Perhaps it was the awareness of my bones, the long link bones between my rear legs and forelegs, the shorter link bone between the rear legs, the flat rear space where a tail might have been but was not, the curved link bones between shoulders and head, the arching, flexible ribs which domed this structure and anchored all its muscles…
The starshaped skeleton of this world. Unlike the backboned structure of our world, whatever world it might have been. This world, into which we came, uninvited, surely, to spread ruin and wreck. And yet into which we were welcomed. The shadowpeople waited beside the fire with Jinian for the feast their friend would bring them. They would call Peter, eater, ter, ter into the darkness, play their silver flutes, ring their bells, sniff the bones twice when they had done, and sleep beneath the stones. And they might gnaw a bit on Thandbar and be spanked for it.
And in Hell’s Maw they were meat for Huld. So had said the Elator, laughing, as he ate other meat at his campfire.
Some acid burned in my fustigar throat, some pain afflicted my fustigar heart. Ah, well, I could not leave them behind me to flee into a darkness forever.
The animal turned itself about and ran back the way it had come, to stand upon its hind legs and Shift once more. Into Peter once more. Into the same confusion I had left.
They welcomed me with cries, of pleasure, assisted in cleaning the birds and spitting them over the fire while others foraged for more thorn and devil’s spear. We ate together, bird juice greasing our chins and hands, and sang together in the echoing dark. I saw Jinian’s eyes upon me but ignored her as if I did not understand. Tomorrow was time enough for decision.
“I sent Yattleby with a message for Queynt,” she said.
“Ah,” I replied. “A message for Queynt.”
“Written,” she said. “I gave it to Yattleby, pointed back the way we had come and said ‘Queynt.’ He seemed to understand.”
“I’m sure he did,” I said, fighting down anger. I did not need more pressure on me. Through the thin fabric of my Shifted hide I could feel the pouch I had carried for two years. Inside it were Didir and Tamor. Mine. Shattnir. Mine. Even Dealpas. Mine. “When I give them up,” I said in a carefully conversational tone, “I will be powerless to confront Huld. If I had not had them, you would have been meat for groles instead of sitting here beside me, eating roast bird.”
“When you saved us from the bones in Three Knob,” she said, “it was by your own Talent. If you had not had Sorah to call upon outside Learner, you would have found another way. You need nothing but yourself, Peter.”
“I do,” I shouted at her, making wild echoes flee from the place. “Without them, I am nothing. Nothing at all…”
She wiped her hands fastidiously, poured water from her flask to wash her face, turned that face to me at last, quiet, unsmiling, unfrowning, quiet. “I have told you I am a Wizard, Peter. I will give you Wizardly advice. Think on yourself, Peter. Think on Mavin, and Himaggery and Mertyn. Think on Windlow. Carefully, slowly, on each. Then think on Mandor and Huld. And when you have done, decide with whom you will stand.”
Gamelords, I said to myself. Save me from the eloquence of Wizards. She sounded like Himaggery, or rather more like Windlow, though Windlow had been a Seer, not a Wizard. This abstraction called justice was all very well, but when it meant that one had to give up one’s own power… One considered being Huld-like.
“Jinian,” I cried. “Do you know what it is you ask?”
“Of course,” she said. “Wizards always know what they ask. And they ask everything.”
I held out my arms and she came into them to hold me as a mother might hold a child or a Sorceress her crown. When we slept, it was thus twined together, and for a time I did not think of her being a Wizard. The shadowpeople let us sleep. They faded away in the morning light, into the deep caverns of the rock, to return at dusk, I was sure, expecting another feast, another song fest. Well. Perhaps by then we would have more guests to feed. So saying, I took Jinian by the hand and we went back into Barish’s Keep.