Riddle-Master

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “What was the first riddle the man couldn’t answer?” Morgon asked curiously.

  “Oh—let me think. What will one star call out of dark. . . . No. What will one star call out of silence, one star out of darkness, and one star out of death?”

  Morgon’s breath caught sharply. He straightened, his face rigid, white, his eyes narrowed, searching the trader’s. For a moment the dark face wavered before him in the flames, elusive, expressionless as a mask; and then he realized that the trader was staring at him in utter astonishment.

  “Lord, what did I say?” Then his face changed, and his hand went out abruptly toward Morgon. “Oh,” he whispered, “I think you are no Herun lordling.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Lord, my name is Ash Strag from Kraal; I have a wife and two children, and I would sooner cut off my hand than hurt you. But do you realize how they’ve been looking for you?”

  Morgon’s hands eased open. He said after a moment, his eyes unwavering on the anxious face, “I know.”

  “You’re going home, now? From Anuin to Caerweddin, I heard always the same question: Have you news of the Prince of Hed? What is it? Are you in trouble? Can I help you?” He paused. “You don’t trust me.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No. I heard. I heard a tale from Tobec Rye, the trader who found you with Lord Astrin in Ymris. He gave me some mad story that you and the High One’s harpist had been nearly drowned on a trade-ship whose crew vanished, and that one of the traders on it had been Jarl Acker. I saw Jarl Acker die, two years ago during a run from Caerweddin to Caithnard. He caught a fever, and he asked to be buried in the sea. So we—so we did that.” His voice dropped again, hushed. “Someone stole his shape back out of the sea?”

  Morgon dropped against the bench back. His blood was still jumping sickly. “You didn’t—you didn’t tell that to my brother.”

  “Of course not.” He was silent again, studying Morgon, his dark brows winging together. “It was true, about the vanishing traders? Someone wants to kill you? That’s why you’re afraid of me. But you weren’t afraid until I mentioned the stars. Those stars. Lord, is someone trying to kill you because of the stars on your face?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? Who in the world could benefit, killing a Prince of Hed? It’s irrational.”

  Morgon drew a breath. The familiar din was unchanged behind him; there was no one near enough to hear them, or who even looked curious. All knew that if anything of interest were gleaned from Morgon’s presence, it would be promptly shared in his absence. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Yes. Did Har answer the riddle about the stars?”

  “No.”

  “How are Eliard and Tristan?”

  “Worried sick. They asked if you were on your way home from Caerweddin, and I said as tactfully as possible that perhaps you were pursuing a circuitous route because no one knew where you were. I never expected to see you as far north as Hlurle.”

  “I’ve been in Herun.”

  Ash Strag shook his head. “It’s unheard of.” He sipped wine, brooding. “I don’t like it. People of strange power impersonating traders—are they wizards?”

  “No. I suspect they’re even more powerful.”

  “And they’re pursuing you? Lord, I’d go straight to the High One.”

  “They’ve tried to kill me four times,” Morgon said wearily, “and I’m only as far as Herun.”

  “Four times, once at sea—”

  “Twice at Ymris, and once again in Herun.”

  “Caerweddin.” The sharp eyes flicked to him. “You went to Caerweddin, and now the King’s wife is vanished, and Astrin Ymris, who came with you, is blind in one eye. What happened while you were there? Where is Eriel Yrmis?”

  “Ask Heureu.”

  The drawn breath hissed away into the sound of rain. “I don’t like it,” the trader whispered. “I’ve heard tales I wouldn’t repeat to my own brother, met men who had hearts made of the leavings of animals, but I’ve never heard anything like this. I’ve never heard of anything that could strike at the land-rulers before, so quietly, so powerfully. And it’s all because of your stars?”

  Morgon winced. “I’m going home,” he said, almost to himself. The trader, holding their cups up in the air to get the tavern maid’s attention, got them filled, pushed Morgon’s back to him. He said carefully, “Lord, is it wise to go by sea?”

  “I can’t go back through Ymris. I’ve got to risk it.”

  “Why? You’re halfway to Isig—more than halfway. Lord, come with us to Kraal—” He sensed Morgon’s faint withdrawal, and said gently, “I know. I know. I don’t blame your mistrust. But I know myself, and there’s not a man in this room I mistrust. It would be better for you to risk going north with us than to take a strange ship to Hed. If you wait here too long, your enemies may find you.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “But, Lord, they’ll kill you in Hed!” His voice had risen; he checked, glancing around him. “How do you expect your farmers to protect you? Go to the High One. How can you find answers to anything in Hed?”

  Morgon, staring at him, began to laugh suddenly. He covered his eyes with his fingers; felt the trader’s hand on his shoulder. He whispered, “I’m sorry, but I’ve never had a trader hand me the heart of a maze of riddles so aptly before.”

  “Lord . . .”

  He dropped his hands, his face quieting. “I will not go with you. Let the High One answer a few riddles; I’m doing no good. The realm is his business; Hed is mine.”

  The hand at his shoulder shook him lightly, as if to wake him. “Hed is doing well as it is, Lord,” the trader said softly. “It’s the rest of us, the world outside of Hed you’ve troubled in your passing, that I’m worried about.”

  The ships sailed with the evening tide. Morgon watched them leave in an eerie, beautiful band of lavender-white twilight stretching across the sea beneath the rain clouds. He had stabled his horse, taken a room in the tavern to wait for Rustin Kor’s ships; the rain-streaked window gave him a view of the quiet docks, the wild sea, and the two ships, taking the sullen waves with the grace of sea birds. He watched them until the light faded and their sails darkened. Then he lay on the bed, something nagging at the back of his mind, something he could not touch, though he wove strand after strand of thought trying to trace it. Raederle’s face slipped unexpectedly into his mind, and he was startled at the joylessness he felt in himself at the thought of her.

  He had raced her up the hill to the College once, years ago, she in a long, green dress she had hiked to her knees to run in. He had let her win, and, at the top, happy, panting, she had mocked his courtesy. Rood came behind with a handful of jewelled pins that had fallen out of her hair; he tossed them to her; they caught light like a swarm of strange, glittering insects, scarlet, green, amber, purple. Too tired to catch them, she had let them fall around her, laughing, her red hair massed like a mane in the wind. And Morgon had watched her, forgetting to laugh, forgetting even to move, until he saw Rood’s black eyes on his face, quizzical, for once almost gentle. And, remembering back, he heard Rood’s voice, harsh, stripped of pity on the last day they had met: If you offer the peace of Hed to Raederle, that will be a lie.

  He sat up on the bed, knowing now what bothered him. Rood had known from the beginning. He could not go to Anuin taking honor for winning a game of riddles in a tower in Aum when all round him riddles were forming, deadly and imperative, for a game he refused to play. He could turn his back on other kingdoms, close the doors of the peace of Hed about himself, but to reach out to her would be to reach out to the strangeness, the uncertainty of his other name, for he could offer her nothing less than himself.

  He rose, sat on the window ledge a long time, watching the wet world grow dark before him. An impossible web of riddles was being woven about his name; he had wrenched himself from it once; he had only to lift his hand to touch it, become ensnared in it again. He had a choice, for the moment: to ret
urn to Hed, live quietly without Raederle, asking no questions, waiting for the day when the storm brewing, growing on the coasts and the mainland would unleash its full fury at Hed—that day, he knew, would come soon. Or to set his mind to a riddle-game he had no hope of winning, and whose prize, if he did win, was a name that might cut every tie that bound him to Hed.

  He moved after a while, realized the room was black. He got up, felt for a candle in the dark, lit it. The flame etched his face in the window, startling him. The flame itself was a star in his hand.

  He dropped the candle to the floor, ground the flame underfoot, and lay back down on the bed. Late that night, after the rain had stopped and the wind’s voice had dropped to a murmur, he fell asleep. He woke again at dawn, went downstairs to buy food and a skin of wine from the tavern keeper. Then he saddled his horse, left Hlurle without looking back, heading north to Yrye, to ask the King of Osterland a riddle.

  TWO WEEKS AFTER he left Hlurle, the winter snow began to fall. He had felt its coming, tasted it in the air, heard it coming in the voices of wild, restless winds. He had gone up the coast to the mouth of the Ose, the great river whose roots lay in the heart of Erlenstar Mountain. The river ran through Isig Pass, past the doorstep of Isig Mountain, to form the southern boundary of Osterland on its way to the sea. Morgon followed it upriver patiently, through unclaimed land, forgotten forests that only traders sailing down from Isig ever saw, rough, rocky country where herds of deer, elk, mountain sheep ranged, their coats thick against the winter. Once he thought he saw moving through a far stretch of forest a herd of vesta, their legendary horns thin slivers of gold among the trees. But against the white, empty sky, they could have been a drift of mist, and he was uncertain.

  He moved as quickly as possible through the wild country, feeling the snow at his heels, hunting sporadically, wondering in the back of his mind if the wilderness would ever end, or if there were any men left in the High One’s realm, or if the river he followed were perhaps not the Ose but some unmapped water that wound westward into the vast, uninhabited backlands of the realm. That thought woke him more than once at night, to wonder what he was doing in the middle of nowhere, where a broken bone, a frightened animal, a sudden storm could kill him as easily as his enemies. The constant fears ran like a current in his mind. Yet there was an odd peace he sometimes felt when at night there were no colors but the fire and the black sky, and no sounds in the world but his harp. At those moments he belonged to the night; he felt nameless, bodiless, as though he could take root and become a tree, drift apart and become the night.

  Finally, he began to see farms in the distance, herds of sheep, cattle grazing by the river, and knew somewhere he had crossed into Osterland. Partly from caution, partly out of a habit of silence that had grown with him the past weeks, he avoided the farms and small towns along the river. He stopped only once to buy bread, cheese and wine, and to get directions to Yrye. The curious glances made him uneasy; he realized how strange he must seem, neither trader nor trapper, coming out of the backlands of Osterland with a bright, worn, Herun coat and hair like an ancient hermit’s.

  Yrye, the wolf-king’s home, lay north, in the arms of Grim Mountain, the central peak in a range of low, border mountains; there was a road leading to it out of one of the villages. Morgon, riding out of the town, camped for the night in a woods nearby. The winds whined like wolves through the pine; he woke near dawn chilled to the bone, made a fire that fluttered like a helpless bird. The winds moved about him as he rode that day, speaking to one another in some rough, deep language. At evening they quieted; the sky was a smooth fleece of cloud beyond which the sun wandered and set unnoticed. In the night the snow began to fall; he woke beneath a coat of white.

  The fall was gentle, the cold winds were still; he rode through the day in a dreamlike silence of white broken only by the flick of a blackbird’s wing, a brown hare’s scuttle to shelter. He fashioned a tent, when he stopped at evening, out of the tanned skin he had been sleeping on, and found a snarled patch of dry bramble for kindling. His thoughts turned, as he ate, to the strange, ancient king who in his riddle-gatherings had chanced upon another the Masters at Caithnard had never learned. Har, the wolf-king, had been born even before most of the wizards; he had ruled Osterland since the years of Settlement. Tales of him were numerous and awesome. He could change shape. He had been tutored by the wizard Suth, during Suth’s wildest years. He bore scars on his hands the shape of vesta horns, and he riddled like a Master. Morgon leaned back against a boulder, sipped hot wine slowly, wondering where the king had got his knowledge. He felt again the faint stirrings of curiosity that had been dulled for weeks, of a longing to return to the world of men. He finished his wine, reached out to pack the cup. And then he saw, beyond the circle of his fire, eyes watching him.

  He froze. His bow lay on the other side of the fire; his knife was stuck upright on the wedge of cheese. He began to reach for it slowly. The eyes blinked. There was a gathering, a soft stirring; then a vesta walked into his firelight.

  Something jumped in the back of Morgon’s throat. It was huge, broad as a farmhorse, with a deer’s delicate, triangular face. Its pelt was blazing white; its hooves and crescents of horn were the color of beaten gold. It eyed him fathomlessly out of eyes of liquid purple, then reached up above his head to nibble at a pine bough. Morgon, his breath still as though he were reaching toward a forbidden thing, lifted one hand to the white, glowing fur. The vesta did not seem to notice the gentle touch. After a moment Morgon reached for his bread, tore a piece. The vesta’s head lowered curiously at the scent, nuzzled at the bread. Morgon touched the narrow bone of its face; it jerked beneath his hand, and the purple eyes rose again, huge and dimensionless, to his face. Then the vesta lowered its head, continued eating, while he gently scratched the space between its horns. It finished the piece, sniffed his hand for more. He fed it the rest, piece by piece, until there was no more. It searched his empty hands, his coat a moment, then turned, faded with scarcely a sound back into the night.

  Morgon drew a full breath. The vesta, he had heard, were shy as children. It was a rare pelt seen in tradeshops, for they were wary of men, and the weight of Har’s wrath lay on any man, trader or trapper, caught killing vesta. They followed snow, wandering farther and farther into the mountains during the summer. Morgon, with a sudden touch of unease, wondered what it had smelled in the air that night that had brought it so far from the mountains.

  Before morning he found out. A wind, wailing like a bee swarm, wrenched the tent loose over his head and spun it into the river. Huddled beside his horse, his eyes stinging with snow, he waited for a dawn that it seemed would never come. When it did come finally, it only turned the blankness of night into a milky chaos through which Morgon could not even see the river running ten steps away from him.

  A helpless, terrible despair rose in him. Chilled even beneath the thick hooded coat, the winds snarling like wolves around him, he lost sense of the river’s position, felt the whole world a blind, patternless turmoil. He forced himself to remember. He rose stiffly, feeling his horse trembling with cold under the blanket he had thrown over it. He murmured something to it out of numb lips; heard it thrashing nervously to stand as he turned. Head bent against the snow, he walked almost blindly to where he thought the river was. It loomed out of the blizzard at him unexpectedly, swift, eddied with snow; he nearly stepped headlong into it. He turned back to get his horse, bent to retrace his footsteps. When he reached the end of them, he found his horse gone.

  He stood still and called to it; the wind pushed the words back into his mouth. He took a step toward a shadow in the snow, and it melted away before his eyes into whiteness. When he turned again, he could not see in the drift of snow, either his pack or his harp.

  He went forward blindly, dug in the snow with his hands, beneath boulders and trees that melted out of the blizzard. He tried to see; the wind spat flakes huge as coins into his eyes. He searched desperately, furiously, losing w
hat fragile sense of direction he had gained, moving patternlessly, dazed by the incessant, whining winds.

  He found the harp finally, already half-buried; as he held it in his hands, he began to think again. It lay where he had left it, beneath the boulder he had slept beside; the river, he knew, was to his left. His pack, and saddle were somewhere in the mist in front of him; he did not dare lose sense of the river again to look for them. He hung his harp over his shoulder and slowly, carefully, found his way back to the river.

  His trek upriver was painfully slow. He stayed dangerously close to the water in order to see the faint, slate-grey glints of it; sometimes when everything melted before his eyes into one monotonous white blur, he would stop short, wondering if he had been threading his way along an illusion. His face and hands grew numb; the hair outside of his hood was icy. He lost all sense of time, not knowing if moments or hours had passed since he had started walking, not knowing whether it was noon or evening. He dreaded the coming of night.

  He walked headlong into a tree once, instead of moving around it; he stood where he had stopped, his face resting against the cold, rough bark. He wondered absently how long he could continue, what would happen when he could not move another step, when night fell and he could no longer follow the river. The tree, swaying rhythmically in the wind, was soothing. He knew he should move, but his arms refused to loose the trunk. Unexpectedly, for his thoughts were formless as the blizzard, he saw Eliard’s face in his mind, angry, troubled, and he heard his own voice out of some long-lost past. I swear this: I will come back.

  His grip on the tree loosened reluctantly. He remembered the belief in Eliard’s eyes. If Eliard had not believed him, he could root himself like a tree in the middle of the Osterland blizzard; but Eliard, stubborn, literal, would expect him to keep his vow. He opened his eyes again; the colorless world was still there, just beyond his eyelids, and he wanted to weep with the weariness of it.