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

by Greg Hamerton

  They came to the Dovecote building. The Swords dismounted, and divided into units, some taking strategic positions close to the main doors, some forming into a wedge around the Lightgifters. Tsoraz the Bard joined them, a staff in hand. They climbed the wide steps, and the Captain swung the great East-door open.

  The Hall of Sky was filled with the salmon glow of sunset. The marble floor glistened like the surface of a still pool. The Source towered on its mount, throwing gentle caresses of light to the walls. The channel at the edge of the Scribbillarre was a dry, empty rut. No Light had been drawn from the Source since Ashley had departed. There was little movement within the building, even the clatter of pots and the hiss of boiling water from the kitchens was subdued.

  Had it not been for the servant, who shuffled into the Hall with head downcast, Ashley would have taken the Dovecote for deserted. The woman took such fright at seeing the force of Swords in the Hall that Ashley didn’t think she even noticed him, or Sister Grace and Tabitha at his side. The woman ran toward the kitchen, shouting for the matron.

  “Mistress Wyniss! There’s Swords here! Mistress Wyniss!”

  The Matron arrived with the important bustle she always exhibited. She greeted Sister Grace with a bow to her head, as was proper.

  “Wyniss, what has happened to everyone?”

  “When you were in Stormhaven, Sister Grace, most of all the Gifters went to help the Swords at that dark place. Oh, you would know that—hullo, ‘prentice Logán. Well I was thinking they should be coming back around now, but the Rector said it would be a while longer. He was in a funny way today, said they should be celebrating the victory at Ravenscroft, and a ride to heal the country folk around Fig Tree would be the way they would do it. He ordered everyone out, even old Sister Sherry. They took the last few sprites. He even hired a carriage and some horses, seeing as how all the others were gone to that dark place. He said I was to just look after the ghosts while he was gone, keep things running as normal, that I was not to worry, the cote would be full soon enough.”

  The Rector had deserted the Dovecote. He must have been forewarned of their arrival. For some reason Ashley couldn’t help thinking of a small, sweaty Court Official in a yellow robe.

  Sister Grace was quick to recover. “Well, the Dovecote is full tonight. The Swords are here under the King’s business, and they shall lodge here until it is done. They can bed in the men’s wing. Would that suit you, Captain Jorge?” she asked, swivelling to include the commander of the squadron in her question. Jorge, a hard-faced veteran with a distant manner, looked around the Hall and finished on the Source.

  After a moment’s consideration, the Captain nodded. “If this is the rock they’re coming for, then we’d best be close to it.”

  Mistress Wyniss gave the man a puzzled glance.

  “Wyniss, could you prepare a meal for us all?” asked Sister Grace. “There are fifty Swords, and the four of us. Are there—enough of the servants left for the task?”

  “Oh yes, Sister Grace. He left all of the ghosts here.”

  In the path of the Shadowcasters.

  The Rector had a lot to answer for.

  37. THE BURDEN OF BETRAYAL

  “Is it easier to sacrifice life,

  or love?”—Zarost

  The flickering play of the torches had long since rubbed Garyll Glavenor’s nerves raw. Light was worse than darkness. It felt as if hot sand lined his eye sockets. He had lost track of how long he had been tied over the altar in the torture chamber, how long they had worked on him. They had hooked his eyelids back, and his eyes streamed and smarted, even in what dull light there was. He had been tied with his head so far back for so long, that images did not appear upside down anymore. A distant part of him supposed that if he were to ever stand upright again, the world would appear reversed. He had not been able to close his eyes for days. Or nights. He couldn’t tell—in the heart of Ravenscroft, it was just time, never-ending.

  His left hand was a mess. So many nails had been driven into the fingers, that he had lost count. It would never heal, he knew that much. He wished they would just cut it off at the wrist, and burn the stump with one of the torches. But even with that wish, came a sudden flood of pain. He must not think about what they had done to him. He must only be in the Inferno, the raging mental fire that was his only refuge. The image of the Inferno sputtered, a pale remnant of the strength which had once protected him as the Swordmaster.

  No matter how much he tried to forget, the memories of the screams plagued his mind. His screams, and those of the others who had been brought to the torture chamber. The weakest Lightgifters had been turned easily, sometimes with only a trade to seal their treachery. He had been forced to watch, tied and hook-lidded he could not help but see the exchange of jurrum, or gold, or other goods. Sometimes a Shadowcaster seductress worked the men over, until they screamed out the words he sometimes longed to scream himself. The Devotion to the Darkmaster was always the result of the visitor’s time in the torture chamber.

  He set his lips in a grim, hard line. He might cry the words inside, but his lips would remain sealed, to death. He would not betray his King. He would not betray Eyri. Therefore they worked on him, as they worked on the others. He was forced to bear witness to every turning, as if watching would teach him the futility of his ways.

  The strongest Gifters had not wished to be turned, even with the most attractive of offers, even in this place where the screams of tortured flesh echoed off the walls. Those who refused, knew the consequences, and yet still they refused. Garyll took strength from them, for a while, until he learned that every one of them was broken in the end, under the many tortures the Shadowcasters could design. Every one that was taken away left as a Shadowcaster.

  He knew then that he was going to die.

  Yet he was still alive.

  A man was laughing at him. Long, wheezing exhalations washed against his face; air that was full of rotten odours. The newcomer bobbed up and down beside him like a frog. He had a frog’s protruding eyes. The visitor’s Darkstone was a jagged tooth, rather than a full orb. Garyll wondered what that meant, and how the tortures which this pasty-skinned cretin would dole out would differ from those he had already endured. The man’s robe was not as dark as the others, maybe a dull red rather than black, though it was hard to tell in the smoky half-light. The man came close, and stroked the stone at Garyll’s neck.

  In an awful moment, he recognised the Shadowcaster. A split-lipped grin spread across Kirjath Arkell’s face.

  “Ooh, isn’t it lovely?” Kirjath crooned, in a voice distressing by its lack of sanity. “Hullo Swordmaster, I’ve come back to play, today, flay, nay, pay, way, hay!” Spittle flew with his nonsense rhyme, then he doubled over with a great, wheezing laugh. When he recovered, he brought his whisper close to Garyll.

  “You never expected me to live, did you now, you swaggering butcher. You should not have murdered my beast.”

  A tongue flickered into his ear. The lobe was sucked past sharp teeth. There was a crunch, and a fresh bloom of pain in Garyll’s ear. Something warm trickled over his cheek.

  “Just like the girl, so sure I was dead, dead, dead, so surprised to be caught in my hands again, again, again.” Arkell hopped away with sudden jerking movements.

  Every restraint strained to its limit on the altar. Garyll arched his back as strength tore through his body, strength that should have long since abandoned him. He couldn’t get any closer to Arkell.

  “What girl?” he demanded.

  “Ooh, it talks, the Master said it wouldn’t, but Kirjath can make it talk, hahaa! Kirjath made it talk.”

  “What girl!” Garyll shouted.

  Arkell danced away in tight circles.

  “The little slut from the farmyard, the be-titted singing thief. The bitch from the Kingsbridge, the one who broke my stone. Kirjath’s got his own back now. Ah, yes, Kirjath’s got his own back!”

  Pain told Garyll he shouldn’t have clenched his l
eft fist, but he didn’t care. “Tell me her name!” he demanded.

  “I sealed her Darkstone, she wears the Darkstone, and a good little Shadowcaster she shall be. The Darkmaster will summon her. You’ll see how pretty she looks as a Darkwhore. We might even let you have Tabitha Serannon yourself, if you promise to behave.”

  A roar sounded in Garyll’s ears.

  “Singing—slut!” Arkell shouted, spinning to face the walls. “Rude—rut! Pert—piece! Vulgar—virgin!”

  No. Nothing could be worse than Tabitha, in this place. Garyll’s jaw ached from clenching. If she wore the Darkstone already, she was bound into the web. The only hope was that she might manage to hold out against the coercion, somehow, as he had done. It was small hope, considering the people he had seen turned. She must not come to this place.

  “Call your master!” he shouted at the Shadowcaster. “Call him here!”

  Arkell did not seem to hear him. He was sitting on the floor, crying or laughing into his lap.

  “Darkmaster!” Garyll’s shout boomed off the walls. “Cabal! Come to me! I will talk to you!”

  He had expected to wait, but it was not a moment later that the rustle of robes announced the Darkmaster’s presence; he had been watching Garyll all along. A creeping sensation ran through Garyll’s body, radiating from the stone at his throat. Cabal regarded him with cold eyes.

  “So it is the young Serannon girl who lives in your heart. I had wondered what gave you the strength, all these days. Tell me, what is it like, when your last hope is snuffed?” Pale teeth glistened in the dark.

  “She must not come here.”

  “But she is orbed, just as you are. She is mine now.” The certainty in the Darkmaster’s voice settled any doubt. Arkell had not been lying.

  “I will trade with you.” Garyll had to force the words past his lips.

  “What could you have, that I could want?” The Darkmaster chuckled, and turned to leave, but Garyll knew he feigned his disinterest. They hadn’t tortured him for so many days, for nothing.

  “I shall say the words you wish, in exchange for her.”

  Cabal did not turn, but he stopped pacing away. “The Darkstone is sealed, but I might leave her to her own devices, if I knew a certain man served in her stead.”

  “You will leave her alone then, for every day that I live.”

  “Then every day that you live, you shall serve me.”

  Those words held a sickening finality. He was throwing his life over the edge of a deep, dark pit. But if he did not, Tabitha would be pulled into it herself. He had to be sure his sacrifice would last.

  “What guarantee do I have that you shall keep your word?”

  “If I don’t keep my word, you shall fail to serve me. That is all. You had best be certain that you are useful to me.”

  It was the slim end of the bargain he held, but it was all he was being offered. It was the only way to save her from the Dark.

  I am the shadow and he is my master.

  He is the shadow and I am his caster.

  The echoes of his words lasted forever.

  38. WALKING ON SUNLIGHT

  “Is there a shadow cast, under your feet?”—Zarost

  The night crawled around the Dovecote, waiting, watching. The Swords did their best to light the Hall with torches, but they could do nothing to quell the paranoia induced by staring into the dark, not knowing where or when the enemy would approach. The tension crept into Tabitha’s shoulders and wound her as tight as a harp-string.

  She couldn’t sleep, neither could Ashley, though the exhaustion was plain on his face. Sister Grace paced the marble apron of the Scribbillarre, keeping herself close to the steps of the Source where Tabitha and Ashley sat. Tsoraz snored behind them, upon the highest step of the dais, as if declaring that their vigil was a foolish one, for sure. Without sprites, the Gifters had no defence. Their only hope rested on the Swords’ broad shoulders.

  Captain Jorge kept half of his squadron inside the Hall, in case any of the tall doors should be breached. The other half endured the fearsome duty outside, keeping a ring of constant patrol around the main building.

  A dark shape appeared on one of the high windows, but when Tabitha blinked, it was not there. She couldn’t be sure if it was a Morrigán or her tiredness. She said nothing, and it did not come again.

  Slowly, the eastern sky grew pale. If she could have woken the sun any faster by shouting at it, she would have tried. It seemed to take the night forever to fade, but finally there was a Sword’s call from the far side of the East-door, and Captain Jorge opened it to a crimson dawn.

  “Captain, what would you have us do?”

  “It’s unlikely the Dark will attack in daylight,” Jorge answered the Sword outside. “I don’t believe they’ll get past Fendwarrow, but never mind that. I’d rather the men were fresh, in case something happens tonight.” He turned. “Aw’right! You lot in the Hall get to patrol the grounds for a while. You can tell the bounders outside they’re dismissed for breakfast, and bed.”

  Tabitha stretched, and knuckled the small of her back. The men trooped out, the others trooped in with a crisper air. When the last dismissed Sword strode in, something flitted in his wake. A small pale butterfly came into the Hall, dancing with an errant motion. It flew a few loops around Ashley, passed low over Grace’s head, then settled on Tsoraz, where he slept on the dais. When its wings spread wide, Tabitha recognised the rainbow markings. Her Lifesong butterfly, sent to Twardy Zarost.

  Yet it rested on Tsoraz’s nose, quite undisturbed by his snoring breaths. It was a flying question mark. Why, if it was bonded to Zarost, was it with the man who claimed to be his son?

  Tsoraz startled awake at that moment, as if aware of Tabitha’s attention. The butterfly fluttered, but didn’t go far. He noticed it at once, and shooed it away with waving hands. He shot a hurried glance at Tabitha, then shooed the butterfly again. It gambolled beyond his reach, and circled his bald head.

  “What a pretty butterfly!” exclaimed Sister Grace. She watched the air above Tsoraz.

  “Yes, it is,” he agreed, looking at Tabitha instead, with not a trace of sleepiness in his eyes. “The most unique in Eyri. If the egg makes the caterpillar, and it the cocoon, how does the butterfly learn flight so soon?”

  The question generated enough of a pause around the bard for him to hop to his feet and patter down the stairs. Before Tabitha could compose the question she wanted to ask, he was through the East-door, with his butterfly flitting after his colourful cloak. Tsoraz had cleverly avoided the question he must have seen in her eyes. He was every bit as tricky as the Riddler before him.

  “That is a strange man,” commented Sister Grace, following Tabitha’s gaze. “I hope he has only your best interests at heart.”

  “So do I,” said Tabitha.

  Ashley came up and stood beside them. “Ladies, I think I might catch a wink of sleep now that it’s light.”

  Sister Grace laid a hand on his arm.

  “Before you go, Ashley, I thought we might sing the Morningsong.”

  “But there’s only three of us. Will it be any good?”

  Tabitha knew it needed an Assembly of thirty, at least, to spark the sprites from the Source.

  “It was not the sprites I was thinking of,” replied Grace, “it was our spirits.” The two exchanged an understanding glance.

  “The singing might do me good,” he agreed. “Do you know the Morningsong, Tabitha?”

  He wasn’t to know that she had sung it every morning with her mother, hoping that one day she would sing the full song in the hallowed Dovecote. At the time, she had never imagined it would be to an empty Hall of Sky, in the face of impending doom. She nodded.

  On a whim, Tabitha lifted her lyre from her bag on the stairs. They spaced themselves around the Source. The first verse faltered along, while Tabitha tried to find her voice and pluck the strings in time, but she knew at once that Grace was correct—the Morningsong did lift her spiri
ts.

  They sang, and Tabitha strived to find perfection. She drew on the Ring, and became aware of the hollows and holes in the pattern of sound, just as she had once before, when her singing in the Hall had been illicit. There were places where her voice needed to fill the harmony, and notes she could alter, ever so slightly, to bring completeness to the music. Their voices seemed to fill the Hall as they sang. The sun touched the Source, gentle as an artist’s brush, a luminous wash upon clear crystal.

  The first sprite sparked within the Source, and shot to the wall. Ashley took a step back, and Sister Grace raised her hands in surprise, but they continued to sing.

  Tabitha gave it her all. The spell of the Morningsong surged through her. She noticed how it was clear essence which was drawn to the Source, a steady flow of barely visible particles which shimmered through the door. Once within the crystal obelisk, they were energised by the Light, and spun away as sprites. More and more sprites struck the high walls of the Hall, where they slipped to the floor and trickled into the channel scribed around the rim of the Scribbillarre. Tabitha was jubilant. They were creating Light essence. They sang until the flare of sprites from the Source reduced to a flicker, an intermittent flash, finally nothing at all. The sun had climbed clear of the jagged Zunskar mountains, and they had created Light essence.

  The other two wore dazed expressions. They watched Tabitha.

  “And the Rector did not want to have you as a Gifter,” said Sister Grace, shaking her head. “You sing like Ethea.”

  “I have seen many days when a full assembly has not produced as much,” added Ashley. “Thanks to you, we are Lightgifters again.”

  “You sang as well, both of you,” Tabitha answered. The praise was an awkward thing to bear, especially from a full Gifter like Sister Grace. She had just sung what she had felt was right.

  “That was you, far more than it was us, Tabitha.”

  “Didn’t you see the sprites pouring from the distant side of the Source, as if you drove them?” Ashley asked.