Yittleby and Yattleby had passed the time in conversation with their kin, a bird tribe now mightily angered at the Duke of Betand. “Yerk quiss krerk,” conveyed fury and the details of their capture.
“How did you folks get picked up?” asked Chance of Beedie and Roges.
“We came into Hawsport on a ship,” said the woman, “asking in the port where we might find Mavin Manyshaped. We had gems to pay our way and buy information. A black-haired eel of a man attached himself to us, saying he knew where to find Mavin. The next thing we knew, we had been dragged off to Betand, where we were questioned at length about the source of the gems. The Duke’s people didn’t seem to be interested in anything but that. When we told the sleek one he could find the mines three years’ journey west and oversea, he cooled somewhat, but made no offer to release us.”
“You don’t think it was using the name of Mavin that got you into trouble?” I’d been worrying over this.
“Not then. Though when we spoke of her later, in our captivity, it seemed to stir the little furry folk.” They fell silent. Sylbie and the baby were asleep.
Far off on the eastern sky lay a thin greenish line heralding light.
It was then the sending came.
It came shrieking down the trail far behind us, clearly visible over the trees at the top of the slope as it cast back and forth like a scenting fustigar, a blue, skull-jawed haze with a voice that shattered the dawn.
The voice cried, “Jambal!” and then again: “Jambal.” Birds fled from dark foliage, screaming terror. In the underbrush small movements ceased. Yittleby and Yattleby stopped, frozen, turning their long necks to see what came.
“Gods,” I hissed. “I should have been prepared for this. Quick, Chance, get out of those Zinterite clothes.” I was ripping the black clothes off, shouting hissing directions to Beedie meantime. “There’s a sack of straw back in the wagon somewhere. Find it. No, it’s bigger than that. That’s it. Here, stuff this garment with enough straw to make it shapelike. Tie the hood on top. Here’s the veil. Pin it. Cloak over the whole thing. Paper. Paper. Gods, Queynt, where did you put the paper? ...” Stumbling over Queynt’s unconscious form, I fumbled on the shelves. “Here. Now—hell, give me a piece of that charcoal.” I muttered a likeness spell, half stuttering in my haste, then leapt half-naked from the wagon to fasten the dummy high upon a branch. I labeled it with the torn paper, hastily scrawled in charcoal with the name “Jambal,” and left it dangling in the dawn wind as the blue haze circled down toward it, shrieking triumphantly, “Jambal.” We fled, leaving the haze to eat the straw manikin with great munching, masticating noises and cackling screams.
“By the Lost City,” murmured Roges, “what was that?”
“A sending,” I panted. “Sent by that Witch, Huldra, I’ve no doubt. It seeks an entity named Jambal. The entity named Jambal is hanging on that tree. That’s all Jambal was, thank all the old gods, a costume, a bit of playacting. Luckily. If it had my real name, I’d be Witch’s meat by now.” I flushed, began to look for shirt and trousers, only then conscious that I was shivering in my smalls. “Hurry up, Chance. They’ll be hunting Biddle next.” And to Beedie and Roges, “Get Queynt’s clothes off him, too. They may not connect him to us, but best we be ready if they do.”
The dummy labeled “Biddle” was mounted high on a branch before the next sending announced itself, a purple haze with Demon’s face and banshee voice, howling the jungle silent in its wake. I didn’t remember the birds until this sending fastened itself with hideous voracity on the strawman; then I remembered my own voice saying, “Yarnoff and Barnoff,” or some such fool thing. They, too, had been named to a resident of Fangel. I chattered in krylobos, yelling at them when they refused to understand. It was the huge stranger krylobos, stepping forward to krerk at Yattleby in tones of unmistakable mastery, who prevailed. Sulkily, they tugged plumes from each other’s topknots, a, few feathers from wings, legs and breast.
Soon there were feather tufts mounted high, labeled “Yarnoff” and “Barnoff,” while I was frantically wondering if it mattered whether I had put the right feathers with the right names.
It was not done too soon. Wraiths red as hot iron came screaming from the sky to settle upon the hasty bundles. If we had delayed a moment, we would have delayed too long.
“Now what?” begged Beedie, pale as milk. “We have no such things as these in the chasm.”
“What chasm is that, lady?” asked Chance, breathing heavily. He had not liked the look of those wraiths and was eager to talk of something else.
“In the chasm where we live, on the great root cities.”
“Great root cities,” I said distractedly. “Are there things like groles there? Great things like huge worms?” And on being told there were, I was confirmed in an earlier supposition and saddened thereby.
“I ask again,” said Beedie, amazed at this easy change of focus. “What now?” I rubbed my head wearily, trying to remember.
“Well, now the Witch will be told by her wraiths that they have found and eaten the ones she sent them after. If she is not too clever, that will be enough. If she is very clever and does not mind the time it takes, she will examine the wraiths for blood scent and, finding none, know she has been tricked.”
“At which,” came Queynt’s heavy, pained voice from the wagon, “she will be very annoyed. You should have put some fresh meat in the dummies, Jinian.” I was ashamed to have forgotten it. There was no excuse for it except funk, fear and funk from a growing supposition that something was terribly wrong. “I forgot.”
“Well, you had little time to do anything. Sorry I was of so little
