“Carrick, Gom would like a word with you,” Hort said.
“Oh?” Carrick looked down at Gom seriously. “What about?”
That was the difficult question. Gom could hardly say, do you know the wizard, Harga? Have you any idea where she lives?
“Do you know of a place called Far Away?” he asked.
“Far Away?” Carrick appeared to give the question serious thought. “Far Away. Now let me see...”
“Man as told Gom about it said as it had a queen, and royal soldiers, and all,” Hort said.
“Soldiers? Queen?” Carrick shook back his black curls. “Not that I’ve heard of. There’s King Galt, of Sundor, but no queen, and I’d not recommend that vile swamp to any traveler. There’s Queen Balivere, of Quend, but that’s nearby. And there’s King Furly and Queen Rialan of Ringing Valley over in the west. Everywhere else is mostly lords and ladies, and no Far Away.”
“I want to go where most people are,” Gom said. “Then you must travel south, to the lakelands,” Carrick said promptly.
“South?” Gom made a wry face. So much for his omens, the twin stars and the weathervane. They had been pointing him in quite the opposite direction. “Not north, then?”
“Oh, no,” Carrick said. “North of here there’s no people, no trails. Nothing but mountains all the way to the Great Northern Sea. No, south’s where you must go. There’s lots of places down there. Cities, swarming with folk. Like Dune, and Hornholm. And most of all Pen’langoth, on Lake Langoth in Long Valley. Huge place, that is. Do you know their market’s open every single day of the year? You’ll find twenty tinkers at a time there, all with more work than they can handle. It’s the biggest market in all Ulm.”
“Ulm? What is that?”
Carrick’s eyes widened briefly. “Why, Ulm is—” He waved his arms about. “Ulm is Sundor, and Quend, and Ringing Valley, and Dune, and Hornholm, and Pen’langoth, and this village, and wherever you come from and any other place you can think of. It’s the world, the whole world,”
“I never!” Mudge cried. “How do you know that, Carrick?”
Carrick shrugged. “One learns much in the big cities, if one keeps one’s ears open in the right places.”
Gom felt the excitement rising within him. That was it. All he had to do was go to one of those cities, Pen’langoth, maybe, it being the biggest, and keep his eyes and ears open. Then sooner or later he’d surely hear of Harga. Except that—he’d still have the riddle to solve even then.
“Look at the lad,” Mudge said. “He’s going home. Come and see us tomorrow, Carrick. Gom can talk to you then.”
Mudge pulled Gom away, back toward the inn.
“But you’ll miss the fair,” Gom protested, though he did feel dizzy, and a little weak and glad to be going.
“Don’t you worry yourself about that,” Mudge said. “We’ve seen all we need to see, haven’t we, Hort?” She hustled Gom along. Hort had gone ahead, was just passing the conjuror’s corner.
“A volunteer!” the man was shouting. “To climb inside this box!”
Hort stopped in his tracks, so suddenly that Gom bumped into him. “What for?” Hort cried.
“I seen it earlier,” a nearby man explained. “He shuts someone up in that black box there, and chops it in two with that big knife he’s holding. Then he pulls the two halves apart, and do you know, the person’s gone!
“Next, he fits the two halves together again, and do you know—he opens the lid and the person steps out, lively as can be!”
“Why,” cried Hort, “I’d surely like to see that before we go. Gom, would you mind?”
Gom bit his lip. The juggler-conjuror terrified him and yet he could hardly refuse.
“N-no,” he said.
“A volunteer, I want a volunteer. A body small and nimble.”
Heads were turning, folk were looking around, and Gom saw to his dismay that those looks were converging upon him.
Leaping from his platform, the man moved quickly through the crowd until he reached Gom, where he shot out an arm and seized Gom’s wrist in a grip tight as a trap. The man smiled down at him, his mouth curling. “You, little man. You’ll do.”
Little man! Skeller had called him that, and in that same sneering way.
“Here, here,” Mudge said. “You just mind your words.”
With that encouragement, Gom tried to draw back his arm.
“Let me go!” he cried, but the man only tightened his hold.
“Don’t be shy,” the conjuror said, his smile belying the cruelty of his fingers. He raised the curved blade and waved it over his head, the wide sleeve of his conjuror’s gown slipping back, exposing his arm. For one split second, the man’s eyes dropped to Gom’s chest.
“You surely don’t want to disappoint—the folks.”
In a flare of panic, Gom began to struggle, twisting in the man’s grasp, and as he did so the sun caught the silver bracelet on the man’s upraised arm: a plain wide band, for the most part, except that on its center was embossed the unmistakable shape of the death’s-head.
Chapter Five
HERE, HERE.” Hort spoke up. “The lad’s not well. You’d better be letting him go.”
For one minute, Gom wasn’t at all sure that the conjuror would do as Hort said, but then he released Gom’s arm and slowly lowered the blade.
“Well, now,” the man said to Gom, loudly for everyone to hear. “You’ve done folk out of a rare treat. Too bad.” With that, he strode into his tent and dropped the flap behind him.
The crowd broke up, muttering in disappointment.
Conscious of unfriendly glances, Gom slunk away between Hort and Mudge, into the inn yard.
“Don’t fret, lad.” Hort took his arm to help him up into the cart. “You weren’t to blame. There were plenty of other young folk there. He could easy have picked one of them.”
Gom climbed up and sat, slumped in total exhaustion. He scarcely noticed driving back through the village, past the fluttering pennants, the bright tents and awnings. The candy booths smelled sickly now, and the odor from the hot pies turned his stomach.
It was a miserable ride. Once or twice, Hort and Mudge started up a conversation over Gom’s bowed head, and faltered. The day had turned out more like a wake than a festival, thought Gom. Oh, the shock of seeing the death’s-head on that bracelet! He glanced up, fearing to see the skull-bird wheeling above him, but the mild spring sky was clear.
The moment they reached home, Mudge bustled Gom off to bed, and Gom let her. He undressed, and lay with his back to the door.
He shuddered in the darkness. The way that conjuror had seized his arm, in broad daylight, in front of everyone. And the way he’d looked to Gom’s chest, as though he’d known the rune was lying there. First the vision of the skull, then the great gray bird, and now this man. They were all connected, Gom didn’t doubt it, and they all sought the same thing.
All his life, his mother’s rune had brought him comfort, had warned him of dangers. Now it seemed to be bringing him nothing but danger.
If it hadn’t been for Hort and Mudge today, something terrible would have happened, Gom was sure. Somehow, between blade and big black box there’d have been an “accident.” The crowd would have been shocked, and Hort and Mudge would undoubtedly have made a great fuss. But it wouldn’t have done Gom any good, and the rune would have disappeared—and the conjuror certainly wouldn’t have plucked that trinket from his ear afterward.
Lucky indeed that Hort had found him, Gom thought vehemently. What had he said? “Nobody’ll touch you whilst you’re by me, I swear it.” Gom went over the events of the day in his mind, taking comfort from the way Hort and Mudge had stood by him, the way they’d answered the conjuror. The way Hort had supported him against the general mood of the crowd, the way Mudge had hustled him off to bed.
Like father and mother to him, they were.
And what of his own, real mother?
Gom turned the rune over in his hand, hi
s resentment growing.
“Dear boy,” Gom mimicked softly, “your mother watches for you, and hopes for you on your path of experience...”
Some path! Some experience! He tossed about to face the door.
When that bird had first attacked him on the plateau, had almost killed him during the second attack up on the Bluff, what had his mother done for him then? This very day when the conjuror would have put him in that awful black box, what had her “watching” and “hoping” done for him? Did Harga even know what was going on? If she didn’t, she surely was not as great as Mandrik had said. And if she did, then she’d stood by and let him be almost killed!
Was Mudge right after all?
He took off the rune and drew back his arm to hurl it from him, but resentful as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Leaning over the side of the bed, he slipped the stone under the mattress, then once again lay down, face to the wall, and went to sleep.
The moment Gom awoke, he felt his bare throat, remembering. His anger had faded, yet his resentment against his mother and his sense of betrayal remained strong. It felt strange to be without the rune around his neck, yet he felt so out of sorts that he would like to leave it where it was. But a lifetime’s habit was too strong to break. He pulled the rune from under the mattress, and, grudging, put it back on.
Mudge was at the kitchen table, busy baking.
“My, you’re up late,” she said. “I says to Hort, I
says, the lad’s tired out from yesterday. Let him sleep. Looks like rain,” she added, as Gom crossed to the window. “Lucky the fair were yesterday. How’re you feeling anyways?”
“Quite better,” he said, without much conviction. “It’s time I was off.”
“Nonsense. You don’t look better,” Mudge said. “Besides, Carrick’s coming today to talk to you special.”
No, he wasn’t, Gom thought. The tinker was coming to mend Mudge’s pots, but Gom didn’t argue the point.
It really was late. By the time Gom was washed and dressed, Hort came in for elevenses.
“Eh, you look right chalky, young feller,” Hort said.
“You tell him,” Mudge cried. “He won’t listen to me!” She handed Gom a mug of hot broth and a fresh cheese scone.
“You’re not thinking of leaving, lad?” Hort said. “Two, three more days, a week or two, that’s what you need afore you go off into the blue.”
Gom glanced toward the window uncertainly. His head hurt, and his knees were shaky. Perhaps they were right.
He sat down at the table and took up his mug, looking from Mudge to Hort, the only folk who’d ever been really friendly to him, save for Stig, and Hilsa and Stok. Homesickness welled up inside him like a pain. He set down his mug, threw Hort’s old raincape over his head, and went outside.
He stood on the stoop, leaning against the door, fighting self-pity.
Across the yard, the hills lay soaking under steady drizzle. Wind was elsewhere, leaving the weathervane still and silent. He crossed the yard dodging puddles to stand by the gate, gazing gloomily over the dairy roof.
Gom’s fingers stole toward Harga’s rune. He forced his hand down, into his pocket. Fool, to be always seeking comfort from that.
“With you she left it...” Gom could hear his father’s voice now. "... special, to keep care of, like. Not with any of the others. Not with me, even. Just between you and me, boy, you understand? —you’re the child she was really after, much as she loved the rest.”
Gom had believed Stig, for his father would never tell a lie. But what if Stig were mistaken? Because when all was said and done, one question always remained in Gom’s mind: if Harga loved him as much as Stig had said, then why had she gone off and left him the moment he was bom?
All those stories about what a wonderful mother Harga had been to the rest of her children only made him feel unwanted and abandoned.
What had his mother ever done for him? When the Clack folk had been mean to him, had she been there to defend him? When he’d had the fever, had she been there to nurse him? No. Stig had been both father and mother to him, and when Gom was older they’d both cared for each other, washing, mending, sweeping, cooking, and keeping each other company. All his life he’d managed without Harga. Why need her now?
Why, he thought, growing angry again, why should I go risking life and limb to take her the stone? For all she either knows or cares, I could be dead by now. She wants her rune? His chin went up. Let her fetch it!
A distant shout startled him. Without stopping to look, he turned about and dashed for the front door, only to collide with Hort on the stoop.
Hort peered out through the rain. “Hey, it’s Carrick coming down the hill. Fill up a mug, Mudge, for a wet body in need of nourishment! "
Sheepishly, Gom watched Carrick striding down toward the house. The tinker’s wiry body was hung with bulges that clanked and chinked with every step: pots and pans and kettles and skillets, and a knapsack full of gear.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mudge, helping the tinker off with his load, “Just look at you, Carrick! Walking through all this rain. Where’s that horse of yours?”
Carrick smiled down at her. “Finnikin’s not as young as he was, Mudge. This kind of wet doesn’t agree with his feet. I spare him when I can.”
Gom took off his wet boots and at Mudge’s bidding sat opposite Carrick by the hearth while the tinker drank hot broth helped down with chunks of fresh brown bread.
At last, Carrick stood up, his clothes steaming in the fire’s warmth. “Here, lad. I’ve something for you.” Fishing in a deep side pocket, Carrick took out a wad of yellowed parchment, and set it down on the kitchen table.
Something for him? A gift? Gom felt a little prick of excitement, which he quickly suppressed. Carrick didn’t even know him. Was it some kind of jest? Eyeing the wad warily, Gom got lip and went to stand by the tinker’s chair.
Mudge exclaimed as Carrick spread the parchment, holding it flat between his capable, square hands.
“Whatever is that, Carrick?”
“ ’Tis called a map.” Carrick looked around at all three of them. “A tinker’s map for our young traveler here.”
Gom’s heart swelled. No joke, but a real gift. He could scarcely believe such generosity.
“I’ll be!” cried Hort. “If that doesn’t look like the weathervane you traded me a while back.” He pointed to a small device in the bottom left-hand corner of the parchment. Gom saw that it did indeed look like the weathervane atop the barn roof: the wheel, the squiggles, and the arrow, pointing north.
“That’s to tell Gom in which direction everything lies,” Carrick said. He smiled at Gom, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Where you’re going and where you’ve been, and to help you remember where places are.” His smile widened as Gom hesitated. “It’s all right, lad. I don’t need it anymore.”
Gom flushed with pleasure. “That’s very good of you,” he said, and at once thought how lame that sounded, but he didn’t know how else to answer such kindness. He eyed the map again, then looked up.
“I can’t read,” he admitted in a low voice.
Carrick laughed merrily. “No more can I. But I do know places and how to find them. So will you when I’ve finished with you, without having to know them letters. Let’s get to work.”
For the next hour, Carrick patiently went over the map with Gom, teaching him the names of towns and cities in all the different lands, making Gom repeat them over and over until he knew them for sure. Then just as patiently, he taught Gom how to distinguish roads from trails, which to take, and which to avoid if he could. Being a tinker’s map, he said, it was measured not in miles, but days. Each mark on a road or trail told one day’s travel: for a tinker.
“Now let’s see,” said Carrick at last. “I think we’re ready to plot you out a route to someplace. We decided on the lakes yesterday, didn’t we?”
Gom nodded slowly, his eyes still on the map. That was yesterday. Today
, he wasn’t so sure that he was going anywhere.
“Well, that is where most people are,” Carrick reassured him, misreading Gom’s hesitancy. He traced a path on the map with his finger. Gom was to go from this dot, which was Green Vale, up north aways, he said, then east through Deeping Dale until he reached Bragget-on-the-Edge at the northern end of Twisting Valley. Then all he had to do was to travel due south, through Twisting Valley, then through Middle Vale, passing at last into Long Valley.
Gom watched Carrick’s finger, tried to keep count of the days, and, getting hopelessly lost after the first dozen or so, let out a big sigh.
Carrick looked up. “If you told me exactly what you sought,” he said, folding the parchment and holding it out, “I could maybe help you better. As it is, I might well be sending you in quite the wrong direction.”
Gom avoided the invitation, taking the folded map with a polite thank you, and setting it by his place.
“I don’t like the idea,” Mudge said, “of such a young ’un going out there all by hisself. Couldn’t he travel with you, Carrick?”
Carrick looked to Gom. “That would be nice,” he said. “But Master Gom may not want a tour of these hills. I’m not due back south just yet.”
Carrick mended Mudge’s pots then got down to hard bargaining over a new one. Mudge won. Gom, sure that the victory had to do with hot broth and scones, watched as Carrick packed up his gear and prepared to take his leave.
Mudge pushed a package into the tinker’s hands, a hard, square package wrapped in butter muslin.
Carrick smiled with evident pleasure. “Why, thank you, Mudge. I’d hoped you hadn’t forgotten me.” He waved the package at Gom. “Mudge’s good waybread,” he said. “Enough to last a four-month. And a wondrous weapon swung around in one’s pack—enough to hold the worst of robbers at bay!”
Mudge laughed, patted the tinker’s shoulder. “Be off with you, Carrick, afore I take it back. Good speed until we meet again.”
The Riddle and the Rune Page 5