“He was distracted.”
“But he discovered you,” Tabitha asserted, trying to be stern once more.
“Much, much later. I tried to sell the sword many times. Everybody knew about it. Strange that nobody wanted to buy the sword, when I told them to whom it belonged.”
“But why?” It seemed a risky thing to attempt.
“I wanted to show one man that the thing he most treasured could be lost if he did not take care of it.”
Tabitha regarded him anew. The Riddler was stranger than she had ever suspected. Risking the ire of the Swordmaster, purely to lay a moral lesson? It sounded unbelievable, yet she wondered if his tale was supposed to hold a lesson for her as well. Her fingers found the Ring, then the Lightstone at her throat, and finally the bag of coins. Acknowledging her treasures only made her feel her loss more keenly. The greatest treasure had already been taken from her life.
“Where am I to go, if I am to take care of my treasure?” she asked.
“The Ring will help you to see the path to knowledge, but you may not always have the courage to do what is right.”
“Why do you hide everything in twisted words, why do you try to confuse me with answers that aren’t answers. Why can’t you just tell me what I should do?”
“I am here to be the Riddler, nothing more.”
“Why?”
“I made a promise to the wizard, whose ring you wear. I must guide you to find that wizard.”
“But why don’t you just take it to the wizard yourself?”
“Bear the Ring? That really would be the end of me.” He laughed, though Tabitha didn’t catch the joke. “No, far better you wear it, and I be riddling all the roads for you.”
“You make no sense at all!” Tabitha said, turning away from his insistent smile. Her frustration had reached breaking point. “Crazy man,” she whispered, well below audible level given the noise of the cart and the passing breeze.
“I am not completely without a heart, young Tabitha,” he reprimanded her.
Tabitha felt abashed. She had not meant to be mean. The Riddler waved her apologies aside.
“You are mostly right, for everyone misunderstands me. That is how it should be—few are worthy. If I didn’t riddle, then I would lead. And so, you would follow me and not seek your own truth. No new talent would be born in Eyri, Chaos would finally overwhelm us all, and we would lose the war.”
Tabitha tried to stave off the question, but it was impossible to ignore the glaring inconsistency.
“What war?”
“The war against Chaos, it continues as we speak. I do battle in my own way.”
Zarost really was crazy.
“War? We’ve had peace in Eyri forever!”
“So it would seem, so it would seem. You live under a powerful protection.”
“King Mellar and his Sword uphold justice. Who would we fight? The Shadowcasters, maybe. But that’s not a war, is it?”
“You should study your legends more closely, Miss Serannon. Just because things appear at the dawn of Time doesn’t mean they don’t endure. The appearance of peace doesn’t mean that Riddlers aren’t needed.”
“There wasn’t a Riddler at the dawn of Time,” Tabitha stated flatly.
Zarost chortled. “If there hadn’t been a Riddler, there would be no Eyri at all. Not as you know it. No, it would be something else, entirely.” He looked up towards Fynn’s Tooth. “So would the world. So would the world. All because we have a Riddler.”
“What are you doing with me then, if you have a war to wage?” Tabitha asked, shifting in her seat to look directly at Twardy Zarost. He returned her gaze with a twinkle in his eye, his browned face crinkling like parchment.
“Why, riddling, of course.”
“But why with me?”
“You are trying to find the wizard, you have the Wizard’s Ring. That you succeed is important in the war. Especially now that everything has begun to change.” He raised an eyebrow in her direction.
“What is changing?”
“The fabric of the universe, I believe. You forget what is in your heart, and in your hands,” the Riddler said slyly. He clicked and twitched the reins, urging the flagging grey mare into a trot again.
Tabitha realised with a start that she held her mother’s scroll-tube. She had been tumbling it over and over for minutes, without being conscious of it. She hastily tucked the worked leather case inside her cloak once more. Out of sight, where it belonged.
They slammed over a ditch and bounced high, but Twardy Zarost did not slacken his pace. Ahead, a long straight led downwards between two large hills. The rich green slopes were dotted with sheep and the first of the spring’s bright daisies. Beyond the vee of the hills was a glistening body of water, tranquil and jewel-like in the centre of Eyri. Amberlake. When she turned to look back to Fynn’s Tooth, it seemed far away. The sun was already falling through the western sky. They had yet to reach the artist’s village of Russel, where the houses were built upon stilts amongst the reeds. Soft-press paper and oil-paint came from Russel, and some of the best paintings in all of Eyri.
Tabitha wondered if they were still extending the stoneroad from Southwind along the shore. It would be dark by the time they reached that lakeside village.
* * *
The man who had challenged the theft lay unconscious in the dust of the stable-yard on the outskirts of First Light. Kirjath had wished to kill him, but he had neither the time nor the energy to summon the Morgloth again. He needed to be frugal with the little Dark essence he could summon.
It hadn’t taken many motes to still the farmer’s thoughts, to render him cataleptic. The man had stared blankly as Kirjath had clubbed him to the ground. The farmer would awake later with the mother of all headaches, and not the best of moods. He would likely be unfriendly towards Shadowcasters. All of this worried Kirjath naught, for he was long gone.
The black charger he had stolen was big and fast, but it fought his command every step of the way. It fought while it ran in terror, for it dared not vary its course from the one that the swooping ravens demanded.
Give this bloody horse an inch, and it will turn against me.
Kirjath held on to the pommel of his saddle with his swollen left hand, grinding his teeth against the agony. The reins were tied short, and they lay untended on the stallion’s mane. He didn’t need the reins, he just needed to stay mounted—his birds would do the rest. His thighs ached.
Two Morrigán bracketed the stallion, flying in tight formation on either side of its head. Whenever the horse veered left or right from the road, the ravens closed, making to strike for the stallion’s eye on the offending side with horrible screeches, wicked beaks wide open. After the first few strikes, they only needed to maintain formation at the limit of the horse’s vision. It ran, in a panic-stricken gallop, with ears laid flat against his head, and rolling eyes.
The speed had been necessary to escape the Swordmaster. As Kirjath had pulled ahead, he had been able to draw more Dark to himself, and it had become easier to avoid pursuit, to lay false trails and cast illusions into the woods until he had completely shaken his tail. Then he had sent one of his ravens ahead.
The Morrigán had brought him news of a cart with two passengers, one with a striped hat, the other hidden beneath a cowl. He had driven the horse harder, but he had reached the burned farmhouse too late.
There were footprints in the mud beside the gate, footprints in the ash of the devastation. Two sets of fresh footprints—a pair of soft-soled leather boots, and a small pair with a light tread. The girl, and the wagoneer, he was sure. Who else would have visited the ruins, and built two fresh graves on the hill?
The twin tracks of the cart had been easy to follow, leaving the farm on the Southwind road. It was just a matter of time.
* * *
A chuckling stream emerged from the hills to their right, and cut across their path on its way to the larger River of Falls. They descended the winding path t
o ford it at its narrowest point. However, when they reached the water, Twardy Zarost dismounted from the cart, and urged Tabitha to do the same.
“Help me with the harness.”
“I thought we had to hurry!” Tabitha said. She looked over her shoulder. A copse of trees stood rustling on the crest of the bowl. “Why are we stopping?”
“If your bottom is stiff, then think what Horse feels, and you’ll know why we stop.”
Tabitha winced as she stretched her legs down over the side. She ached in every joint, not just in her behind. The horse was lathered in sweat, and hung its head gratefully down to the water. Twardy loosened the bridle, and together with Tabitha, lifted the harness from the horse’s back. He slapped the mare’s rump, and she took a few steps out into the cooling stream, snorting thirstily at the water.
“What’s her name?” Tabitha asked.
“I call her Horse,” said Twardy, with an amused expression. “Because she’s a horse.”
“That’s not a real name! You can’t—she must –”
Tabitha frowned, and placed her hands on her hips, the way Mrs Quilt did when she ordered something in the kitchen and expected to see it done.
“Lazy,” he suggested, his face cracking into familiar lines.
“No! She must be something more special than that,” she said, looking at the lopsided burst of white on the mare’s forehead. “What about Starburst, or Flicker. Or Blaze!”
“Be lazy, then,” Zarost announced, raising an eyebrow. Tabitha didn’t get it, at first.
“You mean Blazey?”
“Blazey,” he agreed, much amused.
Tabitha held his eye. She knew he would turn every name she suggested upside down or inside out. She gave up trying to outwit the Riddler. The horse would be called Blazey, and she’d know what it meant.
The horse was taking long draughts from the stream. Tabitha kicked off her boots and waded out into the stream. It was cold. She halted uncertainly at the mare’s side, and shot Twardy a tentative glance.
“Can I?” she asked, scooping up some of the chilly water with her hands.
He nodded. “Keep the sweat off your clothes, or we’ll have to rename you as well.”
Tabitha washed the sweat-stains from Blazey’s legs. The mare nuzzled her briefly, then returned to sucking at the water.
They rested for a while in the glade. The stream chuckled incessantly. Then all too soon, the Riddler harnessed up again.
“Come on, Blazey,” he called out.
The horse twitched her ears. The bumpy ride resumed.
* * *
Long after the visitors had moved from the ford, after the cart had disappeared up the steep bank of the hollow, leaving deep cuts in the loam, the sound of a galloping horse filled the trees. The black horse snorted deeply with each breath, compelled by its fear to bear its dark rider. It emerged from the copse of alders at a desperate gait, and launched itself down the steep slope. Five giant leaps finished the winding descent by a forced short-cut, and the stallion bore its dread passenger into the ford. The charger struck a submerged rock, and it stumbled to its knees. The stream exploded around it with icy water.
The stallion eyed the water longingly, and made to quench its raging thirst. But the rider hissed, and the vicious birds swooped in close. Squealing with panic, the stallion heaved itself upright, and jumped through the shallows. It strained up the far bank, kicking loose stone and soil out as the rider forced another short-cut, and then it was gone, the hoofbeats leaving a shocked silence in the glen.
* * *
Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief. They had made good time, and the twilight had barely begun to thicken the shadows as they entered Southwind. They had been on stoneroad almost all the way from Russel, and it was smooth and level and easy on the wheels.
Most of the windows of the buildings they passed were lit, and the smells of cooking spilled out into the narrow main street. The low dwellings were made from slender planks, and they crowded into the street in an almost jovial way. Their thatch roofs, capped with sand-bags, extended close to the ground. The street curved from side to side as various buildings blurred on the straight line. A disordered place, yet friendly.
The village inn boasted a double storey. A sign hanging slightly skew on its knotted white rope boasted that Southwind’s finest food was at the Kingfisher’s Breeze. They passed the inn by, though not without Tabitha giving its open doors a longing glance. She hadn’t eaten since the night before at the Tooth-and-Tale. She’d taken no breakfast before she had been bundled into a certain smelly wine barrel. It seemed like an age had passed since the morning.
The villagers whom they passed offered gentle greetings, as peaceful as the lake that lapped against the shore nearby. The Riddler guided the cart along the main street to a large wharf at the water’s edge, then turned left along the shore to a lone building which stood half on stilts. The fading pink of dusk lingered on the wooden walls—one storey on the landward side, but a full three where the house projected ponderously over the lake and dropped to a lower level of jetties. Small watercrafts were moored below.
“Mulrano lives here. He might speed you on your journey,” said Zarost. He brought the cart to a halt beside a large door set in the side of the house. He jumped down, and walked around Blazey’s drooping head. He whistled a clear starling’s call at the upper window, then hauled the door open along its grinding track.
“Bring Blazey through, we’d best be out of sight,” he said, waving Tabitha on as he scanned the darkened sky. Tabitha looked back into the darkening village, and she felt a twinge of fear as she grabbed the reins, but there was nothing sinister in Southwind that she could identify. Still, it felt as is somebody was watching her. She twitched the reins the way she had seen the Riddler do. Blazey plodded forwards on leaden feet, and they passed into the concealing gloom of the boathouse.
The owner of the boathouse soon appeared. Mulrano had a friendly, weathered face, with bushy black eyebrows and a big grizzled chin. He welcomed them in, by way of a back-slapping hug for Zarost and a shake of his oar-like hand for Tabitha, but he didn’t say a thing. There was something strange about Mulrano.
He ushered them into his softly furnished lounge. He smiled and nodded. He showed Tabitha to the washroom with a gesture and a bow of his head. He prepared a meal for the weary travellers without a word. They ate in silence.
When they sat in their woven cane chairs beside the fire, and Tabitha complimented Mulrano on his fine cooking, he acknowledged her with a nod of his head. Tabitha’s questions about the prosperity of Southwind brought yet another smile, but no answer. He listened attentively as Twardy Zarost told their tale, his eyebrows rising in his craggy face as Tabitha’s need for hasty passage to Levin was explained.
He seemed to chew for a while, though he had already cleared his plate of food.
“Please, Mister Mulrano, I can pay for my passage. Will you help me?” Tabitha asked.
Mulrano made a strange gesture at Twardy, twiddling the first two fingers of his right hand.
Maybe he can’t speak, Tabitha thought. She shot the Riddler a sharp glance. Zarost grinned indulgently.
“Yes, friend Mulrano is as mute as a minnow, or more truly a mule, for he can make a sound, but the words do not come out as he intends, do they Mulrano? So he prefers to say nothing.”
“Why didn’t you say?” she challenged Zarost, colour rising to her cheeks.
“You needed a puzzle to keep your mind occupied. Mulrano wants to know if you can swim.”
She looked incredulously at the Riddler, then at Mulrano, then hastily looked away.
Mercy, he can’t speak. How was I supposed to know?
It was obvious, she supposed, but a little warning would have spared the silly questions. It was Zarost’s way, she was discovering, to surround himself with as many riddles as possible. She made a hasty attempt to answer Mulrano’s question.
“In summer we swim in the river-pool. I know enou
gh not to drown.”
“Your canoe will be the fastest,” Zarost told Mulrano.
Mulrano shook his head, and frowned at the Riddler. He rolled his hands, and pointed to himself.
“I fear the morning will be too late,” said Zarost.
Mulrano shook his head again, with not a little anger in his eye. He gestured at Tabitha with one raised finger, then pointed to the dark night visible through the lakeside windows. His hand made an obvious sign of a capsizing boat. “Foop!” he said.
“But we do not know where the Shadowcaster is!” Zarost argued with Mulrano. “Already in this village he could be, touch wood that’s a fallacy. She must go tonight. The canoe is the fastest thing she can handle. She does not know how to sail, do you, Tabitha Truthsayer?”
She averted her gaze. Admitting to a sailor that one couldn’t sail seemed like admitting to a farmer that you didn’t know which end of a sheep to feed. “N-no.” She picked at the hem of her cloak. The furnishings were so soft, the fire glowed so warmly, and the aroma of their meal lingered in the air. “Do you really think the Shadowcaster is still after me?” The threat of the Shadowcaster was something which belonged to the night outside. “Are you sure Captain Steed didn’t catch him? Maybe we could just stay the night.”
“Shatter the sun!” the Riddler exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “There is your answer!” He pointed to the window. They spun to face the blackened glass.
At first Tabitha saw nothing, but Mulrano stiffened beside her, and then she made out a vague shape on the windowsill in the darkness outside. A glassy black eye peered at her. A sharp beak glistened with reflected light. Then with a grating cry, the raven lifted off the windowsill and disappeared into the night.
“Morrigán!” Twardy spat the word out. “You can be sure his caster is close behind. You must go, girl. Not to Levin, but to Stormhaven, there’s no time. You’ll be safer on the King’s Isle than anywhere in Eyri.”
Mulrano placed a firm hand on Zarost’s chest and held his gaze. He tapped on his own chest with the free hand. Tabitha wondered what he could mean, but Zarost looked at Mulrano approvingly, then held him close and clapped his back.
The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong) Page 20