The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part two

“What did you say she looks like?” panted Chance.

“Black nails, black painted eyes, body like a bolster and hair like wires. ‘Ware, Chance. She’ll eat you.”

“Up to you to prevent it, boy.”

When she was a hundred paces from us, she turned to us, smiling, blazing. Lord, she was beautiful. My mouth almost dropped open, but then I felt around for the pattern that let me see clear even while my fingers fumbled for Wafnor in the pouch. Far ahead on the road the Armiger’s horse was now riderless. I trusted not, tra-la. The Witch pouted, prettily.

“Oh, Sir Shifter, I beg your assistance. I know that Shifters can make their eyes keen like those of the flitchhawk to see a coin dropped in a canyon from a league away. Can you find for me the bracelet I dropped along the way here, perhaps at the edge of the trees?”

Then she turned to Chance, casting that smile on him like the light of a torch. Almost I saw him melt, but then I caught the tucks in his face where he had his cheeks between his teeth, biting down. “Pawn,” she said, “would you help your master find my bracelet by walking along the trees. What he can see, you can retrieve, and have my thanks as he will…”

Chance’s eyes were out a finger’s width, and he gave every appearance of being about to fall off his horse. Meantime, I smiled, bowed, and oozed desire in her direction while I called up Didir to sit in her head and tell me what she planned. I knew the Armiger was above us, somewhere, ready to fall upon us when we came within the trees. I gave a gulping prayer that I had enough power to do what I intended, then turned my eyes to the grassy verge of the road as the Witch came nearer. Under my fingers Wafnor came alive and reached up into the branches. I worked my way almost to the forest.

“Oh, lovely one,” I called. “Here. Could it have caught on a branch? See the sparkling there where the sun catches it, not so bright as your beauty, but able to adorn it…”

Witches are, for the most part, stupid. They tend to come into their Talent early, and this early accession to beguilement gives them too easy success in their formative years. At least so Gamesmaster Gervaise was wont to say. This particular Witch could have served as an object lesson. She came into the trees after me, still glittering and beguiling for everything she was worth. I was reminded of Dazzle, and, yes, of Mandor, and when I turned toward her she must have seen it in my face, for she flew at me with a scream of rage and those black nails aimed for my eyes.

There was no time for thought. I grabbed her wrist, ducked, twisted, and felt her fly over my head to land with a whoosh of expelled breath on the leaf-littered ground behind me. Then Didir did something quick and clever inside her head and the Witch lay there unconscious. Physical combat is not something we ever learned in a School House, but Himaggery believed in it. He had pawnish instructors giving classes every afternoon in the Bright Demesne. I hadn’t seen the sense of it until now.

Chance looked at her where she lay. “Ugly,” he said.

“I told you,” I muttered.

“What now?” Chance always asks me what now when I have no idea what now. I shook my head, put my finger to my lips, concentrating on what Wafnor was doing. Fingers of force fluttered the bright leaves above us. The noise would be the Armiger. I could feel Wafnor searching, then there was a harsh “oof” as though someone had been roughly squeezed. I felt a shaking in my head, then Wafnor speaking in a cheerful grumble. “Stuck. Got him between two branches, and he’s stuck!” One of the tree tops began to whip to and fro as Wafnor continued growling cheerily. “Won’t come loose. Stupid Armiger…”

“Whoa,” I said, weary of the whole thing. “Chance, hold the horses while I climb the tree.”