The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part two

“Look, lad. They know you’re a Shifter. They’re expecting that. They may have been told you’re something else as well, but nobody knows exactly what, so they can’t expect everything. Just be original and surprising. My granddad, the actor, used to say that. Original and surprising.”

“Follow the rules.” I sighed again. The rule was to take out the Pursuivant first, because he had the power to change place in an instant, and one might find him behind one with a knife before one could take a deep breath. Two of the Gamesmen of Barish and I had a little conference, waiting for a turn in the road. It might have been quicker to use Hafnor the Elator, but I had never ‘ported from one place to another. The thought made me queasy, like being seasick. Besides, I didn’t know the area ahead, and those with that Talent could only flick to places they could visualize. Which was another reason they were moving ahead of us. They had seen the road we traveled, but we hadn’t seen the road they were on. No. I would use Tamor and Didir. I was used to them. And Shattnir, of course, to provide power, which she’d been doing for the last hour or so. It was moving toward evening before the road set as I wished it to.

We were moving between close set copses, dark trunks still half masked in drying leaves. One could not see far into them, a few paces perhaps. Just ahead of us the road swung around a huge rocky outcropping to make a loop to the left. Shortly before the riders ahead of us reached this place, Chance and I began a conversation which turned into a loud argument¾Chance’s voice much louder than mine. Old rogue. He was an actor as much as his granddad had ever been. As soon as the two ahead had ridden out of sight, I grasped the figure of Tamor and flew up from my saddle, darting away through the trees like an owl among the close trunks while Chance’s voice rose behind me in impassioned debate. From time to time a softer voice would reply, Chance again, but those ahead would have no reason to think it was not me, Peter the Shifter, riding along behind them.

I had to intercept them before they had any opportunity to become suspicious. The trees were close, too close for easy flight, but I came to the edge of the road silently only a few paces behind them. I drew my knife and threw it, launching myself at the same moment, Shifting in midair. The Pursuivant went down, skewered, even as my pombi claws swept the Invigilator from his saddle. Then I sat on him. Beneath me he screamed, struggled, tried to fly. I let him struggle while I drooled menacingly into his face. He screamed a little more, then fainted. At least Didir said he really fainted, sure I was going to eat him. Shattnir drained him of any power he had left, and then we tied him up after going through his pockets. I found the thing almost at once. It was another of those constructions of glittering beads and wires like the one Nitch had sewn into my tunic in Schooltown, like the things Riddle had shown me outside Bannerwell. It was rather like the thing Huld had used against me in the cavern of the bodies, away north. It was shaped like a hood or cap, with a strap to go beneath the chin.

“What does it do?” asked Chance.

Didir sought in the Invigilator’s unconscious mind even as I started to say I did not know. The man stirred in discomfort. She was not being gentle with him. I repeated to Chance what she told me.

“It guarantees docility,” I said. “If they had put it on my head and fastened the strap, I would have obeyed anything they told me to do.” I stood there for a time, thinking, then asked Didir to search further. Did the man know who sent him? Once I was “docile,” where would they have taken me?

Whispering, she told me, “There are some ruins near the river which bounds the land of the Immutables. Old ruins. North of here. He would have taken you there.”