“I’m grateful to you for Chance,” I said. “I … I understand why you did not call me thalan before.”
“I didn’t want to endanger you, Peter. If it had been known you were my full sister’s son, some oaf would have tried to use you against me. Some oaf did it anyhow, though unwittingly.” He sat silent for a moment. “Well, lad, what brings you back to Mertyn’s House? I had word you were coming, but no word of the reason.”
“I want to find Mavin.”
“Ah. Are you quite sure that is what you want to do?”
“Quite sure.”
“I’ll help you then, if I can. You understand that I do not know where she is?”
I nodded, though until that moment I had hoped he would tell me where to find her. Still.
He went on, “If I knew where she was, any Demon who wanted to find her could simply Read her whereabouts in my head and pass the word along to whatever Gamesman might be wanting to challenge her. No. She’s too secret an animal for that. She gives me sets of directions from time to time. That’s all. If I need to find her, I have to try to decipher them.”
“But you’ll tell me what they are?”
“Oh, I’ve written down a copy for you. She gave them to me outside Bannerwell, where we were camped on Havajor Dike. You remember the place? Well, she came to my tent that night, after the battle, and gave them to me. Then she pointed away north—which is important to remember, Peter, north—and then she vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Went. Away. Slipped out of the tent and was gone. Took the shape of an owl and flew away, for all I know. Vanished.”
“Doesn’t she ever stay? You must have grown up together as children?”
“Oh, well, by the time I was of an age to understand anything, she was almost grown, already Talented. Still, I remember her as she was then. She was very lovely in her own person, very strange, liking children, liking me, others my age. She did tricks and changes for us, things to make us laugh.
“And she brought me to you?”
“Yes. When you were only a toddler. She said she had carried you unchanging, and nursed you, unchanging, all those long months never changing, so that you would have something real to know and love. But the time had come for you to be schooled, and she preferred for some reason not to do that among Shifters. I never knew exactly why, except that she felt you would learn more and be safer here. So, she brought you here to me, in Mertyn’s House, and I lied to everyone. I said you were Festival-get I’d found wrapped in a blanket on the doorstep. Then I tried never to think about you when there were Demons about.”
“And I never knew. No one ever knew.”
“No. I was a good liar. But not a good Gamesman. I couldn’t keep you away from Mandor.”
“He beguiled me,” I mused. “Why me? There were smarter boys, better-looking boys.”
“He was clever. Perhaps he noticed something, some little indication of our relationship. Well. It doesn’t matter now. You’re past all that. Mandor is shut up in Bannerwell, and you want to find Mavin Manyshaped. It will be difficult. You’ll have to go alone.”
I had not considered that. I had assumed Chance would go with me wherever I went.
“No, you can’t take Chance. Mavin may make it somewhat easier for you to find her, but she will not trust anyone else. Here,” he said and handed me a fold of parchment. “I’ve written out the directions.”
Periplus of a city which fears the unborn.
Hear of a stupration incorporeal.
In that place a garment defiled
and an eyeless Seer.
Ask him the name of the place from which he came and the way from it.
Go not that way.
Befriend the shadows and beware of friends.
Walk on fire but do not swim in water.
Seek Out sent-far’s monument, but do not look upon it.
In looking away, find me.
“It makes no sense,” I cried, outraged. “No sense at all!”