The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped (42 page)

“I am Mavin Manyshaped,” she sang to herself in the treetop from which she watched him. “You have done a foolish thing, Hunter.” Then she followed him as he put the white bird in a cage, a cage too small, painfully too small, and carried it away in a wagon.

Mavin, seeing him through flitchhawk eyes, circling high above him, saw each plodding step of the team.

He did not go far. Only to an open meadow where the white bird would be very visible for a long way, and where he tethered her tightly to a stake driven deep into the ground and set his nets to drop if that stake should be touched.

Mavin, watching him from mountain zeller eyes, merely smiled.

Dusk came, and after that darkness, and the hunter curled beside his dying fire to rest. What did he think? she wondered. Did he believe Shifters could not stay awake at night? Did he think that because one Shifter flew as a bird in the daylight that her sister would also fly only in the day? Foolish man. Her serpent’s eyes saw him clearly by his warmth, even in the dark.

She slid beside the stake, found the thong that bound the white bird’s leg, whispered, “Handbright? Handbright? It is Mavin, your sister.”

There was no whispered answer, only the glare of mindless bird eyes, gleaming a little in the light of the embers. Well and well. It was a thing known to Shifters. Sometimes one took a form too long, too well, and could not leave it again. Well and well, sister, she thought. So you are sister no longer. Still, because of what you were and your protection of me ...

The serpent’s form bound about the white bird, grew little teeth to chew the thong away, slithered away into the night to lead the white bird stumbling in the dark to the forest’s edge as though it had forgotten how to Shift eyes for night vision, only the maddened gleam showing. “Stay,” Mavin murmured, as she would have to some half wild fustigar. “Stay. I will return.”

Then she returned to the stake, began to take on bulk, eating the grass, the leaves of the trees, whatever offered. At last, when she was ready, she trembled the stake and let the nets fell over her howling.

The hunter tumbled out of sleep, half dream-caught yet, snatched up a torch and thrust it into the embers, then held it high, uncertain whether he still dreamed or was awake, to confront the devil eyes within his gauzy net, to see the claws which shredded that net, the fangs which opened in his direction ...

Mavin thought, later, that perhaps he stopped running when he reached Mip, though he might have gone all the way to Hawsport. It had been a good joke.

Too good. The white bird had been no less terrified and had flown. All the search had to begin again, be done again. Still, when next she heard word of the white bird, that word had been clear. The white bird had flown west, over the sea.

Over the sea. To strange lands and far. To this chasm. Outside the wind had dropped. Through the woven gate she could see the glowing lanterns emerging from the root wall. It would not be long before the whatevers sought to fill their strange, manshaped garments once more. She sat up, seeing Mercald’s eyes in the fishlight.

“You didn’t wake me, Priest?”

“I was wakeful enough for both, Mavin. I knew you would be about as soon as the wind dropped. I will sleep in a while, perhaps, while the Thinker keeps watch. If you need me—though I do not suppose you will—call me.”

“Ah,” she thought. “So you are still unhappy with me, Mercald.”

She sidled out through the gate, surrounded at once by a great cloud of blue fish. Across the clearing, one of the flattree garments moved purposefully toward her.

CHAPTER NINE

“You are not Mirtylon,” she cried.

The balloon dress, twitchy upon its framework, stopped where it was, trembling in indecision.

“You are not Mirtylon,” Mavin cried again, “but that doesn’t matter. You do not have to be Mirtylon to talk to us.”

“Am Mirtylon,” it puffed Ahhm Muhhrtuhhlohhn.

“No.” She moved across the clearing, thrusting her way through a cloud of importunate fishes to stand beside it, almost within touch. “No. You ate Mirtylon. Now that you have eaten Mirtylon, you think Mirtylon. You have his name and can use it if you like. But you are not Mirtylon. What did you name yourself before Mirtylon?”

There was only an edgy silence during which the balloon quaked, shifted, and did not answer. At last an answer came, from another of the forms.

“No name ... had no name ...”

“Ah. Well. If you did not call yourself by human names, what other name would you have?” The Thinker had suggested this line of questioning in an effort to determine whether the things thought at all, whether they could deal with conditional concepts. Everything the creatures had said until now might have been mere stringing together of phrases the humans might have said—or so the Thinker thought. She waited. Silence stretched thin. She could feel the Thinker’s eyes, behind her in the cave, watching every tremor.

“We ... bug ... sticky.”

Mavin’s mouth fell open. What in the name of the Boundless or any other deity was she to make from that? She heard the Thinker hissing from the cave. “See if you can get it to come out of cover! Let us get a look at it.”

“Come out of that shape,” she commanded.

“No.” The word was strong, unequivocal, from several of them at once. “No. Ugly.”

She scratched her head. “Ugly” was a human word and therefore represented a human opinion. Which meant it was possibly what the dwellers of Watertight had thought of these creatures. Which had a great many implications. “Ugly is all right,” she said at last. “Thinker is ugly.” She waved at the cave behind her. “Many things are ugly.”

“Ugly ... things ... are ... bad.” Ahhhr bahhhd.

“Not ... always.” She shook her head, understanding what horror these words conveyed. She could visualize what had happened on Watertight bridge. It would have been night, people would have been asleep, then would have come the invasion of these whatevers, the terror of being eaten alive, consumed, only to find after one had been eaten that thought and personality did not end but went on, and on, and on. Still, there must have been some self-awareness in the creatures before. Otherwise they could not have named themselves at all.

“All things which eat us are ugly-bad. Being eaten is ugly-bad. If you do not eat me, I do not think you are ugly-bad.” There, let them chew on that, she thought, turning to rejoin the Thinker. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “I postulate mentation prior to their having eaten people. However, seemingly they had no visual or symbolic communication. They obviously had some form of language, however, and it may have been in smell. They had a concept of number—the thing said ‘we’. They had a concept of otherness—it said bug. They had a concept of relationship—sticky. It’s possible we’ll find they’re a kind of mobile flypaper.

“However, if the people of Watertight used the phrase ‘sticky-bug’ then these creatures may just be using it because they swallowed it. In that case, all we’re left with is the fact one of them used a plural.”

“All of which means?” sighed Mavin, understanding about one word in five.

“That I can’t say at this point how intelligent they are, leaving aside for the moment that we don’t know what intelligence is. I have always eschewed the biological sciences for exactly that reason; t hey’re unacceptably imprecise.” He peered over her shoulder, eyes suddenly widening.

Mavin turned. Something was flowing out at the bottom of the balloon dress, something thick and oleaginous, shiny on the top, puckered here and there as though the substance of it flowed around rigid inclusions. When it stopped flowing, it was an armspan across, ankle high, and it quivered. Out of the centre of it, slowly edging upward as though by terrible effort, came the shape of an ear, a bellows. The ear quivered. The bellows chuffed. “Not ... eating ... you ...” it puffed. “Not ... ugly ...”

While Mavin considered that, trying to think of something constructive to say next, a cloud of small flutterers swept through the clearing. As though by reflex action, the thing that had spoken lifted a flap of itself into their path. Wings drummed and struggled. There was a momentary agitation of small bodies upon the surface of the thing, then the smooth shininess of it closed over the disturbance.

“What did I say?” asked the Thinker, triumphantly. “Mobile flypaper!”

“Not ugly,” said Mavin, firmly, trying not to laugh. “Very neat, very good-looking. Very shiny. You are ... Number One Sticky.”

Across the clearing another puddle of glue thrust up its own ear and bellows. “I ... Number ... Two ... Sticky.”

“Well, that answers a lot of questions,” said the Thinker. “They certainly have self-awareness.”

“And they can count,” commented Mercald. “So, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they ...”

“I don’t want to hear it,” said Mavin. “There isn’t time. Whether they are religious or not, Mercald, I don’t want to consider the matter now.”

“Well. So long as you don’t expect them to do anything that would offend against ...”

“I don’t want to hear that, either, Mercald. My understanding of what would offend against the Boundless is at least as good as yours. As you would remember if you reflect upon recent history!” Mercald flushed and fell silent, obviously distressed. Mavin turned to see the ears quivering at full extension, and cursed herself for having yelled. Undoubtly she had confused them. “Pay no attention to the arguments we humans have from time to time. It is our way. Often, it means nothing.”

“We ... remember,” blob said. “Number ... Two ... Sticky ...?” It repeated with an unmistakably questioning rise in tone.

“Number Two Sticky,” agreed Mavin. “But you will have to mark yourself somehow, so that we will know which one you are. We cannot smell the difference as you probably do. We must see it.”

Ears and bellows disappeared into the flat surface. The blobs quivered, flowed toward one another, seemed to confer through a process of multiply extrusions and withdrawals. Finally the surfaces of both began to form a dull fibrous pattern against the overall shine. The figures were clear, a large figure “1,” an even larger figure “2.”

“They’ve moved some of their bottom membrane onto their tops,” said the Thinker. “That stands to reason. They couldn’t move around at all if they were sticky on the bottom.”

The conference among the Stickies went on, and more numbers began to appear, 3, then 4 and 5 in quick succession. When all those in the clearing had identified themselves, there were fifteen.

“Handsome,” announced Mavin in an approving tone. “Very handsome. Very useful.”

“And very fortunate that the poor people of Watertight were literate,” sighed Mercald. “I wonder if any of these creatures ate the babies on Lostbridge. Poor things. They wouldn’t have enough language yet to talk with us.”

“There ... are ... more ...” said One, breathlessly. “In ... the ... place we ... stay.”

“How many?” asked the Thinker. “How many of you?”

The glue blob quivered, shivered, erupted in many small bubbles which puckered and burst, then became calm, slick, only the fibrous identifying number contrasting upon its surface. The bellows gasped, puffed hugely: “Three thousand ... nine hundred ... sixty-two now. One was ... crushed in the last ... wind.”

“And that,” said the triumphant Thinker, “proves they can reason with quite large numbers. Well. Most interesting.”

“Do all talk human talk? All understand?” Mavin’s keen sense of survival quivered to attention. How many people had there been on the lost bridge, after all? Surely not almost four thousand of them.

The ear drooped, the bellows pumped. “Only ... four hundred ... seven. All. We ... want ... ed ... did want ... did want ... not now ... understand ... not now.”

“What did you want?” asked Mavin, already sure of the answer.

“Did want ... people ... to eat. For ... the ... others.”

“Noble,” sighed Mercald. “Risking their lives to help their brethren. Giving it up when they learn it is a greater wrong ...”

“Mercald, I am not at all sure they have learned any such thing,” Mavin hissed at him, cupping her hands around her lips and standing close so that the stickies should not hear her. “They have said they do not wish to be ugly. Very well. But they desire to acquire more of—well, whatever it is they acquired when they ate the people of Watertight. They’re outnumbered nine to one by those who speak only in smells. Now, no matter how ugly I might wish to avoid being, that kind of desire would speak strongly to me. We will do them a courtesy by not putting temptation in their way.”

“Of course not,” he said with offended dignity. “I wouldn’t.”

“Then don’t adopt them, Mercald. Don’t make them into some kind of Bottom-dwelling holiness. I’ve had sortie experience with promises of expiation and reformation. I’ve seen what happens when people act on such promises prematurely. We must not risk our lives on some religious notion you may have.” She realized she was glaring, panting, that her face was flushed. “Oh, foosh, Mercald. I feel like we’ve been arguing about this for days. Can’t you simply leave the religious aspects of it alone until you can get back to Topbridge and have a convocation or something to decide what it all means.” She turned away, sure he had not heard a word she had said.

She turned to the stickies. “We have come here to find the big beasts that are eating the roots.” Mavin had started to say “Great, gray oozers,” and had then remembered what Mirtylon, nee Sticky One, had called them. “Do you know about those big beasts?”

“Beasts ... eat ... stickies ... too,” puffed Sticky Seven, quivering in indignation.

“We put... rootsap ... on them. ...” puffed another. Mavin could not see its number, hidden as it was behind two or three others. “Make little … ones sick ... die. ...”

“There, you see!” demanded Mercald. “Our interests are similar. We can help them!”

“We’re going to have to help one another,” muttered Mavin. “Rootsap won’t kill the big ones? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Too big ...” came the disconsolate reply.

“Can the net hold the beasts? Do the big beasts crawl around on top of the net?”