“Tabitha, go.”
“No! Garyll, you must let me explain.” Honesty compelled her forward, despite her fear. As the Swordmaster, he might choose to imprison her as a traitor.
She could not live the lie any longer. She drew her scarf away. Both orbs were free at her neck. “I bear the Darkstone, as well as the Light. I used the Dark to seduce you. It is I who was at fault last night.”
Garyll just stared at her, struck as mute as stone.
“Which is stronger in you?” he whispered, at length. “The Dark, or the Light?”
“The Light,” she answered, too quickly. “I can use both. I am sworn to neither. The Dark—plagues me, but I can resist its call. Most of the time.”
“Then there is more reason than ever for you to stay away from me.”
He could not accept her with the Darkstone on her throat. After what he must have gone through, she couldn’t blame him. The Dark was the enemy.
“Garyll, forgive me,” she pleaded, her voice catching in her throat. “I didn’t mean to use the Dark on you. I promise I’ll never do it again.”
“No! There is nothing to forgive.” Though he was close enough to touch, he seemed far away. “I wish to protect you. That is why you must go.”
“Let me help you fight the battle against the Darkmaster.”
“It is too late for that now.”
“I am not ruled by this Dark stone! It does not control me!”
“Go, Tabitha!”
“Garyll, please don’t shut me out. I want to fight on your side. I love you.”
“And I cannot love you. I can never love you. Find another.”
Those words were too powerful to bear. Her heart shattered against the cold, hard stone of Garyll’s glare. The palisade tipped underfoot, the world spun. She turned away from Garyll, to hide her face. She could have fallen, yet she didn’t care where she ran, so long as it was away.
She found the stairs.
She was not challenged on her way out of the Swordhouse, but when she reached the street, a hoarse cry announced the return of the raven. Its threat was insignificant, beside the deadly pain of what she ran from. Yet both followed her.
A long time later, she found her way into the garden of the Leaf of Merrick. How long she had stumbled through the streets of Stormhaven, she couldn’t remember. Only that she had needed refuge from the staring citizens. But from one presence she could find no escape.
The Morrigán waited, in the tallest tree of her grove.
* * *
Tabitha cried dry tears. She lay on her stomach. The world was cold beneath a leaden sky, the sun’s pale disc was hidden somewhere overhead. The Amberlake was a curve of rust-coloured liquid beyond the city walls. A gathering wind from the east sighed through the trees nearby. A poorly, dark grass grew beneath her. It seemed there was not going to be a summer in Eyri at all, this year.
She did not care. Eyri did not matter. She did not matter.
Garyll loved her no more. At least during the night, she had been able to cry herself to sleep.
There was no refuge from this daytime misery.
She had driven him away, because she had used the Dark.
What was worse, was knowing that the Dark was part of her. She could resist its effect, but she could not remove it. The Dark was strong, and hour by hour, the Darkmaster’s presence seemed to grow, his pull grew stronger, even though she hated it. It could not be much longer before his army marched upon them. Maybe that night.
If the Swords lost the battle, she would lose Garyll. If the Swords won, she would still lose him, because of the Darkstone she wore. She might as well accept the Darkmaster, take his damned Devotion. Violence, evil, mourning, loss—her life was an endless trail of woe, because she resisted the Darkmaster’s will, because she fought. There was no light left in the world. There was no way out, but to accept the Dark.
She waited for the end to come.
It came too slowly.
Birdsong broke the silence with careless disregard for Tabitha’s mood. It was a small chirruping sound, joyous, bright, and alive, not the ugly call of the Morrigán.
What did it matter? She didn’t care. Her thoughts sank and darkened, with the great inertia of despair.
The bird sang again. It was an unfamiliar call. Like a nightingale or a starling, it was endlessly inventive. She searched the grove half-heartedly. The bird moved before she could find it. It repeated its tune elsewhere. Then again, close by. It slipped from one tree to another as if by magic, for it never exposed itself.
Tabitha rose and brushed the dirt from her robe. Something about the birdsong was intriguing. She shouldn’t care what it was, but finding the bird gave her something to do while she waited for the end.
She walked to where she had heard the last call. When she peered around the bole of the tree, chirruping erupted from behind her. She retraced her steps on tiptoe. The bird chose another tree. She chased, careful to avoid the sticks and leaves on the grass. The bird flew on, unseen. She raced toward its call. There was nothing there. When she halted, breathless, it called from the tree where the whole pantomime had begun. Tabitha suspected the bird’s intelligence was sharper than its song.
She grudgingly drew on the Ring to augment her awareness. If the bird was never where she looked for it, maybe her ears were at fault. The call came again, and she spun on her heels, away from the sound.
The bird emerged from the trees, running hunched over. It was as tall as Tabitha, and wearing a patchwork cloak. Its bald head bobbed as it ran on light feet towards a new location in the grove. The grin it wore stretched wide across white teeth. The figure froze in mid-stride when he spotted her watching him. Tsoraz, the Bard.
“Do you take me completely for a fool, sir?” she challenged.
Tsoraz erupted into laughter. It was a familiar laugh. The sense of humour was familiar too. The art of the Riddler certainly ran strong in that family.
Damn him and his games.
“I refuse to be cheered up! My life is in no state for laughter.”
Tsoraz came close. He bowed respectfully. “Your advisor apologises for his absence. I wasted my time searching in Levin, when in fact you were here.”
“You searched for me? You abandoned me, in the Dovecote.”
Tsoraz raised his hands, as if to fend off Tabitha’s glare. “So quickly you forget that I slapped the Rector with my staff. Quite hard, too. I could do no more, without ruining the balance around you. I must not protect you from your rivals.”
“Balance? There is no balance around me. You can see for yourself. It is all dark,” she said, waving her hand at the bleak day.
“All Dark? Then it seems I need to sing you another song.”
“If it’s ‘where does the river end?’ I’ll stuff that coloured cloak down your throat,” she snapped.
Damn him if he isn’t making me feel better.
She turned her face to hide the hint of a smile, and yet she desperately needed to smile. The day was too dark to endure without a spark of light. She had been close to ending it all, too close. She drew heavily on the bard’s goodwill.
I wanted to bow to the Darkmaster? What was I thinking?
Tsoraz’s voice filled the glade, his notes vibrated in the leaves overhead. He sang a beautiful song, in a strange language. The words sounded musical in themselves, in the way a chuckling brook holds a tune of the high mountain peaks, and a bird speaks of spring. The music was reminiscent of the Lifesong stanzas she knew. The Ring warmed on her finger, and she watched the way the air shimmered around Tsoraz, like clear essence. It was a trick of the diffused sunlight, she was sure. Tsoraz looked so familiar as he sang. Tabitha could well imagine that with the passage of many years, the bard would grow to look just like his father, the Riddler.
Then he began the stanza again, using words she could understand.
The heart that loved shall be broken,
the heart that is broken shall sing,
the old man who smiles, has
wept long ago;
the Winter shall melt into Spring.
All things must have their own balance,
all balance is made from these things,
for we live in the centre of circles,
where the ending’s end begins.
We shall live in the centre of circles,
when the true Lifesinger sings.
The last note of the bard’s song lingered in the grove, and was drawn softly away amongst the trees. She spoke quickly against the return of silence.
“Where does that come from? Where did you learn that?”
Tsoraz had a distant gaze, and he took his time before answering, “My sister Syonya.”
“Where is she? Is she the wizard?”
“O no! Not a wizard, they didn’t let her get that far. No, she is dead now, died a long long time ago.” A shadow passed across his face, and for a moment he looked inconsolably sad, but when he looked up again his eyes were bright. “She sang like you, she sang anew. I can only remember what has been sung in my time, but you can hear Ethea!”
He was right, she had been foolish to think her life was only dark. Even if the Darkmaster won, she still had the Lifesong, and it had the power to heal all the pain, to take her away, to create life afresh. She remembered the butterfly she had made, and all its rainbow colours. Twardy’s butterfly, though it had followed Tsoraz.
“Why were you so angry when the Rector killed my butterfly?”
Tsoraz sat down on the grass beside her. “I must be losing my art, if a young woman has been waiting for nothing but for my song to end, to drown me in questions.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, Tsoraz. I’m really sorry, your song was beautiful. It was beautiful, thank you. I didn’t mean—I—”
“Your butterfly was beautiful, too,” he said. “Beauty is a rare thing.”
They were both silent for a time.
“You saw the shattering of the Source?” Tabitha asked.
“Saw it? Heard it as well. Very wise, to thwart their plans so. The less Dark essence there is in Eyri, the greater chance you have of surviving this war.”
“You think we have a chance of beating the Darkmaster?”
“Only if you find the wizard in time.”
She rotated her Ring absently. The wizard’s Ring. She still wasn’t sure where to look, or what she was looking for.
“What is a wizard?” she asked.
He barked with quick laughter. “I’ve never been too sure myself,” he replied, “but I know there may be someone in Eyri who has been called by that name.”
He knew who the wizard was! Tabitha tried to interrupt, but Tsoraz continued with his answer. “From what I’ve heard, wizards keep themselves well-hidden. You would have to discover the wizard yourself, to enlist the wizard’s aid.”
“Where is the wizard, Tsoraz, where do I look?”
“Point in any direction, and you shall point three times at the wizard.”
As obtuse as ever—Tabitha could make no sense of the riddled answer.
“If you stood where I did, which way would you walk?”
“I would sit down!” Tsoraz exclaimed, grinning like a madcap.
Tabitha gritted her teeth. She had been spared the frustrations of riddling for some days.
“Are you saying I have the means to find the wizard right here?”
“That depends on how you look.”
When Tabitha just looked at him blankly, Tsoraz said, “Zarost left you this note. He said it was a clue, to be used if you were at wit’s end.”
Tsoraz handed her a scrap of paper, which bore a few words scribbled in black ink.
Use your gift. ZAROST.
When she shot a questioning glance at Tsoraz, his eyebrows danced a jig, but he said nothing. Tabitha remembered that he had offered similar advice, at their first meeting. At the time, she had taken his words to mean her gift for singing. There was another meaning she had not considered. The Riddler had given her a gift once, in the boathouse in Southwind. She had used it once or twice, but it had lived in the pocket of her grey robe ever since. Her searching fingers found the little circular mirror, and she drew it out.
“You haven’t used it much, have you?” Tsoraz asked.
“I’m not one to pamper.”
“Then you are different from Zarost’s idea of most women!” He laughed. “It explains why you have not questioned the riddle, why you have not recognised the changes in the Mirror of Self-Reflection. You should use it now.”
She traced her fingers over the delicate script carved in the wooden backing. See thyself as thyself see. She raised the mirror. The coiled serpent on its edge framed an image of a tired young woman sitting beneath a tall tree. There was something about her eyes she had never noticed before—there were tiny flecks of gold in the brown irises, fine fibres that were almost invisible, yet when she held the mirror closer, they were still there. The mirror was a plain enough glass, she was sure. Yet she was seeing things she had never seen before. Things I never looked for.
There was another thing—trails of disturbance wreathed her head, like lazy currents of mirage. Clear essence, she realised, when she drew on the Ring to achieve greater clarity. She had an aura of clear essence. Where the trails of her aura passed over things, they appeared in vivid colour. Her scarf was scarlet, her robe was intense grey, the grass was bright green. In her lap, a note was written in curving script.
Tabitha gave a start. She tilted the mirror, and looked more closely at the image. TSORAZ. The word was unmistakable, though some of the letters were misshapen. On the note in her lap, it was signed in capitals—ZAROST. In the mirror, the script was reversed. A smile crept across her lips.
Tsoraz, Zarost; two sides of the same word. Suddenly a whole number of things fell into place. Her butterfly, sent to find Zarost, had plagued Tsoraz, though it should not have recognised him at all. The young bard knew too many of the things the old Riddler knew. He always became unsettled when she questioned him about Zarost. He spoke the same, he acted the same, he only looked younger, fresher, rejuvenated; a change which was impossible. He had appeared only when the other was gone.
There was only one explanation for such a riddle. The bard was just a disguise for the Riddler. There was a wizard in the realm of Eyri, and she had just discovered his name.
Twardy Zarost.
She rose and turned to face the wizard.
The power that emanated from him was plain, once she looked for it. He filled more than the space his body occupied, his presence extended in shields of vibration, or colourless waves of force. It was clear essence, and not a trick of the light. She must have been blind not to have noticed. Blind, or not ready to see.
“You are Twardy Zarost. You are the wizard!” she declared.
The broadest smile she had ever seen split his face.
“A wizard maybe, but not the wizard,” he answered.
“There’s another?”
“The wizard you seek, the one who can save Eyri.”
“Then why are you here, if not to fight against the Dark?”
“To help you find the one who can, if that is what you wish to do.”
Hope flared in her heart. There might be a chance, despite the gloom.
“How am I to find the wizard?”
“Find one, and you find two, for it takes one to know another.”
Tabitha stamped her foot. He was laughing at her, and twisting her words. She would make him speak the truth, even if she had to beat every crooked word straight.
“Damn it, you know who it is, Zarost!” she exclaimed. “Tell me where I can find the wizard I seek. Tell me!”
“You must tell you, or you cannot be what matters to me.”
“I am the wizard?” She paused. “I am the wizard!”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, dancing into the air. “Yes! Young Tabitha, at last you see! I’ve watched your presence, it grows like a gown, yet until you see and know that yourself, you are not wise, or fit to be free.
You have searched through the Light, and through the fierce Dark, but until your clear vision comes, you will miss the true mark. It is the balance which matters, the power between, the art of discerning the patterns unseen.”
“What about the Ring, then? I was supposed to take it to the wizard. Must I give it to you?”
He raised the middle digit of his right hand. It was a considerably rude gesture, the way he did it. He roared with laughter at her expression.
“No, look closer,” he urged.
A glint outlined an edge, then she saw the whole of the ring. A clear ring, just like hers, set on his middle finger. It was difficult to see, even when she concentrated on it.
“I already have mine,” he said. “That one is yours.”
“So the path to the wizard is ended?”
“The path to the wizard is ended, but the path of the wizard has just begun! You have come a long way in a very short time, but you have much further to run. One hill of a mountain-range climbed, one day of a season done.”
Like the serpent on the rim of the Riddler’s mirror that ate its own tail, finding the end of the path to the wizard was not the end, it was the beginning instead. The Ring was exceptionally warm. The truth was within her.
“What if I don’t wish to be a wizard?”
Zarost laughed. “O, you have little choice now, little at all. Take the Ring off and see what happens.”
She tested its grip, and was surprised when it moved easily. For the first time since she had taken the Ring, it seemed loose on her finger, comfortably so. She pulled it free. Her view of the world didn’t change at all. Zarost was still wreathed in his mighty aura. All around her the world seemed connected by clear essence—it flowed through the air, it pulsed in the earth, it shimmered in the trees. There was clear essence in everything. If she chose to, she could summon that essence. Her augmented senses remained—she could bring items that were far away into her sight, and hear the sounds of distant people moving in the city. Her mind was clear, and in the background of her refined awareness, a hundred voices were joined in song.
“You have developed the sight, you have no need for the assistance of the Ring,” Zarost explained. “The Ring is a test, to see if a Seeker can bear the burden of their catalysed magical ability. You’re not going to keep the Ring on if you’ve got no talent. It gives daring, it will lead you into danger, into places where you are forced to practise your talent. It has subtle Order-benefits, the clear thinking, the clear remembering, the increased sensitivity to everything, but it doesn’t make you a wizard. It is only by seeing clearly yourself that you see the clear essence and begin to imagine uses for it.
The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong) Page 71