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

by Greg Hamerton

  “You wear no Darkstone. What work is it you do for the Darkmaster?”

  “Please do not kill me! I am a spy, a ferret, an informer for the Darkmaster! Cabal of Ravenscroft! He needs me, he’ll miss me if I am gone!”

  “I care little about the Darkmaster’s displeasure,” Kirjath said.

  “I can help you!” Tarrok pleaded. “I can help you. You want the girl, Tabitha Serannon? I can deliver her to you, beyond the city walls.”

  Kirjath didn’t push the blade in, but held the point firm.

  “No, little man, that will not save you. You already said she was coming back here. I shall only need to wait.”

  “But what if she doesn’t? What if they discover that it isn’t you in the Swordhouse? I can deliver her to you, so you need not search.”

  The man wouldn’t lie, not with the strength of the spell that compelled his fear. Still, a man about to die would take desperate risks to win his life.

  “There is more to your offer,” Kirjath breathed over Tarrok again. “Or you would not be so brave. Speak.”

  “The Swords think they captured you this morning so the girl has no reason to stay here which is why I was arranging an escort to Levin and I can ensure she is on it very soon with the worst Swords assigned to her and you hidden within the coach,” he said hurriedly, completing it all in one breath.

  The whites of his eyes revealed that his association with the Darkmaster was real enough. The faint yellow streaks were clear proof that past payments for services rendered had not been in gold, but with the leaves of a certain addictive plant. Kirjath felt a certain kinship.

  “You will keep your head, but by the Tooth, if I do not see results within the hour, you’ll taste your own blood,” Kirjath warned. “I shall pay you ten jurrum to keep your mouth shut while you work.”

  Kirjath withdrew the knife. Tarrok sagged. There were large damp patches on the yellow robe. Tarrok turned to face Kirjath. His hand shook. His lip twitched.

  “Fifteen.”

  Kirjath smiled, an awkward expression, then threw back his head and laughed. The cheeky bastard was trying to haggle. Kirjath could still kill him.

  “Ah, Tarrok, your nerve is wasted in Stormhaven. Here, twelve leaves, and your silence shall be absolute.”

  Lethin Tarrok pocketed the jurrum as deftly as a conjurer, and one leaf found his mouth.

  “I shall prepare the King’s Stables, Lord Arkell. Remain hidden here, I shall come as soon as the way is clear. I know a way to the stables that is completely concealed.”

  * * *

  The cobbles gleamed underfoot as the sun pierced the mists. All the way back from leaving Maybelle Westerbrook at the House of Ceremony, the streets had been clearing, opening to the bright blue sky. Tabitha took the stairs to the Boarding, and entered the gloomy interior beyond.

  There were wet footprints on the steps leading to her room.

  Someone new in the Boarding?

  The visitor was likely to get a scolding from the Matron, tramping water all over the wooden floor like that. She placed her foot inside one of the prints. The tread was big—it had dampened the floorboards outside the limits of her boot. She followed the footprints, keeping her steps in the wet marks. A premonition brushed her mind as lightly as a skittering spider. She paused on the landing.

  Where have I felt that presence before?

  A faint odour of wine drifted on the breeze from her room. Something didn’t feel right, not right at all. She tried to sense what was ahead using the Ring. Wine. Coldness. Quiet.

  “Tabitha! Tabitha!” It was Maybelle, calling her from the lower hallway. She turned away from her room. It felt as if a dark presence waited at her back.

  “Yes, May!” she shouted down. The Lady of Ceremony had begun to climb the stairs, but Tabitha halted her progress by running down to join her.

  “I had to come back and tell you, Tabitha. They’ve captured the Shadowcaster, the one who was after you! Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “When? Who captured him?” Tabitha’s heart was tripping over itself. She missed May’s response to her question—her attention was behind her, at the head of the stairs, and beyond. Nothing but shadows.

  You’re imagining things. This is Stormhaven, nothing can assail you here.

  “Sorry, when?” she repeated.

  “Come,” May said, linking her arm with Tabitha. “Let me take you to the House, there’s something I want to give you, before you go.”

  Tabitha allowed herself to be drawn out to the street. “Go? Go where?”

  “The Dovecote. Didn’t you want to go to the Dovecote? Tarrok has arranged an escort. Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve been saying, Tabitha? The Shadowcaster is caught, he will be killed today. They told me just after we parted from our walk this morning.”

  Tabitha supposed she should be excited at the news, or relieved, or at least surprised. She felt nothing, nothing at all.

  “Tarrok surprised me so with his sensitivity,” said May. “He said the execution would most likely be public, in the Forecourt, and you probably wouldn’t want to attend such a display. And he said the King has been quite enthusiastic of late to see that things are done quickly. A carriage has been arranged to depart in an hour. He asked me to tell you to prepare yourself for the journey.”

  The sky was blue and empty overhead. Something had shifted, on the limits of her sight. Something about this day was strange.

  “Oh, bother, I forgot,” said May, halting. “The dress has been taken to be cleaned. I shall have to bring it to you at the Stables, when your carriage leaves. I’ll see you there!”

  Lady Westerbrook strode off, leaving Tabitha not far from the Boarding, wondering why she was feeling so puzzled by it all.

  You should rejoice. The murderer of your parents has been captured.

  The Ring was cold on her finger.

  Something was amiss.

  * * *

  “The Ring and the Seeker, I find you at last.”

  The voice at her back made her jump. She spun. A black beard, shot with grey. A racoon-striped hat. And a grin that stretched from ear to ear across the Riddler’s leathery face.

  “Twardy Zarost!” she exclaimed. She sighed with relief. She had been ready to run. “What are you doing here?”

  “Many paths are converging; I thought I may be needed.”

  “Oh Twardy, will you come with me to my room? I need to know what lingers there.”

  The Riddler caught her arm firmly. “You should not be poking into shadows yet,” he said. “I know a place that’s green and bright, and there we must go, to be out of sight.”

  Hidden in the Riddler’s merry voice was a note of urgency. Tabitha did not resist his guiding hand, but glanced back at the Boarding at the last moment. A figure in a yellow robe slipped into the doorway, but no one came out.

  Twardy Zarost led her up the street.

  His brown eyes were bright. “How does the King care for you?”

  “Ah, well. Fine,” Tabitha answered. “He gave me a gift.”

  “A very good lyre, I hear. You should keep it close.”

  Tabitha shot him a puzzled glance. He bobbed his head towards her.

  “Your voice can fly, across land, water and sky.”

  Cryptic, as always. She watched him closely. “How do you know about the lyre?”

  Zarost waggled a finger at her. “Do not chase minnows, when there are bears in the pool, and little water left.”

  “Minnows? You mean there are more important things I should be asking?”

  Zarost smiled. “If I tell you what to ask, there’ll be no riddle in the truth, or truth in the riddle.”

  Tabitha tried another angle. “Why do you think I am in danger?”

  “Some covet what you have, and seek to take it from you.”

  My room. The wet footprints. Somebody came to my room.

  She stopped, a hollow in her belly. She had left her lyre beside the bed. “Twardy, I have to go back.�
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  The Riddler frowned. “So soon you forget what brought you to the King’s Isle. You are not ready to face the hunter.”

  “The hunter—the Shadowcaster? Here?”

  “Don’t presume you are safe, at any time. Come, come,” he said, guiding her up the street once more. “It is too late to change what happens elsewhere, but every step of your own chooses a path amongst many ahead. Think of some better questions, before your feet lead you on a doomed road.”

  He led her off the street, through an old gate to a garden. Great trees bowed overhead. The scent of growing leaves was fresh. Tabitha recognised the grounds of the Leaf of Merrick.

  “Why does life seem to be rushing in a torrent, whenever you are near? Would you be helping me if I did not have the Ring? What do you gain by helping me?”

  Zarost raised his hands as if to ward off further questions. “Much better, much better indeed! Now I can try to answer them all at once, or you can try to ask it singly.”

  Tabitha considered her words. “Why are you here?”

  He arched an eyebrow, and it almost hid under the brim of his hat. “Many, many answers sprout from that seed. There is no time to explore them all.”

  Tabitha would not be riddled aside. “Tell me one of them.”

  Zarost pouted his lips. “A Riddler’s task is to hide the truth from all but those most worthy.”

  “Yes, but why are you here?”

  “Because you wear the Ring, and I must see that you have the best chance to complete your quest, though I must not lead you in the task.”

  Tabitha grimaced. As abstruse as ever. When the Riddler didn’t wish to give anything away, he could be infuriating. But she wouldn’t let the question go. Even her Ring was warm, leading her on, guiding her to the truth.

  “Why are you here today?”

  “Because you are in danger of ending yourself.”

  There was a moment of perfect silence.

  “How can you know that?”

  “The path of inevitability.” He twiddled his fingers one over the other as if in explanation. “Your feet take you forwards to a confrontation for which you are not ready. I offer you an escape, but I cannot compel you to take it, no.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked.

  “Have you ever come to harm in my company?”

  She dipped her hand into her collar, and lifted her Lightstone clear. “You’ve tricked me before.”

  “The minimum of tools, you needed the minimum of tools, that is all. You shall need more than that stone aiding you, to survive the beast. You need learning, and that takes time.”

  The beast. Tabitha was filled with sudden alarm.

  “You’re talking about the Morgloth, aren’t you? The King said the Morgloth was used in First Light. Can the Shadowcaster really command them?”

  “It is a crazy man who thinks he commands a Morgloth.”

  “Yet such a man has come to Stormhaven?”

  “I had thought you would be safe here, but it is not so. Thus you must leave, and hide, until you have learned to harness your power, until you understand what it is you face.”

  “My power? I haven’t even begun the Lightgifter’s training. I wear an orb, but have no spells. I wear a Ring, but don’t understand its ways.”

  “And you sing. Never forget that you sing.”

  “My voice is hardly powerful,” Tabitha objected.

  He shook his head slowly. “You really have no idea of what it is you do. I had thought the spell you cast yesterday was a very wise thing, only now, it seems to be a very lucky thing.”

  “Spell?”

  “You sang a most enchanting song.”

  “Oh, that,” she said, recalling the performance in Yzell’s workshop. “That was just the Glee of Genesis. It’s a tavern-song. How did you hear that?”

  “That is no tavern-song, and I heard it sung in a way that would be wasted in a tavern.”

  She refined her question to pin the Riddler down. “Where were you that you could hear it?”

  “Crossing the river at Stormsford.”

  Tabitha searched his eyes for the signs of insincerity. The Riddler couldn’t have heard her from Stormsford—it was over five leagues away from the King’s Isle. He held an honest, steady gaze.

  He’s a good liar, then.

  But the Shadowcaster had been drawn to Phantom Acres by her singing. How far away was he, when he heard my voice? Are they alike, the Riddler and the Shadowcaster?

  She dared not voice that question.

  “Is my singing the reason for my danger today?” she asked.

  “I don’t doubt it. He knows you are here. That is why you must be elsewhere.”

  “But I am leaving,” said Tabitha. “There is a guarded carriage arranged, I’m going to the Dovecote. Within the hour.”

  Zarost stood a long time, considering, before answering.

  “That may be a good escape, but it would be best you are in a place that no one knows.”

  “Must I run and hide all the time? I want to present myself at the Dovecote, I want to become a real Lightgifter. I tire of pretending.”

  “You want that strongly enough to risk meeting the Shadowcaster?”

  “Yes,” she answered hastily, without conviction.

  Do I?

  Tabitha tried to understand the mixed feelings that the question awakened. She found the familiar smoothness of the clear ring between her fingers, and turned it absently, hoping for some of its clarity to infuse her thoughts. Images of her possible futures flitted across her mind—those where she failed to attend the Gifter’s training, and those where she stood triumphant, a masterful weaver of the Light, serving the people of Eyri every day with her healing touch. Tabitha, daughter of Trisha Serannon, Lightgifter and defier of the Shadow.

  “Yes.” The word held the tone of truth. “I want to go to the Dovecote.”

  “Very well, so you choose your path,” said the Riddler, with teasing solemnity. “But you should know that the path the Ring shows is the one to the wizard, not the path to goodness and virtue.”

  Tabitha thrust her hands into her pockets. She hadn’t realised her display had been that obvious.

  “There is another thing I must tell about the Ring,” said Zarost. “It has a way of bringing hardship upon you.”

  “But I thought you said that it was neither bad nor good?” Tabitha objected.

  “It has no power of its own. It offers only an altered view, a clearer view, for you to reach deeper into the mystery of life. What you learn depends on where you choose to seek.”

  “But why should that bring me hardship?”

  “The deeper you dig, the more gold is found, and so the more thieves gather around.”

  “What if I just threw the Ring away, like my mother wanted?” Tabitha muttered. She drew her hand up before her face, and played the Ring through the light. They both knew she didn’t mean to throw such a wonderwork away.

  “It never becomes easier to bear the Ring. Always, more difficult.”

  “What if I just keep it and do nothing, tell nobody.”

  “You cannot avoid its use if you bear it. And so, you show yourself to those who listen.”

  “How am I ever to find the wizard, and be rid of it then?” Tabitha despaired. Zarost made it seem like she was doomed to face an ever-increasing host of evils.

  “I have given the tool to you. What more do you need?”

  Zarost held a finger to his lips, then tapped his head. He meant for her to solve the puzzle on her own.

  I have a tool? He gave me a little mirror, that is all.

  She searched for the small wooden disc. It was still there, in her cloak pocket. She drew it out. It looked the same as ever. On the one side, her image. On the other, the solitary inscription—See thyself as thyself see. Even the clarity of the Ring didn’t pierce the puzzle.

  “Twardy, I –” she began, but he motioned sharply with his hand, suddenly concerned.

&nb
sp; “There are some hungry men nearby,” he whispered. “They are searching for somebody.”

  He pulled Tabitha aside, against a thick hedge. Tabitha hid the mirror in her pocket. She heard it too—the stealthy tread of many feet, coursing through the garden. Some of the paths were overgrown, shrouded by tall plants. Tabitha caught a glimpse of a familiar face crossing a gap.

  “It’s all right,” she said, “it’s Lethin Tarrok. He’s the one who’s arranged the carriage for me.” She saw a uniformed Sword as well.

  The Riddler bolted. He cleared the trees and pelted across the open grass. His hat bobbed wildly, but retained its perch atop his head.

  Tabitha stood in a daze.

  A sharp voice sounded beside her.

  “Swords! The main buildings!” shouted Tarrok. He came close. Tabitha recoiled. Some kinds of sweat you couldn’t mask, no matter how much lavender you applied.

  “Miss Serannon, what are you doing here?” he said, in a scolding tone, then continued before she could answer. “One of the Swords mentioned they had seen you being lured in here with a strange man. What were you thinking, while we wait for you? It is most unseemly to keep a royal carriage waiting!”

  It has been an hour already?

  “I—sorry, I didn’t think it was so late.”

  “You didn’t think at all. The man you were lounging with is a villain.”

  “But that’s Twardy Zarost! He’s not a criminal, he’s the Riddler.” Maybe if she argued with Tarrok, she could buy Zarost some time.

  “The Riddler, eh? And that title makes it acceptable to steal past the City Gates without entry permission?”

  Tabitha looked at him blankly.

  Three struggling figures crossed the grass. The Riddler returned, held between two burly Swords. Tabitha recognised the soldiers from her arrival in Stormhaven, when they had formed the escort. Tarrok’s personal favourites.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” trumpeted Tarrok. “By the hat, you can only be the Riddler. I have been warned about you!”

  “He’s done nothing wrong!”

  “Riddler, I arrest you under suspicion of treason. I have been informed that you have been in league with the Darkmaster.”

  “But that’s impossible!” Tabitha objected. “He’s not involved with the Shadowcasters. He helped me escape from one.”