Read Online The End of the Game by Sheri S. Tepper - Free Book Online

holding on to me who did not seem to see me as a person at all. He was like a man reciting a role, uttering speeches he had rehearsed. I tried to get his attention, explain to him. “I know I’m very young. King Kelver is having me Schooled at Xammer. As part of an alliance ...” The more I tried to explain the circumstances, the more he smiled into the air, not seeing me, disbelieving me.
    “You’ve a good imagination, girly,” he said at last. “A very good imagination. If you live to get older, maybe they’ll put you to work making dream crystals. Or being a Seer. Most of what they tell you they make up out of their heads. I don’t believe them, either. So, we’ll take you along to the place we’ve got ready, then we’ll send our message and wait ‘til Mendost shows up.”
    “He won’t show up,” I said hopelessly.
    “For your sake, girly, he’d better.”
    “Would you ask ransom?” I suggested, hoping that King Kelver might see fit to increase his investment. He had already gone to considerable expense and might not mind a little extra.
    “The Game is between Mendost and me,” he said offhandedly. “Why should I want ransom? Ransom will not avenge my honor. Mendost struck me without warning. He did not announce Game before striking me.”
    “If he’d been drinking,” I said, “it wasn’t Game at all. It was just bad temper.”
    “If it wasn’t Game for Mendost then, he must learn it is Game now,” he said, turning the horse through a screen of trees and down into a hidden hollow where a camp had been set up. “The Herald has delivered my demands by now. He was on his way to your gate when we picked you up.” Porvius Bloster sounded so self-satisfied, so pompous, I knew there would be no reasoning with him. Which is probably why Mendost hit him in the first place. If you are ever captured by someone, pray it is not a stupid, pompous man who sees the whole world through a haze of his own preconceptions. As I analyzed the situation, it seemed fairly hopeless that he would ever believe me. He was not living in the same world I was. He was simply too sure he was right.
    There was a tall, greasy-looking post at one side of the camp, and I saw with alarm it had been fitted up with a tether and harness. Sure enough, they put the harness on me, hooked up behind where I couldn’t reach it, and the tether went to the top of the post where I couldn’t reach that end, either. There was a small tent nearby where I could sleep. I could get into the thicket if I needed to go. They weren’t going to torture me or anything. In fact, as they went about their business, it was obvious they weren’t very interested in me at all. I sat in the entrance of the tent, getting familiar with the camp, thinking. It seemed to me the best thing to do was to become invisible.
    Now the first rule of invisibility is that you have to be where you can be seen. You sort of blend into the scenery. Never hide. If you hide, people wonder where you are and what you’re doing, so you don’t hide. You do whatever you’re doing right out in front of everyone, but it’s what you do all the time. So I began to wander around, into the thicket and out. Among the trees and out. Into the tent and out. Over near the fire to get warm, then away. Down to the little pool to get a drink. Pick up a few sticks and put them down near the fire. Pick a rainhat berry and eat it. Rainhat berry. Still walking aimlessly around, I set myself to search for shivery-green. It wasn’t common. Not nearly as common as the rainhat bush. Thinking of that, I picked a couple of leaves and put them beside the tent. If it rained, I could use them to replace the rain cape in the saddlebag Misquick had taken home.
    I didn’t find any shivery-green that day. Night came. They gave me some food, not very good. They sat in the light of their fire, mumbling to one another. Porvius Bloster had a chain about his neck with a pendant on it. I had noticed it during the