The Riddle and the Rune

by Grace Chetwin

  “No matter,” Ganash said. “I know a secret little bay where the sand stays soft and warm at nights. You’ll have to ride my shoulders, you see, for I’ll need my arms to swim the Krugk. Are you fit enough to try?”

  I certainly am, Gom cried, although he wasn’t sure he could even make Ganash’s back, let alone hold on for the space of a ride across those waters.

  Ganash reached down his strong neck, and Gom climbed it up onto the great bony shoulders. Wet as Ganash was, his scales felt surprisingly warm and rough under Gom’s hands and knees.

  “Lucky for you I burned off all my algae,” Ganash explained. “A few days back in the water, and I’ll be my old slippery self. Hold on.”

  Powered by his tail, Ganash swam swiftly under the shadow of the high cliffs. Gom looked all about them curiously in the dark, saw nothing but the gleam of waves gently rippling out from Ganash’s luminous body. Wind blew about them, tugging affectionately at Gom’s hair, at his clothes, but didn’t speak. Gom shivered, wishing that he dared take his hands off Ganash’s neck long enough to pull his jacket more closely about him. He remembered Carrick’s map suddenly, still folded up in the pocket, and hoped that it wasn’t ruined.

  "Here we are, Gom Gobblechuck.” Ganash slowed at last. “I daresay you’re quite chilled from the sea wind, but you’ll warm up here fast enough.”

  With a slight bump or two, the kundalara waded from the water and up onto the shore.

  Gom slid off Ganash’s shoulders onto sand. He bent down, ran his fingers through it, and found it warm and dry as Ganash promised. To his great relief, Ganash made no move to go, but lingered beside him.

  Tell me, little one,” the monster said, working his great body down into a smooth round dip in the sand. “Something you said greatly bothered me back there—about Harga leaving and you just newly born. Tell me more.”

  Gom gladly complied, telling of Harga right from the beginning: of her coming to Windy Mountain, her marriage with Stig, and of the ten children she had by him. Of the wonderful tales she’d told by the hearth of a winter’s evening, of how Stig would set her words to song. How she’d taught Stig the herbal lore. What a good and loving and gentle mother she’d been.

  Ganash looked thoughtful. “That sounds like her right enough. The tales—my, could she tell them! And the way she brought her children up and everything—save for one thing: The Harga I know would never have abandoned her family like that, most of all, her newborn. However much of a hurry she was in, she’d have warned your father of her purpose—and she’d have taken you with her. Unless...”

  “Unless what?” Gom’s throat was suddenly dry.

  Ganash fixed his eyes on him. “Unless she was hiding you.”

  “Hiding me?”

  “By acting as decoy. You’ve surely seen such in the wild.”

  Gom’s heart beat faster. Yes, yes. Many a spring below Windy Mountain, when Fox got too near Mother Grouse’s nest, he’d seen Mother Grouse flutter away from her little ones, limping, or pretending to have a broken wing, drawing Fox after her, back to a safe distance.

  He gazed up into Ganash’s face earnestly. Was that what Harga had done? He’d dearly like to think so. But—

  “Why would she be hiding me?”

  “That’s for you to find out, young one. But think what happened to you the moment you popped your nose outside your nest.”

  “To the rune, more like,” Gom muttered, but Ganash’s words struck home. Odd, he thought. How you can argue whys and wherefores forever, yet know the truth when you hear it. A warmth stole over him, filling him with such joy that it sought to spill out.

  Your mother waits for you, and hopes for you on your path of experience ...

  He had to turn away to face the dark waters, barely keeping himself from standing up and shouting out loud. After all those years of doubt! He was certain now and forever that Harga hadn’t abandoned him.

  He faced Ganash again at last. “The question is,” he said, “where to find her. Have you any idea where she would be?”

  Ganash wrinkled his brow. “She didn’t tell you, you say. Hmmmm. She must have good reason for that, too.”

  Gom bit his lip. He was inclined to agree. And yet it occurred to him that so far on his travels, he’d always fared better with the help of others. Perhaps that was part of his lesson. Instead of trying to figure the riddle all by himself, perhaps he should ask Ganash to help him solve it.

  He told the kundalara about his vision of the bear and the sparrow, and the words of the riddle. “And so as soon as I guess the answer, then we’ll meet, the sparrow said. Have you any idea what that answer is?”

  Ganash looked at him oddly. “If I did, d’you think your mother would thank me for telling you? I know Harga well enough to give you this advice: whatever help you take from others on this journey of yours—and take it where you may—if you would meet Harga, you must keep that riddle to yourself. A box of treasures, she called it, a secret, private box to which only you must find the key. Never, never mention those words to any other— in fact I’ve already forgotten I heard them myself. Now, come. Sleep. You’ve a way to go tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll stay by you. But if you should wake in the morning and find me gone, I’ll only be seeing that Zamul to the other side of the Krugk.”

  Ganash crouched down and closing his eyes, laid his head on the sand. Gom curled up beside him, under the curve of the great body. The sand’s really quite comfortable, Gom thought, wriggling around a bit making himself a shallow little hole. Like a nest, he thought. He began to relax. Ganash was right. He was tired. But after all the excitements of that day, he’d never manage to fall asleep. Never, never, never...

  The next morning, when Gom awoke, the sun was high, and there was no sign of Ganash.

  He stood and stretched, aware of stiffness, of pain in his empty belly. How long was it since he’d eaten? He was thirsty, too. He glanced to the cliff top, thought with longing of Stig’s water bottle, and Mudge’s solid waybread lying in the place where he’d hidden them. He turned to look out over the cold waters, north, south, then west to the faint smudge of mountains at the far side of the sound.

  Was Ganash with Zamul, as he’d said? If so, he could be gone for hours.

  Gom decided to fetch his satchel.

  The ground, snaking back from the beach in an almost leisurely way, looked an easy enough climb. Gom looked around for his boots. They were lying nearby, caked in sand and salt, stiffly drying in the sun. He bent them up a bit to loosen them, shook out grit, and put them on. They felt tight, and damp, but they’d soon soften and warm up, Gom told himself, tying the laces.

  Remembering Carrick’s map, he pulled it from his jacket pocket. The parchment was half-dry already. He opened it carefully and spread it out. Still intact, and the ink lines not even smudged. But then it was a tinker’s map and made for rough weather. Gom laid it flat on the sand to dry, weighed it down with large pebbles. Then he made his way up from the beach to the cliff-top hiding place, leaving signs along the way to mark his path: little circles of stones, with a gap pointing down the way he’d come. As he went, white gulls circled overhead, swooping and diving over the water, watching for fish. Gom paused a moment, eyeing them curiously. There had been no gulls on Windy Mountain, naturally, and so they were strange to him. He hailed them in heron, then in goose, then duck, but they ignored him. They either weren’t interested, or couldn’t hear him over their own loud calls. He was just about to climb on again when, from a nearby ledge, a late fledgling, with wisps of down still fluttering from its back, took off out into space.

  Above, its mother circled, mewing anxiously.

  Gom glanced down. Far below, the water boiled about jagged rock.

  The fledgling flapped its wings once or twice, then began to plummet toward the rocks at the foot of the cliff, the mother following now with strident calls.

  Gom cried out. The little thing was going to dash itself onto those deadly rocks, and no one could stop it! />
  At the last moment, it suddenly began to beat its wings, pulled out over the water, then fluttered down to land on the glistening waves. A moment later, the mother gull landed beside it, and the pair of them sat, bobbing on the water, turning and turning about in unison.

  Gom let out a long slow breath, and turned back to the cliff.

  He found the hiding place without too much difficulty; his pack and staff, still stashed safely where he’d left them. He helped himself to a big bite of waybread and a nibble of dried fool’s-button root that had grown strong and bitter with age. Quickly, he measured out a generous handful of sunflower seeds to sweeten its aftertaste.

  From Air and Earth comes seed, by Fire and Water is tempered...

  He chewed the seeds thoughtfully, making his way back down to the beach.

  Fire and Water...

  Ganash! The creature of fire and water. The kundalara who nearly became mangatla-aczai! Sea serpent to dragon... water to fire...

  Was Ganash himself part of the riddle? Certainly that one had guessed some, maybe even all, of its answer. Gom opened the water bottle, washed the seeds down with a careful swallow.

  He’d come into this region to retrieve the rune. He’d tracked Katak down to his lair, and shut him up in it. He’d lost the rune, and found it again. Somewhere in there was the answer to part of the riddle.

  But what?

  He was beginning to think that it was no mere exercise of the mind. That his search for Harga itself was both riddle and answer. “ ‘Your mother hopes for you on your path of experience, ’” he repeated, under his breath.

  He saw once more the young gull plummeting down from the high ledge, its mother hovering anxiously. For all her love and care, that young one had had to prove its wings alone.

  He climbed steadily down, feeling the staff good and solid in his hands again. When he arrived on the secret shore, would Ganash be waiting?

  “Hallo there!” Gom heard Ganash hail him long before he reached the sand.

  “Well,” the kundalara said, as Gom approached. “How are you feeling this morning? Don't you worry about that Zamul fellow anymore,” he went on, before Gom could answer. He pointed west to the misty peaks across the sound. “He’ll not get out of there in a month of Sundays.” Ganash eyed Gom’s staff and satchel. “You’re going now? Here.”

  The beast held out a huge, coiled hunting horn, wrought in gold, and encrusted with pearls and small bright stones that flashed in the sunlight.

  Gom stared down at the golden shining thing, minded of the coils of Ganash’s tail. He took it, caressed the colored stones.

  “Emeralds and rubies, they are,” said Ganash. “I found it fairly recently, so it’s still nice and clean.”

  A hunting horn, out in this desolate place? “Where?” Gom asked in wonder. “Where did you find it?”

  Ganash nodded to the water behind him. “Same place as I find the rest of my treasure,” he said. “Every lost thing ends up in the deep, sooner or later, from pins to opportunities. Listen: if ever you need my help, just come and stand right here, and blow this. Don’t worry,” he added, “I’ll hear it, wherever I am. Try it.”

  Gom raised the horn to his lips and blew so hard that his cheeks ached.

  A blast, deep and hollow as Ganash’s own voice, rippled out across the water and curled up through the mountains beyond.

  “See? You can blow it well. One note like that, and I’ll be here.” Ganash backed into the current, the waves swishing about his bulky body. “I hate good-byes,” he said. “And anyway, we’re going to meet again. Regards to Harga, young one, and good journeying.”

  A small splash, and Ganash was gone.

  Gom watched the swirl dissolve, then, tucking the horn into his belt, he retrieved his map and made his way back up to the cliff top.

  There, Gom weighed the horn in his hand. It was heavy, and too big for his satchel. And what would be its use away from here? He decided to hide it where he’d left his staff and pack. Just in case, he thought, he needed Ganash’s help one day. Or wanted merely to visit for old time's sake.

  But that could be many years hence. He might forget where he’d put it. To make sure he’d find the horn again, he scratched a sign, a curly line in the horn’s own shape, opposite its hiding place.

  He settled the rune inside his shirt, closed his jacket over it. It felt alive, tingled almost, against his chest. All this distance he’d come, to get back the stone. And he had succeeded.

  Now he must go back and pick up his journey south again from where he left off. Hitching up his satchel, he took up his staff, and went on his way.

  He’d not gone for when there came a loud squawk from above.

  “Well! And what did you let him out for! A disgrace to the whole neighborhood, that creature is!”

  It was Tak, doubtless come to investigate the sound of the horn.

  "It was all I could do,” Gom answered him. "He was so hungry. And do you know what his favorite dish is? Why, it’s raven. So I hope you don’t mind my telling him that you live close by. Most grateful, he was, for the-—”

  Tak shot upward, dwindled to a tiny speck as, laughing, Gom strode on.

  Part

  3

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  SHOULDERING the staff jauntily, Gom moved due east, going by the sun, then south, walking, climbing, retracing his steps to Deeping Dale and Bragget-on-the-Edge. From there he’d pass by Twisting Valley, down Middle Vale, and into Long Valley following the original route into the lakelands that Carrick had given him.

  He traveled fast, much faster than he had coming, when he’d had to match Zamul’s pace. And he traveled with great zest, for hadn’t he gotten back the rune and, with it, defeated Katak, and couldn’t he afford to face Harga at last?

  It felt so good, going without fear. He looked up at the blue sky lightheartedly. With Katak shut in his deep grotto, there’d be no more skull-bird, and with Zamul stranded somewhere across Great Krugk, the road was clear. He strode along, Wind blowing briskly at his back, glad, it said, to see Gom on the move again.

  But though Gom traveled quickly, and with great energy, and without fear of danger from Katak, something was changed.

  He was lonely.

  Solitary as he’d been for much of his life, Gom’s fits of loneliness had never lasted for long. Until now. He missed his father so much: the great warmth, the gentle strength. Hilsa, too, he missed. And Stok. And Hort and Mudge.

  Even Ganash.

  Such wonderful friends he’d made, good, loving warm-bodies, only to leave them to travel on alone with but Wind for company.

  Would it always be thus?

  If he had to keep moving, perhaps he should look for a fellow traveler, someone to talk with, to sing with, to share tales with at the end of the day. Like Carrick. Now there was one whose company he’d gladly enjoy.

  Keeping up his pace, Gom climbed down from the lofty ranges until he reached their southern end. Things had certainly grown in his absence! He’d lost count of time, but judging from the lushness all about him, he guessed he must have been gone at least twenty days.

  The fool’s-button grew in greater abundance now beside the ford that he and Zamul had first taken on the way north, so that Gom was able to pick a good thick fresh clump of roots and leaves to tie to his pack, several days’ supply.

  Farther south, he added wild parsley, lettuce, and asparagus, eking out comfortably the remains of his waybread and sunflower seeds.

  Another few days, and he was striding through the gentle hill country where he’d left Acorn, using the map now to pick out the way to Deeping Dale and Bragget-on-the-Edge.

  One late afternoon, about ten days after he’d left Ganash, Gom finally hit the Bragget trail. He hurried along, hoping to reach the village by nightfall, and perhaps find a snug haystack to lie in, and maybe hear the sound of a friendly human voice.

  Or perhaps, he thought, almost running now, he’d meet another Hort
, a kindly farmer ready to trade a cup of milk and a loaf of bread and some cheese for a neat stack of fresh-chopped firewood.

  The sun was just going down when, cresting a rise, he saw below him the eastern end of the gentle, green Dale, and Bragget. Smoke drifted up from whitewashed chimneys, along with the mixed and tantalizing smells of a villageful of suppers.

  Bragget was bigger than Green Vale. The houses, clustered in that sheltered dip, looked bigger, too: squat, solid shapes smudged by soft haze.

  By the time Gom neared the village, the sun was down, and the skies were darkening fast.

  He gazed at the twilit houses hungrily, picturing hospitable folk within, gathered around tables loaded with good hot food. But—he hesitated—dare he knock on doors at this hour? Come on, he told himself. You braved Katak, and Zamul, and Ganash, as well, before you found him to be friend. Surely you’re not afraid of a homely face or two.

  Gom hitched up his pack and moved along.

  He paused by the very first dwelling, a croft on the village outskirts. He pictured the farmer’s wife, a second Mudge, with amiable face and motherly inclinations, her larder stocked with tasty things for a small, tired wayfarer with a good axe arm.

  He pushed open the gate and stepped resolutely into the yard.

  A huge black shape bounded up. "Who are you! What do you want!” it snarled, circling him.

  Gom started back in alarm. He’d never seen the like, a hound as big as a small calf, of exceedingly thin and hungry body, all set to take his leg off.

  “I’m a traveler,” he yupped hastily, “looking for a night’s lodging.”

  The hound’s mouth dropped open. “Why,” it said, “you sound just like a dog—though you don’t look like one.” It wagged its tail uncertainly. “A traveler, you say?” The dog sniffed around him. “Mmm. You have some good, strange smells about you. You’ve come far.” Gom relaxed a little. “Aye, I have. Do you think your master would consider a night’s bed and lodging for, say, a day’s work around the place?”