“Barish … Barish. He gave us immunity from your power, Gamesman, for us and our children forever, immutable throughout time, so he said. And in return we must keep his body safe, keep the bodies of his Gamesmen safe where they lie, north, north in the wastes, north in the highlands where the krylobos watch. We must keep the Wizard safe, and the Wizard’s eleven. But he went away and did not return. I brought the Gamesmen here, Barish’s book here, thinking to find him somewhere, find him and return them, but the waters came, the waters came and I died…” The figure writhed, became the humming cloud once more. From it the voice came in prayer and supplication, “The contract broken, all unwitting … and Barish’s promise broken as well for I am raised by Dorn to suffer my guilt. Ah. Forgive. Let me lie in peace…”
It was not my voice that said it, and not Dorn’s. I thought it was Didir, though I could not be sure. “You are forgiven, Riddle, faithful one. Go to your rest.”
The cloud collapsed all at once and was gone. The sun lowered itself below the undulant line of hills. Dark came upon the tumulus and in the forest a fustigar howled, to be joined by another across the river. A star winked at me, and I realized that I saw it through brimming tears. Something had happened. I was not sure what it was, or why, and the Gamesmen in my pocket did not know either. It was as though they and I had listened in upon some conversation from another time, a thing familiar and strange at once — familiar because inevitable and strange because I could not connect it to anything I knew. Chance was watching me with a good deal of concern, and I shook my head at him, unable to speak.
“Well,” he said when I could hear him. “What went on there?”
I tried to tell him. All I could get out was that the answers to all our puzzles seemed to lie in the Wastes of Bleer.
“Riddle’s grandfather brought some things here from the Wastes of Bleer,” I said.
“I think it would help us if we stopped talking around and around,” he said thoughtfully. “Let’s not say `things.’ What was brought here was those little Gamesmenyou found and the little book you gave Windlow.”
“I have it with me,” I said. “There may have been other things as well.”
“No matter. What was lost was the Gamesmen and the book. Now did this Riddle fellow steal them?”
“No!” I was shocked. “No. He was supposed to have them. Supposed to keep them safe — them and the … bodies.”
The light that engulfed me then seemed to be around me in the world, but it was only inside my head. The bodies. Didir’s body. Lying in the northlands, waiting for her. Her. Her I had in my pocket, not merely a blue, not merely a Gamespiece, but a person awaiting … what? Resurrection? Awakening? Tamor, there in the northlands, Tamor who had saved my life more than once. And tragic Dealpas. And Trandilar. Oh, Gamelords, Trandilar! Voluptuous as boiling cloud and as full of pent energies, erotic, beguiling Trandilar. And Dorn. Dorn who was almost my elder brother in my head, lying there in the northlands, awaiting his renewal.
And all the while that part of me thought yes, oh, yes they must be found and raised up, awakened, another part of my mind said — no. No. They are mine, mine. My power comes from them. My Talents. I will not give them up. And the first part of me recoiled as though a serpent had struck at me inside myself so that I gasped, and gagged on the bile that rose in my throat. I struggled while Chance shook me and demanded to know what was wrong, what was wrong. Oh, Gamelords, what was wrong was me!
And then, somehow, I managed to thrust the conflict away, to stop thinking of it. I knew, knew it was there, but I would not think of it. Not then.
“Riddle’s grandfather had a covenant with Barish,” I choked. “But Barish disappeared, didn’t come back. So Riddle’s grandfather brought some things here — maybe hoping to find Barish. Maybe for safekeeping. Only wreck and ruin came on Dindindaroo.”
Chance objected. “The covenant couldn’t have been with Riddle’s grandpa only.” I shook my head. Obviously not. The contract must have been with the Immutables, father and son and grandson, generation after generation. Chance went on, “Those bodies have been there how long?”
I was careful not to think when I answered. “A thousand years. More or less. And do not ask me how Barish survived or came and went during that time for I don’t know, Chance. It does not bear thinking of.”
“So now what’s our Riddle searching for? What’s he up to?”
“Duty,” I replied. “The covenant. The contract. The pledge his forefathers made to Barish. Oh, Chance, I don’t know. I can’t think of Riddle as anything but honorable. It’s too confusing.”
“Well, lad, don’t get into an uproar over it,” he said, giving me a long measuring look. “Whatever we don’t know, we do know more than we did.”
“Not enough more,” I mourned, thinking of the hundred questions I should have asked the ghost. I could not call him up again. Would not. He had been given absolution by someone, and I would not undo it. I felt tears slide down my face.
“Maybe not enough more,” Chance agreed, “but some more.” He built a fire then and gave us hot soup, then some wine, and then an interminable story about hunting some sea monster during which I fell asleep. When I woke in the morning, I was able not to think about the disturbing thing, and the day was sharp-edged enough to live in.
The Great North Road
I TOLD CHANCE ABOUT THE SINGER in Xammer who had sung about wind to me and Silkhands. A mere song seemed a foolish reason to go exploring the northlands, and I hoped Chance, who was never loath to declaim upon foolishness in general, would say so. This would give me reason not to go, but I did not ask myself, then, why I wanted such a reason. Instead I made excuses. Himaggery and Mavin would need me, I said to myself, waiting for Chance to say something to give substance to my rationalization.
But he said, “What was it made you think the singer sang to you?”
“Only that he sang of the far north,” I said without thinking, “and in the Bright Desmesne a Seer told me my future lay there … with Silkhands.” I did not say the Seer was Windlow.
“Well then, that’s twice,” said Chance. “And Riddle’s grandpa is three times. Remember what I always said about that. Once is the thing itself, twice is a curiosity, but three times is Game.”
I did remember. It had always been one of Chance’s favorite sayings, particularly when I had committed some childish prank more than twice. “Whose Game? Who would be pulling me north?”
“Well, lad, there’s pulling and there’s pushing. The ghost was lamenting the loss of those things you carry. And maybe those things you carry are lamenting the loss of their bodies. I would if it was me. Maybe it’s them want to get back where they came from.”
So Chance was no help, no help at all. The knife of conscience twisted, and the serpent of guilt writhed under the knife. Was it possible? Could they be pushing me without my knowing? I tried to say no. “They have to use my brain to think with, Chance. They are only — what did old Manacle call it — patterns of personality. They are whatever they were when they were made. Didir comes into my head always the same Didir. She uses my mind, my memories to think with, but she does not carry those memories back into the blue. They stay in my mind, not hers. What I forget, she cannot remember. They couldn’t pull or push without my knowing!” I said this very confidently, but I was not sure. “And I’m not sure that Silkhands and I ought to go north for such a reason. It’s probably very dangerous.”