Riddle-Master Trilogy

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  She whispered, “Morgon said that you—that you harped while he lay half-dead in Ghisteslwchlohm’s power.”

  She saw the muscles in his face tighten. He reached out, edged a broken branch into the fire. “It’s true. I will reap my reward for that harping. But meanwhile, will you have some supper? I am doomed; you are hungry. One has very little to do with the other, so there is no reason for you not to eat with me.”

  She took another step, this time towards him. Though he watched her, his expression did not change, and she took another. He took a cup from his pack, filled it with wine from a skin. She came close finally, held out her hands to the blaze. They hurt her; she turned and saw the cuts on them from brambles, the white blisters from the nettles. His voice came again. “I have water…” It faded. She glanced down at him, watched him pour water from another skin into a bowl. His fingers shook slightly as he corked the skin; he did not speak again. She sat finally, washed the dirt and dried blood from her hands. He passed her wine, bread and meat in the same silence, sipped wine slowly while she ate.

  Then he said, his voice sliding so evenly into the silence that it did not startle her, “Morgon, I expected to find in the night at my fire’s edge, or any one of five wizards, but hardly the second most beautiful woman of the Three Portions of An.”

  She glanced down at herself absently. “I don’t think I’m that any more.” A pang of sorrow caught at her throat as she swallowed; she put the food down and whispered. “Even I have changed shape. Even you.”

  “I have always been myself.”

  She looked at the fine, elusive face, with its unfamiliar shadow of mockery. She asked then, for both the question and the answer seemed impersonal, remote, “And the High One? Whom have you harped to for so many centuries?”

  He leaned forward almost abruptly to stir the lagging fire. “You know to ask the question; you know the answer. The past is the past. I have no future.”

  Her throat burned. “Why? Why did you betray the Star-Bearer?”

  “Is it a riddle-game? I’ll give answer for answer.”

  “No. No games.”

  They were silent again. She sipped her wine, felt, coming alive all through her, little aches and throbbings from cuts, pulled muscles, bruises. He filled her cup again when she finished. She broke the silence, easy in his presence for some reason, as though they sat together in the same black hollow of sorrow. “He already killed one harpist.”

  “What?”

  “Morgon.” She moved a little, shifting away from the longing the name gave her. “Ylon’s father. Morgon killed Ylon’s father.”

  “Ylon,” he said tonelessly, and she lifted her head, met his eyes. Then he laughed, his hands linked hard around his cup. “So. That sent you into the night. And you think, in the midst of this chaos, that it matters?”

  “It matters! I have inherited a shape-changer’s power—I can feel it! If I reached out and touched the fire, I could hold it in the palm of my hand. Look…” Something: the wine, his indifference, her hopelessness, made her reckless. She stretched out her hand, held it curved in a motionless caress to the heat and curve of a flame. The reflection of it flickered in Deth’s eyes; its light lay cradled in the lines and hollows of the stone he leaned against, traced the roots of ancient trees into untangling. She let the reflection ease through her thoughts, followed every shift of color and movement, every fade and mysterious renewal out of nothingness. It was of an alien fabric that ate darkness and never died. Its language was older than men. It was a shape-changer; it groped for the shape of her mind as she watched it, filled her eyes so that she saw a single leaf fall in a liquid, burning tear through the darkness to the ground. And deep within her, rousing out of a dormant, lawless heritage came the fiery, answering leap of understanding. The lucent, wordless knowledge of fire filled her; the soft rustlings became a language, the incessant weave a purpose, its color the color of the world, of her mind. She touched a flame then, let it lay in her hand like a flower. “Look,” she said breathlessly, and closed her hand over it, extinguishing it, before the wonder in her broke the binding between them, separating them, and it hurt her. The night fell around her again, as the tiny flame died. She saw Deth’s face, motionless, unreadable, his lips parted.

  “Another riddle,” he whispered.

  She rubbed her palm against her knee, for in spite of her care it hurt a little. A breath of reason, like the cool air off the northern peaks brushed her mind; she shivered, and said slowly, remembering, “She wanted me to hold the fire, her fire…”

  “Who?”

  “The woman. The dark woman who had been Eriel Ymris for five years. She came to me to tell me we were kin, which I had already guessed.”

  “Mathom trained you well,” he commented, “to be a riddle-master’s wife.”

  “You were a Master. You told him that once. Am I so good with riddles? What do they lead to but betrayal and sorrow? Look at you. You not only betrayed Morgon, but my father and everyone in this realm who trusted you. And look at me. What lord of An would bother to draw enough breath to ask for me, if he knew who claimed kinship with me?”

  “You are running from yourself, and I am running from death. So much for the tenets of riddle-mastery. Only a man with a brain and heart implacable as the jewels in Isig could bear adhering to them. I made my decision five centuries ago about the values of riddles, when Ghisteslwchlohm asked me to Erlenstar Mountain. I thought nothing in the realm could break his power. But I was wrong. He broke himself against the rigid tenets of the Star-Bearer’s life and fled, leaving me alone unprotected, harpless—”

  “Where is your harp?” she asked, surprised.

  “I don’t know. Still in Erlenstar Mountain, I assume. I don’t dare harp now. That was the only other thing Morgon heard, besides Ghisteslwchlohm’s voice, for a year.”

  She flinched, wanting to run from him then, but her body would not move. She cried out at him, “Your harping was a gift to Kings!” He did not answer; his cup rose, flashed again in the firelight. When he spoke finally, his voice seemed shaded, like the fire’s voice.

  “I’ve played and lost to a Master; he’ll take his vengeance. But I regret the loss of my harp.”

  “As Morgon must regret the loss of his land-rule?” Her own voice shook. “I’m curious about that. How could Ghisteslwchlohm rip that from him—the instinct for the land-law that is known only to Morgon and the High One? What piece of knowledge did the Founder expect to find beneath the knowledge of when the barley would begin to sprout or what trees in his orchard had a disease eating secretly at their hearts?”

  “It’s done. Can you let—”

  “How can I? Did you think you were betraying only Morgon? You taught me ’The Love of Hover and Bird’ on the flute when I was nine. You stood behind me and held my fingers down on the right notes while I played. But that hardly matters, compared to what the land-rulers of the realm will feel when they realize what honor they have given to the harpist of the Founder of Lungold. You hurt Lyra badly enough, but what will the Morgol, herself, think when Morgon’s tale reaches her? You—” She stopped. He had not moved; he was sitting as she had first seen him, with his head bent, one hand on his bent knee, the cup cradled in it. Something had happened to her, in her anger. She lifted her head, smelled the fine, chill, pine-scented air off Isig, felt the night that lay over her like its shadow. She sat at a tiny fire, lost in that vast blackness, her dress torn, her hair tangled and dirty, her face scratched, probably so haggard no Lord of An would recognize her. She had just put her hand in the fire and held it; something of its clarity seemed to bum in her mind. She whispered, “Say my name.”

  “Raederle.”

  Her own head bent. She sat quietly awhile, feeling the name in her like a heartbeat. She drew breath at last, loosed it. “Yes. That woman nearly made me forget. I ran from Isig in the middle of the night to look for Morgon somewhere in the backlands. It seems unlikely, doesn’t it, that I’ll find him that way.”
/>
  “A little.”

  “And no one in Danan’s house knows if I am alive or dead. That seems inconsiderate. I forgot that, having Ylon’s power, I still have my own name. That’s a very great power, that alone. The power to see…”

  “Yes.” He lifted his head finally, lifted the cup to drink again, but instead put it down with a curious care on the ground. He sat back, his face thrown clear in the light; the mockery in it had gone. She drew her knees together, huddling against herself, and he said, “You’re cold. Take my cloak.”

  “No.”

  His mouth crooked slightly, but he said only, “What is Lyra doing in Isig Mountain?”

  “We came to ask the High One questions—Lyra, Tristan of Hed, and I—but Danan told us that Morgon was alive, and he advised against going through the Pass. It took me hours to think why. And it has taken this long—a day and two nights—to think of another question. But there’s no one to ask, except Morgon, and you.”

  “You would trust me with a question?”

  She nodded a little wearily. “I don’t understand you any more; your face changes shape every time I look at you, now a stranger, now the face of a memory… But whoever you are, you still know as much, if not more, as anyone else about what is happening in the realm. If Ghisteslwchlohm took the High One’s place at Erlenstar Mountain, then where is the High One? Someone still holds order in the realm.”

  “True.” He was silent, an odd tautness to his mouth. “I asked Ghisteslwchlohm that five centuries ago. He couldn’t answer me. So I lost interest. Now, with my own death inevitable, I am still not very interested, any more than the High One, where he is, seems remotely interested in any problems in the realm beyond land-law.”

  “Perhaps he never existed. Perhaps he’s a legend spun out of the mystery of the ruined cities, passed through the ages until Ghisteslwchlohm took the shape of it…”

  “A legend like Ylon? Legends have a grim way of twisting into truth.”

  “Then why did he never stop you from harping in his name? He must have known.”

  “I don’t know. No doubt he has reasons. Whether he or Morgon dooms me, it makes little difference; the result will be the same.”

  “There’s nowhere you can go?” she asked, surprising both herself and him. He shook his head.

  “Morgon will close the realm to me. Even Herun. I will not go there, in any event. I was already driven out of Osterland, three nights ago, crossing the Ose. The wolf-king spoke to his wolves… A pack found me camping on his land, a remote comer of it. They did not touch me, but they let me know I was not welcome. When word reaches Ymris, it will be the same. And An… The Star-Bearer will drive me where he wants me. I saw the hollow he made of the High One’s house when he finally broke free—it seemed as if Erlenstar Mountain itself was too small to hold him. He paused, in passing, to wrench the strings out of my harp. His judgment of me I don’t contest, but… that was one thing in my life I did well.”

  “No,” she whispered. “You did many things well. Dangerously well. There wasn’t a man, woman or child in the realm who didn’t trust you: you did that well. So well that I am still sitting beside you, talking to you, even though you hurt someone I love past bearing. I don’t know why.”

  “Don’t you? It’s simply that, alone in the backlands under a sky black as the pit of a dead king’s eye, we have nothing left but our honesty. And our names. There is great richness in yours,” he added almost lightly, “but not even hope in mine.”

  She fell asleep soon afterwards beside his fire, while he sat quietly drinking wine and feeding the fire. When she woke in the morning, he was gone. She heard rustlings in the brush, voices; she shifted painfully, freeing an arm to push back the covering over her. Then she checked. She sat up abruptly, staring down at her hand, in which the fire had burned like an extension of herself the night before. On her palm, scored white, were the twelve sides and delicate inner lines of the stone Astrin had given her on King’s Mouth Plain.

  7

  LYRA, TRISTAN AND the Guards rode out of the trees, then, into the tiny clearing where Raederle sat. Lyra reined sharply at the sight of her, dismounted without a word. She looked dishevelled herself, worn and tired. She went to Raederle, knelt beside her. She opened her mouth to say something, but words failed her. She opened her hand instead, dropped between them three tangled, dirty pieces of thread.

  Raederle stared down at them, touched them. “That was you behind me,” she whispered. She straightened, pushing hair out of her eyes. The guards were dismounting. Tristan, still on her horse, was staring at Raederle, wide-eyed and frightened. She slid to the ground abruptly, came to Raederle’s side.

  “Are you all right?” Her voice was sharp with worry. “Are you all right?” She brushed pieces of pine needle and bark out of Raederle’s hair gently. “Did anyone hurt you?”

  “Who were you running from?” Lyra asked. “Was it a shape-changer?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened? I was just across the hall; I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t even hear you leave. I didn’t hear—” She stopped abruptly, as at a memory. Raederle pushed wearily at the cloak that had been covering her; it was hot, heavy in the bright morning. She drew her knees up, dropping her face against them, feeling a complaint from every bone at the simple movements.

  The others were silent; she could feel their waiting, so she said haltingly after a moment, “It was—one of the shape-changers came to my room, spoke to me. After she left, I wanted—I wanted to find Morgon very badly, to talk to him. I was not thinking very clearly. I left Danan’s house, walked in the night until the moon set. Then I slept awhile and walked again, until—until I came here. I’m sorry about the traps.”

  “What did she say? What could she have said to make you run like that?”

  Raederle lifted her head. “Lyra, I can’t talk about it now,” she whispered. “I want to tell you, but not now.”

  “All right.” She swallowed. “It’s all right. Can you get up?”

  “Yes.” Lyra helped her stand; Tristan reached for the cloak, bundled it in her arms, gazing anxiously over it.

  Raederle glanced around. There seemed to be no trace of Deth; he had passed in and out of the night like a dream, but one of the guards, Goh, casting about with a methodical eye, said, “There was a horseman here.” She gazed southward as if she were watching his passage. “He went that way. The horse might have been bred in An, from the size of the hoof. It’s no plow horse, or Ymris war horse.”

  “Was it your father?” Lyra asked a little incredulously. Raederle shook her head. Then she seemed to see for the first time the heavy, rich, blue-black cloak in Tristan’s arms. Her teeth clenched; she took the cloak from Tristan, flung it into the ashes of the fire bed, seeing across from it as she did so, the harpist’s face changing to every shift of firelight. Her hands locked on her arms; she said, her voice steady again, “It was Deth.”

  “Deth,” Lyra breathed, and Raederle saw the touch of longing in her face. “He was here? Did you speak to him?”

  “Yes. He fed me. I don’t understand him. He told me that everything Morgon said about him is true. Everything. I don’t understand him. He left his cloak for me while I was sleeping.”

  Lyra turned abruptly, bent to check the trail Goh had found. She stood again, looking southward. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “Lyra,” Imer said quietly, and Lyra turned to face her. “If you intend to track that harpist through the backlands of the realm, you’ll go alone. It’s time for us all to return to Herun. If we leave quickly enough, we can reach it before Morgon does, and you can ask him your questions. The tale itself will reach Herun before any of us do, I think, and the Morgol will need you.”

  “For what? To guard the borders of Herun against Deth?”

  “It might be,” Goh said soothingly, “that he has some explanation to give only to the Morgol.”

  “No,” Raederle said. “He said he would not go to Herun.”

/>   They were silent. The wind roused, sweet-smelling, empty, stalking southward like a hunter. Lyra stared down at the cloak in the ashes. She said blankly, “I can believe he betrayed the Star-Bearer if I must, but how can I believe he would betray the Morgol? He loved her.”

  “Let’s go,” Kia urged softly. “Let’s go back to Herun. None of us knows any more what to do. This place is wild and dangerous; we don’t belong here.”

  “I’m going to Herun,” Tristan said abruptly, startling them with her decisiveness. “Wherever that is. If that’s where Morgon is going.”

  “If we sail,” Raederle said, “we might get there before he does. Is Bri—Where is Bri Corbett? He let you come after me alone?”

  “We didn’t exactly stop to ask his permission,” Lyra said. The guards were beginning to mount again. “I brought your horse. The last time I saw Bri Corbett, he was searching the mines with Danan and the miners.”

  Raederle took her reins, mounted stiffly. “For me? Why did they think I would have gone into the mines?”

  “Because Morgon did,” Tristan said, “when he was there.” She pulled herself easily onto the small, shaggy pony the guards had brought for her. Her face was still pinched with worry; she viewed even the genial profile of Isig with a disapproving eye. “That’s what Danan said. I got up near morning to talk to you, because I had had a bad dream. And you were gone. There was only that fire, white as a turnip. It frightened me, so I woke Lyra. And she woke the King. Danan told us to stay in the house while he searched the mines. He was also afraid you had been kidnapped. But Lyra said you weren’t.”

  “How did you know?” Raederle asked, surprised.

  The guards had formed a loose, watchful circle around them as they rode back through the trees. Lyra said simply, “Why would you have taken your pack and all the food in the room if you had been kidnapped? It didn’t make sense. So while Danan searched his house, I went into town and found the guards. I left a message for Danan, telling him where we were going. Finding your trail wasn’t difficult; the ground is still soft, and you left pieces of cloth from your skirt on brambles beside the river. But then your horse stepped on one of the threads you dropped and pulled out of Goh’s hold; we spent an hour chasing it. And after we caught it finally, Kia rode over another thread and went off into the brush before anyone saw her. So we spent more time tracking her. After that, I watched for your threads. But it took me awhile to realize why our horses kept stumbling over things that weren’t there, and why there were mountains of brambles along the river that your footprints seemed to disappear into. And then we came to that lake…” She paused, giving the memory a moment of fulminous silence. The blood was easing back into Raederle’s face as she listened.