Riddle-Master

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  Rood glanced at the Morgol, asked with unusual hesitancy, “May I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Rood.”

  “Do you know where the High One’s harpist is?”

  The Morgol did not answer for a moment, her eyes on the bulky, rough-hewn building whose windows and doors were brilliant with color as the students crowded to watch her arrival. Then she looked down at her hands. “No. I have had no word from him.”

  The Masters came out, black as crows among the swirl of red and gold, to meet the Morgol. The chests were carried up to the library, the books examined lovingly by the Masters as they listened with wonder to the Morgol’s tale of how she had opened the two. Raederle glanced at one set on the broad stand made for it. The black writing looked pinched and ascetic, but she found unexpectedly, turning a page, precise, delicate drawings of wild flowers down the margin. It made her think again of the pig-woman, smoking her pipe with her bare feet among the oak roots, and she smiled a little, wonderingly. Then the one still figure in the room caught her eye: Lyra, standing by the door in a habitual stance, her back straight, her feet apart, as if she were keeping watch over the room. But her eyes were smudged with a blackness, and she was seeing nothing.

  The room fell silent as the Morgol told the Masters of the reappearance of the wizard Iff. She asked Raederle to repeat the tale of the pig-woman, and Raederle complied, giving them also the startling news that had brought Elieu down from Isig. That, no one had heard, not even the Morgol, and there was an outburst of amazement after she finished. They asked questions in their kind voices she could not answer; they asked questions among themselves no one could answer. Then the Morgol spoke again. What she said Raederle did not hear, only the silence that was passed like a tangible thing from Master to Master, from group to group in the room until there was not a sound in the room except one very old Master’s breathing. The Morgol’s expression had not changed; only her eyes had grown watchful.

  “Master Ohm” said a frail, gentle Master whose name was Tel, “was with us at all times until last spring, when he journeyed to Lungold for a year of peaceful study and contemplation. He could have gone anywhere he wished; he chose the ancient city of the wizards. His letters to us have been carried by the traders from Lungold.” He paused, his passionless, experienced eyes on her face. “El, you are as known and respected for your intelligence and integrity as is this College; if there is any criticism you would make of it, don’t hesitate to tell us.”

  “It is the integrity of the College that I question, Master Tel,” the Morgol said softly, “in the person of Master Ohm, who I doubt you will ever see within these walls again. And I question the intelligence of us all, myself included. Shortly before I left Herun, I had a visit from the King of Osterland, who came very simply and privately. He wondered if I had news of Morgon of Hed. He said he had gone to Isig, but not to Erlenstar Mountain, for the mists and storms were terrible through the Pass, too terrible even for a vesta. While he was with me, he told me something that reinforced suspicions that I have had since my last visit here. He said that Morgon had told him that the last word the wizard Suth had spoken as he lay dying in Morgon’s arms, was Ohm’s name. Ohm. Ghisteslwchlohm. The Founder of Lungold, Suth accused with his last breath.” She paused, her eyes moving from face to motionless face. “I asked Har if he had taken the question to the College, and he laughed and said that the Masters of Knowledge could recognize neither the Star-Bearer nor the Founder of Lungold.”

  She paused again, but there was no protest, no excuse from the men listening. Her head bowed slightly. “Master Ohm has been in Lungold since spring. The High One’s harpist has not been seen since then, and from all accounts, the High One himself has been silent since then. The death of the Prince of Hed freed the wizards from the power held over them. I suggest that the Founder of Lungold freed the wizards because in killing the Star-Bearer, he no longer needed to fear their power or interference. I also suggest that if this College is to continue to justify its existence, it should examine, very carefully and very quickly, the heart of this impossible, imperative tangle of riddles.”

  There was a sound like a sigh through the room; it was the sea wind, searching the walls, like a bird, to get free. Lyra turned abruptly; the door had closed behind her before anyone realized she had moved. The Morgol’s eyes flicked to the door, then back to the Masters, who had begun to speak again, their voices murmuring, hushed. They began to group themselves around the Morgol. Rood stood with his hands flat on one of the desks, leaning over a book, but his face was bloodless, his shoulders rigid, and Raederle knew he was not seeing it. Raederle took a step towards him. Then she turned, eased through the Masters to the door and went out.

  She passed students in the hall waiting, eager and curious, for a glimpse of the books; she scarcely heard their voices. She barely felt the wind, grown cool and restless in the early spring dusk, pulling at her as she walked through the grounds. She saw Lyra standing beneath a tree at the cliff’s edge, her back to the College. Something in the taut set of her shoulders, her bowed head, drew Raederle towards her. As she crossed the grounds, Lyra’s spear lifted, spun a circle of light in the air, and plunged point down into the earth.

  She turned at a rustle of leaf she heard under the rustle of wind-tossed trees. Raederle stopped. They looked at one another silently. Then Lyra, giving shape to the grief and anger in her eyes, said almost challengingly, “I would have gone with him. I would have protected him with my life.”

  Raederle’s eyes moved away from her to the sea . . . the sea far below them, the half-moon of harbor it had hollowed, the jut of land to the north beyond which lay other lands, other harbors. Her hands closed. “My father’s ship is here at Caithnard. I can take it as far as Kraal. I want to go to Erlenstar Mountain. Will you help me?”

  Lyra’s lips parted. Raederle saw a brief flash of surprise and uncertainty in her face. Then she gripped her spear, pulled it again out of the earth and gave a little emphatic nod. “I’ll come.”

  WHEN LYRA TOOK the Morgol’s guards into Caithnard later that evening to look for lodgings, Raederle followed them. She had left, in front of Rood’s horse in the College stable, a small tangle of bright gold thread she had loosened from her cuff. Within the tangle, in her mind, she had placed her name and an image of Rood stepping on it, or his horse, and then riding without thought every curve and twist of thread through the streets of Caithnard until, reaching the end, he would blink free of the spell and find that neither the ship nor the tide had waited for him. He would suspect her, she knew, but there would be nothing he could do but ride back to Anuin, while Bri Corbett, under the urgings of the Morgol’s guard, sailed north.

  The guard had not been told. She heard fragments of their conversation, their laughter under the hollow, restless boom of the sea as she rode behind them down the hill. It was nearly dark; the wind dulled her horse’s steps, but still she kept, as Lyra had advised, a distance between her and the guard. She felt, all the way into Caithnard, the touch of the Morgol’s eyes at her back.

  She caught up with the guard at a quiet side street near the docks. They were looking a little bewildered; one girl said, “Lyra, there’s nothing but warehouses here.” Lyra, without answering, turned her head and saw Raederle. Raederle met her brief, searching gaze, then Lyra looked at the guard. Something in her face quieted them. Her hand tightened and loosened on her spear. Then she lifted her chin.

  “I am leaving tonight for Erlenstar Mountain with Raederle of An. I am doing this without permission from the Morgol; I am deserting the guard. I couldn’t protect the Prince of Hed while he was alive; all I can do now is find out from the High One who killed him and where that one is. We’re sailing to Kraal in her father’s ship. The ship-master has not yet been informed. I can’t . . . Wait a minute. I can’t ask you to help me. I can’t hope that you would do such a shameful, disgraceful thing as leaving the Morgol alone, unguarded in a strange city. I don’t know how I can do it. But
what I do know is that we can’t steal a ship by ourselves.”

  There was a silence when she stopped, but for a door rattling back and forth somewhere in the wind. The guards’ faces were expressionless. Then one of them, a girl with a silky blond braid and a sweet, sunburned face, said fiercely, “Lyra, are you out of your mind?” She looked at Raederle. “Are you both out of your minds?”

  “No,” Raederle said. “There’s not a trader in the realm who would take us, but my father’s ship-master has already half an inclination to go. He could never be persuaded, but he could be forced. He respects you, and once he grasps the situation, I don’t think he’ll argue much.”

  “But what will the Morgol say? What will your own people say?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

  The girl shook her head, speechless. “Lyra—”

  “Imer, you have three choices. You can leave us here and go back to the College and inform the Morgol. You can take us by force back to the College, which would greatly exceed your duty and would offend the people of An, not to mention me. You can come with us. The Morgol has twenty guards waiting in Hlurle to escort her back to Crown City; all she has to do is send word to them, and they’ll join her at Caithnard. She’ll be safe. What she will say to you, however, if she finds that you have let me go off by myself to Erlenstar Mountain, I would not like to hear.”

  Another girl, with a dark, plain face, and the rough timbre of the Herun hill towns in her voice, said reasonably, “She’ll think we’ve all deserted.”

  “Goh, I’ll tell her it was my responsibility.”

  “You can hardly tell her you coerced us all. Lyra, stop being a fool and go back to the College,” Imer said.

  “No. And if you touch me, I will resign immediately from the guard. You’ll have no right to use force against the land-heir of Herun.” She paused, her eyes moving from face to face. Someone sighed.

  “How far do you think you’ll get, with the Morgol’s ship half a day behind you? She’ll see you.”

  “Then what have you got to worry about? You know you can’t let me go to Erlenstar Mountain by myself.”

  “Lyra. We are the chosen guard of the Morgol. We are not thieves. We are not kidnappers.”

  “Then go back to the College.” The contempt in her voice held them motionless. “You have the choice. Go back to Herun with the Morgol. You know as much as anyone what the Star-Bearer was. You know how he died, while the world went about minding its own business. If no one demands answers from the High One about the wizard who killed him, about the shape-changers, then I think one day much too soon a hundred guards at Crown City will not be enough to protect the Morgol from disaster. If I have to walk to Erlenstar Mountain, I’ll do it. Will you help me or not?”

  They were silent again, lined against her, Raederle saw, like warriors in a field, their faces shadowed, unreadable. Then a small, black-haired girl with delicate, slanting brows said resignedly, “Well, if we can’t force you to stay, maybe the ship-master will bring you to your senses. How do you propose to steal his ship?”

  She told them. There was grumbling, argument over the method, but it lacked fire; their voices died away finally. They sat waiting resignedly. Lyra turned her horse. “All right, then.”

  They fell into casual position behind her. Raederle, riding beside her, saw in a wash of inn-light, that Lyra’s hands were shaking on the reins. She frowned down at her own reins a moment, then reached across to touch Lyra. The dark head lifted; Lyra said, “This is the easy part, stealing a ship.”

  “It’s hardly stealing. It’s my father’s ship, and he’s in no position to quibble. I don’t—there’s no one in An who will judge me, but you have your own kind of honor.”

  “It’s all right. It’s just that I’ve trained for seven years in the Morgol’s guard, and in Herun I have thirty guards under my command. It goes against all my training to leave the Morgol like this, taking her guard with me. It’s unheard of.”

  “She’ll be safe at the College.”

  “I know. But what will she think of me?” She slowed her horse as they came to the end of the street and saw the King’s ship in the moonlight, pulling restlessly at its anchor. There was a light in the charthouse. They heard a thud from the deck, and someone said, panting, “That’s the last of Rood’s books. If we all don’t find ourselves, along with them, at the bottom of the sea, I’ll eat one, iron bindings and all. I’m going for a quick cup before we sail.”

  Lyra glanced behind her; two of the guards dismounted, went soundlessly after him as he strode whistling down the dock. The others followed her and Raederle to the ramp of the ship. Raederle, hearing only the slough of water, the rattle of chain and her own quiet steps, glanced behind once to make sure they were still there. She felt, at their eerie silence, as though she were followed by ghosts. One slipped away at the top of the ramp to check the deck of the ship; the other two went with Lyra to the hold. Raederle waited a few moments for them to do their work beneath the deck. Then she entered the chart house, where Bri Corbett was exchanging gossip and a cup of wine with a trader. He glanced up, surprised.

  “You didn’t ride down alone, did you? Did Rood bring the horses up?”

  “No. He’s not coming.”

  “He’s not coming? Then what does he want done with all his things?” He eyed her suspiciously. “He’s not going off somewhere on his own like his father, is he?”

  “No.” She swallowed the dryness from her mouth. “I am. I’m going to Erlenstar Mountain; you will take me as far as Kraal. If you don’t, the Morgol’s ship-master, I’m sure, can be persuaded to take over the ship.”

  “What?” Bri Corbett rose, his grey brows lifting to his hairline. The trader was grinning. “Someone else sail your father’s ship? Over my dead and buried bones, maybe. You’re distraught, child, come and sit—” Lyra, spear in hand, slid like a wraith into the light, and he stopped. Raederle could hear his breathing. The trader stopped grinning. Lyra said, “Most of the crew was below. Imer and Goh have them under guard. They weren’t taken seriously at first, until one man got pinned to a ladder with an arrow in his sleeve and his pant leg—he’s not hurt—and Goh shot the cork out of one of the wine kegs with another. They’re pleading for someone to put the cork back in.”

  “That’s their ration of wine for the journey,” Bri Corbett breathed. “Good Herun wine.” The trader had edged to his feet. Lyra’s eyes moved to him and he stilled.

  Raederle said, “Two guards followed the man who left the ship; they will be finding the rest of your crew. Bri, you wanted to go to Erlenstar Mountain anyway. You said so.”

  “You were—you weren’t taking me seriously!”

  “You might not be serious. I am.”

  “But your father! He’ll curse the teeth out of my head when he finds out I’m taking his daughter and the land-heir of Herun on some misbegotten journey. The Morgol will have Herun up in arms.”

  “If you don’t want to captain the ship, we’ll find someone who will. There are plenty of men in the taverns, on the docks, who could be paid to take your place. If you want, we’ll leave you tied somewhere along with this trader, to assure everyone of your complete innocence.”

  “Roust me from my own ship!” His voice cracked.

  “Listen to me, Bri Corbett,” she said evenly. “I lost a friend I loved and a man I might have married somewhere between Isig Pass and Erlenstar Mountain. Will you tell me what I have to go home for? More endless silence and waiting at Anuin? The Lords of the Three Portions bickering over me while the world cracks apart like Morgon’s mind? Raith of Hel?”

  “I know.” His hand went out to her. “I understand. But you can’t—”

  “You said you would sail this ship to the High One’s doorstep if my father had asked. Did you ever think that my father might find himself in the same danger Morgon was in? Do you want to sail comfortably back to Anuin and leave him there? If you force us by some chance off this ship, we’ll go by other
means. Will you want to go to Anuin and give Duac that news, on top of everything else? I have questions. I want answers to them. I am going to Erlenstar Mountain. Do you want to sail this ship for us, or shall I find someone else to do it?”

  Bri Corbett brought his clenched fist down on the table. He stared at it a moment, red, wordless. Then his head lifted again slowly; he gazed at Raederle as if she had just come in the door and he had forgotten why. “You’ll need another ship at Kraal. I told you that.”

  “I know.” Her voice shook slightly at the look in his eyes.

  “I can find you one at Kraal. You’ll let me take it up the Winter?”

  “I’d rather . . . I’d rather have you than anyone.”

  “We don’t have supplies enough for Kraal. We’ll have to stop at Caerweddin, maybe, or Hlurle.”

  “I’ve never seen Caerweddin.”

  “It’s a beautiful city; Kraal at Isig—lovely places. I haven’t seen them since . . . We’ll need more wine. The crew’s a good one, the best I’ve ever sailed with, but they worry about essentials.”

  “I have some money, and some jewels. I thought I might need them.”

  “You did.” He drew a long breath. “You remind me of someone. Someone devious.” The trader made an inarticulate protest, and Bri’s eyes went to Lyra. “What,” he inquired respectfully, “would you like to do with that one? You let him go, and he’ll be pounding at the College door before we get out of the harbor.”

  Lyra considered him. “We could tie him, leave him on the docks. They’ll find him in the morning.”

  “I won’t say a word,” the trader said, and Bri laughed.

  Raederle said quickly, “Bri, he is the one witness to the fact that you aren’t responsible for this; will you remember your own reputation?”