The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong)

by Greg Hamerton

  “Like that one, but dark?” Glavenor asked.

  Tabitha’s hands flew up to cover the Lightstone, but when she realised how ridiculous it was to try to hide, she dropped her hands again.

  This is the Riddler’s fault. Garyll must think I’m a grave-robber.

  He didn’t say anything.

  The stone the Shadowcaster had worn was identical in shape and size to the Lightstone. Yet the colour at its heart couldn’t be more different.

  “Where is the driver that brought you here?” he asked, indicating the horse and cart nearby.

  “He—went to find something he’d lost, in there.” She waved a hand toward the ruins, not wanting to see the devastation just then. “He’s been so kind. He found me—that night—and took me to the Tooth.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Twardy Zarost. He calls himself the Riddler.”

  Garyll looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “Little wonder he has made himself scarce.”

  “You know him?”

  “Come with me,” he said, taking the reins of his horse, and leading it down the slope. “I have seen him in Fendwarrow, though not of late. He has much to answer for.”

  “He’s done something wrong?”

  Tabitha wouldn’t put it past the trickster to be on the wrong side of the law. Yet she couldn’t help feeling she was betraying her ally.

  She slowed Garyll by his wrist. “Promise me something. Please don’t do anything to him. I need him, now.” Garyll met her eyes briefly.

  “All right,” he said at length. “For now. There are more severe crimes I must pursue.”

  When they reached the blackened ruins, Garyll cupped his hands to his mouth. “Come out now, Riddler. I shall not arrest you today. You are lucky to have a friend in Miss Serannon.”

  “Is that a truce?” came a hidden voice.

  “For the moment.”

  “How long will that moment last?” The rolling nature of the Riddler’s speech made it difficult to pinpoint where he was.

  “For today,” answered Garyll, ranging his attention through the ruins.

  An area of stacked debris toppled outwards. Twardy Zarost emerged with a tricky grin.

  “Swordmaster Glavenor, what a surprise it is to see you.”

  “I hope to repeat the surprise soon enough,” Garyll said briefly.

  Zarost jumped down from the rubble. “I know you are a man of your word, so I shall expect you to surprise me. But then it cannot be a surprise,” he ended, with mock disappointment.

  “None of your clever words!” warned Glavenor. “You can begin your reparations by telling me the truth. What can you tell me of this Shadowcaster I must pursue?”

  “I suggest you ride hard, Swordmaster. The Captain shall need your aid. The man they were to capture this morning is more than he appears to be.”

  “You mean you think he shall evade capture.”

  “Oh, Captain Steed is good enough to catch a netted fish, but I think his blade is too blunt to scale it. He underestimates the Caster, who he knows, and who knows him. Especially who knows him.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this—criminal.”

  “That is my secret, and I cannot tell,” answered Zarost, taking a wary step away from the towering Swordmaster. “You said a truce.”

  “For today. Now here’s your side of that bargain.” He glared down at the Riddler. “You take care of Miss Serannon. You break that bargain, and it’ll be your neck, not your explanations I come to find.”

  “Garyll, it’s all right,” Tabitha said. “I trust him. We are going to Southwind, and on to Levin. But I had to come back here. To know.”

  “On my word, I shall take care with Miss Serannon,” promised Zarost. “You take care with the Shadowcaster,” he added.

  Garyll’s steely regard bored into Zarost. “A Riddler’s word is not one I would always trust.”

  “Yet it is always spoken true,” answered Zarost.

  “That remains to be proved to me. You look after the girl, Riddlerman,” Glavenor said gruffly. Twardy Zarost nodded gravely.

  Garyll mounted his horse.

  “Goodbye, Miss Serannon. I shall find you once I’m certain that justice has been served on this Shadowcaster.” He clenched his reins in a tight fist.

  “Thank you, Garyll. Go now. I’ll be all right.”

  Glavenor turned and galloped off toward First Light. The Riddler watched, beside her.

  “And so he’s drawn to the place where he’s needed the most. He understands justice well. Let us hope that his sword can cut through the shadows.”

  Garyll’s figure was soon small, his helm glinting randomly between the trees, his horse galloping like the wind.

  The Riddler guided her with a gentle hand towards the cart. They set off without delay, down toward Cellarspring and Russel, and finally Southwind, where the Amberlake glittered under the steely noon.

  Tabitha watched the mounds of her parent’s graves diminish with the distance. The clarity of the Ring allowed her to remain there for almost a half league. Up upon the high meadow, below the sighing silken tree. Her neck ached from the awkward position.

  “Thank you, for my life,” she whispered. Even quieter, so that only the rushing wind could hear her words, she breathed, “I shall serve the Light in your name.”

  The remains of Phantom Acres smeared into the hazy distance at last, and was lost from view. They rode.

  12. GATEWAY

  “Fairness is the hardest riddle of them all.”—Zarost

  “What was that?” said the Sword, sharply.

  Kirjath met the soldier’s gaze.

  Let him rot in hell.

  The soldier muttered something unintelligible in the direction of Kirjath’s cell, then continued to sharpen his blade, pulling his whetstone with an even rhythm, filling the Swordhouse with the rasp of steel.

  Kirjath slowly released his breath. It was crucial for the guard to remain distracted. He wasn’t even sure if his plan would work, but he had to try. Time was running out. He knew that the Captain of the Sword waited upon a scout who had been sent to the Serannon farm. Once the messenger confirmed the charges against him, there would be no delaying justice. The Captain had made that much clear, for Kirjath was a murderer.

  He smiled discreetly. There was no going back now. And there was only one way out. He focused on his task again, trying to keep his voice below the rasp of steel.

  For a High Crime—that of murder, rape, treason and grand theft—the penalty was death by beheading. If they had any idea of his talents, they would have acted swifter, for he had earned the honour of all four counts.

  The guard rose to fetch something from the far side of the room. Kirjath steeled himself for his desperate plan. He blended the pattern of the Summoning of Essence with the Gateway to the Underworld. It was a complex mental exercise, to join the two spells—one the call to Dark motes, the other the opening to call for something far more powerful, far more deadly. The Morgloth. He hoped that if they were cast at the same moment, something would come of it. He had failed to raise any Dark essence in the vicinity of the Swordhouse.

  Kirjath chanted the words of the combined invocation as loudly as he dared. The air remained still before him. He repeated the words, straining to pull the Dark through the Gateway pattern with mind-power alone. His headache increased. Nothing happened. He needed Dark essence to carry his spell. Without motes, he was an impotent cripple in a cage. Kirjath stared at the rough timber walls.

  The Sword returned to his sharpening.

  Cursed whore of a day! How did I allow these bounders to snare me so easily?

  Without magic, the Gateway would not form, and the beasts beyond could not be summoned. Kirjath closed his eyes. It was unacceptable. This could not be his end. There had to be a way.

  He ran his eyes over the interior of his jail-cell. He had done it a hundred times already, searching for some weakness, some means of escape. But the cell had bee
n designed to thwart such attempts—the small window set high in the wall was heavily barred. The walls were constructed of thick timbers, far too broad to break. The grille which separated his cell from the main room of the Swordhouse was made from iron bars as thick as his wrist. Apart from a cast-iron pail with a lid, and a low bed of packed straw, the cell was empty. Just as it had been the last time he had checked, and the time before that.

  His eyes lingered on the straw of the bed, and for a second he considered the commotion he would cause if he could set it alight.

  Burn! like the Lightgifter’s farmhouse.

  He shook his head—he had no means to light a fire, and the thought of it only brought the pain of his naked scars to the fore with a torturous jolt. He bit back a whimper.

  Curses and pestilence upon them all!

  He noticed an oddity in the straw mattress. Something was stuffed into the fibres, a pale scrap of paper rolled tightly to the size of a finger. It was well hidden, but the longer he looked at it the more noticeable it became. He checked on the soldier outside his cell. The Sword was now intent on polishing his blade with an oiled rag, having satisfied himself with its keen edge. Kirjath rose from the stone and sank onto the straw.

  “Find comfort while you can, Shadowcaster,” mocked the Sword, “it is surely your last rest.” The soldier smirked, then returned to polishing.

  Look closely at your reflection in the blade, tinpot. It shall be your last look.

  Kirjath shifted his body on the straw. Without the shield of Dark essence, his legs, head and hands formed an unrelenting throb of agonised nerves, but he managed to reach the rolled paper. He bit back a curse as his swollen skin brushed the parchment, his fingers were clumsy and they stung continuously. He hooked the note at last, and rolled over to face the wall. It took a while to unroll the paper’s tight folds, his blackened right hand being useless for the task. When the missive was finally flattened, it was a rough script he discovered, a morbid rhyme of a past prisoner.

  My head’s on the axeman’s block

  dark beneath my neck the rock.

  I looked for aid, but all did fail

  until I turned to the iron pail.

  A prisoner capable of poetry? It was absurd, he supposed, but people acted strangely in their final hour. He understood the panic and pressure the man must have felt, the kind of desperation that conjured images of dark rock beneath the neck. He lingered over the final line.

  Nonsense. What was the iron pail, and how would that have helped the doomed man? The poet must have been delirious, drawing words from his surrounds to complete the rhyme. There was the pail of water in his cell, though. Despite himself, Kirjath crawled over to it, and worked the lid free.

  The water was as dark as oil.

  Although the pail was almost full, he could move it with ease. The liquid didn’t slosh over the rim either, it stayed at the same level. Perfectly still. Weightless. Dark essence.

  The message had been for him. He had an ally. The note must have been placed in the cell before he had been brought to the Swordhouse. Someone had known he would come there, and had provided him a way out. Who but a Shadowcaster could fill a pail with motes? Too many elements didn’t add up. Yet the questions could wait. Time was wearing thin.

  He had a new plan.

  He summoned the motes. There would be enough for the Gateway. His body’s needs would have to wait.

  The main door to the Swordhouse burst open. A tall, severe soldier blocked the daylight. Kirjath recognised the angular face immediately. The Swordmaster of Eyri.

  He ignored his rising panic, and spoke the first words of the Gateway, pushing his motes outwards to form their pattern. A second soldier burst through the door, and stood to a weaving attention before the Captain—the scout that had been dispatched earlier. He blurted out his report.

  “The Serannons have been murdered, the farm is burned to the ground. Justice on that man!” His finger stabbed the air.

  The Swordmaster was already running toward Kirjath’s cell. His sharp eyes had spotted the slither of motes, no doubt.

  The motes completed a wide circle before Kirjath’s feet. Slick filaments of Dark wound across the stone floor, flickering to their place inside the pattern. Then the Gateway was complete.

  All he had to do was to say the word.

  The door to his cell was unlocked, wrenched aside, and the Swordmaster had drawn his blade all in one precious moment. But he was too late. Kirjath drew his lips back in a snarling, triumphant grin.

  The Swordmaster’s broad blade whistled towards him, but Kirjath ducked and rolled away.

  There was no mercy in the eyes that hunted him. Kirjath hadn’t expected any. He was going to need all the speed he could muster. He formed a command in his mind, to be ready for his beast.

  Throw the first man aside.

  “Step through the Gate, and enter my mind,” shouted Kirjath, running to avoid another sword-strike. The stone inside the circle darkened.

  “What?”

  I speak to my Morgloth, and not to you.

  The stone had become a swirling pool, a whirlpool of night, reaching down into endless depths. The spell was complete, the Morlgoth called. Kirjath felt a surging hunger. And the demon was upon them.

  The beast launched through the Gateway with its purpose already set. Black talons gripped the Swordmaster, and lifted him. He was thrown hard against the iron bars of the cell wall. His helm skittered over the floor. The Swordmaster crumpled against the bars.

  At the others. I must escape.

  The Morgloth leapt for the cell door, and dived outward at the nearest Sword. The jailhouse was full of easy prey. The men stood stunned, mouths agape. The first Sword didn’t even raise his arms in time to ward against the vicious jaws. He made a squeak before his head was bent back on sharp talons.

  Kirjath savoured the familiar mind-link of the channelling—strong, clear, wild images flooded him. The Morgloth felt more powerful than the last time. Kirjath revelled in the death-ecstasy for the briefest moment. The Morgloth tore the Sword’s head off at the neck.

  The remaining Swords scattered.

  The guard who Kirjath had marked for death, the one who had yanked the rope during his passage to the jail, was running for the main door, wailing. Kirjath bent his will to change the Morgloth’s path, and the demon launched itself at the fleeing man. The beast cloaked the soldier with its giant wings, and crushed him to the floor. Kirjath could sense the hunger and blood-lust in the beast as if the thoughts were his own, exciting, almost disgusting in their intensity. He shared the fatal bite again. The exhilarating rush. The mist of the soldier’s spirit was swallowed into the emptiness of the Morgloth’s hunger. Bliss, strength and ecstacy.

  Cold steel against his throat brought Kirjath instantly back to reality. He was being cut, deeper and deeper. The Swordmaster had recovered from his fall, somehow he was right there beside him. Glavenor spoke harsh words into Kirjath’s ear.

  “Halt your beast, or you’ll die. This sword goes through your throat.” Kirjath sensed the demon launching itself from the far side of the Swordhouse, its attack focused on Kirjath’s assailant.

  “Halt it!” the Swordmaster shouted, jerking his sword deeper into Kirjath’s neck. “You’ll die before I do.”

  Blood was already flowing, and a small jerk on the grip of the sword would be the end. Kirjath threw his desperate mental command at the lurching demon, adding his voice in a hoarse croak.

  “Back! Get back!” He waved his hand at the Morgloth, gagging on the pressure on his throat. The beast resisted within his mind, as if part of him wanted to continue the strike, to fall on the dark-haired Swordmaster who stood with blade outstretched, to bite into the neck so proudly exposed.

  At the last moment, the beast halted its strike. It slid to a halt an arm’s length from Kirjath. Its eyes were red and hell-fired. It strained against his command, but made no attack.

  “Banish your beast,” the Swordmaster demanded
. Again, the punctuation of the blade.

  The bastard will kill me the moment it’s gone.

  “Free passage,” Kirjath wheezed, fighting back a cough. “I want free passage.”

  “You’ll die before I let you escape.”

  “So will you, if you kill me now. My beast lives on.”

  “I have no fear of death. I do what is right.”

  “And your compatriots, friends, and innocents?” Kirjath retorted. He noticed that the other Swords lingered near the door, unsure whether to flee, or to trust their Swordmaster’s might. “The beast knows no end to its hunger. If I am not commanding it, if I do not banish it, it will feed on every life it finds. You’ve felt its strength already. You shall not match it, you shall never stop it.”

  It was a gamble. The Swordmaster had not yet killed him, which meant he did not understand. Without Kirjath’s active will, the demon would cease to have access to the mortal world. Kirjath’s mind was the real gateway through which the Morgloth lived. A swift turn of the Swordmaster’s blade would end both him and the threat of the beast. But the Swordmaster had not yet killed him. He didn’t know the truth.

  Blood dripped from the Swordmaster’s blade to the floor. The Morgloth screeched with frustration, but stayed where it was. If the Swordmaster became any redder with his fury, he would ignite all on his own. “My word, then,” the Swordmaster said between clenched teeth. “Banish the beast, and you’ll have passage from this Swordhouse, but only from this Swordhouse.”

  “I should take your word?” scoffed Kirjath, his arrogance swelling. If the Swordmaster was offering a deal, there was possibility for more manipulation.

  “My word is my deed,” the Swordmaster growled. “Banish your beast now. I shall let you reach the door.”

  Kirjath sneered. “Do you think I am an idiot? The cowards at the door shall cut me down the moment the beast is gone.” He considered the deadlock for a moment. “Call your friends into the cell, let them stand here before my beast. One twinge on your sword, and they will die before I fall. Then you shall die, with the future blood of Eyri upon your hands.”