“We could go in the Maze and find out,” he offered.
I laughed, then told him only a little about my short journey through a shallow edge of the Maze. He gave me disbelieving looks. “Wasn’t there a guide?”
“The Oracle. The Oracle who almost got me killed at Daggerhawk. The Oracle who trapped me and gave me to the giants. That Oracle?”
“We could tie it up. You could put distraints on it.”
“We could tie it up. I don’t think that would work, but we could try. Distraints, however? I don’t think so, Peter. I think anything I know, the Oracle knows something stronger. It’s a kind of evil Devil. A kind of dancing mischief maker. All full of—puffed-up anger and pride and envy. Some kind of trouble-god. And there isn’t only one of it. I thought I was dreaming in the cavern, but the more I think about it, the more sure I become that it was all true. I saw many of them in there. Oracles and Oracles. One, perhaps, as the leader, but followers without number. And oh, Peter, but I am afraid of them.”
He was listening to me, concentrated upon me, looking deep into my eyes. “You know what you’re implying, Jinian. You don’t say it, but you must know it.”
“That they’re the ones who hid the blue crystals. The ones who took them all instead of seeing they were distributed all around the world. Yes, I’m sure they did it. The Oracles.” It was out. Said. It rang true. Who else would have assembled them in the cavern of the giants? Who else would have taken them? Who else would have displayed such warped hatred for mankind? Oracles. Who never told the whole truth. “Oracles The very father and mother of liars,” I said. “Not trustworthy as guides, Peter. Truly not.”
“I can see you thinking, Jinian Footseer. You’re thinking about going into that Maze, guide or no guide. No matter what it’s like.”
I couldn’t deny it. I’d been thinking about it for days.
How to get in. How to find my way in. How to test whether my art worked there, and if so, how. How to use it, then. How to find the place the shadow lived. If Lom was dying, wasn’t it possible the shadow was killing it, no matter what the lake had told me? Oh, I thought about it. At various times I had thought about a whole seven going in. Or maybe a group of Dervishes.
Each time, something within me said, No. Not great armies, just one or two people. That’s all.
“Yes,” I admitted. “It seems someone will have to. Everything that can be done on the outside is being done, except one thing.”
“And that is?”
“Going to Beedie’s land and getting the crystals that are there. Mercald-Mirtylon said there were many. They only brought out a few. Since I made that mistake at the cavern, calling up the boon too quickly, the ones in Beedie’s chasm may be the only ones left. I was depending on Mavin to do that.”
“Mavin will, when they find her.”
“If they find her. If they find her in time. If she agrees to go. If she gets there. If she gets back.”
“I see. You want me to go.”
“Someone has to. I can’t. I’m no Shifter.”
“Jinian. Oh, Jinian, I’m not nearly the Shifter Mavin is, either. You may not know that, but in Shiftery, experience counts. Mavin was much older than I when she flew the Western Sea. Stronger. She had more experience with the forms, with the quick changes. My pride suffers to have me say it, Jinian, love. But I’m not sure I’d make it, Jinian Footseer.” I hadn’t known. He always seemed so confident.
Then I remembered that clumsily staggering form that had left me a few days before, wobbling across the sky, and I wanted to cry. Wings, I suppose it took years to really get accustomed to wings.
And it dropped into my head like a stone into a pool.
Wings. The great flitchhawk of Chimmerdong owed me a boon. The last one of the three great boons I had earned in Chimmerdong. And if any creature alive in this world had wings, it was he.
There was no reason to wait, so I didn’t. Peter and I sat beside the fire, and I called him. I let Peter see me do it; that was against the rules, but I did it anyway.
“The ways of the sky are yours, treetop and cloud, sunlight and starlight, wind and rain. I have need of these and call for a boon.” We sat quietly for a time until he arrived. On all previous arrivals, I had been buffeted by the huge feathers. This time Peter was in the way. He stood up to it no better than I ever had. It sent him sprawling.
“Your eyes are like moons, flitchhawk,” I said. “Have you seen much of the world in the last two years?” He perched on the ground, a monumental thing, his beak like the curved roof of a tower, his legs like obelisks, wings out like the boughs of mighty trees, shading us against the sun. When he looked down at me, I felt very small, and yet that gaze was no less friendly than it had ever been. He answered me.
“Destruction and wrack, Jinian Dervish daughter. High winds and low. Chimmerdong lives yet a while, but elsewhere the green of life dims to gray. I have swum in clouds, waiting for your call.”
“I want you to take my love over the sea, flitchhawk. Far over the sea to a great chasm, where he must gather crystals as blue as your skies and bring them to Mertyn and Riddle and Quench.”
“Is this the boon you would ask?”
“It is,” I said.
“No,” said Peter. He strode
