Below me a musician played short phrases of melody over and over while a poet set words to them, and across the yard another poet declaimed a long verse, phrase by phrase, while another musician set notes to that. It seemed there was to be a song contest in the evening on a subject assigned by Gamesmistress Vorbold herself the evening before. In Mertyn’s House, where I was reared, we would have disdained such trifles, and I formed the intention of twitting Silkhands about it. That was before I saw the great Hall.
It lay in the area to which guests are admitted, one ceremonial entrance for the guests, one even finer opposite which led into the School. I found my assigned seat and sat back to watch the spectacle which had aspects of Festival and of a bazaar. The guests were almost all male. Many were there on their own behalf, but others were there as agents. The products which they bargained for sat at other tables, on low daises of ivory hued stone, young women clad in silks and flowing velvets, each table of them with a Gamesmistress at its head. Silkhands sat at a table near my own. I could look across the glossy heads between and wink at her. Somehow the intensity of the atmosphere around me — though it was all covert, glances and sighs and whispers — made a wink seem improper. I satisfied myself with an unsatisfactory smirk and bow. I was, by the way, clad most sumptuously and wearing a face not entirely my own. I had cautioned Silkhands against knowing me too well or obviously in this public place. She bowed in return, I thought more coldly than was necessary.
The evening’s entertainment began with welcoming words from the Lady Vorbold, Queen Vorbold. She wore the crown of a Ruler, but her dress was much modified. As I looked about the room I noted that all the women of the House were clad in light delicate gowns under robes of heavier richer stuff; that all the young women who were of an age to have manifested Talents wore appropriate helms or crowns or symbols, but all reduced in size and bulk to the status of mere ornaments. The heavy silver bat-winged half helm of a Demon might be expressed as a mere bat-winged circlet, airy as a spray of leaves. I saw a Sorcerer’s spiked crown, tiny as a doll’s headdress, and a Seer’s moth-wing mask reduced to a pair of feathery spectacles drawing attention to the wearer’s lovely eyes. It was as though they sought to make the Talents less important than the women who wore them. Well. In this House that was probably the case. Why did I suddenly think of the consecrated monsters which Mavin and I had seen in the caverns of the magicians? Was it some similar blankness of eyes? I did not quite identify the thought.
The song duels began, one against one, the musicians playing and singing in turn while the poets sat at their feet. At the conclusion of each song, the diners tapped their silver goblets upon the table to signify praise, and the judges — a table of elderly Gamesmistresses — conferred among themselves. I heard one of the phrases I had listened to from my room, woven now into a complete fabric of song. The singer was young and handsome, and his voice was pure and sweet. I thought of the singers among the magicians, lost now under the fallen mountains, and grew sad. The song was one which evoked sadness in any case. He finished in a fading fall of strings and was rewarded by a loud clamor of goblets upon wood. He took the prize. It was fitting. His was the most melancholy music of the evening. All the ladies loved it.
After this entertainment came an intermission during which the young women circulated among the tables to talk idly to the guests. One elegant girl wove her way to the table where I sat, body like a willow waving, garments swaying, face showing that smiling emptiness I had noted before. We greeted her, and she sat to take a glass of wine with us. She was obviously interested only in the tall chill Sorcerer who sat with us. He asked her politely what she was studying.
“Oh, ta-ta.” She pouted. “It is all about Durables and the Ephemera, and I cannot get it in my head. It stays about one instant and then goes who knows where.”
The Sorcerer smiled but said nothing. Thinking to fill the silence, I said, “My own Gamesmaster gave us a rule which made it easier to remember. If a Talent is continuous, as for example it is with a Ruler or a Sorcerer, then the Gamesman is one of the Greater Durables or Adamants.” She smiled. I went on, “Those in whom the Talent is discontinuous but still largely self-originated are among the Lesser Durables. Seers, for example, or Sentinels.”
She cocked her head prettily and looked up into the face of the Sorcerer. Still he said nothing. She made a little kiss with her mouth. “The Ephemera, then? What is their rule?”
“Those Gamesmen who take their Game and power from others, sporadically, are of the Greater Ephemera,” I said. “Demons, for example, who Read the minds of others but only from time to time, not continuously. And finally there are the lesser Ephemera, those who take their only value from being used by other Gamesmen. A Talisman, for example. Or a Totem.”
“I see. You make it sound so interesting.” She gazed up at the Sorcerer again after a quick ironic glance at me, and in that glance was all I had not understood until then. It was not that she failed to remember, not that she lacked interest in the subject. She knew, perhaps better than I, but had been taught not to show that she knew. I caught a sardonic smirk on the face of the Sorcerer and turned away angered. There was not that much difference between these, I thought, and the consecrated monsters of the magicians. I wondered how Silkhands could lend herself to this — this whatever it was. There might be time to ask her later, but now the intermission had ended and we were to be granted another song by the evening’s champion.
He stood among us, smiling, relaxed, not touching his instrument until all present had fallen silent. When he touched the strings at last it was to evoke a keening wind, a weeping wind which focused my attention upon him and opened my eyes wide. He faced me as he sang, coming closer.
The wind music came again, cold, a lament of air. He was very close to me, singing so softly that it seemed he sang for me alone.
Then he moved away, walking among the tables, humming, the music reminding me of night and bells and a far, soft crying in caves. He was standing next to Silkhands as he sang: