“Well, fetch-it, Chance. I am a Shifter.”
“Well, fetch-it, yourself, boy. Shift into something sensible. If you’re going to go find your mama, we got to go all the way to Schooltown to ask Mertyn where to look, don’t we? Change yourself into a baggage horse. That’ll be useful.” He went on with our packing, interrupting himself to suggest, “You got the Talent of that there Dorn. Why not use him. Go as a Necromancer.”
“Why Dorn?” I asked and shivered. “Why not Trandilar?” Of the two, she was the more comfortable, though that says little for comfort.
“Because if you go traveling around as a Prince or King or any one of the Rulers, you’ll catch followers like a net catches fish, and you’ll be up to your gullet in Games before we get to the River. You got three Talents, boy. You can Shift, but you don’t want to Shift into something in-con-spic-u-ous. You can Rule, but that’s dangerous, being a Prince or a King. Or you can, well, Necromancers travel all over all the time and nobody bothers them. They don’t need to use the Talent. Just have it is enough.”
In the end he had his way. I wore the black, broad-brimmed hat, the full cloak, the gauze mask smeared with the death’s head. It was no more uncomfortable than any other guise, but it put a weight upon my heart. Windlow may have guessed that, for he came tottering down from his tower in the chill mowing to tell us good-bye. “You are not pretty, my boy, but you will travel with fewer complications this way.”
“I know, Old One. Thank you for coming down to wave me away.”
“Oh, I came for more than that, lad. A message for your thalan, Mertyn. Tell him we will need his help soon, and he will have word from the Bright Demesne.” There was still that awful, pathetic look in his eyes.
“What do you mean, Windlow? Why will you need his help?”
“There, boy. There isn’t time to explain. You would have known more or less if you’d been paying attention to what’s been going on. Now is no time to become interested. Journey well.” He turned and went away without my farewell kiss, which made me grumpy. All at once, having gained my own way, I was not sure I wanted it.
We stopped for a moment before turning onto the high road. Away to the south a Traders’ train made a plume of dust in the early sky, a line of wagons approaching the Bright Demesne.
“Traders.” Chance snorted. “As though Himaggery didn’t have enough problems.”
It was true that Traders seemed to take up more time than their merchandise was worth, and true that Himaggery seemed to spend a great deal of time talking with them. I wasn’t thinking of that, however, but of the choice of routes which confronted us. We could go up the eastern side of the Middle River, through the forests east of the Gathered Waters and the lands of the Immutables. Chance and I had come that way before, though not intentionally. This time I chose the western side of the River, through farmlands and meadowlands wet with spring floods and over a hundred hump-backed, clattering bridges. There was little traffic in any direction; woodwagons moving from forest to village, water oxen shuffling from mire to meadow, a gooseherd keeping his hissing flock in order with a long, blossomy wand. Along the ditches webwillows whispered a note of sharp gold against the dark woodlands, their downy kittens ready to burst into bloom. Rain breathed across windrows of dried leaves, greening now with upthrust grasses and the greeny-bronze of curled fern. There was no hurry in our going. I was sure Himaggery had sent an Elator to let Mertyn know I was on the way.
That first day we saw only a few pawns plowing in the fields, making the diagonal ward-of-evil sign when they saw me but willing enough to sell Chance fresh eggs and greens for all that. The second day we caught up to a party of merchants and trailed just behind them into Vestertown where they and we spent the night at the same inn. They no more than the pawns were joyed to see me, but they were traveled men and made no larger matter of my presence among them. Had they known it, they had less to fear from me than from Chance. I would take nothing from them but their courtesy, but Chance would get them gambling if he could. They were poorer next day for their night’s recreation, and Chance was humming a victory song as we went along the lake in the morning light.
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