Beside me, Himaggery picked up a straw and closed trembling lips upon it. “Well, lad. What do you think we should do now?”
I picked up a straw of my own. “I don’t know what you want to do, Himaggery,” I said.
“But I’m going to change myself into a Dragon and go looking for my mother.”
Bright Demesne
WE FOUND MAVIN ON HER PINNACLE, just where I had thought she would be, and she was properly admiring of the most splendid Dragon she or anyone in the world had ever seen. It was exactly as Chance had said, a fool idea. The fire and speed and wind in the wings were all very well, but there was still Windlow in my pocket and the bodies of ten thousand great Gamesmen (as well as a few pawns) lying in the cavern under the snows. Oh, we had gone back, Himaggery and I, just to be sure. The cavern was quite intact except for a little fallen ice and melted stone. Huld was not there, dead nor alive, which meant he was still at large in the world, hunting me. I was growing tired of that.
So, once I had done my gomerousing around as a Dragon, I settled with Himaggery and Mavin on the pinnacle, to await the arrival of my cousins. We sat about Mavin’s fire, me watching Himaggery be excruciatingly polite to her while she twitted him at every opportunity. I finally took her aside and told her to let him alone. If she truly did not want to be the man’s pawnish mate, I told her, then she should not keep saying so so vehemently, which would just make him believe the opposite. I don’t know how I figured that out, except that Trandilar probably had something to do with it. At any rate, it bought us some peace and we got along better.
Swolwys and Dolwys arrived in good time. They had delivered Izia, improved in both health and spirits by the time they arrived. More important, when they had come to Izia’s home, Yarrel had been there and she had remembered him. The cousins did not say much about that meeting. I hoped for their sakes that Yarrel had not treated them as coldly as he had treated me when last we met. His rejection of me still hurt, and I hoped that Izia’s return might make him feel more kindly, though I knew that if he learned all she had gone through in the intervening years, he might hate all Gamesmen even more. And this line of thought brought me to thoughts of Windlow. I figured that matter out in the privacy of the cave, unwilling to talk about it with anyone. I simply chipped at the corner of the tiny Didir figure with my thumbnail until the white covering flaked away to show the blue beneath. The Gamesmen of Barish were blues, simply (simply!) blues, made in the long past for some reason I could not know, though I was beginning to make some rather astonishing guesses. The Gamesmen themselves did not tell me, though whether they could not or would not, I did not know. At the moment I was content to let things be. Except for one thing.
At one time or another, casually, over a period of several days, I handed one or another of the Gamesmen to my cousins, to Mavin, even to Himaggery. They handled them as I had done, with bare hands, but they gave no indication that they felt anything or experienced anything at all. So. “Blues” could not be Read by anyone who handled them. It was a particular Talent which I had, seemingly I alone of all the world. So again. No one had seen me take the Windlow blue. No one knew I had it. I doubt that either Mavin or Himaggery ever thought about it, and I did nothing at all to remind them. We traveled to the Bright Demesne together, three horses and two horsemen. We younger ones were the horses, two for riding, one for baggage. I thought of Chance when I did it. He would have approved mightily of how inconspicuous I was. I could not help but overhear the long conversations between my mother and Himaggery (I could not think of him as “Father”). As the hours of our travel wore on. they spoke more and more often of certain Gamesmen they had known. I heard again the name of Throsset of Dornes. I heard again the name of Minery Mindcaster. Himaggery spoke of the High Wizard Chamferton, and Bartelmy of the Ban. They were cataloging all those they had seen in the cavern or suspected might be there. And they were making plans to bring all the blues of all the world to the Bright Demesne. “There will be a way,” Himaggery insisted. “A way to do it without the machines. Or to build a new machine to do it. So many, so great. We cannot leave them there, stacked like stove wood.”
And then they would talk more, list more names, and end by saying the same thing again. Peter in the horse’s head nodded wisely. We were no sooner out of one mess than we would get into another.
And, of course, they talked about the Council. The mysterious Council. The wonderful Council. The probably threatening Council. They could not decide whether it was totally inimical, perhaps beneficial, or, possibly, nonexistent. Peter inside the horse’s head nodded again. Such questions could not be left unanswered, not by one like Himaggery. Peter inside the horse’s head had other thoughts, about Quench, Huld, books, about what several hundred or thousand pawns who had been “techs” might do when loosed into a world which did not know they existed.
And we came at last to the Bright Demesne. Word having been sent ahead, we were expected. There was a certain amount of orderly rejoicing, and Mertyn seemed to have some trouble letting me out of his sight for several days. Chance, on the other hand, behaved as though I had only been gone on a day-long mushroom hunt and was no different on my return than on my going. Only the quantity and quality of the food which kept appearing before me told me that he had worried about me. I helped him by pretending I did not notice.
There was mourning, too, for Windlow. I wept with the rest and kept my mouth shut.
And then Izia arrived — with Yarrel.
They rode into the kitchen court about noon. I was in the kitchen garden with Chance, pulling carrots. There is no Talented way to do this easier than simply stooping over and yanking them out by their tops. So I was muddy and sweating and unsuspecting when the clatter of hooves came from the cobbled yard. I looked up, wiping my eyes with my shirttail, and saw Izia looking at me, very pale and very beautiful. She reached one hand to the person beside her, and then I saw Yarrel. He was looking at me, too, but with an expression in which resentment and eagerness seemed equally combined. He slid from the horse’s back, helped Izia down, and they came together toward me. All I could think of was that I wanted to hide, not to have him angry or hateful to me again. Perhaps he saw this emotion on my face, for he stopped and smiled, almost shyly. “Peter.” Was there something of a plea in that voice? I gritted my teeth and stepped forward, the shirttail still between my hands, wiping away the mud so that I could offer him a clean hand. He did not wait for that, but took both muddy fists in his own and drew me within the circle of his arms.