Against that anger was no possibility of reprieve. Even through his fear he heard the cry come again, louder, more impassioned, a kind of agonized command.
Another of their kind had come and made them stop.
“Ganver,” someone whispered. “Ganver.” Then it was all over and he was alone upon the hillside, unchanged, totally changed. He had failed, but so had the rolling stars; they had exhausted one another in their mutual failure.
He had understood almost nothing. How could he have understood its frustration, its anger, perhaps its fear? The bright images swam in his head like fishes, but he had no hooks with which to catch them. There was an understanding that evaded him, a sense of incompletion.
The singers came back for him, sadly, patting him on his bruised places and offering herbal teas and poultices.
He came down out of the hills, sometimes playing for the Shadowpeople, sometimes listening as they sang for him. To accompany their singing they had only drums. When he returned to a town where there were craftsmen, he had bells made, and silver flutes, taking them into the Marches as gifts for the Shadowmen ...
“And now, a thousand years later, I sit in a tower room,” he said, “in a strange city telling the story to Jinian Footseer, watching the wrinkle between her eyes deepening like a crevasse. You will be a quizzical oldster, Jinian. What deep thoughts has my story raised in you?”
I was fingering the star-eye that hung about my throat, which had hung there since I had received it from Tess Tinder-my-hand when I was only a child. I had always thought of it as an Eesty sign. Now that Queynt had told me his tale, I was not sure it was an Eesty sign at all. The Eesties he described were not what I had thought then. They were not what Mavin, Peter’s mother, had thought them, either. A mystery there. I asked him, “But if they hated you, why have you lived so long, Queynt?”
“Something to do with the blue crystal, I think. When I left the Marches, I knew I would live a very long life. No. That’s not quite right. I was conscious of death being remote, put it that way. The blue gem did that. It imposed a kind of understanding upon the fiber of oneself.
“I said to Peter once they would likely do the same for him. I think they would do so for any of us. If whatever makes the gems could only make enough of them to go around, to make everyone understand what I did ...”
I recoiled at this, but he did not see me. I could not bear the thought of being compelled by some outside force. I rebelled against it.
He went on, “That is why I am immune to other crystals, I suppose. The pattern of the first one, the blue one, is too well set in me to be disrupted.” He sighed then, taking the pouch from his belt and pouring the crystals into his palm. “There are enough here for you to have one, and Peter.”
I thrust out my hands, warding him away. “No! No, Queynt. Not for me. And I would hope Peter would say no as well. I do not like the thought of compulsion.”
He shook his head at me. “Not compulsion, Jinian. Information, more like. It is as though I had been given a map which showed both the good roads and the swamps. Is it compulsion to avoid the swamps if one knows they are there?” I thought he was sincere, but still I would have none of it. Compulsion is always said to be something else.
“Kind of you, Queynt, but no.” Changing the subject, “It is noon. We have been riding for two days without sleep. If you wish to drink and tell tales, do so, but quietly. I’m going to sleep.” Which I did, lying awake only a little time thinking about Queynt’s story and that strange word or meaning the Eesties had used. Bao. Bah-ho. I knew I would think of it at more length another time.
CHAPTER FOUR
I woke with a start to a cacophony of shouts, thuds, and explosions. Among these louder sounds were Chance’s whuffing complaint at being wakened and Queynt’s calm voice going on in one of his loquacious monologues.
“... when one is having the best rest one has had for ages, something eccentric in the way of barbaric behavior breaks loose outside one’s window, and the peace of the evening is disrupted ...” It was disrupted further by more violent blows on the door and another explosion from the street below.
“Friends, visitors!” Brom’s voice, frantic with a mixture of frustration and panic. “The fireworks shop on Shebelac Street has caught fire and is going up all at once. Let me in. You have the best windows!” Furniture-moving sounds came from the neighbouring room, the barricade being removed. I rose, albeit reluctantly, leaning out of my own window to watch bouquets of rockets blooming across the darkening sky above a volcano of spouting scarlet. Whistles and sirens competed for attention. Figures as dark and tiny as ants ran to and fro before the leaping light.
It was night. We had slept the day away. I rummaged in my pack for something to wear, taking what was on top, one of the voluminous smocks they wore in the purlieus around Zog. Pulling the soft, bright fabric over my head, I went into the other room.
Brom hung half-out the window, hitting his fist on the sill in an agony of amused apprehension. “Oh, what a mess! It’s funny, you know, but it isn’t funny at all. At dawn tomorrow comes Finaggy-Bum—not a major festival, but one that deserves some effort for all that—and there won’t be a rocket left. The revelers will be so disappointed.”
“Revelers?” asked Queynt. “Who are the revelers?”
“Why, Queynt, those for whom the festivals are held, surely. Those from the towns of Zib and Zog,
