He looked up. The bird, gliding in on silent wings, was almost on him!
With a quick drawn breath, he dodged sideways, twisted, and with a cry, rolled off the brink. He fell through the air a short way, bounced, knocking his breath from his ribs. Then he rolled again, slid, and was once more off through empty space.
He thudded onto his back, and lay dazed, staring up into the sun.
There came a scream, and the sun was gone.
The great gray bird was hovering over him, stretching out a neck as long and thick as Gom’s arm. As the naked head came close, Gom saw quite clearly that its head was a bone-white skull, half-bird, half-human!
Gom squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the slash of beak or talon, but felt instead a tug on the thong around his neck.
Of course! Like the death’s-head of his vision, it wasn’t after him, but Harga's rune!
* * *
GRACE CHETWIN has written several books for young readers, including those featuring the boy-wizard Gom Gobblechuck: GOM ON WINDY MOUNTAIN, THE CRYSTAL STAIR, and THE STARSTONE—all available in Laurel-Leaf editions. Grace Chetwin lives in Glen Cove, New York.
* * *
ALSO AVAILABLE IN LAUREL-LEAF BOOKS:
GOM ON WINDY MOUNTAIN, Grace Chetwin
THE CRYSTAL STAIR, Grace Chetwin
WESTMARK, Lloyd Alexander
THE KESTREL, Lloyd Alexander
THE BEGGAR QUEEN, Lloyd Alexander
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD, Diane Duane
DEEP WIZARDRY, Diane Duane
DRAGON’S BLOOD, Jane Yolen
HEART’S BLOOD, Jane Yolen
A SENDING OF DRAGONS, Jane Yolen
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* * *
Grace Chetwin
THE RIDDLE AND THE RUNE
FROM
Tales of Gom
IN THE
LEGENDS OF ULM
* * *
For my father, Charles William Chetwin.
In memory.
LAUREL-LEAF BOOKS bring together under a single imprint outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction particularly suitable for young adult readers, both in and out of the classroom. Charles F. Reasoner, Professor Emeritus of Children’s Literature and Reading, New York University, is consultant to this series.
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
666 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10103
Copyright © 1987 by Grace Chetwin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Bradbury Press, an affiliate of Macmillan, Inc., New York, New York 10022.
The trademark Laurel-Leaf Library® is registered in the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office.
ISBN: 0-440-20581-6
RL:
Reprinted by arrangement with Bradbury Press Printed in the United States of America March 1990
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
KRI
* * *
For my father, Charles William Chetwin.
In memory.
Part
1
* * *
Chapter One
WAY AHEAD, over the far mountain peaks, the sun was setting. Halfway toward them, in the middle of the high plateau, the small, solitary figure of a boy stopped, closing his eyes against the brilliant light, and leaning wearily on his staff.
Staff? It was really a walking stick: quite new, finely carved with wild animals chasing up and down and around its length, nose to tail. A pert brown sparrow perched atop it, her tiny black eyes seemingly alive and scanning the way ahead. Stig had fashioned the stick to suit his own great size, with the sparrow for handle. Now it served his son for staff, the sparrow coming level with Gom’s chest.
“That’s a fine stick, Father. The best you’ve ever made,” Gom had said, not even a week before. Stout, too, to bear Stig’s massive weight.
“Aye. It’ll serve you well enough when I’m gone,” his father had answered, as though he’d known his time had come.
Sure enough, only two days ago Gom had. buried his father on Windy Mountain and, grieving, had raised a cairn of gray stones over his grave. After that, in spite of the promise Gom had made to Stig to stay safely home and become Clack’s next woodcutter, Gom had left to seek Harga, his mother.
His hand strayed inside his shirt to the stone that hung about his neck from a leather thong. Harga’s rune. The magic charm his mother had left with him when she’d disappeared the day of his birth. Feeling its faint vibrations under his hand, he put it to his ear, but heard nothing. All his life the stone had remained silent—save for that last moment by his father’s grave when there had come from the rune such beautiful humming as had filled Gom with wonder.
His eyes still tight shut, he pictured the lonely pile of stones above the town. It would be days before anyone could get up there because of the snow. Even for him that last trip down the icy trail had been perilous and no one knew that trail as well as he—now that Stig was dead. At that thought, grief welled up afresh within him, catching at his throat.
Turning, Gom looked back to the far horizon over which night was falling fast. Even after only a few hours traveling Gom had lost sight of the peak that had been his home for all of his life. And why not? Hadn’t Hoot Owl told him that Windy Mountain was but a pimple on the great face of the world?
Somewhere back in that twilight the townsfolk were drawing curtains and lighting lamps, Hoot Owl was waking up to hunt, while Stig—
His breath became a sob.
Father! Oh, Father.
He stared through a blur toward his distant home, feeling desolate and alone. Alone? Not entirely. A sudden gust reminded him of Wind, old friend of uncertain temper. Wind, who over the years had brought him whiffs of the Sea, and scents from Far Away.
Now that very Wind blew in his face, whipping his hair, snatching his breath. Stir yourself, or freeze! it urged. On your way!
Still fingering the rune, feeling the familiar lines criss-crossing the smooth black stone, and the tiny knobs and whorls that held the power of Harga’s name, Gom turned away from the darkening mountains and stumbled on toward the radiant peaks ahead, over winter grass and brake until the sun set and the ground glowed with its own luminescence.
He began to look about him in the twilight for a suitable resting place. It was almost too dark to see where he trod when he finally came across a little stream beside a stand of spindly alder hung with vines.
He leaned his staff against a tree and pulled some of the vines down behind him to make a windbreak. Then he groped around for what dead and brittle branches he could find in that poor light. Some of the tinder he set aside, and piled the rest like a tiny corn
stook in front of his makeshift shelter. Fishing out his tinder box, he struck a spark against the dusty kindling, where it caught, smoldering. Wind touched the spark, and fanned it lightly into flame. It was small, scarce big enough to warm his hands, but the light was welcome.
He sat, huddled into his jacket, his hands outstretched, staring into the sputtering flames. He thought with longing of Harga’s old blanket worked with suns and moons and stars; a blanket small and light enough to roll up and carry on one’s back—if only one had thought of it. Fool, to leave home so unprepared at the tag end of winter!
Gom Gom, dumb as a log;
His head's all wind, and his tongue's all frog!
The townschildren’s old taunt might well be true, he thought bitterly.
He pictured the little hut, his bed by the far wall.
And Stig’s, opposite. And the hearth, dark and cold. There’d be no songs by the fire that night. Or ever again. He doubled over, tight with grief.
Hunger stirred him, finally. He foraged in his left jacket pocket and pulled out a hunk of stale bread, a wedge of cheese, all there’d been left in the larder. The cheese was too hard and dry to break. He reached into his back pocket for his knife. It wasn’t there. He felt in another pocket, then another. It wasn’t in those either. Had he dropped it? No. He remembered now. He’d left it on the table in the hut. He, a woodcutter’s son, had actually left home without his knife! Disgusted at himself, he settled for using his teeth. One nibble of cheese, one nibble of bread, and he stowed them away again. He well knew how to make little go far.
From his right jacket pocket, he took out Stig’s ancient green glass water bottle and weighed it in his hand. Still half full. He removed the stopper and drank deep, as he could afford to, with that nearby stream.
Gom replaced the stopper and put the bottle back, guiltily thinking how it had been his father’s custom every winter’s evening to have them wash before going to bed. He certainly needed it. His hands were black from messing with the fire, and he was covered in grit. He glanced toward the stream and shuddered. Too cold.
Cold, and lonely. Everybody in the world that night had a roof to lie under, and someone with whom to share it, he thought miserably. Everybody—save Gom Gobblechuck.
He reached into a back pocket. His fingers encountered a tiny wooden box fitted with cunning hinges that he’d fashioned years ago under Stig’s watchful eye: empty, he knew, and not what he sought. He dug deeper and pulled out a small leather pouch. Loosening the drawstring, he shook the contents onto his palm. He couldn’t see them well in that feeble firelight, but he could feel his old treasures, mementos of home: seeds, the pod of a hoarbell, a honeybee’s sac, the cocoon of a moon moth, and a tiny flake of gold. Lightly, lovingly, he fingered them, caressed them almost, taking comfort from each one, then restored them back to the pouch.
Gom took up the last of the kindling, placed it carefully on the little fire, then pulled his jacket around him and lay down to sleep.
After a few minutes, he was aware of the glass bottle pressing into his ribs. He rolled over, tried another way. Ah, that was better. He brought his knees up, wrapped his arms about them, and tried to let his mind drift.
As he lay there, shivering, waiting for sleep to come, his body began to tingle.
He came alert.
He’d not had a waking dream since the time he’d found the hermit Mandrik’s bones in the caves under Windy Mountain and had taken them out to bury them under the stars. Ah, what a wondrous dream that had been, when the ancient skull had come to life and Mandrik had told Gom that Harga was the greatest wizard in the world and that Gom must go seek her with the rune after Stig was gone.
The tingling increased, but this time without the warm bright light that usually came to dazzle him. He gazed up expectantly into the darkness, accepting the change. After all, it had been so long.
Suddenly a cold came upon him, colder than the chill of the winter plain. Icy, unseen hands touched him, as though exploring his shape in the same careful way Gom had just fingered his treasures.
He reached out to push the hands away, and with surprise met with nothing. Still the probing went on.
He sat up, angry now, and afraid. This was not a waking dream, but something else. He seized his staff, as the fingers moved down his face, his neck until they reached the rune.
There they stopped. In the darkness he heard nothing but his own indrawn breath, and yet he knew that someone or something evil had come upon him.
Suddenly, there appeared before him a pinpoint of light, a tiny star not an arm’s length away. As he watched, it grew into the shape of a skull: not a fine, mellow skull like Mandrik’s, but a stark death’s-head, bone-white.
In a panic, Gom raised the staff to knock it away, but as he did so, the jaw moved, and a voice grated in the darkness with flat, metallic sound.
“Har—ga.”
The coldness intensified, creeping through him like death. Another minute and he’d be paralyzed. Quickly, Gom sought the rune, closed his hand over it, and silently called his mother’s name.
Harga!
Warmth filled his hand, spread up his arm, chasing out the cold.
“Who are you? What are you?” demanded Gom, his courage returning.
The skull hovered, silent, the dark sockets on him, watching, waiting.
For what? Gom noticed that the cold was creeping in again, despite the rune. In desperation, he struck out with the staff, and the skull vanished at the sparrow’s sudden touch.
Gom sagged, exhausted. He drew up his knees and hunched over them, the staff still in one hand, the rune in the other. What evil had chanced upon him, he but one day from home? He peered about uneasily.
Chanced?
He shook his head. He had an uneasy sense of having been sought, and found. But for what? And—who even knew of him outside Clack?
He sat up again. It was not Gom that had drawn the death’s-head, but the rune! He set the staff across his lap, shivering at the memory of the unseen fingers probing him, lighting at last upon the key to Harga’s name— and power.
Harga, the skull had said. Harga.
Bright sunlight flaking through his shelter awoke him. He lay for an instant, the bad feeling from his vision still upon him. Then he stiffened, becoming aware of warm breath on his cheek. He opened his eyes to find a sharp-nosed gray fox cub bending over him, sniffing him inquisitively.
Relieved, Gom sat up, but before he could utter a word, the fox leapt back with a bark and raced off.
“Hey!” Gom called after him, in the voice of the brown foxes of Windy Mountain, but it didn’t even turn its head. Gom watched it go ruefully. Yet what else could he expect? In the wild, all good mothers trained their offspring to beware of strangers. Up on Windy Mountain, where everyone knew Gom, mothers trusted him, knew he’d do no harm.
Being a stranger wasn’t pleasant. He felt hurt that the animal hadn’t sensed his friendliness, and it left him feeling small and insignificant. Sighing, Gom stood up. Maybe the fox had sensed his lingering fear from the dream, and had run from that. The idea comforted him, somehow.
He stretched resolutely, and, turning his face to the light, prepared to meet the new day. He’d slept late. The sun was high and climbing. Down in Clack, the townsfolk would already be thinking of elevenses.
Gom pulled out his bread and cheese, took a half-hearted bite of each and stowed them away again. Then he drank from the stream, and gave his face a dutiful splash of icy water.
That done, Gom filled his bottle and returned it to his pocket. Which way should he go? He shaded his eyes, his back to the sun. Why that way, of course, the way Wind was steering him.
He trudged on over the late winter plateau, his eyes on the ground, seeking plantain or fool’s-button, any of the wild roots that Harga had taught Stig to use to eke out meager rations. But he found nothing: no dead leaf clumps to tell where roots lay buried, waiting for the sun to touch them back to life. From time to time he
glanced back toward the far horizon. Every step he took brought him nearer to his goal—and also farther from home. When he’d said good-bye to his eldest brother and sister, Stok and Hilsa, folk had crowded out to watch, scandalized. Was he still the butt of gossip? Probably, for who else had ever quit that place?
Why, his mother, of course! Gom brightened at the thought, and strode forward with new resolution. He was going to find Harga. He’d fix his mind on that, even though he had as yet no idea where to find her, or how long it would take.
For hours he moved on, but the only thing that seemed to change was the angle of the sun. Slowly, it climbed, hung overhead, then began its downward arc. Gom stopped for a spell, gazing around the plateau at the ring of ever-distant peaks around him. “It’s all the same,” he cried. “Is this all there is?”
Of course not. Wind breathed on him briskly. As I've told you often enough. This is but a puny pack of petty peaks. Now move on before you starve and catch your death, for there’s neither food nor shelter here at winter's end.
Gom heeded Wind’s warning and stepped up his pace. Time to look for another resting place, make another shelter; to find some dry wood for a fire, and water to drink. The sun’s warmth wouldn’t last much longer. Then Wind would grow cold again, and the thin air would chill him to the bone.
For four more lonely days Gom trudged on, calling out to the occasional fox and evening rabbit, but to his disappointment, not one came up to exchange news with him. Once or twice migrating birds flew overhead: blackbirds, for the most part, and a few wild geese, returning a little early to spring nesting grounds, as Gom would judge, and far too intent on their destination to heed him. Still, it cheered him, going along, to think of warmer weather.
Under the sun he didn’t fear the death’s-head. But under the night sky when Wind whistled across the darkened plain and around his makeshift shelters, he’d remember his awful vision and he’d wait apprehensively for it to come again. The nights passed, however, without further visitation.
The Riddle and the Rune Page 1