The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped (52 page)

“Ah. Look over there to the steps. See the old woman, the very old woman being carried up in the chair? She is two hundred years old, that woman. So she says, and so I do believe. Old as rocks, as the country people say. That is Lily-sweet, sister to Rose-love, whose Face you saw in my lake. I have had her carried up here in the sun, which she much enjoys, and promised her all the melon she can eat if she will tell you a story. She and her sister told stories in Betand for all their long lives, stories learned from their great grandmas, who also, if the stories about them be true, lived to be very old. If she were still young and strong, she could talk about Weetzie for several days, for Weetzie had more adventures than a thousand years would have given him time for. Somewhere in all that mass of story-telling is a little verse which says something about there being a road, and on the road a tower, and in the tower a bell, which cannot ring alone. That verse much intrigued your friend Himaggery. You may choose to ask for the story of Weetzie and the daylight bell. She will say she is too old to remember, too tired, that it is only a children’s story, a country tale. You must persist.” He was playing with her now, Mavin knew. All this was so much flummery, to keep her occupied.

“This is the story you mentioned last night.”

“Yes. If you seek Himaggery, you may find something in it. He pretended to do so. If you are to get her to to tell you anything you must say her name in full, caressingly, and do not laugh.” Chamferton went back to his melon, waving her away.

She rose almost unwillingly, strongly tempted to challenge his lies and his foisting nonsense upon her in the guise of information, and yet unwilling to pass by anything in which Himaggery had been interested. That much, at least, might be true and she, Mavin, might find help in it that Chamferton did not intend. So she strolled across the high terrace to the chair where the old woman sat wrapped in knitted shawls against the slight chill of the morning. She was so old her face and arms were wrinkled like the shell of a nut, like the fine wavelets of a sea barely brushed by wind. Thin flesh hung from her arms and neck. Wisps of white hair fringed the edge of her cap. Her eyes were bird-bright though she pretended not to see Mavin’s approach. “Well then,” thought Mavin, “we will lure her as the birder does the shy fowl of the air”.

“Lily-sweet,” she begged, “the High Wizard Chamferton says that you know a tale known to none other in all the lands. The tale of Weetzie and the daylight bell.”

The old woman stroked her throat, made a pitiful shrug and shook her head wistfully. “Ah, girl, but one’s throat is too dry and old for telling tales.”

Mavin rose without a word and went to Chamferton’s table. “I need to borrow a teacup,” she told him, returning with it to the old woman.

“Wet your gullet, Lily-sweet. This is the High Wizard’s own tea, and while it is not good enough for softening the throat of a true story-teller, still, it is the best we have.”

“You are a well spoken child, for all your outlandish appearance. In my day the women wore full trews and vests to show their bosoms. None of this tight man-breeching and loose shirts.” Lily-sweet tugged at Mavin’s shirt, and inside that tug, Mavin twitched. The shirt was herself.

“So my own grandmama has said, Lily-sweet. And much we regret that those days are past.” She sighed. “If we dressed now as true women did in the days of your youth, chance is I would have a ... companion of my own.”

“You’d have a husband, child, and thankful for it. Ah, and well, and sorry the day. What was it you wanted to know of again?”

“The story of Weetzie and the daylight bell?”

“Ah. A children’s story, was it? I’m not sure I remember that one.”

“Oh, it would be a tragedy if you did not, Lily-sweet, for none but you can be found to tell it rightly. Oh, there are those in Betand who pretend to know the story, but the mockery they make of it is quite ...”

“None know that story save me!” The voice was suddenly more definite, and the old hands quivered upon the arms of the chair. “Since sister Rose died, none but me.”

“I know,” Mavin soothed. “So says the Wizard Chamferton. He says the women in Betand are liars and scrape-easies, that you are the only one who has the truth of it.”

“And so I do,” said the old woman. “And so shall you be the judge of it.” She took a deep breath.

“One time,” she quavered, gesturing with a claw to indicate a time long past, “one time a time ago, was a young star named Weetzie, and he went out and about, up and down, wet and dry, come day come night till he got to the sea. And there was a d’bor wife, grodgeling about in the surf, slither on slither.

“And Weetzie spoke polite to her, saying ‘Good morn to you, d’bor wife. And why do you slither here near the shore when the deep waves are your home?’

“And the d’bor wife, she struck at him once, twice, three times with her boaty flappers, flap, flap, flap on the sand, but Weetzie jumped this way and that way, and all that flapping was for nothing. So, seeing she could not get Weetzie that way, the d’bor wife began to sing in her lure voice, ‘Oh, I grodgel here in the surf to find the daylight bell where the shadows hid it.’

“And Weetzie was greatly taken with this idea, so he came close to the d’bor wife and began to help her grodgel. And whup, the d’bor wife wrapped Weetzie up in her short reachers and laughed like a whoop-owl, ‘Oh, little star, but I have you now, I have you now.’

“And Weetzie was sorry to have been so silly, for Weetzie’s forepeople had often said that trusting a d’bor was like betting on the wind. So Weetzie thought quick, quick, and said, ‘But why did you stop me, d’bor wife? Quick, grodgel down, grodgel down, for just as you caught me, I saw the very edge of the daylight bell.’

“And the d’bor wife was so excited, she dropped Weetzie in the instant and began to grodgel again, with the water flying. And Weetzie took his bone and twanged it, so the d’bor wife was all wound up in her tentacles and tied in a lump. Then he sat down and sang this song: ‘Daylight bell in water can’t be; Tricksy lie brings tricksy tie. Give a boon or else you die.’

“And the d’bor wife cried loudly, until all the seabirds shrieked to hear it, and begged the little star to be let go. So Weetzie said, ‘Give me the boon, d’bor wife, and I’ll untie you.’

“So they talked and talked while the sun got high, and this was the boon: that Weetzie could go in the water and breathe there as did the d’bor. So he twanged his bone to turn the d’bor wife loose and went on his way, up and down, over and under, back and forth in the wide world until he came to a forest full of tall trees.

“And there in the top of the tallest tree was a flitchhawk in a nest, grimbling and grambling at the clouds as they flew past. And Weetzie cried out, ‘Ho there, flitchhawk, why are you grimbling and grambling at the clouds?’ And the flitchhawk said, ‘Because I’m looking for the daylight bell which is hung up here in the mist where the shadows hid it.’

“I’ll help you, then,’ cried Weetzie, and he climbed the tall tree ‘til he came high up, and he stood in the nest and reached out for the clouds to grimble and gramble them in pieces. But the flitchhawk screamed and grabbed Weetzie in his huge claws and then laughed and cawed as though to raise the dark, ‘Little star, I’ve got you now.’

“ ‘Why did you grab me, old flitchhawk,’ cried Weetzie ‘just as I was grambling the clouds? I caught a glimpse of the daylight bell just there where I was grambling when you took hold of me!’ And when he heard that, the flitchhawk dropped Weetzie and went back to grimbling and grambling the clouds, looking for the daylight bell and crying, ‘Where is it? Where did you see it?’ But Weetzie took his bone and twanged it and sang this song: ‘Daylight bell in water can’t be Daylight bell in treetop shan’t be Tricksy lie brings tricksy tie. Give a boon or else you die.’

“And flitchhawk was tied wing and claws so he couldn’t move, and he begged to be let loose, but Weetzie would not until the flitchhawk gave him a boon. And the boon was that Weetzie could fly in the wide sky as the flitchhawk had always done. So then Weetzie twanged his bone and turned the flitchhawk loose.

“Up and down he went, in and out, under and over, until time wore on, and Weetzie came to a broad plain where there was a gobble-mole druggling tunnels, coming up with a snoutful of dirt and heaving it into little hillocks. So, Weetzie said, ‘What’s all the tunneling for old gobble? More tunnel there than a mole needs in a million.’

“And the gobble-mole says, ‘Druggling to find the daylight bell, little star. I know it’s right down here somewhere in the deep earth where the shadows hid it.’

“So Weetzie says, ‘Well, then, I’ll help you druggie for it,’ and he started in to druggie with the mole. But the mole pushed Weetzie in a hole and shut it up so Weetzie couldn’t get out.

“And Weetzie cried, ‘What did you do that for, old mole? I caught sight of the edge of the daylight bell, just then, before you covered it up with your druggling.’

“Old mole said, ‘Where? Where did you see it?’ and he uncovered the hole where Weetzie was so Weetzie could twange his bone and sing this song:

‘Daylight bell in water can’t be.

Daylight bell in treetop shan’t be

Daylight bell in earthways wan’t be

Tricksy lie brings tricksy tie.

Give a boon or else you die.

“And the gobble-mole was all tied up, foot and snout, so he couldn’t move. So the gobble-mole decided upon a boon, and the boon was that Weetzie should be able to walk in earthways as the mole had always done. Then Weetzie twanged his bone and let the mole loose.

“ ‘Well now,’ said Weetzie. ‘All this talk of the daylight bell has made me curious, so I’ll take my three boons and go looking for it.’ And all the creatures within ear-listen laughed and laughed, for none had ever found the daylight bell where the shadows had hidden it, though the beasts had had boons of their own for ever since. But Weetzie danced on the tip of himself, up and down, in and out, over and under, as he went seeking.”

The old woman sighed. Mavin put the teacup to her lips, and she supped the pale brew, sighing again. “That’s the story of Weetzie and the daylight bell, girl.”

“Is there more to the story, Lily-sweet?”

“Oh, there’s enough for three days’ telling, girl, for it may be he found the bell at the end of it, but I’m weary of it now. Let be. He that calls himself Wizard there may tell it to you if you’ve a mind to hear it. I told it to him, and to that other Wizard—real, he was, sure as my teeth are gone—and to people in Betand, and to children many a time when they were no more than mole-high themselves.” And she leaned back in the chair, shutting her eyes. So the old woman did not much care for Chamferton, either. “He that calls himself Wizard ...”

Back at the table where Chamferton sat smiling at her as a fox might smile at a bird, she continued to play the innocent. “I wonder what all that was about?”

“I think it’s about Eesties, Shifter-woman, though I’m not certain of that. Eesties, Eestnies, the Old-folk, the Rolling Stars. Whatever you choose to call them ...”

“They say ‘Eesty’ among themselves,” said Mavin, without thinking. Then her throat closed like a vice and she coughed, choking, gesturing frantically for air.

“You mean you’ve spoken to them, seen them? Gamelords, girl, tell me of it!” His face blazed with an acquisitive glow, and his hand clutched her arm. Now, she thought through her suffocating spasm, now I see the true Chamferton.

She shook her head, trying to breathe as her face turned blue. Then the spasm passed, and he nodded with comprehension, handing her a cup. “Don’t try to talk then. I understand. What you’ve seen, what you’ve heard, they don’t want talked about. Well. Pity.” He took paper from a nearby table and wrote on it, “Have you ever tried to write it out?” He turned the paper for her to read. She shook her head, drawing deep breaths as her throat opened reluctantly.

He put the pen and paper near her hand. She wrote a trial sentence. “I have talked with an Eesty at Ganver’s Grave ...” Nothing happened. She turned the paper to face him, and he nodded eagerly.

“Well, Shifter-girl, there is a bit of additional information which I will trade for an account of your ... experience.” He nodded toward her hand, resting upon the paper as he turned the page toward her again. He had written, “If you will write me an account of your experience, I will tell something else about Himaggery—also, I will pay you well for the account.”

Mavin shook her head in pretended indecision. “You know, Wizard, from time to time I have been asked to Game for this King or that Sorcerer. All have offered to pay me well, but none has yet told me what I am to do with the pay. What do Shifters need, after all? I cannot eat more than one meal at once, nor sleep in more than one bed at a time. I have little need to array myself in silks or gems. What payment would mean something to me?”

“Perhaps hospitality,” he suggested. “A place to rest, or eat cooked food, or merely to stare at the hills.”

“No. It is not tempting,” she said, having already decided what she would give him which might both allay his suspicions of her and make him careless. “But I will do it because you have something to tell me about Himaggery, and for no other reason.”

He nodded, then remarked in passing, almost as though it did not matter. “And—when you go to seek Himaggery, will you seek Arkhur as well? At least, do not close your eyes to him if you see him on the road? And if you see any sign of him, will you send word to me? Again, though it may take time to agree upon a coin, I will pay you well.”

She smiled. Let him take that for assent if he would. She would do no more than write what she had seen of the Eesties and of the dancing Monuments and the shadowpeople upon the hills. She made it brief, leaving most of what had happened out, unwilling to put anything in his hands he might use for ill—as he would. She did mention that the magical talisman, Ganver’s Bone, had been taken back by the Eesty who gave it, believing that it would go ill for the shadowpeople if Chamferton thought they still had it, though why she was so certain of that, she could not have said. When she had finished, it was a very brief account, though Chamferton nodded his head over it, almost licking his lips, when she had finished.