This was not unlike Silkhands. Healers tend to be a bit casual about security. I, however, looked the guards over cynically when we left, hoping they would not be victims in what was likely to occur.
As it happened, when the Ghoul came out of the woods, with a great troupe of staggering dead, the guards could make only a token resistance; both were injured immediately, one may have been killed. Silkhands was a Healer, not a fighter, and despite all my plots and plans, I was so surprised and horrified that I had all I could do to keep my hand away from the Dagger. Since the Ghoul made no immediate move to harm us, however, I concentrated on what was happening; counted the liches; and memorized the Ghoul’s face in the event I should meet him again.
Just as I was about to decide that using the Dagger would be prudent inasmuch as this wasn’t the occasion the Oracle had in mind, I heard Peter screaming—his voice always cracked when he was excited; it went on doing it until he was well into his twenties—screaming, “Ghoul’s Ghast Nine.” And then he swooped up the two of us, Silkhands and me, and carried us off to a treetop.
Unfortunately, he had used the last of his power in that swoop, while the Ghoul had plenty in reserve. We clung and kicked and cursed a bit, and finally Peter got a grip on one of the tiny Gamesmen he carried in his pocket—Buinel the Sentinel, it was—who stirred up a fire which burned up the Ghoul and the liches and very near barbecued us in the process. I didn’t, quite frankly, think it was terribly good planning on Peter’s part. Still, he had saved my life as the Oracle had suggested. Since he had saved Silkhands, too, however, it did not produce the desired effect.
We went on. Some of his enemies caught up with him in Three Knob, and I was able to suggest a stratagem that didn’t require his using the Gamesmen of Barish. I thought he might act more prudently and consistently if he were not used to calling on them all the time. Loving Peter was sometimes like loving a committee. He often went into these odd, silent conferences with himself, them, leaving one very much on the outside. It was obvious he would not be able to love anyone by himself as long as he carried the Gamesmen in his pocket and in his head. Finding a solution to their presence would have to come soon. It could not come soon enough, so far as I was concerned.
King Kelver turned out to be a strikingly handsome man, younger than I had expected. The first moment he set eyes upon us, I knew he preferred Silkhands to me. Part of that was my own doing. I had not wanted him to like me much. Still, it was a bit crushing to find one had succeeded so well. His feelings seemed to be returned by Silkhands. She looked at him in a way she had never looked at Peter.
I considered them both, Silkhands and the King, and twiddled my thumbs thinking of Murzy’s warning. “Never for anything small, chile,” she used to say. So far as I was concerned, it was not for anything small. I found the sixteen ingredients for the love potion with some trouble, found privacy with which to mix them with a little more trouble, and then—then threw them out, threw myself down on the bed, and cried for an hour or so. It was no good. Remembering the centipig, that horrible, witless lusting that was compelled rather than felt, I could not do it to either of them. Things would just have to take their course. After only a few days, I knew no potion was necessary. She was quite besotted with him. Seeing them together, I wondered how often potions were used between two who might have loved anyhow. Well, no matter. King Kelver would obviously not object to breaking the contract.
And once Silkhands was disposed of in such a friendly fashion, I allowed another occasion on which Peter could save my life. I had to appear to do a very foolish thing, of course, and had it not been for my special Talent, it would have been a foolish thing in truth. I was shut up in a housenut that was being eaten out by groles. This time was actually much less dangerous than the previous time, since groles are beasts and quite responsive to being talked to. I kept them well away from me until the last minute, though when Peter arrived they were chewing away at my perch with every appearance of eating me imminently. He rescued me very nicely, held me as though I were precious to him, realizing for the first time that I was female.
Had it not been for Peter’s old friend Chance, grumphing away in the background, my oath of celibacy might have been forgotten right then. From that point on, Peter began to have feelings for me. They were troubled feelings, yes. Uncertain feelings. Still, I thought in time he would come to love me a good deal. The whole matter might have been less complicated if there had not been that oath which still had two years to run.
We found the solution to the Gamesmen of Barish upon the heights of Bleer. Though he fought against it, Peter did the right thing. He and Silkhands raised them up, restoring them to themselves, and I was not even jealous. Silkhands saved his life in the process, so we all seemed even up with nothing owing to anyone.
A nice conclusion to the tale, his and mine. A good place to leave it, is it not? All of us properly paired off, loving couples or with some hope of being, having achieved great things. Many of the old stories end in such a
