“Sylbie,” I said stuttering. “The baby.”
“Oh, well, yes. There is that. Stupid girl left the wagon and followed me. I didn’t catch her at it until it was too late to send her back. Then the first time I Shifted she went all hysterical.”
“But she ... it’s your baby.”
“Yes. It’s my baby. Which was begot, you might say, in pursuance of duty. Now I’m not going to do what Mavin would, which is not talk about it. And I’m not going to do what Himaggery would, which is talk about something else. You’ve got to understand this …
“It was in Betand. They called it “the City That Fears the Unborn”. Some Necromancer had come there, got drunk, and summoned up a ghost. Instead of being a ghost of something dead, though, it was the ghost of someone unborn. So, every visitor to the city had to beget if at all possible in order to get the unborn born as soon as possible. You understand?”
“I don’t understand what an unborn could do to send a whole city so silly.”
“Well, Jinny, you’re going to have to take my word for it. The howling alone would have driven you crazy. It was a real haunting, no mistake about it. Half the people in the town had lost their minds. Well, so there I was, riding up to Betand, all innocence, trying to find out something about where Mavin was, and the next thing I knew I was in this room with Sylbie, having been instructed to beget. She was crying and carrying on, and I was scared to death. See, I’m being honest. If you don’t like that, tough.
“It was more Trandilar who did it than me. I didn’t know anything about sex at all, Jinian. Not a shred. I knew it would be awful, so I summoned up Trandilar, and she actually did all the lovemaking and so forth. Of course Sylbie fell for that. Who wouldn’t? I would have myself. Trandilar is—well, you know what Trandilar is. So, we begot a baby, which was what we were supposed to do. As it happens, it’s likely the very baby who was haunting Betand. At least, so Dorn said when we put the haunting down. He’s turned out to be a very nice baby, but I don’t love Sylbie, I never did. It would be very easy to love the baby, and that would be pleasant, but not if it means giving up Jinian. If we can work out something including Jinian and the baby, very good. What I got to thinking was, suppose the baby turns out Shifter? Sylbie will fall apart.”
“She really had hysterics when you Shifted?”
“Full-fledged, whooping and screaming hysterics. All I did was a snakey little thing to get to the top of a tree, and it set her off.”
I had seen some of Peter’s snakey little things and was not entirely unsympathetic with Sylbie. “Where is she now?”
“She’s up this trail, a league or so. In a cave which I dug for her—took pombi shape to do that, and she didn’t like that, either—until I could get back. She’s got food and water.”
I sighed, sagging back into his arms. It would be nice just to stay here, close held. Spend.the night, perhaps, cuddled in furry arms in the hollow of a tree. Too much had happened. Too much was going on.
Too much was going on. Exactly. I drew him down beside me and told him the tale.
“Giants? I never dreamed there were real giants. And Proom?” he whispered when I had done. “Really, Proom? He’s like some kind of fairy godmother following my family around. Mavin, then me, then you. Gods, those amethyst crystals. We’ve got to warn them. They have no idea.”
“None of them have any inkling at all. Not Himaggery, nor Mavin, nor any of the rest of them. But there’s more to it than that.”
I told him then what I suspected. What I’d been worrying over in my head ever since we saw the little crystal mine outside Fangel and talked to old Buttufor.
“I’m afraid it’s true, Peter. Everything the giants said only confirmed it. Up until then, I thought they might be responsible for those yellow crystals, but they’re not. They were as frightened by them as I am.”
His face was as drawn and hopeless as I’m sure mine had been many times in recent days. “What can we do?”
“I don’t know. It may be too late to do anything, but we have to try. That was the lesson I learned in Chimmerdong, Peter. No matter how hopeless it looks, you still have to try. I got a few more of the blue crystals from Proom. You’ll have to take them south with you. Warn Himaggery and Mavin and all the rest. Then suggest to them in the strongest possible way that they stop arguing and get the hundred thousand out of the cavern. And when each one wakes, he or she must have a sliver of this crystal in his mouth. If the ones I have here aren’t enough, then more must be found in Beedie’s land. Perhaps Mavin can get
