“Of course. I asked Peter and he told me. Mertyn is in Schooltown. No one knows where Mavin is. She went off somewhere, and no one knows how to find her.”
Dedrina made a spitting noise.
“It’s true,” said Sylbie. “Evidently she’s always done that. Sometimes she goes away for years. Who else? Oh, yes. Jinian is up north near the Maze. Peter doesn’t know exactly where she is now. That’s true, too. I listened outside the door when Peter was telling Himaggery all about it, and he really doesn’t know.”
“How did she escape from Storm Grower?” asked the Witch.
“Storm Grower? Oh, the giants. I don’t know. Perhaps Peter told them when he was here last, but he hasn’t spoken of it this time. At least not when I’ve been able to hear. Perhaps she and Peter have had a falling-out.” Sylbie seemed very satisfied at this thought.
“I would think you might have more gratitude to one who saved you from the hunt in Fangel.” said the Witch. “You do not seem to care much for Jinian.”
“It wasn’t her who saved me, it was Bryan,” Sylbie answered. “Bryan gorbled the Ogress when she tried to bite him.”
Jinian had told me of that hunt. I thought Sylbie’s account of it was rather oversimplified. Though it was true that Bryan had dispatched the Ogress, the Ogress had been only one of a considerable hunting party. If it had not been for Jinian, both Sylbie and Bryan would likely have perished along with an assortment of other prey. I sweated, snarling internal reproaches at myself. There was a new voice, a chill voice with an icy sibilance in it.
“You were supposed to plant the amethyst crystals in the wine stores. I suppose you did that?” Dedrina’s voice.
“No. I’ll do that when I go back. I-”
“When you go back! What makes you think they will let you in, stupid girl?”
“They’ll let me in,” she said doubtfully. “I’ll have to be there or Bryan will have a fit. . . .”
“Where’s the girl Jinian?” Dedrina asked.
“No one knows where Jinian is,” said Sylbie. “And I for one don’t care.
“Shut your mouth, girl. You’ve done your part and are finished. Comes our part now, to use that young buck Shifter in there as bait for the girl. Then Huldra gets him and I get her.”
“No!” Sylbie, very sharp, frightened. “I get Peter. That’s what Huldra promised me.”
“Stupid chit. She promised you he would never Shift again, never see Jinian again. Quite true. He will neither Shift nor see when he is dead.” The Basilisk laughed.
Silence, a wail, a tantrum wail. Though I was nowhere near I could visualize it. Sylbie throwing herself at the Basilisk, nails scratching. So a kitten might launch at a gnarlibar, hissing and scratching, and like a kitten she was thrown across the enclosure to land against the main tent pole. The canvas shivered. There was a crack, as though something had broken, and then a breathless sobbing. The voices grew nearer. Eyelids half-shut over eyeballs rolled well back, shallowly breathing, I let them come. They looked at me, kicked my presumably unconscious body, and went away again.
Sounds outside. Shouts, the crack of a whip, a quick tuppa, tuppa, tuppa on a drum calling some work party or other. Someone came in and got me, packing me in a wagon like so much luggage, me never quivering. Lords, but I wanted to open my eyes and look. Where was Sylbie? Where was Bryan? Evidently I had not really heard Bryan, there under the wall. That had been all mockery done by Huldra and her cronies. I tried for the Shifting—nothing. Tried again, tried—nothing. Still again. Gave up trying with my whole self wet with sweat and stinking from the effort. Lay quietly, quietly, trying to think while wheels creaked and the entourage began to move away. Then I risked half opening my eyes. I could peer out the back of the wagon to see a great part of the camp trailed out behind it in the predawn gray, all making a great dust with feet and wheels as we came away north on the Great Road. At least half the besiegers were in the train. So much the easier for Himaggery and Barish. So much the worse for me.
So, we were going away. What was it Jinian had told me? Huldra and her companions had been instructed to distribute amethyst crystals in the southlands and then to go to the Ice Caverns and destroy all there. Which was undoubtedly where we were going. They were going. Moving on to the second part of the duty, leaving the first undone. I thanked all the old gods that Sylbie had been so eager to betray me she had delayed betrayal of the Demesne. Those at the Bright Demesne were safe, at least. For a time.
As for me, I was being taken away like a sack of roots, like a stack of wood, like nothing living or thinking, like bait for a trap. If I could have wept, I would have done so. Beside me a lumpy sack was breathing in a harsh, irregular way, gasps with too long silences between. I tried to say “Sylbie?” but my voice wouldn’t work. Still, I knew it was Sylbie. The breathing was that of someone badly injured, and I thought of Bryan, wondering where he was. Likely sleeping peacefully back in the little gatehouse. It had all been a trick and a deceit.
The reeking smoke of the spell casting had made my head hurt quite badly. I gave up pretending to be unconscious and actually became so for a protracted time.
When I came to myself again, it was in the tent once more. The train had stopped along the road to make camp. From where I lay on a pile of packs and rolled rugs, I could see
