Riddle-Master

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He let go of Rood and sat down blinking in a shower of wine and glass. She stared down at him, appalled. Then she looked at Rood, who was staring at her.

  His stillness spread through the inn until only private, fierce struggles in corners still flared. He was, she saw with surprise, sober as a stone. Faces, blurred, battle-drunk, were turning towards her all over the room; the innkeeper, holding two heads he was about to bang together, was gazing at her, open-mouthed, and she thought of the dead, surprised fish in the stalls. She dropped the neck of the flagon; the clink of it breaking sounded frail in the silence. She flushed hotly and said to the statue that was Rood, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. But I’ve been looking all over Caithnard for you, and I didn’t want him to hit you before I could talk to you.”

  He moved finally, to her relief. He turned, lost his balance briefly, caught it, and said to the innkeeper, “Send the bill to my father.”

  He stepped off the porch with a jar he must have felt to his teeth, reached for Raederle’s horse and clung to it, his face against the saddlecloth a moment before he spoke to her. Then he lifted his head, blinked at her. “You’re still here. I didn’t think I’d been drinking. What in Hel’s name are you doing standing in all those fishbones?”

  “What in Hel’s name do you think I’m doing here?” she demanded. Her voice, strained, low, let free finally all the grief, confusion and fear she felt. “I need you.”

  He straightened, slid an arm around her shoulders, held her tightly, and said to the ship-master, who had dropped his head in his hands and was shaking it, “Thank you. Will you send someone to take my things out of the College?”

  Bri Corbett’s head came up. “Everything, Lord?”

  “Everything. Every dead word and dry wine stain in that room. Everything.”

  He took Raederle to a quiet inn in the heart of the city. Seated with a flagon of wine in front of them, he watched her drink in silence, his hands linked over his own cup. He said finally, softly, “I don’t believe he is dead.”

  “Then what do you believe? That he was simply driven mad and lost the land-rule? That’s a comforting thought. Is that why you were tearing that inn apart?”

  He shifted, his eyes falling. “No.” He reached out, put his hand on her wrist, and her fingers, molding the metal of her cup, loosened and came to rest on the table. She whispered, “Rood, that’s the terrible thing I can’t get out of my mind. That while I was waiting, while we were all waiting, safe and secure, thinking he was with the High One, he was alone with someone who was picking his mind apart as you would pick apart the petals of a closed flower. And the High One did nothing.”

  “I know. One of the traders brought the news up to the College yesterday. The Masters were stunned. Morgon unearthed such a vipers’ nest of riddles, and then so inconveniently died without answering them. Which put the entire problem at their door, since the College exists to answer the answerable. The Masters are set face-to-face with their own strictures. This riddle is literally deadly, and they began wondering exactly how interested they are in truth.” He took a sip of his wine, looked at her again. “Do you know what happened?”

  “What?”

  “Eight old Masters and nine Apprentices argued all night about who would travel to Erlenstar Mountain to speak to the High One. Every one of them wanted to go.”

  She touched the torn sleeve of his robe. “You’re an Apprentice.”

  “No. I told Master Tel yesterday I was leaving. Then I—then I went to the beach and sat up all night, not doing anything, not even thinking. I came into Caithnard finally and stopped at that inn for something to eat, and while—while I was eating, I remembered an argument I had with Morgon before he left about not facing his own destiny, not living up to his own standards when all he wanted to do was make beer and read books. So he went and found his destiny in some remote corner of the realm, driven, by the sound of it, mad as Peven. So. I decided to take the inn apart. Nail by nail. And then go and answer the riddles he couldn’t answer.”

  She gave a little, unsurprised nod. “I thought you might. Well, that’s another piece of news I have to give you.”

  He touched his cup again, said warily, “What?”

  “Our father left An five days ago to do just that. He—” She winced as his hands went down sharply on the table, causing a trader at the next table to choke on his beer.

  “He left An? For how long?”

  “He didn’t . . . He swore by the ancient Kings to find what it was that killed Morgon. That long. Rood, don’t shout.”

  He swallowed it, rendered himself momentarily wordless. “The old crow.”

  “Yes . . . He left Duac at Anuin to explain to the lords. Our father was going to send for you to help Duac, but he wouldn’t say why, and Duac was furious that he wanted you to abandon your studies.”

  “Did Duac send you to bring me home?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t even want me to tell you. He swore that he wouldn’t send for you until the wraiths of Hel crossed the threshold at Anuin.”

  “He did that?” Rood said with disgusted wonder. “He’s getting as irrational as our father. He would have let me sit in Caithnard studying for a rank that suddenly has very little meaning while he tries to keep order among the living and dead of An. I’d rather go home and play riddle-games with the dead kings.”

  “Will you?”

  “What?”

  “Go home? It’s a—it’s a smaller thing to ask of you than going to Erlenstar Mountain, but Duac will need you. And our father—”

  “Is a very capable and subtle old crow . . .” He was silent, frowning, his thumbnail picking at a flaw in his cup. He leaned back in his chair finally and sighed. “All right. I can’t let Duac face that alone. At least I can be there to tell him which dead king is which, if nothing else. There’s nothing I could do in Erlenstar Mountain that our father wouldn’t do, and probably do better. I would give the Black of Mastery to see the world out of his eyes. But if he gets into trouble, I don’t promise not to look for him.”

  “Good. Because that’s another thing Duac said he wouldn’t do.”

  His mouth crooked. “Duac seems to have lost his temper. I can’t say that I blame him.”

  “Rood . . . Have you ever known our father to be wrong?”

  “A hundred times.”

  “No. Not irritating, frustrating, annoying, incomprehensible and exasperating. Just wrong.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged slightly. “When he heard about Morgon—that’s the first time in my life I can remember seeing him surprised. He—”

  “What are you thinking about?” He leaned forward abruptly. “That vow he made to marry you to Morgon?”

  “Yes. I always wondered a little, if it might have been foreknowledge. I thought maybe that’s why he was so surprised.”

  She heard him swallow; his eyes, speculative, indrawn, reminded her of Mathom. “I don’t know. I wonder. If so—”

  “Then Morgon must be alive.”

  “But where? In what circumstances? And why in the name of the roots of the world won’t the High One help him? That’s the greatest riddle of them all: the miasma of silence coming out of that mountain.”

  “Well, if our father goes there, it won’t be so silent.” She shook her head wearily. “I don’t know. I don’t know which to hope for. If he is alive, can you imagine what a stranger he must be even to himself? And he must—he must wonder why none of us who loved him tried to help him.”

  Rood opened his mouth, but the answer he would have given her seemed to wither on his tongue. He brought the heels of his hands up to his eyes. “Yes. I’m tired. If he is alive—”

  “Our father will find him. You said you would help Duac.”

  “All right. But . . . All right.” He dropped his hands, stared into his wine. Then he pushed his chair back slowly. “We’d better go; I have books to pack.”

  She followed him again into the bright, noisy
street. It seemed, for a moment, to be flowing past her in a marvellous, incomprehensible pattern of color, and she stopped, blinking. Rood put a hand on her arm. She realized then that she had nearly stepped in front of a small, elegant procession. A woman led it. She sat tall and beautiful on a black mount, her dark hair braided and jewelled like a crown on her head, her light, shapeless green coat of some cloth that seemed to flow like a mist into the wind. Six young women whom Raederle had seen at the dock followed her in two lines, their robes, saddlecloths and reins of rich, vivid colors, their spears of ash inlaid with silver. One of them, riding close behind the Morgol, had the same black hair and fine, clean cast of face. Behind the guard came eight men on foot carrying two chests painted and banded with copper and gold; they were followed by eight students from the College, riding according to their ranks and the color of their robes: scarlet, gold, blue and white. The woman, riding as serenely through the press as through a meadow, glanced down suddenly as she passed the inn; at the brief, vague touch of the gold eyes, Raederle felt the odd shock, unfamiliar and deep within her, of a recognition of power.

  Rood breathed beside her, “The Morgol of Herun . . .”

  He moved so quickly after the procession passed, gripping her wrist and pulling her, that she nearly lost her balance. She protested, “Rood!” as he ran to catch up with it, tugging her past amazed spectators, but he was shouting himself.

  “Tes! Tes!” He caught up finally, Raederle flushed and irritated behind him, with the red-robed scholar. Tes stared down at him.

  “What did you do? Fall face first in an empty wine bottle?”

  “Tes, let me take your place. Please.” He caught at the reins, but Tes flicked them out of reach.

  “Stop that. Do you want us to get out of pace? Rood, are you drunk?”

  “No. I swear it. I’m sober as a dead man. She’s bringing Iff’s books; you can see them any time, but I’m going home tonight—”

  “You’re what?”

  “I have to leave. Please.”

  “Rood,” Tess said helplessly. “I would, but do you realize what you look like?”

  “Change with me. Tes. Please. Please.”

  Tes sighed. He pulled up sharply, tangling the line of horsemen behind him, slid off his horse and pulled wildly at the buttons on his robe. Rood tore his own robe over his head and thrust himself into Tes’s, while the riders behind them made caustic remarks about his assertion of sobriety. He leaped onto Tes’s horse and reached down for Raederle.

  “Rood, my horse—”

  “Tes can ride it back up. It’s the chestnut back there at the inn; the saddlecloth has her initials on it. Come up—” She put her foot on his in the stirrup and he pulled her urgently into the saddle in front of him, urging the horse into a quick trot to catch up with the second, receding line of scholars. He shouted back, “Tes, thank you!”

  Raederle, clenching her teeth against the jog of cobblestones, refrained from comment until he had brought the small line of riders behind him back into the sedately moving procession. Then she said, shifting down from the hard edge of the saddle, “Do you have any idea of how ridiculous that must have looked?”

  “Do you know what we’re about to see? Private books of the wizard Iff, opened. The Morgol opened them herself. She’s donating them to the College; the Masters have been talking of nothing else for weeks. Besides, I’ve always been curious about her. They say all information passes eventually through the Morgol’s house and that the High One’s harpist loves her.”

  “Deth?” She mulled over the thought curiously. “Then I wonder if she knows where he is. No one else seems to.”

  “If anyone does, she does.”

  Raederle was silent, remembering the strange insight she had glimpsed in the Morgol’s eyes, and her own unexpected recognition of it. They left the noisy, crowded streets behind them gradually; the road widened, rising toward the high cliff and the dark, wind-battered college. The Morgol, glancing back, set a slower pace uphill for the men carrying the chests. Raederle, looping out over the ocean, saw Hed partly misted under a blue-grey spring storm. She wondered suddenly, intensely, as she had never wondered before, what lay at the heart of the small, simple island that it had produced out of its life and history the Star-Bearer. And then, briefly, it seemed she could see beneath the rain mists on the island to where a young man colored and thewed like an oak, was crossing the yard from a barn to a house, his yellow head bent under the rain.

  She moved abruptly, murmuring; Rood put a hand up to steady her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. Rood—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  One of the guards detached herself then from the line, rode back towards them. She turned her horse again to ride beside them in a single, flowing movement of mount and rider that seemed at once controlled and instinctive. She said politely, appraising them, “The Morgol, who was introduced to the students at the docks, is interested in knowing who joined her escort in the place of Tes.”

  “I am Rood of An,” Rood said. “This is my sister, Raederle. And I am—or I was until last night—an Apprentice at the College.”

  “Thank you.” She paused a little, looking at Raederle; something young, oddly surprised, broke through the dark, preoccupied expression in her eyes. She added unexpectedly, “I am Lyraluthuin. The daughter of the Morgol.”

  She cantered back to the head of the procession. Rood, his eyes on the tall, lithe figure, gave a soft whistle.

  “I wonder if the Morgol needs an escort back to Herun.”

  “You’re going to Anuin.”

  “I could go to Anuin by way of Herun . . . She’s coming back.”

  “The Morgol,” Lyra said, rejoining them, “would like very much to speak with you.”

  Rood pulled out of line, following her up the hill. Raederle, sitting half-on and half-off the saddlebow, clinging to Rood and the horse’s mane as she jounced, felt slightly silly. But the Morgol, her face lighting with a smile, seemed only pleased to see them.

  “So you are Mathom’s children,” she said. “I have always wanted to meet your father. You joined my escort rather precipitously, and I did not expect at all to find in it the second most beautiful woman of An.”

  “I came to Caithnard to give Rood some news,” Raederle said simply. The Morgol’s smile faded; she nodded.

  “I see. We heard the news only this morning, when we docked. It was unexpected.” She looked at Rood. “Lyra tells me that you are no longer an Apprentice at the College. Have you lost faith in riddle-mastery?”

  “No. Only my patience.” His voice sounded husky; Raederle, glancing at him, found that he was blushing, as far as she knew, for the first time in his life.

  The Morgol said softly, “Yes. So have I. I have brought seven of Iff’s books and twenty others that have been collected in the library at the City of Circles through the centuries to give to the College, and a piece of news that, like the news from Hed, should stir even the dust in the Masters’ library.”

  “Seven,” Rood breathed. “You opened seven of Iff’s books?”

  “No. Only two. The wizard himself, the day that we left for Caithnard, opened the other five.”

  Rood wrenched at his reins; Raederle swayed against him. The guard behind him broke their lines abruptly to avoid bumping into him; the men bearing the chests came to a quick halt, and the students, who had not been paying attention, reined into one another, cursing. The Morgol stopped.

  “Iff is alive?” He seemed oblivious of the mild chaos in his wake.

  “Yes. He had hidden himself in my guard. He had been in the Herun court, in one guise or another, for seven centuries, for he said it was, even in its earlier days, a place of scholarship. He said—” Her voice caught; they heard, when she continued, the rare touch of wonder in it. “He said he had been the old scholar who helped me to open those two books. When the scholar died, he became my falconer, and then a guard. But that he
didn’t care for. He took his own shape on the day they say Morgon died.”

  “Who freed him?” Rood whispered.

  “He didn’t know.”

  Raederle put her hands to her mouth, suddenly no longer seeing the Morgol’s face, but the ancient, strong-boned face of the pig-woman of Hel, with the aftermath of a great and terrible darkness in her eyes.

  “Rood,” she whispered. “Raith’s pig-woman. She heard some news Elieu brought from Isig about the Star-Bearer, and she shouted a shout that scattered the pig herds of Hel like thistledown. Then she disappeared. She named . . . she named one boar Aloil.”

  She heard the draw of his breath. “Nun?”

  “Maybe the High One freed them.”

  “The High One.” Something in the Morgol’s tone, thoughtful as it was, reminded Raederle of Mathom. “I don’t know why he would have helped the wizards and not the Star-Bearer, but I am sure, if that is the case, that he had his reasons.” She glanced down the road, saw the lines in order and resumed her pace. They had nearly reached the top of the hill; the grounds, shadowed and gilded with oak leaves, stretched beyond the road’s end.