“You are not sought in enmity, boy. Were you not close friend to my Prince Mandor? Did you know he was hurt?” He east a curious glance at me out of the corner of his eye, almost covert, as though to see what I thought of that.
“I was told so.” It seemed wisest not to say much. “I, too, was hurt.” I would not have been human had my voice not hinted asperity. Had it not been for Mertyn, I would have been more than hurt. I would have been damn near killed.
He jerked angrily, the little muscles along his jaw bunching and jumping as though he were chewing on something tough. “Yes. Well, you are better healed than he. There were no Healers in the Schooltown during Festival. It was long before one could be found and longer yet before we found one who was competent.” The little muscle jumped, jumped. “He is not healed of his hurt. Perhaps you can aid him in that.”
“I am no Healer!” I said in astonishment. “So far, I’m nothing at all.”
Jump, jump went his jaw, face turned from me, stony. At last, “Well, your presence may comfort him. As a friend. He has need of his friends.”
I could not stop the thought. It bloomed angrily in me as fire blooms on grassland. “He who sought my death claims my friendship! A fine friend indeed!” The Demon caught it, had been waiting for it. He could not have missed it, and he looked down at me out of a glaring face, eyes like polished stone set into that face, enmity and anger wished upon me. I felt it like a blow and shuddered beneath it.
“You were friends once, boy. Remember it. Remember it well, and be not false to what once was. Or regret be thy companion…” He spurred his horse and went on before me. I did not see him again until we camped that night. Then he was as before, calm, but did not speak to me nor I to him. In his absence I had thought of Mandor, of how I had once felt about Mandor. No echo of that feeling remained. It was impossible to remember what once had been. For the first time I began to be afraid.
By the time we had come over the last of the high passes of the Hidamans and down the fast stretch of road to Bannerwell, I was more frightened yet. I had also forgiven the white horse. He had carried me without complaint or balk, growing noticeably thinner in the process. The sight of my own hand and wrist protruding from my sleeve for a handsbreadth told me some of the reason. While mind and emotion may have been disturbed by all the journeys since Schooltown, body had gone on growing. Measuring my trouser legs against my shins, I guessed myself a full hand higher than when we had left Mertyn’s House. My hand shook as I lengthened the leathers to a more appropriate stretch, and my eyes brooded over the close-knotted forest of oaks which fell away from us down the long hills to Bannerwell itself, a fortress upon a cliff/surrounded on three sides by the brown waters of a river.
“The River Banner,” said the Demon, reading my question before it was asked. “From which Bannerwell takes its name. The ancient well lies within the fortress walls, sweet water for harsh times, so it is said.” He cast me one of his enigmatic looks before rounding up the train with his eyes, counting the men off, arranging us all to his satisfaction. I noted the silence among the retainers, the gravity each seemed to show at our approach. The Demon said, “I was to have returned with you a season ago, boy. I rode from this place due east on a straight road to Schooltown only to find you gone.”
I knew he could Read my question, but I felt less invaded if I asked it aloud. “Why, sir Demon? It is not for friendship. You know that as well as I. Won’t you tell me why?”
For a time I thought he would not answer as he had not when I had asked before. This time, however, he parted reluctant lips and said, “Because of your mother, boy.”
“I have none. I am Festival born.” I felt the deep tickle in my head as I said it and knew that he had plunged deep enough into me to Read my inmost thoughts. His face changed, half angry, half frustrated. “You have. Or had. Her name is Mavin Manyshaped, and she is full sister to Mertyn, King Mertyn in whose House you schooled. I Read it in Mertyn’s mind at the Festival. There is no mistake. He saw you at risk and knew you for close kin in that moment. He called you thalan, sister’s son.”
Turmoil. We approached Bannerwell, but it was someone else seeing those walls through my eyes; someone else heard the thud of the bridge dropping across the moat, the screeching rattle of chains drawing the screen-gates upward to let us through. I suppose mind saw and heard, but I did not. Inside me was only a whirling pool of black and bright, drawing me down into it, full of some darting gladnesses and more many-toothed furies, voiced and silent, leaving me virtually unaware of the world outside. There was only an impression of lounging gamesmen in the paved courtyard; the gardens glimpsed through gates of knotted iron, light falling through tall windows to lay jeweled patterns on dark, gleaming wood. The smell of herbs. And meat and flowers and horses, mingled.
Someone said, “What’s wrong with him?” and the Demon answered, “Leave him a while. He has been surprised.”
Surprised. Well. That is a word for it. Astonished, perhaps. Shocked. Perhaps that word was best, for it was like a tingling half deadness in which nothing connected to anything else. I think I fell asleep — or, perhaps, merely became unconscious. Much later, long after the lamps were lit, I realized that I, Peter, was sitting against a wall in an alcove half behind a thick curtain.
The shadow of a halberd lay on the floor before me, and I looked at it for a long, long time trying to decide what it was. Then the word came, halberd, and with it the knowledge of myself and where I was. Someone was standing just outside the alcove; beyond was the dining hall of Bannerwell full of tumult and people coming and going, smells of food, servants carrying platters and flagons. Well. I watched them for some time without curiosity until one of them saw me and went running off to tell someone. Then it was the Demon standing over me; reaching down with rough hands to turn my face upward. “I did not know it would take you so. I had hoped you knew — that you are thalan to Mertyn, as Mandor is to me…”
Thalan. Full sister’s son. The closest kin except for mother and child were thalani. The Demon was tickling at my mind and finding nothing, as usual. I almost laughed. If I could not tell what I was thinking, how could he?
He said, “Do you often do this? This going blank and sitting staring at nothing?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted from a dry throat. It was true. Whenever things happened which were too complex, too much to bear, there was an empty interior space into which I could go, a place of vast quiet. I seldom had any recollection of it afterward. Perhaps it was not the kind of place one could remember, only a sort of featureless emptiness. I resented his question.
Perhaps the resentment showed, for he made a face.
“I can remember that feeling from my own youth, lad. There is little enough we can do until our Talent manifests itself. Before that, there is always the fear that there will be no Talent at all.” I nodded, and he went on. “I remember it well. When we are impotent to do anything consequential, it seems better not to exist than to live in such turmoil. If I were not thalan to Mandor, if he were not dear to me as my own soul, I would pity you and let you go. But, I cannot.”
“What good will it do to keep me here?” I begged. “I have no power. You tell me I am the son of a Shapeshifter, a famous one at that, one whose name I know. You tell me this and I must believe you, but it does you no good. I have no such power, and if I had, what would it profit you?”
“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps it is no more than a mad idea born out of pain. I have said you will not be harmed, you will not. But Mandor has it in his head you can help him, or get help for him. It may be you can do nothing, and the whole matter will be forgotten, but for now I have done what he begged of me. I have brought you to Bannerwell where hospitality awaits you. Let Mandor himself tell you more…”