something.”

Two of them went away. Dolcher stood at the well, one hand dragging into a bucket of water, lifting it to drip the water into the well, listening to the slow plop, plop. I examined his face; hopeless. Something was tugging at my memory about Morp. I’d heard the name somewhere.

I wandered through the village. There were empty houses, small places falling to ruin, empty stables. Of all the people left in the place, Vorge was about the oldest. So, the oldsters had been sent—where? And if not as servants, as what? Around the village stretched the small fields; between the houses were the gardens.

Ill tended. As though the people could not spare attention for them. It had the look of a settlement upon its last breath.

Dolcher still stood at the well. At last he shook his head and went to the house occupied by the Merchant and his group. I slipped back into the lean-to, my ear against the wall.

“Well, fellow, what do you want?”

“May I speak to you, Your Reverence?”

“Thpeak. You are thpeaking. Tho thpeak.”

“Your Reverence, they’ve come from Morp, from the Backless Throne again. They want our young people, sir.”

“Tho?”

“We can’t send our young people, sir. They’re needed for the crops. For raising the zeller. The Throne wants the zeller, too.”

“Let me underthtand thith. You are refuthing to do the Throne’th will?” Silence. I could visualize what was going on. Groveling. Fumbling for words.

“No, sir. Not the Throne, sir. Just Morp. Morp isn’t the Throne, and they don’t understand ...”

“I hope you have not thaid thith to anyone!”

“We did send a message, sir.”

“Fool. Then why are you thtanding here? Get under your roof. Pray you do not all die.” The door slammed. I slipped out to watch Dolcher staggering away from that door, reeling from sorrow and apprehension. Over his head I could see the sky, boiling. It had an unhealthy look. Suddenly I remembered what I had heard about Morp. A charnel town. A town of butchers. Through the wall came exclamations from the group there.

“The idiot hath refuthed the Throne. Yethterday he did it. Morp will have complained to the Throne. Thtorm will come. We will be fortunate to ethcape with our liveth.”

Back outside I went. Yes, storm boiled over the western horizon. Black cloud, drooping at the bottom like great pustulent udders. High-piled, running toward us with the inexorable flow of lava. I got myself back into the lean-to and under the wagon just as the first drops of rain hit.

It was a punishing storm. First rain and wind, tearing at the structures of the place, removing roofs and shutters, sending them flying like pennants into the east. Then hail, piercing what the rain had left.

Then greater wind. And with it all, a screaming sound of fury. Time and another time, dark as night. Howling rage. The roof of the lean-to went, but I remained half-dry beneath the wagon. I had anchored it as best I could with stakes driven in during the first roaring moments.

I lay flat, empty, the storm driving out all thought.

There was no village. There was no life. Only this horror of falling water, this terror of screaming wind.

One might as well die. I knew they were dead, I was dead. No point in being alive in this.

And then, after a forever time had passed, it was over. They had given the best house in the place to the Merchant, and now it stood alone. From inside it I could hear snoring. The Merchant and his guests were asleep. Among the sodden ruins the people of Bleem struggled into the light. There were no fields left, no gardens left. I went out into the woods, took away the hiding spell, and came into the village from the other side. Dolcher was there, standing dazed in the midst of the ruin, staring with empty eyes at the punishing sky.

“Dolcher,” I said. He had been deafened. It was hard to make him aware of me. “Dolcher. Listen to me. Take all your people, now. Right now. What little they can carry, nothing else. No wagons. Nothing else. Go. Go that way, back toward Fangel, around the city, not through it, and then south. You hear me?”

“Who are you?” He looked at me, not really seeing me. “Who are you?”

“It does not matter who I am. I am here with a message for you, to help you. Storm Grower will kill you all. You cannot pacify Storm Grower. Only when you are all dead will she rest. So, you must leave here. Go quickly. Go far. Find caves to protect you from hail. Forests to protect you from sight. Go. And go before those in the house waken.” I used every persuasive trick of voice I could manage, setting several small compliance spells on him meantime.

Not enough to draw interest, just little ones. When I went back toward the lean-to, he was in motion, staggering, bleeding, crying, but in motion.

It did not take them long. The longest time was spent simply in getting their attention. Once they understood, they moved quickly, as quickly as people can who are half-drowned and totally beaten. There were some dead. They laid them out in one of the wrecked houses and set fire to it. It bled smoke into the sky, smoldering. Then they went as I had suggested. Back toward Fangel, a sad, straggling procession. The last of them wended over the hill out of sight sometime before the Merchant woke.

He came to the door, opened it, stared out into the shambles. I had restored the hiding spell and was sitting on the well coping. He did not see me.

“Hey,” he shouted. “We will have our breakfatht now!” Needless to say, there was no response. He cursed for a time, which woke the others, and they came out of the place together.

“Storm Grower?” asked Betand. “Did she not know we were here?”

“I doubt they thought of it,” sulked the Merchant. “We will find no thuthtenance here. Let uth depart.”

“What was all this about?”

“The people objected to the levy from Morp. It ith Morp which provideth provender for Thtorm Grower and Dream Miner.” Provender was one way of putting it.

Huldra came into the light, blinking, snarling.

“How much farther? You have been to That Place before, Betand. How much farther is it?”

“I haven’t been there,” he said in astonishment. “What made you think I had? No. I have been near there once or twice. The Merchant knows. He has been there.”

“I don’t know,” the Merchant said. “I have been there many timeth, but each time there hath been a guide.”

“Then how do we know where we are going?”

“There will be a guide thith time ath well.” My ears pricked at this. What kind of creature could serve as guide to the Dream Miner? Premonition stirred, and the Dagger of Daggerhawk burned with sullen fire, as though it had ears of its own. I tried to ease it on my thigh and bit back a curse. I was wearing loose trousers with tight cuffs, almost a pantaloon, a very sensible garment for this kind of scrambling travel, but there was no slit in the pocket through which the Dagger could be reached. There was no time to remedy the situation. They were going off into the forest to find their guards.

The Tragamors had Moved themselves a cave large enough to protect them from the storm. They were unharmed, perhaps even slightly amused to have had a better night than those they guarded. This was my own conjecture, from the few words I overheard as we went downward in the early light, the horses’ hooves making soft plopping noises in the dust of the narrow trail, the troop almost silent except for occasional exclamations when low-hanging branches buffeted them. The voice that greeted them startled them all, and me as well, though I realized I’d been half expecting it. My old friend the Oracle. I sneaked forward through the underbrush to get a clearer view of it. Somehow I had known it would be the Oracle.

It stood half-concealed behind a leafy branch, only its painted face and one hand clearly visible. “Oh, my, isn’t this a fine array of Talent and perspicacity to bring before the Backless Throne. How marvelous Dream Miner will find you all, how intrigued the Storm Grower will be. I have waited for you for simply days.”

“Nonsense,” grated Huldra. “We are here on the day appointed.”

“One anticipates so! One cannot wait!” In this sober light of early day, I was struck by the artificiality of the creature, by a certain surreal quality. I had been too ill in Chimmerdong to notice much, but I wondered at myself for not having seen this. It still wore the hooded robe of straps, bright-colored ribbons that moved and swayed, hiding its form. It turned its face away as it spoke, and I strained eyes to see it. Had its mouth moved when it spoke?

The question went unanswered as the Oracle swept away in a flurry of ribbons. It went through the trees, appearing now and then upon the trail, the ponies following from point to point. Within a few turns it led them aside from the main trail into a twisting path. Patches of shatter-grass and startle-flower grew across it, growing evidence it was seldom used.