The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part one

I shrugged, let a little anger play in my voice. “If I do not, you will not give me my price. If I do, you will pay me. Or I will return worse thrice over. Is this reason enough?”

At which he gave grudging agreement. I insisted it be put upon parchment, signed before witnesses with the Gamesmen oath. I trusted him as far as I could kick him up a chimney.

Sylbie and I spent the day together. When evening came I went into the center of the city and called up Dorn, explaining the problem of Betand. There was deep, mocking laughter in my head, a sound as though I had my head in a bell which someone struck softly. When he had done laughing,I became his student once again. “Inside out.” He showed me. “What we would have done, inverted, so, tug, pull, twist so that it becomes this shape instead of that. Oh, this would be good sport if we were drunk. See, over there, under and through, down and over, and under once more—there is your unborn, Peter. It will be born in nine months in any case. Are you sure you want to let it rest? Ah. Well then, down and over and through once more, dismissing it thus: Away, away into time unspent. A way, away into life unused. Be still. At peace. In quiet. And done.” Indeed, when I let Dorn go and walked forth into the streets there was only stillness, peace, and quiet.

So I went to the Duke and waited with him while his counselors wandered about listening to the stillness. Even then he would have cheated me if he could, saying that none knew whether my Talent would hold. I told him we would let my Talent summon up something else as a demonstration, and he agreed to payment.

“There is in this city the daughter of a merchant, one Sylbie, well dowered. Last night nobody begot upon her a child which she will bear, come proper season. It is my will that she be allowed to marry as she will, or not as she chooses, no matter what the cost.”

He bloated like a frog. I thought he would burst, he was so red and purple, and murmurs behind me told me that the Duke had thought of Sylbie for himself. Well and good. If she willed it, good. If she willed it not, then devil take him. I took her the parchment he had signed and told her the names of the witnesses and took oath to lay upon kindred of mine the obligation to see that the Duke’s oath was fulfilled. Then there were more kisses, and more promises to remember, and I left her.

Well, it was time to make the “periplus of a city,” so I walked all the way around it on the ring-road inside the walls. The “stupration incorporeal” had been attended to, a mere word play on rape by nobody. Now I was in search of a “garment defiled.” In the entire journey, I found only one place that fit, the Dirty Girdle, that same tavern Sylbie had told me of. So, it being almost time for supper, I went in. The name was far worse than the place. It was a drinking place near the vegetable markets and took its name from the farmers’ habit of wiping earthy hands upon the ends of their knotted girdles. The food was good, not expensive, and the people in an ebullient mood, toasting the end of the haunting, for which the Duke had been careful to take credit. When I asked whether “an eyeless Seer” frequented the place, they told me Old Vibelo would be in at dusk. So I drank and listened to the talk and waited for whomever Old Vibelo might be.

There was some talk of disappearances. A Wizard from a town away east had vanished, as well as a respected Armiger from among his people. This talk reminded me of Himaggery and Windlow, so my earlier feelings of accomplishment and self- satisfaction were much dwindled by the time the blind Seer tapped his way through the door. I greeted him kindly and offered him a meal in exchange for his company. This seemed to surprise him, but he was nothing loath to take advantage of the offer. After a few mugs I could not have stopped the flow of talk had I willed to. So, I asked him the name of the place from which he came, and how he had first come to Betand.