The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped (61 page)

Well, thought Mavin, squirming back from the tent into the gloom of the rocks. Isn’t he a carrier of long grudges. Twenty years of vengeful thought over a few boyish disagreements. “And a lost city,” reminded an internal voice. “At least part of one.”

She looked over the area. Dark had come with a sliver of moon, enough light to find a Face, perhaps. She thought she could remember where Himaggery’s had been, on the far shore of the lake, about halfway between the water and the trees, roughly in line with a great boulder. Where might her own Face be? Somewhere in that forest, hard to see in the dark.

A soft touch on her shoulder turned her. Proom, reaching out to touch her face, then gesturing away to the poles. Touching her face once more, gesturing away, that questioning gesture. She nodded in great chin wagging agreement and reached up behind her ears as though she untied something there. She moved her hands forward as though she stripped a mask away, then pointed at the mimed mask and said, “Mavin’s.” She indicated the poles, then gestured to Proom and his fellows as she raised her eyebrows. Could they find her Face? Could they get her Face? There was colloquy among them while she thought further.

Proom had seen Himaggery once, on the side of a hill above Hell’s Maw. She reached out to him, went through the dumb show once more, this time naming the mask, “Himaggery’s.” He cocked his head, thinking. She did it again. “Himaggery’s.”

Aha. His face lighted up, and he turned to his troop with a lilting quaver of words. “Maggeries, gerries, ees, ees.” Proom was becoming Himaggery, miming him, walking with a graceful stride, chin tilted a little in diffidence, face drawn down in a serious expression. For someone only knee high, he looked remarkably like her memory of the tall Wizard. Mavin tittered, smothering the sound, but it had been enough to set them off. In the instant Proom had a parade of Himaggeries, winding their way among the stones. Mavin lay back against a narrow mossy strip between the rocks, weary beyond belief. So. Perhaps they could find her Face, hers and Himaggery’s. She would have to look for Chamferton’s Face herself. There was no way to describe him to Proom.

The moon sank toward the west. Night birds called from the cliff tops and were echoed from the river bottom. One of the Harpies screamed in the forest, a quavering screech that brought Mavin upright in terror, making her head ache. She pressed her head between her hands, but the pain only worsened, two sharp, horrible stabbings around her ears, as though two knives were inserted there. Just when she thought she could bear it no longer, that she must scream, the pain weakened, became merely sore, throbbing rather than agonizing. Trembling, she dipped a handkershief in the trickling fell and bathed her face and eyes. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. She was reluctant to move her head. Pressing the cold, wet cloth around her ears helped a little. She brought it away red with blood.

She was still staring stupidly at the stains when Proom wriggled back through the rocks, holding a thing at arm’s distance from him, his lips drawn back in an expression of distaste and fear. He let it fell at her knees, and she recoiled as her own face looked blindly up at her, ragged holes chewed at ear level. Proom had gnawed the strap away which held it to the post. His lips were red, and he bathed them in the stream with much spitting and wiping. When Mavin showed him the wounds at her ears, he recoiled in mixed dismay and horror.

The mask was paper light, like the shed skin of a serpent, fluttering in the light evening air with a kind of quasi life. She held it under the fells, feeling it squirm weakly beneath her hands, suddenly slick as frogskin and as cold. It became a slimy jelly in her hands, then began to dwindle in the cold water, becoming totally transparent before it dissolved and washed away. As it did so, the pain in her head almost disappeared though a quick touch verified that the wounds remained.

Another of the shadowpeople squirmed through the stones bearing a mask. Yes. Himaggery’s. Ragged about the upper fece as her own had been.

“Gamelords,” she cursed to herself. “Did it hurt him as it hurt me?” Knowing even as she said it that it would, that it already had. “He will not understand,” she whispered. “Oh, Chamferton, pray you have tight hold upon him!”

Once more she held a mask in the flowing water, feeling the foul sliminess of it soften into jelly before it vanished. The shadowpeople observed this closely as they talked it over among themselves, and Mavin knew that they were resolving to steal others of the Faces now that they knew what to do with them. Not now, though. Now was time for sleep. She had not the energy to do more tonight.

They climbed the stones beind the fells and found a softer bed among the trees. There was no fire tonight, but she lay pillowed and warmed among a score of small bodies, sleeping more soundly than she had upon the Ancient Road.

She was wakened by a startled vacancy around her, a keening cry of panic which dwindled at once into shushed quiet. There was hot breath on her face. The pombi fece which stared down into her own had a broken strap in its mouth and an expression of sad determination in its eyes. She struggled out of dream, trying to remember the words of exhortation.

“Come out, Arkhur,” she said at last, still struggling to get her eyes fully open. The pombi shape shifted, lifted to its hind feet, solidified into the figure of Chamfertoa, the strap still in his mouth.

He spat it out. “I lost him. Last night, not far from here. He screamed as though he were wounded, and then dashed away into the trees. The strap broke. I thought of going after him, but it was too dark to trail him and I knew you might need me here.”

The first thought she had was that she should feel relieved. She had wanted to be away from the Fon-beast—wanted not to be responsible for him. Now he had gone, and the matter was settled. Except, of course, that it was not. Her eyes filled with tears which spilled to run in messy rivulets down her fece, puffy from sleep.

“He ran because he was wounded when one of the shadowpeople chewed his mask from the pole. I didn’t know that’s what would happen, but it did to me as well.” She lifted her hair from the sides of her fece to show him. “The masks are spiked to the poles, and the little people couldn’t pull out the spikes, so they chewed the masks off. We’ll have to find him, Chamferton, but it must wait a little. There is Game here against you and Himaggery and me. You were right that we need you here.”

She led him to the cliff s edge. They lay there, peering down at the encampment, and Proom’s people, puzzled but reassured by the pombi’s disappearance, came to lie beside them, waiting for whatever came next. “I don’t know how many times they’ve questioned your Face in the past, Wizard, but they intend to question it every day from now on. More often if they can.”

“They can’t,” he said flatly.”And I doubt if any of the questioning done while I was in the valley will deprive me of life. I feel stronger than when I last saw this place, the strength of anger, perhaps, but nonetheless useful. Now what is to be done?” He began to list.

“First—to get my own Face down from that obscene array. Second—to eliminate one Dourso, and his allies if necessary. Third—to find Singlehorn. Can you think of anything else?”

“Harpies,” said Maviin. “I have some cause to think they are dangerous. Pantiquod brought plague to Pfarb Durim, many years ago. Her daughter Foulitter tried to kill me when I was here last. And Pantiquod has threatened me.”

“Harpies,” he said, as though adding this item to his list. “The first thing I need is my wand. We have no strength to oppose Valdon and his men until I have the wand. Dourso has probably hidden it somewhere in the fortress.”

“He has given it into the keeping of Foulitter,” she said. “Look beyond the largest pile of stones, against the trees. See where she struts about there. Look on her back when she turns. See! That is the wand. He gave it to her so that she might question certain of the Faces. I caught them at it when I came here first.”

“The fool! To set such a thing in a Harpy’s hands. They would as soon turn on him as obey him!”

“He has some hold on one of them,” Mavin said. “Pantiquod flies free but her daughter’s in some kind of durance. He told me he would hold her for some time yet.”

“Still a fool. He learned a few words, a few gestures, and fancied himself a Wizard. What he learned was only thaumaturgy, gramarye. Children’s things, ‘well, even children’s toys may be dangerous in the hands of a fool, so we must go careful and sly. I need that wand.”

Mavin forced herself to move. She wanted nothing to do with the Harpies, but something had to be done. She made a long arm to touch Proom and tug him toward her, pointed at the Harpy, moving back from the cliff edge to mime the storklike walk, the bobbing neck, the head thrown back in cackling laughter. The shadowpeople took this up with great enthusiasm, becoming a flock of birdlike creatures almost instantaneously. She pointed out the wand, then pretended to have one such on her own back, removing and replacing it. Finally, she led them off through the trees. Chamferton had time to grow bored with the view below him before she returned.

“Come on,” she said. “We need simple muscle, and all of it we can get. The shadowpeople will lead her into a kind of trap, but they are not big enough to hold her.”

The plan had the virtue of simplicity. If the Harpy were typical of her kind, she would pursue any small creature with the temerity to attack her, which Proom or one of his people would do. They would flee away, and the Harpy would follow.

“They’ll try to get her when she’s alone, not with Pantiquod. It seems the shadowpeople aren’t particularly afraid of them one at a time, but they don’t want to tangle with two or more. At least that’s what I think all their lalala-ing was about. Proom is down there behind the biggest pile of stones. The others are scattered in a long line leading to that rockfall. The tricky part will be at that point. The shadowman will drop down into the rocks. Then another one will show himself halfway up the slope, then another one at the top. If they time it right, it should seem to be one small person the whole time. She can’t walk up that slope, but if she’s angry enough, she should fly to the top, at which point they’ll lead her between these two trees. Then it’s up to us, Wizard. Proom left us a knife, and some rope ...” She said nothing about her nausea, her revulsion.

“Rope if we can,” hissed Chamferton. “I’ve a use for her alive. But knife if she starts to scream.”

Mavin nodded her agreement. From their hiding place they could see between leafy branches to the valley floor. Mavin sharpened her eyes, not really Shifting, merely modifying herself a little, to catch a glimpse of Proom—she thought it was Proom—perched near the edge of the stones. The Harpy was prodding at some bit of nastiness on the ground nearby. Pantiquod had wandered toward the tents. There was a scurrying darkness, a darting motion, and the Harpy leaped into the air like some dancing krylobos, screeching, head whipping about. Proom had bitten her on the leg. Mavin could see the blood. A palpable bite, a properly painful bite but not one which would cripple the creature.

No! Not cripple indeed. She strode toward the stones, head darting forward like the strike of a serpent, jaws clacking shut with a metallic finality. On the cliff top, they gasped; but she had missed. A small furry form broke from cover and fled toward the cliff. The Harpy crowed a challenge and sped after it. The shadowman fled, darted, dropped into hiding. From another hidey hole not far away, another form popped up and fled farther toward the cliffs. The Harpy strode, hopped, struck with her teeth at the stones, hurting herself in the process so that her anger increased.

“Watch now,” hissed Mavin. “They’re coming to the cliff.”

The quarry disappeared into a cleft between two large stones wet with spray. The Harpy thrust her head into the cleft, withdrew it just in time to see her prey appear briefly halfway up the slope, fleeing upward. It turned to jeer at her, increasing the Harpy’s frenzy. She danced, clacked her jaws, spread her wings to rise in a cloud of spray and dust. The quarry on the slope disappeared, only to reappear at the top of the cliff.

“Get your head down,” Mavin directed.

They could hear Foulitter’s approach, the whip of wings and the jaws chattering in rage. A furry shadow fled between the trees, and the Harpy came after. As she passed between the trunks, Mavin and Chanifertan seized her, Mavin holding tight to the wings as she tried to avoid those venomous teeth—without success! The serpent neck struck at her, and the teeth closed on her hand. Fire ran through her, as though she had been touched by acid or true flame, and she cursed as she slammed the striking head away. Chamferton thrust a wad of cloth between the teeth and threw a loop of rope about her feet which he then wound tight around the wings. When he had done, they stepped back breathlessly. The Harpy glared at them with mad yellow eyes, threatening them with every breath.

“She will kill us if she can,” said Mavin, gasping, cradling her hand; it felt as though it was burned to the bone.

“She would,” agreed Chamferton. “If she could.” He took the wand from its case, drawing it from among the coils of rope. “If you watch me now, you must promise never to ...”

“Oh, Harpy-shit, Wizard! Oath me no oaths. I’ve seen more in your demesne recently than you have. I am no chatterbird and you owe me your life. So do what you do and don’t be ponderous about it.”

“Did she bite you?”

“Yes, damn it, she did.” Mavin stared at him stupidly. “How did you know?”

“Because you suddenly sounded Harpy bit. We’ll take care of it before you leave—must take care of it, or you’ll die. Harpy bite is deadly, Mavin. But you’re right. I have no business demanding secrecy oaths from one who has saved my life. So go or stay as you like.”

She was curious enough to stay, not that she learned anything. She could not concentrate because of the pain in her hand, now moving up her arm. All she saw was waving of the wand, and walking about in strange patterns, and speaking to the world’s corners and up and down, and sprinkling dust and sprinkling water, at the end of which time he removed the rag from the Harpy’s mouth and turned her loose. “You are my servant,” he told her in a voice of distaste. “My unworthy servant. Now you will serve me by giving me the name of one of those you have questioned down below—the name of any one.”