The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper part one

We were mounted on tall, red horses from Himaggery’s stable, and Yarrel beamed as though he had sired them himself. As for me, Silkhands bade me leave the bandages off, and as we rode she held my hand and led me to think myself unmarred once more. There was one deep wound which could not be healed, a puckered mark on my brow. Silkhands said my mind held to the spot for a remembrance. Certainly, I did not want to forget what had happened in Schooltown.

She led me to think of Tossa and speak of her until that hurt began to heal as well. I learned that what I had felt was not love. It was some deeper thing than that, some fascination which reaches toward a particular one, toward a dream and thus toward all who manifest that dream. She made me talk of the earliest memories I had, before Mertyn’s House (though until that moment I had not known of any memories before Mertyn’s House) and I found memory there: scents, feelings, the movement of graceful arms in the sun, light on a fall of yellow hair. So, Tossa had been more than I knew, and less. Even as I grieved at her loss, I grieved that I could not remember who the one had been so long ago, before Mertyn’s House. I could not have been more than two or three. I tried desperately, but there were only pictures without words. Tossa had matched an inexplicable creation, an unnamed past.

As well as being Healer, Silkhands became Schoolmistress. Believing Yarrel and I had been too long without study, she began to drill us in the Index as we rode, day by day. It was something to do to while the leagues passed, so we learned.

“Seer,” she would say. “Give me the Index for Seer.”

Obediently, I would begin. “The dress of a Seer is gray, the mask gray gauze, patterned with moth wings, the head covered with a hood. The move of a Seer is the future or some distant place brought near. The Demesne absolute of a Seer is small, a few paces across, and the power use is erratic. Seers are classified among the lesser durables; they may be solitary or oath bound to some larger Game…” Then she would ask another.

“The form of the Dragon is winged…breathing fire…and the move is flight through a wide Demesne. Dragons are among the greater ephemera…the dress of a Sentinel is red…of a Demon is silver, half-helmed…of a Tragamor is black, helmed with fangs…of a Sorcerer is white and red, with a spiked crown…” and so and so and so. Some of the names she knew I had never heard of. What was an Orieiromancer, a Keratinor, a Hierophant? What was a Dervish? I didn’t know. Silkhands knew, however, the dress, the form, the move, the Demesne, the Power, the classification.

“When I was a child,” she said, “there was little enough to do in the village. But there were books, some, an Index among them. I learned it by heart for want of anything else to do. I think many of the names I learned are very rare. Some I have never seen anywhere in life.” Still, she kept me at it.

“Of a Rancelman is cobwebbed gold, magpie helmed…of an Elator is blue, with herons’ wings…of an Armiger is black and rust, armed with spear and bow…of a King is true gold, with a jeweled crown…”

“And Shapeshifter,” she said. “What is the Index of a Shapeshifter?”

I said I did not know, did not care, was too hungry to go one pace further. She let us stop for food but continued teaching even as we ate.

“The Shapeshifter is garbed in fur when in its own shape. Otherwise, of course, it is clad in the form it takes. The Demesne of a Shifter is very small but very intense, and it goes away quickly. It takes little power to make the change and almost none to maintain it. They are classified among the most durable of all Gamesmen, almost impossible to kill. They are rare, and terrible, and the most famous of all is Mavin Manyshaped.”