The Riddle

by Alison Croggon

  After the glacier, they faced nothing worse than the deep cold. Now their course was northwest again: Dharin was aiming for a point on the coast about forty leagues from the glacier, along one of the many fingers of land that thrust out into the frozen sea. The Labarok Isles were west from there.

  "Do we sail to the isles, then?" asked Maerad, thinking about her previous experiences of sea travel and wondering where they could find a boat in such uninhabited country.

  "No, we drive the sled over the sea," he answered.

  Maerad thought he was joking until he explained that the sea was frozen, and they would be driving across thick ice. "Maybe very thick, given this early winter," he said. "The Labaroks are islands, to be sure, but in winter they might as well not be. The sea freezes and joins them all together, except around the Isles of Fire."

  As they moved away from the mountains, they started traveling more swiftly In less than two weeks, through the ever-shortening days, they had traversed almost the entire expanse of the frozen northlands, and the dogs still ran as eagerly as they had on their first day out of Murask. Maerad's respect for their toughness and loyalty had increased as her fears had vanished; sometimes she even chatted idly with Claw, whose harsh, unwavering determination stirred a sense of recognition within her own breast. These dogs obeyed stern laws of necessity, which were not as strange to Maerad as she might have supposed; she had suffered a harsh childhood, and understood more intimately than most Bards the crude politics of survival. Claw referred to Dharin as "Master," and she bowed to no one else, human or animal. Since finding that Maerad possessed what the dogs called the "wolf tongue," Claw treated her with tolerance and respect, but she also made it clear that Maerad's authority over her was limited. I will obey you, she said. But you are not my master.

  Three days after they had crossed the glacier, they stood at last on the shores of the Ipiilinik Igor, the Sea of Fire. They camped before heading out across the ice, and when the day was still dark and the stars sparkled frostily above them in a clear, frozen sky, they began the final leg of their journey. Traveling over the sea ice was a little like riding over the Arkiadera Plains: it was flat and they could make good speed.

  The sun rose, a ball of cold flame, and Maerad looked around with wonder. The flatness of the sea was punctuated by high towers of ice, blinding white with blue shadows, which were sculpted by the wind into a multitude of bizarre shapes. Dharin told her they were icebergs, mountains of ice that had not melted over the summer and had now been trapped by the frozen sea. It was, Maerad thought, utterly strange and utterly beautiful, like something from a dream. After a couple of hours, she saw in the distance what seemed to be a great fountain of steam spouting high into the air.

  "That is the first island," said Dharin. "We do not go there."

  "What is it?" asked Maerad.

  "These islands have many mountains of fire," he answered. "They heave up melted rock from the heart of the earth, and they make these hot fountains. Nothing lives on that island; it is scalded every two hours by boiling water. We call it Terun-Ol, the Island of Heat. If you wait, you will see the fountain disappear. There is another island, farther away, that is also made of mountains that make fire, the Irik-Ol. But we shall not be passing there, since it is so hot that the sea does not freeze around it, even in midwinter."

  As they neared the island and then passed it, Maerad watched the plume of steam lessen and then finally disappear. Then, after a long interval, it suddenly spouted up again with a noise like thunder.

  Maerad thought that if anyone had told her about such a thing, she would have dismissed it as a fanciful traveler's tale— it seemed so bizarre that such extremes of heat and cold could exist in the one place.

  She at first mistook the next island for another iceberg: a sheer needle of rock, it thrust straight into the sky like a high tower. Dharin said it was called the Nakti-Ol, Bird Island, because in summer huge flocks of birds would nest there. "They say that they rise in the sky like a great swarm, so many that they darken the sun," he said. "I am sad that they are gone and that we will not see it."

  The sun was already beginning to dip beneath the horizon when Dharin pointed to a low, dark rise of land ahead of them. "That is the Tolnek-Ol, the land of the Wise Kindred," he said.

  Maerad squinted through the gathering darkness. The long journey here, with all its difficulties and wonders, had pushed the Treesong to the back of her mind. It had been a relief to briefly forget about who she was, to merely live with Dharin and the dogs. The quest rushed back into her mind, and apprehension tightened her breast. Now, perhaps, she might find some answers. The only problem was, she wasn't at all sure that she knew the right questions.

  Chapter XX

  INKA-REB

  THEY reached the shore of the island well after dusk. Dharin would not set foot on the Wise Kindred's land after dark, and so they camped on the sea ice for the night. The weather was clear and still, and the countless stars opened above them, seeming like brilliant cold fruits that Maerad could simply pick out of the sky. Dharin and Maerad fed the dogs and then sat outside on the sled talking, the tent seeming too close on such a night, despite the bitter cold. It would still be some hours before they felt ready to sleep.

  In the distance Maerad could hear a strange barking, which echoed through the deep silence that surrounded them. The dogs pricked up their ears, but subsided when Dharin told them to be quiet.

  "What is it?" asked Maerad.

  "Seals, I expect," said Dharin. "There must be a seal ground not far from here. Well, that is good news; I will ask the Wise Kindred if I may hunt here. I need more meat for the dogs."

  The traditional Pilanel telling of the northern journey included the courtesies expected of strangers who visited the Wise Kindred. Dharin now instructed Maerad in the Pilanel tellings of the northern peoples, and she listened gravely.

  "You must understand," he said seriously, "that those we call the Wise Kindred are only one of many peoples who live in the cold north. The Pilanel tell of at least twenty different peoples on the coast of Hramask, from Orun to Lebinusk, and there are probably more. And you must not think that one group is the same as the next: they have different customs and they speak different languages. The Wise Kindred are understood to be the oldest of all. Their name for themselves, Inaruskosani, means 'those who first walked on the earth.'"

  Maerad nodded humbly reflecting, not for the first time, how little she knew of Edil-Amarandh and its peoples. They were more various than she had ever supposed; every time she thought she was beginning to understand the world, some other aspect would open and reveal a new ignorance.

  Dharin talked on softly, enumerating the different names of the peoples of the north and what he knew of their customs. The different peoples very seldom fought among each other; Dharin said it was because their lives were so harsh that they had no time for war.

  There was, he said, a common language called Lirunik, which was used by the northern Pilanel clans and the various peoples of the far north when they needed to speak to each other. Dharin had spoken this language since he was a child, as his father had been a great trader, and he would act as interpreter.

  After a while, silence fell upon them, and they just sat, listening to the sleeping grunts of the dogs and the distant coughs of the seal colony. A waxing moon let fall its chilly light over the endless white sea. To the south, Maerad could see a red glow on the horizon, where the fiery mountains of the Irik-Ol poured out the molten heart of the earth. Here, she thought, all is water, ice, fire, stone, and air; the anguish of human beings seems trivial beside such huge, elemental forces. She felt a great peace descend on her heart.

  They had sat thus for some time when Maerad felt a tingling in her skin, and at the same time became conscious of a strange noise that she couldn't locate. It sounded at first like a very distant whistling, then like the ringing of countless tiny silver bells. The noise reminded her of the voice that had spoken her Truename, Elednor, wh
en she had been instated as a Bard. It grew in intensity, sounding now like ringing, now like a hissing of water or wind, now like a faint crackling, and she turned to Dharin, a question on her lips. But Dharin had turned around, facing north, and was staring at the sky. Maerad followed his gaze and gasped.

  The entire northern horizon, from east to west, was alight with curtains of quivering green light. As Maerad watched, her mouth open, the curtains shimmered and parted, revealing yet more luminous veils, which themselves vanished and reappeared in a stately dance. The colors glimmered through the entire spectrum of green, from the palest spring yellow to a deep emerald shot through with glorious purples. Awe fell over them, and they watched for an unguessable time, enraptured, until at last the dance began to flicker, and then slowly dimmed and went out.

  Maerad sighed with pure happiness. "What are they?" she asked, turning to Dharin.

  "We call them the heavenly dancers," he said. "Some say the lights come from the realm of the dead."

  "From beyond the Gates?" Maerad looked up at the now still sky, where the Lukemoi, the pathway of the dead, blazed its white trail from horizon to horizon, barely dimmed by the moon.

  "Yes. They are supposed to shine when the Gates open slightly, and the border between life and death becomes less certain. For that reason, some people fear to see the lights."

  "I didn't feel afraid," said Maerad. "It was like the voices of the stars." She was silent for a time, absorbed in thought. Perhaps here she had been vouchsafed a glimpse into the pure heart of the Light: beyond the depths of the White Flame, into something stranger, colder, infinitely more mysterious.

  "What do you think the sound was?" she asked at last. "Was it the Light singing, do you think?"

  "What sound?" asked Dharin. "I heard nothing."

  "There was a music. A strange music ..."

  "There are things you might hear, cousin, that I cannot."

  "Well, whether they are to be feared or not, I am glad I saw them," said Maerad. "I will never forget them."

  "Because they are beautiful does not mean that they are not perilous," said Dharin. "But I, too, am glad."

  They waited until the sun rose the following day, and in its dim light drove the sled onto the Tolnek-Ol. The island was rocky and flat, with no trees anywhere, and looked very dreary under the gray flat light. The first sign of human dwellings was what looked like columns of white smoke, which Maerad took for signs of cooking fires. But Dharin told her it was steam from hot springs. They turned toward the steam columns and soon arrived at the island's main village, Imprutul.

  They were greeted first by the barking of dogs. Several children, who were so heavily swaddled in furs they seemed almost circular, spotted them and ran toward the village, shouting. Dharin drove the sled into a clear space surrounded by a scattered collection of low, round houses made of stone and ramped with earth, which backed onto a low rocky cliff. There were a number of deer corralled by the houses, and three or four large dogs came forward, barking and growling aggressively. For a moment Maerad feared there would be a fight, but the local dogs remained at a distance.

  Dharin glanced at Maerad and she sensed, with faint surprise, that he was nervous. "I hope the telling of the Pilani is still correct," he said. "It is long years since any of our people have come this way, and things change. If they are hostile toward us, we will have to leave quickly."

  Maerad nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

  "If things go well, someone will come soon," Dharin said, climbing out of the sled and sharply telling his team, who were trading insults with the village dogs, to be silent. "We just have to wait. Do not look afraid."

  Soon someone came. Two people emerged from one of the houses and walked slowly toward them. Maerad couldn't tell what sex they were; she found later they were two elders, a man and a woman.

  Dharin put out his hand in greeting, speaking in Lirunik. The elders nodded, and each one in turn grasped his hand, holding it gently for a time and then letting go. Dharin introduced Maerad, and they greeted her in the same way, nodding solemnly. Maerad smiled back, wishing she were not so ignorant of their language. She stood by, waiting, while Dharin and the elders conversed, trying not to look too bored or cold.

  Dharin turned to Maerad at last. "I've told them who we are and that we have come because you seek their wisdom on an important question. I have also said that I wish to do some trading. The man is called Ibikluskarini and the woman is Gunisinapli. They have told me that what wisdom they have is ours and that they have furs to trade, and they've invited us inside."

  So far, so good, thought Maerad, wondering how she was to explain to these people why she had come so far north. Because of a dream, because of a few clues scoured here and there, from a half-mad old Pilanel woman and a wise goatherd in Thorold—what sense could they possibly make of what she told them?

  Dharin returned to the sled and took out a package wrapped in oilskin. He told the team to remain silent, and they sat down in the snow, their ears pricked and their tails beating on the ground, whining. The local dogs seemed to have accepted that the visitors were not a threat, but still hung around, now curious. One of the elders gave a sharp command, and the dogs sprang back and sat by the doors of their houses.

  "We do not want a dogfight," muttered Dharin as they walked toward the nearest of the round houses. "And these dogs will fight to the death if they get in a scrap."

  Then he bent to enter the low doorway of the house. Even Maerad had to stoop: the doors were made as small as possible to conserve heat, and the interiors of the houses were windowless, lit by smoky lamps burning some kind of fish oil. The smell was at first overpowering: a mixture of human fug and sour fat and fish and smoke. Maerad's eyes smarted, and it took a little while before her sight adjusted to the dim light. It was very hot: she started sweating instantly. Both she and Dharin took off their overcoats of fur for the first time in days.

  She had entered a room that was much bigger than she had expected. She realized that the houses continued back into the cliff itself; there was another entrance at the far end covered with a hanging woven of some kind of rough wool. Inside were about a dozen people: an old man was working on an ivory carving, and several children, the smallest of whom was completely naked, were playing a game with some large knuckle bones. Two women and a man were working a skin, kneading it with their fingers from different ends to make it pliable and soft, and another woman was feeding an infant. They all looked up and nodded when the strangers entered, and then went back to whatever they had been doing.

  In the center of the room was a round white rug, made of many furs stitched together, and Dharin and Maerad were invited to sit down. They were given a clear spirit to drink in small round cups. The elders nodded solemnly, and Dharin nodded back (Maerad, closely following Dharin's lead, did the same) and then they downed the spirit in one big gulp. Maerad did her best, but the drink was so harsh that she nearly choked; it was as strong as voka, a spirit distilled from turnips and other root vegetables that the men brewed in Gilman's Cot, and had as little subtlety of flavor. She recovered herself as quickly as possible, shut her eyes, and finished the cup. It burned all the way down to her stomach, leaving a numb feeling behind it. She hoped fervently that custom did not dictate a second cup, and to her relief no one refilled it. Now she was so hot she desperately wanted to take off more of her many layers of clothes, but she didn't know if it would be considered rude.

  Dharin was unwrapping the package he had taken from the sled. To Maerad's surprise, inside were two beautiful examples of Pilanel wood carving, delicately fashioned and enameled in a shiny black. One was of a wolf and the other was of a ptarmigan. He gave them to the elders, bowing his head as he did so. They took them solemnly, admired them both from every angle, and then bowed their heads in thanks.

  It then seemed the formalities were over, and Dharin and the elders, whose many-syllabled names Maerad could not, for the life of her, remember, plunged into a lively conversat
ion. Maerad wiped the sweat off her forehead and tried to concentrate. Dharin told her afterward that they were simply swapping news: news of the weather, of hunting grounds, speculations on the early winter, and general conditions in the north and in the southern plains.

  It seemed that the Wise Kindred were themselves suffering a thin year after several poor summers, and although they were not yet facing famine, they feared another year would bring them to hunger. Maerad caught the word "Jussacks" once or twice; Dharin had asked if there was news of Jussack raids in the far north and told of what he had heard in Tlon. The elders told him that there had been rumors from other peoples farther down the coast, but no Jussacks had ever been seen this far north.