The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part one

“Mandor may have sent them. If he is not dead, he may be remorseful and desirous of making it up to you.”

I thought this most unlikely. I had seen Mandor’s face when Mertyn moved against him.

“Mertyn may have sent them,” he went on. “He has decided he made a mistake to send you away and …”

Chance hushed him, as did I. In our opinion, mine for what small count it has, Mertyn makes very few mistakes of any kind.

“Or, someone may have seen the play,” Yarrel continued, “when the power flew at Mandor, and may have thought it came from you…”

I said, “Nonsense.”

“Truly, Peter. Some kin of Mandor may have thought so and desires to take you for vengeance.”

“But I did nothing to him. It was he who tried to kill me.”

“But, they may not know that. Someone watching from a bad vantage point, they might think it was you.”

“Or someone from afar,” agreed Chance. “Someone who saw or heard about it but did not know the truth. Perhaps they think you a Wizard Emergent, and the pawners are recruiting for a True Game somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Who knows where. Somewhere. Some petty King of a small purlieu may have offered high for a Wizard. No tested Gamesman would go to a small purlieu, so a pawner would be paid to look for a student, or a boy with talent just emerging.”

“But, it was Mertyn’s Sorcerer, not me. Mertyn’s power, not mine. Power bled into that Sorcerer for days, perhaps, little by little, so that we’d not feel it going, so that he’d be ready when the moment came. It was Mertyn! Not me.”

Chance agreed, pursing his lips and cocking his head like a bird listening to bugs in the wood. “You know it, lad. I know it, and so does Yarrel, here. Someone else may not.”

I exploded, “What do I look like? Some Wizard Child?” There was a moment’s terrified silence. One does not shout about Wizards or their children if one cares about surviving, but no lightning struck at me out of the fog.

“I look like what I am. A student. No sign of talent yet. No sign of a name. No nothing. Oh, I know what they said at the house, what that fat-faced Karl always claimed, that I was Mertyn’s Festival get. Well. So much for that and that. I’m gone from Mertyn’s House with no sign of Kinging about me to rely on. Now, this is nonsense and makes me sick inside.”

Yarrel had the grace to put his arms around my shoulders and hug me, after which Chance did the same, and we stood thus for a long moment while the ship wallowed and splashed itself toward the jetty. Around us masts of little boats sketched tall brush strokes of stone gray against cloud gray, tangles of rigging creaked and jingled while a circle of wan light hung far above us like a dead lantern. It was mid-day masked as evening with dusk bells tolling somewhere in the fog, remote and high, as though from hills, and such a feeling of sadness as I had not felt before. Long minutes told me it came from the pungent soup of salt and smoke, as of grasses burning on the water meadows, a smell as sad and wonderful as youth in speaking of endings and beginnings.

Came a hail out of the shadow, and we grated against the stones. The Captain was over the rail in a moment, talking earnestly to those he met there. The plank clattered down to let us off the unquiet deck, our legs buckling and weaving like dough from the long time on the water. Howsoever, we stiffened them fast enough to gather up our gear and follow Chance up through the lanes, twisting and dodging back upon our trail until we came to a tavern. That is, I suppose they would have called it a tavern, though most they served there was tea and things made of greenery.

There was one there to meet us, their “governor,” so they said, a brown, lean man with a little silver beard tike the chin hairs of a goat. He said his name was Riddle.