“One has one’s own Demons to guard against thought theft by outsiders. One stays in one’s own purlieus, in one’s own Demesne.”
“Ah, but walls of that kind can be breached, or sapped. No. Sometimes secrets are kept, even by those who go about the world in the guise of ordinary Gamesmen. There were secrets kept in Bannerwell. Someone there knew things that others do not. Huld, it seems. How did he manage that…
“Do you know,” he went on, suddenly confidential, “as a child I envied the Gamesmen. Yes. I was much enamored of Sarah. A Seer. How wonderful to see the invisible, the inscrutable, the future … how wonderful to know everything!”
“I don’t think that’s quite how it works,” I said, remembering old Windlow and his frustration at partial visions of uncertain futures.
“Perhaps not. Still. There are many things I want to know. For example, does the name ‘Barish’ mean anything to you?” His tone was casual, but he watched me from the corner of his eye.
I took a deep breath, hiding it, wondering what to say. “Barish? Why, it’s a name from religion. A Wizard, wasn’t he? Did something very secret and subtle—I forget what.” I waited, scarcely able to breathe. “Is it a name I should know?”
“Secret and subtle.” He mused. “No. Everyone knows that much, and seemingly no one knows more than that.” He smiled. “I am merely interested in secret and subtle things, and I ask those who may know. I have heard, recently, of this Barish.”
I turned my hand over to let his words run out. “I do not know, Riddle. You riddle me as you must riddle others. Do you always ask such questions?”
“I talk to hear my voice, boy. I tie words on a journey as a woman ties ribbons on her hat.”
“Do they?” I asked, interested. “I have only seen ribbons on students’ Tunics, come Festival.”
“Oh, well, Peter. You have not seen much.” And with that, he lapsed into along, comfortable silence. It had rained betimes and we found lung-mushrooms all along the sides of fallen trees. Riddle cut away a nice bunch of them, glistening ivory in the dusk, and rolled them in meal to fry up for our supper. He told me about living off the countryside, more even than Yarrel had done. Riddle spoke of roots and shoots, berries and nuts, how to cook the curled fronds of certain ferns with a bit of smoked meat, how to bake earth-fruits in their skins by wrapping them first in the leaves of the rain-hat bush, then in mud, then burying the whole in the coals at evening to have warm and tender for the morrow’s breakfast.
Our road cut across country between loops of the River until the land began to rise more steeply. Then the River ran straight or in long jogs between outcroppings, plunging over these in an hysteria of white water and furious spray. Our horses climbed, and we strode beside them for part of each morning and each afternoon so they would not tire or become lame. Stone lanterns along the way began to appear, at first only broken, old ones, half crumbled to gravel, but later newer ones, and then ones lit with votive lights.
“What are these?” I asked. “Burning good candles here in the daylight?”
“Wards against the Gifters,” said Riddle. “The people hereabouts are most wary of Gifters and what Gifts they may make to the unsuspecting.”
“Why have I never heard of them until now?”
“Because students hear of very little.” He did not make it a rebuke, but I was offended nonetheless.
“We were taught morning to evening. They did nothing but teach us of things.”
“They did nothing but teach you of certain things,” Riddle replied sternly. “And they told you nothing of other things. They told you nothing of the Gifters, though the world north of the Great Bowl goes in constant fear of them. You are told nothing of the nations and places of this world, but only of the small part you inhabit.”
“Riddle.” I was caught up in a curious excitement. “Why do you say ‘this world’? Do you believe it is true what the fablers say, that there are more worlds than this?”