The End of the Game

I assured her—for whatever food she could spare that would travel well. She looked over the wet red trews and the striped tunic, brushing it off, admiring it. There was a youngster playing out back who would look well in it in a year or two, and I told her so. She asked if I’d stolen it, and I said I’d be glad to put it on to prove it had been made for me, but she smiled and said no. She said I seemed young to be out on such a large horse, and I said the horse was younger than I. At which she laughed. We ended making a bargain, and I took enough dried meat, roadbread, and dried fruit away to last me for several days, as well as a leather-covered flask full of beer. The beer wouldn’t last long, but the bottle could be filled at any stream. I told her someone might come looking for me, in which case I would be mightily thankful if she said I’d gone northward. She frowned, not at me, nodded, and said she would indeed. She had done well by me, so as I left I turned and offered to sign the place friendly to the wize-art. I don’t know what made me offer it. When it came from my mouth, I expected her not to understand what I was saying, but instead she came up to me, knelt down, and took my hand, clutching it tightly.

“Art Wize-ard?” she begged me.

“Learning,” I answered her honestly. “I’m learning.”

“Bless this house, then,” she said, and I did, taking the star-eye out of my blouse and turning it so that it saw every part of the house and the land about it. “Under the Eye of the Star,” I cried, “whether forest or meadow, under sunlight or shadow. Woman or man, elder or child. Bless all here.” Then nothing would do but she run back in the house and bring me out a sweet cake to eat on my way.

I did not need to worry about the forest for two days, for that was how long it took to come to the end of Longbow Mountain, through the pass between it and the Tits—two huge, rounded protruberances to the north—and stand at last at the top of that pass looking downward on the endless black fur of the forest. Looking at it, I felt like a tick, like a flea about to burrow onto a very large fustigar. Looking at it, I knew time had come for me and horse to separate. There were no trails. Branches grew low over the ground. I could walk under those trees fairly well. I could not ride.

So I unsaddled the good creature, smacked him upon his rump, and sent him back the way we had come. I hoped he would come to the farmhouse and stay with the farmwife. I hoped Mendost wouldn’t find him. I hoped Porvius wouldn’t, either, for I could sense that Tragamor’s anger still behind me and coming after me. Perhaps only fantasy, but I thought not.

The truth was far worse than I imagined.

6

Even with the food I’d traded for, my pack wasn’t heavy. I had no gear at all except a knife and firelighter. Not even extra boots. I don’t know how many times Murzy had told me never to go anywhere without extra boots. And underwear. Well, it was her doing. If she’d wanted me to have them, she should have packed them.

So thinking, I strolled down the rock-strewn slope to the trees. The edge of the forest seemed a little misty, but it didn’t worry me much. Ponds, I thought, giving off a veil of vapor. Then, as I got closer, I saw it wasn’t mist at all but something else. A grayness. A vagueness. The trees looked not quite solid, rather like the reflection you see in a pane of glass looked at sidewise. Odd. When I came beneath the nearest tree, I reached out to feel it.

My hand went into it. Not far. Not like into soup or mud, but more like into—oh, really punky wood. The kind you can squash between your fingers. A harder push, and my fingers went in farther. When they came out, a great hunk of the tree came with them. The tree creaked and gulped. Like someone does who’s been crying for a long time and tries to catch his breath. Sad. Then I forgot the sorrowful forest, for my hand began to burn like fire, and then my lungs, as though they were full of smoke. I coughed, hacked, turned about, finally ran from the forest to recover myself after some time lying flat on the grassy slope. Not good, Jinian. Not a good place to be. There had to be some other way in, even if one had to go all around the outside of it.

But something was calling, in that sad, sad voice. Wanting. Begging. I could hear it, not with ears, but inside. As a loving mother might hear a child in trouble when it was too far away to really hear. Or so I told myself.

I tried again, and was driven out again. Then I began to think and plan sensibly. The gray area wasn’t deep. There was darker, healthy-looking forest beyond it. The burning sensation was strongest beneath the punky trees, so they should be avoided. All up and down the edge I went, hearing that sad pleading, finally finding a place where there were no trees at all, merely a long, flat waste of deadly gray. I rinsed out my kerchief in a nearby stream, tied it around my face, and ran for it.

It seemed endless. For a time I was sure I’d die there, in the middle of the gray, lungs burned out by whatever it was, but in what was actually a very short time, I fell onto the grass at the other side, heaving, eyes flooding, telling myself I would