Free The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

either.”

    She considered it. It had a certain audacious simplicity which was attractive. “Which Wizard? We’d have to say which Wizard?”

    “It couldn’t be a real one with a Demesne around here, or we might get caught. I heard of one. There’s one called Hagglefree who has a Demesne along the River Dourt.”

    “You know some very strange things,” she said.

    “There are lots of old books and maps at the keep that no one paid any attention to,” he replied. “We should have learned all about them at school. Someone must have learned about them long ago, or they wouldn’t have been there.”

    “We had become decadent,” she said. “That’s what Plandybast said to someone at the last dinner. That Danderbat keep was decadent. That we hadn’t any juice anymore.”

    He nodded solemnly. “So. If he’s still alive, Hagglefree, I mean, then we should be all right.”

    “If he had a sister. If she had a boy. If he keeps servants, for some do not. We might be better to make up a name, Mertyn. Make one up.”

    He thought for a moment, said, “The Wizard Himaggery. That’s who we are connected with.”

    “And where is his Demesne?”

    “Ah ... let’s see. His Demesne is down the middle river somewhere, toward the southern seas. There’s lots of blank space on the maps down there. No one knows what’s there, really.” He put his hand in hers, “Shall we swear it, Mavin? Shall it be our Game?”

    “Let it be our game, brother. The campground is ahead, and we will see how it sits with the people there when I buy us supper and a bed.”

    “Do you have money, Mavin? I brought a little. I didn’t have much.”

    “I didn’t have much either, brother boy, but I took some from the cooks’ cache before they left. It will get us to Battlefox the Bright Day—if we are careful.”

     

    The wagon driver leaned back toward them, gesturing toward the firelights down the road. “That the place you were going, young sirs? There it is. Calihiggy Campground. I’ll take the wagon no further, for I’ve no mind to have my hay stolen during the dark hours. I’ll sell it to the campmaster come morning.”

    They thanked him and left him, then wandered out of the gloaming into the firelight before a half hundred pairs of eyes, both curious and incurious.

    It was the first time Mavin had been anywhere outside the keep of the Danderbats where she had needed to speak, bargain, purchase, seem a traveler more widely experienced than in fact she was. She did it rather creditably, she thought, then noticed that the man to whom she spoke smiled frequently at Mertyn with a glazed expression. Shaking her head ruefully, she accepted the bedding she was offered and allowed them to be guided to a tent pitched near the western edge of the ground, near Calihiggy Creek and a distance from the privies.

    “I thought I told you not to do that,” she hissed.

    “I had to,” he said sulkily. “The man was beginning to think you were a runaway pawn from some Demesne or other. You stuttered.”

    “Well. I haven’t practiced this.”

    “You’ve got to seem very sure of yourself,” he said. “If you seem very sure of yourself, everyone believes you. If you stutter or worry, then everyone else begins to stutter and worry inside their heads.”

    “I thought you had Ruler Talent, not Demon Talent to go reading what’s in people’s heads.”

    “It isn’t like that. I can just feel it is all. Anyhow, it didn’t hurt anything. Now you’ve got to practice walking as though you knew just where you were going, and when you talk, do it slowly. As though you didn’t care whether you talked or not. And don’t smile, until they do. I’m tired. What did you get us to eat?”

    “I got hot meat pies, three of them, and some fruit. You can have thrilps or rainhat berries.”

    He had both, and two of the pies. Mavin contented herself with one. They weren’t bad. Evidently some family from a little village along the