The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped (20 page)

“Or something, yes.”

“Which meant I had to plan it again. And then Proom’s been busy with his kindred. Evidently this ritual hasn’t been performed for a thousand years, and there’s only a song to guide them in the proper procedures, so it’s been sing and run, run and sing every moment since dark. Now we’ve just received word that Blourbast and his retinue—we were right, it is the army—are on the road coming up from Hell’s Maw. So. Now here you are.”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, starting to tell him about the Eesty, wondering why the Agirul and Proom had not already done so, only to find that she could say nothing about it at all. The words stuck. She thought them clearly, but her throat and tongue simply didn’t move. She did not choke or gasp or feel that she was being throttled. There was not any sense of pain, but the words would not come.

Then for the first time she wondered about the Eesty and looked around for it. Nothing. Dark and stars and the flicker of torches: shouting, fragments of song from the area around the arches, nothing more. And yet the darkness was not empty. She could feel it boiling around her, something living, running its quick tentacles through her hair, its sharp teeth along her spine. She shivered with a sharp, anticipatory hunger, a hunger for action, for resolution, a desire to make something episodic out of the tumbled events of her recent past.

“You’re forgiven,” he said distractedly. “Some day you must tell me all about it. But right now we’ve got to figure out how to accomplish everything that needs doing in this one final do.”

She crouched beside his diagram. “Show me.”

“King Frogmott’s army is here,” he said, retracing a wide circle just inside the line that was the arc of road outside Pfarb Durim. “From the cliffs edge south of the city, all along the inner edge of the road, curving around and then over to the cliff at the north side of the city. On high ground, all the way, able to see everything.”

“Except a Wizard who may want to get out,” she remarked in a quiet voice, not expecting the hand he raised to stroke her face.

“Except that,” he agreed in a satisfied voice. “There’s another line back a few leagues, one which encloses Pfarb Durim and Poffle, but those besiegers cannot see what is going on. Now, the road which comes up from Poffle to the top of the cliff is outside Frogmott’s lines, so Blourbast can bring his ghoulish multitude up and along toward the Monuments. The Agirul and I believe he will marshall his own army in a long array between him and King Frogmott’s men. He will want to be protected against the besiegers, for they have threatened anyone who comes out carrying the plague. Then, having protected himself against King Frogmott, he will bring a considerable group with him to the Monuments—to protect himself against whoever is here. The Herald challenged him in my name. Huld may have mentioned me to him. I don’t know who else he expects to find here, but he certainly won’t come alone.”

“I was supposed to shift ... where he’d be.”

“You were supposed to shift. Right. You and a dozen more just like you. Well, two of you just aren’t enough, that’s all. I had hoped we could make a very natural-looking setting, one he wouldn’t hesitate to sit himself down in comfortably, but with only two of you, what could we manage? A couple of rocks, trees?”

“I’ve never tried a tree,” she said in a small voice. “Or a rock either. I haven’t had much time for practice.”

“Rocks aren’t easy,” said a voice from behind them. “I hate to do them myself. Trees are easier, but they do take practice. I could probably show Mavin how in an hour or so. ...”

“Plandybast.” She turned to him gladly. “I didn’t think you’d come. I really didn’t. I thought Itter would talk you out of it.”

“Itter is always perfectly logical,” said Plandybast, rather sadly. “But she’s frequently wrong, and after a while I just get very tired of listening to her. The others haven’t been disillusioned, not yet, but the time will come. Until then I’ll just have to do what I think is right and let her fuss if she wishes. And she will.”

“What are the shadowpeople doing?” she asked. “Is it anything we could help with?”

“I think not,” said Himaggery. “They located an ancient cairn near the road and moved it to disclose a huge old cauldron underneath. They rolled that over to the middle of the road under the arches, dragged in a huge pile of wood for a fire, and now they’re out on the hills gathering herbs and blossoms and who knows what. Meantime they’ve assembled an orchestra all over the hills—I have never seen so many drums in my life—and what seems to be the greater part of several other tribes. For a creature that I have always considered to be mythical, it seems to be extremely numerous.”

“I doubt we’d ever have seen them in the ordinary way of life,” Mavin said. “If it hadn’t been for Blourbast and the plague.”

“And Mertyn,” he said, touching her face again. “And Mavin.”

She flushed and turned away toward the dark to hide it. She wanted, didn’t want him to touch her again; wanted, didn’t want him to look at her in that particularly half-hungry fashion; wanted, didn’t want the time to wear on and things to happen which would take him from her side and throw them both into violent, unthinking action. “Why should I feel safer fighting Ghouls,” she asked herself, rhetorically, not seeking an answer, not wanting an answer.

“You’ll have to give me something to do,” she said. “I can’t have run all this way just to sit and do nothing.”

He sighed, looked for a moment older than his years as the firelight flickered across his face. She could imagine him as he would be at age forty, tall, strong, but with the lines deep between his eyes and at the sides of his mouth, lines of both laughter and concentration. And some of anger, she told herself. Some of anger, too. He said, “Whenever Blourbast and his crew get themselves settled, try to get close to him, as close as you can. Then when the cure is done or made or created, if you can do it without getting hurt—remember, there are no Healers closer than Betand—if you can do it without getting hurt, try to get the Bone. Then get away from him.”

“You don’t want us to try to dispatch him?” asked Plandybast.

“If there were a dozen of you, yes. With two of you, no. Just get the Bone and get out. The dispatching of Blourbast will have to wait for another time.”

They sat, the three of them, staring down at the lines in the dirt, the curving arc of the road, the waving line of the cliffs edge, the x’s marking the army of the King. The Strange Monuments loomed beside them, and on the road the shadowpeople scampered and sang to one another, short bursts of music which sounded harsh and dissonant.

“One of Proom’s people says the Ghoul is almost at the cliffs top,” said the Agirul from behind them. Mavin had not known it was there, and she tried to see it, but saw only the massed bulk of foliage against the lighter sky.

“Who does he have with him?” asked the Fon.

“In addition to the army, there is his sister and her twins, Huld and Huldra. Then there are a few guards, a Sorcerer, two Armigers, two Tragamors.”

“And here, with us?”

“Me,” said Himaggery. “And you two shifters. Proom and his people. The Agirul. And my friend the Herald. He is waiting in the trees to make whatever announcements may seem most useful.

“Windlow?” she asked. “Mertyn?”

“I haven’t been back in the city,” he said softly. “I don t know, Mavin. Believe me, Windlow will have done everything possible f or him.”

“I know,” she admitted. “Except that it is hard to let someone else do it while I am out here, not knowing.”

“We’d better get out of the light,” he said. “I’ll go down near the road. We found some logs to use as seats for Blourbast, arranged where we want him, in the middle of the road. We’ll try to get him there. Once he is there, do what you can ...”

He left the two shifters, taking the torch with him. They sat for a moment silent, then Mavin said, “A log should be easier than a tree.”

“It is,” Plandybast admitted. “Much.”

“We couldn’t be much closer than to have him sitting on us.”

“If the small ones do not make the cure ...” Plandybast said, “and he is sitting on us ...”

“They’ll make it. Plandybast, I’ve seen them do wonderful things. Don’t doubt it for a moment.” And she drew him up to follow her down into the darkness of the road where the shadowpeople had lighted the fire beneath their cauldron and a pungent smoke poured into the night sky, making her dizzy yet at the same time less troubled. It was not difficult to become a log. She slutted once or twice, then simply lay there and let the smoke wreath her around, driven as it was by a downdraft of the fitful wind.

She heard Huld’s voice first, a petulant whine, a sneering tone, “They have made a place for you, dear thalan. The seats are not what you are accustomed to, I fear. There is no velvet cushion.”

“Hush, dear boy. I have no need for velvet cushions. Does one need a velvet cushion to witness a wonder? Hmmm? And are we not to witness a wonder tonight? The making of a plague cure? Who has heard of such a thing? The Healers will be frantic with embarrassment and envy. Not a bad thing, either. I am not fond of Healers.”

Another voice, so like Huld’s that it might have been mistaken for his, yet higher, lighter. “Dear brother, dear thalan, indeed we would all dispense with cushions to see this thing. And to take—what may I say?—advantage of it.”

“Be silent, girl,” said Pantiquod, following them down onto the road where they clustered around the logs with their guardsmen, all staring suspiciously into the darkness. “Say nothing you would not like to have overheard. The dark is all around us, and it trembles w ith ears.”

“Of course, mother,” said the voice sweetly. “One would not wish to be overheard saying that a cure of the plague is of great i nterest to us.”

“Your mother said hush,” grated the Ghoul. “Now I say to you hush, Huldra. You may think that child in you protects you from my displeasure, but I have no care for that. If you trouble me, girl, both you and the child may go into hell for all me.”

“Not so quick, thalan,” purred Huld. “I am thalan to the child in her womb, you know. Mine own. And mine own child, too—as is the teaching of the High King, away there in the south—a child linked to me doubly if not to you at all. So, Blourbast, go quietly with my gentle sister or I will make your sickness seem a day’s walk in the sun.”

“Let us all be still,” said Pantiquod. “We are here for a reason. Let the reason be manifest. I see nothing except fitful torches and scampering shadows. Is this a mockery?”

“No mockery, madam,” came Himaggery’s voice from the dark. “The blue star moves towards the horns of Zanbee. The little people of the forests have lit their fires beneath the great cauldron. They will begin to sing soon. There will be drums, voices, manifestations. At some point in the ritual, I will call to you to strike the ... amulet you carry. Strike it then, and the cure will be made.

“I will return in time. Until then, seat yourselves and do not disrupt what must occur.” They heard him moving away into the shadows.

“Where will this cure be made?” asked Huldra, seating herself on Mavin’s back with a moue of discontent. “What form will it take?”

“They have spoken of a cauldron,” said the Harpy Pantiquod. “Undoubtedly the cure will be therein. When it is made, we must move quickly to take it. If the cauldron is too heavy to be carried, then we will take what we can in our flasks and dump the rest upon the ground.”

“How dreadful for Pfarb Durim,” said Huld. “They will not receive their portion.”

“I have promised you Pfarb Durim,” said the Ghoul. “When it is empty.”

“I am glad you remember that promise,” said Huld, fingering the dagger at his side. “It is a promise I hope much upon. There are some in that city who may not die of plague, and I wish to be first among them like a fustigar among the bunwits. They have not pleased me.”

“Did the old Seer speak nastily to my dear brother?” the woman beside him drawled. “Did the little Wizard make him unhappy?”

“Be still, girl. There are things I could do to you which would not affect the child, so do not count too much upon my forbearance. Hush. What is that?”

The sound was of many drums throughout the hills near the road, drum heads roaring to the tumbling thump of a thousand little hands, like soft thunder far among mountains. Flutes came then, softly, a dawn birdsong of flutes, then gentle bells, music to wake one who had slept a long sleep.

The fire beneath the cauldron blazed up, and they could see the tiny shadows which crossed before it, black against the amber light, some dragging more wood to the fire, others tossing their burdens into the cauldron. Steam rose from the cauldron to join the smoke of the fire, and this moist, woodsy mist waved back and forth across the road, wreathing the bases of the Monuments, seeming to soak into the crystalline material of which they were made, making them appear soft and porous. One could almost see the mists sucked up into them, the softness moving upward on each arch, out of the firelight into the high darkness.

The smell of the mist reached them at the same time the voices began to sing, taking up the bell song and repeating it, close, far, close again, first the highest voices and then the deeper, again and again. A lone trumpet began to ride high upon the song, higher yet, impossibly treble above the singing, while some bass horn or some great stone windpipe blew notes almost below their hearing so that the ground trembled with it.

The earth trembled, trembled, then moaned.

Beside them the base of the Strange Monument shivered in the earth. The pedestal beneath it shifted, groaned, and then was still. Mavin created eyes in the top of her log shape and looked up. The arch was glowing green: diagonally across the width of it a dark line appeared, deeper with each moment. Then the sound of breaking glass cracked through the music and the top of the arch split in two lengthwise, each part coiling upward like a serpent to stand high above its base, each arch becoming two tapered pillars which waved in the music like reeds in wind.

The watchers shivered. The Monuments danced, reaching toward one another across the road, beside the road, bowing and touching their tips, two great rows of tapered towers, dancing green in the night as the drums went on and on and the mists from the cauldron rose more thickly upon the shifting wind.